Free Kornwolf by Tristan Egolf

seemed to straddle the Mason / Dixon equally: not quite the South, yet a hundred miles shy of New England, and vaguely Midwestern all over, Pennsyltucky consisted of Philth Town and Pittburgh. The rest was West Virginia.
    The apartment, it seemed, had been waiting for him: twenty-five classified listings and, clearly, the choice of the lot: a one-hundred-year-old colonial flat near the Beaver Street projects. Instead of immersing himself in the well-to-do cracker suburban ring around town, he would settle with the resident poor therein, who hadn’t the means or desire to ruin it. This would resolve his sidewalk issues. Along with the gingerbread eyesore modules. As a new Caucasian, he preferred the old ghetto.
    His lease was secured in an afternoon.
    Landing a job had been easier still.
    Even though he’d come back willing not only to put his profession on hold, for the moment, but to tackle the grind, if necessary—be it temp work, dishes or pick-hoeing mule apples out of the cracks on Route 21—he was still able, somehow, by stroke of unlikely fortune, to land a job reporting. In truth, he’d submitted his file to
The Plea
on a whim while heading to an interview with a dog-walking agency over on Lime Street. Passing the five-storied glass-front building, he’d decided, for the hell of it, to go on in.
    The lobby’s receptionist, a scowler with her hair pulled back so tightly it was thinning down the middle, had examined his resume. Her tag read “Josie.” Frowning, she had mumbled, “I’ve got to use the phone.”
    Her pronunciation of “phone” had been laden with the Dutch Anal Pucker—the Stepford drawl. Owen hadn’t heard that lilt in years—the nasally rolling “
oe
” (with an umlaut) of “Br
oe
g’s” a regional microbrewery. Of “p
oe
nies” galloping over a field. Of “p
oe
ms” by moonlight. Of “t
oe
tem” poles. And of secretaries named “J
oe
sie” on “ph
oe
ns” … By slowing down the enunciation and rolling over, forward and back, the “
oe
” while simultaneously curling the top lip sharply toward the nostrils—thereby exposing the two front teeth (hence the “anal” pucker) and pressing one’s tongue almost flush with the roof of the mouth, then forcing a tonsillar bleat through that opening—one may hope to re-create this phenomenon within a controlled environment. Anyone who’s ever left the county would have to recognize it as local stuff. Only the people of Stepford Town could demand of their faces the work of an anus.
    Owen had turned to walk out the door when she snapped her fingers, still holding the ph
oe
n. He had turned back. Annoyed, she had motioned to
hold on
—flexing a finger. Again, she had looked away. Someone had picked up the line on the other end. Soon, the receptionist had glanced up to ask, “How soon are you available?”
    Incredulous, Owen had shrugged. “What time is it?”
    The voice on the other end must have overheard him. There was laughter, cawing. The receptionist hung up. “Mr. Jarvik will see you now”—handing him back his resume.
    â€œMr. Jarvik?”
    She nodded. “Terrance Jarvik.” Her voice had gone flat. “The city editor.”
    Upstairs.
    He sat on a chair in the waiting room, convinced that his time was being wasted. He figured his background check was running, and shortly, somebody would give him the boot.
    (As soon as he landed a job, he would have to quit smoking. That was the goal he had set. Which left him in no kind of hurry, for the moment. The four-alarm hell ride was fast approaching.)
    Laughter drifted out of an office. Followed by: “Where is he?”—coughed with delighted approval, by the sound of it. “Send him in here!”
    A woman in blue secretarial gear appeared in the doorway. She beckoned to Owen.
    For the next better part of