Featured Fiction: Tommy Dean
An Introduction by John Fulton:
Tommy Dean
As readers will soon discover, Tommy Dean is a master of compression and the short form in prose fiction. Whether you call it flash or micro fiction or the slightly longer form of sudden fiction, Tommy Dean knows how to make a full story from a few lines or a few pages. In his superb portrait of an impoverished family in “A Place to Pray,” Dean shows us what happens when the indignity and suffering of two young boys and their father turns into a violent confrontation with their small-town preacher. Guns are brandished and fired in these pages, but even as the tension rises, we come to understand and sympathize with these angry characters. “Each drop of blood left in our bodies was a form of survival we had learned to live with,” the young narrator muses. In his quieter, briefer, but no less powerful story “The Body Holds onto What It Needs,” Dean explores the waning of love in a middle-aged couple. It’s summer and fireworks color the evening sky, but between this husband and wife the mystery and affection have faded. They nonetheless hold onto each other for complicated reasons that this story skillfully implies. The sense of place, specifically the Midwest, is strong and vividly conveyed here, both in the vast spaces and in the cadences of the dialogue. An unlikely blend of Cormack McCarthy, Sherwood Anderson, and John Updike, Tommy Dean speaks of and to America in a unique voice all his own.
The Body Holds onto What it Needs
They sit in camping chairs, at the edge of the lake, the water murky as they wait for the dark to crown the night and the fireworks to start. Half the town behind them, a buzz over their shoulders of kids running and screaming, of firecrackers exploding, of teenagers holding hands and kissing under the buzzing tennis court lights. In their early forties, they’re embarrassed by their yearning, to leap into the water, to put their hands near the intimate unshaven hollows of bodies skinny with youth. Remember, he says, but her knee pops as she readjusts, pulling her shirt down over the soft mound of her belly, the same one he couldn’t keep his hands off of, the way he could feel her muscles, the way she’d shiver, and with her eyes ask for more.
“I’ve been seeing someone,” he says, between bites of kettle corn. The burnt sugar smell comes between them, and she wishes he’d stop chewing.
“Like a doctor? Or a therapist?” She sees him in his letterman’s jacket, the leather sleeves cartoonishly big, his runner’s arms more bone than muscle. He only runs on weekends now, getting slower with each mile.
“Never mind.” He swats at a bug, shreds of white dot his chest. Where were the days she'd licked them off, had bitten his ear, made him mewl with desire. The TV was turned on more than either of them, bodies orbiting, but never colliding. Even his jokes can’t roll her eyes anymore.
“I don’t want to know, Matty. Keep it hidden, don’t let anyone know, see or smell it on you.” She plucks out a handful and puts it to her lips, inhales, thinking how she could split him right down the goddamn middle with what she's enjoyed in the safety of her head. For him. For their daughter. “I won’t be the gossip.”
The spark and sizzle of that first flare, the splash of color, the boom rattling the windows of the swanky house on the manufactured island at the edge of this greasy lake. A weeping willow and a tire swing, shadowed against the water. A place of envy. Postcarded with each flash of the light.
He reaches for her hand and she lets him hold it, fingers intertwined, knuckles already aching, his ring still fat on his finger. She tugs on it, knows how easily hers comes off each time she lotions her hands, but his won’t move past the knuckle. The scene of her standing and chucking it into the lake floats away like smoke. The body holds onto what it needs. All she can think of is her hunger.
She leans in, stage whispers in his ear, a caught sound between flares, “At least she’ll know who you’re coming home to.”
She beckons for the bag and he gives it to her so willingly. A bit of mirth coloring his face, and she doesn’t know if it’s for her or for her. She dumps the popcorn on his lap, coating his chest and crotch with the popped kernels. “Enjoy your little snack.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” he’ll tell her later on their walk back to the car, up the lengthening hills, past the church, and it’s cracked parking lot, dodging around the slower couples, those flagged by kids threatening to bob into the street.
But he never did anything on purpose. An argument so old it might as well have been sewed into their vows. Not even me? she doesn’t ask. Those colors, lilac, rose gold, Irish green, and blood red, super-imposed over her eyes, promising something deliberate. A future as rooted as that ring on her husband’s hand, filthy with germs and grease, barricaded by knuckle and muscle and fat, and memory.
A Place to Pray
We hide under the porch among the dust and shit, waiting for their chairs to start rocking. The old boards pop like grandpa’s finger joints. He died a year ago and still the money hasn’t come in. We’re supposed to be at school or out in the fields, mending fences for life stock we already sold to the butcher, the last steaks freezer-burnt in the back of the fridge. They took the electric a week ago, and now mom and dad are fighting over the foreclosure notice. We saw those red letters on the envelope, and started pooling together the change left in our dresser drawers, the couch cushions, the cup holder of the truck. Nine dollars and eighty-seven cents. Good for nothing but candy and gasoline, so we left it on the table, hoping it won’t go to the church offering this time. God provides, Mom always says, but it feels like theft to us. Our eyes going all gummy as that plate passed through our hands each week, wondering if it was made of real gold, something we could melt down. We ain’t that desperate, we remind ourselves as our bellies rumble and pinch, churning nothing but stomach acid.
“I’d just rather burn the sonofabitch to the ground,” Dad says, that chair tossing like a boat in a flood.
We pinch each other under the arm, on the shin, trying to keep each other quiet. We’re here hoping for a plan, knowing mom won’t stand for that kind of language.
“Now don’t start with that kind of talk, Jimmy. My knees already aching from all the praying I’m doing for you and the boys.” Her chair sighing like an old violin.
It’s hot outside, the temps giving us all headaches, but it’s cool under the porch.
“I’ll load them boys up in that truck right now. Beg like damn paupers if we have to. That what you want?”
“No one said you had to be a nuisance. Just come on Sunday. Father Pidgen said they’d do a love offering.”
“And let the whole world know we can’t make it? I’d just rather take that truck and run myself off the road. Let the Lord work in his miraculous ways.” He stood, dust dropping from the boards, our hands going to our noses, holding in a sneeze. Rocks digging into our knees, bodies on all fours, clouding over the ground, bugs skittering near our twitching fingers.
“Don’t tempt him, Jimmy.” The screen door snaps shut. Mom’s rocking chair arcing up and back before sitting dutifully, waiting for her to return.
We hold our breath, the sweat crusted over our eyebrows itching. He don’t let us wait for long.
A stomp stomp on the boards, and we duck, noses tipped away from the shit, eyes catching, blinking. A fire in yours, but I shake my head. We’re not strong enough yet. A plan we’d been edging around, talking about running away, leaving our father to his dust.
“Come on out, you rascals. And mind your pants, we got a preacher to visit.”
We scuttled out of there, standing and slapping the dust and dirt off of each other, the hits growing in intensity, until our father stands next to us, his hands on each of our necks, holding us apart.
“You boys get wilder every day.” We get in the truck, the bench seat springs pushing back at us in protest. He cranks the key and we’re bumping out of the driveway. “This world ain’t ready for either of you.”
A short ride to the church, the country roads narrow and bumpy, our father shouting at us over the wind, the a/c broke in the truck. The seat belts work, but our dad never enforces them, says we’re old enough to take care of ourselves, make decisions about our own goddamn futures.
He’s complaining about taxes, about the government taking our money, trying to bring their weight down on us, getting us to cry uncle. “We got to get off the grid. Become self-sustaining. This ain’t no way for a man to live.”
He runs a couple of stop signs, whooping and hollering each time the truck glides through the intersection unharmed. “We’ll just see what that pastor has to say about us. Let him look you boys in the eye and tell you no.”
In the church parking lot, Dad revs the engine, the valves cough, a sickness creeping from everything we own. We bounce on the seat, keyed up by the powerful noise. The pastor walks out the front door of the old church, the siding needing a new coat of paint, the steeple crooked, and threatening to fall off in the next strong wind. He hitches his pants with his left hand, the right wiping a rag over an apple. Had a sermon about it once. How he tackles his anxiety. Said we couldn’t always bother God with our troubles. We don’t talk to God about our father. How his voice cuts like a machete through long grass, our bodies wilting under the covers, hot breath holding each other quiet.
Dad flexes his wrists on the steering wheel. His arms ropey, as slender as spaghetti, but we know from the past how quick he can reach out, his slaps sharp and terrible. He reaches over us, his body hot, and we shrink against the seat. He pops open the glove box and there’s his handgun, holstered, but wedged between maps and napkins, a tire pressure gauge. He grabs a napkin and dabs at his forehead, before slamming the glove box shut.
“Come on,” our father says, turning off the truck, and pushing out his door. He cocks his head. “You’ll all want to see this.” He smirks and we know there’s trouble ahead.
We were baptized by this pastor on the same day, floating in white robes, the man’s soft hands cradling the back of our necks, pulling us down into the water, our eyes finding each other, daring the other to stay down, wondering if a person could drown during a heavenly ritual. We made him struggle that morning, his feet coming out from under him, sending him into the water. He came up like a fist, sputtering water, tie wet up to his neck, arms wheeling for something to grab ahold of. We moved out of his way and out of the tub, afraid he’d pull us back under. The deacons came running, and closed off the congregations view of the fount. The choir started singing. Something slow and depressing. The pastor surfaced like a beach ball, laying his head back, catching his breath. “We didn’t mean it,” we said, shivering in our wet robes. “Surely, the Lord sent you boys to test me. Your wickedness is a sign. I suggest you find a place to pray about it. Somewhere I can’t get my hands on you.”
The men meet halfway between the truck and the church. The sun glosses over the glass doors, and the truck engine ticks, oil settling. The Pastor’s tie is unknotted and hanging over his large belly like a snake trying to swallow a pig. He holds out his hand, but Dad folds his arms over his chest.
“Maggie already called. Said you’d be on your way. She told you about the love offering, right? Just a few more days and we’ll get you all taken care of.” He holds up the apple to the light, the yellow skin catching a glint of sunlight. Reminds me of Eve and that forbidden fruit. Something too sweet, not to take.
“I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna stand up front of that church and see all that pity beaming back at me. You got no right, Pidgen.”
“Now, Jimmy. Ain’t no reason for that kind of language. Some things have to remain sacred.”
“How about my boys going hungry? Obeying the word and still their mother and father without jobs? Laying down in their own sweat because we can’t afford the a/c? Is that in your goddamn book?” Dad said. His voice slithering through the air like a snake in the dirt confident in their ability to strike.
“I heard you been offered a job on Dan Ford’s farm. Or is shit-shoveling beneath you, Jimmy? Hell, them boys could learn a thing or two if you took them with you.”
Dad closed the gap between him and the preacher, us holding each other’s shoulders, as he struck out and knocked that apple to the ground. We leapt for it, kicking up dust, the fruit slipping around like a football.
“Boys! Boys! Have some dignity for Jesus’ sake!” the preacher said, reaching down and pulling at the back of our britches, trying to pull us up. We were still punching, dust in our faces, when we heard the shot. The preacher dropped us back to the dust and we covered our heads. Looking up, Dad stood next to the truck, passenger side door open, the gun pointed at the preacher. His gut wobbled as he got on his knees next to us. We thought he’d start praying, but he said, Help me boys. Help me turn the devil out of your father. Or none us will survive.
“Stand him up now, boys.” Dad stood over us, gesturing with the gun. We could smell the oil, that black whole larger than our eyeballs. The smell of iron catching in the back of our throats from those winter hunting trips. Dressed rabbits and deer. Blood splashed across the ground.
We each grabbed an arm and the preacher lurched to his feet. His skin was slick with sweat, fear goose-pimped across his forearms. He could have thrown us off, could have struck out, but he was soft at heart, and we started coaching him, saying, “Easy now. Just walk. There you go. That does it.” Last words our Dad had given many a goat or pig in those years he failed at farming livestock, each animal stringier than the last.
“Just a stroll into the church. A place of miracles if you play this right.”
At the church doors we dropped his arms, and the preacher lumbered through the sanctuary to the pulpit where he collapsed onto his back, his chest heaving, eyes searching. Those paintings of Jesus on the cross, his body malnourished and twisted in torture looking down on us.
“Keep an eye on that sack of shit. He moves you start hollering.” Dad pushed the gun down the back of his jeans and walked out of the room, not looking back, knowing we’d obey.
We huddled together in the first pew. We picked at the mauve fabric, worried an untethered stich. We scanned each other’s faces for a sign of what might come next. Neither of us broke the silence of the preacher’s hyperventilating.
Boys…a shudder of breath. We were more afraid of the man in the painting than the animal laying near out feet.
The house…the phone…Boys…
“The fuck is taking so long,” we said, the smell of urine, sharp and rich. The preacher’s chest rising slower, that tie like a lake buoy. We nudged his shoulder with our feet, and he whimpered.
We could have taken out our own frustrations on him. How easily it would have been to strike out. Dad would have welcomed it. Would have slapped us on the backs as we walked to the truck, but the green heat of rage hadn’t reached our hearts yet. Our anger hadn’t found a target. Fear made us do some hateful things, made us suffer under Dad’s stare, but alone we waited, thumbing through those hymnals, hoping Dad wouldn’t ask us to commit his sins.
Dad returned with a whoop, his fists full of cash, the gun hidden behind his back.
“He give you any trouble?” he asked, handing us globs of money, dollar bills falling onto the preacher’s face. He blew them away from his mouth, probably afraid to move his hands.
Dad hoisted that gun from the back of his jeans, barrel swinging to a point just above the preacher’s head. “Boys, you get to decide. Is this man worth saving?
The preacher scrambled onto his knees, chest heaving, hands reaching upward.
“That’s far enough,” Dad said, his arm, a granite column, steady.
The blood in that painting glossy; the look on Christ’s face a mask of agony.
“Let him pray,” we said.
A hand on our father’s back, a hand around the wrist holding the gun. We guided the barrel down, wavering over the preacher’s chest, that fucking tie, his gut, his knee, over his shoe, toward the red carpet, so rich with dust. We squeezed our father’s finger, the gun barking, the bullet flashing into the carpet and the floor below, burrowing.
The smell of hot metal chased us out of the sanctuary. We covered our ears in the truck, piles of cash wafting in the breeze as we retraced those dirt roads back home.
Each drop of blood left in our bodies was a form of survival we had learned to live with. Dad was a hard man, but the world was harder, and we knew what team we played for.
Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021), and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press, 2022). He lives in Indiana, where he currently is the Editor at Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. A recipient of the 2019 Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, his writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, and Best Small Fiction 2019 and 2022. His work has been published in Monkeybicycle, Laurel Review, Moon City Review, Pithead Chapel, Harpur Palate, and many other litmags. He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, The Writers Center, and The Writers Workshop. Find him at tommydeanwriter.com and on X @TommyDeanWriter.