Łόᵒ𝔾Ɨᗴร

Quinn Adikes

There is a ferris wheel on the boardwalk where people go to spit. A few aim for the ocean, but most aim for the boardwalk. Some hit passersby and get into fights after being let off. The more polite spit when the walkway is clear.

Here, let’s spit together: curl your tongue so it presses against the roof of your mouth. Gurgle until the mucus collects around your uvula. Once satisfied with the mucus collection, lower your tongue and push the mucus to the front of mouth. Swish the mucus around and mix it with the saliva and create what is known as a loogie. Don’t let the loogie get runny. If the loogie gets runny it will break into small, unnoticeable pieces, which is the last thing anybody wants because to be noticed is to be alive. Once the mucus to saliva ratio feels correct, it is time to spit. Lean over the side of the gondola and purse your lips as if you are about to kiss your grandmother. Hopefully nobody is pushing a loogie while kissing their grandmother. And also nobody is kissing their grandmother. They are hawking loogies. In my opinion, hawking is the perfect verb for this scenario, but art should never explain itself, and so I will drop this image for you to interpret however you please: loogie dangling from the mouth like an icicle. Wind from the ocean blowing the loogie from side to side. Loogie breaking from the mouth and falling like bird shit. Loogie falling past other gondola riders: a single mother by herself, a tween couple very much in love, a garbageman and an ice cream man who hopes nobody will see them. Loogie narrowly avoiding the ferris wheel scaffolding. Loogie narrowly avoiding the flashing neon bulbs. Loogie narrowly avoiding a man sleeping on a bench. Loogie splattering by the ticket booth, and you are so far in the air but also you certain that you heard it. There are so many loogies glistening on these wooden planks and the owners of the boardwalk will never do anything to stop it. They know that loogies are the point.

My fiction has appeared in Lit Hub, Five Points, Epiphany, X-R-A-Y, Notch, Shenandoah, and other journals. I am the recipient of the Joseph Kelly Prize for Writing and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I live in Brooklyn and teach at Gotham Writers Workshop. I am writing a novel. You can find out more about me at www.quinnadikes.me