Reviewed by Peter Mladinic
Everything Must Go
by Dan Flore III
Cajun Mutt Press
Feb 2025, $12, Paperback, 38 pages, ISBN-13: 79-8309148868
I went out on a date.
That’s good. Where did you go?
I don’t want to discuss it.
Then why did you bring it up?
This bit of dialogue could be two characters in conflict with each other, or one character in conflict with himself. In the flash fiction of Dan Flore the conflict could go either way, and often, to his readers’ benefit, it does. Everything Must Go does indeed entertains, and often his protagonist’s pain is his reader’s pleasure. The poet and memoirist John Yamrus’s introduction gives readers a good perspective on Flore’s work. Not to limit Flore but to place him in a context, like contemporaries Jeff Weddle and Tohm Bakelas, and precursors Charles Bukowski and Gerald Locklin, Flore finds the extraordinary within the ordinary day to day life, and through his art makes his highly subjective experiences the experiences of his readers. Three of the writer’s tools he uses “to get the job done” are irony, figurative language, and narration.
Flore’s irony is situational. In his flash fiction sad is happy, happy is sad. “HARDcore” is a perfect example.
I have an affinity for energy drinks also known as an addiction and I’m always looking for a new, preferably cheap brand. I made it to a dirty gas station that felt right for me to be at because I’m always buying energy drinks at dirty gas stations. I found one I had never seen before at the bottom of a refrigerator called HARDcore. I bought it and drank it. It tasted funny, almost like fabric. I looked at the can to see what the hell I was drinking and here was an energy drink to increase your sex drive.
Part of the hilarity of this fiction is that he got out of his “claustrophobic house” and went to the gas station with “Claustrophobic Chris.” He, the narrator, is heterosexual, but after downing the can of HARDcore, Chis started to look pretty good. The great fun is the reversal of expectations as to the nature of this particular energy drink, also in the repeated “claustrophobic” and “dirty,” in the exactitude of finding the drink at the bottom of the fridge, and the subtle evocation of a claustrophobic gas station. Simultaneously, the narrator is miserable and joyful. Ultimately the joy is in the writing. Situational irony is also at the “core” of “Alvin’s R & B,” a fiction that begins “I only like his music when I’m driving with him. I don’t know why.” The irrational is Flore’s fictional turf. It “lays the groundwork” for his irony.
He often uses hyperbole. “$30 Short of Rent” has conflict and resolution. The conflict is that the narrator and his wife don’t have enough money for the rent that is due on their apartment; the resolution is that they come up with it. Before that resolution the narrator stands on line. “The guy in front of me was buying a million frozen pizzas …” Finally the narrator gets the money. “I ran out to my wife in the parking lot counted the cash a million times …” In “Roids” he says, “When I was on steroids, I talked like an adult crack baby.” The oxymoron (adult/ baby) sets the tone for this piece. “Filing For Bankruptcy Of The Soul” ends with a striking simile. “…the disco ball was glitter. I thought I heard tears falling as the mirrored glass.” In “I Can’t Call You Paul” the narrator says, “I picture Jesus carrying me through ocean waves.” A religious theme in this, the last piece in the collection, starts with a metaphor:
I can’t call you Paul. I’m on my sickbed. and when I’m not there I get up and wander the night with my phone and cigarettes in hand wishing they would help. I’m way too sick Paul. pray for me. prayers are little children running to the sky.
Flore gives physicality to the idea of prayers ascending to heaven. He calls to mind Claudius in Hamlet, in his solitude wondering if his prayers are being heard, going up to God.
“I Can’t Call You Paul” is a strong conclusion to the collection. “Delusional Ass” is an equally strong beginning. Its conflict and resolution come from within: a character in conflict with himself. Yet the narration is outward, highly descriptive. Readers who go emotionally, psychologically, and socially where the narrator goes (he never leaves his deck) will be indeed entertained by his predicament:
I drank 3 energy drinks came out to the deck whizzing around as a fireball and could hardly sit in my seat when I finally took one. I looked to my left seeing the approach of humanity and saw her walking with her man and their dog. It was the woman I wrote the poem Thank God, For Your Candy Ass about. I’m including that piece after this one to further expand upon the power of this female’s celestial body …
Except there’s a problem. Not only is she not alone, but the narrator, fueled on energy drinks, imagines the woman and “her man” have caught him ogling her and are talking about him, which bothers him. He feels embarrassed, ashamed, guilty. Yet his pain, his moment of mental anguish (minced with the pleasure of seeing her again) is his reader’s pleasure.
Like his precursors and his contemporaries, Flore goes where he wants to go, and writes about it superbly. One thinks of the line from Roethke, “we think by feeling.” There’s a lot of thinking by feeling going on in Everything Must Go, a title that smacks of transience. In this one of a kind collection, each piece is a triumph, a celebration, and made so through language. Buy it, read it. See for yourself.
About the reviewer: Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock is available from UnCollected Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.