Read an Excerpt from Shirts and Skins

Issue 2 Chelsea Station Edited by Jameson Currier Chelsea Station Issue 2 Contents copyright © 2012 Chelsea Station Editions More Than This by Stephen Mead 4 Letter from Utah by Lee Houck 9 Founder, Publisher, and Editor: Jameson Currier The Weight of Wisdom by Tom Cardamone 19 Watching Glee with My Mother by Scott Wiggerman 25 This publication may not be reproduced in any form without written permission From Kissing by Michael Graves 26 from the publisher, except by a reviewer, In Conversation: David Pratt and Michael Graves 33 who may quote brief passages in a review where appropriate credit is given; nor My Movie by David Pratt 38 may any part of this publication be Green Gotham by Matthew Hittinger 46 reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any East Tenth Street, 1999 by Nicholas Boggs 47 means—electronic, photocopying, Homomonument, Amsterdam by Jeff Mann 53 recording, or other—without specific written permission from the publisher In Conversation: Charles Silverstein and Perry Brass 54 and/or author(s). Contributors maintain iso by Eric Nguyen 60 ownership rights of their individual Like a Cat Mysteriously Moving by Raymond Luczak 62 works included herein and as such retain all rights to publish and republish their Youth by Trumbull Rogers 63 work. A Mere Matter of Marching by Jeffrey Luscombe 65 All of the names, characters, places, Coffee in Camelot by Robert Siek 77 and incidents in this publication are the Natural Selection by Lewis DeSimone 78 product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance The God-Shaped Hole by Michael T. Luongo 86 to actual persons, living or dead, events, The Cake is a Lie by Jonathan Harper 91 or locales is entirely coincidental. The Kiss by Daniel M. Jaffe 98 Published by Chelsea Station Editions Gay and Jewish: A Reading List by Wayne Hoffman 100 362 West 36th Street, Suite 2R New York, NY 10018 Talking with Edmund White by Eric Andrews-Katz 102 www.chelseastationeditions.com Sacred Monsters reviewed by Eric Andrews-Katz 105 [email protected] Quarantine reviewed by Charles Green 106 Issue 2 ISBN: 978-1-937627-71-3 Two Literary Festivals, One City by Eric Andrews-Katz 107 Chelsea Station, a new literary journal A Study in Lavender reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno 110 devoted to gay writing, is published three to six times a year. Beatitude reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno 111 A Fast Life reviewed by Richard Johns 112 Print and digital issues are available for purchase and subscription. Please visit Brothers in Arms by Jarrett Neal 114 the Web site chelseastationeditions.com In a Galaxy Far, Far Away by Jon Marans 121 for details. About the Poets 126 Interior Design by Peachboy Distillery & Design Cover art by Peachboy Distillery & Design from a photo “Gay Couple Kissing Underwater / Pensacola Beach” by Tony O from Atlanta. Source: Wikimedia Commons/flickr.com and licensed by Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. art by Peachboy from an image by Phil Date /Shutterstock 64 Chelsea Station Fiction A Mere Matter of Marching Jeffrey Luscombe Josh reached up and switched on the round light above he would narrowly miss hitting the overhead bins with his airplane seat. Beside him, a fat bald man with the his hands each time he reached out for a passenger’s sagging face of a snoozing bulldog suddenly jerked and empty soda can or peanut wrapper. He was a tall slim opened his eyes as though startled by a loud noise. The man with wide brown eyes and short black hair cropped man wiped a spot of drool off his chin with his palm, close to his head that had begun to recede slightly. A huffed a series of incoherent words, and then rested his smile stretched easily over his teeth displaying two deep flabby head back against the window. Josh looked at his dimples in his cheeks. Josh marveled at how sincere his watch and stretched his left leg out into the aisle. He had smile still looked after a two hour flight. When the man nodded off for only twenty minutes but his neck was as approached, Josh handed him his empty Styrofoam coffee stiff as if he had been sleeping slumped over for hours. cup and smiled shyly back, but the flight attendant’s head Must be getting old, he thought. He rubbed the kink in was turned toward someone else on the other side of the back of his neck and stared at the dark sky through the aisle. As he passed, his starched white cotton shirt a small piece of window not blocked by the bald man’s brushed against Josh’s cheek. head. Thousands of feet below, a million tiny electric Outside the airport, Josh stood on the train platform lights shone in bright conglomerations like galaxies with his black suitcase at his side studying the city’s across the black landscape. subway map. He moved his hand through the greasy He was flying down to Washington D.C. two days gel in his short brown hair and scratched the bald spot before the start of the conference because it was cheaper growing on the back of his head. He had been planning than flying out Monday morning. By staying over a this for six months. The confusing colored lines that Saturday night, his boss had explained, Josh would save made up Washington’s subway system looked like a the company almost a thousand dollars on the cost of the multi-armed Hindu god. He studied the stops on the airplane ticket. Josh didn’t object. He and his wife had orange line until he found one on the other side of the separated a few months earlier and though he had moved Potomac River. into his own apartment, they still spoke everyday on the That’s it. telephone, just as Todd (their marriage counselor) had He opened a zipper on the front of his suitcase and suggested. Todd also advised that Josh and Allison meet took out a glossy color brochure: The Electronic Data every Saturday night for, what Todd called, dates. So for Business Exchange (EDBX) Spring Conference, Arlington the past two months, Josh has been dating his wife—a Hilton. The Hilton was right above the Balston Metro movie, a dinner, and maybe a quick fuck in his old bed Station on the orange line. He had to take the Metro before Josh drove home. Todd thought the sundered from the Washington National Airport to his hotel in spouses were making good progress. Virginia and, although he was thirty years old, Josh had But now Josh looked forward to a week of freedom never been on a subway. and relished the idea of having hundreds of miles and an After ten minutes and two yellow line trains, a blue international border between him and Allison. A male line train Josh was waiting for finally rumbled to a stop at flight attendant, who had taken off his blue suit jacket the platform. He pulled his suitcase with a clack onto the during the flight, came down the aisle pushing a trolley silver subway car and sat by the doors. He rode the blue and collecting garbage. His graceful movements, like a line past the Pentagon and through Arlington cemetery ballerina doing pirouettes in a phone booth, seemed too to Rosslyn Metro Station where he changed over to the broad for the confines of the narrow aisle. With precision, orange line. A few minutes later he was standing in The Chelsea Station 65 Arlington Hilton. That was simple enough, he thought. of blue jeans, and this bright yellow shirt with a fancy The lobby was large and elegantly furnished with designer emblem on the chest. “My independence shirt,” tan leather chairs and dark brown tables. Around the Josh had thought when he put it on for the first time that perimeter were a number of stores including a coffee morning. shop, a hair stylist, and at the far end, a gift shop Josh’s hotel room had a worn royal blue carpet and brimming with burgundy and gold Washington Redskins cream-colored striped wallpaper. Near the window there shirts, sweatshirts, and ball caps. Beside the gift shop, a was a cherry wood desk and chair and in front of the restaurant was just opening for the evening. The smell of bed, a matching cherry wood armoire that held a large burning hickory drifted out of its doors. television set. A gold cardboard note placed on one of the After Josh had checked in, a black man in a maroon pillows of the king-size bed boasted that the sheets had a blazer slid Josh’s room access card and a small gold key two hundred and fifty thread count. across the gray marble counter. “I’ll count them later,” Josh said to the armoire. “Enjoy your stay,” the man said. He walked toward the window and opened the “Thanks,” said Josh. He put his access card and key in curtains. It was too dark to see the surrounding landscape, the front breast pocket of his yellow shirt. “Oh, is there a except for the glowing sign of the Waffle House down the liquor store nearby? I’d like to get a bottle of wine.” street. Then, as if he remembered something, he clapped “Yes there is,” the man said. “Go out the front door, his hands together and turned around. turn right, and walk down one block. There’s a liquor “The mini-bar!” store beside The Waffle House on the corner.

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