PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019

by Carmen Maria Machado

  And so, accepting that I will never know a person—let alone distance, abandonment, death—I turn to the world of numbers, thinking I can surely know them; they are still, steadfast, immutable;

  I made my promise to Father that I would stay until he passed. And so I did. And then, beyond that, I remained with you, for your good. But I am not the means to your well-being, although you may—I know you can—think so.

  but they prove just as eternally, minutely recursive, and forever, frustratingly teeming.

  What is my love unto God if my hands and feet, my body and soul, are unto you—

  I think: what am I to do.

  soaking cloths in brandy for your constant, constant ailments, spooning food into your mouth,

  I think: I have made this machine. I have tinkered and prodded, set levers just so, produced an object that without me will produce.

  and once you’re well, sweeping the hall while you disappear to salons, returning to regale me with visions of turkey rugs, stacked porcelain chips, silver tureens lifted to reveal steaming pheasants.

  Surely, others will create machines more complex, capable of dividing and then some, perhaps even grasping the whole world of numbers.

  There are two loves, Blaise.

  But will a machine be in awe of that world?

  One for God, one for self.

  Will a machine delight in such emergent, barely perceptible knowledge, the way the sun appears as a mirage of golden gel on the water before it rises?

  Mère Agnes told me I must hate my genius.

  They will never know what it is to know something new. To be made new by knowing something.

  I showed her my latest ditty. And I think,

  Our God is hidden. He rewards those who seek him.

  I do hate my genius—my needy, clamoring genius. But I love him it too.

  Sister,

  Brother,

  I don’t understand the opposition to the existence of a vacuum. My experiments, especially with Florin’s help on the Puy de Dôme, provide incontrovertible evidence that they exist. One would think people would sooner deny their ability to see—see the silver mercury dip in the long glass tubes as they were carried, precariously, tilting, up the mountainside—than they would revise their prior way of thinking.

  Christ showed himself to children. I learn more about him through crude acts of daily routine than I do reading the volumes M. Arnauld copies from Latin. Our Lord was a carpenter, not a scholar. His hands knew the grain, knew splinters; they were not soft.

  Come. Let us say God could not create a vacuum. Let us say God could not even sustain a vacuum, for how can he be everywhere when not everywhere allows him to be?

  I lift myself from sleep. I fill my bowl with pottage.

  Now. In the beginning, we are told, God created the heavens and the earth ex nihilo.

  I adjust my veil. I wipe sweat from my chin.

  What were his materials? Nothing. What was his model? Nothing. What have we to fear when he tells us to fear nothing?

  I quench my thirst with beer.

  I fear not lack of certainty—for who in this life has certainty?

  I sprinkle my parchment with pounce.

  I fear God has forsaken me,

  I grind thistle leaves to powder.

  as you have.

  I suck my thumb from jamming it in the door.

  I fear all I have accomplished is a vapor.

  I throw my shovel in the wet earth. I hold a girl’s foot by the heel; I wipe away the pus from an open sore.

  I wish you would not think of me as a vapor. As something that should not be held.

  I dry my socks on the back of a chair. I wake in the night from a dream, and I cannot feel my arm.

  If you can, think of me not as your brother. Think of me not as the diseased, as the gambling, as the genius.

  I find in my hair a dead spider.

  Think of me as a student you teach. Think of me as knowing nothing, yet knowing everything. Think of me as innocent, yet guilty. Think of me as before my time, yet hurtling toward it.

  I give, to a girl, a pair of socks. I lick from my lips the sweet wine from the cup.

  Think of me growing old, then growing young. Think of me gaining strength, then losing it. Think of me groping toward knowledge, yet knowledge evading me. Think of me hating, yet loving. Think of me hating myself, yet loving myself. Think of me hating the world, yet loving the world.

  I see my reflection in the still water of the bog. I squeeze my eyes against a headache.

  Think of me dying, yet living.

  Lord, run to me.

  There are two loves, Jacqueline.

  That is my prayer.

  One for God, one for neighbor.

  Lord, run.

  Think of me as your neighbor.

  I will take my vows.

  Dear Jacqueline,

  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

  I will stake my life on it.

  Kelsey Peterson is assistant teaching professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Conjunctions, West Branch, and Meridian, and she was a finalist for the 2019 Chautauqua Janus Prize. She holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was an Olin Fellow. She lives in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, with her husband.

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  Panel 1: In the corner of this panel, a rectangular box reads “Spring 2018, The English-Philosophy Building at the University of Iowa.” Inside the cozy office of The Iowa Review, the fiction editor sits stunned at her computer, mouth agape. She is reading blind submissions for the annual Iowa Review Awards and has found a true gem among the slush pile. Though she is tall, amazement renders the fiction editor’s head bigger than her body. Her glasses are half-obscured by white sparkles. The background of this panel is pastel, which is a shame, since this comic will be printed in black and white.

  Panel 2: In front of an all-black background, a large thought balloon cluttered with text: “I can’t believe it . . . a story called ‘The Manga Artist’ that isn’t a) a fetishistic exploration of Japanese culture, b) a mockery of a wide-ranging, diverse medium, or c) a cute experiment? This is an amazing piece of work, effectively conveying the many delights of manga without a single drawing. Instead, ‘The Manga Artist’ verbalizes the pictorial language and formal constraints of manga to compress time but maximize emotion, painting a complete picture of longing, loneliness, queer love, and heartbreak across the traditional canvas of the short story. We need to publish this! Who are you, mystery author!? Can we trade manga recs!?”

  Panel 3: A crosshatch-heavy collage containing images of Alexander Chee’s congratulatory blurb and a close-up of the name “Doug Henderson” featured as a contest runner-up within the pages of The Iowa Review Winter 2018/19 issue. Inside a white rectangle placed at the bottom of the page, a message: “Sometimes, a good story leaves us speechless. ‘The Manga Artist’ is one of those stories.”

  Alexa Frank, Fiction Editor

  The Iowa Review

  THE MANGA ARTIST

  Doug Henderson

  Panel 1: The English teacher stands in front of his class. He is smiling and relaxed, leaning against his desk. Over his shoulder, the whiteboard reads: You can go to London. You can go to Paris. But you can’t go to shopping.

  He is blond with blue eyes, young and fresh-faced, a more idealized version of myself. He doesn’t have to pluck the space between his eyebrows or lose those last five pounds.

  His top button is undone. His tie is loose. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, exposing his hairy forearms. Chest hair rises above his collar, sandy and golden. He is exotic to his students. They never knew blonds could be hairy. He is teaching more than language.

  Panels 2–5: The teacher is speaking, but there are no word balloons. What he is saying isn’t important. He is teaching in the way that American college students spending a summer abroad do, with an emphasis on charm, on telling jokes,
and on winning the class over. The smiles on the student’s faces make it clear they are entranced. To watch him move, to be in his presence, is reason enough for the class to meet three times a week.

  Panel 6: Of the ten students drawn, eight are women; two are men. The men are in dark suits with jackets and ties. Their ties are not loose. The women are a mix of old and young. Some are dressed for the office; some are in trendy street clothes.

  In the earlier panels, the students were smiling, enchanted; now they are shocked. Some look annoyed. They dart their eyes to the right, toward the back of the classroom.

  Above their heads floats the first word balloon. Its tail points off the panel to a speaker yet unseen.

  “That’s not what I learned.”

  Panel 7: Masashige is sitting in the back of the class beside the windows. He is grinning and leaning back in his chair. He is stocky with a broad face. His hair is buzzed in an attempt to hide his receding hairline. He has a sparse five o’clock shadow and a short goatee on his chin. No mustache. He is not wearing a suit. He is wearing the baggy striped T-shirt he always wore. As he smiles, his cheeks dimple and his eyes crinkle.

  “In my company, we use ‘due date,’ not ‘deadline,’” Masashige says.

  Panels 8–9: The English teacher is smiling as he sits casually on his desk. He is unfazed by Masashige’s challenge because Masashige always challenges him.

  With a wave of his hand, the teacher says, “Both are okay.”

  The matter is settled then. The students are relieved and smiling again.

  Panel 10: Masashige and the teacher look at each other across the room while the other students chatter and collect their books. The teacher is still smiling. Masashige is still grinning within the sunbeam. Something undrawn is passing between them.

  Panels 11–12: The bell rings. Faceless students file into the hall. On the wall is a bulletin board with photos and profiles of all the teachers.

  Panel 13: The English teacher’s profile and photo are second from the left. His shirt collar is buttoned. His tie is tight. His name is Scotty James. He is an American from Cleveland, Ohio. His favorite color: sky blue. His favorite movie: The Empire Strikes Back. His favorite food: pepperoni pizza. His blood type: AB. His motto: Adventure every day! Gambatte kudasai!

  Scotty never intended to teach English in Japan. He intended to become a graphic artist, but after graduating, jobs were scarce. When he saw a flyer offering a position teaching for the summer in Japan, he thought it was better than working retail. Teaching in Japan sounded exotic. And impressive. The kind of opportunity that could lead to anything.

  Panel 14: Masashige’s messy apartment sprawls across the panel, lush with detritus. Wooden beams line the ceiling, tatami mats pad the floor, and sliding paper doors stand slightly open. Empty bowls of instant ramen are stacked up like a miniature city on the kotatsu. Pushed against one wall is an angled drawing table with half-finished panels of a comic book. Beneath the desk sits an overflowing trash can. There are clothes on the floor and on the desk chair. Shelves crammed with books and manga and toys line the walls, but I couldn’t possibly draw all the figurines Masashige loved to collect from vending machines and Happy Meals.

  Pressed against the far wall, beneath the open window, is a futon occupied by two naked bodies.

  Panel 15: Scotty and Masashige lie on their backs looking content and restful. Masashige is running a hand through the hair on Scotty’s chest. Their bodies are not drawn in great detail, but it is clear that Masashige is circumcised while Scotty is not. A twist that surprised us both.

  Panels 16–17: Lazy word balloons hang from the top of the panels.

  “You don’t care if they suspect us?” Scotty asks.

  “They won’t.” Masashige’s eyes are closed. “They are typical Japanese.”

  Because Masashige graduated with a degree in fine art, he thought of himself as separate from other Japanese, even though he had yet to do anything with his art and worked part-time serving drinks at a café.

  “By the way, I started drawing a new manga,” Masashige says. “It’s about a mouse named Alfonso.”

  Panels 18–19: An empty classroom in an elementary school. The small chairs are tucked neatly against the desks. The chalkboard has been cleaned. On the teacher’s desk there is a vase with flowers. Late-afternoon sun filters through the windows.

  A word balloon floating in the right-hand corner says: “Alfonso lives in the wall of a third-grade classroom.”

  A mouse scurries across the floor beneath the desks and chairs, past the low shelves stocked with books. He is gray with white paws and black eyes. He stands on his hind feet and slides a book from the shelf. Its spine is thin and more than twice his height.

  “He taught himself to read by listening from the back of the class.”

  Panel 20: Alfonso is on top of the open picture book. The words are in Japanese, but the story is simple. A pig is rolling in mud on one page. A duck is swimming in a pond on the other.

  In word balloons pointing off the page, Masashige narrates, “Reading is not popular among the mice, but Alfonso thinks in the future all mice will need to read.”

  Panels 21–22: “Every evening, Alfonso sneaks into the class and reads a book, until one day . . .”

  Alfonso is running along the windowsill, past potted plants and stacks of books, when he stops abruptly.

  In front of him is a large glass aquarium. The bottom is filled with wood chips. Pressing against the glass, standing on its hind legs, is a hamster. It is white with gray ears.

  “Konnichiwa,” reads a word balloon written in Japanese.

  Underneath, a second balloon pointing off the page is written in English.

  “His name is Ham Sandwich.”

  Panel 23: Scotty and Masashige are standing over the drawing table, still naked. Scotty is holding the panels of Masashige’s manga and looking at them with a smile, but he is not only impressed, he is jealous. Scotty hasn’t drawn anything since he arrived in Japan.

  “Why Ham Sandwich?”

  Masashige says, “The teacher bought him as a present for the class, and the students chose the name. They thought it was funny. They call him Hamuchan.”

  Panels 24–25: “From now on, Alfonso reads a book to Hamuchan every night and they become friends. Hamuchan only knows about the pet store and his glass box.”

  “Does Hamuchan ever get out?” Scotty asks. He skips ahead to the end of the story, but it isn’t drawn yet.

  Masashige says, “Maybe, but I don’t know how.”

  Of course he didn’t. Masashige never finishes any of the manga he draws. Straight out of college, he got a temporary job as an assistant at a manga house, but he never drew anything more than backgrounds and scenery. He talked about publishing his own manga independently. He said several times, “I’m going to rent a booth with my friend at the next Fujieda manga fair.”

  But I don’t know if he ever did.

  Panels 26–30: Scotty is walking in a clean, modern downtown, past restaurants and shops. The signs on the buildings are all in Japanese except one: Fujieda Station.

  As he walks, Scotty talks into his cell phone.

  “Yes, Mom, everything is great. Yes, it’s safe. No, everyone does not speak English.” He stops and looks in the window of a restaurant to check out the plastic models of the food they serve. “Yes, they have grocery stores. Yes, they ride bicycles. It’s like any other first-world country. Don’t worry. Everything is fine. I’m like a local already. I’ll send some pics.”

  He chooses a restaurant and bows beneath the curtains that hang in the doorway. The restaurant is packed with low chairs and tables. Customers are hunched over steaming bowls of noodles. At the far end is an open kitchen where a lone chef is cooking behind a counter.

  Scotty takes a seat. There are no menus. No waiter or waitress arrives to take his order. He looks confused. From above his left shoulder floats a word balloon. It is not filled with Japanese. It is filled with
chicken scratch.

  The cook, in a dirty apron, is talking to Scotty from behind the counter. He is scowling and motioning with a spatula.

  “Tempura soba?” Scotty asks.

  The cook, shouting in chicken scratch, points toward the door.

  Panel 31: A vending machine near the entrance is embedded into the wall. Scotty stands before it. The front is filled with large rectangular buttons. All of the writing is in Japanese and there are no pictures. There is a slot for coins and bills, and at the bottom is an open area where something will drop out. A line has begun to form behind Scotty as people, bowing beneath the curtain, try to enter the restaurant.

  The cook is shouting. Customers are looking up from their meals and watching Scotty fumble with the machine. There are beads of sweat on his brow.

  Panel 32: Scotty is at McDonald’s eating a hamburger. To his right is a bag of fries and to his left a large drink. He looks satisfied.

  Panel 33: An open door at the end of a long, dark hallway. On the door is a nameplate: TEACHER LOUNGE.

  Panel 34: The teacher’s lounge has a sofa and several tables with chairs. There are no windows. The walls are covered with bookshelves. Scotty sits at one of the tables, surfing on his phone and eating a sandwich. There are several other teachers with him, two men in shirts and ties and a woman in a blouse and skirt. They are all Westerners. They sit at a small table next to Scotty and eat with chopsticks out of plastic bento boxes.