Jim Suruda
She’s stretched out on the dirty dress shop floor. I squat down and grip one of her ankles, then grab the other. I stand up, lifting her so that just her head rests on the linoleum.
“ARE YOU READY!?” I shout as I lean back, swinging her around the shop. Clothes racks clatter to the floor. Big circles. Gaining speed.
“YOU! ARE! INVITED!”
I let go—now—to send her hurtling through the last unbroken shop window. Slow-motion spray of glass shards, slanting sunlight, then a fat splash as she lands in the middle of Saint Roch Avenue. I tuck another attendee under my arm and step out of the crumbling clothing shop. Years of creeper vines curtain the doorway.
Silence covers the city. A bullfrog calls. Dragonflies dance over the bayou that was once a street.
“ALLOW ME TO ACCOMPANY YOU TO THE VENUE!” I hoist my two new friends under my arms. “THIS IS YOUR LUCKY DAY!”
I push through the cattails that cover the muddy sidewalk and wade into the duckweed carrying my attendees.
“SO MUCH DUCKWEED!”
Nothing with fur or feathers survived the incident. No people. No pets.
“NO DUCKS!”
Just me and the turtles and anoles and the lazy —
Gravity reverses. The water on my right swells upward, unhinges, and opens wide to become rows of dripping teeth rushing at me.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
I shove a mannequin into the gator’s gaping mouth. He spins and spins, snapping the legs off the attendee, tossing up lily pads from his roil. I run, dragging the other mannequin to high ground.
“ONE HUNDRED! I STILL HAVE ENOUGH!”
My damp shirt clings to my chest and my one remaining boot squelches as I step up to the podium. I drip for a moment and scan the audience.
“THANK YOU FOR COMING!” They are rapt. Unmoving. “TO THE OFFICIAL RELEASE OF MY MEMOIR!”
It’s been two years since the event. Two years to write, edit, and type by hand. Two years to collect attendees. Two years since I invented a purpose.
I’ve finished my memoir, and now, here they are. I clear my throat and look out over ninety-five mannequins. They pose in chairs or lean on the walls of the warehouse. They wear hats, scarves, or Mardi Gras beads. Near the front sits a brass statue of FDR that I dragged back through the muck from the WWII museum. In the back, three life-sized cutouts from an animated movie stand quietly. Duckweed speckles my final guest: the mannequin I tossed through the window this morning.
A drop of sweat wets the page as I read the first paragraph. It’s too hot in here. My voice is shaky. I’m nervous. Spoken aloud the sentences seem too long, too wordy. If there was just one editor left alive. As I speak, I feel the muscles of my neck tighten. I want to be finished. I keep reading.
Finally, I shut the manuscript and exhale.
“ANY QUESTIONS!?” I grin at the audience. A house finch flits in through the open door, perches on FDR’s head, and rubs its beak on the brass. No one moves. No one speaks. All right. OK.
“WELL THEN,” I snatch a bottle off the podium, “I’M DONE HERE!” The pills rattle invitingly. Oxymorphone, 10 mg, immediate release.
“NOW FOR MY FINAL TRICK!”
A breeze moves through the crowd, rustles the sleeve of an attendee in the third row.
“QUESTION?!” I snap upright. “YOU, WITH THE GLASSES!”
I tug my beard as I stare at her mouth. I never expected such success!
“MOVIE DEAL?!”
I squelch back and forth behind the podium.
“THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!”
The bottle rattles on the floor as I clutch my manuscript to my chest.
“WHY, YES, I CAN GET TO HOLLYWOOD!” I cackle and dance. “I LEAVE TODAY!”
I’m gonna need another boot.
JIM SURUDA is a writer based in New Orleans Louisiana. He edits an erotica zine, builds terrariums, and enjoys taking photographs. Jim Suruda has previously worked as a commercial fisherman, a clinical research subject for morphine metabolism, and as a pool table mover.