FICTION: MICHAEL CHIN – ONE OF THEM

ONE OF THEM

My first time with a ring rat, she said I was one of them.

You know how long I’ve been bringing wrestlers back here? She asked.

There were clues. Her bedroom something like a pro wrestling museum, wallpapered with advertisements. A newer, full-color glossy flyer selling El Generico vs. Kevin Steen. Old school posters that listed the card in red ink, red and white photos of the main eventers on top. Ted Dibiase and Randy Savage on one. Harley Race and Tito Santana on another. I think it’s Bob Backlund on another, but it’s too faded and my eyesight was too bad to really make it out from her mattress on the floor, to that upper, cobwebbed corner.

A long time, I guessed.

You ever hear of Paul Steer? She had varicose veins on her forearms, on her shins, neither of which I could see under a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, but it was all on display now. The both of us naked, her leg snaked around mine, cheek to my chest until she propped herself up to look at me. The boys used to call him Steer the Queer, no malice behind it, just was what he was. Bisexual actually. We hung out a few times, and he’d have me help him out, shoot the juice up his ass. Said he was too scared of needles to do it for himself. You believe that? Great big guy, gets smashed with steel chairs and ring bells, but he’s scared of a little needle?

I’d never stayed this naked this long with someone, just talking, not even kissing. This exposed and this free to explore.

It wasn’t so different being in the ring, I told myself, out there in my underwear for all the world to see.

It was real different, though. No underwear, no kneepads, no boots. It was my feet I was most self-conscious about. I had a great big blister on my right foot, second littlest toe. I lost my right boot (I have to assume one of the boys stole it—a rib until he didn’t give it back) and another one of the boys gave me one of his extras and it was too small and clearly faded next to my left boot’s newer, glossy black exterior, but what else was I gonna do, and it wasn’t like I could afford another pair of boots, so I went on using that little right boot until I’d hurt myself.

You’re one of them, she said again. New school. Not like one of the old tough guys.

I’ve been trying to be like the old guys. Tough. Hard. Following all the rituals like shaking everyone’s hand in the locker room when I come in and offering to carry the veterans’ bags for them. There’s something about this ring rat seeing through all that that hurts my feelings, but I guess that proves what she said was true.

But that’s not all she said. She looked me straight in the eyes. You’re already dead inside. Nothing in there. You shouldn’t look like that so young.

I accepted this all as true. When she closed her eyes and kissed me, I was grateful I could close my eyes, too, and keep all that emptiness hidden. She grappled with me. Wanted me to get her in a Camel Clutch. Wanted me to get her from behind. Wanted me to pin her down. She bit my trapezius until it hurt, until she drew blood.

Afterward, in her bathroom, where only one of the three bulbs above the sink worked, where the bathmat sparkled, made of some sort of jelly and glitter, was so soft beneath my feet, I looked at myself in the mirror. In the eyes. I tried to see if I could spot anything. To see what she saw, when said, I was one of them.

POETRY: CHRISTOPHER BARNES – LORD BYRON RESENTS THE DEMANDS OF CYBERPETS

Lord Byron Resents The Demands Of Cyberpets

Then the mortal coldness spewsome, thumbsucking or bright-eyed

It cannot feel a devo rapport of foofy pixels

That heavy chill buzz-crushes temper, all scrinchy

And tho’ the eye cotches, these mutts are dead meat soon

Glossary: Devo – Robotic; Foofy – Prissy, Buzz-crush – A Downer; Scrinchy – Grumpy; Cotches – Relaxes.

POETRY: JOSEPH SOMOZA – FROM THE CABIN

From The Cabin

Inside the cabin, the piano music plays.
Lamp light supplements the early morning glowing.
Walls and windows and places to sit,
eat, or sleep. And someone
is inside the cabin whose job, he feels,
is to notice, to be aware;
otherwise, all of this might disappear,
and then what?
No bears might come out of the woods at night
to forage.
No deer to stand as if hypnotized
under a street light.
No flow of time ever leading to
snowfall or blossoms.
No waking up to what might
always have been there,
but hidden
under layers of unconcern, denial, self-pity, inertia.

Find Joseph Somoza online.

POETRY: JOSEPH SOMOZA – CHASM

Chasm
—for Simon Ortiz

Are there Indians living in Las Cruces?
You don’t see them much, not like
you do in Albuquerque.
Once at the Dairy Queen in Flagstaff,
a young Indian asked me to buy him
an ice cream cone.
He seemed like a nice kid.
His drunkenness seemed to give him
a confident swagger,
but he staggered,
and his eyes
weren’t seeing clearly,
you could see.
So there was no real way
to talk and find out what
it was like
in a place like Flagstaff for him—
so near to the Navajo and Hopi
reservations,
but with all those white college kids
taking classes at Northern,
and the European tourists spending
nights in motels
on their way through
to the Grand Canyon.

Come back to Cacti Fur this Wednesday at 4:21 PM (Mountain Time) for another NEW Joseph Somoza poem!

Find Joseph Somoza online.

Photo by Katie Goetz.

poetry: A.J. Huffman – The Cloud Hung

The Cloud Hung

like a leaf in a branchless sky.
Too blue to fall,
it drifted on its own
breathless image of silence. Its background
melting into perfect
frame for transient peace.

POETRY: KYLE PERDUE – “Breakfast With a Skeleton”

“Breakfast With a Skeleton”

I walked down the morning stairs

a skeleton sat at my typewriter

he was turning the wheel

trying to get the paper through

“you have to guide it through.”

I said through a yawn

he looked at me snide

his bone and marrow yellowish from decay

what are you looking at?

I thought

you’re a god damn skeleton

he took a sip of coffee

I watched it go into his jaw

through his throat

down his belly

and onto the floor

he’d gotten the paper in

and I could hear him now from the kitchen

he was typing something

“eggs?”

I called out

no response

I walked over

he was head-down, still typing

“YEAH!”

he screamed

jesus

I made the eggs— dashed with some cinnamon

I sat on one end of the table

him on the other

I watched the eggs travel through his body

and splat onto the floor where my dog ate them

“terrible.”

he said

“is that, is that cinnamon?”

what was left of his face cringed

“what were you writing?”

no response

“what were you writing?”

he took another bite of eggs and said:

“a body for myself.”

“a body for yourself?”

“a vessel for this hollow, lonely, useless, irritating,

appalling arrangement of calcium.”

“that’s what you were writing?”

“that and a love poem.”

…

“for Meryl”

“but how do you write a body?”

I asked him

“the same way you write a love poem,

it writes you.”

I had a sip of coffee

“I like you, skeleton, you should stick around.”

“can’t,

I’ve got to get an x-ray today.”

he showed me his broken arm

“you ever tried writing a love poem with a broken arm?”

he asked

“no, but I have with a broken heart.”

we sat in silence

just before he read me his body

and his love poem

I cried during both

POETRY: Christine Stoddard – “Apartment Hunting”

“Apartment Hunting”

Theo lived with six roommates.

Half of them thought you were black;

half of them thought you were white.

In the month you found refuge on his sofa,

not one of them ever asked, but you could

read their interpretation based on

how they discussed the pricklier points of race.

None of them had been to Virginia, save for one.

He once shot past Washington, D.C. and

spent a couple of hours in Arlington

before he realized his mistake.

He said the Potomac looked ferocious,

but you were a Rappahannock River girl.

You still didn’t know the bodies of water

that threatened to swallow New York.

In Bushwick, the only drops you saw

lined the gutter and pooled on the sidewalk.

Sometimes the cry of seagulls pricked your ears.

A little lost, the birds had not steered too far off course.

But you never mentioned nature to your unwilling neighbors.

“Lavinia,” said Theo one morning, while lighting a joint,

“It’s been nice, but you have to find an apartment.

Craigslist that shit, girl. It’s not that sketch.”

You stopped chewing your grits (a remnant of home)

and nodded slower than a late-night G train.

“It’s all run together,” you say. “I forgot how long I was here.”

“This city sweeps you up, but you learn to fight it.”

He exhales and you both appreciate the clouds he fashions.

“Where do you want to live?” he finally asks.

“Somewhere where I can see the sky,” you say, surprising yourself.

“Welcome to Brooklyn. No tunnels of building shadows here.”

“As long as it’s cheap,” you say, thinking of closets and slums.

You don’t add that you have nearly run out of savings

because Theo will try to convince you to work at his office,

the call center that lets him reschedule his shifts for auditions.

You didn’t flee to New York to ooze in and out of a 9-to-5.

You didn’t move here to dread every day of your existence.

You came here to revel in textiles, to dress Broadway’s stars,

to tell stories through costumes like you dreamt in school.

“We’ll look at listings and book appointments for tomorrow,”

says Theo in a daze now that the pot has hit him.

“Sure, load me up,” you mutter and grab his joint.

It’s your moment to escape, to surrender

as a speckled seagull shrieks outside.

Find Christine Stoddard online.

POETRY: GARY BECK – SERVITUDE

Servitude

A new development
in a gated community
promises local jobs,
security, maintenance,
cleaning services,
paying minimum wage
to guard and tend
the manors of privilege,
entry only permitted
to the servant class
in the line of duty.

Visit Gary Beck online.

POETRY: TIM STALEY – THE MOST HONEST SYLLABLE IS SHHH

The Most Honest Syllable Is Shhh

Certainly I rinsed the vegetables.

A drummer killed himself
but I’m not even sure
he was a drummer.

The caravan abandoned the camel
in the Target parking lot.

Xanax builds the cornerstone of selfishness
on the diversion of punctuality.

A snake finds a railroad tie, hallelujah!

When working on an orgasm, distractions like the dog
scratching the french door, or the child
opening your bedroom door, or the dryer
beeping, or the washer beeping, or the timer
for the raspberries beeping, or the jazz
interrupted by the news, John Kerry broke his leg
while cycling a stretch of the Tour de France.

The ideal exists in the poems the fewest of us read.

Three people see a poem on a postcard and the national average is rattled.

Not everyone on a sofa with a bong and an acoustic guitar is cool.

I was 10 and hadn’t lost my virginity, sort of.

The Marriage Cycle:
anger proceeded by feisty dignity
followed by sacrifice.

The gangplank of adulthood is sacrifice and feisty dignity.

Children ache for actions of their own making,
not smoke machines but actual smoke.

You aren’t supposed to fast forward anyone
from The Last Waltz.

Visit Tim Staley online.

POETRY: Martin Pedersen – TIME TO QUIT

Time to Quit

I do love my chips and beer
But it’s time to quit
I’ve had bushels and barrels
And been content
But my doc agrees
It’s time to quit

A life of work
A handful of pebbles
My garden needs attention
I only wanted to help
Not sure I did my duty
I’m tired now

Can’t go on forever
Time to quit and yet
My dear, I love you lots
I won’t quit you
I will never quit you
I’ll hang on to keep from drowning
Or dying of thirst.

Visit Martin Pedersen online.

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