Perfect Pieces, fiction by Jay Butkowski
Debbie Fields was perfect.
Perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect grades, perfect body: tan and toned, a golden goddess atop the human pyramid, cheering on the Lesher High School football team as they marched steadily towards yet another state title. She pulled straight As in honors courses; she was vice president of the senior class; co-captain of the debate team and she volunteered at her church soup kitchen. Beautiful and perfect, inside, and out.
But the most unnerving aspect of her perfection was her perfect face. Unnatural, perfect symmetry, right down to the number of perfectly long eyelashes on each perfect eyelid. Sparkling, clear blue eyes, a perfect button nose, full, rose-colored lips parting to reveal perfect megawatt teeth, all framed in a golden aura of bouncy, wavy locks. Debbie herself had the perfect temperament: she was patient and kind, never condescending, never glorifying in her own perfection. But her face—her perfect face—had a way of exposing every flaw in everyone else, like a raw nerve after a tooth extraction.
She didn’t mean to do it. It was just the way it was.
Natasha Melnyk was nothing like Debbie Fields.
Natasha Melnyk (“Nat . . . like the bug . . .” she would menacingly tell anyone with balls enough to introduce themselves) was gangly and pale, with black hair a rat’s nest of tangles and frizz atop a face that was contorted into a near-perpetual sneer. Her eyes and lips were outlined and highlighted in dark contours—blacks, blues, deep purples—giving her the appearance of a dark cloud before a summer thunderstorm. She roamed the halls of Lesher High with a chip on her shoulder, chunky black combat boots stomping and shuffling from class to class.
Natasha met Debbie shortly after Nat’s family moved to town, in the locker room before gym class, the great equalizer in social and educational strata. Natasha was changing into an old pair of sweatpants and a torn and dingy New York Dolls t-shirt to stare holes into her Chucks for 30 minutes, rather than engage in the assignment: volleyball. The other girls were whispering and giggling at Natasha’s stringy arms, stringy hair, pale skin, and bee-sting tits. Debbie was mortified.
“Don’t listen to those assholes,” Debbie said as she tried to make a connection with the new girl. She was standing in the locker room, unashamed and uncovered, speaking as naturally as if they were fully clothed in the hallways of the high school. “I’m really glad you moved to town. I’m Debbie.”
Natasha, eyes lowered, bony shoulders hunched, covering herself with her gangly arms, mumbled her rehearsed introduction, “I’m Nat, like the bug . . ..”
The other girls let out a squeal. Debbie looked at them with withering disapproval, before turning a concerned gaze back to Natasha. She extended slender, golden fingers to delicately and reassuringly touch her pale bicep.
“You shouldn’t do that. You shouldn’t put yourself down like that.” Debbie lowered her gaze to catch the new girl eye to eye. Natasha’s dull brown eyes, hidden behind her dull, dark hair, were transfixed on Debbie’s sparkling blues. “There’re too many shitty people who will do that to you; you shouldn’t beat them to the punch. Nat is short for Natasha, right? It’s a pretty name.”
From that moment on, Nat was always Natasha with Debbie, even if the world only knew her as Nat . . . like the bug . . ..
***
Johnny Colvin was the alpha male of Lesher High School. Quarterback and captain of the football team, a true grid-iron gladiator who carried his team on his broad shoulders to success in two—going on three—of the last four state championships. He was being scouted by the top regional college programs for a full-ride athletic scholarship. He drove a 1984 Pontiac Fiero, custom-painted Tangerine Orange by his uncle’s body shop to match the Lesher school colors.
He dated the hottest girl in high school, if not the entire county. He and Debbie were going to be Homecoming King and Queen, and then, maybe Prom King and Queen later in the school year. He was gunning for an undefeated season and another trophy in the school’s trophy case. He was a man with a plan, and confident in his ability to see it through. Following graduation, Debbie was going to follow him to whatever college gave him the most money to play for their football program, and maybe they would get an off-campus apartment together. After that, maybe the NFL.
Johnny commanded loyalty from his cadre of toadies and sycophants, but always tried to show Debbie a more tender side. She didn’t need to know about the time they threw Jeff Erdry’s lunch into the dumpster behind the school, and when he was staring longingly at the lost roast beef sandwich, that Johnny and one of his minions tossed porky, nerdy Jeff into the dumpster right behind his discarded food. That was just boys being boys—Debbie wouldn’t understand.
When Debbie told Johnny about Natasha, Johnny had an opportunity to show her what a compassionate good guy he could be.
“There’s this new girl, Natasha,” said Debbie. “She just seems so lonely.”
“Babe, this isn’t going to be one of your charity projects, is it?”
“No, it’s not like that. She just . . . the other girls were making fun of her in the locker room, and I know she’s got this tough exterior, but she just seemed so vulnerable and sad in the moment, you know? Like a lost puppy dog . . .”
“But she dresses kind of like a freak.”
“Don’t,” admonished Debbie. “That’s not nice.”
Johnny, for all his bravado with the boys, always felt like he didn’t measure up to Debbie. She was stunning, smart, kind . . . absolutely perfect. She made him feel like the luckiest guy in the world, and also, at any moment, like the other shoe was going to drop, and that Debbie, his parents, the football team, everyone at Lesher High School, all the colleges that wanted to recruit him—that they’d all see him for the fraud that he was, that they’d recognize the flaws and failures and nothing more.
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Johnny said. “Maybe I’ll talk to one of the guys, see if they’d be interested in showing her around town. I mean, some guys might be into that whole look.”
“Some guys would, huh?” teased Debbie, scooping her hair up in a mock mohawk. “Because I was thinking of dying my hair black, maybe investing in a purple lipstick, maybe a pair of combat boots . . .”
“Babe, you would be such a hot little punker!” Johnny grinned and scooped his cheerleader girlfriend up in his arms. They laughed.
“She really is pretty underneath all that makeup,” Debbie said a few moments later.
“Yeah, babe. Some guys might be into that.”
***
Natasha’s parents had emigrated from Ukraine when she was a baby. They spoke in their native tongue in the house, and with a stilted, heavily accented English when outside the home. Because Natasha had come over at such a young age, and because her parents never took time to teach her, she never grasped the native language of her living room, just a few sparse words, and she didn’t have the same accent as her parents, making her feel like an outsider in her own family.
Natasha’s mother was a strict adherent to their Eastern Orthodox faith, regularly falling to her knees in the living room, the kitchen, the grocery store, to pray for absolution, to pray for health, to pray for grace or salvation or a good price on tomatoes. She wore a headscarf in public, her plain features unadorned by makeup. Her clothes were patched and sewn back together a half-dozen times, an austere wardrobe for an austere woman. She refused to make any attempt at all towards assimilation.
Natasha’s father was a little more socially conscious. He gathered on the weekends with a group of immigrants from a variety of other ethnicities and nationalities—a veritable United Nations—to smoke Pall Mall cigarettes, drink whiskey from flasks, and go hunting in the nearby state park. Their home was adorned with trophies from his kills—deer heads, and racks of antlers, and taxidermized birds. Natasha’s father would prepare the animals for display in their garage, and sometimes encouraged Natasha to help him.
Natasha’s father had longed for a boy, and in many ways, treated Natasha like the son he never had. The only acknowledgment of her gender was in the cute nickname that he had for his daughter—Zaychyk—which Natasha understood as the Ukrainian word for rabbit. But given her father’s hunting hobby, Natasha never felt comfortable with the nickname, as if he viewed her as no more than small game to be hunted and snared in the woods.
The family was sitting down for a dinner of stewed beef and potatoes when the house phone rang. Her father grunted as he rose from the table to answer the phone.
“Zaychyk, is for you. Don’t stay on long. We’re eating.”
“Hello?” asked Natasha, unsure who might be calling her.
“Hi, Natasha? Oh, I’m so glad I caught you! I looked your family up in the Yellow Pages, I hope that’s okay.”
“Who . . . is this?”
“Oh, sorry, it’s me, Debbie. Debbie from school. Listen, I know the Homecoming Dance is coming up, and I didn’t know if you had a date yet, but my boyfriend, Johnny, he’s on the football team, and he’s got this teammate, Lucas, and Lucas, oh my God, he’s such a sweet guy—and so cute!—but he’s really shy, and anyway, I was thinking, if you didn’t have a date, and Lucas doesn’t have a date, and he really is the sweetest guy . . . anyway, maybe, and I know this is so weird, but maybe you and Lucas would want to go to Homecoming with each other?”
Natasha was quiet for what must have felt like an eternity. Debbie thought maybe the connection was bad.
“Natasha? Are you still there?”
“Sorry . . . yeah, umm. I guess . . .”
“Oh my God! You’re going to have so much fun. Lucas really is the absolute sweetest. Oh my God, you’re going to look so cute together! Okay, I’m so happy. I hope you’re happy? I really have to go, but we can talk more about this in school. Oh my God! Okay, bye sweetie.”
Natasha blushed and hung up the phone. She returned quietly to the dining room table.
“Who was on phone? Sounded loud and American.” grumbled her father.
“It was nobody, daddy. A friend from school,” said Natasha. “She wants me to go with her and some friends to a dance next weekend.”
“With boys?” her father asked disapprovingly. Her mother exclaimed something in Ukrainian and dropped to her knees in prayer—also in Ukrainian. Natasha avoided her father’s glare, ignored her mother’s prayer, and slurped some beef and broth off the spoon.
***
The night of the Homecoming Dance, they met at Debbie’s house for pictures. Natasha’s parents hung towards the back, and didn’t mingle, despite Debbie’s mother and father trying to engage them. Natasha’s mother muttered prayers quietly to herself—she wasn’t sure, but at one point, Natasha thought she heard Psalm 23 being recited in Ukrainian.
Natasha wore her usual black combat boots, and an unfamiliar black dress that showed off too much of her gangly arms. She felt uncomfortable and exposed. Debbie told her she looked beautiful, and that lifted a little of Natasha’s spirits and eased some of her nerves. Debbie, of course, looked perfect in pale pink taffeta and tulle.
Lucas, for his part, was an absolute gentleman. He went around to the passenger side to swing the door open on his family’s Chevy Celebrity station wagon and held her hand as she eased herself into the car, bunching the black dress around her. He brought her a corsage, and even managed to find black-dyed roses to match her dress. He was attentive, and kind, and considerate. But as much as he tried, Natasha wasn’t responding. He was nice, but he just wasn’t her type.
When they entered the gymnasium, Natasha was assaulted by strobe lights, crepe paper decorations and music she would never willingly listen to on her own. The girls who would never talk to her before swarmed to chat her up as they looked for any excuse to be in Debbie’s orbit. It was all so surreal.
Natasha excused herself to the bathroom to catch her breath, and Debbie agreed to go with her. When safely behind the closed bathroom door and away from all the sounds and lights, Natasha let out a long, low breath.
“This is all so weird. Those girls, the music . . . it’s just a lot . . .”
“You didn’t have Homecoming at your old school?” asked Debbie.
“Yeah, but . . . well, I never went. Dances aren’t really my thing.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here at this one. You’re doing fantastic.”
“I just . . . it’s so . . . why are you doing this for me?”
“Well, when we met, you seemed like you could use a friend, and . . .”
Natasha acted on instinct and took a leap of faith. She lurched forward and locked lips with the surprised, prettier girl.
Fireworks exploded behind Natasha’s closed eyes. A flush spread over her cheeks, and her head went light with the intoxicating taste and smell of the other girl, the warm lips pressed against hers. When Natasha opened her eyes, she saw the shock registered in Debbie’s perfect face.
“I . . . I don’t . . . I’m sorry . . .” stumbled Debbie.
Natasha was stunned. She couldn’t have imagined the connection. It had been real, hadn’t it? Or was it all just a lie? Hyperventilating and choking back a sob, Natasha fled from the bathroom.
Debbie stood there a moment and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her perfect, pink lips were smeared with garish purple. She took a deep breath and started methodically scrubbing the purple away and reapplying her pink lipstick.
***
“I need to leave,” Natasha was nearly manic and shouting over the music when she approached Lucas on the dance floor.
“Wait, what’s going on?”
“I need to get out of here. Now!”
The vice principal’s voice came over the PA system. “The winners, and your Lesher High Homecoming King and Queen for 1985 are . . .”
“Right now!”
As Johnny and Debbie took to the stage to accept their crowns, Debbie could see Natasha beating a hasty exit out the back of the gymnasium, dragging Lucas with her.
***
After the dance, Johnny and Debbie were parked at the local make-out spot overlooking Greenwood Lake. Johnny could tell that Debbie was a million miles away, but he didn’t care. Tonight was a great night for him—for both of them, really, even if Debbie was preoccupied with something—and he wanted to celebrate.
“I’m just . . . I don’t know, I’m just not feeling it tonight, Johnny . . .”
“But why, babe? Tonight was a great night.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“But don’t you want to feel good? I mean, I love you. Don’t you love me?”
“I do, but . . .” Debbie’s mind was racing with thoughts about the kiss with Natasha. She was equal parts worried about her, and furious at her, and wondered if there wasn’t some small part of her—a private part she could never reveal, not to Johnny, not to her parents, not to her church family—that was also just a little bit excited by it . . ..
That’s how she felt about her life—that everything was broken down and glued back together in pieces, and every little piece was for somebody else. There was a piece of her for cheerleading, a piece of her for her teachers, a piece of her for her parents, a piece of her for Johnny. Nothing ever felt whole, or that one universe could cross over to the other. And this new piece? The one that wanted to push Natasha against a bathroom stall door, to reciprocate the kiss, to stick her tongue down the other girl’s throat, to run her hands down the other girl’s body, to mess up their perfect dresses, to explore . . . she had no idea who this piece was for.
She hadn’t said anything to Johnny after the bathroom encounter with Natasha. She hadn’t said anything to anybody—and would never say anything to anybody. It would be completely incompatible with her public image. Even the hint that she shared a kiss with another girl in the bathroom—and worse, that maybe she even liked it, maybe she wanted more—would be tantamount to social suicide.
Sure, she had fantasies before—not with Natasha, but with other girls—but they were just fantasies. Daydreams in the locker room, or little blips in her imagination as she lay by herself under the covers at night. That was just overactive teenage hormones, right?
‘If you love me, and I love you, I don’t see what the issue is? I mean, we’re going to be together forever, aren’t we?”
Johnny started kissing her neck, not in a sweet way, or a cautious way, or a leap-of-faith way. Not like Natasha. Despite his cooing in her ear, Johnny was just a caveman, a neanderthal claiming a prize to which he felt entitled. He didn’t need to seduce, or woo, or entice. She was just another trophy, and tonight, of all nights, he was owed.
“Please . . . just stop . . .”
“But I love you, babe.”
“I don’t want this . . .” Debbie’s voice was practically a whisper. For the second time this evening, she felt like she was just something to have, some object for someone else’s enjoyment. She hated feeling this way. For some reason, she hated that feeling even more with Johnny.
“Yes, you do,” whispered Johnny in reply. His hand started wandering lower, lower, down her body, under the tulle of her dress . . .
Debbie shoved him back hard, and he bumped into the steering wheel, causing a chirp to emanate from the car horn, drawing attention to the fire-orange Fiero. “Enough!” she demanded.
She flung the car door open hard enough that it scraped against the Chevy Cavalier parked next to them. She swung her legs out the car door and stomped off towards the path in the woods that served as a short-cut home.
“Debbie, wait!” shouted Johnny, immediately feeling self-conscious as all eyes at the make-out spot fell on him. He fumbled with his car door, inspected the ding in the paint job on the passenger side, and ran after her into the woods.
That was the last time anyone ever saw perfect Debbie Fields.
***
RAP RAP RAP on the car window woke Johnny the next morning. The knock on the window was followed by an authoritative “What’s going on in there?”
Johnny blinked sleep from his eyes and looked around the car, confused. Had he really slept in the Fiero up at Greenwood Lake?
He rolled down the window to talk to the officer, but words seemed out of reach at the moment: “I . . . uhh . . . hi.”
“You’re Colvin, right? From the Lesher Lions?”
Johnny nodded silently, a weird, dry acrid taste in his mouth.
“I seen you play a couple times. You ain’t bad. I played a little football myself back in my days at Lesher . . .”
The officer dropped back into a mimicked “Hail Mary” formation, but just as quickly was admonished by his partner walking towards the other side of the car.
“Mathews, now’s not the time.”
“Right, sorry Williamson,” agreed the first officer. “Couple fishermen saw your car parked up here, so we wanted to check it out. We received a concerned call this morning from Debbie Fields’s father, complaining that she never came home last night. Ordinarily, we would have to wait 24 hours to even begin a search, but, well, Mr. Fields, he’s friendly with the mayor, so . . .”
“Wait . . . Debbie never went home last night?” Johnny was still trying to figure out why he never went home last night, but this new information was a cold snap of clarity.
“Yeah, so . . . if you could step out of the car and answer some questions for us . . .”
Johnny extended a hand to the interior door latch, and noticed for the first time that his fingers were caked in dirt. He pushed the door open, and several beer cans—from beers he couldn’t remember drinking—spilled out onto the gravel parking lot.
“Those aren’t mine,” said Johnny as he extended stiffly from the car. “I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
“Yeah . . . I think you’re probably going to need to come to the station with us, son,” said the second officer, Williamson. “Does your family know a lawyer?”
***
After Debbie disappeared, Johnny Colvin was ruined at Lesher High School.
The trial itself was difficult, but Johnny was ultimately exonerated. Without a body, it’s next to impossible to convict, and Johnny’s lawyer was able to introduce enough doubt that the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict. For all they knew, Debbie had run away from home to join the circus.
For his part, Johnny couldn’t remember much of what happened that night, which didn’t help his case. He vaguely recalled following Debbie into the woods, arguing a little more, and then she left, and he sat down on a fallen log. After that, everything was kind of hazy until he woke up in his car. In fact, he was a little shaky on the details of the entire evening, including the Homecoming Dance.
Johnny’s classmates testified on the stand—it was a seemingly endless parade of eyewitnesses who saw what happened at the Lookout Point parking lot and were willing to share every single, salacious detail they could remember. Even nerdy Jeff Erdry was there with his date, and Johnny couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a twinkle in the other boy’s eye as he testified to condemn his tormentor to prison. But again, without a body . . .
The lawyer was able to get everything pled down to an underage drinking charge, though Johnny swore that he hadn’t had a beer all night.
That fall, the township officially closed the Greenwood Lake Observation Lookout Point between dusk and dawn. Parents had been complaining for years about the make-out spot, ignoring their own youthful indiscretions there, but Debbie’s disappearance was the final nail in the coffin.
The police conducted a thorough investigation of the scene, combing the woods with bloodhounds, and an army of volunteer spotters, including Natasha’s father and some of his hunter friends. But no evidence of Debbie ever surfaced, and after about a month of weekend canvassing, the search parties were called off.
While Johnny was on trial, he couldn’t play football, and Lucas filled in as backup quarterback. He handled the role capably and managed to get the team to the state finals, but they ultimately lost in the championship game—another disappointment for a town grieving the disappearance of one of their best and brightest.
The colleges that were lined up to recruit Johnny wouldn’t return his phone calls. His friends wouldn’t look him in the eye, and they pretended like he wasn’t there when he tried to speak to them. Johnny Colvin may have been found “not guilty” by a jury of his peers inside the courtroom, but outside of the courtroom, those peers had other ideas.
When Johnny graduated from Lesher after a lonely senior year, no one but his parents clapped as he made his way across the stage in cap and gown to accept his diploma. When they got to the part of the graduation ceremony memorializing Debbie Fields—even though they never found a body—Johnny could feel the cold, angry stares of the entire gymnasium, possibly even the entire county, burrowing into his soul.
After high school, with no prospects and no offers for college scholarships, Johnny took a job at the local Cluck Hut fried chicken restaurant for minimum wage. He didn’t have a particular aptitude for fried chicken, but after 12 years there, he was eventually promoted to an assistant manager position out of equal parts seniority and pity, and he was finally able to put a down-payment on a run-down trailer to move out of his parent’s home, so they could retire to a warmer climate and start anew.
***
At his lowest, that’s when she came for him.
After a late shift, Johnny arrived home to find his trailer door unlocked. He must have forgotten to lock up before he left earlier that day but wasn’t particularly worried—it’s not like he had anything worth stealing.
When he walked into the trailer, the familiar scent of perfume hit him like a time-traveling two-by-four to the back of the head. It was the scent Debbie wore in high school.
Only Debbie wasn’t there.
In her place was someone Johnny didn’t immediately recognize—a chic, tall brunette, with auburn highlights shimmering in her dark, bobbed hair. She wore dark, designer-looking clothes and had an expression of bored disdain spread across her perfectly made-up face. Despite the late hour, she wore oversized glasses which made her eyes look like black bubbles on her face.
“Aren’t you going to offer me something to drink, Johnny?” she asked.
“Umm . . . there’s a couple cans of Icehouse in the fridge,” he offered. “I don’t get a lot of houseguests.”
“Forget it, I’ll get it myself.” She stood up, crossed behind the kitchen counter, located two chipped glasses on the drying rack, and filled both with tap water. She crossed the trailer back to Johnny and handed him a glass.
“Do I know you?” he asked before taking a sip. “Are you a call girl? Did Erdry put you up to this?”
“Excuse me? Call girl?”
Johnny could feel embarrassment spread across his face. “Sorry. It’s just, you don’t exactly fit in around here, and this guy, Jeff, he’s been making my life a living hell since senior year of high school. It’s totally something he might pull. And don’t take no offense or nothing—I might be hard up, but I’m not call-girl hard up.”
“I’m a little heartbroken you don’t remember me,” the woman said, ignoring the previous slight. “But then again, I’m a much different person than I was back when we were in high school together.”
“Waitasecond . . . I’d think I’d remember you from high school,” protested Johnny.
The quarterback-turned-assistant fast-food manager squinted a little at his guest in the low light, and suddenly, a flash bulb of memory went off in his head.
“Wait! No, you’re that girl! Umm . . . ‘like the bug . . .’.”
“Natasha,” she said, annoyed.
“Yeah! Mel-something right? Something foreign?”
“I changed it after I moved away. It’s Fields now.”
“Debbie’s last name? That’s . . . weird. What are you doing in town . . . or, like, in my trailer?”
“Tying up some loose ends. I never figured out what she saw in you,” said Natasha.
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, sure, expectations, head cheerleader with the quarterback. But beyond that, I just don’t get it. But our Debbie, she always did everything she was supposed to do, didn’t she?”
“I think you need to leave now,” said Johnny. “I don’t want to have to call the police.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie . . . I already called them,” said Natasha. “But again, I come back to my central thesis: why would she waste her time with you, when she could have been with me?”
“Debbie wasn’t like that,” said Johnny, feeling a rumble in his stomach.
“There was a lot about Debbie you didn’t know,” said Natasha. “None of you knew the real her, not like I did. Pieces of her locked away from oafs like you, people who were too pedestrian or Puritanical to understand or accept her as a whole. She was a beautiful spirit. This entire town didn’t deserve her.”
“Not feeling good . . .” said Johnny, as he staggered a little and blinked to try to remain conscious.
“Don’t worry, it’s not permanent,” said Natasha. “You’ll wake up with nothing more than a hangover. At least that’s what happened last time.”
“Homecoming?”
“Yeah, homecoming. Took a lot of work, staging a scene, getting the poison just right—I’ve gotten better—and lugging you through the woods. The least you could have done was go quietly to jail. But I guess they needed a little more evidence to convict . . .
“Anyway, don’t worry—I can see myself out. But I wanted to let you know I brought you a little gift, for old time’s sake. It’s in the trunk of your car. Can’t believe you’re still driving around that shitty little Fiero.”
“It’s a classic . . .” defended Johnny, weakly.
“When the police come, do me a favor—if you do remember anything this time around: try not to mention my name, okay?” Natasha patted him on the cheek. “It’s not that they’ll believe you, anyway. Everyone in this town was always just looking for an excuse to pin it to you after she ‘disappeared.’ Now they’ll have what they’ve been looking for.”
The way Natasha emphasized disappeared had an ironic flair, like a magician overemphasizing the reveal with an exaggerated ta-da!
As Johnny’s eyes began to close, his thoughts drifted to a more pleasant memory—a perfect summer day, junior year, on his uncle’s boat in Greenwood Lake. Johnny and Debbie and some of their friends tooling around the lake. He remembered the way the sun hit Debbie’s tanned body, the little sparkles of sunlit reflection off the glistening skin and sunglasses, that megawatt smile of hers that could have been in toothpaste commercials. It was one of the happiest moments of Johnny’s life.
He would keep that piece of her with him—for him, and him alone—even as they pulled out what was left of her from the trunk of his car and sentenced him to the fate that Natasha had planned for him all along.
JAY BUTKOWSKI (on Twitter/X @jtbutkowski) is a writer of fiction, an eater of tacos and an amateur pizzaiolo who lives in New Jersey. His stories have appeared in online and print publications, including Shotgun Honey, Yellow Mama, Dark Yonder, All Due Respect and Vautrin. He is a founding editor at Rock and a Hard Place Press, an independent publisher chronicling “bad decisions and desperate people.” He’s also a father of twins, a doting husband, and a middling pancake chef.
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