Nevada (25 page)
Maria’s already gone. Maybe she already forgot about him. He was a project she thought she could solve, but since he’s not doing whatever she wants now he’s old news. She’s practically saying, out loud, Fuck you, James H., get the fuck out. So he’s like, All right. Bye.
You can’t tell how deep the casino is. It keeps looking like, okay, here’s the wall at the other end, and there’s definitely a wall there, but then your eyes follow the wall fifteen feet and there’s a corner that opens out onto a whole new collection of green felt tables and people playing actual physical cards. She’s gone, dude, James has no fucking idea where Maria is, but looking for her is a project so he goes for it. It’s kind of cool to take in a casino and look at the people and stuff, and it’s cheaper than buying drinks or pumping quarters into slots. There’s this movie that came out ten years before James was born called Joysticks, this stupid eighties teen sex comedy that is pretty much unwatchable, and in the opening scene there’s this girl playing Frogger, or Moon Rover, or something, wearing these tiny shorts and this tiny tank top, while the singer wails this song that goes, ‘Totally awesome! Video games!’ James has an mp3 of that song because it’s so fucking dumb that it rules and that’s what he’s thinking about while he walks around watching people play totally awesome video poker and totally awesome video slots and totally awesome who even knows what. Keno.
Eventually he finds her. Turns out there are a bunch of other entrances but she’s not far from the one where they came in, she’s just around a corner a little. She’s playing a Munsters video slot machine, a quarter at a time.
He’s like Hey and she’s like Hey and he’s like Uh and she’s like, did you get a drink? He’s like, a buck for a Coke, fuck that, and she’s like, Want me to get you a beer? He goes Nah, I think I’m gonna go smoke.
She’s like, Cool, and the stupid rockabilly Munsters theme song plays for a couple seconds while the wheels spin again.
James goes outside to find a place to smoke.
Would anybody even care if they caught him smoking weed? Like, bouncers or whatever. Do cops patrol casinos? They must.
He does a whole lap around the casino, which takes a while because it’s fucking huge, but there’s nothing to hide behind anywhere unless he wants to either climb that mutilated mountain or try to figure out a way around it. He’s like, god dammit, this is fucking stupid, what am I doing in Reno with this stranger who doesn’t give a fuck about me. He flips out pretty hard for a second and then without even really thinking about it he wanders over to the downtown shuttle and people are getting on so he lines up and gets on too.
30.
Nicole comes and picks him up in a couple hours. He lies and doesn’t mention Maria or heroin or anything, he says he bumped into Mark this morning and rode into Reno with him, then lost track of him.
Mark isn’t answering his texts, James says. I don’t know.
Nicole drives him past the gas station where he and Maria pulled over so he could smoke out. The sun’s on its way down but it’s not really dark out or anything and he’s thinking about whether they could pull over at the truckstop outside Star City where they went to on their first date. He wonders whether the yellow light and nostalgia can turn his body inconsequential enough to get hard. He wonders whether there’s enough room in the back seat of Nicole’s car for her to give him head.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IMOGEN BINNIE
writes a monthly column in
Maximum Rocknroll
magazine, as well as the zines
The Fact That It's Funny Doesn't Make It A Joke
and
Stereotype Threat
. Her work has appeared in
Aorta
magazine, The Skinny, PrettyQueer, and the Topside Press anthology
The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard
. She lives with her girlfriend and their dog Pants.
Her website is keepyourbridgesburning.com.
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Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard
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A dynamic composite of rising stars,
The Collection
represents the depth and range of tomorrow’s finest writers chronicling transgender narratives. 28 authors from North America converge in a single volume to showcase the future of trans literature and the next great movements in queer art.
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MY AWESOME PLACE
The Autobiography of Cheryl B
written by Cheryl Burke
A rare authentic glimpse into the electrifying arts scene of New York City’s East Village during the vibrant 1990s,
My Awesome Place
is the chronicle of a movement through the eyes of one young woman working to cultivate her voice while making peace with her difficult and often abusive family.
An unlikely story for someone whose guidance counselor recommended a career as a toll taker on the New Jersey Turnpike, Burke was determined to escape her circumstances by any means available–physical, intellectual or psychotropic. Her rise to prominence as the spoken word artist known as Cheryl B brought with it a series of destructive girlfriends and boyfriends and a dependence on drugs and alcohol that would take nearly a decade to shake.
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stories and essays by Kelli Dunham • May 2013
Freak of Nurture
demonstrates that hilarity and chaos reign when you combine what Kelli’s therapist calls “deep biological optimism” with a hearty midwestern work ethic and determination to make bad ideas a fantastic reality. Whether she is writing about hitch-hiking across Haiti to help out with disaster relief or living on a houseboat in Philadelphia in the winter, Kelli Dunham’s humorous interpretation of difficult situations is both inspiring and entertaining. In the tradition of authors such as David Sedaris and Ellen DeGeneres, Dunham’s “slice of life” stories remind us that even though humans are deeply flawed, we’re also seriously hysterical that way.
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a novel by Red Durkin • Summer 2013
Hans Tronsmon is an average 20 year-old transgender man. He’s the popular chair of the transmasculine caucus at his women’s college and the first draft of his memoir is almost finished. But his world is turned upside down when his happily married gay dads decide to stop paying for his off-campus apartment and start saving for retirement. Hans must learn to navigate the world of part-time jobs, publishing, and packers if he wants to survive.
Ready, Amy, Fire
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