Fiction / Cecca Austin Ochoa

:: Transient ::

Celeste Cien­fue­gos and her so-called per­ma­nent social work­er Mau­reen drove toward the tem­po­rary fos­ter home, Fog Orchard, where Celeste would spend the sum­mer. They sped across the San Rafael bridge, the last stretch slop­ing down­wards as though head­ing into the water, as though the slight­est rise in sea lev­el would send the bay pour­ing across the lanes. 

Mau­reen, Depart­ment of Social Ser­vices, Fam­i­ly Resources Divi­sion, smiled opti­misti­cal­ly. “I know it’s far,” she said, “but you’ll be around peo­ple who get you. You might even enjoy your­self. What do ya think?” Mau­reen wore a pen­dant, a small pearl trapped in a sil­ver tear that twirled between her big breasts.

Celeste shrugged and fid­dled with the fram­ing nail in her left ear beneath a cloud of curly brown hair. The nail had been a part­ing gift from Lizzie. “Stay tough,” she’d said, as she pushed it through Celeste’s burn­ing lobe. Lizzie was the tough one, with her shaved head and her tat­tooed hands, tear ducts in a more per­ma­nent drought than California.

Mau­reen con­tin­ued, “Whether or not you move back in with your Grand­ma after this, I want you to fin­ish high school next year. What do you want?”

Celeste stared out the win­dow with a dewy look. “World peace?”

“Shit!” Mau­reen slammed on the brakes as a car swerved into their lane. Celeste pressed her cheek to the win­dow. What did she want? To be a shim­mer­ing mirage dis­ap­pear­ing as soon as any­one got too close. If that girl hadn’t got so close, Celeste would still be at home. But, her not-yet-in-bloom, sapling fig­ure caught the sparks of that girl—known to Celeste as a homo­sex­u­al, les­bian, dyke, car­pet munch­er, etc. She and the girl snuck off in the late after­noon light and laid down behind the hous­ing com­plex, Hope Gar­dens, and rubbed their bod­ies togeth­er like two snakes in the wet grass. A month lat­er, when she felt her­self in the fiery whirl she’d lat­er call love, her Grand­ma found them twist­ed around each oth­er like the knot of a noose. Per­verts, she said, and smacked Celeste so hard, the flame snuffed out.

Celeste’s Grand­ma, who’d kept a long list of her granddaughter’s short­com­ings, nev­er expect­ed much, but she had not expect­ed a queer. She shuf­fled around the house in her day gown—like a night gown, but kha­ki, and with pock­ets full of men­thol lozenges, keys, and kleenex—muttering, Bad Blood. She’d always known it, Bad Blood, that Celeste: seedling of her per­fect­ly white daugh­ter and a spic who aban­doned their bas­tard child to an old lady, Too old, she told Celeste—her chin for­ward and her back hunched like a mound of pulp—but, not afraid to die alone.

Fog Orchard sat an acre back from the road, shield­ed by spi­dery red­wood trees. Mau­reen pulled up beside a trac­tor and hand­ed Celeste a smoke detec­tor and a battery.

“Pro­to­col,” she said.

Celeste slumped down in the seat, her heart sud­den­ly pound­ing. She thought she’d, maybe, vomit.

“Don’t be shy,” Mau­reen wagged a fin­ger, “I have to get back before traf­fic.” She swung the car door open, and Celeste stepped out onto the cracked dirt. A man with a point­ed head and a wide waist waved from the porch. His name was Wal­lace Crow, semi-retired from the restau­rant busi­ness, a bari­tone, cheeks pink with acne scars.

Mau­reen left after a quick tour of the house. The place smelled musty like the inside of a dried-up spice jar, with oth­er fun­ny smells lurk­ing around the cur­tains and rugs. The room that Celeste would sleep in was up a wide stair­case. It had a bed and a chest of draw­ers. In the top draw­er she found three smoke detec­tors; sit­ting on the pil­ly bed cov­er, she plugged the bat­tery into hers. A green light blinked on.

Celeste’s Grand­ma changed the locks on the doors. At least I’m free, Celeste thought as she braced against a bench for four windy nights in the park down the street from her high school. The first two nights she slept alone, but on the third she felt eyes on her, and after that she didn’t sleep at all. Since she was across the street, since she had nowhere else to go, she went to her class­es until a teacher told her, You smell like A‑S-S. She left and nev­er went back; the police picked her up for loi­ter­ing, then came social services. 

The first social work­er dropped her at St. Bethany’s Home For Girls, a four sto­ry stuc­co com­pound that smelled like baby shit and cucum­ber hand lotion. “But I’m not real­ly that kin­da girl,” Celeste said, with­out rais­ing her eyes. The social work­er asked her if she’d pre­fer cor­rec­tion­al. Celeste shook her head and crawled into the bunk, tem­porar­i­ly hers. The plas­tic mat­tress cov­er rum­pled beneath her; the babies squealed all day, all night; and anoth­er new girl, Lizzie, crawled up beside her after the lights were out and whis­pered, Hey, chap­ar­ri­ta, into her neck. She didn’t know what it meant, but it felt like a warm purr. At least, she thought, star­ing at the glow of the smoke detec­tor, she might get some sleep at Fog Orchard. Even if it were only temporary.

Crow knocked on the door a few hours lat­er. The yel­low hall­way light reflect­ed on his thick-framed glass­es, and she couldn’t see his eyes. The oth­er res­i­dent, Luca, stood behind him.

“We’re going to check out the gar­dens. Feel like get­ting your hands dirty?”

“Is it required?” Celeste asked.

“Might as well,” Crow said. “It’s nice outside.”

Celeste stepped into the hall­way and pulled the door closed behind her. It must have been five p.m., but the sky was as baby blue as morn­ing. Luca had fawn brown hair that hung over his shoul­ders; he twist­ed it back and forth between his fingers.

“When’s your birth­day?” he asked, slow and qui­et like he was afraid of his own voice.

“Decem­ber 1st.”

“Oh. I’m a fire sign, too.”

Celeste scanned her­self for some sign of fire, but felt only the haze of smoke. Crow took them through the rows of gar­den beds behind the house. Most of the crops had just been plant­ed; they stood neat­ly in their soil mound: speck­led corn, heir­loom toma­toes, squash, deck­le-edged mus­tard greens.

“What’s that?” Celeste asked, point­ing to a row of green vines and hap­py leaves tied up to a stake.

“Legumes,” Crow said. “The roots put nitro­gen into the soil. Which helps the oth­er plants to grow.” He told her about how they man­aged with the drought, the grey water irri­ga­tion. “We’re lucky for the fog here. Some of these plants suck the water right out of the air.”

She nod­ded her head and looked up to see the tow­er­ing red­wood trees bounce their long arms in the breeze.

Luca had been liv­ing with Crow for three years; he’d just turned eigh­teen. “A lot of kids come and go,” he said. “Not me.” He wore all black and stitched the holes in his clothes with den­tal floss. He left home after his father broke his arm and threat­ened to kill him if he ever came back. One year he lived on the street, knew Anar­chists, ate out of dump­sters. “Most of that trash is per­fect­ly good,” he said. But he got an infec­tion, wound up at SF Gen­er­al, and that’s when social ser­vices got involved.

Celeste fol­lowed Luca around most days, shov­el­ing manure onto the beds, pulling weeds, watch­ing the spindly toma­toes thick­en and unfurl toward the sun. She stuck her fin­gers deep into the dirt and plant­ed hex­es: one for the teacher, one for the court judge, one for the eyes in the night. She pet the com­frey leaves, lambs’ ears, like the back of Grandma’s hand, sick­en­ing­ly soft. Fog Orchard was not the out­doors she knew; not the strips of grass where the unem­ployed and the old folks sat wait­ing for noth­ing on park bench­es all day; not the aban­doned lot, over­grown with weeds and piled with bro­ken liv­ing room fur­ni­ture. A wilder nature. Luca col­lect­ed leaves and hung them on his wall: oak, red­wood nee­dles, mag­no­lia, aspen, pop­py, the long tails of gar­lic. They changed from sup­ple into a hard­ened shell, then brit­tle, then crumble.

Dur­ing the day while Crow and Luca were out in the gar­dens, Celeste would some­times wan­der indoors and through the rooms of the house. There was a thrill to being alone in so much space, like she owned it. All of it. She’d touch the leaves on Luca’s wall, rub them between her fin­gers until they turned to dust. She’d rest her chin on the dress­er where Crow kept pho­tos of his deceased hus­band, lick her lips at him. She opened Crow’s draw­ers. Beneath a pile of socks, she found a dis­turb­ing image. At first, she thought the man in the pic­ture was dead. He had a black plas­tic bag duct-taped over his head, and his arms were chained to wood­en beams, almost like Jesus. It wasn’t until she saw the man’s erec­tion that she real­ized what she was look­ing at. She felt empa­thy flut­ter in her chest. Per­vert, she thought, and hur­ried out of the room.

Lizzie had been a child pros­ti­tute, so-called street-involved, and the clos­est thing Celeste had to a friend. They’d spent many an after­noon at St. Bethany’s locked in the dou­ble stall bath­room, huff­ing the clean­ing prod­ucts stored under the sink. Time would slow and wob­ble like jel­lo, a chem­i­cal undu­la­tion. The flu­o­res­cent light above them frac­tured into beams of pri­ma­ry col­or, and they’d look at each oth­er and laugh like they were slap hap­py at a slum­ber party.

Celeste rang Lizzie every week from Fog Orchard, or “Fos­ter Farm,” as Lizzie called it. “I wish you’d come back to earth,” Lizzy said. Celeste heard babies shriek­ing in the back­ground. “This girl keeps try­ing to fight me, say­ing she’s on a mis­sion from God to kill fag­gots. I told her, ‘you wish God had giv­en you big­ger arms, then.’ I could snap her with my fingers.”

From where the phone was in the hall between the kitchen and the liv­ing room, Celeste could see out the win­dow to the red­wood for­est. The sun and shad­ows twist­ed around the giant trunks. “I kin­da like it here.”

“I wish they’d teach us some­thing use­ful, though. Like what, you’re gun­na grow up to be a farm boy?”

Rich­mond was a world away. Some­times Celeste couldn’t tell which world was the real one. Just like she couldn’t under­stand a thing about her­self, like why she found her eyes lin­ger­ing on Luca’s back as he worked under the cold sun in a tight tank top, his strange spine exag­ger­at­ed like chain links, even though the rest of him was soft. His arm mus­cles were round as pup­py bod­ies. And if she found him look­ing at her, well, her stom­ach leapt like she’d been thrown in the air.

Crow had a meet­ing in San Francisco—his friend was open­ing a restaurant—so he invit­ed Luca and Celeste along for the ride. Luca called Jesse; he braid­ed his hair, tucked a sprig of laven­der behind his ear.

“Pret­ty,” Celeste said, and climbed into the buck­et seat. Jesse was a trans kid who had stayed at the farm for a year, until his sis­ter in Berke­ley adopt­ed him. “A whole year? How’d he man­age that?” Celeste want­ed to know. When Luca and Crow said he, the pro­noun became a rock in a stream; they paused before glid­ing over it. What was he up to these days? Oh, he stud­ies herbal med­i­cine. Will he come up to the farm? Yes, he will.

Crow parked the truck on the cor­ner of Cas­tro and 16th. Celeste crawled into the driver’s seat and rolled down the win­dow. The street was loud, and every­body walked like they were some­body. Across the street bare chest­ed men smoked cig­a­rettes on a bar patio, all mus­cle and scruff. One of the guys pulled anoth­er in for a ten­der kiss.

“Are you seri­ous?” Celeste checked the rear-view mir­ror for the per­son who’d scream, Per­verts! No one seemed to be watch­ing but her. “Where do all these Ken dolls come from?”

Luca sat qui­et­ly, eyes in his lap.

“Do you think they’re hot?” Celeste asked. “Tell me who’s hot.”

“There’s Jesse.” Luca nod­ded and got out of the truck. Jesse had elfish cheeks, a round bel­ly, and a gold­en fro. He wore big met­al rings on his thin fin­gers and a long gauzy shift. He walked like he was some­body, too. Maybe he was.

Luca grabbed him with both arms. “You look real­ly great,” he said. Celeste leaned against the build­ing Crow had gone into. Jesse and Luca sat on the cement steps in front of the restau­rant door, both with their legs spread open, elbows on knees.

Jesse smiled, his voice tin­ny, like he was hold­ing his nose. “Like my beard?”

Celeste stroked her chin and imag­ined feel­ing coarse hair beneath her fingers.

“Off my steps.” The door opened and a small bald man stepped between Jesse and Luca.

“They’re with me,” Crow said, fol­low­ing behind him and rolling his eyes. He pat­ted Jesse on the shoul­der paternally.

“Oh!” The man’s voice turned sud­den­ly cheer­ful. “I for­got you run that orphan­age.” He swooped an arm at the facade, detail­ing his plans, “Tou­jours Gai, scrawl­ing cursive.”

“All gays are not cre­at­ed equal,” Jesse said.

“Why don’t you dar­lings wait in the truck,” Crow said with a wink. They jumped into the truck bed, waved their arms to music that climbed out of an open apart­ment win­dow. Crow, Jesse told Celeste, was from the bour­geois-zee, bless him. His hus­band died in the epi­dem­ic, and ever since he’d fos­tered queer youth. “He’s prac­ti­cal­ly a saint, but he gets sick of us. He only keeps Luca around because he’s so damn good-look­ing.” Jesse and Luca gig­gled, and Celeste stared out at the street. She watched the men stroll by in their rolled up shorts and plaid shirts, their leather hand­bags and impen­e­tra­ble sun­glass­es. Who were they?

The next morn­ing at Fog Orchard, Jesse sat at the kitchen table with a book, The Secret Life of Plants, and stared med­i­ta­tive­ly into the pages. “Do you know what a ‘per­fect flower’ is?” he asked Celeste, who was fix­ing her­self break­fast. “It’s a flower with both male and female parts. If you were a flower, I think you’d be a thistle.” 

Luca strolled into the kitchen and laughed, a warm sound, an octave too high. “I like this­tle.” He ran his fin­gers through his mane of hair, pulling at the long strands, let­ting them tum­ble across his chest. Celeste exam­ined the two bod­ies before her. She had­n’t sus­pect­ed that Luca liked Jesse in that sort of way, but she could see now the over-wide smile on Jesse’s face and Luca’s erect nip­ples like bur­gundy but­ton snaps.

“Is testos­terone safe?” Celeste interrupted.

“Is liv­ing in a body that isn’t you safe?” Jesse replied.

Celeste looked down at her bag­gy jeans, mud splat­tered com­bat boots; she walked out­side, let the screen door slam behind her. She won­dered what she would look like as a boy; just the thought of testos­terone made her walk a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, as though the hor­mone were already flex­ing in her blood. In the weeks that she’d been there, the gar­den had trans­formed into bloom. The plump bras­si­cas and toma­toes, the smell of green and tang and warm dirt. She walked through the rows, nod­ded to each of the plants. Do you hear me? Celeste asked, and the wind rushed by and the plants whis­pered. Celeste crawled between the corn with their rip­pling stalks stand­ing tall as war­riors. She lay in the dirt and looked up, the leaves arched above her like a vault­ed ceil­ing. She felt the boy more clear­ly than she’d felt him before, soft­ly rat­tling along her bones. “Fag­got,” she whis­pered aloud; the word sent a trick­le of plea­sure down her throat.

Jesse left the next day. Celeste watched, slip­pery with jeal­ous curios­i­ty, as he and Luca came back from the for­est, sticks on their clothes, red­wood nee­dles in their hair. Fuck you, Luca, she thought, but she wasn’t real­ly mad. At sun­set she climbed up a hill and watched the sky change. She imag­ined love as a gate­way of fiery light that she’d walk through and arrive on the oth­er side trans­formed: loved, a lover. So far, she’d passed through, but nev­er arrived.

Mau­reen came in late July. Celeste had been look­ing for­ward to her vis­it, some­one com­ing to see her and her alone, some­one who knew she was some­body. “You look relaxed,” Mau­reen said. “Must be all the veg­eta­bles.” She sat on a tow­el on the couch on the porch. She pulled out her note­book and read a court notice aloud. Some­thing about “dis­solv­ing guardian­ship,” or what­ev­er. Celeste felt her gut clench and dread swarm her chest. “Crow is going to take you to court next week. I’ll be there too. It’s like­ly that you’ll be placed back at St. Bethany’s until you turn eigh­teen. It’s only a year.” She waved her hand as though a year were noth­ing at all. “Then you’ll phase out of the fos­ter system.”

Celeste saw the gold­en spi­der threads that bound her to her Grand­ma dis­ap­pear in a puff, saw the yel­lowed hall­way of the court build­ing, a busi­ness card tucked into a door jamb, Have You Been the Vic­tim of A Crime? Celeste real­ized she was hold­ing her breath. The image of the man in Crow’s pho­to­graph came to mind. Did he like suf­fo­ca­tion? She took a deep breath, but did­n’t feel relief. Out in the yard the grass waved, the plants swayed, lift­ed by the air. The con­crete yard behind St. Bethany’s was sur­round­ed by a tall fence and video cameras—installed after one of the girl’s boyfriends, high on PCP, broke in and tried to steal “his” baby. It had a lemon tree.

“That’s some­thing to look for­ward to,” Celeste said.

Lat­er she called Lizzie to tell her the news. A girl answered, “Lizzie? She’s gone.”

“Where?” Celeste asked. It had only been a week since they’d last spoken.

“Cor­rec­tion­al,” the girl said, then hung up the phone.

On the night before court, rain clouds appeared in the sky. “It’s a mir­a­cle!” Crow shout­ed as sliv­ers of rain began to fall. Celeste helped Crow roll out all the blue plas­tic col­lec­tion bar­rels. The plants hun­kered in the mud, their ghost­ly roots draw­ing a long drink so that tomor­row the leaves might stretch a lit­tle wider, grow the flow­ers into fruit. She wouldn’t be there to see if the rain made the plants hap­py, but it didn’t mat­ter because she loved the plants. A plant lover. When all the bar­rels were out, they sloshed through the mud­dy yard into the house; Crow plod­ded behind her.

“Think the drought’s over?” Celeste asked, pulling off her sog­gy sneakers.

“I doubt it,” Crow said, stand­ing in an expand­ing puddle.

“I want­ed to ask if I could stay a lit­tle longer.” Celeste stared at the clumps of mud along Crow’s shoes, a tiny moun­tain range, a lake, a val­ley. “But I know you’d say I can’t.”

Crow sighed, “The fos­ter sys­tem, it’s like musi­cal chairs. And now, I’m going to start sell­ing pro­duce to this restau­rant, so I’ll be busy.” He smiled. “It was only meant to be temporary.”

With her mind, she pulled his smile off his face and drowned it in the mud. “This place is for per­verts any­way,” she said, and she walked up the stairs to her room. A spark of rage shot up her spine.

“I’ll make us break­fast in the morn­ing before we go,” he called after her. “Pervert’s special.”

Celeste couldn’t sleep. The rain pat­tered on the roof, slid down the win­dows, and it felt like every drop plunked against her head; the bed made her itch—was it damp? —and the green glow of the smoke detec­tor seemed to fill every dark crevice in the whole room. Celeste slipped down the hall toward Luca, knocked light­ly on his door; the floor creaked and the han­dle whined open. He stood with his chest out, hair tied back in a pony tail, his face whiskery but fey.

“Hey, this­tle,” he said.

“Can I sleep in here tonight?”

He paused and looked down the hall, as though some­one might be watch­ing. “Okay,” he said and opened the door. He flipped off the light and the room sank into total dark­ness. They talked for a while about lit­tle things. The squash flow­ers, the greens that were already bolt­ing too ear­ly in the sea­son. Then Luca rolled away from her and whis­pered goodnight.

She told her­self, Don’t get too close. She lay on her right side at the edge of the mat­tress so that her left hand hung over. She took in the pep­pery smell of his sheets, wait­ed for his breath to slow. When it did, she scoot­ed towards him, just half an inch at a time, until her back was against his. She felt the hard­ness of his spine, the curve of his but­tocks against her own. A heat drift­ed across her, a dan­ger­ous heat; kerosene dripped down her legs; she couldn’t help her hands from reach­ing for her own body; the fric­tion ignit­ed flame and the whole bed caught fire. For hours she lay par­a­lyzed by the burn. But, when she woke up the bed was cold and empty.

From the writer

:: Account ::

My sweet­ie just cel­e­brat­ed ten years since he tran­si­tioned. On that anniver­sary, we talked about how eight of those ten years were under Oba­ma. We can look back on those eight years and see the incred­i­ble growth of trans and queer vis­i­bil­i­ty blos­som­ing on the sur­face of main­stream cul­ture. There’s a whole gen­er­a­tion of peo­ple who grew up with gay par­ents, or have friends who did, non-het­ero, non-cis kids who are out and open about their gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty in grade school. Of course, we’re all wor­ried about how the cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion will try to sab­o­tage the gains that we have made on this and a num­ber of oth­er social fronts. I was think­ing about this fore­bod­ing a lot as I worked through the final drafts of “Tran­sient.” To be young and queer is pre­car­i­ous: it was ten years ago, it is now, it looks like it will be for years to come. I fear that the pre­cious few resources that exist now to sup­port queer and trans youth may suf­fer a blow we can’t afford. 40% of home­less youth are LGBT, despite only 7% of youth iden­ti­fy­ing as such. The top two killers of teenagers, after unin­ten­tion­al injury, are sui­cide fol­lowed by homi­cide. Queer youth are four times more like­ly to attempt sui­cide than straight youth. These sta­tis­tics hold a mir­ror up to how lit­tle has actu­al­ly changed, despite how much has.

The first draft of “Tran­sient,” I wrote in grad school as a reac­tion to Flan­nery O’Connor’s “A Tem­ple of the Holy Ghost.” In that sto­ry, two boy-crazy high school girls go to the cir­cus in a rur­al town and see some­thing so dis­turb­ing they are moral­ly afflicted—and, these are two girls who find morals “sil­ly.” From what’s revealed, the read­er can assume an inter­sexed per­son is work­ing one of the cir­cus tents. I won’t both­er to gan­der here at what O’Connor’s inten­tions were, some­thing about the “mys­ter­ies of the eucharist.” But, what I picked up loud and clear from that sto­ry is the fear and moral revul­sion the char­ac­ters feel when they encounter a gen­der non-con­form­ing body. There are many more rel­e­vant exam­ples, but this one’s on my mind: I recent­ly re-watched Mrs. Doubt­fire, for no good rea­son. When the lit­tle girl catch­es Mrs. Doubt­fire pee­ing stand­ing up (read­ing her beloved nan­ny as trans­gen­der, not her dad in drag), she says, “I’m gonna call the cops!” These sto­ries are told almost forty years apart, but the het­ero­nor­ma­tive gaze crim­i­nal­izes, pathol­o­gizes, and mocks gen­der non-con­form­ing bod­ies just the same.

In that first draft, I want­ed to write the inverse of that gaze. I start­ed build­ing what would become Fog Orchard, a place for queer youth in a rur­al set­ting, youth who have to burn through the haze of homo­pho­bia, trans­pho­bia, and bear wit­ness to the per­ver­sion of the het­ero­nor­ma­tive gaze. By the time I picked this sto­ry up again, I had no inter­est in writ­ing a reac­tion to O’Connor. The most inter­est­ing part of my first draft, to me, was that a farm where queer and trans youth lived implic­it­ly meant that these kids had bro­ken from their ori­gin fam­i­lies. And thus I arrive back at the idea of queer youth home­less­ness and the poten­tial for sanc­tu­ary. The late queer the­o­rist, José Este­ban Muñoz, wrote exten­sive­ly about the ephemer­al nature of queer utopia in Cruis­ing Utopia. Since queers are out­siders to the con­struc­tions of the het­ero world, the places we occu­py are them­selves tran­sient. And, con­sid­er the way white suprema­cy, cap­i­tal­ism, and patri­archy inter­sect with queer; where one fag finds utopia, anoth­er finds oppres­sion. I want­ed to show Celeste’s momen­tary glimpses of utopia: high in the bath­room with Lizzie, lying on her back beneath the corn at Fog Orchard, shar­ing a bed with Luca. She is a resilient char­ac­ter, and these small moments of sanc­tu­ary will feed her. But the seed of this sto­ry is the seed of many real-life queer sto­ries: rejec­tion, dis­own­ment, dis­gust. That’s the lin­ger­ing smoke in the air. I hope we can move through that, replant, and con­tin­ue toward a more per­ma­nent sanctuary.

Cec­ca Austin Ochoa is a fic­tion writer and essay­ist. She serves as Man­ag­ing Edi­tor for Apogee Jour­nal. Her writ­ing has appeared in Nat. Brut, Kweli Jour­nal, and else­where; and she is anthol­o­gized in Pari­ahs (SFA Press, 2016) and IMANIMAN: Poets Writ­ing in the Anzaldúan Bor­der­lands (Aunt Lute Press, 2016). She is a 2014 Alum­nus of Voic­es of Our Nation’s Artists and a recip­i­ent of the Astraea Foundation’s Les­bian Writer’s Award for Fiction.

Fiction / Jennifer Morales

:: Excerpt from Junction/Flame on the Mesa ::

On the train plat­form, Dena hand­ed Mat a small package.

“What is it?”

“Open it and find out.” Dena’s eyes glint­ed behind the net of her vin­tage hat. She dressed every day as if it was 1945, and she had gone all out to see Mat off, in a tan trav­el­ing suit with a broad green belt and match­ing gloves. Mat sus­pect­ed she had a hand­ker­chief tucked in a pock­et some­where to wave at the depart­ing train.

Work­ing the tape loose from one end of the heavy paper, Mat slid out a thin paper­back with yel­lowed pages.

“Flame on the Mesa? What is this?”

Dena turned Mat’s hand so she could admire the cov­er: two wasp-waist­ed, bul­let-breast­ed women, a dark-haired one and a blonde. The brunette cast a las­civ­i­ous gaze at the oth­er woman, but the blonde’s atten­tion was divided—one eye on her admir­er, the oth­er on the buck­ing sil­hou­ette of a horse-mount­ed cow­boy twirling a lasso.

“It’s les­bian pulp fic­tion. Isn’t it great? I found it at Down­town Books a cou­ple weeks ago and I’ve been dying to give it to you. It seemed like the per­fect gift, you know, with you hav­ing to go to Iowa to get divorced. It’s about a woman who goes to Neva­da to get divorced and has to live there six weeks to estab­lish res­i­den­cy before the court will let her file the papers. Sound familiar?”

“Yeah,” Mat said, flip­ping the book over. “If you think ‘six weeks in Reno’ and ‘twelve months in Iowa’ sound any­thing like the same thing.”

Years ago, Mat and Klau­dia had mar­ried in Iowa, at a time when that was one of the few places gays could legal­ly do such a stu­pid thing. In their rever­ie, nei­ther of them had read the fine print: mar­riage was easy. Divorce would require one of them to live in the state for a year first. When the rela­tion­ship fell apart, Mat lost the bat­tle over which of them would uproot her Mil­wau­kee life and go.

“Stop feel­ing so sor­ry for your­self, Mat.” Dena swat­ted her with a glove. “You have a cushy job and a place to live wait­ing for you. You’re get­ting off with a light sen­tence, all things considered.”

Mat growled. She didn’t want to talk again about the final straw that had bro­ken the back of her mar­riage. Wasn’t she suf­fer­ing enough for the night she spent with Adri­enne in Chicago?

“Easy, tiger.” Dena thread­ed her arm through the crook of Mat’s elbow. “Get on the train. Read the book. It’ll take your mind off things.”

“God, did you see this?” Mat read the back cov­er aloud:

Janet had only one desire: to go to Reno to free her­self from the grips of Hank, the hus­band back East who had hurt her so bad­ly. But when she meets Lena, anoth­er desire is awak­ened, an unnat­ur­al one that would set her burn­ing like a flame on the mesa and leave her amidst ash­es of despair. This unex­pur­gat­ed look at the shock­ing and trag­ic lives of les­bians will open the reader’s eyes to a world hereto­fore unseen.

“What kind of bull­shit is that?”

Dena hit Mat with both gloves this time. “It’s pulp, you idiot. You know, like Bee­bo Brinker? These are sem­i­nal works of les­bian literature.”

“Might be les­bian, but I don’t think it qual­i­fies as lit­er­a­ture.” Mat thumbed through the book. On a page picked at ran­dom, she found two unan­nounced shifts in point of view. “Yeesh. First we’re in the tick­et guy’s head, then the lug­gage boy’s.”

“Light­en up, will you, Pro­fes­sor Rodriguez?”

“All aboard!” the con­duc­tor cried.

Mat added the book to her bag. “I guess I need to go.”

She reached to draw Dena into a hug, but Dena stopped her.

“Wait. I need to put on my gloves.” She tugged them on, then opened her clutch to pull out a hand­ker­chief, ivory with fad­ed turquoise lace around the edges.

“I knew it.” Mat shook her head. “Is that thing for real?”

“Of course it is. OK, I’m ready.” Dena held out both arms and Mat walked into them.

“I’m going to miss you so much.” Mat squeezed her, tight enough to feel bone, and she was over­come by the feel­ing of her real life slip­ping out of her grip as Dena stepped aside.

“All aboard!” the con­duc­tor shout­ed again, pass­ing close enough to make them jump.

“See you soon.”

“Not soon enough.” Mat gave the sleeve of Dena’s jack­et a final tug.

At the foot of the train’s nar­row stair the con­duc­tor had placed a step stool. Paint­ed a cheer­ful, sun­ny yel­low and squat­ting on stur­dy legs, it remind­ed Mat of those tiny stands they force the ele­phants to bal­ance on in the circus.

She was in some kind of cir­cus, Mat thought. A clown show in which all the jokes were on her.

Mat watched the con­duc­tor steady a hunch­backed, white-haired woman as she board­ed the train. He ges­tured briskly to Mat next and reached out to help her up, too, but she drew her arm close and grabbed the strap of her bag. Even so, he got his hand under her elbow as she hoist­ed her­self onto the met­al stairs.

“Up you go.”

“Thanks.” She hat­ed the gra­tu­itous assis­tance of men.

She stood at the open door to take a last look at Milwaukee—what she could see of it from the sta­tion plat­form, any­way. The con­duc­tor scooped up the step stool, whistling as he head­ed for the front of the train. Across the tracks, a pigeon picked its way along the far wall of the train shed, hunt­ing through a smat­ter­ing of grass that grew where the sharp July sun­light cut in. When the atten­dant came to shut the door, Mat resigned her­self to tak­ing a seat.

The train was full of vaca­tion­ers, excit­ed chil­dren and their exas­per­at­ed par­ents try­ing to get them to set­tle in. Mat made her way down the aisle, her over­stuffed bag snag­ging on seat-tops as she went. There was a pair of emp­ty seats on her left, in the mid­dle of the car, and she reached them just as a moth­er arrived, a boy maybe eight years old in tow.

“Is the oth­er seat tak­en?” she asked. Her hair was still damp from a show­er or a swim and it dripped onto her wrin­kled polo shirt.

“No,” Mat said.

“You, sit still.” She point­ed to the boy’s chest and he sat down. “I’m just three rows back with your sis­ters. If you need any­thing, call me from your seat. I don’t want you run­ning around.” To Mat she added, “If he’s a both­er, just let me know.”

“Sure.”

The mom took a video game play­er from her purse and hand­ed it to him. From her pock­et she pulled a set of ear­buds, unwind­ing the cord and plug­ging one into each of the boy’s ears and the wire into the sock­et on the machine. She tucked a bot­tle of orange juice and a bag of gum­my worms between his hip and the arm­rest. As she leaned in, Mat could smell the chlo­rine in her hair. They stayed at a down­town hotel, Mat guessed, and Mom got in a swim before they had to check out.

“There,” she said. “He shouldn’t be any trouble.”

Moth­ers amazed Mat. Here she had bare­ly found a place to stow her own bag and this mom had chore­o­graphed this kid’s entire life for the next few hours. Mat sized the boy up. His sandy hair was in a bowl cut that he would resent his par­ents for lat­er, and his round cheeks were pep­pered with pale freck­les. Around his pudgy wrist he wore an orange snap-on band that said “Fish­er­man’s Cove,” the indoor water­park at the Hilton down­town, and a light blue sil­i­cone bracelet stamped “Ben­jamin” in black ink.

Benjamin’s t‑shirt read, “It wasn’t me,” in neon green let­ters. That pret­ty much summed it up at age eight: you were either being blamed for some­thing or try­ing to pin the blame on some­one else. Maybe at age forty as well, Mat thought. She con­sid­ered the friends she had lost in the split with Klau­dia, friends she was sure blamed Mat for the breakup.

The train jerked to a start and she leaned toward the win­dow. She was on the wrong side of the car to see Dena wav­ing, but Mat knew she was there.

The cof­fee she had for break­fast sloshed around in her stom­ach as the train picked up speed, adding a wave of nau­sea to her mount­ing feel­ing of dread. She had lost so much in the past year, it seemed insane to give up the few things she could rely on. Her job teach­ing in the cre­ative writ­ing pro­gram at UW-Mil­wau­kee. Play­ing in the park with her niece and nephew. Lake Michi­gan shim­mer­ing under the ris­ing sun. The worn mar­ble of the stairs up to the sec­ond floor of Cen­tral Library. The book­store clerk at Boswell who knew her by name and set aside new titles he thought she would like. Trad­ing Span­ish barbs with the pro­duce guys at El Rey. But here she was, leav­ing every­thing behind to spend a year at Grin­nell Col­lege teach­ing a poet­ry sem­i­nar. She knew she should feel grate­ful that she had wran­gled such a plum gig, but she just didn’t. She was mad. And wor­ried. And lone­ly, already.

For the first time in years, Mat found her­self bit­ing her nails. She pulled out Flame on the Mesa, hop­ing to dis­tract her­self. Taped inside was a pink paper heart, a note from Dena. Her hand­writ­ing was girly yet for­mal, broad loops and extrav­a­gant tails rid­ing atop lines so strict it seemed like she wrote along the edge of a ruler.

Dear Mat,

This is a stu­pid book in some ways, I know, but maybe you can enjoy it in that mind­less sum­mer beach read­ing sort of way. Les­bian pulp fic­tion devel­oped at a time when it was pret­ty much ille­gal to write about our lives—unless the les­bian char­ac­ter died, or went to jail, or went insane and drove her­self off a cliff. 

Still, when I read it I thought you’re like Janet, hav­ing to trav­el to a new place in order to get divorced and start your life over. It ends badly—the book, I mean, not your life (!!!?!)—but I guess that’s what they had to do back then to keep the nation from falling into irre­versible moral turpitude. 

I’ll miss you terribly.

Yours,

Dena

P.S. Check out page 93!

Mat start­ed to turn to page 93 but thought the bet­ter of it. Know­ing Dena, it was prob­a­bly some sweaty sex scene, some­thing it would be best Mat didn’t read while sit­ting next to a cor­rupt­ible minor at risk of falling into irre­versible moral turpitude.

It was Melody who told Janet how this was done. Melody was anoth­er sales­girl at Woolworth’s and one of the few peo­ple Janet had been allowed to talk to after her wed­ding. Melody got it all arranged because Hank would notice the long dis­tance charges and the let­ters. It was too risky. She called every beau­ty shop and five-and-dime, talk­ing up Janet’s skills, until she found a taker.

Melody came into Woolworth’s one Tues­day morn­ing in March bustling with ener­gy. She tied on her apron and sidled up to Janet behind the glass cos­met­ics counter, where Janet was restock­ing the lipsticks.

“Guess what?” Melody fair­ly sang. “The man­ag­er at the River­side Hotel says he might need a sham­poo girl at their beau­ty par­lor.” She got a rag from under the counter and began dust­ing the glass, even though it was already clean. 

“The River­side? Sure,” Janet said. “I mean, what­ev­er kind of job he has, I’ll do it. You’re the best friend a girl could ever have, Melody. If it wasn’t for you, well, I don’t know what I would do.”

“He wants you to send him your pic­ture,” Melody said, pol­ish­ing the chrome trim on the cab­i­net to a vicious shine. 

“What does how I look have to do with anything?”

Melody smiled at a woman pass­ing by and said, “Good morn­ing.” When the woman had gone, Melody said, “Well, I don’t know.”

Janet looked up at Melody’s face. Her friend was ten years old­er and a whole lot wis­er than she was, Janet knew. There was con­cern in Melody’s blue eyes but she said only, “Maybe he wants to make sure you’re not a negro.”

“But negroes work in hotels all over the place,” Janet protested.

“Not in Neva­da, they don’t.” 

Janet went home that after­noon and, before Hank got home, took the cig­ar box with her pic­tures in it down from the shelf in the bed­room wardrobe. She didn’t have that many pic­tures to spare. Nobody in her fam­i­ly ever had enough mon­ey to own a cam­era. She had a wed­ding por­trait of her par­ents, her moth­er in a long white dress rent­ed from the pho­tog­ra­ph­er for all the half hour it took to take the pic­ture. Her mother’s real wed­ding dress was a sim­ple cot­ton one she wore for the cer­e­mo­ny in the yard of her par­ents’ farmhouse. 

And there was one of the fam­i­ly. Moth­er, father, and the three girls—Janet and her two younger sisters—taken just after her broth­er died in the acci­dent with that oth­er boy. That pic­ture always made Janet feel like her par­ents were try­ing to set­tle their minds on this new fam­i­ly arrange­ment, with­out Emil. The stern look on her father’s face espe­cial­ly, said, “There. This is our fam­i­ly now.” There wasn’t a funer­al and nobody had been allowed to cry. It was like they were just sup­posed to rearrange them­selves in front of the cam­era and go along like noth­ing had been lost.

Janet was eleven years old in that pic­ture. Look­ing at her­self at that age made her feel strange inside. Her moth­er had her hand on her shoul­der. Janet could see that the two of them had their jaws set just the same way, deter­mined not to speak of any­thing they shouldn’t be speak­ing about.

There were a few oth­er pic­tures in the box: some snap­shots of her and Hank when they were court­ing, Hank in his Army uni­form, one of her and Melody in their heavy coats in front of Woolworth’s. Janet decid­ed to send that one. The pic­ture was tak­en in bright after­noon sun­light and she and Melody were both squint­ing. It was hard to see Janet’s face, but at least the man­ag­er would be able to tell she wasn’t a negro. 

She went to the tele­phone table in the hall to get a pen­cil and wrote her name on the back of the pho­to. She thought a sec­ond and then added “(on the left)” after it so the man­ag­er would know which one was Janet. 

Hank came through the door just then. It was 5 o’clock already. She must have lost track of time while look­ing at the photographs. 

She put the pho­to in her pock­et quick­ly and began to dust the table and its lit­tle nook. Janet had learned to keep a dust rag handy at all times when she was at home, so she could look busy when­ev­er Hank got in.

“Don’t you have some­thing bet­ter to do than dust the tele­phone?” Hank asked with a growl, as he passed by her in the nar­row hall­way to go hang up his coat. He stopped halfway to the coa­track and came back toward her. He looked deep into Janet’s eyes. She forced her­self to keep fac­ing him. “Are you wait­ing for a call from some­body?” he asked. 

Clear­ly he could tell she was ner­vous. Janet looked down at the floor, a big mistake. 

Hank squint­ed one eye. “What’s going on with you?”

“Noth­ing,” Janet stam­mered. “I’m just doing a lit­tle cleaning.”

He stud­ied her up and down. “What’s in your pocket?”

“Noth­ing,” she said. He couldn’t see that thin piece of paper, could he?

Hank drew up close to her, close enough that she could smell the ham sand­wich with mus­tard and onions she had sent with him for lunch on his breath, and put his hand in the pock­et of her apron rough­ly. She could feel some of the threads hold­ing the patch pock­et to the skirt give way to his big knuck­les as he pulled the pic­ture out. He strode out of the hall­way and into the din­ing room near the win­dow to see bet­ter. Janet fol­lowed him.

The pic­ture was now crum­pled a bit. He turned it over. “Is this what you were writ­ing when I came in?”

Had he come in soon­er than she thought? Lost in day­dreams about her pic­tures, did she not notice him right away? Janet was unsure.

“Who needs to know which one is you? Who were you going to send this to?”

Janet’s head was spin­ning. Hank was always a few steps ahead of her. How did he know she was going to send it to somebody?

He looked at the pic­ture again and then back at her with a sneer. “You could have just told him you were the ugly one,” he said, rip­ping the pic­ture to shreds and throw­ing them on the floor. He stormed out of the room. “Clean that up,” he shout­ed as he banged through the kitchen door.

Janet stood for a sec­ond, hold­ing onto the din­ner table to steady her­self. Every piece of her felt hot with shame. Her knees were shak­ing and she want­ed to crawl to the kitchen and throw her­self on Hank’s mer­cy. In her mind’s eye she could see her­self doing it, cry­ing, beg­ging for for­give­ness. The beat­ing he would give her would put things to right. They could go back to nor­mal and she could for­get about this whole crazy plan. 

The clock on the man­tel over the unused fire­place was click­ing nois­i­ly. She knew Hank was wait­ing in the kitchen for her, to apol­o­gize, to come get his din­ner ready. It’s what they both had come to expect. But some lit­tle voice in her head was whis­per­ing one word, over and over, and it was get­ting loud­er. The sound of it, of what it meant, made her so sick to her stom­ach she gagged. 

The voice was say­ing, “Now.”

To her own sur­prise, Janet grabbed her hand­bag off the chair and her coat and hat from the hook in the hall­way. With one look back toward the kitchen door, she ran out the front door, down the steps, and toward the trol­ley stop. A trol­ley pulled up just then and she got on.

Okay, Mat thought. It’s not that bad. The writ­ing was melo­dra­mat­ic, but maybe Dena had giv­en Mat a gift after all—some trashy read­ing to help her knock off a few hours of her life in exile.

Mat shut the book. Ben­jamin was star­ing at her, his mouth ajar.

“Are you a boy or a girl?” On the screen of his video game, a green bub­ble with feet and goo­gly eyes was bounc­ing in place wait­ing for the next command.

Mat won­dered how long Ben­jamin had been star­ing at her. He had a right to be con­fused. Mat was wear­ing her favorite sum­mer shirt, a but­ton-up in light cot­ton, and its loose­ness hid what lit­tle curves Mat had. The rest of her out­fit con­sist­ed of well-worn jeans, the boots that she was wear­ing only because their chunky soles took up too much space in her suit­case, and the brown leather strap she kept dou­bled on her left wrist at all times. Mat had the square hands and trimmed nails of a boy, too. Add in the short black hair and a kid could be excused for not knowing.

“What do you think?” Mat turned and leaned back toward the win­dow to give him a clear view.

He screwed up his face in con­cen­tra­tion. “I don’t know. A girl?”

“Why do you think a girl?”

“I don’t know,” he said, turn­ing back to his game. “You move like a girl, I guess. And you have girl eyes.” He put his ear­buds back in and pressed a but­ton with his thumb. The green bub­ble grew small­er and start­ed leap­ing up onto a series of mov­ing plat­forms. The game’s jan­g­ly car­ni­val music leaked out of his ears.

“Is he both­er­ing you?” Benjamin’s moth­er had come up with­out Mat noticing.

Mat smiled. “Oh, no. He’s fine. He was just ask­ing me about my, about my shirt.”

“Oh, good. I’m glad he’s not both­er­ing you.” She peered down at Mat’s lap, her eyes trav­el­ing from the book cov­er to Benjamin’s face, and wrin­kled her nose.

Mat lift­ed the book up and shook her head. “A gag gift, from a friend. Great, huh?” Mat smiled but the mom was scan­ning the car for anoth­er emp­ty seat. There weren’t any. Mat stuffed the book back into her bag and took out her lap­top instead. Benjamin’s moth­er tapped him on the shoul­der and pulled the ear­bud out on his left side.

“Come on,” she said.

He got up, pin­ning the bag of can­dy and his bot­tle of juice between his waist and his knuck­les, and made his way down the aisle after his moth­er. His sis­ters squealed in protest as Mom ordered Ben­jamin to share a seat with the small­est one.

Mat opened her book file, hop­ing to get some work done on some poems, then closed it. Her edi­tor was expecting—no, demanding—a man­u­script from her some­time this autumn, and her slack sched­ule in Grin­nell was sup­posed to help her meet that dead­line. But she wasn’t in Grin­nell yet. She could read Flame on the Mesa for now. Any­way, maybe Dena was right. She wasn’t read­ing it for the qual­i­ty of the writ­ing. Just the les­bian pres­ence, the exis­tence of queer sto­ries, was offen­sive to some peo­ple. It was impor­tant to read this book in public.

Janet had got­ten on the trol­ley line in the wrong direc­tion, head­ed north. She took the trol­ley much far­ther than she would nor­mal­ly go, just so she could get off some­where where Hank would nev­er look for her, then get back on the line the oth­er way, head­ed toward Woolworth’s.  

The trol­ley stop where she chose to wait was right on the edge of the negro part of town, across from a soda foun­tain. The peo­ple com­ing in and out of the foun­tain looked at her in a way she wasn’t used to. They wouldn’t do that down­town or in her neigh­bor­hood. She pulled her coat tighter around her neck and stared at her shoes. The trol­ley couldn’t come soon enough.

She didn’t know where else to go besides back to Woolworth’s. She knew that if Hank went look­ing for her—and he would—he would try Melody’s place first. She was her only friend, after all. The store was going to be open late since it was Thurs­day, but even so, it was get­ting close to 6:30 already, with all the back­track­ing she had to do. 

Mr. Mor­ris, the store man­ag­er, saw Janet come in and knew right away some­thing was up. Janet nev­er came in on her time off.

“Janet, what brings you in? You’re not about to quit on me, are you?” Janet was a good work­er, a lit­tle qui­et with the cus­tomers and she could stand up straighter and show that pret­ty face of hers some­times. Might sell more lip­stick. But he’d hate to lose her. She fair­ly jumped when he asked her to do any­thing. A girl like that was valu­able.  

“Oh, no, Mr. Mor­ris. I left some­thing this after­noon.” Her eyes flew around the room, like she was look­ing to make an escape. “My hat.”

Mr. Mor­ris looked at the hat on Janet’s head.

Janet touched her head and said, “My oth­er hat.” She bolt­ed for the stock­room before he could ask any more questions.

She closed the door of the stock­room behind her and wiped her moist brow. It occurred to her that going to Reno meant she was going to quit on Mr. Mor­ris. She hadn’t real­ly thought about it that way. Maybe he’d hire her back once she got into town again and he heard the sto­ry. She thought he liked her enough to do that.

She heard a noise in the shad­ows of the rows of car­tons and crates. Janet turned to see Fern, the clean­ing woman, hang­ing up her coat in the cor­ner. Fern’s day start­ed when the shop­girls’ day end­ed, but her slouch­ing shoul­ders made her already look tired.  

“How you doing, Mrs. Hein­richs?” Fern asked.

“Oh, I’m alright, Fern,” Janet said. 

Fern came clos­er and asked, “Are you sure?” This was the clos­est the two of them had ever been, although they trad­ed pleas­antries on the nights when Janet worked until clos­ing. Fern’s dark eyes seemed to hold real con­cern for Janet. “You’re shak­ing like a leaf. Did you catch a chill?”

“No, I’m just—” Janet started. 

Fern said, “Just what? Just scared out of your wits now that I look at you a lit­tle clos­er. You come sit down, Mrs. Hein­richs. Catch your breath before the dev­il gets it away from you.”

She led Janet to the cor­ner where Fern kept the mops and rags. Just below where Fern hung her coat every night she had set up a pal­let on bricks and a met­al milk crate next to it. A lit­tle place to eat her sup­per. Janet had nev­er noticed it before. 

The minute Fern let go of her arm, Janet slumped onto the milk crate. 

“Mrs. Hein­richs, if you don’t mind me say­ing, you look like something’s chas­ing you. You’re wel­come to sit in my seat until you fig­ure out which way you’re going to run, but I have to eat my sand­wich and be out on the floor with a broom in my hand in nine minutes.”

Janet looked up at Fern’s kind face. “You go ahead and eat.” The truth was, she had run away from Hank before din­ner and she was hun­gry. She had maybe five dol­lars in her pock­et­book, and she would need every pen­ny of that small trea­sure just to get through the next few days or so until she could fig­ure out a way to get onto the train. 

When Fern saw Janet’s sad eyes fol­low­ing the sand­wich on its trip from wax­pa­per wrap­per to mouth, Fern pulled out a fold­ing knife from the pock­et of her coat and cut the sand­wich in two. “Here,” she said with a sigh, hand­ing the full half to Janet. “Looks like you could use this.”

“Thanks,” Janet said. The sand­wich was two pieces of bread with but­ter and apples between. They sat in silence while Janet worked up the ener­gy to eat it. She felt weighed down by all the ques­tions. Where would she go now? Who would help her? How would she get out of town with­out Hank find­ing her first?

“What’s on your mind, Mrs. Hein­richs?” Fern final­ly asked.

Janet stopped chew­ing to look at Fern as clear­ly as she could in the stilt­ed light of the stock­room. Could she trust a col­ored clean­ing lady to keep a secret? She wasn’t sure she had any choice.

She set the sand­wich down on the pal­let and stood up. “Fern,” she said. “I’m going away. Please don’t tell Mr. Mor­ris. I’m going to—” Janet couldn’t bring her­self to say the place. “I’m going away, for six weeks. My hus­band can’t know and I—” Janet stopped her­self. She pulled on her bangs. “Oh, what am I doing?”

“Mrs. Hein­richs.” Fern’s voice was steady, with a note of stern­ness in it. “In about two min­utes, Mr. Mor­ris is going to come through this door look­ing for me, and he bet­ter not find you and me hav­ing this lit­tle din­ner par­ty back here. So, if you don’t mind me say­ing so, if there’s some­thing you need from me, you bet­ter get to the point right quick.”

This was Janet’s chance and again she heard that one word, Now.  

“I’m going to Reno, Fern. Hank hasn’t been a very good hus­band. I was going to go in a cou­ple of weeks. That was the plan, any­way, but today I ran out of the house after Hank tore up a pho­to of me I was going to send to the man­ag­er of the hotel where they’ve got a job for me, and I don’t have any­where to go until I fig­ure out how I’m get­ting on the train. And I lied to Mr. Mor­ris. I said I was com­ing back here to get my hat.”

Fern looked up at Janet’s head then, with its pale blue hat, a cloche style pop­u­lar five years before. 

“I know,” Janet said. “I told him it was my oth­er hat.”

Fern went to the nail next to her coat and brought down her hat. It was a red felt num­ber with bake­lite cher­ries in clus­ter on the band. “Take this.” Fern said.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Janet said.

“Look, Mrs. Hein­richs, you don’t want to hole up in here too long. Mr. Mor­ris will be think­ing you’re try­ing to steal some­thing. Even more so if you come out of here with­out anoth­er hat.”

Janet nod­ded and took the hat. 

“And you take the 10 trol­ley to the YWCA on Ger­man­town Avenue. They can keep you for a cou­ple of nights until you get on the train. My cousin Cora works there in the kitchen. If you can get word to her, she might be able to help you with what­ev­er you need.”

Janet’s blue eyes were brim­ming with tears. “I don’t know how to thank you, Fern.” For a sec­ond she was tempt­ed to grab the woman and hug her but thought the bet­ter of it. 

“You best can thank me by putting the rest of that sand­wich in your pock­et and get­ting out of here, if you don’t mind me say­ing so. Make sure you wave that hat around a cou­ple times so Mr. Mor­ris gets a good look at it on your way out.” 

Janet could hard­ly breathe but she got out one last “Thank you” before doing exact­ly as Fern advised. 

As pre­dict­ed, Mr. Mor­ris was on the oth­er side of the door.

“Fern,” he said angri­ly as Janet burst through. 

“Found it!” Janet said, point­ing to the hat. “Good­bye, Mr. Morris.”

Although it was dark out­side and she was alone and run­ning from Hank, she only felt a lit­tle afraid. In fact, she felt lighter, like a weight had been lift­ed off her chest and in its place was a cool sen­sa­tion, a tick­le of free­dom she had nev­er felt before. She had a plan, a place to stay, and some­one who might look after her until she could get away. She would be alright if she would just stay focused on each minute as it came, on now.

From the writer

:: Account ::

This is an excerpt from Junc­tion, my as-yet unpub­lished nov­el about Mat Rodriguez’s twelve-month “exile” in Iowa, where she must go to estab­lish res­i­den­cy so she can file for divorce from her wife, Klau­dia. Junc­tion is set in 2013, before the Oberge­fell v. Hodges Supreme Court rul­ing mak­ing mar­riage equality—and, there­fore, access to queer divorce—the law of the land.

With­in Junc­tion is Flame on the Mesa, a 1950s les­bian pulp nov­el. I give homage to my fore­moth­ers here: Desert Hearts, Don­na Deitch’s 1985 Reno-cen­tered les­bian romance film (based on Jane Rule’s 1964 nov­el Desert of the Heart), as well as Clare Booth Luce’s depic­tion of the Reno divorce indus­try in The Women, her 1936 play.

When I was try­ing to dis­solve my queer Cana­di­an mar­riage (I couldn’t file for divorce in my home state of Wis­con­sin because the state didn’t con­sid­er my mar­riage legal), I couldn’t help but con­sid­er the sim­i­lar­i­ties between Deitch and Rule’s sto­ries of women mak­ing the jour­ney to Reno and the many ways LGBTQ cou­ples were caught in the cracks of state divorce laws.

To write Flame, I stud­ied Amer­i­can and Euro­pean les­bian pulp fic­tion. Con­sis­tent across my read­ing was an unre­lent­ing white­ness: the main char­ac­ters were all white, with the excep­tion of one “exot­ic” black woman and one light-skinned black woman pass­ing as some­one from India. As a polit­i­cal-mind­ed Lati­na queer writer raised in a multiracial/multilingual fam­i­ly, it’s impos­si­ble for me not to write about race and eth­nic­i­ty. But in writ­ing Flame, I faced a conun­drum: do I go for an accu­rate mim­ic­ry of the pulp genre and make my cast of char­ac­ters all white? Or do I reflect the real­i­ty that Amer­i­can queer life has always been a multiracial/multiethnic affair?

In the end, I felt com­pelled to a direct and imme­di­ate address of race, as in much of my work. First, there’s Melody’s con­cern that the River­side man­ag­er won’t hire Janet, who is white, unless she can prove she’s not black. In the scene with Fern, I tried to show through body lan­guage, terms of address, and their boss’s behav­ior the vary­ing expec­ta­tions for work­ers of dif­fer­ent races. Although depict­ing Fern as a flat, agen­da-less “helper” to Janet would more accu­rate­ly mim­ic pulp’s treat­ment of char­ac­ters of col­or, I couldn’t let Fern be just a paper cutout. Instead, Fern is clear what her assis­tance to Janet could cost her and posi­tions her needs against Janet’s. Through­out Flame, Janet makes alliances with peo­ple of col­or who are well-round­ed char­ac­ters. Ulti­mate­ly, she falls in love with Lena, a Latina.

In Junc­tion, Mat is a Mex­i­can-Amer­i­can gen­derqueer sud­den­ly relo­cat­ed to the near­ly all-white con­text of rur­al Iowa. She encoun­ters more sub­tle bar­ri­ers based on eth­nic­i­ty, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, and gen­der than those con­fronting Janet and her friends, but togeth­er their sto­ries illus­trate the intersectionality—and durability—of the oppres­sions queer women and women of col­or face.

Jen­nifer Morales is a Wis­con­sin poet, fic­tion writer, and per­for­mance artist. Recent pub­li­ca­tions include MAYDAY, Glass Poet­ry, and Stoneboat. Anoth­er Junc­tion excerpt is forth­com­ing in Hap­py Hours: Our Lives in the Gay Bars (Flash­point Pro­duc­tions), edit­ed by S. Renée Bess and Lee Lynch. Jennifer’s first book, Meet Me Halfway (UW Press, 2015), a col­lec­tion of inter­con­nect­ed short sto­ries about life in hyper-seg­re­gat­ed Mil­wau­kee, was the Wis­con­sin Cen­ter for the Book’s 2016 “Book of the Year.”

Fiction / Lily Hoang

:: The Mystical Adventures of the Happy Cat ::

Indeed, there he goes, the hap­py cat. He walks along the streets, along the canals and beside flats and busi­ness­es prac­ti­cal­ly suf­fer­ing with pri­ma­ry col­ors. The cat is very hap­py. He is a hap­py cat. Today, leaves dan­gle on the sub­terfuge of falling, and this is the sea­son the hap­py cat likes best: when his orange coat makes him invis­i­ble, and he catch­es col­or­ful birds and the ugli­est rats, and he brings them home to his pal. When he does, his pal gives him a good hard pet, and they put their fore­heads together—like a head-butt, like bonding.

“What tasty snack shall I bring home today?” The hap­py cat spits. It makes a splash in the water and fish jump out in pret­ty pat­terns like fireworks.

*

Once upon a time, there was a lit­tle rag­doll girl and she had no eyes. Where her eyes used to be are two pale cir­cles. But­tons used to pro­tect her from dirt and wind and sand, but alas, one day one of the but­tons fell off and anoth­er day the next one did. This is a sto­ry about a lit­tle rag­doll girl with­out eyes.

*

Every­body knows that the hap­py cat has a home, and every­one knows to whom he pledges his alle­giance, and yet—when the hap­py cat paws at their cher­ry doors, some­one always opens with a hand­ful of treats. The hap­py cat does some pal­try par­lor trick, and so the nice peo­ple of Copen­hagen open up cans of tuna and sar­dines and oth­er alu­minum-sealed fish for the hap­py cat to eat. He is a cat with a cer­tain joie de vivre, one he will share with those who are so gen­er­ous to him, and every­one clos­es the door with smiles. After all, who could say no to such a hap­py cat?

In this small way, every sin­gle Dan­ish cit­i­zen in Copen­hagen is owned by the hap­py cat, but the hap­py cat remains loy­al only to his pal.

*

With eyes or no, the lit­tle rag­doll girl loves to dance. Oh, she wig­gles her bot­tom and she wig­gles her top and she thrusts her rag­doll head in beat to the 808. She loves elec­tron­ic music—because she just loves to dance all night long.

*

Every day now, the hap­py cat has a mis­sion: to find a new pal for his pal. It isn’t that the hap­py cat isn’t enough, but recent­ly, his pal lacks humor and he’s always so somber, dolor, just plain sad. The hap­py cat does not like this, so he brings home new friends for his pal, but not just any old thing deserves the priv­i­lege of being pals to his pal: oh, no way, the hap­py cat must inter­view these can­di­dates first. Most often, they are not stur­dy enough, but the hap­py cat deliv­ers every day, even when these new pals are already dead.

*

The rag­doll girl was once a beau­ti­ful young lady. She met a nice woman—that’s me—who promised her friend­ship and end­less devo­tion, and my potions are strong. When I hob­ble off, she waits, small and help­less, her rags like daf­fodils in the wind.

She is so beau­ti­ful and young and in love, and I wish she could stay so forever.

*

There is a crum­pled ball caught in a spi­der-webbed cor­ner of the study belong­ing to the man who is the hap­py cat’s pal. If the paper were straight­ened out, it would say this: “Once [upon a time] (scratched out), there [was a] (scratched out) is a horse and the horse.” This is all the paper says. It says noth­ing more. Now it is a mere crum­pled ball and the spi­der in whose web it cur­rent­ly resides is very poi­so­nous. Watch out: here it comes.

*

Quite frankly, the hap­py cat wouldn’t touch an opos­sum with a fish­ing pole, but maybe an opos­sum is exact­ly what his pal needs—but then! Down the canal floats a lit­tle rag­doll girl, and she is soaked to the seams, and the hap­py cat knows it instant­ly: this is the per­fect pal for his pal. He lets go of the opos­sum, who is quite scared. It runs off and quickly.

The hap­py cat also takes off run­ning, down­stream, as fast as the water is flow­ing and then a lit­tle faster because he must out­run the down­stream momen­tum that holds the rag­doll girl hostage, and now the hap­py cat slows down some to jump down the stairs, and he slows until stop, and he stead­ies his hind legs and wraps his claws around the cement edge, and he low­ers his tor­so down­wards, toward the river—and boy could this be a colos­sal mistake!—toward the riv­er some more, toward the rag­doll girl—and at just the right moment, he snatch­es her clean up. He is such a good cat!

*

When the rag­doll girl dances, she drops so much mol­ly that dia­monds sprin­kle the edges of her eyes.

But even this can­not last for­ev­er, and at the stroke of mid­night, the rag­doll girl must retreat into her rag­doll girl body, and no one would like a rag­doll girl at a par­ty like this—it’s just such a fan­cy one—no, the rag­doll girl would sim­ply not belong.

*

But that was long ago. Long, long ago.

Back then, the rag­doll girl had eyes, and what did they see?

*

Once, the rag­doll girl saw Prince Charm­ing, but he didn’t see her—just a rag­doll girl lay­ing along just anoth­er mar­ble stair­case; he was sick of mar­ble stair­cas­es. He rushed off to do some­thing very important.

*

He drags the rag­doll girl by the neck with his teeth, and she leaves a train of dirty water every­where they go. The hap­py cat is not hap­py with this sit­u­a­tion that sprin­kles water all over his coat. This makes him a dis­tinct­ly unhap­py cat. An unhap­py cat is a ter­ri­bly bad kitty.

He slack­ens his hold on the rag­doll girl, and her head flops free against each and every hard cob­ble­stone, all the way home.

*

The hap­py cat’s pal lacks spir­it, and with lack of spir­it comes lack of inspi­ra­tion: noth­ing inspires him, noth­ing moves him; he feels—but with­out emotion.

*

When I asked her what she want­ed to trade, she said, “My eyes,” and I just shrugged. I don’t com­plain, and it’s out of my pay grade to explain what a bad wager she’s about to make.

*

But good­ness did she love to dance.

*

The hap­py cat drops the rag­doll girl right at his pal’s feet. Sure­ly, this will earn him a wealth of treats, maybe of a few dif­fer­ent vari­eties; the hap­py cat looks first at the rag­doll girl he has brought just for him, and then he looks at his pal with his vio­let eyes that plead for love and accep­tance. He yowls just once, to acknowl­edge some­thing, god­damn it, but no one responds.

Sud­den­ly, his pal shoots his hand out and gives the hap­py cat’s head a good hard pet­ting. “What’s this, fellow?”

The hap­py cat snakes around his pal’s legs to express joy.

*

The hap­py cat’s pal goes down­town, and he moves with inten­tion with­out being rushed. The pal stops at the baker’s, just to say hel­lo. “Hel­lo,” the pal says.

“Good morn­ing to you, good chap. Tell me, are you mak­ing any kro­na these days?”

The pal’s head falls. He doesn’t both­er answer­ing. “You’re look­ing splen­did as always.”

The bak­er hands the pal a loaf of crusty bread and a tub of cloud­ber­ry jam.

“Oh, thank you, but—”

“I insist, I insist,” and then he grabs anoth­er bag from behind the counter, “and this is for your hap­py cat.”

“Thank you,” the pal says, because he is hon­est­ly hungry.

The pal snacks on the bread and jam, and the city is busy with fall fra­grance and pro­duce. Hap­py Dan­ish peo­ple bicy­cle along the canals and oth­er hap­py Dan­ish peo­ple sit at cafés along the canals; every­one is hav­ing a splen­did day. The trees are every per­fect autumn col­or, crispy with song.

The pal stops at many stalls and shops, and every own­er asks about the hap­py cat and kro­nas, and soon enough the pal has an arm­ful of goods. “Take it,” they insist, all of them, and so what can he do? He can­not be rude! By the time the pal reach­es the but­ton shop, he is push­ing a shop­ping cart, and even that is over­flow­ing. Like Odysseus final­ly reach­ing Itha­ka, here is the pal, at the but­ton shop, the whole rea­son for this expe­di­tion: just two lit­tle buttons.

*

Once there is a beau­ti­ful girl, and she has a beau­ti­ful voice, and she’s some­thing of a princess, except that she isn’t roy­al­ty. As such, Prince Charm­ing can’t be both­ered to look at her. She comes to me, and I say, “You are despair­ing. I can tell.” Now this is the first time we met, but for many years I have watched this beau­ti­ful girl.

“Your hair is so neat­ly combed and such a son­ic sil­ver, sure­ly, you must be here to help me. Please, old crone lady, help me.”

I promised her that the prince would see her, final­ly, but I did not men­tion the mar­ble stair­case and her new rag­doll girl body. I did not men­tion how invis­i­ble she would always remain.

*

There are many but­tons at the but­ton store. The pal has nev­er seen so many but­tons cap­tured in just one place. He says to the girl behind the counter, “I must sew two eyes, but how do I choose?”

The girl takes him by the hand, and it feels like a storm in her sim­ple touch, and she guides him to the thou­sands of but­tons in the store. “Feel it,” she says, clos­ing the pal’s fin­gers around a fan­cy gild­ed but­ton, “and the right one will just be right.”

*

The pal takes a sin­gle bright pur­ple thread and care­ful­ly sews two eyes into place. She is per­fect now, flawless.

*

The rag­doll girl jumps up and takes his hand in hers, and now they are in a small barn. They stand beside this very fal­low can­dle, and it woes. It woes, “Oh, that I should only have one sin­gle pur­pose in my life!” The fal­low can­dle, it would seem, has no pur­pose, being fal­low and all that.

The melt­ing pot calls out, “Shut up, you lit­tle brat.”

“Mama,” the fal­low can­dle says, “I’m sorry.”

The pal looks at the rag­doll girl because he doesn’t under­stand how a fal­low can­dle can be relat­ed to a melt­ing pot. “Just watch,” the rag­doll girl says.

Now a large sheep slams his way into the barn. He splin­ters the wood­en door.

The fal­low can­dle jumps twice, but no flames rise to his wick. “Papa!”

The sheep looks at his fal­low can­dle son and asks, “Why are you still here? We have no use for you.”

The barn is fair­ly sparse. Some hay and wood­en stalls, but there’s enough feed in the melt­ing pot to keep the sheep happy.

“We should just melt you, be done with you,” the sheep says, and the melt­ing pot does not disagree.

The fal­low can­dle feels dis­tressed. He is in cri­sis. He packs his bag and begins a jour­ney, and the jour­ney will nev­er be com­plete until he finds a pur­pose in life.

Along the way, he meets a tin­der­box. “Tin­der­box,” the fal­low can­dle says, “what are you doing in this for­est? This place is not safe for a pret­ty tin­der­box like you.”

The tin­der­box says, “What are,” and she stares the fal­low can­dle right in the eye, “you doing here?”

“I have no pur­pose in life. I am with­out des­tiny. I am useless.”

“Crawl inside me,” the tin­der­box says and opens her lid. The fal­low can­dle bends and dis­torts, but how can he jump in? The tin­der­box unlatch­es some­thing and a door opens and the fal­low runs inside.

And so the tin­der­box glows with pur­pose, like this is what she was always meant to do, like she was wait­ing for a fal­low can­dle to grant her life.

“Do you under­stand?” the rag­doll girl says, and her but­ton eyes fall off. They roll around the ground until they fall flat.

*

Don’t go call­ing me a bul­ly. I grant only what is asked of me. Peo­ple should not speak in metaphors when what they desire is literal.

*

They fall flat and sink into the ground. The pal palms the earth, and it is com­plete­ly flat.

*

Mean­while, the hap­py cat goes along his day, free of the bur­den of the hunt. He bakes his fur in the sun until it sets. Then, he returns to his pal because it is get­ting cold and damp outside.

*

Six, but now he has only four but­tons left.

*

The pal picks two dif­fer­ent but­tons: a sil­ver star and an olive square. The first time he had put on two match­ing but­tons. Now he attempts a dif­fer­ent strat­e­gy. He secures the but­tons, first with thread and then with super­glue. The rag­doll girl pops into life and puts her lit­tle cloth hand in his human hand, and sud­den­ly, they are in a field, and pas­tel flow­ers grow wild and untend­ed. There is a very hand­some but­ter­fly who catch­es everyone’s eye, and he flut­ters onto a dan­de­lion. The truth is that he, too, is a des­per­ate one. He must find a mate but none of these pal­try flow­ers will do. He turns his nose up and flies off to anoth­er flower. And then anoth­er. And then anoth­er. The sea­sons change and he dies, alone. His fall is not grace­ful. It’s just a fall. And he is just anoth­er flat­tened bug wait­ing for the soil to incor­po­rate his body.

“Do you under­stand?” Her eyes fall to the ground, and he is too slow to retrieve them from the past retreat­ing into the present.

*

He puts his hand around the rag­doll girl’s cot­ton hand and looks at her eye­less face. “But I don’t under­stand yet,” he says, and in walks the hap­py cat, and his pal for­gets the whole ordeal.

*

For many days his pal has been quite hap­py. His mood became a spir­it­ed jig, as opposed to a requiem, which was how it was for far too long.

Nobody likes a down­er, not even a hap­py cat.

For many days, his pal was not a down­er at all. His pal was as hap­py as the hap­py cat him­self. Flow­ers thrust into bloom when he walked by their box­es, and all of Copen­hagen, it seemed, rushed past Win­ter and flew into the apex of Spring. Col­ors just ached from inhab­it­ing such beau­ty, such substance.

And then the hap­py cat found the rag­doll girl in his box of toys.

*

Did she ever even have eyes?

Sure­ly, this is all the pal’s imag­i­na­tion. What else could it be?

*

It is the only eth­i­cal thing to do: the hap­py cat does not let go until the water nips at his teeth. She floats off with­out any eyes on her face, blind.

*

Today the hap­py cat is not too hap­py. He catch­es a pur­ple-winged dove right at its neck, and its fight only pro­longs the suf­fer­ing. The hap­py cat plays.

The thing is limp and prob­a­bly dead when the hap­py cat reach­es home. His pal is wait­ing for him at the door. “What’s this?” His pal’s fin­gers are all black. His pal has been work­ing, and when he is work­ing, he is a hap­py pal.

The hap­py cat drops the dead bird at his pal’s shoes. They are worn down. They used to be a glossy mus­tard. Now they are brown.

His pal picks him up, which the hap­py cat does not like one bit, and says, “Look at those dirty paws!” They go inside, and the unhap­py cat is still being held, and his pal takes a cold cloth to his paws and scrubs.

Very, very unhap­py now, the cat goes to bed. There, nuz­zled under the blan­ket, is a wet rag­doll girl, and she doesn’t have any eyes.

*

The rag­doll girl has a curse on her—and a promise. Don’t go point­ing fin­gers: this is not my fault.

The hap­py cat snug­gles with her and falls asleep.

There is a knock on the door. The hap­py cat’s ears shoot up.

Ah, it is only Prince Charm­ing, but the rag­doll girl can’t see him.

His pal bows before roy­al­ty, and the prince takes off his rid­ing cape and unbuck­les his sword because there are no beasts in here to kill.

Their affair is brief but solar.

*

The rag­doll girl dances and twirls and twists her body all around. It’s a real par­ty in there, and joy falls on the entire house, mod­est though it may be.

*

Now the hap­py cat and the rag­doll girl stroll along the canals.

Now the hap­py cat spots a fish-girl, and she flaps her tail and dries her hair in the sun. The hap­py cat and the rag­doll girl drag her back to the house. The whole way, she com­plains and tells the most obvi­ous sto­ries, and every­one wish­es she would just shut up already.

From the writer

:: Account ::

In the midst of writ­ing a ser­i­al killer nov­el that was more or less dev­as­tat­ing my brain and my emo­tions, a friend told me to write some­thing hap­py for a change. To take a break. He told me I should write a sto­ry about a hap­py cat. And this is exact­ly what I did.