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Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-16 08:00:47 EDT

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Text in typewriter-style font on black background, with close-up of Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil 4 (September 30, 1998; It's a day I'll never forget; The cop inside me died that day...).

Truman Capote
Source: PBS

Jalal ad-din Muhammad Rumi
Source: The Poetry Foundation

Inside, I played with my hands while I waited for the clock to change, signifying the beginning of visiting hours. I swear it took three hours for fifteen minutes to pass. I found myself looking at the door often, contemplating whether I should just get up and make a run for it, back to the safety of my car. Finally, the security guard broke the silence and announced it was 7pm; I officially had an hour of visiting time. That was all we got, two hours in the afternoon (for immediate family only) and one hour at night. It wasn’t nearly enough. I gathered my stuff and walked as steadily as I could through the corridor, turning right at the end, then a left, and found myself staring at an extensive typed list of visitor restrictions taped to a window.

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Author Amy Grech reading at the Yeah You Write Reading Series at Someday Bar in Brooklyn.

Detail from Renoir’s ‘Dance in the Country’. A young man in a blue suit and a young woman wearing a light-coloured dress, yellow gloves and a red bonnet are dancing together. She is holding a fan in her right hand and her smiling face is turned towards the viewer.

Because, more than any other genre, the Gothic fits my research interests. Both my academic work and the Gothic interrogate the boundaries between categories like inside and outside, mind and body, subject and world.

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A hung over Skip entered, followed by Ellis. Ellis looked with intense dislike at Ron which probably meant Jenny had filled him in on the coffee incident.
“What is the plan this morning?” Skip asked. “Tell me it does not involve loud noises.”
“Well, I had a plan this morning, but someone decided to go for a walk. It’s okay, we’ll just hit the slopes late.” Ron put his arm around Melanie’s waist and squeezed her butt cheek.
Melanie sat frozen.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? Jenny and Melanie want to go in together so they can have a discussion. Skip and Nan and I will drive in with you. Right, Skip?”
Skip gave the slightest of non-commital mm-hmms probably because it was painful for him to think.
Melanie looked at Ellis. Ellis looked at her. He nodded ever so slightly.
“I don’t like that you’re keeping secrets from me,” Ron chided Melanie.
“Melanie wants to ask Jenny what kind of thank you present she should get you for inviting her on this trip. It won’t be a surprise if you’re there for the conversation.”
I wouldn’t have thought it possible for anyone to fall for such a ridiculous story, but Ron did.
“That’s my baby,” Ron bit her on her ear lobe. “I’m going to go get my gear on.”
Matt went after him.
Melanie looked at Ellis. “Thank you,” she said quietly but clearly.
I realized it was the first time I’d heard her speak.

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If the door reminded her a little of high school, stepping into the waiting room and lobby was like going back in time. You couldn't have planned this place to look more... like itself... than it did. It reminded her of school, of going to the DMV, it reminded her of how the county health department looked when she'd had to go there to take mandatory food safety training before she could get her first job.

When she was 16, Liz was the cashier at Pizza Dee-Luxe, a mom-and-pop operation. Literally, the co-owners were a married couple in their fifties. In spite of the county-mandated training, Liz rarely actually handled food. Mr. Civitelli did most of the scheduling and assigning of employees' shifts, as well as making the dough personally, and he preferred to keep the girls out front on the cash register where the customers could see them, not in the back making pizza and definitely not out on the roads delivering pizzas.

Mr. C believed in keeping girls safe, he said, and his idea of "safety" was things like his dress code for female employees, which included rules like "none of those tops that tie in the back, because all the fellas have to do is untie it and there ya go!" She wasn't sure if he also lectured the "fellas" not to be untying anyone's clothes. *I would've made a lot more in tips if they let me deliver pizza*, she thought.

*Wait... why am I thinking about pizza?!*, she stopped herself and returned her mind to the matter at hand.

Naomi Norsworthy standing an holding her hat