JUNE 2026: Jack Gross (micro feature)
Artists from Maryland's third digital microchapbook run is done! Read Jack Gross' Isopropyl Alcohol, Atarax (1,256 Carbon Monoxide Detectors) here (it's free to download!): https://artists-from-maryland.itch.io/isopropyl-alcohol-atarax-1256-carbon-monoxide-detectors-by-jack-gross
Jack Gross (he/him, b. Jan. 2010) is a filmmaker, writer, artist, amateur documentarian, and occasional photographer. He is currently working on his debut narrative short film, wax in her houseplants. His work can be found at jackgross.neocities.org, and he can be accessed on Instagram at @j6ckrabbit or by email at jackelliottgross@gmail.com.
"Bleached on the Shore" by Jack Gross, from Isopropyl Alcohol, Atarax (1,256 Carbon Monoxide Detectors)
A set of white orchids on a scratched wooden bedside table, with a dinghy white bedframe by the base.
“Brian, I’m cold.”
“I know.”
Billowing from a stick of incense sat upright on a plate, a kind of pyre gave way to a long, stringing and wispy crease of smoke along the room’s interior.
“Could you pass me some more blankets?”
“I can barely see, Lina."
The two laid in bed as decks of cards. His breath was sheets of cold, bitter air on her back and neck.
“Okay. Could you try?”
“Yes, Lina.”
Shuffling cards, humming rungs of the AC whooshed, and the bars shook against themselves. White curtains, adorned with blue flowers. A woman, a man, more specifically the Maiers, in a hotel room. Therein lies the problem.
“Let me go home, Brian." she said.
“There’s nothing here, nothing for you to take anymore.”
Her blouse was tossed over a radio in the corner of the room, with grease stains slithered like long reminders across the chest.
“But you know what I’m here for. I can’t.” He traced her eyelashes, eyelids, the bridge of her nose. “You’re a smart woman, but you ask me things I can’t dare do. Not here, not now.” Dragging his fingers slowly, his hands rested on her shoulders. His palms were like ice pressed to her.
“You don’t understand anything. I used to think you did, or maybe you could, but it’s past you.”
“What do you mean?”
A set of white and blue playing cards sat on the bedside table.
“It was the baby. Fucked you up all in the head. Made you drag me here.”
“It’s for work, Lina. It’s what I was assigned. I can’t do anything about the shit I’m being assigned.”
“Yes, Brian, I know.”
“I asked you.”
“You asked me if I wanted to sit at home with Bobby.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Then let me go home. If it’s not a big deal, and your boss’ll just pay for my flight, let me go home.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I said no.”
“You’re a fucking child, man. It’s ridiculous. You’re ridiculous. You drag me out here, to this cold, fucking hotel room, and you bring your shitty incense so you can try to sleep with me, and you ignore me. You’re a little boy. I can’t believe I’m raising two little boys.”
Brian sat upright, and stared to his right. The sun was rising behind him. “Honey, I know what Rosenthal said about listening, and talking, and learning, but would you please just shut the fuck up? For once. Please. Shut up. Stop fucking talking.”
“Are you serious? Do you have any idea what it is I’m going through?”
“Yes! I have every fucking ounce of an idea. I have so many ideas I could kill myself and when they use my brain for science, they find out how many damn ideas I have about you, and about our baby, and about how much you complain about something you wanted.”
“Go back to sleep, Brian.” She glanced to her side, at the alarm clock. The analog digits read 4:55. “You don't have to be up for another 5 hours.”
“Goodnight, Mrs. Maier. I hope you wake up in less of a bitchy mood.”
“Goodnight, Brian. Fucking dick.”
Brian turned over towards her, grasping the remote, and watched some old kids TV-show. He sat dazed, staring at the girl. She had to be about 13, no, 14, with a glint in her eye.
“My name is Lina Reis, and you’re watching Disney Channel. Get ready for more episodes of—“
***
When his keys turned in the car door, the sun had barely touched the earth, more so grazing its edges, but it was light enough for Brian. He drove in circles a while, breezing down partly clear asphalt planes stretching miles upon themselves. Clicking through stations made for amusement.
A woman’s voice spoke softly from the car speaker. “Good morning, Pompano Beach! Today is July 24th, 2006, and it’s yet another beautiful day down in the 754! Today’s conditions call for a low 78 and high 84, with humidity peaking around 1PM.”
“That’s right. Sounds like a pretty nice day out here, hm? Good for the beach,” Brian responded.
Glancing towards the passenger seat, he checked for a few supplies: his tape recorder, a small blue notebook, a pair of sunglasses, and a brown leather bag. Essentials for work, of course. He stared out into the road, the pink skies ahead, and exhaled.
***
Glorious Skies Rehabilitation Center was a building of comically feigned spectacle. The entrances, surrounding doors and windows alike, were adorned with some kind of faux-gold, speckling and ever so slightly falling from where it’d been adhered. The time on Brian’s car read 2:24 PM. From the door, through the stained-glass bits, he could see his subject, one Lina Reis.
Her curly, blonde hair fluttered in the cool breeze, inklings of sweat pooling under her bangs. The blonde was out of her depth, swarmed by paparazzi.
“Ma’am! Ma’am! Ms. Reis! How do you feel after your stint in rehab?”
“Ma’am! Is it true it was cocaine?”
“Ma’am! How are you feeling?”
“Ma’am!”
Her eyes darted from surrounding car to surrounding car, before catching Brian’s. The MD tag stood out the most. Walking towards him, he reached to his side and opened the door, tossing his belongings into a pile in the car’s backseat. His breath smelled like seafood and burnt rubber.
“Good morning, Ms. Reis.”
“Please, just call me Lina.”
“Okay.”
“Hi, Mr. Maier.”
“Please, just call me Brian.”
Lina Reis and Brian Maier were positioned strangely high compared to their fellow diners—two chairs about 3 feet high and a table about 4 or 5 feet high. Brian shrank in its dimensional shape, or maybe his dimensional misfortunes. The man stood about 5'7”, the woman about 5’11”. He began to speak.
“So, um, how do we do this? I tried studying the past few weeks, but it’s been no good.” He laughed. She… kind of smiled, transfixed by his dusty, dim eyes.
“You’re the interviewer. How do you wanna start?
“Well, can you tell us some basic things about yourself? See what you remember, haha.” Lina laughed in response, startled by his directness.
“My name is Lina Reis, I’m 23, I was born… January 25th, 1983, in West Saugerties, up in New York. What about you?” She dangled her finger in front of him. “I won’t answer any more questions unless I get to know a little about you, Brian.” He flushed.
“Well, my name is Brian Kurt Maiser. I’m 37, I was born on February 14th, 1969, in Baltimore… Maryland.”
“Good to know.”
“Yeah, yeah. You ever been?
“When I was younger. I remember visiting some family over there when they had that big Whitney Houston concert. That was cool, what with all the costume changes and shit.”
“I remember that! I took my wife to that, and her sister. Good times. Well, I’m gonna start with the real question: What made you choose to conduct an interview with my guys the day of your release from rehab?”
She tutted her lips for a few moments, tossing back a glass of water, her eyes glazed-over.
“A lot of it is that I trust you guys. You’ve known me all my life, kind of. You guys posted that photo from my ex when I turned 18, and you guys had those countdowns plastered everywhere and stuff. You guys' names were on all that stuff. So, I mean, I feel like I have to come here, upfront, you know?”
She looked around, at the waiters, at diners. “You see, no one here knows I’m here. It’s all old people here, right now. It’s on purpose. If it was a bunch of people, everyone would treat me like I’m a piece of meat, or something.” The recorder clicked.
“I certainly agree. You’ve seen a lot of press through this stuff. What do you think has helped you through being perceived all the time?”
“It used to be drugs, but now, mostly music. They had a lot of no-wave, Sonic Youth, old Swans and, like, Glenn Branca style stuff in there. No clue how they got that. I’ve been writing, too, while I was there.”
“And what are some of your inspirations for that process? Besides the listed ones, think of anything.”
“The feeling of waking up and knowing you let everyone down. It’s a unique kind of doom, you can’t let go of. It’s a fury of fear, of that same doom. You can’t move out of it, either. It’s a sludge all over your body you can only wash off with scalding, burning hot water.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to say about any upcoming music?”
“No.”
Brian tapped the machine, stopping it in its tracks. He motioned forward, tapping her shoulder. “Hey, you know, if this isn’t a super fun place to be interviewed, I’ve got an idea.”
***
In the backseat of his car, Brian rolled around, trading his work clothes—a Les Rallizes Denudes t-shirt, khaki shorts, and stained white socks—for swim trunks, a pair of aviators, and a dazed smile. She wore the same clothes. As they stepped onto the beach, the man looked towards the horizon.
“It’s beautiful down here. What made you choose Pompano Beach?”
“I mean, I can’t really remember. It was so long ago, really. My agent told me I had to go somewhere sunny, and I didn’t wanna go back to LA. I didn’t wanna go back to, like, the middle of nowhere or something, either. And I remember, my agent gave me a brochure. It had these big golden arches, and these eyes, like McDonalds, or something. It said Glorious Skies in big, beautiful lettering. It looked at me like it knew me.”
“Tell me more about that.”
“Yeah, sure. I can’t really remember a lot of stuff from before the past 2 years all that well, so, um, I’ll try my best. I was fucked up after Disney, like I think a lot of people are, and I knew a guy who knew a guy who could get me a lot of coke really easy. Like, dumb easy. The kind of easy where I slid into it, hard and fast. I remember I almost burnt a crater on the inside of my nose off the shit. Rough times.”
“How’d you end up in rehab?”
“My mom found me, straggling in the woods near our house, with a Lowe’s bucket on my head, crying. My hair was all fucked up, I hadn’t brushed my teeth in days, and I was basically missing. Missing, but no one really wanted to look for me.”
“So, um, I was rewatching some of your old work, and I wanted to ask about how the experience of acting so young changed your perception of the world around you.”
“Well, I mean, I don’t know if it did or if it didn’t. When’d you lose your virginity, and where?”
“It was to my wife, in maybe 11th grade, in the back of her Escort, after she graduated.”
“See, that's a normal story. I kind of like that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, much more normal to me. I ‘lost’ mine to Ralph Thurston when I was 14.”
“The guy from your show?”
“Mhm.”
“How old was he, like 25?”
“Yeah, something like that. He's the one who got me into all this stuff.” Lina kicked at the sand nearest to her feet. “But anyway, you’ve got normal stories to tell about your normal life. All my life, everyone’s expected me to be super sexy, or just, like, die in a fiery car crash or something. There’s never been any in between, so I don’t perceive the world as having any real in between. It’s either I push myself to my bare limits, or I’m doing nothing.”
“That’s fascinating.”
“And I think a lot of that has to do with what the show was inspired by too. I remember the director going up to me, and giving me a list of shit I had to watch if I wanted to be a good actor.”
“Could you give me a list of some of those, maybe?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. I remember watching Blue Velvet a lot in the facility. All of Lynch’s stuff. I’m really excited for Inland Empire. He told me to watch a lot of Fellini’s stuff, a lot of Godard’s stuff.”
“What’re your plans coming up, and out of the facility?”
“I wanna go back to school, and go to college, and go to film school. I’ve been dreaming about this film I wanna make for so long, it’s shown up as flashes in the night for me. When I’d eat whatever shit they’d serve us in rehab, I remember thinking about how once I was out, I’d write it, and I’d film it, and it’d be mine. And I know, this is where I’m meant to say something about the music, but it hasn’t been coming to me recently, more so film.”
“How’s that impacting you?”
“Well, I mean, it isn’t.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t want to do it, so I won’t do it. The tabloids already saw me hunched over in a field high out of my damn mind off of coke, I don’t think they can publish anything worse about me, or my career, or whatever the case may be.”
“I understand completely. As for the film, could you tell me a little bit about what that’ll look like for you?”
“Of course. It’ll be something dreamy, shot on 16mm. It’ll be, hmm, soundtracked by whoever did Virgin Suicides. Was that Air?”
“Yeah, that was Air.”
“And I have a name, kind of.”
“What’s that?”
“Bleached on the Shore.”
“Would you mind explaining what that means to you?”
“Well, it came from a dream I’ve been having since I started acting. It was a nightmare sometimes, a regular dream other times. It was honestly a little hard to tell what it was and what it wasn’t.”
“Those kinds of dreams are no good.”
“Yes. Anyway, it’s me and a boy. I’m maybe 12 or 13, and he’s maybe late 20’s, early 30’s, and we’re on a beach just like this one. Me and him sit, and we talk for a while, about nothing. Just the most banal stuff ever, like anything. And then, I reach forward towards him, or to my side, rather, to kiss him, and he disappears.”
“Like a ghostly kind of thing?”
“I blink, and I rub my eyes real hard, and he’s nowhere to be found. I cried, and I cried, so hard my body felt like weights and I fell asleep under the sun. I laid under it for, like, maybe 2 hours. When I woke up, he was back, kind of. He’d turned into a bottle of bleach, and one of those bags of red Solo cups. You know the ones for the parties, and stuff? And I touched my hair, and it was all dry and frizzy and shit. It’d gone a bit lighter. So, I picked one up, and I picked up the big, jug looking thing, and I drank a few glasses worth of it. It tasted all funny, and I fell asleep. When I woke up again, for like, um, what was that, the second time? Whenever that was, I woke up, and there was this big, like, blimp? Or a plane? Something, but it was in the air with a banner. It said:
‘Lina Reis, it was your fault’
“I looked up, and I read it all out, and my eyes got all big, and wide. My feet wrinkled up, and my hands started sweating real hard. I woke up, and I could hardly move. It was cruel sometimes, the banner, but other days it was sweeter. I remember seeing ones like:
‘Lina Reis, it’ll be alright’
“But, I could never tell what it wanted to tell me. The man looked just like you, just a younger you, maybe. He had these eyes of, like, silver ecstasy, like he knew everything was all make-believe. There was no point in the big pretending anymore.”
The silence was deafening. Waves crashed, making big, blue reverberations across the sand. Children played. Man and woman sat bleached on the hot shore, in the wake of sunny, Hollywood nausea.
//