by Scott Savino
After breakfast, he took a minute do plan his day, finding himself at odd ends. Because Skye wanted to sleep undisturbed in the bedroom, Jarrick hadn’t been able to use the computer to get on the internet as usual. The cleaning day had been a good substitute, but today the pain was high and he wasn’t sure he could manage it again.
And dishes were piling up in the sink.
That was usually Skye’s chore. One of the harshest triggers of Jarrick’s chronic pain flares was standing in one place for any length of time, however he couldn’t stand the combination of trash sitting by the bin while dirty dishes took over the entire kitchen counter. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for even a single sink-load of dishes to go unwashed. Not when it meant less space for him to cook.
So Jarrick had a dilemma. He could push himself to pick a chore and suffer for it physically, or leave them all and suffer with the state of things, instead.
Jarrick attempted a compromise. He tried to squeeze his wheelchair into the kitchen, intending to sit and wash as many dishes as possible before the pain got too bad, but his wheel caught on one of the bags waiting to go down to the dumpster. It twisted and broke, spilling its contents across the floor, effectively trapping him.
It was such a small thing, such a tiny frustration, but it seemed so huge all of a sudden. He felt so worthless sitting there in his wheelchair—a pile of rotting food on one side and dirty dishes on the other—he couldn’t help but cry.
“Hey, Jarrick.”
Instead of being angry for the trash still sitting there, he could only feel calm relief wash over him. It was Madison’s voice, but Jarrick couldn’t see him when he turned to look.
“Mad, thank goodness. Skye’s still not feeling well and I could really use some help.”
Skye had been so very depressed, huddled up in bed for so long, and in that moment Jarrick suspected the worthlessness he felt about the trash and the dishes was really about something else entirely. As soon as he thought it, he knew it was true.
Maybe he felt worthless because he couldn’t help Skye through this rough patch. He and Skye were both so emotional, and that wasn’t a bad thing, but they would work each other up, sometimes building into something manic, sometimes sending each other spiraling down. It was a tough cycle to break out of.
Madison was their ballast.
“You can get through this. I know you can.”
“Can’t you just take the trash out, Mad?” Jarrick hated that he was almost whining, but it couldn’t be helped. At least he was getting the crying under control now that he’d heard Madison’s voice again.
He wiped his face until it was dry, then summoned enough energy to untangle the bag from his chair and back up out of the kitchen to start again, but he couldn’t get past the trash. Maybe something was trying to tell him today was not the day to push himself, because every time he tried to encourage his chair forward to reach the dishes it just made the mess worse.
He needed Madison.
Jarrick looked around the front room and down the hall. Madison’s bedroom door was open, but there was no sign of him. That was weird. Jarrick was sure he’d heard him. He’d responded to hearing him, so where was he?
Frustrated and tired, Jarrick laid himself on the couch. He wanted to curl up with Skye to talk about it, but also didn’t want to burden them. They were already dealing with so much. Instead, he stared at the television, ignoring the mess in the kitchen and the dining area as he let his YouTube subscriptions auto-play to try and catch up from a day of missing his computer time.
He could almost ignore the smell of rotting food. It wasn’t too bad yet.
At some point, the emotional exhaustion caught up to him and he woke from an unexpected nap. He narrowed his eyes at the YouTube video playing. One of his favorite personalities was on. They sometimes went over recent news articles and made jokes about them. The current piece was about a town not far from them that had apparently been completely destroyed by some freak weather and a series of other strange events, like a fire that had taken down half the buildings in town, and reports of flooded streets full of snakes, and crows attacking everything. It all seemed too strange to be real. Jarrick was certain it was being exaggerated for views, so he skipped to the next video on the list.
“There’s a darkness out there, Jarrick.”
“Madison?” Jarrick struggled to sit himself up, bracing against the arm of the couch to try and peer over the back toward the dining area. It had gotten dark while he had been napping and the light from the television was the only light in the entire apartment.
“You and Skye need to be strong against it, stronger than me, or it’ll swallow you up, too.”
“Madison, quit trying to freak me out,” Jarrick pulled himself up higher to see where the big guy was hiding. He had to be in the kitchen, even if the voice sounded like it was coming from his recliner.
Sometimes Madison enjoyed playing practical jokes like that. Skye was absolutely freaked out by horror and couldn’t stand to watch even the most mundane of horror movies during the day, even with the blinds open and all the lights on. Madison had learned to only try those sorts of jokes on Jarrick because it just wasn’t fun if his target wasn’t amused as well. He wasn’t a cruel man, quite the opposite. He was the most loving person Jarrick had ever met.
“You gotta be okay without me, Jarrick, come on. Work it out.”
“What the hell, Mad? Where are you? We talked about doing practical jokes that rely on my mobility!”
Jarrick huffed in frustration, the tears from earlier stinging his eyes again.
No, they had not been about the trash or the dishes.
“Who are you yelling at?” Skye shuffled out of the bedroom, a fleece blanket wrapped around their delicate shoulders and their blond hair looking more spiked and tousled than puffy from so many days in bed.
“Madison! He’s doing his practical joker shit and hiding out in the kitchen to freak me out.”
Skye stared at him. Then they slowly shuffled around the couch, crouching down so they were eye to eye. They ran their delicate little hand over his arm.
“Jarrick, love … Madison died last week. Something in the water got him when he went out with a group to search for people in need. Don’t you remember?”
A soft peel of thunder pulled Jarrick’s attention to the balcony window, and suddenly he became aware of the rain outside.
It had been raining for days.
The Last First Date of Bear Bloomfield
KIRBY KELLOGG
BEAR BLOOMFIELD WAS AT A disadvantage. A flush of heat had risen to her umber cheeks, though whether it was from embarrassment or intoxication she couldn’t tell as she leaned over the gap between two bar stools, trying to grapple her phone back from the thief she called her best friend. Niko clutched it like a prize, keeping it just out of reach while she taunted her.
“A bet’s a bet! Time to hook you up!”
“I’m fine,” Bear repeated for the umpteenth time as she stretched for the device, cursing herself for choosing to sit at the bar as she struggled not to topple her stool. “I haven’t even been on that stupid app in months. It’s probably flooded with straight girls and hipster couples by now. I’m fine.”
And she was fine, regardless everyone else’s opinions about her being just over thirty and terminally single. Her eighty-year-old mother said she must be lonely and tried to find her dates at Pride while motoring beside her on a scooter. Her sisters called her a mess, but they were both married to landscaper Southies with more pride than brain cells, so they had no room to talk. Her friends had settled on calling her a “perennial bachelor”. Most of them were other butches with tattoos and stable relationships, and at the very least Bear had to admit they weren’t wrong; she hadn’t had a real relationship since college.
Still. She was fine.
Niko made a quick “nuh-uh” sound in the back of her throat. “You made a bet and you lost.”
“I lose bets all the tim
e and you never say shit! How was I supposed to know Gail Simone wrote that many comics? I’m not a nerd like you,” Bear complained, allowing the slightest shadow of a grin to spread across her cheeks.
Niko grinned right back, lightly smacking Bear in the arm with her free hand. “You weren’t supposed to. Now you gotta pay the price.”
Bear put her head in her hands, resting both elbows on the bar. Dating had never done anything good for her. She had what her mother called a “broken-ladder streak”: she’d climb up to something good when she went on dates, but by the end of the night the girl would be too busy, too disinterested, or too unhealthy for Bear to go out with again. For the most part, she’d sworn off dating entirely and filled her days with work, cuddling her old bloodhound, Simone, and spending time with friends. But there were dips in that routine.
This was one of them.
Niko swiped through the app as Bear peeked between her fingers to watch. She should have known better than to accept the bet. Of course it had been a trap. But she’d been confident, acting through a haze of whiskey-fueled hubris while Niko and her wife, June, had been working in the industry for years. The last superhero movie Bear had seen was some Spiderman film she could barely remember. She had been doomed from the start.
Still, she’d taken the bet and lost it, and now she was facing her punishment. Niko was going to set her up on a date.
“I think I found you someone,” Niko grinned. She’d been one of Bear’s few dates to make it through the broken-ladder streak; a fellow stud and Bear’s best pal in the world. “Looks a little icy, but I’m sure you can handle her.” She handed the phone back to Bear. “Her name’s Chelsea.”
Chelsea, according to her profile, was a twenty-nine-year-old limo driver who loved jazz music, long walks at night, and “the fine art of avoiding eye contact”. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a nineteen fifties pin-up calendar in an immaculate powder blue swing dress, white cloak, and matching wide-brimmed hat. Golden pin curls spilled down her shoulders and glimmering green eyes looked sidelong into the camera. She smiled without showing her teeth.
Something in Bear’s heart kicked up like a scared animal.
“Huh. Pretty,” she said, playing it down. Niko snatched the phone back and a squawk of frustration rattled through Bear in protest. “Hey, gimme that!”
“In a second!”
Sure enough, the phone was returned in a second with the words “You’ve liked each other!” plastered across the screen.
“There. Now we’ll get a chance to see how you do with a new girl. If nothing else, it’ll get you out of the house for something other than dog-walking.”
Bear scoffed, but still checked her phone when the ding of a new message rang out. Ignoring Niko’s shit-eating grin, she read Chelsea’s message to herself. It wasn’t much. Just a quick “hello” and “I was just about to go to work, but can I message you tomorrow? BTW, love your tie.” Then a small string of multi-colored heart emojis.
Bear checked her own photo, almost laughing at the picture of herself as a bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding. The virulence of the baby pink tux had nearly made her gag at the time, but it had been a nice gesture. The black tie covered in starlings had helped.
She sent off a message of her own. Just an “ok” and a compliment on how good Chelsea’s dress looked. A stream of blue hearts followed from Chelsea and then there was no more.
“We’re gonna talk more tomorrow,” Bear said looking up to Niko, then glared. “Stop grinning like that! It’s gonna be nothing.”
“Just keep telling yourself that, genius,” Niko chuckled, looking up at the bar television. Her expression shifted as she shook her head. “Look at this shit,” she said, pointing up at the TV with disgust lacing her words. On the screen, an elderly news anchor talked about how another man, a “Trevor Langston”, had been found in his apartment drained of blood, his skull split in two and emptied. It was the fifth such death in as many months and the police were starting to call it the work of a serial killer.
“I remember that jackass,” Bear whispered, making sure no one could hear them.
“Same here,” Niko said, and raised her glass to no one. “Good riddance to bad apples.”
Trevor and his goons had come to Pride a few months prior with signs and bibles and voices screaming out across the road, competing with pumping anthems and the joy of so many. They’d been vultures and flown away when rushed, but then they’d perched around the fringes with hate in their eyes and ruined the whole vibe.
Bear didn’t respond to Niko, though, instead looking at her phone again and focusing on those little hearts. She went to sleep dreaming of them, and of the deep green eyes that had peered out at her from the phone screen.
It was a good night.
oOo
It was foolish to get too attached. Bear knew that. With her luck, she knew the chances were high she’d ruin the whole thing with the next word, or be left in the lurch on a whim. It had happened before and it could happen again. Normally she kept that adage in mind and let it guide her along through all the new dates and semi-attachments she made.
Somehow it was different with Chelsea.
Far from the ice queen Niko had judged her to be, Chelsea was a dream, more lamb than lion. She was meek and funny, choosing her words carefully and always brimming with compliments. She was a ray of sunshine and Bear wanted to bask in her light more and more each night they texted. She sensed the attraction coming from Chelsea too, through her kindness and her desire to learn just as much about Bear as Bear wanted to learn about her. Losing a little sleep each day was worth it so long as they could talk a little more.
Eventually, their texting evolved into phone calls. It was common for neighbors to hear them laughing and talking into the wee hours of the morning. Chelsea told her about her night job, about an interest in history and her small, spread out family, and Bear rambled about her friends and family—her “pack” as she called them—and the bond she shared with Simone, how they could understand each other perfectly.
It was clear they were both smitten. Everything was perfect.
Well, almost everything.
“Why can’t I visit you?” Bear had settled on the thin carpet of her living room floor as she crushed a heart health pill into a little container of peanut butter for Simone. It was the fourth time that month Chelsea had refused to let Bear visit her apartment and, while she understood, the butch was getting frustrated.
“The building’s getting fumigated. Bedbugs. You know how it is.” Chelsea laughed sheepishly.
Bear’s jaw set. “That was your excuse last month. Either you have some shitty exterminators or something’s off here.”
Silence.
“Look, I get it if you’re scared. I am too. I’ve never,” she paused, running a hand through her short chestnut hair and tracing her fingers over the newly sheared fade. “I’ve never been into a girl like I’m into you. But I’m willing to face that fear if you are. Just think about it, okay? I gotta go. Simone needs her medicine,” she sighed, deflecting before she could feel any more awkward. “Just think about it and let me know what you think. Have a good night, Chel.” With that, she clicked off the phone and whistled for her dog.
As Simone settled at the edge of the couch, licking the peanut butter from her chops as she devoured her medicinal treat, Bear watched the news.
The death count from the Boston Bloodletter had hit ten now, and looked like it was only rising. The killer, referred to as an “east coast Richard Chase”, was indiscriminate in his hunting grounds, but very specific about his victims. He (because the press insisted it had to be a man) only killed the worst of the right-wing flock. A circle of the same men who turned a blind eye to the killing of her own people cried that these murders constituted “genocide”. As the news switched to a fluff story about the upcoming full moon and the strange effects it carried, she changed the channel to a Friends re-run and got ready for bed.