John Kearns ~ Abby Sheaffer

Deux Contes Trois

 

John Kearns

Financial District Pass-Through

 

— Take a left here to head to the Seaport. 

 

Laura made a hasty left onto John Street. 

 

On the big board, there are indications that multiple investors are tendering offers of large tips, jokes, rounds of shots, tattoos, jobs, pretending to like to dance, muscles, stories about the guys from Metallica as kids, gold watches, musicianship, tours around Tribeca, having a couple of poems published, niceness, reflexive kindness, and generosity all to lure one particular buyer who is long on looks but could be rolling the hedge forward for some delivery date more advantageous to her.  Investors are shorting their assets to obtain a long position but remain uncertain about how much liquor and impressiveness it will take to become an insider for a session of vigorous trading — a highly sought-after opportunity on the Murray Street exchange.  And the bids keep going up, up, up, up, up!

 

Paul met Laura on Friday the 13th.  She’d been wearing that same rainbow-colored tie-dye with the heart in the center of its chest.  Too much to be believed, he knew, but there it had been: a colorburst heart dyed into cotton, her Wonderbra proffering the vibrant symbol, for the hungry eyes of her customers. 

 

— Whatsa matter? she said, tilting her head toward her right shoulder and bending down and sideways as she washed the glasses: the curves of her torso and just a glimpse of the small of her back peaking out as the shirt escaped from her jeans, the long blonde hair falling around her oval face, her fragile jaw, and dimpled chin.  Didn’t your friend like any of the bands?

 

— He had to catch a train to Westchester. 

 

Over the din of the band smashing its way through “Oye, Come Va,” they’d traded remarks about the bands and her job and where she, too, lived in Westchester County.  She had that way that young women have of raising the pitch of her voice as the volume of the music goes up so that she could be heard. 

 

Through the backseat window, Paul saw John Street Methodist Church.

 

founded by irish immigrants hearts strangely warmed first in the new world just as the prods were putting the finishing touches on trinity church behind us hordes of pape newcomers came up this hill saying don’t be gettin’ too full of yerselves now ghosts of the famished plodding on those cobblestones suffer for your sins idolatrous stiff-necked paddies god prefers prayers in english to your latin and irish gibberish.

 

She kept leaving to talk to other customers and—mirabile dictu—returning to Paul. 

 

But who does she invite to her front seat?  A cook who has no money, no connections, no talent nor discernible skill, not flexible or giving in any way, stingy even, who will be lucky if he is allowed to stay in the country, as a matter of fact. 

 

embrace me with your hybrid arms or cold with neither cusip nor currency nor index nor stock will my heart lie i pledge more power to your prepay elbow actual not budget actual i swear

 

Sellers are weighing reports with analytics that would seem to make it more attractive for the counterparties to enter negotiations about a potential contract, but remain bearish due to perceived market volatility.  In late trading, the Englishman seems to be in a slump.  His stock has declined several basis points.  But the Irish-American has rallied despite a long day at work and hours of drinking.  Delivery is unlikely at this point but a contract with the latter party would experience no roadblocks in regards to foreign exchange rates.  The cash stream offered by his swap leg is considered quite liquid and the buyer is willing to accept collateral in exchange.  Perhaps, after an examination of competing financial instruments, the counterparties can be induced to make a swap.

 

Seeing the one-way sign pointing uptown, Laura slowed the car at the intersection of John and Dutch Streets. 

 

— No, Paul warned from the back seat.  Don’t turn here.  We want to keep heading east.

 

— What?

 

— Keep going straight as far as you can go.  Don’t turn until the car is about to fall into the river. 

 

— OK, Laura smiled.

 

caught in her electrical current just keep the struggle alive sustain this guerrilla hoax-and-miracle affair through the reeling hardcore beer-soaked cacophony of her nights and then vanish into the cawfee-and-bagel crowds of the daylit sidewalks feel my pulse racing for weeks now a cuisle mo croi feel how it races so much it almost gives me a headache how it’s hard to sleep or relax or concentrate on anything i’m trying to distract myself with how i have to get up a take a walk out on the fire escape balcony in the off chance that i might see her sauntering along murray street and realize it’s no hoax

 

Laura had said that she usually worked at the Orange Bar someday nights and Thursday days or someday nights and Wednesday days but tonight she was working for Fuschia.  And she liked it because it was more money and busier and the time went by faster. 

 

— How do you like working in this neighborhood? Paul had ventured. 

 

— I don’t really know the neighborhood at all, she’d answered. 

 

And his response had been natural, obvious.

 

— I could show you around. 

 

The seller of a put option has the right to execute her option when the commodity of interest reaches its strike price.  However, she has no obligation to sell at all.  The details of when or whether the deal will be closed are entirely her prerogative.  Of course, there will be occasions when it would be in her best interest to execute her option and disadvantageous for her to wait too long.  For, if the deal is not closed during the option’s specified window, buyers could look to trade elsewhere.  If the option is not exercised, it expires until the next option is offered.  No shares change hands and the money spent to purchase the option is lost.

 

The BMW glided past the narrow Gold Street and rolled by a Crunch gym and a Duane Reade, both dark, closed, and shuttered.  The Financial District got so quiet after hours that it reminded Paul of the rolled-up sidewalks of Center City Philadelphia.  Laura took her foot off of the gas pedal again at Cliff Street. 

 

— No, no.  Keep going … keep going …

 

Laura had said, “OK,” to Paul’s offer and told him to meet her at the bar at 7 on the following Thursday.  That’s when she got off work. 

 

— Just tell Walter you’re here to see me so you won’t have to pay to get in.

 

She was so nonchalant about the whole thing that right after he left, he immediately began wondering if this marvelous Friday the 13th conversation had really occurred.

 

If an option contract is exercised, the writer is responsible for fulfilling the terms of the contract by delivering the shares to the appropriate party.  As of yet, no tour of downtown streets has occurred.  The Present Value of the tour may have been undervalued at the time of offer. 

However, the value of the offer when it was accepted has been Marked to Market and served as the beginning of ongoing trade negotiations.

 

 

John Kearns is the author of the short-story collection Dreams and Dull Realities and the novel, The World. His novel-in-progress, Worlds, was a finalist in the 2002 New Century Writers’ Awards. He has had five full-length and five one-act plays produced in Manhattan, including Sons of Molly Maguire, In a Bucket of Blood, and In the Wilderness. His fiction has appeared in The Medulla Review and Danse Macabre. John’s poems have appeared in in the North American Review, the Grey Sparrow Journal, Feile-Festa, and the ASBDQ experimental text journal. He has a Masters Degree in Irish Literature from the Catholic University of America. He is the Treasurer and the Salon Producer for Irish American Writers and Artists Inc.

 

 

 

Abby Sheaffer

ROUTE 9

 

August 8th, 1973

 

Still summer day. Jill’s hair sticks up on end and her thighs are chafing. Honeysuckle permeates the air as Lenny passes her a blunt. A delicious humidity swells her skin and her mouth fills with cotton.

 

“I’m glad I got you to play hooky,” Lenny says, rubbing his chin. The world slows down as the weed takes hold.

 

“The air is yellow,” Jill says as the butterfly wings of her mind unfurl. Lenny wraps his arm around her thin little shoulders. She stares down at her breasts. A charge fills the air, and Jill remembers what her brother told her about the Tesla coil. She remembers Levin, the handsome man who kissed her before Christmas when she was 20.

 

“I hope the storm doesn’t ruin the concert,” she says in a meek voice.

 

“It won’t, baby!” He lifts his thumb up to pierce the wall of heat.

 

A sedan with an old woman passes by.

 

“Dirty hippies!” she cries out in a frail voice.

 

“Fuck you, grandma!” Lenny says, flipping his hair out of his face. Jill curls in her lips in guilt, thinking of her own grandmother.

 

Three more cars pass. Jill’s stomach begins to grumble. Then, a friendly semi passes them and pulls over to the shoulder.

 

She ambles up the big step and sits in the middle. Grateful for the ride, Jill doesn’t think about how the truck driver smells like curry and day-old burgers.

 

“I can take you as far as route 9,” the truck driver says.

 

“That’s just past the water tower!” Lenny barks in malicious glee. Jill looks at her dirty fingernails and closes her eyes.

 

“You okay, babe?” he asks.

 

Ihatehimihatehimihatehim

 

The thought pounds through her as the semi wheezes to a stop. Black diesel infiltrates the cilia of her nose as beads of sweat rise through her epidermis.

 

“Yeah, fine,” she murmurs. Regret swells in her stomach as she imagines their last sexual encounter and how ridiculous he was in bed, sucking on his fingers.

 

They get out together into the wall of heat. She shudders as he grabs her hand. The water tower looms over the scorched field.

 

“We’re about ten miles from the park, babe… I hear there’s a swimming hole around here!”

 

Ihatehimihatehimihatehimihatehimihatehimihatehimihatehim I…

 

Everything is disgusting about him. She hates how he is hairless and skinny. She hates how he is crazy about her, she finds him pathetic.

When he goes to grab her hand, she swats him away.

 

Gallantly, as though believing himself to be the sexiest man in the world, he undresses. She becomes queasy at the sight of him.

Is this the best I can do?

 

And then:

 

I never trust a hairless man

 

Levin wasn’t hairless. Levin was sexy. Levin knew how to touch her.

 

Behind her, a twig snaps.

 

Sharply she inhales.

 

SPLASH

 

He swims in the stagnant, swampy water.

 

“It’s so refreshing!”

 

Jill grins falsely and wishes for a cigarette. The lack of nicotine makes her stomach quiver as she slides her tongue over her chipped bottom

tooth. A nightmarish feeling comes over her that she doesn’t have cigarettes and is stuck in the woods with Lenny the fuckfaced dweeb.

 

“Aren’t you going to jump in?” he asks. His hair is cut in a bowl shape with awful bangs that rest on his eyebrows. She turns away, not even wanting to look at him. Nausea weakens her.

 

SNAP

 

Another twig breaks in half and the forest floor feels slow. The weed was strong and the wall of heat thick.

 

She walks towards the sound, grateful to get away from him.

 

Levin smokes cigarettes. Levin knows how to dress. Levin is funny.

 

The image of Lenny sucking his fingers after sucking her pussy makes the nausea worse. She knows someone is following her. The trees whine with a stiff breeze. She brings her tongue over her chipped tooth, feeling the serrated edges.

 

Leaves rustling underfoot. Heavy shoes thudding over leaves. Time congeals to the yellow earth. The heat is unbearable and her lungs constrict.

 

Levin has asthma, too. Levin knows how to kiss and suck and taste.

 

A feeling of unescapable claustrophobia encapsulates her like amber. The swimming hole is too far behind. Cool air breathes beneath the dirty yellow heat. Her skin prickles.

 

An uneasy feeling of arousal corrupts her as she imagines Levin’s tongue darting through her.

 

“Jilly!” A voice rings out.

 

Fuckfaced dweeb

 

She notices a tiny skeleton beneath a bed of brown leaves.

 

His voice. She always hated his voice. It was high pitched, a falsetto. When he’d cum he’d sound like Tiny fucking Tim.

 

Levin’s voice is deep and rich and crimson. Levin cums like Adonis on a fucking cloud.

 

She turns left, deeper into the woods. Hate tastes metallic and bitter. She passes a pine tree and grazes the spindles, reveling in the smell.

Dread weighs her shoulders as nausea weaves webs in her stomach.

 

Then she sees it: a dead body. Blood streaks the face. It rests heavily upon the fallow earth.

 

Heavy shoes thud behind her. The swimming hole is too far behind.

 

Time congeals to the yellow earth.

 

She leans over the body. It is new and smells like carrion. The flesh is still supple. The marks are bizarre. Blood mats the hair and it is decorated with leaves like a macabre crown of death.

 

Twigs crack under the pressure of heavy, rubber soles. The swimming hole is too far away. Heavy air, and her shoulders constrict in dread.

 

Slowly she walks back, back towards the swimming hole, back towards the void. Time slows to a viscous pace. Her stomach clenches hot with fear, hot with the craving of nicotine. Cicadas hum in a static buzz, and the air shudders with the electric charge preluding a storm.

 

The clouds are an ugly shade of yellow.

 

Twigs snapping, and the trees are whining. Slowly, slowly towards the swimming hole (the smell of death is everywhere). She runs, but gravity does not oblige her. The heavy footfalls ominously punctuate the air behind her, the wall of heat surrounds her with its ugly breath.

 

And there! The swimming hole looks like a black mirror under the amber sky.

 

Then she sees it:

 

Lenny is impaled between the busted branches of a mossy oak tree, his face is streaked with blood.

 

She inhales sharply. A large, hot palm collides with her breath, and the wall of heat engulfs her.

 

 

Abby Sheaffer is Editor & Publisher of Chicago Literati.