Daiquiri

The music pounded through the floor. It was a constant. Up through the floor, down from the ceiling, 1990, Seattle, Casa del Rey, Broadway, Capitol Hill. I was fresh as a steaming a.m. turd, relocated from San Fran, 24 years virile and ready to fuck the world. Tats on the fingers and all. I’d been inhabiting the studio apartment all the way in the back on the first floor with avocado green walls and view overlooking the building’s garbage receptacles and the Seafirst bank parking lot for several months – with time being non-linear and such, the struggle to differentiate is palpable – head in the clouds, or buried underground – brain like fried fish, or submerged in a public toilet… I only knew a couple people in the building. Cheap rent, wastrels, subverts, a carnival lodging splat in the thick. The I-don’t-know-who up there hammering at his drum kit day and night, like a series of earthquake tremors… I run up the stairs ready to raise hell, bam-bam-bam! on the door, which after a beat flies open with a Rastafarian linebacker filling up the doorframe, and I’m all, uh, yeah, so you’re a drummer, huh? Cool, like, holy shit and stuff, you hit really hard, man, like John Bonham on steroids, I mean, uh, y’know? Shaking a bit, I must admit. The dude was a fucking leviathan. But apparently with the power of Jah coursing through him. Yah, man, no problem, I can tone it down some. Peace. And he closed the door so gently you’d think a little infant baby was sleeping in there. Well fuck me, I thought. I went back to the avocado walls and the desk scavenged from the alley behind Broadway. And my ancient 1940s-in-the-Bowery manual typewriter. Because I was a poet and I had to make my own noise and as unmusical as it was clack-clacking away like a tiny locomotive in my head it calmed the demons and lubricated my ego like Crisco on a stale biscuit. The swish across the hall aptly cracked, oh, that’s just Monsieur Ivan hard at work on the next Great American Novel. That’s ATM, girl. Party every night at mi Casa es su Casa, ATM the unofficial aficionado. A tall thin Greek specimen with the blackest, longest, curliest tresses I’d ever seen on a man. Oh, honey, they’re not real, he lisped. They’re extensions!It’s what he did, his active career. Apparently, a vast percentage of the coifs of the early Seattle grunge movement were the product of ATM’s hair-tying abilities. You actually make money doing that? I make bank, little man, as he reached out to finger my side-locks appraisingly. What I could do with your pe’ot, sweetie… Dude! Get the fuck! ATM whinnied. I vowed to shave my head as soon as I could get my greasy Sephardic hands on some clippers. Later in the night, after several beers and multiple hits of pot, I asked ATM why his parents named him after a cash machine. You poor thing, he pouted, it’s Etienne, EH-TEE-EN, get it? En francais. You vulgar little man you. Etienne had a nice friend that lived in the basement apartment right beneath mine, under the stairs. Her name was Daiquiri and in the same sentence with the straightest face imaginable Etienne added, and her sister’s name is Brandy. You gotta be fucking kidding me I said. Welcome to Seattle, Monsieur! Daiquiri was the first bona-fide grunge groupie I’d come across. Repurposed print dresses from Betsey Johnson’s, honking Doc Marten’s, kinky hair past her waist of every conceivable tint and pigmentation, expertly tied by the deft digits of St Etienne. Not to mention generously doused from head to toe with patchouli oil. Daiq, hot street-smart cross between Raggedy-Ann and Goth Barbie. I didn’t want to love her because she stank and treated me like a little brother when really, I was probably 3 or 4 years older. Oh Eye, she sighed, oh Eye, you’re such a good friend. She’d try to read one of my skittish ditties, her eyes attempting to focus with great pains. She simply couldn’t. I’d read it out loud while she, happily relieved of the effort, smoked a cigarette. She’d light a joint. She’d sip a fruity concoction. She’d light a pipe. Several pipes. Weed? Kif? Dank? Why not? But Daiq preferred crack. Her patchouli aroma was amply spiced with acrid permeations of tart, chic, swank, chi chi, decay, decomposition, death. Oh Eye, she’d sigh. Up on the roof, on dilapidated lawn furniture, we partied through the summer – in the pit of the avocado, at Etienne’s pad – the replica of a Salvation Army thrift store’s window display – spilling over onto the granite stoop of the Casa del Rey – the carnival of our nation’s happening musical hub bop-bopping by on Broadway. I was the good friend who naturally wanted to fuck my good friend Daiq who was, naturally, a fucking junkie. But did I really want to fuck a junkie? Granted, Daiquiri had all the requisite hotness covered: length, curves, youth, hipness, surface gaiety, childlike naïveté – attributes to exploit and annihilate. Such traits in the female species, presented on a silver platter, perhaps in a state of delirium, or altogether unconscious… I could just… I would just… ahem. But to repeat. The music pounded up through the floorboards, up, through my thin futon mat, into my earholes and sonically attuned body, with a thick thumping bass that vibrated my bones. I leaped up despite the time – day, night – I was as unaware as a temporarily unemployed person could be, attuned not to the Gregorian but to depths of shadow, incomparable values, black ‘n fucking white, drunk-ass plaid, bleak and snap, dying, crying, wiggling, jerking, spurting, bleeding, vomiting, dreaming. I leapt up across the room out the door down the stairs. At Daiq’s door I pounded. If I couldn’t pound Daiquiri I sure as shit could pound on her door. Daiquiri was dead to the world. I tried the knob. Unlocked. Well, shit. I pushed it open and entered, shoving aside piles of clothes, shoes, a smorgasbord of bric-a-brac, made my way to her bed, a Victorian wrought-iron contrivance. I spied a naked, pale white foot with toenails painted canary yellow. I clutched. I pulled. I yanked. I shook. Not dead. Undead. I mounted the bed and crawled across Daiq’s inert form to the headboard shelving where the boombox was booming. Daiquiri never knew I was there. What did you expect, darling? Etienne simpered – a come-hither invite to dip into her Victoria’s Secret-clad honey-pot? You silly little man you.

I’m A Writer

Howdy. How you doing?

I guess okay. Just wanna have a couple drinks before I haveta go.

You from around here? I don’t remember seeing you before.

Listen, I’m not into conversation. Just wanna drink in silence. I had a rough day.

What is it exactly that you do?

Really? I’m A Writer.

So you’re a writer huh?

That’s what I claim to be on Facebook. And my name is on a couple of books.

What kinda shit do you write about? Maybe I’ve read some.

I seriously doubt it. I write about a little bit of everything I guess. 

Do you write any dirty stuff? You know like write about sex?

Sometimes I write about sex.

Then you write about people having sex?

Usually there’s always people involved, especially when I write about sex.

Anyone I’d know?

Ya, your wife.

down the bermuda highway

thumbin’ my way down the Bermuda Highway, chip on my shoulder, grave dirt on my shoes. sun’s gone n gone. ne’r to be found—neither hide nor hair—‘hind burdensome clouds that bruise god’s baby blue. clouds black like tar, black like pitch. fire-crested seams holding day’s woeful tapestry—tender, ephemeral like blazin’ cigarette drags from god’s hot cherry mouth. but m’eyes stay fixed yonder past vaporous heat of I95 and the gravity of Texas noon, where roadkill feeds asphalt and wheels, and tumbleweeds embark ‘pon their journeys to nowhere. hey, buddy, can I hitch a ride?

heat sticks heavy like a tick, like oil. slip slip slide and awaaay. so heavy it’s hard to      b   r   e   a   t   h   e (just ‘bout, but i do). sweat’s salty streams sting my eyes, vision turns green, hazy like dreams o’ yesterday n yesterday n yesterday. but i walk on, wander-weary, future bleary, highway hot, burnin’ souls, burnin’ time.

black car emerges from liquid air, stops, and trails me like a lonesome shade. 

“goin’ my way?” he asks from cracked, tinted glass.

“you tell me,” i return.

door opens. i step in, into black—black ice shadow. he just smiles, n we drive. dark eyes. dark skin. black like tar. black like pitch. fingers snappin’, ra-ta-ta-tappin’ the steering wheel to the tune of a silent dirge.

death in the driver’s seat, suitcase in the back wantin’ for a soul, i miss the fire under my feet n the hazy days of home n yesterday n yesterday n yesterday…

Terrence Underhill Before the Tsunami

“It’s there,” Jessica said, not quite looking at it. She rifled through my purse, pulled out a half-empty roll of breath mints, and toyed with the ragged edge of wax paper. The acid in my stomach churned. She dropped the mints back in the bag without taking one and stared out the passenger window. 

The Eureka Inn waited for us at the end of the street, hulking and squat, a beast with its scabrous back pressed up against the low, grey clouds. Beyond that was the sea, leaden as the sky. The tide was far out and the traffic-like drone of the surf was muffled by distance. I’d never seen it that low.

The Eureka Inn had 103 rooms, but every window was dark. All but one. 

Dan was standing outside the front doors, his fists pushed down hard in the front pocket of his hoodie. His feet were uneasy as he watched us come up the drive.

“You ready?” He asked when we were close enough. When Jessica laughed she sounded like she was choking.

“No,” I told him. He nodded once, like I’d said yes, and wiped his mouth with the back of hand, not quite looking at us. After a long minute, Jessica pushed past him.

“Fine, let’s go,” she said. She moved with purpose, head down, shoulders forward. Inside, the faded carpet smelled musty and the walls were nicotine stained. Ronald Reagan grinned down from above the grand fireplace, but there was no one else in the lobby to greet us. Jessica made it all the way to the lift doors before she stalled.

“Let’s have a drink first,” she said, spinning back around. 

“Okay,” I said before Dan could object.

Kate was behind the bar, her hair parted neatly down the middle and coiled up into two tiny buns like cat ears. She frowned.

“Double Clan McGregor,” Jessica said. Kate poured it with a look of disgust. 

“Can I just have a glass of water?” Dan asked, sounding sorry enough for all of us. Jessica swallowed noisily. 

“Vodka.” I told Kate. She poured a meager draught into a smudged glass, no ice, no lemon, no nothing. I drank it anyway, not quite looking at her.

Jessica called for another round. Kate poured her a single this time.

“That’s enough,” she said, putting the bottle away and glaring around at us.

“Let’s go,” Dan urged. Jessica ignored him and sipped her scotch. 

“We have to,” he whispered.

“We will,” I said, wanting him to shut up. 

“They’ll be pissed,” he said.

“You really know how to ruin a drink,” Jessica muttered, swallowing the last of her scotch. “All right, let’s go.”

I thought about letting them go on ahead. I’ll be right up, I could say. I could sip the last of my warm well vodka, then saunter out of the Palm Lounge like I couldn’t feel Kate’s disapproval burning through my back. I could slip right out the front door. I could run. I had an almost full tank of gas and a hundred bucks hidden under the front seat. I could get pretty far on that. Far enough anyway. 

Jessica was staring at me. I could tell from how she was looking she knew what I was thinking. “I’ll be right up,” I said.

“Finish your drink.” When her voice got low like that it meant she was getting ready to throw a punch. They had her kid in a room up at Joe’s place. There was no running for her.

Kate was staring at me. So was Dan. He got this coiled up look when he was getting ready for a fight, like a snake in a tight corner. 

“All right,” I said, the resistance draining out of me. It’s like when someone too big takes a swing at you, or when you crash a car. You can see the impact coming and you know it’s going to be bad, but there’s nothing you can do. You get really calm on the inside and you tell yourself this is going to hurt, but you’ll probably live. You try to get ready for it, even though you know when it hits, you won’t be ready at all. 

Jessica put her arm around my shoulders. It might have been to keep me from bolting, but I don’t think so. We’d fucked everything up together. Now we had to clean up the mess together. More than anything I wished I had a little crank. I could get through anything when I was geared up.

Our footsteps were muffled by the threadbare carpet, then the soft woosh of the lift doors. We all stared down at the floor. Dan was the first one out and set a quick pace down the hall. But once we were there, we huddled outside room 44, trying not to hear the sounds on the other side of the door. This isn’t real, I thought. 

Jake opened the door. It wasn’t just the smell; the air in the room was warm and moist. It had a terrible intimacy about it. Most of Terry was sprawled on a blue tarp between two twin beds. He was still wearing the Elvis costume he’d had on when we killed him, except the white jumpsuit was soiled with troubling stains. 

Jake went back to the frying pan he had over a camp stove set up on the bureau. He pointed to the awful red meat sizzling in the pan. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. Ginny held out three forks.

“You better get started,” she said. “It’s going to be a long night.” 

When I looked down at the fork in my hand it looked far away, as if my neck had grown taller. This isn’t real, I told myself. You’ll probably survive. 

Outside a siren began to sound, a loud, long wail that didn’t quit. 

“What the hell is that?” Jake said, looking out the window.

Hidden Tabs

“They’re ‘un abomination, Andy. A god damn abomination,” his brother Joe said. They were sitting outside drinking their cans of Lone Star by the fire pit. Joe’s wife Jill helped Andy’s wife Tricia put the kids to bed and clean up after their crawdad boil. 

“Yeah, if any one of them she males tries to come near me with a hidden dick. I swear I’ll kill ‘em,” Andy says and takes another swig of his beer as if to bring home the point. His brother, satisfied with the answer, sits back in the lawn chair, his salmon-pink short-sleeved angler’s splaying open on each side of a notable beer belly.

Ding!

Andy’s phone lights up with a social media notification. @hotgrrrll694eva has sent you a message. Intrigued, he flicks his finger across the screen and unlocks with face id. 

“Just had to say…you’re so sexy. I love a guy who hunts. Wouldn’t mind being your prey in my bed tonight.”

Andy’s face flushes and he looks over at Joe who is just mindlessly staring up at the stars, an uneven Winnie the Pooh grin settled on his face. He should just delete it. He hovers his thumb over the message to do just that, then instead decides to click on the profile.

A bleach blonde with gigantic fake boobs and the most gorgeous slender face he’d ever seen. Just his type, a little sleazy but coquettish, heavy on the makeup. The complete opposite of his wife Tricia, plain, mousy brunette, small boobs and a shapeless rail, aside from the kangaroo pooch leftover after kids. They’d dated since high school, and he kept her around since. Although, he always had the strongest inclination that he could do better. This latest message was just additional reinforcement.

He continues to scan her photos and thinks it’s a shame he isn’t alone right now. He scrolls back up to her bio, the first time he even thinks to look. A secondary concern. There he sees:

Lola Jane 

🏳️‍🌈 | trans | she/her

His stomach drops for half a second. Not in disgust. Just in that sharp, electric way you feel when you realize you’ve stepped somewhere you swore you never would. Maybe a little fear. 

He glances over at Joe again. Joe’s still staring at the stars, scratching his belly and looking like he might fall asleep in the chair, his arm dangling off the side of the chair, the beer can precariously dangling from between his thumb and index finger. 

Andy scrolls back through the photos again. The pictures don’t change, the trans woman’s body doesn’t but the electricity in his does.

He swallows.

Ding!

Another message.

“Don’t get shy on me now, hunter.”

His thumb hovers again. You should block her. He types instead.

“How’d you find me?”

Three dots appear almost instantly. He feels a cold stone in his stomach that contrasts with the hot spark in his frontal cortex. 

“You pop up in my feed a lot. You like what I post,” Lola responds.

His throat tightens. Confusion takes over the excitement. He doesn’t remember liking anything.

But maybe he did. Maybe late at night. Maybe drunk. Maybe half asleep.

He switches apps. Opens his browser. Incognito mode. Types in words he knows by muscle memory now. Words he never says out loud. Words he clears from history before he closes the tab. 

The images flood the screen. His pulse kicks up. Back to the message. He sees the three dots appear again. Then her message flashes again on his phone.

“You into girls like me?” she types.

He stares at the fire pit, at the coals collapsing inward.

Before his brain even knows what his fingers are doing, “Maybe,” he types.

Joe laughs at something in his own head. Andy angles the phone away from him and waits. He sees Joe looking at his phone now, “Oh, look at this. This dude’s launching bottle rockets out of his mouth. HOLY SHIT! Shit’s hilarious!”

Andy holds back a sigh of relief and chuckles, “Oh, yeah, reminds me of Fourth of July this year when Dallas launched them out of his butthole.”

“Ha! Yeah, that was funny as hell. We should start our own Ticky-Tock if it weren’t for the Chinese watching us,” his brother responded. Andy didn’t want to point out that his brother was watching the very app that was potentially spying on him. He wants to get back to his conversation. He’s itching to get back to it.

“What’s maybe? Are you scared?” she had replied.

He feels that little rush. That stupid boyish one he hasn’t felt since high school, before Tricia, before the mortgage, before crawdad boils and matching Christmas pajamas, even before whiskey girls (what he is supposed to like) and smoky bars and men being men (the way he was supposed to be). When there was Shawn. 

“I ain’t scared,” he types.

“Prove it.”

His breath comes shallow now.

“What you want?”

“A picture.”

He hesitates.

He hasn’t done that before. Not really. Not with someone real.

“You first,” he writes.

A pause.

Then an image loads.

She’s on a bed. He? Red lace. Hair spilling over one eye. Perfect lighting like a damn magazine shoot. Too perfect maybe. But he doesn’t linger there. He zooms in. His mouth goes dry.

“Your turn,” she writes.

He looks at Joe again.

Joe’s humming some country song under his breath.

Andy stands up.

“Gonna take a leak,” he mutters.

He walks around the side of the house. The yard dark, cicadas whining in the trees. He leans against the siding and unbuttons his jeans. Snaps a quick photo. Not artistic. Not posed. Just enough.

He stares at it.

You’re not that kind of man.

He sends it anyway.

The three dots appear immediately.

“Soooo much better than I imagined.”

His chest expands at that.

“You trust me?” she writes.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, she does.

“Tuesday. 11:42 PM. You searched ‘motel trans fantasy rural.’”

The blood drains from his face.

He didn’t tell her that. He never told anyone that.

He types slow now.

“What the fuck? How the hell you know that?”

“Don’t get nervous,” she replies. “I pay attention.”

A breeze lifts the edge of his shirt. He suddenly feels watched. Like the dark itself has eyes. The cicadas feel louder in his ears. His breath hitches painfully in his lungs.

He goes back to the browser. Checks his history.

It’s empty. Of course it is. Incognito.

Ding!

“You look good,” she writes. “But I want more.”

He’s breath is hot, his head feels ready to explode. “No, I want to know how you know what the fuck I’m looking at. Who are you?” he types.

“I want to see you how you really are.”

His stomach flips.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.”

He stares at that for a long time.

The house behind him is quiet now. Kids asleep. Tricia probably done rinsing dishes at the sink, sitting on the couch now drinking Moscato with Jill bitching about their husbands and talking about the next gymnastics meet for the girls.

“You ever wonder?” she writes.

He does.

He always has.

Late nights when the house is still. When he scrolls through profiles he’d spit on in daylight. When the shame burns but the curiosity burns hotter. 

“I ain’t like that,” he types.

Three dots.

“Then prove it.”

Another image comes through.

This one closer. More intimate. But something’s off. The background repeats faintly at the edges. Like the wallpaper loops wrong. Like it was stitched together. 

He ignores it.

“What you want me to do?” he writes.

“Put something on,” she replies. “Let me see.”

He almost laughs.

“You’re crazy. I’m done with this shit. BYE!”

“Are you scared?”

That word again.

He isn’t scared. 

“Hey man, Jill and I better get on outta here. Gotta go meet a guy who wants to buy my trailer tomorrow. You good?”

“Yeah man, cool, sounds good.” He walks back inside and he and Tricia say their goodbyes. The living room dark. Joe and Jill gone. Tricia looks at him, “You coming to bed?”

“Yeah, babe. In a sec. Be right there,” she gives him a skeptical look. “Promise,” he says and lifts up his pinky finger giving her the sly good-ol’-boy look that always charms her.

“Alright, see ya up there,” she says and walks up the stairs. 

He moves quietly to the laundry room. He knows where her things are.

He shouldn’t do this.

But he does.

He grabs a blouse. Soft blue. Smells like detergent and something faintly floral.

His hands shake as he pulls it over his head. It hangs wrong on him. Tight at the shoulders. Loose at the waist. He stares at himself in the mirror hanging on the back of the laundry room door.

There’s something in his eyes he doesn’t recognize.

He takes the picture.

Deletes it.

Takes another.

Sends it.

The dots appear instantly.

“Beautiful,” she writes.

He exhales, long and slow. Then:

“Go out like that,” she types.

His heart stutters.

“What?”

“To the bar. Tomorrow. I’ll be there.”

His first instinct is to laugh it off. But the idea lodges itself in him like a splinter. All night he dreams in flashes. Red lace. Neon signs. Then nightmares: Joe’s face twisted in confusion.

The next evening he drinks before he leaves. Two beers. Then a third. The blouse again. This time a pair of Tricia’s jeans. Too tight. He shoves his boots on anyway.

In the mirror he looks ridiculous. He feels exposed. He doesn’t recognize his face. Not only that he used Tricia’s makeup doing his best to emulate what she does and settling on a YouTube tutorial. Tricia was going to a Colleen Hoover book club, his kids were at the grandparents, he told her he’d just take it easy at home and watch the game. 

His phone buzzes as he steps outside the car in the bar parking lot. “The Klamshell” glowing neon above the door of the dive.

Andy no longer feels like he’s controlling his own body any more. He’s not commanding this ship any more. He thinks about getting back into the car and driving himself to the nearest state mental hospital. But, his logical Andy brain is completely dissociated from this new persona.

“I see you,” Lola writes.

He freezes.

The street is empty.

“You’re brave,” she writes.

The bar’s neon sign hums like it’s telling him, “Yes, over here sweetie.

Inside it smells like beer and grease and sweat.

Conversation dies the second he walks in. His brother Joe is at the pool table.

Joe turns.

The silence is a living thing now.

“Andy?” Joe says.

His name sounds wrong in his mouth.

Someone coughs. Then laughs. Not kindly.

Joe comes over, his startled expression gives way to a furrowed-brow and pursed lips. He sounds out of breath when he says again, “Ah-Andy. Wh-what’s going on? Does Tricia know you-you’re here?” He then smiles hesitantly, “Wait, is this a fucked up joke?” He looks at his buddies giving them an it’s-okay-guys nod.

“I’m not Andy, I’m Angela,”

Joe’s face shifts from confusion to something harder.

“You sick son of a—” another man behind Joe’s shoulder comes forward.

The first punch knocks him sideways.

The second splits his lip.

Boots. Fists. Shouting.

He curls in on himself but they keep coming. He hears Joe at first, but then the tornado of denim and cowboys boots crunching in his face and crushing his ribs takes over.

He tastes blood. Metal. Dirt.

Somewhere in the chaos his phone skitters across the floor.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is someone saying, “Abomination.”

***

When he wakes up, everything hurts. Fluorescent hospital lights buzz overhead. His jaw is wired. One eye swollen shut. Tricia isn’t there. Joe isn’t either.

There’s a phone on the tray table. It’s not his.

He reaches for it slowly. One notification displays. The phone opens to his face id.

From: Lola Jane
Subject: Welcome Home.

His vision swims but he opens it. Inside is a list.

Username.
Password.
Backup codes.
Recovery email changed.

“All yours,” the message says.

He scrolls down. There’s one more line.

“You wanted to know who I am.”

He sucks in a breath. His ribs scream.

Another message appears.

“It’s you.”

He opens the social media app.

The profile loads.

Lola Jane.

🏳️‍🌈 | trans | she/her

No new posts.

No new messages.

Just waiting.

His reflection in the dark screen looks unfamiliar. Bruised. Split. Lips swollen and red.

He types with clumsy fingers.

He changes the profile picture.

Uploads the one from the laundry room.

He edits the bio.

Deletes everything except:

she/her

He sets the account to public.

Then he closes his eyes.

And doesn’t switch back.