In Nebraska, the cows are all standing close together, but as there are various reasons for which cows might choose to stand close together, I do not know the reason the cows in Nebraska are all standing close together; later, in Iowa, the cows are all standing far apart, but as there are various reasons for which cows might choose to stand far apart, I do not know the reason the cows in Iowa are all standing far apart.
For dinner, I have Beans, meaning Benjamin Beans, the gentleman waiting ahead of me in the check-in line at the Red Roof Inn in Erie, Pennsylvania, where I have decided to sojourn for the night. His face looks like something spherical that was squeezed too hard and subsequently failed to recover its original shape, and when the desk clerk asks him to fill out a form with his name, address, and license plate information, he refuses on the grounds that he despises paperwork.
Well, this Beans may in all likelihood be illiterate, but he’s bright enough to realize he made a terrible mistake when he accepted the invitation to join me in my room “for dinner.”
“No!” he cries when I take out my knife and fork, sharpening the former against the whetstone I always keep on hand for such occasions, and struggles uselessly against his restraints. “Please! I have a family!”
“That reminds me of that old joke,” I tell him. “How does it go again? Mommy, mommy, I hate grandma’s guts. Shut up and eat ’em before they clot.”
“Not funny,” replies Beans.
“In different circumstances, you might feel differently.”
“Agree to disagree. It’s just not that funny of a joke in my opinion.”
“Different strokes for different folks,” I concede, and lick my chops.
“No!” cries Beans. “Please!”
“Take it easy,” I say. “Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be and all that jazz.” I dig in—objectively, he isn’t delicious, but after a long, lean day on the road, hunger truly is the best spice.
A few weeks later, perusing the online reviews for the Red Roof Inn in Erie, Pennsylvania, I come across one that can only have been written by someone who stayed, not long after the fact, in the room in which I devoured the aforementioned Beans. It reads:
★★★
“The room looked clean but had a strange smell, which probably wouldn’t have bothered me so much if my dog wasn’t so freaked out by it. Conveniently located nearby the interstate and several reasonably priced restaurants. Ice machine.”
In recent months, Eli S. Evans has published work in several now or possibly soon-to-be defunct literary magazines, and even a few that don’t appear to be going anywhere. A small book of small stories, Obscure & Irregular, was published in 2021 with Moon Rabbit Books and Ephemera, and can be purchased at moonrabbitbooks.com or by way of the usual online behemoths. A larger book of mostly even smaller stories will is forthcoming this year.
Image: booking.com
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Heavy Feather Review 