TWO THINGS by Z.H. GILL
The Interregional Trolley Authority
The Interregional Trolley Authority, whose tracks cut through the town I grew up in and still lived in, died off many years before I ever appeared, like 99/100 trolley systems did. The city turned its tracks into a sort of park—a running path, really—with woodchips and ice plant covering the whole route. If it rained hard enough, the wood chips would wash away and you could make out the steel tracks beneath the mud, still handcuffed to the land.
The park’s easterly end terminates beneath a cement bridge and transforms suddenly into the local mall’s most-lower parking lot. Dirt and asphalt duel here. Before I ever gave a blowjob, I imagined men giving each other blowjobs beneath that bridge. Then I imagined it was me, that I was one of those men. Anyway, I never saw anything like this actually occur down there until it was happening to me for real. And I didn’t really see it then, either, because my eyes were closed.
Back Beneath the Bridge
“You take your girls down here?” said whatever-he-was-to-me-at-this-point.
“Shut the fuck up,” I said, and then we lived out my fantasy, which was nearly lifelong.
It was a vast improvement upon my previous teenaged attempt down there, too, admittedly.
Z.H. Gill lives in East Hollywood, CA, with his cat Hans. His chapbook, “My Eyes," is available now from Bottlecap Press.