Mark Fishman - No. 22 Pleasure City

He wanted to blame her, it would’ve been an easy thing to do, but he couldn’t blame her for something she hadn’t done to him. He wanted to hate her, and that would’ve been just as easy to do as blaming her for what had happened because he could hate her for everything she’d put him through, but the truth was that he hated himself and blamed himself for wanting her so much that the flames he felt now were busy taking away the best part of him and leaving him with nothing.

He tripped over the bed sheets and fell backward but caught himself by taking hold of the dresser. The sheets still covered him up and there was nothing to be ashamed of and he was standing on his own two feet, so his eyes focused on Angela gathering her clothes from the floor in front of the doorway and getting into them item by item, and while it might’ve been a pleasure under other circumstances to watch her getting dressed, the situation wasn’t at all what he’d wanted or hoped it would be, she didn’t once look up to see what he was doing or how he felt about what she was doing, she was busy getting ready to leave him.

They might’ve said good-bye, Burt Pohl couldn’t remember whether or not they’d said anything, it was such a long time ago, it seemed like forever, but he stood at the window anyway and looked out at the street and saw Angela Mason walking barefoot along Fourteenth Street away from the apartment building and the battered red car and out of his life with the air of a woman who knew who she was and where she was going.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mark Fishman has lived and worked in Paris since 1995. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary reviews such as the Carolina Quarterly, the Chicago Review, the Mississippi Review, The Literary Review, and Glimmer Train. No. 22 Pleasure City is Mark’s second novel. His first, The Magic Dogs of San Vicente , was published by Guernica Editions in 2016.

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First edition.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2017960395

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Fishman, Mark, 1954-, author

No. 22 pleasure city / Mark Fishman. -- First edition.

(Guernica world editions ; 3)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-77183-309-7 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77183-310-3 (EPUB).

--ISBN 978-1-77183-311-0 (Kindle).

I. Title. II. Title: Number 22 pleasure city. III. Title: Number twenty-two pleasure city.

PS3606.I835N6 2018813’.6C2017-907298-6C2017-907299-4