Cover images are from NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope. The background image is edited from a Galaxy Cluster image. The spine includes images of Interacting Spiral Gaxies. Astronomical signs are adapted from astronomy maps: the front cover highlights Gemini (the sign in June though June 20th); the back cover highlights Cancer (the sign in June starting June 21st). There is a 10-15% drawing outline of the constellations as they have been replicated on the covers, and the star used for the constellation points is from a Galaxy Triplet Arp photo.

Steam Tank (Killing da Vinci)

They stuffed him in the boiler pipe
Leonardo Buscemi into
History’s woodchipper
Because they wanted a better world
“They” were not time travelers, no, I speak not of
Fantasy tales, no
da Vinci was murdered
Like Shakespeare murdered Bacon
But
As in what happened in the movie, Fargo,
da Vinci was murdered by idiots
So, he still wound up getting credit
For creating things
Which destroy our world

As The Universe Paves Way For You

While the coast is clear, the target
Seems easy, and can not be missed.
The noisy crowd has dispersed,
And every infrastructure obstructing
Your path has collapsed.

This is the prime moment that you aim.
Soon as you fire, hear their applause.
Listen to an audience clapping hands.
Point your arrow and hit the bull’s eye -
Jackpot, core of cores, center of the middle!

The winds have tamed down for you.
The sun is milder that you may not
Squint your eye or uncomfortably sweat.
The clear sky has replaced the gray clouds
That once threatened a clear surrounding.
This has been designed for no one but you.

So, will you merely sit and stare
On the verge of possibilities or take a leap?
Will you seize this chance, this triumph, or
Will it turn cold, untouched in the turn of tides?

Now is perfect to take your spot in the galaxy,
And shine. The rest of the stars will bow down.
Your goals, unblocked as an open field, scream
In your ear with urgency: “Take us. Take us!”

After the death of America

After the death of America, I
check out the rest of the world &
they’re in the same sad shape/ I

set the earth on fire to cremate the
remains & end up with a giant jar of
ashes but nowhere left to throw it/ I

hear God laughing from above as
the mad Fool pisses on my head to
acknowledge that He fucked up &

should never have created us in the
first place, even if we did create Him first
to give us a false sense of security &

the ego bolstering that He made us in
His image, & then we started immolating
ourselves in the millions, while deluding

our frightened beings into thinking we’re
somehow immortal & more worthy than
worms & rattlesnakes/ at least the

other beings go about their misery naturally &
don’t have to build themselves up with lies to
go about their lives with

some grandiose self delusion that
they’re holier than thou & transcend the cold cold
ground from which they sprang & always return, the

proof of which is this heavy urn full of
ashes that I now dump in the
celestial sewer &

can’t

stop

laughing ...

!

Going to the Mexican Museum of the Dead,

Going to the Mexican Museum of the Dead, I’m
not happy to find me in behind glass with
a pot of beans & platefuls of amigos/ with

all the Germans in Meheeco cohabiting with the
dark, pretty amigas, I should not be surprised, but
some still brandish their swastikas on the

living side of the glass pretending they’re
alive & still willing to build more death camps in
Meheeco City if Congress will give them a tax break/ I

try to deny my Nazi roots & claim that “Hamilton” is
Scotch/ they start wiping the brown out of the
beanery up their ass, but still can’t establish the

Scottish class, while depositing the Hamilton plaid in
the outhouse, relegating my European ass to shit/ they
stir my dead meat in the pot of beans &

feed me to a drug cartel/ they
deny me a hit of scag & throw me into the
grave with a Tihuana scag/ tequila, thank God,

puts me half in the bag/ all in the
Mexican Museum of the Dead/ OLE!
DEAD GRINGOS,

OLE ...

!

The Miracle of St. Maxwell

if I appear
in a grilled cheese sandwich
after I die
it is because I am pale
and you undercooked it

Watch the YouTube video

Maxwell Baumbach Bio

    Maxwell Baumbach is a poet from Elmhurst, IL. He edits the Heavy Hands Ink publication, has a youtube channel (Youtube.com/MaxwellThePoet), and likes sports. His first chapbook, “Suburban Rhythm,” was recently published by cc&d through Scars Publications. It is available both as a free read and as an ISBN # book.

Tree Swing

I drove by the city park
on the way to work pondering

world events and my usual
financial emergency. Two kids

had found a tire swing hung
from an old elm tree

trading turns to see who could
reach further into a blue sky.

I thought back on a childhood
void of care; where crisis were

trivial in comparison and world
events were a world away.

previpously published in Heavy Hands Ink, 2010

Kevin Heaton bio

    Kevin Heaton lives and writes in South Carolina. His chapbook, “Postcards of Faith,” is at Victorian Violet Press. His work has appeared in: Foliate Oak, Elimae, The Recusant, Heavy Hands Ink, Carcinogenic Poetry, Pirene’s Fountain, Counterexample Poetics, and many others.

On What Constitutes
a Dangerous Belief System

It is not what is demonized as the Other
by a particular belief system,
no matter which two belief systems are involved
No,
it is the fundamentalist worldview,
in every manifestation:

Christian
Jewish
Muslim
Hindu
Atheist
Marxist
free-market
veganist
(if
your particular fundamentalism has been omitted
please insert it
HERE),

because
it wishes to force all to conform to it

Magnetic Poetry II

Her lips can taste
His ferment’d
morning.
There is a thick
color’d cloud
Between this hot sleep
longing to bloom.

The Bishop Is In

Knock on the door
a sparkling grin on two young male faces
says “We have come to share the word of God with you.”
I just awoke no morning coffee yet
the cat was not in the mood to hear anyone
while she waited impatiently for the wet food
to lure her delicate pink nose into the kitchen.

It would have been a waste of time to bother
with the gentlemen who were trained to be patient
the job of a missionary
quantity over quality is always praised
even if that quantity is not the cream of the crop
at times the skimmed fat from the top of homemade chicken soup.

“My bishop is eating right now,” I respond as I gesture
towards the cat
that one species who has the charisma and influence
over the hearth and home
and religion.

About Julie Kovacs

    Julie Kovacs lives in Venice, Florida. Her poetry has been published in Children Churches and Daddies, Because We Write, Illogical Muse, Poems Niederngasse, Aquapolis, The Blotter, Danse Macabre and Cherry Bleeds. She is the author of two poetry books: Silver Moonbeams, and The Emerald Grail. Her website is at http://thebiographicalpoet.blogspot.com/.

Poetry Workshop

You must suffer to be beautiful, the fat woman said.<

You must let the poet’s poem be the poet’s poem, the workshop leader interjected.<

You must let God be in both pain and surf, the old man stated from across the table.<

You need to understand how much pain there can be in earnestness, the fat woman rebutted.<

A poet cannot be a poet until they have known hunger and abandonment, answered the boy at one
            end.
Nonetheless, the workshop leader chimed in, a poem belongs to the poet. It is not our job to take it
            from them.

Poverty

If poverty suddenly mutated
to an infectious disease
we’d frantically invent
a vaccine to inoculate
the affluent and the middle class;
as for those common poor,
we’d concoct a sanctimonious prayer
to restore them in God’s favor
and keep them from that moral hazard,
Christian charity.

Brian Forrest Bio:

    Born in Canada and bred in the U.S., Brian Forrest works in many mediums: oil painting, computer graphics, theatre, digital music, film, and video. Brian studied acting at Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, digital media in art and design at Bellevue College (receiving degrees in Web Multimedia Authoring and Digital Video Production.) He works in the Seattle, WA area in design/media/fine art. Influenced by past and current colorist painters, Brian’s raw and expressive works hover between realism and abstraction.

75,000 Miles

In the steam of midnight,
Walking home from the movie house
I am on the verge of cracking up again
Marveling about the quiet asteroid that nearly pummeled our planet to bits
This to wit which our great scientists missed last week,
So dishonorably, they wiped their brows and chose not to speak
And it got me to thinking...
To honor their mistake
I want to crawl out of my skin
Take my skull, hurl it against a brick wall and watch it shatter into one million pieces, then put what’s left all back together again with paste and gum and blood and booze and dirt
And see what I can come up with
This is what depression does to the soul after watching a brilliant blaze burn suddenly cold
And smiling at trouble and laughing it off as if nothing is amiss
Will just not wash

from the Sid Yiddish punk opera, “DP” and is on the recording, “Safari Freakshow Adventure,” co-produced w/Clean Boys (2010)

Sitting on a Broken bed

Sitting on a broken bed
Isolation tenfold
Creatures of habit
Bruised by dawns light
Magnified loneliness
Creased tissues of hurt
Bleeding denial
Of another’s device

Warped frozen
Greedy insane
Longing
Drenched by fear.

Who are we to fill
Our pages with pain
Grief like a symbol
Gathered up movements
Of another day
Drunk with indecision
Fraught with callous
Insults
Crying tears
None would spill
The glass is half empty.

bad habit I picked up at the bodega

In the evenings
before bed      I insert
Freud into my mouth
and inhale             he makes me cough

forcibly    a rushed entrance into me       his fingers tap-
dance in my nostrils and fool around my scarf

he whispers to the pent-
house of me     freeze
lightheaded and nauseous

I continue to bring
him in

Jermaine Harmon Bio

    Jermaine Harmon enjoys going to the dentist, loves mashed potatoes and supports gay marriage.  Harmon received two things while living in New York City 1) his MFA in creative writing from The New School, and 2) his first real broken heart.  He has had poems published in Tableau and Sandstorm.  After graduating from The New School, Jermaine was chosen to participate in the Cave Canem regional workshop lead by Jacqueline Jones LaMon.  He is currently living in an oil and church town named Midland, TX getting fat and writing poetry – plotting a returning to New York in the near future to pursue poetry full-time

His Policeman

After that first time, he called him on a snowy night
Asked him to come to his apartment for drinks with
him and his mother. And wound up stating the night.

The roommate was another policeman away then.
The other guy was engaged and apparently straight.
They slept on mattresses on J’s bedroom floor.

He lay down on the roommate’s mattress,; soon J was
calling him over to his where he asked me if he kissed.
They became more intimate and asked if he 69’d. Then

“brown me” he said squirming over. But the next
week he accused him of turning him queer, beat him.
He was not naîve: so left Amarillo within a week.

J found he’d gotten a job as a reporter in Dallas and
came to the copy desk of the Times Herald alternately
saying he loved him and threatening him. He moved
again.

One day, years later, that old roommate phoned him in
Boston and told him J had shot himself leaving this
telephone number on a note asking that he be called.

J was 33, Arnie said, and a Korean War vet and had
gotten a B.A. at North Texas in Denton on the G.I. Bill.
Arnie said he didn’t know what j’s demons were, had

been a good friend, was his best man at the wedding:
Arnie and Maris named their first son Jay, after him.
Arnie said J had been fired from the Police Department

for excessive violence in arrests, a questioned stakeout,
but mainly because of his drunkenness. All through
those years he’s mentioned me and kept the photo of

the three of them everywhere he lived next to his bed;
and
Arnie asked if he would like it. He said, “keep it for Jay”.

Political Ballgame

Another high school auditorium,
another bush league speech
on the path to winner takes all.
Check the crowd anticipating a grand slam.
adjust the microphone down and in with a screech.

With confidence, I smash each issue hurled.
This sphere is mine; I’m the hero today.
Tip of my hat, pause for applause --
the crowd responds with chants and cheers.
Tomorrow, another arena, another game to play.

Henziger’s Beast

Henziger’s beast stalked him.
It prowled when kids wanted to know
about the numbers on the inside
of his arm, above the wrist.

He told them.
They deserved to know
about the POW camp he was taken to
and how the numbers were inked into his skin.

Henziger liked the kids.
Sometimes he kicked a soccer ball with them,
but he walked away and wiped bubbles from his mouth
when the thud of foot on leather flashed boots into heads.

“I remember you,” the beast grinned at him in the mirror
when Henziger pulled his lips back from his teeth
and saw the dark spots on his gums.

What would it be like to wear a white shirt again
Henziger wondered when he opened his closet.
He owned only one white shirt.
He had never worn it after he came home.
The shirt didn’t fit him now,
the sleeves too long, his chest too thin.

The beast watched Henziger
when he emptied ashes from the coal furnace
and when he swept the floor dust and grime
into the dust pan and shook the dirt
into the trash.

When trains rumbled through town,
he remembered the press of bodies in the freight car,
the stink of shit and piss,
and the fallacy of showers to cleanse skin.
When he was liberated,
Henziger imagined he would never be clean again.
He cried to be clean, but even on spring days    
when the sun created shadows on the lawn,
he remembered the forest
beyond the camp’s wires and towers.
Metal mocked the tall trees.

Now, Henziger thinks of groceries to buy,
meals to make,
and headlines of another war growing old.
He feels older than those headlines.
He sees wheels within wheels,
fires within fires.
He knows the beast will soon slouch
toward another victim.

John T. Hitchner bio

    John T. Hitchner is a graduate of Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and Dartmouth College. He has also studied at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and at the New York State Summer Writers Conference. Presently, he teaches Coming of Age in War and Peace at Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire.

trying

trying to revitalize
this old, tired marriage

once I wore a black teddy
thong back
beaded front

walked up to him while
he was watching
a basketball game
on the couch

sat on his lap
straddled him

and he looked at me
and reached his arm around
and tried to
grab his drink

i want love

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

too far

When he met me
he told me
I looked like
Kim Basinger
long blonde locks
but as time
wore on I knew
I wasn’t her
and I could never
be her    and I was
never good enough
thin enough
pretty enough
I got a perm
straightened my
teeth
bought a wonder
bra    but it wasn’t
doing the trick
I bought slimfast
used the stair
stepper    ate rice
cakes and wheat
germ but I wasn’t
thin enough    I
only dropped
twenty pounds
so I went to the
spa    got my skin
peeled    soaked
myself in mud
wrapped myself
in cellophane
bought the amino
acid facial creams
but I knew they
didn’t really
work so I went to
the doctor    got my
nose slimmed
my tummy stapled
my thighs sucked

thought about
getting a rib or two
removed
like Cher
but I figured
they’ve got to
be there for
something
and hey, that’s
just going
too far

how to please a woman

Janet Kuypers

i saw a movie once
can’t remember what movie it was, but
i remember this one scene:
it was after the protagonist couple made love,
and it was the middle of the night,
and the man got dressed and went outside,
and no, it was not to leave
(i know half of you were thinking that, admit it)

but he went outside, into the garden
and picked a bunch of flowers
and put them all over the bed.
So in the morning, when the woman woke up,
she was still alone, but she was surrounded in flowers.

now, i know it’s just a movie,
but i have these visions in my head
of how perfect life is supposed to be.
okay, okay, call it being raised on Cinderella
and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but
in the back of my mind i still have this vision in my head
of being swept away. Wake me with a
kiss. Ride me off into the sunset.

i don’t want to tell someone how to
sweep me off my feet, how to be romantic.
Part of romance is the element of surprise.
yes, i know, this is the age of communication
and we’re supposed to tell each other how we feel
but i guess, as unreasonable as this is
about to sound, i want you to be able to read my mind.
Or don’t read it, and completely catch me off guard
(and i mean that in a good way - don’t catch me
off guard, for instance, by watching baseball
instead of celebrating my birthday).

sure, it could be flowers, i guess, but don’t think
that we’re trying to get you to spend your money or
that we’re trying to milk you for all you’re worth
because flowers picked from your garden -
or someone else’s - are often better than the ones from the store.
Maybe a bath. a picnic. those are even better
than flowers, because they give the gift
we really want - time. we want to know you
are not only taking time out to be with us,
but that you took the time to plan it to make it perfect.

we want you to tell us we look pretty
when we need to hear it. you don’t know
when we need to hear it? just look into our eyes.
you’ll know. we want you to look excited to
see us when you come home from work,
even if you’re tired and just want to eat. we want
to feel like we mean the world to you, like we
mean more than a beer does to you while you’re
sitting on the couch watching sitcoms.
we want foreplay to mean more than “oh, i’ve
grabbed her chest, now it’s time to insert.”

we want poetry written for us: the sun rises
and it means nothing without us, that kind of stuff.
okay, you’re not a poet: maybe you could
write us a letter every once in a while. oh,
i know, it’s that damn time thing again,
but that’s what it takes, remember? even a note
just saying “i love you” on it would be enough.
here’s an idea: drop it in the mail. i know you
see us every day; that’s what makes it special.

i’m thinking about
myself too much

all of my life it
has all been about you
what do you need
what do you want
how can i help you
what can i do for you
and now for once
i start to live
and now you tell me
that i’m thinking about
myself too much
and i think back to
all the time i’ve
spent with you
and all the care
i’ve given you
and now you tell me
that i’m thinking about
myself too much
and i’ve cooked for
you and i’ve cleaned
for you and i’ve made
sure everything in
your world made sense
and now you tell me
that i’m thinking about
myself too much
and all i can think
is that you’re only angry
because i’m thinking
about me at all

Raped With Words

I knew a woman
who went on a date
with a friend of mine,
and after the date
he talked about how great she was,
he told me how they talked about their future
and what they both wanted
he described the inside of her place,
but after he left messages for her repeatedly,
she never called him back again

saw this woman weeks later
at a Starbuck’s
and she said she felt bad she had been avoiding hm
but she never wanted to see him again
because during their date
they never talked about what they wanted
he just talked about what he wanted
like how she wouldn’t hold a job
she’d be taking care of the house
the man’s the one that makes the money
and he even told her how many
of his children she would bear

she wouldn’t let him into her home
(does that mean he was looking through her window?)
and she said that after the date
she showered for hours
because she felt mentally raped

and you know, hearing her story
it made me realize
that you can rape someone
with words

based on portions of the poem “Key To Survival”

women’s very existence

rape is neither a sex crime
or a crime of passion

rape is not an isolated brutal crime
against women

rape is often premeditated
rape is a crime of violence
rather than sex
it is a crime of violence
against women

it is an attack by men
on women’s bodies
on women’s feelings
on women’s very existence

                                            Bob Lamm, 1976

i still have to take showers a lot. i mean,
every once in a while, no matter how clean
i am to the rest of the world, i have to go
take a shower. i lock all the doors, i close
the shades on the windows, i put a towel
over the bathroom mirror. turn the water on,
piping hot, so steam is billowing out of
the bath tub. i finally undress, open the
curtain, put my foot in, burn my foot with
the water. i wish i could hold my foot there,
just a little longer. i turn down the water.
wait for it to cool down, then step in. then
i just put my head under the shower head. hold
it there for a while. catch my breath. get the
soap. start scrubbing. i use the soap first,
then i get the bath brush. scrub off a layer
of skin. i know this makes no sense. my skin
is red, from the heat, from the scrubbing.
but i know i’m still not getting it off, it’s
down there, the molecules are embedded
deep inside of me, and i’ll have to rip my skin
off, pull out my organs before it goes away.
but for now all i can do is take showers.

White Knuckled

The hot air was sticking
to her skin       almost pulling
tugging at her very
flesh       as she walked
outside       down the
stairs from the train
station. Just then a
breeze hot and
sticky       hit her
in just the wrong
way, brushed against her
lower neck, and she
felt his breath again,
not his breath
when he raped
her, but his       stench
hot       ;  rank
when he was
just close to her.
Her breath quickened,
like the catch of her
breath when she has
just stopped
crying. All the emotion
is still there       not
going away. She
walks to the bottom
of the stairs, railing
white-knuckled by her
small tender hands,
the hands of a child,
and that ninety degree
breeze suddenly
gives her a
chill. They say when
you get a chill it means
a goose walked
over your grave.
She knows better. She knows
that it is him
walking, and that
he trapped that child in
that grave

Driving By His House

    I know it’s pretty pathetic of me, I don’t know what I’m trying to prove. I don’t even want to see him again. I don’t want to have to think about him, I don’t want to think about his big eyebrows or the fact that he hunched over a little when he walked or that he hurt me so much.

    I know it’s pretty pathetic of me, but sometimes when I’m driving I’ll take a little detour and drive by his house. I’ll just drive by, I won’t slow down, I won’t stop by, I won’t say hello, I won’t beat his head in, I won’t even cry. I’ll just drive by, see a few cars in the driveway, see no signs of life through the windows, and then I’ll just keep driving.

    I don’t know why I do it. He never sees me, and I never see him, although I thought I didn’t want to see him anyway. When I first met him I wasn’t afraid of him. Now I’m so afraid that I have to drive by his house every once in a while, just to remind myself of the fear. We all like the taste of fear, you know, the thought that there’s something out there stronger than us. The thought that there’s something out there we can beat, even if we have to fight to the death.

    But that can’t be it, no, it just can’t be, I don’t like this fear, I don’t like it. I don’t want to drive by, I want to be able to just go on with my life, to not think about it. I want to be strong again. I want to be strong.

    So today I did it again, I haven’t done it for a while, drive by his house, but I did it again today. When I turned on to his street I put on my sunglasses so that in case he saw me he couldn’t tell that I was looking. And then I picked up my car phone and acted like I was talking to someone.

    And I drove by, holding my car phone, talking to my imaginary friend, trying to unobviously glance at the house on my left. There’s a lamppost at the end of his driveway. I always noticed it, the lampshade was a huge glass ball, I always thought it was ugly. This time three cars were there. One of those could have been his. Through the front window, no people, no lights. I drive around a corner, take a turn and get back on the road I was supposed to be on.

    One day, when I’m driving by and I get that feeling again, that feeling like death, well then, I just might do it again.

the Fourteenth

grade school, lace and construction paper cut outs -
mimicking our hearts with school glue, a
sixty-four pack of crayons,
a doily, perhaps, and a child’s scribblings,
“Be My Valentine.” The beginning of every cold February
the classes of children are taught to make enough little hearts
for everyone, so that no one may be disappointed,
so that everyone can be your Valentine.
Nonetheless, one little child’s construction paper mailbox
come February fourteenth
always had less than everyone else’s.

And then it gets easier as the years go on
mommies buy little packs of Valentine cards
for their children to sign and give away to all the little
children at school. Saves them from having to
make all those cards,
the glue and the glitter and the cut-outs are messy.

Every fourteenth, second month
when I was little
I remember daddy bringing heart-shaped boxes
home for all the girls -
myself, my sister, my mother. I can remember mother now,
her candy box on her ironing board, thanking him once again
for the lovely gift. And so it goes.

And the card shops get fuller this time every year
husbands saying “my wife will kill me
if I don’t get her a card” or young women complaining
“my boss told me to get a card for his wife”

And the flowers seem the same, don’t they? Carnations
arranged in a big ball atop a little basket. Red,
yellow, pink, white. Lovely.
All the adornments of the holiday. Don’t stop short of the best.

A girlfriend said to me once
she’s sure boyfriends break up with you by the
beginning of February so they don’t have to
buy you anything. So they don’t have to say they love you.
Last year I spent Valentine’s Day
taking those chalky hearts with messages on them
and scribbling my own on the back.
“Screw You”, “Go Away”, “Leave Me Alone.” I never
liked the taste of those candies.
And the Valentine’s Day party,
where all the single people were thinking,
“Please give me someone to go home with. Don’t let me
be alone tonight.”

And the women getting lonely
and the married couples arguing
and the suicide rate going up

And the woman looking at the carnations on her
dining room table
holding the card in her hand that says “love, Jake”
wondering why it doesn’t feel good yet

in the air
(the first and part of the last verses of part two)

Have you ever noticed that the air
isn’t normal air in an airplane? I mean,
I know they have to pump in the air,
and pressurize it and all in order to
keep us alive up there, but there’s just
something about the air in the cabin
that’s different. It’s got a smell to it,
that’s the only way I can describe it.
A smell of all these people, going
places, running to something, or
running away from it.

But once, when I was on a
flight back from D. C., a flight attendant
walked by, stack of magazines in her
hand, Time, Newsweek, Businessweek,
and I stopped her, asking what magazines
she had. And she replied, “Oh, these
magazines are for men.” This is a true
story. And I asked her again what she
had. I had already read Time, so I took
Newsweek.

content with inferior men

there are some theorists that say
that women need to be able to look up to a man
in order to feel complete. these theorists
would say that a woman could not be president,
at least not on a personal level.
think of it - here is a woman, the most important
person on earth, and she would never know of anyone
who had more power than her. how could she
look up to any man? how could she admire
any man? how could she respect any man?
and you know, i can kind of see that point,
how can you love someone you don’t respect,
i mean, i want someone in my life that can teach
me something, that can help me grow, and if
i was the most powerful person on earth
i would probably think that no one could teach
me anything. but the only thing i could think of
in response to this theory is, why don’t men
who are the presidents of the united states
of america find themselves unhappy with their
boring, unequal, supportive wives? why is it
that men are content with inferior women
but women aren’t content with inferior men?

a woman talking
about her rapist friend

He was my friend, and we had been
through a lot together, our psychological
ups and downs,

but he mixed drinks exceptionally well
at his college frat parties, and his
ice-blue eyes

always spoke the truth to me. It’s amazing
to think that the only reason we ever met
was because one day

he wore a turtleneck that prefectly
matched his eyes, and I had to tell him.
I don’t know why

he put up with my mood swings, with my
self-destructive social life and man-hating,
normally he didn’t

care about women, never gave their opinions
much thought, just tried to get them
drunk at parties,

maybe he knew that and that’s why he
listened to me. Then for a few years
our friendship

drifted, we didn’t see each other much,
I heard through the grapevine that he was
failing in school.

Then one day, out of the blue, he comes
over and he has two black eyes. And he
says to me

that when he was in the parking garage
two guys came and beat him up, and one
of them said,

you raped my girlfriend. And then he looked
at me and said, and you know, looking back,
he was right.

I raped her. And I know he wanted sym-
pathy, he wanted to hear me say something,
but I couldn’t.

And he said, I know this has to be hard for
you to hear, but I wanted to tell you. I know
it was wrong.

A part of me wanted to hate him. A part of
me thought that if he was my friend I would
be condoning

what he did. And a part of me thought that
our friendship made him realize what he
actually had done.

I tried to be there for him. I wasn’t much
good at it. Eventually, he moved away.
I didn’t try

to lose touch with him. But it’s just that a
part of me is still trying to figure out if I
can be his friend.

Sometimes you just lose touch with some-
one, sometimes that’s all you can do.

Knowledge

    I hated going into these God damn gas stations in the middle of nowhere, but we’d been driving for so damn long that I think I lost all feeling in my ass. Besides, I had to go to the bathroom. It couldn’t wait. He said he’d pump the gas this time, so I got out of the car and began to stretch when I saw the attendant staring at me through the window from behind the counter. It was an eerie stare. A sex stare. I stopped stretching.
    I walked around the side of the building, where the dingy arrows pointed to the washrooms. I really didn’t need the signs, for the smell of shit that has been sitting around overpowered the smell of the dust in the air as I walked closer and closer to the bathrooms ... I walked past the men’s room and up to the ladies room to find that the door was... gone. It was propped up on the inside of the bathroom wall. “A lot of fucking good it does me there,” I mumbled in the stench.
    “How the Hell am I supposed to go to the bathroom when there isn’t even a God damned door to the damn bathroom??” I thought as I stormed into the store where he was paying for the gas.
    He was buying two bottles of Pepsi for the road, to keep us awake. “The door of the women’s washroom is off,” I whispered with exasperation. “Well, that’s no problem, honey -- just go into the men’s room. I’ll watch the door for you,” he said back. The look in his eyes told me that he thought it was such a simple and obvious solution that anyone could figure it out. He thought he had the solution for everything. I wanted to tell him that the women’s room frightened me enough for one day, and that I didn’t want to risk my life by venturing into the men’s room. Besides, men go in there. That attendant probably goes in there. I finally shrugged and waited for him to pay for his Pepsi and gasoline. I turned my head and followed him out. The attendant looked at me as I left. I could feel his stare burning into the back of my head.
    We turned the building corner and followed the signs. My shoulders suddenly felt heavier and heavier as I walked. He checked the room to make sure it was empty for me. He even held the door open. What a gentleman.
    I closed the door, but I really didn’t want to be left alone with the smell. It smelled like shit. But I could also smell sweat, like the smell of dirty men. I wondered if this is what the attendant smelled like. I lined the toilet bowl seat with toilet paper. I had to use it sparingly -- there wasn’t much left. I got up as soon as I could and walked over to the dirty mirror, almost hitting my head on the hanging light bulb. There was light blue paint chipping next to the mirror.
    I strained to see my image in the mirror. Instead, all I could focus on was the graffiti on the wall behind me. For a good time call.. So-and-so gives good head... Did that attendant ever call that number? I wondered if I was ever put on a bathroom wall. I wondered if I was ever reduced to a name and a phone number like that. I probably had been.
    The floor was wet. I always wondered when the floors of bathrooms were wet if it was actually urine or just water from the sink. Or maybe it was from the sweat of all those men. I didn’t know.
    I stepped on something under the sink in front of the mirror. I looked down. It was an open porn magazine. I looked at it from where I was standing. I didn’t move my foot. It was hard core shit, and it looked painful. Women with gags on their faces... I remember someone telling me that porn was okay because the women in it wanted to do it. But there was no smile on this woman’s face. I pushed it back under the sink.
    I stepped back. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to hit the graffiti on the wall, the porn on the floor. I wanted to smear the urine from the stall all over the place. I wanted to pull the light from right out of the fucking ceiling.
    I put my hands up against the wall. I put the top of my head on the wall. I tried to breathe. It hurt. With my eyes closed, I knew what was there, behind me. It didn’t scare me anymore.
    When I walked into the bathroom, I was afraid to touch anything. But then I just leaned up against the door, feeling the dirt press into my back, into my hair. I wanted to soak it all in. All of it.
    I shook my head and realized that he was waiting for me outside the door. I turned around and grabbed the door knob. I didn’t worry about the dirt on my back. I opened the door.

the martyr and the saint

they gave their daughter the name
of the Patron Saint of television

and the television’s always been
one thing she hated about him

or was it the drinking that he needed
more than her

the business has gone bad
I’m a failure I’m not a man

he said he respected her
then he’d call her

a twenty dollar whore from Vegas

and the mother would hold
the child, the saint, the pure angel

hold her ears and hope she
couldn’t hear

Coslow’s

I am back
at my old college
hang-out

years later

sharing some beers
with an old friend

then i remember
being there
with a friend
who used to
work there

she told me about the
women’s bathroom

in all my years
I had never
been there

she said
women write on the wall
at the left
of the stall
women write
that they’ve been raped

they name names

there were arrows
pointing
to other women’s
messages
saying
“i’ve heard this before”

first names
last names

when she told me
of this
years ago
i walked in
read the names
and wrote down one
of my own

i forgot about that wall
until now
and i am back
just yards away
from the
bathroom door

i get up
walk
open the door
years later

all the names are still there
jake jay josh larry matt scott

i can even still see
my own writing
it didn’t take long
to find it

Right There, By Your Heart
(verses two and six)

have you ever had that feeling before, you
know, the one when someone is telling
you something you don’t want to hear, like
if someone was about to tell you that someone
died and you knew what they were going to say
and you still didn’t want to hear it, or if
someone did something to you you didn’t like,
like when you were little and the kids at the
bus stop shot pebbles and spit balls at you every
day because you were smart and you still had
to go to the bus stop every morning and just
try to ignore them? and when that happens
it feels like a medium sized rock just fell
into the bottom of your stomach, and you
don’t want to move because you’re afraid
that the rock will hurt the inside of your stomach
and so you just have to sit there and hope
the rock goes away? or else you get the feeling
in your chest, right between your lungs, it feels
like someone is pressing against the bone there,
right there by your heart, and you’ve got to
breathe, you’re not going to be able to take
that pressure, that force any longer?

i don’t know how many times the idea of seeing him
went through my mind. at least once a week i’d imagine
a scene where he’d confront me, and i’d somehow
be able to fight him back, to show him that he didn’t
bother me any more, to show him that the rock wasn’t
there any more. to somehow be able to prove that
i wasn’t a victim any more. i was a survivor. that’s
what they call it now, you see, survivor, because
victim sounds too trying for someone who has been
raped. so i keep saying i’m over it but i keep imagining
mark all over again, not raping me, but following me
on the street, coming to my door with flowers, or
sending me a valentine. but once, when i saw him
walking out of a record store as i was walking in, the
rock fell so hard that i thought i was going to be sick
right there by the cash register, right there by those
metal things at the doorway that beep when you
try to take merchandise out of the store, you know
what those things are, i just can’t think of what
they’re called. but if i did that, then he’d know he was still
winning, to this day. how many years has it been? how
many years since he did that to me? how many years
since i’ve been wanting to fight him, since i’ve been
feeling that rock in my god-damned stomach?
i managed to hide my face from him in the store so he
didn’t see me as he walked out. when i saw he was
gone, i wondered why i still felt the pressure in my
chest. i thought the pressure was going to turn
my body inside-out. i reached for my heart, grabbed
at my shirt. maybe the pain was always there, right there,
by my heart, but i try not to think of it until i
go through times like those.

Stalker

The Final Pages of Fear

    And she got out of her car, walked across her driveway, and walked up the stairs to her porch, trying to enjoy her solitude, trying not to remember that he had followed her once again. She thought she was free of him; she thought he moved on with his life and that she would not have to see his face again.
    Why did he have to call her, on this one particular day, years later, while she was at work? Maybe if she could have been suspecting it, she might have been braced for it. But then again, she didn’t want to think about it: she was happy that she was finally starting to feel as if she had control of her life again.
    It had been so many years, why would she have expected him to follow her again? Didn’t she make it clear years ago that she didn’t want him waiting outside her house in his car anymore, that she didn’t want to receive the hang-up calls at three in the morning anymore? Or the calls in the middle of the night, when he’d stay on the line, when she could tell that he was high, and he’d profess his love to her? Or the letters, or the threats? No, the police couldn’t do anything until he took action, when it was too late. Why did he come back? Why couldn’t he leave her alone? Why couldn’t it be illegal for someone to fill her with fear for years, to make her dread being in her house alone, to make her wonder if her feeling that she was being followed wasn’t real?
    All these thoughts rushed through her head as she sat on her front porch swing, opening her mail. One bill, one piece of junk mail, one survey.
    It was only a phone call, she had to keep thinking to herself. He may never call again. She had no idea where he was even calling from. For all she knew, he could have been on the other side of the country. It was only a phone call.
    And then everything started to go wrong in her mind again, the bushes around the corner of her house were rustling a little too loud, there were too many cars that sounded like they were stopping near her house. Her own breathing even scared her.
    I could go into the house, she thought, but she knew that she could be filled with fear there, too. Would the phone ring? Would there be a knock on the door? Or would he even bother with a knock, would he just break a window, let himself in, cut the phone lines so she wouldn’t stand a chance?
    No, she knew better. She knew she had to stay outside, that she couldn’t let this fear take a hold of her again. And so she sat.
    She looked at her phone bill again.
    She heard the creak of the porch swing.
    She swore she heard someone else breathing.
    No, she wouldn’t look up from her bill, because she knew no one was there.
    Then he spoke.
    “Hi.”
    She looked up. He was standing right at the base of her stairs, not six feet away from her.
    “What are you doing on my property?”
    “Oh, come on, you used to not hate me so much.” He lit a cigarette, a marlboro red, with a match. “So, why wouldn’t you take my call today?”
    “Why would I? What do I have to say to you?”
    “You’re really making a bigger deal out of this than it is,” he said, then took a drag. She watched the smoke come out of his mouth as he spoke. “We used to have it good.”
    She got up, and walked toward him. She was surprised; in her own mind she never thought she’d actually be able to walk closer to him, she always thought she’d be running away. She stood at the top of the stairs.
    “Can I have a smoke?”
    “Sure,” he said, and he reached up to hand her the fire stick. She reached out for the matches.
    “I’ll light it.”
    She put the match to the end of the paper and leaves, watched it turn orange. She didn’t want this cigarette. She needed to look more calm. Calm. Just be calm.
    She remained at the top of the stairs, and he stood only six stairs below her. She sat at the top stair.
    “You really think we ever got along?”
    “Sure. I mean, I don’t know how you got in your head -”
    “Do you think I enjoyed finding your car outside my house all the time? Did I enjoy seeing you at the same bars I was at, watching my and my friends, like you were recording their faces into your memory forever? Do you think I liked you coming to bother me when I was working at the store? Do you -”
    “I was.”
    She paused. “You were what?”
    “I was logging everyone you were with into my head.”
    She sat silent.
    “At the bars - I remember every face. I remember every one of them. I had to, you see, I had to know who was trying to take you away. I needed to know who they were.”
    She sat still, she couldn’t blink, she stared at him, it was just as she was afraid it would be.
    And all these years she begged him to stop, but nothing changed.
    She couldn’t take it all anymore.
    She put out her right hand, not knowing exactly what she’d do if she held his hand. He put his left hand in hers.
    “You know,” she said, then paused for a drag of the red fire, “This state would consider what you did to me years ago stalking.”
    She held his hand tighter, holding his fingers together. She could feel her lungs moving her up and down. He didn’t even hear her; he was fixated on looking at his hand in hers, until she caught his eyes with her own and then they stared, past the iris, the pupil, until they burned holes into each other’s heads with their stare.
    “And you know,” she said, as she lifted her cigarette, “I do too.”
    Then she quickly moved the cigarette toward their hands together, and put it out in the top of his hand.
    He screamed. Grabbed his hand. Bent over. Pressed harder. Swore. Yelled.
    She stood. Her voice suddenly changed.
    “Now, I’m going to say this once, and I won’t say it again. I want you off my property. I want you out of my life. I swear to God, if you come within fifty feet of me or anything related to me or anything the belongs to me, I’ll get a court order, I’ll get a gun, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you away forever.”
    “Now go.”
    He held his left hand with his right, the fingers on his right hand purple from the pressure he was using on the open sore. He moaned while she spoke. She stood at the top of the stairs looking down on him. He slowly walked away.
    She thought for a moment she had truly taken her life back. She looked down. Clenched in the fist in her left hand was the cigarette she just put out.

The Granny Square Afghan

        The times in life when you can’t wait are the ones you always remember. And for Sallie Odell today was definitely one of those times. She and Bob had just married and moved into their big, old farmhouse in Milrose, Iowa. True, the Crofts were glad to get rid of it because it was the kind of place you never finish fixing up, but that was just what the young couple wanted—a place where Bob could tinker endlessly and teach Middle School, and where Sallie could raise as many chickens, vegetables, and children as the law would allow.

    It was one of those grim, rainy days that are good for the crops and nothing else, when the news came. Bob had been driving for supplies when a goat crossed the road in front of him, and he skidded into a stone wall. And ended not only his life but all of Sallie’s dreams.
    At first the grief was tolerable because the ladies nearby brought in gifts of food and sundries, but as time went by, the visits gradually tapered off, and as Sallie was forced to spend more time alone in the big house, her grief turned to bitterness and anger. How could Bob do this to her? Fortunately, the income from insurance was more than adequate to cover her living expenses, but how could he have left her alone in this big house, with a large mortgage, and no children to occupy her time? Heartbroken and depressed, she sought for ways to alleviate the loneliness.
    She went to the general store and when she needed to buy three items, she would buy one, coming back two more times for the others. Church every Sunday was another option, but while the ladies were very pleasant, introducing her to each other as Mrs. Odell, from the Croft farm (Sallie gritted her teeth; it wasn’t the Croft farm, it was the Odell farm), the ladies never went any farther than that, and never on to a first name basis.
    The one place she could go to repeatedly just to see and talk to other human beings was the library. Yet when she met one of the ladies, it was a polite greeting to Mrs. Odell of the Croft farm, and never anything more. Sallie knew they were trying to be polite and respect her privacy. I don’t want anyone respecting my privacy, Sallie thought, please intrude, trespass, borrow my last cup of sugar—just don’t leave me alone any more in that big house.
     At the library, she learned that there was to be an auction in the Spring to raise funds for the library. She had an idea. An afghan might be the one really good way to break the ice that surrounded the social world of Milrose. She was an accomplished knitter and she would make an afghan all right, but in no way would it be a granny square afghan—she knew in a small town like Milrose, there must be as many granny square afghans as there were barns, maybe more. Her afghan would consist of twenty l2-inch squares, each of a different pattern and of the most complicated designs she could create. Let’s see, she’d have to have one cable pattern—the Hourglass Cable with Bobbles, that would be nice—a King Charles Brocade, a Cloverleaf Eyelet, and of course, a Willow Bud Tree—the hardest design of all, but everyone loved it, so it was worth it. The afghan would bring in a lot of money for the library and tons of admiration and requests for advice from her fellow knitters. Surely, this would be a way to end her loneliness. If she were lucky, there might even be a knitting club in town somewhere.
    She began her knitting project as carefully and quickly as she could, but still there were times when she was so depressed, she couldn’t even knit. Especially difficult were the evenings when she and Bob used to sit over tea and discuss their plans for the future. It was during one of these dark, evening periods when she felt most hopeless that she received a phone call from Mrs. Martha Avery.
    “Hello, Mrs. Odell? I’m Martha Avery. I wonder if you would consider sitting with my daughter for a couple of hours every afternoon. I understand that you don’t have an immediate family around (don’t rub it in, sighed Sallie), so I thought you would sit with Melissa. She has multiple sclerosis, and can’t move from the waist down—and even though she is l8, I still don’t like to leave her alone.”
    Sallie was delighted to agree. Manna from Heaven. Mrs. Avery went on, “Of course, I’ll pay you, I am sure we can agree on an adequate amount.”
    “Oh no,” said Sallie, “I couldn’t take any money.”
    “Well, thank you, dear, but I would really rather have a business arrangement. I am President of the Ladies’ Club and I have so many errands to run, that I really want to be able to rely on your coming.”
    The afternoons with Melissa became the highlights of her days. Melissa, who had been shy and very quiet at first, became very animated. Sallie brought along her knitting and, as time went on, she and Melissa began exchanging confidences and feelings, and despite the difference in their ages—Sallie was almost thirty—they grew very close to each other.
    One afternoon Melissa looked at Sallie’s knitting and said wistfully, “I’d give anything to be able to do that.”
    “Well, it’s very easy. There are only two stitches—knit and purl. A moron could do it.” Melissa giggled, “Well, if a moron could do it, I guess I could give it a try.”
    Sallie realized that this was the first time she had ever heard Melissa laugh. Sallie gave Melissa two needles and some yarn, but Melissa held the needles upright like two pitchforks and couldn’t seem to work them. Melissa became discouraged. Sallie had an idea. “Here, why don’t you try crocheting? You only need one needle, and guess what?”
    “What?” Apathetic, Melissa had sunk back into her sickness-induced passivity.
    “You could make a granny square afghan. They are really very easy, and if you finish in time you could put it in the library auction.”
    It worked. Melissa took to crocheting as if she had waited all her life for this. They spent the next few months busily knitting, crocheting and chatting about the auction.
    Spring came, and it was the day of the auction. Although Sallie loved Melissa, she looked forward to this opportunity to become part of a social life with women of her own age. Her afghan was finished and was beautiful, and was bound to become someone’s heirloom. She knew it would bring in a lot of money.
    Melissa, too, had finished her afghan. Sallie said, “Aren’t you excited about exhibiting it?” Melissa said, “I don’t think I will. When they see yours, nobody will want mine.”
    Sallie looked at Melissa and something clicked inside her heart. “Oh, I’m not going to exhibit mine. It’s just too beautiful. I want to keep it home to admire it and tell myself what a good knitter I am.” She turned away so Melissa couldn’t see her expression. She knew she was condemning herself to more months of loneliness.
    “Oh, then I will put it in the auction. But anonymously. I don’t want anyone buying it because they feel sorry for me.”
    That afternoon, when Melissa’s afghan was put up, Ms. Eberle, the early grades teacher, bid for it. “Sometimes,” she told the group,”the children get ill or tired, and I think this would be perfect—warm but lightweight. I’ll bid $l5.00” Nobody bid against her. After all, it was for their own children. Melissa looked at Sallie and grinned from ear to ear. To Sallie, that smile was worth more than all the afghans in the world.
    The day after the auction, Melissa suddenly had a heart attack and died. Sallie went into a deep depression that lasted for many weeks. She never left the house except when food-shopping became an absolute necessity.
    Finally, she realized she had to get to the library. She had been getting overdue notices for weeks and the fines were becoming enormous. When she got there, Mrs. Avery spotted her and came over. “Mrs. Odell, I want to thank you for all your kindness to Melissa. I know crocheting that afghan gave her a great deal of pleasure.”
    Sallie burst into tears. “I miss her so terribly. She was my dearest friend.”
    Mrs. Avery paused and thought a bit. “I had no idea you two were so close. That’s right, you’re alone up there at the Croft farm.”
    Here it comes, thought Sallie. She’s starting to pity me. ‘You poor thing, all alone in that big place.’ I can’t take that right now.
    Mrs. Avery eyes narrowed. Like most country people, she had a subtle, innate kind of courtesy, a sense of the nuances of feeling in the behavior of others that was often lacking in the daily, hit-and-run relationships of city people.
    She looked at her watch. “Mrs. Odell, next Sunday we are having a fundraiser for the Fire Department. They’re all volunteers, you know, and the ladies are being asked to bring potluck dishes. Do you think you would want to help us out?”
    Sallie dried her eyes. “Yes, certainly.”
    “Good, oh there’s Janie Farmer, she’ll fill you in on the details.” She called over to Janie who came up to them, a round lady whose smiling face was all eyeglasses and teeth. “Janie, dear, you know Sallie Odell, don’t you, the Odell farm over by Christian Corners? Well, Sallie has been kind enough to offer to bring a potluck dish to the fundraiser. So why don’t you discuss categories with her—you know, entree, salad, dessert, whatever. And Sallie, if you would make enough for l0—no, make it l2 persons—people always eat at these things like they haven’t seen food for years. I have to run, hon, thanks a lot.” And she was off.
    Sallie told Janie she would like to make a salad, “I have a wonderful recipe for vidalia onion dressing.”
    “That sounds wonderful,” said Janie, “do you think I could have the recipe?”
    At that moment a tall, thin woman in a white fisherman’s sweater and plaid slacks came over, “Did I hear someone say recipe?”
    “Oh, Marge,” said Janie, “this is Sallie Odell, you know the Odell farm over by Christian Corners? She’s making a salad for the fundraiser.”
    “You know, Sallie,” said Marge, “we could sure use another member for the Ladies’ Club. We meet once a month at each other’s houses, and the dues are $30 a year. Interested?”
    Janie said, “Ignore her, Sallie, she’s always proselytizing. although we would love to have you, if you would care to join.”
    Sallie drove home, her mind full of what she would put in the salad. Arugula and radicchio, of course. And many brightly-colored raw veggies. And, just to gussie it up, some hearts of palm.
    As she opened her door, her eyes went up to the sky. “Thank you Melissa, wherever you are.” She realized that this was the first time she was able to think of Melissa without crying. And for the first time in months, she smiled. “I don’t know where you are, Melissa, but wherever it is, I know you’re still crocheting afghans,” and with that, her mind went back to the vidalia onion dressing.

No Saints

    Humans do some awful things to each other. Then a lot of them wear masks as if they’re innocent. These are the worst kind... Some clean-cut frat boy goes home to his mother for Christmas, and then back to school slipping girls roofies because he’s too selfish and lazy to get laid with his god-given slimy charm...
    I can think of a lot of examples where, academically, murder is necessary: some wars, some executions, self-defense, or basic death to eat and survive. But I can’t think of any example of necessary rape.
    Even a justified murder hangs on a person like a curse. Veterans crack-up... People who were just defending themselves still feel guilty. And we all seem to pay for consuming under the sky.
    But rape is so selfish: to forcefully get gratitude at another’s expense. Just for a few minutes of meaningless pleasure in the genitals and a sense of control they make a monster of themselves and destroy another’s self-worth. And once that line is crossed it’s easier to cross again...
    Prison does strange things to men, and I don’t care about homosexuality if it’s all done willingly. Every one laughs at it, but men being raped in prison is wrong. Yet it seems somehow less monstrous than a man raping a woman. A woman is where we all come from. A woman is the mother, the sister, the grandmother. Women have a spiritual quality to them, which makes them superior in many ways.
    So a friend of mine gets raped at a party... She’s had things like this happen to her before too. I don’t know what it is. Bad luck? Or she’s just too cute? ... She’s a strong and intelligent woman too. Maybe that’s what bugs them.
    This preppy frat fuck thinks he’s a big man raping UN-conscious girls. He’s probably keeping score like it’s some kind of meaningless baseball game.
    And these types always gets away with it! Most girls rather just forget about it than be exploited any further by talking about what happened or doing something about it. This kind of bullshit happens everyday, so who cares? Right?
    It was time for some people who aren’t everyday.
    My buddies and I aren’t saints. In fact we’re far from it.
    We don’t have keggers to attract chicks over, we mix hard liquor and pills till we pass out. We don’t dance, we just mosh. We’ve gone out and vandalized for no reason, accept for the cheap thrill of it all, and the idea that material possessions are completely worthless. We’ve slept with a few strange people, but it was all consensual. Some of us like our sex kind of rough, kind of kinky, but again, always consensual. One thing we don’t do is force ourselves on someone. Not views, not rules, and not our bodies either. We’re all about freedom, pure freedom.
    So my four buddies and I set out to find this white-collar rapist. No we’re not saints, but this is no job for saints. What else were we going to do? Go to the cops? Yeah right, they’re the same kind of yuppie fucks, brick-head types, that are doing this at frat parties anyway. At least that’s what we figure. They’re the same kind of guards that ignore rapes in prison because it’s common, or because it’s funny for the rest of us. And my personal feelings for cops aside, the system simply doesn’t work.
    We park the car at the other side of the block from the party. We get a few upturn noses walking up to the door, but we pay no attention. We pay the cover: five bucks for a cup, and walk in.
    The crap they’re playing on the stereo turns our blood: Smash Mouth, Dave Mathew’s, Usher. The guy that took our money runs it upstairs.
    I see the rapist fuck that we’re after standing in the corner. He’s eyeing the room, waist level. Our friend pointed out his blank face in a yearbook. All of these clean-cut dirty-fucks are probably in on it, but he’s the only one we know about for sure. Besides, justice shouldn’t be blind, it should be wide-eyed, awake, and strike only when it is absolutely sure. And we’re sure about him.
    In the back room behind the kitchen we find the keg. We pour a round.
    Uhhhhg!!! It’s Bud-light, the shit doesn’t even taste like real beer, just watered down crap.
    Behind the keg there’s a door leading into the basement, and just before the door a stairway into the backyard. We’re the only ones around the keg. All the frat boys are off chasing tail and only have the beer around for show. So me and one of my buddies slip down the stairs into the basement. The other two stay up nursing beers and standing watch.
    The basement is exactly as you might expected it: Cement, washer, dryer, damp cloths laying in heaps, but most of all the plumbing for the whole house is exposed, coming out of the ceiling and the walls...
    Kick... bang... spray... water running, sewage dripping, and we’re back up stairs.
    Back up top we refill our cups and head into the living room where the bland-ass music is still playing. In about five minutes someone yells, “Hey, the toilet ain’t working!”
    “What ta fuck...” says one of the inhabitants.
    Soon they’re walking all over the house trying to figure it out.
    In the confusion I slip upstairs and pop into the first bedroom I see.
    I find the money they’ve collected for the keg in one of the underwear drawers. How fucking predictable. They’re all too busy convincing themselves that they’re straight that it’s unthinkable to reach into another dude’s underwear drawer.
    I go back downstairs. My buddies and I go back to fill our cups around the keg.
    One of the frat-boys comes up from the basement. “Hey, the basement is flooded. A pipe must have burst!”
    “What ta fuck?”
    Yeah, what to fuck? Dumb wooden bastard thinking with the wrong head...
    Our man is walking towards us to go look for himself. The other inhabitants go back into the living-room.
    He’s walking sideways trying to shimmy by us around the keg. A quick nod and my buddies grab him, one at each side, and another covering his mouth. They pull him through the backdoor into the yard, and drag him until they’re far enough not be seen from the house.
    I, still in the kitchen, pull out my hunting knife with a rubble handle, and dip halfway down the stairs to the basement where the house’s circuit breaker protrudes from the wall. I stab the fucker up to the handle, and the whole place goes dark.
    I rush out into the backyard.
    The lights are out, but the moon is full to see the bastard in question has slipped away and is running off. We follow him through some cedar trees dividing the frat-house property and some field that looks like part of a churchyard.
    My buddy Auggie tackles him into the mud. We gag his mouth with the pair of underwear briefs that I snagged along with the keg money, just for this purpose. My buddies hold down his legs and arms. I lay on top of him and pull out the hunting knife. I wave it slowly in front of his eyes so he can see it.
    “You think you’re real big raping girls don’t you?”
    “Mmm! Mmm!” he screams in muted horror.
    “What you don’t realize is... they’re the same as you. Well, maybe not anymore. You’ve destroyed their pride. But I’ll fix that...”
    I got a little closer and opened my eyes wide. “I’m going to cut your fucking nuts off!”
    “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!”
    I cut his shirt and pants off.
    I’d like to say that it was tiny. But it was just your average evil dick. Yeah they’re evil, I’d know, I have one. I have my share of devilish thoughts, but I never acted on them. Well, not without a kinky and willing partner anyway. When it comes to sex, if my head isn’t truly in it, the arousal doesn’t even happen. But this guy loves himself so much that he’d do anything for gratification.
    I caress his balls with the dull end of the knife. The blade glistens in the moonlight.
    “MMMMMMMMMMMMM!”
    I bring the edge closer and a small trickle of blood begins to spill out, then with a flash I flip the knife over and shove the rubber handle up his ass.
    “MMMMMMMMM!”
    Wait... maybe I can think of an example where rape is necessary. But unlike real rapists, I’m getting no pleasure from this... no physical pleasure at least.
    I twist the handle round and round and thrust it forward over and over.
    Suddenly I can feel blood on my hand. It’s a mix of my hand gripping the blade too hard and his anus splitting open.
    “Hurry up man. Let’s get out of here,” says Auggie.
    I took the handle out. I’m sad to say I couldn’t take his balls, it would be too gory for me. But like I said: I’m no saint.
    I had another idea. “Hold him extra tight,” I said.
    They stretched his limbs until his chest was like a drum. Then in big letters down his front I carved the words: I RAPE KIDS.
    I chose to use the word kids at the last moment rather than the word women, because either way he’d never be able to undress without someone seeing those words. And if this scumbag eventually did hit bottom and ended up in prison, they’d eat him alive. Convicts hate three things more than anything: cops, narks, and child-molesters (Cho-mo’s they’re called in the joint.)
    So then we picked him up, UN-gagged him, and threw him into the mud. He began yelling for help immediately, and we ran off to where the car was parked across the Churchyard. We didn’t hear any sirens until we were crossing the bridge to the other side of town.
    No we’re not saints. Fuck saints! We felt like true knights of justice, if just for a moment. Some might say that we went too far. Well, what were we supposed to do with our carnal instincts? Fuck as many drugged-up girls as we can... right?

Mirage

    “What a treat to spend a few days in Las Vegas again,” Lois exclaimed, sipping champagne and opening the dinner menu.
    “Like old times,” Johnny said, remembering trips in the sixties when he and Lois traveled on the classy Streamliner, stayed in the old Sands Hotel, and always managed to see Sinatra or Martin.
    Waiting for grandchildren, Johnny and Lois lived in a working class Omaha suburb and doted on two purebred Cocker Spaniels, Princess and Rosy.

    After a prime rib dinner, they walked through the lavish interior of the Mirage Hotel. Johnny’s western boots clapped rhythmically on the tile floor.
    “This is real luxury,” Lois said with a gleam in her eye. Her hair, tinted to hide the gray, was parted on one side and shoulder length.
    “Let’s see if we brought any luck with us,” Johnny suggested as they entered the casino. Lois found a slot machine and Johnny joined the action at a crap table. When he was handed the dice, he threw a seven, another seven, and an eleven on his first three rolls.
    “Hey, dude, what’s your name?” shouted an aggressive, inebriated young man wearing a college-monogrammed sweatshirt.
    Hesitantly, Johnny gave his name.
    Draping his arm over Johnny’s shoulders, the young man introduced himself as Roger. “We’re betting with you, Johnny,” he said, gesturing to a group of his buddies and a mass of chips on the pass line. In a pounding rhythm, the group chanted, “John-ny, John-ny”.
    Johnny wanted to walk away but it was unethical to give up the dice during a winning streak. With a smooth motion, he bounced the red cubes off the far end of the table and the stickman called out, “Seven”. The students cheered and high-fived with such enthusiasm they drew attention from surrounding tables.
    “One more time and we’re out of here,” Roger yelled. He and his friends let their winnings ride.
    Johnny, feeling like a dancing bear, tossed again and the first die came up six and the second five. The students lost all control, regaining composure just long enough to collect their winnings. In all the drama, Johnny forgot to place bets and didn’t win a dime for his exceptional run of luck.
    After throwing snake eyes on the next roll and losing the dice, Johnny gladly left the crap table. Finding an open chair in a blackjack game, he placed a five dollar chip in the betting rectangle.
    “I’m sorry, sir, there’s a fifty dollar minimum,” the stoic dealer said. Johnny picked up his chip and sulked away. “I’ll be damned if I’ll bet fifty dollars a hand,” he mumbled.
    Unfamiliar with the current group of entertainers, Johnny took the recommendation of the deskman and purchased expensive tickets to a stand-up comedian. The mostly younger crowd laughed continuously but the leading edge, risqué humor failed to gain traction with Johnny and Lois. Fifteen minutes into the performance, they walked out.
    “I didn’t find that screwball funny at all,” Johnny said as they waited for the elevator.
    “Sure wasn’t Jack Benny,” Lois added.
    Tired after a long day that included a crowded two-stop flight, Johnny had just nodded off when Lois nudged him. “It’s cold in here,” she complained. Johnny tried to adjust the air conditioning but the blower wouldn’t turn off.
    “I can’t work this damn thing,” he said and called the desk. A courteous but insistent young female voice gave Johnny specific instructions. With Lois wrapped in blankets, he fiddled unsuccessfully with the controls. Just as he picked up the phone to dial the desk again, the blower unexplainably turned off.
    The next morning, Johnny’s stomach was acting up because of horseradish sauce on the prime rib and the cold room had made Lois’s throat scratchy. A group of children fought and giggled at an adjoining table in the busy breakfast restaurant.
    “We used to come to Vegas to get away from kids,” Johnny whispered.
    “It’s just not the same,” Lois said. “You don’t even have to pull a handle on the slot machines.”
    They sat quietly for a few minutes.
    “This is the first time we’ve left the dogs for more than a day,” Lois commented.
    “Rosy will make out all right in the kennel but I don’t now about Princess,” Johnny added.
    The waitress offered coffee refills but Lois placed her palm over the cup and Johnny shook his head.
    “I think we better change our flight and leave today,” Lois said.
    Johnny had been thinking the same thing but was hesitant to suggest it.
    That evening, Johnny and Lois wheeled their luggage across the lobby. Oblivious to the salt water aquarium and the waterfalls and exotic plants that had so intrigued them when they arrived, they waited impatiently for an airport shuttle.

Inner Beauty

    Celeste’s skin smelled like rose petals and her breath of bermut. Her white satin dress was tinged of the red wine she had spilled while holding up her glass in a toast. She was a red-headed disaster to me, but at the time I did not know it to be so.
    I, being agape by her beauty, asked her for a dance. Unequivocally, she was destined to be mine, for who could resist a handsome, rich bachelor?
    We twirled and we dined and we tittered in obvious coquetry. Her hand ran along the length of my arm, that which I took as a gesture of interest. I sang her praise at every opportune moment. By the end of the night, she was drunker than a sailor on the fourth of July. I knew she wasn’t the type of girl to let her guard down, but I had enough experience with girls such as these to maneuver my wits around her.
    “Peter,” she addressed me with her hand under her chin, “I’m a simple girl with a good eye for the finer things in life. What have you to offer me?”
    I muffled a laugh and let the ash of my cigarette fall into my empty champagne glass. “I have riches and wealth and the life of a prince. I haven’t a worry in the world,” I replied. “What more do you want?”
    Her ruby red lips formed a sly grin. “I don’t need material things, dear...offer me more.”
    “Now, pardon me, gal, but we’ve just met. I have no intention of committing into a relationship just as of yet. Perhaps after a few months of courting, we might become closer,” I suggested.
    Celeste shook her head and looked at me with those ravishing green eyes. “I don’t think you understand. This is a business venture not a dating game.”
    I tugged at my chin in thought. “A business venture, you say? How so?”
    “You’re an investor, are you not? Invest in me and I’ll invest in you in return.” Her long eyelashes batted at me.
    “I don’t think I quite understand you, doll. You’ll have to speak clearer.” I moved my seat closer to hers.
    “Hmm...” Celeste rolled her eyes. “I have to explain this every time.”
    “To whom?” I grew interested.
    “To all of you that think that money is everything. To the ones that don’t know what sacrificing a meal for another is. To the ones that hold champagne to their lips and look down on others.”
    “Well, excuse me, but I do believe you sound like a hypocrite. Were you not the one guzzling wine and eating the lobster?” I raised my eyebrow, feeling the blow of being offended.
    “I took the wine from someone that offered it and ate the lobster you bought me. I don’t see how that is being a hypocrite.” She stood from her chair and grabbed her handbag. “I’ll be leaving now.” She sounded more offended than I as she took a few steps toward the door.
    “No, no! Sit...let’s talk some more about your negotiation.” I took her by the hand and led her back to her seat.
    “You’re sure you’re interested?” She smiled an angelic smile.
    “Positive,” I reassured her.
    Celeste took her seat and held on to my hand. Finally, I was getting somewhere with her.
    “How do you treat women?” She asked, “And be sincere about it.”
    “With the utmost respect.”
    “You lie,” She sounded upset. “You think I don’t know what you plan to do with me...use me for one night and then shove me off to the side like you do with the rest of those dim witted bimbos?”
    How could she know such a thing? I kept all my affairs confidential.
    “No, of course not,” I lied to her.
    “Your lies are your demise, my dear gentleman. Lie to me once more and you shall see what you are without your riches.”
    I burst out in a bout of laughter. Her face was red with fury as she felt ridiculed by my ongoing amusement.
    “You laugh at me now Peter Collins, but you will see tomorrow when you rise what awaits you.” She stomped off and didn’t look back once.
    “Crazy dame!” I laughed some more.
    I drank to my heart’s content and went home with a blonde. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up on the curb of a street by a few taps on the head. I looked up and saw a police officer.
    “Get going, you vagrant,” He told me.
    “Vagrant?” I frowned. “I’ll give you vagrant.” I rose to my feet and dusted myself off. I saw my reflection on the window of a pharmacy store. That wasn’t me. My hands touched my face and my round potbelly. I smelled rancid and of vomit. My clothes were torn and I only had one shoe. I didn’t recognize the street I was on.
    I started to walk, holding my hand to my head trying to remember what had happened to me. I saw a homeless woman rummaging through a big trash bin and approached her.
    “Excuse me, ma’am. Can you tell me where I am?” I asked.
    She didn’t look at me, but continued digging through trash.
    “Ma’am,” I insisted. “Can you please direct me to the nearest bus station?”
    The woman looked up from under her ruffled dark hair. “You don’t look like you have any money for a ticket anywhere,” she laughed.
    “I’m a millionaire. I have equities and stocks. I own half the metropolitan area of my hometown,” I urged her to believe me. “Here, I’ll show you...” I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out a solemn dollar.
    The night before I had over a thousand dollars in my pocket. What had happened to all of my money? I tapped my pockets in search of my wallet but came up empty handed. This couldn’t be happening to me.
    “I’ll read your palm for a dollar,” the woman rocked back and forth, grinning.
    “Keep it,” I said handing it to her.
    The woman grabbed a hold of my hand and touched my palm.
    “What do you see,” I rolled my eyes trying to get over with it. I was not a believer of this sort of thing.
    “I see your soul,” She replied. “Do you know why you are here?”
    “No...that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
    “You were not a good person. No you were not,” she laughed wickedly.
    I pulled my hand from her grip. “How do you know that?” I wondered.
    “Because,” she said turning away from me then back again with Celeste’s angelic smile, “ I am the devil in disguise.”

Requiem for a Velvet Gladiator

    When I was a young punk weighing about 98-pounds with 500-pounds of attitude, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of the egg most likely thrown by me at your pretty picture window. And when I got my driver’s license, I thought I was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. So when one day a car behind me honks because I was doing something important like digging out some wax from my ear while idling at a green traffic light, I naturally responded by flipping the bird to whoever were the fools behind me.
    Three bikers in a car who were three of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.
    They chased me for about a half hour before finally cutting me off. “Not so tough now, are ya punk?” No, but luckily the locked doors of my old man’s Ford Fairlane were. If they weren’t able to rip them open, they were able to rip off the side view mirror. Luckily, the driver’s side window did not smash when one of Satan’s little helpers smashed the softball-size hunk of metal against it. After spitting on the window a few times and kicking at my door, they left me, but not without the warning: “We’ll get you next time, punk!” And as soon as they peeled off, I, well, instead of flipping them the bird, I drove home to get my father’s police service revolver.
    Like I was going to find these guys, even in this unhitched boxcar-size town that was New Britain, Connecticut. Even if I did, what was I going to do with a Smith & Wesson .38 Special with no bullets? (Should have checked before taking the old man’s gun.) Should have also expected that my old man would expect that gun before holstering up for work. Ohhhh, man...and when he didn’t give me the usual ass-kicking, I knew I was in for probably the biggest beating of my life. And when my old man sent me to speak with an old friend of his; some “character” he met from his early days as a beat cop; unfortunately for me, now a “friend”; someone who would knock some sense into me, a retired boxer named Tommy “The Gun” Mangifico, then I should probably get good again with God, before I could kiss goodbye my life, yeah, right.
    Already because of my 500-pound attitude, my folks sent me to a social worker. His name was Ted Poe, and I’m not kidding ya, Edgar Allan Poe was his ancestor. (But a great writer like that with such a boring descendant?) Edgar’s great-great-great grand-mutant or whatever was not having much success with me. So why would an ex-boxer, that no one ever heard of?
    “Oh wait, I did hear about you; your nickname in the ring, was ‘The Canvas Kisser’ right?”
    “Boy, if the rest of you was as smart as your mouth, you’d be a genius. Siddown and shutup.”
    Better do that at least; sit down, because even though he must be nearing seventy, Tommy “The Gun” was not a guy that took being spoken to with a mouth that was wise like a smart ass.
    You heard of boxers getting cauliflower ears? Well, Tommy “The Gun” Mangifico had a cauliflower face. Still, his slightly oversized visage blazed with a couple of advanced degrees from The School of Hard Knocks that he probably began studying at before he tied his heart up into a boxing glove: a mouth that seemed permanently drooped into a slight lopsided sneer; cheeks that shared a similar lopsided profile, (but the right cheek was higher than the left; vice-versa to the droop in his sneer), and the crooked tomahawk of a rock-hard nose that looked like it had been banged off of a Classical Roman statue and then ineptly glued back on its face. The perpetual cinder-sparkle of his eyes belied the heavy, almost friendly-looking droopy eye lids, and the surprisingly rich, steel gray pompadour of his crown gleamed and sparkled from a gel that looked thick enough to lube a car engine. His body was not as well preserved; what might have once been shoulders and a torso trained to take punishment, was a small landslide ending at a size 45 or 46 waist; his 18-inch or so shirt collar neck, was now like a wrinkled sagging elephant trunk. His wrinkled leather arms began to drip with flab, but his hands hung at the end of them like the splayed open paws of a bear; hands that still looked like they could knock one cheekbone higher than the other. Thus my lack of razor-sharp comment over his ivory, wide-lapelled polyester shirt, bronze polyester pants, and white leather loafers with gold buckles. Just the same, at some point I was going to have to ask: what 1970s couch did you shoot, and are there are any more of your kind planning to leave the bowling alley soon?
    “You know your old man coulda lost his job?” he said.
    Until now, I never thought about that.
    “All somebody had to do was find out about it, and your old man—good street cop; fair; would have been in the shits forever ‘cause of a punk like you.”
    He shook his head, and bear pawed fists or not, you don’t get a second chance to call me a punk.
    He shook his head at me and then said:
    “You stay here. This is my place, got it? Don’t even blink. When I get back, we’re going to have a talk.”
    He wobbled into the kitchen of this third floor tenement apartment. His living room—or was it part of the lounge where he shot the couch? Was decked out in equal polyester and plastic taste ripped off from the refreshment center at the bowling alley. Surprisingly, there was only one boxing picture of him; when he must have been at his prime, which must have been a million years ago from the way the glass framing his signed photo had jaundiced. Naturally, there’s going to be a pewter crucifix the size and weight of a Colt .45 on the wall, and what the hell? Everything else in this room—on the walls, the TV dinner table before his spot on the Lawrence Welk-dinner jacketed sofa, on the doily topped end and coffee-tables (Doilies? Tough guy like that?) had either a puzzle-in-progress on it or a finished, glued-together puzzle hung like it was a museum picture. This “Fine Art” seemed familiar; famous “Italian” stuff; same with the ash trays and knick knacks; I recognized one of them, though I didn’t know what it was called, but Mary holding a dead Jesus, yeah, I had seen that before. And I definitely knew that the glued together puzzle above the sofa was “The Last Supper.” Damn, even bowling would be a better hobby than this.
    The Gun then came into the room with a fizzly-iced drink and a plate of—mmm—Italian cookies.
    “I like the ones with the cherry jelly in the middle,” I said as I reached over to snatch—
    “AHHH!”
    “You don’t take what belongs to you,” is what I think he said. As I reached out for a cookie, the S.O.B. whipped my hand with the back of his; hard enough to leave a hot pink welt too.
    “What the hell...!” I said as I looked up at him, while holding my hand that still throbbed with the sensation of a dozen bee stings.
    But he had already moved on to the next topic.
    “I didn’t have a choice,” he said as he mashed down on what looked like two or three cookies at the same time. “My parents came from It-ly, but they didn’t know It-ly, and back then, you only had to go to the eight grade, especially if you were a kid who spoke his folks’ language better than his teachers. Teachers didn’t like that. Neither did my old man like the idea of me being in school. Told me enough school for you. Time you go to work. So at 14, I’m sweeping in a factory. So barely making a living a couple of years later in the ring, was a hell of a lot better than sweeping the foreman’s cigars and the workers unfiltered Luckies. I didn’t have a choice. But you—you! Ya selfish snot of a punk!”
    Without opening my teeth, I warned:
    “Don’t call me that! That’s the second time!”
    “You got opportunities! A good home! An old man—and because he didn’t kill ya for what he did, shows how much he loves ya!”
    “Hey, those guys in that car shouldn’t have messed with me!”
    “I betcha you messed with them!”
    Damn him.
    “And ya know what else? I betcha you been looking for that fight a long time!”
    “I guess you won the bet,” I mumbled.
    “I used to think so too, but fighting’s for losers. I found that out late. Ain’t I pretty? Like Muhammad Ali?”
    In spite of the toughness I had to maintain with this gorilla, a giggle still escaped me.
    “But not like you, at least I learned to appreciate who we are.”
    “Um—sorry, but I don’t go bowling.”
    “You see these pictures here?”
    “You mean these puzzles?”
    “You see these small statues?”
    “You mean, these ashtrays?”
    “That’s It-ly!”
    “You mean Italy?”
    “Our culture! A great culture! So’s everyone else’s. Thank God, I lost my prejudice before my first fight—the great white hope? What a bunch of horse shit dreamed up by newspapers! When it’s just you and another guy in the ring—but what am I doing? That’s what you want to hear, right?”
    “It’s better than hearing about puzzles.”
    “Well these puzzles—this puzzle here, is a famous Italian painter called Raphael. And that puzzle there, Del Sarto. And behind me—”
    “Yeah, I know, Da Vinci,” I sneered.
    “And didja know that he was also a scientist, an inventor? That he designed a parachute; they even say he came up with the idea for the submarine, the tank!”
    “Yes sir, our culture. I just didn’t think the Coliseum was a jigsaw puzzle, and let me guess—the Gladiator must be velvet.”
    For the first time since I stepped inside this velvet painting gallery, Tommy “The Gun” dipped his face to hide a blush of embarrassment.
    “It’s what I can do—to learn,” he mumbled. “I’m not that good at reading, but since it takes me a long time to do the puzzles, I can also take my time reading the small booklet that comes with them—explaining the history of what I’m gluing together. Look. I wish I could have seen all this stuff; wish I could have gone to It-ly...now, I’m lucky to do the puzzles.”
    “Well, I guess it’s better than going bowling. But I’d get rid of the puzzle still in the box—“
    I smirked, and then said:
    “The one showing those two limp-wristed fruits about to touch each other.”
    “What the hell is wrong with you. That’s from Michaelangelo! That’s God who just gave life to Adam! That’s probably the world’s greatest painting, and it’s painted on the ceiling of a famous chapel!”
    “Yeah, well, they still look like two limp-wristed fruits.”
    “You snot-nosed little punk!”
    “I said don’t call ME A PUNK!”
    And then POW! As I kicked over the TV dinner table with the puzzle he had been working on.
    It was like a gun shot had gone off in the room. Neither of us could do anything for the next ten or twenty seconds...but as those seconds began to dissolve, I began to cry while I softly prayed; Oh God, please let me take it back, please, please, please don’t let him hit me. I promise, I promise, I promise I won’t have ever be a punk again but as I was promising, Thomas Mangifico was struggling to insert two pieces of the puzzle I had just kicked over; his eyes were wide now and also wet. And his hands that I had feared, could barely steady themselves to connect two pieces of cardboard. No wonder it took him so long to put together one puzzle.
    “I-I’m—sorry, I’m—”
    “This is not your house, and you are no longer welcome here. Go. Go.”

    He could have killed me for what I did, and I don’t think my old man would have been that mad about it. Mr. Mangifico should have at least smacked me; that is what everybody else would have done, but he didn’t. He just told me to get out of his house. No one ever told me that before. Worse, I felt like I left something behind in his apartment, and there was no way I could get it now. Whatever it was, I felt about a hundred pounds lighter than I already was. I never felt more weak.
    I checked my pockets. Ever since the old man took the car away, I didn’t even have a set of keys. Yet getting thrown out of Mr. Mangifico’s apartment made me feel embarrassed, even ashamed—something I never felt for stealing my old man’s gun. And when I raised two fisted arms to swear at the world, I knew what it was that I had lost, and for what seemed like the first time ever, I felt what it was like just to have shoulders, and nothing else.
    But for the first time ever, I was no longer wearing the body of a child.

    The old man never asked me about my visit to Mr. Mangifico. He assumed I had screwed up once again. I don’t think Mr. Mangifico said anything to him about our visit. I also knew there was nothing more my father could do for me. Maybe that’s why he no longer yelled at me. Threaten to bring me to the police station. Let me sit in the cell for a bit. See how it feels. This time there was none of the high-pitched melodrama. The next time I got in trouble, my father wasn’t going to bail me out of it.
    So with no more car to drive and no eggs or rocks or even chips on my shoulder to throw at the world, I discovered of all places, the library. That was the only place where I could read about Da Vinci, Raphael, Del Sarto, Michaelanglo. As for the latter; that great painter and sculptor who carved masterpieces like La Pieta, he was also a bit of a punk himself. Somebody broke his nose for being a wiseass. He still had his hands though, and what hands they were to carve and paint the things he did, especially the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Especially what was at the center of it: the hand of God giving life to the hand of Adam—or was God letting Adam go? For better or worse, Adam was now going to have to be on his own.
    After about a month, I finally coughed up the courage to ask my old man about Mr. Mangifico. “Oh, you’re friend?” my father said. There was a pause before he tried to shrug off as no big deal: “Oh, he’s in the hospital.”
    I didn’t ask his permission to go. Before I went, I stopped at the local hobby store. Where I used to buy cap guns and plastic army men. There was one puzzle left of the Sistine Chapel.
    “Do I know this kid? He looks familiar.”
    Even though Mr. Mangifico was kidding, there was also a slight sharp edge to his tone.
    “I just came by to bring you something for what I did at your, um, uh,”
    I mumbled.
    “Siddown, you’re starting to shake like Jell-o!”
    Even though I was invited to sit, I kept the hospital chair a couple of feet from his bed. What happened to Tommy “The Gun” Mangifico? His neck and arms had about a thousand more wrinkles in them, and his cotton hospital gown looked two or three sizes bigger than him. His cheeks were finally even, but only because his face seemed to have shrunk as the rest of him lost weight. A lot of weight. His nostril had a plastic tube clipped at the end of it, and he still had enough energy to try and sculpt what remained of his hair into a thinned out wave crested with a little gel.
    “I see ya finally got some culture...!” he said.
    Now that he had welcomed me, he gave up the tough guy tone. It must have been hard for him with the way he now wheezed. Also, after each time he spoke, he briefly closed his eyes, as if each sentence cost him a great deal of physical effort.
    “Actually I bought this puzzle for you Mr. Mangifico.”
    He weakly laughed, and then said, as if speaking to himself:
    “When the hell did I become a Mister...just don’t put it on my grave.”
    And then to me:
    “Well, go ‘head. Open it up. Wish I could help ya, but...and you can use my food table over there...”
    As I dumped the puzzle onto his food tray table, I began to explain:
    “But I did read up on the artists you told me about. Some of ‘em...were kind of crazy.”
    Mr. Mangifico smiled.
    “Just like some boxers....” he said. “Say, did Ali fight Frazier yet? In Manila...from where I would march out of...and for the next few years...didn’t know if I would see the next morning...”
    His eyes did not open after the usual few seconds pause. His reflection of—well, I was reading a lot more than about Art. So Mr. Mangifico must have been one of the few to march—more like hobble away from Bataan or Corrigador after the Japanese invaded the Philippines right after Pearl Harbor. Still, I didn’t want to leave without putting together some of the puzzle. I knew he wouldn’t be able to do it, and I knew he would appreciate seeing at least the famous pair of hands, and when they were just the hands, why, they never looked more vulnerable, but also human. Well, at least he would see that part of the famous masterpiece when he woke up. The part I found it easy to put together in less than 10 minutes. Maybe his nurse or someone else—well, maybe, his nurse could help him put the rest of it together.

    The first time you see a reproduction of a famous picture in a book, you can’t wait to see the masterpiece itself. You just can’t help but feel, well, that the original painting or sculpture is going to be 10-times bigger than it actually is, and will glow like the first day of earth after God created it. Or whoever you believed created it. A great work of Art—it just had that sense of first-time ever creation about it, and by my late twenties and early thirties, I would begin to see some of that great Art.
    Shakespeare’s portrait in The National Gallery in London. The artist who painted it wasn’t as famous a the artist who painted La Giocanda. Didn’t matter. Shakespeare’s face was like—well, close to being like the face of God for a post graduate under-or-unemployed English major like me. I’m not talking about the woodcut-like portrait where Will looks more like a caricature. I’m talking about the realistic blazing stare from a half bald, somewhat long, shaggy-haired bearded guy with a gold hoop earring. Never the author you imagined while you were being tortured back in high school reading Romeo and Juliet. And eventually the author like no other for writing plays like As You Like It, King Lear, Hamlet. But it’s only when you see his portrait that you see more than just the world’s greatest author.
    You also see that he was a real badass.
    La Giocanda? Oh, hell, that name just makes her seem more pretentious. Nevertheless, I never expected Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to be anti-climatic. You couldn’t get a bigger build up when your museum is The Lourve, either. She even had her own room, and the day I visited her, that room was filled with more people it seemed built to corral. I still got a glimpse of the lady with the bemused smile; it was tougher to see the extra-terrestrial, or pre-historic like rocky landscape behind her—in my opinion, the more mysterious and beautiful part of the painting. Probably one of the greatest paintings in the world was not all anti-climax, as my slightly impish nature soon discovered. With all the Japanese, American, Western European and other tourists snapping their cameras at her (while some even tried to get their pictures taken close to her), the Mona Lisa had created a performance piece or temporary human sculpture called Middle Class Cultural Appreciation, which I happily took more than a dozen photos of.
    The Sistine Chapel. For the longest time, it just seemed like a big line, and then once I got inside, I was just exhausted. I was just happy to take in a few of the images above me. At future dinner parties, I, like my hosts, would all be able to say we had visited the Sistine Chapel, and what a great experience it was.
    And it was. Though maybe not in the way my highly educated and richly cultured hosts would never know about; folks who may have seen all of the world’s great works of art, but who probably never put together one jigsaw puzzle. Folks who might not understand, that the one riveting image for me of that great work of Art, was not in God giving Life to Adam, but in a son reluctantly pulling away from his father.
    A father hesitantly letting go of his son.
    A young man and an old man, knowing that however brief between them, there will always be antagonism.
    But also love.

The 2^nd Battle Of Cibeque Creek

    Roberto and Julio rode their Sicilian burros into Cibeque Creek to cool the burros’ hooves. It was only five more miles to the Apache camp, where they hoped to engage the Indians in one last battle. This battle would hopefully prove that two Italian mercenaries could do the job better than the U.S. Cavalry in time of war or peace whatever the case might be. It was late in the year and the two warriors from Rome figured the Apache would be out harvesting piñon nuts and preparing for winter that was coming soon in the land of the setting sun where deer and antelope go to Florida for the winter.
    As they reined their burros away from the creek they knew they were close in their quest for the Apache warriors. These “savages”, as the Army generals called them, had slaughtered the U.S. Cavalry at Cibeque. As they rode up the trail Roberto and Julio broke into an Italian operatic aria and the cliffs surrounding Cibecue Creek echoed the beautiful sound emanating from the throats of the two Italian mercenaries. They were determined to find the Apache raiders who had put a dent in the number of U.S. Cavalry regimental units. The casualties included a number of officers as well as enlisted men who had succumbed to the ire and weaponry expertise of the Native Americans on the warpath. The survivors had described the blood curdling yells and the looks of deep hatred on the faces of the warriors to the Italian mercenaries before they left the fort.
    Three miles later and still singing, Roberto and Julio, encountered the warring band of Apaches seated on the ground in a natural amphitheater watching and listening to the two operatic marvels as they rode in on their faithful burros. They belted out the arias from famed Italian operas with such buoyant sound that the Apache warriors sat mesmerized by the sound and sight. Each of the warriors tried to think about the burros for supper but the two Italian mercenaries kept singing. The Apache warriors forgot about supper and instead began to pass the bottles of tiswin, a powerful drink made from fermented corn. The headman among the war party took a bottle of tiswin to the Italian mercenaries and handed it to Roberto. He nodded his gratitude, took a deep draught from the bottle, and handed it to Julio who did the same before handing the bottle back to the headman. The chief returned to the circle of warriors. The Italian mercenaries continued the concert until all the Apache warriors were asleep from the vast amounts of tiswin they had consumed.
    The Italian mercenaries stopped singing and Roberto stood toward the direction from whence they arrived and whistled several times. A string of twenty burros came plodding in to the amphitheater where the two Italian mercenaries opened the panniers and extracted handcuffs. They began installing the cuffs on the sleeping Apache warriors. After accomplishing manacling the Apaches the mercenaries attached them all to a long but lightweight chain. Roberto and Julio took their long awaited naps under the piñon trees surrounding the amphitheater. When they awakened they found the Apache warriors attempting to rub each other’s heads with cuffed hands. Those crania were the targets of four hundred hangovers. The two Italian mercenaries clapped their hands the sound of which made the hungover Apaches suffer further until they began moaning.
    The previous account is most assuredly the most amazing feat of any military people during the entire period of the wars against the Apache. The two Italian mercenaries tied the warriors in a line behind the twenty burros and led them to Fort Apache. The commandant of the decimated U.S. Cavalry unit met them on the parade ground with the remaining men of the 144^th regimental combat team along with the only remaining faithful Apache scouts. All were amazed at the prowess of the Italian mercenaries. The chief scout approached the commandant and whispered something in his ear. The commandant informed the mercenaries that the four hundred prisoners were suffering badly for want to urinate. “Your prisoners cannot accomplish this with their hands locked behind them without wetting themselves,” the commandant said. “According to Apache culture wetting themselves is considered a disgrace.”
    The two Italian mercenaries sprang into action immediately and unlocked the cuffs on each Apache warrior and relocked their wrists in front so that they could relieve themselves properly.
    The result made the commandant, his remnant regimental combat team and the two Italian mercenaries run for high ground to escape the flash flood that historians would later name the first hundred-year flood of the nineteenth century in Arizona Territory.

The Goose Master

    “Walking is no longer the pleasant activity it used to be!”
    So Julian heard, everywhere he went. It made him feel guilty.
    “You can’t walk anywhere, anymore, without encountering bird turd. It’s because of these geese!”
    Julian self-consciously hid his bread crusts inside his shirt. A delicate, mossy green swirled the surface of the glassy lake. A multi-textured, reflection in motion, stood before him. The inscrutable water was riffled by the wind. The double images suspended in the water were thereby broken up into parts, misleading pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. When the wind died down, the picture in the lake was once again intact. A mystifying process of questions with no answers was offered by nature. Julian was in awe of nature, as he felt it had nothing personal to do with him. Grass-covered banks rose around the pond, and beyond that, dense areas of trees, a tangle of branches and bushes and vines. In the fresh water, and on the banks of the lake, a gaggle of geese had once again claimed the afternoon. They swam and waddled, snipping at crumbs of people food dropped by the human population, snapping at innocent passersby, and covering the grass, and paving, with droppings. It WAS difficult to walk, thought Julian. Attention was necessary to avoid the inevitable smears. It was not easy to keep one’s shoes clean. Little children, walking heedlessly as children often do, would be apt to slide in the unpleasant messes, and fall down. Julian watched the scene with intense silence. A goose feather was snatched by the wind. It bobbled before him on the breeze. Furtively, he removed a crust of bread and threw it on the grass.
    “Hey!” someone said.
    An angry, bearded man was standing before Julian. The man stared at him through desperate eyes.
    “Are you feeding those parasites?” the angry man asked.
    “Geese are not parasites,” said Julian.
    “If you call yourself a citizen, you do not throw bread crust to the grassy banks! You do not throw your earnings to the worms!” said the man.
    Julian winced.
    “I’m feeding birds. That’s all I’m doing,” he said.
    “The menace that are the geese thrive because of you! If you didn’t feed them, they might starve to death!” said the man by the lake.
    “I am not breaking any laws. I’ll do what I want,” said Julian.
    “You love these birds so much? You must be a goose, yourself,” said the man. He laughed, heartily.
    Julian resisted answering him. He threw a fistful of bread crusts on the grass.
    There was no denying it. Julian was a lonely soul. The geese were his friends. They occupied his environment. They were more dominant than human kindness. The geese were largely despised as a great nuisance. Julian identified with them. Like Julian, the geese were outcasts. They were regarded with contempt. They were marked as an undesirable group. Each one of them, as individual creatures bore the brunt of people hatred. No matter that they were birds and did not respond to verbal vituperation. In fact, the geese were undisturbed by their own multitudinous presence. They were symbols of unconcern to Julian, who was constantly worried about something. He liked watching them. He enjoyed feeding them. He wished he could find a company of persons like the geese to which he could belong. Given opportunity, he would have easily claimed goose membership. He threw another fistful of bread crusts on the water’s slopes. Two women walking for exercise glanced his way.
    “That man should be arrested for feeding those birds,” puffed one.
    “I know. They poop enough as it is,” puffed the other.
    A little boy rode over to Julian on his bike.
    “Do you know that every time you feed these geese you increase their numbers in our vicinity? Do you know they are potential bearers of epidemic?” the little boy asked.
    “You are a child. I am a grown up. Go away,” said Julian.
    The boy shook his head and rode off.
    Julian felt wistful. He wanted to cradle something, maybe the geese, who were unwanted, rejected, and stood alone to take up combat against the world. Julian threw another fistful of bread to the misbegotten friends of the air. They had traveled far, in perfect formation, to be with him that day. No one else ever went out of the way for him. Granted, the geese had found haven for themselves, but they had found it near Julian. Could anyone else say the same? No one else had included him in anything.
    Julian went home after he finished dispensing bread crumbs. He lived alone on the ground floor of a small apartment building. He had access to his home through a private garden. His house was quiet and empty when he got there.
    Geese followed geese on painted fields where no man dreams until he has given flowers. Julian slumbered without dreams. Short winded even in sleep, he fell into waking before the sun was fully up. This was unusual, as he did not typically open his eyes before daylight. A murmur of souls was calling him. Today, he was up and out the door before the morning sun took over the sky. He arrived on the shore of the lake with a dim dawn reaching over the borders of night. He wanted to look at his life before the rest of the world did. Out of the gray and violet haze, he perceived the outline of a goose, communing with the water. It’s feathers were flounced. Then one, two, three times, it dipped its head in the lake, exacting rapid ripples on the surface. Slowly, majestically, the goose turned, beak first, to Julian. Then, with a shivering of air and a quivering of fresh water, the goose suddenly, miraculously, started to change. The bird first underwent a metamorphosis in its size, gaining height and breadth. Then, the texture of its feathers changed, smoothed out. Its shape, also, conformed to a different blueprint, to something human. To Julian’s astonishment, there was a woman where the goose had been, rising out of the water and walking toward him. The goose had somehow transformed itself into a human female. She honked, she waddled, a little. Then she cleared her throat.
    “I’m hungry,” she said.
    Julian gasped. She was naked. Not even a feather covered any part of her anatomy. Her hair brushed her shoulder blades. Her hair was long and glossy. She was altogether not bad looking, for a goose. Julian knew he was not dreaming. She smelled like a girl.
    “Don’t you have any bread crusts?” she asked him.
    Julian stood up gallantly and covered her with his shirt.
    “You can’t stay here, anymore,” he told her. “First of all, since you’ve lost your feathers, you haven’t got anything to wear. And, you can’t go around without any clothes on. You’ll have to come home with me.”
    “Are there bread crusts at home?” she asked him.
    Julian laughed.
    “Sure,” he said, “You can have all the toast and coffee you want. Let’s hurry, now, before it gets too light out. We don’t want the broad daylight to reveal us. We are both half-dressed. I don’t have another shirt with me. Come on, let’s go.”
    He took her by the hand and they both arrived unnoticed at his small, silent home.
    “What’s your name? Do you have a name?” Julian asked her, once they were safely locked inside his apartment. An assorted fragrance of blossoms wafted through an open window.
    “My name is Phil,” she said.
    “Phil?” Julian asked , “As in Phyllis?”
    “I guess so,” answered Phil.
    She turned toward the open window, stretching her neck toward the scented air. The early sunlight filtered through her hair and rested on her skin. She looked pretty in a surprising way. Julian picked up his phone and called his friend Roger.
    “Roge, I have a woman here,” said Julian.
    Roge was sleepy, but attentive.
    “At this hour?” asked Roger. “Are you inviting me over?”
    “No,” said Julian.
    “Then you shouldn’t have called before I was awake,” said Roger.
    “She’s half-goose, half woman,” said Julian.
    “What woman isn’t?” said Roger.
    “Don’t you think that’s a little sexist?” said Julian.
    “That’s the trouble with you,” said Roger, “You concern yourself with things that have nothing to do with you.”
    “I’m not going to take the time to answer that ignorant statement,” said Julian. “I knew you would never understand.”
    Julian hung up the phone. He turned back to Phil. The dusty morning fell upon her, illuminating silvery tones. Again, he was astonished by her. She shimmered in the early part of the day, a pearl he had found.
    “Phil,” he said, only once.
    His grin felt stretched.
    “What am I going to do with you?” he asked.
    “Hungry,” she whimpered.
    “Oh, yes,” said Julian, “Allow me to feed you, before I decide what I’m going to do with you.”
    He laughed, and she laughed with him.
    Julian opened a metal breadbox shaped like a duck. He took out a plastic package and undid the twist tie. He pulled a piece of bread from the package and held it in front of him. Julian was still grinning. Phil looked at him, expectantly. He tore the slice of bread in half and put one part of it in the woman’s mouth. Phil took it between her teeth and bit, then chewed, then swallowed.
    “Let’s continue,” said Julian.
    He put his arm around her back and laid her down. By the time the sun was up for the day, Julian felt he had found, in Phil, everything he had been looking for in his life. She was his. He bought her clothes. He took her out to look at the world through new eyes. His own eyes were those of the just born. He felt that hope was eternal, that he had been renewed.
    Men’s heads turned when Phil walked by. Julian had never experienced male envy or male surprise before. He was so proud of her, his little goose.
    Julian introduced Phil to Roger, who was awed.
    “Where did you find her?” he asked Julian.
    “In the water,” Julian responded.
    “Oohh. Swimmingly,” said Roger.
    “Actually, this is the goose I was telling you about,” said Julian.
    Roger laughed appreciatively.
    “Okay,” he said, “When you cook her for dinner, let me know. I’d love a slice of goose.” Roger continued laughing. “You’re a comedian, Jule,” he said.
    Julian smiled smoothly, grandly.
    “You think you know everything, don’t you, Roger,” said Julian.
    “I know what I know,” said Roger, “And I know that if you let me baste her in juices, she would be succulent.”
    Julian regarded Roger with frozen eyes.
    “You can look, but remember, she’s mine,” he said.
    “We’re friends, Jule,” said Roger, “I would never let a woman, or a goose, come between us.”
    The amazing creature, Phil, heard Julian’s drum and walked in time with him. She was like any other female born to be female. She had her personal quirks. She was fond of bread, especially when Julian fed it to her, one piece at a time. But one day, when a flock of geese flew overhead in a clear blue sky, Phil’s mind started to wander. She threw her lovely head back. She blinked up at the postcard-perfect, v-arrangement of feathered friends. Her soft hair settled, a crown of invitations, as she stopped her movement.
    “Julian, my love, who am I?” she asked.
    Julian followed her eyes. Then, he turned his gaze back to her.
    “You are my woman,” he answered her.
    “But who was I before I was your woman?” she questioned.
    Julian looked back at the sky.
    “You were a goofy, little bird that came and went as she pleased. You were she who I fed. You were she for whom I cared,” said Julian.
    “Is that all? What did I want? Who did I love before I loved you?” asked Phil.
    “Before you loved me, you were no one. You loved no one. You wanted nothing. You did not exist. I gave you life with your love for me. Serving me is your reason for being,” Julian said, with authority.
    Phil continued to stare into the distant blue, penetrating the valley of the horizon where her birds had disappeared.
    “Did you know that a rainbow is the color of God’s smile? Did you know that joy flies as straight as an arrow?” Phil said.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Julian, curtly.
    Phil was silent. Julian continued.
    “Some women do not appreciate salvation. I saved you from oblivion,” said Julian, severely.
    “Did I not also save you from oblivion, Julian,” said Phil. Her eyelashes quivered with crystal tears.
    Julian smiled, enigmatically.
    “I am the master. Masters do not taste oblivion,” he said.
    “Perhaps you desire a taste of my absence,” said Phil, sharply.
    Julian put his hand over her mouth.
    “I liked you better when you didn’t talk,” he said.
    “You can’t make me stay or do whatever you want,” said Phil. Her voice was muffled by Julian’s hand covering her mouth. Understanding her intention, he took his hand away to hear what she had to say. She repeated her statement. Julian put his hand back so he couldn’t hear her. Phil freed herself from his grip.
    “I need to find myself. I need to know who I am,” she said.
    Julian stopped her with an embrace.
    “Let’s go eat some bread,” he told her.
    “No, Julian. Eating bread won’t fix everything. I don’t like the way I feel. Who have I always been? Therefore, who am I now? I need to find myself. I need to leave,” said Phil.
    “I’ll marry you,” offered Julian, “This is a formal proposal.”
    “No!” insisted Phil. “This is not good. I am withering in the dark. My mind hurts. Who am I?”
    “You are my woman. I will not let you go. I gave you life. I will marry you and give you my name. Then you will know who you are. You will be my woman, my wife, forever.”
    “Not good! Don’t want this!” Phil said.
    She turned herself away from Julian. She stood apart in the blue and bright day. She opened her arms and felt the breeze flow under them.
    “I will fly away from you, Julian,” she said.
    Still extending her arms, Phil ran into the wind as though it would lift her, as though it would make her airborne.
    Julian laughed at her.
    “You can’t fly, Phil. You are a woman. Birds are the only creatures that can fly,” said Julian. “You are mine now. You don’t need wings.”
    “There are wings inside me, Julian. There is within me a creature of flight, a bird dying to break free. And yet, there is the woman I also need to be,” said Phil.
    “You are a little waddler that waits for me to break off bread crusts so I can put them in her mouth and she can chew on them, food for thought. Bread thoughts are the only thoughts you will have. This ‘need to fly’ is also yours only for my amusement, like when your little mouth opens and you take in my bread. You are content with me and you don’t know it,” said Julian. “Besides, where would you go if you left me? No one else likes you.”
    “I am a desirable woman,” said Phil.
    “You are as unwelcome as a goose on a landing strip,” said Julian.
    “So there is nothing any longer between us!” retorted Phil.
    “There is now between us what there has always been. I feed and keep you, and you please me, body and soul,” said Julian.
    “I am your pet, like some kind of animal. This is not what I want,” mourned Phil.
    Julian was afraid of Phil’s words. He was afraid she would leave him, so he held her, tighter and closer.
    “You want only what I want, and that’s all you want,” he told her.
    Julian had found a pearl in pond scum, and he did not want to lose her. Phil, for her part in this joint venture, was not pleased. She experienced endless disappointment. Julian did not provide her with the salvation of love. He made her think too hard, while trying to make her stop thinking altogether. She found herself looking away from him. It made her feel lost, as though she were wandering in a tangle of water weeds. Where was the fulfillment of his promise to her? When would he put his self second in favor of the manhood that was surely born to serve her? She could not find her reason for being “there” with him. So she left him and went to Roger. She did not care if Julian found out, but Roger did. He took great pains to hide their togetherness. Roger was perfect for her because he did not need her for his self-esteem. Therefore, he did not care about her when she was not satisfying him. When she was not with him, she did not exist. Roger cared more about his friendship with Julian than he did about his relationship with Phil.
    Roger did not know about Phil’s strange transformation. To him, she was just like any other woman. She even had her own quirks, like her fondness for bread and her abhorrence of eggs.
    “Why do you dislike eggs so much,” Roger asked her, one day at breakfast.
    “How can you eat the helplessly unborn? An egg needs to be protected,” she answered.
    “There are no baby birds in those eggs,” Roger told her.
    “Yet, they are the future,” she responded.
    “But, you love toast?” Roger queried.
    “Toast reminds me of Julian,” she said. The statement had finality.
    “Do you love Julian or do you love me?” asked Roger.
    “I love Julian and I love you,” was her retort.
    “But you love toast best,” said Roger, and laughed.
    Phil borrowed from Julian.
    “You and Julian both give me life,” she told Roger.
    Phil expected Roger to be flattered, but he was not. Phil sensed anger and saw an expression of disdain, or repugnance. She did not understand. She simply accepted the minor rejection because it was there. She was confident that the two men were hers. All evidence to the contrary was irrelevant.
    “You’re not serious, are you?” asked Roger.
    Phil was confused by the word “serious”. Her needs were serious. For instance, her need to be with Julian and Roger was not to be ignored. Water and sky and bread were contentious issues. The word “serious” in Roger’s mouth implied exclusive claim to either man. Whereas Phil truly felt that all men were interchangeable, as far as her own needs were concerned.
    Phil clarified, “Not serious. Julian and you are my only pleasure. I owe you nothing and may leave you both at any time and in any manner I choose.”
    Roger pressed for an advantage.
    “Good. I feel likewise. I am glad you are casual about us,” he said.
    “You may not be casual,” said Phil, “You must be nearby always to serve me. There is the bread and the shelter for my new skin and so on. You must be ‘serious’ about me. But I do not need to be ‘serious’ about you.”
    “What?” asked Roger. He wasn’t sure if he was devastated or not.
    “There is the always ‘serious’ issue of my keeping,” answered Phil.
    “Get lost,” said Roger. “Go back to Julian and stay there. I don’t want you here ever again.”
    “Since you are so obviously not eager not thrilled to please me, the best action for me is to never have pleasure from you again,” said Phil.
    “What kind of woman are you?” demanded Roger.
    Roger had become angry. Even though he did not want her, he wanted her to want him. He enjoyed her longing and she was not giving it to him, anymore. He wanted to see a response from her. So, to get one, he threw himself on top of her. He expected a struggle, but he did not get it. Instead, Roger got a handful of feathers. Phil was undergoing some kind of unusual change. She was turning into...a pigeon? No, a goose! Her torso was filling out, her legs becoming short and stalk-like, her face flattening and elongating. Her arms were turning into wings. And all over, she was becoming feathery.
    “I’ll be free of you, at last,” were the final words Phil said. She became smaller, yet filled out some more, until Roger found a plump, sleek bird in his hands.
    “Oh, no,” he said.
    He threw “Phil” away from him. Around and around the room she flew, until Roger opened the door and let her go. She was released. Roger stood stunned in the center of his room. He wasn’t sure if he had just seen what he had seen. He thought back over his recent past. Had he encountered this woman, Phil, his friend Julian’s best effort to date? Had she been real? What was true and what was false? He needed to know, right then.
    “Julian!” he called. He spoke into the little device next to his ear. His voice traveled through the air on the persistent impulse of technology.
    “Roger!” answered Julian. “I can’t find Phil.”
    Roger felt his heart drop to his ankles.
    “Who’s Phil?” Roger answered.
    Julian paused.
    “You slept with her, didn’t you, Roger! She’s with you right now! I’m coming over there!” Julian ended the call abruptly.
    Roger stammered, “I won’t be here,” but no one heard him. Julian was on his way.
    Roger turned events over in his mind. Was he responsible for what had become of Phil? Had he driven her to feathers? Could he be sued? He was sorry he had let the bird go. He ran outside into the wind.
    “Phil, Phil,” he called
    He looked up into the sky. Maybe with a kiss he could turn her back into a woman. He had heard that this happened in fairy tales. He wondered what it might be like to kiss a goose. He did not know how or why, but before he found Phil, Julian found him. Roger found himself involved in a shocking brawl over a woman he wasn’t sure existed. He felt bad. He didn’t want to fight with Julian. Finally, the confrontation ceased.
    “Julian,” said Roger, “What are we doing? I don’t want to do this anymore. I never felt about a woman what I feel about you.”
    Julian was blinded with rage.
    “She is my woman! She was hard to come by! Where is she?” roared Julian.
    Roger felt dazed. He collected his wits.
    “She sprouted feathers and turned into a goose! She is all bird! Remember when you discussed her heritage? I should have taken you at your word,” said Roger.
    “This isn’t fair,” moaned Julian. “I finally found someone that’s perfect for me and she chooses bread crusts over me.”
    Roger nodded, though he really did not understand.
    “Too bad you don’t have any bread crusts,” said Roger.
    “I HAVE bread crusts, Roger,” said Julian, “I DO have day old, leftover crusts of bread that I may or may not throw to any flocks of birds I choose. I have bread crusts going on. I have crumbs speaking for me. I have that much on my side.”
    “I didn’t mean to insult you. If you have bread crusts, why don’t you use them?” said Roger.
    Julian gasped.
    “Phil loves bread crusts,” he said.
    “What goose doesn’t?” said Roger.
    Julian and Roger went hunting for Phil. They were looking for a goose that recognized them. They were armed with two loaves of bread. They scouted the property outside of Roger’s place. They could not find her. They thought together, as men. Surely, she would wind up, sooner or later, at the lake. There they repaired. And there she was. Julian recognized her immediately, plumper and sleeker than the rest. She floated serenely atop the water’s mirror surface.
    “Phil! Phil! I’m sorry!” cried Julian. He peeled off a crust of bread and threw it in the lake.
    “We want you back,” echoed Roger.
    “We?” quizzed Julian.
    Eyes and ears along the shoreline took notice of Roger and Julian. Most noteworthy was the white haired woman with her own bag of bread crusts. She stared at them, vengefully.
    “You ought to be feeding ALL the birds, not just your favorites,” she shouted.
    “Not ‘we’, Roger, just me,” said Julian.
    “No, me, too,” said Roger, “All of this has changed me. I’m in love.”
    “Not with my woman!” said Julian.
    “Just because she’s your ‘pet’ doesn’t mean she’s your ‘woman’,” said Roger, peevishly.
    “Look, Roger, I found Phil in a puddle. I made her whatever she was. She belongs with me,” said Julian.
    “No,” said Roger. “As she changed herself for me, so I have changed myself for her. I am different, now. I claim her as part of my soul.”
    “Phil! Phil!” called Julian, again. He looked out over the lake at the birds gliding on the water. Phil was ignoring him.
    “Phil, you little fox! Stop ignoring me!” shouted Julian.
    “Stop that!” said the white haired woman. “You are upsetting the geese!”
    Sure enough, the birds on the lake were gliding out of sight behind Phil-the-goose. They sailed calmly around a bend and were gone. Julian and Roger ran around the shore following in fast pursuit. They were disappointed, for they did not find Phil. They hung around the lake for a few hours, waiting for something that did not happen. Phil never reappeared.
    “We should never have let her go,” said Roger.
    The two lonely men went home to Julian’s place. There, they watered down the ache of their loss with some beers.
    “I would have married her,” said Julian.
    “You would never have married her,” said Roger.
    Right before twilight someone knocked on Julian’s door. He threw open the portal. There stood before him a woman dressed in a skirt and blazer. Her business attire caught Julian off guard. She was not bad looking. Her hair was swept off her shoulders in an efficient knot.
    “Hello?” said Julian.
    “Hi, there, I am your neighbor and I am a representative of International Breads. We specialize in homemade domestic and imported baked goods. We are offering free trial membership in our bread-of-month association. Give us a try, and for three months one of our products will be sent right here to your home for you to enjoy, free of charge. After that....” The woman started her spiel, but Roger interrupted.
    “After that?” Roger said.
    “After that you’ll go back to the lake?” interposed Julian.
    “Excuse me, sir?” the woman queried.
    “Look,” said Julian, “I don’t like standing here at the door. I’m letting in flies. Either come in and tell us about yourself and your product or you will have to leave.”
    The woman stepped inside the house.
    “I can come in for awhile,” she said, “I just want you to know that my company gave me a cell phone with a GPS. I have it on my person at all times.”
    “You won’t need your cell phone,” said Roger, “We want your product.”
    “I happen to have some of our braided sun-dried tomato and garlic bread,” she said. She reached into her satchel and pulled out a brown paper bag. The smell of garlic wafted among them.
    “Here it is,” she said, and pulled out a golden brown loaf in clear plastic. The fragrance intensified.
    Julian took the loaf from her hand and unwrapped it. He broke off a piece of bread and put it in his mouth. Roger did the same, tasting it, also. Then Julian broke off a piece of bread and put it in the woman’s mouth.
    She said, “I’ve had it before. It’s very good. You will enjoy it.”
    Julian said, “We can see that. We were about to have dinner. If you stay and eat with us , we can discuss membership and sign up.”
    “Yes,” said Roger, “We don’t want to put off having dinner any longer. We’re starving.” He uncorked a bottle of wine taken from Julian’s closet.
    “Okay,” said the woman, “As long as I’m not intruding.
    “Not intruding,” said Julian and Roger.
    “By the way,” said Julian, “I’m Julian and that’s Roger. What’s your name?”
    “My name is Toni,” said the woman.
    “Toni it is,” said Julian.
    And then they sat down to dinner.

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@scars.tv... and ask to be added to the free cc+d electronic subscription mailing list. And you can still see issues every month at the Children, Churches and Daddies website, located at http://scars.tv

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

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.

    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.

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!!!

    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, WrBrian B. Braddock, Writer (on 1996 Children, Churches and Daddies)     Brian B. Braddock, WrI 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!

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

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

    Carlton Press, New York, NY: HOPE CHEST IN THE ATTIC is a collection of well-fashioned, often elegant poems and short prose that deals in many instances, with the most mysterious and awesome of human experiences: love... Janet Kuypers draws from a vast range of experiences and transforms thoughts into lyrical and succinct verse... Recommended as poetic fare that will titillate the palate in its imagery and imaginative creations.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Children, Churches and Daddies the unreligious, non-family oriented literary and art magazine Scars Publications and Design ccandd96@scars.tv http://scars.tv Publishers/Designers Of Children, Churches and Daddies magazine cc+d Ezines The Burning mini poem books God Eyes mini poem books The Poetry Wall Calendar The Poetry Box The Poetry Sampler Mom’s Favorite Vase Newsletters Reverberate Music Magazine Down In The Dirt magazine Freedom and Strength Press forum plus assorted chapbooks and books music, poery compact discs live performances of songs and readings Sponsors Of past editions: Poetry Chapbook Contest, Poetry Book Contest Prose Chapbook Contest, Prose Book Contest Poetry Calendar Contest current editions: Editor’s Choice Award (writing and web sites) Collection Volumes Children, Churches and Daddies (founded 1993) has been written and researched by political groups and writers from the United States, Canada, England, India, Italy, Malta, Norway and Turkey. Regular features provide coverage of environmental, political and social issues (via news and philosophy) as well as fiction and poetry, and act as an information and education source. Children, Churches and Daddies is the leading magazine for this combination of information, education and entertainment. Children, Churches and Daddies (ISSN 1068-5154) is published monthly by Scars Publications and Design. Contact Janet Kuypers via e-mail (ccandd96@scars.tv) for snail-mail address or prices for annual collection books. To contributors: No racist, sexist or blatantly homophobic material. No originals; if mailed, include SASE & bio. Work sent on disks or through e-mail preferred. Previously published work accepted. Authors always retain rights to their own work. All magazine rights reserved. Reproduction of Children, Churches and Daddies without publisher permission is forbidden. Children, Churches and Daddies copyright Copyright © 1993 through 2011 Scars Publications and Design, Children, Churches and Daddies, Janet Kuypers. All rights remain with the authors of the individual pieces. No material may be reprinted without express permission.