He says he has a brain tumor. Or maybe a seizure disorder. Could be the weed and the antidepressant and the ADHD meds are mixing together in a noxious cloud so that he suddenly out of nowhere out of the perfectly clear blue sky calls you a fucking cunt and splinters the kitchen cabinet with a single punch and says you embarrass him when you go to shows where his friends are performing and why are you so awkward anyway and how hard could your job be sitting at a computer ordering goddamn books for children you need a degree for THAT much less two you should only have a REAL job dealing with the prissy assholes who come like fucking wisemen seeking the Christ child of a flat white or a fucking cinnamon chai or praise Jesus a pumpkin spice. What is he some kind of dancing monkey? While you wear your frumpy little cardigans and perch on a creaking office chair listening to muffled collegial coughs and mild occasional laughter how is that deserving of full-time pay and benefits while he keeps the sickly pink hand soap filled and the ice machine ka-chunkity-chunking and the assholes never stop coming with their mummy mummy mummy. Shit. Money. Their MONEY. He’s NOT slurring he’s sick and of course he had to quit that job because the stress was like exab——exac——oh fuck off——making his condition worse. He’s crying see? See how he’s crying? There can be no other explanation! He’s so worried and how can you yell at him when he’s clearly out of control from a FUCKING BRAIN TUMOR BITCH. You know as well as he does he stopped drinking a year ago. A year ago a year ago and pay no attention to that flask you found in the car his friend left it under the seat and don’t be uncool enough to ASK him Jesus Christ get over it. This is different it’s different when he crashes the car four times in five months and maxes out the credit card on the deductibles and fuck you bellows all up in your face ARE WE LIVING THE DREAM BABE ARE WE LIVING THE DREAM? Says he’ll kill himself takes a knife outside and you text him WTF are you DOING out there and he says entertaining whether to off myself while I have a cig. And then he storms back inside and just FALLS ASLEEP like he’s losing consciousness from the force of that big old tumor pressing on the delicate structures of his poor sad brain NOT passing out NOT blacking out not drunk not drunk not drunk you miserable CUNT. You say you don’t know where he’s gone? You say you want the REAL him to please god come back? Bitch don’t even. You can’t leave him cause he left you first.
Connie Corzilius has been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Beloit Fiction Journal, Mississippi Review, Tusculum Review, Bodega Magazine, CALYX, and Jewish Fiction Journal, among other publications. A Pushcart and Million Writers Award nominee, she was awarded the Women’s National Book Association Fiction Prize and has been a finalist in numerous competitions. Since earning her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop many years ago, she has worked as a bookseller, a staff writer, a copywriter, an editor, a grant writer…if it’s poorly remunerated and involves words, she’s probably done it. Born and raised in Granite City, Illinois, a steel town on the Mississippi River, she’s lived for the past 20+ years in Augusta, Georgia, where she is at work on a novel. For Corzilius, revenge is embodied in the character of Deadwood’s Al Swearengen, whose wisdom (“You can’t slit the throat of everyone whose character it would improve.”) she holds dear despite being a nice old lady. https://www.conniecorzilius.com/
