Stephanie Dickinson
Big-Headed Anna at the Ice Cream Social

Stephanie Dickinson - Big-Headed Anna at the Ice Cream Social

Fiction
Stephanie Dickinson is an Iowa native who lives in New York City’s East Village. Her novel Half Girl and novella Lust Series are published by Spuyten Duyvil, as is her just-released novel Love… Read more »
Stevie Edwards
But Nothing’s Fair after Love

Stevie Edwards - But Nothing’s Fair after Love

Poetry
Stevie Edwards is a poet, editor, and educator. She is Editor-in-Chief at Muzzle Magazine and Acquisitions Editor at YesYes Books. Her first book, Good Grief (Write Bloody, 2012), received two… Read more »
Zana Previti
Caedra

Zana Previti - Caedra

Fiction
Zana Previti was born and raised in New England. She earned her MFA in fiction from the University of California, Irvine and is currently pursuing her MFA in poetry from the University of Idaho. Her… Read more »
Matthew Hobson
Dream Car

Matthew Hobson - Dream Car

Creative Nonfiction
Matthew Hobson's work has appeared in literary journals including Hayden's Ferry Review, The Chattahoochee Review, River City, South Dakota Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and Driftless Review… Read more »
Elena Kua
Engraving

Elena Kua - Engraving

Creative Nonfiction
Elena Kua is a freelance editor-writer in Malaysia. Her work has appeared in Newfound Journal. Read more »
Annie Reid
Last Song

Annie Reid - Last Song

Fiction
Annie Reid is a double expat American currently residing in Sweden after a decade in Canada. She writes apocalyptic video games for a living and fiction for her sanity. She has stories published in… Read more »
Katie Knoll
Louise Bourgeois to Her Husband, on Love and Her Father’s Mistress

Katie Knoll - Louise Bourgeois to Her Husband, on Love and Her Father’s Mistress

Poetry
Katie Knoll is currently a MA student of fiction at the University of Cincinnati. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Narrative, Nimrod, and Rattle, among others. Her poetry and prose have been… Read more »
Gabe Herron
Mr. Kimberk's Kindness

Gabe Herron - Mr. Kimberk's Kindness

Fiction
Gabe Herron lives outside a small town near Portland, Oregon with his wife, son, and daughter. He's had a winning story in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers. His fiction has appeared… Read more »
Eliana Ramage
Mr. Longley’s Paper Suns

Eliana Ramage - Mr. Longley’s Paper Suns

Fiction
Eliana Ramage holds a BA and MA in creative writing from Dartmouth College and Bar-Ilan University, respectively. A proud Cherokee Nation citizen, she is at work on a collection of linked stories… Read more »
Cal Freeman
Our Father, the Lost Geometer

Cal Freeman - Our Father, the Lost Geometer

Poetry
Cal Freeman was born and raised in Detroit. His poems have appeared in many journals including The Journal, Commonweal, Berfrois, Birmingham Poetry Review, RHINO, and The Drunken Boat. His first… Read more »
Adam Clay
Performance Art

Adam Clay - Performance Art

Poetry
Adam Clay is the author of A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (Milkweed Editions, 2012) and The Wash (Parlor Press, 2006). A third book of poems, Stranger, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.… Read more »
Megan Grumbling
Persephone’s Blues Song

Megan Grumbling - Persephone’s Blues Song

Poetry
Megan Grumbling’s Vassar Miller Prize-winning poetry collection, Booker’s Point, is forthcoming from the University of Texas Press in spring of 2016. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Iowa… Read more »
Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer
Piedmont

Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer - Piedmont

Poetry
Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer is a poet and installation artist in St. Louis. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and her poems have appeared in… Read more »
Marlys West
Regret and Other Bodies

Marlys West - Regret and Other Bodies

Poetry
Marlys West is an award-winning writer living in Los Angeles. She has been published in journals and anthologies including American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Burnside Review, Duende, Fence,… Read more »
Amy Wright
The Crystal Lattice

Amy Wright - The Crystal Lattice

Creative Nonfiction
Amy Wright is the author of Everything in the Universe and Cracker Sonnets, both forthcoming in 2016. She is also the Nonfiction Editor of Zone 3 Press, Coordinator of Creative Writing and Associate… Read more »
John Sibley Williams
The House Winter Built

John Sibley Williams - The House Winter Built

Poetry
John Sibley Williams is the author of eight collections, most recently Controlled Hallucinations, and the editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies. A five-time Pushcart nominee, John serves as… Read more »
Venita Blackburn
Ways to Mourn an Asshole

Venita Blackburn - Ways to Mourn an Asshole

Fiction
Venita Blackburn earned her MFA from Arizona State University in 2008. Her stories have appeared in Pleiades, Madison Review, Bat City Review, Nashville Review, Smoke Long Quarterly, Café Irreal,… Read more »

Dream Car

Matthew Hobson

I was eight the summer my father brought home the Porsche 356 from the scrap yard. Primer-gray, dented, and mottled with rust, the car had no doors or wheels or even seats. The restoration process consumed two years of my father’s life, but when it was finished the car gleamed like a green and gold scarab. Every Saturday, he washed and waxed it, massaged oil into the leather seats to keep them supple. When he wasn’t driving it, the car stayed cocooned under a dust cover. I didn’t even have to be told not to fool with it. About a year later, my father woke one morning before the sun, drove the car into the Carbon Canyon foothills with a garden hose and duct tape, then sat behind the wheel while exhaust took him from the world.

“Maybe he’s not really dead,” a friend tried to comfort me. “Maybe he’s in that Witness Protection thing.”

I didn’t really believe this, but I was an imaginative kid with a penchant for mysteries. The thought of my father living a secret, shadow life somewhere was tantalizing. And, back then, before I’d ever heard terms like “manic-depressive,” the Witness Protection theory made about as much sense as the truth. At night, I constructed wild scenarios about what my father might be doing. Sometimes, he was hiding out in some ramshackle, roadside motel along a desert highway; other times, he was living a solitary life in a white clapboard house surrounded by acres and acres of corn.

We kept the Porsche for several months before my mother sold it. Only a few hours after the advertisement appeared in the Penny Saver, a man showed up with cash. After he paid, he pried the shield-shaped Porsche emblem from the hood. “Keep it,” he said, handing it to me. In my memory, he winks conspiratorially. Probably he was being kind—I suspect my mother explained our situation—but I imagined he was going to deliver the car to my father in his new life.

These days, my father visits two or three times a year in a recurring dream.

I wake to a knock. It’s early. My wife and children are asleep. When I open the front door, it’s him, dressed in a white t-shirt and washed-out 501s. He’s smoking a Marlboro. His hair is as dark as the day he died, his chest broad and back straight, his face not riven with the passing of years.

“Where have you been?” I ask.

He turns to leave, like he doesn’t recognize me. Like he’s knocked on the wrong door. I follow, trying to think of how to persuade him to stay.

This is where I wake up.

But, if I could re-enter the dream, re-write it from inside, he’d say something like, “Let’s go for a spin,” and point to the Porsche parked at the curb.

We drive with the windows down to Angelo’s, a Southern California carhop with waitresses in hot pants on roller skates. A classic car show is in full swing. He backs into the space beside a purple roadster with ghost flames. From the glovebox, he takes a soft cloth, then moves around the car, breath-polishing the chrome. When he reaches the front, he frowns, noticing the Porsche emblem is missing from the bonnet.

I reach into my pocket. “Here,” I say, dropping it into his open hand.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for that,” he says, popping it back in place.

We stroll around admiring the classic cars. I’ve never been much of a car guy, but I try to share my father’s joy as his knuckles caress fenders and bumpers and flaring tailfins. I think about my son, nearly a man, and how I always meant to show him how to replace an oil filter; and my daughter, nine, and how it’s never too soon to learn to fix a flat. Later, my father and I eat cheeseburgers that drip down our chins and milkshakes so thick we need plastic spoons. Sated, we lean against the Porsche and pass a joint back and forth. It’s the kind of moment that would make a perfect memory if only it were real.

“We should do this again sometime,” he says.

I’ve held on to a few memories of my father—shooting baskets on the hoop above the garage, watching a baseball game at Angel’s Stadium, sharing a ski lift on a rare family vacation—but not many more. He was distant, unapproachable, forever at the office or in the garage endlessly tinkering with the Porsche. I couldn’t name it then, but I always sensed something volatile inside him, something violent in repose that might, for reasons I couldn’t anticipate, explode.

In the end, he left silently as smoke.

“I’d like that,” I say, glancing at my watch. “But I’d better get home before my family starts wondering where I am.”

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