75 Secrets.

75 secrets.

By Joaquin Emiliano

Copyright 2018 Joaquin Emiliano

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidences are all either products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

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these secrets are dedicated to Honey Tangerine.

#1

one more time, blood moon.

made a head count tonight, and it turns out i have 75 secrets.

only one of them concerns the blood moon.

a fitting number, considering what’s waiting for us all this morning.

sadly, as the definition for secret goes, this story is not for sale.

although, far as circumstances go, i can reveal what’s good for the gander: a nowhere kind of no place in Brooklyn. an honest dive somewhere between the polished neighborhoods off the L and the collective rumors of Sunset Park. boring sort of bartender. the kind with a job to do. tattoos worth a mention or two. blue neon hue. almost empty save for a silent couple in one tattered booth. three rounds into a beer, shot of Beam to help the medicine go down. jukebox alive with miscommunication.

dropped a cigarette on the floor and stooped down below the handrail for a cold recovery. came back up with an unexpected prize: brass ring. not Army, Navy, or Marines – embalm of a broken heart, split in half by a skeleton key. shame to waste it. slipped it on my left ring finger and ordered another round.

well into a two a.m. buzz when she strode on in. dirty blond curls bouncing to the beat of well-heeled boots. burgundy lipstick. not a lot of eye left to peek out from behind all that shadow. jeans taut against teardrop hips. tan suede jacket a mess with Southwestern tassels. brisk stride taking her all the way to my side of the argument.

she took a seat and stared at me. irises radiant with streaks of green and yellow.

asked if i was going to buy her a drink or sit there with my dick in my hand.

i put my dick away and bought her a beer, Beam back.

she took the shot down before i could join her.

she wiped with the entirety of her forearm, nails painted black, and said, it didn’t go down as planned.

i nodded. had a few swallows of beer. waited.

what do you want me to say? she asked, lighting her own cigarette. time, temperature? winds out of the fucking southeast? it did. not. go. as. planned.

i shrugged. nothing ever does.

that’s it? she asked.

i don’t know if we’ve really been introduced.

she paused, bottle just one instant from her lips. oh, shit... she took down half her beer and motioned with her eyes. Where did you get that?

i followed her gaze. Same place you got yours. Bartender.

not your beer, idiot. the ring. the ring on your finger.

i had almost forgotten. found it.

shit. she drew me close. gave a brief glimpse of what she looked like in her sleep, before pressing her mouth to mine.

i remember thinking thank you as the kiss softened and surrendered the taste of fresh whiskey. her hands wandered over my body. i reflexively followed. gave her thighs the attention they deserved. welcomed a brief interlude, her forehead pressed against mine. eyes crossed, heavy. fixated, as she held my face with those hands and whispered with a breathless tenor, they’re watching us.

the who was buried beneath another immortal kiss.

this one with a tongue so sublime, i finally had to admit it had no place along my lips. opened one eye to find she was doing the same. running recognizance, somewhere past my right shoulder. i broke away. turned my face from perfection to see for myself.

that couple in the faraway booth were both, yes, watching us. staring. blank, analytical looks. jaws slowly working. open then closed, then open, as though wind ups were casually clashing cymbals between their cheeks.

don’t, she whispered into my ear. keep going. don’t stop.

the man in the booth reached out blindly to his female counterpart and took a bite out of her arm.

i watched with an alcoholic’s distant understanding. faraway places reminding me that this woman’s hands were still clutching at my inner thighs. blood dripping from that stranger’s face as he stood, slowly, jukebox flipping the intro to Fat Bottomed Girls. strange moment where the bartender proved as lost as i was, wandering up with another pair of shots and casually asking

hey, Delilah, you gonna stay up for the blood moon tonight…?

the stranger let that piece of his girlfriend’s arm fall from his mouth onto the dirty floor, where it bounced. just once.

he began to walk towards us, smiling.

and i really wanted to kiss Delilah again, one last time. or several more last times, either/or would have been better than this.

i turned back with the full intention of ignoring every last thing since we last stopped.

too late. already her eyes were fixed. cigarette clamped between her teeth. reaching beneath the bar’s outcrop and searching.

and as i heard the sound of tape ripping away from whatever implement she had planted, and the stranger’s hands turned to wild tendrils, taking the form of gleaming razor blades, all i could think to ask her was when would we be seeing each other again.

…the rest is REDACTED

except to say that the ring disappeared from my finger, and the moon was blood red at midday.

#2

path.

I was halfway down the path, mid sentence when I put my mouth on mute. Not because there was no one to talk to. That had been the case for the entirety of what was now an entire grey-layered week. Wasn’t because of the insistent tap of the knapsack as it beat against my back, bottle of Jack working on a bruise that would eventually take the purple shape of an exact, confrontational arrow. Wasn’t that the drizzle had finally stopped, even though it signaled the end of a seven-day raincloud that had followed me since the beginning.

Yes, I had stopped talking, but not walking, because now there was a new sound. Some crunching, grinding layer of information that didn’t jive with the asphalt path I had discovered. I kept walking, eyes bleary in the twilight. Never thinking to look down. Until I did, and I set my stride on hold. First time resting my steps for so long, and the stillness reached up to the sky.

Found my shoes surrounded by a shiny, dimly rippling blanket. As though the path had come alive. I bent at the waist, bookbag sliding into the crux of my arm.

I sniffed. Sent my spine into cold spasms. Closed my eyes. Gave myself a moment of entangled darkness, where an actual memory or two found its way around the roadblocks. The house I had left behind. The sign in the middle of the woods, pointing the way. Eroded yellow letters suggesting a shortcut.

THE PATH.

I opened my eyes to find the world hadn’t changed.

Snails.

Small snails, maybe a fourth of the size I had come to accept as average. Pebbles with mucus tails, trails. Tiny antennae reaching in all directions, questioning.

I straightened. Stepped back, throat clenching, to see what damage I had done. My foot came down in another deafening crunch. A size nine’s worth of murdered miniatures, and my windpipe turned to a pinhole. I swiveled my neck, turned my head to where I had come from, then back to where there was yet to be. Either way, nothing but a sea of shimmering miracles.

I felt a few tears slither. Drop their deposits along my lips. Felt them teeter close to my chin, when I remembered –

Salt.

So I wiped them clear with my crew-neck collar, kept them from falling on the multitudes below. Stopped myself from crying. Pinched the bridge of my nose, inner corners of my eye sockets.

Looked left. Right.

The path was near ten feet wide. Thick trees on either side, too far to reach. Not without another holocaust for every step. Green leaves like grins, asking me What are you going to do now, Lucky? Seven days from where I had been and too many steps away from safety.

I maintained my balance.

Brought the book bag to my chest. Zipped open. Reached in. Liberated the bottle of Jack. Zipped up. Shouldered the strap, almost knocking myself off balance.

Held out my arms.

Steady.

Cautiously reined myself back in.

Unscrewed the cap. Took a pull.

Fireside burn bringing back another memory or so.

I waited as nighttime fell, and silent snails made their way beneath me, endangered metropolis, movable homes on their backs.

Had another drink.

Focused on staying still.

Stayed on the path, frozen in time, and remembered my way backwards against what lay ahead.

#3

remember the everything.

we’re going to rename the stars. there won’t be a constellation alive that isn’t scattered halfway to and from the edges of this map, which cleverly points in every direction, arrows lighting up along spiraled arms, reminding even the last remainders of what were the two of us, that you are here.

#4

gift.

It wasn’t too far from this place that I saw my first coyote, she told her daughter, and I remember because it wasn’t more than a few minutes after that when I saw the river change directions.

She felt her daughter’s eyes staring up from the six-year-old height of four feet, fingers locked into a belt loop, blind eyes paying lip service, waiting for another story to color in what those ears had been hearing for so long.

With one hand leading the way, she ran streams through her daughter’s dark hair. Coyotes are conical animals, she said. Imagine all the shapes you’ve already imagined, all moving toward a spot just beyond where your ears reach. When you get too close to the edge of the forest, and you know you’re close because at any moment you’ll come into contact with the sound of cars barreling along the highway. Only you hear them before they happen. Like when a man walks past you on a clear day, and just a bit of rain water falls from his shoulders onto your forehead, and you know somewhere it’s raining, and maybe the storm’s coming your way.

And that’s what this creature was like. Caught him staring at me from across the river. You remember the day, the first time you smiled back at me? That was what I mean by staring, that’s what it looks like to be looked at. The way the warm is sluicing through the leaves, the way it catches your face, this is the kind of day it was. Cooler, though. There was a breeze, the kind you feel in March now, instead of May. And I stopped, and watched him. And he watched me. But more than that. I could feel his mind like velvet against mine. Those were the eyes I was dealing with, right about when I was your age, and you were so far away.

Beat.

And then he winked. She took a palm and traced it over her daughter’s face, let her know where this next touch was coming from, and placed a palm over the right eye. There. That’s a wink. And it can mean so many things, so if you ever sense one coming your way, be careful. A wink can bring you closer to its origin, leave you cold, cheat, deceive, bond – there have been times in my life when a wink has changed the meaning of a conversation to the point where there was no turning back.

She withdrew her hand from her daughter’s face and placed it on a tiny shoulder. Funny I should put it to you like that, those last words. Because soon after, the coyote went scampering into the underbrush, and that was when I saw the river change.

Remember the big storm? You felt it in your tiny little snoot, tasted it before it happened? This was what it was like. Imagine if you woke up and your bed felt like the bath, or your breakfast was suddenly a bowl full of your building blocks. Not the way things are supposed to be, and it wasn’t the way things were supposed to go.