sticky rice
Jordan
I spot her a week later. Kid you fucking not. Right out of nowhere. I’d just about given up on ever seeing Lilith again. I’d
be lying if I said I hadn’t been looking for her, keeping my eyes peeled on the offhand chance that I might find her in the
crowd somewhere in this city.
Richmond is a small town. Too small. It doesn’t take long before you cross paths with folks you’re either hoping to see—or
never wanting to bump into ever again.
Believe me, there are a fair number of exes in town that’d probably be happier if I wasn’t around. That’s my cross, I’ll bear
it.
This is all to say it’s inevitable that you’ll stumble across that other person when you least expect it. Never when you’re
looking for them. Murphy’s Law dictates it’ll happen when you’ve finally given up hope on ever seeing them again.
You’ve got to lose faith to find them.
Simply a part of living in this city of ours. All roads converge, eventually. Only a matter of time. You just need to let
go of looking. That’s the Richmond way of things.
So why am I on the prowl? Wounded pride? My wounds are all I’ve got right about now, so . . . maybe. They still sting. The tiniest vibrations rise from the scratches on my skin, that latticework of scabs, all feverish. Just the slightest flare-up along my flesh.
I swear, it’s as if they’re burning.
After a week of peeking around, I’m ready to throw in the towel. I’m going out more, accepting invitations to social occasions
I’d normally skip out on, just to see if I could find her.
No dice. I felt like a bit of an idiot, pub-crawling across town every night.
Maybe she didn’t live here? Had she just been passing through? She said she was from out of town. Way out. Nowhere you’ve been, she said. Yeah, but . . . where, exactly?
She never told me.
I asked a few friends if they knew who Lilith was, but everybody shrugged. Never heard of her. She wasn’t a regular at any bars. Not the ones I used to frequent, at least.
Maybe I really had dreamed her up . . .
But what about these scars? Where did they come from?
Real. She seemed so real. I feel like I’m losing my mind, thinking of her. She’s a song that’s gotten stuck in my head and I can’t
sing it out.
Why won’t she let me go?
Tuesday nights are Punk Bingo down at Sticky Rice. The weekly meetup is just an excuse to gather, get a little tipsy, fling
some tater tots around while stamping our homemade bingo cards. It’s hosted by Richmond’s very own Ben Bateman, a local staple
of the scene, a hero amongst us mere mortals, doling out cards for five bucks a sheet. He’s hand-drawn the bingo grid in Sharpie,
filling in each block with a different hipster signifier—horn rims, combat boots, blunt bangs, vegan patch, septum piercing—you
name it.
Bateman’s taking bingo back from the blue-hairs. Reclaiming it for the kids. Truth told, there are a bunch of blue-hairs in
the crowd here tonight, only these guys have dyed theirs with Manic Panic—but I digress.
This version of the game is an odd hybrid of bingo and karaoke. The rules are simple: Ben calls out a particular characteristic, then you’ve got to spot that descriptor around the room, blot it off on your card until you can call out—BINGOOOOOOOO, MOTHERFUCKER!
Winner gets a free beer and a bucket of tots. Not bad for five bucks. Ben spins a DJ set in between rounds, playing until
midnight. I’m in for a round. Why the hell not?
In and out. Just to see. Maybe, just maybe, she’s here.
I’m Deak’s wingman tonight. He’s eager to hit up the bar. Get drunk. He’s broken up with Lys for like, the fiftieth time.
I’ve lost track at this point, to be totally honest. Keeping up with their relationship is a fool’s fucking errand.
Deak drives. I haven’t ridden my bike in . . . well. Forever. The rusted husk is still hanging from my apartment wall, all
bent the fuck out of shape. A gnarled rib cage.
I keep it as a reminder. In a lot of ways, I think it’s me. That’s my body up there, crushed and twisted, hanging from the
wall. What’s walking around on two feet is just some ghost, living on borrowed time, simply refusing to believe I’m dead.
There are demons following me around town, chasing after me, trying to get me to realize I’m already damned.
Got to sync back up to myself. Got to feel complete again.
Typical Tuesday night thoughts for me. You can tell I’m a real joy to be around.
“I’ll get the first round,” Deak says before disappearing into the crowd. We’ve got ourselves a table against the window,
the street at my back.
The city swims around me. I can feel the pulse of it. The unsteady, erratic beat. Or maybe that’s my own heart, pounding away,
the anxiety mounting. Who can tell anymore?
People press up against each other, closing in.
I’m losing the formulation of faces. Everyone’s blurring.
Limbs begin to intertwine and it’s like I’m in my dream all over again, lost in a sea of bodies.
Not another panic attack. They come so frequently now.
Practically every time I leave the apartment.
I have to lock this shit down. Get ahold of myself.
Keep it together, Jordan, I think. Don’t do this to yourself. Not here.
Some woman laughs not two feet away from me. She downright cackles, cracking up so loud, her laughter fills the bar. I glance
over, curious to see what’s so funny.
This woman turns. The moment her eyes lock onto mine, the cackling stops. Her expression shifts. Droops. Whatever pleasure
was there just a second before slips. I don’t know what it is, what the hell’s going on here, but there’s something wrong
with her face.
It’s melting.
One eye turns upward while the other rotates counterclockwise. Her tongue lengthens—no, sloughs—out from her mouth, like the muscle is detaching itself.
My anxiety spikes. I can’t breathe. Every inhale is shallower than the last.
Get a fucking hold of yourself. I’m seeing things, that’s all. Don’t lose your shit. I close my eyes, squeeze them tight, take a deep breath. When I open them back up again—
Her face is fine. The woman looks totally fine. Perfectly normal. No melty-face.
What the fuck was that all about?
“Here we go,” Deak says, sliding back into the booth. He’s brought me a beer, the yeasty inferno of it bubbles before me.
I get lost in the froth. Drown in it.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers.” I toast without drinking.
“Bad luck, bro.”
“Sorry,” I say as I glance back at the woman one last time. Totally fine. Totally solid.
Jesus, you really are losing it . . .
A waitress brings a tin of tater tots—fucking tater tots—to the table. Of all the things to get excited for, some rehash of our elementary school cafeteria lunch is not it, but so it goes. Just some more kitschy bullshit. The queso’s pretty killer, though, I will confess.
“You hungry?” Deak tosses a tot in the air, snapping at it like a trained seal. Of course he misses. The potato hits his chin,
rebounds to the ground somewhere.
“I’m good, thanks.” My appetite has been missing for months now.
“More for me.” Deak tries again, this time he gets the tater tot in. Nothing but net.
The air is thick with tempura. Fried oil coagulates the atmosphere. Eat your fill. Sticky Rice is a Richmond institution.
Where else can you get your sushi sliced up by tatted itamaes? The sleeves of these guys, I swear, it’s like murals across
their bodies.
“So.” Deak clears his throat. “How’s it feel to be back in the land of the living?”
Small talk. Sure, let’s do this. “Just fine, I reckon.”
“How’s PT treating you? Still going, yeah?”
I clock the concerned tone. The doubt. “What, you checking up on me?”
“Somebody’s got to.”
“Still going.”
Deak doesn’t blink. He’s giving me that look that says I’m full of shit.
“Hand to God.” I even hold my hand up, placing my palm on an invisible bible.
“We’re worried about you.”
“Who’s we?”
“The crew. Who else?”
I first met Deak at a bike jousting tournament.
During the summers, there’s a Ren Faire redux for gearheads.
A courier Olympiad that includes all kinds of cockamamie competitions.
Relay races. Polo. Traffic cone bowling.
We were on the soccer fields overlooking Church Hill, at separate ends of the green, facing off on our bikes like this was all some kind of medieval tournament.
We were both on the receiving end of a foam-padded lance, nothing more than a sawed-off broomstick swaddled in duct-tape and bubble wrap.
I hadn’t met Deak until I pegged him in the chest, knocking him off his bike at about eighteen miles an hour.
I dismounted and reached down to help him back up.
Nice hit, he mumbled to me, rubbing his solar plexus. Wanna go another round?
Friends for life ever since.
“I thought I’d lost you.” He sips the head off his beer. “Thought you were gone.”
“I was.”
“Yeah, but—for good. You were dead, Jordan. Do you know how fucking terrifying that was? I was there, in the hospital. You were all hooked up
to these wires and . . .”
Chains. Bike chains strapped to my skin.
“I swear,” Deak keeps going, “you weren’t there. Your body was, but you were gone.”
“Back now.”
“You thinking about riding again?”
“Maybe. One day.”
Never.
“I can fix up your frame. Put on some fresh tires. Fix the gears. Good as new.” Deak has been working on opening his own bike
shop. Give gearheads a spot to pull in and repair their bikes on the go. Maybe sell a Schwinn now and then. He’s been pinching
those pennies for so long, he’s just about there. I have to admit: I’m proud of him.
“That’s awfully kind of you . . .”
“But . . . ? I can hear it coming a mile away, man . . .”
“I’m not there yet,” I say. “Soon.”
“You can’t live like this forever.”
“News to me.” I take a sip of my beer. It’s flat. Or maybe it’s just me. Everything is stale or room temp or ash. Ever since
the accident, all of my senses have deadened themselves, somehow, going uncomfortably numb. My nerve endings are all fried.
I barely taste anything anymore. Food is nothing but sustenance.