litrony1

Member Login


Remember me ( Forgot your password? )
Not a member yet? Join us today!
  • Magazine
    • Litro Membership
  • Fiction
  • Travel&Lifestyle
  • On Writing
  • Book Club
  • Literature
  • Arts&Culture
    • litro live Litro Live!
  • Interview
  • LitroTV
  • About
    • Submit Your Work
    • Litro Represents
Fiction
September 13, 2015

The Book of Children

By Willie Johnson
book   children   Editor's Pick   fiction   StorySunday

I close my eyes. I swear I felt it shift before. Not a kick. Just a shift: something settling into place. Of course it happened the one time we’re not careful. I wish he would call.

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass via Flickr

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass via Flickr

I’m supposed to be writing a story. Mrs. Anderson told us to write a story about something we know how to do well, something we’re an expert on. My story is about a baker. He likes to bake, but the real reason he loves being a baker is that he likes getting up early in the morning and walking through town while everyone’s still asleep. He’s based on Steve. Not the baking part—that’s me. But the waking up early is all Steve.

Yesterday, Steve told me that I was going to get bored of him. That’s what our fight was about. We were sitting on his blue couch, watching an old Jimmy Stewart movie, the one where he has an imaginary friend. Of course we had our first fight the same day I found out I’m pregnant.

I told Steve I could never get bored of him. To be honest, I thought he was projecting so I asked him if he was getting bored of me.

“Don’t flip things around on me,” he said. “You’re just trying to avoid the issue.”

He wasn’t yelling or being nasty, but there was something in his voice that I didn’t like. Something fake and condescending, like the way psychiatrists talk on TV. Like he knew something about me that I didn’t know.

Steve is six years older than me. He’s very insecure about the fact that he dropped out of college and since I’m graduating from high school next month, that’s been on his mind a lot lately. He paints houses and works at Espresso Joe, which is where I met him last fall.

To get ready for college, I had decided to start drinking coffee. My parents only drink decaf so I started going to Espresso Joe on my way to school. And one morning there was Steve behind the counter, wearing a brown apron and a green baseball cap with little strands of black hair curling up above his ears. He looked tired.

“What can I get for you?” he asked. His voice was soft. He cleared his throat and then he smiled. It wasn’t a fake smile, one he had been trained to do for the customers. It was warm. He had green eyes and freckles all over his cheeks and nose.

All month, I had been ordering caramel lattes, but that seemed like a little kid’s drink. I wanted to impress him. I ordered a double espresso.

To be honest, I just wanted to stand next to him. He seemed so nice; everything about him was earthy, brown and green. I swear, I actually pictured myself standing next to him behind the counter, wearing a brown apron and green cap of my own, with his arm around me. That was my fantasy.

He handed me the espresso and I forced myself to drink it in a shot, like I’d seen in the movies. It was disgusting, but I smiled and thanked him. Every morning I went back and drank a double espresso until finally he asked me out.

“Are you Italian?” was how he started the conversation as he ground the beans for my cup of dirt.

I said that was a funny question.

He laughed. “I just figured maybe you grew up drinking Italian coffee.” He was looking down and pressing the grounds into their little canister. “Most folks don’t drink it straight the way you do.”

I told him I was half German and half Irish. Then he asked me if I liked Italian food and looked up at me kind of sideways. He was blushing. It was so smart, is what I remember thinking. High school boys never ask you out that way; they don’t just smoothly work it into the conversation.

I’m tired of writing. I can’t focus. The room feels like it’s getting smaller, like the walls are creeping in on me. This has been my room since I was four years old. On my bed, four stuffed animals lie on their stomachs facing me: two puppies, an elephant, and a panda. Steve’s only been here a couple of times. He says the stuffed animals creep him out. Not that they’re scary, but they make him feel like he’s robbing the cradle with me. Also, my parents make him a bit uncomfortable. They’re very polite to him, but I know they don’t like me having an older boyfriend. They don’t even know how much older he is. My mom just keeps telling me to be careful.

On our first date, Steve told me about The Book of Children. It’s his big project. According to Steve, everyone needs at least one big project to focus on in their spare time. “You go crazy otherwise,” he said. His voice cracked just a little bit. That happens when he gets excited.

The Book of Children is about a school for orphans and runaways. Each chapter tells a different kid’s story. Some of them are about how the kids got to the school or what happened to their parents, but others are just about a particular kid’s dreams.

One kid keeps having a nightmare about drowning. She hears a sound like something crumbling and opens her eyes. Cracks spread across the walls and ceiling. Just as the water starts to flood in, she wakes up. She crawls out of bed and lies on the floor. Every morning, she wakes up there, looking at the bottom of her steel bed frame.

At least, that’s what Steve tells me. He won’t let me read the stories. He’s very shy about his writing, which I’ve told him is going to be a problem since he wants to be a professional author. He says he’ll show the stories to me when they’re ready; he wants them to be perfect before he lets them go.

Yesterday, I told him he was the most interesting person I knew. Somehow that upset him. That didn’t mean anything, he said, because I hardly know anyone. He said that when I get to college I’ll meet lots of guys who are actually interesting and forget all about him. That made me mad and I kind of snapped. I told him he was being stupid; I called him a baby. I told him that as soon as I left, he’d probably just find another dumb high school girl. He looked down. His fingers picked little threads from the couch.

Sometimes when we’re lying together, I take my hands and put them inside his. My hands are small; they fit inside his completely. It’s like they disappear. I close my eyes and feel his fingers covering mine. It’s like I’m holding every part of me in my hands and giving it to him.

Why hasn’t he called? I’m sick of waiting, with my stupid stuffed animals staring at me like I’m five years old. What will I tell him? “I’m pregnant?” Just like that? There’s no way I’m keeping it. Do I just say that too? It doesn’t matter. I just want to hear his voice.

He loves the quiet of the morning. In my story, this baker—who has to wake up before sunrise—actually gets to work extra early just so he can sit on the step and smoke a cigarette before starting the bread. Steve told me he does that at the coffee shop. He sits there watching the empty street. He thinks about how his body is getting older while he sits there. He exhales. He watches the smoke float away and thinks about things passing, bit by bit: things he’s lost already and things he knows he cannot keep.

Willie Johnson

Willie Johnson

Willie Johnson is a playwright and journalist based in New York City. His essays and articles have been published in The New York Times, Jacobin, Labor Notes, and the Review of Radical Political Economics. His play ICE CREAM MAN won the "Audience Favorite" award at the 2015 Unchained Festival in New York and was a selection at the Renaissance Guild's 2015 ActOne Series in San Antonio.

  • Web
  • |
  • Twitter
  • |
  • More Posts (1)
Prev
Irene, I’m Waiting
Next
A Good Read

Post a Comment Click here to cancel reply

No Comments Yet


Related Posts

  • Mark Saba – ViewMark Saba – View
  • Illegal Liaisons (excerpt)Illegal Liaisons (excerpt)
  • The GardenThe Garden
 
  • The Litro Book Club: A How-To Guide The Litro Book Club: A How-To Guide An introduction to how the Litro Book Club works, and how to make the most of your membership.
  • A Postmodern Triumph: Russ Litten’s <em>Swear Down</em> A Postmodern Triumph: Russ Litten’s Swear Down Unreliable narrators, fractured storylines, subversion and dislocation; crime writer Nick Triplow deconstructs our Book Club pick, Russ Litten's Swear Down.
  • <em>Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore</em>: Discussion Page Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: Discussion Page Join the discussion on our current Book Club pick, an irresistible romp through the secret worlds of secondhand bookshops, online hacker forums, gnostic societies, museum storage facilities and the Google Corporation.
  • Litro Book Club Read: <em>Who is Tom Ditto</em> by Danny Wallace Litro Book Club Read: Who is Tom Ditto by Danny Wallace Join the discussion of our current Book Club pick, Danny Wallace's Who is Tom Ditto

This jQuery slider was created with the free EasyRotator for WordPress plugin from DWUser.com.

OK

The Litro Blog

( View Archive )
  • December 13, 2015
    Litro #148: The Going Home issue – Letter from the Editor
    By Eric Akoto

    This month in Litro #148 we explore the notion of what Going Home – means to us. Is it a familiar physical space? A refuge? A feeling? A state of mind? Or is home actually to be found in another human being – maybe your partner, your parents? How do you know when you have found it? Continue reading »
  • November 26, 2015
    Litro #147: The Space issue – Letter from the Editor
    By Eric Akoto

    Welcome to Litro #147 - the Space issue. In this issue we explore the world’s ever-evolving urban social landscape. We’ve got art, stories, essays, cartoons, interviews - all examining the ways in which individuals and groups carve out their own spaces, dare to take up space and make their built environment(s) distinctly their own. Continue reading »

What you’re saying

  • SSC Result 2016 on Novel: The Folded Man by Matt HillI am a student of the SSC Result 2016 BD. Can I get the result here? Because, I dislike the...
  • Mosh on Novel: The Folded Man by Matt HillGet Fast Your all results published by Education Board of Bangladesh. SSC Result 2016 SSC Exam Result 2016 You can...
  • Triatlantic Books Ltd on My Top Ten Nigerian BooksHello all, Triatlantic Books, founded in 1996 with links in the US and Nigeria, is on a mission to make...
  • Gadgetkeeday on Novel: The Folded Man by Matt Hillfreedom 251
  • Polly Osborn on Windsor Rd. Dispatch: BoxesSo well said Ralph! You get a SMACK for that. PO

Contact Us

General & Membership Inquiries
Tel: 646 519 2452
[email protected]

Magazine Editorial
[email protected]

All Online Editorial
[email protected]

Book Reviews & Author Interviews
[email protected]

Film/Arts Editorial
[email protected]

Litro Lab Podcast
[email protected]

LitroTV
[email protected]

Litro Listings
[email protected]

  • Join Litro
  • Submissions
  • Advertising
  • Our Team

About LitroNY

Litro NY is the organic growth of Litro Magazine into the US market, and the continuation of Litro’s aim of finding and launching new international writers. While enriching the careers of existing authors, we have published debut writers for close to 10 years, including the likes of Stuart Evers, Anthony Doerr, Sabrina Mahfouz, Clare Wigfall, Richard House (ManBooker longlisted 2013), Janice Shapiro and many more. We want to engage with the American experience that will reflect the geographic cross-section of America, and continue with the Litro ethos of finding new ways of looking at the world through stories, seeking out the compelling and the controversial, the funny and the fantastic, the sad and the strange.

 

We have traditionally focused on short fiction, armed with a mission to discover new and emerging writers, giving them a platform to be read alongside stalwarts of the literary scene. Now we have also added more strings to our bow: including interviews, columns, podcasts, reviews, and features on literature, arts and culture. We've even ventured into LitroTV, so you can see and hear directly from your favourite writers. Of course, any good conversation runs, by its nature, two ways (or many ways) and we hope that you will engage with our stories and tell some of your own. As long as you have a story to tell, we want to hear it. We are now a fully-fledged online platform for non-themed fiction and literary nonfiction, as well as a place for readers, writers and the broader creative community to discuss various aspects of literature, arts and culture through features, reviews, columns and interviews.

 

www.litrony.com
[email protected] Tel: 718 820 3867.
All content © Litro Magazine or respective authors and publishers, and may not be used elsewhere without written permission.
See our reprint policy.