Page 90 - Vol. VI #1

People (continued from preceding page )
He sighed. “Oh, baby, you have no idea. Seriously.”
Rachel walked unsteadily down the hallway, back out into the mezzanine overlooking her great grandfather’s memorial. It had hurt more than she’d expected but she told herself it was like a vaccination or one of those stamps you got on your wrist, signifying that you’d paid admission and now had in-and-out privileges (which made her laugh very quietly).
A thought started to coalesce, ignited by her de- sire and dizziness from the bourbon. “Or I’ll tell them what you did. How you touched me.” She was aware of his moist, mounding flesh, the skank of his polyester suit. Inspired, she felt down her left arm until she found a small moth hole on her cardigan sleeve. She yanked at it until it gaped, the size of a quarter. “Look! Look what you did when I tried to run. And the bruise on my leg where you kicked me,” hitching up the side of her skirt and running her hand down the side of her thigh where she’d hit the floor.
She’d figured out why the fortunes were hooey. They were nothing but a way of forcing an end- ing. Her mother’s grandfather was a control freak, basically. That’s what he’d wanted—some guaranteed outcome imposed on them all, like a wax seal. She’d read about those, how kings used
He shook his head slowly, as if trying to under- stand. She put her arms around him.
“You little cat,” he muttered into the side of her head. “You little bitch,” and moved his hands down her bulky hips and under her skirt. She sank her teeth into the side of his jaw, into the bristling black beard and stayed that way, latched like a lamprey, as he moved on her, as he lifted her up and pressed her against the wall until finally she let out a little cry.
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Afterward, he laid on the carpet, behind the table, on his back, his legs and arms outstretched. He knew he had committed a great sin. Maybe as bad as it got. The stupidity was staggering. Alice had told him last night about the lay-off. That she and Rachel were on the move.
There was a hand-shaped patch where the ceiling tiles were discolored, as if from rain or mold. The fingers stretched out from one corner. They were disproportionately long and looked like a warped octopus or mutant amoeba, with tentacles reach- ing out for him. Laying there, he understood why the grandfather’s prediction had bothered him. It wasn’t the liver-eating in and of itself, but rather that it revealed his vulnerability, that he was the kind of person to whom such a thing could hap- pen. Forever at the bottom of the food chain.
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Blue Mosaic Diptych
silk screen ink, polymer relief on hand-dyed cotton
28” x 76”
By J. Ivcevich