New work by Corey Campbell (fiction, ’12), “A Handful of Pennies and One Rouge Dime,” appears online at Pithead Chapel:
Near the Chrysler Building. A dark bedroom in a pre-war apartment, long heavy curtains pulling down, and a skinny strip of light underneath. It makes Janelle lonely to lay belly down on the bed, cheek to the sheet, wrists tied behind her with a silver birthday ribbon. She wishes Sanderson hadn’t gotten so into tying her up.
The dumpling delivery guy is at the door, forty minutes late. Voice like a balding minor league umpire. “Happy Panda,” he calls.
Sanderson grunts in response, pulling on worn jeans and walking barefoot across the carpet, mint green like an old lady’s gum. He steals a twenty from Janelle’s bag and leaves her there on the bed, where they’d stripped all but that bottom sheet. She stares at the pastel walls with her one good eye. He left the door open. Sun barrels through the kitchen window so the hallway leading to the bedroom is an overexposed white tunnel. Through it Sanderson emerges again, parking the Chinese food sack on the dresser, knocking over a glass perfume bottle and raining down chopsticks. Warm salty smells engulf the room, where broccoli is king.
