KDTitle: When the Browns Win the Super Bowl
Author: Steven Casimer Kowalski
Category: Fiction
*Editor's Note: Steven Casimer Kowalski brought down the house with this piece at the recent Stymie AWP reading. Consider it a taste of what everyone enjoyed that night, and a preview of what will happen at future such readings.*

When the Browns win the Super Bowl, I am going to tell my boss to shut the fuck up. When the Browns win the Super Bowl, I'm eating macaroni and cheese for all three meals the following day. I will use a different cheese each time. When they win, I will walk the city streets with my hands in my pockets and let the rioters punch me in the face and stomach. I will feel like jesus. When the Browns win the Super Bowl, I will call my father on telephone and say, "I can't believe this."  He will be crying and I will say, "Stop crying, you pussy," and he'll hear the gasp and crackle in my voice and say, "You're the pussy!" And we'll just sit on the phone and cry together until my mother beats us both with a rolled newspaper. The next day, I will see my sister and she will be in shock. "We are champions!" I will scream.  "Who the fuck smashed up my car?" she will say.  I will drop the tire iron and spray paint and hold her close and whisper, "I don't know, I really don't know." At the moment of victory, at the very moment time expires and our score is higher than the score of the team we are playing (maybe the Redskins but probably not), I will be holding hands with strangers and will say to them, "I've waited for this my whole life."  They will look back, their eyes set deep, their stomachs starved, skin all pallor and spent muscle, "We can't even smile anymore it has been so long."  I will smile for them, my teeth at their goddamn whitest because this season was special, this season was the one and I bought whitening strips in week 4 because I said to myself, I said, "friend, there is some talent out there and these guys could go all the way."  And when the Browns win the Super Bowl I will be proven right.  I will stroll the wreckage of the municipal lot twirling a cane and pissing out fires. An old man will give me a top hat. He will say, “I died in this.” Then he will disappear in a puff of smoke. There might be some money stuffed into the hat. That would be awesome.  Our victory will be one of attrition because Cleveland knows what fucking attrition means. Our victory will manifest itself physically in the shape of empty supermarket beer isles.  Night into morning, we will throw ourselves at one another and conceive child after child.  "These kids are gonna be winners, goddammit," we will say. And they will be winners. And a newness will peal back the land and swallow the blight. When the Browns win the Super Bowl the clothing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will come to life, pick up instruments, and play Celebration by Kool & the Gang until we bash them all with folding chairs screaming, "learn a new song, c’mon."  When the Browns win the Super Bowl, millions of gnats will bloom from the lake and fly over the city carrying tiny championship pennants.  It will be so scary and I will hide from it. When the team wins they will put an “I” in team and it will be me.  When the Browns win the Super Bowl, I will smoke my last cigarette(s). I will swim the Cuyahoga. My wake will burn, when the Browns win the Super Bowl.

Steven Casimer Kowalski lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.  He is your favorite writer's least favorite writer.