What to Do About Brett Rice (And/Or: All My Friends)

new fiction from Myles Zavelo in Issue Ten

Mar 18, 2025

Readers, it’s day two of Issue Ten. Please welcome Myles Zavelo to the magazine with new fiction and many friends. Tomorrow, we’ll have Justin Vernon’s first published poems.

The Little Engines Honda Pilot is leaving the garage this morning and it’s packed with books and magazines. Come find us on tour!

What to Do About Brett Rice (And/Or: All My Friends)

by Myles Zavelo

I have a friend who doesn’t want to be my friend anymore, and his name is Brett Rice.

I’m sick with rage at myself. It’s all my fault. I could’ve done something. I could’ve saved us. I’ve known him forever. It really doesn’t matter.

I mean, I have so many friends—I can afford the loss, you know?

Doesn’t bother me at all.

But I know just when and where to find him—Brett Rice.

###

I have a friend who loves dogs.

I have a friend who reviews restaurants.

I have a friend who doesn’t eat or sleep.

I have a friend who buys herself flowers.

I have a friend who is an amateur gynecologist.

I have a friend who never remembers my name.

I have a friend who is dead and one who misses me and one who is a gun nut.

I have a friend who enjoys peeling candle wax off her fingers, and one who breaks down whenever children go missing.

I have a friend who was born the wrong gender and who speaks perfect Mandarin. I have a friend who won’t eat pork or kiss other men.

I have a friend who misses his mom every day. I have a friend who has to live in this world. I have a friend who refuses eye contact.

I have a friend who enjoys punishment. I have a friend who lives in shock. I have a friend who is not the same and who doesn’t behave, and one who is still laughing.

I have a friend who helps the homeless. I have a friend who wears a pink jacket—who is not the friend who disappeared his parents. I have a friend who whips and tickles me—who is not the friend who manages conflict with humor.

I have a friend who sits on a crate of grenades. Then there’s the friend who has no idea how to relax. I have a friend who throws rocks at schoolchildren. I have a friend who is explosively dangerous and extremely unemployable.

One of my friends wants to have sex with me—she has a weak immune system. This other friend has sex with her best friend’s dad, and a different one has sex with her dad’s best friend. I have a friend who prefers sex with the dead.

I have a friend who runs a hotel, and one friend who rides horses, and one who hears voices, and another who has no friends. I have a friend who never sneezes. I have a friend who shoots coke. I have a friend who doesn’t have gonorrhea.

I have a friend who wants the world and refuses to bathe. I have a friend who cramps my style. I have a friend who is a stuck-up bitch. I have a friend who lives in the woods and a friend who is a genuine billionaire. I have a friend who marks all my words.

I have a friend who deeply regrets marrying his cousin. I have a friend who met George Lopez. I have one friend who is mildly famous, another who seeks out happy hours, and then another who is a clueless white guy. I have a friend who lives on Staten Island.

I have a friend who makes everything better and a friend who grew up in a rough neighborhood. I have a friend who possesses the most discriminating eye, and another who takes pictures of young girls on the subway. I have a friend who has killed before and will kill again.

I have a friend who drives a Mini Cooper and who splits his time between Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. I have a friend who enjoys hip hop music and is wet behind the ears. I have a friend who wants to light bad people on fire. I have a friend who has a speech impairment.

I have a friend who can’t believe what I have become.

I have a friend who never invites me to her barbecues.

I already have one friend who is not my friend anymore.

I’m telling you, I have all these friends, really.

Nevertheless, I will find Brett.

He will be participating in Karen Billups’ annual Fourth of July BBQ.

The air will be sweet, and ridiculously so.

Sweet & Smoky—just the way I like it on the Fourth.

###

Like a total creepy-crawly creep, I have entered Karen’s backyard, and I’m wearing a USA T-Shirt. There are thirty-nine people here, not including me; I counted them up like dust bunnies. And sure, I know them all, but they are not on my list of friends. Some are sweaty with nothing to hide or lose. I find a tray of pork chops on the deck, next to a bucket of beers. Karen Billups is a real bitchy mess. Always stoned on Ativan, and Lexapro, and Wellbutrin. A big, red asshole. She specializes in backhanded compliments. Her sister hung herself in Rome. This day, last year.

Really—the Fourth! Karen found out during her annual BBQ. I wasn’t invited to that one, either. She was drinking beer with her white-wine friends in the middle of the backyard when the call came in.

She broke and cried. I went, “I am so sorry for your loss.” Then Brett gently escorted me to my car, which was parked at the end of the line of cars along the road.

Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of a terribly wrong decision, and there’s never any going back.

To be in control? Sometimes? Wouldn’t it be nice?

After I told Karen I was so sorry for her loss, I may have heard these words come out of my mouth: “She’s in a better place, with Jesus and all his dead baby girls.”

Actually, that was when Brett took me by the elbow, and this is why Karen has adored Brett since first grade—it’s an unavoidable fact—since we were all in first grade. What are you going to do? They used to tie each other’s little shoes.

Now, here I am again, approaching Brett. His eyes match up with mine through the patriotic late-afternoon haze.

I am a zombie? A certifiable pervert? I am not in control of my behavior. I never was.

Brett is working the grill like a captain. Flames reflect on his hard, handsome face. With an ice-cold domestic in my hand and delicious pork chops in my belly, I whisper, “Why? Brett? Why don’t you like me?”

This is the softest whisper I’ve ever done. My friends say my whispers are beautiful.

“You know what? I don’t even know anymore,” Brett chuckles.

The fucking rotten fucker—I never could stand these hot days, Brett.

Burn your face off, Brett—I want you to burn your face off, Brett.

Like a shot in the arm, Karen asks me to leave, and I start screaming.

Where did she come from?

Karen goes, “You know that we love having you, Scotty or Cameron or whatever the fuck your name is, but you need to leave now, and if you’re about to tell us how many friends you have, we already know, and please stop screaming.”

I keep screaming. I don’t stop screaming. And Karen, she goes, “Wow—you really are such a fucking freak.”

And? What does she want me to do? Lash out? Hurt her? More of a scene? Something nice and violent? With the volume turned all the way up?

Well, I’ll murder your fucking rotten everything, Karen Billups. Maybe I’m the one who killed your sister and sent her to the better place? Maybe I just staged her suicide? Did you ever think of that? Who knows!

Brett addresses my shoulder with his strong, masculine volunteer-firefighter hands.

Gosh, you are so powerful and encouraging, Brett.

Brett, let me catch my breath—Brett, I can fix this—Brett, let me try to fix this.

What have you left me with? What have I got? Brett?

Please, Brett—I promise, I swear.

The best slice of life I’ve ever had? Well, I’m trying hard to think now. The one and only sound behind me and Brett? Thirty-eight people, including Miss Karen Billups, clapping their hands off. They are dolphins. They are mostly seals. Some are whales. I really don’t mind though, because it’s our great nation’s birthday, and I clap a couple of claps, too.

But? Who will run to me? Who will release me from my confinement?

Surrender, you fucking cocksucking moron, I whisper to myself—and then I begin scratching at my face.

Like, drawing blood, because the jig—it is up…!

Up! Up!

“Why are you doing this?” he says, stopped in motion. My beloved Brett takes my wrists and pulls them down: “You’re hurting yourself.”

But! Wait! Look!

The better place. Just my friends.

And then the light, the light, and all that garbage, and the end too.