Nuoc Mam

    Gathering darkness fades the Great Smoky Mountain peaks into ghostly dominions of the Western sky. Their dusky pastels that bring me an aura of peace most evenings, now bring me only an agitated search for answers. Sitting at a small table near the window that faces them and their implacable beauty, I study the faded photo of the young Vietnamese woman holding her baby. And silently ask the questions that are haunting me. My unease seems to lessen with the touch of my weathered fingers along the photo’s torn edges. Like the relief that comes from a matching of halves, the ragged photo and my dry cracked fingers. Did she wait for him and cry when she knew he wasn‘t coming back? Was she waiting for the money that I took from his wallet, along with this photo, after I shot him? These questions have played in my mind for forty years and all I can do is imagine the answers. And no answer, however imagined, makes it right. Tossing the photo atop the dong currency scattered on the table, I rue the day that I took these things. War souvenirs that have become brands on my psyche, like the boogiemen of children’s dreams. Now I must somehow let them go, be rid of them. For unlike a child, I can not outgrow them. But they must be given their due. Then, maybe my guilt will back off some.
    “Ben are you fretting over that war stuff again?” Jean calls from the kitchen. “Please put those things back in the box until I can help you deal with it. We’ll figure something out.”

    Having lost her husband to the effects of Agent Orange, Jean had been a widow when I ask her to marry me twenty five years ago. I had no real hard assets to bring to the union. Just a good eye for wood and how to use it. She had a small farm with ample shop space that her husband had left her near the North Carolina mountains. Both of us came from that rural area close to Asheville and the plentiful hardwoods of the Appalachians. So we made a go of it with a few beef and a small cabinet business that I developed. Going through the after effects of the Vietnam war with her first husband had given Jean a crash course in consequences. Watching her husband die from Agent Orange related cancer had left her changed in a way that increased her understanding of people like me. She firmed me for my later years by giving me a lot of insight into my problems. Moreover, it was a good union and we both gained the partnership, strength, and love of another caring and respectful person. Now, amidst the prep smells of a turf and surf dinner, her specialty, she lets me know that she will have a hand in finding a way to let the war souvenirs go. And I welcome it.

    Not feeling very hungry, although the aroma of stir fried shrimp and beef strips mixed with garlic and onions is nice, I put the souvenirs back in their shoebox and enter the kitchen.
    “Hey babe, that smells nice. You sure know how to brighten a home with the smells of good cooking.”
    “Thank you Ben,” Jean replies. “It helps when you’ve got someone who notices. Now, set down. I’ll cover this stir fry and let the leather britches simmer a bit more while we talk. It’s time to get a handle on your old ghosts. Just letting them stew is not good....for either of us.”
    Taking a seat at the small breakfast table where we have some of our best conversations, I try to relax with the hope that Jean will steer this sit down. It’s hard for me to know where to begin with touchy emotional stuff but Jean has a knack for it. She is smarter than me as well and can see avenues of resolution where I see only alleyways. After checking the stove one more time she places a cup of tea in front of me and sits down with her own. Stirring her tea, she takes a deep breath and looks out the adjacent kitchen window into the darkness.
    “I wish it were daytime,” she says. “I enjoy watching the Angus graze from here in my kitchen, all high and dry. They are such beautiful black beefs. Hardy animals. Even in the snow they thrive, thanks to the hay you cut and put up.”
    I nod and smile as Jean takes a sip of tea before continuing. “You know, that old bull hasn’t let down yet either. Sometimes, sitting here drinking my tea, I can mark the calendar for a new beef by watching that randy old critter. Even when the snow is flying. He may slip a bit on the mount but he still gets the job done. It’s just the way things are I guess. But our work helps keep them that way, the haying, calving, the money from your cabinets to fix the equipment and buy new when it’s needed......don’t you think, honey?”
    So keen, my Jean, it’s just like her to point out the blessings before broaching darker subjects. “Yeah babe, you got it right, no doubt,” I answer.
    Feeling a little above the boogie men of war because there was a time for her when no amount of good things could take the edge off what was, Jean pushes a little.
    “So Ben, don’t you think we can do something to bring that kind of balance into your past? Make it what it is, the past?”
    “It’s just that I did a bad thing,” I say. “Mostly because I was stupid. But that doesn’t make it OK. What was in the pockets of the dead was none of my business.........even if I didn’t intend to steal it. Because that is what I did. I stole from the dead. Souvenirs, my ass. It’s loot. I was just too stupid to know it then.”
    Having heard me well, Jean nods and places her hand on mine but inside she is unmoved.
    “So what is the first thing you must do if you have stolen something, Ben?” she asked.
    It is hard for me not to blurt out the obvious answer, but the gravity of such an answer deserves a little time to just hang there and get thoroughly digested. After a moment, feeling like the wheels have already been set in motion, and having thought of the same answer many times before, there is only one reply, “Will you go with me?”
    After looking at me like I am a child too old to wet my pants, but have done so anyway, Jean replies, “Of Course.”

    Watching the glints of sunlight on the whirling hay rake behind my old tractor relaxes me. The equipment, having laid out long rows of tossed grass over the field behind me, is performing up to par, and then some, After baling and putting this cut up, along with a few acres of alfalfa, I will have some good feed for the winter beef. With the weather cooperating so nicely and the soil yielding such a good count, I think I may skip a second cutting. I’ll just open it up to the cattle in the fall when Jean and I go to Vietnam. Having fresh grass for pasture while we are away will mean less worry about keeping things up. Not to mention the need for less hay going into the winter.
    After raking up the last row I park the tractor at the door of my cabinet shop and climb down. Rubbing my backside and making a mental note to get a new seat cushion, I walk over and pull open the door to the small barn like structure. The familiar odor of cured wood comes to my senses as I pause a moment to adjust my eyes to the dim interior. Aromas of wild cherry, yellow pine, walnut, and oak, all combine to wash away the tractor fatigue and the smell of mowed grass. In the center of the concrete floor stands my large table saw with a medium size wood lathe near by. Smaller carpentry tools border the edges of the large space and scattered sawdust piles, here and there, keep the lubricant spots from becoming slick. A large rough cut wall with a connecting door separates a smaller finishing space that takes up the rest of the shop. Crossing to the connecting door, I pause to inspect the carbide teeth of the table saw. Satisfied that they are good, I continue on to the finishing room. Here I am met by the combustible smells of the various wood treatments. And the tools, hanging on a pegboard along the main workbench, are smaller and more refined. It is where my craft is. As well as most of my pay.
    Throwing the light switch bathes the interior with a diffuse light that would rival most hospital operating rooms. I quickly inspect all its sources since it is this element that I depend on in the final and sometimes detailed work. Finding them all working properly, I turn my attention to one of the most important things in the shop.
    A commission work from the Biltmore in Asheville, the large mahogany breakfront china cabinet takes up the center space of the finishing room. Cordoned off from all directions with sawhorses, like a prize gallery piece, it has taken me months to build. And it took equally as long to get the proper mahogany to build it with. Stepping through the saw horses to review it up close, I look through the glass door panels at my reflection in the back mirror and find again that I am older than I think. But my weathered appearance framed by the rich, detailed, dark mahogany seems most appropriate. Not disturbingly old, as seen in the bathroom mirror. Yes, this piece of work will do. And it will pay for the work to come in Vietnam.
    Exiting the finishing room and throwing the light switch is a little like leaving the bank after making a deposit. I know that there is something behind me that I can use later to go forward. Packing this knowledge where it can pad my anxieties about the coming trip, I move on out of the shop, pull the door closed, and climb back on the tractor to bump along the pasture path back to the barn. Passing the house on the way, I am again lifted when I see Jean standing on the front porch waving a big yellow cushion. How she can make a day. I only wish that I deserved it.

    When I open my eyes the first thing I see is Jean peering down at me. A shiver tells me that my wet T-shirt ought to come off, which Jean helps me do. Then leaving the lights off, as per past experiences, she gets a fresh one from the bedroom bureau and helps me struggle into it, then tucks the covers to fight the chill. A shaft of moonlight, its purity marred by little floating dust particles, filters through the sheer window curtains, providing enough light to clearly see the concerned expression on Jean’s face. Struggling to calm the adrenaline that has my senses too keen for an old man, I start taking deep breaths and rattling on about anything, the weather, how much hay we have. Anything to try and cut into what is really happening and deflate it some. Jean just nods and calmly gives an occasional, “I Know.” Five minutes of this unwinds the situation enough to allow some relief in. Along with the relief, though, comes the inevitable shame. Not to mention the big disappointment. I had hoped that I had kicked the bad dreams since it had been a while. Hoped that our planned action had put them to rest. At least for a little longer than this. With these thoughts comes the realization that the planned trip back to the war zone, win or lose, can not come too soon. We are too old for this. And this knowledge is scary in it’s own right. We do not think nor discuss failure. We pretend there is no fear.
    After a minute of stroking my brow, Jean asks, “Was it the man or the woman?”
    Back to half normal now, but flooded with the embarrassment and shame of another episode, I would like to just poo poo it all, pat Jean’s cheek, and tell her not to fret about it. But I know better than to even try. “Both,” I answer.
    Jean nods and continues, “Near Hoi An?”
    I can see it all in my minds eye but with Jean leading it is different than in the dream. With Jean, I only see it. I don’t relive it. Having learned to trust her instincts I deliver up whatever she wants to know.
    “Yeah babe, in the mud by the river where he fell. She was a little ways off on a paddy dike.........just watching.”
    Feeling that it is important for her to learn more about what happened, Jean cautiously goes on and tries to avoid any pressure.
    “OK, honey,” Jean says. “You didn’t see her when it really happened, did you?”
    “No of course not, I didn’t..................”
    Jean lets my words hang a moment longer with her familiar flat expression, nods, then slowly leaves the bed, softly humming an unknown tune. Putting on her robe, she looks over at me and smiles, “I’ll put some coffee on and cook something light for an early breakfast. Come down when you are ready. And don‘t worry Ben, you‘re going to return everything that is heavenly possible.”

    Approaching Da Nang, Vietnam after stops in Chicago and Seoul, Jean is sleeping against the bulkhead and I am bone tired after a full day of sitting in flying tubes. But all fatigue vanishes for me when, feeling the slight decrease in speed and lift, I lean across Jean and look down on the Vietnam coast and South China Sea. Azure waters kissed by stretches of white sand and steep verdant mountains signal our entry into Southeast Asia. Amazingly, luxury high rise hotels dot the beaches and cars, by the thousands, fill the multilane highways. Off the left wing, rising up high enough to distinguish the Asian hardwoods of its slopes, is Nui Son Tra, what we called Monkey Mountain. It dominates this whole area of the coast, providing observation north to Hai Van Pass and south to Da Nang. Seeing this beacon for land and sea, I recall the last time I passed over it. How we suddenly dived and landed hard to avoid fire and how I had to check my pants afterward. How, surreally, a colorfully dressed stewardess, like some sort of French canary amid a bunch of olive drab crows, appeared at the front of the cabin and welcomed us to the busiest airport in the world. And the phantom jets, coming in quickly, and going out, afterburners blasting.
    Feeling Jean’s tug on my upper arm as the flaps lower and we line up for touchdown, I come back to the here and now.
    “The gentleman across the aisle is speaking to you,” she says.
    Looking over, I see a smiling silver haired Vietnamese man with thick horned rim glasses staring at me. In good accented English he repeats his question.
    “How does it feel to back?”
    Wondering how he knows that, I reply, “A little unreal, except for the mountain. How do you know I am coming back?”
    Gently smiling, his face is kind and gracious. “You are obviously American and I read your expressions as you looked at Nui Son Tra, your Monkey Mountain. All Americans who were here remember it well. We still use some of your radar there, you know?”
    Noticing that we are about the same age, and his knack for putting me at ease, I find his friendly curiosity pleasant.
    “Yes,” I say, “from up there, the view is one of the best that I have ever seen. I wonder if there are still the crash sites of American jets, trying to make it back to the air base, up there.”
    His face lights up with a broad smile at my knowledge but he courteously tones it down a bit when he says, “Oh yes, they are respectful memorials, to be sure. A bit rusty and scavenged by now but, on occasion, important teaching tools for our young.”
    “You must be from the Da Nang area to have such thorough knowledge of the area,” I say.
    Appearing to pause for his own reflections, the gentlemen looks to the cabin ceiling, then at me with a more subdued expression.
    “Yes, all my life......I fought at the other famous mountain here, your Marble Mountain, with parts of the 5th Viet Cong regiment.”
    He seems to recognize my astonishment as he pauses and smiles boldly at me. Having given me time to digest the fact that he was once my enemy he pulls his trouser leg up and knocks on the plastic prosthesis.
    “That is where I got this. But our field hospital there, that thankfully was never discovered, took good care of me. When I recovered I worked there until the war ended. A long long time ago. But it’s funny how it brings us back sometimes, isn’t it?”
    Humbled by having come through only a single year of the war, a war that for him was for as long as it lasted, I can think of no reply as we come in on final approach. I look around to Jean who smiles and says, “Very nice man.”
    Turning back to the gentleman across the aisle, I see his hand stretched toward me and I firmly grip it. Sincerely, as our eyes search each other’s, he says, “Welcome to Vietnam, my friend. We are glad to have you back and hope that your visit will nurture the common good everywhere you go.”
    With unexpected emotion, I reply, “Thank you.”
    As the wheels screech and the reverse thrusters send us forward, we all look ahead.

    The glass, steel, and concrete structure of the Da Nang International Airport, like the luxury high rise hotels on the beach, is another shock for me. Looking back at the front of the arrivals terminal before getting into the taxi behind Jean, I find it so different from the expanses of black tarmac, Quonset huts, and large aluminum hangers, that used to be here. A cool, modern work where there had been only undulating heat and noise, the airport brings me none of the recall that I had expected. Looking to the heights of the terminal, I discover another difference not so surprising. On a large pole canted out over the entrance flies no stars and stripes. Nor the yellow and stripes of South Vietnam. Only a large yellow star over a blood red background gently ripples in the breeze.
    After giving the taxi driver the hotel address, Jean and I tiredly lean back and gaze out the window at the passing streets and avenues of a fully maturing Da Nang. Some of the old French structures remain but the thrown together corrugated tin shacks of the war years are gone. Not such a big deal by international standards, the city is still quite unlike what it was when I was last here. And the people have no recognition of Jean and me as anything other than another pair of foreigners going about our business in the heavily congested and growing city. Eye contacts seem fleeting and of no consequence. Not like some of the hard dark stares of the war. But everything is not so different. Exiting the taxi at our hotel, I get a good whiff of the unmistakable smell of nuoc mam or fermented fish sauce, and for the first time since getting here I am pulled back to the uncomfortable past. I once hated that smell and its reminder to observe carefully. Yet it was, and still is, one of the primary ingredients of common Vietnamese cooking. I quickly usher Jean into the air conditioned hotel and out of it’s odor.
    No less than during the war, but with a higher standard, commerce rules here. And the efficient and polite way we are treated and served tells me that as long as we are respectful and have money we will receive the benefits of that commerce. Simply put, we are in the middle of a communist country that functions with a capitalistic agenda. At least here in the city. After checking in and cleaning up Jean orders, sent up, a large dinner of pho, or noodle soup w/' bits of fish, spring rolls, and a side dish of pork fried rice.
    After eating all that we can and putting what is left in the small fridge for later, we sit on the tiny balcony overlooking the avenue below. Watching the ebb and flow of mostly young people to the brightly lit clubs and restaurants passes the evening interestingly enough until, again, the odor of nuoc mam assails my senses. But now, with a well fed stomach, already primed with local cooking and the benefit of relaxation, I start to make peace with the odor. It is just too trivial to bother about. Besides Jean informs me that its smell is just as interesting as it is pungent. And her eyes, looking as heavy as mine feel, tell me that this day in Vietnam, like the French at Dien Bien Phu, c’est fini.
    Thankful to be together, we come in from the night, close the curtains, and go to bed. Not long thereafter, to the continuing notes of a distant two-chord fiddle, sleep takes us under.

    Visiting the area around Hoi An gets complicated when the hotel learns of our intent to go along certain parts of the Thu Bon River. Instead of the train followed by a taxi they now insist that I will need a car and driver to make the thirty kilometer trip. And they just happen to have one standing by. More concerned about what will happen when we get there, I go along with the switch and don’t give it much thought until our driver arrives wearing what appears to be a government tunic. Giang, in his late forties, politely informs us that he is a representative of the party, which wants to insure that we have a pleasant visit to the rural area outside of Hoi An. Jean and I look at each other and nod, having already planned on the possibility of being assigned a minder, or one who insures we don’t wander too far afield. Hence, this should not hinder us. In fact we intend to use the added “help” to free us for a more thoughtful navigation of the past. And by every indication so far, it is the past.
    Giang is pleasant and able to speak pretty good English during our hour long drive South along the coast. Passing along the outskirts of Hoi An toward the large muddy Thu Bon he points out little things of note and laughs a lot. But when we get close to highway one and the more rural area he become less jovial and more guarded as my directions take us to a small tributary near the village of Dien Phuong. Passing sampans, with small brown men in conical hats steering from their rear perch, ply the waters of the tributary near its confluence with the broad Thu Bon. Much has changed about this place but the rice paddies and stilted huts along this part of the Thu Bon delta have not changed that much. Peasants, their lives rural and self contained, dot the many paddies and dikes along the rivers reach. Bent double, shoving the rice shoots into the water covered mud, they do work that would break the backs of most Americans. And kids still slowly switch their water buffalos along the paddy dikes.
    Slowly following the tributary upstream, we come to large double spits of shore line reaching almost across the river. And the naked feeling I had while crossing them all those years ago suddenly floods my senses. Giang reluctantly stops the car when I ask and we all get out and peer across the first of the two sandy spits. Remaining near the car, as if ready to leave in a heartbeat, Giang watches Jean and me walk a little ways out the first spit. “Do you know where you are?” Jean ask.
    Remembering like it was yesterday that the lieutenant had wanted to know why a helicopter gunship was flanking up and down the far shore, I look at Jean and answer, “Yeah, babe, I know. Over on the other side is where he fell.”
    Jean scans the far shoreline for a full minute while I just stare, lost in that time. Taking my hand, Jean finally says, “Come on, we must go there.”
    Already knowing this, I lead her out over the spit and toward the far shore as Giang starts yelling for us to stop. When I look back at him he is running around and waving his arms in protest. We ignore his protests and continue anyway.
    More than halfway across I stop and stare again.
    After a moment Jean says, “What happened here?”
    Continuing to stare, I reply as if by rote, “There were three of us. Most stayed back where Giang is. But I had the radio so there was no choice for me. I go where the L T goes. And the Vietnamese scout with us had to go. But he didn’t like it. The L T made him.”
    Shaking off that time to gain better control and get more in tune with Jean, I put my arm around her shoulder and pull her close before I continue. “We took fire, three rounds, where we stand. One went through the L T’s leg and the other two just kicked up sand in front of us. When the L T went down the scout ran back the way we had come.” Pointing to the nearest part of the river bank ahead, I go on. “When the L T went down I saw the VC break cover and run away on the nearest part of the shore there. I dumped the radio and caught up enough to empty a magazine at his back as he ran out of the bush toward an access track for the rice paddies. I could hear him shooting back so I was not in a big hurry to close the gap any further than I already had. Even after he had been hit I could hear return fire. When I came out of the river bush to the paddy track he was face down in the muddy track, dead. When I rolled him over I saw that many of my shots had got him clear through. And I wondered at his ability to get that far with such lethal wounds. The wallet was sticking out of his breast pocket. I opened it, took the photo and money, and put the wallet back in his pocket. Then I went back and called in a dust off for the L T. He got to go home when he recovered. And the scout was sent back to his unit with a no thanks. Except the guy I killed, nobody died and I got my war souvenirs........to my disgust.”
    Jean lays her cheek on my chest and says, “You knew then that to take his money and personal things was not good, didn’t you?”
    “Yeah but I pretended, even convinced myself, that it was OK. But when I had the dream about the girl in the photo watching me, and the shame I know I would have felt if it had really happened that way, I knew the souvenirs were always a lie.”
    Moving a step back, Jean looks up at me and says, “That was your lucky break Ben. You discovered the truth. And now you can make it right. Show me where he fell and you can give back what is not, nor ever was, yours.”
    As we start again for the river bank the sound of Giang’s panicky voice turns our heads. Running towards us across the spit, with one arm held high and waving, his voice is clear and loud. “Wait for me, I must be with you. You can not go there alone. Stop and wait for me!”
    Giang grudgingly joins Jean and I as we continue to the end of the spit and wade across the shallow water to the river’s edge. Following a well traveled trail through the palms and other trees growing in the brush along the tributary, we emerge on the same track that was there all those years ago. Except now it has been widened some by cutting back the river growth. Looking across the many rice paddies, I see a small settlement of houses where there used to be the native huts of a small hamlet. Getting my bearings from there, the river, and the layout of the rice paddies, I lead our small group about 20 meters along the track to where I had looted the body of the man that I had killed. Not feeling very well, I sit on a mound of stones and hang my head while Jean stands over me and rubs my shoulders. Giang, sensing that something important is happening, curiously looks on. After a moment, Jean is the first to speak. “Is this where it happened, honey?”
    “Yes, babe, this is where it all began....or ended. Depending on how you look at it, I suppose.”
    Jean goes into her fanny pouch and removes a small book of poetry with the dong, photo, and a press flower in it. Handing it to me, she says “It’s the right thing to do, Ben.”
    Giang, now thoroughly intrigued, walks over to join Jean and I. And for a moment the three of us silently stare down at the little book of verse by Omar Khayyam.
    Removing the photo from between the pages of verse, I study the woman’s face one more time, wondering the same things I’ve wondered a thousand times before. Surprisingly, Giang squats down and looks closely at the photograph before standing and excitedly pointing toward the nearby settlement and demanding that I give him the photo. I look to Jean to see what her take on this is, and she nods. So I hand over the picture.
    Putting the picture in his tunic pocket while he moves quickly toward the crisscross of paddy dikes, Giang yells back over his shoulder, “Stay here, do not move. I will come back soon.”
    Jean and I watch him hurry across the dikes and disappear into the settlement of houses wondering if it was wise to let the photo go this near its journey’s end. Before we can worry that much about it the frantically beeping horn of an old jeep, driven by an elderly woman rivets our attention. Bumping towards us along the old track with Giang in the passenger seat, the jeep pulls up to us and stops. A smiling Giang hops down, goes around to the drivers side and offers his hand to the old woman. She says something I can’t understand and smacks his hand away, sending him out of her way. Swinging both legs outside the jeep, she spryly hops down, walks over to Jean and me and just stares. First at Jean, and then at me. Finally she reaches into an apron-like pocket and pulls out the photo. And for the first time she begins to smile up at me.
    “This is me,” she says in passable English. “I saw you take it.”
    Then no doubt she saw me take the money as well I am thinking, as I offer the book of verse with the dong and pressed flower in it. Accepting it, she opens the book, looks at the dong, and nods. Turning the pages a few times, she comes to the pressed flower and brightly smiles. Looking only at Jean, she says, “Thank you.”
    Jean simply nods, takes my hand, and points at my heart to which the woman smiles and nods in return.
    Motioning for Giang to come close, she says something in Vietnamese.
    “She knows your name,” Giang says, “because I have told her. She wants you to know her name is Kim. And she wants to know why you are doing this.”
    My answer needs no thought. “Because I killed her husband and took his things, tell her,”
    Translating for me, Giang tells her what I have said, and listens to her reply, which seems quite long and detailed.
    To me he says, “She says you did not kill him.” Pausing, Giang points to the nearby river brush, then continues, “She was hiding just there, and could have shot you easily....which she would have surely done if you had killed her husband. You only chased him after he shot your officer. But you did not even wound him. Her husband was killed when he ran from the brush into the path of a helicopter and its machine gunner. He died instantly. Then you came from the same brush and took their money and the photo. The baby in the photo was their son. He was killed in Kampuchea, what you call Cambodia, in our war there. He was not yet even fully grown. She has always treasured this photo of them during the time that they all lived. Too many wars, she says. Such waste.” Giang sadly shakes his head, and pats me on the back. And this almost knocks me over.
    Jean looks none the steadier either but somehow, like a walking Frankenstein, reaches out to Kim who graciously reciprocates and they hug.
    Me, I can still barely stand, with thoughts banging around in my head so fast and furious that it is useless to try to pursue any of them. Except one. I didn’t do it. And I have returned what I stole. Maybe a bit more.
    Wiping away tears as she and Jean part, Kim smiles, looks at me, and pats her heart. Openly sobbing, Jean turns to me and we hug for a long time as my tears flow as well, my voice breaking with sobs as I say over and over, “I didn’t do it.”
    Giang, not so removed, smiles and laughs with pleasure.
    Having had the best with each other during our brief but truly divine encounter, we all move back down to the river where Giang, Jean and I begin our return with lifted hearts.
    Reaching the near end of the sand spit, Jean calls for a pause and turns around to take a picture. Kim standing on the river bank, framed by the tall palms and low brush, waving to us, is a picture on Jean’s digital camera bound for glory. Kim stands there until we reach the far bank and load back into the car. She watches our car windows full of waves, and hears Giang’s long blast on the horn from far across the tributary of the muddy Thu Bon. Then, bits of peace, both ways tendered, we are gone.
    Driving back up the coast, Giang is even more jovial than before. Seeming to have forgiven us for breaking his rules he again points out things of interest and laughs a lot. But now, his eyes match his spirit.
    Stopping to eat at a place that Giang knows about, we let him order for us. And Jean and I are officially introduced to nuoc mam. Jean has a better first time experience with it than me and gets past the smell after her first piece of fish dipped in it. For me, it is more of a struggle, but I persist. With the encouragement of the others, after a few bites, I actually conquer it. The smell no longer drags my nose to unwelcome places. Now it simply falls in with the many other sights, sounds......and smells of another culture different from my own. The many similar things that we share allows this success. Getting rid of my feelings about nuoc mam really tops off the joy of having returned Kim’s property. To say that Jean and I are thankful is an understatement. Giang, as well, seems fully appreciative of the good he helped do.
    Arriving back at our hotel, we say goodbye to Giang while pressing a nice box of chocolates from the hotel gift shop into his hands. “For your wife,” we must tell him several times before he accepts them. Then with a toot of the horn, a friendly wave, and a big smile, he drives away and disappears into the Da Nang traffic.
    Making it back to our room, thoroughly but very pleasantly tired, we plan the agenda for the rest of our stay here in Vietnam and, again, get dinner brought up.
    This time, setting on the little French balcony after eating, we watch the same young crowds up and down the avenue below. But with an attitude so different from the one before. In a way, we have come home.

    In the autumn morning chill of a full dawn I can tell that the sun is beginning its push across the tidewater plains east of here. The sunny snow covered tops of the Smokies to the West, where it shines first, is my signal. Straddling the rich loose dirt as the tiller pulls me over the rime covered patch for garlic, I figure I can finish this prep work for planting in time to have some tea with Jean. The ease with which the rear tines dig in and loosen the dirt is close to a singular joy. We traded in the old front tine tiller, using the money left over from the Vietnam trip. Plenty of hay in the barn, the garden all turned under for winter, and livestock healthy and fit. What more could we ask for? I’ll do the garlic under in a week or so and that’ll be it for the garden until spring. Finishing the last row, I shift the tiller out of gear, switch it off, and store it for winter in the open sided shed.
    Walking up to the house, I can see Jean in the kitchen window holding up an empty cup and smiling. After I remove my boots on the back porch, I grab a couple of locust logs for quick heat and enter the house. Stopping on the way to the kitchen to throw one of the logs in the wood stove, I pick up the aroma of homemade apple butter mixing with the cozy smell of wood heat. Scooting along the hardwoods in my socks I silently enter the kitchen, hug Jean from behind, and proclaim, “Darling, your kitchen smells have lost none of their charm. Hope I made it in time for tea.”
    Turning around and kissing me before putting the tea on the table with the toast and apple butter, Jean looks as happy as I’ve ever seen her.
    “Flattery will get you everything,” she says. “Sit down and try that apple butter. I just opened the jar.”
    Taking my usual chair, I spoon out some apple butter on a piece of toast, and take a bite.
    “Very good my dear, you outdid yourself,” I say. “Does that get me whatever I want too?”
    Jean sits down with our tea and demurely smiles before answering. “Almost Ben. Mustn’t be too easy.”
    I chuckle and have a sip of tea. A pleasant silence settles about while we simply look at each other. After a moment Jean reaches out and takes my hand.
    “We got really lucky, didn’t we, Ben?”
    “No doubt about it, babe, we did. But it would have been impossible without you. I feel like a new person except for my love for you. That could never be new. Because it is, was, and ever shall be.”
    “I’m so happy for us,” Jean says. “No more awful souvenirs. We are free.”
    Pausing to soak in the glow of our new life together, I think of all the time spent regretting something that never happened. And the waste of that war. But I will not let that drag us down any more. Standing from the table, I walk into the den where the wood stove is to look for something. Finding what I want, I go back into the kitchen with my hands behind my back. Walking over and standing by the table where Jean sits with a puzzled look, I say, “You know babe, we are not completely free. There is still a souvenir, I’m afraid.”
    Picking up the small framed picture of Kim from the table and holding it up, Jean says, “You mean this?”
    I shake my head.
    Placing the picture back on the table, Jean gives me that old look of utter frustration and says, “Well, hell! And I was feeling such success. What in the world is it now?”
    As Jean’s eye grow wide and a slow smile brightens her face, I place beside Kim’s picture a tall bottle of nuoc mam.

Charles Hayes bio

    Charles Hayes, a 2015 Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and others

To come

    There she was again. Bright blond, bright smile. Sexual. Her hips would sway just right, invitingly. She stood over him like an angel, gently waking him.
    “Mr. Mercer. Liam. Liam?”
    Catching sight of her gorgeousness, his eyes opened wide, taking her all in. Beautiful.
    “Yeah...” He gasped.
    “It’s that time again.”
    “Oh ok, ok.”
    Her smile caught his eyes before she frowned.
    “Are you ok Liam? You seem less flirty than usual. It’s not like you.”
    “Yeah, I’m ok. Just more tired than usual, I think. I’ll be ok.”
    “If you say so.”
    She leaned him almost on his side and rubbed some sort of oil on his back and shoulders. His bedsores screamed even as he didn’t. It just felt so good to have some human touch to his body.
    She refilled the plastic bags of his IV as he looked away. He hated blood and vessels, etc. She knew it.
    “All done, Liam, all done.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You want some water? I can smuggle you some.”
    “Yes, that’d be great, along with a beer chaser.” He laughed.
    “I can’t do the beer, but I can sneak you water.” She glowed.
    She lifted him up just enough to pour a little water into his mouth. He swallowed as if it were the greatest thing ever. Small tears slowly rolled from the eyes of his dehydrated, aged body. He had been too dry to cry real tears.
    Her eyes well up as she gently caressed his tears away, then caressed slowly down the side of his face. Her mere touch electrified him, and she knew it.
    “If only I were sixty years younger, I’d sweep you off your feet, baby.”
    Her eyes glowed beautifully.
    “I bet you would, Liam.”
    Just like that, she was gone. It reminded him of being single.

    The bland walls surrounded his spirit as the bed supported his exhausted body. The TV was as mind numbing as ever, supporting the ignorant status quo of serfdom. He turned away from it to stare out of the window at the last remaining light of sunset before the darknesses of the beginning night.
    Out there. Out there people full of life are beginning yet another adventure. There will be drinks and laughs, loves and lusts, disappointments and fights. Moneys will be spent. Women will flaunt.
    Yet there he was, stuck. Ninety eight, and near the end. Tears gently rolled down his cheeks as he realized he would likely never walk out the hospital doors ever again, which was the one thing he wanted.
    He was never one to be tied down. He had railed against all restrictions, real and imagined. He had delighted in adventure. Even bad times were better than the usual, boring pretentious bullshit most people bury themselves in.
    He found himself wondering if it might be better to just give up for the first time in his life, and face realities. At ninety eight, he surely had run into something he could not bounce back from. He was simply too old and depleted now. Every other setback had him roaring back, in time. There might not be enough left in him this time.
    Still he imagined the day when he would be released, cured from his many ailments, and walk right out the door again. The sunshine of mid March would warm him as the cold wind chilled him. He imagined he was living at his condo again instead of the damn old folks home. He wondered what the old condo looked like now. It had been five years since he had been there.

    It began. The machine that helped him breathe seemed to be sucking the air from him. His body tensed and began shaking. He managed to calm himself and force breath into his body. A slight cold sweat broke out. All his focus was on staying calm and breathing. In two seconds. Out two seconds. Machines beeped the alarm.
    There were two giant men standing over him, in all white, glowing.
    “Ok Liam. It’s time. Actually we’ve given you more time than we should have. It’s time to go home.”
    “No.” Was all he could muster.
    “We’re here to take you...”
    The first one reached for him. From somewhere, Liam’s fist met him right in the mouth, hard. He couldn’t believe he had it in him. The angel stumbled backward. The two stared at each other for a moment.
    “Sorry, but I’m not going. God himself needs to come for me, and even then, it won’t be easy.”
    “Ok, but we’ll be back.”

    The doctor stood over him. The look of concern on his face shook Liam to his core. He wanted to make sure it wasn’t the doctor he had hit, but he couldn’t speak. The doctor turned to the blond nurse. She was teary eyed, her face flush.
    “That’s all we can do. He needs rest.”

    Those were haunting words. Liam remembered hearing doctors say that about his wife as she lay there in the same hospital some ten years ago. He remembered sitting there with her, holding her hand for those long nights, looking at her aged, beautiful face, believing that somehow she would be alright. She wouldn’t be.
    He had found himself grateful that he had been there for her as her story ended. Her last breaths seemed to say she knew he was there. He remembered going home afterward, and bringing some clothes from their bedroom into the living room so their bedroom wouldn’t be disturbed ever again. He slept on the couch for the rest of the time he lived in their condo, so as to never disturb the bed they had shared on that last night together.
    He thought back to that last night. He smiled. They had shared drinks and laughs together as they always had, sitting there on the couch holding each other. He had helped her into bed that night, and held her tight before the time that 911 had to be called. How even the last moments holding each other were magical.

    It happened again. The machines seemed to turn on him, fighting his existence. He again calmed himself and forced breath into his body. The beeping alarms went off.

    “So, I had to come for you after all. I thought I might have to. Perhaps I gave you too much strength.”
    “I’m still not going. Sorry for your trouble.”
    “It’s time. Your time is long past. You’ve held on too long already. People are waiting for you.”
    “Well, unless I am mistaken, I have forever up there, where ever “there” is. I have so little time here, so I’m not giving up.”
    “There’s truth to that, but it is beyond time. I’m going to have to take you now.”
    “I see there’s not much choice in the matter, but at least let me say goodbye to the places I’ve known. At least that.”
    “Ok. I’ll allow you one day. Just one. But not in your body. There’s nothing left of it. You’ve used it all up.”

    He saw the nurse’s glorious behind as she leaned over a bed. What a scene she was. Damn.
    Wait a minute, he thought. How is this possible? Chills ran up his spine. He walked over to her and looked at her face. Tears rolled off her cheeks and dripped onto the body that lay in the bed. Her fingertips caressed the sunken face that he couldn’t recognize.
    The doctor seemed to tear up too. The two of them held each other in a long embrace.
    “This is what happens when someone holds on too long. He was one tough man, but all it brought was suffering. Mr. Mercer is better off now.”
    Shock ran through him. That was his body! Ninety eight and a half. Wasted away to such a pitiful sight. Tears roared from him. All he had control over was gone now.
    The doctor and nurse exited, still teary eyed. He stood there looked at himself in shock. How did he allow things to get this bad? That poor body had given it’s all, yet he pushed it further than it ever should have gone.
    It was his usual though, and what had worked for so many decades. Sometimes it had been the only way.
    Shortly, two men arrived with a cart. They picked up the body, put it on the cart, and wheeled it away. He followed it down the empty hallway, the wheels echoing through the four AM silence. Lost souls stared at him as he walked with them.
    They went through a double door. He stopped. He always hated blood, etc. He waved goodbye to the body.

    How to find a way out of the damn hospital? It had been too damn long. Shit. One day, and time is flying as usual.
    It felt so damn good to stand up! Ah... out of that bed, at last! He would walk out of that hospital after all.
    Finally, there was the exit. Fresh air! Oh yeah. The refreshing chill hit him as he stood there, arms in the air, breathing it all in deeply. It felt like he had once again beaten the odds. He savored victory, grinning broadly, as usual for him. He felt so alive.
    There was the night shift waiting for the bus home. Everyone was exhausted, life drained from their faces, and needing a drink or ten. It brought back memories.
    The bus rolled up. It occurred to him that he didn’t have fare. No one could see him anyway, so it’d be a free ride. As he went to step onto the bus, his foot went right through the step. The bus rolled off, right through him.
    “Fuck! How do I get around?”
    He thought of the beach for the sunrise, even as it was the opposite direction of the water. Suddenly, he was there.
    “Wow! If only I had this shit when I was alive.”
    When? The realizations set in. it was depressing.

    The sun rose over the hills as the ice cold water invigorated his calves. The waves rolled as they always do. The smells of the ocean waters went deep inside him. The sun rose as the tide rolled in. Waves in the distance inspired him as always. The water deepened as dramatically as he remembered. His smile ached deeper than he had ever felt.
    There was a cold beer in hand. He sipped mightily and exhaled a satisfaction. Life was so damn good.

    He visited his old work place. The annex was bigger now. Newbies scurried and cussed just as he once had. It was now their chance at a decent career. He grinned as he remembered all the panics. Everyone on earth he had known was gone, but he recognized so many stories. If only to be able to write them now.
    He stood where he used to take his breaks, and remembered the good old days. He was still young then, mostly. If only he had known then what he knew now.
    It was there that he had gotten the email about his publishing deal that began his real career. It was a major deal to him, but only to him. It didn’t pay enough to quit his day job at that time, but it was his start.

    He thought to his condo from years ago, remembering his last night there. He had arranged for beer and wine to be delivered a few days in advance, and spent the last few days there sipping beer and wine, barbequing, listening to jazz, and reliving memories. There were pretend conversations with his wife, as though she were still there. He even danced “with her” on his last night, imagining her laughter as he had loved it.
    The morning they came to get him, he had insisted on finishing his very last glass of wine while the movers took everything. He only made sure to be gone before they touched the bedroom that he had preserved since her passing.

    He was suddenly there, in front of the building. His eyes gleamed as he looked up at the large building. It felt like the day he had signed the mortgage papers and got the keys. It was a huge accomplishment for him, and would be his home for over fifty years.
    He had no way of getting in the building until a young couple scurried out of the building. He rushed in the door. The lobby was different, with gadgets and talking machines. Even the elevators talked. Why?
    There it was. Number eight. His lucky number. His hand caressed the metal number as his eyes welled. He reached out to the lock recalling when he first opened that door after signing the papers.
    To his shock, the lock turned and the door opened. He went in and stood in awe. The condo was exactly the way it was when he first set eyes on it, when it belonged to him. He rushed inside and looked all around the empty place, his heart racing. Oh, the times he’ll have in the place!
    He caught his reflection in the mirror. He was forty one again!
    His furniture was there now, along with his barbeque and cooler of beer on the patio. Jazz played inside as smoke gently rolled off the charcoal. He sat down and had a beer, his aching feet up. He somehow knew magic was on it’s way.

    It was a cold night. The fireplace spewed heat as it crackled. Jazz played on the laptop. The kitchen was alive with laughter and smells of food.
    There she was. His eventual wife, fending off his advances with giggles and broad smiles. Wine poured and downed only to be refilled. Theirs was the liveliest place in the city. Fuck the gloom and doom of cloudy dreary days. Things are what is made of them.
    They danced and kissed. Dinner scarfed quickly. More wine livened things up. Dancing and romancing. Their faces hurt from smiling.
    He saw them through the years and even decades. Slow lines developed on their faces. Health issues. Pain. Pleasures. Cuddlings. Arguments. Make up sex. Making love. Getting old. Staying young.

    He saw the ambulance people arrive on that night. Their last. He saw himself insist on going with her.
    He saw himself walk in the door after she died, his head down. His face drawn. He came out of their bedroom with a heap of his clothing and sat it on the floor before bursting into tears. He saw himself get the glass of wine she last sipped from last and sip from it himself, making sure to put his lips right where hers had been. He then put it back beside their bed, then close that door for the last time.

    He saw himself on so many occasions having pretend conversations with her while sipping this or that after dinners. He saw his last night there.

    The door opened. In came a young couple. They were laughing and carrying groceries. The furniture changed. It was their place now.
    The guy poured them both wine while she unpacked the groceries. She scolded him playfully that he didn’t know where anything went. He sat his wine down and went to the bathroom. Liam chugged his wine.
    The guy came back and looked at her suspiciously. He poured another glass, then sat it down to make a playful pass, just as Liam would have done. Liam chugged his glass again.
    “I KNOW I poured another glass!”
    The couple looked around with a bit of wonder.

    Liam walked out the door for the last time. He paused to touch the metallic number eight one last time, and let out a sigh.

    He stood outside his old neighborhood, marveling at the changes. It was far different than in his days. It saddened him. One can never really go back, I guess.
    It slowly dawned on him that everyone he had known was already gone. He was all but gone too. The world he had known was gone. What was there left to say good bye to other than memories? Those, he thought, might be remembered after all this was done.

    He went back to the beach. Carkeek. The sunset began as he stood in the water sipping wine. It turned red as the tide again began rolling in. As the sun set further, purple began to dominate. Beautiful.
    It reminded him of her. She was once the Her. Samantha. They had never really said goodbye. She would have loved this sunset.
    He wondered if she was still alive. Somehow he knew she was. She had always lived healthier than most anyway, so he wasn’t surprised. He looked up at the sky to ask for understanding. He seemed to receive it.

    When he saw the house in front of him, he knew it was hers. He remembered her tastes. He grinned broadly. How dare he go in though? It had been more than fifty years..

    She had read of his passing, and was surprised he had lived such a long life. He hadn’t exactly lead the healthiest of existences. She smiled slightly as she remembered their times together. He had been a wild one back in the day. They had shared such great times together.
    She got up and went to her bookshelf. There it was, after all these years; a first edition, pre-published copy of his first novel. It was signed, thanking her for such amazing times. She grinned through some tears as she remembered that she was in this novel.
    She poured a glass of decent red wine and gently caressed his scribblings before beginning to read.

    He paused at her front door. Fifty years. Fifty. She was ninety eight too, soon to be ninety nine. Would she even remember him? Fifty years is so long. So much had happened since they spoke.
    This was his only chance though. There would be no more chances. One day. Just one. It seemed cruel somehow, but he was grateful to have it. It’s now or never. He slowly went in.

    There she was, sitting on her couch, still Beautiful. She was older, but still retained her beauty, as well as her grin. She was reading, just as he had expected. He went closer, beaming in memory, thankful to have the chance to say goodbye, even as he had no idea how to.
    He got close enough to see that she was reading his first novel! She remembered!

    He sat down beside her for the first time in over five decades. He didn’t know what to do or say, if anything. She was still so beautiful. So many memories flooded back. He felt the need for a drink. He downed her wine.
    She broke from reading and put the glass to her lips. Nothing. She poured another glass and sipped before sitting it down. He quickly downed it while he wondered whether or how to let his presence be known.

    She let out a soft chuckle from memory and went to take another sip of wine. The glass was empty. She looked around for a moment.
    “Liam, is that you?”
    His heart dropped. If he showed himself somehow, would it give her a heart attack? What should he do?
    “Liam, damn it, if it is you then show yourself. Stop messing around!”
    Dilemmas.
    “Ok, I’m going to pour two glasses. If you’re here, you know which one is yours.”
    He quickly downed his glass. She sat staring at the glass for a moment.
    “Liam, it’s been so long. Just show yourself. I know you’re here now. It’s alright. Do that, ok.”

    He didn’t know how to, so he looked up for understanding. Suddenly he was there, in the flesh, kind of.
    They met in a tight embrace. Soft sobs broke through along with heavy sighing. Fifty years. Five decades. Golden memories.

    “Still so Beautiful after all these years.”
    Her eyes glistened.
    “You’ve done so well. Glad to see you’ve led such an amazing life, Samantha.”
    “You too, Liam. I never imagined....”
    “Well, we never really got to say goodbye. I’m just thrilled you remember me.”
    “How could I ever forget you, of all people?”

    On the evening went, well late into the night. Wine was sipped. Conversations and laughters had. Memories relived. Catching up done. Even a little dancing was in order, as he very slowly spun her around like he used to do.
    Some reliving was certainly in order, and reliving was done. Tears dried as soon as they began, as the glow of yesterdays beamed through it all.
    Finally they sat, his arm around her, as they rested and sipped their last wine together. It was fifty years in the making, yet the fit was as nice as it once had been.
    As she held her glass, he asked that they save the last bit of wine for a last cheer. She smiled dully, almost painfully.
    “How much time do you have?”
    “Not much now. Around three AM, if I remember right.”
    Tears welled up in each of them. Goodbyes are never easy, even after fifty years. It was time though. “What ifs” flooded to biblical levels. After so long, it was simply far too late.

    They sat there holding each other tightly, gently sobbing for the “if only,” and for the lives that had gone by. Memories flooded both of them about everything. Gratefully, they were able to relive a little past glory.
    Realizing the time, Liam was the first to grab the glasses. He handed hers to her. They raised their glasses as they eyed each other.
    “To us, and they great times we had.”
    Their glasses clinked together. The wine was gone in a moment.
    He slowly got up and lent a hand to help her do the same. They stood and held each other for quite a while, gently sobbing again.
    She slowly sat down, then glowed at him as he backed away.
    “Have a great night, Beautiful.”
    “You too.”

    He slowly went through the door and out on the sidewalk. The cold air seemed to bring him back to realities. He looked up at the clear night sky, thankful for the understanding and patience.

    Suddenly, he was back at the door to the condo, keys in hand. He could hear the jazz inside. His lunch box was in tow. He was in uniform.
    He opened the door. There she was, sipping wine and dancing as she had begun cooking dinner. A seductive grin glowed on her.
    “I thought I’d surprise you with dinner. Welcome home.”

    They sipped wine and danced and romanced, and forgot dinner, making love instead.

    It was then that the damn alarm clock rang out, and Liam rolled off the couch trying to shut it off. He laughed at himself, and cheerfully went to make coffee. The day might have its’ moments, but it is another day. He laughed and glowed, more grateful than ever for yet more memories with far more to come.

feel

I feel nothing but
the intensity you feel.
Your thoughts cut my face.

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc& hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed.

installment 3 of
The Shappe Manipulation

PART TWO
    Lovey tightened the wide brown leather straps around the antique set of luggage she fell in love with at the second hand store. Both bags contained all her clothing, no souvenirs or silverware. She planned on buying new everything for her place. She stacked the bags on the cart.
    “Monitor Two.”
    Yes, Lovey.
    She turned and tears formed in her eyes. “I’ll miss you and those long conversations.”
    Take me with you.
    “Maybe they can transfer you.” Lovey was amazed at the AI’s Wei used. He’d die before that software left the complex. “I should’ve said that, Monitor Two, love you. Bye.”
    I like that blue pants suit girl, you look like a CEO.
    She giggled and pushed the cart to package mover and keyed in the destination code. This time of day she shouldn’t have a hard time finding a seat on the shuttle.

    Lovey stood at the stairs of a matte black skyscraper. The one story high glass windows were black too and from a distance this place appeared to be one piece. A door slid open and revealed a cold impersonal lifeless white interior void of any plants with the usual automated concierge. The elevator to the 65^th floor acceleration pressured her bladder close to an accident. The ID scanner gave her the once over in the primary vestibule. “Hurry up.” She whispered. “I got things to do.” Finally, the green light. “Open up.” The outer door slid and slowly revealed hardwood real hardwood floors everywhere. The panoramic windows wrapped around the entire front room. Wei’s place didn’t look this good. You’re rich, Lovey! Relax and don’t get beside yourself. Several of the buildings across from her blinds were open. She saw them, but they couldn’t see her. Wonderful. The kitchen, baths and closet were huge with a full wall 3D. Now, time to go shopping, no online, hands on only, the way real women shop.

    Officer Anselmo Obo cursed the sun drenched intersection at 19^th and Ellis Drive. He’d bake in no time wearing the thicker body armor reserved for the rookies. An initiation thought up by that sadistic Nocee. The lights worked fine, but for this part of traffic control they were switched to flashing red. He shoved the whistle in his mouth, threw up his hands and blew oncoming traffic to a standstill. Exhaust fumes and horns gave him a headache, but his stern stare and body camera got respect. Go when not told too, a two hundred dollar fine and two jaywalking convictions landed you in jail for thirty days. Get use to this mess and do the job.
    He laughed at Det. Nocee she was convinced, with his help she put a major dent in the Calypso’s phony ID operation. Not so, he fingered a nobody who didn’t know too much of anything. He told Nocee give him a fair shot at being a cop and she gets a bust. She figured him for another stupid basketball playing nigger. He flipped and she busted part of the operation the leaders set up, a deterrent. It was a gift since they liked him and they needed a friend on the force. She and the department looked great. She didn’t realize Anselmo Obo had a high IQ, no arrest or convictions that could hinder an application to the academy. She lived up to her part, but to seal the deal she wanted more. She wanted love. He didn’t like boxy built blondes, but he gave her what she wanted.
    It was good! Way better than he expected. “This didn’t happen and you get no special treatment.” What could he say while she stroked his genitals?
    This assignment must’ve been hell before they used customized Segway’s. So far nobody got caught in the box or jaywalking. Good for them not the city. They needed the revenue. “On average you will record two violations before lunch.” They said. Well it didn’t happen. He radioed in for lunch. Five minutes later his short stocky replacement arrived. Anselmo spun his vehicle toward the small park at the end of the block. The line at the “Rib Truck” wasn’t long. Good, he hated to butt people. He asked about the cop discount and got a dirty look. Embarrassed he paid and found an empty table next to a couple of scantily dressed Latino females. Obviously they were married. Nice diamond rings. The vendor supplied plenty of napkins for the greasy tips. He dipped one and waited for Naomi...Lovey to exit the high rise.
    Remember Anselmo, its Lovey not Naomi.
    She said she’d be down around noon. “And how did you get my number?” She asked. “I’m the police, remember?” Lovey’s employers chose one ugly ass building for her to live in. A big black peg in the middle of the blocks of snow white towers. But, from what he heard the amenities were second to none. He dipped another tip and looked up. Lovey walked out the revolving doors and trotted down the stairs. Unusual for her, she usually stopped and looked both ways. When in 3S you always do a double take, but this is the city, Anselmo.
    She walked straight at him. “You look stunning as usual,” He whispered. No matter what she wore her curves filled every corner of her orange pants and tan blouse her favorite colors. She rushed across the street and flopped down next to him. He’d never seen her smile like that.
    “Honey, I could and should kiss you.” She squeezed his arm. “I got a million questions.”
    “I only have half an hour left. Damn, I want you.” Dropping his hands between her legs would make things worse. “You got questions? I got questions too.”
    “Me first, Anselmo.”
    That frown meant look out. “Go ahead.” He sighed and braced himself mentally.
    “You said Det. Nocee helped you get out of 3S for...?”
    “For info on some illegal stuff that was hurting the community.” He smiled and nudged her leg.
    “Did you fuck her too?”
    “Uh...no, no I wouldn’t do that.”
    “You lying, Anselmo, but that’s alright.” She shook her head. “You not in love are you?”
    “Of course not.” He rubbed his index finger across the wooden table. They both knew while he was on duty be careful what you say. “You know how it is, they help you and you help them. But, they had money on I wouldn’t make it. It took two years before I entered the academy. I shocked their racist asses.” I can hear them now, ‘he’ll do something to get disqualified’ and you see I’m the only brother in the class.” He smacked a mosquito. “But, tell me how you got through Per-Ed-Med so fast.”
    “After we lost contact things moved fast.” Lovey said. “Something came over me,. The harder the work, the easier it was for me.” She hesitated and grinned. “Did that come out right? He shook his head.
    “Your genius kicked in?”
    “I like to be modest, but yes that’s it. I’m looking forward to working with the African-Americans. I don’t understand the difference between us, but I got the feeling it’s all bullshit propaganda.” She dipped a fry in the ketchup. “But, before you answer that, you remember my dream?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, the project in Africa.”
    “I got a plan, but I don’t want to research ‘security friendly’, I don’t want to raise eyebrows since the firm I work for gets government contracts,” Lovey said.
    “If you’re ‘security friendly’ they’ll never let you out of the country and if you leave they’ll hunt you down.”
    “Tell me more when we meet again, okay?”
    “Cool with me.”
    “Now back to the African-Americans.”
    “It is bullshit, crap leftover from decades ago. But, there are those snobbish Black folk who hold on to that, but snobs are everywhere. My advice, forget that mess. They should delete that shit from the national database.” The lunch crowd thinned and scores of pigeons got aggressive and swarmed on dropped popcorn and the like. Anselmo glanced at his watch. “Lunch is over in five minutes. Where are you headed?” He turned up her palm up and ran his finger over the soft ridges. “Wait...wait, it’s coming to me. You have a long shopping list and one helluva perk from the company. An expense account.”
    She laughed and flipped her hand. “You’re right and I’ll let you get back to work, Officer Obo. Call me later.” Lovey got up and headed north on Ellis Drive to the mall.

    A tear formed in the corner of John Laveau’s right eye. He winked it clear and blew as cooling breath on the spoon of his wife’s extra spicy gumbo. Dinner in the early morning brightened the day and he didn’t have to share. The last time he did his secretary drank the water cooler dry. The petite intern apologized for the back and forth to the bathroom. Her description of the boss favorite dish scared away any samplers of the Louisiana delicacy. He topped the final spoonful with a saltine, stood brushed crumbs off his white one piece corporate executive suit. It fit too tight in the crouch, but other than that it gave his 5'8" frame that added authoritative appearance for the largest African-American engineering firm in Illiana Province. Laveau adjusted the sleeves of his white shirt. Swapping his gold hooped earrings for the silver didn’t make him happy, but his attire had to be coordinated.
    After all he was the boss.
    A cup of mouthwash and a few swift brush strokes across his thinned gray hair and he was ready to meet the newest employees.
    Laveau admired Lovey’s beauty, but that asset could be problematic. Female rivalries were observed before they could flourish out of control. That hurt profits. The best way to offset jealousy, bury Shappe in the men’s project R&D division after she’s initiated by Veronica. Vernie’s jealousy had to be channeled to best suit whatever project she was assigned. She needed all the attention, silly but until she finished her groups work he tolerated her. He sighed when he saw the Asian guy in drag smooth skin, perfect make-up and his pants hugged the right places. A tall thin model like blonde topped off the group. She had to keenest features he’d seen in a while, virtually no lips and her nostrils resembled small punctures in a long pointed nose.
    “Ladies and gentlemen you didn’t have to stand, I like a relaxed atmosphere.” They sat and Laveau circled the far too long redwood conference table. “But, I appreciate it and welcome to Laveau Engineering.”
    “Thank you.” They said in unison and giggled.
    “I’ve studied your records and I’m flattered you chose us.” He pulled up several videos of sections of the company, each 3D image circled them. “As you can see most of our projects are defense and transportation oriented. After your probationary periods you can pick a place you‘d like to be assigned on a permanent basis. I’ll leave you to watch these and I’ll see you around and again welcome.” They gave him a soft round of applause as he headed for the door. Laveau turned and grinned and the opaque door slid shut. He sighed, glad that was over, nothing stood out and grabbed him. Lovey Shappe acted like a typical new hire. Good, he speculated she’d chose R&D and he’d bet on it. Wei said she breezed through her classes. Civil engineering was her major, but her fascination with magnetism needed to be nurtured. Laveau could use her in the development of the next generation of maglev power devices. His firm’s led in the field a rumor he got started, had to produce superior prototypes, the sooner the better. He decided to walk to the R&D complex. When the cameras pick him up everybody will snap to like they should.
    The service tunnels linoleum floors shined as usual, but the musty smell still lingered. The coffee machine had an “out of order” sign on it. The decaf dispenser dripped until in overflowed in a tilted cup lodged against the machines opening. Laveau slapped the broken vendor. “Every time I come over here you’re broke. I’ll solve that, new company, new machines.” He didn’t hear the janitor come in the break nook.
    “Hello, Dr. Laveau, I see you feel the same way we do.”
    “Yeah Phillip, how are you? A new one will be here in the morning.” For such a big awkward guy Phillip moved quietly.
    “I’m good, see you later.” He said and continued to push the mop and bucket combo down the hall.
    “You didn’t see me, Phillip.” The janitor nodded. He liked to surprise people and only a few weren’t during what they were supposed to. He would stick his head in Vernie’s office and tell her a Black female would be joining her department. That phony smile of hers amused the hell out of him.
    And, if she fucks with her, Vernie’s ass would be his.
    Laveau checked his Rolex. Ten minutes until lunch. He hurried to the last door at the end of the one-way mirrored hallway. It felt weird like being in a maze. They see you and you cannot see them. He slipped on his special glasses. The office occupants paid no attention. He stopped when a manager fondled his secretary on his way out his office. Surprise, he thought Douglas was straight. He was the smallest ex pro basketball player ever, '5", but jumped like a seven footer. He knocked on Vernie’s outer office door and her secretary snapped to. “Relax young lady,” and he tapped on Vernie’s door and opened it. “Surprise, Vernie.” His R&D manager grabbed her chest.
    “You scared me, Dr. Laveau.” She flopped back down in her chair and shook her head.
    “Sorry.”
    “No you aren’t.” She giggled. “But, whatever it is, drop it on me.”
    “Well, you know you got a new person from 3S or better yet Per-Ed-Med.” She cut her eye at him over her glasses while she closed a folder. “Really?”
    “Really.”
    “That’s wonderful...I’m guessing, the cream of their crop?”
    “Exactly.” Laveau smiled at her lie. She wanted to cut staff.
    “Good, we need fresh blood, come in Dr. Laveau and have a seat.”
    “No, just making the rounds see you later.” He grinned, that will ruin her day. Ms. Shappe will adapt to Vernie’s mess. People from 3S and the other impoverished areas have an advantage. They knew poverty and if things didn’t work out they knew how to survive. The snobbish African-American and the others lacked that strength. If he told them that he’d be in trouble. He climbed the stairs to the catwalk that overlooked the floor of the massive assembly building. He worked hard to get the maintenance contract on the ITA’s maglev motors. The floor was empty except for a few robots. Lunchtime, which reminded him to cut short his visit time to contact his former business partners of the Calypso street gang. The label street gang they despised, but the powers that be would never give the recognition of a cartel or mafia family. The Calypsos controlled all illegal activities in 3S and the Shacks and the sub groups. 3S and “The Shacks” had a population of over a million. Big money to make and after decades of senseless violence an organized council regulates it. He inhaled the stuffy air and jogged along the metal ramps over the overhead cranes to the elevator. He glanced down at the silver boxy train cars. They irked him, but the money didn’t. The door opened to a personal trolley and he headed back to the office.
    Laveau stretched out on the long piece of plastic with legs the designer called a sofa. The wavy back and pedestal won a design award, but the therapeutic function worked wonders for his bad back. He solved his most challenging problems on his back. He requested years ago if Wei had any special talent he‘d consider his firm first. Wei agreed for a piece of the action in 3S. The Chinaman didn’t need the money, but his ego and a sick maternal instinct, Blacks need help, drove him to ask for the money.
    Watch those people all the time.
    Wei didn’t know he knew how they talk. Damn right, watch us. Laveau knew something big was up, but what? Wei didn’t know the hierarchy of the Calypso, but his friends in the Police Department gave him plenty to speculate, which included him.
    Well, Wei, you think Asians keep secrets; so do my people, especially me.
    Laveau close his eyes and meditated. He needed to send his people in Haiti something to let them know, while dormant he hadn’t forgotten the operation. “Never forget your friends, Laveau.” Per-Ed-Med reputation for medical breakthroughs was second to none. Wei managed to assemble the best medical minds from all over Asia. America envied and hated him, but cooperation with other societies to insure the once majority wouldn’t lose power to people of color meant more than anything. He wanted to invest in Wei’s friends pharmaceutical companies. Rumor had it they were on the verge of a big discover to curb, after all these years, the declining birth rate of Asian women. Everybody said that science and technology got them in their situation now nature will right itself in time, a long time. The supremacy groups, White and Asian, had a big concern.
    Fear of a Black planet.
    The provincial authorities still reported to the FBI and NSA regarding corporate projects. The powers that be thought politicians, activist and the like of 3S were stupid. Since the demise of the inner cities public school, system province wide the outer area school districts lagged behind in all facets of education.
    That was the rumor, but not a fact.
    The stats showed, while behind their charter school counter parts, they were on the heels of the privileged. Only fools believed “More money, more brains.” The corporations scooped up the best minds, but so did Laveau’s Calypsos. The illusion of acceptance with certain education didn’t fool as many as they thought.
    And the chess game between the haves and have not’s continues.
    The internet filters were breached all the time, what they knew, the poor knew.
    Forget that mess you have other more important things to think about. His plan needed refining; his real employers expected nothing less than perfection.

    Lovey’s sculptured nails moved across Anselmo’s muscular chest and descended to his perfect abs. He stopped her hand. “You said you wanted to tell me something an hour ago.”
    She sat up and reached for her water. “My needs came first, but I haven’t forgotten. Six months at Laveau’s has taught me a lot about people in the city. They’re crazy!” They laughed.
    “Did you expect anything different?” Anselmo asked.
    She shrugged. “Yes and no. I know one that was a real pain, but after six months I got a plan to deal with that damn Vernie. She hates me, but we’re frenemenies on the job. She’ll love it, but it might shock a lot of people, but I cannot afford to get a ‘security friendly’ clearance. I’ve kept my job performance mediocre to pass the probation period. Now that’s over they expect great things. They won’t get them.”
    “They won’t?”
    “No, I’m sick of the office politics and all the other shit. Team one was working on a magnetic drive application which I proved to be backwards and man did I hear about it. ‘Let Lovey rewrite the theory’ they said. But, I don’t have the clearance so that died and it scared me. I gave the credit to a coworker and convinced him to take advantage of it to further his career. After drinks and one helluva a nightcap he agreed.” She giggled.
    “I can imagine.”
    “Anselmo, I know that’s not jealousy I detect.” She got silence. “Time brought about change between us, but we managed to be together on occasion.” He grabbed his genitals. “You fucking Nocee to get the job I understood, but now you’re shacking. What a surprise. You love her...”
    “No, I don’t.” He snapped and pushed her hand away. “We’ve done what it takes to get what we wanted. I love you and I know what I’m doing.”
    “That’s just it. You know, I don’t. You know my plan or at least some of it.”
    “I got your back as much as I can, Lovey. You forgot I tipped you they applied for your security friendly clearance which will be delayed. And, no I’m not telling you how.” He snapped and pulled her on top of him. “There’s things I cannot share, we cannot share with each other.” He kissed her frown away. “Let’s continue to enjoy our kitchenette hideaway while we can. I have to go to work soon.”
    Lovey wiped her eyes, maneuvered her hips and eased him inside her.
    Anselmo grabbed the last slice of pizza on the way out the door. He was running late for roll call. Lovey refused to hit the appliance retraction switch without washing the dishes and taking out the garbage. The place will smell. She loved the place for the price and being located on the riverfront. They made a mess of the satin sheets on the queen size round bed. She changed them, took a shower and gave the place a final look over before turning out the lights. She changed the alarm sequence and opened the door. A figure in her spatial vision leaped at her. A punch in the gut doubled her over, air shoot out of her lungs and vomit stuck in her throat. She fell on her face and rolled over coughing to clear her throat. “Leave my man alone, bitch!” Lovey laid there for a second. That voice was familiar. She crawled grasping at the tiles trying to get a grip and get to her feet. “You hear, bitch?”
    It was Det. Nocee
    “Fuck you , Nocee.” Lovey spat the words at her assailant and got to her feet. Nocee shoved her back into the apartment. She stumbled backwards and landed on her butt. Nocee slammed on the light switch. She was shocked
    Nocee was at least seven months pregnant.
    She pulled out a taser and shot Lovey. She screamed in agony and shook uncontrollably. “Stay away, bitch!” Nocee stood over her and yanked the probes out of her chest. Lovey heard the slide of an automatic pistol and she looked down the barrel of a .45. “Next time I’ll blow off your knee caps and see to it you go to jail, fuck Dr. Wei, bitch, got it?” She nodded and seconds later the door slammed. They thought they had it together a perfect hideaway. Anselmo, you SOB! You could’ve told me. In a catlike move she could’ve snatched Nocee’s legs from under her. That would fracture her pelvis. Injuring her wouldn’t sit well with anybody even if she was the devil’s daughter. She laid there with drool and spit running down the side of her face waiting for her nervous system to reboot. She wanted to kill Anselmo. How in the hell did she find the place? He was trained to pick up a tail. The idiot underestimated his woman. She probably smelled another female on him. Men don’t believe that, the idiots. She got up and leaned on the door. She got her ass kicked by a forty something expectant mother. Embarrassing. How in the hell could somebody that corrupt procreate. Disgusting. And, the sad thing, that bitch got more respect from him then she did. Lovey’s heart began to break while she hobbled to the elevator. She couldn’t go to work in the morning, but instead she’d pray, something she hadn’t done in a while group prayer worked the best and she needed to touch base with a girlfriends from school. The last she heard from Shelley was tri-marriage sucked and Tiesha moved to the west coast. She checked social media, no word yet. Everybody promised to stay in touch when they were at their final appointments after the graduation.
    Lovey soaked in a hot tub of Epsom salts for an hour. The bruises on her belly would be fine in a day or two. She examined herself and wondered how could Anselmo prefer that pig over all these curves and smooth golden skin? No telling what that boxy built pig did to keep him. It had to be the money or something else, but what? Vernie sounded disappointed with the call-in for a personal day. Fuck you, Vernie, fuck Anselmo and Nocee and the rest of the world. Stick with your plan and remember the words of wisdom from the church elders; “Don’t burn your bridges you might have to cross them again.”

    Lovey put a surprise on Toby Massue he didn’t expect, at least not that soon. The office player rolled off her drenched in sweat. “That was good.” His eyes undressed her daily and when he smelled liquor on her breath that really sparked his interest. He wanted her around his company friends. His trophy girlfriend, and, of course, they denied having a relationship, office policy that everybody sooner or later ignored. The engineering crowd from firms all over the city partied at the best bars and grills. Their favorite “R&D” was, in her opinion, too contemporary for its own good. The glass table and chairs didn’t fit well with the transparent bar and see through grill area, but the oversized 3D never experienced any interference. She wasn’t a drinker, it made her sick, but one beer didn’t hurt. Every day see stopped there and now that she was a regular, rumor would take over and eventually her job performance will be questioned. “Are you having any problems?” Vernie will ask. “Oh no,” she will reply. And that’s what she wanted; substance and/or alcohol abuse or the suspicion will jeopardize an employee’s clearance. Daily, Lovey rinsed her mouth with scotch and spoke to the right gossipers. She felt people talk, but no questions or concerns, yet. She heard nobody in R&D smoked weed, bad for the memory. They called that stuff “Dementia Sticks.” She hadn’t smoked weed since she left 3S.
    She started phase two, drugs, minute amounts of meth and cocaine. Dangerous, but she could not be “Security friendly.” She hinted to a coworker she’d dibbed and dabbed. Her hyperactivity and weight said a lot. Carol’s NBA height and NFL build turned heads all the time. She came through and delivered a packet on a day Lovey least expected. The rush from the meth accelerated her thoughts to the stars and she crashed with the depression she could not tolerate. Lovey figured soon she’d be called to drop and like clockwork Vernie told her on a Monday after a holiday weekend to report to medical.
    She tested hot, according to plan.
    Bad news travels fast. Her coworkers knew before she did.
    She got suspended pending further considerations. Good, the chances she’d be terminated were 50/50. Management expressed disappointment, including Laveau via channels, she has a problem. The first few days she caught up on her rest. It took a lot of energy to stay average especially when it’s human nature to want recognition for one’s ideas. For three months she rejected Anselmo’s calls, but today she accidentally answered. When she heard his voice she couldn’t and didn’t hang up. “What is it, Anselmo?” Her frustration and disgust apparent. She dabbed the corners of her mouth. “I was enjoying my breakfast, if you don’t mind.”
    “Well, I’m sorry, but we need to talk...”
    “I’m not getting killed for you or anybody else,” she snapped. “You understand?”
    “Lovey, please just hear me out and then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”
    Don’t listen, Lovey. But, she didn’t, it might be important. “OK, but don’t make me shoot you.”
    “OK.”
    She’d run into a wall in phase two of her plan. Could he have the solution? The bell rang. That was quick; the conceited bastard was in the lobby all along. “Before I get distracted again, how’s the kid?”
    Anselmo cleared his throat. “I knew you’d ask me that, she’s fine. She told me you had a talk, she didn’t say when.”
    “Talk my ass. Right after you left our love nest, she hit me in the gut, tasered me and pulled a pistol.”
    “What?”
    “That’s right, I started to body slam her, but you’d hate me for that.” She shook her head. “What do you see in her?”
    Anselmo sighed and hesitated. “Listen to me, hear what I say and believe it. I heard about your suspension and I figured it was part of a plan not to get clearance. You’re no addict.” She agreed. “But, do you know anybody that’s connected with the people or companies constructing the monument? What about the government?”
    “No, but I’m thinking. Since I got baptized the Holy Spirit has compelled me to continue on when I get discouraged. So, don’t try it, it won’t work.”
    “I’m here to help, Lovey. You can trust me. I work for people who have noticed you back in 3S. They know you are the genius type and want talented Black people to help rebuild Africa instead of seeing them die or go to jail.”
    Lovey gave Anselmo a long hard stare. “You mean you been with me, watching me, loving me as a job for someone else?”
    “No...no, don’t fuck up what I’m saying.” He embraced her. “I love you, you know that.”
    Lovey was quiet. “Jesus, Anselmo, I assume you are working for with AU intelligence.” He gave her a slight grin. “Of course you won’t tell me. Makes sense you being a cop who seduced a cop with connections or at least you let her take advantage of you. I don’t want to think about you. You are probably lying, isn’t that what spies do?”
    “Don’t make me the bad guy like America’s been nice to Black people, especially in the last three decades.”
    She nodded. “I got your point, but we’re our own worst enemy.”
    “Food for thought; if you’re serious about your plan let me help I’ll take it from here. Go back to work when you’re supposed to and don’t do anything strange. I’ll check into getting you an international passport. OK?”
    “OK.”
    “And, for your information the baby ain’t mine. Nocee got pregnant by her married superior. She thought it was, I thought it was until that snow white girl popped out with blonde hair and blue eyes; as black as I am I knew it wasn’t and the test proved it. What a relief. I don’t love her, but I like her even though it is a marriage of convenience. This is the last time I discuss my work. OK. And, keep a bag packed you might have to move fast.
    “OK.” She replied and smiled when he undid her robe. “You know Anselmo, you still ain’t shit. I should hate you.”

    Officer Anselmo Obo fully reclined his seat and unplugged his headphones to vintage Miles Davis. “Bitches Brew” led him through a wide range of thoughts and emotions. The mountainous landscape became a greenish blur as the luxurious Amtrak maglev accelerated through the Pennsylvania countryside. The stewardess tapped him on the shoulder and sat a menu on the table. He signaled thanks and closed his eyes. It was rare a rookie officer’s request for a short leave of absence was approved that quickly. Nocee pushed it through, no questioned asked. Why should she? He went along with her charade. He deduced who was the father and her silence answered his question. Fine, and for info and other favors he’d withstand the whispers and humiliation in the locker-room about the mixed baby that was White, all White. “Know anything about that, Anselmo?” He didn’t like it, but it went with the job.
    For the past several months he monitored Lovey’s activities. She managed to keep the job; a humiliating demotion to overhead crane operator and weekly drug test kept her clean. Her good friend and lover, Tobey bragged about keeping her in check. Since he didn’t know her/their plan his bullshit shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. While on foot patrol he caught Tobey taking a leak in the service drive of “The R&D” and smoking weed. He smacked him with his night stick a couple of times. He wasn’t jealous, but what the hell. Toby cried brutality. Anselmo showed defiance and the week without pay gave him the chance to work on connections in Ethiopia when she gets there.
    Vernie got the executive board to force Lovey into an inpatient rehab program. Lovey did well; she gained a few pounds she didn’t need and for those thirty days she was celibate. They gave her the impression all’s forgotten when she’s released, but Vernie fired her with a smile. And, for that bit of treachery Anselmo introduced Vernie to the narcotics squad without her knowledge, of course. She was discreetly charged with possession of a felony amount of heroin and cocaine. That was a dirty thing to do, but she’d beat it. The worry would do her good.
    Laveau asked did he have anything to do with Vernie getting busted. “No.” He lied and he knew Laveau knew it. Anselmo’s special relationship with his boss/handler gave him a little wiggle room. At age ten he taught him French phrases here and there. Then he took him away from the foster communes for further special training especially indoctrination against the foreigners who reeked havoc on the continent. When he became a teenager Laveau sent him to a commune to befriend a young girl that was rumored to be exceptionally bright. They had the same last name, a good start. With Naomi Obo a.k.a. Lovey Shappe it was puppy love at first sight and they became a smart criminal team of the “Calypsos.” He loved her and hated, at times, Ethiopia’s need to help build the temple/monument. Get over it, Anselmo! The music stopped, he removed the headset, two hours to New York. He changed his thoughts and slipped into the darkness.

    Anselmo arrived at the Bronx Recovery Center ten minutes before visiting hours. The waiting room had the bare necessity, old tables and chairs with lamps and a few wooden magazine racks. The antiquated partition between the room and the patient area wouldn’t withstand a ten year olds kick. This was Lovey’s third chance at a full recovery. The first two staged attempts had her in an upscale facility in upstate New York. She wanted to be as discreet as possible, but you cannot outrun rumor. The embarrassment that followed being the best engineer to a zero was overwhelming and that’s what she wanted management to think. Anselmo stressed she had to lose at least twenty pounds, “Gain it back later.” They knew the feds were still vigilant concerning the “Black Brain Drain.” That was okay, during her stay in New York she met a few phonies masquerading as sophisticates, but they were glorified scum of the earth. Hopefully, she’d be viewed as a potential criminal and soon as an undesirable. Anselmo asked about her commitment to her so-called calling. “I’m good, my faith’s got me covered, Anselmo.”
    A buzzer sounded and the door opened. Lovey’s jeans and white blouse looked new. She picked up her luggage and stepped into the room. She turned and flipped the bird to a fat white staff member and headed straight for the exit. Anselmo followed. “Remember me?”
    “Of course, silly.” She cupped his hand and they strolled to the curb.
    “You look good in those jeans.”
    “Thank you, you look good in yours.”
    He flagged a cab to a downtown suite.
    Lovey stood in the window. “This view of the river reminds me of my place.”
    Anselmo admired the slimmed down version of his woman. “I thought it would, but that status in your life will return one day.”
    She shrugged. “If you say so, did I tell you what Dr. Wei did?”
    “No.”
    “He said he was disappointed in me and you know how he sounds...sorry you don’t, but it hurt. He said I was being removed from the prominent graduate lists.”
    Anselmo didn’t know what to say. She was strong, dedicated and determined. He should be so lucky. “That means they’re through with you and that’s a good thing. We anticipated and hoped that would happen. Come back to bed.”
    She climbed in. “Who’s we, Anselmo?”
    He squeezed her arm. “Listen to me, don’t ask, don’t figure or try to be slick. You don’t want or need to know, got it?” His expression was cold.
    She pushed his hand. “That hurt, I got it.”
    “You convinced them you’re just another nigger from 3S who got a chance and fucked it up getting high and other dumb shit. And, a few of your new friends told you can make a fortune in Amsterdam with their people. You’re a hype hoe with a great ass. Remember that.” He cupped her butt. “We got time to get another one before your flight.”
    She pushed him off and got on top. “That’s right, but let me work my magic, handsome.”

    Anselmo gently massaged the back of Lovey’s neck on the way to the airport. The past couple of hours were the closest thing they would have to a honeymoon when they land in Amsterdam. The final act goes into action when he tells her he’s on the flight after hers. “Lovey, I’ll get out at the United Airlines terminal, call me when you’re at the Lufthansa boarding gate. I’ll catch the flight after you.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me.” He kissed her.
    “What about the job and everything?” She asked.
    “Don’t worry about that, I’ll put everything in place in Amsterdam. We stay a week to make it look good. You meet the lowlife’s and then you board a flight to Djibouti where you’ll meet your contact. This is it, babe, no comebacks.”
    “And you?”
    “You know we’ll be together, see you in Amsterdam.”
    “You’ll see us in Amsterdam.”
    He blinked too many times, that look on her face scared him. “Us?” Why did he ask a dumb, she was patting her stomach? “No, Lovey, no you can’t do this, not now.”
    “Why not? It’s yours, Anselmo. Why am I telling you now? First, I just found out. Two, you need to know in case, in your line of work, I don’t see you again...”
    “You’ll see me.” He interrupted and struggled not to raise his voice. “This is a shock, but I’m happy believe or not.” He glanced at his watch.
    “I’ll be quick with this, I don’t do abortion and I figure your people didn’t go through these changes to leave me/us hanging. Pregnancy will not affect my skills. And, if they change their minds I can still go back to America. I’m not a criminal or a traitor. May faith will carry me, but I believe ‘Faith without works is dead’. See you when I see you.” He kissed her and she got the cab.

    Osama Wei, MD., shared his disgust with Laveau about Lovey Shappe’s situation. Alcohol and drugs, who would have thought she’d let a city pretty boy turn her out.
    She came out of 3S, she knows better!
    Love is illogical; she allowed herself to be tricked and what pissed him off Toby Massue bragged about it. Wei promised himself when things settle down Toby will be put to sleep. But, he let greed get the best of him. Yao and his hatred made him sick. He wasn’t a lover of American, but the supremacy doctrine was for fools. Yao’s invasive technology proved worthless. The info showed that young people fucked like rabbits. So what? And, before the test subjects, as Yao called them, left after graduation Wei neutralized the IUD for removal, not laser. Those three females, of questionable moral character, as Yao also said, were his pupils and their success enhanced Per-Ed-Med’s reputation. Lovey, Shelley and Tiesha were still young, brilliant and stupid and quite normal. They will reach their full potential with age.
    He and Laveau shared their criminal activities on a different level then their businesses. Laveau wouldn’t hire any of Wei’s people for a while, if ever. Understandable, but he regretted it. If Lovey Shappe decided to return he’d help her. She wasn’t an enemy of the state. As far as Wei knew Beijing had no knowledge of his investors in America. Chinese pride in solving its problems was a big thing. When the meeting with Yao, Ding and Harris ends according to plan he might go to Haiti and soak up the sun with the Laveau’s. Since he’d been unavailable for two prior invites, this time he’d make it.
    Wei sucked in his gut and growth in an attempt to push the button through its hole on his pants. He’d gained weight or the uniform shrank. One last heave and it worked. A private celebration with his fellow Asian brothers was appropriate for the successful work and research. The executive and other management could wait. Ding suggested a couple of brown sugars join the party. Wei had a hard time convincing them they should come later. The uniform felt better with a few adjustments and the shine on his boots looked better. The bar was stocked. He dropped cubes in three glasses, lifted the decanter and poured two fingers of the hundred year old scotch. The brown liquid flowed pass his tongue with a slight sensation on its way to his empty stomach and waiting brain. Liquid courage he would need.
    Dr. Wei, your guests are here.
    “Send them in, Monitor One and shut down this part of the complex and delete all info for today resume data storage at 12:01 am.”
    Yes, Dr. Wei
    The decorative wooded doors slid open and Yao and Ding stepped in the office. Yao smirked while his eyes shifted left and right. His arrogant demeanor oozed out his pores. Wei wanted to smack him dressed in his formal uniform when this was supposed to be a routine chat and drinks. Ding smiled, his long white gown and earrings accented his love of the same sex, today anyway.
    “Gentlemen, come over and let’s get started.” Wei poured scotch in their glasses. “Say when.”
    “When,” they said.
    “You read my mind.” Yao said. Ding picked up his glass and down the contents.
    “Ah, that’s good.” He coughed slightly and pushed his glass toward the decanter.
    “This is a first for us. How do you like my office?” Wei asked and walked over to a cluster of plastic covered chairs. “Sit down, sit down; sorry for the covering, they’re new and I didn’t have time to unwrap them.”
    “This is nice, Osama.” Yao said. “Amazing, how you keep this campus so clean. You trained the animal in those inferiors well.” Ding chuckled, but Wei frowned and rose his glass.
    “Too the hard working people of Per-Ed-Med and our success.” They clicked glasses and drank. Wei grinned when Yao’s glass slipped out his hand, dropped and broke. He started to slobber. Ding tried to wipe his face and his hands fell to his side. Both men sat eyes bucked and motionless. “I can imagine what you’re thinking. What the fuck is this? You’re frozen and cold.” Wei laughed and pushed each one of their foreheads with his finger. Their heads moved back then he turned them toward a door on the opposite wall. “Good gentlemen, you aren’t too stiff. I want you to see the show, but first I have to explain myself and since I have your undivided attention here it is. The birth problem, even impossible as it seems to get a handle on, we are supposed to have something, right? Ding, I showed you what I had.” Wei wiped the tears on Ding’s cheeks. “The competing companies will pay a fortune for licenses; we knew that, and half the time it will work. The keywords ‘half the time’, we weren’t complete frauds, but you join forces with a supremist who wants to discredit all my work. Yao’s over all the Chinese in this province, but we’re like brothers, closer than that. See what being scared of that son of a bitch is going to get you?” Wei walked over and smacked Yao. “For your info, I removed those IUD’s from my pupils and found something interesting. The devices were tainted with bacteria, time release shit, and genetically altered shit. You know what that genius from 3S, that ‘curvy nigger’ you said, brought to my attention? A friend of hers told her man had the claps and he couldn’t get rid of it. The problem she’d been loyal and so had her man. I guess they brainstormed and figured they’d get checked out. You wanted to destroy my pupils. She convinced her to come back here that’s when I found it and told Beijing, hence your situation.” He smacked Yao again. “They said you got it from the Triads’ and this could be a worldwide epidemic.” He shook his head. “No, you won’t.” He looked at Ding and patted his cheeks. “I love that outfit and those earrings really set it off.” Wei laughed and then got serious. “I love you like a brother and then you fall under Yao’s spell with that supremacy bullshit. It’s a shame what money can do to a person, present company included.” Tears dripped down their faces like a leaking faucet. They blinked uncontrollability, but the tearing continued. “What can you do about it? Well, nothing and I have orders so to speak.” He pushed over an older Barcelona chair, sat and finished his scotch. “Long story short assholes, I love my country and what I’ve helped to build here. Don’t think for one minute I’m going to let you or anyone else fuck it up. Poison and kill women of color? You’re crazy, that will start a war you idiots.” Wei sighed. “When you told me your plans I shared with Beijing. They said handle it...and so I will. Sit tight.” He laughed. “I want you to meet someone.” He went behind the bar and poured a drink. The door Yao and Ding faced opened and Mr. Harris hurried in. He stared.
    “What’s wrong with them?” Mr. Harris stood over the pair. “They look paralyzed.” He reached in his belt and produced a large silvery knife.
    “Mr. Harris.” Wei said. Harris turned and Wei pointed a silenced pistol at his stomach. “I hate to spoil your party, but Beijing isn’t enthusiastic about your return.” He squeezed the trigger. Mr. Harris grabbed his gut and doubled over while vomit shot out his mouth. He froze in the fetal position. “That was a tranquilized bullet, Mr. Harris, with paralysis on the side.” Wei pushed Mr. Harris on his back with his foot. Harris’s expressions of pain pleased him and he smiled at the Chinese Intelligence assassin. “Be right back.” Wei disappeared from his guest view when he stooped behind the bar and got a baseball bat. He walked over to Yao. “This is a Louisville Slugger.” And he took several practice swings. “Watch this, Yao. This is the guy Beijing sent to kill you two fools.” He adjusted his head and then he stood over Mr. Harris. He swung the bat like a golf club shattering Harris’s skull like an over ripe melon, again and again. The eyes of the deceased exploded out of their sockets and jagged edges of his skull pierced the flesh of his scalp. Brain matter floated in the dark that pooled next to his pulverized dome. Wei wiped his forehead and sighed. “I love this, Ding, but I won’t do you like that.” He picked up the pistol, changed the clip and put two bullets between his lifelong friend’s eyes. He decided to put Yao in a body bag and gradually slide him in the biomedical waste incinerator, alive.
    It took him two hours to clean up. He notified Beijing the problem was solved. “I have a visual presentation of it being solved for the record if you like.”
    “That won’t be necessary, Dr. Wei.” The cryptic voice said. “Thank you; let us know if any additional funding for Per-Ed-Med is necessary.”
    Now, Osama, you can return to medicine and education.

Brown

    It was 2016. The way everyone thought and spoke changed. A woman was the most respected fighter in the world - her looks second to the barbarism inside her fists - and a black man was finishing up his years as President of the United States. The old garb was losing power to this new tide - which was slowly and fiercely - swallowing the inequities of how everything used to be.
    Even the men and women who made a living off the Business of Street changed. You can never pin point the exact moment even their shoreline was overtaken - just as Hunter S. Thompson beautifully explained the tides of change in San Francisco - but if you had to guess when the Italian families became relevant again - moving out the goombas that pretended they were tough guys because they had ten friends and imitated the Sopranos - it may have gotten started in a basement in New Jersey when a classic styled gangster named Mr. Alby Genaro, or Mr. Gent as the people in this meeting knew him as, wanted to introduce three Samoan boys into the circle. When these families originally came to power Brown had been dutifully left out. Only light skinned men with roots from Sicily were allowed.
    Mr. Gent noticed the ways of old are the very reason the families spent their nights in a basement playing poker and cycling through money between themselves instead of making more. The three Samoan boys he wanted to introduce might be the change they needed he felt.
    Of the men at the meeting, six were willing to listen - not fully sold but still holding their ears open - and the other two were against the idea. What mattered most to Mr. Gent in this meeting was the opinion of a man named Jonathon Equestrio. The opinion of the head of the table swayed how these meetings went. Before the meeting started, Mr. Gent turned off the soccer game for the Eagles. One of the Samoan boys he planned on introducing to the family, Afa, had a lot of money depending on Philly’s defense for his fantasy team. It was there that all the men should have known the tide was coming in to swallow what they were used to.
    “Mr. Gent, welcome,” Equestrio said. The family sat staring at Mr. Gent and his Samoan boys. Anoa’i, the strongest, tallest and most handsome of the bunch stood in the center behind Mr. Gent. His jet-black hair fell down to his shoulders. To the right and left of Anoa’I stood Sika and Afa - the twins. The twins were not as big as Anoa’I but that wasn’t to say they couldn’t be classified as muscle. They were USC’s cornerbacks some years back while Anoa’I served with them on the field as the middle linebacker. This type of muscle was intriguing to the men at the table. Most of were aging and falling out of shape more and more. To not consider their value as a potential asset was bad for business.
    Equestrio, the oldest of the bunch, was a savvy businessman. The future was in his hands and he knew it.
    “You are always a favorite on this floor and I think I speak for everyone here when I say I have been looking forward to you entertaining us as you usually do,” Equestrio continued.
    This was a good sign to Mr. Gent. The warm embrace made him feel a little more at ease with introducing the Samoan boys. The stage was level - something he wished for most.
    “Thank you Mr. Equestrio,” Mr. Gent said. “ Also, thank you all for having me.” The eight men all nodded their heads and welcomed Mr. Gent with the respect an untouchable man in the family deserved.
    “As I’m sure most of you have discussed before I got here, I have a long term plan that I believe will change the way things are run,” Mr. Gent said. Before he could finish, Angelo, one of the men against having the Samoans join the inner circle, cut him off. While he was the youngest, sitting at 46-years-old, he was the most stubborn and clutched to those old ways. It was the only formula he knew to live by.
    “Mr. Gent we appreciate you coming to us, but before you go on, it should be said that, while I’m sure Brown would be a nice addition to our table, we could always use backup, it’s just not how things are run.”
    Mr. Gent took the jab by Angelo to the chin and didn’t react with emotion. He kept his composure and allowed Equestrio to shut down the interference.
    “Let him speak first,” Equestrio said. “We’ll get nowhere like this.” Angelo looked annoyed but he listened to
    Equestrio. The other men at the table looked back at Mr. Gent, giving him the floor once more.
    “As you appreciate my sentiment Angelo, I appreciate yours. The thing is, the ways of old, our Brown standards, are holding us back and I mean this on a philosophical level,” Mr. Gent said. Angelo looked at his friend like a dirty liberal. This was the set of words he wanted to throw at him but he didn’t want to get Equestrio angry. Instead, he stared down the Samoans and wondered how they “poisoned” Mr. Gent’s mind.
    “These boys here are young, strong and willing to learn,” Mr. Gent said. He looked back at them smiling. The three stood stoically. Mr. Gent looked back at the table and hoped this impressed Equestrio. They needed to be killers even if they didn’t know how. More importantly, he wanted these boys to be his muscle and trusted them more than the guys they had now. E and Cass, the current muscle, constantly bumbled jobs.
    “I’ve gotten to know them through the bookies that follow USC football and after speaking to the three of them extensively, they all want what we want,” Mr. Gent said. “To move away from the drugs, and more importantly, make the money we should be making now.”
    Mr. Equestrio waited for Mr. Gent to finish and he asked his first question. “You said something that stood out to me a second ago. That term “philosophical” you used. Explain what you meant.”
    “To put it bluntly, I’m amazed we got this far,” Mr. Gent said. Some of the men at the table were left unsettled by the statement but Equestrio did not move. He kept listening. “These rules about not having Brown sit with the family, the drug stuff, other stone age
    ginny rules in that invisible rule book we all live by, these rules are a weight holding us down. I come here with Sika, his twin brother Afa and Anoa’I to be a catalyst for change. I believe if we start with our racial policy, we’ll progress in other ways.”
    Frank, the man sitting to the left of Equestrio called Mr. Gent President Obama for using the word “change.” The table laughed and even Mr. Gent smiled a little. It was the type ball busting that kept these men together.
    “Shut up Johnny,” Equestrio said laughing. “You want a spot at the Comedy Cellar or this table.”
    “Those Comedy Cellar spots are $15 I heard,” Frank said back. “That’s more than your going rate these days.” The table laughed again. Equestrio gave him a playful smack on the head and told Mr. Gent to continue before they fell into a two-hour tangent and forgot their point. Angelo was not as amused though. Throughout the conversation he didn’t laugh.
    “Some of us are getting up there in age – myself included - (the table gave a small laugh to that) but after a string of fuck ups by Cassidy and E, the muscle we got now, it’s clear that we’re gonna need better help. Anoa’I and the twins can be of value to all of us. Each has played Division One football. They follow playbooks, so clearly they can follow us. They’re strong, they’re agile and most of all, they’re smart. They don’t let dumbies on the field or in the classrooms at USC.”
    The Samoans continued their stoic stance behind Mr. Gent. The table started to get a feel of how the dynamic between the four men was going to work. Angelo, unable to hold back, once again cut off Mr. Gent.
    “With all due respect these men are not Italians,” Angelo said. Mr. Gent hit him back quick after that remark.
    “With all due respect to you, Angelo, Cassidy and E are aren’t in any shape to protect us. Can they even run a mile consuming the amount of pasta they eat a day,” Mr. Gent said. “On top of that they’re dumb. How can you run out of gas on the way back from a job? They brought back 5 g’s on a minuscule run but it took 2 g’s to move the truck in the middle of the night without getting caught. We might as well get Geico. People don’t respect muscle like that. Back in the day the drivers would charge $200 in that situation and be glad to help.”
    “I trust Cassidy and E,” Angelo said. “They’re good Italian boys with a lot of learning to do. That I admit. No matter what you say though, what I don’t trust is the Brown. They did not grow up in our neighborhoods. We do not know their agenda.”
    “I’d really like to move away from the E and Cassidy situation right now but while we’re here, let’s talk about the thought process between our lovely Italian boys. When we all get together and wanna watch a movie with the wives, what’s the first movie they want to put on,” Mr. Gent said.
    “Goodfellas,” Angelo said. “What does that have to do with anything”?
    “It has everything to do with what’s wrong,” Mr. Gent said passionately. “Goodfellas is a movie that glorifies rats and these two ginnies love it. Don’t get me wrong. Were I a civilian I’d love that movie just as E and Cassidy do, but I’m not. The corner is where I cash my checks and that movie represented a dark time for all of us.”
    “It’s an art piece,” Angelo said. “You don’t like art all of a sudden”?
    “To the rest of the world it’s art. For us, Goodfellas shows just how weak we became. Henry Hill goes on Howard Stern, he does ESPN documentaries on the Boston College betting and nobody put a bullet in his head. A single man exposed how weak we have become and Cassidy and E, those Italian boys, are the antithesis of that.”
    “Anthesis? Stop with the big words,” Frank said. “We didn’t get a college education like your Hawaiian friends.” The table laughed. In the middle of laughing Mr. Gent turned around to Anoa’I and asked him to take off his backpack. Angelo called him a schoolboy but Mr. Gent didn’t respond. He asked for the “Book Phone” in his pocket. It was a Kindle.
    Mr. Gent, happy the Wifi wasn’t password protected in the basement, went to the store and started typing something. Dereck, a member of the family who was on Angelo’s side remarked that phones were not allowed on the table. It was a Kindle.
    Equestrio, still listening, told him to let Mr. Gent do his thing. Mr. Gent got up off his seat and started showing everybody the book on the screen. It was a book about the Lufthansa Heist. He continued his speech when he got back to his seat.
    “You all saw that book,” Mr. Gent said. “There is an author profiting about our history. For $12.99, 60% less than the price of a typical hardcover book, you can find out how we operate as a family and everyone knows the specifics of John Gotti killing Tommy.”
    Mr. Gent had a controlled fire in his voice while he spoke. He was comfortable like Jordan with a few seconds left on the clock in the playoffs. He could have had the flu and delivered this. He wasn’t even thinking of impressing Equestrio anymore.
    “The worst about about this... Do you know what the worst part about this is,” Mr. Gent asked. “The people who read this think of an actor when they think Tommy.”
    “Well Tommy was a fuck up.” Angelo said.
    “You only know that because of the pictures,” the old man Frank said, firing another shot that made the table laugh.
    Equestrio once again playfully slapped him in the head.
    “At least he isn’t going around having the words of a rat come out of his mouth,” Mr. Gent said taking another dump on Cassidy and E. Angelo stood up and started cursing Mr. Gent and the Samoan boys in Italian. Anoa’I and the twins didn’t understand the racial epithets being thrown at them in Italian but if they did, they probably still would have stood in place.
    Angelo’s cursing and outburst threw the meeting out of order. Equestrio stared over at the Samoans who stood calmly throughout their storm and thought. He wondered if Mr. Gent was on to something.
    Equestrio put his hand up and everyone calmed down. It took a few seconds for everyone to get the fidgets out of their system but they calmed down. “These three boys you come here with. Propose a plan involving them,” Equestrio said.
    “The Italian Club on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst has had a lucrative Fantasy Football business and because none of us are tech savvy, we’ve essentially let them go on without showing us tribute,” Mr. Gent said. “Tonight myself, Anoa’i
    Anoa’I, Sika and Afa will change that. They will have cut us a piece by morning. Maybe earlier than that.”
    Angelo, now sitting back, slung his head back in annoyance. “Fantasy Football,” he said to himself hating the idea. He would have hated any other idea at this point.
    Equestrio, a man who thought anything that had to do with phones was weakness, did not enjoy Fantasy Football. Football in general wasn’t something he was into because he was a Futbol guy - a sport he lauded as one respected by Italian Kings and Queens. Still, he saw the potential for another source of income.
    He took his biases, put them to the side and okayed the idea. Angelo looked over to Dereck and they both rolled their eyes at each other. They gave glances that it was “bullshit” but didn’t go on. They weren’t going to get Equestrio any angrier.
    Mr. Gent, ready to put his plan into motion, was stopped by the words of Equestrio before he left. “Hold on,” he said. He got up from his spot on the circular poker table that took up a third of the room and shook the hands of Anoa’i, Sika and Afa.
    “You boys have anything to add to this,” he said. This was the shot that Mr. Gent hoped for. If anything, it was better than what he expected. Equestrio got up to show his respect to the three boys.
    Anoa’I looked Equestrio in the eye showing respect, while also showing he wasn’t afraid.
    “Don’t mind us,” Anoa’I said. “We’re just gonna whoop some ass and make money.”
    Anoa’I flashed a little smile. He was handsome, and his long hair whipped round when he turned around to go up the stairs. The balls on him for talking to a boss like that impressed Equestrio. He patted Anoa’I on the back, put his arms around the twins, and walked Mr. Gent’s group out the door.
    “Impress me,” he said. “You have my attention.” Mr. Gent shook his hand and they jumped into Mr. Gent’s black Cadillac.
    Angelo complained downstairs while Equestrio was up with Mr. Gent and his Samoan boys. “You believe this,” he said. “Niggas are gonna beat on Italians and we’re letting this go. Unbelievable.”
    ***
    An hour-and-a-half later the poker game was interrupted by a bloody mouthed Irishman in a leather jacket. Besides him was one of the heads from the Italian club with a ripped shirt. Angelo – who was friends with the Italian club – was not happy by what they looked like. He was even less happy when the three Samoan boys walked down the stairs laughing with Mr. Gent. Angelo was cursing the Samoans out in Italian again. Equestrio though was impressed. He told the Irishman and his friend to have a seat.
    “What’s going on you two,” Equestrio said. “You have something to say?”
    Anoa’I put his hands on the back of the seat of the Irishman. He was going to speak for his friend at the Italian club.
    “We negotiated with Mr. Gent and his friends here. We at the Italian club are now back in business with your family,” he said nervously. He looked down as he spoke. Anoa’I, still with his hands on the chair, moved his head right above the Irishman’s shoulders. This made him more nervous. “You left out the part about how you and your boys got your ass kicked. Tell Mr. Equestrio that?” Angelo yelled this is bullshit but Equestrio put his hand up. He quieted down.
    “Please tell me,” Equestrio said. He smiled while he spoke. Mr. Gent was starting to feel cocky now. He knew he won. He put his hands behind his Armani suit and waited for the Irishman to speak.
    “Be polite about it too,” Mr. Gent said.
    “Yeah man,” Sika said. “Tell us the story of how we wooped your ass and you negotiated from 30% to 45%,” Sika added. The demeanor of the three Samoan boys was different now. First they stood like the statues of Greek warrior gods. Now they were antagonizing these two guys.
    The poker table started stirring over the prospect of a 45% cut. They didn’t expect much from the proposition. They were open to it but didn’t know what would happen.
    “We did not like the idea at first,” the Irishman said. Sika interrupted him again. Repeat that sentence again and make sure you say “Mr. Equestrio.” Have some godamn respect.”
    “We did not like the idea at first Mr. Equestrio but we negotiated terms you would like,” he said. Afa continued to torture him.
    “And how did you negotiate those terms?”
    “We got our ass kicked,” he said under his breath.
    “Louder man,” Sika said. “We gotta know what happened. I forgot. I got hit in the head a few times playing ball. Sometimes I forget things.”
    The Irishman sighed. He sat for a moment and crushed his ego more than Mr. Gent and his Samoan boys did.
    “WE DID NOT LIKE THE IDEA AT FIRST, MR. EQUESTRIO,” the Irishman yelled. “BUT THEN WE GOT OUR ASS KICKED BY THESE FOOTBALL GODS AND CHANGED OUR MIND.”
    The Samoans started laughing. “Good boy,” Anoa’I said. “10 points for saying the football god thing like we told you to. Now apologize for speaking for the Italian club and not being an Italian. Sounds kind of sacrilege huh,” he said staring at Angelo.
    The table laughed and Mr. Gent was now in heaven. He looked over to Equestrio and waited for him to make his decision.
    “You boys like playing poker,” Equestrio said?
    The table, happy to get some new money flowing in, popped for the boys. They welcomed the Samoans in and patted them on the back. A few went into the ear of Mr. Gent and congratulated him for his work. Angelo and Dereck sat down and nodded at the Samoans. They were going to have to work with them now whether they liked it or not.

Cottage Industry

    Jackson Delany watched with pride as his sons and their families piled into the two vans parked side by side in his driveway. Robert, the older one, had two kids aged three and five, and his wife Jessica was plump with number three. Stevie had one, a boy going on seven. Stevie’s wife, Katie, worked full time as a geriatric nurse, and they both seemed content with only one child. Jackson didn’t mind either way. He considered himself lucky to have two fine, hard-working boys, and three, soon-to-be-four, grandkids who still found time to spend Sunday lunches and occasional afternoons with him. He’d worried about that after Donna died—she’d always been the family’s rallying point—but he’d been wrong. If the KFC chicken and fixings ultimately resulted in a cholesterol-induced heart attack, he’d still die a happy man.
    He waved goodbye as the vehicles pulled out from his driveway. Then he lumbered back inside the house. Within ten minutes, Jackson had put away the leftovers, cleaned the kitchen, and emptied the trash. It was at that point he noticed the folded twenties left under the pepper shaker.
    “I’ll be damned,” he said, his eyebrows pulling low over his eyes. He wasn’t sure which one it had been. Both boys had tried, at separate intervals earlier that day, to press bills into his hand. Each time, he’d declined. When Donna was alive they’d gotten by fairly well on his modest pension and their combined Social Security. After his wife’s death, it had become harder. He’d managed, though—canned stew and white rice was a hearty enough meal, beans and cornbread, too. But the boys weren’t so easy to convince. They routinely tried to force money on him, money he knew they needed for their own families, especially Robert, with another baby on the way.
    He stuffed the bills into a Mason jar along with money they’d left on other occasions, and put the jar back into the cabinet over the sink. Jackson had racked his brain trying to figure a way to return the money to his kids, but had yet to arrive at an acceptable idea. What he did know was that he had to do something.
    The computer in the den dinged once—an incoming email. It was annoying, that ding every time some piece of frivolous spam found its way into his house, but he hadn’t figured out yet how to remedy it. And when the boys were around, it always seemed to slip his mind. Of course, he’d considered discontinuing his internet access. That would free up some money he could use, but he did love it when the boys, or their wives, or the six-year-old sent him a message. Poppy, they all called him. He could do without a lot but not that.
    The message he found after pulling up his computer chair was for a financial service offering low-interest loans for small businesses. He scrolled down the screen, studying several of the types of business opportunities. A few minutes later, he stumbled across an idea—an idea that just might solve his problem.

    The following Sunday, the family gathered around the dining room table as Jackson told them of his plans. They appeared pleased with his news, of course, and he couldn’t help wondering if it was partly from relief.
    “So, Dad, when do you start the new business?” Robert reached into the big red and white cardboard bucket and retrieved an extra-crunchy chicken leg.
    Jackson smiled like a used car salesman and dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “Starts tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it.”
    “I’m so happy for you, Poppy,” said Katie. “Working at the nursing home, I see far too many people with idle time on their hands. It’s not good for the soul.”
    The six-year-old asked, “How’d you decide to get into dog-walking, Poppy?”
    Jackson stifled a mild burp and leaned back in his chair. “Why, it’s the perfect business for someone like me. I’ll go out mornings and late afternoons, get plenty of exercise—which is something I need after gobbling all this chicken and mashed potatoes—and, best of all, it’s a low-overhead job. The only expense I have is buying poop bags.”
    “Please, Poppy” said Jessica, eyes wide. “Not at the table.”
    Everyone laughed.
    “Well,” Jackson said, “the point is, I won’t need any extra money now. I appreciate all you’ve done. Your mother would’ve been proud of all of you, looking out for me. But I’m happier when I know you’re taking care of yourselves.”
    “It was never a problem,” Stevie said. “We were glad to help. Anyway, we’re proud of you, too.”
    Jackson knew that part about the money wasn’t quite the truth. It had been a problem—for them and for him, but no more. Not if he could help it. “Enough talk of money,” he said, tipping the KFC bucket in his direction. “Anybody gonna eat that last wing?”

    All businesses had their ups and downs, Jackson thought, especially start-ups. This was just a hiccup, nothing to worry about. From where he sat in the passenger seat of Katie’s car, he watched as she talked to the two officers. Lots of animated hand gestures going on between them, some nods, some head shakes. One of the officers spat on the sidewalk. Ought to be arrested for that, right? Finally the conversation seemed to be over. Katie shook hands with both men, smiling big—Jackson thought of it as her sunrise smile—then glared at him as she approached the car.
    She climbed in, sighed heavily, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Poppy, what got into you? Are you crazy?”
    “Don’t worry, Katie,” Jackson offered. I’ll be more careful next time.”
    “That is not what I mean, and you know it.” She pointed to the sign out front of the hair salon—New Image. “You must never do this again! What if the same two police officers responded? Do you think they’d believe you walked out of the nursing home again and decided to rob another hair salon? How long do you think the dementia argument would work?”
    Jackson pointed at Katie’s uniform and her nameplate with the nursing home logo on it. “Well, it certainly helps that you’re dressed in nursing duds.” He decided not to mention the note he had in his pocket with Katie’s name and the Rest Easy Nursing Home contact information.
    Katie slammed her fist against the steering wheel. “I will not become your accomplice in crime. I could lose my job, go to jail myself. And what would your boys think if you were arrested? What would the grandkids think?” She cranked the car and yanked it away from the curb. “Thank God you didn’t actually have a gun.”
    “I figured a fist in my jacket pocket would work.”
    “Good thing it didn’t,” Katie said.
    “And who knew that little fancy boy with the earrings would grab me like that. I thought they’d be more cowed than the women.”
    “Don’t be a homophobe, Poppy. I’m already really, really upset with you.”
    They rode in silence until Katie turned into Jackson’s driveway. After he got out of the car, she pushed the button that lowered his window and said, “Please, please don’t ever do this again.”
    Jackson looked his daughter-in-law in the eye and placed his hand over his heart. “I promise never to rob another hair salon, but you have to promise to not try and force money on me again. Tell the boys it’s a matter of my needing to feel independent.”
    “I’ll do what I can,” she said, then as she backed away, “Dog walker, my ass.”
    Jackson went inside, sat down in front of his computer, and pulled up the Internet. He hoped Katie would be successful, but it was doubtful the boys would be swayed by her efforts if they thought he was still short of cash. Maybe he really could get a job as a dog walker—plenty of fresh air and sunshine. He scanned the computer screen: small business opportunities, business loans, women-owned businesses...
    Of course, dog walking wouldn’t be so great in the rain, or the cold, or the snow. All that stooping over to scoop up the leavings, his back wasn’t what it used to be. What if he slipped on some ice? Broke a hip? Then where would he be—laid up in some nursing home with a bunch of slack-mouthed zombies like the ones Katie looked after, that’s where. He’d rather be dead. But he’d felt pretty far from dead when he’d barged into that hair salon and yelled, “This is a stickup!” In fact, he’d felt more alive than he had in years. It had been a crazy idea. And he’d promised Katie, too—never again, ever.
    He clicked absently on a link for minority-owned businesses, scrolled through the listings, and chuckled. “Who would have thought,” he murmured, “a town this size would have over forty separate nail salons?” The one he’d seen at the mall employed all Asian women. According to a guy down at the barber shop, they all did. Even so, Jackson bet somebody there would understand simple English, right?

stagger

The crowds around him
stagger, sway like weeds. And he
thinks: let the weeds go.

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc& hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed.

A Bunch of Assholes

    the girl was talking me upstairs, but i stuck with the pool table. i lied. i told her i had a girlfriend. it didn’t work. she was pitching her body, but i was sober enough to keep my focus. if there were pigs, as i had been told there were, she was the breed that nagged. i ignored her and she finally went away. i played pool and drank. some time later she was back. she had made herself more attractive. she was now talking with a real asshole, a brother i did not get along with.
    i requisitioned or appropriated but definitely snorted some coke from the refrigerator and got the idea to go looking to nail her. i would find her. i would take her. i was her first choice. i was blind drunk. the allegation later was that my cock went through a door. she was on the other guy. he looked to see my hard-on. she turned to look. it was me, the one she no longer wanted. the guy could not move fast enough and i got away.
    the next day, he wasn’t taking it as well as most would have, but this brother and i had never gotten along. he was a forceful jersey kid who boasted two things, himself, and himself, louder. i had disrespected him and he was a brother. i was a mere boarder and pledge. the house treasurer was okay about it. he and a few other brothers were amused, knew what a shit this brother was. others just said i was a primitive. the treasurer also said i would have to pay for the door my cock had split open. i did not remember doing anything, so it was hard to find money for the door. most of what i had was tied up in the refrigerator. i was not going to stop my war on the war on drugs just because of some fickle cunt. next night, the asshole was running the halls, poking his dick through the doorways, asking guys to sniff the asshole on his cock. you could smell her at ten feet.
    i lived in a fraternity. i’m not into organized group activities, but i pledged because i wanted to prolong what i was experiencing while living there as a boarder. as it turned out, i became a brother and then quit school. i never lived there as a brother. when i returned to school six months later, i avoided my own house because i wanted to get some credits and stay out of jail.
    it had all started near the end of one summer when i needed a place to live for september. i rented a room in this house because it was prominent. it sat high on a hill and had a pulse. i had been drinking at this house since freshman year and had heard some of the best live bands there, guys who played showcase gigs at cbgb and refused to be fucked over by labels. two of these bands played their very first gigs in this basement. the house had more parties than any other fraternity on campus. they were also bigger and louder, when desired. as an outsider, i got drunk and high but did not know the effects of living there, the allure of everyday decadence and its price.
    there were a few other boarders, all of us outsiders inside the big house, but we got to know the brothers and many of us pledged. it seemed logical. we were at home.
    the college president and his administration, the various boards of higher education, as well as most members of the greek system did not like our house. nothing good came from our house. they wanted us out. we were illegitimates, posing at students. when some big magazine chose the respected but dull university the number one party school in the country, it was bad press for the president and good press for us: our basement was the epicenter. of course, this good press shattered our exile, evaporated the last of their tolerance and complacence. we were ugly and we were in the open. partying in general was on the president’s agenda, but we had undercover agents and lawyers devoted to us. partying is a vague and very inclusive word, but at our house it wasn’t.
    a sorority which had not heard the story of our gang rape the year before asked for a “social” and ventured over. the girls left inside 20 minutes, wrote us a letter on 100% cotton stationery to complain about our noxious charisma, how they had expected to be treated like women, ladies, humans, not cursed as crustaceans. they expected an apology for our not providing the type of penis they were shopping for. we offered no apology. we couldn’t remember who they were.
    i pledged because i’d become friends with a few of the guys and life as a brother would be better than life as a boarder. i didn’t know that by the time I’d become a brother i’d be opening letters from the college of arts and sciences, informing me i’d pissed away two grade points. life as a pledge had been more difficult than life as a boarder. you were supposed to be included, feel a part of something, but i didn’t. the brothers saw this too. they almost booted me twice during pledging and hazed me and one other guy with extra intensity. i had a problem with the frat shit of frat. i had come to the house for the chemicals, not the camaraderie. i had a problem that was innate and not specific or intentional and it made me look like i couldn’t or wouldn’t stay inside my caste.
    the brother behind the door i broke down, he headed the gang who wanted me out. we never got along or spoke before or after that night. my presence made him sick. this was acceptable, but unfortunately he was a junior with status and he was into authority. this is the true reason i went through his door. our dislike was a visceral and instant, an inextinguishable agitation. he caught up with me on the door a few days later, took me to the floor from behind when i could hardly stand. he tore out a piece if my scalp. aside from him, nobody gave a damn about the door. that said a lot. shit happened. funny shit. the treasurer was not negative, just asked for the money for a semester. i know that the brother considered me irresponsible, a slob, a chronic and amateur drunk, a faggot because i played trumpet and guitar, and worse, i was a strain of psychotic he suspected was a danger to his existence. i considered him soulless and from new jersey. his views were outvoted after i recited the history of ancient greece, provided lee iacocca’s eyeglass prescription, and correctly guessed the volume of the shit in alan shepard’s space suit. i was also required to nail two girls in a shopping cart on the streets of boston. i was allowed to stay, but my commitment remained in doubt.
    a chapter in new york city sent its pledges our way for some indoctrination and abuse its brothers were unable to deliver. we were also one of mit’s challenges, though to those fucks we were more spectacle than mentors. we did not make any efforts with them. despair spreads like fleas and they split at the sight of blood. they drove back to houses which respected the ideals of brotherhood, of truth, temperance, tolerance, connections, unity, study, community service and pine sol. our noise and odor threatened the legitimacy of the greek system, no place more than at the respected but dull university. we had an active and large greek system with a long history at the university and we were bringing it down. our house got the headlines, all of them in the police beat, but mostly our problem was word of mouth, people telling the truth. when the university president alluded to troubles, he was pointing to our degeneracy. when he proposed a dry campus, which he one day would achieve, he had his hands around our tap. that president died before he ever saw a university without greeks, but a greek system looking over its shoulder every night was satisfactory. anyhow, he tried. nobody could mind his own business. it was our tuition money and health, yet our brown shingled mansion was watched and eventually infiltrated. we knew about the undercover cops immediately. we were an irish house and we had friends, fans, customers on the police department. cops tipped us off to the cops. we were aware, if not alert. these spies were agents of the war on cocaine, the war on meisterbrau, the war on consensual underaged sex, the war for morality, the war on prostitution, the war on groundbreaking music, the war on dirty socks and cheese omelets, the war on horse dung, the war on our war on their obscene expectation that their needed to be a war. we were under surveillance by agents who dreamt of a campus where you could only find a beer in the police evidence locker.
    while the president plotted against alcohol and sex, we got fucked, certain that a dry campus was his fantasy. beer was more american than any law addressing it. the school was fine the way it was, as long as you were fucked up enough not to notice how dull and stifling it was. our ways were proven. our alumni wrote for the times and globe, cnn, flew into space, found the titanic, headed gigantic corporations. the agents did not see or appreciate the role of beer in learning, it’s place in the history of the exceptional. there was jealousy and hypocrisy behind the zeal with which the agents influenced and executed the ideas of the state, which said the elimination of beer would save the town and attract parents who could pay the sickeningly rising tuitions. in essence, a sterilization was underway and it started with our basement. i got out of the house the year before i left for a California university, where i surfed sober instead of pissing proteins. i was back and to work, out of the plastic factory and at a marine supply store. it should have been my junior year, but i was looking at two more years. this fact kept me sober and away from the house. i was uncomfortable there. dry, it seemed more like a bus station. i spent more time on the waves and more time reading books. i went to classes, not to parties. i had studied my lack of self-restraint and learned that i was one of the weakest guys i had ever known. I realized I was an alcoholic.
    i remember some of the girls. i wasn’t indiscriminate, but the brothers decided to call me “pigger” after seeing me with a few girls they wouldn’t admit to having fucked. if you were seen with one of these girls, you were a pigger. if you were not seen with one of them, the next morning you were bragging in the shower about an exploit. to me, they were essential girls to whom i did not have to lie, impress, convince. i did not have to work. lies, dumb conversation was too much to go through. talk was not a stage of familiarization. it was spontaneous. it was chemistry. these girls would have fucked other guys that night, just as i would have fucked other girls. our air was interchangeability. there were combinations out there. a pairing was not special, and there would be no life beyond the physical duration, but it was not all thoughtless and mechanized either. neither would fuck just anybody. we knew the somebody. we were familiar. most of the girls i brought to my room had better characters than i had. some had class. they knew what they were doing in bed. they came out of their clothes as beautifully as a new girlfriend. new is not superficial. it was very affecting. less deeply, more madly. by noon the next day you had reassured yourself that it had been just sex. it was just sex because it appeared painless. you felt intact, undamaged by the encounter. you were strong. this is how i felt, what i thought, and went with. i think now that i may have overlooked some of them. i doubted nights of vulnerability, sacrifice, openness. it was in the words before the word was in my cock. they were not lies. i did not conceal myself or my absence. love was not a bargaining tool. these moments were tuned for a kid who was shy and rough, an unsure kid who liked things silently in the open. i did not consider myself charming. i was honest and careless. my whores were not deluded or tyrannical. they were not sluts or cunts. they gave with equal honesty and carelessness. my girls gave themselves away to the one they were with, fully, carelessly, maybe foolishly. from beginning to end, they were romantics.
    i kept my actual girlfriends away from the whores and also from the brothers. they were too lady-like to bring into that den. the brothers would have pounced and had a whore connected me to a girlfriend, their jealousy would have left me with nothing. lizzy, heather, liz, susan. these girls were beautiful and they were normal. only once did one of them enter that house and that was during thanksgiving break, liz. she didn’t like it. she is a doctor now in Chicago (OBGYN). three of these girls were bitches from rich families who i endured for the sex, one for sex and conversation. these girls were kept ignorant of the whores because they would have dumped me. either that or they would have cut me off and wanted to talk about them. the one-nighter whores might have been jealous of the girlfriends and the other whores. some whores knew of the other whores and at least suspected there was a more serious pussy out there. it was silent. understandings. those absences. they had their own secrets, like cindy, who i’ll get to soon.. i was honest when i said there was no main pussy, no the pussy. anyhow, these whores were not whores, they were “real whores” and when a real whore gets jealous it makes you sadder, it does not make you duck. real whores spoil you. a serious girlfriend, heather was a sweet girl, but a little dull. she was from anaheim. a music major, drums. she exploded into tears when i dumped her. it was over the phone. she was at work, the bawling receptionist i wanted to shake off the line. i treated them all well up until the last second. there were too many last seconds to live with, but I endured the fact that i was an asshole. i would have regrets later, when I realized I had ditched more than one perfect woman.
    cindy was not a whore or a slut or a lady and she has stayed with me. cindy was a tall blonde whose face was scarred by acne. she was a punk rocker. some could not embrace her, though her laugh was big and kind. she was sharp in bed, as sensual as i have known. if i met her today i would ask her out because i now know how rare she was and maybe i would want to marry her. what did i do then? i came and passed out. i waited in the morning, faked sleep until she left. when i realized i needed a second day, i got it. but a third day was too serious. while i was out avoiding her, she brought cookies to the room. the cookies did it. i called her and that was the end. i liked her, but i did not want her coming over with cookies. she didn’t fit there, not if she was going to turn from whore to cunt, come around during the day wanting to hold my hand. a girlfriend who was a whore was a liability. i ignored her. i saw her once not long after we had hooked up. she was in the pool room with her girlfriend. there were a few of us watching the game. i felt bad, but cold enough. i watched the game. she stayed late, back from the table, uninterested in the game. she was there with a purpose, but i didn’t go over or bump into her. i never spoke to her. the guy with me didn’t know about cindy and me but he was looking at her. he wouldn’t shut up about her. her body. i remember her body, but i am remembering things i did not even know. she was not what i had thought, but when are they? i am surrounded by strangers again.
    fall semester at humboldt state i received a letter from bob, my buddy from all the way back to high school. he had joined the fraternity the semester after i’d moved out. with the letter was a newspaper clipping. the house had finally been raided by the agents. the school had shut us down and booted us off campus. the house was emptied. agents had seized a stockpile of morphine and pharmaceuticals, as well as $20,000 in cocaine and a xerox copy machine, which we had stolen from the university library one night – a most astonishing feat of stealth, muscle, magic, and balls - also accomplished with beer. bob was there when the agents descended and he said they tried to impound his motorcycle as “evidence.” they assumed it was stolen. it was parked on the side porch and bob argued that the porch did not fall under the warrant, which targeted specific things inside the house. the honda was not in-side the house, but was sitting on it and out of it and was not stolen. the morphine and coke allowed agents to do what they had been hoping to do for years: imprison young people. two brothers, one a post-graduate pharmacist and former president, went to prison. the house was shut down with no protest from our national chapter, which had owned the building since the 1930s. their lack of support was a most damning silence. we were, in their eyes, the most fucked-up assholes to live in that house in 56 years. they kept the property. the brothers moved out, lived and met off campus, banished for what would be 14 years. an underground brotherhood, a fraternity less seen, talked about, but remembered, though less and less. the university put $175,000 into the old house to make it inhabitable and then designated it the new multi-cultural center. african american groups had offices and classes there. meetings were held in the living room where we had once held our bitch sessions, showed hard-core porn, and where morrissey’s horse took a dump one homecoming weekend. maybe six years after the eviction i was back in that house as a reporter, there to interview the director of the multi-cultural program about african american history month. they had removed our greek letters from the outside, but the sun had saved them. the shingles on the front of the house were weathered and bleached a sandy color, but the letters showed a deep brown. the agents could not kill us. inside, the place was recognizable by some wall angles and the location of the main stairs. the living room looked like it could have been itself, long wood floors and a fieldstone fireplace. there were a few people meeting in there, a small class. the place was beautiful. i interviewed the director in his new office, which occupied the space of two former rooms. one of the rooms had been the room of joe morrissey, the most successful drunk in the drunkest house at the alleged no. 1 party school in the country. think about that. morrissey also had the biggest stereo anyone had ever seen outside a 1,500 seat concert hall. it took four guys to move one speaker. morrissey had quit school well before i got there. he had become an ironworker and just kept living where he had eight taps in his house. Morrissey’s mustache was red, thick, freed. hungover, he looked perturbed, like every day was the same hangover.
    one stride we had made as a house came when we accepted a black pledge, the first in half a century. but he quit.
    morrissey had been at the house when i was a freshman, trying to get into parties. he was a lax doorman and when i was underage we always hoped to find him at the door, beer and cigarette in hand, greeting and not resisting us. so there was a continuity, it was reassuring to live in the same house. despite his age, he never approached a father figure, nor a big brother. he was closer to a 32-year-old grandfather. he had bright blue eyes, thick auburn hair and a way which seemed from someplace else. i never asked where he was from. morrissey boarded a horse at a stable nearby and would bring it over to watch porn. he owned a suit which he never wore, but too often put on.
    morrissey quit lunch after 20 martinis and drove back to campus with some guys in the bed of his pick-up. he splashed onto the lawn of our neighbors, a fraternity infested with italian weightlifters and jocks who wore oxfords and short hair. under their serious clothes, arms bulged like hormonally altered cantaloupes. they were more a cloister than a house and their parties were small and infrequent socials. they hazed in winter. the pledges’ knees froze to the ground. morrissey was tearing donuts into their lawn when he lost control of his truck and hit one of the fine white pillars which supported the front of the mansion. the pillar broke loose and fell flat. the roof dropped. and those weightlifters came out like hornets. they pulled morrissey from his truck and beat him the way 20 narcissistic jocks would beat up one drunk irish guy. our guys in the back of the truck escaped and were never called cowards. the next night, after waiting to sober up, morrissey came home. looking at him made me sick. his head was purple, swollen, torn. most of his head. sober, he turned himself in to police, who had been to the house looking for him. his truck was towed and the brothers next door spent the next few months on their front lawn, buzzing about their now asymmetrical nest. the bar where morrissey had downed his martinis was a regular spot for all us teenagers, and the owner, perhaps out of fear for his own roof, had a party to help morrissey raise money to pay for the damage. it was a big party and i met a sweet blonde from virginia. her father was in charge of an aircraft carrier. she came home with me and while she was riding my cock i noticed the human forms above leaning into the skylight. i gave them two thumbs up and they went away. i went out with her for two months. she had too much humility and never complained about me. it got dull. for the remainder of the semester, people coming in the main entrance to the university gawked at the fallen pillar.
    we had a student from cal-state northridge come out first semester. graham was a member of the cal-state northridge chapter. we called him grimace because he smiled so quick that he really never could stop smiling. he even smiled in his sleep, drunk and covered in shaving cream. a very laid back guy and one of the nicest in the house, though too goofy to confide in. he was constantly baited and always fooled. he believed everything. he smiled at everything. i guess he was insane, but this never occurred to us. he had come east with some personal goals. he wanted to ride a bicycle across rhode island so he could say he had ridden a bike across a state. which he did, a 40-mile-wide grin. he was stopped by state troopers for riding on i-95, but they let him go when he explained what he was doing. the grimace. his other goal was snow. he wanted to see snow. he had never seen snow. he never shut up asking when the snow would come. he started in september, when flowers were still in bloom. he wanted to know when and how much snow he would get to see. he waved about his farmer’s almanac and asked us to confirm snowfall statistics. we couldn’t recall the previous year’s snowfall, so we made up shit to calm his nerves. he believed us. after three months of his escalating anticipation, a decent storm hit, maybe 6 inches of packable powder. grimace ran out onto the front lawn. he danced in circles with his palms up, grinning with flakes in his hair. those of us watching could not stand his euphoria. we didn’t think he was getting a complete education on the subject. he would be escaping west just as the new england winter got blowing. he would be back in southern california, telling his brothers that snow was not that bad, that it was actually fun and very beautiful. that would be in three weeks. three weeks of winter was not very long. we contemplated his palm trees and came up with tough love. somebody found some rope. we moved off the porch to join grimace in his snow dance, which he was performing before a jam of cars leaving the university. we surrounded him. three of us tackled him and another tied his hands behind him. he would have put up a fight if he had known. we dragged him to a telephone pole, bound him to it with circles of rope. the rope was tight around his middle. he laughed, looked worried, smiled. he misjudged our severity. he was facing the commuters. he had on his usual, a thin, short-sleeved shirt, with no t-shirt. hairy chest. you want snow? this is snow. it fell and accumulated in his black hair and went down his shirt while we pelted his body and legs and head with snowballs. tears came out of his face. he was a sensitive guy, grimace, and while he whimpered, passersby looked over at the execution in horror. of course, no one got out of his car to help grimace. it was just a fraternity joke. we left him out there and went inside to drink. occasionally someone would open the front door to see if he was still tied to the pole, upright and moving. he was. but he was hanging lower each time we checked. less moving grimace, more white ice. hundreds of students inched past in stop-and-go traffic gawking at grimace hanging from the telephone pole. they were coming and going and i guess didn’t know how long he had been like this. i guess it occurred to none of them that grimace was resembling the crucifixion. eventually, death occurred to some of us and we went out and took him down. he had to let us help him walk in. grimace was not smiling. we had performed a miracle. we had changed a man. we had taught him. snow is hate.
    fourteen years after the bust, the national chapter had finally persuaded the respected but dull university to give our house a second chance. this was accomplished with money and rhetoric. the criminals and degenerates were long gone (now movers in the fortune 500 or dead). it was a new generation of young men now and they should not be associated with the decadents who were in the house when they were in kindergarten. there would be a new fraternity, one with morals and polished floors, a higher g.p.a. and positive participation within the greek system and university community. the return was inevitable, if not promised. the university relented after a few “donations” and allowed our heirs to re-occupy the beautiful mansion. the national chapter had agreed to pay for the restoration the school had made, which by then was near a quarter-million dollars. i thought that pretty loyal of them and wondered why we had not been thrown some cash for carpets when I lived there. anyhow, the national chapter could do this because it was rich. it was rich because alumni gave money. alumni gave money because they were successful and looked fondly upon their time spent drinking beer.
    on their first night back in the house, the young brothers threw a huge celebration party. they knew the history of their ancestors, knew why they had been marooned down the line and were hostile. they understood the reasons behind the punishment and saw that the punishment had exceeded the crimes. That night, the young brothers walked around the house pouring gasoline out of cans. satisfied with the stench, a match was lit and the fire department invited. agents rushed to the scene. what the fuck? but there was no “what the fuck?” it was revenge. backed by every law enforcement agency in the state, as well as the fire marshal’s conclusion that it was arson, the office of university affairs pointed to the charred and smoldering acre and said, once again, out. this time the national chapter agreed to sell the property to the university. the frat surrendered its hill. it was all over. some quiet administrative and accounting people moved in and have only been disturbed by an occasional copy of penthouse, addressed to some long lost asshole who is in the world now, scaring up a living, same positions, same orders, same goals.

evil

like cream in coffee,
evil explodes into a
mushroom cloud and spreads

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc& hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed.

Words

    After the youngest Segreti child entered first grade, it became painfully evident that someone in the faculty should have intervened with all the siblings sooner. To be fair, at first the teachers did repeatedly exchange feelings of remorse and responsibility because the problems seemed to begin at their little parochial school, one that prided itself on a love for the whole child, meaning of course, not just academics. Yet children’s difficulties rarely begin in school. Usually they start at home.
    The oldest Segreti child, named Marco, was tall, rugged, athletic, and smart. He stood out because of all these qualities, but over and above every positive attribute, he was unusually tenderhearted. Marco might be found on the playground helping a younger student in a game or thoughtfully inserting his large frame between squabbling children to calm things down if the adults were busy. That kindness showed up too with his smile. Everyone was drawn to that smile and would be his whole life.
    However, there was a gloomy reason Marco stood out. He stuttered so badly that his teachers never made him speak or read aloud in class, and they would quietly come to his desk if he raised his hand with a question. They also whispered to each other about what to do. After all, he had been in speech therapy for some time, but the teachers sadly agreed there really hadn’t been any progress. Troubled, they asked their new principal, the Mother Superior of the convent next door, to speak with Marco and make some suggestions. Marco’s bumbling syllables, eye blinks, and words that were trapped in his throat were pitiful. Five minutes after entering her office, Marco made a final effort to talk, using his fist to pound a table to get a sentence out, but his facial muscles contorted into a grimace. Heartbreakingly alarmed, Sister went immediately to the Bishop for advice, but all he could offer was that he once knew a priest who stuttered but that fellow had gone into a silent monastery.
    “Perhaps,” he surmised, “There was some occupation God would lead Marco to that required little talking.”
    Mother Superior frowned and made a mental memo to research stuttering further. But as the days were full of other timely tasks, soon the seriousness of Marco’s difficult speech patterns faded. The teachers, waited patiently for some helpful word, but they too had many responsibilities.
    A few weeks went by.
    Two years younger and in fourth grade, the second Segreti child, a girl named Mara, was just as beautiful as Marco was handsome, and at first glance she seemed flawless. She obtained high grades, spoke confidently when giving presentations, and had a lovely group of friends. Everyone had espoused her quiet gracefulness.
    But then, within the same school year that her older brother’s speech was seemingly getting worse, her good student skills seemed to shatter. Mara became unable to comprehend much of the required literature and began failing reading tests, even though she claimed she studied “really hard” with her mother, who happened to be the head of the linguistics department at a nearby university. Mara’s daily writing assignments often came back with red marks all over them with consequential grades that scared her silly. Never before had she received anything other than A’s and B’s. One day she sobbed and ran out of the room during a grammar lesson when she received a paper back with a D. Her parents were called for a conference immediately, but they could only express complete bewilderment.
    “Last year she was getting all A’s!” her mother exclaimed. “We just don’t understand.”
    Neither did the teacher.
    Then the youngest Segreti child, Mario, entered the school after having been in a combination preschool-kindergarten closer to home. At 6, he was blond, plump and about as cute as any child in first grade could be. His picture had even been used for a poster ad that hung in an exclusive photographer’s studio a few blocks away.
    But Mario barely spoke, at least in class, and when he did he was almost impossible to understand. His vocabulary and sentences were all mixed up and the sounds he made for each utterance seemed to be stuck together. His teacher couldn’t decipher what he was saying, and although his kinder classmates tried, ultimately they gave up and often just walked away, leaving Mario to eat or play alone. In class, his reading, writing and math were as mixed up as his speech. Pulling his flaxen curls with his head bowed, he sadly sat at his desk all day with workbook pages full of teary splatters. As the second month of school wore on, he began to weep almost continually.
    By the end of October, there were two Segreti children crying at school.
    Then, a Segreti sibling disaster seemed eminent when Marco attempted to ask his teacher for permission to go to the office for some over-the-counter cold medication. With a tense jaw and quivering lips, he just could not get one syllable out. Tears swelled up and a drop ran down his cheek, but he tried stoically to hold himself together as he simply walked out of the classroom to the office. The nanny picked him up early that day.
    The oldest and kindest Segreti child had now cried at school.
    The teachers were overwhelmed with apprehension and guilt. Those who had the Segreti children in their classes had separately all tried to communicate with the parents about the seriousness of each child’s problem, but seemingly to no avail. During lunch breaks, in the teacher’s room and after school, they had confided among themselves about the children and their parents. It was baffling to them that parents who voiced their own concerns when these problems were called to their attention, then wrote lovely letters to thank every educator for the individual attention given to each child, made sure the all homework was completed, not to mention could afford just about any help available, had done very little other than claiming to take Marco to speech therapy which, as was already pointed out, had not really helped change his speech patterns.
    Then not one week after Marco went home early, Mario’s teacher, who was on recess duty, overheard Marco and Mara discussing that on Friday the family was leaving for their seaside condo for a couple of weeks so they could have a long Thanksgiving vacation. Finally the teachers came to the realization that the parents were not going to do anything even though the children were all failing and needed serious interventions. Taking them out of school now would only further jeopardize their education. The teachers had waited long enough for their principal to do something. Everyone went together to have a conference with Mother Superior.
    The meeting was disturbingly interesting. Everyone who ever had any contact with a Segreti was present. All of the children’s records were pulled and gone through. For one thing, it was discovered that it had been recommended that Mario not even start school when he did. The retired kindergarten teacher who screened him had left a note stipulating that he badly needed a full evaluation of his speech and learning skills before he ever started school. That had never been done, but he had started kindergarten anyway, somewhere else. Mara started school a year early because her parents asserted she was so bright, but that same kindergarten teacher had recommended to Mr. and Mrs. Segreti that they should wait a year because Mara was so “clingy” with her mother, a sure sign of immaturity, not to mention her babyish speech patterns. Nonetheless, she was enrolled at age 4. Marco, now in sixth grade, had always stuttered and he was routinely recommended for pediatric speech therapy since Kindergarten, but, according to the records, he had only gone to the hospital’s rehabilitation department which provided services for adults who had strokes or head trauma injuries.
    “Hmmm,” speculated Marco’s teacher. “My father was there when he had a brain tumor. I never saw any children when I visited. That certainly couldn’t be a place for a sensitive boy like Marco.”
    Notes in the cumulative files of the children made by teachers who had gone on to teach elsewhere, pointed to all the difficulties of the Segreti children, attempts to talk with the parents, and the inevitable results that nothing had been done. The annotations also punctuated the peculiarity that all of the children had problems with some form of language, either oral or written and, for Mario, both. Marco stuttered, Mara was below grade level in language arts, and no one could understand Mario, even if he decided to talk, let alone that he was unable to do any of his class work.
    There were no apparent signs of similar communication problems in the parents, as might be suspected. On the contrary, both had seemingly made great use of their fine verbal and written skills in their respective professions. Mr. Segreti was a highly respected family law attorney, noted for his clever questioning tactics during heated divorce proceedings and well crafted but demanding briefs. The mother, with Ph.D. in Linguistics, who always introduced herself as Dr. Segreti, was poetically lovely, effusive, and certainly verbally clever.
    The principal agreed with her teachers that something had to be done immediately so, with several pairs of eyes watching, and the speaker phone switched on, she called the Segreti children’s mother.
    The secretary answered the phone. “I’m sorry, Sister, but Dr. Segreti is not taking calls right now. She is leading a very important discussion. I will take a message and have her call you back, although it may be at the end of the day.”
    This kind of response was what Sister had anticipated, so she replied, “Well, tell her it’s an urgent call about her children.” She hung up and waited maybe two minutes.
    “What is the emergency? Did you call 911?” Dr. Segreti did sound concerned.
    “I explained to your secretary that my call was urgent, not an emergency, but there clearly are speech, learning and psychological crises with all of your children.” The principal took a breath to calm herself so she might sound more understanding than she felt. “I am sorry about my earlier message, however I do need for you to understand. I have gone through all of your children’s cum files and have spoken to their teachers. It seems that despite poor grades and crying at school, which you and your husband have been repeatedly advised of, you are taking the children out of school on a vacation. How can Mara and Mario make up this much lost class time with their current grades? And Marco’s stuttering has made it impossible for him to speak in class, especially now that an oral report is due.”
    One teacher, remembering her own struggles with stuttering, looked away and sighed. Another who had problems learning to read as a child just glared at the phone. The others sat in rapt attention. This should have happened much sooner.
    The mother was apologetic but blamed her husband who claimed he had to “get away”. “Really,” she stated matter-of-factly, “I think the children need a break too.”
    “Not for two weeks when Christmas vacation is coming shortly. Surely that will be time enough to rest.” Sister replied.
    “You will have to call my husband as he is resolute. Sometimes I don’t know how to respond to him when he makes up his mind. Anyway, the children have expressed their excitement so we can hardly tell them anything different now.”
    Sister sighed but moved forward. “Have you done anything about getting help for your children? I think you met several weeks ago with the teachers but they tell me they haven’t heard a thing.”
    There was a hushed pause. “Well, my husband and I have discussed it.”
    “Have you spoken with any of the contacts on the lists the teachers provided?”
    “Oh I am talking to staff and students continually. You know the day just flies by and all of a sudden its 5:00 and I haven’t had one moment to even make a personal call.”
    This last sentence required Sister to take another deep breath then clear her throat but her voice grew sterner. “Well, perhaps you should make time because your children can not go on without help.”
    Everyone in the room held their breath.
    There was a long silence and finally the mother said, “Are you suggesting that they will not move to the next grade?” Dr. Segreti was now sounding a bit anxious.
    “I am really more than suggesting it.”
    Again there was a long silence. “I will confer with my husband,” she said. “You will excuse me as I must preside over student debates.” There was a click and Dr. Segreti hung up.
    The teachers looked at each other and then left, some with murmurs of “I told you so” floating among them. Now they were all disgusted.
    Within a half an hour, Mr. Segreti called, using his best legal tone. “Well, Sister, my wife tells me you have qualms about our children going on a much needed vacation?”
    Sister perceived his bluffing, topic manipulation and controlled voicing, so, all she answered was, “That is what prompted me to call, but that is not the real problem. Your children need immediate help.”
    Just like talking to the mother, there was a long silence. “Hmmmm. Well, I will have to speak to my wife. You know she is really the one who has the final say about the children’s education.”
    Sister was becoming irritated. “Funny, but she said she would have to talk to you and as I called her first and then you called me, I would guess that you two had just spoken.”
    The couple’s long silences were fascinatingly frequent. Finally he said a bit more coolly, “We will have to do more than have a brief phone chat, Sister. While we are on vacation, we will have a detailed dialogue about the children’s difficulties and respond to you when we get back.”
    Any possible resolution would at best be put out a few weeks, particularly with Christmas vacation, so Sister replied with firm calmness, “Mr. Segreti, that will not do. I expect an answer by tomorrow.”
    “This is ridiculous! I will not be given an ultimatum.” His volume increased indignantly louder as he switched subjects. “I make regular contributions to your school, my wife volunteers in the classrooms and we pay full tuition for three children.”
    “I would think that a better use for money and time would be help for your children’s problems,” she stately flatly. “I will expect an answer tomorrow.”
    But, not unexpectedly, the children were withdrawn from the school the next day.
    The Segretis went to their condo. During the next two weeks, the mother contacted several schools in other parishes, but all were full. “Perhaps,” Mr. Segreti speculated to his wife, “Sister had already called them, even though,” he added, “The middle of the year was a ridiculous time to try to find a suitable school.” Righteously angry, he vowed he would speak to the Bishop.
    Mr. Segreti did make an appointment to verbalize his concerns to the Bishop who listened intently and then expressed outrage that such a thing should have occurred within his community of souls. Once Mr. Segreti had sued a contractor for the church over a poorly installed leaking roof and did so graciously, never asking for compensation. Of course, the Bishop never mentioned that Mr. Segreti had also never paid his ex-wife any alimony when he divorced her before marrying his current wife. That first marriage had been quickly annulled which could have been suspect, except that the Bishop had the matter silenced. These were personal issues, not for parishioner gossip.
    “I will personally speak to Sister.” The Bishop announced indignantly. But time passed and he never did talk to her knowing full well nothing he said would influence her.
    Mr. Segreti was pleased he had made his point about “the true mission of Catholic education to love every child”.
    Finally one prestigious private, but nonsectarian, school was found with the appropriate openings about thirty miles away. Mr. Segreti thought that this was a godsend since it was not part of the family of schools which regularly contacted each other. Anyway, Mr. Segreti had pressing legal briefs to write, clients who had been calling constantly, and a newly hired legal secretary who needed instruction. So, once the children were in school again, his righteous anger and parental responsibilities faded. Dr. Segreti remained concerned, but she had been away from the Linguistics Department far too long, and did not want to discuss the issues again with a husband who only bellowed. Besides, now the children were in a more expensive and difficult to get into school, something she could just lightly bring up with the other lawyers’ wives during cocktail chats at the club, or perhaps even with certain faculty at university coffee meetings. Anyway she missed lecturing where she would often use favorite quotes such as, “Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.” (Rita Mae Brown, Starting From Scratch, 1988)
    Once the children realized they were going to change schools, they expressed their negative feelings intensely, but briefly. Mario cried, Mara yelled at her mother and Marco was driven to utter speechlessness. They did not want to leave their friends, did not want to be in the car with the nanny the forty-five minutes it would take to drive to the new school, and they did not want new teachers. When Mara, who was the most persistent and would speak up for the siblings when necessary, complained for the third time to her father, he was reading a legal file, looked up momentarily, but only asked her to repeat what she said. She stopped talking to him. Both parents sighed, patted their children and then bought them new cell phones. The siblings gave up.
    However, the new school was beautiful and the entire staff made every effort to help the children learn about their teachers and classmates. Children’s records were routinely requested from previous schools, but since the Segretis did not happen to sign the exchange of information form for the previous school, they would not be retrieved.
    Almost a month went by. Christmas vacation loomed.
    Marco was stoically silent at home, but his stuttering increased incredibly at school. When he raised his hand or looked confused, his new teachers began coming to his desk so he wouldn’t have to speak in front of the other students.
    Mara seemed to be responding well, again making straight A’s, although one teacher had noticed that some of her returned work didn’t quite look like Mara’s class handwriting. When he approached Dr. Segreti about this, Mara started handing in homework completed on a computer. During this same conversation, Dr. Segreti saw the piano in the classroom and suggested he might like to earn extra money by giving the children private lessons. The teacher liked the Segretis, was barely getting by on a private school salary, had his own child on the way, and so forgot about his suspicions. Besides, he wished all parents would encourage their children to use a computer as typed papers were certainly easier to read.
    Mario had stopped talking completely. His young, kind and quiet spoken teacher had not yet talked to the Segretis, attributing Mario’s lack of speech to extreme shyness, even though educationally he was already more than lost. After all, she hardly knew Mario that well yet, so it was really best to give him plenty of time to adjust. Maybe after vacation she would speak with his parents.
    The children’s educational lives might have continued in this fashion, except that Mario finally talked.
    One day Mario came to school with a large chunk of hair missing from the top of his head. No one saw it at first because he always wore a cap, but when the time came for the morning flag salute, he didn’t take it off, so of course his teacher, who happened to be standing next to him in the front of the class, just reached over and removed it. When she saw the huge bald spot, she quickly put it back on, but after the flag salute, she had her aide take over the class and called Mario outside.
    “Mario, I couldn’t help but notice you have some hair missing. What happened?”
    Mario looked up at her with his big eyes brimming with tears. He shrugged.
    The teacher had quickly become accustomed to Mario shrugging, but this was not a language arts lesson. “Did something or someone pull out your hair?” A couple of years ago she had seen another child’s bald spot but that mother had sent a note explaining that her children were playing hide and seek on a rainy day in the house and that her child’s hair had gotten caught in a door, an accident the happy pupil made great use of during sharing time. Mario’s bald spot was much bigger, but children did have all sorts of funny accidents.
    Mario continued to cry without uttering a sound. Frustrated, the teacher let him go back to class with this hat on, but at lunch she called his mother who was out of the office so the teacher left a voice mail message. “Dr. Segreti, Mario has a large bald spot on his head and when I questioned him he just cried.”
    When Mario’s mother called back at the end of the day, she sounded untroubled. “Well, you know how Mario is,” his mother said mater-of-factly. “He cries at the drop of a hat, no pun intended.”
    The teacher was momentarily surprised at the mother’s response, but then believing some embarrassing but humorous family happening precipitated Mario’s accident, she simply asked Dr. Segreti for an explanation. After all, things do happen and Mario had several cousins around his own age.
    But Mario’s mother seemed to not know. “We had lots of children here over the weekend,” she said. “Last Saturday was Mario’s cousin’s birthday and the children were running through the house. Doors were being slammed and there was a lot of confusion. In fact, when my husband came home from meeting new clients, he yelled to the children to stop but when they didn’t, he went downstairs to break up the havoc. Mario came upstairs several minutes later with the balled spot and he couldn’t say where it came from, so I’m afraid I just really can’t tell you. I would guess he just didn’t want to snitch on his cousin. It’s cute how they like to keep secrets from us adults.” She giggled, a little too nervously the teacher thought, but Dr. Segreti added, “I wish my husband would enjoy his children more. I mean, after all, children will be children.” She sighed and said softly with a slip of uncertainty, “Sometimes he can be so harsh.”
    The teacher felt she had to get to the bottom of the incident so before lunch recess ended, she called Mario into the room. She kneeled down to his level and looked into his eyes.
    “Well, Mario, your mom said there was a party at your house last Saturday, that you and your cousins were running around the house and that was when you lost your hair. Is that right?”
    Mario immediately looked down as a big tear drop fell on the hardwood floor. As he had before, and always did when words were needed, he shrugged.
    Now the teacher was becoming uneasy. “Mario,” she asked him directly, “Did one of your cousins accidentally do this to you?”
    He began to shake as drops of tears fell faster to the floor.
    The teacher’s apprehension grew. “Mario,” she continued quietly, “I want to help you. Who did this?”
    Still, he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, speak. “Can you draw me a picture of what happened?” Mario, she had noticed, was a gifted artist. He nodded his head.
    The teacher gathered paper and crayons. Mario began to draw. At first he only drew several children, his cousins the teacher reasoned. Then in the last picture, he drew his father. She knew it was his father because of the beard, necktie and suit. His father was holding him by his hair off the ground, his face drawn menacingly mean. The teacher was briefly reminded of monster movies. She almost held her breath as she asked, “Did your father pull your hair out?”
    He looked up into her eyes, his wet face knotted in terror, but this time he spoke what was for Mario three clear full sentences, “Pull me upstairs. Hair came out. Please, don’t tell.” Then he collapsed onto the table, pulling his shirt over his head and knocking off the cap.
    The teacher felt like she had been punched, the full force of what Mario revealed was far beyond what she had anticipated. She knew the seriousness. For Mario to even say one sentence was far beyond what she had ever heard him say. What he revealed was far beyond what she had imagined. To turn Mr. Segreti into the authorities was far beyond what she had ever done as a teacher. However, all of this didn’t matter. A child was at stake, perhaps more than one.
    The teacher went immediately to the principal after school but she was in a meeting so the teacher paced, tearing apart any resultant scenarios from what she had to reveal. What if the police went to the Segreti home? What if the esteemed lawyer was charged? What if the principal did not believe the episode happened or wouldn’t stand behind her? How would Dr. Segreti react? Each question threw her further into anguished anxiety.
    When the meeting was over and the office door opened, the harried teacher rushed past the parents and the principal who was escorting them out, and almost fell into an armchair next to the principal’s desk. She looked around the room. The office reflected the principal’s personal preferences- a framed print of a famous watercolor, a crystal vase with flowers, a tidy bookshelf with a couple of classics. There was nothing that identified this office as belonging to the principal of a school. The teacher began to wonder if she should even be there. Maybe she should have talked to another teacher first.
    The principal came back, sliding softly into her chair by a large bay window, her face reflective of her happy meeting with the parents who just left, a couple of local doctors who gave generously to the school.“Well, I see you have something important to tell me,” she said still smiling brightly.
    The teacher looked directly into the principal’s eyes. “Yes,” she stated, “I need to talk to you about Mario Segreti and what he told me today.”
    “Hmm, well he doesn’t say much, so I hope it was long and interesting,” was her cynically humorous response. The teacher flinched but continued.
    “He told me that his father pulled out his hair when he dragged him up some stairs at home during a birthday party for one of the cousins.”
    “Did he really say all of that?” She was already clouding the real issue.
    “Well, he only said three sentences, but he drew pictures to tell me the story. It was devastating.”
    For a moment, the principal’s face did not change, then a shadow seemed to form around tightening lips and she looked away. “Only three sentences? Hardly much of a narrative. Just what do you expect from me?” she asked.
    Not altogether surprised, although angered, the teacher answered, “Why, your support and help. I have to turn this father in to Child Protective Services, of course.” Then the teacher told her the whole story.
    “I really don’t see how you can turn Mr. Segreti in,” the principal replied slowly, and turned to look out of the window. “After all, Mario hardly speaks. How can you really be sure what he meant. A child can draw anything, especially with encouragement.”
    The teacher’s face grew crimson as her anger surfaced with this accusation. “When a teacher gets a credential, it is directly stated that any even suspected abuse must be turned in to the authorities. It is anonymous, but must be done. That is the law.” She stared straight at the principal.
    “Well Mario’s father is a lawyer, so I would assume he knows this, but I see that you know what to do too, however I would talk to the Segretis first.”
    “I told you, I spoke with Dr. Segreti and nothing came of it. And, if I am the one who is to turn this in, I want it to be anonymous.”
    “I don’t see how it can be now. You were the one who Mario talked to and then you called his mother”
    The teacher hadn’t thought of this, but she was resolved. “Are you going to back me or not?”
    “I support all of my teachers. You know that. Keep in mind the Segretis have contributed heavily to this school.” She turned away and began picking up papers. “I have to go to a meeting now, so let me know how this turns out.”
    The teacher went home to an empty house. Her husband was gone on a business trip and she hadn’t been able to talk to anyone other than the principal. The teacher had only five years experience and most all of her encounters with parents and children had been happy ones, but that night she could barely sleep, tossing and turning with horrific dreams of scared and sorrowful children left to fend for themselves. She legally had only 24 hours from Mario’s confession to turn it over to child protective services. Absolutely exhausted when daylight entered her room, she was nonetheless resolved.
    At recess the teacher called the authorities. She explained that Mario did not speak very well, and that some of what he tried to explain was in the form of pictures or just crying. “Hmmmm,” was all he woman who took the call said at first, but then added that a worker would be at the school to talk with Mario after lunch. All reported cases had to be investigated. The teacher was worried.
    The CPS worker was a nice older man who came to the classroom at 12:30 to first look at the pictures before trying to talk to Mario. All he said too was, “Hmmmm.” The teacher’s worry increased.
    Mario went willingly with the nice man to the principal’s office as she just happened to be taking the day off. They sat there for some time with Mario merely nodding and avoiding any eye gaze. He did not utter one syllable but tears continually fell. He never raised his head, his bald spot a little pink from playing outside without his cap.
    After an hour, the CPS worker gave up. Without enough words, Mario couldn’t tell the man anything, he explained. Without a description and with no other adult to verify what happened, nothing could be done. Mario’s language, thoughts and feelings seemed to be floating around in his head, all mixed up, surfacing only by crying. The CPS worker took him back to his class. He told the teacher that children can make up things but that they also get stuck in situations that they won’t talk about. He couldn’t know which was true for Mario. He doubted if even Mario really knew. In any case, Mario just couldn’t say. Therefore, the nice man said, there was nothing that could be done.
    The following week, Mr. Segreti told the principal that after Easter he was moving the children to another school. This one had proven to be too far away, even though it was wonderful, he assured her. Anyway, Marco was starting high school soon so he would be driving himself and the fine lawyer did not want him driving that far. Plus, if they were to move now, it would give Marco time to make new friends, not very easy with his stuttering problem. And, he added, Dr. Segreti wanted a better English program for Mara, who they felt was headed for law school one day. She also felt that Mario needed a more experienced teacher, particularly since Mario wasn’t doing at all well in his studies. Younger teachers had not yet had enough experience to know how to approach different learners and Mario really would benefit from a seasoned teacher, one that might like to earn some extra money tutoring him after school. The Segretis had discussed all of this, he said, when the family had gone to their condo. Even the children had agreed. Mario, of course, had only smiled and nodded when he was asked, but, he was just so shy and always wanted to please the adults around him. They knew that he would have said the very same thing if he would have used words.

brewery

Just saw a school bus
drop off thirty some younglings
at a brewery.

Janet Kuypers Bio

    Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.
    She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.
    She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.
    Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).
    In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), the three collection books from 2004: Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the shutterfly ISSN# cc& hardcover art book life, in color, Post-Apocalyptic, Burn Through Me, Under the Sea (photo book), the Periodic Table of Poetry, a year long Journey, Bon Voyage!, and the mini books Part of my Pain, Let me See you Stripped, Say Nothing, Give me the News, when you Dream tonight, Rape, Sexism, Life & Death (with some Slovak poetry translations), Twitterati, and 100 Haikus, that coincided with the June 2014 release of the two poetry collection books Partial Nudity and Revealed.

Paying It Forward

    Grandparent. That is a name that is dear to my heart. Growing up, I was fortunate to have such people in my life. Whether it would be walks in the park, enjoying a day at the movies, or moving about on a farm, it’s these memories that are subtle yet so unforgettable.
    One such memory I would like to share is, well more or less, a cluster of events. These events entail how I and my grandmother would stay up at odd hours of the night. She would tell me stories of her life on a farm as a child of the Great Depression. She would also discuss amongst many things, how she and her siblings had to work hard, and how they were better people for doing so.
    She was a person who took nothing for granted and who appreciated everything she attained, whether through work itself or from the occasional acts of kindness proffered to her. She would always do her best to return the favor whenever possible. She believed in paying it forward.
    I went through a time in my life when I had very little myself. But it was because of the choices I was making. Looking back, if I hadn’t had my grandparents, such as my nana (as I affectionately call her), I might not have made the decision to want to change my life for the better. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate things as I do now.
    The point I wish to make is how we undervalue our elders. They have a lifetime of experience of wisdom that would greatly benefit our youth. They maintain that sense of connectedness that is vital in keeping the identity of our culture intact. It’s a representation, nay; it’s an attitude in choosing to see the best of ourselves and each other instead of hurting each other’s hearts.
    However, I fear that as we isolate our elders, we further sever the already fragile connection we have with each other. Our support systems will continue to weaken, and our opportunities for enhanced relationships will suffer. In the end, it will be our youth that will most surely pay. It’s not what I would call paying it forward. It’s what I would call not going forward. It is what I would call going back into the abyss.

    *Paying It Forward, Creations 2015, Ada Writers, 2015

INTERNET BONUS ARTICLE

Trumping politics cannot last
part of the 22 April 2016 edition of HA!News (see www.hamanworld.com)

    For weeks now I regularly think what it is that I want to share with you - the thinking trying to bring together the intensity of the year so far: my mother’s death, the rise of Trump in America, turning fifty, landing on Paris airport two hours after bombs exploded in Brussels airport and my first snowboarding experience. Impossible. They all simply would not fit into a coherent little essay with a central meaning.
    The thing what struck me about the rise of Donald Trump, is that the core of America’s Bible belt is now seemingly set on supporting a businessman to become the supreme political leader of the world’s (still) most powerful country. The trust in politics and political leaders has been waning over the same time as the power and status of the corporate world has been rising, sucking into its fold the best talents, leaders and minds available. Up to the point that a multi-billionaire is now more trusted (by some) to fulfill a political task than the politicians themselves.
    But can this work? In a previous newsletter, I made the point that the crisis of terrorism is ultimately a political problem, as politics simply means how we humans go about giving expression to the whole of our social lives. Economics is only a subsidiary to this, as is religion. Whenever you start to confuse a subsidiary aspect of social life with its embracing and leading core, you’re in for trouble. And you are also in for something that will not last. That is why ISIS will not last as it confuses religion with politics; that is why a plutocracy will not last as it confuses money with politics and that is also why Trump (if ever such a corporation-minded person comes to lead a country) will not last as he will most probably confuse managing a business with leading a nation (“give me any problem, I will manage it!”).
    There is another significance to Trump’s rise - which is rather personal to me - in that it shows that the last significant body of white Europeans that still prides itself in being Christian, has shifted its trust from God towards money (GW Bush was still nominally serving a religion, to Trump religion is a side-issue, ultimately used to serve his own interests). I keenly observed this development over the last two decades since white South Africa emerged from its 19th century nation-state mindset (“Christian Nationalism”) into a post-modern pluralistic reality. The established churches took a nose dive as a neo-liberal consumerist kind of Christian faith, along the American model, surged forward. If the Trump phenomenon is any indication, we might just be witnessing the last flutters of that great Christian ambition (since the rise of Catholicism in the early Middle Ages) of it being the complete political answer to the way we as humans think, live and relate (unless the unlikely Ted Cruz happens to win the US presidency!)
    My mother had such a belief. Not only in the Christian faith as addressing the whole of human life, but also the conviction that all of history consists of the roll-out of an over-arching Plan, a very specific Christian plan. The onset of human-induced global warming with its potential to destroy our life here on earth, does not fit into this plan, and this inconvenience partly explains the massive efforts coming from some conservative think-tanks (and interested corporations of course) to confuse the science on climate change. With these efforts now more and more being shown up as fraudulent and intentionally misleading, holding on to the Plan has become rather problematic, so problematic that this leading body of Christians see huge numbers of their fold rather turning their political trust towards the de facto god of our age: money.
    But Trump is not the only one on the rise. There is also the Bernie Sanders and similar other phenomena that reflects a new generation of people yearning for a restoration of a humane politics. For a great many people, power play and chauvinism is going out of fashion. The long term future does not lie with those who exploit fears, but with those who are showing up fear.
    Talking about fears, my dear mother was hailed for her strong faith, but few spoke about her intense fears. She read many a book on the “end times,” having nightmares about calamities, beloved ones going to hell, persecution and the wrath of God - all according to his Plan. But there is no grand plan. And there is no quick “managerial fix” to the challenges facing us. We can shift from living a nervous pendulum, swinging between ecstasy and anxiety, to living a more natural rhythm between enjoyment and awareness. We need not become slaves of spiritual abstractions (gods) nor material abstractions (money). We can stay within our human skins, changing our ways where we went wrong. In this way, global warming need not be our demise.
    Having said all this, now that I am half a century old and an orphan, I somehow feel I need to start honing in more on that which I have become: and artist. These messages I sent to you over the years do not quite fall within an artistic gambit. Yes, I will always be interested in the news, in history, philosophy, theology and psychology. But I do not dedicate my life to any of these disciplines. It think it is time for me to let these interests flow more and more through my creativity, in the form of poems, monologues, drawings, photography, videos and ultimately, music. My mother, who has been a great challenge to my life-orientation, the one who always prompted me to explain myself in intense and elaborate (rational) ways, has gone to rest. I realize now that Christianity is probably the most elaborate rationalization of spirituality there has ever been. There are excellent people who keep a critical dialogue going with Christians, doing a much better job than I am capable of. My life span and energies are limited. My feeling is that I should now focus more fully on those forms of expression that goes beyond (or below) the rational.
    More bombs will explode on the Old Continent, more refugees will drown. More people will be killed like flies in all the forgotten battlefields of exploited parts of our planet. More ice will melt on the poles and more deadly methane released into the atmosphere. More dollars will be spent on nuclear weapons (has Obama lost his otherwise very sane mind??), more consumer propaganda will infiltrate every corner of our lives. Me, with my gifts, along with Joke and her gifts, can better speak to all of this as creative beings (she knows this better than I do!).
    What has all this got to do with snowboarding? Nothing at all, haha. But all that falling on the soft snow of the Alps recently reminded me in a powerful way that the quality of my life from here on will certainly also be determined by how physical I am.
    It is going well with us. I would like to extend a big, heartfelt thank you to all of your messages and sharing’s, both with my mother’s passing and my fiftieth. If there is one thing that I have learnt through all these years of living a precarious and unique kind of life, it is that we are mostly human through other human beings. Ubuntu. Faith, genius, money, heaven and hell - these intensities are secondary to a beating heart and a human embrace. Every time we fly to the moon, we’ll need to come back to this: to be what we are, no more, no less. So much depend on it.

A Flock of ICBMs, or
That Mad God-guy, When Money Runs So Far Away

    As our culture dips in one way, expanding another, dropping parts of itself, redefining some (I personally, live in a Town where “Down”, is spelled, “Up”), very much a home expanding and contracting with the freeze-thaw of its populace, there’s a thinking we hound, our Western version of the inevitability of Change (something I dispute). Typical of Americans, we treat this faux “acceptance” as swirl ice cream, “It’s probably all for the best, it’s a different world, blahblah-dust” woven nummers with “Ya know, what can ya do?” In a country of compiled histories of fortunes waxing and waning, this is assumed to be good, common sense, that hard core of American bedrock systematically removed by the courts (fresh coffee is hot; she was old, she spilled it; God Save Mickey D’s). What follows the “=”, is that whatever bad, change is good, or will result in that...in the case of larger conflict(s), it shall be a force for Good, simply in that It Is Different.
    This equation, like me fighting through a proof in Geometry, leaves out elements which make for something tenuous and three times as long. Here, our McCommon Sense, has left out big ones: YHWH, and a green dollar bill.
    The United States, via covert operations no one’s denied in decades, installed young Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the Peacock Throne, as the absolute ruler and Shah of Iran, in 1941. As many of you know through a scholarly factoid thrown like a chunk of winter ice, “Iran”, is a made up country...and by me, any MLB franchise from the Bluejays/Mariners on, are made up teams, but no one sits in their dugouts, flips them off and forfeits. Yes, we manufactured Iran...and we then taught them about a powdered wigged guy named Adam Smith, and principles he set down called “capitalism”, and we led our new toy nation by the hand, away from Not Jesus as Life, into a cool, secular world of cool shit you could make, sell, buy. And live for. ‘Cause it’s cool. “Minimalism”, over half a century ago, was for the people who, since they were starving, I had to choke down my goddammed Yankee Pot Roast for the eighth time that month. Life had to have God in it, oh, God, yes, but quiet and rote and understated and yes, we believe thus and so, oh, yeah?, well I got an ElectroShot Shooting Gallery for Christmas! Top that!
    The people of Iran, weren’t so certain of their new “beliefs”, but angry voices and the distrust of the threatened, were made go away by the secret police, magically vanished like if Monica had bothered to SHOUT it out! Another, more powerful angry voice stumping for a penitent return to God-Over-There, was sent packing, all the way to Jerry Lewisville, France. And Iran eventually showcased as a prime example of Wall Street Works.
    Until it didn’t.
    The nation, modernized, powerful, a comer in the larger world, hit a sticky, slow period in its economy, and easier days scaled back. So, now, the faithbased was truncated, the cool shit was pulling out of reach, as were necessaries, and the Shah, a despot inattentive to Plan (I never understood those guys; it was like every tinpot was a villain on BATMAN), made a point of blowing off certain duties, appearances and otherwise expectations, religiously speaking. And the people—a lot of them—realized they had monkey nuts. And in something between Frankenstein’s lab in a storm and a supercollider, God as Screw the West, was fused with the very foundation and heart of political government. From there, you most all have the history. Go to YouTube, and pick it up from Reagan laughing at silly Jimmy, as there he went, again.
    Moving forward to this Reality you know best, it’s said atheism, formerly known as Get to Sleep on Sunday, is on the upswing. And talking torsos on any monitor, begin to create a chess board minus God as King but with every Pawn as caseworker intact and hearing the opposing pieces, calculating that by resigning, we can all then break for punch and pie. What keeps nagging at me is the war along the Soviet border and in Afghanistan, when I was a teen. We later had Stallone’s Rambo trotting out the notion this was an autonomous Revolution, but it was no “this is my land, revenuer” as cornerstone, instead, “but...you assholes are Atheists!”
    Cut to a deaf neighbor cycling to work, when I was a callow youth, being hit by a car and bouncing off the windshield, as he had not heard its approach on our lazy, less traveled block, and had not bothered to do as The Electric Company taught us, i.e. Look Both Ways. The eventual ruling was made in favor of the Plaintiff, and my neighbor, uninjured, blessed with actually having insurance as a bicyclist, was in good shape...or so he thought until ordered by mail, to pay damages. A childlike fellow, he waved his passbook with respectable balance before my face, insisting the bill was untenable, as his savings balance was “not supposed to go down! Only up!”
    ...this being what’s wrong with any Monster of God and Mammon in a “shit happens” world.
    Few reading this, would question the maxim, “the political is personal”. The old adage opposed to arguing the two hottest planks, religion and politics, is wise in its juxtaposition of these Top Two...but there would be only small outcry for need of fighting priests or imams, if money systems only grew, bringing their peoples and nations upward, the proverbial mighty oak. Redwood. Ancient conifer. This of course being a fantasy much as the endless, water blue gaze of the dream lover. I’m no Alan Greenspan, nor even those Not Greenspans in temporary charge, but I’ve watched enough houses of cards built and played enough Jenga, I can affirm that collapse is a natural—nasty and upsetting, but natural—step in the sequence of societal order. And no Common Man, not bedouin, not Halo addict, is ever prepared. I won’t test copyright via quoting aphorisms by Malcolm Forbes, but indeed, No One sufficiently plans in any culture, save the few with hard eyes and little other direction...and any solution to the reality of Tough Shit, will not be simple. Or easy. Or fill bellies by next week, let alone have you back on eBay to Make Offer on that rare Karman Ghia with the automatic shift. There are low points and seemingly bottoming out points and there are times of suffering right out of Joseph’s amazing interp of seven technicolor years’ starvation...or archival, silent footage I have, of still-destroyed 1947 Germany. Only a handful are ready for that, clutching their Crown Royal bag of Revelation gold and bristling with armaments inside their Maple Street bunker...these being the monsters the rest of the neighborhood would’ve voted off the volcano’s edge first, even in better times. Likewise, akin to social collapse in a scary-doozie by Good Mister King, the voice of the prophetess is too soon heard, when bull market becomes a real bear. If the bean counters and the readers of prompter fail us, if banks and investments and institutions and the assurance of public ledgers and private show as false, any society has a pair of choices. That involving charity and caring and passing the biscuits, takes way too much time, for far too long. Worse, it still doesn’t get us our cable turned back on, so orange can be the new passion fruit. The warmth of a contrived, local Swiss Red Cross, doesn’t repair the only vehicle to avoid walking 30 miles a day. Or keep a family member an appendage or their life. It doesn’t give a roof but temporarily, as we are sanitized through programming, for The Future’s protection. And, that’s here, the West. The 21st Century. In hardened cultures less LCD, some portion can be taken well on the chin. Acceptance is a tool The East wields by rote, that this indeed is Life on The Ball, death itself sometimes just a bit of bad luck...but if the idea of “We Are All One” and of interconnectedness means monies and securities mingling like the ocean—and it does—then honest, hard working persons of their own, understood ethic, those committed, resolute, that original purpose-driven element, People as families and tribes...these, did not create the problem. Yet the problem exists, and the pain and the hunger. Here, Other Culture is now bathed in shadow, and as Humanity with its affected dance and too much talk (“what is this ‘equality’, of which you speak?”) has failed and offers mere aspirin for open sores, what remains is (forgive me, George) a Force. And, let’s not quibble. It’s the one clad in our team uniform. Carrying a big stick the size of Rhode Island. And, no sense waiting on It to set up shop. Let’s us start swinging like Harmon Killebrew for the upper decks, Right Now.
    In process of crisis, Religion, though it tear at Bill Maher’s absence of a soul, is not culprit, but goto—as Rhett told Scarlett in the original novel, “The darkies aren’t the reason...they’re just the excuse.” God, is a confident bet as My Bodyguard. Or Rondo Hatton. Any leg breaker you like. Human, is a contentious cat. Human, would rather force it done their way or as early Cartman, beat animals with a stick, than to keep salving wounds and be part of the solution. God’s Aces, there, too, and with sprinkles, per “making obey”. I can impugn no one’s sincerity, if they don’t travel with a podium, but deities usually enter the picture as Goliath, or the insane mofo hired in Karate Kid III. Even the eensy backup hardware in Gary Sinise’s bloody Ransom sock. A giant fist, is there to back you up, as your problems weren’t your creation. God understands that. He’s a bro.
    The Iran of The Shah, running well-oiled, had no need of God outside His breadbox; ditto our Father Coughlin silenced and all but duct-taped, because The War was fact, no longer debate, and a war’s economy came with it. Hairy thunderers of all persuasions and arm counts, can be at least minimized, as MONEY and every joy it brings, is the only drug of choice, rubber to road. In Oprah’s dreary Beloved, before it all went to Final Shit, they enjoyed the largesse of a mad party. Drowning in sweetmeats and fabrics and trinkets so that the air itself seemed rainbow mist. Chill, nonfriend, nothing is to fear, up to and including a flesh and blood succubus in your home.
    The infamous 1%ers don’t, but to scattered chicken feed of malcontents, enrage via educated principle alone. It’s not graduate course-grist sparking gut level debate, but the simple idea that endlessly drowning in gold, frankincense and FrankenNook Tablets, is horseshit, if for those few, the urban manna never stops. Humans do have convictions, but almost none would play the sackcloth and ashes game for the discount corn kernel of rubbernecking. Not when more’s to be had. Faith and all its ideals, are shed as easily as clothes in the boudoir, when fun or affirmation are a given. God as Clubber Lang or Drago, we hold in reserve, for when the bandwagon breaks down, as we seek to assign predetermined guilt. Our battle cries involving any Force wielding a Louisville Slugger signed by us, are a marathoner’s kick, to pull ahead or away. The breath released, before the bowstring. The summoning of the chi, in full, felt hesitation. We believe Might needs make Right, for someone fucked with our pocketbook. We probably believe anyway, but easy or relaxed. Smiling at the sky. Under no duress, facing but mundane strife, Humans believe as they love: from a distance, in their hearts, back at the airport... Any devotion friendly, is minus zeal. Caring and doing for the Other, is a job. Faith’s “industry”. Jimmy Carter, putting a hammer to a nail. We at least give ol’ Jim an “attaboy”, here, as his actions are, Today, decidedly unique. In the personal, The Other, shoeless in the rain, is a burden, and we know that. God, faith, religion as Mother Teresa, we want on CNN Headline News, not even the real CNN...but as Fat Albert as Buck Buck hole card, deity is powder and shot for all batteries poised to respond. I’ll needlessly point out as Footnote, the atom was first split, more than 70 years ago.
    Belief or lack of same, doesn’t cause the problem of empty stomachs or empty shells of houses. It does, however, eliminate any bloodless solution, past a near-immediate point. So, once Adam Smith and that diseased green dollar bill fail you, frightening things, unsimple, unsettling, are on deck. And telling the one fighting for Alternate Bend of Knee, “I don’t care, I don’t give a fuck! Iss all booshit, anyways. Can’t prove dat stuff, iss all stu-pid, you can go ahead and believe dat shit, it’s all fuckin’ stu-pid, I don’t care!”, is not some UNO “Reverse” play. As much as you think you’re giving Romney’s Etch-a-Sketch a violent shake, to ears of vastly differing “ways”, your rude spew sounds exactly like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
    Payout: A Jewish writer of David Spade’s Comedy Central material, was starting to pile on anti-Semitic humor of edgy quality. When Spade, doubtful of the heavyhanded jokes, expressed concern, the writer, confident, told him, “No, it’s okay, go ahead! I don’t care!” Spade, mindful of the irony, returned a glaring smile and said, “Yeah, I know YOU don’t care...!”
    You can slam the door, really hard, on Witnesses or LDS. It’s not a universal solution.

— CEE

Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic
With A Marxist Flair
Applied To Our War On Terror

    It is through self consciousness that the master-slave dialectic is born. This birth is the result of a struggle by one party to survive under the domination of a stronger party. When relationships and their interactions are at least fair and respectful, if not equal, little if any struggle will take place for they are simply interactions between humans who happen to inhabit the same planet. In a word, life, au naturel, in its static sense. But when a stronger party injects a struggle into the relationship by allowing their strength and lack of self consciousness to disadvantage the other party the master-slave dialectic via the other party’s self consciousness, or struggle, is established. Consequently, the stronger group, lacking the degree of self consciousness and struggle that the weaker group has, will over time become weaker. And the weaker group will develop more strength through their struggle until they become superior and the former master-slave dialectic is reversed. And it is here where true change can take place. Mandela’s South Africa comes to mind. Upon becoming superior, the former oppressed can create a fair and respectful relationship in its static sense, by not using their newfound power to disadvantage others. By doing this the birth of nations or peoples come with their own destiny, new life. Until one or the other parties of that life tries to fix something that isn’t broke.
    In the beginning the war on terror developed between the United States and parts of the Middle East. And it did not occur in a vacuum. It took place because the more self conscious wanted to establish, for all to see and respond to, a pronounced master-slave dialectic. The dominant United States, although with as much power for insight and correction as power for dominance, chose to “turn the screw” of dominance and pay back. In a sense our response to the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center was so extreme that the screw became set. Some would say that this was a natural requirement for perpetual war. And that it was done with full knowledge of this because decline was imminent for our society. And the best way to deny this, but secretly acquiesce, was to show our power and say that we will go down swinging, an American concept that has been wielded about like no other. Perhaps, more simply, it is our time and the grace necessary to do it any other way does not exist. And every attempt to turn a screw that is already set is a waste of time and resources and does nothing more than shorten the time of the dialectic.
    Rome wasn’t built in a day, for sure, but once the dialectic took place, as Paul Harvey used to say, “you know the rest of the story.” And it was not a long one. History is replete with such examples from the colonial powers on down to almost any power. “There is a time and a purpose to everything unto heaven.”
    Those that say that what we do is for the sake of our children, while those same children have to overcome their natural instincts to live and let live in order to honor their parents, seem to believe that history will respect them, where it did not the Romans and all others. When the screw is set to advantage, or compensate, one party or another, only the opposite can occur.
    There are those in power that know, but dare not say, these things. They try to mitigate some of what is. Surely, only by slight of hand can this be done. And a people scared to acknowledge the obvious scream and holler deceit at every turn. But that is part of the dialectic as well. It would be too much of a struggle to do otherwise. May the journals that can, unblemished, make it through this, acknowledge these magicians who know the score and still tend their kind. They are not defeatist. But they are not heifers that will follow a hay wagon into a slaughterhouse or a hovering mini-gun either. Enough struggle lies there to get them through each day. So far.

Charles Hayes bio

    Charles Hayes, a 2015 Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and others