Children, Churches and Daddies

It doesn’t take me long to acquire a habit. Just ask my drug-dealing friends, or either of my ex-wives. Don’t ask Gianna, the Italian girl in the rowhouse across from the track where I run. She might not know who you’re talking about, even if you tell her Bertram says hi.
For two weeks I flirted with her through the chain-link fence that separates the football field, and the six-lane track that surrounds it, from the driveway behind her parents’ home. On Friday I coaxed her down from her second-floor deck after my five-mile run. We walked the gravel ellipse together, moving counterclockwise like the Gang of Four and the other regulars, until Gianna tired of the monotony and took her leave.
“My friends like this track, but I skeeve,” she said, using a South Philadelphia term that indicates revulsion. Three years here after banishment from an elite college in Vermont, and I’m still learning how the locals tawk.
“It makes my shoes dirty,” she explained.
For the next two days, her deck was empty and my mood foul. I was sorry I’d seen her, and sorrier we’d spoken. I’d started using the track only a month ago, after realizing my 40-year-old legs could no longer endure the stress of running the streets. Now Gianna had spoiled my routine. It wasn’t complete without her.
Bear with me. This isn’t one of those agonizing unrequited lust stories. I like women, or girls - whatever they choose to call themselves - so long as they’re young or pretty, and sometimes when they’re neither. But I don’t stalk or even linger where I’m not wanted, except to make absolutely sure I can’t be of service.
Three weeks of 90-degree heat had stretched well into September, but today the seasons were slugging it out. The new weather suited my mood. A chill wind pushed dark clouds around and kicked up trash under the bleachers. A strong sun peeked through as I sped down the straightaway between the seats and the sidelines.
The great daily trek was in full swing. Joggers and walkers of all ages and sizes - alone, in pairs, in groups - entered through the gate behind the bleachers, circled the quarter-mile track to their hearts’ content, and left the herd when the mood seized them. I looked up and breathed deep as I ran, trying to burn off the feeling of thwarted expectation that always gets me into trouble. The sky was a river running between the clouds. When I lowered my head, the complexion of the day changed.
There was Gianna on her back in a white G-string bikini, with everything she has smiling up at the sun. I reached the point closest to her deck, where the track loops behind the visiting high school team’s goal post, and shouted what had become my standard greeting.
“Gianna, how ‘bout a gelato?”
A coffee house three blocks from the field sells several flavors of Italian ice cream, though they don’t stock chocolate, Gianna’s favorite when she vacations in Calabria.
“Don’t tempt me with that shit, Bernie,” she said, shifting in her padded beach chair long enough to acknowledge me in her usual inaccurate fashion. “I’m trying to lose weight.”
Like many South Philly girls of a certain type, Gianna seems sexier when seen and not heard. To overly refined outsiders, she might not seem sexy at all. To one such as I, exiled from an enclave of pastoral privilege, she is wildness personified.
“Run with me,” I said, cantering sideways to address her directly.
South Philly makes me feel like Fletcher Christian on Tahiti, or Lord Byron in Italy, after his wife divorced him and English society pooh-poohed him for romancing his half-sister.
I thought of Teresa, teenaged wife of the 60-year-old count of Ravenna. Byron’s liaison with her pissed off the Pope. A hot number, lost in history. The roving poet must have caught a glimmer of himself in her. Was her profile Byronic, or merely her soul?
“Come on, run,” I persisted, passing the apex of the loop. “Then you can reward yourself for burning off all those calories.”
“Ha,” Gianna scoffed. “Then I put the calories back on, and I look like a blob. Didja think of that, Bernie?”
“It’s Bertram. Bert will do.”
OK, the Teresa comparison is a stretch, but I’ve come to appreciate Gianna’s contrasts. A sweet bird of youth flapping against the weight of toxic paints and powders, her verbal coarseness a jarring counterpoint to radiantly dark skin, brilliant teeth, and a crown of curls so black it shines purple in the sun.
“You look like that babe in Wayne’s World,” I suggested, running backwards now as I moved away from her. “You could star in an exercise video.”
“If I took 10 pounds off my ass,” Gianna shouted before turning her face toward the peek-a-boo sun. It’s a wonder she tans through the foundation, eye makeup and other junk that, despite her best efforts, fails to spoil her looks.
I turned to resume my forward stride and almost ran into the Gang of Four, immersed in their five-mile fast walk. They didn’t seem to notice my nimble last-minute side-step.
“The guy’s no Santa Claus,” said Armond, the loudest, a bow-legged fellow who wears black elastic knee braces. “You can bet he’s gonna make a ton of money.”
All four retirees are about 5-foot-6 and overweight. Their routine involves a current events recap that focuses on disease and/or sports. Mine involves guessing which news item they’re discussing as I overhear a snippet of conversation while running past them.
“The other guy’s no slouch either,” another of the gang chimed in. “He knows Dee-ahn is the missing link.”
Their voices faded, but I’d heard enough. The lubricious owner of a professional football team has pooled resources with the crafty king of a sneaker company to buy the services of a famously flamboyant defensive back. Now the other NFL teams don’t have a prayer.
The loop at the home team’s end of the field swung me back toward Gianna. I passed Rocco, the depressed school bus driver, holding a leash attached to a black Rottweiler. Rocco is built like an upright version of his dog. Stocky, but much shorter than I.
From a distance I look like a white Ken Norton, thanks to the weight-lifting. Norton was a bad dude in his prime. Up close I’m even more impressive. A sensitively brutish aspect that’s never out of style. Sulky mouth, strong nose and sky-blue eyes that can burn a hole in the hardest of hearts. Byron with both feet intact. I look a decade younger than I am.
“Yo Rocco,” I said. “How are those kids treating you?”
Some months ago Rocco found God and jogging, in that order, and banished the invisible demon who’d been urging him to drive his crowded bus through the front door of a fast-food franchise on Broad Street. Or so he told me last week.
“Same as usual, Bert,” he said. “It’s in the Lord’s hands now.”
As were my chances of breaking Gianna’s spell. This time around she was on her belly with her halter strap unhooked. The strip of newly exposed flesh suggested hazelnut on almond. A scoop of hazelnut gelato is especially sweet, like something that dropped off an ice cream tree in heaven.
“What do you do when the sun goes down, Gianna?” I shouted, feeling rash. “Where can I buy you a drink?”
“Maui,” she answered, referring not to the island but to the garish dance club on the riverfront. “My friend’s taking me to Maui tonight in her new Grand Am.”
Gianna mentions plenty of friends, none by name. One friend knows a mobster’s apprentice who drives a Jaguar and tosses $20 tips at bartenders. Another dances in a cable TV commercial for an expensive go-go joint as patrons chant “I like it, I like it.” Gianna’s espresso eyes shine when she tells these stories. Conspicuous spending impresses her even more than well-defined muscles.
“Afterwards, we’ll eat at Alexandria,” I said, referring to a trendy restaurant across from the nightclub. “You like Alexandria?”
Her smile was beatific. Girls at the state college where I teach these days flash the same smile when I rattle off an immortal rhyme: For the sword outwears its sheath/And the soul wears out the breast/And the heart must pause to breathe/And love itself to rest. They smile, I think, at the contrast between my lively demeanor and Byron’s weary words, at the gulf between Byron the legend and Byron the man, at the degree to which the potency of a legend depends on its distance from so-called fact. Or maybe they’re just happy to see me.
“Do I like it?” Gianna asked as I ran in place. “That’s like asking do I like a full-body massage and Jacuzzi.”
It was settled. Drinks, dinner, dancing. Then home to my apartment, if all went well. Or to a hotel near the airport, or a motel in Jersey. It would be hours before we got there, wherever it was, judging by what she’d told me about her socializing, and by my experience, from which I’ve gleaned the following data:
Gianna and her ilk are obsessed with teeth and skin and clothes. They are meticulous toenail painters, zealous patrons of hair and tanning salons, compulsive users of deodorants and depilatories. They expect to be wined and dined, served and serviced, and woe onto him who fails to pick up the check.
On the other hand, they are lusty and will fuck you into next week if you bring condoms and pamper them as lavishly as their daddies do; if you drive, buy the drinks, reserve the table, leave the tips, and present them with expensive tokens of esteem. Even better if you make occasional rude jokes about their appearance and manners, to signal you’re not the sort of simpering romantic who’ll do anything to get laid. And sometimes they’ll stun you with a sweet remark or involuntary moan at that moment when passion most fully supercedes reason, the only moment that reveals anything about anybody.
None of which mattered to my fellow exercisers, who ambulated ‘round and ‘round, acting out a rite with no apparent meaning. The wind dragging a plastic bag across the gravel sounded like water sloshing down a drain. The sun was a white hole in a black sky. I was on the verge of the dreamtime stage of my run, my only relief from thoughts of sex and death, when a soccer ball rolled off the grassy field and onto the track.
“Wait, I’ll pass it to you,” I said to a 7- or 8-year-old boy who was chasing the ball. I stopped it dead with my left foot, squared off to fake a kick downfield with my right, then stepped past and kicked it sideways to him with my left.
“How’d you do that?” the boy shouted, picking the ball up as I resumed jogging.
“Practice, kid,” I said over my shoulder. “Everything worth doing takes practice.”
What crap. It’s an easy move, as the kid will realize when someone takes a minute to show him. But he and his friends were impressed, watching from a distance. He reminded me of my eldest son, who thinks I’m of hell of a guy, despite what he hears from his mom, Madame Pinstripes. I rarely see him since she became a corporate stooge in Delaware and moved in with some pigeon-toed twerp who wouldn’t know a soccer ball from a sack of spuds.
Gianna saw me handle the ball - I looked to make sure - but she was gone when I glanced up again. The next time around, a red Grand Am was parked under her deck. Her friend, I assumed.
Just as well, I thought, noticing a tall runner in a black spandex suit under a white sleeveless jersey jog down the driveway to the gate near the bleachers, at a pace even with mine. The runner proceeded along the ribbon of concrete that borders the outside of the track. I licked my lips, tasted the salt, and felt an immediate attraction, followed by a stab of doubt. Boy or girl?
I lengthened my stride and gained ground by hugging the low curb that divides the track from the field. The mystery runner showed the elegance of a natural athlete. Long legs and arms, a deceptively fluid stride that made quickness look easy. She - I hoped it was a she - had hair as short and curly as mine, exposing the nape of a long, dark neck.
But she looked manly from a distance. I don’t know how else to say it. Most women, and some men, run mostly with their lower bodies, because they have low centers of gravity and little power up top. This one, you could tell, had equal strength in shoulders and legs, and the sort of resolute cool that indicates great stamina. She/he reminded me of me.
Now the Gang of Four was between us, obstructing my view while discussing their favorite topic, prostate cancer. Sunshine swept the field from directly ahead. Even from 40 yards, it was impossible to tell whether the runner’s baggy jersey concealed breasts.
Armond was saying, “My son thinks I’m bored, he wants me to find a girlfriend. I said, ‘And do what with her, you stupid fuck?’ Part of me ain’t screwed on no more.”
The others hectored Armond for his sour attitude. “Sex ain’t all it’s cracked up to be,” one of them said. “Get your rocks off these days, it might cost you more than you bargained for.”
I passed them hurriedly, gratefully, and edged forward till I was almost even with the runner whose perfect form was so arousingly familiar.
Just ahead of the Gang of Four were Rocco and his dog again, and then the Suspended Octogenarian, proceeding with stiff-legged precision in his usual ensemble: white sneakers and T-shirt with blue dress pants held chest-high by red braces. He smiles at women the same way I’d look at family pictures in an old photo album.
I picked up the pace to get a closer look at the mystery runner. Even before I descried the outline of firm little breasts, I’d compiled enough sensory data - a down-turned hand, a dainty cough, a slight flutter of the feet before they touched the ground - to conclude with some confidence that yes, thank God, my twin was a woman.
I pulled up beside her and said, “Jogging on concrete is bad for you.” She knew jogging was the furthest thing from my mind, I could tell by her grin.
“Everything is bad for you,” she said, turning her head to eye me calmly, as if she’d expected me. “I do what feels good.”
She was Mediterranean-looking and definitely female, about 10 years younger than I, with a slight, clipped accent and an apparent tendency to overdress when she ran. But the similarities were striking: the hair and high cheekbones and long stride, the pleasantly ironic style of speech, the sulky countenance dissolving to a double-dare-you grin. It was eerie, flirting with myself. The ultimate kick.
“Well, you look good,” I said in typically straightforward fashion. “You could star in an exercise video.”
This time I meant it. Gianna, bless her, will never have good form or keep off the extra weight for long, any more than I’ll ever teach physics or have an enduring high-fidelity relationship. Her charm is fugacious. But the tall one - she said her name was Ronnie - is my ideal, or this month’s version of it. A strong, clear-eyed creature whose beauty is enigmatic precisely because it’s so modestly functional. She laughs like one who enjoys the act of laughing even more than the jokes that inspire it. Her face in repose is sad and calls to mind a garden locked behind high stone walls.
Maybe I assume too much, but that’s my style. A glimpse, a whiff, a taste of new territory and I throw my compass overboard. Already I was guessing the facial expressions Ronnie makes while climaxing, and whether she cries out or holds steady and purrs with her full lips clamped shut. And I meant to find out, instead of regretting not making love to her if, God forbid, I live to be an old capon like Armond.
“This will probably sound sexist,” I said, “You move like a man, but without seeming unfeminine.”
“Naive, not sexist,” she replied. “Define feminine.”
Again the ironically friendly glance, as if she was daring me to share a joke.
“Graceful, sensitive,” I said, undaunted by the semantic quagmire up ahead. “Not necessarily passive, but serene.”
“Men can’t have those qualities?” she countered.
Fortunately, I was used to this sort of discussion. It’s an occupational hazard at colleges, especially if you run afoul of the sob sisters and saber-rattling viragoes in Women’s Studies, most of whom personify sin as a promiscuous heterosexual male. Pardon the hyperbole, but sexually stunted female academics get my back up and have stretched my tolerance to the limit.
“You are aware, fraulein, each man and woman is a mix of masculine and feminine,” I said. I was on my sixth mile and tiring. Ronnie’s handsome face was inscrutable. Eye contact with her was like a tennis match. Every time I served the ball, she politely sent it screaming back at my head. She was indeed my twin.
“Your mix seems more balanced than most people’s,” I said, dropping the accent. “It seems close to mine.”
I felt false, but what could I say? I’m an addict, Ronnie. When I need babying, be my mama. When I need sex, be my lover. When I need both, wrap yourself around me and don’t talk.
Or I could be her daddy - actually, her older, lusty brother - though that sort of thing is what started the neo-Puritan watchdogs barking at the prestigious citadel of learning where I used to wow future schoolmarms with my looks and erudition. Ronnie, at least, was no schoolgirl.
“Am I more balanced than Gianna?” she asked casually.
“She’s way out of balance,” I replied, without showing the slightest surprise at the mention of Gianna’s name.
“She looks like a goddess and talks like a Teamster.” I explained. “Passive until she gets riled, but no more sensitive than that goal post over there. An interesting mix maybe, but not for long.”
“For as long as it takes to fuck her,” Ronnie said, as brightly as Katherine Hepburn would have if they’d used the “f” word in The Philadelphia Story. “Or should I say fuck her over?”
The clouds parted slightly and a single ray of milky sunshine beamed on Veterans Stadium, looming just beyond the highway to the south. An ugly ball park, outside and in: intersecting slabs of pre-fab concrete, balding artificial turf, bad food. The locals don’t seem to notice. The stadium suits them. They wouldn’t know beauty if it ran up and bit them on the ass. Here was beauty, circling a drab little track where only smeared chalk lines separate the lanes.
“I’m not sure I can afford Gianna,” I said. “You’re her friend, right? The one with the Grand Am.”
“I’m her lover,” Ronnie said cheerfully. “And you’re right, you can’t afford her.”
It was sad, the way she distanced herself. Our hearts were beating as one, our footfalls synchronized and so silent I could hear Armond 50 yards ahead, telling tall tales about life before he was gelded, describing nights he treated showgirls from the Trocadero to sausage sandwiches at Pat’s Steaks.
“You must be bisexual,” I said, with a sidelong glance at Ronnie. “You’re too attractive to be totally queer.”
She rolled her eyes, as I was expecting, and said, “According to you, I look manly. What’s that say about your sexuality?”
That got me thinking about the sexual orientation index, developed by an ex-colleague in Vermont for articles in several obscure journals. I called his questionaire the homo factor index, to deflate his pretensions to scientific method, and to annoy him, especially after he said my narcissism indicated latent homosexuality. Before his breakdown, he was working on an instrument that would take the guesswork out of gauging orientation. I still get a kick out of applying his concept, albeit with facetious intent. If my ‘mo factor is 3 on a scale of 10, then Ronnie’s must be 7. Unless she was putting me on.
“Who knows?” I said after 30 yards of silence. “Some effeminate guys are straight, some football players are as queer as Liberace. I have no desire to fuck men, if that’s what you mean. But I do like bisexual women.”
It was an invitation of sorts, but Ronnie wasn’t biting. She wiped sweat from her glistening brow with the back of her left hand, exactly as I do, and said softly, “Just leave Gianna alone. She has enough problems.”
I could have told her about problems - two ex-wives, two mortgages, three kids, a lawsuit that won’t go away, an untenured professor’s salary - but instead I said, “Are you her lover or her mother?”
It took balls for me, of all people, to ask that, given my insatiable need for female affection.
“Let’s say I’m her sister,” Ronnie said pleasantly. “Don’t mess with my sister, mister.”
And then my twin - my sister - veered toward the driveway and disappeared behind the parked cars. OK, I exaggerate. She’s not my twin, except maybe in the metaphysical sense, although she has yet to realize that. Maybe the quaint expression “better half” is more accurate. Or simply “other half.” She shaves under her arms, I hope. I draw the line at that. And at penises, of course. I’m confident Ronnie doesn’t have one of those.
I stopped next to the bleachers to pick up my water bottle, then started the half-mile walk that ends my workout. The Gang of Four was directly behind me. Armond had changed the subject from prostate cancer to coronaries, which seemed to spark fewer objurgations from his cronies.
“I was dancing with my daughter at her wedding,” he declared. “My heart started racing till I thought it would bust. I went to sit down and collapsed face-first in a big bowl of onion dip. Soon as I got out of the hospital, I started exercising. It beats pushing up daisies.”
To each his own, but who needs half a man with a healthy heart? I’d rather help the flowers grow. Byron, at least, knew when to check out.
Armond was still holding court when I left for breakfast with Carla, my part-time girlfriend with the big breasts and the homemade bread and the bankrupt theatrical company. Not my twin, by any means, but a real wiz at reminding me that all the parts are still screwed on. She has pet names for our privates and a color photo of my smiling face on the dresser with the drawer full of toys and special jellies. A few hours with Carla before my afternoon classes will boost my sagging morale and bring my ‘mo factor back down to zero.
Only then can I think of colliding again with Ronnie. She’d like me to believe she’s happy playing big sister to bovine beauties like Gianna, but I know her quicksilver sadness and its secret cause: She hasn’t had a lover like me yet. Someday I’ll spell it out for her. I can already hear her laughter as she ducks behind the walls.

Dear Janet,

I greatly enjoyed your poems, particularly “the carpet factory, the shoes.”
If you’re single and good-looking, what don’t you come to my place this summer!? My girlfriend dumped me one month ago. I greatly loved her, I sent her a letter to tell her I loved her - I even invited her to my place for Christmas - but she never responded. She is from my hometown and her cousin had been my first girlfriend when I was 16.
We could maybe fall in love together. I am a good-looking fellow, you know, the son of a physician, never married, no kids, shoveling snow in the winter and cutting grass during the summer. I work in a youth camp as a maintenance worker.
Here, you know, the lakes are beautiful and numerous. Do you like swimming? Do you like canoeing under the sun when it’s 35 degrees Celsius outside in July? It’s very peaceful down here, no violence, no crimes, the days are cold in winter and warm in summer.
Do you like biking? Behind my house there is a biking track as long as 200 kilometers It is reserved for biking and running in summer and cross-country skiing in winter.
People here are simple and open-hearted. I left my hometown at 18, spent 7 years in Ottawa, 10 years in Montreal, then in 1989 I came back into my hometown area. Anyways, Janet, once again, I really enjoy your poetry and... Drop me a line if you have the time.
Daniel Reid
editor’s note: I swear, this man has never met me before in my life. God, I think this is further evidence of what growing up in Canada can do for a person. “My girlfriend is about to put a restraining order on me, so I though I’d write you...” Don’t bother, pal. Here’s a hint: don’t proposition me, ever, especially if you’re nearly twice my age or dated cousins of exes when you ran out of options. When you said simple and open-hearted I think you meant boring and desperate. A biking track behind your house, huh? I can see it now, wooded secluded areas where you hide the bodies of the little boys you abduct from the youth center you work at. Geesh, this is the winner for most pathetic letter.
p.s.: Kids, don’t try this at home, or you’ll get even more humiliation than this freak did.

Dear Janet:

I received Children, Churches and Daddies just the other day, and you were right about the ‘96 issues being HUGE. Actually, I wasn’t expecting something quite that large, but then, I don’t really know what I was expecting either. Anyway, though, I really enjoyed it - not just the poetry, but everything about it, really, especially the articles and letters about various things - it was interesting, too, reading about the origin of the title of your Scars Publications.
With the poetry you included, I really enjoyed the pieces by Alexandria Rand, C Ra McGuirt, Lyn Lifshin, Mark Sonnenfeld (his writing style is so engaging) and Greg Kosmicki. I also liked your poems “i want love” and “dandelions for a passing stranger.”

i want love
by Janet Kuypers

i’m laying here in bed
and i’m looking over at him

he’s sound asleep
perfectly happy

you know, i can’t remember
the last time he’s held me

he has no idea what i’m thinking
he’s perfectly content this way

i decided to spend the rest
of my life with him

he’s my best friend
but i don’t know if he loves me

damnit
i want love

Cheryl Townsend is really good, too, as if that isn’t already a well-known fact.

dandelions for a passing stranger
by Janet Kuypers

I loved my silly red tricycle, the type that every suburban three year old probably had. I would play on my driveway, riding past the evergreens, past the white mailbox... But I’d usually turn around before I rode past the gravel and onto the neighbor’s driveway and ride back toward the security of my own garage. I would sometomes play on the neighbor’s driveway, since it was on a hill. I would scale to the top by their maroon colored garage, navigate my trusted tricycle around by its rusted handlebars, hop on the seat and zoom downhill. But those times were only for when I thought no one was home at their house, and for when I was feeling particularly adventurous.
Once I was riding up and down my own driveway and I saw another little girl walking on the neighbor’s yard. I watched her approach my driveway, walking on the edge of our lawn. I was fascinated by this girl. There was a new face to look at - a girl with long blonde hair, so different from my own. She came from the lawn behind my house and was walking along the side of my driveway, away from my home. I just watched her walk. When she passed me, I looked over to the neighbor’s yard. Our lawn was full of green grass. Theirs was full of dandelions. I rode over to the side of my driveway, got off my tricycle, hopped over the ledge and ran onto the neighbor’s lawn. I picked a dandelion.
I quickly ran back to my tricycle. It patiently waited there, just where I left it... I pedaled fiercely to the end of my driveway, and caught up with that little girl. Still sitting on my tricycle, I looked up at her until she stopped walking right in front of me. I held up the dandelion to her.

I thought “crazy” and “philosophy monthly” were very good, too, and I loved that title “breast cancer in her coffee.” Well, maybe “loved” is too strong a word to use, but it was really a great title.
Thanks again for the great issue of cc+d!
Joseph Verrilli
editor’s note: thanks for the great comments. Preaise is always appreciated here. If you’d like to give us or any of the writers appearing in our issues some comments please email them to ccandd@shout.net or snail mail them to the address on our masthead.
So here is the original written piece that prompted the name “Scars publications and Design”:

scars
by Janet Kuypers

Like when the Grossman’s German shepherd bit the inside of my knee. I was babysitting two girls and a dog named “Rosco.” I remember being pushed to the floor by the dog, I was on my back, kicking, as this dog was gnawing on my leg, and I remember thinking, “I can’t believe a dog named Rosco is attacking me.” And I was thinking that I had to be strong for those two little girls, who were watching it all. I couldn’t cry.
Or when I stepped off Scott’s motorcycle at 2:00 a.m. and burned my calf on the exhaust pipe. I was drunk when he was driving and I was careless when I swung my leg over the back. It didn’t even hurt when I did it, but the next day it blistered and peeled; it looked inhuman. I had to bandage it for weeks. It hurt like hell.
When I was little, roller skating in my driveway, and I fell. My parents yelled at me, “Did you crack the sidewalk?”
When I was kissing someone, and I scraped my right knee against the wall. Or maybe it was the carpet. When someone asks me what that scar is from, I tell them I fell.
Or when I was riding my bicycle and I fell when my front wheel skidded in the gravel. I had to walk home. Blood was dripping from my elbow to my wrist; I remember thinking that the blood looked thick, but that nothing hurt. I sat on the toilet seat cover while my sister cleaned me up. It was a small bathroom. I felt like the walls could have fallen in on me at any time. Years later, and I can still see the dirt under my skin on my elbows.
Or when I was five years old and my dad called me an ass-hole because I made a mess in the living room. I didn’t.
Like when I scratched my chin when I had the chicken pox.

letter in response to poems, including
“the state of the nation”
by Janet Kuypers

my phone rang earlier today
and I picked it up and said “hello”
and a man on the other end said,
Is this Janet Kuypers?
and I said, “Yes, it is, may I ask
who is calling?”
and he said, Yeah, hi, this is
George Washington, and I’m sitting here
with Jefferson and we wanted to
tell you a few things. And I said
“Why me?” And he said Excuse me,
I believe I said I was the one
that wanted to do the talking.
God, that’s the problem with
Americans nowadays. They’re so
damn rude. And I said, “You know,
you really didn’t have to use
language like that,” and he said,
Oh, I’m sorry, it’s just I’ve been
dead so long, I lose all control
of my manners. Well, anyway, we just
wanted to tell you some stuff. Now,
you know that we really didn’t have
much of an idea of what we were
doing when we were starting up
this country here, we didn’t have
much experience in creating
bodies of power, so I could understand
how our Constitution could be
misconstrued

and then he put in a dramatic pause
and said,
but when we said people had
a right to bear arms
we meant to protect themselves
from a government gone wrong
and not so you could kill
and innocent person
for twenty dollars cash
and when we said freedom of
religion we included the separation
of church and state because freedom
of religion could also mean freedom
from religion
and when we said freedom of speech
we had no idea you’d be
burning a flag
or painting pictures of Christ
doused in urine
or photographing people with
whips up their respective anatomies
but hell, I guess we’ve got to
grin and bear it
because if we ban that
the next thing they’ll ban is books
and we can’t have that
and I said, “But there are schools
that have books banned, George.”
And he said Oh.

Janet,

George called you too, huh? Damn if he wasn’t cussing up a storm about the recent government shutdowns. He kept saying that only the People were supposed to be doing stuff like that, not the government itself. It did no good to remind him that people generally know very little and could not care less about the inner workings of government machinery. All he did was go on some tangent about how the priniciple of government is based (or supposed to be based) on the idea that “it” represents the People through representation, and that through the democratic process justice and goodness is guaranteed to prevail, and the People will prosper as a result. He reminded me of what Confucius said:
Equity is the treasure of the states.
And I told him that I never heard of such a thing. This made him really upset. “Probably got banned in one of those books Janet was talking about,” he muttered glumly. What a strange duck he was! The idea that a People’s Representative would seek, during the term of his or her office, to do more harm than good was completely and utterly unfathomable to him. Anyway, Janet, if ol’ Georgie should ever call you again, see if you can get his number. I have a feeling that we’re not the only ones who would like to have a little chat with the guy whose face is on a billion dollar bills.
Re “people’s rights misunderstood”:

the poem “people’s rights misunderstood”
by Janet Kuypers

I had a dream the other night
I was walking down the street in the city
and a man came up to me
a skinny man, he lost his hair
and he walked right up to me
and told me no one cares anymore
and he took my hand
and asked me to care about him
“I’m not supposed to be like this” he said
“I’m not homeless, you know
I have AIDS”
and I wanted to tell him that
someone did care,
that he didn’t have to die alone,
but you know how sometimes
you can’t do things in your dream
no matter how hard you try,
well, my mouth was open, wide open,
but no words were coming out

you know, I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight
I’m afraid that a pregnant woman
will come up to me
and ask me for a hanger
and I’ll tell her there has to be another way
and she’ll say this is the way she chooses

I’m afraid a woman will come up to me
and tell me she doesn’t want to live
because she’s just been raped
and her world doesn’t make sense anymore
and I’ll tell her that she can make it
that one in three women are raped in their lifetime
and they all make it
and besides, the world doesn’t make sense
to anyone
and she’ll say that doesn’t make me
feel any better

and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to
walk down that city street again
without it looking like a Quentin Tarentino movie
where everyone is pointing guns at each other
ys, Mr. NRA
you are right
I feel so much safer
knowing everyone out there has a gun
that there are more gun shops than gas stations
and that everyone is so willing
to do the killing

You know, it has often occurred to me that if there were less gunshots fired on the Big Screen and more acts of altruism shown, we might not have less crime (see bad economic policy/economic disparity versus action films as true cause of violent crime) but we would at least have examples of human beings whose actions truly merit admiration. In my opinion, “Pulp Fiction” wasn’t a bad movie at all. Tarentino knows how to keep things interesting. But perhaps IF there were more films such as Akira Kurosawa’s “Red Beard” there wouldn’t be nearly as much interest in depravity (however entertaining it is to watch) as there would be in overcoming one’s faults in order to become a better person...which benefits society as a whole where individuals are concerned.
Re “Child labor”:

the poem: “the carpet factory, the shoes”
by Janet Kuypers

i heard a story today
about a little boy
one of many who was enslaved
by his country
in child labor

in this case
he was working
for a carpet factory

he managed to escape
he told his story
to the world
he was a hero at ten

put the people from the factory
held a grudge
and today i heard
that the little boy
was shot and killed
on the street
he was twelve

and eugene complains to me
when i buy shoes
that are made in china

now i have to think
did somebody
have to die for these

will somebody have to die
for these

Wee said. I know a few kids right here in Minneapolis who work twelve hour shift seven days a week. For less than seven dollars an hour. At a factory which makes junk mail and newspaper advertisements and inserts. Some of these kids are fresh out of school (I worked there for three months as a janitor and got to know them a bit) whose eighteen-year-old minds are fresh and easily aquire new ideas. It is my belief that any of them, in another time and place, could just as easily have been Henry David Thoreaus or Einsteins or Ghengis Khans for that matter, but instead they stand in front of machines for half their lives helping their employers and various other Big Players make their wallets fatter, while these kids struggle to pay the bills.
While talking to an older fellow named Ron about it, he simply said life is not fair...and that people are wrong to call such operations “profiteering.” He said that’s “commie talk,” that here in America it’s called Entrepreneurship, or Capitalism.
Neil Cunningham
ed: Thanks for the great comments, and for actually thinking, which I still personally believe is something that most people would prefer to relinquish from their list of responsibilities. Other than the fact that it was slave labor/child labor, the company you mention has every right to do what they wish with their company and their employees, if the employees allow it. It’s illegal to physically abuse employees via slave labor, and by law one must be sixteen to be employed. Otherwise you’re an adult that can stand up for your rights, and if you don’t like a job, you can find another, or simply leave.
And yes, Pulp Fiction was a good movie, and maybe violence doesn’t cause crime in our society. I must admit, though, that Pulp Fiction had characters which while evil were also intelligent and witty; they discussed etiquette, philosophy and religion over the course of this one day. I thought that movie was more mentally stimulating than any Stallone flick, or Van Damme, or Schwartzenager, or however you spell it. Movies they do reduce violence to one witty (to the least common denominator, of course) punch line and one easy-to-shoot bullet with no consequences.
And sorry, but George hasn’t called back - I think after seeing the rest of America give up, maybe he’s started to give up, too.

I and my uncle were leaning against a crooked wooden fence. My uncle smoking a cigarette, me with a twig in my mouth. I didn’t know why I was chewing the twig, I’d just seen others do it and I liked the way it looked.
The fence enclosed a small grazing area that had never been used. It came with the lopsided barn that sat on the other side of the field. My parents had built the log cabin behind us. In the middle of the field my mother and father were gesticulating wildly in the midst of some gaping argument. I and my uncle, we were trying not to watch. “That field needs mowing,” my uncle said.
I shaded my eyes against the bristling sun and stared out at the field, jotting down each inch of it before resting my eyes on my parents, then moved them deliberately onward after seeing them. My mother had a finger underneath my father’s nose and was shaking it furiously. She was wearing jeans and a sky blue halter top with no bra. Every shake of her finger set her jiggling, her breasts threatening to escape the spaghetti straps.
I was embarrassed for her. “It hasn’t rained in a while,” I said. “We won’t have to mow it unless it rains.”
“Yeah,” said my uncle, stubbing his cigarette out on the top fence-rail. “I guess it does look dead.” He clapped me on my shoulder. “Why don’t we go in and get some ice cream?”
I gripped the fence and rocked myself up against it, my chin barely reaching the top. “I think I’ll stay out here.”
“Maybe I will too, then,” my uncle said.
My father stood stoically, his work-scarred hands clasped beneath his arm-pits. My mother grabbed at the neck of his white t-shirt and pulled at it but it didn’t give. She slapped his chest and screamed so loudly that me and my uncle could hear her voice shrilling, but not loudly enough that we could hear the content. My father spat on the ground and rubbed his spittle into the dirt with a boot.
“What say we go get that ice cream?” my uncle said in a steady voice, and lit another cigarette. I didn’t even bother to glance at him. I couldn’t help staring undisguised at my mother and father.
There are blinds, but they leave a crack around the edge of the window that a rim of sunlight glints through. The furnishings are tasteful and were obviously picked out with care. The couch, love seat, and chair coordinated in color and size. Sitting well together, but at odds with the cheap apartment. Spilt drinks and water-rings stain the coffee table and a half full whiskey glass is setting a fresh blemish. Two brass lamps are on the floor, their shades cockeyed and dusty.
She is sitting easily on the love seat, but suddenly feeling the cruelty of that same ease, she squirms wittingly. She unloops her purse strap and sits the purse on the floor.
He doesn’t feel at all easy on the couch, but knowing he should, he relaxes back. “Get your purse off the floor,” he says.
She picks the purse up and holds it over the table, moving it from place to place, seeking a dry spot. She grows agitated and drops the purse by her side, on the love seat. “Where are the paper towels?” she asks, standing.
“I don’t have any.” He holds the glass up to take a drink, and the smell of the Ten High pulls at his stomach. He forces it down and slants the glass at the purse. “It’s fine there.” She crosses her long legs, uncrosses them, stretches them out, and then reels them in, mindful to keep her knees together. “You should use coasters.”
He hee-haws outrageously. “Fuck you and what I should use,” he says.
She looks down at her feet and softly implores, “don’t be angry.” Her shoes are impeccable. They match the love seat.
“I just got off work,” he says. He drops the glass on the table and cracks his aching knuckles. “I’m gonna change.” He gets up and walks into his bedroom.
She runs her hands over her face, pulling them down hard, gripping at her eye sockets and cheeks. Then she quivers with a scrupulous little shrug of recovery and pulls a tiny mirror from her purse to check her makeup.
He catches her with the mirror in hand. Seeing him, she starts and jams it back into her purse. He has changed into cut off shorts and a black t-shirt. She notices his legs are tanned and the tan irritates her. She gets the mirror back out and completes her inventory of powders. He stares at his whiskey glass, his face lined and exhausted. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I wanted to see how you were doing.”
He holds a sip of the whiskey in his mouth like mouthwash. “You could’ve told me to my face,” he says, swallowing. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“You would’ve.” She completes her touch-up and returns the mirror. “Besides,” she says, glancing at his tanned legs, “I didn’t think you’d mind that much.”
“You didn’t think I’d mind?” His eyebrows furrow and his jaw muscles knot. “You didn’t think I’d fucking mind?”
“You didn’t seem like you would mind.”
“I lost my fucking hair,” he says. “My fucking hair was falling out of my head.” He turns his head and shows her a bald patch just beneath and behind his left temple.
She wishes she had her mirror back out, but she knows she can’t get it. “You don’t have to swear at me,” she says. “I didn’t come to be yelled at.”
He leaps up and whips his glass at her. It skips off the back of the love seat and shatters against the wall. “FUCK YOU,” His breath comes in and out whiskey-deep. He drops his head, confounded, and swigs from the bottle.
She waits a clean minute, grabs her purse, and bolts for the door. He swings around and grabs her collar. Her head thrashes back and her legs keep going, up and into the air. He yanks her in and clasps both arms around her stomach. “You didn’t think I’d mind?”
She bursts out crying. “You don’t,” she whimpers. “Look at your legs.”
He spins her around gently and holds her face in his hands. He wipes at her tears with his thumbs. Then he presses in and kisses her.
She doesn’t resist. She gives a throaty sigh and relaxes against his chest.
“There’s no need for you to watch this,” my uncle said.
“Well,” I said, “I’m gonna watch it.”
Something was said that was without return, something irrevocable and tangible. My mother and father stood in perfect silence. Then my father, almost languidly, punched her in the temple and she sagged to the ground. He caught her in mid-fall by the hair and wound it up in his fist. I stared at them without blinking until my eyes started to tear. My father held her suspended by her hair, her crumpled form sagging unconscious in a half sitting position.
My arms were thin, prepubescent. They looked like pathetic excuses. Half arms on a half man. I examined my uncle’s and they were muscled, defined, his knuckles flattened by bar fights. My father walked my mother, dragging her by her hair towards the barn. She awoke and howled with pain. Her feet came up beneath her and she did a sick crab-walk behind his fist. My uncle leaned tiredly against the fence, his cigarette dangling from his hand.
“You could do something,” I said.
The uncle’s face crowded with ache, and then with reason. He reached to grip my shoulder, but stopped short and didn’t. “There’s nothing to do.”
The rain pitches over her, whips her hair down and leaves it lank, soaks her dress and flattens it over her body.
A bottle of Southern Comfort dangles from her hand, slipping occasionally from her fingers. Her hands clutch sporadically to catch it, then relax again. And again she nearly loses the bottle.
She spiritlessly crosses one bare foot over the other and begins a half spin. Her arms lift and stretch out from her sides. They come down again, her feet uncross again. Her bottle hand clenches suddenly and knocks slowly at her forehead. She can’t remember why she’s out, she knows it’s raining. Her arms slip around her sides and she feels like she should cry. So she begins to, softly, her head turning away from the farmhouse behind her. The bottle covers her face.
The sobbing ceases as abruptly as it began. She knuckles away the tears and chokes out a giggle. The world tilts a bit under her feet and she tilts with it. Her arms fly up in an effort to regain her balance, her feet cross one over the other, and she begins to spin. Slowly at first, then in a frenzy, working with the tilt.
The porch light flips on and she tumbles to a halt. Her legs whirl from under her and she collapses with a mad screaming laugh in the grass.
He steps out the screen door and stands for a minute on the porch-step. He is shirtless and bearded. Without a bottle in his hand.
She crouches in the grass and beckons him with a finger. He walks to her. “Get up,” he says.
She kicks him in the shin. “You get down.”
His head hangs, his legs fold, he places his hands on his knees. “Come to bed,” he says, “it’s late.” He wipes at the rain dripping down his cheeks.
“Oh,” she says, “you want me in bed.” Playfully she kicks at him again.
“I don’t have time for this shit.” As he says it her foot flies again. He grabs it from the air and jerks her leg brutally. She sprawls forward, her kicking foot in his hand, her other twisted irregularly beneath her. He releases her.
“Fuck,” she says, and rolls over in the grass. She drops the bottle and massages her ankle. “You shit. You broke it.”
“It ain’t broken,” he says, and picks up the Southern Comfort.
She stands and gingerly sets her weight on it. She flinches at a burst of pain. Then tries again, easing her body down. The pain slows at the pressure. “Fuck you,” she says.
“I gotta work tomorrow.” He swings the bottle away as she makes a lunge for it. “Can’t we have a fucking night off?”
“No.” she says, making another pass at the bottle. “We can’t have a fucking night. Tonight’s a drinking night.” She stands on tip-toe and reaches for the bottle he holds above his head. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll fuck you.”
He drops the bottle on the grass, turns, and starts for the door.
She snatches up the bottle. “You think I’d fuck you?” She fumbles with the cap, but can’t get it unscrewed. “YOU THINK I’D FUCK YOU?”
He stops in front of the door and looks at her coldly. She has the bottle stuck in her mouth and is trying to get it unscrewed with her teeth.
He shakes his head and moves for the door-handle.
“FUCK,” she screams, and throws the bottle, still capped, at him. It glances off his shoulder and hits the farmhouse’s wall, without breaking.
He stoops and takes it in his hand. She is standing, her hands held over her giggling mouth.
There is a red mark on his shoulder and already the beginning of an angry bruise. He raises up and walks toward her.
She backs away, foot over foot, glancing over her shoulder and checking for pitfalls. He reaches her and she stops. She runs her fingers over his face and says gently, “I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last man on Earth.”
He punches her square in the jaw. Her head whips backwards and she crashes to her knees. He starts to shake, incredulous at the blow. He stares dumbly at his fist.
Blood is lining her chin from a split lip. She licks it and giggles up at him, her hands gripping and twisting the hem of her dress. She jumps up and he steps back. “Oh,” she says, stumbling to the front door. “Oh.” She sticks out her tongue at him. “That won’t make me fuck you.” She gropes open the screen door and darts inside.
He takes the yard in four long steps, twisting off the bottle’s cap, unbuckling his pants.
My mother’s feet scrabbled for earth, her shoulders twisted and wrenched at his grip. She saw the barn’s door and her fighting redoubled. My father’s face set even harder and he gave her one good yank, out of the field and through the barn door.
“You gotta do something,” I said.
My uncle didn’t move except for his cigarette hand, and his drags were harsh and quick.
The field was vicious and silent, like razor blades wrapped up in cheese cloth. The air moved past us, a simmering magnet pulling at our heads. Every blade of grass stood at stupid and insane attention.
“You could fucking do something,” I said.
My uncle grimaced at my words. He slammed the cigarette in his mouth for one last hit, and tasting filter, he flicked it out in the field. “You’ll understand when you get older,” he said.
I started inwardly, but I’d like to think now that I kept my outward composure. I thought, you are fucking crazy. Then I looked at my uncle and I saw every muscle in his body pulling out and veined. His jaw was wired up and his lips were ticking. You are fucking crazy, I thought again.
We were noiseless and we waited like that, every nerve on end for anything. Nothing came. Nothing drifted our way. Even the dry wind ceased.
You are fucking crazy, I thought. But I didn’t say it.
I kept my mouth shut.
They are lying in bed together. The bed only a mattress on the floor. The closet light is on and is the only source of light in the room. He has a pack of Lucky Strikes by his head on the pillow, and is smoking one, ashing in an empty beer bottle.
She is trying to read a music magazine, but keeps closing it and staring at the ceiling. She rolls the magazine up and twists her hands around it, then unfurls it and returns to the reading.
He takes the last hit off the cigarette and drops the butt into the bottle. He blows the smoke he’s just inhaled out in a long stream that is caught by a current from the open window and sent back towards her.
“That really stinks,” she says.
He grunts and pushes the pack of cigarettes off the pillow.
“That really fucking stinks,” she says. “Couldn’t you smoke outside?”
He rolls over and slides up against her, drifting his arm over her stomach.
“You could at least stop smoking in bed.”
He rubs her stomach lightly, his fingertips playing around her rib cage, moving up towards her breasts, and then back just as he begins to feel the swelling.
“Quit,” she says, picking up his hand and thrusting it aside. “I’m trying to read.”
He moves still closer to her and runs his fingers up her leg and underneath her boxer shorts.
She drops the magazine in the crack between the bed and the wall. “You wanna fuck.”
He turns over on his back and clasps his hands over his chest.
“You wanna fuck because you know after tomorrow you ain’t going to for a while.” She snorts derisively. “Is that it, you wanna fuck?”
He goes for her mouth to kiss her, guileful in his eyes. She pushes his face away with her palm. “Well,” she says, “you shouldn’t have been so careless fucking.” She gets up and turns off the light, then steps out of the room to the kitchen for a glass of water. When she returns to the bed he’s lying naked and erect.
“Go to sleep,” she says. She takes a drink of the water and sets the glass at the foot of the bed. “You get no pussy tonight. And you know you won’t be getting any for a couple weeks after.”
He stands and flips the light on.
She purses her lips and breathes in and out hard. “You’re not even really horny,” she says. “You just want to get one in before tomorrow.”
He lies still.
“Fuck you,” she says, puts an arm over her eyes, and attempts sleep. He seizes her boxer shorts and pulls them down to her knees.
“Alright,” she says, “you wanna fuck.” She pulls her boxers off, then her underwear. He turns the light out.
She waits for him to get back in the bed. “Use a condom,” she says.
His face contorts inquisitively. His hand roams over and clutches a breast.
“You’re going to use a condom,” she says again.
I’d like to tell the truth, but I don’t remember much.
I might have changed the names, but that shouldn’t detract from any truth. My uncle might not have been my uncle, but he was my hero. I own a picture he painted. It doesn’t hang in my apartment. He’s still one of my heroes.
I woke up this morning and I couldn’t breathe. I haven’t seen the man who might be my father since I was fifteen. I saw him him every day, I need to see him now. I awoke this morning and he was stuck in my head.
I don’t even have a fucking picture.
I want to tell the truth, but I don’t remember it. I have fragments and I fill in the rest. I hope you can understand that. It might not have been so brutal, I might have invented this scene and all similar, but I saw everything I saw.
I awoke this morning and it was everything this morning was.
I ate Ramen and drank coffee. I turned on the radio and it was nothing to me. I got dressed and went to a shit restaurant where I wash dishes.
At the job I had to talk to people and I had no idea what to say. I thought about getting home and writing a story that told the truth.
I woke up this morning and all I wanted was to tell the truth, but everyone I met stopped me. I waded through person after person who looked on fire with ache. They met me with lies and self mutilation. They bored me into a dumb senseless stupor with their drama and their own scenes. Someone offered me a line in the bathroom.
I might have done it.
I awoke this morning and I had something to say. I drank a cup of coffee and I wrote some of it down.
Now I’m home after the shit job. I’ve got to get this finished before I can stare at the walls and get drunk enough to pass out.
I don’t have the least bit of interest in my own scene, let alone anyone else’s. Another dripping fist, another random word. I’ve heard them all and even said a few. This piece would probably funnier if I switched just one word for one other.
So I might have. I won’t let them despise me for that. I see the way they live.
I woke up this morning and I had a hangover because that’s the only way I can sleep.
And for the record I’m not kept awake by any tortured visions. No deep pain to keep consciousness rolling. Sometimes I just need an alternative route to rest.
I need to remember that next time.
It’s only vodka.
It’s only a hangover.

the world in concise terms

a mini dictionary of useless and vastly important words

by me

aardvark - a creature that sucks up things that aren’t cool and uses them for food. wow. the destruction of crap in order to survive. also one of the ugliest animals ever.
AIDS - a disease which no one understands. the doctors can’t find a cure, the infected don’t know why it happened to them, and the ignorant think that gays and lesbians have cooties.
anvil - a carton weight dropped on someone’s head for laughs. wish i could do that to people. it’s meant to hurt them, i guess, but the cartoon characters are always in perfect shape by the beginning of the next scene. ah, realism in television.
apple - something that’s supposed to keep the doctor away. fiber, i guess, as well as just eating something good for you instead of super-processed, refined, bleached, reconstituted shit. still don’t know how spraying the apple orchards with chemical pesticides, then covering the fruits with wax for shine is supposed to be good for you,but there are a lot of things i don’t understand, which you’ll soon understand.
condom - a zip-lock baggie for a penis. however, you can’t seal it with a yellow-and-blue-make-green zipper-gripper. *Fun gag: put a lubricated condom on a door knob.
cervix -
gelatin - the spare parts, including bones and connective tissue, of assorted animals, including horses, pigs and cows. this delectable, delicious delicacy can be found in such unobtrusive treats as jello and gummi bears.
heaven - a place for souls to go after they die (note: this is a myth). though there are many interpretations, some include streets of gold, or a separate heaven for your pets (though these same people are more than happy to eat other animals), or a place where you can see your dead grandmother again. my question: do you go to heaven in the condition you were in when you die, i.e., if your death entailed dismemberment, would your body be separated in heaven for eternity? do babies spend eternity as cooing, pooping vegetables?
money - something all artist claim to hate. (if they won the lottery, they’d swear they never said it.)
nirvana - (1) a good band. (2) a fantasy-state of perfection.
police - fat men with moustaches who wear tight blue uniforms and speak as if they are entirely uneducated. Note: they are dangerous; they also carry guns. Police serve two functions: to hand out traffic tickets, which make them inherently evil, and to arrive at the scene of the crime too late to offer any real assistance and to merely harass the victim so they feel victimized twice in one day.
poopy -
redneck - though seemingly everywhere and quite annoying, it is difficult to define a redneck. you can spot a redneck if (1) they live in a trailor; (2) they have a front lawn with: (a) appliances, (b) many junk cars; (3) they are missing teeth; (4) they are drinking coors beer, (5) they think wrestling is real. they congregate at (1) monster truck rallies, (2) wrestling matches (of course). note: their shotguns make them dangerous (but not their brains).
religion - a belief system created and/or perpetuated by a society to explain what happens when people die, because (1) they’re too afraid to become worm food, or (2) people need something to be afraid of in order to be good to others. note: it still usually doesn’t work.

sydney
anderson

The Secret Side of the Fence

catherine wright

“Come with me, Ruby, let’s go for a ride,” Ruby’s father said one day after school. It was spring, and he was in a good mood.
“Where?” Ruby said.
“Never mind.” He jingled his keys in his pocket. “Just come. Put your coat on.”
She didn’t move. Last time he’d taken her somewhere he left her with some women in a house with an old fashioned clothes washer which crushed children’s fingers if they got near it. One of the women had offered her a homemade donut. It was small and greasy and Ruby wanted it so bad her mouth filled with spit. But she’d taken her head. She didn’t know why she was there or where her father was. The women wore black and smelled like steam.
Her father looked at Ruby, surprised. “Don’t you want to go for a ride?”
She never got to be with him alone, so she put her coat on.
****
They stopped at a gas station with a broken sign. “Have you met Mr. Phelps?” he said as they got out of the car. “You know Mrs. Phelps and old Mrs. Phelps. The two ladies down there?” He pointed down the hill towards the house with the crusher washing machine. “This is old Mrs. Phelps’ son. Hello! Hello!” He pushed open a dirty door.
First a man’s work boots, then his green legs oozed out from under a car. He smiled slowly at Ruby’s father.
Her father touched Ruby. “The youngest. Hey-how’s your mother? This one’s been there.” He rapped her on the head with his finger.
Mr. Phelps said, “pre-e-tty good,” and smiled like he was getting a lot of attention. Then he rummaged for some old pipes and showed them to ruby’s father. They didn’t fit together and had big rust spots. Ruby’s father shrugged and said sadly, “Let ‘em go.”
Back in the car her father said: “That’s stop number one. Now we go to the heating plant. Have I ever taken you to the heating plant?”
“No.” She imagined a big, warm plant growing in water.
He swung the car down a hill and parked by a gray cement building, and a man covered with black powder came out.
“Hey-” Her father shook the man’s hand and put his hand on Ruby’s head. “Have you met the youngest?”
The man had sad eyes. He put out a sooty hand and Ruby slowly put hers in it. After he shook it she looked at her hand.
“Do you know what that is?” her father said.
“No.”
“That’s what Walter uses to keep the school warm. It’s coal. Did you know that?”
Then she realized that the tall smokestack she saw from her house came from this building and heated the school. “How come I never knew that?” They laughed. They talked about coal and oil and people who didn’t know enough. Ruby waited.
“Are we going home now?” she asked back in the car.
“We’re only half done. Aren’t you having fun?” He looked over in surprise. “I tell you what. One more stop and we’ll go home.”
They parked in front of a big flag and her father winked at her and inside he whisked her through a swinging door.
She was sure they shouldn’t be there. He always did things he wasn’t supposed to do. She edged up against the swinging door while he talked to some women behind a fence that looked like a bank. Her father was on the secret side of the fence. The women were laughing and her father acted like he was telling them something scandalous. Ruby hung by the door and wished he’d hurry up before they were caught. But he turned and yelled, “Ruby! What are you doing over there? Come meet these nice women.”
Everyone behind the fence and in front of it looked at Ruby. She edged over. A woman touched her hair and said, “Aren’t you lucky to have hair like your Daddy.”
Outside, she told him he wasn’t supposed to go through those doors.
He laughed. “Ruby! I’ve been visiting these women for years. They’re my friends. Can’t you tell?”
She was silent.
He started up the car. “Don’t you see I make it a point to know people? Some people go around like this.” He put a finger on his nose and pushed it up so he looked like a pig.
She smiled.
“Do you know what I mean? It means someone’s a snob. But I don’t like snobs. You can go anywhere in this town, Ruby, and tell people who you are, and I bet they’ll know you. You have to reach out, you can’t live in a cocoon. Your mother doesn’t always realize that but it’s true.”
Her father started singing. Ruby relaxed and felt the car safe and rumbling around her. She felt her father’s big, singing presence, and watched the dorms and fields go slowly by. Catnip mountain came into view in her window.
Her father must be right. She shouldn’t have worried. She turned to look at him, at his big face and red hair. He was thinking about her mother too. “She’s not a snob,” Ruby said.
He looked at her. “You don’t think so?”
“No,” Ruby said, “not exactly.”
He seemed to be listening, to be thinking. “No,” he agreed, “she’s not a snob. That’s not it.”
****
Ruby’s mother’s long, pale hands moved across the pages of books at night, and her voice took on the low shapes of trolls and wolves. When Ruby was upset, her mother said, “I know, I know”, with deep, awful meaning.
On her seventh birthday her mother took Ruby to a toy store. Ruby was astonished to see so many toys in one place. She chose an enormous bouncing ball with a plastic ring around it you jumped on. It was the first time she’d picked out a toy like that and she clutched the box to her chest.
They went to a diner for lunch. She had never been out to lunch with her mother. They sat in a soft, sticky booth eating french fries and cheese sandwiches. Then her mother said they were doing something even more special.
They drove to a tar papered building that was dark inside and sat in a row of chairs. It reminded Ruby of waiting for her mother while she measured the arms and legs of the reform boys at the school for costumes. She slouched in her seat.
When the curtains lifted, a room of straw burst out with a girl in a red dress talking to an old man, and the girl cried when he left. Then a little man darted in. Ruby forgot about the hard seats.
When the play ended, she was stunned to find herself in a dark room full of people and chairs. As they walked out, her mother hummed. Ruby made a noise in her throat. Her mother said, “Did you like the play?”
Ruby burst into tears.
“What’s the matter? Did it scare you?”
Ruby sobbed.
“Ruby, tell me, please.”
She couldn’t stop. She waved her arms to try and tell her mother.
Her mother smiled. “Oh, I know,” she said.
On the way home Ruby asked whey they’d never gone there before.
“They were visiting actors-and actresses,” her mother explained. “They travel around the country and put plays on in different towns.”
“They’re leaving””
“They have to. Other people want to see the p
The were the most special, wonderful people in the whole world, and Ruby wished she could make them stay. But she understood other people wanted to see the play. “How come more people don’t do that? What those actors do?”
“I was part of a traveling theater once,” her mother said dreamily. “Before I was married. But your Aunt Melanie was the one who did it for years. She directed her own company. She was probably the first woman to do that. I remember my parents being very upset that she was gallivanting around the country with no money, sleeping on trains. She got sick in Louisiana, from exhaustion I think, and my father went and got her.” Her mother paused. “She gave it up after that.” Her voice got a familiar tightness. “It’s too bad.”
“I want to do that,” Ruby said quickly.
Her mother turned to her. “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to do something practical, no matter what your father says. You should do something you love. That feeds the imagination.” Her fingers gripped the steering wheel. Her shoulders tensed.
Ruby stared across the long car seat at her. She studied her mother’s pale face and dark hair against a wide, moving landscape.
****
After that, Ruby hung around the theater at the reform school. She made a nest in the seats with her books and toys.
One boy offered to read her a story, and then he played tag with her in the back lobby. After that Ruby looked for him, and they played between the acts when he came on.
“Don’t go far,” her mother warned. She was busy sewing and measuring, collecting props and gluing broken ones.
The boy asked Ruby to play hide and seek in the fieldhouse on the other side of campus. Her father had forbidden her to go there because he said it was just for the boys. Ruby thought it was really because the school hadn’t used his plans for building it. She and her friend Kate went there on weekends, and no one had said anything to them. So she rode her bike there. The gym was empty and they played hide and seek. When it was the boy’s turn, Ruby couldn’t find him.
He motioned to her from the women’s bathroom. He waved her in and then locked the door. “I have to ask you something, Ruby.” He knelt down. “I’m studying to become a doctor and I noticed something might be wrong with you. I want to help you. Will you let me help you?”
She took a step back. Her parents had told her not to play with the boys. “What’s wrong with me?”
“I’m not sure, I need to check. We’ll stop if you say no.” He looked concerned.
“Are you really a doctor?” She thought the boys were just students.
“I will be. I’m almost one.”
She was worried something was wrong with her. She took off her clothes like he asked and was surprised when he took off his clothes. “Why are you taking off your clothes?”
“I need to in order to check you. Could you lay down on the floor? On your back?”
She lay down. He appeared over her like he was doing push-ups, and his big red penis touched her leg. She froze. He said, “I need to put this inside you, and I’m going to pee just a little bit.”
She eyed it. It was huge. “I don’t want to do this.” Her voice shook. “I want to go.”
“It’ll just take a minute. It’s for you, I’m worried about you.”
“I want to go,” she said, louder.
It took forever to put her clothes on.
He said, dressing quickly, “It’s alright, I think you’re okay.”
He unlocked the bathroom door and she ran for the outdoors and jumped on her bike and pedaled as fast as she could, knowing something awful had happened.
He pulled up on his bike, next to her. “You won’t tell anyone will you? We’re still friends, aren’t we?”
She pedaled so hard her lungs hurt. But she couldn’t outpedal him. He was talking, begging. She didn’t look at him.
She ran to find her mother and her mother took her upstairs and sat her down on her bed. “What did he do?”
Ruby squirmed. She wasn’t used to having her mother look at her so closely. She looked down at the bedspread. “He asked me if he could pee-inside me.”
Her mother stiffened.
Her brother Toby stomped up the stairs with a bunch of boys. “Mom? MOM!!”
Ruby looked at Toby in the door, but her mother didn’t seem to hear him.
“Mom?” he said.
Her mother’s body was rigid. Without looking at Toby she said, “What? Can’t you see we’re talking?”
“He has a question,” Ruby said. She felt sorry for him. All his friends were standing behind him looking at their mother.
“I just want to know-”
“I don’t know!” their mother cried. “Do whatever you want!”
Ruby looked down at the floor as the boys went quiet and shuffled off.
Her mother turned her back to her. “So tell me what he did.”
Ruby swallowed. “He said there was something wrong with me and he could make it better, but when he-he-”
“He what?”
“He asked me to lie on the floor, but it was cold and when he got near me I-” Her mother’s tension overwhelmed her.
“You’ve got to tell me Ruby. Tell me what he did.”
“I wanted to go home.”
“Did he do anything?”
“He wanted to pee in me but . . . I didn’t want him to.”
“But did he?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? Did he touch you?”
“He didn’t touch me. He let me go home.”
Her mother sagged against the wall. “Oh thank God, Oh thank God.”
****
That night her mother dressed her in a dress and told her that the boy who they thought had taken her into the bathroom was coming over. Ruby was supposed to tell her if it was
Ruby waited with her mother in the kitchen until her father came home. She heard voices in the living room. “Now go out and look at him,” her mother said. She pushed Ruby towards the door
There was a man in a black suit at the far end of the living room. His hair was slicked down. He didn’t look up, and she couldn’t see his face clearly across the room.
She went back to her mother and said, “I can’t tell if it’s him.”
“What do you mean you can’t tell? Go back out and look again. This is important, Ruby, you have to.”
“I can’t just stand there,” Ruby whimpered.
“Pick out a book. Sit down to read, and just glance up at him.”
It felt strange to Ruby to look at a book while the boy who had almost peed in her was in the room. It was strange to pretend that nothing had happened. It felt wrong to wear a party dress. It didn’t make sense that he was in a suit with his hair slicked back. But she walked back out to the living room and took a book off the shelf. She walked stiffly in her dress to a chair and opened the book, and peeked over at the man. She still couldn’t tell if it was him.
She went back in to her mother. “I think that’s him.”
The next day her mother said that he was expelled from school. “He did a very bad thing. He shouldn’t have tried to touch you. Don’t you ever let one of the boys-any boy or man-touch you.”
“But how do you know it was him?” Ruby felt anxious about that. Her mother was good with costumes, but when it came to finding out who someone really was, Ruby wasn’t sure she trusted her.
“He confessed,” her mother said.
Ruby imagined a meeting in which the boy was surrounded by men from the school, questioning him. She felt sorry for him. She felt relieved.
What happened to her made waves at the school, little ripples that came back to Ruby, disguised.
Her friends, Drew and Kate, whose parents were teachers, said they weren’t allowed out anymore without a grown up. Her own parents whispered at night and stopped when Ruby or her brothers walked into the room. Her bother Abe said they were thinking of quitting their jobs and moving, all because of Ruby. He said he’d heard them talking about it.
Ruby wondered what they said. No one said anything to her. She wondered if they ought to tell her what to think about it all. She wondered it they told her brothers her mother was a snob. She wondered if her father knew her mother wanted to be a traveling actress.
No one said.

Unabomber’s
Manifesto
part one of four

INTRODUCTION
1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.
2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.
3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.
4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.
5. In this article we give attention to only some of the negative developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have something new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmental degradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly important.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM
6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.
7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)
8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century.
9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY
10. By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.
11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms “negro,” “oriental,” “handicapped” or “chick” for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. “Broad” and “chick” were merely the feminine equivalents of “guy,” “dude” or “fellow.” The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” and insist on its replacement by “animal companion.” Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the word “primitive” by “nonliterate.” They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)
12. Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class families.
13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).
14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.
16. Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative”, “enterprise,” “optimism,” etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.
17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.
18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly.
19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.
20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.
23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.

OVERSOCIALIZATION
24. Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.
25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people.
26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.
27. We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals (3) constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.
28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes (4) for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.
29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black “underclass” they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers “responsible.” they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial-technological system. The system couldn’t care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a “responsible” parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values.
30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society’s most important principles by engaging in physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of “liberation.” In other words, by committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints have been more confining for them than for others; hence their need to break free of them. But they usually justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.
31. We realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing thumb-nail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and anything like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies in the psychology of modern leftism.
32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today’s society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.

THE POWER PROCESS
33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the “power process.” This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).
34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power.
35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.
36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.
37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.

SURROGATE ACTIVITIES
38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretentions; many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn’t need the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.
39. We use the term “surrogate activity” to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the “fulfillment” that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental facilities in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of a goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito’s studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn’t know all about the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals.

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?

---

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

---

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@aol.com... 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

Also, visit our new web sites: the Art Gallery and the Poetry Page.

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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 book "Rinse and Repeat", which has all the 1999 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. 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.

Published since 1993 No racist, sexist or homophobic material is appreciated; we do accept work of almost any genre of poetry, prose or artwork, though we shy away from concrete poetry and rhyme for rhyme's sake. Do not send originals. Any work sent to Scars Publications on Macintosh disks, text format, will be given special attention over smail-mail submissions. There is no limit to how much you may submit at a time; previously published work accepted.