Eelfare

By Christopher Linforth

An eel-man follows me out of the sushi restaurant asking where I am delivering the oversized platter of unakyu rolls, then if I know which river the eels came from, and I ignore him, slightly perturbed by this slick gray figure, hoping he won’t ask me any more questions, for the order’s only heading a couple of blocks away, to Sarah, my ex, though we dated so long ago she rarely acknowledges my presence, or even tips, when she orders sushi for her and her husband, her boss of many years at the law offices of Clark & Sitwell, though Sitwell’s dead, and Clark, this real shit, took over, took my girlfriend, filed a restraining order, though Sarah doesn’t mind, perhaps even enjoys watching me deliver sushi, which, of course, I spat on, and this seems to be the eel-man’s beef with me, that I defiled one of his cousins, or uncles, or babies, undoubtedly netted young, and I don’t want to find out the actual familial relationship, and so I dash away, whipsawing through the backstreets, but I can’t lose him, and soon the slap of his tail-body becomes louder as he finally corners me outside of the law offices, and I press on the app that the order’s here, and I hope someone will save me, or sue the eel-man, or hire him as an enforcer for unpaid debt, which, unfortunately, I have a lot of and don’t want to pay back to the Federal Government, for what did I get for my 100k of student loans and four years of living in a college town: a sexually sterile dorm life from which I worked on my Communications degree, then suffered endless emails from the university’s foundation asking me to donate to wrestling scholarships and a new VIP car lot at the football stadium, before scoring a few dates with Sarah, where, yes, we went for sushi, and later our graduation prom, where Sarah danced with her friends and flirted with the douchey guys from Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and a promise we would see how things went over the summer, where she had an internship at Clark & Sitwell, and that Clark had praised her can-do attitude and white-space-heavy CV during the interview, and told her women can make a difference in the law profession and asked her out for cocktails at Applebee’s, which she agreed to, later texting me that our relationship was over, if it could be called that, and she didn’t, never had, and I should find someone else, someone at my level, like a diner waitress or Walmart cashier, a girl I could eventually knock-up and start the whole cycle of loserdom over with once more, and sure I resent her for everything she put me through, however pretty she is, or thinks she is, a New York 4, if we’re honest, but I don’t really care about any of that—this is my last delivery, and then I am skipping town for a desk job in DC, maybe eventually live in Dupont Circle or Georgetown, for now I can crash on Zack’s couch in Columbia Heights, slip him a few bucks when I can, till I’ve got it all together, feel like I know the city, and once I’ve chilled with some 4/20-friendly people, snagged a cool girlfriend (harsh bangs, septum piercing), I can consider the place home, and I’ll have forgotten all about Sarah and Clark, whose first name I still don’t know, and that meeting with the eel-man, who looms over me right now, desperate for the platter, on which I have already hocked several loogies underneath the slices of eel, ready for Sarah and Clark to enjoy, and so when they appear in the lobby, eyeballing me, then eel-man, with fake shock and anger, I give them both the finger, and Sarah, unfazed, strides forward for her sushi, while Clark dials someone on his phone, so I press the cancel order button on the app and hand the platter to the eel-man, who gathers up the unakyu rolls with his stubby pectoral fins and undulates away, searching for the closest body of water.

Christopher Linforth is the author of The Distortions (Orison Books, 2022).

Art by Jay Baker, an artist from Colorado living in Oregon, by way of New Mexico; he records music as Tom Foe.

M*A*S*H*

By Benjamin K. Drevlow

Tonight I’m six years old again and watching M*A*S*H on the little black-and-white TV across the bedroom I share with my older brother who has headgear from sucking his thumb too long and sleeps with his mouth open, drooling, with his head over the side of the bed his hair hanging straight down like he's been electrocuted meanwhile Hawkeye and Trapper John are gaslighting Frank Burns and sexually harassing Major Hot Lips Houlihan in a way that’s supposed to be funny but goes over my head but I keep watching anyway because there's nothing but fishing and white fuzz on the other three channels channel and because every time I get up to click the TV off, my brother starts moan-talking in his sleep again and I’m afraid he really is turning into a zombie—a big brother zombie who will tie me to my bed and rip my nuts off and eat them whole if I wake him up again while watching boringass M*A*S*H or because I’ve wet the bed again, and as my brother says, the stench of piss is strong enough to wake the dead.

Benjamin K. Drevlow is the EIC of all things BULL and writes prose and poetry about mostly the same bull stuff from his trash-covered office in Statesboro, GA where his wife and three trash dogs continue to tolerate him and all his online ramblings at thedrevlow-olsonshow.com or on twitter, insta, face, bsky, & threads @thedrevlow.

Photo by Ricardo Lima.

Thirty Years From Now

By Molly Gaudry

I will wake up and discover that my husband has died in his sleep beside me some time in the night, and I will be able to do what needs to be done because in my forties I found a way to get a grip on death, a handle on my fear, and so my fear will not control me then, will not freeze me in that moment, and my first thought will be rational, not emotional: Get up, call 911, ask if you can get him dressed before they come, comb his hair no matter what they say, get up now, find your phone, take care of everything before they get here, he is your responsibility, not theirs, yours, because you are the one who is here with him, because you are the one who has been here with him every night in this bed for the last twenty years, and you always knew this day would come, you knew this day would come and you married him anyway because you knew you would be able to take care of him in this moment, in these moments, like right now you are calling for help and you are answering the operator’s questions and when you hang up and look down you will see that you have reached for his hand, that you are holding his hand, holding it to your chest, and isn’t this what your vows were about—for better or worse, health or sickness, life or death—and so you are holding his hand, you are touching death, you are this close to death, you are sitting on the edge of his side of the bed, and you may have to sleep in this bed again tonight, or tomorrow night, or some night soon enough when you can’t sleep another night on the couch again, or maybe you will buy a new bed, but the point is that right now you are here with him, fully here, you have stayed with him, fully present, and you are in this bed, and you are grounded, which is not to say that you are fine, you are not fine, who would be fine in this instance, your life with your husband is over, but with regard to that fear you used to have because of your sister and what she did to you in your bed, you are fine, yes, you are fine, and you have had a good life, you have had a good life with a husband you loved, loved enough to know that you could sleep beside him every night for twenty years and that at any time he could die beside you, and you said, fine, you said, okay, I can do this, you said, yes, I can do that if it ever comes to that, because one day thirty years before you began to face your fears, fears that had kept you from living, and when you finally began to face them—in the early stages simply by writing about them—they were not strong enough to destroy you, but now, now you must begin to call the rest of your family members, although maybe first you should call your girlfriend who has been through this herself, yes, before you call anyone else in the family ask your friend what you are supposed to do now that you have called 911 and are waiting for them to come, ask her what you are supposed to do after you have combed his hair and found a way to get his cardigan on over his pajamas, ask what you’re supposed to do while you hold his hand and wait.

Molly Gaudry is the author of We Take Me Apart, Desire: A Haunting, and Fit Into Me: A Novel: A Memoir.

Art by Annemarie Waugh.