Crush – Esteban Cajigas

February 11, 2026

A plastic keychain was to blame. At least for most of what happened. Ansel’s Lady Liberty knickknack had pints of blood on her hands. If only Uncle Clay hadn’t given it to Ansel as a boy- a lot of pain could have been avoided. Dirty Uncle Clay.

“Don’t fall in love with her too hard, junge. You’ll get all lovesick,” Uncle Clay said then, handing young Ansel the keychain. His uncle should have been trusted even if he reeked of licorice and B.O.
Uncle Clay was a sailor and a drinker, so naturally, Ansel didn’t listen. Instead he took her all in. The young boy was too green to give the drunk any credit.

Young Ansel held the key chain in his palm and it had the weight of the world. Across sleepless nights in his blue painted bedroom in Berlin, he couldn’t ignore her seven deadly spikes. He couldn’t resist thinking about her gargantuan mass. Sometimes, wanting something in a different country is like longing for a different dimension. The thought itched out of reach in the back of his mind. He was doomed to become fixated with America’s green Domme. The colossus of freedom. The giantess of America. In real life, she stood on a pedestal, but Ansel’s figurine barely fit inside his pocket. Or his heart.

For years, he planned on coming to America and becoming Lady Liberty’s favorite Sub. Keeping the keychain by his bedside sealed his fate: to get squashed. Stomped. Obliterated like a worthless little bug. Before even touching her, he knew copper felt warm.

Arriving at JFK, Ansel described himself to the TSA as an immigrant with a pure heart. He wore his new vintage black cowboy boots. The ones he’d purchased to get into the American spirit. The Immigration Agent simply smiled and stamped.

I got stomped on by the Statue of Liberty and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Past the TSA, he found the nearest American toilet. Weary travelers took the other stalls, hailing from all over the globe, yawning and grunting in their native tongues.

Sober for two months now, Ansel’s bowels moved exquisitely, like four synchronized divers jetting off into an Olympic pool. Routine shits were his favorite part of staying clean. Dope had stolen most of his twenties, but at least some solitary moments such as these were becoming his again.

Ansel found his bag at the carousel. He walked by a mural depicting New York’s landmarks. Finally, Ansel thought. This was the largest he’d seen Lady Liberty so far. Soon, but not soon enough, he’d feel the weight of the tallest giantess on the eastern seaboard. Her enormous curves. Her outstretched fingertips. The mistress of the free world. All 450,000 pounds of her. Smother me, he thought.

He’d left home just for her. Leaving everything he knew hadn’t mattered since nothing could get in the way of him and his only-true love. Once he knew what he wanted, divorcing Beth was the easy part.

He was here and it was time to celebrate. Ansel waited by the arrivals for his brother to pick him up and drive them over to Liberty Island. Straight to the hot zone, since there was no time to waste.
“Try living in the real world,” Beth had said one night, not that long ago. So he had.

John’s red truck screeched as it stopped in front of Ansel. In the distance, clouds gathered and rolled over the Long Island sky.

Ansel’s brother stepped out and opened the trunk. His signature sideburns were gray now and a broken toothpick poked out from his lips. He covered his balding head with a Coors hat. His Confederate belt buckle was bigger than his fist. The unexpected familiarity forced Ansel to smile. Both parents connecting them were long dead. Ansel sometimes wondered if that meant they were still family.

Charlotte sat at the front of the truck with a turkey sandwich on her lap. She’d been an investment banker years ago. Ansel couldn’t remember how she’d first met John. He hadn’t been expecting her.
Charlotte and John were on and off again and she no longer had any of their matching tattoos, but it looked like she was still his passenger princess.

Ansel looked into her milky eyes and remembered she was blind. She was definitely too pretty for his brother. Ansel tried not to stare even though she wouldn’t notice.

“Ansel, I can’t believe you’re here,” John said, helping his brother with his bag. They shook hands, avoiding a long hug.

Ansel hopped into the back of the truck and squeezed his keychain, hoping it’d help them get there sooner. It was actually happening.

A dozen honeynut baked donuts collected dust on the seat next to him. He’d been craving sweets since getting back on the wagon. He didn’t even mind the weight gain.

“These are for you. Leftovers from lunch,” Charlotte said, handing him the turkey sandwich.

“We’re so close to the Statue of Liberty. I can feel it,” Ansel said.

Steely Dan came on. John hadn’t changed much, Ansel thought.

“It’s just across Manhattan, buddy. We’ll be there soon. You know, it’s also Char’s favorite landmark. Isn’t that right, Honey?”

“No,” she said, rubbing her nose.

John wove through traffic. Once on the highway, his right hand found Charlotte’s junk bag. Nobody asked Ansel about his sobriety. Instead, his brother rolled out a line for each of them on a little makeup mirror.

“I’m good, thanks,” Ansel said. He preferred meeting his mistress with a clear mind.

John shrugged and snorted his brother’s bit.

Ansel looked out at the morning sky, but all he saw was Queens.

“How long will it take us to get to the ferry? We need a ferry to get to Her, right?”

“John hasn’t stopped talking about you since you called. He told me what happened with Beth. It’s safe here; you can tell me the truth,” Charlotte said.

“No, no. Ich bin nicht-”

“Speak English here,” John said.

“Sorry. I’m not sure what my brother has said. But I’m fine. I’m here to have fun,” Ansel said.

“I heard she was from Texas. I’m Texan too,” Charlotte said. Her front teeth were bigger than pearls.

Her pupils opened up without absorbing any light.

“Leave him alone, Char. He didn’t come all the way here to talk about Beth,” John said.

“What happened between you two?” she asked.

“Beth wasn’t tall enough,” Ansel said. As the ride went on, his brother’s dope seemed less threatening. Ansel hadn’t been around anything since rehab and his resistance weakened with every Beth-related question.

“What’s this stuff called?” Ansel asked.

“Star Spangled Powder,” John said.

“You’re not going to get divorced, are you?” Charlotte asked.

Ansel’s nostrils widened as he watched John rail another bump. When you’re used to injecting, snorting is basically a waste of time. Still, if John kept this up, they’d never get to Liberty Island.

“At least you two never had any children. It’s easier that way,” Charlotte said.

“Having kids is like death. Suddenly you’re making plans for life after you,” Ansel said.

It was Charlotte’s turn to take a bump.

“I’ll just do a little,” Ansel said, intercepting her..

“Cut him a line. He’s on vacation,” John sang.

Ansel bent down and railed it over the mirror. Whenever he got high with his brother, Ansel thought about their mother Jean. He liked picturing her green eyes and her favorite red lipstick, covering a sad smile with a little color. She’d also had a great love affair with a big lover. Falling too deeply and too quickly was the main characteristic she’d passed on to him. At least that’s what he hoped.
One night back in Berlin, during her teenage years and before meeting Ansel’s father, Jean had gotten lost walking home from the White City. Back then, Berlin was being rebuilt block by block. She’d stayed too late at a boy’s house and it was past her curfew. She tried a shortcut, but that only made things worse. Every man stared at her when she passed. A few wrong turns led her to the Wall, where a red and white English graffiti caught her eye. At the center, a Keith Haring imitation depicted New York.

According to Uncle Clay, Jean started coming back to the graffitied section of the wall almost every night. First, she started walking alongside it and rubbing her palms against the concrete slabs. Her confidence grew, so she kissed it. Over the summer she built up enough courage to rub herself against a corner. Her ritual amused the guards on both sides so much taht they let her sleep with her lover almost as often as she liked. Supposedly, Jean kept a sliver of the barbed wire under her bed, even after she got married.

“Your poor mother. We caught her playing with it once,” Uncle Clay used to say when he drank.
Ansel tried focusing on his mother’s eyes as he absorbed the powder in his cavities. Green is the rarest eye color, Ansel thought. Time slowed down as his muscles relaxed. Less than one percent of women in the US are six feet tall. Giantesses are rarer than diamonds.

“This Star Spangled Powder shit is the best. You have more, right?” Ansel said.

John nodded and turned towards his girl. “You know Char, Ansel gave me my first hit once upon a time. He shot me up himself. Didn’t you, Ansel?” John asked.

Ansel nodded, still thinking of his mother’s eyes. His skin ran warm to the touch.

It didn’t take long for them to find the downtown skyline on the horizon. Ansel’s excitement grew as John crossed the Queensborough bridge. Between the three of them, they spotted a parking spot near where the twin towers used to be.

Battery Park was nearly empty. Darkening clouds covered most of the harbor and scared most of the tourists away. The shitty weather obscured the view Ansel craved the most, but his spirits weren’t dampened. He could only make out Lady Liberty’s pedestal and her lovely toes.

None of this will matter soon, Ansel thought. They each railed another bump and packed up the junk bag for the rest of the trip.

They had to wait for the ferry, so Ansel bought a hotdog at a stand, but the weenie refused to go down Ansel’s throat. He gagged as it fizzled up. The drugs were getting in his way already.

“Nothing like a weenie in New York,” Ansel said, getting in line at the dock.

“Sausages make me think of Germany,” Charlotte said. A cloud of dirty pigeons cooed next to her.

“I suppose they are German,” Ansel said.

As much as Ansel wanted to deny it, part of him missed Beth’s cooking already.

Dozens of American flags hung around them leading up to the boat. They waved and danced in the wind, guaranteeing a bumpy ride. Ansel didn’t mind. Every gust led them to Liberty Island.

As the dope faded, he stopped thinking of Jean and Berlin. A couple decades after their mother fell in love, John found her smiling a foot deep inside their tub. It was 1989 and everybody figured Jean had gone off to meet her lover.

Charlotte’s blank pupils reflected the water’s color.They darkened as the sky did.

The ferry was mostly empty except for a few seats in the lower deck. Nobody climbed to the roof except for the three of them. Ansel insisted despite the weather. He wasn’t sure why he felt so nervous. But then he knew without a doubt; without being able to avoid the truth. There was no way of knowing if Lady Liberty would even care about seeing him. He’d spent his life obsessing over her, but she didn’t even know he existed.

“I need another hit before I see her,” Ansel said, standing up.

“Let’s go to the restroom real quick. We’ll fix you right up,” Charlotte said. They crammed into a stall behind John. The public toilet had just enough room for all of them, but they’d have to inject themselves over each other’s shoulders to make space.

This time, bumps wouldn’t do. John cooked up shots with an old cotton filter. “Here, hold this,” he said. The couple shared their favorite syringe. They gave Ansel his own needle to play with. The solution John made wasn’t that clear, but nobody protested.

“Are you excited to see her?” Charlotte said. She passed out purple tourniquets.

John needed help finding a good enough vein in his arm. Despite years of experience, he’d always been jumpy about injections.

“Here,” Charlotte said, massaging him.

The blind are leading the blind, Ansel thought, prepping his skin. He balanced himself as the ferry rocked back and forward. Rain pelted the metal walls and Ansel knew the storm had worsened.

John ran his fingers through his graying hair, while Ansel melted into a silver ball of mercury.

This has to do, Ansel thought, as Charlotte and John nodded off. In solitude, his own eyes began to shut. We’re almost there, he thought. He blinked and realized John had slipped out of the stall. He’d taken the junk bag with him.

“John? Bruder?”

He saw his brother’s boot in the next stall. He was lying down, facing up.

Ansel sat Charlotte down on the toilet and opened John’s door. Thankfully, it wasn’t locked. The junk bag was on the sink, but all of its contents were spread across the floor. Bloated cotton balls and alcohol swabs mixed with gunk.

John’s face was red and confused, unable to focus on anything.

Ansel crouched and splashed cold water on his brother’s eyes.

“My needle’s clogged,” John said, pointing to his forearm. Tiny streams of blood flew out from dozens of holes near his bicep. He’d tried and failed a million times to fully pierce his skin. He was turning into a gushing fountain. “I-I can’t get it to stick.”

Ansel handed him his Liberty keychain. “Here, hold onto this,” he said, tightening the tourniquet around his brother’s arm. Ansel found a beating vein, a vein begging for a kiss, and fed it everything the barrel had. “There, there you go. That’s all better now,” he said.

John chuckled and stretched out on the floor. Napkins and trash wrapped themselves around him in a celestial blanket.

Ansel took back his keychain.

“Ansel, I’m sorry we’re related,” John said.

“Don’t be,” he said, fixing himself a shot.

The toilet steadied as the ship docked at the terminal. Ansel pushed the plunger into his arm as quickly as he could, igniting a fire in his arteries. He took the tourniquet off and kept the needle pinned into his arm. The extra flow jacked up his rush, but it also angered the poison, turning it wicked. Ansel didn’t fight back. He let the venom drag him wherever it dripped. A silence took over as he caved in like an empty sinkhole. He grabbed his ears and shook his head, but nothing turned on.
Outside the ferry, a park service ranger asked the few tourists to get off in an orderly fashion. Charlotte and John snored nearby.

The Lady Liberty keychain in Ansel’s pocket jabbed against his thigh. He tried adjusting it, but the figurine bulged bigger than his palm. She seemed to be growing very second, even as Ansel tried holding her down. Her torch ripped through his jeans and she easily slipped past his grasp. Ansel’s fingers were just too weak from the junk. Once she escaped his pocket, she hovered over him like a helium balloon, weightless but threatening to crush him at the same time. A panic struck and aroused him.

She was beautiful. She was stern. She was tough and unwilling to compromise against the journey towards freedom.

He reached up to her.

“Enfin,” she said, expanding every second. Her French accent somehow surprised him.

“Ich bien; It’s me,” Ansel said, caressing her with his lonely hands. It was true: copper was warm and naturally ancient. Seeing her alive, breathing and pulsing and blinking, outmatched any of his wildest expectations. He knew the wait had been worth it. This was love beyond first sight.

“Qui es-tu; Who are you?” she asked, pulling back.

“I’m just a German boy. I don’t know who I am without you,” Ansel said.
“I’m sorry I’m the one you love,” she said.

“Don’t be.” Squash me.

She smiled back, relaxing her face.

As she got bigger, Ansel worried about the small restroom containing his giant queen, but the walls began to get taller inch by inch, pushing the roof further away. Soon, the bathroom was as big as a high school gym.

Ansel looked back at the divider between the stalls. As the room stretched, the next toilet fell further away, taking his family with it. “Charlotte? John?”

Lady Liberty continued growing as she broke away from the earth’s pull, levitating and floating up towards the roof. She was now bigger than a bus and more beautiful than ever. Ansel’s eyes bulged as he jumped and clung onto her metal robe.

“Don’t let me go,” he pleaded. Despite the adrenaline and pressing close together, a twinge of disappointment germinated through him. He couldn’t make out her French. Nothing made less sense to German ears than silly romantic noises. And maybe her skin wasn’t so smooth. Maybe a hundred-fifty years of taking wind to the face had stolen some of her luster. Ansel held on to her even tighter, but partly now to avoid any more disillusionment. It was harder to let go of things he’d always wanted in the past, even if they didn’t make sense now. It required admitting some sort of defeat.
Lady Liberty broke the restroom’s tinted windows with her heels and her patina colored toes. The fattening clouds outside welcomed them with thunder, gushing out a storm, pelting the insides of the ferry through the shattered glass. Ansel wasn’t too worried as long as they were still floating inside the ferry.

Lady Liberty reached down and held Ansel up against her belly, shielding him away from the falling rain.

He wondered when they’d hit the ceiling, but it seemed to curve away from them as they floated upwards. He decided not to look down at the fading floor. Instead, he focused on the piano and harps arpeggiating between the roaring downpour.

“Do you hear that?”

“Please don’t let me go.”

The restroom grew taller than a skyscraper and clouds oozed in around them like a toxic gas. Once the lovers were high up enough, they fluttered like a drifting moon, slowly dancing in circles.

“I couldn’t crush you. Even if I wanted to,” she said.

“Why?” he said.

“Because you wouldn’t know what to do after I’m done. Pleasure isn’t an outcome,” she said. “Did you confuse happiness with satisfaction?”

Ansel wondered if dancing with her in the clouds would be enough. He closed his eyes against Liberty’s breasts, turning into the boy he once was before puberty. Time melted together, pushing and pulling him in too many directions at once. Strings of moments and seconds tangled together into an endless knot. There he was, covering his eyes in the dark, past his bedtime, hearing John’s scary stories. Ansel, sleepless again and alone in his bed after secretly touching himself to pornographic magazines for the first time. He glances at the keychain on his dresser, wanting more. Little Ansel. Poor Ansel, holding hands with Greta in the playground, making sure none of the other boys can see. There is a breeze running between them, which he’ll chase every time he gets high. Teenage Ansel, poor Ansel, saying goodbye to his parents for the last time. Holding his keychain. Holding it again. He is a young man standing across from Beth, watching her walk down the aisle, wearing her grandmother’s white veil. If only she were Greta. If only she were Lady Liberty.They stare at each other, into the future, and hold still like copper statues. He knows Beth begged him to put the needle down. He knows she gave him every chance she could. As she left their home for the last time, leaving him alone forever, she warned him she was through.

“How is she, Ansel? Lady Liberty, how does she feel?” Charlotte asked.

Ansel opened his eyes to the present. There was a honeynut baked donut crushed between his bare legs. His veins blackened as the poison sludged up into his chest. His lungs dreamt about breathing and his pupils shrank into pinholes.

Faraway, Beth smiled. “You deserve this.”