It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: Babang Luksa

Episode Date: November 5, 2023

In this episode of the Cool Zone Media Book Club, Margaret Killjoy reads “Babang Luksa,” a short story by author Nicasio Andres Reed, to Mia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast

for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. CallZone Media Book club, book club, book club. That's the new jingle. Hey! I figure if I set up a bit where I use a new jingle every single time I introduce the episode, then I'll regret it in probably about a month.

But this is Cool Zone Media Book Club, which is a book club run by Cool Zone Media. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. And with me today as my guest is Mia Wong. Margaret Kiljoy. And with me today as my guest is Mia Wong. Hello, hello. I am booking, I am clubbing, I am pounding the tables going book club. This is an exciting moment. Yeah. Well, this is a book club, kind of, in some ways. It'll develop as it goes, but right now it's a story club where I read you a story. I'm going to read Mia a story, and Mia, by proxy, is you, the listener. I feel so powerful. I know.

You represent everyone. Wow. That's wild. That's, I think that makes you more powerful than most elected officials i have become god oh no someone must kill me now okay someone has actually come and killed mia so i'm gonna have to do most of the rest of this on my own that was a joke uh mia still alive yeah no i'm not dead yet unless you're listening to this like 70 years in the future in which case and we're just talking to you for this is okay whatever okay i'm gonna

read a fucking story and this is the first week that we are reading a story that you know we started the book club by me reading a novella of mine called the lamb of slaughter the lion and then i've been collecting stories from different authors that relate to the themes of the show It Could Happen Here that talk about people working together or the world changing due to climate and other crises. And I'm really excited about the story that I'm going to read today because I think it kind of helps set the tone for what a the story that I'm going to read today because I think it I think it kind of helps set the tone for what a what a slow apocalypse like what we're dealing with is really all about and I think um we're all living through times where we're gonna have to start blurring the lines of what is science fiction and what is reality you know yeah so this this story is by Nicasio Andres Reid

and it's called Babangluksa. Salt had crept in while he was away, and now the freshwater wetlands of Gino's childhood are a marsh, brackish and fickle. There is the soccer field where he'd stained his knees. It had been a low, dry rise of earth bracketed by mud and cordgrass, and today is impassable, a thicket of cattails and algae-skinned water, a humming choir of insects. And here the jiffy lube where Gino got his first job, and the stand of trees outside it where Gino smoked his first cigarettes. A line of fat old maples that in the summer had dropped their seeds in spinning helicopter wings by the whirling hundreds, and in the autumn had lit up like matchheads screaming into the sky.

First week of June now, and they're not doing much of anything, their branches almost bare, bark corpse gray from drinking salt water. Around the corner to Mifflin Street, past the stripped bones of the gas station, up two blocks to the high tide line of the sandbagged steps of the shop-and-go, the empty lot opposite repurposed into a dock for the neighborhood fleet, half a dozen rowboats with their oars padlocked athwart, one eight-seater bow rider with yellowing upholstery, one jet ski, and, as they come into dock, the roofed pontoon that Gino caught a ride on, a Habitat for Humanity donation.

40. Benji, the helmsman. Get out of here. Gino, sucking his teeth. We got a problem? Nah, man. Nah. Gino digs out his wallet. Cash. Yeah, I figured. Y'all getting a lot of outages? Benji counts through the ones and fives. More power outages than power. We on generators if we on. Shit. Benji shakes his head. Is what it is. You need directions? I'm good, thanks. I grew up around here. The boardwalk from the boats to dry asphalt is made of wooden shipping pallets, new ones stacked on top of old, when they've started to molder as the mud takes them. Gino slings his bag over his shoulder and walks across with his eyes on his feet, distrustful of the dark patches where it looks rotted through. The street is a relief,

even with sedge and woolgrass cutting up through the cracks in the pavement for the first few yards past the waterline. The distance from the stop-and-go to his childhood home is the length of time it took to eat a bag of spicy pork skins and throw the evidence in a neighbor's garbage can so his mom wouldn't know he'd been ruining his dinner. But he'd measured it in a teenage boy's appetite, and the walk seemed quicker now. The streets narrower, the telephone poles shorter,

the sky closer, everything more squat, and the gritty smell of the marsh clinging on even two blocks up the street. Still, it's late in the afternoon and the sun on the clouds is starting to blush, so folks are setting themselves up on front stoops in threes and sixes with cigarettes and beer bottles and babies on bouncing knees, their friendly racket sounding to Gino something like a first language, so familiar, unheard for years. He gets a couple nods and throws them back, but nobody knows him on sight. He turns the corner on South Bosnell Street.

The sidewalk is broken in all the same spots he didn't know he knew until he sees them again, and then he knows every fissure and crack, every dog paw mortalized in wet cement. No parked cars. A lot more boarded up doors and windows than there used to be, although there'd always been some. There were never any front yards in the neighborhood, all the basement windows looking directly out onto the sidewalk. Now every house on the row that still looks occupied has a rain barrel out front, sidewalk. Now every house on the row that still looks occupied has a rain barrel out front and a couple have one of those larger, galvanized metal cisterns that look like fat little grain silos. There's a line of grass growing right down the middle of the street. Sedge probably. A bad sign on what used to be high ground. And then, inevitably, there's number 2017. He's been gone almost 20 years and it looks...

not the same, but like a faded photograph of itself. Gino doesn't know if it's looked like that for a while or if it happened all at once. If a year ago, when his father died, the color drained from the house's facade, he could still turn around. It's not that he hasn't thought about his father's death or how it would be to come home and see the place without him, but he's been able to think about it from a distance, know it without seeing it, and that's worked for him overall. But from the bottom of the steps and through the screen door, there's his mother's voice telling someone to bring out the good plates, the ones for company. So much clearer than her voice over the phone telling him she'd understand if he couldn't make

the trip, like she was forgiving him for disappointing her even before he did it. Gino wants very much to be someone who doesn't need to be forgiven, so up the stairs he goes. Gino was five years old when the bulge of the Schuylkill River met the fat and trickle of Cobb's Creek to the east, and together they fingered their way west through parkways and backyards to touch the gutted Delaware. It was then declared that everything south of the Roosevelt Expressway was officially part of the greater Chesapeake floodplain. The majority of Philadelphia was under at least six inches of water, so the entirety of it was legally classified as inundated. The news, his folks, every adult he knew,

kept track of the losses. The city took bids on where to relocate the Liberty Bell and crowdfunded the removal and transport of the arch at the foot of Chinatown. The neighborhood threw up barriers around the Pentecostal church on Snyder Avenue and brought up and replanted mangroves from nurseries on the Jersey Shore.

They were losing more ground than they saved, though, for as long as he could remember. When he was eight, the block half a mile away where his mom grew up was evacuated, and his grandpop moved in with them, slept on the couch. His sharp-pressed slacks and red-striped shirts

displaced Gino's clothes in the closet. His basketball games and bocce club pushed Gino out of the afternoons he'd spent with his dad. And his voice, old Philly, short vowels running up into each other, filtered into every room and out the front door onto the stoop, every day adding to his eulogy for the city. Grief was the background static of Gino's childhood, everyone else's grief for a place he'd never been. Gino's family was in West Passiunc, a little too distant from the heart of old Italian Philadelphia to benefit from the touristy nostalgia, and too black and brown for their one sob story among many to generate charitable

donations. Like for the black folks down in King Sessing, up in Kensington, the official plan was to leave it to rot in the water. But the less than a mile square from 20th Street to 26th sat on a rise known only to kids who'd biked it, pushing and sweating up one way and gliding, legs storked out down the other. While the rest of the neighborhood went to algae and rot, Gino's old block and the couple dozen around it became an island in the marsh. It was almost lucky. A mile in any direction,

the government offered to buy homeowners out of their property for less than a quarter of how much it would cost them to start over somewhere further inland. Most people took it because, in the choice between an insultingly low offer and nothing at all, they figured it was better not to wait around for the insulting offer to expire. Up in the neighborhood, basements flooded, tap water went funny, electricity flickered and failed, but no buyout offers came. And even as everything else changed, the old rule still held true.

If you didn't get out of the neighborhood by the time you were 18, then chances were you were never getting out. Gino left when he was 18. Gino's older brother, Stevie, got married at 18. Stevie's in his 40s now, and on the couch this morning, his knees as high as his chest because his spot on the far corner has sagged under the years he's spent there. There's a stack of dishes and cutlery on the coffee table in front of him. He's the ghost of their dad.

Heavy brows, a twice-broken nose, an ancient thick sweater despite the heat, and a smile that'll never let you in on the joke. More him than their mom, so more Filipino than Italian. And Gino, never pegged as either, remembers again to resent him for it. Jesus, you actually showed, Stevie says to him. There's a pause where Gino's supposed to say something biting, but he doesn't rise to it. Stevie shrugs. You got about a minute to turn

around and leave before the rest notice you're here. Eugenio. Stevie's husband, frozen halfway down the stairs. Got some fucking nerve showing up here. Kevin, Gino says. He hasn't set his bag down yet. You look good. Change your hair?

Don't tell me how I fucking look, you... Gino! His name ricochets down the hall and around the kitchen, then back out into the living room, carried on the high voices of his nieces, who make him hug them. One of them takes his bag upstairs, whispering something strident to her dad on the way. Jasmine, Gino thinks.

The one with freckles is Jasmine, the other one is Roxy, who's telling him about what they're making in the kitchen, what they had to substitute in the ponset, what they grew in the community garden. Cousins, assorted children, and neighborhood aunties and their husbands cycle into the room with dry kisses and slaps on the shoulder, telling him he hasn't changed at all, telling him he's gained weight. Kevin slips behind them all and into the kitchen, and Gino tells everyone that he needs to go volunteer to help out his mom before word spreads that he rolled up to her house expecting to stand around,

being waited on. He steps heavy down the short hall back to the kitchen, less to give Kevin and his mom warning he's coming, and more to spare himself whatever they were saying about him, which might have been a sound strategy in another family. saying about him, which might have been a sound strategy in another family. Don't know why he bothered, Kevin is saying. From less of a distance now, Gino can see whiteness hair, and that pinched line between his brow never quite disappears. Kevin spots Gino in the doorway and turns back to tell his mother-in-law, it's a cruel thing to do to you, Francesca. God knows he's just going to turn around and leave tomorrow. His mom, her small hands shiny with oil and flecked with carrot skins,

turns and sees him. Well, she says, will you? Head out tomorrow? Hey, Ma. Nah. No, I took the week off. Takes about a day to get back, though. Took a day to get here, so I can stay a couple days. She looks him up and down, then away just as quickly,

and goes back to chopping a lemon. He adds, Right now there's a break between the last project and the shoreline thing in Maine. I don't know if you've heard about it. Real glad you could squeeze us into your busy schedule, Kevin says. About a year late for the funeral, but it's the thought that counts, right? He leaves, a heaping bowl of rice under one arm and a pan of lasagna under the other. For a long minute, Gino just watches his mother work, reaching for this and that,

washing her hands. There's less of her in reality than there had been in his imagination. She tells him the garlic bread is ready, and he falls into the routine of ducking outside to turn off the gas, grabbing the wire basket on top of the fridge, a cloth from the drawer on the left, and plucking the steaming slices from the oven pan, folding them under the cloth with the buttery smell of a thousand ancient dinners around the kitchen table. There's a lot of chatter coming from the front room, and someone comes in and out of the back door to bring in the folding chairs that have been rusting out there since before Gino was born. Gino hovers in the middle of the kitchen.

He's spent an inordinate amount of time over the past weeks thinking about what he'd say to her. Even in his imagination, he never quite got it right. Finally, he asks, Is there anything else to do? His mom waves a hand at him without turning around. Take those out there. Okay. And then he tries. I'm sorry, ma. For what? She's wiping down the counter now, piling pans and ladles in the sink. Or Gino takes a couple breaths. He's feeling a little sick, which isn't the same as feeling sorry,

but is close enough that he's sure it is what he should say. I should have been here. Last year. His mom is brisk, business-like, with her hands. She shakes her head. You were gone a long time before that. You knew you weren't coming back.

She says it plainly, without accusation. Right, Gino says. Okay. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know it. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls

we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands,

for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He carries the basket of bread into the front room. Out front, there are people everywhere on mismatched chairs, kids cross-legged on the floor, and not enough plates for everyone.

A neighbor comes in the door with a package of paper plates to make up the difference. Stevie gestures Gino over to a spot he saved on the couch, and their mom comes in and settles herself into the big cracked leather armchair that used to be their dad's. There's a moment where everyone pauses, leaning over their plates. The youngest kid in the room asks if they can eat now, and Uncle Lenny turns to Gino's mom and says, hold up, Francesca, you want to say something? She says yes, and puts her plate down on her lap. She'd insisted on taking one of the paper plates. She runs a quick hand over the arm of the chair. It's strange to see her in it. It's strange to see her. I hear it's not always easy to get here across the water these days, and it's nice to see you

who did. She nods at some folks who Gino didn't know had moved away. The house is always better, with a whole lot of people in it, even if it's a little crowded. Natto and I moved in here a few months before Stevie was born, all the way across town for an extra bedroom. When we had Eugenio and he wanted his own room, Nato told him, you can make a down payment, then you get your own room. There's some laughter in Gino's direction. His mom turns to her own brother. And Lenny, you know our dad, God rest him. He didn't like me taking up with Nato, didn't like us moving away from the old neighborhood, and we had some conversations about all that. Lenny chuckles, incredulous. That what you want to call it? All right, she says.

We had some loud conversations about all that. But then give it 10, 20 years, and him and Nato are best goddamn friends, getting up to all sorts of trouble together here in this house. When Dad passed, it was a mess. You know what I mean. I wasn't ready for that. She looks at Gino for a moment, then at Stevie. And your father, he held me up and gave me ways to say goodbye. We did this for my dad the year after.

And if anyone said it was a little strange to have a babang luksa for some old Italian from South Philly, then they had to have a loud conversation with me. She clutches a hand on Lenny's knee. This year, yous have all held me up. So, let's eat and say goodbye to Natto. Kevin and a cousin who Gino couldn't place take charge of dishing out food. There's a massive salad that he hadn't noticed before,

weighted down by a mound of black olives and grated parmesan. The lasagna is meatless, but the pan soup beyond has chicken and liver. And there's something that smells like adobo, even if it doesn't look like it. Jasmine and Roxy start a fork war over the best-looking corner slice of lasagna, which Kevin settles by taking it for himself. Gino lets mostly everyone be served before him while he tries to unclench his hands and his jaw. From his left, Lenny shovels all the olives from his own plate onto Gino's, an old joke he'd forgotten they shared. Good to have you

around here, Lenny says. Can't get anyone else to take those off your hands? Not all of them at once. I gotta do two here, three there, hit five, six plates. It's a logistical nightmare. That's rough, man. Luckily, I'm a logistics guy. Oh yeah? You, uh, still with the, uh, what's the thing? Army Corps of Engineers, yeah. Gino catches Lenny's searching look. Almost ten years now, he offers. Roxy breaks off talking to the neighbor kids and shoots Steve an accusing look. Uncle Gino's in the army? No, Gino answers for her. Corps mostly civilians.

We do infrastructure projects, building stuff. They did the levees downtown. You worked on that? Roxy lights up. The levees would have been big news in the city when she was a kid. They're half the reason their little island is still above water. No, Kevin says. He was long gone. But the mail still came then.

He sent you postcards from all his little projects. When was the levy? What year was that, hmm? Roxy looks uncomfortable, but Jasmine puts in that she was in sixth grade. Right, big year. You were in that inner-city youth boxing thing, Jas. She made the quarter finals. Where were you that time, Eugenio? Gino isn't sure what year Jasmine was in the sixth

grade or exactly how old she is now, but he can see Kevin waiting for him to ask. Connecticut, he says. Coastal restoration. Oh yeah? How'd that work out for Connecticut? Come on, Kev, says Stevie Gino says, not bad, last I heard I've seen worse Yeah, me too, Lenny says and jerks his chin at the front window Everyone laughs Gino nods, which is close enough to laughing

Another neighbor, a big guy whose name Gino can't come up with, asks Youse guy's got work planned down here? And the woman next to him, his wife maybe, says, Oh, they should put up boardwalks. And somebody else, we've been saying there's plenty of high enough ground for boardwalks to connect up to downtown. They gonna do that, Gino? They don't really tell me that kind of thing. I just keep the truck and everything running.

I'm a, you know what I mean, a glorified mechanic. He trails off and his brother laughs. Please, Stevie says. They're not going to do shit. I mean, sorry, but you're not, right? The levy was what, eight years back and nothing since that? They gave up. Francesca, who had been quiet, eating, says,

They did, but that's okay. Everyone is allowed to give up when they gotta. From the tension in the room, it's not a popular statement, but nobody argues her on it. After a second, someone brings up the NBA finals and how piss-not-o would have been that the Raptors made it this far again. And then his general grudge against Canadian teams in the NBA, and then his earnest incompetence on the court himself as a young man. And then a picture is brought out of a shoebox and it's Geno, perhaps three years old, with a

bowl cut and a look of childish ecstasy, up on his father's shoulders, his father's hands holding up Geno's chubby childlike legs, Genino's arms up at the end of an arc, a basketball in the air, suspended in the moment before it fell short of the net. Gino ducks out to sit on the front stoop and finds a pack of Stevie's cigarettes where he's always left them in the nook of the broken corner of the top step.

He lights one just as the screen door creaks open and shut and his brother sucks his teeth at him and says, Hey, asshole. Gino hands him the one he's lit and takes another for himself. They settle into their old arrangement, Gino facing the street on the middle step, Stevie behind him leaning back against the railing, between the two of them a view of the narrow street and the intersection nearby, and all of the folks who would wander over to shoot the shit. Nobody wandering today, just the distant figures of other stoop loiterers at another house. A familiar view, but uncanny.

It's so quiet around here, Gino says. It's weird. It's been this quiet for, hell, years. You just weren't around to notice. Gino grimaces, shakes his head. I'm not going to keep apologizing for living my own life. Didn't ask you to, just saying. Right, sorry, shouldn't put words in your mouth. Stevie, never one to let discomfort sit for long, asks Gino how work is. And you still seeing that girl, Tina, Tricia? Tanya, says Gino. We call it quits. It's the job. I'm somewhere for six, eight months, then a couple weeks of nothing, being a bum on her couch, then some other place, do it all over again. I like the work. Get a project, see it through, tie it up. I like that. But I think she got sick of the whole thing.

tie it up. I like that. But I think she got sick of the whole thing. Condolences, man. Nah, I'm good. So who's couch you bumming on between projects now, Stevie asks. Gino shrugs. Just around, really. HQ has some temp housing, so I'm there mostly. Bro, hold up. Are you homeless right now? Gino shoves back against Stevie's knee. Fuck off, man. I just, I don't need a place is all. All right, all right. I was going to say you could crash here, but being honest, I think I'd have a heart attack if you said yes. And Kevin would fucking kill you or me. Stevie grunts in agreement. You wouldn't stand a chance. He's a biter, too. Gino sputters. Come on, man, I don't even know that shit. He hesitates, then says,

You guys don't have to stay here either, you know. Gino. Just saying. I know what it's like to feel trapped here, but you're not. You don't have to stick around and watch it all sink, you know. I can help. We can pack up. Ma and... Stevie cuts him off. Come the fuck on,

man. You think Ma's leaving this house? You want to pry her out of here with a crowbar? You're going to break her heart with that? And who's going to take care of her then, you? I could help you get set up somewhere. Get the fuck out of here with that. Come on. I'm just saying. I know what you're saying, but be real, okay? Ma's not going anywhere, and if Kevin and I leave, there's no one to be with Ma. You're not dropping everything and coming back. So yeah, you're not trapped, because I am. And that's not on you. I'm glad you're out there doing your thing. You're my little brother, you know, and you're a smart kid. Stevie, I'm 36. See? You can count real high on everything. Stevie laughs at his own joke,

that loud, unselfconscious snorting that always makes Gino smile. Jesus, listen to us, like we're in therapy or some shit. I am, actually, Gino offers. For real? Yeah. Stevie nudges Gino's back with his foot, so he goes on. Work has these folks on staff and it's free, so I figured might as well, you know what I mean? Huh. Nice of them, I guess. What do yous talk about? Gino cranes his neck around to glare at him. What? I've never been to therapy before. I'm curious. Come on. It's personal. Alright, fine, don't tell me anything. It's like AA, you know? It's confidential. How much confidential shit could you even have? Aw, come on, screw you, Stevie.

He laughs again. Kidding. I'm kidding. Gino finishes his cigarette and rummages in the pack for another, offers Stevie one, then lights them both. Overhead, the sun is behind grey clouds, and some sort of hawk or kite is making high, irregular circles. He's cool, the therapist they got, Gino says. He thought coming here for this was a good idea. He's kind of a hard ass, though, you know? Calls me on my bullshit.

That's a big job. You're full of bullshit. Hilarious. I know, right? Stevie taps a little song on the top step with his fingertips. Inside the house, Roxy and Kevin are talking fast, back and forth, loud and happy enough. So, go on, Stevie says. What kind of bullshit? Gino sighs. He gestures with his chin back at the front door. This kind, mostly. First session we had, he gave it 15 minutes before asking why I kept getting angry at myself for having feelings. Oh, fuck. Yeah, I almost walked out and he was like, see? Right there. There it is again. He shakes his head, smiles. Bastard. You still do that, though, Stevie says, with all the self-assurance of someone who'd changed his diapers. I do, but I notice it now, which he says is good.

Stevie blows smoke out of the corner of his mouth, and they watch the hawk drop out of sight somewhere over the marsh. Is it? Good? Nah, it sucks. Now I get angry about being angry. Stevie laughs so hard that both his daughters and his husband bang out through the front door to see what they're missing The three of them fitting themselves into Gino and Stevie's stoop arrangement in a new configuration that makes him feel crowded

But at least not crowded out The kids surround him on the steps long teenage limbs getting everywhere Kevin even offers him a bite of the slice of pie he carried out with him And barely makes a face when Gino uses his fork. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturno, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this

show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting

and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Gino walks with his mom to his dad's grave about a five-minute trip up the street. It was Kevin who pointedly heard it as family and everyone else left at the house to clean things up and follow along afterwards. So Gino and his mom are alone together for the time being in the dim late afternoon, walking through sticky air and the droning noise of a neighbor's household generator. It's slow going, not because of any infirmary on Francesca's part, but because she walks slowly and always has. An infuriating trait in a city person, finally at home now that this part of the city has been cut off, made circumstantially provincial.

Gino doesn't mind meandering, but he's not used to the sound of his mother not talking. Stevie's girls look all grown up, he says. She nods. She puts her hand on his arm and folds it so that her hand is tucked into the crook of his elbow, and they walk like that, a dignified little procession. He's a good father, she says. You still not seen anyone?

Nah. Would you tell me if you were? Gino docks his head. Probably. They come to the graveyard. Stevie had written to Gino about the place and sent some pictures, but it's more odd, more abrupt to see it in person. What used to be a messy, six-way intersection in the middle of the neighborhood had become just so much useless space when the seasonal flooding stopped being seasonal, and residents were cut off from the closest gas station, now a half an hour away over the water. Folks brought out the sledgehammers and tore it down to the dirt. The original plan had been to till the soil and put in vegetable crops,

but before they started planting, someone on 23rd Street died, and all at once the residents of the newborn island realized that they didn't know what to do with their dead. Cemeteries in South Philly had been exhumed and relocated long ago, well before most of the living started to leave. If the bereaved were so inclined and could afford it, they'd ship their dead up to a plot in the northwest of the city, or even to the suburbs. They'd ship their dead up to a plot in the northwest of the city, or even to the suburbs. Churches and mosques and synagogues pitched in, but most people, if their faith allowed, opted for cremation. The shore had been in flux their whole lives, and there was no assurance their kids wouldn't have to dig up grandpa and ship his bones even further inland a couple decades down the line. Unfortunately for the remains of West Passyunk, however, when the water rose around them, no crematoriums remained on dry land. So they had the body of a young woman whose heart gave out

in a fresh field of open dirt. They planted her in it. And then the next death, and the next one. By the time Gino's dad was buried here, he had plenty of company. The graveyard has the long triangular shape of the old intersection, enclosed by a chain-link fence to keep out dogs and raccoons. The grass is clipped short, the regular sort of lawn grass instead of the mess of marsh grasses that have crept in everywhere else. White forget-me-nots are dotted in among the plots, and one corner of

the yard is taken up by a huge mess of purple aster. The markers are pale wood, names and dates burned into them within a dark, neat script. Gino's mom leads him to his dad's plot, which is catching some late light. Gino knows his father is dead. He's known it for a year, but seeing a grave with his father's name on it feels like coming down off a high wire. Sickening and sudden. He sits down in the grass and after wiping some dust and grit off the marker, his mom sits down next to him. You should come visit him in the morning too, she says. A lot of bees then, and bluebirds. I almost moved that feeder over here, that one he

put out by the back door. But then they wouldn't come to the house so much. They come here already anyhow. Gino doesn't trust himself to speak yet. He hadn't known it would feel like this. He had hoped to avoid feeling like this indefinitely. The finality of it, and the premonition that she would be gone soon enough too, and even Stevie one day, and that this gentle garden of the dead would flood with saltwater, and he wouldn't get another chance to be brave enough to stick around. He thought he'd buried them for himself already by leaving, by not watching it happen. But they're still here, and all he'd done was lose time that he'll never recover

and let Stevie dig their dad's grave all on his own. Gino's squeezing his hands, one in the other, and his mom rests hers on top of them, a question. He shakes his head convulsively. It's fine. Sorry. I'm fine. Sorry. I'm sorry. All right, she says. She squeezes his hand, rubs his back. All right, you go on. He knows what Stevie said, but he's got to ask. It's clawing at him.

You and all them could come back with me, Gino says. I can take some more time off and find a place. Doesn't have to be that far. There's a whole lot of Pennsylvania. We can get you out of here. It's time to get out of here. All of us? She looks at him like he just spat in her face. Your brother can make his own decisions. And you, baby boy, I'm happy to see your face, but you can go anytime. She nods at the grave. But I'm not about to leave him. Don't you ask me to. I'm sorry, Ma, for leaving, for coming back for the moment a few days from now when he'll leave again. That's all right. It's all right to have things you're sorry for. Your dad lived a good long life and he left still sorry for all sorts of things. You go on. Be sorry. That's okay. A trio of swallows have landed on the fence and are calling their clear, tittering trills into the dusk. Insects are

flitting around, and the birds take turn launching themselves from the fence, diving in wild arcs, then coming back to rest. The other two waiting, chirrup laughing, the insects droning on, oblivious to the game that's been made of their fate. I couldn't watch, Gino says, leaning into his mom's hand on his back. I couldn't watch it happen. Dad, the neighborhood. Her hand stills, then she pats him briskly and stands. Stevie, Kevin, and the girls are coming through the gate into the yard,

chattering like birds. Well, anytime you want to see us, we'll be here, his mom says. Whether you're watching or not. That's the story. Right before he died, Mike Davis gave this interview where he was talking about one of the sort of, like, giant struggles that people do in America. And the thing he was talking about was this story of the sort of like giant struggles that people do in America. And the thing he was talking about was the story of people sort of fighting

tenaciously to stay in their home. And it's something I've been thinking about a lot more. I mean, not just from, you know, as people losing this fight and this, this has been, you know,

this is in essence, this is the story of America, right? It's the story of people fighting to stay in the place they love and losing. And, you know this is in essence this is the story of america right it's the story of people fighting to stay in the place they love and losing yeah and you know each successive cycle of people gets driven further and further and further and further until you know the places they love are gone and there's nothing of them well little of them left and you know i i think i don't know something i think i like about the story a lot is like there's you get that and you also get this sense that sort of you know is the apocalypse is you know it's slow it happens for

yeah yeah but also that you know like this isn't the first time this has happened yeah and it's you know and like yeah like the the sort of horror of it right is like it it will it will keep happening and people will live on and it will sort of just keep rolling yeah no i i i read this story and i kind of like there's a bunch of other stories that i'm also really excited about to share with everyone but i like really wanted this one to be first, um, because I, I really wanted to talk about the way that the apocalypse is not just slow, but like, uh, a reflection of the way that everything changes and everything ends and like, you know, um, and I'm really like interested in the idea of you know the

son who moves away who like the family accepts it but it's kind of going to give him shit forever for it and like yeah i don't know i i think it's just a really human thing and i think it helps like because also like okay this hasn't happened to Philly yet, right? This has happened already many places in the world and will happen many places, more places in the world. Like that is an inevitability at this point, right? And just like, we need to start grappling with that, you know? Okay, so I'm going to read his bio, the author's bio. Nicasio Andres Reed is a writer, poet, and essayist whose work has appeared in venues such as Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Uncanny Magazine, and Shimmer. A Philadelphia resident until age nine, he now lives in Tagate in the Philippines with four dogs, some family, and the occasional uninvited monitor lizard. He's the poetry editor at The Deadlands and is working on a novel about the history of filipino

migrant laborers in alaska and then i um i asked i basically asked him since he's not on here to plug things um people already know mia wong you're the host of the podcast whose feed you're probably in uh statistically um and if not go listen it, it could happen here. But I asked Nico and he said, and for an additional plug, I don't have any recent pubs and I feel slightly bad about wetlands being the de facto bad guy in the story. So I'd love to shout out the Society for the Conservation of Philippine Wetlands, which is at wetlands.ph. The Philippines is one of the most dangerous places in the world for environmental activists and land defenders who are often red-tagged, that is, publicly labeled as members or supporters of

the armed communist insurgency. For many years now, it's been open season on red-tagged individuals. State forces and private corporate armed groups alike kill them with impunity, almost always in the name of land grabbing. At the same time, we are one of the countries facing early and extreme effects of climate change. And the damage that these land grabbing entities do to our natural resources is making things worse fast. A healthy, diverse, resilient wetland barrier to typhoons is one of the most vital things for us to rebuild and protect. for us to rebuild and protect. So that is the plug for this episode.

And we will catch you next week on the Cool Zone Media Book Club. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.

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