I went to grad school with Charlie Clements at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I only say this to set the scene for our graduation, in which each graduate has an under-one-minute piece read by a faculty member. My wife attended our graduation and was detained for much of the time with our then-two-year-old daughter, so she only half-listened to most of these little vignettes. But she remembers Charlie's piece vividly. She said it was both haunting and intense, and even only half-listening, she was transfixed.
Charlie's writing, like Charlie himself, is simultaneously wide-eyed and deadpan, innocent and erotic, bewildered and in complete control. His story "Another Cigarette," recently published in Prick of the Spindle, contains all of this. Dear readers, enjoy.
From left: Charlie, Rimas Blekaitis, and me