https://mosslit.com Moss. Thu, 22 Jan 2026 21:40:04 +0000 https://mosslit.com en https://mosslit.com/Ruth-Schemmel-Everything-Is-Under-Control Sun, 07 Dec 2025 20:40:49 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Ruth-Schemmel-Everything-Is-Under-Control <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> Everything Is Under ControlRuth Schemmel The thing about Aritza is she’s dead. You can see where she’s lipsticked over missing lip. You can smell decomposition beneath the Jean Nate. I know she’s dead. Anyone who’s seen Walking Dead knows she’s dead. But the Human Resources department of Washington State School District 414 did not know she was dead and hired her to be my instructional assistant. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">That is not the problem. The problem is, as an instructional assistant, she sucks. She really does. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Part of it is she’s a greenhorn, naïve in the ways of post-Covid public high school education. Aritza thinks we’re in this together: she and me against the hordes, the hordes being children, our students. My students: I am the teacher. It helps to remind myself of this. “I am the teacher,” I murmur, as teenagers stroll into class ten minutes after the bell. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Hey,” some say with appreciative nods. Appreciative because I haven’t yet managed to do anything to interfere with their hang-time with friends in my classroom, which is what they understand my class to be. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“At least they’re not in the halls!” I tell Aritza, clinging to positivity lest I lose my marbles. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I have lost my marbles, along with my markers, paper clips, erasers, equity sticks, and workbook packets. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Who wants Uber Eats?” Mustafa says, shuffling around the classroom. He’s a brash, good-looking kid with scraggly curls and a sly smile. Everyone’s eyes follow him. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“We’re not ordering take-out,” I say in the voice of the Warm Demander. It’s an equitable practice to use this tone, as opposed to that of the Technocrat, the Elitist, or the Sentimentalist. I clench my toes inside my clogs. “I like you—and I know you can do this. Books open!” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Pizza roll,” Lourdes calls out. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Mustafa nods. “Anyone else?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Hey, now,” I say. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Two more students order pizza rolls, while a third opts for Jack-in-the-Box. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Aritza snaps her laptop open and starts to type. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">What she’s typing, I soon learn, is an email to my supervisor. “This class is total chaos!” she writes. “We need help!” In my life every now and then I am granted a moment of clarity, a moment when I feel my ancestors—bunch of Irish potato famine fleers who worked odd jobs, did time for failed, doomed heists, acquired crippling injuries in uncompensated elevator accidents, or founded soon-bankrupted taverns before crawling back to the homeland to drink themselves to early death—speak, or make a mumbling, broguish approximation. A moment when I can see the proverbial writing on the wall. Not the literal writing on the wall, which says, “This class sucks ass,” and which I suspect was written by Lourdes. The proverbial writing. And what it says is this: I need to get Aritza out of my classroom before she loses me my job. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“First off I don’t need help,” I tell the assistant principal, Griff, in a chance hallway meeting. All my meetings with Griff are chance hallway meetings. They happen pretty much every fifth period, when Griff patrols the hallways and I have a free period for planning and grading, or, if I feel like I’m drowning in wet cement, wandering the hallways looking for Griff. Griff is a hottie with a missionary background, a quick lurching step which brings him very suddenly upon one, and a way of peering down into one’s eyes from his surprising height with messianic compassion that triggers at once hot flashes and a twitching in one’s uterus, even if he is twelve years younger than one. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Griff, I’m pretty sure, had no part in my recent censure for having entered his office in the early morning and huddled in a ball on the floor with the lights out. Yes, he was the one who found me, but, no, he was not—I have this on no one’s authority but a very good hunch—the one who reported me. There were others. There are always others, among the adults who have chosen for their life’s work to remain in high school forever. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Why did I go into Griff’s office when I saw the room was empty is the question I could not and still cannot answer, except that sometimes a body knows what it needs, and my body in that moment needed to be curled in ball in an empty darkened room, and there was Griff’s office. Possibly I also wanted to soak up the Griffness of the room. Not in a sexual way. I’m just talking about the manly disorder of his desk, with its three immaculately sharpened pencils lying at odd angles as if they’d been shaken out from a box over a stack of printed-out spreadsheets, or the sour whiff of sweat emanating from a cycling jersey I found balled up in his bottom right desk drawer. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Hello, Benita,” Griff says now. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Hello.” I start to glow, cover it with a scowl. Meanwhile, FYI, I am looking pretty good. Recently, I’ve started dressing better for school. I make loops of tape around my fingers each morning and pat myself all over to remove dog hair. I’ve decided to try again with the thong. “You can ignore that email. I want you to know that. Everything is under control.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Everything is….?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Under control.” I do a half spin on the ball of my clog. My back arches slightly. Griff has a view, I can’t help but notice, of my backside. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">And he looks at it. For one second he does. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Except I have some concerns about my assistant.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Fill out a performance review.” He smiles down at me with the warmth of a loving God. There was a time I thought of myself as a good teacher. You can soar as a teacher. You can get kids excited about something. In that moment you are transformed. You are Icarus, pinned aloft, buoyed by their faith, swells of air beneath you, dazzling warmth above. You don’t have to worry about what comes out of your mouth. Whatever it is, it is gold. Only very rarely do you surprise yourself with something that is not gold, something that is unintentionally funny or unintentionally revealing, leading to startled laughter that is directed at you and not with you. You remember you don’t actually have wings. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Those days, I understand, are gone. I’m not saying I can return to those days. I’m saying I need Aritza out of my classroom so I can fully inhabit my role as teacher without experiencing any more than the requisite amount of shame. If Aritza is present, projecting hostility, openly scoffing at me as much as at them, polluting the air with the unmistakable stench of decay, reminding me—as how could it not?—of the grave, of the impermanence of everything, that this is what I’ve chosen to do with my one wild and precious life, this!—I find it impossible to compel students to open their books, write things on worksheets, or remain in their seats holding pencils. With her gone, I can disappear into the work for approximately twelve to fifteen more years, after which I’ll have paid enough into my pension to retire, and I can lick my psychic wounds until my own death, which hopefully will not be a living one. “What was the lesson today? They didn’t do shit,” Aritza offers the next day after class, handing me a log of students’ off-task actions in her tiny stabby script, as if we live in a world of consequence and just desserts, as if there is anything I can do with this information except blame myself and hope tomorrow will be different. I’m not wrong about this. Administrators have found school runs more smoothly when responsibility for student behavior remains with the teacher. Administrators also don’t use the word “behavior.” “What have you done to build a relationship with the student, and what are your feelings about why you failed?” a teacher might expect to hear when there are problems. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I look at the list. “10:07 Mustafa called Dmitry ‘cunt.’&nbsp; Lourdes ripped page out of Mustafa’s notebook. Tariq put his head down. 10:09….” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“I could actually use your help circulating and dealing with these behaviors,” I say. “That would actually help me teach.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">She stares back at me. I actually can’t bear it. It’s too penetrating. She’s lost both sets of eyelashes and an eyelid, just the right. Her eyes, for all that, scald. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“What did Admin say about the porn incident?” she asks. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Admin didn’t say anything about it.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Nothing? I saw you talking to Admin.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Not about that,” I say lightly. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I didn’t report the porn incident to Admin. It was too widespread. There were too many offenders. If I report half a dozen kids watching porn openly on computers in my classroom because they knew we were using a program that allowed us to see what was on their screens, questions would be raised, not about the kids but about me. And the assignment I’d given them—write a novel! The world needs your story!—was admittedly naïve. I see that now. I don’t need Admin to help me see that. “This is ridiculous.” She makes a swatting motion at the air, and a waft of rot cuts through the cloud of Jean Nate. It slips into my nose and sinks into my brain and stays there, clamping down in the bottom right quadrant, giving me a headache. I fight a wave of panic, ancient, instinctive. It would be rude to back away. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“It sure is.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“You can’t keep going like this. Benita.” It’s my name on her lips that startles me. It gives me a jolt, like sticking a bobby pin in an electrical socket, a feeling I can identify pretty precisely because it is a thing I have done. Not often, just two or three times. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I grab the foam eraser and begin swiping student graffiti off the whiteboard. The gesture proves futile: they’ve used permanent marker. “A person can do this for a very long time.” “Rolls her eyes at students and staff,” I type in an email to my supervisor that evening. It’s late at night and I’m at home on my couch with a laptop balanced on my lap, drinking wine from a coffee mug in front of a British crime drama. These days I can only handle school work when I’m half soused with the TV on, and nothing works better than British crime drama, with gentle-voiced Brits chatting reasonably about horrors, breaking them down into dry, actionable steps. “Plays Candy Crush throughout class. Refuses direct requests, like ‘Circulate,’ and ‘Remind students to stay on task.’ Questions staff’s judgment. Makes staff question staff’s reason for living. Ha ha.” I delete that. “Makes it hard for staff to get up in the morning, to enter the classroom. Makes it hard for staff to pretend staff isn’t living in a nightmare that will only end with staff’s death or retreat into senility. Makes senility seem appealing, a wise choice.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I delete that, too. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">On the TV screen, a woman lifts an accusing finger. “It’s you!” she says, voice cracking with emotion. “It’s you!” It jangles my nerves. It doesn’t soothe me at all. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I shut the TV off. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Faintly, from outside, I hear a broken-off squeal and a scuffle. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">My dog Potato, a surly, dirty-white rat terrier I adopted from a shelter, is out chasing rodents. He was supposed to be a cattle dog, a breed I admired for their loyalty, affection, and shaggy grace. When he was small you could sort of see it in him, but as he grew older and more surly, his legs refusing to lengthen, it became obvious what he was and what he wasn’t. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I step out on the deck. “Potato?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I can’t see stars—too much light bleeds from nearby houses. Somewhere far off an animal howls, then another. Coyotes? A family of them? A goddamned pack?&nbsp; It’s good to know they’re out there, I tell myself, surviving in the exurbs. But Potato. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I take a few steps out into the dark yard. A breeze carries the scent of pine, and beneath the slightest hint of decay. Then it’s gone, luffed away by a colder, wetter wind. “Aritza?” My voice squeaks with fear. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">In the shrubbery by the neighbor’s fence, I see a darker darkness, a coagulation of darkness, a roundness of it, a clot. It fills me with fury, that clot. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">How dare it. How dare she. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Aritza?” I say. I don’t know what I’m going to do to it, to her. Punch her. Break her apart. Tear into the soil and rot of her. Make compost. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">But the form, when I reach it, dissolves into wet clumps of fallen leaves and clods of earth kicked up by moles. Into nothing, no form at all. The next morning, Aritza is hunched over the little desk outside my classroom. For just a second I mistake her for a student, one of mine. It’s her narrow shoulders, the dark roots of her dyed blond hair. It’s evidence she put in effort—make-up, perfume—for this job where she is failing, where she is pleasing no one, the same way my students shower and put on outfits and fix their hair to come to school, where they fail and fail again and eventually drop out. She is one more person I have been responsible for and have not helped. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">But when she lifts her head and I see what she’s written—“This class sucks ass”—I feel all right about it all. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“They’re taking me out of this class,” she says. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I busy myself with the lock. With stacks of papers. With light switches. Finally, I dare a glimpse of her face. I don’t see anger in the lashless eyes. Just a wounded awareness. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“That’s rough.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“It’s whatever. I’ll pick something up at the elementary school.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Will you? That’s great.” I try to picture this: the dead woman dragging herself into an elementary classroom, lurching among bright-colored posters and sticker charts, amongst youngsters with lunchboxes and light-up sneakers. The parents allowing this. The teachers. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“You should come with me, Benita.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">For a moment, after she’s limped off down the hallway, I can see it. I see us there together in the bright classroom, me and the zombie, the zombie and me, amidst rows of wriggling students, their eyes wide open, their dreams alive. Ruth Schemmel’s stories and essays have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Fiction, swamp pink, and elsewhere. She has been a Jack Straw Fellow, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and winner of&nbsp; the Sonora Review&nbsp;fiction prize. A former Peace Corps volunteer and current community college instructor, she has taught English learners in Ukraine, the Bronx, and the greater Seattle area, where she lives with her family. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous Cherries, Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma Next Max Delsohn in conversation with Alayna Becker › https://mosslit.com/Max-Delsohn-with-Alayna-Becker Sun, 07 Dec 2025 20:40:27 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Max-Delsohn-with-Alayna-Becker <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> Max Delsohn in conversation with Alayna BeckerSummer 2025 I’ve learned so much from being in friendship and creative community with my pal Max Delsohn. He’s hilarious. He’s smart. He’s ambitious as hell. He’s got a sharp edge and a soft heart. I admire him immensely as a thinker, writer, lover, and funny guy. His work has been featured in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Rumpus, VICE, and Joyland, and of course, his story “The Bubble” was published in Moss: Volume 7 in 2022. We met in 2016 as comedians and writers in Seattle, and have since both drifted to other parts of the country to become better writers. His first full-length story collection, Crawl, comes out from Graywolf Press in October 2025.&nbsp; –AB Becker I read Crawl. I loved it. Obviously, I had read many of these stories already, and it was so fun to read them again, all together, collected with their family. But maybe let’s start with some more general questions. You moved to LA recently, right? Delsohn Yeah, we’re here in Santa Monica, California. In a way, it was an overcorrection after three years in Syracuse—we’re like, “please, just inject the sunlight directly into my veins.” That’s working. You’re in Iowa, right? Studying nonfiction? That’s like the program for nonfiction. Becker Yeah, people continue to say that, and it does seem that way. I just finished my first year of three. Did you like your program at Syracuse? Delsohn I loved it. I actually began at Ohio State, and I was there for creative nonfiction. I switched to fiction because I took a fiction workshop kind of on a lark, and I was like, “Oh, this is better. I didn’t even know that I was allowed to do this.” I had mostly gone to the Ohio State program to work with Elissa Washuta, so when I decided I wanted to do fiction, I figured maybe I should see if there’s a program that would be a better fit for that. And then Syracuse plucked me from obscurity and now, you know, I’m worldwide famous—hundreds of Marvel movies are coming out based on the stories as we speak. Becker And George Saunders is on the faculty there, right? Delsohn Yeah. And I mean, he’s worth the hype. It was already clear to me what an amazing writer he is, but he is an amazing teacher, too, and I feel like I learned so much about teaching from him. You do the third-year workshop with him, that’s all he does now. And his notes are so incredibly insightful and somehow manage to hold everything that the story wants to accomplish in terms of style, but also what he calls the ur-story, what the story is in its most basic form, if it was a myth or something, stripped down to those parts. He can see it on every level. I actually worked on my story, “The Bubble” with him. I gave him a version that’s pretty close to what’s in the book. But it was crazy. It was just this story that I sent you a few years ago for Moss and then George Saunders was marking it up. Becker I’m glad to hear that he’s worth all the hype. There’s so much emotional wisdom in his writing and it makes sense that there’s a whole ass man behind that. Delsohn Yeah, and I’ll tell you, in person, his eyes literally sparkle. He’s just an infinitely wise ass man. He’s also really nice. He was my assigned mentor, so I had a little extra talk time with him. And one of the things we discussed was sort of like, not getting big headed, but also not being ashamed to be ambitious and being forthright about wanting to write something great or be a great writer. I think that’s something that can be embraced while also not being a dickhead. And he is such an amazing example of that. Becker This is actually one of the things that I wanted to ask you about. Something I’ve always admired about you as a stand-up and as a writer is that you really do go for shit. And I’ve been so impressed both by your ability to pursue these goals and by how much of an excellent, loving community member you are. And on top of all this, I’ve always experienced you as really leaning back. I know that there’s all kinds of sides to every person, but I think that when you are in your power, you’re really kind of sitting back in a chair. I guess what I mean is that you’re really in your body and you are who you are. And I’ve wondered how you develop that embodiment along with that relationship to your ambition. How is it that you’re able to be all three of these things? Delsohn Wow. Well, first of all, that’s such an amazing series of compliments. Thank you so much. And how wonderful to be perceived so carefully. I mean, it’s so great that we know each other from stand-up because I was doing stand-up really hard in Seattle. And I was always writing—I had been a creative writing major in undergrad. But I kind of let it take a back seat. And then I think I did stand-up for about five years before doing the MFA and pivoting hard into writing. But I eventually came to realize that when stand-up was my main creative medium, that was really limiting for me. My beat was kind of like, “I’m a trans guy, it’s hard.” And there was a lot of awkwardness and a lot of trying to mine that for laughs. I still do that. But what I love about prose and short stories is the beauty of the sentence, the beauty of the well-written sentence with lyrical flourishes. I think with those different tonal registers I can more fully say what I’m trying to say. And I think I was able to come into some of the things that I didn’t know how to say confidently as a stand-up. I can say these things, as a writer, because I have more of those tools. When I’m fully embodied, I think I’m just more comfortable going to those places. I’m more comfortable on the page than I am standing up there with a mic. I think a lot about being ambitious as a writer. Because I think a lot of writers struggle with this. I have so many friends who do. Honestly, there are probably very few who don’t struggle with this. I guess the stereotype is the “Guy in your MFA” Twitter account, where it’s like, “you’re just a dickhead,” you know? But it’s another thing to be like, “I have something cool and meaningful to say and I’m working hard and I enjoy thinking about these things and I’m gonna put something out there and I think it’s valuable and I hope other people think it’s valuable, too. Sometimes when I’m talking to other writers, I find myself thinking, “You all need to do stand-up for a little while.” I tell this story all the time: I was doing a festival in Chicago, and I did a set at this event at the Laugh Factory. And you know, because of the festival, there were all these important people there, all these bookers. And the Tonight Show booker was there and I was talking to him—he came up to me, and was like, “I really loved your set” and we were talking about it. And then, there was this other stand-up, this guy who’s just a very large man, so much taller than me. And he came over and just physically stepped in front of me and started talking to the booker. And it ended up being very effective for that man. Now he’s very successful. I saw he had a 5-minute spot, not on the Tonight Show, but on one of the other late-night shows. And I was like, “good for you man.” But that’s the kind of ambition that I really don’t identify with. Part of my ethos—and I think it’s part of where my confidence as a writer comes from, too—is community. I think being part of a network of writers and creative people and hyping them up makes me feel more confident. Becker I’m interested in what you were saying about the limits of stand-up, because for me, one marked difference between stand-up and writing is that, when you’re doing stand-up, you sort of have to flatten yourself into a character, and that character needs to be consumable for an audience. You have remove the complications from your life to become a consumable. And so in this book, I was wondering about how you came to the decision to have so many different character vantages. You have Jack and Eli and Taylor and Simon and a few others who are the eyes through which you are experiencing these stories. And I also happen to know from knowing you that they each have certain biographical details that they share with you. And all with the Levis 501s. So I guess I’m just wondering about how you came to that decision to sort of fracture yourself into all these different beings rather than choosing one doppelganger. Delsohn Yeah, totally. Yeah, actually, this is something I talked about with George Saunders a lot, and something I was anxious about. I was like, “I’m worried these characters are all basically the same guy.” But we talked about how there are a lot of different ways to do a story collection. And after having read a crazy number of story collections, you realize that, basically anything is allowed. If the writing is good, you can get away with it. Some story collections are like, we’re gonna like, go across time or we’re going to have like, you know, a grandma, then like a baby, and then like the tree or whatever. And that’s great, if that’s your skill and your gift. But that has never been my strength. I really rely on my voice and style. George and I talked about the collection a little bit as variations on a theme. One of the main books that I kept around to remind myself, “It’s OK, you’re allowed to do this,” was Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill. Because those characters are different from each other—they’re a little bit more different than each other than my characters are. Although it’s hard to say because it’s that thing of like, “am I just internalizing transphobia, and they’re all the same because they’re trans?” But when you read Bad Behavior, it’s like, “this is the same person.” There are these different situations and of course, there’s so much taken from Mary Gaitskill’s life too. But that collection bangs. Why is it good? It’s because of the language and the insights. I just want to live in that language. So I kind of just let myself prioritize that, prioritize the situations I wanted to write about and the language. And listen, I would have loved to make it into a novel—you know, it would’ve been way easier to sell, I’d have loved that. But when I tried, the characters were too different after all. I think there are a lot of reasons for that. I didn’t want to write a continuous story because I didn’t want the things that happened to these different characters to be related to each other. I wanted them to be fresh, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the cause and effect. I wanted each of them to stand on their own. I’m working on a novel right now and it’s kind of a slog in some ways compared to the stories. Trans fiction has this unique problem, which is like, the reader will want to know, “Why are you trans? Why did you transition?” You know, like they’re looking for the trans origin story, even if that’s not what you’re writing about. And I feel defensive about that a little bit. When I’m writing, I just want to just write about the thing I want to write about. I don’t want to have to be like, “and here’s how this person came to be trans or why they transitioned.” That’s not interesting to me. And I think keeping the book as stories and having all different characters with different life experiences allows me to not have to deal with that. Becker Well, it’s interesting—I feel that in this work. It makes me think about the very first story, set at Steamworks, where the line is, “...mirrors all over Steamworks—a transsexual man’s worst nightmare. You peer around the corner in search of hot guys but you only run into yourself.” And it sort of feels like that mirror kind of multiplies Jack right there, and sends all the rest of the characters off into the collection. Delsohn That’s awesome that you picked up on that, because that line was added really late. If you look at the original version of the story, that line isn’t there. That image of the mirror was actually something that I talked about with my editor, Yuka. Actually, doppelgangers was something I thought about a lot with this book. And that’s part of why, in “Same Old,” the last story, you’ve got this older trans guy, Simon—he’s the only character in the book, the only main character, who’s over 30. And then Harold is this younger trans guy. So it’s kind of meant to be looking at, you know, this assimilating into functional adulthood and into all these cis-coded ways. And then there’s Harold, who like, is really not able to do that. So yeah, I’m really excited you picked up on that. Yuka wanted to bring out the mirror image to kind of prime the collection, because it is a thing that echoes throughout the book. I also wanted to say about the 501s, there’s a couple things like that, where some element keeps showing up in multiple stories. Becker Yeah, I noticed that several characters talk about a school photo. Delsohn Yeah, there’s a couple things. It’s so funny, when I was showing George “The Bubble,” there are three different French Bulldogs. And the first time he saw it, he was like, “OK,” and the second time he was, like, “Do you know that there’s two French Bulldogs?” And the third time, he was like, “Oh, I see.” The 501s are kind of like that too. And I wanted that to be almost a “take the reader out of it” kind of moment where you can feel how constructed it is. I wanted to make a point about these things, because the trans community is so small and there are so few resources for just how to live and how to do stuff and, like, what pants fit. When I was first transitioning, everyone wore 501s—or maybe it was just that that’s what everyone was telling me to buy. I was like, this is the only thing that works. And with the French Bulldogs, a purebred French Bulldog is so different than getting like a mutt from the rescue. And it’s Seattle—that story is so much about gentrification and all the things that are encroaching on the queer people in Seattle. I wanted the French Bulldog to almost kind of haunt the action. And yeah the school photo thing. I always like when you see the author’s obsessions that just kind of poke through, where you’re like, “Oh, something happened to this guy with a fucking school photo,” you know? So I left that stuff in. You know, and yeah, it’s a choice. There’s pros and cons to it, but I feel good about it. Becker Since you mentioned gentrification in “The Bubble,” that made me think about the whole fight over Denny Blaine Park.* I guess, you know, that whole situation was just such a stark instance of this “queers who code” kind of assimilative queerness taking over queer Seattle—well, Seattle and queer Seattle. What are your feelings about Denny Blaine right now and all that relates to it? * Denny Blaine Park, also known as Dykekiki, is a queer-dominated swimming hole on Lake Washington, in Seattle, with breathtaking views of Mount Rainier. In my opinion, it’s an absolute haven of people being people, safe to be in their bodies, to swim and socialize. In 2023, Stuart Sloan, a grocery store magnate and the owner of a 8,310-square-foot waterfront mansion that neighbors the park, began sending text messages to the personal cell phone number of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, complaining about the nude sunbathers at Denny Blaine Park. To many, this felt more like some rich guy using his influence against working-class queer people than an earnest attempt at community safety. Recently, a judge ruled that nudity at Dykekiki is a public nuisance. For more, see friendsofdennyblaine.org. –AB Delsohn I’m still processing a lot of it, honestly. I mean, I’ll say a couple of things. So my story, “Moon Over Denny-Blaine” came out in Passages North and originally it was just out in the print form. And after, like, a year I was talking to Corinne Manning—dear, dear friend and Seattle writer—and I was like, “I really wish more Seattle people had read that story.” And they said, “you should just ask and see if they’ll publish it online.” And I did ask, and Passages North agreed. And that was so cool. And then it kind of made the rounds in Seattle. The first legal action restricting nudity at Denny Blaine was starting. When was that? Was that last summer? Becker Or the summer before, or the summer before. But I know Bruce Harrell was involved. Delsohn Yes, right, right. Yeah, but there was also that guy, that one guy. Why do I feel like his name is Stuart? You know that guy. We knew it was the mansions, the neighbors, or whatever who were like, “it’s drugs, it’s heathens.” But when the organizing body, Friends of Denny Blaine Park came together, they reached out to me just to say that, “I hope you know that a lot of folks who were organizing around this read and were moved by your work!”—which was just my wildest dream come true. It was like, Top Three Most Meaningful Moments of My Life as a Writer to know that these people who are trying to keep the beach were reading the story and seeing something true in it. I wrote something for Real Change back during the first organizing push that was just about why the beach is special. And now it seems like there are some compromises that people are prepared to make in order to keep the beach and fight this fight. Listen, I’m not there, I’m not super educated on what’s going on now, so I’m a little hesitant to say too much about it. I guess that’s sort of an extended disclaimer. But yeah, I mean, it feels hard to even imagine the beach not being there. I spent three days a week there most summers, you know? And in general I think it’s really amazing that so many people are organizing for it. I got the idea to write my story because I was listening to an interview with Matilda Bernstein-Sycamore on Conner Habib’s podcast, “Against Everyone,” and they were talking about straight people in queer spaces, the issue of straight people in queer spaces. And Matilda was saying something along the lines of, “I get so tired of that conversation because if queer people just did things that straight people didn’t like, or found too queer, they wouldn’t be there.” And I think she gave a couple of examples—like if we were organizing against war, or if we were all fucking or whatever, they would just leave. And so the idea for Denny Blaine was kind of like, “What would it take to get the straight people out of Denny Blaine?” And so, in the story, I kind of thought of the silly answer to that. And I think a lot about all these things that are now potentially going to change and have already changed. Like I know there's an effort to install park rangers, and to try to calm these fears that people are masturbating and doing drugs. I never saw anybody masturbating at Denny Blaine. I do have a reference in the story to the straight guys who are sort of like, semi-hard walking around harassing the femmes on the beach. And like, obviously that’s bad and I don’t want that. But also, I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the beach for it to become this sort of hyper controlled place, either. It’s just really complicated. And I want to protect the beach and keep it as a queer space. And yeah, it just seems like a really hard, bad situation. I hope that there’s some kind of good outcome and that the beach can stay some kind of version of what it’s been. But I don’t know. I’ve been surprised at the intensity of the people going after it. Becker Yeah, and swimming topless just rules. That was the first place I ever got up the confidence to be naked outside. Which maybe sounds trite, but is actually an incredibly healing and powerful thing to offer to myself. Delsohn Yeah, same. The day we left Seattle, we woke up extra early just to go to Denny Blaine and jump in the water one last time. It was fucking cold, but we did it… The book overall is kind of a bummer. But “Moon Over Denny-Blaine” is, in many ways, the brightest spot—that story is meant as a rapturous love letter to the city. The other stories aren’t necessarily like that. Because that is how special Denny Blaine is and was to me when I was there, and to so many other people. So yeah, we’ll see how things go. Sometimes I want to reach back out to the organizers to ask if I can be helpful, but I’m also worried that they’ll be really trying to work with the city and I’ll be too, like, “Let’s all have sex and do drugs.” Becker Well, that’s interesting, thinking about the people who want to work with the city and get everybody on the same page. It’s kind of like the line from “The Bubble,” “Seattle was still Seattle and we were never ever talking about shit that didn’t matter.” It reminds me that one theme I felt so much in this collection was embarrassment—the narrators, the main characters are constantly finding themselves in at least mildly embarrassing situations. People are trying to figure stuff out and then there are the straight cis people, and the queers who code—like, everybody is embarrassing. And the embarrassment comes in different ways. Some characters are so hotly pursuing the thing that they’re pursuing, and the stakes are so high. Like in the story, “Sex Is a Leisure Activity”—just how embarrassing the bad sex is in that story. And anyway, I guess I’m curious about your relationship to embarrassment and what role it plays in your work. Delsohn Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how there’s something so uniquely degrading about being a trans person. Maybe that seems obvious, but when you think of a trans person—and obviously, as a trans person myself, I’m not only a trans person, right? There’s so much more to all of us than just our identities and identifiers and blah, blah, blah—but a trans person, by definition, when you think of a trans person, you think about, like, their genitals or their sex characteristics. And I think one could argue that there is something inherently degrading about that, you know? And I think that’s true for a lot of marginalized groups, there’s a degrading quality in being reduced to any part of your body, or aspect of your physical body—gender, race, disability, all these things. And there’s something unique, I think, about being reduced to your genitalia. Like, okay, when most people who meet me, I pass or whatever, and am afforded a certain privilege. But if they saw me naked, they would see that I have a vagina and then they’d be like, “Wait, that’s a trans guy.” And I think that structural degradation is something that I really found a lot of different ways to highlight in the stories. And that was part of the hope with highlighting that tension in Seattle specifically—it was important to me to keep the whole collection in Seattle because Seattle is, you know, one of our bluest, leftist-y, liberal cities. And I think people don’t think of that reality for trans and/or queer people. Even in a very blue city like Seattle, that prides itself on being super accepting, tolerant, whatever, it’s still the same structure as anywhere. It’s got cis guys being terrible, it’s got job situations that have terrible, girlboss, cis women, it’s got sexual assault. This was something that felt really immediate and hard to me in Seattle. And like, we’re comedians—we make sense of these things and we process these things through humor. The other part of it is like, there’s an absurdity to it, where at every turn, in all these ways that you can’t expect, you’re gonna be thwarted. Like, you really want a bunch of stuff, because people really want a bunch of stuff, but then, like you’re a trans person. You’re inherently limited. There are some people that aren’t going to date you or want to have sex with you or want to be your friend or want to hire you because you’re trans. And there’s a way in which it just makes you want all that stuff even more. And yeah, I mean, the attempts, the sort of complicated routes that we take to get those things in spite of those obstacles is embarrassing and funny. And you know, it’s not lost on me that this book took some time. It was sold a couple of years ago. So it was on sub when I was more squarely in my twenties, and I’ll be 32 when the book comes out. And yeah, it’s a lot easier to laugh about a lot of that stuff now. In my early twenties, when it was actually happening, which is like 10 years ago now, it was harder to see the absurdity of it. Something I thought about a lot with this book is striking the right tone—I wanted to present it in all of its complexity. I think my first instinct is to be sort of defensive when people say, “Oh, trans people, all they care about is their pronouns, they’re gonna cry and be a snowflake about their pronouns.” So part of this is that I was trying to be like, “No, I can also laugh at this stuff.” I can laugh at, like, misgendering. That was part of it. But ultimately, where I hope the stories have landed is also keeping track of the actual suffering and injustice, too. And I think that all has to be there to arrive at an authentic depiction of these things. So, yeah, there’s a lot of shame. There’s a lot of embarrassment. There’s humor and there’s laughter at it and with it. But I also know the embarrassment, the feeling of shame. It’s not just this person going around and doing embarrassing stuff. There’s an entire system of values like surrounding this person that is putting them in a situation where they are constantly denied dignity. And that’s a bummer, you know? Trying to get each of these mishaps and these hijinks, you know? Becker Well, I think you do that so beautifully. And that’s something that I admired in “The Bubble” the first time I read it—that there is space for the shittiness, the infighting, the trans-on-trans judgment, the judging of name choices and gatekeeping transness—but then the story resolves with this very tender moment between Dayton and the narrator. And you know, so much of this book makes me nostalgic for the time that you and I knew each other. That part is so sweet, but then, it was such a particular era of the correctness and the accountability posts on social media and the like, brutal calling people out on Jeff Bezos’s internet. And in the end, a lot of it felt so fruitless. And I think that this story—and the whole collection—really thoughtfully deconstructs a lot of that stuff. Delsohn I’m really glad you got that from the end of that story. I actually pulled some of that stuff out a little bit working with Yuka. There’s all this like, the Seattle thing of talking about shit that didn’t matter. And I think, bringing out more and saying more plainly that the real enemy here—if it can be said to be an enemy or the antagonist of the story—is sort of crystallized in the queer coder girlfriend and the Jared guy, the guy who yells at Dayton. And the story as it appears in the book now makes this distinction—like, the Jareds of the world are to be expected, but what’s really hurtful is the cis girlfriend, who’s gonna try to be like, “Oh, but it’s okay that I embarrassed you, because I love you.” Even though the character at the end of that story is like, Hunson sucks, that’s part of what the story is about, obviously, is Hunson and what you do with somebody like Hunson in your community. But there’s also a bigger thing here, which is that a lot of trans people and queer people are able to connect because we’re all suffering with these people in this same nightmare. Becker This book is sexy, but it’s also, like, really unsexy. That is, a lot of the sex is unsexy. But the anticipation is super hot. I’m just curious about how your sex life relates to your art-making practice. Delsohn I think this is one of those things where gender and sex are different but not that much, you know? So many of these stories in this book were written from a place of trying to figure out my sexuality as a man when I had previously been a woman, kind of. And a lesbian or whatever, yeah. And then when I started testosterone, I was like, “I like men now.” And as I’m sure I’ve mentioned to you before, I went to an all-girls Catholic school. I was a lesbian. I was having a great time. I mean, like it was also not a good time in so many ways because I was a lesbian at an all-girls Catholic school, but you know, I had girlfriends and stuff. I like, you know, certainly it was not like Stone Butch Blues. I was having lots of fun sexually. That was all really good, pretty much. And that’s still true. You know, I’m famously married to a cis woman. We’re going to have our seven-year wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks, which is crazy. She’s awesome and we’re very happy—but it was around when we got together, actually, that I was like, “I like men now,” because that was something that I didn’t even question when I was in high school—I was like, “Men are the worst. We hate men.” And then I was suddenly being forced by my body to sort of be like, “I guess I’m attracted to men.” So some of these stories are working through that. And it’s a shock when your sexuality changes. And I’ve since learned that people’s sexuality changes all the time for all kinds of reasons—and not just trans guys and becoming gay on testosterone, as the meme goes. So I’ve had a lot of very interesting experiences as I’ve pursued developing this part of my sexuality. And I think like there’s so much—it feels cringy to say, but it’s almost like I’ve learned so much about myself when I’ve had sex with men. I’ve learned so much about, like, what it means to be a man, having sex with men and—you know, I identify as a bi or queer man, I’m attracted to lots of different kinds of people. And I don’t know, it’s like, I was such a—I don’t know what the right term is. Like a wife guy, but a lesbian. Like a worshipful butch. You know what I mean? I really have mostly dated very like, femme-y femme femmes. And that kind of dynamic is definitely the root of my marriage. I’ve always been a serial monogamist, that has always sort of been a dynamic in my life. With men, I don’t know. At first, it was just like, “I want to have sex with them” and then I started to get some crushes on men. And I was like, “What? Oh, no.” But in a way, that’s why it was so important to me that the first sentence of the book be, “There, in the bright, near-empty sports bar, Jack decided that this would be the year he loved men.” Because so much of writing this book was a journey in figuring that love out. As I was finishing the book and thinking about querying, and comps and so on, I was like, “OK, what do we got? We got Detransition, Baby.” Woo, okay. There are so few books in literary fiction—or, I should say, traditionally published literary fiction—about trans guys. About gay trans guys, there’s almost nothing. And that was what I desperately needed. I was like, “What is happening? I was a lesbian, now I’m a gay guy, too? How do I have fun having sex with cis men? How do I relate to cis men?” I went to Catholic school with girls. I only talked to girls. All men were enemies up until very recently. So I was really working through that in a lot of these stories—I was thinking through experiences that I’d already had as well as experiences I hoped I would have. And part of that was thinking about what it means being a gay trans guy who’s into other trans guys. The story “The Geeks” is sort of based on romantic experiences I’ve had with trans guys and also an idealization of those experiences. Even though there are lots of messy things that happen in that story, ultimately it has this sort of romantic ending. So yeah, I think the book ended up being a space to sort of suss out a lot of that and to dream and sort of look at it confusedly and critique myself. Becker I also want to ask you about Gabby. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about committed partnership And I’ve just always so admired your and Gabby’s relationship. The way you talk about her is so loving and you have this openness with each other that is like… I don’t know. I just really admire your relationship. So I wonder if you could talk about love a little, and about Gabby and just reflect on committed relationships. Delsohn Yeah, for sure. I mean, it’s funny, because she’s really not in this book, you know. Except the dedication says “For Gabby” and I signed it for her. So that’s where she is in the book—in the dedication—and I wrote a nice thing for her in the acknowledgements, too. But she’s really not in this book—there were a couple of stories where I have some Gabby-like avatars, but I mostly took those out. There are really no stories about Gabby. There are lots of stories about, like, relationships and stuff. There’s even, with “The Geeks,” this kind of romantic beat there. At this point in my life, we’ve been married for seven years and together for about nine years. And it’s not like I’ve never written about her, but I haven’t really published that much about her. Part of it is, I just don’t want to turn it into fiction. I just want to live it. She is very different from me. She’s a very... embodied person. She’s very straightforward in a way that I’m not, as perhaps evidenced by this interview—my brain kind of works like this [wiggly hand gesture], and she’s more like a straight line. She’s very, very intelligent and creative but the ways that our brains work and the ways we get to that creative place are very different. She is not a writer, which… I can’t recommend it enough, not being with a writer. But she is a great reader. She reads everything. She’s my first reader. She read all of these stories, like, an upsetting number of times. And she gives me notes and she’s extremely fucking honest and tough. But something else is that she’s really good at big picture things. And it was really helpful, especially as I was finishing the book and trying to figure out how to talk about its themes, as a whole—she’s so good at zooming out and seeing that stuff. In the collection, there’s this story, “Maude,” where this character is like, “should I transition or not?”—and then, in that state of indecision, just being kind of frozen. That story is taken from when I was trying to transition—and now that I’ve been living as a man for about 10 years, I feel the joys of it in a way that I never could have imagined. And part of that is embracing the limitations of it and just being like, “As a man, I’m not a lesbian anymore.” And there are a lot of things I really loved and cherished about being a lesbian. It wasn’t a straightforward decision for me at all. But I made this commitment and there are things I lost and there are things I gained and I’m happy with this decision I made. And I’m so grateful. I think marriage is the same way. You commit to somebody—I can’t just, like, fuck a million guys every day, one after another. I can’t go out all night and not tell anybody where I am and just do whatever the next morning. I have a person who will be like, “Where are you?” We have little dogs that need to be fed. But the joys of it are so much greater than the limitations for me. It’s a choice and there are things lost and things gained. I think keeping track of those things and that dynamic is part of it. You’re not like, “I’m married to the person that I wanna be with and I’m so happy and therefore nothing is lost.” That’s just like not how it works. We got married very fast. We moved in after six months and then we got married a year later, I think. I was 24 and she was 23. And I think all our friends were like, “OK, let’s hope this lasts, because we’re all babies here.” We laugh about it now. It is crazy that we got married that young. But always, from the jump, the plan was to be together. There have been things to weather and conflicts to resolve and whatever. But I think, in both the short term and the long term, when we ask ourselves, “Is this good? Are we having fun? Is this the best possible person for me?” we both continue to think yes, which is so great. I feel very lucky. When we first started dating, I was like, “She’s so out of my league. She’s so hot and cool.” But now, I think that stuff about myself, too. And now as we’re in our thirties, we’re feeling powerful and happy in our relationship and like, vibes are good. So that’s a little bit of me waxing poetic about my fucking marriage. I don’t know if that’s what you were looking for. Becker I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. That’s great. OK, I’ve got a couple dumb questions and then we can wrap up. Do you dream regularly? Delsohn Do I dream regularly? Yes. Becker Have you had a significant dream recently? Delsohn Yeah, I have a lot of dreams. Sometimes I will lose a dream, but sometimes I can wake up in the dream and do stuff. Oh gosh, what can I share that’s not really embarrassing? But I guess maybe embarrassing is in line with what we’ve been discussing. Okay, let me say this. I keep having dreams about this one girl who I went to high school with. She was my friend. And in the dream, we end up, like dating, basically. Or there’s—it’s very romantic, not necessarily a wet dream. Like it’s not sexy. It’s more G-Rated or PG-Rated. And this is a person who I was in touch with and then, when I transitioned, in a very non-exciting way, just kind of vanished. And I think I still have some hangups about that, but in the dream, we’re always in weird situations and I’m kind of following her around in all of these weird places. And I’m just like, “Why do you keep showing up?” I don’t talk to this person at all. There’s no reason for me to think about her really. I don’t know. I started reading stuff about dreams because of this actually, like Carl Jung. Do you know about dreams? Becker To a degree. Delsohn Can you help me with this dream? I really can’t figure out why this person is there. I suppose sometimes it’s not meant to be literally that person. It’s what that person represents, or something. What do you think? Like, they’re just a person from my past who I haven’t talked to in years. Becker This happens to me all the time. I don’t have recurring dreams about people from the past, but people do pop up. I think it’s interesting that they drifted away from you and that you are following them. Delsohn I just thought of this other dream I’ve been having. It’s a recurring dream, and I’ve been having the same exact dream since I was 10. Can I tell it to you? So here’s the dream. It’s the fucking same every time. So what happens is, I’m living in the White House. My house is the White House, but it’s not in Washington, DC—it’s in a barren landscape. And I leave my White House, I’m riding my bike that I had when I was 10, which was a blue Schwinn. I have my helmet on and I’m just riding around in the barren ass landscape, and it’s kind of foggy. Then, when I’m done riding, I try to get back in my house and all the doors are locked. Someone has locked me out of the house. And meanwhile, it’s getting foggier. I walk my bike away from the house because I see something in the distance. I see a mountain, which maybe was always there, maybe not. I don’t really remember now, but much closer to me on the ground, is like a booth—like, Lucy’s therapist booth in Peanuts, you know, it’s a wooden booth, or a lemonade stand, something like that. But in the booth is an alien, its got the shape, like the classic alien head shape. And so I start riding my bike towards it to be like, “What the fuck?” But then I wipe out, like I crash the bike terribly. I’ve run over something. It’s my white comforter that was on my bed when I was this age, when I was 10, this big white down comforter. The alien from the booth comes up to me while I’m still on the ground. He has a giant button, also like a cartoon, a big square with a red button in the middle. And he says to me, “press the button.” When I press the bottom, the mountain in the background, it becomes a volcano and there’s lava. The lava starts coming down and I’m riding my bike away from the lava. The lava hits my bike and I launch into the air—and then I wake up. Becker And you’ve had this more than once. Delsohn I’ve had this many times. The same exact sequence. The last time I had it was probably like two years ago. The first time I was 10 years old. Becker What the fuck is that? Delsohn You’re the dream expert in this call. Can you help me? Becker I gotta think on this one. I had a recurring dream when I was about the same age, where I was at my great grandmother’s funeral, but her body was not in the casket. It was in the pew and slumped over on my body. And they were like going to, I guess, move her into the casket, but they kept just sermoning. But what they couldn’t hear was that she was talking to me—she was actually still alive and they were going to bury her alive. There was a Duracell commercial at this time that was like, “Duracell is the best battery because we power the ZOLL defibrillator.” So this word, “defibrillator,” was stuck in my head as a kid. I would say it to myself over and over. And in the dream, my grandma is saying, “I need the ZOLL defibrillator.” But nobody would believe me. Delsohn Oh my god! So you’re trying to be like, “She’s awake and she needs this little defibrillator,” and the people are just saying, “Sit down, young child.” That is so upsetting! That sounds like a stress dream. Becker I guess so. I was really obsessed with the idea that I could catch her death. My inheritance from her was this pair of moccasin slippers and I was certain that if I wore her slippers, that I too would be taken to the other room. Delsohn Like death was contagious. Becker Exactly. Delsohn Oh my gosh, that’s so scary. Becker OK, last one: Is there one defining truth that you believe that guides your life? Like one? Delsohn Oh my god, oh my god, one truth. Becker Or two truths and a lie. Delsohn Two truths and a lie that define my life. What’s the lie that defines my life? I’m the lie. My first thought when I think of the lie is, “If it feels good, it is good.” Yeah, spoken like a true sober alcoholic. I mean, pleasure is very important to me. That’s something I think about with writing, too. I hope that my stories are about something, but they should be pleasurable, too. I always think of Lorrie Moore first—like, it’s just a fucking pleasure to read her sentences, you know? It just feels good. So like, “If it feels good, it is good”—I guess sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s false. Can you say that, if it feels good to read, it is good writing? I think maybe. Two days ago, I got stoned. The weed here is amazing. I took an edible and I ate so much ice cream. I ate… the craziest amount of ice cream. And I just like, it felt so good in the moment. And then I was so sick because I am lactose intolerant and I do take Lactaid, but sometimes it’s not enough. I do try to enjoy myself a lot. People say that to me, they’re like, “When you like things, you really enjoy them.” I’ve gotten that feedback from many people. And it’s something that I pride myself on. I think part of it is that I was very unhappy as a child. Like I was depressed and closeted and was just like, “What’s happening?” And then I was at the girls’ school and I was like, “Am I broken? What’s wrong with me? I don’t like boys and I’m at this Catholic school and they’re making me go to mass and wear a skirt and I am miserable.” If that’s where you start from, more or less, in your adolescent-to-adult journey… Now that I’m an adult and I’m like, a large, beautiful man, and I have a hot wife who I’m in love with, and I live in California, and I get to read good books, and do stuff like this—I get to do interviews with cool, smart people, because I wrote something good—like, I’m just gonna enjoy it so hard. Because I know what it’s like to just be so depressed and feel that your life is never going to be any good at all. This is a little “It Gets Better”-coded but I am not beating the “It Gets Better” allegations, I guess. So I don’t know, I suppose the truth, or lie, that defines my life is some kind of half-truth, half-lie—that pleasure is important. And I think that’s important for trans people, too. The world wants us to only have these degrading fucking lives. And so much of the media narrative about us is obviously about our suffering and stuff. But the pleasure is important too. And that needs to be represented in our art through like, silliness and those kinds of things. Does that make any sense? Becker Big time. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ PreviousEverything Is Under Control, Ruth Schemmel Next First Girlfriend, Denise Bickford Hopkins › https://mosslit.com/Denise-Bickford-Hopkins-First-Girlfriend Thu, 22 Jan 2026 06:59:31 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Denise-Bickford-Hopkins-First-Girlfriend <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> First GirlfriendDenise Bickford Hopkins Snow &amp; listening. Or &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; almost snow &amp; listening to the hush of waiting.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; But also listening to Annie Lennox singing &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; sweet dreams are made of this&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; her open mouth her&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; riding crop&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; the cow walking around the conference room.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; In college once, brought home my girlfriend like a secret treasure who, in primal hunger, opened the fridge to an offering&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; —&nbsp; severed cow’s tongue&nbsp; in watery blood. later, we kissed in the dark on the floor of my room, quiet as though no one knew what the silence meant. Below us, the piece of flesh still waiting for someone else’s mouth. Denise Bickford Hopkins (they/theirs) is a queer poet originally from Midcoast Maine. Their work has appeared in Foglifter, Seneca Review, New Words Press, and The Los Angeles Review, among others. They are the author of one chapbook, Repka, from Dancing Girl Press. Denise is an alumni of the University of Maine and the Boise State University MFA in creative writing program. They currently live in Pullman, Washington. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous Max Delsohn in conversation with Alayna Becker Next The Body, Rebecca Brown › https://mosslit.com/Rebecca-Brown-The-Body Thu, 22 Jan 2026 07:02:32 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Rebecca-Brown-The-Body <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> The BodyRebecca Brown I’m such a pig. My office is a pit. It’s behind our house in the garage we converted for me. There’s papers and books all over the floor. The desk and the two tables are piled with papers and books and CDs and covers, newspaper articles and magazines, cat toys, knickknacks, paper clips, printer ink, rubber bands, bike leg things, pens, pencils, old mail, stuff. I can’t remember the last time I dusted or vacuumed or put anything away. The blanket that covers the couch is on the floor. There’s boxes of books supposedly on their way out.&nbsp; The computer is up on a box and there’s unplugged cords. I have no idea where they go.&nbsp; When the pandemic started, I thought, OK, now I’m finally going to clean this up, but I couldn’t.&nbsp; Then when I retired, I thought, Now, now really is the time, but I simply could not. The cat can always find someplace. Like a spot by the window where there’s some sun. Or on the back of the couch behind me. But sometimes she goes somewhere I can’t find her. The other day I thought I found an old shoe of mine but when I started moving the papers away to get to it, it was two and they were attached to socks and jeans and a sweatshirt. It was a body. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Hello, I said, hello?&nbsp; It was white, I think, and old. It was hard to tell.&nbsp; I touched it. It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t exactly cold. More like something you took out of the refrigerator to warm up a while ago, but also something else, like if I touched it hard enough, it would turn to dust inside the jeans but it didn’t. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">Hello, I said again, Hello? Its eyes were closed. Was it asleep? Was it alive? I didn’t want to disturb it so I got the blanket from the couch and tucked it around its shoulders and back and hair but not its face in case she wanted to breathe. I called the cat, Come here, kitty, kitty, and made that noise the way you do. The cat came over and sniffed it a little then walked away. This was so different from that time when she found the baby squirrel in my office and batted and chased it around. I rescued the squirrel from her and raised her until she was old enough to leave.&nbsp; I really loved that little thing. She was lying between a bookshelf and my bike, and behind a couple of boxes. Useless stuff. Well, not the bike.&nbsp; You might get a couple hundred bucks for that. There was light gray or beige stuff on her clothes and skin. Was it dust? How long has it been here? There wasn’t a smell, like anything gross or organic. Maybe something somehow oddly clean. A smell of stillness. Her hair was a mess, but nothing worse than bed head. I thought I should clean her glasses though. They’d fallen off her face and were halfway open. I picked them up very carefully and went and got the glasses cleaner I keep on my desk. That’s one thing I know where it is. I sprayed on the spray and wiped them with them cloth and took them back and laid them down carefully closed so she could see them if she woke up. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I’m tired, I heard.&nbsp; I’m tired. I didn’t see her move her mouth, but I thought she was saying it. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired. Her eyes stayed closed. Did anything move? I got down beside her to wait. Rebecca Brown is the author of 15 books published in the US and abroad (Japan, UK, Germany, Italy, etc.).&nbsp; Her most recent titles are Not Heaven, Somewhere Else, (Tarpaulin Sky) and You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe (Chatwin Books). Forthcoming in 2025-2026 are Obscure Destinies (Fellow Travelers/Publication Studio) and a new collection from FrizzLit Editions. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous First Girlfriend, Denise Bickford Hopkins Next The Downstairs Apartment, Lauren Davis › https://mosslit.com/Lauren-Davis-The-Downstairs-Apartment Thu, 22 Jan 2026 07:07:13 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Lauren-Davis-The-Downstairs-Apartment <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> The Downstairs ApartmentLauren Davis At first, I considered using a soft touch to peel the wallpaper back. I would go about it all very carefully. In this way, I would respect my late mother’s legacy of flamboyant interior design, and I would not disturb any evidence. The wallpaper had huge crimson flowers of anindeterminant species. I am not a fan of wallpaper. It distracts the eye too much. One can never really settle down when there’s nowhere to rest one’s sight. I like to rest. I need it these days. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">So I walked around the apartment until I found a corner already peeling back from the wall. I used a paint scraper and got to work. It was cold with the electricity off, but I was sweating. I was fearful of finding something and of finding nothing. The sunshine peeking around the drawn curtains shone hazily. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I had pulled a nice chunk of wallpaper free. I had even kept some of the petals intact. Then I realized how foolish I was being. No one was going to hide anything under my mother’s wallpaper. How would they do that? How would they peel it back and then reglue it and keep it so smooth and flawless. Absurd. Unless, of course, this was not my mother’s wallpaper, but a copy of my mother’s wallpaper, and they tore hers off—roughly no doubt—put the device in the wall, perhaps in a little groove that they scratched out of the drywall, and then put up this new wallpaper of the same design, recreating the same stains, because they are no amateurs. There’s no doubt there. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I kept on. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I finished an entire wall. Then I pushed the couch away from the adjacent wall and sighed. Had I not already demonstrated my love for my mother by being careful with the first wall? I chewed the inside of my left cheek and began to rip the paper away with my long fingernails. It came off easily on account of its age. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I already had evidence. Plenty. It was fine if I destroyed some by accident. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I was halfway through the second wall when I felt the heat. It came through my fingers into my arms and shoulders and straight to my heart and lungs. I grasped my chest with both hands. There was a bright light at the corner of my vision, but when I turned my head, it disappeared. I saw it again, and again I twisted towards it, and again it vanished. This went on for some time, me clutching my breasts and whirling my head around. There was a smell, too. Nothing I could identify, but it was similar to smoke. They can do all sorts of things with these beams. I have no idea why anyone questions their capabilities. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Did you hear that?” I asked myself. I looked around. It didn’t matter that I was alone in the apartment. I was not alone. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">The heat and the smell and light made me angry, so I took a hammer to a different wall, straight into the center of a red flower. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Listen,” I said. “God damn listen. I don’t have time for this.” I swung the hammer again and again. “I have a life to live.” I yelled in case they were having a hard time hearing me. I wanted to make myself clear. “You took my mother but you will not take me.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I looked up and saw the brass light fixture was rocking back and forth a little. “God damn good for nothing.” I pulled the couch underneath it and climbed on top, but I couldn’t reach it with my hammer. I climbed down and then threw the hammer at it. The grip hit with a loud clang and got stuck on an arm. The buzzer rang. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I shuffled over to the door. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Yes?” I said loudly. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“It’s your upstairs neighbor.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Yes? Margaret?” I said. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Yes, that’s me. Can you open the door?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“I’m quite busy.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Yes, I can hear that,” Margaret said. There was a pause. “Can you open the door just a moment, though, so we can speak?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“No,” I said. I turned around and went back to the light fixture. I stood below it and watched its slight movement. I thought about my mother, and the time I found her standing just where I was standing. I remembered her looking up at the light and saying something to herself, something that sounded like a prayer. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">The buzzer rang again. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Come to the door,” Margaret said. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I came to the door but did not open it. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Can you hear me? Tell me you can hear me.” She was speaking more quietly. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Yes,” I said. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Good,” she said. She had a sweet voice. I had always thought so. “That sounds like a hammer. Are you using a hammer?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Yes,” I said. “I’m not sorry. This is very important work I am doing.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“I know that,” she said. She was nearly whispering. “This would be much easier if you would open the door.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“No.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I heard her sigh noisily. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Fine,” she said. “My hands are very hot.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I put my ear to the door. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Do you know why my hands feel hot, like they’ve been near a stove?” she asked. “Even though I’ve turned down the heat and I’ve run them under cold water?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“No,” I said. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“You do, though. You have some sort of clue. You have an idea, don’t you?” she said. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“It’s your fault,” she hissed. “It’s all your fault. They can’t target you without some of it getting onto me.” She slammed against the door and I jumped back. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I could hear her crying. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “Don’t even think about trying to comfort me.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">The doorknob rattled. <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“Keep yourself locked up in there safe now, do you?” she said. Her voice was too loud. I could hear it all around me. “Call them off. Get rid of them, or you’ll be sorry.” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">“I’m trying,” I said. There was a long silence. “I just need more time.” I put my ear to the door again. “Margaret?” I whispered. “Margaret? Are you there?” <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:55px;" class="mobilehide"><img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/vol01/assets/paragraph_tab.png" style="width:24px;" class="desktophide">I crack the door, peer into darkness. Lauren Davis is the author of The Nothing (YesYes Books), Home Beneath the Church (Fernwood Press), When I Drowned, and the chapbooks Each Wild Thing’s Consent, The Missing Ones, and Sivvy. She holds an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Davis is the winner of the Landing Zone Magazine’s Flash Fiction Contest. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous The Body, Rebecca Brown Next con trai, con gái | boy, girl - Minh Nguyễn › https://mosslit.com/Minh-Nguy-n-con-trai-con-gai-boy-girl Thu, 22 Jan 2026 07:18:23 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Minh-Nguy-n-con-trai-con-gai-boy-girl <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> con trai, con gái | boy, girl Minh Nguyễn we are shopping at 99 Ranch a 25lb bag of jasmine rice slung over my shoulder a woman with jade bangles asks if I am your boy đây là con trai của chị ả you pause; this is my girl là con gái and I fold my chest inward, dreaming of the butcher’s counter they can cut me anything I want flesh peeled from ribs, sinew scraped from bone a display case full of insides that are now outsides, slaughter the ultimate equalizer. slice away trai and gái, and you are left with con — left with child, naked under the knife. Minh Nguyễn is a queer Vietnamese American poet and linguist based in Seattle. They hold a Ph.D. in Linguistics, and their research background informs their poetry, which explores queerness, diaspora, translation, and memory. Their scholarly writing on language and identity has appeared in academic journals, alongside creative work in Vǎnguard and Moss. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous The Downstairs Apartment, Lauren Davis Next The Majesty of Crows, Aaron Gilbreath › https://mosslit.com/Aaron-Gilbreath-The-Majesty-of-Crows Thu, 22 Jan 2026 07:21:23 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Aaron-Gilbreath-The-Majesty-of-Crows <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> The Majesty of CrowsAaron Gilbreath At 6pm, outside Powell’s Books’ downtown store, a mother of two tugged her small daughter’s hand. “Oh, we’re in crow territory,” she said. “I’ll tell you what that means once we get in the car.” There on 10th Avenue between Couch and Burnside streets, quiet groups of crows perched overhead in the leafless trees. Their black bodies stood stationary and lifeless—like persimmons someone had yet to pick, or Christmas ornaments hung by Beetlejuice. Pedestrians shuffled below, unaware. Two commuters waited at the light rail station, where white crow droppings dotted the street. Every winter night in Portland, just before sunset, thousands of crows fly in from the suburbs and inner-city neighborhoods to roost downtown. Locals first recorded the great migration in 2013 when a paper reported that “hundreds of crows have taken up residence” near SW Fifth Avenue and Salmon Street. One observer said they had “never seen anything like it.” The citizen science project Portland Crow Roost estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 birds roost in 70 of downtown’s 400 square blocks, between October and March. In 2017, they counted 22,370 crows—the highest recorded number. Even people with little interest in nature notice the birds. They don’t necessarily know where they come from or what they’re doing. They just see black clouds swarming over bridges, over the Willamette River, and overhead while stuck in traffic—disorienting amounts of crows, all caw-caw’ing and flapping the same northwesterly direction. Many of these people don’t know to close their mouths when they look up. On the opposite side of downtown, Portland State University students shuffled under the trees in the South Park Blocks. The crows’ raucous cackling was too loud to miss, yet not everyone connected their sound to the voluminous rain of feces. When one pedestrian looked up, something landed on his face. Confused, he wiped it with his jacket sleeve and examined it in the darkness. “They call groups of crows ‘a murder,’” a man nearby said. “Know why? Because you want to murder them.” Downtown, crow poop pelts parked cars. It drips off parking meters. It stains sidewalks, benches, steps, walls, newspaper dispensers, statues, ledges, and handrails. The innumerable white splotches vaguely match the white holiday lights that decorate downtown trees, though many locals struggle to see it through such a cheerful lens. It’s disgusting, people say. It’s an eyesore. It’s bad for business. One furniture store employee compared the sound of falling poop on late-night streets to cracking glass: an eerie staccato crack, crack, crack that rings between tall buildings as it hits the pavement, one shower after another. Some locals call sundown Crow Happy Hour. Others call it Crappy Hour. Like it or not, the crow’s nightl flying ritual is one of Nature’s greatest shows, and it’s become enough of a winter phenomenon to stop people in their tracks, where they gawk and take pictures. Portland is fortunate to host an incredible variety of urban wildlife, with many species appearing in residents’ daily lives. Peregrine falcons nest on bridges. Bald eagles hunt on Ross Island. Newts and salamanders live in the streams that thread the same residential neighborhoods where coyotes trot in the street. Every summer, people turn out to watch Vaux’s Swifts fly into a single chimney to roost. But housing thousands of crows has proven messy, and even Portland’s interminable rain can’t wash away the mess. So the city has tried to manage crow conflicts humanely with high pressure hoses, a sidewalk-scrubbing machine named The Poopmaster 6000, and now trained falcons. Poison is legal but unethical. Instead of eradication, the falcons train these smart birds to roost away from certain business districts and stick to green spaces. That choice has transformed Portland into a shining example of how to peacefully cohabitate with crows. And then, in spring, the crows disappear, heading to their summer breeding grounds, and the nightly show ends. This relationship has ancient roots. — When human beings first crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia into North America 14,000 or so years ago, ravens probably traveled across the bridge with them, but a group of crows and ravens had already arrived between 2 and 4 million years ago. In this new land, those early humans were, to some extent, competing with those birds—mainly ravens. Ravens lived as scavengers on the kills of large Ice Age carnivores like the short-faced bear and American lion. As carnivores ourselves, those early people filled a similar role in the new North American ecosystem, killing big game like caribou and muskox, and fighting off—or sharing with—those black birds. Although ravens and crows both lived along what became the Pacific Northwest coast, they preferred different habitats. Ravens favored dense forests. Crows stuck to open spaces, particularly along the coast between the high tideline and the forest. Crows love edges. There along the edge of the forest and the ocean, crows scavenged accessible detritus that washed up on shore—dead animals, small sea creatures, plant matter—as well as bivalves and small fish, so early people would have interacted with them. “The crow has always been an edge species,” says John Marzluff, Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington. “That coastal edge let them tap both resources. They could go into the forest and grab bird eggs and young birds, and they could go to the other side and find washed up dead animals and small sea animals. They probably nested in the forest’s edge, too, because they do nest in trees.” A renowned researcher and expert in the family of birds known as corvids, Marzluff has written extensively about them in his books Gifts of the Crow and In the Company of Crows and Ravens. In their coastal encampments, Marzluff says, Indigenous people interacted with crows, who came to steal a bite to eat. But Indigenous people would have interacted more closely with the more numerous ravens, who flapped around their large forest villages and kill sites, vying for meat. “That’s why a lot of those stories involve ravens, specifically,” says Marzluff. “This is why the crow doesn’t fit into their mythology nearly to the extent that the raven do.” That said, many tribes mix crow and raven in their stories, sometimes making it difficult to discern which bird they’re talking about. Indigenous people didn’t see these birds as malevolent influences or a bad omen. For the Indigenous Kalapuyan bands who inhabited the future site of Portland, coyotes, not birds, were their major character. Other tribes respected the birds as nosy, mischievous neighbors—a common presence in daily life, like the rain. The Makah in Washington revered them while also defending against them, installing scarecrows in their salmon drying racks to keep the birds out of their fish. In coastal British Columbia, the Haida people credited raven with creating humanity itself. One day, Raven found himself on a deserted beach on the archipelago that he created, named the Queen Charlotte Islands, named Haida Gwaii. When Raven looked down, he noticed a large clamshell at his feet. Tiny creatures peered out from the clamshell but were too scared to emerge. Some versions of this creation story describe the creatures as trapped. In another version, Raven is a she. Raven convinced them to come out into this incredible, bountiful world where they lived, and when they did, these creatures became the Haida people. In her book Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, Elle E. Clark tells a story she heard on Haida Gwaii: Long ago, near the beginning of the world, Gray Eagle was the guardian of the Sun, Moon and Stars, of fresh water, and of fire. Gray Eagle hated people so much that he kept these things hidden. People lived in darkness, without fire and without fresh water. … When Raven saw the Sun, Moon and stars, and fresh water hanging on the sides of Eagle’s lodge, he knew what he should do. He watched for his chance to seize them when no one was looking. He stole all of them, and a brand of fire also, and flew out of the longhouse through the smoke hole. As soon as Raven got outside, he hung the Sun up in the sky. It made so much light that he was able to fly far out to an island in the middle of the ocean. When the Sun set, he fastened the Moon up in the sky and hung the stars around in different places. By this new light he kept on flying, carrying with him the fresh water and the brand of fire he had stolen. He flew back over the land. When he had reached the right place, he dropped all the water he had stolen. It fell to the ground and there became the source of all the freshwater streams and lakes in the world. Then Raven flew on, holding the brand of fire in his bill. The smoke from the fire blew back over his white feathers and made them black. When his bill began to burn, he had to drop the firebrand. It struck rocks and hid itself within them. That is why, if you strike two stones together, sparks of fire will drop out. Raven’s feathers never became white again after they were blackened by the smoke from the firebrand. That is why Raven is now a black bird. In 2024, thousands of years after the dawn of the world, Americans have turned the Northwest’s dense coniferous forests into farms and cities, which has favored crow over raven. Crow now operates as a kind of avian coyote, whose intelligence, risk-taking, and adaptability have allowed it to thrive, rather than shrink, around people. When crows first started roosting downtown in 2013, they may have numbered around 6,000. It was hard to tell. Nobody was systematically counting yet. The crows gathered on the ledges of the Multnomah County Courthouse. They gathered on the ornate arched roof of the historic Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, above the famous lighted Portland sign. Their proud, outstretched chests silhouetted against the moon around Pioneer Square. Crows spread useful information quickly, telling others the location of food, danger, and available territories. As word spread, family and friends kept flocking downtown to enjoy everything these sociable omnivores needed: warmth, gossip, light to spot predators, a reliable food supply, easy nesting opportunities, shelter from winter weather, a relative lack of predators, and access to outlying areas. “Crows want to be in as big of a group as possible for safety reasons,” says Professor Marzluff. “In groups, they can look out for predators, mostly owls, and avoid being the one bird who gets picked out. To be in a big group, you have to sleep in a place that birds from many different areas can come into without traveling excessive distances. In Portland, those centralized conditions are downtown.” In late 2017, two Portlanders heard rumors about crows roosting downtown. “As corvidophiles, we became increasingly interested in the afternoon arrival of crows in downtown Portland,” wrote Gary Granger and Rebecca Provorse. “On a cold November night, after a dinner downtown, our curiosity overcame our desire for warmth and we took a late-night walk. The result was a hand-drawn map of several blocks of the city and scribbled numbers totaling 3,705 roosting crows. We were hooked.” They formed the group Portland Crow Roost that year and started walking downtown streets, counting the roosting crows and creating a detailed living document of this unique annual migration. They weren’t scientists by profession, but they were interested enough in this unusual phenomenon that they wanted to experience it as well as document it for the greater good. The more locals knew about the crows, they figured, the more people might want to protect them. At that point, the crows needed allies. Portland’s crows tore insulation from walls. They gathered on roofs and woke hotel guests with their caws. During a huge 2017 snowstorm, Portland Police Criminalist Walker Berg snapped an enchanting photo from the Justice Center’s 12th floor. In the clean white tops of trees in the neighboring park, the black dogs of thousands of crow bodies appeared against the backlit glow. But other downtown workers grew tired of cleaning crap off their cars. Every summer, Portlanders hung out in a park to watch thousands of Vaux’s Swifts fly into a single brick chimney to roost each night. Swifts were magical, a spectacle. But the crows? They divided people. In 2014, one anonymous Portlander poisoned some to get rid of them. Approximately 30 dead crows turned up in downtown parks. People found agonized birds seizing on the ground. Others fall from the sky. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protects crows and other native birds, making it a federal crime to poison them. Unfortunately, authorities didn’t catch the perpetrator. In 2018, more poisoned birds fell from the sky in Northeast Portland. Forensics determined that Avitrol, a commercially available neurotoxin, caused both mass murders. In 2019, the Portland City Council unanimously banned the class of bird poisons known as avicides on city property. Portland didn’t administer avicides anyway, but it wanted to send a message to the feds and other municipalities: poisoning birds is inhumane, even if it’s legal. “These kinds of poisons are completely inappropriate for use in the city,” said Portland Audubon Society conservation director Bob Sallinger. “They’re indiscriminate, they are cruel and inhumane, they are dangerous and they don’t belong in our environment.” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler agreed. “I think we are being very naïve,” Wheeler said, “foolish even—if we think using neurotoxins on wildlife won’t eventually impact us as humans.” Portland found ways to deal with animal nuisances. In 2016, Downtown Portland Clean &amp; Safe, a nonprofit that addresses downtown security and cleanliness, bought a sidewalk-scrubbing machine named The Poopmaster 6000. It was less effective than they’d hoped. Pressure washing only addressed the symptoms, too, not the source of the issue. “We would pressure wash all night,” Lynnae Berg, executive director of Downtown Clean &amp; Safe, told The Oregonian. “And then the crows would wake up and it would look like we had done nothing.” In 2017, Clean &amp; Safe shifted strategies and hired the professional abatement falconers at Integrated Avian Solutions to move crows away from busy business district and the transit mall and into green places, especially along the waterfront. This local company already used birds of prey to scare problematic birds out of trash dumps and wineries. Downtown’s struggling retail stores needed help. Smart enough to learn faces, crows are smart enough to learn to avoid hostile areas, and the Harris hawks have successfully shifted the birds’ roosting behavior out of a certain seven-by-ten block. Public complaints have decreased. The crows stay on the right side of the boundaries that the hawks patrol. “We feel like we’ve found the right solution to manage the issue,” Berg said. “We’ve had fewer complaints. People are really satisfied when they see the result.” Legendary for their social and emotional intelligence, crows are some of the smartest animals on earth. Unlike most mammals, crows use tools. They use twigs to extract grubs from logs. They place nuts on the streets to let the wheels of passing cars cracks the shells for them. They don’t seem to mind if squirrels get hit by cars when eating those nuts, because crows will eat squirrels, too. In studies, crows have learned to use coins to extract food from dispensers. Urban crows can learn intent and will not step out of pedestrians’ way unless that person makes eye contact, because minding their own business around a blasé person will not endanger them, but a person who shows interest may post a threat. Crows also recognize human faces after regular exposure. When they identify individuals who have malicious intent or who have stressed them in the past, they tell the group. That information spreads and often stays for generations, long after the original crow who learned this had died. This is called cultural transmission. The rumor is that if you feed the same crows long enough, they will recognize you as a friend and might even bring a gift as thanks for your kindness. A local second grader wanted to know what kind of gifts did they give? “I know it’s not Calico Critter type gifts,” she told her father after feeding her crows one morning, “but what do they like?” Maybe sparkly stuff, he said, or things that shine, like coins, keys, bottle caps, buttons, jewelry, and paperclips. “If they gave you a gift,” she said, “could it be my gift too?” Of course, her dad said. It also worked the other way: Show crows aggression, and they will always avoid you, leaving a hole in your heart in their absence. All over Portland, residents feed neighborhood crows. They leave bowls of cereal. They toss packaged bird seed and test combinations of dried fruit, cracked corn, and nuts. Standing at a safe distance or behind house windows, they watch what they call “their crows” pecking the grass, trying to distinguish one from another. Were the birds on their garage this morning the same birds as last week? Did these repeat visitors consider them human friends? One crow on the girl’s street had a limp. Watching that bird eat peanuts in her safe, sheltered driveway, the girl said, “I want to help that poor bird, scoop it up, put her in a box, take her to the vet, and make her a bed where she can rest.” One reason people respond to crows is because they’re accessible. People naturally have them in their yards, so establishing a relationship is easy. Unlike songbirds, who fly away at our approach, and unlike seagulls, raptors, and waterfowl, who we mostly see flying or perched overhead, crows get on the ground with us. Instead of existing high in a kind of different world, crows will walk around us—at a park, on a sidewalk. “That’s different,” says Marzluff. Another reason people respond so strongly to crows is that they’re readable. “They come up to you,” says Marzluff, “they look at you. You have a sense that they’re paying attention to what you’re doing. They might be challenging you in some way, taking things that you don't want them to take, or pooping where you don't want them to poop. So they are kind of in your face, and they are relevant to what you’re doing. The birds at a bird feeder—they’re really engaged with what you’re doing. Those birds are not in your garbage, they’re not in your garden, they’re not on your front porch. But I think the thing that really gets people is the way that crows will stop and look at you and pay attention to you—and almost be begging from you.” This is what happens in the city. Strutting around our car, walking behind us—we find their behavior curious and interesting. “We feel like we’re kind of a part of it,” Marzluff says. As they watch us, they learn from us. This is more than a relationship. This is what scientists calls coevolution, and it dates back to the time when people settled what became the Pacific Northwest. In North Portland, one woman spent months building a relationship with her birds. One of her friends had unwittingly become the crows’ enemy when she found herself too close to a crow who got hit by a car. For years after, the crows dive bombed her. When two crows started coming around this woman’s property, she tried to stay on their good side. Each morning this woman enjoys her coffee in her backyard, and at night, she sips wine. The smaller of the two crows had a scar on her beak and the back of her head was nearly bald from molting. She spoke softly to them while gardening, avoided sudden movements. If she happened to have peanuts or cat food, she tossed a handful in the driveway, but it was casual. This summer, she noticed a group in her yard drinking from the water bowls she filled for other critters. The group kept their distance at first, flying to a nearby rooftop to watch her scatter treats. After courting the hesitant female, a family of four to six birds started swooping down from a stand of trees to feast on treats near the water bowl, keeping the woman company during her backyard time. This became their routine. Over the summer, she added crow treats to her grocery list. She tested combinations of ingredients, expecting to find clear favorites. Almonds, walnuts, dry chicken flavored cat food—they ate everything. The small adult seemed to be the mother. This bird stayed after the satiated others flew away. Weeks of daily interactions had built enough trust that, one August morning, the mother spent 20 minutes perched a few feet away, as the woman drank her coffee. Everything changed. Week after week, the birds inched closer to her seat. They quit scattering when she stood up. When she came outside in the morning, they were waiting. After eating, they lingered. They even brought their babies. “It makes me feel very special,” she said. She came to admire their big personalities. They’re curious and clever. They hid treats just to find them, and the more effort it required, the better. The adults were vigilant and serious, the juveniles playful and silly. She watched them learn to bark like the dogs at the neighboring dog park. She watched them band together against a common enemy and to identify a friend. She admires their intellect, values their individuality, and appreciates getting to know them in a way you can’t know backyard songbirds. She knows these birds would survive without her, but they’ve chosen to make her part of their routine. “The crows give me the time of day, and that’s such a gift,” she says. Many people who befriend crows experience a profound sense of connection—not just with the birds, but with them as the embodiment of natural forces at large. This isn’t about having the power to get a flock of birds to swoop down at your command. Look, I control nature! This is about intimacy and trust, about building relationships on kindness and generosity, on cooperation not competition—traits that our modern urban lives so often lack. “I know how easy it is to lose their trust,” the woman said, “I feel really honored to have earned it instead.” She was surprised how much these relationships have pulled on her heartstrings. “It’s also probably the best thing that’s happened for my mental health in my entire adult life. If I’m feeling sad or stressed or overwhelmed, spending 20 minutes watching crows eat snacks is the perfect antidote.” She works downtown, and she’s fortunate that her desk sits eye-level with the trees, because every night, she listens to the crows gossip and wishes she knew what they were saying. “I love it so much,” she says. “I love them.” — At 4:10pm one cold afternoon, not a cloud or bird appeared in Portland’s sky. The snowy tip of Mount Hood glowed in the distance. People raced rental scooters through downtown, and commuters crowded freeways on their drive home. On that day, December 3, the sun set at 4:27, the city’s earliest sunset of the year. By 4:15, no crows had taken flight, but something about the sun seems to trigger the birds like clockwork, and by 4:20, the gaggle of crows who were roosting at the base of the OHSU tram started to stir, flapping between trees and two buildings’ roofs before streaming north over the elevated freeway interchange. In North Portland, a small flock flew south across the rush hour traffic on Alberta Street at 4:23—directly over the spot where five crows had pecked at the pavement for food that same morning. Did the cars stuck in traffic know that the birds were part of a great migration, not just some random assemblage blowing in the wind? You only had to look at their precise formations to figure it out, but studying the birds meant risking a car crash. By 4:28, small to medium-size flocks flew in a line downtown, directly south to north, following the Willamette River. Forming their own feathered stream, the birds passed over the Hawthorne Bridge and the many bicyclists and joggers who raced along the waterfront. Squadrons of waterfowl flew among them, a few individual seagulls. Two crows chased each other in the air. A seal jumped from the River to snatch a fish. The clouds of birds followed the row of trees along Nato Parkway, then disappeared over the tops of buildings into Old Town, toward some unseen destination. They didn’t just arrive from the north and south. Diffuse groups flew west over the city’s largely treeless Southeast Industrial District, to cross into downtown. They had been streaming through southeastern Portland, following Belmont Avenue, following Interstate 84. The trickles coalesced into a literal black cloud that discolored the eastern sky as they passed directly over the commuter traffic on Interstate 5, over the backed-up cars on the Burnside Bridge, and over the River. So many birds eventually filled the air that they looked like a plume rising from a brush fire. Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more, they kept coming. At 4:32, this incredible cloud—possibly thousands of crows—gathered over downtown’s famous neon Portland sign, the one with the jumping deer, taking their rightful place as the city’s true icons. Along Nato Parkway, a fire truck’s siren mixed with a train’s horn and the overhead caw-caw-caw’ing. By 4:45, the frigid air glowed blue, as the sun prepared to set. The crows kept coming, their bodies silhouetted against the lavender sky. 4:50: still coming. But at 4:52, the voluminous stream stopped. Only cars streamed by now. This proved to be a pause. Sixty seconds later the stream resumed, filling the gap between buildings and continuing the current toward Old Town. By 4:54, the stream had shifted completely west from Nato, leaving the parkway for First Avenue, to stream directly above the city’s temporary ice-skating rink. Under the broad white canopy, ice skaters circled as the birds flew above them, like bats leaving the bridge in Austin, Texas, except making audible noise. Even the most curious pedestrian couldn’t walk fast enough to find out where they were heading. By 4:58 the stream had stopped again, this time for good. Passengers boarded the light rail at Harvey Milk Street and First Avenue. “I think they roost in the North Park Blocks in Old Town,” one passenger said. “I’m not sure.” One minute, two minutes, three minutes passed. No more birds. Had they all really just landed somewhere? As the final sunset glow backlit the golden skyscrapers, the darkness set in. Then one final group appeared: an enormous cloud of crows emerged from between buildings near Clay Street, circled over the grassy waterfront, then disappeared between the buildings again. Back on Clay Street, downtown’s edge went silent, but signs of crows were everywhere. Beyond dark underside of the Morrison Bridge, where two houseless men burned wood behind the chain-link fence that was meant to keep them out, white crow droppings covered a historic plaque. “First issue of The Oregonian printed here December 4, 1850,” the marker said, “from a waterfront shack in this vicinity.” The plaque took the shape of the state of Oregon. It and the surrounding vintage brick were covered in crap. Someone had pitched a large blue tent and parked their shopping cart on a bed of sycamore leaves, and syringes lay on the sidewalk between abandoned pants and a pair of muddy shoes. On Clay Street, the Marriott Hotel front desk clerks didn’t know where the crows roosted at night. “I’ve heard that crows recognize human faces,” said the playful clerk with the Canadian accent. “If you’re a jerk to a crow, don’t be surprised when crows you don’t know are jerks back to you.” Maybe the birds had settled in the North Park Blocks by now. Maybe some in the South Park Blocks, too, by PSU. The nearby parking lot attendant had no info either. “The what? The crows?” She sat inside a glass box between ticketing machines, talking to someone on a video call on her phone. “I’m just in here from 8am to 6pm. I heard about ’em, but I haven’t seen ’em. Why, what’s going on?” Nothing’s going on, no need to worry. She laughed. “Good! I don’t hear nothing! I just do my job, stay in here, make sure ya’ll get in and out safely.” Further up Clay Street, ten blocks from the River, the clerk at the Middle Eastern minimarket had nothing to say about the crows who sometimes roosted on the green wooded blocks outside his shop. “I know nothing,” he said. He shook his head when asked again, before pointing for the customer to enter their pin into the credit card reader to pay for their halva. The December air numbed human fingers and bit your neck. People in fancy clothing ate inside Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, while homeless men sat on park benches under the trees where crows used to roost. Where were they now? How can thousands just disappear? Tents, empty store fronts, smashed car windows—busy as it was, downtown at night had an unsettling edge. Pedestrians pulled hoods over their heads, giving harmless innocents a nefarious air when they sank their hands in their pockets. Depending on your worldview, the crows either infused this place with majesty or menace. Working at the Portland State University library since 2016 hasn’t soured the 39-year-old librarian on the crows. Instead, her location had turned her into a self-described crow nerd who takes videos of crows to send to other crow nerds. It helps that she parks her car in a covered parking garage that shields it from the poop. “In other parts of town, I’m very careful about parking under a tree,” she said. Despite the noise the birds make outside her library, she has no complaints about them, only love. “They do sometimes bully the squirrels,” she said. “Sometimes they can be a little mean to pigeons, too, but I think it’s because crows are so smart.” Smart enough to wait around garbage cans and snatch food from scavenging squirrels’ paws. Leaving the library one night, she encountered a crow trying to open student’s food. “So I walked up to it very carefully, took the granola bar, and undid the wrapper, then gave the crow back the bar. The crow treated me like, Oh, that’s exactly what you should have done. It was only polite for me to help! I haven’t received any treats as payment, but I know I did a good deed for the crow.” On this night, at 5:45, a line of people outside Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall waited to see Christian musician Michael W. Smith perform. The short-haired pacing security guard had seen the swirling crows countless times. “Two weeks ago they were in the trees on Clay Street, in that park across from Keller,” she said. “Masses of them. When I seen them, it was overwhelming. It was electric.” If they had roosted atop the Schnitz in the past, the clean concertgoers should be grateful they weren’t there to poop on them now. Instead, many birds had claimed the trees throughout the Pearl District. North of Burnside Street, around Powell’s Books and Whole Foods, pedestrians strolled the polka-dotted streets beneath hundreds of crows. A few birds made strange sounds above the people paying for street-side parking. Softly, they cooed, they rattled. They made guttural clicks, throat warbles, and a kind of plastic gurgle—all much more soothing than their territorial caw. Some listeners compare crow sounds to human babies. To others, their sounds have no equal. That’s part of what makes them both creepy and miraculous. But unlike during their sunset migration, they had now mostly quieted down. A nervous pigeon ignored a flattened muffin to peck at some droppings beneath a tree. Nearby, sixty-one crows perched in a single leafless tree outside an athletic clothing store. The bigger trees probably had three times as many, but the leaves concealed them. Sixty-eight crows perched in one tree outside a nearby sushi restaurant. It was one of many trees lining these streets. “I love the crows,” one waitress said. “They make me happy.” Outside her restaurant, the sound of wet droppings splattered on the pavement. Only six crows perched in a small tree outside of the Anthropologie clothing store. Across the street, inside the CB2 home decor store, one employee’s love of crows far outweighed the presence of the single crow that perched outside his front door. When he first moved to Portland in 2017, he asked a long-time resident what he should know about life here. The friend listed the usual touristy stuff: the Coast, the Gorge, popular restaurants. Then they added: “The crows suck.” This employee had worked at this store since it opened in July 2022, and after three seasons with the crows, he couldn’t disagree more. “I personally love the crows,” he said. “My family loves the crows. My daughter has crows tattooed on her back and legs. They are majestic.” Wearing crisp cream-colored slacks and an earpiece, he folded his hands behind his back while greeting customers. Holiday piano music filled the festive, bright store, where tinsel and Christmas decorations sparkled around high-end sofas and tables. Sure, the birds can be noisy and messy, he explained. “But they are great animals.” Every evening in spring and summer, his wife puts shelled raw peanuts in their suburban yard, and a few crows show up. Although they aren’t certain that these are the same crows, and they’ve never received gifts, they believe they are the same, and that felt good. Portland is the kind of city where people bring their dogs everywhere, so many businesses allow dogs inside. Portland is also the kind of place that can support a store like GiftyKitty, “The one &amp; only Meowgical everything cat paradise.” The crows’ obvious presence has transformed Portland into a city of crow-lovers, too. “If you’re a farmer, it’s probably a different experience,” said the man in CB2. “Scarecrows are scarecrows for a reason.” He liked crows’ intelligence, their human-like qualities, and their communal, family nature. As a hard-worker in a tough, concrete environment, crows’ resolve spoke to him. Raising children, trying to put food on the table, commuting from the burbs to downtown each day for work—life is a struggle. Every day, he does this, and everyday the crows do, too. “They’re not violent or malicious,” he said. “They’re just making it out there like all of us are trying to do, and they’re successful.” Regal and forever out of reach, another part of their appeal comes down to the ethereal connection that sociobiologist E.O. Wilson calls “biophilia,” which is humanity’s innate affinity for other forms of life. There on his lawn, there outside his store, the crows add a touch of enchantment to everyday existence, something wild in a world of schedules and expectations, something beautiful among the graffiti, endless traffic, and struggling houseless population, something beyond control. Magic retreats at the onset of adulthood. Crows replenish it. “Along with the crows come the basic bodily functions that all of us have,” he said. “We just do it in a more private manner.” His voice went soft as he said this. A customer had arrived at the front desk, waiting to ask a question. Before turning his attention to them, he added: “We all poop.” — The next morning, the crows strutted around residential streets again, pecking at insects too small for people to see. They searched piles of leaves with their beaks and flew off as dogs approached on leashes. This is how they spend their days. Just before sunrise, a crow cloud had flown north above Beach Elementary in the Overlook neighborhood, silhouetted against a pink sky. As commuters warmed in their idling cars before heading to work, other crows flew overhead, commuting to their own livelihoods further afield. The seven-year-old and her dad tossed peanuts outside their house then watched to see which crows collected them. They tossed nuts on the lawn. They tossed them in the driveway and tossed them on the roof. The father and daughter stood outside beckoning the birds with niceties like, “Here you go!” and “These are you, friends. We love you, crows!” They wanted the birds to learn their faces. They wanted to show they were kind. “Maybe they’ll give us a gift,” the girl said. After a year of feeding, no gifts had appeared, but sharing was a mode of living, not a passing transaction, the father wanted to instill. One man, named Rich, stopped to talk to the father and daughter. Rich walks the Overlook Neighborhood every day. On one block on Willamette Boulevard, between Concord and Denver avenues, he said, the crows follow behind him, drifting tree to tree like they want something. “It’s kind of eerie,” he says. They may have mistaken him for somebody who had wronged them. They may think he has food. He doesn’t know—because he doesn’t feed them—but the Alford Hitchcock movie The Birds still haunted him decades after seeing it, and now, if he remembers, he avoids this particular block. Some nights he hangs out at a friend’s house. Once, while leaving, something hit him in the back of the head. “I’m always looking around that time of night, for people and what have you,” he told the girl and father, “but something banged me so hard that it threw me forward.” The force literally pushed him, and he skidded on his feet. He speculated that it was a crow, though he didn’t get a look. Maybe it was an owl? Just that week, a great horned owl dive-bombed a runner in a small urban natural area near Reed College, and the owl’s talons cut this jogger’s head. “I got off light with just a few scratches,” the jogger said online, “but it was terrifying. Be careful if you spend any time down there at night.” As Rich shared his story, three crows watched from an electric line. When one bird swooped down to pry a nut from a shell that a car had cracked, Rich watched with a jumpy mix of interest and unease. “They’re so smart,” he said. “Glad they’re not strong enough to carry me away.” SourcesGifts of the Crow and In the Company of Crows and Ravens, John Marzluff, Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington. Original interview with John Marzluff. “Iljuwas: Bill Reid Life &amp; Work,” by Gerald McMaster, The Art Canada Institute&nbsp;website. Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, Elle E. Clark. Portland Crow Roost website, Gary Granger and Rebecca Provorse. “Audubon Society investigating mysterious crow die-off, fears poisoning,” Elliot Njus, Oregon Live. “Portland Audubon investigates after crows start ‘literally dropping out of the sky,’” Genevieve Reaume and Chris Liedle, KATU News. “Portland Bans Toxic Bird Poisons On City Property,” Cassandra Profita, OPB. “Latest weapon in Portland's war on crow poop: more birds,” Kale Williams, The Oregonian. Aaron Gilbreath&nbsp;has published essays and reportage in&nbsp;Harper’s,&nbsp;The Atlantic,&nbsp;Sierra,&nbsp;Adventure Journal, The New York Times, Spin, and The Dublin Review. His last book, The Heart of California: Exploring the San Joaquin Valley, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His story about the return of California’s Tulare Lake and the Yokuts people just received an honorable mention in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment and won an LA Press Club award for digital environmental journalism. Other pieces have been notables in&nbsp;Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Sports Writing. Check out his music Substacks “Alive in the Nineties” and “Play It Strange.” Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous con trai, con gái | boy, girl, Minh Nguyễn Next It Seems Like You’ve Been Preparing Your Whole Life, Ally Ang › https://mosslit.com/Ally-Ang-It-Seems-Like-You-ve-Been-Preparing-Your-Whole-Life Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:50:19 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Ally-Ang-It-Seems-Like-You-ve-Been-Preparing-Your-Whole-Life <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> It Seems Like You’ve Been Preparing Your Whole Life Ally Ang for devastation, my therapist tells me. I fear grief but crave its clarity, its thumb pressing into my eye socket. The first face that God wore was my mother’s, and, by extension, mine. When the tumor bloomed at the base of her brain, I knew a good daughter was supposed to be afraid, but I still believed my mother was the tallest woman in the world, believed that death could not utter our names without choking on its own futility. When she survived, I made her promise to live forever, or, at the very least, draw her last breath in tandem with mine. I was too young then to recognize the cruelty of my command. We’ve both wished to die, though neither of us has spoken it aloud. If I were kind, I would have let her leave, but my love is selfish: I want to keep every precious thing preserved in amber, even if it suffocates. How many times were we yanked back from the edge of obliteration by the thread around our waists tethering my life to hers? No longer a daughter, yet I remain bound to goodness. When the tests indicate an anomaly in my mother’s heart, I fall apart. Don’t worry, she tells me. I’m not allowed to die, remember? Ally Ang is a gaysian poet &amp; editor based in Seattle. A National Endowment for the Arts fellow and MacDowell fellow, their work has appeared in The Rumpus, Muzzle Magazine, Poets.org, and elsewhere. Their debut poetry collection, Let the Moon Wobble, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in November 2025. Find them at allysonang.com or @TheOceanIsGay. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous The Majesty of Crows, Aaron Gilbreath Next Caroline Fraser in conversation with Leah Sottile › https://mosslit.com/Caroline-Fraser-with-Leah-Sottile Thu, 22 Jan 2026 21:40:04 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Caroline-Fraser-with-Leah-Sottile <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> Caroline Fraser in Conversation with Leah Sottile Caroline Fraser is the author Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, a new book that explores how environmental contamination in the Pacific Northwest helped to produce a generation of violent psychopaths, including Ted Bundy and others. Originally from Mercer Island, Fraser is also the author of several other books, including Prairie Fires, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Leah Sottile is the author of two books, including most recently, Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets and the Fever Dream of the American New Age. Her essay, “This is Meant to Hurt You,” appeared in Moss: Volume Two in 2016. Sottile interviewed Fraser during an appearance at Powell’s Books in Portland. This transcript of their interview originally appeared on Sottile’s Substack newsletter, “The Truth Does Not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It,” which can be found at leahsottile.substack.com. Sottile Welcome to Portland—I’m very excited to talk about Murderland. As I told Caroline when we were waiting to come up here, I read this entire book aloud to my husband. It is so good. I couldn’t—we couldn’t—put it down. This book is a masterpiece about serial killers, the culture of the Northwest, violence, land, the air we breathe, and also you. Talk about where this book started for you, but also how you went from writing about Laura Ingalls Wilder to Ted Bundy. I am very curious about that connection. Fraser They’re really very similar [laughs]. Although I will point out that Prairie Fires does begin with a higher body count than Murderland because it covers the so-called massacre in which like 600 white settlers get murdered in the first 20 pages of the book. So it started off on a little bit of a down note. In this book, I took kind of a sharp left turn into ecological history and environmental history. In Prairie Fires, it was the whole white settlement of the West—and what a disaster that was in so many ways. With Murderland, on the cover you can see there’s a picture of Ted Bundy with his face kind of superimposed on an industrial landscape, which is in Tacoma—the old ASARCO smelter in Tacoma. And so that really, I think, is the connective tissue between the two. This didn’t feel like it was completely out of left field entirely to me, but I can see how people might think that way. Sottile What did your research and writing process look like? Did you know when you went in that you would be writing just as much about corporations as killers? And we can talk about that definition of a killer here too? Fraser No, the whole thing kind of evolved organically in a way, because I started by writing some of the personal memoir pieces. There’s a thing about the guy who lived down the street from me and blew up his house when I was eight. And that always kind of stuck with me. So I started writing about some of these things and thinking about what a violent time the 1970s was. The news was constantly full of murders and bombings and assassinations and protests, so we were being told that that was unusual. But it felt kind of normalized in a way while you were living through it. So I think that was sort of what started it off, was thinking about how violent a time it was, and also this whole question of ‘why are there so many serial killers in the Northwest?’ That had been something I was always curious about—like, is that a real thing? Is it just an urban myth? Is it something that can actually be investigated? And so I started down that trail and then somehow happened across this piece about the smelter, which I had never really understood what that was. I mean, I knew there was all this industrial waste in Tacoma. I mean, everybody who’s ever been there, back in the day, knew the aroma of Tacoma. It smelled very, very bad. But I don’t think I understood the first thing about what that was coming from. The smell was mainly, I think, from the pulp mill. But there were more than fifty plants and refineries down there. But when I discovered that there was a real arsenic problem on Vashon Island through a real estate ad, that was the kind of thing that I started looking at, the arsenic pollution, which came from the ASARCO smelter—the American Smelting and Refining Company. And lead. And I started to wonder, ‘well, could any of this stuff have had any effect on the people? Knowing that [Ted] Bundy grew up in Tacoma, that Gary Ridgeway grew up just north of Tacoma by Sea Tac. And then somehow this other little tidbit came my way about Charles Manson—that he had spent five years incarcerated on McNeil Island at the same time that those other two were growing up there. McNeil Island is very close to Tacoma as well. I learned about the whole smelter plume and what that had done to the Pacific Northwest. Sottile And just to be clear, this book doesn’t stop at Bundy, Ridgeway, Manson. It goes into Israel Keyes, which was a very surprising thing for me to see, and Robert Yates over in Eastern Washington. It is extensive in the way it covers serial killers, but also their victims. Every victim in this book, no matter who they are or what they were killed by, gets a lot of space. And I wanted to talk to you about this choice. Fraser Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I hoped to do by explaining what these guys did in some detail, but also who they were doing it to, was to kind of reorganize the true crime tropes. I think a lot of true crime ends up sort of glamorizing the killer. They’re the star of the show. But a lot of these guys, particularly Bundy, come off as almost like these evil geniuses, you know? They’re painted as these kind of Hannibal Lecter-type figures who can escape detection. But the thing about lead and lead exposure is that it really sort of reorganizes your brain if you are exposed to it as a kid. All the things about controlling your behavior and your impulses are affected. Kids who have been exposed seriously to lead can become much more aggressive and much more violent. And so, in describing what, say, Bundy or some of these other guys did in a matter-of-fact kind of way really corrects the impression that these guys were geniuses. Because they were not geniuses. They were cunning in many ways, but they certainly were not some incredible level of criminal capacity. And in fact, almost all of these guys were pre-DNA, and that’s mainly the reason why most of them didn’t get caught. And also just the incompetence of the police. But to your point, yeah, I think that the women who got murdered in many cases were far more interesting and valuable as people. And so it just seemed natural to describe who they were and what was lost. Sottile It’s really effective. And I found myself getting really nervous every time a new person was introduced into the plot, where I was like, ‘is this person going to get killed or are they going to get away?’ But I felt like that was really appropriate—like perhaps I should always be nervous reading a book about murder and murderers. But there are shows out there about picking your favorite murderer. So I’d like to talk to you about the ethics around true crime. Did you worry that this book would be shelved as true crime? What were your thoughts around being a part of the genre? Fraser It actually turned into kind of a tussle with the publisher because they were really nervous about having this labeled as true crime. I didn’t mind it in a way. I mean, everything you’re saying about true crime is true. The origins of true crime are incredibly sleazy. It essentially began as this kind of soft-core porn for men that was sold in drug stores and was illustrated with these horrible color illustrations of women being strangled or stabbed. But the more I looked at the evolution of true crime, especially in the last 25, 30 years since Ann Rule’s book about Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me. I’m talking just about books here, not about tv—which is a whole other story. But in books, I think there’s been a lot of movement to make true crime, really, the history of crime and the history of crimes against women. So I think it’s evolving and I didn’t mind being tagged with that, because what I wanted to do in the book was to present a whole history of this topic: all the stuff that happened with serial killers and the history of violence in this period. Crime in the US went up quite sharply in the 1970s and ‘80s along with the rise of leaded gas and smelters. Those heights of the crime rate have never been exceeded since. So it went up, up, up, then it leveled off when leaded gas was removed from the market, and it abruptly fell off. So the book is looking at that history, the period of time in which lead did its worst and had the results that it did, and then was removed. The smelters closed down. We now have far less crime than we used to have. All this stuff that you’re seeing in the news now, of the Trump administration claiming that crime is at its worst, and it’s just a horror show out there. That’s all complete misinformation. It’s really lies. Sottile As I read this, I started to wonder or pick up an argument you were making, that the serial killers maybe we’ve all been focused on are not actually the biggest serial killers. Talk about this environmental research that you did and where you landed on the effects that these companies, these multinational corporations have had on people’s health. Fraser I think it’s inescapable that when you look at the behavior of, say, ASARCO, which was owned by the Guggenheim family, and some of these other entities, like the company that was running the smelter in Kellogg, Idaho—Bunker Hill. The similarity between their behavior and the behavior of the serial killers is really so inescapable that it’s almost funny. You can’t even believe what these guys did. In the Bunker Hill case, they lost control of their filtration system in 1973 when a fire broke out and destroyed a lot of the filters that were keeping lead—or some of the lead—out of the environment. They just decided because the price of lead was so high, they were just going to keep running their lead smelter full blast for months and months. And they did this back-of-the-napkin calculation of how much they would have to pay for killing or crippling all these kids in the town of Kellogg. And they decided, ‘well, that’s worth it because it’s going to cost us more to shut the plant down.’ They were murderers. They were liars and murderers. And it’s the lying that I’m really fascinated by, because it’s so calculated and furtive and they just can’t control themselves. Sottile As someone who’s spent an inordinate amount of time swimming in Lake Coeur d’Alene, that’s not a thing I think I’ll do again after reading your book. I was surprised to learn how many of these communities, specifically like Kellogg and Wallace and in North Idaho—the people there knew about a lot of the pollution that was falling on them and their children, but chose to stay. I thought that was an interesting thing to point out about the culture. Fraser I think it’s an illustration of the desperation in a lot of these towns that these were the only jobs. And so people were being forced to choose between being destitute and not having a job, or having to go somewhere else to find a job and surviving. And they took a risk. A lot of the guys who worked in the Tacoma smelter, those jobs were just the most horrible. Dangerous. You’re working with these giant vats of molten metal, moving them from place to place and pouring molten metal. Guys got their eyes put out by chunks of hot metal flying through the air. Just really hellacious circumstances. This is why none of these places can reopen now, because of OSHA regulations and the EPA. Sottile Talk about how all of this squared up with the commonly held perception that places like Washington and Oregon are extremely green states, very friendly to the environment. I found myself wondering if I had been subjected to some kind of propaganda growing up here. Fraser Well there’s what you see and what you can’t see. Growing up in Puget Sound, it’s so beautiful, and all the recreation, the mountain climbing, the skiing, the water sports, the sailing, all of that—it’s deceptive. It’s like swimming in Lake Coeur d’Alene, where I have swam myself. It’s a beautiful mountain lake, and you look at it and you can’t tell that there’s anything wrong with it. You can’t tell that it’s full of lead and a lot of other stuff that is at the bottom. And what could happen with Lake Coeur d’Alene is that if the water continues to be oxygenated by all the septic systems and all the other stuff that’s being built out there, that could agitate and change the chemical composition. Lead could start entering the water column and rising up and really changing what that looks like and smells like. I hope that doesn’t happen, but that’s the risk that they’re running. Sottile The EPA in March touted the biggest deregulation of the Clean Air Act since it was sponsored. Now that you’ve written this book, how do you hear that news? Fraser Well, it’s dismal. I’m not suggesting that we’re going to go back to the state of the things that I was describing in this book, because that’s very unlikely. Nobody’s going to start selling leaded gas. Nobody’s going to reopen the smelters for the reasons that I just described. But there are so many other ways in which we’re putting these chemicals and heavy metals into the environment. I think almost every day there are new discoveries about lead in schools, in crops, and applesauce, and baby food, and toothpaste. There’s a lot of lead out there that has to be contended with. We have to do something about it. And then there’s also all the news about all the particulate pollution. Lead causes heart disease, it doesn’t just cause you to be crazy and violent. It can cause ALS. And all this particulate pollution—some of which includes lead and cadmium, and carbon monoxide and a whole suite of different things—those are killers too. And so the fact that they’re just not going to regulate or, or cut regulations, on these plants is really bad news. Sottile So much of this book is also about you and growing up on Mercer Island. There are so many fantastic essays in this book. There are mentions of Twin Peaks and David Lynch and all these things that I love. But talk about this essay component a little bit more. Obviously you talked about how a house blew up down the street—that’s a notable childhood event to write about. But there’s a lot more essay here about your family. Fraser I sort of wanted to recreate what it was like in the 1970s. Domestically, it was a very different environment and there were a lot of different expectations and there was a lot of violence in the home. I think at that time there was domestic violence, there was corporal punishment in schools. All kinds of stuff was subtly different. And there was a real male prerogative at work. And I think that’s why I brought in some of the descriptions of my father who was kind of a scary guy. It was not to say that he was a serial killer, but just to show that there’s kind of a range of behavior—that even things that seem fairly mild or not that malevolent can be threatening in a home environment or at school. I sort of wanted to give a sense of what it was like to grow up then for girls, to hear about all this news of the stuff that was happening. With Bundy, I do remember the weekend of Lake Sammamish in July of 1974. I was 13 years old. And just hearing about these women who had disappeared and just thinking, ‘what does that mean? Where are they? What happened to them?’ And not even being able to conceptualize what that was all about. Audience Member What was the most surprising thing you learned in the process of writing this book? Fraser Well, I was pretty surprised that entire generations of people in the Northwest were deliberately poisoned with arsenic and lead by the decision of this corporate actor. I mean, you go to the Guggenheim Museum now, and you could talk to a hundred people who are in that museum and ask them, ‘how did the Guggenheims make their money?’ And I bet nobody would know the answer to that, but that’s how they made their money. And I have to say, it was something that made me really, really angry to learn about that. So if that counts as surprising, I think that was probably the most surprising thing to me. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ PreviousIt Seems Like You’ve Been Preparing Your Whole Life, Ally Ang Next Seven Microstories, Amy Hirayama › https://mosslit.com/Amy-Hirayama-Seven-Microstories Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:53:12 +0000 Moss. https://mosslit.com/Amy-Hirayama-Seven-Microstories <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8ef6b382282c919afe43023751ea36059951791fe06d6f360ec971385b4432e3/27543.jpg" style="min-height:100%;width:100%;opacity:0.2;"> <img src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/991afeeda5e370af3640bb34b1f0a51a1e1e1f668a730583aed89ea8e057ad0d/Moss-sitebg-2020new1.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> <img src="https://mosslit.pseudopia.com/Moss-2020site-Vol5-side1tall.jpg" style="min-height:100%;filter:brightness(60%);"> Seven Microstories Amy Hirayama Shannon had his pants down Shannon had his pants down before we even reached the pebble bed. I said, “How ‘bout a little romance, huh?” I liked the look of him, though, the way his nose had grown since we first met at the ocean. He was bigger then, with a swimmer’s body made for lapping, and those freckles up and down his torso. Mmm! The pants weren’t going on again, but he indulged me with a dance, wiggling those skinny hips so hard he shed some scales right there in front of me. Was there privacy? No. I would have liked a little time alone, a chance to tell him things that I’d been thinking for a long, long time. Like how I saw a woman crying by the river once, and she made me feel how dumb it is to be alone. We got our groove on in the pebble bed. Shannon almost fought with some rotten meathead who liked my style. I told them both to chill. (Don’t tell Shannon, but I invited meathead to meet me upstream later.) After makin’ babies, Shannon was worn out, so I pecked him on the cheek, said see ya in the next life, and left him there to die. Actually, I’m Seaweed When I told my husband that, actually, I’m seaweed, he said, “Huh. I can see that,” and went back to scraping his fork across the plate. He had no questions. I wasn’t asking for a cinematic reaction, just a little curiosity. It would have been nice if he’d said, “What do you mean you’re actually seaweed? You don’t look like seaweed. Except for your hair, which has always been that brown kelp color, and now that I think about it, the first time we kissed I thought you tasted salty.” And I would have said, “That’s brine. I’m brined!” And he would have laughed and said, “Oh my God, this is crazy! So all those times when we were at the beach, and those little crabs found their way onto our blanket?” “It’s because I’m seaweed. They thought I was a snack!” “And what about the time when we were hiking on the bluff and that eagle kept dive-bombing you, like it wanted to carry you away?” “They use seaweed in their nests!” “So it wasn’t just my imagination that that one sushi chef seemed kind of obsessed with you every time we went for omakase?” “I’m really good seaweed!” I would have said. It would have been nice to explain why I’m so good at cooking fish, and why my skin gets leathery in the cold, dry winter and why I can eat so much salt without raising my blood pressure. Instead he said, “It’s not important. I love you anyway.” Wandering Eye I realized, after twenty years, I was living in a jar of cocktail onions, white bulbs with visible veins. I couldn’t take another day up against the glass, so I left the jar, onions crying. I found a bunch of grapes, sweet, but seedy, always peeling off their clothes. I liked the juice, the wine, the raisins; but, wine turns to vinegar and raisins turn to rocks, and so I left the vineyard. I fell in with a pack of marbles, hard and violent. I liked to watch them slapping glass and chipping teeth in fits of fury. I tried to roll with them, but busted blood vessels. &nbsp; I thought the bag of party ice was love. I misunderstood. I bathed in bourbon and thrilled at the intimacy of cold, while it lasted. I should have noticed the melting. I soothed my frostbite in a bowl of tapioca. I’d never known such warmth. I’d never felt so sticky. I never suspected I’d tire of togetherness. I discovered that kindness can be cloying. I met a foreign object. I met some dust. I met saline. I met smoke. I don’t know where to look now. We Wanted to Cook Some Forgiveness We wanted to cook some forgiveness, but mother used up all the flour and she forgot to buy more eggs and the milk was bad. She wasn’t home. We were ready, we put our little aprons on and tied each other’s bows. We pulled our chairs up to the counter so we could reach the cupboards with the mixing bowls and spices. Gentle with the big glass bowl, we reminded each other. It’s tough but it will break if you’re not careful. Mother wasn’t home, but we tried to make it anyway. At the sink we scrubbed our hands and frothed the soap just like she taught us to. No germs in our forgiveness! We turned the oven on and greased the pan with Crisco, but couldn’t dust it without flour. We tried to remember the recipe, but I know we got it wrong. We used cornmeal, which was kind of scratchy on our tongues, and mixed powdered creamer with warm water, the closest thing to milk. We put in extra soda to make it grow bigger bigger, the biggest forgiveness anyone had ever cooked. The white sugar had ants in it, so we pulled every kind of sweetness from the pantry – condensed milk, maple syrup, rainbow sprinkles, molasses, honey. In the oven our forgiveness rose. When we pulled it out we celebrated, until the cold air pressed it down again and we choked on our first bites. Parallel Mirrors The day my husband started to look like me was the same day he stopped eating my food. After thirteen years he decided it wasn’t to his taste. I was surprised because we cooked the same food on a schedule. Mondays fish, Tuesdays spaghetti, Wednesdays teriyaki chicken, Thursdays omelets, Fridays stew, Saturdays leftover stew, Sundays peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Now every time I cooked, he made a parallel meal. Same recipes, same ingredients, different cooks. His hair got longer and it went from the color of wheat bread to the color of black and white sesame seeds mixed in a bowl. The angle of his jaw softened and his mouth got smaller and more pink. It was also the same day the girls started to look like my husband. Their eyes faded from black to blue and they grew little beards. They stopped eating my food too. Eventually there were two of me in my size and two of my husband in children’s sizes and I stopped cooking altogether. I stopped coming to the dinner table because my husband said everything I was going to say, and the girls always got food in their beards, which was disgusting. On the day I left they were eating spaghetti. I watched them from the window and I thought, “What a happy little family.” Mother and the Moon Mother told us when the moon cries, that’s how pearls are made. They drip from her eyes and plop into the ocean in the night. She told us the moon’s skin feels like whipped cream and that the craters come from stars who want to kiss her face. Mother said the moon waxes when she feasts on nebulae and drinks the milky way. But Mother was a liar. Everybody knows that the moon is a man, and so is the sun, and so are the stars, and the moon doesn’t cry, it only beams. We told her, Mother, that’s not where pearls come from, they’re bits of sand in an oyster shell, which is science, Mother, which we believe in more than we believe in you. That’s not whipped cream, it’s just dust, and the moon has no appetite, it has no belly, you can’t drink a galaxy because galaxies aren’t liquid, Mother. She poured us another glass of spoiled skim milk and waned. There’s No Soap in the Afterlife There’s no soap in the afterlife, and so we are fastidious. We don’t smell. It’s not a matter of hygiene. It’s the sheets. We only get one. At first we want to keep wearing our old clothes, at least those of us who die in clothes. The poor girls who die naked are so relieved to have a sheet. They wrap it around themselves and hold it tightly. Sometimes they stay concealed for months. We might glimpse a shiny brown eye or the tip of a toe if they’re out and about, walking with the rest of us. But usually they crumple up beneath the weeping willow tree and breathe, their sheets rising softly. Occasionally there’s a rebellious soul who enters naked (sex-related heart attack) and struts around in all his stupid glory. We don’t let him near the weeping willow. It’s not a bad idea to wear your old clothes for a while. It means your sheet will stay clean just a little longer. But eventually the seams begin to chafe, the fabric starts to itch and you feel silly all dolled up in crowds of sheet-clad fellow dead. Without soap all we can do is give our sheets a good thrashing in the river. Too much washing and the fabric’s tender fibers start to fray. But leave a smudge too long it will set indefinitely, which is a serious word in the afterlife, and you might become Lydia with the grass stain on her bum or Carlos with the dick-shaped grease mark on his chest. Amy Hirayama is a writer and educator from Seattle. She teaches English at South Seattle College, is a creative writing instructor with Writers in the Schools, and serves as programs director at Common Area Maintenance. Originally published in Moss: Volume Ten. ‹ Previous Caroline Fraser in conversation with Leah Sottile Next awe, an accounting, Katie Prince ›