PEANUT BUTTER AND BACON — KATIE CORTESE

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In Umbria, they have peanuts and butter, but never together. Instead: pork sliced, baked, fried, cured, and ground into fat salciccia; truffles in the spring; and boar in the fall, during hunting season. It is tough and gamey, though. Aria warns him not to expect too much.
          Last year, his parents visited them in Perugia where he is studying, huffing uphill with their big Midwestern smiles, windbreakers tied around waists. They’d eaten homemade tagliatelle con funghi, pizza with gorgonzola and noci, and risotto with pomodori and peperoni, laughing over the way “pepperoni” in America meant little round salami slices, but in Italy it’s bell peppers only. Something got lost in translation, his mother said at dinner, and though he knows Aria understood every English word he will pretend to translate so he can tell her in his getting-better Italian that this is brave for his parents, eating in an honest-to-God Italian restaurant with no pictures on the menu. Reciting her guidebook Italian, his mother had told the waiter, Prendo il pizza con quattro formaggio, per favore, then blushed when he’d asked in English what they wanted to drink.
         Aria said, during that dinner, in Italian, They are very sweet. She’d said, in Italian, I want to fuck you in the bathroom. Now, please and thanks. After she excused herself, he told his parents he’d be right back but had to make a call. The restaurant bathroom was unisex. The stall door went to the floor.
            This year, he flew with Aria to Detroit, then drove to his parents’ in Lansing. He showed her his childhood bedroom, left her poring over high school yearbooks, saying, When I come back, you are in for a treat. He was thirty minutes in the kitchen, and when he returned with a plate of finger sandwiches, she was doubled over laughing with his freshman photo trapped under her thumb. That’s before my braces, he said, but that bowl cut? There’s no excuse for that. She kissed the picture; kissed his knee; reached for the plate in his hand.
         Not so fast, he said, setting it between them on the sea-green deep-pile rug. First, a classic. Peanut butter and strawberry jelly, he said, pointing to one crustless triangle. Then, in a circle: Peanut butter and banana. Peanut butter and honey. Peanut butter and bacon.
          Pancetta e peanuts? she asked, wrinkling her perfect nose.
            Just trust me, he said, lifting it to her mouth. She let it sit on her tongue before chewing. Salty, she said, in English. Sticky. Savory. Sweet. He said, I want to fuck you on my childhood bed. Now, please and thanks. It still had a baseball comforter. They had the taste of salt and sugar in their mouths. After, she said she liked it. Peanut butter. It was like a Norwegian cheese she’d had once. Brown and sweet and grainy. She polished off the crumbs and licked her fingers, growing used to the taste.

Katie Cortese is the author of Girl Power and Other Short-Short Stories (ELJ Publications, forthcoming 2015), and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Blackbird, Day One, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Texas Tech University in Lubbock where she serves as the Fiction Editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.

 

THREE MILKS — DAVE PETRAGLIA

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The fat European was cheating. He kept his Mojito on a stack of Euros, the glass sweating the bills in the Cancun sun. 
             This was his third day there. He sat facing Palencia, the main building Sun Temple. His opponent always faced the ocean. The cards lasted for hours. 
             ‘It’s Goldfinger!’ Juan Cruz thought. 
             Juan looked up. On an upper terrace, off-limits to guests, he thought he saw something. 
             The towels high on Juan’s shoulder earned him the honor ‘Tres Leches’, a wildly popular dessert from the kitchens of Sun Temple, though a‘Three Milks’ was the lowest honor at the three-acre Big Lagoon. 
             His load, damp with pool water, spilled juices and liquor and beer, topped sixty pounds. The towels were the feathers of the headdress of a Mayan warrior. As each was added, his strengths grew. 
             After his shift, Juan rode his bicycle well beyond the world of the paying guests to the employee dorms. His roommate was away. After a cold shower and a meal of rice and beans, Juan called his mother, then watched American cartoons. 
             Later he dressed in dark slacks and shirt and headed back to the Resort. Juan sucked a flake of pepper through his teeth: the night would be good. He would be welcome at Palencia, but his movements would be confined to the lobby. Juan used his employee badge to access a short hallway with restrooms used only by employees. A door lock at the end of the hallway yielded easily, and he turned onto a stairway that led to the roof. 
             Juan disabled the light alongside an upper terrace door, and slipped into the night air. 
             He checked the time. The face of his thin, fine gold watch, a gift from the Saudi Minister of Export, glowed warmly in the moonlight. 
             He bent down at the spot where he’d seen something earlier. The finish of the railing was freshly scratched. 
             Something slapped over his head. By the nap of the terry, a towel from resort’s Vivir Grande. As he stood, a massive weight clamped his shoulders. 
             Juan’s arms were held across his biceps. He spun, and a sharp point pricked his neck. The heavy embroidery of the ‘VG’ logo had deflected the weapon. Juan Cruz lunged and pitched his foe over the railing. 
             Juan was impressed that not a sound was uttered during the descent. Still, he couldn’t help himself: 
             ‘Rookie move, amigo’. 
             The shadowy shape below rustled among the Oleander and Gardenia and finally stood, unsteadily. 
             A few feet left or right, and stands of Agave would have been his attacker’s resting place. 
             “Rookie move, Juan.” 
             Juan’s wound was covered by his shirt buttoned tightly as he made his way through Palencia’s lobby. He studied the faces of all he saw all the way to his bike in the employee lot.
             Was this a conclusion Interpol could have anticipated? 
             It would be important for Juan to appear normal now. He would have no problem with that.

A Best Small Fictions 2015 Winner, Dave Petraglia's work has appeared in Agave, Apeiron Review, Arcadia Magazine, Cactus Heart, Chicago Literati, Crack the Spine, Dark Matter, eFiction India, Far Enough East, Foliate Oak, Gambling the Aisle, Gravel, Jersey Devil Press, Loco, Marathon Literary Review, Mud Season Review, Necessary Fiction, NewPopLit, Olivetree Review, Petrichor Review, Prick of the Spindle, Stoneboat, Storyacious, Thought Catalog, theNewerYork, Utter Magazine, Up the Staircase and Vine Leaves. His blog is at www.davepetraglia.com

TOOTHACHE — STACY POST

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Whitefeather’s toothache forced her to wander.  She didn’t want the white doctor from camp.  Other sisters, who had been sick, had gone with him and never returned.
             The toothache dominated her thoughts.  Pain pulsed and sent her to the ground, prostrate in mistaken prayer.  She prayed to no one.  Her hopes were lost with her roaming ancestors.
             Her grandmother, Tall Knees, appeared, smelling of pipe smoke and gasoline.  Whitefeather knew she was on a precipice.
             Find the Willow.  Chew the bark.
             Whitefeather wanted to hold her grandmother tight.  Her gums throbbed.  She wished for a gas station ice machine where she could plunge her entire head inside to cease the pain.  She wandered in search of a cool clear stream, of a hollow hill with damp shadows.  Someplace other than inside this pain.
             A house on the prairie stood unlit and silent.  Sheer curtains wafted out of the upstairs windows.  A Willow tree behind it swayed with the same rhythm.
             Whitefeather clamored for the tree.  She lifted slender branches, crawled underneath and hugged the scruffy trunk tight.  Then she clawed bark strips and stuffed them into her mouth.  The bitterness and pungency of tree made it difficult to chew. 
             White lights emerged behind her eyes.  Would she see Tall Knees soon?
             She fell against the tree as crickets began to sing in the reeds.  She focused on the sound and waited.  The chewed bark was difficult to swallow.  Was she supposed to swallow?  She didn’t know.
             Tall Knees’ voice rode through the sudden sunlight scattered across the leaves.  If you take from the tree, you must give back.
             Whitefeather closed her eyes.  What gift could she give the tree?  What would the tree want in return?
             She remembered the wind in the curtains.  The way the tree had danced.  Maybe it would like her song.  A song she sang to Tall Knees. 
             She sang low like the crickets.  Sorrows escaped in her notes.  Her words, now freed, told the sky of her sisters that had disappeared.  Her toothache dulled.  Emancipation resonated through tiny dancing leaves. 
             The Willow listened and remembered.

Stacy Post is a Midwestern writer of poetry, plays and short fiction.  A Pushcart Prize nominee, her short stories and poetry have been published in numerous print and online journals.  Her first poetry chapbook, Sudden Departures, debuted with Finishing Line Press.  Her short plays have been produced in a variety of festivals across the U.S. She works as a librarian by day and resides in the Indiana heartland.   www.stacypost.com

BREAKFAST WITH THE BOYS — ADAM PETRASH

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I cook them french toast because it’s the only way they’ll eat eggs. Because it’s the only protein I can afford now. I do my best to prepare a proper meal for them every morning; try to set a good example about how important breakfast is. That it doesn’t always consist of pastries with fruit filling or soft chocolate cookies like their mom gives them.
             The two boys sit at the table while I cook playing with their Lego creations until it turns into a fight over whose pieces are whose. My oldest uses a tone of voice I always heard in his mother and my youngest whines in a pitch that gets under my skin. I yell at them in an explosion of profanities and immediately see the damage. I look into my oldest’s eyes and see him holding back the tears. I want to tell him I’m sorry and that it’s okay to cry. That it’s all I’ve been doing since their Mom and I split. But I don’t. He doesn’t either. We both pretend to be strong. I look at them both and see their mother in them. See her mannerisms in them too and I hate it. Hate it even more that everything I dislike about myself is in there too. I want to tell them that that’s the reason I yelled: I don’t want them to be anything like us.
             I cut the french toast into cubes, pour sugar-free syrup, and place the plates down in front of them. They eat it up, quickly forgetting my tantrum. I look down at the frying pan; contemplate placing the palm of my hand down into it so I can feel something else than like I’m always failing.

Adam Petrash is a writer, poet, and journalist, and the author of the novella, The Ones to Make it Through (Phantom Paper Press 2015). He's written articles, book reviews, and interviews for Canstar Community News, Drums Etc Magazine, The Uniter, The Winnipeg Free Press, and The Winnipeg Review. His fiction has appeared in journals such as Luna Luna Magazine and Whiskeypaper, and his poems in Lemon Hound. He lives and writes in Winnipeg.

UPCARD — MELANIE DUNBAR

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Smokey Joe taught her to deal Black Jack on their honeymoon thirty years ago. In their small town of Ryder, one Saturday a month the Starlite Roller Rink converts into an arena where amateurs box and wrestle in front of the population. After, she deals a few hands to the old boys in the back. If she can tell who is down on their luck, she will take a card on a hard seventeen. Other times she relies on seeing Smokey’s face in the atmosphere behind the head of the man in need. It was easier before the No Smoking laws. His face would appear in the smoke. Now, everyone has to step outside, and the air in the room is clear. She misses him.

Melanie Dunbar is a Master Gardener who lives in Southwest Michigan with her husband, youngest son and their rooster, Mr. Beautiful.  Her poems can be found in the Silver Birch Press Where I Live series, Your Impossible Voice, and are forthcoming in Gargoyle and Sweet: A Literary Confection.

HIGH HEEL DEAD DROP — FORTUNATO SALAZAR

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They came to substitute one extinguisher for another. Just like that, the old extinguisher was gone, its fall softened by training and more training. Thanks a bunch! And the marshmallows were so gooey that she thought she might have heat stroke soon. She really needed a break.

No, what she really needed was a fun-filled round of scratching at her rash, in nothing but her tan lines. Fuck! She was both allergic to and addicted to marshmallows. A very good friend of her sister who was also an enemy of her sister had introduced her to marshmallows.

As for her other preferences, they would have to wait. She felt too lazy to break the seal so she stretched the box while kicking it in. Inside the box was something that looked like it needed to get accustomed to living in the vicinity of humans. Never mind, she had her share of anxious bitterness.

That was truly scary, the way her eyes watered when she got pushy, which happened when she was in this kind of mood…pushy and huge and stomping on a whole delicious commune of marshmallows…stomping for real as opposed to a listless round of stomping.

Whoa, it was so hot indoors that the barbecue set was melting! No wonder she couldn’t shake the gnats! The gnats were attracted to the aroma of the melting barbecue set. And just when she’d been working up to launch into the barbecue set with her entire collection of boots!

*

Or wait, maybe she’d put a dent into a batch of overflowing marshmallows, then make a nuisance of herself at her sister’s. Her sister was exhausted but not too exhausted to complain about the scabs, all that leisurely scratching while snacking.

If only she could get these clothes off, she would do something about the blue bruises, because they were beginning to look sparse. Okay, she would multiply the bruises, but first she needed to get out of these clothes. She would adopt some fun new bruises, chubby little bruises!

Something squealed from the direction of the batch she’d totally forgotten about. How had she lost sight of a whole batch?! It would take a month to pay off that debt! Meanwhile, she was looking down the barrel of tomorrow! She didn’t need a break, she needed an exorcism!

At the same time, the inside of her skin felt lined with marshmallows, that’s what the heat did to her chest. What she really needed was a vacation where her hair would fly every which way while she pummeled something like a springboard, only less forgiving, a springboard that had made some serious resolutions.

One little peek into the sink. Ouch! The mottled brown flow from the ceiling fan had reached the sink, almost. Enough negative thinking! It was time to rip out the ceiling fan! First, though, some emergency takeout. Wait, she’d left her phone inside the barbecue set! Oh fuck, fuck, fuck!

Fortunato Salazar lives in Los Angeles and has recent fiction at, or soon at, Tin House, New World Writing, Spork, Hobart, Juked, Corium and elsewhere.

IT SNAPPED — KATHY BUCKERT

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Geoffrey is a drug addict.
             I find myself praying for a miracle. Playing his savior has been my role for far too long. I fight his battles at school and with his father. Enabling comes at a price, a price that could cost his life if I don’t wake up and see my son is in trouble. I am a control freak, but I make one plea into the heavens: “Do whatever you need to do, but please spare his life.” My prayer is a trajectory of surrendering my will.
             Our intervention is ready to begin. My husband calls Geoffrey to join us in the living room, the anger in his eyes shows our plan was compromised. I told his girlfriend. I simply shoot her a stern look when she sits next to him on the couch. She enables him. She treats him to her drugs. She is her own disease.
             It occurs to me that this is happening because we left rural Vermont. Nothing in New York can match the mountains, fresh air, and good people that surrounded us there. I am no longer a stay at home mom. Although I am here for him when he arrives home, it is not enough.  I trusted my instincts. I listened to his promises. The cost of believing: drugs are ravaging his body. The skeletal remains of our lifeless familial ties are fighting for one last breath.
             When we start the intervention, I inventory the reasons why we love him. My love has weathered so many storms from the time of your conception to this very moment. I have been your advocate. I have been your defender. I have carried your anger in my soul. Let’s bury our shame. Let’s keep our mother and son bond intact. Together. Let’s. Just. Be. Stronger.
             He listens to the letters written by the family.
             I am helpless. I am ravaged by his decisions. I need my own intervention to stop controlling him and let him become his own man. Letting him hit rock bottom may help him fight his way to the surface again—on his own. I am losing my son because he refuses to get help. He is leaving our home, our place of safety. His drugs have taken my place. And I cry. Not because my son is heading toward a life of uncertainty, but because I know he is resilient. He will scratch his way back to the surface and so will I. 

Kathy Buckert holds a Master’s Degree in Education from St. Michael’s College in Vermont. She also holds an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Goddard College’s low-residency program in Plainfield, Vermont. Her work has appeared in Stories: The Magazine, Riverlit, The Blue Hour, Black Mirror Magazine, Electric Rather, Silver Birch Press, and other publications.  She is an adjunct assistant professor at Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York. 

SNOW — TODD McKIE

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Natalie tiptoed through the living room. On TV Ellen was doing one of her crazy dances and  everybody in the audience was clapping and cheering, but Natalie’s mom was passed out on the sofa. Natalie put on her polka dot boots, her parka and her mittens, and went outside.
             Natalie lay down in the fresh snow and pumped her arms up and down. She wished she could take off and fly away to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mom said that’s where her dad was, shacked up with some goddamn bimbo half his age. Good riddance to bad rubbish, said Mom. Natalie didn’t care if Dad lived in a shack. Mom said bimbo like it was something bad, but Natalie was sure it had something to do with the circus. That’d be awesome, going to the circus whenever she wanted because Dad’s girlfriend was in the circus show.
             Natalie did arithmetic in her head: if the bimbo was half Dad’s age and he was the same age as Mom, then two goes into thirty-four is seventeen. A teenager! She could be like Natalie’s older sister. Wouldn’t it be cool if the bimbo’s real name was Shannon? When Shannon wasn’t at the circus she’d tell Natalie all her secrets and then Natalie would tell her own deepest secrets to Shannon and they’d be friends forever. They could tease Dad and he’d be like, Oh, you two drive me nuts! but he wouldn’t mean it because he loved them both. Natalie pumped harder and harder and thought about Pennsylvania and what it would be like when she lived down there.
             But soon her arms felt like they were catching on fire right through her parka even though the temperature was zero below. Her fingers were sore too, and tingly like an electricity shock. She remembered what they learned in school about weather and how you could catch frostbite if you stayed outdoors too long and how in a few days your fingers would turn black and fall off. Maybe her fingers had frostbites on them already, even with mittens on.
             Natalie stood up. She brushed the snow from her arms and legs. She swiped a wet mitten across the frozen snot below her nose. She took a long look at the snow angel. It was really an inside-out angel, an empty hole in the snow, like an angel used to be there and then flew away. Natalie looked up and saw the angel flying high above, flapping its shiny black wings. Instead of singing some pretty church music, though, like Hallelujah or Come All Ye Fateful, or just calling out Natalie’s name in a friendly voice, the angel screamed caw, caw, caw.
             Natalie felt like a total dope to mix up a dirty old crow with a beautiful angel. Maybe her brain was getting frostbite too. She headed back inside, hoping her mom was still passed out so she couldn’t yell at her for tracking snow all over the goddamn carpet. 

Todd McKie is an artist and writer, staggering between canvas and keyboard, sometimes dazed, often paint-spattered, but ever grateful for the exercise. His stories have appeared in PANK, Fiction Southeast, Pithead Chapel, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. Todd lives in Boston and blogs sporadically at toddmckie.blogspot.com.