OF 2012 - The Writing Disorder

the writing disorderpresentsTHE BEST FICTION ANDNONFICTIONOF 2012edited by c.e. lukather

The Writing Disorder PresentsThe Best Fictionand NonFiction of 2012Published byTHE WRITING DISORDERa Literary JournalC.E. Lukather, Editorwww.thewritingdisorder.com© 2012 THE WRITING DISORDER1

ISBN Number 978-1-300-33859-8This book may not be reproduced in whole, part or miniscule pieces, in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical or supernaturally, including photocopying, ghosting, recording or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system now known to man or hereafter invented without the writtenpermission from the author(s).Designed and edited by C.E. LukatherInitial edit by our wonderful writersProofread by someone on our staffPublished by The Writing DisorderAll rights reserved.©2012Cover Image: Apartment building in West Hollywood, CA, where F. Scott Fitzgerald died.Photograph by C.E. LukatherThe Writing DisorderP.O. Box 93613Los Angeles, CA 90093-0613Website:Contact:Submit:www.thewritingdisorder.cominfo@thewritingdisorder.comsubmit@thewritingdisorder.comWe read submissions all year long.2

Remember. Forget. Forget. Remember.Sometimes we forget about people—who they were, what theywere saying, or even what they mean to us. The written wordcan be a powerful reminder. While it’s difficult to remembereverything we’ve read this year, what we’ve included here isthe best—work we feel is worth reading again and again.We love reading the work that’s sent to our offices every day.Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s great, and sometimesit’s not quite what we were hoping for. There’s always roomfor improvement. We strive to publish the best work we can.Sometimes we miss out on certain pieces, but when we do wetry to replace it with something better.With this edition, we present you with our best work of theyear. Once you’ve read through it, we think you’ll agree.It’s something to remember.C.E. LukatherEditor3

TABLE of CONTENTSSPRINGELIEZRA SCHAFFZIN...................................................... 8MELISSA PALMER..........................................................15PAMELA LINDSEY DREIZEN.........................................20CLAIRE NOONAN............................................................30BEN ORLANDO................................................................40JOE KILGORE...................................................................51FRANCIS CHUNG............................................................62KEVIN RIDGEWAY..........................................................72KAROLINE BARRETT.....................................................75HENRY F. TONN..............................................................79LILY MURPHY.................................................................84SUMMERBRIAN S. HART................................................................89JESSICA L. CAUDILL......................................................93AMANDA MCTIGUE........................................................99LESLIE JOHNSON..........................................................102BRANDON BELL............................................................108MARIJA STAJIC.............................................................114RACHEL BENTLEY........................................................118REBECCA WRIGHT.......................................................124ORLIN OROSCHAKOFF.................................................131J.J. ANSELMI..................................................................134MELANIE L. HENDERSON............................................141S.M.B...............................................................................150ANNETTE RENEE..........................................................1564

the BEST of 2012FALLCAROLINE ROZELL......................................................169LORRAINE COMANOR..................................................179MARC SIMON.................................................................193LEN JOY.........................................................................198PRISCILLA MAINARDI.................................................211HARVEY SPURLOCK....................................................218MAX SHERIDAN............................................................224KATJA ZURCHER..........................................................240LINDA NORDQUIST......................................................247STEVEN MILLER...........................................................250COLLEEN CORCORAN..................................................253CHELSEY CLAMMOR...................................................259ALIA VOLZ.....................................................................265WINTERRADHA BHARADWAJ...................................................268BARRIE WALSH.............................................................278EMIL DEANDREIS.........................................................288BRETT BURBA...............................................................298MAUI HOLCOMB...........................................................301DAVID S. ATKINSON....................................................307SHANNON MCMAHON.................................................312FRANCES O’BRIEN.......................................................324SHAE KRISPINSKY........................................................328DAVID B. COMFORT.....................................................332CHASE S. WILKINSON..................................................3395

FICTIONSPRING 20127

THE PUZZLEby Eliezra SchaffzinIwas an ordinary child, ordinary even in the things I did extraordinarily,such as my high marks at school, my energetic pursuit of the arts and ofvolunteerism, my adherence to my parents’ rules and vocal support of theirreligious and cultural values, et cetera. It was all this ordinary extraordinarinessthat clinched my acceptance to a premier university, the name of which willbe unimportant to this account, as will my own name. (Even now, I writeunder a pseudonym, a fact that will also be irrelevant here, as you’ll soon seefor yourself.) In my first term I continued to cultivate my extraordinary wellroundednesswith coursework in mathematics (infinitesimal calculus), in thesocial sciences (education), the humanities (intellectual history) and the arts(African Drumming and Dance was a favorite at the school, and I enjoyed thoseautumn afternoons when I pounded, barefoot, on the sloping green outside theTheater Department, losing myself in a swirl of white limbs and colorfullydyed skirts). I enjoyed everything with the proper zeal and considered nothingtoo deeply. As part of an agreement with my parents I took a position at one ofthe school’s late-night eateries, preparing portable dinners ordered by campusphone. It was there, at the place called “The Gate,” that I met Castor.This young man’s name was as improbable as his appearance, six-foot-nineand paper-thin, a long, wan face punctuated by distant emerald eyes. He worea red apron that designated him, a senior, as my supervisor (I wore white), andthe only garment long enough to cover his frame was also too wide, its edgesoverlapping one another on the plane of his back. Instantly I was in love. Casnoticed my flushed cheeks, my carelessly scribbled orders, my pony-tail askew;he soon made a habit of leaning against the wall beside me where the phone wasbeginning to loosen from its mounts, and, when there was a lull in its usuallyfrantic ringings, he would tell me something of himself. It seemed that thoughhis weight had always been thinly spread across his skeletal form, he had lostmuch of the meat beneath his skin during the previous school year, which he’dspent abroad, writing a paper under the auspices of the foreign studies program;no academic department had seen fit to accept his subject matter as appropriateto its own concerns. He would explain the topic of this paper, he promised, whenI visited the private room he rented off-campus, one of the many privileges ofupperclassmen. I devoted much of my waking thoughts to the prospect of thisvisit, and so many of my dreams. My hopes were cut short mid-term, however,on a night when the televisions suspended at perilous angles from the wallsof The Gate broadcast the outcome of that year’s presidential election and Iconfessed I was too young to have cast a vote. It was true: I had matriculated8

at the age of seventeen, not due to any impressive grade-skipping, as many ofmy peers suspected, but because of the awkward placement of my birth date onthe first day of a new calendar year; some nursery-school matron had deemedit appropriate for me to join the children born in the previous year and myparents had concurred. I had never been forced to face a single consequence ofthis formerly amusing discrepancy until that election night at The Gate, when Ideclared I was not yet “legal” and saw Cas back away from me with his eyes.That was November of my freshman year. In my humiliation, I threwmyself into poetry, another of my high-school pursuits, and in my fervor appliedto several competitive writing workshops that rarely admitted first-year students.I was accepted to all of them, and I returned triumphantly to campus after thefirst of the year to pursue my studies in the literary arts with not one, but twoof the school’s highly celebrated authors. With my parents’ blessing I left myposition at The Gate, promising to look for tutoring work more suited to myintellectual skills and which I could ensure would not interfere with my alreadyadvanced studies. I had not, however, seen the last of Cas: our encounters wereinevitable, as my workshops met in the evening and I was forced to miss dinnerin the traditional cafeteria, leaving me no choice but to collect my meal fromThe Gate before I retreated to the library for the night. Cas had gained little bodymass over the holiday, and once again my eyes were drawn to that place wherehis apron curled in excess scrolls in the small of his back. On my very firstvisit, he shyly wished me a belated happy birthday; on my second, I received aninvitation to his apartment at last. Did I resent the delay, my forced subjugationto the false construct of a new calendar year? In those days, I barely had timeto contemplate such a slight to my fledgling womanhood. Other tunes—ofstaggering beauty, of grandiose suffering—sang in my head, and they occupiedthe pages I submitted to my workshops. On a February evening, I stood aside,my book-bag over one shoulder, while Cas flung the day’s collection of garbageinto the dumpster behind The Gate. Then I walked in trembling silence throughthe icy night to his apartment.Cas had promised to tell me of his travels, and it was a promise hehonorably kept. We spent the first eager hours of my visit on his fold-outcouch—first perched at its edge, then, as the night wore on, reclining againstits cushions, and then later (when I returned, still transported, from therestroom) sprawled on our stomachs across the bed he had in the meantimeunfolded—examining the most curious book I had ever encountered. It wasnot a particularly lengthy text—it owed most of its thickness to curled andcracking pages that would not let the leaves fully touch—though its surfacearea was something like that of an atlas, or an oversized children’s dictionary.I did in fact come to think of it as a children’s book, with its bright colors andthe round-faced figures that populated its illustrations. It was a sort of abridgedencyclopedia, Cas explained, of the land where he had spent his junior year.I watched with delight as he turned to a map on the book’s cover-leaf andindicated a tiny island-state equidistant from two coasts joined at a right angle—it might have been the Bay of Bengal he showed me, his island wedged betweenthe waters of Myanmar and Bangladesh, though perhaps the crook of the armformed by the Alaskan and Canadian coastlines more accurately reflects thetopography Cas traced with his elegant fingers that night. “Untouched,” Cas had9

10called it, and I nodded, enchanted by his pronunciation of the word, though Igave little thought to what this could mean.Cas had learned to speak the country’s language fluently and even toread its elaborate script, which he translated for me as he read his favoritepages, those depicting the National Circus. From what I understood of Cas’sexplications, “circus” was a very loose translation for the traveling, year-roundfestival that was the topic of his academic paper; his name for this people’spractice of “circus” was meant to connote neither the brutality of Rome’sancient diversion, nor the formalized sort of performance to which we in thiscountry take our children, hoping they will be charmed and not terrorized bythe daring of the animal tamers and acrobats, the antics of the clowns, but rathersomething more loyal to the root of the word, to its circular nature, or even tothat British landmark, that open, circular place where many paths meet. Thebook contained no photographs, but its lively illustrations depicted somethingwondrous: a spectacle both earnest and joyous—I could see this illuminated inthe participants’ expressions—a ceremony of costume and mask, of plain dressand honest face. The ornate text remained impenetrable to me, even as my hostrecited the words in my mother-tongue; instead I was deafened by the images,which overcame me with their noise and with their light. The particular viewthat captivated me had a vantage point low to the ground, and I had not the senseof arena nor tent nor of any structure whatsoever, the sort of picture a bird’s-eyeview may have provided. Yet my heart beat painfully when, with unfamiliarsuddenness, I saw nonetheless what was meant by circle: in this gathering offoreign masses everyone faced everyone; I saw actors and audience lockedtogether in performance, and I witnessed a story told, one which was not in theworld but was the world itself—and with this realization the circus bled acrossthe page and beyond it into my very own hands. The illusion startled me, to besure, but I could not find the strength to push the book away, for it had stirredin me a sensation I distinctly felt myself fail to understand, and this failingfrightened me more than anything in my ordinarily extraordinary life up untilthat moment.But the sensation did not last; in a split second after these thoughts crossedmy mind—thoughts I believe I was meant to forget—I felt the young manI’d followed home reach for me, and I heard the miraculous book slip downthe sagging mattress and fall to the floor. I’d kissed a boy before; I’d kissedin a horizontal position such as this one with little delight, with even lessanticipation—no more, I’d say, than the ordinary sense of one’s adult destiny.But the flush that had stolen across my face each night of my fall semester nowfound its meaning in the arms of this creature, this man I’d pined for withoutreason ever since I’d left my parents’ home, and anything I’d experienced sinceI’d come to his room disappeared in the glow of that reality. I understood I wasto lose my virginity to the boy called Cas, who reached one long arm up thewall to the light switch and brought darkness upon the room before he broughthimself upon me, feather-light and infinite. I closed my eyes—as I have said,I was an ordinary girl, and I believed closed eyes and a beating heart were allI was meant to contribute to this encounter—and in one final thought of thatodd, cheerful book I imagined Cas’s thin form towering above those unifiedmasses, an alien standard waving in the festive circus air. Then, with my breath

still tremulously held in my lungs, instead of the music I’d so long expected, Ifelt his struggle. I would soon understand the obvious anatomical implicationsof my chosen lover’s proportions and my own body’s inexperience, but at thetime, I forgave myself nothing, understood nothing, consumed as I was withshame: the words crossed my mind—as so many did in the early stages of myartistry, so many words filling notebooks I would later destroy with further, moreenduring shame—my heart has opened but my body will not receive him. Thenwith the pain I thought of the blood—this I’d been taught to expect, and evenso the thought of it caused me greater shame, and even as Cas lay atop me, hisface not matched with mine but somewhere beyond it on the mattress, his stillclothedtorso the only sight hovering above me, a lean-to propped by his polethinarms—I glanced beside the bed, into my open book-bag, where wedgedbetween too many library books I was relieved to see the sanitary napkin thatI was certain would soon receive my bleeding. That deluge, however, neverarrived. In my innocence, I comprehended only my failure: I did not receive himin time. His body rolled away from mine and without another glance I collectedmyself, my soiled clothing, my book-bag with its mocking contents—literature!Overnight pads, extra heavy flow!—and, after another, frantic stop in his filthybathroom, I fled.* * *So now you think yes, she is not modest in her protestations, she was anordinary girl. You have heard this story before; perhaps it is your own. Youshould not think differently when I tell you that twenty-four hours had notpassed since this episode when I learned that Cas was dead. Like any ordinarygirl, I had lingered in bed longer than usual the following morning, refusingto face the obligations of the day: a morning seminar in aesthetics, an exerciseclass at noon, tutoring at three-thirty, workshop at six o’clock. I finally creptfrom my room at ten that night, when I knew The Gate would be busiest, andsought the consolation of food. I told myself I could avoid my would-havebeenbeau in the crowd, though of course my desire was for just the opposite:despite myself, I longed to see him. He was worldly; perhaps he would be kind.To my great surprise, The Gate was crowded but quiet. The phone at my oldpost was off its hook, even the hanging televisions had been silenced, and in thecenter of the serving area stood a woman from the deans’ office, come to tellCas’s co-workers, and anyone else who wished to affiliate him or herself withthe deceased, that the boy had fallen while he competed in a casual sportingevent, fallen and not risen again. It was his heart. A girl beside me nodded, saida famously tall athlete had died in just that fashion a few weeks before. Anarrhythmia, the girl pronounced. The woman from the deans was there to excuseanyone from work who needed excusing, and to talk. I returned to my room.I tossed my book-bag (which I had planned to take with me to the libraryafter I dined, the second thwarted trip to the stacks in as many days) onto mybed, and I followed it there absentmindedly. For once, I felt truly extraordinary. Iwas eighteen years old; I had a dead almost-lover. This, I thought, would be thedefining moment of my life. In my youthful fashion, I’d misread the nature ofmy circumstances, but I had not overestimated their significance: as I collapsed11

12against my pillows in a mixture of sorrow and self-pity and excitement—andwords, of course, the imminence of words!—my foot spilled the contents ofmy open bag across my blankets. There, among the borrowed library texts, thecomposition notebooks worn from use, and that feminine accoutrement, wrappedin plastic and pink, which had mocked me in my distress, was an envelopedecorated in an artistic style I immediately recognized as that of the mysteriousbook Cas had shown me the night before. It mirrored the book in shape aswell—a robust rectangle—though it was slightly smaller in its dimensions thanthe text itself. It occurred to me, with a twinge of embarrassment, that it musthave slipped into my bag during our clumsy writhings on the bed. Like the book,the envelope was weathered and lumpy, but as I reached for it I realized thiscondition was not solely due to age and wear. A thing of some volume had beenstuffed inside, and with a swift break of a seal at one end I discovered what thatthing was: a collection of puzzle pieces, all marked with the ornate lettering andcolorful brushstrokes that had distinguished Cas’s book. Like its boldly renderedfaces, these pieces were large, the contours of their edges obvious, and I knewit would take little time to assemble the image and discover its subject. Anotherobvious feature of this toy was its clear demarcation of two separate surfaces:though it was painted on both sides, each side adhered to a different colorscheme, so there was no mistaking the proper linkage of any of the pieces, orany question as to whether they all were properly turned in the same direction.Pulling one of my writing journals from the mess on the bed, I set to snappingthe pieces together against its flat surface.How had I moved so swiftly from such tragic heartache to the vigorouspursuit of a child’s game? Let me assure you I had not forgotten my fallencompanion. In fact, the discovery of the puzzle had led to a heightenedconsciousness on my part of the relevance of Cas’s death. Had he lived, Irealized, I would have most likely uncovered the envelope in the calm of thelibrary, where, amid the sober volumes, I would not have found the gall tobreak what was clearly an unopened seal; indeed, being my parents’ daughter,I doubt I would have even considered the act. Instead I would have gatheredmy books and retraced my steps to The Gate, where I would have reunitedenvelope with owner. And yes, I would no doubt have seized the opportunityto look once again into those green eyes and see how they might regard me inreturn. But I had met, at The Gate, with bad news, so I had not continued on tomake my discovery in the hallowed stacks, nor was Cas aware of the envelope’sabsence, and it was becoming apparent to me, as I realized the puzzle was muchlarger and more complex than I had originally thought, and I was requiredto lay another notebook beside the first, so that both poetry and fiction weresummoned to the puzzle’s service, that this circumstance was more than a meretweaking of fate. With each satisfying interlock of one piece with another—andthe snap of the thin wooden pieces was remarkably satisfying, palpably so, asif something within me warmed to the process in a way of which even I myselfwas unaware—a certain sensation from the previous night returned to me, bit bybit, piece by piece, a memory I had been destined to forget, drowned as it wasby others, but which now resurfaced with increasing force: I had seen somethingincomprehensible in the leaves of that bright and raucous book, in its bizarre,ecstatic circle, a thing reciprocal and omnipresent and utterly impossible—

and its impossibility had nearly blinded me. Now it drove my fingers to graspfor another piece of the puzzle, then another, slinging my thoughts fromdespair—where had all the pieces come from? How could I possibly fit them alltogether?—to rapture, each time one piece of the world linked with another. Andit seemed it was precisely the world in which this puzzle dealt: on the side I hadchosen to configure, I recognized my native land, and the lands directly south ofit, though to the East the boundary of the puzzle dropped off in a straight line,suggesting the rest of the world would constitute itself to the West, an order towhich I was unaccustomed. Still, as I labored on, the world as I knew it tookshape across my bed. It comforted me, this world, dulling the various horrorsI’d felt fleetingly and enduringly the previous night and which threatened, forsome unknown reason, to overtake me again now; I was certain that if I couldfinish this puzzle, all would be right with the world, so to speak; order would berestored, and I could rest.Rest! Why did I feel it had eluded me for so long? I had slept little the nightbefore, that is true, and though I’d passed the better part of the day in bed, itwas in waking torment, not in dreams. But this weariness I now sensed withinme as I persisted with the pieces still left in the envelope felt entirely new andstretched back several lifetimes. I felt soon I could not go on, yet I would haveto; I was compelled to complete the puzzle; my life—my life!—depended on it.Already you’ve dismissed this rant: the dramatic hallucinations of a young girlnew to loss. But you’ve stayed with me thus far, with the familiar imaginingsof an ordinary girl, so perhaps it is familiarity that will urge you on with menow. A fever had overtaken me, yet I was not overcome; I could do nothing butcomplete the puzzle, and complete it I did—perhaps in minutes, perhaps hours, Icannot be sure which. And the relief I had anticipated descended like waterfalls,thunderous and refreshing. I stood beside the bed and stretched my aching limbs;below me lay the completed puzzle, the globe, intact, and as I basked in theglow of accomplishment a thought occurred to me, a memory of the island fromwhich this puzzle was certain to have come; I knelt at my own bedside to lookfor it, though surely on this map it would appear as only the tiniest of specks—would I truly find an island, or some errant piece of dust? Yet before I could seekit out, I was seized by another compulsion—not violently, but with a steady sortof momentum that had crept up behind my sense of satisfaction, my peace withthe world, and now loomed larger within me than my sense of the world itself:what of the other side?I had not forgotten: there was another image on the reverse, one I hadforsaken in favor of this satisfying one, though when I set out to assemble thepuzzle I could not have known I’d chosen the surface that would depict myworld in such absolute and edifying terms. Instinct may have drawn me tothis side, but now instinct forced my hands beneath my notebooks; I gentlyflipped the image and gazed at its verso. My brow furrowed as it had numeroustimes that evening: though the edges joined as smoothly here as they had inmy world on the reverse, here they formed no picture at all, just a mélange ofshape and color, hardly different from the opposite side’s appearance before Ihad accomplished my task. A clever trick, I thought: surely the pieces of thepuzzle—so numerous, so curiously shaped—could come together in some otherorder than the one I’d already followed. One side would have to be disassembled13

for the other to be complete. And before I knew what I was doing I was seatedagain at my notebooks, tearing the pieces apart that had only just delighted mewith their juncture. I set to constructing the puzzle’s other side.Oh, why could I not remain satisfied with the colorful world I’d discoveredfirst? I had triumphed once, fashioning the world as I knew it to be. It had itsflaws, to be sure, its terrors, its tyrannies, but I had heard its music ringing trueto my ears—if only I had left it at that. I was an ordinary girl, one who couldhave slipped that picture into her bag and skipped along as she had done before;perhaps she would have been a prolific writer, one whose words came easily,full of knowable beauty and lyrical suffering, a professor at a premier universitywith workshops in the evening. Not the writer that I am, the other sort you know,alone in her study, with her books, her manuscripts, nothing she can show forherself, how does she spend those dusty hours, and whatever for? Or perhaps Icould have been a lawyer—have I said my mother was a lawyer? And my fathera doctor, always disappointed I hadn’t found faith in the sciences, since he hadand was saved. Not I: I sat at my notebooks, and, recalling a circle I was nevermeant to understand—not I, with my high marks and clever looks and ear formusic and eye for beauty—I tore my beautiful world apart, and reassembledit (after all, I was a clever girl) to find another world, one so perfect it isimpossible to look upon without pain in one’s eyes, and then the pain in the eyesdisappears because one’s eyes are gone, one’s self is gone, and the only way toreturn is to rip this better world, the one barely discovered, to pieces.I would like to ignore the puzzle, but that is not my fate. If it is I whostopped Cas’s heart then it is I who brought this life upon my own self, and ifother forces brought him down, then that the puzzle fell into my hands is nothingmore than chance. Either way, I am its prisoner, assembling and reassemblingtwo worlds that cannot co-exist, one world that I cannot let lie, another I can’tbring myself to see, for fear it will obliterate me. Indeed, it should have falleninto other hands, not the hands of an ordinary girl such as myself. But who elseto bear the burden? Should it have been you?Eliezra Schaffzin taught writing for ten years at Harvard University and theRhode Island School of Design, but she has recently turned herself over to herown fictions. Her short pieces have appeared or are forthcoming with Fifty-TwoStories, Agni Online, Post Road, mixer, SmokeLong Weekly, elimae, Barrelhouse,Word Riot, Knee-Jerk, PANK, and other publications. She is at work on anovel—a story of magic, seduction, and the first American department stores, forwhich she received a research grant from the New-York Historical Society.14

MRS. MacMILLAN’s GARDENby Melissa PalmerThe entrance to Twin Oaks was guarded by the two eponymous giants.They flanked its wrought iron gates with an air of certain permanencethough the neighborhood smelled of fresh paint and newly laid sod. Anddespite the hint of belonging that clung to the summer breeze, they acted morelike outsiders, forbidden lovers ousted from the circle within, branches stretchedfrom either side of the street with yearning fingertips that would never touch.Mrs. MacMillan loved those trees. They served as dutiful reminders everytime she returned home that someone would be there waiting, even if it wasa pair of deciduous sentries. The trips to the big warehouse had become morefrequent than she would like to admit now that the warm weather had kicked infull swing. But they were a necessary evil, especially here in Twin Oaks.She turned left hard into the entryway and immediately felt her hands relaxjust a touch. The little hamlet had all the shape and good luck of a horseshoeturned on its side and she settled a little knowing that she was back where shewas meant to be. One turn removed her from the harshness of the world shebriefly visited for the base needs: a jug of milk, a can of coffee, three bags ofdiatomaceous earth. Hers was a world of thick emerald greenery and sweetdelicious smells, a tiny universe where doors were left open and no one caredthat there were no fences to block the view into a neighbor’s yard. There waschubby Mrs. Womack walking the golden retriever she swore was as smart asshe was and as far as Mrs. MacMillan was concerned, the matron was not thatfar off. Her dog and she had the same puzzled look as she gave a wobbly andhesitant hello. As if she didn’t recognize Mrs. MacMillan’s van?The woman kept busy, that was for sure. Her home, the Grandview, was thelargest in the whole lot visible even from outside the gates, standing at the headof what looked like a giant beetle, a circle of glorious homes built to suit thebetter needs of the best suited to fill the prime estates that were Twin Oaks. Herswas the flagship, the masterpiece, the mother of all the homes. It was mirroredby none but the plantations of yore, wrapped in an old-fashioned lemonadedrinking porch, with rocking chairs and oversized hanging plants bursting fromtheir pots. It was a vision in white, two large picture windows on the secondfloor set off in ebony panels lacquered dark to match the double door thatmarked the entryway. It was simple in its elegance, just like Mrs. MacMillan.It was only a five minute trip to the megastore at the shopping complex butshe had gone on three separate trips just today. Hers was the biggest and oldestin the crop of homes that had sprouted within the past five years. The upkeepwas exhausting but none so much exhausting as the inescapable fallout that15

16follows a house of that caliber showing any sign of disrepair, not to mention theshame. That kind of disgrace would be insufferable and she wouldn’t have it.Three years ago the homeowner’s association, then a burgeoning group ofwell-doers had honored her for the second year in a row for the assorted flowersthat grew in her garden out back. It was a repeat of the inaugural year. They hadbeen so good they’d named her twice, Best Blooms. And she had worn that blueribbon with honor, nodding humbly at the well wishers who whispered aboutthe scarlet beauties that graced the small Shangri-La she engineered off the backporch, the bravest of which who asked to sit there amongst the wonders thatdefied the laws of nature.She pulled her packages out of the car and waved absently to the youngishmom of two from down the street who ran up and out of the neighborhood atleast twice a week. She didn’t know her name but admired her begonias andtaste in social etiquette. She was not part of the association that insulted andignored. She was also new enough to the neighborhood to avoid silent judgmentand whispered critiques. She didn’t look as she passed in front of the emptyspace that used to be Mrs. MacMillan’s garden, not once for what she was toonew to remember and not twice for a wonder she couldn’t forget.Mrs. Granger would be having tea by now. The faint scent of cinnamontoast came wafting from the house to the right. It was the Victorian Hempstead,not as large as Mrs. MacMillan’s but a handsome home, ornately detailed with anod to the craftsmanship of times gone by, an ode to the decade the woman wasborn. She had no idea how old Granger was, a woman of diction and stature whohad no first name. She carried herself with grace and the air of someone worthy.But her wizened face and paper hands betrayed her to all witnesses. Her housedid not show the same wear as her body or disappearing lips, her teeth thatseemed unnaturally long, the slight hump she tried to hide under designer suitsand sweaters from across the pond. She spoke with the subtle confidence of onewho knew she would be queen someday, and the patience of a lady who couldwait forever if she had to for her ascent to the crown.She said this morning smiling into Mrs. MacMillan’s yard, “Perhaps thiswill be your year,” accented syllables through the whitewashed planks behindher shriveled lips.That had sent the younger of the women out the first time for three bagsof a mix that was certified organic and a morning spent tilling the soil witha sprinkling of tepid water. There were no gardeners or husband for Mrs.MacMillan to speak of. It was just her, the house and the soft earth just out back.She fixed herself a snack and brewed a pot of coffee out of habit to take theedge off after settling down her third batch of bags from the last trip out.The Pollack’s to the left had been grilling just after she’d finished up the lastof the organic bags. They didn’t say much. They ate quietly snubbing her barrenpatch, wrangling their 2.4 catalog children back into their Gabled Homestead, anewer and smaller model on the lot that made up for what it lacked in space withgaud and high tech construction. Much like the Pollack’s, the Gabled Homesteadlacked panache and held for Mrs. MacMillan zero interest.She washed the sticky, fetid mess from her hands before her second tripto the megamart, this time for lye and a roll of thick plastic to deal with pestswho might interfere with her plans. She would cover every angle, account for

every variable. As her neighbor had said, this would be her year.She was patting down the dark patch just in front the bench meant foradmiring what was there when the young couple from the far end of the U hadwalked past again, a ritual the newlyweds shared, looping up and down the curlof their new neighborhood in attempts to master their new surroundings, as ifthe learning curve here was one of any actual difficulty. They were getting usedto things, to each other. She could only assume they were from the way theirmeasured steps matched in rhythm and how the pace was punctuated by inwardturns and hopeful glances, the kind of hope that only comes with youth and lovestill fresh. They lived in the Newstead, a relatively tiny model, relegated to theoutermost stretch of the Twin Oaks’ circle. But they kept their lawn manicuredand their paint neat. Even the smallest house in the circle was fit to sit on thecover of a greeting card, just as the couple was. They made a handsome picturetogether and from the looks of their house, they were a lot like the walk theytook, headed in the right direction.She looked up to give them a courteous wave and they returned thepleasantries although their faces looked quizzical. They had walked throughthe neighborhood enough times to hear the condemnations of the homeowner’sassociation. They were wondering why there were no shrubs or tomatoes, butmostly they were demanding in that one unguarded moment a view somethingspectacular, the likes of which they wouldn’t forget. They were disappointed inher inability to deliver. She was sure by the way the young missus held to herhusband’s elbow just as they walked away and how she looked back over hershoulder when they thought they were out of sight. That kind of judgment fromone so young, she wouldn’t have it.That’s when the last trip had become so necessary. A touch of diatomaceousearth here and there would bring life where she needed it most.Her back and hands ached. There were streaks of white on her dark culottesand smears of blackish brown on her pale skin. Leaves and twigs stuck out fromher grayish white bun that now sat sidesaddle and loose on her damp head. Shewas a camouflaged warrior, a strategic solider with an ache inside that rumbledher from within. It was almost time for a late dinner by the time she finished itall, the sun just losing itself beyond the horizon, only a slight glimmer of blushleft on the fat cheek of the sky. Mrs. Womack was out with the genius dog forone last lap through town. She held a wad of plastic bags in the free hand sheused to wave. How the woman could look so confused at every given momentwas beyond Mrs. MacMillan. At heart she didn’t care enough to give it any morethought. She had bigger things on which she needed to focus every shred ofthought.She wasn’t interested in television or music. The day had sucked her dry.As soon as her dinner settled she was curled up in bed, resting, planning fortomorrow morning when there had to be a sign of life. But any time her mindfaded into the sweet blackness that was sleep, any time that a small blossomof color pushed its way up from the dark, she was interrupted. It wasn’t by thesplashing of the Pollack children swimming into the late hours of evening. Itwasn’t the genius dog howling at an unknown emissary. It was something else,throbbing in her head, a pulse that pulled her up into consciousness and awayfrom her bed. She left the blankets slack, not bothering to smooth them out17

18before taking leave, an act that would normally weigh on her heavily like an oldsecret. But this was too important. It was so much more. She simply would nothave it any longer.Under a cloudless sky the woman began to dig. On her hands and kneeswithout the aid of a shovel or spade she sunk her fingers into the moist darkearth and pulled away at the smooth surface so long without blemish or growth.It came up in clumps that sailed through the air. Others settled on her back likesweets on a coffee table. It was cool in the moonlight but her nightgown beganto stick and clutch where it hung in the mixture of damp earth and sweat. Therewas no noise she could hear, only the throbbing that had awoken her fromsleep and the labored sounds of her own breath as she dug in and dug deeperusing hands and elbows, feet and knees. She pushed with her arms in smallcircles expelling handfuls of ground, disrupting nothing in the night but a fewearthworm homes. She was swimming in it now, silent and determined.The sky had gone from pitch to gray when she disappeared down into thehole. It was late enough for birds to just begin singing but not early enoughfor the paperboy to come wheeling by with his news. Neither the birds nor thepaperboy heard the sharp sound of nails worked to bone. No one got to see howher face lit up when she knew she had finished and emerged with what she’dfound.They were brilliant in the moonlight, exactly as she’d remembered. She’dextracted them from deep in the earth where they’d been waiting, placed theremore out of fear than necessity, the looming threat of critters and prying littlehands guiding her every move. The first was in perfect condition, so round anddefined, still white and firm to the touch. Some were long and slender, slightlyworn and yellowed with time. They looked as though they might fall apart, butall were intact as she’d secretly hoped. Held in the pockets there where she’ddug was the promise of a life the yard had not seen.When she woke it was later than she’d slept in years but she’d earned thatrest with what she’d done. So much of her had gone into the prospect of thismoment. She had pulled off the antique lace nightgown for something moresuitable and preened for a second or two longer than usual. She wanted to befresh. She bounded downstairs with youthful steps that challenged her age. Herfootfalls were tentative leaving the house, a child’s tiptoe to the Christmas tree.Though it was late, the dew was still sticking to blades of grass in tiny diamonddots that tickled her ankles and cooled the pads of her feet as she entered theyard. The day was warmer than expected but this was not surprising. It was thescent that was unmistakably new. Mrs. MacMillan’s breath caught in her throat,swept away by the sweet fragrant smell of summer luscious roses and honeydipped blossoms, fat with dew. Their ripe petals were open and rose to the skyawaiting the sun’s kiss. They grew tall and full climbing the sides of the bench,underneath it, around it in bright paralyzing blues and electrifying oranges, deepdark fuchsias and magenta dotted with tiny buds of purple, flowers she didn’tremember planting, blooms she’d never seen before. And the smell, it was toomuch to take in.But in the center of it all was her gem, the treasure for which she’d toiledwithout the help of a gardener or son; no other set of hands was there to help herextricate the marvel that would surely bring the association to her door. Amid

the bright white Calla Lily, plump and flirtatious, the miraculous rainbow thatburst around the bench like a Technicolor frame comprised solely of fireworks,sat the wonder that made everything so.It was almost difficult to make it out, the flora overtaking the bench like antson a dropped candy, so that it lost the stone look completely, instead becominga plush, multicolored sofa bursting with light, interrupted only at its centerwhere the figure rested. Two pockets sat in a canvas of dazzling white, only nowinstead of dark and emptiness they were overflowing with turquoise sweet peas.A hat sat slightly askew atop the shiny globe that had maintained its bleachedwhite complexion among the tendrils of cosmos and thick leafy green, adiscovery that took Mrs. MacMillan’s heart soaring. There were no whitewashedplanks, only two neat rows of ivory smiling on the accomplishment, on the goodmorning. One slender hand was raised as if to say so.His suit looked so good. The whole neighborhood looked good.Bees buzzed, birds chirped and the sweet smell of her garden drowned outMrs. Granger’s midmorning tea.From here the woman could see all the way out of Twin Oaks. She couldsee the cars approaching all the way from the road, her favorite trees outsidethe gates looking in, and her own neighbors as they approached her proud site.Some came on foot, pointing and staring. There were children on bicycles,perhaps the Pollack’s children or of the lady who ran. Others drove slowly fromfurther down the U.Mrs. MacMillan stood in front of the thick luxurious blooms and thetreasure she unearthed, waving exuberantly to anyone and everyone who camepast.Mrs. Womack came closest with her genius retriever. She stood with hermouth hanging wide just as the dog. They both took in the wonder, finallylooking as if they understood.Melissa Palmer was a teaching fellow at Seton Hall University. Whileat the university she continued to follow her passion for poetry and creativewriting publishing multiple works in Chavez, the university’s literary magazine,and on several online outlets and writers groups. During those years shepublished several poems and short pieces, one of which was a haiku about BeaArthur honored by Spaceghost himself on Spaceghost Coast to Coast. After anunfortunate turn of events, she found herself writing at the Cape May Countywhere she wrote stories on budgets, murders, and fires. Though that was nother thing, what she did find was the offer to write columns during her tenure asthe Wildwood reporter. It was then that she picked up on creative writing again,becoming an honored poet of the Rogue Scholars Collective with “Brueghel”and “In the Frame,” and wrote “Mom’s Song” and “Things I forgot to tellyou,” two pieces featured in Kiss Me Goodnight: Stories and Poems by WomenWho Were Girls When Their Mother’s Died. She is currently working on severalcompanion pieces to “Mrs. MacMillan’s Garden.”19

DEEP TISSUEby Pamela Lindsey DreizenMicroscopic tailors, a factory full, live in Tanya’s upper back. They sewbetween her shoulder blades, pleating the thin layer of muscle thatsaddles her backbone. Sometimes their thread turns to razor wire,stabbing and burning. Other times it’s icy fishing line, causing a dull, ceaselessthrob. They knot their work in large, careless lumps that Tanya has, more thanonce, mistaken for lymphoma.They’re a persistent bunch, stitching away even as the receptionist installsTanya in the Dancing Buddha treatment room. He’s breaching protocol; thisis Ruthie’s job. Ruthie had phoned, he explains. Stuck in traffic. Running late.Tanya gathers from his eye rolling and head shaking he’s covered for Ruthiebefore. He flits around the room, lighting tea candles under oil burners. The airfills with a foresty scent. “Don’t worry, you’ll get the full two hours,” he says,and departs.Tanya sheds her clothes. She climbs onto the table. The crisp sheet beneathher is boxed at the corners with military precision. If she had time and a cluehow, she’d try bouncing a quarter. But Ruthie could arrive any minute.Tanya drapes the top sheet over herself like a drop cloth. She rests her faceon a padded loop that projects from the table’s end. The weight of her head flattensher sinus cavities against the face rest; she shifts twice, but each time sinksback into the same position. It’s a minor discomfort compared to the sweatshopunder her scapulas where the maniacal tailors work day and night, twistingher muscle fibers. Gentle heat rises from the table and catches under the topsheet. Piped-in music, recorders and drums, mingles with burbling from a smallelectric waterfall. Tanya shifts again. Her eyelids slit open, then fall closed in thewomblike light. She permits herself a pleasant vision: her spine, ripped from herback and dangling by its end, uncoiling like an over-wound electrical cord, flingingthe entire garment workers’ local to its doom.There’s a tap at the door. Tanya grunt-mumbles to come in, her cavedsinuses making her sound adenoidal. The door opens. A smoke-scarred, breathy,high-pitched voice says, “Hiya.” This must be Ruthie.Tanya’s had a woman, whose name she has forgotten, and Greg before. Butnot Ruthie. Tanya didn’t care for the woman, who wasn’t strong enough andsniffed back the mucus in her nose the whole time. Greg was wonderful, though,powerful and quietly attentive. He complimented her ability to withstand pressurebut didn’t bore her with chitchat. He took deep, sensuous breaths as heworked, and at certain points asked her to do the same, exhaling with her as heforced his way deep into her tissues. His jeans heated her side while he screwed20

his elbows into her lubricated back. It wasn’t thrilling so much as comforting.Tanya and her last boyfriend, David, broke up over a year ago, much to hermother’s chagrin (“What’s not to like? Has a good job, comes from a nice Jewishfamily. And he loves you. Believe me, it won’t get any easier for you afterforty, Lady Jane”). Since then she hasn’t been cozy with anyone possessing malegenitalia. It’s been so long, even Greg was starting to look pretty good; perhapsthe happy memory of their deep tissue sessions would cancel out the double chinand comb-over. She asked for him this time, but he’s booked solid for the nextsix weeks.“Anything I should know before we start? Injuries? Problems?” Tanya’seyes crack open. She sees a single bare foot that resembles a cypress knee. Thena matching one, gnarled, brown, and veiny, attached to a twiggy leg.“I hold tension in my upper back, between my shoulders.” Her anxietycrackles over her vocal cords. She knows she sounds snippy. Serves Ruthieright. Tanya’s got her pegged: a passive-aggressive type who asserts herselfthrough chronic lateness.“Don’t worry, I’ll pry those shoulders out of your ears.” There’s a happy,oblivious chirp to Ruthie’s voice.Tanya continues her standard spiel. “My legs are sensitive. So go light on theshins.”“No problem. Relax. Enjoy.” Ruthie’s California-girl-cadence swings “enjoy”into “enjoy-ee,” and she relevés on her knobby toes. She presses down thelength of Tanya’s still-covered back, Tanya’s body rocking with each touch.“One more thing,” Tanya says. As if she’ll hear better, Ruthie stops midpush,her hands still on Tanya. Scolding Ruthie for tardiness crosses Tanya’smind, but since it’s useless with her sort, she just says, “I’m a noisemaker. Ipurr.”“Oh, I love that,” Ruthie says, and chuckles. “It makes me feel rewarded.Like my own private cheerleading section.”This is, in essence, what David said about Tanya’s coital noises. EvenRuthie’s tone seems disconcertingly similar. Tanya weighs this impression whileRuthie loosens her up through the sheet. She writes it off as tension-inducedsensitivity.There’s a momentary chill when Ruthie draws the sheet back, releasing thepocket of heat that has gathered underneath. Tanya hears several faint, rhythmicfrrrrts pump from a bottle, then Ruthie rubbing her hands together. The oilmakes a sloppy, licking sound.Ruthie slicks Tanya’s back. “How do you get your back like this?” Ruthieasks. “Sit at a computer all day?”Tanya considers. “Yes,” she says.She hopes this will be all that Ruthie needs. Ruthie will imagine her a dataentry clerk or a technical support phone operator and conclude further conversationwould be a snooze. Or she will imagine her an accountant or a corporatelawyer, like David, more boring and more intimidating. Ruthie’s thumbs probelike the tips of steam irons, planing wrinkled wads into straight, smooth surfaces.They stumble on a knot that cracks audibly when moved. Tanya purrs.When people on airplanes or in line at the post office, people she’ll never seeagain, ask Tanya what she does, she says she is a sculptor. A little role-playing21

22about her occupation spices Tanya’s life. And although sculpting is not how shemakes her living or why her back is a mess, it’s all she’s ever wanted to do. Sheworks in bronze, marble, and sometimes clay and wood. Since her fortieth birthdaytwo months ago, a hefty slab of virgin Carrara marble has been sitting in theliving room of her Eichler in Mountain View, California (for people on planes orin line at post offices, the Eichler is an artist’s loft in the SOMA district of SanFrancisco). The marble poses something of a problem: a deadline. It tugs at herwith the stultifying urgency of a hungry child.“What do you do?” Ruthie asks again.Tanya considers asking Ruthie to stop talking. But Ruthie is leaning her fullweight into the knot. Tanya feels it melt in stages as her blood circulates underthe pressure. She is afraid to disrupt Ruthie’s momentum. Answering seems thebest strategy. “I do design and 3-D rendering for a software company.” While itisn’t all she does, it’s enough to stop conversation with most non-techies. Even ifRuthie responds, this exchange is over.But the unthinkable happens. “No kidding,” Ruthie says. “Do you dogames?” The knot is smaller than a raisin now, jolting slowly toward sandgrainsize, and Ruthie scores a bull’s-eye on her first shot. The truth is, Tanyadoes do games. She’s on an award-winning design team that will, in six weeks,release the next generation of 3-D action game built on a game engine the entireindustry is calling Tanya in tribute to her. Their Banford Hollander shoot-‘em-upseries is wildly successful, but old news. The new game, the first in what theyhope will be an even more successful series, features a female player-character,Sabina Dublin. One critic wrote of a preview copy: “Sabina is everything LaraCroft was but more: more brains, more substance, and — yes, believe it — moresex appeal! So grow up, boys — you’ll need to!” With the ship date for Sabinaapproaching, Tanya has been working eighty-hour weeks. Hosts of tailors havehatched like locust larvae in her back. David phones her at work every few days,concerned about her stress level. She suspects he may want to get back together,which isn’t lessening the stress.The knot’s remnants sweep away under Ruthie’s broad strokes. She beginskneading Tanya’s neck. Tanya vocalizes a string of Ms as electric prickles dancedown her vertebrae. “Fabulous,” Tanya drawls. She is in Ruthie’s power. Shewould bark like a dog or walk across the street blindfolded if Ruthie asked.Though she’s successfully killed the conversation, Tanya finds herself saying,“Yes. I do games.”“Get out,” Ruthie says, and Tanya detects a distant hint of New Jersey inRuthie’s speech. “My son is so addicted to computer games. He just loves BanfordHollander. Can’t wait for the new one with the girl. What’s her name? Theone with the huge bazongas?”Tanya’s sigh is easy to mistake for a long, contented exhale. “Sabina Dublin,”she says, weakly. She no longer has the energy or willpower to exit theconversation, and the huge bazongas are a nagging sore point.It started with the email from Todd, the eighteen-year-old head of in-housegame testing, after he’d spent two whole minutes futzing with the first version ofSabina. “She’s too flat-chested,” he wrote. “If I have to play as a girl, GIMMEA HOT BODY.” Tanya thought Sabina’s proportions stunningly normal. Shehad erred on the generous side of a B cup, which gave Sabina nice curves but

24This statement strikes Tanya as arguable. She admires the male body’saesthetic. Or at least, that of certain male bodies. She enjoys poring over TheNew Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. She admits to being a stickler forproper lifting form when she’s in the gym, but would never admit the real attraction,those pictures — hard, oil-glistened, ripped men. The black-and-whitephotographs work magic, something about the play of light and shadow on themuscles’ cuts. One sentence impresses her every time she reads it: “Bodybuildingis a sport of form, but instead of movement the form involved is that of thebody itself – the size, shape, proportion, detail and aesthetic quality of the physiqueas developed in the gym, prepared by dieting, and displayed by performingbodybuilding poses.” It’s sculpture.The unsullied marble slab strides forward from memory to silence the restof Tanya’s busy mental chatter. From time to time it does this, to toy with her,plague her. She’s moved her couch and coffee table against the wall so it canrecline comfortably. So she’ll pass it tens of times a day. Her tools are in thegarage and eventually she will have to get the marble from here to there. Butfirst, she must learn what it wants to be. Lately, Tanya’s sculpting has focusedon abstract forms suggestive of male nudes. They’re technically sound, pleasingto look at, and the process of making them transports Tanya to the place whereshe likes herself best. But objectively, like all her work, they lack some essentialspark that evokes in the viewer cardiac arrhythmias and intestinal taut-linehitches, beatitude and despair. They’re good, not great. She supposes her day jobdoesn’t help; making consensual art like Sabina deadens her instinct.And then there’s this marble. Its voluptuousness doesn’t seem male, but it’sgiving up no other hints. Even though she’s sat on the floor across the room andgazed at it. Laid next to and run her hand along it, like a lover. Slept on the rugbeside it and awakened to a sheer face, blank and mocking. At those times she’swanted to wound the thing. Hack random chunks away with a pickaxe. Splashacid over the surface and watch the scars smoke. It’s frustrating because hermaterials usually don’t play hard to get, and all the more so because she sensesshe’s on the verge. She feels the possibility of an evolutionary jump to somethinguniquely hers, something no one else can vote down. She’s been on theedge for weeks, tense and exhausted. Still nothing comes.David is expecting the marble to be a sculpture in six months. He’s doing hera big favor; he’s talked one of his clients, who owns a San Francisco gallery, intoa spot for Tanya in a show called “Bay Area Marble.” Tanya has exhibited piecesbefore, but never with this degree of exposure. She’d never have landed thisshow without his help. The chance may not come again. She can’t fuck it up.But the truth is, she’s never sculpted a stone this size in less than five months,and she’ll lose most of the next to Sabina Dublin. And a part of her is just plainprocrastinating: the part that isn’t convinced sculpting would mean as much if itbecame her job, the part that wants to keep it reserved for escape and rejuvenation,like a mountain cabin or a seaside villa. When David asks how it’s going,she lies and says she’s on schedule. She almost mentioned the show to hermother the last time she called, just to talk to someone else about it. But Tanyawas afraid she’d say to focus on Sabina; art by consensus pays the bills. Tanya’smother never understood how she feels about sculpting, and she wouldn’t understandnow. Now that time is closing in, and can eat her dreams.

David, on the other hand, had been after her for years before they broke upto quit her job and sculpt full time. “You don’t need that job,” he’d said, moretimes than she could count. “I’ll take care of you.” When that didn’t work, he’dstarted to add, “Until you get established. And if you don’t like how it’s goingwith sculpting, you can start working again. But you owe it to yourself to try.You’re good, Tanya. You’re really good.” It got to the point where he seemedmore interested in her success as a sculptor than in her.Ruthie covers Tanya’s back with the sheet. Then she lifts the bottom corner,revealing Tanya’s left leg. She chuckles and repeats, “Yep, God really did playa joke on men.” She gathers and tucks the sheet between Tanya’s thighs. Tanyacan’t imagine it’s going anywhere fast wedged between her legs like that, butafter a pause, Ruthie gives it a bit more tuck way up between the inner thighs.The muscles there fire and flex. There’s a twinge in Tanya’s groin. She is anesthetized,flustered, lost.She hears herself say to Ruthie, “What about Arnold Schwarzenegger?”“Bodybuilders,” Ruthie says. “Nothing worse. Tiny little heads on huge bodies,way out of proportion. So vain, always looking in the mirror. Nothing worse,even male ballet dancers.” Ruthie glides her hands up to Tanya’s gluteus mediasand down to her Achilles tendon in great, sweeping strokes. Things are movingalong with them; blood, lymph, lactic acid, sensations of heat and pressure. Thetailors are jumping into lifeboats. Ruthie finishes the leg and starts the foot.“I thought he looked great in the Pumping Iron movies,” Tanya says. “Hehad gorgeous proportions.” The truth is, Tanya has become a rabid fan of theyoung Arnold Schwarzenegger. One day, his beauty slammed into her andmowed her down. She never saw it coming. She’s collected all of his bodybuildingfilms on video. They’re amusing to watch on rainy nights; amusing and disturbing.Those skimpy black trunks, those vibrant red ones. The pernicious cuteness.There’s Arnie’s voice-over, the innocent, Austrian-accented confession thathe admires dictators’ strength. There he is again, squeezing out the most-musclepose to the theme from Exodus. She wants to take him home to her mother andfeed him potato kugel. Dress him in cashmere turtlenecks. Sit at the opposite endof the bathtub, while he squirts water at her through his gapped front teeth.Ruthie presses on Tanya’s arch. This same foot cramped a week ago. Tanyahad forgotten, but her foot hasn’t and it kicks from Ruthie’s hand.“Oh, sorry,” Ruthie says.“I should have remembered,” Tanya says. “I had a cramp there last week.I’ve never had soreness go for that long.”The joints crack when Ruthie pulls Tanya’s toes. “Mind if I ask how oldyou are?” Ruthie asks. She bends Tanya’s leg at the knee, back so far that heelalmost touches buttock. When she’s straightened and lowered the leg, Ruthiecovers it and begins the right.She’s answered before she considers whether to lie: “Forty.”“Hey, me too,” Ruthie says. “Forty-one, actually. It sucks, but after fortyyour arches start to go. Do you wear high heels?”“Sometimes. Not often.”“Try arch supports. You can get them at Walgreens.”Ruthie then describes the trouble she has with her own feet. Basically,they’re ruined. That’s what comes from starting on pointe too young. They put25

26her in toe shoes almost from the time she started dancing, she was that good.Now no shoes fit her, so she never wears them, ever. Goes everywhere barefoot.Her son, who is twenty-one, finds this embarrassing. Whenever he’s home fromcollege, he’s always yelling at her to put on some shoes before she goes out forgroceries.Tanya is skeptical. “What about in winter? Don’t your feet get cold?”“They’re always cold, even in summer. I don’t notice much difference.”There’s a short silence, then Ruthie adds, “I guess that’s not completely true.Sometimes in winter I wear those Eskimo sock bootie things.”“Mukluks?”“Yeah, mukluks.” Ruthie giggles. She chants as she does Tanya’s right calfand hamstring, giving an extra glottal kick to each K. “Mukluks mukluks mukluks.Mukluks. Hey, you know something? That’s really fun to say.” She coversTanya’s leg and leans near her ear. “Okay, now. Turn over for me, please.” Shelifts the sheet from Tanya’s body and holds it over her, like a dressing screen.Tanya rolls to her back under the sheet, her eyes closed. When she opensthem, she knows, she’ll see Ruthie. Ruthie has seen more of Tanya than mostpeople ever will, but Tanya has seen nothing of Ruthie except her root-like feet.The imbalance makes Tanya feel exposed, as if she’s in a behavioral experimentbeing watched through one-way glass. She doesn’t know why, but she’s nervous.There’d be tightness in her abdomen if she hadn’t spent the last hour beingwrung like a washrag. The tailors have been relocated; banished to the gulag forcrimes against her state.Ruthie places her hands on Tanya’s belly. They’re warm through the sheet.No longer under pressure, Tanya’s sinuses drain quickly. She smells a warmwhiff of cinnamon from Ruthie’s mouth, a trace of breath-freshening gum.Tanya gathers her courage and opens her eyes.She understands now why Ruthie sides with Todd on Sabina’s bra size. Sheis shaped a bit like a kidney bean, large breasts, rounded middle and sway backon thin legs, but she’s so graceful and deliberate she seems to move without displacingthe air. Her complexion is olive; her hair black, in long layers, framingher face like parentheses. Her eyes are dark and heavy-lidded. She is of indeterminateethnicity, one of those people mistaken for Greek in Greece, Mexican inMexico, Egyptian in Egypt. She could be Jewish, Native American or French.She looks down at Tanya and smiles. There’s a moist sound as her lips pullback from her teeth. Even and straight, they light her face. Something about herexcites Tanya.Ruthie gives Tanya’s belly a gentle pat, then walks to a counter and spritzesmore oil into her hands. She sits behind Tanya on a stool and shoves her hands,palms up, under Tanya’s back, almost to her waist. She pushes up against theback with her fingertips and rests there for a moment, then draws her hands, stillpressing upward, slowly toward her and out from under Tanya. “That’s wunnerful,”Tanya mumbles. “Do that again. And again.”Ruthie repeats the movements four times, five times. “Mukluks,” she says.She bends Tanya’s head down to her shoulder and rubs the side of her neck,from shoulder to ear. The muscles give like clay under her hands; with everystroke, Tanya is shaped, undone, and shaped again. Ruthie pulls Tanya’s head.The neck lengthens. Tanya envisions her head popping off like a Barbie doll’s,

the twisted tendons and muscles that attach it to her neck whipping like liveelectric wires. “You should have been a sculptor,” Tanya coos.Ruthie pulls Tanya’s arms by the wrists, stretching them in a straight lineabove her head. Tanya has always thought being stretched on a rack soundedmore like pleasure than pain. If she was threatened with torture, she wouldplead, “No, no, anything but the rack” to assure that’s exactly what she’d get.She pictures Ruthie tying coarse, yellow ropes around her wrists and cranking agiant wooden wheel. Confess, imaginary Ruthie commands before each crank.Confess and live.“I’m awful at art,” Ruthie says. “Except dance. I loved it so much.” Hervoice has a bittersweet quality, as though she’s remembering a lost friend.“Do you still dance?”“No,” Ruthie says. “I stopped when I got pregnant. That and smoking.”Tanya thinks about the joy that comes from sanding wood, when grain, shapeand texture coalesce. From removing the ceramic shell on cast bronze, the momentwhen the vision becomes instantiation. The moment she feels most alive.Nothing compares. This is what her mother couldn’t understand; she saw onlythe practical side, that every dime Tanya made went into her workshop and whatcame out was given away, or sold for far less than the time and materials she invested.This being the case, she argued, Tanya should be realistic, not waste herenergy on fantasy. This is what David couldn’t understand, either. Why wasn’tshe sure sculpting full time would fulfill her every dream? She couldn’t explainher need for refuge in a mound of clay, and her fear that taking up permanentresidence in this refuge would poison its delicate ecology.Her forehead unclenches under the pressure of Ruthie’s hands. “My son’sfather got to keep dancing,” Ruthie says.The phrasing strikes Tanya as impersonal, yet to inquire further seems rude.But Ruthie goes on. “It’s funny. I mean, I’m glad, because I have my son. ButI don’t know what possessed me. He was just so beautiful when he danced. Sochiseled and fine.”Hearing this, Tanya knows why Ruthie excites her. She knows, as she feelsthe luxurious heat of Ruthie’s body penetrate her scalp, what the marble wantsto be.Ruthie apologizes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go on like that.” She rubs Tanya’stemples in circles. Tanya remembers childhood slumber parties where onegirl would rub another’s temples like this, while the others watched. Supposedly,this would cause the one rubbed to go into a “trance,” a hypnotic state as juicy astruth serum. Ask her who she liked better, Brian Laramie or Aaron Baumgarten.If she answered, she was in a trance. If she cracked up giggling, she was faking.“That’s okay,” Tanya says. “Really.” Her mouth spreads as Ruthie’s thumbspull down from the sides of her nose, and her lips flap when Ruthie releasesthem. Tanya imagines touching Ruthie’s face, seeing the features through herfingers like a blind person. Touching Ruthie, then touching the marble, transferringRuthie’s form to the living stone. Goddess of carnal pleasure. An epic,heroic figure. The anti-tailor, vanquishing the sewing hoards. Ruthie’s handssmooth the tops of Tanya’s pectorals outward from her sternum. Her fingertipsare within inches of Tanya’s nipples. Touching Ruthie’s body, then touching themarble. Feeling it vibrate with her lush earthiness, watching her form imbue and27

28heat the cold, soften the hardness, turn a slab of rock into something worthy oflove.Ruthie says, “I would have had to stop anyway. I was thin then, but whenI was eighteen I grew boobs, if you can believe it. They just popped up out ofnowhere, and suddenly good parts in ballets were hard to get. Balanchine didn’tbelieve in breasts, and he pretty much set the standard when I was dancing. Theywanted me to have breast reduction surgery.” She makes a sound laden withdisgust. “Can you imagine?”“No,” Tanya says. The thought has never crossed her mind. It is the lastsurgery she’d ever need to have. But it’s true, she can’t imagine a post-surgeryRuthie.Should she be blunt? Ask something like, “How do you feel about taking offyour clothes for art?” Try to befriend Ruthie first? As she is considering, Ruthielifts the sheet from her leg and tucks it between her thighs again, preparing towork on the front of the leg. Her hand grazes Tanya’s bikini line and as she’spulling away, Tanya feels a pricking sensation. Ruthie’s little finger has caughtin the curl of a pubic hair and yanked it out by the root.“I’m so sorry,” Ruthie says. “Did it hurt?”“Nothing you’ve done has hurt,” Tanya says.“You know, I like you. You’re a lovely person,” Ruthie says. “I don’t meanthat in a — well, you know. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”“I’m very comfortable. Really, don’t worry about it.” The way she seesforms in lumps of clay and stone as though they emanate from the things themselves,Tanya sees a path, the one she knows would work were she in Ruthie’splace. “I expect you miss dancing.”“Something terrible. It’s like a part of me was left behind with it. Mostpeople think I’m crazy when I talk about it. That’s the hardest part.”“I understand. I sculpt.”Ruthie looks up from the ankle she’s rotating and meets Tanya’s eyes. “I’mflattered you said I should have been a sculptor, then.” She smiles, and asksTanya what media, how long it takes, how it’s done, all as though every wordcaptivates her. It’s not just what she asks, it’s the way she does it, and how shelistens. Tanya thinks this must be why men like women, this powerful feeling,this sense the words matter.She draws the sheet over Tanya’s legs and again lays her hands on Tanya’stummy. “We’re done,” she says. “I’ll see you outside.”“Thank you, that was wonderful.”“Thank you,” she says, and leaves the room.Tanya lies still for a few moments. Then she dresses, and walks into the hall.Ruthie is not there. Perhaps she ran to the phone to tell her son she’d just metSabina Dublin’s designer. Tanya walks out to the lobby. She pretends to look atthe soaps and candles for sale. Then she gets a glass of cold water with lemon,and sits sipping it, waiting. After twenty minutes, she decides that Ruthie musthave started another customer. She takes a tip envelope and a pen from the frontdesk. She tears a piece of paper from her Filofax and writes, “Thank you again.I’d like to talk to you more about dance. I also have a proposal for you.” Shewrites her phone number, folds the paper with some bills, and stuffs them intothe envelope. She puts “To Ruthie from Tanya,” on the envelope and drops it

through the slot in the tip box.She will give Ruthie a few days. Then, she will call. If she can’t reachRuthie, she’ll come back and wait for her here. She’ll bring a beta version ofSabina for Ruthie’s son, with the entire design team’s autographs on the DVD.She’ll take Ruthie to dinner somewhere shoes are optional. Whatever it takes,until she can touch Ruthie. Touch Ruthie, and then the marble.Pamela Lindsey Dreizen‘s fiction has appeared in Image: A Journal of theArts and Religion, Flashquake (where it was an Editor’s Pick), The Binnacle,Lynx Eye, The Powhatan Review and other journals. Her story, “A MoreForgiving Light,” received Honorable Mention in the August 2011 GlimmerTrain Short Story Award for New Writers competition. She lives in the SanFrancisco Bay Area with her boyfriend and two young sons, and practices lawat a large technology company.29

THE LOCAVORE’S TALEby Claire Noonan“You want to know what happened to Ethan? He’s lost.”In the hospital room, muffled by the wadding that covered Ethan’s entire head,those words came from Beth as she talked, saying ‘he’s lost’ over and over.Ethan feebly wagged his head back and forth, thinking ‘not so, not so.’“That’s all. Not a cruel dude, you know, from the Eagle’s “Life in the FastLane.” Not a right wing nut. Just lost.”Who was his sister talking to this time? Ethan opened one eye, but the bandagespractically blinded him, and it was impossible to tell anyway. She was onher iPhone.“Bye, Tom. Be home soon,” she sniffled.Beth leaned over, peering into the swath of gauze, long, dangly earringsready to catch in the bandages.“You awake? How’re you feeling, Ethan?”“…not a loser, Beth. Just a losing streak,” he mumbled, jaw barely moving,tongue thick.“Wait’ll I tell Tom that one,” she said.A response she’d hoot over with her husband. Ethan pictured the man’s selfassuredgrin. Ethan hated that look and tried to frown, but it hurt the stitches onhis forehead.“What time is it? Have to pee,” he groaned. “Need the nurse.”“I got here as fast as I could, you know. It’s about 5 o’clock, so you’ve beenhere all afternoon,” Beth said, pushing the nurse’s call button, fiddling with herearrings, preparing to wait.Beth didn’t appear to be in any hurry, brushing back her brown hair, smoothingher blouse, rearranging her necklace. He lay there feeling an overwhelmingphysical desire to go, but he wasn’t going to let his sister put a urinal around hisdick, no way.She patted a finger against her cheek. “I don’t think they had to shave yourgorgeous black hair to get to the cut on your forehead. But you do have a fat lip,you know.”Beth’s chair scraped on the floor and the hospital bed jostled as she blurted,“Jesus, it’s that bitch’s fault.”She meant Ethan’s ex-wife. Actually, Ethan hadn’t signed any papers yet, butit satisfied his sense of gloom to refer to Lottie as ex-wife. Beth peeked at himunder the bandages. Ethan sucked in breath, trying to ignore his bodily desiresand stop the stimuli sparking his brain.30

Why did Beth hate Lottie all of a sudden? That bitch and ex-wife was Beth’scollege roommate. Of course, Ethan didn’t know Lottie in those days becausehis sister, the clever, organized one, and Lottie were off doing Berkeley things.She who, since kindergarten, had always expected to get her way had settled onUC by middle school and never wavered. He was at home in rural Morgan Hill,a year younger in age but far younger than that in ‘social graces,’ as his motherhad called them. His mother would say, “Oh, Ethan, you’re just a late bloomer.”“I have to go too, ha-ha,” said Beth, “home I mean. Soon.”As if Ethan could crack a smile with a fat lip and stitches, but he did manageto croak, “No, wait for the nurse. Please.”Was Beth mad because Lottie had dragged her into their marital mess notlong after his sister had said to thank God he’d straightened his sorry life out?He blinked to drive out those images. Then he thought it’s not as if Beth haddone everything right all her thirty-six years. Maybe so far, but there was lots oftime left to screw up.For one, maybe it would have been better if Beth hadn’t introduced him toLottie all that time ago at their first house-warming. Beth and Tom, her stringbeanbicycle-riding husband and lawyer for wealthy venture capitalists, wereflying high when they bought the Atherton home. She’d done exactly what Dadtold her the first time she went on a date—just as easy to love a rich man as apoor one. Dad said it was a joke, but Beth never laughed.Ethan had been minding his own business, walking around the manse,examining the garden designed by the best of the best landscape architects onthe Peninsula, when Beth called him over and introduced Lottie. He took herhand to shake and looked up to see a woman, pretty even without make-up. Niceclothes, just tight enough, not skin tight. Smart and funny, not cranky or touchy,at least when they first were in passionate love. It was the proverbial love at firstsight that evening. The love of his life, Ethan thought. Maybe he loved Lottiebecause she was kind like his mother, not so bossy like his sister who thoughtshe was his mother all the time now that Mom was gone.Ethan was never an ebullient guy, so he appreciated Lottie’s way of goingwith the flow. He’d decided to take her to a baseball game on the first date whenhe finally got up the nerve after Beth badgered him for days. He was certainthe action on the field could keep them going if he couldn’t think of anythingmore to talk about. Adding to Ethan’s certainty that he’d been handed the rightwoman, Lottie knew a lot about baseball and kept up a steady rap on the Giants.“Did you know that the Giants are one of the oldest baseball teams in thecountry? I mean they started in New York in the 1880’s or something like that.So they got 17 pennants while in New York. But now only 3 pennants sincethey’ve been in SF. Maybe it’ll get better now that they’re in ATT Park. Niceplace, isn’t it?” she offered. “How much you want to bet #25 will eventuallyadmit he took steroids?”No matter how much he thought he loved her, it took nerve to finally ask herto marry. They found a tiny place in the Oakland hills and he spent long hoursat a small Internet business, financial analyst for Cymbals, Inc. He was the guywho analyzed the charts to see how they were doing, saying go for it or holdback. Bruce, the CEO, was a sharp guy, really into making money, but thoughtfultoo, ready to listen to anyone’s story.31

32That’s how his short, happy, he thought, married life had fallen apart. At aparty held at Bruce’s house, Lottie told Bruce about her NGO that redesignedand distributed cooking stoves in third world countries so people wouldn’t diefrom inhaling carbon particles in the smoky haze of their hovels while cookingtortillas or injera. They sat on the long leather sofa, heads together, Lottie’s eyesglistening as Bruce questioned her. At least, that’s what Ethan, drinking merlotand thinking that he might try to grow wine grapes on his Oakland hillside,remembered as he sat across from them.Bruce had loved the idea and gave a lot of money to the NGO. He sweptLottie off her feet and she slept with him. Well, OK. Not Ethan’s style, but ithappens. As long as it un-happens.When Lottie told him about her affair, Ethan knew enough to insist on familycounseling. They opted for acceptance therapy, the new thing according tohis research on the Internet. It promoted a better understanding of the partner’sflaws and, Lord knows, he had flaws, but by now he knew Lottie had some too.Like she threw herself into everything, including Bruce, not only baseball.In the meantime, when not trapped at his computer in the office, Ethan spenta lot of time fixing up the tiny house built into the hill, oak trees all around.Also, being a solitary type he always loved animals and photographed the squirrels,rabbits, owls, deer that pissed Lottie off because they ate the flowers, raccoonshe heard scrabbling around at night, and the Schnauzer mutt, Bunky.Late one night, a full moon shining over the house, the end came whenEthan took a quick trip to the market for milk and eggs. He should have knownthe raccoons would sneak down the hill, snooping for food scraps and water.Bunky’s food and water were up for grabs. Why the dog bowls were left out, noone owned up. The dog raised a racket, leaping and barking at the back door,and Lottie went downstairs to stop him. When she saw the raccoons, she openedthe door to shoo them away, but the foolish dog ran out to attack the nastybeasts. The smallest yowled and clawed back. Meanwhile, Lottie got a broom towhack them, but instead, a gigantic raccoon with long vicious claws slapped itout of her hands and grabbed her arm. Just back, Ethan heard the screeching andgrabbed his baseball bat. The raccoons scattered after he’d smacked one of themon the top of its masked head.Bunky had mostly danced out of the raccoons’ way, barking and howling,but only collecting surface scratches and patches of fur ripped off. Telling theawful story, Lottie was drenching the deck with blood from the gashes on herarm, so Ethan put both the dog and Lottie in the car and raced downhill to theOakland Kaiser emergency. He was beside himself with guilt that he’d left hiswife to the wild side of Oakland. The doctor said Lottie was filleted and stitchedher up.Lottie cried all the way home and Ethan assumed it was because of the painfrom the stitches. In the morning she said to go to work, and he called aboutevery hour, but she only mumbled that she was all right. Still crying when he gothome, she burst out that she couldn’t go on. She wasn’t only swept off her feetone time. She was in love with Bruce.“I can’t help it. I’ve tried to stop myself. Didn’t you see something waswrong?” she apologized as she confessed the whole story.But Ethan had not seen any of it.

He called Beth. Who else was he going to tell that Lottie was moving out?He rubbed his head, took deep breaths, and finally said, “What a joke. I sawlove, but not out of love.”Ethan quit his job, of course. Some people might not, but how could he bringhimself to keep helping his wife’s lover? Lying in the hospital bed under thecool white sheets, Beth smoothing the blanket, Ethan assured himself that hewasn’t completely off his rocker.The Kaiser Redwood City nurse came in waving the urinal and said, “Now,young man, it’ll take awhile. Morphine relaxes your muscles, so just let it go,don’t try to force it.”So embarrassing, Ethan thought, his sister did have to help because on topof everything, he’d dislocated his shoulder and peeing’s a two-handed job for aman lying down.Beth held the container matter-of-factly, placed it in the tray, and waved,“Ta-ta, see you tomorrow.”Still, that’s not the only time Beth helped Ethan when he was grovelingin the dumps after the separation. Lottie decamped to Bruce’s fabulous houseoverhanging the road up to Tilden Park in Berkeley. Ethan was left with no joband the mortgage ready to balloon on the tiny house. Looking at the options, hisbank agreed to a short sale. All he could think of was hoarding the money he stillhad. He wasn’t Beth’s husband, Tom, a regular Midas when it came to collectingwealth.Ethan signed his house over and huddled in his tiny abode for a couple ofdays while he tried to compose himself before buyers and sellers interruptedhis seclusion. He was lying on his bed, drinking a beer from the micro-brewerydown the hill, and watching Michael Pollan talk about being a locavore, whenBeth waltzed in. She put her hands on her hips.“What’re you going to do with yourself?”“Michael has talked me into it. I’ve been thinking about living close to theearth.”To tell the truth Beth had pissed him off with her arrogant smirk, and theidea escaped from his mouth. Still, it sounded good, like he had a plan. Shewould never know he had no idea what he was talking about.His idea did throw Beth off guard and she stood there for a few momentsstaring at Michael Pollan on TV. Ethan finished off the beer and smacked hislips. By then, when she still hadn’t spoken, he suspected she, in her super-organizedhead, had a plan in mind.“You know that place we bought up in Los Altos Hills, thinking to fix it upand resell it?” asked Beth. “Well, the market is an ef-ing mess and we’re goingto hold onto it. Do you want to sort of, like, house sit for us?”Why not? The more he listened to Michael Pollan, the better it sounded.The property was at least an acre. Grow vegetables and sell them at the farmer’smarket in Los Altos or Mountain View. Maybe grow grapes. He could do 4-Hstuff like he used to do in middle school when they lived in Morgan Hill. Raiserabbits...no, not rabbits. He couldn’t thump them on the head and skin themand sell them. Maybe chickens. He could sell the eggs at the farmer’s market.33

34He didn’t think he’d mind twisting a chicken’s neck when it was too old to layanymore. Taj Mahal’s “Cake Walk Into Town” echoed in his brain. His motherused to sing “stealing chickens from the rich folk’s yard.” I’ll get those chickensand cake walk into town, he hummed.“OK,” he said. “When can I move?”“Tomorrow. The place has some furniture. It just needs to be cleaned up. I’llsend my housekeeping service to help,” she said as if she’d already planned itout, knowing he’d say ‘yes.’It was that easy. Start over. Ethan had hardly realized how downhearted hewas until he turned into a smiling maniac.In May, slightly late for planting vegetables in the coastal mountain area, ashe found out from the trusty Sunset Gardening book, Ethan wrapped his iPodaround his bicep, plugged in the earphones, and dug up the yard out behind thedeck, planting zucchini, bell peppers, tomatoes, and chilis. Easy to grow, easyto sell. Then he got to thinking about chickens again and looked up a bounty ofinformation on the Internet. Next thing, he’d ordered and received a dozen puffsthat in no time scrabbled for bugs around the huge yard. The packing slip indicatedthe chicks would eventually turn into the common Rhode Island Red andhe counted out the days for the red feathers speckled with white to appear.Taking care of the house and garden was a full-time job. Ethan drove aroundin his mother’s hand-me-down ‘86 Toyota stick-shift, piling bags of feed in histrunk and a bale of hay on the back seat. Then suddenly Henny, Penny, Chicken,and Little vanished into the toothy mouth of a coyote, fox, or raccoon. Whoknew? He never saw the enemy, nor heard a single terrified cluck.Live and learn, he ordered a chicken coop from the loads to select on-line.Voila! An easy-to-clean plastic chicken house kept eight fowl pecking and peepingfor months until they were full-grown layers: Peep, Peep-Peep, 3 Peeps, 4Peeps, Cheep, 2 Cheeps, 3 Cheeps, and Chanticleer, the rooster. After the fourhens disappeared he stopped worrying which was which, except Chanticleer and3 Peeps with the slightly unhinged wing feather that identified her.Then Ethan got to thinking about an animal that could be a friend beforeit became dinner. Talk to it and scratch it behind the ears. Bunky was off withLottie. Not another dog anyway, he’d never eat his dog although he’d heardthe meat was tasty. But a pig or a cow. Plenty of space. Even when he let thechickens out to scratch in the yard surrounded by chicken wire while he cleanedthe roost, there was plenty of room. He bought a three-month-old Hampshire pigbecause it was too much trouble to milk a cow and pasteurize the white frothystuff that he remembered from the county fair. He was no dairy farmer.He knew luck was on his side. His sister kept the electricity going, plenty forhis laptop and iPod. He had a grill with a propane tank. The self-serve laundrywas only a fifteen minute drive away, right next to the micro-brewery and Peet’sCoffee. All he had to do was watch his farm flourish.Still, he was uneasy. Hardly another person in those hills was visible. Everyonelived on one-acre parcels in mansions set way back behind trees and shrubs.Once in awhile, Ethan would have to go after wandering 3 Peeps, who liked tofly over the chicken wire, and he’d nod to a girl in her fancy jodhpurs, exercisingher horse along the public path.

Two weeks after he moved in, his neighbor, Mac, a burly guy with Popeyemuscles and a scar on his lip, showed up. His old house was close to Beth’sproperty line, though hidden behind tall bushes. Mac bragged about his millionsmade at Intel like many of the high-rollers behind the hedges up and down theroad into the hills. He and his buddies bought their houses around the same timewhen bonuses fell from cyberspace. And then Mac said he’d joined a biker cluband invested.Ethan countered the boast. “I was in the East Bay as financial analyst for asmall Internet business, Cymbals, Inc. Heard of them?” He said no more aboutthe start-up because, still angry, he wasn’t going to provide Bruce with any capitalinvestors. “Now I do suburban homesteading.”Mac asked for a card and introduced his black lab, Biff, burly like his master,that was panting and sniffing around the chicken roost fence. Pig waddled upfor a scratch and Biff rolled out a deep growl, but Pig snorted and Mac pulledon the retriever’s leash. The dog’s hair line along his back stood straight up. Biffsnapped at the black and white porker.Mac and Ethan entered the house through the sliding glass patio door. Ethansearched for an old business card and realized he needed one for his new profession.Mac roamed around the four musty bedrooms, three cracked-tile baths, andliving-dining-multi-purpose rooms covered with peeling paint and water-stainedceilings. He examined the refrigerator and stove even though anyone could seehow cruddy the kitchen was. Maybe he had heard that Beth wanted to sell.Three days went by before Mac came a second time. He hadn’t come by tobe inquisitive, but to complain about the chickens that squabbled, Cheep-Cheepthat crowed at 5 a.m, and Pig that patrolled along their fence to snort at the heftyblack lab, making Biff go wild with a loud, hysteric bark. Pig was smart andcertainly did it to annoy the dog. Pig probably snorted to annoy Mac, too.Once a week Beth drove over from her Atherton estate to shoot the breeze.She reported on Lottie although Ethan had told her in no uncertain terms that hewas over the woman and not to bring her up. One day Beth came when he wastrudging up the gravel drive with Pig, a collar and leash around his white neckso they could walk and Pig wouldn’t get between the horse’s legs if the womanrode by. Pig and Ethan had gotten friendly with the blond pony-tailed horsewomanwho wasn’t as young as Ethan thought at first but was still kind of cute.She’d stop for a few minutes and let the horse graze on the grass in the ditchwhile Pig wallowed a bit in the ditch’s mud. Her name was Susan and she livedup the hill where her family had a horse stable so she knew every local thing goingon. She told who was mad about trees closing off their view and about horsepies on the public path, for instance.Beth laughed her head off at Pig on the leash, but the young snorter justwaddled in his piggy way up the slope where he’d established himself. She likedthe chickens, especially Cheep, whom she distinguished because of her brightbrown eye with the yellow speck and her odd comb, almost serrated. She threwout a handful of feed and that’s when she said she was worried and hoped thatEthan would find a real job soon. She stepped away when her brother squintedand balled up his fists.“I have a real job,” Ethan said. “I’m doing fine with my eggs, and the vegetableswill be ready for the farmer’s market pretty soon. I’m going down to the35

36city council office to get a farmer’s market seller’s permit next week.”Ethan unfolded his fists and rubbed his temples with his thumbs. Beth lookedat him, disbelief in the way she tilted her head and arched one eyebrow.“So leave me alone, I’m being an adult. And I’ve been fixing up your drafty,rotting house until you get your know-it-all husband to look at his investmentsand agree it’s time to renovate the place and sell it for a pile. A farm right herein suburbia. Who would guess?” Ethan was yelling, worked up by the ‘real job’remark.Tom probably told her to ask. Then Ethan shut up as the lightbulb went onin his head because, of course, he had about three years before Tom would doanything considering the mess the economy was in. By then, he’d have a thrivinghomestead going for himself. That would show Tom.Beth threw up her hands and said she was going to her ‘real job’—she wasthe owner of a bar and brasserie in Palo Alto. She hollered her parting taunt,“I’m sending Lottie out to talk sense into you.”Then she tossed out that Lottie had broken up with Bruce. He’d helped anotherwoman at another NGO. Beth told her to get over it. That was the Berkeleyway of things. Ethan didn’t think that was so, but he didn’t want to be caughtagain so didn’t say one thing. Beth went on that Lottie had asked about him,wondering if he was still angry. What was she talking about? He completed histherapy and accepted what had happened. If she thought Bruce was better thanhe was, then so be it. Now she’d have to fend for herself. He wasn’t going to betrapped by love again.“You’d better not tell Lottie to come over here,” he shouted at Beth as shewalked to her car at the bottom of the row of snap peas he’d planted.That night Ethan lay out on the deck and Pig trotted over to place his snouton Ethan’s stomach. Pig was almost like a dog, so amiable and loyal. It was adark, clear night with only a sliver of moon so Ethan raised his binoculars tothe Big Dipper. He’d heard on NPR about the star Alcor above the middle starMizar on the Big Dipper’s handle, called the rider on the horse, another namefor the old constellation. Beautiful. Pig snuffled to be scratched behind his ears,the chickens settled down to roost for the night, and the deer and rabbits couldn’tmunch on his ticket to riches because of chicken wire around the vegetablegarden. As he gazed at the Heavens, he contemplated how to keep the pocketgophers from eating the roots of his tubers without using poison. He sighed athow knowledgeable he had become. He put down the binoculars and stretchedhis legs. All was peaceful in the world.Then scar-lipped Mac flipped on every one of the outside lights surroundinghis house to blast leaves off his roof with his mammoth blower. Ethan thoughtthe low rumble was the start of the Big One until the steady whine set off therooster’s screeching, the hens’ clucking in chorus, and Pig streaking to the fence,snorting as loud as he could which turned the labrador into a frenzied barkingdog, louder than the machine.“You miserable wretch,” yelled Ethan, “A pox on you and that nasty littlebeast.”Only later, ranting at the top of his voice, did Mac defend himself, insistingthat he was fed up with leaves clogging his drainpipe so that water, overflowingfrom the gutters, made an obnoxious drip-drip-drip outside his TV room,

interrupting the Giants’ baseball game. What was more goofy, the guy blowingleaves at eleven at night when it hadn’t rained for three months or the menagerieanswering the racket? The scar gave Mac a crazed look, and he threatenedto send for the sheriff. A quirky smile illuminated Ethan’s face as he riffed thereggae song “I shot the sheriff but I didn’t shoot no deputy.” But then the feelingarose that Eden was doomed.Each man retreated to his redoubt, Mac to watch ESPN and Ethan tocontemplate his desire to retain Paradise. He had been thinking of setting up apicnic table at the driveway near the street with a sign to take some fresh eggs,50¢ each, put the money in the box, honor system. All night he worried the henswere too excited to lay, but he could have slept as they had already put downseven lovely eggs. Early next morning he saw how silly it was to only haveseven eggs and spent the morning on the Internet using his credit card to buyanother dozen puffs. Of course, it would be another three months before muchmore than $3.50 a day would be the reward. According to his father’s aphorismhe needed a rich woman, but all he had was a rich sister who had already doneher duty. He wandered around that day unable to concentrate, not even to pullweeds.Two days later the FedEx truck came up the drive, setting off clucks andcrows and squeals, animals carrying on in their farmyard way as the guydumped the box on the deck. Twelve yellow powder puffs hopped around, poopingand peeping, while Ethan carried them over to the chicken pen. They weren’tso little that they needed a mother hen, lucky for Ethan because 3 Peeps was nota friendly lady. She clucked and pecked and chased the ones lacking nerve. ThenPig, fresh from a mud wallow, came over to survey the scene and snorted thathe wanted to go for a walk. Ethan got the leash for his collar and bent to hook itwhen all hell broke loose. The lone rooster decided to guard the newbies, crowingand flying spurs at 3 Peeps, who managed to flap her wings and cling to thetop of the five foot high fence and then disappear, shrill clucks coming from theneighbor’s yard.Next thing, growls and thumping paws and a screech. Ethan grabbed theladder and climbed the fence to see the retriever’s mouth open, drool and fangsjust reaching the hen’s neck. He hollered, “Get away you filthy brute,” jumpeddown, kicked the dog, and wrestled the chicken from the animal’s jaws. With thebird under his arm like a football, he ran like a defensive end to hop back overthe low part of the fence. The hen was squawking, so little did Ethan know thatPig, loyal as always, had been snorting and squealing to infuriate Biff, goadingthe dog to pursue Ethan to the low fence and take a running leap.Once on Beth’s property Ethan dropped the hen who limped to the pen, allthe others scratching and clucking, ignoring her, except the yellow puff balls thatscurried behind their new protector. Just then, a piercing squeal and Pig took off,the labrador closing in. All was a blur before his eyes, but Ethan tried to grabthe leash, thinking to catch the pig and kick the bejeezus out of that crazy dog.Instead, his ankle tangled in the leash and he slipped into Pig’s muddy wallow asthe animal raced down the slope. Ethan fell back, dragged by the leash throughthe field of muck with its rocks and roots and sharp stinging weeds. Besides thegash on his forehead and the large cut on his lip, that’s when he dislocated hisshoulder as he turned to grab onto something.37

But, of all things, he was saved by Susan, Princess Valiant on her horse.She heard the vicious barking cur and turned onto the driveway just as the leashbroke and Ethan came to a halt. Pig hid behind the horse and the woman usedher crop to beat back the dog. Roaring around the corner on his motorcycle, Macseparated the dog and the woman, shouting at her, waving his fist, as the doggrowled and backed up.Ethan’s lip split more when he yelled, “Kick that disgusting beast!”Susan, the brave, pointed the crop to Biff and commanded, “Shut up, Biff!And you too, Mac. Ethan’s hurt.”That’s when she called 9-1-1, got off her horse, and comforted Ethan, sayingyou poor man, as he lay sprawled on the ground with Pig at his side until theparamedics arrived.A voice said, “He’s been sleeping a lot.”Ethan recognized Beth. She leaned over and pulled up the bandage.“You’ve been out of it from noon yesterday until now, Ethan. It’s 2 o’clock.The doctor said your handsome face will be OK. Probably no scars. It’ll beawhile before your shoulder heals enough for physical therapy so it doesn’tstiffen up. That’s the other painful part, I think.”“Stop telling me that stuff,” he mumbled.“What? What, Ethan?” she said. “My God. The doctor said you should stayone more night. They think you had a concussion when you fell, but they’redisconnecting the morphine button.”She cried. Ethan heard the sniffing and Kleenex rubbing the tears off herface. He put his hand out to take hers and pat it, but he couldn’t see and waswaving his hand around in the air so he dropped it back which made her crysome more.“Lottie and Tom are here with me,” she murmured. “We’ve been taking careof Pig and the chickens, Ethan. Lottie’s made sure the vegetables get watered.The horse woman came by to ask about you.”Why was she saying this? He waved his hand again and she could see hislips saying “no, no, no.”In a voice more like her assured self, Beth said, “Oh Ethan, that’s the goodnews before I tell you the bad. You know that crazy chicken with the loose wingfeather you call 3 Peeps? She was ostracized from the coop, and Cheep has takenover as head hen. So this morning 3 Peeps flew up onto the top of the fenceagain. Pig ran up and began to snort which made that mad dog leap up againstthe other side of the fence, until the shaking made the hen fall onto the otherside. 3 Peeps squawked and then there was silence. After awhile, I heard thatman next door, hooting and swearing, and the chicken came flying back over thefence, neck half bitten off and blood leaking down onto the ground by my feet.“Just then tail feathers were tossed over the fence and floated down. Macyelled, ‘Those other chickens’ll be sorry too. And that pig better stay out of theway because Biff learned how to jump this fence, right Biff?’”Ethan slurred, “Pig is too smart to let that idiot dog get the better of him.”Tom and Lottie and Beth laughed, but Ethan thought of Michael Pollan’swords about preserving “the quality of wildness.”38

Tom interrupted, “Cheer up, buddy. You’ll feel better soon.”That rich guy. Beth probably made him come and say something nice. Lottiesat down on the bed next to him. He took deep breaths to force his brain to settledown.She said, “Maybe we can go to a ball game when you feel better, Ethan.I’m renting a place in the Oakland hills and working for the west coast DoctorsWithout Borders, setting up teams to go to Central America. It’s so important.”Ethan nodded slightly, and said, “Not now, Lottie. Not now. I like being overhere in these hills. Remember the best line of that R.E.M. song ‘It’s the end ofthe world as we know it and I feel fine?’ That’s me.”Waving them off with his hand that still worked, they left as the nurse camein to look at the bandages and massage his shoulder. Ethan lay there in thehalf dark, thinking Pig loves that horse. Maybe he should see if he can work atSusan’s family stable while he preserves the wildness around the homestead. Heliked living close to the earth.Claire Noonan (aka C.J. Noonan) graduated with a BA in Humanities fromthe University of California at Berkeley and received her MA in Curriculum andInstruction at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. She taught elementaryschool and continues as a teacher-consultant for the Bay Area Writing Project. Ashort story and other short works have appeared in the online magazine DigitalPaper. Currently, “What Lovers Are Supposed To Do,” can be read in Issue 12,Spring 2011. She writes nonfiction posts on education issues to her blog at www.takecareschools.com. Information about her novel The House on Harrigan’s Hillby C. J. Noonan (Sea Hill Press, April 2011) is found at www.cjnoonan.com.Ms. Noonan lives with her husband in Los Altos, California. She has two growndaughters.39

IT MIGHT HAVEHAPPENED IN NIAGARAby Ben OrlandoEuripides S. LeGrande, eyes still closed, pulled the bed sheet from hischest and listened to the roar of the falls somewhere in the distance. For awhile he lay in bed, imagining himself caught up in the current, strugglingand then letting it sweep him over the edge, into the frothy white below.Sliding the sheet away from his legs, Euripides paused as his fingers slippedacross skin that was not his own.“Mmm, stop moving Euri…”“Josephine?”Euripides realized there was a girl in his bed the same time he saw thetwenty-something blonde, not Josephine, throw off the pillow and grab the sheetto cover her small naked frame.He did not remember this girl, or this room, or the previous night.“How bout some coffee,” the girl said, suddenly awake. Euripides wobbledto his feet, but as his brain moved from horizontal to vertical, two invisiblehands twisted and squeezed the ligaments that connected his eyes to his brain.He collapsed onto the bed, hands on head.“Did you get my coffee already?” the girl asked with a mischievous grin.“Give me a minute.”“If I don’t get my coffee, I’m going to scream.”Experienced in awkward morning afters, Euripides once again struggled tohis feet, stumbled to the bathroom and ran his head under the tub faucet until thegirl screamed, “My coffee!”Eventually he found the pot under the sink, and brewed a few watery cupswhile attempting to push his fingers into his brain.“You sure did talk a lot last night,” the girl told him as he set the plastic trayon the nightstand.“What did I say?” He did not want to know what he said.“You were in the circus?”Euripides mumbled an affirmative and handed her a Styrofoam cup.“So what was your thing?”“I didn’t have a thing,” he told her. “I was just there.”“But didn’t you say something about a—”“No.”“Well…” The girl took a sip and narrowed her eyes, “It’s all pretty weird. Soyou said you’re a doctor, then?”40

Euripides winced and bit his tongue. Was she just going to sit there and bombardhim with irritating questions, this complete stranger?“Not yet,” he told her. It had been “not yet” for the last twelve years. Twelveyears of sleeping in cars, paying thirty dollars a month for a twenty-four-hourgym membership until the wonderful day his residency began.Euripides S. LeGrande was thirty-one-years old, and had been attendingmedical school for more than a decade, never able to enjoy one moment of accomplishmentbecause there was always something. Like the unread letters fromhis mother, piled up in his closet. Like his ex girlfriend Sue Noems. There was amistake. One of those four-year regrets. And now?“My mother’s dying,” he told the girl in the bed.A week ago he’d received a letter from the ageless Solomon Morse of theMorse Brothers Circus.“We’ll be outside Toronto for the next week,” Morse wrote in his psychoticchicken scratch. “Don’t know how long she’ll hold out.”Five days of that week had already slipped by in a haze of crowded bars andsexual encounters. Euripides had traveled from Syracuse with mixed intentions,deciding to spend a night in the gaudy, trashy, Vegas-like atmosphere of Niagarain order to think things over. But the more he thought about his mother, and hispast, the more he wanted to drink.“So what’d she do to you?”Euripides stared at the girl through his fingers, wondered for a momentwhere she would be this afternoon, if people would see her—at the store, on abus—and know what she was.“She stabbed me in the back.”The girl reached out, lifted his shirt.“Not literally,” he said, slapping her hand away. For a moment, the embarrassedlook in her eyes reminded him of Mary Louise Polk, the moment afterhis mother had humiliated him in front of Mary and fourteen other ‘normal’witnesses.Mary Louise had talked to him, sought him out during the shows. For threemonths, while the Circus moved through northern New York, the petite fourteenyear-oldwas always there, smiling, inviting him for a walk—looking at him likeno girl, no person, had ever looked at him. Until his mother found out, and putan end to it, her way.“Well maybe your mom’s sorry,” the girl suggested.“Or maybe she’s just dying.”Euripides thought about saying more, but figured he’d probably said enoughthe night before.After slipping a Syracuse sweatshirt over his throbbing skull, he grabbed hispants, and his wallet, and hesitated. This was by far the worst part.“Um, how much do I owe…”The girl’s brown eyes bulged. “I’m not a whore, you asshole.”Euripides dropped his coffee onto his boxers and cried out, quieting for amoment the offended blonde. This was the fourth time he’d mistaken an amateurfor a working girl.After Sue Noems, Euripides had slept exclusively with prostitutes. Heenjoyed the lack of effort, the lack of commitment, and the low probability that41

42he’d wake up the next morning to a burning mattress. But in the game of blindman’s sex, a promiscuous civilian was bound to slip into the mix.“Sorry, sorry, I…”“Fifty dollars,” the blonde said through a mouthful of coffee.“What?”“For calling me a whore,” she argued and grinned as she held out her hand.Maybe she is a whore, Euripides thought, and this is her technique. Everyonehad a technique.“Besides,” the girl added as Euripides crumbled three bills into her delicatehand, “all that circus talk, and stabbing whatnot, and you’re tail … yeah Iknow.”“It’s not there anymore,” he said in defense, but the girl merely shook herhead. “I should go to the cops, you freak.”Last night, had she called him a freak, he would have probably overreacted,done something … regrettable, like the time with Sue, and her bicycle chain.But now in the morning light, his head pounding, Euripides did not want to act.He closed his eyes, and let the roar of the falls wash away any context of time orplace.“Hello? Hey, loser?” The girl shimmied into her Rainbow Brite skirt andtried to get his attention, but instead of responding, Euripides breathed in thefaint scent of watery coffee, and her deoderant: Spring Bouquet, or something.Through closed eyes, he listened to the girl pack her small bag, slip on hersandals, and walk to the door.“Not that I give a shit,” she said, “but last night somebody called.”“What? Who?”“I don’t know, from some place called Sugar Bees. See ya, freak.”Eurpides opened his eyes and mouthed these strange words. “Sugar Bees.Sugar Bees.” He jumped off the bed and searched the room, found a nightclubreceipt on the floor next to the night stand, small words etched in ink on theback: “Paul Hornsby, Dooshomp sword. Sugar Bees?”“Ahh!” he shouted and instantly regretted the shout as a small grenade explodedinside his skull.“Sotheby’s.”Searching his wallet, Euripides found the number for the Manhattan auctionhouse and picked up the phone. Two days ago, anger and financial despairand vodka getting the better of him, he’d called Sotheby’s to inquire about hismother’s treasured heirloom, inherited from his father when his father died in amake believe duel.Euripides did not always hate his parents, and occasionally, he even thoughthe loved them. Mostly, however, he simply wanted to forget and move on.Maybe if I take the sabre, he irrationally rationalized, and say what I have tosay to her once and for all, it will end. He knew this outcome was not likely, butstill he wrapped the idea around his head like a warm blanket around a shiveringpup.But when he’d called the auction house and asked for an appraisal on a duelingsabre once owned and wielded by Marcel Duchamp, the man on the otherend snorted a bit too loudly.“Duchamp?” the man asked. “The French painter, a sword fighter?”“Yes,” Euripides replied, but before he could explain, the man hung up.

Staring at the note scribbled by the girl who’d never given her name,Euripides dialed Sotheby’s and asked this time for Paul Hornsby. A minute later,a fast-talking British man came on the line, sounded as if he were eating themouth piece.“So sorry for that ignoramus.” Hornsby was an antiques expert specializingin French Twentieth-Century duels.“Not many people know of Duchamp’s prowess with the blade,” the experttold Euripides. “For a surrealist, Duchamp had great footwork.”“It wasn’t his feet,” Euripides told the nasally Brit. “It was his balance. Anyway,how much?”“There is only one known Duchamp sabre,” the man said, clearly excitedand rushing his words, “so if this is, I mean, if you really do have another, andthe authenticity can be proved, well, well, the first sabre resold last year in Londonfor eighty-thousand pounds.”In his mind, Euripides saw his debt, all ninety thousand dollars of it, standingnext to his crying mother. He’d take the sword, and leave them both crying.This was the motivation he needed, something beyond regret, remorse, familialduties.“May I ask,” the man said, “how you’ve come by this, um, quite valuableitem?”In his drunken stupor, in the presence of prostitutes, Euripides had probablytold the story a thousand times in excruciating detail. But now, sober and ailing,he gave the antiques expert the abbreviated version.“My father stabbed Duchamp in a duel in 1967. The sword was his prize.” Intruth Euripides’ father had stabbed Duchamp and then stolen the sabre, but thistype of story, Euripides thought, would not sit well with an auction house.Before Hornsby could summon a response, Euripides hung up. In the nexthalf hour, he gathered his things, ran to the drug store for a bottle of aspirin, andboarded a bus for Toronto.One gift the circus had given Euripides was the ability to sleep anywhere.Growing up a freak wanting to leave one world for another, he’d often wrackedhis brain for a normal job that required this ability, thrived on this ability. Hecame up with doctor.Another tenet, though he wouldn’t call it a gift, inherited from The MorseBrothers, was a fervent policy of never borrowing anything from anyone, apolicy that would degrade his body and soul over the next fifteen years.After he’d walked away from the circus at the age of sixteen, Euripideshad nothing. He lacked possessions, clothes, money, and most importantly, anidentity.Working mostly as a busboy or landscape laborer, and moving on whenpeople began to ask questions, he forged addresses and parents’ signatures, abirth certificate (he kept his father’s name) and a social security number, in orderto get his paychecks, and later, his GED. He then proceeded towards his goal ofbecoming an emergency room surgeon.Euripides was accepted into one program, at Syracuse, but without student orprivate loans, he could not pay his tuition and survive at the same time. He wentwithout a car, an apartment and three meals a day. When not studying or poking43

44through a bloated cadaver, Euripides worked mostly in fast food restaurants,taking home each night as many cheeseburgers and subs he could cram into hispants.Yet even with all these sacrifices, he could still not afford the tuition, andagainst his principles, against the nature drilled into him for sixteen years, Euripidesapplied for student loans. With this new debt, however, he felt guiltier thanever and worked even harder to keep the damage to a minimum. It was a losingbattle he simultaneously fought and ignored.The best job by far was security guard. Without this cushy gig, he might nothave survived. For five years Euripides caught up on much needed sleep, nightafter night, guarding locked buildings from would-be thieves, until one day thesethieves arrived, and while Euripides slept, they cleaned the place out, completelyand utterly.The morning after the robbery, the store manager woke Euripides from adeep sleep.“One,” said the manager, counting off with his fingers, “you got robbed.”While Euripides’ eyes moved across empty shelves and broken televisionsscattered across the floor, the manager moved onto number two, “You’re fired.”As Euripides stumbled to his feet, the frightening vision of a return to Mc-Donalds or Wal-Mart brought tears to his eyes. The manager saw his tears, andplaced his hand on Euripides’ shoulder.“Tip,” the man told him. “Don’t try to get another security job. You’ll beblacklisted in about a week.” And so it went. Walking through days and sleepingon car seats and gurneys, Euripides dwelled on the life he’d led, the life that hadbrought him only struggle and hate. “If only I had a nuke,” he often fantasized,“I’d blow that fucking circus to kingdom come.”Right cheek pressed against the cold Greyhound window, a light raincrawling across the glass, Euripides wondered if his mother, the normal who’dmarried a freak, deserved his animosity, for it was not fair, was it, to throw outa lifetime of deeds in exchange for one act? But it wasn’t one act, it was everyday, his mother telling him “You can’t go out there, they won’t accept you,” thesilhouette of his father shadow fighting on the other side of the tent. Sometimesthe silhouette could barely stand, but always, it found the equilibrium. Until itdied, along with the man attached to it.No one in the circus was inherently nasty. The other performers, and evencold, deliberate Solomon Morse, had treated Euripides with respect and affection.They taught him to love books and appreciate individuality, but becausehe had chosen not to perform, there was something missing in the greetings,the exchanges and celebrations within the camp. For all of the years he couldremember within those fabric walls, Euripides felt like a mutt standing on afence between two worlds. He’d look out at the patrons, knowing he was notlike them, and he’d look to his extended family of freaks, and know there wassomething missing here as well. He understood the circus, and what it represented,but he also hated these people, especially his mother, for molding him into aman who could not easily exist outside of them.In the back of the Greyhound, Euripides flinched awake when he sensedsomeone next to him. He opened his eyes, and saw the girl he’d slept with inNiagara lowering the arm rest he’d intentionally lifted to discourage intruders.This was not the blonde girl who’d called him a freak. This was a prostitute, a

genuine prostitute, named Josephine. Euripides remembered the name becauseof its out-of-time feel, and because the three previous hookers went by Misty,Onyx, and the elegant Sapphire. All in all he’d spent five nights with five differentwomen, and collectivity, he recalled less than ten minutes of his deadeningescapades. Except for Josephine. He remembered, somehow, enjoying his timewith her.Josephine was younger than the blonde, maybe college graduate age, Euripidesthought, even though he defied this classification. Josephine had tired eyeson a young face, but she seemed genuinely content.“So you headed to the circus?” she asked him and rested the palm of hermanicured hand on his crotch. She’d sought him out three nights ago, made a betwith him that he was not too drunk to get it up. Euripides lost, and paid up thenext morning.“You’re a good sport,” she’d told him, and slid off the bed into her denimskirt. “So how about you buy me a waffle.”As the bus lurched over a bump or maybe a dead goose, Euripides looked atthe girl with jet-black hair pulled tight in a bun, a pair of wire frames hangingfor dear life on the end of her nose. Was this the same girl who shoved dinnerplate-sizedwaffles into her mouth, one after the other? How much did sheknow? Did he tell all the girls everything? Of course he did. In the mornings healways pretended that maybe he hadn’t said much. But always, he’d said it all.This, to Euripides, was the largest benefit of a one-night girlfriend.“I’m not going to a circus,” he lied, at which point Josephine leaned over thearm rest, crammed her hand down the back of his pants, and squeezed.Euripides jumped into the window.“I was just going to visit my mom,” she told him, “but I can go with you tosee yours.”“Thanks, Josephine, but I told you—”“C’mon Euri, and call me Josie. You confessed to me, and now I’m yours.Didn’t you ever hear that old Chinese proverb?”Euripides backpedaled, but his back was already plastered against the window.“I know you now,” she said. “I know how she embarrassed you, pulled downyour pants in front of the girl you thought you loved.”“I did love!”“The girl you thought didn’t know about your secret.”“I never performed, never showed them” he said, hearing the ridiculousnessof this logic but not caring, because he had to believe Mary Louise Polk didn’tknow, that she would have accepted him…if it wasn’t for them. He sank backinto the seat and took a deep breath.“It doesn’t matter that your mother, the rest, they were only trying to help, toget the truth out sooner than later.”“Enough.” He turned towards the window, but Josie continued.“She wouldn’t let you go to school, buy anything, see anything, and whenyou left, you felt like you had to start from scratch.”“Jesus shut up! I told you to stop.”When Josie touched him, wrapped her arm around his twitching back, hedidn’t protest, and when she leaned close to his ear, he closed his eyes and inhaledthe scent of Peppermint Altoids.45

“I was just kidding about that confession thing,” she told him. “But seriously.We’re soulmates. Your father was a performer, right?”“A drunk.”“My father was a performer too.”Euripides turned and addressed her with different eyes.“When I knew him,” she said, “he was all washed up, but he acted like therewas still a chance … of something, you know?”Euripides slowly nodded, as if his neck ached with every motion, when infact he was surprisingly pain free.“My father,” he told her, “brought the largest crowds in the history of our,their circus, even half in the bag. He was the world dueling champion, 1971-74.I guess I told you his special weapon.”“You mean his tail, for balance? Yeah, you told me. But your mom—”“You don’t think a tail is … strange?”“There’s a woman in Nairobi,” Josie said without missing a beat, “who hasno tongue but can talk just fine. And in Calcutta, there’s a guy with three eyes onhis face, radiation or something. But he’s got twenty-twenty vision in all three.”“Okay,” Euripides said. “I see your point.”“Once you open yourself up to the possibilities,” she said, “everything’s normal,and nothing’s normal … that sounds like bullshit, sorry. And your mom?”“No tail, no talent.”“And then there’s you.”Euripides did not respond as Josie’s hand moved over the scar on his lowerback. “So both our dads,” he said, “were drunks. Did yours get himself killed?”“Both our dads,” she replied, “had, at one point, achieved something spectacular.They made people appreciate life, showed everyone what a human beingwas capable of.”“They came to see his tail.””Maybe,” she said. “But they came back for the performance.”“How would you know?”“Imagine, Euri, stepping outside yourself, slowing down time, achievingperfection. Can you imagine that?”Searching for the best stinging reply, Euripides sighed, and finally answered,“No.”“Me neither,” she agreed, and pulled the tip of something red from her frontjeans pocket.After Sue Noems, Euripides had not been with the same woman twice. Hewanted to avoid the familiarity that bred grudges and jealousy and burning mattresses.Josie, for all of her insight, exhibited some of the same nervous energy heremembered from his nightmarish years with Sue. But there was something inJosie’s grin, or was it in her eyes, that convinced him of her bedrock sanity. Heknew she would never erupt, would never swear out a warrant for his arrest,just like he knew the last fifteen years of his life, the last twelve years of school,were somehow ending, about to turn into something else. He didn’t know why,but picturing tomorrow, Euripides could not imagine his current self.“You’re scared,” she said, and loosened his belt. The only other passengers,two elderly couples and a large Native American man, slept or read near the46

front of the bus.“You know,” she whispered into his ear, slipping her fingers under his boxers,“I would’ve screwed you for free.”Euripides gulped. Not again. “So you’re not…”“No, I am,” she reassured him. “But usually if I like the guy, it’s just sex.With you, I had to bet.”“Why?”She had the answer ready, as if she’d given it a dozen times. “Some peopleneed an excuse. Now.” Slipping her jeans around her ankles as she adjusted herpanties, Josie unzipped his pants and shifted herself on top of him.“Anyone looking?”Euripides, too amazed to properly express himself, focused on the rear viewmirror in the front of the bus, but the driver did not notice or did not care.“I don’t have a condom.”“And you didn’t before, either. Do you have anything?”He wasn’t sure if she meant condoms or sexually transmitted diseases. Hereplied “No,” for both, because Hepatitis A was something you could get rid of.“Well I’m all set,” she said, and for some reason, Euripides took this to meaneverything he wanted it to mean.Peeking over her shoulder in both directions, Josie pulled a long piece of redribbon from her front pocket, an act that reminded Euripides of their first nighttogether.“Where are the handcuffs?” he said, hearing in his mind the click as hishands became one with the bed post.“Different place, different symbol,” she said while tying his hands to theback of the head rest. Euripides wanted to touch, wanted to sink his fingers intoher soft snowy flesh, but he would not complain about this strange compromise.As they moved west along the coastline of Lake Ontario, the United Statesfading away with the rest of his life, Euripides had sex with a woman, on a bus,twice, all the while completely and utterly sober. Today was the beginning of hisreinvention. But knowing things are going to change is not the same as knowinghow.Hands strapped behind his head, he leaned into her breasts so she wouldn’tsee his tears, and they remained in this state, more or less, for the next hour anda half.The circus was not as he remembered it. More specifically, he hadn’t rememberedit being so completely disheartening. Squeezed into a three-acre plot in asmall park twenty miles from Toronto, the Morse Brothers Circus was a woundeddeer struggling to reach the shoulder.A few dozen tents sported torn seams and window-sized holes, while raggedanimals (a mule, a zebra, a black bear, and a handful of dogs) roamed thegrounds like confused senior citizens let loose at the mall.He tried to picture this place before he’d left. Was it always this bad, soominous and depressing?“This place is the pits, right? “Josie forced a laugh and followed his eyesfrom one sorry animal to another. “Someone should drop a nuke on this place,put them out of their misery.”“Yeah,” he said, not really listening. As he stared at the tents, the ghosts47

48moving around in the background, Euripides did not think of the circus. Hethought of life with Mary Louis Polk, if somehow they’d ended up together.That life, even if only in his mind, was ripped away by everyone here.“I just need five minutes,” he mumbled and swallowed a mouthful of rancid,fetid air as he climbed over a sagging rope and took one step towards the interiorof the camp.“Wait.” Josie grabbed his arm. “Let’s make a deal.”“Josie, I don’t really feel—““Don’t go in there.”Euripides turned and stared at this girl, woman, this strange surprise in hislife. Since taking his seat on the bus, Josie had been nothing but confident,relaxed and philosophical. Now the doubt in her voice, and the look on her face,caused Euripides to see her anew, someone he hadn’t yet met.“I don’t think this was a good idea,” she said, and forced a smile. “Youshould get on with your life, finish your degree, or training, whatever.”“Are you insane?”Josie parted her lips, ready to speak, but her words turned into a sigh.“I’m not leaving without the sabre,” he told her, and took one step beforenoticing the small, hobbled figure in the distance. A little old man shuffled along,carrying a cane, wearing a tattered top hat, and walking alongside a mule, hishand on the sickly animal’s back for support.“Oh my god,” Euripides whispered, and stepped back into the rope.The recent letter had confirmed Euripides’ gut feeling that Solomon Morse,original founding member of the Morse Brothers Circus during the Great Depression,was somehow still alive, but seeing the man preserved in actual fleshseemed to Euripides like the final stage of some pact with the devil.“C’mon,” Sophie insisted. “Lets go back to Niagara. I have some money. Wecan get a place on the lake.”“What the hell are you talking about!” Euripides pulled away as the old manpassed the last tent, parted company with the mule, and screamed with surprisingdepth, “Ho there, visitors!”No one spoke until Solomon Morse hobbled to within a few feet of theperimeter rope. Up close, beyond the wrinkled, sunken skin and half-dollar-sizedliver spots, the owner’s dark eyes still produced the shrewd glare of a man incharge of many things, his feet still solidly planted in this world.Solomon leaned forward, his faded black barker’s hat almost falling off hisshrunken head. Euripides remembered Solomon constantly buffing his top hat,once grand, now holy and worn through, and bare of the red ribbon that oncecircled the base.Euripides turned to Josie, who was staring at the old man with genuine affection.Without believing it, he watched her pull the red ribbon from her bag, leanforward and carefully wrap the satin cloth around the old man’s hat.Solomon kissed Josie on the cheek and turned to Euripides, his leathery handextended.“And how are you, Euri?”Euripides stepped back. “What’s going on?” he whispered, not sure hewanted to know.The old man glanced at Josie, and then turned back to Euripides with a sigh.“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Over the old man’s shoulder, Euripides watched a handful of misshapen,unrecognizable figures drag an unwilling mare into the center tent. From somewhereinside the tent, the animal whinnied and snorted.“My mother,” Euripides said, and closed his eyes, and thought about thosewasted days in Niagara drinking and fucking. Stalling, perhaps wishing thiswould be the end result.“When?”Again, the old man looked at Josephine before answering.“Two years ago.”Not thinking about his feet or any part of his body, Euripides retreated,tripped over the rope and fell backwards into a shallow puddle of mud.“Don’t worry,” the old man assured him, reaching forward as if to help, as ifhe could. “The sabre is still here. Naturally, as the oldest heir, you are entitled.”“Oldest?” As Euripides sat on the ground, numb, unable to focus on any onething, the two people next to him continued to speak.“It’s done,” she told Solomon.“How do you know already? You can’t know already.”“I know,” she hissed. “Some things… There’s no need for him anymore.”“But what if he wants—”“He doesn’t.”“What are you talking about!” Euripides used the perimeter rope to pullhimself to his feet, unable to decide whom to confront and how.Glancing once more at the concerned, stubborn young woman, SolomonMorse subtly bowed towards Euripides. “I hear you are almost a doctor,” hesaid, and smiled as he began to shuffle away. Euripides noticed, only half theface smiled.Euripides and Josephine said nothing, until the worn, slanted top hat disappearedbehind a distant tent.“So you still don’t know?” Her tone was kind, considerate, but slightly annoyed.When Euripides did not reply, Josie turned, and stared at him with the innocent,horrified expression of the fourteen-year-old girl on that day…He was nolonger staring into the eyes of a strange hooker.“Mary Louise? No. No?Euripides felt his stomach compress into a fist.“No.”“Well I couldn’t tell you my name was Josephine LeGrande.”“Mary was blonde.”“Don’t be stupid, Euri. Didn’t you think it strange that a little fourteen-yearoldgirl would show up in Milton, and then appear at the next show a hundredmiles away?”Flipping through his memories, one by one, Euripides tried to picture MaryLouise Polk hanging around the camp, wanting to talk to him, ask him questions,hold his hand. Yes it was weird, but he was a child, and Mary Louise wasa friend. Motives didn’t matter. The little girl’s reasons didn’t matter.“When your mother grabbed your pants?” Josie said, “yanked them to theground, she knew I wouldn’t care, but you didn’t know. She wanted you toleave. She didn’t want us to…”He turned away and looked at the ground because staring at her was not49

helping.“When your father died, Solomon said I could move into the camp, but firsthe wanted us to…”“To what?”“To fuck, Euri, he wanted us to fuck.”Euripides turned and looked up. “Us? Why would Solomon want us to…”His mind unable to keep up to the present developments, Euripides rewoundthe tape and listened to Josie’s words from a few minutes earlier. JosephineLeGrande. She said her name was LeGrande.Josie shrugged. “You said it yourself. Henri LeGrande was the best draw thiscircus had ever seen. You wouldn’t believe how hard, impossible it is to find atail, a real tail.”He’d been staring at her eyes, so green, so familiar, when a seemingly randommemory entered his mind. Three nights ago, on the bed, Josie handcuffinghim to the bed post. On the bus, Josie strapping his hands to the head rest. In alltheir time together, he’d never touched … her back.In a moment of clear, unencumbered, rational thought, Euripides steppedforward, stared into the eyes of the woman he’d slept with but never touched,and wedged his hand down the back of her jeans.Eyes opening wide, Josie smiled. “Not as big as yours … was,” she whispered.“Or your father’s.”“Our father’s,” he mumbled.This time, Euripides’ legs simply gave out, and he fell back into the mud.“Not to be inhuman,” she told him, and stepped over the rope, “but I need totalk to Solomon. I think you should wait here. Sorry Euri.”Euripides looked at the ground, looked at Josie. “You and I…”“Nobody’s forcing you to do anything. The loaf’s in the oven. We didn’tthink … anyway, you can go if you want, become a doctor, save lives. I promise,we won’t ever bother you again.”As he lay in the mud, staring into the dark clouds, Josie faded from his periphery,just as everything else had faded, leaving Euripides to wonder what hewould have tomorrow.Over the years, Ben Orlando has roamed the globe, attempted manyprofessions and finally settled on writing as the career that would pay the leastand cause the most frustration. Ben teaches at the Columbus College of Art andDesign while attempting every day to write a story that will stop traffic, alter thecourse of tropical storms, and finally win the war on war.50

A GRIM, DARK BAR INA COLD, WET TOWNby Joe KilgoreThe sidewalk wept. Rain, like tears, trickled from cracks and seeped slowlytoward the curb, pausing momentarily at the edge before sliding into thegutter and joining a fetid rush of discarded dreams.Watching his step, being careful not to slip as he slogged through the charcoalmush that had settled contemptuously atop the cement, Hank looked at the blackstream of silt and saw his future floating there. He was no more depressed thanusual. He simply chalked it up to fatalistic calluses he had developed over theyears. Scars on his psyche that kept him from seeing silver linings behind cloudsor wildflowers among weeds. Especially in winter. Especially on gray morningswhen wind and sleet sliced his cheek like a careless shave.In the alley, he took the key ring from his overcoat pocket and unlocked ametal door freckled with rust. Inside, he pulled the chain that turned on the light inthe stock room as he started marching in place and banging his feet down hard tojar the crud from his shoes. Once his coat was draped over a four-inch nail in thewall, he walked across the floor and pushed open the swinging door that lead tothe bar.The bar was a relatively square room with one wall fronting the street. Theonly windows were small, oval and set high on that wall just two feet below theceiling. Even on a sunny day very little light made its way inside. There was astained glass window in the front door. But its dominant colors were forest greenand rose and it kept out as many rays as it let in.Years of repetition had honed Hank’s morning routine. Since he alwayscleaned up the night before, all he had to do to open up was throw the switch bythe swinging door, pull the upturned chairs from the eight tables that almost noone ever used, empty the dishwasher of glasses that, like vampire bats, hung upsidedown to drip dry, and unlock the front door. The door that had the word B A Rin yellow, outlined in lead and set dead center in the stained glass.Other than the bar, Hank hadn’t gone anywhere for years. He knew he wasn’tabout to go anywhere. That’s probably why his wife, Erma, left him, he reflectedas he walked back from the front door and ambled behind the bar. She knew aftersix months that Hank was a lost cause. Of course he knew it too. He just didn’twant to admit it. Who does? Who wants to face the fact that the rest of your daysare going to be as bleak as all the days that have come before. Certainly not Hank.That’s why every morning he took the few minutes before his regulars began to51

52straggle in and stared unblinkingly into the big mirror behind the bar.He stared at his face. A face etched with deep horizontal lines across his foreheadand vertical trenches down his cheeks that looked as if they were carved by aparticularly ill-tempered sculptor. But in truth had only been chiseled by monotonyand repressed despair.The more he looked at his face, the more he was drawn to the spiky silver hairprotruding from the front of his forehead while the hairline on either side of itraced toward the back of his skull like illegals at a well manned border crossing.Where had it gone, he wondered. When did it start to abandon ship? Was his hair,like his life, inexorably vanishing? Would this bar, these glasses, this unpityingmirror frame his soul’s stockade for the rest of his days?All were passing queries only. Hank had made a kind of peace with the factthat the world was on a slow boat to hell and he had the drink concession. A credohe felt was reaffirmed daily by the detritus encountered on the patron’s side of hisbar.It wasn’t that Hank was scornful of his customers. He just saw them for whatthey were. Jailers. His jailers. Dispensing damp, wrinkled greenbacks that kepthim imprisoned behind five feet of bourbon soaked mahogany.The front door creaked, signaling an end to Hank’s morning reverie. The firstof the regulars was arriving.Preston always shook the shiny droplets off his worn navy pea coat before hehung it on the rack. The ritual never failed to put Hank in mind of a mangy dogtwisting himself dry.“Hey,” Hank said, pointing to his head as he did every morning. Preston reactedin rote too. He reached up, removed his skull cap and looped it on top of hiscoat. It wasn’t that Preston was stupid, well, maybe he was. Nobody really knewfor sure. He never said enough to make it obvious one way or the other.Hank didn’t ask Preston what he wanted. He knew.“Coffee be ready in a minute. I’m a little behind this morning cause’ of theweather.”Preston drank a lot of coffee. A lot of Irish coffee. He’d fold his lanky frameover the far end of the bar and burrow into the newspaper he brought with him everyday. It seemed to Hank as if the skinny loner with the long nose, deep set eyes,bushy mustache and knuckles round as gum balls, read the damn fish wrap wordfor word, page after page and front to back day in and day out. Was he looking forsomething? Did he really care that much about current events? Was he even readingor just counting the damn letters like one of those idiot savants? Hank couldn’ttell you. Generally, Preston’s only method of communication was to plop a bonyelbow on the bar, hook his finger in the handle of his coffee cup and raise it offthe saucer. He’d keep it held up like that until Hank saw him and gave him a refill.Hank always put the whiskey in first. Apparently Preston found that acceptable.He never complained. Which could not be said of Crystal, who came in next.“Jesus fucking Christ. It’s cold as an Eskimo’s balls out there.” Crystal knewsomething about balls. And it wasn’t from giving hernia exams. “Good thing I gotmy caribou panties on.”“Yeah,” Hank responded. “They’ll keep your ankles warm later today.”“Very fucking funny, Hank. You ought’a give up bar keeping and take your acton the goddamned road.”

54day at the bar. Unlike his physique, his need for human contact hadn’t aged verywell.Forty-five minutes later the refinery crew and the construction workers haddescended causing the noise level in the bar to rise a number of decibels. By thenPreston was going through the basketball stats. Crystal had talked a rather burlytype into a bourbon. Tanaka was about to begin his glass of rice wine and Hankwas dispensing cold beers by the handful.There were few saving graces to being a drink jockey during the busiest partof the day. Unless you counted the actual act of simply staying busy. Hank did.The busier he was the less time he had to think about the nut he barely made eachmonth. Or the fact that any life he had ever envisioned for himself outside the confinesof the four walls that surrounded him was only that, a vision. A fantasy thathad little chance of ever becoming anything more than a pipedream.But by the time the roofers and the carpenters and the clock punchers hadstarted to drift away, a number of things began to happen that left Hank with thedistinct impression that today just might be a little different than all those otherdays had been.Oh sure, Preston was still holding his cup aloft as he made his way through theobits, but Tanaka had ordered a second Saki, Crystal had gone out and come backin three different times and appeared to be flush enough to put cash on the bar inadvance of her orders, and a man was coming in from out of the cold that Hankhad never laid eyes on before. A young man who caught his attention the minutehe stepped inside.The guy was dark skinned. Not black. Maybe Puerto Rican or Mexican. Butmaybe not Latin at all. Maybe one of those islanders or middle eastern types for allHank knew. He had no idea. The neighborhood that used to be packed with Irish,Italians and Jews, now seemed to be mostly Asians, Pakistanis and God knowswhat else. Hank didn’t have a problem with that. He didn’t care about the color oftheir skin. His big complaint was that they simply didn’t drink enough.But there was definitely something different about this guy. To begin with, hewas not dressed for the weather. No topcoat. No hat. No scarf. No nothing. Justa blue serge suit, white shirt and black tie. He had a black briefcase he seemedto cling to with both hands. Hank thought he looked like one of those low levelguys at the bank who kept turning him down for loans. But the real kicker, evenstranger than the fact he wasn’t winter proofed at all, was that he was sweating.Sweating like a marathoner in Miami.Pulling the briefcase up under one arm, he walked haltingly away from thefront door. He scanned the room as he walked, his dark eyes darting from side toside. He would look down at a table then up toward the bar. It was obvious he washaving difficulty deciding where to alight.“What can I get you?” Hank asked, thinking the question might help the mandecide to come to the bar. Hank wasn’t keen on waiting tables.Still looking like he was concerned with who might or might not be in theroom, the young man stammered, “Wha…what do you have?”What a stupid question thought Hank. “It’s a bar, man. We got pretty muchwhatever you want to drink.”“Maybe he ain’t looking for something to drink. Maybe he’s looking for somethingelse,” Crystal slurred as she hiked her dress over her knee and crossed her

legs. “You looking for something else, sweetie?”“No,” the young man said, clutching his briefcase tighter, and moving to abarstool as far removed from Crystal’s as possible. “I would just like a sparklingwater please.”“Bubbly water. Coming right up,” Hank said.By the time Hank found one of the few Poland Springs he had and turnedto set it in front of the perspiring young man, he couldn’t help but notice howagitated the guy continued to be. The young man kept holding tightly to the blackbriefcase. He held it so tightly the veins stood out on the back of his hands drawingHank’s eye to an intricately carved silver band on the fellow’s ring finger.Hank couldn’t really tell if it was a wedding band or not.While his hands were on his case, the man’s attention seemed to be on theother people in the bar. An interest that was far from reciprocal. Preston was deepinto the real estate section. Crystal was checking her makeup in the mirror. Tanakawas sipping and smiling. Maybe at Hank. Maybe at the nervous man. With thoseslits you couldn’t be sure.“You are the owner of this establishment,” the young man almost whispered toHank.“If that’s a question, the answer is yes,” Hank replied, still unable to detect hisnationality. The fellow had virtually no accent.“I must ask a favor of you.”“I’m big on drinks, Mac, not favors.”“I have to be someplace. Very, very soon.” Then, moving his case forward inhis lap, he asked, “Do you have a safe place? A safe place I can leave this for ashort while?”“Look buddy, this is a bar. You want to store your case somewhere, get alocker at the bus station.”“I don’t have time,” the young man said pleadingly. “I don’t have time to go tothe bus station. I must make my appointment.”“Well, hell, it doesn’t look that heavy. You brought it in…take it with you.”“I can’t. I can’t have it with me at my appointment. But I’ll come right backfor it. I’ll be gone less than an hour.”“Look, man…I can’t—““Please…I’ll pay.” Then reaching into the breast pocket of his suit, he pulledout a wallet. Counting out five twenties, he said, “Here’s a hundred dollars. It’syours. Just for watching the case until I return.”He couldn’t explain why, but Hank was still a bit wary. “It’s just not a goodidea,” he began, “suppose you come back and say I took something out of it.”The sweaty young man put his right hand into his pants pocket. He fumbledaround for a moment, then his hand came up holding a little gold key.“The briefcase is locked. I have the key. I won’t accuse you of anything.Please. Here…here’s another hundred,” he said, pulling a Benjamin Franklin fromthe wallet he dipped into seconds earlier. “Please. Take this too.”Caution is no match for cash. Hank said, “Okay, look…give me the case, I’llput it right here behind the bar. I’ll be here the rest of the day. So when you comeback, I’ll give it to you.”“Thank you. Thank you so much,” the young man said.“But I keep the two hundred, right?”55

56“Yes. Yes. It’s yours for being kind to a stranger. Thank you. I’ll be back withinthe hour,” said the tense young man as he handed the case to Hank. Then he rosefrom the barstool, cut quick glances once again at the three others in the bar andwalked hurriedly to the door leaving his Poland Springs untouched. Opening thedoor to a blast of wind and wet, he then cautiously stuck his head out, looking leftand right. Apparently satisfied, he stepped outside and shut the door behind him.“Tell me I didn’t just see what I thought I saw,” Crystal bellowed over her onceagain empty tumbler.“Forget it, okay? Just forget it,” Hank said.“Forget it. Forget it! Do you know how many dicks I’d have to suck or howmany times I’d have to bend over to come away with two hundred bucks plussomebody’s goods?”“I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” Hank replied. “It’s not an image I’dcare to conjure up. Anyway, the guy’s gonna’ be back soon and it’ll be done.”Crystal couldn’t let it go. “What do you suppose is in the case, Hank?”“Doesn’t matter what’s in the case,” he said. “It’s his and he’ll be back for it.”“If it’s worth not one…but two hundred clams just to hold the thing…can youimagine what must be inside?”“Something very valuable perhaps,” Tanaka said to no one in particular. Or toeveryone in the bar.“You got that right, my…banzai brother,” Crystal warbled, finding it difficultto get the b’s out cleanly.Hank looked over at his Japanese customer. “No point in speculating. He’llpick it up later and we’ll never know what was in it. But I’ll still have two yards.”“Yeah Hank, you’re a fucking negotiator…a hell of a businessman. But you’realso still a goddamned bartender. So give me another Maker’s Mark,” Crystalscreeched, slapping a sawbuck on the bar she had earned earlier.An hour went by. Preston moved meticulously through the want ads. Tanakadecided to stay and asked for coffee. Regular coffee. Crystal went to the ladiesroom a couple of times and threw up. Only to return for another three fingers. Thesweaty man didn’t show.Two hours went by. The occasional customer came and went. A scotch andsoda here. A vodka martini there. The streetlights came on. Still no dark youngman in a blue serge suit.“I’m telling you…we got something big here, Hank.”“Crystal…we don’t have anything. I’ve got it and I’m just holding it. That’sall.”The red head’s focus, what little there was of it, changed when she realized shehad once again consumed her profits. She turned toward Tanaka and squawked,“Hey Hirohito…how’d you like your knob polished?”The old gentleman looked across the bar and said to her, “You ask me that eachtime I come in here.”“Oh yeah,” Crystal replied, her elbow on the bar as she rested her head in herhand. “And what do you answer each time?”The sides of Tanaka’s mouth went up and a smile creased his cheeks as hereplied, “No thank you.”Then the door opened and a man walked in. It was not the man who left thecase. This was a bigger man. Over six feet. Well over. Even though he was wear-

ing a heavy overcoat, an expensive cashmere one, it was obvious to all in the barthat he was way beyond two hundred pounds. He wore no hat. His hair was wetfrom the weather. His face was expressionless.Preston, immersed as he was in the comic strips, didn’t really see him. Crystallooked his way and saw dollar signs. Tanaka, like Hank, saw trouble. Particularlywhen the big man pushed the door to and slid the bolt across, locking it.He opened the buttons of his overcoat but didn’t bother to take it off. “Anybodyin the toilets?” He asked as if he was used to getting straight answers rightaway. And he got one.“No, I don’t think so,” Hank answered. Then added, “But listen, we have tokeep that front door unlocked. It’s the law.”“As of now I’m the law,” the big man said and started toward the bar.He took long strides. His heavy legs came down hard and his heels clackedloudly on the wooden floor.There had been trouble in the bar before. It had been broken into a couple oftimes in the early morning hours when it was empty. Graffiti had been spray paintedon the outside walls and had to be removed. Hank had to oust unruly drunks ona couple of occasions. One time he even had to call 911. But in the few seconds ittook for the big man to walk from the front door to the middle of the bar, Hank gotthe weird sensation that all those previous occurrences had been mere child’s play.“A young guy came in here earlier today. A young guy in a blue suit,” the bigman said, looking directly at Hank.“Lots of guys come in,” Hank replied, “now about that door.”“Forget the door,” the big man said loudly. “The guy left a briefcase here. Iwant it.”“This is a bar,” Hank said, “do you want something to drink?”“Don’t fuck with me,” the big man said coldly. “I don’t have the time.”Preston closed his paper and began to slide off his barstool. The big man’shead turned quickly his way.“Sit down, stretch. Nobody leaves til’ I get that case.”Preston did as he was told. Hank started to say something but Crystal cut himoff. She slid off her bar stool and took a step toward the big guy saying, “Welllook, tiny…if we all have to stay, maybe you can buy a girl a drink, huh? What doyou say?”“Get away from me, skank.”Crystal’s drunk eyes opened wide as half dollars. “What did you call me?”“Crystal, sit down,” Hank said.“Did you hear what he called me. He called me skank. Skank! Who the hellyou calling skank…fat ass!”“Get her out of my face,” the big man said to Hank. “Now.”“Crystal, damn it. Sit down. Look, here’s a drink,” Hank said grabbing thebourbon and pouring some into Crystal’s glass. She was still staring at the man,defiance turning to revenge in her eyes. But she went back to her stool and thedrink.“Time’s running out, now give me the case,” the big man said again to Hank.“Or everyone here’s going to be in a world of shit.”Hank looked from Tanaka to Crystal to Preston. Then he looked to the lockedfront door. “Look, the guy paid me to watch the case for him,” he said.57

58“Don’t care about the money,” the big man mouthed. “Just give me the case,now”“He said he’d come back for it.”“He ain’t coming back.”“But he said he’d be back for it,” Hank entreated.The big man started reaching inside his overcoat as he growled, “I said he ain’tcoming back.” He pulled a wadded handkerchief from his pocket and quicklyopened it over the bar. “And he ain’t fucking coming back.” A finger rolled out. Afinger encircled by an intricately carved silver band.Hank’s eyes opened wide and the back of his hand came instinctively up to hismouth to keep him from retching. But he didn’t have time to get sick. With onehuge paw, the big man grabbed the front of Hank’s shirt and pulled him forward.His other mitt reached inside his coat and came back out with a service automaticthat he shoved under Hank’s chin.“Now…for the last fucking time…give me the briefcase.”Tanaka, sitting several stools away at one end of the bar, saw the fear in Hank’sface. He saw the seriousness in the big man’s eyes. And he saw Crystal’s handcoming out of her purse.“Perhaps I have the case…over here,” Tanaka shouted.The big man turned his head left toward the old Japanese. When he did, Crystalopened his neck with a razor blade.Her desire to help Hank, fueled by a fierce need to avenge the mammoth’stacky insult, combined with an intense swipe and an extraordinarily lucky landingalong the man’s carotid artery, sent blood spraying like the Spindletop gusher.The big man’s hand flew off Hank’s shirt while his other simultaneouslydropped the gun. Both sprung instinctively to surround the geyser spurting fromhis throat. He stumbled backward from the bar while the fingers of his handsturned red with the life that was now spilling through them and running down thelapels of his cashmere coat. Head back, mouth open, eyes rolling in his head, hecareened from one empty table to the next knocking chairs asunder.Hank, Preston and Tanaka looked on in horror while Crystal wailed like a banshee.“Ayeee…ayeee…call me a skank will you! Who’s the tough guy now? Drainout you big piece of shit.”The big man crumpled. His hands, slick with blood, slid from his neck as thebreath escaped him like air from a balloon. Knees banged the floor first. The hefell forward on his stomach and face. His last heartbeats pumping out what wasleft of the red rain.For a few moments nobody moved. The force of Hank’s grip on the bar turnedhis fingers pink and his knuckles white. Preston had tumbled from his stool andonto the floor as the bloodbath began. He continued to sit there in shock. Tanaka’selbows were on the bar with hands together and fingers laced. Crystal slumpedagainst her barstool, the blade still in one hand while a glass dangled from theother, it’s contents long since spilled.“Jesus,” Hank finally said.“Jesus had nothing the fuck to do with it,” Crystal stammered.“What are we going to do?” Hank asked himself as well as the others.Tanaka separated his hands and raised his head. He spoke softly but surely.“We contact the authorities. This was self-defense. Miss Crystal thought he was

going to kill you. We all did. We will all say so. Miss Crystal acted to save yourlife.”Hank looked at the old man even after he stopped speaking. It took a momentfor him to take in what he was saying.“Yes. You’re right,” Hank said, “Crystal just swung…trying to make him dropthe gun. It was an accident. An accident that happened because she was trying tokeep him from killing me.”Preston was still on the floor. Crystal hadn’t moved either.“That’s what happened,” Hank said to Crystal. “That’s what we’ll tell the cops.We’ll all say that…because it’s the truth…it’s what really happened.”Crystal’s gaze slowly moved from the big man’s body on the floor to Hank’seyes searching her face. “Yeah,” she responded. “Yeah, sure. That’s what happened.”Hank tried to gather his thoughts quickly. But he couldn’t seem to keep themto himself. He said out loud, “So, I should call them, right? I should call the cops.Should we do anything? Should we check to see if he’s still alive?”Tanaka could tell the barman had not fully recovered from his own shock. “Ifthe man were still alive his heart would be beating. If his heart were beating, he’dstill be bleeding. The man on the floor is dead.”“Yeah,” Hank responded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I‘ll call the cops.”“Hank,” Crystal said slowly, looking first to the barman, then to Tanaka, thenback to Hank, “what do you suppose is in the case?”Hank didn’t answer for a moment. He looked at Crystal. Then quickly toTanaka who gave no sign of a response. Then he stammered, “What… what differencedoes it make? Who cares what’s in the damn case!”“Somebody cared a lot, Hank,” Crystal said, more glassy-eyed than ever now.“The guy who brought it in cared. He gave you two hundred bucks just to watchthe damn thing. This fat fuck lying on the floor sure cared. He was willing to takeyou out…hell, probably all of us…just to get his hands on the case. There’s gotta’be something in there Hank. Something good.”“Perhaps there is something of value,” Tanaka said just above a whisper. “Twomen. So committed to it. So anxious that it be safe. Perhaps it is most valuable.”“Look,” Hank said, “forget the damn case. A man is dead here. Maybe two,”he added, looking over at the finger with the silver ring still lying on the bar.“What did they die for, Hank? What did they die for? Lets find out,” Crystalpurred.“You’re nuts. You’re out of your head,” Hank came back. “We can’t do that.We can’t look in the damn case. It’s not ours. And … and it’s locked, remember?“Perhaps the dead man has the key,” Tanaka said quietly. “He had the otherman’s finger. Perhaps he has the key the young man showed you.”“You don’t miss a thing, do you?” Hank recoiled. “You sit there, quiet. keepingto yourself. But you don’t miss a thing, do you?”“Lets see what’s in the case, Hank. Lets see,” Crystal continued.“Look,” Hank argued, “it’s my ass on the line. I took the money to watch it.“I’m the one who’ll get in trouble if anyone thinks … well, if they think…”Tanaka stepped into the void Hank’s addled pause left. “Who’s to say whatanyone will think? Perhaps no one … other than the young man and the brute lyingon the floor here … even know of the case.”59

60“But what if he doesn’t have the key,” Hank shot back.Before Tanaka or Crystal could answer, a voice came from the far side ofthe bar. “I’ll find out,” Preston said. Then he uncoiled himself from the floor andstarted walking.“Oh great,” Hank barked. “Now you’ve even got him into this. Preston, whereare you going?”The lanky one didn’t answer. He simply marched over and reached into theoutside pockets of his pea coat hanging on the rack. Pulling a leather glove fromeach, he slipped them on and walked back to the body on the floor.“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Hank said loudly. But no one seemed to belistening.Crystal had poured herself another drink from the bottle Hank had left on thebar. She was sipping as she watched. Tanaka had turned on his stool so he couldlook directly at the skinny man gingerly searching the frighteningly pale corpse.Preston was methodically going from pocket to pocket. First the overcoat, outsideand in. He had to roll the body on it’s side to get into some of the pockets. Hedidn’t seem to mind. Nothing in the overcoat. He progressed to the suit coat, founda wallet, put it beside the man and continued into the pants pockets. By touchalone, he could tell there was nothing in the back pockets. He had to reach underthe body to check the front. From the right side he pulled out a handful of change.When he spread it out in his gloved hand, he saw the key.“Is this it?” Preston asked, holding the key so all could see.“This is stupid,” Hank said. “It’s crazy.”“Get the case,” Crystal said. “Lets open it.”Preston put the key down on the bar in front of Hank.“Sure, you want me to do it. You want me to open it,” Hank railed. “Then myprints will be all over the thing.”“Your prints are already on the briefcase,” Tanaka said, walking over to whereHank and Crystal were at the bar. Preston had turned back to the body where hebegan to study the dead man’s wallet.“As for the key,” Tanaka continued, “you can easily wipe it clean or simplylose it. The police will have no way of knowing if the case was locked or not.”“This is not a good idea. We should not do this,” Hank moaned. “It can onlylead to more trouble.”“Listen Hank, you’re forgetting something. You got two hundred out of thisand we…we got nothing,” Crystal crowed. “And don’t forget the bigger fact…thatI saved your fucking life. That guy would have blown you away. That’s what youwere ready to tell the cops, right?”Hank took a breath. And put both hands on the bar.Tanaka looked at him and said, “We only want to look. We only want to seewhat all this was about, Hank. This is a mystery. A mystery we can solve. It issomething we will take with us forever. Think how we would feel never knowing.Never knowing what was so important that it cost two men their lives and almostours as well. Is your life so full, Hank? Is your life so full you have no desire tosolve such a mystery?”Hank looked at Tanaka. He thought about what the old man was saying. Hethought about what had run through his mind earlier in the day. That one day waspretty much like every other. That he was stuck behind this damn bar dolling out

drinks to…what had he called them… not customers…oh yeah, jailers, his jailers.He thought about the idea that maybe the only way some things ever change is ifyou actually get off your ass and do something to change them.Then he looked at Crystal. And he said to himself, why not? Why the hell not?Why not do something to change things? He reached in his pocket and pulled outthe money the young man had given him.“Here,” he said to Crystal, “that’s for saving my life. Hell, you’ll just wind upgiving it back to me for booze anyway.”Then he turned to the old man. “No, Mr. Tanaka, my life ain’t all that full. Iwas just thinking about that this morning.”Crystal whispered, “Come on Hank, it can’t hurt to take a little peek.”Hank let out a huge sigh. He picked up his bar rag and wiped a clean place infront of him. Then he reached down, got the briefcase and set it on the bar.“Okay,” he said, “lets solve ourselves a mystery.”Crystal leaned in close. Her mouth opened into a smile that almost made herlook pretty. Tanaka stepped closer too. For once you could see his brown eyes.Hank took the key, put it in the lock, turned it and heard it click.Then as Hank’s thumbs started sliding the tabs that would open the snaps, thethree heard Preston say, “Hey, this was the guy I was reading about in the paper.He and some others been knocking over banks using explosives and—“Then no one heard another word as the world turned into a blinding whitelight.And where once stood a grim, dark bar in a cold, wet town, the sidewalk bled.Blood trickled from cracks and seeped slowly toward the curb, pausing momentarilyat the edge before sliding into the gutter where it joined a fetid rush ofdiscarded dreams.Joe Kilgore’s fiction has been published in magazines, online literaryjournals, anthologies and more. He has one novel to his credit, THE BLUNDER,and is currently under contract for another to be delivered this summer. Two ofJoe’s western stories can be found in the anthology AWARD WINNING TALESavailable from MoonlightMessaAssociates.com. Austin, Texas is Joe’s home wherehe resides with Jezebel, a French Bulldog, three cats, and his wife Claudia, whodid the illustrations within this story.61

arm tucked behind the back pro-style. She locked eyes with me and grinned.Once I was in earshot, my lungs quaking, she said easily, “No body reads pornoanymore, Cock-Twisting Pervert.” She then jammed down the hydrogen boostbutton on her handheld accelerator. “See you in Hades, Farmer,” she said. Shecrouched readying for super sonic speed. Nothing, but a small wisp of blacksmoke escaped from the engine and the whole skateboard shuddered and lostmomentum. I was nearly on top her then. I reached out, but she escaped myhand and veered hard right towards a Loma Vista gated community. She olliedover a 10 foot brick wall and was out of sight.I couldn’t jump that high on my ancient electric skates. But I roller-skatedstraight up the trunk of a Yew Tree the way old cartoon characters do. At the firstbranch heading toward the brick wall, I did a forward flip and landed bearingdirectly towards the brick fortification. I caught a glimpse of the girl: she acceleratedtowards a huge mansion on the corner, her hair trailing in the wind. Whenthe branch began to bend with my weight I stopped breathing and vaulted myselfover. Twenty-six red wheels landed smoothly on a expanse of concrete insidethe Loma Vista gated community. As my lungs were heaving, I beelined into theback yard of the mansion where the girl ran. Beyond the wooden side gate, glasssliding double doors squeaked and slammed shut. I slid them open and retractedmy skates. As tired as a 3:00 a.m. jizz cleaner at a porn theatre, I cautiouslytook the stairs two by two. The grand staircase was a pink and yellow spiralcleaving through the center of the compound. Who lived here? Jay Gatsby?The culprit scurried to the third floor where I glimpsed long dirty blonde hairand an oversized magenta sweater with clumsily stitched geometric shapes. Atleast the spies had good taste. The door to a bedroom slammed shut. I crept to itand decided that I was gonna take her in. Maybe I’d get a raise? Maybe, I’d beEmployee of the Month for this one? I knocked on the door and said, “Who areyou?”“Who are you?” Was her reply.“I’m Farmer 337b.”“Well, thanks.”“Now you.”“No.”“That’s such a rip off.”“So?”“Whatever. You trespassed. Give me the data and readings from my placeand I might not take you in.”“What data?”“The pictures you took.”“Listen Farmer 337b. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t knowwhy you chased me.”“’Cause you ran. That’s admission of guilt when you run.”“Look, I don’t admit anything. I was just riding my skateboard.”I tried to initiate a satellite trace at this point. But it was thwarted by someother communications interference which came from the room proving the girllegitimately financed. I initiated my own blocking program hoping that shewouldn’t be able to call for help either. But I found that one transmission hadalready gone out. As I tried to decode it, the door sprang open and a golden63

64swath of hair attacked me with whirling sai. I managed to dodge and roll intothe room scanning for a weapon or a defensive wrap; anything. Nothing. Sheattacked again, very low this time aimed directly at my balls. I threw myselfbackwards and landed on the bed where my hand reached under a pillow andfound a 15 inch soft neon pink silicone dildo. I Jose Canseco’d the proxy phallusand hit my assailant squarely in back of the head. Her momentum carried herinto the wooden corner of the bed frame. Geometric Magenta Sweater Girl’sneck twisted ugly, angled awkward and she collapsed to the ground like a spentcondom.A Glock focused into my vision and I heard shots. I dropped the nasty dildoand upended myself rolling backward and making myself, the target, smaller.Pointy Legos that some kid hadn’t cleaned up poked into my chest and belly.Ignoring them, I crawled to cover. I hated this kid’s room and the slovenly littlekid’s horrible toy clean up habits. More imminently, I thought: who’s attackingme now? Peeping, I glanced the mousey 13-year-old who Sonic Boomed awayearlier. She must have gotten the emergency transmission and now she was only7 feet away. Close range panic saved me. I threw a plush teddy bear at her. Thebear sailed across wallpaper rainbows, Pegasi and unicorns. Upside down, tuftsof cotton stuffing exploded out its furry cute back as hollow point slugs landedin the wall behind me. Bullets bounced around inside the drywall and I couldn’tknow how many shots she fired. I counted maybe 30 shots while more fuckingLegos pierced my palms and thighs.With all my strength hoping to create a barrier, I lifted and rolled the largeobject next to me. It happened to be a mahogany wardrobe. The only wood grainI know is mahogany because the small tight even patterns and reddish colorrepresented my childhood desktop for years. Anyway, It fell towards the girland she jumped away with a tiny squeak. The room was an intense mess of neoncolored shredded kid’s bedding and horribly disfigured toys and stuffed animals.Thousands of multicolored neon Legos littered the floor. The random thoughtzapped into my hysteria: What is this kid doing with a huge dildo?An empty clip clicked out. A full clip loaded. A familiar clicking soundmeant that a bullet was chambered. The mini-Assassin sprang up with thewanton recklessness of a fearless computer generated enemy unleashing her furyfrom behind an all white vanity with oval mirror. The mahogany wardrobe tookin all the fire. I heard the bullets ricochet inside it. Again it was impossible to tellhow many shots had fired. The shots stopped and Justin Beiber’s “Baby” beganto play underneath my left butt cheek.“My phone,” exclaimed the 13-year-old death merchant. I got a good lookat her then. She was dressed in skinny jeans and a matching jean jacket with thecollar turned up. Just like Beiber Immortal. I thought I saw his visage on hert-shirt. I showed the bejeweled smartphone over the side of the wardrobe. Shegasped.“Do you want to take this call? It might be important.”“Who is it?”“I’m not gonna say.”“You motherfucker. Bobby’s supposed to call.” She put my head in betweenthe sights.I flicked the phone Frisbee style at her head. She went to catch it.

As the exit door grew larger in my sight, she caught the phone and answeredit in a totally sweet voice.“Bobby? Yeah, totally. I know, it’s so crazy. But, can I call you back? I justdidn’t want to miss your call ‘cause I missed it the other day. I’ll call you in aminute, K?” She hung up concurrent to my running out of the room.“Uuuuuugggggh, “ she cried in exasperation. “You almost made me missthat call. You’re a jerk, Farmer.”I was halfway down the pink staircase when she began firing at me again.“You stupid farmer. I hate your outfit.” One of her crazy shots hit my foot. Thehole quickly filled with blood and pulsed with Pain. I stumbled and stopped. Ilooked up to see the mouse Bieber girl flying through the air with a jump sidekick. I dropped to the ground to slip the blow. She pulverized the marble walland landed on her feet one step above my head. Pink dust from the rupturedgranite clouded the whole stairway.“I can’t believe you killed Irma. She must have underestimated you, dumbotronicfarmer.”I reached up and grabbed her jeaned leg and rolled into it with my neck.She toppled. And with blazing reactionary speed she slashed out with a largeknife. I could do nothing except hide my eyes. The blade hissed through the airand landed with a large THUNK cutting off my left ear. A clean strike. But verysuperficial. The pain didn’t register so I used my good right leg for one moresolid push and mounted her. She was smaller than I thought, maybe 90 pounds,so I leaned all my weight on her and she panicked picking up strength. Shewent into a solid guard position with her left leg wrapping my leg and her headpushing back on my chest resisting contact. Very well trained in hand to hand. Itook what I could and got partial underhooks on both arms, but I couldn’t driveher over due to my foot being shot up. She began to reach for some weapon onher body. That was a mistake because I being in Ghandi Guard locked in decentGood Evening Ladies and Gentleman Choke Hold. She was trapped. As sheexhaled, I choked tighter like the anaconda who squeezes whenever it’s prey exhales.She gasped and switched her tactic to give a short knee at my groin whichknocked into my thigh. Bone mashed muscle and fire and numbness exploded.At this point, I used my internal computer to shut all pain receptors off becausemy adrenaline surge had lapsed. I caught and held her knee in my crotch. Ileaned in and let go of her arms and grabbed her head and shoved it into mystomach for a Reverse Cross-face Samoa Special.She knew it was over and began to tap on my arm. I anaconda’d her evenmore.“Who sent you?” I said.“The Bilderberg Group.” Was the muffled response that vibrated into mychest. She then tried to bite me through my shirt. But couldn’t.Bilderberg? Those demented grotesque eugenics based globalist bankertyrants were always shoving their quintillioniare noses into Thirteen Gulls’ business.As I looked around for the gun, I choked harder and pressured the carotidarteries to shut down her brain. Still alive, I dropped her. I had to get ready forthe worst. My foot was broken from the gun wound and my ear began to sprayblood. In the bathroom, I found a box of tampons and put one into my ear holefor max absorption. A microfiber hand towel with an embroidered tarantula65

66wrapped my head. A bumble bee pillow pet wrapped my foot, but I still needed acrutch or a cane to walk. I sat down in an old leather study chair with wheels androlled myself towards the closet door.Skating ancient electric or otherwise was not possible. I thought. Bloodloss was countered by an increase in blood pressure readings from my internalcomputer.Then the floor to ceiling three story windows on the front of the mansionimploded. The sound muffled up into itself.“What did you do to my daughter?” Cried a huge male voice resonant anddeep. I held my head from the decibels.I keeled over.“Irma? Pria?” said a female voice. The vowels held concern.“Protect them.” Said the male voice. “I’ll make him sing.”As he said these words my whole body rose in the air. I had lost control.Telekinesis was my opponent’s skill. I needed a reactive brain scramble. Thatimplant is over 400 million dollars. I didn’t have that and I was transported tomy days in Basic. Squad leader Peter was a telekinesis user and used to bullyme all day. He could move small leverage points which proves useful in a fightwhen a slight tip of your blade or barrel means the difference between life ordeath. But this Bilderberg Agent was much more powerful. Able to lift me (over190 pounds) and pin me against the wall, implode glass and voice amplify withapparent ease. I guess eugenics had paid off for those demented grotesque eugenicsbased globalist banker tyrants.“Who are you?” He said.“I’m a farmer.” I said. My electronics halted and jammed. He had brokenthrough the last of my defenses. Pain from my recent battle grew vivid and fiery.“Why did you kill my daughter?”“She attacked me.”“What?”I screamed. All the flesh from hip down to my feet had been flayed fromthe bone. I looked down to see the bright sheen of blood, the brilliant white ofdried and cleaned bone and the leaking yellow-clear, grease of my marrow. In aspilt second my skin was cut, pulled back and stuck flat on the wall like a gradeschool pig dissection. Each nerve ending screamed tasting air for the first time.The meat was ground up in piles on the ground ready for the fridge or grill. Mylegs looked like the Mr. Bones silk screened Halloween costume.The pain settled down and I was able to answer, “Fuck you.” I coughedblood from biting my tongue.“Your girl was a whore, a trick.” I goaded.“Angering me will not hasten your death.” He said and waved with his handcasually.I yelled again in pain from both my arms exploding like water balloons, flayingup to the shoulder and pinning open in the same manner as my legs.“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH, I’m just a farmer hired by Thirteen Gulls.”“Darling, stop,” said the female voice. The pain ceased. Sweet surrender ofexposed bone.“What, I’m clinically dismantling this one like a Fiat currency in Americacirca 2012. Why stop? Would you like to eat of his flesh?” asked the male po-

litely.“We’ve company.”Heavy .50 caliber machine gun fire tore through the room. Code Tri-Deca-Gamma in ten minute intervals had gone through. Wood splinters flew brilliantly.Everything around me wallpaper, furniture, the metal balustrade wasshredded by a gigantic hyper invisible cheese grater. Spasmodic barrel flashburned my retinas and a gigantic flood light cast its warmth on the inner sides ofmy skin.“Farmer 337b, we’ve got you. Please hold on.”“Ok,” I said and passed out.I opened my eyes in liquid. I was breathing it. Panic. They had suspendedme in highly oxygenated water. Relax. I could see the doctor outside of the tubegiving me a “thumbs up.” I returned it and saw my hand was a baby’s. I held itup to the light. Baby hands connected to a baby arm that connected grotesquelyto a man sized torso. I examined my legs to see the same. My penis looked huge.The water flushed clockwise out of the tube and I was able to stand a good threefeet lower than where I’m used to.I coughed out oxygenated water and said, “Why the baby arms?”“There were no full sizers left in the warehouse. It’s lucky that you evenhave these right now. You’re a very rare blood type.”“How long will it take for them to grow out?”“Grow out, ha! You’re stuck like that for a year while we grow you full sizedones.”“What?”“Forget about that. We still have the guy that did this to you.”“Where?”“Cell Block 32. Neon Green. The girls are there too.”“Give me some pants.”“Here.” He handed me a pair of bright yellow corduroy toddler pants. Therewas absolutely no room for my penis in them.“My dick can’t fit in these.”“Well, that’s what we have.”“A multi-trillion dollar Thirteen Gulls operation with advanced humanoidgrafting techniques and you can’t get a decent pair of pants?”“Hey, you can always go naked.”“Fuck you.” I used my baby hands to wrap the pants into a rough diaper formatusing the legs to cover my crotch. I waddled around unused to the immenseweight of my head and torso. The legs were pretty strong albeit small.“Not bad Farmer 337b.”“Do you have a shirt?”“Pick one up in the commissary. Your insurance only covered the pants.”“Will do.” With that, I walked out of the infirmary. The metal doors slidopen when I walked towards them. The weight of my new body was becomingfamiliar. Feeling all the stares of various Thirteen Gulls members, I kept a steadyplod. I tried to be dignified, but I didn’t really care too much about it. I wantedanswers from the guy that unwrapped my skin and flesh as easily as a Christmaspresent.As I pivoted the corner, Nurse Practitioner Juanita Flores’ perfectly shaped67

68large curvy behind lined up directly with my face. Everyone always talked aboutit. I had seen her at the local happy hour and took note of it myself. But I hadnever been able to examine it with the intimate detail that my new short heightgave me. I marveled at how smooth and rotund it was. How thick and pleasantthe curves were. Feeling my eyes on her ass, she whirled and looked down.“Oh, my poor Farmer 337b, We all heard about what happened.” She wrungher hands in front of her bosoms. I could do little else but look up at them. Lusciouseven though covered in the prim white uniform.“You will visit my quarters for an after hours sexing session, yes?” Sheblinked her long lashes.“Uh, sure.” I mustered. I had forgotten that duty injury insurance includedthe use of sex therapists. I had never really been a fan of this ever since my parentsgot me one when I was 14. I later found that Dr. Agave had mediated to oursessions under the influence of 15 to 20 different pills. In some sort of trance,we’d have sex. Never fuck. Never fully engage with the person. Just polite discourseduring the act itself:“Here?”“Yes, that’s good. Excellent. Very good.”“Yeah?”“Very good. Yes, right there.”Thereafter, she would to profess her Love for me. Then have sort of savageor equally reactionary titular response: cry violently to the point of physicalexhaustion or academically interrogate what I thought about her performance:“Did you like it when I was on top?”“Very much so.”“You must tell me honestly.”“It was delightful.”“And the angle of my hip?”“It was a little different from last time.”“How much?”“I don’t know.”“I held my torso five degrees forward. Did you like it?”“Yes.”Later, I learned this is completely against the whole purpose of sex therapyand that Dr. Agave had been banned from the practice of medicine in the stateof Washington and California. Since then, no more sexing sessions for me. I’dsooner use my hand. But, I knew the Good Nurse Practitioner would hound mefor a while. I was fine with that.Another frantic looking male patient got her attention and she walked to him.I walked away. More like waddled. Figuring the prisoners to be in the specialpsychological warfare section, I oriented towards the Psy-Ops wing of the compoundand at the threshold of the Infirmary I reached up my hand to the thumbprint scanner.“Welcome, Farmer 337b.” Said the console. I was glad that they had updatedmy personal information on the database.A Butch Lesbian in a grey uniform with a gigantic muscular neck walkeddirectly towards me.“Farmer 337b,” she said with as much warmth possible. She saluted. “I’m

Amanda Protendo.”“At ease, Captain.”She visibly lost the tension around her massive shoulders. You can nevertrust these pysch warfare people because they are great actors. This stems fromtheir constant manipulating and testing of their own emotions due to the fact thatthey are ordered to create many various realities for the population and the membersof Thirteen Gulls. With words and top of the line surveillance technologiesand expendable human assets in the hundreds of millions, Thirteen Gulls Psy-Ops manufactured Reality. The Captain extended a hand and I like a fool tookit. She grabbed a hold and swung my whole body up and around onto a harnessstrap she had hidden behind that monstrous neck of hers.“I have been assigned to be your personal transport courier.” She said. Shestrapped me in between the thick muscles of her broad as Texas back. “Please,I’m honored to be of service to you. I am also to help supervise your visit withAnton Rockefeller Kissinger, the man who wounded you.”I buckled the plastic harness and adjusted the leveling system so that myhead was aligned slightly to the left of Amanda’s. “Good.” I said. She cockedher head to the side to listen to my voice. So close, I only needed to whisper.“Good Amanda. Now, are you a telekinesis user? Do you have any powers that Ineed know of?”“No, Sir.”“Alright, now, take me to him and run top speed.”“Yes, Sir.” Amanda took off like the wind down the hallway and into an areaof pencil pushers and cubicles. We stopped at one. A Sergeant Ji Van Jung. Theslender youth looked up, saw two hulking heads and snapped to attention. Hestood up flipping out the paper and pad he was working with and caused largemess of cascading documents. He ignored it all and saluted sharply.“Farmer 337b, Sir. You are here to see Prisoner #52012. I have arranged it tobe so, Sir.”“At ease. Where is he?”“He is held currently in cell block 32 Neon Green of our maximum prisonwith a General Electric Mind Sink.”“Take me to him.”“Yes, Sir.”“Top speed.”“Yes, Sir.” He brushed past Amanda and sprinted out of the cubicle world.The three of us moved quickly and I could feel Amanda unlocking her SecondChakra Gate in order to increase blood flow. Sergeant Ji Van Jung was a fewsteps faster than her. Or maybe it was my weight. Either way, she needed extrapower and was clumsy in controlling her flow from the abdomen area.“Easy, Amanda.” I whispered. “Use the output above the norm from yoursolar plexus. Directly. My onboard Computer is picking up a 15% leak rate fromthat area.” She made the adjustment flawlessly.“I didn’t realize, Sir. Thank you for the lesson.” She said with a strain inher voice. Soon we were running neck and neck with Sergeant Ji Van Jung. Weflowed into large ceremonial meeting hall that was at the entrance of ThirteenGull’s underground complex. We ran straight into the ornately craved gatewaymade of Thirteen huge arched Elephant tusks and jumped the 40 foot pit full of69

70vipers. We crawled through a mud pit covered by barb wire adorned with severedrotting human body parts. On the other side of this there was a small guardstation where we rinsed off. The guards inside resembled two fully mature SilverBack Gorillas. Upon seeing us, one raised a huge microwave gun and the otherwielded a Gatling Gun and a wicked serious scimitar. They took our credentialsand then lifted the iron gate. Ted, the gorilla with the Gatling gun, escorted us tothe 100 cube ft concrete penta-box that was one of 100 such cells in the buckminsterfullereneshaped building that housed some of the Thirteen Gulls numerouspolitical enemies.“We’ve got him in a Gantrellis Vise. He’s fought every single step of theway.” Ted said nonchalantly. “But we’re the original Pentagon so no one topsour security.” A finger the size of a French baguette pointed to emphasize thenumber One. The Pentagon was the most insidious gang of Satan WorshipingWarmongers in existence. They had refined with scientific patience and ingenuityall forms of human torture and confinement. It just so happened that ThirteenGulls was currently the Coalition the Pentagon had chosen to band with and Iwas just pleased with the thought that Ted was not my jailor.“Let’s see him.”“Sure.” Ted pulled out a small laser key and inserted into a pentagon in thefive sided wall. Everything had five sides inside this structure—the walls, thehallways, even the light fixtures. The wall slid upwards and vanished into theceiling. Anton Rockefeller Kissinger was a lean man hanging from arm restraints,he was stripped naked except for a large shiny metallic spherical helmetthat tapped directly into his cerebellum with 1,000 telescoping nano-tendrils. Nothing with a flesh/silicone brain could escape the Gantrellis Vise. I could tell hewas middle aged because his pubes were gray.“He is sleeping at the moment.” Said Ted. “But I’ll wake him up.” Tedwalked up to him and knee’d him repeatedly about the thighs.“By the Dark Lord, cease.” Came a small whiny voice. Surprised, I remembereda deeper menacing voice, but he no longer had his psych-amplification.“Wake up, Kissinger. Someone’s here to see you.”The black Gantrellis sphere lifted up and even though I couldn’t see the eyes,I knew he was staring right at me.“Ah, a newly warped, baby sized man is in our midst. Farmer 337b, I knewyou’d come.”“Well, The Bilderberg Group will be happy to trade something for you.”A laugh escaped from the Gantrellis Vise.“You have nothing. We own you already. We are the Pentagon. We are theFallen.” He shrieked. Ted moved the butt of his gun to strike Kissinger’s abdomenbut froze in his tracks. The Gantrellis Vise broke in two and the halvesclanked to the ground.“What the fuck?” asked Ted. “Put that back on, Prisoner #52012.” He drewhis scimitar and began a downward slash.I knew Ted was about to die.“Run.” I whispered to Amanda. “He’ll kill us all.”Amanda did two backward hand springs and a back flip with a twist, landeda good way down the hall and began to sprint. Sergeant Ji Van Jung started toturn but couldn’t help but watch all the flesh melt off Ted. I remembered how

painful that was. The scimitar clattered on the concrete.“Run.” I yelled. Kissinger freed himself instantly from the hand cuffs andthen dropped to his knees upon the bloody pool of Ted flesh. He scooped uphuge rich red handfuls of viscera and ate it in gigantic gulps. In between swallows,he yelled in his nasally whine.“Farmer 337b. I’m coming for you. Slurp. Slurp. If not here, then in yourdreams until we meet again.” He laughed a sick sardonic cackle that soundedlike a circus clown who kept a million pictures of mutilated little boys andgirls tacked up in his basement. He didn’t pursue us. We had made it out of thebuckminsterfullerene and to the guard station when the first earthquake struck.It opened a huge crack in the ground above the Pentagon compound. The bloodyfigure of Anton Rockefeller Kissinger jumped out of a five sided window andflew with the body of the mousey Beiber 13 year old in his right arm and anolder woman in his left. I didn’t know he could fly, too. Apparently, he could.The other guard aimed his microwave gun and fired a few shots. They echoedand distorted the air in a line towards Rockefeller. The alarm for natural disasterswent off.“Vereemmmmmmeeeep. Verreemmmmmmmeeep.”Rockefeller veered left to avoid the microwave blasts but knocked againstthe Bucky Ball and dropped the 13 year old Beiber girl. A second tremor rockedthe whole complex and enlarged the hole above the flying Kissinger. Buildingbuttresses shuddered and a large apache helicopter intercepted the nude flyingBilderberg Eugenics Tyrant above ground and he with woman boarded andquickly sonic boomed out of sight.“You saved us,“ said Sergeant Ji Van Jung. “I was going to try and stop him,but you told us to run.”“He’s a new brand of Bilderburg.” I said. “We need to take news of hisescape to one of the Gulls.”“What about the girl?” asked Amanda.“I don’t know.” I said. “Achtung, I hope she’s still alive.”Debris from the above crack in the ground fell all around us.“Continue the training.” I whispered to Protendo.Francis Chung lives and works in the Bay Area.71

THE SUPER COOLSUMMER FUN SETby Kevin RidgewayHarrison was biding his time behind the cash register at Wayside Drug,reading the latest music beat sheet and imbibing the second can of DietVanilla Coke of his day, which he didn’t pay for. It was wrapped inthe receipt from the first can he consumed in between the first laxatives sale ofthe morning and dusting the Metamucil. The store Manager, Cal, approachedthe registers with a tangled mess of Wayside Bargain ads twisted in his shakingalcoholic hands.“Harrison … um, hi guy. I need you to help these folks locate an item onspecial … er, The Super Cool Summer Fun Set.”“It’s on sale for $8.95,” a portly woman in a sagging fisherman’s cap said,getting the ends of her extra large Tweetie Bird t-shirt entangled in the SummerFun Umbrellas.The store was tiny, storefront property downtown in the state capitol. Theaisles were a maze and special sales items could be exceedingly difficult to find.Harrison did what he was told and grabbed an ad from the front stack.“It states that it has three inflatable pool rafts, two beach balls, cooler icepacks and a small canopy with nets to keep out the skeeters,” the woman’sother half said dreamily. He was a hefty man dressed in car harts, a white t-shirtand red white and blue suspenders all paired with a baby face that had agedungracefully.Harrison looked at the ad. Sprawled out on a beach towel display in a grainyphoto spread was The Super Cool Summer Fun Set. Two young men, one cladin white chinos, the other in white shorts, were holding court in folding chairs.They wore dollar rack Hawaiian shirts, had tropical drinks in their hands, andwere tossing a beach ball between them in an awesome example of tableaumulti tasking. A black woman was sprawled out on an inflatable raft, her youngdaughter splashing water across her. An Asian guy stood at the grill, laughing.All for $8.75.The damned thing was no where in sight in that cluttered mass of a store.They would inevitably stumble upon something called simply The Cool SummerFun Set.“That’s not the Super…” the man declared.Chugging his third unpaid-for Diet Vanilla Coke and washing it down withthree daytime cold capsules, Harrison puzzled over the showroom floor. He hadhelped stock it nearly to its entirety that previous week—where the hell was it?72

He would not have been surprised if the warehouse had shipped ten of them totheir rinky dink store and turn it into a veritable sardine can of memorabilia,bargain coffee and high pallets of Wayside brand protein shakes.“We’ve got to find it soon or later, damn it…” the woman chimed in after along awkward silence.Harrison was feeling woozy from the daytime cold medication. He hadbeen sent to rehab for cannabis dependency by his parents the season before.His forehead was sopping wet with sweat from the cold medicine and his overallintestinal nervous disposition, Harrison spotted it, set up high atop the cosmeticsdisplay case: the Super Cool Summer Fun Set.“There it is—the kid found it, Mabel!”“Oh, boy, this is going to just make this summer! I can feel it!” she said.Harrison procured a step ladder and carried the trapezoidal packaging ofthe Fun Set down to the glowing faces of the couple. Just as he was formallypresenting it to the man, a loud clatter broke loose. JJ, a morbidly obese man ofa thousand pounds who got around in a motorized chair, appeared on the scene.He rode in this chair that was practically invisible, tucked away beneath hisouter flaps. He barreled through the shampoo and conditioner display, green andblue bottles flying every which way.“I had that Fun Set on rain check!” said JJ.“Do you have a copy of your rain check receipt?”JJ pawed through his fanny-pack and could only produce several crumpledreceipts, none of which pertained to a rain check.“If he doesn’t have it, it’s ours!” said the man.“I got it somewhere, maybe at home … it’s mine!” said JJ. “I’m not movinguntil you give it to me!”JJ was blocking the entire aisle. They were between him and a brick wall.“Umm, Cal? We’ve got a customer issue on aisle 9!” Harrison said into hiswalkie talkie. Cal arrived promptly.“You’re going to have to leave or I’m going to call the police,” Calannounced to JJ.“Fine, but you’ll regret it!” JJ said in reply, backing up towards the exitdoor, knocking over four more displays along the way.“I’m sorry folks; Harrison will ring you up at the front.”As Harrison was midway through logging his pin number at his register, henoticed a stack of rain checks wedged underneath it. The first one at the top wasJJ’s, for the Super Cool Summer Fun Set.“Cal … we have an issue.”“WE JUST … WANT THE DAMN SET.” The man was furiously adamantabout this.“You’re going to ruin our summer…!” the woman said.* * *Harrison bolted out the front door in search of JJ. He only ran north oneblock when he saw him inside the Christian Bookstore at the corner of Elm,having knocked over a display of Bible Diaries. Harrison entered the store.“JJ, the Super Cool Summer Fun Set is yours. There was a mix up; we73

found your rain check.”“This is going to be the most amazing summer,” JJ replied, beaming withpride.Harrison was lassoed into pushing the Fun Set on a cart up five blocks toJJ’s apartment. JJ was a speed demon on his chair, having glided several feetahead of a haggard Harrison.“Are we almost there?” asked Harrison, dying for a menthol cigarette.“Yuppers,” said JJ.They were in the front living room when JJ told him to put the Fun Set inthe corner. The room had no furniture. Just a dilapidated square coffee table thatwas stacked with prescription pills, hairs of marijuana and the remnants of achicken dinner. Harrison plopped the product on the torn shag carpeting.“Okay, well thanks again, Harrison.”“No problem, uh JJ.”“My real name is Jean Valjean.”“Like in the Victor Hugo book?”“Yep, like in the Victor Hugo book.” JJ paused. Y’know, you could comeover in the backyard this summer and we can sit in the inflatable pool, work onour tans.”“Maybe.”Harrison walked back down to the Wayside, having fulfilled a good deedfor the day. He stood behind the cash register during the last hour of businesswhen a 14-year kid approached the register with a large bottle of cold medicine.“You gonna chug this or is it for a cold?”“Chugging it.”“Well, you don’t have to live this way. I take these daytime cold capsulesthat give you a mellow buzz all day long.”Harrison chucked the five bottles of daytime cold medicine into a bag andhanded it to his apprehensive customer.“You’re sure this will work?”“Well, yeah…look at me!”Harrison closed out his register and Cal told him he could go home for thenight. Harrison walked up State Street with a menthol cigarette smoldering in hishand and made a right at the corner and onto Elm Street.“I wonder if I should get one of those Fun Sets,” he thought to himself.Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California. He studied creativewriting at both Goddard College and Mt. San Antonio College. Mr. Ridgeway’swork has appeared in Ray’s Road Review, Red Fez, Breadcrumb Scabs, Full ofCrow, Calliope Nerve, Haggard and Halloo and Larks Fiction Magazine, amongothers. He currently resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and theirone-eyed cat.74

ATLANTIC CITY, 1980by Karoline BarrettWhen I saw my Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Jerry’s light blue MercuryGrand Marquis parked on Boston Avenue in Atlantic City, it shouldhave surprised me. First, because they live in Brooklyn, New York.We live right outside of Atlantic City, and rarely see them; maybe for Christmasand Easter, if we were lucky. Not that the two cities were so far apart, that’s justthe way it was.Second, my mom was just whispering the other day to someone on ouryellow kitchen wall phone that Jerry, on occasion, hit Beatrice. When sherealized I was in the kitchen and heard what she had whispered, her mouthdropped open as if I’d caught her in bed with our thirty-something year oldmailman. I grabbed an apple while she told the person on the other end—alittle too loudly and slowly—that she didn’t need any more Avon products. Itmust have been code for “my daughter’s in the kitchen, I can’t talk.” I hopedshe didn’t have aspirations to go into the Secret Service; she was no good atdeception.“Uncle Jerry hits Aunt Beatrice?” I asked.My mother dried her hands on her apron. “Did you wash that apple?”“Of course,” I lied. “Uncle Jerry hits Aunt Beatrice?”She went to the sink and turned on the water, scrubbing dishes to withinan inch of their lives before they were allowed in the dishwasher. “I was justrepeating to Charisse something your Aunt Cecelia said. I certainly don’t believeit. You know she’s jealous of your Aunt Beatrice, and me, too. She’s alwaysbeen cranky and difficult.”Charisse was my mother’s hairdresser and best friend. I nodded, as if Iunderstood. I didn’t really. Aunt Cecilia, like all my mother’s sisters, seemedsweet and harmless. I could tell my mother wasn’t going to have a heart-to-hearttalk about it with me, so I let the subject drop.Considering these things, it should’ve been weird that I was staring at AuntBeatrice and Uncle Jerry’s car right now. But I was a huge believer in Kismet,Destiny, Chance, Karma, and the rest of the Fate family, so seeing their car onmy way to the beach made perfect cosmic sense to me.Their back door was wide open, and as I came up to the car, I saw themin the back seat, drinks in hand, feet planted on Elvis Presley floor mats. I wasrelieved at how happy they looked. Would a wife whose husband hit her besitting in the back seat with him drinking what I figured were probably martinis,75

76their very favorite drink? “Aunt Beatrice, what are you guys doing here?”“Christine, oh my God, Christine, is that you?” my aunt gushed, notanswering my question. She was the only one in my family that called me by myfull name, which I actually preferred. “What on earth are you doing here?”I looked at my aunt. She was forty, but looked at least fifty-five. Shereminded of Edith Bunker, Archie’s wife on All In The Family. Stick legs on astuffed body. Not fat, just stuffed. Mousy brownish blonde hair chopped short,sparse bangs curled under. I thought that a strange question given that she knowsI live in the area. “I’m on my way to the beach.” I pushed up my sunglasses, andraised my red canvas beach bag that held my towel, Coppertone, and radio. Oh,and a book, in case I got adventurous.“Chrissie, get in, get in,” my uncle boomed. “Move your ass over, Bea, letthe girl in.”My aunt giggled and scooted over on the plush blue velour seat, somehowmanaging not to spill her drink. My Uncle Jerry was a study in tan and plaid.Plaid brown and tan sports coat, plaid brown and tan pants (not matching), andthese big tan plastic glasses. His wavy, thick dark blonde hair even looked tan.Unlike Aunt Beatrice, he did look like forty, which he was, and for some reason,my nineteen year old self found him sexy in some bizarre way. He threw hisarm around the back of the seat, touched my shoulder, and winked at me whenI swiveled my head to look at him. “Where can we find a private part of thebeach? You know, to be alone for a little while?”Seemed to me they were alone enough right here, but I could understandwanting to be in the sun and by the water; they both looked like they had spenttheir entire lives indoors.I grinned. “I know lots of private parts of the beach, but I don’t know thatAunt Beatrice would like to be left by herself in the car.”Uncle Jerry withdrew his arm so he could slap himself on the knee ashe flung his head back and guffawed. “Good one, Chrissie. Wasn’t that a goodone, Bea?” He elbowed my aunt, and this time some of her drink sloshed on herflowered shirtwaist dress. Neither of them was dressed for the beach.“We’re here to see Frank,” my aunt finally answered my earlier question assoon as she stopped tittering at my joke.“Frank?” I parroted. “As in Sinatra?”My aunt bobbed her head up and down, then looked at me as if I hadsprouted an extra head. “Of course, dear; why else would we drive all this way?”To see your family? I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. I was afraid toknow why they never called and rarely visited us. “He’s playing at the GoldenNugget?”“No,” my aunt dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “Jerry’s got a friendwho’s showing a home movie of Frank when he appeared in Vegas. On thestrip.” She looked at her watch. “We got thirty minutes till show time. Want tojoin us?”“Come on, Chrissie,” my uncle said. “Join us.”I shook my head. There was something depressing and lonely about amiddle-age couple driving from Brooklyn to Atlantic City to see a home movieof Frank Sinatra, and not their family. “That’s okay. I don’t want to intrude.”I leaned in and hugged my aunt. She smelled like my uncle’s cigar smoke and

Emeraude perfume. She smelled like her sister—my mother—except my motherdidn’t smell like the cigar smoke part. I slid out of the car. “Have a good time.”My uncle held his glass up to me. “Watch out for the sharks, and the ones inthe water, too.” He laughed.My aunt rolled her eyes. “Have a good time at the beach, dear.”A few blocks later I was at the beach, laying my towel on the sand. I pulledout my radio and found an oldies station. Maybe they’d play Frank. I peeled offmy white shorts and New York Mets t-shirt. I favored them because my fatherdid. Slathering on the Coppertone, I lay on my back. The sun heating my skingave me goose bumps. The salty ocean smell and the rhythmic, bubbly whooshof the blue/green waves rushing home to the sand instantly made me sleepy.I wished I hadn’t heard what I did about Uncle Jerry. I closed my eyes andthought about the invisible heartstrings that bind family. I wished Aunt Beatriceand Uncle Jerry would visit us every weekend. We would all play Gin Rummyin the kitchen. Aunt Celia could come too, just so she could be gathered in bythe rest of us, and see that she didn’t need to spread ugly rumors. My fatherwould win all the Gin Rummy hands, of course. He always wins. I couldn’t getcomfortable, so I flipped onto my back. I thought about the purple and greenbruise I saw on my aunt’s arm.Karoline’s fiction has been published by Short Stories for Women, NecrologyShorts, The Other Herald, Scribblers on the Roof, Eastown Fiction, Wild HorsePress, Flashshot, Read-A-Romance, The Storyteller, True Love Magazine, SlowTrains Literary Journal, and Long Story Short. Karoline is currently at work onher first novel.77

78NONFICTIONSPRING 2012

80I love the place.So we sit for a while, David and myself, and relax. Gradually I learn that heis forty-six and has been hospitalized ten times in the past twenty-four years forviolent schizophrenic episodes. He first entered Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleighin 1954. They administered the usual treatment regimen for schizophrenics,but nothing seemed effective. Finally they decided on insulin shock therapy.Five times a week he went into a drug-induced coma, having no choice in thematter—sixty of them altogether. They also gave him medicine, everything thatwas available at the time—to no avail. Finally, desperate to escape this constanttorture, he assured them that he was better, that he was capable of leaving andgetting along just fine. They released him after sixteen months and he returnedhome and tried to work. Soon he was back in the hospital.They gave him new medicine, but this was ineffective also. They triedelectroshock treatments—the latest rage. They blasted him into unconsciousnessweek after week, but it did not help. They tried group therapy and even individualcounseling. Some of the people were nice and he remembered one psychiatristwho really took an interest in him and tried to help him. But the man was unableto make any headway and eventually gave up, considering David to be hopeless.Once when Oral Roberts came to town David obtained leave from the hospitaland attended the revival. He went up to the podium and allowed the greatman to place his hand upon his head to heal him of his illness. It was unsuccessful.Hallucinations continued.I find David to be an interesting man, certainly more interesting than thetypical schizophrenic I have met over the years. He had graduated as salutatorianof his high school class in the late ‘40’s where he was also a basketball star,then entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with the intentionof becoming a mathematics major. But already the illness was eating away at hiscognitive processes, and before the first semester had elapsed he realized he wasunable to concentrate on the problems at hand. He dropped out of school andwent home to help his father on the farm. As the years progressed his conditiondeteriorated, and finally he was forced to admit himself to Dorothea Dix Hospital.Hallucinations now dominated his life.What makes David interesting is his awareness of his own illness and hiswillingness to confront it. Schizophrenics have a peculiar way of ignoring theirsymptoms and being resistive to treatment. However, David has been paralyzedby his disease and unable to carry out any kind of constructive activity. Voiceshave called him filthy names and forced him to perform humiliating acts. Nighttimehas been the worst. He would sit in his swing on the back porch facing thehighway and listen to the taunts. “Go out to the highway and lie down. Waituntil a car comes. Go out there and lie down.”“No, I won’t. I’m not going to do that. I’ll get killed.”“Go out to the highway and lie down. Do it now. You’re better off dead. ”“No.”And they would throw him off the swing on to the floor and bang his headagainst the boards, smashing his head over and over again until the pain wasfinally too great. He would relent and rise and make his way to the highway inthe darkness and lie down on the cool asphalt and wait for a car to come, a carthat could smash his body into a lifeless hulk. And no matter how late it was, a

car eventually appeared, and a terrible fear would rise up in him because he didnot want to die, but also felt he could not leave the road because of the terriblecondemnation by the demons, because he was a vile and evil person unworthyof living. And so the car would draw nearer and nearer, the headlights growingbrighter and brighter, and a trembling would take over his body as he wonderedif this was indeed his last minute on earth. Paralyzed, limbs frozen in place,afraid of dying, desperately wanting to live, he was unable to move because ofthe guilt and condemnation that would occur. So he would wait until the car wasalmost upon him when, the fear of death finally surpassing the fear of demons,he would begin to crawl to the side of the road toward the bushes which borderedthe edge. But it would be too late. And the car would almost be upon himwhen he finally rose up and threw himself across the road to the shoulder just intime as the car sped by, the driver perhaps unaware of what had just taken placebefore him.Was that a deer in the darkness?And he would remain huddled in the bushes shaking and perspiring, animalsounds emanating from his throat. And the voices would return and order him,“Go into the highway. Take off your clothes and go into the highway and liedown. Do it now.”“No.”“Take your clothes off and go naked into the highway. Go now. You’re goingto die naked as you came into the world. Take off your clothes and go into thehighway.”“No, I won’t.”And they would smash his face into the dirt, forcing him down violently,filling his mouth and nostrils and cutting off his breath. He would moan andstruggle but find himself helpless to resist. Finally, unable to bear the pressureany longer, he would rise and shake himself from head to foot, gasping for air,and then remove his clothing, slowly, piece by piece, and walk into the highway,tears streaming down his face, and lie once again on the dark asphalt and waitfor the next car, wait for the same scenario to repeat itself, over and over again,because there was no other choice, because the demons would have their way.However, I believe I can help this man where others have failed. I have studiedschizophrenia for years and understand the disease. I know it is biochemicalbut also suspect that there are psychological components that can be addressedto ease the symptoms overall. Give the patient tools to fight the terrible hallucinationsand all the havoc they render and this in itself will improve the situation.And medication, the proper medication needs to be determined. This is mandatory.I know there is always a best medication combination−the mix that reducesthe symptoms by the maximum amount with the least side effects.I have been searching for a patient like David for a long time to test mytheories. He possesses three qualities I consider invaluable: 1. Intelligence 2.Awareness that his hallucinations are, indeed, hallucinations and not real peopletalking to him 3. A willingness to fight.“Why don’t you come in and see me on a regular basis for a while?” I suggestafter two hours. “I think I can help you.”He regards me skeptically. “How old are you?” he asks.“Thirty-three.”81

82“You look younger.”“I got a master’s degree at twenty-two. I’ve been a psychologist for elevenyears.”“You don’t look that old.”“Good genes. But I think I can help you.”“You’re not going to experiment on me, are you?”I shake my head. “Not a chance.”He shrugs his massive shoulders. “Okay. How often should I come?”“Let’s start off at three times a week. Let’s really hit this thing hard. I’ve gotthe time. Can you come in that often?”“Sure. What else have I got to do?”“Come in this Friday first and see the psychiatrist and we’ll get your medicationsstraight. Then we’ll go from there.”He visits the psychiatrist on Friday, and we fiddle with his medication overthe next three months until we fall on the right combination. That in itself helps.He starts coming to the center in the early afternoons on Mondays, Wednesdays,and Fridays for therapy. My plan is to start slowly and drift into the core of hisillness. I have a library of reference books at home and can consult them wheneverneeded. I feel all these preparations are more than adequate for the task athand, and have little doubt I can handle whatever comes up.I am wrong.His illness explodes on me like a titanic bomb. Fifteen minutes into the firstsession he throws himself to the floor and begins screaming. His head twists tothe side as though being wrenched by some macabre spirit, and his eyes roll upout of sight. “Get off me! Get off me!” he hollers, and writhes with what seemslike an epileptic seizure. He wails and covers his head with his hands. He riseson all fours and shakes himself violently, like a dog trying to expel flames fromits fur, all the while making strange guttural sounds. Then he returns to the floorand curls into a fetal position, moaning quietly, apparently exhausted by hisexertions.I am speechless and I contemplate what to do. The books don’t say anythingabout this kind of behavior when you are treating someone on an outpatient basis.How many books on schizophrenia have I read? A dozen? Fifty? A hundred?What have I missed? How many experts have I consulted? How many seminarshave I attended? Eleven years I’ve spent preparing myself and now I sit herecompletely impotent, confused, and even frightened. I’m like a graduate studentseeing his first patient. I’m clueless.Eventually David recovers, and slowly picks himself up from the floor andsits back in his seat. He is obviously shaken by the experience, and gives theappearance of a trauma victim. He lets out a deep sigh and stares down at hishands.“Tell me what happened,” I say.His eyes are twin pools of pain. “The demons rule me,” he replies.And so we begin.

Henry F. Tonn is a semi-retired psychologist whose fiction, nonfiction,poetry, literary and book reviews have appeared in such print journals as theGettysburg Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, and Connecticut Review, andonline journals such as the Summerset Review, Front Porch Journal, andEclectica. He writes monthly reviews for NewPages.com. “Demons” is anexcerpt from his recently completed memoir, I NEVER MET A PARANOIDSCHIZOPHRENIC I DIDN’T LIKE, which covers the first twenty years of hiscareer as a psychologist in various mental health settings.83

HIPSTERS: A SPECIALSPIRITUALITYby Lily MurphyOne Spring day while sipping cider in a beer garden with my friend, a conversationemerged regarding counter cultures. My friend stated that a spectre ishaunting the 21st century, that of the Hipster. I scoffed at such a statement“that is just ridiculous, Hipsters are not new, they have always been here and willremain.” The conversation got heated and not with the aid of the blisteringly hot sunshining down on us. “Hipsters are a new counter culture” my friend went on and theconversation resulted in glasses being turned over and a barring order for the both of usfrom the barman so I went home to re-read my very worn out copy of Jack Kerouac’sOn the Road.I knew that in order to find the Hipster, I needed to read the roots of the Hipsterand I was hell bent on proving my friend wrong. Google can kiss my ass on this oneI thought as I stumbled in the door and searched for the Hipster in the one place fromwhere it sprung from, that 1957 publication about one man’s mad journeys acrossAmerica with his even madder friends. On the Road was a book I didn’t read until afterI graduated from University, I now know it should have been a book to be read while Iwas a student but parties on campus and pure idleness got in the way of that. It was theday after my final exam and feeling incredibly idle I wandered into town to my favouritebookstore where I picked up a copy of On the Road. I still don’t know what mademe pick it up and spend 10 Euro on it, a 10 Euro note which I could have easily spentin a bar but I purchased the book, went home and spent the rest of that summer sinkinginto it under the summer skies out in my back garden accompanied with buckets ofbeer.By the time Summer transformed itself into Winter and then Winter made way forthe Springtime, that heated conversation with my friend regarding Hipsters had takenplace. By then I had read On the Road several times over and had been in the grip ofa host of other works from the beat generation but it was On the Road to which I keptgoing back to. The poet Allen Ginsberg once said that he saw the best minds of hisgeneration destroyed by madness, well it was that book which generated that madness,the only thing it destroyed was anything mundane that got in its way.Nearly every generation of youth have been labelled with some sort of tag. TheHipster tag is a slang which may have emerged with the jazz aficionados of the 1940sbut its social awareness came about with the Beatniks and as my friend had informedme that culture, the Hipster culture, is haunting us now. I had told my friend and toldin the most snapping of tones that the Hipster is nothing new, yes it has transformed to84

set itself into modern world mechanics but I stressed that the Hipster counter culture isnot new. In today’s world it is used to describe the urban chic, young adults who rejectaspects of mainstream life such as music and fashion, some may call them Scenestersbut what ever they are and who ever they are, they have always been with us throughoutthe generations and they all have one thing in common, they are all the mad ones.I sent a text to my friend later that night after the episode in the beer garden that daywhich saw us at each others throats. We organised a meeting for a few drinks for thenext day, all animosity quickly goes under the bridge, especially if it’s a river of boozeflowing underneath it!Hipsters now champion the underground music scene as they did in the ‘40s and‘50s with music such as bebop, a music which transcended the great divide of thattime: race. Black and white jazzed together, used the same slang, dressed the sameway, smoked the same drugs, flouted the same sarcasms, they adopted the lifestylesome frowned upon or some could only dream of. Back in the beginning of it all ArtieShaw, a legend of the swing age, went so far as to call Bing Crosby the “first hip whiteperson in the United states,” even the squares wanted in on the new culture, a culturewhich emerged from the jazz underground and writings of so called mad men, now ittranscends out of Indie music and the tweeting of know alls.So the following day I met with my friend. We went to a different bar at a differentside of town of course and I was armed to the tooth with Kerouacism‘s. Two ciderslater and it’s a free for all beatnik induced talk, its wall to wall Kerouacism! “The onlyones for me are the mad ones…” the most quoted of all sentences in On the Roaddescribing in its utter simplicity who the Hipster were and are, they are “mad to talk,and to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn orsay a commonplace thing but burn burn burn…” My friend was not impressed, “wellthey didn’t burn enough,” she said, “because they are still here with us!” I rejoiced,finally she understands that Hipsters were always here, that they are not somethingnew and nothing to fear. Ah yes therein lay the next hurdle, my friend has a fear of theHipster, something I failed to notice the day before, something lost in the translationsof altercations.“I am not a fan of the Hipster” my friend bluntly stated, “I am off for a top up,you want another?” I nodded while handing over a 5 Euro note and while my Hipsterfearing friend went to the bar for another two glasses of cider I was left to ponder theoutcome of that day’s prospective argument regarding Hipsters. Oh fuck you Hipsters Ithought, fuck you for causing such conflict between my friend and I on such a fine day!If On the Road is the Hipster guidebook than Howl is the Hipster’s verse. I mustconfess that I do not have much interest in Ginsberg’s meandering words but Howldoes have the mother of all beginnings “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyedby madness,” Hipsters can attribute that to their own stance in society. Mad isa word which pops up over and over again regarding Hipsters, it is a word not to befooled with or a status not to be fucked with, the mad minds made that way by madnesscan enjoy what so many long for: freedom.Even if it means a life of poverty, it costs nothing to have freedom of the mind.Hipsters in the beginning had freedom of the mind and in great quantities but I fail tothink today’s Hipsters have the free imaginations as much as their predecessors had,here’s hoping though and here came my Hipster fearing friend with the promised topup of cider. “What is it that you do not like about the Hipsters?” I asked and before myfriend could answer I just kept on talking, “you know Hipsters have great ecstasy of the85

86mind, unlike you and me they are not restrained to the modern world, such as sippingcider in a beer garden in town in the middle of the day, where’s the freedom in that?And hey where’s my change?”Kerouac’s road was a route found only in dreams, he was a dreamer yes but aren’tall hipsters just that. Somewhere in part one chapter seven of On the Road Kerouacwrote that “the air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley sogreat that I thought I was in a dream.” Well it was a dream Mr. Kerouac because thatAmerica and that world is gone, by Christ it wasn’t even there in the first place, it wasall a dream but a mighty one at that. I must not be controlled by bitterness and insteadstate that that dream is constant, it still carries merit today with those mad minds of thenew Hipster generation. But to bring the bitterness back for just a minute and state thatthat dream is in danger of being watered down by people such as me and that dreamis also in danger of being wrecked by people such as my friend, the one who fearshipsters and the one who left me short changed!Kerouac wrote in that great Hipster manual that “they were like the man with thedungeon stone and gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America,a new beat generation that I was slowly joining,” well I may be somewhat sinking intothe cauldron of Hipsterdom myself but I still had a lot of convincing of my friend todo, to convince her there was nothing to fear from the Hipster.“You don’t bode well with Hipster ideology?” I enquired of my friend, a nod wasthe reply. “Well I’ll soon fix that,” I said with a fake smile, faked because I knew Icouldn’t fix anything at all. “Now I know that we are not middle class like the Hipster,”I said, “but we can lie through our working class teeth, the Hipster does pretty muchanything to play down their middle class back round, so we’ll fit right in, the problemmay lie within the adoption of a carefree life style, I can adopt it, can you?” A shake ofthe head and a scornful look was the reply from my friend so I stopped talking and let abrief breeze come by and fill in the forthcoming silence.I think the bohemian type life is the life for me, not my friend the cider sipping hipsterfearing anti-free thinker. The Hipsters gained their quality from the anti-establishmentattitudes they freely threw around, these days Hipsters are still anti-authoritarian,to a point. Non-conformity is the back bone of modern Hipsters, spontaneous creativityseems to have been lost to the beat generation but it may rear its hedonistic head again,for as long as the world turns, so too does culture. The beaten down is from where thebeatnik name sprung from and when they were turned from being the beaten down intotired beatniks they jumped up and developed into Hipsters. Kerouac’s circle of friendsgave birth to craziness, craziness gave birth to the beats, the beats gave birth to a naturalgeneralization: the Hipster. It spread and prolonged through the decades.“I’m cool whether or which,” my friend let me know as we ventured onto the nextdrink from where count was therein lost. “Anti-conformist bastards usually in the endjoin the masses,” she spat out and I agreed, somewhat. Well I sipped my cider, took inthe cider soaked air and went off on another cider induced rant, again. “The Hipstermay in the end JOIN the masses but the Hipster will never be ONE of the masses,the Hipster may join them on the street, you may pass one and not think twice as towhether he or she is a member of a counter culture but the Hipster mind will NEVERbe part of the masses, the Hipster mind is a kind which REJECTS the mainstream.”When I finished my mini rant my friend pointed out to me, “Of course a Hipster willstand out on the street, a hipster is quite visible on the street,” then I jumped in, “Ahwith the Elvis Costello type glasses,” I suggested, “no,” she stated crossly, “they stand

out as the one with little or no body fat, the one who looks starved for days.”The skinny jeans, shoulder strapped bag and bored to death expressions may carrythe Hipster through life but the conversation between my friend and I regarding thiscounter culture did not carry through us through the day and many glasses of cider laterand many slurred words and flapping of arms and pointing of fingers later, the conversationended and we both parted ways that evening. All went well I thought, we didn’tget into a hot headed argument and get thrown out of that juice joint! But just as SalParadise sat on the pier at the end of On the road looking into the sunset he thought andthought deeply on religion, on America, even on the crying of children and not knowingwhat would happen in the future and he finished his thinking with thoughts of hisroad buddy, Dean Moriarty the maddest of them all, “I think of Dean Moriarty, I eventhink of old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”I went home that night and looked out my window at the grey road outside and thered sky above it and thought of the alternatives who walk amongst us and those whoare weary of them, my friend, the one who fears the Hipster. I went once more for myfavourite book and turned the pages until I found the page I was looking for, “What isthat feeling when you are driving away from people and they recede on the plain tillyou see their specks dispersing? — its too-huge world vaulting us, and its goodbye. Butwe lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”Lily Murphy is 24 and comes from Cork city, Ireland. She graduated fromUniversity College Cork with a B.A. in history and Politics and has had a number offiction pieces appear in publications such as Hulltown 360 journal, Pot luck magazine,Sleet, Pom pom pomeranian from Bank Heavy press, The delinquent and The toucanamong others. Lily also contributes political and cultural pieces to magazines such asNew Politics, 4Q, Monthly review, The Chartist and Ceasefire. When she is not writing,Lily enjoys sipping Jack Daniels at the race track or hanging out with nature!87

88FICTIONSUMMER 2012

CHAPTER 5:THE GREAT SNOWSTORMby Brian S. Hart[Excerpt (“Chapter 5 The Great Snowstorm”) from The Diamond Kings of ClarenceCheckeredfish. Note: at this point in the story, Shays’ Rebellion, the greatagrarian revolt of 1787 is underway, taking place in one of the largest snowstormsever on record in Western Massachusetts. The images are modern or post-rebellionbecause the rebellion is only a backdrop for a second event in 1986 thattakes place along the same city streets. Here the mystic librarian Mrs. Winchesterstands on the spot where the rebellion took place, as the children watch her cook.Some of the phrases are clues to a word puzzle that solves later in the novel.]|snow * roof-longings of sheltered lives * “…library reopens at…” * dead *Squirrel * Hill * yuk! * Mrs. Winchester! * please! * Forbes and Murray * “…really a friendly neighborhood…” * Taylor * series * “…Allderdice quite afrenzy!” * at it! * at what! * again * the cauldron-mind * finds its * circle! *pieces make the whole * stew! * toss! * in! * seasons! * go by! * broom service!* stir! * Round 1 * “Toni…” * th’ G-g-great… * ((12) “Go hous’back riding isI! Salvador painter! On bill o’ Manila thrilla’” (8, 3 2 wds. 207 127 216 46202 254 178 64 152 176 78)) * or * wonder * how! * distraction * get ready to *do it again * do what again! * “…ght! Won’t be…” * wait! * long * for * “…Tony, Tony! Only you…” * G-g-great… * ((12) “The Greatest Missouri diskjockey pins award on me!” (8, 3 2 wds. 207 127 216 46 202 254 178 64 152176 78)) * board * off * to ceiling of * DCA ATO * “Jumble…” * the elephant,friend of * Norway! pretty clown-helper! * makes living * thrilling * through *((13) “DJ’s booed creative tasks!” (3, 4 2 wds. 94 59 145 243 56 57 22)) * toomuch! * tusk-a-gee! * harder * tooth! gal! * nervous! * shivers! * picks * fur! *from COAT AD! * said it! * said what! * repeat * the technique! * might have to!* try more! * circus * gets * cold * travel specialist * make * capeskin * ringmaster,who…! * sculpt! * discuss it! * discuss what! * wages * bet! * “Can anybodygive…” * good teacher helps * asks * “definition” * of entangled * “Ooo,ooo, ooo,…” * excited student raises hand! * waves, like fluttering insect wings!* fly! * fris… * …bees in pants! * …sticks * glue, blobs, various * shapes 24 lb.* umbrella! * paper * machete… * …a spoon, Hawaiian pineapples… * package!* balance-wish! * whatever! * happened * to * textbook! * logic! * conclude *89

90deal * with * kitchen sink! * ready! * to attach! * hangs * a little closer! * to *stringer- cub * from gazette * news * flash! * teacher calls on * “Statue!” *excellent guess! * “almost…” 12 x 13, but “…not quite!” * bear * in mind *“…travels, bobs, weaves about…” * life! * Impossible! * Immortality can’t… *wish-to-be man o’ steel, run-o’- mill, doubting student continues * “…it imitateswhat again…” * consider * out-of- town * Charlie Plume, originally from *Paris plasters! * over by * clock * soar above * the gray-sky * Monongahela *pretend… * Lollipop * look! * …smokestack is easel… * teacher smiles * “…good question, Adam… move by…” * silence “the wind of…” * the cosmosnever left itself * “…I see…” * Ginger! * boy thinks! * gets it now! * gets whatnow! * comes from * near * Mobile! * that’s it! * that’s what! * bin! * inSmithsonian! * undo! * fly! * Wilbur and Orville * endeavor * sky * necessary *heart- pounding! * ball * stud entertains presence of filly, exciting, but… * rib! *…a surprise! considering * it’s * homerun * derby * …Menelaus by a head… *great * Clemente * throw * balletomane * to * scratch horse * another run! * canOllie Dazumbai do it! * can he do what! * …at the far poll… * round! * bases,coach waves in * …at far bend, into home stretch… * going, going… * Helen *gone! * Mrs. Winchester! * stir! * Round 2 * of * ((18) “Center goooal!Disheveled! A Room I, o!” (7, 1 wd. 229 26 77 217 139 69 146)) * or * ((18)“Penguin shout: ‘Chairman has grande nothing!’” (7, 1 wd. 229 26 77 217 139 69146)) * bird * can * separate * a person’s * life * is * “…what …” * he! * makesof it * “…a…” * Sonny, spleen-did! * zounds! * delicious! * try! * Princeton *ivy * foreman * …order it with… * …order what with… * Sphinx bro. * coffee *house treat * counter * example * Yale * riddle! * missing diamond! * lost! * …caffeine… * break! * …keeps up… * jump! * in thought! * …start conversation…* Fermat’s last! * drop! * Trixi! * break it! * break what! * ice * climb *through! * tower above * Cubism * nuts! * …about… * whipped! * cream! *change * top * I.C. * pings! * young, Oyster Island * immigrants! * jimmies! *Jerry… * couldn’t! * have it! * have what! * faith! * know * ful’ * wel’! * 139 lb.* wife * for * bi-… * …lingual! * fans * des * “Bumaye!” repeat “Bumaye!” *Saturday night * …sweet it is… * sweet what is * song ’n’ * Th’ In Man… * no *ways! * at least! * 127,729 * pounds! * on Moon! * mirror! * Mr. * Smokin’ * toyou, sir! * hoarse! * heavyweight! * sings * with glee… * son Mar… * …athon *anthem! * next J.F, J.H.! * kid not! * maybe W.S.! * doubt that! * sincerely! * …in air, gave proof to… * Wiles * stanza * Dylan * chance! * … and Thomas… *verses “Sugar!” * sure! * knows * ropes * better * than Dopey * mice * agree! *don’t mess! * …seems they’re all… * bored of * Grumpy * name * Ed. * break *up * Va. * you! * I * agree! * on lo… * go! * …cation! * with Mrs. White! *exciting! * elephant * join! * parade! * don’t! * fight! * school rule! * border *line * Norton * better! * can’t * take it! take what! * broken * jaw * patrol! *more serious * shuffle * of deck * cards * a- snaKish, shaKa-ins, Kinshasa! * cut!* back * Robin * ward * Hood * of * steel * good! * luck charm! * bat! * box! *cereal * of * real * life! * has * poet * tree * butterfly, sting ’saur * wheeler-dealer* type * surprise! * set * manu… * in motion! * lot of rounds * graceful! * e…leg…ant! * ginger! * like! * Mr. Stairs * check! * top hat * of a silhouette dream!* sensitive! * show charm! * spelling! * 3 times! * craft * master * “…piece ofwork…” * or! * “…is…” * apt, apt, apt! * swirl! * mike! * Buffer! * “L-l-let’sget ready to…” * announce! * …the new… * amazing! * hot! * Auntie * bee! *

uz-z-z! * Neil * at mike * burns * audience * fuels * disagreement * “…greatestday in…” * hysterical! * mankind history * with * Gracie! * …how… * heavenly* …a Rd… * live report! * fish-advice- column * Dear… * Harp * O! * ((16)“Popular movie has reverse film! Exists! Types A, B, C…, e.g.” (9 1 wd. 1 20117 184 192 91 214 114 181)) * rotary cuff! * intestines! * digest * systems * links* down * …doesn’t even talk to me… * and out * …what do I do… * signed *Knockout in Vegas * stars! * spruce it up! * spruce what up! * Wayne * in at! *new! * ton! * oooh! * Dear K.O… * …it’s o.k.… * stan’ * pat, pat, pat! * twist! *hand * raised! * shaky! * arm * hold * world * torch * …take risks… * champion* cause * call! * on * poker * girl! * …for a change… * boy * enjoys * peace *…life is… wild! * …what… * shoulders! * …you… * as * exciting! * fight on! *…Jamaica… * go to * as * 3 * card * Charlie! * hi! * lau…gh’…d! * Roller *weight * angelic * hump * chap… * whale! * of a * 100th! * l’ * Frenchman! *running * de * Derby * de * feat! * ((11) “Comes in 1st, 2nd, 3rd.… winner!Sounds almost like Robeson hit!” (4 3 2 wds. 172 25 133 126 136 170 85)) *on horse * mete I…! * Positively smashing! * record II * revolving away * “…is…” * …King III * on * …a… * starring * roll *in * a * go-go * tap, tap, tap! * save by bell * crescendooo! * {1!, 3!, 9!, 27!…} *infinitely * round! * NOT! * a * …Fred of… * dance! * around the ring* “…man…”! * theater-in-the… * another! * number o’ * conquest for Mrs.Winchester! stir! * Round 3 * about * to be a * boy * wonder * ((19) “’eregrets only ’as one life to live! Ten too concerning back! Auto carries inreverse horse fifty! Makes wire- bender!” (9, 6 2 wd. 80 71 19 14 239 6 141135 117 124 96 101 130 30 89)) * or * ((19) “Kinetic sculptor becoming!Everything endless! Everything endless! Has ex-dancer dancing with Dr.Einstein inside!” (9, 6 2 wd. 80 71 19 14 239 6 141 135 117 124 96 101 130 3089)) * circa. * igloo * Punta * ball * Puck * o’ Dream * woodsman * Tombo… *break! * in * …yell! * ow! * hat * trick * of * don’t trade it! * trade what! *away! * power! * first! * announce! * play * over * Hall… * Mike * assist! * “…doesn’t know whether to cry…” * defense! * pick! * up! * pace * “…or…” *pocket! * change uniform * “…wind watch…” * accurate! * exciting! * wellspoken! * 2 minutes for * roughing it! * roughing what! * finally, one-eye * Jack.* K. * now! * can tell! * odd! * penalty…! * short! * Padre! * off * handed *Felix! * who * reprimands! * “Tony, Tony, Tony!” * …or was that… * phenomenal!* center! * more help! * one * another! * the G- g-great * no. 66 * slapshot* Clarence gonna’ score? * Hodges * hit! * Barney and Max! crude! * cross *town * Bar * no! * Point * dwelling on * to ceiling * slap * rebound! * stick *handle! * “Ha!…” * …pp…y…e… * “…llelujah, Hollywood…” * … o’… *absolutely amazing! * shot! * in! * put * comb * on! * siren! * mask! * tend *water bottle * empty! * hair * net! * none! * so e…leg…ant! * round and around!* together they * sound! * a * like! * …a… * …r-r-rolling… * thunder! * is! *lightning! * on ice! * z-z-…! * hold! * take picture! * say! * gets! * confused! *stutters! * no, no…! * wrong! ad! * dress! * er…no wonder! * goal… * i.e. * inlife! * award-winning * girl teacher * surprise * show! * nobody! * called her! *yet! * just you wait! * sounds * ready! * for * luv * hap! * pen * in’ * fishy! *name! * for Point-man * J.A.H. * simply! * written! * pro’s * choice * of *91

Golden Quill * English * Lang…u…ag…e * “Look out, Loretta…” * P.H. *unlocked * Rosetta! * Mr. Sam * quite a * feta! * mike * goes! * off * again *translate! * cheese! * for us * personality * magnetic! * cloth captivating! * easy!* touch… * …S…t… * …one…! * more * a * round * of * Stanl… * appl… *…e’s… * …aus’…! * …Pi’c… * …e’s * of * headline! * 12th * in * …z… *world! * Saturday’s! * hockey! * night! * …am boni… * f…ish! * saves! *Cup…! * show! * …I.D.! * be there! * or * E * be square! * in * round! * up! *down! * town! * Pittsburgh! * snow|Brian S. Hart is a first time author with a background in physics. He has aMaster’s Degree in Education from Westfield State College and is a teacher inmulti-cultural education. He is interested in mathematical structures and puzzleforms within experimental writing. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.92

EXCERPTS FROM THEMOTHERLY EPISTLESby Jessica L. CaudillThe Letter of Mother to theWanderer1Mother, part-time Christian, full-time caregiver, avid reader of The Word,2which was laid down by our most gracious heavenly Father (praise him!), 3appointedby the great Lord above to bring forth children into this wretched world,to raise them up in a wholesome religious fashion (hallelujah!), 4beating theGood News into their heads and leashing them off to weekly morning service(glory be!), 5to prepare them to be cast off blindly into a world of thieves, whoremongers,and the most vile and malicious of unclean and ungodly yard apes,(thank you Jesus!)6 To my onliest and blessed fruit of my tired loins, whom I waveringly callmy Daughter,7 Mercy and blessings to you from God our Lord and heavenly father ofsweet Jesus Christ, our gracious Savior, our Spirit in the Sky who laid down hislife so that we may have life more abundantly during these dark ages of war,disease, and nay faring Godless hippies!8 Firstly and foremostly and above all, I give thanks to our God through theLord Jesus Christ for you, my esteemed and slightly misguided daughter, for youryears of servitude in our household have proven to be beautiful, holy, and mostimportantly obedient in the eyes of our Lord. 9For in most every way you havepleased him and movedhim to rain his blessings down upon your weary head, 10despite your unfavorableand potentially embarrassing situation which is seen as despicable andundesirable especially unto me, 11though it is my unwavering belief and solemnvow that you will one day be steered from your improper ways and be deliveredfrom your unchaste … proprietor, 12and come back to the loving arms of ourforgiving Savior and our family, for it is the only way out of your dismaying situation.13For it is written (pray for me),“Son, thou art ever with me,and all that I have is thine.93

It was meet that we should make merry,and be glad: for this thy brother was dead,and is alive again;and was lost,and is found.” (thank you, Jesus!)14 For I also know deep down in the most clandestine crevices of my saddenedand disappointed heart that once you have been bluntly struck with therealization of your wrongdoings, 15that you will come crawling in a submissive,exposed and ashamed fashion that is pleasing to our great Lord on high, 16andfalling to your knees, as you have probably been accustomed to doing so by now,17saying,“I have recklessly forgotten Your glory,O Father;And among sinners I have scattered the riches which You gave to me.And now I cry to You as the Prodigal:I have sinned before You,O merciful Father;Receive me as a penitent andmake me as one of Your hired servants.” (Blessed be, oh God!)18 Even so, my hope for you is undying; girl, and my prayers go out to youevery day. 19And, my hopelessly lost daughter, never forget that God’s justice isswift and right against those that willfully commit wrongdoings, and you yourselffall into that pit of devilish deeds. 20The Lord has no partial respect over persons,his blessings are not suited for the richest, the brightest, or the most beautiful,21just as his wrath exempts no person that goes against his Good News, 22and nomercy shall be laid upon those that lie in sin as adulterers, and harlots, and … fornicators.23You remember that well, darling, you remember that good and well.24 Make no mistake while your mother may be past her prime, and may bebehind in these modern savage times, I am not so aloof to the unholy behaviorsof my own flesh and blood. 25For some time now, I have known that you havebeen in cahoots with that “nice young man,” as the neighbors think of him, whoworks at that dilapidated eyesore ‘hoochie coochie’ bar downtown. 26That boy,who shall remain nameless — or so he claims to be, but under all that disgustingdisplay of effeminacy who can tell — who comes over unannounced and sauntersaround my kitchen like he owns the place, asking me, “What’s for dinner, mom?”27and raising that drawn-on eyebrow when I sharply yet politely tellhim, “I dunno, Boy George, why don’t you go home and see if your family isroasting an orphan for supper?” 28That much older slick Nancy boy that flops hisraggedy jean ass on my couch that I just had steam cleaned from the last time hesat on it, and tries to tell me, in my house, 29that Jesus was just some homeless“dude” that spiked the water by adding some absinthe from a flask hidden underhis robe when everybody wasn’t looking; 30and all the while he’s got one armdraped around your neck like a leech trying to suck the very life from you, andthe other is holding a copy of some book written by that Antwon Levi fellow —when the only book he needs to be reading is the Good Book.31Now I know that a bright young child such as yourself, who was brought94

up in a loving and strict by-the-book house founded upon faith, can plainly seewith her own eyes what tears the very core of your mother’s soul to shreds.32You know it was my wish — never you mind what your father said about“cutting the cord” so you could find your own way — that you would attend theSoldiers of Christ Bible College, which is not even twenty minutes from ourhouse, 33so that you could stay here at home and receive an education what’sbetter than anything you could get at some big fancy university. 34But of courseyou went against my wishes just as I had feared you would, and instead decidedto run off to that school in the city, which just happens to be the very same schoolthat he goes to. 35Night after night before I lay my head to another restless sleep,I whisper a prayer and conversate with my God — your God too, child — aboutmy fears and concerns surrounded by the lifestyle which you have chosen to live,36and that you would be soon flee from the grip of Satan’s lustful hand, and fallback into the pure and gracious arms of Jesus. 37One Sunday of every month,much like today, I sit in the same pew, fifth row on the far left, ofthe First Self-Righteous Baptist Assembly, hymnal in hand, and requestprayer for all my loved ones who are lost and without guidance from our sweetlord and Savior. 38I offer my two dollars to the Sunday offering — or whateverloose change I have lying in the bottom of my purse — while singing along tothe first verse of Amazing Grace, 39and my heart is filled with the hope that nextmonth you will be sitting in that pew with me, discussing sister Mable’s Godawfulnew dye job.2But no, the snow-white dove of grace has yet to light on your head. Foronly yesterday I received this letter from you, talking about how you and your“Puddin’” have decided to move in together, unwed, mind you. 2Might I remindyou, precious child of mine, that this decision goes against the Law of our Father?3Must I stand over you, like I have countless times before as when you were alittle heathenistic child, 4with my open Bible and quote the very commands ofthe lord?“Flee fornication.Every sin that a man doeth is without the body;but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body,” 1 Thess.4:3,“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?Be not deceived:neither fornicators,nor idolaters,nor adulterers,nor effeminate (he’s speaking about your precious Puddin’),nor abusers of themselves with mankind.” 1 Corinthians 6: 18,(might I also remind you of where you got your nickname, Jezzy)?,“Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee,because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel,which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commitfornication,and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.And I gave her space to repent of her fornication;And she repented not.95

Behold, I will cast her into a bed,and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation,except they repent of their deeds.And I will kill her children with death;and all the churches shall know that I am hewhich searcheth the reins and hearts:and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.” Rev. 2: 20.3How often have you heard these scriptures from me, from preacher J.C.Walker, from your late grandmother Blanche? (God rest her soul, she made thebest chicken and dumplings this side of eternity) 2The good Lord spoke of thesethings for a reason and it wasn’t so that this new-age batch of liberal college hippiescould trample over our Ten Commandments on their way to their philosophyclasses, talking of pagan religions and dropping shrooms — or whatever you dowith those things — and then skipping off through the daisies to Bonnaroo. 3TheTestament of Jesus Christ was laid down to guide the weak and meager throughthis wretched life and warn us to stray away from these very evils that plague ourdaily lives. 4And since you have left the confinements this house and the watchfuleye of your caregivers, you have turned to walk down the same wicked path,5and no thanks to that makeup mongering albatross that has slithered his way intoyour life and into your pants. 6Don’t think I don’t remember the night when youwould come home, pert near 3 in the am, smelling like Southern Comfort and thatstink leaf that the kids are smoking nowadays. 7Don’t forget I was your age once,I know what goes on during these “study groups.” 8Ain’t nobody I knew growingup that spent 6 hours reading War and Peace. 9I’ve dabbled in the forbidden fruitsmyself, sneaking out of my mother’s house (may she rest in peace) in the middleof the night when I was 16 to meet that Johnny Price that lived down the streetfrom me; 10hopping in his ’74 Gremlin and driving off to Makeout Mountain.11 But that was a long time ago. 12Have I not told you time and time again,“Do as I say, not as I do?” 13Did I not thrust you from my womb and distortmy body so that you would be raised to walk in the path of light? 14Have myyears of teachings, lectures, and my house arrests, all been in vain? 15Did I quitmy job at the Piggly Wiggly when you were born and stay home with you sothat you could be home schooled and not have to go to the public schools andbe surrounded by all that blasphemy, secular garbage about Big Shebangs andDinosaurses just so you could throw it all away without a second thought? 16Andhere you tell me that you want to be a pharmacist or some sort of scientist andsearch for a cure for cancer. 17I suppose this means you found my stash of Xanaxin my left top dresser drawer. 18Honey, the only cure for any ailment is the Manupstairs. 19I don’t think I’ve ever seen a beat in my life! 20Never in all my borndays have I seen such a disrespectful and ungrateful daughter such as you thatwould willingly allow herself to be deterred by her carnal desires and completelybrush off her family as if we never cared. 21And what’s more you say everything’s“fine” and not to worry about you and you’re going to get a part-time jobwhile going to school to pay the rent. 22The only place you need to be is at home,making sure that the house is clean and the couch is sanitary and there’s supperon the table, 23because you know when “Puddin’” gets home the first thing he’sgoing to say is, “What’s for dinner?” 24I can only hope with the last thread of96

faith left in me that you have been using some kind of protection, because thisworld doesn’t need 2 or 3 more of him running around, 25polishing their fingernailsand carrying those sadistic tarot-farot cards in their back pockets and puttinghexes on everybody.4Don’t think that I write to you merely to find fault with you, my poormisguided dear. 2I only write to remind you of the commands of our Lord JesusChrist that speak against everything you are doing. 3As I come to a regretfulclose, I say that it is written in plea to all those that follow a path of earthlydesires,“Live by the spirit,I say,and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit,And what the Sprit desires is opposed to the flesh;For these are opposed to each other,4To prevent you from doing what you want.” (Glory to God!)So you see there is a time and a place for this folly, which must be short-lived.5You have had a chance to experience the things, 6which are of this world andsurely you can see that they are not of God. 7Surely you can see that the dim-wittedfreeloader you are seeing is not of God, but from the bowels of Satan himself!8It is not the Lord’s will that you succumb to an eternity of damnation, 9but Ifear that is exactly where you are being lead to, headfirst into the fiery pits ofhell! 10I have detected you in such a transgression, but all is not lost. 11You stillhave a chance to repent for your sins and return to the life you know you shouldbe leading. 12You must purge that perversion of nature from your system, forgetabout that college you’re going to, and pack up your things and come straighthome this very minute you read the last words of this letter. 13This has nothing todo with you and the dreams you have concocted in your sleep, 14but the very lawof Christ. 15And trust in the Lord that he will provide you with a suitable path tofollow, 16one that is surely pleasing unto him and one that glorifies him; not you,but him. 17For we are nothing without our God, which is in heaven. 18In time Iknow that you will come around to this idea.19Once you are back home with me, you will get back into the swing ofthings; you will enroll in the Soldiers of Christ Bible College as I had originallyplanned for you, 20take the kinds of classes you should be taking, learningthe kinds of things that’ll prepare you for a job at the library, 21working in theReligious Text section — the part of the library that hardly anybody goes to.22That way, you won’t have anybody to bother you, and you can spend all yourtime reading up on The Purpose Driven Life and those wonderful and inspirationalbooks by that Joel Osteen (Bless him, Lord, that man knows what he says!)23You’ll forget all about what’s-his-name and meet a wholesome and decentboy- preferably Ronald James, the bag boy at the Christian Book Store (why thatplace needs a bag boy, I don’t know, but that’s beside the point; he’s working forthe Lord. Have mercy!)24This is the right way, the only way to get you back on track. 25Nothing youare doing right now could ever prepare you for your walk into the afterlife. 26Ibeseech you turn away now!97

“…be strong in the Lordand in the strength of his power.Put on the whole armor of God,so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”“So let us not grow weary in doing what is right,for we will reap at harvest time,if we do not give up.”27I haven’t yet given up, daughter. Neither should you. 28I write this letterwith my hand, which is guided by our most gracious heavenly Father. 29May thegrace of our God and his only begotten son Jesus Christ be with you, and slapsome sense into the back of your head. Amen and A-men!Jessica Caudill is a life-long resident of Kentucky. She received her BA inPsychology from Morehead State University in 2010 and she is currently enrolledin Spalding University’s MFA in Writing Program. Her writings have appeared inMorehead State University’s Inscape Magazine (2009, 2010). Her piece entitled,“The Motherly Epistles” received a Kentuckiana Metroversity award for fiction.98

I WON’T TELLby Amanda McTigueBack off. Keep a clear distance. Yes, move over there by the road.There is no story here. None. The casita behind me, it’s mine. At least for themoment. I put money down to rent it. They were not to disturb me. But then theydid. Now they won’t.And then the girl came. She keeps coming no matter where I go. I drovequite a long way down that one-lane jeep track with groceries. The owners saidthere’d be water here and there is. Water and nothing else. A bunk to sleep on.That’s it. I came this far precisely because there wouldn’t be anything else here.Arrogance. Every story ever written says you don’t get to run away from thedead.Her face is bright turquoise. As are her hands and feet. She’s still so pretty,even blue. She’s holding something of mine. That’s my jackal. Carved for meby my mother’s boyfriend, the last one. Out of cedar. Pointy ears. Pointy tail.Rather large in the girl’s little hands. She stole it.I catch her out of the corner of my eye. She’s on the other side of the casita,just off the trail, the path of rocks that winds down to the creek. She’s bright,bright blue. Amazing with the paleness of her curls.The most important thing for you to know is that there is no story here. Toinsist that true things, real things, can be spoken of in any way that gives themmeaning, that’s arrogance.Nothing means anything.She runs off. Out of sight. She wants me to follow. That’s why I keep runningthe other way.A shaman sent her. This I know. Because the wise ones say that if you’ve lostsomething, a spirit must go and get it back for you. How clever of them to sendthe thief herself to return that which she stole. Tempting me to—what?—think Ican get it back? Get her back? Both of them?I want to snatch what’s mine out of her hands because she’s laughing, I cansense it. She’s laughing at me. She’s been sent to laugh at me. To get me to followher down to the creek.Well, I’ve already been down there. Many times over the past couple ofdays. It’s incredibly beautiful. And quiet. The cottonwoods—great big, runningthe length of the creek—the cottonwoods cotton the sound. You can’t hear birdsover the ridge. And the wind, if there is any, goes on way above the chasm.Below, perpetual quiet and shade.Cottonwoods have lovely leaves. Like hearts, but round. And yellow green.99

100It’s a green you could eat. It makes your mouth water.That’s where the shaman wants me to go. I won’t. Even as I pull on myboots. Even as I take one of the staffs by the door. I don’t lock things. Silly tolock. There’s no one here but me anymore to open a door.I won’t go, even as I do. Down the switchback. Planting the staff carefullyas the owners of this place advised. How sad of them. As if slipping on the pathwere the great danger here. They know different now, if they know anything. Ifone knows anything in death.The girl knows. Though she is perhaps nothing but the shaman’s dream sentto tempt me.I’m stronger than he is. I’m stronger and brighter. And most of all, I don’tcare. He seems not to care. He affects an evenness, the way the elders do. Themen anyway. I’ve known shamans who are women. Lightweights. This guy’s thehoncho, so they put him on my case. But I’m stronger. I’m brighter.I’m walking down the path. No scorpion can get into my boots. The fangsof a rattler cannot penetrate the leather. They’re tooled. In shapes. The shapes ofsnakes that can’t bite them. Shapes of things writhing.I follow the switchback. There’s only one path. Down into peace. Instantlyout of the sharp sun, stepping into shade.There’s a horse’s skull in the barbed wire fence. And a horse on the otherside watching me. Shaking flies off its ears. A horrible existence for a horsealone. No herd mate to stand with nose to tail, to help swing off that plague ofbloodsuckers that come out of the creek.There are footprints in the mud leading to the water. Not mine. Small. Barefoot.Human. They’re hers. Who knew she’d have enough weight to make them.I step exactly into each footprint. Obliterate each one with my boot. Waterseeps into the craters my boots leave. And then I’m in the creek. I can see herfoot marks even in the water, established among small gleaming rocks, the shatteringsof quartz-like jewels she was walking on.My boots kick through the stones. Following and obliterating. Which isprecisely what I’ll do when I catch her. Which will happen. Shamans don’t sendspirits for nothing. Haunting comes for a reason.And yet, be aware. Be very clear about this: there will be no story.There will be an obliteration. There will be, at some point, the vanishingof the blue girl. There will be my footprints everywhere for a while. And thenthey’ll be gone. The horse will muddy them in the creek. Birds will disturb themon the banks. Raccoons. There will be what’s left of the owners out in the gardenwhich won’t be much since coyotes lurk. They’re like jackals. They’ll eat whateveryou leave around, including you if you’re dead, and howl about it.There’s nothing to explain. You can’t explain how a person can see perfectlywell the peace under the trees, the neatness of the counter in the casita, the carefullyscrubbed bathroom, the thought that went into the hooked rug at the door.Yes, I see that someone carved the staff that I hold. I not only see it, I appreciateit. I know what beauty is. It’s just that I can’t feel it.That’s not true.I can.It’s just that I don’t care.It’s just that the girl has my jackal. And the shaman has me. And she knows

it. And they are making fun of me.But you see, that’s what country like this is for. Back places. Roads thatcurve over mountains into lane-less valleys. The owners, here, they fanciedthemselves artists. They thought remote was quaint. You see how wrong storiescan be? How much they can get us into trouble?The stones in the creek. I look back from the far side. Beams of light are cuttingthrough the cottonwoods, fissures opening and closing for the light that cutsthrough, dancing on the water and into the water so that it seems like air comingand going and playing over those stones and it’s quite beautiful.I assure you, it’s quite beautiful.Amanda McTigue is an author, director, teacher—and a storyteller on the pageand for the stage. Her debut novel, GOING TO SOLACE, arrives in 2012, publishedby Harper Davis. She’s already got two children’s books, DREAMTIMEand ONCE UPON A LULLABY out in the marketplace along with a companionrecording of original lullabies, BEAUTIFUL SONGS FOR BEDTIME. Numerousworks for the stage include all kinds of works from opera (THE MERRYWIDOW AND THE HOLLYWOOD TYCOON, first produced by the MinnesotaOpera) to avant-garde musicals (KRANK, first produced at Sonoma State University)to odd one-offs (CHILDREN WILL LISTEN, first produced at CarnegieHall). Amanda also works as a concept thinker/writer for international designfirms, helping folks imagine, then articulate their vision. Clients include WaltDisney Entertainment, Thinkwell Design and the Hettema Group. She coachesactors and actor-singers through affiliations with the National Association ofSinging Teachers and Sonoma State University. There’s lots more informationabout her at www.amandamctigue.com.101

BIGGER THAN YOUby Leslie JohnsonTo enter Washington Street Elementary School, Dave has to press a buttonoutside the opaque double-doors, then stand on a red line in front of asecurity camera and wait for the door on the left to go “click.” And eventhough he’s been here before, at the “click” Dave yanks on the wrong door, theright-hand side, which doesn’t budge, so now he has to start over again. “Sorry!”he mouths into the small laser eye of the camera, pretending to hit himself on thehead in slow motion.He signs in at the reception station, a raised circular kiosk where a securityguard sits on a pedestal surrounded by video screens and control panels. As Davereceives his Visitor’s Badge, he waves across the lobby at Mrs. Livesy, who iswaiting for him with the other volunteers.At age 62, Dave is the youngest of the “Let’s Read Together!” tutors. He stepswith determined jauntiness toward his group: three old ladies who go to the sameCatholic church and Grampy Jay, dressed today in a Yankees shirt and matchingcap, his veined cheeks and nose flushed red with what Dave can tell is over-excitement.Grampy Jay likes everyone at Washington Street School to call him GrampyJay. Everyone, not just the kids. Grampy Jay is a long-term volunteer, and he eyesDave head to toe, as usual, with a squinting glare of suspicion. Well, Dave knowsGrampy Jay’s type. Control freak. Self-important. Dave got a lifetime’s fill ofGrampy Jays during his years at the Department of Transportation in Newington,squadrons of Grampy Jays vying against real and imaginary adversaries for theirmeasly little state promotions. Baring his teeth, Dave gives Grampy Jay a hugesmile and then turns toward the ladies.“I’d be willing to place a bet that you like CATS!” Dave says heartily to thefrailest one.She bats her eyelids, which seem to have no lashes. “Why, yes I do!” Herfingertips flutter to the huge broach — a cartoon cat face with plastic whiskers anda red felt tongue — fastened to the neckline of her scarf. She has taken the adviceof Mrs. Livesy, the “Let’s Read Together!” coordinator, to wear something thefirst day that can be turned into a fun conversation piece. Dave couldn’t think ofanything for himself. He considered the orange apron he wears for his weekendcashier job at Home Depot, but that seemed too obtrusive. He grabbed one of thefreebie orange Home Depot tape measures instead, which he’s carrying in his backpocket, although they’re not supposed to give gifts or trinkets of any kind to thestudents. That’s one of the rules.“So today’s the big day!” Mrs. Livesy beams. “Are you all ready to meet102

your Reading Pals?” She’s dressed in black pants and a baggy sweater that fallsfrom the mound of her breasts to the middle of her thighs. Her brownish hair is cutshort, slightly curled; rimless glasses rest in the center of her wide, pleasant face.Dave has listened to her speak at all four training sessions, but he can never quiteremember what she looks like until she is standing right in front of him again.“I have two cats,” the lash-less old lady is telling Dave in a high, tremblingvoice. “A tabby named Celeste, and then there’s Big Boy. That Big Boy, now he’sa trouble maker, let me tell you!”Grampy Jay clears his throat with a loud “Aaah–HEM” and places his knobbyhands on his hips. “Before we get started with the youngsters, I want to say a fewwords.”Dave thinks, of course you do.“What we’re doing today is bigger than you. Bigger than me!” Grampy Jaylifts his finger in the air and stares hard at them from beneath his Yankees brim.“Because when you help one child — just one! — you’re helping the future of thewhole world.”Despite himself, Dave feels a little rush of adrenalin. He said he was going todo something positive with his time, and he here is, actually doing it. Followingthrough!Mrs. Livesy leads them down the third-grade wing, past crayon-colored portraitsof Martin Luther King, Jr. on one side and snowmen made from cotton andsilver glitter on the other. Dave likes the smell of the hallway — a mixture of glueand rubber sneakers and disinfectant that doesn’t seem all that different, really,from his own school days. Dave recalls being happy at school when he was a kid.The subjects came easily for him, especially math, and the teachers liked him, atleast in the younger grades.Two of the old ladies are directed into a narrow supply room with a copy machineand a table with chairs. The rest of them walk on to another corridor wheredesks have been placed for them along one side of the hall. Dave takes the stationin the middle of the hallway, and waits in his plastic chair while Mrs. Livesy goesto get the kids. He taps the desk, then straightens up his materials: the book, hisgoal sheet, the purple smiley-face stickers, and the stack of handouts he’s seenbefore with all the directions for the volunteer tutors.Mrs. Livesy comes around the corner again with three kids, two boys and agirl with long red braids. She leaves a lanky African American boy with dreadlocksand camouflage pants with Grampy Jay, who jumps to his feet and warbles,“WHAZZUP, Jamal!” Dave knows that the other boy — a fat kid wearingsweatpants and a tee-shirt that stretches tightly across his stomach — will be his.As Mrs. Livesy proceeds down the hall toward Dave, the boy shuffles awkwardlybehind her, chewing on his hand. Why did Grampy Jay get the cool kid? They stopa few paces away from Dave’s desk.“Hector, I would so much like to see you take your hand out of your mouth,”Mrs. Livesy says in her kind voice. “Thank you very much Hector!” She reachesone hand toward his shoulder, not quite touching him, and beckons with her openpalm for Hector to step closer. “Hector, say hi to your reading pal, Mr. Dave!”Hector’s lips, red and swollen from chewing on his hand, gather in a moist,unspeaking pout. Messy black hair covers his forehead and ears in oily strands,and a big smear of dried ketchup streaks the front of his cartoon-character tee-103

104shirt.“Okay, have a super time reading together!” Mrs. Livesy says, and leavesthem.Hector just stands there, looking at the floor. His upper eyelids look fleshy,like pieces of cooked mushrooms. His hand creeps up and over the curve of hisstomach and into his mouth again.“Have a seat, buddy,” Dave says, but gets nothing. At the end of the hallway,Mrs. Livesy has deposited the little girl with the cat lady and is now disappearingaround the corner.“Take a load off,” Dave says.Hector, still gnawing his hand, turns away, hunching his round shoulders.Dave thinks, so now what? In their training, the volunteers were told not tofeel badly if their students were reluctant or even obstinate. Most of the kids donot choose to participate in “Let’s Read Together!” of their own free will. Theyhave all been identified by their teachers as “at risk” on the literacy scale, andtheir parents have signed the agreement form that allows the kids to be pluckedfrom the normal activities of the after-school program to work one-on-one with aliteracy volunteer. The tutoring sessions run from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., when the kidswould normally be playing on the playground or making crafts in the all-purposeroom. Mrs. Livesy’s advice about bad attitudes was don’t take it personally! Theywere not to reprimand or criticize the students in any way. That was not the role ofthe volunteer. They were to speak in positive “I” and “We” statements.“I would like to see you sit down in your chair,” Dave says, trying to mimicthe kind but firm tone of Ms. Livesy’s voice. “And then we can start reading thisfun book!”The boy sidesteps to the middle of the hall, away from him, and Dave panics.He stands and walks to the nearest classroom with an open door. The teacherinside has her back to him. She is talking on a telephone that is attached to the wallbehind her desk. The teacher is holding the receiver to one ear and supporting herbody as she leans at a weary angle against the wall with her other. The volunteersare not supposed to bother the teachers unless it’s an emergency. After schooldismissal at 3:00, most of the teachers are in their classrooms, the volunteers weretold, but they’re busy grading papers and preparing lesson plans and returning parents’phone calls. Dave guiltily withdraws his head from the doorway, and to hisrelief he sees Hector is sitting down now in his chair. The little shit was probablyafraid that Dave was telling the teacher on him. This makes Dave dislike the childeven more, but hey, he reminds himself, he’s here to be a mentor. If the kid wasn’tscrewed up, he wouldn’t need a mentor, right?“All-righty, bud,” Dave says. “Here’s the book.” He holds it up. “THE PAN-CAKE MAN.”Hector looks blankly at the glossy paper cover, breathing through his mouth,his tongue pressing against lower lip. His irises are so dark brown they blend intothe black of the pupils. The two flat plates of his eyes roll in the direction of thebook cover without seeming to actually focus on it. Hector is a stupid kid, Daverealizes. Smart people can’t keep their intelligence from showing in their eyes,even when they try, even when they’re trained actors — you can still see it. Youcan tell a lot just by looking straight into someone’s eyes. Maybe not what they’rethinking — Dave never believed much in psychic powers or mind-reading, at least

not completely — but you could definitely discern to a significant degree theirmental complexity. Their capability for strategy. Dave knows this from his years ofplaying blackjack, and he looks deeply now into the boy’s muddy orbs, searchingfor a glint of emotional ambiguity, a small sparkle of internal calculation, but findsnone. Hector, Dave concludes, is a classic dumb-lucker.Grampy Jay’s kid is probably smart. Over Hector’s head, Dave can seeGrampy belly-laughing at some joke his dreadlocked tutoree just told him. Thereare a lot of smart kids that do badly at school. They’ve got a chip on their shoulder.They’re rebellious or emotionally troubled, but they’re still smart. They just needsomeone to recognize their potential and pull it out of them. That’s the kind of kidDave wanted.“So, buddy boy, what do ya think this book is going to be about? Just by lookingat the cover?”This is called Pre-Reading. During his training sessions, Dave and the othervolunteers learned all six stages of the reading process. Pre-Reading is stage one.Grampy Jay and his kid have already opened up their copy of The Pancake Man— well on their way to stage two or maybe even three.Hector is bobbing his head up and down very slowly. The kid has a doublechin, and he seems to like the feel of letting his head drop forward till the fleshpushes out on both sides of his jaws, then lifting it up again in slow motion.“Pancakes, right?” Dave answers his own question. “Pancakes and the guywho makes them, right? I mean, there he is with his apron and a poofy chef hatand a big frying pan with a big pancake in it. What else would it be?”Hector’s head is lifting now, slowly, his chin tipping up, and Dave sees a rollof sweaty, dark blue lint embedded in the crevice that rings his pudgy neck. Greenishsnot has congealed around the inner edges of his nose, and a yellow bubblepulses in one nostril. Dave can feel the vein in his left temple start to twitch. Thatwas one of his tics in the old days at the blackjack table, before he learned to controlit. He’s out of practice. It’s been over two years since he quit the casino. Twoyears and a couple months now. If he was back at the table right now, would he beable to stop his vein from hopping like this?Dave takes a breath. “The guy makes pancakes so they call him the pancakeman. Maybe he makes really good pancakes.” He shuffles through the handoutsof directions and suggestions for volunteers. “I bet you’re good at a lot of things,too! What’s something you’re good at? Let’s make up a title for a book that couldbe about you and something you’re good at doing. Like maybe a book about youcould be called Football Player Boy.”Hector’s head has dropped forward, but this time he doesn’t lift it up again.“No football. Okay. How ‘bout Baseball Boy? How ‘bout Paper Route Boy?How ‘bout Cartoon Drawing Boy?”Hector’s head falls all the way down onto the desk, where he cradles it in hisforearms.“How ‘bout Bubblegum Bubble Blowing Boy? How ‘bout Bike Boy? How‘bout Fishing in the Reservoir Boy? No? Gee, ya stumped me then, bud. Those areall the things I liked when I was your age.”Dave glances over his shoulder to the other end of the hallway at the cat lady.She’s moved her chair so she’s sitting right beside the girl with the red pigtails,and she has her arm around the girl’s small shoulders as they read together. She’s105

106tapping on the girl’s shoulder blade in a rhythm, maybe sounding out syllables.Which is so against the rules! Volunteers are not allowed to touch the students. Notever. That was one of the first rules they went over, and that old lady knows it. If achild hugs you, Ms. Livesy told them, stand still for just a moment and then makea gentle movement of retreat. A step backward. A shift of the torso. Dave has neverbeen the kind of guy to squeal on someone, but he hopes Grampy Jay takes noticeof the way the old lady is patting that little girl’s back. Why should she get awaywith rule breaking?Dave feels a rush of anger, and he knows he’s over-reacting, but still. He feelsit.It’s something he’s learned at Gambler’s Anonymous: to acknowledge anemotion when it comes to you. Not to pretend it’s not happening.“I want you to sit up, kid. I mean business. Sit. Up.” Dave’s low voice comesout much more harshly than he’d intended. He remembers using that phrase withhis own daughter, Leanne, years ago when she acted like a brat: I mean business.Immediately he regrets snapping at the boy that way, but it works. Hectorstraightens up in the chair, and for the first time Dave sees his eyes waver withemotion, his puffy upper lids slanting into triangles of anxiety or maybe resentment.He starts chewing his hand again, on the flesh beneath his thumb.Dave says, “People are always telling you to just stop doing that, right?”Hector jerks his hand down and uses the back of his other wrist to rub off thesaliva. They both stare for a minute at Hector’s hands, which are chapped andscaly, with patches of wet purple scabs, and Hector’s eyes turn flat again. He pullshis hands underneath the desk.From down the hall, Grampy Jay is cheering, “Whoo, Whoo! Way to connectto the text, Jamal!”Dave sighs. “Always telling you.”Hector says, “Sometimes I can stop.”“I know.” Dave nods. “I know about sometimes.”Dave picks up the book and taps it on the table. He should ask Hector aboutbreakfast, as suggested on the handout. What would you like The Pancake Manto cook for YOUR breakfast? A pang of sharp desire stabs Dave in the gut. Thishappens to him sometimes. He’s picturing himself sitting alone in Denny’s at 3:00a.m. after a good night at Mohegan Sun Casino, digging into a Grand Slam Breakfastspecial with grape jelly and maple syrup covering everything on the plate,stuffing his face with it. He hardly ever eats a real breakfast anymore. Just coffee.Maybe a protein bar or a banana.“Hey!” Dave says. “How many inches tall is this book? What do you say?Guess! How many inches?”Hector’s mouth opens.“What do you think? Three inches? Three hundred inches?”Hector giggles, and the sweet sound of it takes Dave by surprise. The boy’slaugh is quick, pitched high, and reminds Dave of something clean, like the squeakof a squeegee on a just-washed windshield.“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you a range. Between one inch and ten inches.One to ten. Okay? One to ten.”“Ten!” Hector blurts, barely glancing at the book cover.“Okay, okay. I’m going to have to say seven, bud. Seven inches for me, ten

inches for you, right? It’s a bet. You in?”When Hector doesn’t answer, Dave tells him to say “I’m in,” and the boyrepeats it. Dave takes the Home Depot tape measure from his back pocket, andHector leans forward on the desk as Dave slowly releases the bright orange metalmeasure along the edge of the book. “Nine inches!” Dave announces, which heknew it would be. “You beat me, kid.” He presses the button on the tape measure,the metal snapping back inside its holder.Mrs. Livesy appears around the corner of the hallway; she stops by the oldlady with no eyelashes, smiling and nodding as the little girl with braids holds up apiece of paper. Dave grabs the “goal sheet” from his stack and begins checking offthe six boxes while Hector fiddles with the Home Depot tape measure, pushing thebutton repeatedly, giggling softly at each sharp SNAP.Dave says, “You won the bet,” and Hector looks right at him and smiles.There’s no mistaking it. When he smiles, his cheeks push up and his eyes practicallydisappear. “Quick,” Dave says. “Put it in your pocket.”Leslie Johnson’s fiction has been broadcast on NPR and published in journalssuch as Colorado Review, Glimmer Train, Cimarron Review, Third Coast,Threepenny Review, Chattahoochee Review, and others. She in Connecticut, whereshe teaches at the University of Hartford.107

AFTER YOUTHby Brandon BellThe nose hair hypnotized the boy. He watched the hair jostle out of Dr.Alizadeh’s nose as the braces came off. The words chewing gum floatedon the orthodontist’s breath. The boy rolled his eyes to a ceiling poster ofa smiling chimp, its teeth perfect.“And Tyler, we’re done,” Dr. Alizadeh said. He held the metal square in apinch.“Dr. Alizadeh,” Tyler said.“Call me Milad.”“Who gets them now?”“How about a peek,” Milad said, picking up a hand mirror. “Who gets thebraces? Nobody gets them.”“Can I keep them?”“Take the mirror in your hand. No, you can’t keep them.”Tyler did not smile at his reflection. He didn’t even open his mouth.“Where’s my beard?” Tyler asked.“Beard,” Milad said.“What’d you do with it?”Milad studied Tyler, smiling. “Can you even grow a beard?”In the waiting room, Joan stopped flipping through Vogue and jolted at theyelling coming through the wall. She smirked back at the mother and daughtersitting across the room. “Did he say give back my beard?” Joan said. Then sherealized the voice was her son’s.#Tyler trained at dusk in a playground surrounded by a sewage creek. Thesmell made him scowl like an old man talking life or death politics. He did themonkey bars, rocking between strides, and fell off before he reached the otherside. He flung a swing and crawled under it, the swing firing over his head like alost ark booby trap. He lied in the dirt patch worn by the dragging feet of swingingchildren and printed his cheeks in the dirt.Dusk on the nine o’clock sky backlit the monkey bars. He was alone. Fromhis butt pocket he dug out a wad of ripped poster. Chimp teeth smiled at him.“I’ll show you what beard,” Tyler said and punched the chimp. Then he waddedup the paper and ate it.#Joan drove Tyler to see her sister, Debbie, who wanted to see Tyler without108

his beard. As Joan parallel parked, Tyler said, “I know you’re patronizing me.”Joan looked at Tyler in the rearview. “What do you mean?”“You think I never had a beard.”“Why would I think that?”“Crazy, I guess.”Gerald, Debbie’s son, was lying facedown on the porch of the duplex. Joannudged him with her shoe.“I’m dead,” Gerald said.“Is your mom home?”Gerald pointed inside and then let his dead arm collapse. The front dooropened to the living room. Debbie sat on the couch, holding the remote. Shesnapped off the television and said, “Tell me what’s different.”“Don’t,” Tyler said.“No no no. Now you did something. Did you cut your hair?” Her hippynecklaces clacked as she joined Tyler at the door and tried to fluff his hair. Amonkey scurried into room. The monkey wore a doll’s vest and held a gnawedapple.“What is that?” Joan said. She hid behind the inward open door andshrieked.“My baby,” Debbie said, patting her thighs and kissing at the monkey. Themonkey perched on the couch and nibbled the apple fast like a rat.“Where’d you get that thing?” Joan asked.“Stork brought momma her baby,” Debbie said.“Baby,” Tyler said.“My iddie biddie baby.”The monkey threw the apple and hit Tyler in the head.“It’s gone crazy,” Joan said.“You little shit,” Tyler said. He scrambled after the monkey, furniture rattlingon the slanted floor. The monkey hid under a cabinet in the dining room.Tyler beat the floor and said come out. He told the monkey to take his lumpslike a man.#The midmorning street was empty, cool and blue. Tyler hid in a neighbor’sbushes and watched Milad’s house. Ants lined out of a crack in the brick foundationand the mulch was dewy. Milad’s front door opened. There stood Ms. Allie,Tyler’s eighth grade science teacher.Tyler remembered St. Patrick’s Day. Ms. Allie was erasing the blackboard,blonde and perfect, barely overweight. There was something about her that Tylerhated—something he could not name. St. Patrick’s Day. Tyler was wearing ablue shirt and red sweatpants. Holding the eraser, Ms. Allie asked, “Where’syour green?” Tyler slid down in his desk. They were alone. “No green, I get topinch you.” She approached, fingers crabby, and turned back to the blackboardwhen another student entered.In the bush, Tyler slunk forward to improve his view. Ms. Allie checked hermail. An automatic sprinkler kicked on. Mist floated on Tyler’s skin. Ms. Alliewent back inside and Tyler drank a Yoo-Hoo, condensation everywhere.Late afternoon. Milad parked in the driveway. Tyler was sitting on the curb109

facing the house. Tyler tapped the empty Yoo-Hoo bottle on the concrete.“Tyler? Is that you?” Milad said. He smiled at the mulch hanging from Tyler’scheeks. “You got your beard back.”Ms. Allie stood at the front door. She saw Tyler throw the bottle and watchedhim run away and did not see the bottle explode at Milad’s feet.#A week of training and Tyler could cross the monkey bars easily, no backswing. He climbed atop the bars and ran the slats. He collected stones and in themorning walked to Milad’s house, stood in the front yard and aimed at the baywindow.Ms. Allie was straddling a low branch in the maple tree. “Bet you miss,” shesaid. Tyler froze, stone in hand. She said, “What are you doing, mister?”“Ain’t doing nothing.”“Isn’t a little weird to walk by here and watch our house?”“You’re the one in the tree.”“You really pissed Milad off last night.” She kicked her legs as if pacing aswing. “High school next year.”He waved her off. “Milad is your husband,” he said.“Don’t remind me we’re married.” She locked her legs on the branch andhung upside down. “Upside-down your skin looks green.”Ms. Allie followed him to the playground, hanging back a block. She worea plastic barrette and ripped jeans. He paused on the foot bridge leading to thepark, sewer creek underneath, arms folded like a gatekeeper.“What do you want?” he said.She strayed to a tree, pulled down a thin branch and smelled a leaf, pretendingit was a rose. As she turned to walk away, she waved at Tyler with herfingertips.#Ms. Allie dangled on a swing, chains twisting, eating a Sour Apple BlowPop. Blush winged across her cheeks and she wore heavy blue mascara like acartoon concept of sexy. She watched Tyler run figure eights around the monkeybars.“This your whole summer?” she said.“You should cover your face.”“What?”“Your face. It shouldn’t be just out like this.”“You think I’m ugly.”“I didn’t say that. It’s just not proper.”He walked to the edge of the drainage creek. It was a ten-foot drop to theconcrete basin, the water level low. Illegible graffiti names covered the walls.Ms. Allie sat on the ledge and kicked her heels against the wall.“Dare you to jump,” she said.“What did Milad do with my beard?”“Beard.”“He collects them, doesn’t he. And shows them off to his idiot friends.”“That was you with the beard. He told me about that.”110

“Do you love him?”She shook her head and then nodded.“Why are you here?” he said.“I guess I love him. Milad was married before.” Water in the creek rolled by,gray and fast. “Do you want a bite?”Tyler accepted the Blow Pop and spun the stick. He studied the coating ofsaliva on the fluorescent top.“Do you have a car?” he said.“Yes.”She flinched when he faked to hit her with the sucker, and giggled andbrushed her hair behind her ear when he didn’t.#The television said rain likely. Tyler drank the milk from his bowl of AppleJacks. Leaning against the counter, Joan opened her mouth to speak and tooka sip of coffee. Tyler pushed the bowl forward for her to take it, wash it, put itaway.“Say what you got to say,” he said.“Deb, your aunt. She called this morning. Antoine—”“Antoine.”“Her monkey.”“Antoine.”“He’s dead. Or kidnapped or I don’t know. There was just blood left. And atooth on the floor. A tiny tooth like a weird Monopoly game piece.”“Well my god.”“It’s serious, T.”“It’s a monkey.”Joan dumped the Apple Jacks in the trash.“So why are you looking at me?” Tyler asked.“Gerald saw them. One’s a woman wearing a ski mask and the other one—”“He’s a liar.”“Deb called screaming it was me and you.”“I bet Gerald did it.”“Gerald’s just ten.”“I’m like thirteen, fourteen.”“Thirteen.”“Okay then.”Joan kneeled before the open dishwasher and squeezed in the bowl. Her backto Tyler, she said, “So you don’t know anything.”“I was asleep,” Tyler said.“You were asleep.”“I was asleep.” He waved his hand like a magician casting a spell.“Asleeeep.”#Ms. Allie told Tyler to get off the porch. They shouldn’t be seen together, notfor a while. She went inside and looked out the living room window at Tyler onthe stoop, chest puffed at the street. When Milad came home, he squatted behind111

his open car door like it was a shield.“I said don’t come back,” Milad said.“Give my beard back or it’s eye for an eye.”“You little shit.”“I’ll take blood,” Tyler said.“This is ridiculous.”“Not your blood, either. It’ll be somebody you love.”#The detective stood in the door so Joan couldn’t close it. Joan told the detectiveTyler had been home all last night. She played the door on its hinges andrepeated her story—Tyler was in his room all night long.“He’s asleep right now,” she said.“Can you account for him all day yesterday,” the detective said.“He was here with me.”“Well we need to talk to him. You can be present, but we need to talk.”“What about?”“What is his connection to Milad Alizadeh?”“Milad.”“He’s the orthodontist.”“Dr. Alizadeh is Tyler’s orthodontist.”“Milad said his wife didn’t come home last. Your son had issued a threat.”“A threat.”“According to Milad, one week ago your son said he wanted,” the detectiveheld up his notebook, “said he wanted blood for beard.”Joan promised to bring Tyler to the station. Leaning against the closed door,she waited for her breathing to settle. Then she went to Tyler’s room, opened thecloset and parted the hanging clothes. Tyler was pressed to the wall holding ascrewdriver.“He’s gone,” Joan said. She helped Tyler out, holding his hand as he climbedover the cell of boxes.#Tyler spun around and heaved the sheers like a shot-put. The sheers, nearlyas tall as Tyler, landed a few feet away, nowhere near Milad, who was crouchedin the front yard and shielding himself with his arms. A diagram of car brakes—connectors, what to snip, ripped from an auto repair book—fluttered across thedriveway.“You’re cutting my brakes now,” Milad yelled as Tyler ran. He drove to thepark and found Tyler standing on the monkey bars, feet splayed on differentslats.“She told you about our special place,” Tyler said.“Where is she?” Milad swiped at Tyler’s shoes and banged the structure, tryingto shake Tyler loose. “Come down.”“Get away, beard stealer.”“Where’s my wife you little shit?”Tyler stomped Milad’s left shoulder. The impact made Tyler fall forwardand slam his face on a bar, busting his top lip and knocking loose a tooth. Blood112

stuck to the bar as he lifted his face. Milad groaned, doubled over, wind gone.Tyler scrambled across the bars and jumped to the ground, keeping his footingfor a few stumbles toward the creek. He bent back to try and stop but the momentumcarried him over the edge.He slammed into the foot-high water. Trash and papery filth floated againstthe ripped and bloody knees of his sweatpants. Downstream, two older kidsspray painted a blue tag on the wall. One of the kids said, “White boy busted hisass.”Milad landed on Tyler. Gray streams in Tyler’s eyes, a mouthful of chewywater. Milad jerked Tyler up by the hair.“Tell me where she is.”Milad dunked Tyler back under. Tyler choked on filth and gurgled and felthis heart amiss.“I will drown you right here.”Dunked again, arms windmilling. Tyler saw long shorts and pulled up whitesocks appear through the waves. He felt himself floating. The high school kidspushed Milad against the wall and beat him with their spray paint cans. One ofthem kicked Milad in the stomach.Tyler waded to the wall, coughing and squinting. He waited for Milad’s eyesto meet his own. Milad fought back and was overpowered and Tyler smiled.#Summer rumors: A fisherman found Ms. Allie tangled in a tree downedacross the creek. The police identified her by dental records. They did not releasea description of the body. They questioned Tyler, but decided a child wasincapable of the crime. They believed his alibi.“He was in his room,” Joan told the detectives.Kids spread rumors of mutilation, missing fingers, missing face. Tyler overheardthese details. Kids didn’t speak to him directly. They called him weird.He let his Apple Jacks turn soggy. Joan caught him staring into space, at her, hercoffee mug.“We’re late,” she said. “What are you looking at?”He stroked his chin where the beard would be, eyes pierced through the present,deep in plans for what came next. He pushed back his chair and stood.“Don’t slouch. And hold your shoulders back,” he said, and she did.Brandon Bell lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His stories have been (or willbe) published by Tulane Review, Whiskey Island Magazine, Alice Blue Review,Apiary, Fiction Fix, LITnIMAGE, Storychord.com, Work Literary Magazine, andInkspill Magazine (United Kingdom).113

BROKEN MIRRORby Marija StajicDoctor Petrovic, a gentle man with long fingers like a pianist’s said:“Take these vitamins, don’t drink, and come see me in a month,” put abox of pills next to Nada’s hand, and rushed out of the office, lookingat his watch.She sat still on the white cotton sheet, her legs slightly swaying. There was amirror on the wall across from her, and she looked for her own eyes in it. Aftersome time, Nada slid down the bed, scratching her thigh on the metal bed railand pulling the white sheet down on the floor. She didn’t bother to pick it up.She didn’t have the energy or the will.She went behind the white cloth partition and quickly got dressed—whiteshirt, long black skirt with small flowers, black shoes with small holes in themfor decoration. Her blue eyes and dark hair must have looked even bluer anddarker in contrast to the whiteness around her, she thought, when she caught aglimpse of herself in another mirror behind the door, above the sink with a pinksoap bar on its side. She quickly looked away.Nada dragged herself out of the office. She could smell the alcohol andiodine in the hallways, and the smell made her nauseated. She pinched her nose,and rushed down three flights of stairs, passing people with casts on their arms,legs and heads, kids with bandages over their eyes, women so pregnant they resembledhippopotami. Finally she saw light through a dirty white door, and slidthrough it, like a snake, trying not to brush herself on anything or anybody. Shewas disgusted by illness and weakness.In the light of day and with busy, whole people roaming around, loudlytalking to each other or rushing by her as if she were a ghost, she suddenly feltsmall, as if she were a bacteria herself. She slowly moved through gray hospitalroads, feeling invisible, through its broken iron gate, to the bus station, just infront of its yellow, chipped walls. There were another three people waiting there:a woman in her 70s, with a thick, wool cardigan in May, and a black headscarf,long shapeless skirt, and some kind of thick, rubbery shoes. Her white hairpeeked under the headscarf, frail and suffocating. She held a big straw basket,with a kitchen cloth on top, covering and protecting what’s inside from dust andgerms, but Nada could see home-made bread, its corner peeking; a blond highschool kid with red face and braces, jeans, sneakers and a black sweatshirt withchalk traces on it, who looked appalled by the old woman as if she were thedevil incarnate; and a blonde, brittle-looking woman, in her mid-twenties, whoseface had a distorted expression as if she were in severe pain. Their eyes met atone moment, heavy lids and the sparkle turned off, then they both looked away114

as quickly as they could, as if they could catch each other’s misfortune just bylooking at each other.Nada could smell petrol in the air as the cars passed people in waiting, oftenhonking, and yelling obscenities to other drivers through open windows: “Youhorse, who gave you the driver’s license? I knew it, I could have sworn, it’s awoman! Who let women drive?!”Nada thought she’d been used to nervous and impulsive Serbian people,especially the ones who have lived in the same city since they were born, likeher husband. She thought Croats were more well-mannered and civilized. Morepatient. It had been hard for her to adjust to these short-fused people and thepace they took every day, the nerves they would burn since every little thing,every moment was a fight, a struggle. She still missed her mother back in Croatia,her courteous neighbors, the views of the pastures and mountains from hermother’s small estate near Varazdin, tamer spirits. At first, she didn’t care thather blue-eyed, blond-haired, gentle husband was a Serb, and that she had to livein a polluted, industrial city of 300,000 daily unhappy, complaining people. Shedidn’t even mind that they were mostly Orthodox, and she was Catholic. Closeenough, she thought. What, their sign of the cross ends on the left, ours on theright, that’s about it. But as the time went by, she felt more and more foreign,different, and not even her husband and children could fill a hole she has had inher chest for a decade.Serbs were impatient people to begin with, she had been warned, but whateverpatience they had left, they claimed to have lost during consecutive historicalstruggles. “There’s always a war, or a crisis,” Nada thought. “There’s alwaysan excuse.”The bus finally came, and people rushed to its front and back entrance, tryingto get in before passengers got out.“Wait, man, don’t you think I should get out first,” a woman in her fortiessaid.“Come on, hurry up then, why are you dragging,” a man in his 50s responded,pushing his way in. The woman finally slid past him, like a cat, squishing hersmall body past his big, soft, sweaty one, pulling her red skirt above her kneesand her black shirt out of it in the process.“My God,” she said, his sweat on her, her clothes wrinkled. She made thesign of the cross in the front of the door, tidied herself up, and as she stepped onthe sidewalk, she yelled at the man who bullied her out of the bus.“You, redneck!”The door was still open and he replied as if burned by an iron, sticking hishead and spitting saliva through the closing door.“If you’re such a lady why do you take the bus, huh, like cattle, why doesn’tsomeone drive you, madam?”Nada shook her head “no,” sighed and got in the back door. She managed tofind a seat next to a window, all the way in the back, by passing sandwiches ofpeople and feeling as if her organs have been shifting in her skinny frame. Nextto her was an old woman with glassy eyes, taking half of Nada’s seat as well.Nada, like a child against the window, began observing details of the rundownstreets of Nis and gray-colors of a Socialist country as the bus drove,the ugly buildings which were built to serve a purpose, never to be pretty. She115

116glimpsed at the old pre-war houses which still had a little bit of that royal charm,but which were neglected and chipped away, decaying.People loudly talked on the bus, but Nada has managed to tune them out.She silently sang one of her favorite songs, an old Serbian folk song: “Don’tclack with your sandals,” by Nedzad Salkovic: “Don’t make that clacking sound,when you’re coming down the castle, I keep thinking, my darling, that my oldmother is coming down…”The bus’s slow, steady pace and the fact that she was far from home somehowrelaxed her and she imagined, for a moment, leaning on that dirty bus window,closing her eyes, that she was that beautiful woman from the music videoshe recently saw on TV. This woman came down a flight of stairs, in some beautifulcastle somewhere, in a white, willowy dress and wooden sandals, the latestfashion craze that made this distinct “click-clack” sound every time a womanwould step. And Nedzad looked at her from the bottom of the stairs, adoringly,mesmerized, waiting for her and only her to come down to him. Bliss!“She obviously wasn’t pregnant and there were no children around,” Nadasuddenly said out loud. People turned toward her and looked at her wide-eyed,as if she were crazy. A couple of teenagers laughed, pointed. A few momentslater, they all looked away and continued talking to their friends, reading thepapers or just looking through the windows while clenching the bus handles.Nada looked through the window again, her skin sprinkled by goose bumps, herface burning.Maybe I am crazy, Nada thought.Five minutes later, she tidied herself up and got up from her seat. Her stopwas the next one. She got off across from an old World War I cemetery, adjacentto the building she lived in. It didn’t bother her before, but now, she said loudlyto herself: “What were they thinking, building next to a graveyard?! Fuckingsocialists, nothing is sacred to them!”She walked into a small building with white doors, only part-open. Sheopened a broken wooden mail box, and picked up the electricity bill. She didn’tlook at it. She walked up four flights of stairs. She unlocked another white door,with a number nine on it, and walked into a narrow, dark hallway, with thicklywovenwool carpet. She smelled the staleness. The pantry was on the right,stacked with sugar, coffee, salt and similar golden metal containers, and thecoat rack was on her left. She walked another two steps and was now in frontof the bathroom. She was all alone in there and grateful for that, for the silence.She looked into the bright bedroom, across the bathroom, and her eyes landedon the made king-size bed with white, old fashion lacey linen. She frowned,looked away. Then, holding on to the door frame as she would fall otherwise,she glanced into the small living room with an old brown sofa, a chipped coffeetable, two armchairs, and a TV, with dark oval screen and brown woodenframe, and a small sticker that read: Made in Nis, Socialist Federative Republicof Yugoslavia. Then she leaned into the kitchen, as if she were afraid to crossits doorstep. She could see the tombstones through the big kitchen window, allshapes and sizes, moldy and green. She could smell the mold, and the bones.And the old tears and dried blood. She could smell the worms.She stepped back, turned and opened the bathroom door. It was a smallsquare bathroom—tiny bathtub adjacent to the washing machine, an old, broken

mirror closing the medicine cabinet above the sink, cheap black and white tiles.She saw herself, her face cut by the line in the mirror. She was pale, dark underthe eyes. Eyes blue, deep but with no shine, web of capillaries. She pulled hercheekbones down and dropped her mouth and chin, and held that position forabout ten seconds. Then she ran her bony hands through her short, thick brownhair.“Where are they?” she said.She began tossing the bathroom ferociously. She knocked down a littlebasket from the top of the washing machine with mini-soaps and perfumes. Shepulled all three plastic shelves under the sink, filled with her daughter’s hairbrushes and clips, make-up, maxi pads and cotton balls. Pulled wet laundry ontothe floor. And finally, as she were afraid of looking at the broken-faced self inthe mirror, she opened the medicine cabinet. That’s where her husband’s thingsusually laid—comb, shaving cream, cologne, toothbrush, paste and razors. Sheshivered, felt warmth and moisture on her cheeks, nose, chin, neck. She wassuddenly cold and she rubbed her arms. But then she stopped. She picked up arazor in slow motion, ran her fingers over its orange, plastic handle, closed themedicine cabinet and looked down and away. She looked at the tiles. She lookedat her watch. It was 2:43pm. She wasn’t sure if it was Wednesday or Thursday.She sat down on cold, dirty looking tiles, like a rag doll, legs spread left andright, orange plastic handle peeking from her right fist.Marija Stajic is a Serbian-American writer, journalist and a linguistwho has been published by The New Yorker and many other online and printpublications, and who has published three books of poetry. She has a B.A. inLinguistics and Literature from Faculty of Philosophy, University of Nis (Serbia)and an M.A. in International Journalism from American University.She has written a collection of interwoven historical short stories placedin Yugoslavia from beginning of the 20th century until today. She also blogs:belgrade-dc. blogspot.comHer fiction and poetry has been published by The Writing Disorder, OrionHeadless, Gloom Cupboard, Imitation Fruit, Inertia, Thick Jam and the BurningWord literary magazines.117

PROMISED LANDby Rachel BentleyFive-thirty in the afternoon on a hot Friday in August: It is always a longjourney home on summer weekends, and I am making the trip less oftennow. I wear the usual dark blue dress, nondescript and corporate, and Icarry the usual brown handbag. I have a small suitcase for overnight.The trip starts underground, five stops on the Number Two from Wall Streetto Penn Station. We stand in clusters where we expect the subway door to appear,straining over the platform’s yellow danger line, gazing down the tunnelfor the lights of the oncoming train. When the cars roar by in a hot wind, werecoil, and when the train stops we twist and squeeze past sluggish bodies whilethe loudspeaker squawks: Stand back and let ’em off.Everything is familiar: the odor of salami and garlic on people’s breath, thehurtling, side-to-side roll before we pull in at the graffiti-marked stop beneathPenn Station. The same mechanical voice: Stand clear of the closing doors.I change trains at Jamaica, the beginning of Long island The loudspeaker’svoice becomes less cramped and commanding: It sings, leaving for BALD-win,FREE-port, BELL-more, WAN-taugh, SEA-ford, Massa-PE-qua, but none ofthese pleasantly named towns is mine. My train doesn’t go that far. My trainheads south, sliding past places that don’t have names—factories, storage buildings,machine shops—until I get closer to home, near the Sunrise Highwaywith its unsynchronized lights and its shopping centers, where carloads of localgreasers cruise up and down the road all evening waving crude signs out the carwindows and making faces. Nobody out here trusts Manhattan. They call it TheCity, as if Queens were The Country. I wanted to go to The City all my life, andso I went. Now, my father wants me to come back and live with him.He has been a widower these past few months. A few neighbors have beensympathetic, but he has not been open to their compassion. There are two partsto him: the one that takes in everything clearly, and the one that stays back, withdrawnand hidden. Lately, he seems to have retreated to a place inside his head,thinking in a different language.A man in a wrinkled business suit sits nearby, watching me. I open myhandbag and look inside. It’s filled with nothing, just small fragments of my life.A smile starts to play at the corners of my mouth. I have to tighten my lips tomake it go away. Everything you do in life gets so mixed up with strangers youhave to be careful, even just looking at them. It’s safer to gaze out the windowas the used car lots and funeral parlors slide by and think about what I’m goingto say to my father. No. No, I’m not coming. Get someone else. Get Bobby andMelissa and their two teenagers. Get Helen to come back from California with118

her salesman. Get somebody else.The man I’ve been seeing, Richard, thinks I’m being childish about it.“You’re almost thirty years old. What’s all the terrible conflict about?” He wantsme to move in with him. He’s The City. He’s Manhattan, the glittery Manhattan.He says he’s related to the Bush family. I ask him, “Cousins?” He says, “Distant.”He is sweet and funny and easy to see through. He can also be kind.This is the not-quite-suburbs. In spite of the distance, when I get off thetrain, I’m still within the city limits. The platform at the Rosedale station is agreat concrete slab that leads to an arching bridge over the tracks. The bridgehas wire mesh sides to prevent public atrocities. When the trains pass below, thenoise of metal on metal blends with the surge of overhead jets as they descendinto Kennedy airport, making a dreadful music. For a few years my parentsrented in East New York. Then they moved here—a step up the ladder. I guessthat’s what it means to be settled down—all the imagined journeys you tracefor yourself across the maps and globes in a schoolroom reduced at last to just adaily commute, a repeated voyage past houses with lights on and people insideeating supper.My father traveled farther. He came across the sea from Yugoslavia beforethe slaughter, long before the shells of the Serbian artillery. There was alwayspuzzlement in his eyes as his family grew up around him. The older and noisierwe became, the lonelier he seemed to feel. Perhaps we, too, were sort of an escape,his flight from the past without destiny or calling. Often, when I asked himabout growing up in that distant country, he would lower his eyelids, turn downthe corners of his mouth, and swat the air with one hand, as if the first part ofhis life had been an insect. So I had to imagine the country that he would nevertalk about, and all I could see was forlorn villages surrounded by waterfalls andwolves, where farming was still done by hand and people traveled everywherein carts. Then I imagined the endless pop-pop of snipers in the hills, teenagerswith their shoulder grenade launchers, closed shops, blasted buildings, listlesswalkers in shattered streets. My father said the family farm overlooked the sea,but this vision seemed too sunny for anything I could imagine. I suppose he hada childhood, but whenever I asked him about it he would struggle for an answer.“What do you want to know?” he would say.I swing my suitcase up the front steps. Its weight provides enough momentumto carry me through the front door, and I slide it across the floor. My father’schair, in the kitchen, scrapes back and he emerges holding up his hand, lookingat me the way people look through windows. Then he stops, slumps his shoulders,and stoops to pick up my bag. He wears his gray pants and shirt, with Tonystitched across the pocket. It is cleaned and pressed, but its metallic dullness,which matches the color of his hair, makes him look like a man stubbornly dedicatedto sadness.“What’s new, Daddy?”“Nothing. Stomach pains. And you?”“I’m so glad to see you.”“Why are you looking around?”He leads me upstairs, carrying my suitcase. Inside the house, piles of newspapersand mail cover every horizontal surface. With Mother gone, the roomsseem large and dim, the carpets heavier, the ceilings higher.119

In my bedroom, my mother’s primly shaped dresses are spread out across thebed. “You should have those,” my father says, setting down the suitcases. I canhear the labor of his breathing.“Daddy, I’ve already looked through this stuff. The dresses are not my size.They’re old-fashioned, I can’t wear them.” Saying this suddenly seems blasphemous.“I’m sorry, Daddy. I just can’t wear them.”“You should go through them again. Make sure.” He holds one of them up,shaking out the wrinkles. “If I put them in the Goodwill box, some punk justsets them on fire.” “What about the fur coat?” It’s the only thing that remains inMother’s closet, next to several bottles of old perfume.He frowns. “It’s got a tear in the sleeve. But I keep it for a while. Maybe Ifind something else for you. I look around. Something in the metal box, maybe.”I cannot imagine what something else might be. The metal box is full of nothingbut old papers: the deed to the house, my father’s Yugoslavian passport with hispicture in merchant seaman uniform. Nothing we have is of any value except forthe coat, a new battery in the car, and an ancient lathe with worn out belts that hekeeps in the basement (an awkward sentence). I can’t use the battery or the lathe.***Next day, we’re sitting on the front steps, each of us with a can of soda. Iwish I could blurt it out, tell him I don’t want to move back. I want nothing ofmy father’s grip on the smallness of life, or the old people I’ve known since theywere young, and the middle-aged people I knew when they were my present age.The street is potholed, and the sidewalk in front of us is crumbling andcracked. Some local entrepreneur is building a duplex in the vacant lot acrossthe street. In the day’s heat, the workers remove their shirts, soak them in bucketsof water, and squeeze them over their heads.I’m like a child when I come to Rosedale, fearful of my father’s judgmentof me: a frivolous person. Richard says, “Love to come out there and meet yourdad sometime.” But it won’t happen. Not ever. Richard is Manhattan.He doesn’t need me. I like that. It means he doesn’t judge me. Is that love? Ifit is, it’s a new kind of love for me.If my father knew about him, he’d quickly see my lazy self-indulgence.That’s how fearful I am. But only here, in this house, are my mind and energydrained by such fear. My father’s lips are pressed together now. He looks steelyand quiet, his face expressionless, his eyes fixed and remote. He is thinking tohimself in his native language.The grass in the two small rectangles that front our house has turned brown.The workers across the street have their wet shirts hanging down from beneaththeir hard hats, like soggy burnooses. The studs of wood they are handling lookwarped from the heat, glistening with spots of resin.“Daddy,” I say carefully, “are you angry, are you sad that I don’t come outhere more often?” He is quiet. Then I say it, “Daddy, I’m not moving back herewith you.” There is an up-spin of relief, and then it is gone. The oak trees stirslightly, then we’re caught again as a deafening jet thickens the air on its way toKennedy.His head lowers, then his face tips up and his eyes come into view, harden-120

ing. “I’ll be home on weekends more. I promise,” I tell him.I stand up, getting my blouse unstuck from my stomach and my skirt fromthe back of my legs. The big oak tree in front of the house casts a shadow thatripples across the hot gleam of cars passing in the street. I sit down again,watching the workers across the street, their dull hammering drowned out by theintermittent sound of jets.It is a longer wait than I had anticipated for him to answer. The shadowsseem to stretch out further as we sit here. We are going into the worst part of theafternoon. My father moves his head from side to side, without removing mefrom his stare. I frown at my lap. I scratch at a spot on my blue skirt.He gives me a long, shrewd stare. “But I understand,” he says, in an alarminglydifferent voice. Everything is strained, unnatural. Then: “You sleepingwith some guy?”My ears start to burn. “Daddy, I’m going to live with some guy.” My wordsseem blurred and indistinct. “I’m sorry if it bothers you. Is that enough? I’msorry.”The heat and noise seem endless, draining us of everything but simplethoughts. It’s too hot for feelings.He presses his lips together, as if my answer is impertinent and slightly irritating.“You know something?” he says. “We moved out here twenty-five yearsago. Twenty-five years ago, today.”He could live here for another twenty-five years too. I could live with him,surrounded by the house he once ran (ran?) and would soon be running us, withits demands for paint and new plumbing, the dampness of its basement, thesquirrels in the gutters, the moths beating night after night, with their big wings,at the window screens.“Twenty-five years ago,” he says. “Now everybody’s moved away or died.Even D’Ambrosio’s dying.” He glances at the house next door with its drawnshades. “But you’ve always hated him.”“I don’t complain about him. I’m a happy man. I know something aboutlaughter. You know who he is? One of the family.”“Family?”“You don’t know who the family is? You’re such a baby. Half of Rosedalebelongs to them. They keep order here. They help the cops. Smart people. Youdon’t get money without being smart people. D’Ambrosio, he always wanted tobe gunned down in some nice little restaurant off Mulberry Street. But look athim now, just dying behind the window shades.”I begin to think again of what it is going to mean, moving in with Richard.It is going to mean not being on my own. It’s going to mean having someone tobitch at, someone to lean on, someone to tell me I am essential to his breathingand being. Lots of things seem better than that.I listen to my father, polite but neutral now. Because I remain detached, hewants to tell me more: life in Queens, the way the neighbors looked down onhim because he had an accent and wasn’t Irish Catholic. When I say nothing fora long time, he adds, “Where will you go when this guy is through with you?”It’s as if I’ve been expecting the question all the time he’s been talking, andwith no answer prepared, I just lean forward, with my face and part of my bodyleaning over the steps, and say, “I’ll go somewhere. I don’t know where yet, but121

122somewhere.”He edges back into the shadow of the porch. “I will go somewhere,” I say,emphasizing each word carefully.I cannot tell, by his hard gaze, whether he senses this feeling I have. Butwhatever purpose is emerging, he looks like he wants to grasp it for himself.Suddenly he starts forward and catches my arm. I watch his face as it is smittenby something I haven’t thought to display before him, much less brandish: myyouth. I can see that he wants it. His grip tightens on my arm, and it seems tostrengthen this feeling.I do not pull away from him. Then he inclines his head as if to acceptresponsibility for my frustration. Too weary to move, he stares at me and says,“The land.” He clears his throat. “You should have it someday.”The dry leaves on the oak tree rustle. I do not understand what he is saying.“I said I would look around for something to give you. Your mother’s coat,no.”He gazes through his thoughts at the oak tree and continues. “Ten hectares.Karla writes me from Yugoslavia, ‘When are you going to sign it over to us,Tony? You don’t need it any more. We could add it to the farm.’” But I neversign it over.“Land?”“On the hill near Kraljevica. It still belongs to me. It looks down on the sea. Inever sign it over to Karla. Some day, maybe, you can see it yourself. I still haveit. It’s in the metal box upstairs. It’s a deed, ten hectares. Maybe you can use itsomeday, maybe not. If not, then dream about it. It’s yours.”That was all he said, as the heat continued to press into darkness. The constructionworkers across the street set down their tools and began to leave. A fewmoths appeared and we hoisted ourselves up and walked back into the house.The gathered heat of the day, sultry and depressed, was worse than the outside.The sweat sprang from my skin. I tried to force the windows higher in theirsashes, but there was no breeze anywhere. No air.I saw him standing in the living room, staring at the ceiling.I was reminded, then, of how he would wait at the foot of the stairs for mymother when they went out, just the two of them, for an evening. My motherwould walk about overhead, and I could hear her high-heeled shoes clatteringas she moved from her bureau to her closet mirror. Her staccato footsteps,patternless at first, would become more purposeful as she stopped to pick outearrings or brush her dark hair. All at once she would march across the floor, andthe sound of her shoes’ percussion would burst out like a tap dance as she camedown the stairway.My father, as if signaled, would go to the hall closet for her fur coat. Hewould hold it out for her as she passed, and she would always say, “Tony, Don’tyou look terrific!” Now, I tried to continue our conversation, but my fatherseemed exhausted. His gaze moved down from the ceiling, looked around theroom. His head retreated into the collar of the shirt with Tony stitched across thepocket.Suppose he was once a boy? What were the summers like? Maybe therewere flowers and mulberry trees stretching across the ten hectares down to theAdriatic shore. Maybe he ran through fields of grass, but who wanted to remem-

er? Those days and nights were all weighted down for him like stones. No onesaid it was poetry finding a promised land (awkward) or giving up an old landwhose bitter memories kept him reaching doggedly ahead.I usually do not believe things people tell me before nightfall. Only whenthere are cool and melancholy shadings in the air do their words become real.This was the only time, before he died, that my father ever mentioned this landas a legacy, this field somewhere on a hillside, in a country I will never see. Butthat night, he showed me the deed in the metal box, and that evening I set out onmy travels. I may never possess this field as my own. But I might take a gentlestep toward it and then, realizing that I am not alone, I might see the outlines ofa new shore and strain in the sunlight to see it clearly.Rachel Bentley’s books, Post-Freudian Dreaming and A General Theory ofDesire, are available at Amazon & Powell’s. She’s a Pushcart Prize nominee,and won the Paris Review/Paris Writers Workshop International Fiction Award.She has published over 200 works of fiction, poetry and memoir in LiteraryMagazines and Quarterlies in the U.S., the UK, France, Canada and Brazil.123

BITTER BROKEN BONESby Rebecca WrightAdoorbell chimed and tiny feet skidded around a corner. Dirty blonde hairfell into jade eyes as a pudgy hand reached for the doorknob. Fingerstightly gripping his wrist stopped him.“Luka! You know better.”The young boy’s face fell as his hand dropped down to his side. He backedaway to stand behind his mother’s skirts. She turned the handle and the dooropened with an audible click.“Yes?”A large woman clutching a canvas bag stood there, a grim smile painted onher face.“Ma’am, I was told to deliver the offering to this house.”“Ah yes. How old is it?”“At last check, six.”“Well, where is it?”A shadow moving behind the woman caught Luka’s attention. He tuggedquickly on his mother’s skirt. Her hand reached out and smacked his away. Ahushed “Stop that!” escaped pursed lips.“I’m supposed to have you sign this paperwork first to ensure delivery.”“Of course.”The mother snatched the pen from the woman’s hand, causing her body toflinch. She began going through the paperwork as the shadow moved again.Luka gripped his mother’s skirt and tugged harder. The pen came down hard onhis hand and the tugging stopped.“All right. Is there anything else?”His mother passed the papers back to the woman.“No, ma’am, that should be everything. Here are the belongings.”The woman handed his mother the canvas tote before she put her arms behindher back. The shadow moved and a small girl was pushed out from behindthe woman. Dark brown, almost black hair covered her face. The woman ran herfingers through the girl’s hair, pushing it out of her face. Azure blue eyes metLuka’s.“And this is Indigo, the offering.”“This is a big responsibility Luka. You will be in charge of everything.”“I know. But I’m a big kid now.”Twelve-year-old Luka grinned up at his mother’s face. He sat on the couchacross from her, a coffee table separating them.124

“All right. If you think you can handle it, then I know you can.”His mother dismissed him and he ran to where the guest room was. Knockingon the door to announce his arrival, he opened the door. A lump was in themiddle of the bed, covered by a pile of covers.“Indigo!”A head shot out of the covers. Luka grinned when he saw the haystack ofhair on Indigo’s seven-year-old head.“C’mon! We have things to do.”“But I don’t wanna.”Walking to the bed, Luka tugged on her hand. It didn’t take much for him toget her out of the bed.“Get dressed. We’re going outside.”Luka headed towards the door but turned around when he didn’t hear anything.Indigo was just staring at him with her mouth open.“What?”“O-outside? Your mother says I can’t go outside. I’m to stay indoors in casesomeone sees me.”“But I’m in charge of you now.”Indigo walked over to him and grabbed his hand.“Really? I get to go outside?”Nodding, he pushed her over to the closet and motioned for her to getdressed. He ducked out of the room and headed over to his own across the hall.He grabbed the tote he had packed and waited in the hallway for Indigo to finish.Luka grimaced at the sign outside of the performance house. It wasn’tunusual for there to be a doll auction announcement. It was the name on thesign that left a sour taste in his mouth. His mother used a stapler to post the announcementlisting Indigo as that evening’s performance.“I’m only going to assist you for the first couple. After that, you’re on yourown.”“Yes, mother.”He stumbled but regained his footing as they quickly moved through theperformance house. His fifteen-year-old body was still adjusting to his recentgrowth spurt. His mother pointed out the dressing room she would use to prepherself and the entrance they would come in.“Why do we hold an auction?”“Because that’s the only way the dolls are sold. No one would know aboutthem if there wasn’t a public auction.”“But why Indigo?”“Because she was offered up for this.”“Can I keep her?”“No.”Her glare stopped the questions that were on the end of his tongue, barelyhanging on and staying quiet.“Now, if everything goes correctly, you should only have to do the auctiononce. If not, well, the results won’t be pretty.”He cowered from the glare she sent him.125

“What do you mean you want to return her?Luka stared down the balding man in front of him. Sweat beaded on theAlfred Clark’s red forehead as his suit collar dug into the rolls of his neck. Heglanced at the figure kneeling on the ground, a tight leather collar around herthroat.“She isn’t what I need.”“What is it that she lacks? We can train her to suit your needs.”The man gripped the armrest of the chair he sat on and released a heavybreath.“She won’t cooperate. It’s too much of a hassle to deal with.”Luka sighed and nodded.“What form would you like your money to be in?”“You don’t have to return the money. Consider it an incentive for the future.”Luka grimaced but it quickly disappeared of his face.“All right. Thank you sir for your patronage. We’ll tell you of any futureevents.”He shook the man’s hand before showing him out the front door. He returnedto his office to see Indigo still kneeling on the floor. He kneeled down next toher and put his hand under her chin. He lifted up her face to look and frowned.Teardrops leaked from an eye that was swollen shut. Dark black and purplebruises surrounded the eye and down the side of her face. He moved his hand torest against the normal side of her face.“Oh, Indigo. What did he do to you?”A whimper escaped her split lip. He remembered the collar and quicklyremoved it.“That should feel better.”A slight nod was all he received. He stood and held his hand out to her. Shemoved her hand into his and he pulled her from the ground.“Come. Let’s get you cleaned up.”He pulled the frosted yellow cake from the fridge and placed it on the tray.“Happy 14th Birthday Indigo” was written on it in his sloppy writing. Grabbingtwo plates and forks, he added them to the tray before lifting it. He headed toIndigo’s room, pushing the door open with his hip. Setting the tray on the desk,he moved over to the bed to wake Indigo.“Indigo?”He nudged the pile of blankets but nothing moved. He grabbed the pile andpushed it off the side of the bed, leaving it empty.“She’s not there.”Luka’s head whipped around to look at the doorway. His mother stood there,arms crossed across her chest.“Where is she?”“I sold her last night.”“Why?”“You’re getting too attached. She’s nothing more than a doll.”She moved her gaze from him over to the cake he had spent the morningbaking. Walking over to it, she placed one of her hands on the tray handle.“Was this for her?”126

Luka nodded, not understanding why she was asking. He jumped when shepushed the tray off the desk, covering the floor in splattered yellow cake.“Damn it Luka! I knew you were too young to get involved in this.”“No! I promise I’ll do better!”He shook from the glare she stared at him with.“You better. Or you’ll join her.”“How soon would you like your refund, ma’am?”“As soon as possible. I need to replace this one.”“Of course. It should be returned within two business days.”Luka scribbled down the message on the paper in front of him. A womanwith a beak for a nose sat in the chair in front of him. A broken figure lay next tothe chair. Showing the woman out, Luka rushed back to his office. In his twentyyears, he had never seen a person so defeated.“Oh, Indigo.”He noticed the broken arm she had tucked against her chest and her swollenankle. Sighing, he released the rope collar from around her throat and rubbed thetender skin.“Let’s get you fixed up.”He lifted her body into his arms, listening to the painful whimpers escapingher swollen mouth. He moved her to the guest room, waiting for the doctor toshow up.“It won’t be much longer.”Two soaring sparrows were inked into the arm that cradled her head. Heheld her as she lay on the floor of the guest room with no thoughts in her mindand no voice in her throat. This was nothing like the vibrant life he rememberedher having, her previous owners having sucked it out of her. He watched herchest barely move with each faded breath, another fragment of her souls escapingthrough her cracked lips. Pieces of a broken picture frame littered the flooraround her, glass embedded in her skin. He hated how she had been discarded,destroyed, demolished on the floor. Violent thoughts and memories swirledaround in his head, taking over, controlling him. He wanted more for her thanthis life. They were skeletons escaping the closet and coming to life. Bitter brokenbones lay beneath her failing flesh, failing to hold everything together withglue mixed from blood and lies.“Ready, love?”He lowered her head to the ground and stood up above her. He hoveredover her, unsure how to help her. The door opened behind her. His mother stoodthere, watching and critiquing. Tonight was his only chance. His hand reachedout and gripped her hair, pulling her up. He knew she couldn’t cry. There wereno liquids left to release, no pent up anger, no emotions.“C’mon, we don’t have time for this. They’re ready.”He lifted her, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes but mindfulof the glass in her skin. Following his mother out of the apartment buildingas he carried her, he pushed her into the dark car outside. Telling the driver togo, he passed her a duffle bag.“You know what to do. Get to it.”127

As if on strings, she acted with jerky movements from his command. He washer puppeteer, she his marionette. Luka hated how she dressed in the uniform,not caring that the driver was leering at her or that Luka’s mother was glaring ather. Just as she finished tying the ribbons on the shoes, the car came to a stop.“It’s time. You better be ready. There’s a lot of money riding on you tonight.”Exiting the car after his mother, he turned to see if she had moved but shestill just stared forward with blank eyes.“Move.”He waited for her to acknowledge his voice but the sound flowed throughher ears and bounced around her barely functioning brain. He walked back to thecar door and grabbed her hand, pulling her from the vehicle. As they walked, shefollowed behind him as if he was pulling her along with a leash. Her white skinglowed from the marquee above them that announced “Indigo Torrie: PerformingTonight Only.”Leading her backstage, he motioned for her to enter the dressing room.“There you go, love. Everything is ready for you. Make yourself pretty.”She moved into the room and he shut the door behind him as he left. Heheaded to the gallery to greet the buyers that had received an invitation to theevent.***“Luka Santino! How have you been?”Turning away from the couples and singles that were mingling, he looked atthe older, balding man that headed towards him. He shook the hand that the manheld out.“Alfred Clark! It’s been a long time.”Luka knew that Alfred had wanted Indigo ever since he had first had herwhen she was twelve. He lost his wife soon after the return and believed Indigowas the perfect replacement.“Indeed it has. Did you send Indigo through more training?”“I did. She should cooperate now and agree to everything.Luka frowned as Alfred nodded, grinning like a fool. If everything wentLuka’s way, Indigo would not be going home with anyone but himself. He hadgroomed her specifically to his own preferences. No, she only belonged to him.“Good luck.”The older man nodded and grinned wider, the dark spaces of missing teethprominent.“There’s no way I could persuade you?”Alfred pulled his wallet out of his suit jacket and opened it. Luka glanced atthe large amount of green bills that were bursting from the leather bi-fold.“You know very well that everyone gets an equal chance.”Luka grimaced as Alfred clapped him on the back of his shoulder.“That’s what I like about you. You make sure everything is straight.”“Thanks. But now I must go check on the star of the evening.”***Luka opened the door to the dressing room and watched as Indigo got ready.After she washed the dirt off her skin, she began applying concealer to the128

uises covering her scarred body. He frowned at the blacks, the greens, andthe yellows that stood out against her pale skin. They were the gifts, the lies,the punishments left behind from previous owners, ones that grew old and lefther behind. He hated how each time she had to do this performance; there weremore to cover.“Ready, love?”Luka smiled at the thought that this would be the final act of her professionas a puppet. He had been planning this since he took over for his mother.“Just one more thing before you go.”He walked over to a table where a single case sat. Reaching into it, hepulled a needle out filled with a pale blue liquid that shined when the light hit it.Bringing it over to Indigo, he motioned for her to hold her arm out. Gripping herelbow, he injected the liquid into her outstretched arm.“There. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”He led her to the red curtain blocking the stage from the spectators. He couldhear the faint murmurs of those there to watch and those there to buy. He didn’tacknowledge them, instead staring at Indigo’s blank face, wishing he could takeher away.“Good. Now dance.”Leaving her there, Luka headed to his place to stand next to his mother justin the wings of the stage. Nodding to the stagehand, the curtain rose.***The audience watched Indigo with pity, with remorse, with glee in their eyes.Those looking to buy focused on the way her body twisted and bent in pirouettes.Rain poured above them, seen only through the glass-tiled roof. Shadowsdanced across the onlookers’ faces, casting them in greens and blues. Dirt fromthe rarely used stage stained her skin as she moved, ruining carefully donemakeup. The music rhythms in the background became her heartbeat.Luka knew Indigo wanted to stop but he didn’t tell her to, especially with hismother standing next to him. Seeing the faces in the crowd sneering at her madehim wish for a different life for her. He could see that she wanted to scream butwords can’t pass her lips. Not in this moment.When she turned her head towards him, Luka knew it was time for the finalcurtain call. Luka walked to the center of the stage to announce the winner asshe continued to dance“Attention everyone!”As the audience quieted down, he turned to look at Indigo. Her hands wentto clutch her throat as the burning began. He knew she had never felt a pain likethis before but it was necessary. He watched as she stopped dancing and bentover, trying to force air into her lungs. A sticky, wet cough and cabernet coloredcandy syrup came out. Her cracked lips parted with gasps of hot air and failure.With another cough, Indigo fell.***He stood in the dark corner, just outside the sight of room. Luka watched asIndigo opened her eyes to see darkness with only a faint glow from the moonlightcoming through the barred windows. The room had no exit and no entrance129

for her. Hope leaked from her broken lungs as she watched the freedom ofpeople pass by. Faces pressed against the glass, fog escaped their gaping mouths.He knew that she recognized Alfred’s face as he came into view of the window.He hated how he had to use shackles to hold her thin arms to the wall. Her skinwas dry and bleeding hidden beneath dark silver metal. Shivers rocked Indigo’sbroken body.He watched as she searched for an escape from the room. Blood coveredfingertips and nail grooves were scratched into the wall. Fragmented faces ofthose that didn’t win the bid screamed of lost time and made-up lies outside thewindow of the room. He hated listening to them but that wouldn’t be able tochange it now. Her teeth sunk into her swollen lip and concealed her cries.Luka moved forward and opened a portion of the wall, sliding across thefloor with a scraping sound.“Hello, love.”She cowered back from him into the darkness of the room.“Are you ready? A new home is waiting.”There is no life for the broken doll.Rebecca Wright is a 21-year-old graduate of University of South Floridawith her BA in Creative Writing. She wants people to analyze why she wrotesomething and what it means, when in all actuality, she wrote it becauseshe could. She currently resides in Tampa, Florida, with her polydactal cat,Huckleberry Fynnigan. She plans to receive her MFA in Creative Writing and inthe future, change the world.130

VERY GREEN ELEPHANTby Orlin OroschakoffIalready told you. We must give him a name. In order to make him feel welcome.You know what happened last night . . . I know you won’t believe me.You were already in bed. Asleep. I was reading in my room when I heardthis solid thumping noise. It must’ve been around midnight. I thought it mustbe from the radiators, cooling down. But then it happened again and this time itdidn’t sound like a radiator at all. I got up, turned up the light and went straightto the Fellini room. It’s dark when the light is switched off. I can still see himfrom the landing, through the doorway some light streaking through the Frenchdoor to the garden. Not last night. The darkness’s transparent pendant wasblocked by something immensely alive. The immersion of the night, that nocturnalface of things was occupied by something breathing. The presence of thisapparition seemed to swell to a fearful dimension. I reached for the light switchwhen my knuckles brushed on the rough overheated texture of distinct epiderma.I know it might sound ridiculous but maybe you can already guess whatI saw under the diminished streaks of the wall lights. There he was. Our brandnew porcelain elephant. Expanded into a life-size, not yet fully grown Africanelephant. The same seductively smooth porcelain form enlarged to the optimalscale that the room could handle. Huge, jade-green live content obedientlystanding on his massive fours slightly sunk into the dark blue and green stripedthick carpet. For some reason his imposing presence didn’t make me nervous.Doubtlessly, his sharp hearing could detect your sleepful purring in the bedroomacross the hall. I knew that even if he wanted to pay a visit to your room and expresshis considerable disappointment about your unwillingness to name him, hewouldn’t be able to do so. His size wouldn’t allow him to pass through the doorin the first place and leave the Fellini room. But, what if the circumference of hisbody was a bit smaller, let’s say similar to that of a young bull. Then certainlyhe would have stormed your room and you’d have been quite shaken when hepicked you up out of your bed and elevated you under the ceiling. What wouldyou have told him, why have you neglected him for the entire four days after wefound him there, not far from the vast river, abandoned among other scatteredembodiments of gathered material data of time gone. Forms protected and oppressedby the predictable narrative of stingy minds. You saw him first and yourcat-like eyes ceased to be easily fed with the vanishing voluptuousness of thedeparting autumn. The unobtrusive fragrance of past times, the raw radiance ofcolor, the scent of childhood forever enclosed and snowed in in the crystal ballof your memories, divagating the valley of the green . . . where horse, skies andsmells, sun bleached the milky streak of your chestnut hair, where the protective131

darkness of the mountains was your divine measure, majestic self-supportingpillars of unspoken truth and order . . .You know, we took him home. Over the bridge . . . Over the silent red towersof unveiled autumn and the prey of golden shadows over the blooming colorsof descending leaves, over the railroad of the languishing afternoon, upon theforgotten face of the rusty steamer next to the obliterated canal with swimmingducks, upstream against the unlit lampposts. We carried him with all his greensecrets. Some say elephants are never reduced to forgetting, but the exitless orbitof time will reduce the two of us to the dusk of null passions. The moondial ofour life together will preserve his precious green secret before death liberates theflesh of its sorrows. We must name him. Hand in hand . . . You see, the silhouettesof the turning world are oblivious to his indecipherable mystery. You cansense his presence is affirmed by the cool of his green. A captive of his porcelaingreenness he beckons the invisible path, the green direction of unknown destination.He can carry the pangs of our love across his strong back. Jade green magicapparition, I know he wants to be named by us, so he can guide us through theevening’s marvels, redolent of astral copulations and multiplied tenderness. Hisvibrant green, abundant in inner motion will cool my eternal impatience and myesoteric concupiscence. While skin engloved by skin, we let the incarnation ofour thoughts dominate the belle époque of youthful days, confined to the monumentalscaffold of descending time. His green will be bemused, bemist negationto the darkest blue of our contemplations.I know . . . It’s not an easy task to name an elephant. Shall we ever know howhe’s lost his tusks? And . . . what if the name we . . . Isn’t a name going to besuch a limiting feature to such a majestic creature? Isn’t the name going toderoot him from the sharpness of his green? We must decide that, my love.Tomorrow night . . .Orlin G. Oroschakoff grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria and attended the Academyof Fine Arts in Sofia. Orlin defected from Bulgaria in 1983, escaping acrossthree borders by train and taking refuge at a United Nations camp in Belgrade.Two months later, Orlin traveled to San Francisco with $5 in his pocket andno knowledge of English. Orlin taught himself English and supported himselfthrough his artwork. Orlin now lives in the New York area.132

NONFICTIONSUMMER 2012133

LIVING THROUGHPANTERAby J.J. AnselmiSitting in our living room, watching TV, anxiety crawled into my throat whenmy dad’s truck pulled into the driveway, gravel popping underneath histruck’s tires. He slammed the front door. Wine glasses in the china cabinet,next to the front door, rattled. He dropped his keys into the key basket. I knew thathe had another shitty day reading electric meters. I waited for him to walk into theliving room.“Did you find a job today?” He shut off the TV. He filled the room.“I was going to pick up a few applications,” I said, “but I ended up riding mybike at the skate park.”“Goddamnit, son. It’s always the same shit. Every day. You need to find a joband start trying harder in school.” His harshness reminded me of the way my Godfearinggrandpa talked to my dad and me.I told him I didn’t want another bullshit job like the maintenance job I’dbeen doing for my uncle. I had recently quit working for my dad’s brother, at thehotel my grandpa built, which my uncle now ran. I worked there for two years.Thoughts I wanted to escape were encapsulated in that hotel. Seeing how bluecollarlabor affected my dad made me not want to get another job. But I didn’t sayany of this to him.“What are you going to do for money?” His voice was louder.“I’ll just get a paper route or work at McDonald’s or some shit.”“That’s another thing. You need to clean up your language. I don’t want tohear you cussing anymore.” He sighed. “You need to have a better attitude, son.”Gravel laced his voice. Hearing the amount of cuss words that came out of hismouth every day, it seemed ludicrous that he would tell me to stop cussing. Behindhis words, I heard the statement, “Do as I say, not as I do,” which his Catholicmother had been saying to him, and me, for our entire lives. Hearing him repeather hypocritical words fanned my resentment. As with his father, my dad wouldn’tadmit that his mother had some serious flaws as a parent. Instead of directly interactingwith my dad, I focused anger for my grandparents onto him.“Fuck you, Dad.”Like every other time I’d said this to my dad, he looked at me for a fewseconds, eyelids widening around his whites and blue irises. We screamed at eachother for a few more minutes.“How can you give me life advice?” I asked. “You’re just a stoner that droppedout of school.” Ever since I found out that my dad smoked pot, I saw his desire for134

me to build a productive life as another aspect of his hypocrisy. He wanted me tofollow a socially acceptable path, but, in my mind, he was a criminal. Not attemptingto understand my dad’s drug use, I took it as a personal insult.I got up from the chair, grabbed the keys to my car and left. I drove down a hill,over a bridge with a brown, litter-strewn creek flowing underneath. Gnarled sagebrushjutted over creek banks. Eroding sandstone cliff faces surrounded gas stations,bars, and trailers at the bottom of the hill. Thinking about living in Rock Springs,Wyoming with my dad for another three years, anger flowed through my veins.I needed to listen to Pantera.I skipped The Great Southern Trendkill to its eighth track, “Living ThroughMe.” As Phil Anselmo screamed, I broke your fucking mold, then threw away thecast, in his guttural voice, intensified by Vinnie Paul’s driving drum rhythms, thecrunch of Dimebag’s guitar, and the rumble of Rex Brown’s bass, I felt like someonepatted me on the shoulder, saying, “You fucking should hate your dad.”I had been playing drums for four or five years. Listening to Vinnie’s technicallyridiculous double bass drumming, combined with Phil’s lyrics—lyrics thatseemed to tap into my deepest emotions—and Dimebag Darrel’s shredding guitar,I didn’t think I could ever make art on the same level as these guys. Pantera wouldalways be better than me at expressing my own emotions.After driving west across vacuous plains on I-80 for about a half-hour, thenturning around, I wished I had somewhere to go besides my parents’ house. Idrove home, still listening to ... Trendkill. Inside, my dad and I ignored each other.I went up to my room and shut the door.Lying on my bed, I looked at a picture of Phil Anselmo on my wall. Black tattooson white skin. Long hair. Beard. The trademark Phil Anselmo sneer. I lookedat myself in the mirror above my dresser, adjusted my hair so it looked more likePhil’s from the picture—parted down the middle, gnarled split-ends on both sides.I wondered when I would be able to grow more facial hair. Sixteen, I could onlygrow a patchy goatee. I pictured tattoos covering my skinny arms. I wished PhilAnselmo were my real father. I didn’t articulate it in this way, but, as I examinemy obsession with Pantera’s singer, and the rest of the band during my high schoolyears, it always comes back to that desire.I had so many fights with my dad when I was sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen,fights that started and ended almost exactly like this one, they blur together in mymemory. We had the same fight once a week for three years.I chose Phil Anselmo, and, to lesser extents, the other members of Pantera, tofulfill my need for an admirable father figure, partly because of the space in eachband member’s projected image. Phil, Dime, Rex, and Vinnie: they seemed morelike fictional characters than real people. Although I consumed pictures, magazineinterviews, and video images of the band that spanned fifteen years, I didn’t seeany change in these guys. From my bedroom walls, each member of Pantera toldme I could understand and depend on him.In most pictures, Phil looks pissed, his mouth twisted into the same scowl ashe shouts into a microphone. Dimebag Darrel, with the same dyed-red goatee,camouflage shorts and maniacal grin, rips solos on his guitar. A black bandanaon his head in almost every picture, scraggly mutton chops sprouting out, Vinniebeats the shit out of his drums. Rex head-bangs, his long blond hair swirling135

around his bass. I imparted each character with the things I craved in a fatherfigure. I couldn’t change my dad, but I could shape these characters.Pantera’s music made these characters real. Most of their songs are honest,concentrated expressions of anger. Emotionally raw slow songs also appear ontheir albums. I was privy to some of these guys’ real feelings.These fictional father figures allowed me to avoid my complicated relationshipwith my dad. My interpretations of Pantera’s members, combined with theiraggressive music, told me it was OK to bypass complicated emotions, and just beangry. At the time, I thought I was finding therapy through Pantera.Phil Anselmo lived in a narcotic bubble, but, unlike my dad, he would neverget stoned with one of my classmates, Drew, on a hunting trip with one of hisbuddies, Drew’s older cousin. If Phil was my dad, I wouldn’t have to deal withmost of my peers from high school—rumors travel very quickly in small townslike Rock Springs—knowing and asking about my dad’s pot smoking after Drewtold anyone that would listen. Phil Anselmo often got so fucked up before Panterashows that, on stage, he would lie down, mumbling into a microphone, pissing onhis band mates’ art. But, in my mind, I wouldn’t have to deal with the resentmentand humiliation connected to my real father if Phil Anselmo was my dad.I wouldn’t have to deal with these situations at all.I wouldn’t think about my dad’s father calling him a failure because hedropped out of college; because he would never be like his business-savvy olderbrother (the uncle I worked for); because his mind worked in ways my grandpadidn’t understand. My dad’s Catholic, status-obsessed mother, telling him thathe fried his brain doing LSD and smoking weed when he was a teenager, that hewould never amount to anything—these thoughts, always connected to my dad’sneed to encapsulate himself in a padded haze, thoughts I constantly tried to distancemyself from, which arose every time kids at school asked about his drug use,wouldn’t be a problem if my version of Phil Anselmo was my dad.Trying to hate my dad seemed a lot easier than trying to understand him. Hishypocritical ranting; his weird hang-ups about not throwing things away, includingfood past the expiration date—if someone threw away moldy cheese, orfoul-smelling deli meat in our house, he would often pick these things out of thetrash and eat them—as well as rotting deer, elk, and antelope hides in our garage;the many times he switched, very quickly, from a good mood, talking and laughingwith me, my mom and sister, to being highly irritable: all these things shouldhave told me that my dad was fucked up beyond my understanding, that I neededto examine him in more complex ways. I know now that hating him wasn’t doingeither of us any good, that I responded to my dad in the same way as his parents.But Phil Anselmo and the rest of Pantera told me that this was the best, the onlyway to approach my relationship with my dad.* * *At a concert in Ohio, a man named Nathan Gale climbed on stage, during asong, and shot Dimebag Darrel, after which a police officer shot and killed Gale.I was a freshman in college. Thinking about Dimebag’s death, I felt like someonekilled one of my family members. I didn’t understand how Gale could justify themurder. It seemed incomprehensible. I’ve come to realize Nathan Gale and I had136

more than a few things in common.In the patchy biographical information I’ve read about him, there are a fewnarrative strains. Most speculation about why he murdered Dimebag seems tostem from two facts: Nathan Gale was a rabid Pantera fan. Nathan Gale wasfucking crazy. Reading about him, I catch myself trying to latch onto details thatdifferentiate him from me. Those two facts are always at the core, though. When Ithink about him in these ways, it becomes a lot harder to tell myself that we werenot at all alike.Nathan Gale conversed with Pantera, in his head, on a daily basis; so did I.Gale told his friends and family that Pantera planned to come to his high schooland play a concert, just for him. When I was in high school, I daydreamed aboutmoving to New Orleans, where Phil Anselmo lived. The city’s metal scene wouldembrace me immediately. Phil Anselmo and I would become close friends. Wemight start a band.During my adolescence, guns and physical violence terrified me—an angrykid, but I never gave serious thought to killing anyone. Still, in Gale’s obsessivefanaticism, which perpetuates a disconnection from reality, I see a lot of similaritybetween him and myself when I was an obsessive Pantera fan. Viewing myPantera worship through this lens is terrifying.We live in a world that encourages obsessive idol worship. In the cult ofPantera worship, this encouragement is taken to a grotesque extreme.During the summer when I was seventeen, Superjoint Ritual, the band PhilAnselmo formed after Pantera broke up, played at Ozzfest. Pantera had alreadybroken up when I became an obsessive fan for the band, so seeing the members’post-Pantera bands would be the only way I would get to see them in concert.The idea of seeing Phil in a live setting seemed incredible. Unlike Dimebag andVinnie, whose post-Pantera music I didn’t like, I loved all of Phil’s music afterPantera. He still seemed to know exactly how I felt. I bought a ticket, drove sixhours to Denver to see the show.After a long morning of metal-core bands, cigarette and weed smoke emanatingfrom stinky dudes and scantily clad women, I learned that Superjoint Ritual wasdoing a meet-and-greet. I just had to buy one of their CDs or DVDs to get a passto meet the band. Holding Superjoint’s A Lethal Dose of American Hatred, tryingto decide which part of the CD booklet I wanted the band to sign, I waited in line.I talked to some of the other Pantera fanatics. Talking to devout Pantera fans, youdon’t hear “Dimebag Darrell Abbott,” “Vinnie Paul Abbott,” “Rex Robert Brown,”or “Philip H. Anselmo” as they reference band members. You hear “Dime,” “Vinnie,”“Rex,” and “Phil.” We talked about band members like they were family.Some fans had the letters ‘CFH’ etched into their skin, usually in black ink. Ina circular shape, the CFH logo has become Pantera’s emblem—it stands for Cowboysfrom Hell, which is the first album Pantera recorded with Phil Anselmo. Thetattoo is a rite of passage for “true” Pantera fans. At other metal concerts, I alsomet several people with CFH tattoos. A month or so after this show, I paid a tattooartist sixty-five dollars to engrave Pantera’s logo into my skin. As the needle shotburning jolts into my wrist bones, regret lodged in my throat, which I smotheredby thinking about the ways people would react to my tattoo. Anyone who saw mytattoo would know, right away, who I was.137

138I needed to prove my life-long loyalty to the band by branding myself withtheir emblem. I needed to gain membership into the cult of “true” Pantera fans. Ineeded an absolute to counter my unstable relationship with my dad. Although alot of rock and metal fans are outspokenly anti-religious—I was a glaring exampleof this—they seek acceptance into groups that serve the same purposes as organizedreligion.Like The Grateful Dead, Slipknot, Led Zeppelin, Slayer and The Beatles, thereis a weird, cultish rabidness about a lot of Pantera fans. Being a rabid fan for a band,you find an instant sense of community with other rabid fans. Creepily, this communitytakes on an illusory, familial quality. Like myself, people who gravitate towardobsessive fandom are often social outcasts. Adding to angst from my home life, Ifelt isolated in my high school, where boys were pansies if we didn’t love hunting,fishing, and team sports. To counter isolation, it’s understandable that people wouldwant to join a group whose members, without even having to meet each other, feelconnected. But this fandom, and the community that comes with it, fucks people up.Trying to fill the void of isolation with fictional relationships and superficial selfperceptiondestroys your ability to see the complex, human aspects in real people.Music reaches people on intimate levels, leading to feelings of identificationwith musicians. As with any art, music provides a concentrated, pure form of emotionalexpression. Combined with narrative information about artists, this expressionoften creates the illusion of one-on-one interaction. But there is an importantdifference between artistic communication and personal, one-on-one communicationthat I didn’t see when I was a Pantera fanatic. Nathan Gale didn’t see thisdifference, either. This differentiation separates obsessive fans of music, movies,visual art, television, and any other type of art, from people who know that thesnippets of emotion and communication in art only illustrate a portion of an artist’spersonality. The idea of personally knowing artists is also supported by the culturalassumption that we are our stories, which perpetuates the illusion of knowing afterwe consume biographical narratives. When you think you can know people, entirely,through narrative, image, and the art they create, you start to ignore aspectsof people you can only experience in person.My favorite artists seemed to occupy an elevated realm. Instead of digestinghow fucked up everyone is, it can be easier to believe in an ideal of flawlessness.This view of artists also stems from self-worthlessness, from the idea thatonly a select, elite group of people can make art. Once you believe these ideas,idol worship is only a small jump away. Seeing anyone through such an unrealisticlens intensifies disconnections from reality. Trying to replace complicated,hard-to-digest real relationships with convenient fictional ones, like I did with myrelationship with my dad, can help fool yourself into believing that you can escapeinter-personal problems.I didn’t see holes in my logic while enveloped in this culture. Waiting in line, Iwas just excited to meet people I felt connected to.Superjoint Ritual also consisted of Jimmy Bower from Eyehategod, a band Iwas just getting into, and Hank Williams III. But Phil Anselmo was my reason forwaiting. I finally saw him. Like an original painting you have only seen in prints,an aura surrounded him. I wasn’t nervous because I felt like I had already met him.Shaking his hand, I said, “Everything you do is fucking genius, man.”He held his fist in the air, as if we were fighting for the same political cause,

and said, “Thank you, brother.”Watching him live, later that evening, a distinct sense of drifting outside mybody overwhelmed me. I snuck past security guards to get into the VIP section,just a few feet away from the stage. Through my eyes, Phil Anselmo and the restof the band looked like hybrids of Claymation and cartoon characters.Waves of music tingled my spine.I was nineteen when Nathan Gale shot Dimebag Darrell at a Damageplanshow. I saw Dimebag a few weeks before the shooting, in Denver, where I attendedcollege, on the same tour. Seeing Damageplan—a generic, radio-friendlymetal band that Dimebag and his brother, Vinnie Paul, formed after Panterabroke up—would probably be my only chance to see the Abbott brothers in a livesetting. I saw Phil Anselmo with Superjoint Ritual a year-and-a-half before thisDamageplan show.As Damageplan played their first few songs, giddy pulses tickled my stomach.Soon, though, after the novelty of seeing Dimebag and Vinnie in person wore off,I started to feel pity for the former Pantera members. Dimebag gained a lot ofweight since the last pictures I had seen of him. He had the same long, curly hair.The same dyed-red goatee. The same cargo shorts and sleeveless shirt. He actedout the same on-stage antics—taking shots, throwing cups of whiskey into thecrowd, and head-banging wildly—from all the Pantera videos I’d seen. That night,I understood for the first time that Dimebag imprisoned himself in his own image.Hearing Damageplan’s music before this show, I thought they were tryingto pick up where Pantera left off, but in a watered-down way. Seeing the bandlive told me that Dime and Vinnie couldn’t move beyond the past. The singer,Pat Lachman, with a shaved head, tattoos, and tough-guy persona, aped PhilAnselmo’s on-stage moves, which became more obvious when the band played afew Pantera songs, “Becoming,” and one or two others. Thinking that they weresmothering themselves with their own shadows, I felt disloyal, like I was betrayingDime and Vinnie.Later in the set, Dimebag, Vinnie, and Damageplan’s bass player, Bob Kakaha,came on stage without Lachman. Dime played the opening riff from Ted Nugent’sclassic, “Stranglehold.” After the drums and bass established a solid, groovingrhythm, Dimebag launched into a series of epic solos. The pity I felt, seeing Dimeand Vinnie as locked within their own caricatures, dissipated as I saw flashes oftwo brothers who fucking loved to jam. Sibling musicians can attain a groove thatborders on psychic interconnection. Feeling this connection between Dimebag andVinnie Paul is a memory I still value.A few weeks later, Nathan Gale shot and killed Dimebag Darrell in Ohio. I willnever really know who Nathan Gale was, and I don’t necessarily want to. But Ithink I understand him on a few levels, as a result of my own experiences.Nathan Gale worshipped Dimebag Darrell. Like me, Gale needed to dismantlehis idol worship before he could understand himself, and, by extension, the peoplearound him. I think he knew this on some submerged level, but felt like he couldn’tarticulate it. Like he wasn’t valuable enough to articulate it. He thought Dimebagwas endowed with a God-like ability to create art. Like me with Phil Anselmo,Nathan Gale didn’t distinguish between his fictionalized version of Dimebag, andthe person behind the caricature. Instead of searching within himself, challenging139

his assumptions that Dimebag had some super-human ability to create art, it madesense to Gale that, in order to eradicate God from his mind, he had to actually killDimebag Darrell. One of the only real differences I can articulate between NathanGale and myself is that, when I started to realize that idolizing Pantera was fuckingup my ability to see reality, I knew that eradicating idol worship from my life hadvery little to do with the people I idolized. I realized that my problems lied withinthe ways I constructed my identity. My struggle to dismantle God has been violent,too, although in ways very different from Nathan Gale’s.Shortly after Dimebag’s death, Phil Anselmo posted a video on his website,of himself, sitting at a table, ranting. Over and over, he says that he will not letDimebag’s death keep him from making music. Before shutting off the camera,he says, “You have not seen the last of Philip H. Anselmo.” I saw a stark contrastbetween my version of Phil Anselmo and this narcissistic dip-shit, realizing that, inmy fandom, I never wanted to know who he really is.Seeing Damageplan, and watching this video were catalysts for a long, difficultprocess of self-examination. A process of trying to eradicate idol worship from mylife. A process I am still trying to deal with.* * *Dedicating myself to making art—writing and playing drums on a moreserious level—has helped me dismantle the idea that my favorite artists are morecapable of expressing my own emotions. Consuming other people’s art can leadus to our own feelings, but I understand now that we need to create our own art toexamine and understand those feelings. Writing nonfiction and playing music havehelped me understand myself, and my dad, in deeper ways. My dad is fucked up. Ithink it’s fair to say he is crazy. But we are all fucked up and crazy.I still catch myself latching onto the idea that my dad’s back-story can fullyexplain what it’s like to be around him. Never examining his parents’ flaws,I think, has damaged him in a lot of ways. To him, they had solid reasons forthe verbal abuse they subjected him to, which engrained worthlessness into hisself-perception. While this narrative does explain some things about him, a gapremains between understanding my dad and actually being around him. Reachingtoward an understanding of my dad has been about admitting that I might neverfully understand him. Trying to deal with some of his idiosyncrasies in person—his mood-snaps; how pissed he gets when I criticize his parents; seeing pain andescape written into his stoned, blood-shot eyes—is probably always going to bedifficult. But I still have to attempt to understand him. I had to stop worshippingother artists to reconcile myself to these truths.Exploring my own feelings, and expressing myself artistically, have helpedme understand that my dad destroyed his body—two herniated discs in his backand bad knees—through physical labor, for my mom, sister, and me; that, duringthe screaming matches we had when I was in high school, his underlying messagewas, I want you to have a better life than me.J.J. Anselmi is a nonfiction MFA student at CSU Fresno. His work hasappeared in Jackson Hole Review, Connotation Press, and Pulp Metal Magazine.140

LOVE LIKE A LIONby Melanie L. HendersonAffection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solidand durable happiness there is in our lives. —C.S. LewisWhat I really wanted was a lion, but I wasn’t unreasonable. I was willingto start small.Even when I was shorter than a yardstick, I was happiest with some small,beating heart to care for. On picnics and camping trips I’d gather a nurseryof ladybugs or find a puddle of tadpoles to tend. But live creatures weren’talways available, so I was committed to caring for my personal zoo of stuffedanimals, a diverse group I arranged around myself in bed at night—every lastbear, hedgehog and duck—so no one would feel left out. Nested down with myanimal family, we could all sleep well.There were also two actual, living cats in the house, but my attempts toinclude them in my Benetton-of-the-animal-kingdom bed routinely failed.Knowing that cats didn’t respond well to forcible containment didn’t stop mefrom trying. The unlucky feline I’d dragged under the covers to squeeze againstmy chest would wait, taut and alert, for the slightest reduction in hug-pressure—then spring away as if I’d delayed the pursuit of a gazelle. I didn’t blame thecats; they were grown-ups and probably didn’t get scared at night. Or maybethey couldn’t get any sleep surrounded by an almost complete depiction of thefood chain, brightly rendered in plush.The cats were pleasant and pretty, and like other cats before and since,these ones found us—so I never understood why people bought kittens from apet store. In my experience, cats were free and readily available. The eagernessof cats to impose their presence was a gesture I took as a great compliment, butmy parents took feline impositions somewhat differently. To me, a cat arrivingon the doorstep was a gentle visitor who hoped only to share a meal with a kindface. To Mom and Dad, a cat arriving on the doorstep would probably drop alitter of illegitimate kittens in that one, odd, humanly inaccessible nook behindthe garage cabinets. Again.I lavished affection on our cats, unselfconsciously aware that while Iadored them, they tolerated me. I suspected that if cats could talk, they probablywouldn’t. Cats communicate so effectively with so little exertion; how manytimes had I thoughtlessly barged into a room (already claimed by a cat) andinadvertently disturbed him? He’d stop licking something just long enough toregister distaste for the intrusion and to deliver a look that says, You again?141

The harder I tried to envelop the cats with maternal doting, the more theyavoided me—but their indifference didn’t stifle my affection. I didn’t want togive up. I hadn’t figured out yet if I was failing to make my true devotion clear,or failing to earn their affection in kind. It didn’t occur to me that cats may notshare all of my needs.As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.—Ellen Perry BerkeleyHouse cats were nice, but patently unoriginal. Everybody had cats. Somepeople even had cats without knowing they had cats. But I had dreams of oneday raising my own lion cub, and I blame my first-grade teacher: she read TheLion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to our enraptured class. When the book endedand we had to exit the land of Narnia, I was so upset that I startled myself. I hadbeen drawing pictures of Aslan in Narnia, pictures of Aslan as a baby, picturesof other lions and lionesses, and even sketching the bunk bed where my ownlion would one day sleep beneath me. I rallied some classmates and led thecharge to persuade our teacher to read the book to us again—Please-pleasepleaaase,Miss Taylor?—Miss Taylor did. God bless Miss Taylors everywhere.In the meantime, I knew I needed to practice being a pet owner. I learned allI could about cats and thought I’d like to be a veterinarian when I grow up. Bythe third grade I was certain I was ready for a new animal stewardship, but thetrick was convincing my parents and I had my work cut out for me there: I wasa born animal lover with a mother and a father who both denied responsibilityfor the trait. Dad grew up on a farm and believed humans and beasts shouldonly share living space as a last resort—when your four-legged food wouldotherwise freeze to death. Mom grew up in a large European city and attendedprivate school; she could appreciate “elegant” animals, like horses and jaguars(and some housecats—as long as they were pretty and thus aesthetically selfjustifying).And then there was me: a child who wept the tears of a widow to seea squirrel flattened on the highway.Dad always described me as bright, energetic, and a joy. That said, I’mtold I could also be a bright, energetic, intense, demanding kid. Whatever. Atone point, under the heady influence of Beverly Cleary, I somehow persuadedmy parents to let me have two white mice. (Dad didn’t understand why he wasbuying mice from a pet store; in his experience, mice were free and readilyavailable.) Dad didn’t leave the store until he had confirmed beyond a shadow ofa doubt that both mice were female—and thus incapable of spawning—as longas neither escaped to find a rogue rodent boyfriend.One of the mice had two brown spots on her back, so I named her“Cookies.” Naturally, then, the albino one would be “Cream.” My resourcefulbig brother helped me make a sophisticated tunnel maze for the mice out ofempty toilet paper tubes and masking tape. This was intended to entertain themice, but it really entertained us. We’d lay the maze on the floor and put eachmouse into one of several tunnel entrances, then listen intently to their tinyscurrying claws against the brown paperboard to try to guess where each mousewould emerge. Occasionally, a mouse boycotted the event and refused to runthrough the tunnels, just parking herself somewhere inside the darkened expanse142

of the maze. The only way to get her out was to shake her loose—a maneuverthat invariably peppered the brown, camouflage-like carpet with mouse turds(which alarms me now and would have horrified Mom at the time, so wethoughtfully protected her from this information). Eventually, given enoughshaking and spinning, the mouse was ejected from the maze—which I imaginedwas a lot like getting shot out of a cannon. I hoped she loved it, but I felt guiltyfor not providing a helmet.But the foremost achievement of my mouse-keeping career is how Isuccessfully trained them—so I believed and so I professed—to stay on top ofmy dresser when I let them out of their cage to play. After hours of catchingfalling mice and returning them to the dresser top, they actually seemedto recognize and avoid the edge. I never contemplated the possibility thatraising free-range mice in my bedroom might be ill-advised. Dad feared thatCookies and Cream would escape in search of illicit sex, but those fears provedunfounded. Instead, my delusions of being the Mouse Whisperer ended abruptlyand tragically, because—well, we had cats.After indulging a nine year-old rage (what kind of cat just takes a mousewho is minding her own business from a little girl’s bedroom?), I calmed downenough to confront the cat, who naturally denied all wrongdoing. From that dayon, he pretended to relish my neglect.I observed a brief mourning period, followed by a not-so-brief period ofstaggering self-doubt. This was undeniable evidence of colossally misguidedcaretaking on my part. Maybe I wasn’t the sort of person who should be trustedwith cats—or mice. Or even ladybugs or tadpoles. But my dad explained that thecat was just doing what cats do, which I understood to mean, “ . . . So when thetime comes for you to have your own lion, it would be best to not have mice atthe same time.” My longing to be the caretaker of a lion cub returned with freshvigor.I still nested down at bedtime with my plush menagerie, and I (sometimes)still tried to snuggle with resistant (lying, criminal, sadistic) cats. But I only gottruly excited about the future when I had dreamed about my lion so long and sohard that I was bold enough to say it out loud: It was time to turn my wish forlion cub ownership into a serious quest.I was in the fourth grade, but I knew convincing my parents would requiresome preliminary research. My mother raised us not to settle for ignorance.You’re surrounded by books. You want to know something? Go find out. So Idid. I hunted down everything I could find about humans raising lion cubs—andalso tiger and bear cubs—from infancy. In case a lion cub was even harder to getthan I feared, I it was smart to have a plan B and C.I read every book I could find on wild animals in my elementary schoollibrary and saved my money to build my personal library from the book orderflyers they sent home from school—titles like The Gentle Jungle and BornFree. My bedroom was wallpapered with animal posters, wild and domestic. Iwatched Grizzly Adams and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom every week. Iwas actively, conscientiously fortifying my knowledge base, just like I’d beentaught. It was important to have all the facts before I brought home a cute littlefur ball that would become a muscled, 600-pound predator.143

144I shared what I was learning with my parents. Their heads bobbed abovetheir dinner plates with polite interest to hear that a lioness gives birth to up tofour cubs at one time though a litter of two is most common. But whenever Itried to direct the discussion to specifics (there is an animal trainer in Californiathat I saw on TV who has a lioness that just had cubs—can we call him?), Momor Dad would hijack the conversation with peripheral concerns, like wonderingif there is a city ordinance that says you can’t have a pet carnivore the size of asofa if you live within a mile of an elementary school.But I was tenacious. Dad was a born teacher who planned to burst mybubble gently. His strategy was to offer questions to inspire my own deductivereasoning, certain that I’d conclude on my own that raising a baby lion wasimpractical. Have you ever seen this done? I mean, here, in our town? I admittedI hadn’t. Nobody I knew was that interesting. Then I asked if he wanted me tolimit my goals in life to just those things I had seen others do. He was brieflyspeechless. Maybe even a little proud.But Dad was tenacious, too. Lions are hunters, honey. Does it worry youthat they’ve been known to kill people? I presented hard data illustrating that itis possible for giant cats to cohabit peaceably with humans, if raised correctlyfrom infancy. (An assertion hotly contested by most experts, but I dismissedall faithless critics—regardless of credentials.) Wouldn’t a lion be expensive tofeed? I knew this was a legitimate point, so I was already saving my money, andI’d found out that lions raised in captivity don’t have to eat nearly as much zebraor wildebeests as they do on the savannah. So that’s good news.Dad was undaunted. How would a lion living in a house get all the exercisehe needs? I was glad he asked: I would ride my lion to school every day—maybe even taking the long way, just for fun—after which my lion would walkstraight back home. Because, of course, that is what I will have trained himto do. I had perfect confidence in my ability to train wild animals. Previousmisadventures of the Mouse Whisperer notwithstanding.Dad’s approach, while admirably Socratic, was ineffective because italways left me with a scrap of hope. His questions were simply obstacles anastute teacher was challenging me to overcome, and I was knocking every pitchout of the park.Conversely, Mom was a born anti-sugar-coater. Her strategy was to smotherhope before the seed ever germinated. When I told her I wanted to raise alion cub, her exact, un-minced words were, “Don’t be ridiculous.” She oftenreminded me that when I’m the mom, I can have all the lions and monkeys andbaboons I want in my own house. And I silently rolled my eyes, because—hellooo—who would put carnivores and primates under the same roof? (It hadescaped my bright, energetic awareness that I, of course, am also a primate.)It was hard not to get discouraged when my constant appeals wentunheeded, no matter how aggressive. Almost daily, Dad would chuckle politelyand wave me off, saying he needs a few minutes to decompress after work. Thebrush-off was disconcerting, but the chuckle was insulting. I was dead serious.It’s not like I thought I would die if I didn’t get a unicorn with pink ribbons in itsmane. In my case, chuckling was unaccountably rude.I had to face the facts: I had made zero progress in my pursuit of a lioncub. It was time to re-evaluate my strategy. I identified and grudgingly admitted

my rookie mistake: my primary target was just too ambitious. (What was Ithinking? My parents would never agree to drive all the way to California just topick up a pet!) I cursed my wasted time. What I needed to do was close the gapbetween a housecat and a lion with some intermediate steps. I needed a pet thatwas natural to our locale, something manageable and low-profile—somethingthat didn’t raise questions about city ordinances. And I desperately wanted mynext adventure in pet ownership to succeed. I wanted proof that I was not, deepdown, an inadvertent animal-killer by way of mismanagement.After careful consideration, I embraced the first step in a multi-year protocolfor getting a lion cub: I would pursue a dog. My research commenced at once.If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. —Mark TwainAt the library, I checked out a fat, authoritative volume on dogs. I lovedthe syrupy introduction touting the near-sainthood of the canine, applaudingthe noble species’ unconditional love and loyalty. The book contained apictorial directory of all the recognized breeds with a detailed description ofsize, proportion, substance, ideal physical characteristics, temperament, lifeexpectancy, and need for exercise and companionship. It also indicated thecountry of origin—where the breed had “emerged.”I was awe-struck. To my nine year-old sensibilities, the magnificent“emergence” of wondrous dog varieties was miraculous—like the emergence ofbutterflies—except with dogs, it was even more astonishing: no stray mongrelpuppy ever curled into a cocoon and emerged weeks later as a vibrant goldenretriever.I had formulated my own theory, and I believed it was sound: I had seen amother dog who had puppies that didn’t look like her at all; in fact, the puppiesin her litter barely even looked like each other. It stood to reason that once ina magical while, a very special new dog would arrive amid a litter of ordinarypuppies. If providence was smiling, somebody who was smart and qualified—aspecially certified dog-ologist—would be present to witness the birth, examinethe exceptional puppy, and declare to the world: Huzzah! A new breed hasemerged!One evening during my season of dog research, my dad noticed there wassome sort of documentary on TV that had something to do with dogs. Maybe I’denjoy it, he said. I readied my pencil and a notebook and parked in front of theTV, innocent of the fact that my notion of the beauty of spontaneous dog breedemergence was about to be blown into disturbing little fragments. (I shouldmention that my shock was not due to ignorance of the basic birds and bees; mymother’s supreme value was education, her favorite setting was “matter-of-fact,”and her pet peeve was “silly hang-ups.” Hence, when she says that at age four, Itold my pediatrician how his reproductive anatomy differs from my own, I haveto believe her. This may be the line where “precocious” crosses into “yikes,” butlet’s return to the documentary.)In simplest terms, the documentary told the story of how a particular breedof dog—I don’t recall which—originated overseas in the laboratory of a certaindown-on-his-luck dog-ologist, a man with a name I couldn’t pronounce, and145

146when he brought the breed to the United States, he enjoyed a brief season ofcelebrity in the American dog world. The end.However, the way I experienced the documentary was something entirelydifferent. My education that night plays in my memory more like this:Sometime after World War II, a disenfranchised former military surgeonfrom an Eastern Bloc country took up shop with his exiled assistant, a formernuclear physicist (whose name documentarians agreed to conceal) in a muddy,goat-herding border village, where they labored for decades to roll the dice justright in a twisted game of genetic Yahtzee. Tirelessly mating various existingbreeds, they kept at their sordid game of mix-n-match in pursuit of combinationsthat yielded offspring that not only survived but were free of major heart,neurological, and musculoskeletal defects, were aesthetically pleasing, hada temperament conducive to human companionship—and most of all, couldviably reproduce puppies of approximately the same physical health and mentalcapacity for at least three generations. As long as a dog wasn’t born missing hiskidneys or his frontal cortex, these creeps in their dirty lab coats were in the goldzone. They went to America, got rich, yada yada. The end.I was horrified. Aghast didn’t begin to cover it.My giant book of dogs lost all its charm and the magnificent Africancat looked all the more wholesome: creatures not easily manipulated by themachinations of greedy humans deserved respect. I looked at a picture of twofrolicking, fox-faced Pomeranians and wondered, What did you guys used tobe, before people like that messed with your family? I studied a glossy Irishsetter and was comforted to think he looked less “invented.” Maybe his familyhad been around for a long time already. When I came to a picture of a smilingveterinarian in a white lab coat, I snorted and snapped the page over. Wipe thatsmirk off your face, Mister. Dog-ologists can’t be trusted.I became a self-appointed, indignant, canine-ethics cop. Suddenly,everywhere I looked, suspicious-looking people were lording over dogs. On theway to school, I was sure the number of paunchy, retired men walking fluffydogs they obviously didn’t choose themselves had doubled, but I wasn’t surewhat it meant. I noticed more Labradors confined to the backs of pickup trucksand more Malteses pleading for their release from Lincoln Town Cars. Therewere more fashionistas exploiting Chihuahuas and Yorkies in their Chanel bagsand more boxers jogging alongside suspiciously muscled masters than I’d everseen before.I paid abnormally close attention, but soon, I had to stop. I had to admitit: with a couple rare and explainable exceptions, almost no dog exhibited anydiscernible sign of depression. No dog was bent by the dark, sober aura thatmarks a survivor of an oppressive regime; no dog groaned beneath the twistedburden of the muddy border village’s legacy. In fact, almost every dog—regardless of breed—was inexplicably happy. Maybe as long as a dog was fed,loved, and got to ride in a car once in a while, he didn’t care where he camefrom. I was denied my justification for being repulsed at how dogs got here.But the good news was that I could in good conscience start dog shoppingagain. I embraced it.I admired the pair of glossy, black Scottish terriers that passed the houseon their red leashes every morning. I loved to pet the neighbor’s dachshund;

its fawn-colored coat was so short and soft it was like petting a baby deer. Iwas smitten by how consistently my teacher’s golden retriever acted like it wasChristmas morning, every single time the woman stepped into view. I wanted adog to do that, to be in love with me. I fell in love with so many different kindsand sizes and colors of dogs that I decided it might not matter what I ended upwith. This, as things turned out, would be a good thing.I was relentless in my pursuit of dog ownership until my parents caved—which was, fortuitously, just in time for my eleventh birthday. I was allowedto adopt a three year-old, pedigreed, overweight, male toy poodle. He becameavailable when a friend’s grandmother found out her new condo organizationdidn’t allow poodles. It’s possible that Dad was persuaded partly by the dog’sobesity and the attendant likelihood of a heart condition; a pet might be moreattractive if its days were numbered. But the greater appeal, I’m sure, wasgetting the dog for free.His name was Taco, and I was ecstatic. He was much smaller than a lion, ofcourse. To a lion, a poodle is popcorn. But my dream was coming true: a poodletoday, maybe a lion cub tomorrow. In home video shot on my 11th birthday, I’mjoyfully cuddling an unkempt, moppish creature, unsanitarily close to a birthdaycake. I was beaming as if I’d given birth to him myself.My little dog—a heartbeat at my feet. —Edith WhartonTaco came with a few quirks: spoiled by his first owner’s cooking, heturned his nose up at actual dog food. When he lifted a leg to mark a tree, he’dlift and point both rear feet high, walking in a graceful handstand worthy of theCirque du Soleil. But his most memorable quality was his most troublesomeone: Taco had the unmitigated libido of a dozen randy sailors. (Today, I confessto some shameless hyperbole on this point. In truth, it was more like a halfdozen.)Nobody escaped Taco’s affections entirely, but he had a particular affinityfor one special person—a shy and excruciatingly proper man who had visitedour home faithfully once a month as a visitor from church. Taco must haveknown he’d see his crush only rarely, because he always gave this gentleman hismost earnest attention.I remember the strain in my father’s voice as he called for me to “getthe dog out of here, please . . . quickly . . . please . . .” as I rushed to extricateTaco’s trembling, iron grip from a woolen pant leg and isolate him behind aclosed door—denying his sexual freedom. This “rush-extricate-isolate” processwould recur when a younger child unwittingly opened the door and unwittinglyreleased the hound, who would run full-bore again for the object of hisaffections.The visitor never stayed long. He’d deliver a brief message, bestow a plateof brownies or lemon bars, and head for the door. We’d thank him and apologizefor the dog, say our goodbyes, and apologize for the dog again. After the doorclosed, we’d try to put the whole debacle out of our minds by relaxing witha treat and a glass of milk in the kitchen. The dog relaxed on the patio with a147

148cigarette.It was only a matter of time before Dad had had enough of the caninelibertine. He made a call to the nearby university’s animal sciences programand offered up the dog to be neutered in student practice. (The greater appeal,I suspect, was getting the dog neutered for free.) I wasn’t eager for Taco to gounder the knife, but I couldn’t deny the need. The amorous madness had to stop.On a rainy autumn day, Taco the Wonder Stud became Taco the Poodle Eunuch.It was heartbreaking to watch a decommissioned lothario struggle withanatomical confusion. For at least a month, all of Taco’s licking activity wasbroken up by long, pensive pauses, some ear scratching, then a return to lickpause-lick.After passing through a brief depression, it was clear that althoughthe testosterone was gone, most of the raw aggression remained. Taco wouldmuster all his ferocity to try to chase off anyone but me, with or without justcause, including my harmless little sisters. A misguided attempt to recapturehis stolen poodle manhood, perhaps. His selective decency was ungentlemanly,and I wasn’t proud of that. But as my devoted little buddy, he lived up to allthe syrupy hype about a dog’s unconditional love and loyalty. He terrified theneighbor boy who liked to tease me, he acted like it was Christmas every timeI came home from school, he slept on my bed (and in my bed), and when Icuddled him, he snuggled me back. I loved the crazy little beast and he lovedme. This, I congratulated myself, was pet ownership success.I never got to raise my lion cub, but I never stopped wanting to. When Ihad to give an oral report on a non-fiction book of my choice in seventh grade,I chose Born Free, the story of Joy and George Adamson, game wardens inKenya in the ‘50s who raised an orphaned lioness cub they named Elsa. (Thepictures were the best part. An image search of “Elsa the lioness” will leaveanyone smitten.) My hands shook as I stood in front of my English class, butI soldiered through the summary, cautiously pleased that my voice wasn’tbetraying my nerves. Yet. When I told about Joy and George returning Elsa tothe wild, my composure collapsed. I hated that part of the book; it killed me toimagine climbing back into the jeep and driving away. But as I pushed back myembarrassed tears and finished my report, I caught a glimpse—just a wink—ofunderstanding that part. It was much, much harder and braver to love Elsa theway she needed to be loved. They gave Elsa what she needed, not what theywanted her to need.As for my own relationship success with a socially maladjusted poodle, itreally is pure happiness when all your love and affection come back to you asnaturally as breathing in and out—even if that love is just from a pet. But thechance that I could get affection back from my pets wasn’t the reason I lovedthem. The ladybugs were beautiful and fascinating; I loved them just to lovethem. And children, at least for a while, are loyal to the mission of loving, evenwhen there is nothing to gain by it. Maybe joyful surrender to that purpose iswhat victory really feels like.I never did win the housecats over completely. Being rejected by an animalis disappointing, but it doesn’t have the power to batter and drain the heart.Animals probably taught me some resilience before life delivered the kinds ofthings that do batter and drain. Even being denied my beloved lion probablyhelped. The most dangerous thing in the world is not something wild, like a lion.

It is the fear that stretches like an invisible wire between two people, sensitiveto every vibration—even the whisper of air that draws back when an almostgestureof affection is reconsidered and withheld. No lion can tear a personup like that invisible wire. It’s harder and braver, but even acts of fear can bereversed and turned into festivals of resilience. Maybe I learned that in Narnia.What I really want is to love like a lion. But I’m not unreasonable. I’mwilling to start small.Melanie L. Henderson stubbornly avoids narrowing her creative focus,opting to write in every direction she loves: Creative non-fiction is a delight, sheis working on a fictional memoir project for her creative writing Master’s thesis,she is presently co-writer on two different film projects (the one for a cablenetwork begins shooting August 2012), and she is finishing a children’s bookspecifically commissioned to feature in the cable film.Henderson lives in Utah with her husband Dave, her three sons, dozens offish, and one small, socially maladjusted dog.She is still hopeful that the cat will come back.149

FROM THE ASHESby S.M.B.All that survives of my grandpa is fragments. His body was cremated andhis ashes hidden in a heart-shaped box at my grandma’s house. If youshook the box, it wouldn’t rattle. There isn’t enough of him left. Andso it is with what I remember of him. What memories I have are not enoughto complete a picture of him in my mind, so I try to sift through what littleevidence there is to understand who he was and why I never knew him. I’ve hadto sift through the ashes to find reason, meaning, and healing.—My first memory of my Grandpa turns out to be from the last time hecame to visit. Employed by the US Forest Service, he brought with him a largeSmokey the Bear doll. I was so excited—the bear was almost as tall as I was!But after he left, Mom took the bear away. “You can’t play with it,” she said.Before she wrapped it in garbage bags and hid it in the attic, I stole the doll’swooden shovel. It was a prop; the first time I tried digging with it in the yard, thewooden blade snapped off. I glued it back onto the handle and hid it, afraid mymom would see it and punish me for keeping it. Later, Mom found the shovel inthe cupboard and asked what it was from. I pretended I didn’t know.—vFirefighters visit my elementary school. They distribute stickers, rulers,and comic books. I open mine and see a picture: Smokey the Bear holds areplica of the shovel I broke. He demonstrates burying the ashes left over from asmall campfire. Only you can prevent forest fires!Nothing could have prevented Mount St. Helens from erupting.—An earthquake shook the mountain awake the morning of May 18th, 1980.It had slept restlessly and then suddenly, violently, it roared wide awake. In a fitof ash, flames, and smoke, fifty-seven lives were taken by Mount St. Helens. Mymom, living in Logan, Utah, heard about it first from a friend because her ownnewspaper was stolen for the first and only time. A landscape was swallowed inash and choked, smothered, for many barren years before the land forgave longenough to grant new life.—I’m six years old. It’s after my bedtime but I’m hungry. I come downstairs150

for a snack and see the kitchen light already on. My mom sits at the kitchentable, a pencil in hand and a paper placed before her. “What are you doing upso late?” I ask. She jumps. She always jerks when startled; her eyes fly wideopen with an expression of terror, and it scares me every time. I’m careful notto sneak up on her, but sometimes I still catch her unawares. I walk over andrest my head on her shoulder. She tells me not to read what she is writing; it isa private letter. I remind her that I can’t read and ask why she is writing, then.“Burning bridges,” she says.I didn’t see anything on fire. If I had recognized words, I would have knownshe was writing to Grandpa. She accused him of abusing her and her sister andwarned him to never come near me again.—A few years after the mountain’s eruption, my mom returned to theNorthwest to work for the US Forest Service at the Mount St. Helen’s visitor’scenter. She told international tourists of the destruction caused by the eruption,of the ash that buried the region roundabout. The ravaged land attractedthousands who came to see the collapsed mountain; none stayed to plant trees.Volcanic eruptions were sensationalized as fantastic natural feats; the rape of theland was overlooked or forgotten in the excitement of smoke and lava. For thenext decade, the tragedy of Mount St. Helen’s was buried beneath the artificialashes of baking soda and vinegar that fizzled from science fair volcanoes.—I’m a sophomore in high school. A tree falls into our backyard, destroyingthe neighbor’s fence and narrowly missing our house. There is a thud and theearth trembles. We think a car has hit the telephone pole again, then look outthe window and see the cloud of dust. The air is thick with it. Dad opens theback door and steps onto a carpet of needles. I see the culprit lying prostrate, aponderosa pine over sixty feet tall; heavy, it would have destroyed my bedroomhad it tipped any nearer. I cross the flattened fence into the neighbor’s yard andexamine the tree’s roots. The roots are dead. The neighbors offer to call a treeremoval service. Mom says she will call her brother. He, too, has worked for theU.S. Forest Service and is skilled at tree removal.My uncle doesn’t come alone. “Stay inside,” my mom tells me. I go to thewindow above the stairs and look outside. There is an old man standing besidemy uncle. His hair is all but gone; brown spots heavily decorate his scalp. An earis pierced. He turns his head in my direction and I duck.Later, I go outside. My uncle and the stranger have left. The tree is now abunch of logs. The air is thick with the scent of pine: tree blood oozes from thefreshly split kindling. The wood shavings are soft, the splintered chunks bright.I will not hear this tree creak anymore or watch it lean dangerously towards mybedroom window. I am relieved it is gone.On a bookshelf I found a new copy of The Grimm Fairy Tales. The spinecreaked as I opened it, perhaps for the first time anyone ever had. I flippedthrough the pages and paused to examine a particularly grotesque illustration—151

of a woman whose back was hunched. Her long hair hung tangled and grizzledpast her warty elbows. “A witch,” the caption read. A note fell from between thestorybook pages and I picked it up. It was written by Grandpa; the book was agift for my mom’s fortieth birthday. He reminded her that he used to read thesestories to her as a child, though he didn’t remember the illustrations being socreepy. The note is signed: “Love, Dad.”—Mom takes me to visit Grandpa once when he is dying. We drive to hishouse in Portland, Oregon. The scenic route is no longer fully scenic: the B&BComplex Fires destroyed many trees between the town of Sisters and DetroitReservoir only a few years before. The blackened pines are bare and sparse;smoke still seems to rise from them, and ashes shift with the occasional sighof mountain air. Deep in the Cascades there is a cross on one of these treesthat miraculously escaped the flames. We pass through the scorched area andeventually merge onto I-5, northbound.Portland has many bridges. Mom clenches her teeth when we drive overthem. Unlike the straight, short bridges crossing narrow rivers at home, theseones are long and curved, winding over one another. I wonder what she fearsfrom them. She has never been afraid of heights, yet as we navigate our waythrough the city I see anxiety grip her whenever another great concrete monolithrises before us. I wish she wasn’t afraid and I wish I knew how to help her.Instead, I silently pray she’ll keep her eyes open and that we’ll make it across.We reach the house. Grandpa lies on a couch, weak with cancer andincapable of moving beyond turning his head. He tells me to keep my distancebecause he’s undergone radiation therapy. The warning is unnecessary becauseI wouldn’t have approached him. We do not stay long. He does not have long.Though we have never spoken, there is nothing to say. The silence lengthens.Finally, he breaks it, barking across the room: “Any boyfriends?”—I did not see my grandpa again. On my next visit, his ashes were concealedin a white, heart-shaped box that promised to be all-natural. Attachedwas a consoling poem, a packet of wildflower seeds, and instructions: thedecomposable heart was to be buried somewhere over which the seeds were tobe scattered. Grandma shook her head. “Your grandpa never let flowers growin life; he’s not going to start now.” She carried the box with her from room toroom and was still holding it when we said goodbye.—Returning from my third year of college on a flight from Salt Lake City toPortland, my plane slips through deceptively serene clouds and enters a violentstorm. The Irish woman sitting beside me clutches my arm and tells me, don’tpanic! We jolt roughly as we pierce the thick, black clouds. Suddenly, MountHood jumps out on the left. We sweep close enough to see individual brancheson the trees. The mountain’s peak is white and imposing, a deadly invitationbeckoning climbers to a final, fatal ascent. Their bodies will be recovered inmore seasonable weather. Klickitat legend tells that Mount Hood was once a152

lover of Mount St. Helens, but as a result of the destruction caused by a battlewith a bitter rival, the two were transformed into mountains to be kept foreverapart. Mount Hood still raises his head in pride. I look around but cannot seewhat’s left of Mount St. Helens through the gloom. Then I remember that herhead has exploded.I wait by the baggage claim, wondering if my aunt and grandma willremember that I’m coming and whether or not I’ll recognize them if they cometo pick me up. When they don’t appear, I start digging through my backpackin search of my cell phone. I hear someone call my name. I look up. Limpingtowards me is the witch from Grandpa’s fairy tale book, hunched with crookedshoulders and a spikey halo of grizzled white hair sticking out from her wildlyswinging braid: my aunt. She is reminiscent of Gothmog, the deformed orclieutenant from the film version of Tolkien’s The Return of the King. Closebehind her trails a hobbit—my grandmother—with her thick white hair curledand her glasses (they are new) askance. They stop before me and we stand,staring at each other. I’m considering whether it’d be appropriate to hug themwhen my grandma turns to my aunt, angry. “I wanted to see her come off theplane!” I begin to explain the impossibility of this due to increased airportsecurity since the last time she flew—pre-9/11—but she grabs my arm and tugsme towards the exit. My aunt escorts me on the other side. “We’re not lettingyou escape,” she cackles.—My grandpa never let my aunt get away. I suspect that her physique andsocial eccentricities are the results of the verbal, physical and possibly sexualabuse she endured since she was a child. Grandma was powerless againstGrandpa’s temper and cowered beneath his oppressive thumb since marryinghim over fifty years before. It was a miracle my mom had the courage to leave.So when my aunt mutters under her breath, I try not to think of her as a witchcasting spells. I laugh at her cynical words because I don’t know what else to do.I don’t know what to do.—In grandma’s house there is a mountain of chocolate spilling from thepantry and piled to the ceiling. Hansel and Gretel would have picked this houseover the one made of gingerbread. All kinds of candy are heaped haphazardlyfrom the ground up. I spot seasonal treats alongside year-round brands, somewith names I’ve never heard of. When my aunt stalks past, the floor shakes:the candies threaten an avalanche but decide against it, settling into a moredispersed pile. “Help yourself,” Grandma says, materializing by my elbow likea phantom. I see many of the bags are already open, as though a single pieceof chocolate has been sampled from each. I check dates on the packages anddiscover that many of these chocolates are expired. “Your grandfather never didlet me have sweet things,” Grandma sniffs. She appraises her dragon’s horde,then tugs at a half-buried bag until it comes free. She opens it, selects a piece ofchocolate, unwraps it, and pops it into her mouth. She closes her eyes, savoringit. My aunt stumps towards us and nudges me with her elbow.“That’s why we have so much now,” she grins. “Dad’s gone, heh heh heh.”153

—My aunt is at her secretarial job for the U.S. Forest Service. Grandma isashamed the yard is such a mess. “I always wanted a garden,” she says. We sitfor a while in the dirty lawn chairs before she can’t take it anymore. She mustersthe strength to stand and takes a rusty shovel left leaning against the tool shed. Iwatch her walk out to the dying plum tree, and, with effort, root up a dandelion.The grass is carpeted with them. The work of raising a second weed leavesher hot and panting for breath. “It’s too warm out,” she says. “I’m tired.” Sheabandons the shovel against the tree and goes inside. After a minute, I rise and goto the shovel. It’s heavier than I thought it would be. The wood is rough againstmy hands. I turn to a bright yellow flower and hope grandpa’s ashes aren’t buriedbeneath it. I dig up the dandelion. And another. And another. Soon there is a pileof dandelions and patches of dirt surround the tree, cankerous scars left from theweeds’ removal. I don’t stop until all of the dandelions are in piles. My grandmacomes back outside, carrying lemonade for both of us. Her eyes are sparkling.—My mom arrives to take me home, but first she wants to show me MountSt. Helens. The four of us—Mom, my grandma, my aunt, and I—leave late inthe morning. The air is warm and we drive with the windows down. Grandmashouts so we can hear her words, but they float away before reaching our ears.We follow the Columbia River in a north-west direction. The scenery is lush andleafy. We miss our exit, but the next six will all take us where we are going.Brief cloudbursts wash the trees bright, glassy green, and the world feelsnew. The mountain approaches gradually; with each bend in the road it swellsmore into sight. We pass stands of trees, each section perhaps a mile long, invarious stages of growth. Signs indicating how recently they were planted flashby. The land is oddly artificial in its manufactured renewal.We stop at a gift shop. Armed with my grandpa’s bank account, Grandmaunloads $700 on a carved black bear nativity set (one of the three kings ismissing) and jewelry made of ash from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.The stones are green, several shades grimmer than the pines we passed on theroad. Grandma asks if I want one and I say no. I don’t want to bring the disasterhome with me. I’ve seen enough evidence of violent explosions to go without areminder. She insists on buying me something, and I choose the cheapest item Ican find. Grandpa might’ve liked that.We return to the car. Clouds roll in more thickly overhead, threateningfurther rain and hiding the sun. What remains of the mountain’s peak is obscuredby thunderheads. Still we climb higher and higher into the surrounding,deepening hills. A river winds far below the road, etching a path through thejagged landscape. I trace it with my eyes and then I notice the ash. The river is aribbon in a dark streak of ash, still remaining thirty years since that fateful springmorning. The scars run deep, hidden and less noticeable. Mount St. Helens islopsided like my aunt; the trees are slowly regrowing, like my grandma with hernewfound independence; but the river below ... I think of Mom.We come to a bridge, long and straight and daunting. Mom’s hands whitenon the wheel as she slows to half the recommended speed. I sense her panic154

and offer to drive. She shakes her head and we start to cross. My aunt laughsevilly from the back seat at my mom’s terror: she has known worse. I coax mymom gently across the bridge, distracting her from the gorge below, a river stillblackened by the fiery wrath of the mountain. The fragments seemingly all falltogether. Grandpa’s legacy is one of fear and damage, but it’s not too late. Thescars below are healing, and I realize that even if I couldn’t have prevented thefires or the eruptions or the abuse, I can stop their effects. I rest my hand gentlyon my mom’s shoulder and she nods, acknowledging my support, her eyes fixedon the bridge ahead. I hope to cross many more with her.S.M.B. recently graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree inEnglish. She is enjoying a lazy summer full of reading novels and attempting towrite one of her own. “From the Ashes” is her first published work. She hopesher aunt never discovers that she was described as an orc.155

FERTILITYby Annette ReneeWhen I was seventeen, I portrayed a shepherd in my family’s annualnativity play. This was a landmark event, as it marked my firstdeparture from the role of Mary. In girlhood, I relished the opportunityto don the blue sheet and stuff a baby-doll up my shirt, annually testing the role ofmother. I took my role very seriously — the timing of the birth scene was crucial,but careful costuming made all the difference. There were only seven words inSt. Luke’s script, six of them monosyllabic, in which to achieve the birth withminimal evidence of the baby’s incorrect passage from “womb” to life. Probablymy earliest reenactments took more the form of Mary rather ostentatiously liftingher shirt and allowing Baby Jesus to simply drop free, but my later efforts weremore successful. My task didn’t end here though; once born, the newborn had tobe securely wrapped in a brown towel, and laid in the expectant wicker basket.In my childhood mind, there was a single correct way to wrap the baby, which Isuppose I picked up from watching my mother wrap my baby brother — one ofmany performances I learned from her. In any case, “Mary brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger” is alot for a girl of any age to act out with adequate degrees of dramatic timing, but Ithink I generally managed to pull it off.But not on my seventeenth Christmas. Even then I didn’t question the logicdictating that I, the only daughter among six unruly sons, should play Mary. YetI couldn’t help feeling I was missing out on the fun of our annual productions:playing different roles. Our male cast included, in varying years: Joseph, threewise men, the angel Gabriel, assorted concourses of heavenly hosts, the innkeeper,Zacharias, John the Baptist, Baby John the Baptist, an assortment of shepherds(including one year an Arab sheik) and, on one notable occasion, a wine-guzzlingKing Herod. My brothers seemed free to explore almost a new identity everyyear, while I was perpetually limited to a single role. Thus, at seventeen I rebelledagainst the type casting I had previously been complicit in and made my break as ashepherd. The following year I resumed the role of Mary.* * * * *In the early months of marriage I crochet the blanket begun in singledom,humming as I go, making of it a labor of love. I weave a mellifluous webof lullaby, cotton fiber, and preemptive affection for the as yet physicallyunconceived infant who might be a boy and might look like his father, and mightbecome everything I hope as I fashion for him a blue baby blanket, intertwiningin every stitch images, thoughts, suggestions of the man he might become, as156

though wrapping him in a blanket of my own design might transfer to him theroles I hope he will take up in life. If he ever comes.* * * * *Infertility is a reproductive disease. It is not necessarily permanent. It is notexclusively a woman’s condition. Infertility affects 7.3 million couples in theUnited States, roughly 12 percent of reproductive-age men and women. Thereare many causes, 85% of which are treatable if not curable, 20% of which areinexplicable though perhaps treatable. A couple is generally defined as infertileand admitted to a specialist for examination after one year of consistent fruitlessattempts to conceive a child. Infertility is emotionally draining, conjuringfeelings of failure, fear, isolation, loss, despair, relentless gnawing emptiness.I first met an infertile woman when I was twelve. Her sorrow eclipsed myembryonic hopes for a future family, tainted them with fear. Of all the problemsI might face in life, please not infertility, I prayed.* * * * *Isaac was his mother’s only child, conceived after years of bareness. Assuch, Sarah took great pains to secure a suitable wife for him. Rebekah provedher suitability by hauling gallons of water from a hole in the ground for a manand his camel. I don’t suppose a pretty face detracted any from her value thoughher primary worth was perhaps in supporting her husband, and she doublyestablished her worth by producing male twins who each fathered nations.Fortunately my husband is one of six children. His parents don’t expect nations.I make their son happy, most of the time. My suitability thus far is secure.* * * * *A wedding ring is a configuration of metal and rock, but mine is also ananchor to the past, an heirloom for the future, an eternal round of womanhood.My ring once embraced my mother’s finger but broke a few years into hermarriage, before my parents had money to repair it. Later the money wasaccessible, but the ring no longer suited my mother’s finger, swollen withage, and she replaced it with a newer band. When she first detected the scentof love on my breath, she had the ring repaired with gold from my deceasedgrandmother’s simple wedding band, “just in case” I might find a use for it. Nowit is truly mine, given by my mother to my brother who passed it to my husbandwho passed it, four days later, to me. The tiniest of accessories, it nonethelessbecomes the only costume I never remove and never replace.* * * * *If the world is a stage, my brothers have been among the most dedicatedstage directors and costume designers I’ve ever had. Not content with Halloweencostumes and my annual appearance as Mary, they undertook to create for mesuch roles as Chiquita Banana Queen, Mini-Me, Sock-Haired Lady, and TrollBaby. My parents expressed displeasure when they happened upon my eldestbrother placing the last few blue banana stickers (acquired by my father inPanama on a two year religious mission) on my diaper clad body, but by thetime I came staggering out of my bedroom one Sunday evening a couple years157

later appareled in an outlandish assortment of clothes with a pair of tights on myhead, they didn’t bat an eyelash. They proved equally stalwart when my brothersdressed me in Dad’s work clothes, and they only took a small step back when Iappeared on the front porch at the age of three, hair adorned with twigs and cladin nothing but leaves and mud.The role of “sister” to many brothers thus proved so fully developedthat I had no difficulty acting it out — apart from all five (eventually six)brothers neglecting to write me a script. This unfortunate lack evoked a deal ofresentment in my young self, but somehow no one ever linked my reactionarynature to a frustration over not getting any good lines in the perpetual playsometimes referred to as life. I gradually, mostly, ceased my outbursts and fellinto the incommunicative state sometimes referred to as shy. When I beganpreschool, I communicated with the teacher by way of my best friend whoserved as interpreter. I whispered my improvised lines in her ear and she relayedto the teacher.I have since come to understand that many people besides myself areencouraged to supply their own lines in the perpetual play, and that a reasonablepercentage become generally adept at doing so. I have never been amongthat percentage. I perhaps spent too much time in early years trying to writea script for myself such that I never learned how to perform it. Or perhapsthe vital switchboard that links thoughts to speech was damaged from thestart. I derive innumerable joys from stringing words together on a page, butif I alter the procedure to a form of speech, the thoughts, sound and wholewhen they departed the Central Nervous Station, inevitably arrive at the oralplatform suffering from agoraphobia and mild schizophrenia. If writing initiallyperpetuated this condition, the condition now perpetuates my dependence onwriting as the truest means of communication.* * * * *My mother was delighted when I began to demonstrate a leftist leaning— that is, a left-handed leaning. My mother is left-handed, as was her mother.We share a special bond, the three of us, linked by direct genetic inheritanceof a relatively rare trait. My mother though is pure left-handed, while I amimperfectly so. I write left-handed, eat left-handed, chop and stir left-handed,crochet left-handed. Everything else I do right-handed — throwing a ball,brushing my hair, cutting with scissors — I can’t even operate left-handedscissors. Perhaps this is why I exhibit only half the creativity expected of rightbrainedpeople.My mind is not a constant swirl of lovely creative thoughts. My days arenot consumed with escaping the box in which so many think. I do howeverenjoy crafting beautiful sentences with my left hand, inventing recipes with myleft hand, shaping webs of yarn with my left hand. My left hand, wearing thewedding band inherited from my mother and grandmother, is my instrument ofchoice as I identify my womanhood.* * * * *My left-handed grandmother was a great cook, before she got old andstopped cooking. She made dinner from scratch every night, timed the cooking158

perfectly so everything always came out hot and ready at the same time, and herpies were works of art. I know this because my mother told me so. My motheralso told me how my grandmother didn’t teach her how to cook. The kitchenwas off limits while her mother was cooking — she needed everything tocome out perfectly in some part of her imperfect life, and my mother underfootand trying to help cook would have meant sacrificing perfection. Perhaps mygrandmother might have taught me to cook, if her mind had not succumbed soearly to Alzheimer’s disease. My mother though took great pains to teach meand each of my brothers to cook, though it resulted in many a meal missingan ingredient or two, and once pies baked with salt-infested sugar. What mymother never told me is whether or not she struggled with wishing to copy hermother’s cooking, even as she feared copying her mother’s mothering, and if shestruggled how she found resolution.* * * * *During my engagement, “it’s ruined” became my signature phrase, utteredat least once in the preparation and consumption of every meal I cooked formy fiancé. This phrase was among the handful of possessions I carried intomarriage, much to the dismay of my husband who soon wearied of buildingme up after every “ruined” meal. Though I felt I was falling short of my ownstandards, I suppose I truly struggled to reach my mother’s culinary standardseven as she struggled to achieve her mother’s.In time, “it’s ruined” adapted itself for all aspects of married life – washingdishes, cleaning rooms, folding laundry, being a supportive wife, becoming amother. “I’m a failure” was more the form by our third month of marriage. Theproblem, you see, was this: My husband’s copy of the script for “My MarriedLife” called for a wife who shared household responsibilities with him. Minecalled for a martyr of a wife who agreeably took on 100% of all householdduties. If I did everything, he felt slothful and superfluous. If he “had to” helpout, I felt inadequate and failed. But at least I no longer proclaimed every meal“ruined,” finding instead delight in the creation process itself, even with itsimperfections.* * * * *In the twilight of childhood, I try yet again to copy my mother, my everynerve spellbound by her hands, performing impossible feats. They weave aseeming enchanted web as her left index finger and thumb flex, as thoughpropelling pen across paper, catching another loop of yarn on the tiny crookof the crochet hook and drawing it through the latest in a row of similar loopssupported by her right hand, simple in themselves, yet part of an intricatenetwork of delicate lacey blanket. I’m quite certain web-weaver is one role I’llnever successfully take on. She assures me it’s perfectly acceptable and evenexpected that I need to rip out rows of stitching to correct a dropped stitch. Butshe never drops stitches, never makes mistakes.“Not like that, Annette, let your left hand do the work,” she corrects for theumpteenth time.I long ago surpassed my average ten-year-old attention span, so eager am Ito learn the subtle art of crocheting, believing it “what women do.” None of my159

friends do it. Their mothers don’t do it. Their grandmothers might do it — I’venever met them. My grandmother does it. My great aunt does it. My mother doesit; therefore, “women” crochet. Ten is really too young to want to be a woman,but I am too young to realize this.* * * * *Five years earlier, the air rushes past my face, hands, chest as I leapsuperhumanly through the air, my skintight star-spangled blue and red leotardproviding minimal wind resistance – crucial in my haste to save the puppyfrom the incarnation of evil undertaking to kidnap it… Dressed in a USA printswimsuit, my five-year-old self lands on all fours having flung herself from herwild-rocking-horse — which she rode at maximum speed — in order to mimicthe leap of Wonder Woman. I don’t suppose that little girl had any notion ofthe gendering in which she was participating, recognizing only an admirablefemale super hero, but she later grew up to be a bigger girl, even daring to takeon the title “woman” at which time the notion of being a “wonder woman”became troubling. Her mother seemed a wonder woman, but her mother stayedhome with seven children while the real Wonder Woman had a career. Couldshe manage both, children and a career? Surely this was the real definition of awonder woman? Eventually she determined “wonder woman” a mere culturalconstruction (refusing to acknowledge the influence of such in her life) anddecided she didn’t need to be one after all, didn’t even want to be one if it meantshort-changing her greatest dream – motherhood.* * * * *Mother Eve was instructed to “be fruitful and multiply” and she complied,seemingly capable of willing a condition of fruitfulness and recurring pregnancyin her eagerness to fulfill her primary role as mother of the race of men. Hercostuming for this role — a coat of skins — was incidentally rather differentthan that of her first role of disgraced co-inhabiter of paradise, which comprisedthe scanty coverage of fig leaves. For some reason the fallen woman attired infig leaves is the more popularly perpetuated image, though the vast majority ofher life was spent in animal skins bearing and rearing children.* * * * *In eighth grade I decided I wanted to be a writer, a mother, and a wife.I hoped I could start liking boys, thought I mostly loved babies, and knew Iabsolutely adored stringing words together. English teachers along the waysuggested I might not be entirely lacking in talent in the word-stringing area, andI found myself six years later with a husband and no baby enrolled in my firstcreative writing class midway through my English major. I cried a lot, fumed alot, despaired a lot, nearly threw my notebook at the professor once, and cameaway more devoted than ever to the sacred art of writing.* * * * *There is something innate in every little girl which desperately wantsto assert itself in regards to babies and small animals, or any manufactureddepiction thereof. It asserted itself in me with gusto when I first beheld the160

wrinkly ten pound bundle destined to become my exasperating six-foot-pluslittle brother. I was barely halfway through kindergarten and already battlingemotions beyond my comprehension and control. No matter how many timesMom remonstrated, “the poor boy doesn’t need two mothers” — no matter howmany times I agreed with her — I continued to mother my baby brother. Heseemed in such desperate need of love and help and I needed so desperately tolove and help someone, desired perhaps to have a say in how he would turn out,to engage early in the greatest creation process by which a reproductive cellsplits and becomes a man, but a man defined by influences, one of which I mightundertake to be.* * * * *My first-year-of-college roommates may have thought me odd, perhapsmerely naïve. Certainly they must have known the impracticality of crocheting,though I ostensibly did not. I knew only that none of them crocheted – one moretrait to add to the many qualities of “woman” lacking or differing in them fromthe model I’d constructed for myself in lieu of a proper script. Even if I hadrecognized the excessive cost of endless skeins of yarn, I doubt I could haverelinquished the ecstasy of creation, coming as close to making something ofnothing as is ever possible under Physics’ illustrious regime. The first loop ofyarn, a blanket in embryo, became two, then four, doubling and tripling at aspeed at once painfully slow and dizzyingly swift, growing miraculously into afully matured and functional baby blanket. I suppose a scarf or hat would havebeen quicker to crochet, an adult sized afghan more pragmatic, but always Icrocheted baby blankets. The first was ostensibly meant for a niece, the secondfor a nephew — her brother — but neither made it to their intended recipients.Somehow I always miscalculated the rate at which babies and blankets grow: theformer always too fast, the latter too slow in the confines of procrastination. I can’trecall now where or how the first blanket left my company (though I know fromits present absence from my life that it did), but the second followed me throughthe remaining semesters of college — through courtship, engagement, and on intomarriage.I can see it now as I write, piled, somewhat haphazardly, on the single shelfin the closet I share with my husband. The mass of baby blue yarn (you’ll recall itwas meant for a nephew) drapes over the edge in some places, as though longingto escape its discarded fate. Bits are less pristine than in happier times, timeswhen this web of baby blue yarn had a clear purpose in life, when there was animpending newborn definitely waiting to fill its intricate knots. I suppose even as Icrocheted it in my apartment of singlehood I knew the blanket would never go tomy nephew, sensed perhaps — or merely wondered whether — it might somedayfind its way to a child of my own making, a literal piece of myself.* * * * *The program cover for “My Married Life” features a photo of mymother and father on their first wedding anniversary. My mother’s hair isthe improbable shade of crayola burnt orange, her entire face exhausted butbeaming. My father stands to her left, drawing her close with his arm wrappedaround her shoulder, his hair an inverted jagged-edged black bowl from which161

a wedge is entirely missing above the right eye (the best free haircut my mothercould procure at that point). He too is smiling, and both are clearly in love asthey face the camera lens head-on. Nestled securely between them, a month olddazed and slack-jawed baby boy — my brother — demands acknowledgementof his place in my parents’ young marriage. The image becomes my model formarried life, the ideal I naively expect to achieve as I sign the marriage contract.* * * * *In the stifling humidity of our Pennsylvania kitchen, my next eldest brotherand I stand balanced precariously on the seat of a kitchen chair – not quitefitting, but each determined not to risk the other getting to dump two consecutiveingredients into the mixing bowl while he or I drag a second chair from the tableto the counter at which our mother mixes a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough.At eight, he is three years older than I, yet we are mutually entranced by the magicof food creation, our young imaginations captivated by the process which allowsraw ingredients to coalesce into anything as divine as a warm gooey cookie. Hewears a chef’s hat of which I am undeniably jealous; however, I console myselfwith the knowledge that I will grow to be a woman, and women don’t need chef’shats because cooking is part of their job description.* * * * *My life consists of a variety of metaphoric dramatic roles, some of whichare thrust upon me, others of which I read through, consider, and — if fortunateenough to be cast in the part — either adopt or discard, and a very few of whichI create for myself. Of the roles for which I’ve read, my favorite to act is myhusband’s wife. It is of all the roles the one in which I had at once the mostand least say in contracting — choosing to commit to marriage but subject tohis mutual commitment; choosing to accept his love for me but helpless beforethe sway of mine for him. Love is one of those tricky abstract concepts thatrefuses to surrender to mere words. Words are the indelible strands of crystallineyarn with which we weave intricate patterns of narrative, communication,information, essays. The entire world of economics, politics, diplomacy, society,runs on words. They capture the whirling of the cosmos and the churning of thebowels of Mother Earth. Words perpetually loop back on themselves, forgingconnections and expanding at once ever outward and ever inward. Wordscapture meaning, shatter prejudices, confine the laws of physics. Love eatswords for breakfast.It might eat them for lunch and dinner too, according to one ubiquitousavowal of poetry, if it didn’t prefer a more delectable source of nourishment:human relationships in all their delicious complexities, at once sweet, sour,bitter, spicy, savory, and every possible variant among, between, within, orbeyond these. This complexity and more shone out from my husband’s eyeswhen he first beheld the fruits of my long labors to procure the perfect bridalcostume, suitable to convey me between the stages of girlhood and wifehood.Incidentally, “stage” refers here to the theatrical variant, though it might justas easily and accurately signify a stretch of life. Perhaps the many metaphorspreceding my own that link theater to life informed the use of the word “stage”to describe transient steps in our progression from child to adult, or perhaps162

the life terminology informed the naming of the theatrical platform. Thenagain, perhaps the apt dual applications of the single arrangement of letters areessentially unrelated and are yet another fortuitous offering from the obliginguniverse that has so mercifully aligned itself to my essay in an attempt to elevateit, not unlike a mother aligning herself to the needs of her child in order toelevate and shape him.* * * * *My grandmother supplied the money that bought my very first baby-doll,gifted to me on my first birthday. The doll cost ten dollars, and her prepackagedname was Love Doll. Incredibly, the name stuck — possibly due to my relativelack of comprehensible say in the matter — and Love Doll (incidentally the verydoll annually cast as Baby Jesus) became the bedraggled companion of all mychildhood adventures until I was no longer a child and my mother and I packedher up in the attic. On the whole, I think I was a good mother to my hybrid plasticand plush infant, mimicking feeding, bathing, diaper changing, and of courserocking to sleep. In one respect, however, I proved a woeful mother. I adored myfive big brothers and trusted them implicitly — a bit too much as it happened.When one of them taught me to body slam my doll, I took it as a wise parentingprocedure which he had the courtesy to pass on to me. Never mind that my parentscertainly did not practice such on myself (though I was certainly deserving attimes) nor on any of my (perhaps deserving) siblings: beloved brother spoke, andI, ever obedient to the will of my stage director, performed – zealously.* * * * *A few weeks before entering high school, I browse the endless rows of bookspines in the local library, wondering again as I have so many times before whatmy name will look like in print. Will my mother and grandmother beam with prideat the sight? Will my brothers refer to me as “their sister, the writer”? And mybeloved English teachers – will they read my book and connect the printed namebeneath the title (and perhaps a certain familiarity in the writing) to their formerstudent? Like so many times before, I can almost picture the spine of my bookpeeping out between its fellows on the shelf until, unlike any time previous, I linkmy plans for marriage and authorship and realize I’ve no idea where my book willsit — I’ve no idea what my name will be. I’ve yet to encounter a woman who kepther “maiden name” in marriage, thus the identity crisis crashes upon me as twointended roles inexorably, needlessly, clash. In coming years I learn to considerboth surname options in context of publication (and wifehood), but remainconflicted in which created identity to perpetuate in print.* * * * *“Is it ready now?”“I think — I’m not sure — maybe?”“We don’t want to burn it…”“Okay, go for it.”Without further ado I hoist the stockpot off the burner and upside downover the well greased cookie sheet, letting the amber gloop ripple and ooze intoits polygonal mold. My husband applies force where necessary, driving the last163

of the viscous toffee from its refuge at the bottom of the pot. As I spread it intothe corners of the pan I know something is wrong — it’s not malleable enough,tearing apart in multiple places. The creation process hasn’t come full circleafter all, and we apparently have some version of brittle caramel instead of thetoffee we anticipated. Yet the time invested pays off in other ways — for almostthe first time in our marriage, my husband and I cooked together, our separateroles and diverse wife expectations reconciling themselves into a cohesive scenein “My Married Life.” The candy is odd, but we eat it in complementary silence,wearing complimentary smiles.* * * * *Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel struggled to find fulfillment as a womanwithout children — a wife without children. The children of other womenperhaps dredged up bitterness in her soul, perhaps anger, perhaps sorrow, or atoxic potion of all three. She ultimately produced two sons, though the birth ofthe latter abruptly ended her life. I suppose in a sense, her longing for childrenliterally sealed her fate, yet she found joy in Joseph before dying in childbirthwith Benjamin. For Joseph, she wove a “coat of many colors,” and in soenrobing her son, cast on him a heritage, an identity, and a prophetic destiny notunlike that of Joseph’s descendent, Moses. Moses’ mother, Jochebed, wrappedhim in a blanket imbued with properties of destiny, identity, and protection byvirtue of a mother’s love – the selfsame love that might someday enable me towrap my son in similar inheritances if only I am cast in that role.Jacob’s less beloved wife Leah produced many children but perhapsstruggled all the same to find fulfillment as a woman, desiring greater lovefrom Jacob who would always harbor greater affection for her youngersister. Her situation, though undesirable, offers a modicum of sanity to mybeleaguered soul as I recognize the full felicity of a devoted husband, even inthe face of impending infertility which is not, after all, exclusively a woman’scondition, and might prove treatable if we reach the year mark and meet witha specialist. Cool logic cuts through my desperate fears of unfulfilled potentialand interminable longing and restores a partial belief in me as an independentcapable woman shaped by more than motherhood, elevated by multiple formsof creation. I continue to struggle establishing my own role as wife, but myhusband and I gradually abandon our stubborn readings of incompatible scriptsfor wife gleaned from a variety of (ir)reputable sources and turn increasingly toadlibbing which proves by far best suited to negotiating our unique complexities.* * * * *At nineteen and in my first year of college, my experience with youngchildren is somewhat limited. My eighteen-month-old niece starts crying, again,when I presumptuously attempt to transition her from playing to eating, givingme a look of such scathing indignation that I cannot fail to realize I’m reallyquite inept with children. She is my first experience with a real live toddler sincemy younger brother exited the terrible twos when I was only seven years old,and continually resists my efforts to charm her with my doll-gained motheringexpertise. Children, you see, don’t believe in scripts — or rather, they want anew script and a new role for themselves every five minutes, complete with an164

entire new cast of characters, all of which are to be played by their caretaker —in this case, me. I ought to be adept by now at filling twelve roles at once, but Istruggle all the same at filling one.* * * * *My first year of marriage is six months gone, fruitful in so many ways butnot in the way I most desire: we still haven’t conceived a child. The almostfinishedblanket still sits on the shelf, taunting me. I long to rip out rows androws of stitching, unraveling the past of unfulfilled desires, obliterating thetormenting hope that “this month might be the one, the one when he finallycomes.” But somehow I can’t. Somehow, it would be too much like unravelingmyself, and my mother, who wove so much of herself into me even as I onceundertook to weave myself into my longed-for-son. My mother never taughtme the secret destructive art of unraveling self; nevertheless, I innately sensethe cost of doing so and know I cannot undertake such a procedure — cannotrisk unraveling m mother in me, nor bear losing my only present link to my son.Tormenting, relentless as the hope is, I cannot relinquish it. Tears accomplishquite a bit: aching head, swollen nose, burning eyes, blotchy face, externalizingof mucus, hiccups. Unfortunately none of these are particularly productivebeyond the age of six. I’m left feeling empty, defeated, betrayed by my ownbody. But I don’t unravel the blanket.* * * * *Kneading is infinitely cathartic. Each press of the palm expels a littlemore anger, a little more heartache, a little more joy, a little more love from atumultuous soul into the semi-live mass of flour and water and tiny “fertile”organisms. The continual expansion of a mound of rising dough, the work ofmetabolizing yeast, perhaps suggests to the mind the expansion of a woman’swomb as fertile cells divide and grow within, both types of swelling domesbeautiful representations of the creation process, dwelling securely within thedomain of womanhood.* * * * *Women compromise half of their school days identity when they adopt theirhusbands’ last name, and relinquish the remaining half when their firstborn babyutters “ma-ma.” Nevertheless, I wait with mounting impatience in the plasticseat of dubious sanitation in the social security office for the chance to finallytake on my husband’s name and thus entwine our lives linguistically together —the final and greatest push to oneness. With greater impatience I await the day Ican call my husband “daddy” and thus impress upon him impending parenthood.These identities, wife and mother, are two of the only three roles I have desiredsince eighth grade. The first I have eagerly adopted, the second stubbornlydenies itself to me, and the third — the third is the role I wrote for myself, therole I literally write for myself even as I compose this essay.* * * * *If my husband’s wife is my favorite role to play, caretaker certainly followsclosely behind — perhaps at once the most trying and most rewarding role I’ve165

ever filled and one I long to resume with motherhood. My grandmother lived inmy parents’ converted garage for five long years in which time I undertook everySaturday to temporarily relieve my mother of the burden of caring for her motherwith Alzheimer’s. I delivered dentures to, prepared bran cereal for, administeredmedicine to, and bathed in hot water, and dressed in fresh clothes the womanwho often forgot my name and sometimes forgot she was my grandma. Everyevening I again brought her pills, helped her dress for bed, and hoped she wouldn’tfight me when I requested the return of her dentures for the purpose of soakingthem in mysterious blue foam. It’s not the avenue I would ever have chosen bywhich to learn compassion, patience, a soft voice, and a gentle touch, but oncetraveled I cannot imagine a more beautiful road to the same end than one in whicha granddaughter nurtures her grandmother. Even in the midst of perpetuallyovercast memories, my grandmother’s experiential wisdom shone through mystained glass eyes into the cathedral of my soul, revealing networks of unexploredpassages, chambers, and chapels in which my un-costumed self might freely exist,in sanctuary from the demands of stage directors, script writers, costume and setdesigners, and the ever critical audience.* * * * *My husband understands for the first time, as I don his mother’s apron at hisfamily’s home in the golden days of our courtship, that if he proceeds with hisplans to marry me, I will come to fill the same role in our home that his motherplays in the home of his childhood — understands, perhaps, that I will make ofour sons something akin to what his mother made of him. The costume pleaseshim, and he proposes a month later, in my childhood home.* * * * *In my ninth month of marriage, I listen to my mother’s voice distorted bythe phone, not wanting to understand the implications of what she tells me.“It says on this clinic’s website that women are considered infertile afterone year of unsuccessfully trying to conceive.” Nine months. I could have achild now, if I’d conceived early on, if we’d conceived early on – infertility isnot exclusively a woman’s condition. Three months more and I’ll – we’ll – beinfertile, by medical definition.“You know, you might have inherited a condition that sometimes causesinfertility. I never had trouble with infertility, but I had complications with mypregnancies. And your grandmother was barren eight years between havingmy brothers and me. It was a very easy fix once they diagnosed it.” Inherited.Left-handed, a wedding ring, my deepest fear, all through the same line ofwomanhood. But this trait is one I don’t want.I reflect on the sorrows, pains, barrenness of Sarah, Hannah, Rachel,Elisabeth, Rebekah, wonder if they ever fell prey to stage fright before anexcessively critical audience, ever questioned their decision to set foot on a stageat once visibly public and perpetually doomed to privacy by the constraints ofsocietal taboos. I wonder too how they persevered, how they overcame theircircumstances — whether they were ever able to do so prior to the miraculousconceptions and births of their longed-for children. Did they ever rebel againstthe title “barren”?166

I realize I must find fulfillment in myself beyond motherhood, must allowwriting, cooking, crocheting, all varied forms of creation to fill my unfulfilledwomanhood. For the first time, I allow myself to link “infertile” to me – notsurrendering, merely trying it on as another of the many roles I’ve explored inthe perpetual play – and as I do so, a tremendous burden of fear is lifted.* * * * *I can’t identify the precise occasion on which I first explored “woman” inapplication to myself. Perhaps it was the first time I applied sharp metal to thehairs on my legs, or when I punctured my ears at twelve for the sake of beauty,or perhaps my tenth day living in a college apartment, perhaps the day I marriedmy husband. Or, perhaps it started as far back as the time I smeared lipstickacross my mouth for Halloween or the time the kindergarten bus stop momswitnessed me land a kiss on the boy who lived across the street, or the time Idonned a swimsuit and jumped off a galloping rocking horse. This is one scriptthat no one ever even attempted to write for me, leaving me instead to gleanwhat I could from social, religious, historical, and familial cultures and mostlyforge my own way — a difficult feat for one adept at crafting but perpetuallyunable to deliver her own dramatic lines.* * * * *Understanding is not fully healing, but it takes the edge off uncertainty,longing, pain. Of the creative processes in which I engage, writing is perhaps theone that affords the most understanding. Writing — essaying — comes downin so many ways to discovering identity, to allowing refreshing candid sunlightdrive feared unknowns to the forefront of the consciousness where the “I” mayfreely explore misguided conceits, long-buried prejudices, and among themdeeply buried refined gems of inspired thought, slowly metamorphosed underextreme conditions in the tumultuous recesses of the mind. As the cathedrals areagain flooded with light, the un-costumed self awakes and finds she has purposeafter all.Today I work again on the blanket, after a four month hiatus. The ring thatis my mother, grandmother, husband, me, molten and shaped into one dancesand sparkles, tracing — or perhaps directing — the motions of my left handas it fights to keep the loops just the right size, the yarn perfectly balancedbetween taughtness and slackness. Perhaps my mother played out a similarstruggle, weaving identity for her sixth child, loving her boys but wonderingall the same, as she had with all the rest, if this next baby — this fabric identitywhich she now alters based on her own experience to suit the baby destined tobe me. Perhaps as I reenact this scene of years long past, I will discover withcertitude those traits which she wove into me, discover the secret of a woman’screator identity refined by men and passed through generations from mother todaughter. Perhaps my son will be a daughter and I will sagely pass these secretsto her, and she to her daughter, and on. Or perhaps I will finally understand asI fail to bequeath them that the secrets of a creator are never passed on becauseshe alone can ever comprehend them, can ever understand that the vital core ofwoman’s identity cannot be inherited but only defined — created — by herself.167

168FICTIONFALL 2012

THE BITEby Caroline RozellFriday morning, the mirror reflects a face that no longer feels like mine.My bottom lip is swollen to three times its normal size. I look like I gotin a fight with a vacuum hose and lost. If I squint, I can see angry teethmarks below, just where membrane turns into skin. He bit me hard. He bit mefor hours. That was not a kiss; that was consumption. I wonder how long thiswill take to heal.It was my birthday, and I am old enough to know better. If I’m honest withmyself, I did know better. I thought I was mad to imagine there could be anythingbut purest friendship with a man like that but really — I knew. He was the last manon earth who should have kissed me. He was the last man on earth who I wouldexpect to look at me. There was a very good reason why he should never look atme but I can’t tell that. Some parts of this story can never be narrated. They aren’tnecessary anyway. What matters right now is that last night should not have beenpossible but I knew that it was. Parts of me always knew where we were going. Afew days ago we grabbed a drink in a dim pub and his eyes stayed bright. Whenwe said good night, he took my hand and I think, I think he reached out for mychin. That might have been my imagination; it might have been that his stare feltlike a touch. Imaginary or not, even with all the platonic ideals running throughmy head, I knew. Knowing only lasted for a half a second. Once I’d turned thecorner I was sure I’d seen only compassion in him. Once I reached the end of theblock I thought I’d dishonoured him by imagining interest and I scolded myself allthe way home. There were little things before that, too. He grated on my last nervethe first time I met him and everything I feel seems to start with irritation. Once,we went for dinner with a group of other people but talked as if we were alone.He left when I did. A couple of times I was in a crowded room with him and eventhough I wasn’t looking for him, I knew where he was. Whenever I saw him alone,he smiled and stalled like he didn’t want me to leave. With a little more vanity, ora little more anger, I could say he pursued me. It would be a defensible claim, butthat’s not what happened. That was not a pursuit. We were playing chicken, and,thank God, I swerved. I declined to think that’s what we were doing. I orderedmyself to think that nothing with him could be less than right, but I knew. Thatwas how last night happened. I knew, but I actively refused to know.I’ve got a long day ahead, and I don’t know how to get through it with mymouth swollen like this, maimed like this. I try five different lipsticks and an arrayof powders, looking for something that will hide the evidence. It doesn’t work atall. Colours and shine just make me lurid, like my mouth is not bruised but diseased.Maybe it is. Maybe only some sort of disease would make a man like that169

170want to touch me. I wash it all off and go on to work.I don’t remember who proposed it, that we spend the day together. I may havebeen hinting but if I was, he took that hint and ran with it. We decided to get out oftown and indulge in — something. As the train pulled away, something else waspulled off. A restraint, a boundary we’d been pressed against for weeks dissolvedand left its residue on the tracks. We said we should go away for the weekend. I letmy hair down. He commented. When that friendly man selling tour tickets impliedwe were together, we just laughed. We got on that ridiculous tour to pretend to bedifferent people, tourists out for a good time, and it worked. He gave me a winklike he was trying to pick up a girl he’d just met and I batted my eyes back at him.It was all in good fun. Nothing could be wrong with a man like that. I didn’t seeit, but all day long, we created a climate. I shouldn’t have been surprised when astorm broke out.All morning, my students stare me out of countenance. They see the swelling,they see these marks, and they are curious. In some, the boys, I see concern.They’d never ask, and I’m sure they don’t dare imagine. When I’m working I amthe picture of distance. I know how to enforce boundaries, but yesterday they wereall just gone. I’m kidding myself saying it was just yesterday. I’ve been neglectingmy walls with him since we met and yesterday was just the day they fell. I ask myselfwhy. I really don’t know, except that there was that in his face which seemedto demand openness. I was compelled to give it. I think that man gets anything hedemands.We left the tour and went for dinner. He said I was dwindling without food andI think we were both glad to get away from all the voices. The restaurant was emptyand we sat side by side at the counter, watching the sushi revolve. My edamamestuck in my throat and grew bigger as I chewed. It was tough and salty, but thewine helped. I told him that I liked that he was quiet and that most people wouldhave bored me by that point. I truly meant it in friendship, but I wonder now howhe heard it. I wonder if it was an invitation or an admission. He said he didn’twant to talk about going home, and I said I wanted to run away to Belize. He toldme to give him my hand and I did without a thought, without hesitation. He slidhis thumb across the backs of my fingers and then he turned to me. He asked meor maybe he told to kiss him. I pulled my hand away and sat stiffly, wrenchedbetween want and terror. I tried to say that I was shocked and I tried to say that Inever expected this from him but he knew that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t a lie. Part ofme, my conscious mind, was shocked but the rest of me was not. I didn’t kiss himthen. We walked off to I hardly knew where. First he was a few steps ahead of me,but then I caught up and passed him. We were trying to run away from each other,but not trying hard enough.I struggle through my classes, and I know that they know there’s somethingwrong. He told me last night that I had sad eyes. If he could see them now. There’smore, worse. I’m stumbling over sentences, struggling to speak like myself. It’sbecause of all this swelling and cracking. My teeth catch on the raw spots insidemy lips and it hurts. I never thought any man could stop my mouth. I’m not usuallylike I was last night. I don’t respond to people, especially not people like him.Snobbish. Demanding. Male. I think, for the thousandth time, that I must be thedumbest, blindest girl in the world to have expected different from a man. Then Ithink that I must be the wickedest, most intrinsically debased girl in the world to

have found a touch of earth in a man like him.We wandered into some sort of restaurant or bar or something, I didn’t notice. Isaid I wanted coffee but there was wine in front of me and he warmed his cold fingersagainst my feverish wrists. I talked and he just looked at me with somethingbetween impatience and curiosity. Finally, he kissed me or I kissed him or both.I don’t know and I don’t think it matters. What I know is that his kiss was hardand searching, and he bit me. I liked it. I liked it for a long moment until the painbecame too much and, all unwillingly, I pulled away. I didn’t go far, and his handslingered on my arms, my knees, my hair. I thought it strange that his touch couldbe so gentle and his lips so insistent, but I was past caring. I leaned into his hands.I wanted more because I knew there couldn’t be much. He looked at me as if Iwere already far away and he wanted to bring me back. I just wanted to stay closeand still. When he kissed me, I saw with surprise a kind of delicacy in his skin.Around his eyes, it looked thin, tender. I touched his cheek, shocked at my owndaring, afraid of the contamination in my fingers. He kissed me again, and I stayedwith his bite for as long as I could take it. We talked, and he said a lot that I’d liketo remember and a few things I wish I hadn’t heard. He said I needed to be tamedand even though I wasn’t sure what he meant, that scared me. It scared me becauseif he wasn’t the last man who should ever touch me, he could do it. He asked if wehad to go home that night.Friday afternoon, my boss stares at my face with undisguised wonder. He’salways had a soft spot for me, a little too soft, and I hear something betweencompassion and resentment when he asks if I’m in a bad relationship. He asks ifsomeone hurt me. I tell him it was nothing. He sees the scab forming on my lipand shakes his head. He watches me talk through my hands, covering my mouth,and tells me he’ll do anything for me. I know that I could tell my boss this story ina different way. I could tell him this story in a way that would infuriate him, makehim go and punch that man for me. I don’t. That’s not the way it happened and,even though it was nothing, I don’t want to make it something it wasn’t.We left in a hurry. He stopped to give a pound to a boy with a guitar and Iwatched him. I thought, furiously, and I tried to stop feeling. I couldn’t. I had todecide where we were going to go. I wanted so much not to decide. I wanted notto want him, but I couldn’t. I knew that I wanted to be there with him, and I knewthat in the morning I would want to be a thousand miles away from myself. Ididn’t dare think about the state of my lips or my conscience if we stayed. I toldhim I wanted to stay with him. I told him that I wanted to stay and pretend tomorrowwould never come, and I told him that we had to go home. He pulled me tohim and for a moment I thought he would try to change my mind. I wondered if heknew how easy it would be. He didn’t say anything. He would have gone as far asI was prepared to take him, but I think he was relieved. He saw the morning comingtoo and the irrefutable fact of tomorrow was working into his lips when he bitme again. He took my hand and we walked away.Friday night, I look in the mirror. I’ve imagined all day the swelling is gettingworse, but I can see the outline of my own mouth again. I still look beaten. Thereare dark spots and indentations on my lips so that, from a distance, it looks as ifI’ve been guzzling hot chocolate or red wine. I touch my mouth, and feel somethingbetween pain and a peculiar numbness. Running my tongue along the inside,I taste blood and feel the roughness his teeth left behind. I wonder if he tasted it171

172too. I wonder how much of me that man consumed. I wonder how quickly andwith what a sense of cleansing he will disgorge me.We were at the tube station before I knew it. I fumbled in my bag for so longand was so befuddled with remorse and wistfulness that I couldn’t get throughthe turnstile until he was out of sight. I feared and I hoped that he would go onwithout me, but he waited at the bottom of the stairs. On the platform, he watchedas I rubbed my lips and asked if it hurt. I told him I liked that. He didn’t know howtrue that was. I was already thinking that the pain would force me to acknowledgewhat I’d done. I was already thinking that I deserved for this to hurt. I wonderedif that was why he did it. I thought he must know I ought to be marked, damaged.Still, he wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed me again, not ungently.There were so many people around that a mad part of me was surprised no onestopped us. Of course, no one else knew that he was the last man who should evertouch me. To them, we must have seemed almost normal. Looking through theireyes, I saw a thousand embraces end that would never begin. Looking at him, Ithought there might have been something past his teeth and beneath the fast-approachingmorning and wondered if the softness that I’d seen in his eyes was notjust the lighting. On the train, he bit me harder and more insistently than before.We had only one hour before home and all the remorse waiting there. We knewnothing much could happen on a train, so he bit me and gripped me tight, as if hecould break away from the pain of morning by breaking me. He held me close,and I don’t know what was desire and what was despair. I didn’t want to stop him.I wanted all the same things. When the train stopped and I kissed him, tomorrowwasn’t just coming into his lips. It was there. He didn’t bite me.Saturday, I wake with a dull ache in my mouth. My stomach, too. I haven’teaten since that indigestible edamame, and the thought makes me queasy. I amdowning water by the bucket, though. I just want something cold and clean. Imake myself look in the mirror and the swelling has subsided, but it might beworse this way. At least the swelling drew the eye away from the scratches beneathmy lips. They are more present now, darker and uglier and a hard crust forms overthem so they no longer look like teeth marks—just a gash. It stings a little when Ibrush my teeth.I check my email in the library, and it is there. I thought it would come today,but still I’m surprised by what is in it. The first thing I see is an attachment.He’d like me to edit one of his reports. For a minute, I want to jump through mynetbook and strangle him. He wants me to work for him? He thinks he can askme for help, now? Then I read the rest. He hopes he hasn’t harmed me. He thinkswe should talk because he wants to be very honest. He tone is clipped, curt, and Ithink everything about him was hard. From his mind to his lips to this message, hecould crack a diamond, and I was never that. I know what he wants to say. I fret,playing with my mouse and scratching my lips while I decide how to respond. Myfirst thought is that I should tell him to write to me, if it’s really necessary. I shouldtell him it isn’t necessary because I know. I don’t think I can face him. Eventhough I know what he will say, I think also that reading is not the same as hearing.I don’t know how he will say it. He could say it with contempt. He could sayit with disgust. If he’s the man I thought he was, he might even say it with regret.Maybe I can’t understand his message unless I read what he doesn’t say. I tell himI can see him tonight and edit the report. I’m still mad about that, but maybe he

thought he needed a pretext. Besides, that man gets whatever he demands.Saturday afternoon, I study myself anxiously in the library bathroom. Ishouldn’t have worn this dress. It’s too short, much too short for a conversationlike I’m about to have and I cannot find anything to tie up my hair. I ought to wearrags. I ought to shave my head. He’s going to think I wore this on purpose, as amessage to him. I wish I had time to go home and change but I don’t. It might notbe all bad, though. There are advantages to a dress like this for a talk like this thathe couldn’t understand. He’s only a man, after all. It will make me blush whileI’m talking to him, but it might help later. I hope it will help me go home, look inthe mirror, and tell myself that it wasn’t me. It could help me tell myself that I’mnot scratched and sore right now because I’m only worth a bite, and nothing more.That’s what I hope and that’s what I’m going to say but I already know I won’tbelieve it. I look at my lips and wonder whether I should try to cover it up. Thegash is terribly obvious in this fluorescent light. I rub my lips as if I can rub thedarkness off, but only raise sharp little flakes. It looks worse than if I’d left it aloneand now they are stinging again. The numbness was better. I press the hardeninggash and turn it red again. I put my lipstick away; he probably won’t even notice.When I see him, I lie through my teeth. I tell him I’ve been very productive,very focused as I always am. I haven’t done a thing. I sat in the library trying to liftthe cold lump that’s been bearing down on my heart. I tried to breath. I even triedto stop my watch so the time wouldn’t come when I had to meet him. Now, it is allI can do to keep from running down the street, away from him and away from thisautopsy, this post-mortem analysis of a bad decision that we are about to perform.I will myself to keep walking and I wonder if he knows I’m lying. He asks whenI’m leaving town and the one thing I am grateful for tonight is that I can honestlysay, soon. He says he’ll miss me and I fight not to laugh. I fight even harder not toslap him. If there is one thing I know without doubt tonight, it is that that man cannotwait to see the back of me. We find a restaurant, we order. He says he is goingto be a teetotaller now and I think that’s perfect, because I’m going to be an alcoholicnow. He asks if I have anything to say to him. If I knew what I wanted to sayto him, I would have said it already. I can only tell him, that I’m awful. I tell himthat I am full of guilt and shame, and I wonder if he understands all that encompasses.He tells me I ought to get married and asks why I don’t have a boyfriendand now, now for a second I hate him. I wonder if he thinks he’s my pimp now. Iimagine that he thinks I’m a tramp with no discrimination and that I’m happy toflit amongst men until I find one that sticks. I think he thinks that because I’m nota man like him, I am not real or whole. All I tell him is that I don’t want to be married,that it’s because I don’t want to feel. That is entirely true, but what I don’t sayis “and damn you for making me.” He’s about to give me a lecture on how that’snot a life, on what he saw when I felt something for him, and I stop listening. Ican’t hear this from him. I can’t bear to hear him say that I felt something for him.This man doesn’t know the meaning of saving face; he’s not supposed to assumethat. I would never take such a liberty of imagination with him. I desperatelybelieve that he could not possibly have felt anything for me, and I wish he couldshow me the same courtesy. I want to tell him he’s wrong, but I don’t. He wouldn’thear me; he thinks this is his story. I work up the courage to ask him if incidentslike the other night happen to him often, and he doesn’t understand what I mean.He thinks it’s a pointless question, and I want to explain why it matters. I would173

174like to explain that girls like me are only toys. Toys are replaceable, interchangeable.I would like to tell him that when I ask if incidents like that happen often,I’m asking if he understands that I am a person, but I don’t. He says things likethat never happen, but he hasn’t answered my question. He never could becausehe could never hear it. He is, after all, only a man. He starts talking about whathappened then, and he tells me, that it was not only lust. He asks if I agree, and Isay yes, but I want to say no, I want so badly to say no. I wonder if he has any ideahow much it troubles me to admit that. I understand “only lust”. That is a familiarnarrative, and I know exactly how to respond to it. If this was only lust, I knowexactly what to think and have no need to feel. I wish he could leave me that, mycomprehension, my unfeeling response.He tells me he feels dead. He looks dead. I have been trying to meet hiseyes since we got here, but I can’t. Whatever you call this thing in his face, thisremorse, this death, I can’t look at it. I really must be the stupidest girl in the worldnot to have guessed this. I should have understood that, to a man like that, I couldonly ever be death in a short skirt. I know that isn’t really what he means and thedeadness I see now is bigger than that. The death he is talking about is somethingI can scarcely comprehend but I can’t think about that right now. Instead, I let himremind me of things I haven’t heard in a long time. I had a lover once who calledme a femme fatale and said my eyes were deadly. It was flattering, but this is different.I have never heard what is in his voice now and I pray I never will again.He is talking about my eyes too. He says I have a way of looking at people, ormaybe it is a way I look at him — but he can’t describe it. I honestly don’t knowwhat he means this time. I wish he could describe it so I could stop. Never mind. Iwill never look at him again.When we leave, he says he is going to walk with me to the bus stop, to waita while. I don’t understand. I know, I know with an absolute and unshakeablecertainty that that man wants nothing more than to get as far away from me as possibleand to be sure that he will never see me again. While we walk he tells me, forthe second time, that we ought to keep in touch. He says it would be a shame if wecouldn’t stay friends. I say, I agree. I say, of course we will keep in touch. I havenever kept “in touch” with anyone in my life. I don’t just burn my bridges. I bombthem into oblivion and I poison the river so nothing can live there again. I do notbelieve that anyone means it when they say you should stay friends. I don’t thinkthat has ever, in all of human history, been backed with a true sentiment. I sometimesthink that I am the only person on earth who understands that this is cruel.He should understand that it would really be kinder to tell me to never contact himagain. It would be kinder because, if I were dumb enough to believe him and I didget in touch with him someday, I would only be shaken again when I realized thathe never wanted to hear from me. I’m not that dumb, though. I will never reachout to anyone if I’m not sure that they are reaching back. I’d rather cut my handsoff. Still, there is something in that man’s face that makes me think I could thinkagain. I wonder if, maybe, he is setting a historical precedent. I wonder if maybehe means it and if maybe, if I did get in touch with him someday, he would actuallybe glad. I thought that he was no ordinary man and maybe it is just possiblethat I was right. I’ll think about that tomorrow. I’ll think about the way he saidit, his tone and his eyes, and I’ll try to decipher what he might have meant. Theskeleton of this bridge could stay standing but what would I really want with an

uncrossable old construction? I don’t know. I’ll think about that tomorrow too.I say something that makes him turn his head and chuckle with what mighthave been irritation or sadness or both. He leaves quickly and rounds the cornerbefore I see him move. I’d always thought he was serene, unflappable, but heflies away from me. Not five seconds after he’s gone, a dishevelled man weavestowards me down the sidewalk. I smell the whiskey ten paces away. “Hey, beautiful,”he leers, and wavers closer. I duck my head, but he’s still coming. “Comeon”, he says. He’s got me backed against a wall and his words are rank and stinkingon my neck. “You can’t just look at me like that and turn away,” he grunts.I didn’t mean to look at him, but maybe it was like the look that man couldn’tdescribe. I wish he had stayed just a few more seconds so this drunk would havewalked past me, so I wouldn’t have his sour breath in my face. I wish I had aburqa, the kind with netting over the eyes. I clench my shoulders, I clench my fists,and the drunk punches the wall over my head. I’m too cold and lifeless to move,and I don’t care what happens next, this drunken wretch is exactly what ought tohappen next. I don’t scream; no one would come anyway. He leaves, but my nailskeep digging into my palms. I bite my own mouth, wishing I could finish what thatman started. I try to bite through the stinging and rip my lips clean off. That wouldkeep me out of trouble. At home, I look in the mirror and my eyes are too blurredto make out much besides shapes and colours. I can’t see lines or features, and I’mnot sure I have a face anymore. I can still feel though, and the scabs are beginningto prick and scratch my fingertips when I touch them.Sunday morning is cold and white and I am not getting out of bed. I am notgoing to look in a mirror, because I am done. I am done with life and long pastdone with feelings. I touch my face, press my lips together, and scarcely realizeI’m doing it. The scab, the gash, all the scratches have turned into a hard film ofdead cells. It’s like the transparent layer of cow’s horn that was once used to coatchildren’s spelling books. It’s thin and you can barely see it, but it is impenetrable.You cannot touch or damage anything underneath. I think I like this encrustation,this armour. If I cannot feel my own pressure, if I cannot find a sensation in mybody, then nothing can touch me. That man gave me precisely what I have alwayswanted, in his own backhanded way.I have to get up; I am not so numb that I can stave off the headaches of 72sleepless, starving hours. When I stumble into a cafe, the eggs that end up infront of me make me slump with exhaustion. They seem insurmountable, a pileof greasy normality that I will never be able to climb. I smoke instead, scowlingat my eggs like they are the only thing wrong today. My cigarette feels differentagainst these unassailable lips of mine. I can smoke it past the filter, suck it downinto a flaming scrap and it doesn’t burn. When the butt falls apart in my fingers,I sigh and approach my plate again. The first bite won’t go down, and I cough. Imake them a little too salty, just enough to make me wince and it helps. My forkfeels strange against my lips, as if my hard coating has disrupted my hand-tomouthcoordination and the tines bump and jab against me. I am so concentratedon trying to swallow that I stab myself in the lip, and a small corner of the hardnessfalls off. I pick it up to examine, curious and a little wary. It is transparent,colourless, and thicker than I’d imagined. There are teeth marks on it, the unmistakableimpression of a sharp incisor. I’ve had flaking lips in the winter before,but this is different. This simply falls off in one sharp-edged piece. I find the spot175

176it came from with the tip of my tongue and it is a little sensitive but smooth. Myeggs are almost a third gone now, and I decide that’s enough for today.Sunday afternoon, I take a rambling walk. This park is my favourite placein town. The rowers on the river beat out an even tempo that calms my agitatedpulse. I breathe to their strokes, and I think for a moment that something evaporatesin my chest. I used to run here every morning even though I hate running. Ihated my thighs more, and this is the perfect place to outrace emotion. I sigh as Iremember my thighs and wonder if I can slim them down by simply not eating.Of course I can. I have before, but it’s been a while since I had the will to do so.Maybe that man gave me more than I thought. I find a bench in a green corner bythe river and I decide that I’m going to think. I try to think about why I did what Idid and I can’t come up with anything. That was not who I am. I am not impulsiveor reckless; at least, I haven’t been in a long time. I like to think, to fret, to worryover every last detail of my plans. I like to conceal. The normal me, would neverhave gone anywhere with him. In my right mind, I would never have respondedto him. At least, not these days. There was a time when who I was that night waswho I was every day. I used to feel everything deeply and display everything I felt.That did not work out well. This was not the first birthday to leave me bloodiedand heartsick. For years, I have guarded every inch of me, inside and out, withsuch success that I thought no one would ever touch me. I have rationed my wordstoo, never giving anyone too many and never letting them signify too much, butthen I met that man. Something snapped in my head whenever I was around him.A filter broke, and before I could think of stopping myself, I told him anything andeverything. I felt anything and everything. I knew I should never, ever touch him,never look at him, but I did. I flung myself between his teeth and sighed as he bitdown. I examine myself for a reason but can’t find anything.I give up on me, and turn to him. I try to read his eyes, his voice as they werein all my memories. I start with the time I met him. He came over, asked me a fewquestions about my work and my life and dragged me into a pointless argumentabout Emily Dickinson. I hate Emily Dickinson, but he wouldn’t let up. Once he’ddisposed of Dickinson and treated me to a self-satisfied little lecture on the crudenessof bourgeois tastes, he started in on the nature of God. Nothing he said madeany sense at all. He grilled me, interrogating my muddled concepts with an infuriating,superior calm. I could only stare and shake my head at his questions, but hedidn’t back off. I ask myself now what he was really trying to ask me. All I knowis he baffled me. I think back to an evening we went for a drink. I was too personal,too unreserved. I found myself telling him things I should not. I remember hislooks of surprise, of bemusement, and try to make them add up to an explanation.I can’t. Then there was that night. I replay the details in my head and I try to scanevery word and every touch for a reason. I’m still stuck. If there was any reason inwhat we did, it was too frail for my benighted brain to capture. Saturday just madeit worse. His expressions cycled so fast between remorse , fake cheer, and lingeringkindness that I could not capture any of them. I don’t even remember what hesaid, only that it was pained and final. I should never have gone. I thought it wouldhelp me understand and forget that night. Maybe it would, if I had been able toread past his inadequate words.I’m chewing my lips and watching the river because my thinking is only makingthings worse. I will never get anywhere asking why so I back up, and try to

ask what. I ask what I feel now, if I hate him. I try to say yes, but can’t. I wouldfeel so much better if I could label him a manipulator, an unscrupulous seducer,but it will never do. Every time I try, I remember what I felt beneath his teeth andmy bitterness flees before it. I will never understand him, but I will never hatehim. I ask myself if I like him and still can’t answer. I would like to say yes but Icannot forget that he was the last man who should ever have wanted me. I’ve beenbreaking my head for days trying to figure out what that means about me. Now,I wonder what that means about him. I make a last effort and ask myself how,exactly, he has marked me. I ask how I am going to fit that night into my story. Ipinch my lips and concentrate as a few more flakes fall off into my fingers. Theseare smaller, finer, and I let them slide to the ground with only a cursory look.Stories are important to me, more important than almost anything else. I havebelieved, and argued at some length, that every story matters. However tragic,however wicked, however strange, I believe that there is value in every story if weonly know how to frame it. I have thought and written that no narrative need bediscarded, that everything we are has value when we find the right story for it. It isnot impossible that there is something in this story too. I try to believe that thesemarks on my mouth can encode more than pain and a punishing kiss. I search forit, search for that meaningful something in my scraps of a story with him. Perhapsit would help to find a precedent, and I review the saddest, strangest stories I know.I know far too many stories, but I can’t think of an exact fit. My interpretive effortsare moving along now, nonetheless. At least this is the question that I really wantanswered, not why I have stiff and splintering lips or how long they will take toheal, but what will lie beneath when they do. I go home and I still can’t sleep but Ican lie quietly. My pulse stays with the rowers’ rhythm even as my mind races andI unclench my fists. All night, my lips tingle.Monday morning, I look myself. My reflection is a pale, sharp-angled versionof my face, but recognizable. My lips are back to a normal colour, all rednessgone. They may be even more wan and thin than they were, or maybe the last bitsof dead shell just make them look that way. The gash beneath my mouth is smoothnow and only a little pink. It’s not that bad, really, almost interesting. I try differentangles in the mirror and wonder if the pinkness doesn’t add shades and depths tomy lips that were slightly missing before.At work, I review my notes and either laugh or cry, I’m not sure which. Thisis really not the day for Daniel Deronda or, maybe, it is exactly the day. I wanteda precedent, and this could be it if I will let myself read it as such. The trouble isthat I don’t like Gwendolen. She’s self-involved, spoiled, parasitic. I’ve alwaysthought that if I were Deronda, I would have shaken her off, told her to find anothersemi-lover/mentor to harass, to stalk, to suck dry for her spiritual awakening.Deronda, too, strikes me as either more or less than a man. He is so very fastidious.He recoils from the vulgar and the small with such instinctive dread that Ihave never believed in his compassion and wonder if he was not just chasing anaesthetic thrill. He is so nearly monk-like in his enthrallment to the sublime that Iam always surprised that he can marry any woman at all. Then again, I am not sureif Mirah qualifies as one. Perhaps that is the real reason it was not Gwendolen;with all his grand talk of love, Deronda’s love is a strange self-emptying, almostcruel in its loftiness. But, there is that letter. My students always want to knowhow it will be better with her for having known him, and I never have an answer.177

I believe her, though. I think that may have been the first entirely true thing sheever said. It may not be visible but somehow, in the sequel that was never written,it is better with her for having known him. I wonder what could be better with me.Almost everything, almost anything could be better with me. Everything has beenso static with me, so pinned back and impenetrable, that maybe even a bite or abruise is better.One of my students is entranced with Deronda. She’s a bright girl and shelooks at me like I can open the doors not just to this book but to the world of unknownmeanings that made her want to read it. She was disappointed; she hopedfor Deronda and Gwendolen to walk off the page together, and is a little annoyedwith Mirah. She calls her bloodless and thinks she is unappealingly austere besideGwendolen’s battered, vital humanity. I know how she feels, but this is not theway I want her to read it. I press her, I push her, willing her to understand whyDeronda and Gwendolen can’t see each other again. I ask her over and over again,what Deronda gave Gwendolen. I make her think about what could have beenbetter with her. I remind her that she is truly changed and we talk for an hour aboutwhat is visible in her at the end that was not in the beginning. Finally she smiles atme and cries, in her youthful voice, so clean and hopeful that I drop one more tearfor myself, “It’s better than a love story!” She’s excited, exhilarated with her owninterpretive skill. “No one will ever love her, but what he gave her is better thanlove.” I knew she was a bright girl, but I wonder where she found this reading.We are both delighted now, and the last dead flake falls from my lips. When I tellher she’s a good reader and I am very proud of her, her glow of boundless feelingtouches even me.Originally from Harlingen, Texas, Caroline Rozell just completed a DPhilin English from the University of Oxford, focusing on eighteenth-centurywomen’s writing. Her thesis was entitled “Women and the Framed-NovelleSequence in Eighteenth-Century England: Clothing Instruction with Delight.”She also has an MA in English from St. John’s University in New York, andstudied English at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. She has not previouslypublished any fictional work.178

THE LOCKERby Lorraine ComanorNiki was on her knees, a bulb in her left hand, a trowel poised to attackthe earth in her right, when the study phone rang. Damn. She pitchedforward on all fours and considered not answering. It was a perfect mid-October afternoon for gardening. The air smelled of that “mellow fruitfulness”Alastair often mentioned. Some poet he liked to quote. One of the Romanticshe’d tried to introduce her to along with his beloved theologians — St. Augustine,somebody Lewis and a de Chard — something or rather, but she’d found themdull company. After a couple of attempts, Alastair hadn’t pressed further, resignedto leave her with Better Homes and Gardens. The garden at least was commonground; although Alastair spent no time in its creation or up-keep, he did admireher efforts.The bed she was presently preparing was in anticipation of his birthday.Up to now, she had limited her gardening to hybrid tea roses and a few Englishlegends, but when Alastair had commented that it would be nice to have flowersthree seasons of the year, she’d sent away for some hyacinth bulbs. Withhis simple English tastes, he was a fairly easy man to keep happy, provided theChurch and school ran well and he had some uninterrupted time in his study. Ofcourse, there were occasional issues with Jonathan’s behavior in his sixth gradeclassroom — (Thank God, Alex, his nine year old brother, managed to keep hisnose clean) — and also with her lack of frugality, so this simple birthday presentshould meet with his approval, especially when an expensive kitchen remodelloomed ahead.The rest of the bulbs needed planting and watering before she left to pick upthe boys from school, but on the eighth ring, she dropped the trowel alongside theunfinished bed and headed towards the house. From the pocket of Alastair’s wornwindbreaker which she had draped over her shoulders, an old Lenten card fell tothe ground. Busy with horse shows, she hadn’t helped much with church decorationduring the previous Lent — another bone of contention between them. Butif this bed turned out well, she might just make a lovely, albeit small, contributionto the next Easter season. The phone was still ringing as she pushed open thedoor leading from the garden to Alastair’s study. She ran to the desk, not takingthe time to remove her garden crocs, which deposited a few clumps of dirt on thecream-colored center of the Tabriz rug.“Mrs. Bainbridge.” Niki recognized the voice immediately: Wyona Matthewswas Alastair’s assistant principal at St. Tim’s, a pinched-faced spider of a womanwith black hair pulled back into an old-fashioned chignon. Unlike her predecessorwho’d had sons of her own and something of a “boys will be boys” attitude,179

180Wyona was unwilling to let even the slightest infraction pass. She had alreadyinitiated several calls about Jonathan.“Why’d you hire that woman?” Niki had asked Alastair some months beforefollowing an unpleasant conference — Jonathan had managed to collect fivedemerits in one marking period. “She loves to be bitchy.”“She takes care of day-to-day tasks I don’t have time for,” Alastair had repliedin his crispest British diction. “And you can hardly blame her for Jonathan’sbehavior.”“Couldn’t you find someone who was efficient and pleasant, too?”Unpleasantness, Alastair responded, wasn’t grounds for firing. Her harshjudgment of Wyona showed an unwillingness to acknowledge her son’s — nottheir son’s, she’d noted – contribution to the problem.“Yes,” Niki answered the voice on the phone, while standing on one leg toremove her garden shoe. A small clod of earth looked like a dog turd on the rug.She had no intention of acknowledging the caller’s identity.“Wyona Matthews.” After a short silence, “Sorry to disturb you, but there’sbeen another incident with Jonathan.”“Oh,” Niki said, wondering why Wyona had not called Alastair first. Alastairshould be back by now from the off-site meeting of the Council of EpiscopalSchools. It was one of those rare days when the bishop was presiding at morningchapel and she knew he wanted to catch him before he left.She listened as Wyona recounted what had happened after Jonathan acquireda bathroom pass.“Is he all right?’ she asked. “How long before you found him?”“He’s perfectly fine. Mr. Andrews heard the banging and got him out.”“But how long was he stuck for?”“Not that long.”“When did all this happen?”“This morning.”“And you’re just calling me now?” She needed to hide her irritation. Wyonacould make Jonathan’s life miserable. Her watch indicated 2:25. Another thirtyfiveminutes before she was supposed to pick up the boys. It would have been somuch easier if they stayed for after-school sports, but there was no elementaryschool tennis for Alex and, although the track coach really wanted Jonathan onthe team, Jonathan said he’d rather be a mediocre swimmer than a track star; hewasn’t spending a minute more at St. Tim’s than he had to.“There was another incident this morning that required my attention.”“I don’t see the need to contact the police,” Niki said after Wyona went onfor a few more minutes. She was curious about the other incident, but decided notto ask. “Sounds like a bad prank. Have you talked to Alastair?” Alastair wouldhave handled everything without getting the police involved.“The head had enough on his hands today. Besides, St. Tim’s is a closedcampus. If there’s any question of trespassing on school grounds, the law has tobe involved.”“You’re not going to let the police interrogate a kid without a parent present.Not my kid, anyway.”“It’ll just be a short interview. They’re en route as we speak.”“Where’s Jonathan now?”

“Sitting outside my office.”“I’m on my way. No one’s to question him until I’m there.”Niki hung up. Damn Jonathan and his continual scrapes. In first grade, he’dbeen overheard referring to the teacher as an idiot after she made the class estimatethe number of ice cubes their freezer produced overnight. The second-gradeteacher had asked her class to edit anonymously each other’s stories. Jonathan,who’d had a tiff with one little girl, wrote “This story sucks.” Recognizing hishandwriting, the teacher had called home. Niki had wanted to ask if the storyreally did suck, but she’d held her tongue. No use sparring with a teacher whoassigned editing to a bunch of seven-year-olds. She’d expected Alastair, a bigMonty Python and Fawlty Towers fan, to laugh over the episode, but to heramazement, he hadn’t found it funny.Unfortunately, in addition to his frequent tardiness, there were other incidentsshe couldn’t brush off so easily: pushing a younger kid in the playground, tyinga cat to the swing, drumming — his latest passion — in religion. Plus occasionaluse of bad language. And now this.At Jonathan’s last appointment, Dr. Tuttle, their pediatrician, had advisedsome counseling. PK’s (preacher’s kids, as he referred to them) often acted outwhen they felt too much was expected of them. Making it as a principal’s son waslike climbing a steep mountain; fitting in as a priest’s and principal’s son was akinto tackling Mt. Everest.“He really doesn’t belong in a school that expects kids to sit at their deskswith their hands folded,” Niki told Alastair after the appointment. But Alastairhad resisted the idea of either a school change or a counselor. How would it lookfor a minister, a counselor by profession, if he sent his own child to therapy or toanother school? She hadn’t pressed the issue further.There were times she could strangle Jonathan. Still, he was just a kid, and thepolice could be cagy in their questioning — forcing a person to admit to somethinghe didn’t do. An eleven-year-old, even a smart one, would be no match forthem.She looked at her hands. Despite her gardening gloves, her nails were a disgrace.French nails weren’t practical for a gardener or for someone who plannedto spend more time in the kitchen; they didn’t last the three weeks betweenmanicure appointments, but they seemed a small compensation for her currentstresses. And Alastair was proud of her appearance, even if he usually didn’tcomment on it. In the hall mirror she inspected herself: hair in shambles, brownspots near her jaw line. Another IPL treatment might have to wait until after thekitchen remodel.Below, on the table, sat the accumulation of three days’ mail — a sore pointwith Alastair and a detraction from the beautiful Clodion vase her parents hadgiven them last Christmas. The previous Christmas, a French carriage clock hadarrived. The home she grew up in had been filled with such art. While Alastair appreciatedthe vase, there was a puritanical side to him that kept him from enjoyingownership of an objet d’art, especially one he had not purchased himself. Sheran her fingers over its hard-paste Sèvres porcelain and gilt bronze, bringing themto rest on the face of the stag who stood beside two does. Jonathan was like astag, the way he ran. She looked at the mail again, afraid to check for bills. She’dstuff it in a grocery bag later. She couldn’t be seen at school without a shower.181

182Jonathan was indeed sitting on the bench outside Wyona’s office. He had afew Pokemon cards in his lap and was picking at a hangnail. In a few minutesthe bell would ring, and the hall would be flooded with kids. They needed to getout of the traffic pattern, not have everyone see the two of them going into theassistant principal’s office. At least it was on the other side of the building fromAlastair’s, so she might avoid running into him until she’d gotten the whole story.“Are you okay?” she asked, putting a hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. The backof his shirt had come out of his pants and his belt was missing.“Shitty day.”“Language. Tell me what happened before we have to go in.” She rummagedin her purse for a comb for Jonathan’s hair, then thought better of it. He’d justbeen through an ordeal and should look the part.At that moment, Wyona opened her door, stuck her head into the hall like aturtle, and nodded at Niki.“Officer Kramer is already here.” The assistant principal glanced at herwatch, as if to note the time Niki had taken to arrive. “We’ve been down to thelocker room while we were waiting.”“Why don’t you tell us what happened, Jonathan,” Officer Kramer beganonce Niki and Jonathan were seated across from Wyona’s desk. Her billy clubextended the full length of her thigh and her gun was prominently displayed inthe holster on her left hip. She looked prepared to take on a group of terrorists.Jonathan’s take-offs on adults were usually not flattering — more than once shehad heard him refer to Wyona as “The Hydra” — and a stocky, bleached- blondedyke would be no exception. Last week he had done an impersonation of theirstuttering rector giving kids detention for passing notes in chapel. It was so spoton,she had doubled up laughing. Even Alastair had started to chuckle beforehe caught himself and said, “That’s quite enough, Jonathan.” A cop skit woulddefinitely need some editing before tonight’s dinnertime performance.“I got a pass in homeroom to go to the bathroom. The one in the hall waslocked, so I went down to the gym.”It was odd that he’d asked for a pass right at the beginning of school. Still,his demeanor gave Niki confidence. Despite his difficulties, Jonathan was usuallyunflappable. His nails, bitten to the quick, however, belied his composure. Thatbitter-tasting stuff you painted on them might help him kick the habit. His fourthfinger was tapping out some rhythm on the arm of the chair.For months Alastair had been urging Jonathan to take up the piano or clarinet,but to his dismay, her parents had given him a coveted five-piece drum setwith fourteen inch hi-hats and eighteen inch coast ride cymbals for his last birthday.Niki had been saving some of her household money for drum lessons. WhileJonathan wouldn’t stay around for track, he did want to be part of the band, if hecould pass the audition.“You know you’re supposed to use the facilities before class.”Wyona couldn’t pass up an opportunity for correction.“I had a late religion assignment to turn in. There wasn’t time.”“Another late assignment?”“We had to find a hymn based on a poem. It took me a while.”“And once you were in the gym?” Kramer asked, obviously annoyed at

Wyona for derailing her interrogation.“I was walking past the lockers toward the urinals and I heard a noise. Iturned around and there were these two guys.”“What two guys?”“Just two guys.”“Not St. Tim’s students?”“No.”Wyona would have already told Kramer this. Had the boys been St. Tim’sstudents, there would’ve been no need for police contact.“What’d they look like?”“One was tall. Dark, maybe from India. Black hair. Grey hooded sweat shirt.Nike tennis shoes.” Jonathan was very good with details.“And the other one?”He hesitated for a second and Niki panicked until he continued: “Shorter, butbigger than me. Not as dark as his friend.”He needed more specifics. She was relieved when he added: “His khakiswere kind of dirty, had a rip above one knee.”“And then what happened?”“They asked me if I’d like to get into one of the lockers. I said I wouldn’t.”Niki watched Kramer, who’d been eyeing Wyona, turn her ferret eyes onJonathan. His drumming had migrated from the arm of the chair to his thigh.“And?”“They pushed me down and shoved me in the locker.”“Did you resist?”“Sure. I kicked. I hit one of them.”“And they hit back?”“The big one held me down.”“Any scratches or bruises? Mind if I look at your arms and legs?”Of course Jonathan would mind, but Niki wasn’t sure there was much shecould do about it.“Is this necessary?” she asked. “Don’t you think he’s been through enoughtoday?”“It’s routine, Ma’am.”Officer Kramer pushed up Jonathan’s sweater sleeves and rolled up his pantsto the knees. Jonathan stared at the opposite wall, his lips pursed.“Don’t see any battle scars.”“If I’d fought back more, they’d have hurt me.”“You think so?”“Yes.”“How long did it take two boys to get you stuffed into a half-sized locker?”“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about time.”Niki could see where Kramer was heading. “He’s only ninety pounds,” sheadded. Kramer continued her questioning, not acknowledging Niki’s comment.“So, now you’re in the locker and then what happened?”“They slammed the door shut. I couldn’t open it from the inside. I bangedhard and told them to let me out. They laughed and then I heard them walkaway.”“And you’re sure you’ve never seen them before?”183

“No.”“You’re sure?”“He told you no,” Niki said. “If you’re finished now, we’d like to go home.”Once she saw the police car pull out of the parking lot, Niki found Alex andput the boys in her car before going back inside to speak privately with Wyona.Alastair should not get wind of Jonathan’s story. The two strange boys were reallya stretch. Jonathan had probably just got bored in homeroom, gone down to thelocker room and put himself in a locker, not realizing if he closed the door he’dbe trapped. Still, in the off chance he was telling the truth and she had falsely accusedhim, she’d lose his trust. Alastair, on the other hand, didn’t tolerate “dramaqueens” and probably wouldn’t give Jonathan the benefit of the doubt; he’d callhim a fabricator and indirectly he’d hold her responsible.She’d have to get a copy of the police report, be sure there was nothing toodamaging in it. Then after a few days, she could have a heart-to-heart with Jonathanabout what had really happened in the locker room. Orchestrating a privatetalk might be difficult, but Jonathan did need a new pair of swim goggles, andAlex probably wouldn’t want to come along.She knocked tentatively on Wyona’s door. It was a few minutes before theassistant principal opened it.“Forgot something?” she asked.“Just wanted a word with you.”Wyona hesitated. “Come in then,” she said, holding open the door.Niki didn’t take the seat she’d occupied during the conference, electing tostand by the door.“About our conference,” she began, shifting her weight off the foot that wasbeginning to rub in her heels. “I’d appreciate it if it were kept between the four ofus — just between you, me, Jonathan and the police woman.”Wyona shuffled a pile of papers on her desk. “Mr. Andrews extricated Jonathanfrom the locker. He usually doesn’t say much.”“Of course, but aside from him, no one else needs to know.”“You can count on our discretion.” For the first time, she looked Niki in theeye. Something about the curve of her mouth wasn’t quite right. “I hope we arenot going to have any more incidents like this one,” Wyona continued. “Jonathanhas taken up far too much of the school’s time.”“Thanks for your cooperation,” Niki said, opening the door to the hall. A fewwhite dots appeared in her right visual field, dots that often preceded a clusterheadache. She hadn’t had one since the conference about the five demerits; shehad coped with a couple of Tylenol, making veal stew Marengo for dinner, servingit with a crisp Voignier, Ravel’s “Bolero” on the stereo. It was one of the fewclassical pieces from Alastair’s collection that really touched a chord. Not that shecould imagine him doing a bolero; he was really a foxtrot kind of guy. But maybehe realized how incredibly sexy it was, as they had made love that night — firsttime in ten days — Alastair unaware of Jonathan’s behavior until his report cardcame out two weeks later.She planned to drop Jonathan at the pool and Alex at tennis, but Jonathansaid he wasn’t up to swimming; he just wanted to go home. She was encouraginghim to swim — it could help him relax after a bad day — when Alex interrupted.184

“How come you had to go to Matthews’ office?” he asked.In the rear view mirror, she could see him elbowing his brother.“Got locked in a locker,” Jonathan said, giving his brother a nudge in returnbefore elaborating.“Gee, man. You let two guys stuff you into a locker? Watcha do in there?Play the drums?”“Shut up, Alex. Where’re you going, Mom? I told you I’m not swimming.”“You’ve already missed three days this month. Your coach is not going to behappy.”“Fuck the coach.”“Jonathan.”“I just spent two hours in a locker. I got a headache.”You and me both. She took the next turn off to the tennis club.As soon as she and Jonathan pulled into the driveway, Jonathan bolted for hisroom. A chance for a couple of aspirins, a cold face cloth over her eyes, maybeeven a short nap to fortify her for the evening. Any inkling of a Jonathan problemcould turn a pleasant dinner into a row, Alastair not understanding why his olderson was such a constant embarrassment. As if the bad behavior genes belonged toher, and couldn’t possibly come from Alastair’s side of the family. Did he reallybelieve that, or was it just his pissy side, his way of getting back at her? Revengefor a messy front hall table, housekeeping skills that fell short of his mother’s,failure to help the altar guild with flower arrangements, frustration over a sonwho didn’t meet his expectations, his own lack of advancement in the Church? ?If he could just get past the deacon level, out from under St. Tim’s rector, and beappointed to the recently vacated rector position at the neighboring parish church.Hopefully, his noon meeting with the bishop had gone well and they’d havesomething to celebrate tonight. She put a bottle of sauvignon blanc in the fridge.Given the afternoon, take-out was appealing, but recently, she’d made a seriousattempt to expand her menus in anticipation of the kitchen remodel Alastair hadfinally agreed to. She’d bought Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cookingand, to Alastair’s delight, had learned to make suprêmes. If she could muster theenergy, she might tackle chicken Milanese tonight. Get up some steamed broccoliwith toasted almonds, rice pilaf, a salad with sliced persimmons from the tree outback. She’d prompt Alastair to read the poem with the “mellow fruitfulness” andtell him she was thinking of it while planting today. He might not notice Jonathan’sfunk. He might even abandon his study in favor of their watching a TVmovie together.She put on fresh make-up and chose a navy wool dress she often wore tochurch, not wanting to give the appearance of staging an evening, and went downto the kitchen. The light was beginning to drain from the patch of sky visiblefrom the window over the sink. After pounding the boneless chicken breasts vigorouslywith her new mallet, she dipped them into separate bowls of egg, flour,and a bread crumb-Parmesan mixture. An egg-slippery chicken breast slippedfrom her hand. She stooped to pick it up — it wouldn’t acquire germs in less thanfive seconds on the floor — hopeful that all her new efforts could narrow thewidening gulf in her marriage.Jonathan was still in his room when she finished prepping the chicken. He185

could stay there while she went to pick up Alex. The aspirin, along with an escapefrom the drumming that reverberated through the walls of the house, would helpthe incipient headache. The familiar rhythm stopped her for a moment beforelyrics popped into her head: Fire all your guns at once. Explode into space. Steppenwolf.Born to be Wild. He’d almost got it. She laughed, pleased her son wastaking up music of her generation. Music might be an even better way to unite thefamily than a new garden or gourmet dinners. Alastair wouldn’t relate to heavymetal thunder, but there was bound to be other music he and Jonathan could agreeon. He’d had piano lessons as a kid, so he should be able to do something withan electric keyboard. Tomorrow she’d check out available rentals, pick up someSeals and Crofts or Eagles sheet music. Maybe get Alex started on a sax. She’dalways wanted to play electric guitar, do a rendition of “Classical Gas.”“We’re not going to talk about school issues tonight,” she told Alex, thinkingabout “far away troubles” as she enjoyed the wistful sound of “Yesterday” playingon the car’s sixties pop station.During their brief courtship, Alastair had made light of his clerical side andhad surprised her with tickets to an outdoor concert that featured Beatles’ hits.She’d brought a picnic and they’d spread a blanket on the lawn, Alastair feedingher bites of roast chicken, between chaste kisses, as the band played “ I WannaHold Your Hand.” Even when George Harrison’s stand-in started in on “MySweet Lord,” Christ had not joined the party; to her relief, Alastair had left Himat home. Nothing against Christ, but He tended to push the conversation towardstopics like the poor inheriting the earth, which didn’t sit so well after a Ferragamoshopping spree.She opened the driver’s window, half hoping to catch the intoxicating scentof jasmine laced with pot that she recalled from the concert. Alastair had neverbeen as turned on as he had been that night when they’d later made love in theback of his Buick. The memory made her nostalgic for her high school pot-inducedescapades, evenings ripping around in the T-bird her dad had given her andthen taken away at the time he imposed a strict curfew and counseling sessions.In college, she’d exchanged drugs for a series of affairs, and not with anyonewhose dad was listed in Dun and Bradstreet.At one point, her father told her she’d sufficiently sullied her reputation thatno decent man would have her. If it hadn’t been for that remark, she might neverhave taken up with Alastair, although she didn’t want to believe she’d marriedhim just to prove her father wrong. Away from school and church, Alastair couldbe fun. His hysterical John Cleese and Robin Williams tapes. That one about thedefinition of golf. They’d died laughing listening to them together, before Godhad become a full time occupation and the Church, the other woman in her life,before they got into arguments over Jonathan. What he needed now was half ajoint before dinner. Could you put pot in chicken Milanese?Alex was full of tennis gossip. He’d had a good practice and his coach wasgoing to put him in the line-up for next week’s match with the neighboringelementary school. Great, she told him, fearful she was shortchanging the kidwho wasn’t having a problem and at the same time wondering how tonight’s dinnerwould unfold. Alex was invariably up when Jonathan was down, the familysomehow always out of equilibrium.186

As soon as they were through the front door, Alex turned on a sit-com, aforbidden activity until homework was completed. She didn’t stop him, unablesimultaneously to negotiate a gourmet dinner and an argument. Besides, she andAlastair had made the TV rule more for Jonathan than Alex; after dinner, Alexwould get down to his assignments without prompting.The crash of the hi-hats almost obliterated the clatter outside the study door,which occurred simultaneously with her draining the broccoli.“For God’s sakes. Do you have to leave stuff right in the middle of the path?”The dropped trowel and box of bulbs, the start of a birthday present, forgottenwhen she ran to get the phone … Alastair had tripped over them.“So sorry,” she said, running from the kitchen to open the study door. “Iwas gardening when the phone rang and I just dropped everything. Then it wastime to pick up the boys.” She brushed off the knees of his trousers, looked athis scraped hand; a bandage and a glass of wine might still salvage the evening,although the lines in his forehead suggested the rector position in the neighboringchurch had not been offered. “Dinner’s ready. I have a lovely sauvignon blanc.”“Where’s Jonathan? I understand there was quite a scene at school today.”“Could we just have dinner now?” Niki asked, wondering, if Wyona had keptquiet as promised, how he’d found out. “It’s been a trying afternoon.”“This is not going to wait.” He dropped his briefcase by the door. “I can’thave this sort of disruption at school. Jonathan?” He shouted up the stairs.“Alex,” he said, turning to his younger son. “You know the rules. No TV untilhomework is done.”Niki disappeared into the kitchen. The butter for the broccoli had browned inthe frying pan. Alex had turned off the TV, come into the kitchen, and opened thefridge door. Staring into its bowels, he announced he was famished.“Why is Jonathan not coming when he’s called?” Alastair asked.“What’s for dinner?” Alex watched Niki tip the colander of drained broccoliinto a new combination of butter and oil. “I hate broccoli.”“Ask him,” Niki answered Alastair, running the pan with the browned butterunder the faucet and wiping away the remaining scum. She turned to Alex. “Idon’t want to hear about it. Eat the chicken.”A package of sliced almonds that had been sitting on the counter a minuteago had magically disappeared. She poured a glass of sauvignon blanc andhanded it to Alastair.“I’m not in the mood for wine tonight. Jonathan?”“He probably can’t hear you while he’s playing.” For the first time she wasgrateful for the thumping that pulsated through the house. Get your motor running/Head out on the highway. Steppenwolf lyrics had taken over her brain. Thehighway in her old T-bird, top down. Preferable to the Bainbridge’s dining roomtonight.Alastair went upstairs and shouted through Jonathan’s door, “Stop thatblasted drumming and come downstairs at once.” By the time Niki served thechicken Milanese, he and Jonathan were standing by their chairs, Jonathan out ofschool uniform and into a Grateful Dead T-shirt and jeans.“This is undercooked,” Alastair said, after he cut into a breast.“Gee, Mom, are you trying to give us all salmonella?” Alex asked.Without a word, she took the plates into the kitchen and slid the chicken187

off when she was trying to get at the bottom of things.”So, there it was. Wyona had probably gone to the rector as well, the littlewitch.“How come there’s never anything good to eat around here?” Alex headedtowards the fridge again.“Why don’t you acknowledge he needs help? Dr. Tuttle tried to tell you.”Niki put her fork and knife down and looked at her husband directly.“Help? He needs a good canning.”“That seems rather excessive for a cover-up story to an embarrassing situation.”“An embarrassing situation? The whole school was in an uproar today.”“I thought only a handful of people knew.”“There were more than a handful of people at chapel this morning. It was thebishop’s visit.”“The bishop didn’t see Jonathan in the locker.”“No, he didn’t. What he saw was…” Alastair’s hands were shaking and hecouldn’t get the words out.“What?”“During Jerusalem, his favorite...”“Jerusalem?”“You know, the hymn set to the William Blake poem.”Her look said: “What on earth are you talking about?”Then he added, “Oh, of course, I shouldn’t expect you’d be familiar with theProphetic Books, given your reading habits. The third verse starts: Bring me mybow of burning gold. Bring me my arrows of desire. Bring me my spear, o cloudsunfold.” The words seemed to carry him away. His ruddy English complexionturned a deep plum. “And just at that point, when the music swells, these … thesec-condoms,” he stuttered, “came raining down on the congregation. Apparentlysomeone had fitted them over the organ pipes.”Niki, who had just taken a sip of her neglected wine, covered her face to containthe fluid that was emerging from her nostrils. Her panties suddenly felt a bitdamp. So that was the other incident at school Wyona hadn’t wanted to mention.Condoms exploding into space. Surely Jonathan wouldn’t have embarrassed hisfather that way.“At least it wasn’t Jonathan’s prank. He was in the locker during chapel.”“And where was he before chapel? What do you think he was doing lastweekend with that bicycle pump and those balloons in the garage?”A torrent of condoms was just the sort of thing Jonathan might think up.Could they have been forced up by the air in the organ or did he have some othercontraption in place? She’d have loved to have seen the expression on the facesof the rector and the bishop when the condoms started landing in the congregation.But of all days to pull such a stunt. Surely the children must have knownabout the bishop’s visit. Jonathan, however, wouldn’t have been aware of hisfather’s anticipated critical meeting.“The bishop left immediately after the service and the rector kept all themiddle school boys in the chapel for the morning,” Alastair continued. “They’dalready missed two classes and recess, when I returned. No one had confessed.And as long as they remain silent, none of them will have any privileges. No189

190recess. No after school sports. No school outings. That’s what your innocent sonhas imposed on his peers.”“My son?”“The one you refuse to discipline. Just wait ‘til I find him.”“Well then, you’d better hustle.” She nodded in the direction of the door, annoyedby the repeated reference to her son.“Where’s my windbreaker?”She’d worn it that afternoon and now couldn’t think what she’d done with it.She was relieved when he located it on the coat rack.“Better change your shoes,” she said, looking at Alastair’s churchy blackshoes. In the running department, he was no match for Jonathan.The door closed with a bang. Returning to the kitchen, she was scraping theuneaten chicken down the garbage disposal, when she heard a clatter: Alastair,no doubt, kicking the trowel and box of bulbs out of the way. Did he understandthat even if there had been no incident today, getting the new post was not necessarilya slam dunk, given that the bishop’s views seem to align with those of St.Tim’s rector who Alastair openly differed with? The archdeacon was a socialadvocate, while Alastair maintained Christ had come to offer redemption, not todo social work. And the rector had an evangelical bent Alastair didn’t share. Healso pushed for low-church austerity and Alastair occasionally went for “smellsand bells.” Despite these differences, Alastair would now always believe his son’sbehavior kept him from acquiring his own parish.Little white spots in her visual field pulsated with a new rhythm of the house.It took a few moments to recognize its source: Alex was trying out his brother’sdrum set.She switched on the outside light by the study door and found the trowel andoverturned box of bulbs. Gathering them up, along with her copy of Julia Child,she walked into the garage and dumped them on a shelf with discarded waterguns, skate boards, and an old badminton set she’d been meaning to take to thehospice gift shop. Hyacinths, what had she been thinking? A floral tourniquet fora bleeding family? Chicken Milanese? About as much of a sham as Jonathan’sIndian with the gray sweatshirt or Snoop Dogg T-Shirt, whichever it was.Back in the kitchen, she downed the dregs of her wine, contemplated alittle retail therapy, and shouted upstairs to Alex to quit the drumming. Then shefumbled for the address book in her purse, and left a message for Dr. Tuttle. Shewas just thinking about starting a movie to pass the time, when the garden dooropened to a sweating and out-of-breath Alastair.“Damn kid,” he said. “I don’t know where he’s off to.”“Why couldn’t you have just said, ‘I understand there was an incident todayin chapel while you were stuck in a locker? Would you like to tell me about it?’Instead you had to set him up, trap him, didn’t you?”A small muscle was twitching above his left eyebrow. The drumming resumed.“That does it. Those drums are history.”He started up the stairs. In a minute he was on his way down again, carryingthe bass drum.“I was done with my homework and I just wanted to try them,” Alex calledfrom the top of the stairs.

“You can’t take his drums, Alastair. Especially when you’re not positive hewas responsible for what happened in chapel. His band audition’s next week.Find some other privilege to take away.” Niki stood on the second from the bottomstair, blocking his passage.“I can and will take the drums. I don’t care if they were a present from yourfolks. It’s high time he had some meaningful consequences for his stupid behavior.”He was coming down the stairs quickly, beads of perspiration popping on hisforehead, Alex following on his heels.“Dad, Jonathan needs his drums.”Alex grabbed the back of his father’s belt. Alastair’s foot rolled over the edgeof the carpeted stair. As he tried to stop himself from falling into Niki, he releasedhis grip on the drum which catapulted over the banister, knocking into the Sèvresvase on the hall table. Niki, using the banister to brace herself against the weightof Alastair’s shoulder, saw the vase fall against the marble-topped table, shatteringinto several jagged pieces. The mail floated off in different directions and thepieces of the vase clattered to the floor, one piercing the skin of the drum as itrolled through the living room. For a moment, her eyes met Alastair’s and whatshe saw in them was not distress, but triumph.“Look what you’ve done! The two of you!” she shouted.“I didn’t mean to. Honest, I didn’t.” Alex was crying. “I can fix it with Krazyglue.”Alastair regained his balanced and moved past her.“I know you didn’t mean to,” Niki said to Alex, as she watched Alastairstoop to pick up first the large triangular piece with the head of the doe andthen a smaller fragment. He tried to fit them together. “But some things can’t bemended.”“I’m sorry,” Alastair said, turning the shard over in his hand as he limpedtowards his study, past the ruptured drum. He had probably twisted his anklewhen he fell into her. She felt no sympathy, hating him for the inadequacy of hisresponse.“Sorry about the vase or the drum?” she asked after him, picking up anotherpiece with the intact stag. The eye stared at her. The most beautiful art piece inthe house. How would she explain its absence to her parents?“This isn’t a problem for the theologians,” she called into the silent study.Slowly she collected the other pieces from the floor, as Alex made his wayquietly back up to his room. She’d get the two Alastair had picked up later. Perhapsthere was something that could be done with them. Not likely.She was holding the punctured drum en route to the garage, when Jonathanopened the door from the garden, looking a bit disheveled, but certainly lessfrazzled than Alastair had appeared ten minutes ago. Seeing her, he froze.“What are you doing with my bass drum? Jesus, what happened to it?”“It had a little accident. I’ll get it fixed in the morning. First we need to talk.”“You bitch,” he said. “What makes you think you can fix everything? Myaudition got moved to tomorrow.”“Jonathan, I ...” but he had turned on his heels and run back into the night.The b word stung. She’d been about to tell him to watch his mouth, but thenagain, he probably didn’t really mean it. But the fixing … she’d thought she191

could fix most things, although she had just told Alex there were some things thatcouldn’t be mended.Light was visible from underneath Alastair’s study door. Was he really readingor was he sitting there thinking about how the world had shortchanged him?She continued into the garage and climbed into her car, putting the drum on thepassenger seat, still clutching a shard. Being pinned behind the steering wheel feltlike being wrapped in a safe cocoon. Her own locker. A place to hide while all thecommotion was going on. Clever Jonathan. Still she could brain him.The broken piece of the vase was hurting her hand. The eye of the stag staredback at her. She began to concoct various stories she might tell her mother aboutwhat happened to the vase. The cat knocking it over was the best one, but the cathad disappeared two months ago. Everything she came up with was about as convincingas Jonathan’s Indian in the Snoop Dogg T-shirt. She stared at the battereddrum. Tomorrow she could get a new skin for it at the music store where she’dintended to check out the rentals, but suddenly she took the shard and cut aroundthe drum’s circumference, peeling back the torn skin. Getting out of the car, sheretrieved the remainder of the bulbs, the trowel, and the potting soil from thegarage shelf where she had placed them not ten minutes before. With the samezest she’d used to attack the hyacinth bed that afternoon, she scooped soil into thedrum, planted ten bulbs in the body, and arranged the shards like rocks in a Zengarden. Removing the weighty drum from the front seat, she waddled it over toAlastair’s study. His head was buried in a book when she opened the door.“Early birthday present,” she said, depositing the drum garden on the floor.The French carriage clock struck ten. Time to look for her boy.Lorraine Comanor is a graduate of Harvard University and StanfordUniversity Medical School. A board certified anesthesiologist and industryconsultant, she has authored or co-authored over thirty-five medical publications,including a book chapter. In a past life, she was also the U.S. figure skatingchampion and member of the U.S. world team. A memoir piece appeared lastyear in Skating Magazine. The Locker is her first short story and featurescharacters from the novel she is now finishing. This January she’ll complete herMFA in fiction at the Bennington Writing Seminars. Married with three children,she lives in Truckee, California.192

THE HONEYLOCUST TREEby Marc SimonWe pull up on Millerdale Street, and the first thing I notice, my Honeylocusttree is gone. There’s nothing but a flat stump. Now why wouldanyone take down a perfectly good tree without asking me first?The City of Pittsburgh planted that tree in our front yard 40 years ago when wemoved here from the apartment on Negley Avenue, after I had Randy, my secondboy. Randy and my oldest, James, played Tarzan of the Apes up in the branches,screaming like banshees. It’s a wonder they didn’t fall and break their headsopen. All us neighborhood ladies used to sit out on summer nights under that tree,talking about this, that and the other thing, slapping at our arms with flyswattersto keep the mosquitoes away.I pay the cab driver and wheel my little suitcase up the front walk. It’s quieton the street. My lawn looks green and neat. James or Randy must have come byto cut it. It’s been a rainy April. The crocuses came up good. My daffodils andtulips are ready to open.The front door is locked. Now that’s funny. In all the years I lived in this houseI never locked my door. No need to. All us neighbors looked out for each other.I put my key in the lock, but it doesn’t turn. It could be it’s the wrong key, theone for the apartment. I keep all my keys on a red elastic coil around my wrist. AtSunset Towers you need one key for your apartment, one for your mailbox andanother one for the storage locker. They all look the same, those keys. Anyonecould get confused.I try them all but nothing works. Arlene Lennon, my neighbor from across thestreet has an extra key to my house. She doesn’t work, so she’s home all day. Herhusband never let her drive a car. I don’t know why. I haven’t taken my car out ofthe garage since the boys moved me up to Sunset Towers. The battery is probablydead by now. My late husband Al always said run a car at least once a weekor the battery goes bad. It’s a good thing Al taught me to drive before he had hisheart attack; otherwise I couldn’t get around on my own. Taking a cab everywherewould cost an arm and a leg. It was fourteen dollars plus tip from SunsetTowers to here.I hope Arlene has some coffee on. Not that her coffee is any good—all shemakes is instant—but I could use a cup right now. I haven’t had one since early thismorning, after that mouse ran out of my cabinet. Could have been a rat, the size of it.I’m about to go to Arlene’s when my front door swings open. There’s a tallyoung woman with red hair standing there. She comes out on the porch and says,“Can I help you, ma’am?”This is a shock. I say, “What are you doing in my house?”193

“Your house?”“That’s what I said.”“Wait a minute, ma’am—are you lost or something?”“Lost? I’ve lived here for 40 years.”Al and I paid $17,500 for this house on the GI loan in 1949. We were marriedin 1946, after he came back from the war in Germany. Before that, I worked asa bookkeeper at the Edgar Thompson Steel Works for Mr. Walter T. Kelly from1941 to 1945. Al was the second boy I dated. He popped the question at RainbowGardens, a very nice dance hall in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. They tore it downyears ago. Al had a good job grinding eyeglass lenses for Shields Optical. I stillget his pension plus my Social Security.“Well I can tell you, you don’t live here now.”This woman claims says she bought the house three months ago. Which isridiculous. I didn’t sell it to her. Maybe my boys had a hand in this somehow.“Hold on a second,” I say, “I need to call my sons about this. Maybe I could borrowyour telephone.”“Your sons? Wait—what’s your name?”“Lila Gross. What’s yours?”“Maggie Wolfe.” She looks at me again, like somehow she knows me now.She says I can come in and use her phone. In the middle of my living roomthere’s a baby in a playpen. She’s a cute little thing, lying there so peaceful. Herhair is red. Both my boys had blonde hair until they were five, and it was so fineit pained me to get it cut, but Al said he didn’t want them looking like girls. Nowmy older boy James is almost as gray as I am. He’s the worrier of the two. Forsome reason, Randy shaves his head. I think he’s going bald and doesn’t wantanyone to know it, but I tell him, what’s the difference. You can’t fight nature.Over to the right is a dark wood desk with a stack of folders and a computer.“You must be doing some work.”She folds her arms across her chest. “So, you’re related to James and RandyGross.”“Of course I am, I’m their mother. You know them?”She smiles kind of sideways. “Yes, I know them. Listen, why don’t you justwait here a second, all right? I’ll get the cordless and you make your call.”James is my older boy. He’s 51 now, divorced, no children. His wife wasflighty and had a quick temper, but then James does, too, so I can’t put it all onher. Randy never did marry. Don’t ask me why. It pains me to think I’ll neverhave a sweet little grandchild like this one here.Besides the playpen, my living room is all changed around. There’s a sofa onone side and a matching loveseat on the other, with a stone and glass coffee tablein the middle. It has a pretty floral arrangement with purple and white Africanviolets around a philodendron. I have to keep artificial flowers in the apartmentbecause I don’t get enough light for real plants.I’m picking the dead leaves off the philodendron when Maggie comes backwith the telephone. She says, “Here, Mrs. Gross.”“Call me Lila. The only people that call me Mrs. Gross are my doctors. Youhave a trash can for these leaves?”“I’ll take them.” Her manicure is nice. Up at Sunset Towers they have a194

Russian woman that comes in twice a week to do nails. You can’t understand aword she says. She charges seven dollars, and that’s about all it’s worth, the wayshe slops on the polish. But you can’t complain to her since, as I say, she doesn’tspeak the language.“That’s a lovely wedding ring you have, Maggie.”“Uh, thanks.”“After my husband Al died, I just couldn’t wear my rings anymore. It didn’tfeel right. I had the engagement ring made into a diamond pendant.” I shouldhave packed it before I left. I look at my little suitcase and wonder what else Iforgot. I feel woozy all of a sudden.She leans toward me. “Are you all right?”“Oh yes, I’m fine.”She looks as if she doesn’t believe me. “Lila, why did you come here today?”“To tell you the truth, Maggie, I don’t have much use for Sunset Towers. That’sthe place my boys found for me. Just a lot of older people sitting around, trying tofigure out what to do with themselves. Half of them don’t understand what you sayto them. The other half is hard of hearing. They give you a nametag to wear. As ifyou don’t know your own name. I don’t know where mine is but I never wore itanyway. It wasn’t my idea to move up there, but when I fell down the basementstairs James told me I was too old to be running up and down the steps all day.“Anyway, this morning, I was getting a box of corn flakes when a mouse ran outof the cabinet. It could have been a rat, the size of it. It went right for my bad ankle. Ican still feel its fur rubbing against my skin. Then it shot into my bedroom.”“Did you call maintenance?”“What can they do? Anyway, I had to get out of there after that. You’re supposedto sign out, but I didn’t tell anybody I was leaving, not even Sally Jessowitz.She would blab it all over the place. I’m not saying she isn’t nice, but sometimeswith her you can’t get a word in edgewise. You know how some people goon and on.” Maggie laughs for a second. “Did I say something funny?”“Yes. I mean no.”“Of course, there’s no rats in this house. The basement is dry as a bone. I keepthe boys’ school papers and family photo albums down there. I could show yousome pictures.” I start for the kitchen.Maggie says, “Lila, hold on a minute. You need to call your sons.”“I want to show you those pictures.”You have to go through the dining room and kitchen to get to the basement. Istop at the top of the stairs. “I must have been up and down these steps a milliontimes. I don’t know how I fell. I was carrying a basket of whites and the nextthing I know, I was flat on my back at the bottom.”Maggie says, “You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”I touch her arm. “That’s just what my boys said. My ankle got twisted upunder me. They kept me in the hospital for four days. Four days for a twistedankle? I said wrap it up and let me be on my way, but they had to do their tests.They even took some kind of X-ray of my head. Now why would they do that? Ifell on my ankle.”We’re halfway down the steps. Maggie’s got a hold of my elbow. She says,“There’s that dripping noise again. It drives me crazy.”“That? Come on, I’ll show you.” Behind the furnace there’s a plastic bucket195

196that hangs off the drain valve. It’s ready to spill over. I explain to her that youhave to empty the overflow every week, or else you’ll get water on the floor.She looks surprised. “I didn’t even know it was there.”“Also, it’s time to change the batteries in the smoke detectors. I do it everyApril when it’s Daylight Savings Time, so I don’t forget. My husband Al used totake care of all this.”“Mine, too.”“What? Did something happen to him?”She frowns. “You could say that.”“He didn’t have a heart attack, did he?”“The bastard walked out on me a month before Nora was born.”You could have knocked me over with a feather.“He left me, just like that, in the middle of the night, without a word or a noteor anything.”I say, “You poor girl.”She takes some clothes out of the washer and puts them in the dryer. “Wewere together for eight years, married for five. We hardly ever fought. Thatshould have been a clue. But I thought everything was fine, you know? If someonehad said to me, ‘Maggie, are you happy?’ I would have said, ‘Well, yeah,sure.’ Stupid girl.“So a couple of years ago, we decide to have a baby and then buy a house,live like real adults, and everything is hectic and scary and exhausting, but sweet,too, and I thought, we can really do this, but now it’s all turned to shit.”“Don’t say that, Maggie.”“What the hell did I ever do to deserve this? I’m not a shrew. I’m not a bitch.I’m nice, goddamn it. Nice. Maybe that’s my problem. But you know what the worstpart is? Sometimes at night, I miss him so much I ache all over. It pisses me off, butI can’t help it.” She looks at me. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”“It’s all right. It’s good to get it off your chest.” I give her a hug, and she hugs meback. We stand there with our arms around each other. It makes me wish I had had adaughter like her. After a few seconds we let go. I think she’s a little embarrassed.We’re back in the kitchen when the baby starts crying and the phone startsringing all at once. She runs into the living room. I hear her say, “Maggie Wolfe… Arthur, how are you? Listen, can I put you on hold for one second?” Then sheyells, “Lila, could you come in here, please?”I head back into the living room as fast as my bad ankle will let me. Thebaby’s bawling her eyes out. She could be hungry or wet, or both, even. Maggiehoists her up on her hip. She says, “Can you mind her a minute?”It’s been a long time since I held a baby, but she fits right in the crook of myarm, as if she were meant to be there. She has the bluest eyes. I know peoplealways say that, but she does. I could look into a baby’s eyes forever. I rock hersoftly and say, “Hi, little Nora, I’m your Aunt Lila.” Right away she calms down.Maggie looks at her computer and says, “No, I’m fine, Arthur. Thanks forholding. Listen, I need the cost basis for that Class A Enterprise Fund you soldlast year ... cost basis … it’s O.K., your advisor will know … yes, ASAP …thanks, you too.” She takes the baby. My arm feels warm where I held her, butI know it won’t last. “Look, Lila, you can see I have my hands full right now. Ineed you to call one of your boys to take you home.”

I say, “But I am home.”“But you’re not.” She points all around her. “ Look, I’m sorry, but you don’town this house anymore. Do you understand? Your sons sold it to me on yourbehalf. They have power of attorney.”She’s wrong there. “Attorney? I don’t know what you mean by that. Jamesis a high school teacher and Randy fixes cars. He owns his own garage. He takescare of mine for me. I don’t know if it will start. The battery may be dead.”“Lila, what I’m telling you is, they sold your house to me, in your name.”“They can do that without asking me?”“They must have explained this to you.”I remember the day the boys moved me up to Sunset Towers. They got thefurniture set up in half an hour. The place is so small, there are only so manyways you can arrange it. They told me how much I was going to enjoy it there. Isaid to them, well exactly what I am supposed to do with myself all day. Randysaid something about arts and crafts and shopping trips, and James said that Ishould just relax and enjoy life now, and that they would take care of the house. Ithought they meant they’d mow the lawn and such.Maggie tugs my arm and says, “Lila?”“I thought the reason they got me that apartment up there was just becauseI hurt my ankle falling down the steps, that it was just a place to stay until I gotbetter, not for good.”“You understand now?”I look out the front window. “You never did tell me what happened to myHoneylocust tree. The city planted it for us.”“We had to have it taken down. It was rotting from the inside.”“Is that right? Funny, I never noticed. I guess I’m getting old. But if had tobe done, it had to be done. I wouldn’t want the tree to suffer.” I get a little teary.“Look, Maggie, I don’t mind if you and the baby live here. You take the masterbedroom. I could take the spare, or if you don’t want me going up and down thestairs, I’ll sleep on the pullout sofa.”“Lila.”“It’s a queen size. The sheets are in the linen closet. Does the baby sleepthrough the night yet? It won’t bother me to get up to feed her, I’m a light sleeper.Unless you’re nursing.”She looks away, and for a second I think she’s getting mad at me. But thenshe puts her arm around my shoulders and kisses me on my cheek. Her voice is alittle shaky when holds out the telephone. “Call your sons.”I feel shaky, too. I need some air. I get up and go out the front door, pullingmy suitcase behind me. It looks like rain. I wonder where that cab is.Marc Simon’s short fiction has appeared in several literary magazines,including The Wilderness House Review, The Shine, Flashquake and PoeticaMagazine. His first novel, The Leap Year Boy will be published this December,and his one-act play, Sex After Death is a winner in the Naples Players ReadersTheater new plays competition and will be staged in December as well.197

DON’T LET THE STARSGET IN YOUR EYES(Novel excerpt, from American Jukebox)by Len JoyPROLOGUENovember 1934 — five miles north of Maple Springs, MissouriDancer’s first memory is of the fire. There is a frost on the ground and thecold seeps into his bare feet as he stands by the water pump between thehay barn and the farmhouse. Flames peek from the upstairs bedroom windowsand tease the edges of the roof. His eyes sting. Neighbors from the nearbyfarms have rushed to help. Dancer’s mother works the pump and the water gushesinto the milking pails, which are handed from one woman to another down the lineto their men who swarm over the burning house.His father Walter runs across the top of the front porch roof and empties hisbuckets through the window. The flames hiss and retreat, but then snap back again.He jumps down and grabs two more pails. A ladder is propped against the porch,and Walter, with a bucket in each hand, races up the ladder like it’s a staircase andhurls more water on the flames. Over and over again he runs from pump to porchto roof and back while Dancer waits for him to put out the fire. His father can hoistseventy pound bales of hay with one arm. He can fix any piece of equipment evermade. He can do anything.The flames reach the roof. When the embers leap from the farmhouse to thebarn, his mother stops pumping. She walks over and picks up Dancer. Her cheeksare shiny with tears.Two of the men grab Walter as he tries to climb the ladder one more time.The roof collapses and then the feed silo ignites and the barn explodes. The flamesmake spooky shadows on his dad’s sweaty, soot-streaked face.Most people remembered Dancer’s father as a whiskey-runner. As the manwho could outdrive any revenue agent in southeast Missouri or Arkansas. But thatwasn’t who he was. That’s just what he became.Summer 1939 (five years later)For a while it was an adventure. Walter Stonemason hired on with Cecil Danforth,delivering his moonshine all over Missouri and Arkansas. The family lived198

in a shack close by Cecil’s whiskey-making operation. Cecil lived out of his truckand whenever he moved the still — which he did every few months so the revenueagents couldn’t find it — the family moved too. Some of the places were betterthan others. Up north in the hills around Salem they had a real cabin with a woodfloor and a bedroom for Dancer’s parents. But mostly it was one-room tarpapershacks with dirt floors.With all the uprooting it was hard to make friends and after a time Dancerstopped trying. During the summer when folks were extra thirsty, his father was onthe road six days out of seven and his mom worked in town cleaning houses. Formost of those long summer days, it was just Cecil and Dancer. Dancer spent hoursbouncing a rubber ball against the cinderblock wall that protected Cecil’s still.Cecil Danforth was an ugly whip of a man — gray and grizzled and twistedlike a dog’s chew strip. His overalls were grease-shiny and his hair long and matted.He only shaved when he bathed, so once his beard got heavy, Dancer kept hisdistance. That set fine with Cecil – he wasn’t much for kids. But one hot summerday after he got his batch percolating he came out from behind the wall, hunkereddown on a hickory stump with his corncob pipe and watched as Dancer hurled hisrubber ball against the cinderblocks.“You got yourself a good arm,” Cecil said. “How old are you, boy?”“Eight,” Dancer said. On the next toss he tried to throw extra hard and the ballbounced wildly off the wall and almost hit Cecil perched on his stump.“Hey, you got to get control. Make that ball go where you’re aiming, just likeDizzy Dean. Did I ever tell you about the time I saw him pitch?”“No sir,” Dancer said.“Cards were playing the Cubs,” Cecil said. “That son of a bitch Stan Hack slidhard into second base, spikes high. Took a big slice out of our boy, Leo Durocher.Let me tell you, that didn’t set right with Mr. Dizzy Dean.”“Was Leo hurt?” Dancer asked.Cecil spit a fleck of ash off his tongue. “Nah, old Leo’s tough as a walnut tree.But that didn’t matter, none. Baseball team’s a family, just like your old man andall those other boys out there running my whiskey are part of my family. Dizzylooked out for Leo just like I look out for them.”“What did he do?”Cecil sucked hard on his corncob pipe. “Next time Stan Hack came to theplate, Dizzy planted his fastball right in Stan’s wallet.” He cackled at the memory.“You should have seen the look on Hack’s face. Goddamn that was sweet.” Cecilstood up and headed back to his still. “Yes sir. Dizzy knew how to play the game.”All that summer Cecil captivated Dancer with his baseball stories. Baseballwas more than a game. A baseball team was a family. A baseball player was neverlonely. He always had his teammates and everyone looked out for each other. Thatwas part of the code they lived by. And the pitcher, more than any other player,protected the team. Dancer wanted to be like Dizzy Dean. He reckoned that beinga pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals might just be the best job in the whole world.When Cecil wasn’t recounting some baseball story, he’d talk about Walter andhis hard-driving exploits. Walt was his clean-up batter. Walt always came throughin the clutch. Walt knew all the backroads and could outrun anyone. Walt was likea son to him.Cecil Danforth was full of talk about loyalty and honor and family. But in the199

winter of 1945 when Dancer’s father got caught by a revenue agent in Fort Smith,Cecil’s notion of family changed. They were holding Walt in the county jail, butthe local sheriff offered to release him on “bail” for five hundred dollars. Dancerand his mom called on Cecil for help.“Five hundred dollars?” Cecil said, his face all scrunched up like it had beenthat day Dancer dropped one of his cases of whiskey. “Can’t do that. Got everythingtied up in inventory.” He turned away from them to toss another log on hisfire.“What are we supposed to do, Cecil?” Dancer’s mother asked, spitting thewords at him.Cecil shrugged. “It’s his first pinch. They’ll go easy on him,” he said.But Cecil was wrong.CHAPTER 1September 5, 1953Dancer Stonemason drove through Maple Springs headed for Rolla. Hisleft-hand rested gentle on the steering wheel and in his pitching hand he held abaseball — loose and easy — like he was shooting craps. The ball took the edgeoff the queasy feeling he always got on game day. His son Clayton sat beside himand made sputtering engine noises as he gripped an imaginary steering wheel,while Dede just stared out the window with other things on her mind. Dancerturned down Main Street, past the Tastee-Freeze and Dabney’s Esso Station andthe Post Office and the First National Bank of Maple Springs and Crutchfield’sGeneral Store and then, at the outskirts of town, the colored Baptist Church withits neatly-tended grid of white crosses and gravestones under a gnarled willow.The graveyard reminded him of the cemetery up north near Chillicothe where hismother was buried with the rest of the Dancer clan. She had died in the flu epidemicof ’47, while Walt was away in prison. Across from the Baptists, A-1 AutoParts blanketed the landscape with acres and acres of junked automobiles. Hisdad’s Buick was out there somewhere.They turned north onto Highway 60 and the ’39 Chevy coughed and buckedas he shifted into third. The Chevy had been his father’s car, but when Walt Stonemasonwas released in the spring of ’50, Cecil Danforth gave him a new BuickRoadmaster as a welcome home gift. It had more whiskey-hauling capacity thanthe Chevy so Cecil probably figured it was a good investment. Dancer had pleadedwith his father not to go back to Cecil, but Walt didn’t reckon he had any betteroptions. With his wife gone, he didn’t care much about anything. Six months afterhe got out, on an icy October evening with the highway patrol in hot pursuit, helost control of the Roadmaster and ran it into a hickory tree, killing himself.As he cruised north on Highway 60, Dancer’s fingers glided over the smoothcowhide as he read the seams and adjusted his grip from fastball to curveballto changeup. He had a hand built for pitching — a pancake-size palm and long,tapered fingers that hid the ball from the batter for that extra heartbeat. It was theSaturday before Labor Day and Dancer’s team, the Rolla Rebels, was hosting theJoplin Miners. Rolla was only an hour’s drive from Maple Springs, but Dancer200

had his family on the road early. This was going to be a special game. Not forhis team — the Rebels were in third place going nowhere — but today would beClayton’s first baseball game. The first time he’d see his dad pitch.The hot-towel Missouri heat, which had suffocated them through July andAugust, had finally retreated to Arkansas. A few puffy clouds dotted the sky andthe air was light and fresh. Dede’s head lolled backwards, her eyes closed as shelet the cool wind from the open window billow her white cotton dress. She onlywore that dress to church and special occasions. It didn’t get much use.Her short blonde hair, which wrapped around her ears and curled down thenape of her neck, was still damp from her morning escapade. While Dancer wastrying to shave, Dede had slid open the shower curtain, fogging up his mirror. Herhands were draped over the top of the shower head as the hot spray pelted herbreasts. “Soap me, honey. Do my back.” She wiggled her ass.”You’re getting water on the floor,” Dancer said.She looked over her shoulder at him. “You know if I squint really hard, withall this fog you look just like Gary Cooper.”“He’s taller. Close the curtain.”She grabbed a washcloth off the shower curtain rod and turned to face Dancer.She slowly rubbed the cloth down her belly and over her pubes. “Come on, Coop,do my back.” Water was pooling on the floor.Dancer had set down his razor and stepped over to the tub. “Turn around. Putyour hands on the wall.”“Anything you say, sheriff.”He took the washcloth and soaped her back and her little butt. As he broughthis hand up between her legs she reached around and slipped her hand into hisboxer shorts.“Come on in, the water’s fine,” she said.Dancer had managed to resist. Dede knew he couldn’t fool around on gameday, but she didn’t care. She could never get enough and now they had a problem.They’d started dating when Dancer was a senior. Even though she was twoyears younger than him, she had been the one to make the first move. He’d neverbeen with another girl, but Dede made it easy. She seemed to know too much for afifteen year old.Traffic was light and Dancer had the Chevy cruising along at close to sixty.Beside him, Clayton pressed his foot down on a phantom gas pedal and hissputtering engine revved into a high-pitched whine. He drove hard just like hiswhiskey-running grandfather and he looked like him too. The wheat-colored hairand the dirt tan and the perpetual motion energy — neither Walter nor Claytoncould ever sit still for an entire meal.Dancer glanced over at Dede. She had a crooked mouth and a gap between hertwo front teeth that he hadn’t noticed when they first met because of her eyes. Hereyes were big and wild and crazy-blue and when she looked at him he was lucky ifhe could remember his own name.And now with her face half-covered by her wind-tossed hair she looked soinnocent. She didn’t look like she was two months pregnant. Her belly was stillflat and her breasts hadn’t swelled, not like they had when Clayton was on his way.Maybe the doctor was wrong.After Clayton was born, Dancer had found an offseason job at the Caterpil-201

lar plant – parts inspector – dollar an hour and boring as hell. He wasn’t cut outfor factory work, but they needed the money. When they moved him up to Rolla,the pay was better and he thought he’d get out of the factory, but Dede fell in lovewith the red brick house on the hill east of town, so they bought it and then he hada wife and a baby and a house and a mortgage and another offseason back in thefactory inspecting parts. And now with a new baby on the way, he’d have to workovertime just for them to survive.Dancer reached over and tugged down on the brim of the Cardinals baseballcap he’d given Clayton. It was several sizes too big and Dede had bobby-pinnedthe back so it wouldn’t fall off.“Hey, Dad, don’t do that.” Clayton pushed the brim back up, and then yankedhis imaginary steering wheel hard to the right, while making a throaty, garglingsound. He buried his face in his mom’s lap.“What happened?” Dancer asked.“Crashed. I couldn’t see,” Clayton said.Dede ruffled his hair. “Oh no. You won’t get to watch Daddy pitch.”Clayton shot back up in his seat. “Daddy’s going to strike them all out, aren’tyou, Dad?”“Your daddy can’t strike everyone out. He’s not Superman,” Dede said. Shewinked at Dancer.Dancer squeezed the ball into Clayton’s small hands. “I’m going to try.”Dancer walked through the parking lot to the centerfield gate where all theplayers entered the stadium. On the warning track that ringed the outfield, Mr.Seymour Crutchfield, the owner of the Rebels, stood with his hands claspedbehind his back listening to his son-in-law, Doc Evans, the manager of the Rebels.Doc had that look men get when they’re trying to explain something to an importantperson like a boss or a father-in-law and that important person doesn’t get it.Mr. Seymour Crutchfield, wearing the black wool suit and bow-tie he was bornin, looked like an undertaker who’s been told the family doesn’t want the deluxeeternity package.As Dancer crossed the track and headed toward the infield, Doc Evans signaledfor him to come over. Mr. Seymour Crutchfield nodded sternly as Dancerapproached the men. “Morning, Mr. Crutchfield,” Dancer said. He turned to Docand waited.“Stop in my office before you go out for warm-ups, son,” Doc said.The locker room was a concrete bunker under Crutchfield Stadium that evenon the hottest days was cool and damp and smelled of liniment and sweat andmildew and Doc’s cigars. The only player who had arrived before Dancer wasRon Bilko, who sat on the bench next to the row of banged-up metal lockers thatlined the front wall. Bilko was in his underwear, eating a hot dog and studying acrumpled issue of The Sporting News like it was a foreclosure notice. Next to himon the bench was a cardboard tray with a half-dozen more hot dogs.“What’s the problem, Ronny? Someone take away your homerun title?”Dancer asked as he opened the locker next to Bilko.Bilko shook his head. “Hell no. Still leading the goddamn league.”“So why you look like your dog died?”202

Bilko smacked the paper down on the bench. “Goddamn Enos Slaughter,” hesaid. He grabbed another hot dog.Enos Slaughter was the right fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. The one manstanding between Bilko and the major leagues. Last few months a man couldn’thave a conversation with Ronny without Goddamn Enos Slaughter joining them.“Slaughter? He’s not still playing is he?” Dancer said, pretending like that wasa serious question. Dancer and Bilko were the top minor league prospects in theCardinals organization. At the end of the season, most of the major league clubshad started to bring up their promising young players to give the veterans a restand check out the prospects. But the Cardinals’ skipper, Eddy Stanky, didn’t wanta player if he didn’t have a spot for him. The Cardinals had an all-star outfield ledby Stan Musial and Slaughter and a rock-solid corps of pitchers that never seemedto get injured. There was no place for Bilko or Stonemason.Bilko showed Dancer the stat box for the Cardinals. “Look at that. That oldman’s batting .294. Thirty-seven goddamn years old. SOB ain’t ever going toretire.”Dancer flipped the paper over to the minor league stats. “Hey. Siebern’s gottwenty-seven homeruns — only three behind you. He could hit that many today.”Norm Siebern was a power-hitting lefty for the Joplin Miners. Twice this yearSiebern had smashed Dancer’s fastball out of the park.Bilko picked up another hot dog. “I ain’t worried. No son-of-a-bitch going tohit three homeruns off Dancer Stonemason.”“Glad you’re so confident.”“…’cause after the second homerun you’ll plant your fastball right betweenhis numbers. Give that son-of-a-bitch a decimal point.”“Good idea, Ronny.”Bilko winked. “Have a hot dog, Dancer. Put some meat on those bones.”Bilko pushed the tray towards Dancer. “Dede coming today?” he asked.“Already here. We brought Clayton. He’s never seen me pitch.”“You’re a lucky man, Dancer. Got a good woman and a boy who looks up toyou. Ain’t nothing better than that.”“Dede says we’re going to have another one.”“Another kid?” Bilko jumped up and thumped Dancer on the back. “GoddamnDancer that’s great. When’s she due?”Dancer pulled his uniform out of his equipment bag. The Rebels wore a graypullover wool jersey with two rows of decorative buttons running down the front.It was supposed to look like a Confederate officer’s longcoat. When Doc had takenover as skipper he had the Stars and Bars taken off the back of the jersey. That hadpissed off some of the boys, but Dancer didn’t mind. It was hot enough pitchingin those wool uniforms without having a Confederate flag plastered on his back.“March or April, I guess. Probably right in the middle of spring training.”“Well this time make sure you get her to the hospital so you don’t screw upthe date.”Dancer was playing in a day-night doubleheader the day De de went intolabor. Waiting for Dancer to return, she delayed too long and had to get help fromthe midwife who lived down the road. Clayton was born at home just beforemidnight on August 30. It was a difficult delivery and when Dancer got home anhour later he rushed Dede and their new baby to the hospital. He told the admitting203

nurse that Clayton had just been born and she put down the 31st as the birthdate.Later they tried to correct the error, but the hospital wanted an affidavit from themidwife and it didn’t seem to be worth the hassle. Clayton’s official birthdayremained August 31, 1949.“Nearly went broke paying the hospital bills last time. Don’t know how we’regoing to pay for this next one.” Dancer grabbed a hot dog and stuffed it in hismouth. “And that boy eats like a horse,” he said. “Hard to get by on meal moneyand eighty bucks a week.”Bilko put his hands on Dancer’s shoulder. “Major league pay, that’s how. Ihear the Cardinals get ten dollars a day just for meals. When I play for the CardsI’m going to have a t-bone every night.”The locker room door flew open and Billy Pardue stuck his head in. “What thehell you doing, Dancer? Stop playing pattycake with Old McDonald and get yourass out here. We got work to do.”The Rebel players were either young hotshots like Dancer and Bilko or agingveterans on their way down and just trying to hang on for a few more years.Billy Pardue was one of those guys on the way down. But he’d had his day. Notonly made it to the big leagues, he got to play in the fifth game of the 1943 WorldSeries — Cards versus the Yankees.Billy had forgotten more baseball than most players ever learned. And he’dshared it all with Dancer. Even showed him how to throw a tobaccy-spit pitch.That specialty required the pitcher to glob the ball up with juice. When thrownproperly, the ball would squirt out of the pitcher’s hand and waggle its way to theplate like a leaf in a windstorm. It was, in Billy’s words, “a fucking unhittablepitch.” But Dancer couldn’t stomach tobacco-chewing and besides he figured withhis fastball he didn’t need to cheat. Not too much anyway.Dancer tied the laces of his spikes and pulled on his gray Rebel cap, whichhadn’t set right since he got a GI-style crewcut last month. He took off the cap andrubbed his hand over his bristly head as he checked himself out in Bilko’s crackedmirror. The sun had turned his light-brown hair almost blond.“You’re pretty enough, sweetheart,” Billy said. “Get out here so we can goover the line-up.”“I’ll be right there, Billy. Doc wants to see me first.”Billy spit his tobacco juice in Dancer’s direction. “Doc ain’t going to be theone out there on the mound when the shit hits the fan. Make it short.” He spitagain and slammed the door.Doc was in his office, feet propped on his desk, reading the New York Times.Before every game he studied that Yankee paper like it was the Bible or The SportingNews. Doc was from someplace back east.He knew his baseball, but he was skipper because he’d married Mr. SeymourCrutchfield’s wall-eyed daughter, Melissa. He wasn’t really a Doc either, but hewore wire-rim glasses and his gray hair was always brylcreemed real slick. Whatwith the glasses and the gray hair and the newspaper-reading and the rich wife, heseemed a whole lot smarter than the rest of the boys, so they all called him Doc.He’d been a pretty fair shortstop before the war. Had an invitation to springtraining with the Tigers back in forty-two, but enlisted instead. He was part of the45th Infantry Division that landed in Sicily in July ‘43. Got his right arm shot to204

hell, just outside Salerno. That was it for his baseball career. There wasn’t muchdemand for left-handed shortstops.Doc motioned for Dancer to take the seat, and then kept reading the paper,like he’d forgotten about him. Dancer tried not to fidget. Billy would be pissed ifhe didn’t get out there while the Miners were taking batting practice. Finally Docfolded up the paper and placed it on his desk.“I don’t know what this world’s coming to, son.”“Yes sir.”“Eisenhower’s a damn fool to settle for a tie in Korea. Truman would havenever let that happen.”“No sir.”“And now look at this. Russians just exploded an H bomb.” He poked hisfinger at the headline.“Yes sir.”“The world’s a dangerous place.” He shook his head. “Do you have children,son?”“Yes sir. My boy Clayton just turned four and we got another one on the way.”Doc took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You aren’tCatholic are you?”“No sir. My mama was a Baptist. Dad wasn’t much of anything. They bothpassed, sir.”Doc gave a sympathy nod. “How you going to feed a family of four on whatwe’re paying you?”“Well, I was kind of hoping…” Dancer caught himself. Doc wouldn’t thinkhoping was any kind of plan.“You’re planning to make it to the big leagues, right? Get that major leaguepaycheck. That boy Mickey Mantle just signed a new contract — seventeen thousandfive hundred dollars. That’s a lot of beans.”“Goddamn Yankees.”“I just got off the phone with Mr. Stanky. Haddix has a sore arm and he’sthinking about shutting him down. Cards ain’t going anywhere. So...”Doc pulled out a cigar, sniffed it up and down and bit off the end. Dancercrept to the edge of his chair. Doc could spend ten minutes farting around with hisgoddamn cigars.“So…?” Dancer asked his voice breaking.“They might need you for the Labor Day doubleheader Monday.”Dancer jumped up. “Holy shit! The Cardinals!” His spikes almost slipped outfrom under him and he had to grab Doc’s desk to keep from falling.“Try not to kill yourself before you get there, son.”Dancer sat back in his seat. “But I’m still pitching today, right? My boy’s outthere. He’s counting on me.”Walt had always been on the road when Dancer was little. And then just asDancer was about to enter high school, he went to prison. Dancer had hoped thatafter he got out they would have time to build something, but it never happened.His father never even saw him pitch. Dancer wasn’t going to let that happen withClayton.Doc cocked his head to one side. “I can’t send you up to St. Louis with yourarm dragging around your ankles. Mr. Stanky would rip me a new asshole.” He205

puffed harder on the cigar. “Tell you what. You can go three innings. That’ll keepyou fresh enough so you can still pitch in two days if Stanky needs you.”The Joplin Miners were still taking batting practice when Dancer joined Billyin the dugout. Billy pointed to the umpire out by home plate, Lester Froehlich,who in the offseason was Fish & Game Warden for Howell County.“Asshole fined me twenty bucks for poaching last year. Got my deer onefucking day before the season.” Billy leaned over and spit. “Here’s the deal onFroehlich. He’s got a low strike zone. He’ll give you a pitch down by the ankles,but anything above the waist he’s calling a ball. So keep the goddamn ball low.”After he finished on Froehlich, Billy started on the lineup, reminding Dancerwhere he wanted him to pitch each batter. Dancer wasn’t paying attention — hewas far away, trying on his new uniform with those two red Cardinals perched onthe baseball bat. The same uniform Dizzy Dean had worn.Billy backhanded Dancer’s hat off his head.“Listen, boy. I know you got the call. You earned it and you’re going to beaces. But right now we got a game to play. You want to stay up in the Bigs, rememberthis — respect the goddamn game. Play every game like it’s your last.”“I’ll always respect the game, Billy.”“I know, kid.” He picked up Dancer’s hat and put it back on his head. “Holyshit.” Billy pointed to a new batter, who had just hit a ball off the CrutchfieldGeneral Store billboard behind the centerfield fence. “That’s Connie Ryan. Playedagainst him back in forty-seven when he was with the Redlegs. Didn’t know hegot sent down.”Ryan knocked the next two pitches over the left field fence. “We need a biggerballpark,” Dancer said.“Don’t sweat him, kid. He’s a swinger. Keep it out of the zone, we’ll get himto chase. Just keep your head in the game.”While they sang the national anthem, Dancer scanned the crowd and foundDede and Clayton in the third row behind first base. He got a warm feeling thinkingabout Dede’s morning shower. He was half-sorry he’d passed up the opportunity.But tonight they’d have a good time especially after he gave her the news.The St. Louis Cardinals. Next year he’d make five grand, maybe more. Next yearthey could afford all these kids. Next year their lives would be different.As Dancer trotted to the pitcher’s mound there was an easy buzz to the crowd,as though the fresh-scrubbed families from Maple Springs and the gang fromPaddy’s Lounge and the hillbillies from Cabool and the Klansmen from MountainView had all been blended together into one big happy family all out to enjoy thelast weekend of the summer. The afternoon sky was a great-to-be-alive blue andthe air had a trace of autumn crispness. It was warm enough to work up a sweat,but not so hot that Dancer would be worn out after three innings.It was a goddamn perfect day.Dancer nestled the baseball in his glove as Billy signaled for a fastball. Hegripped the ball across the seams, torqued his body so he was almost facing secondbase and then whip-cracked his right arm toward the plate. The ball exploded intoBilly’s glove for a called strike. He struck out the first two batters on six pitches.206

The third batter was Connie Ryan. Billy made a target wide off the plate and gavehim a thumbs up meaning he wanted the ball high. The pitch was chin-level andRyan swung and missed. The next two pitches were even higher and he missedthose too. Nine pitches — three strikeouts.In the bottom of the first, with two men on, Bilko hit his thirty-first homerunof the year. Dancer greeted him as he returned to the dugout. “Thanks for the lead,Ronny. I promise not to let Norm hit more than three today.” A safe promise withSiebern on the bench nursing a sore hamstring.Dancer cruised through the second and third innings without a ball hit out ofthe infield. He was in a groove — his fastball overpowering, his curveball bucklingthe batters’ knees. As he jogged toward the dugout at the end of the third inninghe spotted Clayton jumping up and down on his seat waving his cap. Dancerhad only thrown forty pitches. A couple more innings wouldn’t tire him out.Doc greeted him as he returned to the dugout. “Nice work, son. Bullpen cantake it from here.”“Don’t take me out, Doc. I haven’t even broke a sweat. I got plenty left.”Doc shook his head and walked over to where Billy was taking off his shinguards. Billy nodded, then trudged over and sat down next to Dancer. “You donegreat, Dancer. Let someone else finish the job.”“Got a perfect game going, Billy.” A perfect game — no hits, no walks, no errors– was something special. A baseball player couldn’t walk away from a perfectgame. That wouldn’t be respecting the game.Billy stared down at his shoes and spit. “I know.”“Don’t seem right to quit now. Gotta try, don’t I?”Billy put his gnarled hand on Dancer’s knee. “Okay, Dancer.” He walked overto Doc and whispered in his ear.Doc stood up and pointed his finger at Dancer. “As soon as they get a hit, I’mpulling you out.”Bilko hit another homerun in the third to give the Rebels a five run lead. WhenConnie Ryan came up again in the fourth inning, Dancer waved off Billy’s sign fora curveball and Ryan hit his fastball even farther than the balls he had hit in battingpractice. It was just foul. Billy raced to the mound and told Dancer if he hadany fondness for his teeth, he best not shake off any more of Billy’s signs. Dancerdidn’t think he was joking about the teeth. Billy called for a curveball and Ryanpopped it up for the third out.By the fifth inning his fastball had lost its pop and there was a hot spot onhis index finger that burned whenever he threw the breaking ball. But somehowDancer kept getting them out. When he took a seat on the bench after the sixth inninghe was all alone. Nobody dared talk to him.Doc just stared at his feet, shaking his head and mumbling. Didn’t even smokehis cigar. Doc couldn’t take him out with a perfect game on the line. And Dancerwould still be able to pitch on Monday. Three days rest was for old men. Dancerwas young and strong. He’d be ready, no matter what.The first two batters in the seventh worked full counts — Froehlich wasn’tcalling anything above the belt a strike — but Dancer got them both to fly out.Connie Ryan was up again.207

Billy Pardue called for a curveball and Ryan again smashed it over the leftfield fence, but just to the left of the foul pole. The crowd breathed a sigh of relief.Billy called for a changeup and Ryan hit a bullet over the first basemen’s head.Dancer scuffed the mound in disgust, but Froehlich signaled foul. Billy calledtime.“You ain’t fooling him kid. Throw this the way I taught you and let’s go sitdown.” He handed Dancer the ball, a glob of tobacco spit nestled between theseams.Dancer looked over toward first at Dede and Clayton. He wiped the sweat offhis brow and gripped the ball with his fingers between the seams like Billy hadshown him. The ball floated toward home and Ryan smiled as he stepped into thepitch, but as it reached the plate it dive-bombed into the turf. Ryan missed it bytwo feet. As Dancer hustled to the dugout he could feel Froehlich staring at him.In the eighth the Miners batted as though they had somewhere else theywanted to be. Seven pitches and Dancer was out of the inning. One more inning.Dancer massaged his arm as he walked to the mound for the ninth inning. Itwas sore, but it was a good sore. Nothing was going to stop him now. Froehlichstood at home plate, hands on hips, staring at him. Dancer offered a nod, sort ofhumble-like, as he reached the pitcher’s mound. If Froehlich noticed he didn’tshow it.First batter, Wagner, had struck out twice on curveballs. Billy called for anothercurve. Dancer’s pitch missed the plate by five feet. The hot spot had turnedinto a blister and the blister had popped. Billy called time and walked slowly to themound.“I can’t throw my curve,” Dancer said, his voice tight.Billy laughed and thumped Dancer on the back like he’d just told him a dirtyjoke. “Don’t look at your hand. Smile. Work the corners — in out, high, low.It’s the bottom of the lineup. Just three more outs. This is the game that counts,Dancer.”Billy walked back to the plate like he was on a Sunday stroll. Laughing andjoking with Froehlich and Wagner about Dancer’s wild pitch. He called for a fastball inside and Wagner smashed it deep to right, but the wind kept it in the parkand Bilko caught it at the wall.Heinz, the Miners slick fielding shortstop was the eighth batter. Heinz couldn’thit his weight, and he didn’t weigh much. Billy signaled fastball and Heinzsquared around and bunted the ball to the right of Dancer, toward the shortstop.Dancer dove headlong and speared the ball before it could get by him. He pivotedon his knees and flung the ball sidearm to first base. Heinz was out by a step.Billy had run down the first base line to back up the play. As he trotted backto home he glared at the Miners. “You’re down five runs — swing the goddamnbats.”Dancer rubbed down the baseball and waited for the pinch hitter. NormSiebern bounded out of the dugout. A murmur rolled through the crowd as theyrecognized the Joplin slugger. He took a couple vicious practice swings, thenstepped up to the plate, smiling at Dancer like he was an old friend.Billy gave him a target off the outside corner and Dancer’s pitch was kneehighthree inches wide of the plate. Siebern took the pitch for a ball, then moved208

closer to the plate. Dancer’s next pitch was in the same location and Siebern droveit out of the park, but foul by ten feet. After he hit it, he stood at home plate admiringthe flight of the ball. Froehlich threw Dancer a new ball and Siebern steppedback into the batter’s box. He took a slow, deliberate swing and pointed his bat atDancer’s head. Siebern wasn’t respecting him. Dizzy Dean would have never let abatter get away with that.Dancer nodded at Billy and then unleashed a fastball right at Siebern’s chin.The slugger hit the turf like he’d been shot, but as he was going down the ball hithis bat and bounced harmlessly foul down the first base line.Billy cackled, “Hey Norm, I think the kid wants your ugly mug off the plate.”Siebern dug in, but this time a respectful six inches farther back. Dancercaught the outside corner with a waist-high fast ball, but Froehlich called it a ball.Two balls, two strikes.Dancer came back with a change-up and Siebern started to swing, but at thelast moment held up. Froehlich called the pitch high.Full count.Dancer stared in at the plate. Siebern wasn’t smiling anymore. Billy crouchedlow, holding his glove practically on the ground. Dancer exhaled through his teethand threw with everything he had left.As soon as he released the ball, he knew it was a bad pitch. Right down themiddle, but chest high. Billy came half out of his crouch to catch the ball, thenpulled it down ever so slightly and held it there. Siebern dropped his bat andheaded for first.“Strike hreeee!” Froehlich croaked as he punched the air with his left fist.The next thing Dancer knew Billy had him in a bear-hug and all the guys weregrabbing him, pounding him on the back. A sea of teammates carried him towardthe first base seats. Dede was in the aisle with Clayton and he lifted them bothover the rail. Dancer’s throat ached as he kissed away Dede’s tears. Her tousledhair tickled his face as she wrapped her arms around him. He wanted to tell herhow much he loved her and how things were going to get better and better, but thecrowd cheered so loudly he couldn’t speak. He could hardly breathe. Together theyhoisted Clayton on to Dancer’s shoulders. Clayton clung to his dad’s neck withcotton-candy sticky hands, as the three of them paraded along the fence from firstbase to third base while the crowd chanted, “Dancer! Dancer! Dancer!”It was a goddamn perfect day.The next day Dancer was on his back porch soaking his hand in ice waterwhen Doc pulled into the driveway in his navy blue Mercury cruiser. Doc smiled,an unnatural look for him, as he walked over to Dancer. “How’s the hand, son?”Dancer jumped up from his chair and wiped his hand dry with Dede’s dishtowel.“It’s great. Just soaking out some of the soreness.”Doc stepped on to the porch. “Let me see.”Dancer held out his hand. There was a nickel-sized open sore on the pitchingside of his index finger. Doc frowned. “You pitched a great game, Dancer. You’regoing to remember that game for the rest of your life. Hell. We all are.”“What about the Cardinals?”Doc shook his head. “You can’t pitch with your hand like that.”“I can still throw my fastball.”209

“Son, it’s the big leagues. You got a good fastball, but you ain’t no goddamnBob Feller. Without a curve they’ll kill you. I can’t do that to you.”Dancer hung his head and stared at his wounded finger. Doc patted him on theshoulder. “I’m telling Stanky you can’t pitch on Labor Day. He’ll probably bringup that kid from Columbus.”“Then what?”“You’ll get your shot. Next year. Take care of that hand.”Billy had told him to play every game like it was his last. He had done that.He’d respected the game and honored the code. But Doc was right. He was young.He’d get another chance.Dancer went back to the Caterpillar factory for the offseason. He took a job in thefoundry because it paid better than being a parts inspector — over two dollars anhour plus overtime. It was backbreaking work and it took its toll on a man, butwith another kid on the way, they needed the extra money.Len Joy lives in Evanston, Illinois. Recent work has appeared in Annalemma,Johnny America, Pindeldyboz, LITnIMAGE, Hobart, 3AM Magazine, RighthandPointing, Dogzplot, Slow Trains, 21Stars Review, The Foundling Review andThe Daily Palette (Iowa Review). He has recently completed a novel, AmericanJukebox,about a minor league baseball player whose life unravels after he fails tomake it to the major leagues. His blog, Do Not Go Gentle(http://lenjoy.blogspot.com/) chronicles his pursuit of USA Triathlon Age-Group Championships.210

FAMILY OF ONEby Priscilla MainardiShe hoped he was waiting. They had a pact to meet Fridays at this time onthe weekends she spent with her father, but today she was late, very late.Her father had held her up with his ridiculous idea that he would move toCalifornia and she would go with him. She bounced on the balls of her feet at thelight, cars racing by, until she saw her chance, then darted across the four laneroad that circled in front of the art museum. She ran around the museum building,panting, army bag bumping her hip with every flying step. Down along the edgeof the park, the boathouses flew their medieval flags above the dank sullen river.Would he be here, waiting in their little patch of woods away from the road, witha joint or some beers? School was out now and they hadn’t met since it ended, butnothing had changed; they were each just a grade older. Then she saw him, sittingon the grass whistling “Heart of Glass.” He hadn’t seen her yet, so she slowed to awalk. Oh, she could look nonchalant if she tried. It was practically her specialty.He still didn’t look up, intent on the dusty ground or his red laces or the blackcuffs of his jeans. If only Jenny, her very best friend, could see him right now, withhis long lashes and hair jelled up, earrings glinting from his nose and ears and righteyebrow. Then he looked up and the song ended. It seemed like the real thing but Iwas so blind — He smiled. She dropped down on the grass beside him and kissedhis lips that tasted of smoke.“My father held me up,” she said. “He had to talk to me. He’s moving to Californiaand wants to take me with him.” She had blurted it, not knowing she would.“Hey, Alicia, that’s pretty sweet. Where in California?”“Napa. My uncle has a farm there, or more like a ranch, with horses to ride.My dad said he’d get me riding boots.” Her mom had promised her boots for herbirthday, way back in May. “But I don’t think I want to go. I mean, my whole lifeis here.”“Well, don’t get all worked up yet. He might be just playing you against yourmother, like always. He might not even want to take you.”Ouch, why had she told him anything about her parents? True, she felt like acat toy sometimes, batted back and forth, but why would her father say he wantedto take her if he didn’t? Now Holt was kissing her again, his mouth like smoke,and reaching around to unhook her bra that she didn’t much need yet. Her breastswere so small but Holt didn’t care; she seemed to have everything he wanted. Hemade this quiet patch of grass feel like their own place apart from everyone else.She put her face in his neck and inhaled, smelled sunshine and grass. It was Juneafter all, summertime, and she should be happy. He pulled her down next to himand she closed her eyes, her hand small in his as he pressed her fingers to him, the211

hard bump there. Then he was unzipping her jeans, his fingers inside her, strokingher faster, faster, the pleasure growing stronger until it burst, a cascade of finesparkles filling her head. She clung to him, wanted to hold on forever while theroar of the traffic came back to her ears and the wind whispered in the branchesabove them.Then she heard a rustling sound and Holt pulled away. He sat up and opened alittle square of plastic.She put out a hand to stop him. “No, Holt wait —”“I don’t get you, Alicia, I thought you’d want to. Especially if you’re leaving.”Leaving? Oh yes, her father, how could she have forgotten even for a moment?Don’t think about Dad right now, no thoughts of Dad. “I want to but — ”How to explain she wasn’t a virgin. She hadn’t led Holt to believe she was,hadn’t said one way or the other. She was embarrassed to say she’d made it withJordan under the Boardwalk last summer. How trite was that but what really gother was that the jerk hadn’t called her again. She didn’t want this to happen withHolt, didn’t want to string him along either. Smiling, she took the rubber fromhim, but instead of putting it on, she bent her head and took him in her mouth. Hewas so smooth, he slid in easily, and it was over in a moment.Holt was holding her and grinning. “You’re not bad, Alicia.”She grinned too, felt relaxed and smoothed out, her limbs gone limp on thegrass. She closed her eyes and heard the flare of a match, then smelled pot. Holttook a big hit and leaned over and put his mouth on hers and blew smoke intoher. She took a few more hits and her thoughts began to fall down around her likesomething just smashed. Jenny without a clue about any of this and how muchAlicia wanted to tell her about Holt, maybe just to see if how she felt was real.Her dad wanting to take her away, trying so hard to get her interested, showing herpictures of the ranch in Napa where her uncle lived. Juliet, her mom — she onlythought of her as Juliet now, though her Dad, Eric, was still just Dad — wouldwant her to stay, or would she? Had her parents even talked about her going?“Here, Alicia.” Holt was holding out a joint for her. She wanted to say no, Idon’t want to carry it, it’ll show all over my face I’m guilty of something. But Holtwould think she was uncool so she took it and stuffed it in the bottom of her bag.“I gotta get back, I only said I was taking a walk.” Dad hadn’t minded, probablywanted to get drunk alone like always, sitting in the dark apartment. She gotup, buttoned and fastened her clothes, dusted herself off. “Do I look okay Holt?”The apartment was hot and stuffy and empty. She tore back the living roomdrapes, opened the window, inhaled the gritty air, and fell back onto the brownleather couch, a cool animal. Dad must have gone out to drink. Too much silence.Turn on the television, flip around to a rerun of “Full House.” Memories ofafternoons at Jenny’s when they were kids running back and forth to each other’shouses, playing Parcheesi on the porch with Jenny’s sister, Naomi so little shedidn’t go to school yet. Upstairs Jenny smoothed pattern pieces onto fabric, redand blue plaid for a skirt, showed Alicia how to set the fabric under the needle,pull the thread to the back to break it off, press out the seam. The fabric smelledclean and the humming machine of oil. They baked a cake from a mix and lickedbatter from the mixers, the metal sharp and cold on Alicia’s tongue. Vanilla wasthe absence of chocolate. Her mom came to get her and chatted over coffee in the212

down her belly to her crotch, and what about the soap? How would that feel?She reached for it, knew she’d hate herself when she was done, but couldn’t stopherself. At least she’d smell clean. She edged the bar from the dish. Could she foolherself that she was just washing?Bang! What the! — out in the hall. Not her father, he always called her name.What then? An earthquake?Hold still, Alicia. Listen.Nothing. Silence. The humming silence of the air conditioner, distant roar ofcars below. Stay still, keep alert. There had been an earthquake when she was ababy. Juliet said she heard the brooms falling over in the closet. It was possible,even in Philadelphia. What about California? She could never move there. Fires,too. Wildfires, everyone evacuating, pets trapped and roasted. What if the apartmentwas burning down right now? Had she turned off the toaster oven? Here shewas, naked on the fourteenth floor. She’d never make it down the stairs in a fire,the idea made her dizzy. How would she ever fly?Stealthily she got out of the tub, wrapped a towel around herself, and openedthe bathroom door. She put her head out, listened for a moment, then quicklycrossed the hall to her bedroom and slammed the door. Her bag was on the floor,contents spilled out into a big mess, her notebook, make-up, wallet and key ring,a little flashlight her father had given her along with some pepper spray, the jointfrom Holt. That must have been the crash, her bag falling from her dresser. Not anearthquake. She squatted down in her towel and shoved everything back in.Jenny’s room, framed photos on the wall: an old church, boats floating in aharbor, Jenny and her mother in bathing suits lying together on a towel. Tall treeswaving outside, now and then a car crawling by, Naomi asleep finally down thehall.“Wow, California. Are you excited?” Jenny sat at her desk, her face round,flushed, eager to hear whatever Alicia had to say. Alicia sat on the bed, dippedthe brush in the bottle of black polish on the bedside table and smoothed it on hertoenails. Their tiny pearly shapes reminded her of shells.“Not really. Everyone is here. You, Holt, Juliet.”“But you could get away from your mom. You’re always complaining abouther.”Was she? Juliet wasn’t that bad. Who was Jenny to say she was? Juliet was alittle preoccupied with fighting with Alicia’s father was all, maybe a little preoccupiedwith work.“Anyway, you’re lucky, it sounds great.” Jenny was happy for her. Aliciawanted to hit her happy face, wanted her to say, “Stay, Alicia, I need you here.”“I don’t know if I want to go,” Alicia said. “Maybe I want to get away frommy mom but I don’t want to get away from you or Holt.”“Did you tell Holt? What did he say?”“He said the same stuff you did. You guys should get together, put me on theplane.” Maybe she would go. That would show them. She lay back on the bed.Jenny sat down and picked up her foot. Warm hand, jolt of heat running up her leg.“You have the teensiest feet.” Jenny held out her own big foot, in its Indianmoccasin. She wore moccasins, winter and summer. “Can I draw your foot?”How odd. But kind of flattering. Jenny turned her foot this way and that, fin-214

gers tickling Alicia’s ankle. Alicia flipped around on the bed, laughing.Jenny posed her foot and went back to her desk. She picked up a pencil, herred tongue caught between her lips. “I want to get my ears pierced. Do you thinkyou could do it?”Alicia felt a nervous flutter at the top of her stomach. One Saturday soon aftershe met Holt, he’d put another hole in each of her ears and one in the top littleswirl of cartilage. She’d told her parents she’d had it done at the mall. Not a wordout of either of them. Typical.“Mimi won’t take you to a jewelry store or something?” she said.“She doesn’t want me to. I’m too young. How do you get away with all yourstuff?”“I don’t ask.”She watched Jenny shade in each tiny toenail. She wanted Jenny to give herthe sketch to hang on her own wall. She could see herself slipping it into her bagcarefully so it wouldn’t be creased. If Jenny gave her the sketch, it meant Jennyloved her and she shouldn’t go to California. If Jenny kept it for herself, she wouldgo.Jenny dropped the pencil, picked up the sketch, frowned at it, and let it driftdown onto the pile of junk on her desk. Didn’t even put it up on the wall!Alicia hated Jenny now, wanted to hurt her, get back at her. She sat up, pushedout her breasts, braless in her tank top, and touched her nipple lightly with herfingers. “Did you ever let a boy touch you on top?” she asked.Jenny’s freckled face reddened. Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, gross, Alicia.Don’t.”Alicia could see the gleam of Jenny’s braces. She felt a pulse of heat, the wayshe felt with Holt. She dropped her hand, embarrassed, mad at herself for embarrassingJenny. Why did she always try to shock Jenny, when Jenny was the oneshe loved the most?“Jesus, Alicia, I’m only fourteen, I don’t even have a boyfriend.” Jennyjumped off the bed. “I’m going to check on Naomi.”“Jesus, don’t leave. I’ll stop, I promise. C’mon, we’ll do your ears.”Jenny grinned.Take charge, Alicia. You can do this. “Go get a needle, an apple and some ice.And some alcohol to clean these.” She took the little silver balls from her ears.“We can sterilize the needle with my lighter.” Alicia got it from her bag. Jenny randownstairs for the other supplies. She came back with an orange, a safety pin anda bottle of rubbing alcohol.“Is this okay? Naomi ate the last apple.”“We’ll make it work. Peel it.”“Alicia, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”“Of course.” She took a pen from the desk and made little dots on Jenny’s earlobes to mark where to put the holes. She lit the lighter and held the pin to theflame until it was almost too hot to hold. Jenny pressed a section of the orange tothe back of her ear lobe and Alicia jabbed the safety pin into the little dot. Bloodpoured out. Gush of red, smell of metal. Alicia jumped up and screamed, knockingover the bottle of alcohol.“Shhh,” Jenny said, clapping her hand over Alicia’s mouth, “you’ll wake upNaomi.”215

Alicia took a deep breath. Clean smell of Jenny’s hand. Jenny took her handaway and gave her the earring. Two drops of blood ran down the side of her neck.Alicia wanted to lick them off. She pushed the earring through the hole, then didthe other ear.Limp and exhausted, she lay back against Jenny. Jenny felt warm and strong.Alicia wanted to lie like that all night. But Jenny shrugged her off and went to themirror and smiled at her reflection. Alicia got up and stood next to her. Jenny washer best friend, she loved her still, more than ever. “You look beautiful,” she said.She hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.“We forgot the ice, didn’t we?” Jenny said. That was hilarious, they had tolaugh together over that. Then Alicia caught sight of the bed. Blood stained thebedspread, and the room reeked of spilled alcohol. Alicia blotted the bedspreadwith a towel, then used a corner to clean off Jenny’s neck and ears.They went downstairs and watched “Titanic.” Alicia loved it: the sinkingship, the fear, the highs and lows of hope and despair, the impossible shipboardromance. Would anyone ever give up their life for her? Unlikely. No one was eventrying very hard to keep her in Philly. She looked at Jenny, engrossed in the movie,earrings gleaming. She wanted to sleep next to Jenny in her big warm bed, butwhen Jenny’s parents got home, Mimi took one look at Jenny’s ears, figured Aliciafor the culprit, and sent her packing. Dark streets of West Philadelphia. Silence inthe car, Philip’s hands white on the wheel. She was a bad influence. Not that shecared. They could blame her all they wanted. Soon she would be gone.Fuzzy-headed daylight. Nothing on television. Dad at the Phillies game. Damnhim for waking her, calling the whole thing off. Your mother says you can’t go.Why can’t I? She’s not even here for me anymore, even when she’s home she justphones it in. Forget it, Alicia, it’s over. Why are you caving so easily?Bite of soggy Lucky Charms, cardboard taste, stale mouth, eyes leaking tears.Bowl in sink. Staring hard at dish drainer, tiny dish drainer big enough for a familyof one. Her sad sack of a father. Now he would go without her.She took the subway to 5th Street, then headed down to South. Pavement melting.Punishing heat. Stupid father, stupid leaking eyes. Zipperhead swarming withteeny-boppers. Crinkling stiff leather boots, burgundy, matte black, army green,metallic silver-blue. Burgundy, please, size five and a half. Lace them all the wayup, take a couple of steps, smile sweetly at purple-haired salesgirl. Can I try a fiveplease? The girl left to look for them. Slip out the door.Run, Alicia, run. Don’t look back, don’t look around. Run.Run north, zigzag through back streets and alleys to Market Street. No one waschasing her. No one even noticed her. She plunged into the subway station androde back up Market Street, then walked over to the park. Holt would be there. Itwasn’t Friday but he would be there lying on the shady grass. Once I had a loveand it was a gas—She turned up the path to their spot. There was Holt, but it was quiet, tooquiet. He was pressed up against a tall skinny blond, his mouth on hers. Assholecouldn’t even wait until she was gone. Throw something. No, Alicia, don’t. Don’tlet them see you. Run.Run back down to Market Street, boots squeaking, stabs of pain at her heels.Wait on the platform, screech of the train, then the rumble and swerve out to 69th216

Street. Wait again. Finally the 102. She slumped on the seat, rested her face againstthe greasy window, closed her eyes on the day.She jumped down at Garretford Station. A rumble approached from the otherdirection but she darted across anyway, dodging cars, horns beeping, sprinting tobeat the oncoming trolley. Seconds later a metallic screech, whoosh of air. She’dmade it.Then she was walking up Jenny’s street under limp leaves, along shimmeringcars, picturing Jenny’s house, cool, welcoming. She looked in through the window.Jenny sat with her parents and sister around the porch table. Pink and yellow paperplates covered in cake crumbs and smears of dark frosting were scattered arounda game board. Philip set down his plate and leaned over and kissed Mimi on themouth. Jenny reached out her hand to shield Naomi’s eyes. Naomi laughed andshook a cup and rolled the dice onto the board. They were playing Sorry.Priscilla Mainardi was born and raised in New Haven and now livesin New Jersey, where she is a registered nurse. She is currently working asa freelance writer and editor, and completing an MFA in fiction at RutgersUniversity in Newark, New Jersey. Her work appears in Nu Bohemia, Toad,and Nursing Spectrum.217

DELIRIUM TREMENSby Harvey Spurlocktheir waists were bound in cords of wild green hydras,horned snakes and little serpents grew as hair,and twined themselves around the savage temples.Dante — Canto IX of InfernoThe Top-of-the-Wall airport lounge is atop a wall reaching one foot lessthan a thousand into the sky. On a starless night its twinkling lights reflectthe jovial mood of patrons celebrating the arrival or departure of lovedones—or ones not so loved. Two of the women sport Snaky Lady hairdos. Oneof them, Alecto, is short and hefty and entrenched in a bar chair, a beer in front ofher, a fat slumbering hydra wrapped around her waist. The other, Tisiphone, talland pale, her smaller head bobbing above a long neck, traipses toward the bar,a wild green hydra, awake and restless, coiled around her waist. Her handbag,brown as the skin of a shedding reptile, contains a copy of Dante’s Inferno and apistol. She slinks onto the bar chair next to Alecto.A large hand slaps the bar. “What’ll it be, sweetie?” The bartender chucklesheartily.“An iced tea.” She regards him coldly. “Unsweetened.”Tisiphone turns toward Alecto. Her large brown eyes pop open wide. “I loveyour hairdo. Those horned vipers and tiny serpents twined about your templesbecome you.”Several of the short, thick snakes above Alecto’s eyeballs rear their heads andhiss. “They’re pissed off, cutie-pie. They thought they were the only Snaky Ladyin town.” Alecto’s eyes, behind black-rimmed glasses, are a bit out of focus. Herbright blouse is splashed with purple and red flowers, their thick stems jutting upout of a murky substance. “They’re liable to grind up those candy-asses aroundyour hoity-toity temples and eat them for breakfast.”Ninety-nine miles from the Top-of-the-Wall Phlegyas, the pilot of Flight 999,tips up yet another bullet of bourbon while the co-pilot dozes. Before the takeoffhe swept through the plane’s serving area and stuffed the tiny bottles into asatchel. Now, groping in the satchel at his feet, his fingers tally four or five liveones. With luck he will drain the last drop of the last bottle the instant the nose ofthe plane makes contact. It will be a hell of a sound: metal crashing into concrete.The mirth in the barroom will burst into shrieks, screeching and screams, then dieinto silence. No one in the Top-of-the Wall will wake up tomorrow morning witha hangover.218

In Flight 999’s rearmost seat I, Hiram Winesap, imbibe an alternative, dueto an unexplained dearth my preferred bourbon. For the past three days I’d beenholed up in a cheap hotel room next to a liquor store, cringing with every footstepin the hallway, expecting an authoritarian knock on the door and a gruff voiceordering me out with my hands up. The paranoia had set in when I came to onthe flight to Ohio and realized Barbara wasn’t with me. The sole purpose of thetrip had been for me to accompany her, before our divorce became final, to myparents’ home so she could retrieve the few possessions she had stored there.I brave another swallow, fraught with fire and nausea, and think back tothe events leading up to the midnight flight to Ohio. Saturday evening I left Irispassed out on the living room floor of our 14th Street apartment and rode a trolleyto East Bay Terminal. Iris and I had barhopped most of the day, spending much ofthe time in the 99 Club, the scene of our meeting a mere three weeks ago; Saturday’sreturn to the raucous skid-row environment had given her spirits an evidentlift, and provided me with some relief from the drumbeat, “I can’t believe you’redoing this to me again,” her reference to my second short leave-taking since shehad moved in the day after we’d met.Reclining in the rearmost seat of the Market Street trolley, I drew a half-pintflask from the inside pocket of my sport coat and killed the last of the bourbon,wondering why Winesap—I’d caught myself with increasing frequency slippinginto the third person of late—was flying to Ohio instead of delving into Circle Vof Dante’s Inferno in preparation for his fast approaching San Francisco State oralexams. In fact, why had he allowed Iris to move in before the exams were outof the way? Why was he even pursuing such a course of study when, instead ofdriving to California upon his military discharge, Barbara and he could have appeasedhis parents by making a beeline for the law school awaiting him with openarms? Why had he married Barbara in the first place? My … Hiram Winesap’sentire existence—as his mother would be the first to point out—wasn’t makingmuch sense.At East Bay Terminal Winesap dropped off of the bus and crossed the streetto Terminal Drugs. Back out of the drugstore with a fresh half-pint, he duckedinto the shadows of rubbish-strewn Terminal Playground, disposed of the deadsoldier and uncapped the new recruit. He stepped into a porno-film stall designatedDeluxe.The title in white, “Physical Therapy,” flashed for a split-second against ablack background then a camera panned in on a pretty blonde-haired woman’sface. A white nurse’s cap atop her head, her mouth was working on an enormousorgan that seemed to have a life of its own. The camera traveled the length of thepatient’s body, which was wrapped in white bandages from head to toe, the onlyexposed areas, aside from the penis, being the mouth, nostrils and eyes. The eyeswere two totally immobile holes, yet gave off an impression of cognition as theystared unflinchingly down on the therapy. The camera began playing back andforth between the patient’s eyes and the therapeutic activity. Then it focused onthe therapy for several seconds—until the woman’s face froze, held the pose fora moment then released the therapeutic object. Her fingers pressed it as if takinga pulse. Upon the camera’s return to the patient’s eyes there was no lingeringflicker of awareness. The woman—naked from the waist down—rose, scribbled219

on a clipboard and sashayed away. After zooming in on her buttocks, the cameraceased all activity. Winesap left Terminal Playground.“After one unbearable marriage,” says Tisiphone, “I’ve decided to do somethingspecial for our last night together. I’m going to put a gun to the sot’s headand order him to bang me until his whanger is wet spaghetti. Then I’m going tochomp down on another humongous piece of pizza and turn my snakes loose.”Fitting retribution, she deems, for a bastard who had had the gall to pen a twelvehundredpage novel detailing his affair with a Chinese girlfriend during the yearhe’d spent overseas. “If they don’t unmercifully mutilate his sexual parts, I’llsimply start jerking the trigger.”One of Tisiphone’s snakes curls its head down and around until its horns arein her face.“You heard me. Replacing you is as easy as ordering another pizza.”“I doubt if you know what a sot is, honey-bunch,” says Alecto. “I thought Idrank a lot until a real one waltzed into the Ninety-Nine Club, pretending to beSir Galahad. He’s as sneaky as a snake too. He lied about being married and hekeeps disappearing on mysterious trips.” Not to mention that the day she movedin she had found a blue album, hidden way back in a closet, stuffed full of picturesof him with an Asian woman. “My plans for getting rid of him don’t includeyour brand of highfalutin’ fireworks though. When I get good and ready, I’ll juststick a knife in his gut.” She’d come to the airport only to find out whether he reallywas on Flight 999 or was lying about that too.Tisiphone’s eyes have strayed away from the conversation. “Now I’ve seenit all.” Approaching them is a middle-aged woman, her long face sagging. Evenher snakes, those on her head and the hydra draped around her waist, look likethey’ve lost their best friend. She introduces herself as Megaera.Phlegyas gulps bourbon. The laughter of the bartender roars in his ear. TheTop-of-the-Wall he knows is jam-packed with joy-seekers and glee-freaks. Hehas spent the afternoon reading and rereading Cantos VIII and IX of Inferno. Bythe time he hits the ground he’ll be in Circle V crossing the River Styx en route tothe City of Dis. A single bullet of bourbon remains in the satchel.“I certainly can commiserate,” says Megaera. By now the other two ladieshave unloaded a dose of the woes they have suffered at the hands of their respectiveFlight 999 expected arrival. They have moved to a table that momentarilyopened up in the midst of the near nerve-jangling merriment. “Oh, I suppose Ishould have given up when he pulled a no-show at the law school his father hadset him up with.” She had sensed trouble brewing when the acting lessons hisfather suggested each undergraduate semester never materialized. There was noquestion that, as his father—who had it—had pointed out, he didn’t have the giftof gab—but still. “Still here I am, bound and determined to make a last-ditchpitch to get him off of the booze … his father finally sobered up before his practicewent completely belly up … and into law school.” When he’d pulled anotherno-show this past weekend she had weaseled the information out of the airportthat he had supposedly been on the flight to Ohio and was to return on Flight 999.She booked an earlier flight. Megaera leans far over the table, her chin dipping220

almost to the lip of her coffee cup. “Perhaps I shouldn’t even say this out loud.”One of her little serpents lazily lifts then lowers its eyelids. “But, if I knew thenwhat I know now, I might have considered an alternative to birth for this one.”A throat clears. Megaera’s eyes arise to golden hair billowing halo-likearound a radiant face. “Ladies,” the youth intones. The ears of the jury inside ofMegaera’s head are stirring. “I believe you have the only seat left in the lounge.”One wand-like hand is on the back of the empty chair, while the other fans hisface, as if pushing away putrid air. Viper eyelids are arising. Megaera’s sunkencheeks are aglow. The throat is more golden than the hair.Due to the hospitality of the bartender, I had intended to drink for a while inThe Terminal Bar. But upon emerging from Terminal Playground I was so sexuallyaroused that I hurried toward the boarding ramp, hoping to see a Berkeleyboundbus cutting thin air faster than a bowstring ever shot an arrow off. If thedoor banged open and a solitary steersman shouted, “Aha, I’ve got you now, youwretched soul!” so much the better.During the ride across the bay I lounged in the rearmost seat of the halfempty bus that eventually did turn up. Occasionally I raised the bottle, aware thatmy span of consciousness was growing more precarious with each burning swig.In Berkeley, on a dark, tree-lined street, I finished off the flask and flung it intothe weeds of a vacant lot. Up the street, lights from the large, old house Barbaralived in drew me on as if toward an eternal fire burning within. Stepping onto theporch, through the window I viewed a room full of young men and women engagedin deep discussion. Barbara was not among them. She generally preferredless weighty chatter where she could be the center of attention. It dawned on methat I was in no City of Dis, this was not a house occupied by fierce citizens ina city guarded by rebellious angels, but one brimming with individuals buildingnew worlds of eternal harmony, love and freedom all wrapped into one package,worlds where no man or woman could imagine the need to exhibit a dangerousemotion, where no nincompoop would devote his life to reaching for bliss in askid-row gutter.Winesap swung open the door and stalked, red-faced with booze, straightthrough the circle of conversationalists, who paid no attention to him. He cutdown a short hallway and shoved open another door. Barbara stirred on the mattress.Her eyes popped open wide. “You startled me. I was dreaming of a giganticpizza with everything on it.” He strode over and began unbuttoning her jeans.Glancing into a mirror, he half-expected to see a body coated with a thick layer ofwhite bandages.Saturated with booze as he was, Winesap sought to prolong the encounter,even after he sensed Barbara on the verge of slithering away and scrambling forher clothes, pulsing beneath her skull a heaping platter of spaghetti or a thicksteak, any one of the myriad culinary delights vying for the swiftly diminishingnumber of sensual seconds remaining in their fading relationship. Contemplatingthe demise of this phase of his life only fueled Winesap’s immediate desires. Helet his mind entertain the thought that, since the closing curtain was almost drawnanyway, why not finish off the final performance with a flourish? Couldn’t Barbaraherself be blamed for having introduced the concept? Hadn’t she less thana year ago confided that she had been on the brink of poisoning him with a jar of221

tainted mayonnaise? And not long thereafter she related a dream in which she hadbeen gliding down a street, a pistol in each hand, cheerfully gunning down anyoneshe laid eyes on. As keyed up as he was, it would be a simple matter to placehis hands around Barbara’s neck and squeeze, stifling any scream, until her lastbreath was extinguished. He could drag the body out of the window and deposit itin the weeds where he had hurled his bottle.He would find a bar with a pay phone. “This is Winesap’s former helpmate,”he would say to one of her super-intelligent housemates. “We were on our way toa restaurant when we had a disagreement and she ran off. I expect her to be at theairport, but in case she does head back that way would you give her the messagethat there are no hard feelings on my part and she is more than welcome to meetme at the airport … that is, if she still wants to go?”“Got you,” his reformer’s voice would reply, his mind leaping ahead to civilizationswhere disagreements were impossible.Winesap’s next call would be to his mother. After he told her of the changeof plans, she would emit an ironic chuckle. “I won’t pretend to be shattered byBarbara’s decision not to come. But I do wish you would reconsider. It’s beenages since we sat down and had a good heart-to-heart talk.”That was his last flicker of awareness until he came to on the plane.Phlegyas’ last bullet of bourbon goes down the hatch. He levels the nose ofthe plane into the center of the Top-of-the-Wall. The booze sears his stomach,maybe the only earthly sensation he’ll sincerely miss.“Practicing law has always been my dream,” says Golden Throat. “But myLaw School Admission Test score has been deplorable every time I’ve taken thetest.”Her husband already has a spot reserved in a law school. Who could possiblyknow the difference?Tisiphone can’t wipe the wince off of her face or those of her snakes. TheLSAT admission has put a damper on her initial impression that the throat wouldbe a welcome addition to any circle of conversationalists. Alecto is still wonderingwhether the fake Galahad is on the plane. Repose is the predominate modeabove her bleary eyeballs.“May I buy you a drink?” Megaera reaches for her purse.“As long as it is non-alcoholic. My worst nightmare is slurring a word.”If only she could get him as far as a courtroom…“The pilot isn’t responding,” blurts the overhead intercom, inadvertentlyactivated as the result of a wine spill in the control tower.“Who is the pilot?”“Phlegyas, according to the flight plan.”“His flying license has been suspended!”“You and I both saw him scoff at the thought that that could keep him out ofthe cockpit, especially when he got good and ready to take out the Top-o...”Any more from the control tower is lost in the roar of engines.The last empty trickles from Phlegyas’ fingers to the floor. Passing out, hishead bangs into the control panel. The course of Flight 999 is altered enough that222

its belly brushes the Top-of-the-Wall roof and the plane soars off into ebony.The co-pilot awakens and takes in the state of affairs. The serenity on Phlegyas’comatose face touches off a shiver of pity. The poor old boy, he muses, won’tbe making it down this go-around for a River Styx reunion with the ancestors heso reveres. He calls the control tower and arranges for an orderly landing.As Flight 999 taxis toward Gate 99 the Top-of-the-Wall is in recovery mode.The remains of those who suffered cardiac arrest have been carried out. The threeladies have weeded out the few snakes that have succumbed and respectablehairdos have been restored. Relief is pervasive for Megaera; the roar had rattledher into blaming herself for the impending disaster because she had said what sheshouldn’t have out loud. After a silent countdown out of respect for those whohad passed on, the bartender reopened the bar, booming, “The first drink is onme, folks. It isn’t every day we survive one of these.” Tisiphone is consideringvacating the premises and saving her fitting retribution for another day. The roarhad reinforced Alecto’s belief that the fake Galahad was not on Flight 999. It wasjust her luck to get wiped out on a wild goose chase. A barrage of insane screamshas reduced Golden Throat’s vocal cords to wet spaghetti.Winesap is the last passenger off of the plane. Weaving into the waiting areahe sees nothing but snakes, all of them writhing. Then three stony faces crystallizebefore his eyes. Any slim chance of appeasing Megaera seems far in thepast. And he has an eerie sensation that he has burned his last bridge back out ofTisiphone’s bedroom. He takes a tentative step toward Alecto.Harvey Spurlock has a B.A. in English from Denison University and a M.A.from the San Francisco State University Creative Writing Program. His storieshave appeared in The Evansville Review, Westview, The Chariton Review, BuffaloCarp and Conceit Magazine. Now employed as a computer systems programmer,a trade acquired during a stint in the Marine Corps, he is married and lives inConway, Arkansas.223

THINGSby Max SheridanMeeks Farms had made a fleeting name for itself in 1861 when ColonelCarnot Posey had almost marched through it on his way East to dealwith General Jackson. When two years later Posey fell at Bristoe Station,Thurmont’s great-grandfather, Amis Meeks, seized on the near legacy andrediscovered the dead man’s footsteps out among his snow peas and okra and becamea war profiteer of sorts. Posey’s Snow Peas sold big in the decimated South,in burlap bags left over from courthouse amputations, and this Amis, a maternalappendage, soon had a plaque put up and Posey’s decisive footprints lacqueredin a brassy, mud-colored hue on their way to a clean little cabin built on the slyout of sacked Confederate timber, where Posey was to have slept for a night enroute to his fateful bullet. Every time Thurmont looked out at that log cabin fromhis own place across his dusty eight residual acres, he couldn’t help thinking ofThurmont III, of how the little fellow had, already at ten, taken after the worstrascals in the family line.Thurmont was riding a mule these days. He thought he would be going backto something pre-Amis by doing so. He didn’t feel much of it though and wassurrounded by Negroes anyway. To be among his own people he’d have to driveout to Calhoun City or Coffeeville, and there to undergo undue pestering into hisbasic condition. How was he holding up out there among the Zulus? Had he spottedany angry pitchforks lately? Were the do-rags on the rise? In fact, Thurmont’ssnow peas were in decline, his okra not much to look at. He grew musk squashwithout pesticides. He could cover his entire family history from before Lincoln’sWar, his whole legacy in dirt, in a brisk twenty-minute jog if he wanted.He stared out from a non-specific distance at Route 12 in a way he imaginedmight be picturesque for a cruising Yankee to see. It was too late in the summerfor a proper summer storm, Thurmont felt, and yet as he sat there under the wide,oppressive blue of day, he could feel one coming. He rode back to the barn tocheck again.Let them take his land, let them plough up his measly eight acres and turn thewhole concern into a modern cinema complex of gray pavements and pyramidalglass structures, but they would not take away his barn. In that barn, where Thurmontslept most summer nights on a Coleman folding bed, was his own privatelegacy, what he would one day pass on to Thurmont III, if the little cardsharp waseven interested in such things. And what a legacy it was.Thurmont had what he was willing to bet was the finest collection of consumertestimonials for household abrasives in the whole Deep South. He hadfunctioning and non-functioning kaleidoscopes. He had flotsam from a hundred224

perished typesetters, doorknobs of all kinds and degrees of dereliction. He had hiscollection of little porcelain fighting men. The Meeks were not historically athleticpeople, but Thurmont had made sure to get his hands on the boxing gloves“The Old Weasel” Archie Moore had used in London in 1957 to defeat YolandePompey with, this through a kindly request to Moore’s aged wife made surreptitiouslyon behalf of the nearby Marzella Church of Tchula. Thurmont, otherwisea great hound of moral lapses, felt he was doing posterity a fine turn by claimingthose gloves for the state of Mississippi, for Tchula.Under Thurmont’s cot was the Persian carpet great-grandfather Amis hadhanded down to his only grandson, Amis, Jr., Thurmont’s sickly father. Thissleek, particolored beauty had almost made its way into the coffers of a travelingflea market when Thurmont was eight, and surely would have, for a lousytwelve bucks, if not for the high-pitched, ear-wracking yowls Thurmont had putup during negotiations. From that point forward Thurmont had been known as anappraiser of things. It was why he alone had staked out the family acres upon thedeath of Amis, Jr., why his brother Skinny had gone up North to study law anddied of something up there, some degenerative Yankee disease, and why brotherLucius had lit out for Yazoo City to move pet food. They didn’t understand thevalue of things.But lately things had begun to go missing from the barn. Thurmont’s brilliantinetins, one by one. His library of defunct baiting gear and his bumper stickercollection. For years Thurmont had been holding on to those stickers for offerat motels and restaurant waiting rooms, the kind that seemed to be purposelydesigned to leave you and your loved ones stumped for ages. Jesus Punched OutFor You; Snyder Bluff IS Dynamite Fishing; Cheese Demon, etc.His Miss Belzoni Calendar, 1952, was gone. This theft was particularly punishingfor the fact that all the runners-up were featured in it and that whoever hadstolen it knew that Thurmont had fallen for one of them long ago, that he’d keptthe calendar for years thumbtacked to the wall above his boyhood dresser, whichnow shared the Persian carpet with the cot and supported a fine filigreed mirrordating back to Jefferson Davis’s presidency, kept it permanently flipped to MissJune, Rose Bascomb, who was to bloom forever just for him and who was nowgone. No question he was being looted and unfortunately he knew just who thethief was.Like Thurmont, Bueler had taken his land from his daddy, Bueler, who hadgotten it from his daddy thanks to Abe Lincoln. Four generations of Buelersworking Meeks land, five, six, seven. Who was to keep track? But where AmisJr. had taken to selling off parcels of the Posey legacy to men driving by inbad-fitting suits, the Buelers of Tchula had quietly amassed, so that now theirswas the finer dominion by far. Forty acres of richly manured and sodden fieldsthat grew produce chain stores far afield of Tchula paid handsomely for. Mungbeans, Greek butter beans, daikon radishes, burdock root, this was the difference.Early on Bueler had set his sights on something called the ethnic market.He had grown a belly from his prescience. He was expanding in places thatdrove Thurmont nuts. On the Internet, for one. And now he was coveting whathe could not possibly have, or have mastery of, what he could only obtain bythievery, Thurmont’s things.Thurmont left the mule there in the barn to rest and changed clothes in the225

cabin. Out his right window was Meeks land, the Posey cabin and the highway.Out his left, all that was Bueler’s. He scrubbed under his nails with a wire brushand changed into a leisure outfit he’d succumbed to recently at a charity shop inCoffeyville, a rust-colored ensemble with a wider lapel than he was partial to andtrousers that would show he’d been eating. He wanted to look comfortable, notaccusatory, when he confronted Bueler downtown at Ike’s Poolroom, where heknew Bueler would now be reading the paper, or if finished with the paper, thenharanguing those who couldn’t keep up with his views on world issues, askingIke for things Ike never had on the menu or things Ike couldn’t possibly preparein his greasy little kitchen.But Bueler wasn’t at Ike’s and this puzzled Thurmont, who stood outside fora while looking about in the sunlight with his hands on his wide hips moving hislips over some ideas. Petie Peterose had said Bueler’d been by and gone — inthe middle of something. When Thurmont asked what kind of something Buelerhad been in the middle of when he’d left, Peterose hadn’t been able to specify.Something, in other words, that had just come to Bueler. Thurmont knew theseNegroes well so he knew they would help him if they could. He was one of themmore or less.Thurmont felt his scalp getting redder, toasting. He sniffed for rain and gotback in his truck and felt his scalp again and it was still hot. He cruised around inthe dust for a while.There was a tourist couple hobbling about in the heat on Mercer Street withtheir necks craned forward, maybe Europeans. They were pale but not as cumbersomeas Americans. They both had maps. Thurmont conjectured that one of themdealt with topographical information and river names and such and the other withrestaurants, points of interest, etc. He guessed that they were now in the finalstage of some doomed restaurant search, that soon they’d be getting desperateand critical of their decision to decamp in Tchula, wishing they’d taken a bus toDisney World instead. He ignored them as he rolled by.On his way home he saw a jack rabbit chasing a black snake across Route12. In pursuit of these two was a naked Negro shaking a key. Still yards off,Thurmont slammed on the brakes as the queer three-creature circus shot over thebaking asphalt and into the fields, disappearing quickly from view.When he awoke at four it hadn’t yet rained and Thurmont felt momentarilydisoriented. In the wash of amber light falling into the shadows at the barn mouthstood two skinny petitioners. They were speaking at him.Thurmont got to his feet and secured his spectacles and only then recognizedthe couple from Mercer Street. They looked like they’d been picnicking in hell.The man entered tentatively with his map.“Carnot Posey?”How many times had he told the tourist bureau people to take Posey’s Cabinoff their brochures? That it was a fake, that no battalion had ever marchedthrough Meeks Farms and left their footprints? He would not go through with itagain.“Sorry,” Thurmont said. “There’s the Cottonlandia Museum in Greenwood.They’ve got a model of the Battle of Pemberton. You all got a car?”226

The man visibly deflated. He’d been hunting this landmark for hours, he’dconvinced his lady to hunt with him, and now it didn’t exist. He looked miserablyunfed too. All of a sudden Thurmont got the idea that this marriage was hangingby a thread and that their great Posey letdown might just snap it.He said, “Carnot Posey got shot in Virginia. He died of an aggravated thighwound and he was buried there. That cabin in your guidebooks was built by mygreat-grandfather, who had this very day in mind over a hundred years ago in1861 when he built it. He sold snow peas. We’ve still got those. I can show youthe snow peas if you’d like.”When they slunk back off into the dust in their Ford rental car Thurmont stilldidn’t know if they’d come from Europe or not. It was nearly six and still no rain.Thurmont noticed then with a prick of alarm the shape of the sweat rings he’dgrown under his arms just talking to the couple. How the humidity and dust coexistedin Tchula was a mystery to him, why they just didn’t conspire finally andtake the form of mud and have done with the inhabitants. He went to the cabinand breaded a plate of pork chops. He mashed a bowl of potatoes. He waited foras long as he could and then he lit a burner. He ate alone.He was still waiting at half past seven when Thurmont III appeared at thetable and began to feed himself. Thurmont had long lectured the boy on tardinessand keeping one’s promises but this was a foolproof Amis legacy he was dealingwith and he knew he would not win. He cheered himself with the thought that theboy was not even his blood, fully. Technically he belonged to Lucius. Thurmonthad never tired of pursuing this New York tale for some logical backbone.Think, Lucius’s daughter June had gotten porked by a private in the US Armywho’d done a single tour in the deserts of Iraq and then gotten this bug for LasVegas he needed to take care of, and she’d packed her things. They tried theirbest at a household but June eventually came to see that there were the wiles ofLas Vegas and the growing up of a child and that you could not have the two sideby side. The boy showed up on Thurmont’s front porch a week later, three weeksshy of his eighth birthday. It wasn’t clear who had dumped who.Lucius, of course, wouldn’t have the boy in his life, it would just pollutehis self-image having him around. He had no place in the back of his shiny redJaguar besides. And could you blame him? For all the deviousness of the child,he was recognizably a Meeks. The long, wobbly head and jug ears, the blackpouches under the eyes, the dourness, the suspiciousness. Thurmont loosened hisbib as the boy knotted his around his stringy, old man’s neck.“Boy, where you been?”“Fishing.”“Funny.”“No it ain’t.”Too often conversation disintegrated like this. Thurmont wondered if this iswhat it would be like trying to talk to a senile old relative living in your attic whowould, when he’d had enough of you, fling a spoonful of cottage cheese at you.He said, “I mean I don’t see any tackle. Where’s your tackle? You need tackle tofish.”“Bhupinder’s got it.”“That’s the Super 8 boy, isn’t it? The Hindu’s son? He took your bait? I toldyou not to be lending out your things.”227

“Bhupinder caught a foot.”“A foot?”“At the Copper Road bend.”“Lost his footing, you mean.”“He reeled one in is what I mean.”Thurmont felt the blood pooling in his cheeks, prickling his scalp. He felt apleasant subdued hum inside which meant a good rain was coming. But a foot?Had he raised the boy to fish for human parts in secrecy?“Listen to me, boy. You fished a foot out of the river and you gave it away toa Hindu, is that what you’re telling me? It didn’t occur to neither of you smartheadsto call Sheriff Clymer who was, what, five minutes away? I’ve got to callthe boy’s father now. That the Super 8 in Durant or the other one, the Lexington?”But Thurmont III’s beeper had gone off, and then he was gone, leaving in hiswake the pungent odor of Dixie Peach hair pomade, Thurmont’s own pomade ofchoice. Thurmont couldn’t possibly have foreseen this, that his influence wouldhave been so pernicious. If June ever came back to collect her seed, say in a yearor two, would she find that he shopped for leisure suits in Coffeeville too, thathe’d grown a belly and rode a mule?But Thurmont had had enough for today. He would call the motel in themorning, by which time he hoped the Hindu would have alerted the authoritiesand returned his tackle box. Now he had a thing or two to discuss with Bueler.The lights were off in Bueler’s cabin and it was night. Bueler, who couldn’tstand to be alone in the dark, was obviously not in. That is, Bueler had not comeback.Thurmont stood there on Bueler’s porch with his fifth of sour mash contemplatingthe puzzling gulf between Bueler’s net worth and the shabby state of hispersonal habitat. He could not explain why, for instance, Bueler, when he foundhis old wooden beams to be infested with poria fungus, had insisted on levelingthe antebellum timber and putting in gypsy tin. Thurmont had urged Tuff-Rib, adurable PVC alternative with a reliable distributer in Vicksburg, but Bueler, whocould afford such luxuries, insisted that the pinging of rain on a roof soothedhim. Had his people put up with pinging, historically? Thurmont wondered. Orperhaps Bueler was thinking of some glorious Brazzaville of the mind where theBuelers had once been suckled under such tin roofs. Surely this was an asininememory to champion even so. But Bueler was rife with such self-deceptions andtotal misformulations. His recurrent dream of a floating warship piloted by MarcusGarvey and destined for a sunken continent of sparkling ebony, for instance.His claim to understand the Egyptian mindset. The shackles he kept on the wallthat he claimed were the very ones his daddy’s daddy’s daddy had been wearingwhen he’d received manumission but which Thurmont recognized clearly as halfa bear trap.Thurmont took his liquor back across the fields, admiring the health ofBueler’s beans and the quiet he had out there with the Meeks’ land as a cushionbetween what was his and Route 12. He retired the bottle without taking a sip andfell asleep moving in his sweat.The next morning he rose mechanically at seven and checked his things.228

Nothing seemed to be amiss. He locked the barn and went to the cabin andwhipped eggs for himself and the boy and they ate without disturbance. ThurmontIII had his head buried in the Clarion-Ledger, in the obituaries.“I see you’re a Dixie Peach man,” Thurmont said, so as not to have to saysomething about the other thing, the death notices.The boy grazed his head with a palm as if Thurmont’s comment implied thathe hadn’t greased up enough or that something was out of place, a single straypiece of hair like an obdurate tine of speaker wire. Thurmont did the same, however.“A man got stabbed in Marcella,” Thurmont III said.“That so? Well, there isn’t much of Marcella to get stabbed in. Mustn’t havebeen from around here.”“A nigger.”“Negro,” Thurmont said. “We don’t use that other word.”“Bhupinder uses it.”“Your Hindu friend?”Well, well, Thurmont chuckled to himself, the pot and the kettle. The boy wascarrying on with a caramel-colored bigot. He would not like this to be repeatedaround Bueler however. For when he finally chased Bueler down, there would beno talk of skin pigment, it had to be as man against thief.“Well, don’t use it,” Thurmont said. “At school you might even say blackperson.”Thurmont III put down the paper and sipped his coffee.“Ms. Cloggs said the Mississippi flows North, to Duluth.”“I find that hard to believe. Where’s Ms. Cloggs from?”“Arkadelphia.”“Arkansas,” Thurmont grimaced. “Third worst educational system in theUnion, outside of here and Louisiana. Tune her out. The Mississippi flows downto the Gulf of Mexico and that’s just eye physics. Maybe you’re thinking of someof those bends it takes.”They both unbibbed. Thurmont III finished his coffee while Thurmontscrubbed the dishes.“I’m going to call the Hindu to discuss that foot,” Thurmont said over hisshoulder.He never did. Instead he raced back to the barn to take a more thoroughinventory of his things. When he reached his Shriner kazoos, his jaw droppedat what should have been the most obvious of thefts. The Old Weasel’s boxinggloves were gone! Pilfered from his dresser top in his sleep along with a decorativetin of Fiebing’s mink oil. Thurmont realized with not a little stab of anguishthat with Bueler prowling about like a wolf in the moonlight he could no longersleep with the barn doors open to the stars.He drove the truck straight out to Bueler’s in a black funk but took no satisfactionfrom his second visit. Again the man was not in. At Ike’s he spread theword that he was now looking for Bueler.In Tchula Thurmont loaded the flatbed up with mule feed and bean poles anda ten-yard spool of chicken wire. He drove out to Lexington for a piece of sweetpotato pie. There, behind the counter at Di’s, was the girl from yesterday, she ofthe shot intercontinental romance, the Carnot Posey seeker. She took his order229

230without indicating anything of her great disappointment.“Carnot Posey,” Thurmont said to jog her memory.“What?”“You came by yesterday to check out the cabin. You’ve stayed.”“Malcolm’s out looking for the grave of Elmore James.”It still wasn’t clear to Thurmont if she remembered him. He supposed shemust have. He said, “I meant you’re still here. You’ve got a job? They gave youone?”“While Malcolm writes his book.”“I see.”“We’ve decided to plant our roots in Tchula,” she said.She was pretty, Thurmont decided, even with her nest of unwashed auburnhair and her patent foolishness. Plant roots in Tchula? Might as well talk of aweed setting up house, because that’s all there was in Tchula, weeds. And humidity.But this Malcolm, he sure was a lucky fellow to have kindled such devotionin his lady that she would work for him while he scouted out the graves of deadNegroes.“You all from France or something?” Thurmont said while he waited.“Fairlawn, New Jersey.”“Gosh, you don’t sound like them. Look, if you ever need snow peas—” Nowthis sounded monumentally foolish. “If I can help you all with anything,” Thurmontsaid, “just let me know. You know where to find me.”She smiled, and what a graceful act of charity that was. Thurmont felt everythingsagging on his old body rise up at once and he flushed to his scalp. “Shouldof rained yesterday,” he said. “It just keeps getting stickier and stickier, don’t it?”He took his plate to a booth under the gaze of a big black woman line cook hehad always assumed was Di but who could have knocked out the prison wardenand jumped the fence just as easily. He ate with this woman watching him.It wasn’t until midnight, when he was in bed with the barn doors lockeddrowning in his sweat, that the thought crept up upon him. What if ThurmontIII had been telling the truth and there really was a foot and the foot belongedto Bueler? What if Bueler had been that fool stabbed in Marcella and this wholetime while he, Thurmont, was pining for his things, Bueler had been DOA at thebottom of the Mississippi on his way to New Orleans?Once this ugly seed had taken root, Thurmont couldn’t sleep. They had playedmumblety-peg together as boys, slung dirt clods at unleashed mutts. They haddrunk water from the same tap. What would happen when the high river came?Would Bueler wash up, unrecognizable then, on the banks of some redneck townfar from his people and be tossed into a compost heap, mistaken for a lump ofbad cow meat?The hammer of remorse had fallen upon Thurmont and he tossed and turnedon the cot, which now seemed to him to offer a ridiculous substitute for sleep. Inthe shadows, in the darkness, he could hear his things settling in, creaking andpinging, expanding in the slightly cooled night air. He pulled his sheet up over hishead. He was surrounded by worthless junk.He was up at six and had nothing to do. He walked around the cabin, makinglaps. He straightened his bean poles and tossed some feed to the mule. Mid-morninghe drove out to Ike’s to get the word out that something, he didn’t know what,

may have happened to Bueler. Then he drove back out to Durant, to the Super 8,to see about that foot.Of all the fool decisions that were in this fallen world to make, why, Thurmontwondered, would a Hindu decide to relocate to Tchula? The motel vestibulewas a stifling pall of spice. Thurmont imagined a source for this odor, a nearbyroom where great cauldrons of the stuff were left permanently fired up and puffing.There was a plate of cinnamon donuts from the morning check-outs temptinglyplaced on top of a little rumbling brown refrigerator that Thurmont periodicallyenvisaged helping himself to. They had brochures for Cottonlandia and anumber of local churches, but nothing else, certainly the most pitiful selection ofcollectible literature Thurmont had ever come across in his limited travels.The little, smartly dressed man at the register he was now talking to musthave been the Hindu’s father. He appeared to be listening to Thurmont, to graspthe severity of what had befallen the boys, and the owner of the foot. And then,just when Thurmont thought the man was going to pick up the phone and dialSheriff Clymer, he let out a gut-buster of a laugh that sounded to Thurmont likethe solitary cackling of a mental patient. Thurmont was literally blown back afoot or two by the ferocity of the little man’s pleasure.“A dead foot!”“Actually,” Thurmont said, “a dead body. The foot is what they found. Yourson didn’t say anything?”“My nephew. Please wait.”Thurmont was joined moments later by a fat lady in a purple scarf she’d managedto make a whole dress out of. He saw a dark red spot on her forehead anddecided it couldn’t have been a shaving cut. She was pretty, maybe even beautiful,but she was fat and her features bloated. Thurmont felt uncomfortable whenthis lady led him by the hand to an awfully neglected couch next to the refrigeratorand sat down next to him so that her breast was rubbing against the side of hisarm. He explained again.The lady took a deep breath and flared her meaty nostrils, where Thurmontsaw a little diamond-like stud was impacted.She said, “Are you a jackass, Mr.—?”“Thurmont.”“Mr. Thurmont?”“I think that maybe you’ve got me wrong,” Thurmont said. “I’m not makingup the story, I’m just telling you what my boy said.”She helped herself to a cinnamon donut and she and the little man had a goodlaugh, and didn’t stop, so Thurmont tipped his hat and left.In Lexington Thurmont stopped off at Delta Burial and spoke to a fat Negrowith shiny skin whose name was Rivers. Rivers laid out the basic casket rates anddelivery and burial costs while he ate pulled barbecue out of a takeaway containerusing no fork or knife just his lips, leaving Thurmont to wonder what they woulddo in terms of presentation. Could they have an open service for just a foot? Itwould certainly reduce casket fees.He then spoke with Reverend Carlton at the New Jerusalem Church whereBueler was known to periodically renounce his earthly vices.231

232“Dead?”“Maybe.”“I see. Of what may I ask?”“Well, it’s tricky,” Thurmont said, and he told Reverend Carlton what heknew.Reverend Carlton shook his head gravely and compressed his thick pink lipsand said, “It’s always devastating for the family.”“There’s none that I know of,” Thurmont said.“I’d like to prepare a little something. When are you planning on having theservice?”This was something Thurmont wasn’t sure about. He supposed Bueler wouldhave to be officially deceased first, and that would mean seeing Sheriff Clymer tomatch up the foot and the body, provided the Hindus hadn’t already done somethingwith the foot. He drove to the police station feeling flustered, his head fullof loose ends and the vaguest of regrets.Sheriff Clymer wasn’t in so Thurmont spoke with his deputy, Guthridge.Guthridge was young and clean and he seemed to respect his job and people ingeneral. Thurmont warmed to him immediately and noticed with a little localpride that when he and Guthridge sat to discuss Thurmont’s business Guthridgeoffered him a donut.“So you think this foot is related to the stabbing in Marcella, do you?” Guthridgesaid. “Did you see what color the foot was? Was it a black foot?”“I didn’t, no.”“But you feel you may see it?”“Well, I don’t know. I’m guessing probably not. I mean, now that it’s in yourhands.”Guthridge was writing in a pad. Thurmont looked around the station while thedeputy sheriff labored on. Handcuffed to a vinyl chair in the waiting room wasthe man from New Jersey, Malcolm. Malcolm’s lower lip was split wide openand his shirt was torn at the armpit, but despite this he wore an idiotically defiantexpression.When Guthridge was finished, he said, “Well, Thurmont, you thought right tocome here. I can tell you right now that Sheriff Clymer will be very interested tohear this, especially since we don’t have a body yet.”“Jesus.”“That’s right. Only a witness report.”“Poor Bueler. I told him — Well, I think I told him to work at not being so aggravating.He had that about him. He was an honest man, in most respects, a goodfriend. I mean, he was a good man to have a farm next to when he wasn’t takingthings from you. I’ll miss him.”Guthridge’s eyes too were moist.“What about we get down on our knees and say a little prayer for Bueler?”Guthridge said.On his way out of the station, Thurmont stopped to talk to Malcolm. As soonas he sat down, Malcolm, recognizing a fellow seeker in Thurmont, began a lunatictale of pursuit involving a group of bloodthirsty assailants from up North.“They got me,” Malcolm tittered maliciously to himself at the end of hisstory.

“Who got you?” Thurmont asked.“Durant and Tango.”“They’re the ones that beat you up?”“Let me tell you something,” Malcolm said. “Musical ethnography, it’s abattleground. You think this is nonsense, I can tell, but a man can make a namefor himself out here.”Hatless, Thurmont listened to the story of Country Boy Simms.Malcolm had not come to Mississippi to see the gravestone of Elmore James,of course not, that was just a smokescreen, he had come to get an interview withCountry Boy Simms, the last of the living pre-war blues legends. Columbiamusicologists Durant and Tango were on the same hunt and the two parties hadcrossed paths in the cemetery in Canton. Tango had pulled a knife that turnedout to be a cheap hair grooming instrument. Malcolm had acquired a piece offunerary statuary in self-defense and this is how the police had found the Yankeeswhen they’d answered the pastor’s phone call. Now it was just their word againsthis, Malcolm said.“Durant and Tango’s word?” Thurmont said.“You can bet that whatever kind of groomer that was there was a knife option.”“You defaced a gravestone. That won’t wash around here.”“It’s a battleground,” Malcolm shrugged.“I’ll put in a good word with Sheriff Clymer,” Thurmont said, knowing hewouldn’t see Clymer today.On his way home Thurmont prepared himself for the solemn talk he nowknew he would have to have with Thurmont III. He would speak of the fragilityof life. He would try to instill in Thurmont III, against his gut instincts and hismany years of pleasurable solitary hoarding, that life was not about the acquisitionof things, but about creating enduring friendships, something he wished he’dspent a little more time on with Bueler. He would wrap the whole talk up with amild rebuke about the misplaced foot and give the boy a dollar or two to spend onsome sucking candies.He found Thurmont III shucking snow peas at the kitchen sink in a suit difficultto assess. He was mostly at a loss as to how and where the boy had acquiredthe miniature outfit, and for what purpose, but he was pleased when the boy followedhim into the living room without argument. They sat down thigh to thighon the living room sofa and watched the weeping willow chase its shadow acrossthe dirt yard. The heat was a color all its own but it was cool here. The sofa wascool.“Our friend Bueler is dead,” Thurmont said.Thurmont III didn’t register any great misery at this announcement. If anything,he became momentarily more animated.Thurmont said, “I said Bueler, a man who treated you like a son, sometimes,was the man you read about in the paper. You are a material witness.”This was not the tone he wanted at all, Thurmont realized, to come across likesome hectoring TV prosecutor. He said, “Son, Bueler might have had his faults,but the Buelers and the Meekses, we have more in common than — Let’s just saywe’ve grown more alike over the years than us and those Hindus who are hidingBueler’s foot will ever be. Friendship is important in life, you see. Not worrying233

234about things so much.” Here Thurmont paused because he realized his eyes werewelling up. He would not want for the boy to associate grieving with sissiness,per se, or to in any way connect this important growing up message he was givinghim with anything but fortitude of the soul. “Do you mind if I ask you whereyou do your shopping?” he asked.Later that evening, at Ike’s, Thurmont bought the boy his first beer. Heintroduced Thurmont III to all the characters there, the old Negroes who wereregulars at Ike’s. They called the boy Little T. They said he was the spitting imageof Thurmont and compared both, favorably, to a set of father-son undertakers thathad had that job in Tchula once. When it began to get dark, Thurmont told the fellowsthat he would let them know when Reverend Carlton would be holding theservice and he bought a round for everyone in Bueler’s honor.Out on the street minutes later, he said to Thurmont III, “Remember this. Thisis the day you became a man.” He realized that this was somewhat premature, theboy wasn’t even eleven, but there was no use taking it back.Thurmont III, though, was his ornery, secretive self. He didn’t appear at allinterested in their social successes at Ike’s. Rather, he stood there moodily in theheat inspecting the length of his jacket cuffs, measuring them against Thurmont’s.Thurmont himself was naturally a little wobbly on his pins; he’d been drinkingin Bueler’s honor since five. Still, he was floored when Thurmont III offered todrive.“Who taught you that?”“Bueler did.”“Oh, I see. Well, I suppose that wasn’t bad. You want to try?”Thurmont III drove with one arm out the window, like a Greyhound busdriver. Thurmont could only shake his head at the boy’s unconcern for all thingsextraordinary. He began to think of the bottle of sour mash he’d been saving. Hewondered what Reverend Carlton might chose for the title of his little talk, whatpsalm of mourning.Just then, he realized that they were no longer moving, that they’d skidded toa stop in the middle of the road in a cloud of risen dust. He peered anxiously overhis shoulder.“Jesus, boy, what is it? You can’t just stop wherever you please.”“There.”“What?”“Over there.”Thurmont followed the boy’s finger to a naked human form darting antelopelikethrough the twilit fields. It was the Negro from the day before, retracing hisroute.“My good sweet Jesus,” Thurmont said.“Bueler.”“He’s alive.”Thurmont sat on his porch stewing with his sour mash until long past dark.Now that Bueler was alive, if that were truly Bueler, and it clearly was, thenBueler was no longer dead. If Bueler was no longer dead, his diplomatic immunity,so to speak, he was a thief again and Thurmont’s whole speech about friendshipand not having things had been wasted breath, moral fornication. Worse, theboy would grow up trusting his fellow man when in fact they were all Buelers at

heart. He caught himself before he went past the bottleneck and corked the liquorback up. He wouldn’t want to be fall-down drunk when he cornered the man inhis lair.He made a clumsy effort at getting up and off the porch rocker.“Let’s go, boy.”When they were safely hidden in the dark of Bueler’s porch, Thurmont said,“What do you see?”“Two people,” Thurmont III said.“Good people or bad people?”“White people.”“White people? Naked or clothed white people?”“Clothed.”“Well, what are they doing?”“They’ve got Bueler talking into a box.”“My God.”“He’s getting up.”“What now?”“He’s pointing at the wall.”“The bear trap?”“He’s pointing at the bear trap.”“That’s enough,” Thurmont said. “We’re going in.”Inside it was as if Bueler had never left. There was the telltale stink of Bueler’sHappy Star sardines and sprouted mung beans. The Italian leather sofa whereBueler slept, illogically, through the roughest nights of summer was a study insloppiness, piled high with overdue library books and old newspapers and themarbled composition books Bueler kept his fiscal and social observations in. Farinto his manumission tale, Bueler was showing Malcolm and the girl his tridentand net. He would tell you, if he judged you capable of believing such nonsense,that Amis Meeks used to put the Buelers in a specially dug rooster pit and havethem pick themselves off with such ancient Roman instruments.“I think this has gone far enough,” Thurmont said.At this Malcolm jumped with crazed rat eyes. He plucked the trident out ofBueler’s hands and threw his body in between the two farmers. Ignoring the girlentirely, Thurmont was amazed to see. Malcolm had been doing some drinking ofhis own. He couldn’t hold it.“I’m on to you,” Malcolm leered at Thurmont. “Oh, yes, I’ve checked youout, Tippu Tip. Too bad but your slave trading days are over and Country Boy’sgot nothing to say to you.”“Country Boy?”“He’s had enough of your harassment.”“Listen to me, you fool, that is not Country Boy Simms. If Country BoySimms is even alive, or was alive. I’ve sure never heard of him.”“Keep talking, ofay.”“I sure don’t like your tone, boy.”“Whip me then. Come on, what are you waiting for? Whip my black ass.”Thurmont had no response for this.235

236“I’ve already called the Tourist Bureau in Jackson,” Malcolm went on. “I’veregistered a complaint. You don’t want anybody to see Posey’s Cabin becauseof what they might find in there. Slave traps, tridents, S&M equipment. Oh, yes,I’m on to you.” Here Malcolm sort of waltzed across the room to help himself toanother cup of Bueler’s homemade sour mash.“Wait right there,” Thurmont said. “You say this is Country Boy Simms. Howold would Country Boy be? Ninety? One hundred? Does this man look one hundredto you? He’s fat and he can’t play the guitar. Have you asked him to? Andanother thing, you’re not black.”“I’m not black?”“Jesus, no.”“Says who?”Thurmont knew he wouldn’t win this one, so he appealed farmer to farmer toBueler. When Malcolm and the girl were safely out of sight on the porch, he said,“Where you been, Bueler?”“Nowhere.”“What you being doing?”“Nothing.”“Nothing?”“Not a thing.”“Funny.”“No it ain’t.”“I seen you running naked twice across Route 12, me and my boy. That’s notfunny?”“That’s my business. Good enough?”Two minutes into Bueler’s second life on this earth and Thurmont was alreadysick of dealing with him. He said, “Why’d you tell that stupid Yankee you wereCountry Boy Simms?”“I didn’t.”“No?”“No, sir, he told me.”“And you just went along with it?”“Didn’t he just tell you he was a nigger?”Thurmont cast a troubled glance at Thurmont III, who was no longer inspectinghis jacket cuffs. “We don’t use that word around here,” he said.“Did he or did he not tell you that he was black?”Thurmont nodded.“And did you win that argument?”“I think I’d like a little sip myself, if you don’t mind,” Thurmont said.Bueler brought the sour mash and two jars over and the two men sat on theleather sofa facing some very fancy entertainment apparatus and the machinery torun it.Thurmont said, “You’ve been stealing my things, Bueler.”“What now?”“You took Archie Moore’s boxing gloves. You took other things. You tookmy Miss Belzoni calendar, 1952, with the picture of Rose Bascomb you know Ican’t live without. You’ve been prowling about under the moon while I’ve beensleeping.”

Bueler cast a glance of his own at Thurmont III, who couldn’t return it.“And you brought your boy by to teach him a lesson?” Bueler said.“That’s about the short of it.”“Thurmont, do you see any things in here? I got my couch and my color TV. Igot my subscription to National Geographic and that’s it. Look for yourself. Andtell me something. What business could I possibly have with your Miss Belzonicalendar?”“No things?” Thurmont spluttered. “And what do you call that?”The bear trap.“Historical evidence,” Bueler said.Thurmont took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t believe you. You might as wellfess up and tomorrow we can take care of the particulars.”“I ain’t got your things, Mr. T,” Bueler said.“Sure you don’t. Who’s got them then?”“Why don’t you ask the boy?”“Ask him what?”“Where’d he get that beeper from maybe. All those little old man suits.”There had been the suits, true, the hair jelly, all the little entitlements ThurmontIII had been helping himself to on what meager allowance? Five dollars aweek? His two-tone gentlemen’s shoes with arch supports. Casually, Thurmontturned to look at his blood, who sat quietly next to him on the sofa. He could notbring himself to do it, however, and the boy knew it. Thurmont stood and theywalked in silence back through the moonlit fields hand-in-hand.At some point Thurmont felt his hand being squeezed. It could have been thedarkness that had unnerved the boy, the darkness and the baying of dogs. ThoseMississippi mutts were bad enough in daylight; at night you were sure you werethe only piece of meat on the wind for miles around. Why had he never shownthe boy how to protect himself with a slingshot and a dirt-impacted rock? hewondered. Their Mississippi snowballs? It was too bad that he would never havethat opportunity because first thing in the morning he intended to call Lucius tocollect his thieving seed.At the cabin Thurmont III slunk off to his room without waiting for bedtimewords, his head held exaggeratedly low to the ground. Like a trained hyena,thought Thurmont. The light didn’t come on, which meant that the boy must havegone to sleep in his clothes. So be it. Thurmont went to the barn and switched onthe lights and let them run, pulling in many queer bugs. He left the barn doorsopen. Across the fields, as usual, Bueler’s cabin was lit to excess.Thurmont didn’t call Lucius the next day. Instead, he spent the morningboxing his things. He’d woken late and hadn’t bothered shaving. Exhaustionovertook him early on. Not any tiredness attributable to the goings-on of the pastfew days, but a general life exhaustion. He was tired of his things and depressedthat he would feel this way. He took a nap. He passed the afternoon staring up atthe barn ceiling, watching the cobwebs in the rafters whisper like clouds. In theevening he couldn’t bring himself to spend another minute picking through hisjunk and went to the cabin to make dinner.The boy was in bed with the lights out, dressed in the suit of the night before.237

He looked to Thurmont, squinting through the keyhole, like an embalmed dignitaryfrom a country with very small people. It was barely eight o’clock, not yetdark. The temperature had dropped. Could the boy actually be sleeping? Thurmontwondered. When he should have been out enjoying the twilight? Chasingdogs, throwing knives, shooting things? Where were the boy’s friends?Thurmont didn’t knock. He went back to the barn and fell into a deep slumber.The sky was a wide pale blue but there were clouds in it that looked like theymight stick and grow into something. Thurmont waited on the porch for ThurmontIII, pondering rain. It was still very early and the boy had asked to changeout of his old clothes. He came out in overalls and an undershirt, his fishing suit.They were in the truck with packed lunches by six and at the Copper Roadbend minutes later. They sat down on the red dirt bank with their backs to theroad.Thurmont brought out two antique red and white bobs and set them both upand then attached the dough balls. He cast first and then Thurmont III cast. Theboy’s wasn’t much of a cast.“There was no foot,” Thurmont said, keeping his eyes on the very placidwater.“No, sir.”“You took my things here and you sold them.”“Yessir.”“To buy your suits.”“Yessir.”“And your hair jelly and beeper. Do you feel neglected, boy?”“No, sir.”“Do you miss your grandpa Lucius in Jackson?”“No, sir.”“You feel comfortable here in Tchula, you mean to say? Here on the farm?”“Yessir.”“With me, you feel comfortable?”“Yessir.”“Well, I’ve made some decisions,” Thurmont said.Thurmont III looked up from his line. His eyes had started to well up, a peculiarthing to see on a Meeks.Thurmont said, “First, I’ve decided not to live in the barn anymore, if that’sok with you. That old bed is killing me. The second one is that I would like youto help me box my things. I’d like you and me to sell them together. You see, I’veaccumulated quite a bit of collectibles and such over the years, like my straightrazors and shaving gear.”It was going to be the whole works, Thurmont could see. Tears, webs ofmouth mucus, hyperventilation maybe. The boy wanted to atone for his crimes.“You sold those too, did you?” Thurmont said. “That’s ok. I don’t need themanyway. How many razors does a man need to shave? The point is I’d like toshow you how to make a sling shot. You’ve got to know how to protect yourselfagainst those mutts and if I understand right, living in Las Vegas, you probablynever learned how.”238

Just then the boy’s bob came undone and started to drift away on the current.He jumped up but Thurmont put a hand on his shoulder and kept him there andhe eventually settled down.Thurmont rifled in the antique tackle box and found another older, prettierbob and gave it to the boy to tie on himself. He did and recast and it was betterthis time. They watched the lost red and white bob slowly make its way south onthe sluggish current to the Gulf of Mexico as the first raindrops fell and the skybegan to rinse itself clean.Max Sheridan lives and writes in Nicosia, Cyprus. Some of his recent workhas appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM Magazine and Atticus Review.His latest novel Hubble is looking for a home. You can find him at: www.maxsheridanlit.com.239

THE GARDENby Katja ZurcherIt was raining slightly. Not enough to notice as we walked to the truck, but itmisted the windshield and created a film as the wipers flicked across. I stillremember how I clutched both sides of the seat. The leather was dingy andcracked, crumbs ground into the creases. My stomach hurt for some reason. Ittwisted deep inside me like those giant pretzels they sell at the mall.“Hey,” Adam said. I leaned the side of my head against the window, themotor vibrating my teeth. I could feel him staring.“Hey,” I replied, not looking at him.“You want to go get some ice cream or something?”“No.”“Are you sure? Or we could do coffee or whatever.” I glanced over at himand shook my head. He cleared his throat. “Are you ok?” he asked.“Yeah.”He was silent for a moment, then, “You’re not upset or anything?”“I’m fine. Seriously.” I turned to smile at him. My skin was still cool fromthe window. “Promise.”“Because if you’re upset I want us to talk about it. You didn’t have to doanything you didn’t want to. You knew that, right?” He was staring hard at menow, not watching the road. The air freshener hanging from the mirror swayedviolently as the truck swerved.“Yeah, I said I was fine.” I could hear my voice shake a bit at the end, and Ipretended to cough.It was dark when he pulled into my driveway, and the headlights scatteredthe shadows. When I opened the car door he leaned over to kiss me and missed.His lips brushed the side of my mouth. Waving awkwardly, I closed the doorand took the front steps two at a time. I could hear Mom humming tunelessly inthe kitchen.“Madeline, is that you?” she called. Her shadow loomed around thecorner like a witch from a fairy tale, and I ran the rest of the way up the stairs.“Madeline?” she called again. I ripped at my clothes and turned on the shower,slipping behind the curtain as she walked into my room.“I’m taking a shower,” I said over the gush of water. She didn’t sayanything for a moment, but I could see her silhouette in the doorway, tingedpink by the frosted shower curtain.“Are you okay?” she asked. I clutched my arms close to my body eventhough I knew she couldn’t see me.“Yeah. How come?” I had never been a good liar, but I hoped that the240

pounding of the shower muffled my voice so she couldn’t tell. I was surprisedshe could hear me at all.“Are you sure?” Her silhouette moved a little closer.“Mom! I’m in the shower,” I yelled.“Ok, ok,” she said. “How does pizza sound for dinner?”“Great. Now can you just go?” As I watched her outline move away, I sawthat I was trembling.My hair was plastered to the side of my face the way seaweed attachesto your legs in the ocean, and my skin was already too red from the heat. Isqueezed shampoo in my hand and started working it through my hair. It didn’tneed to be washed. It used to be long and heavy, weighed down by thick curls.But I decided that the curls made me look too young, and I had my hair cutshort. My neck felt strange, exposed and thin beneath my hands. Mom told methat I looked like a red headed Aubrey Hepburn. My cousin Beth and I tried todye it black, and she convinced me that it looked good until Mom pointed out,horrified, that my eyebrows were still very red. My hands followed the suds asthey slipped down my body. I kept waiting, but I didn’t feel any different at all.That night I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. Mom had offered tohelp me redo my room a few weeks earlier, and I told her I would think aboutit. Her new “calming color” was cobalt, and she was covering the house withit. My room was filled with old basketball trophies and posters on the walls.I played when I was younger, and Dad drove me to every practice. We rolleddown the windows and sang Beatles songs at the top of our lungs, even when itwas freezing outside. During sophomore year, I realized boys would pay moreattention to me if I wore a cheerleading skirt instead. Dad didn’t say muchwhen I quit, but he never came to the games anymore. I wasn’t sure what to dowith the trophies. They had been there for so long the room would look emptywithout them, not like mine. Adam had never been in it.I buried my face in the down of the duvet cover and breathed in. Adam’scomforter had been rough against my bare skin. After I got out of the shower Inoticed that it had left a place on my shoulder, slightly red like a rug burn. Hisroom always smelled a little sour, but that afternoon his mom had been bakingsomething downstairs for the Junior League, and, sweet and rich, its aromarolled in from under the closed door. There was nothing on his dresser exceptfor a bowl of cereal and picture of him with his arm around a girl I didn’t know.I still hadn’t asked who she was. The floor was covered with dirty clothes, andwhen he left to go to the bathroom I kicked them into one of the corners. Afterhe came back, his hands smelled of Dove soap, and when he touched my facethe smell reminded me of Mom.Mom was on the phone in the living room, and her voice carried up thestairs, soft and wordless. Concentrating, holding my breath, I tried to listen, andthrough the hum of her voice I thought I heard my name. The wooden boardsunder the carpet groaned as I crossed the room to pick up my upstairs extension.She was talking to her mother, Nana. I walked back with the phone, pausing ateach step to disguise my footsteps. With a final leap I crumpled onto my bedwith the phone pressed to my cheek.Inhaling shallowly through my mouth, I listened as they talked about mylittle brother. Nana was telling Mom that the theater thing was just a phase he241

would grow out of. She punctuated each sentence with a high sniffled laugh.Suddenly she stopped.“So how is the boyfriend?” I felt a tingle spread from my chest to myshoulders and down my arms.“Adam?”“Adam. Of course. I can never remember his name.”“He’s fine. She was out with him tonight.”“They aren’t getting too serious, are they?”“Mother.” Mom’s voice was sharp, and Nana didn’t reply. In the silence Irealized that I had breathed in a tiny gasp. “Hold on for a second,” Mom said,and there was a slight thud as she set the phone down on the coffee table. Herfootsteps echoed as she walked down the hall and stopped at the foot of thestairs. Pressing End with sweaty hands, I rolled over and dropped the phonedown the side of the bed where it got caught between the mattress and the wall.Adam had called a little earlier, and we’d talked like nothing hadhappened. I don’t know what I was expecting. Some part of me thought hewouldn’t call at all. Before he hung up I asked him in a small voice not to tellanyone. He seemed confused at first, maybe even hurt.“Why not?” he asked. “Are you embarrassed or something?”“No!” I said, even though it was a lie. “It’s just, you know. My school andeverything. If people found out it would be a big deal.” He let out a strange,quiet laugh that I had never heard before, but he said ok.Adam knew all about Harvest Hills Baptist. We do it by the Book! One timein 9th grade health class they split up the boys and girls. The school nurse camein to talk to us about our purity. She held up a decorative bird cage filled withplastic flowers and greenery. Wire filled tendrils curled around the bars of thecage and crushed up against the top.“You are a beautiful garden,” she said, setting the bird cage down with aflourish. We all stared blankly back at her. I leaned over to scratch at a bug bitethrough my knee socks, and Beth poked me hard in the ribs. Heads turned in mydirection as I swallowed my squeal. Keeping my eyes on the nurse, I pinched theflabby part of Beth’s arm.“You must learn how to tend your garden, keep it pure. Because the worldwants to destroy your garden.” She yanked at one of the flower petals, twistingat the plastic until it snapped.“Do you prune your garden?” Beth whispered to me. A few of the girlsaround us giggled.The nurse glared at us. “It is up to you to always be on guard.”We heard later they had talked to the boys about the dangers ofmasturbation.I sat next to Beth the next morning at church. I could feel the spot fromAdam’s comforter against my blouse. I found myself reaching up to touch itwhen no one was watching. It seemed warm through the fabric.My dad’s family was big, and we always sat in the first two rows. The rowswere nothing more than folding chairs lined together in a giant auditorium. Thecushions were red, smelled like someone’s attic, and when Beth and I were littlewe picked the pills off the cloth and collected them in our pockets. Two large242

screens flanked the wooden cross that hung above the podium. Once, a couplefrom out of town sat in one of our rows. My grandfather shuffled over to them,his Sunday jacket stretching tightly across his back as he moved. Smiling, hewelcomed them to our church, and then asked them to move. My grandmothershook her head. Bless their hearts, they didn’t know.We bowed our heads to pray, and Beth kicked at my leg, the tip of her heelpressing into my calf. As I kicked her back I noticed Mom glance down at mefrom under her eye lashes, and her lips pursed together. She shifted her weightso her leg was also touching mine. Beth tried to stifle a giggle, but it came outin little choking puffs. As the overhead lights dimmed, the stage lights flashedyellow and blue, and the large screens powered on like two waking eyes. Westood to sing, and Beth smirked at me through her dramatic lip sync.When people stood up to greet each other I grabbed Beth by the wrist. “Ihave something to tell you,” I whispered. We stayed seated, and, grinning, sheleaned closer. We sat angled in, knee to knee with foreheads touching. I tore offa page in my devotional notebook. I did it with Adam, I wrote and passed it toher. Beth’s eyes grew big as she read the note. She looked up at me, and I couldfeel my face getting warm. Everyone began to take their seats as she yankedthe pen out of my hand. What?! How was it? she scribbled sideways across thepaper. I tilted my head to read it and then shrugged. Suddenly, she crumpled thepaper into a ball and slipped it under my fingers. I heard Mom clear her throat,her eyes on my face, as I stood up and made my way down the row, bumpingknees and stepping on purses. The wad of paper was still clutched in my hand.The door of the auditorium shut behind me, stifling the preacher’s voicewith a heavy snap. There weren’t any windows, and the artificial light createdstrange muted shadows. I walked carefully as if I were trying not to wakesomeone, and I listened for my mother’s steps behind me. My blouse feltstrangely stifling, light hands pressing at my neck. I unbuttoned it and breatheddeeply.The woman’s restroom smelled like powdered roses. The scent was thickand got caught in the back of my throat. I went into the first stall, the toilet waterstill blue from the cleanser put in that morning, and tore the note into tiny piecesuntil it wouldn’t tear anymore. All of the pieces twirled down into the bowlexcept for a few that still stuck to my palms. I brushed my hands together, andthey fell too. Steadying myself with the walls of the stall, I lifted my foot andpushed down on the toilet handle.Beth found me after church and grabbed me by the crook of my arm. With aquick glance at our parents who were still mingling in the lobby, she pulled mepast the exiting congregation.“Why didn’t you call me last night?” she asked.I laughed and shrugged. “I just wanted to go to bed.” She stared at me,waiting for me to say more. “There isn’t really anything to tell.” I hesitated andremembered squeezing my eyes shut. I didn’t want to look at him and in myhead: I’m sorry I’m sorry until the words didn’t mean anything anymore. And hekept his socks on. “It was kind of weird.”“Everyone thinks that at first.”“How would you know?”“Does this mean you guys are in love now?” she asked.243

“No.”She saw my face. “It doesn’t matter.” She touched my shoulder so lightlythat I could hardly feel her hand through my blouse. We both looked at theground, and I didn’t know what to say to her. She scratched at the back of herhead and swayed a little to the side like she was about to leave.“You know they make such a big deal about it, but—” I squeezed Beth’shand to shut her up.In line with family tradition, we went to The Guenther House for Sundaybrunch. Dad dropped us off at the front door, so we could get a table while heand my brother parked the minivan. Mom and I stood shoulder to shoulderin the crowd of fellow church-goers, and standing next to her I felt awkwardand clunky. I was painfully aware that my feet were much too big and that myhair was still that awful shade of black. Mom was tall and elegant, and peoplecomplimented her red hair like they never had done mine. Today, she wore awrist full of thin silver bangles that tinkled when she moved. She told me thatI looked exactly like she did in high school, but I had seen pictures; I knew shewas lying.“I’ve been thinking, how would you like a shopping date after schooltomorrow?” she asked, leaning her head towards me to be heard in the crowd.“We can get dinner and make an evening of it.”I looked up, surprised. “I have a lot of homework on Mondays.”“We could get coffee? Have some girl time.”Dad suddenly appeared behind her. “What are you two scheming about?” heasked, kissing her lightly on the cheek.She laughed, and the bangles on her arm chimed softly. “Nothing at all.”Adam said that he wanted to come over and talk that night, so I sat onthe front steps to wait for him. A few worms lay shriveled on the cement andI scraped at them with a stick. They peeled up like scabs, leaving discoloredmarks. Even though it was only six o’clock when Adam pulled into thedriveway, the sky was almost completely dark and shadows leaned away fromthe street lights. I didn’t stand up to meet him as he walked up the front walk.His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, and he walked with aslight sway.“It’s kind of cold out here,” he said, sitting down next to me.“Feels ok to me.”He drummed his fingers on his knees and looked at me. “Do anything cooltoday?”“Not really. Just church.”“Cool.” He scratched at his nose while I looked up at him expectantly.Instead of meeting my eyes, he picked up a leaf and started tearing it apart inlittle pieces.“Are you sure you’re ok?” he asked.“Yeah.” I nudged his arm with my elbow. “I already told you.”“I know,” he said. “You just seem mad at me or something.”“Adam, I told—”“I really care about you a lot,” he said. I don’t think he even realized that hewas interrupting me. He was still staring at his leaf.244

“I care about you too.”“No, like,” he hesitated. “I just feel like I really hurt you or something. Iknow how uptight you get with that kind of stuff.”“What, do you think I’m a prude or something?” I demanded. I could hearmy voice, high and childlike, but I couldn’t help it. He didn’t answer me. Hedidn’t even look at me. He just kept looking down at the leaf, twirling it in hisfingers. Its stalk and veins hung limp where he had torn off the papery flesh.“No,” he finally said.We sat a while staring into the street. Slumping over, I rested my chin inmy hands. The street was quiet, and I felt quiet and empty. Adam slipped hishand around my waist and tugged me closer. I gave way like a rag doll and lethim hold me. He always smelled piney, probably his cologne, and a little likepencil shavings. I’d told this to Beth. She laughed and told me it was weird. ButI liked it. He lifted my face and started to kiss me, timidly for a moment but thenharder, gripping my leg with his hands. And I could feel where he was probablygoing to leave a bruise. Something warm started somewhere deep in my chestand spread to the rest of my body. He pressed himself harder against me, andI let him. He kissed my neck, whispering something in my ear. Suddenly Istopped and pulled away. He grabbed at me, and I pulled away again. He lookedlike I had slapped him. Before he could say anything, I walked up the front stepsand went inside.Keeping my head down, I hurried through the kitchen and out the backdoor. I could hear Mom calling after me, but I didn’t stop. As soon as the doorclosed behind me I broke into a run, stumbling a little on the last step of thedeck. I didn’t slow down until I made it to the woods at the end of the property.Collapsing on the grass, my breathing sounded loud and harsh in the silence.The sky looked strange, almost grey, and there were barely any stars. I staredup at it until my vision grew hot and blurry, and I had to wipe my eyes. Therewas a grumble from the front of the house as Adam started up his truck, and Iimagined him peeling out of the driveway.Mom called my name from the deck, but I pretended I didn’t hear her.Maybe if I kept still enough she wouldn’t see me. I heard her clomp down thesteps in her ugly garden shoes. We had made fun of them for years, but she stillwore them.Lowering herself down slowly, as if her knees hurt, she sat down next to mein the grass. Without speaking, we both stared into the woods. They stretchedout open before us, darker and wilder than they ever seemed during the day. Theblack trees grabbed at the sky. Mom sighed and squeezed my shoulder.“How have you been?” she asked. She didn’t look at me, only gazed out atthe trees. I thought about it and slapped a mosquito.“I don’t know,” I finally answered.“Do we need to put you on the pill?” she asked. Casually, matter-of-factly.It stunned me.“Mama!” I squealed, covering my face. “I don’t do that stuff. I’m not likethat.”“Like what?”I didn’t answer but was thankful for the dark, so she couldn’t see my face.Taking me by the shoulders, she folded me into her like she used to do when I245

was little. I lay my head on her chest and felt her heart right beneath my cheek.It seemed so close to the skin, as if it could bounce out if it beat any harder.The shadows teased my eyes, extending and pulling at the shapes in thewoods, until I could actually see them moving. They changed, violent andforeign, before I could distinguish one shape from another, and the wind rattledthough the branches. Mom tucked back my hair, and her fingertips brushed myear. Her skin was surprisingly coarse. When she stood up to leave I wanted totell her to stay, but I didn’t.“Mom?” The light from the house shone behind her, and she was beautiful.“I’m sorry,” I said, swallowing back something.She frowned and pursed her lips. “Don’t apologize,” she said. Her voicesounded dry, like a little bit of sadness was trailing it.I watched her go and then turned back to the woods. I could hear thecrickets now, and around the flicker of stars the darkness was alive andthrobbing.Katja Zurcher is a graduate of Rhodes College. She is the recipient of theAllen Tate Creative Writing Award in fiction and a finalist for the 2011 SalemCollege International Literary Awards. Her work has been published in theRhodes College literary journal, The Southwestern Review.246

PUDDLESby Linda NordquistThe rain is a deluge day and night. It bloats the rivers and saturates theground. The overflow courses down the mountains, giving birth toshallow gullies in the rocky paths. When the ground levels off for briefstretches, the water slows and puddles appear. That changes everything.We set out on our hike during a break in the downpour—me, the boy andthe dogs. Rust colored mud oozes underfoot. The dogs race ahead, stoppingonly to mark their spots. They set a frenetic pace, darting from boulder to bush,driven by their exquisite olfactory talents.The Doberman is in the lead, his taut hindquarters rolling side-to-side. Themutt, thick-as-a-stump, lopes along, ears forward, tail up. He has fashioned thetrot to fit his needs: racing trot for chasing chickens and rabbits, coasting trot forlow impact travel.Running to catch up with them is the boy, small in stature, thin, with eyesthe color of mink and lashes that cast shadows on his cheekbones. He stops atthe edge of the first puddle. Swinging his arms out wide, he marches throughit, splashing water into his rubber boots. Then he is off, chasing the dogs andsquealing like all eight-year-old boys running free. He surges forward, limbsmoving with abandon, joints flush with synovial fluid—never a thought to a slipor fall.When the boy comes upon the next puddle, he slows and examines thepossibilities. Backing up, he pauses, swings his arms and sways back-andforth.Suddenly he bolts. Leaping like an Olympiad, he performs a near perfectlong jump. Both feet touch down in tandem. Water sprays in all directions.Again, knees bent, he springs up, stretches his arms above his head and jumpskangaroo-style out of the puddle. The movement springs from his imagination—after all, he’s never seen a properly executed long jump. He turns with a grin,exposing holes where teeth used to be. His expression is the essence of joy.I bring up the rear with a tentative stride, the possibilities of a mishapforemost in my mind: an exposed tree root, a slippery stone, a rock juttingupwards. Confidence in movement is a thing of the past. My joints jerklike R2D2. The walking stick is a third leg. A titanium hip represents newopportunities tempered by the fear of falling. At 9,200 feet elevation, depletedoxygen adds to the challenges.But, where the boy exudes confidence, I have determination. And so Itrudge along the slippery path in a steady ascent.The first puddle is motionless. I begin to walk around it but stop and look at247

248my reflection. A silver-haired woman with wrinkles and sagging cheeks gazesback at me.Should I accept or deny her? There aren’t many options, especially sinceI ran out of ash-blonde hair coloring a year ago. In the Andes, store shelvesare stacked with shades of auburn or black. A financial investment in blonddye would be risky. Embracing my gray, however, is easier than reconciling toeverything that comes with it.I move on.The next puddle is shaped like a banana. It looks harmless enough. I decidenot to squelch the whim. I press the walking stick further into the mud andwalk into it. The cool water flows over my rubber muckers, sending a chillup my legs. I walk the length and am pleased with myself for not engaging inavoidance.I am not well-equipped for avoidance. I look the world straight in the eye,always have. I would like to say I never look back, but I do—often—curious asto why of it, why this road traveled and not that. At night, my ears throb with thesilence of this place. There are no hooting owls, no crickets, only the occasionaldistant bark of a dog. It is fertile ground for probing regrets and they are easy tofind. Whenever a life zigzags like a windsock in a storm, there are bound to beregrets. But I don’t dwell on them. It was a life lived.Up ahead, the dogs have disappeared and the boy is throwing stones into apuddle. He stutter steps, squats, picks up a stone, takes aim and hurls it into thewater—everything in motion at once. I can’t remember the last time my bodymoved as one.We round the curve just as the sun cuts through the clouds, shining abrilliant light upon the glacier before us. My eyes squint from the glare. It isbreathtaking, a mantle of pure white ice spreading in all directions. The glacieris two miles away across a narrow gorge and up another 7,000 feet, but it seemsclose enough to touch. Silent and imposing, it is reminiscent of the Cathedral ofNotre Dame at dawn.“Wow,” he says. “Look at that!”“Yes. Wow,” I respond, my voice muted with sadness.What else should I say? Do I give him the scientific prognosis? “Listen, kid.Don’t get too excited. In four years that glacier will be just another puddle.”I do not want to crush his spirit with any hint of cynicism. But, questionsabound: Does truth equal cynicism? How, when the Andean nations aredependent upon glaciers for water and electricity, will he be prepared for thecatastrophes to come? Is it my responsibility to teach him? Teach him what?How to survive in a land without water?I am speechless.A sigh escapes as we turn around. The dogs launch themselves downward,gaining speed like an alpine skier. The boy lets out a yelp and chases after them,his feet barely touching the ground.For me, down is worse than up. The jarring of ankle and knee joints makesme cringe. I dig the walking stick deeper into the lumpy mud.Up ahead the dogs, tongues flopping, stop and eye a frothy cascade hurtlingtowards the river at the bottom of the gorge. They lap a puddle instead. Theboy races past them with a “whoop.” Their heads rise, hindquarters engage, and

piercing barks ensue as they follow the boy around a bend, disappearing fromsight.I reach a flat stretch and lean against a boulder to rest. The balls of my feetare hot and my calves ache. It wasn’t always this way. Four years ago I hikedabove the clouds—all of them. Mountain peaks cut through them like candleson a whip-cream cake. With my legs set wide apart bracing against the wind, Istood at the top of the world. I want to tell the boy, “See? In my life, I have hadjoy.” But he is nowhere in sight.Except for the occasional rustle of branches, all is still. There is a largepuddle in the middle of the lane. Images of clouds float upon its placid waters. Ilook up and down the path. I am alone.The urge is strong and I do not resist it. I walk to the edge, raise my foot andstomp. Mud spatters. I move closer and stomp again. I tramp into the puddle, myarms out wide for balance, the walking stick dangling from my hand. I stompharder and harder, squeal louder and louder.The glaciers are dying. The world is awry.In that moment, I thirst for life.The dogs take the curve on an angle, their bodies hovering close to theground. As they roar towards me, the sound of barking drowns my shrieks. Theboy is close behind them. He plunges into the puddle while the dogs dance andyelp along the edges. We laugh and splash, stomp and shout until we are spent,our hands on our knees, lungs gasping for air, clothes drenched.In that fleeting moment, I am giddy with being alive.When we get underway, the dogs lope ahead. This time the boy hangs back.He walks along side of me, a look of anticipation on his face. Perhaps he hopesfor another burst of excitement and wants to be in on it from the beginning.I hope for a hot bath, an Ibuprofen and a nap.Writer, photographer, activist, and lapsed psychotherapist, Linda Nordquistis the author of “The Andes for Beginners,” a memoir/guidebook that is availablein Peru. Her short-story, “Promises” is to be published in the 2012 winter editionof The Write Place at the Write Time. Runner-up in round 7 of NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction contest with “Honor.” Author of three e-books: “Molten Murder,”“Beyond the Tipping Point,” and “Say Goodbye, Say Hello”.249

BEFORE THEYWERE DEADby Steven MillerBefore they were dead, they pasted witty slogans to the rear bumpersof their vehicles, slogans that were as much other-challenging as selfexpressing.Mostly, these slogans were concerned with how other peopleshould spend their money.Each morning, before they were dead, they snapped out great sheets ofink-dirty paper filled with negativity. Many took it to heart, so much so thatthey hurled their own negativity at the sheaves, going so far as to carry on aboutthe subjects in said papers, long afterward, with other folks yet-undead. If thenegativity seemed particularly important, they would enter into an informed butcalculated duel involving opposing ideologies and piles of statistics. Statistics,they believed, were absolute truths that varied from year to year.Oftentimes, they would hide from one another in the grocery store. Once ina blue moon, this was because of a murder or a house burning, but usually it wasover a word poorly chosen from the dictionary or their many words, or a phonecall left unreturned, or a chip bowl dropped and broken but not replaced.They made love, they married, they gave birth to tabula rosai, whom theyboth loved and hated because of the uncanny resemblance to themselves, whomthey both loved and hated.They worked extra hard so that they might retire early, and then they died ofheart failure — from plaque or loneliness – before taking that long awaited sailaround the world. They spent whole lifetimes building snowmen, and then whentheir boat finally did arrive, they were too terrified to sail it. Terrified and utterlyexhausted.Before they were dead, they were like molecules of all different chemicalmake-ups, moving always against and away.Then they were dead.They waited in the auditorium counting their soul-fingers and soul-toes,nothing to debate, no entertainment news to discuss. And finally, across thehall a tiny porthole opened like the aperture of an old-timey camera, letting in asphere of light. They followed it as it entered and grew, this essence the singlefocus of their attention. It filled the space between their soul bodies, filled them,and, together again as they had always been even if they’d forgotten it for solong, they stepped out into the light.250

CRACKby Steven MillerWhen I was smoking crack — I’ll let you digest and comprehend thisseemingly incongruent piece of my history — I didn’t care about awhole lot. Then I beat it, beat drink too at the same time, and thenfinally beat nicotine, which everyone agreed was killing me and annoying them.And then this morning, the sweet faced, omniscient nurse delivered my doctor’sadvice that if I wanted the pain to stop I would have to quit coffee, and I felt thatold rebellious carelessness rise up to my rescue, because that, my friends, is asacrifice I will not make.Steven Miller’s fiction has appeared in various online journals, CavalierLiterary Couture and elimae, to name a few.251

252NONFICTIONFALL 2012

EVERY PERSON IHAVE EVER METby Colleen CorcoranI.“MY JOB WAS TO TAKE THE ESCALADE OUT AND BUYCHAMPAGNE,” says one former employee. “Well, not every day, but that wasmemorable.”He had been working as an executive assistant to the CEO of Bechtel, oneof the world’s largest engineering companies. Bechtel built the Hoover Dam, theAlaska Pipeline, the Hong Kong International Airport, the mass transit systemsof several cities, and the first commercial nuclear power reactor in America. It isresponsible for some of the world’s largest mining projects and was named by theUnited Nations as a supplier of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein.It has, also, been targeted for war profiteering and environmental degradation.The Bechtel office building lies in the dark heart of San Francisco’s financialdistrict at the corner of Mission and Beale. The building: brown and unadorned,and everything about the place anonymous. In front of it, every weekday morning,the woman running in tall black boots with tall black heels will be running late towork, this just past the person handing out Examiner newspapers and the homelessman standing with his back to a brick wall selling Street Sheet for $1. “Have anabsolutely magnificent day,” the homeless man will be saying.“There’s always some Bechtel protestor wandering around wonderingwhere to stand,” or so they say.“I worked there for a year,” according to the former employee. “I left whenI decided I had enough of being completely miserable every single day of mylife … I didn’t do anything interesting. I was there to like pat him on the backand stroke his ego.”“I used to work on a farm, and one day I was birthing a calf and suddenlythought, ‘This is disgusting,’” someone else recalls of the day he decided to seekout alternate employment.Or the job might be sent to a country whose citizens are willing to workfor a bowl of rice a day, where airports dance to the hum of mechanical ceilingfans. The inner working of the place are sometimes erratic — communicationsbreakdowns, system failures — a fractured existence limping along in last place,a cascade of desperation and inconsistency. Dealings are in tragedies and poortiming, remoteness and misinformation. The common language is gibberish.A dusty yellow haze settles over all things, and wild boars walk the unpavedstreets. There is nobody rational at the wheel.253

“I hope you enjoyed your stay,” management will say upon dismissing anemployee from the crumbling empire. “If you didn’t have a good time, well youcould have had a good time but you chose to focus on the negative things insteadof on the positive things.”II.OVER 40 YEARS AGO, A STUDY WAS CONDUCTED in the basementof Stanford’s psychology building. Called the Stanford Prison Experiment, itwas to last two weeks but ended after six days following a series of emotionalbreakdowns and a general state of things rapidly and irreversibly becomingdeeply disturbing.The experiment began with a classified ad: Male college students neededfor psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks. Pseudoprisonersubjects were arrested, fingerprinted, blindfolded, searched, deloused,and dressed in numbered uniforms. Guards were armed with clubs and told tocreate an environment of powerlessness. Why did things go the way they went?Why didn’t everyone just sit around staring at the wall? This is how thingswent: It’s hard to say exactly when the prisoners started to revolt. Someonehas it written down. But they did indeed, and retaliation was swift. Where oncewere lilting melodies bouncing brightly through the air-conditioning vents wasnow the sound of chainsaws and thick-soled shoes echoing across concreteplains. Prisoners were stripped naked, their beds removed, and the leader of therebellion placed in solitary confinement — a janitor’s closet. But not a janitor’scloset — a windowless cell rather where the most insolent of offenders would belocked away for days and relieved only by the occasional sliver of light and byscraps of food tossed inside at random intervals.In order to maintain the illusion of incarceration, guards placedbags over the heads of prisoners during transfers throughout the prison.Punishment was administered in the form of press-ups and sleep interruption.The International Committee of the Red Cross calls it “prolonged stressstanding.” In these cases, the victim might be handcuffed and shackled to theceiling, and bolted to the floor.One prisoner developed a psychosomatic body rash. Professor PhilipZimbardo, orchestrator of the experiment, walked the halls with his handsclasped behind his back and a scowl on his face, no longer a student of themeandering mind but rather a middle-class monarch monitoring the masterlaboratory for negative reinforcement. Over the course of many days, the walls,it seemed, grew to an industrial thickness. All sounds were blocked from theoutside world. The prisoners became pale and wasted, the guards deranged.Nothing stirred save for the inner workings of many a disintegrating mind.People sometimes find it hard to believe that someone can become adifferent person, as it were, that moment of stepping off the front doorstep,boarding a train or a bus, and becoming whatever title the world has assigned tothem. Can good people commit acts of evil, and were they not perhaps evil allalong? Zimbardo calls it the Lucifer Effect: The social norms associated withthe role become all-consuming regardless of who that person was yesterday orwhat they might have been if only. Independent thought is compromised. When254

you’re in it, you can’t see it. Something like that. The power of the situation totransform human behavior – that had been the focus of the study.In the free world are stacks of people, reporting to one another and thenagain to others in parallel and in sequence. “I wish,” someone might say, “thatI had more power. But that is by the way.” This person will lack defined anklesand shuffle about as though atrophied in the art of walking. They will gaze uponthe world through grey eyes which lack both depth and humanity.There were private jets once. “We had a private jet once,” someone elsemight recall wistfully, as if remembering a time when Santa Claus was real.These are, in their heart of hearts, an ancient and warlike people, of irritablenature, demanding respect. When night falls, the lights of vacant offices mightbe lanterns, the dark places forest, and skyscrapers trees. Distant and mythical,like wizards, they talk always of winning and wanting and things reminiscent ofworld domination — all things of the earth in numerical order, cross-referencedfrom the beginning until the end of time.III.“BEFORE THE LAW,” WROTE KAFKA, “STANDS A DOORKEEPER.”Franz Kafka worked a lawyer for much of his life. He worked, specifically, as ananalyst of industrial accidents for the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute forthe Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague.The word “Prague” means, in the Czech language, “threshold.” The cityhas stood at the crossroads of history, its very existence a constant cause ofinquiry. Someone quite old but alive in at the beginning of the 21st century,having lived in that city their entire life, has seen its ownership change handssomething along the lines of nine times. WWII, it is said, ended there in 1989,when the country was finally freed from the Soviet Union. A statue of Stalinwas built on a hillside park by 600 men and women — the largest monumentin the world of its kind at 50 meters high and 17,000 tones, a single button halfa mile wide. Unveiled on May 1, 1955, one day after its creator committedsuicide, the statue was blown apart with 800 kilograms of explosives and1,650 detonators seven years later. The head, they say, rolled into the river.The remains were driven around town in a truck and the driver of that truckdied in an accident less than a year later.Down a quiet street at the edge of town, an unmarked door at basementlevel opens. Someone enters. Another exits. There is movement inside, alight faraway, and the door closes. Things are neither here nor there nor fullyunderstood. Later on, for one slow minute, an elevator stalls and its single lightgoes dark in the socket. In that moment, the sun ceases to rise, the trees to losetheir leaves. Nothing grows old. Nothing grows at all in fact.Before the law stands a doorkeeper. Before an escalator stands a guard.Before the guard, an entrance hall, and before the entrance hall, the world. Everynow and again, something surfaces — a dusty bottle, an anchor chain. The SanFrancisco financial district once lay underwater. Between 1867 and 1869, aseawall was built. The remains of ships abandoned in the hasty departure of goldprospectors lie beneath the streets. Below what would later be condominiumswas unearthed a 125-foot long wooden sailing ship and a three-masted whaler.255

In 1849, an estimated 80,000 arrived in California, half by land and half by sea,around Cape Horn or across Panama. The new settlement was built in greathaste with bottles and matchsticks and cheap pieces of wood. Within a span of18 months, the city burned to the ground six times.One afternoon, midweek or thereabouts, someone wearing a long canvascape and leather boots, a cotton vest and a three-sided wide-brim woolen hatwalks briskly towards the sea past men in suits and women with heels eatingThai takeout. The look is piratical and yet benevolent. He does not, however,appear out of place, or at least no one takes notice. It seems there is businessto be done, and yet it also seems that the coat has been through more dark andquestionable establishments than most, the warmth it provides the result oflayers of grime and salt water. His ship was perhaps burned to the bilge in theGreat Fire of 1851, back when a house was a large piece of canvas stretchedacross four tall wooden posts.Before the waterfront, the bay, where half a dozen sails turn beneatha heavy sun diffused by a growing breeze. And at the edge of the bay, thebridge. Past the Golden Gate Bridge, chop turns to swell and flows south withthe California Current where, at the edge of America, gringos, licor, y playagive way to a long, narrow stretch of absolutely nothing. The monthly wagedecreases with distance, and the time per transaction — in places where slowand lackluster represent the height of excellence — increases exponentially. Butthe breezes are warm, the orchids hardy, and the cabanas on stilts.IV.FOR MONTHS, AN AUSTRALIAN HAS BEEN LIVING ON ANISLAND THE SIZE OF A TRACK, sleeping sometimes in a hammock. Hekeeps a journal on unlined paper and writes at a rate approaching 1,000 lines perpage per hour in very small script. Sometimes there are drawings. At a very longtable inside a makeshift building without windows where every morning, noon,and night rice and fish are served, he writes. Sometimes he writes in betweentimes, as the case may be.“I want to buy a house here,” he says. “Can I buy a house here?”“Only if you marry a Kuna,” Robinson responds. Robinson’s Island theplace is called. It is one of approximately 400, all of them lying within theterritory of the Kuna Yala natives off the north coast of Panama betweenColumbia and the city of Colón, part of Panama, yes, but also its ownsemiautonomous lost world. This is where, if a person is looking for a pile ofsand and a single palm tree, they will ultimately arrive, where someone startsconversations with: “If you were a serial killer, it would be so easy to come hereand kill all of us and no one would ever know.”“In America, there are like 15 serial killers at any given time.”“What would the serial killer look like?”“I think he’d be all scruffy and disheveled, with dead eyes. The killer isalways the one you least expect.”“What if he walked in right now — someone we’d never seen before — andjust sat right down with us?”“I would just play dead.”256

“Yeah, well, then he’d come and shoot you just to make sure you were dead.”“And then someone goes to dial 911 and he’s intercepted all the phonelines, and you’re like, ‘Hello, police officer. There’s a serial killer.’ And he’slike, ‘Why, hello.’”“What if he killed everyone and we woke up and everyone was hangingfrom the rafters?”“Everyone except you and me.”The Australian carries a machete and lops off coconut heads like a Maorichief. He wears his hair long and dreadlocked and is, of late, walking aroundin a pair of pink swim trunks. (“At first I was like, ‘Why do I own pink swimtrunks?’ But what the fuck do I care? I wore them to a party in Sydney.”)“You missed the festival in town the other night,” someone else says. Townis half a mile away by motor-powered wooden canoe. The streets there are pavedwith sand, the homes piles of weather-beaten planks, the general store a long shelf.“They were so drunk,” she says. “It was so horrifying, I wanted to throw myselfoff the pier.” People screamed in the night as though they had just discovered fire.“I spent a few weeks in Panama City,” the Australian says. “The girl I wasstaying with wanted to go to the bars on Calle Uruguay and stay up all night.Talking, she just wanted to talk. I want to be dropped off on one of these islandsand left there for a few days, by myself.”Besides Panama, one of the best places in the world to be dislocated with alarge stack of first world dollars might be the ghettos of Montevideo, a smallishcoastal city in Uruguay and the country’s capital. An accountant once owned ahouse somewhere, Arizona it might have been. Perhaps he owned a dog. He quithis job in any event, divorced, sold the house, shot the dog, and moved to theroughest neighborhood in Montevideo. “Someone was killed in the middle ofthe street,” he says. Reports are of high-ranking public officials being muggedbetween the car and the front gate, and of people killing each other for an illfittingjacket. He didn’t shoot the dog actually.Someone might arrive like this, to Buenos Aires or Rio or Montevideo, andreturn two years later to New York City to open a maté bar and wear unbuttonedwhite linen shirts. Maté — a drink tasting something like very bitter green tea— stands alongside large slabs of steak, red wine, and tango as an obsession incertain very southern parts of South America, tango danced, that is, at 3 a.m. indark, mahogany-lined halls where the smoke is thick enough to cut with a knife.“Hello. How are you? Can I see your passport? Hello. How are you? Can Isee your passport?” In the hotels, that is what they say all day.V.AN OVERLY-SYMMETRICAL EXISTENCE MIGHT GROWTEDIOUS, as tortuous as sleep interrupted. Against it, all struggle in vain. Theworld is eaten up by it, and so are all those who contribute to it.Late Wednesday morning, across from the Bechtel Building, an officeemployee steps out for a coffee perhaps, an errand at the bank. Few know thisman, don’t remember ever seeing him in fact. That is to say, they know him aswell as most do. He steps off the curb into the lane of traffic, is hit by one busthen pinned to it by a second and crushed beneath the first.257

At that moment of realization, he would lose his appetite. It is a deliriumof sorts, albeit short-lived. Maybe it all appears like a cave, as cavernousas time itself: the pipes – bows and arrows drawn with berries and ash ona steel canvas. There would be the sound of metal on metal, a staggering, asplitting in two like a pack of ice cracking and popping before disappearingbelow the surface.“I feel,” he would say, “that my mind is in a weakened state. I may notreturn.” He has not long to live now. His eyes fail. His hair grays. Time is notgood to him. The experiences of many years gather together in his head at asingle point. “Maybe I will be one of those near death experiences interviewedon television under large lights of equal color temperature.” Someone of whomothers would say, “He was gone for an hour at least,” then back in his body andvomiting all over the place. “A major turning point in my life,” he would latersay, and seem forever after to have uncanny abilities at the Ouija Board.“Every person I have ever met came to greet me in single file…” Heexperiences, in that instance, perfect memory: the gas station attendant who firstwashed his windows, the waitress who also worked part-time at a nail parlor, the manwith the metal briefcase at the public internet terminal and what the weather was like.There once was an English teacher who stood outside the classroom doorreciting pieces of Shakespearean verses. Entry was granted to those who finishedthe phrase. “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” “Eye of newt and toeof frog…” “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought…” And in response:“I summon up remembrances of things past. I sigh the lack of many a thing Isought, and with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.”He can feel no pain although the injuries are grave. Like walking through aheavy fog, the moment swallows him whole and even his hand disappears beforehis face. What’s done is done and cannot be overdone or un. He should beburied there – the sidewalk broken up, a pile of rocks placed in the middle of thestreet and a cross built of two street signs. His office should remain like a timecapsule – record poised for play on the gramophone, icebox dripping, stacks ofpapers, a cup of coffee half empty, pencil stubs. For several hours, the transitlines are disrupted in the outbound direction. Firefighters use a hydraulic lift andwooden planks to extract the body.A passerby might ask, “Is he asleep?” For he might be mistaken for onewho has nodded off of an afternoon at a computer terminal.“The worst way to go,” someone once said… “Eaten by ants.”There exists a street performer who, as a profession, lies himself downacross a bed of broken glass many times throughout the day. “La vida,” he says,“pasa por los calles.” Life takes place on the streets. He does not juggle livechainsaws, but rather walks barefoot across shattered bottles in a daily triumphof life over injury. “Lo que camina por los calles, sabe la vida.” And those whowalk the streets understand life. That sort of thing.Colleen Corcoran’s writing has appeared in a number of newspapers,magazines, and literary journals, among them Knee-Jerk Magazine and TheWanderlust Review. She recently completed a book about adventure sports titledPlay: Voices of Adventure. Additional examples of her work are available onlineat www.colleencorcoran.com. She lives in San Francisco.258

FORTY-TWO BLUEFIRES BURNINGby Chelsey Clammor1. Suppose I were to say I fell in love with the idea of mountains burning.Suppose I were to sit on the deck, the yellow sun encased in a gray smoketurning the deck a hue of orange and the shadows into a steady collectionof blue, and think that the billows of white smoke were here for a reason.The reason being that we brought them here, and they are here for me to befascinated by the way in which the steady mountains suddenly twist.2. And I would smoke my cigarette on the dry orange deck, curious if I, too,would accidentally light my own fire. It is not the fire that I crave, but the waythe mountains cannot control themselves.3. Though there is the color blue. In Bluets, Maggie Nelson poetically discussesher love for the color blue. What I read in her cream pages dancing with blacktext is the way the blue of a fire blisters towards something going on underneathits spell, something hotter than the orange flame that spurts up from this brilliantcolor which descends into a core of dark.4. In the forest of trees burning, I imagine a strikingly fervent layer of blue thatstays close to the ground. I want to dive into this color, to zing sideways alongits silent raging, to know that feeling of something going.5. But I must admit, I am scared of this fire. I have been twisting my handsaround the idea of evacuating for the past three hours. The smoke pushes me on.When does one know it is time to leave, to stop waiting, and to start praying?6. “Prayer is meditation with words.” Marya Hornbacher says in her bookWaiting.7. So I write, which is my own type of meditation with words, a prayer perhaps.And so I wait. Wait for the fire, wait for more smoke, wait to receive emails thatwill possibly change the trajectory of my life. Publications, jobs, updates on thefire. The blue continues to rage.8. My mother texts me to tell me that the wind is pushing the fire away from me.This is not what I smell, not what I see, not what I feel as the wind pushes into me.259

9. I would like to think that the concept of waiting is not the same as feelingsomething ominous seep into the air. That we do not just wait for the bad things,or for the things that will suddenly change our lives. But that waiting is a continualprocess, one that makes us consider where and who we are in the now. This iswhat Hornbacher says in her book, that waiting is a life-long process. I wonder athow long I will be able to wait in order to fully settle in with this thought.10. I wait for the fire to get closer, wait for my writing to ignite into somethingmore, uncontained.11. This is not about fire, per se, but the way we wait for it to threaten, the waythe smoke teases, then terrorizes the blue sky of air. My grandmother warms meabout smoking, tells me that one ash can start a fire. I flick my sleeve of ashesoff of the deck and watch it separate as it flutters to the gravel ground. Nothingstarts with this, but it is the beginning of getting closer to the end of my cigarettewhen I will have to find something else to do with my time.12. About the threatening. As where we have no control over this nature, cannotknow which way the wind will blow. I can prepare to stay. I can prepare toleave. Either way I am getting ready for something to or to not happen to me. Iwould like to think there is a constant in here, though I am unsure of what it is.13. I think the fires are decreasing as I realize that men (and most likely inthese small Colorado mountain towns it is men and not women) have started tocontain them, to harness the wind into a stand-still, to press their waters deepinto the blue raging. Perhaps I am saddened by this eventual end, by the way thefire, the blue, my writing will in time fitter out.14. I am not good at this waiting. The blue continues to rage inside of me,leaving me wanting the color of orange, to ignite me away from this waiting.15. The sun burns yellow now, a white almost. Where the shadows haveregained their black, and the only blue around is that of the stubborn southernsky that is still uninhabited by smoke.16. The town was snowing ashes this afternoon. Outside the restaurant where Iwork, I saw the white flakes smashing into the ground. We are twenty-five milesaway from the fire, though the cook says as the crow flies it is a mere fifteenmiles. At home, I see a large crow expand her wings, her body gliding towardsmy porch. She is here to check in with me, to tell me about the smoke, to nodher head at me in recognition that this may become her new home.17. What it is I am impatiently waiting for: to hear back from an agent onwhether or not she likes my words, my collection of essays about finding theconcept of home in the body. And the minutes tick by, and the emails slowlydrip into my inbox. Non from her. The background scene of my email is ofmountains waiting patiently, their Buddha-esque bodies trying to teach mesomething.260

18. I am waiting for my anti-anxiety medication to kick in, which perhaps is notthe lesson.19. In Bluets, Nelson says, “...this is why I write all day, even when the workfeels arduous, [it] never feels to me like ‘a hard day’s work.’ Often it feels morelike balancing two sides of an equation—occasionally quite satisfying, butessentially a hard and passing rain. It, too, kills the time.”20. I wrote an essay about boredom a few weeks ago, wrote something to tryand fill my time while I waited for life to happen. The essay bored me when Ire-read it last night. As where the words contained no purpose, did not ignite thepage, and, like boredom, dragged their feet across my skull. I would like to nowapologize to the journals of which I submitted it to.21. We are in a drought. And the orange has picked up its own rage. And I havestopped checking the news, knowing that I will sense, will smell when it is timeto leave.22. I have now been smoking for sixteen years, and did not know until thismorning, curtsey of the cigarette pack, that cigarettes contain carbon monoxide.I knew about the elements of rat poisoning, which for some reason never mademe want to quit. But I am an anti-pollutionist, and am now bothered by whatit is I exhale into the air. And the mountains are still burning, and I watch withfascination as I light up another smoke.23. Waiting is Hornbacher’s book about atheism, spirituality, and the 12-steprecovery program. How to kick an addiction by letting go of the fallacy ofcontrol, by settling into the moment and try not to steer the culminatingseconds in your direction. The world will turn without my input, she says.How time passes as I wait for this thought to course through me, to know thatI am powerless over these obsessions, over what others will say about mywords. But will learning how to wait fill the spaces left open, left sore, leftunknowing? I look at my cigarettes in disgust, but continue to smoke themwith nothing else to do.24. I leave my email open in case something comes in. I am constantly checkingit, constantly waiting for my life to change in some direction, the wind ofsomeone else’s decisions to blow me elsewhere. The feel of the blue to fullyexplode into its orange.25. Perhaps this too is about boredom. The fascination with the fire now goneas it consumes mountains other than the one on which I am sitting, living.Perhaps the fire has become bored with itself, has lost that initial spark ofimagination when it first conceived of all it could consume. Perhaps it is full,now wants to die.26. That of which we have no control over, must let go of. And in its absence,something waits, something rages. The sense of the color blue, perhaps,261

smoldering. Or will it pick back up and continue to grow?27. It is the next morning, and over night the fires expanded to consume 500 acres.28. Even the cowboys knew the word I could not remember to place my lipsaround yesterday. Plume. There are plumes of smoke. Which makes me think ofplums and William Carlos Williams. This is just to say this is not a poem, but Irealize now that the words cowboys speak are poetry. Plume, farrier, Clydesdale.The words twirl in my head, majestically slip out. The definitions of these wordsmay not be as tantalizing—cloud, horse shoe-er, big horse—but the sounds ofthem slide into my mind, unfurl their beauty into my blood.29. I have never read cowboy poetry, though I am curious about it now.30. How the cowboys keep their lips closed, to only say what is necessary. Tolet slip out those lyrical texts. What it is they say between a pause and a story.The silence, in a way, is its own stanza.31. To wait and watch the world growl around me. The sense of blue betweenthe caesuras. But it’s a quiet waiting, silent until it finally becomes one thatexplodes into my eyes. As where the cowboys cautiously create this spacebetween their lines of the poetry.32. Cowboy poetry: “Come along, boys, and listen to my tale / I’ll tell you ofmy trouble on the old Chisholm trail. / Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya,/ Coma ti yi youpy, youpy ya. / I started up the trail October twenty-third, / Istarted up the trail with the 2-U herd. / Oh, a ten-dollar hoss and a forty-dollarsaddle, — / And I’m goin’ to punchin’ Texas cattle...”33. I actually knew this poem before I looked up the phrase “cowboy poetry”online. Though I do not know what a “2-U herd” is. But there is somethingheard in that phrase that says the cowboy knows his stuff, that drudging alongthe Chisholm trail with the 2-U herd is quite an endeavor, something worthetching down in lines of poetry, something significant with which to fill thelines, the time.34. Further more about the smoke: it has become a soft haze this morning,even though the news reports I have again started to check, as there is nothingto check in my inbox, say an increase in acreage is burning. 1,000 acres now.But I do not see an increase in smoke. Perhaps the skies have over-powered thesmoke, the blue having subtle-ized the plumes’ burning desire to be, to show.35. More about this morning: I ran 10.5 miles in the mountains. I could not seeany smoke when I woke up, so I smoked my morning cigarette watching theblue sky and gathered my energy for the run. While I was running, my mothercalled me to give me fire updates, and said you better not be running right now.She worries about smoke entering into my lungs. I ran because I needed to feelmy legs stretch out onto this mountain landscape before it escaped, before it was262

possibly consumed by flames. I felt an urge raging inside of me, a flicker of blueenergy needing to just go, to zing along a trajectory. By the end of the run, myexhaling lungs had extinguished my energy.36. Later, at a coffee shop, I continue to check the news and to check my email.Sucking down a medium sized americano in a mere collection of minutes, myeyes wake, spike up to the blue sky. But there is nothing more to report, nothingthat can fuel my fizzling blue. It has been a week since I first emailed a potentialagent, a week spent cuddling with my anti-anxiety medication and waiting forthe world to further roll.37. The waiting is not lifting. Though the smoke is again. It sways as the firedecides which way to go. And in its space is a wondering if the winds willchange their direction towards me, if my email will suddenly be plumingwith responses, if I will have something to do with the now. Which way willthe fire go?38. Maggie Nelson, more from Bluets: “Why is the sky blue? —A fair enoughquestion, and one I have learned the answer to several times. Yet every time Itry to explain it to someone or remember it to myself, it eludes me. Now I liketo remember the question alone, as it reminds me that my mind is essentially asieve, that I am mortal.”39. My mind forgets to remember that this is about the journey, not theconclusion. An AA phrase: “I am responsible for the effort, not the outcome.”I look at this phrase in order to inform my thoughts on writing. I can ignite thewriting, but I cannot tell the wind to blow the erupting fire of my text towardspublication. I can remember these phrases about efforts and outcomes, but theysiphon right through me, the answers funneling downward from the open spaceof my mind, into the blank space underneath my unknowing toes. I wiggle themto get the blood to reach that far down, to get the meaning of journeying tocourse throughout my body whole. But what is left is a hole, is a waiting for thewaiting to end, to outcome itself towards me. The acreage of possible responsesto burst into blue flames.40. In this prayer of writing as I meditate, wait with my words, I have lost mytrack of thoughts. In this space of which I feel directionless, I hope the readerwill understand, will follow through with a re-reading and explain to me why thepressing of the wait gains power in my flesh, consumes the air of my impatience,why my flesh furls inside, wants to crawl away from the feeling of not knowing.All that I have sieves through me and into you, into your understanding of me,for I am nothing but mortal, a being impatient for its eventual end.41. I still do not know how the fire started, though some report it may be frommen shooting guns at a propane tank. There is more wondering to do about thehuman race here, more considerations about what it is we do in order to stave offboredom, to fill our time. The cowboys write poetry, the hopefully soon-to-bepublished writers check their email obsessively. The alcoholics drink (though in263

this small mountain town they are called regulars), and I continue to smoke mycigarette, to look at what the sky now inhabits—its plumey self.42. Forty-two has always been my lucky number, and so I will end here, notwanting to break the chain of luck, to endanger my hopeful belief that somethingpositively ominous will seep out of this waiting.Chelsey Clammer received her MA in Women’s Studies from LoyolaUniversity Chicago. She has been published in THIS, Revolution House, Spittoon,and Make/shift among many others. She is currently working on a collection ofessays about finding the concept of home in the body. You can read more abouther here: www.chelseyclammer.wordpress.com264

GET YOUR HEAD ONA Conversation with My Fatherby Alia VolzIwas hitchhiking cross-country. I think I was eighteen, so it had to be maybe1971. I traveled from Walnut Creek to Long Island, to see my grandmother,and then I headed up into French Canada. That area was very different then,totally rural. And of course, everyone was speaking French, which was great,since we had lived in France for a time, when I was a boy, and I could still speakenough to communicate.Hitchhiking was so easy back then, really safe and fun. Only groovy hippiespicked you up and everyone you rode with was cool and most people smokeddope. So I was with some people and we stopped at a swimming hole by the sideof the road. There were some high rocks that looked pretty good to me. And Iwas showing off for this girl and I dove off a rock without checking the depth ofthe water. Well it was about waist-deep. I slammed right into the riverbed. WhenI came out of the water, my head was bent to the side, at like a 45-degree angle,and it was stuck there; literally, I couldn’t move it.You could tell I’d really messed myself up. The people I was with kind ofgot scared, and they had to move on, so they took me into the nearest mountainvillage and left me outside the local doctor’s office. He was just a country doctorand I believe I was a little beyond him. He gave me Tylenol.My Aunt Donna was living down in Chicago, so I decided to hitchhike thereto get help. I was on the Trans-Canadian Highway when this guy picked me upin a van and he was on his way to an ashram right near the U.S.-Canada border.So of course I went with him, and it was fantastic! We lived together in a rustichome and a barn. The men worked the orchard and the women cooked and caredfor the goats. In the afternoon, we all meditated in the same space. Each personwas seeking his or her trip in the universe and our paths all intersected on thatfarm.Everyone was expected to pull their weight at this place. I couldn’t go outto work with the men, because of my neck being stuck sideways, so they askedme to stay behind and paint the outhouse. That’s what I did for days. And, youknow, I really enjoyed it. I felt like I was working out some heavy karma bypainting this shitter white. And they couldn’t believe what a fine job I did on it. Iguess they didn’t expect that from me.I wanted to hang out and see what I could learn. But I met a cute girl thereand we fooled around a little bit. I guess she felt guilty about fooling around atthe ashram and told someone about it. The next day, four men surrounded meand suggested rather strongly that I leave the ashram to get medical attention. I265

emember one of them looking at me with this intense vibe and saying, “I thinkyou’d better go get your head on straight.”I did go down to Chicago, and my Aunt informed my mother I’d beenhurt, and of course she flipped out. I had to return directly to Walnut Creek. Idon’t remember ever seeing a chiropractor about my neck, but it did eventuallyunbend.I don’t know how long after the accident it was when I had my first seizure,but I was in Berkeley. I was sitting on a stool and making art, using a draftingtable, when I felt this pressure coming down on me from above. The pressureknocked me off the stool and held me against the ground. It was as if the roomhad become a vice and I was being squeezed inside of it. I remember my bedwas just a mattress on the floor and I saw the mattress like a rectangular blackhole, like the deepest black, like a grave, and I somehow crawled over and doveinto the hole, down into this total darkness.After that, it was different. I always know I am going to have an epilepticseizure because I see a light, off to one side, in my peripheral vision. It’sthe most beautiful light, all colors of the spectrum. Like a mandala. I feel anirresistible attraction to it. I just have to look. And when I look, I go into aseizure, and then it’s black until I regain consciousness. If I can resist looking,I know I can avoid the seizure. But the light is just so incredibly beautiful. Likelooking at God.AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is part of a longer work. “Eat it, Baby: StonyTimes with the Sticky Fingers Brownie Company” is a book-length projectchronicling the rise and fall of a high-volume marijuana brownie business myparents operated during the 1970s, and it’s impact on San Francisco culture. I’mworking with hundreds of hours of interviews from all walks of life, includingpoliticos, literati, celebrities, punks, GLBT activists, artists of all stripes,healthcare providers, growers, dealers, and even cops. To accompany the stories,I have a vast collection of photographs and original artwork used as productpackaging. It’s a gas.Alia Volz is host and producer of Literary Death Match in San Francisco—araucous reading series that throws naturally timid, introverted authors into avicious battle for domination. Her fiction and fact appear in ZYZZYVA, Dark SkyMagazine, Nerve.com and elsewhere. Stalk her at www.aliavolz.com.266

FICTIONWINTER 2012267

IN PERFECT BALANCEby Radha Bharadwaj“…Everything in its place in the world, in the right amount. Not toolittle, not too much. Everything as it should be—in perfect balance,” Trottersaid for the trillionth, zillionth, gazillionth time—but who’s counting?Not that Liam could count much past sixty-seven, anyway, and that tooerroneously, with skipped numbers and numbers all out-of-order, things that hadearned him cuffs on the head and skinned knuckles from his fish-lipped, stormeyedmother who died when she was sixty-seven, and who was determinedwhen she was alive to have a college-going son (“…like the Chinks in the nextblock even if I have to kill you to do so, goddamit,” the quote from the aforementionedmother, mother of Liam, Mariam Elspeth McNeely.)It all fitted together, like odd pieces thrown together in a quilt and coming toform a pattern of singular symmetry and balance: his mother and the basementapartment in the Halifax brownstone (number 67) leading up to Trotter andthis expanse now of the uncompromising, anonymous, incalculable white thathe had to trudge through. A white so cold it separated your self from you, andyou watched from some place safe and warm and distant as your doomed selftrudged, like one in a chain-gang, through crunches of snow and bunches ofice, everything you touched crackling and turning into filthy slush, everythinguntouched still a poached-egg white as far as your snow-blind eyes could see.A cold so real it made everything else unreal—the ice on your lashes and themist from between your teeth. Everything unreal but good old Trotter, whowas talking loudly and boisterously, like schoolboys do in the face of imminentdanger.Liam, all six feet six inches of him, lumbered steadily through the cold and icelike a beast of burden, a Tibetan yak. The cold touched him, too—but only so far.Deep inside were places he could dive to, hide in. So he smiled gently, for he wasprimarily a gentle man, as Trotter explained his theories on the need for balance.“Too few fish in the sea means the big guys—the sharks and whales—gohungry. Then they start to eat each other, or eat us. See what I mean? That’swhy everything needs to be in proper proportion. But good luck getting thoseturds shouting slogans to understand that!” a hoot at this from Trotter—a bleakbittern-like cry that scurried away in an echo and came back, like a boomerangflung by the prismatic dunes of primordial snow.A thin sleety rain had started, piercing their eyes and skin with minuteneedles of fish-bone ice. The line groaned collectively. Liam did not. Helooked at the punctured sky with his round blue eyes—the sleet hit his face and268

open eyes, but it did not hurt him. The elements had never hurt him, not evenwhen he had been a child.They trudged through the remaining miles to the Paradise Hotel. It tookthem a few minutes to leave behind the unforgiving cold—they stood in ahuddle by the massive front door like a bison herd, stamping their feet andsteaming through their nostrils. But flesh is stupid—at least, the flesh of othermen, Liam observed, for they soon forgot the cold, and Trotter’s blather ofbalance and proportion, and every terrible thing that they had done to earn theirpay that day. They charged to the fire where a spread was spread: grease andfat and things fried and turned and slathered in what would clog their pumpsand turn them blue in a few years. But who cared? Here it was warm and therewas food and drink, while the next day waited outside, concealed by the cold,camouflaged; like a snow leopard….Trotter had told him everything would smell of their workday; that he,Liam, would perhaps never lose that smell, no matter how long he lived. Athick smell that was sometimes all things sweet and sometimes acrid salt; thesmell of the flow of life; the throb and thrust of things. It was the one true thingTrotter had ever told him.Liam looked around the cavelike fire-lit lobby, and everything indeedseemed drenched with the smell, its viscous stickiness. He wondered if the restof the crew smelled it—and surmised, by the vast amounts of food that theyshovelled uncaringly into yawning mouths, that they did not. You couldn’t eat,not a bite, not with that smell no amount of washing could get rid of—not thatthis lot washed, anyway. They were shoving meat and bread into their mouthswith fingers stained and sticky from work. The food made Liam nauseous. Hetook a stein of beer, the froth stilled into a pissy fizz by the fire. That was allthat he could manage.That was all Trotter could manage, too, Liam noticed, as he walked up tothe crew leader. The latter was huddled by the fire, beer in hand, his narrowhead bowed in some conspiratorial conference with the men who owned and ranthe operation. They all had the same look, of furtive cornered rodents leadingslow-witted goliaths by a deft game of con and connivance.“We need to hit a target of 140,000 each day. 140,000! We’re waybehind…,” someone’s whisper, dripping with worry, was thrown to the groupand chewed upon collectively, like a bone by dingo dogs. Someone else sawLiam and shot the rest a warning look: a worker nearby. They turned to Liam,feral-eyes gleaming and hackles raised, on guard. Only Trotter thumped histail in greeting, his expressive brows raised in a question. Liam merely liftedhis stein in a vague gesture of goodwill, and the rest followed suit, half-hearted,begrudging. Trotter got up: “We’ll hit the target,” he said to the bosses, his barkas cheery and optimistic as ever. “I’m not worried. We’ll do it.”The owners watched Trotter as he joined Liam. Liam noticed that the ownerslooked at Trotter with a mixture of admiration and envy—it was what Trotteralways evoked in people. But Trotter himself was oblivious to other people andwhat they thought of him. Which is perhaps how he misses signs, thought Liam.Signs and configurations and repeated patterns that are like signposts on a trail—he missed them all, poor Trotter. Didn’t even know they existed.Filled with warmth and tenderness for his friend, Liam threw a giant269

270arm around Trotter’s thin, neurotic shoulders and ruffled the dark hair that grewthick and silky on Trotter’s fine-boned head. They watched the frigid sky asit gathered force outside the hotel windows. They raised their beer steins inunison and drank at the same time, like choreographed dancers.“You never asked me why I agreed to come here, Trotter,” Liam said.He looked at Trotter, waiting for the latter’s response.Trotter chuckled: “The money’s great, Liam.”Liam asked, quietly: “You think I came for the money?”Trotter shot him a quick look, as if skinning Liam to his core. “Not foryourself. You’re like a saint—money means nothing to you. You’re a martyr toyour cause.”Liam asked: “And what is my cause, Trotter?”Trotter didn’t say anything for long. Then, a bit grudgingly: “Her—Ruby.You want to give her a good life.”A wolf loped past outside the window, its lean belly close to the ground,eyes green-gold in the dark.“I would have liked that,” Liam said, quietly. “To have given her a goodlife. But it ended that summer.”#Her name was Ruby, but Liam had called her Ruby Red—first to her face,and then, when he learned it displeased her, in his own head. It was the first andonly word-play he had ever created, and he was very proud of it, its alliterativevigour. It also made her seem rare and precious, like a small stone nestled insilk and spitting fire—like the stuff on display at the jewellers near where theylived. For they had been neighbours for a while, when her father was laid offand had to leave Toronto where she was born to live in bleak, dead-end Halifax.“Nothing red about me,” she used to say when he came up with the Ruby Redsobriquet, her voice thin and brittle, her fine nose drawn in a disgruntled snarl.That was how she was with him—always whining and complaining and moaningand whimpering, and when the spirit was strong in her, snarling and growlingand cussing and fighting. And he had thought that that was the way she was, shedidn’t know any better, she was a grouch and a curmudgeon—and who wouldn’tbe, if they were forced to leave a vivid, vibrant city for this dump where hecouldn’t even find the sort of presents that would make her smile. Understandingand indulgent he had been, like a father with a persnickety, colicky child whopuked and crapped all over the clothes he had worked so hard to buy.Ruby had been right, though. There had been nothing red about her—not inthose days, anyway. She was transparently pale, like the icicles forming outsidethe hotel windows. Even her hair was colourless, like the colour of cold madesolid, the colour of the arctic air.#Snow fell thick and steady in large misshapen flakes from a sky that mergedwith the earth and the sea in one vast, grey-white sweep. The crew was huddledin a tight fist out of sheer instinct, to keep the cold out and the warmth made bytheir bodies in, but also, perhaps more importantly, to demonstrate to the crewleader their unity. And unity is always a frightening thing, especially whendemonstrated by the dull.The 140,000 goal had been announced that morning at breakfast, before the

crew left the hotel. The murmurings began on the way to the site. A man calledSasha had started it, a Quebecois from some hole near Trois Rivieres. Liam hadwarned Trotter about this man, asked Trotter to fire him, and Trotter had paid noheed, like he ignored all signs—spoken and unspoken. And here was Sasha--anintegral part of the team now, having burrowed to its core like a worm to theheart of a living thing—here he was, winding them up to wage his war.“140,000 a day—on the same wages they’re paying us?! No raise in pay?Not that money can wipe off the terrible nightmares—“ he gave an eloquentshudder, the Quebecois, while his sharp eyes shot darts around the group to pindown pockets of support. And it came: one man remarking how they all lookedlike babies, with their round faces, big black eyes and high voices; and someoneelse from the back of the line remembering his mother in her last days, tetheredto her bed by tubes and needles, her skin white with approaching death, hereyes made large and black with atropine. Their steps slowed, Liam noticed, ashe marched on at his usual steady pace. They were like gigantic children beingdragged to school by some unseen parental hand.They reached the site, and the usual two things were waiting for them, likeposterns of fate: the victims, and the protestors. The protestors usually greetedthe crew with slogans and pleas—this time, they were silent. They’ve sensedthe mutiny in the herd, thought Liam. And mutiny was the crew’s intent: theyrefused to pick up the tool they needed for the job—a heavy, blunt-edged club.They stood, as if frozen in a tableau, as the snow fell on them and around them,and Trotter finally arrived.Trotter looked at the crew and understood the situation. For a beat, helooked confounded, almost helpless, and Liam felt pity for him. Then Trotterbegan to speak, his voice tremulous, thin and unsteady like a trickle: “I see whatyou’re feeling.” Trotter took a deep breath, peering through the snow at thecrew, who looked like eerie mammoth snowmen.Trotter resumed: “No—I feel—“ that last word seemed to be the key heneeded, for his voice became stronger—a trickle with the promise of a flood: “Ifeel what you’re feeling. This is ugly work. In horrible weather. With thesepeople here—“ a sweeping wave at the protestors—“—to make you feel like shit.”Everyone was quiet—even the protestors.“But this is when you remember why we’re doing what we’re doing. Howwe need balance. How everything now is imbalanced—““Like you, ass-hole!” this from one of the protestors, who could no longerrestrain herself. “You’re mentally imbalanced. You’re mad!”Liam chuckled softly. There was nothing mad about Trotter, that Liamknew. He had known Trotter since boyhood, though Trotter went away when hewas eighteen to seek his fortune in the big cities out west. But Trotter returnedto Halifax, older, more sure-footed; smooth with good-living, and mightymysterious about what he had done to live so well; crowing a bit since he wasback on home turf to hire men—big, burly men—for whom he was going to payvery good wages to “put things back in balance…” That was how Trotter hadtalked about what they would be doing in Newfoundland. But there was nothingmad about him. He was sane. Given to occasional delusions of grandeur—butthese delusions, Liam knew, were the most solid proof of Trotter’s sanity. Thetruly insane present themselves as meek and humble, which is why they end up271

272inheriting the earth.“Look at him, now,” Liam thought, as he watched Trotter striding in frontof the crew, waving his arms, talking in a rush about how too few many in thesea would make the seas imbalanced, and how that imbalance would make thewhole world imbalanced. “Like the hero of some big American movie—that’swho Trotter thinks he is,” Liam remembered films he had taken Ruby to, filmsshe had wanted to see. Films with vital, vibrant men so unlike Liam, whomoved their troops to action with their power of speech.And like those heroes, Trotter, too, was undeterred by his naysayers—theprotestors—who were now roused to hiss and boo, pelting Trotter’s windingflow with their outraged shouts, their cries meeting Trotter’s rhetoric in asingular blend: “The choice is simple—“ “You idiots!” “—walk away fromwork—“ “Like the morons you are!” “—or know that what you’re doing isimportant to the world. It’s—“ “It’s the ecology, stupid!” “—“like saving theworld, with—“ “Slaughter!”And that last word echoed and touched the sky, like a battle cry. Throughit all, the crew did nothing. They remained standing, staring at Trotterimpassively—all that was missing was cud for their mouths.Sasha the Quebecois piped up, after clearing his throat: “That was a finespeech, M. Trotter. Like all your speeches. This one, too—first class.” Morethroat-clearings, as if Trotter’s speech was stuck in Sasha’s craw. “But it comesdown to this: we cannot meet your 140,000 a day goal at these wages.”Shocked gasps from the protestors. But the crew stirred slightly, like agargantuan body stirring from a coma. This sign Trotter read, and correctly.“All right,” he said, with a weary sigh. “Let’s see what we can do…”Trotter and Sasha started to work out the pay raise, shouting through thesnow to each other, at each other. The crew waited patiently. The protestorsbegan their slogans and their pleas. And as if having sensed that their fateswere decided, the seals and their pups lying by the frozen bay began to barkwildly, releasing the stench of their fear into the air. They beat their flippers, asif drumming up support for their lost cause. Their liquid eyes were full of analmost human anguish and outrage.The pay raise was agreed to by both sides. And it turned out to be a work-daylike any other: the cries of the seal-pups; the futile barking of their mothers; thesteady drone of the protestors’ shouts—their prepared slogans, their spontaneousscreams--as if they were receiving the blows. The crew worked steadily throughthe din, oblivious to it as they were to the constantly falling snow.But missing from the usual pattern was Trotter’s incessant exhorting of thecrew, which he kept up everyday as a counter-balance to the protestors—abouthow they were doing good work, necessary work, work that would eventuallysave the world, for the seals were multiplying rapidly and eating up all the fishand that would upset the ecological balance, the delicate ratio of predators toprey; that that was why they were killing the pups—at least, that was the mainreason. Liam saw some of the other men glancing around as well, and knew thatTrotter’s absence was noted, observed, filed away. It was Sasha the Quebecoiswho spotted Trotter—he was in the distance, cell phone in hand. He seemed tobe sending an e-mail, his fingers punching away furiously.“He’s making arrangements to get a new crew for the old wages so he can

fire us,” Sasha said to the crew, smiling to indicate he was jesting, but plantinghis seed as insurance, in case the pay raise deal did not materialize, and the crewturned against him.His remark made them all pause—but only for a brief minute. They werebred to work—it was in their cells, it was what they did, on auto-pilot. Andthere was plenty of work to do. So they went at it—blow upon blow; thesmashing of the bodies; the crisp crackle of breaking bones; the fountaining ofblood—hot and thick like a volcanic gush; the writhing, then the stillness; theliquid eyes growing hard, like stones, soon too cold to melt the snow that fellthickly on their marble-like surfaces.Around mid-day, the usual break: thermoses of bitter black coffee and hotrolls. The crew threw their clubs down, elbowing one another for food anddrink. Occasional fights broke out between them—half in jest, an equal half not.Liam did not eat or drink. He stood silently in a corner. Not that he needed abreak—he could have worked the whole day without a twinge of exhaustion.He took a breather from work solely to keep in step with the rest of his crew.A flurry among the protestors: a new arrival, in a splendid snowmobile. Apale slight wisp of a girl, accompanied by an older woman. The girl was dressedhead to toe in white faux fur, with gleaming boots made of fake leather pulledup to almost her non-existent hips. The protestors cheered. They crowdedaround the girl, like she was visiting royalty, like she was much-needed fuel totheir engine.“She’s a movie star,” said one of the crew, eyeing the girl glumly.Liam peered through the snow at the girl, who read a few lines from apiece of paper to her fellow-protestors. He caught a few snatches: “big businessgreed,” and “rape of Mother Earth…”The protestors clapped loudly when she was finished, then swept her—quiteliterally, as if she were a feather on a tide—to the work-site. The girl took onelook at the bleeding, mangled pups, and immediately turned away, refusing tolook any more. The crew sniggered. Someone said, loudly: “Wimp…”The girl was kneeling on the ground, retching violently. Nothing cameout of her. The older woman tailing the girl like she was grafted to her sideexplained to everyone that the girl had had nothing to eat, some new diet shewas on. She was a pale girl to begin with, but now she was whiter than thesnow. Some strands of her hair had come loose from the hood, and her hair wasthe colour of cold made solid, the colour of arctic ice.Liam found himself moving towards the girl. Her protestor-friends werehelping her to her feet, but she kept slipping on the ice, falling, pulling themdown with her. Liam pushed through the crowd, grabbed the girl’s arm, andheld her straight. Some protestors flew at him with shrill cries, like iratepenguins. But another restrained them, telling them in a whisper that was notmeant for Liam’s ears, but which he heard anyway, that it would give the star achance to “change the enemy’s heart…”The childishness of these people! But Liam said nothing. The girl wasshivering in his grasp. She said, to no one in particular: “I want to go back tothe hotel. I can’t stand this…”So Liam found himself almost carrying her to her snowmobile. Sasha theQuebecois joined him. Sasha was staring at the girl with open curiosity. He273

274tried to hold on to some piece of her—her arms, her legs, her waist. He said toLiam: “Why should you have all the fun, huh?” This was clearly supposed to bea joke, for Sasha slapped Liam on the back and laughed loudly, his eyes neverleaving the girl’s face. To the girl, Sasha said, in an exaggerated French accent:“I’m from Quebec. I’m French. I’m not like these people…”The girl said nothing. Her eyes were very wide and dilated, and her teethwere chattering. The woman who followed the girl everywhere was followingthem now, too. She introduced herself as the star’s acting coach. Then sheturned to the girl and talked non-stop—about how this showed how sensitive thegirl really was; the truly great and gifted are like flowers bruising at the slightesttouch; and how what the girl had seen that day--the poor dead pups--would helpher with her work; it was all raw material, grist for the mill that was Art; couldprovide excellent sense-memories….Liam glanced at the chatter-box—it was just an ordinary passing glance.But the old witch must have seen something in him, for she shut up immediately,her dark eyes glowing with fear. They walked quietly. The sound of the snowwas like silence—only richer. The girl spoke—so suddenly that Liam started.She had a thin voice, brittle; a bit breathless. She said: “They told me that thosebabies that aren’t properly killed are piled up in Beluga Bay…”The three men looked at her, confused. The girl was looking at Liam, herhuge eyes burning: “You’ve got to kill them in a certain way or their fur will bedamaged, isn’t it? And all those babies that you didn’t hit right and whose furyou damaged, they’re dumped like trash in Beluga Bay. And they set fire everymorning to those poor, ruined babies. So much for your crap that you’re killingthem for ecological balance…” Two thin tears were squeezed out of her eyes,becoming bullets of ice with the touch of the air.The two women got into the snowmobile. The acting coach turned it on,and it spurted like a bunny. The girl’s small head bounced up and down with themotion of the vehicle, limp and useless as a rag doll.Now Liam knew why she had been sent to him—this girl shaped andcoloured such that he would have had no choice but to be drawn to her sideand hear what she had to say. The way was emerging, like a path through thewoods. The snowmobile had vanished into the thicket of falling snow—theincessant snow was another necessary part of the pattern that was forming,pristine and precise, from the seeming shapelessness of things. His heart full,Liam turned—and then remembered that Sasha was with him; that he, too, hadheard about Beluga Bay.“Did you know that—about a pile of bodies in Beluga Bay?” Sasha asked,casually, lightly. Liam shook his head: No. A shrill whistle from the work-sitesignalled the end of the break. Sasha and Liam headed back to work, and the airwas charged with the energy of infinite possibility.The workday had ended, all ten brutal hours. 138,000—they had almostmade their goal. Trotter’s thin face was pink with pleasure as he encouragedthem--he knew they would hit the mark the next day, surpass it the day after.The day after….The trudge to the Paradise Hotel began. They fell in line out of habit, eachman behind the man he had followed the day before.Not Liam. He waited until all the men were in place, then caught Trotter’s

arm as the latter was about to take his place at the head of the line. Trotterlooked at Liam, and Liam shook his head briefly. Then Liam led Trotter to theend of the line, placing himself in front of Trotter. Though puzzled, Trotteracquiesced. The line began its weary march.The snow was falling thick and hard now, and it was impossible to see.The wind rapidly picked up pace, and everything and everyone was almosthorizontal with its force. Each man clutched the man in front of him, everyonein turn trusting the internal compass of the man heading the line.Trotter followed Liam, his hands tight on Liam’s waist. Liam lowered hishead and ploughed through the blizzard. It did not affect him—the elementsnever did. His pace was slow but steady. So steady that Trotter was unawarewhen Liam stopped, and butted his head hard against Liam’s immovable bulk.“What’s up?” asked Trotter, but did not wait for an answer. It was as hefeared. They were separated from the rest. Just falling snow all around—ashifting curtain of blinding white. “We’re lost?” Trotter asked, and Liam did notanswer. Not that Trotter really wanted one. It was clear to him that they werelost, and he talked because talking calmed him down, gave him space to thinkthings through, come up with a plan.“We’re lost,“ Trotter answered his own question, “And the thing to do,when you’re lost,” all this in the manner one uses with a very slow child, “is tostay right where you are and wait until they find you. Until they find you.”“If they find you, you’re dead,” said Liam quietly. And he raised his cluband listened to the wind, on guard, alert.Trotter felt the first real pinpricks of fear—it shot heat through his system;a volley of fire through ice. He looked at the solid, implacable figure in frontof him, seen now and then through bursts of clarity in the snow. Then peeredpast Liam to see where Liam had led him: a pile of rotting seal-pup bodies. Thebow-shaped curve of the beach. Beluga Bay.“Sasha knows about this,” Liam pointed to the pile. “And,” Liamcontinued, “…he thinks you aren’t going to come through on the pay raise…”An involuntary twitch on Trotter’s face--and Liam knew that Sasha’s guess hadbeen on target, that Trotter was not going to honour his part of the pay-raise deal,had no intention of ever doing so. Liam said, quietly: “What’s one more body, in apile? And who’d even think of looking in here? They’ll just burn everything…’Now it was becoming clear to Trotter—the light breaking on his mobile,expressive face, showing every emotion from guilt to outrage.“You get it?” Liam asked. “For a smart guy, you sure are dumb, Trotter.”And Trotter smiled, weakly, stupidly, like an idiot. “I seem to have been—at least in this case,” Trotter admitted. Then, as a sudden thought struck him:“This is why you took this job, Liam? To protect me?”The grandiosity of the insect! Liam smiled and shook his head, the smilesbecoming irrepressible chuckles, and the chuckles swelling in size and shape,becoming mighty guffaws of laughter. Liam laughed and laughed and laughed.Trotter had the fleeting thought that it was the most heartbreaking sound he hadever heard. And that thought was a sign—but he, being Trotter, did not heed it.Abruptly, like a tape being switched off, Liam stopped laughing. Hestiffened, eyes rapt, as if seeing something in the distance. All that Trotter couldsee and hear was the sound of the falling snow, white and soft, beguiling.275

276“What’s it, Liam? “ Trotter asked. “What do you see?” And his voicetrailed away into silence, because he could see what was holding Liam in itsthrall: it was not the snow and the approaching night and this moment now, buta long-past summer in Halifax when Trotter had returned, a local boy who hadmade good, in town now to hire workers to “put things in balance…”And what Liam saw were the lost days of that all-too brief Halifax summer,with light the colour of ripe oranges that spilled its juice far into the night. Itwas Liam who had introduced them to each other—his Ruby Red and Trotter.Proud of her and of him; feeling his own worth rise at his having hooked such arare girl, at having such a smart friend.Strange that he who had seen all the signs, the posterns and premonitions, thepatterns and signposts—he had missed everything that must have been dancinglike dervishes in his view. Until it was a sight on open display, for all to see: in apublic park, one in a sea of entwined couples soaking up the last slop of the sun,Trotter and Ruby. She was relaxed in Trotter’s arms and laughing. Her pale skinhad taken on the light’s liquid gold, becoming burnished, and she was loose andliquid herself, like a glass of red-gold wine. Her colourless eyes were shot withthe red of the sun. Even her arctic hair had become a blaze—the sun seemed to besetting in its waves and whirls, streaming out from behind her head like a crownof rays. And she wasn’t grouchy or crotchety or irritable or ill tempered—no; shewas the essence of everything sweet and heady, easy to please, quick to delight, arare and precious stone, spitting fun and fire. His Ruby Red.Liam saw himself then, turning away from what he had seen like thatmovie-star girl had turned away from the dead pups; retching on the street,then running, haphazard and blundering, the object of jokes and jeers of thosehe passed as he stumbled past, a red-faced, sobbing stupid giant. And what hesaw then, through his grief, was not the warm rust of summer—but some bleak,ice-bound wasteland in the future where it would all be set right, with the wildlycrashing scales of justice finally settling into a perfect and inviolable balance.So much red, in such a pale girl. He knew he had named her right afterthe killing. That magic summer in Halifax was staring at its own end, so hedumped her in a pond, knowing it would soon freeze all over and wrap her inice. It was a clean job in one sense: she was reported missing, but her bodywas never found. But it had been a messy killing—he had been all emotion andmisery when he had clubbed her, and it showed in the aftermath—bits of Rubyeverywhere. It had left him with a hankering for perfection. He hoped he wasup to the task now. He smiled at Trotter gently, for he had managed to remain,at his core, a gentle man: “No. This is why I took the job.”He touched Trotter’s face with his club—it brushed Trotter’s cheek lightly,like the wings of a passing bird. He held the club there for a beat; then, with abroken sigh that came from everything that was unmended in him, lowered it.Trotter stood rooted to his spot, not daring to breathe, to blink.Liam’s sudden shout made him almost shoot out of his skin: “But I don’twant anyone to beat me to it!”Out of nowhere, the club came at Trotter, crashing on his head. A rush ofair into what housed Trotter’s brain. Another blow on Trotter’s jaw, sending histeeth flying out of his mouth like kernels of corn. The third landed on Trotter’seye, turning half the world a spinning red. Blow upon blow; the crisp crackle of

eaking bones; the fountaining of blood—hot and thick, like a volcanic gush;the writhing, then the stillness; Trotter’s eyes growing hard, like stones, soon toocold to melt the snow that gathered thickly on the open orbs.When Liam was finally done, Trotter was smooth pulp. But Liam hadthought ahead, and left the feet intact. He dragged the mess by its feet andpiled seal-pup carcasses on it until the human corpse was completely covered.He then arranged everything carefully until it made a perfect mound, with theupturned nose of a tiny pup making for the pointed pinnacle.He stepped back to survey his work: the falling snow had covered the bloodytracks. The sky was black—no stars or moon in sight; no witnesses. Even theelements are my friends, thought Liam, serene and happy. He turned to go. Butthe movement of his large body moved the air around him as well, and a carcassor two shifted, and the perfect hill collapsed with a wheeze, like a fallen cake.So he had to go back and re-arrange the mound. This time, the tiny pup with theupturned nose would not stay on top; for whatever reason, the miniscule corpsekept sliding down. He had to use snow and ice to gum the body to others below it.And this mound, too, was perfect—until he moved away and the mound collapsed,this time revealing Trotter. So Liam had to start all over again.Which is why he missed the signs and symbols, the premonitions andposterns of fate: the cessation of the incessant snow; the burst of dawn in apale gold shower in the frosted skies to the east; the furious hoot and widewingedflight of a snow owl, heralding the approach of intruders; and the menthemselves—the crew that came to set the damaged seals ablaze each morning,raucous and bawdy and full of mirth and high spirits—until they saw him.Liam did not hear them or see them. He was setting the finishing touchesto the mound, making sure, for the millionth, zillionth, gazillionth time, thateverything was in its proper place. As it should be. In perfect balance.Indian-born Radha Bharadwaj is an award-winning feature film writerdirector.Her short story, The Rains of Ramghat, was the basis of a screenplaythat won her a screenwriting prize when she was in film school.Bharadwaj’s screenwriting and directing feature debut is Closet Land. Theacclaimed surreal psychological drama has gone on to become a cult classic.Closet Land starred Alan Rickman and Madeleine Stowe. Ron Howard’s ImagineEntertainment produced the feature. The screenplay won the prestigious NichollScreenwriting Fellowship sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts andSciences. Kate Millet devoted an entire chapter to Closet Land in her book, ThePolitics of Cruelty. The film was featured at international film festivals, and herstage adaptation continues to be performed around the world.Bharadwaj’s second feature was the Victorian gothic mystery, Basil. Theperiod thriller was set in the United Kingdom, and starred Christian Slater,Sir Derek Jacobi, Claire Forlani and Jared Leto. The director’s cut was twiceselected to be the closing night film at the Toronto International Film Festival,and chosen for the Los Angeles Film Festival.She has completed two literary suspense novels, and is at work on her third.Her short stories have appeared in various literary journals. Bharadwaj is anaward-winning theatre writer-director-actress.277

FREQUENCY OFSTEALING INFO BYAPPOINTMENTby Barrie WalshToday it’s the ‘coathanger’, but the Sydney Harbour Bridge was called the‘iron lung’. He doesn’t know the consensus for change or timing, justMarch 19, 2012 was its opening’s 80th-anniversary. He’s at Sydney’s1st-landmark construction, only Sydney Opera House surpassed, for its originalsobriquet on Friday March 30, 2012 as 3/30/12 is sacred 333=9; this month’s4th-alignment, after reconnoitering the site 3rd, 12th, & 21st without contact.That’s today, or later tonight when America’s Mega Millions’ drawn, as its$US640-million Jackpot’s a lottery world record & Monty’s curious if its 5-ballsnumeric 5, like its mega-ball.A lot depends on what happened Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi GrasParade Saturday March 3 regarding 7/31/211/2311 Prime sequence, as its5th-entity 30zero31 climax at the “iron lung” didn’t eventuate. Intel the RIOfloat’s unfounded isn’t a given in espionage. His codename Montgomery’stestimony to that, recently learning it reflects 17th UIA Congress Montreal1990. Christchurch earthquake 1st-anniversary fallout’s immense to an Israelioperation 12.51pm February 22, 2011 when the 6.3-magnitude hit. 3-agentswere among the 185-deaths. One with multiple passports in the control vanstreet-parked with 3-others, who fled to Latimer Square extraction & leftNZ same day, replaced by diplomats & agents tried infiltrating mortuary &emergency rescue. New Zealand Police claim a 7th-agent’s in the countryillegally & NZP computer centre was hacked.Monty’s identity crisis began 2/22/2012, as his existence stems from aconference’s “four” to “golf” is “gulf” difference OU=1521 Mayan ‘short-count’calendar 5th-World End as psychological warfare of Cortes capturing the AztecEmpire nears “long-count” 5th-World End’s 2012 completion.At The Rocks CBD end of SHB, Monty recalled what his controller saidLefthander’s Day August 13, 2011. Molly Dooker’s codename is Australianslang for left-handed person & Mayan calendar’s 5th-World began August 13,3113BC so its 3113+2012=5125 code was now as sacred is inclusive math,not exclusive. He thought Molly paranoid giving him a code to access it ifsomething happens to him. But 6-months later on February 22 Molly’s reported278

as the agency’s most wanted in going rogue. Monty accessed the deposit box &went A.W.O.L. If its contents didn’t convince him, then his life being threateneddid. He doesn’t know Molly’s fate. He’s in Australia following the file’s insight,as Monty’s codename’s also 3113+2012=5125 connected to finding EleneFontana.5125=ELE but he hasn’t deciphered what ne: Fontana is.He doesn’t get TRES/MONTREAL difference S/MONAL is SALMON,in Umberto Eco’s Traveling With Salmon. Molly’s file cites Eco’s novelFoucault’s Pendulum refers Tres code’s present day status of year after KnightsTemplar Black Friday October 1307 arrests they met St Johns Eve to regroup in36 & then every 120-years. 1308+36=1344; 1464, but 1584’s missed due 1582Gregorian calendar & re-seek 120-cycles. codeX2000’s 1308+62=1344+666new millennium diabolical plot as 1344+666=2010, a 2-year missed rendezvousto Maya 2012 Dark Rift climaxing 5@5125=25,625 years as Earth passes theMilky Way centre to Earth’s 1-degree reverse of the heavens every 72-years, anapproximate 26,000 cycle as 72x360=25,920.Tres is Spanish for three & T-RIO in RIO float’s rendezvous 3/3/12=333.Frustrated & needing action to find Elene Fontana, he walks to a snake charmerbeside a bridge stone-pillar, saying. ‘Can’t you play another tune?’‘You not like my snake,’ the Indian stops playing his flute. ‘I tell fortune. Ifrom Lucknow & see you find woman named Elf.’‘ELF,’ startles Monty. If “ene” & “ontana” is dropped, it’s Elene Fontana.‘Yes, ELF; let’s see you hand?’ The Indian began chanting, but Monty’stransfixed on the snake in the basket, as it spoke coherently to him, saying.Follow the Lucknow cash cow rhyme toGabriel’s Gully of horses & angels go fallenRIO+20 is ECO ’92 as 2MR Montreal YNOT3@666=1998 The STIFF Code that Rests in …?Key to Rebecca’s Elene Fontana & 966931-entityNines times the Space that measures Day & NightIs Milton’s 3339 “And it was day” Lost Paradise.‘You’re a ventriloquist,’ said Monty when the Indian stopped chanting.‘You put Mafia “L12” Misfit in “vanquish trio”, I see.’‘I don’t believe your snake talked,’ Monty’s confused. ‘What vanish-trio?’‘I only have license. Snake watch too much Monty Python & think fate’sAnthony Hermit saint-day PYTHON/ANTHONY is PAN reverse NAPLES to_’‘What d-you see?’‘Spook legend The Three Sisters.’‘What d-you mean spook legend?’ Monty bewilders undercover identities.‘I read; how you elicit say person doing?‘Elicitor, elicitation,’ Monty thinks aloud. It’s part of spycraft.‘You say_ I see regular meetings, many secret & invited only. All talk,show ideas is how master plans watch each other; gauge all plan status. From alltype meetings, countries plot & its news of day someone’s folly.’‘You mean Molly?’ Monty’s uncertain what to think.‘If say Molly new landscape to name, when only new to namer. It namedmany times over till forget. Sometime part or whole are embellished new.Sometime new vanquish old; sometime it both.’279

‘Some spirits & souls don’t mix, or unexpected. Time big change plan;some places prone to game play. You ELF is duende see to tilde no see.’‘What’s that mean?’ Monty alarms Montgomery place names.‘No me no. I read duende is Montreal “Tres”, & tilde is Montreal “Ares”.’‘That it?’ Monty’s unsure whether to be relieved or disappointed.‘Yes, you pay $51.25.’‘$51.25,’ Monty’s number spooked. Is it today’s 3339 sacred operations?Not wanting a scene over whose soliciting & eliciting whom, he paid,satisfied its food for thought & returned to his post. On his BlackBerry to scanMolly’s file, he ponders ARES/MONTREAL difference AMONTLS, but can’tplace TRE is in MONTREAL, as where’s S from in SALMON. About to checkfor ELF, a passing comment distracts.‘Sacred could easy coax Griffin to Lucknow, India. It doesn’t mean ritualsacrifice’sthe reason, but its cause & effect.’ They’d walked arm & arm untilHogan broached her city namesake Canberra.‘So?’ She knew Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin won 1911-12International Design competition. He’d hurdles supervising the city until1921 dismissal & struggled in decline, so seized Lucknow University Librarycommission by moving to India for other work while architect-wife MarionMahony closed their practice. But before she arrived, on February 6, 1937 hefell from scaffolding supervising LUL & died in hospital 5-days later.‘An angle to India’s January 26, 1950 Republic Day as January 26, 1930Declaration of Independence to Australia National Day’s 1788 British penalcolony settlement, is Waitangi Day February 6, 1840 is New Zealand’s Day.’‘Only centurion’s 400-diviable as leap-years isn’t proof.’ She considersGregorian’s 97-leap-years per 400 instead of 100 isn’t 1937-1840=97.‘Duntroon is Canberra-Dunedin connection, as 1809 merchant-shipperRobert Campbell chartered Brothers sealing expedition to New Zealand underCaptain Robert Mason is 1st-recorded European landing present-day Dunedin.In 1825 Campbell’s reimbursed 700-sheep & land by New South Walesgovernment for loss of chartered-ship Sydney to India, naming today’s Canberra,Duntroon Station after Campbell castle in Scotland.’‘We went to Mount Annan Botanic Gardens for last week’s Poetry Daybecause it’s in between Sydney suburbs Campbelltown & Camden,’ she’sshocked. ‘You weren’t into Paradise Lost, but chasing March 21, 2012 as 3339sacred. Is this why we’re at SHB, for 30/3/12?’‘Dunedin’s axis-mundi is an octagon dedicated to Scottish poet RobbieBurns,’ Hogan’s worried about World Poetry Day & Robert Ludlum, not her.Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series concerns a MK-Ultra mind-control assassin &JD Salinger’s The Catcher & the Rye 1951-novel is from Burns Comin Thro’the Rye lyric ‘If a body meet a body, coming through the rye.’ Holden Caulfieldobserves a boy walking down the road singing ‘If a body catch a body comingthrough the rye’ & imagines standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. At thetop, kids are playing in a rye-field. Holden is to catch them if they fall. Salingerchanged Burns’ “meet” sexual-reference to “catcher” saving children fromvulgarity of society’s corruption & immorality.It reflects Hogan’s Both Sides of the Lefthand “Jungle Gym Conservatory”280

2-O’clock Rock, as Mark Chapman had Salinger’s novel on him when he shotJohn Lennon outside New York’s Dakota building, December 8, 1980. JungleGym Conservatory’s a prototype circular stairwell modelled on a Timarucliff-site of 11-viewing platforms as upper & lower 5-finger-spread with palmbetween for “touch, feel: bringing out our human nature” 7th Osaka Designcompetition 1994-5. The hand’s face-up & face-down & thumb’s the polarity ofpolitics & literature, as December 8 is 128=LeftHand.Bourne’s a CIA 1970’s disbanded political black operations’ minefield,after WWII acquiring Nazi mind-control scientists as Project 63 became MK-Ultra. Cold War countries were perfecting the assassin. It continues today.Some nations prefer private contractors. Hogan’s conspiracy includes privateenterprise entities doing it for their own agendas.Alarmed, Ludlum’s a Spontaneous Human Combustion victim, catchingalight at his Naples, Florida house on February 10, 2001. He spent weeksin a hospital burns-ward & continued home recovery to die of a suspectedheart-attack March 12. Hogan’s School House Comet to 1st-leg The Chaircompetition 1996 The End Los Angeles is SHC, & March 12, 2001 is previous3339 sacred to 4-Corners of the Metaphysical Tomb’s product first two primesplus one is prime has 5th-entity to 2x3+1=7; 2x3x5+1=31; 2x3x5x7+1=211;2x3x5x7x11+1=2311, as February 10 is day before 211.Hogan continued. ‘In 1833 Campbell built Duntroon House & nextgeneration added 2-storeys of today’s Royal Military College’s Officers Mess,whom report ghost of granddaughter Sophia Campbell’s 30 May 1885 death,falling from her 1st-floor bedroom window, aged 28.’‘Get real!’ she screams. All she needs is a ghost to her city-namesake.‘It started in the Campbell family & servants household, but the legend’sspread into Australia’s elite military academy with many cadets experiencingSophia paranormal activity. Curiously 2012-1885=128 LeftHand_’‘Forget numbers & change the subject?’ she interrupts.Numbers define sacred, thought Hogan. O-Ring failure due extreme frostto early morning launch caused space-shuttle explosion. 7-astronauts killedincluded 1st-school-teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe. If climate manipulationclimaxed Challenger 51-L’s 6-day delayed blastoff January 22 schedule toJanuary 28, 1986, its 128=Left-Hand 2-MR Left-Foot=126.Crazy, as aligns Foucault’s Pendulum 1584 missed due 1582 Gregorian.The concept’s similar to 186=Ri ghtHand & 188=RightHand if 9-digitsof Magic 3-Square is 1988 Uncanny A*topia Fiction international architectureprogram endorsed by Umberto Eco is Regiomontanus “doomsday-prophecy”Comet 4th-centurion that 1588 gripped Europe, so 1986 is 2MR loaded bases.What’s certain is 1986 was Halley’s Comet last appearance.Top-row as 2nd-millennium is 1492 Columbus New World discovery.3rd-column’s remaining 76 approximates Halley’s Comet cycle, whose 1607appearance coincides Jamestown settlement of North America, but wasn’tproven until Edmund Halley’s 1696 prediction of Christmas Day 1758 return281

after observing 1682-comet. Remaining 4-cells is ACHE code.‘Milton was Central Otago gateway with streets named after writers.’ Hetacked. ‘Today it’s Lawrence 35km further inland, after gold at nearby Gabriel’sGully began the Otago gold-rush. Australian Gabriel Read had worked Victoria& California goldfields. It’s an anomaly to local history.’Conspiracy, she thought, captivated by a town named after John Milton, herfavorite poet. It’s when she realized they’d stopped in the proximity of a person,who now stepped forward & asked if she’s Elene Fontana.‘I’m a busker, not a hawker. It’s my spot,’ yells slackattack & on guitarsang:So bye-bye, Miss American Pie.Drove my chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry.And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and ryeSingin’, “this’ll be the day that I die”.‘I’m post-Christian, but know an attack, no matter how dimensional, &Christchurch 6.3-mag earthquake 12.51pm Tuesday February 22, 2011 wastechnology, not Mother Nature.’ slackattack maintains the stage. ‘Aussies calltheir trans-Tasman neighbors the Shakey Isles. Christchurch had major quakeslate 19th Century, so it’s arguable it was due for another. But 12.51 reversedis 1521 Mayan short-count calendar. February 22 as 222+1776 AmericanIndependence is 1998=3@666 & 1776-222=2@777. Geological time isn’thuman scale symbolic i.e. 1776=2@888. Triple numbers, you ask. Isn’t ‘six-sixsix’the Mark of the Beast? The Bible’s KJV’s Revelations 13:18 says:Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is thenumber of man, & the number is six hundred three score & six.Some sources give 616 as the Antichrist. 666’s generally accepted with616 thought a copying error, but scholars have long argued & the oldest knownversion isn’t Greek words but Greek 616 Gematria letter-number mystery. I’mno preacher, but sum 1-thru-36=666 is why Magic 6-Square secret number’s111, & 2@111=222, etc.’ slackattack paused to see if anyone contests the stage.A lot’s at stake. New World Americas the epicenter.slackattack recalls interior architect in San Francisco stopover on returnflight from Montreal only talked of it’s 1989 quake, as did hotel staff. Notpicking-up ‘earthquake chatter’ at architects conference doesn’t mean it’sabsent as with access limited to mainstream events, slackattack interfacedTIDY deconstruction DITY Do Information Technology Yourself to DIY-seriescoverstory & busker DITTY deception. For in 1990 the ‘Wahine Investigation’probed Titans aren’t Greek myths as slackattack didn’t believe technologycreated earthquakes to order. What’s today’s comprehension for some is Pasttense for others & majority’s Future, hasn’t changed for millennia.New Zealand’s Cook Strait ferry Wahine sank between South & NorthIslands on April 10, 1968. The 100th-day of year is 101 leap year, as1968/4=492; Magic 3-Square’s top row aligns Mexico City Olympics 1968.Hindsight is time’s comprehension, as Wahine’s previous vernacular workingswhere formalized in TOA to Arc*peace for ECO ’92 Earth Summit Rio deJaneiro. Wahine is Maori for female as suffix in male culture, where TOA iswarrior; TOA-wahine is female warrior, etc., etc.282

RIO+20 Earth Summit insights slackattack’s DITTY at Sydney HarbourBridge, as Christchurch 7.1-mag quake 4.35am September 4, 2010 damagedCBD historic district, but early Saturday had no deaths. Darfield epicenter46km inland is unknown faultline, & September 4 is 94=ID or DI=49=72,while 4.35 reverse reflects slackattacks HEGA wait-weight loss program DIYmanual to Copenhagen Climate Change Summit December 2009 to Vitruvian’sArchimedes coined Eureka after body’s mass displaces equivalent amount offluid. But jumping from a bath & running naked in the street shouting eureka:“I’ve found it” is Solomon gold’s purer density, as Eureka’s “I’ve got it”Gematria’s 534 to 52=32+42 Pythagoras Theorem to older “What is it” mythsconfirm Archimedes was divining earthy gold from lighter heavenly Solomon’sGold floatation. What’s certain, 1st-major quake 2010 was California’s Eureka6.5-mag, 4.25pm January 9 is DY & I=9th-day.slackattack’s busking Don MacLean’s American Pie, as its chorus codes426-hemi to Boobquake show of cleavage April 26, 2010 global women’sprovocation of Iranian cleric’s media-quote “Many women who do not dressmodestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity & spread adulteryin society, which increases earthquakes.” It litmus test’s a 6.5-mag quake190-miles off Taiwan. Boobquake-initiator Jennifer McCreight at USA’s PrudueUniversity said USGS data determines a 95% confidence interval of 0-to-148daily earthquakes. slackattack’s problem is probability as coincidence, asTAIWAN is Wahine Investigation acronym in TOA if AN=1+14=15=O.‘Careful “what you will” Malvolio?’ a heckler in the crowd shouts.slackattack knew 12th-Night as 41st-blueprint is 12x41=492. Is there anantidote to misrule? Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What you will as a missingletter-code. Malvolio falls for the trick letter, so thinks Olivia’s in love withhim in Act II Scene 5’s line-106 “M.O.A.I. doth sway my life” ciphers 1527, asM.O.A.I. is Malvolio 1st-5th-2nd-7th letters. 106’s a Rosicrucian secret-numberas founder Christian Rosenkreutz 1378[13@106] birth & 1484[14@106] death.Marlowesque connotations to Contact-Zero reminds Glenn Cooper novelsLibrary of the Dead & Book of Souls are set in 2007 with 2027 deadline with1527 & 1947 flashbacks incite 120-year cycles is 1647, 1767, 1887 & 2007, as1947 Roswell’s last sexagesimal-base.MALVOLIO/VIOLA difference MLO aligns 1584/1644 soLOMOncodex to 1996/97 The Mafia “L12” Misfit’s ALICE messages BOB to EVEinterception is standard encryption/decryption code-speak to Alice=L, Bob=M,Eve=O, & other “O” Gordon missing-in-action Contact-Zero. Prime Meridianespionage is Elizabethan Mystery Theatre of Longitude tactical & economicaladvantage solution to navigation. SOE agents compromised in WWII occupiedcountries without hope of rescue reactivated myths playwright-spy Kit Marloweescaped May 30, 1593 right-eye ritual stabbing at Eleanor Bull lodging house,on Deptford ship Peppercorn to establish Contact-Zero spy-haven.bLOOM codes James Joyce’s Ulysses novel. Part-I acrostic-code S-Y-Iletter-number pairing 19-25=6 & 25-9=16 to June 16 Bloomsday setting, & 616is other-half 161616 comprises 666 with Magic 6-Square’s 111. slackattack’sFrieze: Vitruvian Wave 161 Architecture to 22nd-UIA Congress Istanbul 2005interfacing Boxing Day 2004 Banda Aceh tsunami as frieze to scotia-&-dadoarchitecture, juxtaposing Vitruvian’s “3-conditions for good architecture” as283

Firmness=Stately; Commodity=You & Delight=Inelectable. XYXYXY: alltriple doublet digits are 777-dividable i.e. 161616/777=208.To hold the stage, but uncertain why England’s Charles II renamed 12thNight, Malvolio, he took a punt. ‘What’s 1492+62 installation architecture is1527 to you?’ demands slackattack, to get an unexpected reception.‘I’m not Elene Fontana,’ Canberra redirects. ‘But we meet her at_’‘Her codename,’ Hogan chimes in. ‘As a Tetraphobia fearing number foursaid Elene Fontana codes ELF secrets “energy” to Montana hides M=13=4.’‘ELF,’ startles Monty, changing focus to the woman’s companion.‘Extremely Low Frequency transmission communicates with submarines.It’s being developed as a weapon to destroy underground bunkers i.e. Iran’snuclear facilities. Critics see it as a force to create the next Polar Shift,’ repliesHogan. Introductions are exchanged & 333=9 sacred previewed.‘What’s ELF to 30zero31 climax at the iron lung?’ asks Monty.As a disgruntled Canberra went to Shakespeare’s 12th-Night at nearbyspeaker’s corner, he put aside the later domestic, to recall another fleetingperson at Mount Annan Botanic Gardens. Memory-rhyme 30-days haveSeptember, April, June & November. All the rest have 31, except February’s28 & leap year’s 29 was 966931-entity’s JASON 30zero31 pitch. 5-monthsJuly August September October November negates no 5th-Prime sequenceas 2x3x5x7x11x13+1=30031=59x509, & Sydney Mardi Gras Parade’sRIO float failure ensures 6th-Prime’s “five-ten five-eleven” isn’t dead &buried, even if 2x3x5x7x11x13x17+1=511510=19x97x277 in JASONthink-tank’s 1st-consultancy was Project Sanguine development of ELFtechnology. 966931-entity juxtaposed sanguine: hopeful; optimistic from Latinsanguis=blood, with sang-nine to the RIO float’s intended Snow White & theSeven Dwarfs duality with Sleeping Beauty as glass-coffin variation to Quiz.But if Monty knows of 966931-entity, why ask about 30zero31 unless ironlung’s key. He code spoke. ‘59x492=29zero28 is its other.’‘Before & after code Charles Lindbergh,’ Monty’s surprised 28-29-30-31is years between the aviator’s Spirit of St Louis wins 1st-transatlantic-flight1919 Orteig Prize, flying New York to Paris May 20-21, 1927 & March 1, 1932kidnap of 20-month-old Charles Junior from Hopewell, NJ home.5-years after being 1st-global celebrity, Lindbergh’s “crime of the century”embroiled. Later he pioneered a heart-pump that others develop into heartlungmachine for transplants. In 1927-32 Sydney Harbour Bridge is callediron lung as iron construction supports many families in the Depression. True,but Depression’s 1930-38, so Hogan returns to Gabriel’s Gully test-case ofLawrence as Central Otago gateway, in how sobriquets, like sacred havemultiple meanings, & even their changes don’t happen by chance.‘Henry Montgomery Lawrence was hero of Lucknow Military Campaign1857,’ said Hogan, explaining how New Zealand’s gold-rush town Lawrencewas named after the British military leader in India who died in Lucknow 1857,citing suspicions Gabriel Read wasn’t the prospector’s real name. Prospecting’sno reward or incredible wealth, so only middlemen make living, i.e. Lawrence.Petty crime to survive & disputes amongst a secretively transient workforce rifeto fever rumor means names would regularly change at a fresh stake, without284

eing the “one-in-millions” striking gold. PR, crisis management & spin doctorsaren’t a recent invention.He concluded. ‘Embedding realty in truth doesn’t mean it hasn’t beenmanufactured for alter motives. Gabriel Read is 1861 meaningful.’‘What’s it to a Lindbergh code?’ bewilders Monty. Molly’s file includesCOAT is Christchurch-Oamaru-Ashburton-Timaru & hanger is aircraft shed,but are claims Timaru aviator Richard Pearce flew before the Wright Brotherswhy’s iron lung become coathanger. Pearce living in Milton for a time is saidbehind 4-Corners to the Metaphysical Tomb, as 4-city COAT hides Dunedin in5-city CATOD infers CAT-OD is “31 time-of-death” & whatever else codieswant to make it, while DOTAC reads DOT 13 & DO 2013 etc. All bullshit to anoperative & Lindbergh’s a man of action.‘Cash cow rhymes Lucknow. The British term derives from the Indianritual of offering money to temple idols in the form of sacred cows, whereassacred cow rhyme means immune from question or criticism.’‘So?’ Monty knew US-President’s Air-Force-One jet is called sacred cow.‘A gold-rush is the ultimate cash cow, typifying they’re not without end.Gabriel Read conjures imagery in re-AD Christian context of Abrahamic7-archangels, beginning Uriel & ending Michael, whereby Uriel with flamingsword guarding The Garden of Eden begins again. 15th Century Trithemiussacred-doctrine claimed ruler-of-the-Sun cosmic-fire Gold would institute newarts, astronomy, astrology, science of architecture, & predicted the Jews returnto their homeland. Following reflective-Moon archangel Gabriel 1525-1881 isArchangel Michael. Gabriel Read found gold May 20, 1861.’‘Exactly 66-years later, Lindbergh departs New York.’ But Monty focusesthe decomposed baby’s recovered 72-days later May 12 with head fractures,both hands & left-leg missing. Identification’s overlapping toes on right-foot.‘Fame & fortune results in miss-spelt 50,000$ ransom-note of last 2-lines:The child is in gut care. Indication for all letters are singnature & 3-holes.Lindbergh paid the ransom, but still lost son.’ Hogan knew its circling-square/squaring-circle machine geometry conceals Magic 3-Square’s 1930-to-1938Great Depression. Symbol’s too intelligent for petty-crim/would-be carpenterBruno Hauptmann. Fall-guy to Lindbergh is BERLIN DHG=487, the latter onlyPrime as 93rd, equates 2012-487=1525 Archangel Gabriel.‘What’s it to Elene Fontana?’ Monty wants to get back on track.‘Fontana is TOA FANNY to YNOT code 4-Corners of MetaphysicalTomb.’ Hogan knew Fanny is thought from Frances, but British slang infersfemale genitalia & bum is American, so Francis possible. Stephanie isalternative. Fan is Latin vannus winnowing basket. Sydney Harbour BridgeSHB=1982 to Hogan’s Bourne Identity interface of Ludlum’s novel withSHC=1983. It’s his awakening TOA awareness, after Christchurch & Dunedinstaff acquisition resulted in #17 squaring corner March/April/May withhypotenuse twist to duplicate #26 format. Crazy if it’s activity’s foul-play incelebrity chef Matt Golinski of TV’s Ready Steady Cook loosing wife & 3-kidswhen Sunshine Coast Tewantin home’s engulfed by fire, early morning BoxingDay 2011.‘Why the code-speak?’ Unable to remember the snake’s prediction, Montyrecalls Molly saying its spy cliché, but if I told you I’d have to kill you.285

‘Because 59x492=29zero28 is 30zero31=59x509 other to 5th-Prime_’‘Maya 5th-World End heralds a new beginning, not Westerner End Times.Next you’ll say Truman authorizing MAJESTIC-12 isn’t conspiracy.’‘But Roswell Army Air Field July 8, 1947 press-release of 509th BombGroup recovering crashed flying-disk & next-day’s radar-tracking weatherballoon statement is Roswell basis late-70’s after ufologist interviewed MajorJesse Marcel in Foster ranch debris found by foreman Mac Brazel, over militarycovered-up Alien spacecraft & bodies at R&D Area-51, Lake Groom, NewMexico. 3x509=1527 & 33x59=1947 is 333=9 sacred_’ Hogan halts.A speaker’s corner disturbance has him rushing to the scene.Heckler going to ViP “vortex to the heart” of slackattack’s HEGA:wait-weight loss program DIY manual has pseudonym reeling over “what’s1492+62=1527 to you?”, having not foreseen 12th-Night’s What you willabstracts WUWT climate change skeptic website to YNOT code.‘You’re a leftie we can do without,’ the heckler adds. ‘Next you’ll say 12th-Night’s 41st-blueprint to “t-w-ELF-th” code-speak T-double-U global warmingTH=208x777=161616/364=444 hocus pocus conspiracy 1344+444=1788Australian settlement to 222 Christchurch quake is Mark of the Beast.’‘Pritzker Architecture Prize Bronze Medallion includes Sullivan-design& commodity/firmness/delight of Henry Wotton’s 1624 The Elements ofArchitecture translation of Vitruvian’s Ten Books on Architecture highlightquote: “The end is to build well. Well-building has 3-conditions: Commodity-Firmness-Delight,” reversing original Firmness-Commodity-Delight.CFD=364,’ slackattack scrambles to interface Aldo Rossi’s AutonomousResearcher.13th-anniversary of Milan architect’s single-car death driving to his LagoMarggiore House on September 4, 1997 is Christchurch 2010 quake. Sacredis Rossi’s 14th-recipent on 13th- Pritzker giving, as 10th to Philip Johnson1st Laureate 1979 was 2-laureates 1988. But before slackattack activatesAutonomous Researcher in science-art prize to father-of-skyscraper Chicagoarchitect Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats as 13-years later 24th/25thlaureates receive 23rd-prize in 2001 months before 911, a woman yells.‘Henry Wotton’s hedonistic-views influenced Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’scommissioning by the American publisher of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazinefor a serialized-story after 1889’s The Portrait of Mr. W.H. success. 1890 ThePicture of Dorian Gray was heavy criticized for depravity & reworked for its1891 novel publishing, both mentioned in his sodomy trials.’‘What?’ slackattack’s become entangled in the Autonomous Researcher.‘Literati would connect “onlie begetter” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets 1609Mr. W.H. dedication to Henry Wotton of Vitruvian mistranslation, letter-wroteonly casualty’s a man’s breeches caught fire rescuing a child, but he dowsedthem with his drink when Globe Theatre burnt down June 29, 1613 duringShakespeare’s All Is True, today’s re-titled King Henry VIII. Its Breeches Bibleidentifiable from KJV by Genesis 3.7: made themselves breeches.’‘Shutup,’ the heckler confronts her over June’s 4th-month Julian.‘Wilde reaffirms intent coinciding trials, claiming his Shakespeare’sSonnets & 2nd-draft The Florentine Tragedy, The Portrait of Mr. W.H. extended286

version & the much sought-after The Duchess of Padua & Cardinal of Aragonmanuscripts were stolen from his 16 Tite Street London residence in 1895?’‘Scholarship cites there’s no evidence they ever existed,’ the heckler argues,saying quietly to Canberra. ‘Mention WH/HW is August 23, 2011 largest USeast coast quake at 5.8-magnitude since 1886 felt from Georgia to Toronto at1.51pm of Virginia’s Mineral epicenter shutdown nearby North Anna nuclearpower station, & I’ll deal to you.’‘Hogan believes that earthquake bullshit. I’m into Literature_’‘Correct,’ Hogan shoves the heckler away from her.‘You’ll regret that,’ the heckler with knife charges.‘Leave,’ Monty intervenes. Itching for a fight all day, his attention turns tothe knife wielder. ‘Break a leg. This isn’t Queensbury Rules.’As Canberra dragged Hogan around The Rocks, Monty easily subdued theaggressor. Remembering the fortune teller saying “ELF is duende see to tilde nosee”, he began his interrogation. ‘Why take the Wilde offense?’‘SID is Sybil Isabel Dorsett split-personality case study of Shirley ArdellMason is SAM. You don’t know if 5-balls is 5th-World End or 30zero31’‘I’ve your company until tonight’s Megaball to find-out.’ Monty put hisvictim in a sleeper hold, telling the crowd it’s the coathanger appointment at theiron lung wavelength. slackattack getting-up Autonomous Researcher did therest, as everyone rightly thought its part of the show.Barrie Walsh is a fruitpicker in Griffith, NSW, Australia, with a backgroundin practical & theoretical architecture. For the past 3-4 years he has beenwriting a collection of short stories on conspiracy architecture under NUTS:Noctural U-Turn Suite working title with the following publications:3 @ write this – pretend press2 @ Booranga Anthology [4W20, 4W21] Wagga Wagga Writers Writers CSU2 @ Twisted Tongue Magazine1 @ Emprise Review1 [poem] Chapbook “No One Hears Me!” The Soliloquy Competition,Melbourne Shakespeare Society.287

FAIT ACCOMPLIby Emil DeAndreisLakota has just fucked herself. Not literally; pit bulls rarely display suchadvanced thought. But she has spent the last hour maiming the compostbin and assigning its contents to digestion. Notable substances thatare currently being mulched in her stomach are egg shells, burnt cupcakes,napkins, and one pound of discarded marijuana butter. She was not previouslyin the market for a hallucinatory voyage, but has just lapped up enough pot toincapacitate a small civilization of stoners, so she no longer has a say in hersobriety levels.Quickly, her life is melting into an asylum of tremor. Her shaking isuncontrollable. Usually an athletic specimen, she is presently collapsing intowalls and forgetting how to walk. Her brain and heart are likely burning like avolcanically-tempered cocktail of battery acid, rubbing alcohol, and shrooms.Occasionally, she pisses. On the floor. She looks like baby veal walking for thefirst time, having lived her entire life in a cage. Her primary caretaker, Chase,believes she is acting skittishly because she is still emotionally healing from whenhe lightly spanked her butt for drinking toilet water a few hours ago. Chase andthe rest of the roommates can’t seem to make the connection between the thrashedcompost, which contained pot butter, and their presently retarded canine.All that can be confirmed is that Lakota is in terrible shape, and no one canmake her feel better. She’s just going to have to wear this one on her chin. Orsnout. Poor baby.Another housemate, Juke, pets Lakota on the head as she cowers into a ballwishing she knew how to end her life. Juke’s friends are waiting for him in thecar outside. They are calling him and telling him to come out so that they can allget to this party, a party they have been looking forward to for months. For theparty, Juke has put on a shirt that masks the reality of his man tits. He has alsoapplied his contact lenses; nights he wears his contact lenses are nights he takesvery seriously.It’s the annual high school holiday party. Everyone from high schoolgets together and asks each other catching-up questions and no one listens tothe answers but it’s a lot of fun either way. They are in their mid twenties.Everyone has a job now, and if they don’t, they at least have a well-rehearseddecree on the state of the economy as an excuse. Anyone who still liveswith their parents has an even better rehearsed decree on said economy. Butdeep down, the source of this bitterness can scientifically be credited not tothe flourishing unemployment, but to a more basic science—the science ofmaturation, of years piled on years piled on years.288

At these parties, anyone with new partners usually brings the partner, atwhich point this partner is usually introduced and interviewed by the masses andthen assessed later. The party goers who are still single usually get drunk andfuck one another, thereby quenching some strange sexual tension that has beenstrengthening and fermenting since high school when sex drive was somethingnew and fresh. Juke is not investing himself into such endeavors tonight, orever; he is a bit simpler than that.“You be a good girl,” Juke soothes to Lakota, whose eyes are glazedand fixed upon nothing. “She doesn’t look too good,” Juke tells Chase as heheads out the door.“She don’t know how good she has it,” returns Chase, a sort ofunprepared and nondescript remark that suggests he is currently as mentallydisfigured by marijuana as his dog.Juke leaves Lakota a pile of apocalyptic misery and walks out thedoor to the car. He decides to bring a twelve pack of non-piss beer to theparty: Sapporo, another indication that he means business tonight. The car’spopulation—the old baseball boys, as it were— recalls the different high schoolcliques. They forecast who will show up. They wonder if so-and-so is still fat,or if so-and-so ever broke up with her opossum-nosed boyfriend, and if anyoneheard about how ‘so-and-so moved to Tibet to bike through the Himalayas’.They place bets on which guys will show up sporting the I’m-a-man-now beard.They wonder if anyone has gone off the deep end and really changed, reallysevered ties with their youth.When the door opens, the muffled house party noise becomes more acute,and the crisp San Francisco winter air is quickly buried under a surge ofalcohol-muggy fog from inside the house. Juke is in heaven. He walks over tothe alcohol table and introduces his cultural beer to the community of corona,Jameson and Grey Goose bottles. Quickly Juke is hugging the rosy sloshedfaces of his once-classmates. He cracks a few of his beers and drinks them tocatch up with the masses, who appear to have been drinking for quite some timealready. Juke separates from the friends he arrived with and branches out to oldclassmates to exchange the due futile conversations that go something like this:“So how’ve you been?”“Great, and you?”“Great.”“Where’d you go to college again?”“UC Davis.”“That’s right, I knew that. What’d you major in again?”“Molecular Engineering and Business Management.”“Wow. I think I remember you telling me that before. So what do you donow?”“I just started my own business. Molecular engineering.”“Oh no way. Sounds heavy. What’d you major in to get into to that?”And so forth. Eventually, the conversation switches sides, and it is theother person’s turn to ask questions, not listen to answers and then repeatthe questions due to the ever-cohesive bond of disinterest and inebriation.Periodically, the calamity of loose socializing and celebration is silenced by acheery soul who elevates himself on a chair to necessitate a unified toast. Juke289

290raises his beer along with the hands of his mid-twenty year old peers to saycheers. Cheers to the old days, the days that feel like yesterday but are steadilycoming to be remembered as the best days, and also the lost days. The dayswhen staying out late was still monitored, before driving became boring, whenthey got money from their parents for lunch, when fucking up meant trash dutyat lunch and not a criminal record, when they drank because they wanted to, notbecause they needed to. The days when it made them happy to hear Hey Ya! byOutkast; not sad.Juke is deep into a few beers now. The scattered toasts have bled someshots of whiskey into him, leaving a warm smile plastered to his face. In acorner, he lethargically intercepts pieces of surrounding conversations. Thesmile does not leave his face. No one notices his strange tranquility. He looksat a girl who, in high school, was so adamantly against the use of marijuana thatshe would occasionally cancel a friendship if she learned of a prior affair withthe herb; her system for admittance of friends was as strenuous as the CIA’s.Juke listens as she explains how these days she is on a panel for the legalizationof marijuana in Portland, where she went to college. Additionally, she worksat a medical marijuana distribution clinic in Portland, and is quite pleased todeliver these facts. Smiling, Juke thinks that if he were talking to her, he wouldsay “quite a turnaround for you”, but he is in the corner. As it turns out, theboy who is actually talking to the girl does not react to her news because hesimply isn’t listening to her. Juke finishes a beer and sighs out an airy burpand smiles. He looks at a boy who, in high school, was a sexually abstinent,commandment-abiding Christian who would melt girls’ hearts when he playedhis acoustic guitar during lunch. He could have had any girl in the schoolsimply because he genuinely wanted none of them, so naturally they were driveninto barbarous, narcissistic pursuit of his phallus with hopes that they couldbe the one that he ultimately couldn’t resist, the one that he threw everythingaway for. He never boned any of them. He just brushed his blonde hair out ofhis eyes and strummed his guitar, which brought moisture to the vagina of anyfemale within a listening distance. He also arranged missions with his Churchto third world countries where he fed the children and played games with themin the street and informed them of the one-time, yet ever-continuing existenceof an entity called Jesus. Wherever he went he was loved. Now, he’s gay.His boyfriend is at the party and they are being neither secretive nor boastfulin their displays of affection. Girls realize that the reason he avoided them inhigh school was not entirely due to his devotion to Christianity, but because hewas turned off by them, and somehow, if it is even possible, the girls appearmore infatuated with him as a result. He could go around the party and honkevery girl’s tit if he wanted to right now, and they would only laugh and smilefor more. He still wears a cross around his neck. Juke has drained another halfof a beer. It’s funny to look at all the guys who wore baggy sagged jeans inhigh school, himself profoundly included, now walking around the party withtesticle-suffocating jeans painted to their legs in a white-flag-waving surrenderto fashion. Juke can barely even walk in his denim leggings. God help us, hethinks. Where are we going? He knows where.“Juke, good to see you.”Someone has tapped him on the shoulder. It’s Gary, an old classmate.

Back in high school, Juke and Gary would take turns doing the Frenchhomework and letting the other copy the next day before class. Their teacherwas a flagrant stickler about homework; she felt that nightly academic effortsindicated much in a young scholar, like promise, drive, durability and Cancerimmunity.“And if you don’t do your homework, you will be passed up. You will beforgotten. This is not just a fact of this class, ladies and gentlemen, no. This is afact of life, prearranged and not up for debate. Fait Accompli. Life will not waitfor you, and it starts with your homework. French homework, yes?”Manifestos like this often inspired all Francois students to take schoolprofoundly less seriously. Nonetheless, this was stupid busy work, nothingmore, and Juke and Gary had a very nice system in place that enabled them to beviewed highly by their French teacher without putting forth any real effort; thebeauty of high school.“I’ve been meaning to tell you, I’ve read some of the stories you’ve hadpublished recently,” Gary tells Juke.In the event that Juke chugs another beer, his mind will be sent into analcohol-assisted delirium unsuited for a deep and philosophical conversation,even if that conversation revolves around him. Juke, however, does not knowthis, so in order to lube his vocal chords for this materializing discussion with anold classmate, Juke pours beer down his throat.“I had no idea you spent so much time thinking. You alluded to no suchactivities in French class, of course. But your writing is impressive,” Juke’sclassmate says.Juke shrugs, chugs.“It like, you know, flows smoothly like good writing does. Not that I’m ascholar by any means.”Juke finishes his beer and releases an exhausted sigh of submission toalcohol.“Thanks for taking the time,” he dribbles warmly, and proceeds to bedeliberate in his pursuit of more flattery. “What stories’dya read? What’dyalike specifically?”The classmate excavates through the part of his mind that stores fairlyuseless information, like what dish he liked so much last time he got Thai food,or how old he was when his fish died.“I read the one about the guy, uh… he was on the fishing pier or something.He was old I think, and he was talking about girls.”“Ah yes,” Juke gloats. His eyes are half-shut. Juke pretends he’s beingasked about the secrets of his writing, the secrets to all his success. He pretendshe is being interviewed about a published book. Maybe he is at a book signing.“Thank you. With that story, I—”Another energetic soul has just navigated to the top of a stool and merrilysilenced the party so that he can make an announcement. Evidently, the housesegment of the party is over and now an exodus is being arranged to a nearbybar for continued festivities. This alert commences a raging flurry of shots.Tiny Chinese girls are slamming whiskey after whiskey like navy boys on theirnight off, blowing Juke’s mind. Toasts are being enforced among various podsof people—toasts to their high school basketball team, toasts to Cal Berkeley291

292alumnus, toasts to Obama, toasts to the bacon-wrapped hot dogs that everyonewill purchase on the street at the precise moment that the bar closes, toasts theirclass of ’04.Juke tells his ex-French partner, Gary, that they will continue catching upat the next destination, for there is only one thing more powerful than Juke’seternal search for ego-boosting, and that is his inability to resist free booze,especially when he has already had too much, especially when he is aroundhigh school alumni. So he sacrifices literary acclaim and lines up at the liquortable and clinks shot glasses a few times with people he knows only by vaguerecognition. He washes the vodka down with beer, and now his mind isprocessing things at the pace of a baby turtle wading through quick sand. Ina moment of calculated thought, he decides that the one-third-left bottle ofBushmills will be left unenjoyed, unemployed, if he doesn’t do anything aboutit. So he jams the long glass container into his very snug jeans like a baseballbat into a condom, and stumbles to his friend’s car.“Check out this acquisition,” snarls Juke, hoisting the ball-sweat-glazedbottle of whiskey like an MVP trophy. Juke’s friend rolls his eyes, electingto let the spicy human precipitation dry before grabbing the Bushmills andswigging it. This allows Juke to take a hearty swig. He has just ensured that hewill not remember arriving to the club, or anything that follows. He will moreor less bump and wade through the night completely disqualified from mentalfunction—and he will go this path alone.After parking, Juke’s friends are showing interest in avoiding him becausehis communication is proving to be ceaseless and foul. In the bar, he quicklyfinds himself standing alone, and what he does to combat the social idleness isapproach congregations of interaction and simply stare into them. Being that thegroups are courteous, they open to Juke and offer salutations. Juke bulldozeshis way in and continues to stare, only now he’s smiling. He asks everyone’sname and says nice to meet them, which is stupid considering they were all hisclassmates a short time ago. Once they realize that he is nothing more than abreathing corpse, they resume conversing as if he’s not there. That is of courseuntil minutes later when Juke ends his mute streak by proclaiming “I hateiPhones.”The group is stunned by the irrelevance.“You know what I mean?” Juke slurs, his eyes fixed on someone’s armpit.Having provided no details to support this claim, his audience unfortunatelydoesn’t know what he means.“Remember when everyone had the old phones? And we played snake?”Standing there, Juke forgets what has just said, then takes the lull in theconversation as his cue to pinch a girl’s ass.“Huh?!” Juke blubbers, startled, when the girl makes a prompt exit.Replacing her is Gary.“You just pinched my ex girlfriend’s ass dude,” he says. Juke rolls his eyes.“Where?”“What do you mean?”“Where’s her ass is going?”“Just don’t do it again.”“You really wanna walk outside and fight?” growls Juke.

“No, I’d just much rather you not colonize handfuls of my ex’s ass.”At this moment, Juke kisses Gary’s cheek. Then he makes a remark abouthow his ex- girl’s “real estate” is “eligible,” thus ending the correspondencebetween he and his old classmate for good. Juke is staring off into the crowdof his high school’s alumni. Maybe he is targeting new people to haunt, maybehe is having a revelation or perhaps thinking nothing at all. It is impossible tospeculate the thought process of someone who is truly blacked out; no detail ofthe faded voyage can be personally recounted, not a cab ride or a confession ora surprisingly predictable late night ingestion of Taco Bell, so it is even furtherimpossible to get to the bottom of one’s internal thoughts and motives. Forall we know, blacking out can bring a man to the peak of human intellectualcapacity. While one may potentially arrive into the custody of a rhinoceralbouncer or law enforcement officer, one may also arrive at the meaning of life,or the cure for cancer, or the explanation for why each year, communities oflemmings gather and march themselves off of cliffs to a self-provided death.No one will ever know heights of enlightenment one reaches in a black out,however, because those potential life-altering revelations are left trapped in themolasses-paced skull of the plagued and are then erased in the morning when allthat commemorates the prior night is a house-clearing defecation and an archiveof infuriated text messages.Juke has invited himself into another congregation. This one includes analumnus whose younger brother was killed in Afghanistan earlier this year. Thegirl’s friends and other alumni have spent the months since his death being therefor the girl’s family. The funeral was about six months ago— a crowded andparalyzing illness of an affair, the way funerals for premature and undeserveddeaths tend to be. Classmates stood at the podium and wept about his loyaltyand innocence and good nature, and how they could not believe they lived in aworld that could take someone like him early. Adults had to be escorted fromthe service early, faint and claustrophobic from the proximity of death andyouth. This was not the kind of tranquil funeral that brought closure to an endedexistence, rather it was the kind where the wound was torn open to gape andglisten and reflect and gush under the rising and setting sun.“So’d they ever catch ‘im?” Juke asks, swaying back and forth. He spits onthe floor.“Who?” asks the slain soldier’s sister.“The motherfucker that did it. Killed your brother.”Juke’s eyes are rolling around, swimming, barely treading water.“I’m pretty sure he died soon after,” the girl says gingerly, looking aroundthe bar for some kind of escape.“I’ll beat the shit out of him,” Juke boasts. “Just tell me where he is. Youknow? Trust me. I’ll choke him out, stick him in the fuckin’ ground. Youdon’t do that shit to one of my friends. Remember this one time we wereoutnumbered in high school, in the parking lot after one of the basketball games.We took on their whole school. Shit, we might not’a won, but we weren’tscared of nothing. Remember?” he asks this mortified girl. “Remember??”One of Juke’s friends walks by and hears Juke digging himself a hole, andpulls him out of there by the arm.“How bout we get you some water,” Juke’s friend says.293

294“You wanna fight?” Juke dares; Juke’s friend walks off without getting himwater. Juke doesn’t notice.He is standing alone again, ogling at different situations, losing andregaining his balance, losing and regaining his balance, falling forward andthen stopping himself just before he face plants. He walks over to some oldclassmates and sticks his hand out for someone, anyone, to slap in the form of acelebratory acknowledgment of nothing. Generously, someone complies, andslaps it. Juke nods, as if he and this borderline-stranger have established a secretthat no one knows. Juke does this to some more people and gives the sameconfusing reaction.Juke is not the only one having a rough night. One guy just puked in hislap and was promptly dragged out by his belt loop while his girlfriend followedand dramatically shrieked at the bouncer as if the world was crumbling beforeher eyes. Another guy, and girl, were just excused from the bar for being caughtfornicating indiscreetly in a corner. Neither of them has any idea they were justfucking, or that they are now on the street flailing for a cab, unable to recite theirown address to whoever picks them up. More or less, this reunion is dissolvinginto the night, one classmate after another. People will wake up tomorrow,ranging in health and spirit, with another winter reunion in the books; anothernight spent ignoring the fact that each party means they are one year furtherfrom the last, one year further down the dark and thinning tunnel of age.Juke’s friends tell him that they’re headed outside. Juke is appalled by this.They tell him he should get his jacket from the couch in the corner; it’s coldoutside; Juke tells everyone to fuck off; they do. The bar is soon empty. Juke isstaring at emptiness with the same drooling curiosity he had when staring at livehumans. Eventually, he wanders outside. He has left the warmth. He has losthis friends. He has entered the winter of San Francisco, without a jacket.He phones his friends and gets a blockade of voicemails. As he instructedthem to do, they have fucked off. Disturbed people scaling endless roads travelin all directions around him. The pavement is iced from rain water. Juke callsthe girl who hosted the house party. She does not pick up. He shoots her atext message saying he would be advantaged to invade underneath her roof forlengthy refrigerator usurpation.When this message is not responded to in hasty enough fashion, Jukebecomes particularly offended. Chinese chicken wings, for fuck’s sake is thefollow up text. This also goes without acknowledged receipt.Now Juke is bordering insanity. He paces up and down Market Street,muttering to himself in the fashion of the drug addicts and bums that presentlysurround him, all the other ones who have had a rough night, or a rough coupleof nights, or a rough couple of years, years upon years upon years.“Where the fuck is home?!” he cries dramatically, stunning some peopleout of a cheap-vodka stupor and out of their fort of garbage bags. Juke’s nipplesare the consistency of machine gun bullets. Juke jumps on a bus, the 38 Geary,which will take him to his neighborhood. That he is taking the bus home aloneafter a high school reunion is derailing his psyche. And on this bus ride aroundthe city, he has ample time to sit, and think, with his phone in his hand.I hope you have fun cupping your hand around the asses of your new bestbuddies leaving me in the dust on a bus you little hippie germ. This city will

swallow you like you get it, like I am.Juke sends this cryptic blast to the friends who have mysteriously ditchedhim tonight. An old Russian man is watching a loogie fall from his mouth tothe floor next to him. Other alcohol victims are sitting, their heads swaying asif their necks are broken. A homeless man is vocally castrating every human onthe bus and challenging them to various death-resulting endeavors. The scentof one person is reminiscent of a clogged toilet. Not a single soul is of mild orpresentable temperament, and the bus bumps riotously into an oblivion of darkand cold.The spell of whiskey dick that is about to infect you will leave you widowedby your girlfriend, and she will cheat on you with a real man like me becausethere has never been a doubt about who is a bigger man. Choke deliriously onchicken fingers, faggot.This text has just been dispatched to a bigger audience, including somefriends who were not even at the party tonight. The drudgery of the night is nowbeing blamed on people who were not remotely involved. Now Juke, disgustedby the universal ignorance he is receiving at two thirty am, commences afeverish rampage against his entire mobile community.You’ve always been one to prove time and time again that the purpose ofyour heartbeat cannot be proven.Juke scrolls through his contacts and assigns this conundrum to about tenpeople, including some acquaintances from college that he met only once, someclassmates whose name never even learned, some kids he met in the libraryduring the first week of school when he was trying to make friends.Congratulations, your girlfriend is insecure and dates you because shethinks she is a worthless clod, which she is, and fears she cannot do any better,which she cannot.This is sent to Juke’s best friends, his childhood friends. This is also sentto some girls, which makes no sense.Your counter productivity on this earth cannot be quantified, nor can yourcloset gayness. In essence, you are no better than Hitler. Every day you wonderwhy you’re alive and I don’t blame you.Juke scrolls through his phone and blindly delegates this zinger to an illadvisednumber of recipients. First he targets a kid from high school who isnow a reputed brawler in a local Asian gang. Next, he checks off his goodfriend’s younger brother, a sophomore in high school now who has alwaysquietly looked up to Juke at family get-togethers. Juke used to work at Hot Dogon a Stick. He once contacted his coworkers frequently in order to trade andreplace his shifts, but hasn’t spoken to any of them since terminating his employat the prestigious institution. Because he never got around to deleting theirnumbers upon quitting, he has just used his thumbs to arrange for all of them toreceive this message. Any of them who still work at Hot Dog on a Stick willread Juke’s message and probably give their lives a serious re-evaluation. Jukecontinues down the list. An old baseball coach, who essentially taught him howto pitch: check. Juke’s uncle: check. A college professor: check. The motherof a child to whom Juke used to give baseball lessons: check. An old teammatewho now plays for the Oakland Athletics: check. Send. Sent; and now, for agood morning message from your old pal Juke.295

296Juke looks out the window of the bus. It’s dark. He has no idea where heis, where this bus is going, where everyone on the bus is going. His phone is notexploding with replies, and this is even worse news.FUCK YOU he reminds the friends he was with tonight.The bus driver is yelling LAST STOP to Juke, as he is the only survivor onthis goon-trafficked conveyance of hell.Hi he sends next to another friend—a male—at four in the morning. Thebus is stopped for a noticeable amount of time. Juke wades his way up the aisleto the driver who tells him this is the last stop. Juke gets off, stands out in thecold unaware of where he is. Juke looks around. With the exception of a distantstreetlight here and there, it is dark everywhere. There are hills and trees andsidewalks but everything is dark and wispy. Juke has no idea where he is, onlythat he was just traveling in the same direction as the city’s saddest people, andnow he is by himself in the dark. He gets back on the bus. The bus driver hasno interest in explaining to blacked-out Juke where he is, or how to get home,so he permits him to sit on the bus and sleep, or text, or whatever, as the busgoes back downtown where it began on this infinite merry-go-round throughdarkness.I think this is hell he notifies everyone via mobile device.“Each year, its further, further deep, further darker, closer, god damnit,” hesays.The bus driver tells him where he actually is, which is back downtown atthe train station. Juke asks him why he isn’t back home. The driver, in brokenEnglish, tells him that his home is now on the other side of the city, a long wayaway.“You gotta take me back, man.”“I cannot.”“Please, I don’t even know where I am at the moment. Please.”“This is my break. Forty minutes.”“Just—I wanna go back. Take me back.”“What can I do?”Juke cries. The door of the bus opens and releases Juke into an onslaughtof unforgiving wind. Juke doesn’t know it, but he catches a cab. He pays fiftydollars, like any other adult, to be taken home from the exact destination hefound himself hours ago.After jingling all of his keys in the gate for ten minutes, all the whilecursing the entire world, Juke is finally inside. Now in a home, it is no longerJuke’s priority to sever his friendships via text messages. Juke charges intoChase’s room and startles him and even worse poor Lakota, who is still comingdown from her holocaustic marijuana excursion.“Give me Lakota,” Juke says. Lakota is squinting even in the dark. Onlya few hairs on the tip of her tail are wagging, whereas it is usually her ritual tonearly level the house in flippant excitement whenever a visitor enters her lair.“She’s still a little fucked up. I think she got into some weed butter,” Chaseexpertly mumbles.“I do not care. Only she knows what it is like to be where I am.”Lakota clumsily rises onto her paws and stumbles after Juke into his room.“She pissed the bed earlier man! Right under my ear! She can’t control it

ight now! Just a warning,” Chase calls.Lakota is showing a pitiful glare. Her neck can hardly hold her head up.Before Juke’s head hits the pillow, he is snoring. Lakota climbs onto his bedand curls into a ball next to Juke’s ear. Juke, snoring, rolls over and wraps hisarm and leg around the dog, holding onto her, holding onto anything he can, justholding on because it is in everyone’s nature to hold on; she pisses, right underhis ear, as scheduled. Juke does not wake up. Little can save him from thelonely feeling he will have when he wakes up and shakes the cold piss from hishead. His head is so soaked that he will have to shake it until he has strained hisneck, making it difficult to turn his head side to side, and especially painful tolook backward.Emil DeAndreis is a twenty six year old substitute teacher and high schoolbaseball coach in San Francisco. He is published in over twenty journals. Hisbook, Beyond Folly, will be released in 2013 by Blue Cubicle Press. In his freetime he plays inadequate rounds of golf, and jazz gigs— jazz being the onlyartistic vocation which pays less than writing. His pilgrimage toward an MFAbegan this year at San Francisco State.297

SUNDAY SCHOOLLESSONSby Brett BurbaMarcy overhears one of the nurses calling it a halo, but the man sittingacross the hospital waiting room doesn’t look anything like an angel.If he even has wings, they’re cramped underneath the plastic veststrapped to his upper body. Four steel rods shoot up from his shoulders, fencingin a steel ring around his head. Already, Marcy can’t wait to tell her friends.Sunday school never covers any of the good stuff, like robot angels.Marcy fixates on the ring.It doesn’t hover like a halo should. It doesn’t glow gold either.Marcy’s eyes widen. The halo is set with 2 inch pins drilled straight intothe robot angel’s temple, medieval torture disguised as a modern orthopedicpractice. Each quarter turn of every screw serves as stability for his fracturedvertebrae, or maybe penance for past sins.Marcy looks down, touching her own forehead, praying she doesn’t find anyscrews there.Good Housekeeping lays open across Mom’s lap. Mom stares at thearticle’s title, “10 Tips for Talking to Your Kids,” rereading it over and overbecause her mind won’t follow her eyes to the next line without wandering off.Today is Marcy’s appointment for an MRI.Mom catches Marcy feeling around the side of her head with her fingertips.She leans in.“Marcy...” Mom stretches the long “e” of her name even longer, as ifholding on to that last syllable will delay the answer. “Your head hurt again?”Marcy’s migraines always start as tiny, star-shaped sparkles in the cornerof her eyes, collecting like snowflakes until her periphery whites out altogether.Last Wednesday, Mom received a call from the school nurse. Marcy wouldn’topen her eyes during science class. When asked what was wrong, she said hereeyes were outgrowing her head. Clenching her eyelids would keep her eyes frompopping out. At first, Mom bargained with the pediatrician. Marcy’s too youngfor migraines; too young for an MRI and whatever condition that machine thinksit’ll find in her seven-year-old brain. But the pediatrician insisted, and after thatincident on Wednesday, Mom promised she would make it better.“No Mommy I’m ok. It’s that guy over there with the halo thing.”Marcy locks her wide eyes on the robot angel. The pins in his temple jutout like stern index fingers, pointing; shaming little girls who stare. It’s not298

polite, but manners don’t account for encounters with one of God’s mechanicalmessengers. Probably he’s just scheduled for a tune-up before flying back toHeaven. Those kids at school will never believe her.A nurse emerges from the hallway next to Marcy.“Robert?”Does she mean Robot?He moves with all the grace of a Dorothy-less Tin Man. His brace casts acage-like shadow over Marcy as he approaches her side of the waiting room.Marcy reaches for her necklace, pinching a dangling cross between her thumband middle finger; a First Communion gift from Dad. Whenever her head hurtsreal bad, Dad rubs her back and hums The Little Mermaid soundtrack. That samedeep voice that soothes her to sleep during a migraine also says that the tinycross is faith, and as long as you have that, you’re safe.Another nurse walks into the waiting room.“Marcy?”Marcy follows Mom to another area of the hospital, nurse leading the way.A technician greets them at the radiology department. She explains that littlekids have a hard enough time staying still for 5 minutes, let alone a 30 minuteMRI. Marcy will be sedated. It’s standard procedure with patients her age. Momsigns the agreement. She bends and kisses Marcy on the forehead.“Okay, honey. Don’t be scared. This is going to help us make yourheadaches better. Give me a hug.”The technician takes Marcy’s hand and leads her down the hall into a dimlitroom. A giant white tunnel towers over her.This must be the MRI thing all the grown-ups have been talking about.The machine waits like a gaping mouth; a bed extends from lip of theopening like an outstretched tongue, taunting unsuspecting victims, daring themto enter. Marcy looks over her shoulder toward the doorway.Mom isn’t coming.She creeps closer to the tunnel, twirling the tiny cross between her indexfinger and thumb, hoping Dad is right. The technician lets out a quick gasp.“Oh, sweetie. We’ll have to take your necklace off in case it’s metal.”Marcy steps back from the machine, pouting. She slides the tiny crossback and forth along the necklace. Without it, the giant mouth will swallow herwhole.“It’s okay. You can give it to your mom – she’ll keep it safe for you. Goahead. She’s outside this room just down the hall.”When Marcy returns, the technician leads her to the tongue of the tunnelwhere she’s supposed to lay. Marcy tenses her arms and legs, stiffening herback against the bed in an effort to stay as still as possible. Even the slightestmovement might anger the machine. Her eyes dart across the roof of the tunnel’smouth. It’s all white with curved surfaces. No visible teeth, but that doesn’tmean it won’t tear her apart. It can probably sense her breaths getting shorter,quicker.An anesthesiologist approaches with a silver tray of plastic tubes, thinrubber hoses, and hypodermic needles.“Ok Marcy. I’m really sorry but you’re going to feel 2 little pinches. Thefirst one is something that will help us see your brain better. The second one is299

just some medicine that’ll make you sleepy, ok? It won’t hurt after the pinch. Ipromise.”The anesthesiologist locates a vein and the needle pokes through. Marcytilts her head backward, peering deep into the machine’s throat. She thinksabout Pinocchio and how scared Geppetto must have felt when Monstro gulpeddown his entire ship. Copper floods her tongue while a second needle pokesthrough her skin. The tunnel is only 7 feet deep, but maybe the machine extendsdownward, the rest of its belly lurking beneath the floor. Marcy swears she canhear it gurgling. She squirms and lifts her head, ready to jump from the tongueand run, but a sudden tiredness overwhelms her.Starting in her chest, warmth rushes in waves to her arms and legs, tinytides collapsing into her fingertips and toes.“Relax, Marcy. You’re doing so good.”Marcy nods, eyelids fluttering. Pressed between her tongue and the roofof her mouth, the tiny cross dislodges. Her tongue relaxes under the sedative’sinfluence. The cross slides toward the back of her mouth. Her throat, lined withmuscles lulled into rest, opens wider. Without meaning to, Marcy swallows andfalls asleep.***At first, the technician wasn’t sure what happened. She heard a strangepinging sound echoing from the machine, like metal on metal.The technician takes Mom to a private room. Inside, she and another doctortake turns explaining the accident, how the MRI exerts an intense magneticforce, and how that magnetic pull overpowered the thin barrier of skin betweenMarcy’s throat and collar bone.Mom drops to her knees.The doctor’s voice is a dial tone, far away noise delivered at a steadyfrequency.“The technician found Marcy with the base of her throat punctured andbleeding open. There was a tiny stained cross next to her body.”Brett Burba is a marketing professional who recently graduated fromIllinois State University. He lives in Bolingbrook, Illinois.300

SHROOM SOCCERby Maui HolcombIwould’ve been spared memories of Strauss if it weren’t for a case of cabinfever. After days of April rain, the clouds parted, and I felt the urge to ventureout to the Studio City Farmer’s Market. Traffic cones blocked off a sidestreet,and shoppers navigated booths sporting baskets of strawberries and grapes;apples and oranges by the bushel; nuts, roasted, glazed and dipped in chocolate;piles of vegetables sorted into every shade of yellow and green; great sheaves offlowers; miniature palms, rootballs bursting from burlap; strings of fresh garlic andpiles of herbs; tables littered with homemade candles and dog treats; plastic tubsof wheatgrass and jars of vegan fudge. The newly washed air had lured youngparents pushing strollers; dapper elderly couples pulling metal carts; hipsters intheir little hats and oversized sunglasses; even anti-social weirdos like me. At oneend the reek of a petting zoo overpowered the fragrance of flowers and produce,and the kiddies shrieked on a carousel yards from Ventura Boulevard exhaust.Having penetrated to the center of this mess and already regretting it, I wascomparing two tomatoes when a nearby laugh sparked a glimmer of memory.I turned and locked eyes with Strauss’s old flame, who I hadn’t seen in, what,seven, eight years. Since soon after college anyway. My eyes twitched, maybehers did, too, but the opportunity to pretend we were strangers slipped away, andshe stepped over from the banana display.“Max?” She cocked her head to one side.I dropped the tomatoes against their buds.“Wow! Hi Julie.”What a coincidence, what are you doing here, you look good...She did look good and had recently returned to town after cutting her teeth inNew York. She introduced me to Pablo, a tall dark type draped over her shoulders.I mentioned the writing—no, nothing yet, working for a production companyin the meantime. She asked for the company name, and I said, sure, send overa headshot. We exchanged news on common acquaintances, but I sensed in herdistraction that she was, like me, thinking of Strauss. I suppose to spare Pablo’sfeelings she didn’t mention him, and I sure wasn’t. Guilt crept in as I realizedhow long my old roommate had been absent from my thoughts. Now I couldsee him hanging out between us, a bit to the side, looking reproachful. Her eyesflicked over there, too, and when there was nothing more to say neither of us wasreluctant to move on.Cured of the impulse to be around other humans, I wandered back to mybuilding, pausing by the flood control channel (“river” to Angelenos) to watchstorm runoff tumble to the sea.301

Strauss and I leaned against the thick roots of a eucalyptus at the edge ofthe world at the end of time, a carpeted wasteland spread out before us, andthe lacerating sun beating down. We were probably the last inhabitants in thearea, and as far as I was concerned he wasn’t really there. I avoided glancingat him—to catch his eye might be fatal, or maybe I wouldn’t be able to pullaway. Distant figures traveled across the grass, but I knew they were figmentsof the haze. There had been others with us, but they had dropped away. Allthat mattered existed here, as the dying star leached the last moisture from mydecaying body. An ant climbed onto my hand, and I followed its journey to theother side, was its journey, and felt another piece of me crumble away when itdisappeared into the grass.Sometime before my thoughts had been caught up with these gossamertendrils connecting everything around us, from the tree branches to the recedingroofline of the dorm, to the clouds above and a distant passenger jet. I hadfelt that if I moved I’d snap the bonds and cause the jet to plummet and thebuildings to collapse. In my stillness the life around me died away, the grasswithered, and my body melted into the cowardly, arrogant shit I’d been maskingfor so many years, and then I realized Strauss no longer sat next to me; insteadit was Randall Morris, the fat kid from seventh grade with a penchant forcrying, resonating with resentment. And then he became what’s-her-name, thegirl from tenth who I toyed with, my mind always on an unattainable blonde.Then I floated above my body as it oozed into the earth, where my atoms wereobliterated in great spasms by fat burrowing worms.Eventually I had felt myself reforming, chiseled and somehow cleansed.Without looking, I knew it was Strauss again, and here we sat.“Sup,” came a muffled Voice. The silhouette of a visitor from anotherdimension had appeared, a skateboard floating up to his waiting hand. Straussstiffened. Then the speaker shifted to the shade, his features softened into place,and I remembered him as a dude named Cedric.“Oh. Hey, what up, Ced,” my voice scratched. I coughed and felt my tonsilsdo the Cha-cha-cha.“Game over?”“Game?”He spit something onto the pavement and a puff of dust rose into the air anddispersed as I watched.“Shroom soccer.”Yes, there had been a game.“Uh, yup. Yeah. I mean, I guess so. We just kind of left, I think.”“Mm.” He flopped down against the tree, and Strauss shuddered. Cedricignored him. My eyes traveled up Cedric’s arm as he yanked at his sleeve. Hiseyes were unfocused, and he rubbed at the marks in the crook of his elbow.He slipped on his shades and opened a thick, grungy paperback. I returned towitnessing the world dropping away beyond the edges of existence and wonderedif I’d ever be normal again.Sometime earlier, Strauss had loped across the field like some top-heavyalien, huge shaggy head with grinning eyes and elastic lips teetering atop his302

skinny frame. The ball swung towards me and ricocheted back to him like a yoyo.The mushrooms we’d forced down in the dining hall at breakfast were clearlykicking in.I skimmed along the grass, and my foot swung at the black and whitepentagonal bug that was hightailing away from everyone. I landed a sidewayssmack against its rear, and it scuttled out-of-bounds. Strauss and I pirouettedaround each other. The bug was joined by more of its kind, and the other grinningplayers chased them toward the goals. Shroom soccer involves multiple balls,which appear from every which way as the game wears on. Players’ facestwitched, all dancing caterpillars and sparkling saucer eyes, and at our feet thegrass twisted and snatched at ankles. In no time dust caked my tongue, andI stumbled to the sideline where the two lovelies Sloan and Julie lounged bythe grub. Julie was still Strauss’s on-again, off-again, but Sloan was currentlyunattached. They were flat on their backs, laughing and pointing at something.Clearly still in the giggly phase.This game is not about the final score. No timekeeping either. Not sure amatch has ever reached a conclusion in the traditional soccer sense. More aboutpumping the toxins along and getting everyone outside, so you don’t get trappedin your room as the trip creeps in and your brain loses or ignores the ability todistinguish between the important and the insignificant. When everything in yourvicinity becomes equally fascinating it can be hard to break inertia.The snacks loomed towards me, each richly tangible in its own uniqueness yetintegral to the whole—like a Cezanne still life, my art history mind noted beforethe idea dropped out the back of my head. Paper plates stacked with dining hallfruits; saturated bottles of Gatorade; a quivering bag of Chips Ahoy. The shoutsof the soccer players drifted back to me as I struggled with a tangerine. My handsdidn’t work right, fumbling in slow motion against the rind’s texture. Got a chunkoff and bit into the thing. Juice dribbled down my face, gleefully free-diving tothe ground. I half-watched my friends chase each other around, as they whisperedto each other and pointed at me. Suddenly a cigarette thrust itself into my field ofvision. It ended in Sloan’s hand, her drooping eyes focused on my chin.“Oh, thanks.” The stick vibrated and oozed as I secured it between my fingers.“You gonna get back out there, Max,” Julie asked, materializing on myother side.“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess...”I pulled hard on the cigarette, distracted by the sizzling tip.“Gotta finish this orange...”The pulpy mess clung to my fingers, and I gazed at it slack-jawed. The girlsstared with appalled expressions.“Woah, whoa!” came a call, and with a thump-thump-thunk, one of the beetleballs scampered up to us.“Ack!” Julie shrieked and executed a backwards somersault out of nowhere toescape.“That’s you, Max,” Strauss called, and I massacred the ball, sending it to theother side of town, or, as it turned out, dribbling a few paces. The guys careenedtowards us, grins flailing.“Nice try!”“Aah,” I yelled, and pounced on the bug again as more dribblers zipped by303

from separate directions.Then, after a rapid exchange of glances, Strauss and I and the girls wererunning away from the field. Small campuses are great for wild tripping—no carsrequired, and your bed, your friends, and entertainment all close by. Easy to cometogether, easy to get away.Later, Cedric put down his book.“What’s with him?”I blinked, and my focus returned to the present. The quad had flattened anddimmed. I rubbed my eyes. My hands worked again, and some students playingvolleyball no longer seemed like an alien race. The sun was just the sun, andthe Earth had put itself together again. Snatches of profundity from a short timeearlier now sounded hollow and trite.I shrugged and glanced at Strauss, who stared at the ground, beads of sweatpercolating on his forehead.“Whaddya think? He wigged out.”I nudged Strauss.“Hey String Cheese, it wearing off for you, too?He flinched, but after a moment he managed a tiny nod.Living with Strauss could be challenging. Mostly because the guy neverslept. Not that I was early-to-bed. Up till midnight all week, much later on theweekends. Eventually, though, groaning with pizza or cheese fries, I’d stumblefrom the party in his room (he had the bigger one; I was next to the bathroom weshared with a neighboring suite) and collapse into a dreamless pothead slumber.Often I’d be pulled awake by a guffaw from the next room, or he’d “tiptoe”through my room to use the can, always failing to negotiate the darkness withoutbumping into my crap. You’d think he would sleep in, but invariably he was upbefore me. I’d blink at him and scratch my ass on the way out to catch the last tenminutes of breakfast.“What the fuck, man, don’t you ever sleep?”Shrug.“Don’t need much.”One night when I returned extremely late, or early, after ineptly pursuingsome hottie, I crept towards the doorway between our separate spaces. A moanrose from his bed before I got two steps. I froze, afraid he and Julie were onagain.He was tossing and muttering. He sounded younger, less sarcastic, and asmy eyes adjusted to the dark I realized he was talking in his sleep.“I know…I know,” he said softly, but then louder. “I tried. I TRIED,DAD...”I shivered. Strauss’s dad was an asshole—I knew that much. Some DCbigwig Strauss insulted out of the side of his mouth, in a completely differentvoice then this one.“STOP. I’ll do it...”Another moan.“Ow ... okay, okay ... OKAY...”He started to thrash. I unlocked my legs and crossed the threshold, closingthe door just as his bed creaked violently. I heard his shade snap open. As I304

lowered myself into bed dawn crept into the sky outside. In a minute a lighterflicked and muffled bongwater rumbled through the wall.Eventually I realized he napped in the afternoon when I was out. One daynear the end of the semester as we traded shots he mentioned his nightmares andlooked at me searchingly. I didn’t let on what I’d heard, and in the spring I wentabroad, and we never lived with each other again.That soccer match was the last time I tripped hard. Didn’t need to scrape mypsyche raw anymore. You gain some insight, but it’s like blasting a mountaintopapart in order to expose a handful of gems. Strauss stayed away from head tripsafter that, too. He told me later that he’d thought he was dying, and that whenCedric showed up he was convinced it was the executioner. I feared I’d never bynormal again, but Strauss had thought he would have his head chopped off.After the trip wore off, though, and he found Ced was just Ced, he was sograteful he kind of glommed onto the guy. They started shooting up together.Guess Strauss just wanted to float on a cushion of contentment. That’s what youget with smack for a few hours the first couple of times. By the third day youdon’t see the point in being straight, and if you can get your hands on a dose,you’re hooked. Most need supreme will power and strong family support to getclean. Cedric had both; after he bottomed out he graduated from another school.Now he makes bank as some sort of engineer.I saw Strauss some after we left school, at the house I was sharing inHollywood. My housemates and I worked as production assistants on crappymovies and music videos, partying hard between gigs, and Strauss stopped byfrom time to time, heading straight for the bathroom—“Shooting up in here!”.Julie had moved on, and he was working in the mailroom of Elektra Records,living with some speed freaks in a dark apartment in a shady neighborhood.Eventually he lost the job, and even the tweakers got sick of him.Months later he followed a girl down to Rio, and before we knew it hehad overdosed on bad junk in a motel. The news smothered another night ofHollywood depravity. For some reason I always imagined a ceiling fan sifting themuggy air over his undiscovered body, the cacophony of the street carrying on ashe finally slept.I can’t really follow what Sloan is saying, despite seeing letters and wordstumble from her mouth and knock around before turning to dust.“We’re all just floating on this big...”‘We’re’ bumps into ‘all’, then breaks in half and skids against ‘just’ and Imiss what we’re just.She laughs and I see ‘ha ha ha’ dribble out and explode, littering the grasswith sparkling confetti. She waves her hands in the air, and the word ‘hands’bounces out. I’m not sure if she said it, or I thought it. Is there any difference?Is she saying what I’m thinking? Fuck. Get out of my head, girl. Did I just saythat? She looks startled but recovers, seemingly unable to stop talking.“I mean, what does it all mean?” ‘Mean’ echoes out and liquefies in the grass.“This is crazy. We’re just like, like pieces of this whole big mash of a…a…AMAZING-ness. Right?” ‘RIGHT-RIght-right’ bouncing to the ground.Julie is silently giggling, then trying to talk, stretching her lips this way and305

that. She shrugs and pantomimes laughter again, as her buddy continues to vomitnonsense.“You know you’re saying what you’re saying?” I spit out in a rush, and Sloanfalters.“I’m saying,” she goes, “I’m saying? I...I forget what I’m saying.”“It’s right there!” I unsuccessfully point out the words in the grass beforethey vanish.She blinks and starts up again. I shake my head and realize Strauss ismissing. I catch sight of his sandals just outside some bushes.“Yo! Dude!”No answer, so I creak to my feet on wobbly muscles. Manage to duck underthe trees, as branches reach around and pat my back. Leaves all around arevibrating and fluttering. Strauss kneels in a little depression, swaying side to sideand moaning. There’s something odd about it. Oh. He’s taken off all his clothes.“Crap, dude, you, uh, you alright? Where’s your,” I say, trying to focus overthe chatter of the branches and the chomping of the multicolored centipedes.He looks at me through the corner of his eye. His face is streaked with grimeand he’s scrabbling in the leaves with the end of his shirt as if trying to wipesomething away. I reach out but stop short of his shoulder, my hand bumpingsome sort of barrier, feeling the heat rise from his skin. His moaning turns togibberish, a fetid stink rises from the earth, and nausea starts to overpower mythroat. He beats me to it, and spews greenish slime in the dirt. Somehow thismakes me feel better. With difficulty I collect his clothes, mostly puke-free, andhelp him dress. Everything’s inside out and there’s no chance I’ll get it right, butfinally I get him mostly covered and succeed in grabbing his shoulder.“Come on, come on…”We rise to a crouch, and crawl out of the hollow.The girls have disappeared. I lead him to a drinking fountain and somehowmanipulate the controls, splashing water on him as he continues to blathernonsense. I take a long drink, most of which gets passed my tongue and down mythroat.We reach a sunny part of the quad, and I prop him against one of the friendliergiant trees that march along the edge of the grass, drooping their lazy branchestowards the ground.And that’s where Ced found us, beached on the edge of a blistering land at theend of time.Maui Holcomb grew up in the Northwest and currently lives and writesin Burbank, California. He attended Pomona College in the ‘90s and toils inthe lower echelons of the film industry attempting to make movies sound good.Previously published in Hobo Pancakes, The Cynic Online Magazine, Stirring,Specter, OneTitle, and Crack the Spine, he spends his free time cleaning up aftertwo rapidly growing daughters.306

THE WARby David S. AtkinsonIzip up my coat. It’s dumb. It isn’t even that cold out today, but my mommakes me wear it anyway. I can’t go out to play without it. It’s too bulky tobe able to run around in good. All thick and stiff and blue. It isn’t even oneI got to pick out. My grandma got it for my birthday when I turned six. At leastI don’t have to wear my mittens today.I see Jeff over with Steven as I come out my porch. It looks like they’replaying football out in the street. Jeff’s standing over Steven like he’s blockingand Steven is all crouched down hiding a ball. Like he’s trying to keep it awayfrom Jeff. It doesn’t look so hard. All Steven’s got to do is run around. Jeff istall, but he’s skinny. That’s no good for playing football. Steven can run eitherway and win.I start to hurry. Maybe Jeff and PJ came over to play. They live a coupleblocks over so they only come to play once in a while. It’s fun when they do.We get to do different stuff because it isn’t just me and Steven or me and Nicky.I don’t see PJ, though. Nicky’s there, but he isn’t over by Jeff and Steven. He’sstanding off all by himself, just looking.“Cut it out! It’s mine,” Steven yells at Jeff.Jeff pushes Steven and knocks him down. Nicky is just looking at them.I grab a log from the pile next to my porch. It’s from that big branch thatfell in the backyard. I couldn’t play back there for a week because it was allover and my dad said I’d get hurt. Then he chopped it up and said we werereally going to have fire in the fireplace this year. It all just sat there, though,next to the porch.I run at them and hold the log above my head with both hands. I yell reallyloud. I go right for Jeff.He looks up at me suddenly when he hears me yell. I don’t think he evenknew I came outside. He sees I did quick enough, though. He turns and runsfast down the block before I can get to him. He’s all the way to the alley anddisappears behind Nicky’s house before I stop running.I drop the log. My dad will get mad if he sees me. I’m not supposed toplay with sticks.“Run, you chicken,” Steven shouts after Jeff. He gets up from where Jeffknocked him down. Nicky walks over.“What happened?” I ask.Steven clutches a football. “He tried to say this was his. It’s mine. He wasjust trying to take it.”I frown. I like PJ and Jeff. They just came walking up one day while we307

were playing freeze tag and asked if they could play too. They looked kind offunny together. PJ was really short and had a buzz cut. Jeff was really tall andhad dark brown hair. We thought they were really cool, even if they did lookfunny together. They even said they had a junkyard at their house.But they aren’t cool. I can’t see why Jeff did something like this. We’retheir friends and Jeff tried to take Steven’s stuff. Friends don’t do that. Friendsshare. Steven didn’t do anything to him.“He said it was his.” Nicky wipes his nose on his sleeve and sniffs.“He lied! He just said that so he could take it,” Steven yells at Nicky.“Why’re you even here? I’m not playing with you! You’re always hangingaround and nobody wants you. Go home!”Nicky doesn’t say anything back.Steven rolls the football around in his hands. “I told him if it was his thenwhere did he leave it. He said he left it up on the hill by the graveyard but Ifound it over on the sidewalk by Nicky’s all the way across the alley. I foundit fair and square and he wanted to steal it by lying and saying he just left it andwas hoping he’d guess right and I’d believe him.”“You didn’t fall for it, though.”“Nope,” he smiles. “That’s why I made him tell me where he left it first.He asked me where I found it but I wasn’t going to tell him until he told me. Hewas going to say he left it where I said I found it. I’m not stupid.”Nicky looks over at his yard. “Maybe it rolled down the hill.”“Don’t be a dummy!” Steven throws the football at Nicky.Nicky flinches, but it hits him anyway. He shrinks away a little. Then hebends down to grab the football and hands it back to Steven. Steven catches itand smacks it a couple of times.“He’s a jerk,” I say and look where Jeff ran off. “He should get his owntoys. Not lie and try to take yours.”“Yeah.” Steven smacks the ball again, like he’s getting ready to throw it.“Well, they’re in for it now.”“In for what?” I look at him.“We’re at war.” Steven grins. He looks mean like that. I look at Nicky.“Their block and our block. It’s us against them.” He throws the football in theair and catches it.*****“It’s over here,” Nicky says as he runs. “I found it this morning but I betit’s still there.”I run after him. “Why’d she throw it out?”“I dunno. She could get fifty or sixty cents by turning them in but she justthrew them away. Maybe she doesn’t know you can get money for empties.”We run up by the trashcans and there’s a white cardboard box sitting next tothe cans. It isn’t big, like a couple things of soda stuck together. It’s got BEERwritten in big black letters on the side.“See,” Nicky says, pulling open the box. The top lifts open like somebodycut all the way around and just left one side hanging on. Like a trapdoor. Insideis a bunch of crisscrossing cardboard pieces. Like honeycomb cereal. A bunch308

of little boxes inside the big box. There’s a brown glass bottle in each of thelittle boxes.“We can throw them,” I suggest. “We’ll need weapons for the war.”“Yeah. Maybe Steven will even let me throw one since I found them foryou guys. PJ and Jeff got the junkyard so we need something, too.”“The junkyard’s not much,” I shrug. I’d seen it. I snuck over one time eventhough I wasn’t supposed to leave the block. I followed them past the blockover and cut through a space behind a garage to their block. The junkyard wasjust an old garden on the side of PJ’s house with nothing growing in it. Therewas just some pipes and sticks in it. Not worth getting grounded.I even had to find my own way home. I tried to go the long way aroundbecause they said the guy with the garage got mad if you walked through theremore than once. The street didn’t look right, though, and I couldn’t find my wayback. I just ran through the space behind the garage so the guy couldn’t catchme.“There’s no beer in them, is there? We’ll get in trouble if we have beer.”“No,” Nicky looks around. “Nobody’s looking. They won’t know if wetake them.”I grab the box and we both run off toward the alley. We stop just aroundthe corner from his house and look to see if anybody’s following us. The blockis quiet, though.“We got to figure out what to do with them.”“My mom might let me keep them in the garage,” Nicky offers.I shake my head. “That won’t work. PJ and Jeff would get us before wegot the bottles. We got to have them ready to throw.”I look around. Maybe we could keep them on the side of Nicky’s house.They’d be right there. Then I remember Nicky’s dad keeps their trash there.He’d just throw them out. I shift the box. It’s getting heavy, even though thebottles are all empty.“I got it! Hide them in the hole in that tree up there,” I point up at the hill tothe graveyard. “PJ and Jeff won’t find it and we can run there when they attack.They we can throw the bottles down so they can’t follow.”“Yeah!”“ Now we just got to get them to chase us.”*****“Quick!” Steven runs up to me.“Huh?”“I just saw PJ and Jeff! We can get them! You got to come!”Then he turns and runs off toward the alley. I’d been rolling my dumptruck on my sidewalk. There’d been snow everywhere for a while but it finallyall melted so I hadn’t been allowed to play outside for a while. I get up and runwith Steven.We run through Nicky’s yard. I guess they’re down that way. I see abroom as we’re running and I stop.“What’re you doing? Hurry up!”“Getting a weapon,” I say. I grab at the broom and I start running again.309

310The broom part comes away and I’m just running with the pole. Good. Abroom isn’t as scary as a staff. Now I look like a ninja.We go running down the alley and out onto the next block. I run and don’tthink about it because we’ve got to catch them, but I’m not supposed to be offthe block. I start worrying, but I don’t seem to slow down. I’m running evenfaster than Steven. He’s falling way behind.“You’re going to get us?” PJ yells at Nicky. PJ and Jeff got him betweenthem. PJ pushes Nicky at Jeff. Then Jeff pushes him back at PJ. “Come on andget us,” PJ says, pushing Nicky back at Jeff again. “I dare you.”“Aaaaaahh!” I run at them, swinging the broomstick above my head andyelling like a ninja. They move apart as I charge. PJ runs off and even Nickygets out of the way. Jeff just stands there. He does back up a little, though.I’d been all ready. I was going to run in and just swing at somebody. Itdidn’t really matter who. Just swing. Run in and hit. Smack!I pull back, though. I almost trip because I’m running up so fast swingingand I have to try to stop so I don’t just run into Jeff. Steven almost runs into me,too.I hold the broomstick like a staff. Steven gets on one side of Jeff and Nickygets on the other. Jeff holds up his fists like he’s going to punch one of us. Helooks back and forth at us all real quick, like he’s trying to see us all at the sametime. PJ ditched him. It’s three against one now.“Hit him!” Steven points at Jeff.I whip an end of the broomstick at Jeff. I don’t hit him. I just scare him.He flinches. Then I do it again.“Come on,” Steven orders. “Get him!”“Yeah,” Nicky says. “He can’t get away.”Jeff looks to each of them when they talk. He looks back at me when Iswing at him again. I still don’t hit.I’m going to hit him. I’m just getting ready. I got to get ready. I can’t justhit him without getting ready. It’s hard to swing the broomstick around with mycoat all zipped up. Especially with the hood on. It’s tough to move.“Do it!”I go to swing for real this time, but something hard hits my head. It makes apop sound. It feels kind of like a whap, though.Jeff freezes and his mouth hangs open. Steven and Nicky are looking likethat, too. Their eyes are all open wide. Nobody moves. They seem like they’rewaiting on something.I turn around. PJ’s standing there. He must have been the one that snuckup and hit me. I don’t see anything in his hands, though.There’s stuff all over me. I shake and it started falling to the cement,tinkling. Pieces of brown glass.I look at the pieces as they fall. I sort of stare. Then I see PJ running awaydown the alley toward his block. Jeff’s running the other way around. Stevenand Nicky still look at me after PJ and Jeff run out of sight. I wonder if I gotcut. I put my hand up to check.“Wow! That was awesome,” Steven says when I start feeling my head tosee if I’m okay. Nicky looks over at him. Steven looks back at him and thenat me. “You just got a bottle broke over your head and you didn’t get hurt or

nothing!”I’m still checking my head. I don’t think I got hurt. I can’t think whether Iwant to cry or not.“Wasn’t that awesome?” Steven asks Nicky after I don’t say anything.“Yeah,” Nicky agrees.“You must be invincible or something,” Steven continues, “or have a superstronghead. Nobody else could get hit like that and not get hurt. Not me.”“You think so?” I finally ask.“Yeah! Did you see how they ran off? We won! They won’t be back afterseeing something like that.”Nicky nods.I look over where PJ ran off and then where Jeff ran off. I don’t see themcoming back. I guess we did win.NOTE: This story is part of a collection that follows the same characters over time.David S. Atkinson received his MFA in writing from the University ofNebraska. His writing appears or is forthcoming in “Grey Sparrow Journal,”“Interrobang?! Magaine,” “Split Quarterly,” “Cannoli Pie,” “C4: TheChamber Four Lit Mag,” “The Lincoln Underground,” “Brave Blue Mice,”“Atticus Review,” “The Zodiac Review,” and others. His book reviews appear in“Gently Read Literature,” “The Rumpus,” and “[PANK].” His writing websiteis avidsatkinsonwriting.com and he spends his non-literary time working as apatent attorney in Denver.311

LILIES OFTHE NIGHT SHADEby Shannon McMahonPUTAINS! TRAITRESSES!Four women prodded by shoves, arm-length pieces of sheared off buildings,and swatted with belts were wrangled to the threshold of the square Place SaintMarc where the roads branched off to the Seine in Rouen, France. The crowdclosed in on the four women in the center and Claudine Cagnion watched asthey were swallowed up from her view.Claudine waded nervously at the edge of the crowd, carrying a small cratefull of left over cheese and milk from the close of the first market day sincethe American liberation. Place Saint Marc, once the center of commerce, wasnow framed by bombed out half-timbered buildings leaning drunkenly againstone another. The crowd rolled with predatory swiftness and over ran themarket. The people in the crowd were familiar to her in the ways war makespeople familiar. They had the broken down, boarded up look of refugees whowere fighting for sanity and safety in a world that no longer made sense. And,something here had broken loose.A small gap opened up when a man plucked a child in front of her andplaced him on his shoulders. Despite the sharp jab of her good sense, Claudinestowed her crate on an abandoned table at the back of the crowd then pushedthrough. She made it nearly to the front of the crowd who, it seemed, couldbe barely contained from rushing at the four women she saw standing in themiddle.The woman with the fuzzy chestnut braid was late into a pregnancy. Herstomach strained nearly to bursting the front of her dingy, over-washed greydress. One of the two blondes wore a red-checked apron with flour still dustingher hands clasped tightly in front of her. She appeared to be praying, Claudinethought with a shudder. The other blonde with the long curly hair visibly shookin her rubber boots of the style many farmwomen wore to milk cows. Claudineblanched. She had a pair just like those herself. The fourth woman was in adefiant posture. Her chin was raised, and her thick black hair was twinned intoa twist at the back of her head. Some wisps blew around her face in the breezegiving her a majestic look. Claudine couldn’t take her eyes off of her. Shewas immaculately dressed in a gabardine blue suit and black pumps. She wasMadame Suleyman, the proprietor of the dress shop in the merchant district. Shewas the best tailor in town and widely respected. A shiver of confusion swept312

over Claudine as she watched Madame Suleyman stare down the crowd.The crowd continued to shout at the women, thrusting their fists, poundingthe air. Whores! Traitors!Claudine turned to the man beside her wearing a sweat stained shirt and redsuspenders. He was the cobbler in town and clouds of spittle sprayed from hismouth every time he yelled.“What did these ladies do?” Claudine asked loudly. “What’s happened?”The man turned to her with those soft eyes that now were suddenly flintyand hard. “They’re not ladies,” he said with venom. “They are the putains whospread their legs for the occupiers.”Claudine felt the blood drain from her face. For the past several weeks shehad been hiding a young German officer in the haymow of the barn. She wasindebted to him for saving her from a group of young German soldiers whohad cornered her in a small alley near the market place just weeks before. Hehad stepped in, grabbed her gently by the arm, something that surprised her inthe midst of the aggressive young storm troopers, and led her away from them,barking orders. Yet, with her his voice was soft, almost childlike but with thebravery of a man of many years older.“Je m’appelle Heinrich,” he had said pleasantly and led her to a safe placein the market. “You’ll have to excuse my comrades. They’re not much morethan wild dogs sometimes,” he paused and took her hand. He was handsome.She remembered his face in that moment—lushed under wheat colored hair andlarge, expressive blue eyes. He wanted to ask her something, a favor, Claudinecould sense it. She looked around at the market place. The wolfish young menhad dispersed. The fear that flashed throughout her body had dissipated.After a week of secret meetings, he expressed to her that he wanted to leavethe German army. With little hesitation she agreed to hide him in the barnuntil the time came when he could escape out of the country. In the last fewdays her father had become wary of her activity in there. Claudine had actuallythought about telling her father about Heinrich, but now in the midst of thishostile crowd she knew that she couldn’t take the chance. Recently, he had beenpressing her to run away with him before the Americans came. On the eveninghe had proposed this plan to her, she was clearing away the food she pilferedfrom the pantry when he touched her arm. It was late at night.“Nous serions libres,” he said with his awkward French. “We will be freefrom the war. No one has to know.”“Mais mon pere,” she said softly. “He’s old. I can’t leave him.”“In time he will understand,” Heinrich said. Then he pulled a small bundlewrapped in a handkerchief from his knapsack. When he opened it, she sawit was a locket. A delicate etching that looked like ivy was on the clasp. Heopened it. Inside was a picture of him taken just before he entered the Germanarmy. “I meant it for my mother, but I want you to have it,” he said. “Topromise you happier times.” Claudine held the locket in her hand. It was warmand small like a bird’s egg. She looked up at him and he pulled her close.Claudine felt her body cave into his. But that was two nights ago. Things werenot so clear now. The locket felt heavy against her throat.The crowd churned violently behind her when she saw a woman withupholstery shears place a fruit crate behind the woman with the braid.313

314“Oui! Oui!” cried the crowd. “Do it! Do it!”The pregnant woman shook visibly and she cried out when with a quickchop her braid fell behind her like a dead animal. The crowd roared. Thesmall woman with the scissors moved to the woman in the apron. She grabbedhuge hunks of hair and hacked them off so that they fell in uneven strands liketossed hay at her feet. The woman in rubber boots looked down at her feet,but the small woman yanked her head back and chopped savagely at her curlyhair leaving bloody scrapes in her scalp. The shorn pregnant woman held herbelly protectively as sobs heaved her body into various postures of despair. Thewoman in the red checked apron had placed her floury hands over her face, butClaudine could see the blotchy skin on her neck that showed bright flowers ofblood. The woman in the boots bent down to pick up her hair, but the littlewoman kicked her hand away and she stood up, her hands rubbing her armsrapidly as though the weather had turned suddenly cold. Claudine touched herown long blonde hair absently with shaky fingers. All three had crumbled looksof the damned on their faces.The little woman moved to Madame Suleyman. Even standing on thefruit crate the woman was only barely tall enough to reach her shoulders. So,Madame Suleyman knelt down and unwrapped her hair. She tossed her head alittle to loosen it. Claudine felt her stomach churn watery and sick. The smallwoman’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The crowd chanted at the womencrumpling before them, but aimed fresh aggression at Madame Suleyman whoseface was as still as a statue. Her dark hair fell in great waves on the back of herstockinged legs and on her shoulders where they slid down her front and caughtin the buttons of her suit. Madame Suleyman picked at the hair as though itwere so many threads she pulled.Claudine felt the hot breath of the satiated crowd lift and slowly, stillpunching the air at these four women, the people dispersed. The four womenwere lead away by the one who cut their hair. A small boy in knee pants anda rough cotton shirt swept up the hair with a stiff bristled broom. Claudinesuddenly remembered her father and ran to the dairy stand where he sat on milkcrates, his head in his hands. His soft, snowy hair was wet and sweat slicked hisface, which made it hard for Claudine to see that he had been crying.“Papa,” she said and touched his arm. The image of the three women wasstill fresh in her mind, but the vision of Madame Suleyman unnerved her. Herdefiance and the residuals from the fresh, hot vitriol from the crowd had herbody in the grip of a strong convulsion that made her teeth chatter. She wantedto sooth her father, but was afraid to ask him why he was upset.“Ma fille,” he said hoarsely. “Les autres, les autres. Never you my dear,”he wept.***The Americans liberated Rouen in the first few days of September 1944 andsome army personnel had stationed themselves in the city at the hospital. Thecity had been heavily bombed, nearly half had been destroyed, leaving gutted,craggy building remnants like broken teeth. Bombings evicerated much of thecity, but after a few weeks Place Saint Marc held regular open-air market onTuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Claudine accompanied her fatheron these days, bringing eggs, cheese, and butter to sell to the increasing number

of G.I.s. She succeeded in hiding Heinrich during the invasion, but he was nowin greater peril, as was she, when the thought of the shorn women nagged at theedge of her mind. It was then an American, who was slightly wounded in theleft leg and using an elegant cane, the type Claudine had only seen in the finesthaberdashery in Rouen, began frequenting the dairy stand.Colonel Jim Smith came to their stand at precisely 7:00 a.m. each marketday to buy provisions for his men who were in the hospital or staying in afarmhouse near the abbey on the outskirts of town. He was smartly dressed,neat, well-fitted uniform and piercing green eyes. His French was impeccableand her father was impressed with his farming acumen. He handled the eggsdeliberately and carefully and addressed all of the dialogue to her father. Herfather, a man desirous of male company, introduced his daughter to him the dayhe induced her to wear her best blue dress to the market. Colonel Jim Smithapproached the stand and her father pushed her around so that she was facingthe colonel and he extended his hand. At the not so subtle urging of her father,she took it and felt the warm, firm hand grasp her own. He took off his cap andlooked her straight in the eyes. His hair was dark, peppered with grey at thesides, and his eyes crinkled gently in the corners with the jovial smile he offeredthat brought to mind the word mechant, little devil.“Enchante,” he said with a perfect accent.Her father was clearly taken with the Colonel and at every opportunityoffered up Claudine’s services to help him deliver the food to the troops.It had been several weeks now that she had been hiding Heinrich and thepressure of it was keeping her head throbbing well into the night. She fingeredthe locket at her throat. The Colonel noticed the slight movement, but insteadmentioned, politely, that she looked fatigue.“Oui, oui,” her father said brightly. “She’s a hard worker. Would workherself to death in that barn if I didn’t keep an eye on her.”Claudine felt her insides turn over. The Colonel eyed her directly,examining the finer features of her face as though divining her secret. But hislook was not unpleasant. She looked down and smoothed the front of the bluedress her father kept insisting she wear.“Dites on,” her father said. “Would you like to come to dinner tonight? Wehave fresh lamb marinating and all of the fixings. It’s more than enough for justthe two of us. We’d be honored if you joined us.”“Why yes,” the Colonel said when he shifted his gaze to her father who wassmiling ridiculously up at him. “I’d like that.”Her father nodded and then elbowed Claudine. “He’s tres sympathique,” hesaid. “You’ll see.”That night Claudine tried to convince Heinrich that he had to leave, that shecouldn’t guarantee his safety any more. But he was insistent. They must leavetogether and tonight. She was scared out of her wits. Sitting in that haymowevery sinew of her body screamed for her to take up the traveling case she hadhidden in the corner and just leave, but her calmer self told her that rash actionswould be reckless. They must wait.The Colonel arrived with a sergeant who hovered behind him. When theColonel walked into their parlor, he switched the cane from his right to his lefthand and swept his stiff cap from his head and nodded. For some reason her315

316father giggled, delightedly she noted, while her stomach churned painfully.When the Colonel moved to approach Claudine, the sergeant slipped silentlyacross the threshold and stood slightly a part by the bowed window. Her fatherhad that giddy grin on his face again as he poured aperitifs all around. Claudinegreeted them, warmly she thought, but in a way that caused the Colonel’s righteyebrow to arch. Her father waved her into the sitting room, stationing her atthe Colonel’s side.“Take his hat,” her father said. “Go on, chat. Heloise and I will set thetable.”Claudine wasn’t totally useless in the kitchen, but her father wantedsomething special for the Colonel. So, he brought in the woman from the farmdown the road who was arguably the best cook in the countryside and knownparticularly for her marinated lamb.The Colonel set his hand on the sideboard near the fireplace. He introducedthe sergeant to her, then the sergeant quickly returned to his position at thewindow, gazing intently in the gloaming for what reason, Claudine didn’t know,but it made her chest clench uncomfortably.The Colonel turned to her and asked her pleasantly about her schooling.Claudine explained to him that it was interrupted because of the occupation, butthat after the war she hoped to take up her studies again.“What would you like to do with your studies?” the Colonel asked. Heraised the aperitif to his mouth and sipped at the amber liquid with that devilishlook that made Claudine think he was ready to hear a joke.She could smell him, clean, starched. A luxury during war times. “I thoughtmaybe I could be a teacher,” she said. She hoped that that was an acceptableanswer even though the truth was that her plans were to take her some placeelse entirely. During the moment when she was talking to the Colonel, hereyes darted to the window where the sergeant had disappeared. The Colonelfollowed her gaze coolly and finished off his aperitif.When her father ushered them to the dining table, the candlelight casta buttery gleam in the room that would have been romantic if it hadn’t beenfor the last time the room had been used was for her mother’s funeral. Thesolemnity of the room was entirely lost on her father when he motioned forthe Colonel to sit at the head. The Colonel declined and pulled out a chair forClaudine instead. Her father was thrilled and his pale wrinkled face flushed withcolor.Heloise served the dinner expertly. The sergeant did not join them at thetable and Claudine was increasingly disturbed by his disappearance. But, shepushed it from her mind because her father was clearly so happy about theColonel’s visit. During the tarte tatin and coffee, the Colonel explained that histroops would be leaving soon and that he regretted he didn’t have more time tospend with Claudine and her father.Claudine’s father petted his close-cropped white beard and cleared histhroat. He had a glint in his eye that she remembered from Christmases pastwhen he always had a big surprise for her and her mother.“I am an old man,” he began. “And, my time is short here. But mydaughter has many good years ahead of her. I do not want her to live in thiswasteland of war and turmoil.”

Eloquence was not her father’s strong suit, but the words that were spillingfrom his mouth were clearly measured and practiced. For whose benefit, hers orthe Colonel’s she wasn’t sure, but when he asked the Colonel to take Claudinewith him back to America, her breath caught and crashed in her chest. Shecoughed and sputtered, spraying tarte tatin crust. The Colonel drank his coffeeslowly, watching Claudine nearly retch into her napkin.“But, papa,” she said, trying desperately to keep the alarm from punctuatingher voice. “I can’t leave. What will become of you?” After a moment, sheswallowed hard. Then barely above a whisper, “Papa, what is there for me inAmerica? It’s so far away.”“Life, ma fille!” he said. “There is room to grow, a nice city to go tothat doesn’t know the devastation of war. He will take care of you,” he saidand nodded to the Colonel. Claudine looked at the Colonel askance, fearingdirect eye contact would further show her confusion and terror. She thought ofHeinrich waiting for her in the haymow, offering much the same thing: a newlife.Claudine didn’t want to be impudent in front of the Colonel who was nowplacing an empty coffee cup on her mother’s best china saucer. She felt trapped.“Think about it, ma fille,” her father said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”The Colonel rose from the table and shook her father’s knarly arthritic hand.“She’ll come around,” her father said. “You’ll see. Get his hat, ma cherie.”Claudine went to the parlor to get his hat. When she passed in front of thebay window, she saw the sergeant sitting in the jeep parked by the oak tree nearthe barn. He sat perfectly still and looked straight ahead into the high beamsof the jeep. Smoke from a cigarette coiled into the air from his hand on thesteering wheel.“Thank you for the evening,” the Colonel said and bowed slightly. Thenhe addressed Claudine who was hovering nervously behind her father. “Yourfather wants the best for you,” he said. “And, so do I.”She and her father stood in the doorway until long after the jeep had left.“Papa,” Claudine said with tears streaming in ribbons down her face. “Whywould you do this to me? Force me to leave you.” She slapped at her wetcheeks.“Cherie, you must be brave. There is no good for you here,” he said andkissed her gently on the top of her head. Heloise emerged from the kitchen toclear away the dishes and Claudine moved to help her.“No,” her father said. “Rest. Think about what I’ve told you.”Claudine felt weighted with worry climbing the stairs to her tiny room.From her window she could see into the haymow where Heinrich was waitingfor her to come to him. She was too tired to sneak out across the yard at thatmoment and decided instead to lay down on top of her perfectly made bed in thedress Madame Suleyman made for her sixteenth birthday until her father wentto bed. The locket was warm in the hollow of her throat. She didn’t have toopen it to recall Heinrich’s boyish face creased into the grimace of a young boywanting to be much older. It usually made her smile, but at that moment sadnessspread over her, making her heavy. She would lay down for a little while, thengo to him.She woke the next morning with strong beams of a late summer morning317

318on her face. She looked at the clock. It was almost noon. Her father had leftwithout her for the Sunday market. She jolted out of bed, ran down the stairs,and out the door barefoot to the barn. She climbed the ladder to the haymow,heedless of the splinters needling her feet, and called to him. Whispering at first,then more shrilly when she realized that he was not responding. She looked allover the haymow, throwing first handfuls then armfuls of hay around the loftsearching for him. Her suitcase was still in the far corner, but his knapsack fullof old clothes was gone. So was he. There was no trace of him anywhere.Claudine sat cross-legged in the center of the haymow and cried into herhands, gulping the thick dusty air, which made her cough violently in betweensobs. She wracked her brain. Why would he leave without her? She felt asthough all control over her life had fled her somehow and in its wake was awave of uncertainty that spread dread like a thick skin over her body. Her fatehad been decided without her.Maybe her father was right. A new start was what she needed to leave thislife behind. The fact that she barely knew the Colonel was a barrier that sheneeded to reconcile. She could only imagine him in his uniform, clacking alongwith his ebony headed cane watching her with those eyes that didn’t seem, in herlatest reckoning, to be unkind. But what he was supposed to do with her was stillunclear.Her father drove up in the apee around 3:00 p.m. and parked it in the shadeof the old oak tree. Claudine had just enough time to splash cold water from thepump on her face. She walked to him from behind the barn and collapsed intohis frail, but wiry arms.“Ma fille, ma fille,” he crooned into her hair. “It is for the best. My life isover here and yours must begin.” Then when the sobs wracked her body againhe said, “The Colonel is a good man. He will take care of you in ways that Ino longer can. You are a young woman now. This war is no place for you togrow.”Colonel Jim Smith wanted to be married in two weeks and leave there afterfor America. She was unsure about the marriage aspect, but the Colonel hadmentioned that it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to bring a woman who wasnot his wife under his charge according to army regulations about war brides.After crying herself to sleep for a week, a resolve crept into her. She needed atraveling costume and she wanted Madame Suleyman to make it. The last timeshe saw Madame Suleyman was in the square, kneeling defiantly while her hairwas shorn. She waited until after the market closed at 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesdayafternoon before she went to the little dress shop in the merchant district of thetown.The formerly red door was painted with a thick black paint and Claudinecould still see the outline of the word, putain written in large, awkward lettersacross the door. The dress in the window was a modest two-piece charcoal woolsuit with large upholstered buttons and a yellow scarf. A tinny doorbell chimedwhen she walked into the shop. Madame Suleyman emerged from the backroom with a piece of dark thread and three pins in her mouth. She took the pinsout one by one, pushed them into a tomato red pincushion on the counter, andsmiled at Claudine.“You remind me of happier times,” she said and took Claudine’s hands in

her own which were hard at the fingertips and firm of grip.The room was spare. The dress form in the window was the only one of thethree forms to be dressed. The other two stood in the corner by the counter liketruncated, naked women with their backs to Claudine and Madame Suleyman.The rack along the wall was nearly empty, only a couple of garment bags withsmall tags waited to be picked up.“What can I help you with today,” she said and adjusted the scarf on herhead. It was a silk scarf with a large fleur de lis pattern in gold against a cobaltbackground. A few ragged strands of raven colored hair strayed at her neck. Shewore a simple short-sleeved red frock. It was an impeccably tailored dress witha slim waist and short cap sleeves. Her mouth was shiny with red lipstick andwhen she ran her tongue over her mouth, it gleamed brightly in the dim shop.Claudine was heartened until she noticed how her skin looked withered and greyand how, coupled with the few dresses on the rack, she looked tired and pained.“I need a good dress for traveling,” Claudine said. “I’m leaving forAmerica in a week.”Madame Suleyman’s eyes dimmed, but creased at the corners when shesmiled gingerly. It was as a result of the Americans liberating Rouen that shehad been singled out for having a German lover during the occupation. But shewas canny and asked in a gently prying way, “Are you going alone?”“No,” Claudine said and rubbed the goosebumps that erupted on her skinwhen Madame Suleyman scratched at the scarf wrapped around her head. “I’mgetting married.”“Really!” Madame Suleyman said suspiciously. “Such a big step for ayoung girl.” In the days before the war, she was the center of the town’s gossip,but since the liberation her shop had been severely boycotted. “To whom?”Claudine felt blood rush to her face when she said, “An American.”Madame Suleyman’s face darkened a little. “A soldier?”“Yes,” Claudine said, almost disbelieving it herself. “A colonel.”Madame Suleyman stiffened perceptibly and slipped around the counter andmoved a stack of catalogues toward Claudine.“Well, then,” she said. “We need something special.” She opened the topone and pointed to a green suit with a calf-length skirt and a wide-collared whiteshirt and smart jacket. Claudine’s glance traveled up Madame Suleyman’sarms. Her skin seemed withered, lashed to her thin limbs. She flipped throughthe catalogue quickly and pointed out a two-piece suit much like the one in thewindow.“I saw you in the square,” Claudine said not looking up. MadameSuleyman stopped flipping the pages and licked the tip of her right index finger.“I don’t agree with what they did.”Madame Suleyman turned the next page slowly and smoothed it by pressingit flat with her hands.“That was a dark day,” she said finally. “And, it was a mistake.”“You mean it wasn’t true?” asked Claudine. Madame Suleymanstraightened her arms and lowered her gaze.“He wasn’t a soldier,” she said and moistened her lips with the tip of hertongue. “He was a businessman, a client from before the war.”“But were you,” Claudine began.319

320“No, not at first,” Madame Suleyman said and turned over the catalogue.“But it was brief, just a few weeks. Then the Americans came and it wasimpossible for him to leave so I hid him here in my shop. It was only supposedto be temporary. Until things quieted down at least.”“But how did you get caught?”“One of my clients grew suspicious when she heard me talking to someonewith a foreign accent in the backroom. By then most of the other women hadbeen rounded up and it was only a matter of time before the mob came for me.”“What happened to him?” Claudine asked. She was choked with fear aboutwhat possibly happened to Heinrich.“He was arrested by the Americans. After that I don’t know.”“Did you love him?” Claudine asked, the word carrying more certainty thanshe meant it to.“We were friends, mostly,” Madame Suleyman said. “Then the war madeus into lovers. But we knew it couldn’t last so about the time they found him,we had decided that it was best to part ways. It’s just we hadn’t figured out howto get him safely out of Rouen.”Claudine felt a nearly uncontrollable urge to unburden herself of her ownsecret, but instead she reopened the catalogue and began running her fingersover the pages.“Do you regret it?” she asked.Madame Suleyman unwrapped the scarf around her head and Claudinelooked at her. She touched Claudine on the arm, which caused her pale blondhair to stand on end.Claudine saw her hair was chopped to the roots and the jagged marks allaround where the upholstery shears had bitten into her scalp. She blanched andfelt her legs soften. She caught herself on the counter. Madame Suleyman camearound and helped her to sit down on the tufted chair next to the counter.“He was a good man,” she told Claudine who was trying to catch her breath.“Now,” she said and took the catalogue from the counter. “Let’s find you atraveling costume.”***After a long flight from England to various bases in the U.S. before landingon the air strip at the Glenn L. Martin Bomber Plant in Center City, her husband,Colonel Jim Smith, installed her in a dark-wooded, bow-windowed Victorianhouse on Elm Street.When the Colonel first ushered her into the house, she carried her onlysuitcase with both hands. Her eyes contracted to adjust to the darkness and herbody felt crushed by the heavy red brocaded curtains and the wainscoting.“My grandfather built this house,” the Colonel said and took her suitcasefrom her hands. Immediately her hands clutched at her green gabardine skirt,bereft of purpose.“It’s been in the family for 60 years and the land 50 years before that.” Herskin was used to the warm buttery sunlight that flooded the rooms of her father’sfarmhouse, the one that had also been in her family for over 60 years.The Colonel guided her through the different sitting rooms with the largeknobbedfurniture and somberly upholstered chaise lounges. The fireplaces inthese rooms were nearly as tall as a man and made of finely veined pink marble.

He took her to the library on the first floor and waved proudly at the books onshelves behind small glass panes that opened with a twist of a latch. Theremust have been hundreds of books, from floor to ceiling, and not a speck of dustthanks to his sister who maintained the house while he was gone. There was alarge, elaborately wrought oak desk with stout legs and a blue velvet cushionedchair carefully pushed up to the edge of it. Near the fireplace, the third shecounted, was a row of books that the Colonel showed her. He lifted the latch,opened the case, and ran his finger along the perfect leather spines. Claudineknew the colonel was an educated man, and felt deeply inadequate becauseher own education effectively stopped once the Germans invaded Rouen. TheColonel spoke excellent French and even took marriage vows in the language,but once on American soil, he switched exclusively to English and expectedClaudine to do the same.“Sister and I would like it if you spent some time in here,” he said andwalked her around the perimeter. There was tendril of cigar smoke that lingerednot unpleasantly in the room.When the Colonel showed her upstairs to the nursery, he walked aroundthe pale yellow room, opening large ornate wood toy boxes full of stuffedanimals of every species, including exotic ones like zebras and giraffes. Therewere pink-fleshed baby dolls with curly blonde and brown hair, the things, shenoted, that he tossed aside rather roughly by their heads. He drew her to onewooden box in particular. He motioned for her to come and she walked gingerlyas though trying not to disturb the spirits of all of the Smith children who hadplayed there. He reached inside and grabbed a leather, webbed bag. He untiedit and out tumbled green army men molded in all postures of warfare: holdinga machine gun, crawling on the stomach, launching a grenade, and hollering asalute. He righted all of these little men quickly into a platoon on the floor.“Here’s where it all began for me,” he said with a gleam in his eye.Questions streaked through her mind, but she was too tired to acknowledgethem.“It all comes down to strategy,” he said and moved several of the standingarmy men shoulder to shoulder. “Your German friend knew a lot about strategy,didn’t he?”He looked at her with his right eyebrow arched to see if she was followingalong. Claudine looked wide-eyed back at him, trying to suss out the gist ofwhat he was saying, but she knew enough to understand that the tiny men werein attack formation.“Your German friend,” he said again, careful this time to enunciate. Thenwhen she still didn’t understand, he relented. “Votre ami Allemand” he said in atone that wasn’t meant to show parental exasperation.Claudine swallowed a hard knot in her throat. “C’etait…il est?,” shebegan, but her voice was squeezed to a hissing sound. He stood up and hergaze followed him confusedly across the room where he turned to face her atthe window. She thought of Madame Suleyman in that instant, kneeling in themiddle of Place Saint Marc with that look of defiance that sent the crowd into afrenzy. Claudine was not born with that stripe of bravery. When she looked atthe Colonel and watched his mouth move the words, she felt the atmosphere ofthe room collapse on her. Strange words hung loosely in the air between them.321

322She didn’t understand all of the words, but one word in particular hung there,deadly, accusing.She could feel him watching her closely, waiting it seemed, but she couldn’tlook back at him, at any part of him. Other words were strung along betweenthem. The ones she understood were “father” and “money.” So, he had paid herfather for her and for Heinrich. The thought so stupefied her that she thoughthalfway about running up to him and slapping him across the face. But theintensity of his feral gaze told her that it would be pointless and ill advised.The Colonel walked to where she sat on the tiny chair and unfolded herhands from across her chest. He held them a part in a way that suggested thatshe was to lift herself up, which she did, shakily.“We aren’t so different you and I,” he said and dropped her arms gently toher sides. With both hands he smoothed her creased sleeves in a gesture thatwould have calmed her with Heinrich but that instead reminded her of howsmall she felt in that room with the Colonel. “You’ll see how quickly we getalong here.” Then he put his hand in the small of her back and steered her out ofthe room.“I expect you’ll spend quite a lot of time up here when the children come,”he said as they left the room. Claudine shuddered at the word “children” andeverything it implied. All of these things and the house converged on her at thatmoment and she felt deeply that all of this had been a grave mistake. A sickfeeling spread over her and she moved to sit down on one of the white-paintedrush-bottomed children’s chairs again.“You’re tired,” the Colonel said kindly, but firmly, like a diagnosis.Claudine nodded. “Oui, yes, I am fatigued.” Those were the first words sheuttered in English and they felt strange, prickly on her tongue.The Colonel directed her by the elbow downstairs to the largest bedroomand let her sit down on the edge of the bed with the embroidered duvet cover fora moment.“It will pass,” he said and that kindness again ebbed into his voice. “Whydon’t you rest for awhile and then Sister will make us something to eat.“The relief she felt leading into the bedroom, knowing that she would be leftalone eventually, fled at the mention of food. She wasn’t particularly good at it,though her elderly father had never complained.The Colonel stood in front of her as though inspecting every twitch in herface and told her Anna, whom he called Sister, would be here to help her in thehouse.“Just until we get settled in and you get used to the place,” he said andbrushed his already slicked back hair with his right hand.The wind picked up outside and she heard the house creak loudly. Itchilled her, causing her flesh to tingle. She rubbed her arms and then slippedher hands in prayer formation between her knees. The Colonel loosened histie. She could hear the rough material slide through the knot and didn’t haveto look up to know that he was unbuttoning his shirt. She felt her stomach turnwatery as though whatever was inside it was about to flood out of her. Her legsshuddered and her knees bounced off of her hands that were now kneadingagainst themselves and knuckled white. The sound of the belt whipping throughthe loops in his pants made her cringe and she turned her face away. When he

touched her hair he pulled her face closer. She could smell him. It was a thick,heady scent, the smell of wet bark. He tilted her chin up and showed himselfto her. Her eyes widened with fright. It looked like a baby’s arm, full and hardwith a purple fist at the tip. He took himself in his hands and began to shuttlehis hand back and forth rapidly. Claudine turned her head away and felt alarmflash through her body. He took her by the chin and forced her to watch him.Her cheeks were slick with tears. After a long, hard shudder, he finished andClaudine closed her eyes. She was so distraught that she hadn’t noticed thecloudy liquid splattered on the front of her good suit. After a moment, he handedher a neatly folded handkerchief for her to wipe her suit jacket, which she didabsently, her lips quivering like tugged strings. Tears streamed down her faceand she tried to swallow them away. Without looking, she knew that he wasfixing up his pants and he stepped away from her.“Sister will be over shortly to show you the ins and outs of the kitchen.You’d best rest up before she comes,” he said and tapped his cane on the floor.In a deep recess in her mind, she was thankful he had not yet pressed herabout other thing because he would know that it would not have been her firsttime. That she had been spared for the moment.Claudine removed her suit, carefully hanging it in the huge armoire, andlaid down on the bed with her stockinged feet crossed at the ankles to try to stemthe shaking of her body. The locket was heavy at her throat and she thoughtabout opening it, but when a fresh round of sobs cracked through the resolveshe had failed to cultivate, she knew she couldn’t look at that gentle face in thepicture.After what seemed a minor eternity, the house echoed the old oak dooropening on the first floor and the Colonel’s “Hello, Sister,” punctuated hisuneven stride in the hallway. So this woman had a key, Claudine thought. Shewent quickly to the sideboard where there was a pitcher and a glass for water.She wasn’t surprised when the water was chilled. She took small draughtsdirectly from the pitcher then moistened the tissue to dab at the collar of the suitjacket hanging in the armoire.Claudine was in her slip when the Colonel opened the door to the bedroom.She instinctively crossed her arms over her body when she felt the air from thehallway burst through the door. The Colonel looked her up and down.“Pick something comfortable,” he said not unkindly. “Sister’s waiting foryou downstairs.”Shannon McMahon grew up in a small farming community in Nebraska.She received a B.A. in French and an M.A. in Creative Writing at CreightonUniversity in Omaha, NE, where she taught in the English department for eightyears as an adjunct. In 2011, she received a PhD in American Literature fromthe University of Nebraska Lincoln. She is currently a full-time faculty memberof the English Department of the College of Saint Mary in Omaha, NE.323

NEIGHBORLYBy Frances O’BrienFirst, let me say this: I would never intentionally strangle anyone. Noteven if that person were coming at me wielding a lit cigar like a weapon,and my only hope of escape were to wrap my hands around his neck andsqueeze. Strangling takes too long under the best of circumstances, you needto have a strong grip, and if you happen to be dealing with a neck of greatercircumference than average, well, it just isn’t a very efficient way to get yourpoint across. Besides, I’m a lady – a church-going lady – not a strangler. Lordknows we religious folks have passed much harder tests than putting up with badneighbors.Secondly, I’m a dog lover. Lover. Ask anyone. I grew up in a householdwith a dog who was practically a member of the family. Whenever I go tosomeone’s house, if there’s a dog, he invariably comes over to me wagging histail like we’re best pals. I could walk into a kennel unaccompanied and instantlybe one of the gang, because dogs can tell from a mile away if you’re a friend orfoe, and they always recognize me as a buddy. Never fails.The third thing you should know about me is that I am not obsessed. Whatkind of person has the time on her hands to sit by the window waiting for somepaunchy old neighbor to saunter by smoking a giant, malodorous stogie, walkinghis yappy dog, with no legally-required excrement-removal device in sight,simply to see whether or not that balding, boxer-shorts clad neighbor allowshis mange-ridden beast to destroy her carefully-manicured and remarkablyexpensivelawn? Especially on a daily basis.Why am I telling you these things? Because an enormous injustice has beenperpetrated upon me. Me. I, who’ve gone out of my way to be a good neighbor,a moral person, a fine example to follow.But I realize that’s a bit much to ask you to simply accept at my word. So,I’ll start from the beginning.About a year ago, my beloved next-door neighbor, Harry, passed away, Godrest his soul. Whether or not Harry and I were having an affair is irrelevant.The fact is that he died (in his own bed, thank you very much), and his wife soldtheir house and moved to Montana to live with their kids who, I’m sure, werethrilled to have their elderly grandma shoved into their all-too-adorable familypictures.Naturally, when the new family moved in next door here – the husband, thewife, the way-too-old-to-be-living-with-his-parents son – I knew they’d neverbe as wonderful to me as Harry, who could fix anything at all hours of the dayand night and who never, not once, accepted a single red cent in payment for hisefforts. He was just that kind of guy. His wife never appreciated him enough.324

But as for the neighbors, I tried to make friends with them, really, I did. Iwas over there as soon as the movers pulled away, with a homemade cake in myhands, introducing myself and offering to show them around the neighborhood.I even tried making friends with the wife. I said, “Zelda (or Zorda or Zoonaor whatever it was),” I said, “I belong to a book club that would just love to haveyou as a member. We meet every month.” Now, I didn’t know what her cup oftea was, so, when she didn’t respond to that, I said, “There’s also the pinochleclub that meets bi-monthly.” That caused little more than an eyebrow raising.“How’s about the knitting society that makes blankets for the children’s hospitalevery Thursday?” I’m telling you, that woman looked at me like I was nothingif not insane.“No thank you,” she said. Just like that. Almost like I’d asked her to lickthe back of my neck. Well, far be it from me to try to change a person’s mind. Iam not here to judge. If she doesn’t want to so much as try a single one of thoseheartwarming, soul-fulfilling activities, that’s her prerogative.So, I moved on. I thought I could still show some neighborliness by havinga chat with their son. I know how difficult it is to tell your own child flat outthat it’s time to find himself meaningful employment and an apartment of hisown. I had to do it myself. And I sincerely believe my son is the mature,responsible man he is today because of it – so responsible, he almost never hastime to talk to me. Anyway, I waited until one day when I saw the neighborboy sunning himself in their back yard. Lord knows I almost broke my neckclimbing up onto that patio chair I’d put the upside-down planter box on just tosee over their fence, but I’m always willing to help.“Hey, there, Sonny,” I said. They’d told me his name no fewer than threetimes, but I couldn’t understand it. Oogledeck, it sounded like they were saying.Frankly, I thought they were just having a little fun with me, but who knows.Anyway, after I was finally able to get his attention, I asked “So, what do you dofor a living?”“Nothing,” he says, barely turning his head in my direction and not evenopening his eyes.“Nothing?” I asked. “Are you a full-time student?”“Nope.” Real charmer, this kid.“How old are you?”“Twenty-one,” he said, turning over so his back faced me. I’m telling you:youth today.Well, I told him all about this job fair being held that very week at theconvention center downtown. I even offered to drive him there and told him I’dtake him to dinner afterward as a little added incentive. But poor old Oogledeck,I guess he was just too exhausted even to respond. This boy will never be toobusy to give his mother a call, that’s for sure. Anyway, I let it go.Their dog, Lola was another story altogether. She went off like a fire alarmevery time anyone had the audacity to pass within two blocks of us. But far be itfrom me to complain. No, what I did was stand well within my property limitsand speak soothingly to her. “Lola,” I would say, “please be quiet now, honey.”Sometimes, after asking her politely eight or ten times, I’d grow the tiniest bitimpatient. “Sshh, Lola, ssshhh! Ssshhh now, Lola, sssshhhh! Ssssshhhhhsssshhhh! Lola, Ssssshhhhh!” And it may be true that one time I used the word325

326“bitch” accidentally, but really, she is a female dog. Simply because the word“brainless” came out before it does not change its essential definition. Nor doesit render it a threat.However, my decision to be the good neighbor and not to bother themin any way does not give that evil, irresponsible man the right to allow hisgodforsaken beast to poop on my lawn. Am I right? When I first approachedhim – in a friendly way – about the problem, he denied it. Then he claimed healways cleaned up after Lola. I have seen that tobacco-smoking Neanderthalwalking her day in, day out, and I have never, not once, witnessed so much asa tissue in his hand. Then came the day when, next to the poop I found a cigar,and I tell you, I lost my cool, just the tiniest bit. The first thing I did was pick itup – the cigar, not the poop – with a pair of tweezers just like they do on “CSI”and send it off to a lab to be analyzed for DNA. I had no idea that could take solong; it never does on TV.After four straight days of being told they were “working on it, lady,” Ipurchased myself a little video camera, as backup. It’s simply not true that I satin the window all day every day waiting for him to walk Lola. I just happenedto catch them one day in the act. And, when Lola was all done, I went out tospeak to him civilly. Of course, immediately Lola exploded viciously and beganpulling at her leash like she wanted to break it. I kept trying to tell the man whatI’d witnessed, but he kept pretending he couldn’t hear me over her. So I showedhim on the camera. Do you know he had the nerve to accuse me of being crazy?He started going off about how I’d trespassed onto his private property, I’dharassed his wife and flirted with to his son, and that I’d threatened his “poor,little, defenseless” dog, who was at that point hysterical, and tried no fewer thanthree times to bite me. Then, get this: he said I’d been stalking him. Me. Heclaimed he’d seen me watching and videotaping him for months.“My wife heard all about you from the neighbors,” he tells me.“Oh, really? And exactly what did she hear?” I asked. “That I volunteer atthe soup kitchen? That I donate blood on a bi-monthly basis?” What else wasthere to be said, right?He paused a moment, then leaned in closer, with that enormous incendiarybundle of arson protruding from his face not two inches from my own and saidto me, “She’s heard all about how you steal other women’s husbands.”Well, you can just imagine how I felt. I was out there all alone andunprotected. I had that ferocious beast trying to eat me alive, and this monstertrying to set me ablaze. Seriously, what would you do in that situation? Ofcourse I pushed him away with my hands. I did not wrap them around his giant,sequoia-like neck; that’s absurd. Nor did I kick his dog. If that depraved littlebrute chose that very moment to jump over to the sidewalk and lie down, thatwas her right entirely.You can try to envision my shock when I heard the sirens a moment later.Apparently he and his little strumpet run a two-man operation. One of themsets up the trap, and the other calls the police after it’s sprung with its innocentvictim inside.Anyway, long story short, that’s why I’m here behind these bars. Theproblem is the authorities have confiscated my video camera, and I’m afraidmy own evidence will be used against me. See, I had to run a few tests with

the camera. I’m hardly an electronics whiz, so I had to practice recording a fewtimes to make sure I had the hang of it, and it turns out I forgot to erase thoselittle experiments. Of my neighbor. And his son. Who really spends entirelytoo much time laying out in the backyard semi-naked and glistening like somesort of magazine model at the beach.Anyway, I hope the judge will believe me. I took those videos becauseI saw an injustice. And it’s not like I’m the only one who lives around there,after all. What I did was for everybody’s well being. I was just trying to beneighborly.Frances O’Brien is a fiction writer living in Los Angeles. Her other shortstories have appeared in PENsieve, Genre Wars and The Shine Journal. She iscurrently editing her novel PUSHING PUDDLES. In 2010, she received a B.A.in English from California State University.327

WAITING FOR GODby Shae KrispinskySimone starved herself to become lighter for God. She wanted Him tocarry her home in His omnipotent but forgiving arms. But maybe He wastoo busy—the children, after all—or maybe He, like everyone else before,just didn’t care all that much. While she waited, hopeful but breaking, for Godto come, she sang.Though her parents had been religious—her mother in the church choir, herfather an assistant minister—God had never had a real place in her life before.He was like Siberia or Antarctica: something cold and distant, something shehad on occasion read about out of curiosity but would never see in person. Thatout there, in the plains, beneath a midnight sky white with stars, she began tothink of Him, began to hope for and expect Him, took her strangely at first.What was this intrusion? And why now? But then she began to ask, Well, whynot? What could it hurt?But there had to be a reason. This was a sign—wasn’t it? But for what?That she wasn’t worthy. What else could it be? That’s why He didn’t come toher. That’s why she sang out to nothing, to no response from Him. So beganher atonement. If she in her body were sin, as it had to have been—what elsedid she have?—she’d whittle it away. Ossified, she would be worthy of Hislove. Boots shined but loose around her ankles, she’d be invited to enter Hishome, His hand outstretched in greeting. In time, hope replaced the hungerand she felt certain He would show. Her cupboards were bare. She sang out toHim, her voice warm and smooth. Prone on the carpet, she sang into the twistedthreads. Curled on the porch swing, she sang out into the night. As loud as herweakness allowed, she called out to Him. But He didn’t come. Instead, herlawn, overgrown with ragweed and darnel, filled with strangers who began tostop outside her house to listen.“Come,” they called, hands grasping. “Come out.”People! Her voice warbled with fear but she kept singing. People—shewas not used to people. In college she had a few friends, a few girls to sit within the dining hall and to drink wine with, except she didn’t really like wine andall they wanted to talk about were the boys they were fucking. At the time,Simone had a boyfriend, but he lived eight hours away, so—being too loyal,more loyal than he had ever been—she wasn’t fucking anyone. During thesetalks, she smiled weakly and pretended to drink the tepid red wine in her neongreen plastic cup. After graduation, she dumped her boyfriend, deleted herfriends’ emails without reading them and moved out there to the plains whereshe rented a small shanty on a deserted plot of land and did data entry from herlaptop that was missing the A key.328

Remembering her ex-boyfriend, her old friends, she felt torn betweenstepping down off of the porch and joining those who called to her, and shuttingher mouth, running back into the house and slamming the door. She had neverlearned the art of interaction. With her boyfriend, she thought she was doinghim a favor by asking nothing of him, by refusing to see him. When he told herof the other girls he kissed in her absence, the girls she remembered riding within the marching band bus back in high school, she smiled and assured him itwas okay, though her insides were torn to bits. She smiled and said she hopedhe enjoyed it, because that’s what she thought she was supposed to do: wear apleasant, silent mask. She resented the mask but it was easier to run away thantear off the plastic smile. Somewhere on the way out to the plains, the mask felloff and she hadn’t worn one since.Now with the milling faces staring at her expectantly, she felt the coldplastic, the suffocating layer pressing closer to her skin. Would she have to runfarther away? Would she finally see Antarctica? She sang to God to intervene,to save her, to take her to His home but again, He never showed. You fucker,she seethed. You fucker! You failed me.Her first steps off of the porch were tentative, weak-kneed. The earth,though dry from drought, felt like quicksand, but soon she recognized it as onlyher fear. Strangers latched onto her, told her they were her friends, told herthey loved her. Love was more foreign to her than they were. Her relationshipwith her ex had been serviceable at best, more out of what she felt she wassupposed to do than affection. She had thought God was supposed to be love,but he turned out to be nothing more than a bitter delusion. At least her ex hadadmitted to his cheating. If anything, the closest she had ever crawled to lovewas in watching those old Gene Kelly movies on the classic film channel, CoverGirl, Summer Stock, and her favorite, Singing in the Rain. Watching Kelly’sdeep Steel City eyes and his cheek with the scythe-shaped scar. His perfectsmile with the top lip curled under made her smile, which, really, was all shewanted out of love.These people as they surrounded her didn’t make her smile at all but theybegged her to keep singing so she complied. A lanky man with dark, dusty hairand oily skin approached her and offered her a trip to the coast. Simone shookher head, not because she didn’t want to go back there, but because she did.The pain it would cause, she already knew; best to kill it before its first breath,but the man insisted, charming as he was, and slightly, when she squinted,resembling Gene Kelly.“You don’t belong here,” he promised, wrapping his hands completelyaround her waist and lifting her into his sparkling gunmetal-grey convertible.This is what she had wished of God. She wondered, Is he Him? She let himclose the door beside her. She had never pictured God driving a BMW.The drive to the airport sweated with silence. He knew better than to askher to sing then, she decided. They were too oddly close, and besides, she gotthe impression that he didn’t care much for her songs. As she studied him, sheyearned to wipe his forehead with a cool cloth though she didn’t understandwhy. Mothering had never been an instinct of hers. The captor captivates thecaptive, she thought but forced the idea from her mind. This was her fear again,and she had to kill it if she wished to survive. Did she wish to survive? She felt329

the mask lock tightly into place.On the plane – two first class seats, the leather cool on the backs of her legs.The attendant brought expensive champagne wrapped in linens. Those aroundher eyed it greenly. Can we get some for everyone, she whispered.“Already extravagant?” He winked. “A true star.” He snapped his fingersand more bottles appeared. No one thanked her as they drank her champagneand drank her down. She curled over on her side and pretended to sleep,ignoring his hands as they grated up her ribcage.There in the city, surrounded by people—more, different. She had neverthought of herself as pretty, but they assured her that she was. And so thin, theycooed, zipping her into slinky black dresses, brushing her hair. They pushed herout onto a stage under hot white lights that melted her make-up and told her tosing. She felt like she was Lina Lamont, a phony, twisting her hands in time,all wrong. Worse, they knew it too, but didn’t care. She sang even though theyreally wanted her to unzip and step out of her dress. Cameras in hand, they’dget the photographs eventually. She’d see the images of herself, skin laid bare,mascara pissing down her cheeks, and by this time, would not feel violated, justempty. Emptier. No longer could she sing, no longer did she want to. Still,they tried to sell her but hands stopped reaching out. Bottles of champagnebecame bottles of Ativan became tar-thick nights. The man who had put heron the plane had long since left, moved on, found another thin-hipped vacuum.Gene Kelly wouldn’t have left. She didn’t miss the man or his hands but she didmiss singing without an audience, missed the hoping for something she alwaysknew in the back, mildewed corner of her mind would never come.If she returned to the plains. If she apologized to God. If she could find hervoice once more, and use it only for herself, not for them. Hope, however, is notlike water, does not come in cycles or bottles. Starved of hope, Simone starvedherself once again. Better, this time. Her heart stopped beating. Lighter forGod, the burial was easy.Shae Krispinsky (dearwassily.tumblr.com) grew up in sub-rural westernPA, and graduated from college in Roanoke, VA. Now living in Tampa, FL, sheis the singer, songwriter and guitarist for her band, ...y los dos pistoles (http://ylosdospistoles.tumblr.com), contributes to Creative Loafing Tampa, and is anaspiring crazy cat lady. Her work is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, InBetween Altered States and Corvus Magazine.330

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WRITER 911!Historic Tales from the Literary ERby David B. Comfort“One day, I shall explode like an artillery shelland all my bits will be found on the writing table.”—Gustav FlaubertEven before being racked by hemorrhoids, epilepsy, and the Germancroupiers, Dostoyevsky declared: “In order to write well one must suffermuch!”God seemed happy to bring great artists to their full potential. Beforethe twentieth century, most surrendered to consumption, the clap, cirrhosis,and/ or lunacy. Many also seemed accident-prone. Survivors published theirmisadventures eventually, but most would have preferred their health.Cervantes had his arm shot off, an insane nephew gunned down JulesVerne, Tolstoy’s face got rearranged by a rogue bear. Samuel Pepys wassterilized during a gallstone operation. Lowry barely escaped being castratedin Mexico under the volcano. Marlowe was shanked in a bar brawl, DashielHammet got stabbed in the leg, Beckett took a shiv to the chest from a Parispimp, Monsieur Prudent. When later asked by the existentialist why?, Prudentreplied: “I do not know, sir. I’m sorry.” Then there was Sherwood Andersonwho, just before his liver shut down, swallowed a martini toothpick and diedof peritonitis.Historically, drunk or sober, novelists in or around cars have been accidentswaiting to happen. After declaring, “I know nothing more stupid than to die inan automobile accident,” the absurdist Nobel prize winner, Camus, took a lift inhis publisher, Michel Gallimard’s, Facel-Vega and an unused train ticket waslater found next to his body.Returning to LA to grieve the death of his friend, F. Scott Fitzgerald,Nathanael West ran a stop sign and, with his wife of two days, was killed in acollision. By that time, F Scott’s wife, Zelda, was a long-time asylum residentwho, before being committed, had lain down in front of her husband’s town carand said, “Drive over me, Scott.”Another southern belle, Margaret Mitchell, stepped off a curb on Peachtree& 13th and was delivered to the hereafter by an off-duty cabbie. Otherwise, oneof the luckiest novelists in history, she’d started Gone With the Wind while laidup with a broken ankle from a less serious mishap.Stephen King earned even more than Mitchell from the misadventures ofhis heroes. Then during an after-work stroll in 1999, he was struck and nearly332

killed by a minivan. At the time, he was busy with his On Writing memoir aswell as another thriller, From a Buick 8, about a man-eating car from anotherdimension. King’s fear that the accident might kill his muse proved unfounded,but his subsequent output was seriously reduced.By contrast, near fatal ordeals stimulated other authors, bearing out JohnBerryman’s argument proposed the year before jumping off a bridge in view ofhis University of Minnesota MFA students: “The artist is extremely lucky whois presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him,” hetold The Paris Review in 1970. “At that point, he is business.”Flannery O’Connor considered her debilitating lupus a creative blessing.Katherine Ann Porter caught the writing bug after her obituary was writtenand funeral arrangements made while she was in a flu-induced coma. AnthonyBurgess finished five novels after he was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancerin 1959 and given a year to live; he pressed on till 1993 to finish twenty-fivemore. In the introduction to his first novel, Queer, William Burroughs confessedto coming to the “appalling conclusion” that he never would have become awriter had he not accidentally shot and killed his common law wife in 1951during a drunken William Tell game which caused “a life long struggle … towrite my way out.”***Historic authors seem to have suffered more from the fates, or from theAlmighty himself, than from critics.The disaster-prone Hemingway declared through his hero, Nick Adams,“other people get killed, but not me.” His fisherman, Santiago, echoed, “To hellwith luck, I’ll bring the luck with me.” Papa had had a thing about luck eversince taking shrapnel on the Italian Front during a chocolate run, then beingstruck by a falling apartment skylight while he wrote A Farewell to Arms. Evenso, he found it amusing that his Catholic colleagues, Fitzgerald and Joyce —who sustained most of their injuries in and around bars — were terrified ofthunder and lightning.After the skylight mishap, Hemingway drove his former EMT colleague,John Dos Passos, to hunt in Montana and -- to the relief of the local wildlife-- missed a cliffside turn. He broke an arm. Later, while the two fished off KeyWest, Papa winged himself while shooting a gaffed shark. Dos again escapedunscathed. Then, in 1947, he drove into a parked truck, losing an eye anddecapitating his wife, Kitty.Hemingway went on to suffer many other automotive misadventures. Hisluck wasn’t any better in airplanes. In his final bush crash in the Belgian Congo,1954, he was rescued by a riverboat, which took him to another plane which alsocrashed, prompting the newspapers to print his obituary.By the end of his career, fearing that he was being tailed by assassins, Papawas diagnosed as a paranoid psychotic and sent to the Meninger Clinic forshock-treatments. En route there, he tried to walk into the propellers of a Cessnaat the Rapid City airport.When hauling his shark-ravaged trophy marlin ashore, Santiago explainedhis creator’s misfortunes not as random, nor as Joblike purgatory, but as a kind333

of divine blowback such as Icarus suffered. “You violated your luck when youwent too far outside,” the old fisherman told himself.Many literary masters might have fared better had they used Kafka’shardhat. A Workers Accident Institute personal injury specialist, the surrealist(according to industrial expert Peter Zucker) is said to have made the inventionwhile composing The Metamorphosis, about his alter-ego’s “hard, as it were,armor-plated, back.” Though the sedentary safety specialist never got run overby a minivan like King, or crowned by a skylight like Hemingway, he neverenjoyed their professional good luck. He published only a few of his storiesand ordered the rest to be burned, saying: “There will be no proof that I everwas a writer.”***Books charge or change thinking. So, many novelists, essayists,historians, poets, pamphleteers have tended to be enemies of the status quo.Revolutionaries. Troublemakers. Stormers of the Bastille.Since the Good Book, authors have been exiled, racked, crucified, burnt,and beheaded by monarchs and popes.Most take up the pen to be praised and loved. But a cursory review ofhistory reveals why this has not been the case and how the sword has provedmightier than the pen in the short run. Wrote Cervantes, the tilter at windmills:“Let none presume to tell me that the pen is preferable to the sword.”The first step to building a Republican utopia, Plato proclaimed, was to killall poets. He might have included novelists but they weren’t around yet exceptfor the ones in the Middle East working on the Pentateuch. And the trouble thischapbook stirred up bears no repetition.Plato’s teacher, Socrates, was executed for “subverting the morals ofyouth.” The few students who could tolerate the acropolis gadfly arranged torescue him from death row, but he drank the hemlock instead. Why? Becausehe preferred death to exile. And, like most philosophers who wrote their ownmaterial – Plato simply took his dictation – he had a persecution complex. Andhe was fed up living without royalties.Back in the Middle East, the apostles suffered the same fate. At his request,Peter, a masochist with a flair for the dramatic, was crucified upside down. Butnot before dictating his own memoirs to Mark. As for the fisherman’s garruloussidekick, Paul, the Romans -- unable to endure another chapter to the Acts, muchless another Tweet to the illiterate Corinthians – chopped off his head.Which is what befell another wordy ancient: Cicero. But it was almostas if Rome’s Conscience, as he was called, wanted the ax. After Caesar’sassassination, the Republican columnist started dissing Antony. The thinskinnedtyrant exiled him to Greece. Here Cicero escaped his suicidal thoughtsby blogging about such riveting topics as old age and civic duty. Meanwhile, hevented to his penpal, Atticus: “Don’t blame me for complaining. My afflictionssurpass any you heard of earlier.”Eventually, the senate pardoned Cicero. But no sooner had he returnedto Rome than he rattled Antony’s cage again with his op-ed Philippics in theTribune. When Antony’s muscle arrived at his villa, the writer barred his neck,334

ut not without one last flippant aside: “There is nothing proper about what youare doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.” And so they did: at Antony’sorder, they also cut off his hands which had penned the Philippics and theyspiked them, with his head, as a collector’s set, in the forum.These purges might have put a damper on the classic lit blogosphere hadCicero not enjoyed a groundswell in posthumous book sales in spite of beingpedantic and boring. The Roman bloviator was only outsold by Lucian “theBlasphemer,” who parodied Homer’s Odyssey in his A True Story, the firstRoman Sci-Fi novel, and was devoured by mad dogs before being deported tothe moon like his protagonists. 1***After the New York post office burned 500 copies of Ulysses in 1922, thesequel to the Dubliners’ burn, James Joyce declared: “This is the second timeI have had the pleasure of being burned while on earth. I hope it means I shallpass through the fires of purgatory unscathed.”Earlier roasted writers are too numerous to name. But their variety wasimpressive.The Rennaissance’s first women’s libber, Hypatia, was lit up by a bandof monks under the command of Peter the Reader, the pope’s censor. TheSwiss YA book critic, Simeon Uriel Freudenberger, was thrown on the pyrefor arguing that William Tell never shot an apple off his son’s head. JacoboBonfadio, the 16th century Italian Dominic Dunne who penned a tell-all onthe murderous Genoese bluebloods, was beheaded then his torso torched forsodomy.The thrifty Swiss soon devised an energy saving two-bards-with-one-stonem.o.: burn the books with the author. Michael Servetus, the freelance religiousand drug blogger, was the debut sacrifice. The Spaniard was cooked on a slushpile of his bestseller – On the Errors of the Trinity – with one strapped to hisleg for kindling. He had committed the unpardonable heresy of calling Christ“the eternal Son of God,” rather than “the Son of the eternal God.” Which evenpissed off his Protestant colleague, Calvin. Adding insult to injury, Michael redpenciledJohn’s own gospel and overnighted the corrected copy to Switzerland.The Calvinist was apoplectic.“Servetus has just sent me a long volume of his ravings,” he wrote a friend.He added that if his rival ever came to Geneva, “I will never permit him todepart alive!”Troubled by the case of Servetus, John Milton wrote in “Areopagitica,”a defense of free speech: “Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’simage; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image ofGod.” But after his Puritan protector, Oliver Cromwell, the bane of Irish writers,died along with the Reformation, Milton was imprisoned and “Areopagitica”burned.Also destroyed was his “Eikonoklastes” (The Iconoclast). Parliament hadcommissioned Milton to write this essay rebutting King Charles I’s memoir“Eikon Basilike” (Royal Portrait), an apology for monarchal excesses. After theking’s essay outsold Milton’s, Cromwell had him tried for treason and beheaded.335

But the good Puritan Lord Protector allowed his majesty’s head to be sewedback on so his son could pay his respects.When Cromwell died of malaria, Charles II reclaimed his father’s throne,exhumed the Puritan pamphleteer, decapitated him posthumously, anddisplayed his head on a 20-foot pike above Westminster Hall. Here it remainedfor the next three decades (except for a brief removal for roof maintenance in1781) glowering at Parliamentarian scribes scurrying through the Great Plagueof London.Spared both the Black Death and the fate of his benefactor, Milton wenton to knock Dante himself off the bestseller list with Paradise Lost. The titleof the blockbuster took on additional significance for the blind poet when hispublisher paid him £10 for all ten volumes which had cost him his eyesight and,very nearly, his mind. He didn’t get a raise for its sunnier (and less convincing)sequel, Paradise Regained, and soon died of kidney failure while Cromwell’shead was still a Halloween exhibit on the roof.Finally, taking the cake, there was the sobering tale of Theodore Reinking,the Dane who denounced King Christian IV for losing the Thirty Years’ War toSweden. The crown generously gave him a choice: part with your head, or eatyour book page by page. Reinking chose the latter. Again showing Scandinaviansympathy, his jailors provided him French sauce so the ms would go downwithout requiring a Heimlich. 2***Most 911 writer calls in history could have been avoided if somebody hadjust kept their pen dry. But writers simply can’t do that. History reminds usthat most revolutions have been triggered by bloggers, texters, and leftist op-edcolumnists. Their populist rabblerousing backfired on many when the old guardretaliated or sociopaths usurped their utopias.Stalin had Trotsky ice-axed in Mexico after the publication of his Diariesin Exile and Revolution Betrayed. The Cardinal’s Mistress romance novelist,Benito Mousalini, had his colleague, Giacomo Matteotti, done in with acarpenter’s file after The Fascisti Exposed hit the shelves. George III would havehad Jefferson’s head for the Declaration of Independence had he not lost hisown.Literary decapitation enjoyed a comeback during the French Revolution.The first casualty, Jean-Paul Marat, an MD with herpes, began his writing careerwith a dissertation on gonorrhea. Then he made a seamless transition to politics.Of the royal pox afflicting the masses, the doctor wrote in his newspaper, L’Amidu Peuple (The Friend of the People), “Perhaps we will have to cut off five orsix thousand; but even if we need to cut off twenty thousand , there is no timefor hesitation.”Marat declared that the “patriotic” writer must also be ready for “amiserable death on the scaffold.” He explained: “I beg my reader’s forgivenessif I tell them about myself today…. The enemies of liberty never cease todenigrate me and present me as a lunatic, a dreamer and madman, or monsterwho delights only in destruction.” But, in the end, Marat didn’t find himself inhis colleague, Dr. Guillotine’s, apparatus, but in his own bathtub, bloody pen in336

hand and Charlotte Corday’s kitchen knife in his chest.A year later, Robespierre, another Revolution staff writer, found himself onthe scaffold in spite of having been deified at his Festival of the Supreme Beingonly weeks before. “Look at the bugger,” another journalist gasped, “it’s notenough for him to be master, he has to be God!”3 Indeed, the “Incorruptible,”as he was called, had always delighted in the beheadings of his colleagues. Thelast had been the proud Danton whose last words to his executioner – spokenlike true Frenchman — were: “Don’t forget to show my head to the people. It’swell worth seeing.”Things went south for Robespierre at the next death panel party of hiswriter’s group, The Committee of Public Safety. When the other membersdemanded justification for the Danton drive-by, Robespierre found himselfat a loss for words. “The blood of Danton chokes him!” cried his colleagues.Smelling the coffee, Robespierre excused himself to the men’s room of anext-door hotel. When the gendarmes arrived, the Reign of Terror writershot himself in the jaw. The next morning, the Incorruptible, age 36, wasguillotined -- face up.***Thankfully the old Storming the Bastille joie de vivre is still alive intoday’s writer dying to give totalitarians a taste of their own medicine. “Thereare palaces and prisons to attack,” Norman Mailer told the Paris Review. “Onecan even succeed now and again in blowing holes in the line of the world’scommunications.”Ken Kesey was on the same page. “It’s the job of the writer in Americato say, ‘Fuck you!’ To kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white andtempting and powerful,” he told the same magazine. “To pull the judge downinto the docket, get the person who is high down where he’s low, make him feelwhat it’s like where it’s low.”Indeed, with the dawn of the twentieth century and the founding of theliterary SPCA, Society for Prevention of Cruelty of Authors, the lot of the writerimproved. He was no longer racked, burnt, decapitated, exiled, or thrown in theTower – literally. Only metaphorically at the hands of publishers, critics, andirate readers.There are of course exceptions to the rule. After publishing The SatanicVerses, Salman Rushdie changed his name to Joseph Anton (honoring hisfavorite writers, Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov) and went into a witnessprotection program for nine years to escape the thirsty swords of Khomeini’sjihadists.“Until the whole fatwā thing happened it never occurred to me that my lifewas interesting enough,” the Indian novelist told the Paris Review in 2005. Hehad started his career as the “Naughty but Nice” copywriter for the Ogilvy andMather ad agency while working on his first novel, Grimus, a sci fi fantasy.“Really, nobody—even people who were well disposed towards me—wantedanything to do with it.”Though the holy warriors wanted nothing to do with Verses, his fourtheffort, there was a silver-lining to their price on his head: the fatwā earned337

Rushdie a French Ordre de Arts Commandeurship, a British knighthood for“services to literature,” and six-figure advances. Not to mention, serial wives(in lieu of seventy-two virgins) who played beauties to his literary beast. Hisinfidel predecessors – Cicero, St. Thomas More, Sir Walter Raleigh, et al – didnot enjoy the same good luck. Nor did his Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi,fatally stabbed in ’91; his Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, also shanked; or hisNorwegian publisher, William Nygaard, who was shot.Today the Islamic Association of Students provides both jihadists anddevout readers an opportunity to virtually decapitate the blasphemer intheir just released video game, “The Stressful Life of Salman Rushdie andImplementation of his Verdict.” Had developers heard the novelist confess thathis 2010 life-affirming title, Luka and the Fire of Life, was, in fact, “inspired byvideo games”? If so, perhaps they will send Rushdie a complementary copy of“Verdict,” allowing him an opportunity to reciprocate with a signed copy of hiseagerly anticipated fatwā Hide & Seek: Joseph Anton, A Memoir.With such an exchange, ulcerous writers and choleric readers can bury theage old hatchet, and drink to one another’s health.David Comfort is the author of three popular nonfiction trade titles fromSimon & Schuster. His most recent title, The Rock and Roll Book of the Dead,was released by Citadel/ Kensington in 2009. The author’s latest short fictionappears in The Evergreen Review and The Cortland Review. He has have been afinalist for the Faulkner Award, Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren, America’s Best,Narrative, and the Pushcart Prize. He is a graduate of Reed College.1 - Robert Hendrickson, The Literary Life And Other Curiosities (New York: Viking, 1981)2 - P. H. Ditchfield, Books Fatal To The Authors (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1895)3 - David Andress, The Terror (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007)338

FROM CHASE TOSUPERMAN:A THEORETICALTRANSFORMATIONby Chase S. WilkinsonThere is a conspiracy sweeping across the town of Katy, Texas and Ibelieve that I am caught in the middle of it. Somewhere in the time thatI was away at college, all the attractive girls in town decided to get jobsat McDonald’s. As a frequent purveyor of the McDonald’s franchise I believethat this staff change was designed as a direct attack on my confidence. I canno longer relish in the sweet taste of the fifty-piece nugget meal while MissHottie McPretty-Eyes is judging me as she hands me the bag. The brunette withthe cool lip ring definitely won’t give me her phone number after she watchesme sulk away to my car with my score of three McRib sandwiches. This is atravesty and a horrific blow to both my libido and my oh so fragile ego!The thing that legitimately angers me more than embarrassment andlowering of my self esteem is the fact that this little joke that I’ve been puttingtogether for quite some time now has made me realize the frequency that Iactually go to restaurants such as McDonald’s. It is alarming. I began to noticethat it was really a problem when I would go to McDonald’s not just twicea day but twice in a single worker’s shift. I never want to be recognized at aMcDonald’s or be known as “Mr. One of Everything”. It started to feel like itwas time for a change.I’ve never exactly been the healthiest kid in town. While I always playedsports and had a pretty active outdoor life when I was younger I still managedto find new and exciting ways to pack on the pounds. I ate a lot. That was kindof my thing. I was like the left overs Godfather. No one was allowed to throwaway anything from his or her plate without first checking with me. But who canreally blame me. I grew up in New Orleans, there were several restaurant ownersin my family, the food was ridiculous. And I ate it all.Recently that addiction to food has only made things worse. After I got tohigh school, I chose to pursue theater over baseball thus collectively seizing anystrenuous physical activity that I would happen to do. I tend to stick to myself,choosing to stay in and watch TV shows instead of going out and doing things339

340with others. It’s about as boring as it sounds. And because I’m bored I tend tofill my time with my favorite activity, eating.The bright side is that I am part giant and therefore have refused to stopgrowing since I started despite my grandparents’ playful pleas for me to stop. Soall my extra poundage is able to spread out and hide away on my now 6’4”ishframe. I still have a gut that I am very much ashamed of but I don’t look as badas I feel I would if I was have my size.For a long time my weight was only really a private insecurity, one readilyexploited by my father. Any time I decided to spend the day watching a TVshow or made the mistake of walking out of my room without a shirt on, he wasthere to make a joke or try to persuade me to do some sit-ups during my Buffythe Vampire Slayer marathon. But recently I was faced with a new reality thatmy lifestyle of all you can eat fast food buffets and hermitage is damaging tomore than just my ego.This past December I went into the dentist for a routine check up. Growingup, my parents were never really strict about making visits to the dentist partsof my routine. I guess they never went to the dentist growing up so they neverthought to do it with me. Anyway, as I sat down in the dentist’s chair for the firsttime in five years I was justifiably nervous. The plucky dental assistant came byto do all the regulation pre-check up activities before the doctor came by, patienthistory, blood pressure, etc.I tried to calm my mind and get all Zen, trying to dispel fears ofunnecessary root canals and painful drilling as the assistant wrapped to bloodpressure gage around my wrist and waited. I felt the usual discomfort of havingyour veins casually strangled before the buzzer went off, the wrap deflated, andshe checked the numbers.“Oh that can’t be right.” She replied in a voice all too bubbly to have justseen something unexpected. “That’s a little high. Are you nervous?”“Well now I am.” I said, trying to keep my hypochondria at bay.“How about we just try it again?”She reapplied the blood pressure gauge and waited again. Anxiety climbedinside of me and refused to get out until the gauge was off of my wrist. Shechecked it again after it deflated and was forced to accept the result that I hadelevated blood pressure. Somewhere in the limit that is not exactly kosher foryoung men at the age of nineteen.Fear set in really quick after that experience. I tried to write the anomalyoff. I mean I did just finish a really tough quarter of school and my grandfatherhad recently passed away. Surely my blood pressure was only elevated due tothe vast amount of stress that I had recently been exposed to.Since that day I’ve had my blood pressure taken three more times. The firsttwo by different dental assistants who displayed the same reaction as the firstwhich makes me think that they were all rehearsed in training as to how to reactin situations such as mine. The last time was in a Kroger’s pharmacy last month.I had visited the grocery store with my roommate and his girlfriend andspotted the damned machine as we waited in line at the pharmacy counter. Itwas old and worn. The stickers and instructions peeling from the wall. But I wascurious. It had been a month since the dentists. I had calmed down considerably.Maybe nerves and stress might not be such a factor now. However the armhole

for the gauge looked a little slim for my big masculine arms and I was terrifiedof getting stuck. So my roommate decided to test the death trap for me first toput me at ease.He stepped up, sat down, and slid in his arm. A few minutes later theprocedure was over and he was able to safely remove his arm without the helpof the Jaws of Life. So I sat down and slid my arm in and hit the button. I tookseveral deep calming breaths and meditated on the peaceful image of babyotters. But as the blood pressure band began to tighten around my arm I beganto feel nervous. There was a very real pinch and my fingers began to go numb.My left arm was caught in this vice grip as my arm began to slip into a stateof pain. I struggled to remain calm as I watched the device try to calculate itsspecific numbers. I was loosing patience as my arm began to feel more andmore uncomfortable. I looked at George to make sure that this was supposed tohappen.Finally the mechanical beast let go of my arm and spat out two numbers onits red digital screen. 153 over 90. Stage one hypertension.I removed my arm and from the stand and stared at the readings indisbelieve. This wasn’t just stress or nerves. This was my body saying you arekilling me. My blood pressure was easily thirty points higher than where it issafe to be.“Cool, I’m gonna die now.” I said to George before continuing on with myday, now thoroughly depressed.I spent the next few weeks researching ways to lower my blood pressurewithout having to start the endless cycle of medication. All my research cameback to the single, unavoidable, goddamn irritating conclusion: Stop eating somuch fatty and get your ass on a treadmill.The solution is so easy it’s almost a joke. Eat better foods and workout.I tell myself that all the time. It’s so easy. It’s so easy. It’s so easy. But I stillhaven’t done it. I still frequent McDonald’s on a quad-weekly basis, I still getwinded from walking up the stairs in Arnold Hall, and I still am forced to hateTom Welling every time he takes off his shirt while I’m watching Smallville.I’ve never been very good at self-discipline. At least when it comes to beingphysical. I can force myself to write a twenty page paper in a night because I’mbored but when I can’t seem to get myself to do more than five pushups a week.But I have the drive. I sincerely do. I make plans and do vigorous amountsof research. I read all the latest fitness magazines and jot down helpful newworkout plans. I have them written on dry erase boards all around my room. ButI can’t stick with anything.I live in fear lately about what might happen to me if I don’t make someattempt at self-improvement. I have always suffered from an irrational fear ofdeath, whether it be from a burglar or a drive by shooting or a tiger that escapedfrom the zoo. But the beauty of irrational fear is that it is in essence implausible.But when I read in Men’s Journal that men between the ages of eighteen andtwenty-five with high blood pressure are at a greater risk of stroke I can nolonger hide behind the defense of irrational fear. It’s very rational at this point. Ican’t cross my legs for more than a few minutes before my foot goes numb. So Iget scared every time I lay down because it’s like playing Russian Roulette withmy circulatory system.341

I recently started reading books by a writer named A.J. Jacobs. Jacobs isan editor for Esquire who writes books and articles about these crazy socialexperiments that he performs on himself. He has read the entire EncyclopediaBritannica from A to Z and he’s lived an entire year of his according to all of thelaws laid out in the Bible, among other experiments. I find myself envying him.This man devotes huge chunks of his life in the pursuit of trivial bullshit whilebalancing a family and a demanding career. I can’t muster the discipline to getup an hour early to go for a jog.But during spring break I decided to take a page from his playbook andbestow upon myself a challenge. I drafted what I call the Superman Challenge. Itis in essence a month long challenge to fulfill a set of goals from three differentcategories: Health and Fitness, Literary and Creative, and Disposition. It isdesigned to test and mold the body, the mind, and the soul. Basically it is myblue print to turning myself into a superhero. And for a reclusive nerd like me,the prospect of becoming a superhero is the exact motivation that I need toactually take positive steps at self-improvement.I look at myself and then I compare myself to Tom Welling, who played theyoung Clark Kent himself on TV’s Smallville. And I see many similarities. Moreor less we have the same body type. We are both tall, broad shoulder men whoare ridiculously attractive and irresistible to the ladies. The only difference is,you know, fat is keeping my muscles a secret and the ladies still make fun of meat McDonald’s. But my point is that I can look like that if I wanted to. That’s notme being factious. That’s the honest to god truth. The way my body is designedis to look more like Superman and less like the Michelin Man. So that’s stageone, workout, eat better, and become Tom Welling. Easy.Superman was also a writer and what a coincidence, that’s what I want todo with my life! So stage two is basically designed to strengthen that area ofmy life. I want to read more. And I’m talking literature, not Maxim magazine.I want to eat Russian novels for breakfast. I’d probably get more fiber in mydiet if I went that route. I want to write more outside of class. I want to seekout publishing. Basically I want to do all the things that I find are holding meback from being really successful. But that whole section is more for the sakeof general self-improvement and not directly related to lowering my bloodpressure. Unless I read more medical texts. Maybe I should add that.Finally the third category is the key on which this whole challenge rests,disposition. I am a hopelessly negative thinker. I’m not sure if that is evident inmy self-deprecating approach to humor but it’s true. The biggest thing that hasheld me back from actually making a difference in my own life has been thefact that I deliberately tear myself down. “You’re never gonna stick to a diet.”“You can’t look like that if you tried.” “Just eat another hamburger. If you dieat least you’ll be full.” These are the things that I tell myself every time I start tostumble in my self-improvement plans. It’s also why I’m so stressed all the time.I turn insecurity into internal self-hatred. I hate myself a lot of days and I getangry with myself. The habitually stressed and angry also deal with a great dealof blood pressure issues. I bring all this upon myself and then I tell myself that Idon’t have the power to make it better.But I do. For the third part of the challenge I began to study Buddhism.342

It was always a fleeting curiosity for me. Since the ninth grade I have alwayswanted to call myself a Buddhist but never actually knew anything aboutit. I changed that recently. The biggest aspect of Buddhism is love. Not justof a girlfriend or of Miss Hottie McPretty-Eyes that you stalk at your localMcDonald’s. But of everyone and everything. And that starts with you. It’s notvanity or narcissism, but the profound belief that you can be the best you can beand that you can affect the world. Through love. And that’s something I need tobe reminded of from time to time.I was supposed to start the Superman Challenge at the beginning of springbreak. Since the starting date I have eaten at a fast food restaurant probablyfifteen or more times and worked out once, but that was a grand total of fivepushups and a few stretches. It’s shameful really. I had all of these plans, thispassionate rubric to make so much better than I thought I could be. I had to thekey to changing my life in the palm of my hands and I let it go, just like I’vedone so many times in the past.But the thing that makes superheroes so interesting are not all the thingsthat make them “super”. It’s the things that make them human. And who doesn’tlove a story of triumph. Who cares if the big villain in my piece is myself? Thereis a part of me that legitimately believes that it’s not too late. There is this onebit of hope in me that believes that I’m not a total screw-up. I’m nineteen yearsold for Christ’s sake. I talk like I’m on my deathbed!For the first time in a long time there is more hope than fear in my mind.I believe in myself. I can turn myself into someone that people can look up to.And isn’t that what a superhero is? Someone who inspires you to be better thanyou thought you can be. It all starts by inspiring yourself. And let me tell you,I’m really inspired right now.Up, up, and away … to the Stairmaster.Chase S. Wilkinson is a multi-genre writer, storyteller, and humorist.Currently enrolled in the Writing program at Savannah College of Art andDesign, Chase strives to expand his talents across as many fields of writing aspossible. He is a successful playwright, winning many competitions includingthe Houston Young Playwright Exchange at the Alley Theater in Houston. Hehas also participated in The Moth’s StorySLAM events in Savannah, Georgia.Recently, his creative non-fiction essay “My Imaginary Competition with AronRalston” was published in SCAD’s Literary Journal District Quarterly.343

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THE BEST OF 2012SPRINGELIEZRA SCHAFFZINMELISSA PALMERPAMELA LINDSEY DREIZENCLAIRE NOONANBEN ORLANDOJOE KILGOREFRANCIS CHUNGKEVIN RIDGEWAYKAROLINE BARRETTHENRY F. TONNLILY MURPHYSUMMERBRIAN S. HARTJESSICA L. CAUDILLAMANDA MCTIGUELESLIE JOHNSONBRANDON BELLMARIJA STAJICRACHEL BENTLEYREBECCA WRIGHTORLIN OROSCHAKOFFJ.J. ANSELMIMELANIE L. HENDERSONS.M.B.ANNETTE RENEEFALLCAROLINE ROZELLLORRAINE COMANORMARC SIMONLEN JOYPRISCILLA MAINARDIHARVEY SPURLOCKMAX SHERIDANKATJA ZURCHERLINDA NORDQUISTSTEVEN MILLERCOLLEEN CORCORANCHELSEY CLAMMORALIA VOLZWINTERRADHA BHARADWAJBARRIE WALSHEMIL DEANDREISBRETT BURBAMAUI HOLCOMBDAVID S. ATKINSONSHANNON MCMAHONFRANCES O’BRIENSHAE KRISPINSKYDAVID B. COMFORTCHASE S. WILKINSONFICTION &NONFICTIONISBN 978-1-300-33859-8 90000thewritingdisorder.com9781300338598