Spring 2006 Sisyphus - St. Louis University High School
Spring 2006 Sisyphus - St. Louis University High School
Spring 2006 Sisyphus - St. Louis University High School
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SISYPHUS<br />
The <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Louis</strong> U. <strong>High</strong> Magazine of Literature and the Arts<br />
<strong>Spring</strong> ’06<br />
LITERARY EDITORS<br />
Tony Bertucci<br />
Ben Farley<br />
Kyle Kloster<br />
Jake Kessler<br />
Joe Milner<br />
Paul Robbins<br />
Joe Lauth<br />
Jim Santel<br />
Dave Spitz<br />
ART EDITORS<br />
Nick Jacobs<br />
Joel Westwood<br />
Tyler Pey<br />
LAYOUT EDITOR<br />
Tim Huether<br />
MODERATORS<br />
Frank Kovarik<br />
Rich Moran<br />
Manuscripts are considered anonymously.<br />
We regret that we received more<br />
fine submissions than we could publish.<br />
Thanks to all those who offered their writing<br />
and artwork for consideration.<br />
Special thanks to Joan Bugnitz, John Mueller, & Mary Whealon.
2<br />
Si s y p h u s<br />
<strong>Spring</strong> ’06<br />
Table of Contents<br />
Cover artwork by David Rhoads, design by Joel Westwood<br />
Masthead photography by Matt Nahlik<br />
Borders artwork by Nick Jacobs<br />
3 Checkmate, poetry by Noah Mitchell<br />
4 To Suffer and Die Without Due<br />
Resurrection, prose by Tony Bell<br />
5 photography by Nick Niehaus<br />
6 At Sunrise, fiction by Alex Orf<br />
7 Ignorance is Bliss, poetry by Kingsley<br />
Uwalaka<br />
7 photography by Kevin Casey<br />
8-11 White Houses, fiction by Ben Farley<br />
8 photography by Matt Nahlik<br />
11 artwork by Peter Kidd<br />
12 From Boy to Man and Back Again, poetry<br />
by Shane Lawless<br />
13 Desert, fiction by Henry Goldkamp<br />
13 photography by Anthony Sigillito<br />
14-15 Attention, fiction by Jonathan E. D.<br />
Huelman<br />
14 photography by <strong>Louis</strong> Nahlik<br />
15 artwork by <strong>St</strong>ephen Kelley<br />
16 Response to an age that finds it pleasing<br />
to overuse “random” and to misuse<br />
“abstract,” poetry by Henry Goldkamp<br />
17-20 Just Like Old Times, fiction by Victor<br />
J. Kessler<br />
18 photography by Henry Goldkamp<br />
19 photography by Henry Goldkamp<br />
20 photography by Alex Grman<br />
21-22 Sunset, fiction by Peter Lucier<br />
22 photography by Henry Goldkamp<br />
23 Gravedigger, fiction by Kyle Kloster<br />
24-28 Metro, fiction by Tony Bertucci<br />
24 photography by <strong>Louis</strong> Monnig<br />
25 photography by <strong>Louis</strong> Nahlik<br />
26 photography by Matt Nahlik<br />
27 artwork by <strong>Louis</strong> Monnig<br />
29 Argumentum ad Sapientem, poetry by Dan<br />
Yacovino<br />
29 photography by Sean O’Neil<br />
30-31 <strong>St</strong>uck in Fast-Forward, poetry by Shane<br />
Lawless<br />
31 photography by Henry Goldkamp<br />
32 artwork by Niall Kelleher<br />
33 Fear, poetry by Timlin Glaser<br />
34-36 Late, non-fiction by Jim Santel<br />
34 photography by Kevin Casey<br />
35 photography by Sean O’Neil<br />
36 photography by Sean O’Neil<br />
37 Lost, poetry by Shane Lawless<br />
38-42 Prayer, fiction by Matt Wilmsmeyer<br />
40 photography by Tim Seltzer<br />
41 photography by Kyle Kloster<br />
43 Le Mont-Saint-Michel, poetry by Tony Bell<br />
44-45 On Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” essay<br />
by Kyle Kloster<br />
45 Grass, poetry by Adam Archambeault<br />
46 <strong>Spring</strong>time, poetry by <strong>St</strong>eve Behr<br />
46 artwork by Dave Bosch<br />
47-49 Waking Up, fiction by Timo Kim<br />
49 artwork by Matt Ampleman<br />
50 Embrace, poetry by Will Turnbough<br />
50 photography by Anthony Sigillito<br />
51-54 Excerpt from The Endeavor’s Compass,<br />
fiction by David Spitz<br />
55 Being Below Zero Makes You Think,<br />
poetry by Jonathan E. D. Huelman<br />
56-58 The Damn Armrest, fiction by Connor Cole<br />
58 artwork by Tyler Pey<br />
59 Like, Poetry and <strong>St</strong>uff, poetry by<br />
Henry Goldkamp<br />
60 An Ode to My Ballpoint Pen, poetry by<br />
Thad Winker<br />
61-62 Long Dark Hallways and Cedar Closets,<br />
narrative by T. J. Keeley<br />
63 Spitting Image, poetry by Timlin Glaser<br />
63 artwork by Dom Palumbo<br />
64 The Turn, fiction by Tony Bertucci
Ch e c k m a t e<br />
Noah Mitchell<br />
Why, pawn, are you weak,<br />
so frail and disposable,<br />
exposable, expendable,<br />
a bowling pin<br />
so edible to the will<br />
of a higher, towering power?<br />
Do his orders deafen<br />
the squeaks of revolution<br />
peeping through the curved crevice<br />
on the crown to your captivity?<br />
Your goal<br />
to lose identity pinned with such brevity,<br />
3<br />
Charge, hope, hop to end…
4<br />
To Su f f e r a n d<br />
Die Wi t h o u t Du e<br />
Re s u r r e c t i o n<br />
Tony Bell<br />
Cramming into my dad’s crummy ’83 Ford<br />
Escort every morning around sunrise, that<br />
disorienting time when the sun leaves hints of<br />
itself in the sky and on the pavement, shining<br />
through the trees that canopied Francisca Lane,<br />
Jake or I would co-pilot the mumbling stick shift<br />
with Dad’s hand on top, and we’d set off for<br />
Jeff and Joe’s house. The journey was so short<br />
that, on cold winter mornings, we’d arrive in<br />
front of their sloping front yard before the heat<br />
even started to thaw our fingers. Although so<br />
near, the Marxkors’ house seemed like another<br />
world. Set up on a proud hill, its yellow siding<br />
would always beam with the coming of first<br />
light, illuminating the differences between my<br />
side street Francisca and their Lindsay Lane.<br />
They woke up to cars waiting at a stoplight<br />
and a 7-Eleven across the street. But with this<br />
lack of solitude came many great things, such<br />
as the presence of the Buddhist monk around<br />
9:00 each morning.<br />
“Boobist! Boobist! All the way from<br />
Boobistland!” we’d shout into the window pane<br />
of the front door, our noses pressed hard against its<br />
smooth but smudgy surface. He would walk with<br />
the utmost serenity, the smallest shuffling steps,<br />
to the end of Lindsay Lane, where it cornered<br />
with Shackelford, and then back again into the<br />
depths of our imaginations. Oh, the places that he<br />
came and went! We’d imagine him crossing vast<br />
oceans and massive expanses of land in his orange<br />
robes, tanning to a nice brown before getting to<br />
the corner of Lindsay Lane and Shackelford,<br />
and turning back around. Jeff, Joe and I would<br />
ponder the purpose of his journey and come to<br />
respect that cement corner as a haven for the<br />
spiritually inclined. It seemed that at this corner<br />
he received some sort of enlightenment before<br />
turning around and returning to his antipodal<br />
home.<br />
Now that I look back on it, I imagine the<br />
Marxkors’ house as my second home, the all-encompassing<br />
destination each morning when my<br />
parents went to work. John and Cheryl Marxkors<br />
were my surrogate parents. John was my soccer<br />
and baseball coach, and Cheryl looked after my<br />
brother and me, along with her own four children,<br />
Matt, Melissa, and the twinners, Jeff and Joe, my<br />
two best friends throughout all of adolescence,<br />
from 7:00 until 2:00 each day of the week except<br />
Thursday, when my mom was off work. It was in<br />
this home that I first experienced many elements<br />
of the world—death, divorce, and some sort of<br />
limbo.<br />
The weird neighbors on the corner of Lindsay<br />
Lane and Shackelford had flowers planted<br />
in potting soil in a toilet in their backyard.<br />
Daisies, I think. When I accidentally kicked<br />
our soccer ball over their fence, I’d be forced<br />
to enter this world of eerie wonder. Dropping<br />
down slyly onto the crackling summer grass,<br />
dried out and neglected, I’d carefully pass the<br />
mystical assortment of gnomes in their red hats<br />
and green shirts and enter the neighbors’ sad<br />
attempt at a garden through a creaky, rusted<br />
iron gate. It looked more like a jungle than a<br />
garden, and it was all I could do not to sweat<br />
from its tropical humidity and the anxiety that<br />
steamed up inside of me. I would quickly rummage<br />
through the weeded overgrowth with the<br />
goalie gloves I borrowed from Jeff, who usually<br />
played keeper, until I came across a fragment of<br />
shiny white plastic, a piece of a puzzle which<br />
formed our soccer ball. After quickly retrieving<br />
it from the weeds that already started to<br />
engulf it, I retraced my steps out of the garden<br />
and past the goldfish pond, saluting the hearty<br />
cluster of gnomes before climbing back over<br />
the chain-link fence.
During winter the goldfish pond froze. No<br />
attempt was made to retrieve the three goldfish.<br />
On some of the warmer days of Christmas Break,<br />
Jeff, Joe and I would bundle up according to<br />
Cheryl’s winter regulations, and we’d stand with<br />
our mittened hands linked in the chained-link<br />
fence, lamenting the frozen goldfish. I don’t think<br />
we fully appreciated the goldfish until they were<br />
frozen. Then one day we went outside in jeans<br />
and sweatshirts, Cheryl’s lesser regulations for<br />
a coming spring, and the water bubbled with<br />
the liveliness of three goldfish. They had been<br />
resurrected, like Lazarus, we’d later learn, saved<br />
and redeemed by the grace of God.<br />
“He takes care of animals too, you know,”<br />
said Melissa, shocked by our elation over the<br />
resurrection of three goldfish. Her room was<br />
covered in Precious Moments porcelain and<br />
posters. “I knew they’d come back because I’ve<br />
seen it before,” she said, stressing the I’s in all<br />
of her wisdom and experience. She faithfully<br />
believed in the saving right hand of the Father,<br />
and we, mere first-graders, had not yet learned<br />
prayers.<br />
Four weeks later Melissa’s best friend, Megan<br />
McKeating, died on our grade school’s gym<br />
floor. Apparently the hole in her heart that was<br />
supposed to be plugged came unplugged during<br />
the sixth lap of an easy calisthenics workout, and<br />
she tumbled to the dusty floor before the blue<br />
and yellow home team benches. She never got<br />
up. Megan’s parents cursed the school, knowing<br />
it wasn’t the school’s fault, and Melissa cursed<br />
God. The next morning at the Marxkors’ house,<br />
Melissa skipped breakfast. She skipped school,<br />
and Cheryl gave her time to cope, holding Melissa<br />
preciously in her arms throughout the day<br />
while we learned to read simple subject-verb<br />
combinations and dressed down for dodge ball in<br />
gym class. When Jeff, Joe and I came home after<br />
school, Melissa was in the backyard looking at<br />
the three goldfish, teary-eyed, her delicate fingers<br />
fixed within the gaping holes of the chained-link<br />
fence. We watched from afar as she bent her<br />
head forward, touching it to the cold metal of<br />
the fence, wondering, I guess, how God could<br />
use his divine finger to warm the goldfish pond<br />
with new life but not to plug the hole in her best<br />
friend’s heart.<br />
Megan’s death cut deep gashes into the<br />
<strong>St</strong>. Ferdinand parish community. My parents<br />
sent flowers to the funeral home. It was on a<br />
Wednesday, so my mom was unable to attend.<br />
Cheryl went with Melissa, and we were watched<br />
by Matt, our school day cut short by Megan’s<br />
absence. On that warm day at the beginning of<br />
spring, Jeff, Joe and I echoed the movements<br />
Melissa made in the backyard. We curled our kid<br />
fingers through the chained-link fence, looking<br />
at each other with the kinds of faces we had seen<br />
on the Precious Moments porcelains, tight-lipped<br />
and droopy-eyed, shocked that God wouldn’t at<br />
least try to mend the holes.<br />
Halfway through that summer, the last summer<br />
that I would have to be watched over by a<br />
babysitter, Cheryl and John filed for divorce. I<br />
wasn’t there when they told the four children, but<br />
I imagine it happening in their master bedroom,<br />
where we once watched home videos of both of<br />
our families on vacation in Gulf Shores.<br />
John moved into an apartment about five<br />
minutes down Shackelford. The four children<br />
went to see him on the weekends. Sometimes<br />
when neither parent had the time to take them to<br />
or from their new home in the apartment complex,<br />
they had to ride the bus. I saw them once, on the<br />
way to my grandma’s house. Jeff and Joe waved,<br />
Melissa stared sadly ahead, indifferent to the<br />
honking or the honker, and Matt reluctantly led<br />
them on, walking to the bus stop at the corner<br />
of Shackelford and Lindsay Lane.<br />
Ni c k Ni e h a u s<br />
5
6<br />
At Su n r i s e<br />
Alex Orf<br />
On the very edge of the horizon sat the faintest<br />
hint of pink, defining the previously<br />
formless skyline. Rachel and I stared intently at<br />
it, as if believing that our collective focus would<br />
accelerate its spread. Buried under a mess of<br />
blankets, we sat huddled together, backs pressed<br />
against the gray expanse of the stone reservoir<br />
in Reservoir Park.<br />
“Won’t be long now,” Rachel muttered. She<br />
smiled at me, a bright smile that caught what little<br />
light we had at just the right angle, giving her<br />
face a warm orange glow. But soon her lip began<br />
to tremble, and she pulled a patchwork quilt up<br />
over her nose, curling into the fetal position and<br />
looking out towards the light.<br />
We discovered the reservoir—or rather we<br />
had been introduced to it—on a night that had<br />
been going nowhere. Out of feasible pursuits and<br />
desperate to find somewhere, anywhere, to waste<br />
our night, we followed a friend’s suggestion to<br />
see the view. Eight of us went that first night in<br />
February, and as we stood on the hill, backs to the<br />
reservoir to escape the wind, Rachel and I were<br />
left speechless by the brilliance of our city, neon<br />
and fluorescent and radiant. From that perch, the<br />
fast food chains and skyscrapers and dive bars<br />
all meshed into a harmony of urban beauty.<br />
“Can we keep it?” Rachel had asked hopefully,<br />
as if the skyline were a stray puppy.<br />
“Well, there’s no harm in trying,” I replied<br />
through an amused grin, and in the month since<br />
we had stolen away to visit Reservoir Park<br />
whenever we could spare a minute. It became<br />
a sanctuary, hallowed ground. Rachel said it<br />
was the location, inside the city but far enough<br />
removed to observe comfortably, and I had to<br />
agree with her. There was a balance to it; it felt<br />
right.<br />
We could see red now, with orange in tow.<br />
The buildings in the distance began to gain<br />
dimension and color. I inhaled deeply, and the<br />
sharp, frigid air scratched my throat, provoking<br />
a cough. “You had to pick the coldest damn day<br />
of the break, didn’t you? I’m going to catch my<br />
death of frostbite if we’re out here much longer,”<br />
I croaked at her mock-contemptuously.<br />
She flashed a wicked smile for a moment,<br />
then contorted her cheerful face into a stoic<br />
shell and shrugged. “I don’t see where that’s<br />
my problem,” she quipped, deadpan. “No one<br />
forced you to come. Besides, this is the clearest<br />
morning we’ve….” She trailed off when the<br />
first flicker of golden yellow slipped above the<br />
horizon and caught her eye.<br />
It started suddenly, rising up to a single<br />
point before stretching out along the horizon.<br />
When the sun broke the surface, its rich, heavy<br />
light trickled through the city streets, expanding<br />
and creeping up the skyscrapers. Rachel slid in<br />
close and fumbled under the blankets to find my<br />
hand. As the sun fought to clear the horizon, the<br />
light began advancing faster and faster until it<br />
became a veritable flood. Only moments after<br />
the sun separated itself from land the light hit<br />
us and, for that brief second, the buildings, the<br />
parks, Rachel and I—the whole city froze, gilded<br />
in shimmering red-orange. I heard Rachel take a<br />
breath, and the city slid back into its grays, tans,<br />
and reds.<br />
Resting my head against the concrete wall,<br />
I looked over at her inquisitively. She gave me<br />
a wide-eyed, almost startled look, and I couldn’t<br />
help but smile. “So,” she said softly, airily. “What<br />
should we do today?”<br />
What couldn’t we do?
Ig n o r a n c e is Bl i s s<br />
Kingsley Uwalaka<br />
It’s hard to notice.<br />
It’s very subtle.<br />
But it’s there…<br />
The glow in a child’s eyes,<br />
The glow of naivety,<br />
The glow of curiosity for the world around him.<br />
I want it back.<br />
I want to go back.<br />
I want to feel again.<br />
I want to swim upstream again,<br />
Not worrying about river-born germs,<br />
How stupid I must look,<br />
Or that I’m getting nowhere.<br />
I just want to enjoy the water again.<br />
Ke v i n Ca s e y<br />
7
8<br />
Wh i t e Ho u s e s<br />
Ben Farley<br />
hopped out the side door and onto the concrete<br />
steps of my house. The damp humidity<br />
I<br />
and glaring sun reminded me: It’s July in <strong>St</strong>.<br />
<strong>Louis</strong>. <strong>St</strong>aring straight ahead, I looked longingly<br />
across Bryncastle Place to the open field<br />
spread across three backyards in my South<br />
County neighborhood. Manicured Scottsdale<br />
grass sloped gently downward across the field.<br />
To my right, Castlegate <strong>St</strong>reet led down a dark<br />
alley, scarred with many potholes and black tar<br />
streaks over the many years since it had been<br />
built in the 1950s. On both sides of the road,<br />
dark-brick homes stuck out of the ground, surrounded<br />
by gnarling, twisting trees.<br />
The “old neighborhood” frightened me with<br />
its lonely darkness. I never saw any of the houses<br />
of the old neighborhood up close. Once, when I<br />
was five, I walked across the street and snuck up<br />
to the building closest to my house. I never saw<br />
much of the building, nor any of the other ones,<br />
because of the high wooden fences that encased<br />
them. They must have been hiding something,<br />
which is why I walked over that one day. But<br />
before I could come close to the truth, a dog began<br />
roaring from behind the fence. I jumped away<br />
from the lamp post I had hidden behind and ran<br />
back home, crouching underneath the slide in my<br />
backyard. Today, the old neighborhood looked<br />
particularly evil, with long shadows underneath<br />
the dense trees.<br />
To the left of my house, Bryncastle continued<br />
and made a right angle turn away from me. Down<br />
there, the “new neighborhood,” barely ten years<br />
old, began. The shiny aluminum-sided homes,<br />
white-washed and perfectly square, arose from<br />
the ground. The roofs, gray as dark rain clouds,<br />
rose to the majestic peaks that make suburbanites<br />
feel superior to flat-roofed apartment dwellers.<br />
I envied all the rich kids, wearing Nike shoes<br />
and Abercrombie shirts, who lived in those pure<br />
white houses. I still wore the same Sambas my<br />
mom bought me three years ago. We lived in<br />
a house awkwardly placed at the corner of the<br />
intersection of Castlegate and Bryncastle—added<br />
in the seventies and different from all the others.<br />
That pretty much summed up my existence. I<br />
stuck out of any group like a bruised apple. My<br />
love of National Geographic and inability to<br />
talk about pop culture made me awkward even<br />
around the small group of friends I had. Not many<br />
nine-year-olds are interested in Grant’s improbable<br />
victory over the Rebels at Chattanooga. I<br />
knew about Alexander’s victory at Guagamela,<br />
Bismarck’s realpolitik philosophy, and Keynesian<br />
economics. To be short, I was Ted Koppel<br />
in a ten-year-old’s body. The one normal thing<br />
in life was soccer. I walked down my driveway<br />
and towards the open field.<br />
The field formed a long rectangle, perfect<br />
for a soccer game. Almost everyday during the<br />
summer, I would walk in the late afternoon, along<br />
with my little brother who skipped and pestered<br />
me along the way. On this day, I could see a whole<br />
group forming. Kevin, a year older than me, with<br />
a shock of reddish-blonde hair and a tall, athletic<br />
build, was the leader. He always captained a<br />
team, usually leading the league in scoring. The<br />
Rozencrantz twins, two years younger than me,<br />
also ran to join the games. The Guild boys also<br />
played. Kevin told me the oldest, Shawn, had a<br />
crush on Jennifer. I didn’t understand why he<br />
wanted to crush her, but I kept watch on him<br />
in case he tried. Jennifer, my cousin two years<br />
older than me, was the greatest person I’d ever<br />
met. Unencumbered by life’s pains, she walked<br />
through life confident, sure of herself.<br />
“Countdown.... Ten...nine...eight...!” Jennifer<br />
began the infamous countdown preceding<br />
her booming penalty kicks. In front of the goal<br />
stood my team, all of us holding our sweaty<br />
hands over our crotches. Jennifer would launch<br />
those missiles towards us and we’d dive out of<br />
the way, unwilling to stand against her shot...<br />
against her.<br />
“...two...one...blast off!” I felt the rush of
warm air as the ball whizzed by, inches from my<br />
bulky hearing aid, and into the shredded net. We<br />
all picked ourselves up, incredulous about what<br />
we saw now for the 197th time, and set the ball<br />
up at half-line. I never felt better than when I<br />
played soccer. I was part of something, with other<br />
people. I dissolved into the collective identity of<br />
the team, losing my own personality. But after<br />
the game, I had to return to my personality—who<br />
I really was.<br />
Don’t feel different; feel special,” Jennifer<br />
“ gently whispered as she glided her hand<br />
through my mangy hair as we sat in the family<br />
room after that Saturday’s game.<br />
“That’s crap,”<br />
I replied with the<br />
new word I heard<br />
Dad yell as he<br />
missed the nail<br />
with his hammer<br />
last week.<br />
“Don’t say<br />
that!”<br />
“Well it’s<br />
true, it’s crap...<br />
crap, crap, crap,<br />
crap! “<br />
“Why do you<br />
say that?”<br />
“’Cause life<br />
sucks!”<br />
“No, it doesn’t...”<br />
“YES, IT DOES!” Now the whimpering tears<br />
came. “I don’t have...friends and...I...I’m…different<br />
and...I hate myself.”<br />
“Why?”<br />
“Everyone else goes and plays and has fun.<br />
Why can’t I do that? I want to be normal. I’d<br />
give up this stupid ‘gifted brain’ just to be like<br />
everyone else.” I sighed, finally able to admit<br />
the hopelessness of my life.<br />
“Holden, come with me.”<br />
She pulled my sullen body off the couch and<br />
we walked across the plush carpet of her living<br />
room. The sun burned my eyes as we stepped<br />
out of her white house and onto Bryncastle. We<br />
walked down the street, completely abandoned<br />
except for the Rozencrantz twins racing each<br />
other on rollerblades. They sailed right by us<br />
in a whirling cloud of fumes. Down the street,<br />
Tim knocked his twin, Tom, to the ground and<br />
grabbed hold of the finish line, the half knocked<br />
over “25 MPH” sign. He jumped furiously in joy,<br />
as Tom cried for Mommy near the sewer. Tim’s<br />
skates slid out from under and his ass hit the<br />
ground. He sat dumbfounded for a second, then<br />
joined in his brother’s cries for Mommy. Good, at<br />
least some things are fair. Jennifer and I walked<br />
down the street and turned left onto the soccer<br />
Mat t Na h l i k<br />
field. I instantly<br />
took my shoes<br />
and socks off,<br />
wanting to feel<br />
the tingly green<br />
grass between<br />
my toes. I forgot<br />
all my problems,<br />
even why<br />
we were there.<br />
I was happy...<br />
smiling...unscarred.<br />
“Holden,”<br />
she gently spoke<br />
as we stood in<br />
the middle of<br />
the field, “look at those houses.” I stared at the<br />
backs of all the white houses. I could see hers<br />
down the block.<br />
“That’s you, Holden. Or at least that’s where<br />
you’ll be. Someday, that brain of yours is going<br />
to make you great and rich. People will love you.<br />
You won’t have any worries. Just white walls<br />
and big screen TV’s.”<br />
I almost said “That’s crap,” but there was<br />
something about her, about her voice, her confidence,<br />
that cajoled me into believing. Plus, I<br />
thought she had grown sick of the incessant flowing<br />
of “crap” from my mouth. Everyone told me<br />
9
10<br />
I had a bright future. I guess that’s what happens<br />
when you can recite all the presidents in order<br />
and name the atomic number of plutonium. But<br />
I never felt like the white houses, except now,<br />
with Jennifer.<br />
“Now look at those houses.” She pointed<br />
toward the row of houses in the old neighborhood.<br />
“They’re all ugly and beat up. That’s what<br />
you’re doin’ to yourself. Don’t end up like one<br />
of those homes. You’ve got a future of white<br />
homes, stick to it.”<br />
“Where are you, Jennifer?”<br />
She shrugged without<br />
care. “Oh, I’m already at<br />
those white houses. Never<br />
had to deal with anything<br />
bad or nothing. You don’t<br />
have to either. All you have<br />
to do is stay up, don’t worry.<br />
It’ll all work out.”<br />
Well, now I felt better.<br />
Jennifer always made me<br />
feel better. Nothing ever<br />
bothered her. She never<br />
cried or whined about anything.<br />
She avoided anything<br />
bad and upsetting. I wondered<br />
if that’s what it felt<br />
like to live in one of those<br />
white houses—no worries<br />
or problems. Jennifer had it easy.<br />
What’s leukemia?” I asked my mom, tears<br />
rising from the bottom of her eyes.<br />
“ “It’s a cancer.”<br />
“But Jennifer can’t have cancer, she’s not<br />
old!”<br />
The only people I ever saw with cancer<br />
were old aunts and uncles. My uncle Fenton<br />
had died when I was five. My parents told me<br />
he had stomach cancer. I wondered why he had<br />
swallowed a can. This was a time before I knew<br />
the reality of cells slaughtering themselves in a<br />
senseless war. I stood in the parlor (why do old<br />
people always have parlors?) in a starchy white<br />
shirt as the tall man in the same starchy white shirt<br />
pronounced my uncle dead. I asked if I could ride<br />
in the ambulance, since I wanted to be a doctor.<br />
For some reason, the paramedic picked me up<br />
and took me into the ambulance. I was so excited<br />
to be in there, since I had never heard of anyone<br />
else riding in an ambulance. He showed me all<br />
the machines and tools inside the ambulance.<br />
He walked to the front to talk to the driver for a<br />
Pe t e r Ki d d<br />
second, and that’s when I<br />
lifted up the sheet covering<br />
my Uncle Fenton. I stood<br />
there, staring into the calm,<br />
cold face of this old man I<br />
barely knew. Suddenly, an<br />
image of Jennifer with a<br />
cold, dead face now flew<br />
into my imagination and<br />
froze there like a movie on<br />
pause. I cried and bawled<br />
as my mother, hiding her<br />
own grief, gently rocked<br />
me back and forth.<br />
The next day, I stood<br />
outside Jennifer’s massive<br />
white house, a building<br />
cold and imposing. I saw<br />
my Uncle Fenton’s face on<br />
the aluminum siding, and<br />
rushed towards the porch.<br />
The doorbell rang, one of those artificial bells<br />
meant to convey warmth, failing miserably.<br />
“Oh, hi, Holden,” my aunt, gaunt and pale,<br />
asked without any force. She stood lifeless for a<br />
while, not looking at me, but through me. I stood,<br />
slightly trembling, unsure of what to do.<br />
“Is Jennifer...is she...can I see Jennifer?” I<br />
haltingly asked.<br />
“I’m not sure she wants to see anyone,<br />
Holden. She’s not feelin’ good. I just...”<br />
I snuck past her and walked across the plush<br />
carpet and upstairs. I walked gingerly, not wanting<br />
to disturb the deadly silence in the building.
I walked up to her door, scarred with the white<br />
streaks left behind by a torn off Madonna poster,<br />
and knocked. No answer. I knocked again.<br />
“Jennifer, are you in there?”<br />
“Whaddya want?”<br />
I just wanted to see how you’re doing?”<br />
“FINE!” followed by painful coughs.<br />
“I was just wondering... maybe you could<br />
come outside?”<br />
“No.”<br />
“But Jennifer...”<br />
“No! OK, No! I don’t want to. Why should<br />
I? I don’t have a life anymore. Or did you not<br />
hear...I got leukemia.” I could hear the sobs<br />
through the thin wooden door. “Just leave me<br />
alone, I don’t want to be near anyone.”<br />
I ran down the stairs, banging my knee off<br />
the post at the top of the stairs, and ran outside. I<br />
ran past the Rozencrantz boys ding-dong-ditching<br />
the neighbors, and collapsed on the soccer<br />
field.<br />
I cried. I screamed at God, the old man<br />
with a beard who always answered our prayers<br />
if we tried hard enough, or at least that’s what<br />
Aunt Mary said. I looked over to the ugly brick<br />
houses, tears flowing down my face. Somewhere<br />
in my psyche, I blamed those buildings. I saw<br />
the house, the one that scared me when I was<br />
five. I wasn’t scared now, just angry. I hated the<br />
darkness of the house, the loneliness that I felt<br />
once again. Now that darkness had overtaken<br />
Erin. The high, wooden fence rose up, not allowing<br />
any healing light into the darkness. I hated<br />
the house, the darkness, the loneliness, myself.<br />
I couldn’t handle it anymore.<br />
I lifted my body off the sod and ran towards<br />
the fence like a bull towards a matador. I stepped<br />
on my ankle as I charged forward, but ignored the<br />
pain. I leapt up off my left foot and slammed my<br />
right leg, followed by the left, into the surprisingly<br />
strong wooden fence. I fit the fence line<br />
under my arms and awkwardly pinned myself<br />
against the barrier, ready to curse at the evil that<br />
the house was. I breathed in a mighty breath...<br />
and saw a girl in a pink dress playing near a<br />
revered oak tree. <strong>St</strong>artled, she looked up at me<br />
with a terrified face that quickly dissolved into<br />
a bright, toothy smile. Her puffy cheeks rose up<br />
and turned crimson with happiness. She began to<br />
giggle and flail her arms in the way that toddlers<br />
do.<br />
I just hung there, stupefied while I watched<br />
this beautiful girl playing with a Tickle-Me-Elmo<br />
doll at the bottom of a wooden, hand-made playground.<br />
She cooed and laughed at me, showing<br />
the hope of a new life. After a few minutes, she<br />
rose up haltingly, gathered up her treasures, and<br />
walked toward the closed-in patio. As I lifted my<br />
eyes following her, the sun’s fading orange rays<br />
bounced off some beautiful, metal wind chimes.<br />
The sun slowly sank behind the distant church<br />
spire, and I saw beyond the brick houses a wide<br />
green field that flowed right up to the horizon.<br />
After what felt like a day, I remembered I<br />
was hanging on a wooden fence and the wood<br />
was digging into my underarms. I hopped down,<br />
landing on my twisted ankle, and sat against<br />
the fence. My brain churned with thoughts and<br />
images that I couldn’t describe. There actually<br />
was beauty in that house. Beyond it, the sun<br />
looked brighter and warmer than I ever thought.<br />
So, there’s actually hope there. Not even the old<br />
neighborhood is hopeless. What does that mean?<br />
What do I do? All that time I limped back towards<br />
the white houses. My self-absorbed anger slipped<br />
away and the real world, filled with all its pain<br />
and joy, rushed back. Looking at one of the<br />
white houses, I noticed the paint had begun to<br />
chip off the lower sidings. I looked over at the<br />
pre-assembled plastic playground and felt empty.<br />
The pure white houses, with all the nice-looking<br />
but soulless accessories, no longer seemed real<br />
to me. I looked back at the open field, the old<br />
neighborhood, the setting sun, and now knew<br />
what to do.<br />
“Jennifer,” I yelled as I hobbled along, “guess<br />
what I saw!”<br />
11
Fr o m Bo y t o Ma n a n d Ba c k Ag a i n<br />
Shane Lawless<br />
I climbed atop the mountain till I reached the peak<br />
Hoping the higher altitude would give me clear vision<br />
If I raised myself above the throngs.<br />
But all I did was lose my head in the clouds, clouding my vision.<br />
I clothed myself in the glorious sun, shining for all to see,<br />
Hoping the light would destroy any blemish on me.<br />
But all it did was blind me with brilliance while<br />
Allowing others to see my faults.<br />
12<br />
I hid my countenance behind a porcelain mask,<br />
Hoping all would admire my divine perfection.<br />
But all I did was lose my place in the crowd among other masks,<br />
Fading into the fog of obscurity.<br />
I picked up the megaphone, raising it to my mouth. I spoke,<br />
Hoping to share my inspired words with the world.<br />
But all I did was let everyone know in an echoing voice<br />
That I had nothing to say.<br />
(It’s easy for a boy to learn to be a man)<br />
Climbing down that mountain, I gazed at its majestic beauty.<br />
Tossing aside my blanket of light, I find comfort cloaked in shadows.<br />
Removing my mask, I see my imperfections as testaments to my humanity.<br />
Turning off the megaphone, I learn to find wisdom in my own silence.<br />
By descending from my lofty perch, I could see beyond the horizon.<br />
By dwelling in shadows, I outshined the sun.<br />
By displaying my disfigurements, I made myself beautiful.<br />
By discussing in whispers, I heard those secrets whispered to me.<br />
(Much harder for a man to relearn to be a boy)
De s e rt<br />
Henry Goldkamp<br />
The burning heat of the sun cascades down his<br />
weathered face, waking the sleepy drifter<br />
from his uncomfortable bed of dirt. Drenched in<br />
sweat, his tearing eyes and chafed lips burn. He<br />
can taste the salt on his tongue. Scorpion tracks<br />
surround the makeshift camp, reminding him of<br />
his first trial with the serpent. And even though<br />
he is starving, he knows he must not give into<br />
temptation for his Father’s sake. His mind starts<br />
to wander and comes to the conclusion lizards<br />
would probably not taste that bad after all, as<br />
long as they were cooked. The morning sun<br />
brings him back to reality, which, even hotter<br />
in the afternoon, is starting to beat down on his<br />
already burnt body. The exhausted man begins<br />
the daily routine of meditation and prayer to ease<br />
his weary mind, to aid his spiritual recovery.<br />
He looks towards the horizon, searching for<br />
any sign of life, any sign of shade from the<br />
blistering heat. He discovers a slightly darker<br />
spot silhouetted against the bright, blinding<br />
dirt reflecting the sunlight off in the distance.<br />
Could this be an oasis? He runs to the figure<br />
as quickly as his calloused feet can take him<br />
there. Snake skins strewn across the desert are<br />
picked up by the wind, crossing the hopeful<br />
vagabond’s path.<br />
He reaches the destination only to be disappointed—it<br />
is nothing but the corpse of a dead<br />
camel. He prays for the strength in the upcoming<br />
temptations he must face. He knows what he<br />
must do, but he also knows it will be hard. He<br />
wonders when the serpent will next challenge<br />
him again. What will the temptation be? Vultures<br />
soar overhead, thinking this man is weak and will<br />
soon be nothing more than dead flesh to prey<br />
upon. The desert breeze runs through his long<br />
brown hair, matted with sweat and dirt. Soon<br />
the wind is blowing all around him, picking up<br />
the dirt along with it, and a thick cloud of dust<br />
surrounds him. The wind suddenly stops, and<br />
all is numbingly quiet. As the dust settles, a<br />
black snake appears hissing at his feet. Its cold,<br />
unforgiving eyes peer up at him, the sense of<br />
confidence glistening in its coiled posture. With<br />
a sigh and a deep, sinking feeling in his stomach,<br />
the spiritual exile confronts the serpent.<br />
13<br />
An t h o n y Sigillito
14<br />
At t e n t i o n<br />
Jonathan E. D. Huelman<br />
It was because it was standing up so straight<br />
that he noticed it. There were many other<br />
things about an unlabeled, shining, silver aerosol<br />
can sitting conspicuously in the middle of<br />
a parking lot downtown that could have been<br />
noticed by an average middle-age, middle-class<br />
white male stepping out of his Corolla towards<br />
his miserable job in an equally miserable office<br />
complex, but he noticed it because of how it<br />
stood: nice and straight, instead of rolled over<br />
on its side as<br />
if it had fallen<br />
off a delivery<br />
truck. Defiant<br />
and gleaming<br />
in the morning<br />
sun, this nondescript<br />
can of<br />
whatever had<br />
reached out<br />
and grabbed<br />
him simply<br />
by being<br />
there. At that<br />
instant, with<br />
the door to his<br />
car hanging<br />
open and his<br />
casual-Friday-attired leg still on the floor near<br />
the pedals, he felt something that he longed to<br />
make others feel. This paltry can had done in<br />
ten milliseconds what he had been striving to<br />
do for ten years, so he took it with him.<br />
He got to his cubicle and set the can down<br />
and began to work. Work was work, and that was<br />
it. His boss was bossy, and his co-workers were<br />
really just mechanized drones fueled by coffee<br />
and chitchat. He strongly believed that nothing<br />
short of the Apocalypse would stir these simpletons’<br />
souls, not even for a moment. Nothing<br />
had ever excited them and nothing ever would,<br />
Lo u i s Na h l i k<br />
and they were fine with that. But he wasn’t fine<br />
with it; he wasn’t fine with anything about his<br />
workplace. But instead of taking drastic measures<br />
and burning the place down, he just sat there and<br />
watched as nothing happened all around him.<br />
He spent most of the morning down in the<br />
mail room laboring through the confusion of a<br />
delivery mix-up. At lunch, he took the elevator<br />
back up to his floor, and there it was. That same<br />
can was still sitting on his desk in his cubicle,<br />
staring at him. He stared back, bewildered that<br />
such a simple human creation could mock him so<br />
maliciously. He sat down facing it with his brown<br />
paper lunch sack at rest in his lap. Feeling undermined,<br />
he<br />
hunched over<br />
and demanded<br />
that the can<br />
stop. More<br />
than anything,<br />
he wanted to<br />
stop this can<br />
from unsettling<br />
his mind. He<br />
turned away<br />
in his standardissue<br />
swivel<br />
chair, laid his<br />
lunch on some<br />
open space on<br />
his desk, and<br />
began to eat,<br />
ignoring the can. As he slowly chewed his cold<br />
store-bought sandwich, he felt it boring into the<br />
back of his skull, working its way into the deepest<br />
curves of his mind. He stopped chewing to<br />
take a sip of the grape soda that would have been<br />
coffee if it weren’t for his co-workers’ need for<br />
every drop of hazelnut-flavored caffeine. As he<br />
sipped, he abruptly became disgusted with the<br />
undistinguished way he was drinking and suddenly<br />
tilted the can vertically, letting the soda<br />
cascade past his taste buds and into his throat,<br />
with some of it splashing free onto his white<br />
casual-Friday shirt.
Determination has a funny way of messing<br />
with time. This time, to his delight, it caused<br />
the clock to fly forward, making hours flash by<br />
in minutes. Since his mind was already back in<br />
his house plotting, it made sense that his body<br />
would feel an irrepressible desire to catch up to<br />
it. And so he sat in his mismatched, arid kitchen,<br />
with the can standing on his counter top. He had<br />
already planned what to do, and was now planning<br />
how to do it: when and where. His mind<br />
almost couldn’t see it coming, he was thinking<br />
so far ahead. At night, when the last neighbor’s<br />
lights had been snuffed out and the last stray dog<br />
had whined its goodnight to the bleak city moon,<br />
he would set upon the northern wall of his sad<br />
house on a deserted corner. This was the solid<br />
brick wall which would tomorrow morning face<br />
the world with the acrimonious message:<br />
s tay t u n e d f o r m o r e c o r r u p t i o n<br />
The word choice, he thought, was important.<br />
Since he was a good citizen who always voted<br />
and never spoke out, the neighbors whom the<br />
policemen would question around 9 a.m. would<br />
never suspect him of writing such an obviously<br />
political message. The blame would fall squarely<br />
on some unnamed and unnoticed emotionally<br />
challenged youth who would escape unpunished.<br />
They would never notice the commanding nature<br />
of the graffiti, and they would never even notice<br />
that they hadn’t noticed. Whether he had taken<br />
up the burden of some forgotten man or that of<br />
his own selfish desires would never be noticed,<br />
either. His anonymous handiwork, not only a<br />
smack in the face to an age-old enemy of his,<br />
but also a tip of the hat to a newfound psychosis<br />
driven by the need to stand up straight, was in<br />
fact all just a product of a universal accident:<br />
the dropping of an unlabeled aerosol can in the<br />
middle of a parking lot downtown.<br />
15<br />
<strong>St</strong> e p h e n Ke l l e y
Response t o a n a g e t h at f i n d s it p l e a s i n g t o<br />
o v e r u s e “r a n d o m ” a n d t o misuse “a b s t r ac t”<br />
Henry Goldkamp<br />
You’re so random! That was random.... RANDOM<br />
PIX!@#$@$!@!!89~~@! I
Ju s t Li k e Ol d Ti m e s<br />
Jake Kessler<br />
The sky was a cold, cloudy grey, and it<br />
started to rain.<br />
“Shit.”<br />
We had been standing out in the alley behind<br />
the building for twenty minutes now, waiting for<br />
Rick to pull around in the van. Eddie pulled his<br />
suit jacket more tightly around him and shuddered.<br />
“Cold out here.” He shuddered again.<br />
“Shoulda worn a coat,” I said.<br />
“Didn’t think we’d be out here so long,” he<br />
replied. “What’s takin’ him so long anyway?”<br />
“Hell if I know.”<br />
“Well, what do you think he’s doin’ in there,<br />
anyway?”<br />
“Eddie, I’ve still got no idea. I didn’t know<br />
when you asked me five minutes ago, I didn’t<br />
know when you asked me five seconds ago, and<br />
chances are that I still won’t know if you ask me<br />
five minutes from now, which I know you will<br />
because you can’t keep your damn mouth shut<br />
long enough to keep the food from fallin’ out of<br />
it.”<br />
“Christ Almighty, I was just tryin’ to make<br />
some conversation.”<br />
“Yeah, well, it’s not helping.”<br />
“He’s just been in there so long, I don’t<br />
know what he could be doin’.” He walked over<br />
to an old torn-up sofa someone had pitched out<br />
into the alley, started to sit down, then changed<br />
his mind and shuffled back over to the loading<br />
dock. “’Sides,” he went on, “It’s goddamn cold<br />
out here.”<br />
Rick turned away and drifted out of the<br />
office, past the smiling receptionist, and<br />
into the hall.<br />
We had always been buddies, Rick and I. I<br />
was the smart, quiet kid who lived down<br />
the street; he was the unruly rich kid with an<br />
affinity for chaos. God only knows when we<br />
first met, but in my earliest memory of him we<br />
couldn’t have been older than nine or ten. It<br />
was hot and sticky that summer, and I know it<br />
must have been Tuesday when Rick and I stole<br />
the bus. I know it was a Tuesday because on<br />
Tuesdays Rick’s father always went down to<br />
Vince’s place to count the money people had<br />
blown at the track and the bar over the weekend.<br />
Vince had made a small fortune pandering to the<br />
more unsavory elements in the neighborhood,<br />
and while nothing he did was illegal, it wasn’t<br />
anything you’d brag about to your mother either.<br />
Rick’s dad kept the books because it made<br />
the C.P.A. feel like he was living on the edge.<br />
Compared to most accountants, he was.<br />
Anyway, with Rick’s dad down at Vince’s<br />
and my parents at a funeral in Texas, we were<br />
left completely unsupervised. Leaving two bored<br />
kids to their own devices on a hot summer day<br />
is a lot like driving past a gas station during a<br />
dry spell and throwing a lit cigarette out of the<br />
window. By the time you realize what you’ve<br />
just done, you don’t know whether it would be<br />
better to go back to put out the fire or to floor it<br />
and drive far, far away, but you know either way<br />
something bad is going to happen to someone.<br />
That day, nobody bothered to put out the fire.<br />
The rain was coming down harder now, and<br />
I could see my breath dense as the soot<br />
pouring out of the stacks of the car factory a few<br />
blocks away. The neighborhood, usually filled<br />
with blaring car horns and colorful obscenities,<br />
had all of the eerie silence of a funeral parlor<br />
without any of the bad music or tasteless decorations.<br />
Thick, white steam poured out of the<br />
gutters and manholes, covering the ground in the<br />
same kind of fog that was always rolling around<br />
graveyards in horror movies. Eddie sidled up to<br />
Peter and put his hand on his shoulder.<br />
“Hey, buddy, how’s it goin’?”<br />
Peter remained motionless, staring out into<br />
the rain.<br />
“Buddy?”<br />
17
18<br />
He looked as if he were just part of the<br />
landscape, just another fixture poking up out of<br />
the broken asphalt, immutable.<br />
“C’mon, buddy, say somethin’, would<br />
ya?”<br />
Peter did not move.<br />
“Fine, be like that.” Eddie shuffled back<br />
over to the loading dock. “Whaddya suppose<br />
he’s doin’ in there, anyway?”<br />
The corridor was endless, an infinite progression<br />
of sickly pale fluorescent light bulbs<br />
flickering towards the vanishing point where<br />
they met<br />
the dirty<br />
l i n o l e u m<br />
tiles and<br />
the bare,<br />
stained drywall.<br />
A red<br />
exit sign<br />
promised<br />
an escape<br />
ahead, but<br />
he saw it<br />
as no more<br />
than a hollow<br />
mockery.<br />
He realized<br />
now<br />
that nothing out there was really any different<br />
than things were in here, and that no change of<br />
venue could erase that horrific revelation. Two<br />
security guards sprinted towards him, but he<br />
drifted on, impervious to their searching eyes,<br />
their questioning minds. He passed through<br />
untouched as they ran by him, back towards<br />
the dingy office. He drifted on, impervious,<br />
untouched.<br />
As usual, Rick came up with the plan. The<br />
bus stopped at the end of the block three<br />
times every weekday. His dad got on in the<br />
morning and off on the 4:30, leaving us with<br />
the 11:20. Every day, without fail, the heavyset<br />
He n ry Go l d k a m p<br />
woman who drove the bus pulled up to the stop<br />
then got out and went into the convenience store<br />
on the corner, where she deliberated for twenty,<br />
sometimes even thirty minutes on whether she<br />
would prefer to eat herself to death with a Ho-<br />
Ho and a Big Gulp or a pound of beef jerky and<br />
a few donuts. The plan was simple: bus lady<br />
comes out, we go in. Foolproof.<br />
The bus pulled up right on time. It was<br />
completely empty except for the driver and a<br />
tattered-looking old man asleep in the back row.<br />
The driver stood up, sweat literally dripping from<br />
her formless pink face and splattering on her uniform,<br />
leaving<br />
black<br />
s t a i n s<br />
on whatever<br />
they<br />
t o u c h e d .<br />
She walked<br />
inside.<br />
We sprang<br />
from our<br />
h i d i n g<br />
place behind<br />
a gas<br />
pump and<br />
sprinted towards<br />
the<br />
bus like it<br />
was Christmas morning. I did an overly theatrical<br />
dive into the open door, sliding under the wheel<br />
to take my designated place at the pedals. Rick<br />
took the wheel. Since neither of us had any idea<br />
of what to do next, we emulated the only driving<br />
instructor we had: television. “Floor it,” Rick<br />
yelled, attracting the attention of the bus driver,<br />
who was filling out her Lotto slip at the counter.<br />
I pressed down hard on the smaller of the two<br />
huge pedals with my hand and the bus jerked<br />
forward. We didn’t make it far, of course, only<br />
a block and a half until we had a run-in with a<br />
phone pole, and then everything came apart with<br />
a sickening crunch.
It was getting late. I couldn’t see the smoke<br />
from the factory anymore, and the soft patter<br />
of raindrops on the cheap tin sheet over the loading<br />
dock was giving way to the sharp, insistent<br />
pounding of hail. Peter still stood rock steady in<br />
the alley, while Eddie sat huddled up against the<br />
wall, shivering in earnest now. His teeth knocked<br />
against each other as he spoke. “I just wanna<br />
know what we’re doin’ here, is all.”<br />
I sighed. “I’m here ’cause Rick happens to be<br />
a friend of mine, and he asked me to come along<br />
’cause he’s in trouble. You’re here ’cause you<br />
insisted on tagging along like you always do, and<br />
Pete over there<br />
is here ’cause<br />
he’s Peter, an’<br />
that’s what he<br />
does. For the last<br />
goddamn time, I<br />
don’t know why<br />
Rick is takin’<br />
so long, but I’d<br />
expect he’ll be<br />
more than happy<br />
to tell you all<br />
about it when he<br />
comes out.”<br />
“What’s the<br />
deal with that<br />
guy, anyway?”<br />
“Rick?”<br />
“Nah, the other guy.”<br />
“Like I said, Peter is Peter. I dunno; he’s<br />
always been quiet ever since I met him years<br />
ago. Me, him, and Richie go way back.”<br />
“Uh hunh.” Eddie nods, but I can tell he<br />
isn’t really paying attention. He pulls out a pack<br />
of cigarettes and lights one up.<br />
“Those things kill, you know.”<br />
Peter came to us one stormy night straight<br />
from the Old Testament. A fight had broken<br />
out in the bar between one of the regulars, Eddie,<br />
and some big shot from Manhattan who he<br />
owed money. Eddie proceeded to make references<br />
to his creditor’s mother, at which point<br />
the brawl broke out. I was trying to pry apart a<br />
German immigrant from a Texan Communist<br />
when I noticed Peter’s massive form blocking<br />
the doorway. Without a word, he marched into<br />
the room, grabbed the Manhattanite by the collar,<br />
and stared at him. Without a word, Peter<br />
let go of him and watched as he fled the room.<br />
We’ve been close ever since.<br />
He had always said that he’d rather believe<br />
in God and be wrong than believe in nothing<br />
and be right, but now Rick knew better.<br />
He smiled for<br />
He n ry Go l d k a m p<br />
the first time<br />
in days, maybe<br />
for the first time<br />
since that summer<br />
so long ago.<br />
He’d just have<br />
to let him figure<br />
it out for<br />
himself.<br />
They found<br />
me where<br />
I had left off,<br />
curled up under<br />
the wheel. I was<br />
a mess: broken arm, three cracked ribs, blood<br />
everywhere. Rick was even worse off, but neither<br />
of us could compare to the old man who<br />
had been sleeping in the back. He must have<br />
been getting up to shout at us when we collided<br />
with the pole. His body was thrown clear of<br />
the bus, straight through the back door, and he<br />
catapulted through the empty space until he<br />
made contact headfirst with an unyielding wall.<br />
I was out cold, but Rick saw the whole thing.<br />
He didn’t speak again for seven years.<br />
W<br />
“ e’re going to be late, aren’t we?”<br />
Eddie looked absolutely miserable. His<br />
thin hair was plastered to his head, his dress shirt<br />
had gone transparent, and his skin had the same<br />
19
20<br />
scaly texture as a football. He rocked back and<br />
forth, legs hugged close to save what warmth<br />
he could. The smoke from his cigarette was indistinguishable<br />
from the steam that poured from<br />
his mouth and nose, and his voice was drowned<br />
out by the crash of ice on metal.<br />
“Would you really want to show up to a<br />
classy affair lookin’ like that, anyway?”<br />
He sighed this time. “Nah, I guess not. I just<br />
want to get outta here.”<br />
“Really?”<br />
He stared at me. A faint metallic click, and<br />
then the door opened.<br />
After he started talking again, Rick fell in<br />
with what my mother called “the wrong<br />
crowd,” and I always felt obligated to keep an<br />
eye on him. He would go missing for weeks at<br />
a time, only showing up again when he needed<br />
money or a place to hide. Took a toll on his old<br />
man and his heart condition more than anyone.<br />
After his father died, he got a job collecting<br />
for Vinny, who I had been working for since<br />
graduation. The work seemed to help. Rick<br />
was never happy in the traditional sense of the<br />
word, but he came as close to it as I had seen<br />
since the accident. His absences grew shorter<br />
and shorter until they eventually stopped. Vinny<br />
treated him like a son, and when he passed away<br />
it was Rick he left the business to.<br />
The end of his journey in sight, Rick darts<br />
out into the alley, positively gleeful now.<br />
The loudmouth from the bar sits curled up in<br />
a corner while he leans against a pole, a stark<br />
black silhouette against the icy curtain.<br />
The crack of Peter’s .45 is lost in the infernal<br />
din of the hailstorm, as are the next two<br />
shots. The hail comes to a stop and the corner<br />
of his mouth imperceptibly moves up a fraction<br />
of an inch as he walks towards the van.<br />
Al e x Gr m a n
Su n s e t<br />
Peter Lucier<br />
As I walk home from work, the world slides<br />
through my vision like the opening screen<br />
shot of some chick flick. I’d stare at my shoes,<br />
but every time my head drops I get a whiff of<br />
the store, and I’m pretty sick of smelling like<br />
that shithole. The sun is down just enough to<br />
sparkle red and gold across the tops of the<br />
trees, the oppressive heat of mid-day gone,<br />
leaving just the sinking warmth that gets deep<br />
inside you. Walking home was feeling pretty<br />
good, (better than being home), so I reminded<br />
myself not to walk so fast. Where was I rushing<br />
to anyway?<br />
The comforts of home. All those folksy singers<br />
always sang about wanting to come home,<br />
“Ho-omeward bound, I wish I wa-as.” Was no<br />
one ever content to sit out on the range and watch<br />
the sun go down?<br />
Looking up through the trees, the sky breaks<br />
into soft-edged pieces like stained glass through<br />
the overhanging branches, a swirl of blue and<br />
purple.<br />
Home, where it’s shit and sympathy that get<br />
piled up in front of you, a whole warm homemade,<br />
artery-clogging apple pie of lies that you<br />
get your face shoved into, so that after a week<br />
of it you just want to stand up in the middle of<br />
church and scream at the pastor, who insists that<br />
you patiently take the troubles of this world, week<br />
in and week out.<br />
Out there, in the real world, you get reality<br />
shoved in your face, and the truth hurts, at least<br />
I’m told. But at least it’s the truth… doesn’t that<br />
count for something?<br />
Laughing, I wonder what someone would<br />
think about this little conversation I’m having<br />
with myself. “What’s the matter, boy, don’t you<br />
love America? Eat it up with a spoon… or else.<br />
Or else all the good ol’ boys’ll call ya homasexchual,<br />
or a crazy, or a commie.”<br />
I’ve stopped walking. I’ve stopped really<br />
paying attention to what I’m looking at.<br />
The whole world is just a snapshot. Drag your<br />
sagging, overweight, white-collar ass to work<br />
everyday, so you can go home at night and be<br />
greeted with a botox smile from your third wife<br />
and two step-kids. “Send me to war,” I think,<br />
“cause, and pardon my French, ‘Eff that.’” Who<br />
wants that anyway? If you’re average, school<br />
scares you out of your pants for fear of failing,<br />
and if you’re smart, they dangle a carrot in front<br />
of you, promising… what? A two car garage,<br />
in the ‘burbs, monogrammed wine glasses, his<br />
and her towels, and cable TV? What they’re<br />
really advertising is safety. All the rest is just<br />
a bunch of crap to keep us from thinking about<br />
our MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING LIVES.<br />
Safety’s what’s offered, safety from “all them<br />
scary colored people running around at night<br />
with guns, and…God forbid…drugs!” Is that<br />
what we’ve traded our lives for?<br />
All the rhetorical diarrhea I’ve been spewing<br />
floats away like a bad dream when I catch sight<br />
of this angel, rocking in a porch swing in front<br />
of a white two-story across the street.<br />
Holy…Christ, she’s pretty. She’s got this<br />
little book in her lap, and her face all scrunched<br />
up, staring at the pages. Oblivious to this crippled<br />
skeleton of humanity staring at her, she’s patiently<br />
catching the last bit of sunlight on the<br />
pages. There she is, just a-sittin’, so pretty as you<br />
please, a couple wisps of her golden brown hair<br />
hanging over her face, slipped out of the rubber<br />
band which holds the rest back in a tight pony<br />
tail. She’s got on those short-shorts that always<br />
come out in the summer, and her legs are pulled<br />
up on the swing, and all I can see is the golden<br />
smooth skin, real soft in the light. The sun’s barely<br />
pushing a few gold and orange beams through<br />
the trees now, and there’s this smell, like summer<br />
in the air, warm dirt and old peanut shells…<br />
I’m almost drunk off it. Christ I’m right about<br />
to go over there, to this girl I don’t even know,<br />
because I just got to tell her how pretty she is, I<br />
don’t know, but something about walking over<br />
there seems like just the right thing to do….<br />
21
Before my feet can carry me though, I<br />
remember that I’m still wearing my uniform—<br />
scuffy brown dress shoes and thick knee-length<br />
crew socks, soaking my feet in sweat. My shirt<br />
still smells like the store, ammonia and bleach<br />
and that sawdust that janitors throw on little<br />
kids’ puke. Somehow my trance is broken. That<br />
feeling of “rightness” abandoned me about three<br />
steps towards her. I’m just disgusted all over<br />
again. What exactly was I going to do anyway,<br />
just walk up and say, “hey!” like some doofus?<br />
“You crazy old loon,” I think to myself, “you<br />
thought you’d found something?” Nervously<br />
glancing around to see if anyone’s watching<br />
me, I wonder how out of place I must look. If<br />
you’ve never used your feet to get around in<br />
your life, here’s an interesting truth for you: if<br />
you’re moving, no one notices you, you’re just<br />
another commuter with someplace to go, but the<br />
second you stop, you’re a sore thumb sticking<br />
out. Everybody’s so damn set on getting where<br />
they need to go, eyes on the road or their feet,<br />
that there is something about someone taking a<br />
break that seems almost...diseased.<br />
My feet are walking again, and looking back<br />
over my shoulder, she slowly pans out of view<br />
like some bad romance flick. I look down at my<br />
shoes and get a whiff of that shithole. I need a<br />
shower.<br />
22<br />
He n ry Go l d k a m p
Gr av e d i g g e r<br />
Kyle Kloster<br />
Driving home that night, I clicked my<br />
headlights on and off, watching the world<br />
disappear for an instant and then return safely,<br />
the same as before. After the last turn before<br />
my neighborhood I flicked them off again, and<br />
when the revealing lights flashed back on, the<br />
wide eyes of a doe glinted back from the sidewalk<br />
fifty feet in front of me. I jumped a little,<br />
involuntarily, and coasted the last leg home<br />
through the fog of a dazed mind, my thoughts<br />
slow with shock and wonder. Who would hit<br />
a deer and then leave the animal’s body right<br />
on a sidewalk corner, right next to someone’s<br />
home—where children, who may not have even<br />
seen any relatives die yet, live?<br />
The dead animal was only a quarter-mile<br />
from my house, the closest I’ve ever seen road<br />
kill to my home (they seem to get closer every<br />
time). Before I pulled into my garage, I resolved<br />
to go back with a shovel, dig a hole not far from<br />
the road, and bury the poor creature to protect<br />
its corpse and the people who drove by, those<br />
who saw but forgot seconds later the lonely and<br />
cruel demise of something more innocent than<br />
any of us.<br />
I parked down the street from it and zipped<br />
up my coat after getting out of the car—it was<br />
the coldest night of the month, but I was warm<br />
inside two coats and a pair of gloves. I walked<br />
with purpose in each step, holding a shovel and<br />
a trash bag in my hands. As I approached it, I<br />
could see the doe’s entire body intact, and it<br />
looked as if it was napping with open eyes. I<br />
stopped several feet from it, bewildered at how<br />
different it looked from every stuffed deer, lawn<br />
ornament, or picture I had ever seen. This was<br />
the closest I had ever looked at life.<br />
A pair of halogen eyes flashed from down<br />
the road, and as they neared me they slowed<br />
down as though to stop and stare. I felt almost<br />
embarrassed standing next to this dead deer. A few<br />
smears of blood gleamed on the street, invisible<br />
until I crouched down for examination. I found<br />
no breaks in the animal’s hide or wet patches of<br />
fur. Its legs looked locked, frozen at attention to<br />
whatever harsh superior commanded her now,<br />
and its face held fast in confused awareness,<br />
eyes open with the hopeless awe and despair<br />
of having spied from afar the human world of<br />
daunting unfamiliarity. I took off a glove and<br />
sneaked a pet, amazed at the yielding flesh and<br />
soft, cold fur. Another car revved a ways down<br />
the road, and I shot up, still embarrassed by my<br />
position. After it passed, I threw the trash bag<br />
around my arms, guarding myself from blood<br />
and other impurities of dead things, and bent<br />
down to pick up the body. I tugged, but gave up<br />
instantly, shocked at the sandbag weight of the<br />
carcass and its statuesque inflexibility. It was<br />
smaller than grown humans I had given piggy<br />
back rides, but I could not lift it.<br />
Headlights blinked closer through trees not<br />
far down the road, and I moved away a few feet,<br />
ashamed. Alone again, I quickly fit the trash bag<br />
over my hands and dragged it across the pavement<br />
by its hooves, aiming for a ditch on the<br />
other side where the body would at least keep<br />
out of sight and reach of neighborhood kids. I<br />
frantically heaved the doe, like a mulch sack, to<br />
the ground there, too scared to dig a hole, and<br />
sprinted back to the comfort of my car. It was<br />
all I had the courage to do.<br />
23
24<br />
Me t r o<br />
Tony Bertucci<br />
Metropolitan Deed Recording, Incorporated.<br />
That’s what it’s called. But don’t<br />
let the name fool you, it’s not exactly a bastion<br />
of corporate standards as the title might suggest.<br />
It’s not even that metropolitan if you ask me.<br />
It’s a weed in the rich industrial lawn off Page,<br />
a crack in the pavement. A person’s liable to<br />
drive right by it if they didn’t know any better,<br />
and if I could give that person some advice, I’d<br />
tell them to quit looking for it and go home—it’s<br />
probably not worth the time.<br />
I worked<br />
there last summer.<br />
The name<br />
f o o l e d m e .<br />
I could just<br />
imagine writing<br />
those four<br />
sophisticated<br />
words on a job<br />
resume, and<br />
I had always<br />
wanted to be<br />
“incorporated”<br />
in something<br />
anyway. My<br />
first day, the<br />
boss explained<br />
to me just exactly<br />
“what we do” here at the Metropolitan<br />
Deed Recording, Incorporated. “What we do”<br />
involved processing every single record of land<br />
distribution or exchange that occurred in <strong>St</strong>.<br />
<strong>Louis</strong>. I was an integral part of the “Hub of the<br />
American Dream,” and I would be going down<br />
in the basement with Neil to get “oriented to the<br />
system.” Getting “oriented” with creepy Neil<br />
down in the dark under-dwellings of the office<br />
brought a number of scenarios to mind, many<br />
of them disturbing, but I suppressed my urge to<br />
flee and gave myself up in hopes that the walls<br />
would be thin enough that the others could hear<br />
my screams.<br />
We descended the stairs. The “Hub of the<br />
American Dream” turned out to be a sordid array<br />
of congruent cubicles juxtaposed throughout the<br />
dimly lit, cheaply carpeted basement.<br />
“I’m gonna show you how to make some<br />
copies,” Neil yawned. “I just started working<br />
here a couple weeks ago, so I probably won’t<br />
be too much help. It’s like the blind leadin’ the<br />
blind.”<br />
I let out a very thin and awkward chuckle,<br />
hoping creepy Neil couldn’t see through my shallow<br />
gestures of pitiful friendliness. I saw a head<br />
Lo u i s Mo n n i g<br />
pop up from a<br />
nearby cubicle<br />
from the corner<br />
of my eye, but<br />
when I looked<br />
over they had<br />
vanished. I was<br />
being watched<br />
and I knew it.<br />
The basement<br />
dwellers were<br />
peering through<br />
their cubicles<br />
like suspicious<br />
natives as I<br />
marched by, trying<br />
my best to<br />
seem oblivious<br />
to their scrutiny.<br />
“It’s really not hard at all,” said Neil. I stared<br />
through the steam rising from Neil’s coffee cup at<br />
the blurry, horribly mundane images of computer<br />
monitors and paper trays. It was making my head<br />
spin, but I looked on nonetheless in captivated<br />
silence.<br />
“What are you lookin’ at, kid?” Neil broke<br />
my trance. “You’re creepin’ me out a little,” he<br />
giggled—a weird, raspy, grizzled giggle. Though<br />
I had imagined it an impossible task, I had evi-
dently managed to creep out creepy Neil, the<br />
connoisseur of creepy basement orientation.<br />
By the next week I had become quite unpleasantly<br />
oriented to the basement workings.<br />
The squeamish mole-people of the cubicles<br />
began to venture out and talk to me, showing<br />
their broadly weird idiosyncrasies. They told<br />
stories of the world up above, where it was still<br />
light and warm. Even the coffee tasted better,<br />
they said as they mulled around and tried to act<br />
as busy as possible. Todd told me stories of his<br />
days traveling with the national Judo team. Bill<br />
told me stories of Todd’s mental instability. I<br />
became addicted to coffee and developed an<br />
odd affinity for<br />
rubber bands. I<br />
was reluctantly<br />
being assimilated<br />
into the<br />
family.<br />
In a couple<br />
of months I<br />
would be heading<br />
off to college,<br />
starting<br />
a new chapter,<br />
opening new<br />
doors, and all<br />
the rest of those<br />
cheesy slogans<br />
on the pamphlets<br />
they send<br />
out. I had gotten in to the college I wanted to go<br />
to, or at least where I thought I wanted to go. My<br />
last semester of high school had whirred by in a<br />
complacent lump of uneasiness, the byproduct<br />
of a relatively passive college selection process.<br />
I knew where I wanted to go to only by lack of<br />
preference. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just lacked<br />
the prerequisites to make an informed decision<br />
about what will ultimately dominate the rest of<br />
my life, and now I found myself hurtling headlong<br />
into the fray of the adult world. I figured a job<br />
at Metro might clear some things up, but so far<br />
the bizarre world of the basement only further<br />
glazed my vision, like looking through the steam<br />
from Neil’s coffee cup.<br />
I would hang out in the break room a lot with<br />
a guy named Jeff. He was in his early thirties, a<br />
pure child of the ’80s, still clinging to his teenage<br />
vernacular. The abominable pop music of<br />
his time drove him to death-metal rock, and he<br />
proudly brandished his crusty black, guitar-laden<br />
t-shirts around the office. It was always an odd<br />
sight to see him walking around the computers<br />
and copy machines, dressed like he was going<br />
to see a show at The Pit or something. Jeff and I<br />
took a lot of breaks and just sat there, coffee cups<br />
in hand, gathering the energy for short bursts of<br />
Lo u i s Na h l i k mumbled conversation.<br />
The<br />
only thing that<br />
spurred us from<br />
our wretched<br />
haunches was<br />
t h e h e a v y<br />
footsteps of<br />
the boss coming<br />
down the<br />
stairs.<br />
“Yeah man,<br />
the only thing<br />
worse than Eddie<br />
Money’s<br />
music is—”<br />
Creak, creak,<br />
“—Uhh.....<br />
yeah, I found the Plat from Tower Park but<br />
there was a vague land description in the deed,<br />
will you pull it and copy it for me?” Jeff was<br />
an expert at imminent-boss-presence-recovery.<br />
I could feel the boss shifting his attention over<br />
my way. By this time I knew the drill.<br />
“Yeah, definitely, I’ve got a few more to<br />
make for some people down here, but I’ll get<br />
that to you before lunch,” I said, confident in<br />
my abilities as Jeff’s apprentice.<br />
“Have you guys seen Todd lately?” the boss<br />
asked.<br />
25
26<br />
Like always, he must have bought the routine.<br />
“No, man. Sorry,” Jeff said, though he surely<br />
wasn’t sorry at all. Jeff was the ranking officer of<br />
Todd-evasion techniques, a science that I hadn’t<br />
come close to mastering. Todd’s presence, when<br />
unavoidable, was excruciating. Todd loved to<br />
spin yarns, really bad yarns, and he didn’t really<br />
spin them but rather wrapped the coarse fabric<br />
around your helpless throat in a choking frenzy<br />
of unrelenting bullshit. Every word out of his<br />
mouth was fiction, but not the sort of whimsical,<br />
uplifting fiction everyone enjoys hearing every<br />
once in a while. His stories hit you in a whirlwind<br />
of awkward distastefulness, always followed<br />
by an uncomfortable silence and the sound of<br />
babies crying in<br />
the distance.<br />
O n t h e<br />
Thursday of<br />
my third week,<br />
Jeff and I were<br />
sitting idly in<br />
the break room,<br />
doing our usual<br />
thing.<br />
“You hear<br />
the big news?”<br />
he asked.<br />
I looked<br />
at him, unenthused.<br />
“No.”<br />
“The boss<br />
is going out of town tomorrow,” he grinned<br />
mischievously. “You know what that means...”<br />
Slightly more enthused but a little disturbed<br />
by Jeff’s glancing grin, I responded, “Actually<br />
no, I don’t know what that means. Some kind<br />
of hazing ritual?”<br />
“No, man, it’s Barbecue Friday. Bring your<br />
sandals, we’ll go out back and grill some burgers.”<br />
“Grill them on what, the sidewalk?”<br />
“No, man, we got a grill out back.”<br />
“Why would there be a grill out back?”<br />
“I don’t know man, I just work here.”<br />
I sat there thinking Jeff was being a little<br />
liberal with that last statement. Then I realized<br />
I was once again transfixed by the coffee steam<br />
emanating from my <strong>St</strong>yrofoam cup.<br />
“I better go do something,” I said, and I<br />
walked off to the copiers.<br />
We were standing out back in our flip- flops,<br />
the grill smoking gently in the summer<br />
heat. Small bush-like trees squirmed out of the<br />
ground around us, their natural pattern of growth<br />
contorted by an array of mechanistic garbage<br />
littering the ground. A thin layer of sand lined<br />
the surface, gritty under the sliding shuffles<br />
Mat t Na h l i k<br />
of our feet.<br />
The backdrop<br />
was something<br />
surreal, a burlesque<br />
anomaly<br />
in the boxy,<br />
gray network of<br />
buildings that<br />
was Page Industrial<br />
Court.<br />
Jeff referred<br />
to this bizarre<br />
ambience jokingly<br />
as “the<br />
beach.”<br />
“Man, it’s<br />
great out here,”<br />
he said as he<br />
flipped burgers and rearranged hot dogs.<br />
“Yeah.” I sat down on a pile of sandbags.<br />
For a moment I zoomed out of my reference<br />
frame and imagined seeing this outrageous scene<br />
through another’s eyes. I thought of my timecard<br />
languishing in the metal clip by the front door, of<br />
the mole people scurrying around the basement.<br />
I never would have thought of Metropolitan<br />
Deed Recording, Incorporated as a beach-side<br />
resort.<br />
“What the hell are we doing out here?” I<br />
asked, shaking my head with a half-grin, not
eally sure if I was complaining or musing at<br />
our outrageous lack of initiative.<br />
“You know man, people always bitch about<br />
the burgers being undercooked.”<br />
“But just look at us right now...”<br />
“I just hate to have to burn the burgers like<br />
this. What are they afraid of? There’s nothing<br />
wrong with a soft, pink middle. A nice, pinkish<br />
hue. But no, let’s just have Ol’ Jeffrey burn the<br />
piss out of it...”<br />
So I gave up talking to Jeff and resumed my<br />
nervous reverie. I panned the absurd chromatism<br />
of the pseudo-beach once more. Something<br />
just wasn’t right. I was<br />
supposed to be in the real<br />
world, getting paid, mingling<br />
with people twice<br />
my age. In two months I<br />
would be starting to decide<br />
the outcome of my life with<br />
only the experiences from<br />
this dump to reassure me.<br />
I looked over at Jeff.<br />
He was in his own universe,<br />
so comfortable, grilling on<br />
the beach like he invented<br />
beaches or something. It<br />
was then that I realized I<br />
had no conception of what<br />
Jeff actually did, what his<br />
job was, or even if he had<br />
a job at all.<br />
“Jeff…”<br />
“You know my grandparents<br />
used to burn the piss out of—”<br />
“Jeff, Jesus, will you shut up.”<br />
“Sorry, man, take it easy, relax. It’s Barbecue<br />
Friday. You’re so uptight.”<br />
“I’m not uptight, I’m just…I don’t know.” I<br />
was uptight, and he knew it. I didn’t know how<br />
to respond.<br />
“Oh, shit,” Jeff gulped.<br />
“What?”<br />
“Todd’s coming. We’re trapped this time<br />
man. Looks like we’re gonna hafta bite the bullet—Oh,<br />
hey, Todd, what’s going on man?”<br />
“Hey guys. Barbecuing?”<br />
“No.”<br />
“Yeah...did I tell you about the last time I<br />
was at a barbecue?”<br />
“You know, Todd, I think you told us that<br />
one.”<br />
“So I was at this barbecue, right, and…”<br />
I don’t remember what Todd said, but if I had<br />
to guess, it ended with two people beating each<br />
other up, then the cops showing up and beating<br />
people up, then the cops beating each other up,<br />
and of course Todd getting some blows in here<br />
Lo u i s Mo n n i g<br />
and there.<br />
“I tell you what,<br />
Todd, you’re something<br />
else. Will you watch the<br />
burgers for a second,<br />
man?” Jeff looked at me<br />
with the “get the hell out<br />
of here” expression on<br />
his face. “I gotta take a<br />
dookie.”<br />
“As do I,” I lied.<br />
With that Jeff and I trudged<br />
inside, back to the basement.<br />
Our eyes readjusting<br />
to the poor lighting,<br />
we descended into the<br />
under-workings in refuge<br />
from certain Todd-induced<br />
doom. As we passed by<br />
the scurrying figures and<br />
skewed cubicle walls, I<br />
finally worked up the courage to ask Jeff exactly<br />
what he did at Metropolitan Deed Recording,<br />
Incorporated.<br />
“What do I do?” He responded with apparent<br />
excitement.<br />
“Yeah, what do you do?”<br />
“Follow me, dude.”<br />
I followed Jeff to the far side of the basement,<br />
where the cheap carpet ended and the bare<br />
concrete floor showed through with sparkling<br />
realness. There was a set of white double doors<br />
27
28<br />
that I had never noticed before.<br />
“I take care of the file room,” Jeff explained,<br />
and swung open the doors.<br />
I stepped inside the file room, expecting to<br />
see a few cabinets and boxes lying unordered<br />
on the ground. Instead, an enormous expanse<br />
of shelving met my eyes, row upon row upon<br />
row of folders, doubling the area of the rest of<br />
the basement itself. The rows of shelves were<br />
so long they seemed to extend into nothingness,<br />
and they were much taller than I was. Each one<br />
was like a vaulted corridor.<br />
“What is all of this?” I asked, awestruck.<br />
There had to be thousands and thousands of<br />
folders in front of me.<br />
“My friend, you are looking at the records<br />
of every single property exchange that occurred<br />
in the city or county of <strong>St</strong>. <strong>Louis</strong> in the past<br />
century.”<br />
I paused in disbelief. So there were thousands,<br />
even hundreds of thousands, of folders<br />
in front of me, and each one of these folders<br />
held within it the forgotten documentation of<br />
some important decision, the remainders of a<br />
life choice carefully tucked away and filed and<br />
never seen again. As I stood there in absorption,<br />
I felt as if a weighty truckload had been lifted<br />
from my rigid shoulders.<br />
“They put you in charge of this?”<br />
“Yes sir they did.” He didn’t seem offended<br />
by my incredulity.<br />
“Just how long have you been working<br />
here?”<br />
“Uhh…Since I was about seventeen I<br />
guess.”<br />
I was still wandering down the rows. I could<br />
get lost in there. Apparently Jeff had not gone to<br />
college. Or maybe he had. Whatever the case, I<br />
struggled with the idea that this bumbling character<br />
stuck between adulthood and childhood, this<br />
half-assing, beach-barbecuing bungler who once<br />
tried to freeze a coworker’s office supplies into<br />
a block of ice could be given such a profound<br />
task. It seemed that in my search for the adult<br />
mentality I had been looking in the wrong place<br />
all along.<br />
“Don’t go too far, there, Magellan. We<br />
shouldn’t have left someone like Todd in charge<br />
of the grill. He’s totally mental. We gotta get<br />
back there.”<br />
“You know, that’s a good idea,” I said. “Did<br />
you ever think about putting some lawn chairs<br />
out there too?”<br />
“No, man, but I like the way you think…”<br />
So we went back out to the beach and relieved<br />
Todd of his duty, but not without first listening<br />
to a vintage Todd story, which I didn’t seem to<br />
mind all that much anymore. After he left, Jeff<br />
assumed his former position at the head of the<br />
grill.<br />
“For Christ’s sake, I knew Todd would burn<br />
the piss out of ’em.”<br />
Just when it looked like Jeff would indulge<br />
in yet another tirade on proper meat-grilling<br />
protocol, the door to the basement opened and<br />
the boss sauntered out, gawking at us.<br />
“What is this, some kind of barbecue?”<br />
“Uhh…hey, Boss…I thought you said you<br />
were going out of town.”<br />
“What is this, some kind of beach?” The<br />
boss seemed more confused than pissed off.<br />
“And where did we get a grill from?”<br />
“Don’t ask me,” Jeff said. I looked on silently.<br />
“Well, at least give me one of those burgers,”<br />
the boss snorted. “Pullin’ a stunt like this, they<br />
better be damn good.”<br />
Jeff hastily scooped up a burger from the grill<br />
and tucked it inside a bun. The boss snatched it<br />
up and took a bite. He looked up at Jeff with an<br />
exaggerated expression of gustatory disappointment.<br />
“You really burned the piss out of it, didn’t<br />
you?”<br />
Jeff tightened his grip on the spatula.
Arg u m e n t u m a d Sa p i e n t e m<br />
Dan Yacovino<br />
And your questions, unanswerable,<br />
to find the meaning to life,<br />
to love, why<br />
To live; experience as much as you can<br />
before that bleak ultimate encompassment,<br />
before you have your answer.<br />
They who know, lie.<br />
Answers are not, cannot be the same<br />
when the skeptic is unique.<br />
Time reveals all, but not in the world<br />
of instant gratification not fast enough<br />
and light too slow.<br />
29<br />
Se a n O’Ne i l
<strong>St</strong> u c k in Fa s t-Fo r w a r d<br />
Shane Lawless<br />
A little boy sits with you in the sandbox,<br />
Building the castle of sand for his princess,<br />
Waiting for the day he can take you to the real thing.<br />
He cannot wait so he fast-forwards…<br />
That same boy, pulling your pigtails in class<br />
Plays house with you<br />
Imagining the day when pretend becomes reality.<br />
He grows impatient with waiting so he fast-forwards…<br />
30<br />
The boy, now a young man, parks the car atop the hillside.<br />
As the windows slowly fog over, obscuring your shapes,<br />
He dreams of making that moment last forever.<br />
(Here the young man is happy. That perfect moment<br />
With you lasts seven minutes but could last eternity if he just paused.<br />
Instead of living with what is, he wonders what could be)<br />
He decides to fast-forward…<br />
The man, your man<br />
Raises your child aloft with a grin as you sit, smiling love at him,<br />
But he can only think of the day that boy becomes a man.<br />
Knowing nothing else, he hits fast-forward…<br />
The man, who is still a child inside,<br />
Drives off on a grocery run that should last minutes but takes years.<br />
All because everything’s moving too fast for him to keep up.<br />
Although he doesn’t want to, he still hits fast-forward…<br />
The man, now nothing more than that,<br />
Comes back years late (without the groceries) only to find his life gone.<br />
His woman is now another’s, his children have forgotten his face.<br />
He screams and decides to end it all so he hits STOP!
The man, your man, the young man, the boy, and the child all stand<br />
Facing the stone that ends it all.<br />
Fast-forward too much and eventually we all wind up in a bed of dirt<br />
With a stone for a head.<br />
He remembers that day on the hill, and wishes he was there.<br />
As he is fading, he hits the remote one more time,<br />
And this time he hits rewind…<br />
The young man parks the car atop the hillside and<br />
As the windows grow foggy, he dreams of making that moment last forever,<br />
He worries about the future but doesn’t care as long as you are together.<br />
That’s why this time he presses pause…?<br />
He n ry Go l d k a m p<br />
31
Ni a l l Ke l l e h e r
Fe a r<br />
Timlin Glaser<br />
In my twenty-seventh hour of birth<br />
The doctor gave my mother drugs<br />
To force me from her womb<br />
Of course I can’t attest<br />
To my state of mind at birth<br />
But as I try to understand<br />
My current malaise<br />
On the threshold of adulthood<br />
I’ve come to learn<br />
I only go by force
34<br />
Lat e<br />
Jim Santel<br />
The last time I saw John Fitzsimmons alive,<br />
he was sitting on a sofa, laughing. Not an<br />
endearing laugh, but a grim one, a reaction to<br />
a Get Well Soon card someone had sent him.<br />
The laugh, it seemed, of a dying man. I saw<br />
him this way as I walked through the Fitzsimmonses’<br />
bright, airy living room to their kitchen,<br />
timidly following my mom through their house,<br />
perhaps carrying one of the casseroles she baked<br />
for the family in those few months. John didn’t<br />
acknowledge me as I walked by, didn’t even<br />
look up. In fact, although he was my dad’s<br />
closest friend,<br />
in the three or<br />
so memories I<br />
have of him,<br />
it seemed that<br />
John never noticed<br />
my presence.<br />
Jane, the<br />
youngest of his<br />
three daughters,<br />
only two<br />
or three at the<br />
time, wriggled<br />
over him as he<br />
laughed, and he<br />
appeared similarly<br />
oblivious<br />
to her—the Hallmark card held him rapt. I’m<br />
not sure how soon after that afternoon John<br />
died, but the next time I saw him, he lay in a<br />
casket.<br />
particularly nasty kind of cancer had struck<br />
A John. Once, after we learned of John’s<br />
illness, I asked my uncle Don, a biomedical<br />
engineer who knew these types of things, how<br />
exactly cancer worked. In response, he pulled<br />
from our shelf an imposing book about the<br />
human body titled The Incredible Machine,<br />
opening to a page showing bloated green and<br />
black cancer cells viciously attacking a tissue<br />
as he lectured in the background about “cells<br />
just going crazy, attacking the body. They don’t<br />
know any better,” Don said, making them sound<br />
like misbehaving children. I wondered if cancer<br />
hurt. Cancer, I would think to myself. Just the<br />
word hurt.<br />
My parents told my sister and me about<br />
John’s disease as we huddled on her bedroom<br />
floor, and less than a year later my mom sat us<br />
down on our family room couch as soon as we got<br />
home from school. We knew right away. As the<br />
three of us cried, John’s mom’s quavering voice<br />
(she sounded so tired) played on our answering<br />
Ke v i n Ca s e y<br />
machine, saying<br />
plainly that<br />
John had passed<br />
away the night<br />
before.<br />
The funeral<br />
home unnerved<br />
me. The<br />
gaudy chandeliers,<br />
fireplaces,<br />
and plush<br />
floral carpet<br />
seemed to say,<br />
“You could live<br />
here!” but the<br />
unnaturalness<br />
of it all—trying to make a place of death look<br />
like a place of life—made me want to leave.<br />
Somber people forcing teary smiles filled the<br />
room, my parents among them. John’s middle<br />
daughter Colleen walked by, and my dad hugged<br />
her and planted a kiss on her forehead while saying<br />
sympathetically, “I’m so sorry.” I observed<br />
this with detachment, itchy in my starched white<br />
shirt, and uttered a feeble condolence to Colleen,<br />
partly because my first-grade social skills lacked<br />
polish, but mostly because I was dumbstruck by
the sight of my dad treating another child like one<br />
of his own—as he would treat me or my sister.<br />
I ran a brief clip in my mind of myself standing<br />
outside our house on Christmas morning, looking<br />
in at Colleen excitedly opening my presents as<br />
my parents looked on with delight.<br />
I had a sort of stage-fright about seeing a<br />
corpse for the first time. John lay there, looking<br />
rather healthy. My mind flashed to the image of<br />
John laughing as Jane squirmed in his lap, a fly<br />
skittering across an animal carcass, I thought.<br />
Being so close to a dead body didn’t scare<br />
me as I thought it would, but I couldn’t stop<br />
staring at the baseball<br />
cap that hid John’s<br />
chemo-induced baldness.<br />
The horrors that<br />
I had steeled myself<br />
for—rotting flesh,<br />
horrible stenches—<br />
didn’t exist, but the<br />
baseball cap made<br />
me turn away from<br />
the body.<br />
W<br />
“ hy?” the priest<br />
intoned at the<br />
funeral. “He was only<br />
thirty-eight years<br />
old.” I recalled from<br />
my reading about<br />
space exploration<br />
that Neil Armstrong<br />
had been thirty-eight<br />
when he walked on<br />
the moon. He had<br />
gone to the moon,<br />
and John, whom my<br />
dad often described<br />
as one of the most brilliant men he knew, lay<br />
in a coffin.<br />
I looked over at my parents. They were<br />
squeezing each other’s hands. My mom’s eyes<br />
were puffy and watery and looked more like<br />
the side-effects of allergies than mourning, and<br />
my dad breathed heavily, his cheeks shiny and<br />
damp—the only time I have ever seen him cry.<br />
I did a lot of crying myself in the time after<br />
John died, but not for him, I realized at the funeral.<br />
As much as I tried to feel sorrow for John, I frankly<br />
had never liked him very much. He didn’t show<br />
any particular affection for kids other than his<br />
own—the exact opposite of Chris Fava, another<br />
classmate of my dad’s and John’s, who smiled<br />
widely and called me “buddy” and enjoyed the<br />
Three <strong>St</strong>ooges and Animal House and who now<br />
shuffled into the pew next to us, trying to make<br />
his mischievous smile a mournful one. I would<br />
Se a n O’Ne i l<br />
have cried if this had<br />
been Chris’s funeral,<br />
but I don’t think<br />
John ever called me<br />
buddy.<br />
Alice Trillin once<br />
wrote of what she<br />
called the “existential<br />
paradox” that all<br />
humans experience:<br />
“we feel that we are<br />
immortal, yet we<br />
know that we will<br />
die.” The standoff<br />
between these conditions<br />
defines much<br />
of my behavior. If<br />
I could truly convince<br />
myself that I<br />
am mortal, not just<br />
think the occasional<br />
thoughts of “you<br />
will die someday,”<br />
but really drive the<br />
point into my consciousness,<br />
I would<br />
waste a lot less time watching vacant television<br />
shows or browsing useless web pages and invest<br />
more time in calling my grandparents or saving<br />
money to travel to Europe. But instead, I continue<br />
to float on, oblivious to death yet still taking care<br />
in my evening prayers to thank God for giving<br />
35
36<br />
me one more day on earth. Then I plan what I<br />
will do tomorrow.<br />
As I stood at the graveside, looking down<br />
at the deep gap in the earth where John would<br />
soon lie as the sweat-drenched, filthy gravediggers<br />
stood impatiently during the last rites, the<br />
components of Trillin’s paradox first collided<br />
violently in my mind. I found myself at a loss<br />
for air as my nerves tingled violently, and it took<br />
several deep, labored breaths to calm myself<br />
down. Here, then, was why I was crying: the<br />
realization that this—the funeral, the hole in<br />
the ground, death—would happen to me, my<br />
parents, everyone I knew. The sharp dagger of<br />
reality had pierced my armor of ignorance.<br />
Since then, I have periodically experienced<br />
the same chilling sensation that I did at<br />
the cemetery. These fits afflict me to this day,<br />
sometimes as I do homework or walk to class,<br />
other times while I stare at pictures of John,<br />
strong and stoic, in my dad’s high school yearbooks,<br />
walking the same halls that I do now,<br />
and I wonder: did he have any inkling while he<br />
was still in high school that he would contract<br />
cancer and die so young? And then I wonder<br />
if this is my lot as well, and the fear ambushes<br />
me, leaving me terrified and gasping so that I<br />
must repeat my mantra, “You’re all right, you’re<br />
still alive, you still have plenty of time left,”<br />
until my breathing levels and I can force my<br />
thoughts elsewhere.<br />
My chief problem with death is that it ends<br />
life. Catholicism promises heaven, but<br />
the best image I can conjure of the afterlife<br />
consists of fluttering around all day in the sky,<br />
clad in white and missing life on earth. This<br />
doesn’t appeal to me much at all. I resent and<br />
fear death because of its power to take without<br />
discretion.<br />
Even now, years after the funeral, I struggle<br />
to rid myself of the residue of John’s death. Because<br />
of that day, I force myself to look away<br />
when I drive past a cemetery and close my ears<br />
at mass when the priest recites the part of the<br />
profession of faith about Jesus “coming again to<br />
judge the living and the dead.” It is why flying<br />
in airplanes makes me uneasy with thoughts of<br />
crashes. When I visit my grandparents in their<br />
reeking retirement home, I can often define them<br />
only as people who will die soon, just as I can<br />
only think of John’s daughters as girls who have<br />
lost their father.<br />
Shortly after John died, his wife Joan gave<br />
my dad a flannel shirt that John had never<br />
worn. The tags were still on the shirt and all,<br />
but I couldn’t understand why my dad would<br />
wear something that John had bought for himself<br />
while he was still alive. My dad still wears the<br />
shirt for odd jobs around the house.<br />
By our fireplace is a plant that sat in John’s<br />
hospital room during the months of chemo.<br />
Every year, more and more of the plant’s stems<br />
turn brown and wilt, and each winter threatens<br />
to kill it for good. But new green stems always<br />
appear in the spring.<br />
Se a n O’Ne i l
Lo s t<br />
Shane Lawless<br />
The streetlamp casts its yellow light down on me<br />
As I sit on the corner, stooped<br />
Constructing a shadow to keep my company.<br />
But I rise, leaving that corner alone<br />
As my shadow fades in among its companions.<br />
A chilled wind claws my skin<br />
And I pull my collar around my neck<br />
For shelter from the harshness of both winter and life.<br />
Downward the moon gazes on the road<br />
My road, illuminating the path forward.<br />
But I hope moving ahead will lead me back,<br />
Back to the beginning of beginnings.<br />
But I don’t know if this winding road<br />
Leads home or to the land of forsaken memories<br />
To be recalled but never relived.<br />
37<br />
But I still walk, with determinedness<br />
Despite the destination being unfound.<br />
Onward I travel<br />
Gazing up at darkened windows,<br />
Portals to a home now closed to me.<br />
Great care I take in avoiding<br />
The cracks and crevices lacing my path.<br />
As I step, despair, welling up from the depths,<br />
Reaches. Its blackness swallows the night,<br />
Collapsing infinity into a moment.<br />
I strive and struggle, straining against the pull.<br />
Vanquished, I am pulled down, striking cold concrete.<br />
I lift my battered head to the sight<br />
Of a flower, defiant of winter’s laws, blooming,<br />
While the beams of my father’s headlights envelop me.
38<br />
Pr ay e r<br />
Matthew Wilmsmeyer<br />
That Saturday night was my girlfriend Rose’s<br />
last at Eckert’s Orchard and Apple Farm.<br />
She did plays there, humorous little skits for<br />
kids that were funny simply because they were<br />
corny.<br />
I wanted to go because it would be Rose’s last<br />
night there. Not only that: Rose had mentioned<br />
that she had notes for me that she had written<br />
in her free time; I had no idea what they could<br />
be, but Rose assured me that I would enjoy<br />
them. I didn’t plan on making it to Eckert’s,<br />
though; Mother mentioned that my cousin had<br />
an engagement party that night, and I wouldn’t<br />
be able to skip out on it. Also, I was to spend<br />
most of the day at my uncle’s house, working to<br />
convert the back half of his two-bus garage into<br />
two bedrooms and a bathroom. I asked Rose to<br />
bring the notes anyway, but not to expect me to<br />
be there.<br />
But Saturday morning, when I asked Father<br />
(in a last-second attempt to argue my way out<br />
of going) when the engagement party was, he<br />
responded, “Next week.”<br />
I offered up a quick prayer to God, the first<br />
of many, and checked the calendar. He was<br />
right, and Mother apologized for screwing up<br />
her weeks.<br />
But there was still the work to be done at my<br />
uncle’s house, and I would be there until at least<br />
five, according to Dad’s estimate. That wouldn’t<br />
be so bad. Eckert’s ran until nine, so I’d have<br />
at least three hours there with Rose after I got<br />
home, showered, and headed out.<br />
It didn’t work out that way. I forgot my cell<br />
phone, so I couldn’t call Rose, and we ended<br />
up finally leaving my uncle’s house at six in the<br />
evening. There was still time, though—I showered,<br />
changed, threw on my hoodie, grabbed<br />
directions, grabbed my cell phone, kissed Mom<br />
goodbye, and drove off.<br />
That’s when I finally started to realize: I could<br />
surprise Rose, not even tell her that I was on my<br />
way. In planning that, I realized that everything I<br />
needed to pull it off—such as forgetting to take<br />
my cell phone to my uncle’s house—had worked<br />
out perfectly. It couldn’t be coincidence, could<br />
it?<br />
Car time alone is sacred to me. I don’t jam<br />
my techno CD’s as I do when I’m with my little<br />
brother on the way to school, or act like the<br />
model older brother (that is, listening, smiling,<br />
and nodding) when driving my seven-year-old<br />
sister to her friends’ sleepovers, or even keep<br />
both hands on the wheel, silently, staring straight<br />
ahead, being a model driver while my dad’s in<br />
the car.<br />
I pray. I turn on Classic Ninety-Nine, listen<br />
to whatever peaceful music is playing, and speak<br />
out loud to God (I don’t call Him “God” or “Jesus.”<br />
I have my own secret names for them). I<br />
discuss my day, what I did or didn’t do right or<br />
wrong, and what I’ll try to do next time.<br />
That Saturday, I prayed extensively. I prayed<br />
in thankfulness for His intervention—which I was<br />
by then sure that it was—on my behalf. I thanked<br />
Him profusely for granting me the fortune I was<br />
experiencing today, and vowed I would try my<br />
hardest to make sure to do what He needed me<br />
to do.<br />
Rose called twice on the way over, but both<br />
times I lied and told her that I was on my way<br />
home, or was arguing with my parents about<br />
not going. I don’t think God minded my lying,<br />
since He was the one who gave me the chance to<br />
surprise her. It was for a good cause, after all.<br />
When I finally got there, I called Rose and<br />
asked her where she was. It was 7:30. She would<br />
have just gotten done with the play she did every<br />
two hours.<br />
“Why?” she asked, confused. This was the<br />
important part, sound casual and don’t sound<br />
like you actually care much.<br />
“Just curious,” I said apathetically, as if I<br />
had just lost an argument with my parents.<br />
“I’m sitting on the hay bales in front of the<br />
stage, waiting for the next show,” she answered.
Perfect, I knew exactly where those were.<br />
“Oh, hey, can you hold on a sec? Jon’s calling<br />
in on the other line,” I said quickly. I told<br />
her I’d call back, then shut off the phone.<br />
Fortunately, facing the stage meant facing<br />
away from the entrance, which made it easy for<br />
me to sneak up behind her. She was huddling<br />
against the cold wind, her arms crossed and her<br />
hands tucked against herself for warmth. She was<br />
wearing a thick beige coat, dark blue jeans, and<br />
a long brown scarf. Her dark brown hair was in<br />
two braids, with a bright orange kerchief tied in<br />
a bow on each. She was beautiful.<br />
I tapped on her shoulder—the scream and<br />
hug that I received were, alone, more than enough<br />
to justify the long drive to Eckert’s.<br />
“I hate you for that,” she said, grinning from<br />
ear to ear. She was clinging to my arm, as though<br />
assuring herself that I was really there. We were<br />
walking down to see the pig races, which ran<br />
between each show.<br />
“It was worth it,” I said, smiling.<br />
“Oh! I have these for you!” she said, reaching<br />
into her coat pocket. She pulled out a couple of<br />
intricately folded up pieces of paper. From what<br />
I could see, the notes were very colorful, and<br />
even appeared to be written partially in colored<br />
marker.<br />
She made me promise not to read them until<br />
I got home, so I shoved them in my jeans pocket<br />
and said, “I promise.”<br />
The pig races went by too quickly—both<br />
of us laughed at the corny names (“The Notorious<br />
P.l.G.,” “The Real Pig Shady,” and “<strong>St</strong>eve<br />
Oinkel”), but I guess the pigs were tired, so they<br />
only ran two of the four races.<br />
After they finished (<strong>St</strong>eve Oinkel won both<br />
times), we went up to the bonfires—the only<br />
warm part of the entire apple orchard—and<br />
huddled up beside the fire. “Only a half-hour<br />
until your next show,” I noted.<br />
“I don’t want to go,” she said, laying her<br />
head on my shoulder.<br />
“You have to, or else you don’t get paid,” I<br />
muttered.<br />
“Oh well. I wanna stay here,” she looked<br />
up at me, smiling.<br />
“You gotta, or else I don’t get to see your<br />
show,” I raised my eyebrows, challenging her<br />
to come up with a response to that.<br />
“Oh, fine,” she said, looking back down<br />
at the fire. She didn’t get up, though. Oh well,<br />
there’s still time, I thought, gazing into the fire.<br />
Eventually, one of her coworkers called to<br />
her from the stage to warn her that she only had<br />
a few minutes left before the beginning of the<br />
play. She groaned, then sadly stood, said, “Bye,”<br />
and went to change. I slowly walked to the hay<br />
bale benches, and remembered how cold it was<br />
after just a few steps.<br />
While I waited, shivering in my hoodie<br />
(which held far less heat than I had expected),<br />
a mother and her two sons walked up the center<br />
aisle, and took a seat on another bale. The mother<br />
appeared relatively young, and her oldest boy<br />
couldn’t have been more than seven, but the<br />
mother’s face was worn, by either the wind or<br />
the constant care of her two boys, who took to<br />
wrestling as soon as they were seated. She broke<br />
them up as soon as she noticed, and sternly admonished<br />
the two of them. “Hey, hey, cut that<br />
out! You two had better behave, I’m taking off<br />
work to let you come here tonight. You’d better<br />
appreciate it!” she said.<br />
I raised an eyebrow at the vocabulary she<br />
was directing at her children, who I thought<br />
couldn’t possibly have understood. But it seemed<br />
to work; the two boys settled into their seats,<br />
not even casting angry glances at one another.<br />
I raised both eyebrows. Impressive, I thought. I<br />
hope she remembers how maturely they listened<br />
next time she goes to yell at them.<br />
Another thought followed, almost instantly:<br />
No act does any good if no one responds to it.<br />
I frowned, and turned my eyes to the ground.<br />
Then...none of the blessings I’ve received will<br />
be any good if I don’t remember them.<br />
I slid my hands up my sleeves to keep<br />
the wind out. For a second, I thought I understood—Don’t<br />
let me forget this night, Lord, I<br />
39
40<br />
thought to myself, but remind me of it in times<br />
when I think you’ve forsaken me.<br />
The music for the play began, warning everyone<br />
to “gather ’round for the scary story!” I<br />
recognized Rose’s ten-year-old cousin Rachel<br />
acting as the announcer.<br />
In the show, “The Legend of Pumpkin<br />
Holler,” Rose played Katrina, the daughter of<br />
a rich family; one of the guys, Ryan, played<br />
her boyfriend Mike; and an older man, Wayne,<br />
played a schoolteacher, “Itchy Bob” Crane, who<br />
planned on marrying Katrina to get all the famous<br />
succotash that her mother made. Rose put on her<br />
strongest southern accent to invite both guys to a<br />
ghost-story-telling contest at her house. She told<br />
a story about<br />
ghosts eating<br />
a weary traveler,<br />
Itchy Bob<br />
told the story<br />
of the goblins<br />
that threw corn<br />
at the farmers<br />
on nights with<br />
full moons,<br />
and Mike told<br />
the story of<br />
the Headless<br />
H o r s e m a n ,<br />
who searched<br />
every night for<br />
the head he lost to a cannonball in the Civil War.<br />
The play ended with Itchy Bob getting chased<br />
out of town by the infamous Headless Horseman<br />
(who would have been scarier if I hadn’t seen<br />
through the gauze that covered his face that it<br />
was Ryan).<br />
After the play, Rose and the other two stuck<br />
around to talk to the kids who had watched<br />
the show. The two boys seemed particularly<br />
enthralled by Rose. I smiled when I recognized<br />
their infatuated looks. Eventually, their mother<br />
ushered them on to go see the next set of pig<br />
races. Rose went backstage to change out of her<br />
costume, and I went to wait by the bonfire.<br />
When she returned, we went with her mother<br />
and Rachel on a haunted hayride with most of<br />
the people who were still there (with a half hour<br />
until closing time, there couldn’t have been more<br />
than thirty people left). Rose sat on my right,<br />
and on my left was a likable elderly man whose<br />
jokes often caused the entire wagon to laugh.<br />
We faced the inside of the wagon, which meant<br />
that any number of people could surprise us from<br />
behind.<br />
Nothing on the ride was scary—there were<br />
a few crucified figures that I didn’t approve<br />
of—but other than that it was rather funny. Her<br />
mother spent much of the time talking with the<br />
old man and Wayne, and laughing into her hand<br />
Tim Se lt z e r<br />
at the things the<br />
old man said.<br />
The little boys<br />
acted scared<br />
by everything<br />
and dove back<br />
and forth trying<br />
to hide (I<br />
think they were<br />
showing off for<br />
Rose. One especially<br />
kept<br />
looking at her<br />
to see if she<br />
noticed), but<br />
even funnier<br />
was Rose instinctively diving into the center<br />
of the wagon in fear of the chainsaw-wielding,<br />
Freddie-esque figure that ran up from behind<br />
the wagon. She was laughing, embarrassed, as<br />
I helped her back into her seat.<br />
The hayride had to end, unfortunately. We<br />
finally came back around to the loading dock,<br />
and everyone started toward the stairs. As I<br />
stood and offered my hand to Rose, though,<br />
her mom stopped me. “Nuh-uh, stay there. I<br />
need pictures of you two,” she said, pushing<br />
me back down into the seat. I grinned, knowing<br />
that Rose would share the pictures with me next<br />
time we saw each other. After the flashes (and
corresponding momentary blindness), we had to<br />
get off the wagon. Rose’s mom and cousin went<br />
to the bonfire to wait, while Rose and I went to<br />
another one near the entrance of the orchard.<br />
We talked for a while. Eventually I even<br />
began to regain the feeling in my fingers and<br />
toes. After a few moments, though, Mom called<br />
and asked where I was.<br />
“I’m...on my way to the truck now,” I lied.<br />
Rose frowned.<br />
“Okay, drive safely and call me if you get<br />
lost, okay?” Mom said.<br />
“Yes, Mother,” I gave the usual strained<br />
reply, and hung up.<br />
I didn’t<br />
move, though.<br />
Rose eventually<br />
looked<br />
up at me, and<br />
said, “Hey,<br />
you need to<br />
hurry, or your<br />
mom’s gonna<br />
be worried,”<br />
she said quietly.<br />
“ T h e n<br />
I’ll tell her I<br />
got stuck behind<br />
a slow<br />
car.’’<br />
She smiled. “Hey, I don’t want to get you<br />
in trouble,” she said.<br />
“I’ll be fine,” I said. When she didn’t reply,<br />
I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. She<br />
smiled, and looked back at the fire.<br />
I risked another two minutes of quiet time<br />
with Rose before I finally moved to stand. “All<br />
right, I gotta go,” I muttered.<br />
“Oh, okay…” Rose said. We stood, hugged,<br />
and I finally headed to the truck. Rose had to<br />
stay and clean up her stuff, since she wouldn’t<br />
be back again.<br />
Once in the car, I again turned on Classic<br />
99, and let my thoughts drift back to the events<br />
of the day. One thing came through: the woman<br />
and her kids before Rose’s play. I remembered:<br />
If you don’t act on the good things that happen<br />
to you, then there was no point in letting them<br />
happen.<br />
“You don’t agree, do you?” I asked out loud.<br />
“You would turn it around, and say that no matter<br />
what, you should be kind to people.”<br />
No response. I turned the key in the ignition,<br />
and let the truck roar into life. I backed out and<br />
turned onto the small country lane that led to<br />
Eckert’s.<br />
“But when you really think about it, that<br />
won’t get you anywhere. You have to realize when<br />
Ky l e Kl o s t e r<br />
all your kind<br />
efforts aren’t<br />
working on<br />
c h a n g i n g<br />
someone,”<br />
I muttered.<br />
“But…<br />
that’s the<br />
idea of forg<br />
i v e n e s s<br />
and eternal<br />
love, isn’t<br />
it? You’ll<br />
always love<br />
someone or<br />
something<br />
regardless<br />
of how they feel about you, or even if they won’t<br />
admit to your existence.” I turned the truck on<br />
to the entrance ramp for IL15-West.<br />
“Even worse, what happens if they appreciate<br />
what good things you do for them then,<br />
but not later? That’d be hypocrisy on their part,<br />
especially if they’ve promised to remember your<br />
gifts to them.” Already time to turn on to 170<br />
North. Right turn signal, lane change, off the<br />
accelerator for the curve, accelerate gradually<br />
to save gas while merging.<br />
I suddenly remembered from earlier: I<br />
promised to do Your will, and to try my hardest<br />
to do it well.<br />
41
42<br />
“Hm. I think I get it. You want me to remember<br />
blessings like this, huh? So that I can recall<br />
what happened when things start going sour?” I<br />
realized that this must be it. I could simply feel that<br />
this was correct, that I was right. I can’t explain<br />
it. I clicked on my blinker to rush around a slow<br />
minivan before the exit, a half-mile away.<br />
“In that case...may I remember this time,<br />
what you have done for me tonight, next time I<br />
start to lose faith in you. Remind me of it when<br />
I feel like accusing you of something going<br />
wrong.” I said this loudly, over the accelerated<br />
music and the roar of the engine. I lane-changed<br />
right twice to take the 55 North-70 East exit.<br />
“Don’t let me be a hypocrite, Lord. I know<br />
that if I remember this night, I’ll have the inspiration<br />
to persevere, no matter how hard the<br />
challenge. All I want is to be reminded.”<br />
My memory when it came to important<br />
revelations was none too good. That’s why I<br />
asked God to remind me, not anything more.<br />
I drove in silence for the last two miles before<br />
my final exit. I felt good, but how long would<br />
it last? And would I be able to remain positive<br />
when things weren’t going as well as they were<br />
now?<br />
I grunted as I realized the pointlessness of<br />
the question, because I already knew the answer;<br />
God would be there, regardless of what happened.<br />
I clicked the blinker and took the IL-143 exit,<br />
braking all the way.<br />
Left at the stop sign, over the bridge, right<br />
U-turn onto Blackburn. It was a deserted country<br />
road, with bare corn fields on one side and bean<br />
fields on the other, and at least three or four miles<br />
long. I clicked on the brights and cruised. “So.<br />
If I remember all the good stuff that happens to<br />
me, then I’ll be able to do whatever you want<br />
me to do. If my real problem is memory, then<br />
maybe I should write it down,” I said aloud.<br />
That wouldn’t work. I knew damned well<br />
that my writing could never capture the emotion<br />
I felt at any moment. There was no way, through<br />
the limits on the near-infinite English language,<br />
to actually get close to what I felt. Not only<br />
that, I just wasn’t a good enough spontaneous<br />
writer—too many things could fly through my<br />
head in the time it took to write or type them out.<br />
I clicked off my brights and pulled to the right<br />
to avoid a car going the other way.<br />
The only other option was to strongly associate<br />
those memories with an object, something that<br />
just looking at would remind me of how I felt.<br />
It had worked with my Kairos cross; I absently<br />
fingered the emblem of five-crosses-in-one that<br />
hung from my neck, and remembered the powerful<br />
emotions that I had felt during and after the<br />
four-day retreat. I turned left onto Fruit Road,<br />
another unpainted country path punctuated by<br />
hills.<br />
But I’ve no object to use here, I thought.<br />
I ran through the events in my head. “Nothing<br />
last night, nothing at Uncle David’s... nothing<br />
at home... nothing at Ecker—ah! The notes!” I<br />
crammed one hand into my jeans pocket to pull<br />
out the two notes that Rose had given me, even<br />
as I turned onto old Route 66.<br />
I pulled them out, and glanced down at them.<br />
Then Lord, help me to remember, every time I see<br />
these, how much You have given me. Help me<br />
to see that, though not everything goes my way,<br />
You have a plan, and that I’m not the center of<br />
it. I want to remember this night every time I so<br />
much as think of these notes.<br />
I turned onto South Hazel, and carefully<br />
slid both notes into the pocket on the front of<br />
my hoodie. I pulled into my driveway, turned<br />
off the car, and glanced at the sky. Orion, my<br />
favorite constellation, was visible on the eastern<br />
horizon. “Thank you, Lord,” I muttered. I turned<br />
and went inside. I would not forget.
Le Mo n t -Sa i n t -Mi c h e l<br />
Tony Bell<br />
A fortress of desert seascape<br />
Sought by the Sun and Moon<br />
With the ebb and flow of tidal persuasion,<br />
By the sand and seagulls,<br />
Naturally,<br />
And by Michael, the Archangel,<br />
Who burned a blessed hole in <strong>St</strong>. Aubert’s skull<br />
In order that he build God’s will on a rock<br />
Sought by the Franks and Bretons and Normans.<br />
A tidal island revealed to all by a natural land bridge<br />
At low tide,<br />
One of the holiest places revealed as a prison<br />
And closed as a prison,<br />
And opened again to tourists from<br />
Germany, France, and England.<br />
43<br />
We took our chances,<br />
Braving death by going where the tide shifts quickly,<br />
Pulling our pant legs up and our shoes off.<br />
We found that the biggest threat lay not in the<br />
Franks or Bretons or Normans,<br />
Nor in the surge of high tide,<br />
But in the seagulls,<br />
Who dive-bombed us in claim of their territory,<br />
Naturally,<br />
Which had never been loosed from their lengthy beaks and webbed feet.
44<br />
On Ma ry Ol i v e r’s<br />
“Wi l d Ge e s e”<br />
Kyle Kloster<br />
committed my first sin when I was just eight<br />
I years old, in a Schnucks, tagging along as<br />
my mom scrounged through the shelves for the<br />
right can or jar. In my mind, back then, I had to<br />
wait for days for my mother to select our meal,<br />
and I never did it<br />
quietly. Eventually,<br />
my mom learned<br />
to keep me quiet<br />
with the reward of<br />
candy at the end of<br />
the journey—if I<br />
behaved, I’d get to<br />
pick out a piece or<br />
two in the checkout<br />
line. One day, I<br />
was particularly<br />
anxious, so she<br />
let me head to the<br />
candy section at<br />
the beginning of<br />
the shopping session<br />
to calm me<br />
down. I immediately<br />
snatched up<br />
a piece of licorice<br />
and pocketed it to<br />
bring with us to<br />
the cashier, but I<br />
Wi l d Ge e s e<br />
You do not have to be good.<br />
You do not have to walk on your knees<br />
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.<br />
You only have to let the soft animal of your body<br />
love what it loves.<br />
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.<br />
Meanwhile, the world goes on.<br />
Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain<br />
are moving across the landscapes,<br />
over the prairies and the deep trees,<br />
the mountains and the rivers.<br />
Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,<br />
are heading home again.<br />
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,<br />
the world offers itself to your imagination,<br />
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —<br />
over and over announcing your place<br />
in the family of things.<br />
—Mary Oliver<br />
forgot to have my mom pay for the licorice. I<br />
only remembered this when I patted my jeans<br />
pocket hours later and felt a foreign lump inside.<br />
Confused, I dug out the licorice and an<br />
equally foreign lump plugged up my throat. I<br />
had stolen. Me, student of a Catholic school for<br />
three years — I had learned about people like<br />
me, they had a commandment for people like<br />
me, I was a thief. The licorice scared me like a<br />
spider creeping across my skin, and I flung it<br />
away from me. “I’m sorry!” I screamed up to<br />
my ceiling, teary-eyed. I knew it was too late,<br />
though: I was going to hell because I was no<br />
longer good.<br />
I was trained to follow the law to the last letter<br />
obediently, almost robotically. I only recently<br />
realized it, near the middle of high school, but<br />
I still haven’t shed the same fear-instinct I had<br />
when I stole the licorice. The first line of Mary<br />
Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” shook one of the<br />
deepest roots in me, contradicting the most fundamental<br />
principle<br />
my whole childhood<br />
was founded<br />
on: “You do not<br />
have to be good.”<br />
I had always been<br />
told otherwise, in<br />
Schnucks, in grade<br />
school religion<br />
class, at church on<br />
Sundays, and even<br />
in high school. Every<br />
time Dr. Gavin<br />
asked a drowsy<br />
student to stand for<br />
the rest of a period<br />
to avoid nodding<br />
off, I got the message<br />
that I had to<br />
be good. Every time<br />
my second grade<br />
teacher made me sit<br />
on the curb during<br />
recess for talking<br />
during class, I got the message that I had to be<br />
good. Such everyday occurrences ground into<br />
me that I do have to be good, but Mary Oliver’s<br />
poem “Wild Geese” challenges my understanding<br />
of “good” that I had beaten into my head<br />
during childhood.<br />
Oliver forces a second look at what it means<br />
to be good. The poem contrasts the sort of<br />
regulated, list-based morality that middle-class<br />
children like me grow up under with a truer sense
of being good that Oliver sees in natural things<br />
existing as exactly what they are. “You do not<br />
have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles<br />
through the desert, repenting. / You only have<br />
to let the soft animal of your body love what it<br />
loves.” To be good, Oliver seems to suggest,<br />
has less to do with meeting checklists and adhering<br />
to codes than it has to do with allowing<br />
yourself to be human. Being “good” isn’t always<br />
following those dotted lines my childhood laid<br />
out—say “please” and “thank you,” make your<br />
bed in the morning, and put your bowl in the sink<br />
when you’re done eating—it involves more than<br />
running through the mechanics and routines of<br />
manners and society’s expectations. Being genuinely<br />
“bad” has little to do with a falling GPA,<br />
unfinished homework assignment, or unexcused<br />
belch, just like the true sense of “good” has little<br />
to do with tucking your shirt in, coloring inside<br />
the lines, or getting zero tardies.<br />
The trees and geese she describes exist precisely<br />
as trees and geese, standing with the beauty<br />
of a deeply rooted plant branching into the sky<br />
and flying with the harsh and exciting freedom of<br />
birds that are always “heading home.” Oliver’s<br />
poem gracefully lifts the burden of grade school<br />
conditioning that many private schools push.<br />
Oliver forces a rethinking of values in a society<br />
that needs much rethinking, and she replaces<br />
the sort of false morality with a philosophical<br />
ideal of finding belonging and purpose in your<br />
existence as a human. Goodness does not come<br />
from matching ourselves up with some sort of<br />
model of behavior, but from filling out a self<br />
that feels the most natural, like a home. While<br />
the poem can uproot a childhood like mine, it<br />
offers a new way of thinking about life. No, we<br />
don’t have to jump through hoops to be good, we<br />
must simply be human towards one another and<br />
recognize the beauty and despair in the world,<br />
as well as our own place in it.<br />
45<br />
Gr a s s<br />
Adam Archambeault<br />
Tender growth,<br />
Reaching up towards the sky,<br />
Knowing nothing but its simple green life,<br />
Cut short.
<strong>Spring</strong>time<br />
<strong>St</strong>eve Behr<br />
Dav e Bo s c h<br />
46<br />
The mechanical drone of the freeway is drowned<br />
out by the serenading birds.<br />
The grass, a cool carpet for my feet, tickles my<br />
toes as it pokes through their gaps.<br />
The cool breeze gently sweeps past and holds<br />
the temperature at a standard of complete perfection.<br />
Flowers soak up their energy and then slowly,<br />
timidly poke out from their warm buds to color<br />
the world with blazingly passionate and brilliantly<br />
intricate colors and designs.<br />
The air carries a scent of grilled hamburgers, the<br />
echoing sounds of the neighborhood puppies, and<br />
the baritone voice of an announcer broadcasting<br />
the early season baseball game.<br />
The distant rainstorm strolls across the evening<br />
twilight and promises a night shower that will<br />
provide a peaceful patter on the tin awning.<br />
The faint chatter of people dining outside at the<br />
corner café adds a baseline to the harmony.<br />
The sun tries to catch a glimpse of its counterpart<br />
and stays with the world for a little longer to let<br />
it know it’s been a long winter and that it would<br />
light the skies for a few moments more.<br />
A few more moments of catch,<br />
A few more moments of a lazy snooze in the<br />
hammock, swinging to and fro,<br />
A few more moments of the moist, tangy barbecue<br />
dancing on tongues,<br />
A few more moments of the cool popsicle that<br />
glues hands together with its sticky syrup,<br />
A few more moments of springtime.
Wa k i n g Up<br />
Timo Kim<br />
When I was little, I got up on my own every<br />
day, or so my mom tells me. Her favorite<br />
story to tell is how I got up in the middle of<br />
the night once and walked around the house<br />
turning on all the lights so I could see. The<br />
next morning, my mom found me sleeping by<br />
the bay window, my face leaning against the<br />
glass, my breath sending filaments of fog out<br />
across window’s chilled surface. She says I<br />
kept repeating that the snowfall the night before<br />
made everything look new.<br />
I don’t remember any of this; all I can come<br />
up with is a sense of possibility, like déjà vu but<br />
not nearly as strong. I don’t know if I believe<br />
those stories at all, really. At any rate, I try not<br />
to think about them. The past doesn’t matter<br />
anymore; now, about thirteen years later, I try<br />
to stay under the covers as long as I can.<br />
Especially that morning. My alarm clock<br />
had resumed its imperative beeps, its too-bright<br />
yellow numbers indignant at my lethargy. The<br />
snooze button never lasts long enough. <strong>St</strong>ill<br />
groggy, I tried to roll towards the center of the<br />
bed and away from the insistent clock and the<br />
glaring sunlight piercing through the half-closed<br />
blinds. But I managed to roll off instead, knocking<br />
my head against the nightstand on the way<br />
down.<br />
“Are you all right?” my mom called from<br />
the kitchen below.<br />
I grunted a reply and stumbled to the shower. I<br />
should probably take cold showers in the morning<br />
to wake myself up, but I don’t think it’s worth the<br />
effort. I usually down some tea instead; coffee’s<br />
too bitter.<br />
I was late. I ignored the toast my mom offered<br />
me at the door, grunting my thanks. Useful<br />
things, grunts, conveying meaning without the<br />
effort of thought.<br />
It was spring already, according to the sickeningly<br />
cheery pastoral scenes on the calendars<br />
my mom buys. Seemed like winter to me. It was<br />
even snowing, lightly. But luckily the flurries<br />
weren’t sticking, so there probably wouldn’t<br />
be traffic. <strong>St</strong>ill, a light, chilling fog clung to the<br />
ground, and a biting wind gnawed at the feeble<br />
remnants of the magnolias in our garden. Yeah,<br />
right. <strong>Spring</strong>. I hadn’t even noticed they had<br />
bloomed.<br />
I pulled out of the garage, spaced out, and<br />
found myself merging onto the highway. The<br />
rising sun squeezed through the low clouds and<br />
bloodied the sky, blinding me as I drove east.<br />
But with sunglasses, the world sank again into<br />
pallor. I always put my sunglasses on when I<br />
drive; I don’t have to notice anything around<br />
me that way. <strong>High</strong>ways depress me. I might be<br />
ten feet away from the people in the lanes next<br />
to me, but I can’t say a word to them, nor can<br />
they to me. We probably won’t even look at each<br />
other. The times our eyes do meet, invariably<br />
we avert them awkwardly, like children caught<br />
eating cookies between meals. The most ironic<br />
thing is that we probably take the same route,<br />
get stuck in the same traffic, and noodle-neck at<br />
the same accidents every day, and I still don’t<br />
even know their names. I have less contact with<br />
my neighbors, but I know their names. But it’s<br />
not that important. I’ll never actually meet them<br />
anyway.<br />
I accelerated to a comfortable speed, too<br />
slow for most other people. Their problem,<br />
not mine. But I drive in the right lane so fewer<br />
people feel the need to tailgate me. Less bother<br />
for me. I switched on the cruise control, and<br />
then shivered. It was cold. Last night’s frost had<br />
sheathed the rear window in a feathery web of<br />
ice. But I didn’t need to look back; I was only<br />
going forward. The engine hadn’t warmed up<br />
yet, but I turned on the heat anyway and settled<br />
further back in the seat for the drive.<br />
By most standards, I guess I’m a pretty safe<br />
driver. I don’t speed, ever. I use my signal lights,<br />
check my blind spots, and even stop for flashing<br />
red lights late at night. But I don’t know. I drive<br />
so I can zone out. Music makes me concentrate,<br />
47
48<br />
so I usually listen to some guy drone on about<br />
the price of clams in Djibouti or unrest among<br />
florists in Ulan Bator. I drive slowly because<br />
I hate feeling the movements of the car; they<br />
remind me that I’m moving, too. I do the rest of<br />
those “safe” things out of routine. Sometimes,<br />
something will jolt me out of my zone, and I’ll<br />
realize that I’m stopped at a red light or something,<br />
but I wouldn’t know how I got there. I think<br />
I don’t get into accidents because either people<br />
instinctually avoid slow drivers, or I somehow<br />
wake up in time to react. Probably the former.<br />
Either way, I haven’t gotten into an accident yet,<br />
so I guess I’m safe.<br />
As the sun rose higher and brightened, traffic<br />
slowed. I flitted in and out of lanes, trying to coast<br />
as much as possible. Energy efficiency. Eventually,<br />
however, everything stopped, paralyzed by<br />
the wall of light rising in front, but still trying to<br />
inch forward defiantly. Or perhaps ignorantly. I<br />
just flipped down the visor and began waiting.<br />
I chose my work site several months ago.<br />
Well, I suppose “chose” probably isn’t the right<br />
word; it just kind of happened, actually. The site<br />
needed some volunteers, and I had a graduation<br />
requirement to fill, some sort of stupid PR thing<br />
that the Board of Education passed to educate<br />
the callous high schoolers in service or something.<br />
Like they’re such bang-up philanthropists.<br />
Whatever, though. Beats going to school.<br />
As I stepped out of the car onto the school<br />
parking lot, a cold blast of wind nearly knocked<br />
me over and then settled in a slow whirl around<br />
my body. I was late by only five minutes, but<br />
the lot had already emptied of kids and parents.<br />
Silent, except for the whistling of the wind around<br />
me. I burrowed my head down into my collar and<br />
zipped my coat up a little farther. The whistling<br />
faded, and I trudged into the building.<br />
The frigid wind followed me into the building.<br />
The secretaries looked up and scowled. I<br />
shut the door quickly and nodded at them as I<br />
passed, but they didn’t notice. Right. I hurried<br />
past through the deserted hallways, my footsteps<br />
echoing softly behind me. I was late.<br />
I walked into the classroom greeted by the<br />
usual smiles and waves, which I returned, but<br />
only just so. I learned early on not to bother to<br />
try to keep up; little kids just have too much<br />
energy.<br />
And then there was Christie with her draining<br />
lethargy. I’d never met such a depressing kid. I<br />
had tried not to, actually; when the choice came<br />
between Christie and the other cheerful bundles<br />
of adulation...well, it wasn’t too hard. But classroom<br />
aides are like slaves, and no teacher wants<br />
to work with silent, uncooperative kids all the<br />
time.<br />
I passed the morning circling the classroom<br />
like a leaf stuck in an eddy, occasionally correcting<br />
pencil grips or choosing crayons. Miss Emily<br />
tried to work with Christie but eventually gave<br />
up and returned to the whiteboard. I watched<br />
half-interested, and then continued circling.<br />
“Christina! Pay attention,” Miss Emily<br />
scolded.<br />
I zoned in and winced. It was the second<br />
time on that worksheet that Christie had fallen<br />
behind. I bent my head and went back to prodding<br />
Mikey to color his pictures in the lines. It<br />
was probably better that I didn’t get involved.<br />
“I’m sure Mr. Charley doesn’t like it that<br />
you are wasting everybody’s time,” Miss Emily<br />
continued.<br />
I winced again. I hate being implicated like<br />
that. Obligated, I raised my head, half-smiling<br />
painfully, and shook my head first at Christie<br />
and then Miss Emily and then back at Christie<br />
again. She stared at me, her face blank, her eyes<br />
awkwardly trying to show what I assumed was<br />
guilt.<br />
Mikey finished, and I had no excuse. It was<br />
not going to be a good day. I rose and dragged<br />
my chair over to Christie’s table as Miss Emily<br />
turned away and continued the lesson. Two<br />
kids gave me high fives before I motioned for<br />
them to pay attention. I forget their names, but<br />
they’re great kids: obedient and behaved. Christie<br />
continued staring blankly at her worksheet.<br />
“Now Christie, what letter are we working
on?” I asked, expecting her either not to answer<br />
or to start coloring randomly.<br />
“G,” she whispered, following her answer<br />
with a guttural series of “guh” sounds.<br />
I pressed onward, “Which pictures start with<br />
the ‘G’ sound?”<br />
She stared at me blankly again and then put<br />
her head down. I raised her head up and replaced<br />
the pencil in her hand. Again, “Does ‘goat’ start<br />
with the ‘G’ sound?”<br />
She put her head down again. Miss Emily<br />
and the other children finished the worksheet<br />
and began bustling around the classroom getting<br />
ready for lunch. I groaned inwardly. “Christie,<br />
we have ten minutes before lunch. If you don’t<br />
finish the worksheet now, you know that you<br />
will miss recess and have to work on it then,” I<br />
admonished. She closed her eyes.<br />
Miss Emily gestured for me to get her ready<br />
for lunch. I tried again to get Christie to make<br />
at least some progress on her work. She messily<br />
circled three pictures, two of which were wrong.<br />
I gave up and hurried her to the coatroom.<br />
I ate lunch distractedly. Noisy kids and my<br />
aversion to working with Christie interrupted my<br />
usually peaceful lunch. I couldn’t figure it out.<br />
Nothing worked, not prodding, coaxing, scolding.<br />
Nothing. Sometimes she knew the answers.<br />
Just as often, she didn’t. The only constant thing<br />
was her demeanor. Like that helped at all. I zoned<br />
out again. Then noisy kids turned into screaming<br />
kids, squealing with delight and disgust.<br />
Christie had thrown up. I fought the momentary<br />
surge of anger and hurried over to Christie,<br />
trying to calm the kids in the process. She was<br />
sitting alone, and most of the vomit had landed<br />
on the table and tray in front of her. I took her to<br />
the bathroom, cleaned off what had gotten on her<br />
coat, and then had the office call her mother.<br />
She sat quietly on the bench outside the office<br />
while I zipped up coats and tied shoes as kids<br />
went by for recess, rushing them past the door to<br />
avoid their curious stares, and more importantly,<br />
questions. And then they were gone. For once<br />
I was thankful that Christie didn’t say much. It<br />
would make waiting with her easier. The harsh<br />
fluorescent light above flickered weakly, giving<br />
me a headache. I closed my eyes, slouched back<br />
into the bench, and sighed. Time crawled by.<br />
“Mr. Charley, do you like me?” Christie<br />
asked suddenly.<br />
I sat up, surprised. “Of course I like you. I<br />
like you a lot, like everybody else,” I responded<br />
perfunctorily. I smiled. Smiling tends to calm<br />
little kids’ nerves.<br />
She looked at me with that strange blank<br />
stare of hers again. “Then why haven’t you<br />
played with me yet?” she asked.<br />
Her mom walked in the door shortly after.<br />
As she signed Christie out, Christie looked at<br />
me with that blank stare one last time. Her coat<br />
flapped open gently as a cold gust blew through<br />
the open double doors. I shivered. Forgot to wave.<br />
And then she was gone. Recess was over.<br />
Mat t Am p l e m a n<br />
49
Em b r a c e<br />
Will Turnbough<br />
Knotted tree fingers feel their way to a brother<br />
As if since their emergence from the soil<br />
They grasped for the first touch of a similar being.<br />
(They don’t touch now—<br />
even trees enjoy solitary moments.)<br />
But when the invisible rays of warmth cut the frost<br />
And the heart of the mighty plant opens<br />
Shooting life to the farthest tips of the intricate skeleton<br />
50<br />
The trees connect<br />
In an arching embrace.<br />
An t h o n y Sigillito
Ex c e r p t f r o m Th e<br />
En d e av o r ’s Co m p a s s<br />
David Spitz<br />
Neither the warm spirit of friendship nor<br />
the warming friendship of spirits could<br />
fully suppress the unnerving presence of Mr.<br />
Thomas Witan, though both had been enjoyed<br />
in excess. Even on that momentous night,<br />
December 31, 1851, when these two forces,<br />
binding and blinding in power, ignited under<br />
the masking billows of perfumed smoke, Mr.<br />
Witan remained willfully daunting.<br />
Sir Alfred Benton Berkeley, fine gentlemen<br />
and somewhat reluctant guest, found himself<br />
especially perturbed that evening. Having already<br />
reached his peak in English society, Berkeley<br />
cared little for the New Year’s celebration, as<br />
he firmly believed that anything new would be<br />
significantly less comfortable. Nor did he concern<br />
himself with the growing discontent regarding<br />
cotton and slaves in a far-away land in which he<br />
had absolutely no business, save business. And<br />
least of all did Sir Berkeley care for the most<br />
tedious talk of constructing railroads (in India<br />
of all places) for Mr. Witan’s shipping company,<br />
whose socially inadequate owner he would later<br />
describe as such.<br />
“To sit beside the man is to be wholly<br />
uncomfortable. At one moment, his tongue is<br />
smooth enough to cut more than his fair stake in<br />
any proposition, yet, when temper calls for such,<br />
so sharp he need not chew his food. Put simply,<br />
he is a monster in gentleman’s garb, and it is no<br />
mystery to me that no respectable woman will<br />
let him into her house. Rather, what racks my<br />
brain is, why on earth his own forgotten mother<br />
ever let him out of hers!”<br />
Mr. Witan shifted uneasily in his chair and<br />
breathed deeply from his smoldering cigar, the<br />
thick, burning smoke seeping slowly into his<br />
blood. His eyes flickered with the glowing flame<br />
and danced savagely about the room, scorching<br />
through the casual business chatter and fine<br />
tailored suits.<br />
Mr. Callahan, fellow associate and banquet<br />
guest, squirmed behind his fading veil of smoke,<br />
puffing madly from his cigar in a meager attempt<br />
to elude those burning eyes. He was a man of<br />
great stature, both of body and blood, yet, when<br />
set beside Mr. Witan, his amassing wealth was<br />
but a poor man’s wage, his great physical strength<br />
but a child’s might, and his noble legacy but a<br />
servant’s wretched lineage. Though three years<br />
of profitable acquaintance and eight months<br />
of genuine friendship had taught Mr. Callahan<br />
humility, no amount of time would harden him<br />
to Witan’s wild stare, and tonight, when smoke<br />
had failed to conceal, he sought solace behind<br />
blinding flattery.<br />
“A most beautiful club, Thomas,” he offered,<br />
sipping quickly from his glass. “The envy of all<br />
London…of all the globe if you ask me…or at<br />
least it will be when word gets around and, given<br />
the safety of the seas, that won’t be but a few<br />
months. Everyone listens when the coins start<br />
clanking,” he raised his hand awkwardly from<br />
his side and patted his stomach, “or at least when<br />
the dinner bell rings. Truly, my friend, it was a<br />
most marvelous feast.”<br />
Witan smiled warmly, wild eyes tamed<br />
behind his rigid collar and fine silk shirt.<br />
“My thanks, Monty, but I can accept no<br />
praise for the latter.” His lips twisted into a sly<br />
gentleman’s grin. “A raging cyclone, blinding<br />
fog, whirlpools so large they stretch to the<br />
ocean’s bottom—I’ll navigate all with crew and<br />
compass…but Lord save me if I’m faced with a<br />
ladle and pot.”<br />
Mr. Callahan chuckled deeply and drank<br />
from his brandy. His tongue was lithe, too slick<br />
for reason or tact to restrain.<br />
“Bah, nothing wrong with that,” he replied,<br />
words slipping more easily from his spirited lips.<br />
“The kitchen’s no place for you anyway. No,<br />
that’s a woman’s…” He jerked himself from<br />
drunkenness at once. “It’s no place for one of<br />
your stature.”<br />
51
52<br />
Witan smiled, but not so warmly, and Mr.<br />
Callahan squirmed again.<br />
“I agree with Monty,” offered Fredrick Trent<br />
as his emptied whisky glass wobbled atop the<br />
oaken table beside him. “The club will keep<br />
your competition silent and their wives talking<br />
for quite some time.” He grinned behind his<br />
moistened beard and slumped into his seat. “Ah,<br />
a bed of banknotes never felt so comfortable, and<br />
I would know.” He slowly raised his shaking<br />
arm. “And the furnishings are brilliant. Those<br />
ships there, the family’s, I surmise.”<br />
Witan nodded curtly, eyeing the shimmering<br />
paintings hung upon the wall beside him. He<br />
gestured to the nearest.<br />
“The Endeavor…my great-grandfather’s<br />
vessel.” Frowning, he gulped quickly from his<br />
glass and struggled with the rigid collar caught<br />
tight about his throat. “Source of riches…<br />
and…”<br />
“It’s marred,” interrupted Edward Gage. The<br />
young engineer reached to adjust his spectacles<br />
but, having forgotten his drink, managed only to<br />
wet his nose. “The…the…oh…the mas’ there,”<br />
he pointed with the precision of a drunkard, his<br />
harsh, slurred words cutting through the masking<br />
smoke. “It’s…it’s different somehow.”<br />
Mr. Trent rolled nimbly off his seat and<br />
cocked his head sideways, joining Mr. Gage in<br />
a closer inspection.<br />
“It is,” he agreed. “There are…things sprouting<br />
off the main mast.” His glass fell suddenly<br />
from his hand and chipped upon the hard wood<br />
floor. Smiling coyly, Mr. Trent turned to his host.<br />
“The artist’s slip perhaps?”<br />
A smooth chunk of ice had slid from the<br />
overturned glass and came to rest before Witan’s<br />
smoldering gaze. It melted promptly.<br />
“If only,” he muttered, eyes fixed upon the<br />
gleaming puddle.<br />
Mr. Gage leaned closer to the painting as<br />
Mr. Trent bent to retrieve his broken glass.<br />
“Then the ship herself bore the flaw?”<br />
Witan’s eyes shot up at once and met the<br />
engineer’s stare, a Hell-born fire blazing in his<br />
vicious orbs. Alive and ravenous, it consumed<br />
all spirits in its clenching jaws and left the poor<br />
mortals sober in its wake. Mr. Trent froze at<br />
once.<br />
“A ship of my line flawed!” Witan leaped<br />
from his chair with furious agility and struck<br />
the Endeavor with sudden passion. The painting<br />
tore and the frame rattled viciously against<br />
the wall as Mr. Gage jumped back, eyes wide<br />
behind his crooked spectacles. “I’d rather myself<br />
be stricken deaf than hear my family’s vessels<br />
slandered unsound.”<br />
“I…I didn’t…”<br />
The engineer crept timidly behind his<br />
chair, pocket watch rattling within his coat. His<br />
brandy-stained cheeks had blanched bone white,<br />
the ruddy blush of drunken friendship all but<br />
forgotten as he peered meekly into Witan’s wild<br />
eyes, probing daggers no longer hidden by the<br />
gentlemen’s smoke.<br />
Mr. Callahan choked upon a mouthful of<br />
liquor and coughed violently to regain his breath<br />
amidst the clearing smoke. Seeing this, Witan<br />
smiled warmly and relaxed his stare upon the<br />
trembling Mr. Gage. Then, removing his fist<br />
from the tattered canvas and nodding politely<br />
to his other guests, he casually returned to his<br />
chair and resumed puffing at his cigar, face hidden<br />
once more behind the wafting smoke. The<br />
ruined Endeavor alone remained evidence of the<br />
entire incident.<br />
“I can assure you all,” Witan began, sipping<br />
calmly from his glass and shifting his tender<br />
gaze between the men. “There has never been,<br />
nor will there ever be a ship of the Witan family<br />
constructed poorly. Of this alone I am certain.”<br />
He glanced quickly at the tattered canvas and<br />
breathed hard from his cigar, concealed eyes<br />
shimmering with self-restrained tears. The smoke<br />
appeared painful to his throat, as the words to his<br />
tongue. “Our vessels are not marred upon their<br />
launch. Any damage they endure—any break<br />
upon the hull, tear upon the sail, crack upon the<br />
mast—all is due to captain’s error.”<br />
Mr. Gage gazed nervously around the room,
jittery eyes shifting between tattered canvas<br />
and sobered drunks. He drank heavily from his<br />
brandy before daring a look at Witan’s friendly<br />
smile, and though his tongue squirmed lithely<br />
in his mouth, words did not slip easily from his<br />
lips.<br />
“Then…then the Endeavor…met with some<br />
misfortune?”<br />
Witan turned suddenly and stared at the<br />
ruined painting, chuckling softly as his reddened<br />
lips twisted foully into a spirit-crazed grin. Beads<br />
of sweat rolled from his smog-bathed face and<br />
pooled upon his shirt, staining the white silk with<br />
streaks of gray.<br />
“Does misfortune attend service on Sundays?”<br />
Mr. Gage squirmed within his seat, brow<br />
cocked and eyes worried.<br />
“Sir?”<br />
“Does misfortune stroll in the park on Monday<br />
mornings? Drink tea with her friends on<br />
Tuesdays? Attend chorus practice on Wednesday<br />
evenings? Does she visit her sick grandmother<br />
every Thursday before supper? Knit sweaters<br />
for the family on Fridays? Visit the lake every<br />
third Saturday?”<br />
Mr. Gage turned to the others for counsel<br />
but received only blank stares, motionless behind<br />
smoke and wonder. Witan alone remained<br />
unmasked, fierce eyes alive once more in fury<br />
and lunacy.<br />
“How can a man meet with misfortune if<br />
she keeps no schedule?”<br />
Mr. Gage opened his mouth slowly, countenance<br />
frozen in a bewildered gawk.<br />
“I…what I meant…”<br />
“No man seeks out misfortune!” Witan<br />
swigged violently from his glass, horrific grin<br />
drenched in brandy and madness. “What sane<br />
captain sails for the tempest when calm waters<br />
roll by so near? No, misfortune seeks us out,<br />
forces its will onto us, springs from the waters<br />
of life, vengeful and furious, and consumes our<br />
riches, our lives!”<br />
Mr. Gage gulped from his drink as Witan<br />
once more rose to his full, daunting stature.<br />
“But you…you mentioned captain’s error.”<br />
Witan sank slowly back into his chair and<br />
drew deeply from his cigar, grasping out with<br />
tired lungs for something real, something tangible<br />
in the thick, stagnant air. He turned and looked<br />
sadly at the tattered painting which clung crookedly<br />
to the wall beside him, then closed his sorry<br />
eyes and sighed.<br />
“The Endeavor’s main mast was splintered<br />
rounding The Cape.” The engineer’s eyes sparked<br />
with interest as Witan sipped hesitantly from his<br />
glass. “It was my great grandfather’s first expedition<br />
with her…a trading mission on which the<br />
entire Witan fortune depended.” Witan paused<br />
and stared once more at the ragged painting. “She<br />
was raped on her maiden voyage…raped by an<br />
ocean-brewed fiend. For six days and nights she<br />
struggled against his will—clawed, bit, spat,<br />
tore, cursed, matched his atrocities with grit and<br />
resolve of equal ferocity. But on the dawn of the<br />
seventh day, as God lay slumbering above, she<br />
lost all strength and succumbed to his twisted<br />
pleasure.” Witan swigged from his brandy and<br />
breathed in the heavy, perfumed smoke, spirits<br />
of passion and deception seeping into his veins<br />
and drowning his wild heart with crushing smog.<br />
“The following morning, she crawled her way<br />
to land, shamed and crippled…but in her womb<br />
lay safe the seed of my wealth.”<br />
Mr. Gage glanced quickly about the luxurious<br />
room, blazing eyes darting between lavish<br />
furniture and royal trim. The soft glow of lamplight<br />
illuminated all in flickering radiance, eerie<br />
and wondrous, as Witan’s black shadow lay stark<br />
upon the floor.<br />
“Then the Endeavor’s cargo was saved from<br />
the storm,” the engineer declared, voice cracking<br />
with a bubbling hatred. Witan nodded grimly as<br />
Mr. Gage again drank from his speech-provoking<br />
glass, burning face alive, awake, sobered of<br />
alcohol yet drunk on boiling passion. “But surely<br />
not saved from the beasts of the Continent!”<br />
“The Endeavor’s crew held courage enough<br />
53
54<br />
for tempest. No four-legged fiend could threaten<br />
her.”<br />
“None indeed that run, slither, or pounce…”<br />
Mr. Gage staggered across the room and stroked<br />
the tattered Endeavor with his shaking hand. “The<br />
vicious lions the crew could match with simple<br />
fire, poisonous snakes can easily be avoided, and<br />
fever…” His eyes blazed behind his spectacles<br />
as his reddened lips trembled with each uttered<br />
word. “Fever is nothing. But I’ll tell you what<br />
the true danger is.” Mr. Gage whipped about<br />
suddenly and jabbed at Witan’s chest with his<br />
sweat-drenched fingers. “It is those merciless<br />
demons which lurk in huts and fish in rivers….<br />
Be careful and trust not your eyes, for they are as<br />
we are but for the black of their skin and the red<br />
of their fangs. If the cruel blue sea tainted your<br />
ancestor’s virgin, then the fiends of the jungle<br />
made her their whore!”<br />
“Enough!” Witan roared, bolting to his feet<br />
and matching the engineer’s raging stare with his<br />
own blazing eyes. Mr. Gage remained untamed,<br />
face dripping with blinding sweat, hair matted<br />
raggedly atop his head, and mouth contorted into<br />
a vicious snarl.<br />
“Have you ever been to Africa, Mr. Witan?<br />
Have you ever once traversed the White Man’s<br />
Graveyard?” He spat the words between his<br />
lips, abandoning reason for brandy and passion.<br />
“I have…and it was not the lions which I<br />
feared.”<br />
“Sit down, Edward,” Mr. Callahan pleaded,<br />
tugging meekly at the engineer’s sleeve.<br />
“I was once a guest at their village…” Mr.<br />
Gage hesitated and, turning away from Witan’s<br />
blazing stare, sank slowly back into his seat. He<br />
reached for his brandy. “I was surveying for the<br />
iron mines a few years past…. There…there was<br />
an incident.” His voice trailed off as his eyes<br />
glazed over with cooling sweat. “A flood…sudden<br />
and fierce...it consumed everything…left us<br />
to die on that horrid land…” He turned once more<br />
to Witan. “…but they came for me…revived<br />
me…”<br />
“Then they should be praised,” Witan interrupted.<br />
Mr. Gage shook his head and rubbed his<br />
face quickly with his sleeve.<br />
“They found others…warriors of rival tribes<br />
too weak from hunger to cast themselves into<br />
the water…. They dragged them to where there<br />
was no water, a barren land of ash…no tree, no<br />
vine…only fire and wailing.”<br />
“They murdered them?” Mr. Callahan whispered,<br />
slowly wafting away the smoke with his<br />
hand.<br />
“They butchered them—cut their throats,<br />
tasted their blood, and spilled the rest upon the<br />
dust. So, Mr. Witan, forgive my prejudice. Not<br />
soon do I forget when souls are chained forever<br />
in prisons of ash, and black-skinned demons lick<br />
clean their tainted fangs.”<br />
Witan sighed deeply, fire quenched within<br />
his eyes, and reached for the tattered painting.<br />
His hand stopped suddenly, mere inches from the<br />
canvas, as if the very paint repulsed his skin. But<br />
then, with great effort, Witan willed his trembling<br />
palm forward and stroked the Endeavor upon the<br />
mast.<br />
“She was not constructed by my great<br />
grandfather. He bought her from Americans…<br />
traders…slave traders.” Witan closed his eyes,<br />
voice hoarse with smoke and ash. “He wagered<br />
everything on her…chanced all his worth on this<br />
ship, this pure maiden of the sea who had raped<br />
that continent until it bled. Look again upon her<br />
disfigured mast. It is a tree, torn from its roots to<br />
heal what the tempest had wrought. Even then,<br />
after she had taken so many souls, her hunger<br />
for life remained unquenched. My wealth has<br />
sprung from death.” Witan’s fiery eyes blazed<br />
fiercely at the silenced engineer. “Your demons<br />
were chained by iron. I am chained by blood.”<br />
He overturned his glass and stamped out his<br />
cigar. “You’re right, Mr. Gage. But for the black<br />
of their skin and the red of their fangs, they are<br />
as we are.”
Be i n g Be l o w Ze r o Ma k e s Yo u Th i n k<br />
Jonathan E. D. Huelman<br />
It was<br />
Below two hundred and seventy three<br />
Below zero, and<br />
Below thirty-two, and<br />
I couldn’t feel my face.<br />
No, seriously.<br />
My face felt number than is humanly possible.<br />
I am not exaggerating.<br />
If there were an SI unit of measurement for numbness,<br />
My face would have been approximately<br />
A bazillion of them.<br />
I sort of wish that there had been someone near<br />
To slap my face,<br />
So that I could have not felt it.<br />
My fingers would be a bazillion and one<br />
On that numbness scale.<br />
My little frozen fingers in my gloves<br />
Were like little prepackaged sausage links at Schnucks,<br />
Completely useless to me.<br />
They might as well have not been there.<br />
There could have been<br />
Alligators gnawing on those digits,<br />
And I would have become that guy<br />
Who, years later, people remember<br />
As the guy who just sat there peacefully as<br />
Alligators ate his fingers.<br />
Fighting isn’t worth it, anyway.<br />
Not in this weather.<br />
55<br />
And my toes.<br />
Don’t even get me started on my toes.<br />
I had initially put on nice thick woolen socks<br />
That morning, but I had taken them off,<br />
Afraid that my feet would be too warm.<br />
My toes, in a defiant and rebellious act,<br />
Were refusing to move.<br />
Ten little union workers,<br />
Sick of being teased with the benefits of warmth,<br />
On strike against the rest of me.
56<br />
Th e Da m n Ar m r e s t<br />
Connor Cole<br />
killed the engine. It’s what she wants, I<br />
I guess. I don’t really know. The windows<br />
were down, and the August night was beginning<br />
to cool off.<br />
“Do you have a lighter?”<br />
“Yeah.” I grabbed a yellow one from the<br />
little storage area under the radio and handed<br />
it to her. She lit her cigarette. “You know those<br />
are the preferred cigarettes of cocaine users.” I<br />
was almost able to say it and have it sound like<br />
I had a point.<br />
“What?”<br />
“Parliament Lights. They have that little<br />
filter that goes in. You know what I mean? That<br />
little part you can stick your tongue in? It’s got a<br />
longer filter for…” I trailed off. “Never mind.”<br />
“What are you talking about?”<br />
“I don’t know. Just trying to make conversation,<br />
I guess.” And man, I was struggling. Good<br />
God, this is awkward. It was only 10:30, though.<br />
I can’t pull the “I’ve got to go home” just yet.<br />
Entirely implausible.<br />
“It’s all right.” Out of nowhere she reclined<br />
her seat all the way back, leaving me alone at the<br />
100 degree angle. I considered my options. She<br />
rolled over and faced the door, just lying there<br />
with the cigarette. I finished mine a minute later<br />
and reclined back to join her. I wish that I could<br />
have left the radio on so that I wouldn’t have to<br />
listen to that silence. It was a silence that crept<br />
into my car and allowed me to realize just how<br />
bad I am with girls. I must have five friends in<br />
this exact situation right now, scattered across<br />
West County, and I’m the only one not in the<br />
back seat with the girl not wearing a shirt.<br />
We must have sat there for fifteen minutes,<br />
neither of us saying much. I asked about<br />
her job, and she told me. She asked about football,<br />
and I told her. But between these small<br />
discussions, which wouldn’t go for much more<br />
that forty-five seconds apiece, we just sat there<br />
in silence. And to think I’d be starting school<br />
again in almost a week. A wasted night. I was<br />
now cursing myself for not leaving the radio<br />
on. It’s really just the damn car. The two front<br />
seats were so far apart, with one large divider for<br />
an armrest. It wasn’t even an armrest at all, the<br />
more I thought about it. No, it was a barrier. A<br />
barrier impenetrable to my right arm’s attempts<br />
at her lap. You buy a car for 3,000 dollars and<br />
you think you’re getting a deal. But then you<br />
have it tested for emissions, and it fails. So you<br />
have to get it fixed, and wouldn’t you know<br />
it it’s going to cost another 800 dollars. A red<br />
Pontiac Grand Am with thousands of dollars<br />
in hidden costs, and the layout of the vehicle<br />
won’t even allow a guy to just reach his arm<br />
over there. So I’m lying here in this piece of<br />
shit, with this damn armrest blocking every<br />
move at reaching my hand over, and the only<br />
contact I’ve had all night is passing a lighter!<br />
You remove the armrest and bring the seats a<br />
little closer, and it’s now a few inches from a<br />
gentle brush of her thigh. Man, wouldn’t that<br />
just start it all. Just reach over, and set it on her<br />
thigh. Easy does it…<br />
made it to the armrest. I had to set my hand<br />
I down there. The damn armrest. I couldn’t go<br />
much further then the armrest without sacrificing<br />
my own dignity really. She’d know what I<br />
was trying to do, if she didn’t already. She had<br />
rolled on to her back, but her head was still<br />
turned in the other direction. She was chewing<br />
her gum; her legs were just a little spread apart<br />
under her denim skirt. I bet I have a comment<br />
about the type of gum she’s chewing, too. Or<br />
maybe her skirt. I bet I know some fun facts<br />
about her skirt. This would be so much easier<br />
with alcohol, or if we had smoked some pot.<br />
I’ve never smoked before, but I’d be more then<br />
willing to if it meant alleviating some of these<br />
problems my car was causing. That would really<br />
initiate the process. Get the ball rolling. That’s<br />
really all we needed. I could take over after
that, just kind of kick it into autopilot. I guess<br />
that’s how it worked. If she would just meet me<br />
halfway. Just meet me here on this armrest. If<br />
she would just make the first move.<br />
I<br />
“ think it’s time to take me home.” In one fluid<br />
motion her seat sprang upright again. I was<br />
left lying there feeling like a complete loser.<br />
What a blown chance. But I understood, and<br />
we pulled out of the dark parking lot behind the<br />
abandoned warehouse in Brentwood in silence.<br />
We were headed west on <strong>High</strong>way 40 when her<br />
cell phone went off.<br />
“You can answer it.”<br />
“Hello? Hey what’s going on Lauren? Yeah,<br />
what did you do tonight?” Ali sat there and<br />
listened for a while, and laughed once or twice.<br />
“Oh, that’s great! Oh, nothing I just stayed home<br />
tonight. Yeah, no, I’m just tired. No, it’s fine. I’ll<br />
call you tomorrow night when I’m off work. All<br />
right, see you.” She snapped the flip phone shut,<br />
and sank back into her seat. “I’m sorry. I just<br />
didn’t want to make it sound like…I just didn’t<br />
want to tell her you know. Just because we’re not<br />
like going out or anything so, if I was saying that<br />
I was just like hanging out with a guy behind a<br />
warehouse in Brentwood while they’re at a party<br />
they might think there’s something going when<br />
there’s nothing there.” That was the most she’d<br />
said since I picked her up.<br />
“No, yeah, I totally understand.”<br />
“Yeah, I know you do. I don’t mean to sound<br />
mean or anything. I don’t want to come across<br />
that way. Because I mean I had fun tonight.”<br />
“You did?”<br />
“Yeah, I did.”<br />
“We didn’t do anything. We just drove<br />
around and then sat there.”<br />
“I know. Well, I mean it would have been<br />
nice if we’d had something to do. But it’s all<br />
right, you know?”<br />
We got to her house at 11:24. She got out<br />
and went inside. I didn’t walk her up or<br />
anything. I don’t know if people even do that<br />
anymore. I put the car in reverse and headed<br />
home, disappointed if nothing else. I could have<br />
just made the move. I know she’d have gone for<br />
it. I guess she’s that type of girl. I don’t really<br />
know what that means… well, I guess I do. That<br />
armrest just made it so tough. It’s not really my<br />
fault; it’s the car’s fault. If the two seats were<br />
right next to each other I’m sure that something<br />
would have happened. I am completely positive<br />
of that. I decided to call her. I imagined that ring<br />
tone going off somewhere in her room, and her<br />
deciding to not answer it. Surprisingly, she got<br />
to it pretty quick.<br />
“Hey, Ali, it’s Mike again.”<br />
“Hey, Mike.”<br />
“Listen, Ali, I was thinking, it’s not really my<br />
fault. It was the car’s fault. It was the armrest’s<br />
fault.”<br />
“What are you talking about?”<br />
“You know, that divider. Between the<br />
seats.”<br />
“I don’t think I understand what you<br />
mean.”<br />
“Hey, do you want to sneak out tonight?”<br />
“Mike, what are you talking about?”<br />
“There’s no armrest in the backseat.<br />
“Why would we sneak out?” I guess I had<br />
to state it now. I had to state explicitly what my<br />
intentions were, to say what I had thought I had<br />
the courage to say when I made up my mind to<br />
call her. Why not.<br />
“So we can…you know…get on each other?”<br />
It really did sound just like that, and it felt all<br />
wrong right after it had left my mouth. It was<br />
almost degrading. It probably was degrading. It<br />
didn’t sound the way I had wanted to say it at<br />
all.<br />
“What! What are you talking about?” You<br />
want to sneak out so that you can just get on<br />
me? No. I have to work tomorrow. I’ve got to<br />
get up early. I would probably get caught by my<br />
parents. And besides,” her voice now dropping<br />
from disbelief in my petition to complete disgust<br />
in me, “I don’t even like you. I have no idea why<br />
I didn’t go with Lauren to that party tonight. A<br />
57
58<br />
wasted night. You have no idea how to treat a<br />
lady, let alone make conversation with one!” At<br />
that she hung up the phone.<br />
Ali had said she had fun tonight. I couldn’t<br />
figure this girl out. I picked her up at her house.<br />
I came up with all of the ideas too. I offered to<br />
go to a movie, or ice cream. I’d have paid, too.<br />
I just got this car, and all I thought was that it<br />
would be a good idea to go for a drive. Ali did<br />
too. That’s why we went. I didn’t even want to<br />
get on her when I had called earlier. She was the<br />
one that wanted to. I mean, who reclines a seat<br />
like that?<br />
was parking the car on the street in front<br />
I of my house when she called back. “Look,<br />
Mike, I’m sorry I hung up on you. You kind of<br />
caught me off guard, but it’s OK.”<br />
“I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.<br />
I guess I thought it was what you wanted.” I<br />
paused to think about it for a second. Why can’t<br />
I be real with this girl? The night couldn’t get<br />
much worse. “What did you want?”<br />
“I didn’t want anything.”<br />
“Then why didn’t you go the party? Why<br />
did you go with me? You said that you don’t<br />
even like me.”<br />
“Of course I like you. I just don’t like you<br />
like that. The way you were tonight. I don’t<br />
know; it just feels good to get out of the house.<br />
It felt good to be in a car that my parents weren’t<br />
driving. I mean we’re friends and all, even if we<br />
have nothing to talk about.”<br />
“We could have stuff to talk about. It was<br />
just being forced. I thought I was supposed to<br />
make the move. I don’t know.” I sat there outside<br />
my house on my front porch. Everyone would<br />
be asleep by now. I could go in whenever.<br />
“Well then, tell me something interesting<br />
about yourself, Mike.” That sounded forced, or<br />
even a little fake, but I knew it wasn’t.<br />
“Well, I guess you know I play football.<br />
That’s funny that the first thing I identify myself<br />
with is the football team. Well, I do more than<br />
play football. I was in two plays at school last<br />
year.” We just started talking. I just started talking,<br />
not worrying about what it sounded like to her.<br />
I had to draw on just about every aspect of my<br />
life, but I found things to say. After awhile she<br />
was telling me about stlpunk.com, and although<br />
I had no idea what she was talking about, I found<br />
her interesting. We actually could communicate.<br />
If nothing else it just felt good to be real with<br />
someone, without a mask.<br />
It’s funny what they say about cars, and how<br />
it’s good for guys to have conversations in cars,<br />
because they don’t have to look at each other.<br />
Well that’s not how it works in my car. I save it<br />
for the flip phone, after the car. It read 1:48 on<br />
the microwave when I went in to go to bed.<br />
Ty l e r Pe y
Li k e, p o e t ry a n d s t u f f<br />
Henry Goldkamp<br />
This started blankly<br />
and now a piece,<br />
certain sections are, well,<br />
not as blank.<br />
Kindly filled with ink, thoughts, letters, words,<br />
perhaps even feelings.<br />
Perhaps.<br />
But the thing of importance that it lacks is knowledge.<br />
Damn it!<br />
I promise you, my dear reader,<br />
If I had some I would gladly share it.<br />
Not even some—I’d share it all with you.<br />
But now I must give you a sincere apology<br />
because I have none.<br />
I only wonder now<br />
how long it will take for this to fade away<br />
or be erased by someone_____<br />
Only to be given another chance at figuring it out.<br />
And as long as scraps of paper are available,<br />
I will keep trying.<br />
Owning a large library,<br />
acquiring a taste for Chinese tea,<br />
using delightful, pleasing words.<br />
They don’t produce knowledge.<br />
I realized this a few books/sips/conversations ago,<br />
And I know I know nothing.<br />
I think some poets might, indeed,<br />
at this point claim something along the lines of,<br />
“Alas! I have uncovered knowledge in knowing I know nothing!”<br />
59<br />
But what brand of knowledge is that? Useless!<br />
Time to turn the page<br />
and try<br />
again<br />
again.
An Od e t o My Ba l l p o i n t Pe n<br />
Thad Winker<br />
60<br />
I sit and write<br />
with my ever-faithful,<br />
never-failing<br />
ballpoint pen.<br />
The tip slides across the paper<br />
like a figure skater,<br />
leaving a trail of elegance,<br />
rising up<br />
and falling back<br />
to the pad.<br />
Each period:<br />
a twirl on the ice.<br />
A colon:<br />
a leap with perfection<br />
in mind.<br />
Line<br />
by line<br />
my pen swivels across the page.<br />
Each mark is another<br />
complex maneuver<br />
hoping to award my pen<br />
a perfect ten.<br />
Oozing from the tip<br />
with unseen precision,<br />
the ink leaves a trail with bumps<br />
and turns. Each one more<br />
exquisite than the next.<br />
Oil dripping from a car,<br />
the ink shows the path<br />
of the pen.<br />
The line of black oil is<br />
sporadic,<br />
jumping<br />
from line<br />
to line.<br />
Twisting and turning<br />
a sudden<br />
stop.<br />
My pen makes its path<br />
through highways and parkways<br />
trying to get to school,<br />
it is my great tool.<br />
My pen sings in my fingers.<br />
Its song is written between the lines,<br />
a song of pain,<br />
a song of toil,<br />
this is the song<br />
of a man pushed too hard,<br />
a man stretched<br />
like a skater’s muscles.<br />
This is a song about<br />
a man losing his strength<br />
as a car loses its oil,<br />
its life line.<br />
My pen weeps as I weep,<br />
in pain, stretched from<br />
here<br />
to there.
Lo n g Da r k Ha l l w a y s<br />
a n d Ce d a r Cl o s e t s<br />
T. J. Keeley<br />
In my six-year-old mind, everything stopped<br />
that day. The late afternoon sun peered in<br />
my car window as I read The Very Hungry<br />
Caterpillar for the thousandth time. Reading,<br />
a skill Grandpa had helped me develop, fascinated<br />
me. It felt like it took an entire day for<br />
Mom to drive me to Grandpa’s farm. He often<br />
invited me to spend the night there and help<br />
him feed the chickens, collect the corn off the<br />
stalks, and pull the weeds out of his garden.<br />
This was the first time that it actually worked<br />
out for Mom to take me there, after my many<br />
weeks of begging. Grandpa had that way of<br />
getting things done the “right” way the first<br />
time so he wouldn’t have to do them again,<br />
and he would not stop unless everything met<br />
his satisfaction. I liked that best about Grandpa,<br />
his control over uncontrollable things, and his<br />
ability to deal with anything thrown his way.<br />
Occasionally, when the car would stop at a red<br />
light, I looked out the window at the sparkling<br />
sidewalk pavement. I thought about how he<br />
and I would talk about Kindergarten before<br />
he would sneak down the long, dark, and very<br />
scary hallway into the cedar closet at the end<br />
and bring back a flimsy cardboard box filled<br />
to the top with train cars, tracks, and hours of<br />
fun. He would sit in his brown, squeaky recliner<br />
chair with me on his lap and rock slowly back<br />
in forth while he watched the evening news,<br />
Channel 4, for how the weather would affect<br />
his work schedule tomorrow. As always, we<br />
would eat fried chicken and mashed potatoes<br />
(that I could never finish) and, after dinner, he<br />
would give me a brown paper bag filled with<br />
giant Tootsie Rolls to share with Adam, my<br />
brother. In the morning, he might let me ride<br />
in the tractor with him.<br />
The ringing of Mom’s cell phone interrupted<br />
my daydreaming. Dad had called. “Why?” she<br />
asked curiously. “Okay, I’ll pull over by the gym<br />
on 158.”<br />
She drove the white SUV off the main road<br />
and into a black asphalt parking lot where only<br />
one other car sat motionless. Mom just sat there,<br />
drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, with<br />
a talk-radio show playing quietly on the radio.<br />
Moments later, Dad arrived in his small black car<br />
and parked next to us. I looked out the window<br />
and saw the only other car in the parking lot pull<br />
away. Dad slowly opened his door and reluctantly<br />
got out of the car as if someone or something<br />
forced him to do so. His eyes squinted as if he<br />
searched for something in the distance, perhaps<br />
for the right words to say. His once-white tennis<br />
shoes showed blotched, brown dirt and his jeans<br />
were wrinkled. I could see a small coffee stain<br />
down the front of his shirt. After he slammed<br />
his door with more than the necessary force, I<br />
popped my door and yelled “Hey, Dad!”<br />
“Hi, son,” he answered back in a quiet tone<br />
and an emotionless face. <strong>St</strong>ill sitting in my seat,<br />
I could see that the sun hid in the clouds now,<br />
and the first claps of thunder made me jump in<br />
my seat.<br />
“Are you in?” Dad asked, making sure I<br />
wasn’t hanging out of the car before closing the<br />
door. He lacked the liveliness he would normally<br />
display when he greeted us. He raised one lazy<br />
arm to open Mom’s door and motioned with<br />
that hand for her to get out. All I could sense<br />
from the world around me was the beeping of<br />
the car that stopped when Mom closed her door<br />
after getting out. Once her door slammed, I no<br />
longer heard the thunder in the sky, or either of<br />
their voices. The tinted windows in the back seat<br />
made it difficult to make out details. Dad stared<br />
at the ground for a long moment, again appearing<br />
to looking for something he might have lost.<br />
He raised his head slightly and, with lowered<br />
eyebrows, opened his mouth only half way and<br />
muttered something inaudible to Mom. Immediately,<br />
Mom’s eyes got really big and deserted.<br />
The gusts of cool air had taken away every sliver<br />
61
62<br />
of happiness from Mom’s face, and Dad gave<br />
her a long hug. The sun completely hid in the<br />
clouds now and a light drizzle of rain started. I<br />
could then see Mom’s face. It looked like she’d<br />
been crying. But Mom didn’t cry, did she? No,<br />
she must be laughing, but about what? It seemed<br />
like an eternity as I sat in that car, completely<br />
removed from the entire world around me, and<br />
the longer I waited to learn what had happened,<br />
the further away from them I grew. The glass in<br />
the car window seemed thicker as I sat deeper in<br />
my leather seat in the car. I sat there in a strange<br />
trance knowing something had gone wrong, but<br />
not how wrong. After several moments, Mom<br />
opened the car door, and I could again hear the<br />
noises of the world around me resuming their<br />
courses: the rain, the thunder, the beeping, the<br />
traffic. Dad waved me into his car, but didn’t<br />
open my door. I stepped down from the high<br />
position at which I sat in the white Navigator<br />
and stepped down from the joyous attitude the<br />
day once knew. I settled into the back seat of<br />
the passenger side of Dad’s small black car and<br />
looked at Mom out the window. She sat in her<br />
car crying, and I sat there staring as we drove<br />
away and the image of her got smaller.<br />
I asked Dad, “What’s happening? Is everybody<br />
okay?”<br />
Dad spoke to me on the car ride for the first<br />
time. “No, no, son. It’s Grandpa. He died this<br />
morning in his bed.”<br />
Grandpa? Surely not my Grandpa. No, he<br />
invited me to his farm today to spend the night<br />
there. He could not have died. I suddenly felt this<br />
emptiness eating away at my stomach. I blamed<br />
God for the sense of betrayal I felt. What did dead<br />
mean for me, surely this a temporary thing. He<br />
would be back soon, I thought.<br />
I did see Grandpa again, but not the way a grandson<br />
should see him. He lay there, motionless, with<br />
his eyes closed, in a black box. He looked pale<br />
and thin, not like the Grandpa I remembered.<br />
People much taller than me dressed in black and<br />
carrying tissues surrounded me. They, like Mom<br />
had, cried and kept repeating how sorry they felt.<br />
I didn’t know what all this meant. People stood<br />
in line waiting to see a dead person, my grandpa.<br />
Children my age and younger ran around laughing.<br />
Many people stood in small groups talking<br />
about happy things, forcing a smile and pretending<br />
everything went well. I could see out the small<br />
glass window on the wall on the right that the rain<br />
had come again. How could everything change<br />
in my life as soon as Dad pulled up in his small<br />
black car on that empty black parking lot? Was this<br />
a dream, or a joke? Grandpa liked to joke a lot.<br />
I began to convince myself that he would<br />
get out of that black box smiling and laughing.<br />
He would come over to me and take his<br />
false teeth out, a trick that always fascinated<br />
me. We would go to his house and everything<br />
would go back to normal. But it didn’t happen.<br />
I stood there, in the middle of the room<br />
by myself staring at Grandpa in the coffin.<br />
All hope of a saved day suddenly escaped<br />
when I realized that those false teeth would never<br />
come out again. We would never again sit and<br />
talk about Kindergarten or eat fried chicken and<br />
mashed potatoes. I wondered who would feed the<br />
chickens, collect the corn and care for the garden,<br />
if not Grandpa. I realized that Grandpa had made<br />
his last trip down that long, dark hallway to get the<br />
old cardboard box full of trains. But, to Grandpa,<br />
in life, one would have to take long scary walks<br />
down dark hallways because reaching the cedar<br />
closet at the end and playing with his grandson outweighed<br />
any fear the hallway might give. Grandpa<br />
once told me, “It’s important to work hard in<br />
your life, because dying would be even harder.”<br />
Grandpa had always told us that he no<br />
longer feared death after Grandma had died. He<br />
felt he had lived a good life and couldn’t wait to<br />
see her again. As his friends and the people he<br />
knew started to die, he told us, “If I could pick<br />
my way to go, I would want to die right there<br />
in my bed, peacefully during my sleep.” And he<br />
did.
Spit ting Im a g e<br />
Timlin Glaser<br />
A nineteen-year-old version of my father<br />
<strong>St</strong>ares at me from a thirty-eight-year-old photograph<br />
Out of the small, broody blue eyes he gave me,<br />
Hoarding the same glimmer I see in the mirror<br />
His face gleams of innocence behind a cigarette<br />
His cheeks<br />
Not yet permanently speckled with stubble<br />
His forehead<br />
Not yet drooping with age<br />
His head boasts of hair, thin but present at least,<br />
His hands, smooth, free of the cracks and wrinkles<br />
He now brandishes after years of hard work<br />
His arms are thin and nearly hairless<br />
63<br />
His half-smile poses angst<br />
Of his uncertain future<br />
He’s just a boy, like me<br />
Do m Pa l u m b o
64<br />
Th e Tu r n<br />
Tony Bertucci<br />
T<br />
he soft thud of the tennis ball against the tan bricks of my house<br />
must have caught the attention of my neighbor. I had my brandnew<br />
tiny baseball glove, not quite plastic but not quite leather, and I<br />
was breaking it in on the side of my house. I was six years old.<br />
Bill traipsed over in his work boots and flannel shirt. He was an<br />
austere, nearly senile carpenter who had lived in the house next door for<br />
the majority of his life. I dropped the ball and stared at him as it rolled<br />
up to his boots. He stooped over, grunting, and snatched the ball off the<br />
ground.<br />
“I used to be a ball player, ya know.”<br />
I was too afraid of Bill to respond. Once I accidentally rode behind<br />
his truck with my tricycle and he called me a dingbat. Since that incident<br />
I had grown wary of him.<br />
He flipped the ball up and down with his crusty paws.<br />
“I was a shortstop, and a good one too. Just make sure when you<br />
play shortstop that you be careful on the turn. You know what the turn<br />
is, don’t you kid?”<br />
I didn’t know what the turn was. I nodded my head anyway.<br />
“I wasn’t careful until I learned it the hard way. Got spiked right<br />
in the shin.” He pulled up his pant leg and revealed a dark purple scar<br />
trailing down his shin to his ankle.<br />
“The next time that guy came in on me, you know what I did?”<br />
I was still staring at his ankle, frightened at how the story might<br />
conclude.<br />
“I’ll tell you. I dropped the ball—I dropped it, right there on the<br />
ground—and I let him slide on in. When he looked up at me, I took my<br />
glove up and slapped that sonofabitch right across the face with it.”<br />
I turned around and ran in, leaving my plastic glove in the grass<br />
outside.