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Photo by Dorothee Lang

Needing the Crew
by Susan Gee


Sam looked out across the empty stage and into the auditorium.  He popped a piece of liquorish in his mouth, and chewed.  The room was spotless and cold.  In an hour it would filled with sweaty carcasses cavorting around, arms out stretched adoringly.

Sam had been a roadie for five years.  He had seen it all.  Last month he’d been stuck on a job with a bunch of amateurs and sycophants.  He had kept his head down and got through it.  This crew were alright though.  When you were living in each other pockets and breathing in each other’s farts every night, it helped to get along.

This was the part that Sam hated, the hanging around.  He liked to be busy.  He liked the fact that he hadn’t slept properly for 2 weeks.  When he hit the pillow it was like being shot through the head with a gun, out cold.

It was when he was waiting around that his mind started racing.  He thought about Sophie.  She’d said he was running away.  But the job was probably what attracted her to him; the so-called glamorous life.  Sam didn’t ask to have a baby, he said to himself.  He was still with her.  They were still officially together.  He had not left her; I am a good person, he thought as he gave an involuntary shiver.

Sam could hear the caterers lugging some cases of bottles down the corridor.  The noise of their feet and the clinking of the glass dissolved into the thick walls of the auditorium.  Sam looked out onto the blank white room.  He thought he could hear the snuffling of a baby, the gentle click of its tongue, and melodious mumbling of its soft voice.  Sam looked around at the floor underneath the empty chairs.  The gentle swish of the baby grew louder along the floor.  The taste of the liquorish in his mouth was sharp and pungent, as a bead of sweat trickle down his back.

The quietness of the room seemed to implode.  Sam felt like the air was pushing down from above.  The air felt thick like marmalade, Sam took sharp breaths to get some air.  A door slammed behind stage and echoed around the room.  Then a tiny squeal like a pin pulling out of balloon, the tiny cry of a baby.  Somewhere underneath the endless rows of chairs that stretched in front of him like grave-stones he heard the padding of hands and feet.

“Sound check in fifteen mate?” Jim shouted from behind the drums.

“Yeah,” Sam said turning around and looking at him.

“You alright mate?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, we’re all good here.  Ready to go,” Sam replied with a frozen grin.

Sam pulled out the mobile phone out of his pocket.  Five bars.  He dialled.

“Sam? I thought you weren’t allowed to phone?”  Sophie said excitedly.

“Well, they changed the rule.” He replied.

“It’s Daddy on the phone!” she squealed loudly.  “We’ve missed you,”she added quietly.

“Yeah. I, just phoning to say I’ve got a few days off next week.  I could get the train,” Sam said, scratching his chin.

“Oh Sam! I’m so happy.  He’s changed Sam.  We can’t wait to see you.”  Her voice squealed down the phone.

“Yeah ok. I’ve got to go.”  He said switching off the phone and taking a deep breath.
Sam looked around at the empty auditorium.  There was no sound.  The double doors grinned at him as he adjusted the microphone.

Sunflowers
by Jessamyn Johnston Smyth

A beautiful couple appears on your doorstep bearing sunflowers for you
to plant, for no reason. They look fresh from the Garden; haloes of
light surround them. The man’s laugh draws hummingbirds, your dog
finds him delicious. The woman is leggy and graceful, yellow crowned
and abundant with seed. They only stay a little while—they have a
truck full of flowers to deliver—but they leave imprints in your
chairs.

Breathing Deeply
by Amy Wiggins

He brought out the worst in her.

“This is hard, Gary.  I feel terrible but I have to tell you. At the wedding in Portland last week I kissed a groomsman.  We were both drunk but that doesn’t excuse it.”  Claire hoped that Gary would break up with her.

“I thought the wedding was in Vancouver.”  Gary craned his neck, looking for an accident on the congested highway ahead.

“No Portland.  We’re going to my family reunion in Vancouver in August.”  Suddenly Claire remembered what they were talking about.  “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes I heard you.”  His tone was dangerous and she awaited his next words eagerly.  
“Remember when you got the flu last year and missed my office Christmas party?  I hooked up with the receptionist that night.  We were drunk too.”

“You hooked up with Kim?”  Kim permed her hair and wore dark lip liner.  Her dress that night was undoubtedly tight and nylon, and the thought of Gary’s hands in her big tacky hair while Claire watched Oprah reruns and vomited Sprite was infuriating.  “Why Kim?”

“God Claire, I don’t know, it was a long time ago.”  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel along to the Beach Boys as though nothing had happened.  She wanted to kill him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why did you kiss the groomsman?”

“Fuck you Gary.”  She was ready to fight.

Gary and Claire had met in a bar.  Even intoxicated Claire wasn’t particularly impressed: Gary was shorter than the men she usually dated and his glasses didn’t fit his face.  But why not, she thought, enjoying the unsteadiness of the barstool.  She laughed at his stories and touched a long scratch on his arm gently.  He told her about taking his new kitten to the vet to get fixed, and she said she’d never seen one break before.  It was a bad joke, and when he laughed anyway she knew for sure that he liked her.

The air conditioning in Gary’s car was broken.  Claire was sweating and Gary’s face was lobster red, which made her hate him even more.  “Jesus Claire you cheated on me last week and I can’t be upset?”

“You cheated on me at Christmas with an ugly whore.  A fat ugly whore.”  She hoped the comment was emasculating; she wanted to hurt him before they reconciled.  She wished they were in a kitchen so she could throw a plate at the wall.

“You wanted to break up.”

“And you gave me that ugly purple scarf.  I bet Kim picked it out.”

“You wouldn’t talk to me.  Here’s the problem.” They crawled past a red Taurus that had crashed into the guardrail and two police cars with their lights flashing.  Traffic picked up.

When Gary had offered to walk Claire home from the bar that night, she accepted.  It was a warm night and they held hands.  “Look at the stars,” she said.  “There’s the Big Dipper.”  When they came to her door he put his arms around her waist.  Oh great, she thought, but it was too late.  When he kissed her she kissed him back, breathing deeply and holding his stubbly face in her hands.

He called her two days later.  She agreed to dinner apprehensively, but Gary told her she was beautiful and made bad puns like her dad.  She reminded herself that she could always end things if she ever met someone else.

Gary parked in front of Claire’s apartment.  
“Kim’s a slut,” she said, to emphasize her point one more time.  If they were in the kitchen she would slowly put down her last plate.

“I know.”  Gary touched her shoulder cautiously and she leaned toward him over the gearshift.  He was a good guy.  She put her hands on his flushed cheeks, pulled him in closer, and kissed him.

 

 

 

 

Contributor Biographies and Credits

 

 

 

MiCrow Winter 2010 "Half" was edited by Walter Conley.

MiCrow 2010. All rights to content at Full Of Crow belong to the respective writers and artists.

MiCrow is the flash fiction supplemental section of Full Of Crow and is produced by Lynn Alexander for Full Of Crow Press and Distribution. 2010. Contact: microw@fullofcrow.com.