Ken Hada is a fourth generation Oklahoman, descendant of Danish and Hungarian immigrants: Gypsy poets, barn dance aficionados, art lovers, amateur philosophers, wheat farmers, preachers, teachers and common-sense craftsmen.

“These poems, acting as spare parts themselves, go into the making of one smooth-running, powerful engine.”

 - Diane Glancy

Author of Pushing the Bear

Sitting for a Very Long Time | by Jess Martinez

"I told you already— I don't have calling card. Go to tabac!" the Algerian storekeeper impatiently shouted at me in broken English. He fumbled with his keys as he closed his alimentation store for the night.

"I lost my cell phone! I have to—“

"Go home!" he cried and walked away.

I wandered around for a bit despite the blizzard conditions. I hadn’t even noticed that I left my apartment with my slippers still on.

Everyone was right. This was too soon. You were being unrealistic. You’ve ruined everything. It was 1 AM, I was alone in Paris and slowly going insane.

I sat outside my apartment building, lit a cigarette, and continued my mental breakdown.

This was no longer an "I'm going crazy!" cry but a "Fuck you Paris, you're a piece of SHIT!” cry filled with frustration, resentment, and disappointment. Once I couldn't see through my swollen eyelids I went back inside. I didn't fall asleep until around 6 AM, only to wake-up twenty-five minutes later to go to work.

What am I doing? was all I could think.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the gallery’s door and forced a smile.

"Bon jour Andrea!" Odette sang in a cheery voice. "I didn't see you at the opening last night. Were you hiding in the toilette again?"

"I stayed home," I mumbled as I walked to my desk.

“Oh,” she replied. “Pity.”

Odette is an annoyingly perky 24-year-old, beautifully bred Parisian with fantastic breasts, and a charming personality. It’s no surprise that she snagged the job that I wanted and I got The Other One. Despite that she is three years younger than me and has less experience.

I sincerely hope she gets raped.

“Jean, this is Andrea. She recently joined the auction department,” Odette said as she crept up to my cubicle during lunchtime. “She primarily deals with London and New York; anyone that speaks English. You should hear her French, it’s so American!” she said laughing at me.

I looked up from my laptop to see a small college boy with a pointy face in a biker jacket. It was as if the jacket was trying to shield all the times he ever got picked on.

“Bon jour. Are you our new intern?” I asked politely. He was kind of cute. Maybe I could invite him out for lunch. Probably only six years younger. Am I gross? Am I desperate?

 “No,” Jean replied coldly, “I am the curator.”

After an embarrassing pause, he excused himself. As Odette walked to the restroom, I could hear her whispering to her assistant. They briefly glanced at me and resumed to their mocking. They do it so often I’ve actually gotten quite used to it.

I've been here almost two months and have not made a single friend. I have a feeling this will not change.

Longing for something that didn’t involve cheese or bread, I picked up some fast food on my way home later that night. I live by myself in a working-class neighborhood with mostly Algerian, Turkish and Jamaican residents. It reminds me of home.

 My neighbor Sébastien likes to plays loud music and knocks on my door when he’s drunk.

“Want to be naughty?” he’ll slur from time to time.

“Non,” I’ll sigh. “Non merci.”

He shrugs it off and eventually passes out on my living room floor. I usually sit with him for a while and hold his hand while he sleeps; he tends to cry while he dreams.

Sometimes I give him a haircut. He has wild untamed curls. It’s becoming a problem for me.

Jeremy’s curls were always nice and bouncy. I loved smelling his hair while we had sex. I close my eyes and imagine him lying next to me. I feel nothing but chest pains.

“Class, I highly suggest you all study if you ever want to advance to Level Deux,” Madame Girard announced later that weekend as I sat at my Intro to French class at a nearby university. The gallery had pretty much forced me to take it due to all the fuck-ups I cause every day.

“Ms. Watson, very disappointing. Please see me after class,” she said as she handed my exam back. It was bleeding.

 I tried to drown myself again while taking a bath that night. Being in the swim team for seven years must have paid off. I got tired of waiting that I eventually got up and watched TV until I fell asleep.

I love sleeping. Ever since I moved to Paris I’ve had vivid dreams. I dream about Jeremy’s curls and his scruffy face and his dumb tattoos. I dream that I didn’t have a miscarriage and wasn’t secretly relieved. I dream that I didn’t get cold feet and that everyone understood. I dream that I’m okay. I dream that my friends remember my birthday. I dream that my sister is alive and that I don’t yell at her all the time. And then I wake-up.

It feels like I’m no longer allowed to live in the clouds for more than four hours at a time. I’m trying not to be resentful but it’s becoming much harder.

“Une international, uh, carnet. S'il vous plaît,” I said to the cashier at a tabac a few days later. She stared at me blankly. Sighing, I tried once again.

“UNE,” I repeated holding one finger up. I then pointed at a calling card sign on display. “America,” I pronounced clearly, while making a phone gesture.

“Seven euros. Is that all?” the cashier asked in perfect English.

 Paris, forty-nine points. Andrea, negative seventeen.

 I ran to the nearest public pay phone and closed the door. I dialed my calling card’s numbers furiously and waited. My heart skipped, my stomach turned. I waited. I wanted to throw-up, but my throat was suddenly very dry. What if I couldn’t speak? What if I chocked again? What if he didn’t—

“We are sorry. The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Please hang up and try your call again.” Click.

And just like that, I was once again denied something. Surprised, I hung up. My heart sank and I could feel it moving inside, trying to suppress everything I have been trying to keep inside all of these years.

Not knowing what else to do, I sat there for a very long time.

“Stop thinking too much,” Sebastien said to me later that night. “Have some more wine.”

            My groans echoed inside the toilet bowl. I felt the thin, calloused fingers that swooned women with his violin, gently massage my back, trying to comfort me. His other fingers held my hair back, a sentimental and true testament of friendship.

            I jerked my body to my very cold tiled bathroom floor, wiping away the third round of vomit with my arm, which I had thought was covered with a sleeve. I looked across to the full-length mirror and saw my reflection staring back. I was in a see-thru bra and underwear; how surprisingly sexy of me. I glanced at Sebastien; he was barefoot, topless, boxers still on. They were lavender and had little cats all over them.

            “Those are hideous,” I slurred as I tugged at them. My speech caught me off-guard. I stared at the mirror again, this time really looking at myself. I looked and felt like a college freshman; the epitome of self-loathe.

            “Have some more wine,” he repeated, shoving a bottle to my face. I slapped his hand away and tried to stand up. I fell down, hitting my head against the sink.

            "Merde!" we both shouted in unison.

            I touched the back of my head, my fingers suddenly wet.

            Sebastien gently pressed a lukewarm cloth on my head, sadly smiling at me whenever eye contact was made.

            I scooped myself next to him and sat on his lap, resting my head on his bare, childlike chest. I closed my eyes and smelled stale cigarettes and cheap wine, his breath a slight hint of butter and mussels; the aroma of a French boy.

            I looked up at his face and saw a lost twenty-eight year old who fluently speaks three languages with natural ease, still mooching off his inheritance money, an alcoholic in deep denial, and completely oblivious of just how valuable he is to humanity. All he ever saw, he would later confess to me, was a university dropout, bastard product of a Jew and Mexican, unable to claim nationality to a place where he always called home but could never really understand. He had been to fifty-seven cities, twenty-one countries, six continents. He's still unsure as to why it's always back to Paris. He is still unsure of a lot of things.

            "Shall we make another attempt?" he asked, studying my facial features, most noticeably my eyebrows which really have gotten out of hand.

            I nodded, and despite knowing what he's referring to, I grabbed his face and smacked it to my lips. His eyes were wide open in surprise as I gently closed mines'. The only thing I could hear were unforgivable loud wet smacks, courtesy of moi.

            I opened one eye and saw his hand slowly making its way to my bra hook.

            I closed my eyes again, wishing that I were one of those people that could play along and only pretend to sober up when it's inconvenient to my feelings.

            But I'm not. And I know this because I try. And try. And try.

            So as I laid on the cold bathroom floor, lights now off, I thought of Jeremy and how foolish he was for shaving off his curls after I left him. He always hated his hair and only kept it because I loved kissing the top of his head, and the trail of its pomegranate scent would always make me smile.

            I ran my fingers through Sebastien's hair, as he successfully unhooked my bra, longing for something familiar.