by Mark JACOBS

I told the id­iots I didn’t want to be their king. Don’t even think about vot­ing for me, I told them. You want proof they de­serve their name? They thought you vot­ed on kings the way you vot­ed on pres­i­dents. I did not try to dis­abuse them of the no­tion. It was no use. They’re in­ed­u­ca­ble, in­di­vid­u­al­ly and as a group. But I did stand up at the end of the bar and urge them in a loud voice to vote for Mack. Mack, you see, ac­tu­al­ly want­ed the job. I’m no saint, but I try to do the right thing when the op­por­tu­ni­ty presents itself.

The sons of bitch­es elect­ed me any­way. Talk about a slap in the face to Mack. He took the hit like a gen­tle­man, came over and con­grat­u­lat­ed me, shook my hand and bought me a beer, but los­ing put a hurt on the man. He has a heart the size of the Grand Canyon. Why do there have to be win­ners and losers in every­thing we do? Can’t we re­or­ga­nize so­ci­ety, or at least how things work in it? I know, it’s a ques­tion wor­thy of an idiot.

I don’t mean to go off half-cocked. It’s a ten­den­cy. Here is what you need to know: the bar where the id­iots con­gre­gate is lo­cat­ed in a Buf­fa­lo neigh­bor­hood you prob­a­bly nev­er go to, and for good rea­son. The res­i­dents, most of them any­way, work hard to jus­ti­fy its stinky rep­u­ta­tion. The bar is called Lumpy Peter’s Tra­di­tion­al Grist Mill, and I wish I could tell you why. I’ve heard the­o­ries but give them no cre­dence. There’s an own­er, but he steers clear of the joint. Do you blame him?

The id­iots grew up here and nev­er left. That takes in­tegri­ty, not to men­tion a lack of am­bi­tion. Put the two to­geth­er and you get a group of cit­i­zens in their thir­ties and ear­ly for­ties, men and women both, who call them­selves The Id­iots. In their minds the name is cap­i­tal­ized, to dis­tin­guish them from the run-of-the-mill fools you meet on a dai­ly ba­sis on the side­walks of every city in the world.

I should men­tion the time of year, since weath­er is a big fac­tor around here. First week of March, with the win­ter hang­ing on mak­ing you think this year it’s ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to do it, it’s go­ing to eat the spring and we’ll freeze our ass­es off un­til May. The left­over snow gives no in­di­ca­tion of melt­ing any time soon. Every­where you look there are gray and grit­ty mounds of the stuff. Flori­da, you think, but it’s not a com­plete sen­tence, is it?

When the elec­tion was over I was ready to shove off for home, where my wife Janet had to be told the bad news. I was able to put off that dis­agree­able task for a few min­utes thanks to Flo­rence, who poured me a con­grat­u­la­to­ry shot of good Scotch. Flo­rence has worked at the Mill for­ev­er and has lat­i­tude. She wants to give away a gen­er­ous shot of the good stuff, she gives it away. She claims she is six foot sev­en, but that’s an ex­ag­ger­a­tion. In any case she is what my old man used to call a long drink of wa­ter, and blonde in the worst way. The size of her hoop ear­rings is leg­endary among the id­iot tribe, along with her snap­py come­backs, which have been known to draw blood.

“You re­al­ly didn’t want this, did you, Jim­my?” she said, which I thought was insightful.

When she leaned her el­bows on the bar she looked like some sort of tro­phy, but I can’t be more specific.

“It just goes to show,” I told her.

“Show what?”

“They re­al­ly are idiots.”

“Takes one to be their king,” she said, and I was in no po­si­tion to de­ny it.

Janet took the news about like I ex­pect­ed, which is to say, with frigid dep­re­ca­tion. She grew up in the neigh­bor­hood just like the rest of us but ab­solute­ly re­fus­es to be an id­iot. She works as an in­sur­ance ad­jus­tor and makes a de­cent liv­ing. We could move some­where else, and that’s her goal. So far I’ve re­fused to budge. Get my back up, and it stays up.

I found her in the liv­ing room watch­ing Jeop­ardy re­runs on her com­put­er, a bowl of pop­corn on the couch next to her, wrapped in an afghan her grand­moth­er cro­cheted for her. She’s an at­trac­tive woman, every­body says so, on the pe­tite side with curly red hair she keeps short, lik­ing things un­der con­trol. She has that white Irish skin I’ve al­ways been par­tial to. Un­der stress it glows pink and is a sexy sight to behold.

“You cam­paigned for this,” she told me.

“No I didn’t.”

“That’s how you man­aged it, by not want­i­ng it. Very clever, Jim­my. Too clever by half, if you ask me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re go­ing to make the speech, aren’t you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

She shook her head and went back to her Jeop­ardy and her pop­corn. If Ken Jen­nings showed up at the front gate, my wife would be out the door like a shot, wouldn’t even stop to turn down the ther­mo­stat. They would live hap­pi­ly ever af­ter in Triv­ia City. Not like­ly. Ken Jen­nings would nev­er come any­where near our neigh­bor­hood. He’s no idiot.

You’re prob­a­bly think­ing I’m a to­tal dead­beat. It’s what you ex­pect of an id­iot king. Twen­ty hours a week at a con­ve­nience store, some­thing along those lines. But I have a good job, as good in its way as Janet’s. I do web de­vel­op­ment work for a healthy com­pa­ny that sup­ports non-gov­ern­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions. How’s that for de­fy­ing your ex­pec­ta­tions? Most of the time I work from the house, which I’m more than hap­py to do. Now and then the fa­vor of my pres­ence is re­quest­ed at a head­quar­ters meet­ing, and I go. While I’m at those meet­ings, you would nev­er know I was king of the idiots.

I sat across from Janet in a chair that goes beau­ti­ful­ly with the so­fa al­though the fab­rics are dif­fer­ent. She has ex­cel­lent taste. I had some lines of code to re­think. They lacked the el­e­gance of sim­plic­i­ty. I don’t al­ways get there, but I shoot for el­e­gance in my work. I couldn’t fo­cus on the code, though. It was the speech. In ac­cept­ing my elec­tion to the king­ship, I agreed to make a speech at the Mill, the night fol­low­ing. I’m not big on pub­lic speak­ing, not even around peo­ple I know. You know the strong, silent type? I’m half that.

The in­au­gu­ra­tion speech is a tra­di­tion, though, and I couldn’t let my re­luc­tance get in the way. So many de­cent and rea­son­able things have gone out the win­dow late­ly, haven’t they? Ex­trem­ism is in. Man, is it ever in. That’s why I had to re­spect the un­writ­ten law that said the new king or queen would make an ac­cep­tance speech lay­ing out pri­or­i­ties for the new reign.

Pri­or­i­ties for the rain, the id­iots think it is, and bring their umbrellas.

Af­ter twen­ty min­utes of fid­get­ing in the chair I got up.

“I’m go­ing out,” I told Janet.

“Where?”

“To the Mill.”

“If you’re look­ing for some adu­la­tion from your sub­jects, I bet most of them have gone home.”

“I’m rest­less,” I told her.

Some­times hon­esty re­al­ly is the best pol­i­cy. She called me over and gave me a kiss good­bye. In it was the promise of com­fort, and maybe more.

“Do you know the cap­i­tal of Brunei?”

I didn’t. Not the first time I’ve dis­ap­point­ed my wife.

Janet was right. The Mill had pret­ty much cleared out by the time I walked in. Flo­rence was stand­ing be­hind the bar, and Mack slouched in front of it, nurs­ing a beer. The Mill was a down-home kind of place. You’ve been there, or some­place just like it. A tele­vi­sion no­body paid at­ten­tion to; the col­ors tend­ed to­ward or­ange on the spec­trum. Stools that looked like they came over with the Pil­grims, if you can pic­ture a Pil­grim on a bar stool. Old posters of rock bands on tour, and a framed pic­ture of a snow­storm that made the front page of the Buf­fa­lo News, as though any amount of snow was news­wor­thy in our city. The door to the men’s room fea­tured the Zig-Zag man burn­ing his clas­sic blunt.

“All Hail the King,” said Mack, lift­ing his glass.

Maybe there was a tinge of irony in that, maybe there wasn’t. Like I said, for rea­sons of his own he had ac­tu­al­ly want­ed the job. Mack works for the city. In the win­ter he dri­ves a snow plough. Sum­mers he does main­te­nance at the parks. He has a round face, a squat­ty body, and that enor­mous heart. Stand­ing next to Flo­rence, which of course he oc­ca­sion­al­ly does, he looks like a munchkin.

Flo­rence asked me, “You write your speech, Jimmy?”

I didn’t want to moan and groan about be­ing elect­ed, not with Mack there. But the whole idea of be­ing king of the id­iots was re­al­ly get­ting to me. I guess it’s good that there are things you don’t un­der­stand about yourself.

“Not yet,” I admitted.

Flo­rence poured me a shot. She poured one for Mack, and then one for her­self. Who’s go­ing to turn down John­ny Walk­er Black? We talked for a few min­utes. Desul­to­ry I think is the word for our con­ver­sa­tion. I was sip­ping slow­ly, The whiskey went down like a kid on a wa­ter slide.

It was Flo­rence who came up with the idea of me prac­tic­ing my speech on them. Seemed like a good idea. At least it was an idea, a com­mod­i­ty in short sup­ply just then.

“You ought to stand on a ta­ble,” Mack sug­gest­ed. “That’s how a re­al king does it.”

I had my doubts, but I climbed on­to a chair and from the chair on­to a ta­ble that had been at the Mill since Leif Erik­son out­flanked Colum­bus. It seemed stur­dy enough. They don’t make ta­bles like that anymore.

“You got a theme?” Flo­rence want­ed to know.

Un­til she asked, I didn’t know I did.

“Who needs id­iots?” I told her. “That’s the theme.”

It was the spark I need­ed. In half a sec­ond the funk I was in went away. The fog dis­si­pat­ed, the sky cleared, and the sun of com­pre­hen­sion broke through.

“Id­iots,” I told them.

“Sing it, broth­er,” said Mack. “Give it every­thing you’ve got.”

What a guy, what a heart. The City of Buf­fa­lo has no idea how lucky they are, hav­ing him on the payroll.

“Peo­ple think we don’t need id­iots any more,” I said, warm­ing to the top­ic as it came in­to fo­cus. “They think the day of the id­iot is done, the world has moved on. From here on out we all need to be smart. We need to be cal­cu­lat­ing. We need to be fash­ion­able and pleas­ant and mind our man­ners in com­pa­ny. Well, fuck that noise. I’m here to tell you, beloved sub­jects of the reign, that those who pre­dict the demise of id­io­cy are not just wrong, they’re dead wrong. A so­ci­ety with­out id­iots is a so­ci­ety with­out a soul.”

I went on for a while, riff­ing on my theme and hav­ing a fine time. It kind of sur­prised me, all that ar­tic­u­late heat be­ing in me, es­pe­cial­ly be­cause, as I said pre­vi­ous­ly, I’m no kind of pub­lic speak­er. When I was done, Flo­rence raised her glass and told me, “I think you’ve got hold of some­thing there, Jimmy.”

Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. But I knew that by the time I stood up on that very same ta­ble to give the speech, less than twen­ty-four hours from now, I was def­i­nite­ly go­ing to have it.

Filed under Fiction on July 4th, 2025

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Care to Share?

by Jim HARRINGTON

Karl salut­ed the pic­ture of the orig­i­nal Karl and Kar­la hang­ing on the wall of his dress­ing room, then slumped in­to a tat­tered, leather chair. It was a rit­u­al he act­ed out af­ter every per­for­mance. He re­moved his top hat, laid it on the dress­ing ta­ble, and won­dered how many times he would get to do this in the fu­ture. Cir­cus­es weren’t as pop­u­lar as they used to be. His was no exception.

“You de­cent Karl?” 

“De­cent and broke.” He re­spond­ed the same way every time his Kar­la knocked.

She en­tered the room wear­ing her fa­vorite black over­alls. From ex­pe­ri­ence, Karl knew she was naked un­der­neath. She was ac­com­pa­nied by a hulk of a man Karl didn’t know.

“This is Bruce and his pit bull, An­gel,” Kar­la said, hold­ing on­to Bruce’s sculpt­ed bi­cep with both hands, her fin­ger­tips un­able to touch.

Karl stared at the big ga­loot wear­ing jeans and a sweat-stained, sleeve­less tee; then widened his fo­cus to Bruce and An­gel. They could be twins. 

“I hired him to han­dle security.”

“Se­cu­ri­ty?” Karl said. He stared out the win­dow at the rem­nants of the au­di­ence they’d just per­formed for. They re­mind­ed him of smil­ing con­gre­gants hang­ing around af­ter a rous­ing church service.

“You nev­er know these days,” Kar­la said. “There are a lot of lu­natics out there.”

“We’ve been at this for twelve years and haven’t had a prob­lem yet.”

“Like I said, you nev­er know. Be­sides, I have a plan to save us from clos­ing down; and Bruce and An­gel might prove useful.”

“Oh?”

Kar­la pro­ceed­ed to ex­plain her idea.

…

The fol­low­ing Fri­day at mid­night Karl stood in the sin­gle cir­cus ring. His hands shak­ing, he was un­sure if they were do­ing the right thing.

“Ladies and gen­tle­men. Wel­come to our first ever adult-on­ly per­for­mance. And with­out fur­ther ado, here’s Kar­la and friends,” he said with a broad sweep of his arm. He fig­ured this show would ei­ther save the cir­cus or send them to jail.

As Karl walked back­stage, Kar­la gave him a wink and pranced to the cen­ter of the cir­cle wear­ing a red and white se­quined see-thru top and a blue miniskirt. Mu­sic start­ed and Kar­la be­gan to dance in a way she thought en­tic­ing. The cheers got loud­er when she re­moved her top and skirt ex­pos­ing match­ing pasties and G‑string. The crowd clapped like they nev­er had for the cir­cus. As Kar­la left the cir­cle, one of the pasties fell off draw­ing a loud­er re­sponse. She didn’t both­er pick­ing it up. A sec­ond dancer ap­peared and then a third bring­ing the male mem­bers of the crowd to their feet.

At the show’s end, Karl ap­peared from be­hind the cur­tain to a round of boos and thanked every­one for at­tend­ing their in­au­gur­al performance. 

The next night’s at­ten­dance was triple the open­ing crowd. Even the may­or showed up with his wife to see what all the ex­cite­ment was about.

…

Karl looked at his new bride sun­ning her­self on a nude beach in Greece. He’d sold the cir­cus af­ter a prof­itable run, mar­ried Kar­la — fi­nal­ly, she said when he pro­posed — and, un­like those fake fairy tales, they did live hap­pi­ly ever after.

Filed under Fiction on June 20th, 2025

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Care to Share?

by Jim Ray DANIELS

The sky nev­er got bright enough to turn the street­lights off. 4:30 p.m., walk­ing on the side­walk lit­tered with ran­dom shov­eled chunks that had half-melt­ed then re­froze, he press­es the but­ton on his watch cap, and its at­tached spot­light shines down, re­flect­ing off black ice, show­ing him the way. The day had been so short, it was an af­ter­thought, al­ready ban­ished, forgotten. 

A ball of ice rolls down in­to his chest and dis­in­te­grates with every breath. Ice cream-headache wind blows down the emp­ty trail near the riv­er lined with home­less en­camp­ments. He spots a cou­ple of small fires blink­ing through the bare trees like eyes try­ing to stay open. He turns off his light. They might think he’s po­lice, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of trou­ble ar­riv­ing. He’s just pass­ing through, a man with­out a car. A man walk­ing home from Burg­er King smelling of lay­ered, thick grease, that rubs off on his jack­et through fric­tion like it does every day. The burg­er jack­et. He’d stolen it off the back of a chair while some guy was in the BK bath­room. The jack­et makes him hun­gry and nau­seous at the same time.

Walk­ing be­cause his car has died. He’d been priced out of his car by the re­pair es­ti­mate. A new trans­mis­sion for a fif­teen-year-old rust­ed-out van. He crush­es the es­ti­mate in one hand in­side the pock­et. He tilts his head down and scrunch­es his shoul­ders, but the wind blasts his fore­head, fol­low­ing the dark riv­er in its sin­u­ous path, silent and near­ly in­vis­i­ble, near­ly lethal.

He’s not home­less, but he lives on the frayed life­line of min­i­mum wage. Rent vs. car? Two miles each way. Not im­pos­si­ble. Even in February. 

A home­less shad­ow at a dis­tance from a small fire shouts, “What you look­ing at, moth­er fuck­er?” In truth, he isn’t even look­ing at the man. Is the man look­ing at him? Does it mat­ter? In the dark, he can see his fu­ture self in the emp­ty night mirror. 

His sto­ry turns like the half-frozen riv­er. He lugs his din­ner in his oth­er hand, the bag- rat­tle mag­ni­fied by cold ab­sence. Take­out from BK. The usu­al Whopper/fries com­bo. Al­ready cold, but he’ll zap it in the mi­crowave in the apart­ment above Jack’s bar where al­co­holic rats scratch through his dreams. They start ear­ly at Jack’s and stay late. There isn’t a Jack. It’s not that kind of place.

He shares the room with his cousin Ste­vo. A room, all they share. Ste­vo will not get one French fry ever. He will not get one ketchup pack­et. Ste­vo stole some mon­ey from him once. He has no proof. He has the ab­sence of in­no­cence. Ste­vo, like the last present in the Yan­kee Swap, bet­ter than the al­ter­na­tive of noth­ing. He re­mem­bers his par­ents ar­gu­ing over even that. No one had enough to give every­one a present. They all did the men­tal math of the costs of each gift. A math er­ror had land­ed his fa­ther in prison. His moth­er was liv­ing with an­oth­er guy in an­oth­er town. He doesn’t drink at Jack’s or any­where else. Any­more is his se­cret word. 

He’s got a ways to go to get to Jack’s. His numb fore­head caused by his own lack of hur­ry. He veers to­ward the home­less en­camp­ment, vague fig­ures around a vague fire, the rus­tle of tarps. He opens the bag and pulls out  a stack of flat­tened BK crowns and starts hand­ing them out. The ragged fig­ures turn the use­less crowns over in their hands as if try­ing to read an­oth­er language. 

They don’t all in­sert slot A in­to tab B and put the crowns on their sor­ry-ass heads and dance in a cir­cle around the fire, every­one their own king or queen, prince or princess. He doesn’t tears open the bag and share his burg­er and fries like Je­sus’ loaves and fish­es. This isn’t about mir­a­cles or parables.

This is for me, he says, clutch­ing the BK bag as it crack­les against his side. I worked for it. In truth, BK had HELP WANTED JOIN OUR TEAM up on their mar­quee for­ev­er. Then one morn­ing it read GOOD LUCK WE ALL QUIT af­ter the en­tire night shift walked out, leav­ing the restau­rant emp­ty and un­guard­ed. Then all the let­ters were stolen. They still need help. He takes all the hours he can, need­ing help himself.

Home­less is a com­pli­cat­ed word, an­oth­er dis­tant cousin he’s on­ly met once. One by one they toss the flat­tened crowns in­to the fire and reach their hands out to feel the brief but dra­mat­ic new warmth, ig­nor­ing him en­tire­ly. He just nods and walks away, a lit­tle jump in his step like a se­cret he’s keep­ing even as it threat­ens to es­cape. He clicks his watch cap back on and strides in­to the dark­ness, chas­ing his own light. 

Filed under Fiction on June 6th, 2025

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