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Back Patio Press is an online literary magazine and in-print publishing house focused on the absurdity of regular life.

Waffle Home: A Personal History by Sy Holmes

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Waffle House is open 24/7/365. No exceptions. Waffle House will keep serving when the South falls again. Waffle House will be open when Chick-Fil-A gets raptured. Waffle House has a dedication that makes the Marines look like amateurs. At Waffle House you can get your hashbrowns:

Smothered
Covered
Chunked
Diced
Peppered
Capped
Topped
Country
&
All The Way

I haven’t tried them all, but I’ve tried a couple. 

I. Smothered & Covered: Lincolnton, NC

I was maybe fourteen, sitting with my Dad in a booth in my hometown. Behind us, a woman was yelling at her friend. 

“I told her ‘he’s thirty-seven, you’re seventeen, good luck honey, he’s just gonna leave you for someone younger.’”

The next time we were there together, the waitress and a guy from out in the county were talking.

“How’s your day goin?” he asks.

“Oh not too good, I was backing out of the driveway on my way over here and I ran over my little dawg. It was just pitiful, you know. My husband had to shoot him.”

The last time I remember going to Waffle House with my Dad, we were there with my little brother because my Mom was out of town. I think we ate Waffle House four nights that week. It was the miserable time of the Carolina winter where it dumps rain and the days are still short. The world felt like hunger. The only other people in the restaurant were a couple and their young son. He kept running back and forth to the jukebox, putting on songs, dancing. He was husky, and he was swinging his hips like late-career Elvis. The kid was born to be a star. Finally, he put “Let’s Get It On” on the box and, as we all avoided eye contact for three-odd minutes, entered a world of soul only available to the motown greats and chubby white kids, and the world felt less hollow.

II. Diced: Harrisonburg, Virginia

I met Cary for the first time at her house in Harrisonburg. I was two hours late because I didn’t have a car, and my ride to town got lost during Army ROTC training. We went to lunch at Waffle House. The waitress told us about Jesus, her grandbabies, and overcoming meth. After lunch, Cary had work until eleven at the nicest restaurant in town, which, surprisingly, wasn’t Waffle House. I had homework, so I posted up at the library to knock it out. The library closed at nine, and I got kicked out, so I relocated to Starbucks, which closed at eleven. Eleven came. No word from Cary. I was 20 and couldn’t get into the bars. Everywhere else was closed. Wintry mix was spitting down outside. I only had one place to go. 

I downed cup after cup of coffee and ate two eggs and hashbrowns. I called my ride. His girlfriend told me he was asleep. I called Tony, who was partying in town. Tony didn’t pick up, because Tony’s a dick. I chatted with another waitress about nothing and watched the drunk crowd trickle in. Two old folks with their grandbaby walked in at two. I was resigned to the fact that I would stay there until dawn. At three, Cary asked me where I was. I told her. She drove over and I met her outside. She’d been caught up at work, she told me: private party, phone died, closing bullshit. I’d had about ten cups of coffee, and I sat in her passenger seat bugging out as we drove back to her house. There wasn’t a second date. I’ll always regret not staying at that Waffle House. 

III. Chopped: Southwest Virginia 

My roommates, friends, and I usually crammed into a booth on Sunday morning, feeling less than holy. Somebody always brought up the time that some guy tried to pay my roommate Jim to have sex with his wife on camera in a Waffle House bathroom. It was actually an IHOP, because Waffle House is a family establishment, but the story sounds better when you say it happened there. 

IV. Peppered: Southwest Virginia, Again

The summer after I graduated, I met one of my professors at Waffle House. He gave me a notebook to take with me when I left for the next chapter of my life. He told me to write in it. I filled it with attempted budgets, workout logs, and to-do lists. The literature of life, some might say, but they’d be wrong. I just wasted a nice notebook. 

V. All the Way: Southwest Virginia, the Last Time

The first time I met Anne she was wearing bandages around her arms because she had poison ivy real bad. I didn’t care. She said it made her look meth-head pretty. We rolled around the backroads of the national forest and talked about the summer camp and flower farm where she used to work. Her dead chicken named Boob. Weird Southern childhood memories. She bought 40s and we drank them while cruising.  We listened to Rick Ross, who was hospitalized at the time, and Townes Van Zandt. We desecrated a Baptist church parking lot and I ripped my pants down the crotch. At the end of the night, too hungry to give a shit, we hit up the only place open at five. I almost fell asleep in my steak & eggs, and then she dropped me off and headed back home over the mountain. It was the first of many trips. 

I can only think of one other Waffle House memory with her. Near the end, hungover after her friend’s birthday party in northern Virginia. Laughing at the table with them all, then riding back south with her through the fog, knowing it was all coming to a close and it wouldn’t be good for either of us. I have a lot of other memories of non-chain diners with her, from New Orleans to DC. But I don’t really want to think about those, and this essay was about Waffle House. 

Sy Holmes is a writer from western North Carolina. He lives in central Montana with other people’s dogs.

Secret by Blake Levario

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It’s a big secret. But if i told you it wouldn’t be. The secret would be broken in half. You
take one, I take the other. The secret is cherry flavored. It’s huge. But I can’t tell you.
Sorry. You show me your polaroids but not all of them. I think you have a secret too. Is it
bigger than mine? That makes me want to tell you my secret so you tell me your secret
and we can compare them. This wouldn’t do anything but displace us. The world is big
but my secret is bigger—think: universe sized. Think: bigger than that. Remember that I
carry my secret, and I’m six foot nothing in boots. I’ve been keeping this secret my
whole life. It just built itself a barn. In space. The barn is everywhere. Inside of you, yes.
This secret is so big that it makes up who you are, who I am. So if I love you and you
love me, the secret is shared between us. If you don’t love me and I love you, same
thing. It’s a really big secret. I wish I could tell you.

Blake Levario lives in Brooklyn and collects Snoopy tattoos.

Maze by Josh Calvano

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I was downtown the other day for a short bit
It’s been a while
First there was a police car with sirens, then fire trucks, then I watched someone shooting up on the
sidewalk in the sunshine
“I used to be a professional thief”
He says swaying on the spot with one eye shut
“I would never steal from here though; it would be like trying to escape a maze”
I give him a good ol retail
“Yeah, haha crazy”
but secretly i understood what he meant
every day I wander only the safest corridors
free will has evaporated from me
NPC pathing
Through this maze
I’m just trying not to get lost

Jay Calvano works as a supervisor at LEGO in Canada’s capital of Ottawa, When he is not doing that he enjoys long walks into the void and browsing the internet he can be found online on Twitter and Instagram under the handle wutadisaster.

The Invention of the High Five by Joshua Trent Brown

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I ask my mom if she remembers the days before the high five and she looks at me as if I just walked into her hospital room with a monkey on my shoulder and he’s wearing a diaper and playing his way through Kenny G’s Greatest Hits. She asks me why I’m asking her about high fives on a day like today. But she can hardly ask this question with the tubes out of her nose and arms and legs and wherever else. I ask her if she knew that the high five wasn’t invented until the late 70s, by a baseball player. She says no one thinks about the implications of the moment they’re in when they’re in it, but no, she didn’t watch baseball. I ask her what they did before high fives then. She says they just did things; they didn’t worry about what they should do after. A doctor comes in and tells us it’s time to prep my mom for surgery. I ask the doctor if she remembers when the high five was invented. She stops pushing my mom out of the room and says that everything will be okay, my mother is in capable hands. The monkey on my shoulder plays on, despite the tiny tremors from my hands’ trembling. He’s made his way through the track list to The Moment now. My mom turns back to me as they push her down the hall and shakes her head at the little guy, as if to say that’s too on the nose. But he just keeps on jamming.

Joshua Trent Brown is a writer from Raleigh, NC, and a fiction editor at JAKE. He has been published in a dozen cool lit mags like HAD and The Dead Mule. He also has a novella that he hopes you’ll want to publish after reading this <3. Find him on Twitter @TrentBWrites.

Two Poems by Pat Boccuzzi

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Peter Pan

Forgive me, women.
I am a cruel and insatiable man.
The saga of toys and afternoon naps
has never ended.
The bottle I clutch is a stronger one now,
and the thumb I suck it sometimes yours.

I cannot grasp what should be done
and there’s no kind of effort to do it.

You see, I say, I am a man.
And I’m oh so right for the times.

The Moment

When the cold grasp reaches from the dark and pulls me,
protesting, like a parade fist thrust high in the air,
I will remember the moments I knew it would.

It has always been there.
On the breezes,
under beds,
between pages and breaths,
on the highest shelves,
pushed back against the wall.

It has waited,
taking its time,
knowing that its time is all that matters.

I have seen it.
I have known this.
But I have been distracted by the antics of its effects,
And so I have ignored it,
making great efforts to,
hoping that, if I did not pay it any attention,
it would not pay me a visit.

But I will remember each moment I knew it would.
And it will.

Pat Boccuzzi is a recovering comedian turned writer. A fan of warm weather, he inexplicably lives in Boston, Massachusetts. His storytelling and antics have been featured on NPR affiliates and the Boston Globe. On maudlin nights, he fancies himself a poet.

Worst Neighbor in Town by Alan ten-Hoeve

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Our first VCR was a big deal and weekend mornings were for mom’s tapes. She’d kick me out so I couldn’t interrupt the cop shows she recorded that week over the cop shows she recorded the week before. With no friends and nowhere to go I’d wander over to the vacant lot next door and play Star Wars or something. During spring and summer Mr. Calabrese used the lot to grow vegetables, herbs, and fruit he shared with neighbors, leaving bags of fresh food on doorsteps like an agrarian Santa Claus. Sometimes I’d climb the tree in our yard, sit in a cupped fork that rose above the fence, and spy on Mr. C through the leaves as he worked. If he saw me he’d hobble over, pipe clamped in a notched grin, and pass me a handful of berries. One time I asked why he smoked a pipe. “To keep my nose warm,” he said, tapping the side of the pocked rutabaga in the middle of his face.

In winter I had the lot to myself. One cold day in late February a fresh layer of snow covered last year’s garden rows. A good enough day to battle a Wampa on Hoth. But I didn’t feel like playing Star Wars. After dragging my heels back and forth between rows I pried a board from a stack of pallets Mr. C used for trellising, then kicked through the pile of rocks he tilled up over the years. I selected the roundest one I could find. Hefted its weight. Stepped up to an imaginary plate, and got into a batting stance. I never played baseball before. Didn’t really know the rules. The only thing my dad showed me how to swing was his belt. But I’d seen it portrayed in enough TV shows and movies to have an idea. I imagined the classic scenario: bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs. My team down by three runs.

Sunlight hit the salted cars parked along the curb. Reflected off the cloudy panels of the beater Mr. Calabrese used to deliver crops to neighbors. The block looked deserted. Everyone was at church or nestled inside their warm houses. I was alone. It felt good. I looked out as if I was the center of attention in a packed stadium.

I tossed the rock up, swung. Strike one. Strike two. Strike two and a half. “Fuck.” I stepped back from the plate. Spit. Took a few deep breaths. I tapped my sneakers with the board like I’d seen on TV. Spit again. Twice. Three times in a row for good luck. Stepped back up to the plate. Eyed the pitcher. Tossed the rock. This time I felt it connect. The crack of rock on wood popped my ears and a shockwave ran down the board, through my wrists, up my arms. The crowd came unglued. I dropped the board. Heard the announcer say, “Go-ing . . . Go-ing . . . GONE! HOME RUN!”

I followed my teammates around the bases at an easy jog. Took off my baseball cap and waved. A muted crunch stopped me before reaching home plate. I turned toward the sound with a primal knowing that drew my eyes to the rock resting in a crater of spiderwebbed glass that had once been the windshield of Mr. Calabrese’s truck. The stadium full of cheering fans disintegrated and John Street stood naked and cold. I forgot all about home plate and ran home. Went straight to the bathroom, the only room with a window that looked out over the vacant lot. I could feel my heart beating in my ears. Certainly someone must have seen me or heard the crunch. But no one appeared. The block was silent. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time. All day I waited for that knock on the door. When the waiting was too much I closed myself in the bathroom to watch the scene. Each time I had this absurd hope that I’d look out and see that the windshield was fine. That I’d imagined the whole thing. When I saw it wasn’t fine I played with the idea that some other event had brought the rock down into the windshield before I got there. I simply hadn’t noticed. By my sixth or seventh trip to the bathroom Mom paused her tape and eyed me through the cigarette smoke and told me to stop slamming the door.

Sometime before dark I looked out the bathroom window and felt all the tiny hairs on my body buzz. Mr. Calabrese stood by his truck with a policeman. He was shrugging and gesturing at the broken windshield with his pipe as the cop wrote something on a pad. I couldn’t make out what they were saying over the idling cruiser.

In the following days and weeks I waited for a knock on the door. For a policeman to cuff me and take me away. But no one ever came. No one ever said anything. I’d gotten away with it. I felt like the worst neighbor in town. But that was easy. My conscience I could deal with. What worried me was what my mom would do if she found out what I’d done to Mr. C. I decided right then and there not to tell a soul. And I never will.

Alan ten-Hoeve wrote a book called Notes from a Wood-Paneled Basement (Gob Pile Press). He is a decent neighbor.

3 Flashes by Juls Macdonell

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big 1

been familiarizing myself with the tops of elevators lately, cause you never know, and I’m an optimist; always imagined disasters in daylight. my husband started knocking on wood each night when I forget. I keep moving the heavy houseplants further in to their shelves so they might not drop on the cat. I didn’t water them for 2 months, didn’t deposit $800 worth of cheques for 2 months either, but I went to the dentist cause my jaw aches like a fault line. when I moved here I wrote a poem about the city tipping sideways and never finished it. sometimes I fall asleep with my heart racing. sometimes I organize my wishes like they’re not a secret, and to stay humble I put at the bottom, “die while the sun is up,” if I can’t die old or accomplish what I want before then. below that is “under a full moon,” “on a clear sky,” and barring all of those, “fast.” I tell the stars no worries if not

I never know how to talk to kids

I ask them if their school has any mysteries: do the barred courtyards have any monsters? what ghost stories do you have for that one weird bathroom with the showers? have you been to the basement? does the janitor creep you out and do you feel bad about that? how often are you scratched by the inside of a bush? do strangers stare at you (do you stare at them)? do you sometimes smell a candle burning out? do you have to sleep against a wall? have you ever woken up looking at yourself?

my cat watches the computer monitor

Hello maia I love you very much you are such a good little kitty see? I love you I love you I love you 

Juls studies English and writing at University of Victoria. You can find her work in HAD magazine so far.

Two Poems by Jessica Knight

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North Star

holy guide of getting lost
unflinching witness to all who become
a part of the place they’re stuck
dragon-inked sky star of ever-changing shape
won’t you glow in glow out glow down
my feet can’t find
spaces to fill
places to leave
my dirty toes make
reluctant homes
of deepening holes
awaiting the awakening
light from your 8 points
spin your salvation heel-ward
before i’m swallowed
into loam and clay

Old Song, New Worlds

beneath my breast is an open beak
with a throat that gleams
and croaks an old song
a naked tune
that shines
I spring; small, tender
teary-eyed and strong
from the detritus of a spent dream
raw, precious, without polish
there is no thing in me or on me to hide
light is low, senses high
orange peel black tea and blossoms
call this hungry bird forward
there is ripe fruit, enough for two
me and the darker shape that follows at my feet
showing me with each bite
how to get free
bellies full from food sweet and bitter
we walk on
bare heels building new worlds
as we hum and howl
to the sky

Jessica Knight is an Arizona-based artist, tarot reader and seeker of the weird and wondrous. Endlessly inspired by what she can’t fully understand, she writes, paints and divines to get closer to it. See what she’s up to at www.cathartistaura.com

3 Poems from Phallic Symbols by Cletus Crow

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Literary Dystopian Society 

There are too many words I don’t know. 
The poets are coming to kill me. 

The Masochistic Slug

If you need a shoulder to cry on. Oh baby. Yes. Just like that. It burns. 

My Religious Beliefs

A ghost without a sheet is the breeze. Strong winds are a bunch of naked ghosts running a race. A tornado is when they get lost. Their tears are the rain, obviously. The sun is a big ghost on fire. The sky is the biggest ghost. His nail clippings are the moon most nights. The clouds are dandruff or cum. 

Cletus Crow is a writer. He is a weirdo. Phallic Symbols is forthcoming from Pig Roast Publishing. 

You Go Get Her! by Brittany Deitch

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I tried going to the aquarium to make it up to myself. But I just ended up there crying to get out, and thinking about how none of the living things there had a choice. I ended up drowning myself in the tank with all the pink ones, hoping they’d give me my color back and blend. But worst of all, I never even went. I couldn’t. I really wanted to but I just couldn’t. We were supposed to go after our dinner the night before Valentine’s Day, but we fought and fought and I think we would’ve gotten there and it would’ve been closed. I checked the times (you said you had checked the times). It closes at 4 pm on Tuesday. Dinner was at 4:15. We were fighting until 10:35. I did think that I could love you into being yourself or being here or being with me. I always knew but I really didn’t want to, so I just stopped knowing. I think that all the pink fish swam inside and entered me through my mouth, making me as large as the tank and stretching my skin thin against the glass like a shield, like a covering, like protection. For the fishes. Wait, but what did you see? If it was a different sort of image, or a dream, I can let myself be wrong. A second opinion doesn’t hurt. I know you’re not even seeing this, here, at the Camden Aquarium, but I know that you wish you were so I’d be willing to bend my reality a little. So you can feel INCLUDED. Nobody saw when they were walking by– it was like I was invisible. All you need is an alibi. Where were you at 10:35 pm, February 13th, when the Camden Aquarium fish tank exploded with pieces of a real girl’s FLESH? Could you identify this body? Do you even recognize her stuffed full of FISH who STRETCHED through her SKIN? They were only trying to help her get her aura back. They went in through her mouth like food, they went through her veins and inside every inch like YOU, they covered her in scales. Each prickly octagon INGRAINED IN THE SKIN, PINCHING SKIN, ELEVATED AN INCH ABOVE, had words. She ended up with writing all over her body. She left notes. All of these things she wanted to do, how she thought of you. If only you’d come by and read it all. She knew you’d like that, to be TALKED ABOUT. FOR HOURS. BY EVERYONE. For it to all be so ROMANTIC and TREACHEROUS. And about you! But you couldn’t make it. The aquarium closed, and you had do what was best for you.

Brittany Deitch is a Philadelphia college grad, music scene denier, and stream-of-consciousness writer. She currently writes for Paste Magazine, runs/edits Ratpie Friends, and has words in Rejections Letters, Maudlin House, and Bottlecap Press. She writes on Substack at https://theworstpersonintheworld.substack.com/