Suspect Press

Tag: fiction

  • Star-Crossed Lovers

    Star-Crossed Lovers

    JONAH

    Today 1:45 AM

    Hey…

    Hey? You’ve been MIA for

    two months. Seriously?

    Look, I’m not supposed

    to be texting you…

    I really wasn’t. The pen pal assignment only lasts a week and after that we aren’t supposed to reach out. It’s one of the rules. Cut all communication after the assignments complete. Don’t give out personal details. And under no circumstances, reveal that you two don’t share a planet. I’d already failed at that last one. Although… I don’t know if it counts if the person you’re talking to doesn’t believe you. I wouldn’t have believed me either. I suppose Terra 3 doesn’t have the same experiences we do with extraterrestrial contact. This semester was the first time Terra 3 even appeared on the list of approved pen pal planets. I guess that’s why they made such a big deal about the rules. Typically students would just communicate with Keeblor’s sister planets. There was no risk with that, we all knew of eachother even if we didn’t interact much outside of programs like this. I just had to be special, the first Keeble to have a Terran pen pal. I’m definitely regretting it now. Terrans are special. Whether people admit it or not, we’re all aware of it. Of course it’s just my luck to be paired up with the most special one of them all. I told him that once. He thought I was just being sweet but I meant it, and that’s why I’m breaking the rules for him. I can’t stay away.

    BEN

    Today 1:47 AM

    Look, I’m not supposed to 

    be texting you…

    Don’t give me that pen

    pal assignment shit. 

    We agreed to ignore the 

    rules. You promised. We

    both promised.

    I’m sorry, Benny…

    I cried myself to sleep for two months, and he’s sorry. I guess that fixes that then. Sure he abandoned me after promising he wouldn’t but it’s okay. He’s sorry. Asshole. I’m in love with an asshole. I hate that him saying my name gave me butterflies. I hate that I’m gonna let him get away with this. Jonah who fell from the sky. Well not literally. He only existed in my phone and my thoughts. Fuck, if I didn’t love those thoughts. He was an angel. An angel who only spoke to me because of “a dumb school assignment”. His words, not mine. It felt like more for a second there… Then he left, leaving me to rot like a forgotten diorama from the third grade. A dumb school assignment. Still, he was back. That had to count for something right? God, I’m hopeless. There were so many red flags. Pretty much everything about him was a red flag. I don’t know where he lives. I asked once. He made some joke about “the planet Keeblor” on the “outskirts of our galaxy.” I let that slide. He explained the rules of the assignment to me. Apparently they were pretty strict with the no personal details one. Jonah wasn’t even his real name. It was a nickname. He said it was as close to his name as a human tongue could pronounce. I get it, I mean my parents named me Benvolio. I didn’t have a foot to stand on so… Again I let it slide. I let everything slide with Jonah. He was Jonah after all, and now he’s back.

    JONAH

    Today 1:47 AM

    I’m sorry, Benny…

    I stg if you do it again

    you’re not getting a

    response next time.

    That’s fair, I missed

    you

    I missed you too… so

    fucking much.

    Why are you awake?

    I haven’t been sleeping

    much.

    Leave it to Ben to make me worried about timezones on a whole other planet. He didn’t have to tell me that I was the reason he couldn’t sleep. I’d lost sleep too after, well, everything. We used to text until one of us passed out. It was a dumb ritual. One we both apparently got way too attached to. I attempted to type out a response but what do you say to that? It wouldn’t be enough to apologize again. We were both hurting. I was responsible for his pain and the universe for mine. I couldn’t stop myself from breaking another rule.

    BEN

    Today 1:50 AM

    Wanna call?

    ...

    Two months ago I would’ve slammed my thumb against that call button without a moment’s notice. We’d never called before. It was apparently another one of his rules. What was I getting myself into… My thumb pressed down against the screen. 

    “Hey… Nice to meet you, I’m Jonah.” His voice lit the room around me. I couldn’t help but smile. Actually, I couldn’t help but laugh.

    “What the actual fuck was that introduction?” I teased.

    “Was it not good? I was practicing for a while.” I could hear the frown in his voice. I couldn’t help but notice how adorable his sad voice was.

    “No, it was good. A little formal, but good.” I smiled and with a faux professionality spoke, “Nice to meet you, Jonah. I’m Ben.”

    “Benny. You said I could call you Benny.” He sounded more nervous than I was. I didn’t know how that was even possible.

    “That was before you ghosted me for two months. Benny is for the people I care about.”

    “You don’t care about me?” Fuck. I can’t help myself around him.

    “I didn’t say that. You just gotta earn your rights to call me Benny back. This call is a good start, though.” 

    “It was the least I could do… I’m sorry again. I was just scared, I don’t really break rules and this one is rather large. I missed you. If people found out they’d probably… well I’m not entirely sure what they would do, it’s never happened before.” I cut him off.

    “You’re cute when you ramble.”

    “You think I’m cute?” He sounds so innocently excited.

    “Adorable. I mean I’ve only seen that one picture you sent when we started texting but yeah, you’re a cutie Jonah.” I worshiped that photo. Over the past two months I’d gone back to delete it a few times but never could. There was only that one. “So, since Jonah’s a rule breaker now, do I get to see more of you?” Part of me hated myself for using his guilt like this. However, that was a fairly small part and the other part got me more pictures of Jonah. There was a sigh on the other line and then a notification.

    JONAH

    Today 2:01 AM

    Attachment: 1 Image

    OMG jsdfjekjs

    “Did you get it?” I was nervous about sending any pictures. Lucky for me, Keebles look almost identical to Terrans. Still, I didn’t trust Ben to not find those little differences between us. 

    “Did you not see my reply?” He was laughing. I’m not entirely sure if that’s good or bad.

    “Oh… I saw it. I just assumed your phone fell, it didn’t make much sense.”

    “Jonah, do you not have key smashing there?”

    “No. Is key smashing good?” My voice shook for a second. There were a lot of Terran traditions I hadn’t acquainted myself with. In my defense, my “studying” of Terran culture was only supposed to last a week. 

    “Yes, your dork. It means I think you look good.” 

    “O-Oh. Nice. I don’t know how to reply to that.” I really didn’t. Thoughts didn’t come easy when it came to Ben. I existed in a constant state of flustered and I wasn’t complaining. “What… time is it there?” I asked, fully knowing the answer.

    “About two in the morning. How about you?” 

    “It’s umm, about nine at night. Tomorrow.” The time conversion didn’t make too much sense. According to Ben time conversions there didn’t make too much sense either. I laughed. “Time is weird.”

    “Yeah… I wish you weren’t so far away.” Those words broke my heart. It wasn’t often that we’d have conversations like this. The ones that make it clear there’s more between us than friendship. These conversations came with one unspoken rule: don’t bring up the distance.

    “Me too…” My mind began to drift.

    “Maybe we could meet someday, in person.”

    “Ben, we don’t live in the same town…”

    “I know-” He started.

    “Or the same state…”

    “I know, but-”

    “Or even the same country…”

    “Jonah.” He stated, snapping me out of my minor existential state.

    “Yeah?”

    “The same universe is enough for me.”

    BEN

    Two things I was sure of. One, Jonah was the most attractive man I’d ever seen. Two, if I ever needed him to get out of his own head, that line worked like a charm. 

    “Jonah, I hate to say this but I think I’m passing out.” My eyes were fighting me long before he texted. 

    “Oh, you should get some sleep. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up.” He stammered out his apology. I could tell he meant it, but somewhere in his voice he was glad I’d stayed up.

    “Don’t apologize. I like staying up for you… you’re worth it.” I smiled and laid back, struggling to keep my phone held to my ear. “You should be getting to bed here pretty soon too, right?”

    “Yeah… the moons have been out for a while now.” He laughed, and I followed.

    “You’re a nerd, y’know that?” I blushed. It was almost flattering how long he’d kept the alien bit going. 

    “It was one of the first things you said to me.”  

    “Yeah, I remember… Goodnight my little alien.”

    “Goodnight Ben.”

    I hung up the phone first. I really was on the verge of passing out. I typed out a quick text and let myself drift off, smiling like a complete fool.

    JONAH

    Today 2:34 AM

    Be there when I wake

    up and you can call

    me Benny again. 😉

    I’ll be there.

    I hugged my phone. It was stupid but I couldn’t help it. I knew I missed Ben but I didn’t realize how much. Life without him was exhausting. For two months he was my only thought, my only want. I knew now I couldn’t live apart from him. This was real, a galaxy apart, but real. I needed him and he needed to know the truth.

    Today 2:34 AM

    I’ll be there.

    Benny… I know you’re

    probably asleep by now.

    I need to try this again…

    I’m Jonah, J’Oh Nua is

    my real name.

    I’m from the planet Keeblor,

    it really is on the edge of 

    your galaxy.

    And I’m madly in love with 

    you.

    BEN

    So Jonah confessed his love for me. That was something. That was nice. In doing so, he doubled down on the alien thing which honestly was weird. Still, he was in love with me. Goddamnit. I think I’m in love with him too. My finger scrolled through our messages, stopping at his picture. Okay, I’m definitely in love with him too. I don’t know if aliens are real. I don’t know if the planet Keeblor is real… But I know Jonah is real.

    Today 10:17 PM

    You’re in love with

    me?

    Oh… You’re up.

    Yes. I’m in love with

    you. I am so madly

    in love with you, Benny

    And you’re from

    Keeblor?

    You’re really an 

    alien…

    I’m really an alien.

    I don’t believe 

    you.

    I want this, Jonah.

    I want you but I

    can’t do this if you

    aren’t going to be 

    honest with me.

    I am being honest.

    Prove it. 

    My phone rang out. I looked down to see Jonah’s name across the screen, he was calling again. It was different this time. Jonah was video calling me. I picked up to see Jonah’s face staring back at me. His face looked nervous. I’d imagined him nervous before but never this nervous.

    “H-Hey.” He stuttered out, giving me his best “everything is okay” smile.

    “Hi there,” I smiled back at him. “You look nice today, you don’t get a bedhead. Noted.”

    “Benny, please be serious.”

    “I am serious. I’m serious about you, Jonah. You’re the one playing games, making things up.” I looked behind him, it was a fairly typical room. A bit bare but nothing alien about it.

    “I’m not playing games I’m really-” He growled, struggling to form words. He spun around, his phone spinning with him. His background changed to a window, the curtains pulled open. “Just look.” It took a second for the camera to focus. Behind him… Outside the window were beautiful red skies. The clouds were a shade of purple I couldn’t quite name.

    “Holy shit… Jonah, it’s beautiful…” I couldn’t say more. It was entirely new to me and Jonah, he was entirely new to me. “You’re really…”

    “Yes, I’m really…”

    I started laughing, it began as a chuckle but grew till it took every breath. “This is going to be hard, isn’t it.”

    “Two people on different planets in love? Yeah… Doesn’t seem like it’s going to be easy.” His laugh matched mine. I managed to catch my breath and asked the only question on my mind.

    “We’re fucked aren’t we? I mean… you’re not even on the same planet as me.”

    He frowned for a second but quickly replaced it with a confident smile. “The same universe is enough for me.”

  • Orpheus and Eurydice 

    Orpheus and Eurydice 

    What would you give to be loved like she loves her? 

    The music surrounded her; it lived in her, desperate and heartbroken. 

    Ada sang of her love; she sang of every trial, every bad night, every good morning. 

    And before her eyes, the demons of Hades bowed their heads with emotion. 

    Satan was seen shedding tears; Anubis sobbed into his hands. Hel herself hid her face in her chest.  

    And so the gods gave Ada a choice; they fashioned a cruel deal, a losing bet. 

    Escape the realms of Hell with Laurel behind you and you are free. Free to live out the life they had always wanted. 

    But if you look back, if your eyes stray to Laurel as you brave the path through the realms of the underworld, Laurel will be lost to you, lost to Hell and Hades and Mictlan and Niflheim and Duat. Lost to all the realms of Death itself. 

    Ada remembered the way it felt to watch the world fall out from under her, the way it felt to feel the light leave her life as Laurel grimaced in pain, as the venom coursed through her veins and took hold of her heart. They had to pull Ada away, had to drag her, kicking and screaming, from Laurel’s lifeless body. 

    But Ada wouldn’t let that happen this time. Her gaze was steely, angry but determined. She would not look back. She would fulfill her end of the bargain. 

    What else was there to do? Ada agreed. 

    They traveled through the murky tunnels; she kept her head down so as not to look behind her, even though every instinct told her to do so. 

    The gates of Hell seemed so far away. How was Ada supposed to make it all the way there? How was she supposed to ignore the pulsing thoughts that begged her to turn around, to look at Laurel’s face and run as fast as she could out of this wretched place? 

    The realms of death passed slowly. Heads turned; demons marveled at them; sinners and tortured souls halted their screams. The unquenched fires burned a little lower; the crushing darkness felt a little less crushing, distracted in its shadows. The gnashing of teeth turned to grimacing, and the world seemed to shift, a mirror image turned on its side. 

    Sisiphus halted his trek, and the realm of Hades seemed to hold its breath. Cerberus stood unnaturally still; Tantalus abandoned his pursuits. The Furies watched with their leathery wings for signs of Ada’s weakness. Persephone observed, her head tilted in interest as the world shifted, the mirror turning on its side again. 

    The shores were littered with the dead, the walls seemed to slither and writhe, mist and shadows, and relentless cold bore down on her as poison dripped from the walls. Ada held her head firm, putting one foot in front of the other, her heart calling for Laurel, a deep relentless ache. A dragon’s footfalls echoed in her head, the blood of the guilty warm on its mouth. The rivers of the world seemed to flow through her fingers, the mirror twisting again, flitting through her hands like water. 

    An empty chasm opened up before her, the darkness thick and unrelenting; light is nonexistent here. The fleshless, the bones of the dead taunt her, they whisper of their trials, their challenges. The soul-crushing mountains, the winds with knives for gusts. They whisper to Ada of their world, of their journey, the valley of snakes, the bloodthirsty beasts that crave the taste of the heart. But Ada would not give them her heart, it already belonged to Laurel. She forced her way out, forced herself not to look back, to check that Laurel stood behind her.  

    Ada stifled a sob, she was weak and broken and there was nothing to be done for it, nothing to stop the way she needed Laurel like she needed her own heartbeat. 

    There must be an end to this; there must be an end to this suffering and horror, but the mirror twisted again; it twisted again. And then there was burning, burning burning burning, as the lake of fire spread out in front of her, as the caverns burned with darkness, as the serpents hissed their warnings and the evil spirits whipped the world to dust. Ada watched as a scale weighed the hearts of the dead, as the sun god made his way through the realm of death, on his way to rising in the East. She watched the enemies of the sun wait for him, she saw the gates open for him, one by one. 

    And just as Ada thought she might fall apart, the mirror twisted again, it folded in on itself and it seemed as if the world was opening up in front of her. It was so close. 

    She looked back. She looked back she looked back she looked back. 

    Just to see the awe on Laurel’s face, just to see the way her eyes would be shining, to see the way her mouth would be blooming into a smile. 

    And it was, for one stunning moment, Ada glimpsed Laurel again, like the shining sun, like the way it feels to find your way home. 

    And then Laurel disappeared into the dark, snatched away by the realms of death, by the cruel hand of the gods. 

    So, what would you give to be loved like she loves her?  

  • Is There a Word for Us?

    Is There a Word for Us?

    How do I describe myself? I know there are others like me and similarly have fundamental parts of themselves hidden, such hiding being out of necessity and inability to do anything else. We hidden few know who we are, but our language, our tongue, seems not to. Oh, we’ll throw words around, sure, but what’s the use if such words fall on ears which are not tuned to their frequency. It seems as if language has left us behind, with its only words for us being ones of ridicule, if they exist at all. Somehow, words forgot us.

    If only we had words, then maybe they would understand. We could speak clear mountains of who we are, not jumbled attempts of them.

    Would many still not understand? Of course, but at least more would understand, and we could have the words to make them understand. We would have bridges of communication instead of having to swim across rivers. The words asserting us as things that exist merely by their presence in vocabulary.

    Perhaps if there was a word for us like there are words for others, I might have discovered myself sooner. Perhaps when I did, others, now wielding the word, would have the means to understand me, would have the means to not hate. Perhaps such linguistic infrastructure is part of our way forward. Perhaps.

  • A Whole New World

    A Whole New World

    “ID”? The person working the front desk asked.

    Sharon pulled out her ID and slid it to the front desk clerk, who promptly inspected it and let her into the back room where a world of weed awaited. 

    “Alright,” the budtender exclaimed happily. “Is there something specific you were looking for or did you just want to browse for a bit before making a decision?”

    “Umm … actually It’s my first time so I was hoping you had some recommendations. 

    “Oh! Absolutely!” The budtender said. He walked her over to a pristine glass case filed with different jars of strains and he pulled one out. He explained the differences in effects and let her smell them all. In the end, Sharon wasn’t able to tell the difference but felt like she should make a choice. “But this one, though,” the budtender continued, “this one will take you out of this world.”

    “I’ll take that one,” she said, pointing to the jar containing a purplish strain of cannabis that she only picked because she thought it looked pretty. The budtender bagged it up, and Sharon paid him in cash.

    She headed to her car, placed her purchase in the glovebox and drove home to her tiny one-bedroom apartment in downtown Denver. In truth, she’d never had any real desire to consume cannabis in any form, but at the urging of her girlfriend, and increasingly overbearing bouts of anxiety, she decided to try it out and see if it would help. 

    Sharon sat on her couch and loaded her pipe just the way Miranda had showed her and smoked. In minutes it was like her world had morphed into a different place. Her surroundings were brighter, and it felt like her world was actually hers. 

    She pulled out her phone and texted Miranda. 

    I love you so much, her text said. 

    Sharon had been waiting to say that for months, but her worry that Miranda didn’t feel the same always got in the way. In what felt like seconds later, a text from Miranda came back. 

    I love you too, it said. Those four words sent Sharon to cloud nine. She turned some music on her speaker and began to dance around her living room, jumping through the air. It was almost as if she’d hit the lottery. In Sharon’s mind. She had. Miranda had just told her she loved her and that was all she ever really wanted. To love and be loved. 

    Soon, though, Sharon could feel her body become heavy. She could feel her eyelids start to droop and so she sat. For the first night in a very long time, she had a dreamless sleep and woke up completely refreshed.

    Sharon grabbed her phone and noticed she had 12 missed calls and at least twice that in text messages. The fear began to overtake her, and she wondered what had happened in the hours of her dreamless bliss. She knew that there was only one way to find out. Sharon picked up her phone, placed her thumb on the screen and waited as the home screen began to light up. 

    She shakily tapped the messages app and looked at all the new messages marked by a little blue dot on the right-hand side of her cell phone screen. There were dozens of messages from people she barely knew, congratulating her on her engagement. Sharon could see the darkness peek through the blinds in her living room and though she’d seen the skyline of Denver a countless number of times, she felt compelled to go see. 

    Outside she saw what still seemed to be Denver, but it was somehow different. The buildings were taller, the lights; brighter and as she opened her patio doors, she discovered that the air was more polluted. 

    The lock from Sharon’s front door turned and Miranda came walking through the door. This was not her Miranda though. There was something very off about every feature of her face. Her teeth formed too perfect of a smile, her ears were tucked in just a bit too much, her hair was several shades closer to the intended Crimson red than her Miranda, it was more like brick red. 

    “Oh my goodness, Miranda!” Sharon shouted. “What happened to your hair, it used to be darker! And since when have your ears been able to tuck into your hair like that?”

    “Babe, Fiancée if I may say. Are you alright? Have you forgotten all the surgeries I’ve gotten over the years? Did you forget I dyed my hair differently a couple of months ago?”

    The distress crept across Sharon’s face as she glanced at her phone. She noticed something peculiar about the date. It was about eight years ahead of when it should be.

  • Meow Wolf at Fan Expo!

    NORM of Meow Wolf and Andrew Moyes, VP of FAN EXPO joint press conference

    On a brisk Thursday morning outside of Meow Wolf Denver, NORM, the intergalactic alien life form (think if Jim Henson and Basquiat collaborated to make a puppet) who travels between Meow Wolf’s quantum realms gave a press conference in the sci-fi, cyberpunk, trash-future aesthetic newsstand named Convergence Station. The newsstand is filled with space art postcards and comics (based on dreams of local Denverite writers) from artists around the world. NORM and Andrew Moyes, VP of FAN EXPO have good weird fun to celebrate their partnership for this weekend’s comic convention. Formally Denver Pop Culture Con and before that, and more simply named, Denver Comic Con, will now be going through its third transformation, and the first after the COVID pandemic shut everything down. Originally cancelled from it’s regular summer time event, FanExpo similar to New York Comic Con will be testing the waters under a post-vaccinated world of fandom.

    Two of the comics available at the Meow Wolf booth at Fan Expo

    Charlie LaGreca and others first conceived of Denver Comic Con eight years ago and brought a comic book convention to downtown Denver. The success of that first year was larger than anything expected and continued to grow with each passing year. The nerd force runs strong in Denver. The weight of the Con’s success also contributed to its behind the scenes implosion. A huge dispute broke out between LaGreca and the other founders. LaGreca would later create the independent comic convention, DINK while the remaining founders would continue the convention as Denver Pop Culture Con.

    The aftermath left many of the local and independent comic creators feeling alienated and unwanted. There were constant grumblings of mismanagement of the convention, and seemingly abruptly before the pandemic, the announcement was that Fan Expo had taken over the reigns. So far, the word on the street has been favorable; actually paid interns and Pop Culture Classroom thriving since the new management. Oh, and they were able to book the likes of William Shatner fresh off his space trip. Like Meow Wolf, Fan Expo is looking to bridge both the big and small, the universal and esoteric. Time will tell if they are successful, but with the efforts of so many talented artists contributing to both endeavors there is more than ample reason to satiate one’s curiosity by checking out Fan Expo this weekend.

    Fan Expo is happening October 29th-31st, 2021 at the Denver Convention Center
    Meow Wolf has been a Suspect Press sponsor in the past.

  • A Good Mother

    A Good Mother

    by Ian Cumings

    illustration by Lonnie MF Allen

    [dropcap]A[/dropcap]s always, I’m screaming when I wake up. Above, my husband offers Ginger her breakfast, a glass of pink Moscato. She sips it, then chugs it, and I feel the syrupy sweetness coat my insides and push me further down. The bitch is enjoying it. Almost as much as I would enjoy getting out of here and ending all of this.

    “Damn you!” I shout, but no one can hear me. Ginger’s lips don’t even move.

    Not until my shithead husband leans in and kisses them. I feel the pressure from deep within, feel her tingle down below where he penetrated us last night, and I want to scream again, but I’m even further from the surface now.

    “So,” says my husband while he gets dressed for work, “what do you have planned today? Should we put on Mildred to take care of Sean while I’m gone?”

    “No,” says Ginger, using my lips. “We have lunch with David today.”

    “Really? Fuck,” says my husband. “We’ll have to use Blair, then. Do you agree?”

    Ginger nods my head.

    “Can Blair handle Sean for that long out on the town?”

    I groan deep within.

    Ginger hears me and says, “With enough wine, yes.”

    “Good,” says my husband, “then she’ll be using an Uber.”

    Once dressed, he and Ginger sneak by Sean’s nursery and into the wig room. There are the others on their stands. Mildred’s putrid gray. Blair’s buoyant blonde. Ginger places our ass in the iron chair which is bolted to the floor.

    “Can I have one more sip?” she asks, and my husband feeds her more pink Moscato before kissing her goodbye. The wine pushes me further down while my husband straps my arms and legs into the chair. It’s almost time. Last time I got close to escaping, but I feel that last sip of Moscato coating my insides. Then my husband does it, he slides Ginger’s blinding red wig off my head, and I’m free.

    “Let me out of this chair, you bastard! I’m going to fucking kill you!”

    His hands fumble to grab the blonde wig that is Blair. My screams wake Sean, and his screams join mine.

    My husband holds my writhing neck and places Blair on my head while saying, “It’s for your own good, for Sean’s own good.”

    “More like for your own good!”

    But Blair is in place now, and she smiles into the mirror at my husband and says, “Hello, darling, may I have some chardonnay? The witch is rather loud today.”

    “Of course, dear.” He offers her a glass of Kendall Jackson. “I hear you’re having lunch with David today. . .”

    “Yes,” says Blair with a tone of excitement. Then it shifts and I feel her scowl before saying, “you’ll be watching Sean?”

    “No,” says my husband with a worried frown, “you’ll have to bring him with you.”

    Blair sighs dramatically and shakes her head. My husband unstraps her from the chair. Rubbing my wrists, she stands and almost spits before falling into compliance. “If I must.”

    About ten minutes later my husband is putting Blair and Sean into an Uber. He looks at her before closing the door and heading to his car. “Call me at work if you need me.”

    “Of course, darling.” She uses my disgusted lips to kiss his cheek.

    At the restaurant, my brother David, the only person in my family who did not disown me when I got pregnant out of wedlock, waves Blair over to his table. Blair, looking and acting exactly like my old self, saunters over, Sean bubbling spit on her shoulder.

    “Helloooo,” she says, exasperation in our vocal chords.

    “Hey,” says David, “how’s the little guy today?”

    “Annoying, as always,” she says, and I must agree.

    “Oh, stop it, he’s lovely. I can’t believe he’s actually yours.”

    Blair puts Sean in a highchair then looks at David exactly how I used to. “Trust me, he is, I’ve got the stretch marks to prove it.”

    David gags, I giggle, and Sean beats his ugly baby fists on the table. Blair sits down and orders herself a glass of chardonnay.

    “Listen,” says David, “Mom and I were talking last night and she thinks she might be ready to reconcile.”

    I surge upwards, feeling Blair’s wig tremble on my head. She grabs it and shakily sips more wine. Sean stares at us and I’m almost convinced he can see me.

    Blair clears her throat and spits out the words my husband planted inside her when she first wore the wig. “No thanks, we’re good.”

    It sounds just as fake and I feel just as dissonant as I did when he first taught her. I can’t help it, like always, I have to scream where I exist, on the inside. We’re not good, you bitch!

    Blair, hearing me, chugs the rest of her chardonnay. Sean sits peacefully beside her.

    “What do you mean you’re good?” asks David. “All you talked about during your pregnancy was earning Mom’s forgiveness.”

    Blair doesn’t remember that. She wasn’t around yet because I wasn’t married yet.

    And maybe that’s why, struggling to handle her wine, Blair stands from the table and pulls Sean out of his highchair. “I think we should get going.”

    David steps towards Blair, holding his hands out in a pacifying gesture. “Are you sure? I don’t think you should drive. . .”

    “Don’t worry,” Blair burps, “Uber.” She clumsily orders one. “Two minutes,” she slurs.

    Meanwhile, Sean gazes into Blair’s eyes. He sees me. He knows I’m in here. “Come on, little guy, you can do it. I’m sorry for calling you a brat. I’m sorry that I didn’t want you once you came. Don’t you remember when you were in my belly? How I loved you? How I cared for you? If you let me out, I’ll care for you again. I’ll love you again. I promise.”

    The little bugger, my little pipsqueak, he blesses my heart by reaching up and pulling Blair’s wig right off my head.

    And I’m free! I feel Sean in my arms. Now that he’s freed me I don’t need him anymore. I can’t believe he actually believes that I would care for him again. I throw him from my arms.

    David dives to catch him, and I don’t care because I’m running out of the restaurant. Outside where the sun is bright, oh so bright, and I’m running away, down the street. I can’t help it. I’m dreaming of that place, somewhere far away, where none of this is real, none of this was real, where I can drink the wine I want and be the woman I want, away from him, away from both of them, and away from all the rest. I see it in the sunshine and feel it on my scalp.

    But Blair’s heels, they are too tall, and I haven’t run in heels in forever. They catch an edge and my ankles crumble. The sidewalk smacks my elbow and my chin grazes brick and I’m down, I can’t move, not fast enough.

    Because David is standing over me. He holds Sean, who giggles like a little fucking maniac. And I don’t want him. I don’t want any of this. But David puts a steady hand on my shoulder and Sean, that little bastard, places Blair’s wig sideways on my head while saliva slides across his grinning, toothless gums.

    David straightens it. “Wow,” he says, “I like this one, but you might want to secure it a little better next time.”

    “Thanks,” says Blair, “will you help me find my Uber?”

    David obliges and asks, “Did you start drinking early today?”

    “Why?” Blair asks.

    “Usually you don’t freak out until a little later in the day, you know, after the fifth or sixth glass of wine.” He is smiling. Blair is smirking and fixing the back of her wig, fluffing the bob into place. I am scowling inside, hating David’s fucking guts.

    Then he locates the car and for the second time today, I’m funneled into an Uber by a man that is supposed to love me.

    Once home, Blair calls my husband. “The fucking bitch escaped in broad daylight. Your little brat ripped me right off her head.”

    He comes home with something new: wig adhesive strips. Blair gets one last glass of chardonnay before he straps her into the chair and switches over to Mildred for the evening. I remain still, I don’t even try to fight him this time; there’s no point. I had my chance when the brat took Blair off my head and I blew it. Mildred’s gray wig sticks to my skull and I see the infinite future stretch out in front of me: Mildred will do the dishes, change the brat’s diapers, make my fuckhead husband dinner. Then, once Sean is asleep, Mildred will sip aged merlot until my husband switches her back to Ginger. Because my husband is hungry for more than just food. And Ginger will give it to him, and I’ll feel it, yes, I’ll feel it. And then she’ll sleep. And then she’ll wake up, and I’ll be screaming again, forever screaming, while my husband offers Ginger her daily breakfast: a tall, sparkling glass of pink Moscato.

    Ian Cumings is a writer and artist who enjoys exposing the dark side of internal life. When he’s not writing, he’s either crying or looking longingly out a window. This story, like all his art, is definitely absolutely not a cry for help. He can be reached at iancumings5@gmail.com.

  • Spooky Action at a Distance

    Spooky Action at a Distance

    by Jesse Livingston

    [dropcap]O[/dropcap]utside, it was a beautiful spring afternoon. Inside, the cat was floating about eighteen inches above the kitchen table. Kelly and I were standing in the kitchen, looking at the cat, wondering what to do.

    “Well,” said Kelly, “at least he doesn’t seem hurt or upset.”

    She was right. Sammy—the cat—looked slightly concerned perhaps, but I could have been imagining that. Assigning emotions to cats is a fool’s errand. His eyes were open a little wider than usual—maybe?—and there was a hapless quality to the way his paws hung down. 

    “Tell me again,” I said, “what happened?”

    Kelly folded her arms and regarded the cat.

    “I was washing the dishes from last night, and he jumped up on the table. I yelled at him, and he jumped in the air, and he just didn’t come down.”

    I frowned and looked at her, not fully comprehending.

    “Well, he’s not supposed to be on the table,” she said, as though this was the part of the story I was taking issue with.

    “So, you startled him, and he jumped, and he didn’t come down?”

    “Yes. I was just trying to put the fear of God into him. I didn’t mean to make him…” she trailed off, gesturing at whatever was happening above the table in front of us. Sammy gave her a look that was slightly pleading or possibly annoyed.

    “Did you try picking him up?” I asked.

    “I didn’t want to touch him in case that somehow made things worse.”

    “How would that make things worse?” I asked, genuinely curious.

    She shrugged. “Somehow.”

    I studied Sammy’s body. It was ever-so-slowly rotating.

    “He’s packed on a few pounds,” I said.

    “It’s the new Chicken Dinner cat food,” she said. “He loves it. He can’t get enough.”

    “Do you think this has something to do with the food?” I asked.

    “I can’t imagine how. I haven’t heard of this happening to anyone else’s cat.”

    “We should probably google it. Maybe it’s a new thing.” 

    Sammy was looking around the room as though expecting any moment to be somewhere else. 

    “Do you think it has something to do with magnetism?” Kelly said thoughtfully, leaning forward and peering down her nose at him.

    “I don’t think cats are magnetic,” I said. “Not unless they’re wearing something metal. He doesn’t even have his collar on.”

    “What happened to his collar?”

    Sammy now wore a plaintive look. It was the kind of look I’d usually seen on dogs when they were playing for sympathy. I wondered if Sammy was somehow orchestrating this whole thing in a bid for attention.

    “Well, we haven’t been home as much lately,” I said. “He must’ve slipped it off one day while we were gone and we just didn’t notice.”

    “Poor Sammy,” said Kelly, reaching out and scratching the side of his face. Sammy stuck his chin out and closed his eyes. He looked content, and I wondered if maybe I had been projecting my own emotions onto him earlier. Was I doing that now? I wondered how much of my life I’d spent guessing at the feelings of others. Had I ever really understood what someone else was feeling? I suppose they could tell me what they were feeling, but did they really understand it themselves? Aren’t we all just confused and frustrated wrinkles in the humming void of existence?

    “What?” said Kelly.

    “Huh?” Snapping out of my reverie, I wasn’t sure if I’d said “void wrinkles” out loud. Sammy was looking at me with what might have been disapproval.

    “Should we try to move him?” she asked. “Or do you think that’s a bad idea?”

    “I dunno. I guess we’ll have to sooner or later.”

    Kelly poked at Sammy’s stomach to see if she could make him stop rotating. His head was starting to disappear behind the bulk of his body, and he was craning his neck to try and maintain eye contact with us. 

    “Do you think it’s some kind of time-travel thing?” she asked.

    “I don’t think so,” I said. “He doesn’t appear to be moving through time, except at the usual rate. I think we’d see him in slow motion or fast motion if he was time-traveling.”

    “Maybe we’re time-traveling with him,” she said.

    I couldn’t refute this. I stood watching as she prodded his belly, which was definitely getting a bit plump. I could see fewer chicken dinners in Sammy’s future.

    Outside, people scurried here and there, perhaps time-traveling at different velocities relative to one another, perhaps not. Dogs tried to understand things in trees, worms carved intricate pathways beneath the city to further their unknowable schemes, and the universe continued to try and hide from itself.

    “Well,” said Kelly, “if we can’t get him down by tonight, I’ll call the vet in the morning.”

    This seemed like a great idea. Few things can cheer you up like handing responsibility for your problems over to someone else.

    Jesse Livingston is a filmmaker and musician born and raised in Denver. His fiction has appeared in audio magazines such as Pseudopod and The Drabblecast. His band The Far Stairs can be found at thefarstairs.com, and his film The Blue Room is at blueroomhorrorfilm.com.

  • Hello, Father Ernie

    Hello, Father Ernie

    By Josiah Hesse

    [dropcap]F[/dropcap]ather Ernie was gasping his last breaths when the faces of the children he’d abused appeared before him. It’d been decades since anyone called him “Father,” but that was the way these children addressed him.

    “Hello, Father Ernie.” 

    “Hello, Father Ernie.” 

    “Hello, Father Ernie,” they said, one after the other, each sounding more confident and empowered than the last. Very different from the shy and trembling children he’d once known. That was so many decades ago, yet Father Ernie instantly recognized every face as they materialized in the darkness, attached to the small bodies he’d vampirically drank from, night after night, seemingly free of consequence. 

    Until tonight. 

    He’d moved into this isolated cabin outside Leadville, Colorado two months earlier as a ninety-two-year old retired preacher with stage IV bone cancer and a suffocating bout of pneumonia. Ernie’s grandson (the last living relative willing to speak with him) had been caring for him the last couple years, but after moving Ernie into this cabin, he’d been checking in on his grandfather less and less. Ernie hadn’t seen a soul for eight days when the children showed up. 

    He’d stopped chemotherapy when moving into the cabin, and there was a brief respite when his chemo side-effects stopped before his cancer symptoms returned. But when dehydration, diaper rash, and excessive lung fluid took hold, Ernie decided to just finish his OxyContin script all at once and have done with it. 

    Tsunamis of euphoria had been washing over him for the last ten minutes, but they were now interrupted by the most fundamental terror Ernie had ever experienced. A blizzard raged outside his cabin window, the sound of a wolf howling into a moonless night filled his ears when the first boy appeared. 

    “Hello, Father Ernie,” said the boy. 

    Paul McCormick, Ernie thought, recognizing the tattered clothes and shaggy hair of the first boy he’d made a move on. It was only once, he told himself. 

    And then, as if in response to this thought, another child walked into the room. 

    Like the boy, she appeared in a blue haze, fuzzy around the edges, but still very recognizable. Maria Chary, he recalled, her family were Haitian refugees. 

    Gales of snow tapped at the cabin window. 

    The girl’s eyes settled on Ernie’s, and he felt a deep shudder ripple through his body. He was helpless, unable to move or look away, as Maria’s gaze filled him with despair. She was wearing a yellow Sunday dress with tall white socks and polished shoes. It was the same outfit she wore to every church service for five years, long after her growing body caused the seams to stretch and snap.

    “I set the template for you, Ernie,” the girl said to her former priest, sounding much older than she appeared. “Poor, a bit dim, and parents who aren’t trusted by people of authority.” 

    Ernie nodded, drool spilling out the corner of his weakened mouth, recalling the formula he’d devised with Maria. He’d driven her out to a cabin not unlike this one, was given access to this child for three days and two nights, merely because he’d asked. 

    He’d been allowed a three decade run at this sort of behavior before the Vatican, burdened with more six figure payouts for Ernie than any other 20th century priest (each of them settled out of court), took the rare step of defrocking him for the crime of pedophilia. Characteristically, though, they never admitted to any wrongdoing, and so Ernie’s reputation remained unscathed as he worked his way through several evangelical churches throughout the seventies and eighties. This was the era of the Jesus Freaks, former hippies who ran drug rehab communes with the aim of cultivating born again converts. Most pertinent to Ernie was their taking in junkie parents who could no longer care for their children, separating families and placing the kids in orphanages with no parental contact. Healthcare, education, and religious instruction was given to these kids, free of charge, and was administered by just about anyone willing to volunteer. Ernie was always the first to raise his hand for the privilege.  

    Miraculously, it wasn’t until 1998 that Ernie got his first ass-beating. 

    He’d lived until his final days without any legal repercussions for his actions (which was not uncommon for clergy with evil hands), but there were a lot of ass-beatings, mostly from parents or siblings in a blind rage, unable to afford a lawyer but perfectly capable of violence. 

    Yet none of this curbed Ernie’s appetite, as evidenced by the growing number of children surrounding his deathbed years later. There were so many that the room seemed to stretch to accommodate them. He could see generations of different clothes and haircuts, illustrating the breadth of time he’d been terrorizing children. The years had passed so gracefully, he’d never done the math of how many there’d been. Many of them were filthy, mentally or physically disabled—ideal candidates for a predator.  

    When each child penetrated the ether and walked into the room, their eyes would lock onto Ernie’s, and his body seemed to gain twenty pounds, sinking deeper into his bed with the weight of guilt—a sensation he’d never experienced in all his life.  

    Altogether, they appeared so much stronger than they did as confused, silent children in the dark. He was desperate to run, or at the very least look away; wordlessly, each child transferred the emotional burden of Ernie’s touch back onto him. All of the shame, terror, and intimate disgust was lifted from them, and gracelessly flung into Ernie. The ache of self-loathing, the panic attacks of feeling violated, the helplessness of another taking agency over your own body, suddenly rushed into Ernie, dozens of times over, shifting his sociopathic being into that of a spongy empath—and thereby burning his soul alive.

    “No, PLEASE! No more,” Ernie pleaded, but the children kept coming, appearing in the windows, in the paintings on the wall, across his hands and feet. They surrounded his bed, growing to inhuman heights, towering over Ernie as he gasped for breath, choking on his own fear. 

    Then the crowd parted, silence filled the cabin, and at the foot of Ernie’s bed appeared a child different from the others. Instead of a fuzzy blue, this child was colored red. But beyond this, Ernie knew the real difference between this boy and the others: This boy was himself, 85 years ago. The hazel eyes reflected into his own, and for the first time in his life, Ernie began to weep. 

    “Look!” he shouted at the other children. “I was once a child too! An innocent! The pain I caused you was only an echo of what I absorbed as a child. Take pity on me, please!” 

    But the child version of himself remained silent, staring into Ernie’s eyes, offering no reprieve from the emotional horror inflicted on him. As seven-year-old Ernie approached his dying self, the dread rumbling in his stomach increased. The boy’s eyes turned to fire, and the bed grew bright and hot. As his bowels evacuated and lungs failed to breathe, Ernie tried to crawl away from his former self, feeling a maddening horror violently clash around his head, like a rabid bird in a cage. Young Ernie climbed onto the bed, approaching the old man on his hands and knees. 

    Flames climbed the cabin walls, filling the room with blinding waves of heat.  

    “You killed me long before you touched any of them,” the boy told the old man. “You suffocated me for years, deaf to my screams, killing us both, again and again, your entire life. . . . Now, be deaf no more.” 

    Father Ernie became lost in the gaze of his former self, feeling his own eyes turn to fire like the boy’s. He felt them boiling in their sockets, then explode across his face, instantly melting his skin down to the skull. 

    Even though he couldn’t see, Ernie could still somehow sense the children around him. He could sense their transformation into spritely demons, their mouths, hands and feet mutating into instruments of torture. Flames consumed the room as the children climbed onto the bed, nipping, burning and crushing his extremities. Yet even this physical torment was eclipsed by the soul-shattering emotional pain radiating through him, the empathetic misery of facing down his crimes against children. 

    “We will never leave you, Father Ernie,” they said in unison. 

    “Say goodbye, Father Ernie.” 

    “Say goodbye, Father Ernie.”  

    “Say goodbye, Father Ernie,” they chanted, as the bed slowly sank into the floor. 

    Author of psychological horror novel Carnality: Dancing on Red Lake, and regular contributor to VICE and The Guardian, Hesse aims to blend journalism and the arts within the pages of Suspect Press, making it both a reflection of our time and an innovative force of creativity. He’s recently released the second book in his series, Carnality: Sebastian Phoenix and the Dark Star, available at several Denver booksellers and on the Suspect Press website. Contact: josiah@suspectpress.com, josiahhesse.com & @JosiahMHesse

  • Cities of the Future

    Cities of the Future

    By A.C. Koch

    [dropcap]D[/dropcap]uring the summer between third and fourth grade, my buddies and I spent hours exploring the ravines along the creek and the back lots of all the new houses at the outskirts of town, amidst the mounds of freshly bulldozed dirt and discarded construction debris. We played War and Hide-and-Go-Seek and Tag until the streetlights came on.

    Richie P., the type of kid who no one liked, followed us wherever we went, though we never invited him. When splitting a Twinkie with him, he’d inspect both halves to make sure he was getting the larger one. If some change fell out of your pocket while you were rolling down a hill, he’d scramble to scoop up the coins and wouldn’t give them back, even if you needed them to catch the bus home. At the bank of the creek, where we all stood to pee, he’d make fun of everyone’s dick, even though I think we all saw that his was the smallest.

    I hated Richie P. I remember watching him one day, throwing dirt clods at Pete and David and José who were busy trying to catch minnows in the creek with paper cups. It crossed my mind that Richie P. was never going to be a good person. We may’ve been kids, but the rest of us innately knew we were supposed to help our friends, not hurt them. It seemed likely that Richie P. would grow up to be the same type of person he was as a kid.

    I guess I was daydreaming, but it felt more like a vision. I saw a world where Richie P. was the leader. He blathered on television, telling lie after lie. I saw him sending troops into neighborhoods to round up kids who didn’t look like him and haul them off to cages. I saw him tearing up the Constitution, refusing to accept the results of the election that voted him out. Smoldering cities, vacant suburbs, dying forests. Then Richie P. wearing a grand marshal’s jacket, pinning medals to his own chest as troops marched past saluting him.

    I looked around at Pete and David and José. We were standing in a trance, like we’d all just seen the same vision. Richie P., meanwhile, was on top of a small ravine, throwing rocks at a frog. One rock, two rocks, then a direct hit. The frog flopped over and went limp. Richie P. laughed.

    José was closest to him. His face tightened, as though having an internal debate with himself. He walked over and gave Richie P. a good hard shove, and he went tumbling down the loose dirt slope with a cry of “Hey!”

    He rolled to a stop at my feet, and I didn’t hesitate. I gave him a solid kick in the gut.

    “Oof!” went Richie P.

    Pete and David ran over, and José slid down the dirt slope so we were all standing around him where he squirmed on the ground. I kicked him again, and the others joined, kicking him in the gut, kicking him in the back, kicking him in the head.

    He struggled for a while, but we weren’t messing around. We didn’t go crazy, but we did kick and beat him like it was our job, or like it was a game we really wanted to win.

    He may’ve still been alive when we rolled him with our feet into the creek. He splashed into the water face down, and we kicked rocks and two-by-fours on top of him to keep him down. Within a few minutes, the bubbles stopped rising up around his head.

    None of us said anything for a while. I felt a rush of adrenaline, but nothing much different from a good soccer match or a race on Field Day. We looked at each other. “Hide-and-Go-Seek?” someone said, and everyone fanned out to find their hiding places while I covered my eyes and started counting down from thirty.

    We never talked about it. None of us had liked Richie P., he wasn’t anyone’s friend. Our parents didn’t know about him and his parents didn’t know about us. We never even bothered to get our stories straight. No one ever asked us what happened to him. The only effect the murder of Richie P. had on our lives was we couldn’t play outside after dinner for a couple of weeks. There were neighborhood search parties and a couple of news stories, and then we didn’t hear or think about Richie P. for a long time.

    Years later, the four of us saw each other again at our high school reunion. We hadn’t all been together since that summer, and it was surreal to hang out on the rooftop patio of a downtown hotel with the developed city glittering. Our wives and husbands and other classmates had melted away and it was just the four of us at the table, each with a bottle of beer.

    We shared a look and a smile.

    “We did the right thing,” José said. It wasn’t a question.

    “And I’d do it all over again,” I said.

    A hover-tram glided by as I said it, a river of light that slid between the mirrored faces of the skyscrapers with a soft whooshing sound. Far above, space-freighters traced calligraphies of light against the clouds as they criss-crossed in their sub-orbital paths up to the Aerostat that hung like a Christmas ornament among the stars. All this, every shimmering detail, had been bought with the life of one troublesome boy. Everyone smiled and we all raised our bottles and clinked.

    The part of the story I never knew about went like this: a construction worker stumbled across Richie P.’s corpse as he was clearing debris for some bulldozer work, back in that long-ago summer. He knelt down and looked at the boy’s lifeless face matted in mud and washed up in a mess of branches. Another worker came over to join him. They went silent for a minute or two as they both retreated into their thoughts, almost like a trance.

    When they came out of it, they exchanged a few words.

    “You know that thing about traveling back in time and killing Baby Hitler?” “Yeah.”

    They looked at the body for another minute or so, nodding their heads, and then clapped each other on the shoulder. They went back to their bulldozers, fired up the engines, and started moving earth like nothing had happened.

    A.C. Koch’s work has been published in Mississippi Review, Exquisite Corpse, and the Columbia Journal. His stories have won the Raymond Carver Short Story Award twice (2003, 2007), and another story was just named runner-up in the Tennessee Williams Short Fiction Contest. He lives in Denver where he teaches linguistics and plays guitar in Firstimers, a powerpop ensemble. Instagram: @henry_iblis and
    @firstimersband_denver

  • Marta

    Marta

    by Mar Williams, Christina Procter, & Josiah Hesse

    Mar Williams is a Denver artist, hacker, and all around adorable scamp, working internationally in a number of fine art and digital mediums. They maintain an interest in the artistic applications of emerging and open source technology. Also cats, bugs, and queer shit. Mar is a founding member and chairman of Cabal Gallery – a South Broadway non-profit contemporary arts space.

    Christina Procter is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Santa Fe. Co-writer of the feature-length documentary Meow Wolf: Origin Story, which premiered at SXSW 2018, she’s also a consulting editor for TREND magazine. Her portraiture will show at SITE Santa Fe in May.

    Author of psychological horror novel Carnality: Dancing on Red Lake, and a regular contributor to VICE and The Guardian, Hesse aims to blend journalism and the arts within the pages of Suspect Press, making it both a reflection of our time and an innovative force of creativity. He’s recently released the second book in his series, Carnality: Sebastian Phoenix and the Dark Star, available at several Denver booksellers and on the Suspect Press website.

    Contact: josiah@suspectpress.com, josiahhesse.com & @JosiahMHesse

  • Carrot & Can

    Carrot & Can

    By Alex Graham


    Alex Graham is a painter and cartoonist from Denver currently residing in Seattle. She is the author of Cosmic BE-ING and Angloid and appears in the latest edition of Best American Comics. Her books can be found at: alexNgraham.com.

  • Trump Country

    Trump Country

    By Christie Buchele

    Illustration by Lonnie MF Allen

    [dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter the bar owner paid me less than he promised for doing 45 minutes of jokes, I tipped my head back and spilled my last shot of tequila down my throat. I stuffed the cash in my pocket and dug through my jacket to make sure I had my phone and wallet. On the surface I tried to look calm, but inside I was frantic to find my keys so I could make a quick exit.

    As I turned to leave, the bar owner smacked my ass.

    “You’re lucky my wife is here or you’d be coming home with me tonight,” he said, gesturing to the woman behind the bar serving drinks. After witnessing her husband’s display of unwelcome affection she leaned over the bar with an angry frown on her face.

    “Helen,” she said gruffly, reaching her hand over the bar to introduce herself. “You’re gonna have to pay for those drinks. We didn’t make enough money to comp them for you tonight,” she informed me.

    I was on the last night of a run of comedy shows in Rawlins, Wyoming. It was as bad as I expected, and worse than I had hoped. Folks at my last show in Laramie had warned me that it would be easier to find meth in Rawlins than it would be to find fresh water. They weren’t wrong. Most of the audience members were missing teeth, and a table of young white men kept calling each other the N-word in the most confusing display of ignorance I’ve ever seen.

    I needed to get out of this shit hole.

    I paid Helen and felt a rush of relief as soon as I heard the jingle of my keys in my left jacket pocket. I immediately made a fast break for the door. As I passed the bigot-rednecks playing darts, one of them drunkenly caught me by the wrist. “Where you going, baby?” he slurred. I felt my hand tighten around my keys, edges cutting into the soft of my fingers, preparing to use them as a weapon. He was too drunk to hang on and I freed myself with a quick twist of my arm. “Don’t leave, funny lady!” he called.

    The man lumbered after me. I began running to my car, my key pressed between my thumb and index finger, because I’d been trained early that women should keep their keys readied before walking outside. My hands shook violently and I scratched the car’s gray paint as I tried to fit the key in the lock. The man’s footsteps were getting heavier and louder. I pulled open my car door and threw myself into the front seat, slamming the door behind me and hitting the lock just as he approached.

    His eyes were glassy and vacant as he violently tugged at the door handle. My keys fell to the floor as he hit the window so hard I thought it would break. I desperately felt around in the dark for my keys, shoving them into the ignition, and throwing the car into drive. The tires spun over the dirt parking lot before gaining traction and lurching the car forward, its tires screeching as the man’s beer bottle smashed against my trunk. I blew through the only stop light in town, and turned down the main road out of Rawlins, Wyoming.

    I was ten miles out of town before I loosened my grip on the wheel, my breath finally returning to a relatively normal rhythm. Feeling safe, I turned on the radio hoping music would calm my nerves. I felt an ache behind my eyes and resentment in my chest as I remembered the many times male comedians had told me that being afraid was silly. “Bad things only happen if you seem scared…Act brave and no one will fuck with you,” they’d say. Men didn’t understand that women were taught to be afraid every waking moment. It’s a defense mechanism. We must be afraid so that we can spot danger.

    To my dismay the only radio stations were country, and after the third Toby Keith song I turned off the radio. How did I even know it was Toby Keith? I’d been on the road in these shit towns for too long. My fear of not paying rent overpowered my fear of dangerous men in Trump Country. There are plenty of scary men on every corner of the Earth, and there’s no reprieve if you’re living on the street.

    No one told me that comedy wasn’t made for women when I started almost ten years ago. And now I lack the skills and resumé to retreat back into a corporate day job where I would go home every night to a dog and a boring fiancé with a salary job. I was stuck with living as a comedian, the kind of life I didn’t understand when I chose it.

    I settled into silence and felt relieved that I’d be back in Denver before the sun came up. Just as I went to look for my phone to plug in directions, I felt the car choke and spit, slowly losing momentum. I pulled over, confused as terror filled my chest. In the panic of a quick exit I’d forgotten I needed gas. I let out a strained exhale and remembered I could call AAA.

    Headlights popped up over the horizon, traveling towards me in the rearview mirror. Fuck. Those men had followed me. My hands shook as I realized my phone was no longer in my jacket. “Shit!” I whispered to myself, confronted with the fact that it had fallen out during my sloppy escape. I didn’t want to be in the car when the truck reached me. There’d be nothing but a window between me and him and I knew he’d happily break the glass to get to me.

    I grabbed a napkin out of a fast food bag, and with a pen in my glove box scribbled “Went for gas. Be back soon.” I clicked the dome light off so it wouldn’t light up when I opened the door. I pinned the note under my wiper and headed into the darkness of the brush along the road.

    I ran about a hundred feet when I tripped and fell, scraping my face on a rock as I hit the ground. I heard the truck approach as I crawled to a fallen tree big enough to hide behind. I tried to keep my breath quiet. I could hear the truck come to a stop on the road near my car. The engine cut, the door swung open and slammed shut. I took in what information I could with my ears. After about a minute I heard the door open and close again, feeling a wave of relief, hoping the man had decided to head back to Rawlins.

    I lay there waiting for the truck to leave when a flashlight tore through the darkness in my direction. My heart slammed into my throat and I began to cry. He was headed towards me. I froze as I heard footsteps getting louder. In a panic, I clenched my keys tight enough to draw blood, and then suddenly felt what seemed to be a garter snake glide across my neck. Unable to sit quiet any longer I jumped up, throwing the snake towards the light and yelling “Leave me alone! Please just leave me alone!” The tone of my voice resembled a bullied child rather than an adult woman. As the tears blurred my vision, I watched as the light stopped about fifteen feet from where I stood.

    “What the hell are you doing out here?” I heard a woman’s voice say. A woman—not the scary heckler man. I slowly opened my clenched eyes to find the bar owner’s wife staring at me in complete confusion.

    “Uh—um—I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else,” I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes and the blood from my cheek.

    “Those boys are too drunk to come after you,” said Helen. “I hid their keys from them hours ago. You dropped your phone on your way out the door, and I thought I’d be able to catch you. I didn’t think I’d find you out here trying to get eaten by coyotes.”

    “I ran out of gas,” I explained, trying to regain my composure.

    “Well let’s go,” said Helen.

    I felt foolish as we headed back to town in her old pickup truck. Toby Keith played on the radio and a red Make America Great Again hat rested on the dash. I guess those kind of white women did exist. I stole a few glances of Helen as we drove back to town. I realized then that she wasn’t scowling earlier. She wasn’t angry—she was tired.

    We didn’t exchange any words on the way back to Rawlins. When we arrived I filled a gas can and went into the tiny station to pay. It wasn’t until we turned back out onto the main road that Helen began to talk.

    “I’m sorry those boys scared you. They don’t mean any harm. Boys are just being boys,” she said.

    That’s exactly the kind of thing I’d expect a Trump supporter to say, and I replied, “That’s not really acceptable behavior. I was really afraid.” I said it quietly, but sternly, wanting to express my disapproval but not wanting to alienate my unlikely knight in shining armor.

    “I know,” Helen conceded, “but there isn’t much that women can do to change the behavior of men. God wired them that way—it’s biblical. Best to just keep your head down,” she said, as if this was fact and not opinion.

    I didn’t respond, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to convert this Trump supporter into a feminist in the seven miles between here and my abandoned car. When we reached the car, Helen and I both got out of the truck, she carrying her flashlight in order to aid the process. I thanked her for her help.

    “I never heard a woman talk like you did tonight,” Helen cut in unexpectedly. “That was really cool.”

    “Oh thank you,” I said, surprised, not expecting this Trump supporter to like my jokes and ideas.

    “Yeah, I never tried to be funny or talk like that in all my life. You’re really brave. I could never do that,” she said with a faint smile.

    “I’m not brave,” I said. “I ran into the bushes like a scared cat.” We both laughed.

    “Thank you for helping me tonight,” I added. “I might’ve died out there if you didn’t find me with your flashlight. I really appreciate it,” I said sincerely.

    “No problem,” she replied. “I’m glad I caught you. Those iPhones are expensive. I’d have to drive all the way to the Walmart in Laramie to get me one of those.”

    We both sat there awkwardly for a moment as my car idled on the dark road.

    “Well you better get back to town for more gas. I’ll follow you until you reach the station,” she said reassuringly.

    As Helen started to head back to the car I yelled out to her, “Hey Helen! You can share your thoughts and ideas too. You don’t have to be a comedian, and you most certainly do not need to be brave.” I tried not to sound too preachy.

    She looked at me for a moment with her signature scowl, and then a smile spread across her face. “You’re right. If a scared little girl like you can talk to all those men like that, I certainly can too.”

    As I headed back into town I considered the evening. The show was shit, the pay was shit. Those men had terrified me and now I was definitely too tired to make it back to Denver by morning. But in the end I realized that between me and Trump, at least one of us was actually making America great again.

     

     

     


    Stand-up comic Christie Buchele made a name for herself by the heart-wrenching and hilarious realities of being a woman with a disability. Christie has been featured on Viceland’s “Flophouse,” and “Hidden America with Jonah Ray.” Christie co-hosts a witty relationship advice podcast, “Empty Girlfriend,” and is one-third of the all-female Denver comedy powerhouse, “The Pussy Bros.”