Matt McGee

The Mayor of Kingman, Arizona

“Around here,” Denny said, “the heat 

is like the mayor. Everyone talks about him, 

they elect to stick with him year after year, 

and once Fall rolls around - they’re glad 

when he’s finally out of sight.”

He was sitting in the open door of his family’s

sedan, a third-hand Oldsmobile slid into a diagonal 

space affront the county courthouse. “I’m just a guest

of the hotel,” he nodded at a trooper I hadn’t seen,

supervising the Sunday evening visit with his

daughters, oblivious to their daddy’s habit 

of bringing guns into liquor stores.

“The girls needed Back-to-School stuff,”

he told me over beers a couple weeks later.

“I’d rather them not have a daddy for a few weeks

than go to school wearing last year’s rags.” The way

he said it you’d think Denny knew something about fashion,

but actually he could talk your ear off all night if you let him

about being picked on when you’re young, and how 

it leads to whole seasons being an outcast. 

Change of Heart 

Sasha came to see us 

about having a tattoo removed 

a skull wearing a Nazi helmet 

flames shooting away 

that laid claim to her whole

lower left shoulder blade 

in colors easily afforded 

by heroin-distributing biker gangs. 

Usually these things are for life 

but you fall in and out of love 

and when you're out

the first one to forgive is yourself.

Buck 4 Luck

I just know it's gonna happen.

The guy walking opposite me

coming down the Venice sidewalk 

the one with the dead-legged gait

of a man who broke himself years ago

falling off a dirtbike, or a horse

or standing in front of a girlfriend’s car

is lasering his eyes into mine

with the intent of casting a spell

capable of opening a stranger’s wallet

despite my cheap gas station shades.

"Hey friend ya gotta buck for luck?"

I don't speak, just a quick shake of the head

and an unbroken stride.

And I replay his line in my head, 

got a buck for luck? figuring he's used it 

forty times today. Of those, maybe ten 

harbored enough residual guilt or feared 

a broken dirt biker's curse

and thought a buck was a bargain,

but like me, another thirty have walked on.

And that’s when it occurs to me

that I haven't looked over my shoulder

to see if he's following, maybe pulled out a knife,

because those kinds of things happen in Venice.

Then I realize I've got more important things to worry about

like those thirty people who've been cursed with bad luck for no buck 

wandering around, ready to go off any moment

and if I run into one of them when 

kharma boomerangs,

it’d be just my luck.

MATT McGEE writes in the Los Angeles area. In 2020 his work has appeared in Barrelhouse, Sage and Gnashing Teeth. When not typing he drives around in rented cars and plays goalie in local hockey leagues.