one fifty-three.

The city groaned around him because he refused to see its beauty. His brow was furrowed, his hands were shoved in his pockets, and he was wishing it would rain. This was no different than his usual walks home, except tonight he left that bar knowing that he was right. The subway grate exhaled steam and it reminded him of her breath on his face.

The lyrics of songs from his teenage years went through his head and down onto his lips, where no sound came out. They couldn’t do anything but agree. All these bands knew exactly how she could be.

A car full of drunk kids passed by and one of them shouted something out the window. He could not hear what exactly, but he was positive it was a crack about how he had recently gained some weight and was walking home alone to an empty apartment. He wished he had a rock so he could meet them at the next red light and smash it through their back windshield. He settled, instead, for hoping that the driver had been drinking.

He went back to the conversation in his head. He played it on loop. His reaction had been warranted, he was positive. What she had done was unforgivable, and anything he could have said – let alone what he actually did say – would have been completely justified. He hadn’t even been that extreme. It’s not like he had used the word. You know the one. Though, if he had, he didn’t think she could have taken much issue with it. After what she had done, it was almost a favor that he had not used the word, and maybe the next time they saw each other – which, he had assured her, would be NEVER – she would thank him for being so restrained. Doubtful. She never appreciated anything, and the words he used had been bad enough. That’s what she would think, anyway. He thought the words he had used were just right. They were what she deserved. They were maybe a little harsh. If he had been proofreading, he may have crossed out a few and written in the margins, “When used so often, they lose their effect,” in red pen. He also may have noted that the character saying them would probably not have spoken so freely in such a public place, or brought up her past sexual partners quite as much. In the white space below the last paragraph, where you write the general feedback, he might have mentioned that the protagonist shouldn’t have had so many rum and cokes before the confrontation, as it could be perceived as cliché.

“Dammit,” was what he said to himself as he reached home.

An Old Show-Biz Joke

A homeless man walks up to a well-dressed business man. The business man is reading the newspaper on his way to work.


Homeless Man:
Excuse me, sir, could you spare just a dollar or two? I could really use a cup of coffee and a sandwich.


The business man lowers his newspaper for a second and looks at the homeless man, thinking.


Business Man:
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Shakespeare.


The homeless man nods at the business man.


Homeless Man:
"Fuck you." Mamet.

The Boy Flies Again

The cold wind in his face felt like home. The low temperature, usually a sticking point for most people, the kind of thing they complain about to strangers when they are left with nothing else to say, was as comforting to him as a warm living room. Or some hug from a mother he would probably secretly despise anyway.

This flight was nothing short of defiant. An act of rebellion. He curled up his body, knees to his chest, and then extended it straight as he could, accelerating to a speed faster than he ever remembered. With all the changes that he had experienced in the eleven years since he had last leapt into the sky, it had never occurred to him that his speed would have increased. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to have never crossed his mind.

The rain froze as it hit his hair and he approached the clouds. It started to turn to hail. He took one more deep breath before the air got too thin, not too sure if he would be back down quickly enough to not pass out. He imagined himself running out of air. His face turning blue and the sound of wind fading away, spinning and flopping and plummeting his way to the ground, eventually hitting the concrete with an impact that would leave him beyond recognition, and the street walking Manhattanite witnesses to his death would assume he had just leapt off of one of the countless skyscrapers or high rises around them. It would be a sad yet conceivable story, a once troubled youth finding his demise in such a tragic way. The misconception would be fitting, and they would go on believing it for the same reason they never believed him at all: impossibility. Surely, he could not have been higher than those buildings. There is no way, indeed, that he could have just fallen from the clouds. Oh God, he could not have been flying. Human beings are not meant to fly, and he was in fact a human being, therefore he could not fly. The assumption of his death would be the same reasoning the doctors once gave him as a child to stop doing it.

He flew through the haze of the clouds, feeling the density of moisture, and broke out into crisp air. There was no rain, or hail, or wind. He could feel the water on his face start to crystallize as he looked up at the moon, big and full and bright and clean. He flew as close as he could and let go, the momentum carrying him a few more feet toward space before he stopped, for just an instant, somewhere between rising and falling.

He spread out his arms, closed his eyes, and let himself fall. Past the crispness, through the clouds, into the hail, into the wind, racing the rain toward the sparkling lights, past the antennas, past the windows of businesses where cleaning ladies listened to their small battery-powered radios, past the billboards that told people what to buy and what to see, past the trees, toward the sidewalk.

He grabbed back on, maybe inches from the ground, flying down the street, dodging pedestrians who witnessed him in awe. He came to the park and turned around, heading back down Broadway. He wanted them to see him. He wanted them all to see the impossible.