TheThe Opiate Fall Fall2016, Vol.2016, 7 Vol. 7 This page intentionally left blank YourThe literary dose.Opiate

© The Opiate 2016 This magazine, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission. Cover art: Carrie Cottini 3. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

Editor-in-Chief Genna Rivieccio Editorial Advisor Armando Jaramillo Garcia “Is there no way out of Contributing Writers Fiction: Shay Siegel 10 Joel Streicker 16 the mind?” Jo Mortimer 23 Daniel Ryan Adler 26 Evelyn Sharenov 31 -Sylvia Plath John M. Keller 37

Poetry: John Gosslee 42 A.G. Price 43 Joseph Harms 46 Jackie Sherbow 48 Chris Campanioni 49 Kailey Tedesco 51 Criticism: Genna Rivieccio 54

4. 5. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

deceased father (and, by association, her) for causing the faultiness of a generator at Editor’s Note the nearby fairground.

Some people with an overly literal mind might question: “Genna, why lipsticks for the Next is Daniel Ryan Adler’s seventh chapter from Sebastian’s Babylon, rife with coffee fall cover? What does makeup have to do with fiction and poetry?” Well, more than shop brawls and dragon slaying reimaginings. Hurt feelings and misappropriated you might think, as it were. But before we get to that, let me break it down for you emotions are, naturally, par for the course as Sebastian gradually accepts that Lexi is simply: the lips of writers are often sealed, reserved for opening only when bringing repulsed by and uninterested in him. the glass or bottle to them. And nothing cinches a closed mouth like a daub of lipstick. The nuanced buildup to the final scene in Evelyn Sharenov’s “The Hood” is punctuated With this in mind, is it any wonder that so many writers are nutcases, bursting at by a mixture of ennui, nostalgia and resignation as two childhood friends, one of whom the seams with tales to tell and emotional baggage to unload? They possess many is dying of AIDS, get to know each other again after being separated for a lengthy shades, alternating tones of personality and temperament at any given point in time, or period. Filled with ruminations on loss and the facile slippage of that commodity, time, throughout the day. Thus, yes, the lipsticks are an homage to the multi-faceted psyche Sharenov weaves a valuable lesson throughout the narrative: a person can always of the artist. Plus, it can’t be ignored that those who write are often trying to re-create a start over again, no matter how impossible it seems. better world (or maybe “livelier world” is the more fitting term), much in the same way makeup tries to re-create a better face. Rounding out the fiction section is John M. Keller’s “The Death of James Franklin,” an almost magical realist tale that explores not only the obsessive reactions of “commoners” Shay Siegel’s “Carlin, David” kicks off the issue with an appropriate amount of the when famous people die, but also the question everyone secretly wants to answer: at macabre, in keeping with the dark-hearted sentiments brought on by the fall season. what age would you want to die? (“After eighty, I guess. Then you know you’ve lived a long life, where you had time enough to fit everything in.”). Taking the subject of self-mutilation to a level far beyond Richie Tenenbaum, Siegel delves deeply into the mindset of what propels David to cut himself with the combined Our poetry section commences with John Gosslee’s “Knocking on the Night Sky,” a veracity, delicacy and frankness that fictionalized accounts of this subject matter tend lament, of sorts, on lusting after another chance to get it all right. “It,” being, of course, to be missing. life. A.G. Price’s “Unstable Ground” is yet another piece in the fall issue that seems to place its emphasis on the difficulty of starting anew. Maybe the season was simply For anyone living in a major metropolitan city right now, with its forceful subjugation designed to suffuse people with a more than slight tinge of hopelessness. Spring and of affordability and therefore artist communities (especially New York and San summer are for “pep.” Francisco), Joel Streicker’s “I’m Really Going To Miss This” will resonate with particular profoundness thanks to the main character, Roger, making peace with the fact that Joseph Harms’ “Mortmain” harkens back to a bygone era of poetry, one of more staidness the city he once knew no longer really exists (though he will always be charmed by it and poise, and will most assuredly have you reaching for the dictionary (if people still when those rare instances of what made it great occasionally shine through), and that reached for dictionaries). After, the evocative prose of Jackie Sherbow pervades her he must leave it in order to carry on with basic survival, i.e. shelter that won’t dip into grudging ode to the brain, “Narcissus, tulipa, cerebral cortex.” one’s entire paycheck. Perhaps the most stylistically unconventional poem in this segment of The Opiate is Chris Campanioni’s “We Hope You Enjoy the Selection,” blending elements of exaggerated fiction Following Streicker’s “I’m Really Going To Miss This” is Jo Mortimer’s whimsy-filled within the framework of poetry. And, after all, who hasn’t felt the strange out of body experience “Sparks,” detailing the unlikely grieving process of Sophia, a baker who works in of traveling only to be hounded by the airline demanding you to rate your experience, as a small English town and grapples with its denizens placing blame on her recently though experience is that effortlessly classified?

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To conclude the poetry segment is Kailey Tedesco. In “I Hear Evil Enter Through The Nothing of Me,” Tedesco brings the constant struggle of humanity to the forefront: that of grappling with an innate duality, and feeling compelled to settle upon merely one aspect of the self (you see, that’s why lipstick shades are key—you never have to choose just one).

Last is “The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Douglas Coupland’s Generation X,” a criticism of this forgotten gem of the early nineties comparing the similarities between Gen Xers and millennials. The only reason I came into contact with it was thanks to my cousin’s Polish girlfriend. I really need to give the book back to her, but then, she’s there and I’m here.

Yours very sincerely, Genna Rivieccio FICTION

8. 9. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Carlin, David - Shay Siegel

that I was awake, I remembered what I could feel her warmth inching crook of my elbow, right near the I did. I rememberd the red, oozing toward me. I thought about what I collection of white scars on the inside Carlin, David liquid pouring out of my wrists. The would pick up from Pat Flannigan’s of my forearm. I focused on the warmth as it streamed down my hands on the way home for dinner. My coldness of the liquid making its way Shay Siegel and dripped all around me. Clutching stomach grumbled a bit thinking into my veins with each slow drip. It the razor between my fingers, refusing about their cheeseburgers. tasted like stale metal in my mouth. to drop it. I remembered the smell of A cold draft slipped beneath “What day is it?” I asked her gin and vomit slipping across the tiles the sheets. I clenched my teeth, ready as she brought a straw to my lips. of the floor before I hit the ground. I to reach for my clothes. “It’s still November 22nd, remembered silent blackness. She propped herself up on sweetie.” Why was I here and not one elbow and looked at me with I hung my head, wondering dead? those huge green eyes, like emeralds how it was only a few hours earlier in her face. She weakly smiled, her that I let the cold, sharp blade sink ****** dimples barely visible. into my wrists. The purple roots “I guess I should get going,” I protruding––I wanted to sever them I stood at the end of her said. until they were no longer connected. driveway, staring up at the wall of “Sure,” she replied. But I couldn’t even get killing myself windows that seemed to be watching I picked up my pants from right. me. My breath escaped my body the floor. I had let that blade sink into like a dangling ghost in the frosty “What are you doing the rest my arm so many times before without air. I approached the front door; ivy of the night?” she asked. intending to off myself. The first time snaked up the sides. I lifted my hand “Um, just gonna get dinner,” I did it was the night that woman to the rusted, brass knocker but she I said, plainly. called. was already there. She wore a pink “From where?” she sat up, flowered dress that looked as though wrapping a pink blanket around her ****** it was made for a six-year-old—not a shoulders. I buttoned my pants and sixteen-year-old. I still didn’t believe scanned the room for my shirt. “Hello.” I picked up my we were the same age. She ushered “I don’t know,” I said. dad’s phone that had been buzzing me in with the same smile she flashed Her eyes were on the back of on the kitchen counter for at least the first time I met her. Dimples, my head as I dressed. twenty minutes. I didn’t know where bright eyes and unrealistic hope. “David, you can talk to me.” he had gone without it, but he never “My parents will be home in Her voice was small, but maple sweet. left without it, and whoever it was “David, can you hear me, sweetie?” stabbing into my wrist, twisting the knife round an hour,” she said, giggling. “Yeah.” I walked toward the wouldn’t leave a message––just call A woman shook my arm with the lightness of and round until my veins were a stringy, tangled I followed her through the door, picking my shoes up on the way. after call. white cotton. mess beneath the flesh. I ripped my hand away spotless kitchen. My reflection dead “I’ll see you later, Jessie.” “Hello there, David.” It was difficult to open my eyes, more and saw that both wrists were thickly bandaged on the gleaming tiles as I trailed her I forced a smile, before I “Uh, hi, who is this?” difficult than something so simple should be. Sticky in white gauze. A faint red crept to the cloth’s to the bedroom. turned the doorknob and left. “Oh, you don’t know who I and crusty gunk was attached to my eyelashes and surface. I squeezed my throbbing wrist with my I tried hard to avoid the am, do you? I can play along.” She caked in the corners. My head floated away from other hand, trying to stop the searing. stares of the ragged stuffed animals laughed a cigarette laugh. my body. A fog spread itself thick across my mind. The stranger woman rushed over, scattered around her room as my ****** “I think you have the wrong Maybe, this woman could tell me where I was. thrusting a tray on the table next to me. “Oh no, naked body, scarred arms and all, number. You were calling my dad.” “There you go, nice and easy. Are you honey, just lay down.” She delicately placed her lay on top of hers. The green glow “I have some orange juice “Oh, is that right? Okay thirsty?” She walked out of the room through my hands on my shoulders. of street lamps washed over her and and graham crackers for you, then, David Junior,” she said it as if it blurred vision. Through my pain and confusion, I made her look like a creature from David.” The nurse pulled up a chair wasn’t true. “Let’s just say you meet I placed my hand on a metal rail. A gray noticed her outfit. The white shoes, and the another world. to the side of my bed. She twisted me at the Dream Hotel now like you icicle beneath my grip. I tried to prop myself up, baggy green pajama looking pants and shirt. She When we were finished, we the fixture on an IV bag hanging over were supposed to a half hour ago. gasping in agony. It was like someone was was a nurse. And, I was in a hospital. And now lay side by side, not touching, though my head. A tube was attached to the I’d hate for your wife to find out,

10. 11. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Carlin, David - Shay Siegel

wouldn’t you?” time because you want some damn “I was working late,” he said I shut my eyes tighter, as tight as I “What?” I asked. I stared at knowing if it was true or not. I hung up. I stood in the attention?” in a matter of fact, rehearsed tone. could. “No.” her for longer than I usually did. Her “I can talk to you for a little middle of the kitchen, clutching “Oh it’s hilarious.” I stared “That’s bullshit and you face was flushed and uncertain. bit if you’d like.” at the counter, trying to breathe. him in the face for the first time in know it, David.” She took a step toward me, “You aren’t going to ask me I punched the marble countertop months, maybe years. His wrinkles “I’m going to take a shower, ****** but kept her distance. why I did it or anything?” I asked, re- wishing it would make me forget that were more pronounced than I then I’m going to bed,” he said, “I have to tell you some- alizing that I wished she would. She voice, forget that my father was scum remembered. His black, wavy hair plainly. I ordered a blueberry muf- thing.” She fixed her eyes on the floor. had been treating me like I was nor- and my mom was a drunk. Wishing was doused with gray. He held my “You’re a piece of shit, fin and two iced coffees at the Lunar “Jessie,” I exhaled. I didn’t mal and we bumped into each other it would make me stop wondering gaze, his lower lip quivering. David!” She was slurring this time. Café a few blocks from her house. I want to do this. I didn’t want her trac- at a restaurant or something. which one caused which. All it did “I’m sorry,” I said to the She had started crying, too. sat and ate the muffin, slowly and ab- ing her fingers over my arms, as her “David, you will meet with a was send a shooting pain, like a nurse. She was still standing between “We both know you won’t sently, before driving there. eyes watered. I didn’t want her press- hospital psychologist in the morning. burst of stars, up through my arm. I us. “I realize I never caught your remember this in the morning, She opened the ivy-cov- ing her powdery lips to my mutilated I’m just here to make sure you are in walked upstairs. Then, I went to my name. That was rude of me, but could anyway. Good night, Carol.” ered door in a different variation of skin, like she could heal me. I didn’t good health and comfortable.” bathroom, and I took out the razor you show my father to the door?” I heard his footsteps walking the same dress she always wore. She want her to care. “Maybe I should I sighed and laughed an un- blade I had stared at night after night, She hesitantly took a step across the wooden floorboards. flashed her dimpled smile, only this just go.” I stood up. funny laugh, as I repeated the word without ever picking up. Waiting for toward him. “Mr. Carlin, David I heard the shower spring to life, time; it was like she didn’t mean it. She started to cry. “You really “comfortable”. I didn’t mean to dis- an excuse to finally do it. I carved it needs his rest, we’ll call you about spurting out a thick stream of water. “Here you go.” I handed her don’t care about me at all, do you?” regard her. She was nice and she into the soft, white flesh of my arm. coming back tomorrow.” In the kitchen, I heard my mother one of the coffees. Tears streamed down her shouldn’t have been. But, I hadn’t He looked at her with an air smash something glass in the sink. I She smiled wider and kissed doll-like face. been comfortable in a long time. Not of superiority. He snorted and turned heard her cry harder. I wanted to go me on the cheek. I didn’t like the I stared back at her. ever. ****** for the already opened door. “We’ll to her, but I didn’t. see if that happens.” He slammed “You know, David, I don’t it behind him. The nurse flinched. need this right now!” My father She exhaled, and then turned toward ****** exploded into my hospital room like me and sat back down in the chair “Then, I woke up, black smoke. I was mid-sip from next to me. I tried to block out her “Who brought me here?” I the straw the nurse was holding to sympathetic gaze, and tried to stop asked Leanne. She was sitting next my chapped, dried mouth. I started myself from feeling anything at all. to me, silently, after administering coughing and spitting, mucus and “I’m Leanne, by the way.” the world’s smallest dose of pain and I was still alone.” saliva hanging on the cracks in my medication. It was apparently all I was lips. allowed, but it made no difference. “Mr. Carlin—” The nurse ****** Pain was all there ever was. “Fine, just go,” she said after stood up, forming a small speed “A girl called for an forced affection. I followed her to her a minute. ****** bump between my father and me. “Where have you been?” ambulance. She left when they bedroom. I reached my hand out, “Excuse me, I’m trying to My mom asked him, as he walked arrived.” I set my coffee down on her about to put it on her shoulder, but I came downstairs in the talk to my son!” He took a step in my through the door at one a.m. “Jessie?” I asked. nightstand and took off my shirt. I then I pulled it back and dropped it at morning to see my mother lying on direction, despite the short, green- I was upstairs in my room, “She didn’t give a name.” pulled her toward me. my side. I picked up my shirt off the the couch next to a gin bottle with a garbed woman standing in his way. I not sleeping as usual. I turned my She studied my face. “Wait,” she said. ground and my coffee off the night- finger’s worth of liquid left at the bot- guess I could give him some credit for iPod off at the sound of her raised “It was her,” I said looking I kept pulling her, my fingers tom. “trying to talk to me,” because it was voice. I had heard her down there straight ahead at the white wall. “She stand, and then I left. the first time he had in at least a year. pouring drink after drink. Bottles came after me,” I said to myself, not closed around the zipper of her dress. “Mom?” I checked to see if “Mr. Carlin, calm down.” clinking against glass. believing it. “David, wait,” she was loud- she was awake…alive. “Thanks for stopping by, “Jesus, Carol, you scared “Your girlfriend?” Leanne er this time. ****** She stayed sprawled on her Dad,” I managed, once I caught my me.” asked, unsure if she should. I put my hand on the back of back with her mouth wide open. I breath. “Where have you been?” She I closed my eyes and breathed her head and kissed her. “It’s almost midnight. You shook her with my left arm, a new “You think this is funny, was louder this time. I wasn’t sure she in through my nose. I dropped my “Stop!” She pushed away should get some rest,” Leanne said, scar sat on the surface of skin under- you little shit? Giving me a hard still cared. head and put my hand to my face. from me and stood in the center of once I finished my orange juice. neath my elbow. I pulled my sleeve the room. “I’m not tired,” I said, not down to cover it. 12. 13. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Carlin, David - Shay Siegel

“Mom?” I repeated again. ****** She began to sob. all around me. I went inside the dark fore eventually, sleep came. stared hard at her eyes, wanting to get She sat up abruptly, a snort house. I felt like my own ghost. I heard a crying girl. Green lost in them. I managed a weak smile. escaping her. I stood in her driveway, hold- I walked to the kitchen and eyes, a perfect powdered face, as I never smiled. And, for just a little “Oh, geez, David, you scared ing my iced coffee, letting the cold ****** took one of my Mom’s many gin bot- it turned to leave. Razors dug into while, nothing was wrong. me.” moisture from the cup perspire into tles out of the cabinet. I chugged a wrists. Gin bottles smashed on the “Sorry.” my hand. I looked up at the wall of “Can I change your bandag- quarter of it, spitting and gagging as floor. Smashed in the sink. His hand She touched a hand to her windows that her bedroom sat be- es for you?” Leanne asked, already I did. I took the rest upstairs. caressed her back. The wedding forehead and squinted. “Where’s hind. I couldn’t see her. standing up. “It’s been a few hours.” I shoved everything out of my ring didn’t belong on his finger. He your dad?” I turned back around, and She walked to the counter at bathroom medicine cabinet, found screamed that he hated me. I tossed “Dunno.” knocked on the ivy-covered door. the far end of the room. She collect- the crusty blooded razor blade, and and turned. I kissed her and things “Did he come home last She didn’t answer. I stood there for ed two different types of gauze, min- instead of taking it to the inside of my were good. I wanted the razor to night?” another minute, about to leave when iature scissors, rubbing alcohol, and arm, I took it to my wrists for what I stop hurting my wrist. I wanted her I wanted to scream at her. To she finally appeared at the door. She ointment. hoped would be the last time. I dug in to come back to me. I wanted him to tell her she deserved this. Did she re- stared at me with red, tear-stained She picked up my arm and hard, blood spilling down my hands. love me. To love her. I wanted to feel ally not remember? eyes. Drips of black mascara collect- unwound my soiled bandages, slow- I gasped and dropped to my knees, something. Screaming. Crying. Slic- “Dunno,” I said again, hop- ed underneath her lashes. ly and carefully. The fabric snagged grabbing for the gin bottle, smearing ing and slicing. I wanted the blood to ing she was just covering it up and “Forget something?” she in the black spider leg stitches poking red against the thick glass. I wobbled keep coming until there was none left. that she actually did remember. asked, sniffling. out of shredded skin on my wrists. as I continued to connect the razor to Then, I woke up, and I was “Hmm, I’ll just call him in a “What did you want to tell I looked away as her cold finger- the insides of my skin. The bathroom still alone. bit,” she said, lying back down. She me?” I scanned her small body. She tips grazed my gashes, and she gen- swayed. Blood, gin, my face against was asleep again almost instantly. had changed out of her dress and tly peeled the gauze away from my tiles. I threw up. Everything turned into sweatpants and a tank top with a greasy, disinfected wrists. from red to black. And I thought it ****** unicorn on it. I stared at the unicorn, “Just so you know, this will was over. ****** disgusted. heal fine,” she said, as her pale fingers The first time I met her was “Come in,” she said. Her tenderly worked to re-cover the sewed a Saturday morning. I went to get “Where’s my mom?” I asked sniffling and crying slowed down. up wounds. ****** coffee at the Lunar Café. A small girl Leanne. I walked inside and sat on the “Thanks,” I said. But she with spiral, blond hair stood in front “We were only able to get in couch in the living room. I had never couldn’t believe that. It wasn’t true. “Should I let you go to sleep of me in line. She turned around and touch with your dad a little while ago. lingered in any room other than her now?” Leanne asked after she fin- looked at me with huge, green eyes, No one answered the house phone all bedroom before. She sat across from ished cleaning and bandaging my flashing a dimpled smile. night.” She gave me the same sym- me in a different chair. Usually she ****** wrists. “Hi,” she said. pathetic look she had been giving me put herself as close to me as possible, “Sure,” I said. “Do I need “Hey,” I said, with no smile. since I’d been awake. but not now. “I didn’t ask to know you,” I this thing still?” I pointed to the IV She lingered until I got my “Oh.” He was probably with “Um.” She took a tissue from said as I closed the door to her house. bag above my head. My wrists hurt coffee and muffin. When I sat at a ta- that woman from the phone. Either a box on the table. “Are you sure Her crying seemed even louder from enough without a needle in my arm, ble, she sat in the chair across from her or one of the others. He proba- you’re going to care?” she asked. outside as I walked to my car. I don’t and I wasn’t allowed any more pain me without asking. bly took a detour here to yell at me, “I guess I won’t know until know why I said it. Nothing was go- medicine. I wished I could silence “I’m Jessie,” she said, smiling and then go right back to his fancy you tell me.” ing to change that she was leaving. all the pain that there was for a few so wide that her eyes wrinkled. hotel. He was probably stressed about She inhaled, her breath I slammed the steering wheel hours. “David,” I replied, still not whether health insurance covered this hitching in her windpipe, and then hard as I drove home. I wanted to “I’ll slow the drip but you smiling. type of ‘incident’ and how much the she said it. “I’m moving next week. crash right into a wide tree trunk. I need it until it runs out.” She walked She glanced at my arm. My ambulance bill would be. He prob- For good.” wanted it to end. I may as well have behind me and twisted a fixture on short sleeves didn’t cover the scars. ably didn’t even tell my mom. Why I stared at her for a few silent been dead already. the tube. “I’ll be back a little later to “What’s wrong?” she asked. would he? She couldn’t deal with it. moments, and then I nodded. I pulled into my driveway and take it out. Good night, David.” Her rose lips turned down, her spar- Neither of them wanted to deal with “You haven’t packed,” I said. opened the car door before I came to She patted my shoulder and kly forest eyes were watery. No one me. “That’s it?” Her lip quivered. a full stop. I kicked the gravel, send- left the room. I was alone. I laid si- asked me that in years. “I really do have to go.” ing dust into the air and gray pebbles lently for what felt like too long, be- I took a sip of my coffee and

14. 15. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 I’m Really Going to Miss This - Joel Streicker

weather in the Midwest was becom- experience from the crass directness streak and goofy cock-certainty that I’m Really Going to Miss This ing less predictable. of the desires (I will give you money they had a God-given right to swing Roger realized his nostalgia for that object) motivating it; gaggles their members publicly, but he had Joel Streicker was tinged with regret. Or maybe of young white people crowding the seen his preteen son avert his eyes on nostalgia always leaned heavily on bars and cafes and bidding up hous- this street enough times to be skepti- regret. I should have done more with my ing prices beyond what even many cal of the persuasiveness of the triply time here, he thought. All the stuff he well-paid professionals could afford. tautological dick-is-a-dick-is-a-dick never did because he thought it was As Roger made his way up argument. If it was true, as Freud uncool (but not uncool enough to be the slight hill to the metro station might have said, that sometimes a cool) or never got around to doing: he saw a crowd gathered across the dick is just a dick, it was also true that he had never had the best hotcakes street at the streetcar turnaround. sometimes showing your dick is just in town (as a sign above a diner on He wasn’t in a hurry—Janet was at being a dick. Market and Guerrero proclaimed), the ceramics studio, the kids were at An amusing sideshow, Roger or attended services at the Church friends’ houses, and he was at loose mused, punning in his head and turn- of John Coltrane, or gone to the Chi- ends. He crossed the street and stood ing back toward the metro station. nese New Year’s Day parade. He al- in a rapidly growing ring of people Bigger dicks to fry today, he said to ways thought there would be time to gazing at a dozen white men—mostly himself out loud, just to hear himself do whatever he wanted, that eventu- older, mostly flabby, mostly tan—na- say something transgressive—first ally he’d get around to doing all that ked except for combat boots and the making sure no one was near enough was worth doing in the city, the things occasional pair of sandals, chant- to hear—as he walked down the steps to do as endless, in his mind, as the ing in counterpoint “Nakedness is a to the metro entrance. time he had left to do them in. right!” and “Buck naked and proud Ah, the delights of a nearly It felt like he’d been holding of it!” empty metro car, he thought: a seat Roger stopped to look at the penises. This had a year left on its lease and so couldn’t be priced back for so long, saving up money “Nothing to be proud of from which to observe a couple of was not something he regularly did; he wasn’t sure he’d out until then—but it wasn’t the same as living here. and time for that mythical day when here,” a short young white guy next giggling, slouching Asian teenage girls ever actually stopped and looked at them. He knew He’d be a commuter, rushing into the office bleary- the kids were out of college and he to Roger snickered to his friend, a in skinny black jeans, outsized glasses, they were there—proudly displayed in the windows of eyed in the morning and fleeing home in the evening to and Janet had more time. As it turned very slim and very black man with and flat-brim baseball caps; the usu- EverHard and Boy Toy on Castro Street, on his usual his husbandly and fatherly responsibilities. His twenty out, they’d been priced out of San a goatee, who rolled his eyes and re- al frantic pinched-face guys getting route to the metro. They were large and white people years in the city would soon come to an end when he Francisco anyway, and their oldest plied, “White raisins in the sun—pos- off at Civic Center to buy their drugs flesh-colored, with thick red or purplish heads. Some and Janet loaded up the U-Haul and the kids and drove was just a high school freshman. itively unsightly.” They locked arms or take their meds or make it back to came with accessories—accessories to the accessory, across the Bay Bridge in what he couldn’t help but think He continued down Castro and walked off. their SRO before they fall complete- he thought, although maybe a penis, even a fake one, of as the wrong direction. to the metro. He was past counting “There is simply no rational ly to pieces; an aging hipster in black shouldn’t be considered an accessory—like lube or The undertow of nostalgia for what hadn’t all the friends who had moved to the basis for prohibiting public nudity!” leather asleep with a huge parrot on handcuffs. yet disappeared from his life was disorienting, as if East Bay or returned to where they shouted a big man with tightly curled his shoulder; a couple with twin tod- Six months ago he and Janet had bowed his space/time coordinates had undergone some kind came from in the past few years. He chest hair wearing nothing but a cow- dlers, all sporting 49ers gear. to the inevitable and began looking for a more of sci-fi slippage, but he found it impossible to resist. couldn’t even remember now all the boy hat and boots. “But what about Of course, Roger thought, affordable apartment, which meant venturing outside These penises, for example: he knew he’d miss them stores and bars that were gone. The the children!” someone in the crowd Super Bowl City! He was vaguely San Francisco’s overheated housing market. More even though he’d never given them a moment’s thought look and feel of the city had changed: yelled back. aware that the mayor, with the con- than five months later they finally found something before. It was like the weather in the Midwest, where the new five-story glass and steel con- “To kids, a dick is a dick is a nivance of his lackeys on the board suitable in what the landlord called a “transitioning” he grew up: unchangeable in its predictable changes, dos rising over their smaller neigh- dick,” one of the other men respond- of supervisors, had allowed the NFL’s neighborhood across the bay in Richmond. Only in this shaping his sense of time—the slow oscillation between bors; the cool, sleek, empty spaces ed. “Really, adults make a bigger deal corporate partners to erect a ten- last week before the move did leaving San Francisco extreme cold and extreme heat and all the delights in that were the new signature retail of it than kids.” acre temporary Super Bowl City on seem real, and one symptom of this reality was that between those temporary terminal points—in ways style, with their small, carefully curat- “Yeah, kids see it as some- the prime real estate at the foot of he had begun taking note of all the things he took for he never registered until he moved to San Francisco ed displays—when did “curate” slip thing natural,” Cowboy chimed in. Market Street and the Embarcadero. granted about the city. He knew he’d still come back— and its much more limited palette of seasonal weather into his vocabulary? he wondered—as Roger smiled. He grudgingly ad- According to its backers, Super Bowl the Latin American Resource Center, where he worked, variations. Of course, with climate change, even the if wanting to distance the commercial mired the naked guys’ exhibitionist City was an act of civic-corporate

16. 17. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 I’m Really Going to Miss This - Joel Streicker

collaboration in celebration of the rent-a-cops. The line looked intermi- his own tongue, crossed his eyes, and the sidewalks were so crowded— like how the naked men in the Cas- tale. Super Bowl’s fiftieth anniversary, nable. He drifted off. turned to walk away, nearly bumping shouldn’t people be in Super Bowl tro would look if they were wearing As he waited, he became showcasing before a national and in- He followed another mass of into a beefy couple in flannel shirts City? A group of twentysomethings clothes. aware that most people had come ternational audience the desirability people toward another entrance. The and 49ers caps. The line didn’t seem in skinny black jeans and t-shirts with “Oppose circumcision—the to Super Bowl City in groups— of San Francisco as a place to visit line turned a corner and disappeared any shorter at Washington, but there the inscrutable logo and outlandish unkindest cut,” an elderly woman clumps of people, family members and do business. As if the city weren’t, in the plaza underneath the Embar- was an entrance—unguarded and compound name of a tech startup with long gray hair said, holding out and friends, talked while they slowly Roger thought, already a magnet for cadero towers. A vision of the fiftieth with no waiting—to the Embarcade- or app or something walked toward a pamphlet. Roger took it. “Intactiv- moved through the line. They were young tech workers and start-ups that anniversary celebration of the open- ro, the bay side promenade flanked him; a woman smiled and thrust a pa- ists United,” the heading read. The large people, for the most part, in were changing the demographics and ing of the Golden Gate Bridge came by shops and warehouses on one side, per at him. He smiled back. Her hair rest of the pamphlet was a series of even larger football jerseys. Whether landscape in ways that offended his to mind. On that evening in the mid- and Embarcadero Street on the other. was jet black (dyed? he wondered), bullet points urging action to abolish you were big or small, those XXXL- sense of justice and aesthetics. The 1980s the competent authorities, in His forward progress was the bangs cut on an odd angle; her circumcision as a barbaric mutila- sized jerseys were guaranteed to week before, traffic downtown had their wisdom, had closed the bridge soon checked by a crowd. “Oh, it’s elaborately made-up eyes reminded tion of the male member, rendering make anyone look either more enor- been snarled by a flotilla of trucks to car traffic and opened it up exclu- the Puppy Bowl!” a young woman him of an Egyptian princess. He took it less sensitive to pleasure, increas- mous than they already were, or pa- delivering tents, booths, exhibits, sively to pedestrians, without imag- exclaimed to her boyfriend. the paper, folded it, and put it in his ing the risk of disease, and leaving its thetically puny, a minnow swimming porta-potties, NFL-branded prod- ining that people would pour across Roger stood on his tiptoes pocket without looking at it. He con- owner physically and psychologically in a sea of polyester. The regular beat ucts, meter maids redirecting traffic, the bridge from both north and south and craned his neck. He saw noth- tinued walking. scarred for life. The bottom third of cops, with their visored patrolman’s cops and rent-a-cops on the scene as and meet in gridlock in the center. ing but the backs of heads. An am- “You just can’t hack it,” a the pamphlet bristled with footnotes. hats, slowly scanned the crowd, while thick as flies on manure. The week- He’d spent a tense couple of hours plified voice kept up a smooth patter, young white man in a plaid shirt and He made his way toward the unsmiling black-clad cops in Kevlar long Super Bowl City was scheduled pressed tightly against his fellow cel- announcing the action, such as it to close down the next day, after the ebrants, his feet every so often lifting was: “Not much going on here right Super Bowl was played fifty miles to off the ground as more people packed now, folks. It looks like these puppies the south, in Santa Clara. into the crowd. A couple of bicycles are taking a time out. Tired from so “Or maybe nostalgia He hadn’t intended to visit were flung over the bridge, whether much tail-wagging.” Super Bowl City—it sounded tacky voluntarily or not, he couldn’t tell, but He slowly inched his way in a corporate, not-cool way—but the room their sudden absence freed through the crowd as people in front he couldn’t figure out what else to do up was gone before they hit the water tired of the lack of spectacle and re- always leaned heavily on with his Saturday afternoon. Besides, below. No thanks, he said to himself, treated. At last, he could see the an- what if it turned out to be really great and stepped out of the line. nouncer, a young light-skinned black or really gruesome in some unfore- He overheard a woman with man in a referee’s striped shirt, just seen way? a tearful toddler ask a cop, a catch as the man excitedly shouted: “Wait! regret.” He de-trained at Embarcade- of desperation in her voice, wheth- Pookie is up, he’s got the ball, he’s ro and walked the stairs to street level. er any other entrances were near- racing toward the end zone and yes, hipster beard shouted, holding a sign foot of Market Street, where anoth- vests and baseball caps stood motion- He’d thought the nearly empty met- by. Try Washington Street, the cop ladies and gentlemen, it’s a touch- with the same words on it; the letters, er entrance to Super Bowl City lay. less at strategic points, their eyes hid- ro train meant sparse attendance at said, pointing. Line’s probably not as down!” hand-painted red on black back- The line to enter looked enormous, den behind mirrored sunglasses, au- Super Bowl City, but he was wrong: long. Walking’s probably better than Phones held above heads, sel- ground, dripped as if drawn in blood. but a Super Bowl City Ambassador tomatic rifles slung across their chests. The sidewalk was clogged with mass- waiting in line with the little fella, he fie sticks thrust into the air, the crowd The man’s vehemence, and the Hal- in a bright orange shirt (“Sponsored Roger felt like he was being watched. es of people, slow-shuffling as if their added, and winked at the boy. Rog- roared. Roger squeezed into an open loweeny sign caused Roger to take by Levi’s®” splashed across its front) He looked up and saw the silhouette feet were manacled. The street itself er followed Desperate Mom, who’d spot and saw eight pit bull pups a step back. Behind the young man assured people eyeing the line that it of a police sharpshooter on the roof was blocked by portable chain-link scooped up her son and trotted off. dressed in Carolina Panthers and middle-aged men carried other signs: was moving quickly. “You’ll be inside of a tall building. He reached for his fencing wrapped in black plastic. He He tried to catch the boy’s eye and Denver Broncos jerseys, some fight- “Question Circumcision,” “His Body, in ten minutes,” she said. phone to take a picture—it’s not ev- thought he detected a directionality give him a complicit wink, but the ing over stuffed animals, others lick- His Choice” (this one accompanied Roger decided to get in line. ery day that you see sharpshooters on in the slow crawl of the crowd and let kid stubbornly refused to make eye ing their privates or rolling around on by a drawing of a chubby baby, pe- He’d come this far, he reasoned, why Market Street—but thought better of himself be carried along. Up ahead contact. When they reached the en- the turf. nis modestly hidden), “Circumcision not see what the beast looked like up it. He might get away with taking a a big entrance sign floated above a trance the mom stopped, and the boy Roger shrugged and wan- is Amputation,” “Male Genital Mu- close? He envisioned all sorts of irony photo because he was white, he rea- bank of metal detectors manned by stuck out his tongue. Roger stuck out dered off. He was surprised that tilation.” Roger thought they looked points to be won later in telling the soned, but why risk it?

18. 19. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 I’m Really Going to Miss This - Joel Streicker

At last he passed through the cruising Super Bowl City’s attrac- and their obsession with Obamacare cations, hustles or just plain weird again. More shifting. Out of the cor- but he realized she was addressing the metal detector and was inside Super tions, gazing up at the tall buildings and… He was certain that only a per- obsessions (“Manifesto for the Erad- ner of his eye Roger saw a man get up projectionist. “Why you don’t fix this Bowl City. Roger was ready to hunt looming over the street. son with a seriously messed up head ication of Ice Plants”). At some point and leave. problem? I’m going to write a letter some snark, but as he walked around It’s all about the brand, he could think a visit to San Francisco the Department of Public Works had “Problem with sound!” the to the mayor.” the venue all he felt was disappoint- thought, even as he noticed that he would have such a beneficent im- implemented a zero tolerance policy, woman in the row behind him burst Roger felt an urge to chuckle; ment. Yes, it was self-important as the hadn’t seen a single vendor of NFL pact on visitors. It occurred to him ripping down posters and fining vi- out in a sing-song Chinese accent. he stifled it. NFL and its Super Bowl, and weird- clothing or memorabilia. Still, Super that what was missing from Super olators. He was surprised that these “Why can’t you fix it? There’s “I’m going to tell about how ly self-referential—everything was Bowl City’s temporary residents cer- Bowl City was a booth where you posters, as scandalously colorful as a only now eight audiences left!” this movie ruined, your fault.” The slapped with a Super Bowl 50 logo tainly weren’t stinting on flying team could suffer a simulated concussion. flock of macaws, had survived DPW’s Roger turned around, his screen went dark. Another audience yet it wasn’t clear exactly what Super colors; they must have brought their It could project your post-concussion zealousness. gaze falling on the woman. She member left. Bowl City’s focus was. But Super Bowl gear from home or bought new garb life trajectory, through the stages of Sporting the logo of the San glared at him. He quickly looked up “Now only four audiences City wasn’t spectacularly over the top, somewhere other than Super Bowl disorientation, mood changes, mem- Francisco Public Library, the poster toward the brightly lit projectionist’s left!” the woman shouted. The wom- as he’d expected. You could pretend City. He wasn’t sure exactly what ory loss, and shaking limbs, and even was a low-quality color copy in sev- booth. There was no response. an looked neat and well-dressed, with to throw passes to a receiver streaking the NFL was selling, and what peo- give you a prognosis of life expectan- eral fonts with blurry photos. “Black Roger glanced at the film se- short hair and wire-rim glasses. Roger down the field on a huge flat screen, ple were buying. Yet he found him- cy. History Month Film Series” was ries flyer that he had grabbed on the estimated that she was ten years older the ball’s imaginary trajectory tracked self misting up a bit at the idea of all Super Bowl City was bland printed at the top. He glanced at his way down to the auditorium. Dar He than him. Maybe she was someone’s by a computer’s bionic eye and meet- those people coming to San Francisco and corporate. In a word, boring. watch. The first film (Dar He) had al- was a one-man movie depicting the slightly eccentric aunt who thought ing (or not) the wide receiver’s out- because they’d heard it was so great. It’s as if in order to scrub its image ready started, but he calculated that murder of Emmett Till in Mississip- nothing of speaking truth to power, stretched hands. A row of bikes on Maybe they’d just go on the cable cars the NFL had decided to excise any- he could easily make the second film pi in 1954 and the subsequent trial loudly and in public, denouncing the stationary stands were connected to a and visit Fisherman’s Wharf and see thing even remotely smelling of the (Njinga, Queen of Angola), even if he that failed to bring his tormentors to exodus of the city’s African Amer- tower of black metal frames fringed as little of the city as so many tour- bloodlust that inspires such devotion walked. justice. The screen began speaking icans, a community whittled down with LEDs; whoever pedaled fastest ists do. But he also knew that many among football fans. He exited half again. Maybe the projectionist had by gentrification to next to nothing. the longest was rewarded by the lights people were renting out rooms and an hour after entering. It was hard to ****** managed to forward the video; may- Maybe she was bat-shit crazy, the in his part of the tower reaching the entire apartments on Airbnb—Rog- see what cordoning off Super Bowl be the scene had shifted. The same grocery bag on the seat next to her top before his rivals. The elaborate er was aware that at every mention City from the city accomplished oth- Roger hustled into the small man from the previous scene was now stuffed with flyers ranting against the tourism booth of the city of San Jose of Airbnb, whether aloud or in his er than keeping out the homeless or basement auditorium; the lights were dressed in a white button-down shirt Chinese government or a 500-page (“The Heart of Silicon Valley!”) invit- head, he automatically felt obliged deterring anyone not willing to wait dim but not completely off. He quick- and dark pants, sitting on a porch instruction manual for a board game ed people to explore who knows what to state, aloud or in his head, that ten minutes in line to get in. ly scanned the room. Plenty of seats swing and talking like a Southern of her own devising. “The mayor in that godforsaken suburban sprawl he hated Airbnb for taking so many He wandered aimlessly up to choose from: there were only a white man. know about this he be mad! He fire of a mislabeled city. Long lines for housing units off the long-term rental Market Street, away from the crowds few people, all of them sitting alone, “We don’t take kindly to out- you!” New England clam chowder—really? market in order to cater to tourists or heading toward Super Bowl City. He scattered throughout the auditori- siders coming down here telling us The screen remained fro- Roger thought, clam chowder?—and short-term corporate hires, thereby had nothing pressing to attend to at um. The screen was filled with the what’s right and what’s not,” he said. zen. The projectionist must be one Bud Light. On a small stage a pretty contributing to the housing shortage home, or anywhere else. It had been face of a close-shaven black man in “Especially if they’re niggers,” and he cool customer, Roger thought. Or young newscaster in an electric blue and driving up prices further—and a long, long time since he had simply a short-brimmed turquoise lady’s leaned over and spat over the porch he didn’t give a damn about the four dress interviewed Panthers fans for he thought that they couldn’t help but walked without a destination. hat of a style that Roger recognized railing. A solitary hiss rose from the “audiences” still in the auditorium. the TV news back in Carolina (Roger see parts of the city that they other- A light post plastered with as post-WWII. The face was frozen, right front of the auditorium. Looking around the auditorium, wasn’t sure whether it was North or wise might not have experienced. He red, black, and green posters caught the man’s lips were stretched wide, The screen froze again, the Roger saw a skinny white woman South, but the team owners had cun- thought that people coming to San his eye. Back in the day, he thought, caught in the act of speaking. Roger wad of saliva barely out of the actor’s sitting in the front row on the right, ningly eluded the question, no doubt Francisco from red states, or red parts the light posts and telephone poles waited. Ten seconds, twenty seconds. mouth. More shifting, some cough- the source of the coughing, her face doubling their market reach). On an- of blue states, would be enchanted sprouted posters like mushrooms after He could hear the sole person occu- ing, and another patron stood up and creased as if from worry, her hair a other stage a long line of men and by the city and reconsider their ret- a rain, advertising bands, political ral- pying the row behind him shift in her left. matted mess of impromptu dreads boys waited to get their photos taken rograde ideologies and embrace pro- lies, poetry readings, rooms to share, seat, the springs crackling. “What your name?” the Chi- topped by a small black beanie. An with a group of cheerleaders in heavy gressive politics and turn their guns self-help classes—guerrilla market- The face suddenly unfroze nese woman asked in a loud voice. older black man sat in the last seat in makeup and small spandex costumes. into ploughshares or cool sculptures ing for an archipelago of small-time, and spoke: “…was how I would put Roger turned and was about to ask the last row on the left. Judging by the People milled around taking selfies, and drop their opposition to Obama sometimes dubious, enthusiasms, vo- it, he was such a…” and then froze why she wanted to know his name, angle of his head, chin resting on his

20. 21. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

chest, which slowly rose and fell, he filter into the crowd as the queen took out a twenty dollar bill, and de- Sparks appeared to be asleep. shares with her people the news of posited the money in the open fiddle Not a bad idea, Roger the Portuguese capitulation to her de- case at her feet. It was a tip he could Jo Mortimer thought. He laced the fingers of his mands. Queen and adviser exchange ill afford but, he reasoned, it was a right hand through those of his left, a rueful, nostalgic glance, as they vote of confidence in the city’s future. and tilted his head back, resting it in both, now much older (suggested by He stepped back, put his hands in his the cradle of his joined palms. Just their salt and pepper hair—their bod- pockets, and rocked back and forth as he was settling in, the screen burst ies were as firm as in the film’s first on the balls of his feet in time to the with light and music. The second fea- scenes, of course), seem to appreciate music, smiling and watching her as ture, Njinga, Queen of Angola, was start- how much they had given up in part- she sang and played. I’m really going ing. ing ways earlier. to miss this kind of shit when I move, According to the notes on The credits played. The he thought. the flyer, the movie told the story of lights went up. Roger looked around. Njinga, a 17th century African prin- He was alone in the auditorium. cess who, after her father’s death and His head felt like it was filled with the feckless rule of her brother who sand—any movement produced a succeeded him, ascends the throne slight change of pressure in his skull and militarily defeats and diplomat- and a gritty sensation in his mouth. ically outwits would-be Portuguese He hazily recalled that Angola didn’t conquerors in what is now Angola. become independent from Portugal Despite its violence and the sexiness until the 1970s. of its actors, the film moved at what It was dark as Roger walked Roger generously thought of as a lei- past a chorus of drug-whisperers surely pace, and he found himself un- (whatchoo lookin for I got it; weed, weed; I able to keep his eyes open the entire got the ice, I got the fire) and descended time. It struck him as part feminist the steps to the metro, headed home. costume drama—although the cos- As he walked down the tunnel toward tumes on the Angolan side were kind the Muni turnstiles, he heard fiddle of skimpy—part anti-colonial cele- music bounce off the sickly white tiles. bration, part blaxploitation flick. He Ahead he saw a slim young redhead- was aware of missing large chunks ed woman sawing away on a violin, of the action, or inaction, but the singing in a strikingly clear voice. He ophia, wearing rubber Wellingtons over there? He’s fixing this mess and soon, the storyline was clear: Njinga confound- slowed down to listen. He passed the and draggingS a car-tyre, stomps under moonlight generator will be ready. Be as angry as you like!” ed the Portuguese and the skeptics woman without making eye contact, to the family bakery. Her red dress sparks. “Fine” Sophia says, staring down at the among her own people. There was a and then stopped. The song’s re- Grief—nice, normal grief would be melting tyre. “Make your own bread.” subplot about an adviser who was in frain spoke of “fatal attachments” so better than this. The village is in darkness again Marco says he’s had enough of her lip, love with her. Roger couldn’t tell ex- strong that the lovestruck singer was and it is Sophia’s fault. turns away in disgust and disappears into his black actly why the adviser didn’t become powerless to follow her own will. Standing under his dark porch, Marco house. Sophia is alone. There is quiet now, save Njinga’s royal consort or whatever its He turned back. The woman Moretti takes another fierce pull on his cigarette. for the sizzle-fizz coming from her dress. Carlo Angolan equivalent was. As the film offered a small, equivocal smile. All “We’ve had enough of your carry-on, gazes over from behind his welding mask; Sophia ended, Njinga, sitting on her throne her youth and beauty, Roger thought, Sophia!” feels clear, calm space running through her. after thwarting the nefarious Portu- poured out in song for the benefit of Sophia stops; the tyre smokes ominously. At the bakery, she drags out the dough, guese plans for conquest, spies the those in this particular place, in this “I know,” she says. launches it at the counter and stabs deep eyes adviser, previously exiled from her particular time, who have ears to hear. Marco jabs a finger at a hunched shadow with furious fingers. She punches and scratches court for some reason Roger missed, He fished his wallet from his pocket, on the steps of the merry-go-round. the floury face before slinging it hopelessly across “We’ve all been talking and... see Carlo the shop.

22. 23. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Sparks - Jo Mortimer

Ever since her father’s ri- ing in his ragged edges, she glowers, fold, her fingers have no feeling. “No!” diculous death (is there anyone else but Carlo stands tall and mumbles a Carlo knows he can’t touch “Are you defying me, So- anywhere who has been run down sorry. He suggests he could go now, her, so from a safe distance tells her phia?” and killed by a Dodgem?) Sophia has that she could come with him. how much he wants her pain to go “Yes!” made the bread this way. Sophia has noticed Carlo’s away. Sophia’s head drops, hair falls Carlo appears from behind She hates baking more than smooth lips; he is no longer speaking over her face; she wipes at her nose the generator. “Madam, please! Look anything but in this tiny village, there but she continues to stare, listening with the back of a sleeve. Sophia is around you—all is well!’ is no other way for her to make mon- intently to the silence. Carlo is a pa- dark and quiet. There are sniffs, hic- There is a hum of elec- ey. So, through the night, she punches tient man but asks her to hurry up cups and the breath of a sad girl; no tricity along cables and wires. Fair- and kicks two hundred perfect loaves and say something. spark to her at all. ground-horses judder; eyes glimmer, and as dawn breaks, Sophia leans ex- “Leave this fair alone.” Carlo takes her hand and limbs seem to stretch. A yellow beam, hausted, her forehead against the hot “It’s my job,” replies Carlo. they clumsily walk, as he gathers up pulsating and determined, radiates oven. “We all have to make a liv- the bulbs, to the merry-go-round from the Dodgem’s headlights. There is shuffling outside the ing.” where he has left his tools. Carlo reaches out and takes iron doors. Sophia’s stamped footprint “Hold this,” Carlo says, Sophia’s hand in his. Her mother “You can wait!” Sophia glows electric-blue. As it fades, she fol- handing Sophia a torch. He sorts glares through narrowed, watery barks—she has few friends. lows Carlo outside; they don’t speak; through pieces of metal before choos- eyes. She turns back toward the bak- “My name is Carlo. I have, if they walk to the square, trailing the ing one, pressing the iron to it and ery. The lights of every porch guide you don’t mind, something for you.” lights through trees, over doorways lowering his mask. Sophia touches his her way. “I don’t need anything. I and round the necks of scarecrows. head with the torch—its beam scans don’t even want anything!” Sophia They stop, hold hands in the pink the indigo sky. shouts back through the dull iron. and gold street, breathe cold air. Car- “Do you feel whirry?” she There is no reply. Sophia lo tilts his head to kiss Sophia but she asks Carlo. waits. Nothing. She hauls open the turns and runs to the fair. “I feel I ought to get this work doors. Carlo lights a cigarette and finished,” Carlo says. “For you,” Carlo says faint- watches her; she is getting smaller all Sophia jumps to the top step ly, thrusting nervous flowers into her the time. of the merry-go-round, hides her hands. Sophia shrugs and throws him And as he crushes his ciga- face with her hands and grins. Sophia a scowl; the flowers fall to the ground. rette under his boot, Sophia crashes dances; it is an awkward, euphoric af- Strings of fairy lights are to the ground like she has hit a glass fair. She spins and flings herself into strung over Carlo’s shoulders. He wall. She smacks at the ground and the air, but is frozen by the distant reaches down to a wall-socket and coughs with every puff of dust—leav- sound of a slamming door. plugs them in. Sophia defiantly hooks ing messed up, glowing handprints all “Mother!” Sophia whispers. the cable around her foot and hoiks around her. She trips back towards Carlo slides into the shad- it back out—if she wanted twinkly Carlo, hot tears tracing down her ows. Sophia exhales slowly and steps lights around the place, she would get cheeks. She cannot take her eyes from down to the ground where she waits, them herself. the silhouette of the fair. quite still. Her mother walks towards “Go away, please, I think “The fair is bad. What you her; the lights of the fair blink out you’re an idiot,” she says. are doing is bad! You’re making ev- with Sophia’s growing fury. They face Sophia hands the plug back erything worse and you are still an each other in near-darkness, Sophia’s to a crestfallen Carlo and he is thrown idiot!” mother twisting a loose hem-thread into a backward somersault. Flickers of angry light fly; around her index finger. The thread Sophia’s anger has reached Sophia’s outline flashes in time with snaps. new heights; she cannot believe this her spitting words. Her frightened “Sophia, get back to the bak- scrawny individual is still here. Tak- eyes are wide and won’t close; her legs ing.”

24. 25. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Sebastian’s Babylon: Chapter 7 - Daniel Ryan Adler

he knew what he wanted, even if it a coffee, immediately regretting it, and they see you and pretend not to. Sebastian’s Babylon, wasn’t the best choice. They returned and automatically reached into his It’s awkward until one of you says to their table behind the bookshelf back pocket, handed her his money, hello, or you don’t, which shows you Chapter 7 while they waited for their food. dropped the change into the tip jar, were never friends to begin with. What would Venice have took the coffee and passed her table. Anyway, this is Lexi.” He pivoted to Daniel Ryan Adler been like if she’d gone with Dom? Spilling a coffee trail on his way, her as he set a hand on their table. Probably not as nice. He wasn’t he fixed his gaze on the back wall, “We met at Alana’s garden as knowledgeable as Sebastian, he silently telling himself to stay calm as party,” Dom grinned. “Sebastian is ordered a bottle of wine based on tears of joy, nervousness, anger and Jasper’s friend.” region and price alone. She imagined fear filled his eyes. “We met that day too.” that if Dom had invited her to go To Lexi, it was clear that Sebastian’s eyes met Lexi’s. away it would be to the Berkshires Sebastian had come here hoping Her face reddened. She where he would show her the joys to see her and this destroyed stared at her phone. of building campfires and eating everything she’d favored about him Sebastian’s eyes welled with s’mores. Nouveau riche. Not that she mere moments before. She was not tears. “I can’t believe you.” was opposed to camping or teaching planning to see Sebastian for at least Dominic looked from him which year was great for Jadot. another week and as he sat in the Sebastian to Lexi, then back again. His lips smacked as he ate his chicken back of the cafe, it was clear that he “What’s going on here? You guys old sandwich and she almost told him to was far worse than Dominic. Lexi friends?” chew with his mouth closed. Well, she kept her head on a plane parallel Lexi tried to appear as was just having fun. Sebastian was with Dominic’s. Other than a few unconcerned as possible, fumbling a waffler, though his buying tickets rapid blinks, she showed no signs of with her phone for a distraction. to Venice before she’d said yes had surprise. She expected Sebastian to Sebastian nodded. “Once. been unexpected and although she leave after seeing her with another We recently came back––” didn’t see a future with him either, man, but she could still feel his eyes “Can you shut up?” she they could, as he said, “enjoy the finer searing into the back of her head blurted. things together.” as she nodded vacantly along with Dom watched as though That did not mean that she Dom’s talk about what galleries he nothing had happened, those nearby was at all glad to notice him out of wanted to be featured in this fall. were following the scene. “Came Lexi waited in her favorite cafe as she face when she said she’d be away for two weeks. the corner of her eye. Sebastian Then came the unexpected: back from where?” sipped idly at her iced latte, the caffeine making She supposed she shouldn’t be too mad at him knew where she lived and it wasn’t while Dom was talking, he glanced “Nothing. He asked me out her heart pound, or maybe she was nervous to see for keeping her waiting since she always prided that hard for him to guess where she past her and recognized Sebastian. when he first saw me and that’s it. Dominic after so many weeks. Even if he didn’t herself on being fashionably late, but five minutes might spend a Sunday afternoon. So He called his name and waved him We never had anything. I don’t know have a big dick, he made good money as an art later she gathered her bag and started to text that when he did see her, he didn’t over so that everyone in the cafe why you called him over here. He’s a director at Ogilvy. She was still out of his league— him that something came up when she heard know what to do, especially since stared. She blushed and lowered her freak.” his nose was crooked and he was uncontrollable his jangling bracelets and stood to smell the she was there with another man— head. She had no idea they knew Dominic stiffened. “Chill when drunk, given as he was to addiction, which sunflowers in his hands. Pulmonetti? He was shocked that she each other. She wanted to go to the out Lexi. Sebastian’s a big boy, right did turn her on at first, especially when she They hugged and he leaned down could be seeing the artist he had met bathroom but it would be too obvious Sebastian? You can be into her as found out it was heroin, but now it was mostly to kiss her lips. She pushed her hair aside to at the garden party, a former heroin that something was wrong. Dom much as you want.” He put an arm his tattoos, his money and the tattoos. Sebastian expose her neck as he sat across from her and addict of all people. His stomach stood. She kept her eyes on him and around her shoulder and pulled her on the other hand was a little clingy, but hey, a they circled through the kind of conversation dropped out, he was sweating and his did her best to ignore Sebastian. to him. “She’s with me.” free trip to Venice? And sleeping with two guys that brings lovers up to speed after nearly three hands were shaking. He wanted to “Hey man,” Dom said. “She doesn’t care about at once was empowering, especially since she was weeks of separation. They decided to eat and turn around and leave but somehow Sebastian blanched as he you,” said Sebastian. For a moment young and beautiful; why not enjoy herself ? If left the bouquet on their table while they ordered he moved to the counter and the accepted Dom’s man-hug. Dom neither Dom nor Lexi knew what was Dominic had another girl she’d be less beautiful, sandwiches at the counter. Dominic didn’t have barista was asking him what he held him by the shoulders. “I yelled going to happen. All the power in and he didn’t, based on the disappointment in his to ask the barista what was good on the menu, wanted and out of habit he ordered because I hate when you see someone their triangle rested with Sebastian.

26. 27. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Sebastian’s Babylon: Chapter 7 - Daniel Ryan Adler

Dominic stood back and searched from behind the counter, put him in “Please.” Sebastian’s face as he smiled, his a headlock and pulled him outside. Sebastian had been asking hands tightened into fists, their faces Lexi stood amidst the pandemonium, for it. This would be the end of two moving closer together. mortified. She left her sunflowers, relationships. Dom’s pleading eyes, “If I want to know about pulled on her purse and avoided eye his long black hair… Her icy wall was “‘He asked me out our relationship, I’ll ask her. Bro.” contact with Sebastian, who was lying melting. “Get up.” And with his index finger Dominic against an overturned table, a brown He put an arm around her pushed Sebastian so that he took two stain on his white t-shirt. She ignored shoulder. steps back. Those seated behind them Dominic as she power-walked outside “Not so fast.” She shrugged it when he first saw me edged their seats backwards, still and up the block, trying to dissociate off and walked ahead. watching to see what would happen. herself from what had happened. He “Let’s go to Whiskey Train. “Ask her, then,” smirked stood in front of the cafe, calling her My treat.” Sebastian. “Watch her lie.” name, but she didn’t stop until his By the time they left, their rift As Dominic paused Lexi hands were on her shoulders as he had healed. She did not think about and that’s it. We nev- prayed he would not do it. She tried spun her around. Sebastian, preferring to put the cafe to tell him mentally that she would “Did you really only meet scene out of her mind. But by one tell the truth if he did ask and she him once before?” o’clock that morning, she was tired of suspected he knew this. The two men “Let me go!” He dropped his Dominic, who followed her stumbling er had anything. I stared at each other and after what hands. “I told you what happened. to her apartment, and couldn’t give seemed like an eternity, but was only And thanks a lot because now I can her what she wanted when they two or three seconds, Dom said, “She never go to my favorite cafe again. arrived. As she lay in bed, Sebastian cares about me more than she’ll ever You’re out of control, as usual.” texted her, I’m seeing someone else too, care about you. Tell him Lexi.” “I don’t want to be told that so don’t feel bad. She didn’t respond. don’t know why you She kept her eyes low, staring I’m wasting my time with someone I Another text, I’m so sorry, I really loved into her coffee cup. She wanted care about.” you. I should have known you would do this. to scream with frustration. What “I don’t care what you In a moment of Sebastian told her on the Rockaway want. The world is not dedicated to consciousness, Dom slurred, “Who’s called him over here. platform about hating the ones we’re what you want.” She swiveled and texting you?” with flashed into her mind. Did she continued walking away. “My mom.” She rolled away care about Dominic? She hated both He ran two short steps and and deleted the messages. She could of them, and not in any transcendent spun her around again. “Let’s go not sleep. A snore caught in Dom’s way, but out of pure embarrassment somewhere for a drink. I’m sorry I throat and she shook him, wondering He’s a freak.’” and anger. lost control.” if it might have been better to end it “Tell him!” Dom snarled. Lexi stared at him. “Lost while he was begging her forgiveness. Sebastian smiled, “See?” control? You punched someone out in Her initial perception of him as fun on accident. In hindsight, she had control who wants to have a good pain into a character from the book Then Dominic’s suppressed a cafe. Now you want to pretend like and a little crazy had changed into an suspected this would happen when time than a weakling who lives off he was reading, which in this case energy exploded into Sebastian’s jaw. it never happened, as another episode understanding that he was a tornado he coddled her in Venice. She had his rich parents. Don’t text me any more, was Tristan and Isolde. Like Tristan, The rest of the scene unfolded very of your ‘losing control.’ Good use of who left everyone to clean up his not led him on, but slept with him she typed to Sebastian, and within he had wandered into the dragon’s quickly. Sebastian flew back onto the understatement.” damage. Men were always acting as reimbursement for the trip, and minutes, fell asleep. lair, expecting his love to be waiting table behind him, knocking cups of “What?” He grabbed her macho, showing off their maleness, now with her debt paid, she was not The next day Sebastian behind the sleeping monster when coffee onto the laps of the couple who hand and dropped to a knee before entitled to whatever they wanted. obligated to see him again, especially repeated a process that he had the sight of the beast awake took jumped up as he landed. Screams and her. “Let me make it up to you.” Sebastian had tried hard for her after what had just happened. attempted before whenever him by surprise. He’d imagined he gasps filled the cafe. The manager of He was a farce, but she didn’t affection, and that was his problem, Another snore caught in Dom’s confronted with a nasty experience. could sneak in and kill it, but when the restaurant, an Italian guy about want to ruin her Sunday night over he was needy. There was no way he throat. She elbowed him in the dark. He remembered what happened in it saw him, it breathed a blaze that fifty pounds heavier than Dom came this. had shown up at Ground Control I’d rather deal with someone out of the cafe as a dream, exteriorizing his launched him backward and forced

28. 29. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

him to dive away. The heat of embers refuge under a laurel tree, too tired burned around him and he feared to remove his armor and under its his own death as he ran under the weight, he lay there unconscious The Hood dragon’s long yellow fangs and rancid through the night. breath, but not fast enough; it swiped Evelyn Sharenov at his chest, and though he dodged its rapier-like claw, the pincer-tip pierced his skin and cut him in the rib-bone over his heart. Sebastian fell to a knee and with what he imagined was his last breath, prayed to his guardian angel. Her voice replied, “Stay true to yourself and remember I will always be here watching over you.” As if he had discovered a hidden reserve of strength, Sebastian rose and fell with all his weight upon the giant lizard’s side, smiting it so that his blade pierced its thick plates of flesh and entered its breast to the hilt. In the monster’s death-cry, more and fool the lawns into thinking it is an early flames erupted from its mouth and can make a case that I’m in the exact I summer. As winter leaves, it clears the way for it released a scream strong enough middle of my life, with as much ahead as has gone spring. That first hot day, when cats scratch at their to shake both heaven and earth. before. I have a small but respectable law practice. screen doors to get out, when pale legs emerge in Terrified, Sebastian rushed to remove It has become more lucrative as the economy shorts, when winter’s ballast appears curbside for his sword from the dragon’s heart, sinks into the Pacific Ocean and people sue each garage sales and recycling, lawnmowers growl to the monster disappeared, and he other not out of acrimony or greed but to survive. life and barbecue grills spear the sky with flames searched for his lady throughout the I live alone. My wife’s departure was after a brief shower of lighter fluid. The stubble cave, but she was was gone along with not my first taste of loss. I’ve always felt as if of newly planted lawns appears as a five o’clock the carcass. Yet traces of its blood something were missing, as if everything always shadow of green; it convinces feet to shed shoes remained, and Sebastian removed turned out to be less than I expected—marriage, and welcomes bare toes. a tin cup from his satchel and kids, life. When I was a kid I was obsessed with the I assess the year’s casualties: the neighbors scooped the spilled, viscous liquid plate-twirler on The Ed Sullivan Show, the man who disfigured by divorce, maimed by illness, the from the cave floor. The poison in it ran across the stage giving a twist to this pole or defections, infidelities, deaths. Those who remain was enough to kill a small horse; he that plate, in an effort to keep them all spinning; standing, even if not quite upright, are survivors. would have to wait to drink it until he I watched and waited for a single plate to fall and My next-door neighbor’s lawn is regained strength. shatter but I can’t recall that it ever happened. overgrown and brown. I offer to mow it myself, Staggering, he left the den My parents were mesmerized by animal acts but he turns me down. He is reeling from the and entered the wilderness, every and ventriloquists, but I waited impatiently for blows of grief. Last autumn his son shot himself, step causing him pain. That he had the man with the plates. Some of my plates have perhaps in anticipation of his father’s reaction to emerged alive was no consolation; his crashed but others are still twirling. the announcement he was gay. Now their dog sits lady had disappeared. He shook from It’s a hot sunny afternoon. I step outside and watches me do yard work. He shyly wanders the toxins coursing through his body into a wall of heat and putter in my yard a bit. over and sets a tennis ball at my feet, hoping for from the beast’s claw and hobbled to The air is tight against my skin. The winter rains a game of catch. I spend the remainder of the the nearest stream, where he sought have ended; the hot Santa Ana winds, usually reserved for autumn, blow the desert to the sea afternoon playing ball with the dog while the kids

30. 31. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 The Hood - Evelyn Sharenov

come home from school and screen fine. He’s at Berkeley.” timeless and immutable. I’m grateful. “I don’t really have an chorus line of gleaming chrome and there was so much to lose. doors slam and dinners cook and dates “Les is gone? I’d of thought The children still gather in the shade address at the moment. Sort of black lacquer. Those were the days Stuart’s talkative now, happy are made and broken. There’s yelling you guys were in it for the duration.” of a serious tree to play and giggle between residences.” He stops. before weekend Hondas warred with even; he reminds me of when he was up and down the block. Laughter His voice is bright. and share what they’ve learned about “Look it, here’s the thing. I don’t have weekday Harleys. a teenager. He hasn’t changed an travels the tree-lined blocks like a “Damn. You don’t have to sex. When Eric was young—six or a home to go to anymore. I have no I hiked down to the beach iota. He doesn’t know the meaning of streetcar and the hood is transformed sound so cheered up by my news. seven—I would take my telescope money. I have no medical insurance. with Eric. Leslie rested on our blanket accountability. It’s all the fault of the into a town with the eternal hope of She’s living with some guy. So what’s outside on hot summer nights and It took all my strength to call you.” under the broad low branches of a system. His parents and his ex-wife a happy ending. new with you? You want to come set it up on the sidewalk. Steady as Stuart starts crying. I want to put my shade tree. The sea was wild and I threw him out. His parents relented The phone’s ringing over and have some dinner?” Polaris, I would find the planets. arms around him but stay where I chased Eric as he ran, heedless of and offered to let him stay in an RV somewhere deep inside my house and “I have to tell you something Word got around and soon the am. the tides, strong winds at his back. they had parked in their driveway. I debate whether to answer it. I’ve first.” children on the block lined up to take When we were kids, Stuart I yelled after him, but Eric didn’t Stuart called me first. He tells me dismantled the answering machine. It I wait for the blow. And wait. turns looking through the telescope. and I used to sleep over at each hear. He was under a spell, dazzled he hasn’t got the support system that won’t stop ringing unless I pick up. At “Are you there? What is it?” I gathered them in, myself a star, the other’s house. I knew his parents as by brightly colored human birds, gay men with AIDS have, that he has first I don’t recognize the voice. “I have AIDS,” he says. children a nebula around me. Until well as I knew my own. I dated his hang-gliders who perched on the the good kind of AIDS. I know what sister a couple of times, before I cliffs above the beach, then swooped he means because I know how he met Leslie. Stuart was always a little and hovered above the ocean before thinks. He’s not a gay guy with AIDS. “I’ve always felt as if something were wilder than me, took more chances. landing on the sand. It frightened He’s a loser and when we get drunk He said danger made him feel alive. me, the enchantment that pulled Eric together, I tell him so. Maybe not so much now. from me. But Eric was guided by “So you think you’re doing I weigh the offer I’m about to an unseen hand, as if god or nature so well? How come Leslie left you?” make because Eric will be home soon. looked his way, and I was able to grab I know why she left me and missing, as if everything turned out to be And I’m not usually the impulsive him before he ran into the sea. it hurts to think about it. At best I one between Stuart and me. Arguing before a jury was was tepid, at worst cold. She found “Come stay with me. For as simple compared to being a father. someone she thought loved her more long as you need. Until...” Having Eric sharpened my taste than I did, who took care of her. I less than I expected--marriage, kids, life.” Stuart moves in that night. The for the kill. Everything came easily was a good provider and father. In next day I take him to see my doctor to me—verdicts, money, women. I the absence of a core, I thought this and fill his prescriptions for him. paced the halls of the courthouse, was enough. A week later I drive past my quietly argued both sides of the So Les moved in with her Then: “How’ve you been? I think about this for a city lights obscured the stars, until parents’ house. My mother doesn’t evidence with myself, knowing the lover. The truth is I miss her. But Where’ve you been?” It’s Stuart, my moment. “Well, duh,” is all I can gravity and earthly hungers called me know that Stuart is staying with me. I witness’ weak spots, when it was time it’s the way I miss her that made her oldest friend in the world. come up with, so I don’t say it. The back. Leslie behind the screen door don’t know if she would approve and for a surgical strike, the time to close leave. I don’t know if Stuart would It’s been about six years since wages of his stupidity shouldn’t be needing me. I haven’t entirely stopped caring. in for the kill. I quickly moved up from understand any of this. we’ve spoken. He was banished from death. It’s difficult seeing Stuart Her trees are overgrown; the DA’s office to private practice. On our last morning in bed our home by Leslie for his lifestyle “Come over anyway. I like this. Wait, more than difficult. It they made my room a cool dark Someone asked me why I defended together I could still have asked her choice––he did a lot of drugs and promise I won’t kiss you,” is what I breaks my heart. He’s thin; his skin cave when I was a boy. An old flat the scum of the earth. “Someone has to stay but I didn’t. It was like she had periodically called me to bail him finally say. is ash gray and he has a cough. He tire swing is suspended from a low to,” I said. I was a strong litigator. already gone through our divorce in out of jail. Leslie believed he was a Through the heat and denies he’s in pain, but I don’t believe hanging branch, awaiting my son’s Other attorneys listened to me as her mind, had done her grieving, and bad role model for our son, Eric. I tranquility of dusk I’m chilled, as if him. I hold him for a moment in the children to come ride it. I passed them on my way to the I hadn’t even started. We knew she couldn’t entirely disagree with her. there’s a missed beat in the center of doorway; it’s like hugging a skeleton. I remember Eric when restroom or the courtroom. They was moving out on the last day of last But now I’m happy to hear his voice. the evening, then the uptick of my I order in a pizza. Stuart eats very he was five, laughing and begging took notes of my opening and closing June and we slept together until that “I was banned, remember? heartbeat and the rush of blood in little. I have no appetite but make a me to push him higher, giddy with arguments. day. We got up and made breakfast I’ve been around. You know. Here my ears. I look at my watch. It was show of eating. sensation, joyous in his freedom These days I’m worn out by and ate together as if nothing awful and there. How’re Leslie and Eric.” my father’s. He put it on my wrist “So where are you staying?” from gravity. Les and I took him on the show of material wealth around were about to happen. And then the “Leslie left me and Eric’s before he died. Certain things seem I ask. a picnic that year, to Point Fermin. me. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep movers came and she was gone. We bought sodas at Walker’s. Bikers in years. I want that time back, before It’s hot and sunny through held court in the dark interior. Their I became successful, when there was Eric’s spring break. We’re happy, the motorcycles were lined up outside, a less outside and more inside, before three of us together, in a strange and 32. 33. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 The Hood - Evelyn Sharenov

Stuart is enraged. I know the guy timeless way. I barbecue on Easter the vertigo passed, with the sound to me. I could always lean on her, through his mourning. He walks “Freckles?” Stuart is talking about. He’s a Sunday. Steaks, potatoes and corn on of ocean roaring in my ears, fighting depend on her reactions to things. slowly, step by labored step, past “Yup.” homeless schizophrenic who wanders the cob. The briquettes are ready. A waves of nausea. I sat there when she Leslie’s steady hand on the rudder of tragedy. One morning I find a basket “Um, um, um.” the shoreline muttering about Jesus drop of fat catches fire and billows of started to cry. our lives—that was her surprise. I just of homegrown tomatoes on my For a month this summer and fornication; his trousers are rising smoke make my eyes tear. Eric I wanted to say that people don’t love the way she does. porch with a note of thanks from his the house is noisy and happy, scented is stretched out on a chaise near me; can’t just start over, they only think stained where he pisses in them and wife. I inherit the dog. I fall in love with Lisa’s perfume; lacy underwear he smells of urine and shit. He favors he’s reading Return of the Native. they can. I want to warn her not to ****** with him. He befriends Eric’s cat and hangs to dry in one of the bathrooms. “This is a great book, dad. get hurt. I want to protect her but to wealthy neighborhoods for hanging tempts her with his ball. They sleep Stuart asks if it’s serious out. Have you read it?” I say I haven’t. offer comfort late is worse than not to When Stuart moves in I learn with me on the bed at night. between them. “So you hit him?” “Well, you should.” He reads thick offer it at all. She swiped at her eyes. I about the little things. I set up Eric’s Later that summer, Stuart “It’s serious. Eric did good.” “First I yelled at him. He got novels. He’s dating a senior who will want to tell her that I love her. room for him. I move back into the wakes me one morning with his “I love red hair,” he says. lucid in a hurry and ran away. He visit in August. She’s majoring in I can see her right now, bedroom I shared with Leslie. In screams for me. He sounds wistful. He’ll never didn’t start talking to himself again literature, an influence on his current ghostly and resigned. She floats over May, my second television goes out. “David. I’m blind.” He hears have another woman. for a few blocks. I ran after him. And tastes in reading. I figure I’ll discuss a Stuart and Eric, maybe a little sad, My first stopped working the week me in the room. In September Stuart is then I hit him.” sensible major with him some other there a moment, then gone. Leslie moved out. I don’t bother to He’s petrified and grabs admitted to Memorial Medical I take Stuart home. time. I’m good at the beginnings of repair them. I stack one on top of the for my hand, which he can’t find. Center, to a respiratory unit with “Stay put. Stay out of I watch Eric through the things, the passions and possibilities. other for Stuart; one has no picture, I take his hand in mine and call the pneumonia that AIDS patients trouble. Just because you’re dying, smoke. His long tan limbs are But if you’re good at beginnings, it the other no sound. I turn them both the doctor. Apparently this is one get. He survives but he’s very weak. you don’t get to beat people up.” comfortable at rest, all potential stands to reason you have to learn to on. of the opportunistic diseases that The hospital wants to send him to a “Yes I do. I can do what energy. Last year he was amorphous, survive endings. Like I told you in the Stuart groans at my afflict AIDS patients. More and nursing home or one of those places I want. What difference does it half boy, half man. This year he first sentence, I’m in the middle of my hospitality. more medications find their way where the dying go to die. I visit make?” favors man. life. I’m not at my best in the middle. I get a call at my office one onto Stuarts’s nightstand. None of Stuart often. “I work with the police. Stuart carries out three I don’t know how to move. It’s a long afternoon. You can see the ocean from them slow the steady downward “I’m afraid of dying,” he You’re embarrassing me.” Coronas, with a slice of lime in each, walk from understanding to change. I my windows high in one of the older progression of his T cells. But Stuart says one night. “I’m embarrassing you? Try perched precariously on a tray. His used to have the occasional affair. At office buildings that line downtown adjusts quickly to his new disability. “I know.” I am too. We all having AIDS.” His face is red and balance is a little off and his hands the end of my last one I told a woman, Long Beach. It’s a brick and stucco I hear him banging around the are. I sit on the bed with him and outraged. tremble. We sit quietly as the evening “You may please me, you may piss me affair, cool and dark in the lobby, with house; he sports new bruises daily. hold his hand. I’m glad he can’t see “You know, right now I’m cools down and a light breeze comes off, but you’ll never surprise me.” She shiny hardwood floors. It pleases me. I’m told he may lose his memory my face. trying very hard to like you. It isn’t up. Eric sleeps in his chair, his novel punched me in the mouth. On a clear day, when the Santa Ana as well. I think this would be for the Stuart comes home to my easy. So, you can do what you want. face down in the grass. Leslie always said it was the winds blow, you can just make out best. house. In October he forgets my name But if you make any more trouble, It was a night like this last little things that mattered, that gave the topography of Catalina Island. In July Eric comes home with and where he is and that he’s sick. He you don’t have a place to live—or spring that Leslie told me she was life its grace. It was the little things, This is such a day and I’m enjoying his girlfriend. I’m taken aback at first. develops diarrhea and doesn’t make die.” leaving. she said, the day-in day-out, that were the view, relaxing for a few moments I knew she was a senior, but I didn’t it to the bathroom in time. I’m afraid I call him later to apologize. “I’m moving out.” Her voice the glue. The little things are the long without worrying about my caseload. know she was at least ten years older that if I take him to the hospital, he He is dying; there’s no getting around was flat and practiced. I imagined her middle. I’m the master of the grand The call—the police have arrested than Eric. Eric is obviously smitten. won’t come out again. that. And while he tries my patience, practicing this over and over again, gesture. For her thirty-fifth birthday Stuart for beating up a vagrant on the In truth, I’m a little jealous. Lisa is His doctor puts in an IV that someday soon I’ll miss Stuart as those words, so unnatural for her. She I surprised her with a 1970 Jaguar main drag of the fashionable beach beautiful and funny. goes into the big veins that go into surely as I miss Leslie. shivered and hugged her slim, bare XKE roadster. She loved it, speeding community at the other end of town. She grills fresh fish for us, the heart. Stuart will get antibiotics, legs in the Adirondack chair. up the coast highway, top down, her He’s told them his sad story and they and bakes chocolate chip cookies. antivirals and fluids this way. When I ****** All my moorings failed. long hair billowing in dark waves out don’t want to keep him. Will I take The world stops turning while we look at the array of bottles and bags

I think I knew it was coming, but I behind her. A strong man could surf responsibility for him? Yes, I will. eat warm brown sugar and chocolate of medicines, I’m overwhelmed. During early summer I mow was still shocked by its impact. The those waves. But she didn’t really “You’re worse than a child,” with a side of vanilla bean ice cream. My hands are too clumsy for sterile my neighbor’s lawn. Such simple and ground fell away, replaced by the sky. expect thanks for putting me through I tell Stuart when I retrieve him from “Um, um, um,” Stuart says technique and I can’t see the purpose. familiar acts give my life its meaning My yard circled us like a carousel run law school. This was just another part the police station. after each of her meals. Stuart is already glowing in the dark these days. Their dog shows up amok. I gripped my armchair until of an overwhelming commitment “He threw trash at me.” “What do you look like?” he with fever. He has a morphine with his tennis ball. My neighbor is asks her. “Blond or brunette?” pump; I set my watch so that he’s mute at his son’s senseless death. His “Red hair,” Lisa says. “Green dosed when he’s due. wife speaks for him while he moves eyes.” I call Leslie. I realize that 34. 35. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

I’m calling Leslie an awful lot these seems unfair that anyone should die days. She’s taken her own place and in such perfect weather. This is what The Death of James Franklin doesn’t seem to mind. She needs to I think during those first weeks after be needed and now I need her. She Stuart is gone. The clouds arrive John M. Keller arranges for a hospice nurse to come finally, but are rainless. I throw out to the house to bathe Stuart and help the broken television sets and blast with the medications. A hospital bed Springsteen and Cocker instead. with side rails comes with the deal so One warm night I go Stuart won’t fall on the floor. Eric’s down to the shore to one of the bedroom is a miniature hospital local hangouts for a beer and some room now. TexMex, something spicy to revive I watch the hospice nurse my sense of taste. I figure maybe I’ll bathe Stuart, gently holding each meet someone. But I’m closed in by limb, carefully soaping and rinsing his the heat and the crowd of people. I skin, shampooing his hair, changing can’t get out of there fast enough and the water in the blue hospital basin walk down to the beach. after each task, drying him with soft The vagrant who accosted cloths. She inspects and changes Stuart is stretched out on the warm the sterile dressing around the IV cement strand. I put a twenty dollar line in his chest and disposes of her bill on his chest. The guy grunts at me. equipment in a red bag. These seem Stuart would have been disgusted. I like acts of tenderness for her, more don’t care if it’s a grand gesture. It than just her job. She increases his just seems like the right thing to do. morphine dose. I walk out onto the beach, Stuart’s parents and ex-wife remove my shoes, dig my toes into don’t visit. My mother and Leslie the sand; it’s cool and damp. I’m come a couple of times a week. alone out here, but I don’t feel In the evening I sit at Stuart’s particularly lonely. I sit and watch a This morning I learned that James letters sitting like the previous evening’s leftovers bedside and read to him from the full moon rise. When the hot autumn Franklin was dead. It accosted me from all sides, inside the refrigerator. newspaper. I doubt he understands sun comes up next morning, it’s as if it were a part of the air and water or one of “A big fish,” someone said, not about one but I’m told he knows I’m there. At treated to the sight of me, curled on the universe’s natural physical or mystic laws. I of her groceries. least he’s not alone. ercifully he slips my side, fully clothed, asleep on the heard it when I wandered over to the bookstore “It’s crazy,” someone else said. “Would into a coma. Sometimes he seems to sand, surrounded by shattered plates. from an acquaintance, who began, dispiritedly, “I you believe, last month I saw him live…” acknowledge me; there’s a smile on guess you’ve heard…” as if it was not the man’s “He was an inspiration to me, and so his face, like a baby with gas. When death but the fact that there was no one around to many others…” he stops breathing, I’m in the room whom to break the news that was the disconcert- Indeed something exciting was in the air. with him, my feet up on his bed, my ing fact. And death was a trump card like no other, a once- eyes closed. I wait a while before “Dead young. Or would you consider in-a-lifetime magic trick of which only a true art- making any calls, hoping he might that young? 63…” ist was capable. An impostor would wish to sit in start breathing again. “What’s a good age to die?” I said. the bushes and watch as crowds formed, from “After eighty, I guess. Then you know among the masses. The vrai artist—(something ****** you’ve lived a long life, where you had time truly artistically sublime can only be captured by enough to fit everything in.” use of the French)—is consumed by the objet d’art, This is not weather for dying. I made my way to the supermarket, absent for the audience’s reaction, already on to The insects continue their music well where everyone was talking about it, where the the next act. Dead in a certain sense only. into autumn. The air is benign and The news was catching on, now multiply- warm; the nights lengthen but the headlines at the checkout counter seemed egre- ing, and the new fashion in which it spread pro- day sky remains high and blue. It giously outdated, yesterday’s news in large block 36. 37. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 The Death of James Franklin - John M. Keller

voked a certain giddiness—since the something about history through the But what led to his unconsciousness too is a stage, not simply because no as pretty as you, but someone not the earlier ones that established news arrived instantly, to everyone, subdivision of my name…” and lack of breathing inside his environment will ever be conducive already married of course. That’s him, or the ones in which he had there was only to try to linger in it for In centimeters, he was 170. residence? There was certainly to the ordinary when he is in the why we go to fortunetellers, isn’t it?” matured from a comic actor into a as long as was possible. In American measurements, this is something that came before. room, but also because he himself no I told him that he could dramatic one? Death is a drama, This is about us, not some 5’6”—his eyes, piercing blue, part of The evening prior he had longer knows what it is to be anyone kiss me, but there had to be people not a comedy, so perhaps the latter…)? James Franklin, who will never be the reason why he had become James been seen with his third wife and his other than the himself that is James around, and unfortunately not those Was he himself with the beard that dead, for we have never known him Franklin. two children at dinner. Observers Franklin. there in the restaurant, but actors— he wore for that part on stage, where ourselves, and all those whom we “My name is Veronika. We’ll noticed he had “laughed,” which He blows his nose. His wife people playing people. he won the Best Actor award? (… have never known are never alive see whether or not my last name is had certainly been a sign of vitality. asks him if he is catching a cold. He “A kiss on stage is just as no, but he was principally a screen man…) in the first place, but exist as do the important later”—I might have said. Another passerby, at ten p.m., had says that it is just allergies. Again, he real,” he said, “sometimes more real (But certainly not the photo of him people of the past, whose lives come Instead, before I could respond, he seen him walk through the door to the laughs. “Fucking allergies,” he says. than one offstage. I can tell you that in a dress…) In a suit, or dressed as to us through the same vessels and went on: restaurant, at which he was a regular, having been married twice. When do he did in one of his roles, or when channels, never life-sized but always “I’ve been looking forward to where he had gained some traction ****** people become themselves most but he went out in civilian wear: on the in miniature in a book or in pixels meeting you. As soon as I got the call as a person who, under normal when they pretend to be others? This beach or whilst shopping maybe? on a screen. So you can forgive us, from Tim, I was looking down over circumstances, has to introduce We were sitting in a bar, is the only time we can really live, Or do we just take the average of his can’t you, our insensitivity, won’t you? the names, and remembered I’d seen himself, where ordering a meal can be quite drunk. His blue eyes were can exist outside the demands and years and divide 63 in half, and see James Franklin has never been any- you before in a daring performance about ordering a meal and not about glassier than in the moment I met rules of society: yelling, screaming him then (…but he looks so distinguished thing more to us than a symbol; for of Six Characters.” the person ordering the meal, where him. He said something like this, profanities at the people we allegedly in a beard…)? There’s an opportunity the moment, he is not James Franklin “If we’re to kiss,” I said, per- the emphasis of things is placed on “Veronika, have you ever been to a love, acting out some of our most here, isn’t there? An opportunity at all. Never has been. haps because he had used the word appropriate, functional details. As he fortuneteller?” aggressive inner emotions, the kind we haven’t had for quite a while, to “daring” in association with me, “I passed through the door a “smile was I said that I hadn’t, because I that shows we are animals; kissing place him elsewhere in time, to place ****** think perhaps we should have a drink on his face” (according to a waiter), didn’t want to know the future. many different people, as our nature him at any time other than as the first.” something which, along with the “I have,” he said. “She told demands that we do… I tell you what, old young man that he had become, I met him more than several “A drunken kiss before the laugh, contrasted with the growing me I will die a terrible death, when Veronika, the stage is the only time I before his untimely death (did he really years ago, when we were both much kiss, then,” he said. suspicion that his death had not been I am 63. Can you believe it? I had am ever real anymore. It’s the only kill himself?). younger. It was an odd thing, how he “I’m married,” I said. “My of “natural” causes. He wasn’t seen to pay her afterwards, for reading time I am not ‘James Franklin’—I stood in front of me and introduced husband has made it clear that the again, not by members of the general my fortune. She showed me what I hope you don’t find it arrogant to use ****** himself. Is that what people like James only kisses I’m allowed from men or public. had signed—fucking Hollywood—in my name like this, as if even I am By the “survivors,” he small letters that, even if the fortune Franklin did, to feel normal? Or was women other than he must be in front caught up in the hype.” His lips touch against mine. continued to be seen. In the car, she reads is bleak, you still have to In that moment, I looked at Ah, yes, this is real. This is the closest it like so many of the things we all do of a crowd.” by his third wife and two children, pay. I mean, how can fortunetellers him and saw that he was indeed alive, I will ever get to James Franklin, to that are literally one thing and in re- “Of course,” he said. who discussed with him the dinner be responsible for whether what’s to but was he right—could he be even taste his breath and saliva. Fuck, he is ality something else, pauses and tics In the photos of him when and the service, one of whom asked come will be good or bad?” in this moment less alive than when not James Franklin. Not at all. and introductory words, an opening he was alive that we see of him now him about his ponderousness as he “Is that all she told you?” he was on stage? I see him from below, at quotation mark to frame the words that he is dead, it’s easy to note the looked outside the window of the “She told me my best an angle: his chin doubles, his face to come? The first few moments are look on his face is the one that was on automobile, casting a glance out successes were behind me.” He ****** is all out of proportion. Only the adjustments of scale; a puppet has it at this moment; it’s a gentle look, of at the particolored goblets of the started laughing, laughter that kindness in his eyes reign over all sprung to life, and he has said, “Hel- a teacher, a father, of a certain type of lamplight, lamplight as it appears to a showed he was more than alive, and The morning after his death, of the various incarnations: which lo, I’m James Franklin” in mimicry of kindly man. man who has forgotten his eyeglasses, which turned to tears in his blue, the news remained the same. He was are angles, which are spat from his a person who has to say those words, who has left them at home because glassy eyes. I couldn’t stop laughing dead. It was hard to believe. The mouth; saliva-particles illuminated for whom his name has not always ****** his prescription has always been either—it was true; having access to cause of death was rumored to have by the particolored lights, controlled appeared in captions, the way some- just slightly weaker than one that the future didn’t mean you also had been a suicide, but the authorities had from behind the stage, in whose In the first twelve hours of his thing inanimate introduces itself, would induce a man to go look for good bedside manner. not yet confirmed this. The question spherical projector light are flurries death, no cause is given. Redundant though a sticker or a label, never by his eyeglasses at all costs. There is no “Fortune my ass,” he said, and was, instead, at what age should we of dust that resemble this saliva, facts in quotation marks reveal that proclaiming itself as “…lettuce. Nice trace of a smile. There is no laugh. then he snorted again with laughter, remember him? (death reverts us to that, when we are dead, we will be he was found “unconscious and not to meet you. And you are?” It is as if, even in the ordinariness of which took several moments to abate. the individual years). Was he himself reduced to, while at this moment breathing inside his residence.” In a “Arugula in these parts. the restaurant which he frequents “I was hoping she might tell me I was during his most iconic roles (…but we are present, gyrations of bodies certain sense, this is a cause of death. Rocket elsewhere. You can learn with his family Monday evening, it going to meet someone, someone which were his most iconic roles?— choreographed in these most natural

38. 39. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

of shapes, our voices giving voice to suppressed alien thoughts we may feel but have not ourselves authored, that have sprung from somewhere else but that we own in this instant, lend a voice to, occupy as one does a setting he does not own but finds familiar, like the supermarket aisles or the breathless, unconscious floor of our “residence” (after our deaths, everything we owned turns out to have been rented, or borrowed). I realize that he is right, that the kiss he has planted on my face is an authentic one. It is this kiss that I think of when I hear simultaneously from six directions that James Franklin is dead. It is what I think of when I fall asleep that first night after his death, my husband snoring next to me in POETRY the bed—my husband who saw me kiss him on stage, for whom this kiss was sanctioned, stolen under his very eyes. By noon the next day, it is official—a word itself that signifies a kind of death, too: the end of the spontaneous and the casual, the end of the anonymous or only partially understood (in which there lies some kind of hope?): James Franklin killed himself. This preceded his death. He died by asphyxiation. At just past noon, a personal assistant knocked on his door and, receiving no response and, because he knew the man and his troubles, he— concerned, his heart racing with fear and adrenaline—opened the door to find the man hanging from a door frame. But the man he found dead wasn’t James Franklin.

40. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Knocking on the Night Sky Unstable Ground John Gosslee A.G. Price

I am like the ground here Unstable I’m leaving the islands, Eroded and unable the jugular of the universe pumps To hold myself intact through the rising sun. Crumbling Dissolving The highline interstate above the water perks out of green, the wind pushes my hand back in the car. Time and weather Have conspired with neglect * To betray both property line And foundation The gulls circle the landfill, No longer able to support any structure nothing gets out of the lips Shifting and ever sliding sealed around the water bottle. Downward Unabated I’m propped up on corn chips To the very bottom and caffeine folded in the infinite night. No * Not yet The property owner in me The weight of my feet in the floorboard, Rises up the metal around the windows I can plant things unfold in the dark Things I can hold on to and I long for another rotation of the wheel Good things for myself to get it right. Like flowers and shrubbery Trees Not trees Perhaps lay some eco-friendly matting Made of straw or coconut fibers

Yes I will terrace and put in baffles I will mulch and landscape Turfgrass will be my new regimen I still have time Time to repair the damage Time to abate the slide Downward

42. 43. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7

But not today My storm clouds have returned Looming blackish-grey All earth moving resolve Swallowed up whole Like a ramshackle poolside cabana Collapsing into a Florida sinkhole After a heavy rain

Who landscapes in the rain anyway

44. 45. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Mortmain Joseph Harms

Let us now resolutely turn our backs on the once-born. William James

Atoll about a sun selenian, aseptic; skunk and petrichor; the elms’ temerity redacting clouds; in fen the pumpkins jellied blenched and squirreled: derealed as wont (limicoline unease longedfor wherefrom a joke might still be told or heard though halved of course) when at a thought (why not exult and praise this awe so alien and cold that makes of us a nil? Orgone… Orgone…) a bevy strident, myriad (unseen, unheard till then) exods from elms nosoling cloud and sun (the maledict a glimps behind patina where the kennings can’t be found), a school, a dream: saltstill I stood.

46. 47. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 Narcissus, tulipa, cerebral cortex We Hope You Enjoy the Selection Jackie Sherbow Chris Campanioni

The flower of my brain is a tulip, too closed or too open. The flower of my brain is an egg-yolk Munich is all green fields & beige brown mounds of earth. A slab of ash-gray sky. Homes of slanted red squares, daffodil: too loud, too organic, too ugly, too silly, too like something else. The dusty acorn of black tops. Rolling hills like the image on the cassette sleeve of The Sound of Music. At least from the view of the your brain is unknown to me. It needs more vitamin D. It is tired. It makes you cough and snore. Airbus 340. Reclining, inclining, uncertain where to place myself, & how. Ten emergency exits on board, & if I paid It loves me no matter what. The cloudy quartz of my brain is from both of our sometime more attention, I’d be able to describe their whereabouts. territories. The glass eye of your brain sees me, but not clearly. It knows what brains are actually made of and do. Blood and nerves. It knows which side controls which big hand. The skinned Red from France & Austria, Johnny Walker Blue, two champagnes I only take photos with to begin & end the flight. knee of my brain almost sees it all, almost has the magic word, almost has that starburst tulip, A hot towel over my face if I occasionally open my eyes. almost has that ochre daffodil—almost gives them both to you. Business Class is so good you actually don’t want the flight to end.

It’s like life.

With two minutes to land, I finally learn how to properly use my mechanical-massage seat, seven buttons which control seven parts of the average human body. I watch the 3-D image of the plane’s nose on the monitor of the person diagonal to me, imagining my position of sight as being outside myself, simultaneously inside the jet of which I’m watching from afar. A bird’s eye view, as a bird. The effect is, like all things post-Internet, so real it seems fake. Unless it’s the other way around. Flattened, compressed, reflecting itself as hall of mirrors; & over the mountains, mountains. So many vantage points from which to view experience, yet I hardly ever experience anything but inert alertness; a desire to think through things as if I’m still standing still & still

I’m always moving. All of us & everywhere.

“They are also lands of ethnic diversity: the traditions & innovations of conquerors & Native Americans, & of settlers and city dwellers, have shaped American cuisine into a taste sensation. … The forested Northeast is arguably the most European part of the USA. The Italian, Spanish, & British roots of immigrants are still noticeably today alongside Greek, Syrian, & Chinese influences.”

I’m reading “The Best of the Northeast” section in the Lufthansa Business Class pamphlet that was provided by an air stewardess. I enjoy reading about where I live from the perspective of someone outside of the place, because it makes me feel even more of an outsider than I already am; defamiliarize the familiar & all of us eventually realize we are strangers, to each other & ourselves.

“Vast landscapes, mountains & forests. The Pacific, Atlantic, & the Great Lakes. Journey through the USA or Cana- da & admire what nature & the vastness of these countries have in store.”

A friend asks me what I’ve been daydreaming about. If I knew what, I wouldn’t be daydreaming. I tell her, three quarters of the time I’m halfway here.

I underestimate but she gets the point, because we’re not even looking at each other as we talk.

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Sometimes all we want to do is look & sometimes we can’t bear to look. I don’t know what dictates this desire, or the lack of it. I only know that I want to look you in the eyes as our fingers move forward. I Hear Evil Enter Through the During the flight I am mostly silent. Instead, I shake my head. Continually mistaken for German. I’ve never gotten Nothing of Me German before; my mom is from Poland; she left Warsaw when she was six. But I’ve never been there. I’ve never been anywhere, except the page you are right now reading. Kailey Tedesco

Look, the sun is almost coming up. I expect it to be beautiful. I.

In the shuttle to get to Gate G at Munich Airport, I listen to the robotic voice of a German woman serenade me as I am siamese (because I choose to be) an actual German woman yawns in my face. If I hit pause, right here, & capture the moment in my camera eye, it & always pregnant – It’s true would look like she was eating me. My face in her mouth as it opens to bear down, bite, swallow. Leave yourself as I ate the rabbit’s innards & I ate you take in the other. So I take a picture & register her mouth to memory. the caul.

We huddle close, in silence, for a moment longer until we stop. The robotic voice says something new in German. I I wish I were siamese with the statue swoon. She stretches. Everyone sort of exhales, or unlocks their phones. Then we start again. of Mary – I crawl inside her voided eye & see Tomorrow I’ll receive an e-mail from Lufthansa, asking me if I could spare my time. Say yes & no. myself curled in cement Rate my experience. at the corner of the garden & I am

so full.

II.

I am always two or three things – I was born inside another woman & she said I felt like a ouija board

or a bi-level house with a murder inside.

There were not one but two Eves & the serpent. I think I’m still inside the serpent – I was born into a sack of divination &

there are so many windows to shut.

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III.

When I’m here, I talk in reverse.

Sleep in the guff makes me wake up beautiful & I bring you to bed –

You are inside me with everything tugging you further – the jungle

of my innards wants to maul you & bring you to the heaven CRITICISM of me.

I am afraid in heaven I will not cry.

52. 53. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same - Genna Rivieccio

how severely these antiheroes are symptoms and subsequent effects security accrued by older members of suffering from, essentially, “the mid- of the mid-twenties breakdown, an the baby boom generation by virtue twenties breakdown,” defined as: “a epidemic that has befallen all those of fortunate births.” period of mental collapse occurring without the fortune of being born Within the lens of this “A mere three years after Generation X’s release, the Helen Childress-penned Re- ality Bites would cinemati- cally solidify the symptoms and subsequent effects of the mid-twenties break- down, an epidemic that The More Things Change, The More They Stay has befallen all those with- the Same: Douglas Coupland’s Generation X out the fortune of being

T he saying goes: “The more things -ism, of sorts, prevents messy emotional born a baby boomer...” change, the more they stay the same.” involvements—not that much emotional And yet, in these times of constant involvement of any kind is able to flourish in a flux, advancement and increased (quote world dictated by apps and screens that practically in one’s twenties, often caused by an a baby boomer—a group of people envy exists Coupland’s trio of main unquote) ease, the generation of now, mandate social ineptitude. Or so the generation inability to function outside of school with the luck of existing in a period characters, each of whom have we’ll call them millennials in spite of of today would like to tell themselves. But in or structured environments coupled of ironclad economic prosperity. found his or her way to one another how derogatory the moniker has become, Douglas Coupland’s debut 1991 novel, Generation with a realization of one’s essential This charmed generation is one that by the sheer incapacity to live in the have a tendency to believe their apathy X, the issues and self-imposed disengagements aloneness in the world.” A mere Coupland addresses with a term yuppie manner that the Reagan-era is a truly unique phenomenon. They of the current epoch remain an equally as soul- three years after Generation X’s release, both reverent and derisive, known established in the decade of excess. don’t believe in the aforementioned deadening force to be reckoned with. the Helen Childress-penned Reality as “boomer envy: envy of material Interestingly, Bret Easton Ellis’ pièce platitude, instead insistent on the notion Focused on the enmeshed lives of three Bites would cinematically solidify the wealth and long-range material de résistance, American Psycho, also that everything has changed to a point off-the-grid living platonic friends, Claire, Dag and where the only appropriate response is Andy (the primary narrator), Coupland highlights all-out detachment. This coping mechan the persistent problem of today in showcasing 54. 55. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 7 The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same - Genna Rivieccio

came out the same year as Generation common ground with his parents, meaning in the “spiritual” experience he cares about more than his place in order to make money, as the baby X. 1990-1991: the amount of time opting instead to stay in the remote of travel, all the while ignoring that in the Will, Andy remarks, “I am boomers did). allowed for a solid year of reflection desert recesses of California to they’re paying out the nose to do it reminded that no matter how hard So what is it that really upon the aftermath of the 80s. And wait out the holiday season. Claire, (even hostels don’t come cheap). you try, you can never be more than separates the Gen Xers from the what is the consensus of the growing too, has non-family related Xmas And so, as Claire attempts twelve years old with your parents.” millennials? They’re both looked generation it begat? “Poverty lurks.” celebrations in mind, pursuing a to win back the affection of Tobias This level of infantalization upon as lazy ne’er do wells trapped No matter how much a person or semi-boyfriend named Tobias (a real over Christmas, Andy grudgingly —which has persisted from the 90s in a perpetual state of immaturity. familial unit might accrue, there is Patrick Bateman type in good looks, makes his way back home, where and into the present epoch—is, in Well, maybe the former group always the potential—the very real good “breeding” and good profession) many of his siblings have come and many respects, what prevents modern was in possession of a touch more possibility—that it will either 1) never in New York after an interaction with gone to recuperate from life in the humans from ever transforming into compassion and humanity (the be enough (whether literally or with her in the desert proves to be more realm of adulthood. In this regard, the version of adult established so internet really has lent an element of regard to metaphorical appetite) or 2) than he bargained for. the parallels between Gen Xers and firmly by the baby boomers that extreme desensitization to the post- be entirely and unexpectedly stripped As a “yuppie wannabe” type millennials continue to abound. asserted their generational power. 1995 world). away (see: 2008 financial crisis). of fellow, his brief desire to dabble with The millennial predilection toward Indeed, most adhere to a At the very end of Generation “Financial paranoia instilled a girl like Claire stems from believing moving back in with one’s parents is a strong belief in “safety netism,” an X, Coupland gives his readers a in offspring of Depression-era she might be able to save him from trend that existed among Gen Xers as anomaly in somewhat direct conflict breakdown of all the statistical ways parents” is passed down like a disease, the curse of being “interesting” solely well—though, admittedly, it appears with the notion of “poverty lurks.” in which things have changed for the prompting the likes of Andy, Dag and for his handsomeness. That she might millennials are far more comfortable Unlike the latter fear, “safety netism” worse since the X generation came Claire to see little point in cultivating be imbued with the power to lend doing so, and generally less self- espouses the belief “that there will of age (for example, “percentage of any sense of permanence, relying him some of her substance. But after deprecating about the whole affair of always be a financial and emotional income required for a down payment on occasional “McJobs” (“a low-pay, realizing he is much more a member arrested development. safety net to buffer life’s hurts. Usually on a first home” in 1967 was 22 and, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, of the pay for your experiences Still, most who are forced to parents.” by 1987, had jumped to 32). no-future job in the service sector”) of happiness sect, he recoils. This spend protracted periods with their And yet, this dependence But if things are always to sustain their “terminal wanderlust: concept of “purchased experiences parents after the age of eighteen on the ones who made you what getting worse, aren’t they technically a condition common to people of don’t count” is explained by Claire’s (and, frequently, even before then), you are—insane—is in opposition always the same? transient middle class upbringings. only female friend, Elvissa, who will have the same revelation as to the contempt that is subliminally Unable to feel rooted in any one chidingly remarks to Tobias, “Fake Andy: “Already, after ten minutes, felt toward them. The combination environment, they move continually yuppie experiences that you had to any spiritual or psychic progress I of resentment and reliance leads in the hopes of finding an idealized spend money on, like white water may have made in the absence of Andy to seethe, “Give parents the sense of community in the next rafting or elephant rides in Thailand my family has vanished or been tiniest of confidences and they’ll location.” don’t count. I want to hear some invalidated.” use them as crowbars to jimmy you For Andy, that idealized small moment from your life that With Andy being reduced to open and rearrange your life with no community seems to exist with Dag proves you’re really alive.” this child-like state on contact with perspective. Sometimes I’d just like to and Claire in his proverbial karass. As the most capitalistic his parents as a result of how they see mace them. I want to tell them that Though each one comes and goes society, even in a post-Eisenhower, him, Coupland can’t help but refer to I envy their upbringings that were as he or she pleases, they always post-Reagan, post-Bush I/II world, a tongue-in-cheek vocabulary term in so clean, so free of futurelessness. And end up linking together again to it’s a challenge for most twenty- this segment of the novel, “pull-the- I want to throttle them for blithely relish, ironically, the freedom of no something Americans to feel they’re plug, slice the pie: a fantasy in which handing over the world to us like so attachments. enjoying themselves without spending an offspring mentally tallies up the much skid-marked underwear.” With Christmas approaching, an unnecessary sum of money. net worth of his parents.” Like Gen Millennials, likewise, have Andy is faced with the unpleasant During both the nineties and today, Xers, millennials possess a latent lust this innate sense of blame-shifting, reminder that he is expected to return the “best” way for young, unfocused, for their parents’ death, seeing it as pinning the cause of their stagnation home to the Pacific Northwest (to a generally confused about life people a way to avoid real responsibility by in life on their forebears as opposed city that shall not be named here to feel “fulfilled” is to shell out the coasting on the monetary legacy of to acknowledging any of their more so as not to lend it undue credit). money for a vision quest-oriented their progenitors. self-made problems (e.g. a lack of will Conversely, Dag has long ago given trip. Ignoring the cost part, twenty- Nonetheless, putting in the to suffer the fools of cubicle existence up the ghost of feigning any sort of somethings truly believe they’ll find time required to convince his parents

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