by Nolan Knight
Flash Fiction
She hires us to carry stuff. Big-time celebrity. Calls Mega Movers on Sundays. We meet her at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. Dresses down in designer jeans—Dodgers cap, pink sunglasses. Her handler thinks she’s at Hope Chapel or AA. Buys old furniture. Lamps. Stained glass. We haul it to the truck, then wait beneath giant oaks. Gets us bacon-wrapped dogs for lunch. One time, a beer. Watches us scarf as she vapes. New diet, some buzzworthy indie. Pocahontas, maybe. No—vampires. She talks and talks, man. But we forget. Know when you just need someone to listen? We do that for her. Don’t mind. Pays the bills. Sundays away from the fam is rough, but she’s generous. All that Playboy money, we joke. Haul her stuff to a K-town storage unit. Jam everything with other moldy junk. Roadside tins. Hubcaps. A cigar store Indian. One time, we cracked this gilded mirror … She just stared into it: a shattered abyss. The way she laughed, man. Wept. Boy, she can act. Gave us autographed headshots for the kids. Kept us quiet.
Nolan Knight is the author of The Gorgon of Los Feliz, Gallows Dome, The Neon Lights Are Veins, and Beneath the Black Palms. He is a fourth-generation Angeleno and former staff writer for Los Angeles’ “Biggest Music Publication,” the L.A. Record. His short fiction has been featured in various publications including Akashic Books, Thuglit, Barely South Review, Starlite Pulp, and Action, Spectacle. His work has been met with praise by luminaries such as Barry Gifford, James Sallis, Allison Anders, and Lydia Lunch.