Tag: fiction

A Boy Who Thinks Quite a Deal | David Hutto

Ma gave me a piece of lemon pie, then said, “You can’t stay here and get a bomb on your head.”

What if she got a bomb on her head? If I couldn’t stay in Liverpool, why was she staying? She just said, “You have to go until the war is over. It probably won’t take long.”

“There aren’t any bombs where we live.”

“The Germans don’t know where you live. Anyway, Mr. Churchill said the children need to leave the cities.”

“Why aren’t you coming?” I asked.

“Somebody has to work. The men are going off to war.”

“I could be the man of the house.”

“That’s not a job for eight-year-old boys,” Ma said. “You have to be ten for that.”

Da went to the army, and sometimes he wrote letters. Ma would read me the parts he wrote for me, but I missed Da. Before he went in the army, Da worked for the BBC on the radio every day. Two times when I was home sick from school I heard him. He was talking about adult stuff, but even if it was boring, I still liked hearing me Da on the radio. The best thing was when he would talk to me after work.

“We learned kinds of trees in Norway,” I told Da one day.

“Did you? And what kinds of trees grow in Norway?”

“Oak trees, like here, and birch and spruce. Maybe ash. I’m not sure if that’s a tree. I don’t remember all of them.”

“That’s a lot to know,” Da said. “Maybe I should start studying to keep up. If I need to know Norwegian trees, I’ll have to ask you.”

I especially liked when Da would read me stories. Me favorite book was The Leprechaun’s Album of Lively Tales, because it had stories like the one about the brown hen tricking the fox or the one with the seven dogs and the seven thieves.

Then I got sent to live in the country with me grandma, Nanna Evans. I used to like Nanna Evans’ house when we went to visit sometimes, but it felt different after I had to go live there. Ma brought me right after school, so instead of playing all summer with me bezzies Julian and Ralph, I just had the toys Ma let me bring, a train set and a box of toy soldiers Da gave me and a ball. There weren’t any kids around except the cook’s little girl Amelia. Amelia was only four and she was a girl.

The day Ma brought me on the train, Nanna Evans picked us up in her car and we drove to her house. We were having tea, and she said, “Well, Archie, I hope you’ll enjoy a little time here. It’ll be like a summer vacation. Aren’t you in the third year of school now?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

“I hope you’re studying hard and learning.”

“He does well,” Ma said. “He’s got a hard head, but it has things in it.”

“I know the names of some countries in South America,” I told Nanna Evans.

“Good for you, Archie. I suppose Brazil is one of them. Would you like some more peas?”

“No, ma’am.” 

Ma only stayed two days and then left. Nanna Evans knew I was sad, and she said, “Why don’t I take you to see the horse who’s staying here. We didn’t have a horse when you were here before.” We walked to the pasture, and I saw a gray horse who Nanna Evans said was named Napoleon. When the horse saw us, he came to the edge of the fence and nodded his head up and down and Nanna Evans gave him a piece of apple.

I said, “Are you afraid he’ll bite you?”

“No, he’s a tame old horse.” Then she petted him on the nose.

Elizabeth Evans to her friend Hetty Bevan:

Just as I wrote before, Jennie brought my grandson Archie to live with me until the war is over. I’ve asked Wendell, the dairyman, to deliver extra milk while the boy is here, and Wendell agreed that he’ll exchange the milk for apples from our trees. Archie is a pleasant boy, well mannered, and Jennie deserves credit for that, more than her husband, as far as I’m concerned. The boy speaks with that unfortunate Scouse accent, but a proper education can take care of that. I know Archie is sad to be here, and I can’t say I blame him. I myself would not like being uprooted from living here in Lindenchapel. If anyone is to blame, of course, it’s Mr. Hitler.

A week after Ma left, I saw a bush with white flowers, and a lot of petals fell on the ground. The petals looked like snow, like it was winter with snow everywhere. I started to think about polar bears and what if I was hunting them? Then I found some polar bear tracks and followed them to the big ice wall behind the house where the polar bear lived. Polar bears can be dangerous, so I didn’t get too close.

“What are you doing?”

I turned around and the girl Amelia was standing in the yard.

“I’m playing,” I said.

“You want to play having tea?”

Who would want to play having tea? “No,” I said. “I’m chocker.”

“What is that?”

She didn’t even know how to talk to Liverpool people. “Chocker is busy. I’m hunting a bear.”

“OK, I’ll hunt a bear, too,” Amelia said.

“Little girls can’t hunt bears,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”

She looked like she might cry and said, “Jesus says to be nice to everybody, so you have to let me hunt a bear.”

I didn’t want her to start crying because I might get in trouble, so I said, “OK, the bear’s behind that ice.”

“I don’t see any ice.”

“Right there,” I said.

“That’s a fence.”

“No, it’s an ice wall.”

“Oh,” Amelia said, “pretend ice.”

But the polar bear had already left, because it knew little girls aren’t supposed to hunt them. In a few minutes we gave up. I couldn’t play with Amelia. She was too little.

One day Nanna Evans asked if I like to read, and I said I do. She took me to Granddad’s old room and said maybe I could find a book I liked in there. There was a big desk with a lamp and an old radio on it, and a bookcase with a lot of books. “You can come in here whenever you want and look at the books,” Nanna Evans told me.

I was in there a long time looking at Granddad’s books, but the only book I liked was one that had photographs of other countries, like a desert with snakes and some place with a lot of people dancing with big things on their heads. I wished I had more books that told stories or had adventures. Something I liked in that room was a picture on the wall of Ma when she was a girl. It was really strange to think the girl in that picture was me Ma. I kept looking at the picture, and then I think the girl winked at me and she said, “Someday you’ll be me little boy.”

Elizabeth Evans to her friend Hetty Bevan:

You remember the lower pasture where we used to have those two bulls Walter finally sold, that he didn’t get a proper price for because he waited too long. Water under the bridge. In any case, we have an old horse in that pasture now, from one of my neighbors, the one who used to be the chemist here in Lindenchapel. He’s left to join a medical corps, and while he’s gone, he’s paying me to keep the horse,  which belonged to his father. I’ve had the vet take a look at the animal, and he says the poor thing is on its final legs. If the war does not end soon, I’m afraid my neighbor will come home to find his horse gone. For now I’m glad to have the beast here, as I think it cheers Archie up to see it, but he’s going to need more cheering than he’ll get from one old horse. When we were leaving the horse, Archie said “ta ra” so I had to tell him we are not in Liverpool, and please learn to say goodbye properly.

After Nanna Evans showed me the horse, I went to see it sometimes. Napoleon is really old, and Nanna Evans let me take an apple to give him. I was a little bit afraid, but I was pretty brave, and I gave him apples. One day I figured Napoleon must be so old he came from King Arthur days, because the knights back then rode horses like that. The next day when I went to see him, I was thinking he used to carry a King Arthur knight and they would fight dragons and monsters and maybe worse things, only I don’t know what would be worse than dragons or monsters. “Do you miss doing that?” I said and he nodded yes. “You’re probably bored without a knight to ride on you,” I said. “I bet you hate being bored.”

After I talked to Napoleon, I went back to the house to play in the garden, but I heard Amelia there. She was singing the song “Jesus Loves Me” and I know it because it was a song we used to sing in church if Ma took me, only we didn’t go to church much. When I heard Amelia, I was glad she didn’t see me, so I didn’t have to play with her. I went back to the stream, where Nanna Evans told me not to go, but I was only going to look at it just a little bit. There’s a big tree at the stream, the kind that droops down like it’s sad, and I knew that tree was where fairies live. I know a lot about fairies because I read about them, so I knew fairies live next to streams, and I was pretty sure they like big trees, even the droop-down sad kind.

When I was close to the stream, I got down low so I wouldn’t scare the fairies. The queen of the fairies sat under the droop-down tree, and servant fairies brought her some fairy food. The queen said “thank you” the way Ma says you’re supposed to when somebody gives you something, and after she ate the food, the fairies started dancing.

I liked seeing all the fairies and especially the queen, but I wished I had somebody else to play with. Even to hunt polar bears would be more fun with Julian and Ralph, because then you could say, “You go over there, and I’ll go over here and we’ll capture the polar bear in the middle.” Three of us could catch a polar bear.

Elizabeth Evans to her friend Hetty Bevan:

Archie was telling me the other day one of his little tales about leprechauns. I like to give the child a chance to play, but I wasn’t listening too closely because I was peeling apples. I do still like to bake a pie now and then. I know you, in particular, remember how I would win prizes at the fair, when they had judges who could recognize a proper pie. My new cook is willing to bake pies, but I enjoy doing it myself. Archie talked on for a few minutes while I was peeling, but I suppose the poor child realized I wasn’t paying him much attention, so he went outside. Perhaps I missed out on the leprechauns. It seems to me he is a boy who thinks quite a deal. I don’t believe Jennie was ever like that when she was a girl, always such a practical little thing. I suppose I had an easier time raising a girl who was more down to earth.

I was thinking about Ma and Da and I wished they would come and get me and then we would go home. Because I was thinking about them, I went back to Granddad’s room to see the picture of Ma when she was a girl, and I looked at it for a long time. She was smiling in that picture, and she had a bow in her hair, not like now. Ma doesn’t smile much now.

Then I looked at the radio on the desk and turned the knob. It made a crackle noise like the radio does at home when Ma turns it on. People were talking on the radio, the same kind of boring talk Ma always listens to. But in a few minutes a man said, “Hello to all the boys and girls listening out there.” He sounded like he was talking from far away. “We’re bringing you this program during the war, and every week we’ll have a different story for your enjoyment. We hope you enjoy hearing our little story.” I couldn’t believe they were going to have stories for children, and I was glad I turned on the radio. Then I heard another man start talking, and it was Da!

“Hello, boys and girls,” Da said. “I’m going to read you a story from a book called The Leprechaun’s Album of Lively Tales.” I was so happy Da had that same book from home, because I really liked that book.

“This story is called Going for a Lucky Walk. There was a woman who used to take her baby out for a stroll, and usually she would take the dog on a leash, so the dog could have a walk. When they went out for walks, the dog would notice things, like cars driving down the street or birds flying overhead. Then when the dog got home, it would talk to the cat. As we all know, cats can’t walk on a leash, so the cat couldn’t go for walks, but the cat was very curious about what was happening outside. Whenever the dog came home, the cat wanted to hear all about it. One time the dog was in a mischievous mood, so when the cat said, ‘What did you see today?’ the dog decided to torment the poor cat. ‘Oh,’ the dog said, ‘there was a parade that went by, with lots of people walking down the street, and everyone was pulling a piece of string attached to a ball of yarn. A hundred balls of yarn were bouncing up and down on the street.’ The cat thought of all those balls of yarn and how he could have been jumping at them. He was very jealous and said, ‘Oh, oh, oh, why can’t I go for walks?’ Then the dog said, ‘And when the parade passed by, a hundred parakeets came down to the street. They were so fat and lazy they could barely fly, and some were just walking on the ground.’ Then the cat was so jealous it began to meow and howl. ‘Oh, why am I stuck in the house? Why can’t I go for walks? Meow, meow!’”

It was funny to hear the story and how Da read it, how he sounded like the dog and cat. I felt really happy after I heard Da reading a story on the radio. After that time every week I would go to Granddad’s room to turn on the radio and listen to another story, like one about Kulijolli, a god from old days who lived in a cold stone house. One day Kulijolli got tired of shivering, so he made a warm spot in the house and it got so warm a fire started, and that’s where fire came from. Another story was about singing butterflies, who could sing better than anything in the world, but people couldn’t hear the butterflies, so they went to sing just for bees.

One day Nanna Evans said, “Archie, you seem to be enjoying your grandfather’s room. Are you finding interesting books in there?”

“I found the one with pictures,” I said. “But I’ve been going to listen to Da on the radio.”

“Is your father still on the radio?”

“Yes, ma’am, he tells stories for children. I listen to him reading stories.”

Elizabeth Evans to her friend Hetty Bevan:

Hetty, I have to tell you what happened this afternoon. I’ve allowed Archie to go to Walter’s old office, which hasn’t been used since he died. I thought the boy might find a book among Walter’s things that would give him some amusement, and of course I made sure to remove the things Walter never should have had to begin with that are not appropriate for a child. There’s a radio in there, and Archie told me that he’s been using it to listen to broadcasts of his father. I was so surprised that I went back to the room when Archie wasn’t there to check, and I was right, that radio has been missing its cord for years. I’m concerned about Archie, and he deserves to know what happened to his father.

One day when Da wasn’t on the radio, I went to me room where I had the toys Ma let me bring. I wanted to throw the ball, but I didn’t have anybody to throw it to, so I bounced it on the floor, except that wasn’t much fun. After that I got the box of toy soldiers Da gave me, and the soldiers fought a big battle, and I let one of the soldiers be Da. Then he said, “Next time I’m on the radio I’ll tell me little boy about how we won.”

Bonus audio of David reading from his story…

about the author:

Looking for a Friend | Ben Seabolt

“This is the end of the road.” Mr. Sharpeton pulls the red Tacoma to the side of 421 and parks in a pool of moonlight. 

“Are you fucking kidding?” Sam Humbert asks.

“This is the end of the road, for me.” The sign to exit into Yadkinville, North Carolina sits about 70 yards ahead of them. 

Sam pulls on his cigarette and blows the smoke across the dashboard. His scraggly brown hair falls into his eyes but he does not flinch to move it. “Not even halfway, huh?” 

“I’m done. I think if I keep going I’ll go crazy.” Mr. Sharpeton sits straight, his well-ironed flannel shirt and oiled beard collecting remnants of Sam’s last exhale. His eyes follow the few cars passing by. 

“You know what, old man? You’re already crazy. You’ve got your priorities turned all the way around.” 

“He’s your friend, Sam.”

“He’s your son, Jack.” The informal first name falls between them like a ship washed onto shore. Neither can row it back out. 

“Why don’t you just get out of the car, Sam?”

Sam opens the car door and leaves it ajar. He stands dangerously close to the right lane. “I don’t know what to take from this. You don’t care or you have no hope?” His gaze settles onto Mr. Sharpeton’s flickering eyelashes, now aimed towards a gold pendant of the Mother Mary swinging from the rearview mirror. “Or, no, hold on, I know: You’re hoping this time he really is gone. Your hands are washed from it and now you can soak in the celebrity of a humble, mourning father. I’m sure Mrs. Sharpeton would love to share that spotlight with you. Maybe you can even get your photo taken in the Watauga Democrat.” 

Sam continues to gaze into Mr. Sharpeton’s face. For the first time in a week, he can read the sadness etched into the crevices, between the wrinkles accumulated in the mountain wind and the dimples in his forehead formed by a lifetime of bewilderment. Mr. Sharpeton is silent, still looking forward, but oncoming headlights catch the tears rolling down his cheeks. Sam closes the door and walks on down the road to a Motel 6, briefcase jumping against his leg, his heart carved out and left for the foxes and deer along the highway. 

* * *

In the motel room, Sam sets his briefcase on the desk. His hands shake. Sweat seeping from his palms runs down along his fingers, wetting the paper of a Marlboro Menthol as he lights it. The fingers of his left hand trace the figures of fat-bellied, stout-faced little angels, like those found in Renaissance oil paintings, carved along the edges of the briefcase’s leather. He looks out into the empty parking lot and watches the summer condensation fog across the window. Across the street, a blinking neon bar sign advertises bottomless beer, and Sam feels the desolation settling into his bones. 

Of course, this is all inevitable. A week at the Sharpeton’s farm in the West Jefferson hills, scouring letters, text messages, Tweets, bank statements, and pure intuition to locate their son, David, and all Sam got was a whirlwind of distraction. Mr. Sharpeton ran in circles putting Sam to work on the land and Mrs. Sharpeton laughed and watched and called him ‘our favorite donkey’ like they’re some backwater 19th century homestead and not the quiet recluse of wealthy retirees. He knows this family, has been through this exact scenario with them before. It all led, like blood channeled to an open wound, to tonight’s abandonment. There wasn’t anywhere else it could have gone. 

Starting almost a decade ago in his early twenties, David Sharpeton has disappeared five times, cell phone tossed along some interstate, whatever apartment he’s living in ran through for supplies, robbed by its tenant. Sam has found him each time, in New Mexico slouched over a slots game in a casino chair, in an Illinois motel among endless rows of corn, in a West Virginia parking lot between disused smoke stacks, in a New Jersey club under strobing lights, and in a tent by a creek about ten miles from his parents’ North Carolina farm. Alone or surrounded by strangers with leering faces, Sam found David with his own face unrecognizably stretched, his high cheekbones more prominent, his speech pulled into long, dreamy ramblings that seemed to mimic the distances he traveled. “Come home. Your parents think you’re dead,” Sam pleaded, to which David obliged, every time, with a signature smirk under bright eyes searching the horizon and its promises. 

“Okay, buddy. It’s time for my resurrection,” David would say.

Each search started around the Sharpeton dinner table, clues piling up in printed out text messages and scribbled notes of conversations passed over weeks before, Sam at the helm like some degraded captain. Mr. Sharpeton at Sam’s right hand side, Mrs. Sharpeton scurrying about with biscuits and coffee. On the wall, at the dining room’s center, a printed photograph of a sun-flecked cloud bursting through with what Mrs. Sharpeton swears is the image of a pregnant Mother Mary walking the desert. Mr. Sharpeton and Sam would talk through their clues, Sam’s Raleigh Police Department badge, Detective #4679, buried in his luggage upstairs. He came to their table as a friend and a friend only. Mrs. Sharpeton would nod along, her eyes darting from the photograph and back to the table as if trapped sunlight burst from the photo’s surface and guided the three of them from clue to clue. 

And at each investigation’s conclusion, with a decision made on where to begin the search for David, Mr. Sharpeton would unlock the liquor cabinet at their feet, pour three glasses of whiskey, hand them around, and wait for his wife’s closing statement. And Mrs. Sharpeton would commence, draining her glass of whiskey and beginning in a whisper: “Oh Lord, our son is lost in this world. There’s a job to do here, in these hills, and he’s lost in this world.” And her voice would rise: “It is important to be rooted. To find your piece of Earth that grounds your journey to Heaven. We’ve kept him close. We’ve checked on him, helped him with money when he runs out. We’ve turned away people who have come to our door looking for him, these strangers looking to take something from him. These same people he runs off with. Beggars, opportunists who use people because they have nothing of their own to offer. And when you have nothing to offer you have nowhere to be. You’re unrooted because you’re rootless. Wild-eyed people. But Sam, you’re David’s oldest friend, the only one that’s stuck around through it all. You see straight. You’re good police and good people. I know you can bring him home. Show him he’s still worth something in this world.” 

And she would finish, and Sam would drain his glass of whiskey, his head fuzzing with the familiar lick of calm preceding chaos. He would take Mrs. Sharpeton’s hand and imagine David marching along some interstate, maybe blasted drunk, maybe limping from some heroic leap from a moving freight train car, and yet maybe altogether weightless and unburdened. And he would gather the clues compiled around the table into a folder and prepare to head out on the search. 

This time, however, there were no real clues, save for one, hidden in Sam’s briefcase, unnamed and unmentioned. A letter, sent by David right before his latest disappearance, sealed with a wax emblem of a coffin, the envelope scrawled across with the words He not busy being born is busy dying. Sam kept this letter from them. He read it, hid it away, and simply waited for the Sharpeton’s call that David had run off again, which they usually discovered through a landlord asking them where their son was and why he had not paid the month’s rent. Other than that, David had been silent for months.

This time, as Mr. Sharpeton concluded their deliberation in the dim evening light around the dinner table, Sam found it impossible to look into his eyes: “What we know: his car is still here. Okay. My guess, he must have hopped the freight trains to Raleigh and then taken the Amtrak to Baltimore. He’s got some friends up there in Maryland. Yeah, I’ve heard him mention Maryland.” 

There is a finality to Mr. Sharpeton’s words, always tinged with command. Sam was to take the Amtrak from Raleigh to Baltimore and ask around with the workers if they had seen David within the past week and a half. If not, the search was to begin in Baltimore. So, Mrs. Sharpeton kissed both of them goodbye in her nightgown and Sam and Mr. Sharpeton started the drive to Raleigh, about three hours east into the downward Piedmont hills. Sam’s visit lasted exactly a week, too clean and perfect to be an organic period of decision-making. As Mrs. Sharpeton said goodbye in the buzzing darkness of the driveway, she laughed and clutched Sam’s wrist as if to say You know David is just crazy. He’ll be back.

And yet, the show of giving up 130 miles from the Amtrak station and turning around to sit on the porch and sulk? Like it’s smeared into their DNA, this cycle of disappearance and miraculous reappearance? The Sharpetons hadn’t given up on David, they had given in. 

Sam unlatches his briefcase atop the motel desk and checks the contents. Four wool shirts, two pair of slacks, seven pair of underwear (only three beginning to rip), four pair of wool socks (only two beginning to rip), a copy of Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping marked in sloppy red ink, a polaroid photograph of David squinting and pointing his tongue out over a bonfire, David’s letter screaming its silent scream. And tucked inside a zipper compartment, Sam’s detective badge and cell phone. His cellphone is awash in missed calls from the precinct and his partner, Detective Sonia Gonzalez. 

He closes his briefcase, returns his motel key, and heads out onto the dark highway. At about three a.m., a young woman picks him up along a soybean farm and takes him the rest of the way to the Raleigh train station. He sleeps intermittently on the drive, dreaming, or just floating in pools of memory, of David and him pitching a tent under a great grey oak tree on the night of their college graduation, huddled together against the screaming wind. In the dream, Sam wakes up in the morning and finds David standing shirtless in the clearing beyond the tent, his back opening in gashes under his shoulder blades. Wings, beautiful blue wings, feathers brushing out along the bottom, in the earliest stages of development, poke out. The light through the spring leaves makes them look spotted. In the car, Sam just sleeps and grumbles with his head leaning against the window. The young woman glances over at him and pulls his jacket to blanket his arms, soft with pity. 

* * *

Raleigh Union Station is all glass brimming in the morning light. Crowds murmur about the landing doors and wait in rows of brown, leather-stitched chairs like schoolchildren. Sam adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses and straightens his jacket’s corduroy collar before the ticket attendant. He flashes his badge.

The attendant is young, college-aged and baggy-eyed, headphones hanging from her shirt collar, but lacks all the pliance of youth.

“What is this?” she asks.

“Raleigh Police Department. I’m conducting an investigation into the whereabouts of a missing person. If you could look up to see if their identification was logged in the system within the past ten days.”

The attendant is calm, smirking and glancing at the waiting bodies in line behind Sam. “You have a warrant?”

“I have reason to believe this person came through Union Station and bought a ticket.” Sam shuffles on his feet. 

“I have reason to believe I can’t help you.”

“Is there a supervisor I can speak to? I -” Sam’s phone rings. Gonzalez is calling. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he mutters as he steps out of line with a smile to the attendant. He picks up the call.

“Sam, where the hell are you?” Her words sputter out at once.

“Sonia, I told you, I’m helping a friend.”

“Well, you’re losing one here.”

“It’s only been a week, Sonia.”

“There was a fucking body found in the Neuse River on Thursday, wrists and arms all bruised up. An old man.” Sam can see her feet wedged into the carpet and her right hand hovering above the white cactus she keeps on her desk. The photograph she keeps of her and her ex-husband sweating under the Outer Banks sun is face-down, still not removed. 

“And they’ve got the best investigator in the Carolinas on the case.” 

“You can’t just leave. The lieutenants are all over me about this. The god damn mayor came to my office – my office! – to ask me if you’re emotional, if you’re drinking. Like a fucking toddler. You know what they would do to me if I tried this? ” She pauses for an endless breath. “I am not going to be here to clean this up for you anymore. I am not your mother.”

“Sonia, it’s David again.”

The other end of the line is quiet with a body releasing its anger. 

“Something tells me this time he’s gone for good,” Sam breathes, almost in relief.

“Where are you following him to this time?” 

“I’m heading to Baltimore on the Amtrak.”

“Baltimore? Why not drive?” Sam sees her leaning over her mahogany oak desk, her voice dimming into worry.

“I just spent a week getting nowhere with his parents. His father suggested this.”

“And?”

“And I need to make good on a promise.” Sam looks up from the floor and checks the departure times. 

Sonia laughs and clucks her tongue. Sam can feel the hot breath through the icy glass of the phone. “When will you realize you don’t owe them anymore? Never did.”

Sam is silent, watching the rows of chairs empty.

“You’ll find him, Sam,” Sonia says.

* * *

Sam settles into a window seat and watches oak, pine, and hickory forests blur into a dank stew. The air conditioner drones and the windows spray with rain, refracting the passing forests in centerless dots of green and gray. A house falling in on itself appears to be opening its  eyes to the bleak sky. A couple behind him argues about loyalty, accusing one another of heinous misunderstandings, of watching life fall down around them and doing nothing. There are businessmen in their smart suits, families with small children climbing about the seats, and those as alone as he is, shooting across the Earth’s curved edge into some unknowable oblivion. 

Sam orders a vodka tonic at the bar and shakes as the liquid pours down his throat. He asks every passing train worker about David, showing pictures of him beaming under blue eyes and curly hair pulled back in a headband. The workers shake their heads and say “No, I’m sorry,” but they really mean he passed through going somewhere unreachable. He orders more vodka tonics. One. Three. Five. Six. His brain soaks, his chest opens, and his vision warbles around the edges. He begins asking fellow travelers in the car about David, and then moving about to other cars, searching, searching endlessly for a single set of eyes to glaze him over with recognition. Families huddle about each other and a businessman wearing a straight face warns to leave him alone, throwing his hand up as Sam approaches. 

Sam returns to his seat and slumps into the leather. The rain hits harder against the glass. The train drones along the tracks. Somewhere in central Virginia, it comes to a halt above a river thick with mud. The passengers murmur and the intercom cuts in with a reassuring voice: “We are experiencing some difficulties with the track. Our conductors are working on it now and the journey should resume within the hour. Please remain seated and let our Amtrak staff know if there is anything you need.” 

The windows fill with faces peering around the edge to see the problem, but it remains out of sight. Sam unlatches his briefcase and retrieves David’s letter, smirking at the loose handwriting scrawled across the envelope in frenzied impatience. His breath catches as he opens it:

Sam, my brother,

There is so much to tell you, to ease your worry. But I know you will come looking for me, that my parents will set you on the task. But I want you to remember something. Do you remember? That night on King’s Mountain. We left the saloon, all those people looking to me for the next action, all of our friends. We set out under the moon, just us two, and climbed the hill until we found an empty vacation cabin. It was quiet, there were astrid gardens and spruce trees lining the front of the house, hiding it. But nothing can hide from us. Do you remember? You picked the lock. Don’t pretend you weren’t a willing adventurer that night. It was fall, but inside it was warm, as if the owners had just left that night. We lit the fireplace and huddled around, casting our hopes for the future into the flames. You wanted to be a detective and I couldn’t believe it. My best friend, a cop, like a badge and a gun could cover over what you really are? You said you wanted to help people, to find those who have gone missing. You said the world is full of energy that pulls each of us into our own oblivion, and that if you could just access that energy, anyone can be pulled out, back into the world of daylight again. And I just couldn’t believe it. My best friend, a cop? And you asked me what I wanted to do or be, and I said nothing. I didn’t have an answer and I still don’t.

We drank bottles of wine left in the cabin pantry. It was tart – expensive, I bet. We raved and raved until the black hills around seemed to move about with us. Do you remember? There was so much hope. You were going to graduate and move to Raleigh a man – a man in this world! I clapped for you, carried you about the room on my back until we fell laughing into the floor, where we didn’t wake until a woman with a crooked nose stood over us, pouring wine on our heads. Her husband stood there with a gun, itching to use it. “You’re not leaving unless it’s in a police car,” they told us. You didn’t like that idea. So we ran. We jumped off the back porch and crashed down the mountain through brambles, the early fallen leaves sliding underfoot. You broke an arm, I broke an ankle, and we sat in silence at the base of the mountain throbbing with shock. And do you remember what you said to me, squinting against the morning sun, the hopeful new day? You told me you were done with me. It was time to grow up. What do you want to be, David? You asked me this and I didn’t have an answer. I still don’t. That was ten years ago, now, Sam, and I still don’t have an answer. 

I’ve been working. On a goat farm about an hour from my Mom and Dad’s place. I rise each morning with the milking and talk to the goats like old friends. I rake the land and fix the fence when it needs fixing. The couple that hired me pays fair, and I sleep in a lofted room above their house. But it’s not enough. My parents come to me with news of Jesus. I am the one they can save, their Fall to be redeemed. They don’t understand that being saved is not enough when there is nothing to save. My mother cries when she sees me. She says every time I reappear my eyes are more crooked. That I can’t even see the path to salvation now. You’ve said the same, in your own way.

I’ve seen the news, Sam. You’re a damn hero. My parents have printed out the headlines of the missing children and wandering old folks you’ve found in Raleigh. They pasted them up in the garage, as a reminder that when they leave each day there is always hope of coming home. But my best friend, a cop? You know we don’t like cops, Sam. Their wielding of death as an instrument over the rest of us. Don’t you remember? For every life saved, another destroyed completely. Every time you’ve found me in some musty motel room or rusted out car, just know there were friends there with me who have had everything taken from them. But you’re doing your part, I suppose. I think it’s time I do the same.

There is a nation of wanderers out there, and I intend to join them. I’m leaving today. I know my folks will call you in again, and set you into the game we’ve been playing for years. But I know they’ve let go. It is just a sense of guilt that they are working out. Help them, eat with them, sit with them, work with them. Go wherever my father sends you. But know it’s for them, not for me. Return to them knowing you need to let go, too.

The signature trails off into incomplete letters, slashed across as if in anger.

Sam’s head pulsates at the base of the skull. He grips the seat’s edge to steady himself. He rises from the letter and tears it into pieces that carry away in the stampede of bodies flowing past to the head of the halted train car. He closes his briefcase and joins the crowd, craning over an old woman gasping for a view. “Are those – are those people on the tracks?” she groans. 

Sam peeks over the crowd and sees a small group standing at the tip of the bridge. Rain wearies their faces, their nylon coats catching and folding like limbs. Five people, standing around the conductor in her flat-topped cap, their eyes mad with pleaing. 

Sam breaks through the other passengers, opens the door at the end of the car, and falls into the mud lining the tracks above the river. The wind sings around his ears with angel’s falsettos. The rain washes cold against his scalp. A tent, curled into itself and running with mud, leaking cookware and blankets, flows down the river and catches on a branch leaning into the water. Laying in the mud, Sam watches the tent twitch in the current. Then, he gets up and lopes to the end of the bridge, where he sees bulldozers and shovels picking away at a mudpatch pooled over the railway. “Get back in the train. There’s been a mudslide. Get back in the train!” a uniformed man yells at the stranger in the mist, his voice carried away by the pulsing water below.

Sam walks on, searching the faces before him. “David?” he says. “I’m looking for my friend, David. Have any of you seen him? Have you heard his voice?” The railroad workers look at him with open mouths and still eyes. The bulldozer motors hum along and no one says a word. All there is is silence, merciless silence blanketing the land around, the underpasses and gas stations, the hills and valleys and strip malls, the coasts east and west crashing in as if someday they’ll meet, and it will all be over then. 

Bonus audio of Ben reading David’s letter to Sam…

about the author:

Layover | Simon Ashton

“‘Scuse me, but are you alright?”

Kirsty felt very fucking far from alright. Between the jet lag and the fluorescent lights, her brain was untethered from time and had given up guessing what hour it was. Her mouth felt and tasted like an airport carpet. She wondered if throwing up would help or just add bile to the list of current indignities. Her best friend was back in London. The boyfriend that she kept forgetting was her ex-boyfriend was God knows where. Her plans were in tatters, her head was throbbing, and to top it all off some bastard in Bangkok International had stolen her laptop.

“Aye, I’m fine,” she said. 

“Choice. I’ll leave you to it.” He turned back to his phone.

He sat across from her in a row of seats divided by metal armrests which, Kirsty could attest, made it impossible to lie down. She felt rough, but he didn’t look much better. There were a couple of businessmen speaking Japanese at the end of his row. Their perfectly tailored suits and excellent posture provided a stark contrast.

He was unshaven in a way that suggested circumstance rather than intention. His T-shirt had seen many better days. Below that, faded cargo shorts, possibly once black, gave way to the dingy cast covering his left leg from foot to thigh. 

Back home she’d have told him she had a boyfriend and cheery-bye. But she didn’t have a boyfriend, and she was as far from home as she’d ever been. She hadn’t spoken to anyone but airport staff in a couple of days. Besides, he wasn’t a threat; with that cast he’d be pretty easy to shove over. 

Kirsty wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Do you have any tissues, by the way?”

He looked up and smiled, “Chur, bro,” and tossed her a small travel pack.

“Cheers. And paracetamol? I’m feeling a bit peely-wally.”

He fished in his bag. “Here you go. Had a big one on the turps, eh?”

“You a Kiwi?”

“Very good.” he smiled. “Most guess Aussie, but you’re right. Dunedin. South Island.”

“Little trick I learned living in London. Aussies don’t care if you think they’re from New Zealand, but Kiwis get pissy if you think they’re from Oz. Same thing with North Americans; guess Canadian and you’ll save yourself a lot of lectures.”

“And you must be Welsh?”

“Get tae fuck! Ah’m fae Scotland!” Kirsty spat back, her accent strengthening with each syllable.

He smiled. “I know. Just my little joke. I’m Matt.”

“Kirsty.”

It was supposed to be her new start, the big trip to Asia. Fiona’s idea. Best way to get over a break-up, she said. 

“It’d be a lot cheaper to just pick up some gadge and have him shag me senseless.”

“Only in the short term,” Fiona countered, “But then you’d be back to scrolling his Insta and crying into your Deliveroo. Look, you’ve got savings, you’re young and unencumbered, this is the way. Trust. Fuck January in this country! This is no place to change your outlook, I mean, seriously?” She gestured to the damp park around them – mud and cold, bare trees and puddles. 

“Whereas, a week’s R and R in Thailand? And Bangkok’s a hub – from there you could pop over to Hong Kong for a bit of shopping therapy, or sushi in Tokyo, elephants in Laos, whatever you fancy. Doesn’t that sound more appealing?”

And, Kirsty had to admit, it did.

This wasn’t the plan, Kirsty thought, as she tossed the pills into her mouth and swallowed them with the last gulp of her water. 

Matt looked at her. “Not being rude, but you look like death warmed up.”

“Jesus, none taken. Naw, I’m fine. Just… yeah. Having a bit of a time of it.”

“If you fancy talking, I’ve got a couple of hours then you’ll never see me again. The priest in the confessional.” He saw her smile drop. “Oh shit. You’re not religious? I didn’t mean…”

“Naw, it’s just…priests. When I was wee…a priest… Haha! Your face! I’m just fucking with you. C’mon, grab your crutches. I’ll let you buy me a drink, Father. Hair of the dog.”

There was an American-themed sports bar a short distance down the concourse. They ordered a couple of Thai beers and grabbed a booth, Matt hoiking his injured leg onto the laminated plastic bench.

“What happened there then?” she nodded at the cast.

“I’ve been telling people it was rugby – gotta act the part – but as we’re mates now, I should be honest.” He adopted an accent that would have made Steve Irwin blush, “Fair dinkum, I was attacked by a ‘roo.”

“That’s Australia, mate.”

He laughed. “Busted. Nah, there’s no great story. I walked into traffic in Manila. Told my friends to continue the trip without me, while I spent yonks alone in the hospital. But it’s all good now. Flew from there to here this morning, fly out at six.”

“Where you headed?”

“Meeting the lads in Berlin next. You?”

Kirsty sighed. Where was she headed?

Usually, she kept her calendar sectioned off into blocks of colour, like an overly-stressed Mondrian. She liked to know where she was and where she was going next: gym, coffee with Fiona, all staff meeting, birthday drinks with Denise. She blocked off time for sex with Sean as ‘movie night’, or ‘lunch date’ if he was lucky. All of it written down, right at her fingertips.
If she looked at it now, it would tell her she was en route to Koh Phangan. And she would yell, “Do I fucking look like I’m en route to Koh Phangan?!” 

There’d been a Tube strike in London so getting to Heathrow had been a nightmare. The plane to Zurich was late due to icy fog. Then her connecting flight to Bangkok was further delayed while the luggage handlers loaded the backlog. By the time she arrived in Thailand and made it through immigration, 23 hours after leaving her house, she had missed the domestic flight. 

“So, I bought some whisky in the Duty Free, found an empty corner to sit in, and had myself a wee pity party. At some point I fell asleep, and when I woke up my laptop was gone. Which was bad enough, but the fuckers finished the last of my whisky too. Although it’s possible that was me. Anyway, you know what us Scots say about the best laid plans of mice and men.”

“They ‘gang aft agley’,” Matt continued the poem.

“Fuck off!” Kirsty laughed, “You know Robert Burns?”

“Know him? We have a statue of him in Dunedin.”

Kirsty raised an eyebrow

“Seriously. He has his back to the church and he’s facing a pub.”

“Aye, that’s him. Well, he wasn’t wrong. My plans have gone the fuck agley. I was just considering whether to jump on the next flight home when you stuck your nose in.”

“I’m glad I did. Let’s have another, then I’ve got something I need to show you.”

“Cool. But I’m telling you now, if it’s your dick I’ll break your other leg.”

Matt laughed. “No, it’s even better. Swear.”

One more became two, which became three, with some food. They talked families, schools, films, music. Drinking, smoking, and other drugs. They covered travel, where they’d been, who they liked to meet abroad (the Irish, in small doses; Malaysians), who they didn’t (the English, obviously; Americans, even more so), where they wanted to visit.

“After Berlin, I’d like to see the other capitals: London, Dublin, Edinburgh. Paris, obviously”

“You know, I’ve never been to Paris? I think that was part of why we broke up, Sean and me.”

“He dumped you because you’ve never been to Paris?!”

Kirsty laughed.

“First off, he didn’t dump me, it was mutual. And no, I meant because he’s a snob. We never went to Spain, we went to ‘Catalonia’, or even better the ‘Basque Country’. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead in Paris. Too touristy’.”

“But it’s one of the world’s great cities; everyone loves Paris! Picasso. Hemmingway…”

“Daft Punk. Charlie Parker.”

“Oscar Wilde. Jim Morrison.”

“Hitler?” Kirsty offered.

Matt snorted. “Exactly!”

Of course, that wasn’t the reason for the break-up. She knew that. It was one of a hundred reasons. Yet she had still been crushed. She was doing it all as she was supposed to: school, uni, work, boyfriend. Check, check, check, check. She assumed life would continue in the same vein: fiancé, wedding, house, babies. 

Sean had his own plans though. Ones that might’ve included her – but not mortgages, definitely not babies.

Instead he moved out. 

Now here she was, semi-drunk with a stranger in an airport that wasn’t even meant to be a stop.

 “Shit! Look at the time,” Matt said. “We’ve got to get a wriggle on. Reckon we could cadge a wheelchair around here?”

With a lot of miming and broken English, a staff member wheeled one over, laughing as he did so. Matt directed her. Down this hallway. Turn here. Elevator. Roof level. More hallways.

“You do this a lot?” Kirsty wheezed. “Pick up wee lassies in airports and have them roll you around?”

“You’re my first. You’re killing it though, a natural.” He motioned to a door that looked exactly like every other door. “Here we go.”

It opened to a small glass-covered rooftop courtyard, maybe twenty meters by ten. There were four stone benches dotted around a miniature pond, amid ceramic pots of ficus and ferns. The sunlight slanted through the glass, leaves casting sharp little shadows across the pebbled floor. There was a scent of cut wood and mint.

Kirsty’s exhausted, confused brain seemed to stutter for a moment, her jaw dropping open in wonder.

“Isn’t this unreal?” Although there was nobody around, Matt was whispering. “It’s for the airport staff to come and pray or whatever.”

They were quiet for a minute. 

“You know,” Matt said, his voice still low, “I didn’t tell you the whole story about this.” He gestured to his cast. 

“I’d made a big show of not being bothered, insisting my friends carry on and I’d see them in Europe. But the hospital was a fucking nightmare. The food was half-deadly. I couldn’t walk, barely slept, and the bedpan,” He shuddered. “I got depressed. I was lonely and mad at the universe. I was supposed to be diving with whale sharks or whatever. Living. But there I was, lying on this bloody cot, listening to some bloke snore so loud it was like he was taking the piss.”

He paused. Looked up at Kirsty.

“But mostly I was scared. Proper scared. Like, what if this was it? What if my big, brilliant adventure just… stopped? I’d made all these plans, y’know? Places I was supposed to go. Things I was supposed to do. None of them involved carking it in a Filipino hospital where nobody knew my name.”

Kirsty swallowed, choking back the recognition she felt.

“But then,” he said, a smile returning to the corners of his mouth, “I remembered this place. 

“I was on a layover a couple of years back, heading to Mum’s for Christmas and got talking to this guy from Nepal who worked in one of the shops here. He had nothing, really. Sent every penny home to his family. But he’d come here at the end of every shift and just…chill for a bit. Said it quieted his mind, made him thankful. It’s so peaceful, y’know? Listen.”

Kirsty listened.

It was incredible. In the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world, it was practically silent. She felt the weightlessness of a kid shrugging off a school bag.

“I thought about it every day when I was in the hospital. I don’t know why this place. I’ve seen nicer gardens. Maybe it’s magic – or my subconscious was imagining it was. Maybe it was just the quiet. Doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, I’d try to picture what it would be like to be here. Like, if I could just survive the hospital, I’d come back and sit here for a while. Just be.” 

He looked up at Kirsty, giving her space to mock. She said nothing, just looked at him, the sunlight catching in her lashes.

“I know, it sounds so New Age wanky, it’s a bloody airport garden. But it kept me going. I realized sometimes plans just change. Why fight it? Maybe it’s okay to just be where you are for a bit.”

The words hung between them, as weighty as the stone bench and as light as the sun all at once.

Back downstairs, Kirsty continued to push the wheelchair until they arrived at his gate. Six hours earlier she hadn’t set eyes on him. Now she had to say goodbye? What the fuck?

“So,” Kirsty said.

“So,” Matt replied.

“Really, thank you for showing me your magic airport garden. I needed this.”

“And I’m glad I crashed your pity party. It’s not every day I get to meet a girl who can swear like a sailor and recite poetry.”
“Too fucking right. I’m one of a kind.”

Matt stood to hug her as Kirsty reached out to shake his hand. For the first time that day, things felt awkward. Forced.

“Well, enjoy Europe.”
“Enjoy Asia. You’re sticking around, I hope?”

“Might as well. I’ve no other plans. Find a hut on the beach. Just… be.” Kirsty winked, but she wasn’t ridiculing. She meant it.

They swapped WhatsApps and wished each other well. Goodbyes were so cringe. 

Matt wheeled himself away.

****

A few days later a newly suntanned Kirsty picked up her phone. She considered it for a moment before returning it to the shelf by her bed. Instead, she turned and walked toward the ocean. 

The sand’s warmth felt therapeutic on her feet. The waves, so gentle they were barely waves at all, kissed the edge of the beach. She walked in, beyond waist height, then submerged.

Kirsty lay on her back, letting the salty ocean take her weight, and watched the white clouds moving so slowly overhead. The scent of pine trees mixed with her coconut sunscreen. She stayed like that for an age, just floating, before returning to her beach hut. 

She wrapped herself in a towel, then finally, for the first time in days, opened her phone to the calendar. There was a lot of white. She blocked off three days, two weeks from now, and composed a text.

-Kia ora, mate! Turns out I’m going to Paris in a couple of weeks. Coincidentally, right around the time you’ll be there. There’s a wee garden near Notre Dame that sounds right up your street. I don’t suppose you’d like to Just Be there with me for a while?

Kirsty stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it didn’t matter. She smiled to herself. Maybe it didn’t have to. She pressed send.

There was barely a delay before her phone pinged in response.

about the author:

Take Me Through the Finish | Tom Ziemer

He’s having another meltdown.

I know I should stay. I can’t stay.

I try to calm him one last time, try to coax him into belly breathing with me, try to force his blaring nervous system into some semblance of order. It’s no use.

“If I have to stay here, I’ll die, DAD,” he wails, sounding more like a toddler than the 7-year-old he is.

I can’t always tell if his tears are genuine or forced, desperate attempts to manipulate.

I want to run my hands through his hair, the same wavy, auburn locks I had when I was a kid, feel his arms wrap around my back the way they do the few times a year he willingly hugs me.

I want to grab him, will his body to stillness, shut him up, tell him how spoiled he is.

It’s all so confusing sometimes, the pushes and pulls of parenthood—especially with my son. 

He’s introduced me to all sorts of new terms over these past few years: neurodivergent, executive functioning, stimming. I had already heard of autism, of course, had seen the ravings of the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists who decided their internet research taught them more than medical school. I’ve only got an associate’s degree, but I guess I’m smart enough to sniff out bullshit peddlers. Either that or they just remind me of my dad.

Right now, though, I have to get to my second job, the only one I truly care about. Or at least I tell myself I have to work; I don’t know if it’s work or an escape at this point.

“Kirby, if you calm down, I’ll get you a snack,” my mom says in an annoying sing-songy voice, as if she’s talking to a puppy.

“Bye, bud,” I say. “Wish me luck.”

He doesn’t, just looks at me with a tearful scowl.

I grab my suitcase, roll it down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the side door of our story-and-a-half house, the screen door bumping against my shoulder as I clumsily try to retract the bag’s handle.

I load the black bag, one that’s accompanied me through the methy river towns and cornfield oases of the Midwest, into the trunk of my Ford Taurus, climb into the driver’s seat, and pull on my cheap neon-green plastic sunglasses. I shake my head and let out an audible sigh as I turn the key in the ignition and the dependable six-cylinder engine growls to life.

Will this ever get easier?

Enough with my single-dad problems. Time to kick some ass.

…

This crowd hates me. Which means I’m doing my job.

They boo and holler insults, most of which I can’t make out. It’s background noise; I’m too busy concentrating on the 200-pound guy in royal blue spandex across from me, trying to remember our carefully planned choreography. We need to take these people on a ride, let them think they know what’s coming, then dash their hopes. Thrill them, then leave them wanting more, so they’ll come back to this dumpy old American Legion hall next month.

My opponent, a young guy named Fulton from Chicago, stumbles out of the corner, ducks my flailing arm and kicks me in the midsection. He’s supposed to grab my head around his bicep, run up the corner ropes, and flip backward, sending me crashing to the mat. Shiranui, they call it. Or Sliced Bread. Whichever you prefer, Fulton doesn’t get quite enough momentum launching off the turnbuckle, and it takes all the strength in my lower back to heave him over my head and sell the move.

“Thanks,” he mumbles under his breath after we slam onto the canvas and he covers me. I kick out at two, push him into the ref, a guy named Nick who’s been around Dairyland Wrestling since I started helping out back in high school. With Nick temporarily stunned in the corner, I drive my right arm between Fulton’s legs for a low blow that outrages the crowd. It’s rare that I win clean these days.

Then I hoist tonight’s challenger onto my back and swing him around, dropping him to meet my lifted knee face-first. Nick recovers to slide down next to us and make it official.

One. Two. Three.

Before I stand and gloat, I whisper in Fulton’s ear. “All good. It gets easier.”

Then I’m up, grinning through exhaustion that’s both real and embellished, Nick raising my left arm and then handing me my belt.

The crowd bays. Kids a few years older than my son shout at me, tell me I suck. I wish Kirby could be here, yelling along with them, but we tried that once; it ended with him screaming and throwing popcorn until my mother could carry him out the back door.

A 30-something hipster in the front row claps for me, recognition I covertly soak in while glaring at him with indignation. A bearded guy wearing a Sting T-shirt tells me to go fuck myself, which is just as much of a compliment.

I walk toward the entrance, turn back to face the crowd, take in all the boos, bask in them, even, and hold up my prize.

It’s good to be the champ.

…

“Dad! I want some breakfast. Do we have bacon?”

My son expects a hot breakfast every morning, not the cereal I grew up munching while my mom got herself ready for work. If it were up to him, I’d fry bacon day after day and he’d eat only meat like the carnivorous dinosaurs he obsesses over. And then he’d shit bricks into our toilet for me to unclog.

He seems to have no idea I’m scrambling to get us going each weekday, get him packed and dressed for school, and make myself look at least presentable for my day job. Maybe I secretly want him to live that carefree … I sure as hell didn’t as a kid.

My back aches from last night’s exertions, so I pop a couple ibuprofen that will, in turn, make my stomach sore because I haven’t had time to eat breakfast. I’ll wait to take my Prozac until after I’ve mowed down a breakfast sandwich from Kwik Trip.

Kirby’s frozen waffle pops up from the toaster, so I plop it onto a plate and drizzle syrup into the four wells at the center—only those, nowhere else—the way he likes it. He’s contentedly watching cartoons, a trance I should break to give him practice coming to get his own food. But I’m tired, physically and mentally, so I slide open the silverware drawer next to the sink and walk his plate into the living room. He’s standing two feet from the TV screen, remote in hand, bouncing on his toes.

“Breakfast, Kirb,” I say.

He takes the plate without looking away from the screen.

“Can I have some meat, Dad?” he asks while dropping into a seated position and spearing the whole waffle with his fork. It undoes my careful work with the syrup, which never seems to bother him once he takes possession of the waffle.

“Sorry, bud, we’re out of bacon and sausages. We can pick up some more after school.”

“I hate school,” he says reflexively.

I wince internally, because I know sitting in place and focusing for seven hours is even more taxing for him than it was for me. And yet what other choice do we have? He regularly babbles on about things he learns and imaginative scenarios he plays out with his buddy Jasper at recess.

“Remember what we say when someone brings us food?” I remind him before walking back into the kitchen to sip my coffee.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

Twenty minutes later, after Kirby has brushed his teeth under my supervision and pulled on his preferred windpants (the non-scratchy ones) along with a Sonic the Hedgehog long-sleeve shirt, we’re out the door to run another weekday gauntlet.

I watch as he slowly buckles himself into his booster seat, strapped into the passenger’s side of the back so I can easily reach back and squeeze his leg while he’s absorbed in his own world. Most of the time, he just pulls his leg away.

We listen to rock music from the 90s and early 00s; it’s like a portal between our two worlds. He likes loud, heavy electric guitar riffs. Chris Cornell’s voice comes on the radio and I ask him if he knows who’s singing, trying to tap into a flash of knowledge he surprised me with at age 4.

“Dad, I just want to listen,” he says.

I back off, because I want to be the kind of dad who respects boundaries, even when it feels like I have to bounce between endless walls and constant harassment from him.

We drive along the riverfront, the reason Commerce became a town in the first place, now a neglected relic. If I ever make it big—or if one of the lottery tickets I buy every couple months hits the jackpot—maybe I’ll buy some of these buildings and revitalize them. Make it my thank you to my hometown, a more substantial display of gratitude than the performances I deliver at the Legion hall every month.

The trees are donning their fall costumes, putting on their own show for the people of Commerce. Kirby’s school is a 10-minute drive from our house, but I usually add a couple of minutes by taking this more scenic route. He should see the best version of his hometown. 

I park on the street, walk him to the classroom doors, and wave to his teacher, a 40-something woman with a dyed-blond pixie cut and tattoos on both arms. I wish my teachers had looked like her. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like such an outcast, more interested in drawing than playing football and self-conscious about needing speech therapy, while struggling to focus for tests.

I want to go home and sleep, but I have to go sell car insurance.

…

My music hits, but I wait until Kevin Martin’s voice reaches the chorus to stalk through the curtains, much to the chagrin of our crowd. My reputation precedes me, just like it always does, and I find I enjoy that. It’s predictable.

Boos ring out. A kid Kirby’s age stretches to give me five, but I just scoff at him, don’t even bother to fake him out by extending my hand and pulling it back. As the top heel, I’m above that sort of playful shit. I don’t need to build heat with little antics like some bottom-of-the-card act.

They used to cheer me, but I got bored with that. It was too basic, too simple. It couldn’t deliver that same sense of thrill I felt my first time in a ring down at wrestling school in Rockford at age 19. Don’t get me wrong—taking my first bump in the ring knocked the wind out of me, and I had bruises on my torso from hitting the ropes that first week. But I also felt something come alive in me, unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Better than sex, the way the buzz lingered in my brain and body for hours afterward.

Now, almost 20 years later, this might be one of the last times I make this walk to the ring and step through the top and middle ropes.

Ever since Kirby’s formal diagnosis six months ago—confirming what we had all suspected for a few years—I’ve been steeling myself for the end. On one hand, I need this outlet more than ever. On the other, how can I devote so much time, so much energy elsewhere? What kind of dad would that make me?

“I don’t think you guys are ready for this,” my dad told me when he learned of the pregnancy. Considering his own failings as a father, it was a laughable take, even if I knew, at some level, he was right. Then again, who really is ready?

Kirby’s mother, apparently intent on proving my dad omniscient, skipped town six months into motherhood, to no one’s surprise but mine.

“I can’t just be a fucking cow!” she yelled at me on the night she packed up her Mazda and left to self-medicate and reconnect with her ex in Ohio. It’s subsequently dawned on me that the way she bellowed sounded a bit like the heifers on my uncle’s farm in Albany growing up, the ones my cousins and I gawked at while they mounted each other.

Tanya had shown up in town after I finished up at the tech school. She was a year older than me, the first girl that approached me at a bar (even if she was drunk), and the first one who sucked my dick. Never mind that she didn’t seem to remember having done so the next morning.

Our on-again, off-again relationship was a one-night stand I insisted on trying to drag across the better part of six years. She could be sweet, waking up and making me breakfast the morning after a show. But she’d tune out my ramblings about my long-term career plans because she never seemed to have any herself. And when she drank, she’d go hard and turn mean.

The mornings after, she’d sober up and cry, tell me how she needed me, how her dad had hit her while her mom just sat there, stoned. I’m ashamed of how my pride swelled on those occasions, eclipsing the hurt from her inebriated insults and the pity I felt for her. I was wanted, unlike how I felt most of the time, probably a vestige of my dad moving out when I was 8 and only periodically showing interest in me before or after.

I guess it’s the same feeling I experienced the first few times I got in the ring in front of a live crowd, the same feeling I’m chasing when I pull Kirby into a hug and he wriggles free.

Just in case these are the last chops I’ll deliver, I add a little extra oomph, stinging the babyface’s overtanned chest. I used to spend money I didn’t have on spray tans and hour-long sessions in cancer-causing tanning beds, an expense I’m grateful to Kirby for forcing me to cut. I don’t need that shit anymore; I’ll let my wrestling sell me more than my looks. Which is probably why I’m working this Legion hall month after month instead of professional arenas.

I made it there once, back in my earlier days on the indies, had a tryout match with one of the big promotions in Milwaukee that ended with a blown spot. Everyone involved knew it wasn’t on me, but the other guy already had a contract and a body I could only dream of—or kill myself pursuing—with pecs that bounced and traps that cascaded like mountains.

When I roll out of the way of a moonsault and then hoist tonight’s hero on my back to steal another win, I feel numb and distant, as if I’m watching the finish of our match from above the ring.

I’m done.

…

Kirby’s occupational therapist greets us as we walk into the cinderblock and metal building sitting amid an endless cluster of bland offices on the southern outskirts of town. She’s a cute brunette named Carly who is far more skilled—and patient—when it comes to working with kids like mine. I know it, and so does Kirby. A flash of warmth glows in his big blue eyes when he sees her, before his social awkwardness extinguishes it. He only mutters hello back to her.

“Any updates?” she asks, turning to me.

She’s suspiciously nice, too nice for me to even fantasize about her like the pervert I am. I suspect that, deep down, she sees me as a meathead, the costume I present to the world to hide my inner nerdiness and other insecurities.

“We’re still trying out some of your emotional regulation strategies,” I say, hoping my use of OT-speak will impress her, “but he tends to fight me on them.”

“He’s not the first to sniff them out,” she says with a smile. “We’ll keep practicing, won’t we, Kirby? You ready to head back?”

He nods his head as a slight grin creeps across his face, and they walk down the hallway. I turn and head out the door to drive to the gym down the street for a quick lift. Like the meathead I am.

It’s a happy coincidence, one of the few in my life, these weekly opportunities for us to each work on ourselves. I need every chance I can get to maintain my muscle mass—or at least slow my march toward the middle-aged dad bod that awaits me.

I should probably instead call Tyler, the head of our little regional promotion, to tell him I’m tapping out. We’ve known each other since high school, when we both played drums in the band. He was two grades above me, the older brother I never had, the type who let me hang around but resisted laughing at my jokes, as if it was his way of keeping me on the proper rung of our pecking order. He’d been helping his stepdad, Jeff, run shows since he was in middle school, back when Stone Cold was slamming beers and flipping birds and making every boy with a chip on his shoulder want to hit his gym teacher with a Stunner.

I worry he’ll try to convince me to stick it out, that it’s really the best move for both of us, that I need to wait and see what he’s got planned for next year. I’ll postpone that call until later, I tell myself, as I pull into the parking lot.

I alternate between squats and overhead presses, sipping my protein drink in between and scowling enough to scare anyone away from using my machines. It’s the one time I live my character in the outside world, and it’s purely for utility; I only have so much time to exercise and need to be efficient.

Next, it’s on to power cleans, triceps dips, Russian twists, shoulder hangs, a quick jump rope and everything else I can fit in before I hustle back to the OT clinic, where Kirby silently greets me and defers all details of his work to Carly. Maybe I should take him with me to the gym sometime, let him unleash some of the molten energy that seems to be bottled up inside him.

He hands me a drawing as we walk out to the car. It’s of a boy surrounded by lightning.

…

I’m dropping my title belt, Tyler informs me. It’s the perfect opening for me to tell him my news, but I hesitate.

“Gunner is ready, we’ve been building him up for six months now,” he says. “It’s his time.”

I nod and grip his hand.

“I get it, Ty. See you out there.”

Gunner and I put on one hell of a match. Give these people who shelled out $20 a pop their money’s worth. Soar off the top rope and slam each other down, wrench each other’s arms and trade kicks to the gut while they down hot dogs and Pabst Blue Ribbons.

I go for my finisher, but he slithers free, just like we planned. The crowd gasps. They can sense something is afoot, that this isn’t like any of my past dozen title defenses, that Gunner might just unseat me. We have them hoping despite themselves, believing our story even though they know it’s all rigged.

When I flop my body forward and flip over to sell Gunner’s piledriver and he hoists himself onto the top rope, the noise is building, waiting to explode. They crave this ending. I gaze up at the dingy, discolored ceiling, watch Gunner pump his body through a frog splash and brace myself for the impact that will end my reign. The fans yell along with the ref’s count, and the party is on.

As I stumble my way to the back, my disequilibrium is only partially contrived.

…

My mother is asleep in the armchair when I get home. Kirby wears her out, especially when her fibromyalgia flares up. I rely on her more than I should, even though she tries my nerves with her incessant worrying.

“Do you think you should try a dairy-free diet for him?” she used to ask every couple of months when Kirby was a toddler and still didn’t say many words beyond “Dudda.”

I pull an afghan over her snoring body and hope like hell she won’t wake up until I’m already in bed. I don’t want to talk, even if she could manage to push aside her judgments of my lifestyle to listen.

I quietly roll my bag into my room, change into fresh boxers, and tiptoe across the hall to Kirby’s room. He’s curled up sideways across his queen mattress, which I bought so I could fit next to him during marathon bedtimes reading enough Eric Carle books to sear the words into my memory. He’s easier to get down these days now that naps are a thing of the past and he runs himself into the ground with rapid-fire thoughts, if not physical exercise.

When I stoop down to triple-check that he’s breathing, his eyes pop open. He rarely wakes up in the middle of the night.

“Dad, did you win? Do you still have your belt?”

I wasn’t sure he even knew I was the champ, let alone felt any sense of attachment to my title. The morning I told him I’d won the belt, he didn’t even respond, just complained I was blocking his cartoons.

“Nope, buddy, it was time for me to give it up.”

Tears fill his eyes and his chin juts downward. 

“It’s OK, Kirb, it’s just someone else’s turn, that’s all,” I try to reassure him.

“You gotta get it back, Dad. Gotta be the champ.”

I brace myself for a late-night tantrum, but instead, he rolls over, curls his arm around his stuffed sloth, and closes his eyes. I crouch on the floor next to his bed for several minutes, scratching his back. His brow furrows, then relaxes, and a hint of a smile spreads from his lips up into his round cheeks. They were the first thing I noticed when the sonographer showed us the 3D ultrasound. My little bulldog.

I stand, pad back across the hall to my room, and gingerly ease myself into bed.

Maybe I’ll call Ty tomorrow.

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about the author:

When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort | Sharon Lee Snow

The brisk Monday October night when Mr. Boppo flounced into the glass-walled English Department Classroom 301, we all looked up bleary-eyed from our critique group stories full of suicide ideation, suspicious yarns of days lost to raves from another era, and the usual amount of coming out tales to find a small man hovering at the door, costumed in a ruffled white tent of a shirt that bounced with a life of its own. Under a ridiculous pointed white hat, an equally white face with expectant eyes framed with black triangles smiled at us despite our obvious discomfiture. He headed straight to the empty seat beside me, bowed quickly to the class in general, and bounced his hula-hoop shirt with its red pom-pom buttons with a flourish as he sat down. 

We turned to Professor Corelli – who we called Jim since we were grad students – but Jim didn’t seem to know what to do with the little clown either. He scrolled his enrollment rolls and looked up just as perplexed. “Mr. Boppo?” he asked the man. “You were approved for this class?”

The small man stood up and bowed again; this time, a proper bow. 

“He’s one of them French clowns,” whispered my critique partner, Kelci, as she appraised him. “The sad ones.”

“I think you mean Italian, like Pagliacci,” I said. 

Kelci didn’t appreciate my interjection, and I admit I was somewhat doubtful too. I wasn’t so sure of my clowns, and my opera knowledge was limited to what I watched on The Simpsons combined with my mother’s love of a great tenor solo from time to time. 

In truth, I hated clowns. For no particular reason. Just like most people I knew tended to hate them. 

We stared at the clown. 

I was waiting for a French accent, or for him to begin belting out an aria, or jump to life, honking a horn and talking in a goofy clown voice. But a neutral North American accent simply stated: “I am Mr. Boppo.”

The class was silent, watching.

I expected a lot more questions from Jim, but he threw up his hands and said, “Welcome,” because he had tenure and one more year before retirement. 

At that, Mr. Boppo sat down, scooted his chair closer, and joined our group. I figured he would sit back and take stock of the situation, but instead, he produced a neatly stapled short story. “I’m Mr. Boppo,” he said again, as he passed out the required three copies to the three of us already in the critique group. He waited for us to announce ourselves and to read his story.

Kelci was serious about the class and the MFA program. I could see her mind working. Was this experimental writing? Was this performance theatre? Was this some test? Wyatt, next to me, secretly worked gig jobs and studied pre-med as a practical backup to being an MFA student. Wyatt had zero patience for nonsense, but he could write like a son-of-a-bitch.

“Look, clown,” he began, but Mr. Boppo held up a hand. 

“I’m just a student,” he asserted. “Same as you.”

So, our small critique group introduced ourselves and passed him our stories which worked out strangely well since we were short a group member with Emma home puking. I pulled Mr. Boppo’s story over to me, angry about it and Mr. Boppo in general. Still, I was intrigued. I picked up the paper, hoping for a fascinating insider’s insight into the circus, or about his unique life living as a clown outside of the circus. 

But it was none of those things. The story was surprising from the first line. It sang, it cried, it was light like a communion wafer on the tongue, cleansing you of tired tropes and metaphors and themes. The noise of the elevator opening and closing outside our classroom door, the hum of students talking, and the bright fluorescent lights dimmed and went silent. I went to a new place I didn’t recognize. When I put the story down, I couldn’t remember what I read but felt like the weight of the girlfriend in trouble had lifted, that things were clear, beautiful even. I handed him a paper with marks written that I did not recall making, and he thanked me with a tiny bow from his seat. 

I could see that everyone was reacting the same way to Mr. Boppo’s story. At the end of the evening, everyone in our group was at least somewhat entranced with the clown – even stoic Wyatt – and Kelci posed all of us for her Instagram post. 

When I got home, Emma had finished throwing up and was curled up in a fluffy pink blanket on the couch, like a fuzzy, helpless kitten. Her face was gaunt, her skin white and translucent, dark smudges of bags under her eyes. My worry for her was a constant ball in the back of my throat, choking me. We both knew what had to be done but couldn’t explain why it hadn’t happened. Nothing was happening at all, and I was terrified.

I sat by her and stroked her hair and told her about Mr. Boppo.

She didn’t believe me at first, but then I showed her the picture of our critique group plus Mr. Boppo on Instagram, and she laughed but then grew worried. If clowns can join the MFA program, she mused, then what value did it have anymore? Why were we going into hideous debt for a clown college? 

“I think it’s some kind of experiment,” I offered, trying to cheer her up. I couldn’t explain exactly how it felt reading his paper, so I brought out his remarks on my draft. “Let’s read them together,” I said, and she cuddled up next to me. 

Initially, his markings didn’t appear to be language, and we looked at each other. “Gibberish,” she said, but then the writing began sorting itself out, smoothing out into a lovely handwriting like magical self-writing elvish runes. We watched as it took shape in the margins, swirling up and around paragraphs, curving around bad sentence structure and cliches as it went. In the end, an exquisite red vine of words, both encouraging and meaningful, flowed through my story pages. We leaned in and read it, sighing in places where he’d nailed a particular problem in the plot line, smiling at his kind support of a well-written phrase.

“It’s wonderful,” Emma said, looking brighter. “I must meet this clown.”

Our cohort took our classes together, so we were not surprised to see him in our class the following morning. Emma had put her makeup on and looked happier than she had in days. She took a seat next to Mr. Boppo, who stood up briefly, bowed, and kissed her hand. Emma giggled. 

He looked exactly the same, as if he slept in his costume and makeup, as if they were not in fact applied but rather a part of him – or more specifically, him, himself. I found myself annoyed at how Emma continued to smile a little to herself. All the things I had been doing to cheer her up: her favorite foods, cleaning up puke, binge streaming through her favorite shows that I secretly hated…and now, a clown. It took a clown to make her smile again.

My suspicions about Mr. Boppo were back now that I was removed from his magic writing spell. And my pregnant girlfriend was giggling with him over something, like they’d been best friends for years now. 

I felt like screaming out the obvious. Nothing good could come of this infection of our tight cohort group. Why is a clown in our class? But the class was moving into place like nothing strange was happening, even those who’d missed last night’s workshop. 

Mr. Boppo looked up from regaling Emma with a witty remark that had her chuckling. He stared right at me. There was no mirth in those black clown eyes. The corner of his mouth quirked up.

Yeah, I made up my mind. I would bring down this fucking clown, this ridiculous Mr. Boppo. This imposter in our midst.

It wouldn’t be too hard, I figured. We were working on short memoir pieces, so that would provide some details on this clown. He couldn’t hide who he was forever. At that moment, the door opened. The students and I watched with interest as Professor Beadle strode into her class. Professor B was young, but also ran a tight ship. 

“Good morn—” She halted to a stop in her practical black pumps, frowning at Mr. Boppo. She looked around and verified that we were indeed her 10 a.m. memoir class. She made up her mind and walked right over with a brittle smile. 

“Good morning! Are you auditing our class today? I didn’t get any notice.” 

He popped up and bowed. “Mr. Boppo!” he said with a flourish of his hand. “I’m a student, Professor.”

She sucked in a deep breath. Her brows knit together in pain. You could feel her thinking, just what I fucking needed. She nodded and went to the computer where she furiously tapped in her password to get to the enrollment page. With a resigned sigh, she stared hard at him as he smiled back at her with a circus-wattage smile. Then she shrugged and opened her slides. “Let’s begin.” 

Mr. Boppo stayed attached to Emma’s side when class ended. I was even more annoyed then, because we knew nothing more about the mysterious clown now than we had at the beginning of the class. Professor B was delighted with his ability to parse dense material and create a discussion around Roxane Gay’s story so intense that everyone seemed disappointed when class was over. For all his talking, he had said, I realized, actually nothing. 

“Good morning!” he said, bowing at me when I finally managed to insert myself between him and Emma as we packed up to leave.

“Great discussion, right, babe?” Emma was glowing like she used to when we’d started dating. 

“I look forward to reading your memoir next week,” I told him, making a point out of grabbing Emma’s hand. A bigger man would have been grateful for anyone who got their clinically depressed girlfriend out of her funk. But staring down some challenge in his clown eyes, I found I wasn’t that man. 

When the class made plans to grab lunch in the Student Center, Mr. Boppo came along as if he did this every Tuesday. Emma dropped my hand and joined the herd. I hung back with Wyatt, who had just finished an online quiz for his Organic Chemistry class. I wanted a reality check.

“Don’t you find him strange?” I asked him. “The whole thing – this Mr. Boppo clown?”

“Of course I do!” he said, stuffing his computer into his backpack. “Why is a fucking clown in our program? I worked hard to get into it and now they’re letting in any clown?”

“Well, there’s that, but him in general. Being a clown. Like all the time.”

Wyatt shrugged, tossing on his backpack. “There is something weird about it, yes, but I don’t have time to care.” He patted me on the back. “I’d watch my girlfriend if I were you, though.” And he winked. 

In the lunchroom, Mr. Boppo regaled us with funny stories without monopolizing the conversation. Everyone laughed over their cold, shitty pizza slices. I noticed Emma had a better appetite and didn’t seem inclined to throw up in his presence, something I resented. 

When we migrated to our next class, I walked behind the clown. He was asking Emma about her writing, and she hadn’t noticed when I slipped back. Surely someone else could see how ridiculous this all was. 

“What do you think,” I whispered to Kelci, “about this clown?”

Kelci shrugged. “It’s odd. I find myself forgetting things. Like, what did we just talk about at lunch? And what did he even think about Roxane Gay’s piece? I wanted to remember it, but I couldn’t. Still, I like him. There’s just something about him.”

The week went on, and Mr. Boppo became a part of the cohort as if he’d never not been a part of it. Emma began washing her hair and putting on makeup again. Her clothes were clean, and there was color in her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. She couldn’t wait to get to class, where she always sat next to Mr. Boppo, forcing me into an odd man out role. 

Thursday evening, we all went out to the local student drinking hole after Jim’s class, as was often our custom. Jim came too. Emma was talking quietly with three girls from the cohort. 

For once, I caught the clown alone, sitting at the bar by himself. I sat down and bought him a beer. “So,” I said to him. “How are you enjoying the program?” 

“It’s great,” he said, smoothing his white tent shirt. “Such talented writers.”

I nodded. “You seem to know all about us, but we know so little about you.”

He smiled at me and took a sip of beer.

“What’s your name, for instance?”

“You know my name,” he said. 

“That’s not a real name. What’s your first name? Where are you from? Why are you here? Why do you dress like a clown?” I spoke as fast as I could with an eye on our group slowly making their way to us. 

Mr. Boppo leaned back. “You’re an angry man,” he said. “So much anger for a young man. You can’t appreciate that something can just exist. You can’t see the miraculous.”

“That’s just stupid,” I said, practically spitting as I whispered. “What are you here for?”

“That’s a good question, Evan,” he replied. He looked concerned, then nodded at Emma. “Don’t you have more important things to consider, though?”

After that, I really hated the clown. I began to hate his fucking guts. My whole existence became entwined with pulling off the mask of this clown, exposing him as a fake, as a fraud, a pretender. We had all earned our way into this program, and some sketchy guy in makeup had become the sudden darling of the cohort, the mascot of our MFA program. But who the hell or what the hell was he?

I spent my nights on the computer trying to smoke him out. There was nothing. Just a million references to Boppo the clown in cartoons or in general, but nothing about our Mr. Boppo. And the whole Pagliacci story worried me, with its sad, vengeful unraveling clown, the faithless wife. I began staying up until 3 a.m. just to get to my schoolwork. When I did sleep, my night was tormented with violent dreams that didn’t end well for clowns and with me getting nudged awake by a frightened Emma. 

Emma would not listen to reason. “I feel better around him,” she said. “He makes me happy. What have you got against him? Everyone loves him except you.”

One late afternoon after we’d come home from class, she was still smiling. She wouldn’t show me what Mr. Boppo had written on her paper, the vines of beautiful writing swirling around her pages. 

“I think we need to speak about what we’re going to do,” I said. I hated to do it while she was so happy, but for some sick reason, I felt a need to kill whatever joy the clown had given her. I also needed her strong enough to hear the truth. “We are running out of time.”

There. We’d danced around this for too many days. It was finally out.

She stopped smiling and stared at me. “Is this about the clown? Why are you so jealous of Boppo? Is it because he makes me happy? All you do is bring us down with your focus on what is wrong. In your writing and in life.”  

That hurt, but was so off the point that I lost it. 

“It’s not about school!” I screamed. “It’s about our fucking predicament. We are running out of options and it’s time we got our heads out of our asses!”

I felt bad when I said it, but only for a minute because she wasn’t looking sad or helpless or kitten-like at all. She was glaring at me, through me, like I was the clown, a buffoon, a piece of shit. 

That did it. “Enough about that damn clown! That stupid, stupid clown! Who the fuck does he think he is anyhow? Mr. Boppo. I hate his fucking guts! And you need to stay the hell away from that psycho!”

She didn’t wait for me to finish yelling. She marched to the bedroom and threw things in a small suitcase, grabbed her computer, her marked-up story, and told me she was going to stay with Kelci.

I didn’t sleep that night and was even more furious the next day. This was going to be my chance, I thought. I was finally going to critique Boppo’s memoir piece. I couldn’t wait to read that bullshit and rip it to shreds. In front of everyone, I decided. Time to end this shit.

When we got into our groups, I was sad to see that Emma wasn’t in our usual spot, but glad on some level. Kelci flipped me off and went into the other group with Emma on the other side of the classroom. Wyatt joined me and Mr. Boppo to make the required minimum of three participants.

Mr. Boppo was serious today, watching me. 

“I’m worried about you, Evan,” he said, handing me his paper. 

“I’m going to find out your game, you fucking clown,” I whispered. “I’m bringing you down, Mr. Boppo.”

Mr. Boppo actually frowned, and I saw the paint crack on his forehead, which made me smile until he said, “Is this really what you should be focusing on? Is that really what you want?”

Wyatt ignored us and plowed right into the work. When he was done, he tossed his comments on our desks and began working on Organic Chem homework. I finished Wyatt’s excellent piece about the Christmas tree he and his single mom had made inside the car they lived in when he was a little boy, and then I went to work on the clown’s essay.

It was a short piece, slightly shorter than the required page limit, and I marked him off for that right off in gleeful, savage strokes. It began in a weird place, too, in the future, which seemed odd for a memoir. Try as I might, though, I could not escape the pull of his beautiful words, his magic art of storytelling. The memoir piece was like everything he wrote: deep, packed full of meaning without being pretentious, but light as well, full of airy hope and tears mixed, like a beautiful composition balanced with both salty and sweet candy, like hitting the perfect note on a beautiful aria. He was at once a child living in a world that only loved creatives when they were confined to specific places, and a man yearning to be more than this clown, pushing at the boundaries of allowed place and time. 

When I finished, I was wiping away tears. I found I had written in the margins in a beautiful vine-like way, and the words were encouraging, wanting more of this story. I sniffled, handing it to Mr. Boppo. 

Wyatt looked up once and shook his head, muttering something before going back to tapping on his computer. 

“Thank you,” Mr. Boppo said, reading my critique. He smiled, and it was a normal smile, not his big-ass clown smile. 

“It’s not been easy,” I said to him, picking up my story with his critique, knowing it was the same story as his, the future my future, the pain my pain.

“It’s not been easy,” he agreed.

“How will I know?” I asked him, understanding at that moment that he was going to walk out the door forever in two seconds. “What is the right thing? What the hell is real in all of this mess?”

He just smiled. “Art, beauty, truth. It’s not about the right thing. It’s about what is important, Evan, what is important…to you.”

He was at the door now, and only I was watching him leave. “How do I know what’s important?” 

But he just bowed and shut the door. 

Wyatt pulled his head up for a moment and stared at the closed door. “I thought that clown would never leave.”

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Sharon’s story was selected as the 2025 Honeybee Short Fiction Prize winner by Michael Czyzniejewski. Mike had this to say about the piece…

“When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort” is a story that works on so many levels. The surface weirdness of a sad French clown joining a fiction workshop in the middle of a term is a surreal type of absurdity that drew me right into the story. Then, as it plays out, the narrator’s insecurity over his writing, his relationship, and his life choices in general tells me that this author understands character and how to control narrative. It’s a terrifically weird and wonderful piece of fiction.

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