Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by Anthology

  “Then why not do a better job?” the doc had asked. “Why try to hide the razor in plain sight? Why not have a better excuse for your injuries?”

  No planning, no follow-through. A cry for help. I sat there crying, hating myself for living and having to sit through this shit. Officious prick.

  When I started drinking and collecting DUIs, my probation officer asked me what alcohol was supposed to solve. She didn’t get it either. None of them did. None of them understood the one, single, basic fucking fact of it all. Alcohol wasn’t going to solve anything—it didn’t have to. It simply needed to help me feel like a goddamn human being. It needed to make the world bearable.

  But that was the one thing the world could never be again—bearable. Things only got worse. The bottom fell out of the whole place completely after the last market crash; a total downward spiral, and those of us with too little had even less. Displacement camps were set up for those who had their homes seized by the banks, or the police, who became increasingly aggressive in their stop-and-seize practices, even in the total absence of a crime, in an effort to prop up their local governments and demand additional funding.

  I poured off two more fingers of bourbon as the gunfire went from erratic to almost continuous. I’d have to find a new bottle soon, and I wasn’t even trying to get hammered. I needed to be clear-headed enough to pull the trigger.

  Rioting had become such a common practice, a backdrop of daily life, that it hardly even made the news anymore, unless there was a significant body count. The mention of rape hauled me back to the broadcast.

  “Reports coming out of a college in Madison, Wisconsin where a young woman is claiming to have been raped by the football team. We’ve obtained some photos from the party she was attending, and look at that,” the journalist said.

  He was young, his hair a black Brillo pad. The photo, blown up to focus on the girl in question, occupied the right side of the display.

  “You can see her holding a red cup, probably filled with booze, and wearing a midriff T-shirt and a miniskirt. I mean, what did she expect going there, to some frat-house sorority mixer like that?”

  “Beyond that,” the other reporter said, gesticulating with both hands, “it’s a football team, right? These guys need to blow off steam before the big game. Right? She shouldn’t have been dressing so provocatively.”

  “You know how it is,” Brillo Pad said, “These women want sex so badly, and if they’re not satisfied they call rape. That’s how they are. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Next time, ladies, be sure to cover up. Dress sensibly, this kind of stuff won’t happen to you.”

  Right, I thought, dress in layers, wear your entire wardrobe. That’ll stop ‘em.

  I hunted again for a way to shut this bullshit off, but it was impossible to escape the state-sponsored news.

  “This is a Christian country,” Brillo pad continued. “And if you’re a good Christian, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”

  “That’s right,” his co-host chimed in. “She needs Jesus. That’s the only man she needs to let inside her, not an entire football team.”

  “She’s a whore, that’s the bottom line. And we know what happens to women like her.”

  “Yeah, they end up standing on the street corner, expecting taxpayers to pay for their abortions.”

  I threw the crystal tumbler at the display. The broadcast rippled slightly as the glass passed through and shattered against the wall. Still they prattled on, their poison inescapable. “Fuck you!” I screamed, my heart racing. I wanted to turn this off, to shut them out, to be rid of them. Alone in this room, and I still couldn’t even get rid of these two men and their twisted ideals. Why couldn’t I be alone? Why?

  The newsman brought on a rotating gallery of talking head politicos, all of them men. The Wisconsin state rep reminded viewers that rape was God’s gift to women.

  “If this cheerleader,” the rep said, “gets pregnant, then, you know, that’s a gift. This gift of human life. God knows all of it, from beginning to end. He has a plan for each of us, and, look, you know that life begins at conception. A beautiful new life could come from this ugliness, and that’s just a gift from God. It’s a wonderful thing, really.”

  I twisted to the wooden box and opened it. The long barrel of the revolver shone beneath the lights. I could do this. I could do this right now and blot out all their voices.

  But no, I couldn’t. Not yet.

  I inhaled deeply and shut my eyes against the tears, forcing myself to listen to the gunshots and maimed screaming from outside, focusing on the distant noise instead of the sadistic, filthy machismo pouring from the display. I wished their voices weren’t so loud. A little while longer, I told myself. I can do this.

  The building shook, the concussive throb of explosions outside dulled by distance and the thickness of the studio. The talking heads appeared oblivious to the troubles rising outside their windows. They were either used to ignoring it, or had their heads so far up each other’s asses that the plight of the people made no difference to either of them.

  I ignored the tiny voice in my head warning me to stop and rifled back two more fingers of bourbon, finishing the bottle while the room spun and vibrated. I held on to the bar’s edge as I looped around back to the shelves of liquors.

  There were no mirrors in the room, and I studied my distorted reflection in the line-up of booze, my face curling around the curved edges of thick glass, bright in the overhead recessed lighting. I was wobbly, but cognizant enough to chide myself for being a stupid drunk. I counted the bottles and found twenty-eight more reasons to die, not including the gin.

  Christ, I was pathetic.

  Stevens popped his head in the door, again troubling neither of us with so much as a knock. “Five minutes,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said, the word thick and palsied as it slurred on my tongue. “S’great.”

  I saw his eyes land on the empty bottle behind me, the weight of silent judgment in them as I took down a bottle of Balvenie. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to.

  “Oh, fuck yourself,” I said, nearly falling over. He was a fucking hypocrite.

  I grabbed the empty and threw it toward him, but missed by a mile as it glanced off the cabinet door in front of me and dropped to the ground. I nearly fell over. Could barely stand. Couldn’t even aim straight. Two more things to add to the list of things ‘Cara Stone sucks ass’ at. Already a long, long list of failures, with decades of recriminations behind each single fucking one of them.

  When I finally felt solid enough to stand, I saw Stevens was gone. Good. Fuck him. I didn’t need him. Who the fuck was he anyway? Asshole.

  I took small steps back to the plush bar stool, nudging the empty bottle gingerly with my toe to push it out of the way. Why didn’t the stool have a back, at least? I was going to fall over. I propped myself up on top it, using the Balvenie on the end table as support to keep myself upright. Why was everything so spinny and tilt-a-whirl? My eyes were heavy.

  “Stay with Sean and I,” Brillo Pad said, “as we return with a new episode of Revolver. First up, though, a word from our sponsors.”

  The two men were replaced with another man, this one dressed in combat fatigues and carrying an assault rifle in one hand, and a large wooden cross in the other. A number of other men stood behind him, each armed with a variety of guns, rocket launchers, bazookas, and knives. I wasn’t focused enough to listen to the rambling Sovereign Citizen recruitment speech, and the world dimmed as I tuned the speaker out.

  “Miss? Hello?”

  I opened my eyes to Brillo Pad’s smirking gaze. I’d hate to wake up to his condescending bullshit on a regular basis. Shit. Did I pass out? A hand squeezed roughly at my left breast, pinching the nipple through the blouse. I shoved the hand away and shot daggers at Stevens. Fucking pervert.

  “Hello, hello, hello?”

  “Oh. Hey,” I said, lamely. My tongue felt fuzzy. I wanted to sleep. I made a show of smili
ng, feeling absolutely none of it.

  “Two minutes in, and you’re already a drunk skunk. That’s gotta be a new record, hey, Sean?”

  “I think so, Brian. But, you know, women don’t have the fortitude for this kind of fundraising. Men are able to muscle through it pretty well, but the ladies get too emotional to stay clearheaded. I’m not surprised by her inability to stay sober.”

  “Can you hear us OK, Miss Stone?”

  “You two are assholes, you know that?”

  “Wow, language,” Brillo Pad Brian said. “You wouldn’t talk to Jesus that way, now would you?”

  “I’m sure it’s that time of month,” Sean added, giving a sage nod and a smirk to the camera. A real yuckster.

  Stevens was standing beside me, and the weight of his unforgiving stare bored into me. How many times had I seen that disappointed expression on others?

  I stared at the scars on my wrist as I set the empty tumbler aside, trying to screw up some courage for this. I wanted to get it over with, go right to the ‘bang bang, goodnight’ part of the show. I felt so small under their stares and wanted to curl up and bring an end to it all. I hated myself for being so pathetic, but was somewhat relieved that I could still at least have enough control to finish myself off. There would be peace at the end of all this, finally.

  “OK, so,” Sean said, “let’s talk money. Something I know women can never get enough of. You’re here to raise five thousand dollars for your family, is that right?”

  “That’s right,” I said, keeping my answers short.

  “You’ve come to the right place, then. Revolver is all about helping the unfortunate. Our corporate sponsors, the Kay brothers, Johnnie and Donnie Kay, have matched your fundraising goal as they always do. Your five thousand is guaranteed. What we’re going to do tonight is see how much more money we can earn your family, and help get a few more folks out of the breadlines tonight. The Kay brothers recognize how much of an enemy poverty is to society, what a blight it is on this country, and they’re working to eliminate it one person at a time. Tonight, Miss Cara Stone, their war against poverty begins with you!”

  I could hear canned applause through the piped-in speakers surrounding me. The clamor made my head thrum painfully. The noise of slapping hands gave way to the muffled roars of explosions, and I smelled a too-close chemical stench. I dimly wondered if the factory town on the city’s outskirts was burning, and how close those flames might come to us.

  “What’s happening outside?” I asked.

  My question seemed to have taken Brillo Pad off guard, and he flashed an arrogant smirk at the camera. “Nothing you need to worry about. You’re surrounded by an awful lot of strong menfolk, and our building’s security team is top notch. We’ll keep you safe.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, then noticed the small green light on the lavaliere wink out. I spoke anyway, asking, again, “What’s happening out there, though? Shouldn’t you be reporting on this?”

  “You’re off-air, Miss Stone,” Stevens said, as if I were brain dead. Shit, maybe I was. And even if I were, he still had no right to look at me like that, as if he was so goddamn patronly and concerned for me—the kind of concern that was wrapped in a haughty sense of superiority.

  “What’s going on out there?” I waved an arm toward the far wall. “And you keep your fucking hands off me, you hear me?”

  He shrugged, clearly bored. “The usual riots. Soup kitchen ran out; too many mouths and not enough food. Entitled fucks decided to start something, and now we gotta put them down. Nothing you need to worry about.” He patted the pistol under his arm to emphasize the point. “They’ll calm down once the show gets into the swing of things,” he said.

  I thought of the massive jumbotron in the city’s center square, and the metal bleachers lining the courtyard around it. My mug would be blasted large over the park grounds, while people gathered to watch and warm their hands around their bowl of hot food.

  “People like you,” he pointed at me, then flapped his hand in the general direction of the building’s north end, toward the park, “nothing you all love more than free handouts and cheap entertainment.”

  Something to the left of me gurgled and gave off a steamy belch. The scent of coffee perfumed the air, and I noticed the maker in its final stages of brewing.

  Stevens grabbed the bottle of Balvenie and poured two cups of coffee, black. He set one on the table for me, and then left the room without another word. The door closed on a trail of hot steam.

  The pretty pictures blanketing the other two holodisplay feeds dissolved into a stream of ranting vitriol. The Revolver social media stream. I read the comments with a glazed detachment, as if I were studying a train wreck.

  Icons sat beside the vulgar text of supposed men hiding behind usernames that were rife with sexual innuendo, swear words, or obscure movie references. Most of the users’ icons were cartoon images or video game stills; a rare few were actually vain or brave enough to slap their face beside words they should not have been proud of.

  One user hid behind the façade of a cartoon mouse and wrote:

  Rape the bitch to death! #Revolver

  Another:

  Ugly bitch. She look like a homeless skank.

  #Revolver best thing to ever happen to her.

  And:

  Fat ass #Revolver deserve to die tonight.

  Get her fat ass outta breadline.

  Leave the crumbs for somebody else!

  Not to leave out this gem:

  She gonna suck dat #Revolver wishin it was ma dick.

  #DieStupidBitches #KillAllDaBitches

  The coffee was too hot and too bitter to enjoy. It went well with the stream of ugly consciousness scrolling across the display. Very briefly, I thought about spiking the coffee, but knew that I needed to be alert. The demons were running rampant, inside and outside my skull, and no matter how badly I wanted to stay drunk, I knew that I needed to sober up. Last thing I needed was Stevens’s big, ugly hand tweaking my nipples again.

  A dulled whoompf! rattled the bottles over the bar. Plaster dust fluttered down through the beam of recessed lighting. The holodisplays and lights flickered briefly before regaining full strength. I was missing a hell of a show, apparently. Had to be better than this state-run filth.

  I opened up the walnut box that held the revolver and hefted the gun’s weight again. I couldn’t deny the sense of power it imbued me with, even as I doubted my ability to follow through. My final moments would be coming up soon and I wanted to be clear-headed.

  I can do this.

  But, could I really? The artefacts on my wrist said otherwise. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. All I needed to do was put the gun to my head and pull the trigger. Not that difficult. Barely any thought required at all. Then, I would be good and truly free. I could escape. That was all I really wanted, and how I went about achieving that didn’t matter. I was in control, and I could do this. The news hosts, the hashtaggers, the rape-loving politicians, Stevens, all of them—they didn’t matter. They could try to degrade me and strip me of my worth and individuality. I didn’t care about them. I was in charge of my fate, and this was my choice.

  I cradled the gun in my lap, holding tightly to its grip, steeling my nerves with the weapon’s utter indifference. Then the left-most holodisplay snapped and flung a new face into place, and it felt like a rivet gun was firing into my belly and twisting my intestines in a vice.

  “Dad?” I said, noticing the tiny green light splashed against the white fabric above my breast as I looked down. Live and on-air now.

  Through the watery haze of the standing puddle that formed against my eyes, I saw an extra fifty dollars had accumulated on the tally display. Five thousand and fifty dollars, my life’s worth.

  “You don’t have to do this, sweetie,” he said, imploring me. His bottom lip quivered, making the loose skin beneath his chin shake. I had the same eyes as him, and I saw the same watery gaze reflected in his, both of us h
olding back tears at the sudden reunion.

  I’d expected this. Known it was coming, that it was part of the Revolver gimmick. Still, it took the wind right out of my sails and shook me to my core. I’d tried to prepare myself emotionally, tried to lock away all the feels, but my stomach still quivered with butterflies and my heart raced. My throat burned as I choked back the sobs. I hadn’t seen my father in ten years, and now this.

  He was here to watch his little girl blow her brains out on state TV. How could I not cry? How could I not hate myself?

  “Mr. Stone,” Brillo Pad said, “thank you for being here tonight for your daughter. Is there anything you want to say to her?”