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The Hiss Quarterly Vol. 4 ~ Issue 4 Slip Out The Back, Jack. The Anatomy Of Abandonment |
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at the 24 hour laundry there's a kid sitting cross-legged under a pinball machine. he's scratching the end of an opened wire hanger against the wall. wanna play? i lean under and ask. i'm not tall enough, he says. sure you are, i get a chair. he works the left flipper and i work the right. it's a simpsons machine. you watch simpsons? i ask. i don't watch cartoons i only watch wwe, he says and slams a fist as we lose a ball. he's got a face like a badger looks underfed a little grey in the skin. you here by yourself? i ask. moms out there, he says pointing to a tore up train-wreck in cut-off jeans sharing a cigarette with a moon-faced pile of bones. whose the guy? i don't know him, he says. Jonathan! get out here, his mom calls. she gets in a rusted out taurus with the guy and drives off. mom says she'll be back in an hour, he says and flashes a five and slides it into the quarter machine. |
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my friend's sister
do you really want to use your allowance on that? her mom asked as the four of us left the grocery store. i want justin to like me, amanda said. she was seven and i was thirteen. she put four quarters in the machine twisted the metal handle and put a plastic egg in my hand. do you like it? she asked as her, jason and i rode home in the back seat. it's very nice i've never had silly putty before, i lied to make her feel good. you're my boyfriend now, she giggled and gave me an innocent hug. jason's family moved to arkansas pretty soon after that. amanda hadn't crossed my mind in the sixteen-years since. as she does tonight i'm thinking of that thing more important than money or sex a woman can give to a man and just how much of it she's probably used up. |  |
