#204 An Evening

by Christopher Allen

The last one, I say, head to the floor, shards tearing at my knees. You have to break something every time you come here. We’ll never get this cleaned up.

Ellen folds her arms across her chest, leans against the dishwasher. Since Mom’s death, my sister has become clumsy. She’s shattered my priceless crucifix carved from the rarest Afghan lapis lazuli. My antique vase collection from Yemen is a pastel memory in a photo album. And now, my last hand-blown Lambert Bordeaux glass is a spray of tiny diamonds and peach powder on the kitchen floor. The set of twelve was an exorbitant—Ellen said ‘crazy’—wedding present from Mom. Go have your life, child! Make a splash! Drink wine! Mom knew what I needed.

So I did. At 59, I moved to Europe with a generous Spaniard, ending my life chapter about the dying, demented mother and starting the one with the best Ribera del Dueros, exotic islands and sex with an Andalusian accent. Carlos was a brief, last-ditch sort of chapter, the kind worth leaving a spinster sister to order the preacher and lilies alone.

Blood streaking down my shins, I walk into my living room, grab the dainty Russian figurine Carlos gave me on our second anniversary and watch it whiplash against the marble floor. They’re both dead now, Ellen. Won’t we ever be even?

Ellen reaches for the signed Chagall painting hanging too proudly above the dining room sideboard. Not yet, she says, but we’re evening.



Curt Child is a man who just can’t seem to get gay, so he’s enlisted the help of his oldest—and gayest—friend S. Teri O’Type to drag him a few inches down The Road to Greater Gayness.

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