Photos courtesy of author.
Moscow, ID
One day, across the street from the gay coffee shop, a toddler in a blue t-shirt cocked a pistol at me. Silver glinted in October sun. He clicked the trigger, Dad and Mom looking on. Got her is what the kid said to Dad, a man closer to seven feet tall than six.
Only when I passed them in the crosswalk did I see the orange plastic that covered the gun’s tip: a toy. Dad ruffled the boy’s hair. I buried myself in my cell phone.
Story selected from Lagos Will Be Hard for You, a finalist for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing 2024.
There was a statue of the real Jack Daniels in the corner, or so the plaque read, but Jonathan swore that it looked more like one of the U.S. presidents: hat, beard, suit, presence, pose. It had a rainbow flag affixed to its shoulder, so Lotanna, or Lottie as she had come to be called in America, went with the Jack Daniels claim.
It was New Year’s Eve and they were on their third date. 10th Street Station was a basement bar and Lotanna decided she liked it as soon as she stepped in. The walls boasted of old autographed Hollywood posters and portraits, number plates proud of the Land of Potatoes, and when Lotanna found drawings on one of the high beams she thought it must have been by someone who cared a lot about this place but was shy of their talent. It was all mismatched in shape, color, and size. Nothing belonged. Like her. They ordered glasses of IPA and sat near the heater, and she kept glancing at her phone, waiting for the new year to ring so she could go home to her basement apartment.
“Hey. You okay?” Jonathan asked, nudging her lightly.
Moscow, ID
The neighbor children are in the Evangelical cult that Vice and The Guardian wrote about last year. They’re not allowed to speak to us, which is a thing no one has ever said aloud but is true, nonetheless. This town is full of true things that no one says aloud because we can’t or wouldn’t dare or because no one would believe us anyway.
Marilynne Robinson, I think, or maybe Ruth Ozeki, wrote something about how the wheat here is green before it’s yellow and everyone from elsewhere gets to selectively forget that and picture us golden and glowing year-round.
We decided we’d stop for the night in Denver while eating at a Taco Johns in North Platte, Nebraska, and scanned the Expedia app on my phone. There was a 4-star hotel in the suburbs northwest of the city on sale for 86 bucks, so I reserved a room because it was the same price as the Best Western.
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