editorial
 There are two types of poetry writing. One is writing for yourself, the type of writing that you do when your dad hits you or your girlfriend breaks up with you or you’re trying to come to grips with the fact that you think you’re gay. It’s the kind of writing that you do for you, you’re the only one meant to see it, and it eventually gets tucked in a box in the bottom of your closet to be forgotten.
The other type of writing is when you write for an audience, when you want to make a point, when you want to get published. And then your work suddenly becomes very important, because it can be interpreted in many ways. Wouldn’t want anyone to think the wrong things, so you have to be careful with your word choice.
The easiest and probably best way to do this is to avoid explaining emotion. Explain everything in the scene to depict the emotion, and the reader will feel the feeling without having to be told what the emotion is. The emotion will be self-evident. It will be so self-evident, in fact, that the reader can’t avoid it. They couldn’t escape it if they wanted to. You have to set a scene and be as concrete in your description as possible so the reader can feel the wood finish on the bench at the church, or they can smell the glass cleaner from the window they’re reading about leaning on. When the reader is forced to feel the images in the writing, then it suddenly becomes strong, it pulls them into the story, kicking and screaming.
And that’s often frightening, because it seems so real.
The easiest way to describe a scene with such vividness is to not write fiction. Study your surroundings in such detail and you’ll realize the vast amount of information your senses overlook. For instance, just think about your body right now. How do your shoulders feel? Are your fingertips cold? Are your legs crossed? Is your hair tickling your forehead? As I’m writing this, I realize that my legs are crossed, and it’s actually quite uncomfortable. In other words, I wouldn’t have even noticed that I was actually in pain unless I made this conscious effort to think about it. We neglect to notice these daily things, these things that make us feel the way we do on a daily basis. And all of these things, when described in a certain way, can portray a mood with more power and strength than ever saying, “I feel tired.” In this way you can make the reader feel like they have been sucked in by this work, that hands have come ripping out from the very fibers of the page itself and taken a stranglehold on them. That they have just lived it all.
Often, when you do that, when you put your own feelings and experiences into your work for an audience, the work begins to sound like the work you did for yourself, because then the work is about when your dad hits you or your girlfriend breaks up with you or you’re trying to come to grips with the fact that you think you’re gay. But there is another step taken, one that escapes the more general, one that uses concrete descriptions so you take the reader step by step through everything you’ve felt.
The first step toward healing from a pain is accepting the pain, accepting the problem. The second step is expressing that pain. Then it is easier to come to terms with it and move on. Writing for an audience as well as for yourself can be the way to get over those problems. And help others come to terms with the problems they share with you.
There are enough critics and professors who are telling people how to write and how not to write. But to struggle with the feeling you want to put on paper, and to succeed in doing so, is what matters. This takes work, and a lot of it, but the end result may not be as lofty as review editors would like it to be. But lofty may be exactly what it should not be in order to get to the people.
Some writers, and I should correct myself by saying the “literary” writers that are more concerned with being published in the right places, will follow the current trands, or try to sound aloof by using amazing language. But our society does not reflect these literary tides (which may or may not be a good thing, but it is the the case). Our society is fast, ever-changing, impatient, and in pain. And what the masses don’t want to listen to is metered lines they don’t understand. Poetry is art, but that doesn’t mean it shoulds only be accessible to the elite, the few. The type of work I’ve described in these pages appeals to people because it is not only easy to understand, but it is also about their lives, and they can feel something from it.
And that is what poetry is. It’s not escaping, like trash novels out today, it’s not there to pipe a story into your head. While giving you concrete details the reader is still allowed to envision their own scene, conversations and feelings, and all from a short written piece. It makes you think. And it makes you feel.
Letters to the Editor
Dear Janet,
I greatly enjoyed your poems, particularly “the carpet factory, the shoes.”
If you’re single and good-looking, what don’t you come to my place this summer!? My girlfriend dumped me one month ago. I greatly loved her, I sent her a letter to tell her I loved her - I even invited her to my place for Christmas - but she never responded. She is from my hometown and her cousin had been my first girlfriend when I was 16.
We could maybe fall in love together. I am a good-looking fellow, you know, the son of a physician, never married, no kids, shoveling snow in the winter and cutting grass during the summer. I work in a youth camp as a maintenance worker.
Here, you know, the lakes are beautiful and numerous. Do you like swimming? Do you like canoeing under the sun when it’s 35 degrees Celsius outside in July? It’s very peaceful down here, no violence, no crimes, the days are cold in winter and warm in summer.
Do you like biking? Behind my house there is a biking track as long as 200 kilometers It is reserved for biking and running in summer and cross-country skiing in winter.
People here are simple and open-hearted. I left my hometown at 18, spent 7 years in Ottawa, 10 years in Montreal, then in 1989 I came back into my hometown area. Anyways, Janet, once again, I really enjoy your poetry and... Drop me a line if you have the time.
Daniel Reid
editor’s note: I swear, this man has never met me before in my life. God, I think this is further evidence of what growing up in Canada can do for a person. “My girlfriend is about to put a restraining order on me, so I though I’d write you...” Don’t bother, pal. Here’s a hint: don’t proposition me, ever, especially if you’re nearly twice my age or dated cousins of exes when you ran out of options. When you said simple and open-hearted I think you meant boring and desperate. A biking track behind your house, huh? I can see it now, wooded secluded areas where you hide the bodies of the little boys you abduct from the youth center you work at. Geesh, this is the winner for most pathetic letter.
p.s.: Kids, don’t try this at home, or you’ll get even more humiliation than this freak did.
Dear Janet:
I received Children, Churches and Daddies just the other day, and you were right about the ‘96 issues being HUGE. Actually, I wasn’t expecting something quite that large, but then, I don’t really know what I was expecting either. Anyway, though, I really enjoyed it - not just the poetry, but everything about it, really, especially the articles and letters about various things - it was interesting, too, reading about the origin of the title of your Scars Publications.
With the poetry you included, I really enjoyed the pieces by Alexandria Rand, C Ra McGuirt, Lyn Lifshin, Mark Sonnenfeld (his writing style is so engaging) and Greg Kosmicki. I also liked your poems “i want love” and “dandelions for a passing stranger.”
i want love
by Janet Kuypers
i’m laying here in bed
and i’m looking over at him
he’s sound asleep
perfectly happy
you know, i can’t remember
the last time he’s held me
he has no idea what i’m thinking
he’s perfectly content this way
i decided to spend the rest
of my life with him
he’s my best friend
but i don’t know if he loves me
damnit
i want love
Cheryl Townsend is really good, too, as if that isn’t already a well-known fact.
dandelions for a passing stranger
by Janet Kuypers
I loved my silly red tricycle, the type that every suburban three year old probably had. I would play on my driveway, riding past the evergreens, past the white mailbox... But I’d usually turn around before I rode past the gravel and onto the neighbor’s driveway and ride back toward the security of my own garage. I would sometomes play on the neighbor’s driveway, since it was on a hill. I would scale to the top by their maroon colored garage, navigate my trusted tricycle around by its rusted handlebars, hop on the seat and zoom downhill. But those times were only for when I thought no one was home at their house, and for when I was feeling particularly adventurous.
Once I was riding up and down my own driveway and I saw another little girl walking on the neighbor’s yard. I watched her approach my driveway, walking on the edge of our lawn. I was fascinated by this girl. There was a new face to look at - a girl with long blonde hair, so different from my own. She came from the lawn behind my house and was walking along the side of my driveway, away from my home. I just watched her walk. When she passed me, I looked over to the neighbor’s yard. Our lawn was full of green grass. Theirs was full of dandelions. I rode over to the side of my driveway, got off my tricycle, hopped over the ledge and ran onto the neighbor’s lawn. I picked a dandelion.
I quickly ran back to my tricycle. It patiently waited there, just where I left it... I pedaled fiercely to the end of my driveway, and caught up with that little girl. Still sitting on my
tricycle, I looked up at her until she stopped walking right in front of me. I held up the dandelion to her.
I thought “crazy” and “philosophy monthly” were very good, too, and I loved that title “breast cancer in her coffee.” Well, maybe “loved” is too strong a word to use, but it was really a great title.
Thanks again for the great issue of cc+d!
Joseph Verrilli
editor’s note: thanks for the great comments. Preaise is always appreciated here. If you’d like to give us or any of the writers appearing in our issues some comments please email them to ccandd96@aol.com or snail mail them to the address on our masthead.
So here is the original written piece that prompted the name “Scars publications and Design”:
scars
by Janet Kuypers
Like when the Grossman’s German shepherd bit the inside of my knee. I was babysitting two girls and a dog named “Rosco.” I remember being pushed to the floor by the dog, I was on my back, kicking, as this dog was gnawing on my leg, and I remember thinking, “I can’t believe a dog named Rosco is attacking me.” And I was thinking that I had to be strong for those two little girls, who were watching it all. I couldn’t cry.
Or when I stepped off Scott’s motorcycle at 2:00 a.m. and burned my calf on the exhaust pipe. I was drunk when he was driving and I was careless when I swung my leg over the back. It didn’t even hurt when I did it, but the next day it blistered and peeled; it looked inhuman. I had to bandage it for weeks. It hurt like hell.
When I was little, roller skating in my driveway, and I fell. My parents yelled at me, “Did you crack the sidewalk?”
When I was kissing someone, and I scraped my right knee against the wall. Or maybe it was the carpet. When someone asks me what that scar is from, I tell them I fell.
Or when I was riding my bicycle and I fell when my front wheel skidded in the gravel. I had to walk home. Blood was dripping from my elbow to my wrist; I remember thinking that the blood looked thick, but that nothing hurt. I sat on the toilet seat cover while my sister cleaned me up. It was a small bathroom. I felt like the walls could have fallen in on me at any time. Years later, and I can still see the dirt under my skin on my elbows.
Or when I was five years old and my dad called me an ass-hole because I made a mess in the living room. I didn’t.
Like when I scratched my chin when I had the chicken pox.
letter in response to poems, including
“the state of the nation”
by Janet Kuypers
my phone rang earlier today
and I picked it up and said “hello”
and a man on the other end said,
Is this Janet Kuypers?
and I said, “Yes, it is, may I ask
who is calling?”
and he said, Yeah, hi, this is
George Washington, and I’m sitting here
with Jefferson and we wanted to
tell you a few things. And I said
“Why me?” And he said Excuse me,
I believe I said I was the one
that wanted to do the talking.
God, that’s the problem with
Americans nowadays. They’re so
damn rude. And I said, “You know,
you really didn’t have to use
language like that,” and he said,
Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve been
dead so long, I lose all control
of my manners. Well, anyway, we just
wanted to tell you some stuff. Now,
you know that we really didn’t have
much of an idea of what we were
doing when we were starting up
this country here, we didn’t have
much experience in creating
bodies of power, so I could understand
how our Constitution could be
misconstrued
and then he put in a dramatic pause
and said,
but when we said people had
a right to bear arms
we meant to protect themselves
from a government gone wrong
and not so you could kill
and innocent person
for twenty dollars cash
and when we said freedom of
religion we included the separation
of church and state because freedom
of religion could also mean freedom
from religion
and when we said freedom of speech
we had no idea you’d be
burning a flag
or painting pictures of Christ
doused in urine
or photographing people with
whips up their respective anatomies
but hell, I guess we’ve got to
grin and bear it
because if we ban that
the next thing they’ll ban is books
and we can’t have that
and I said, “But there are schools
that have books banned, George.”
And he said Oh.
Janet,
George called you too, huh? Damn if he wasn’t cussing up a storm about the recent government shutdowns. He kept saying that only the People were supposed to be doing stuff like that, not the government itself. It did no good to remind him that people generally know very little and could not care less about the inner workings of government machinery. All he did was go on some tangent about how the priniciple of government is based (or supposed to be based) on the idea that “it” represents the People through representation, and that through the democratic process justice and goodness is guaranteed to pr
evail, and the People will prosper as a result. He reminded me of what Confucius said:
Equity is the treasure of the states.
And I told him that I never heard of such a thing. This made him really upset. “Probably got banned in one of those books Janet was talking about,” he muttered glumly. What a strange duck he was! The idea that a People’s Representative would seek, during the term of his or her office, to do more harm than good was completely and utterly unfathomable to him. Anyway, Janet, if ol’ Georgie should ever call you again, see if you can get his number. I have a feeling that we’re not the only ones who would like to have a little chat with the guy whose face is on a billion dollar bills.
Re “people’s rights misunderstood”:
the poem “people’s rights misunderstood”
by Janet Kuypers
I had a dream the other night
I was walking down the street in the city
and a man came up to me
a skinny man, he lost his hair
and he walked right up to me
and told me no one cares anymore
and he took my hand
and asked me to care about him
“I’m not supposed to be like this” he said
“I’m not homeless, you know
I have AIDS”
and I wanted to tell him that
someone did care,
that he didn’t have to die alone,
but you know how sometimes
you can’t do things in your dream
no matter how hard you try,
well, my mouth was open, wide open,
but no words were coming out
you know, I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight
I’m afraid that a pregnant woman
will come up to me
and ask me for a hanger
and I’ll tell her there has to be another way
and she’ll say this is the way she chooses
I’m afraid a woman will come up to me
and tell me she doesn’t want to live
because she’s just been raped
and her world doesn’t make sense anymore
and I’ll tell her that she can make it
that one in three women are raped in their lifetime
and they all make it
and besides, the world doesn’t make sense
to anyone
and she’ll say that doesn’t make me
feel any better
and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to
walk down that city street again
without it looking like a Quentin Tarentino movie
where everyone is pointing guns at each other
ys, Mr. NRA
you are right
I feel so much safer
knowing everyone out there has a gun
that there are more gun shops than gas stations
and that everyone is so willing
to do the killing
You know, it has often occurred to me that if there were less gunshots fired on the Big Screen and more acts of altruism shown, we might not have less crime (see bad economic policy/economic disparity versus action films as true cause of violent crime) but we would at least have examples of human beings whose actions truly merit admiration. In my opinion, “Pulp Fiction” wasn’t a bad movie at all. Tarentino knows how to keep things interesting. But perhaps IF there were more films such as Akira Kurosawa’s “Red Beard” there wouldn’t be nearly as much interest in depravity (however entertaining it is to watch) as there would be in overcoming one’s faults in order to become a better person...which benefits society as a whole where individuals are concerned.
Re “Child labor”:
the poem: “the carpet factory, the shoes”
by Janet Kuypers
i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor
in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory
he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten
put the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve
and eugene complains to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china
now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these
will somebody have to die
for these
Wee said. I know a few kids right here in Minneapolis who work twelve hour shift seven days a week. For less than seven dollars an hour. At a factory which makes junk mail and newspaper advertisements and inserts. Some of these kids are fresh out of school (I worked there for three months as a janitor and got to know them a bit) whose eighteen-year-old minds are fresh and easily aquire new ideas. It is my belief that any of them, in another time and place, could just as easily have been Henry David Thoreaus or Einsteins or Ghengis Khans for that matter, but instead they stand in front of machines for half their lives helping their employers and various other Big Players make their wallets fatter, while these kids struggle to pay the bills.
While talking to an older fellow named Ron about it, he simply said life is not fair...and that people are wrong to call such operations “profiteering.” He said that’s “commie talk,” that here in America it’s called Entrepreneurship, or Capitalism.
Neil Cunningham
ed: Thanks for the great comments, and for actually thinking, which I still personally believe is something that most people would prefer to relinquish from their list
of responsibilities. Other than the fact that it was slave labor/child labor, the company you mention has every right to do what they wish with their company and their employees, if the employees allow it. It’s illegal to physically abuse employees via slave labor, and by law one must be sixteen to be employed. Otherwise you’re an adult that can stand up for your rights, and if you don’t like a job, you can find another, or simply leave.
And yes, Pulp Fiction was a good movie, and maybe violence doesn’t cause crime in our society. I must admit, though, that Pulp Fiction had characters which while evil were also intelligent and witty; they discussed etiquette, philosophy and religion over the course of this one day. I thought that movie was more mentally stimulating than any Stallone flick, or Van Damme, or Schwartzenager, or however you spell it. Movies they do reduce violence to one witty (to the least common denominator, of course) punch line and one easy-to-shoot bullet with no consequences.
And sorry, but George hasn’t called back - I think after seeing the rest of America give up, maybe he’s started to give up, too.
Short Stories
from a distance, so manly
by David McKenna
It doesn’t take me long to acquire a habit. Just ask my drug-dealing friends, or either of my ex-wives. Don’t ask Gianna, the Italian girl in the rowhouse across from the track where I run. She might not know who you’re talking about, even if you tell her Bertram says hi.
For two weeks I flirted with her through the chain-link fence that separates the football field, and the six-lane track that surrounds it, from the driveway behind her parents’ home. On Friday I coaxed her down from her second-floor deck after my five-mile run. We walked the gravel ellipse together, moving counterclockwise like the Gang of Four and the other regulars, until Gianna tired of the monotony and took her leave.
“My friends like this track, but I skeeve,” she said, using a South Philadelphia term that indicates revulsion. Three years here after banishment from an elite college in Vermont, and I’m still learning how the locals tawk.
“It makes my shoes dirty,” she explained.
For the next two days, her deck was empty and my mood foul. I was sorry I’d seen her, and sorrier we’d spoken. I’d started using the track only a month ago, after realizing my 40-year-old legs could no longer endure the stress of running the streets. Now Gianna had spoiled my routine. It wasn’t complete without her.
Bear with me. This isn’t one of those agonizing unrequited lust stories. I like women, or girls - whatever they choose to call themselves - so long as they’re young or pretty, and sometimes when they’re neither. But I don’t stalk or even linger where I’m not wanted, except to make absolutely sure I can’t be of service.
Three weeks of 90-degree heat had stretched well into September, but today the seasons were slugging it out. The new weather suited my mood. A chill wind pushed dark clouds around and kicked up trash under the bleachers. A strong sun peeked through as I sped down the straightaway between the seats and the sidelines.
The great daily trek was in full swing. Joggers and walkers of all ages and sizes - alone, in pairs, in groups - entered through the gate behind the bleachers, circled the quarter-mile track to their hearts’ content, and left the herd when the mood seized them. I looked up and breathed deep as I ran, trying to burn off the feeling of thwarted expectation that always gets me into trouble. The sky was a river running between the clouds. When I lowered my head, the complexion of the day changed.
There was Gianna on her back in a white G-string bikini, with everything she has smiling up at the sun. I reached the point closest to her deck, where the track loops behind the visiting high school team’s goal post, and shouted what had become my standard greeting.
“Gianna, how ‘bout a gelato?”
A coffee house three blocks from the field sells several flavors of Italian ice cream, though they don’t stock chocolate, Gianna’s favorite when she vacations in Calabria.
“Don’t tempt me with that shit, Bernie,” she said, shifting in her padded beach chair long enough to acknowledge me in her usual inaccurate fashion. “I’m trying to lose weight.”
Like many South Philly girls of a certain type, Gianna seems sexier when seen and not heard. To overly refined outsiders, she might not seem sexy at all. To one such as I, exiled from an enclave of pastoral privilege, she is wildness personified.
“Run with me,” I said, cantering sideways to address her directly.
South Philly makes me feel like Fletcher Christian on Tahiti, or Lord Byron in Italy, after his wife divorced him and English society pooh-poohed him for romancing his half-sist
er.
I thought of Teresa, teenaged wife of the 60-year-old count of Ravenna. Byron’s liaison with her pissed off the Pope. A hot number, lost in history. The roving poet must have caught a glimmer of himself in her. Was her profile Byronic, or merely her soul?
“Come on, run,” I persisted, passing the apex of the loop. “Then you can reward yourself for burning off all those calories.”
“Ha,” Gianna scoffed. “Then I put the calories back on, and I look like a blob. Didja think of that, Bernie?”
“It’s Bertram. Bert will do.”
OK, the Teresa comparison is a stretch, but I’ve come to appreciate Gianna’s contrasts. A sweet bird of youth flapping against the weight of toxic paints and powders, her verbal coarseness a jarring counterpoint to radiantly dark skin, brilliant teeth, and a crown of curls so black it shines purple in the sun.
“You look like that babe in Wayne’s World,” I suggested, running backwards now as I moved away from her. “You could star in an exercise video.”
“If I took 10 pounds off my ass,” Gianna shouted before turning her face toward the peek-a-boo sun. It’s a wonder she tans through the foundation, eye makeup and other junk that, despite her best efforts, fails to spoil her looks.
I turned to resume my forward stride and almost ran into the Gang of Four, immersed in their five-mile fast walk. They didn’t seem to notice my nimble last-minute side-step.
“The guy’s no Santa Claus,” said Armond, the loudest, a bow-legged fellow who wears black elastic knee braces. “You can bet he’s gonna make a ton of money.”
All four retirees are about 5-foot-6 and overweight. Their routine involves a current events recap that focuses on disease and/or sports. Mine involves guessing which news item they’re discussing as I overhear a snippet of conversation while running past them.
“The other guy’s no slouch either,” another of the gang chimed in. “He knows Dee-ahn is the missing link.”
Their voices faded, but I’d heard enough. The lubricious owner of a professional football team has pooled resources with the crafty king of a sneaker company to buy the services of a famously flamboyant defensive back. Now the other NFL teams don’t have a prayer.
The loop at the home team’s end of the field swung me back toward Gianna. I passed Rocco, the depressed school bus driver, holding a leash attached to a black Rottweiler. Rocco is built like an upright version of his dog. Stocky, but much shorter than I.
From a distance I look like a white Ken Norton, thanks to the weight-lifting. Norton was a bad dude in his prime. Up close I’m even more impressive. A sensitively brutish aspect that’s never out of style. Sulky mouth, strong nose and sky-blue eyes that can burn a hole in the hardest of hearts. Byron with both feet intact. I look a decade younger than I am.
“Yo Rocco,” I said. “How are those kids treating you?”
Some months ago Rocco found God and jogging, in that order, and banished the invisible demon who’d been urging him to drive his crowded bus through the front door of a fast-food franchise on Broad Street. Or so he told me last week.
“Same as usual, Bert,” he said. “It’s in the Lord’s hands now.”
As were my chances of breaking Gianna’s spell. This time around she was on her belly with her halter strap unhooked. The strip of newly exposed flesh suggested hazelnut on almond. A scoop of hazelnut gelato is especially sweet, like something that dropped off an ice cream tree in heaven.
“What do you do when the sun goes down, Gianna?” I shouted, feeling rash. “Where can I buy you a drink?”
“Maui,” she answered, referring not to the island but to the garish dance club on the riverfront. “My friend’s taking me to Maui tonight in her new Grand Am.”
Gianna mentions plenty of friends, none by name. One friend knows a mobster’s apprentice who drives a Jaguar and tosses $20 tips at bartenders. Another dances in a cable TV commercial for an expensive go-go joint as patrons chant “I like it, I like it.” Gianna’s espresso eyes shine when she tells these stories. Conspicuous spending impresses her even more than well-defined muscles.
“Afterwards, we’ll eat at Alexandria,” I said, referring to a trendy restaurant across from the nightclub. “You like Alexandria?”
Her smile was beatific. Girls at the state college where I teach these days flash the same smile when I rattle off an immortal rhyme: For the sword outwears its sheath/And the soul wears out the breast/And the heart must pause to breathe/And love itself to rest. They smile, I think, at the contrast between my lively demeanor and Byron’s weary words, at the gulf between Byron the legend and Byron the man, at the degree to which the potency of a legend depends on its distance from so-called fact. Or maybe they’re just happy to see me.
“Do I like it?” Gianna asked as I ran in place. “That’s like asking do I like a full-body massage and Jacuzzi.”
It was settled. Drinks, dinner, dancing. Then home to my apartment, if all went well. Or to a hotel near the airport, or a motel in Jersey. It would be
hours before we got there, wherever it was, judging by what she’d told me about her socializing, and by my experience, from which I’ve gleaned the following data:
Gianna and her ilk are obsessed with teeth and skin and clothes. They are meticulous toenail painters, zealous patrons of hair and tanning salons, compulsive users of deodorants and depilatories. They expect to be wined and dined, served and serviced, and woe onto him who fails to pick up the check.
On the other hand, they are lusty and will fuck you into next week if you bring condoms and pamper them as lavishly as their daddies do; if you drive, buy the drinks, reserve the table, leave the tips, and present them with expensive tokens of esteem. Even better if you make occasional rude jokes about their appearance and manners, to signal you’re not the sort of simpering romantic who’ll do anything to get laid. And sometimes they’ll stun you with a sweet remark or involuntary moan at that moment when passion most fully supercedes reason, the only moment that reveals anything about anybody.
None of which mattered to my fellow exercisers, who ambulated ‘round and ‘round, acting out a rite with no apparent meaning. The wind dragging a plastic bag across the gravel sounded like water sloshing down a drain. The sun was a white hole in a black sky. I was on the verge of the dreamtime stage of my run, my only relief from thoughts of sex and death, when a soccer ball rolled off the grassy field and onto the track.
“Wait, I’ll pass it to you,” I said to a 7- or 8-year-old boy who was chasing the ball. I stopped it dead with my left foot, squared off to fake a kick downfield with my right, then stepped past and kicked it sideways to him with my left.
“How’d you do that?” the boy shouted, picking the ball up as I resumed jogging.
“Practice, kid,” I said over my shoulder. “Everything worth doing takes practice.”
What crap. It’s an easy move, as the kid will realize when someone takes a minute to show him. But he and his friends were impressed, watching from a distance. He reminded me of my eldest son, who thinks I’m of hell of a guy, despite what he hears from his mom, Madame Pinstripes. I rarely see him since she became a corporate stooge in Delaware and moved in with some pigeon-toed twerp who wouldn’t know a soccer ball from a sack of spuds.
Gianna saw me handle the ball - I looked to make sure - but she was gone when I glanced up again. The next time around, a red Grand Am was parked under her deck. Her friend, I assumed.
Just as well, I thought, noticing a tall runner in a black spandex suit under a white sleeveless jersey jog down the driveway to the gate near the bleachers, at a pace even with mine. The runner proceeded along the ribbon of concrete that borders the outside of the track. I licked my lips, tasted the salt, and felt an immediate attraction, followed by a stab of doubt. Boy or girl?
I lengthened my stride and gained ground by hugging the low curb that divides the track from the field. The mystery runner showed the elegance of a natural athlete. Long legs and arms, a deceptively fluid stride that made quickness look easy. She - I hoped it was a she - had hair as short and curly as mine, exposing the nape of a long, dark neck.
But she looked manly from a distance. I don’t know how else to say it. Most women, and some men, run mostly with their lower bodies, because they have low centers of gravity and little power up top. This one, you could tell, had equal strength in shoulders and legs, and the sort of resolute cool that indicates great stamina. She/he reminded me of me.
Now the Gang of Four was between us, obstructing my view while discussing their favorite topic, prostate cancer. Sunshine swept the field from directly ahead. Even from 40 yards, it was impossible to tell whether the runner’s baggy jersey concealed breasts.
Armond was saying, “My son thinks I’m bored, he wants me to find a girlfriend. I said, ‘And do what with her, you stupid fuck?’ Part of me ain’t screwed on no more.”
The others hectored Armond for his sour attitude. “Sex ain’t all it’s cracked up to be,” one of them said. “Get your rocks off these days, it might cost you more than you bargained for.”
I passed them hurriedly, gratefully, and edged forward till I was almost even with the runner whose perfect form was so arousingly familiar.
Just ahead of the Gang of Four were Rocco and his dog again, and then the Suspended Octogenarian, proceeding with stiff-legged precision in his usual ensemble: white sneakers and T-shirt with blue dress pants held chest-high by red braces. He smiles at women the same way I’d look at family pictures in an old photo album.
I picked up the pace to get a closer look at the mystery runner. Even before I descried the outline of firm little breasts, I’d compiled enough sensory data - a down-turned hand, a dainty cough, a slight flutter of the feet before they touched the ground - to conclude with some confidence that yes, thank God, my twin was a woman.
I pulled up beside her and said, “Jogging on concrete is bad for you.” She knew jogging was the furthest thing from my mind, I could tell by her grin.
“Everything is bad for you,” she said, turning her head to eye me calmly, as if she’d expected me. “I do what feels good.”
She was Mediterranean-looking and definitely female, about 10 years younger than I, with a slight, clipped accent and an apparent tendency to overdress when she ran. But the similarities were striking: the hair and high cheekbones and long stride, the pleasantly ironic style of speech, the sulky countenance dissolving to a double-dare-you grin. It was eerie, flirting with myself. The ultimate kick.
“Well, you look good,” I said in typically straightforward fashion. “You could star in an exercise video.”
This time I meant it. Gianna, bless her, will never have good form or keep off the extra weight for long, any more than I’ll ever teach physics or have an enduring high-fidelity relationship. Her charm is fugacious. But the tall one - she said her name was Ronnie - is my ideal, or this month’s version of it. A strong, clear-eyed creature whose beauty is enigmatic precisely because it’s so modestly functional. She laughs like one who enjoys the act of laughing even more than the jokes that inspire it. Her face in repose is sad and calls to mind a garden locked behind high stone walls.
Maybe I assume too much, but that’s my style. A glimpse, a whiff, a taste of new territory and I throw my compass overboard. Already I was guessing the facial expressions Ronnie makes while climaxing, and whether she cries out or holds steady and purrs with her full lips clamped shut. And I meant to find out, instead of regretting not making love to her if, God forbid, I live to be an old capon like Armond.
“This will probably sound sexist,” I said, “You move like a man, but without seeming unfeminine.”
“Naive, not sexist,” she replied. “Define feminine.”
Again the ironically friendly glance, as if she was daring me to share a joke.
“Graceful, sensitive,” I said, undaunted by the semantic quagmire up ahead. “Not necessarily passive, but sere
ne.”
“Men can’t have those qualities?” she countered.
Fortunately, I was used to this sort of discussion. It’s an occupational hazard at colleges, especially if you run afoul of the sob sisters and saber-rattling viragoes in Women’s Studies, most of whom personify sin as a promiscuous heterosexual male. Pardon the hyperbole, but sexually stunted female academics get my back up and have stretched my tolerance to the limit.
“You are aware, fraulein, each man and woman is a mix of masculine and feminine,” I said. I was on my sixth mile and tiring. Ronnie’s handsome face was inscrutable. Eye contact with her was like a tennis match. Every time I served the ball, she politely sent it screaming back at my head. She was indeed my twin.
“Your mix seems more balanced than most people’s,” I said, dropping the accent. “It seems close to mine.”
I felt false, but what could I say? I’m an addict, Ronnie. When I need babying, be my mama. When I need sex, be my lover. When I need both, wrap yourself around me and don’t talk.
Or I could be her daddy - actually, her older, lusty brother - though that sort of thing is what started the neo-Puritan watchdogs barking at the prestigious citadel of learning where I used to wow future schoolmarms with my looks and erudition. Ronnie, at least, was no schoolgirl.
“Am I more balanced than Gianna?” she asked casually.
“She’s way out of balance,” I replied, without showing the slightest surprise at the mention of Gianna’s name.
“She looks like a goddess and talks like a Teamster.” I explained. “Passive until she gets riled, but no more sensitive than that goal post over there. An interesting mix maybe, but not for long.”
“For as long as it takes to fuck her,” Ronnie said, as brightly as Katherine Hepburn would have if they’d used the “f” word in The Philadelphia Story. “Or should I say fuck her over?”
The clouds parted slightly and a single ray of milky sunshine beamed on Veterans Stadium, looming just beyond the highway to the south. An ugly ball park, outside and in: intersecting slabs of pre-fab concrete, balding artificial turf, bad food. The locals don’t seem to notice. The stadium suits them. They wouldn’t know beauty if it ran up and bit them on the ass. Here was beauty, circling a drab little track where only smeared chalk lines separate the lanes.
“I’m not sure I can afford Gianna,” I said. “You’re her friend, right? The one with the Grand Am.”
“I’m her lover,” Ronnie said cheerfully. “And you’re right, you can’t afford her.”
It was sad, the way she distanced herself. Our hearts were beating as one, our footfalls synchronized and so silent I could hear Armond 50 yards ahead, telling tall tales about life before he was gelded, describing nights he treated showgirls from the Trocadero to sausage sandwiches at Pat’s Steaks.
“You must be bisexual,” I said, with a sidelong glance at Ronnie. “You’re too attractive to be totally queer.”
She rolled her eyes, as I was expecting, and said, “According to you, I look manly. What’s that say about your sexuality?”
That got me thinking about the sexual orientation index, developed by an ex-colleague in Vermont for articles in several obscure journals. I called his questionaire the homo factor index, to deflate his pretensions to scientific method, and to annoy him, especially after he said my narcissism indicated latent homosexuality. Before his breakdown, he was working on an instrument that would take the guesswork out of gauging orientation. I still get a kick out of applying his concept, albeit with facetious intent. If my ‘mo factor is 3 on a scale of 10, then Ronnie’s must be 7. Unless she was putting me on.
“Who knows?” I said after 30 yards of silence. “Some effeminate guys are straight, some football players are as queer as Liberace. I have no desire to fuck men, if that’s what you mean. But I do like bisexual women.”
It was an invitation of sorts, but Ronnie wasn’t biting. She wiped sweat from her glistening brow with the back of her left hand, exactly as I do, and said softly, “Just leave Gianna alone. She has enough problems.”
I could have told her about problems - two ex-wives, two mortgages, three kids, a lawsuit that won’t go away, an untenured professor’s salary - but instead I said, “Are you her lover or her mother?”
It took balls for me, of all people, to ask that, given my insatiable need for female affection.
“Let’s say I’m her sister,” Ronnie said pleasantly. “Don’t mess with my sister, mister.”
And then my twin - my sister - veered toward the driveway and disappeared behind the parked cars. OK, I exaggerate. She’s not my twin, except maybe in the metaphysical sense, although she has yet to realize that. Maybe the quaint expression “better half” is more accurate. Or simply “other half.” She shaves under her arms, I hope. I draw the line at that. And at penises, of course. I’m confident Ronnie doesn’t have one of those.
I stopped next to the bleachers to pick up my water bottle, then started the half-mile walk that ends my workout. The Gang
of Four was directly behind me. Armond had changed the subject from prostate cancer to coronaries, which seemed to spark fewer objurgations from his cronies.
“I was dancing with my daughter at her wedding,” he declared. “My heart started racing till I thought it would bust. I went to sit down and collapsed face-first in a big bowl of onion dip. Soon as I got out of the hospital, I started exercising. It beats pushing up daisies.”
To each his own, but who needs half a man with a healthy heart? I’d rather help the flowers grow. Byron, at least, knew when to check out.
Armond was still holding court when I left for breakfast with Carla, my part-time girlfriend with the big breasts and the homemade bread and the bankrupt theatrical company. Not my twin, by any means, but a real wiz at reminding me that all the parts are still screwed on. She has pet names for our privates and a color photo of my smiling face on the dresser with the drawer full of toys and special jellies. A few hours with Carla before my afternoon classes will boost my sagging morale and bring my ‘mo factor back down to zero.
Only then can I think of colliding again with Ronnie. She’d like me to believe she’s happy playing big sister to bovine beauties like Gianna, but I know her quicksilver sadness and its secret cause: She hasn’t had a lover like me yet. Someday I’ll spell it out for her. I can already hear her laughter as she ducks behind the walls.
The Swinging Medallion
by Joseph Verrilli
Standing in the stockroom doorway, Doris repeated the question demurely, with just a hint of humility. Jacky pretended not to hear, as he polished the display case. He couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t believe in the tapered Van Heusen shirts he was supposed to be selling.
Doris cleared her throat with a purpose in mind. Suddenly nervous, Jacky spun around and looked into her baby blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Doris,” he muttered. “Did you say something?” She meant to smile at him, but changed her mind at the last minute. She batted her eyelashes instead.
The tall, chunky salesclerk with the blonde bouffant hairdo sashayed over to the cash register and pretended to press the “no sale” button. She asked the very same question. “Are you buying us candy today, Jacky?”
The big-boned eighteen year-old swallowed hard and hesitated before answering. “Yeah, sure.” He stared at the floor, thinking that Doris bore a certain resemblance to Lainie Kazan.
Eleanor walked lazily out of the stockroom a second later, a thin dark-haired woman of average height who always seemed to be smiling. “Candy today, Jack?” she asked. The teenager looked in her direction nervously, but said nothing. “Ti’s so nice of you to buy us girls candy all the time,” she added. Her pleading tone seemed to work miracles very time.
Jacky plunged his hands into his deep pockets. He allo
wed his gaze to linger on the lower half of his brown pinstripe pants. He didn’t look up for some time, but when he did, he was staring wistfully at Doris again. She seemed to have an impatient expression on her face, or so he thought.
“Lunch time, boys and girls!” emanated form somewhere in back of Jacky’s head. It was the emotionless voice of Bill Davila, the dapper brown-haired ladies’ man who was the supervisor of the men’s furnishings department. He spoke with a lot of authority for someone only five feet tall.
Jacky and the two ladies snapped to attention and grinned self-consciously. Bill frowned good-naturedly, then shook his head as he walked into the stockroom.
Jacky straightened his tie, brushed two specks of lint form the left lapel of his gold blazer and patted his brown hair carefully. He had used Wildroot cream oil that morning to make sure every single strand of this hair stayed put. “If you look in control, you are in control!” was a thought that echoed in his brain before he left Gimbel’s, the department store where he worked.
Just before he stepped onto State Street, the glass door swinging to a slow-motion close behind him, he heard Eleanor’s voice again. “Candy, Jacky!” This time he didn’t look back, fearful he might blush or convey a stubborn petulance. It was a cool, crisp day in mid-November, 1970, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
He paused on the sidewalk before crossing the street to the entrance to Lafayette Plaza. He looked all around him, intending to take in the sights and sounds of the city. After all, he had his freedom for a full hour. Glad to be alive, he wiped the lenses of his black horn-rimmed glasses with a lavender Sight Saver. When he slipped them back on, he snorted impatiently. The lenses still had those stubborn streaks.
He waited for the red light to change. “Come on,” he thought to himself. “Change already!” Jacky was a spoiled, impatient sort who thought waiting for a red light to change was a complete waste of time. Still, he felt refreshed. The cool autumn breeze slapped his face. He inhaled deeply and went into a coughing jag.
Car whizzed by a few feet in front of him. His hands in his pockets, he shrugged off his impatience. Suddenly, he felt an urge to daydream, as the stared at the red stoplight across the street. He was not part of the sidewalk on which he stood.
Precisely when the light turned green, Jacky saw Her walk toward the mall entrance briskly. He had seen Her a few times before, but had no idea who she was. She was a major part of downtown life, though, in those innocent days.
This mystery woman was tall and very thin. Her black hair was always piled on top of her head in a haphazard upsweep. She always wore tight black dresses, fishnet stockings and high heel sandals. Something stirred within him.
The loud snap of somebody’s fingers made him look to his right very quickly. Danny Boy Doyle, a tall, brown-haired salesclerk with a crossed eye, passed him and crossed State Street in a hurry. Wearing a broad, toothy grin, he looked in Jacky’s direction, snapped his fingers again and pointed a long index finger at him. He said what he always seemed to say. “That’s a supercool tie, man.” Jacky smiled, but really wanted to laugh. “Hey, Jacky!” Danny Boy shouted. “Green light! Time waits for no man, ya know!”
Jacky crossed the street casually. When he pulled open the door of the mall entrance, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. He glanced to his right as he passed Tie City, a tidy, compact little store. “Yeah, supercool tie,” he muttered to himself. Jacky was hungry, but unaware of so many things. Working at Gimbel’s was only his second job.
He passed people and stores and pay phones, trying to convey a sense of confidence. He found the coffee shop moments later, an eatery he found himself returning to time and again. He wondered what kind of mood the matronly, dark-haired waitress would be in this time.
He picked a table a few yards from the counter in the empty restaurant. From somewhere in the busy mall, there came the sound of piped-in music. He lit a Marlboro, perused the glossy menu and waited for the waitress.
Different people sauntered in to different areas of the coffee shop, removing winter coats and talking about concerns of the day.
The waitress walked over to Jacky’s table eventually. “What’ll it be today, honey?” she asked, appearing somewhat bored. Jacky puffed on the cigarette and ordered an open steak sandwich, onion rings and coffee enthusiastically. He glanced at the dark-haired little man who was the cashier of the day.
It seemed like a very long time before his meal arrived. The waitress planted it down on the table with a slovenly flourish. “Enjoy the food,” she said without emotion. She could have been speaking to a nephew who had disappointed her, or so it seemed to Jacky.
He emptied two packets of sugar and two tiny creamers into the steaming cup of coffee. The food in front of him didn’t seem as appetizing as the picture in the menu had promised.
It was five minutes later when Jacky tried to maneuver a slice of tomato onto his fork. “Let It Be” by the Beatles was the song that was playing at that moment. How Jacky loved that song! It always made him feel melancholy, but he loved feeling that way.
He stopped eating as he pondered the lyrics and the crisp, clean sound of Paul McCartney’s piano-playing. Jacky’s thoughts were far-removed from the concerns of the moment. He was almost hypnotized by the music.
The song touched a chord deep within him. He daydreamed about lying in his coffin in an all-too-familiar funeral parlor, surrounded by family and friend. “Let It Be” was playing over and over. Someone in a black veil sobbed, “How Jacky loved that song!” and wiped away a tear. Whenever those very same people would hear that song in the future, they would think of him fondly and remember. The daydream was sheer melodrama.
Jacky paid his check and left a healthy tip. He lit another cigarette as he walked casually through the mall, letting his mind wander. His thoughts would plunge whenever he heard that song.
When he walked back into Gimbel’s, Bill immediately got his attention and spoke sternly. “You’ll be working in the men’s department this afternoon. Get over there now. Come on! Look alive!” Jacky sensed that Eleanor and Doris were looking at him expectantly.
He walked briskly in the direction of the men’s department, hoping he could get through the afternoon with no major blunders. Lenny, a security guard from the mall, walked towards him. He wore a faded green army jacket and an especially lewd expression. His wavy brown hair had grown considerably since the last time Jacky ran into him.
Lenny’s voice was hushed yet sinister-sounding. “Dig Candy over there at the sweater counter. She ain’t wearing a thing under that dress.” Hid green-eyed leer seemed to bore right through Jacky’s skull. Jacky’s heart skipped a beat.
For a split second, Jacky looked in the direction of the sweater counter. Candy, a pretty brown-haired girl in wire-rim glasses and a flowery yellow dress, stood behind the display case. She looked at Jacky with a silent boldness. The word “candy” kept coming back to him.
As soon as he got the men’s department, a tall, officious man named Abe told him to run upstairs to Alterations to retrieve a suit for a Mr. Brownstein. Jacky, feeling very nervous, took a deep breath.
He pulled open the shuttered door and walked up the dark stairway, clutching a numbered receipt. Once in Alterations, it took him quite some time to locate the suit covered in plastic. He walked down the stairs in a panic. He had taken too long.
Downstairs, Mr. Brownstein, a middle-aged man with a hardened look, spotted Jacky instantly. He spoke from his heart. “What were you doing up there, taking so long? Playing with yourself? Let me have my suit.” All eyes were fixed on Jacky, who stood motionless. He appeared to be nearly catatonic. His face turned a bright crimson.
For no apparent reason, he recalled being on vacation with his family in New York City two years earlier. Wearing a tacky gold medallion with a green stone in its center, Jacky was riding the hotel elevator with his father. Medallions were very fashionable in the ‘60’s, but nobody really knew why. Big ones, small ones, gaudy ones, tacky ones. A sign of the times. At least Jacky wasn’t wearing a Nehru jacket.
The elevator doors slid open on the fifth floor and a tall, distinguished black man entered, followed by his female companion. He made a point of staring at Jacky’s swinging medallion before he commented on it. “Tell me, young man,” he said in a deep baritone voice. “That medallion you are wearing. Does it signify something?”
Embarrassed, Jacky managed to shake his head and mutter, “No, not really.” When the elevator reached the main floor, the man and his companion exited quickly. Jacky’s father turned to him. “You should’ve told him you wore it because you were in a band!”
Jacky nodded absent-mindedly, feeling a bit hesitant about what to do next. The hotel lobby was filled with many kinds of people, stuck in their own private dramas. He peered down at the gaudy medallion, searching for a reason as to why he was wearing it. He didn’t look up for a very long time.
from the chapbook,
Blessed Events
published by Plowman Press, 1993
and also published
in PHOENIX RISING, 1995
Violation?
by Ben Whitmer
I and my uncle were leaning against a crooked wooden fence. My uncle smoking a cigarette, me with a twig in my mouth. I didn’t know why I was chewing the twig, I’d just seen others do it and I liked the way it looked.
The fence enclosed a small grazing area that had never been used. It came with the lopsided barn that sat on the other side of the field. My parents had built the log cabin behind us. In the middle of the field my mother and father were gesticulating wildly in the midst of some gaping argument. I and my uncle, we were trying not to watch. “That field needs mowing,” my uncle said.
I shaded my eyes against the bristling sun and stared out at the field, jotting down each inch of it before resting my eyes on my parents, then moved them deliberately onward after seeing them. My mother had a finger underneath my father’s nose and was shaking it furiously. She was wearing jeans and a sky blue halter top with no bra. Every shake of her finger set her jiggling, her breasts threatening to escape the spaghetti straps.
I was embarrassed for her. “It hasn’t rained in a while,” I said. “We won’t have to mow it unless it rains.”
“Yeah,” said my uncle, stubbing his cigarette out on the top fence-rail. “I guess it does look dead.” He clapped me on my shoulder. “Why don’t we go in and get some ice cream?”
I gripped the fence and rocked myself up against it, my chin barely reaching the top. “I think I’ll stay out here.”
“Maybe I will too, then,” my uncle said.
My father stood stoically, his work-scarred hands clasped beneath his arm-pits. My mother grabbed at the neck of his white t-shirt and pulled at it but it didn’t give. She slapped his chest and screamed so loudly that me and my uncle could hear her voice shrilling, but not loudly enough that we could hear the content. My father spat on the ground and rubbed his spittle into the dirt with a boot.
“What say we go get that ice cream?” my uncle said in a steady voice, and lit another cigarette. I didn’t even bother to glance at him. I couldn’t help staring undisguised at my mother and father.
There are blinds, but they leave a crack around the edge of the window that a rim of sunlight glints through. The furnishings are tasteful and were obviously picked out with care. The couch, love seat, and chair coordinated in color and size. Sitting well together, but at odds with the cheap apartment. Spilt drinks and water-rings stain the coffee table and a half full whiskey glass is setting a fresh blemish. Two brass lamps are on the floor, their shades cockeyed and dusty.
She is sitting easily on the love seat, but su
ddenly feeling the cruelty of that same ease, she squirms wittingly. She unloops her purse strap and sits the purse on the floor.
He doesn’t feel at all easy on the couch, but knowing he should, he relaxes back. “Get your purse off the floor,” he says.
She picks the purse up and holds it over the table, moving it from place to place, seeking a dry spot. She grows agitated and drops the purse by her side, on the love seat. “Where are the paper towels?” she asks, standing.
“I don’t have any.” He holds the glass up to take a drink, and the smell of the Ten High pulls at his stomach. He forces it down and slants the glass at the purse. “It’s fine there.” She crosses her long legs, uncrosses them, stretches them out, and then reels them in, mindful to keep her knees together. “You should use coasters.”
He hee-haws outrageously. “Fuck you and what I should use,” he says.
She looks down at her feet and softly implores, “don’t be angry.” Her shoes are impeccable. They match the love seat.
“I just got off work,” he says. He drops the glass on the table and cracks his aching knuckles. “I’m gonna change.” He gets up and walks into his bedroom.
She runs her hands over her face, pulling them down hard, gripping at her eye sockets and cheeks. Then she quivers with a scrupulous little shrug of recovery and pulls a tiny mirror from her purse to check her makeup.
He catches her with the mirror in hand. Seeing him, she starts and jams it back into her purse. He has changed into cut off shorts and a black t-shirt. She notices his legs are tanned and the tan irritates her. She gets the mirror back out and completes her inventory of powders. He stares at his whiskey glass, his face lined and exhausted. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I wanted to see how you were doing.”
He holds a sip of the whiskey in his mouth like mouthwash. “You could’ve told me to my face,” he says, swallowing. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“You would’ve.” She completes her touch-up and returns the mirror. “Besides,” she says, glancing at his tanned legs, “I didn’t think you’d mind that much.”
“You didn’t think I’d mind?” His eyebrows furrow and his jaw muscles knot. “You didn’t think I’d fucking mind?”
“You didn’t seem like you would mind.”
“I lost my fucking hair,” he says. “My fucking hair was falling out of my head.” He turns his head and shows her a bald patch just beneath and behind his left temple.
She wishes she had her mirror back out, but she knows she can’t get it. “You don’t have to swear at me,” she says. “I didn’t come to be yelled at.”
He leaps up and whips his glass at her. It skips off the back of the love seat and shatters against the wall. “FUCK YOU,” His breath comes in and out whiskey-deep. He drops his head, confounded, and swigs from the bottle.
She waits a clean minute, grabs her purse, and bolts for the door. He swings around and grabs her collar. Her head thrashes back and her legs keep going, up and into the air. He yanks her in and clasps both arms around her stomach. “You didn’t think I’d mind?”
She bursts out crying. “You don’t,” she whimpers. “Look at your legs.”
He spins her around gently and holds her face in his hands. He wipes at her tears with his thumbs. Then he presses in and kisses her.
She doesn’t resist. She gives a throaty sigh and relaxes against his chest.
“There’s no need for you to watch this,” my uncle said.
“Well,” I said, “I’m gonna watch it.”
Something was said that was without return, something irrevocable and tangible. My mother and father stood in perfect silence. Then my father, almost languidly, punched her in the temple and she sagged to the ground. He caught her in mid-fall by the hair and wound it up in his fist. I stared at them without blinking until my eyes started to tear. My father held her suspended by her hair, her crumpled form sagging unconscious in a half sitting position.
My arms were thin, prepubescent. They looked like pathetic excuses. Half arms on a half man. I examined my uncle’s and they were muscled, defined, his knuckles flattened by bar fights. My father walked my mother, dragging her by her hair towards the barn. She awoke and howled with pain. Her feet came up beneath her and she did a sick crab-walk behind his fist. My uncle leaned tiredly against the fence, his cigarette dangling from his hand.
“You could do something,” I said.
The uncle’s face crowded with ache, and then with reason. He reached to grip my shoulder, but stopped short and didn’t. “There’s nothing to do.”
The rain pitches over her, whips her hair down and leaves it lank, soaks her dress and flattens it over her body.
A bottle of Southern Comfort dangles from her hand, slipping occasionally from her fingers. Her hands clutch sporadically to catch it, then relax again. And again she nearly loses the bottle.
She spiritlessly crosses one bare foot over the other and begins a half spin. Her arms lift and stretch out from her sides. They
come down again, her feet uncross again. Her bottle hand clenches suddenly and knocks slowly at her forehead. She can’t remember why she’s out, she knows it’s raining. Her arms slip around her sides and she feels like she should cry. So she begins to, softly, her head turning away from the farmhouse behind her. The bottle covers her face.
The sobbing ceases as abruptly as it began. She knuckles away the tears and chokes out a giggle. The world tilts a bit under her feet and she tilts with it. Her arms fly up in an effort to regain her balance, her feet cross one over the other, and she begins to spin. Slowly at first, then in a frenzy, working with the tilt.
The porch light flips on and she tumbles to a halt. Her legs whirl from under her and she collapses with a mad screaming laugh in the grass.
He steps out the screen door and stands for a minute on the porch-step. He is shirtless and bearded. Without a bottle in his hand.
She crouches in the grass and beckons him with a finger. He walks to her. “Get up,” he says.
She kicks him in the shin. “You get down.”
His head hangs, his legs fold, he places his hands on his knees. “Come to bed,” he says, “it’s late.” He wipes at the rain dripping down his cheeks.
“Oh,” she says, “you want me in bed.” Playfully she kicks at him again.
“I don’t have time for this shit.” As he says it her foot flies again. He grabs it from the air and jerks her leg brutally. She sprawls forward, her kicking foot in his hand, her other twisted irregularly beneath her. He releases her.
“Fuck,” she says, and rolls over in the grass. She drops the bottle and massages her ankle. “You shit. You broke it.”
“It ain’t broken,” he says, and picks up the Southern Comfort.
She stands and gingerly sets her weight on it. She flinches at a burst of pain. Then tries again, easing her body down. The pain slows at the pressure. “Fuck you,” she says.
“I gotta work tomorrow.” He swings the bottle away as she makes a lunge for it. “Can’t we have a fucking night off?”
“No.” she says, making another pass at the bottle. “We can’t have a fucking night. Tonight’s a drinking night.” She stands on tip-toe and reaches for the bottle he holds above his head. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll fuck you.”
He drops the bottle on the grass, turns, and starts for the door.
She snatches up the bottle. “You think I’d fuck you?” She fumbles with the cap, but can’t get it unscrewed. “YOU THINK I’D FUCK YOU?”
He stops in front of the door and looks at her coldly. She has the bottle stuck in her mouth and is trying to get it unscrewed with her teeth.
He shakes his head and moves for the door-handle.
“FUCK,” she screams, and throws the bottle, still capped, at him. It glances off his shoulder and hits the farmhouse’s wall, without breaking.
He stoops and takes it in his hand. She is standing, her hands held over her giggling mouth.
There is a red mark on his shoulder and already the beginning of an angry bruise. He raises up and walks toward her.
She backs away, foot over foot, glancing over her shoulder and checking for pitfalls. He reaches her and she stops. She runs her fingers over his face and says gently, “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on Earth.”
He punches her square in the jaw. Her head whips backwards and she crashes to her knees. He starts to shake, incredulous at the blow. He stares dumbly at his fist.
Blood is lining her chin from a split lip. She licks it and giggles up at him, her hands gripping and twisting the hem of her dress. She jumps up and he steps back. “Oh,” she says, stumbling to the front door. “Oh.” She sticks out her tongue at him. “That won’t make me fuck you.” She gropes open the screen door and darts inside.
He takes the yard in four long steps, twisting off the bottle’s cap, unbuckling his pants.
My mother’s feet scrabbled for earth, her shoulders twisted and wrenched at his grip. She saw the barn’s door and her fighting redoubled. My father’s face set even harder and he gave her one good yank, out of the field and through the barn door.
“You gotta do something,” I said.
My uncle didn’t move except for his cigarette hand, and his drags were harsh and quick.
The field was vicious and silent, like razor blades wrapped up in cheese cloth. The air moved past us, a simmering magnet pulling at our heads. Every blade of grass stood at stupid and insane attention.
“You could fucking do something,” I said.
My uncle grimaced at my words. He slammed the cigarette in his mouth for one last hit, and tasting filter, he flicked it out in the field. “You’ll understand when you get older,” he said.
I started inwardly, but I’d like to think now that I kept my outward composure. I thought, you are fucking crazy. Then I looked at my uncle and I saw every muscle in his body pulling out and veined. His jaw was wired up and his lips were ticking. You are fucking crazy, I thought again.
We were noiseless and
we waited like that, every nerve on end for anything. Nothing came. Nothing drifted our way. Even the dry wind ceased.
You are fucking crazy, I thought. But I didn’t say it.
I kept my mouth shut.
They are lying in bed together. The bed only a mattress on the floor. The closet light is on and is the only source of light in the room. He has a pack of Lucky Strikes by his head on the pillow, and is smoking one, ashing in an empty beer bottle.
She is trying to read a music magazine, but keeps closing it and staring at the ceiling. She rolls the magazine up and twists her hands around it, then unfurls it and returns to the reading.
He takes the last hit off the cigarette and drops the butt into the bottle. He blows the smoke he’s just inhaled out in a long stream that is caught by a current from the open window and sent back towards her.
“That really stinks,” she says.
He grunts and pushes the pack of cigarettes off the pillow.
“That really fucking stinks,” she says. “Couldn’t you smoke outside?”
He rolls over and slides up against her, drifting his arm over her stomach.
“You could at least stop smoking in bed.”
He rubs her stomach lightly, his fingertips playing around her rib cage, moving up towards her breasts, and then back just as he begins to feel the swelling.
“Quit,” she says, picking up his hand and thrusting it aside. “I’m trying to read.”
He moves still closer to her and runs his fingers up her leg and underneath her boxer shorts.
She drops the magazine in the crack between the bed and the wall. “You wanna fuck.”
He turns over on his back and clasps his hands over his chest.
“You wanna fuck because you know after tomorrow you ain’t going to for a while.” She snorts derisively. “Is that it, you wanna fuck?”
He goes for her mouth to kiss her, guileful in his eyes. She pushes his face away with her palm. “Well,” she says, “you shouldn’t have been so careless fucking.” She gets up and turns off the light, then steps out of the room to the kitchen for a glass of water. When she returns to the bed he’s lying naked and erect.
“Go to sleep,” she says. She takes a drink of the water and sets the glass at the foot of the bed. “You get no pussy tonight. And you know you won’t be getting any for a couple weeks after.”
He stands and flips the light on.
She purses her lips and breathes in and out hard. “You’re not even really horny,” she says. “You just want to get one in before tomorrow.”
He lies still.
“Fuck you,” she says, puts an arm over her eyes, and attempts sleep. He seizes her boxer shorts and pulls them down to her knees.
“Alright,” she says, “you wanna fuck.” She pulls her boxers off, then her underwear. He turns the light out.
She waits for him to get back in the bed. “Use a condom,” she says.
His face contorts inquisitively. His hand roams over and clutches a breast.
“You’re going to use a condom,” she says again.
I’d like to tell the truth, but I don’t remember much.
I might have changed the names, but that shouldn’t detract from any truth. My uncle might not have been my uncle, but he was my hero. I own a picture he painted. It doesn’t hang in my apartment. He’s still one of my heroes.
I woke up this morning and I couldn’t breathe. I haven’t seen the man who might be my father since I was fifteen. I saw him him every day, I need to see him now. I awoke this morning and he was stuck in my head.
I don’t even have a fucking picture.
I want to tell the truth, but I don’t remember it. I have fragments and I fill in the rest. I hope you can understand that. It might not have been so brutal, I might have invented this scene and all similar, but I saw everything I saw.
I awoke this morning and it was everything this morning was.
I ate Ramen and drank coffee. I turned on the radio and it was nothing to me. I got dressed and went to a shit restaurant where I wash dishes.
At the job I had to talk to people and I had no idea what to say. I thought about getting home and writing a story that told the truth.
I woke up this morning and all I wanted was to tell the truth, but everyone I met stopped me. I waded through person after person who looked on fire with ache. They met me with lies and self mutilation. They bored me into a dumb senseless stupor with their drama and their own scenes. Someone offered me a line in the bathroom.
I might have done it.
I awoke this morning and I had something to say. I drank a cup of coffee and I wrote some of it down.
Now I’m home after the shit job. I’ve got to get this finished before I can stare at the walls and get drunk enough to pass out.
I don’t have the least bit of interest in my own scene, let alone anyone else’s. Another dripping fist, another random word. I’ve heard them all and even said a few. This piece would probably funnier if I switched just one word for one other.
So I might have. I won’t let them despise me for that. I see the
way they live.
I woke up this morning and I had a hangover because that’s the only way I can sleep.
And for the record I’m not kept awake by any tortured visions. No deep pain to keep consciousness rolling. Sometimes I just need an alternative route to rest.
I need to remember that next time.
It’s only vodka.
It’s only a hangover.
the world in concise terms
by sydney anderson
a mini dictionary of useless and vastly important words
by me
aardvark - a creature that sucks up things that aren’t cool and uses them for food. wow. the destruction of crap in order to survive. also one of the ugliest animals ever.
AIDS - a disease which no one understands. the doctors can’t find a cure, the infected don’t know why it happened to them, and the ignorant think that gays and lesbians have cooties.
anvil - a carton weight dropped on someone’s head for laughs. wish i could do that to people. it’s meant to hurt them, i guess, but the cartoon characters are always in perfect shape by the beginning of the next scene. ah, realism in television.
apple - something that’s supposed to keep the doctor away. fiber, i guess, as well as just eating something good for you instead of super-processed, refined, bleached, reconstituted shit. still don’t know how spraying the apple orchards with chemical pesticides, then covering the fruits with wax for shine is supposed to be good for you,but there are a lot of things i don’t understand, which you’ll soon understand.
condom - a zip-lock baggie for a penis. however, you can’t seal it with a yellow-and-blue-make-green zipper-gripper. *Fun gag: put a lubricated condom on a door knob.
cervix -
gelatin - the spare parts, including bones and connective tissue, of assorted animals, including horses, pigs and cows. this delectable, delicious delicacy can be found in such unobtrusive treats as jello and gummi bears.
heaven - a place for souls to go after they die (note: this is a myth). though there are many interpretations, some include streets of gold, or a separate heaven for your pets (though these same people are more than happy to eat other animals), or a place where you can see your dead grandmother again. my question: do you go to heaven in the condition you were in when you die, i.e., if your death entailed dismemberment, would your body be separated in heaven for eternity? do babies spend eternity as cooing, pooping vegetables?
money - something all artist claim to hate. (if they won the lottery, they’d swear they never said it.)
nirvana - (1) a good band. (2) a fantasy-state of perfection.
police - fat men with moustaches who wear tight blue uniforms and speak as if they are entirely uneducated. Note: they are dangerous; they also carry guns. Police serve two functions: to hand out traffic tickets, which make them inherently evil, and to arrive at the scene of the crime too late to offer any real assistance and to merely harass the victim so they feel victimized twice in one day.
poopy -
redneck - though seemingly everywhere and quite annoying, it is difficult to define a redneck. you can spot a redneck if (1) they live in a trailor; (2) they have a front lawn with: (a) appliances, (b) many junk cars; (3) they are missing teeth; (4) they are drinking coors beer, (5) they think wrestling is real. they congregate at (1) monster truck rallies, (2) wrestling matches (of course). note: their shotguns make them dangerous (but not their brains).
religion - a belief system created and/or perpetuated by a society to explain what happens when people die, because (1) they’re too afraid to become worm food, or (2) people need something to be afraid of in order to be good to others. note: it still usually doesn’t work.
the secret side of the fence
by catherine wright
“Come with me, Ruby, let’s go for a ride,” Ruby’s father said one day after school. It was spring, and he was in a good mood.
“Where?” Ruby said.
“Never mind.” He jingled his keys in his pocket. “Just come. Put your coat on.”
She didn’t move. Last time he’d taken her somewhere he left her with some women in a house with an old fashioned clothes washer which crushed children’s fingers if they got near it. One of the women had offered her a homemade donut. It was small and greasy and Ruby wanted it so bad her mouth filled with spit. But she’d taken her head. She didn’t know why she was there or where her father was. The women wore black and smelled like steam.
Her father looked at Ruby, surprised. “Don’t you want to go for a ride?”
She never got to be with him alone, so she put her coat on.
****
They stopped at a gas station with a broken sign. “Have you met Mr. Phelps?” he said as they got out of the car. “You know Mrs. Phelps and old Mrs. Phelps. The two ladies down there?” He pointed down the hill towards the house with the crusher washing machine. “This is old Mrs. Phelps’ son. Hello! Hello!” He pushed open a dirty door.
First a man’s work boots, then his green legs o
ozed out from under a car. He smiled slowly at Ruby’s father.
Her father touched Ruby. “The youngest. Hey-how’s your mother? This one’s been there.” He rapped her on the head with his finger.
Mr. Phelps said, “pre-e-tty good,” and smiled like he was getting a lot of attention. Then he rummaged for some old pipes and showed them to ruby’s father. They didn’t fit together and had big rust spots. Ruby’s father shrugged and said sadly, “Let ‘em go.”
Back in the car her father said: “That’s stop number one. Now we go to the heating plant. Have I ever taken you to the heating plant?”
“No.” She imagined a big, warm plant growing in water.
He swung the car down a hill and parked by a gray cement building, and a man covered with black powder came out.
“Hey-” Her father shook the man’s hand and put his hand on Ruby’s head. “Have you met the youngest?”
The man had sad eyes. He put out a sooty hand and Ruby slowly put hers in it. After he shook it she looked at her hand.
“Do you know what that is?” her father said.
“No.”
“That’s what Walter uses to keep the school warm. It’s coal. Did you know that?”
Then she realized that the tall smokestack she saw from her house came from this building and heated the school. “How come I never knew that?” They laughed. They talked about coal and oil and people who didn’t know enough. Ruby waited.
“Are we going home now?” she asked back in the car.
“We’re only half done. Aren’t you having fun?” He looked over in surprise. “I tell you what. One more stop and we’ll go home.”
They parked in front of a big flag and her father winked at her and inside he whisked her through a swinging door.
She was sure they shouldn’t be there. He always did things he wasn’t supposed to do. She edged up against the swinging door while he talked to some women behind a fence that looked like a bank. Her father was on the secret side of the fence. The women were laughing and her father acted like he was telling them something scandalous. Ruby hung by the door and wished he’d hurry up before they were caught. But he turned and yelled, “Ruby! What are you doing over there? Come meet these nice women.”
Everyone behind the fence and in front of it looked at Ruby. She edged over. A woman touched her hair and said, “Aren’t you lucky to have hair like your Daddy.”
Outside, she told him he wasn’t supposed to go through those doors.
He laughed. “Ruby! I’ve been visiting these women for years. They’re my friends. Can’t you tell?”
She was silent.
He started up the car. “Don’t you see I make it a point to know people? Some people go around like this.” He put a finger on his nose and pushed it up so he looked like a pig.
She smiled.
“Do you know what I mean? It means someone’s a snob. But I don’t like snobs. You can go anywhere in this town, Ruby, and tell people who you are, and I bet they’ll know you. You have to reach out, you can’t live in a cocoon. Your mother doesn’t always realize that but it’s true.”
Her father started singing. Ruby relaxed and felt the car safe and rumbling around her. She felt her father’s big, singing presence, and watched the dorms and fields go slowly by. Catnip mountain came into view in her window.
Her father must be right. She shouldn’t have worried. She turned to look at him, at his big face and red hair. He was thinking about her mother too. “She’s not a snob,” Ruby said.
He looked at her. “You don’t think so?”
“No,” Ruby said, “not exactly.”
He seemed to be listening, to be thinking. “No,” he agreed, “she’s not a snob. That’s not it.”
****
Ruby’s mother’s long, pale hands moved across the pages of books at night, and her voice took on the low shapes of trolls and wolves. When Ruby was upset, her mother said, “I know, I know”, with deep, awful meaning.
On her seventh birthday her mother took Ruby to a toy store. Ruby was astonished to see so many toys in one place. She chose an enormous bouncing ball with a plastic ring around it you jumped on. It was the first time she’d picked out a toy like that and she clutched the box to her chest.
They went to a diner for lunch. She had never been out to lunch with her mother. They sat in a soft, sticky booth eating french fries and cheese sandwiches. Then her mother said they were doing something even more special.
They drove to a tar papered building that was dark inside and sat in a row of chairs. It reminded Ruby of waiting for her mother while she measured the arms and legs of the reform boys at the school for costumes. She slouched in her seat.
When the curtains lifted, a room of straw burst out with a girl in a red dress talking to an old man, and the girl cried when he left. Then a little man darted in. Ruby forgot about the hard seats.
When the play ended, she was stunned to find herself in a dark room full of people and chairs. As they walked out, her mother hummed. Ruby made a noise in her throat. Her mother said, “Did you like the play?”
Ruby burst into tears.
>”What’s the matter? Did it scare you?”
Ruby sobbed.
“Ruby, tell me, please.”
She couldn’t stop. She waved her arms to try and tell her mother.
Her mother smiled. “Oh, I know,” she said.
On the way home Ruby asked whey they’d never gone there before.
“They were visiting actors-and actresses,” her mother explained. “They travel around the country and put plays on in different towns.”
“They’re leaving””
“They have to. Other people want to see the p
The were the most special, wonderful people in the whole world, and Ruby wished she could make them stay. But she understood other people wanted to see the play. “How come more people don’t do that? What those actors do?”
“I was part of a traveling theater once,” her mother said dreamily. “Before I was married. But your Aunt Melanie was the one who did it for years. She directed her own company. She was probably the first woman to do that. I remember my parents being very upset that she was gallivanting around the country with no money, sleeping on trains. She got sick in Louisiana, from exhaustion I think, and my father went and got her.” Her mother paused. “She gave it up after that.” Her voice got a familiar tightness. “It’s too bad.”
“I want to do that,” Ruby said quickly.
Her mother turned to her. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to do something practical, no matter what your father says. You should do something you love. That feeds the imagination.” Her fingers gripped the steering wheel. Her shoulders tensed.
Ruby stared across the long car seat at her. She studied her mother’s pale face and dark hair against a wide, moving landscape.
****
After that, Ruby hung around the theater at the reform school. She made a nest in the seats with her books and toys.
One boy offered to read her a story, and then he played tag with her in the back lobby. After that Ruby looked for him, and they played between the acts when he came on.
“Don’t go far,” her mother warned. She was busy sewing and measuring, collecting props and gluing broken ones.
The boy asked Ruby to play hide and seek in the fieldhouse on the other side of campus. Her father had forbidden her to go there because he said it was just for the boys. Ruby thought it was really because the school hadn’t used his plans for building it. She and her friend Kate went there on weekends, and no one had said anything to them. So she rode her bike there. The gym was empty and they played hide and seek. When it was the boy’s turn, Ruby couldn’t find him.
He motioned to her from the women’s bathroom. He waved her in and then locked the door. “I have to ask you something, Ruby.” He knelt down. “I’m studying to become a doctor and I noticed something might be wrong with you. I want to help you. Will you let me help you?”
She took a step back. Her parents had told her not to play with the boys. “What’s wrong with me?”
“I’m not sure, I need to check. We’ll stop if you say no.” He looked concerned.
“Are you really a doctor?” She thought the boys were just students.
“I will be. I’m almost one.”
She was worried something was wrong with her. She took off her clothes like he asked and was surprised when he took off his clothes. “Why are you taking off your clothes?”
“I need to in order to check you. Could you lay down on the floor? On your back?”
She lay down. He appeared over her like he was doing push-ups, and his big red penis touched her leg. She froze. He said, “I need to put this inside you, and I’m going to pee just a little bit.”
She eyed it. It was huge. “I don’t want to do this.” Her voice shook. “I want to go.”
“It’ll just take a minute. It’s for you, I’m worried about you.”
“I want to go,” she said, louder.
It took forever to put her clothes on.
He said, dressing quickly, “It’s alright, I think you’re okay.”
He unlocked the bathroom door and she ran for the outdoors and jumped on her bike and pedaled as fast as she could, knowing something awful had happened.
He pulled up on his bike, next to her. “You won’t tell anyone will you? We’re still friends, aren’t we?”
She pedaled so hard her lungs hurt. But she couldn’t outpedal him. He was talking, begging. She didn’t look at him.
She ran to find her mother and her mother took her upstairs and sat her down on her bed. “What did he do?”
Ruby squirmed. She wasn’t used to having her mother look at her so closely. She looked down at the bedspread. “He asked me if he could pee-inside me.”
Her mother stiffened.
Her brother Toby stomped up the stairs with a bunch of boys. “Mom? MOM!!”
Ruby looked at Toby in the door, but her mother didn’t seem to hear him.
“Mom?” he said.
Her mother’s body was rigid. Without looking at Toby she said, “What? Can’t you see we’re talking?”
“He has a question,” Ruby said. She felt sorry for him. All his friends were standing behind him looking at their mother.
“I just want to know-”
“I don’t know!” their mother cried. “Do whatever you want!”
Ruby looked down at the floor as the boys went quiet and shuffled off.
Her mother turned her back to her. “So tell me what he did.”
Ruby swallowed. “He said there was something wrong with me and he could make it better, but when he-he-”
“He what?”
“He asked me to lie on the floor, but it was cold and when he got near me I-” Her mother’s tension overwhelmed her.
“You’ve got to tell me Ruby. Tell me what he did.”
“I wanted to go home.”
“Did he do anything?”
“He wanted to pee in me but . . . I didn’t want him to.”
“But did he?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Did he touch you?”
“He didn’t touch me. He let me go home.”
Her mother sagged against the wall. “Oh thank God, Oh thank God.”
****
That night her mother dressed her in a dress and told her that the boy who they thought had taken her into the bathroom was coming over. Ruby was supposed to tell her if it was
Ruby waited with her mother in the kitchen until her father came home. She heard voices in the living room. “Now go out and look at him,” her mother said. She pushed Ruby towards the door
There was a man in a black suit at the far end of the living room. His hair was slicked down. He didn’t look up, and she couldn’t see his face clearly across the room.
She went back to her mother and said, “I can’t tell if it’s him.”
“What do you mean you can’t tell? Go back out and look again. This is important, Ruby, you have to.”
“I can’t just stand there,” Ruby whimpered.
“Pick out a book. Sit down to read, and just glance up at him.”
It felt strange to Ruby to look at a book while the boy who had almost peed in her was in the room. It was strange to pretend that nothing had happened. It felt wrong to wear a party dress. It didn’t make sense that he was in a suit with his hair slicked back. But she walked back out to the living room and took a book off the shelf. She walked stiffly in her dress to a chair and opened the book, and peeked over at the man. She still couldn’t tell if it was him.
She went back in to her mother. “I think that’s him.”
The next day her mot
her said that he was expelled from school. “He did a very bad thing. He shouldn’t have tried to touch you. Don’t you ever let one of the boys-any boy or man-touch you.”
“But how do you know it was him?” Ruby felt anxious about that. Her mother was good with costumes, but when it came to finding out who someone really was, Ruby wasn’t sure she trusted her.
“He confessed,” her mother said.
Ruby imagined a meeting in which the boy was surrounded by men from the school, questioning him. She felt sorry for him. She felt relieved.
What happened to her made waves at the school, little ripples that came back to Ruby, disguised.
Her friends, Drew and Kate, whose parents were teachers, said they weren’t allowed out anymore without a grown up. Her own parents whispered at night and stopped when Ruby or her brothers walked into the room. Her bother Abe said they were thinking of quitting their jobs and moving, all because of Ruby. He said he’d heard them talking about it.
Ruby wondered what they said. No one said anything to her. She wondered if they ought to tell her what to think about it all. She wondered it they told her brothers her mother was a snob. She wondered if her father knew her mother wanted to be a traveling actress.
No one said.
Because of the timely nature of the 1996 current themes of the Political News stories in this article, cc&d is not including the Political News section in this online web page.
Poetry
Page 133
J. Speer
Life in Paria, Utah, was calm and uneventful until Raymond Manning arrived. He played guitar and sang original tunes at night. We burned boards off the sidewalk from the old movie set for our campfire.
His motive for playing music was to capture an audience. He had strong ideas he wanted to convey to people and he realized expressing himself through music was stronger than the written or spoken word.
He was greatly encouraged by his grandmother. She still had her driver’s license but had stopped driving. Raymond driver her to the store and waited in the car as she pushed her shopping cart up and down the aisles, matching coupons with products. He practiced his cord changes while he waited in the car.
She insisted that he serenade her after he unloaded her groceries. She did not want to hear his protest songs. She enjoyed songs like “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Rocky Top”. He tried to introduce her to recent music, especially the late Yardbirds lineup with two lead guitarists: Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. But she rejected that as a devil’s brew.
One day she felt very spunky and wanted to drive herself to the store. Raymond did not consider this a good idea. Before she stopped driving, she had knocked down two mail boxes and almost ran over a lady pushing a perambulator. He felt she was lucky to call it quits before having to file insurance claims or incur extensive medical bills. The idea of her behind the wheel again was frightening. But he knew if he negated her freed
om of choice she would be on the road again in half no time.
He encouraged her by changing the oil and filling the tank up with high octane gas. This startled her because she expected resistance. He even suggested she drive at night to avoid traffic.
Raymond secretly had her car set upon blocks. He rounded her up one dark night and offered to accompany her as she drove the car. She was reluctant but he hustled her out to the driveway and helped her into the driver’s seat. She was nervous and didn’t realize the car was propped up. She started the car and shifted it into drive. Raymond directed her.
“Step on it, granny. Stop here. Turn left. Turn right. Look out. You almost hit that kid on a bike.”
After ten minutes of “driving”, she wanted to park it. He directed her back home. He helped her out of the car and into her room. She was a bit shaky after the experience and never talked about driving again. Raymond continued to rib her with comments like: “Hey, granny, let’s make a cross country trip. We can take turns driving.”
another god-damned easter poem
by ray heinrich
most of you was naked
i
on the other hand
was getting close
to the end of the conveyer belt
dumping us off into the abyss
or
into all the chocolate we’d ever want
but
there was no way to find out
which
it was
it seems that way with us
all of us who vowed
to always sleep naked under the same sheet
now you can walk up on the proverbial street
and ask either of us this question
and get a reply like you’d expect
from nazis at nuremburg
or commies before HUAC
or some poor queer bastard
needing a break from a judge of 85 who knows
this pervert should be damned
i can’t help any of this
i tell myself i got to take a shower
and wash all this off for an hour or two
wash the sins like the girl called christ
(she was in drag)
that died
or didn’t
a few days from now
i have no idea what to make of all that
these people come to my door
and tell me one thing
and after 3am on TV
some other people tell me ten other things
but all of them
want me to send my money
where can i find christ
so i can give it directly to him?
will it burn my hands when i do this?
will i perish in fire for some vile perversion
that i forgot about?
or will i be forgiven?
i really need to be forgiven
like everyone i know needs to be forgiven
for watching the starving people on TV
for truely feeling compassion
for about 15 seconds
till the next commercial tells me
to buy corn chips
and I WILL
oh god i promise I WILL
buy them
and eat each one savoring it
as it changes to YOU my CHRIST
changes on this EASTER of remembrance
changes to the flesh of the flesh i am eating
and grows large in me
i sometimes think of the child i am to bear
of my mother telling me
i could never do this because i was a boy
but i never could believe her
and i refuse to this day
i will become large with my savior
i will give birth to some salvation
and the truth that has always escaped me
shall be evident to this child
which i will press from me
in pain and victory
like the rock
upon which all that follows will be built
group dynamic
by michael mcneilley
he runs from his mother
but she is not he
r
she chases her father
but I am not him
I pull the gun
from my mouth
and point it
at you
silence means consent
by michael mcneilley
we take our argument elsewhere
and as the door shuts behind us
she sponges up the anger
brushes out its bristled fur
and feeds it chocolates and apologies
anticipating our return
visiting hour
by michael mcneilley
the rain paints a glow
around each arc light
high above the yard
like haloed harvest moons
and water drips and sparkles
on the chain links.
the moms are not
on average bad-looking -
one in tight knit pants
another with flowing red hair.
they leave one at a time.
they do not speak.
then a mom and a dad
come out together
gesturing against
the glaring dark
their mutual laughter
incongruous
but their faces harden
as they divide toward
separate cars.
and the door buzzes out
another mom who turns the corner
and I see the common feature -
a stiff set to the jaw
eyes somehow unfocused
and a walk too quick
not brisk but more as if
afraid they might begin
to run.
one or two attempt a proud
look of self confidence
but their eyes betray -
shadows surround them
from the many lights -
they walk in pools of shadows.
and you turn the corner
past the red sign that reads -
Warning! Juvenile Detention -
framed by lights and barbed wire
you are momentarily
unfamiliar.
your face in that same set
like some sort of stroke victim -
your eyes pools of sorrow
and I spill this sad cup
of coffee that was all
I thought to bring you.
you stand there in
the shadow of the car -
out of the lights nothing
in your hands and we wait
to look each other
in the eye
and watch instead
the rainy blacktop
and the one short shadow
you cast now -
the size of a
small boy.
and glancing back together
we must look away again -
look up to see
the moon has built
a fence
against the stars.
C A R T I L A G E S
BY PAUL L. GLAZE
True Be Our Legs Of Two.
Cartilage’s Of The Knee Cap.
These Are Great, But Very Few
As Age Makes Our Knees Nap.
Truly It Is A Shame
When We Wear Them Out.
But Who Is To Blame
As We Race And Run About.
Injury Is The Common Cause,
We Play And Enjoy Our Game.
This Expansion Of Natures Laws,
Once again, Who Is To Blame?
We May Live Again Someday,
Who Knows How Life Does Track.
I Only Hope To Find Away
To Bring Some Extras Back !
THE CEILING FAN
By Paul L. Glaze
That fan up in the ceiling
Really reminds me of me.
It’s moving kind of fast,
But going nowhere, don’t you see.
Them blades are really spinning
Going round and around.
They ain’t going nowhere
But wearing them self’s down.
The fan up in the ceiling
Shows me life’s not really fair.
Cause me and that old fan,
Are just blowing out Hot Air !
Chimes Of Times
Paul L. Glaze
{ Losing A
Re-Election Bid }
A Politician Becomes A Musician
His Office Is The Instrument He Plays.
Its Music Is Soothing And Exotic.
They Revolve In Its Rapturous Phase.
When There Is A Voter Separation
Terrible Thoughts Their Mind Displays.
A Sense Of Instant Desperation
Of Whatsound Of Music Plays
In Their Post Political Days
They Will Secure Then Endure
A Rebirth And Back To Earth
As A Human In A Natural Daze
And Be Forced To Live As Normal
The Rest Of Their Natural Days.
At This Date,
They Now Have Met,
A Fate So Usually Cruel,
Called, Ballot Box Death
They Fall Into Hell
After They’ve Fell.
And Spend Their Time
Where Us Human’s Dwell!
C O L O R S
By Paul L. Glaze
(All Souls Are Colorless)
I Am Pleased I Was Born A Pure And Perfect White.
I Would Not Like To Have Worn The Color Of The Night.
Was There Something I Did To Select This Sacred Shade.
Perhaps I Hid From The Ethic Birth Parade.
I Do Not Know If White Was My Personal Selection.
But Wherever I Go, It Receives Fond Affection.
We Whites Have Ordained Ourselves To Be Superior.
Therefore All Others Must Be Inferior.
The Color Of Ones Skin Is How We Pick And Choose.
By Its Lightness We Win, By Its Darkness We Lose.
It Is Somewhat Nice When White Is Our Precious Skin.
Then We Pay Our Price When It Turns Dark Once Again.
We Would Discover If We Only Take The Time
The Color We Would Uncover Is Only A State Of Mind.
Be Careful With Colors And Not Wear Them With Vanity.
For These Same Colors May Be Used To Test Our Sanity.
It Is Important We Be Fair To All Colors We Chance To Meet.
Those Colors We May Wear. Our Next Trip Down Life’s Street.
There Is A Feeling If You Dislike A Certain Color Tract
It Will Have A Revealing
When Your Spirit Travels Back.
Many Colors Fate Has Arranged As We Live Thru Various Stages.
These Colors Are Changed As We Live Through Out The Ages !
COLORS
{ All Souls Are Colorless }
Paul L. Glaze {C}1995
I Am Pleased I Was Born
A Pure And Lily White.
I Wouldn’t Like To Have
Worn The Color Of The Night.
Was There Something I Did
To Select This Sacred Shade.
Perhaps I Ran And Hid
From The Ethic Birth Parade.
I Do Not Know If White
Was My Personal Selection.
But Wherever I’d Go,
It Receives A Fond Affection.
Whites Have Thus Ordained
Ourselves To Be Superior.
Therefore All Others
Must Be Inferior..
The Color Of Ones Skin
Is How We Pick And Choose.
By Its Lightness WeWin,
By Its Darkness We Lose.
It Is Very Nice When
White Is Our Precious Skin.
Then We Pay The Price When
It Turns Dark Once Again.
We Would Surely Discover
If We Only Take The Time
The Color We Would Uncover
Is Only A State Of Mind!
Be Careful With Your Colors
Don’t Wear Them With Vanity.
For These Same Colors May
Be Used To Test Our Sanity.
It Is Important We Be Fair
To Colors We Chance To Meet.
Those Colors We May Wear,
Our Next Trip On Life’s Street
There Is A Certain Feeling
If You Dislike A Color Tract
It Will Have A Close Revealing
When Your Spirit Travels Back.
Many Colors Fate Has Arranged
As We Live Thru Many Stages.
These Colors Are Changed
As We Live Through Out
The Ages !
after 25 years we’re here
by michael estabrook
rehashing high school,
weightlifting and gymnastics, his
dogs, my hamsters, his sisters,
my brothers. Over the years
so much life has flowed
through, over and around us like
a grand unstoppable impatient
river. And we’re different, we’ve
grown, changed and learned, but
then again we haven’t.
Buildings
by michael estabrook
buildings always buildings and I’m lost in them
. . . in a skyscraper with fast moving elevators that don’t stop that go up
to the roof and beyond the roof and I’m alone in there in this small
all-glass skyscraper elevator and I can’t get out . . .
. . . in this Victorian mansion with hidden rooms and musty-smelling
crawlspaces and pantries I’m in the attic climbing in and out windows being
chased by something dark and heavy and hairy through the attic out onto the
roof back into the attic again and again . . .
. . . in a sprawling dusty farmhouse long endless crooked hallways rusty
smell of damp grain . . .
. . . in a giant college classroom building wide stairways alcoves echoing
alcoves windows tiny windows that peer out over an empty quad and I can’t
find my classroom it’s exam time and I’m late and I haven’t been to this
classroom in months I don’t know why I think I’ve simply forgotten this class
and I’m searching up and down the wide stairways alone in the alcoves peering
out the empty windows I can’t find my classroom . . .
in my dreams I’m always in buildings lost in buildings in my dreams I’m lost
in buildings
dear Rachel,
by michael estabrook
But actually there isn’t a whole
lot to say about me. I suppose if I had
it to do all over again I’d become
a Marine Biologist, specialize in ecology
and in environmental issues,
maybe be on the Company Inspection
Team, shut down some of these big
damn impersonal corporations that seem truly
to enjoy polluting the hell out of the planet.
I’d try to explain to people that
if they ruin the Earth, well there simply
isn’t anyplace else to live.
But in the meantime, I’ll just
keep on working, trying
to make some money
seeing as I have 3 children to put
through college; will have 2 in
this coming year, thought I had it knocked
too, had identified where the money
would be coming from,
my daughter having chosen
a college that was only $15,000 a year
and because she’s a serious student
she got $5,000 in scholarship money,
but then at the
11th hour she decides to go
to a better school, Bentley College,
one of the best in
the country for business which is
what she wants to major in, and bang
just like that we go from $5,000 per
semester to $11,000 per semester so
it’s is back to the
drawing board in search of funds,
maybe I’ll get myself that part-time job
I always wanted, the one
in Sears or Taco Bell.
birth of another tragic bureaucrat
by laurie calhoun
shredded aluminum cans
piled into mounds
to make sculptured
of a face
all cut up
into sharp slices
by a big heavy metal machine
larger than life
anything big is thrown
into a compactor,
reduced finally to a cubr
the general
by laurie calhoun
pentagonal head
filled with calcified
pentagonal brains
that can’r change
only mutilate and destroy
the pegs which don’t fit
in pentagonal holes
with extreme prejudice
by laurie calhoun
The flowers were planted
in rich black earth filled
red clay pots. They clinked
together when the tremor
came through, which disturbed
the madman, who took them
one by one and hurled them
at his big red brick house.
The resultant crashes were much
louder than the original
annoying sound, but somehow
satisfyingly final, to him, at the time.
carol brown
E-mail Carol 2080@aol.com
Who’s memo is it anyway? *
you ask me to write a pleasing, mild-mannered direct order
expecting it to sound like sugar coated desert
wanting acceptance from those over whom you lord
with no understanding at all of their feelings
perhaps with more, far more perception of their nature
than i could ever be capable of..
who made you king?
i wonder where is it written that your word is law?
oh to be so correct, so perfect all-knowing
what’s best for everyone man
it must be a tremendous burden to bear
the fate of the world in your mind
in your mind
so i write
(*This was written by the Asst Dir. of the campus security dept. A long time friend, former NYPD Lieutenant, who has been the inspiration and driving force behind my starting to write verse. The above was written as a result of his run-in with a (simon legree) boss you know the type! Smile and stick the knife in!!) My friend’s nick name is “Warlock” he calls me”Da’ Witch” (Bronx accent for “The Witch” -smile
* Feline*(also by Warlock)
If cats had lips
would they play
the piccollo?
Dreams-Warlock’s Haiku (I wrote these with the Warlock looking over my shoulder and a bottle of Pinot Grigio(Peanut Gregory-Bronx dialect)
***
Autumn’s shiver
Winter’s approaching kiss
Summer’s hot dreams.
Flowing waters
echo moaning
a cat smiles.
Heartbeats in the dark
short, deep breaths
moist internal quivering.
Campus nights
waking dreams
a quaking moon.
leaves rustle
soft indecent breeze
erect anticipation.
Cat’s tongue
licking hot skin
Disires’heat
Captivated with Regards
By Peter Scott
I find myself thinking about you
With a blanket of
Empty perceptions
Reason eludes me
Yet continue do I bask
In your sudden existence
I find myself calculating
The chance of meeting
When desire surges with strength
In us both
I know not the color of your eyes
Amongst the enamor shed to your body
Simple painted portrait
Beautiful all the same
On closer inspection
The canvas is more than a mirror
With introspection comes assurance
My dreams will center on you
And they do
Stranger last week
Lover tomorrow
It scares any sense of rationality
To speak so quickly
Of certainty
Divine intervention
Strikes no cord of truth
Perhaps fortuitous nature
And a calm comprehension
Of shared mentality
Excuse my brash assumptions
Or the hopes I suppress
There’s a glint in your eye
A need for this love
Thus I look forward to your call
With open arms
Not commitment
But a quick shuttle to our place
In history.
Carving a New Shadow
By Peter Scott
Attempting another masterpiece
I sit here and stare
Waste my time
Spend my soul
Captive by past success
Paper soiled
Marks in trying
Yet not completed
Not even started
Topics rise
My heart twists
The flesh speaks
“No” I cry
“Regurgitated
Reused and unoriginal”
Standing tall
Shrinking into oblivion
Quicksand under foot
With a last gasp
My fingers touch the clouds
Grabbing with
Desperation lofty and with fluff
Never really with any blessing
Time flies
Or tries
Spinning then fragmenting
Its glass penetrating
Cutting the world
Hour hand turned
A thousand spins lost
Once beautiful
Words and feelings
Analyzed compared with
Perfection
Only human am I, however
Retailing
Commercialized the artist dies
Grandly dreaming
Plotting to be the best
Deformed he becomes
Now he must rhyme
Longing for his
Normal individuality
Crushed to produce
Original, better
Every moment
Shackled without dignity
Moving for life
A decapitated catfish
His maimed twin
First one slice
Then another after that
Still trying
Holding on to spirit
And dream
Life drained out of the dead
Becoming that which is
Defiant
One last push
Back to its river
The river of dreaming creativity
Mangled bones resurface
For the new born flesh
Once a stressed message
Now its son.
Cherished Possession
By Peter Scott
From a deep slumber
I hear the tone of a voice
Residing inside an irate contraption
A little box
That stores your soul
In moments you are too far to touch
And when I need
During those trials and pain
The little box begins to wail
Signaling my sudden salvation
From there
All I must do is open myself to your soul
Lift the receiver
Letting the reassuring touch of your voice
Interplay with the sounds in my head
Making sense of jumbled distortion
Allowing me to make amends with the world
Take a vacation for awhile
Each day
Sometimes even make love to you
In the mind
The box that holds this piece of you
Is practically a religion to me
A connection to the soul
I dearly regret
Parting from the mad box
Like a magic lamp
Where all I must do
Is caress you in the mind
So tenderly
And you will be there
Granting every wish
With a harried smile
Only worrying a bit
As to not spoil me with abandon
I guess the ornery contraption
Works only as a figurehead
Though
For at night
In the woods alone
Whispers cease not a bit
You still run through my nostrils
I see with your eyes
Perceptions are bathed in euphoria
Tinted with the perpetual affects
The residual pleasure of loving you
With every fiber the cosmos has to offer.
City of Armageddon
By Peter Scott
I walk through the barren
Wasteland
Buildings, structures
Husks in the night
Granite scattered
Rebelling what it once was
Charred and dark
Cleansed of support
Relieved of responsibility
Alone
Yet somehow
Masterminding in the greater scheme
Continue as I walk
Structures drained
Fire spewing
Revealing what was
Concealed
Tumbling over
Chaos in a probable place
Altering forms
Defying architecture
Oh so beautiful
Looking north
Skies turn gray
Slapped by icy winds
My head turns down
For not of shame
Only tiredness
Long enough has it gone!
Treading through destruction
Arriving where it began
Over a cliff I gaze
Pit of engulfing darkness
With echo I ask:
“Where has the beauty Gone?”
My body goes limp
But then I see it
In my shadowy footprint
A rose lies still
Almost crushed
Hanging on to every ounce
Playing the light with soft hope
Ever so close I realize
The beauty was always there.
Page 135
J. Speer
When Raymond Manning told me the story of his grandmother driving him around in a car that was propped up on cinder blocks, it reminded me of my grandma.
My abuela never drove a car. She used a horse and buggy until the encroachment of paved roads made it impossible or illegal to use a horse. When the grid pattern of fences and roads were established it precluded even going for a walk unless it was along the side of the road. The practice of pedestrianism was past.
She sold her horse and used her wagon as a flower bed. Her children drove her to church on Sunday and to the farmer’s market on Saturday. She always maintained a large garden for fresh food and to sell and barter vegetables. She grew rows of green chili which needed to be irrigated and aerated. She weeded and kneaded flour for tortillas. Her main job was providing nourishment for eleven children and three grandchildren born of a daughter who died of pneumonia at a young age.
She never learned to speak English. Her children did not speak English until they were enrolled in first grade. No Spanish was allowed at public school.
In good weather my grandmother spent her entire day out of doors. When she rested from hoeing her rows she sat in the shade. She even had a wood stove under a huge cotton wood tree. She exchanged baby sitting services for cords of pine and oak. She collected her kindling from dead branches that fell onto her property. A hatchet was her favorite tool. In her crusted right hand she split wood to fit into the fire trough of the stove. With a hot stove she could prepare seven tortillas at a time, flipping them over with her fingers.
Some summer nights she sat outside in the dark. She did not hook up to electricity. She stayed outdoors until it was time to go to bed. Her last act of the day was to say her rosary, pronouncing the prayers aloud, laying on her back with her head on a pillow.
She always claimed she would die in her sleep. The end came for her after all her children were raised, had joined the military or married and moved out. The end came for her one fall when the harvest was in and the fruit trees had delivered their bounty. The end came at the close of a day of hard work. It was a perfect day with the colors changing and the night turning cool.
My mother found her the next morning, laying on her back, a smile on her face, and the rosary in her hand.
Kid, Japan
chuck taylor
Sakuma park it was by the
red arched bridge over
the Cedar shrounded pond-
stone steps maybe a thousand
years old going up a hill
going nowhere, and your tiny
feet climbing up and down,
up and down, holding my hand
with such sure purpose and I,
tinged with melancholy,
conscious kneeling saying
hold this
hold this
it will not last...
In the Philosophy Monthly section of the v79 May 1996 issue of cc&d, Part 1 of the Unabomber Manifesto was included. Because it is not the entire Manifesto, cc&d is not including the Philosophy Monthly section in this online web page, but we can supply a link to the entire manifesto below:
Enjoy the Unabomber’s Manifesto from the Philosophy link online at Scars.
Poetry Insert
Chapbook
apathy
The crowds were screaming
One side of the stadium
in orange and blue
The other side in red and white
Thousands upon thousands
standing, cheering, doing the wave,
screaming for their favorite team
Pom pons were waving
So were flags, banners,
Not one person was silent
Except for one
He sat between the roaring crowds
his grey shirt spilled with beer
from the overzealous people
next to him
He didn’t care
He just sat there
wondering why these people
enjoyed this so much
getaway
His wife told him that he had to go on
vacation, that he was trying to do too
much work and it was taking a toll on him,
that he was letting wall street put too
much stress on him, that he was
neglecting his family and that he probably
just needed a break. Besides, he had time
coming to him from work and he deserved
it. So the two of them went off on a little
vacation, to a little island where
there is nothing to do, there are no
televisions, there are no telephones,
there is no civilization. “The perfect
getaway from the hustle and bustle
of every day life,” the brochure said.
And it was
They sat on the beach, just a few feet
from the outdoor bar they got their
margaritas from. It was quiet. His wife
glowed in the light of the setting sun.
He thought of wall street, and the work
he had to do. He thought of what he had
to put off doing just to go on this vacation.
What about the Erickson account? Will
he other clients notice he’s gone? Will
the company be able to get along
without him? Probably not, and he had
to sit here, without telephones or even
fax machines. He sat there, turning his
head, looking for signs of life as he knew it
He barely spoke to his wife the entire
time they were on vacation. He couldn’t
think of anything to say. All he could
think about was work, and the problems
that would probably arise because of his
absence. They finally left the resort. He
woke up the next morning in his own
bed (which was too hard), and began
to wonder if the past week was all a dream.
He quickly got dressed, poured a cup of
coffee into his car mug, tucked his b
riefcase under his arm, and took off for work
He got to work early. He found stacks
of paper on his desk, and a pile of messages
on little pink slips of paper. His phone was
already ringing off the hook
His secretary walked in ten minutes later.
“Sorry about all of the work, sir,” she said
“That’s what I get for going
on vacation,” he replied
“Aren’t you glad to be back?”
she said sarcastically
“Yes, I am,”
he said with a sigh
hard of hearing
After Barbara finished the joke, everyone laughed
even her brothers Dave and Brian, who never seemed
to give her credit for anything she said
But then she turned to her father, who sat there
cold and motionless
His arms were crossed; his head was pushed down
into his shoulders
His furrowed brow framed his eyes,
which seemed to stare at her in contempt
“Maybe he didn’t hear you, Barb,”
Dave finally mumbled
“You know he’s hard of hearing.”
leaving
She walked over to the thermostat again.
“It’s hot in here,” she said to him again,
but the temperature still read a cool 68 degrees.
He started complaining to her about something,
like he did before, like he’d do again.
She
walked into the kitchen and started
to splash some cold water on her face.
“Could you get a can of sardines while
you’re in there?”, he said to her.
Without saying a word, she walked to the
front door, picked her denim jacket off
the brass coat rack, grabbed the keys
hanging from the hook, and walked out the door.
She walked a mile and a half in the cold
before getting to the empty field.
Late November brought the first snow,
and bits of ice clung to the ground
in the early December night. She walked
out into the grass and leaves, and
listened to them crack as she moved.
The water she splashed onto her face
before was now frozen. Her ears,
her nose - the skin on her hands and
cheeks - were turning red, then purple.
The tops of her legs hurt from the cold.
She walked to the center of the field.
She sat down in the dirt. She smiled.
She laughed. She watched the moisture
from her breath freeze as soon as it left her
lips. She hurt from the cold. And she laughed.
meant to be
Every day for two years
she thought of him
Every day for two years
she woke up thinking
he was next to her
Every day
when she would open her eyes
she would find nothing
One day he knocked on her door
“I want you to meet my fiancee
This is Marie”
“It’s nice to meet you, Marie
I wish you two the best”
new vacuum cleaner
Elizabeth was only five
she thought she was doing the right thing
She accidentally sucked up the goldfish
when she knocked over the aquarium
as she was vacuuming the floor
She was going to surprise mom and dad
with a clean carpet, but now it’s covered
with aquarium rocks, shattered glass and
fish water
But she had to try to save the fish before
she could clean up the mess, so she poured
water into the vacuum cleaner to try to give
the poor fish something to breathe
Now mom and dad have to get a new carpet,
a new aquarium and a new vacuum cleaner
over my skin with such ease
The satin sheets were stained with blood.
Her face brushed up against the pillow.
The satin cut into her face as she tried to relax,
to stifle the tears. He walked out of the room.
“I always loved spring,” she said as she
leaned over toward the flowerbed. There was no smell.
“I have to tell you something,” he said.
She didn’t listen to him. She touched
the daffodil to bring it closer to her.
The stem sliced her palm. The deep red blood
thickened as it trickled down her wrist.
She looked up. He was gone.
The tears burned into her skin.
The acid left behind a trail of scars
whenever it traced her jaw line.
The memories flooded my mind.
Every day, every hour, every minute,
every second, every moment.
The alcohol didn’t help anymore.
I turned toward the kitchen, went to
the far right drawer, shuffled
through the forks, soup spoons,
butter knives... I found a knife
with a sharp enough edge, not to
kill, but only to hurt. I put
the knife to my wrist. I wanted
to take the memories out of me,
any way I could. I took the tip
of the blade and ran it along
the inside of my wrist. As the
blood began to trickle from the
cut, I put the knife down and
ran my fingers along the cut.
The blood, like silk, glided
over my skin with such ease.
reason to stand
The dying weeping willow
looked like a thin, frail old man
trying to stand in the wind
when he cannot find a reason
to stand
sadness
She looked down at the little kittens
in the box. Her neighbor was trying
to give them away. Why did she have to
knock at the door now? Why did she
have to come along now? Her husband
might get upset if she talks to her
neighbor too long. Something might
give him away. Her neighbor keeps
pushing the box under her nose,
to try to make her look at them.
“If you look at them just once,”
her neighbor was saying,
“you won’t be able to resist them.”
She finally opened her red eyes and
looked down at the box. There were
four grey kittens and one white one.
She looked to the white kitten.
It wasn’t just white, but it was stark
white, as if it had never been touched
by the outer world. Suddenly she
imagined that the kitten grew, and
jumped out of the box, into the air,
landing on her face and tearing
at her flesh. She imagined the bright
white fur turning a dirty deep red
as the silence was broken by her screams.
She closed her eyes, then opened them.
The red in her eyes contrasted
with the paleness of her skin.
A bead of sweat ran down her face.
“No, thank you. I can’t
have them around. I’m sorry.”
sunrise
The last time I actually remembered seeing
the sun rise was at my junior prom<
BR>I was in a car, getting a ride home
All I could think was that the sun was
in my eyes, my dress was uncomfortable,
and that I wanted to go to sleep
But this was different
We just moved into our first apartment
together the night before
He made me dinner after pulling
dishware and candles out of boxes
that were still packed
Dennis called my name
woke me up
“Janet- Janet, get up!!! You have to see this”
I think it was the most beautiful
sunrise the ever existed
I leaned up against the window
while he stood behind me with
his arms wrapped around me
It felt like he would never let me go.
“I didn’t know this apartment came with a view”
surprise
He woke up in the cold room,
just as he had done so many
days before. The room looked
like a hospital room, but that
is what you’d expect in a
retirement home such as this
one. He got up, swinging his
legs to the ground where his
slippers were poised, waiting
for him. His roommate was
still alive. So was everyone
else. The nurses were bring
trays of food to the patients
who couldn’t leave their beds.
They did this every morning,
at 6:45. He walked down the
hall to get a copy of the paper.
The news looked the same.
He want back to his room and
sat down in his bed. Everything
was the same. And he was surprised.
to be different
Everyone was mulling around, making small
talk, laughing, having fun, doing all the things
that people are supposed to do at a well-executed
party. It was his birthday, and there was a ring
of people around him. He was glowing with delight.
She looked at him from across the room and realized
that he might have loved her, but he knew nothing
about her. She looked down at her dress. It was a
strapless red satin dress, with sequins bordering the
top and bottom. She suddenly wanted to be wearing
her flannel and long underwear, sitting by herself
with a book, or a newspaper, or her thoughts.
She just wanted things to be different.
where to go
It was almost sunset, and there
was no one on the beach. She
went there just to see the sunset,
just to try to calm herself down.
She had to get away, she thought.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
His affair. Her job. The kid’s
problems. Her weight. The
vacuuming and dusting. So
she went to the beach.
The waves gently lapped along
the sandy shore, turning golden
in color as the sun’s rays
darkened into a deeper and
deeper red, into purple, into
blue. A light breeze moved
her hair like fingers running
to the back of her head. An
occasional sea gull flew along
the shore. There was no one in
sight. She sat there, momentarily in peace.
The breeze started to feel stronger
and stronger, and she had to
close her eyes from the burn
of the wind and the sand.
The sand ripped into her arms
like tiny needles, piercing her
skin. The waves grew higher
and higher until they sounded
like they were about to land on
top of her. She finally opened
her eyes. Her burning eyes saw
that the waves were still only
lapping on the shore. The sand
had not moved. There was no breeze.
She stood up. She couldn’t
take it anymore. She took off
her shoes and sprinted away
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