Into Pieces by John Stadelman

 

A zipped-up black leather jacket. Its creases and wrinkles shine under neon, streams and puddles of red light. Blood vessels and pools of it. Black Dr. Martens with white laces, rubber soles flashing across sticky, glittering hardwood and connected to the jacket by a pair of black skinny jeans. The bulge of a long, rectangular phone in the thigh pocket. The other pocket bulges with a switchblade.

The jacket presses against the bar. Down at the other end, a white low-cut t-shirt is adjusted. The cut-up pattern on its back is in an angel wing design. Below the shirt and seated on a stool, blue jeans bend at the knees, ending above gray high-top Converses that rock back and forth. A gray peacoat hangs on a hook underneath the bar, along with a gray purse.

An old Miller Lite sign glows over the bar, a pair of blue semi-circles straining toward each other across the letters, a white and red joining. Worn tap handles: a raised bronze fist for Revolution, a white goose head, the Dos Equis double-x. Smoke drifts in through the open door. Clack of pool balls. Empty bottles, cans, glasses. Foamy rings run down the latter in concentric, purgatorial layers. Miasma of phone screens, glowing and flashing then going dark.

The display on the digital jukebox changes once, twice. The Dr. Martens point toward the Converses. The Converses shift that way, then back to the bar where they again rock back and forth. Then they face back toward the Dr. Martens.

The jukebox display changes again.

The Dr. Martens flash down the length of the bar and stop in front of the Converses, which go still and rest on the lower rim of the stool. The low-cut of the shirt faces the jacket, angel wings reflecting from the backbar.

The display changes, and changes, and changes. Currents move. Beanies and sports caps; button-ups and plaid, dress shirts collared by unstrung ties; slim-fits and dresses and skirts, jeans and khakis, t-shirts; and flats, heels, skid-marked sneakers, gym shoes, loafers shining waxy. Coats folded and placed and unfolded and swept up. The leather jacket and the white shirt lean in, narrowing and then eliminating the space between them. Touch. Hold. Bulge of phone against bulge of phone. Bulge of switchblade against flat denim. The display changes. The peacoat is swept with the purse off the hook and over the white shirt, burying the angel wings.

The gray Converses and black Dr. Martens smack and clomp on the sidewalk, stumbling and uneven. Cloudy winter breath. The leather jacket flashes in and out under the streetlights and the signs for bars and clubs and late-night logos like it belongs there. It blinds. Distracts.

Every few minutes the Converses and Dr. Martens halt on corners and in shortcuts through alleys to face each other. The cherry red of a t-shirt peeks out from the jacket, bright, obtrusive. The Converses and Dr. Martens stumble on. An arm of the jacket is wrapped around the back of the peacoat. Tight.

In a bedroom, fabric meets fabric, threadwork entwining. More shirts like the white one hang in the closet.

The peacoat falls to the floor. Then the jacket. The red shirt screams with the intensity of emergency lights. A white blanket is thrown to the floor. The jeans and skinnies fall onto a scarlet bedsheet and wrap together.

The Converses and Dr. Martens remain behind at the door in the kitchen. On the stovetop wait empty pots and pans, and on the counter a preparation of seasonings. The Dr. Martens lie on their sides, soles sticking out like the innards of a bisected specimen. The Converses, as gray as the purse next to them, are stained at their soles with old blood.

The phone-bulge in a pocket of the skinnies remains. The bulge in the other pocket flattens as the switchblade emerges. The blade flicks open, reflecting the red of the shirt. The white shirt stops moving.

The red shirt falls over it as an avalanche, a wave.

A third bulge: underneath the pillow.

It flattens as a wide butcher knife is drawn forth and held over the red shirt. It doesn’t glisten. Covered in too much dried blood. The blade chipped from use.

It disappears into the back of the red shirt.

More than once.

When the sun rises, the light it brings is a pallid hangover gray. Blood blends into the scarlet bedsheets. The switchblade lies on the floor, its blade clean and unused. A black garbage bag sits on the floor, packed in with the skinnies, the leather jacket, the red shirt, the Dr. Martens, layers of peeled and hairy skin, a floppy scalp topped with hair like a pelt, fingernails, toenails, the broken pieces of the smartphone that had bulged in the skinnies, gristle.

Steam rises from the stovetop in the kitchen. The pots and pans that had waited in the dark now hiss, spitting grease from the pieces of seasoned, diced liver mixed in with sauteed broccoli and brussel sprouts. Rice boils in a pot. Another pot bubbles with the first of the bones, sheering away the remaining skin. The rest of the bones, including those of the fingers and toes, sit on the prep table. The kidneys, heart, penis, brain, intestines, testicles, stomach and other dark lumps of organs, dressed and harvested into pieces, sit Saranwrapped in the freezer. The angel wing design on the back of the white shirt lies in crumpled disarray in the laundry hamper in the bedroom. The bulge of the butcher knife, back under the pillow. On top of the pillow, a strand of blonde hair.

 


 

John Stadelman (he/him) is a writer from North Carolina now based in Chicago. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College, and his fiction has appeared in Full Metal Horror, Dark Horses Magazine, Diabolical Plots and elsewhere, and he is currently working on multiple novels. His short story, “Putting Down Charley,” won the David Friedman Memorial Award and was adapted into a short film. Although he doesn’t believe in ghosts, he’s pretty sure he saw a Chupacabra one night on the North Side. Stalk him at @johnstadelman.bsky.social and johnstadelmanwriter.com.

 

Published 2/14/26