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One Cent In ManhattanDesigned—I’m not sure why or how or even when—as a complimentary badge, you leave a single shiny penny face up on the table after you’ve received excellent restaurant service. In Chelsea, good service is hard to come by, so seeing this penny left on the table next to yours made me grin in the promise of the experience you were about to have. I was a server for a while in college and would have preferred a twenty-five-percent gratuity over the symbolism.

WaldenCarefully, with the light touch that my grandmother’s arthritic hands might have softly extended in the last decade be- fore her dementia set in, I grasped the tiny flaccid creature. You don’t realize how really small a bird is when it isn’t flying, when its wings aren’t extended, when it is limp in your palm.

WordsThe book, ancient by his standards, wiggled its way into his clumsy hands from the bottom of a precarious pile in the back of the dusty shop.

Rocking ChairThey first met when she was sixteen. He had just enlisted in the Navy—thirteen days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. She was dating his younger brother and, when her deep turquoise eyes first met his, all he could think was how sorry he was for him. He was going to take his girl: not exactly the best Christmas gift he could offer. It was, however, the last selfish thing he ever did in his life.

FlagThere was no equivocation. He had to get to school. Coming from a thrilling VFW ceremony, he was nearly ready to jump out of his skin with anticipation. He held a brand new American flag in his pudgy hands.

Crochet“What are those for?” “That’s bait.” “Ohhhh.” My wonderment was unambiguous

EquilateralNowadays, the rules are just plain different. Courtship, sexuality, matrimony, parenthood: rituals with rules written for other people in other times.

FootballAfter criss-crossing the road four times and hitting every convenience store within a mile, we finally found rolling papers.

Princess“I can’t believe she’s gone!” “Huh?” “Oh, you’re awake?” “Well, of course I am now.” “I still can’t believe she is gone. I just can’t believe it.”

BloomJust a few miles past NW 13th Ave, off of Highway 441, out in the muddy groves, alive with bumblebee dancing, mosquito buzzing, and the pungent sweetness of orange blossoms spilling their pollen on the moist ground, only the sun knows the tools and antics of carefree adolescence: tepid canned beer, skunky marijuana, big-tired pickup trucks with springy bench seats and rusty beds, and Alan Jackson classics.

Merry-Go-RoundAdored by his elders for his buoyantly toothy smile and his effervescent laughter, his dark brown eyes were always alight with a playfulness that glimmered through any darkness.

ArbitrageArising from a mist of afternoon coitus, he rolled out of the bed and acknowledged that she did not. Neither of them was naked from the waist up. Neither of them was clothed from the waist down.

SaleI was a deal-seeking warrior, searching always for treasure on muggy Friday mornings in neighborhoods near and far.

FlightOutside of the usual bar or nightclub, it’s not every day that I get a drink bought for me—at least not by strangers and cer- tainly not on a workday.

ChokeA local attraction, LaMont’s, featured strippers who had been working there since what must have been prohibition. The drinks were as strong as the strippers were abhorrent. One of the “girls” who, by the shape of her neatly shaved “area” had clearly given lots of births, hung around soliciting tips like a hound dog at a southern Sunday picnic table. My compatriot burned through a stack of ones faster than sticks of butter at that same picnic table.

ObtuseKnobby kneed and flat chested, I was a lanky cauldron of empty threats and spritely libido for the first two years of our friendship.

RingSide by side—shoulders grazing, necks hunched, and wide- opened eyes scoping downward—they ambled, feet shuffling through wet napkin balls, beer bottle cullet, cigarette-box aluminum inners, and putrefying lemon wedges.

DipsShe ordered the spinach artichoke dip. He got the salsa. Her chips outlasted the pungent, stringy green-flecked concoction and he slid his three-quarters-full bowl of chunky tomatoes and jalapeno specks in her direction.

UnbornI WAS NEVER BORN. I WAS NEARLY BORN, BUT NEVER TOOK A BREATH OUTSIDE of my mother’s womb. When I emerged from her, reaching beyond the tunnel-ended light, I careened toward a light that blazed with the lumi- nescence of a quadrillion white dwarf stars and continued to fall until my eyes opened and I hovered over what I now know was unmitigated grief.

SleepI have been incapable of moving, even a finger or an eye, for at least a year now. I feel relatively certain about this timeframe be- cause I have been watching the crepe myrtle outside the window of the room I am in.

BorgesAfter perfectly executing his plan for the manifestation and consumption of dark energy particulates, his sturdy yet still— comatose—body was placed in a sterile hospital tomb where it was all but forgotten.

DoritosWhat he lacked in classical training, he made up for with inquisitiveness and creative solution-seeking: an in-your-face ap- proach to unrequited expectations that constantly re-aligned realities all around him.

AcuteWe got especially drunk one night—once of hundreds— and I passed out in his car. As though quickening from paralysis when I woke up, my dick was out of my jeans and he was jerking me off.

JuansWe loved the half-price late-night happy-hour menu, even if it only included pizza and even if we were all always dieting.

FireLying in bed, waiting for my muses to visit, watching my ball- point pen hover over a blank page and feeling my ears twitching— perked up—with a disappointed lack of stimulation, I loiter on the edge of slumber.

BlastWith glowing eyes upon him, a room full of cameras, and a tower of muzzled microphones, he returned the political gaze.

BriarpatchCall me Doctor.

JASON LECLERC

Author

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