The Assemblagist

Atlantic Beach, NC Gay Bar

After recov­er­ing from the astound­ing body blow that sprung from the fist of an Eng­lish teacher who cor­rected my spelling of “ya’ll” into “y’all” — I began to pub­lish more fic­tion and cre­ative non-​fiction for the April issue of the Mule. Over 35 new fic­tion pieces, a half-​dozen essays, and some smash-​grab poetry will be avail­able in the wee hours of April 1. And that’s no fooling.

The photo? It’s an illus­tra­tion graphic for a story by Arkadel­phian Eli Cra­nor. I stopped in the bar one time, a decade ago, and the photo brings back some unpleas­ant mem­o­ries. A woman there wanted to kick my ass because I answered the pay­phone after it rang inces­santly for about 15 min­utes. The shrill sound of that phone made my ears bleed and my beer tepid. I truth­fully didn’t know it was a gay bar and hon­estly, didn’t really care if the bar had a theme or not.

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