“God, the bitter misery that reading works in this The Opiate world! Everybody knows Your literary dose. that—everybody who is ev- erybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years.” -Dorothy Parker, “The Little Hours”

© The Opiate 2019 Cover art: photo taken in Lisbon in 2018, near Porto de Lisboa facing Cristo Rei This magazine, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission. ISSN 2381-859X 3. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19

Editor-in-Chief Poetry: Genna Rivieccio Emily Costantino, “2002-a confession” 71 Editor-at-Large Malik Crumpler Victor Marrero, “Lives Not Lived” 72-73 Editorial Advisor Caroline Maun, “Slow Flood: Detroit 2019” 74 Armando Jaramillo Garcia Nels Hanson, “Beyond Area 51” 75 Contributing Writers: Stephen Waldron, “Brittle, Unbending” & “Isaac’s Pool” 76-77 Fiction: Steve Denehan, “Come and Get It Boys!” & “The Devil” 78-79 Joe McAvoy, “The Exact Moment of Charles Barber’s Enlightenment” 10 Charlie Brice, “The Truth About August” 80 Youssef Alaoui, “Les Bats” 14 Donna Dallas, “Breaking Bread” & “What I Wore to the Prom” 81-84 Peter F. Crowley, “Polarization” 20 Max DeVoe Talley, “At the Symposium” 21 Criticism: Jane Moore, “I Always Wanted to Be a Lawyer” 28 Genna Rivieccio, “Every Love Permutation is Tainted in Jean Rhys’ Quartet” 86 S.W. Gordon, “Penelope’s Tapestry” 31 John R. Murray, “The Plunge” 35 Leanne Grabel, Brontosaurus, Chapters 36-39 41-69

4. 5. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19

Harkening back to the Dorothy Parker lament about books, in the case of Max DeVoe Talley’s “At the Symposium,” it applies in a more contemporary way in terms of the doltishness that has Editor’s Note irrevocably infected the publishing industry. An industry that prides itself on its newfound love of When Dorothy Parker was commenting on “the bitter misery that reading works in this world” back political correctness perhaps more than any other, going so far as to be unashamed about having in the day (a period when the written word was actually still influential to all walks of life), she meant implemented the job title “Sensitivity Reader” into most major publishing houses that can still vaguely it in a far more poetic manner than it might be interpreted now. Because, in her mind, reading afford such expenditures. Because it’s not about the writing, it’s about appealing to the lowest was responsible for everyone’s skewed perception of romance—more specifically how it tainted the common denominator—which seems to have more purchasing power than the errant few still sticking expectation versus reality conundrum of love. What Carrie Bradshaw would foolishly call, “Ridiculous, with literary works as opposed to movie franchisable series and the YA genre. inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.” For maybe only people in New York and Paris are still cracked enough to believe in such an unrealistic concept (despite being the most Jane Moore’s “I Always Wanted to Be a Lawyer” also accents the disconnect between practicality jaded members of the world’s population). Is it because these populations still read (or at least put and passion as our narrator reconciles that while becoming a lawyer might be the path to theoretical on a good show of pretending)? Perhaps. But that’s not really the point of why this particular Parker financial success, the will doesn’t always translate to the way. Something she’s better off acknowledging aphorism stuck out to me for Vol. 19. Instead, it is due to the prevalence of tainted love in the issue. sooner rather than later, unlike the large bulk of Americans who choose to go down a career path The kind that can only arise when one has banked all their hopes for l’amour on the false ideas that and refuse to turn back because they’ve already funneled too much money into it on the education literature (and, let’s be honest, film and TV—the twenty-first century version of literature) has instilled in front (ah, just another joy of living in the land of the “free”). the minds of writers. Writers who, despite their cynicism, can’t stop believing in the notions cultivated in the classics. Whether the bathetic outcome of The Sorrows of Young Werther or the overtly toxic The plight of writing (and, as a result, implicitly not having anyone to read your work as the vast yearning and burning presented in Wuthering Heights, all of the greatest literature has underscored majority out there nowadays is a writer not a reader, even though the two words used to infer being an obviously unattainable (for most, so as not to generalize) form of love. Of the variety that insists one and the same) finds its way once more into the narrative of “Penelope’s Tapestry” from S.W. insurmountable obstacles and drama at every turn mean only that it is true and pure. Gordon. Starting from the moment in Gabriel’s preadolescence when he knew he wanted to be a writer, we flash to a hostile present, in which his wife, Penelope (or Penny), is seemingly determined Of course, for some couples, this might be their kink. Others have surrendered to the idea that to put the kibosh on him finishing his manuscript at all costs. After all, he’s known for writing a little too perhaps love boils down to pragmatism a.k.a. “settling” for a relationship more grounded to this earth obviously about her for “inspiration.” as opposed to the loftiness of everything being dictated by “the heavens” and “the gods” (as is the case in the root of all modern literature: Greek tragedy). Throughout the course of the fiction section, A strained relationship between husband and wife (as well as overall nuclear family dynamic) also it is as though the disappointments and resignations of each character is a direct result of the letdown creeps into John R. Murray’s “The Plunge,” in which Daniel, technically a “family man,” finds his that comes from having spent one’s formative years turning to literature for guidance and counsel vacation largely hijacked by overbearing tour guides that dictate where they can go and what they in terms of what to anticipate for their own whirlwind romance. This, too, extends into the arena of can do. What’s worse, his wife (in particular) and kids seem much more content to listen to them careers and friendships as well, for is not everything one is supposed to be passionate about a labor than anything he might have to say. Then again, maybe Daniel’s disappointment secretly stems from of love? Or, in Charles Barber’s case, a labor of self-discovery by unearthing that the object of his having read too many books as a child that told him life was going to be otherwise. Not quite so lust—as well as his business associate—has betrayed him? From the unique mind of Joe McAvoy, “The middling. So it is that he finds his own unexpected way to “mix it up.” Exact Moment of Charles Barber’s Enlightenment” takes us on a journey from our main character’s hangover from a night in La Rambla before being thrown directly into the depths of Morocco at the In the next set of chapters from Leanne Grabel’s Brontosaurus, our heroine ends up as “Mrs. Harry” suggestion of Marco, with arrangements made by Isabella (the aforementioned business associate after a barrage of bad relationships that lead her to give in to the convenience of someone who most and object of his lust—not to mention Marco’s daughter). As in “the novels,” Charles is hurled into certainly doesn’t live up to the bill of, say, a Heathcliff or a Romeo... or even an Edward Rochester, unexpected and unlikely circumstances. But unlike what the books dictate, his grand revelation about for that matter. life doesn’t necessarily come all that gracefully. And with that, we segue into the poetry section, for once actually harboring the same number of pieces Nor does it for our nocturnal protagonist in Youssef Alaoui’s “Les Bats,” whose blood connection to a as in the fiction one (for it is decidedly more of a difficulty to come across fiction these days—no shade fellow vampiric friend keeps him (literally) hanging out with him perhaps well past the expiration date to the poets). Commencing with Emily Costantino, who has also appeared on theopiatemagazine. of their nighttime antics-based camaraderie. Of the variety that only the likes of Lestat de Lioncourt com with the aptly titled “Poem,” “2002-a confession” offers a slow build that hooks you from the and Louis de Pointe du Lac can understand. outset and sinks you with its conclusion. Costantino’s knack for evocative narrative poetry shines through at every turn, giving her reader a lifeline (pun intended) into her fraught mind. The brevity of Peter F. Crowley’s “Polarization” allows for the full weight of its pithiness to hit you only after you suddenly realize you’ve made it to the end of the last sentence. With its jarring conclusion, Talking of one’s life line, The Opiate alumni (of which there are many in this issue) Victor Marrero’s we’re left to wonder, as many of us so often did in elementary school: what the hell really is the “Lives Not Lived” is an affecting rumination on all the paths we might have taken, haunting us like 6. benefit of kickball? 7. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19

phantom limbs, akin to Esther Greenwood’s famed fig tree metaphor (“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked... I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”). But Marrero has emboldened words to conclude his work, defiant ones that cast out all fear—something that can really only be done when you’ve got nothing left to lose.

In keeping with the apocalyptic climate change-related times of now, Caroline Maun’s “Slow Flood: Detroit 2019” conjures all too familiar images of the moment (while also likening them to the deluge that presents itself in our various “feeds” and news cycles). What’s worse, prognostications of the future that don’t seem all that far-fetched. A reality that transitions quite nicely into Nels Hanson’s “Beyond Area 51,” a poem that can be read as taking place either before or after the proverbial fall. One supposes it all depends on your level of optismism at this juncture.

Images of catastrophe are also eloquently crystallized in Stephen Waldron’s “Brittle, Unbending” and “Isaac’s Pool”—both will haunt well after reading, thanks to each poem’s final and most brutal line. Luckily, we have Steve Denehan to lighten the mood for a moment with “Come and Get It Boys!,” a relatable plight about being mercilessly pursued by mosquitoes—which, of course, makes one even more grateful that the summer is presently over. Yet even Denehan can’t resist a touch of playful existentialism with “The Devil,” the sighting of which occurs in a telling milieu. FICTION Charlie Brice’s homage to a season that often gets maligned—winter, for it isn’t just that it’s cold but that it signals some sort of end—is delivered with persuasive conviction in “The Truth About August.” Which is, among other things, that “soon October will occur.” The month when Donna Dallas’ “Breaking Bread” takes place, specifically Halloween. The time when masking both the literal and the figurative feels so much easier. Perhaps that’s why we begin in ‘85 and end in ‘86, two separate years of semi- aloof denial on the part of our narrator making it easier to chalk up her significant other’s heroin addiction to the decade. Dallas rounds out the poetry section with “What I Wore to the Prom,” a scathing and hilarious damnation of a certain trope that invariably ends up peaking in high school while some of the rest of us go on to, well, live.

But arrogance, of course, can always turn out to be an Achilles’ heel, as it does for our protagonist in the subject of this edition’s criticism, Marya Zelli in Jean Rhys’ first novel,Quartet . A gut-wrenching account of the pratfalls of naïveté (or, at least, enforced naïveté for the sake of self-preservation), Marya’s tale is very much proof of the R.C. Dunning quote, “...Beware/Of good Samaritans—walk to the right/Or hide thee by the roadside out of sight/Or greet them with the smile that villains wear.”

For no one helps you for free. Except me.

Sincerely,

Genna Rivieccio October 17, 2019 Paris, France 8. 9. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 The Exact Moment of Charles Barber’s Enlightenment - Joe McAvoy

he could, when he thought no one through the medina toward his hotel Barber. Let me introduce you to my was looking—over her whenever he in a non-touristy part of the city. Lack brother, Abbas,” he said. “Abbas The Exact Moment of Charles managed to get near her. Her blushes of sleep and one too many martinis in can be a tad impetuous, so please only heightened his arousal. first class had dulled Charles’ senses act responsibly.” Abbas’ shy smile Barber’s Englightenment When Marco called her in, as they whizzed through the old city. seemed to approve of his depiction. an old Neil Young song played in He leaned back into the “Marco has told us much about you, Joe McAvoy Charles’ head: “Oh Isabella, proud headrest, his eyes half closed, Charles.” Farouk’s face tightened as Isabella, they tore you down and pretending to listen as Farouk he spoke. “That you have eyes for plowed you under…” pointed out the arabesque motifs his daughter.” Charles turned to face “Charles Barber closed his eyes like a child losing the fight against sleep. He smiled, nodding to him- self in agreement with the uni- verse’s verdict.” na drive by here on a scooter?” Time was of the essence he crooked-shaped man stared up at and it was slipping away from him like his ex-wives. Fast, I’d like to plow you under, carved into the fountains and walls him. “And hands, too. I understand,” Charles, T his languorous eyes shining out from within a furious and with everything he owned. he thought. She took down his and talked of the precise geometry Farouk continued. Charles started to hooded djellaba. The business trip that had brought him overseas information to arrange the trip, doing of the tiles trimming the arches and protest. “I don’t know what the fuck “Sir, your question is quite…,” he paused, search- wasn’t going as planned. His longtime client, Marco, had her best to avoid meeting eyes while corner edges on the pisé architecture. you…” Farouk cut him short with ing for the right word, “…unusual. Yes, unusual.” demanded, to Charles’ surprise, additional terms and they talked. Her leg jerked away Laundry fluttered from lines strung a wag of his finger, his face taking He sat atop what appeared to have once been a conditions to the contract between their two companies when he put his hand on her knee. between open windows. Fez-topped on a look of mock disappointment. respectable carpet about twenty running strides or so up before he would renew for another year. Charles had to Marco watched from behind men smoked from hookahs at tables “Isabella?” he asked. He paused to let the alley, his legs splayed out like roots from underneath, extend his stay for another week. He liked Barcelona. He his desk. on the street. The scent of kebab and the name sink in. “Tut, tut, Charles.” regarding Charles as one might a kangaroo if a kangaroo really did. Still, when Marco suggested that he get away to Charles spent that evening tagine wafted up from outdoor stalls Shit, Charles thought. He happened to hop up beside one inquiring of such a ridic- Morocco for a short weekend, it felt right. with a couple of hookers in some in the souks. tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a groan. ulous thing. “I am sorry, sir, but your question flummoxes Clear out his brain. Come back on Monday re- dark place off La Rambla before The hotel had no elevator. Any weariness clinging to his face on me,” he continued, his English impeccable. He shook his freshed. Get the deal done. taking a cab to the airport. His suit Farouk followed him up the stairs, the drive in from the airport was gone. head again, as if to emphasize the absurdity of the situa- Isabella could make the arrangements, Marco was wrinkled and smattered with the carrying the luggage. A younger man He stood blinking like a condemned tion he found himself in. said. She had a friend over there who could show him night’s detritus. He smelled of cheap with long black hair flowing out from man on the gallows, shifting his “I can say with deep assurance that I have not around. Sure, Charles thought. Why not? Anything to get perfume and cigarettes and stale under a blue bandana stood on the far weight from one foot to the other. seen a man wearing a blue banana.” close to Isabella again, even if just for a few minutes. He booze. wall of the foyer holding a hammer “I had no idea. Please tell “Aaagh!” Charles waved his arms over his head. had bumped into her on previous visits to Marco’s office. Farouk, Isabella’s guy in as Charles entered the room. Farouk, Mar…” “Blue bandana! Did you see a man wearing a blue banda- She was…alluring. He ran his eyes—and his hands where Marrakech, picked him up at the behind, blocked the doorway. Farouk held an index finger airport. They took a circuitous route “Change in plans, Mr. over his lips. “It’s too late for that, 10. 11. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 The Exact Moment of Charles Barber’s Enlightenment - Joe McAvoy

Charles. Marco was quite adamant,” advised. “It demeans you.” The open carved across the bridge of his nose. children skipping rope. He reached he asserted. stairwell amplified the pounding of He regarded Charles as if they were into his shirt pocket and pulled two Charles scanned the room, their footsteps as they ran down to old friends. cigarettes from an open pack, lighting contemplating a run for it. the street. “Do I know you?” Charles them together. The crippled man Abbas raised the hammer. “God bless America,” asked. reached up to accept one without a Farouk shook his head. “Never mind Farouk called up, Abbas cackling in “That, too, is a question for word, as if it was expected. that,” he said, throwing the suitcase the background. which I have no answer,” the man Charles took a deep drag and small daypack to the floor. “Let’s Charles hesitated for a replied. “Though I think it fair to say, and sat down, exhaling only when he get this over with quickly.” He pulled moment, sorting through what had in the little time thus shared between could no longer hold the smoke. out a cloth bag from his coat pocket. just happened before running down us, we are cut from the same cloth.” “You know,” he said. “Maybe “Your valuables please. Do this the stairs and bursting out of the hotel He rubbed a hand over the carpet it’s me.” without a fuss and you don’t get hurt. door to the street where Abbas revved and chuckled. “We prefer the alleys. The man nodded. “You got Make a fuss,” he pointed to Abbas an old scooter at the curb. Farouk sat We are right where we belong.” plenty of time to consider it,” he said. and the hammer, “and you do get facing backwards behind him, the He barely blinked; eyes soft but They turned away from each hurt. Simple, yes?” bag with Charles’ belongings tucked unyielding. “Or do I misread you?” other, facing forward with their backs Charles emptied his pockets between his legs. His shoulders Charles saw his own face in against the wall, smoking in silence. and took off his watch, handing pushed up into a shrug, his yellowed the man splayed out before him over The crippled man leaned his head everything over to Farouk while teeth visible through a widening smile. the threadbare carpet. Everything back and blew two perfect smoke Abbas ransacked the luggage, Abbas hit the throttle and the scooter began to blur and his knees buckled. rings that hovered over them like halos throwing clothes and papers and jumped forward, zipping down the He stepped back to take a deep until they faded into nothingness. toiletries across the room until he main road. Farouk waved a goodbye breath, then bent over, bracing was satisfied that he had all that was over a trail of black exhaust marking himself with one hand on the wall, worth taking. their route until they disappeared up trying to regain some equilibrium. Farouk shoved everything an alley where, twenty or so running A flock of birds flew down the thin into the bag and turned to his brother. strides in, a panting Charles Barber line of blue sky above. He cocked his “Abbas, please attend to Mr. Barber’s came upon the crooked-shaped man head back to follow their flight. phone and laptop.” Abbas wrapped on the worn carpet. Such beauty, he thought. the instruments with some towels The late morning sunlight A thick drop of white bird from the bathroom to mute the noise penetrated down through the cut shit splattered on the tip of his nose. and went to work with the hammer. between the buildings, breaking the Charles Barber closed his When he was finished, he looked to shadows into vertical shafts. Vibrant- eyes like a child losing the fight his older brother for approval. All that colored flags swayed softly over the against sleep. He smiled, nodding remained of Charles’s connections to smoothed cobblestones in a gentle to himself in agreement with the the world—shattered pieces of metal, breeze, dancing over a chorus of universe’s verdict. The man on the plastic, glass and wires—were hurled muted conversations that flowed carpet shifted over, patting the area about the room or hanging out from out over each other through open he had vacated. the broken frames that once housed doorways and windows. The scent of “Plenty of room,” he said. them. spiced meats and vegetables grilling Charles stood over him, Farouk stepped so close out of sight mixed with the pungent feeling so light now that he might rise to Charles that their noses almost smells of centuries of urine and up and float away. He ran his jacket touched. “I think our business is done garbage and potted flowers blooming sleeve over his face to wipe the shit here,” he said. “I am sure that Marco on the window ledges. off and looked up again to the blue and Isabella would approve.” He The two men said nothing. sky where a wispy thread of cloud licked a thumb and traced the sign Their eyes locked on each other’s. had moved in at a high altitude. The of the cross on Charles’ forehead. The crippled man pulled birds were gone now. The chorus of “Your past sins are forgiven you,” his hood back with both hands and conversations through the windows he said. “It’s up to you now.” The faced Charles, who was surprised by and doors converged into a song two men headed to the door. Farouk his blonde hair and youth. The man’s he thought he recognized but could turned back one last time. “And, face was familiar, though etched with not name. The flags bounced up really, Charles. Take a shower,” he long, deep lines. A wide nick was and down in the breeze like lines of 12. 13. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Les Bats - Youssef Alaoui

4:30 a.m. It was the Victor Massé of the walls and found my foot, then horizontal sleep within a wall in ages. Pigalle. There were plenty of pipes tugged at it to remind me to remain I slept deeply, so deeply that I woke Les Bats flying off the roof in several places. He absolutely silent. What harm could up at the bottom of the wall late the found the hole first and I shimmied up come from this? Two more knocks next morning. Daylight is bad. People Youssef Alaoui after him, spitting dust as he kicked it came, so I knocked back. He hit me on might see me emerge from the hole. I loose from his scrambling. I took off the foot and grabbed hold, pulling me looked around. to the left, feeling through the narrow down. Stop that! I hissed. He hit me In my favor, there were layers of lath and plaster. Soon I again. Hello? They said from within. bushes surrounding the exit. Against managed to fan my arms out and feel I could do anything from here. Wow. me, there was a sidewalk restaurant around for a pipe to stand on. What an opportunity. I was running within sight, right around the corner. I think I’m going to smoke. through the implications. This could There were about five good paces Shh! He said. Smoke! Don’t talk! And move go far, but I’d have to move into between my exit in the bushes and the from there. Get to the other side and climb up these walls semi-permanent. That last table, patrolled by a young waiter. here. I need to piss. Then I’ll show you how would not be good. But, I could be I saw one knee in a stocking. I scooted to sleep horizontal, not vertical like you do, Paris’ new soothsayer! I could get my my entire body out of the hole in a pressed between two boards. You sleep like writing read by millions of people! I compacted ball, hid under the bush, a bat! I... I want to sleep like a bat, I could dictate predictions annually! discovered I had to urinate, waited said. You sleep like you’re dead! Fine Monthly! Daily! Or I could scare the for my chance and sprang behind a then. Make way! And just like that he living daylights out of these two and trash container to relieve myself. I urinated at me, I could hear it. Marco! possibly suffocate myself for having watched my stream trickle straight Polo! He said. I ignored his antics and to hold my laughter in perfect silence. for the table before dropping down a scurried above him, to the other side. For a moment, I was stumped. I drain at the mouth of the alley. Sometimes we heard voices kicked the wall. There! Again! They You were snoring! You can’t! Snore! in the rooms, sometimes fights. I had said. I heard. Then I heard someone No! So I pushed you. You moved. You lost just made too much shuffling noise. I further away say This is disgusting. I’m your perch and slid down like a pinball! could hear some hotel guests trying to going down to the desk. I will see if we can You should have been there it was hilarious! figure out what was on the other side change rooms. Footsteps. Ah, the pinch No, I shouldn’t have been there, I was of their wall. One was perplexed and of failure, yet again. Paris will have to there. You were so passed out, I had to let nervous, the other was angry. They wait to hear my oeuvre. It would be a you sleep. But you made a loud noise and I got closer. I held my breath. Honest tale of the people, the new “Comédie got out of there fast, man. You were dead George, I think someone is in that wall... Humaine.” I would include everyone to the world. Wow. So you left me. You but that’s impossible. No one ~alive~ could in town. No one would escape my were fine! I was at risk! He thumped his possibly be in there, could they, George? pen! I shimmied out of range for that hands on his chest. don’t want to get bombed and stay up all night with a chimney flue or radiator pipes. Look up! See? He —Jojo, I highly doubt it but I do believe room. Sun up, sun down. Night again likeI we used to. I always found myself out long after would say. He would point to a grouping of pipes at the that the Victor Massé has rats. Sounds like They knocked here and again. If I wasn’t reading newspapers midnight and sloppy drunk, trying to bow out of the next edge of the roof. This one’s good to go. Then we’d look down a couple old, heavy ones. I will call the front there throughout the night, but we at my place, I’d hang out in a stairwell unfortunate incident. One night, early on, I had to pull at street level and sure enough he’d find us a hole or some desk. —One moment, George. Let me… were perfectly silent. He handed me or shady alley until dark. This night, him off a poor normal sap before he could scream into his kind of access point at the base of the wall and we’d shim- and someone knocked softly, ever so his pipe with hash in it. We smoked he came to my place with half a bottle ears and rip his eyes out about how trite and dull he was. my right on up. He was skinny but I was losing it. Too softly in my face. Jojo! For crying out and relaxed. I found a sewage pipe of whiskey, which we finished quickly, What a critic. I grabbed him by the arm and that’s when I many years of drinking. Too much food. Too much pain. loud, Jojo what are you doing, trying to running along the wall in the way then we polished off my cheap bottle met the mongoose in him. He curled his eyebrows togeth- He hadn’t had The Pain yet. The pain of profound loss. knock them out of the walls? —No George. he described. Toilet. Not sink. They of wine that I had been saving for er in a way that made me look down at his hands for a But he was high on ideas and meds. He was high People use one another’s first names both run horizontal. Some stretch a rainy day, but it’s usually rainy knife. I said Come on! It’s only poetry! And he said I would on his age. He still figured he was at the center of his like a control handle sometimes, like a few feet, long enough to maintain here, so anyway, he pulled out some kill for a good poem! I would gladly kill you for a good poem! And reality and that he could fight the devil with meditation, a leash. I read about this in a magazine. balance on. Toilet pipes were wider greasepaint and, before we knew it, he grabbed me by the shirt collar. I threw him to the floor. drink and sex. I never saw him eat. Yes. Once. Yes, he ate This is one way to communicate. and sturdier, some were even found we were wearing frightful black and He kept my collar with him as he went down. Yanked my salami sticks and corn chips. Gulped down red wine after. —Communicate? Then I close to a radiator. That is a luxury white skull faces so crudely drawn a neck. We both stormed out of the reading. That’s pretty He didn’t need much sleep. He had stopped into my place received a sharp knock in my nose. accommodation. That’s not what I pair of five-year-olds could have done much why I’m not interested in getting so drunk, staying then beckoned me out to the streets once more. We drank My knee kicked by mistake. had. I worked my feet up, laid back better. He wrote “Kali Yuga” on my up all night, and sleeping in the walls of buildings like a and smoked in the alleys of Montmartre late at night. He There. There you go. We have on the pipe, lodged my shoes between knuckles. I thought that was cool. I bat. danced and sang. I thought of you, by the way. It rained made contact. —Well I’ll be. My friend a beam on the outside wall and found drew words on his arms, words like: He was skinny enough. He showed me how to steadily all night. We were soaked. I stank like wet wool. began feeling around for me between myself perched horizontally. My first Never Confined, No Rules, Freedom search for a good exterior wall on a thick old building, We finally climbed into the wall of a giant old hotel at 14. 15. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Les Bats - Youssef Alaoui

From Limitation, Creative Maniac, and left with the tourists. We found window frame. A skull face sunrise. ask you! I was to the hooch. That was when I makeup wandered over his face as he Lover Of Sexy Wo/Men Everywhere. a small cocktail bar down the way. The room was empty. He took me ...If I am not to help you vowed to quit remembering the good breathed and dreamed. I wondered He wrote more on me, vice versa, we They bought us drinks. He wanted by the sleeve and went looking for fight your spiderwebs, then how did times you and I shared and decided what stories my face revealed, but were at it a while. to hit the old quarter. He said this is another window. The tourists hung I run across you like this, mid-act? I to carry out my slow extraction plan I could see nothing. All the mirrors We consulted the tarot. It where you can see the first street of Paris. I back in the shadows, asking quietly suppose I thought I was your watcher. as I saw fit. Besides, it was still fun. were coated with years of dust. guided us on a brief exploration of corrected him. The oldest. He shook what we were up to, with a bit of Correction! You are camera flying into sky! I We found wine, lots of At about 2 p.m., the sun sprayed our drunken selves, made us doubt our his head. Which came first? The first street desperation. Skull Face Sunrise, I tell am bird of wings horizon! We, the watchers it, in a cellar coated with dust in a refractions of itself across the back relationships and had us considering a or the oldest? I said the street, like so them. Skull Face Sunrise! I like it, he said, of wisdom lightning! This is our porous Belle Époque building not far from wall, sending diamond shapes like very hazy path toward some kind of many of the original streets of central and he approached the next window world! Get it? We are both watchers! We where we met up. We sat on the floor glitter all over the dead hutch and future, lined with the Six of Wands Paris, might have been altered or with swooping, delicate gestures like are the wise watchers of nature’s twilight and stuffed our coat pockets with fireplace. The light was cut by an and Page of Pentacles at the end, pulled up, like what Napoleon III’s a dancer, with large leg movements, which seemed pretty good to us, but Haussmann renovation had done to landing on his toe, fingers poised on we had no idea exactly what to stop the grand boulevards. But! That makes a sill, bringing his skull face closer for “There were no lights in the stee- doing and what to start. whichever street that’s been there the longest, an artsier presentation. Big screams Then we turned out all the the first street of Paris! We are not sure, from inside. Success! He laughed so lights and beckoned for spirits to I told the tourists. They had tuned us hard and so quickly while trying to descend upon us, to dance with us, to out already. We were walking briskly stifle it at the same time, that tears make love to us. Nothing happened. toward the little neighborhood where flowed profusely down his face, ple. Suspended in absolute dark, I He said he wanted a ghost head and the walls are crooked and the cobbles smearing his makeup. I did not think what would that feel like? We called are very large. Not Mouffetard. Not his makeup needed mending. The out a few times with no response. Rue St. Jacques. There are particular raw streaks added to his look. The Then we went to a bar, had a few; the streets with six hundred-year-old tourists wanted to go. I had promised felt complete. No longer was there music was changing and we made to cobble. The tourists were fascinated, to walk them to the metro. The metro is leave, but then some beautiful tourists looking everywhere. He laid down the closed! Construction! I took them to a taxi walked in, asking if they could sit ground rules. No photos, no flashes. No stand. He would stay where he was, there. I said we could certainly share. loud noise. In fact, silence. Just silence. lurking in the old quarter. They liked our faces. We showed They were quiet. The four It was three days later. I a distinction between the night and them our arms, our chest and back. of us approached the vacant street spotted his white serpent-like form We had poetry, adages, faces and without words, listening to the night, across the street as I floated out of symbols everywhere from the belt up. smelling the alternating wafts of cool the tabac. Screams leapt into the Then the conversation got interesting. rain and trees, filtering through the night from the third story window. He He took the hands of one of them and ends of dinner. He pointed to a brick slithered down and picked up his coat myself.” laid them on the table smoothly and in the street. It said 1487. The tourists from the sidewalk. I handed him a methodically, as if he were beginning looked up for confirmation. Yes, we cigarette. Look! He rolled his eyes back a ritual. I said he was going to peer nodded. It’s a brick in an old street in in his head and stuck his tongue out. coves! Behold the night! Behold our domain! bottles. He insisted on giving me a immense, drooping chandelier in the into her soul now, and did she have any Paris with a number on it. Anything The black circles of makeup around Have you got any wine? I did not. I skull kabuki face, his own stylized salon. plans or concerns. Plans or concerns. could mean anything. In fact, anything his eyes drooped down his cheeks and had promised you that afternoon rendition. I am not going up tonight. I fell asleep. Faces of people I made it clear that this was where she does mean anything. This was our his mouth gaped unnaturally large. I that I would discontinue seeking his You will! You will love it! I promise! This we had met together occupied my should meditate, or rather, open the magic. In our world, anything means was taken aback. Is this your stab at company and yet, he was always so is a new pleasure you should not miss. We dreams. I heard the chorus of a song floodgates to any nature of question. anything. We offered no explanation. kabuki? No! This is butoh! Skull-Faced easy to find. Perhaps because we were will be fine, trust me. I trusted him. beating in my mind. I lay there stiff Then he pulled out a pen and drew The windows were smaller here, with Sunrise! We must perform on buildings in brothers? Not blood brothers, but No problems. Daylight had almost and cold as it lifted from a radio in on the arms of the tourists. He didn’t yellow light. We stood in silence to tandem! This will be our masterpiece! This maybe yes, blood. Definitely blood. returned. The upper floors of the the street, came in through an empty need the tarot. He just looked right take it all in, the ivy, the windows, is my new muse, he told me. This is There’s nothing unclean about building were empty. We sought window, and strangled my mind. The into a person’s eyes and told them the sensation of thousands of people now my major passion. I must be the new chicken blood, but you made me refuge at the very top floor. We faces rose from jagged mountaintops whatever came to mind. I sat with him occupying these homes and treading Spring-Heeled Jack! But I will be Skull- agree to quit the blood games, so I discussed matters of trust, and more and filled the sky. They all sang the and saw it too, as he saw it. I watched the cobblestones over hundreds of Faced Jacques! I had already promised stopped. I explained to you that I was important matters such as whether or song. They asked me questions. They and sipped my beer. He was right on years. myself, and you, that I would be rid executing a slow diffusion rather than not the comma had any function at all spoke and sang at once. I cried in target. We all laughed. Then he approached a of him. I needed to tell him so I did; an immediate break with him. I said I the end of a line of poetry anymore. my sleep. I think. I woke up a few Their minds were blown. window and beckoned to me with I can’t go on fighting your spiderwebs was trying to pour off the bubbles of People still did it. I said commas were hours later. The sun had set. He had We had onlookers. Other people an arm outstretched, fingers curling every night! Why would you want to do our relationship. You said it was very like skin tags. Skin tags hold more blood drawn a circle with a pentacle in the wanted readings from the skull-faced a little. I ducked behind him. Slow that? Stop that now, I implore you! You have alcoholic of me, stating it like that. than a comma, he said. I agreed. We dust on the floor. He was looking at characters. We gratefully declined and steady, he raised his head into the no business in my spiderwebs, nor did I ever You said I was as addicted to him as dozed on bones of filthy couches. His me. Tonight I am your watcher. You will do 16. 17. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Les Bats - Youssef Alaoui

as I do. You will come with me and dance the building on Rue St. Maur. One of amazing time. We have not yet begun. Too meal, found its legs snapped off in the on the wall. The world around me affect us. We fought and scraped in the Skull Face Sunrise tonight! Aha! The features my personal favorites. It was the little bad we don’t have an audience. Oh, we jaws of a fish. It was a regal sound with rotated. He had me by the neck and middle of the avenue as the sun rose. of your face shift every few seconds. This is a church with a spire that disappears have our audience. Really. Yes. Look above. end notes of sheer pain and disgust. was strangling the life out of me. He I tossed his wretched form into a park good sign. You are alive. Our performance will into the midnight sky. He dropped his Well, they are participants. Ah yes! But This was too much fun. I had did mean it. He was killing me. You by the road. He slipped inside a tree be the finest Paris has ever experienced! Here. coat. I did the same. He grabbed my this is participatory theater. Come with me no idea an experience like this would had warned me. I hung in front of the trunk. I hit the tree a few times, kicked He handed me a bottle. You may begin hand and kicked the wall, not with now. Take your last sip. I gulped more be so illuminating. Someone would be window, with our audience trapped it. Nothing. I went back for my coat with the blood sacrifice. Drink this blood of his toe, but with his flat foot. The wine. My knees wobbled when I got sure to stop us soon. I thought about inside their containment cube for and walked home. the grape! I will refresh your face. What is cathedral was at an angle that we up. He helped me to my feet. Come with you and your disapproving ways. private viewing, and the featured That’s pretty much why I the circle about? could practically run up. He took to me. We begin again! He was spectacle was my dying self. I felt don’t want to get so drunk and stay up Tonight, we begin like never before. all fours and scampered ahead of me. We dropped our coats and sweating. Shouldn’t we find a new extremely sad and lonely. He had all night again like we used to, sleeping We will summon the powers of our forebears! I did the same. There were no lights walked back into the park a few meters, place? No! This one is too sweet. Too perfect! betrayed me again. Screams from in the walls of buildings like bats. We will party with four bears? Funny! in the steeple. Suspended in absolute then turned to view the unsuspecting Look below! The moonlight refractions inside coated the scene of us two in Since that day, I don’t look for him Yes! No! There were three bears! And tonight dark, I felt complete. No longer was building, so nonchalant and quiet, glittered all around, covering not only the window like the icy limelight of and I don’t run into him anymore. I you will laugh and we will not speak of there a distinction between the night so cute and bourgeois, with flowers the building, but the treetops in the a far gone freak show. He rolled his think the feeling is mutual. Today, poetry. We will simply be. Sit here in the circle and myself. He pointed to a building. and ivy trimming the windowsills, so street and in the park. The lights of the eyes and grimaced at them, then at every time I hear someone scream— with me. I sat down and he brought out We watched the windows for an hour earthy and French, it was beguiling. windows were active. Some switched me, then he screamed again. My fear in the middle of the night—I head the the paint. Now hear my voice, O ancient or so in silence. So many activities. The Now run. We grasped hands. Our on, others switched off. We heard for him became hatred on hearing the opposite direction. ones! We ask your permission to roam the display before us looked like rows of bodies glowed. We ran at the wall to many panicked discussions. The whole sound. His eyes changed. They were streets of your city in perfect harmony with the tiny Punch and Judy plays, discordant, the left of the entrance, kicked it with building was in unrest. We slid down dark and glassy. He looked angry and elemental forces of wind, fire, water and earth! fast motion, backlit in yellow. So many flat feet, and the building leaned right for a few other peekaboos. I performed desperate. I told myself that I hated We covered our bodies in clay. Our activities… But how many were truly over. We scampered up to the top and a full frontal exposure, which spawned this mongoose more than anything. I skins glowed. The star he drew on the important? Yet, every movement is peered down into an upper window. a strange laughter as well as screams found the back of his neck and pulled floor soaked up puddles of moonlight significant in life, like breathing. All of The people inside were walking on of terror. I wasn’t certain if I should with everything I had left. We dropped and took on a brilliance I had never it boils down to large or small transits the ceiling and the lamp in their salon be proud of that. People screamed to the ground. I ran across the street. seen before. Its light was drawn up of back and forth. From here to there. jutted up from the floor. One person without us in their windows. They He tackled me in the park. I punched into the lazy, oversized chandelier that Like blood moves from the heart to the was clearing the table. Another person were bouncing around in madness, him five times in the face and he got spit out refractions in new chromatic lungs, from head to the feet. To work, was pouring a drink. Que vive la France! without our provocation. We did a me good with a bomber in the old arrangements, bright pink, lavender, to home. Inhale, exhale. Wake up, go …Now. On my count, we will perform the very smooth Skull Face Sunrise in bread basket. purple, pure white. It was dazzling. to sleep. Together, apart. Alive, dead. Skull Face Sunrise. You will open your eyes tandem, like two dancing black magic I slammed his head to my knee. Do not look up! Let the forces of nature Inside, outside. Boulot, metro, dodo. wide and grimace, okay? Yes. Okay. He held dolphins coated in clay, and received That should have made him drop, but work their magic without your observation. Now we get to work! Where? Not my hand and we dropped into view howls of fright from everyone inside, he didn’t go down. He staggered and Look at me! I have not finished your face. here. We must go to Rue Piat. I know the from the top of the window frame. all at once. It was quite the show. He I used that moment to flee toward the Now come! Leave your shoes, but bring your perfect place. It took us no time to get Bingo. We had an immediate witness screamed back. I know the sound grande avenue. I would look for police. In coat, and bring a few bottles. We hit the there. I could see what he meant. The who screamed and dropped the dishes, came from him because he was right the middle of the street, he came after clammy streets of Paris barefoot and layout was nice indeed. We stood back then the other one turned and we got a beside me when he made it, but it was me. We boxed there, naked, dodging nude, bodies and faces painted, coats to admire the homey, old-fashioned double reaction scare as they panicked completely unnatural and seemed to cars. Dawn was breaking. The murky flung open and weighted with several edifice. There was a park behind us. at hearing the scream, followed the come from everywhere. It put me on streets blanched to tea-stained rose. I clanking bottles apiece, strolling in a I noticed that many residents had pointing finger, spotted us, then let out notice. It put everyone on notice. pushed him into a car. He bounced cadence of suppressed glee, as if we their curtains open to view it. We sat a classic howl of anguish and almost Everything fell utterly silent right off it, regained balance and were on our way to a dance party or in the grass and watched, handing fainted. We couldn’t have asked for after he let out that scream. The delivered a perfectly-poised haymaker. coming home from a winning football bottles back and forth. My head was better results. We ducked back and commotion in the apartment building I complimented him in my mind as match. Something special was bound swimming. Echoes of the fractured hugged on the rooftop. A window stopped. All the lights went out. The I felt the pain and dizziness, falling to happen. moonlight appeared on bushes and slammed shut somewhere. This is a fragmented glitter lights had stopped. to the busy street. Rush hour had Two approaching pedestrians tree trunks around us. Hey. What. Can very quiet neighborhood. We go again? We clung to the wall of the building. I begun. He bent my arms behind me took a quick right turn out of sight you see that? Yes. Yes… Our magic Sure. We looked down. Someone was noticed my backside was cold. and forced me into an oncoming once they saw us. Feeling sporting? Shall circle had come to find us in the night. poking their head out of the window. He grabbed me by the neck, car. It drove right through me. I was we give chase? No, please show me how How wonderful. I knew I liked him. He rushed down, scampering along dragged me to a window, and choked astonished. I pushed him directly you manage to climb up buildings. I opened a new bottle for us. He was the wall like a lizard, growling. He me, as if he meant it. We were still into a car and it drove right through Why it’s as natural as climbing the air finishing the last. We clinked bottles. received a very interesting high- perched upside down. I felt pangs of him, without honking, nothing. The itself. His remark was no help. Here, Cheers to you, my dear. Cheers to us! pitched squeal/screech, much like fear wash through my body. I reached cars were speeding all around us and for instance. We stopped at a dark old Cheers to this! Thank you for another a hawk that, perhaps on diving for a and grabbed for him but lost my grip didn’t seem to notice, nor could they 18. 19. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Polarization At the Symposium Peter F. Crowley Max DeVoe Talley

he mailed invitation surprised Jonah Mar- stood just north of the historic downtown Plaza. Practi- quez. SymposiumT for the Arts, which held its annual cally walking distance to the Lensic Theater. awards ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had includ- The suites connected in block-long, two-story The storm ended our timeout. It was a diver- tures riding down the Mississippi and why things got like ed him on their exclusive guest list: fifty nominees for structures that resembled college dormitories. Inside a gence of wills, where we collected sand sculptures and this. One student, Billy, I think his name was, read his ten awards, and each one could invite a significant other separate check-in building, Jonah saw SFTA attendees sent them on a huge barge down the Mississippi, slicing answer aloud, “The drip force of the empty refrigerator’s along. Although the engraved card didn’t list his catego- and European tourists thronged around the front desk, the country in half. The sand sculptures depicted our precarity and the paycheck’s febrile skeleton invariably ry, Jonah had been single since Sophie dumped him last jostling for attention from millennial clerks. mirrored faces in a frozen state of yelling. got people raising their voices. Instead of shouting at the spring, so he must be a nominee. “There he is,” shouted a slight man. Tarick Ra- During recess, our kickball games were vicious, Pantagruelian foot that walks over them, they chastise Jonah’s novel, Are You My Stepmother?, was two hal, master of magic realism. “You’re a nominee, Jonah?” mocking the other team with unmitigated belligerence. each other. Politicians mimic this for theater.” years old, but perhaps they were late in recognizing it. He His face tightened. “Wasn’t your last novel published four When someone kicked a home run, in which the ball un- Because Billy spoke in “tongues,” as the teacher felt puzzled over the absence of an extra invite. Did the se- years ago?” failingly rolled down the incline of the hot top jungle, and informed us, he was kept after class and harassed by oth- lection committee hear of the breakup and his subsequent “Two, actually.” through a tenuous wooded path to a busy street below, er students. The next day, he would be placed in the out- online dating failures? He squelched those thoughts. After “Just seems like forever.” Tarick slapped Jonah on an outfielder or two would chase after it. Upon reach- field, whereupon, after chasing a home run in the nearby suffering through the stultifying heatwave that had en- the shoulder. ing the street, where the red kickball meandered among street, he was run over. shrouded Los Angeles, Santa Fe’s fall weather would be Another man approached wearing a camel hair swerving cars, it was not uncommon to hear shouts from Later on, the teacher said that it was nice that he restorative. coat, his head tilted back as if sunbathing under the lobby drivers like, “Get back to where you belong!” In lesser was taught a lesson. track lights. David Fallow was rumored to carry favorable instances, children were driven over “for the good of the *** print reviews of his books like a rabbit’s foot. He perpet- country,” as drivers would later tell police. Jonah flew into Albuquerque and drove up to ually worked a thatch of graying blond hair off his fore- Back in class, we had an assignment to write Villas de Santa Fe. The SFTA staked all invitees for two head, and whenever he made an incisive point, Fallow about the seemingly ever-present barge with sand sculp- nights in one-bedroom suites with kitchens. The Villas lowered his black rim glasses to allow unobstructed eye 20. 21. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 At the Symposium - Max DeVoe Talley contact. lookalike bullshit whenever he traveled. For an instant, Jonah forgot Jonah nodded with a taut hexed,” Fallow whispered. “Anyway, I “A literary fiction novel.” “Jonah Marquez,” he said, as “You deserve a starring role, their ugly breakup, forgot the scorching smile. He could see his first floor room, suppose you think Bowie and Prince “Sorry, can’t pitch books if an accusation. “We’re in the same now that you’re getting older.” The insults in print and felt a ticklish which faced onto the parking lot, the are overrated too?” He lifted himself about nothing. I handle upmarket category? My novel, Brighter Unfolding, young man gave Jonah a once-over. sensation. His ballooning enthusiasm dumpster, and surrounding hedges. up. “Just because you’re considered a fiction.” was released this year.” “Is that tabloid stuff true, about getting deflated. The women vanished inside. literary Dr. Seuss, doesn’t mean you Jonah sighed, his stomach “I didn’t pick the nominees.” pig valves installed in your heart and “Hello, Santa Fe!” Another know jack shit about music.” Fallow twisting. “That’s a bogus industry- Jonah sighed. the penile implant—” female figure stepped from the van in *** stormed off. created term. What does it even “Of course not,” Fallow “Jesus. Look, I’m not that a fur-collared coat and high heel suede “Ignore that asshat.” Tarick mean?” replied. “But since we get to vote for actor, okay?” boots. “Whoo-hoo, we’re here.” When Jonah arrived at the placed some money on the tabletop. Hopkins recoiled. “It mixes anyone besides ourselves, can I count “Seriously? So I’m wasting my There was no denying it. Tune-Up Cafe west of the Plaza, the “You going?” Jonah asked. the quality of literary fiction with the on your support?” time talking to a nobody?” Everyone in the literary world, in the restaurant had filled with attendees. “Yeah, it’ll take my mind off plot-driven narrative of genre fiction.” Jonah hesitated. Jonah rushed away. arts in general, knew about Raina He took a seat by Tarick and Bianca, a the awards.” “Right. Maybe go shove it Fallow frowned. “Not to be Vang, former model and current South American artist living in Austin, Bianca left a ten dollar bill by upmarket your ass—” offensive, but remind me why someone *** essayist in Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Her Texas. She had printed two years of her empty plate. “Jonah Marquez?” A thirtyish as pasty white as yourself is named father, Deon Wilson, was one of the daily selfies and created a gallery Jonah sensed he would be woman with long brown hair advanced Marquez?” During Jonah’s struggle to last American soldiers out of Saigon in installation titled: The Inevitable Decay of paying most of the tab. Never be the last and Hopkins staggered away from the “My dad was Irish and my extract his travel bag from the rented 1975, where her Vietnamese mother My Overwhelming Beauty. Bianca was a to leave a table of writers. Amid laughter table as if gut-shot. mother was South American.” Fiat 500—a toy car amongst the had her in 1976. Local relatives nominee for the coveted I Am Genius and boisterous conversation, many “Yes.” Jonah sighed. When an “Wouldn’t you go by your hulking vehicles in the parking lot—he smuggled Raina out of Southeast Asia Award. diners hustled out toward cars parked attractive woman approached him of father’s last name?” encountered his ex. at the age of four, while her mother David Fallow flitted about on Hickox Street. late it meant one thing. “Would you “He disappeared when I was When Sophie published her was forced into a North Vietnamese in a #MeToo t-shirt, interrupting The server brought Jonah his like a signed copy of my book for your eight. My mom got me into books. It roman à clef last spring about their re-education camp and believed dead conversations then retreating when the chile relleno. “Hey,” he said. “Weren’t son or daughter?” seemed right to use her name.” relationship, Jonah expected it to by 1980. After reuniting with her focus shifted to someone else. you on Saturday Night Live like twenty “No, I’m a journalist,” she “Helpful in today’s publishing disappear after a few weeks of hype father in California, Raina ran away Grasping an empty chair years ago? You used to be really said. “Wanted to interview you for a climate.” He smirked. “Your, uh, novel and so-called “bestseller” status. as a teenager when trauma from the at Jonah’s table, Fallow spun it fucking funny.” He paused to study piece.” was an interesting exercise in writing Instead, her unflattering portrayal war caused him to become abusive. around and squatted down, tilting Jonah as if a scientific curiosity. “What “Regarding who?” Jonah felt like a child, though it can’t compete of a narcissistic male writer who At forty-two, Raina looked forward into the backrest. “We’re the hell happened?” skeptical. David Fallow was suspected with David’s adult fiction.” preferred to pound away on his laptop incredible, with a slender Vietnamese driving to Albuquerque to see LCD “I’ll eat my meal now, if that’s of employing a writer to chronicle his “David? David who?” rather than listen to his partner’s face, large eyes, and an Afro Soundsystem.” He lowered his okay.” exploits, like some nineteenth century Fallow’s head twitched. “Me,” problems had garnered praise from mushrooming over her head that was glasses. “Coming, Jonah?” A gray-haired man with a Western gunslinger. he said. “You’ll speak in the third reviewers and was nominated for the currently bobbing in the New Mexico “Didn’t they break up in mustache plunked down two chairs “About you, and your work.” person when you become an Amazon Symposium’s Best First Book Award. breeze. Though her publishing 2012?” away. “Derek Hopkins, Manhattan The woman joined him at the empty bestseller and are interviewed on Sophie descended from an history involved a mere four essays “That just gave a dramatic arc literary agent,” he said. “Kudos on table. “I’m Maddie Berenson.” PBS.” airport shuttle van helmeted by her on her fashion sense and skin care to their documentary.” your last book, Jonah. Major props.” “I wrote Are You My Stepmother “Really?” dark pixie haircut. Her cute, pinched regimen, Jonah heard that publishers “LCD are okay, but not great. “You read it?” From Hell? as a satirical novel,” Jonah “Yes, but ditch the kids’ stuff. face made her resemble an exotic, wide- had dangled six-figure offers for her Like Modern English mixed with “I read the sales figures.” said. “My editor shortened the title, Try upmarket fiction like me.” Fallow eyed bird. Damn, she looked better memoirs. Agents tore their hair out Depeche Mode.” Hopkins grinned. “Off the chain. simplified everything into homilies and waved at two women across the room. than ever. Jonah’s only consolation dreaming up incentives for her to Conversations at the Anyhoo, are you in the market for a inspirational messages. They added “Excuse me, destiny calls.” was knowing that she hated being accept their representation. neighboring tables went quiet. new agent?” drawings and it took off as New Age, Tarick made a puking face. cute, and wanted desperately to be Jonah knew the women were “Dude,” Fallow said. “Every “Maybe.” as a children’s book.” He put down “Jonah, let’s meet for drinks later.” considered strange and beautiful. close friends, but Sophie chose that important music critic worships them. “What do you have to read?” his fork. “My agent wants me to stick Jonah asked directions from However, none of that awkward moment to passionately kiss Do you want to go against the opinion Hopkins leaned in, eyes widening. to sequels.” He frowned. “I’ve made an employee planted by the lobby desperation showed as she took in the Raina. Their clench broke apart with of The New Yorker?” Fallow’s voice “Under 90,000 words, right? The new decent money but it killed my literary entrance. surroundings and registered Jonah by Raina giggling. She lifted her bag’s lowered. “I’m not pissing them off normal.” career.” He jerked his neck. “Hey, his tiny car. Sophie let out a triumphant strap over one shoulder and they both and getting my fiction blackballed by “I have a mystery novel.” “I’m more interested in your you’re in those movies.” His eyes went gasp of a laugh. “Hey, stranger.” marched toward the entrance foyer. you-know-who. I’ve waited my whole “I only represent thrillers.” future.” Maddie smiled. “What are wide. “You’re so good at playing a She waved. “Good to see you here. “We’re on the top floor,” writing career to spell focused with a “It’s also a thriller.” you working on?” loser. Can’t remember your name but So we’re in the same building.” She Sophie shouted back. “Spectacular double s.” “There must be no mystery. “It’s called, Professional I love you, man.” smiled mischievously. “Practically view of the Sangre de Cristo “You-know-who?” Zero.” Hopkins frowned. “Can’t sell Victimhood: Please Climb Off Your Cross.” Jonah encountered this neighbors.” Mountains. You too?” “I won’t say her name and be that. Anything else?” “Self-help or novel?” 22. 23. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 At the Symposium - Max DeVoe Talley

“Both. You a full-time writer?” “Good for you.” She nodded while considering the message. their way to glory.” She retreated “What dream?” Jonah asked. Maddie’s phone pinged but “No, an empathic life coach in sympathy, as if he’d announced he They moved on to Cowgirl a few steps. “They would have to Fallow shook a fist. “I still she ignored it. They finally paused on and aromatherapist. This is my side was ninety and still capable of hobbling and Jonah found himself dancing be detached, devoted to their art. plan to write the Great American a rocky outcropping with a view. Jonah hustle. You know, the gig economy.” to the bathroom and urinating by drunkenly to Hogswallop, an A Charles Bukowski, a Cormac Chapbook.” gazed down the jagged range that Jonah was warming to Maddie himself. Americana band. Dizzy and sweaty, he McCarthy or a Margaret Atwood.” resembled a dinosaur’s spine toward and the way her leg naturally nestled Later, they drove toward the swayed outside onto Guadalupe Street “What if I was?” *** the high desert plain where Santa Fe against his, so he ignored her trite buzz Plaza to huddle on high stools at the where Maddie pressed her mouth “Would you walk away from lay; Maddie munched on a protein phrases. “From New Mexico?” hammered copper bar inside Rio hard against his, forcing Jonah’s head the glitter and acclaim? I’d respect Jonah met Maddie at the bar. someone who could do that.” trailhead parking area and they “Do power bars help you “Sure, why not?” hiked the rock-encrusted dirt tread. hike?” he asked. “...her unflattering portrayal of a nar- “Then hike with me on the Approaching nine thousand feet above “No, it’s cannabis-infused. Big Tesuque Trail tomorrow at four. sea level, Jonah sucked in the thin air I gave one to that Fallow guy earlier It’s a local tradition, watching the and gulped down bottled water as he because he really needed to chill.” Aspen leaves turn gold.” led the way up the slope. “Did he know it was treated?” “The award ceremony begins “I’m really over the online Maddie laughed through her cissistic male writer who preferred at four.” dating thing.” nostrils and shook her head. “Yup, you’ll have to decide “I feel you,” Maddie replied “Let’s talk in my car,” she which is more important.” She nuzzled from behind. said after they descended. “I was kind her moist, beer-flavored lips against his “Match and Tinder are so of blitzed last night.” Maddie’s face to pound away on his laptop rather face. “Me or your bullshit ceremony?” ephemeral,” he continued. “You like reddened inside the Subaru. “I may “Screw it, I’m not going to someone’s photo then move on. You have come on too strong. I barely win.” He smiled. date someone and it seems special know you.” They walked west to her car before one person ghosts the other, Jonah nodded. and Maddie hugged him. “See you blocks them or finds someone else.” “I mean, I want to get to know than listen to his partner’s problems tomorrow.” Jonah craned his neck to observe you, but the old-fashioned way. When Maddie working her thumb rapidly my article’s done.” Maddie squinted at *** across her phone screen. Jesus, was the shack just downslope. “Is that what she on Tinder, swiping left and right I think it is?” The following morning, Jonah to meet some horny, hipster mountain “An outhouse, yeah.” had garnered praise from reviewers jogged around the circular Paseo de man for a breathless, high-altitude “I really, really have to go.” Peralta. When he returned, Fallow quickie? She squeezed his wrist before dashing paced the lobby studying a sheet of Maddie noticed and dug her toward the rustic structure. paper while muttering. phone into her vest pocket. “I missed Her iPhone was abandoned and was nominated for the Sympo- “What are you doing, David?” my girlfriend’s wedding. Scrolling on the driver’s seat. Jonah examined “Practicing my acceptance through the photos. What were you her contacts until he found the 323 speech.” saying?” area code number from last night. The “You certain you’ll win?” “Nothing really...” most recent text read: Let me know when “I’m nominated in two “I watched Wonder I can call. sium’s Best First Book award.” categories, so a decent chance.” Fallow Woman again on Blu-ray. What a Now is good, he responded. In a frowned. “I’m white and fifty, which transformative film.” minute Maddie’s phone rang. are handicaps...” “I didn’t see it.” Jonah answered with a high- “Really?” “Are you anti-woman?” pitched cough. “Born here and now in Chama. After Jonah ordered drinks, backwards. His hands roamed over “In literary awards this “I’m sick of superhero films. “That you, Maddie?” asked California. Silver Lake.” Maddie excused herself, leaving her her body. decade? Yes.” Too much CGI and endless battle a man. “Have you interviewed the “Yes, Silver Lake...” purse and phone atop the bar. When Maddie stroked him for an “No, I mean I thought you scenes.” loser yet? We need details on his “I’m not a hipster,” Maddie a text pinged and brightened the instant before pushing away. “This were mid-fifties, at least.” “Wow, not even Captain humiliation.” insisted. “I live among them, but—” phone’s screen, he bent over to read it. isn’t right.” She shook her head with “I deserve one,” Fallow Marvel?” Maddie said. “We support “Uh huh,” Jonah said in a “Not judging,” Jonah said. We need background details and her eyes closed. continued, oblivious. “Unlike my feminism through social media posts sing-song manner. “I’m forty-eight and don’t care how friends’ opinions on our subject. Did you “You don’t date writers?” contemporaries, I haven’t given up on and movie choices. It’s not a superhero “I can barely hear you. The people identify anymore. One of the interview the writer guy? “Not ones into awards and the dream.” He stared at something film, it’s a parable, an allegory.” Raina Vang story is going to be huge. main benefits of getting older.” Jonah sipped his amber ale fame, who try to network and starfuck indeterminate outside the window. “Okay.” How she swooped down on Sophie, 24. 25. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 At the Symposium - Max DeVoe Talley got her to ditch her boyfriend, then “The compilation of Vang’s to Nebraska or Idaho with your own A Symposium official wearing snagged all of Sophie’s publishing iPhone texts, Facebook posts and kind.” a tuxedo dashed outside to hand him connections. Raina may have a secret Instagram photos into a fictionalized “I’ve read up on you,” Fallow an unused award for Best Haiku. husband too. I need everything you memoir, It’s My Life, was only released said, gasping for breath. “Rich parents “Wait.” Maddie kicked at the have by tomorrow. We’re going to Friday night. However, our panel of and you attended a Swiss boarding Fiat’s bumper after Jonah locked the preview this online, then print. Okay?” judges and sensitivity readers feel this school. I accuse you of Asian privilege.” doors. “You don’t know what you’re Jonah disconnected. He exited is the most authentic fictionalized Tanaka looked stunned, his missing. I’m hip, I’m hot.” When the Subaru and crammed himself into memoir ever.” face flushing. “That’s not a thing yet.” he didn’t respond, she added, “You his nearby Fiat. As he pulled out onto Raina sashayed toward the He trembled. woman-hating narcissist.” the winding Hyde Park Road, Jonah stage in a bright red dress. Jonah could “You’re no Murakami.” “No, I hate everyone, witnessed a distressed Maddie waving see Sophie’s head sunken into her “I’m the more PC version. including myself.” her hands. He soon plunged around hands. Most of those in attendance That’s all that matters right now.” “You’re like the Hitler of two hairpin bends, losing sight of her likely had no idea Vang’s whatever-it- Tanaka straightened his clothing before children’s fiction,” she shouted. in the rearview mirror. was had just been published. exiting the Lensic clutching his award. “You’ll die lonely, buried in a cis- Jonah arrived at the Lensic “Thank you to everyone who Sophie materialized at gender graveyard, anonymous. A Theater mid-ceremony. The usher helped me love myself,” Raina said into Jonah’s side. “I punished you with the misanthrope.” stopped him. “You’re what’s-his-name. the microphone. She read a long list invitation because I was in such pain “Your last album sucked,” I love your music, dude. Especially the of editors, agents and celebrities, but from dumping you that I didn’t know I said the familiar usher, piling onto the stuff before you joined that cult.” failed to mention Sophie. was still in love, so I needed to hurt you. insult party. “Please, I just need to sit Suddenly, a disoriented man You understand, right?” Jonah pulled away from the down.” with glazed eyes lurched toward the “Uh, no.” curb, only able to drive five miles “They really make you sacrifice podium. David Fallow. Sophie slapped Jonah’s face. per hour in downtown traffic. Fallow one of your boys to their celestial leader “I deserve this fucking award,” Conversations stopped when jogged alongside the Fiat. Zorbu?” he bellowed into the mic. “If not for Raina appeared holding her trophy “Listen, Jonah,” he said. After Jonah located the correct my current novel, then for last year’s, aloft amidst five men awash in cologne. “We’ll start a compound, a retreat up row he realized he wasn’t a nominee, Wellness Forthcoming.” He grabbed at the Sophie wedged through them. in Marin or Oregon for white male instead seated in the guest section. silver phallic trophy. “Congratulations, love. It’s us writers. Do a GoFundMe campaign. Sophie’s guest. So this was her scheme. Raina elbowed him in the females fighting together against a male Get Sean Penn to kick in some major A handsome black man with a stomach, her smile a strained gash dominant culture.” backing. A men’s empowerment disgusted expression slouched next to of lipstick and white teeth. Security Raina gazed at Sophie with group.” him. “You here supporting someone?” tackled Fallow, but he escaped to cold indifference. “No, it’s women of “We’re already empowered,” Jonah asked. bolt up the aisle with two stern men color against a white privilege culture.” Jonah said through the cracked “Yeah,” he said. “My wife, I following. “Peace and love, everybody,” She brushed Sophie off to move with window. mean, my sister.” Raina shouted. her retinue toward a limo outside; the “Okay, a male enhancement “Freudian slip.” Five minutes later, Jonah handsome black man who had sat by group, but we’ll allow anyone in. Total The neighbor scowled. left the auditorium. In the lobby he Jonah trailed at a discreet distance. His tolerance and inclusion. Don’t go back Sophie smiled wickedly back at encountered a disheveled David Fallow expression showed exhaustion. to L.A. We’re finished there, dude.” Jonah from ten rows ahead where she wrestling with Haru Tanaka. “I’m the Maddie confronted Jonah Upon reaching Saint Francis sat bunched together with Raina and more creative creative, you bastard,” he near the concession stands. “Okay, you Drive, Jonah accelerated as he some well-coiffed men in suits. yelled. Security waited, ringed around figured out I was bullshitting you, but searched for the Interstate 25 South When Haru Tanaka won them. you read my private texts. Anyway, sign to Albuquerque. the Creative Creative Award, Jonah “Your white male dominance I’m so fucking done with that sellout noticed Fallow twitching in his seat. is over,” Tanaka said. magazine. Let’s get lost.” A hush fell upon the auditorium as a “I’m woke.” “Seriously?” bald, bearded man took the podium to “I was born woke.” “Well, after I get paid for my announce Best First Book. “I was woke in the womb!” story on Raina...” “The winner in this category “Bullshit,” Tanaka replied. “I Jonah sprinted for his parked was not listed as a nominee due to support Black Lives Matter.” car. the recent publication of her book. “I’m wearing their pin.” An aged Native American Congratulations to Raina Vang.” “I saw Black Panther twice. sat on the curb with a placard: You are Thundering applause sounded Donated at the box office.” Tanaka meaningless. Leave my land, art elitists. Please and many stood. broke free. “You’re done Fallow. Move get the hell out. 26. 27. I Always Wanted to Be a Lawyer - Jane Moore The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 needed work. Being able to teach one year of French in high school. I deliberately inserted into exams to young black students, introduce them mistook this weird gift as proof that trick students entranced me. to our history, mentor them through I was brilliant. My terrible French 4 “Miss Smith, you spend all I Always Wanted to Be a college and see them go out into the grades didn’t shake this conviction. your time trying to make nonsense community to teach other blacks was I never grasped French grammar sound sensible,” another professor Lawyer all the reward they wanted. and tenses. I thought I’d get it. One told me. “Luckily, this law school They didn’t care much about day it would all jell. How could a gives Pass or No Pass grades, and it Jane Moore money and thought my brothers standardized test be wrong? I didn’t rarely flunks anyone out.” She was and I shouldn’t either. My father take steps to transfer to an easier one of the two women professors. supported our family by teaching in class or drop French 4. “I worry about you, Miss black colleges, and he’d sent us all to My professor called me into Smith. I don’t see you having a college. That was good enough for his office after I got Fs on the first brilliant legal career. You should “‘If you go on like you do, you’ll end up like me, working for men, mostly white men, who aren’t as smart as you.’ Just to finish the coursework would take four years, ou can’t do anything with a Ph.D.,” the at least. Then I’d have to write a thesis. Didn’t that take man sitting“Y beside me said. We were in a small bar on another three to four years? How would I survive? Ralph Abernathy Drive in Atlanta. “You should go to law “We’re not learning anything here,” Lisa com- She got up and walked out.” school. Three years and you’re out.” plained about our jobs at the prison law project where we I can’t remember who the man was or what he worked. “This researcher title is ridiculous. We’re doing looked like. He started talking to me when he heard me what we did in college, looking up stuff and writing the tell my roommate, Lisa, that I thought I’d get a Ph.D. in equivalent of term papers. We have to get better jobs.” anthropology. him. three quizzes. “Miss Smith,” he told focus on your strengths and figure Based on that one conversation with a man I saw “With a J.D., you can do anything,” he continued. I took the LSAT and got a me, “this is not working out well for out what you do well and what makes once, and the complaints Lisa and I traded about our jobs, “Work for yourself, or a big firm, or do other things, like high score. I felt sure I’d be a very you.” He said an F as the final grade you happy.” She sighed, looking at I decided to go to law school. work for a corporation. There are so many kinds of law successful lawyer then. Back then, I would ruin my grade point average me as if I were a puzzle she couldn’t “I like to read, nonfiction as well as fiction,” I told you can practice—family law, corporate, tax, criminal. Law did well on standardized tests. I had a forever. I did believe him about that, solve. “You’re not unintelligent Lisa. “I enjoy arguing with other people. I can be a good is wonderful like that because in each area there are always knack of easily figuring out what the so I dropped the class, but not my despite your terrible exams and lawyer.” two sides, so there are always more jobs for lawyers.” makers of those tests wanted in their belief in my brilliance. I told myself grades. Don’t waste your brain and Lisa was reading. She looked up from her book, I sat there, drinking and thinking. Whoever he was, answers. I didn’t even have to think it I needed more time. your life.” smiled, and nodded her head. That confirmed my decision. those words burned themselves into my mind, long after I through. I’d read the question, look I chose a California law I thanked her. What she said The other thing about becoming a lawyer was I met him. Well, for at least a month or so. at the answers and mostly pick the school, as far away from Atlanta and didn’t linger in my mind. heard they made a lot of money. My parents both had a “With a J.D., you can do anything.” Those words right ones. Georgia as I could go, almost. It was I graduated from law school Ph.D., but we grew up poor, compared to the doctors and reverberated. What could I do with a Ph.D. in anthropol- You probably won’t believe just like the French class. I did not and took the bar exam. I took it more lawyers who were my parents’ contemporaries and friends. ogy? Go on digs, but where? I was sure the best places, the me, but I took fourth-year French and do not have a lawyer’s mind. than one time. I was so embarrassed They didn’t mind that their friends had big cars and new most scenic spots, were taken or dug to death. Only three as a college freshman because of I couldn’t write a coherent exam that I hid from my classmates, didn’t houses while we lived in faculty housing, older places that years to get a J.D. How long would it take to get my Ph.D.? my high test scores. I’d only had answer. The outside, quirky facts answer telephone calls from them. I 28. 29. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19

wondered if I should have gotten a Midwest, then to a small West Coast just two. Ph.D. instead. firm. A year ago, I got a job in a very “You’re a lawyer?” I managed Penelope’s Tapestry Another classmate who didn’t small firm in Oakland, California. to say. pass the first time told me many people I was working late when a Dorothy Gavin nodded. She S.W. Gordon did well in life after failing to pass their paralegal entered my office and closed was the best secretary in the firm, bar exam the first or even second or the door. She was black too, older than and often other lawyers said she was third time they took it. He said at least I was, but not by much. Her name was the smartest person in the firm. They two California governors, Pete Wilson Dorothy Gavin. laughed when they said it. It was true. and Jerry Brown, one Republican She sat down at my desk and “What happened?” and one Democrat, didn’t pass right leaned toward me. I smiled when she “I didn’t love the law. I didn’t away. He’d also found out that Deval came in, but the firmness of her jaw even like it,” she said. “If you don’t Patrick, the first black governor of and the way she looked at me let me love the law, you shouldn’t practice it.” Massachusetts, failed the first time know she wasn’t there to start a casual I’d had several senior lawyers he took the bar, and so did David conversation. talk to me about what they called Paterson, the first African American “Miss Smith, I want to speak my lack of progress. They’d gone all governor of New York State. frankly with you,” she said. around the barn and had never come It reassured me to learn that She put her hands on my to the point like Dorothy. not only white governors, but also desk. I saw that her close-trimmed “If you go on like you do, black governors, failed to pass the bar nails weren’t polished. She worked for you’ll end up like me, working for exam the first time. I didn’t want to be the owner of the firm. men, mostly white men, who aren’t as a governor but felt I was smart enough She sighed. smart as you.” She got up and walked to have a very important job. These “You aren’t going to last out, closing the door behind her. facts showed me that not passing the long the way you’re going,” she said. I sat for at least twenty bar wasn’t a race thing, although many “I’m telling you this, black woman minutes, and then I typed a letter to white people claimed it was. I wasn’t to black woman. You’re smart, but the head of the firm, telling him I letting down my people in any way by you don’t focus. You waste your time quit. I printed it out and signed it and not passing. reading cases that are interesting but was about to put it in an envelope. I I thanked my classmate for the not relevant to the facts or law in your had second thoughts. I sat back down information. I smiled for the first time case.” and rewrote the letter, adding, “I’ll be in weeks. My face got hot. My eyes filled pleased to talk or meet with anyone I’ve got a whole collection on the grille of my truck.” any years later, as he faced the blank com- I had grown up hearing that with tears. She was right, but I didn’t in the firm to go over any questions Gabby put his head down and walked out into the puter screen,M Gabriel “Gabby” Macondo was to remember my brothers and I had to help the know what to do about it. I worked all about my cases.” hot parking lot, cowering in his father’s shadow. He only that distant afternoon when his father took him to see Star race, raise others up, things like that. I the time. I came in at 7 a.m. and left at I put the envelope on Dorothy’s looked back once at the flattened smear that, moments be- Wars. In that cold, dark theater, little Gabby was transport- took those words to heart. I wanted to 10 or 11 p.m. Sometimes I even slept desk and left. I never practiced law fore, had been so beautiful and now was gone… ed to a galaxy far, far away and his imagination never re- do well, to be a credit to us, someone on a couch or on the floor. I stared at again. covered. When they emerged, Gabby squinted in the bright other black people could point to with her but said nothing. *** sunlight, and a yellow butterfly landed on his shoulder. pride. I wasn’t on law review and “I used to be like you,” Ms. “Would you look at that?” his father said. “I think hadn’t clerked for a judge, but I wasn’t Gavin said. “Gone! Erased!” Gabriel slammed his fist onto his you’ve been claimed by the Jedi.” a complete failure. I graduated from I almost gasped but didn’t. Ms. wooden desk, stirring the dust and spilling his coffee. Ev- Gabby turned his head and blew gently on the college and law school and passed the Gavin was nothing like me. I could tell erything he’d written the night before had somehow disap- creature’s delicate wings, making them tremble like an un- bar. Life would get better. by the way she pronounced words that peared. furled sail. I started with a very large, she didn’t come from the same kind of “What the fuck?” He clearly remembered saving “No,” he answered, “I want to write stories.” international law firm. They were home as I did. When was she ever like the file and had left the program open. It should still be His father flicked the insect with the back of his happy to hire me. I was the only black me? on the goddamned screen, except it wasn’t. He scrolled hand. It fluttered to the cement sidewalk, where it foun- woman out of more than a thousand “Like you in that I wasn’t a through the documents and couldn’t even find the file. A dered on its side, fanning its broken wings, trying to right lawyers in the firm. By this time, I good lawyer.” whole day’s work down the drain. And not just any day’s itself. didn’t have the absolute faith in my Tears started rolling down my work. He’d hammered out the final chapter of his novel “Hey! You hurt it.” Gabby squatted down to help abilities that I had when I started. face. I sobbed. I wanted to contradict like he was taking dictation from the Muses themselves. It the injured creature, but his father casually stomped out its You won’t be surprised—and her, insist I was a good lawyer. I’d had was the most inspired writing he’d ever done. Where did it life. neither was I—that I went from large some bad breaks—lousy supervisors go? “Don’t be such a pussy.” He grabbed the back of international, to large U.S., to large and impossible work assignments were Gabriel took a deep breath, sat down in his leather his son’s shirt and yanked him up to his feet. “It’s just a bug. 30. 31. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Penelope’s Tapestry - S.W. Gordon

chair, and ran his fingers through his thought you’d stoop to this level. How for the hundredth time. “Everyone never write about your spouse unless He ripped open his desk drawers, “I’ll take that as a yes.” thinning hair. Could Penny have done dare you destroy my work?!” knows it’s not true.” you’re divorced or planning to get one. looking for the hard copy, and couldn’t After such a long nap, Gabriel this? It was almost unimaginable that Well, that ought to piss her off, “Then at least change her The hell with it, he thought, she’ll get find that either. Out of the corner of wasn’t the least bit tired, so he brewed his wife of twenty years would resort he thought. They’d been in a bitter name,” she countered. over it—eventually. his eye, he noticed the light on top of a pot of coffee and decided to rewrite to sabotage. She’d left work only feud over the subject matter of his “But it wouldn’t make any Gabriel settled his fingers on the paper shredder was glowing red. the chapter once again. The alcohol the keyboard and began to retype He lifted the lid of the shredder and hadn’t dulled him at all. If anything, everything he could remember from noticed slivers of the pages he’d so he merely felt less inhibited. Just like the day before. He comforted himself recently typed. playing the piano, he thought: hit the “Gabriel had drawn extensive- by thinking this version might even “This can’t be happening. I’m keys in a certain order, and it will come be better than the one that was lost. in the goddamned Twilight Zone.” out beautifully. This time it didn’t take Surprisingly, the words seemed to flow Gabriel tried to imagine a him as long as the first two attempts, from his fingertips and onto the screen logical scenario that could account for and the end result seemed just as ly from his own life experiences with hardly any effort. Hours went by this latest provocation. Did someone exceptional as the others. Again he and still he typed, word by word, line break into the house? He looked printed a hard copy, saved the file and by line, paragraph by paragraph, page around and everything else seemed to left the program open as before, but he by page until it was finished. This time be in place. Nothing was out of order also sent himself an email with the file he printed a hard copy before saving except the last chapter of his book. attached. to create a fictionalized memoir the file. Again he left the program Could he be going crazy? Maybe he “Third time’s the charm.” open. Relief washed over him when only dreamed that he’d rewritten the Gabriel didn’t want to disturb he held the printed pages in his hands. chapter? But what about the shreds of his wife, so he crashed on the couch in He’d only lost a day, one measly day. paper? the living room. She was a professional Retiring to his bedroom, “This is fuckin’ insane. I need sulker, and it could be days before about a dreadful woman who Gabriel decided to reward himself a drink.” Gabriel poured himself a she’d relent. In the meantime she’d with a nap. The concentrated effort double shot of single-malt scotch and stomp all over the house slamming of rewriting an entire chapter from drank it neat. Ice somehow made it doors, refusing to talk. Patience was scratch had been exhausting. His less palatable. He wanted that volatile his only defense. Anything else would could never complete any task, mind was an empty vault, purged of tingling sensation in the back of his only make things worse and prolong all its treasure. He stretched out on throat and the undiluted warmth in the incessant pouting. top of the covers and interlaced his his belly. Slowly, the alcohol began to Once asleep, Gabriel dreamed fingers over his abdomen like a corpse work its magic. He poured himself of a peaceful meadow bathed in in a casket. Sleep overtook him in an another round and continued pacing golden sunlight, with thousands of and unfortunately the eponymous instant. back and forth across the room. yellow butterflies flying like living When he awoke several hours When his wife got home from waves on a soft wind when, without later, the dying sunlight slanted low work, she slammed her purse on the warning, his father’s old, black truck through his bedroom window. No kitchen counter and walked right past came barreling through the grass, heroine resembled a bastardized sound broke the silence of the empty him without saying a word. spinning in 360s, tearing up the turf house. His wife would be getting home “Did you get my message?” he in deep ruts. All four tires spewed mud soon, and he was looking forward to asked. high into the air. The engine revved showing her that her attempt to thwart She kept walking and didn’t and roared. Black smoke billowed his literary efforts had been in vain. He answer. He could hear her in the from the twin tailpipes. The truck version of his dear wife.” checked his phone to make sure she bathroom getting ready for bed: plowed through the butterflies until it didn’t try to call back or at least send a washing her face, brushing her teeth, was caked with dead bugs and thick text. Nothing. Not a peep. emptying her bladder. Did she notice sludge. The windshield was completely minutes before he went into his office book. Gabriel had drawn extensively sense. Penelope put off her suitors by After taking a leak and the wet seat? covered. Every last butterfly was dead and discovered the crime. Grabbing from his own life experiences to unweaving her tapestry every night sprinkling the toilet seat for good “So I’m getting the silent or dying. his phone off the charging base, he create a fictionalized memoir about while waiting for Odysseus to return. retaliative measure, Gabriel walked treatment?” The truck stopped abruptly called his wife and left a voicemail a dreadful woman who could never You know the damn story.” back to his office with a spring in his Penny cleared her throat, as and the driver’s door swung open. that went: “Hey, you didn’t happen complete any task, and unfortunately Sipping his coffee, Gabriel step, whistling like he didn’t have a care if she had something important to A man stepped out from behind the to mess with my computer last night the eponymous heroine resembled a waited for her to return the call. Each in the world. But when he refreshed his say, but nothing was forthcoming. She wheel. At first, Gabriel thought it after I went to bed?” He tried to sound bastardized version of his dear wife. passing minute further confirmed her computer, he was shocked to see the closed the bedroom curtains, got into was his father—the cold, malignant casual before firing off his accusation. To say the least, she was not amused. guilt. Perhaps he deserved it? After all, screen was blank. Hurriedly, he looked her side of the bed and rolled over, smile and the dead, black eyes. But he “I know you hate my story, but I never “It’s fiction, Penny,” he’d said he’d broken a cardinal rule in writing: for the file and again it was missing. facing the opposite wall. quickly realized his mistake. It was his 32. 33. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 own face. “No, it can’t be.” Gabriel sat up on the couch. “I’m nothing like my father.” The Plunge The dawn lightened the eastern sky and filtered into the living John R. Murray room as if through gauze. Everything appeared hazy and unclear. Gabriel stumbled into his office and looked at his empty desk. “What the hell?” The computer was gone. The pages he’d set next to it were as well. His phone and the docking station had also vanished. “I don’t understand.” He stepped back out of the room. “What’s happening?” His skin and clothes looked transparent and ethereal. He could see the floor beneath his feet. An expanding emptiness grew in his chest, like he was about to explode into nothingness. “I’ll tell you what’s happening,” Penny whispered in her sleep. He floated, ghostlike, to her bedside and hovered over her. She was curled up in the sheets like a chrysalis. roadside businesses that reflected the culture of seashore Her eyes remained closed but her lips nlike the previous drivers they’d had since towns—lobster roll stands, sail repair services, ice cream continued to move. arriving Uon the island, this one kept to himself after a per- shops, seashell stores and the occasional Irish pub. It was “You’re dead, asshole,” she functory greeting. Nothing to complain about, just not as only about 150 miles from home but seemed like another said. “You never finished your precious effusive as the others, with their big smiles and barrage of world to someone who’d only been out of New England book—and you never will.” friendly questions that punctuated their improvised scripts twice on family vacations to New York and Montreal, as each one assumed the role of self-appointed tour guide. neither of which he could clearly remember. Even their Daniel was relieved right now, because it freed him from cottage had a totally different look from their Connecticut feeling obliged to make chitchat in an effort not to seem house. A fraction of the size, with bleached wood shin- like some rich American tourist who didn’t respect the na- gles instead of white-painted clapboard, it had a lobster tives. He could just sit in silence and watch the scenery as pot coffee table in the center of the living room, captain’s the van bumped along the narrow roadway, the ocean to chairs around the kitchen table and a reproduction of the right, jungle-covered hills to the left. A few miles past Winslow Homer’s “The Fog Warning” hanging above the the resort, the oceanfront charm dissipated with the road- couch. By the standards of his life now, the place was a side trash and corrugated tin structures that looked to be cramped, mildew-infested shack, but back then, he felt abandoned or on the verge of collapsing, even when they that his family was on par with the Kennedys. were occasionally occupied by random little businesses “Shit,” he said, still looking out the front window like a car mechanic, a dry goods market or a tackle store, of the van so as to avoid the motion sickness to which he none of which seemed to have any customers. was so prone. The drive made Daniel think of his family’s sum- “What?” Anna wasn’t especially interested, just mer sojourns to their cottage on Cape Cod. His parents obliged to ask. were in the front seat, kids in the back, spying an occasion- “I forgot sunscreen. I’ll get totally burned.” al glimpse of ocean, but more often looking at all of the 34. 35. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 The Plunge - John R. Murray

“Right here.” She reached radiation exposure they’re probably Two men wearing a uniform parents in one, kids in the other. in front of their villa. His work was beautiful and sparsely populated. We into her raffia tote, pulled out a getting,” replied Daniel. of red shorts and yellow t-shirts exited The guides got into an enclosed jeep stressful and his blood pressure was don’t need anything more, he often drawstring sack and showed him three “Tell them that. That’ll really the building to greet them. One, with to lead the way. As they passed the high; in his mind, vacations were for thought to himself. His parents had choices of sunscreen. “Calm down.” convince them.” straight black hair and a big belly, rugby field, they hit their first puddle, decompressing. never scheduled any extra outings for “I’m perfectly calm. I just He was excited when he was obviously in charge. The other deeper than it looked, which doused Although they could easily their beach vacations—sand, ocean, don’t want to spend the rest of the realized they were nearing another younger one had a closely cut Afro, an them with muddy water. They all afford it, it sometimes bothered him and long summer days were all they vacation sprawled out on a bed in village as they hit the speed bumps in athlete’s body and an air of someone agony, like in Kauai.” the road. “Look,” he told her, “another who had more influence than he got The idea of a sunburn made one.” credit for. By the way they comported “...he felt a knot in his throat— him think of their daughter, Leila, She glanced up momentarily, themselves, Daniel’s first impression who had his fair skin but resented replacing her iPhone in her bag and was that, since he was standing back his reminders to reapply sunscreen pulling out a nail file. a bit, holding a clipboard and looking and warnings that she’d pay the “Don’t you just love it? All of serious, the big guy’s father owned price decades from now. Their son, this communal living? People looking the business. But he thought that its maybe anger, maybe sadness, Chase, was more like his wife, totally out for each other, treating each other survival depended on the fit guy, whose bronzed after two days in the sun. A as equals, making sure everyone has smile and swaggering confidence brief flash of his own summers on the enough…” He trailed off as he realized made you trust him to guide you into Cape with a permanently sunburned once again that he was the only one remote parts of the jungle. maybe resignation to the lone- nose, despite the zinc oxide and wide- enthused by the whole thing. The two of them greeted brimmed hats, convinced Daniel that “Is it so great? Aren’t they everyone with: “Bula!” The fit guy, a boy who could get a proper tan was basically poor and living in squalor?” Ratu, seemed more genuine, with at an advantage in all aspects of life. She was intently focused on the corner his broad smile of perfect teeth and He quickly glanced at them in of the nail on her ring finger. “A lot lingering eye contact. Although he liness he too often felt even the seat behind him. of those places don’t have windows or had an obvious underbite, he had a “Really, you two? Phones?” doors. I think it’s just… sad.” handsome face with a square jaw and Seeming to be on the verge of “Well, it’s sad if you think that large, wide-set eyes of amber. exasperation despite the fact that he what you have isn’t enough, but they Anna parroted an enthusiastic rarely interrupted them, each of them seem pretty happy to me. And have “Bula!” as she stepped out of the van. though he shouldn’t when he pulled out one earbud to hear him. you seen any affluent neighborhoods Daniel smiled as he walked toward “Every teenager on the planet can be since we got here?” them and offered his hand. They could looking at Instagram right now; you “They’re probably all hidden make a charming first impression guys get to look at this other world.” behind gates like everywhere else.” when they felt like it. was with his family (and away “I’ve been looking—I picked She glanced down at his chin, “What’s After the greeting, their hosts up my phone right before you turned that? I like a man with a cleft chin, but brought them to the picnic table where around!” Then, to herself, “Ugh…” what’s going on there?” the serious guy, Nick, had them fill His son replaced his earbud “From shaving.” He wet his out paperwork while Ratu fitted each and remained silent, but Daniel knew fingertip on his tongue and tried to rub of them for helmets. Leila sniffed from his work).” he was probably glaring at the back of off the dried blood. the padded lining of the helmet and his head in full irritation mode. The van turned off the road bobbed her head backward with a laughed incredulously. that they spent so much money doing needed to be happy. Anna was deleting emails from onto a driveway pocked with deep scowl before turning to her brother “Oh, my God,” Daniel said extra activities on vacations. Guided After a couple of minutes, the her phone, her nail audibly clicking on puddles. They passed a rugby field and and mouthing smell it. He did and to Anna through his helmet, “what hikes to waterfalls, private boat rides cracked, pothole-ridden pavement the screen. “There’s really nothing so a junkyard of tires before pulling up looked back to her before mouthing are we paying for this abuse?” They to islands, spearfishing lessons, scuba turned into loose gravel and then special they need to look at right now,” to a tidy, rutted tin structure painted gross in reply. both laughed. diving lessons, cooking lessons—the a dirt path. Their buggies’ engines she said. bright yellow, with two shiny red picnic Daniel, watching the “You don’t want to know, but concierge could arrange anything were loud, exhaust-emitting and “It’s another aesthetic, another tables and a Pepsi vending machine in exchange, said, “There’s no other it’s worth it!” they wanted. Using income from seemingly no more powerful than climate, another culture—another way front of it. In the gravel lot beside it option, you guys, so…” They put their At that moment, he was her trust, Anna planned not just a lawnmowers. After a forty-minute of living. It’s worth seeing. Better than was a conga line of dune buggies. helmets on with a combination of genuinely enjoying himself, but vacation but an “experience” every ride into the jungle, winding up and consumption-obsessed, self-absorbed “This is it, mistah.” The resignation and disgust. there was always a side of him that summer. The resorts they stayed at down steep hills on a six-foot-wide social media posts worshipping fame driver’s first words since they passed The men escorted them down just wanted to be reading his book, were too exclusive to be crowded, so path where they occasionally lost and fortune. And better than the the gatehouse of the resort. to their buggies and got them situated, lying in the hammock on the beach the pools and the beaches were always traction in muddy stretches or got 36. 37. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 The Plunge - John R. Murray

slapped by leaves leaning into their right side of his body and then the “We are almost there—and then you wearing what she called (since it offered were now heading toward Ratu. back and hold his hand out to Anna, path, their guides pulled into a small right side of his face hit the mud. He jump in the water and be like new.” more coverage than her daughter’s) Daniel sat on his flat rock, which left who grabbed it and joined him on clearing halfway up a hill, hopped out wasn’t out of shape, he worked out Ratu flashed his big, contagious grin, her “lady’s bikini,” yet not looking like him submerged to the waist, allowing small rock shelves, often shoulder to and instructed them to do the same. every morning at six, but he wasn’t and they moved on. a middle-aged woman who’d carried him to wash the mud off. He watched shoulder if not hip to hip, until they “Now we hike,” said Nick, used to exercising outside of a gym. They heard the waterfall well two children to term, Daniel thought. as his children disappeared behind the arrived at a wide swath of rock that nodding to the entrance of an “Fuck!” in advance of seeing it, and the guides The teens both jumped in, waterfall, only to reemerge under the was tucked into the hillside, further unmarked path that descended into The guides were immediately stepped in front of them to offer a followed by Anna. Daniel began curtain of water about five feet above away from the waterfall. She had the lush greenery. The four of them on him, pulling him up and checking hand to help them over the slippery inspecting his elbow, which had where they’d entered. That’s when he a history of cozying up to younger got out of their buggies in a much to see if he was injured, or angry or rocks abutting the pool. It was then evidently hit something more than soft noticed that Ratu was rock climbing men they’d hired. The ballroom lighter mood than they’d gotten into anything else that might result in a bad that Daniel noticed Ratu’s feet. mud when he fell, since it was swollen diagonally up the wall until he reached dancing instructor, the landscape them, competing for who’d gotten the review of their little business. “Wait, you’re barefoot! Have and bleeding. Ratu walked past him a small shelf, no more than a foot deep, architect, the guitar teacher, the head wettest or the muddiest and whose “I’m fine, I’m fine. Do you you been barefoot the entire time?” shirtless, his shorts hanging low on his thirty feet above the pool. He carefully of development at the museum— buggy was harder to drive. have something I can wipe my face The whole family looked hips. positioned himself facing out, his back Daniel thought she too often entered Ratu leaned into the back of with?” Nick pulled a hand towel from down at Ratu’s muddy feet in disbelief. “Come on, Dad!” to the rock. their personal space, touched them the SUV, transferring packages and his bag and held it out for Daniel, but “Not barefoot, Dad. Fijian Nick kept his clothes on and “Okay, family, here I go!” He unnecessarily. He suspected that she’d bottles from a cooler to duffel bags. Ratu intercepted it and, still wearing shoes!” They all chuckled before began to go through the duffel bags launched himself from the rock wall, cheated on him, and her best friend’s He turned around to face them with a his backpack and carrying his duffel, moving in an almost enchanted state and cooler, spreading out a tablecloth doing a sort of slow cycling action with husband had intimated as much after big smile. “Now, family! You ready for went to the stream to douse it. toward a turquoise pool fed by a 75- on a weathered bamboo table that past his feet, arms stretched out above him too many scotch and sodas, but Daniel adventure?” Daniel glanced over at his foot waterfall bordering a third of its tour guides had stashed next to the like an Olympian crossing the finish never sought confirmation. Dreading “Let’s do it!” said Anna. family, doing all they could to contain circumference. High up, at the crest trail. He set up a lunch of cold cuts, line. Anna and the kids paused their that the truth would be more hurtful Nick grabbed a duffel from the their laughter. “Really? You’re of the waterfall, the water glowed with potato chips, dill pickles, papaya slices own activities to watch his jump and than the lie. SUV and they followed him to begin laughing?” He was trying to sound bright sunlight. and celery sticks. then clapped and whooped fanatically. Daniel then realized that they the trek down the hill to the waterfall good-natured, as if he thought it was Daniel sat down on a boulder Daniel walked very gingerly Anna was now ascending the were heading toward a rope swing with Ratu at the back, wearing a kind of funny too, even though he had and untied his mud-covered hiking toward the water, his rarely bare feet rocks at the base of the waterfall, in that someone had tied onto the thick backpack and carrying another, larger the distinct sensation that his elbow shoes. The guides and Anna joined sensitive to every lump and edge on the direction of her children. Ratu branch of an enormous dakua tree duffel. and knee were starting to bleed. him. the rocks. He found a large, flat rock came out of the pool about twelve feet growing near the edge of the pool. The muddy trail proved “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” “Well,” Anna said, “I guess about a foot below the surface at the behind her. The falling water blocked From there, someone could grab challenging at its steepest spots. At Anna offered a patronizing look those fancy hiking shoes couldn’t water’s edge. He stood on it, grateful out their voices, but Daniel could see hold of the rope and get a running some point each of them had to grab of concern that only fueled his compete with a pair of Fijian shoes.” for the cool relief beneath his feet Ratu call to Anna and Anna turn start before launching from the edge, hold of one of the bamboo trees humiliation. The guides and Anna smiled at her as he watched his children scaling a around to smile at him. A few seconds swinging to the center and dropping lining the path in order to reestablish “I’m fine… my… nothing. joke as Daniel tried to concentrate on boulder next to the waterfall and his later, the four of them met up on a wide into the turquoise water, thirty feet their balance as they slipped and slid I’m fine.” undoing the double knot he’d tied in wife doing a backstroke across the ledge just left of the cascading water. down. their way down the lush, narrow trail, That served as a cue for his laces that morning. center of the pool. Then he noticed Led by Ratu, they all joined hands and Daniel studied Ratu, who was dappled with sunlight. They heard his children to release their pent up “Funny stuff, Anna. Thanks.” Ratu on all fours, climbing the rocks jumped, making an enormous splash holding the rope, walking back and running water as the hill began to level laughter. He looked at them with a “What do you mean, up to the base of the waterfall. When on impact, and then each bobbing to forth, then looking over the edge and off, and a stream came into view that wounded expression. ‘thanks’?” he got there, he stood on a large rock the surface with grins on their faces. down to the water. He studied Anna ultimately ran parallel with the trail. “I’m sorry, Dad,” Leila said, “Nothing.” under the curtain of falling water, face “Dad,” his daughter called and how she chattered and gestured “Wow, you guys see the “it’s just that your face… and your hair “Okay, family!” Ratu clapped up, smiling as usual, arms stretched out, “come in!” and smiled at Ratu, seemingly in awe stream?” Daniel knew he was asking is standing up on that side.” his hands. “Time for swimming!” out in front of him like a beckoning He gave her a thumbs up of him even considering the jump. an obvious question, but he was trying Ratu came up next to him Leila and Chase walked to the holy man. followed by a just a minute signal. He As Ratu backed up to prepare for his to maintain the enthusiasm they’d had with the wet towel. “You okay, Dad? edge of the water. Daniel studied him with was hot and he was dirty. He knew the leap, Anna stood back, fists clenched when they got out of their buggies. No injuries?” As the two guides watched a combination of irritation and water would feel rejuvenating, but he together and pressed against her “Yeah, nice,” his daughter “No injuries, I think.” He them, Daniel decided that his daughter envy as he considered his youth, his felt a knot in his throat—maybe anger, breastbone, looking like a starstruck called back. reached for the towel, but Ratu pulled had outgrown her bikini, even though confidence, his fearlessness. Daniel maybe sadness, maybe resignation to teenage fan. “Did you notice the way that it away. he’d never seen it before. It then felt he’d spent his own life constantly the loneliness he too often felt even “Oh, give me a break, Anna,” the…” At that moment, not realizing “I got it, Dad.” Ratu gently occurred to him that the guides were jumping through hoops to prove some though he shouldn’t when he was with Daniel murmured to himself. He that as the path had flattened out, so wiped the mud from Daniel’s face with in complete control over him and his aspect of his own legitimacy, but here his family (and away from his work).” didn’t mind her snarkiness with him, had the depth of the muddy sections, an expertise that made it seem that it family. at a waterfall in the jungle, none of Anna and Ratu again climbed but he couldn’t abide the flirting. He Daniel felt his right foot slide out in was a routine service performed for “Can I go in?” His son always that mattered. Here, Ratu was the out of the pool and scaled the rock took his shirt off and jumped into the front of him on a 45-degree angle, all his customers, which should have had to be the first one in the water. man to envy. wall, Ratu leading her higher than aqua pura, simultaneously treading forcing him to do a split. First his left mitigated the humiliation of falling, “Absolutely!” Anna called out Leila and Chase had jumped they’d gone with Leila and Chase. As water and washing off the remaining knee, then his right elbow, then the but only embarrassed him further. as she walked toward the pool. She was from their boulder into the pool and he mounted each new ledge, he’d turn mud from his fall. 38. 39. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 “Dad,” his daughter called “Oh, Mister Daniel, I think out, “look!” She gestured up to Ratu, maybe you don’t want to do that.” who was holding onto the rope with an “Daniel,” Anna said, “don’t uncharacteristically serious expression be ridiculous.” Chapter 36: The Age of Harry as he launched over the water. When “I’m not being ridiculous.” He he was perfectly centered above the walked over to the edge, looked down Leanne Grabel pool, he flashed his broad smile before at his kids and clapped his hands, letting go and entering the water with causing them to look up. He pointed barely a splash. Anna bounced on the to himself and then to the rope. They balls of her feet, clapping wildly and both watched him intently, his son woo-hooing so loudly that it echoed all smiling, his daughter slack-jawed. around them. He held the rope with all his might, Daniel swam across the pool backed up as far as the strand would toward the waterfall, forgetting the allow and stared at the edge. bumps and scrapes he had incurred “Mr. Daniel, please don’t. It’s when he fell. He felt strong and very dangerous. I could get in trouble.” purposeful and proudly masculine. “I’m just jumping in the water. He’d never been much of an athlete, You won’t get in any trouble.” but his regular workouts kept him in Vibrating with an unleashed good shape, and he possessed a degree anger that somehow felt exhilarating, of physical confidence when he didn’t he bolted to the edge and leapt into think too much about it. the air. As the rope neared its full He climbed up through the extension above the basin, his anger curtain of the waterfall and began transformed into fearlessness and scaling the rock to reach the plateau then, as he quickly glanced at Anna where Anna stood. He didn’t notice and Ratu and then his children, into that Ratu was ten feet behind him, pure joy. With that lightness, his grip sometimes having to pause, since loosened prematurely, and he slid five Daniel climbed at a slower pace. feet down the slack of rope before When Daniel finally reached regaining his grip, at which point he Anna, she turned around and smiled, realized he’d missed his opportunity but the first thing out of his mouth to drop into the turquoise center of was, “It would be nice if you could act the pool and was now swinging back like you’re a married woman with two toward the rock wall, five feet beneath teenagers watching you.” the point where he’d launched, with Anna stared at him coldly, all nowhere to jump off and nothing but of the happy expression gone from rocks below. her face. He still felt his anger, but her resistance was making him question himself. He wanted to say something I have wished to be happy sharp and penetrating, but all he could manage was, “You know… okay?” In five seconds, he’d segued from as if there were nothing else admonishing to almost pleading. “You have a problem,” she said for me to be dismissively. Just then, Ratu joined them. André Gide “All right, Dad! You made it!” Daniel couldn’t muster up any charm for Ratu. “Yeah, Ratu, I made it. Show me how I do this rope swing. I need to get back in the water.” 40. 41. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel

My room came with a beautiful couch, the blue color of summer, chubby and bright, with graceful white irises arabesquing all over it. I sat on this couch in the middle of this room and A few days later, back in Portland, I met my husband Harry. It was the first night I slept stared out the three giant windows. The hawthorns danced against the old, wavy glass creating in my new room in an old Victorian house owned by a teacher friend. I had a fabulous a psychedelic shadow play on my walls—not that I was that psychedelic. corner suite upstairs with a walk-in closet. It also had a balcony ringed with old hawthorns and oaks, looking like big-bellied uncles and grandpas with hippie hair. What now? What now?

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Harry showed up at my new house for a rehearsal that first week. He was playing God in a Everyone but me wanted to go to the poetry reading at Bacchus’ new place after the rehearsal. satirical radio play written by Oregon’s great cultural figure, C.E.S. Wood. I was invited to play I was even supposed to be the featured act with my friend, Mona, who played percussion. But Saint Peter. One of my new roommates was Mark Twain. no way. The date had been set up months before.

Harry walked in wearing a Scottish tweed cap, a thick Guatemalan sweater and a skinny, blonde There was no way I was going down there. girlfriend named Dolly. But she left early. “Come on. Come on. We’ll protect you,” my friends said. “Let’s go.” Harry started following me around the house. And he kept talking nonstop, telling me all sorts of details about himself in a strange, random order. He had a big, open face and big, open teeth Harry knew nothing about my long, sordid history with Bacchus. The others knew a little, but like Chiclets. had no idea how deeply I’d been rubbed and smudged. 44. 45. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel

I was a nervous wreck entering the bar, and remained encircled within the men who had ac- Four major crosstown streets came together in a helmet of stoplights two doors down. There companied me, including Harry. It took everything I had to appear normal. I saw Bacchus was a gigantic 24-hour Texaco station and a 24-hour Chevron station across the street. stealing glances, and then overtly and heartlessly avoiding my return glances. There was a pull out couch—torn, lumpy and covered in cat hair. There was no bathroom Disappointment, like the smell of an old, fatty pork roast, overwhelmed me for a moment, except at the gas stations. The sounds of bad traffic never stopped. At 4:30 the next morn- made me reel. ing, I screamed at Donny. WAKE UP. COME ON. LET’S GO.

I had desired Bacchus like air, my desire so basic, I mistook it for breath. We drove to Denny’s. We both ordered a Grand Slam breakfast: two pancakes, two eggs, two bacon strips, two sausage links, coffee and toast. My god. I felt like I had wool socks on my eyes. 46. 47. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel

A few days later, I dropped by Harry’s office downtown to thank him. He worked for the City Harry suggested a Mexican restaurant, without imagination, but with a lot of beers, a few blocks of Portland as a vocational rehabilitation counselor. I wanted to take him to lunch. away. I asked Harry a few basic questions to start the conversation, and he talked. And talked.

Harry was wearing a gray tweed blazer and a bright red and black striped tie. It was so endear- Harry had such an adoring look on his face. And he led with those teeth. And his warmth. It felt ing. But his shoes were bad. They were curled up grandpa shoes. good. It felt like walking into a small party with amazing food where everyone was paying atten- tion to me.

To be frank, I couldn’t follow the shape of Harry’s stories very well. It was if his sentences were kites, or helium balloons purposely let loose. 48. 49. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Chapter 37: A Tiny Lapse Leanne Grabel

About a week later, I visited Harry at his apartment. He had a jewel of a one-bedroom in a jewel of an old brick building. It was very bookish and brown.

There was a brown couch, brown wall-to-wall carpeting, brown towels, a brown comforter and Moans and brown wood. There was also brown light since Harry’s apartment abutted a larger brick Deep swan song apartment building on the east. Blue farewell Of a dying dream. “Harry has a goddamned coffee grinder,” one of our mutual friends screamed to me one night Maya Angelou while we nibbled calamari and drank glass after glass of Italian wine. He was trying to convince me that Harry and I were meant to be together. 50. 51. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel

Harry invited me over for dinner a couple weeks later. I ran into Bacchus on my way over to Harry’s. Bacchus looked clammy and pale. And bloated. He was wearing an enormous black leather motorcycle jacket with about a hundred zippers and pulls. He looked like a parking lot.

He kept trying to slither his hand into my pants, and I kept pulling it out. It felt bad, like a spider or a snake. “Come on, Baby,” he said again. “Remember when you loved me? I still love you, Baby.”

“Remember when we were together,” he said, pulling me into a tavern and onto his lap. And then he kissed me, and I felt like Naugahyde. “Remember when you loved me,” he said.

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Harry had made a baked chicken dish—boneless, skinless chicken breasts seared in butter and garlic, stuffed with mustard and ricotta. Each plump breast had a basil leaf on top I got to Harry’s an hour late, wearing shame like a pullover sweater. I mumbled something like a pennant of renewal. Harry also steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes, and made about a dental appointment running long. a green salad with crumbled feta on top. He’d bought gourmet chocolate ice cream for dessert. Harry seemed thrilled to see me. He poured me a glass of Italian red. I think a Barbera.

I was extremely impressed. And I was bobbing on the buoyancy of Harry’s careful atten- tion, feeling only a little soiled because of my encounter with Bacchus.

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After dinner, Harry and I walked slowly back to my house. And we made out a little bit on my chintz couch. One thing, however, did not lead to another. Harry wanted to wait. He wanted to make a smoother transition, between the old and the new. About two weeks later, Harry said he was ready to transition. We lay on my couch, as always. But this time, hours went by. Harry relished my body with, well, relish. It made me embarrassed, for a second—but then I was impressed with Harry’s patience.

And vice versa.

56. 57. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel Chapter 38: The Woo Leanne Grabel

I felt as if I were drugged, floating, diving into the wild. I laughed, I cried. Harry stroked my face and cooed, looked stunned and happy. He, too, laughed and cried. She’s mad, but she’s magic. There’s no lie in her fire. And vice versa. Charles Bukowski

“I love you,” he said.

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Harry resigned from his city job and took his retirement fund in one lump sum. It was $7,400, Harry made me laugh so hard. He could mimic anyone and anything. He mimicked horses, I think. Then, Harry took me out to breakfast and dinner every day all summer long. It was dogs, Chinese waiters, Jewish immigrants, machinery, phones. I was giddy. He could even do fabulous. We loved and lolled and went out for espresso. We drove to rivers and beaches, went double accents, like a German Jew with an Indian accent. Or a computer with an Italian accent. swimming, read Raymond Carver and Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Patchen and E. E. Cummings

out loud. We drank cocktails and nibbled more calamari. We were tan. And for those few months of early bliss, I loved touching Harry. His skin felt like cocoa in the snow, warm and sweet.

Harry thought I was a dream come true—sexy, spirited, smart, cute, poetic and sexually insatia- ble. He mooned over me. I gilded in it.

60. 61. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel Chapter 39: Mrs. Harry Leanne Grabel

A few months later, I got pregnant, even though we were always using birth control. It was Hal- loween night, 1985. Harry said he knew we’d made a baby right after we did. He said he could feel it. I just remembered feeling wild. I felt possessed—but in a good way.

Either marriage is a destiny, I believe, “I’m ready,” he said, although he used about sixty times more words. or there is no sense in it at all, it’s a piece of humbug. “That’s good,” I said, “because I’m having this baby.” Max Frisch

“Then here we go,” chirped Harry. “Yippee. And baby makes three.” Yes, he said, “Yippee.”

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I had never really envisioned my wedding, which was pretty rare for a little girl of the fifties, I didn’t have any color schemes, no palettes picked out. I didn’t choose any puckered satin at least among the girls I knew. I never envisioned that puffy gown of white foam, that spray dresses the color of sidewalk chalk for five of my best friends. There were no shoes dyed to of meshed tulle sprouting from my hopeful head like a fountain of pasteurized milk, that fate- match, no innumerable pearl buttons, no lemon pepper chicken breasts, no medallions of ful unveiling, that passionate kiss in front of everyone I knew, including my father. No. No. I beef, no thank you notes. No. It didn’t look that fun to me. couldn’t see it.

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At six weeks pregnant, I was nauseous all the time. The only things I liked to eat were bacon, Harry seemed to be just what my family needed. For one thing, he could actually carry on a Dijon mustard and brie cheese. Everything else tasted disgusting. conversation with my father. The rest of us were conversationally disabled. We were all plugged

up with the dour of Dad. But once the nausea phase passed, the pregnancy’s hormonal upheaval seemed to be just what I’d been missing all these years. I felt emotionally calm and stable. I even had moments of buoy- We had grown up with Dad frustrated, with Dad irate. Our father chose his victims by their ancy—high joy. kindness, then shouted and sat on his victims, even the children, chewing himself into a glut- tonous frenzy, getting spittle all over us.

I was rarely his victim, which pissed off the rest. They thought I was his soldier. I wasn’t his soldier. And I wasn’t his high hope. 66. 67. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brontosaurus - Leanne Grabel

I had envisioned the Olympics, the United Nations, mansions and summer homes at the shore. I had envisioned fame, adoration, exotic languages and aqua waters. I played football Harry and my father drank another scotch, easy rocks, out on the deck. They had quiet conver- and baseball with the boys. I was on the swim team. I got up at five in the morning to swim sation, ice cubes clinking. None of us could believe it. None of us knew how to do that. miles. I swam the butterfly and the individual medley. I didn’t play house.

“It won’t be easy,” my father allegedly said to Harry, chuckling but serious, when Harry asked But then, I was pregnant and thirty-four. My mother convinced me to wed with one stare. In him for my hand in marriage. her one stare, I could see a lifetime of judgment the size of Detroit. So, I gave.

“She’s very smart, you know,” my father said. “But she’s a moody, impatient, arrogant, undo- “I can go either way,” Harry said, which was typical and no help at all. “Maybe we should get mesticated son of a bitch. It will be a bumpy road, Harry,” he purportedly said. “But I like you, married,” he said. Harry. You have my blessing.”

“I don’t know,” I said. 68. 69. 2002-a confession Emily Costantino

We compared the lines in our While we hit shovels together hands one morning before like they were swords. Your school. It was colder than the shovel took a chunk of my day before, mist rose from finger. It didn’t hurt, but it left the pavement, people closed a scar. It bled down my hand, their windows and we sat on dripping off my elbow. We my front steps with our hats ran inside screaming, leaving on. You opened up your our shovels on the pavement. hand, spreading your fingers No amount of care, or apart to reveal your palm to ointment could heal it. Even me. You were never that after they let you out of the great at spelling things out, hospital, the scar was there. It reading between lines, was there when you looked at making sense of what we the sun for hours, asking me read in magazines at the if it hurt my eyes, as I sat supermarket. We learned beside you nervously playing before the bus pulled up that with my rings. Was I Judas, POETRY the lines on my hands were or a good friend? For longer. They spread far watching it all happen. For across my palm, circling only writing letters. around my wrist, I saw the picture. The one making infinite loops, running off my you drew when you dipped hand, eventually getting away your hands in red paint and from me. How obnoxious it drew long lines down your can be, I thought, to have walls with your fingers. hands that cry for attention – Eventually the lines gave to win when you aren’t way, meeting the corners of trying. the room, the edges of the I think soon we’ll all laugh walls. And after they put you about the nights when it was away, people came to see dark and the light coming what you had made. They from the garage lit up the measured and analyzed, driveway. I reached for your feeling the wet paint with face in the dark. Extending my their hands, trying hands out through the desperately to get inside your particles and matter, reading the head. What could have contours of your face like possessed you, a Braille. Will this light, the one grade school boy from the that attracts the bugs and country, they thought? appears only in fractions, I knew you just didn’t have show me your face, again? the time to paint lines that touched. Lines that ran into one another. Lines that created infinite loops. And so the lines on my palms were longer, and so I lived the 70. longest. 71. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19

3 For all the power of order over others Lives Not Lived reposed in me, I am powerless to repel rife disorder. Armed delirium erupts at will in broad daylight. Victor Marrero From cells teeming in dark undergrounds, solitaries spew fire and hate. Zealots scorch all common ground. Hard stands. Hard demands 1 as the mighty fall to fear and futility. An embattled crowd’s Day after day, as if haunted by a loss, cause for armament strikes me down to a lesser pose. I relive my lives not lived. Like an amputee reaching out with limbs sensed but never there, Yellow tape marks the star-crossed spot I clutch lost worlds that passed me by, where infamy strikes each time. They call it worlds that orbited suns without me. founding right, fair game, a rallying cry I greet as old friends the native selves I never knew in freedom’s fight. But there is nothing mystic who were not allowed to be mine, or divine enough to celebrate in mourning. who were taken away or else were not meant for me There no one stands upright. Only the victims to meet on my terms. Denials varnish truth are left to blame as the petrified hearts where dark bootprints leave voids in the sky, that call the shots bow for encores. like black holes in the Milky Way stamping out lights that can no longer glow or escape. What the first constellation 4 left out by negation extinguished whole generations Consciousness under a lifetime of stars that never counted, never shined. of constant pounding tests the outer bonds where limits cross and conscience snaps. 2 Senseless shocks numb my sensibility. The boisterous guessing game Self-armored now, my defense equals my offense. falls on deaf ears. At the edge, I am ready for vengeful battle. teetering on pins and needles, In this survivor’s shell I am invincible, I seek the right answer. fortified to repel the next siege of outrage. I want reason to win, and win it square. Arm for arm, blow for blow, But the tarots’ chatter I equal my jailers’ savagery, indulge their kicks. tells another tale. Sentiment thrown to the wind, Reveling in obscure divination, curse be damned that made me like this, mystics hide what I need to know. that I can stare down the red fire rings I should steal away in the eyes of the beast. But more pain as I see a lie unfold. cannot hurt me anymore. You created this monster. Now go feed it. Too late to turn back. This far down the line the fallback fails. My brinkman’s forceful charge takes hold to halt the dull rotation that passes for obligation to play for scant return. In the end, like a top’s inertial fate to spin and bore in place, the ballast wheel stops, dead in its tracks. As in the child’s game of ring-around-the-rosy, when ashes sound, we all fall down.

72. Image credit: Robert Bowen 73. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Slow Flood: Detroit 2019 Beyond Area 51 Caroline Maun Nels Hanson Before, when I thought of floods, I thought hurricane, broken We drive the empty vast panorama, straight levees, that house-to-house two-lane and poles with wires that hum a pathos searching, helicopter footage before invention of the telephone, of an Easterner and johnboat rescues, who never heard the voice again of her daughter a hundred mile cyclone sailed west around the Horn or father his lost son’s of torrent bending trees in one from Colterville not far from Mariposa. Someday direction south of the eye soon with technology we’ll succeed in speaking and the other north. That trip to the dead not talking to the living, to say we’re down I-95 when every curb sorry. You never know, watching sage and sand had appliances like big game pass under this bare sky never much inclined to carcasses pale and steamy desert rain, just late evening pyrotechnics avid in the sun. Summer in Baltimore watchers record with cameras. The road, no bend when the storm surge turned in sight in daylight, edges past Area 51, guarded every basement five miles inland nursery for secret new jets and weapons, rumored to a murky swimming pool spaceships built from wrecks of saucers, Route 6 with floating plastic board game on a folded map to Tonopah, “Hidden Spring” in pieces at the top of the stairs. Shoshone. Have a scotch, one beer with a rib-eye I would not have thought and potato, then north past Mono Lake for Bodie of floodwater as stubborn the ghost town in that Ghost Dance country, near like a tide pool. Inch by inch, Hawthorne and Walker Lake where Wovoka stood the cyclone fence now stands half in heaven New Year’s Day, the sun in full eclipse. submerged, keeping the big fish out. A ranger in the Old West’s snow-ruined city warns The seawall is ghostly, under soft visitors not to take a brick or shard, stray souvenir. waves in mid-July sunshine. Some are prone to good luck charms, the talisman All those garages off the canals found where tons of golden ores were found, until with water spilling to the street. a string of days and weeks your life goes wrong, We even forgot it was a flood to end calamity each brings back a stolen thing. when the least thing distracted us, when what was on the news and feeds felt more like a flood than the sump pump that failed or the mold that painted the walls like Rorschach blots. What if it just keeps rising, an inch or two at a time until there is no more ice, except for the cubes that fall a lonely dozen chimes in laboring freezers, until the maps won’t work.

74. 75. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Brittle, Unbending Isaac’s Pool Stephen Waldron Stephen Waldron

Sometimes I wonder if God’s got a warehouse Seven-year-old me thought they were a gang, to store all the glory she’s gotten but what did I know? from employees of the National Football League. On hot days, they would bathe in Isaac’s pool, which was small like I wonder if God has that tub I saw at the Big E, a dungeon for kings who’d done what was wicked when the megaphone voice ordered complete silence while a record-holding high diver and brought figurines to the hilltops plunged from such a height where they promised each other a covenant that I made of mutual benefit through zipper-locked lips. myself sick seeing her I wonder if the stream that feeds the waters of Zion s p l a t t i n g on the asphalt. filters through the roots and the rocks before seeping under the gate of the heavenly city. One day Jimmy said that Isaac was walking down Tyler Street, But most deeply I wonder if the cherubim when someone shot him in the back. will crash through the sky we have painted For the rest of the summer, and rescue our petrified souls. he sat there in his wheelchair, getting splashed and wincing at the revelry. Next year, the pool sat still, growing algae.

76. 77. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Come and Get It Boys! The Devil Steve Denehan Steve Denehan

Usually I was bypassed It was an old-style fairground ignored function over flash while others were chosen they were all there but this year I was bitten the dodgems, the waltzer, the ghost train and the mosquito hotline there was a man in a top hat was abuzz standing underneath a sign that said, simply ‘The Devil’ my ankles, scalp he was calling out the sole of my foot with great gusto my calf, my shin the back of my hand “The devil is real!” between my legs “See for yourself!” piercing, humming, itching “We have captured the devil!” “Pay the price and spend five minutes in a room with the devil!” I tried to wait it out “A being capable of unspeakable evil.” before capitulating “The ultimate manipulator.” and rushing to the local shop “Look into the eyes… of the devil!” for sprays and creams “Feel true fear as you understand, as you truly comprehend…” a cooling mousse incense and there was one door in a silicon bracelet that I wore on my wrist and another door out until I found one, shiny and black, gorging itself nervous, smiling faces entered underneath it pale, expressionless faces emerged and walked away in silence daylight itching what the hell… nighttime scratching I paid the fee and got in line the blessed relief temporary my turn came I stepped inside I gave up the room was small and very dark ditched the nonsense sprays I waited and voodoo bracelets heard the door lock behind me sat out on the balcony thirty seconds passed resigned I wondered if it was a scam come and get it boys! it was the first night that I wasn’t bitten the silence was broken by a loud electrical click then sudden, blinding light my eyes clamped shut the light pressed against them I opened them slowly there was a mirror

78. 79. The Opiate, Fall. Vol. 19 The Truth About August Breaking Bread Charlie Brice Donna Dallas is that it’s the month before September Scene 1 which means soon October will occur Halloween and then November and then winter! 1985 I, in costume as a space alien So many see winter as the end You, as a pirate of something while I see it as Us, high as motherfuckers the beginning of everything. Traipsing up 6th Ave Raveling ourselves within the parade Ice mist slaps my face into life. Weaving in and out of painted bodies Out here it’s do what it takes Glittered lashes or roll up into a ball and die. Elvira in drag 20 Michael Jacksons It’s the challenge of snow cloud across Dracula and his coffin a frozen Walloon Lake more beautiful Stop only to snuff - me than the luscious blooms of spring. Inject - you Hours Read Dickens in front of the fire, The tin man / cowboy / green wig girl make cookies to combat the drifts, Limelight I don’t remember snowshoe up Townsend Road, Dawn came At The Vault across the heath on O’Conner’s farm, I was pleasantly asked to pee on someone lurking in a pit where cornstalks bow and wave You were in the corner twitching in summer but only windforce Sweat poured off you

sings in January. Yes, this is where Scene 2 everything starts, where the cold Days later makes the heart warm, where Your ex knocked on the door To leave your 1-year-old son a blanket of absolution covers In your care the sins of sun and bloom and While she hit up a rehab I was concerned about your Rottweiler births a fresh start for us all. Around a baby You left for a 4-day binge I stole diapers And used your cash To get high Not too high Just enough To carry on With Lucifer The Rottweiler And your son I realized the gold necklace My godmother gave me was missing You sold it to fund your binge Rent was due I never answered the door Lucifer kept the landlord at bay 80. 81. The Opiate, Fall. Vol. 19

Scene 3 Halloween 1986 Me, your ex, your now 2-year-old son What I Wore to the Prom All of us dressed as Elvis Donna Dallas Your ex Now a lesbian In love with me I. And completely rehabbed I came out of the bowels of Queens Wants to spend every waking minute with us out of a suicidal mother (But really me) an alcoholic grandmother pedophiles and touchers I am only on the drink a father who was not my father These days bitches who would scar and scathe You search for more places to shoot up boys who would hit and hurt Running out of smooth skin passersby would stare We watch in disgust as you shake their heads in sadness and breathe relief Inject under your ball sac since it wasn’t their sadness I slur only mine inverted While you lean on the wall For hours I should have been a boy Beer bottles litter the apartment I could have shoved and poked and maimed Ex is frustrated instead of being the receiver the recipient With our addictions the awardee Threatens to take your son the homing pigeon And move back to West Virginia with the sign on my head Whispers to me that read losers welcome here I can’t leave you with him (I could have escaped...) He will ruin you but which cross was worse to bear so I stayed grinned bore it withstood little by little crawled out like a roach

kept going when they threw rocks and blood ran I kept going...... they trailed behind taunted and yelled I kept on I am free motherfuckers–free

82. 83. The Opiate, Fall. Vol. 19 II. years later when this one died of a heroin O.D. and that one got her face pummeled in during a crack war the other one was found dead and rotting in his car I can keep going (because there’s a lot of ‘em.....)

one has five kids can’t shake the syph her abusive husband keeps riddling her with one walked too far out onto the highway on meth rammed by an 18-wheeler one’s in state prison for robbing a liquor store with a shotgun his 3-year-old by his side CRITICISM most are on welfare living in the same hovels

I beelined out of; and this my dear is what we call divine intervention or just lucky as fuck.

84. 85. The Opiate, Fall. Vol. 19 Every Love Permutation is Tainted in Jean Rhys’ Quartet - Genna Rivieccio would appear she lives in an entirely out of it as well. Even if said thrill is not how to even go about ascertaining different world than they do. They psychological as opposed to sexual, what she desires. What she truly feels. who never seem to have issues with like it is for H.J. Going with the proverbial flow of money, allowing room to cultivate Exposed to their ostensibly it all, Marya found “her life swayed more high-class problems, like how to high-brow realm only to find that regularly, even monotonously, subtly approach taking her in under things are as (if not more) tawdry between two extremes, avoiding the “‘One’s caught in a sort of trap, I suppose.’ To be sure, no one is more familiar with that feeling than Marya. Disgusted with herself for succumbing to what the Heidlers have want- Every Love Permutation Is Tainted in Jean Rhys’ Quartet ed of her all along and at a Genna Rivieccio loss for how she would sup- port herself otherwise. Paris is like so many who have reached the end of a particular veryone is capable of edging toward the E rope, chooses to ignore any warning signs. For Stephan side of the dark and debauched when the circumstances grand, of course, but, like any- is her only chance for salvation from a failed attempt at become bleak enough. When backed into a corner by the a career as a theater actress in London (an attempt also sinister forces at work that seem to comprise the destiny made by Rhys herself). As Stephan’s wife, she can move of so many. The unavoidable fate of those so initially where else, what is it without to Paris and start anew. Yet, all too quickly, what Holly committed to living a life of splendor despite so clearly Golightly would deem the mean reds begin to creep in being preordained for tragedy like most of the rest of us. once more. Because as any constant wanderer will tell you, money?” Such is the case for Marya Zelli, Jean Rhys’ a change of city can only briefly lend the illusion of actual autobiographical lead character in Quartet. Like the change. heroine herself, the novel possesses a rare quality of Even so, Stephan is a consistent enough provider earnestness and honesty that perhaps only an author’s first the guise of being good Samaritans than the one she existed in with soul-destroying middle.” Seeking until his arrest effectively puts Marya out onto the street. book is truly capable of. That much of the foundation of when, in fact, H.J. and Lois have a Stephan, Marya suddenly has trouble to avoid that banal and prosaic Luckily (or unluckily, as it were), it is right around this time the narrative for Quartet is strongly rooted in the goings- certain “understanding” that allows reconciling what it is she even wants middleground at all costs, taking up that she makes the acquaintance of H.J. and Lois Heidler, on of Rhys’ own life at that time lends an added layer of him to cheat on her so long as it’s anymore out of life. Is it to live in with the Heidlers when they offer a well-to-do English couple that has been in Paris long authenticity to Marya’s own bizarre predicament. For her under their own roof. And with Lois’ Paris? Return to her own country? her a room in their abode seems to enough to have instituted themselves as an instrumental husband, Stephan, ends up in prison after years of thievery, patent knack for playing mind games She can no longer say, having spent be the best way to keep things both fixture on “the scene.” More specificially, Montparnasse. despite, naturally, telling Marya that his profession is as a with the paramour du jour (or is it de la so many years following the whims interesting and avoid the existence of And though Marya frequents the same neighborhood, it commissionaire d’objets d’art. Dubious, indeed. But Marya, nuit, in this case?), she gets a little thrill and decisions of another, she knows a pauper. Something akin to Édith 86. 87. The Opiate, Fall Vol. 19 Every Love Permutation is Tainted in Jean Rhys’ Quartet - Genna Rivieccio

Piaf ’s street urchin existence before myself sometimes. D’you ever get sick dubbed the “mad woman in the attic” meant literal prostitution as opposed her. And no audience distraction rising to fame. of yourself ? No, not yet, of course. sooner rather than later. In fact, Marya to the kind she’s found herself to divert from the vision of a tragic Somewhere deep down, of Wait a bit, you will one of these days.’ was, in many ways, a prototype for conducting with the Heidlers. finale. Certainly not the sending in of course, Marya must have known that ‘No,’ answered Marya reflectively. ‘I’m Rhys’ ultimate “mad woman” trope Yet it was her unfortunate the clowns that are Stephan and H.J., it is as the intro quote to Quartet from not sick of myself. I’m rather sick of my in the work that would define her wish in the first place to meet more all love permutations having been R.C. Dunning warns, “...Beware/Of sort of life.’ ‘Well, I’m sick of myself,’ career, Wide Sargasso Sea. Reimagining British expatriates in town, and there tainted and exhausted by the end of good Samaritans—walk to the right/ Heidler said gloomily. ‘And yet it goes Antoinette Cosway, the “insane” wife is no one worth knowing for such the tale. One that reminds its reader Or hide thee by the roadside out of on. One knows that the whole damn of Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre, Rhys purposes better than the Heidlers, that survival for a woman, no matter sight/Or greet them with the smile thing’s idiotic, futile, not even pleasant, draws on the themes of Quartet in terms ringleaders of the entire British how “romantic” the city, can so that villains wear.” For no one, not even but one goes on. One’s caught in a sort of a societally ingrained lack of female expatriate scene. Here, too, it is worth quickly (and unavoidably) turn ugly. the kindest soul, offers another a favor of trap, I suppose.’” solidarity when it comes to wielding noting that it is Marya’s frenzied Even now, in these “modern” times. without expecting something in return. In To be sure, no one is more men as a battleground for their own craving to find a cabal or place that this instance, use of Marya’s body by familiar with that feeling than Marya. dominance and assured place in the she feels she can belong to that gets H.J. Marya who is supposed to pretend Disgusted with herself for succumbing world. her into trouble. With Rhys perhaps that in acquiescing to this briefly tacit to what the Heidlers have wanted of While Lois is the “good” subconsciously suggesting that in (before flat out verbalized) request, she her all along and at a loss for how she woman and Marya the “bad” between order to remain true to oneself, isn’t breaking the quintessential female would support herself otherwise. Paris the two of them, both are determined secure in one’s convictions, a near code, while also fanning the flames of is grand, of course, but, like anywhere to keep hold of the impervious H.J. by complete eschewal of reliance upon Lois’ instrinsic fire of constant vitriol. else, what is it without money? At least any means necessary. Of course, Lois outside validation is essential. But Worst of all, Lois has to act so terribly with the Heidlers, she can be exposed is no angel in her treatment of Marya Marya is incapable of such eschewal, English about it, tiptoeing around the to “culture,” so often more underlyingly in spite of her initially mellifluous conditioned for the majority of her reality of what’s actually happening uncouth than what goes on outside of interactions and impersonation of life into a state of learned helplessness. by feigning genuine concern for what’s “high society.” Filled with those like the a maternal “mentor” taking Marya As was, in all honesty, the case with in Marya’s best interest, “sweetly” Heidlers who collect artists and drifting under her plump wing. If anything, most women of the epoch. For it was remarking to her, “When you told bohemians as a matter of sport, waiting Marya’s lack of seasoning in the art by design that they should be made me your husband was in jail—d’you to accurately determine between “the of how to be conniving in high society to feel as such by the patriarchal remember?—I felt as if you’d stretched Freaks who never would do anything, makes it all the more engaging for Lois establishment seeking to keep them in out a hand for help. Well—and I caught [and] the Freaks who just possibly to relish the slow burn of the game she’s check—complacent and reliant upon hold of your hand. I want to help you. might.” playing, one that Marya was not high- men for survival. Making a woman I’ll be awfully disappointed and hurt if Rhys fell into the latter born enough to understand the rules to. who finds herself all at once without a you don’t allow me to.” In the words of category, ultimately, encouraged by That much is apparent when husband nothing more than a sitting Rachel Green, “What a manipulative novelist and editor Ford Madox Ford to she is foolish enough to confide in duck like Marya. bitch.” publish her work with his help (despite Lois in the germinal phase of their At one point in the early Naturally, she only wants Ford’s awareness that he was the basis “friendship,” “‘I’ve realised, you see, that stage of her stay at the Heidlers, Marya to give in to H.J.’s carnal whims for the character of H.J., with Jean life is cruel and horrible to unprotected Marya meets up for a coffee with so that he might exhaust them all the Lenglet and Stella Bowen as the other people. I think life is cruel. I think a writer friend named Cairn, who more quickly and move on. Go back to players in the real life quartet). With her people are cruel.’ All the time she spoke insists to her, “‘You’ve got to be an being merely Lois’—and Lois’ alone— own husband, too, thrown into prison she was thinking: ‘Why should I tell her arriviste or a je m’en fichiste in this life.’ husband. That Marya is stubborn about in 1924, Rhys had no choice but to rely all this?’ But she felt impelled to go on. He added: ‘Only, of course, if you are fulfilling what is implicitly expected of on more powerful men for her ability to ‘I may be completely wrong, of course, going to be a je m’en fichiste, you must her only adds to H.J.’s unquenchable remain in Paris. The center of it all, for but that’s how I feel. Well, I’ve got used have the nerve to stand the racket lust for her at the beginning of their the fabulous life—the life of joy Marya to the idea of facing cruelty. One can, afterwards, because there always is dalliance. so desperately craves—can only be you know. The moment comes when a racket, you know.’” Alas, Marya’s What’s more, he feels he can attained there. Funny, then, why does even the softest person doesn’t care a greatest issue throughout Quartet is speak with her about things that he she suddenly want to get “so drunk that damn anymore; and that’s a precious that she can never quite make up can’t with his wife. Things she will only [she] can’t walk, that [she] can’t see” moment. One oughtn’t to waste it.” her mind to be a social climber or cluck away as being a problem of the every night the longer she spends in the Yet waste it Marya does, turning to the someone who does not care, instead privileged. Marya is too wide-eyed Heidlers’ home of “polite” manners. Heidlers’ offer when she would certainly trying to toe the trapeze line between about him to write him off completely Where she must go on pretending as have been better off fending for herself the two categories. Inevitably leading as such. As when he laments to Marya, though nothing strange or patently on the streets while trying to find some to her falling right off, into an abyss “‘Oh, God, I am so utterly sick of immoral is happening. Lest she be means to “honest” work. Even if that with no safety net that might catch 88. 89.