The Only Way

It's a Family Addiction
by Robert Baucom

Kevin Colpean

First Boy
by Denise Brown
Third Place Winner, Fiction

“This is it! I’m so glad you chose to come over!” She yelled.

Mickey parked his car and met Ana at her door. “This is my lovely home,” She raised her middle finger aggressively toward the house. “Actually, it’s my parent’s home.” She muttered to herself “Fucking jerks,” and then turned to the garage, “My room is in the garage though, so they never bother me.”

“You live in your parents’ garage?”

“It’s not as bad as you think. I don’t have to pay for anything.”

“Well neither do I really, I mean, I pay for my food, but my mother pays for the rest.”

“Mother, you call her mother?” She said through a laugh.

“Well, she likes it that way.”

He entered her doorway and saw a cluttered mess of Zeppelin posters and scattered records and dirty clothes.

“Just because you’re clothes are dirty doesn’t mean you should throw them around,” he said as he stepped over a bunched-up pile of laundry.“Yeah, ok Beaver Cleaver. Nice suit by the way.” She laughed as she laid down on the floor and patted her hand against the spot next to her, “Come down here, have a seat.”

Mickey looked at the cement ground and saw that little circles of dried up gum and dust bunnies covered what her dirty clothes had missed. “I think I’ll just lie on the couch if that’s alright.”

“Yeah sure, whatever works for you, but you’re really missing out.” She turned on her record player and then rested again on the floor. “Listen to this, this is real good shit.” Screeching guitars and vocals pierced into Mickey’s ears and his entire body tightened.

Ana looked at him and saw that his body language protested against the music. “Don’t you hear this? It’s fucking great.”

“I hear it, I just don’t like it.”

Well it speaks to me. This is fucking music. It can change a person, you know?"

But Mickey didn’t know. In his mind, music wasn’t an experience, it was a planned enjoyment. He thought about his Boney James CDs and other smooth jazz albums that he had back in his apartment.

“It’s just that the stuff I listen to doesn’t sound so obnoxiously loud.”

She reached over and turned the player up even more. “I bet you listen to easy listening shit don’t you? What is it, smooth jazz?” Mickey looked at his shoes and wished that he and Ana could have had a better start. He thought about how Dr. Phil on TV always talked about compromise and how it is the key to a relationship. If this relationship was going to work, they’d have to find compromise.

“Come on,” she said, “you have to start somewhere and it might as well be with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs”

Tick blasted from the speakers as she crossed her legs Indian style and stretched her arms out like she was receiving some sort of frequency that he couldn't pick up.

“Well this isn’t my preference, but perhaps we can find something that we can both agree on.” Mickey thought his suggestion was just.

“Pfff, yeah, I’m sure that will work. Mickey, I guarantee you that this music will set you free if you just listen to it.”

They went on like this for weeks. He would come over and listen to her music and every day it was a new band: The Doors, The Pixies, Kings of Leon, The Velvet Underground, anything loud really. Ana called it music treatment. Sometimes he suggested that they go to a fancy restaurant, his treat, but she’d always laugh and tell him that she was fine right where she was. He realized that all they ever really did was listen to music and talk about music, so he got the idea to ask about her family one day, just to get to know her more.

“My family? Fucking nut cases, that’s what they are. When I was a kid they’d make fun of me constantly. Whenever they started up I’d hide under our coffee table and after an hour or so they’d get bored. And fuck them for it. I never got anything out of them so I moved in here, you know, just until I find another place or something.” She picked up a CD case and threw it against the wall and then looked at Mickey. “It always feels great to do that. You should really try destroying something one of these days.” He bent over to pick up the shattered pieces of plastic.

“This can be dangerous Ana.”

“You’re such a square, I’m going to get through to you though, I will.” She narrowed her eyes, “What about your parents? I bet your mom raised you.”

“She taught me everything I know, and I appreciate her. She let me move away, but sometimes I think she’s still living with me. I mean, she calls me every day of the week.”

“And doesn’t that make you angry?” Ana handed him another CD case. “Smash it man. Pretend you’re throwing it at her face.”

“No, I can’t. I’d just have to clean it up.”

She sighed. “I’m just not making much progress with you.”

She got up from the ground and sat next to him. So close that Mickey felt uncomfortable.

“To cause shit, you have to be shit,” she told him as she placed her hand on his knee. She always said things like that. She liked saying that Sergeant Pepper made her do things, and she told him to say the same.

He didn’t know how to respond to her comment and could feel his legs start to shake like they were begging him to run. She pulled her dress up, exposing her upper thigh and smirked at Mickey in a scheming way. He sort of glanced down at her legs, but felt embarrassed at the same time, so he only looked in three second spurts.

He literally counted three out in his head.

He knew that she noticed him glancing all along, but he still wanted to treat her like a lady. Twelve years of home school and that’s what he learned—to act polite. And even when looking at Ana’s legs, respect was just a natural reaction.

“Listen Ana, I’m not ready for this.” He jumped from the couch.

“Ok, ok. Dammit, you’re definitely the most difficult project I’ve ever taken on. How about we go out instead? I can teach you how to shop lift. It’s really fucking easy. I mean all you really need to watch out for . . .”

“No! I need to go home. I need to go home. I need to go home.” Mickey turned around and ran. It reminded him of the party.

He got home and listened to his mother’s newest message complaining about how he never picked up anymore. Mickey why aren’t you answering anymore!? You better not be on some wild road trip or you will be in major trouble! I’ve decided to drive down there. Eight hours worth of driving so if you’re not dead or very, very sick I will be so angry. . .” Mickey turned it off. He ripped the answering machine from its wires and aimed it at the wall, but then he put it back down on the table. He had to get out of there. He thought about his mother coming and how she’d force him to tell her where he’d been all these weeks. Mickey realized that it wouldn’t be all that bad except he was sure that his mother would make him move back in with her and then he’d never find a girl.

He decided to go back to Ana’s, but on the way he picked up some new CDs, The Talking Heads, The Bravery, and The Killers, and hoped that they could help them find a middle ground.

“Look who’s back already. I was afraid that you would fail.”

“My mom’s on her way here. I needed to get out of there.”

He stepped in and he showed her the CDs. She took a step back and sucked air through her clenched teeth. “I’m sorry but that shit is awful. It’s just mindless pop.”

“Oh come on, I’m just looking for a bond between us,” he said. “Let’s just try it out.” He put on The Talking Heads and her entire body tightened up.

“Does this music inspire you at all? Do you feel it even the slightest bit?”

He knew the answer she was searching for was no, but he went for something deeper. "Maybe.”

“No, no way. It can’t. Is this what you really want? The others never took this long.”

“What others? What are you even talking about?”

“Come on, we’re going out,” she instructed.

He thought that maybe she was going to let him take her out somewhere nice. He opened the car door for her, but she didn’t get in.

“No, I’m going to drive. I’m the one who knows where we’re going.” She grabbed the keys and he got into the passenger side. She put in The Velvet Underground CD, a band that Mickey couldn’t stand, and as they drove he thought about what he wanted to say. It took him a good five minutes to formulate his words and at that point they were well on their way to wherever Ana was taking him.

“A relationship’s about cooperation you know. If we want this to work out we need to find some sort of union. I don’t think we’re too different, we just need to work together.”

“What the fuck Mickey? That’s not even the point of all this.”

“Well, then what is? Frick.”

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“Say ‘fuck’”

“You’re completely insane. What does it even matter? Fucking head case.”

She smiled. “Now you’re a big boy.”

Ana quickly pulled off the road and into a field.

“Why are we stopping here?”

“We’re going to screw and we’re going to do it right here in this dirty field.” She got out and opened his door. “Come on, get out. This is for your own good. I could tell from the moment I saw you that you were perfect for me.”

“Really?” Mickey thought that maybe she would finally see things correctly. “Ana, I would just love to grow old together.”

“Grow old together? Yeah that’s what you want, I’m sure. Or did you get that idea from your mother? Grow old, for fuck’s sake. You were perfect for me because I knew you needed to see what the world is really like. I’m going to live in this dump forever, this polluted shit hole. It’s full of jerks and empty buildings. And you’ll realize that even if it’s with you kicking and screaming. Even if I have to rape you. I do this to squares like you all the time.”

Mickey’s fists clenched as she spoke. He forced air in and out of his mouth with an audible force.

“That’s it. I can see the resentment inside of you. You’re shit, so cause some shit.” She handed him a rock from the ground.

Mickey grasped onto it and smashed it against the car window. He watched the glass shatter and admired its destruction.

The rioting music pushed its way out into the nighttime air as Ana laid down in the field and spread her legs.

“Come to me.”

Mickey looked at the broken glass again and then dropped beside her in the dirt and itchy weeds. If he was just some sort of project for her, then Mickey decided to see where it would lead him. He had already broken his window.

She jumped on top of him and he imagined that they were on his mother’s yard. In his mind she’d catch them and would scream, “Oh heaven mercy!” and would tell him that he was sort of wild child anarchist. He thought about how he spent his first 18 years of life in a square room learning only what his mother wanted him to know.

They finished and Ana looked into Mickey’s eyes.

“This is the other side Mickey. You’ve finally learned.”

Then Mickey wondered how Ana’s room was any different from his mother’s room.

He moved a few feet away from Ana. He sat Indian style on the dirt and stretched his arms out while European Son revolted from the speakers, but it could have been anything really. Smooth jazz, The Killers, Led Zeppelin, it really could have been anything. He heard it all.

“What ever made you think I wanted to learn another lesson?” He picked up another rock and threw it toward his car, but this time with less aggression.

The Perils of Time Travel
by Ben Greenstein