Editorial

Hey, kids, just wanted to let you know that children, churches and daddies is branching out into all sorts of other marketing ventures to get the word out about this literary magazine! Included in the plan are infomercials for children, churches and daddies infomercials about the new children, churches and daddies food processors and dehydrators, the new book entitled “children, churches and daddies: zen and the art of literary magazines,” and the new line of children, churches and daddies electric shavers. Also look for children, churches and daddies issues to appear on coffeetables and countertops in such sitcoms and television dramas as Friends, ER, Melrose Place and Talk Soup (John Henson is planning to use this issue as scrap paper in a show in July). So come show your support for children, churches and daddies by visiting the website, or email us . Send poetry, prose and short stories, preferrable electronically, and avoid that five o’clock shadow with the new children, churches and daddies electric shavers!

Humor

These signs and notices were written in English, but discovered around the world:
In a Tokyo hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please do not read notis.
In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up.
In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. daily.
In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthadox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cometary where the famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
In an Austrian hotel catering to skiiers: Do not perambulate the corridors during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger, roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.
Outside a Hong Kong tailor’s shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
In a Bangkok dry cleaners: Drop your trousers here for best results.
Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking.
In an Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
From the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 150,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. They were executed over the past two years.
A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping sight that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests for the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee to miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?
In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today - no ice cream.
In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
On a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.
On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.
In a Norweigen cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
In a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.
In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find that they are best in the long run.
From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When a passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
A Mojorcan shop entrance sign: English well speaking.
Another Mojorcan shop entrance sign: Here speeching American.

AMERICAN SEX LAWS CURRENTLY ON THE BOOKS
donated anonymously from the net
* In the quiet town of Connorsville, Wisconsin, it’s illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm.
* It’s against the law in Willowdale, Oregon, for a husband to curse during sex.
* In Oblong, Illinois, it’s punishable by law to make love while hunting or fishing on your wedding day.
* No man is allowed to make love to his wife with the smell of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath in Alexandria, Minnesota. If his wife so requests, law mandates that he must brush his teeth.
* Warn your hubby that after lovemaking in Ames, Iowa, he isn’t allowed to take more than three gulps of beer while lying in bed with you- or holding you in his arms.
* Bozeman, Montana, has a law that bans all sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown- if they’re nude. (Apparently, if you wear socks, you’re safe from the law!)
* In hotels in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, every room is required to have twin beds. And the beds must always be a minimum of two feet apart when a couple rents a room for only one night. And it’s illegal to make love on the floor between the beds!
* The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.
* An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyoming, specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a store’s walk-in-meat freezer!
* A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts.
* In Norfolk, Virginia, a woman can’t go out without wearing a corset. (There was a civil-service job- for men only- called a corset inspector.)
* However, in Merryville, Missouri, women are prohibited from wearing corsets because “the privilege of admiring the curvaceous, unencumbered body of a young woman should not be denied to the normal, red-blooded American male.”
* It’s safe to make love while parked in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Police officers aren’t allowed to walk up and knock on the window. Any suspicious officer who thinks that sex is taking place must drive up from behind, honk his horn three times and wait approximately two minutes before getting out of his car to investigate.
* Another law in Helena, Montana, mandates that a woman can’t dance on a table in a saloon or bar unless she has on at least three pounds, two ounces of clothing.
* Lovers in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, should avoid satisfying their lustful urges in a parked car. If the horn accidentally sounds while they are frolicking behind the wheel, the couple can face a jail term.
* In Carlsbad, New Mexico, it’s legal for couples to have sex in a parked vehicle during their lunch break from work, as long as the car or van has drawn curtains to stop strangers from peeking in.
* A Florida sex law: If you’re a single, divorced, or widowed woman, you can’t parachute on Sunday afternoons.
* Women aren’t allowed to wear patent-leather shoes in Cleveland, Ohio- a man might see the reflection of something “he oughtn’t!”
* No woman may have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance within the boundaries of Tremonton, Utah. If caught, the woman can be charged with a sexual misdemeanor and “her name is to be published in the local newspaper.” The man isn’t charged nor is his name revealed.

Are You a Guy?
Take This Scientific Quiz to Determine Your Guyness Quotient
1. Alien beings from a highly advanced society visit the Earth, and you are the first human they encounter. As a token of intergalactic friendship, they present you with a small but incredibly sophisticated device that is capable of curing all disease, providing an infinite supply of clean energy, wiping out hunger and poverty, and permanently eliminating oppression and violence all over the entire Earth. You decide to:
a. Present it to the president of the United States.
b. Present it to the secretary general of the United Nations.
c. Take it apart.

2. As you grow older, what lost quality of your youthful life do you miss the most?
a. Innocence.
b. Idealism.
c. Cherry bombs.

3. When is it okay to kiss another male?
a. When you wish to display simple and pure affection without regard for narrow-minded social conventions.
b. When he is the pope. (Not on the lips.)
c. When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino and this is the only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for business reasons, you have to have him killed.

4. What about hugging another male?
a. If he’s your father and at least one of you has a fatal disease.
b. If you’re performing the Heimlich maneuver. (And even in this case, you should repeatedly shout: “I am just dislodging food trapped in this male’s trachea! I am not in any way aroused!”)
c. If you’re a professional baseball player and a teammate hits a home run to win the World Series, you may hug him provided that (1) He is legally within the basepath, (2) Both of you are wearing protective cups, and (3) You also pound him fraternally with your fist hard enough to cause fractures.

5. Complete this sentence: A funeral is a good time to...
a. ...remember the deceased and console his loved ones.
b. ...reflect upon the fleeting transience of earthly life.
c. ...tell the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.

6. In your opinion, the ideal pet is:
a. A cat.
b. A dog.
c. A dog that eats cats.

7. You have been seeing a woman for several years. She’s attractive and intelligent, and you always enjoy being with her. One leisurely Sunday afternoon the two of you are taking it easy- you’re watching a football game; she’s reading the papers-when she suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, tells you that she thinks she really loves you, but she can no longer bear the uncertainty of not knowing where your relationship is going. She says she’s not asking whether you want to get married; only whether you believe that you have some kind of future together. What do you say?
a. That you sincerely believe the two of you do have a future, but you don’t want to rush it.
b. That although you also have strong feelings for her, you cannot honestly say that you’ll be ready anytime soon to make a lasting commitment, and you don’t want to hurt her by holding out false hope.
c. That you cannot believe the Jets called a draw play on third and seventeen.

8. Okay, so you have decided that you truly love a woman and you want to spend the rest of your life with her-sharing the joys and the sorrows, the triumphs and the tragedies, and all the adventures and opportunities that the world has to offer, come what may. How do you tell her?
a. You take her to a nice restaurant and tell her after dinner.
b. You take her for a walk on a moonlit beach, and you say her name, and when she turns to you, with the sea breeze blowing her hair and the stars in her eyes, you tell her.
c. Tell her what?

9. One weekday morning your wife wakes up feeling ill and asks you to get your three children ready for school. Your first question to her is:
a. “Do they need to eat or anything?”
b. “They’re in school already?”
c. “There are three of them?”

10. When is it okay to throw away a set of veteran underwear?
a. When it has turned the color of a dead whale and developed new holes so large that you’re not sure which ones were originally intended for your legs.
b. When it is down to eight loosely connected underwear molecules and has to be handled with tweezers.
c. It is never okay to throw away veteran underwear. A real guy> checks the garbage regularly in case somebody-and we are not naming names, but this would be his wife-is quietly trying to discard his underwear, which she is frankly jealous of, because the guy seems to have a more intimate relationship with it than with her.

11. What, in your opinion, is the most reasonable explanation for the fact that Moses led the Israelites all over the place for forty years before they finally got to the Promised Land?
a. He was being tested.
b. He wanted them to really appreciate the Promised Land when they finally got there.
c. He refused to ask directions.

12. What is the human race’s single greatest achievement?
a. Democracy.
b. Religion.
c. Remote control.

How to Score: Give yourself one point for every time you picked answer “c.” A real guy would score at least 10 on this test. In fact, a real guy would score at least 15, because he would get the special five-point bonus for knowing the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer’s disease and
interview humor
Vice presidents and personnel directors of the one hundred largest corporations were asked to describe their most unusual experience interviewing prospective employees:
- A job applicant challenged the interviewer to an arm wrestle.
- Interviewee wore a Walkman, explaining that she could listen to the interviewer and the music at the same time.
- Candidate announced she hadn’t had lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and french fries in the interviewer’s office.
- Candidate said he never finished high school because he was kidnapped and kept in a closet in Mexico.
- Balding candidate excused himself and returned to the office a few minutes later wearing a headpiece.
- Applicant said if he was hired he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm.
- Applicant interrupted interview to phone her therapist for advice on how to answer specific interview questions.
- Candidate brought large dog to interview.
- Applicant refused to sit down and insisted on being interviewed standing up.
- Candidate dozed off during interview.

The employers were also asked to list the “most unusual” questions that have been asked by job candidates:
- “What is it that you people do at this company?”
- “What is the company motto?”
- “Why aren’t you in a more interesting business?”
- “What are the zodiac signs of all the board members?”
- “Why do you want references?”
- “Do I have to dress for the next interview?”
- “I know this is off the subject, but will you marry me?”
- “Will the company move my rock collection from California to Maryland?”
- “Will the company pay to relocate my horse?”
- “Does your health insurance cover pets?”
- “Would it be a problem if I’m angry most of the time?”
- “Does your company have a policy regarding concealed weapons?”
- “Do you think the company would be willing to lower my pay?”
- “Why am I here?”

Also included are a number of unusual statements made by candidates during the interview process:
- “At times I have the strong urge to do something harmful or shocking.”
- “I feel uneasy indoors.”
- “Sometimes I feel like smashing things.”
- “Women should not be allowed to drink in cocktail bars.”
- “I think that Lincoln was greater than Washington.”
- “I get excited very easily.”
- “Once a week, I usually feel hot all over.”
- “I am fascinated by fire.”
- “I like tall women.”
- “Whenever a man is with a woman, he is usually thinking about sex.”
- “People are always watching me.”
- “If I get too much change in a store, I always give it back.”
- “Almost everyone is guilty of bad sexual conduct.”
- “I must admit that I am a pretty fair talker.”
- “I never get hungry.”
- “I know who is responsible for most of my troubles.”
- “If the pay was right, I’d travel with the carnival.”
- “I would have been more successful if nobody would have snitched on me.”
- “My legs are really hairy.”
- “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Men Versus Women, Part Seven: What She Really Means
At long last... The Men’s Guide to what a woman really means when she says something. Pay close attention (there might be a quiz later).
You want = You want
We need = I want
It’s your decision = The correct decision should be obvious by now
Do what you want = You’ll pay for this later
We need to talk = I need to complain
Sure... go ahead = I don’t want you to
I’m not upset = Of course I’m upset, you moron!
You’re ... so manly = You need a shave and you sweat a lot
You’re certainly attentive tonight. = Is sex all you ever think about?
I’m not emotional! And I’m not overreacting! = I’m on my period.
Be romantic, turn out the lights. = I have flabby thighs
This kitchen is so inconvenient = I want a new house
I want new curtains = and carpeting, and furniture, and wallpaper.....
I need wedding shoes = the other 40 pairs are the wrong shade of white.
Hang the picture there = NO, I mean hang it there!
I heard a noise = I noticed you were almost asleep
Do you love me? = I’m going to ask for something expensive
How much do you love me? = I did something today you’re really not going to like.
I’ll be ready in a minute. = Kick off your shoes and find a good game on T.V.
Is my butt fat? = Tell me I’m beautiful
You have to learn to communicate = Just agree with me
Are you listening to me!? = [Too late, you’re dead.]
Yes = No
No = No
Maybe = No
I’m sorry = You’ll be sorry
Do you like this recipe? = It’s easy to fix, so you’d better get used to it
Was that the baby? = Why don’t you get out of bed and walk him until he goes to sleep.
I’m not yelling! = Yes I am yelling because I think this is important.
All we’re going to buy is a soap dish = It goes without saying that we’re stopping at the cosmetics department, the shoe department, I need to look at a few new pocket books, and OMIGOD those pink sheets would look great in the bedroom and did you bring your checkbook?

...And in response to asking, “What’s wrong?”:
The same old thing = Nothing
Nothing = Everything
Everything = My PMS is acting up
Nothing, really = It’s just that you’re such an asshole
I don’t want to talk about it = Go away, I’m still building up steam

BORN AGAIN, by Ronald MacKinnon Thompson

Act One
The preacher finishes his sermon and pauses. He glares at his little congregation for a moment before speaking.
“The great Reverend Granger Lineweber has honored U8 by accepting my invitation. This will be your chance to be brought to the Lord by one of His finest Apostles.”
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Thirteen year old Roscoe Wheatley shakes his head and thinks, Here we go again.
(Roscoe is skinny, cowlicks leave his hair always in disarray, no matter how hard he tries to beat it down with brush and comb. His Florida tan makes him look healthier than he really i8. He suffers from dreadful attacks of asthma.)
As they leave the church, Aunt Molly grabs his arm and says, “This will be your chance to be Saved. You must not continue to refuse. What if something happened and you weren’t saved?”
(Aunt Molly is in her late forties, but to Roscoe she is old. Her hair is done up in a no-nonsense bun, she is slightly overweight, her face is unremarkably kind.)
Tonight is the first of The Great Lineweber’s revival meetings.
“But Roscoe,” Aunt Molly says, “You promised me you would go up to the altar at the next revival meeting.”
“I don’t want to. I’d feel foolish. I’m afraid.”
Aunt Molly continues her pleading,
Roscoe thinks, After all, she is taking care of me, spending her little income on me. She’s all I have.
Who knows where my mother is? he asks himself, or what man she’s with now? And my father has been so long gone I scarcely remember him.
Roscoe’s face contorts with anguish and tears. He controls himself and says, “O.K., I’ll do it-but I don’t want to.”
Maybe Aunt Molly is right, Roscoe thinks. After all I nearly died twice in the hospital with asthma. I don’t want to go to Hell.
Roscoe has seen the little church many times but now he feels the need to study it again. He pulls his hand away from Aunt Molly’s grasp, puts his hands on his hips and glowers at the church.
Not much of a church, he thinks, comparing it in his mind with the large brick Methodist church nearby, two story, columns, a golden cross, stained glass, and air-conditioning.
This little church is built of unadorned concrete blocks. A cheap wooden cross. Plain glass windows. No air-conditioning.
Only recently a devout carpenter-member of the congregation had built screens for the windows. They kept out the flocks of Florida mosquitoes, but nothing could keep out the little gnats that, when the wind was right, swarmed in to buzz around and bite the Faithful.
Aunt Molly grabs Roscoe by the arm again and says, “What are you gawking at? Time to go in.”
ACT TWO
THE EVANGELIST: (He is tall and thin, his features bold and stern. Perspiration adorns his forehead, but he does not remove his black coat or loosen his narrow black tie)
He holds both arms straight out, palms up offering the congregation the benevolence of God’s Will though His Representative on this poor planet.
Roscoe whispers, “He looks like Abraham Lincoln.”
Aunt Molly replies by holding her forefinger over her lips .
The Evangelist drops his arms to his sides and for a rigid moment looks up and over the heads of the congregation. Then he closes his eyes and clasps his hands before him in long-moments of silent prayer.
He opens his eyes, raises his right hand with his fist clinched and glares with a fiercely determined air and speaks.
His voice begins with the whisper of a creeping cat and ends with the bellow of a charging lion.
“Look into yourselves, you young sinners. Now is the time to meet your Lord, time to be Born Again. Come - Come up to the altar Come now! Or be forever Damned! Our Lord is impatient. He will not wait. Now! Now! Now you must be Saved - or risk Eternal Damnation!”
Roscoe resists Aunt Molly’s tug at his arm. She takes a firm grip, and walks him to the altar.
Two other boys are waiting to be Saved, one about seventeen and the other perhaps nearer twenty, but to Roscoe both are men.
I’m not old enough for this, he thinks.
The Evangelist places his hands on the head of the older boy and prays aloud. Although his voice is piercing, it is also reassuring, promising the Great Love of our Lord.
In a few minutes the boy stands, throws up his arms and shrieks, “I’m saved! I’ve found the Lord. Hallelujah!”
The Evangelist echoes, “Hallelujah,” a brief smile of triumph on his face.
A few more minutes of prayer and laying-on-of-hands, the other boy is Saved and leaves.
Fifteen minutes go by... Thirty minutes go by.
Roscoe remains on his knees on the hard wooden bench. His legs ache from kneeling and he starts to wheeze.
Hope I’m not going to have an asthma attack.
The prayer resounds in waves around him, louder and louder, more and more intense, wave upon wave of passion and piety.
The Evangelist prays. The Evangelist’s wife prays. The Minister and his wife both pray. Aunt Molly prays. All pray aloud. Louder, and louder, tears and wails and cries of retribution.
THE EVANGELIST: “Oh Lord, Oh Lord. I bring this lamb unto you.”
Pounded on the table
Hard as they were able
Boom, boom, BOOM
THE EVANGELIST’S WIFE: (She is medium height, medium weight and her face is medium fair. Though it is Monday night, she is wearing her Sunday-Best. At best, this is just a plain, threadbare, grey woolen dress, too warm for this Florida summer night. The neck of the dress is modestly high, the hem modestly low.)
She prays aloud, “Bring him unto Jesus, unto Jesus. Praise be His Name. Hallowed is His Name.
She clasps her hands and bows her head.
Then I had religion
Then I had a vision
Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
THE LOCAL PREACHER: (the sanctity of his expression makes it difficult to judge his age-somewhere between twenty and forty. Like the Evangelist, he has on black trousers and a narrow black tie, but he has removed his coat. The back of his shirt is dark with sweat. His medium-brown hair has fallen wet and matted over his forehead.)
He prays loud and long, “Yea, though you are not born again. Hell and damnation await you. Await you. Await you. Now must you meet the Lord. Now must you be Born Again. Or forever burn in Hell!”
Hear how the demons chuckle and Yell
Cutting his hands off down in hell
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you
Skinny, little thirteen-year old Roscoe, between wheezes, begins to cry. He bawls aloud. He tries to stand. His legs are asleep from kneeling on the hard wooden bench.
He can not stand. He falls.
The Evangelist springs over the rail, gathers Roscoe up in his arms, and cries, “Praise the Lord. This boy is Saved. He is Washed-in-the-Blood-of-the-Lamb.”
He raises Roscoe triumphantly over his head and shouts, “We cry out to You, Oh Lord. Forgive them their sins. Give them the Joy of Rebirth. The Promise, Oh Lord of Everlasting Life!”
Roscoe thinks, Gosh, I hope he doesn’t drop me.
Sunday, Aunt Molly is up early, dressed in her Sunday best. Ready and proud to take her Born Again nephew to Church.
From the kitchen the aroma of bacon frying, and home-made biscuits, hot and fresh.
“Get up, Roscoe, it’s getting late, don’t want to be late for Church.”
Roscoe mumbles, half awake, and turns his head into the pillow.
“Come on, get up,” Aunt Molly repeats, “Almost time for Church.”
Roscoe sits straight up in bed, puts his hands over his ears, and then throws his arms out to the sides and yells, “I’m not going to Church, not this morning or any other morning. Never! Never again!”

Karuna, by Charles Chaim Wax

I saw Mary yesterday. Love is so strange, as one of my students said - unusual, uncommon, exceptional, deviant, off-center, remarkable, exotic, screwy - yet all these single words, somehow, don’t completely re-create the emotion. Mary loves me, I can tell, in her own way, in the way a seventy-four year old woman loves a forty-five year old man.
It happened like this. As soon as she saw me come through the door into the lobby of our building, she smiled. I smiled.
“Steve, do you know how to work the dryer?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“They changed the price to sixty cents.”
“Oh,” I gasped.
Then her voice changed - so soft, seductive (?), yearning, “Can you help me?”
I stared at her. The face once must have been lovely but now I could only see the paleness, the immense creases, the wrinkles, the crevices, the hollow cheeks, the bent shoulders, the unsteady hobble. My heart, my heart . . . so . . . so all the young beautiful women in my classes . . . this . . . this . . . without doubt . . . but I would never live to see this thing because by the time each would revolve into such age I would be long, long in my coffin. THERE . . . I THOUGHT IT. That’s why I didn’t like to see Mary and I hated myself for not liking to see her. I gave her so much pleasure. I always made sure to say, “Oh, I adore those green earrings you’re wearing today.” Or, “You look so charming with the red lipstick.” Little chit-chats which re-created a bit of delight for her - the memory of possibility when now little existed but to try and go to the supermarket. That was the big event of her day. She would say, “I have to go out. Who can stay in the house the whole day? Going is not so bad but coming home . . . ahh.” Mary had arthritis. The bones in her joints screeched when she bent her knees to take a step.
I followed her into the laundry room. Another old woman was waiting for me.
Mary smiled, “I brought Steve to rescue us.”
Both women were short. I looked down at the tops of their heads. Mary had thin gray hair with patches of baldness here and there. The other woman wore a plastic blonde wig. Her face was puffy but not as wrinkled as Mary’s.
I walked to the dryer and studied the coin mechanism. The woman wearing the blonde wig gave me two quarters and one dime. “Ah,” I sighed. “It goes like this. In the left side you put one quarter on top of the other and the dime goes just to the right.” I plopped the coins in and pushed the small metal arm. The coins engaged the starting mechanism and the dryer started.
Mary exclaimed, “Such a man.”
Then they both looked at each other. There was an awkward silence but it lasted only seconds.
The woman with the blonde wig sighed, “It takes a man.” I was not clear what the word “It” referred to. Takes a man to do what? I didn’t ask.
Mary murmured, “I’ll walk you to the elevator, Steve.”
“Thank you so much.” She smiled when I said that.
As we slowly walked she went on, “I do a lot for her - shopping, clean a little, but I can’t do it all.” Then she reached out and caressed my arm with her thin twisted fingers and giggled, “My hero.”
Her voice like a little girl who had eaten too many cookies in secret and been found out. The sound, if I had not seen the wrinkled face from which it cam - just like a child, six, seven, no more - the same. Filled with joy. Because of me?

Jerusalem in Miniature, by David McKenna

Suzanne yells “Don’t stop,” her heart tearing with grief and guilt, with glee at the thought of redemption, with fear she’ll die and be forever undone for submitting to the beast who’s pounding her to jelly on the back seat of her Dodge Dart Swinger. Her head collides repeatedly with the armrest, till it feels she’s broken down the door to a place she didn’t want to enter. It’s all there: the ruby ring on his finger, the dirt under his nails, the skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest melding with her vision of a leather-clad corpse grinning in a roadside ditch. Worst of all is the smell of leather.
Ultracool bucks against her till an implosion sucks up the air and fills the night with red light that withers all doubt. The ring is Tim O’Mara’s. He’s dead and his old buddy, her lover man, is his killer. But the corpse could be hers, the fire on the horizon a sign of her appointed hour. Her glimpse into the ditch is a small advance on the wages of sin or, unless she’s truly undone, a final reminder that she need not be tempted above what she’s able. She envisions her route of escape, the very words with which to begin, even as her flesh is rocked by waves of sinful bliss.
“Our father who art in heaven,” she mumbles, clutching at the collar of Ultracool’s leather jacket and gasping as he slams her into a shuddering clinch that persists until her heart is all but stilled.
Ultracool chuckles. “Thy kingdom come.”
Suzanne slips from under him, adjusts her leather skirt, and looks around the parking lot of the burger joint while climbing up front to the driver’s seat. A crowded van floats by. Moon-faced children suck soda pop through straws and stare into darkness, which is now lit with the slim hope of salvation.
How simple it seems, this greatest of gifts, after a lifetime of assuming it would never be hers. His love strikes like lightning. “God is good,” she shouts, pressing her boot on the gas pedal. “He that believeth shall not come into condemnation.”
The car screeches onto the highway as Ultracool tumbles into the front seat on the passenger side. “My daddy read the Good Book too, but that ain’t what he said.”
She tries to imagine the creature who spawned this hellhound, her one and only for more than a year now, who rips out the throats of those who trust him. “Your daddy should have read it more often.”
He reaches into the glove compartment for his Ray-Ban Predator Extension sunglasses, next to the clear plastic sack of white powder they’re delivering to a well-respected man of property who lives in the first glass tower east of the river.
“Praise Jesus,” Ultracool exclaims, apparently convinced she’s acting out a comedy routine. “Maybe he should have put the Good Book down and lightened up a little.”
He tells her about the time his father held him next to the coal furnace and said the boy would burn a million years in fire much hotter before he got to heaven. If he got to heaven.
Suzanne feels great pain, for him and Tim and his other victims, and is giddy with gratitude for her own potential deliverance. “Top this,” she says, steering off the highway at 70 miles an hour, hitting the brakes to avoid the guardrail on the ramp that leads to South Philadelphia.
“My daddy took me to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre when I was 8. It started like this: ‘The following story is based on an incident that took place Feb. 5, 1962.’ That’s the exact day I was born.”
She runs a red light turning onto Greys Ferry Avenue, near the river. Ultracool grips the dash and waits for the car to straighten before readjusting his wraparounds.
“Daddy was a Pentecostal,” Suzanne explains. “He said the chainsaw is for children who go stumbling in the dark or talk to strangers instead of staying home and praying for the Holy Ghost to descend. God sends a madman to chop off their body parts. Later on, when I couldn’t sleep, daddy was very angry.” Memory intensifies the gooey ache between her legs.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” Ultracool says, lighting a cheroot. “For weeks I dreamed of the devil, standing next to the furnace and hissing for me to join him. So I did. Turns out he’s a puny guy with a big pitchfork.”
“Sounds like my daddy,” Suzanne says, smelling sulfur and cigar smoke, and watching the sky to the south glow red where the refinery towers are belching flame. “Great Balls of Fire” comes on the radio and she smiles. A religious song, how fitting.
“Do you ever think of getting redeemed?” she says, opening her eyes wide and trying to guess what goes on behind his glasses. “Paying for your sins by spilling your own blood, or wearing ugly clothes, or listening to folk music. Suffering?”
She feels divine hands guiding hers and doesn’t bother to look at the road, not until Ultracool’s mouth twitches.
“You mean the Jesus Christ thing,” he says smoothly. “Have myself nailed to a board on my dad’s behalf.”
“On the world’s behalf,” she says, narrowly missing a thin woman limping to the shopping complex on the far side of the road. “To escape hellfire.”
Ultracool takes a long pull on his cheroot and lets smoke drift out of his mouth and up his nose. Suzanne opens her window to let in the night air, which smells of burning oil. Fire creeps inward from her throat and gut and through every passage leading from her nostrils. Everything hurts: eye makeup, bra straps, the car seat against her bare, chafed legs. Her high heels are pinching, her toes blistered. The ring touched her flesh and woke her to an agony of sensation. She remembers the flash of it when Tim shook her margaritas, always on the house; that first taste of the salt he rimmed her glass with so carefully; the ring glittering on his long thin hand when he pushed away her tip money and tried to sound tough. Your money’s no good here, honey.
“I remember a fast food joint in Wildwood where the waitress was a midget on roller skates,” Ultracool recalls. “She said ‘That’ll be five bucks.’ I was so high, I couldn’t pay up.”
“You never pay,” Suzanne says, remembering his cold hands on her and the people who’ve disappeared since he started dealing cocaine. Out of sight, out of mind. It didn’t quite register, how many of Ultracool’s customers and colleagues weren’t there anymore. Then tonight she peered into the ditch and saw Tim, the only man who ever sent her roses.
Ultracool continues, “The guy in the car behind me yells ‘Come on, pal,’ so I say ‘Give me a minute. How many times do you see a midget waitress on roller skates?’ The guy says, ‘I see her every day, at dinner time.’ Then he waves to the midget and says, ‘How-de-do, Loon.’ “
“Yeah, so what?” Suzanne says, breathing hard and praying for time. No one challenges Ultracool. Rumor has it even bullets bounce off.
“The point is, it’s been done,” he says, reaching under her jacket to pinch a nipple. “The Christ thing doesn’t impress anyone anymore, so why bother?”
“For the sake of your immortal soul,” Suzanne says, mimicking a drunken preacher from her childhood. “For the sake of my soul.”
“I’ll ruminate on that,” Ultracool says, removing his hand from her breast. “You know, chew it real slow.”
Suzanne watches him roll down his window and toss the cheroot. He pops something into his mouth, sucks on it, spits into the night. Olives. The fleshy Middle Eastern kind, with pits. Like meat in the mouth. She can still taste him.
“That wasn’t even new in Christ’s time, being nailed to a board, but it was a good time to start a religion,” Ultracool says. “People were tired of the ancient Rome scene. They stopped taking baths and wore hair shirts.”
“To get redeemed,” Suzanne shouts, stretching to check her blazing eyes in the rear-view. She always knew their fire would be more suitable if she believed in something.
“But they still felt guilty as shit,” he says. “They needed a real bad-ass, like Jesus, to lift the weight off their shoulders and carry it.”
The sky brightens and dims. A police car roars by, roof lights flashing. Ultracool says, “Slow down, you’re doing seventy. That prick must be doing a hundred.”
Great balls of fire. Each time Jerry Lee sings the refrain, the sky lights up. Then, when it darkens again, she sees flames on the horizon. Pentecostal flames, served up by the Holy Ghost, to rescue the most degenerate sinners, even killers and traffickers in false gods.
“They nailed him to a board in Jerusalem, and the sky went dark when he died,” Ultracool intones. “Signs were everywhere. Disease and famine, dead men rising.”
“Ghostly visitations,” she adds.
“Prestidigitation,” he says.
The song ends. Suzanne switches off the radio and exclaims, “We need another sign.”
Ultracool says, “I need another big, fat line. Drive on, Suzy Q.”
She speeds around a curve, toward the skyscrapers a few miles north, past the dark streets of Greys Ferry where they grew up and Ultracool used to deal when he was a small-timer. Tall letters on a well-lit billboard to their right spell out:
JERUSALEM IN MINIATURE
AVE MARIA GROTTO
MOUNT GROVE
The message registers only after they’ve passed it.
“How’s that for a sign?” Suzanne says, veering off the main drag and roaring up a dark, narrow street. “To all who’ve sinned and fall short of God’s glory.”
“Don’t linger, lady love,” Ultracool says. “I have a package to deliver, and this is not my favorite neighborhood. Too many homeys who don’t know how to do business.”
“I want to see the sign again. To make sure it’s real.”
Suzanne drives the wrong way up several one-way streets, and into the glare of approaching headlights. She swings the Dodge into the only parking space on the street, jumps the curb and rams a phone pole at 15 miles an hour. The other car, a new red Lincoln, doesn’t even slow down.
“Blinded by the light,” she says, climbing out with Ultracool to inspect the damage. “Great balls of fire.”
“Jezebel,” he replies coolly, spitting an olive pit at the car’s bent fender. “Better to tie a millstone around your neck than play chicken when I’m holding.”
The billboard is just up ahead, looming high and wide as a movie screen at a drive-in. It shimmers like a holy vision with the light of a dozen high-wattage lamps. A photo on the billboard depicts a model of ancient Jerusalem, with squat buildings and winding streets. Next to the photo is a painting of Jesus Christ wearing thorns and bearing the cross, his face twisted with anguish and beatific pleasure.
Christ’s eyes cry out to Suzanne. What a splendid burden. She nearly faints at the heat of that day, the exquisite certainty of the nails. She feels the thorns in her skull, the splinters in her sunburnt shoulder, and smells olive oil on the bystanders.
No, that’s Ultracool.
“Ave Maria Grotto must be some kind of theme park,” he’s saying. “Jesus in Tiny Town. Eight tickets to hang on the cross for three minutes, 24 to do the Resurrection.”
The sound of new voices wakes her from her wide-eyed reverie. “Jesus bloody Christ,” Ultracool says calmly. “You should have kept going.”
Four young men surround them before she can answer. The tallest steps up to Ultracool with his hand outstretched and engages him in a jailhouse handshake, over and under with the knuckles.
“It’s my man Jack Crockett,” the tall man says to his fellows, pointing at Ultracool. “Me and this dude used to do business. We even did time together in Holmesburg.”
“You got the wrong dude,” Ultracool says. “The name’s Ultracool.”
“That’s his new name,” Suzanne tells the tall man. “He went to City Hall last year and had it changed.”
“What’s with you, woman?” Ultracool says. She hears a slight inflection of ebbing patience. The billboard lights shine in his glasses.
“Jack moves a lot of coke,” the tall man says, still pointing. “Maybe he’s holding some for his old buddy Jasper. You holding anything, Jack?”
“That’s a fine looking leather you wearin’,” says one of Jasper’s friends. “You buy that with coke money?”
“I’m a born-again,” Ultracool says suavely. “I don’t trifle with that junk.”
Ultracool offers each man a smoke, then lights a cheroot for himself with slow, reassuring movements. She’s seen how fast he can move those hands. The ring flashes. It fit on Tim’s index finger. Ultracool wears it on his pinky.
“He’s holding enough coke to buy a Lamborghini Diablo,” she says loudly. “He’s lying because he doesn’t think he’s ready to be redeemed.”
“The bitch is kooked,” Ultracool says to Jasper. “You want coke, talk to her.”
Suzanne smiles at Ultracool. “It’s time, lover. Nary a one of us can walk with the devil forever.”
She feels the air go staticky and wonders how long before Ultracool sweats blood. She’ll smell it on him. But he looks cool as ever when the car with the whirling roof lights pulls onto the street and screeches to a halt a few feet from them.
An extra-large cop jumps out, shoves Ultracool against Suzanne’s car, and says, “Let’s see some I.D., leather boy.”
Jasper and his friends melt back into the dark, but Suzanne is sure Ultracool will remain at the center of attention.
“This guy’s name is Ultracool, one word,” the big cop says, handing his partner Ultracool’s driver’s license. “Are you impressed? I’m impressed.”
“He’s the chosen one,” Suzanne says, reaching through the window of her car to open the glove compartment. “God the Father chose him to be redeemed.”
The glare of approaching headlights distracts them. A gleaming red car brakes. An elderly man in a shiny blue suit steps out and says, “That’s him, Officer. He almost smacked my brand-new Lincoln head-on.”
Suzanne approaches the big cop and dangles the bag of white powder. “This belongs to him,” she says, nodding toward Ultracool. “I have nothing to do with him.”
The other cop snatches the bag and says “I’ll take care of the contraband.” He drags her to the patrol car, sits her in the back and closes the door. She’s read in the newspapers that dope often disappears after a drug bust, and that busted dealers often turn up dead. That Philly drug cops are like outlaw bikers, except their gang is legal.
She watches the big cop frisk Ultracool and cuff his hands behind his back. Ultracool’s glasses fall off when the cop turns him around again. His eyes look as pretty and fearless as when he pushed up her skirt and wrapped her legs around him.
“Don’t be deceived,” she shouts from the car, squeezing her thighs together. “Behold his lying eyes.”
“Somebody get my glasses,” Ultracool says.
A van pulls up behind the patrol car and two more cops emerge. “Yo Frank,” the big cop says to one of the new arrivals. “Mr. Ultracool here wants me to put his sunglasses back on him.”
The new cop says, “Well, fuckhead, you heard the man.”
The big cop covers Ultracool’s eyes with the wraparounds, propping them carefully. One of the lenses is cracked and the other missing. The cops laugh out loud at Ultracool standing expressionless in the glare of the billboard lights, with hands bound and broken glasses in place.
“Hey, Ultracool,” the big cop asks, “are you the king of the coke dealers?”
“Bust his ass,” the elderly man says. “Take him downtown and bust his ass.”
“Yes,” Suzanne chimes in. “We’ll all get well when he’s redeemed.”
Each time she shouts the word, she stretches the double E sound a little further. The sound of it, the sensation, is liberating.
“Let’s go, lover,” the big cop says, grabbing Ultracool by his leather coat and walking him toward the van.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Ultracool says. “Even if my father forgives you, my attorney won’t.”
Suzanne twists around in the patrol car to watch the cop push Ultracool into the back of the van. His ordeal will cleanse her, God willing. She pictures herself in a cool stone room with spices and oils, weeping and waiting, but knows she won’t see him again. Not in this world.
“Hallelujah, baby,” she cries before the cop slams the doors of the van. “I’ll tell everyone you were here.”

the language used for women, compiled by Janet Kuypers

animals:
fox, chick, bitch, pussy, beaver,
(horse, cow, sow, pig, ass)
children:
girl, baby, babe
food:
tomato, peach, tang, cheesecake, cherry, cherry pie, pie, a piece of meat, pineapple, melons, sugar, brown sugar, honey
inanimate objects:
hoe, her hole, her box, her slit, her bush, knockers, doll, her crack
sex:
banging, nailing, hammering, screwing, bagging, scoring, slamming, bumping, making a home run, getting some, grinding, pushing,
jokes:
she can’t wrestle, but you should see her box
liquor in the front, poker in the rear
smells like fish, tastes like chicken
man/woman
male/female
he/she
woman is “different from other”
chairman
the average joe
manning a booth
don’t be a girl, etc. women’s names used to really cut down men
mama’s boy - meaning a man is weak
women are called terms for men in order to make them look strange - “she’s butch”
“his” is used for gender-neutral terms, i.e. “the average person did well - he made $40,000.”
jokes about women far outweigh jokes degrading men

The World’s Greatest Saxophone Player, by Mark Blickley

I’m Eric Tesler. I’m here because Doctor Wandaplatt says I have to be here. And because I know this group therapy session is good for me. As Doctor Wandaplatt says, the time has come for me to take the bull by the tail and face the situation.
I was in a coma for nearly five and a half years. A little over a year ago I snapped out of it. Doctor Wandaplatt says these bones are going to heal, but that my mental health is kind of shaky.
But so’s yours, right? Or else why would you be here, too, right? I’m supposed to tell you what happened to me, how I got here. That’ll be kind of easy. I spent five and a half years doing nothing but thinking about what happened.
This past year I talked to lots of people who helped me piece together the events leading up to my appearance in this hospital room. I understand what happened. I’m not sure why it happened. I don’t even know where to begin except for this typically gray, late Autumn afternoon in Rantoul, Illinois when I was twelve years old.
Now when I say it was a typical Sunday afternoon, I mean that all over town television sets were screaming out half-time scores and town fathers were critiquing football games from bar stools while their kids were in the streets pretending to be the Chicago Bears.
It was after a particularly vicious tackle on me by the Levitzki brothers that I flung down my helmet, threw off my makeshift shoulder pads, kicked Wayne Levitzki in the nuts, and trotted off into my living room where my father was lying on the couch, watching a game on TV. I stood in front of the set, blocking his view, and said, “Father, I don’t want to play football. I want to take music lesson!”
My father propped himself up on the couch, angling his way past me and yells, “For Chrissakes, can’t you call me Dad or Pop or Old Man? What’s wrong with you? Go outside and play some ball and don’t go botherin’ me again about music lessons.”
Then he launched into his, “When I was your age, I was playing half-back and defensive tackle, and damned hard, too. ‘Cept for Iggy Bolton, I was the best.”
Just as he finished that sentence my mother walked into the room. At the time she was a chain-smoking woman of thirty-seven. My mother was famous for two things. One was an enormous capacity for migraine headaches. The other was her punctuating of each sentence with a cough - which isn’t all that surprising when you consider she smoked five and a half packs of cigarettes a day.
Anyway, she walked in because she heard my plea for music lessons and was pretty sick of my whining about it. You see, I’m cursed with a photographic memory and I’ll never forget what she said:
“C’mon, Eric, give me a break. I can just imagine you honking a horn around here (cough). I’d be dead in a week (cough). I hear enough car horns from the street to last me a lifetime (cough).”
Now mind you, I never said anything about playing a horn. I didn’t know what kind of instrument I wanted to play. I just wanted to play something.
But after she told me this she starts gagging real bad. My father instinctively reached out and slapped her on the back without taking his eyes off the game.
At this time I was reading the book that was to influence me more than any other book I’d ever read. It was entitled: Beauty Knows No Pain and subtitled Biographies of Obscure Musicians Who Overcame Personal Handicaps in Pursuit of Their Art.
I remember the characters in that book as clearly as if they were my next door neighbors. I was inspired by an oboe player with asthma, a drummer with metal hooks, a midget conductor, a hare-lipped flutist, a pianist with six fingers on one hand and a seventy-two year old woman who learned to play the tuba after undergoing surgery for the removal of a lung.
My father once caught me reading Beauty Knows No Pain. I was stretched out on my bed, totally absorbed in the chapter about Maestro Arnold, the midget conductor, when my door slams opened. I panicked and tossed the book under my bed.
“Caught you,” laughed my father. “What are you tryin’ to hide from your old man?” he asked.
“Nothing, Father. You just scared me, that’s all.”
But as father approached me, grinning, he pointed under my bed. “You got somethin’ under there you don’t want me to see?”
“No, Father.”
He groped under the bed until his hand latched onto the book. Then he slapped me on the shoulder with his other hand as he pulled the book out and said “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your Ma. Us men gotta know when to stick together. When I was your age, I useta keep these playin’ cards from Japan with pictures of these gorgeous . . .”
He held the book up, frowned, and then flung it at me. “What’s this shit?”
“It’s just a library book, father.”
“Then why were you hiding it?”
“Because I knew it would upset you.”
“I ain’t buyin’ that. What are you usin’ this book for?”
“To learn,” I whispered.
“This book been exciting you, boy?”
“Yes, father.”
“When I was fourteen, this ain’t the kinda books excited me. Where’s the broads?”
“It does have an incredible story of a woman who learned . . . “
He grabbed me off the bed and dragged me into the hall.
“You’re weird,” he screamed at me. “I’m showin’ this to your Ma!”
My mother was sitting on the living room couch, coughing, as she stripped her colorful nails with a cotton swab and a bottle of polish remover. Father held the book out to her as she crushed a cigarette butt into the ashtray.
“You wanna see the stuff your son is reading?”
Mother took the book, looked it over, and put it down. She put the bottle of remover on her lap as she continued to work on her nails. I told her it was the best book I ever read.
My father became enraged. “I’m tellin’ ya, the kid don’t use both hands to turn the pages. Look at them rings under his eyes.”
Mother said, “That’s because he won’t eat his vegetables (cough).”
I thought I heard an ally so I told her all about the musician characters. She was quite interested in, or more accurately put, obsessed with the tuba player. She lighted a cigarette and kept badgering how the woman had lost her lung. I told her I didn’t remember. She asked me if I was telling the truth.
“Who cares about that old broad,” my father screamed. “Midget conductors! Whatta role model.”
Just then mother had a coughing fit. Her cigarette dropped out of her mouth and onto her lap, igniting the highly flammable nail polish remover. Flames roared up. My father and I reacted quickly and with seasoned teamwork. We successfully extinguished the fire. Mother came away with only minor burns, a scorched eyebrow, and some singed bangs.
You know, the more I thought of what these musicians had to go through to learn their craft, the more I would plead with my parents to buy me musical instruction.
Because they wouldn’t let me have music lessons, I devised a unique system of creating music. It’s the nearest I could come to musical composition.
You see, I’d take my two transistor radios, plug an earphone into each one, stick an earplug in each ear, and then tune into two different stations at the same time. One station might be playing classical, the other jazz or rock. I was always flipping the selector dials, making different match-ups. And when the two musical forms would meet inside my head, I would create a new sound that no one else could here but me.
I knew my father would rather roast in hell than have any son of his taking music lessons, so I concentrated my campaign on my mother. My mother was never a demonstrative woman when it came to showing affection. In fact, the only thing she ever puckered her lips for was a cigarette. But I knew she loved me when she finally agreed to give me the money she had been secretly saving for a chest X-ray.
It wasn’t difficult finding a music instructor. Rantoul boasted only one such man, Professor Theodore Bindt.
Professor Bindt was a tall skinny man of fifty-two, permanently bent over as a result of constipation cramps. These cramps were due to his daily staple of fried chicken. You see, the Professor’s music studio was located above a Chicken Lickin’ franchise.
Bindt was a bachelor who didn’t know how to cook, so he depended on his business neighbor for meals. It seems convenience always won out over cramps. Besides, after nine years on such a diet, he craved the grease.
At one time I thought he had self-destructive impulses because of this diet, but now I think it was just money. Inflationary times always cause men like Bindt hardship.
“Zee little brats” - that’s what he called them, would happily sacrifice their music lessons to the family budget. I’m sure these sacrifices made the dollar and fifty-six cent three piece Lickin’ Special with fries and a bun a necessity.
By the time I was ready to seek out the Professor things had gotten so bad he was forced to hock most of this instruments. I remember his studio containing trombones minus the slides, pianos without brass pedals or benches, cellos without their bows, and the electric guitars - which Bindt claimed was the only thing “zee little bastards vonted to play” were missing amplifiers.
The first thing that struck me about the Professor was his teeth. When he gave me his professional smile I noticed his teeth were the same color as the yellowed newspaper clipping taped to the wall behind his desk. After freeing myself from his desperate handshake I glanced at the clipping.
Underneath this picture of a kid taking a check form a fat man the caption read - Teddy Bindt, child prodigy, wins Rantoul’s Annual John Philip Sousa Memorial Award.
I was impressed.
Professor Bindt stood up and bent over me. “So, you vont to be a musician, eh son? Vise choice. I could tell by your bearing you have zee sensitivity for a creative instrument. Are you zinking of becoming a pianist?”
I told him I wasn’t exactly sure what instrument I wanted to play.
Professor Bindt clutched his stomach during a particularly fierce attach of cramps and looked around his studio. “You don’t own an instrument?”
If I’d have owned an instrument, I wouldn’t be in this room right now.
Bindt’s sister, who’s a big fan of mine, sent me the Professor’s journals four months ago. She thought they would help encourage my recovery. Obviously she hadn’t read them.
According to his journal, on the day I arrived in his studio, Bindt was in the midst of his most severe financial crisis. He had no money and no working instruments. When I told him I didn’t own an instrument, Bindt spotted a saxophone in one piece and lunged for it. And when he handed it to me he knew it was missing a reed.
A reed is a thin piece of cane attached to the mouthpiece. It’s set in vibration by the breath and is the sound producing agent for the instrument. In other words, no sound comes out of a saxophone without using a reed. If a sax has a mouthpiece, it looks like a complete instrument.
The Professor ran out of reeds because he had the nasty habit of using them as toothpicks to dislodge annoying bits of chicken that stuck in his teeth.
Anyway, I’m standing there caressing this big beautiful brass thing. I’m instantly hooked on the saxophone. Professor Bindt tells me the saxophone is one of this most expensive instruments. He says that my rental fees will be higher, but they can go towards purchasing it.
I immediately agreed.
Then Professor Bindt explained the romantic history of the saxophone - that it was invented by Aldolphe Sax in 1846 and how it is one of the few instruments that has no exotic forbear. “A complete original,” Bindt says.
A complete original.
I stood there hugging this saxophone like it was my first girlfriend. Then I carefully brought its neck to my lips, bit into the mouthpiece and blew.
Silence. I blew harder. Nothing, except the sound of me exhaling and the rumbling of my teacher’s stomach.
“What’s the matter, Professor Bindt? Is it broken or am I doing something wrong?”
Professor Bindt wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “No, no, zere’s nozing wrong. Listen, Eric, anyone can pick up an instrument and create noise. If you step on a dog’s tail, you vill create noise. But you, you’re special. I sense it. Together vee shall transcend musical tradition. Ve’ll bypass creating music for zee ear and concentrate strictly on creating music for zee soul! You must never forget zat every great musician who has achieved historical immortality is not remembered by his technical expertise, but for his soul!”
I wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about so I kept staring at the yellow newspaper clipping while gently running my fingers over the saxophone keys.
“Vot do your parents zink of you taking music lessons?”
I told him they’re not too interested. I explained that my mother had given me the money for instruction, but she said that I was on my own.
Bindt clapped his hands in joy. “Vonderful! Vonderful! No outside interference.” I asked him again why no sound came out of my saxophone.
“You veren’t using your imagination, son. You tried to take zee short cut from here” - he pointed to my throat - “to here” - he pointed to the sax mouthpiece - “instead of having zee music travel from here” - he traced a line from my heart to my forehead - “and zen to here” - his finger traced the length of the saxophone.
“You were being artistically lazy, but vee shall overcome zat.”
“I’m not a lazy person, Professor. I’ll work very hard.”
Bindt squatted by my chair and put his arm around my shoulder. “It is not zat kind of laziness, my boy. It is ignorance of zee spirit of creation. You must tame zis spirit, put it on a leash, before you can qualify as an artist.”
I want you people to understand that I was lonely and Bindt was the first adult I’d ever met who genuinely seemed to care about me. I trusted him because I needed someone to trust. It’s that simple. I needed to love and trust this man. I was convinced that some cosmic force led me to pursue music lessons just so I would establish contact with this caring genius.
Despite the ridicule of family and friends, I kept to a strict daily schedule of six soundless hours of practice in addition to Professor’s Bindt’s instruction four times a week.
No one at home said anything about my mute instrument. My father was ashamed of his sax-toting son and was too angry for words. My mother thought that her X-ray money was put to good use. There were no more whines form her son or his new toy.
God, I loved my saxophone! With Professor’s guidance I entered a trance-like state whenever my lips touched the mouthpiece. I can’t describe the joy I got from playing my sax. My eyes would automatically close and I’d just drift.
Not only could I hear this rich music, but I’d see such incredible colors and visions. And the smells! Oh, the smells. It was beyond joy. Sometimes I’d capture this penetrating sorrow, but that, too, was exquisite and always left me refreshed.
I had tapped that special place Professor Bindt assured me I’d find. I know it sounds strange but the vibrations inside my instrument shook spirit and released these . . . these . . .
Gershwin once said he had more tunes in his head than he could put down on paper in a hundred years. With Professor Bindt’s revolutionary approach, a musician didn’t need a hundred years to complete his vision. Music isn’t marks on a paper or grooves on a CD or even the noise from the instrument. It’s here. Inside your head.
The saxophone supplied a structure. It channeled my musical energies. I may have played without a reed, but Professor Bindt taught me all the fingering and breathing techniques any saxophonist needs to be accomplished on the instrument.
Look, anyone can play an instrument. Only a select few can compose, can create art. The Professor’s teachings didn’t limit me to the sounds a saxophone could make. When my saxophone took off, it wasn’t an instrument, but instrumental in producing a music no single woodwind, or even orchestra, could reproduce. It was energy and love and anger.
when I was seventeen, Professor Bindt died. My last meeting with him is forever burned in my memory. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon. I walked up to his studio for my lesson. He wasn’t there. That was quite unusual, but I knew he was probably downstairs at Chicken Lickin, having a snack.
I remember shielding my eyes as I looked through the Chicken Lickin’ window, trying to spot the Professor. When I couldn’t locate him, I went inside. I surveyed the entire restaurant. Professor Bindt wasn’t there.
I spotted Lickin’s manager. “Excuse me, has Professor Bindt been here today? I have a four o’clock appointment. He’s never been late. I’m worried.”
This skinny guy in a shiny red jacket tells me that I have a right to worry. He said that the night before, Professor was eating his dinner at the table he always eats at when he sort of squealed and collapsed.
I grabbed the manager by the lapels. “What happened? Where is he?!”
The Chickin’ Lickin’ chief pleaded with me to calm down. Then he tells me that he thought Bindt had choked on a chicken bone or something, but that nobody had heard him gag.
“Where is my Professor!” I shouted.
By now the entire restaurant had turned in our direction. I released my grip on him. He recovered his breath and told me he had called an ambulance. As far as he knew, Bindt was at Rantoul General.
When I walked into the hospital room, I saw a Doctor fidgeting with some life support equipment attached to the sleeping Professor. When the Doctor asked me if I was a member of his family, I told him I was the sick man’s son. He then informed me that Bindt had suffered heart failure and had been slipping in and out of consciousness for sixteen hours.
My saxophone was slung over my shoulder. I caressed it as I looked down on my ghostly white mentor.
“I think it’s important you’re seeing him now,” said the Doctor. He stared at my saxophone and asked if I played. When I nodded he told me that he had played sax in his medical school band. He said he was a real big fan of Bird’s.
“Bird? What birds?”
“Bird. Charlie Parker. You know, Bird. The greatest sax player who ever lived, with the possible exception of Red Gorky, Junior. After your visit please report to Nurse Pinkley at the reception desk to fill out the proper forms, okay?” Then the Doctor patted me on the arm and left me alone with my spiritual father.
I leaned over my comatose instructor and pleased with him to lie. “Don’t die, Professor. Please don’t die.”
I held out a small paper bag I had brought with me. “I guess you can’t hear me, Professor. But I brought you a gift. It’s soup. Chicken soup. Want some? C’mon, Professor Bindt, eat some soup. Please?”
Bindt didn’t respond so I removed the container from the bag and waved the soup underneath his nose. His eyes popped open.
“Atta boy, Professor.” I began feeding him with a plastic spoon. Most of the soup spilled down Bindt’s chin, but his eyes were wide with anticipation.
“Can you speak, Professor Bindt?” He moved his mouth but all you could hear were groans. “Take it easy, Professor. Maybe you shouldn’t try to speak. Save your strength.”
Bindt began clenching and unclenching his fist while his mouth moved stupidly. And then I heard a hoarse whisper, “Wrong . . . wrong.”
“What’s that? What did you say, Professor?”
“Wrong,” he choked out.
“Am I doing something wrong?” I asked.
“Me . . . wrong.”
“Yes, Professor?”
“Need . . . money,” he said.
“Don’t worry about money. Just concentrate on getting better.”
Bindt raised his clenched fist. “Me . . . wrong . . . need . . . money.”
“Please don’t make yourself upset. Is there anything you want me to do?”
“Go,” he croaked.
“I’m not leaving you , Professor Bindt. I’ll never leave you.”
“Go,” he insisted.
I hugged Bindt. “As sick as you are you still try to spare me from anything that’s not connected with beauty. I won’t leave.”
He spit chicken soup in my face.
“You don’t like the soup? I’m surprised, Professor. I got it from your favorite deli. I’ll get you whatever you need. Just try to relax.”
“Ears . . . ears . . . “ he whispered.
“What’s that about ears, Professor Bindt? Can’t you hear me?”
“Me bad . . . need money.”
“What’s money got to do with anything? You’re not bad because you don’t have a lot of it. That’s what you’ve always taught me. You’re an artist, a pure artist, and you’ve made me one, too. I love you for that.”
Bindt used his last remaining bit of strength to pull himself up. He glared at me and said, “I confess.” I asked him if he wanted me to get a priest to hear his confession. He shook his head.
“No . . . you . . . you . . .” Professor Bindt let out a death rattle and fell backward with his mouth open.
“Come back! Come back here, Professor Bindt! You can’t leave me! I won’t let you!” I buried my face in his neck and cried. Then I started pounding his chest with my fist, trying to pummel his heart back into motion. “It’s too big to stop beating. Too big. Too big. C’mon, beat. Beat. Beat. Beat.”
I quit pounding on the dead man’s chest. As I reached over to close Bindt’s eyes my saxophone slid off my shoulder and hit the Professor in the face. I put the mouthpiece between Bindt’s lips and positioned his still warm fingers onto the keys. I tried not to cry. I tried to think clearly and responsibly.
I told Professor Bindt that he would remain alive as long as I lived. “I’m dedicating my life to the completion of your vision. I’m dedicating my life to our art.”
And then, the Professor lets loose with a really humongous death rattle. Every bit of gas that was trapped inside that corpse had to have been expelled. It both frightened and excited me. And the smell wasn’t too pleasant, either.
My saxophone was still inside his mouth. This meant my sax had captured Professor Bindt’s final breath! It was no longer a musical instrument, but a monument to his genius and devotion!
“I won’t let you down ever. I swear!”
Strange. I tried to close Bindt’s eyes but they wouldn’t stay shut. Believe me, it’s not like in the movies. They kept popping open. He stared up at me with a mixture of terror and anger that gave me nightmares for years and years.
The autopsy attributed his death to a cholesterol induced stroke. I was devastated. I dropped out of school and drifted around Chicago trying to peddle my sax to the clubs. But no one would listen to me.
To tell you the truth, I almost packed it in. But every time I picked up a phone to call home, I’d remember the Professor, eyes half shut, lips twisted, conducting me with a half-eaten chicken leg.
By the end of my first few weeks in Chicago, I was tired, hungry and broke. I slept on park benches at night. But I did have an interesting artistic experience early on in the Windy City. It was quite late at night and I was sitting on a park bench, gently polishing my saxophone.
A wino staggered by. I shot him a quick look and continued cleaning my sax. I prayed he’d go away. but instead of leaving he stuck his face right up to mine and said, “You gotta use elbow grease, boy. Don’t be lazy.”
I told him to keep moving. Then he says, “They’s a sayin’ round this city that if you rub that thing hard enough, a genie’ll appear.”
I ignored him.
“You don’t believe it?” He extended his hand to me. “Hi, my name’s Eugene, but friends call me Genie.”
I asked him if he was going to make some magic.
“Hell, no, I ain’t making no magic. You’re the one supposed to make magic with that thing.” He points to my saxophone.
I smiled and told him I hope to. Then he asked me if I had any money. When I told him I didn’t, he asked me if I had a song. I shrugged. “Maybe.”
The wino got ticked off. “I said you got a song? Don’t give me this maybe shit.”
“Yes, I have a song, Genie.”
“Good,” he says. “You also got yourself a partner.”
“Why do I need a partner?”
Wino shook his head. “Don’t you know who I am?”
“Genie. You’re a genie, right?”
“Damn straight,” he said, “and my magic is in my feets.” And then Genie breaks into an earnest, if somewhat clumsy dance. Without his history of booze, I could easily imagine him a dancer of merit.

After Genie danced his dance, he paused to catch his breath. “How’s that? Did I pass?”
“Pass what?” I asked.
“The audition. Will you take me on as a partner?” I asked him again why did I need a partner? Genie plopped himself down on the bench and offered me a sip of his Thunderbird wine. I declined.
“Look, kid, I make my livin’ dancing. But it’s gettin’ harder and harder to turn some change these days. All those damn hippies been cuttin’ into the action. People losin’ interest in the solo performer. All they wants is the spectacular. The spectacle.”
“So what’s that got to do with me, Genie?”
“Ain’t you got no vision, kid? I need music for my show. We’ll be partners. I can dance to anything. We’ll do a sixty-forty split.”
“With you getting the sixty, huh, Genie?”
“Course. I’ve scouted the best locations. I know which corners are jumpin’ any hour of the day. Besides, I been performin’ in Chicago for nearly thirty years. People know me.”
I was feeling bold. So I asked him if I was paying for his reputation. He told me, “Don’t be so smartass. Maybe you ain’t even any good.”
I grinned. “Maybe.”
“I told you to lay off the maybe crap. Let’s see what you got.”
I explained to Genie that I had already played today, that I haven’t missed a day of practice in years. He just shrugged and said, “I could say the same thing about drinkin’. So what?”
“So listen to this!” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tore into an imaginative pulsating rhythm. Next thing I know Genie’s snapping his fingers and I heard him say, “I get it, man.”
Boy, he starts dancing like mad. Over the bench, under the bench, on top of the bench. Just kicking and swinging his arms like a man possessed. It ended when he hurled himself against the bench, smashing the wine bottle in his back pocket.
The explosion of broken glass and the wino’s scream jolted me back to reality. What I saw was Genie sprawled out on the bench, whimpering.
“What happened, Eugene? Are you alright?”
“No, I ain’t alright. You broke my bottle!” He held out a handful of wet, broken glass.
I couldn’t believe it. I hugged my saxophone. “You mean I got up that high?”
“To hell with your high! What about mine? I ain’t got nothin’ to drink.”
I pulled a dollar out of my pocket. Genie snatched it out of my hand. “You’re a dangerous man,” he said. “You had me jumpin’ and twitchin’ like a worm with a match underneath it.”
I was delighted with my fiery performance and told him so. “You’re a cruel son-of-a-bitch,” he said, as he walked away, pulling shards of glass from him rump.
I got real good at shoplifting. I managed to survive by sleeping in bus terminals and hustling my sax on the sidewalk.
The breakthrough came one freezing night in the Chicago Greyhound Bus Terminal. I was having a restless night - no matter what I did I couldn’t get comfortable. Professor Bindt always maintained that great musicians needed plenty of sleep. He’d say, “you can’t perform for zee gods if you’re denied zee sweet embrace of Morpheus.”
Since I was unable to sleep, I took a stroll on the upper platform where they kept the buses. I was hoping the exhaust fumes would make me drowsy.
A chartered bus pulled in and unloaded a group of yawning musicians carrying expensive instrument cases that filled the air with the obnoxious smell of fresh leather. These musicians were followed by a short, fat man in a three-piece suit.
He was scribbling something into this book and growling at the bus driver, demanding to know if the driver’s superiors “were aware how rudely their employees treat the manager of the Monk’s Corner Ridiculously Juiced Jazz Ensemble.”
When I heard who he was, I ran downstairs and squatted on the curb outside the Greyhound building and began playing my sax.
I heard a band member say, “Check out the Road Runner dude.” Another guy asked me if I was gigging for the Lung Association. Then someone else laughed, “Beautiful, Jim, beautiful.” But I was just warming up, saving my best stuff for the manager.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tapped out a rhythm with my shoe. When the band manager noticed his men crowding around the sidewalk, he shouted at them to “get your butts over to the hotel.”
As the crowd broke up, he caught a glimpse of me sitting on the icy sidewalk playing my sax. He reached over and shook me. “Hey, kid, watcha doin’?”
I couldn’t believe it! It was the first time I’d ever been interrupted during a performance.
He asked me if I was serious. I said yeah. Then he asked me how long I’d been at it. I told him I’d been playing for years but was having a rough time.
He laughed and said, “No wonder.” Then he stared at the tip of my saxophone and wit this smirk asked me, “You ever notice anything a bit peculiar ‘bout your style?”
I jumped into my familiar defense. I told him I hear symphonies in my head. I explained that the only value my heart has is as a metronome.
He shrugged and said, “Yeah, I know watcha mean.” Then he ripped a piece of paper out of his book and scribbled out an address and handed it to me. “I tell you what. we got a gig over at this club on the South Side. Stop by tomorrow night at nine and we’ll see how your act goes over.”
“It’s not an act,” I insisted. “It’s my life!”
“Yeah, yeah, gotcha kid. Clean yourself up. And why don’t you practice up your leads a bit. We can’t have you blowing any clams ‘cause this is a class gig.” Then he laughed, slapped me on the back, and disappeared inside a taxi.
At ten to nine I managed to stagger into the Jicama Jazz Emporium. What a place! I squinted through thick clouds of smoke and saw two men in tuxedos making their way towards me. They grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me three feet off the ground.
“Hey, wait a minute! Let me down! I’m a musician! Let go of me! How dare you! I’m an artist!”
One of the men kicked the saxophone out of my hands. It crashed to the floor. A couple of musicians at the bar recognized me and came to my rescue.
I dropped to my knees, opened the case and examined my sax. There was no damage. When I thought about what this guy had done I threw a downfield block that sent him crashing into the bar. I wanted to kill him! I was dragged away by some musicians before the man could get up and avenge himself. The crowd was applauding me.
I was taken backstage to Mr. Hackersby, the band’s manager. “That’s some ballsy thing ya did, kid. Them Godzillas had it coming.”
I told Mr. Hackersby that I didn’t care what people did to me, but when they started abusing my saxophone I wouldn’t permit that. I told him life would be nothing more than exertion and excretion if my sax was ruined.
Hackersby said there were other saxophones to be had, that my life was certainly more important than an instrument. I explained that this saxophone represented a legacy - the immortality of a departed master survived through the fellowship of my lungs and this hallowed brass.
Hackersby shook his head and agreed that my sax was, “the hollowest damn brass,” he ever saw. Then he said, “if you can put half the effort into playing your sax as you can defending it, you’ll be a smash.” He pushed out of the wings.
The moment I stepped on stage there were applause and I heard someone yell out, “Atta boy, play like you slay!”
I bowed, put the saxophone to my lips, drew a professionally calculated breath, and vanished into my silent world of misplaced trust.
I learned what really happened that night. It seems the audience was impatient and then shocked when it became clear no music would flow from my saxophone. The crowed, I was told, grew restless and offended. Insults were yelled at me but I was too absorbed in my music to know where I was or who I was with.
Luckily, my absorption coupled with my burlesque exaggerations on the saxophone transformed a hostile crowd into one convulsed with laughter. Hackersby’s gamble paid off.
I must’ve looked pretty stupid out there.
At the conclusion of my set, I was given an ovation. A standing ovation! Since I was ignorant of the laughter during my trance, I blew kisses to the audience and mumbled a thank you to Professor Bindt. I felt that we were both vindicated.
Mr. Hackersby signed me to a contract on the spot. The Monk’s Corner Ridiculously Juiced Jazz Ensemble now had its first touring soloist.
I was euphoric over my success and determined to work harder than ever at perfecting my craft. It was all hard work for me, not fun.
We toured the United States and parts of Canada. Everything was going pretty smoothly. After a grueling gig in a tiny club in Nova Scotia, most of the musicians headed for the seedier parts of the island.
Not me. I went back to my hotel room to practice.
As I inserted my key in the lock, a blanket was thrown over me, my ankles were bound with rope and I was hauled, kicking and screaming, to a car. My abduction ended when I was rolled onto a marble floor.
I sprang up, swinging wildly with my fists. When my eyes made the transition to light, I saw my abductors. They were six members of the band.
I was confused. I asked what they were doing. “You know, guys, what the idea?” They all laughed and Ezra, this bald guy in sunglasses, put his arm around me. He said the guys were grateful for the creative lift I’d given the band and had decided on showing me a good time.
“But you know I can’t miss a day of practice!” Ezra bit down on his mustache and said, “We know, Ric. But why not try loosening up a bit. Relaaaaaaaaaaax.”
I told him I was anything but relaxed. “Where are we?” He grinned and pointed to these scantily dressed women circling the room. Ezra puckered his lips at one of the women and said that we were in the hottest little whorehouse in the Commonwealth.
One of the women, this six foot three blonde in flesh colored leotards crept up behind me and stuck her fingers through the belt loops of my pants and started nibbling on my ear.
I broke out of the Amazon’s grip by using an old football move which resurrected images of my father lying on the couch denying me music lessons, and of Professor Bindt, staring at me with the disgust he usually reserved for discoveries of cold french fries inside his Chicken Lickin’ boxed lunch.
I sprinted out the door and hid inside some bushes by the side of the road. When Ezra found me I was still shaking. He apologized for getting me upset, but he thought if anyone could put a smile on my face, Skyscraper Sally could.
I told him I wasn’t angry. I knew they were acting in my best interests. I also knew I was slightly dull. It wasn’t that I disliked women or anything weird like that. But I explained to Ezra that long ago I asked Professor Bindt if I could cut down on my lessons and spend some time and money on girls.
The Professor sat me down and explained the medieval belief that when a man expends his precious bodily fluid it upsets his internal chemistry and drains him of a large portion of his intellectual and creative energies. Bindt said that women’s purpose on this earth is to zap up a man’s vitality by having him transfer it into her. “It is artistic destruction by injection, if you know vot I mean.”
I knew what he meant.
Ezra pulled me to my feet and walked me back to the hotel.
For six years I toured with the Monk’s Corner Ridiculously Juiced Jazz Ensemble. I loved the traveling and the respect of my peers. After that embarrassing incident in Nova Scotia, the guys never interfered with my privacy or practice sessions.
When I was twenty-three, my life was altered during a gig in Goose Creek, South Carolina. In the audience that night was a debt-ridden millionaire named Tony Pranklin.
He was the innovator of the Pet Stone craze. You people remember that, don’t you? Through greed and neglect, Pranklin squandered the fortune he made from his conception, advertising and marketing of the stones he swore “would bring comfort to millions without the mess and expense of a breathing pet.”
Tony Pranklin was lazy, but he was no fool. He immediately saw the appeal of a silent saxophonist. When he visited me a couple of months ago he told me he had learned to “exploit the universal fear of casting the first stone.”
Pranklin claimed that although my popularity originated through travesty and as the years went by the novelty of a reedless saxophonist might wear off, I would endure because he would promote me as an artist.
Now if this all sounds like a crock, all I can say is Pranklin pulled it off. I became known as the World’s Greatest Saxophone Player - but that comes later.
Pranklin offered Hackersby one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for my contract. I wasn’t happy about the sale, but Pranklin promised me complete artistic freedom and the change to reach an audience of millions.
Pranklin pulled strings and within weeks I popped up on national TV. My father saw me one night on a talk show. He wrote me a letter apologizing for his behavior towards my music lessons. He said that the solo I performed on television reminded him of when he was in the army in ‘43 and saw Woody Herman’s band . . . but that he couldn’t hear anything.
I didn’t know people were laughing at me. I didn’t! I felt I was achieving artistic maturity and touching my listeners. Every time I finished a tune, all I heard was applause. How did I know? How could I know?
Nine months after leaving the Juiced Ensemble I cut a solo album produced by Pranklin. It was called Music for the Disenchanted and released by the Avantgardarama label. Although I heard elegantly textured orchestrations when I played the record, all anyone else heard was the clicking thud of sax keys against the pads and my breathing.
But that didn’t stop Tony Pranklin. He contacted a music critic for Art on Parade and coerced the man to publish a favorable review of my album. I have it here, in my shirt pocket.
I originally kept it out of pride . . . now I keep it for . . . I don’t know. This is it:
‘Eric Tesler may be the most dynamic musical innovator on the scene today. Known throughout the nation because of his prolific television appearances, this is the young man’s first attempt at recording, and he succeeds admirably.
Like any pioneer of creativity, Mr. Tesler has attracted the indignation of some critics. These short-sighted people hate change. I believe these critics would even resist the change of a dollar bill at a grocery store. They claim it is absurd to purchase an album that only offers the sound of an artist inhaling and exhaling.
Let me say this: Music for the Disenchanted may, on a physical level, be just breathing; but as I replay Mr. Tesler’s recording it reminds me of God breathing life into Adam. Eric Tesler breathes life into a fresh musical genre.’
Can you understand how I felt when this came out? I had published proof that what I was doing was valid, don’t you see? I’m not a fraud. I wasn’t lying to myself or public.
In twelve years I never missed a day of practice or a rehearsal. I was oblivious to fame, and oblivious to the huge sums of money regenerating Pranklin’s bank account.
The concert halls grew in size to accommodate The World’s Greatest Saxophone Player! This epithet was dreamed up by Pranklin after he engineered my election to the South Carolina Music Hall of Fame and my winning of the Annual Rantoul John Philip Sousa Memorial Award. This last honor truly touched me.
On my twenty-fifth birthday Pranklin produced my second album, Quarter Century Blues in a Half-Assed World. By this time, Pranklin had learned from his mistakes. Instead of the LP being a solo venture, he hired a backup group. Three of the eleven tracks were my solos. On the remaining tracks, I played with accompaniment. Quarter Century Blues in a Half-Assed World was a huge success. I was told recently that it’s become a collector’s item known as “The Birthday Album”.
My popularity was at its peak. I was such an enormous box office draw that Pranklin was able to book me into Lincoln Center in New York City.
The flight to New York was one of the most exciting afternoons of my life. Immediately after my plane touched down at Kennedy Airport, I made my way to a taxi stand and asked the cab driver to take me to the hippest jazz club in New York. He dropped me off at a place called The Cookery on Eighth Street.
There was a long line of people stretching form the club’s entrance and all around the block. When I told the doorman I didn’t have a reservation, he recognized me and said no problem. He directed me to a stage side table - his table.
Within minutes the house lights dimmed and a tall man with a beard brushed past me. The stage lights reflecting off his silver saxophone blinded me. I was rubbing my eyes when I heard my host announce, “And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, a musical legend, your friend and mine, Red Gorky, Junior.”
There was applause. I squinted up at the stage because the light reflecting form the saxophone made it impossible for me to look directly at the musician.
And then it happened.
Red Gorky, Junior sucked at the air and produced the sweetest, most hauntingly beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard. My eyes became moist and I started to shake. For years I hadn’t followed contemporary saxophonists. Professor Bindt insisted it was dangerous to my development.
For the first time in my life I felt terror. Terror that - oh, my God! - my God! - I’d been living a lie for thirteen years.
The music soared out of that man’s saxophone like a celestial conversation between the Creator and the human spirit. I mean, it was a feeling I always experienced whenever I played, but as I looked around the club, I realized it was a feeling not limited to the artist, but shared by his listeners as well.
I mean, when I played one tune it would excite a hundred people a hundred different ways. But you know, never, not once, did anyone ever come close to describing what I felt while I was playing with what they had heard. Sometimes that would bother me. That’s when Pranklin would say, “Your music is much more sophisticated than you realize. And if you ever realize where this sophistication comes from, you’ll probably be ruined at an artist.”
But listening to Red Gorky’s sax, I knew all that mystic mumble jumble about playing for the heart was a bunch of crap. It was the ears! The ears! I’d been trained not to use my ears. I don’t care what the music critics wrote about me. It’s the ears that count!
I got up out of my seat and ran out the door. I was shattered. Fifteen minutes later I was perched on a bar stool sipping a G and T when I heard a high, squeaky voice.
“Pssssssst, psssssssst, are you Eric Tesler?”
I spun around but didn’t see anyone so I went back to my drink.
“Hey, man, you Eric Tesler?” I felt a tug on my pants cuff. I looked down at a smartly dressed midget biting a cigarette. “You Eric Tesler, the world’s greatest saxophone player?”
I cringed at the title. I told him I was Eric Tesler. “Who are you?”
“Just call me a fan,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”
I reached down and lifted him onto a stool. This angered the little guy. “Lemme go, will ya? I ain’t no baby. Wanna smack in the mouth?” I apologized and asked him what he wanted. I suspected it wasn’t an autograph.
The little man grinned, adjusted his tie, and handed me his business card. It read: Turner Arnold, The Entrepreneur of Avenue B. I immediately recognized the name. He was the midget conductor that inspired me when I was young.
“Turner Arnold! You were one of my heroes when I was a kid! I read all about you in Beauty Knows No Pain.”
I expected him to be flattered, but he looked at me with disgust and said, “You did, huh? I’m a musician who overcame my handicap in pursuit of my art, right, kid?”
I nodded. Right. I was excited. This was a great musician! But he just laughed and asked me if I believed everything I read.
Turner Arnold told me the book was written by a second-rate writer who needed cash. Turner Arnold seemed to get pleasure out of telling me that this hack writer lied like a dog about him and everyone else in the book.
I couldn’t believe it!
Turner Arnold said, “Sure, I went to a fancy music school. But that stuff about me finding work after I graduated was pure bull. Nobody wanted me. Nobody. They didn’t even want me at the school but I had enough bucks to get in so they took me. I was always treated like somebody’s joke. But I ain’t here to talk about myself. I been following your career for some time now. I run a pawnshop down on the East Side. I trade mostly in weapons and musical instruments - guess I can’t get it outta my blood. Anyway, I got a present for you.”
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out this cane object that he held up in front of him like someone repelling a vampire with a cross.
I asked him what it was and he called it, “a reeeeeeeeed.”
Turner Arnold said he knew I was playing Lincoln Center later that evening and had hoped to give it to me after the show. Then he explained how to position the reed on to the sax.
I asked him if Red Gorky, Jr. used one and the midget smirked and said, “you’re catching on.” Turner Arnold assured me I couldn’t go wrong if I used the reed at my concert that night.
I put the gift in my shirt pocket and looked at my watch. I was going on in an hour. I opened my wallet to pay for my drink but Turner Arnold insisted on treating me. I thanked him again for the reed and hurried uptown.
Lincoln Center was mobbed. The audience consisted of all types. I was told there was even a balcony filled with senior citizens representing the New Jersey Geriatric League for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. They were bussed in at taxpayers’ expense to show their support for a music form that did not discriminate against their handicap.
At 9:04 p.m. I dragged myself to center stage. I was bombarded with applause. The instant I stepped up to the microphone the crowd fell silent.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, my first number will be a composition I wrote backstage tonight entitled, A Legacy of Laments for Lunatics, Listeners and Lickin’ Liars. In F minor.”
For the first time in my career I didn’t close my eyes and drift into a creative vacuum. I filled my cheeks with air, toyed with the keys, and stared at the audience that had paid eighteen dollars a ticket to watch me.
It was my first appraisal of an audience and it made me sick. I released the air from my cheeks, pulled the saxophone out of my mouth, and disappeared backstage to vomit.
I reappeared on stage to a standing ovation. Muttering curses under my breath, I shook my head and bowed. As I leaned forward, the reed fell out of my shirt pocket and bounced off my shoe. I smiled, picked it up and attached it to my sax.
The ovation lasted nearly five minutes. When it finally died down, I bit into the mouthpiece, took a deep breath and blew as hard as I could.
The initial blast stunned me and the audience. As I manipulated the keys, the raucous sound dissolved into a crisp, blue-tinted rhythm. The audience gasped, but no one was more surprised than me. Employing the technique I forged out of years of silent practice, I made a smooth transition form a natural romantic flow of melody to a series of forceful jazz riffs.
I lost myself in the delightful music - not imagination, MUSIC! I didn’t hear my fans shouting at me to stop. All I heard was the beautiful tunes I was producing. It was incredible! It’ll always be the happiest moment of my life.
A little while ago I received a cassette in the mail from a fan of mine who was at my Lincoln Center performance. His recorder was smashed in the excitement but he saved the tape. It’s the only record I have of my music and my most valuable possession.
I was oblivious to the orchestra section running towards the stage cursing me. The sounds coming out of my saxophone took me far, far away.
But not far enough.
My fans surrounded me and the last thing I heard was a plea to “PLAY WHAT WE PAID FOR!”
The first blow landed on the back of my neck. It caused my teeth to clamp down on the mouthpiece. The follow up blow knocked out three of my teeth, tow of which I swallowed. Blood gushed out of my mouth, splattering the attacking mob.
They pulled me to the floor and kicked my face. All of my ribs were cracked and my leg was broken and still they swarmed over me. Despite this punishment, I hunched over my saxophone, cradling it.
Eventually my arms went limp. That’s when the crowd turned their anger on my instrument. They stomped on my sax until it was nothing more than brass flecks!
But I hurt, Doctor Wandaplatt, and I don’t mean from the bruises covered by these bandages. You say that my injuries could not heal while I was in a coma because my body was using all its resources just to maintain my survival. I wished I never opened my eyes.
You claim that my condition won’t improve until I confront a saxophone. But it’s over! My saxophone was destroyed, Doctor! Will you stop trying to force me to touch one? I told you I want to stop feeling things!
I’ve listened to the other patients, Doctor Wandaplatt. I’ve heard them explain how experiencing a closeness with death clarified some kind of meaning or direction in their lives. Well, it hasn’t happened to me. But they you can’t always trust what you hear, right Doctor?
I’m scared, Doctor Wandaplatt. Real scared. But I’ll get through it on my own, thank you. I’ve always been a solo act.

AYN RAND’S HUAC TESTIMONY

For a complete version of Children, Churches and Daddies, please email us.

Poetry

AIMLESS, by cheryl townsend

I drove North
in the ice-blue dusk
of October
But West
could have been as easy
Leaving
A belly full of tears
and a reason
There was no goodbye
or hava safe trip
No write when you get there
I had no place to go
but a need grew
with the darkness
and swelled
like roadkill in July
But this is October
and it’s cold
Things are beginning to die
Nature gives me
a perfect metaphor
I roll down the window
as if indifference
didn’t sting me enough
I drive nowhere
Reruns play at will
I edit and rewrite
Could haves should haves
would haves
How many miles
til day light?

he promised me, by cheryl townsend

a forever he didn’t have
and gave me time he borrowed
from another stolen life

FOG BANK OVER THE FLAGSHIP HOTEL ON PIER 25, by David E. Cowen

the blankness begins like the hem of a curtain
at the second story windows

beyond the glass
an unfinished watercolor
soft strokes obscured
like an artist’s repentence

the morning shift of laborers
clerks, cooks, maids and hops
walk in procession into the emptiness
while a yellow cream limosine
idles in the circular drive

below the pylons
the caustic foam pushes on
indifferent to the temporary oblivion.

STALLED OUT ON HIGHWAY 30, HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS, by David E. Cowen

the whiteness of my thumb
glows like an afterthought in the dim light.
the silver road flows through a bank of black trees.
I look for my salvatin in a single headlight-
it is only a shadow passing indifferently.

I lay on the cold windshield
like a reflection of the moon
as the dark begins to awaken.

the sound of a struggle,
death or mating,
bursts out of the branches
and grows flacid like a falling sigh;
flashes of yellow-eyed curiosity
come and go
like stragglers at the zoo.

the chilling air
forces me into the glass and steel
confinement of my dead car.
I lock the doors and make a bed
of old clothes still waiting to be cleaned;
lying low on the leather ribbed seat,
to avoid the gawking of strangers,
as I dream of the rising sun.

evolved people, by harlan lyman

Interaction of reactions to make beliefs
Why have faith in someone else’s invention?
Language contradicts itself, it only works when you pick a side
Result of emotion has been predetermined
Soaked sponge is another way to say human
Analyze and realize: We are all wrong

SUNSET ON OFFATS BAYOU BEFORE A COLD FRONT, by David E. Cowen

A disjointed watercolor,
in uneven strokes-
a background of silhouettes
which hide the ordinary families,
oblivious to the rise in wind;
the flickering of their televisions
an inconstant spectre in the shadows
while a bloated drowning sun
sinks in a pool of black, shimmering darkness

SUNSET ON WEST BEACH-GALVESTON, TEXAS, by David E. Cowen

streaks of red
like faint scratches on pale blue grass
stretch across the cold sky
while a yellow ball
sifts sleepily into a dark green sea
a wreary traveller pulling a tattered blanket
from a second class motel over his heavy body

a faint wind, a slight sigh, rises
brushing think lines of sand across the flats
sculpting shallow waves
in the grass covered dunes

the sky blackens like the yawn of a big dog,
slow, deliberate stretches
before sinking into a hard slumber

only the soft cooing
of a flock of gulls
like wayward kites
hanging lazily in the dark air
remain of the day

THE BLOOD AND THE CLOTH, by David E. Cowen

descend down the broken stairs
into the darkened room.
touch the imprisoned skin,
soft and unblemished.

it is only child’s play.

muffle the sweet protestations
of the unwatched;
unravel the simple trust in smiles
in the anxious eyes.

there will be no scars

release the bleating ewe,
running blindly into the meadow;
wipe the blood of the lamb from your hands
with an unclean cloth.

it is only child’s play.

THE FATHER GOD, by David E. Cowen

the light is finally put out
he sleeps again, curled into himself,
gently rocking and cooing,
quieted by the warm reassurance
of my hand on his chest;
in the stillness of his rythmic sucking
on a now shriveled thumb
I am enveloped in the dark
by an uncomfortable illumination
of frail omnipotence

I am god to his squealing prayers;
the fountain to his incessant thirst;
the sun to his cold shivers;
the manna to his cavernous hunger;

but I am a temporary god.

one day he will sleep alone as I do;
with no warm interposing hand
to rock away the disquieting dark

id, by cheryl townsend

I’ve never changed
the color of my hair
to try and find myself
looking always but not
there

I was promiscuous
but it was searching
under sheets for my lost
understanding

Men came and went
like stockings with
runners or used tampons
discarded

I thought a child
would show me who
but that was fleeting

Then he held up
a full-sized mirror
and I looked into it
and questioned what I saw

Today I paint pictures
water color past

My hair is still as red
as when

Elizabeth Ferguson Holcombe Eno (/1617 - 107, 1679) Mother of Ten Wife of Two, by michael estabrook

A confusing time, that is to be certain. I was first wed to Thomas Holcombe, he being 32, me a mere 16. But I wed to him nonetheless despite our age differences because he was so strong, so worldly and wise, from a cogent and ancient family emanating out from Cornwall and Devonshire. After he died I married again then to James Eno, him being 33 and me 41. Seems as if I could not be a-finding a man of mine own age, folks would be saying.
But James, well my reasons for marrying James are not so clear as they were with Thomas. It is harder to express why. His family they were Huguenots driven out from France in the early days of the century. But his ambitions were nary great, him wanting peace all the time, peace and quietude all of the time, perhaps to assuage his pounding headaches. For his soul was deep and tender, his eyes gray-blue and soft, his heart of purity and yearning, and when he licked my lips to taste me, and when he lay silent as a stone alongside me out in the Great Field beneath the infinite twinkling Stars high in the infinite Heavens I could hear the blossoms of spring daffodils bursting into bloom, taste the drifting honey-suckle scented breezes, smell the warmth of the night settling down all around us, feel the coolness of his skin touching against mine, finally his weight pressing firm yet light at the same time upon me, the weight of everlasting life. And I was safe. James had the true heart and the white hot soul of a poet, somehow, though he was a man of few words.

His First Ex-Wife, by robert l. penick

She came to him at a time
when he lived in a vacuum
when symbols were meaningless
Souls were vain boxes
and his own lack of faith
was sovereign.

When she left
he had all that
and less.

waiting for you (2/13/94), by Janet Kuypers

i look out at the evening sky

snow falling out of the sky
star-shaped flakes as big as fingertips

falling onto my face
melting into my skin

touching me sharp and sweet

like your hand on my cheek

in the cold of winter
it almost feels warm

walking with you (2/18/94), by Janet Kuypers

It’s springtime again
and here we are,

picking flowers from neighbor’s yards
at three a.m.

it’s still a little cold
it’s still only April
as the wind rushes through our clothes

hands clasped walking in stride

lily of the valley,
tulips, daffodils

it’s a beautiful wind

wanting you (2/18/94), by Janet Kuypers

It’s night again
the candles flicker
I curl up in myself
trying to keep warm

that’s when I feel most alone
when I get lonely
depressed

when will this end
the nights the solitude

that’s when I miss you most

sometimes I feel
like I’m not whole

soulmate

watching you (2/18/94), by Janet Kuypers

a strand of your hair
falling into your eyes

you brush it behand your ear

you move your head
lean over

it falls again

it curls in just the right way
it makes a perfect tunnel

it directs me
my eyes are drawn
to your beautiful blue eye

Suicide, by robert l. penick

I will take a trip tomorrow
out into the backyard where
I never go,
Amongst the tree and the stubble
of shrubs I failed to water
at critical times,
beyond the poodle graveyard
where two of my former dogs
were planted with great ceremony
to a little shaded spot
next to the leaning garage.
I will sit and drink while
enjoying a cool winter wind,
and think of cars and pretty women
I once possessed, before
the bank, circumstances, or
my own selfishness
removed them.
I will think of these things,
knowing why,
for people more sane and sensitive,
dying is easy.

Estabr2_Laur@Bentley.edu (for Laura), by michael estabrook

Though you’re only down the road we still miss
you like you were way the hell off in Idaho or
someplace. We love the weekends and having you
around, you’re growing into such a beautiful
young lady. I’m sorry you’re having adjustment
troubles at college, although what you’re going
through is perfectly normal. Everybody leaves
home some time, some go far away, others move
next-door. Obviously we want you to be near-by
always. I want you to know that I feel for your
pain at being away and trying to find yourself.
Bentley may not be the place for you, but probably
it’s too soon to determine that. What to keep in
mind is things change so quickly; you may feel
uncomfortable now but that could change
completely at any moment. So, I guess the Dad
lecture is to hang-in there, let the Fates have at it,
and don’t worry about anything, just study hard, I
mean that’s why you’re there you know, all the
other stuff is nothing compared to learning;
learning is the most critical thing you can do; bury
yourself in your learning, it’ll help you cope, it’ll
help the time pass, it’ll make you stronger. We are
waiting for you to realize that you are a special,
unique and very valuable person; you need to have
confidence in yourself (like we do), you’re smart
and have integrity, loyalty, courage and interest in
life; you need to recognize these qualities and have
faith in yourself; if you don’t want to pledge a
sorority, well don’t; you don’t have to, and you
don’t need to explain why or why not to anyone
else; the only person you have to please is yourself.
Well, anyway, hang-in there, and for pity’s sake,
don’t take it all so seriously, try to have some fun
with it. Love as always, Dad.

I almost call him Larry, by michael estabrook

Oh hey I met Lawrence Ferlinghetti
did I tell you, no of course I
didn’t tell you. I go out
every July to San Francisco on business and
always make the pilgrimage
over to City Lights Books and this
time I see a rather oldish looking gent
sitting at a desk in an office so I
stick my head in the doorway and say,
“Excuse me but are you Lawrence?”
(I almost call him Larry.)
And it is him, so he signs a couple
books for me, says for me to make
myself at home
and all that; I tell him I’m
reading his biography but he seems
sort of uninterested in that,
always been a rather un-egotistical man
I think. Well anyway, there
it is. It was great
meeting him, he’s 76 you know.

illumination, by cheryl townsend

The night light
erases my imagination
everytime I turn it on

the photo album, by daniel rand

I was buying some beer and whiskey at the market,
when I saw a photo album on sale.
It was big and cheap, so I bought it.
When I got home,
I dumped out all my photos on to the bed.
They were in a crumpled paper bag.
The photos reminded me of
how many different ways I had suffered.
I had forgotten about the family, the women,
the co-workers, the friends, the acquaintances,
the places I had lived,
the places I had frequented,
the vacations . . .
If this is my life at a glance, I thought,
I’ve lived a pretty shitty life.
I drank some whiskey, had a couple of beers and
just stared at the pictures.

There are the aunts and uncles and cousins playing with
somebody’s baby and laughing. They’re all living for a future
which will forget them immediately after their deaths.
There are the women:
Jean, Nicole, Marcia, Jenny, Robin, Alice, Patty, Rosie,
with their well-practiced smiles and precious egos.
They’re as fragile as peanut brittle.
There are the factory workers,
trying to make the best out of a ten minute lunch break,
by bringing donuts on Fridays and retelling
old jokes which they heard when they were children.
They’re trapped forever in their jobs.
There are the friends who turned into strangers
when they married.
There’s Joe’s wife who drinks perfume and
Brandy’s husband whose role model is Mr. Rogers.
Stifled by their imagination,
they’ve come to enjoy going grocery shopping
or buying expensive gourmet kitchen items,
like garlic presses, fondue forks, salad dryers.
There are the acquaintances: Karl the truck driver,
Brian the bear, pretty Peter and Helen of Troy -
they’re all basket cases looking for someone to stabilize them
because their own lives overwhelm them.

By now the beer and whiskey were sinking in and
the truth behind the pictures was beginning to unfold:
there are a lot of slow, agonizing suicides out there.
The thought cheered me up considerably,
as I put the pictures in the photo album.

Nightmares Every Night, by daniel rand

When she woke up,
her husband was sitting up in bed.
He was tired.
She looked at the digital clock.
It was four-ten in the morning.
They squinted at each other in the half dark,
then he rolled over onto his side
and started to snore again.
She took a deep breath and
closed her eyes.
She had nightmares every night.

INVITATION, by cheryl townsend

She watched him
in envy
it was accessible
no designated place
date or expiration
fast and easy
with quick clean up
and she wanted to feel
one of her very own

Almost, by C. C. Russell

I stopped a minute.

I stopped there
in her father’s bedroom,
the sunlight off the metal
blinding my eyes.

I stopped for a minute
in silver gun barrel
reflected light

and touched it

and thought about it

and walked away.

Cave Paintings - Peck-Merle, by C. C. Russell

This is the ghost of a form,
spotted
incomplete horses
facing away.
Dots spilling out
of their heads.
Withered forearm legs and
hand
prints.

FRENCH KISSING, by C. C. Russell

We’re trying these organic strings,
tying the knot
behind our backs
and speaking in tongues
of coarse whisper.

Here our eyes dart,
flies in peanut butter.

Here our fingers
intertwine
only to break.

it used to be, by cheryl townsend

advantageous at first
but now just annoyance
His rainbows that never
end like the dream world
day to day living on death
and ambitious plans He was
always there when I wanted
but he expected so I closed
the door

DALLAS, by Paul Glaze

Dallas, Oh Dallas,
Dynamic City Of The Plain.
Summers Of Massive Heat,
While Stringent On Needed Rain.

Great City Of Texas
With Buildings So Ever High.
Grace The Clouds Of Heavens,
As Statures Touch The Sky.

Dallas Oh Dallas,
Fabulous Is Your Name.
Big D Is Unworthy To Describe
Your Everlasting Fame.

Your Prairie Earth
Has Given Birth
To A Metroplex
Of Worldly Acclaim.

Dallas, Oh Dallas ,
From Skyscraper To Farm.
All Who Dwell Within
Are Captured By Your Charm.

Never More Will A Vagabond
Have Reason Ere To Roam.
Once They Have Found You,
They Know They Are Home.

DAWN, b y Paul Glaze

Darkness flees in somber flight.
The breaking day ends the night.
A Dawn of tomorrow makes its way.
Upon its arrival becomes today.

Sunglows streaking through an eastern sky.
Silhouettes the clouds that happen by.
A rooster crows with a piercing sound.
Announcing that morning has come around.

A distant train rumbles over shivering rails.
Shattering the Dawn with whistles and bells.
Truckers rolling down a dark highway,
Patiently awaiting Dawns first ray.

Living things greet Dawns arrival.
Each appearance insures their survival.
Dawn brings forth a bright new day,
Allowing life a permanent stay.

Countless Dawns have greeted this earth.
Allowing the planet to mother it’s birth.
Life comes forth then goes its way.
With new creations each passing day.

Without the Dawn and its golden light.
The Earth trembles in eternal night.
A cold dark planet would then appear.
With no one to know, to see, or care.

The presence of life is more than a token.
It’s brief spector may easily be broken.
Existence on earth, though safely planted
Is a divine gift, not taken for granted.

We may peacefully rest and begin to yawn.
Tomorrow will bring another Dawn.
As the day grows dim and night takes hold.
Have no fear, our creator is in control.

DAY DREAMS, by Paul L. Glaze

Endless Are The Thoughts
Of Your Fountain.
In Moments, You Climb
The Highest Mountain.

There Is Nothing
Too Impossible To Climb,
When Thoughts Are Brought
To Dreamy Time.

Daydreams Are Like
Steaks On A Platter
How You Serve Them
Doesn’t Really Matter.

Their Flavor Is
Gourmet And True,
And Their Taste
Is Just For You.

So Dream When
You Are Tired And Weary.
It Will Make You
Bright And Cheery.

Take This Harsh World
Of Daily Grind,
Then Submerge
Into Your Daydream Mind!

Deja-vu, by Paul L. Glaze

The Far Side Of Forever,
Beyond Our Repose
A Back Side Of Never Ever,
Close As The End Of Your Nose
No One Will Mention
This Secret In Verbal Hark.
This Isn’t Our Dimension,
An Answer, We Will Embark.
We May Revisit Our Dimension,
Shrouded As In A Dream.
When We Give It Attention,
Confusion Enters Our Scheme.
Our Mind Has Barriers
And There They Will Remain
To Restrict Our Psychic Carriers,
Holding Them Inane.
This Strict Law, Though Hidden,
Is Devoid Of Social Vanity
Makes This Knowledge Forbidden,
As To Protect Our Sanity.
We All Possess Psychic Powers
Born Deep Within.
There Are Unique Special Hours
We Send Them Out Again.
Dreams We Have At Night,
Dreams We Retain Not An Ember
Our Spirits Take Astral Flight
And Return From Never Remember
As We Awake Each Morn,
Secret Dreams We Try To Recall.
To Give Them Memory Form,
Our Recall Is Not At All.
Herein Are Our Psychic Breaks,
With Dreams They Intertwine.
Drowsy Dreamers Give And Takes,
Recall Is To Fine Of A Line
This Creates Deja-vu,
We Have Done This Deed Before.
Knowing Not How, When,
Or Who, Cold Shivers We Implore.
Our Spirit Frees And Sees An Event,
It May Be Trivial Or Small.
Then When Our Journey Is Spent,
We Recall It Not At All.
This Deja~vu Side Of Forever,
Where Past And Futures Meet.
Our Psychic Is So Clever
As It Hides This
Magnificent Feat !

it’s been almost 2, by cheryl townsend

hours I have been sitting
in this bathtub not really
thinking tho I am trying to
just soaking the 9 hours on
my feet out of my flesh like
dirt and sweat hoping that
it won’t cling back when I go
to get out just stay and leave
a ring I’ll wash out tomorrow

Climbing, By Peter Scott

I strive
I quest
I search for the best
But my needs are met
Like those of a starving dog
I am starving too
Yearning to be the best
Looking for success and
Ending like a mess
I am taunted by the lights
Haunted by the sounds
Depression sets in
I know what I am not
Too little that I am
My parents ease the jealousy
Only to hyperextend my fears
What has gone wrong?
I should beat the rest.

Closet Spider, By Peter Scott

Pain besets
I sit and rest
Taken aback by notion
Urged in a natural direction
Counter the reflection
Staining my studious mirror
How can I play
Even in a day
Life’s inhibitions are clear
To the chosen’s followers?
Yet spit do I neglect
Romantic intentions
Lusting instead for
Common themes in life
Sinning
Searching
Praying to conjure
A favor granted today
What might they surmise
Hiding behind a nightsheet of shame
Were they to read my mind?
Not highly grand
Fluid would rush to my hand
Releasing commitment to this perversion
Bound to strap myself again
In a vehicle that is silent
And travels in the night
For now, though
Regained by task
Washing my hands of this quivering ordeal.

Collage, By Peter Scott

The game’s the same
A game of hurt
Once for love
Now for proof
Proof of one’s fallen need
Acting less than right
Time turns out of hand
Taunting
Twisting
Reasoning amongst spite
Pain for anguish
Abuse to appoint
How wrong I was
Letting you touch me
Burning and crushing the soul
Yet it comes down to this:
All my mistake
The view was obstructed
I thought you were someone else
Damning will not do
Blaming a child
His deeds
Not hers
One can never hope for reciprocation
Longing do I teeter
On my spirit’s birth
Holy reunification
Sad
And in a mess
A time past self destructive
Implosion
Not explosion
The pieces fall
Crumbling together
Making whole
Everything so perfect
While misaligned
Pervading actions
Blessing me to cry
Walking down my path
Out of observation
Toppling on the last try.

Commitment, By Peter Scott

I love you forever,
Don’t forget.

If you need me,
I will be there.

Always strive for the best,
But above all,
Know that I love you
For who you are.

Honesty is the best policy,
So I tell you this:

The thought of separation
Leaves my mind cold,
Vacant,
Without the warmth
Your reassurance brings.
Body heat is one thing,
The bond I have with you is another.

Always,
Always may we be together.

Complicated Dreaming: Incognito, Part I, By Peter Scott

Visited my love last night
Entered a dream
She was standing there
Grin on her face
Eyes centered on love
Made me warm
Snuggling close to her
Radiant aura of emotion
Even in the total darkness complete
She was the most beautiful thing
I had ever seen
And then she was gone
In pools of dreamscape
Where my body rested afar
Kissing the sister
Of my sweet love
Lips so passionate
This could not pass for infidelity
I loved her
Longed to stay
But the dream took notice
I was whisked away
Woke in a state of love
Dazzled why
There was transcending kindness
For the relatives
Of my pristine princess
In quiet morning light.

Conforming to Hell, By Peter Scott

Ritual tribe-quest
Meshed for enjoyment
Strung aloop in myth
Supposed to be what
They are not
Other’s joys causing
One man’s pain
A type to sorrow
For they may not rest
May not sleep in a bed
Studded with stars
View their friend’s ecstasy
Are they forever tormented, divided
Lacking basic skills
Transposing fear, infusing their cries
Bleeding at the gift
Moments to be savored
Hurt by cold dedication
Time so precious
Must keep moving
Striving ‘till infinitum
Body deplorable
When it should have rested and healed
Mind white with bend
Stressed to break
Neither recovered nor refortified
Barren
Soon shall it pass
Finished out with light
Explosions to reality
Gears moving again
An old machine motor
Turning slowly
Giving life
When life occasionally ends
Ends everything
How sweet.

love, by cheryl townsend

is all
she said
and he knew

Oklahoma, by lon schneider

It all started when the geriatric president went to pay his respects at the German cemetery. Well, it started long before that, but you’ve got to begin somewhere and that’s as bad a place as any. These kinds of things usually have an insidious onslaught. It actually began at the end of the war when they recruited Nazis to form the Special Forces to fight the ‘communist menace’. That “fighting soldiers form the sky” crap came later when their descendants were committing genocide in Vietnam. Like father, like son. But back to Bitburg. You have to remember that before the blathering idiot became president he was an actor, and a damn bad one. So when the Holocaust survivor pleaded with him not to go, he managed to muster a plaintive expression. It was almost convincing, but you could see Death Valley Days creeping through. So he went to the cemetery and played hide-and-seek with SS ghosts. But the little bastards were more wily than he ever imagined. They were swirling all around him like gnats, and even the Secret Service goons couldn’t swat them away. They followed the president back to the Sheraton and then up the plank to Air Force One. Wave bye-bye, Ron. There was turbulence all the way back home. And that friggin’ airplane had no left wing, so they made an emergency landing in Michigan and the rest is history.

MASTURBATION, by cheryl townsend

I want to feel her breasts
as her tongue proves knowledge
is the best teacher
I want a cock up my ass
in my cunt and mouth simultaneously
I want a little boy virgin
to suck my nipples with a revelry
as I raise his cock for part two
I want big macho hands groping
I want soft hands sharing
I want a gang-bang of gender benders
I want anything and everything
strapped or standard
just fill me in every way that you can

you bet, philip a. waterhouse

That girl, child of a dear
lady friend of mother, had the nerve
to show a picture of me around the recess
crowd at high school naked on the
ironing board. One of those cutesy snapshots
I wouldn’t have allowed being taken
given half a chance even at only
so many months alive at the time. That
girl also refused to give it, the snap,
to me, saying it wasn’t my property.
No, but it was my ass.

Nick DiSpoldo, Small Press Review (on “Children, Churches and Daddies,” April 1997) Kuypers is the widely-published poet of particular perspectives and not a little existential rage, but she does not impose her personal or artistic agenda on her magazine. CC+D is a provocative potpourri of news stories, poetry, humor, art and the “dirty underwear” of politics. One piece in this issue is “Crazy,” an interview Kuypers conducted with “Madeline,” a murderess who was found insane, and is confined to West Virginia’s Arronsville Correctional Center. Madeline, whose elevator definitely doesn’t go to the top, killed her boyfriend during sex with an ice pick and a chef’s knife, far surpassing the butchery of Elena Bobbitt. Madeline, herself covered with blood, sat beside her lover’s remains for three days, talking to herself, and that is how the police found her. For effect, Kuypers publishes Madeline’s monologue in different-sized type, and the result is something between a sense of Dali’s surrealism and Kafka-like craziness.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada
I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer’s styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.

Ed Hamilton, writer #85 (of Children, Churches and Daddies) turned out well. I really enjoyed the humor section, especially the test score answers. And, the cup-holder story is hilarious. I’m not a big fan of poetry - since much of it is so hard to decipher - but I was impressed by the work here, which tends toward the straightforward and unpretentious. As for the fiction, the piece by Anderson is quite perceptive: I liked the way the self-deluding situation of the character is gradually, subtly revealed. (Kuypers’) story is good too: the way it switches narrative perspective via the letter device is a nice touch.

Children, Churches and Daddies.
It speaks for itself.
Write to Scars Publications to submit poetry, prose and artwork to Children, Churches and Daddies literary magazine, or to inquire about having your own chapbook, and maybe a few reviews like these.

Jim Maddocks, GLASGOW, via the Internet I’ll be totally honest, of the material in Issue (either 83 or 86 of Children, Churches and Daddies) the only ones I really took to were Kuypers’. TRYING was so simple but most truths are, aren’t they?

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what is veganism?
A vegan (VEE-gun) is someone who does not consume any animal products. While vegetarians avoid flesh foods, vegans don’t consume dairy or egg products, as well as animal products in clothing and other sources.

why veganism?
This cruelty-free lifestyle provides many benefits, to animals, the environment and to ourselves. The meat and dairy industry abuses billions of animals. Animal agriculture takes an enormous toll on the land. Consumtion of animal products has been linked to heart disease, colon and breast cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and a host of other conditions.

so what is vegan action?
We can succeed in shifting agriculture away from factory farming, saving millions, or even billions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep turkeys and other animals from cruelty.
We can free up land to restore to wilderness, pollute less water and air, reduce topsoil reosion, and prevent desertification.
We can improve the health and happiness of millions by preventing numerous occurrences od breast and prostate cancer, osteoporosis, and heart attacks, among other major health problems.

A vegan, cruelty-free lifestyle may be the most important step a person can take towards creatin a more just and compassionate society. Contact us for membership information, t-shirt sales or donations.

vegan action
po box 4353, berkeley, ca 94707-0353
510/704-4444

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C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review (on Children, Churches and Daddies) cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist. I really like (“Writing Your Name”). It’s one of those kind of things where your eye isn’t exactly pulled along, but falls effortlessly down the poem. I liked “knowledge” for its mix of disgust and acceptance. Janet Kuypers does good little movies, by which I mean her stuff provokes moving imagery for me. Color, no dialogue; the voice of the poem is the narrator over the film.

Children, Churches and Daddies no longer distributes free contributor’s copies of issues. In order to receive issues of Children, Churches and Daddies, contact Janet Kuypers at the cc&d e-mail addres. Free electronic subscriptions are available via email. All you need to do is email ccandd@scars.tv... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

Mark Blickley, writer The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

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MIT Vegetarian Support Group (VSG)

functions:
* To show the MIT Food Service that there is a large community of vegetarians at MIT (and other health-conscious people) whom they are alienating with current menus, and to give positive suggestions for change.
* To exchange recipes and names of Boston area veg restaurants
* To provide a resource to people seeking communal vegetarian cooking
* To provide an option for vegetarian freshmen

We also have a discussion group for all issues related to vegetarianism, which currently has about 150 members, many of whom are outside the Boston area. The group is focusing more toward outreach and evolving from what it has been in years past. We welcome new members, as well as the opportunity to inform people about the benefits of vegetarianism, to our health, the environment, animal welfare, and a variety of other issues.

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Gary, Editor, The Road Out of Town (on the Children, Churches and Daddies Web Site) I just checked out the site. It looks great.

Dusty Dog Reviews: These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding.

John Sweet, writer (on chapbook designs) Visuals were awesome. They’ve got a nice enigmatic quality to them. Front cover reminds me of the Roman sculptures of angels from way back when. Loved the staggered tire lettering, too. Way cool. (on “Hope Chest in the Attic”) Some excellent writing in “Hope Chest in the Attic.” I thought “Children, Churches and Daddies” and “The Room of the Rape” were particularly powerful pieces.

C Ra McGuirt, Editor, The Penny Dreadful Review: cc&d is obviously a labor of love ... I just have to smile when I go through it. (Janet Kuypers) uses her space and her poets to best effect, and the illos attest to her skill as a graphic artist.

Cheryl Townsend, Editor, Impetus (on Children, Churches and Daddies) The new cc&d looks absolutely amazing. It’s a wonderful lay-out, looks really professional - all you need is the glossy pages. Truly impressive AND the calendar, too. Can’t wait to actually start reading all the stuff inside.. Wanted to just say, it looks good so far!!!

Dusty Dog Reviews: She opens with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.

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Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Mark Blickley, writer
The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing her book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.

Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book or chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers. We’re only an e-mail away. Write to us.

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Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

The Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology
The Solar Energy Research & Education Foundation (SEREF), a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., established on Earth Day 1993 the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) as its central project. CREST’s three principal projects are to provide:
* on-site training and education workshops on the sustainable development interconnections of energy, economics and environment;
* on-line distance learning/training resources on CREST’s SOLSTICE computer, available from 144 countries through email and the Internet;
* on-disc training and educational resources through the use of interactive multimedia applications on CD-ROM computer discs - showcasing current achievements and future opportunities in sustainable energy development.
The CREST staff also does “on the road” presentations, demonstrations, and workshops showcasing its activities and available resources.
For More Information Please Contact: Deborah Anderson
dja@crest.org or (202) 289-0061

Brian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) I passed on a copy to my brother who is the director of the St. Camillus AIDS programs. We found (Children, Churches and Daddies’) obvious dedication along this line admirable.

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Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA
“Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family.
“Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

want a review like this? contact scars about getting your own book published.

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Paul Weinman, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies) Wonderful new direction (Children, Churches and Daddies has) taken - great articles, etc. (especially those on AIDS). Great stories - all sorts of hot info!

The magazine Children Churches and Daddies is Copyright � through Scars Publications and Design. The rights of the individual pieces remain with the authors. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Okay, nilla wafer. Listen up and listen good. How to save your life. Submit, or I’ll have to kill you.
Okay, it’s this simple: send me published or unpublished poetry, prose or art work (do not send originals), along with a bio, to us - then sit around and wait... Pretty soon you’ll hear from the happy people at cc&d that says (a) Your work sucks, or (b) This is fancy crap, and we’re gonna print it. It’s that simple!

Okay, butt-munch. Tough guy. This is how to win the editors over.
Hope Chest in the Attic is a 200 page, perfect-bound book of 13 years of poetry, prose and art by Janet Kuypers. It’s a really classy thing, if you know what I mean. We also have a few extra sopies of the 1999 book “Rinse and Repeat”, the 2001 book “Survive and Thrive”, the 2001 books “Torture and Triumph” and “(no so) Warm and Fuzzy”, which all have issues of cc&d crammed into one book. And you can have either one of these things at just five bucks a pop if you just contact us and tell us you saw this ad space. It’s an offer you can’t refuse...

Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.
Mark Blickley, writer: The precursor to the magazine title (Children, Churches and Daddies) is very moving. “Scars” is also an excellent prose poem. I never really thought about scars as being a form of nostalgia. But in the poem it also represents courage and warmth. I look forward to finishing the book.

You Have to be Published to be Appreciated.
Do you want to be heard? Contact Children, Churches and Daddies about book and chapbook publishing. These reviews can be yours. Scars Publications, attention J. Kuypers - you can write for yourself or you can write for an audience. It’s your call...

Dorrance Publishing Co., Pittsburgh, PA: “Hope Chest in the Attic” captures the complexity of human nature and reveals startling yet profound discernments about the travesties that surge through the course of life. This collection of poetry, prose and artwork reflects sensitivity toward feminist issues concerning abuse, sexism and equality. It also probes the emotional torrent that people may experience as a reaction to the delicate topics of death, love and family. “Chain Smoking” depicts the emotional distress that afflicted a friend while he struggled to clarify his sexual ambiguity. Not only does this thought-provoking profile address the plight that homosexuals face in a homophobic society, it also characterizes the essence of friendship. “The room of the rape” is a passionate representation of the suffering rape victims experience. Vivid descriptions, rich symbolism, and candid expressions paint a shocking portrait of victory over the gripping fear that consumes the soul after a painful exploitation.

Dusty Dog Reviews, CA (on knife): These poems document a very complicated internal response to the feminine side of social existence. And as the book proceeds the poems become increasingly psychologically complex and, ultimately, fascinating and genuinely rewarding. Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Dusty Dog Reviews (on Without You): She open with a poem of her own devising, which has that wintry atmosphere demonstrated in the movie version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. The atmosphere of wintry white and cold, gloriously murderous cold, stark raging cold, numbing and brutalizing cold, appears almost as a character who announces to his audience, “Wisdom occurs only after a laboriously magnificent disappointment.” Alas, that our Dusty Dog for mat cannot do justice to Ms. Kuypers’ very personal layering of her poem across the page.
Children, Churches and Daddies. It speaks for itself.

Debra Purdy Kong, writer, British Columbia, Canada (on Children, Churches and Daddies): I like the magazine a lot. I like the spacious lay-out and the different coloured pages and the variety of writer’s styles. Too many literary magazines read as if everyone graduated from the same course. We need to collect more voices like these and send them everywhere.
Fithian Press, Santa Barbara, CA: Indeed, there’s a healthy balance here between wit and dark vision, romance and reality, just as there’s a good balance between words and graphics. The work shows brave self-exploration, and serves as a reminder of mortality and the fragile beauty of friendship.

Children, Churches and Daddies the unreligious, non-family oriented literary and art magazine Scars Publications and Design ccandd96@scars.tv http://scars.tv Publishers/Designers Of Children, Churches and Daddies magazine cc+d Ezines The Burning mini poem books God Eyes mini poem books The Poetry Wall Calendar The Poetry Box The Poetry Sampler Mom’s Favorite Vase Newsletters Reverberate Music Magazine Down In The Dirt magazine Freedom and Strength Press forum plus assorted chapbooks and books music, poery compact discs live performances of songs and readings Sponsors Of past editions: Poetry Chapbook Contest, Poetry Book Contest Prose Chapbook Contest, Prose Book Contest Poetry Calendar Contest current editions: Editor’s Choice Award (writing and web sites) Collection Volumes Children, Churches and Daddies (founded 1993) has been written and researched by political groups and writers from the United States, Canada, England, India, Italy, Malta, Norway and Turkey. Regular features provide coverage of environmental, political and social issues (via news and philosophy) as well as fiction and poetry, and act as an information and education source. Children, Churches and Daddies is the leading magazine for this combination of information, education and entertainment. Children, Churches and Daddies (ISSN 1068-5154) is published quarterly by Scars Publications and Design. Contact us via e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for subscription rates or prices for annual collection books. To contributors: No racist, sexist or blatantly homophobic material. No originals; if mailed, include SASE & bio. Work sent on disks or through e-mail preferred. Previously published work accepted. Authors always retain rights to their own work. All magazine rights reserved. Reproduction of Children, Churches and Daddies without publisher permission is forbidden. Children, Churches and Daddies copyright through Scars Publications and Design, Children, Churches and Daddies, Janet Kuypers. All rights remain with the authors of the individual pieces. No material may be reprinted without express permission.