Teresa and I have only one evening recreation left to participate in together ever since the coronavirus spread over the world like foamy sea-water over a pebbly shore—watching TV. We can’t go to the cinema, eat inside restaurants, go the ballet, opera, or theater, so we watch movies, TV series, news, and sports. I watch, alongside her, and I wonder, why don’t all the characters in the new movies and series wear medical masks? Why do they eat inside restaurants? Why don’t the cardboard cut-out fans in the otherwise empty baseball stadiums have medical masks painted on them?
My head bumps, which started a month or two after COVID-19 became a pandemic, have suddenly cleared up. Two pharmacists and our hair-cutter, who comes to our apartment wearing a medical mask and rubber gloves, told me “They are grease eruptions, a result of nerves, fear, worry, and anger all together over a long period of time.” I thought, I am not a nervous person, I fear very little, but yes, I worry for my family and friends, but I am hardly ever angry.
The bumps used to itch, and when I scratched them, they just spread. I thought that it was because I lent my hat to a friend who came visiting on a cruise ship just before the outbreak, like he had lice or something. I felt things crawling around on my scalp. Teresa and Cati scoured my scalp sever times and told me, “No lice.”
Grey clouds and black sea outside. The wind is whipping the trees around
Our souls at night.
Yesterday, I woke just after sunrise and prepared Teresa’s breakfast while she slept. Then I sipped a coffee on the balcony. The sky was blue and the sea also.
When Teresa woke, and ate with me on the balcony, I drove her to Punta del Oeste. We picked up a few things at the pharmacy, then lunched on duck breast and whipped potatoes at La Chaise.
The sleeping pills Teresa gave me have helped me sleep again, which I have not since my Dad died. I had stopped sleeping pills for six months and was just starting to feel normal again, withdrawal symptoms over, nightmares over, writing flowing smoothly, my short-term memory back, my speaking vocabulary returned—both in Spanish and English. But the news that My Dad died of a heart attack while waiting in a jammed hospital admissions room while a line of twenty-some ambulances were lined up outside with COVID-19 affected patients inside each was a little devastating.
Today, oh, I mean the other today, or maybe it was yesterday, Tuesday, no I mean Thursday, Lidia slipped into my office while I was writing, and poured herself a cup of coffee from my thermos. I thought I left her some in the carafe in the machine in the kitchen. We kissed, she flashed me a peach breast, my blood rushed, and we smiled at each other.
When she left my office, I took my hands off the keyboard and I scratched my scalp.
The Winter 2022 (#22) issue of Black Fox Literary Magazine featuring new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Cover Artist: Hannah Vitiello. Contributors: Erin Carlyle, Maria Crimi, Natalie Eckl, Samantha Ellis, Lily Emerick, James Engelhardt, Benjamin Faro, Catheryne Gagnon, Vanessa Garcia, D. Walsh Gilbert, Shreeya Goyal, A.J. Granger, Elizabeth Harrison, Claire Jussel, Heather Lang-Cassera, Camille Lebel, Abigail Leigh, Joshua McKinney, Alison Mehrman, Karen McAferty Morris, Stephen Page, Kim Rose, Claire Scott, Adam Slavny, Nina Smilow, Joanna Theiss, Marian Willmott, Lilian Caylee Wang, Alexander Lazarus Wolff, Meg Zukin. Purchase print copies here.
Thanks to editors Racquel Henry and Elizabeth Sheets.
Thanks also to social media manager Megan Fuentes.
Read the story here:
One Horn
by Stephen Page
The crepuscular sky above a range of mountains lightened to a deep blue, then to a soft blue, then to white, then orange, then a blood-red drop dripped up out of the ridgeline. A few miles away, near a beach, a seagull rode an air current above a long wave row curling in upon the shore. The seagull cawed then dove into the water behind the wave and rose with a large piece of flotsam in its beak. Thirty or forty other gulls quickly gathered in the area, screeching and cawing and diving.
Farther down the beach, where the wind complained and the waves crashed roaringly upon the sand, two young men were laughing. They were wearing dark gray shirts, black jeans, black shoes, and thick leather belts with 9-millimeter pistols holstered on the right side and black riot batons slung on the left. Sewn onto the left sleeves of their shirts were crimson and gold security crests. They had neatly trimmed hair. Parked in the sand behind them was a pickup truck with security crests upon both open doors.
Jonathan and Mike were laughing and attempting, quite unsuccessfully, to skip flat beach stones over the large waves. Jonathan pointed behind them to the top of the mountain range. The mountains had bled a sanguine sun. It flipped suddenly to yellow a degree or two above the ridgeline.
Jonathan, smiling, threw down the remaining stones in his hands.
“I guess we should get going,” he said, dusting the sand off his hands.
“In a hurry to get on the road?” asked Mike.
“Naw, it’s just . . .we haven’t checked the last complex is all.”
Mike glanced back at the sea, dropped his stones and pointed. “Look,” he said.
Four dolphins glided parallel to the beach, behind the curling waves, and as they moved, their bodies rose and submerged gracefully, like effortless, spiritual weavers of the waters.
Jonathan and Mike watched the dolphins until they had well passed, then Jonathan looked at his watch.
“We only have an hour left,” he said. “Gives us just enough time to check the last place and get back to the station for check out time.”
Mike, still looking in the direction of the disappearing dolphins, said, “Yeah.”
They turned and walked toward the truck.
“I saw your bike packed up last night when we started work,” said Mike.
“Yeah,” Jonathan said.
“Hey!” said Mike. “You can learn to speak with a Brooklyn accent, like Brando.” He hit Jonathan in the shoulder. They laughed.
Mike climbed in the driver side and closed the door. Jonathan hesitated. Some fifty feet behind the truck was a young man sitting upon a seawall. He had long blonde hair, was wearing a red T-shirt, blue jeans, work boots, and was smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer in a can.
“Let’s go,” said Mike.
“Hey,” Jonathan said, looking at Mike. “Doesn’t that dude over there look out of place?”
Mike looked in the rear-view mirror.
“Where,” said he.
Jonathan looked at the empty place where the young man had been.
“C’mon,” said Mike.
Jonathan got in and stared at the dashboard.
The truck rolled down Main Street. There were two clothing shops, a surfboard shop, one restaurant, a café, a bar, a hotel, and a post office. All, save the restaurant and the hotel were not yet open.
Two teenage boys in black wet suits, carrying surfboards and heading toward the beach, crossed in front of truck.
There was no other movement on the street.
“This is a boring town,” Jonathan said. “Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing ever happens here. Can’t say I’ll miss it much.”
“Well, I heard New York’s a little more exciting,” said Mike.
As they passed the open restaurant, a gray-haired man exited the front doors. He was wearing a red plaid hunting cap, which he had pulled low over his eyes, a red plaid shirt, khakis, and brown boots. He stopped outside the doors of the restaurant and lit a thin cigar. Jonathan looked at him.
The truck continued to head toward the end of town. The old man, with his eyes shadowed, puffed on the thin cigar. He walked to edge of street. He pulled his hat even lower over his eyes and continued to watch the truck while puffing on his cigar. Jonathan leaned forward and looked in the side mirror. There was no one where the man once was. Jonathan rubbed his eyes.
At the first corner, two girls, both nineteen, wrapped in brightly colored wet suits and carrying surfboards, neared the crosswalk. They smiled, showing large white teeth, and waved at Jonathan and Mike. Jonathan and Mike waved back.
“Something’s I guess I’ll miss,” Jonathan said.
“They’ll be plenty of that in New York,” said Mike.
After the next corner, the truck turned right and headed toward the mountains. After one block of apartment buildings and two short blocks of suburban homes, the road opened and there were only a few houses along the side. The sun was now in their eyes, so Jonathan and Mike flipped down the truck’s sun visors and put on wayfarer sunglasses.
“Sometimes I wish I was still carefree and single,” said Mike. “I could dig a trip cross-country myself.”
“C’mon. You have a nice wife and kid,” Jonathan said. “That’s pretty important.”
“Hey,” said Mike. “You sure you’re going to be OK to drive today. Why don’t you take an extra day and rest before you leave?”
“Can’t. Damn bastards. If they would’ve sent me an acceptance letter earlier, I could’ve left last week and enjoyed the trip cross-country. As it is, I’m going to just have enough time to stop and sleep eight hours each night.”
“No Grand Canyon? Damn. Can’t say you lived a full life unless you spit in the Grand Canyon.”
“Did that. When I was a kid.”
“Guess you ain’t got much more to live for then.”
Jonathan laughed and turned to look out the window. There were a few scattered farms, pine trees, and some grassland.
Mike backhanded Jonathan in the chest.
“You make sure you put me in one of your novels,” he said. “Ya hear.”
“O.K., bud.”
The road inclined.
“Glad I won’t have to deal with Fred anymore,” Jonathan said.
“Fred!” said Mike, sitting straighter in the seat. “That damn bastard. I should be the senior officer, not him.”
“Well, you’re not living with the company owner.”
“Yeah.”
The truck slowed and turned into the parking lot of a single-roofed complex of six or seven ground-level offices. Fir trees loomed over the building. They drove around one end of the building and parked in back. They removed their sunglasses, got out of the truck and closed the doors. Jonathan listened. Cardinals and song sparrows were singing.
“You go that way,” said Mike, pointing along the back wall to the far end of the complex. “And I’ll go around front.”
Jonathan walked, checking doors as he went. He headed toward a small field of thick grass and clover that lay around the corner of the building. Beyond that patch of grass was the tall fir wood. He twisted and rattled the knobs on each door. He scanned the fir trees for birds as he approached the corner of the building. There was one more door on the other side of the building. As he turned the corner, he saw the brilliant red flash of a cardinal as it flit from one tree to another.
A wall of shadow bid him halt in mid-stride. Flies buzzed around the shadow. Jonathan smelled a rank odor.
Directly in front of him was a grotesquely large black bull. Its forehead was as wide as Jonathan’s shoulders, its chest was as wide as if Jonathan stretched out both his arms, and its length was as long as a pick-up truck. Between the head and the tail was at least twenty-five hundred pounds of solidly packed muscle and bone.
The bull had been contentedly chewing grass and clover but stopped in mid-chew when Jonathan blundered around the corner. The bull’s eyes darkened and it snapped its head up and spit out the greens. It snorted and nasal-sprayed the front of Jonathan’s shirt. Its eyes were at level with Jonathan’s chin. It widened the stance of its front legs.
Jonathan began to step back, but the bull snorted again and took an even wider stance. Jonathan froze again.
The bull’s flat, imposingly wide head had one horn broken off, and in the remaining jagged stump was a ragged chunk of rusty sheet metal. Its forehead, cheeks, and shoulders were scarred and its ears were ripped and frayed. The hairs inside the ears and around the jowls were graying, yet its dark eyes were clear and intently focused on Jonathan.
Jonathan began to move his hand slowly, ever so slowly, toward his pistol.
The bull shook his head and pawed the earth.
Jonathan paused. Sweat ran coldly from his armpits and his body shook involuntarily.
Behind the bull was a herd of feral cows. They were calmly eating grass or lounging on their bellies chewing their cuds. One by one, they turned their heads and stared at Jonathan standing in front of the bull.
Mike stumbled around the corner on the other side of the building and stopped on his toes, almost tumbling forward.
“Damn,” he said.
The bull jerked his head toward Mike. Mike gaped at the bull. The cows pivoted their heads toward Mike.
Jonathan spoke. “Use your . . .”
The bull yanked his head back toward Jonathan. Jonathan froze again. The cows looked at Jonathan.
Mike pulled out his baton and began to beat it on the wall of the building, yelling, “YAH. YAH. YAH.”
The cows jumped, and the bull agilely spun his huge body toward Mike and lowered his head.
Jonathan ran around his corner.
The bull looked over his shoulder at the empty space where Jonathan had been.
Mike moved.
The bull charged Mike.
Mike ran around his corner.
The bull stopped.
Jonathan reached the truck and hurriedly entered the passenger side. Mike arrived a few seconds later from the other side of the building and got in driver’s side.
They were out of breath.
“Shit,” Mike said.
“Damn,” Jonathan said.
“Shit.”
“Damn.”
“Shit.”
“I almost died,” Jonathan said.
“Me too,” Mike said.
“He was ready to impale me,” Jonathan said. “He could’ve gored and smashed the living shit out of me.”
“Damn,” Jonathan said. “I’ve never seen a bull that big.”
The bull bellowed from the other end of the building.
“Neither have I,” Mike said.
“He was right in front of me. Ready to kill me.”
They sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, their heads in their hands.
“I think that was One Horn,” Mike said.
“What?”
“One Horn.”
“Oh yeah. That bull everyone in town talks about.”
“I believe so.”
“I thought those were all stories,” Jonathan said.
“Me too. I’ve never seen him before.”
Jonathan hit Mike in the shoulder.
“Why the hell didn’t you shoot your pistol?” he asked. “He could’ve killed me. His horn was inches from my gut.”
“I couldn’t. You were right behind him from my angle. What if I would’ve missed?
Both paused, looking out in front of the truck at the back of the building.
“One Horn,” Jonathan breathed.
“One Horn,” breathed Mike.
“Jesus Christ. Ain’t he supposed to be dead?”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “Hasn’t been a new sighting of him in three years or so. Way before you got here. They say he used to terrorize this part of the county. Used to run into the sides of trucks all the time.”
“Bet that big son of a bitch could do some damage,” Jonathan said. “Jesus. Did you see the size of him?”
After a moment of silence, they put on their sunglasses. Mike continued to stare at the building. Jonathan looked around. He looked over both shoulders, then checked the mirrors.
“Fred says he saw him,” Jonathan said.
“Fred ain’t seen anything. Fred tells tales.”
“What the hell’s wrong with that bull anyway?”
“You’ve heard the stories,” Mike said. “He just ran off some farm up north and started going around running into trucks. Then he started breaking down farmers fences at night, stealing their cows for his harem. He just roamed around and did what he wanted.”
“Well, I can see why. No one’s gonna mess with a bull like that.”
“There’s even rumor that if you ever have an encounter with him, like if he runs into your truck, you run into a streak of good luck.”
“What?”
“Yeah. People have won the lottery, had a windfall come their way, gotten new jobs.”
“Never heard that one,” Jonathan said.
“Hey,” said Mike. “Let’s drive around back and see if he’s still there.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, good luck or not. Did you see the width on his shoulders? The size of his head? He might put his one horn right through my door and kebob my intestines, that would be my luck.”
“C’mon”
“No!”
But Mike was already starting the engine and putting the truck in reverse.
“We’re in a truck, Mike. He don’t care much for trucks. He . . .”
“Might bring you some good luck on your trip.”
“Might prevent it.”
The truck came around the corner of the building and stopped.
One Horn had moved closer to the wood and smelled the air. He turned to face them, lowered his head and pawed the earth.
“Mike, let’s get out’ta here.”
One Horn lifted his majestic head, extended his snout toward them, sniffed the air, and squinted. He held that pose for a moment or two, his nostrils wide and sucking air, his eyes squinting.
“Mike,” Jonathan said.
“Just hold it a moment, this truck is big, I’ll keep the front to him. Maybe he’ll go for the bumper.”
One Horn stopped sniffing the air and stared at the front of the truck. His eyes seemed unfocused. He looked to the right of the truck, then to the left.
Mike moved the truck a little closer.
One Horn looked quickly in the vicinity of the front of the truck. His tail swished back and forth. Then he turned away and grandeurly sauntered onto a trail that led into the wood. Each cow in turn, one behind the other, followed him.
Back at the security office, Fred, cleanly shaven and in a freshly starched uniform, leaned over the front desk toward Jonathan and Mike.
“Bullshit,” said Fred. “You guys are just making this up cause it’s Jonathan’s last day.”
Angela Farnes, the company owner, was walking around behind the desk, shuffling papers and making it obvious she was ignoring Jonathan and Mike.
“I’m telling you,” Mike said. “We saw him.”
“He’s dead,” said Fred. “No one has seen him for years. A man over in the next county says he buried him.” He pointed his thumb at his chest. “I was one of the last ones to see him.”
Jonathan said, “But . . .”
“Last truck he ever ran into was mine,” said Fred. “It’s a blessing. Oh, it wasn’t at first, at least it didn’t seem so. Had to buy a new door and side panel for my truck. Then I lost my farm. Then my wife died. But, then her mother who was still depending on me for support died.” He leaned closer toward Jonathan and Mike and cupped one palm around his mouth, jerking his other hand and thumb behind him, “And look what I have now.”
Jonathan and Mike gaped unbelievingly at him.
Fred drew back and said, “What you guys want, a newspaper story? A bonus? You wanna drag my security business into this. No one’s gonna believe you. One Horn’s dead. I ain’t gonna back you. People ain’t gonna believe you when you say you saw a dead thing walking.”
“Maybe he’s not dead,” Jonathan said.
“He’s dead alright. And dead things don’t rise.”
“Forget it, Fred,” Mike said.
Mike walked out the front door.
Fred stared obstinately at Jonathan. Jonathan, returning the stare unyieldingly, took the pistol out of its holster, pointed it at the sand-filled barrel next to the front desk, pulled back the slide and checked the chamber. He set it on the desk in front of Fred. He pulled out the baton from the ring on the other side of his belt and set that next to the pistol. Then he unbuckled his security belt and set that next to the baton. He extracted the two clips from their holder on the belt and emptied the rounds, counting thirty in total. He removed the shirt with the security crest on it and folded that over the weapons and belt. He stood in a black T-shirt.
“You have my last check?” Jonathan asked.
Fred went to the back office. Jonathan tapped his fingers on the desk. Angela looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, smiled, then winked at him. Jonathan stopped tapping.
Fred returned. Angela looked down at the papers on the desk. “Here,” he said.
“Thanks,” Jonathan said as he turned to leave.
Fred watched Jonathan as he opened the front door.
“Don’t think you’re gonna be blessed now,” yelled Fred. “Just ‘cause you say you saw him.”
Mike was looking at Jonathan’s black and chrome Harley Springer.
“I’ve always liked this bike,” Mike said. “It’s clean and sleek. No gaudy emblems or fringe or studded leather. And you take good care of it. Make sure it gets to New York all right.”
Mike raised his hand to shake. Jonathan grasped it.
“Don’t worry about Fred,” Jonathan said. “We saw One Horn. Hell of an experience. No one can take that from us.”
They looked one another in the eyes, and an unspoken message of life-long friendship passed between them. They unclasped hands.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “No one can take that from us.”
“Don’t pick up any hitch-hikers,” Mike said. Then he smiled and strolled toward the building and went inside the front door. Jonathan watched the door close.
Jonathan pulled a leather bombardier jacket out of an over-stuffed saddlebag, put it on, got on the bike, turned the key, and pressed the starter button. It immediately turned over and vibrated steadily. He smiled at the familiar hum coming through the handlebars and up from beneath the seat, and he felt already free. He put on his sunglasses. Without his hands on the handgrips, the handlebars rocked rhythmically with each pump of the pistons. He pulled leather gloves out of his jacket pocket, stretched them over his hands, grabbed the horns of the bike again, squeezed the clutch, tapped the gear lever and slowly rode the bike up to the edge of the road.
He eyed the route east, up toward the mountains, the direction in which he was about to embark. Above the ridgeline was a cerulean sky with a few billowy white clouds. He looked over his shoulder and checked the traffic to the west. The road was clear. It was going to be a nice, calm ride through the mountains, he thought. He rolled the throttle and pulled out on to the road.
*This story first published in Black Fox Literary Magazine
Page uses his poetic verse to create a cowboy legend.
Stephen Page 
You must be logged in to post a comment.