Quinn Carver Johnson
CHEAP HEAT // ACTION CITY
& in the midwest
on my drag down main / out for lunch / I count more abandoned buildings / than not / limping
down a main street / on its last leg / through the dust-tinted storefront window / I guess that the
gallery filled with mattresses / sold them / once / outside grizzled men / sit on the sidewalk /
beneath a ripped awning / that once shielded summer sun / next door / a bookstore has moved to a
new location / at the new location / a bookstore / has closed /sorry/ outside the family-owned
vacuum shop / stands Bigfoot in overalls / some say it’s a front for drugs / how many vacuums can
you possibly sell / they always say / Bigfoot in the parking lot / come in / Bigfoot in the window /
a warning / don’t come asking any questions / on the drive down dirt roads / trailers turned to
homes / turned to laboratories / have turned to ashes / on the corner / a church sign /we have two
bathrooms/gen 5:2/ on the road into town / billboard /MAGA/vote red/ back alley / behind the
1920s vaudeville theatre / teenage graffiti /love more/please
& in the midwest
I come spinning / screaming / from town to town / like a tornado / I can pack the whole county
into the seats / in the basement gym of the old 2A high school / huddled beneath the handsewn
banners of titles / long-since surrendered / in towns where there is little more to do / except break
what is not yours / to break / people cannot take their eyes off / the mess / I leave in my wake / &
when I come spiraling / through the sky / shattering glass panes & breaking bodies over boards /
mothers curtain their hands / over their child’s eyes / but they peek through / fingers like plastic
blinds / dads drink beers / to celebrate the wreckage / as if / this kind of disaster is nothing out of
the ordinary / & you can read about it in the local paper / tomorrow / an opinion column / a
concerned parent / what will this do to her two young boys / to see this type of pain / this violence
/ where they call home
& in the midwest
on my drag down main / out for lunch / I count more abandoned buildings / than not / limping
down a main street / on its last leg / through the dust-tinted storefront window / I guess that the
gallery filled with mattresses / sold them / once / outside grizzled men / sit on the sidewalk /
beneath a ripped awning / that once shielded summer sun / next door / a bookstore has moved to a
new location / at the new location / a bookstore / has closed /sorry/ outside the family-owned
vacuum shop / stands Bigfoot in overalls / some say it’s a front for drugs / how many vacuums can
you possibly sell / they always say / Bigfoot in the parking lot / come in / Bigfoot in the window /
a warning / don’t come asking any questions / on the drive down dirt roads / trailers turned to
homes / turned to laboratories / have turned to ashes / on the corner / a church sign /we have two
bathrooms/gen 5:2/ on the road into town / billboard /MAGA/vote red/ back alley / behind the
1920s vaudeville theatre / teenage graffiti /love more/please
& in the midwest
I come spinning / screaming / from town to town / like a tornado / I can pack the whole county
into the seats / in the basement gym of the old 2A high school / huddled beneath the handsewn
banners of titles / long-since surrendered / in towns where there is little more to do / except break
what is not yours / to break / people cannot take their eyes off / the mess / I leave in my wake / &
when I come spiraling / through the sky / shattering glass panes & breaking bodies over boards /
mothers curtain their hands / over their child’s eyes / but they peek through / fingers like plastic
blinds / dads drink beers / to celebrate the wreckage / as if / this kind of disaster is nothing out of
the ordinary / & you can read about it in the local paper / tomorrow / an opinion column / a
concerned parent / what will this do to her two young boys / to see this type of pain / this violence
/ where they call home
BEFORE IT SETS IN
When I was six
maybe, one of the older boys
in the neighborhood slipped a tree branch
between the spokes of my bike & sent me
careening into loose gravel. Someone else
might tell you this was the moment
they learned they could tolerate pain. Not me.
I cried the whole dizzy run home. I’m not sure
I ever had that moment.
I spend most evenings
now sweating over the fight to come &
the whole night after pulsing in agony. Only
those few, untethered moments in the ring
are free of worry, when I buzz like static,
my muscles on auto-pilot,
slap the mat to rile up the crowd
& launch myself over the top rope
with a life-risking tackle, the fight spilling
out into the arena. But that’s a different story. No,
the lesson came from my mother.
A trinket of wisdom passed
through a lineage of resourceful women
from mother to daughter to granddaughter
to rest finally in the hands of this bastard child--
your own saliva can pull a blood stain from fabric.
I sat, crying in the bathroom,
as my mother made me spit & spit
into my splattered shirt--I can’t do it,
she said, it has to come from you--
as my mother dabbed stinging alcohol
into splotches & smears of scrapes &
gashes tearing from my cheek down
over my shoulder & across my chest.
Quick. Before it sets in.
Then it's too late.Slowly,
the small dark something
that had blotted the fabric began to fade.
The magic, to make the evidence of pain
disappear. To transform the body
using only the body. To negate and replenish.
Now, after each match, I sit in the damp, barely light
of makeshift locker rooms and spit into my mask,
scrubbing from it the night’s gruesome history.
With each swish of the cheeks, pucker of the lips,
scrutiny of the thumb & forefinger,
pulling molecules of myself from the weaving.
When I wasn’t alone on the road,
I’d sit shotgun in the harsh beam
of the overhead cabin lights
while I performed the post-match ritual.
Spit. Scrub. Spit. Scrub. Driving through
the night & at the crack of a new day,
all memory of one town erased
just as I reached the next.
Of course, it is therapy to wash away
what brings us pain. Therapy to start
again the next morning, new & clean.
When I was six
maybe, one of the older boys
in the neighborhood slipped a tree branch
between the spokes of my bike & sent me
careening into loose gravel. Someone else
might tell you this was the moment
they learned they could tolerate pain. Not me.
I cried the whole dizzy run home. I’m not sure
I ever had that moment.
I spend most evenings
now sweating over the fight to come &
the whole night after pulsing in agony. Only
those few, untethered moments in the ring
are free of worry, when I buzz like static,
my muscles on auto-pilot,
slap the mat to rile up the crowd
& launch myself over the top rope
with a life-risking tackle, the fight spilling
out into the arena. But that’s a different story. No,
the lesson came from my mother.
A trinket of wisdom passed
through a lineage of resourceful women
from mother to daughter to granddaughter
to rest finally in the hands of this bastard child--
your own saliva can pull a blood stain from fabric.
I sat, crying in the bathroom,
as my mother made me spit & spit
into my splattered shirt--I can’t do it,
she said, it has to come from you--
as my mother dabbed stinging alcohol
into splotches & smears of scrapes &
gashes tearing from my cheek down
over my shoulder & across my chest.
Quick. Before it sets in.
Then it's too late.Slowly,
the small dark something
that had blotted the fabric began to fade.
The magic, to make the evidence of pain
disappear. To transform the body
using only the body. To negate and replenish.
Now, after each match, I sit in the damp, barely light
of makeshift locker rooms and spit into my mask,
scrubbing from it the night’s gruesome history.
With each swish of the cheeks, pucker of the lips,
scrutiny of the thumb & forefinger,
pulling molecules of myself from the weaving.
When I wasn’t alone on the road,
I’d sit shotgun in the harsh beam
of the overhead cabin lights
while I performed the post-match ritual.
Spit. Scrub. Spit. Scrub. Driving through
the night & at the crack of a new day,
all memory of one town erased
just as I reached the next.
Of course, it is therapy to wash away
what brings us pain. Therapy to start
again the next morning, new & clean.
ADRIAN STREET WINS THE MID-SOUTH TELEVISION CHAMPIONSHIP
September 26, 1984
Irish McNeil’s Boys Club
Shreveport, LA
As his music plays, a small child in the front row bounces along on their mother’s knee, clapping
joyfully as the crowd shakes their down-facing thumbs at the camera. Street is outfitted in chains
& leather, tipped with red & black feathers. [Look at that man.] A skull set in the dead center of
his forehead, wings fluttering around across the eyes. [I suppose he’s a man.] To one imagination,
Adrian Street has emerged from the heavy curtain in the back of certain bookstores & stumbled
upon this ring. As the Perfect Bastard watches, however, this man dripped in blood maroon &
clad in armor, they see a man approaching battle. Adrian Street marches to the ring to slay a
dragon.
The bell chimes & Street tosses a swift leg strike, but glides at the last moment, slides the hand
up the thigh & admires his own body. He flaunts & postures, skips around the ring. Even in this
he betrays a brutality, each dainty hop thundering upon the mat. [Commentary: His lifestyle is
unorthodox.] The Champion Terry Taylor tries to grapple, but Street somersaults out of every
hold. Taylor launches Street from one corner to the next, but every time Street pops back to his
feet & poses for the crowd, arms spread wide to drink in the frustration of the champ. [It is hard
to describe the movement of Adrian Street.]
When the ref isn’t looking, Street sneaks his heavy, closed coal-mining fists into the face of the
television champion. [A blatant right hand.] Street braids Taylor’s limbs. He chucks uppercuts
[Don’t let his appearance fool you] & throws his body to the wind. [He is double-tough.] Taylor
drops Street’s ribs onto a sturdy knee, stomps both feet into the chest. He lays in chops & resorts
to a closed fist of his own. [This is a see-saw battle.]
Street struggles to his feet [Street’s in trouble. Adrian Street is in trouble.] Taylor gripping a fist
of his platinum hair [Adrian Street’s complaining about the hair & then What?] The crowd
squeals. [Oh my God!] Taylor squirms, fights to get away. [He’s kissing Terry Taylor.] Street grips
the back of Taylor’s head, pressing his red-stained lips into the champ. [I have never seen
anything like this before in all my life: a man kissing another man.] [Dazed] Taylor stands
[Confused] shocked-still in the middle of the ring & Adrian Street rolls him up for the three
count.
From the commentary panel, Joel Watts screams I have never seen anything like this before in all
my life: a man kissing another man but those words could have fallen from the slack-jawed
mouth of a young Perfect Bastard, in their bedroom late at night. They glance frantically to the
crack beneath their door, watching for shadows to disrupt the thin stream of light from the hall.
Their finger hovers on the eject button on the VCR, ready to dispose of the tape at any moment.
Twenty years later, they watch that same tape, static cutting through as each man’s punches echo
through the screen, & what they notice now—what they can't ignore or unsee—is how Taylor
desperately tries to wriggle free, more desperate than when caught in any chokehold or arm bar.
How he flails & flails. & then the stillness of his body. Outside the ring, Street presses the heavy
gold medal against his heart and puckers kisses at the camera. The new champion of all
television staring down the TV audience, threatening the same poison, predatory kiss.
& the Perfect Bastard spends the night hugging the cold porcelain bowl.
September 26, 1984
Irish McNeil’s Boys Club
Shreveport, LA
As his music plays, a small child in the front row bounces along on their mother’s knee, clapping
joyfully as the crowd shakes their down-facing thumbs at the camera. Street is outfitted in chains
& leather, tipped with red & black feathers. [Look at that man.] A skull set in the dead center of
his forehead, wings fluttering around across the eyes. [I suppose he’s a man.] To one imagination,
Adrian Street has emerged from the heavy curtain in the back of certain bookstores & stumbled
upon this ring. As the Perfect Bastard watches, however, this man dripped in blood maroon &
clad in armor, they see a man approaching battle. Adrian Street marches to the ring to slay a
dragon.
The bell chimes & Street tosses a swift leg strike, but glides at the last moment, slides the hand
up the thigh & admires his own body. He flaunts & postures, skips around the ring. Even in this
he betrays a brutality, each dainty hop thundering upon the mat. [Commentary: His lifestyle is
unorthodox.] The Champion Terry Taylor tries to grapple, but Street somersaults out of every
hold. Taylor launches Street from one corner to the next, but every time Street pops back to his
feet & poses for the crowd, arms spread wide to drink in the frustration of the champ. [It is hard
to describe the movement of Adrian Street.]
When the ref isn’t looking, Street sneaks his heavy, closed coal-mining fists into the face of the
television champion. [A blatant right hand.] Street braids Taylor’s limbs. He chucks uppercuts
[Don’t let his appearance fool you] & throws his body to the wind. [He is double-tough.] Taylor
drops Street’s ribs onto a sturdy knee, stomps both feet into the chest. He lays in chops & resorts
to a closed fist of his own. [This is a see-saw battle.]
Street struggles to his feet [Street’s in trouble. Adrian Street is in trouble.] Taylor gripping a fist
of his platinum hair [Adrian Street’s complaining about the hair & then What?] The crowd
squeals. [Oh my God!] Taylor squirms, fights to get away. [He’s kissing Terry Taylor.] Street grips
the back of Taylor’s head, pressing his red-stained lips into the champ. [I have never seen
anything like this before in all my life: a man kissing another man.] [Dazed] Taylor stands
[Confused] shocked-still in the middle of the ring & Adrian Street rolls him up for the three
count.
From the commentary panel, Joel Watts screams I have never seen anything like this before in all
my life: a man kissing another man but those words could have fallen from the slack-jawed
mouth of a young Perfect Bastard, in their bedroom late at night. They glance frantically to the
crack beneath their door, watching for shadows to disrupt the thin stream of light from the hall.
Their finger hovers on the eject button on the VCR, ready to dispose of the tape at any moment.
Twenty years later, they watch that same tape, static cutting through as each man’s punches echo
through the screen, & what they notice now—what they can't ignore or unsee—is how Taylor
desperately tries to wriggle free, more desperate than when caught in any chokehold or arm bar.
How he flails & flails. & then the stillness of his body. Outside the ring, Street presses the heavy
gold medal against his heart and puckers kisses at the camera. The new champion of all
television staring down the TV audience, threatening the same poison, predatory kiss.
& the Perfect Bastard spends the night hugging the cold porcelain bowl.
Quinn Carver Johnson (they/them) is a graduate of Hendrix College with a degree in English: Creative Writing and Performance Studies. Johnson was an editorial intern at Sundress Publications, a volunteer for the 2019 VIDA Count, and former editor-in-chief for the Aonian. Their work has appeared in Rappahannock Review, Right Hand Pointing, Flint Hills Review, and elsewhere. Johnson currently lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma and works for the American Song Archive.