I often imagine being laid down on the ground. The grass wet beneath my back. Staring up at a hazy sky. A feeling like this is the end of something, the start of something else.
What I remember is how they talked after the fire. That I heard his father went mad. That he was stuck like that. Just stuck, my mother told me. Or my father told me. Or someone.
And then he was forgotten. Even I’d forgotten all this time. I mean I was so young when it happened. When he didn’t save that kid. But looking into his room one night, I asked the guy about the boots. And it all came back. And I never told the guy I was once in love with a picture of his father.
His brother was going back to his video games. And did I want to play he said. I would for a second I said. So there I was sitting at his brother’s desk. His room looked like a prison cell. I mean a cell in a prison for boys. He showed me one of his games. It turned out they weren’t just violent. It turned out they were dirty too. Like you could undress some of the people. Like you could get them pretty much naked. And there were other things too. Like you could see people fucking. You could see a blowjob. You could see girl on girl. You wouldn’t have found these things on your own. Someone had to show you these things. It involved going into secret rooms, looking around. His brother and I were laughing so hard. I said, I’m telling your father. He said, No you’re not. And I would have kept playing, but the guy was back with the beer.
The guy’s brother would OD. He would be on the wrong drug with the wrong kids and he would die. This would be many years later. This would be after he was a kid. It would be after a lot of things happened, and I would hear it from someone who heard it from someone else.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Or why it broke me up so much to hear it. Or why I’m still so broken up. I mean I can barely remember his face. He was looking right at me, and I barely remember.
No, that’s not even true. I do remember his face. The freckles across it. The space between his teeth. No, that’s the face of the guy.
But I remember winning some video game. And lights blinking. A high five.
And I remember how, God, I almost rolled off the bed. I was so fucking stuck in those boots.
You can see this as a metaphor, if you want. How I wasn’t good at getting out of things. How there are things I’m stuck in for good.
Like how I’m stuck in this body for good. Like how I’m stuck in this summer for good. How I’m stuck on a night and watching it all.
And it’s guys staring into the water. Girls holding each other’s arms. They’re laughing into each other’s hair. They’re falling over laughing.
And I know how sound travels through water. Through plants and through fish. Through all of that trash.
So I know she can’t hear them laughing. And I know they can’t hear her scream.
Some nights, I sank too. Those nights, I sank like a stone. And I stayed at the bottom for as long as I could. I stayed there, waiting for something.
Don’t make me tell you what it was.
I mean it doesn’t matter now.
I mean nothing is going to save you.
And can you even save yourself.
Or are you stuck in it for good.
I mean I’ve been trying to tell just one story for nearly my entire life.
I mean I’m still trying to tell that same fucking story.
Still trying.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Chris Kamrath, Brittany Perham, Maria Barneson, Sebastian Currier, Lynne Layton, Stephen Hartman, Ryan Van Meter, Bruce Snider, Eileen Fung, Tom March, Tyler Mills, Lucy Corin, Michele Beck, Harold Meltzer, Lydia Conklin, James Hannaham, Carole Cebalo, Pauline Grant, Kelley Reese, Morgan Craig, Jonathan Santlofer, Lynn Callahan, Jeff Callahan, Sarah Dove, Gary Clark, David Grozinsky, Arista Alanis, Laurie MacFee, Peter Kline, Reese Kwon, Dave Madden, Randall Mann, Ayad Akhtar, Emily Kiernan, Bernadette Esposito, Gina Ruggeri, Normandy Sherwood, Michelle Seaton, Ani Tascian, Sarah Williams, Ian Jacoby, Emily Ballaine, Kate Liebman, Lucia Hierro, Carrie Mar, Katie Morton, Essie Chambers, Sergio de Regules, Andre Adler, and Horacio Camblong.
And special thanks to Steve Woodward, Ethan Nosowsky, Fiona McCrae, Marisa Atkinson, Katie Dublinski, Ethan Bassoff, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Civitella Ranieri Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the James Merrill House, Vermont Studio Center, the Millay Colony, the American Academy in Rome, Jentel, the NYU Faculty Resource Network, and the University of San Francisco.
Susan Steinberg is the author of the story collections Spectacle, Hydroplane, and The End of Free Love. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, the Gettysburg Review, American Short Fiction, Boulevard, the Massachusetts Review, Quarterly West, and Denver Quarterly. She has been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Magazine Award, and a United States Artist Fellowship. She has held residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Civitella Ranieri Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the James Merrill House, the Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Jentel, Blue Mountain Center, and Ledig House. She earned a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She teaches at the University of San Francisco.
The text of Machine is set in Adobe Garamond Pro. Book design by Sarah Miner. Composition by Bookmobile Design & Digital Publisher Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Manufactured by Versa Press on acid-free, 30 percent postconsumer wastepaper.
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