Chochi restless. In her room. All day. In her room. All her thing everywhere. It weird. It close. Chochi alone. Chochi walk down the stair. Chochi hard shoe click. Chochi pass kitchen. Voices of girls. Plates clink, silverware. Chochi push. The lever. Of the door. A red exit sign. Walk outside. It fresh. Snowing. Chochi walk down. A hill. To a lake. Freezing. Ice in the water. Smoke a cigarette. Walk back up to her room. She on the bed, sitting. Hands in her lap. Looking up at Chochi meanly.
“What?” Chochi say.
“I heard your feet coming down the stairs.”
“And?”
“You walked right by where I was working without coming in to say hello.”
“I didn’t know you were in there. How was I to know?”
“You could have checked.”
“All those girls make me nervous.”
“You walked right by and didn’t
even come in to kiss me while I was washing the dishes. It would have meant so much.”
“I’m sorry.”
She look from Chochi. To the floor. Shake her head. Bring a hand up to scratch the back of her neck, and Chochi thinking I’m such a moron.
Now she look up at Chochi. Happy, as if all this shaking her head at the floor is only her making up her mind about something. Yes, and she has decided. Yes, Chochi, see it, in her face, love! She stand up. Wrap Chochi in her arms.
Chochi kiss her lips. Fat lips. Her lips. Melt. Chochi. Make Chochi weaker than Chochi is. More stupid. More not caring. Chochi fuck her in. Heap of dirty clothes against wall. Her body. Is brown. She say she and Chochi need to go to Karen’s tonight.
“Karen’s?”
“Don’t make fun of my friends.”
“I’m not,” Chochi say. Chochi try to kiss her. “I’d. I’d Love to go to Karen’s with you.”
“No you wouldn’t,” she say. “That’s what we were supposed to do last night, but we didn’t.”
“I liked what we did better,” Chochi say.
“How do you even know?” she say. “We didn’t go there because you were too afraid of being around other people and letting them know how much you love me.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I love being around other people,” Chochi say. “I thought, being I only had a few days, we could spend it together.”
“We’ll go tonight,” she say.
“Sure,” Chochi say.
But Chochi don’t. Chochi fuck her in. Again. Until after midnight. Chochi look out the window. At the falling snow and tell her a thousand miles off, in the place from where Chochi drove, it all sunshine.
But that not true. Florida the same time zone. Stupid Chochi.
She talk Chochi into putting. On clothes. Go out for air. So Chochi. Go down with her, holding hand. Chochi walk. Along the pretty brick path in the wonderland. Campus of brick. Buildings. Chochi. And she come upon a soccer field. Girls. Are here from the same building—R—that she is from. She go to them. Talk a little. Introduce Chochi, the man, of which they have no interest.
The girls. With short, close hair, like high school football players, ignore Chochi, even at her imploring. She want to show Chochi. Off. She bragging, Hey, look here, he drove a thousand miles to fuck me. I’m getting fucked all I like. Yeah. But these girls. They are not interested. Their ears are red. They slide down the bank on cookie tins and sleds. Chochi figure. Chochi will have fun too. Chochi run, jump onto the bank on stomach, slide down it the way Frosty. The Snowman do when he look for a warm spot for the little girl who is cold.
Chochi. Don’t get no congrats. The girls. Hiss at Chochi like snakes, look at Chochi mean with dripping teeth. And stuff. “Don’t do that,” they say. “You want to ruin the bank for the rest of us? Look what you did.”
The girl Chochi love, she look at. Chochi, her face among the others.
Chochi. Has made a fool. Of Chochi self. Chochi know it. “How was I to know the snow would fall apart like that?” Chochi tell her.
She smile. At Chochi. With a look say, No, hey, it’s okay, don’t worry about them. You are way more important.
And Chochi think about that it. A flash. About it that she tell Chochi in a letter: “I don’t feel right wearing dresses anymore.” Chochi question: “Who would? In this setting.” But it nothing. Chochi ever say to her. Instead Chochi take. Her great fat small. Hand, and Chochi and she walk into the soccer field to roll a snowy man. Chochi and she roll up snowy balls while the other girls laugh and have so much fun. Sliding down the bank of snow. And the girl Chochi love. She on purpose don’t look at them. Ignore them. So that. Maybe. They will look at her, with her man, her Chochi dick, and think, Wow, check her out. But they do not. In this world the only thing a Chochi dick good for is cutting. Off—throw into a fire somewhere to help a bum warm his hands.
Chochi build. Chochi snowy man. With she. Chochi stick pennies into his face for eyes and a mouth. He look sick. Like a sick snowy man, like he got disease. Anybody looking at him will think so. So, Chochi and she turn away from it, both of them with shame holding. Hands, feeling the cold snowy wetness of each other’s palms. And climb. The bank. Together and see the other girls walking happily on the brick path in front of Chochi and she, Chochi. Feel his love wish it was she and them. Chochi useless in this world. Dresses are evil. Chochi ruin her. Image. Chochi make her. Into something vile in the eyes. Of her friends. It make Chochi. Feel—because Chochi love her—oh—rotted, a. Burden hampering her better progression.
Chochi. And she follow the girls. Back to the dorm. Go inside, into the warm girlsmelling air. Of perfect waxed floor. Climb the stair. Up to the love den. Chochi losing Chochi popularity with her. Chochi feel it. Seeping away in the crack under the door. It not how she wanted it to be—why she sent Chochi her BP card—why it was to be that Chochi drove a thousand mile to see her, Chochi.
Would drove ten. Thousand. Mile. If to be with her a minute, and.
Ten. Thousand. More Chochi would drive. A billion because. Chochi. Love her. With Chochi love there are no mile, no light year.
Chochi put. Chochi hand on her. It losing. It backbone. She does. Not make the sound when she see Chochi naked now. Lust does. Not sparkle. In her eye. Perhaps she thinking of the girls? She do not speak out loud for Chochi to fuck her now, but. It all Chochi have. So Chochi fuck her in her. Bed and Chochi know. She do. Not want it, Chochi.
Think, She never cared. She used me. I horrified her friends. Cut it off! Throw it in the fire!
In the morning while she sleep Chochi. Look out the window at the snowy place. Bulldog women in jackets have BRYN MAWR on their backs. They cart in food for the kitchen downstairs. The food, Chochi think, will feed girls. Chochi see. Girl mouths. Many many, dozens, open. Let in forks, the food, Chochi. Look. At Chochi love on her stomach, her shaved calves uncovered, her feet. Hanging over the edge of the bed. And Chochi. Know. How far it is Chochi have to drive. To get back. The thought. Pain Chochi. To be away from her, and what they say in Sociology 101? It take five friends. To do something. Then you do it too, he.
Looking at her calves. Like that. Uncovered along the bed, the light coming in that Chochi hate now, wishing the light was gone. There is little Chochi can do to help. Chochi self. Chochi start with her feet, he.
Lick them. Lick her ankles, lick her knees. Lick and lick but oh, she do. Not want him, even. When his tongue is.
The door knock.
“I want you to leave,” she say, and Chochi go, a day. Earlier from the plan, she hold. Nothing against Chochi, but Chochi know, the. New plan, is. To stop. Sever. Forget, Chochi.
Drive a thousand mile straight, use her BP card for gas, for coffees—would she be happy to see me drinking coffee?—see me being safe?—keeping myself alive?—No!
Chochi write her but she no, don’t. Write back, she. Don’t care, don’t care, she don’t. Write Chochi for many letters, and. Then a letter from her arrive, oh, Chochi kiss it and kiss it, kiss it and kiss it and oh! My darling, Chochi think, my. Darling before he even open the letter, my darling and, this love, it awful, it horrible, it terrible, awful, but Chochi open the. Letter and. Read that she has a girl. Friend, don’t hold this against me, Chochi die, die! Oh, it hurt, it hurt and Chochi hate Chochi, Chochi stupid, Chochi remember her when she. Look at him when he. Drip sweat on her and he. Lick her and fuck her in her dorm and the door knock and he fuck down on her, she. Struggle, but Chochi fuck her till she bite him and then Chochi let her go and she put on dress and open door for the inspectors of the dorm, they. See Chochi under covers, and she blush and they look. At her and they know, they giggle, and they say the paint on the walls are fine, and when they gone Chochi fuck her in her. Oh, she look up at Chochi with her. Eyes, her. Body Chochi will miss for the rest of his life, her. Eyes he will remember and her smell and his tongue in her and she destroys him, she. Has murdered Chochi, Chochi will. Miss her forever and will never leave that room, that moment, that box, that look, that view of her from the sky, that. Open sore, it will grow, it will cover Chochi and suffocate him.
John Oliver Hodges’ fiction has appeared in journals such as The Literary Review, Swink, Cream City Review, and American Short Fiction. Over the last seven years he has lived in Alaska, Florida, Mississippi, and New York. He was a Tennessee Williams Scholar in 2008, and currently teaches writing at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
His novella, War of the Crazies, is available HERE
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2011
THE NEW
RULES OF
W R I T I N G
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