Elan Barnehama | Red Box

Google Maps Street View
1516 Lincoln Blvd, Los Angeles, California 
Image Capture December 2017  
Map Data ©2022 Google

RED BOX

I turned into the parking lot of the 7-11 on Lincoln Boulevard. I’d been living in Venice Beach for a month and had made a lot of progress on my new novel but had not made any headway on new friends. I knew how to get dates online, but I had no idea how anyone made new friends. Especially anyone past fifty.

When I first arrived, I tried coffee shops, but no one talked in Venice coffee shops. They just worked away on laptops. I kept going to coffee shops to write by myself in the company of the silent. But at night I hit the boardwalk where I eavesdropped on conversations just to hear people talk.

I wore my ear pods and nodded my head, so it looked like I was listening to music and not being creepy. If someone said something interesting, I pretended that I was part of the exchange, part of their story, and I added my words in my head. I imagined that the nice people were my friends.

I’d spent the earlier part of the evening on my favorite benches along the boardwalk watching the sun disappear in the Pacific. My best listen that night was the woman who told her date that to be genuinely from Venice one had to stay AWOL. Always West Of Lincoln. I’d been AWOL without knowing it.

There were three homeless guys sitting on the pavement in front of the 7-Eleven as I pulled into a parking spot. My plan was to get snacks and sit in my car in the parking lot and eavesdrop as people entered and left the store. I hit the jackpot with a spot in front of the Red Box. I liked listening in on conversations about what movie to rent.

I shut the engine and this guy, a small guy in his twenties, tapped on my window. I hadn’t noticed him coming over. He almost fell onto my window. He was clearly wasted. I got out of my car slowly, backing him away with the door.

He asked me for a cigarette. I told him I didn’t smoke. That made him angry. Maybe he thought I was lying.

I knew him. Or kids like him. He looked like one of my students from when I taught at community college back before I decided to leave the classroom and Boston and head west. They never got older. But I did. I looked at the kid and wondered if I wanted to be a teacher again. I did not. He was twisted and irritated and that made him dangerous. Besides, I had no advice for him.

I locked the car and headed inside without saying anything. He started to follow me into the store. Inside, I grabbed some cashews and a coffee. When I went to pay, the kid was mouthing off to the young woman behind the counter. Funny, she looked his age and she didn’t.

I felt bad for her. I didn’t need to. She kicked him out of the store with ease and grace. As I was paying, she told me that he was looking to either get the shit kicked out of him or get shot. Or maybe, she added, he just wanted to get arrested so that he’d have a nice place to sleep for the night.

I was too sad to stay and listen to the couple in front of the Red Box trying to pick out a romantic comedy. Who even had a DVD player anymore?

I gave the cashews to one of the homeless guys and got in my car and drove home.

______________________________

Elan Barnehama’s new novel, Escape Route (Running Wild Press, May 2022), set in New York City during the late 1960s, is told by the son of Holocaust survivors, who becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and with finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up its Jews. Elan was the flash fiction editor for Forth Magazine LA, has taught college writing, worked with at-risk youth, had a gig as a radio news guy, and did a mediocre job as a short-order cook. “Red Box” is based on a section of Elan’s current novel in progress. It originally appeared as “Listening In,” in Rough Cut Press, Issue 11: WELL THAT ESCALATED.

John J. Trause | Orange

Orange                                 Color? Orange Red Green Yellow

It was an ordinary Sunday in San Antonio, a city more bright and beautiful than Venice, without threat of flood in over 85 years, when fresh from our hotel, on the River Walk lined with overhanging trees and decoratively verdant vines, some resplendent with bright orange flowers, when my sister, three-year-old nephew, and I strolled the short walk to St. Mary’s Church, a block or two away. We had learned the day before how the Germans had settled in San Antonio, contributing to the local Tex-Mex cuisine their preference for wheat over maize tortillas, wheat considered by them the proper food for humans, corn only fit for animals. I marveled all weekend at how the San Antonio River seemed so clear and clean, not murky or flood-prone as the lagoons of Venice are known to be, and now even the air itself on this brightly orange-yellow Sunday testified to the mix of urban bustle and bucolic profusion in efficient balance. Beautiful shade trees, blocking the auburn sun, flourished along the streets, recalling those of Amsterdam and Berlin. As we approached the façade of the church, there lounging on the steps, a seemingly homeless woman, fleshy, plump, and with brightly but poorly dyed orange-red hair, was calling out and gesturing to us in the distance while combing her greasy coif. Getting closer, I realized that she, knowing that we were headed toward the entrance of the church, was trying to get my attention and not that of my sister or nephew: “Mister, mister, your fly is open.”

__________________________________

John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry, including Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017) and Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014), and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, prose, and artwork appear internationally in many journals and anthologies. Marymark Press has published Trause’s visual poetry and art as broadsides. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, New Jersey, and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.

John J. Trause | Yellow

Yellow                                  Yellow Orange Red Green

San Antonio, as one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, was also experiencing a high rate of homelessness, crime, and depravity, belying the tranquility and ostentation of the tourist trade along the River Walk, a clear separation between the haves and have-nots in close proximity, the former ignoring the latter and the latter trying to gain the attention of the former. What might be lurking in the umber shadows under the bridges along the river or even below the surface of the ochre-stained water moving almost imperceptibly as if stagnant? Was that a whiff of urine wafting from that alley? Is that puddle residual river water or yellow piss staining the walkway? It was from this buzzing yellow miasma along the River Walk that my sister, my three-year-old nephew, and I strolled the short walk to St. Mary’s Church, a block or two away. As we approached the façade of the church, we thought we saw, there, sprawling on the steps, a seeming mass of tentacles and fetid sea flesh bellowing out at no one in particular, a red-haired Scylla of the sanctuary, ready to snatch us from our footing. On coming closer we saw that this bedraggled creature might be a seemingly destitute woman, fleshy, plump, and with brightly but poorly dyed red hair. She had been calling out and gesturing to us from a distance while combing her greasy, colored coif. Does she want money? Does she want help? Does she just want attention? What does she want? Getting closer, I realized that she, knowing that we were headed to the entrance of the church, was trying to get my attention and not that of my sister and nephew: “Mister, mister, your fly is open.”

__________________________________


John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry, including Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017) and Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014), and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, prose, and artwork appear internationally in many journals and anthologies. Marymark Press has published Trause’s visual poetry and art as broadsides. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, New Jersey, and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.

John J. Trause | Green

Green                                  Green Yellow Orange Red

It was in ordinary time on an ordinary Sunday in San Antonio, a city more green and lush and beautiful than Venice, without the threat of flood in over 85 years, when fresh from our hotel on the River Walk lined with overhanging trees and decorative verdant vines, that my sister, my three-year-old nephew, and I strolled the short walk to St. Mary’s Church, a block or two away. I marveled, all weekend, how the San Antonio River seemed so clear and clean, not murky and flood-prone as the lagoons of Venice are known to be, and how even the air on this bright, aqua-blue Sunday testified to a mix of urban bustle and natural voluptuousness in ecologically sound measure. Trees flourished green and glorious along the streets as well. La Serenissima should have been green with envy. As we approached the façade of the church, there lounging on the steps, a seemingly homeless woman, fleshy, plump, and with brightly, but poorly dyed red hair, Clairol Ketchup Splash or L’Oréal Salsa Picante, was calling out and gesturing to us from a distance while combing her greasy, colored coif.  Getting closer, I realized that she, knowing that we were heading to the entrance of the church, was trying to get my attention and not that of my sister or nephew: “Mister, mister, your fly is open.”

__________________________________

John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry, including Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017) and Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014),  and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, prose, and artwork appear internationally in many journals and anthologies. Marymark Press has published Trause’s visual poetry and art as broadsides. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, New Jersey, and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.

Iris N. Schwartz | Tyro

Tyro

It is green. It is cold. Its taut muscles push against lethargy and fear.  Its belly is teased by the chill of earth, damp then dry, sometimes smooth, often gritty, now both. 

With its eyes, its hazel-and-gold lizard eyes, it looks down, around; slowly lifts its head. It is naked. It is fresh like grass. It is cool as garter snake. 

Oh god, what bet did it lose? 

It is quiet; it is alert, this stealth reptile, superhero to all close to the ground. 

It tries to herd flies, dogs, roaches away from its nonbreathing owner, but it is only one lizard. It is green, it lacks experience (though it told the pet store proprietor it had lived with humans before).

__________________________________

Iris N. Schwartz is the author of more than sixty works of fiction. Her  flashes have been published in dozens of publications, including Blink-Ink, Crack the Spine, Fictive Dream, Jellyfish Review, Literary Orphans, and Spelk Her second short-short story collection, Shame (Poets Wear Prada, 2019), contains the 2018 Best Microfiction-nominated story “Dogs” and was shortlisted by North of Oxford for recommended summertime reading in 2019. Brisket for One, her latest collection of short fiction, is coming out this fall, in 2020. Ms. Schwartz lives in Washington Heights, New York City, with actor David B. McConeghey.