The Male Slapping Championship
It is early, but he’s depressed, so he makes for the fridge, and pops open a Yuengling.
On TV: The Siberian Power Show.
Specifically:
“The Male Slapping Championship.”
A huge man named Apple Dumpling stands at a white table. He wears a wool sweater, in color the walnut of back hair. Across the table his opponent, a Croatian college student, stands confidently – possibly arrogantly? – waiting to be slapped. They are in some sort of glass atrium. There are dozens of people in the audience. They stand on steel risers. Simon cannot understand what the announcers are saying; he cannot decipher the strange marks closed captioned, symbols that he associates with terrorism.
This is an ancient form of television. Of sport. There is not some big-chested reporter positioned beside the men, and everyone is white. This is both mesmerizing and unsettling. Those watching, like Simon (sort of) do so because they love the game.
A real-life David versus Goliath, Simon is certain the Croat is going to win the contest. Apple Dumpling slowly draws back his arm and swings with measured fury, slapping his young opponent unconscious; the man drops to the floor like a wet blanket. The crowd politely claps. Simon is stunned. When he watches the slap in slow motion—the Croat’s head jerks so violently backward, before returning to its original, set position, that, even when slowed, it is like he has not been struck—he remembers why he cannot stomach actual, real-life, violence.
Simon reaches for his phone, he drinks deeply from his beer.
A Definite Article
“Your mom was so pretty,” Lucy says. She taps the clipping, the sound of her fingernail against the paper. “And you were so tiny! I didn’t know you were in the paper. You could've lost this! I doubt your dad has a copy. This,” she smiles, “is something totally worth keeping! What’s it doing in some,” and she laughs, “novel.”
“What is it?”
“Here,” Lucy says. It’s from a newspaper, a really old one.”
Simon sips his drink, dries his hands upon the seat of his swimsuit, and takes the picture.
He has trouble understanding the image surrounding the article.
I Go There
I was not happy. I was written all wrong.
मैं वहां जाता हूँ। is a basic sentence, but my author - I won't embarrass him by name - took no care of verb declension.
(What am I? A pronoun?)
Ironically (of course) I have no voice.
So I was pleasantly surprised when,
after I was circled in red pen,
my author awakened,
made the necessary correction
(जाती)
and, on Top of it
all,
italicized
the feminine ....