Issue 2 Chelsea Station Edited by Jameson Currier

Chelsea Station Issue 2 Contents copyright © 2012 Chelsea Station Editions More Than This by Stephen 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 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 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. He leaned He leaped to the front of the bed and the floor across the counter toward Josh and lowered his voice. vibrated slightly. “But you know... if you order a bottle of wine from room “Sorry, room 1025!” he shouted to the floor. service, it just shows up as Restaurant on the bill.” He shoved the tiny gold key they had given him at Josh blushed. He’s got me pegged, he thought. No the front desk into the lock of the small refrigerator on boss would question a travel expense for Restaurant. the shelf under the television in the armoire. He opened Josh rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor. He the refrigerator door wide and smirked. entered room 1125, and quickly threw his suitcase onto “Decadence!” the bed. He had to piss. As he stood in the bathroom Dancing in place, Josh took out two tiny bottles and emptied his bladder, he noticed little plastic bottles and a can of tonic. After a few seconds of hesitation, he of assorted complementary shampoos and soaps in a also grabbed a box of chocolate covered almonds and wicker basket on top of the toilet tank. Lavender, almond, walked to the desk. I hope this shows up as Restaurant patchouli. While his stream splashed in the bowl, Josh too, he thought, as he crunched the almonds between grabbed the bottle of almond body wash, unscrewed the his back teeth. Standing at the desk, he mixed himself a tiny white cap and put it under his nose. He sniffed and drink using one and a half bottles of the vodka and half jerked his head away. It smelled like the marzipan icing a can of tonic. He took one sip and poured what was on his wedding cake. He put the cap back on the bottle left from the second little bottle into his glass. He took and tossed it back into the basket. I’ll use the lavender. another sip and then laid down on the dark green and He finished pissing, shook and zipped up his fly. ruby bedspread. Although he would have preferred the On his way out of the bathroom, Josh saw his profile drink with ice, he was not going to search the Hilton in the mirror. Even though his new yellow shirt had hallways for an ice machine. perspiration marks under the armpits and was wrinkled As he finished his vodka tonic, Josh debated whether from the flight, he still looked good. Since he and Allison to call Allison. Todd would want you to call now, he had separated, he had gone back to the gym and lost thought. He chewed on his thumb nail. Ach! His fingers some weight. And a week earlier, he had made a special smelled like marzipan. excursion to the shopping mall near his new apartment. “Later,” he said rolling out of bed. It was the first time in a long time that he had chosen his He put his empty glass down on the night table own clothes, and he had come home that afternoon with beside the phone and walked out of his hotel room to a heavy pair of black leather Doc Martin shoes, two pairs the elevator. Back down to the hotel lobby, he marched 66 Chelsea Station toward the scent of grilling meat and hickory. The vodka ring on his thumb. When did they start making thumb from the mini-bar was already soothing Josh’s head but rings? Josh thought. the stark lights of the hotel lobby yanked him back into “Your steak will be ready in a few minutes,” Ricky said an unpleasant pseudo sobriety. Above the entrance to as he put Josh’s martini in front of him. Ricky had a slight the restaurant, a large red, white, and blue electric sign Southern accent. Josh wondered just how far south one flashed Yankee Steak House and Bar. Josh grinned and had to travel in the States before they started to hear a swung open the wooden saloon-style doors. Southern accent. Kentucky? Ohio? His Aunt Wilma had Inside, sports photos and memorabilia covered the picked up her feeble Southern accent by living in Georgia walls. At one end of the dark room, a big-screen television for twenty years. Maybe Ricky was from Georgia too. was showing a boxing match and beside the television Josh sipped his drink. The martini was so cold that it hung a framed number seven Washington Redskins numbed the back of his throat. football jersey. Josh tried to focus. Joe Theismann’s “Mmmmmmmmm.” He closed his eyes and the last signature was scrawled in black magic marker across the bit of tension disappeared from his body as the vodka front of the shirt. That must be worth a couple of bucks, flowed from his stomach out through his veins. First his he thought. If it’s real. gut warmed and his head grew wonderfully hazy. Then Josh walked to a long oak bar in the back near the his arms and fingers tingled with a familiar pleasure. The kitchen and sat down on a barstool with his back to fear he had carried along with him from home was being the television. There were only a few people scattered slowly eclipsed by something else. His penis grew erect around the dark room. It was unlikely that anyone else in his jeans. from his convention had come two days early. Seeing Josh stared off at a framedSports Illustrated cover on Josh, the bartender put down the paperback copy of a the wall beside the bar. The photo was of a football player Chuck Palahniuk novel he was reading and walked over in a Washington Redskin uniform catching a football in to Josh. midair. Beside the football player the word WOW was He was a swarthy young man in his early twenties. written in big white letters. What would the headline He had short black curly hair styled with gel, parted to be for me and my life? Josh wondered. Something like the side and combed back over his head which made his WASTE or ZZZZZ. He chewed on an olive and, taking hair look as if he had just jumped out of the shower. His the pit from his mouth, placed it on a napkin by his dark almond-shaped eyes looked clear and intelligent martini glass. What has he been doing for almost a and around his mouth, he had a sparse goatee. He wore a decade? He worked, he ate, he slept and sometimes he faded black pair of Levis and a red shirt with a black vest even fucked the wife. He tried to remember when that and matching bowtie. His shoes were shiny black leather had been enough. with a thick rubber sole. In his right earlobe he had a While Josh waited for his steak, the vodka continued small gold stud. His nametag read Ricky. to push at dams he had built in his head. The past wafted “What can I get you,” Ricky asked. He had a crooked back to him as if he had caught the scent of long forgotten smile and a tiny gap between his two front teeth. His cologne. Another few sips and the barricades broke, voice was much deeper than Josh had expected. I wonder sending debris from the last eight years into Josh’s frontal if he has Indian blood too, Josh thought. lobe. If only... “I’ll have the porterhouse steak and a vodka martini,” Ricky placed a plate on the bar in front of Josh. The Josh said. aroma of a rare porterhouse steak, baked potato, and “Sure thing. How would you like your steak chopped grilled zucchini wiped all other thoughts from cooked?” Josh’s mind like a wet cloth over