Mischa Czecka

'Tears, tears..

Holding back the tears.

The tears I never shed.

Torn Curtain...'

Her mind spun wildly. The lack of sleep, the pressure of work, the constancy of everything, pushing her further off her balance. She was teetering and she knew it. If there was something to grasp she would have clung there, she would have held tight, for dear life was on the table. The television played in the corner of the penthouse but she didn't even have enough resolve to give it a thought. Couldn't just one thing in this careening world of hers hold form? It was all a swirl, a cyclone with no eye. She was caught in the winds and they blew wild inside her ideas. Nothing could take root, one thought swept away by the next and the downward spiral of fear and confusion then pulling her past the margin.














She had reservations. There were the phone calls, the promises, he made them. The Coldplay song and the way he reacted, warning signs. She didn't like Coldplay, knew them to be impostors but she thought she saw something inside him move as he listened. Why didn't she see it then? Was there anything to see? Fucking Coldplay, god damn it. She chased Coldplay down a dark alley and then lost them. She lost them because she was working twenty hours a day and his call was cold and she needed to rest and oh god she had never felt so low in her life.

Was it a confirmation of her resistance? She texted him and then she took it back but the text was written and when he didn't respond was the text written? He was sick and he didn't call. He was in the studio and he didn't call. And he didn't call. And she texted and now she was a total nothing. Why did you write this? She looked across the room to the television. There was a double helix and bold wording but she did not see. Was the double helix involved in this? Damn the double helix he didn't call he was in the studio and he was sick and she worked twenty hours a day and she texted and he didn't call.

You mean so much to me. Pick up the fucking phone. And she was tired and she grasped for anything. He called but he didn't because he had been sick and in the studio but he called and he wanted to know why she was so upset and she didn't know why she was upset. Coldplay; he reacted. Something, something, oh whatever. The double helix on the television. She read his text and it felt like nothing. Hold on she had never felt this low in her life.

Call me but where are you? Something was off, he was there but she didn't know where. She would have looked from the penthouse view but it caused her to dizzy. Where was he out those windows sick and in the studio with a phone he couldn’t use listening to Coldplay and she lower then she had ever known in her days and on the television the double helix and the bold words.

The curtain tearing and tears she’ll never shed. She was a total nothing. The sum of her insides in revolt. And he called and why was she so upset? She was working twenty hours a day and he was sick and the double helix and couldn’t she just hold onto something? And she had doubts from the beginning, why didn’t she see? And fuck Coldplay. It almost felt like confirmation of her resistance.

She buried her head in her hands but it couldn’t bury her thoughts. Oh my god, oh wow. I told you I was sick. You’re a total nothing. I never felt so low in my life. The windows saw out from the penthouse. If she could only grasp onto something, something, oh whatever.

The television in the penthouse and the double helix. They cured cancer on this day.

Hey Sailor

They had just finished moving the chairs about, a subtle do-se-do that occurred each morning. No one was fooling anyone; she would eventually be seated across from him. He always sat with a view towards the east, past the lines of the coffee bar and then on to the street. He needed to see the rush of traffic and the people waiting patiently for coffee, he needed a way to release his feelings without drawing attention to himself. While watching the cars travel on Sunset Blvd. he placed himself inside those cars and looked through the windshields and lived in the world of those passersby.


















Though it was a new ritual, this collection to be found each morning at the little café, it was a group much settled into a routine, a regimen that blossomed naturally. It was a situation that had become comfortable from the first day and from this arrangement they all knew great things might transpire. There was little doubt as to what each would order, and upon seeing this group settle in, the waitress too felt the propulsion of big things astir.

With coffees ordered and Morning Buns, half avocados, poached eggs en route, they got down to the business at hand. Nothing. He would look across the small table to her and inside him he would acknowledge the beauty of the moment. Her beauty framed by the terracotta walls, the small purple flowers in the vase, the white linen table clothes and shiny china plates. He leaned low and pleased himself as he caught a distorted view of her through the empty water glass. He kept this all private for he had not earned the right to so steal these views. He looked past again to the people in line and off to Sunset Blvd. and the rush of motion. He needed to settle.

The talk would start and each would add to it to their best ability. He might crack wise and she to with a toothless reprimand, the others quick to join this dance, this mystery dance that had no name. The food served only as a reason to congregate for the dance, the dance was the attraction though there was not one among them who might admit as much. An hour had passed and not much of substance had been said, he was filled and in him thoughts and ideas took root. He would not voice these thoughts but as subterfuge would play the clown, he would dance with wit and misdirection.

The Captain moved away from the table and left in his seat a twenty-dollar bill, obviously it had slipped from his pocket. He saw this and quickly moved from his seat, stood and moved next to her and the empty seat. Sure it was The Captains money, ‘what are you going to do with it?’ she said. In his mind he thought of Las Vegas and throwing that bill and with it every other dollar he had ever seen, he thought that he would put all this money, this meaningless money on red and spin the wheel, spin the wheel for her.

The Captain returned to his seat. Glances were exchanged and all knew that something would happen. The Captain felt this too... He sublimated his thoughts of Las Vegas and returned to the circus.

The Captain felt the eyes on him and spoke to it…

“What?”

His mind shifted. It was time to dance. To dance with her and show her he was worthy. He was worthy of Las Vegas; worthy of that and more.

“Captain, might you lend me a twenty dollar bill?” he said

“Really? A twenty? What is all this about?”

“It’s a simple question pal, do you have a twenty you can lend me?”

The Captain reached for his wallet. He had hoped that the Captain, seeing the missing twenty, might allude to that fact and this charade might see its quick end but the Captain was longer in the wallet on this day. He pulled out a twenty and held it aloft.

“So you want me to lend you this twenty, correct?”

He then showed the Captain the twenty found on the Captain’s chair.

“Sure, lend me that twenty.”

“But why, you have a twenty?”

“That I do but I want you to lend me that twenty.”

“But I…” the Captain said, somewhat aware that there was something afoot but not quite sure what.

“Just hand it over to me.”

“But then I won’t have any money.”

“I’ll tell you what, you give me that twenty and I’ll give you this twenty and your twenty and then you can just owe me forty dollars. Simple.”

She did all she could not to give him away. He knew this; it was a pirouette on her part. At the next table a girl, new to this group, to their natural to and fro, to the dance and the gamesmanships that they played, tried to warn the Captain. Before she had mouthed her second word there was already conversation about her repatriation to New York City. This was California and they danced a different dance in California.

He was stone cold serious, though he had no right to be, and so the Captain had good feeling that he was to a great degree being played.

“Wait, wait…this doesn’t make sense”, said the Captain.

“What sense is there to make of this? It is simple proposition and you would do best to see at such and just accept my generous offer.”

He could see her. He knew that she knew that they, the two of them, she and him, were dancing. That this dance was for her. The Captain caught on and he too was happy to dance. It was a great morning to dance this dance they all danced. This dance was for her.

“So if I give you this twenty and then you lend me forty then I’ll owe you a forty? I must admit that though you are indeed a charming fellow, but a seven year-old Tatum O’Neal you are not.”

“Okay. Let’s just say I give you my twenty and then you can owe me a twenty”, he said.

“Somehow I think that you sir are attempting to take advantage of my good nature.”

“Oh Captain, would I do that?”

She looked at him and a smile rose in her eyes that then spread south and engulfed the rest of her face.

“All right Captain, take this twenty from me and you won’t owe me anything”, he said.

“Wait a second, you are going to give me a twenty? This doesn’t seem right.”

“It’s very simple.”

He reached over and handed the Captain’s twenty-dollar bill back to him.

“So now I owe you a twenty right?”

“No, you owe me forty.”

“But you only gave me a twenty.”

“Okay so you owe me twenty.”

“But I don’t want this twenty.”

“Then you don’t owe me a twenty.”

“But you gave me a twenty…”

And so they danced and they laughed and they danced. And it was the morning and they were in their seats and everything was right. The ritual was in place and he danced with her and she with him. And he stole looks and then so did she.

The people stood in line for their coffees and the traffic sped along Sunset Blvd. and though they didn’t know it they too were part of the dance. They danced this dance together. They all danced in California, in the wine colored grass.

And You Will Know The Sound Of My Voice

'You call that love in French but it's just Frenchette,

I've been to France so let's just dance.

I get all the love I need in a luncheonette, in just one glance so let's just dance.

I can't get the kind of love that I want or that I need so let's just dance.'











She needed ones that wouldn't hurt, wouldn't bind. She didn't want open toes for she thought her toes especially disgusting, even worse then most and she did so hate feet. She felt them foolish, feet, wished she could make do without them a crazy a conceit as that might be. When getting a manicure she would need shield her eyes if a pedicure were happening in too close a proximity.

Why this abhorrent reaction to feet? She was a bi-ped, the DNA saw to that. There must have been some childhood incident, a viewed case of elephantiasis, some poor soul with blown up appendages and disfigured yellow toenails, but she could only imagine for she had no recall of ever having witnessed anything of this like.

And was it not queer that for all her distaste for feet, in turn, her fascination and crazed obsession for shoes? She didn't suffer bad shoes lightly. She might become apoplectic at the sight of a Birkenstock or man's sandal of any description. In which world not connected by extreme proximity to a large body of water was it acceptable to wear a sandal? In her mind the sight of a person, sandal clad riding a two-wheeled vehicle, be it motorized or not, was no less a traumatic experience to witness then homicide or worse.

She had tired of the Ugg boots craze even before their ubiquitous rise. She thought the sloppy boot look a destruction of the female form. Slippers, no heeled chinese dance slippers, embroidered or in plain black canvas, abhorrent. Fuck Me pumps, tired. It just went on this obsession with the do's and don'ts of foot wear. A man in faux work boots, over-wrought sneakers, topsiders, debilitating.

The classics please. The classics and nothing but. For a man, real work boots: Redwings. Black gas station shoes, white tennis shoes, wingtips or brogues of any ilk. A tight ankle boot but not too PFC or prissy, a little less then Beatle was just fine. For the women, there were many a fine choice. Quality, form, ankles displayed by a swift lift in the arch. Leather, polished to a sheen. Heels dramatic or subtle. The line was clear for women but she always knew on which side of that line a woman's shoe would fall. It was instantaneous.

As she canvassed the stock on the shelf her mind wandered to places those shoes might lead her. In this pair, a dinner, a funeral in that. A strut, a stroll, a walk, resting upon an ottoman. The mind flew. The eyes this pair might catch, the stealth elegance of that. There were limitless scenarios and she was wont to explore them all.

She pulled a pair of Indian Red Oxfords with a two-inch heel from the display and held them to the light. She then brought them to her nose and inhaled deeply of the leather. She could smell the craftsmanship, and her mind she was transported to the factory in Italy, and then into the home of the cordwainer. The smells of risotto and the scream of babies. This was the end to her quest. She was solid that she had come across the purpose of her quest.

In a haze she procured the correct size from the shopgirl, she was barely cognizant of her participation in the purchase. She was led to the front of the store and the girl began to tally her acquisition. She tried her best to communicate but was unable so totally was she locked into her mania. She handed across her credit-card and to stem the rise in her emotions she averted her gaze to the front of the store.

As she stood there trying to hurry her endeavor but being unable to possess the tools to do so she averted her gaze to the front door of the shop. It swung open. A man entered.

"Do ya'all sell man's shoes heeere?"

Her eyes scanned the obvious tourist so out of his element as to be a shock to the senses. On his head a trucker's hat. His tee- shirt trumpeted his fandom of Dave Matthews. His shorts, in khaki green, and on his feet, sandals. Birkenstock sandals.

As she pulled into the driveway of her home she thought to herself. 'Perhaps in two days it will be safe to go back to that store and pick up my credit-card.' As for the shoes. That fantasy would never return.

Snow Girl

'Strong in the shadows

But you cannot leave your room...

Tick tick hammer and nail

Tick tick hammer and nail'


















"Aint it the sad fucking truth" she said under her breath, afraid that the guy across from her at the cafe table might actually hear her and offer even more comment.

"So the guys a scared little boy, what's the big deal? A lot of those mid-west dudes are soft like that. You know, afraid what mommy might think and all."

She wanted to reach across and smack her friend right in the mug. Split a lip, bleed a nose. What the fuck did he know anyways? And so what if she had confided in him the intimate details of her failed romance? That was no reason for him to speak so truthfully on the subject.

"You think?" she said casually so as not to expose the nausea percolating in her belly.

"Oh fuck yes, you kidding me? This guy is obviously a soft boiled chump. I mean, shit, I know you guys were, you know, together and all and I'm not saying like he's a bad dude or nothing, I'm just saying that in this particular matter, the matter of you and him, well he's a spineless little puss."

She had congratulated herself, perhaps a little early, on how she had handled the dissolution of her relationship. There had been none of the requisite violence or restraining orders, she hadn't yelled or thrown a fit, and had been possessed of an equanimity virgin to her to that time. She was feeling a need to pop that cherry and fast. On who or what was not particularly important.

"Well I say fuck" she hissed.

"Fuck what?"

"How does everything sound to you?"

"You mean as in fuck me too, you know along with everything else you are saying fuck to?"

"For the past five minutes I've had my fists clenched and your face in my mind."

"Geeze. Really?"

"Fuck it. Of course really. Fuck him, fuck you, fuck everything" she had passed seething and was beginning the start of a low boil.

"Whoa babe, what have I got to do with all this? I'm just being a bro."

"I feel like I'm gonna barf."

"Listen I'm not going to tell you not to barf, or how to feel. But answer me this, have you ever had your heart broken before?"

"Fuck yes, so what?"

"Did you get over it?"

"So what if I did? Doesn't mean anything to me now, now I'm hurt and finally I'm getting mad."

"Well all I'm saying is I've been busted up before too and I'm not busted up now, so maybe you can reconsider bashing in on me and just mellow out. Shit is going to work out. I know these are ugly words to you right now but I'm just saying that there's no reason for you to hurt so much. Have a little faith for fuck's sake is all."

She unclenched her fists and perhaps the nausea subsided a bit.

"Sure I get it. Thanks, I'm not going to smack you, I mean that was just a thought, albeit one I almost went through with, but just a thought none the less."

"You gonna be cool?"

"Yeah, I'm cool."

Maybe her friend was right. Perhaps her dude was a good guy but just a bit of a spineless mid-west wonder. Wasn't his fault he was raised of inferior stock, fuck, it could happen to anyone. Yeah she was cool. No cherry popping for her. It was a new era and none of the old hi-jinks were called for.

"Thanks for talking to me, really. It helped."

"Cool. Call me later maybe we'll hang."

"Sounds good, see ya."

They hugged briefly and parted company.

That fucker, she thought. There was something weird in that casual little hug. As he walked away she thought that on his part that the hug was just a little too casual, more like, well like a hug a guy gives a girl he wants to peel away from the herd. The fucker.

She got in her car. It would only take a few minutes to get to the ex's place. She still had the key.

Now what would be the best thing to destroy?

Kiss Me On The Bus

Hanging around the back door, in the alley, whetted by desire, and trying to look nonchalant. Maybe there were other girls out there with her, maybe not. She didn't care. She moved her bangs with focused hands to lay perfectly across her brow. Come hither, come hither. The bouncer gave her the 'don't even think of it' eye and she passed back the 'you only wish in your most detestable dreams' look.


















Her sweater was doing little to keep the cold from her body but she thought that the effect on her breasts might actually serve a valuable purpose. Remember, no arms folded across the chest when they come out. She worked a piece of gum up and down, she didn't like gum but knew there was an allure to it, sassy, willing, and maybe just a little to the right of innocence. She was a grown woman, almost, but no one need be the wiser.

Whose business was it anyways that she was kind of just hanging out in the alley behind the club? Was there some law against it? And who cared anyways if she broke a little law? She was eighteen and she knew that there was no more powerful person on earth then a beautiful eighteen year-old girl and whatever law there might have been didn't apply to her. That was just a plain fact.

Further down the alley a tour-bus grumbled to life and a cloud of diesel snaked its way toward her. The show had to be over by now, I mean the band was good but there was no way they would be playing encores this late into the night. She tried to stifle a little yawn, not very sexy to be seen half asleep, she needed to project and directly. Maybe she should have taken up smoking. Wasn't it a fact that girls who smoked were more likely to, to, she could only imagine.

She didn't really like the band. Fact was that she had barely heard of them but they were from England and had accents and the magazines all said that they were wild and travelled in a state of perpetual motion. Her life was anything but perpetual motion. It was a staid monotone existence and if not for Cherokee Ebner, she wouldn't have even conceived of such an undertaking. Cherokee regaled her of a night she had spent with a band from Pomona and how much fun and excitement she had experienced. Cherokee had met the band in this very same alley so if a band from Pomona could produce incalculable fun she could only imagine what a band from England would be like.

She had thought about drinking but she didn't like the way it made her stomach feel and again not very cute to be puking while partaking of ribald rock and roll mayhem. She wanted to check a mirror but thought that it would be an obvious give away so she just assumed that she looked better then fine and left it at that.

There was a commotion at the back door of the club but there was only an older guy, maybe thirty, that exited. He was a little overweight and his hair curled ungracefully to the sides of his not to attractive face. He was unshaven and unkempt in a rumbled tan corduroy jacket. There was no fuss made over him and he rushed by her to the tour-bus. Then nothing. She went back to her inner world and thought how great it was going to be to tell Cherokee of this big night.

Then there was a little tap on her shoulder.

"Right then young lady, so the show was alright then was it?"

She had never heard someone use 'right then' twice in a sentence and it sounded even funnier in an English accent.

"I didn't see it."

"Not old enough to get in then were you?"

There he went again with the then were's, and right then's.. It was the rumpled tan jacket guy.

"No, I'm old enough."

"Right then. I can see that."

"I just didn't ...um...I didn't...I didn't get here on time."

"I see. So you're waiting on a friend here are you?"

"You might say that."

"Maybe a friend you've never met before?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"I'm friendly."

This is not what she had in mind. This man, man, was not what she had pictured in her mind.

"Maybe you'd like to think about it on the bus. We could, you know, talk it over."

How could she paint a pretty picture of this to Cherokee? Maybe if she at least got on the bus then she could make her move on a band member.

"I guess so, but my friend is going to be looking for me so..."

"Right then. Your friend. Good on ya....let's go."

Hanging around the back door, in the alley, whetted by desire, and trying to look nonchalant. Maybe there were other girls out there with her, maybe not. She didn't care.

I Only Ever Needed A Reason

She got off the F Train and then pushed through the crowds rushing to board. She swam upstream, it seemed she was always swimming upstream, battling the legions as they sped to the work of their day. She didn't stop to take it all in though she well could have. It had been six years since last she had chance to step from the F Train. It had been a long cold lonely winter and as she moved through the station her mind rolled away to another place.














Where had they all gone? These people, these friends she had once considered family. There were times when they would have done anything for each other and now, now they were phantoms, phantoms living somewhere above the F Train terminus.

It was never her plan to leave them, or perhaps theirs to leave her, it was just something that happened. As if the weight of the world, the gravity of it all had pulled them apart. They had been runners together, young and bulletproof, but now they were only concepts far from the day.

There was a woosh and then the F Train was gone into the void. She climbed the stairs to the street not really knowing why or what she hoped might be up there. Each step seemed to be a step into the past, the present receding with her every movement. As she stepped onto the street the cold bit down hard and she was transported to that day at Coney Island. The waves, the solitude and the end of the line. The city looked to her as the broken down amusement park had on that day. It was grey and windy and she again thought she could hear the phantoms blowing on the gusts.

She was home and at the same time she was homesick. It was all familiar yet somehow strange and unsettling. Where were the people, the faces, the voices that had so filled that world she once had known? She made a false move to her right and then spun around and made a few tentative steps in the other direction. Where was she going and what was she looking for?

In her mind lived a world. A world that no longer existed and as she stood there frozen and freezing on that street she came to wonder if that world had in reality ever actually existed at all. Perhaps they had always been phantoms and it was only by her belief that they were given corporeal life. She turned once more to the steps and began to make her way down.

She boarded the F Train and would take it to the end of the line. To Coney Island.

You Watch Them Come And Go

"Are you some sort of heartless bastard?"

"No. I mean why would you say that?"

"Golf? Really?"

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, but you're sister just died for god's sake. And you go golfing?"

"And what would you have me do?"

"I don't know? Mourn maybe?"


















"Who said I wasn't mourning?"

"That is some sort of weird mourning, on the golf course."

"Listen, my sister's dying is sad beyond words for sure. She has two daughters and I'm sure her husband still has some cognitive abilities, and their loss is I am sure great."

"I'll say."

"But as far as I'm concerned, I'm fine."

"You're fine? Really?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I didn't die."

"That's cold."

"Is it? Really?"

"Of course it is."

"By what standards? By the standards that we are told to ascribe? You see this isn't about me. Yes I lost a sister, it means little that we weren't close, fact is I haven't spoke to her in years, but she was my sister and I would be lying if I said that I didn't have a familial love for her, of course I did. But you see this world does not center on me. I know this might be a stretch to expect you to see my reasoning in this but still let me do my best to explain."

"Please do."

"It's like this. For me to pretend that this is the end of the earth, to make the death of my sister about me then I would in fact be placing myself in a position of power. You would think by that kind of reaction that I would think that I had some control over the situation, that I could know whether the time was right for her pass, to in essence, play God. I am not God. I have shed tears and my thoughts and prayers are consumed with my sister but it isn't about me. I am but a man whose sister passed and that is all."

"Kinda harsh maybe?"

"I disagree. Everyone has a dear one pass, and there is inherent sadness in this but I remain resolute in the spiritual notion that I assert no control over these things and that I need embrace the circle of life for good or bad."

"I think I get it. If I deny the fact of death then I might also not place birth is its proper perspective."

"Either it is all beautiful or none of it is."

"I can see your point. Whether I agree or not I'm still not sure."

"That's fair."

"Damn sorry bout your sister."

"It's a bummer no doubt."