Written by François Bereaud
She felt a sweet ache in her forearm as she swung the mallet pounding the eight inch nail into the
sidewall of the last oversized tire of his Lincoln Navigator, because of course he drove a massive
car, probably compensating for a small penis or some other Freudian shit she didn’t believe
because she was a hard scientist but, in this decidedly unbrave—Huxley?—new world, science
was dead with her being a year shy of her PhD and the funding uncertain, well, no, certainly cut
off, and he, the university president, had said yes, we can work with this new administration and,
yes, cuts would have to be made and perhaps we will reexamine research goals which was a long
way of telling her that her stipend would die, but what was the point anyway of getting a degree
which led to no job except that she’d seen a flyer that the oil company was recruiting since that
was now back in vogue with all that she believed in being deemed a hoax, and as she struck the
nail square, the vibration pulsing through her wrist, she thought about the man who self-
immolated in front of the Supreme Court on Earth Day and she and Angie had argued bitterly
about whether he was a hero or a fool who wasted his life, she taking the latter position as she’d
just passed her A levels and was ready to cross the frontier into true research, Angie being older
and more cynical and a drop out who called herself a coward for working at Home Depot which, come
to think of it, happened to be a job with health benefits, and they’d fucked after, sheets drenched
in sweat, the sting of which hit her eye as she heard the cathartic hiss of the nail striking the heart
of the tire, and she felt her jaw relax as she stood, her knees sore for squatting and then thought
about the O-Chem lab she would dutifully show up for in less than eight hours, with the boy, a
boy—definitely not a man—who sat at the table closest to the lectern and smirked while making
comments under his breath, as if to question her every move, whom last week she’d glared at,
willing him to fucking say what he had to say aloud so she could humiliate him, and now thinking
how he also probably had a small dick and here she was in the middle of the night thinking about
another male’s genitals as she appraised the vehicle, all four tires flat and ruined, her work done
well as always, even a perfectionist in eco-terrorism—or was she flattering herself with this
description, whatever—it was time to leave, so she walked away from the scene, the walking
giving her an illusion of control, of invincibility, her running shoes soft on the pavement, her
skin slick and moist, her own car, its four small tires intact, a twenty minute jog away so she
started in, but the rhythm was all wrong with the mallet in one arm and she was stopped by a
flashback to a night: craft beer, wood-fired pizza, toasts to a first year completed, innocence and
belief, then someone said “hey check this out” and in the back of the brewery behind the
gleaming metallic vats—all chemistry she’d thought—there was axe throwing and why not and
she’d been nervous, never liking to not be good at something, but there was a hand on her thigh,
another on her shoulder, guiding her, correcting her posture, talking her through the motion, the
woman she’d been eying all night, the woman who’d become her Angie—now her former Angie—
so she stopped and tried to remember, the positioning of her legs, the weight distribution, how
high to lift her arms, the mallet weighing less than the axe, what the physics, never her strongest
subject, would say about its flight, and this time she’d only get one chance while then they’d
thrown until their arms hurt, drunk and laughing and the exhilaration of a woman squeezing her
ass, but now it was only one chance as she stared down the front windshield of the Navigator, her
legs both loose and tense bouncing like a prizefighter, an old-fashioned word she knew from her
grandfather, the gentle man who’d taught her the magic of a chrysalis and the myriad properties
of baking soda, but for reasons inexplicable loved the beautiful violence of boxing and died too
young, chemo cocktails no match for leukemia, so she thought of him and Sugar Ray Robinson
as she drew her arms above her head and inhaled deeply feeling the tension in her thigh muscles,
fluid, this reaction is all fluidity she thought, then she did it, one motion, arms forward, legs firm,
eyes squinting to watch the hammer as it spun through the dark, with her wondering about
momentum and force, and then a crack and the wail of the car alarm, and she’d done it.
She ran through the night, away from her car, away from the university, away from her thoughts,
away from the town.
As she reached the mesa, the smell of piñon pulled her forward, a reminder that the natural world
still existed, for now, at least.
.
François Bereaud is a husband, dad, full-time math professor, mentor in the San Diego Congolese refugee community, and mediocre hockey player. He is the author of the collection San Diego Stories published by Cowboy Jamboree Press. In 2026, Stanchion Press will publish his novel, A Question of Family. He has been widely published online and in print. His work has earned Pushcart Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions nominations. He serves as the fiction editor at The Twin Bill, and reads for Porcupine Literary. Links to his writing at francoisbereaud.com.