{"id":17795,"date":"2022-06-17T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T17:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=17795"},"modified":"2022-06-16T04:46:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T09:46:27","slug":"bellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/17795","title":{"rendered":"Bellow"},"content":{"rendered":"

2022 Porch Prize Winner in Fiction\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Gemma Mae has graduated from the University of Florida, and is rejoining the Flatland Springs Community Choir. The sopranos and altos squirm with excitement at the news. They heard tell of what-all she\u2019d gotten up to in Tallahassee: a drunk-and-disorderly, a late-night domestic abuse call, a few nights in a women\u2019s shelter close to the highway. Her fault, no doubt about it. In high school, she was one of those pretty young things who followed men around.<\/p>\n

The gossip stops when Gemma Mae strides into the rehearsal room. She\u2019s squatter than before, thick like she throws tires in her spare time. The braid that lies between her shoulder blades is the green-blonde of hair that has withstood daily dunks in a pool. She\u2019s a blazing-hot mess, the women think.<\/p>\n

Then rehearsal begins and they hear Gemma Mae\u2019s voice. She always had a pair of lungs on her. Now, it\u2019s like they\u2019ve stretched wide so they can suck in more air. She outsings everybody, especially the preacher\u2019s wife, whose neck flexes tight when she hears those clear, high tones. Gemma Mae\u2019s voice isn\u2019t just louder, but more itself, like oranges squeezed into fresh juice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your secret, little miss? You keeping a new voice teacher all to yourself?\u201d ask the sopranos and altos.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get yourself some prednisone?\u201d asks the preacher\u2019s wife. She took the drug for an infected ingrown toenail once and found, like half of Broadway\u2019s stars, that it pitched her voice higher.<\/p>\n

The women want to outsing one another, each of them, especially the preacher\u2019s wife. She likes being the loudest soprano. The only time she feels comfortable outshining her husband\u2014a clean-shaven, thin man with a quiet voice and quick temper\u2014is when she\u2019s outshining other women. He says men can\u2019t sing well anyway, unless there\u2019s something queer about them.<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae smiles, thanks the sopranos and altos for their compliments, and ignores their questions. Then, she opens the rehearsal room door and steps outside. A push of humid air sweeps in. The women lean away from it and guess where she\u2019s headed off to: a new boyfriend\u2019s apartment, a drug dealer\u2019s den, a homeless shelter.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae doesn\u2019t just sing better than before. She doesn\u2019t act the same way\u2014like the other women singers\u2014any more. It\u2019s like when she sucks in more air to sing louder, she expands, taking up more space. She doesn\u2019t appear to feel an inch bad about it, either.<\/p>\n

She wears tops that show her bra straps without apologizing for looking undone; she is first to volunteer for every solo with a grin; she stares down the director as he says how lucky the man in her life must be. When the director laughs and asks if she thinks he\u2019s an old letch now, she doesn\u2019t laugh to relieve the tension. She is not afraid of being awkward anymore, the women think. She is not afraid at all, apparently.<\/p>\n

She leaves the choir room without calling a friend or holding tight to a canister of pepper spray. The women have never seen her get in a car or catch the bus. She walks home, wherever that is\u2014she will only say she lives near Lake Mirror\u2014like she isn\u2019t afraid of anything. She stands with her back tall, pushing out her breasts. She doesn\u2019t wear modest clothing either\u2014no hoodies, but tight tank tops and sleeveless white dresses. The women are pretty sure her panties make contact with her seat.<\/p>\n

After the first Christmas concert rehearsal, the accountant for Brazilian Dreams Steakhouse, an alto, asks if Gemma Mae needs a ride. The others watch, listening as hard as they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s dark,\u201d the accountant says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t forgive myself if\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing will happen,\u201d says Gemma Mae, holding the rehearsal room door open with her back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s gators too,\u201d says the accountant, raising her voice. \u201cThere was that one gator got that rapist who was hiding in a shack by the edge of the lake, and\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae laughs. \u201cThey won\u2019t get me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She sweeps out the door, dramatic as usual, and the sopranos and altos burst into speech. Did they hear that? Well, she was warned, wasn\u2019t she. Wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if she showed up dead or worse. Some of the men join in as well; conversations about potential wrong-doings always attract the group of people most likely to commit the crime in question. They shake their heads, tell the women that they did what they could, that it\u2019s a shame.<\/p>\n

The men leave. They revv up their Honda Civic engines in the parking lot\u2014dog whistles to their women. The accountant, in a hurried whisper, breaches the real topic of interest. She asks if anyone saw Gemma Mae\u2019s teeth, whiter and sharper than anyone\u2019s she\u2019s ever seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a shark,\u201d hisses the preacher\u2019s wife to a middle school guidance counselor.<\/p>\n

The guidance counselor giggles, and the other ladies follow suit. But on the way to their cars, all of them savor the feel of night air on their faces. It\u2019s almost cool. Night is the only time of day you can walk outside in Florida without wishing you were inside or dead.<\/p>\n

They imagine Gemma Mae walking miles in the dark, in crisp air. It must make her feel alive, make her feel like a small life in the boonies of central Florida is worth living. They wonder how they can get their teeth sharp enough to allow them to go anywhere, anywhere at all, whenever they want to.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

The sopranos and altos bother Gemma Mae for weeks, right into the new year. They ask her if she\u2019s taken up jiu jitsu, if she packs heat, if she blends grass smoothies in the morning then runs laps around Lake Mirror. They tell her there\u2019s too much changed about her\u2014the voice, the fearlessness\u2014for her to claim ignorance. No one mentions her teeth, but everyone notices them now. They\u2019re sharp, glinting out from the dark red of her mouth.<\/p>\n

At first, she tells them she\u2019s flattered. Then, when their questions grow a little more desperate, she says she doesn\u2019t want to cause a ruckus.<\/p>\n

She causes a ruckus.<\/p>\n

The sopranos and altos are in a tizzy. Is it steroids? Or prayers to Jesus? Does she use crystals to channel the voices of spirits lost? They\u2019ve seen the crystal shops popping up along Lake Mirror, at monthly farmers\u2019 markets in the southside, the rich part of town. They\u2019ve been wondering if that hoodoo is a shortcut to heaven or the devil\u2019s trifling.<\/p>\n

The preacher\u2019s wife is tempted to find out either way. Clearly, there\u2019s an answer to Gemma Mae\u2019s changes. And if there\u2019s an answer, if there\u2019s something tangible she did to better her voice, to grow strong enough to walk alone at night, that means she can do it, too.<\/p>\n

Each rehearsal, she and the others ask Gemma Mae for her secrets, beg her to cause a ruckus, over and over until, one evening in early January, Gemma Mae gives in.<\/p>\n

She holds the rehearsal room door open, about to leave yet again. She always seems to be on her way out, on her way to something better. It is an unseasonably warm evening. Humid, heavy air blows inside the rehearsal room, but no one asks her to close the door. No one wants to speak; they don\u2019t want her to run off. Sweat drips down between their breasts, trickling down their stomachs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can show you,\u201d Gemma Mae says. She glances at the director, who stands on the podium, eyeing the huddled group of women. \u201cBut you\u2019ll have to meet me at Lake Mirror, and you\u2019ll have to give me four minutes to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

The following evening at midnight, the sopranos and altos meet Gemma Mae at Lake Mirror. It is unseasonably humid. The neon lights of a Red Lobster blink at them down the road.<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae stands silently in front of the fifteen women. They switch their weight from foot to foot, their ankles wet with dew from the grass. The preacher\u2019s wife peers into the water behind Gemma Mae, and swears she can see the tip of a gator\u2019s snout floating nearby. She counts the women in front of her, notes how many the gator would have to kill before it could get to her. Five. Enough for her to stay.<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae prepares to speak, opens her mouth, but she sees the Red Lobster sign blink, once. Faulty electric cables, she knows\u2014nothing is new in Flatland Springs\u2014but it feels like a sign, like something wants to remind her of where she came from.<\/p>\n

The last time she was near a Red Lobster, she and her college boyfriend were on a third date. She held back at the meal, nibbling one cheddar biscuit and ordering a large Caesar salad. She wrapped and hid a biscuit in her tote bag when he walked off to the bathroom. Afterwards, they\u2019d driven to a Walmart parking lot and slipped into the backseat of his car. He squeezed against her, using that slick voice that called Caesar salad right back up her throat. But she listened, thinking about the time he\u2019d pushed her into the shower, about the forehead cut that had leaked more blood than she thought a head could hold. Later that night, as she ate the cheddar biscuit in a friend\u2019s bathroom, she clawed at her stomach, watching the skin turn pink then red.<\/p>\n

It makes Gemma Mae sad to think of that girl, but she does not have time for self-pity. The women are looking at her. They cross their arms. They fan their faces with their hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cInside each of us is a gator,\u201d Gemma Mae starts.<\/p>\n

The sopranos and altos chuckle.<\/p>\n

The smartest woman of them all, a high school English teacher, says, \u201cInside each of us are two wolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The women laugh, louder now.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of us might have wolves inside, two or one of them,\u201d Gemma Mae says. \u201cBut I\u2019d bet most of us women here in Flatland Springs have gators inside. And they\u2019ve been well fed.\u201d<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t laugh, she doesn\u2019t smile. Her face glows in the moonlight, like she is about to reveal a new gospel, and the Lord has blessed her forthcoming words. Nobody laughs now. They wipe their foreheads and wait.<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae doesn\u2019t give a speech. She doesn\u2019t think she needs to. Why bother listing the small injustices, when these women have secretly wrapped up garlic bread or nodded when their husbands said something foolish about stocks or agreed to go to Hooters after Sunday services? Why bother listing the life-changing, life-ruining injustices, when these women have locked themselves in bathrooms or tried to buck men off themselves or touched up black eyes with concealer? Why bother recounting the guilt, the annoyance, the anger, the fear?<\/p>\n

They know it all. They live it every day. They are sick of lectures.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to give me four minutes to explain,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She taps through her phone, sets a timer, then slowly, deliberately strips off her clothes. First she removes her tank top, revealing a bright red bra, no lace. Then she pulls off her frayed jean shorts, revealing pink panties, no lace. Then she removes everything.<\/p>\n

One woman\u2014a Pentacostal healer who sells skincare products at choir parties\u2014shrieks. \u201cThis woman\u2019s the devil\u2019s whore!\u201d<\/p>\n

The women glance at one another, but none of them is willing to give up this sort of gossip. Devilry or not, they won\u2019t be missing it. Most especially not the preacher\u2019s wife. And there\u2019s something in the air, a heaviness beyond the humidity, that tells them this is it, this is the moment they\u2019ve been waiting for since the first time they found themselves wishing they could slice off the fat of their thighs, since the first time a boyfriend said come on baby<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Pentecostal healer stomps back toward her car, her flip flops sinking into the grass, flipping up specks of mud on her calves.<\/p>\n

Gemma Mae\u2019s face remains still, as though she has heard and seen nothing. She stands naked and upright before the sopranos and altos. She reaches toward her right armpit\u2014her mother always told her her armpits were too fat; they weren\u2019t flattering; no wonder that first boyfriend dumped her\u2014and pulls.<\/p>\n

Her pink, soft skin peels away like a rubber mask. It is a slow process; the skin is tightly fitted.<\/p>\n

Underneath are thick, green plates. Claws that glint in the moonlight. And finally the eyes\u2014yellow and flat, staring at each of them in turn.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

The fifteen women drive home in their separate carpools. They ask one another, \u201cDid she\u2014?\u201d \u201cWas she\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we?\u201d<\/p>\n

A few search for their openings as soon as they arrive home. They touch the body parts they hate the most\u2014their stomachs, their underchins, their delicate folds of skin by their waists. They pull. Underneath, there are the same thick green plates, horned and tough, that they saw on Gemma Mae.<\/p>\n

The English teacher reaches out, fingers trembling, and strokes the coldness of her horned skin. The guidance counselor twirls in a circle, admiring herself. The accountant drops to the floor and finds that the more she enjoys her new height, the shorter her arms grow, the broader her snout grows. When she stands up again, she turns back into a human shape with gator skin.<\/p>\n

Other women take pictures, then stare at them, sure that they\u2019re hallucinating. One slips her skin on again, then off again, on again, off again. Several take weeks to discover their skins. A laundress, in the middle of telling her sons to wash their dishes\u2014because Jesus Christ, she is tired of cleaning other people\u2019s things\u2014feels a grunt in her chest. She rushes to her room to hide the croaks that emerge.<\/p>\n

The preacher\u2019s wife refuses to think about Gemma Mae\u2019s skin-shedding for a month. She pretends it never happened. When other choir members talk about it, she uses the restroom, hands out sheet music, straightens chairs. Then, the last week of January, in what she has told herself will be her year, she beats her husband in a friend\u2019s game of Bibleopoly. Her husband laughs and bows in fake supplicancy. Back at home, he hits her in the kidneys with the edge of his hand. She rips off her skin in the bedroom and returns to her husband in scales.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

By spring, the Flatland Springs Community Choir has disbanded. The women have started a new women\u2019s choir, they say, and they sing only for themselves. Several sopranos and altos have disappeared\u2014first, the English teacher, then the guidance counselor, then the accountant. Then nobody\u2019s heard from the laundress and the preacher\u2019s wife. None of the five come back, nor does the preacher himself, who went missing at the same time his wife did.<\/p>\n

The preacher\u2019s parents make a heart-wrenching appeal to the public. The preacher was a man of God, they say. They hope he and his wife return to continue their blessed work. Several women\u2014those the preacher\u2019s wife never knew about but always suspected\u2014watch the news through teary eyes. One sobs. He said there was something special about her; that\u2019s why he was drawn to such a young girl, not quite seventeen.<\/p>\n

In Lake Mirror, there are five new gators sliding in and out of the water. At night, there are fifteen. They croak at people strolling by at late hours, snap jaws in the air if they venture close to the water. The men walking by\u2014it\u2019s always men by Florida water in the dark\u2014jump and shiver and laugh at themselves. Those who know better, those who feel in their bones that the night is not theirs any longer, call their mothers, their girlfriends, and ask if they can chat for a while, just until they make it home safely.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, when the moon is full and the lake is quiet, a sixth gator in her human form stands by the water and sings. She is glad to be home again; she is often on the road to community choirs across Florida. The other gators hear her clear, bright call and recognize it for what it has always been: a beacon.<\/p>\n

They call back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a chorus, stronger than before. All the voices are equal, all are powerful. They do not try to outsing one another, though some voices are naturally louder than others. Their bellows echo into the darkness.<\/p>\n

Throughout Flatland Springs, women hear their sisters singing. They stop prodding their belly fat, texting absent husbands, holding back tears. They move to open windows and sit on cracked stoops and stand on metal apartment stairs, straining to hear the bellows that fade into a sea of crickets chirping.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sophia Huneycutt was born and raised in Florida. She currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she\u2019s an MFA student at The Ohio State University and an associate fiction editor at The Journal. Her fiction has been published in Jabberwock Review and Ellery Queen\u2019s Mystery Magazine.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2022 Porch Prize Winner in Fiction\u00a0 Gemma Mae has graduated from the University of Florida, and is rejoining the Flatland Springs Community Choir. The sopranos and altos squirm with excitement at the news. They heard tell of what-all she\u2019d gotten up to in Tallahassee: a drunk-and-disorderly, a late-night domestic abuse call, a few nights in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[63,73],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6Jypy-bellow","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17795"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17802,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17795\/revisions\/17802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}