Dennis McFadden won the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction for his novel-in-stories, Jimtown Road. Dennis grew up in Brookville, a small town in western Pennsylvania very much like the fictional Hartsgrove of Jimtown Road. A graduate of Allegheny College and a retired project manager for the state of New York, he lives and writes in a cedar-shingled cottage called Summerhill in the woods of upstate New York. His stories have appeared in dozens of publications, including The Missouri Review, New England Review, The Sewanee Review, Crazyhorse, and others.

Filed-Down Sights

She is walking back to the shack with the sun on her right shoulder and the one-eyed dog at her knee. Her eyes look out across the valley to the Beartooths. The distant field of vision ignores the golf courses and suburbs eating away the benchland. This parcel is still open, but she and Dog walk it twice a day to make sure.

The woman found the mutt in Idaho, somewhere on the far side of half-dead; one eye gone, his face cut to ribbons. Five years ago, now. A tough thing, it healed and grew to love her and no other. A big dog and a small woman. Danny used to say she was no bigger than the small end of nothing whittled down to a fine point. But just try either one of them, her or Dog. 

The ugly hound stays close enough, nosing past glacier lilies and patches of silky lupine, the cow killer. Back in his time, Teddy Burke wouldn’t have abided a single stalk of the weed, but Teddy was dead and planted. His townie kids didn’t give a shit about the land, lupines or no. First cash offer, those kids will sell and there you go, Bonnie, back to living out of the pickup.

A sharp pain pulls her up short. She stands with her hands on her hips, her left bootheel beating a four-four rhythm in the dust. The dog materializes at her side, its scarred face intent on hers. Sharp eases to dull and she straightens herself.

She pulls the 7X Resistol from her head and shakes out a mane of unruly sable. The dog is still giving her that monoptic stare and she swats at it with the straw hat, laughing, then settles the hat on her head and pulls it low. The dog ducks just enough. She laughs again, makes a quick hand signal, and they both resume walking.

Coming on the shack from the field side, the woman named Bonnie sees the back door ajar. She raises her right hand palm-down and snaps it toward the earth. Dog sinks to his haunches, a coiled spring, tattered ears pointed. She slips her right hand into a vest pocket, comes out holding a snubnosed revolver. The feel of it is as familiar as the copper-tin tang at the back of her throat and she smiles.

The revolver slaps twice against her thigh and Dog is up off his haunches. Bonnie moves forward, keeping her boot soles to the dry grass, and Dog shadows her knee. Thirty feet from the door and nothing moves. She gives the command and Dog launches himself, a silent missile until his claws are raking the wooden stairs.

The hound is snarling by the time she clears the door and she follows the snarls across the kitchen. Dog has the kid cornered in the den. He’s saucer-eyed, backed against the far wall with nowhere to go and not going anywhere. Bonnie raises the pistol and centers it on the kid’s skinny chest.

While the kid pants and Dog snarls, Bonnie’s eyes scan the room. A straight-backed chair lays on the floor in front of a battered wooden desk. Atop the desk a leather satchel. Above the desk are pine shelves crammed with books. When she looks back to the kid, she is shaking her head. Eighteen or so, a shot at handsome if the meth hadn’t gotten him. She gives a verbal command and Dog drops to his haunches. The snarls subside to a low growl.

— The one thing in this dump worth finding and you found it. Pick that chair up and sit your ass down.

The shaking boy stares at her as if she is speaking a language he does not comprehend. Bonnie thumbs back the hammer and the metallic snap hangs over Dog’s growls.

— I ain’t accustomed to asking twice. Sit or get shot.

The kid understands this. He rights the chair, turns it to face the only way out of the room, and sits. His eyes dart between the pistol and the doorway behind it. Bonnie watches his eyes and smiles.

— You move, I shoot you. No trouble for me. This is Montana. Hell, a single woman shoots an intruder, the sheriff pins a medal on me. So you just sit tight.

The boy slumps back in the chair. His jaw begins to quiver and Bonnie snorts in disgust.

— What, you’re going to start bawling? Fuck me, you better save your tears for Deer Lodge. There’s some tough old boys in that joint, way tougher than me. Probably be doing you a favor if I put a bullet in you right now.

The boy fights back his tears and manages to stutter out his first words.

— Please don’t shoot me. I’m sorry I broke into your place.

Bonnie throws back her head and laughs until another wave of pain breaks over her guts. She rides it out without lowering the pistol.

— I’d bet my ass and the ranch that you’re sorry, sorry you’re caught anyways. Dog, hush.

The hound goes quiet, but his eye is locked on the kid in the chair. Bonnie eyes the kid as well, her head cocked. She nods once, raises the pistol above the kid’s head, and lowers the hammer. She does not put the revolver back in her pocket.

— That satchel there is the one thing in this shack worth killing for. You goddamn sure can’t have it, and nothing in it either. Still and all, I guess you shouldn’t leave empty handed. Reach up there and take down a book and don’t make me tell you twice.

The kid looks at her, disbelieving, then looks at the shelves above the desk. He reaches out a hand and pulls down the first book his fingers fall on. He holds the thing out to her as if seeking approval. Bonnie squints at the title and lets go another laugh.

— Chekhov, now ain’t that perfect. A Russian with a thing for guns. Two things, okay? I see you again, I shoot you, simple as that. Second, you tell your meth-head buddies about the crazy bitch with the pistol. Deal?

The kid nods his head, but his face is the picture of confusion.

— Here’s how it goes. I step into the kitchen and Dog comes with me. Then you run. Dog is as fast as he is mean. If you ain’t running fast enough to suit me, I send him after you to speed you along. Don’t forget your book.

Bonnie calls Dog, grabs his collar, and steps from the room. There is a clatter of wooden legs on the plank floor and then the kid is running through the kitchen and out the open door. Dog is straining against the collar and she tugs him back. The kid disappears around the corner of the house. She laughs once more and kicks the backdoor closed.

*  *  *

Dog is curled into an ugly tan lump at Bonnie’s feet. His head is on his paws and his eye is on the door. Bonnie sits at the second-hand desk, one hand draped over the satchel and the fingers of the other resting on the pistol.

The bluing is faded and worn, a patchwork of her travels and years. The stubby Smith & Wesson is likely as old as she is; fifty-plus at the near end. She’s had it since she was eighteen, when she filed the sights off the two-inch barrel; no need for aiming. Always said it was for working up close and personal. Yes Ma’am, a one-gun girl. Can’t say the same about trucks or houses or men. Except Dmitri, but he’s decades gone.

The brass latches snap, and Bonnie flips back the leather straps, reaches into the satchel. Her fingers close on a heavy manila mailer. The thing is stained and decorated with peeling vinyl stickers from forgotten bands. The name Dmitri is scrawled in heavy marker, written right over the stickers and stains. She tilts it out over the desk and falls through a time machine.

The memories are a dangerous vortex, swirling her back to a time when each day was a blank page of pain and pleasure waiting to be turned. Here are the photographs of her beautiful boy, Dmitri. Bonnie and Dmitri clowning in a photo booth black-and-white, twenty-two and invincible. It was a time when Dmitri was in love with Bonnie, and Danny was in love with Dmitri who couldn’t see Danny was pinning for him. Because he only had eyes for Bonnie. And she was in love with both of them, but Dmitri most of all, and all Dmitri.

Here are poems scrawled on beer coasters, the ink blurred and soaked into oblivion, but Bonnie can read them. The words are still clear for her, clear as the memories of the dark nights and the fine hands scribbling the lines.

Her fingers find a lanyard of braided hair bound and tied with ribbons. Locks of sable and blonde intertwined, light and dark together. She runs a fingertip down the braid, raises it to her nose, breathes it in. She pulls her own living hair across her face, breathes in that darkness as well.

The mementos slide back into the heavy envelope, the past contained but not tamed. There’s only one link left, the barest connection to Danny, still in Seattle. A happy, gay, successful version of Danny. She last heard from him a decade ago but hopes it’s still true. That’s how she found out Dmitri was gone, ocean gone, hooked up with some Euro-chick on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Dmitri, her beautiful boy, gone even further than the other side of sober.

Those were dirty days, wonderful days. Climbing up the drainpipe to the squat, sliding over the windowsill, bone-chilling Seattle rain sliding down her neck. Their feet were wet all winter. Nothing ever dried properly, everything stank, and they were happy.

Dmitri trying to untrap himself and Bonnie calling him out. She can hear herself say the words, crouched on a dirty mattress in the squat. D, why are you afraid to let go? You’re always thinking, analyzing, locked inside your own head. You do it when we’re getting loaded. You do it when you’re screwing me.

Her wanting to fight the world just for a laugh and Dmitri afraid of getting hurt. She tells him hurt don’t last long and it lets you know you’re still alive. Having this discussion in a tough bar by the steel mill. She throws a full bottle of beer at the wall above a table of steel workers, glass and beer raining down on those bastards. Screaming, Ollie-Ollie-in-Come-Free Boyos! That wall of meat smashes into them and she’s swinging a leather sap at red-faced skulls. Dmitri’s fighting now, whether he wants to or not and they go down under the charge. Ten days healing up from that one, a small price to pay.

Wonderful days for sure, until Dmitri couldn’t take any more of it. She thought they might go down suicide but that’s not how it played out. The darkness swallowed Dmitri, the squat, everything except Bonnie. Dmitri got clean and she got gone. He ran to the one place where she couldn’t follow. Anywhere else, but not there.

She saw Dmitri just once after that, him six months clean and trembling. He was standing across the street outside the door to the Fremont Hall. He turned in the same direction she was walking, but she quickened her step and disappeared around a corner. What was there to say?

She closes the satchel, fishes the straps over the top, and snaps them home. Dog rises from his lump, stretches, and pads after her into the kitchen. She pops the latch on the ancient round-topped fridge, grabs a beer, and heads for the back porch.

*  *  *

The bar is more cinderblock bunker than watering hole, but it’s her local. Her pickup rattles across the gravel lot and a miniature dust devil chases the tailgate. She swings the truck into an empty spot near the front. The keys rattle in the ignition as she slams the driver’s door.

‘No Firearms’ is posted across the entrance. Bonnie pushes it open and steps straight into the stench of old whiskey, spilled beer, and stale cigarette smoke. The place is decorated with glowing beer signs, pool tables, and enough dark to hide the rest. A few of the regulars are pretending that shooting pool is more important than drinking. She exchanges a nod or two on her way to the bar.

The bartender looks like the handsome villain from a spaghetti western, complete with a three-day beard. He glides down the long bar to where Bonnie is perching herself on a squeaking barstool. He gives her a smile and a wink.

— The Amazing Miss B. My day just got brighter.

— Howdy, Hank. Am I hearing the Decemberists or is this some alternative reality?

— Hey, Colin’s a Montana boy and the afternoon crowd ain’t exactly musically observant.

— Who knows, they may hear something they like. How’s life on the far side of the plank?

— You know, living the dream. I’m trying not to stare, B, but your vest is hanging pretty hard to the right.

Bonnie grabs the offending denim and the hidden weight, tucks it in the fold of her lap.

— Sorry about that, Hank.

— No problem. I can pretend.

— Pretending is a great skill in this life. How about a Knob and a back?

— You got it.

Hank flips an old-fashioned glass with a quiet flourish and lands it in front of her without a sound. His hand disappears beneath the bar and reappears holding a bottle of bourbon. He pours a long shot and turns to draw her beer.

Bonnie tosses back half of the whiskey and savors the fire of it. Hank throws her a craggy grin.

— Better?

— Much better.

— Not meaning to pry, but old Jasper says he saw you down at Billings Clinic the other day.

The fire of the whiskey fades and Bonnie reaches for her beer. She covers her irritation with a chuckle.

— A gal can’t take a crap in this town without some busybody commenting on which color of paper she used to wipe herself. Damn that old boy, it’s supposed to be a secret.

— Sorry, Bonnie. Jasper hasn’t been the same since Doris passed. I’m sure he didn’t mean nothing by it. Forget I mentioned it.

— I’ll tell you, Hank, but keep your damn hat on it. The docs down there, they got me in a study. They reckon I’m a bona fide medical miracle. They want to know how it is that a woman my age can still drink, fight, and fuck like she’s twenty-five.

— Damn, Bonnie, you kiss your mother with that mouth?

— Never knew the lady. Hey, I’ve got news. I caught some kid breaking into my place. Already broke in, to be accurate. Sitting at my desk, pretty as you please.

Bonnie spins out the story for Hank. He nods or shakes his head until she tells him about giving the kid a book and chasing him off. Hank’s hand goes up and he waves her to a stop.

— Hold up, B. You didn’t shoot him, but you did send him running with a book. Am I hearing you right?

She nods her head, laughs, reaches for the glass of beer. Hank is chuckling and shaking his head.

— What in the hell is a tweaker going to do with a Russian novel?

— It was Chekhov; short stories, not a novel. Pay attention, Hank.

— That’ll come in handy. He can sneak up on the novels in bite-sized pieces. If we see one of those twitchy bastards reading Tolstoy, we’ll know he’s yours.

They laugh themselves out over that one. Hank slips down the bar to attend one of the regulars. Bonnie watches him serve up a drink and a joke. He sends the old geezer on his way with a drink and a smile. She realizes how much she’s going to miss Hank, knows that the same is true for this entire shithole of a bar.

Hank slides back up the bar and Bonnie gets on with the task at hand.

— Hank, I’ve got a favor to ask. I need someone to watch Dog for a bit. Got some things I need to attend to.

The man raises both hands in mock surrender.

— You’re the love of my life, Bonnie. How could I say no?

— I thought Mags was the love of your life.

Hank nods his head, drops both hands to the bar. The laugh leaves his face.

— That’s true enough, B. Mags had the poor sense to marry me, and that’s something I’ll always be grateful for. And I love her something awful. But there ain’t no rule says a person can’t have two loves. You and Mags already know each other like sisters, so that keeps everything above board.

Bonnie lets it go and reaches for her beer. She gives Hank a nod and waits. He looks off down the bar, shakes his head. When he looks back at her, he is smiling again.

— When were you thinking of dropping his highness off?

— I’d like to do it this evening if you’re around.

— Sure thing. I’m out of here about six-thirty. Any time after seven is fine. Mags will be glad to see you.

Bonnie throws down the rest of the bourbon and is glad for it. She pushes a ten across the bar and Hank pushes it back just as quickly.

— You better git.

— Uh huh. I’m obliged, Hank.

— None of that, now. We’ll be expecting you.

She flips back her hair and slips the Resistol onto her head. Walking away, she feels his eyes on her body and she takes comfort in it. The old regulars ogle her as she passes, and she throws them a shimmy for their trouble.

*  *  *

The sun is dropping hard to the west and setting everything aglow. Mags is back in the house and Hank stands by the porch steps. He’s smoking, studying a cloud of smoke as it drifts away on the warm evening breeze, doing his best not to look to where Bonnie is squatting in front of Dog.

The hound’s scarred face glows yellow with the last of the sun. Bonnie runs her fingers up his jowls, scratches his tattered ears. Dog leans into her hand, his good eye closed. She speaks to the animal in a cooing singsong, but her words are harsh.

— You’re the ugliest mutt on the whole damn planet, yes you are. The world is a hard shithole and you’re stuck in it just like I am. I’m sorry about that, but it’s nothing I can change. This will be tough for you. Don’t think I don’t know it. Losing everything you love is just part of living, like breathing or pulling on your boots. I’d like to tell you that you’ll get used to it, but I doubt that’s the case. Still, you’re just a dumb dog, so maybe it will go easier on you. I hope so. Hank and Mags will take good care of you and you like them.

Bonnie raises herself to standing and Dog opens his eye. The soles of her boots crunch over the gravel as she walks to Hank. Dog trails along at her knee.

 She palms her hand down and Dog sinks to his haunches, head up, his tongue hanging out to one side. She turns to face Hank, tilting her head back to look up into his face.

The front door opens before Bonnie can speak. The gloaming of the day illuminates a tall blonde woman. Mags thumps across the planks and down the porch steps. Her face is lean and rawboned, matching her thin frame. Dog’s tail thumps the ground and raises a small cloud of dust.

Mags slides past Hank to stand in front of Bonnie. She reaches out and her hands fall to Bonnie’s shoulders. The tall woman pulls Bonnie into a tight embrace. Bonnie gives back as good as she gets. When Mags pushes her back to arm’s length, her eyes are fierce.

— You didn’t think you were getting out of here without a goodbye, did you?

— No, I reckon not.

— You’re my sister, Bonnie. Don’t you ever forget that. The biology of the thing doesn’t matter. You hear what I’m saying to you?

Bonnie nods once, feels the tears start in the corner of her eyes. Mags drops her arms and steps back to stand beside her husband. 

— I better git. Thanks for everything.

— It’s no trouble, B. Dog will be just fine, won’t you boy?

Dog turns his head to Hank and Mags, then back to Bonnie. She holds up her hand, points at Dog, then turns away without another word. Her footsteps beat a fast rhythm as she walks to her truck. The door creaks open and she pauses without turning, raises one hand in a wave over her shoulder. Then she is in the cab and the engine is turning over. Dust chases her down the gravel road and out onto the blacktop.

*  *  *

Crickets are sawing away out in the summer night and the rasping pulse of their song fills the dark fields around the shack. Bonnie sits on the edge of the bed, arms on her knees, bare feet splayed against the worn plank floor. The insect buzz falls through an open window. She listens with her head cocked and her eyes focused on nothing.

Leopard frogs add baritones to the chorus, croaking out their snores and chuckles from the old stock pond. Bonnie smiles at the jumble of night noise. A few odd coyotes added to the mix and they’d have themselves a regular cowgirl opera.

This day has worn hard against her and she feels the price of it. The ache of it pulls her back into herself, a small woman sitting alone on the edge of a second-hand bed. Her pistol is there as well, perched on the nightstand with its stubby barrel pointed to the wall.

Bonnie reaches for the nightstand. Her hand ignores the pistol and closes on the nearest of several prescription bottles. She palms open the child-proof cap with practiced ease and shakes one of the pale-blue pills into her hand. What they wouldn’t have done for a bottle of these bad boys, she and Dmitri and Danny. Now she’d do anything to be rid of them.

The tablet seems cold on her tongue and she washes it down with a mouthful of lukewarm water. She lifts her feet from the floor, stretches out her legs, leans back into a stack of pillows. Her favorite reading position, but she does not pick up a book.

Bonnie watches her hand hover over the pistol, fingertips floating above the checkered wood grips. She extends her index finger to the butt of the revolver and spins it a half-turn. The end of the barrel stares at her with its dark eye and she stares back. Then the finger moves again, and the pistol rotates until it is aimed at the plaster wall.

Not tonight, my old friend. I know the rules, but it’s not your turn just yet. You’re going to have to be patient with me. I want to see a few more sunrises. The only time Dmitri and I ever saw the sun come up was when the dawn caught us wandering home to the squat. Just one time I’d like to have him sitting next to me on the porch, watching the sun light up the Beartooths. We wouldn’t have to say anything, not a word. Just sit there with our coffee while the world lit itself on fire. That would be the start of a fine day, don’t you think?

Her hand reaches past the pistol to the bedside lamp. There is a soft rattle as she pulls the chain and darkness fills the room. She leans her head back into the pillows.

Night song pours through the open window and washes over her. Fingers of pain search through her and she waits for the dissolving tablet to soften their sharp probing. When the edge begins to fade, she offers up a silent curse.

~ ~ ~

Marco Etheridge lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His short fiction has been published in Canada, The UK, and the USA. Recent credits include: Coffin Bell, After Happy Hour Review, In Parentheses, Thieving Magpie, Ligeia Magazine, The First Line, The Opiate, Cobalt Press, Literally Stories, and Blue Moon Review. His non-fiction work has been featured at Jonah Magazine, The Metaworker, and Route 7. His author website is: www.marcoetheridgefiction.com/

I’ll Be Missing You

“I am a person! Ya hear that? A p-e-r-s-o-n, and I can spell!”

Randy’s shouting, but that’s nothing new. It’s how he starts every day, making a big show of yelling at the morning commuters as they rush to the subway, trying out all kinds of wacky words and phrases to see what’ll get their attention.

“I’ve got blood running through my veins, just like you!”

I’m pretending to sleep, my back pressed up against the scaffolding, hair tucked around my face to block out the morning light, but it’s no use.

Bored with his own game, Randy army crawls over to my spot, getting real close to my face. “Jazzy, wake up! The pigs are here to get us!”

I know it’s a lie on account of my eyes having been open this whole time, but I play along, popping up to a sitting position and whipping my head left, then right.

“Ha! Tricked ya,” he says.

I slump back down to the ground, my eyes on Randy as he claws at a plum-sized scab on his forearm, digging and picking until its crispy purple edges glisten with blood.

“That shit looks nasty,” I say, my voice coming out all raspy.

“What, this old thing?” he says, bringing his arm to his mouth and chomping on the irritated skin. “Tastes fine to me.”

I try to laugh, but the sound gets stuck in my throat and turns into a dry, hacking cough.

“Got any water?”

“What is this, the Mormon convention at the Ritz? I don’t got any water. But I got somethin’ better,” he says, pulling a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam from under his towel.

“Where’d ya score that?”

“Spent the rest of the pot on it,” he says, rolling the bottle across the five feet of cement that separates my spot from his. “Only took me a coupla weeks to earn enough for that bad boy, no thanks to you.”

I bring my lips to the neck of the bottle and take a long gulp. My shoulders drop away from my ears and my whole body warms up from the inside out.

“Don’t be greedy, Bear! I need some of that,” he says, “it’s been a fuckin’ tough week.”

I should ask what’s been so tough about it, but the tiredness hits me all at once, and suddenly all I want to do is shut my eyes. “I gotta lay down for a sec.”

“You gonna leave me here all by myself?”

“I’m not going nowhere, Papi,” I say, “just gotta rest my eyes real quick.”

The minute my head hits the ground, I’m out cold.

When I finally wake up some hours later, a wicked headache stomping the backs of my eyes, Randy is gone.

* * *

When I met Randy ten or some years ago at Sunday meal service, he didn’t look like no homeless dude I’d ever seen before. With those baby blue eyes and pearly whites all in a row, I figured he was just another pretty white boy volunteer or something. I could hardly believe my luck when he sat down next to me with a tray of food.

He stunk like something under his clothes was dying, a smell so strong I could taste it in the back of my throat. Between his smell and trying to get a good look at him through my side eye, I was so distracted I hardly touched my food.

“You gonna introduce yourself or would you rather stare all afternoon?” he said.

“What? Oh, I wasn’t staring or nothing, I just—”

“I’m only kidding. I’m Randy.” He stuck his hand out for me to shake, all proper like we were two fancy business people.

“Uh, I’m Jazz. Or Jasmine. People mostly call me Jazz, but you can call me whatever.”

“Nice to meet you, Whatever.”

“Huh?”

“You said I could call you Whatever, but I think I’ll call you Bear for that pretty mess of hair you got. Reminds me of one of them bears in the wild.”

“You trying to fuck me or something?”

His eyes got so wide that I could see the whites on the top and bottom, his mouth hanging open just enough for me to notice two teeth hugging each other on the bottom row. “I’m pretty sure that ain’t allowed. What are you, fifteen?”

“I’m nineteen, Papi. And anyway, nobody follows them rules around here.”

“I’m not trying to fuck nobody, I’m just trying to engage in nice brunch conversation between two colleagues.” He motioned to himself and then to me with his fork. “I’d say these are the finest whipped potatoes in all of Manhattan, wouldn’t you agree, madam?”

I must’ve been high off adrenaline because I was never good with comebacks, but my next line was one I thought about a lot afterward.

“That’s a mighty creative imagination you got there. For a bum.”

He froze, his eyes all wide again, and I froze thinking maybe I said the wrong thing. After a minute the spell was broken. We laughed until Randy had tears in his eyes and my stomach started cramping up. When we finally calmed down, he’d look at me with those bug eyes and we’d start up again.

We went on like that for the rest of meal service, until the plates were cleared and they booted us back out to the streets.

* * *

I’m unsteady on my feet as I rush through the East Village to find Billy. It’s been three days without Randy and I’m pissed at myself for waiting this long, but what was I supposed to do? Every day I was sure he’d show up, but every night I went to sleep alone.

“Fuck, man, please know where he is,” I mumble, hoping God can hear me.

Some lady walks past me with her face all scrunched up like she’s passing a pile of dogshit, thinking I’m talking to myself like a crazy person.

“The fuck you looking at?” I say, and she rushes away.

When I get to Tompkins Square Park, I head straight for Billy’s camp. He's got a real mattress surrounded by a bunch of suitcases stacked up about chest high, like a little bedroom with no ceiling. The minute I see Billy’s face, the story spills out.

“Three days?” Billy says.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“You check all his usual spots?”

“Checked everywhere. He’s never been gone this long.”

Billy scratches the top of his head where the curly black hair clings to his skull like a fitted cap. He stares at something over my shoulder, his lips moving silently.

“Huh?”

“You ever heard of Project Elimination?” he says, leaning so close that I get a clear view of the black, puffed-up hole where his front tooth used to be.

Randy mentioned it a few weeks back, saying Billy was having another of his episodes on account he couldn’t find a refill for his meds, but I play along.

“Nope,” I lie.

“Pigs are out to clean the streets. They got targets on our backs, wanna reduce the homeless population by 50%.”

I haven’t had anything to drink since the leftover Jim Beam, and my dry throat and Billy’s words float to the top of my head. I sway forward but Billy catches me by the shoulder, breaking my fall.

“Easy now, easy,” he says, guiding me to the ground. He unzips one of his suitcases and starts shuffling through. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, trying to make the ground under me stay still.

“What do I do, Billy? I gotta find him.”

Reaching into his suitcase like a magician, he pulls out a sandwich and a bottle of water.

“First thing you do is eat.”

I lay the sandwich on my outstretched legs and go straight for the water, chugging the whole thing in three gulps and gasping for air as I finish. I tear a hunk of fuzzy mold off the corner of the bread before taking a bite. Peanut butter sticks to the roof of my mouth, coating my tongue and sucking all the moisture right out of me.

When I finally manage to swallow, I say, “I can’t sit around and do nothing.”

“All right, here’s what you do. Step one, lay low, wait at your camp, don’t tell anybody what I just told you. Step two, whatever you do, don’t come stompin’ round here again. They got eyes everywhere. Don’t want them suspecting nothin’,” Billy says, his eyes darting back and forth, like he’s watching an invisible tennis match.

“Now finish up your food and get going. If I hear anything I'll send a message with the code word.”

I take one last bite before tossing the crusts in a bush behind me.

“What’s the code word?”

He leans in real slow, bringing two cupped hands to my ear.

“It’s peanut butter sandwich.”

* * *

Our camp feels dead without Randy. I feel like screaming and kicking and crying, but I hold it in because of the deal I made with God: if I don’t cry today, Randy will show up tomorrow.

So far God hasn’t held up his end of the bargain.

When we first met, Randy’s camp was in one of them narrow alleyways in Chinatown and the place was a dump. No foot traffic, no sunlight, and no shot at getting scraps of food from them mean-faced dumpling shop owners. When I saw his set up for the first time, I told him as much.

“You’re really slumming in over here, Papi.”

“What ever do you mean?” he asked, motioning to the filthy blanket laid up over a broken-down box. “I’m living lavish, my dear. These here are the finest linens you ever laid eyes on.”

At the time I laughed it off, but I couldn't stop thinking about his spot, the smell of rotting fish and bird guts so thick it made me gag. That’s how I came up with an idea.

“Why don’t you come set up with me? I got a prime spot under some scaffolding right on the corner of Delancey and Clinton.”

“Are you asking me to be your roomie?” Randy said, his hand flat to his chest, his head cocked to the side.

“I’m just saying, you stink like fish and I got a better set up, so why not?”

“If you want me to move in we’ve gotta do proper screening interviews, see if we’re compatible. For example, if you spend hours washing that mane of yours in the bathroom, it might be a problem. Or god forbid you eat my leftovers, then we’d really have issues.”

He pulled a black and white notebook out of the waistband of his pants and tore out a few sheets of paper, handing them to me.

“What’s that, your diary?”

“Matter of fact it is,” he said.

“You ever write about me in there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, nosy Nelly. Now listen, write down every question you can think of and I’ll do the same. We’ll go through the questions every Sunday, and after a couple rounds we’ll know if we’re compatible. Capeesh?”

“Whatever you say, hombre loco.”

He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes, plugging his ears with his thumbs and wagging his fingers around like little fishes.

“Ay Dios Mio,” I said. But inside I was smiling.

* * *

That first week I scribbled down questions like whats ur favorite color and how old r u, but for once Randy wasn’t playing. He started asking serious stuff right away so I got serious, too.

“Next question, did you wanna fuck me when we first met? And do you wanna fuck me now?”

“I told you once and I’ll tell you again, I do not want to fuck you. Not now, not in a million years,” Randy said.

I looked down at my hands, noticing the dirt caked under my fingernails.

“Don’t look so sad, Bear. It’s nothing personal, you just don’t exactly have the equipment I’m lookin’ for.”

“Huh?”

“A dick, Jazzy.”

I couldn't help it, I spit out a mouthful of water right there, a fountain of wetness spraying all around me.

“Watch it, bitch,” said a fat lady sitting next to me.

“You mean to tell me you’re a homo?” I said real loud. A few people looked over, including the fat lady who barked out a laugh.

“Yep, that’s me. Homo extraordinaire! Queer, fairy, fruitcake, I’ve heard it all before.”

“No shit? Well damn, that makes me feel better," I said, nodding my head. “A homo. I woulda never guessed.”

“Let’s use the word gay instead, okay?”

“What? Oh, sure. So if you’re gay, you ever been with a dude?”

“Plenty. But only one that counts.”

Randy looked down at his plate, those big white teeth sinking into his bottom lip. Without thinking, I laid my hand on top of his.

“What was his name?”

“Ralph. Ralph fucking Lowell.”

He kept staring at the plate like he was trying to find a hidden message in the slop of lunch, his free hand fiddling with a plastic fork. I never heard him be so quiet before.

“What was he like?”

“He was the most vanilla man you’d ever meet,” Randy said, his face breaking into a smirk. “Only listened to The Highwaymen and couldn’t have a meal without a slab of red meat. He was a good cook, too. Ribs, pork, steak, you name it.”

I’d never cooked anything in my life, let alone a steak. I started hating Ralph right then.

“He had this laugh that didn’t match the rest of him, sounded like a thirteen-year-old girl. I used to say that laugh was the only gay part about him.”

“Where is he now?”

“Illinois,” he said, his eyes dropping to his plate, “with his wife.”

“His wife?”

“Yup. He was married. Probably still is.”

“How’d you get away with that?”

“We got bunked together in the Marines. In Okinawa.”

“Oki-whatta? You were in the army?”

“Okinawa, in Japan. And not the army, the Marines. Army’s for pussies.”

During our next couple of interviews, I learned more about being gay than I ever learned about anything in my life. Tops and bottoms, twinks and otters and hunks. Ralph was a bear, not Randy’s usual type.

“So how did you end up becoming, like, boyfriends or whatever?”

“A bunch of us were all out drinking one night in San Diego to celebrate the end of boot camp and he walks up and sits right next to me. We start talking, taking shots, and next thing you know we’re the only two left in the place. The sun was gettin’ ready to come up when we finally got kicked out and the minute we get outside he grabs me like this,” he said, taking my face between his hands to demonstrate, “and kisses me.”

I nearly choked on my saliva, forcing myself not to break eye contact as his scratchy palms rested on my cheeks for a second longer. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be kissed by someone you wanted to kiss, someone who talked to you for hours, but I couldn’t picture it.

“Then what happened?”

“We got bunked together in Okinawa. Out of the 150 Marines in our company, we ended up in the same damn room.”

“It was, like, fate or something?”

“Somethin’ like that. Once we moved in together, it was like we’d known each other our whole lives. We’d talk for hours, cook together, argue about politics and religion and shit. It was domestic bliss.”

The stories made my stomach hurt, but I had to know it ended. That’s how I learned the army’s run by a bunch of assholes.

“They kicked you out? But why?”

“You ever heard of ‘Don't Ask, Don’t Tell’?”

“Is that like, a gameshow or something?”

“Not even close. It’s a rule put in place during the Clinton administration, says you can only be gay in the service if nobody knows.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. And here I was thinking Ralphie would leave his wife. I figured we’d get a place in New York or San Francisco, start our own little family like we’d talked about, but he acted like I was crazy for thinking any of that could actually happen.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So he got on a plane and went back to his wife and I never heard from him again. After that, I was ruined.”

“You’re not ruined. You ask me, I’d say you’re perfect just the way you are. Swear to God.”

That was the first time I ever saw Randy cry, his eyes filling with water until the sockets couldn't hold it in no more. He let the tears roll down his cheeks without wiping them away. I thought he never looked so beautiful as he did right then.

“Was it worth it? For like, the love?”

He turned to me, his face shining with wetness.

“I’d trade a million nights at a five-star hotel for a single night with my Ralphie.”

* * *

The following week, Randy announced he was moving in. When I spotted him walking up to my camp carrying his stuff, my heart started flapping around like a crazy pigeon in my chest.

“Found me a new bed on the walk over,” he said, holding up the long wooden crate. “Must be a sign.”

“Finally! I’m so sick of laying on this ratty cardboard.”

“This bed ain’t big enough for the both of us. And I don’t want you stinkin’ up my Egyptian Cotton.”

“Oh, come on. You gotta let me share!”

“No chance, girlie, I don’t share my bed with nobody no more. But I did bring you somethin.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a metal water bottle with a single yellow daisy inside. “A housewarming gift! To spruce the place up.”

He set the bottle against the far corner of the scaffolding, right next to my sleeping spot. “Once the flower dies, you got yourself a perfectly good water bottle.”

* * *

I stared at that flower every morning when I woke up and every night before I fell asleep. When it started to wilt, I shoved it between two pieces of cardboard and slept on it, hoping my weight would press it flat the way I seen people save old flowers between pages of books in the movies.

It didn’t work. After a few days the petals started turning brown.

I rolled the flower between the palms of my hands, making it as small as I could, and stuck the whole thing in my mouth. It tasted like wet dirt and my stomach got all crampy afterward, but I didn’t care. At least now I knew I'd always carry a little piece of Randy around with me.

* * *

Billy’s sandwich has kept me going for a few days, but the need for food or water or booze is taking up all the space in my mind, making me shake and sweat at the same time.

I grab for my water bottle and crawl to the edge of our camp, using the scaffolding to pull myself up. The sun is low in the sky and the only people passing are ladies pushing strollers, so I’m guessing it’s still early in the day.

I hang on to the pole with one hand and stick my empty bottle out with the other. My throat feels like it’s on fire, so I shake the bottle without muttering so much as a “spare any change?”

People pass by without noticing me at all. I’m trying to stay upright but I’m swaying in the wind, and before I have the chance to catch myself, my knees buckle and I collapse, going from a person to a pile on the ground.

I'm laying there with my eyes half open when I see a pair of skinny ankles in tennis shoes walk right up to me. Two hands—short red nails, a big, glittery diamond—place a plastic bag down a couple feet from my face.

By the time I get the energy to lift my head up, the hands and feet are gone.

I lay belly side down, stretching out my arms until my fingers close around the crinkly plastic. God’s finally listening, because inside I find a turkey sandwich and a juice box.

I don’t even bother unwrapping the sandwich before taking a giant bite, paper and all, and it tastes so good I start crying. Tears and snot run into my open mouth, making the whole thing slimy and salty.

I finish the sandwich in five bites before tearing the plastic off the juice box straw. I make myself go real slow, taking a hundred tiny sips instead of gulping it down how I want to.

* * *

Randy’s begging skills made it so that I didn’t have to worry too much about where I’d find my next meal. Sometimes we’d use his pot for a bottle of booze, other times for greasy cheeseburgers and fries. Once in a while he’d splurge on a vanilla ice cream cone for me, making a big show of parading out the double doors of McDonald's with one hand behind his back and a wicked grin on his face.

A couple months after we became roomies, he decided it was time to teach me his ways.

“You know I love you, Bear, but I just watched you shake that cup for about six hours. Did you even score enough for a dollar slice?”

I shrugged, looking down at the nickels and a few lonely pennies in my cup.

“Looks like we got a project on our hands. Teach a man to fish and he’ll be feastin’ on filet for the rest of time.”

* * *

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Randy shouted to a crowded F train during our first lesson, “I don’t know if you’ve checked your calendars lately, but it’s Christmas time.”

I was sitting on the opposite end of the car, watching him through the mask of my curls.

“I’m a homeless veteran. And while you’re all shopping for gifts, all I'm tryin’ to do is stay alive.”

He wrapped two plastic shopping bags around his bare feet, stashing his sneakers behind a trash can at West 4th. The bags made a crinkly noise with every step. He spoke directly to a row of people and they ignored him, looking anywhere but his face.

“I haven’t eaten in five days,” he said, holding up the fingers of his left hand, showing off a nub where the ring finger used to be, “all I want is somethin’ to eat, maybe some water.”

He turned around to face the row of people behind him. As he turned, the original audience peeked up all at once, like they were hypnotized or something.

“Please find it in your hearts to help me out.” He directed this line to the wide aisle of the train. A few more people looked up, taking in his dirty blond hair, the torn shirt and the plastic bags for shoes. “Thank you all, God bless and Merry Christmas.”

I watched in amazement as person after person fished through their purses and backpacks to pull out their wallets. We got off the train four stops later with $12, half a box of pizza and a blue Gatorade, parking on a bench to enjoy our feast.

“The key to success is a simple formula. Sympathy plus demonstrated need plus a non-monetary ask equals success. I got their sympathy from my costume.” He stuck his legs out straight in front of him and twirling his ankles. “I said I hadn’t eaten in five days, demonstrating lack. And finally, I asked for food or water, not moola.”

“You make it sound easy,” I licked the hot grease off my fingers.

“Follow the formula and it is. And you know what happens when they don’t have food or water?”

He fanned himself with a wad of crumpled cash, batting his eyelashes like a damsel in distress. “Cash money, honey!”

We started laughing so loud that a pig came over and told us to pipe down, which only made us laugh harder.

When the pizza was gone, Randy turned to me and made his face all serious. “I don’t mind bein’ the breadwinner of this family, but you gotta pull your weight somehow.”

“I know, but I’m not good at nothing. Not begging or stealing or nothing.”

I didn’t feel sorry for myself, it was just the truth. I’d never been good at nothing my whole life.

“Why would you go sayin’ some nonsense like that? You’re good at plenty of things.”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

“You’re a good roomie. Never leave a shit in the toilet without giving it a flush.”

“See? Even you can’t think of anything serious. Paco used to say I was as useful as a bike with no wheels,”

“Fucking Paco, what does he know?”

When I told Randy about my cousin during our interviews, he started huffing and puffing and getting all red-faced, saying Paco deserved to rot in jail. I tried explaining how Paco was the only person who kept me safe growing up in the system, making sure none of the big kids stole my food and that none of the boys tried to stick things inside me, but Randy wouldn’t have it.

“He wasn’t so bad, Papi. He was, like, my caretaker in a way. Like how you always make sure I got food and water and stuff.”

“I’m nothing like your perv cousin. I would never make you feel like you owe me somethin’ in exchange for somethin’ else. Nobody should do that shit, especially not to a little girl.”

I felt Randy staring at me but I didn’t want to look at him, so I looked at his feet.

“You think of somethin’ you’ll contribute to this family, because I don’t want you feeling like you owe me. Pull your own weight. Not for me, but for you. You gotta be empowered! Feminism and all that shit.”

“Ain’t that for lesbians?”

Randy let out a belly laugh, his head tilted back, mouth open.

“See! That’s what you’re good at. Making me laugh. And being my sidekick.”

That’s exactly what I was: Randy’s sidekick, his secret keeper, his one-woman audience. He kept us fed with whatever food and brown booze and pills his pot could provide, and I watched over him as he slept, rubbing his back when he woke up screaming from one of his nightmares.

I’d do my best to cheer him up when he turned into a zombie, lying on his crate with a blank face and glassy eyes, refusing a bite of food or a sip of water. Sometimes it’d last a day or two, but other times he’d be out of it for weeks at a time.

On happy days I’d listen to stories of places like San Diego, where Randy and Ralph would watch the sunset from the boardwalk, or Okinawa, where they’d eat gross shit like raw salmon. It was during one of these stories I finally got the guts to ask something I’d be wondering for a while.

“If Ralph came back right now and asked you to go away with him, what would you do?”

“I’d tell him two’s a crowd but three’s a party because you’d be coming with us.”

“For real? I thought you’d ditch me if Ralph came along.”

“No way. Ralphie was my first love, but you’re my second. You don’t gotta fuck to be soulmates, Jazzy.”

* * *

When Randy still hasn't come back after a week, I start sleeping on his crate. The towel he uses for a blanket still smells like him, and I try using it as a pillow but the smell makes me miss him so bad I can’t take it.

I’m lying flat on my stomach, pressing my face up against the crate and squishing my skin between the slats when I notice something hiding underneath. I roll off and tip the crate on its side, and that's when I see Randy’s things lined up in a perfect little row like they’ve been waiting for me.

“You tricky dick,” I say, unable to keep the smile from my face. Typical Randy, playing around and waiting until I pass his stupid test before coming out from wherever he’s been hiding.

First is a folding knife. I pick it up and turn it over in my hands, surprised by how soft the leather is. In the center is a carving so faded I have to squint my eyes to see it: RS + RL.

Next is a metal water bottle like the one he gave me when he first moved in.

“You been holding out on me, Papi,” I say real loud. I unscrew the lid and take a sip, my body shuddering in delight when I taste the warm tequila on my lips.

Last is his diary, that old black and white notebook with RANDY J. STECKLEIN printed on the inside cover. I pick it up and wave it around like a flag, figuring now will be the time when he rushes over and rips the diary from my hands.

“This is your last chance,” I say. Still nothing.

I flip to a random page halfway through. Words fill every inch of the page so that there’s hardly any white space.

My heart's been ripped out, I don’t know where to find it.

Dogs are the only ones who treat us like people. Today, one licked my face.

I bet he wouldn't recognize me anymore. I hardly recognize myself.

I hear a commotion in front of me. When I look up, a stream of commuters is spilling out of the 2nd Avenue Station. People with headphones and backpacks and shiny shoes that click-click on the sidewalk, all rushing off towards home. Maybe they’re dying to kiss their families on the lips. Or maybe they’re just thinking about what’s for dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs, wine. Vanilla soft serve.

~ ~ ~

Meghan Palmer lives in New York City, where she draws inspiration from the gross inequality she encounters daily. She writes a weekly cultural commentary newsletter called that's so interesting. This is her first published story

A Love Story, with Guinea Pigs

I first saw her in the Yakima pet store, when I stepped in to pick up Timothy hay for my five Guinea pigs. It was February; I stomped snow off my boots. The store, full of small furred bodies, breathed warmth and humidity. The clerk called a greeting, and I cleared my throat before answering; I hadn’t spoken in nearly a week. I am a fifty-eight-year-old bachelor, set in my ways, and shy of the world outside my small house. Although I grew up here, in central Washington state, in this senescent town at the heart of a fertile valley, it has always seemed as if I were living in a country the language of which I have never mastered.

A woman peered through a glass case at some kittens. Her nose was sharp as a comma, her hand light on the clear surface, her forearm smooth and brown. A shock zapped through me, and my heart thudded. Slush thawed at my feet.

As usual, I was carrying one of the Guinea pigs on my shoulder. Angela, the boldest, a white fur ball, nestled and hid in my tangle of hair. As I stood transfixed by the woman’s quiet beauty, and terror at my reaction to it, Angela squeaked and burbled in my ear. I cannot explain how or when I began to understand the noises of cavia porcellus, commonly known as Guinea pigs. Comprehension of their silly language had come slowly over a long time of loneliness and listening, as slowly as aestival heat descends into winter.

Federica can’t stand oatmeal, what do you think of that… something to do with when she was a child growing up in Oaxaca… get closer, walk over there come on now so we can find out…”

I resisted Angela's plea, and stayed rooted to the floor.

“…dirt floors and only one sink and her mother cooked meals in a large iron pot over an open fire and one day something happened to her brother, get closer…”

My curiosity was aroused, by the woman and the story, but fear's grasp is strong. I stayed immobile: an island in a puddle.

Angela bit my earlobe. I jumped! Stuttered forward, checking the shirt buttons over the incongruous round of my stomach as I approached the woman apparently called Federica. Standing close enough to touch her, I smelled a faint freshness, like the newly burst seeds of wildflowers. It occurred to me to peer in at the kittens. Angela, probably feeling the blood pounding at the back of my neck, started up her chatter again, softly, her fur tickling my neck.

“…one day her brother, the little one, had a tantrum about the oatmeal...he threw the bowl and what do you think of that... it landed on Federica’s head… she was just a small girl… and spilled oatmeal all down her front ... Federica picked up the bowl and went after her brother... he tripped over a stick ... fell… a broken nose all bloody and ever since then Federica thinks oatmeal smells like a bloody broken nose what do you think of that…”

Perhaps it is because Guinea pigs are blabbermouths—never content with twelve words when twenty-six will do just as well—that I have come to understand their incessant cheeps and chatterings, while I am no closer to making them understand mine. They speak no English at all, not even my name. I believe they have no interest in what I have to say; they knew my story long ago, and I am a sadly consistent old stick.

After a strangely companionable time without words, during which I was acutely conscious, not of the kittens, but of Federica and the row of well-worn brass buttons on her coat, all neatly fastened, Angela bit my earlobe again with her long incisors.

“Ouch!” I said.

“Excuse?” Her voice was quiet and precise as her coat, with an accent that said that, like her coat, the language was not one of which she was the original owner. A second-hand language. Which she’d mended as best she could to make her own, or at least keep her warm in winter.

“Out,” my voice sounded hoarse and strange. “I think that kitten wants out.”

“Ah,” she looked around. “Maybe every each here wants escape.” She seemed to speak with pity and sadness about all the animals there, so I hastened to reassure her that many of them were sanguine, some even blissful, and although most wanted things, it usually wasn’t escape. We walked over to the mouse cages. The mice, as usual, all yelled at once and repeated the same things over and over with small variations, like one of those new minimalist compositions the local orchestra occasionally, unfortunately attempts. The gist of their chatter was, I explained, that the cages were too small; they wanted bigger cages with more mice in them. Which didn’t make a lot of sense, but that would be mice for you.

As I spoke, with increasing fluidity—although I had never before admitted to anyone that I comprehend several small mammal languages—Angela quieted under my hair, and Federica gazed at me with solemn eyes. I wasn’t sure how much of what I said she understood, until she pointed into a mouse cage.

“Happy?”

When I smiled and nodded, she looked at me with no trace of shock, disbelief or pity. I prayed to be buried in earth as brown as her eyes.

Forgetting about my errand, I strolled with her through the store. The black and white ferret whispered, “run, run!” Ferrets are monosyllabic, and this one was lonely and bored, and apparently irritated by our slow pace. I considered doing as he directed: I was undoubtedly risking humiliation or worse by thinking a lovely young woman would be interested in a stringy, potbellied man with a pallor as if he’d spent life at the back of a drawer. But Federica walked towards a glass case of gerbils, and my enthralled boots followed. The gerbillinae groomed, nosing each other and tasting each other’s saliva. A few of them leaped onto their hind legs as we came close, their paws held up like tiny limp gloves.

“They ask if we have lettuce,” I said to Federica. “Or orange segments, clover, buttercups—all the things that are bad for them, that’s what they want.”

We walked down the small bird aisle, Federica looking enquiringly at me as the cockatoos chirruped, but I shook my head; I didn’t comprehend any bird.

I also spoke no Spanish at all. But when she pointed to the nail salon next door, and said “sister,” and indicated the clock on the wall, which was almost at one, I understood her perfectly well. I also understood, from her frown and her own bare, short nails, that she thought her sister’s lunch-hour refurbishments a foolish waste of money. I looked at her fingers again, they were ringless. The huddle of fur behind my neck stirred and wriggled, and then yanked painfully at a hank of my hair. My name popped out of my mouth, and then I asked Federica out, the syllables bubbling like water from a drinking fountain I’d long believed broken. Federica gravely took my hands, turned them palms up, and smiled.

***

I’d bought my first Guinea pig after my previous, and only, lady friend left me.  It was years ago now.

“He’s not sensitive to my feelings,” I heard her say on the phone to her sister.

She was perfectly correct. I had no idea what she was talking about. What did she want me to do, or do differently? After ten years of dating me, she married our dental hygienist. The man was tall with blond eyebrows, and always spoke with exaggerated kindness as he stuffed his latexed fingers into my mouth.

My first piggie was silent, and immediately got a drippy eye and a lump on her back. The vet recommended a companion, and that is when I found Angela. Silent as the first when I picked her up in the pet store and carried her home in a paper box, as soon as I placed her on the Timothy hay and wood shavings with the first cavy, she jumped straight up in the air! Chirps and squeals spilled from both pigs like confetti. Over the years I acquired more and more of the creatures, and my hay bill grew larger. They took over my house. They hitched rides in my pockets or on my shoulder, and when I grew it long enough they snuggled into my grizzling hair.  I listened more and more to their chatter, and although I continued my habit of reading a page or two of the dictionary each night, and attending occasional concerts, I spoke less and less.

Now I had five piggies. Angela was bravest about going out in the world with me on my weekly jaunts to the pet store or the occasional farm inspection or meeting required by my work at the State Agricultural Office. My work—mostly spreadsheets analyzing asparagus yields—I did otherwise at home, to the background burble of the more timorous pigs: the ancient Buckles, who slurred his syllables in a barely understandable lisp and whose teeth were continually breaking; Greg, a gray, sleek fellow who looked urbane and sophisticated but pooped anywhere and everywhere and could not be taught differently; Melissa, a goof who blathered on mainly about movies; and Honey, my softest, quietest brown Guinea pig, who whispered in my ear only—and this is unusual for a cavy—when she had something to say.

It was from Honey I learned why Federica said yes to our first outing. “Her brothers—shhhh!” she said, in the impossible hope of quieting the others; they were wiggling and cuddling in the armchair opposite mine in my living room, chirping and clambering over Honey’s head as she spoke. “Three brothers, two are mechanics which means oil and transmissions—

“Ttranthmithionth!” interjected Buckles.

“—and coveralls and special wrenches. One brother is not a mechanic but cleans houses with Federica he always does the stovetops, soaking and then scrubbing, and this makes him think about all the things that take patience, like the girl back home whom he loves.”

“Four Weddings,” said Melissa, “the hero waits years and years to be reunited with his true love…”

Honey bit Melissa’s haunch and continued, “But the other brothers they come home with a black line of grease under their nails, and they drink beer—”

“Beer and greath!” said Buckles.

“—which Federica does not like it makes her feel a tightness in her chest because—shhhhh—her father died many years ago from drinking too much so she always checks a man’s hands to see if they are clean and mostly they are not but yours were, very.”

How my cavies discerned these things, or whether they simply made up everything as they went along, I didn't know. Nevertheless, warmth swelled through me; I could imagine a reason Federica had agreed to go out with me. A simple, mundane reason, which made it believable, and also endeared her to me and gave me hope: I was a sober man with clean hands.

I took Federica to a movie at the downtown theatre. The cavies stayed home in their cages; I was afraid they would eat too much popcorn. Unfortunately, the film was in French with subtitles. Federica perhaps understood what was happening, but I didn't; I read not one word, but simply sat next to her listening to the rise and ebb of the music and holding the container of warm popcorn we shared. I felt naked without a pig in my hair or at least one in my pocket—as if I could feel the air singeing the tiny follicles all over my body—but I concentrated on the way she picked up each buttered kernel and turned it in the tips of her fingers. As if it were Braille, she read the meaning of each shape before lifting it to her lips. I imagined the salt taste of her fingers.

After I drove her home, I walked with her to her front door, snow blustering around us and pawing at our hats and scarves. Her coat was thin; I put my arm around her. I honestly don’t know how I dared. Unfortunately, as we approached the door it burst open and the door frame filled with the energy of a small, dark woman who looked a good deal like Federica. Her long fuchsia nails, each with a tiny bright-feathered bird painted on it, glistened against the doorframe, and her eyes clawed me up and down. “Too old,” she spat. “Too tall, too much punch.” She grabbed Federica’s wrist with her talons, pulled her away from me, and slammed the door.

***

After mortified puzzling, I concluded that the woman with the avian nails must have been the sister, whose name, Federica had told me, was Marguerita, and that Marguerita must have meant to say “paunch.” She was unfortunately quite correct. My stomach was also not the least objectionable thing about me as a suitor. Federica was young and full of life; I was nearly sixty. She came from tropical savanna; I had lived my whole life in the Yakima Valley, which, although hot and fertile in summer, had such long winters that in their midst I always forgot that farmland produced crops of anything but snow. She had a large family and was used to constant activity; she had never spent years of nights quietly reading through the M’s, or listening to recordings of Beethoven accompanied by the continual disorderly discourse of cavia porcellus. An animal so silly that it would stop, stunned, in a dangerous wide-open field, thinking that if it didn’t go forward or back it would be safe from the hawk. An animal so joyful that just the touch of another guinea’s fur could send it off into giddy whistling and wheeking. An animal so contrary and confused that it was commonly called Guinea pig, although it wasn’t a pig and didn’t come from Guinea. Which brought me of course to the thing Marguerita would no doubt find most objectionable about me if she knew: I thought I heard the stories of cavies.

After the slam of the front door, I retreated to my house and hid for some weeks. Like a frightened Guinea pig does when surprised, or fearful of an earthquake, a dog, or some other thing that will upend their small world, I froze. But as imperceptibly and inexorably as spring thaw, I began to peep out, registering the growing blotches of earth beneath melting snow, the kiss of damp, warming air, the enticing freshness somewhere in the wide, outside world.

***

Apricot blossoms popped, asparagus tips poked up like fork tines, snow slipped into slush on the roadways. One day it was warm enough that I gathered courage and pigs—all of them, in their carrying case—and walked to a park. On a bench in the sun, they burbled to each other, and I listened. I could understand their speech by now almost perfectly, except for the occasional idiom or new phrase, or the strange lisping of the elderly Buckles. But although they told the stories of everyone with whom I came into contact, they would not listen to mine or answer my questions. Any information I got from them was random, specious, jumbled, and mostly inconsequent. And yet sometimes I fantasized that they might possibly, in their own mythomaniac way, care for me.

On the way back from the park, the pigs, in a rare bout of unity, all clamored for fresh spring wheat grass. I had been avoiding the pet store, but they made such a ruckus of squeaking and bumping that passersby on the sidewalk stared, so I was forced to stop. The door was open, a breeze sifted in. The snakes rustled; mice squeaked. Budgies lunged and screeched, protecting their cages and territory. I made my purchase hurriedly, juggling the vibrating cage and the square of earth sprouted with blades of neon chartreuse. I had just managed an exit when I bumped into a woman on the sidewalk. The Guinea pigs froze; their sudden hush meant abject terror.

“You!” Marguerita looked me up and down, as before. She squinted in at the pigs in their carrying case, poking a finger through the mesh. Her violet nails brandished eagle heads, and the pigs huddled close together.

“I hope Federica is well,” I managed to say.

She shook her head. “Too tall, too much scraggle hair.” She stalked away.

After some time of silence, Buckles lisped, “Painted nailth.”

Melissa regained her courage. “She was older than her sisters and brothers—just like in Little Women, or Safe Passage or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, one of those films with so many siblings...”

Angela interrupted impatiently. “Marguerita is so much older than Federica she was the first to go to a village festival with a boy—what do you think of that—the first to receive communion the first to look for a job the first after the uncles to save enough for a lawyer and papers and come to America.”

“Coming to America!” said Melissa, “Eddie Murphy searches for his queen, a hidden gem of late 80’s romance, directed by John Landis, who takes it from tepid comedy to…”

Angela squirmed and crawled over Melissa’s head, the whole pile-up of Guinea pigs roiled and rearranged itself in a confusion of contrasting fur, their fright forgotten.

“Even though,” continued Angela, “all Marguerita's brothers and sisters are here now she still feels she must lead them, and so she takes them to places they do not want to go and tries to get them to do things they do not want to do—what do you think of that—like get their nails painted. The last time Federica refused, her sister yelled, ‘Fine then. See if you ever catch a man,’ and her sister yelled back, ‘I did, and you spoiled it!’”

Yes, perhaps I just wanted the story to be true. Whether or not it was, it filled me with a small, wriggling hope. I telephoned. My voice trembled, but I invited Federica to a Yakima Pops concert that evening. She accepted, and, despite the wriggling objections of the pigs in my pockets, I went to a barber and gestured at the tangled mess on my head. I went home again, dressed and washed my hands carefully, and put all the pigs into their cages. I would go solo. My heart pounded, my scalp felt chill and prickly and my palms sweaty; I washed them again.

Federica wore a quiet blue dress that clung to her slim figure, and polished, worn, brown shoes. In front of the concert hall daffodils bloomed. The concert that night featured a famous rock band, who performed in front of the usual sixty symphonic, tuxedoed musicians. It sounded like two rival monkey troops at the zoo. At intermission, we merely glanced at each other before leaving the lobby and wandering down Main Street in the cold spring night to a coffee shop. The back of my neck was naked as a young boy’s. We sipped hot chocolate and she told me how in Oaxaca they ground the cacao pods and mixed the powder with sugar and cinnamon. I told her I didn’t care much for oatmeal. She smiled, and put her mug-warmed hand on mine.

Federica’s uncles had come to Yakima long ago, at first to work in the asparagus season, then the corn, peaches, apples, and grapes. They gradually brought the rest of the family over, doing the paperwork and the saving for fees and the waiting. Something in me understood deeply about the waiting. In the 1990s the uncles started a cleaning business; when her green card came through, Federica followed her sister to help them. Her mother arrived, her older brothers married bossy women, her uncles grew stout and garrulous. Her younger brother, her favorite, pined for a girl still in Oaxaca. Federica now cleaned and helped run the business, which employed seventeen people and swept, wiped, and polished nearly a quarter of the houses in the city of Yakima. Her family all lived in the same block, on a quiet street in a neighborhood near their church, and every Sunday they all crowded into her mother’s miniscule house to have dinner.

All this I learned, somehow, despite Federica’s limited English, or perhaps because of it. Her small vocabulary cut like a beacon through what had always seemed to me a swirling fog of language, motive, and expression separating me from other human animals. “He doesn’t understand me,” my lady friend had said so long ago, but I had never forgotten how true it was. I had studied agriculture, had spent all my life with live, silent things, although my job had turned out to be mostly computer work, regulations, forms, and inspections. The earth had no language; the farmlands—flat as paper—no writing; the crops could be measured and understood without words. I cannot explain how I felt with Federica: I began to converse.

When I drove her home and stopped in front of the house she shared with her mother, I remembered the last time I had been there: the slam of that front door, the sharpness of the sister’s bright nails, the humiliation in the truth of her words. Federica asked me to have dinner with her family on Sunday, but I couldn’t speak. My tongue felt like ice. I clutched the steering wheel, frozen, and managed only a tiny nod. It was ungentlemanly of me, but I didn’t even escort Federica to her house. Instead, I watched her puzzled expression, and then the car door opening and closing, and her neat steps moving away from me. I felt a foreign, bitter rage at my fear.

Later, as I fed and watered the pigs, I held each soft furry bundle up to my ear in hopes one of them would chance to say what was happening to me; how I could be so hopeful and yet so afraid; whether I was losing my mind or gaining it. But the cavies were annoyed at being left at home all evening, and disgruntled, especially, by the disappearance of my tangle of hair; the giddy talkative things remained contrarily silent. I picked up another, and another, listening as one does to a shell, for a whisper of the faraway ocean.

***

On Sunday, I managed to get to her mother’s house, but only because I brought the case of Guinea pigs with me for security. My knees felt weak. Federica’s siblings and siblings-in-law, her mother and uncles crowded the doorway—the doorway where I had, twice before, been confronted with my inadequacies. The men’s voices boomed, thick and virile as their black hair. They reached out to shake hands, but I couldn't; I was squeezing tight to the handle of the case with both hands. Nieces and nephews darted around our adult legs like goldfish. Marguerita's crimson mouth frowned. She glared at the children, at me, at the cage. Federica, however, looked pleased, and gestured for me to come in and take off my coat. I attempted to, while trying to hold onto the cage, and, jostled by the melee in the tiny foyer, I inadvertently punched an aunt in the bosom. The aunt yelled, Spanish whirled around me, laughter. I felt giddy. I panicked. The whole thing was a catastrophic mistake.

What could I have possibly thought? That I could make a young woman happy? That I could change, that I could read a whole dictionary, learn to use its language? That small, pooping-everywhere mammals were proper dinner companions? I was an old, gangling, potbellied fellow, so awkward I couldn't take off a coat sensibly, so ravaged by loneliness that I had spent years in the company of dumb animals, and thought their noises were stories, and their stories, life. I lifted the cage up above my head and, my coat dripping off one arm, turned to flee. The uncles, in jewel-colored shirts, grabbed me. The women’s voices raised like spring flooding, the aunt laughed until tears flew from her eyes. The grinning brothers pulled me inside, and one of them—a man with a crooked nose—took the piggies from me, gently settling their cage on the mantel. Someone came from the kitchen with a spoonful of sauce for Federica to taste. A young cousin cried. Marguerita’s voice cawed loudest of all, and the blue jays on her nails whirled and scolded.

I found myself crowded into the house, where more aunts peered up into my face. One felt the material of my sweater, they all burst out talking at once. Men patted my back, pulled me toward a long wood table crowded with dishes, cutlery and flowers, and plunked me into a chair. A clutch of sisters and cousins marched in from the kitchen carrying tamales, spiced meats, vegetables and grains heavy with cilantro and coriander. A child, polished and ponderous in his task, set a bowl of small dried brown things, saladitos, on the white cloth. Everyone jumbled around the table, talking, waving, laughing, nodding, crying out, while passing the bright painted dishes. Federica’s mother entered with a battered metal pot, so big her plump arms barely reached around it, and began ladling fragrant mole over the groaning plates. The scents of the food overwhelmed me, the promise of deliciousness, the vivid summer hues, the warm press of bodies in the small room. The unaccustomed, overwhelming kindness. My feet began to slip forward under the table.

Spanish swirled around me, everyone was asking me questions, I forgot how to speak. My rear end slid forward off the chair seat. I slouched, my spine curled, my head dipped below the level of the table. The lace cloth brushed my face. What could Federica possibly see in me? Too old, too much punch. The tablecloth caressed my face like a falling curtain as my body slithered noiselessly under the table. I found myself crouched on the wood floor, surrounded by human and table legs, crying. On the ground, small, with life always so bafflingly big and high above me.

Silence dropped on the room like a vulture. The only sounds were the cheeping and burbling of my pigs, far away on the mantelpiece, and although I heard them, I understood nothing, nothing at all. I closed my eyes.

“Te amo!” The words blurted from my mouth before I even knew they were there. Declaring love, like a complete fool, under the table.

Stunned whispers burst above me, then volleyed, and became a crescendoing and heated discussion, no doubt on my total unsuitability as a suitor. I hugged my knees, listening, and through the torrents of Spanish above me, I began to discern individual voices, and their individual stories. Federica’s mother spoke with wisdom and deliberation, and in the curves of her round voice, muffled by the tablecloth, I heard of the long, painful, useless death of her husband. Federica's favorite brother said that it was past time she married, and in his nasal tone I heard his own longing. Marguerita went on and on about something, but what she was saying was not what she meant: she was frustrated at being the oldest and yet the least listened to, she needed to be beautiful, more beautiful, and special and famous, important and feathered. In the seat next to the one I’d slid off of sat an aunt, lisping about the succulent ripeness of the asparagus—but she really meant she was thankful for the country where it had grown.

And then far down the table rose again the voice of the broken-nosed brother. “He is a strange one, but is he a good man? What do you think of that, is he a good man?”

I wiped my eyes, opened them. The light filtered, as through leaves, through the lace tablecloth. I saw a pair of polished, worn, brown shoes approaching.

Federica spoke softly, perhaps in English, “He has good job, many years.” And more softly. “Nice house, quiet.” The way she said this last word, in the rare cessation of din in her family’s dwelling, clarified its importance for her. The meaning and the sound from her lips came together.

“He take care of small animals,” she said finally. And this last descriptor of what was important in me, of what she valued—my silly, inconsequential reaction to a lifetime of loneliness—filled me with bewildered gratitude.

She said my name. Her hand came under the table—her beautiful, warm, brown hand—and I understood what she saw in me, and it was enough.

~ ~ ~

Kimm Brockett Stammen's writings have appeared or are forthcoming in CARVE, The Greensboro Review, Pembroke Magazine, Oyster River Pages, Crack the Spine and many others. Her work has been nominated for Pushcart and Best Short Fiction anthologies, and she won 2nd Place in Typehouse's 2019 Fiction Contest. Before earning an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University in 2019, Kimm was a concert saxophonist and spent twenty-five years performing, teaching and touring across Canada and the US. Visit Kimm’s website at kimmbrockettstammen.wordpress.com