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arts the A Little Help By Nathan Gower The frst annual Writer's Block Fiction Award, presented by Louisville Literary Arts, a non-proft organization dedicated to the celebration of reading, writing and print, attracted submissions of original short fction from across the state. Select readers chose fve fnalists; then contest judge Nickole Brown, a published poet and fction writer, chose the winner. Of Nathan Gower's story, Brown says, "It's the kind of story that shouldn't work, really — there's so much drama packed in those pages that it should crumble under the weight — but it works. It's a page-turner, in the best kind of way." O n sweaty summer nights like this one, Lisa does this thing with her foot under the crumpled sheets of our king-size bed. We lie as far apart as possible, the heat of our bodies folding into each other like a third person between us. She takes her big toe and she moves it back and forth, back and forth along the side of my calf. It's okay until it's not, and then I jerk my leg to the furthest corner of the bed and turn away from her. She just wants to touch me, she says. I turn to her and kiss her forehead. She might want me to do this and she might not, but either way I can turn back around now and listen to the whirring of the fan, feel the dark of the room. Ten the phone rings, and we both know who it is. I don't want to answer, but then I feel Lisa's toe scraping along the side of my calf again and I hear the nagging scream of the telephone and I have to make it stop. So I pick up the phone the same way I did last night, and the night before, and the night before. "How you feeling, Jack?" I ask. I slip out of the bed to make my nightly trek down the hallway to the living room, where I'll talk my brother down from the precipices of suicide. I listen to his halting breath on the other end and I wish I were more sympathetic. But tonight I just want to hit fast-forward. "I need a little help," he says. "Real bad." I can tell he's in rough shape tonight by the timbre of his voice. I can picture him on the other end, at once refned and disheveled, an animal with a neat whisky in his hand. I imagine him scraping the business end of his Remington 12-gauge against the underside of his chin as we talk. "I know you do, Jack," I say. I settle into my recliner, fip on the tube. I'll lurch through the channels for the next hour just so I can look at something on this end of the line. "I need you to come over here," he says. I bite my lip and glance at the clock: 1:47 a.m. I pause, thinking he might settle into the conversation and forget what he just asked of me. But he doesn't do that. He just breathes his sticky anguish into my ear until I have to say something, anything to make it stop. "You take your meds today?" I know it's the wrong thing to ask as soon as it comes out. Te pills don't work, and I know that. Tey never work for me; they never work for Lisa. Te only thing that Illustration by Carrie Neumayer 12.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 95