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The You You’ve Wanted to Become

By Sarah Layden

Michael went straight from work to the Japanese restaurant on Midland. He needed a beer and especially craved a Sapporo, mainly because of the way he felt while drinking it: imperial, worldly, affluent. He wasn’t any of these things, but sometimes the beer could convince him otherwise.

The place had this vegetable tempura that was so crispy, it was almost like eating one of the fried delicacies at the New York State Fair. But the restaurant was ten times classier: red leather booths and black velvet drapes, with mostly suits filling the bar seats and small tables. He’d been to this restaurant with Angie before. They’d gone two, maybe three times in the year-and-a-half they were together. Sat at the bar, where Michael was now, and another time at a table by the window with the view of 18th Street.

He’d been thinking of her again. They had not spoken in the two years since she dumped him. People often described out-of-the-blue breakups as unceremonious, but Angie brought ceremony to all she did. She was a drama queen. Star of her high school productions of A Streetcar Named Desire (Blanche Dubois) and The Sound of Music (Leisl), an elaborate funeral arranger for the dead goldfish he’d won her at the fair. (A game he’d only played, sheepishly, shamefully, as a consolation after he refused to be goaded by the carnival barker – or Angie – to hit the sledgehammer target to win a prize. “You never want to do anything that scares you. You never want to do anything fun. Chicken.” Even as she bared her slightly crooked teeth in a smile, Michael could feel the edge and the truth of her words.)

The bartender brought Michael his beer, placing it carefully on a square cardboard coaster. His gold bracelet clinked against his watch as he moved. He was the only white employee in the restaurant, and around Michael’s age – early thirties, though he was tanned and his blond hair was spiked into surfer swells. Michael’s own brown hair was shiny and fine and fell against his pasty forehead and into his eyes when he went too long between haircuts, as he usually did.

“This is the stuff,” the bartender said. “A good beer after a hard day’s work.”

Michael nodded mutely. Work was a mess, but the beer went down smoothly all the same. He was behind on his drafting for the Humboldt project, a series of proposed downtown buildings he was supposed to be sketching. He was behind because he’d spent several hours of each recent day searching for Angie on the Internet. It was nearly spring, and she had dumped him in the spring. He always thought of her when the ground began to thaw. Then, this morning on the drive to work, the radio spat out “Angie,” the Rolling Stones song that had plagued him for the last three years. He did not change the channel.

At work he performed his usual routine: fight for parking (keep temper in check), hang coat and settle in at desk (turn on computer, lamp, glance at calendar), pour break room coffee in chipped Denver Broncos mug (black, one sugar).

Before beginning any actual work, he checked his e-mail and launched the same unsuccessful Internet search he did every couple weeks: “Angie Cabriola.” Sometimes he’d add a few keywords to the search: Utica (where he’d heard she’d moved), or the names of various department stores – Kaufmann’s, Filene’s, Lord and Taylor – where he imagined she’d gotten a job behind the cosmetics counter.

Today his boss had come up behind him as he typed Angie’s name into yet another search engine. Arnold Ritter was a good supervisor, more or less: agreeable, fair, usually upbeat. But one thing he hated more than anything at his architecture firm was employees who slacked.

“How’s the Humboldt project?” Arnold asked quietly. He wouldn’t outright embarrass you for not doing your job, at least not at first. He’d be quiet about it, disappointed, which in some ways felt worse than being reamed.

Michael had quickly clicked on the screen intending to minimize the window. Instead he launched the search.

“No results found. Did you mean Angie and Cabriolet?” the computer asked. It offered a link to the Volkswagen website. Fan sites for Angie Dickinson and Angelina Jolie. Buy the music of the goddamn Rolling Stones. Finally Michael succeeded in closing the window, revealing a blank white screen where his project drafts should have been. He blushed hotly.

“I’ve got some hand-drawn sketches at home,” Michael lied. “I’m still getting a feel for the buildings.”

Arnold looked at him for a long time. Months ago, he had asked Michael to apply for a senior drafting position that had opened up. More responsibility such as supervisory duties, plus higher pay. Probably, Michael surmised, longer hours. Changes. When Michael shrugged and said, ‘No thanks,’ Arnold’s face clearly showed that he hadn’t understood. Now he wore the same perplexed expression. Finally he sighed and ran a hand through his silver hair.

“OK,” he said. “Just remember the deadline’s next week. Maybe you should get over to the site again. Today. Take off a little early.”

“Great idea,” Michael said. “I’ll do that.”

Freed from his desk by 5 p.m., a rarity these days, energy gurgled in Michael’s blood for the first time in many months. Even though it was still chilly enough for a jacket, the weather signaled a coming out of hibernation. The ice was melting and beginning to drip in a way that was almost musical. On his way to the Humboldt site, he passed the Japanese restaurant on Midland and had decided to go inside.

“Another beer?” The bartender now pointed at the empty bottle on the bar. Michael hadn’t realized he was drinking so quickly.

“Sure,” he replied. “Why not? And the tempura, too.”

The sudden sound of an amplifier screech spilt his ears, and the room winced. The young executive type a few seats down the bar did not react. He raised his half-empty glass an inch or two off the bar to signal for another. Michael recognized him from his building; they didn’t work in the same office.

“Sorry, sorry,” said the man on the small stage at the end of the dining room. Although the room itself was dressed in red velvet, from carpet to upholstery, the stage was a small black riser against a black curtain.

The man was Japanese and dressed in the immaculate white uniform of the other restaurant employees. He fiddled with the microphone.

“And now,” he boomed in an Ed McMahon baritone, “presenting Mr. Steve!” Mr. Steve bounded onto the stage, wearing black pants and a black jacket with red velvet lapels. He blended into the wall, save for those lapels. Those blended into the carpet and banquettes.

“Do you know what time it is?” Mr. Steve asked, drawing out the suspense. He flipped a switch on the machine next to the stage, and an instrumental version of “Coward of the County” began. It seemed every patron besides Michael began clapping rhythmically. The only thing Mr. Steve appeared to have in common with Kenny Rogers was that they were both white men. Mr. Steve was younger, slight, and clean-shaven, with mussed black hair. But somehow, as he swaggered around the mike stand, he seemed believable.

“It’s karaoke time!” Mr. Steve said. He launched into the country hit. The crowd responded with cheers.

“God,” Michael muttered.

read the rest of The You You’ve Wanted to Become

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An interview with Sarah Layden

Sarah Layden’s fiction appears or is forthcoming in Artful Dodge, Contrary, Vestal Review, and 42opus, and her poems can be found in Tipton Poetry Journal. Her MFA in fiction comes from Purdue University, where she served as nonfiction editor of the award-winning journal Sycamore Review. She previously worked as a newspaper reporter in Syracuse, N.Y., and currently teaches creative writing and composition at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Marian College.

Q: What inspired “The You You’ve Wanted to Become”? Do you draw from lived experience in order to find plots for your fictions, or are the circumstances in your story wholly imaginary?

A: I would say the plots I write are almost entirely imaginary. There’s always a grain of reality somewhere, a starting point, but it may have little or nothing to do with what the story turns into. When I’m developing a setting or characters or dialogue, I use much of what I observe in daily life. I’m one of those people who jots stuff on the backs of envelopes or in tiny notebooks - details, images, other people’s conversations. (This might make people want to think twice about sitting next to me on a bus. It’s OK to change seats.) The rest is life I wish I’d observed, even if it isn’t pretty to look at.
This story evolved from a small idea: how people perform covert, repetitive personal tasks on the company dime, while rationalizing these stealth operations as a form of activity. “If I look busy, others will think I’m busy.” Before long, Slacker Bob believes fully in his busyness.

Q: The direct way you engaged the problem of Michael’s passivity was what made the story work for me. To what extent was your decision to tackle the problem of passivity a political choice

A: Thanks. I’m glad you thought it worked. People often forget that passivity is a choice. The decision not to make a decision. The act of refusing to act. A character like Michael, he’s strolling along, thinking he’s taking care of life, when really he’s circling around himself.
This is a recurring topic for me, though I usually don’t realize what I’m doing until revision. I didn’t consciously choose to make a statement about passivity, but once I saw it existed on the page, I tried to sharpen and draw out that element.

Q: The passivity in your story reminded me of a quote from the Paris strikes in 1968, a slogan written in spray paint on a cobblestone barricade: “In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.” What do you make of that? What do you think Michael would make of it?

A: What a great image and quote. Michael strikes me as the kind of guy who thinks he wants a change, solutions to problems he hasn’t been able to solve on his own, but he also wants comfort and stasis. That’s part of his personal push and pull. Like anybody, he makes a few wrong turns. His navigation skills aren’t the sharpest.
Sometimes you have to shake the compass before it points in the right direction.

Q: Back to the story and where it came from. Do you like Sapporo? Sushi? Karaoke?

A: Very much. No. Yes. But it’s probably not a good idea to mix the three.
There’s something so heartbreakingly real and true about karaoke, which is basically the art of faking. The performers, by and large, are a bunch of amateurs, and they’re so vulnerable. Personally, I’ve learned that the greatest respect I can show a beloved song is to refrain from singing it in public.

Q: Have you ever skipped too far ahead in a healing arc?

A: Ha! Sure. I wish such a thing existed. In my mind, it’s color-coded. Of course, there are versions of “healing arcs,” called by other names and marketed to the general public through infomercials, spam, and self-help books.
American culture is obsessed with becoming well, yet we have little patience for healing. We buy into a superficial brand of healthy. Or maybe it’s just human instinct: I feel bad, and I would like to feel better. Pronto.

Q: What is it that you should do that scares you?

A: Good question. I don’t think any of the things that scare me are things I actually should do. I would’ve made a lousy contestant on “Fear Factor” – you know, wearing a vest made of tarantulas, or whatever.

Q: You sure about that? The things that you’re scared of doing are all things you shouldn’t do?

A: “Shouldn’t” is a tricky word.
Maybe my upbringing and my imagination are at odds, and fiction serves as the natural intersection point. The page can be a place to address what’s feared in a relatively safe way…not just what’s feared, but desired. Or how you wish the world were different.
Writing is one of the riskiest endeavors I know, even if it can be done in pajamas while drinking coffee. And sending that work out into the ether, giving up your words for others to read and interpret – that’s scary.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I just started looking for an agent for my novel, and to distract myself from that process, I returned to a young adult novel I began a few years ago. Hopefully I’ll finish a draft and start revising in the next couple months, and then work on more short stories. I have a few ideas I’m excited about. Until I sit down to write, I’ll be taking notes. Just a heads-up in case we’re ever on a bus together.

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THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS: STEVE ALLEN

by Jeff Wikstrom

Answer TRUE or FALSE.

1. Steve Allen was born on 26 December 1921, to Rob and Laura Allen,
of Losdelos PA.

TRUE. Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen grew up in the bosom of
suburban Pennsylvania, a stone’s throw from Independence Hall. On his
twelfth birthday his mother took him on a tour of Philadelphia’s
historic sites, and lost him, only to find him six hours later
discussing fine points of legal theory with the faculty of the
University of Pennsylvania Law School. The scholars expressed
amazement and wonder at the child’s depth of understanding and
perception.

2. Steve Allen invented Morse Code.

FALSE. Samuel Morse invented Morse Code. Steve Allen, however, did
travel back in time and send the first message in Morse Code. The
message, received by E. L. Quipp of San Francisco, CA, was a recipe
for “Gizmo Duck,” a dish consisting of a stuffed duck served on a bed
of rice, herbs, and certain specially-prepared citrus fruits. Gizmo
Duck, and cold Gizmo Duck sandwiches at lunchtime, became the
signature dish of Quipp’s Kitchen, one of the earliest successful
eateries of the Twentieth Century. Steve Allen has been credited with
the invention of the cold duck sandwich.

3. Steve Allen wrote the Star-Spangled Banner.

TRUE. During the aforementioned time-travel adventure, Steve Allen
stopped off in the boyhood home of Francis Scott Key, and left a
message with his mother. That message was the lyrics to the
Star-Spangled Banner, along with notes on its arrangement.

4. Steve Allen discovered Pluto.

FALSE. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, in the spring of 1930.
At this time Steve Allen was only nine years old. However, during a
summer internship at the Very Large Array in 1951, Steve Allen and his
collaborator Joey-Bob Kuiper discovered the Allen-Kuiper Belt, more
popularly known simply as the Kuiper Belt. Steve Allen also discovered
the van Allen belt.

5. Steve Allen invented conversation.

AMBIGUOUS. Steve Allen invented the talk-show format of monologue,
banter with bandleader/sidekick, sketches, and musical or celebrity
guests. Many comparative historians believe that this development so
altered the nature of discourse that “conversations” held prior to
Steve Allen’s achievements would be unrecognizable as such to modern
audiences.

6. Steve Allen wrote the Bible.

FALSE. Though _Steve Allen’s Guide to the Bible_ is now in its
fifty-eighth consecutive printing and has in many congregations
overtaken the Bible itself in popularity, the two works are not
technically equivalent.

7. Steve Allen liberated France from the Nazis.

FALSE. Despite the heroic efforts of Steve Allen, Charles de Gaulle,
and Edward R. Murrow, France remains under the iron boot of the Third
Reich.

8. Steve Allen was the first person to walk on the Moon.

TRUE. Steve Allen visited the Moon on 1 April, 1964, as part of a very
complicated April Fool’s Day prank involving a Moon rock, three
monkeys, a pair of matched throwing knives, and a tub of lard. The
prankee, Jack “King” Kirby, was so impressed by the stunt he later
created the character Mister Miracle in homage to Steve Allen.

9. Steve Allen was the fifth Beatle.

FALSE. Steve Allen was actually the second Beatle.

10. Steve Allen once beat Johnny Cash arm-wrestling.

TRUE. The late Johnny Cash, World Arm-Wrestling Federation (WAWF)
Champion in the 1961 season, lost his title to Steve Allen at the
finals in Winnipeg. “It’s an honor to lose,” Cash reportedly said of
the bout. “He just wants it more.”

11. Steve Allen died for our sins.

FALSE. Steve Allen did not die, but has been removed from the general
population by the forces of darkness. In our time of greatest need, he
will return and lead us into our finest hour.

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Words of Mass Destruction

by Jeffrey Selin

I am a word terrorist. I create fear in the hearts of select demographic groups. I have the power to force a reaction from one-to-five percent of any population. My weapons are words, and since you’re reading this you will eventually find yourself in my percentile group of respondents. Without even knowing it, you’ll bite. Then, we will watch you. We will track you. You will be: In Our System. You are reading this; I already own you.
However, the words spreading across the page are not mine, or at least I don’t own them. I’m typing this on a computer that’s not mine from the cubicle where I work. The words belong to the company. I consented. My signature is on a form they keep on file along with the results of my mandatory drug test.
At any moment, my superiors can view what I am typing. Every word. As I keystroke it. Even if I delete it. They can browse each link that I have covertly visited to check email, to shop, to bank. Every password is now their password.
My salary is predicated upon my ability to make you do things, and enough of the time you do as you’re told. Just look around. Read the fine print. I am in your kitchen, your bathroom, your bedroom. I know your secrets. I know when you shop, get a raise, catch a disease, invest, have a child, move, borrow money, miss a payment, purchase a home, switch careers, join a club, subscribe to a publication, retire, vacation, or grieve when a relative dies—all in aggregate data form. Online, from your home computer, I know everything that you do, every link, unfinished form, viewed post.
If I am lucky, you purchase items with a credit card or you use a grocery store membership card to receive your savings. As fast as these plastic wallet cards go swipe, data on your purchasing decisions are collected, collated, compared, analyzed. I know when you purchase underwear and the type of music you prefer. We use your data to fine tune our words to further persuade and ensnare you and your demographic. The system has been escalating since 1992, accruing massive amounts of information.
I now know things about you that you do not know. I know, for instance, that you claim not to want X and say that you prefer Y, but that 20 percent of the time when we send you X on a particular day, with a specific package dispensing certain messages, you take action. And because X presents vertical opportunities, we inform our network. Soon you also will be purchasing E, F, and G.
None of this bothers you right now, but we have an extended timeline in mind. We will know and influence your children and grandchildren. If it starts to bother you, just remember that while there are solutions, thing you can do about it, the sacrifices would be too much for you to bear. You could find yourself a shack in Montana, live off-the-grid, chop wood. You could, bit by bit, separate yourself. You could make a systematic exit from the system. Allow the lapse of your subscriptions. Do not use a bank. Be a cash only outlet or barter for goods. Assume an alias. Neither apply for a membership nor join a club. Become self-employed. Leap beyond the eighth-grade education for which we target in the mainstream US populous. May I recommend alternative destinations to any of the mega cities, jungles, or farmland regions of Nigeria, Brazil, India, or China? To date, the residents in these regions are more challenging to track with precision.
You can see how difficult it would be. You can accuse me, a word terrorist, of supplying fear-based information, but you can feel the truth of what I’m saying. The fear isn’t really coming from me, it’s inside you. It’s just too hard, and that’s not surprising. Why should this be any different than anything else?
So relax. Do nothing, or better yet follow these instructions.
If you follow these instructions you can anticipate the arrival of products E, F and G in four to six business days.

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Terrible Lizards

by Rachel Swirsky

I wish a Giganotosaur would hunt cows in the corn fields.
Imagine her: tall as the silos, long as the mechanical serpents
of the industrial sprinklers, skull the length of grandma’s
lion-footed bathtub that we replaced with fiberglass last winter.

My niece would gasp at the kitchen window:
“Papa! Come look – Something’s in the corn!”
Suspecting an attempt to escape chores, my brother starts a rebuke
until he glimpses the gleam of teeth long as his forearm.

We scramble down to the reservoir, only to find
a bone-ridged eye peering out of the water: a sea serpent
resplendent with crocodile grin. Glaring indifference, the Mosasaur
snaps a flock of geese down into enormous, reptilian jaws.

Overhead, the wingspan of a Quetzalcoatlus blocks a passing jet
smaller pterodactyls trailing like ducklings in his wake
waiting to scavenge his prey’s bloody remnants.
We cower in his vast shadow, prehistoric calls filling the air

with caws & roars & bellows harmonizing to an ancient melody
we recognize in our deepest, primitive DNA
where we remain scrawny rodents, trembling in vulnerable burrows
hoping to escape the notice of earth’s colossal rulers.

Humans evolved too late to experience predators
that could crush us swiftly & heedlessly, without reprisal.
Would a Tyrannosaur stalking the strip mall parking lot
or batting a trailer across the highway like a child’s toy

remind us just how small we are:
tiny creatures on a tiny planet orbiting a tiny sun
wrestling with a fragile & fleeting existence,
easily snuffed by claw, tooth, or footstep?

If these giants roamed our skyscrapers & factory farms
instead of slumbering beneath the soil,
would we discard the alluring mirages of instant gratification
built from the liquefaction of their ancient bones?

Could we learn instead to spend our brief, earthly hours
seeking plentiful & renewable oases?

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A Mouth is A Hole is A Vista: Observing Jeremy Anderson

by John Shumate

The Andersons spent spring break ogling breathtaking vistas at the Columbia River Gorge. On the fifth day of ogling, little Jeremy swallowed a breathtaking vista. Nothing ogle-worthy remained. A few scraps of bark and the occasional puddle. This embarrassed Mr. Anderson.
“Spit that out right this minute,” he said, slapping the back of his son’s head. Angry tourists and their guides surrounded the Andersons, their cameras threatening to become bludgeoning weapons.
“I can’t,” said little Jeremy, “I’m all blocked up with serene beauty.” His breath smelled of waterfalls.
This only angered Mr. Anderson more. He was a practical man; tucked in, belted, combed over. He wasn’t a fan of flowery language, and he certainly wasn’t about to apply it to his son, who, with his mangled teeth and horse nose, had somehow bypassed the Law of Universal Cuteness in children his age. “Listen to what I tell you,” Mr. Anderson said.
“Listen to what your father tells you,” Mrs. Anderson said.
“Listen to what your parents tell you,” the angry tourists said.
The boy belched pine needles.
A shortish man in khakis approached the Andersons. “As a representative of the Columbia River Gorge Breathtaking Vista Conservation Society,” he said, “I am obliged to take your son into custody until such a time as he relinquishes possession of said breathtaking vista. These folks have come from all corners of the world to ogle this particular breathtaking vista. Our economy depends upon such ogling.”
Mr. Anderson grabbed his son and thrust him into the air, treating him like a wiggling, confused, ugly human shield. “Step back or the kid eats the gift shop!”
A few tourists fainted. The representative of the Columbia River Gorge Breathtaking Vista Conservation Society screamed.
“Let him gobble it up,” said the gift shop manager, a moled woman with a lunch lady physique. “Who wants to buy tee shirts and key chains and velvet paintings depicting a breathtaking vista that doesn’t exist?” Half the tourists thrashed into their oversized plastic shopping bags, hunting for receipts.
The representative of the Columbia River Gorge Breathtaking Vista Conservation Society took a few steps toward the Andersons, who were backing away with their hostage breathtaking vista child. “Can’t we reason this out?”
“What’s to reason?” asked Mr. Anderson. “Don’t think I’m not tanning his hide when we get home.”
“Can I take a look at him?”
“He’s hardly breathtaking.” Mr. Anderson shoved his kid forward.
“Open your mouth there, boy.”
Jeremy looked back at his dad.
“Do as the nice man says, Jeremy,” said Mrs. Anderson.
Jeremy did as the nice man said. The representative of the Columbia River Gorge Breathtaking Vista Conservation Society stuck a finger in the boy’s mouth and peeked inside: the hawks were circling over the ancient trees, breathtakingly. “It’s all there,” he said. “A nice place to visit, a better place to bring home in the form of tee shirts, key chains, and velvet paintings. Take a look everyone, and don’t forget your cameras. Single file!”
The tourists shrugged and lined up in front of the boy. An old couple on their second honeymoon was first—they took turns stretching Jeremy’s mouth and pointing at the nature down his throat.
“Ma,” mumbled Jeremy, “I sick. Don’ like dis.”
“Shut up,” said the tourist. “My wife can’t see the mountains.”
Mr. Anderson went off to the side and whispered with the representative of the Columbia River Gorge Breathtaking Vista Conservation Society. They returned in seconds, holding hands.
“Five dollars per view!” they said.
“Oh, I’m so proud of him!” Mrs. Anderson said, holding a tourist’s toddler up to peep inside her son.
Mr. Anderson sat in a foldout chair beside Jeremy, patting the boy’s arm and weeping. The line went around the corner of the gift shop, which now sold tee shirts and key chains and velvet paintings depicting Jeremy’s mouth depicting a breathtaking vista.
“Isn’t he wonderful?” said Mr. Anderson between sobs. Another five dollar bill joined the others on his lap.
“Quite the wonderful spectacle indeed,” beamed the representative of the Columbia River Gorge Breathtaking Vista Conservation Society.
“Isn’t he as precious as a dewy morning?” said Mr. Anderson.
“Dewey! Yes, that’s it exactly!” said the gift shop manager.
“As the golden rays at sunrise?”
“I can see the rays, Mommy!” said a tourist child.
“As rose petals dripping with a fresh spring rain?”
Mrs. Anderson nodded, welcomed the next tourist in line.
“He’s scenic!”
“Scenic!” Echoed the tourists, cameras clicking.
“He’s serene!”
“Serene!”
A deer hoof wiggled out of Jeremy’s mouth. Mr. Anderson shoved it back in with a plunger.