Charlie Parker At The Pink Flamingo Paradise Lounge

by Laton Carter

Already I am dead. How many children I’ve left behind I’m unsure, but their cries thin in my blood. Please don’t tell stories that use the words angel, genius, or bop. For God’s sake, don’t scat. The language I use is only for survival. Needles and ties—you use what you can before you realize there’s no correcting for mistakes. But I will eat. The body is stalwart. In the laughing belly of the night you can press your face to iron bars and cry. The world doesn’t care unless you entertain it. Once I was a boy without shoes—isn’t that the image you believe? Women were always drawn to me, but look at this place. Radioactive drinks and no one to flirt with. Who am I even talking to? Now we’re detraining into the afterworld. The bright light is filtered in pastel, which is not how I should be viewed.

Laton Carter’s writing appears in The Boiler, Necessary Fiction, New Flash Fiction Review, The Wigleaf Top 50, and other journals. Carter is a middle school teacher in Western Oregon.