15 VIEWS OF JACKSONVILLE 15 Views of Jacksonville: Short Stories From a Bold City This publication was truly a community effort. Our heartfelt thanks to the following organizations who helped us create something that will last for generations. Published by Bridge Eight Press Jacksonville, Florida bridgeeight.com Copyright © 2018 Bridge Eight Press, LLC and its Contributors All rights reserved. Cover art by Corey Kolb Book design by Cassie Deogracia Photography by Alex Coleman ISBN 978-1-7323667-0-1 Printed in the USA. The stories in this anthology are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The essay “The Stories That Roam Jacksonville’s Streets” by Tim Gilmore is a work of nonfiction wherein the details are true, as faithfully rendered by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This anthology is part of the 15 Views Series originally created by Nathan Holic and published by Burrow Press in Orlando. It joins with others in the series—Orlando, Tampa and Miami—to serve as a literary snapshot of our respective cities. Our gratitude to Burrow Press, specifically Ryan Rivas, for their permission, support and undying championing of the literary arts in the state of Florida. The journey to publishing this work would not have been possible without help from the 195 people who backed our crowdfunding campaign in July 2018. Our thanks to each and every one of you, including our patrons: San Marco Books and More. Vagabond Coffee Co., Linda Max Collins and Abel Harding. CONTENTS POCKETS OF 35 VARIATIONS OF MAX ABSURDITY OR HOW I TOOK UP CALEB MICHAEL SARVIS SMOKING Introduction MARK ARI Riverside 03 OPEN MIC SOHRAB HOMI FRACIS 41 THE SNOW KING Five Points Coffee & Spice SHANE HINTON Arlington 11 THE TOXIC CHICKEN EVENT 47 GULLS MARCUS PACTOR C. H. HOOKS Springfield Atlantic Beach 17 GINGER’S PLACE 51 UNDERCURRENT LAURA LEE SMITH JACKIE HUTCHINS Jacksonville Beach St. Johns River 55 27 MONUMENT WHAT STRANGE TERI YOUMANNS GRIMM SONG IS THIS? DUNCAN B. BARLOW Arlington College Gardens 61 NO OPEN CAGES 83 SIT A SPELL ALEX ENDER NAN KAVANAUGH Northside Avondale 67 MUDBUGS 87 CITY OF BRIDGES TIFFANY MELANSON MICHAEL WILEY Orange Park Brooklyn 93 THE STORIES OPEN YOUR MOUTH, 73 THAT ROAM YOU ARE LOST, JACKSONVILLE’S CLOSE YOU MOUTH, STREETS YOU ARE LOST, SO TIM GILMORE THE BUDDHISTS SAY SOLON TIMOTHY A Reflection WOODWARD Downtown 81 ON CRESTS AND TROUGHS HURLEY WINKLER Neptune Beach CALEB POCKETS MICHAEL INTRODUCTION O F SARVIS ABSURDITY moved to Jacksonville in 1999. There wasn’t a St. John’s Town Center. TIAA Bank Field was called Alltel Stadium then. Half of 295 was called 9a. Baseball had never been hotter with the Jacksonville Suns. Within months, my family and I evacuated thanks to Hurricane Floyd. That was the first time I saw the pier destroyed. There’s a transformation creeping across bridges—Jacksonville is changing. Maybe for the better, but it’s hard to tell. We have a Topgolf and an Ikea. Bold City Brewery and Intuition Ale Works have locations downtown. Stanton College Preparatory School just had a winning football season. Five Points has roof-top bars. It’s all a little absurd, but maybe that’s Jacksonville. Maybe we’re seven bridges connecting pockets of absurdity. When Jared asked me to head this project, I didn’t hesitate to say yes—to take on the challenge to share what I’ve come to know: Jacksonville is a place worth building, a place worth watching up close. Comedian Joe Mande was on The Lowe Post podcast recently and, in their conversation, Zach Lowe brings up NBC’s The Good Place, a show Mande writes for. On it, there’s a character CALEB MICHAEL SARVIS named Jason Mendoza, an “amateur-professional DJ,” from none other than Duval county. He begins stories with, “One time, in Jacksonville...” He tosses Molotov cocktails and yells “Bortles!” It’s funny, and while a caricature, hauntingly accurate. Lowe asks Mande why he makes so many jokes about Jacksonville. Mande then recalls a stand-up show he and John Mulaney did here in 2015, claiming “Jacksonville is the weirdest place I’ve ever been.” Not just in the United States, but in the world. “Our hotel was so far away from the venue,” he says. “It was like a city, but it was a ghost town, located in a swamp.” He sums up his answer with a question: Why do people live there? I remember driving westbound on Butler Boulevard when I heard this. I was somewhere between the Town Center and Southside, and I laughed harder than I had in a while. It was funny, because it was perfect. It was hysterical, because I think most Jacksonvillians would take pride in a description like that. A lot of the work for Fifteen Views of Jacksonville was done over email, which is the natural course of things these days, but there were moments in which the writers and I had real, face- to-face exchanges. Michael Wiley’s UNF office was only a few doors from my own, Marcus Pactor’s right around the corner. I grabbed coffee with Alex Ender, dinner with Sohrab Homi Fracis and Solon Timothy Woodward, and drank a bit too much with C.H. Hooks. In the sprawl that is Jacksonville, these moments seem impossible, especially because nobody feels willing to leave their pocket of the city. I taught high school at the beach. When I would tell them an event was happening “across the ditch,” the groans felt rehearsed. INTRODUCTION It’s a trek to get anywhere, but it’s bittersweet, knowing that, even after years, there is so much of Jacksonville left to discover. Editing this anthology was just that, a discovery. We set out for fifteen views and we could have included thirty. What you’ll find in Fifteen Views of Jacksonville is probably both familiar to an outsider who’s never stepped foot in our city and unexpectedly strange to locals rooted here for years. What I’d envisioned for this book, and the one you hold in your hands, are remarkably different things. There are no Jason Mendozas in this book, but there is a man named Chin; a bartending history teacher they call Bigfoot; a Rwandan refugee named Henri; an old woman named Max; a private investigator named Suddath. So, we’re a little stretched out, a little absurd, but maybe that’s what makes us bold. And what is Jacksonville if not Bold?.