With the Intent

Pablo Piñero Stillmann

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Things were dicey between her &
the boyfriend. I was, I guess, "the other man," 
even if I didn't much feel like one. An evening 
after wasted hours of pre-season football,
the woman took me to a party at her cousin's place. 
I say wasted because I hadn't been rooting 
for a team, but against a rookie quarterback, a kid 
whose morals weren't up to my holy snuff.

The thing with the rookie QB, you see, 
was that he'd stolen some crab legs 
in his college days. It infuriated me that, 
when asked about it, the QB lied, stone-faced. 
So I wanted him to fail like I'd failed:
again & again & no mercy. I went to the supermarket 
with the intent to purchase dinner, said the press release, 
but made a terrible mistake instead.

Those words stuck with me. Now, when I'm
alone with a chance of rain, I like to play
a parlor game in which I explain
my life to myself that way: I went to
[blank] with the intent to [blank],
but made a terrible mistake instead. It's unfortunate
how everything fits so perfectly: [Her], [love]. [Class],
[learn]. [The lake], [relax]. & I haven't

seen that woman in years. The cousin's apartment, 
along with the building that held it high, it all 
turned to rubble in the earthquake. Walking 
past the empty lot with Nayeli the other day,
I told her I'd known that building from the inside & it was 
beautiful, full of light. The QB didn't fail,
but he didn't succeed, either. In his fifth season
in the league, said a recent article, he still has the ability

to dazzle and frustrate in equal measures.

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Pablo Piñero Stillmann‘s work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Sycamore Review, Notre Dame Review, Washington Square Review, and other journals. He recently won the Moon City Short Fiction Award & his short story collection Our Brains and the Brains of Miniature Sharks is coming out in the spring of 2020 (Moon City Press). His novel, Temblador (2014), was published in Mexico by Tierra Adentro.

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