“Entrance to Franzia” by Allison Plourde

 
 

Entrance to Franzia

I found a screwdriver in the junk drawer. I have a junk drawer in my apartment, in the desk, because I have too many things. Everyone has a junk drawer for the smallest of their things.
A car drove through the glass doors of the liquor store last night.
I know this because I went to the liquor store this morning. I went to the liquor store to get a box of wine, merlot or cabernet or something else red, and there was plywood and caution tape where the doors used to be.
What happened, I asked the cashier.
I wasn’t here, he answered.
Well, surely you must’ve asked someone when you came in and there was plywood and caution tape where the doors used to be.
I should mention, there was a gap in the plywood. That’s how I got in. There is no door today.
I wasn’t here, he repeated, but the boss told me someone drove right in.
They drove right in?
Yeah, they drove right in. Must’ve got the gas and the brake mixed up.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking because I couldn’t look at his face.
I haven’t been able to look at faces lately.
Faces tell you more than mouths do.
I found the screwdriver because I couldn’t open the box of wine. There’s that perforated bit where the spout is supposed to come out but sometimes it’s not perforated enough. I had no fingernails to stick in the dotted line and claw it open.
I had no fingernails because I’ve been biting them off.
I have beautiful fingernails.
I shoved the screwdriver where my fingernails would go if I had them, the perforated bit where the spout is supposed to come out. But the bag in the box,
Did you know there’s a bag in the box? This is why the merlot or cabernet stays in the box and doesn’t seep out the corners of the cardboard, which is clearly not waterproof if you’ve ever thought about it,
The bag in the box had shifted and the spout was not behind the perforated bit like it’s supposed to be. Behind the perforated bit was just more bag, and the screwdriver split it right through.
And since the cardboard is clearly not waterproof,
Just think about it,
The merlot or cabernet or otherwise red seeped through the corners of the box.
It stained the white box purple like a bruise,
Spread out like blood from a bullet hole under clothes.
I know what that looks like from the movies. But we all know what a bruise looks like.
The cardboard was changing color and a puddle of red was growing growing growing on the countertop.
I swore and swore and used my screwdriver like a crowbar.
I used my screwdriver to pry open the box at its seam so I could pull the bag out from the top of the box.
I pulled the bag out and it pulsed like an organ.
Is this what a stomach feels like in one’s hand,
Or a pneumonic lung?
I rotated the bag and it gave and sloshed between my hands.
I rotated it so the wound from my screwdriver was on top and the gush stopped.
Drops of red dripped onto the floor.
Drops of red dripped onto my foot.
I would forget about them and they would stain the top of my foot, sticky purple Dalmatian spots.
The merlot or cabernet or something else smelled like a headache.
It smelled like a beating heart.
It smelled like it would taste like blood.
I raised the bag to my mouth and covered the gash with my mouth. I rotated the bag, the gash, and stopped it closed with my tongue. I scraped teeth against the thin plastic. I moved my tongue, and it flowed.
Have you ever tasted something so fully, so wholly, that it felt like it was meant to live inside your gut?
If I had been at the liquor store 10 hours earlier, and if I was looking at the beer instead of the wine, I could have been flattened onto the tile.

Allison Plourde

Allison Plourde is an NYC-based prose writer from the suburbs of Chicago. She holds an MFA from Stony Brook Southampton. Her work has been shortlisted for the Letter Review Prize and can be found in Bending Genres, HAD, Tulsa Review and others.

Headshot: Elena Karnezis

Photo Credit: Staff

 

Issue 14, FictionEditor2024