He was back in the moments when he’d create jagged sutures of kisses on her paralyzed arms and she’d murmur how she’d love him forever. But those moments blurred as another attacked—her saying she’d still love him forever though she was leaving him for someone less neurotic.
Sitting in the subway, he laughed aloud and a man with a picture of a taco on his shirt didn’t seem too happy and he thought, Why can’t I laugh on the fucking subway? The one time I do a massive soft shell of guilt envelops me? So he closed his eyes and went back to the first moments, but the moments had changed. He was alone with their futon and it was dark and rainy. Back in reality the futon didn’t exist anymore—it had been at the city dump for months, though it was a good bed, serving its purpose, keeping them aloft and he eye-opened to see the digital readout of stations because maybe he’d reverse course and head to the city dump—Hey guys, Hi, there’s a beige futon I brought in here on the weekend of October 11th-12th or 12th-13th, I can’t remember, but I remember the dumpster—green dumpster, many florescent lights inside and a smelly couch. Any idea? And now he walked toward the green dumpster dressed in khakis, his least favorite pants, and he put his lips together on the subway in a dissonant pucker and the taco-shirted guy was extremely not happy because the pucker could easily arc up in the air and fall onto his hetero lips and he didn’t want any part of a man’s kiss because he worked for a living, drank in the evening and he wanted a woman with a fiesta-sorta butt not a thin, though clean-shaven dude with a big book on his lap, a pinky tapped inside. Yet the pucker continued and grew juicy because the originator of the pucker was startled he couldn’t control his daydream wardrobe, the ends of his khakis getting soot on them as he walked to the green dumpster. Goddamn dreams were tough but goddamn they were easy too because how the fuck could they find the green dumpster that held the beige futon so fast? They did and the head of the crew gave him his truck so he could bring the beige futon home, but to what home? They didn’t live there anymore. He lived in Queens and she lived in a place where he couldn’t find her. His pinky really hurt. The pucker broke and the taco-shirted man stopped worrying and returned to visions of fiesta butt.
About the author:
Greg Gerke lives in Brooklyn. His work has or will appear in Quarterly West, Mississippi Review and Gargoyle. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of fiction is available from Blaze Vox Books. He edits very short fiction for Corium Magazine and ArtVoice. His website is www.greggerke.com
This was edgy and interesting. I would not want to read a collection of stories like this but I’m glad I read this one.