The night air sits still like the church girls in their pew at Sunday service. The night air is languid and sour, so thick that you could take it in your mouth and chew it. The church is on Pine Street. I watch them, the church girls, in smart dresses and small, flat shoes. I watch them from across the pews in the church on Pine Street. They have long hair to their asses and skin marked by sunspots and acne scars. They sit up straight. They sing. They pray.

I have sweat running under my arms, melting into ugly, damp pools in the fabric of my wrinkled blouse. I have scuffs on my black Oxfords, the same pair from my all-girls Christian high school. I haven’t gotten a haircut in a year and it clumps in a frazzled halo around my sad face. I don’t believe in God, but I keep going to Sunday service to watch the church girls from across the pews in the church on Pine Street. I slouch and pout at the dull scuffs on my shoes when we are told let us pray.

We are old enough that we don’t go to Sunday school, but we are the straggling members of the church’s young adult social group: the church girls, with their smart dresses and sunspots and bright faces, clicking tongues, hushed voices—and me. We all walk down the linoleum stairs to the church basement, the staircase lined with framed photos of mission trips to Africa. The church girls are in the photos and smile grins of glee at me, their bobbing faces pale and ghostly among the large groups of black and brown African children. They are always in a jungle, or on a beach, among dilapidated tin-roofed shacks, and the sky is always blue, and I imagine that the air in these jungles and beaches is as still and languid and sour and thick as the air on this Saturday night in the city.

I will see the church girls tomorrow morning. They will pray. I will pout.

I imagine things about the church girls. It started with crude thoughts: kissing them hard on their sweet mouths, shoving my tongue down their throat to shut up their clicking. Their tight asses, hair floating down their bare backs. Now, it is situational: I liked to think about wandering through a grocery aisle with the church girls and imagine what they picked off the shelves, like store brand over name brand, or organic strawberries over the normal ones. Maybe, what they prayed about. Sometimes, fucking them.

On this Saturday night in the city, I walk past the grocery store on Fifth Street, closed because it is late. I turn onto Pine Street and see that someone has changed the church marquee from a bible verse to a C.S. Lewis quote, followed by: Service At 10AM Sunday. I’ve got an empty beer can in my right hand, and the last heat of a cigarette in the left. I’m thinking about the church girls, imagining what smart dresses they will wear tomorrow morning, when I hear a loud shriek from across the busy street, echoing over the heads of partygoers, drunks like me, dog-walkers, lovers, and bicycle messengers. I do not pay attention until there is another shriek.

The church girls are pursuing me, running in high heels through honking traffic to cross Pine Street.

Oh my God! they shriek, a chorus of the lord’s name in vain. I am still as they surround me. What are you doing out? Where are you going? Anything fun?

I shake my head and they all sigh smugly. I am still and I am shocked. Gone are the smart dresses and small, flat shoes; each church girl is glittering. Their short, frilly dresses are sequined, their hair is done up, and their high heels, closer to God, chatter on the concrete sidewalk. Their bright faces are darkened by sooty black makeup, acne scars erased and airbrushed away. They smell like soapy flowers and sugar and sex, letting off a cloud of cheap perfume as they sigh and sway on their long, bare legs.

I look at one of the church girls. She is the tallest of them, giving her an assumed command over the rest. Her pink mouth frames lipstick stains on her teeth. Her eyes are alight in the glow of the street lamps. She looks soft, and my mind wanders to reaching at the low-cut chest of her gilded dress, ripping it open with one yank, and leaving her bare.

Well? she smirks.

My breath is caught in my throat.

Don’t tell anyone we’re out, okay?

I hear my voice speak up, feel my mouth move around palpable words. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I hear myself ask, why are you dressed like that?

The tall girl crosses her arms over her chest and lets out a laugh that sounds like a siren. Then she looks me in the eyes, staring right through me. She knows I watch them across the pews, she knows I think about tearing her clothes off, she knows. She clicks her tongue and says something back, but I can’t hear her.

What? I ask.

The tall girl leans in and I smell soapy flowers and pineapple-scented lube. What do you mean? It’s sparkle time.

The church girls are gone in an instant of cheap perfume and chattering footsteps, the tall girl’s soft, bare arm brushing past the sleeve of my shirt as she leaves me behind. My cigarette is dead and the empty beer can crinkles in my hand. I am alone again and before I can think, I kneel on the concrete sidewalk, as throngs of people swerve around me, staring up at the cross that adorns the church on Pine Street. It is illuminated by spotlights between the stained glass windows.

My arm burns where the tall girl touched it. Before I can think, I pray: Amen. Amen. Amen.

Audrey Lee is the author of the poetry collections Disjecta Membra (Bottlecap Press, 2022) and Probably, Angels (Maverick Duck Press, 2020). She holds a B.A. in creative writing and American studies from Franklin and Marshall College. She’s the winner of the 2020 Jerome Irving Bank Short Story Prize, and her writing has been recognized by Columbia College of Chicago, the University of Virginia, and the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from DIALOGIST, Glass: a Journal of Poetry, The Indiana Review, Teen Vogue, and Wax Nine. Audrey is a former resident at the Sundress Academy for the Arts and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

They touched down near the 7-Eleven, just off MLK and Sumner. Four of them, decked out in full spacesuits, large boots heavy in this new gravity, labored breathing moving through their suits like Darth Vader with asthma. They emerged from their spaceship to the tree-lined streets of Portland in an early December downpour. Rain hissed and evaporated as it pelted the hot spaceship exterior. Had they come six months earlier, they would’ve experienced that moment in June, just after the cold snaps, but long before wildfire smoke tinged the sky. A magical time when gentle Spring sun gave way to street fairs, buskers, food trucks, and rosebuds brimming with promise.

The astronauts pushed past gathering crowds. Some neighbors tried to offer umbrellas, but the astronauts couldn’t be bothered that first day. They needed to build shelters before nightfall. They established basecamp in the O’Riley Auto Parts parking lot. They set up portable habitats and sensors on tripods and a recharging station for their rover.

On the second day, the astronauts left basecamp as more rainclouds darkened the sky. They moved slowly around a four-block perimeter. They peered at dormant plant life and captured a pigeon. They inspected mailboxes and fenceposts, staring from behind their mirrored face shields, rain-streaked and beginning to fog. They were faceless and formless under these helmets, so alien-like, even though CNN reported that they had launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida several months earlier.

The neighborhood yet again took interest in this development. This time, the astronauts were more willing to engage. They asked lots of questions. For example: What do you call this place? In response: This is America. The astronauts looked around, seemingly unsure, as if they had already visited America and knew this wasn’t it. For another example: How long have your people lived here?

Eventually, the astronauts’ daily explorations expanded into the 7-Eleven. They inspected the shelves, picking up packages of Fritos and holding them beside some Funions for comparison. Having little money to purchase Fritos, Funions, or lotto tickets, the astronauts began asking for trades. They wanted to barter their freeze-dried rations and anti-gravity self-inking pens and spare bundles of wire and bolts and duct tape. In return, they wanted Krispy Kreme and hotdogs. They wanted glossy fashion magazines. They wanted Red Bull and cans of Starbucks Cold Brew.

Soon, the astronauts tired of the 7-Eleven, and they traded for more expensive items. They wanted to-go orders from some hip Alberta Street eateries. They wanted local art. They wanted televisions and stereo equipment. They cited all sorts of scientific reasons for these requests. For example: We’d like to study the effects of sonic distortions of Lizzo’s new album on your neighborhood’s atmospheric properties. For another example: The chemical properties of a small batch craft IPA could lead to breakthroughs in understanding human metabolic functional variance.

The astronauts got what they wanted because they were astronauts, and the neighborhood people knew that astronauts were admired and respected. The neighbors said emphatic things about the importance of this mission. For example: I’m glad I can do my part! Astronauts are the last true heroes. For another example: Sure! Anything you need. Did you know that Buzz Aldrin spoke at my high school graduation back in the day?

Though if anyone asked the neighbors in private, they’d admit they were thinking about more than civic duty. They were happy to get a souvenir from a bona fide NASA mission. They suspected that all these trades would be profitable. They went on eBay and OfferUp to see how much each collectable object might fetch them. In time, they learned that nobody cared about NASA trinkets unless it was something from the Apollo missions.

Trade relations soured. The astronauts went back to freeze-dried rations until they all began to complain. For example: Fuck this shit. Three of the astronauts took their little rechargeable rover into the rainy wastelands beyond their usual four-block perimeter. They sought other neighborhood frontiers, scouting for new sources of food and drink and culture and luxury and wealth—all for the sake of scientific cataloging, of course.

They left just one crew member to guard the skeletal remains of basecamp, already low on supplies, tarps fraying in the cold breeze, power generator flickering more often than not. The lone astronaut deterred gawkers. For example: Keep moving, shithead. She chewed on her freeze-dried rations with contempt. She collected rainwater in buckets. She dug up a pile of weeds and burned them for heat. She dissected a raccoon and smeared its blood on her helmet. She threw bricks through the 7-Eleven’s windows. For science.

The astronaut waited nearly a week for her team to return, but they never did. She feared her fellow astronauts had been lost to the wilds just beyond Lombard Street. She informed ground control that the mission had been a failure. She told them that this planet was harsh and ruthless. For example: It’s a shithole. Needs terraforming. The next crew needs drills. Big ones.

The astronaut initiated the launch sequence. She began her long, solitary journey into the cosmos, arcing deep into the cold void for months on-end. Finally, she reached an apex, reversed thrusters, and plummeted down, down, down to a sunny Florida landing site where she was hailed a hero. She did a press circuit. She wrote a memoir. She visited our neighborhood again to give a guest lecture at PCC’s Cascade campus—this time, she came during the summertime. Her Delta Airlines flight touched down at the PDX airport with enough time for a quick in-and-out on her way to a more important stop in Los Angeles. She congratulated a scholarship recipient and said inspirational things. For example: The children are our future. She shook hands with the college president.

In her guest lecture, the astronaut told us all about her mission to Portland and everything that she learned about our neighborhood. For example:

James R. Gapinski is the author of The Last Dinosaurs of Portland (Bottlecap Press, 2021), Fruit Rot (Etchings Press, 2020), Edge of the Known Bus Line (Etchings Press, 2018), and Messiah Tortoise (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2018). James teaches for Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA program, and they edit for Conium Press.