Read Me At: LIT

You can now read my short story "It's a Long Way Back" in the latest issue of the very awesome LIT Magazine. The story has bands, burnouts, the Staten Island Ferry, plus plenty of questionable fatherhood. Order it for $8!
Here's an excerpt:
     "Let's have a baby," was what Dee said to him as they stood, waiting for the rain to stop, beneath the awning of Irving Plaza near New York's Union Square. Mike turned to face the darkened venue's glass doors and proceeded to read a flyer that was taped there, that advertised the coming month's concerts.
     "I wouldn't pay to see any of these bands," said Mike, then in the glass he watched a woman's stooped reflection as she shook a plastic grocery bag from her over-stuffed purse and fit it over her damp white hair like a cap. The rain had chased several others here, and anyways, what the hell was Dee thinking with this shit? 
     "There just isn't any good music anymore," complained Mike. 
     "Why don't we talk about it," said Dee. And she didn't mean the music. 

     So they talked about it. On the train, on the bus, in bed, at the park, the ATM, and at the OTB even, where Mike jumped inside because he hoped Dee wouldn't follow, and for maybe a minute no bets were placed and the horses sprinted unnoticed on the plasma screens because Mike and Dee were so loud. But for Mike there wasn't anything to talk about really and the answer was always no, delivered with building exhaustion, his tongue struggling, if that's possible, from so much use of no no no no no and he'd probably worried a divot into the roof of his mouth, at the spot where the tongue first sets for up the n sound that's how much he was saying it. 
     "Get a dog," he said. 
     "What?" 
     "Where is this coming from?" he asked. "Everything was fine." 
     "I just decided that's all," she said. 
     "Get a dog instead." 
     "Fuck you." 
     "Dogs are people too," said Mike. Sure they were, he'd heard that before, right? 
     "Be serious man," said Dee. But Mike was serious and to show her how serious he went on Saturday to the animal shelter on 110th, a bunker of a building where he got the dullest seeming animal he could find, a white Russell Terrier but already after having it one week it gnawed away some of the bathroom door and it was amazing it even found the time considering how it was always jabbing its snout into Mike's crotch. And none of this changed Dee's mind in the slightest. 
     "I wanna be like the Partridge Family," said Dee, dressed in black, eyes underlined in black, and her hair dyed black but the roots shining clear. "But less the Partridges and more the Stooges. And we still need a drummer and a singer I think, so do the math about how many we need." 
     "I thought it was just one kid." 
     "Like I said, do the math." 
     "But the dog," Mike insisted. He reminded her that they loved the dog, although he didn't really, but wasn't the dog enough? 
     "That's just the first step," she said. 
     These demands of hers started coming at less than ideal moments, seemingly designed to catch Mike off guard, when his argumentative impulses were impaired: after sex, while his alarm was buzzing at six in the morning, after wine. Sometimes she'd throw her arm around his neck and bite him, because he used to like that but not any more, not when she was doing it now. He'd push her face away. She'd pull her arms tighter. 
     "But it'd be perfect," she'd say, breathy. And the words would thicken in the air, like a cement or glue: it would be perfect. And for maybe just a moment, Mike would think about relaxing something within himself, and letting himself be enfolded in those words and just not worry about it. 
     But Mike said no. And Dee said, trust me. 
     And Mike said no. What kind of father would he be? No kind, is what. Growing up, Mike's own dad had been just a tiresome voice on the telephone, calling on Christmases and birthdays. Mike would close his eyes and wind the telephone cord so tight around his fingers that they felt like they'd split open, while his dad made the same hurried promises as always, to visit or send money and all of it was lies. 
     "I know my limits," said Mike. And those limits stopped at him and Dee. 
     Eventually Dee went quiet on the subject and Mike figured the matter was settled and that was his first mistake. Two months later he was out on a work delivery, trying with a pulsing hangover to coax a Steinway Grand off the back of the company truck, when he got a text message from Dee. Went 2 doctor, it said, need 2 talk. She had secretly gone off birth control, and Mike was going to be a dad. 

If you'd like to read more - you can order LIT #20 here!