Skintet
and Other Tales of the Brassican American Experience in Philadelphia
Perry Genovesi
~88 pages, $15.95 (+ shipping)
Projected Release Date: January 2027
An Advance Sale Discount price of $9.50 (+ shipping) is available HERE prior to press time. This price is not available anywhere else or by check. The check price is $14/book (which includes shipping & sales tax) and should be sent to: Main Street Rag, 12180 Skyview Drive, Edinboro, PA 16412.
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The stories in Perry Genovesi’s richly imagined and very funny debut story collection set in a dystopic Philadelphia herald the arrival of a writer who page after page surprises me with his gift for satire and insights into the often absurd complexities of being human. ~Elissa Schappell
In this otherworldly debut short story collection, Perry Genovesi makes real the improbable: the tragically human world of a not so distant futuristic Philadelphia partially populated by intensely observant and oppressed extra-terrestrials. With lucidity and nuanced humor, Genovesi admits into this brave new terrain the depth of universal themes such as the inescapable influence of the past and the impossibility of achieving anything permanent. This is a masterful and constantly entertaining book, a joy to read and also just so much fun. ~Fred Leebron
Skintet
1.
Band students in the higher risers waited for the lower rows to shuffle over the brass section’s spit-dotted ones. Music stands clattered, backpacks and gig bags zipped, and hard-shell instrument cases snapped shut. Concert Band, with their young faces, patchy facial hair, razor nicks, and acne, was anxious to leave the band room. I turned from my students to my blotter, on which sat two music scores for Guitar Quintet (5:30 PM rehearsal) and three for Jazz Ensemble (6:00 PM).
“Ms. Tucker?”
Rob, Conner, Sasha, Hunter, and Andre – Guitar Quintet – stood before me. All five were lanky with mussed hair. Their uniform sweaters, though the same dress-code issue as everyone’s, somehow swallowed them. The newest student, Andre, a young man allegedly from Senegal, played upright bass quite well; I’d made an arrangement of “Mack the Knife” with 16 bass octave runs solely for him. He offered me a clipboard, clamped to which was a single paper with a block paragraph and seven signatures underneath.
Sasha said, “We wanted to give you this. It’s a petition.”
Andre said, “We want more say. For the songs we’re doing. Less jazz versions of that aught’s garage-rock revival stuff.”
I eyed Andre. Then the rest. Conner faked a British accent to say, “Yeah that stuff’s shite, mate. Please no more cooool jazz. No more Strokes or White Stripes.”
I winced. “Just so I’m hearing you. You’re all unhappy with my program, and you all signed off on this petition asking for more say?”
Andre said, “Basically, mate, yeah.”
That’s when I started to hand Andre back the clipboard. But, still holding it, I turned it in one unbroken half-revolution. On his wrist and forearm lay a faded Jamaica bracelet; black and yellow beads fell across his wrist tendon. I rolled his Oxford sleeve to his forearm. No creases, no costume. It was real, marvelous skin.
2. (Twenty Years Earlier)
I peered down at the lower seating level in the dim auditorium and fumed. About 40 Concert Band members, half of whom also played in the Jazz Ensemble, stippled the audience. Parents would fill the seats in two weeks for Christmas Concert. Dinah finished singing and stepped from the mic. That’s when the new girl, Marta, started her solo.
“Watch her now,” said the Band Director, Barben, sitting next to me. “You could all learn something.” Marta’s guitar solo danced down four octaves of notes to echo Dinah’s singing. It was a smoky, dusky workout. She whipped up more notes Dinah had used, but with slides and bends modulating. Marta’s icy notes flurried in the same vocal toll. She wore a washed-black hoodie and gothy eyeliner; she wasn’t white, her complexion darker than mine – I’m white but slightly ruddy because of my Italian heritage. Marta played near the bridge, her thin forearm pulling back. “She’s… good,” was all I managed to Barben. I’d spent months persuading him to take up the song. It was my song, the one that would beat his schtick of jazzed-up carols and Star Wars themes. Then Marta had creamed me in auditions. Her hands slipped back down the neck to the lower octaves. Then it appeared something was happening to her left wrist. Claps and snaps rang from the auditorium.
“See? She’s one of them,” said Barben.
“You said she was from Akron?”
“Brassica,” Barben smiled. “They’re such a talented people, musically. That’s the problem. Bands will be, what, 80- to 100-percent Brassican in the next decade?” He leaned forward, forearms on the first riser row. “Mark my words.”
I said nothing.
“It’s a costume, Tucker. Look at her wrist!” said Barben.
“I don’t know. It looks like a… condition.” It was a dumb thing to say. Her arm was peeling heavily. I knew then I was glimpsing Marta’s skin seam.
“Sure. That’s why I let you guys have the song. You think I just happen to love the White Stripes?” He thrust his left hand out, bent his wrist, and cupped his fingers. “Their costumes can’t handle the octaves. They wear them down. All the stretches.”
I exhaled. “She’s so good. I feel like the ant trying to look at God.” My Dad had spent all that money for lessons, and here I was not even playing lead.
Barben chuckled. “Better worry about getting squished. They’re a very sonically apt race.”
The ensemble finished, and Marta set her guitar on the stage. The amp popped as Marta clicked it off. She hurried away, gripping her wrist.
3.
I moped back to the band room to grab my guitar for Jazz Ensemble rehearsal. No White Stripes, no Mooney Suzuki, just “Frosty Jazz Christmas,” “Little Saint Nick,” and a corny arrangement of The Empire Strikes Back. Everything looked shitty. Whispy had encrusted a layer of fur on my gig bag. Not only Marta, but my friend Jeffrey could whup me, too. During rehearsal, whenever Barben would point at me to solo, my solo would fumble like someone falling down stairs. Barben’s finger would rocket to the next student.
Darkness bathed the band room. That’s when Marta loomed into the room pressing a saturated towel to her wrist. I waved my arms at the motion sensor, but it stayed dark, moonlight gleaming on the whiteboard, the TV tower, and riser’s steel frame. My guitar bag thumped against my legs. I backed against the whiteboard and flailed my arms like a demented snow angel. Finally the sensor light activated. And in one horrible moment, I saw the lump on Marta’s wrist. It was transparent and glossy like plastic wrap. Inside, green tendrils oozed off onto the carpet. A round sprout on Marta’s arm fell off her wrist – Earthies call them brussels. It plopped onto the floor, then strung back into her arm. The band room fire alarm by the whiteboard shone. “Go away!” I shouted. Then I pulled the alarm.
If you’d like to read the rest of this story and others included in Skintet by Perry Genovesi, order your copy today and have it delivered to your door when it’s published.
Perry Genovesi is the author of Superfluous Super Louis, winner of the Open: Journal of Arts & Letters Weitz Prize for Counter-Revolution Writing. His work has been featured in Scaffold Magazine’s Top 50 Micro Writings and nominated for The Best of the Net Anthology and Best Microfiction. Perry works as a public librarian in Philadelphia and is a proud member of AFSCME Local 2187. He’s a Fiction Reader at Qu Literary Magazine. This is his first book.