ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SHANNON ANTHONY lives in Minneapolis. Her short fiction has been published in Menda City Review, elimae, The Hiss Quarterly, MicroHorror and Tuesday Shorts, and is forthcoming in Sein und Werden. She is a submissions editor for the pulp fiction podcast Well Told Tales.

Keeping It Real

By Shannon Anthony


I'm not the most sensible shoes in the store, but next to Jam and her spike dodoskin sling-backs, I'm as flat practical as a brain surgeon's plastic booties. Take today. Jam's buying cars. When she finds one she likes, she gets it in black, and in red, and in solid gold. One for the apartment, one for the farm, one for the mansion. I point out that some models have this feature which lets you move them from place to place to place, but Jam lost any respect she had for my sense of fiscal responsibility the moment she found out I pay property taxes.

Flashback to a game that answered questions eight year olds shouldn't be asking: Who will I marry? What color will my wedding dress be? Will I live in Paris, London, New York, California, or here? OR. Or, or, or: The unwritten rules were quite clear on that point.

But Jam's playing it AND, AND, AND – living everywhere and marrying everyone and wearing everything (granted, little of it at any one time). The most laughable part is, when Jam says she's just keepin' it real, she isn't exactly lying. What she means is that she's never going to know good wine from bad, or what meal requires more than one fork, or who can introduce me to Prince Harry. And of course this is exactly the "Really, s/he's just like us!" ignorance America loves to see in its politicians and jackpot winners and celebrities. No, I don't know those things. But why tell the whole world?

I grind my grubby soles into the yeti-hair floor mat as her sound system does its worst. I'd eject Jam's CDs, only it's just wrong to leave the outpourings of Celine Dion where some Adopt-a-Highway kid could stumble upon them.

"I don't know if I like the new song."

"Which one now?" As if I've come up with as many as two. Though if we're defining a song as something musical, I can't even count the one.

"It's about a party for a girl with low self-esteem?"

"That doesn't sound like – "

"You wrote it on Kit's arm? You must have been wasted – you wrote 'fatted calf' instead of 'fat calves.' Shouldn't it be 'thighs'? That's more universal. And there's lots more rhymes."

Yes, the lyrics to "Prodigal Daughter" were co-written by Luke somebody and his buddy Jesus, but it isn't stealing when you know they won't sue. 

* * *

"This kid is seriously ill? I don't think I can – " Just as Jam has forgotten how to pump gas and find her own laundry room, I only know anymore how to be around people undergoing unnecessary surgeries.

"You won't have to talk to little Billy," our manager assures me. "Like he cares what you have to say. You’re just a buffer."

A pediatric tragedy's life-not-very-long dream is to meet Kit Mishchev. And because Kit isn't the only one who's taken leave of her senses, we're going to make this happen. OK, I understand that his dying wish is our command, but Gus's idea is that we'll be doing it in front of cameras. "So everybody'll see Kit alive and well." This is simultaneously the most cynical and the most naive plan I've ever heard.

It would be less disillusioning to try to make the acquaintance of an unoccupied Muppet. Enjoy your weekend at Bert and Ernie's, kiddo. No, we can't actually help you, but we can make a very big deal of our uselessness.

Nevertheless. When what some hard-luck runt wants more than anything is to be around you -- well, I'll never know what that feels like. But if we can't save your life, I guess the least we can do is make a really big deal out of it.



Published April 2008