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A Mountain of Invertebrates

May 28, 2019/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2019 / by Christopher Gonzalez

[fiction]

Austin orders an entire seafood boil for himself. He ignores the crawfish and halved cobs of corn, focusing instead on the crab legs, which he cracks open with such force the buttery juices mist Jorge’s face. Jorge’s plate is nearly empty now. He had devoured his crispy-fried cod sandwich in five minutes and spends the rest of their meal together picking at coleslaw, catching only two or three strands of wet cabbage at a time on his fork. Austin finishes a fourth crab leg and leans back in his chair. He drapes a napkin over his lap. That was delightful, he says, but I can’t eat another bite. Austin smiles at Jorge, his teeth flecked with parsley. You should try some, he says. But seafood is not Jorge’s thing. The ocean, he believes, is swarming with aliens. No need to search for them in outer space when they lurk in the darkest depths of the earth. And certainly no reason to eat them. To roll the aquatic flesh around in his mouth would be an act against God. Hard pass, he thinks. But there was still so much shrimp and sausage and crawfish and potatoes cooling out on the newspapered tabletop. He imagines biting into the untouched crawfish now: some uneasy chewing to start, then a rough swallow. Then, he suspects, the dead little fucker would be revived by the bath of his stomach acid. Reborn, it would swim down, deeper into his gut, burrowing itself within him forever. Jorge, you really must try some, Austin says again. Just one bite, please. He grabs a lobster from the pile, twists its body, and pulls until the tail separates from its torso. They could get a to-go container. There is still time. It’s what other couples might do: wrap up the remains and tote the bounty back to Jorge’s apartment, to be later consumed in a post-sex haze. But that never happens, does it? Jorge sees into next morning, and he knows Austin would leave the bag in his fridge, as he had done with a slice of vodka pizza from their first date, and the stuffed cabbage from date two, and the Thai food from the third. The chocolate cake from date four never made it home. But for all those other leftovers, Jorge made sure to eat them. He was raised to be a garbage disposal. No waste, ever. He picks over whatever Austin leaves in the mornings, shortly after Austin vanishes into the backseat of a Lyft. Off to class or work, Austin says. Alone in his kitchen, scraping his fork against the aluminum takeout container, Jorge watches the Lyft app every time, notes how the driver passes Austin’s job, and the school, and even his apartment. Jorge watches Austin slip away, upstream. Austin is squeezing the lobster’s torso now, and the red shell compresses under his fingers, cracking. Juice rains down over the newspaper. From the carnage, Austin presents Jorge with a lump of yellowish-green meat pulp, balanced delicately on his fingertips. That’s it? Jorge laughs, he has to, everything feels too wild. So much effort and mess? All of that for so little? He’s serious. He’s confused. You’ll see what all the fuss is about, Austin says. He swears it, raises the mass to Jorge’s face. Jorge thinks about the bag of seafood, how it will surely sag, the paper thinning out over time, long after tonight, eventually breaking open all over his bottom shelf. Rancid garlic butter everywhere, and a mountain of invertebrates left to rot. Jorge opens his mouth, welcomes Austin’s fingers. He rolls the meat on his tongue, fights against the stinging in his eyes and rising bile in his throat, tries to push through. Austin is a wide smile and two celebratory balled fists. So good, right? he gasps. I knew you’d love it. But Jorge is still chewing the lobster, nodding his head over and over again. The hope is the movement will guide the sea bug down his throat and he can will himself into saying this thing is good. The hope is it won’t be a lie.

 

Christopher Gonzalez serves as a fiction editor at Barrelhouse and a contributing editor at Split Lip Magazine. His stories appear or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including Third Point Press, Cosmonauts Avenue, Pithead Chapel, and The Acentos Review. He was the recipient of the 2015 Ann E. Imbrie Prize for Excellence in Fiction Writing from Vassar College. Cleveland-raised, he now lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. You can find him online at www.chris-gonzalez.com or Twitter: @livesinpages.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Christopher_Gonzalez_cr_Ashley_Pecorelli-headshot_opt.jpg 400 300 Sona Gevorkian https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Sona Gevorkian2019-05-28 19:40:182019-06-27 23:46:05A Mountain of Invertebrates

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Confessions of a Birthday Person

November 4, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Meghan McGuire
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Abyssinia

August 26, 2022/in Midnight Snack / JP Goggin
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Still Life

October 31, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Daniel J. Rortvedt
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Litdish: Writing About Grief: An Interview with Jenn Koiter

October 24, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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Dawn from Buffy Learns About Climate Change

October 10, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Alyson Mosquera Dutemple
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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