We Levitate Galleons

A Place to Rest

No Trespassing on My Trickle-Down

knowing the future

your death at twenty-five

[a pause.] Where was I? Oh, yes. As we’re going up the elevator together, me and this oil man, I engage the hidden button on my fake luggage and the tiny moving rectangle of space climbing that atrocious highrise begins to fill with a blue fog. Before Mr. Exxon even realizes it, I’ve replaced my shiny good-ole-boy back-scratching grin with a gas mask, a sight which would have probably given Mr. Exxon a number of disturbed dreams, if he had lived to dream them. The elevator opened on our floor and the blue smog was allowed to dissipate into the atmosphere of the hallway. I know, I know, Cass. What if someone had been in the hall? What if someone had seen me and Mr. Exxon awkwardly playing the roles of predator and prey? You know what I say to that, Cass? Live a little, that’s what. You know the next day you’re gonna be sometime else anyway. [a pause. another drag on the cancer stick. a plumey exhaling of gasified tar. the tight shutting of a hardback.] So the doors shut without incident and up I took us to the very top floor. You know those hanging chained signs on stairwells that say “No Entry to Roof?” Well, those are lies. All you have to do is step over them. With Mr. Exxon over my shoulder and both bags of luggage in my hand, we went to the exposed night and stared out over Dallas, and wow, Cass, all those lights! It’s like any big city really, Dallas. But I never get over big city lights. They remind me of so many things better than themselves, better than what they stand for or the metric fuck ton of coal they require. Lights at night, in a park, on a ship, strung through a garden, fucking torches on a castle—whatever you want. They’re like the perfect amount of human interjection over the environment without going ape shit. Just enough to say, ‘Hey, I can expose you, world, show you your own beauty in a night glow, and maybe I’ll do it whenever I want to, but I’ll stop there and not fuck you up anymore than that. Lights in the night, the goddamned invention of fire.’ Can’t that be enough? [a pause. yet another drag. a trodding, determined exhaling of smoke. possibly the wobbly floating of rings up to the fake-pearl-white motel ceiling.] I did the usual then. I sabotaged the luggage. This time it was kiddie porn hidden behind leaves of business papers in a leather slot of his bag. That’s the thing about these people, isn’t it? These big execs and top-of-the-food-chain capitalists. They are pure as the driven snow in their own minds, thinking they are doing everything all noble for themselves and their own. We have to go about pettily framing them in order for their world to comprehend the need for their destruction. It’s insanity. More insane than all of the carbon, the strip mining, the dirty water even. [a pause. a movement towards the lips. the briefest kiss of the cigarette’s papery filter tip. a pulling away. an exhale of smokeless air. the restless frustration.] So anyway, I commenced to undress the man and throw his five-figure suit in disparate parts around the roof. You would have been impressed with how natural it looked. I lifted Mr. Exxon onto the edge of our highrise, stood his naked ass right up on the edge of it. It was kind of a pain, actually, holding a limp body into a position like that, but I think the authenticity was probably worth it. At that point, it was as easy as blowing smoke. [a pause.] I wonder if Mr. Exxon ever dreamt of flying. If he did, Cass, do you think he flew around staring down at cities and rivers and canyons and all manner of our earthly wonders, or would he just be falling, roller-coaster jolt to the stomach, the nausea and headache and absence of time. No time to even consider why the earth would want to so badly bring him back down to it, to keep him close and at hand. Perhaps hitting the ground, melding with it, but not dying. Entering a new dream on the other side. Or rather, a millisecond before impact, being given the chance to force himself awake. What do you think, Cass? I’m addressing you. Do crooks and charlatans and playboys dream big like us, with our bird's eye view, or is the life they found here all they could have ever wanted? [a pause. a final suck of carcinogenic wind. the silent extinguishing upon a heavy white ash tray.] Ha, anyway girl, I’m gonna hit the hay. Sweet dreams, babe. Over and out. [click.]

Yelizaveta P. Renfro

Mama story

[click. a noticeable amount of static. the low hum of central heating. the low hum of electricity. the low hum of distant television.] So I’m in some shitty motel in west Texas but Hey! the 80s! And Christmas eve! Who wouldn’t want to be here? Most people must be with their families by now, all across North America, ready with anticipation for a morning of goodwill and presents and breakfast casseroles, right? Can’t forget though, oblivious to the fossil-fueled transportation that shuttled them around into their family’s arms, and not thinking how what they do every day is going to kill their planet. But that’s old news, eh? No reason to beat a dead horse. [a pause. the clicking of a remote control.] Remember television? Man, as a kid I remember it in our house, you know, before it was deemed an “inappropriate means of information.” Not direct enough, I guess, this T.V. Not when an eight year old can just download the cartoons into his head while chomping on his cereal. But hey, those cartoons, the ones from the 20th century? The Golden Age? Classic stuff. Don’t worry, I’m actually reading a book right now, too. I’m not poisoning my brain with the “commodification of the arts,” Cass. I’m reading what Faulkner thought it was like to be a southern black man in the 1930s. And listen to this—[a pause. a ruffling of papers. a scratching of cardboard and cloth.]—a hardback! What a hot little item. It’s good stuff, too. I’m really into his rendering of dialogue and Mississippi colloquialisms. I see why people like you dig it. The academia. The intellects. The informationals. Go Down, Moses would be sorely missed from our great Tapesfile, wouldn’t it? I’m not being facetious. I really think it would be. [a pause. the turning of pages. a sigh. the repositioning of an arm on a bed. the rustling of sheets and a pillow.] So you probably want to hear about my job, eh babe? I was truly a one-man assassin this time. An Exxon up-and-comer who makes a deal in the late 1990s, exploding global oil trades. He was the job, this oil man—catching a corporate jet home yesterday to Dallas from Philly and they wanted me to be on board with him and follow him from the airport and all this really unnecessary bullshit. I don’t know if it’s Peter still making these decisions or what, but lately I feel like we’re all jumping hoops we don’t have to. And after what you did, Cass, I don’t even know what people are thinking. How much longer will they let all of this go on? [a pause. the low drums of the 80s stifle the little motel room.] Well, I did one of your signature moves. This was a Cass-inspired stint alright. A tribute. I got to chatting with the Exxon guy on the plane and—get this—I was compelled to tell him I was a newly promoted exec of a fast food chain his company was making underhanded deals with. Oh, you would have loved it. Too simplistic, really. But the potential of bureaucratic back-scratching gets these guys hard every time. I managed to orchestrate sharing a cab with the dude when we landed in Dallas. I sat there in my fake suit, my fake shoes, my fake smile and my fake luggage snug in the trunk right next to Mr. Exxon’s real luggage and the real Mr. Exxon himself next to the real fake me right in the cab. And who would have thought? Mr. McDonalds and Mr. Exxon lived in the same high rise in the middle of the city. And on the same floor. By now, as you may assume, the oil man was getting a little skeptical. That’s when you go all out, right? When your perceived congeniality is starting to lose its sheen? It was a bit easier for you, Cass, I imagine, being a fox and all that. [a pause. the exploration of a shirt pocket. the click-flip of a silver Zippo lighter. an intake of breath. an exhale of breath.] Guess what? I started smoking again. I’d like to say it wasn’t your fault, Cass. [an intake of smoke. an exhale of smoke.] But it totally was.

[click. the cool rustling of newspaper. the welcoming draft of an open window. the tiny snaps of an open fire. the tin-pot bubbling of strong coffee.] Hmmm. So, yesterday was a close call. As you might imagine, Cass, I didn’t make it to see the sun come up. I woke up in the sun, that’s for sure. But it was almost noon when I did. I was awoken by that empty cabernet bottle lightly smacking against the side of my cheek. On the other end of the bottle, grasping the neck in his hand, was a kid, probably thirteen or fourteen, grinning at me with about three teeth. [a pause. the slow pour of coffee into a small and chipped marble-white mug.] I remember feeling hungover as hell, and that was about all I could fucking handle on my end. Ha, I didn’t even say anything. With the deftness of a damn street fighter this kid burst the end of the bottle against the side of the porch. A few pieces sprayed my legs and chest. And you know what it felt like? It was like being on the dry part of the beach, you know, up near the dunes or something, and having the wind blow those tiny shards of sand all over you. That was fucking exactly what it felt like. [a pause. a short sip of coffee.] So this empty cabernet is now shattered at the end, and it’s like, you know, it was like a—a tiny garden of barbed emeralds in his fist. I know that sounds weird, but that’s what it looked like, god’s truth. And so he waved this new weapon in my face and told me to strip off all my clothes. I was so hungover and I’m guessing I looked like a zombie and you know, this kid probably thought he had me with my dick out. He probably thought he already had a heroic story to tell the rest of his urchin pals, huh? I’ll spare you the exact details of what happened to him—you always were fond of the vagrants, weren’t you?—but rest assured, he was given a very nice grave behind the house. No worries on that front. Back to the matron dust and all that. [a pause. a slow sip of black coffee. an exhale of rough satisfaction. the window breeze.] Apparently the squatters in outer Sackville are very particular about the places people can squat. And isn’t that very egalitarian of them? You know, Cass, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the idea that any of these people, abandoned by their states and governments and their precious corporations would ever rise to anything grand, to anything promising or just helpful, well that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. But I know you believed in it, Cass. You believed in the cause, the movement, the victory of the low and downtrodden, even as you still looked from your ivory tower. It’s okay. I can’t fault you for that. I wanted to believe in it too. Anyway, I get my drop tomorrow, and then I’ll be, as you liked to say, sometime else. Til later, babe. Over and out. [click.]