by Zan Miller
The Denny’s Line Cook
I worked as a server at Denny’s when I was 20. I lived up in Cumberland in February; dirty snow clung to my white snow boots. There was nowhere to sit in the “smoker’s area”—the buckets were set up beside the dumpster. He worked as a line cook and opened up his passenger door, calling out for me to get in. I hesitated; I didn’t know him too well. But my toes and fingers and nose were freezing and I’d already worked 6 hours straight without a break and I really wanted to sit.
A warm car sounded like heaven.
Sliding into the passenger seat, I kicked away fast-food wrappers and swiped ashes from the seat—nothing I minded or judged. I never knew a service worker with a clean car. It smelled like smoke and old weed and fryer grease and reminded me of my father. I kept the window rolled down far enough for anyone to hear my potential screams, but the warmth eased my anxiety.
“Almost Lover” by A Fine Frenzy played on the radio. He turned it up.
Laughing, we fall into an easy conversation about music, and I was surprised he knew A Fine Frenzy and Patti Smith and Susanna McCorkle. My break fell away before I realized it and I was late getting back to finish my shift. He asked me for my number, but I was embarrassed because I only had my dad’s number to use so I told him I’d give it to him later.
I never did.
That was 13 years ago; it’s been 11 since he died. I saw in the paper he’d perished in a train collision while trying to save someone stuck on the tracks. I never blamed myself, never asked if it would have been different had we known each other better, longer, more. There’s a feeling I cannot reconcile, a longing almost. He died a hero, and I never gave him my number because I was embarrassed.
A hand reached and the other shied away.
#
The Neighborhood Walmart Stocker
When you survive Hurricane Katrina, a simple tornado warning no longer scares you.
At least, that was the brilliant thought my sisters and I shared one windy evening when we decided to walk 3 miles through the thunder and lightning. Why? We were bored teenagers. Nothing had killed us yet.
That’s the first time I met Nathaniel.
He towered over me, wore thick glasses and spoke with an odd accent. I never learned where he was from, but I did know he also survived hurricane Katrina even closer to the gulf coast than I was. He was shy and awkward, especially around me, freshly 18 with a firecracker personality. He asked me, with all sincerity, if I was a model. I told him only under the right conditions and it was the first time I ever made a guy blush.
Nathaniel was too shy to make a move and I had to play the aloof ingenue. But he was sweet and kind, from what I knew. He passed away from complications with Covid, and that’s all I know of his life.
I remember the last time I saw him. I got out of my friend Lauren’s car and stopped to fix my short shorts and tied up button down shirt. I noticed Nathaniel notice me but said nothing. I wanted to know if he’d speak to me first. I wanted to know if he could muster even that. I saw him debate with himself as I intentionally took longer to set myself to rights. I hoped.
But he didn’t.
He gathered the buggies and pushed them inside instead. I moved away shortly thereafter, and we never spoke again. I could go all day on what if he said something, what if I said something, what if—
Hands reaching and never meeting.
#
Sunflower Boy
This one hurts.
I was 13 and going through a lot. Too much for a kid and I’ll spare myself the details, thanks. We went to the same church and school and lived in the same trailer park because every small town is exactly the same. He saw me make mocking faces during a sermon, hidden behind some pamphlet preaching abstinence or spreading misinformation about abortions. When he noticed my tomfoolery, he joined in with his own.
We sat in the middle seats of the bus and shared sunflower seeds, our favorite—the hard burnt ones most people threw out. He ate the shells just like I did, said his favorite flowers were sunflowers—just like mine.
He pushed me on the swing set in front of our trailer park. It creaked something awful and the seat pinched my thighs, but I could ignore it when he said he wanted to ask me a question. I told him I was moving away and asked if he still wanted to ask me. He said he did but he wouldn’t.
I never heard after him once I moved, skipped to the top of Mississippi after the hurricane. I haven’t been back since.
Hands snatched apart, forever unfini
Self Recognition
by Kathy Bruce
Zan Miller (she/they) lives in Jonesboro, AR, with her partner of eleven years, two fully formed humans she birthed herself, and Holly, her puppy raised by cats who thinks she’s a wrecking ball. She is a nonbinary, disabled writer with twenty-two years of practice and believes it’s high time she turns all that practice into something practical. https://zanmiller32091.wixsite.com/zan-miller-author.
Kathy Bruce is a visual artist based in Argyll & Bute, Scotland, and Upstate New York.She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellowship, 2 Fulbright-Hayes scholar grants, and a Ford Foundation Grant. Her work has been exhibited in the UK,US, and internationally, including Senegal, Taiwan, Denmark, Peru, France, and Canada. She is a graduate of Yale University and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Bruce is a contributor to various literary journals, including: Three Rooms Press, Lunch Ticket, The Vassar Review, Alchemy Literary Magazine, Open Minds Quarterly, Yale University School of Medicine’s The Perch, TheNew Southern Fugitives, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Ignatian Literary Magazine, The Variant Literature, Landlocked Literary Magazine, Rutgers University’s Rejoinder, The Brooklyn Review, Twyckenham Notes, The Porter House Review, Pushing Out the Boat, National Women’s History Museum, Minding Nature, The Howler Project, and The Camas Journal.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 