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Swing State

Page 19

by Michael T. Fournier


  38.

  HEARD IT GO OFF DIDN’T SEE it and when it did he was lost he knew where his feet were leading him but he wasn’t moving them like he was watching himself Peck Long feet carrying him paper everywhere moving slow like snowflakes to the ground no sound like snow falling everything quiet the only things moving paper old bags Burger Hut everything else still Peck oh God no screams nothing nothing but quiet blood everywhere splattered on lockers drops why wouldn’t they fall hanging there huge drops how could there be snow a hundred and twenty degrees couldn’t do it all again didn’t want to go back oh God Long no but there he was except he wasn’t back watched himself fall down like he was shot smell in the air metal in his mouth he was back knew the smell never went away always there dented doors all down the hall and blood huge drops hanging there off door vents people yelling oh God Roy what is it what’s the matter and he watched himself try to speak nothing came out no sound what’s the matter we need to find Roger that and he couldn’t do anything oh my God is he hurt what happened what is this call an ambulance 911 couldn’t move blood not moving paper hanging in the air like a cloud a gray cloud head cloud it would go away in a second everything would move and Long would be gone dead and Peck oh God Peck would be gone drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes didn’t know how it could be this bad again again under his knees not sand bleeding everywhere hanging there that second oh God what happened is everyone okay no Peck why did he agree The Motor Clean hanging there just hanging—

  39.

  WHY’D YOU SET IT OFF?

  I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

  Come on. You disappear the same time a bomb goes off in your locker and you don’t know what I’m talking about?

  What?

  You’re not gonna win any Academy Awards, honey.

  A bomb?

  Stop playing dumb. You’re wasting our time.

  No. I’m serious. A bomb? How big?

  Big enough to get you a murder charge.

  Murder?

  Don’t act like you don’t know.

  I have no fucking idea!

  Not even enough to do dental records. All we have is embroidery from a backpack. “ZT.” Know him?

  The fat kid?

  His dad’s drinking himself into a stupor right now. Because of you. And the poor bastard who’s the security guard thinks he’s back in Afghanistan.

  The old guy?

  Just hired a new guy. He got a Purple Heart in Afghanistan. A war hero.

  It wasn’t me! I didn’t do any of that.

  You’re dead to rights, honey.

  Jesus.

  We have your confession.

  What confession?

  Look at this:

  No. It’s not—

  You’re fucked, girlie. You’ll hang. People will cheer.

  That’s not it.

  We found it at your house.

  No. That note was about something else.

  What?

  I don’t want to talk about it.

  . . .

  Look, that was about something else.

  Reads like a confession to me. Case closed.

  Listen, I—. My brother. Do you know about him?

  Big football star.

  He failed a drug test. There was a reporter.

  Don’t bullshit us, honey. We’ve got you.

  No. And these kids were giving me shit about it. At Burger Hut. Where I used to work. They must have footage of it, right?

  We don’t want to hear it.

  My mom’s boyfriend said there was footage.

  Put a sock in it.

  And there was this girl. Mary.

  You’re really reaching now.

  Look, I don’t know about any bomb. I left because of all that stuff I told you about.

  For where?

  Boston.

  Didn’t get very far, did you?

  Hitching isn’t as easy as I thought.

  The bomb was in your locker. And you left the note.

  But there’s another note. To my brother.

  Sure there is.

  And did you find the tape?

  Excuse me?

  The tape. My journal.

  We didn’t find any tape.

  It’s all on there. You haven’t listened to it?

  Acknowledgments

  I STARTED THIS ONE ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2010 in Amherst, MA, right after I began my commute to Lowell, MA five days a week, ninety minutes each way.

  The title Swing State—better than “Armbrister,” a pre-Middle-brooks baseball interference in-joke—came to me in the shower sometime in 2012 at our new apartment in Belchertown, MA. I finished the sixth and more or less final draft at the big house in Orono, ME August 1, 2013, after two months of doubles book-ending the Monsters of Talk tour.

  Thank you to my amazing wife Rebecca Griffin for all her love and patience.

  Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges continue to believe in me, despite the fact that I’m a Red Sox fan.

  Much respect to all the bookstores, galleries, living rooms, and basements that hosted readings on my Hidden Wheel tour: Rachel and Benn at Atomic Books; Aaron and Book Thug Nation; Black Wine; Pete Camerato and Pillowman; Chop Suey Books; Chris Dooley, Meghan Minior, and all at Flywheel; Valerie Leavy and Satellite 66; Megan London and all at Main Street Music Studios; Midtown Scholar; Megan and Dexter Murphy; Papercut Zine Library; Gina Quaranto and Blackbird Studios; Liz and all at Quimby’s; The Regulator Bookstore; Liberty and RiverRun Bookstore; Laurie Steelink and Track 16 (RIP); Liz at Stories; Txotuo and Sub-Mission Gallery; Eric Truchan and Rehab House; Maggie and all at Wonder Root; and Dani and Emily of Word Portland.

  Beta readers: James Brophy, Jen Grosso, and Ed McNamara, Broderick Lang, Katie Lattari, Ben Stein.

  Thanks to friends and family, pets included. Dr. Damian Adshead, Momi and Ramsay Antonio-Barnes, Tyler Babbie and Kate Kenderish, Billy Babbitt, Austin Bagley, the staff of the Belchertown Post Office, Tim Berrigan, Black Wine, Whitney Erin Boesel, Casey Boyd and Becky Cyr, Julie Burrell, Tobias Carroll and Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Coastwest Unrest, Marc “Gus” Desgroseilliers, Todd Dills and the 2nd Hand, Mike Faloon, Shelly Fank and Tim O’Neill, Ray and Kathy Fournier, Duane Gorey, Jay Grant, Great Western Plain, Ned Greene and Eliza Burke-Greene, Dave Griffin, Russ Griffin, Broseph Grillo and Hilary Preston, Emma Howes, Duncan Wilder Johnson, Kickstarter Muster Roll, Dave Kress, Kathy and Jerry Lacroix, Rich and Jackie Ladew-Tang, Dave Lawton, Miriam Leibowitz, Karen Lillis, Heather and Andy Malenke, Sam McPheeters, Paige and Lily Mitchell, Dan Moellering and Courtney Davis, Lisa Panepinto and Ryan Roderick, Rachel Perry and Rob Bergen, The Pichettes, Sammy Ponzar, Mike Powers, Brendan Emmett Quigley and Liz Donovan, Amber Porter and Ramsay Tatawi, Adra Raine, Steve Reynolds, Maggie Sabo, Kevin Shine and the ShineTones, Spippy, Taiwan Typhoon, Lori Timm, Tooth and Germ, Wah-Tut-Ca Scout Reservation, Tommy Walsh and Marna Eckels, Mike Watt, and you.

  Molly T. Bunny—aka Cabildo—1997–2013.

  Rest in Peace: Jon Cook and Jason Noble.

  I’d love to read in your town/at your bookstore/in your living room/at your school, etc. Get in touch: michaeltfournier@gmail.com, and/or PO Box 784, Belchertown, MA 01007.

  Now go start your own ___________ !

  For more information, visit http://michaeltfournier.tumblr.com

  About the Author

  MICHAEL T. FOURNIER IS A WRITER/CRITIC/MUSICIAN, and the author of two novels: Hidden Wheel (Three Rooms Press, 2011) and Swing State (Three Rooms Press, 2014), as well as Double Nickels on the Dime (33 1/3 Series/Bloomsbury Academic), a book-length discussion of the 1984 Minutemen album of the same name. He is founder and co-editor of Cabildo Quarterly, a broadsheet literary journal. His writing has appeared in the the Oxford American, Vice, Pitchfork, and the Boston Globe. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife Rebecca and their cat.

  Recent and Forthcoming Books from Three Rooms Press

  PHOTOGRAPHY-MEMOIR

  Mike Watt


  On & Off Bass

  FICTION

  Ron Dakron

  Hello Devilfish!

  Michael T. Fournier

  Hidden Wheel

  Swing State

  Janet Hamill

  Tales from the Eternal Café (Introduction by Patti Smith)

  Eamon Loingsigh

  Light of the Diddicoy

  Richard Vetere

  The Writers Afterlife

  DADA

  Maintenant: Journal of Contemporary Dada Art & Literature (Annual poetry/art journal, since 2008)

  MEMOIR & BIOGRAPHY

  Nassrine Azimi and Michel Wasserman

  Last Boat to Yokohama: The Life and Legacy of Beate Sirota Gordon

  Richard Katrovas

  Raising Girls in Bohemia: Meditations of an American Father; A Memoir in Essays

  Stephen Spotte

  My Watery Self: An Aquatic Memoir

  SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY

  Have a NYC:

  New York Short Stories

  Annual Short Fiction Anthology

  PLAYS

  Madeline Artenberg & Karen Hildebrand

  The Old In-and-Out

  Peter Carlaftes

  Triumph For Rent (3 Plays)

  Teatrophy (3 More Plays)

  MIXED MEDIA

  John S. Paul

  Sign Language: A Painters Notebook

  TRANSLATIONS

  Thomas Bernhard

  On Earth and in Hell (poems by the author in German with English translations by Peter Waugh)

  Patrizia Gattaceca

  Isula d’Anima / Soul Island (poems by the author in Corsican with English translations)

  César Vallejo | Gerard Malanga

  Malanga Chasing Vallejo (selected poems of César Vallejo with English translations and additional notes by Gerard Malanga)

  George Wallace

  EOS: Abductor of Men (poems by the author in English with Greek translations)

  HUMOR

  Peter Carlaftes

  A Year on Facebook

  POETRY COLLECTIONS

  Hala Alyan

  Atrium

  Peter Carlaftes

  DrunkYard Dog

  I Fold with the Hand I Was Dealt

  Thomas Fucaloro

  It Starts from the Belly and Blooms Inheriting Craziness is Like a Soft Halo of Light

  Kat Georges

  Our Lady of the Hunger

  Robert Gibbons

  Close to the Tree

  Israel Horovitz

  Heaven and Other Poems

  David Lawton

  Sharp Blue Stream

  Jane LeCroy

  Signature Play

  Philip Meersman

  This is Belgian Chocolate

  Jane Ormerod

  Recreational Vehicles on Fire

  Welcome to the Museum of Cattle

  Lisa Panepinto

  On This Borrowed Bike

  George Wallace

  Poppin’ Johnny

  Three Rooms Press | New York, NY | Current Catalog: www.threeroomspress.com

  Three Rooms Press books are distributed by PGW/Perseus: www.pgw.com

 

 

 


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