We Walk Away, the Three of Us by Tracy Gonzalez art by Gay Degani I am a guy and I am fighting you naked. We roll around. We roll around some more. We bounce into walls, into furniture. It's hard to grab a naked man but you try. I dart, twist free, your hands slide from my skin now polished with sweat. Maybe you think it feels gay, chasing a naked man, pig-grunting as you lunge, miss, lunge, stab, miss, charge, punch, miss. I feel sleek and dangerous like a diamondback gazelle except for the freeloader that is my lolling penis, which flops and sways in opposition to every graceful brave move I make. It is an embarrassing sidekick. I want to tuck it. I want the smooth, windswept, streamlined mound of a mons pubis. I hesitate in my frustration and you stab me in the thigh with your knife. I roll to the side, grab a lead pipe and swing it at your head. It connects with a THWACK. The pipe is hard, stiff, damage-doing. My penis just lazes with my rolling, it dangles useless, while the blood pools from the part of your head that has turned away from me. Your face is there, however, holding your mouth that is pulsing open and shut like a fish or a struggling asshole. Maybe your eyes see me, maybe they don't. I am too tired and uncaring to try to find out. I attempt to find strength in my legs so that I can stand and when I do, it's only partway. My knees are on my hands and I'm breathing like a thoroughbred racehorse after a morning sprint through the fog. My penis hangs and, like it or not, we're nose to nose. I look at the pipe. I look at my penis. I look at the pipe. I pick up the pipe. It's much better, I think, more useful. Read the interview. Tracy Gonzalez is trying new things. Visit her at trust-fall.blogspot.com. Gay Degani is a staff editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. She has published in journals and anthologies including two The Best of Every Day Fiction editions and her own collection, Pomegranate Stories. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2012 by its authors. Issue Thirty-One (March 28, 2011): Kapha by Joanne Avallon «» Wound Glue by Michael Cooper «» Natural by Julie Draper «» Everyday There is So Much about Elephants by Timothy Gager «» Renewables by Abe Gaustad «» We Walk Away, the Three of Us by Tracy Gonzalez «» Other Sons by Casey Hannan «» The Mystery of Water by Zin Kenter «» The Lives of Alligators by Robert Kloss «» A Turkey Baster Is Just Like a Penis by Rachel Levy «» Three Bodies by Mike Meginnis «» God, Two Girls by Adeena Reitberger «» Gestures by Megan Roberts «» Moons by Ethel Rohan «» The Man with the Ridiculously Huge Coupon by Rolli «» A Walk in the Woods by Robert Schladale «» The Way We Speak Now by Angi Becker Stevens «» Interviews: Joanne Avallon «» Michael Cooper «» Julie Draper «» Timothy Gager «» Abe Gaustad «» Tracy Gonzalez «» Casey Hannan «» Zin Kenter «» Robert Kloss «» Rachel Levy «» Mike Meginnis «» Adeena Reitberger «» Megan Roberts «» Ethel Rohan «» Rolli «» Robert Schladale «» Angi Becker Stevens «» Cover Art "Lady Gaga Dada" by Marty D. Ison «» Letter From the Editors Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). You'll receive updates detailing the release of new issues, new reading periods, contests, etc. We do not make our mail list available to anyone else.