By Rick Andrews
Roughhousing with your brother, you leap over the ottoman to tackle him. He catches your tackle and controls you. He is three years older and five years stronger. He manipulates you out of the air and onto the ground. You squirm. You are flexible and wily. You pride yourself on being able to fit in the nook behind the jewel case rack. You wriggle out of the hold but he has a wrist. He yanks on the arm to roll your body back up. It works, and he grabs your torso and takes you toward the ottoman. He loses his footing and slides. Instead of landing on the ottoman, he brings you down on the corner—not the cushioned top corner, but the pointed wood joiner near the base. You have never noticed it until now. You hit your head and bleed, yell out of shock. Your brother sees the blood and screams a horrified scream. This makes you more afraid, and your screams intensify. Your mother grabs you and places a towel for pressure. You get seven stitches; the doctor says you are lucky, and the two of you are no longer allowed to play that way in the living room
and then
You’re in San Francisco for a job interview. You’ve been out of work for a bit, so has everyone. You got two years out of college before the financial collapse and your resume isn’t competitive. You are staying in the apartment of a woman you went to school with. You had the vaguest crush on her, and you suspect that perhaps she had the vaguest crush on you, but the timing never worked out. She lives in a studio. You have imprecise ideas about the stay turning romantic, but they’re pushed from your mind once you arrive. Her grandmother had a stroke and passed away last week; your friend is only a few days back from the funeral. It’s clear that the grandmother had an outsized impact on your friend. You share a phlegmatic conversation over takeout and then set up to sleep on the couch. The couch is more of a love seat. You scooch the ottoman over to the end of the love seat and sleep on the diagonal
and then
You’re in an antique shop in Santa Fe, New Mexico with your two children. Over the course of the next weeks you’ll make your way to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Death Valley. Your kids are eight and ten and they are both oddly fascinated by old things. The shop has vintage posters and kitsch in addition to furniture. Your ten-year-old asks what an ottoman is. He doesn’t know the name; he points to it. What’s that? You don’t have one in your home. You point to the corner, then lean down and point to your scalp. That’s how I got this scar, you say. They think scars are moderately cool. You start to tell the story, but your eight-year-old sees a typewriter, walks to it and starts talking. It’s only a conversation if you respond. If you don’t, he’ll keep on talking to no one in particular about how the keys of the typewriter look like a hundred little bugs.
Rick Andrews is an improviser, instructor, and writer living in New York City. His writing has appeared in Ninth Letter, The Normal School, Terrain, and Emrys Journal, among others. His story “Couples Therapy” was selected as an “Other Distinguished Story” in the 2023 Best American Short Stories.
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