down in the dirt
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In This Issue... Fritz Hamilton Christopher Hanson Victor Phan comic Mel Waldman Brian LoRocco Holly Day Kirby Light Kate Kimball U. Ebiz John Ragusa Robert Brabham Jem Henderson Clinton Van Inman Ron Richmond Emma Eden Ramos Daniel J O’Brien Kelsey Threatte John L. Campbell Denny E. Marshall Janet Kuypers

Note that any artwork that appears in Down in the Dirt will appear in black and white in the print edition of Down in the Dirt magazine.

Order this issue from our printer as an ISSN# paperback book: or as the ISBN# book “Wisdom in Broken Hands”:

After finding in my inbox 483 rejections from Fritz Hamilton After finding in my inbox 483 rejections from the Goldbuggy Gazette, each with the same message, “Dear Mr Hamilturd, after reviewing the shitty poems you have sent to insult our taste & sense of decency, we have decided not to use them, except to get you extradited to Kandahar & blown up with an IED. If there is anything left of you, we’ll put you in a vat of acid to dissolve in the white death to be thrown as a little bit of nothing into the filth of the Chicago River to be lost forever! Let us thank you for submitting your drec to the Goldbuggy Gazette, & please don’t bother us with anymore of your shit!” This is repeated for everyone of my 483 poems until I realize the shit they’re talking about is me, not my poems, & I am indeed 483 big pieces of shit, enough to stop up the celestial toilet that graces the asshole of Jesoo & the rest of the holy family, that I am indeed the show stopper that overflows with my pungent, pulchritudinous splender, enough to get the Christchild on a bender, & when he vomits sickly on my head whole pails of the Holy See, I shall record it on a Dead Sea Scroll, the adventure of a sweet asshole recorded with a bread & fishing pole that Jesoo & his disciples stole from the yacht of a pharisee that sadducee the virgin Mary much to the consternation of the Lord who begat Jesoo with sloppy seconds, all this found under a rock in the Dead Sea in The Gospel of Thomas, who was not only there but got sloppy thirds & brags about it to all the boys at the Inn while Jesoo wails in the manger until he hears about the danger & rides off in the arms of the Lone Ranger into the sunset to hide in the orange groves, but he still needs orange aid to evade the Palestinians who’d like to eat Jesoo for breakfast & would if King Herod didn’t lose Agrippa on it & go mad, an interesting Biblical fad, where madness is a common delicacy that got the world on antidepressants like my Lexapro & Karl Rove’s machete that hacks off Thomas’ head like John the Craptist’s, & there’s more shit than meets the eye, & Jesoo’d be a nice guy, if he hadn’t demanded too much of the pie, & we lost our trust & ate the crust, & that’s the crux of all evil ... !

19 percent of our genes are the same in chimps Fritz Hamilton 19 percent of our genes are the same in chimps/ except for political conservatives when it’s 81 percent/ the rest of their genes are the same as maggots/ this is not a political commercial/ this is scientific fact/ from the beginning of American history, the powers that be have never trusted our nature/ in the name of democracy (which the ruling elite has always feared & has never allowed us to experience) our rulers have never let us out of bondage/ as for me, the great commoner, the head cow of the herd, I am the carrier of the milk, known as the super-spurt & the invasive finger beneath the skirt, direct descendant of Henry Clay & wallower in the mud, an admirable stud with massive, swinging pud, I, Fred Hammy, flagelate as I masturbate & squirt squirt squirt into the damsels sweet & pert, I bring democracy to the ordinary skirt, & that’s when my masters crush me, & out the door they rush me, an anarchist with an iron fist & a paltry pecker of putty ... !

Saturday’s Swagger Christopher Hanson It was an early night – 1:00 AM early. The police passed by For the bigger problems And the clubs roared A little louder than usual. Aloud while I danced And danced The Saturday night stumble – To the left, to the right And twice back, Destination: Home. I continued Too tripped, Or ripped, To have a friend, A little lonely, But feeling a little famous All the same And all the while. I strode with swagger, Head held a little higher Than usual, Made my way home, Slept And started over Tomorrow, Or was it the day After, Sleep can be such a nimble little Beast, When it wants to be. It’s a good thing that a Cold beer’s Always just around the corner, So that the stumble may begin Once more, And the tip-tap, tip-tap, Stammer, side-step, fall Leads me once more unto Rest – Fallen and without dreams.

“The man with many names.” (the Christopher Hanson Biography)     I was born “Christopher Hanson” in Minnesota; Born in the same hospital as Bob Dylan, not that it matters. I remember very little from this snowbound world having actually grown up in California where I picked up the nick-name, “Cloud,” I don’t know why, simply, “Cloud.” While in good old San Fran, I made nice with some fellows and females of Japanese decent. I picked up a sword, I learned to eat sushi and wander in between the realms of Aikido, Iaido and Zen. They dubbed me “Kazuki.” All aside and all names following me into college, I studied for five years at the University of Wisconsin and graduated with degrees in both Criminal Justice (to bust-up a broken system) and Anthropology – I love people, what can I say? During year five of college, I’d acquire my latest addition, “Yang Yun,” my Chinese name. The name basically translates to, “a tree in the cloud.” This was the name given to me by my wife, the love of my life that I met while studying abroad in China. Since my graduation in 2008, I’ve lived in China for nearly two years as a teacher and within this last year, have finally made it back to the states, wife and all. It’s been a wild ride and something tells me that it’s just begun. As for my “writing” and my “art,” it’s a time-honored tradition and way of life – at least for me.     I’ve travelled the world, I’ve come home. I’m educated, I’m uneducated. I write, I write and write some more. I drink and write again. This is my story, maybe your story and somebody else’s story. I write, I wander, I write and I love, this world and the many facets/faces of it – simply complicated.     I’ve been, or will be, published in, “A Brilliant Record,” “The Stray Branch” and “Down in the Dirt,” and am looking forward to continuing down this literary, literal and metaphorical road I venture.

follow this link for the cartoon
Something is Wrong
by Victor Phan

Free Mel Waldman I watch the violence on CNN in my Brooklyn home. When it’s too much to bear, I change the channel. But I care. I feel their pain already. The Libyan people have touched the ghostly life force I call my soul. And so I speak to them and their oppressor. I eat your sadness. I cry. I drink the blood of war. I die. Why? I shriek the voices of the oppressed. Goodbye, Qaddafi. The dead can’t rest for vultures fly above. They smell the rotting flesh below. My frenzied eyes swallow the sprawling dreamscape of despair. My battered brain tastes the surging waves of red sand and the scattered human debris in the wasteland of the desert. Peaceful protestors died here so others could be free. I shriek the voices of the oppressed. Goodbye, Qaddafi. I can’t bear the brutal finality. When strangers suffer, so do I. Why? We, the people of the earth, are forever connected. We share the sacred spirit of creation and destruction. We pray for freedom. We rage against injustice. After freedom prevails, we pray for peace. I shriek the voices of the oppressed. Goodbye, Qaddafi.

BIO Mel Waldman, Ph. D.     Dr. Mel Waldman is a licensed New York State psychologist and a candidate in Psychoanalysis at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies (CMPS). He is also a poet, writer, artist, and singer/songwriter. After 9/11, he wrote 4 songs, including “Our Song,” which addresses the tragedy. His stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and commercial magazines including HAPPY, SWEET ANNIE PRESS, CHILDREN, CHURCHES AND DADDIES and DOWN IN THE DIRT (SCARS PUBLICATIONS), NEW THOUGHT JOURNAL, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, HARDBOILED, HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, ESPIONAGE, and THE SAINT. He is a past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis and was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature. Periodically, he has given poetry and prose readings and has appeared on national T.V. and cable T.V. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, American Mensa, Ltd., and the American Psychological Association. He is currently working on a mystery novel inspired by Freud’s case studies. Who Killed the Heartbreak Kid?, a mystery novel, was published by iUniverse in February 2006. It can be purchased at www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. Recently, some of his poems have appeared online in THE JERUSALEM POST. Dark Soul of the Millennium, a collection of plays and poetry, was published by World Audience, Inc. in January 2007. It can be purchased at www.worldaudience.org, www.bn.com, at /www.amazon.com, and other online bookstores or through local bookstores. A 7-volume short story collection was published by World Audience, Inc. in June 2007 and can also be purchased online at the above-mentioned sites.

Wisdom in Broken Hands Brian LoRocco     Ray Dawson was sitting on a broken locker room bench with his hands still wrapped, breathing the sweat off his body, and listening to all the familiar post-fight noise—the obnoxious voices of other fighters, some celebrating, some excusing, some talking about who they were going to screw tonight, and his own trainer, seven years his junior, bullshitting and laughing with them. The talk, the nonsense, the laughing, all of it, still bothered him. It was not what he wanted to hear after losing. But what was the big deal? He’d been losing for a long time now. Forty one years old, Ray was, and this time he’d been beaten up by a nineteen year old from Flatbush.     The kid from Flatbush approached him in the locker room. Typically, after a fight if you ran into the guy who got the decision it was a menial encounter, good fight, keep at, good defense, whatever. Every now and again, you ran into a punk who wasn’t satisfied by simply having his hand raised at the end of the night, a punk that thought because he beat you in a boxing match that he had some authority over you and the right to say whatever he wanted . The kid from Flatbush was that type.     “Hey GJ,” the kid said giving him that old locker room slang—everyone in the room knew what the kid was referring to. “Good fight, grandpa.”     Ray looked at Jonesy, his trainer, not sure why, maybe it was instinct, but in any case saw what he should have come to expect from him. Nothing. Only nothing was a lie. Jonesy was on the verge of laughter. Ray could see it in his eyes, could see him beginning to smirk. Maybe Jonesy was right, maybe seeing your friend getting into it with the kid that just beat him up was funny.     “Come again, fella?” Ray said.     “You heard me, GJ. I said good fight,” and then the kid turned to his own trainer, and said, “Hearing’s going, too.”     Ray knew exactly what to say to the kid, he knew that without mistake. Jonesy once told him, “You don’t have a vent.” He said this over a Guinness, at Chelsea O’s. “That’s your whole fucking problem. Everyone has a vent, Ray. You just never developed one, or you turned yours off, and you’re fucking yourself for it, you know that? That canvas, that’s your only outlet. I’m telling you as a friend, man, there’s a lot better ways to spend your forties than getting your ass kicked. Trust me on that.”     Ray saw the look on the kid’s face, his brows crunched in hard, his lips flailed back, and believed it was nothing but a mask; had as much substance as a scarecrow in a cornfield. But the old crow in Ray Dawson knew better. Ray said, “You’ve gone and beat up on an old man. You proud of yourself?”     Some of the guys erupted into laughter (kid never saw that coming) and the antagonists “oooooohed.”     “Ain’t my fault, your granddaddy crippled ass is still in the game.”     “Ain’t my fault, you’re supposed to be the prospect, and your ass went the full four rounds, with someone you coming in and calling glass jaw.”     Ray thought that might have put the kid over, and half expected him to rush forward, and could say he was surprised that the kid only eyed the room insecured by the sounds suddenly against him. Ray said, “I’m over here. Look at me, don’t go looking at them.”     Once again Ray made eye contact with Jonesy, who at this point, had his forearm over his mouth. There appeared to be a moment of apology in Jonesy’s eyes, but it seemed as if that eye contact, and the feigned apology, only caused Jonesy to lose control and erupt uncontrollably.     If for no other reason than because Jonesy was laughing at him, he thought of his advice about venting. Jonesy was right about that. Ray rarely let the steam fly, and he knew exactly why that was. He was afraid. Not of other people either. He was afraid of himself. So afraid of his own anger, buried deep as it was. He was angry at everyone. He was even angry at God. Maybe most of all at God. Ray Dawson’s problem was he had skill (if you could accept that as a problem). Once upon a time he had hand speed, good reflexes, and power. Great power. Knockout power; power in both hands; he could knock a guy out in the late rounds. The biggest problem was he had a glass jaw. They called him Ray “the glass jaw” Dawson, GJ around the gym. If you caught him in the sweet spot, he went down like an overturned crane, and no that nigga wasn’t getting back up.     His question was always this: with a weakness so glaring, why was he given any skill at all? If his weakness so compromised his skill, why give him anything? Got no answers to that; God sure as hell never answered.     Maybe just to fuck with you, Ray. To say here is Ray Dawson, a guy who in his twenties won seventeen amateur fights, won in the Golden Gloves, a guy who many believed had the goods to become a champion. Enter fight eighteen—he’ll never forget Manny Hernandez, Dominican from West New York, first big puncher he’d ever faced; imagine that, 17 fights and a Golden Gloves before meeting a guy with decent pop—not good, decent; landed a textbook left hook, and put Ray on his ass for the first time. With his left hand, Manny Hernandez took away not only a boxing career, but as Ray thought of it, his entire life. No, that nigga didn’t get back up.     “I’m right here,” the kid said motioning to his face, “looking at you right in your eyes. Don’t come at me like that, or I’m una whip your ass some more. Sorry ass washed up old man.”     Thought about getting up. Thought about going at him. He was 19 after all.     Somebody pulled the kid away.     After all was settled down, Jonesy came around patted him on the back, and said, “You’ll get ‘em next time?”     “Won’t be a next time,” Ray said. “I think this is it.”     Jonesy shrugged. “Been telling you that a long time, champ.”     His rusted locker door creaked harshly. He wondered if there would be an empty can of tomato sauce in there (some punk did that one time, broke the lock and left it right up there, dirty as it was) but there was nothing but his belongings, his clothes, his wallet, his cell phone, and keys.     Let’s face it, Ray was never a boxer passed the age of twenty-eight—he had a string of losses that year—and to his credit he knew he wasn’t a fighter past that age. That was when he gave up the dream. He never said it, but knew just as much in his heart. He had a delivery route, a shitty apartment, a daughter out of wedlock, who mommy kept from him, and the fragments of a life, that Jim Mc Maron in the Dispatch, once upon a time decribed as having all the makings of a champion.     Jonesy said, “You want meet at Chelsea’s for a cold one? The guys are all going.”     “No, Jay, not tonight. Going to get me some sleep tonight.”     Jonesy patted him. “Keep your head up, okay?”     “Just never worked out,” Ray muttered more to himself than to Jonesy.     “Huh?”     He dropped his head to his hands. Something his mother said to him a very long time ago occurred to him (it occurred to him often lately): “God gave us strengths and weaknesses. Listen to me baby Ray, and don’t you go forgetting, in life we all have our crosses to bear. It’s how well we bear them that determines who it is we are.” There was more to it, but Ray had forgotten the rest — it was good. That much he remembered, that it was good.     Lot of broken dreams, on a highway that boasted brilliant lights, not too far in the distance, a road that looked straight, but riddled with nefarious turns, and ultimately a detour that led to obscurity.     On top of everything else Ray was in more trouble. Serious trouble. He was overdue on a $3000 loan. The loaner wasn’t a federally insured bank either (not that an insured bank made it any safer these days); the loaner was Frankie Valdone, a man you did not want to play games with.     “Maybe I should let this go,” Ray said, “but—”     “What’s up?”     “You did a good job of breaking that up back there.”     Jonesy looked at him unexpectedly (he was used to laughing and getting away with it). He shrugged, “You know what you’re doing, Ray.”     “You know something, Jones, all these years we’ve been doing this, I can’t help but think I’ve been nothing but a joke in your eyes. You’re a real friend.”     Ray left with his gym bag over his shoulder, the welt beneath his eye throbbing, and a headache that hammered acutely over the temple.     “Ray, wait, ” Jonsey called.     He was hungry. He was hungry, and the Hungry Man’s Salisbury steak in the freezer wasn’t going to cut it. No, he was in the mood for French onion (freedom onion—as Jonesy called it; and Ray would say let it die already, it’s not funny anymore) that plus a burger. A juicy, rare cheese burger. He took the bus out of Manhattan, came through the Lincoln Tunnel and decided he would stop over in Hoboken, stop in at the Malibu, and that was what he did. He realized his shades were still in his bag. If there was one thing he hated, really hated, was when a pretty waitress came up to him and said (and they all said the same thing): “My goodness, were you in a fight?”     It was either yeah, you should see what the other guy looks like, haha, or those fucking stairs again.     So he took the shades out of the bag , and put ‘em on, hoping the welt that traveled down into his cheekbone wasn’t too revealing, never mind the fact that he might look like a weirdo wearing shades in a diner at midnight. But who cared? Hoboken had its share of weirdoes either way, not as many as New York, but its share nonetheless. Even though these days there were more and more of the pseudo city types that you could spot a mile away. A type that irritated him. He didn’t know why they irritated him, but they did. Most were twenty-somethings that had distinct suburban voices, young people that wanted a taste of city life, that probably worked shitty jobs, with shitty pay, jobs that required a tie, and gave them the bragging rights they sought. Most would stay in the city for no more than five years, move out and make room for the next cohort.     “Hey, Ray,” a familiar voice said. He lowered the menu, and saw it was Greg Harris, who bartended at Carl’s.     “Greg, how are you, bro? What are you doing here?”     “I’m working here now, left the bar, couldn’t stand working for Carl no more. Guy’s a real prick,” he said lowering his voice.     “Sorry to hear that.”     “Nah, I’m doin’ fine here, and there’s no one breathing down my neck.”     “You still in Rutgers?”     “Yeah, one more year to go. What about you, still fighting, that why you wearing the shades?”     “You should see the other guy.”     “I believe it, I believe it. What can I get for you?” Greg took his order, writing it down on a flip pad, before disappearing into the back. He brought the soup and the Heineken at the same time. As he carefully placed down the soup he said, “Have you seen Heather lately?”     Heather, he thought about her and a smile came to his face. Pretty little Heather. No, he hadn’t seen her. Not in a few weeks. She waited tables and bartended in Carl’s Bar. The last few times Ray had gone there... well, it was a bit strange. The two of them connected on some level. It was this instant connection, that he couldn’t decribe, but liked very much. She leaned over the bar and they talked the entire night. She let business pass her right by, this despite all the distractions. Somehow, he thought, they had this way of making each other feel special. It was weird.     “Last time, I was there,” Greg said, “I thought you were gonna bring her home.”     “She’s too young.”     “What, she’s in her late twenties, twenty-seven, twenty eight?”     “I’m forty-one, man.”     “Yeah, but you look much younger, dude. Didn’t I ever tell you what my friend Don says?”     “What does Don say?”     “Age is just a number.”     Ray laughed. “Just a number , huh?”     “Yeah. Trust me, she’s smoking hot. Don’t let a few years get in the way of that.”     As he was eating, all he could think about was Heather, about the chemistry they shared, how everyone in the bar disappeared; he thought about how shy her eyes were when they met his, and the silly things they would talk about, just to talk to each other, and how everyone noticed it afterward.     He finished eating. What the hell, he headed to Carl’s.     There was a large crowd of people dressed handsomely outside the bar, guys in button downs, girls in tight jeans and sexy dresses, with their hair and makeup perfect; smoking and chatting, under the overhang lamplights. Ray walked passed them hearing some of those pseudo accents, but also hearing a lot of strong Jersey accents. As he was going in he heard one loud mouth guido talking to his boys about his M5, but Ray thought he was really talking to the surrounding girls in jest. Looking for some cheap ho, to go wow you drive a Beamer. Yeah, and I also live at home.     Ray laughed... how’d you ever go and get so bitter man?     Inside was loud, and even though you could hear the music outside, walking in was like crossing a barrier into a different world. The music was more alive. The place was dark, but lit with different colored lights—mainly amber and red— surrounding the bar, and it wasn’t just the music but the chatter. There were a lot of smiling faces, and friendly conversation. Somehow Ray found an empty seat between two groups of twenty somethings a few girls and a few guys on both sides.     Looking past all that was going on, he didn’t see Heather, but that was okay; he shrugged it off; it was Saturday, they were busy, and he was sure she was here. He did see Carl, who was at the tap pouring one thing or another. Carl spotted him, and gave him a cautious look. Ray saluted, and Carl had raised a one sec finger, but seemed so taken by Ray’s presence that he over poured the beer, and foam slid down the side of the glass.     After serving the customer, Carl came his way, and shook his hand; it was a quick firm handshake. “What’s going on, Bro?” Carl said, “What brings you?”     “Just come in for a drink. Had a fight tonight?”     “Oh,” Carl said, and usually would ask about it, but his concern became more evident. “Listen man, I don’t know what’s goin’ on, or if your even aware of it for that matter” (Ray hoped the next part would be about Heather, but it wasn’t). “These guys have been coming in here, asking for you. Said you owe them some money. I know one of these guys, Vin, he’s a bad dude... Maybe this isn’t the safest place for you to be tonight.”     “When was this?”     “Past few weekends. I don’t want problems here, you know?”     “Yeah, I’ll just take one drink, and then I’ll go.”     Carl looked reluctant. Very reluctant. Ray didn’t know what the hell was going on in Carl’s mind, but it looked like he was making the most stringent decision of his life, deciding whether or not to drop the bomb on Japan or something. So Ray decided he would break his confusion. “I’ll take a Hennessy straight up.”     Carl looked at him, into his eyes, looked like he wanted to say something, Ray could sense that much, but in the end just nodded, “One drink.” Carl poured it, and served it over a napkin that advertised Bacardi rum. “Here you go, Ray,” and then added: “Don’t get yourself hurt.”     “Nawh, wouldn’t go doin’ that now.” He wanted to say something silly like got my lucky shirt on tonight, but didn‘t. “Heather around tonight?”     That broke a smile on Carl’s face. Ray got the sense that Carl, for some reason, liked him. He wasn’t quite sure why Carl liked him, and he didn’t think Carl knew why either, but he did. “You mean your little girlfriend? Yeah she’s around.”     “Tell her I says hi.”     Carl tapped the bar, “Just don’t stay too long.”     Ray sipped the Hennessy while looking around the bar casually, trying not to give up too much, trying not to look eager, but not seeing Heather anywhere. The bar was very crowded, and hot.     Then, just like that, he spotted her. She came behind the bar on the far end holding a tray, and their eyes somehow met; despite how dark it was, despite the size of the crowd, their eyes locked. Her hair fell across her shoulders, a little longer than when he last saw her, but elegant... She flashed him her smile, that great big smile that she had, and gave him one of those sexy finger waves, where each finger moved individually. My God, he thought, smiled and waved back, that’s my girl. All of a sudden the fight that he lost, his boxing career, the money he owed, all of it became irrelevant.     She put the tray under the bar, and began her way over to him—at least that was what he thought she was doing. As it turned out a smile would be all she would give him. To Ray’s surprise, she leaned over the bar, the same way she had done with him, and began, or from the looks of it, continued, a flirty conversation with some guy. He watched it for a while. A range of stupid thoughts went through his head. For a long time he wondered what she was trying to do. Trying to get him jealous? Simply being a cock-tease? He watched a little longer, feeling his blood getting hot— Heather leaning over the bar, laughing and smiling, even playfully smacking the guy on the shoulder at one point, leaning over the counter with the tops of her breasts prodded out from her shirt, business passing her by.     “Well, well, well,” a voice said from behind him squeezing him by the shoulder, and turning him half way around in his seat. “If it isn’t Ray the glass jaw Dawson. I believe you have a debt that needs some settling. Unless you want make a scene, you better come with us.”     There were two of them, both boxy men, both standoutish, and Ray thought, standoutish not in a good way. One of them wore a tan suit and a tie, the other an Adidas wind jacket. Both of them reeked of cologne.     He rose from the stool, slinging the gym bag over his shoulder, and said to himself, Whatever it is you do Ray, don’t look at Heather... don’t look at Heather. He didn’t look at her, not at first. The guy in the Adidas jacket put his hand on the small of Ray’s back and pointed forward. Ray could see two gold rings on his fingers. The other guy, the one in the tan suit, cleared the path ahead calling, “Watch out, look out” to everyone. And then Ray betrayed himself. He glanced over at Heather, knowing she’d be watching, knowing she’d be looking on concerned. He was wrong. Heather didn’t notice. She’d been too distracted with her new friend.     The back room was dank, and smelt of moist concrete walls, and unsettled dust. There were cases and cases of Corona, Heineken, and other beer cartons stacked high. The lights were off. No one bothered to turn them on. Only the radiance from the bar lights lit the room, casting a dim glow. There in the back was Frank Valdone, who presumably took the delivery entrance in. Frank put a cigar between his teeth, struck a match, and in an instant there was a crescent of orange flame, followed by his deliberate exhale. “So,” Frank said, “if it isn’t Ray Dawson.”     “Just need a little more time.”     Frank laughed. “Is that what have you have said for yourself? You need more time? You’re a month over, and you think you’re going to stand in front of me and tell me you need more time. Well, I got news for you my friend, your time is up.” He sucked on the cigar. “Somebody turn on the lights. It’s fucking dark in here.”     Frank was a burly man, with long silver hair that had been neatly combed. He wore thin silver frames, a button down polo shirt, and obnoxiously shiny shoes. “Dawson, I’d like you to meet two good friends of mine, neither of which, I guarantee, will be to your liking by the end of the night, but nevertheless...” He took another puff of his cigar. “This is Hector. Hector who as you can see has a slight fetish for rings. “     Hector creeped around Ray slowly, with a menacing look in his dark eyes. He raised his left fist, a ring on each finger, and shook it near Ray’s face, as if saying, “I’m going to hit you one real good.”     “And this guy here,” Frank said, “this guy here will be a real prize fighter one day, make me some real money. Something you could have done for me, if you weren’t all glass.” Everyone laughed. “This is Lonny, 23-0, and turning pro next year. What do you think about that, Dawson?”     “Oh,” Ray said, an idea coming to him immediately, “you’re a fighter?”     Lonny snickered at Ray, pointed his thumb at him, and to Frank said, “Who is this clown?”     Lonny had his dimensions, similar height and weight, and probably was in the same weight class. He was about 25 though compared to Ray’s 41. “Light heavy?” Ray asked.     “Fuck you,” Lonny said.     “Boys, boys, easy now, there be plenty of time for blood after we talk business. Lonny, Hector, I’d like you to meet Ray. The infamous Ray ‘the glass jaw’ Dawson.” They laughed into crude high pitched laughter—Lonny’s laugh was higher pitched, and all things considered the sound of his laugh almost made Ray laugh. “Ray is a foolish man that doesn’t know what it means to pay his debts. So Ray, tell me, are you still driving that 90-whatever, 300z?”     “94, yes.”     “Here’s what I want you to do. Tomorrow morning I want you to sell the title of the car to Lonny over here, in the amount of one dollar, a dollar which you will give to him as well. You understand that?”     “Come on, Frank, I owe you $3000. The car is old, but it’s worth about 9000.” Which was true, it was worth about that much.     “4000!” he cried unexpectedly frantic. “You owe me 4000! An extra grand for all the fucking aggravation you put me through!” His head bobbed with emphasis when he spoke, causing strands of his gelled silver hair to wisp free along his face; he blew the wisps of hair away. “So it’s either one of two things, you sell me your piece of shit car, or it’s not going to be there when you get home, and the beating you get tonight will be even worse. Choice is yours.”     Just then one of the bar employees came through, and stopped abruptly surprised by their presence. “Who the fuck are you?” Frank asked.     “We need two more cases of Michelob light, just be a sec.”     “Get lost buddy, I’m doing business! Tell your customers they’ll have to wait.”     The guy just stood there. “GO, GO GO!” Frank yelled at him, now loosing many strands of hair. Lonny and Hector made a move for him, but the guy, mumbling something, went like he was told. Frank’s eyes met Ray’s. “Two cases of Michelob light? What are people doing to themselves these days? Michelob light!” Frank said exasperated. Now Frank was perspiring badly. He dropped his cigar, took off his frames, and wiped the sweat with his forearm. With his eyes hyper extended, Frank said to himself, still in utter disbelief, “Michelob light.”     “So let me get this straight, you telling me that I owe you $4000, and that you’re going to take my car, and this pussy is going to be the one to beat sanity into me.” He said this to Frank.     Lonny opened his mouth and got out: “What the f-”     Frank held up his hand to silence Lonny before he got started. He still had the silver frames in his hand, and now he held them up to the light to examine them. “Where do guys like you come from, Ray Dawson? You’re knee high in shit, and you keep pushing. Why?”     “Two guys yeah, but not this guy, not one on one.”      Making two clawing hand that quivered violently for a moment, Frank became exceedingly frustrated again. “I didn’t ask you about two guys!” His face was red. It had been such a reaction that Ray wondered if he was being theatrical or if he was truly capable of getting that agitated so abruptly.     “Let me take this faggot out, Cap.” Lonny said, “Please, I had enough of his mouth.”     “You couldn’t take me down the street pal.”     It took every bit of restraint for this Lonny character to hold back, and Ray Dawson knew so much.     “How ‘bout this,” Ray said, “you’re a fighter Lonny, I’m a fighter.”     “You’re a has been that never was,” Lonny said.     “Fine, a has been that never was, a guy with a glass jaw, that already lost one fight tonight, so how ‘bout this, you take me one on one? If you win you guys get my car, my money whatever it is I owe you. If I win, Lonny you inherit my debt. If you so sure you can beat me, you take a risk.”     “Please Cap, let me fuck this guy up. Outside, in front of everybody.”     Frank, put the frames back over his eyes. He was collected again. How quickly he could change was amazing, “First guy to go down loses.” Frank said. “If you lose Lon, it’s coming out of your runnings.”     “Funny, Captain.”     “No, Lonny, no, that isn’t funny,” Frank said. “And remember, never underestimate an old dog.” And to Ray he winked. It hadn’t occurred to Ray that maybe Frank wanted to give his new fighter a test drive before he fully invested into the kid, but Frank was a exceptionally smart man, (and no, Ray never underestimated an old dog).     Frank sent Hector to get Carl, and when Carl came to the back, Frank explained. “Just tell me who goes down first.”     “In front of my bar?”     “I’ll take care of you. You know me, I’m a man of my word.”     Ray lowered his head, switched the bag from his left shoulder to his right, and exited the bar. He looked around for Heather, but she was nowhere to be found. Once outside, in the cool air, and with the sounds going from blaring music to sounds of the chattering outdoor crowd and city noise, car horns, sirens out in the distance, Hector yelled for everyone to clear some space. A dark H3 Hummer sat double parked before a fire hydrant with the hazards flashing. There was a guy with dark glasses behind the wheel. Frank said nothing to anyone as he went. He stepped up into the Hummer, and Ray watched as it drove away.     He took a deep breath.     The kid took off his Adidas jacket. Started bouncing up and down while vagrantly flapping his forearms to loosen up his arms.     In the fight game the last thing to go in an older fighter is his power. The speed may go, the reflexes may fade, but the power is there until the end. Ray Dawson’s strong point had always been his power.     He managed to agitate the kid pretty good, and the kid was an amateur— there were strangers watching, people to impress. Ray calculated something and decided he would drop all his eggs in this basket. Providing he was a conventional fighter—right handed—the kid would throw his most natural heavy handed punch which would be the overhand right—he wouldn’t open with a left hook unless he was really crazy, because a hook would need to be set up better, and if he missed he would be horribly off balance, worse than if he missed with an overhand right. On the other hand, Ray could use a hook to counter the right hand. He knew if the kid started with a jab, the one light handed punch—in most cases— that sets up all others, and then Ray could be in trouble. It would be a real fight. It would show the kid was poised.     But looking into his eyes, Ray saw anything but a poised fighter—instead there was a young killer desperate to make a point.     Hector was the one who called out “Fight!”     The kid was conventional. He came forward. Ray was watching the right shoulder. Then it happened. Just like Ray thought it would. The kid threw the right, Ray stepped in, and dropped his counter left hook across Lonny’s jaw, and as Lonny’ face, came back into position, Ray delivered an overhand right of his own, a punch that Lonny never saw coming—the punch you don’t see coming is the one that does the damage, that’s the one that your body does not have time to brace for, and incidentally was the one that put Lonny on his ass. Fight over.     Lonny was bleeding from his face. Ray thought about his own career, though about the potential it once had....     It was then that Ray realized the bar crowd was screaming and cheering him on. He overhead some people saying things like who is that guy, and others calling him Tyson, others calling him Mayweather. He felt like a champion. Ray looked around, and thought it was best to get out of there. He started down 9th street. Then he heard a voice, one that was very familiar, call after him.     “Hey Ray,” the voice called, “wait.”     It was Heather. Ray stopped, closed his eyes, thought about turning around, but didn’t. As it turned out he didn’t have to.     “What’s up, Ray? What happened? I missed you,” she said, and hugged him. In the summer night, he smelt her citrus perfume, and when she stepped back he admired how utterly gorgeous she really was, her body, her smile, the vulnerable look in her eyes, all of it. But Ray thought about something else—something that made him think: you’ve been hit in the head one to many times tonight.     “You missed me, little lady?”     She simply smiled, and that shy expression that made her eyes gleam, the look that drove him absolutely wild came into her eyes. Then reality suddenly became clear, the way it does sometimes. He wasn’t her special guy— the few moments they shared were common moments she shared every night, with whatever guy happened to be there. He wasn’t sure if he was thinking straight, but to him she was like glass herself, something fragile that would break. The head shots, right? And then he remembered it. It just popped into his head, just like that. He remembered the rest of what his mother said: “The foundation should be built in our strength and not in our weakness.”     Ray said, “You say that to everyone?”     She simply lowered her eyes and pouted her lips.     He ruffled her hair. She was so beautiful, and he so crazy. “Goodnight, little lady.”     Call me the iron jaw, he thought (or shithead maybe more fitting), and smiled as he walked down 9th Street, a street he walked down many times before, a street he never walked down in his life.

So Sick Holly Day I am becoming nothing his hand moves across me and falls right through to the blankets beneath me he doesn’t even notice that I am becoming nothing people meet my gaze as I walk down the street meet my eyes unchanging more fixed on the fire trucks behind me I am a ghost invisible I am I am becoming nothing nobody notices as I sit at my desk grinding my teeth trying not to feel it all falls inside me shrinks to nothing push down the memories the dreams the years passing by ball them up and hide them in a place deep inside me where no one will see them inside me where outside me I am becoming nothing nothing nothing nothing

A little bit of hope Kirby Light Some men are worthwhile In there own time And now women would Rather drink At house parties With loud music And lots of strangers Or go downtown And drink Hitting on men With biceps And six pack abs Flashing cab drivers for free rides And being faded Beautiful women No woman wants to sit In a room with a guy Like me And talk about things beyond The ice berg tips But they will one day After my word on The page Explodes in the air.

Left in Swahili Kate Kimball     Anne needed to exchange a hundred dollar bill, and she wasn’t sure about crossing the street to the bank because there weren’t any traffic signals. She was arguing with Abasi about getting directions. He stood next to her, consulting a map, the sheen of sun on the fold of his neck, insisting that they walk another block to the bus stop. It had to be over a hundred degrees. At home, Abasi would have been inside watching television or talking on the phone, and she would have had to beg him to venture out. He wasn’t much into adventure or exhaustion, but Anne was always convinced that she could change this. It was this reason that she had stayed married for the last few years.     “Why can’t we just cross here? We can still be in time for the meeting,” Anne swatted a fly from her face. The sweat on her back made her feel like insects were crawling all over her. Her cotton dress pressed against her sides, and she pulled them from her, knowing that she looked ridiculous.     “I know where to go, just give me a minute...I just need to read this.”     Abasi looked down at the map, folding a corner underneath.     “You look like a boy scout,” Anne said.     Abasi ignored her. She breathed in the exhaust from a truck that swerved by them, almost running along the curb. Anne fanned her face, staring up at one of the high rises in the center of town. It looked like a gust of wind would make it topple over. Abasi argued that it had one of the best restaurants in the city, but Anne doubted this, staring at the windows that looked as though they had never been washed.     “I thought the UN was notorious for having the best maps in the world.”     “There’s nothing wrong with the map,” Abasi inched closer, and looked back and forth between the map and the street signs. Anne knew she was giving him a hard time for no reason. Really, she was thrilled that she finally was in the place where he grew up. She thought it could bring them closer. They had come to Nairobi to meet with Mwangi Kipnegro, who was also a UN delegate. There were some changes with development in parts of Kenya and Somalia, and Abasi had even hinted that they might be moving to one of those countries soon as an assignment. He kidded with her often, telling her to keep her bags packed. “Tomorrow we could be on the other side of the world.”     Abasi had been working with the UN for over fifteen years, and in the eight years that they had been married, Anne knew very little about his job. She often joked with Abasi and told him that he was a collector of secrets. She had a few friends who were married to CIA employees, and they always exchanged friendly banter about how little they knew about what their spouses did for a living. Anne, who was open about anything, baring even the most intimate details on a first meeting with someone, found it ironic that her marriage worked with Abasi, who told her very little about anything. Her friends always joked with her and told her how opposites always attract. “Besides,” one friend had said, “Everyone knows you are addicted to anything that isn’t American.”     Anne coughed a little, trying to get Abasi’s attention. It was useless. She shifted her weight, rocking back and worth.     “Look, just wait here and I’ll be back in five—”     Anne didn’t even give him a moment to argue with her. She hadn’t even planned what she was going to do—but she was tired of waiting. She walked out into the middle of the congested street, and one by one, the cars slammed on their breaks. A white truck swerved to the curb. A yellow cab almost hit her, and was within inches of her legs when she looked directly into the driver’s eyes, as he rolled down his window and cursed at her in Swahili. He wagged his finger over and over and his mouth widened in such a way that she, for a moment, thought he could swallow her whole.     She stared ahead at the green door of the bank that stood out against the building that looked as though it was getting ready to fall to the ground. She could hear Abasi calling her name, but she never looked back. She felt her stomach tighten a little. She straightened her dress, swept her sandy hair from off her neck and removed the elastic from her wrist. She was soaking—partly from the heat, partly from fear. Grazing death from time to time was the only way that she could ever be sure she was alive.     Anne was a woman that experienced everything through the physical reaction to the body. She knew she was sad when she felt tears. She knew she felt happy when she was filled with the urge to smile or laugh. Love with Abasi was painfully intimate, sometimes to the point that he had said he felt as though she knew everything about him and he had nothing left to himself. She did have a way with exposing him. Allowing her to do this was one of the things she loved about him most, even though it scared her a little and she was afraid she would one day lose him.     They had made love quickly the morning they arrived to the hotel. They were both exhausted, but the time change and the brightness of the day kept them from sleep. Anne felt the familiar curve of Abasi’s shoulder brush hers as he thrashed back and forth, throwing a leg in and out of the cream-colored sheets. She sat up, pushed her hair to the side of her face, and touched the side of his face. She had put her arm around Abasi and had started unbuttoning his shirt. He laughed a little.     “Can’t we just sit here for a moment? Just be. We don’t need to do something all of the time.”     She had done that with him for less than a minute before she became restless again. She stared at the wall and thought about making more coffee. She wanted to do something, anything, to cease the familiar humming inside her mind. She felt completely disoriented. On their first date, she had told him that she was like trying to read Arabic, and that eventually, everything would visually run together like a wave of curls. Abasi had laughed and had told her that the Arabic alphabet was actually very distinct and he could distinguish one letter from the next. He wrote the letters out in pen on a napkin, giving their pronunciation, opening his mouth wide, smiling when she tried to argue with the way he sounded the letters. “I’m still in the beginner’s course,” he had said. “But, I will make it to the advanced one in no time.”     That morning, she pulled at his arms. Please, her touch told him. I can’t be anymore. Abasi had eventually relented and he went quickly, vigorously, almost to the point where Anne felt pain. This was what she enjoyed. In that moment, she felt as though she could break in half and melt like ice all over the bed. After, she held his hand and smiled.     “Now, I am officially exhausted,” Abasi had said.     “You don’t need to always worry me,” Abasi told her when she returned. She held up the shillings and laughed. “There are other ways to be entertained. This isn’t like New York, you know. If something happens here and you have to go to the hospital, it can be more dangerous than getting in an accident—”     “I know—”     “And it can be difficult with figuring out the travel insurance and the coverage—”     “I know—but I did get directions. We have to go over to Kenyatta Highway. We might just need to take a taxi. I know Mwangi said to take the bus, but...”     Abasi shook his head. Anne was struck by the difference in him. He seemed sullen here, as though the very act of being in his home country aggravated him. He had seemed much more at peace when they went to Costa Rica for three months for his UN assignment and he spent every free hour reading Spanish dictionaries and practicing his accent. During that time, he had spoken to her in a way that felt irresistible. She pulled him to her, listening to the curl of “R” in his throat. Abasi said that she was bella. Abasi said solo idioma nunca es suficiente.     “He’ll be disappointed that I don’t even remember the routes. I mean, they only changed a couple. I feel like I’ve forgotten everything.”     “It’ll come back,” Anne told him, moving to take his hand. “Going home is like riding a bike. Once you get on, it all comes back to you.”     Anne felt the familiarity of New York City along the streets of Nairobi once Abasi agreed to follow her, even though it meant forgetting the taxi. It was like Abasi had once said, no matter what—home always finds There was no stopping it. It was as if Nairobi was the black and white version and New York—the remake in Technicolor. They were both so classic and decadent, something that belonged to postcards or museums, but never to the people who walked it day after day. She thought of the corner pavement next to the gym she went to every morning and how when the light hit it a certain way, it looked as though it was filled with diamonds. The library, where she worked, had a fountain that was filled with coins that gave off the same shine. She saw the same patterns in the streets of Nairobi—the same subtle shine on the roofs of cars, in the smiles of the people, in the corner pavement that bordered the streets.     In Nairobi, the buildings, various shades of gray, blue, and salmon, reflected the people—always in a state of trying too hard. She shielded her eyes, brushing the dust off of her leg when she stopped at the street corner, waiting to cross. The peeling paint, breaking signage, cracked glass windows, littered walkways seemed out of place with the stalwartness of the structures. They were supposed to be everything a city stood for. They represented dreams and hard work and the aspiration of wealth—or a vision, which was always a good idea in theory—but, somehow, never quite worked. They were always waiting, coming undone, falling apart at the seams.     The wind ran through them, the dust clouding their windows and doorways. The echoes of traffic sounded off their doorways—the sound of something unsettles. Abasi had told her how he had spent days in his youth waiting for the bus. He had waited for hours. Now, she looked through the corner building window and saw the security guards in front of the bus stop, surveying the traffic and the crowd of people in their blue long-sleeved uniforms.     The men wore suits and ties. There were never any wrinkles. What she liked most was their shoes. Abasi had always argued that he could never justify spending hundreds of dollars on a pair of dress shoes, and yet here were men walking along the filthiest street she had ever seen, with polished dress shoes. One man stopped near her, taking his cell phone out of his pocket and answering curtly. She smelled his cologne and thought instantly of the patrons she helped in New York who stopped by on their lunch break, begging for access to some locked document. In the winter, the men would leave a trail of snowflakes in the foyer, brushing the flakes away to keep everything in place. Here, it was the same. There was never anything out of place, even when the men carried something heavy or had an armful of groceries; it was as though the suit was the shadow they could never be without.     “Honestly, I can’t make out a word you’re saying,” Mwangi Kipnegro said to Anne when she went to introduce herself. “Where did you say you were from?”     “New York.”     “She’s from the city,” Abasi said, passing the file to Mwangi, and opening his menu. “She grew up there—a real New Yorker.”     Anne could tell this did not impress Mwangi. Abasi had told her how Mwangi had lived in more than twelve different countries and that was why he made three times as much as him. “He’s a little serious, but you’ll figure him out,” he had told her days before the trip.     “A real New Yorker, huh? Did you vote for that Obama?” Mwangi asked.     Abasi shot her a look and laughed. They sat in a covered restaurant that was open to the street and it was hard to hear over the sound of buzzing mopeds and people calling to each other. People often complained about Anne’s speech. When she was younger, she had an impediment that caused her to slur some of her words. She had worked on it, though, and felt that she could pronounce words as good as anybody else. But, people often went to her husband for the translation of what she was trying to say. It was as though no one believed her.     “It might just be me,” Mwangi waved his hand. “I’m not a native English speaker.” Abasi and Mwangi laughed. Anne ordered a glass of wine, and watched as the waiter poured it quickly. At home, Anne had a space for everything at the table. Here, it seemed as though the table was set as an after thought. The forks and knifes differed in placement on every table. At home, the table was a place of stillness. It had a center piece—a glass vase with a plant and a beta fish inside. It was a birthday gift to Anne from her boss. The fish, which they named Blue, sat in the tank, moving ever so slightly to let them know she was alive. It was a tradition to stare at the bowl during dinner and to comment on how they needed to get a dog or cat or something more alive. Abasi caught her eyeing the tables in the room, and he smiled a little.     Mwangi refused the wine. “Too sweet,” he said. “What is it that you do for a living?”     “I work at a library. I do collection development.”     “You collect fines?”     “No, I work in development...acquiring new books and manuscript collections.”     Anne was used to the glazed over look that people had when she explained her job.     “She works at getting hard to find books,” Abasi said. “Rare books.”     “Can’t you find them in America? What’s rare about them?” Mwangi laughed. “They have stores that sell nothing but books!”     Abasi joined with him in laughter, and for a second, Anne wondered what he really thought of her profession. He had once told another UN delegate that she was an educator and he had been interested in talking with her about the all-boys school that his fourteen year old son went to. Another time, he had told another delegate that she worked in research and that she helped the medical students at Columbia.     “Things are different globally,” he had once said. “Really, few countries even have publishers for stories. Everything is nonfiction. And children’s books? Forget it. Most countries in Africa have only a few publishers who will even consider them. It’s really all about the pictures and what type of stories you are selling. Plus, you need to be from that region. There are publishers who only consider you if you’re...say...a native Ugandan or something.”     Now, she wondered if it was really her job that embarrassed him, or if it was the way she refused to take more risks in her professional life.     “Risks should take place in your personal life,” she had said to him. “Not the other way around. That’s what travel and sports are for—adventure, adrenalin, adversary.”     Mostly, they ate in silence interspersed with Swahili. Sometimes, Mwangi would catch himself and switch back to English so that she could feel less left out. She listened to the small chime of the silverware on the china. A candle flickered in the breeze and the sun was setting and filling the sky with its magic.     Abasi and Mwangi soon became engrossed in conversation. It seemed that they flipped several dialects, and she wasn’t even sure if they were speaking in Swahili anymore. Anne had almost flunked French in high school. Her teacher let her take home the final exam and use the book and she still never scored higher than 60%. She had told Abasi on their first date that she would never be able to learn any foreign languages. She had felt that he needed to know that up front. Abasi had an interest in languages from his youth. He had told Anne of trying to make up his own tongue when he was younger, and how his mother became quite frustrated with him.     “She wanted all of her children to speak English,” he had said. “Swahili was for visiting grandparents...and the gibberish I was saying, well, she wouldn’t stand for it. It was a hard thing to let go of, though. Children have a way with expressing their imaginations, and that was the way I had expressed mine.”     Anne had the same interest in language, but it was more of an interest in what was silently communicated than what was made verbal. She felt as though she had been in the process of constant translation for years—from one relationship to the next. One man liked to be touched a certain way. Another required a certain look to be reassured. There were lessons to be learned from that, but she didn’t always know what they were.     Anne had been married a few times. The first was to a British man, who had an affair with their neighbor, and the second was to an Indian, named Mr. Punjab Khalijal, who insisted that she call him Mister Khalijal at all times. The first time she had seen Abasi, she thought she could really be in love. He was almost 6'3, lean, and had a small space between his bottom teeth when he smiled. She found it endearing. He felt like the type of person she could say anything to. She was surprised to learn that he had never been married, and that at thirty-eight, didn’t have any children.     “Not a chance,” he had said when she asked him. “I am not much into things I don’t have control of. You can never control a child. Everyone should know that.”     Mostly, she thought she was in love. She didn’t even need to remind herself of that, but every once in a while, like now, she did.     “You need to learn Swahili from me,” Mwangi said with a laugh. “You know about Swahili, right?”     Anne had nodded. Abasi had told her its history—how it was created by Arabs who had inter-married with Kenyans on an archipelago off the coast. They thought it would be a unifying language.     “It doesn’t hold our people together,” he admitted after he tried to get her to learn a few words. She couldn’t get the accent right and soon gave up.     Abasi had told her about reports that he translated in his office, the tongue that he returned to again and again. She thought about the reams of images she had seen over the past few years—broken faces, cut limbs, collapsing buildings, burning bodies that felt like a translation of Ground Zero. She looked over his shoulder as he read the articles in Swahili and thought about how it seemed to fit people that didn’t belong together.     “You definitely should let me teach you,” Mwangi said. “I am an excellent teacher.”     “Ah...Mwangi, Anne is not much for languages,” Abasi told him.     “What? You said she works in a library...you do, right? Books? Stories? Education? Surely you must have learned something.”     Anne shook her head. She didn’t know how to tell him how she mainly flipped through books for the pictures. She became easily bored when she attempted to read a book from start to finish, and stopped half way through. Abasi had tried to encourage her to join a book group with some of the other people he worked with, but it always seemed like a waste to her. She just liked the feel of books—their solid spines, the way the pages felt in her hand, the promise of having so much to say.     “Maybe you haven’t found the right language,” he said. He poured more sugar in his coffee and stirred it with vigor.     “Or, maybe you haven’t found the right thing to talk about. That’s the real trick. You want to know how I learned Mandarin? Pieces of china.”     Mwangi told them about how he had found pieces of broken china all over the coast of Lamu when he was in his twenties. “It got me thinking, you know? About beginnings, roots—what holds together, what pulls us apart as a people. Everything is based on common language. One thing I can never convince people of is that China had to be in trade with Kenya at some point. I mean, all along the coast are these pieces of broken Chinese pottery that are washed up on the shore.”     “How do you know they’re Chinese?” Anne wondered if Mwangi was threatened by being sent to China when he misbehaved as a youth. Was that a common thing in Africa like it was in the United States? It had always seemed to be at the edge of the earth and whenever she was bad, her mother had told her she would end up there, cleaning walkways.     “By the blue and white and coral paints. It really puts a very different twist on the history—who first came here and what they all did. I feel like I’m always trying to put the past together to sustain things for the future.”     Anne nodded, wanting to know more.     “I have a whole jar of those China pieces,” Mwangi said, wiping his mouth on the napkin. “I carry it around with me, you know? A kind of superstition—something for luck.” He reached down and brought the small glass jar from his briefcase. It reminded Anne of the jar of buttons her mother had kept on her bureau. She always thought she might have a need to sew one on. But, she never did. If a button came off, her mother would throw the jacket or blouse in a corner of the laundry room and take it to the Goodwill. She never bothered with reparations.     Mwangi passed the jar to her, and as she opened the lid, she was struck by the small white and blue pieces. “Look at these, Abasi. They really do like they’re different.”     She passed the pieces to him. She watched as he felt their sharp edges and turned them over in his hand. He lifted them to his nose and smelled them. “They smell like the Indian Ocean,” he said. She thought of how Abasi had talked about swimming off the shores of Mombasa and without a care in the world when he was younger. “It’s when I came here that everything changed,” he said. When she followed his suit and lifted the pieces, she found nothing—only the faint smell of the city.     “Why do you insist on approaching everything like an argument? I mean, it was just a meeting, and there are things to go over and I told you this, remember?” Abasi paced back and forth in the hotel room, taking off his tie and throwing it in the corner with the same vigor that Mwangi had when he paid for dinner.     “Are you embarrassed?” She insisted. “Tell me.”     “We’ve had this conversation before, you know? No. I’ve never been embarrassed. I honestly don’t even know where you got that notion.”     Anne thought of her British husband, the way that he had once written a poem about her struggle with a speech impediment and published it without her knowledge. He had said he meant it to be endearing. But when she read the lines, she felt exploited. She had run naked down the beach on the shore of his hometown, and had screamed when she went skydiving over Fiji. Yet, his words made her feel exposed in a way that she could not comprehend. It was as though he felt that he had to speak for her, and that she couldn’t do it herself.     “It’s like you have to do everything...like you don’t even think I can speak for myself.”     Abasi shook his head. She knew that he had little patience for her need for reassurance. He often told her that he could only tell her how much he loved her so much before he grew tired. He was easily bored with repetition and had difficulty with expressing his real emotions anyway. He had, on several occasions, blamed this on his culture. At other times, though, he blamed it on his father.     “You know what I said about Mwangi. Remember? We had things to discuss, things that needed to be reported on.”     “That’s not the point, you know? It was the way...” Anne stopped. She honestly couldn’t figure out the language to put her words in. She could hold his hand, kiss his neck, breathe softly into his ear, but that would mean nothing now. There was too much that was always lost in his translation.     “There are some things that I can’t talk about with you, remember? We have had this argument from the start. Here, things are better off left in Swahili.”     Anne shook her head. She immediately felt as though the room was closing in on her, as though the very walls could speak against her or swallow her whole. She paced back and forth, ignoring Abasi as he started to untie his shoes. She wanted to run and run, to erase the hum of dinner, the sound of mopeds, every bright star in the sky.     “Anne, are you okay?” For a second, she looked in his eyes; saw the earnestness of the man who had touched her so often with so much promise. She thought of pieces of china and the way they felt in her palm. She stared at him, thought about every place he had taken her to, the way her voice seemed erased by the touch of his hand. She could get it back, she could. She could open her mouth and overwhelm him with the volume of her speech. She closed her eyes then, thinking of the way she felt on the streets of Nairobi. She remembered the way her sweat brought her to life.

A Second Opinion U. Ebiz     Takeshi had booked himself a flight to a large southern city and a room for three nights. He told the hotel waitress that it was his first visit to America – she recalled him chuckling at photographs on the breakfast menu, that he’d ordered steak and eggs and barbequed fries and a double side of pancakes, and then not eaten a bite. From the restaurant he had gone to the hotel lobby and asked for a taxi, showing the bellhop a web page he had downloaded before leaving home of a nearby gun club. The owner of the gun shop told the police that Takeshi had wanted to shoot something big – he’d asked for something like Dirty Harry might have used. He had chosen a ‘45 from the display cabinet, paid the fee to rent gun and firing range for half an hour, and as he’d never touched a weapon before the shop owner gave him some instruction and stayed with him to make sure he got the hang of things. Takeshi shot 50 rounds into various targets – once he found the Bin Laden target he stayed with it, as it made him laugh – and then he took a cab back to his hotel to get some sleep. Later that afternoon he took another cab back to the gun shop, fired off another 50 rounds at Bin Laden, then returned to his hotel room. A few hours later Takeshi went to the gun shop once again, rented the ‘45, and put the first bullet through his own head.     The medics were there within minutes. They’re used to handling creatures that once were men, brain and blood all over the ceiling, but not dead yet.     They dropped Takeshi off at the nearest ER spraying blood with each pitiful attempt to breathe, his oxygen saturation already down to 80% and dropping. His passport said he was in his mid-twenties, though the nurses remembered that he’d looked like a child to them laying there on the gurney, so small and pale and helpless.     The trauma room was crowded with nurses, orderlies, X-ray and respiratory and lab techs – all jammed into that intense little box, they were inserting intravenous lines and filling vacuum tubes with blood and applying monitoring leads and checking vital signs. They were eager to help, only the trouble was, help with what?     That decision had to be made by the doctor on duty that day, Dr Jason Chu, who had just recently completed his training. A few moments of examination made it painfully clear to Jason that any coherent contact with the planet for this patient was in his past. He’d put the gun under his chin and aimed up. The bullet had passed through his throat and the roof of his mouth and then through the front of his brain and out the top of his head. The brain damage was massive, grey bloody tissue was oozing from his skull.     But not dead yet. His heart was still beating. The left side of his body was already flaccid and hopeless, but his right hand kept writhing slowly into the air above his body, and furiously contorting, as though he was giving them all the finger. His body was not yet at peace with the decision his mind had taken.     Jason knew they couldn’t bring him back, but could they actually help him to die? Clearly the man had made plans to go out like a light, but instead he was jerking, oozing, grimacing, gasping, drowning in the blood of his own mangled tongue, fading horrifically surrounded by a room full of strangers. If they just gave him morphine for relief it’d all be over within seconds.     The problem was this: in the long-run his brain was ruined; in the short-run he was about to drown in his own blood from the throat wound; sometimes the kindest thing is to let nature take its course. The trouble was, this death was far too gruesome to just stand around and watch. To act or not to act, hook the guy up to a machine – to force his body to live, despite his obvious intentions – or let him go?     Jason knew that legal responsibility for the decision was all his. But in matters of ultimate belief, of pure empathy, he liked a group decision, he still preferred to resort to democracy. He was loathe, or perhaps only too unsure of himself, to impose his feelings about life and death on others.     The trauma team on duty that day had gone into other people’s disasters countless times. They’d saved their share and felt great about it. They’d lost enough too, and felt lousy together. They’d pumped on chests and pushed in tubes and fired jolt after jolt to jump-start dying bodies in that room. You can be a virgin in horror just as in sex, but there were no virgins here.     Jason looked up towards his team – they were all huddled together, leaning over the gasping, tormented body – and muttered,     “My vote is to push morphine and leave him alone. His brain is done. It’s rotten like this but he wanted out and it’s too late to go back now.”     The trauma nurses liked Dr Chu a lot. Over the years they’d seen countless new grads pass through the ER, and Dr Chu wasn’t cocky like a lot of them. He was steady and hard-working and always sincere and polite with the patients. Nurses appreciate that. He was a nice kid, he was smart but he didn’t have much experience, and they didn’t want to see him get himself into trouble.     “But he’s a suicide, doc -” one of the nurses pointed out, and when Jason returned a querying look, she continued, “Maybe the shooting was a mistake, just an emotional outburst, maybe he didn’t really want to die -”     “Could be,” Jason agreed, “but he did this with his brain in one piece, you think he’d want to live with only half of it left?”     An older nurse – known fondly around the ER as The Coach – murmured almost apologetically, “Yeah, doc, but still, the family might sue you if you don’t intervene -”     “I suppose they could,” Jason agreed pensively, “and if we keep him alive maybe they’ll sue me for treating him against his will -”     All those eyes faced the young doctor, worried, horrified, caring. Jason understood that the nurses were trying to protect him. No one imagined there was a simple answer here.     But Jason was neither trained nor paid to be indecisive, and in the trauma room ambiguity was intolerable –     “All right,” he muttered, “we’ll tube him –”     – and on that order the room surged back into action. Staying busy is the best way to avoid moral doubt. Hands authoritatively re-positioned Takeshi’s shoulders and head, the breathing machine rolled into place, suction catheters and lighted blades materialized for the doctor’s grasp. The team was on auto-pilot.     Jason signaled for a nurse to inject a sedative to finally ease the patient’s tortured spasms – which promptly terminated his fragile breathing: had they stopped then, Takeshi’s deed was done. Squatting behind the patient’s head Jason took the curved steel blade handed to him with a bright light at its tip and manipulated it far down the patient’s throat while suctioning out bits of clot and tissue and blood. Then he pushed in a long thick plastic tube through which air was soon injected into those lifeless lungs.     Death diverted, at least for a moment, the team set down their tools, and stepped back to gaze ambivalently at their handiwork.     “Well,” Jason sighed, “he’s probably going to die anyway from the bleeding into his brain –”     – to which The Coach sympathetically agreed, “At least he’s not gasping for air any more doc -”     With the matter of breathing now passed reliably to a machine, the patient was soon moved out of the ER to be cared for by another squad of professionals in the intensive care unit. The trauma room was quickly inhabited by new patients who demanded and deserved – and got – the team’s total attention.     But some hours later, as his shift was coming to an end, Jason found that his thoughts kept returning to that ambiguous moment in the trauma room. It felt to him that he’d made a mistake. He finally had time to review the CT-scan of the patient’s head, which only magnified the extent of the disaster he had already presumed: the bullet had passed through the root of Takeshi’s tongue, then bounced off the base of his skull and torn through his optic nerves, sending fragments of metal and bone ricocheting in all directions, but mostly through his frontal lobes. Frontal lobes are where time exists, knowledge of past and future, of right and wrong, of the difference between trees and dogs. Never again could that man hope for even a guilty mind. And if his body survived he’d be blind, he’d be mentally retarded and, as the bullet had demolished his tongue, unable to speak. Not even to say he was hungry, or depressed, or in pain.     Heavy of heart, before going home for the night Jason walked across the hospital to the intensive care unit: maybe the patient had died, and solved the dilemma. He found Takeshi laying peacefully, comatose, his head and throat now covered with tidy white bandages, amidst the tireless and hypnotic beeping and humming of machinery and tubes that were steadfastly keeping him alive.     The administration soon identified Takeshi’s parents in Japan, and informed them that the hospital had saved their son’s life. A few days following the accident Jason overheard his nurses saying that the parents had arrived to see their son.     Jason wanted to just stay busy right where he was in the ER. But sincerity can be a tyrannical solace, and so once again he walked dourly across his hospital to the intensive care unit, to at least offer his sympathies to the family.     He found the parents standing at the foot of their son’s bed. They stood close together, heads bowed, hands clasped at their waists. Two frail and tragic figures, like images in a painting which had accidentally been drawn on the wrong canvas. They lifted their heads slightly when the doctor was introduced, but would not look into his face.     The translator quietly explained what she could. Takeshi had left a letter behind to apologize and say goodbye to his parents. Buddhists, they felt immense sorrow, but no moral fright at their youngest son’s decision to end his time on earth. He was a good son; they had no choice but to respect his action. At the prospect of taking him back to Japan – a failed suicide on mechanical life support – bewilderment, shame, and pity had overcome them.     Jason stood silently, his head bowed by way of condolence, waiting patiently for enough time to pass that at least dignity might be satisfied.     At last he murmured, somewhat thickly, to the translator, “Please tell them that I’m so sorry we couldn’t do more to help.”     Told these words, Takeshi’s mother grasped her husband’s arm and finally looked up to face Jason, standing there in his white coat and hospital insignia. She must have presumed him to be an official representative of the institution. She began to whisper to the translator, excited, persistent, eventually repeating, pleading, a single phrase over and over again.     “What does she say?” Jason asked, and the translator hesitated, and then murmured,     “She is only, distraught, you understand -”     “Yes, of course. But what is she saying? Is there something she wants us to do?”     “She says,” and the translator opened her palms towards Jason, “and I hope you can forgive me, Sensei – but she says, ‘You rented him the gun, can’t a man even shoot himself in peace?’”

U. Ibiz Bio (03/10/11)     U. Ibiz has traveled and worked as a physician from Manhattan to Afghanistan and Texas, and is currently writing a novel entitled “Whose Blood and Judgment?” He has short stories in or forthcoming in Wilderness House Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, Midwest Literary Magazine, The Ear Hustler, and The Foundling Review.

Rampage of the Giant Chickens John Ragusa     “I would have beaten John F. Kennedy for the presidency if they hadn’t made me look so cruddy for the debate,” Gordon Crothers said.     “Father, how many times do I have to tell you? You’re not Richard Nixon!” Delilah Crothers said.     “I know who I am!” Gordon hollered. “I’m the President of the United States, and I am not a crook. No one can prove that I am.”     Poor Gordon was 82 years old and senile. He thought he was Richard Nixon in the final year of his presidency. His daughter Delilah was saddened to see him in this condition. She took care of Gordon with the help of her husband, Calvin.     It wasn’t an easy thing to do. She had to put up with his outbursts, which took place each and every day. Gordon was terribly confused; sometimes he didn’t know who he was. He had seen a psychiatrist, but the doctor couldn’t help cure him. He said Gordon was too far gone for effective treatment.     Delilah went along with Gordon for a while, letting him think he was Richard Nixon. But when she saw how much anxiety it was making for him, she decided to inform him that he wasn’t the former president. But he wouldn’t have any of it. He insisted that he was Nixon. He was pathetically delusional. Delilah prayed to God that Gordon would get better.     Gordon was as paranoid as Nixon had been. He was suspicious about his cabinet. He was leery about the press, too. He partially blamed them for his fall from grace. He thought everyone was against him.     Delilah wished there was some kind of cure for what Gordon had. She knew there had to be an answer. Gordon simply couldn’t tolerate his paranoia much longer.     “Everyone’s against me,” Gordon told Delilah.     “That’s just what you think,” she said. “No one is plotting to do you harm. It’s all in your mind.”     “What can I do about it?”     “You have to face reality,” Delilah said. “You have to realize that you’re not really Richard Nixon. You’re Gordon Crothers.”      “I know that I’m Richard Nixon. I’m no one else.”     “You just think that. It isn’t true.”     “Don’t tell me it isn’t true. I know for a fact that it is.”     “Okay, you win,” Delilah said. “You’re Nixon.”     Gordon nodded. “You’re darned right I am.”     “Are you going to resign as president?”     “I guess I have no choice but to do that.”     “It’s probably the best thing you can do.”     “What else can I do?” Gordon asked. “Everyone expects me to step down, so I should do it.”     “That might be the right course of action,” Delilah said. “If you don’t resign, then you’ll be impeached.”     “I won’t let that happen. No one is going to run me out of office.”     Delilah let it go at that. She didn’t want to upset Gordon.     Later on, Calvin was sitting with Gordon in the living room.     “I suppose the American people mistrust me,” Gordon said. “They think I’m corrupt. Well, I’m right because I am the president. I can do anything I want to do.”     Calvin decided to humor the old man.     “Of course you can do as you please,” he said. “You’re entitled to it.”     “I think I’ll probably be impeached, though. Everyone wants me out of office. They don’t realize how important I am to this country.”     “I wouldn’t worry about it. Anyway, I’m going to see how Delilah is doing with her cake.”     “Okay.” Gordon went to the porch.     Calvin walked into the kitchen. He came up to Delilah and said, “How are you doing, honey?”     “Just fine,” Delilah said. “The cake’s in the oven. It should be done soon.”     “Your father isn’t getting any better. He still thinks he’s Richard Nixon.”     “I don’t think he’ll ever get better. His mind is almost completely gone.”     “Maybe we should put him in an asylum.”     “I don’t think we’ll have to do that as long as he doesn’t harm anyone.”     “We’ll keep him here and look after him, then.”     “I’m glad you’re willing to take care of Father. The poor man has lost his sanity.”     Out on the porch, Gordon watched a few cars drive by. Then he saw a giant chicken walk down the street.     He couldn’t believe his eyes at first. He rubbed them and looked again. He was seeing a giant chicken!     He rolled his wheelchair into the living room.     “Delilah, I just saw a giant chicken outside,” he said.     “Father, you’re just having another one of your delusions,” Delilah said.     “But I know what I saw!”     “You only thought you saw it.”     “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”     “I didn’t say that.”     “But that’s what you’re thinking.”     “I think you’re tired. You need to rest.”     “I don’t want to rest.”     Delilah didn’t know what to do. Gordon really believed that he saw a giant chicken; that was the sad part. She couldn’t tell him he imagined it because he’d think that she considered him crazy. She didn’t want him to think that. But what exactly could she do about it?     “You can go out front and see what I’m talking about,” Gordon said.     “There aren’t any giant chickens, Father,” Delilah said. “They simply don’t exist.”      “Yes, they do. I saw one of them.     “Let me bring you into your room.”     Gordon reluctantly allowed Delilah to take him to his room. Then she joined Calvin in the living room.     “You’ll never believe what I just saw when I looked out the window,” Calvin told Delilah.     “What was it?” she asked.     “I saw a giant chicken walking by.”     “That’s what Father just said! I thought it was a delusion.”     “It was real, all right. For some reason, there was an outsized chicken on our street.”     “It’s amazing. It’s too outrageous to be true!”     The couple went out front and were stunned to see chickens as big as houses on the street.     “Where on Earth did they come from?” Delilah said.     Calvin shook his head. “I don’t know.”     The chickens took huge strides forward. They made sounds that were deafening. When they walked, the ground shook with their impact. One of them nibbled on a power line. They crunched cars with their huge feet and bit people with their beaks. Another one of them flattened a stop sign. The citizens were terrified of these feathered monsters who were demolishing things all over the place. They were creating a path of destruction everywhere they went. Animals that were harmless when small became dangerous when they were big.     The chickens would knock down sheds when they trotted over them. They caused millions of dollars in destruction.     On the evening news, Calvin and Delilah heard about what had happened: A leak at a nearby nuclear power plant caused chickens at a local hatchery to increase in size, and now they were wreaking havoc around town.     People went to church and prayed that the chickens could be prevented from causing more harm to anyone. Some folks were arming themselves with rifles and shooting the birds to protect their lives. Bullets were not killing the beasts, however.     Calvin watched helplessly as the tree in his front yard was torn down by a chicken. Another fowl spread its wings and broke the window of his bedroom. The big, bad birds were unleashing their fury, and no one could stop them.     Then Grover Manlove, a chemist, came up with a solution. The chickens had to eat to survive, and what they ate was chicken feed. If the people could mix cyanide with chicken feed and give it to the chickens to eat, they would be poisoned and they’d die.     The citizens thought this was a good idea. So they filled a dump truck with chicken feed and cyanide, drove it to the hatchery, and dumped it there. The chickens returned to the place and consumed the mixture of food and poison. It entered their digestive systems and they slowly died. With their passing, the danger they had posed was eliminated.     The nightmare was now over, thanks heavens. But everyone in town would never forget the rampage of the giant chickens.

Cry Not the Labor Robert Brabham     It all depends on your definition of love and whether or not you believe that no good deed goes unpunished. Depends on what you think good is too. Maybe it changes over time. Back when I used to pray I asked God not to make me stop crying, but to give me more tears. That was before I knew what suffering really was.     My kid brother was only twenty-two when he shot himself over that goddamned slut of a wife of his. He had got her pregnant and he made her marry him. She didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She cheated on him before during and after and I don’t like to wonder whether or not my niece is my niece. Doesn’t matter. I’ll always love her. Her name is Carrie and when she was two, she lost her daddy, my brother, by his own hands. He had been out of work and having no luck finding a job and that slut of his was hot-assing around every night she could. She banged a bastard in her car while she was parked outside the house. I think he knew she was out there. It haunts me to think of what he looked like, half-dead already and unable to defend himself. I didn’t know how bad he was cause I drank a lot. I sobered up fast when a buddy told me what happened and when I saw what was left of him. Christ, he had used a shotgun.     The idea of that trash raising my niece was more than I could take and if I had failed to save my brother, I was going to save his daughter. My beautiful niece. So help me.     Most people know me by my past which I will forever have to live with unless I move to a different world, but I dug my pit and I’ll sit in it. Anyway, I’ve been known to be a persuasive man when I’m motivated. I sold my Trans-Am and I handed that pile of cash money to that no good whore and told her she was going to sign over all parental rights to me. Looking back on it, I guess she figured she won the lottery cause she didn’t give too much of a damn about her daughter, at least not the work of raising her. She got a funny look when I told her she had to move out of state. It was almost a deal breaker for her, but like I said, I’m a persuasive man when I’m motivated. Caught her around town one time and when I found out where she was staying I paid a visit. She never came back.     That’s how I wound up raising my niece like my daughter. I can’t say she never wanted for nothing cause I still haven’t found my oil well. But she never went hungry and she got almost every type of clothing she wanted, like when she was a teen and it was so important to her; well, hell, that starts before they’re ten. She never went hungry and I never let her know my finances so she never knew the burden of struggling to keep alive. Along the way I learned how to talk. And I think she and I had some good conversations, the two of us, sitting out under the stars at night. She trusted me and she used to tell me what she thought about, what she dreamed about. I never thought I would be able to do that. Quitting booze helped. So did flouting my daddy’s parenting: Beat ‘em straight. I learned the lesson of how to learn from a child. People are so worried about making their kids do the right things, they sometimes forget how to let their children teach them how to be adults. It’s one of the most important lessons I ever learned. You can’t imagine something like that when you spend your life alone and drunk and chasing the occasional piece of tail.     Carrie did real good in school cause she was so smart, even more clever than her old man. I never hid the truth about him, the good or the bad, from her. She can tell when I lie. Even when she was a little kid. Anyway, to be the daughter of a working man, she did all right. Could’ve been worse, which is what people say when they fear their incompetence.     When she was a senior she told me she had won a full academic scholarship and I don’t think I ever bawled like I did that day. It was pride in my Carrie, but it was the relief of knowing she would get to have a college education which no one in our family had ever done. I prayed and worried over it for years; how I was going to pay for it. A working man never gets a break if he’s honest. I was always an honest mechanic which means I always directed the customers back to my boss man’s shop when they suggested I take a little work on the side, a break job or such, that someone didn’t want to pay the shop for. Many a man got the ax trying to score on the side. I never had to worry about it cause I never done it. That’s how you keep a job.     I didn’t just love my niece, I respected her. I would about bawl with pride when she said, I love you, daddy. Everyone knew I was her uncle, but she insisted on calling me daddy. You wouldn’t think that little word could break a man up so much. She is the finest person I have ever known and I ache when I think she’s in need of something. It’s a pain I never thought I would feel, never felt it for myself. That’s why I cried so when she got that scholarship.     She made all A’s the first semester, the president’s list. I wasn’t surprised, she’s as sharp as they come and she works hard to boot. The next semester she got pregnant. First thing that jumped through my mind, I hate to say, was that slut mother of hers, but that wasn’t the same thing. Not the same at all.     There ain’t none of us perfect and I was as much to blame as anything. She wasn’t used to the freedom and I kept the boys off her. Too much. I should have let her date more. I caught her kissing a boy in his car after a date one night and I visited the lad the next day. Snatched up his nut sack in one hand and promised him he wasn’t going to see it again if he ever disrespected my girl. The little punk didn’t just quit dating her, he left town. Hindsight is the best teacher, damn us. Thought I was doing the right thing.     I told Carrie that she didn’t have to worry about nothing and she told me she was keeping the child. I told her I would help her with anything she needed as long as she kept going to college. Seemed like we had it figured out. I talked to the old lady down the street from me, who’s raised near every adult in our neighborhood, got a real gift for patience, and set up some baby-sitting. I took out a little savings and started buying some second hand baby stuff, clothes and such.     I promised my girl I would take care of her and her child. Those are the things you say when you’re sober and when you love.     She had a baby boy and named him Robert after her daddy and I cried like an old woman. We called him Robbie and our journey changed forever.     The boy never slept. He almost never ate. But he did cry. You expect that with a baby. But this one never stopped. Especially at night. There was no consoling him and it wasn’t food he wanted or changing, or petting or anything we could ever figure out. He just bawled all the time, all night long. Carrie never slept, or me for that matter, and then she would have to go to her classes an hour away at the college. I would leave Robbie with the old lady, Mrs. Faulks. When he was with her he ate once and slept most of the day. In the afternoon he would perk up and I would get home and he would play maybe an hour with those long skinny arms of his and he would commence to fussing about the time his momma got home. Then crying. All the time crying. I never could figure out how he could fuss so hard from eating so little.     He was a year old and he could barely crawl. You could tell his face wasn’t shaped like other kids and you can deny it really well until you see pictures of him. It’s harder that way. We finally had one of those honest talks late one night when Robbie decided to sleep for about an hour. She told me she was going to have to quit school and I got mad and I shouted at her. I wasn’t mad at her and I tried to tell myself I wasn’t mad at the child. I was mad at the idea of her quitting college. I told her if she stopped now she might never go back. I told her I might have to see if she could sleep elsewhere so she could get rest, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said we’d make it. I love her and I said yes, we would make it.     The doctor wanted to do genetic testing so he could make a diagnosis and I asked him if that would change anything. He started to get uppity with me but my eyes must have shined the way they do when I’m mad. He settled down and said it would help him determine how to properly treat him. I said he probably had a good idea anyway and he finally admitted it. My niece was devastated. We had tried believing he was just a little behind, just some delays in his milestones they talked about, but it was finally shoved in our faces. Robbie was never going to be like other kids and that’s that. I hugged my girl and said it didn’t make any difference and she cried. She said she couldn’t love him any less. It was true.     She finished her first year of college with a 3.1 average. She never made her second year. I begged her not to stop, but Robbie was getting sick all the time and he was getting to be too much for Mrs. Faulks. She looked at me hard one day and said she had a friend who had a child like that one. She thought Robbie was the same. I told her he was just fine and I wanted to throttle her, but she was completely right and it didn’t make any difference. She said she couldn’t keep him anymore and my daughter stayed with him all day.     I took all the extra work I could get, but I still had to try to get home as soon as I could to help her. Neither one of us slept from the crying. That went on for six years.     Carrie went from being a pleasantly shaped young woman to stringy. Her face was pulled tight and there was a darkness in her eyes she couldn’t hide no matter how much she patted it with make-up. She was sick all the time, always sniffing, like Robbie. That girl never complained, not once, not one damn time. She never failed take care of him. I woke up one night from the silence(and that’s a special kind of hell when you can’t sleep from the silence)and I found her face down on the floor with her hand on her son’s back, sleeping soundly in her bed. I don’t know how they wound up like that, but my heart broke that night. She was going to die before she quit taking care of that boy.     One day the boy’s father showed up for a look-see. I guess he was feeling big-hearted. He asked what was wrong with the boy and I hit him hard enough to drop him cold and break his jaw in three places. Carrie said he was going to sue but he didn’t. He never came back though.     I had to run Carrie to the emergency room one night cause she got pneumonia. I’ll be all right, daddy she kept saying. It was the last time she called me daddy. If she hadn’t passed out she would have fought me the whole way. They said it was in both lungs and they cut into her back and shoved a tube in her lung and strawberry cream came out.     My boss screamed at me to come to work and I told him I had to stay with Robbie with his mother in the hospital. I called Mrs. Faulks but she had gotten too frail and she had some dementia, old-timer’s they call it. I got to where I started throwing things around the house and breaking them and got Robbie scared and he started crying.     I took the first two shots, I said, so I could calm down and not make so much noise, settle the nerves, get under control, calm it. I drank a fifth in an hour and started a new bottle and wondered when I had bought them. I never let myself remember.     I always figured if there was a caring God, he would have given me some help that night. I don’t presume to know his will and I no longer care. I had passed out in my bed, but the boy woke me crying. It felt like cold water was poured all over me and someone had stuck a live cable to it. My heart was thumping so hard it ought to have burst. Robbie stumbled into my room, his face all wet with tears; I could see him in the moonlight coming in the window. He crawled up on the bed and started hitting me with his head. I prayed for help and I didn’t get any. I haven’t prayed since.     One of the boy’s favorite things was riding in my truck. It’s an old Ford I keep running for no other reason than so far I can keep her going and she’s paid for. It was well after midnight and I told that boy, why don’t he take a ride with me, and he made all those happy noises. He could say some words which only his mother and I understand. Mostly he makes noises.     I finished the other fifth before I got in the truck with him. He sat up in the cab with me, no child’s seat and that’s why I could only drive him around the yard and the field next to us. No back seat to strap in a child’s seat. I took off down the road with him.     My drunken logic was telling me it was okay to be running down the road with him, cause I was just trying to get him to settle down to get to sleep. Lots of folks ran their kids around without strapping them in the safety seats. It seemed like it would be okay, like no one would wonder how I could be so stupid. That’s drunk thinking.     And there’s another kind of thinking. The boy loved any kind of door handle he can find and he’ll work it til he opens it. I saw him with his hands on the door handle, kind of yanking on it and it was tough for anyone to open, cause it was an old truck and the door was heavy, and we were running down the highway about fifty miles an hour.     Here’s the answer, I thought. I was trying to calm him to get to sleep and he opened the door before I could stop him. It was just an accident I forgot to lock the door when I let him in; there’s no electric door locks on the old truck, just a...just a tragedy. There he was, pulling on the door handle and I couldn’t breathe. I just sat there. I was turning the wheel on the truck to keep it in the road and staring at that boy pulling on the handle. I could see it jerking open suddenly, could see his thin little body falling out. I wondered if I jerked the wheel a little to the left it might help him pull it open. He started crying in frustration cause he couldn’t open the door and I felt my mind slip away like I was watching it from above and this goddamned thing behind the wheel was just watching. I saw my hand reaching out and trembling, like it was going to reach across the cab and help him open the door.     All at once I started screaming and I jerked my hands back and I done it so hard I turned the wheel too far and mishandled the truck off the road. I hit the brakes hard enough for the boy to whip forward and I heard him hit his head on that metal dash.     The pictures kind of stopped and started and staggered from there. I was out on the road and it seemed so cold and hard and I got Robbie out the front seat. The door opened very easy. I pulled him out and let him squall in my face, his mouth like a little cave of terror, blood running down his face. I was yelling God God God and I stumbled down the highway with the boy clutched against me. This pain was hitching up and tearing itself out of my mouth as I ran along the road that was my rock bottom. I was screaming something, some kind of damned thing, like speaking in tongues, something like a soul breaking free. My face was all wet with tears and I remember feeling every muscle trembling so bad, but I kept that squalling boy pushed against me and both arms around his warm, thin body. He stopped crying pretty quick, but I kept on screaming as I ran down the road. Ran and ran. It was the longest trip of my life and I didn’t think it would ever stop.     Robbie was taken from me and carried to the hospital and I was taken to the sheriff’s office. They got Robbie a room down the hall from his mother. I was charged with driving under the influence. Later they charged me with child endangerment, but all that was dropped in favor of me losing my license and having probation for the DWI. It was the same sheriff from years ago when I was a young man with those little eyes that said, What you been doin now? Didn’t yer daddy beat you hard enough?     I always regretted not getting jail time. I always figured I deserved it. And I did, but not for what they thought I done. What I had wished.     That was two years ago and I’m off probation. Carrie called and said she wanted to see me. I asked her if she might want to meet at that little diner where I would take her sometimes for Sunday breakfast when she was a girl, but she said no. She said she would meet me at the truck stop by the interstate and get a burger or something and for the first time in two years I moved like I was alive.     Carrie had taken Robbie and moved out of state to live with her aunt, the sister of the bitch that had her who turned out to be a pretty nice person. The aunt wrote me a letter one time saying everyone was doing okay and that Carrie was taking some college classes online. You couldn’t do that years ago.     I walked to the truck stop and took a bench seat by the window and kept looking. I had no idea what she might be driving so I watched every vehicle.     She knew that I had gone off driving with Robbie while I was drunk. She knew that he was put in protective custody while she recovered from pneumonia and she caught hell trying to get him back. Luckily they were able to blame everything on me. I thought I should tell her about watching him trying to open the door. Maybe it would drive her all the way away from me. Maybe that’s as it should be. She can always tell when I’m lying. I don’t deserve her forgiveness and would never beg for it. I cursed an innocent child for destroying his mother but it would only destroy her if she lost him. Another lost lesson of love.     I still don’t know how long I watched him pulling on the door handle. In my dreams it goes on and on and he usually gets it open and I have to hear his body strike the pavement and...     My niece never did show up, but I waited about five hours. I got a text on my little phone:     I couldn’t do it yet daddy     And so I left. ; #     I sit and drink more often than not. I don’t know of any reason why I shouldn’t. I think about my brother I couldn’t save and his daughter I couldn’t save and the boy I almost destroyed. I still work and I’m still honest about it. I saved that text. I look at it every night because of that one word, daddy. Two years since I heard it. It’s like a little seed of hope that’s planted deep in my heart. If the word can come back then maybe the feelings and maybe...     Then I take a big drink and I let the pain wash all over. Oh Christ, it don’t pay to care.

Extraordinary Rendition Jem Henderson Peeling paint reveals Islamic verse in unknown humours The dirty cell, ramshackle Bed, filthy blanket His wife at home, in the dark With tooth and tears the baby cries For an unacquainted father She sighs Question, question, question Bright lights beam in tired eyes The corridor, screams in the twilight The inquisition continues How had he got here? Black hood, American accents Intravenous silence, take away All thoughts of freedom With fingernails and teeth, remove All signs of resistance Guilt by association He crumbles Inshallah. What do you know? Nothing. Allah akbar Is he? Where is he? This belief is killing him Softly, softly, hardly, hardly Late night, early descent Into the chamber of horrors Doesn’t look like one, does ‘e? Co co rico co co rico The tactic changes. The rain Beats on the corrugated roof And he is elsewhere Security, service interrupted Freedom of the man in the street Shattered, prisoners cut up with shards For your health.

Jem Henderson Bio     Jem Henderson is a writer and artist based in Harrogate. She is currently studying English Literature at York St. John University. She has a chronic nicotine habit, and realises that painting probably won’t keep her in cigarettes for long, hence the poem. She has previously been published in Beautiful Scruffiness, Branded and Convozine. poetryjem.blogspot.com

Mono-gamy Clinton Van Inman Dragged before white cake I dare choose only Mono in my gamous Before the life sentence of I do. I will learn to settle Down to yard work and Become a tinker in my trade Before the perturbations prove Too much for me with More patience than a starfish, My topsails are still flapping. Run Jane run And drag some Other toad of a prince Before you!

The Angry Artist Ron Richmond A weary artist is painting in a waterless beach as birds steal away the clouds and scenery, leaving nothing but a blank canvas. “Why is the landscape vanishing?” he cries to a gull swooping down to haul away another slice of the sky. The gull laughs, “Another artist down the shore has paid us well to relocate the sea, the sun, the shells and such.” “And you’ll leave me with this nothing, this empty space?” Yells the first artist. “Why yes,” states the gull, “and by the look of your canvas, you’ve painted it quite well.”

Déjà Viewed Emma Eden Ramos     Sierra Kneiling has been seven for three months now. She is the youngest of Will and Sandra’s three children, but no one would dare call her the “baby” of the family. She is tall for her age, has freckles, straight dirty blond hair, big blue (almost grey) eyes and a wonderfully mischievous laugh. Sierra is a sharp young girl who, unlike most children her age, has no tolerance for being coddled or infantilized. “Sierra is the boss,” Will sometimes said of his youngest daughter, “she could crush an army.”     This afternoon, Sandra watches from the top step of the Kneiling family’s front porch as her daughter plays. The small house stands respectably on Winthrop Street in Brooklyn, New York, directly across from Kings County Hospital’s Psychiatric Emergency Center.     On this day in July, Sierra has decided to create a barricade out of graham crackers with an equal number of toy soldiers on each side. “If the cracker-wall breaks,” she explained, “the soldiers will shoot each other.” It was like Hansel and Gretel meets World War II, Sandra mused, watching her daughter play. Even funnier than the game itself was watching Sierra lose her patience with Bandit, the family Jack Russell Terrier, each time he ate her fortification. Sierra would erect a new edible blockade and Bandit would devour it. The two make an incredibly unproductive team, Sandra thought.     It was 3:08 PM and Sandra’s two older children, Asher, 12 and Stephanie, 9 were inside watching tv. Will, as usual, wouldn’t be home from work until after 5:30.     Then, out of left field; “Bandit,” Sierra shouts, surprising her mother, “you are a menace! Go inside! Mom, can you put Bandit inside? He’s ruining the game.”     “Alright missy,” the entertainment was over, Sandra thought. Sierra was becoming quite peeved.     “Bandit, Come! Come on boy.”     Sandra ushers the reluctant terrier into the house. Then, to quicken the process, she picks him up and walks through the front room, towards the kitchen. Bandit, a typically naughty terrier, spent most of his time in the kitchen; a child proof gate separating him from the rest of the house. He was, Sandra thought, like one the soldiers in Sierra’s game. Without the gate, there would be a constant battle between Bandit and his five masters.     The gate is easy to assemble and, though unhappy about being exiled from the front porch, Bandit doesn’t protest.     Sandra walks briskly into the living room. She needs to check on her two older children, but can’t leave Sierra unaccompanied outside for very long.     “Mom?” Stephanie is sprawled out on one end of the living room sofa, Asher on the other. The two watched What About Bob?, a movie their father always enjoyed.     “Mom, I’m hungry.”     “Steph, you’re sisters alone outside. You can get your own snack.”     “No. Bandit will run out of the kitchen and I won’t be able to get him back in. He never listens to me.”     “Okay, what do you want Steph? Come on, something quick.”     “Can I have one of those Honey Nut Cheerios cereal bars?”     Sandra walks back into the kitchen, over to the cereal cabinet. Of course, the box is empty.     “Steph, Stephanie! The cereal bars are all gone. What else do you want?” No answer. With the television on, the children can’t hear me, Sandra realizes, annoyed.     Repositioning the kitchen gate, Sandra walks back to the living room.     “Asher, turn the volume down. I was shouting in the kitchen and neither of you heard me. Stephanie, the cereal bars are all gone. What else do you want?”     “Can I have... umm... a banana with peanut butter then?”     “Fine, I’ll bring you the jar and the knife. You and cut it up your self.”     “Can you just do it?”     Arguing will only take up more time. Sandra hurries back into the kitchen, this time using her foot to keep the dog from running out.     Grabbing a plate, a knife, a banana and the jar of Jiff peanut butter, Sandra makes her daughter’s snack as quickly as she can.     Back in the living room, Stephanie and Asher are glued to the tv. Neither one has bothered to turn down the volume. Sandra places the plate of food on the living room table and rushes outside to check on her youngest child. She can’t have been gone for more that seven minutes.     Opening the front door, Sandra first notices the pile of toy soldiers. They are scattered on the steps, the graham cracker box nowhere in sight. Sierra?     “Sierra?” Sandra calls, she must be on the other side of the house.     “Sierra, sweety? Where are you?”     No answer.     Sandra checks both sides of the house. The sun hit the front porch at full blast. Maybe Sierra moved to keep cool.     The little girl wasn’t on either side. She wasn’t at the back of the house either. Could she have gone inside while I was in the kitchen? Sandra wondered, her heart beating wildly.     “Sierra!” Sandra screams, reentering the house.     Startled by the shrI’ll sound of his mother’s voice, Asher switches the tv off.     “Hey! Turn it back on!” Stephanie yells at her older brother.     “Shut up.”     “Mom?” Asher hears the sound of racing footsteps.     “Asher, have you seen your sister? She’s not outside where I left her!”     Both Sandra and Asher know that there is no way Sierra would have come inside without at least checking to see what her older siblings were watching.      “No, mom.”     Sandra cups her hand over her mouth. Asher watches as his mother races back outside, through the front door. He can hear her running up the street, calling his youngest sister’s name, each call becoming more and more panicked.     Dr. William Kneiling, MD, works on the thirteenth floor of the new Brooklyn Supreme Court building. For seven years he has worked as a Forensic Psychiatrist in Brooklyn, conducting competency evaluations and testifying as an expert witness in Mental Health Court.     At 3:35 in the afternoon, Will dictates the findings of his latest psychiatric evaluation to the office secretary. He is getting ready to testify at his last trial for the day.     “I have found Mr. Hicks unfit to proceed to trial.” Will begins, “He lacks even the most fundamental understanding of the workings of the court system and believes that, though there is overwhelming evidence that he did, indeed try and sell crack cocaine to two undercover cops, he Will be found not guilty and released. During the interview Mr. Hicks was unable to coherently explain the job of his lawyer, the prosecuting lawyer and jury. When asked what the judge would do, Mr. Hicks claimed, ‘Hear the voice of god and set me free.’ It is my opinion that...”     “Will,” one of Dr. Kneiling’s office mates and long time friend, Sharon Rothberg, interrupts, “your cell has been ringing nonstop.”     The police have been at the Kneiling house for only 20 minutes when Will’s grey Nissan Altima pulls up in the driveway. Sandra is inside going over the incident. The two officers seem genuinely concerned, but Sandra finds some of their questions insulting:      “Are you sure she isn’t playing a game? Could she have gone off for a walk and gotten lost?”     Sierra is seven, she doesn’t take walks by herself. And she is incredibly conscientious. She would never scare her parents on purpose. This wasn’t a case of an inconsiderate child taking a game of Hide and Seek too far. And lastly, Will, having worked with criminals in the justice system, hearing, first hand, the dangers of everyday life had instilled a healthy fear of strangers in his three children. If Sierra had gone off with someone, Sandra knew it wasn’t willingly.     Will dashes up the front steps his missing daughter played on that very afternoon. Asher and Stephanie are on the living room couch, both looking scared and confused, the television is off.     Will heads into the kitchen. Sandra’s voice is a couple octaves higher than usual, and Will can tell immediately that she is annoyed with the officers. He knows they have to rule out all options before sending out an Amber Alert, but shares his wife’s impatience.     “Hello, Dr. Kneiling?”     “Yes.”     “I’m officer Melendez, this is officer Jameson.”     “Hello.” Will stands directly behind his wife, placing a hand on each shoulder.     “We’ve just been going over everything that happened this afternoon,” continues officer Melendez. “It seems that your wife took your daughter outside to play at around 3:00. She went into the house at about 3:15 to get your middle child a snack, came back outside seven minutes later. This would mean that Sierra went missing sometime between 3:15 and 3:22.”     “Yes.”     “Although, considering we only have a window of seven minutes, it is safe to suspect that she went missing closer to the exact time your wife came into the house. If she walked off,”     Will can feel his wife’s shoulders tense at these words, he too knows Sierra wouldn’t just walk off.     “She would,” Officer Melendez continues, “need at least five minutes to get all the way down the street and completely out of sight. And,” the officer continues speaking slowly and with as much tact as he can muster, “if she’s been taken, the abductor would need at least five minutes to fully disappear, leaving no trace of him or herself by the time your wife came back outside.”     “She didn’t walk off,” Sandra responds.     “We need to take all the possibilities in to account, ma’am.”     Tom Rourke, 55, had gotten out of the force as fast as he could. With two sons in private universities and a wife who was constantly in and out of the hospital, a state police detective’s wage didn’t come close to satisfying his expenses. Still, Tom was a good, hard working American. He would have been happy to devote his life to public service had it not been for his personal situation. His days of chasing down criminals for petty cash were over. Now Tom fought crime privately and for a more sizeable salary. He took all kinds of cases, but specialized in kidnappings. The kidnapping cases Rourke typically handled involved domestic disputes. One parent ran away with their child and the other hired Tom to find them. Open and shut, and, more importantly, rarely any casualties. However, when he received a phone call from a Dr. William Kneiling who believed his seven year old had been snatched right in front of his family home, Tom felt obliged to take the case. Kneiling’s close friend, Dr. Elaine Schulman, was the doctor who diagnosed Tom’s wife’s brain tumor. Apparently Elaine’s son Max was good friends with the missing girl. Tom felt he couldn’t refuse a friend of the person who saved his wife’s life, but didn’t see much hope for the little girl. Sierra Kneiling had been gone a week now and it seemed the police had absolutely nothing. It was common knowledge that the longer a child went missing, the less likely he or she was to be found alive. So far, the prognosis looked tragically grim.     Will sat on the living room couch, a bottle of Bushmill Original Irish Whiskey and a shot glass in front of him. I’ll set ‘em up, he thought, and then I’ll nock ‘em back. It was 11:45 PM. Sandra had taken a Valium and was trying to sleep. Asher and Stephanie had gone to bed at 10:00, and since then, Will had checked on them at least five times. Tomorrow afternoon Will was scheduled to meet with a private detective he’d been referred to by a good friend. Hopefully Thomas Rourke could be of further assistance.     The man from the car with the puppy was not a nice man. He’d said, “Are you Will Kneiling’s daughter? I’m a good friend of his. I hear you love dogs, look at this puppy I’m giving my daughter for her birthday tomorrow. Do you think she’ll like him? What do you think his name should be?” Sierra knew she wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, but the man said he knew her dad. He said he had a daughter and the puppy was so cute. She’d only wanted to take a quick look, maybe just pet the dog once. Now she was in a dark room somewhere. Sometimes she heard young voices, could they be the man’s kids? Sierra wondered...     It was 5:15 AM when Will heard the house phone ring. He knew it must be important.     “Hello,” Will said in an excited tone, grabbing the phone directly after the second ring. Sandra watched her husband, reading each facial expression as he spoke. Was there any news? Was it bad? Exhaustion was the only feeling Will’s face seemed able to portray.     “Will? It’s Sharon, from work.”     “Oh, yes, hi.”     “Do you remember Martin Wilson, we evaluated him in 2004.”     “I think so, why?”     “He jumped his parole?”     “Alright, what am I supposed to do about it?”     “He got out on parole three weeks ago and disappeared last week.”     “Uh huh,” Will rubbed his temples as Sharon spoke. He was too tired to make the connection, it had to be fed to him.     “Will, do you remember what he said at his trial?”     “He said he’d come after me, yes I remember. He was a terrible actor”     “He knew if his case went to trial he’d be convicted, the evidence against him was overwhelming. He was afraid of going to prison, thought a psych ward would be more fun. And, it looks like something might have happened to him at Rykers, if you know what I mean.”     “I remember, he blamed us, well me especially for the verdict. When they called me to testify at his trial I made it quite clear that I thought he was malingering. I believe I called him insolent and manipulative. After hearing his sentence he said he’d come after me once he got out.”     “You ought to tell the police. Let them know. Maybe he was serious in his threat.”     It was possible, Will thought. It would be beyond stupid for a man to hold such a grudge and then kidnap a child when he was about to be released, given the chance at a new life. It was far-fetched, but possible.     Will sits in his living room with Tom. This is the first time the two have met and Will likes the detective immediately.     “I doubt that’s the man we’re looking for,” Tom Rourke says, after hearing Will’s news about Martin Wilson.     “Well, so far, there are no leads. Nothing.”     “But,” Tom continues, “this could be good for the case. If Wilson is the only suspect, the police will go after him with all they’ve got. Either they will find him and he will turn out to be the person we’re looking for or news of his believed involvement will reach the actual perpetrator and make him relax and get sloppy. If I were you, and I know this may sound dishonest, I’d lead the police to believe that you seriously think Wilson might be the kidnapper. If he isn’t, then his only worry will be jumping parole, which he should be punished for anyways.”     “Alright.”     “Now, I know an Amber Alert has been released. Give people some time to get used to looking at Sierra’s photo. If our guy is stupid enough to take her out in public, hopefully someone will notice. I’m going to do some research, see if there are any other missing children from the area.”     “Thank you for your help, Mr. Rourke.”     “Look, I understand. I, too am a father.”     Sierra huddles quietly in her dark prison, back against the wall, legs clutched tightly against her chest. The man from the car came in about twice a day with food and water. He also brought a clean bucket, meant to be used as a toilet. He moved quickly and never said anything. Within the last day, though, Sierra has become certain of one thing: the voices she kept hearing were not those of the man’s own kids. Sierra has heard screaming and crying and knows that she is not the only prisoner in the man from the car with the puppy’s house.     Sierra Kneiling was missing for two weeks when Martin Wilson finally popped up on the Cops’ radar. He had been living in a vacant car-lot close to Newark Airport. He planned to take a plane to Miami and was helping a friend with drug deals in order to get enough money to pay half the air-fare, his brother in Miami had promised to take care of the rest.     “You’re going to need that money for a good lawyer once we find out what you’ve done with that little girl.” Detective James Morris knew that Sierra Kneiling’s parents had hired a private detective after only one week into the investigation. He was insulted by their lack of faith in the NYPD and felt determined to find the child before Tom Rourke did. He knew Rourke, by reputation, and knew how beneficial it would be for the State to find the child (dead or alive) before a private investigator. And, Detective Morris felt confident that Wilson was the man they were looking for.     The spirit in the Kneiling house had lifted since the news of Martin Wilson’s capture. Sandra was hopeful. Detective Morris told her he was about 75% sure he’d caught Sierra’s abductor. “Interrogations are not taped in New York State”, Morris explained, “We will bleed this bastard, if we have to, to get him to talk. This man has no record of violence, which means, Mrs. Kneiling, that there is a good chance Sierra is okay.”     “I don’t like it,” Tom Rourke responded, after hearing the news from Will. “It still doesn’t make sense to me. Have they found any evidence?”     “No, but obviously they can hold him for jumping parole. They are searching the car-lot he was found in.”     The police probably believe Wilson sold the child for money, Rourke thinks to himself. But Wilson was a drug pusher. He’d never, so far as anyone could tell, been involved in human trafficking. It didn’t make sense. Also, Wilson clearly was not especially bright. He’d jumped parole (something he’d be severely punished for) to sell drugs in order to buy a ticket to Florida. Anyone with even half a brain would have just waited it out, moved to the sunny coast after finishing their parole. Whoever had taken Sierra was slick. He’d figured out a way to trick a clever and weary seven year old into trusting him and then disappeared, after seven minutes at most, with the child in tow. This abduction was not the work of a drug dealer with a second-class mind.     It was 11:00 PM and while his wife was resting (she’d had another one of her terrible headaches), Tom Rourke sat on his living room couch. A bottle of Coors and a Newport Cigarette kept Tom’s right hand busy (he took turns smoking and sipping), while the other controlled of the tv clicker. Rourke settled on a news station. Sitting on the sofa, his nine-year-old Rotweiler Dirk by his side, Tom thought over the Kneiling case. In the past eleven years, in New York State alone, the number of child abductions had dropped from 28,000 to 20,400. These statistics were substantial and Tom knew they were highly valued by the NYPD. Still, Rourke felt the police weren’t using all their resources in the Kneiling case. Will and Sandra both sounded so relieved on the phone, it just didn’t seem right. Tom had gone through the other missing children files within the Brooklyn area and was stumped. It seemed as though...     “Felecia Daniels, 8, went missing in front of her family’s home in Flushing Queens last month. The young girl was taken when her older brother left her alone on the front porch of their home for what he claimed could have been no longer than five minutes. If anyone has any information, please call...”     The sound of the broadcasting together with the photo of young Felecia Knowlton Daniels sent off sirens in Rourke’s mind. The circumstances were virtually identical, the only difference was that Sierra lived in Brooklyn and the Daniels’ resided in Queens. Tom wrote down the number from the Amber Alert. Tomorrow, he decided, he would pay the Daniels’ a visit.     9:00 AM, and Detective Rourke makes his way up the steps of the Daniels family’s house. A woman, somewhere in her mid-40’s, opens the door and introduces herself as Monica Daniels.     “Hello, my name is Detective Thomas Rourke. I am from Brooklyn. May I speak with you for a moment.”     Mrs. Daniels invites Tom in, offering him a cup of coffee.     “Have you heard about the young girl who went missing in Brooklyn two weeks ago, Sierra Kneiling?”     “Yes, I believe I have.”     “Well, the circumstances of Sierra’s kidnapping are very similar to those of your daughters disapearence. Sierra was taken from her family’s home on Winthrop Street between Brooklyn Avenue and New York Avenue when...”     “Winthrop between... That’s right by Kings County Hospital.”     “You are familiar with the area?”     “Yes, I worked there from 1998 to 2003 in the Psychiatric Emergency Center. I was a Psychiatric Nurse.”     Upon taking the Kneiling case, Tom did a background check on both Will and Sandra. Will’s job wasn’t directly in the “Line of fire”, but it could be potentially dangerous if one wasn’t careful. The Kneilings were not listed in the phone book, nor was their address public information. However, if someone had access to the Internet and was willing to pay thirty dollars, they could acquire all the information they needed. Now Tom leaves the Daniels’ home in a hurry. There was, after all, a connection between the Kneilings and the Daniels families. Will worked as a psychiatrist at Kings County Hospital before moving to The Brooklyn Supreme Court. The Court was, in fact, affiliated with the hospital. Mrs. Daniels said she’d been a psychiatric nurse at the Psychiatric Emergency Center between 1998 and 2003. Will’s employment at the hospital coincided with Mrs. Daniels’. This was a connection that, in Tom’s mind, could not be ignored.     “Will?” Tom calls the Kneiling home from his car. “Will I have some new information. Its...”     “Jonah Wright. I know. I was his Psychiatrist at Kings County in 2001. His wife and daughter were brutally murdered while he was under my care at the hospital. Two of the nurses who were also on call the evening of the murder, Christian Baxter and Monica Daniels’ daughters are missing. I just got the call from Detective Morris. I’m going with them to his place right now.”     Relieved, Tom drives back to his home. Sierra would be found after all. Christian Baxter, Rourke hadn’t even heard the name. He’d missed it.     Arriving home, Tom checks on his wife. The reoccurring headaches were bad news. They’d have to pay another visit to Dr. Schulman.     At his computer, Rourke runs a check over the Baxter family. Two sons and five year old girl, Hadley. The Daniels also had one son and a daughter. Sitting at his computer, Tom goes over the kidnapping scenario. Wright lost his wife and daughter while under the care of Dr. Kneiling on a night when the two nurses were on call. Something must have happened, Wright must have lost it when he received the news. Kneiling and the two nurses probably had to restrain him. Sierra, Hadley and Felecia were abducted out of revenge. However, Tom realized jumping up from his desk, there was one major difference between the three families. The Kneilings had one other daughter.     Wright’s house is in Bayside Queens. Will insisted on riding with the police to the home of his daughter’s abductor. He has been warned of all the grisly possibilities. But, if Sierra is alive and well, Will felt he needed to be there for her the moment she is found. Sandra stayed home with Asher and Stephanie. All was safe...     Tom Rourke jumps into his car and speeds out of the driveway. The cops would show up at Wright’s place just in time for Wright to enter the Kneiling house. Will had said he was accompanying the police to the home of his daughter’s abductor. That meant Sandra was alone with the other kids.     “Mom,” Asher interrupts Sandra while she sits in the kitchen by the phone waiting for the news from her husband.     “Mom, there is a strange man outside our house.”     Then, both mother and son are startled by the loud knocking at the front door. Bandit appears, growling from under the kitchen table.     “Bandit, shhh. Asher, sweety, we don’t have to worry anymore. The police have found the man.”     Sandra pushes the child proof gait aside and walks towards the front door.     Sandra Kneiling freezes. The man is about 6'4, with dark brown hair and a menacing look in his eyes. He wears a white shirt and black jeans. Stephanie stands directly in front of him, a hunting knife held three inches below her chin.     “Daddy!” It takes a moment for Sierra’s eyes to adjust to the daylight, but the image of her father standing in front of the police car makes everything else seem trivial. Will grabs his daughter. As he holds her, thinking that his arms may be incapable of loosening their grip, Will watches as the police bring the other two children from the house. Hadley and Felecia have been held captive longer than Sierra and seem more bewildered and traumatized, though Will knows Sierra will be working through the incident on a therapists couch for years to come.     “Oh my god. Please, I won’t move. Let her go.” Sandra’s knees are weak, but she uses all her will power to keep them from collapsing.     Focusing on Stephanie and the knife pressed against her neck, Sandra doesn’t notice the sound of racing foot steps followed by the opening of the front door.     The pop is so loud, Sandra, Stephanie and Asher all scream. Sandra, her legs unable to hold the weight of both her body and her terror, falls to the ground. She can’t open her eyes. Stephanie has been shot, she thinks, the man has shot my child.     “Sandra, Sandra!” Tom’s voice is soothing. Sandra looks up. The front of her home is splattered with blood, but right in front of her is detective Rourke.     “Sandra, she’s alright. Stephanie is alright, she’s just fainted from the shock. Wright is dead, I shot him. Everything is alright now, I...”     Before Detective Rourke can finish his sentence, the house phone rings. Will is on the line. Sierra is okay. The Kneiling family is now safe from harm.

Emma Eden Ramos Bio (2010)     Emma Eden Ramos is a writer and student at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. Her fiction has appeared in BlazeVOX, The Legendary, and The StoryTeller Tymes. She also has a piece forthcoming in Yellow Mama.

The Beatnick and The Monk Daniel J O’Brien Today I am a beatnik, pointed beard, tilted cap, Sitting in small cafe, snapping my fingers to A melodic exultation by Thelonious Monk. I love to hide in the early 60s, when rebels had No stake, except to refuse to grow up, the Traditional way. Too bad James Dean Didn’t hang around long enough to see Woodstock. The hands of fate had a tombstone ready, just waiting for his name to be etched in immortality. Monk is pounding his fingers across the piano like A jackhammer cuts through concrete with the highest Precision. He is so on that you dare not speak to another sole Out of respect. In walks John Coltrane, making his way Up to Monk and as they fall gracefully into “My Favorite Things.” I am sitting here, at table, writing lines for a Poem called “Lil’ Sister.” It starts, “hey lil’ sister With watery eyes, your love is like a stain you can’t Remove Tell me some stories, give me some lies, give me a pain That can’t be soothed.”Then Monk and Coltrane end their set. I walk out on the cold streets of New York, 57 Chevys Riding up and down Second avenue, a Thunderbird splashes Water at me and I just laugh. It’s 4 am and still wide Awake. I head to my apartment, replaying Coltrane’s riffs in the faucets of my mind. I sit on my bed, roll a joint, and start to read Ginsberg’s Howl, puffing away until my eyes close a little. Then, slowly My head Falls back on a a pillow next to a copy of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. The morning alarm rings on my cell cell phone. Most dreams You can’t remember. This one was a gift, in a time of rebels.

Down Here Kelsey Threatte Judge us. Label us. Weigh our worth. Your ready-made design pressed against our skin But we’ll bleed beauty, an energy you can but envy Meter and punctuation the negative soul of your nation Sucking on dry bones for a taste of life’s marrow The bad’s much worse down here Our gutters run thick with chemicals Clothes sticky with sweat and violence But we dance with passion, sing vibrations Our rhythm’s sweet nectar nestled in the divine flower Blind, you worm, licking dirt for sustenance While we soak sun rays, illuminate the infinite Lord over us, your soulless roles and printed paper Dead men We will scrounge down here, suffer and survive Our children will know their fists before their tongue Because you want it that way But inspiration and passion are small-servings for the haves While we nots get tied in knots, but even your thin blood clots Our blood boils hot We have felt a lowness you have never noticed But we can soar much higher than your highest buyer We look up at you from down here, below your thumb We laugh from a deepness your breath can’t catch

Kelsey Threatte brief bio     Called a hundred names in a dozen cities. A twenty-something English teacher in the city of brotherly love born in the town that begins with Love. Returned from a year of self-discovery in the birth place of the three monoliths. Drunk on Bedouin whiskey, high on Chefchaouen mountain air.

Write Out John L. Campbell     Julia was in a white room, filled with white cats. They were screaming, screaming, screaming. She wasn’t sure why, and didn’t know quite how she knew they were screaming. She couldn’t hear them, yet she knew it just the same.     “Rabbit’s feet,” she said, her own voice sounding strange, disembodied. Snip went the scissors, and another little white cat paw came away from a little white leg. There was no blood, which was odd but perfectly understandable.     It was just like all the other times.     Snip, snip, snippity. The little white paws dropped into neat, little white piles at her feet. She didn’t know what happened to the cats she snipped – they just vanished from sight, only to be replaced by more cats.     It was a big room, with no exits. The white cats ran hither dither, but couldn’t get out. Snip.     Julia looked at the scissors. They were the dull, rounded-end types used in pre-schools. A fairly blunt instrument, but they were doing a fine job. Snip.     She floated away from a neat little pile of paws – she always floated when she was snipping – her bare feet skimming furry white backs. It tickled her toes. She saw a big group of white cats huddled in a corner. They didn’t arch or hiss, they just stared at her.     <>ISnippity, snippity, snip snip snip.     “Rabbit’s feet, rabbit’s feet,” she sang, and snipped some more.     Julia wasn’t worried about the cats. She did this often, and every time the cats ended up okay. They had never screamed before, though. But then, since she couldn’t really hear them, they might not really be screaming.     Ssssssnip!     She had been snipping rabbit’s feet – oh, she knew they were really cat feet, she just called them that – for the last eleven days. Every night she would snuggle under the covers next to Paul, pull the blankets up to her chin, and wait to be in the white room. For eleven days she had gone there. When she awakened, she always felt as if she had slept too hard, and the fingers of her right hand ached from holding scissors made for a smaller person. But even so, she felt great for the rest of the day, and that made it all worthwhile.     Julia floated away from the corner and the pile of paws.     “Rabbit’s feet,” she said thickly, and a stringer of drool slipped through her lips and dropped onto her cotton nightgown. Uh-oh. That was okay too, though. Paul teased her about drooling in her sleep, complaining that her pillow was always damp when he stole her side of the bed in the morning after she had risen to get ready for work.     She floated, her toes sliding through soft, white fur. Why didn’t they stop screaming? Didn’t they know it was okay? Each cat would have its paws back tomorrow, so that Julia could start snipping all over.     She could see only a few remaining cats now. That always meant she would be waking up soon. Julia drifted down to one that was trying to hide. Silly cat, she thought. It’s a big empty room, where do you think you can hide?     Snip, snip, snip, snip.     The screaming had stopped. Good kitties. Now there was a pounding noise. This was new, and she wondered where it was coming from. “Rabbit’s feet!” she yelled.     Sergeant Raymond Sherman stood away from the door and kicked. The frame splintered, and his younger partner Francis rushed through the doorway. Sherman followed right behind.     “Rabbit’s feet,” said Julia happily, and lifted another tiny pink finger. A hand, wrist and arm came with it. Francis Taylor noticed that the finger was smeared with blue paint. Fingerpaint.     Snip. Off came the finger, and Julia let the little hand drop back to the tiled floor with a smack. In those first moments, both officers quickly took in the scene in the main playroom at the Merry-Time Preschool, and Sergeant Sherman promptly fell against a brightly-painted wall and vomited through his hands, unable to take his eyes off the drooling pre-school teacher. He had dropped his daughter off in this very room earlier this morning.     The younger man was repulsed, but free of the deeper, emotional trauma which was destroying his partner. He pulled his pistol.     “Rabbit’s feet,” grinned Julia, and reached for another tiny hand.     Francis shot her three times.

Teaspoon Of Water Denny E. Marshall Life is a desert, hot, hard, and beautiful A clear, cool lake miles away, is not the hope Hope is a teaspoon of water The cynic says if life is so great How about a big tall glass of water His back turned; he does not see the thousands All carrying teaspoons of water Full and shining, and I smile Seeing behind him, the view so different Even though we’re both standing in the same place Previously Published in Parnassus Literary Journal Winter 1996

the book of Helena Janet Kuypers (2003) time: 26 CE place: Alexandria, Egypt     Helena only passively kept interest in Antony, the man who had once courted her in Greece, though he kept his eye on her. Her state treated her and other women on very unequal footing with men, but she knew that her country thought she had some value, even if her value could only be through raising children or tending a home for a future husband.     Knowing she wanted to tell the world about injustices she had seen in society as she was raised in Greece, she looked forward to her chance at further education and reading through the extensive libraries in Egypt. Thinking about chances to learn in new lecture amphitheatres and study in exquisite libraries and museums, Helena was sure her future would be strong and bright, finding fascinating new people to interact with and experiencing new elements in her society for her potential new loves of life.     Her awakening was after her moving out of her parent᾿s house to live and study. There were great libraries in Alexandria, and her friend was moving there to work and study with Helena.     Everything was going to be different for her once she got out on her own.     Haimon and Rheia, Helena᾿s parents, worried that it was not a good idea to let Helena to move to another country and live without a man, they worried she may be thought of as a loose woman and she would not find a man to marry and would resort to prostitution. But Helena᾿s pleas were unrelenting; they knew of the greater chances she would have by working and studying in Alexandria versus their small town in Greece, and they underststood that her intelligence and strength would help her through her life, and she could always come home if things on her own did not work well quickly. They wondered how she would be able to study in libraries to learn while there; but after Helena and her future roommate relented, Helena᾿s parents were able to pay for her half of paying for Helena and Lana᾿s home for one year. After a tearful good-bye with her parents just after she turned eighteen, Helena left with a carriage full of belongings with her friend Lana.     Lana and Helena were close friends, but they had their differences. Lana liked different music styles and had different interests from Helena. Lana was even thrilled with watching the colosseum attacks in Greece - but Helena wasn᾿t interested in Lana᾿s interests and realized their differences when she was so much more interested in studying at the Library of Alexandria than Lana.     Either way, they were both happy to be on their own and were ready to celebrate their new home on their own.     Antony had worked the previous year for the State in Alexandria, and he was thrilled that Helena and Lana were moving to his city to study and work. He would live less than one mile from them; knowing they would be unfamiliar with customs and styles in their new town in this new country to them, he arrived at their home on the Sunday afternoon they arrived at their new home to help them move in.     When they first walked into the rooms where they were staying, Helena saw the area first as she carried her belongings in. As Lana and Helena scanned the space for where their belongings could go, they had to quickly decide where they would sleep and where their clothing would belong. Because of a lack of money and the difficulty in getting places to live in Alexandria, their home was one large room, so they shared the same area for sleeping, working and eating. They even just knew which side of the room each of them would sleep in - Helena liked being near where their book cases would be for her work; Lana liked being closer to spaces she can clean herself up to make herself beautiful for going out of having company over.     They knew they had more unpacking and rearranging to do of their things, but they were getting tired - and hungry - and they wanted to just take a breath and enjoy the fact that they were in their home - and in a new land - for the first time in their lives. Although they had moved most everything into their home, sunset was approaching and they had not considered food. After Antony explained to them that there are so many people from different countries in Alexandria they would not have to worry at all about learning another language to fit in, Antony then offered food and drink that he would bring to their new place a little later in the day.     The sun started to hide behind an adjacent building, so Helena pulled their candles out and placed them in lamps so they would have light for the evening. Lana grabbed one of the candles and went to a mirror to brush her hair. ᾸHelena, you should be getting ready for Antony coming Over,Ᾱ Lana said.     ᾸI᾿m just trying to clean up as much as we can tonight, so we can find our way through here more easily when we wake up tomorrow,Ᾱ Helena called back as she searched through boxes she was trying to still unpack.     ᾸWell, he᾿s your boyfriend, I᾿d think you᾿d want to look nice for him.Ᾱ     ᾸLana, I...Ᾱ Helena tried to come up with the rest of her sentence before she finally knew what she wanted to say. ᾸI - I᾿m not his girlfriend, we dated before, but we᾿re just hanging out now.Ᾱ     ᾸYou still date though, right?Ᾱ     Ᾰ...Yes, but he᾿s not courting me for a wife.Ᾱ     ᾸYou don᾿t think. He still likes you, girl, and you could think of liking him back. He᾿s could be a stable man for a good home for you -Ᾱ     ᾸI᾿ll worry about making sure I᾿m stable first, but thanks, Lana...Ᾱ Helena turned back to the stack of books to start putting them on shelves so there was less to step over in the morning. she heard Lana yelling from the other side of their home, ᾸWhy did the two of you break up antway?Ᾱ     ᾸLana, he moved. He᾿s been in Alexandria for almost a year working. He would come back to our town to visit his family, and that᾿s why we still saw each other occasionally. Besides, I don᾿t know, he may have spent time courting others and dating women since he᾿s moved, and it doesn᾿t break my heart that we᾿re not dating - I don᾿t think we were meant for each other.Ᾱ     Just as Helena finished her last words, they heard a loud thumping on their door. Because Lana was near the door, Lana ran to the door and asked through the wall, ᾸWho is it?Ᾱ     She could hear a muffled voice from outside. ᾸIt᾿s Antony. Is that Lana?Ᾱ     Lana laughed as she opened her door and saw Antony standing there with his arms filled with cloth bags for food and his fingers wrapped around a few bottles of wine and liquor. ᾸDo you need any help carrying anything?Ᾱ Lana asked as Antony made his first step toward to the doorway and Helena started to walk toward the front door.     ᾸNo, I᾿m fine, but thanks. Where is the table so I -Ᾱ     ᾸThat table is right back here, before the cooking area,Ᾱ Helena said. She looked at what he brought in and asked, ᾸDid you get all this food for us?Ᾱ     ᾸI know that cooking is done earlier in the day and you two wouldn᾿t have a chance to go to a market right away, so there are a lot of fruits and nuts that can keep in this bag.Ᾱ     ᾸAnd you brought lots of wine!Ᾱ Lana said as she walked toward them after closing the door and joining them.     ᾸOne container is of water, because you won᾿t be able to get water until tomorrow. And the wine is drink for us to celebrate your moving tonight into your new home.Ᾱ     ᾸI᾿m excited ... and nervous,Ᾱ Helena said. ᾸI hope I᾿ll be able to leave the house enough to read or get books from the main library.Ᾱ     ᾸI see all the beautiful veils over by your beds,Ᾱ Antony said. And I know a few people who work in the libraries near here, and I think you can go to the library for work and stay in a corner where you can remove your veil and read. I᾿ve told my friends that you᾿ll be moving in today, so you should be fine to read and study there. And you know, Helena,Ᾱ Antony said as he reached for her hand so he could pull her toward him to embrace her, Ᾰmy friends didn᾿t understand why you moved away to study.Ᾱ     ᾸThey haven᾿t lives where we came from, Antony, and they must be too used to living here in Alexandria. It is amazing here.Ᾱ     ᾸBut Helena, I think they thought it was strange that a woman was so interested in reading and learning instead of finding a suitor and taking care of a home.Ᾱ Antony gave her a look to let her know that she would be thought of as an improper woman for wanting something more than what women are supposed to normally ever want.     ᾸWell, if I᾿m supposed to be a proper girl and meet a future husband, this would be the place for me to go, no?Ᾱ She said, smiling after glancing at Lana. ᾸAnd where would I find a proper man? Well, libraries would hold men of intellect, so -Ᾱ     Lana cut in. ᾸYou᾿ve come up with quite the system, Helena...Ᾱ     ᾸI had to convince my parents there was a good reason for my coming here to study, Lana...Ᾱ Helena said.     ᾸWell, you᾿ll have plenty of time to acclimate yourselves here,Ᾱ Antony said, Ᾰand - do you have money for food from the market? Because -Ᾱ     ᾸMy parents gave us a set amount of money for this home for a year,Ᾱ Helena said, Ᾰbut I found the place, and I know it᾿s small, but it᾿s much cheaper than what we had for money for this house, so we should have plenty of money for food.Ᾱ     Lana laughed and reached for the wine. ᾸThat᾿s why Helena does the negotiating with money - it saved us...Ᾱ     Antony cut in when he saw Lana getting the bottle of wine. ᾸWhere are any glasses for the wine? You two should be celebrating.Ᾱ Helena got up to get glasses and Antony saw her head looking toward one wall, So she got up to get glasses for the three of them. Antony came back with three cups and said, ᾸI also have wine at home and I don᾿t live far and my neighbors are going out tonight, so they might stop by with additional wine I had at my home, so we should have plenty for the evening.Ᾱ     ᾸThere᾿s plenty here,Ᾱ Helena said, ᾸI don᾿t usually drink.Ᾱ Lana looked over at her when she said that to Antony, because Lana wanted to drink, and she wanted Antony to allow them to celebrate their new home together.     They only snacked on the fruits and nuts Antony brought them; after not eating most of the day they weren᾿t hungry for a lot of food to fill them up. Antony kept refilling their drinks for them.     ᾸIt᾿s a good thing my neighbors Senbi and Pamiu were going out this evening,Ᾱ Antony said as he finished pouring the last of his original bottles of wine into a glass for Lana. ᾸIf they didn᾿t bring any more liquor, we᾿d have to call it an evening.Ᾱ     ᾸBut the night is young,Ᾱ Lana said.     Helena put on a mocking tone, saying, ᾸLana Kiya, what would your mother think...Ᾱ     ᾸMy mother᾿s not here,Ᾱ she retorted. ᾸAre you going to be my mother now?Ᾱ     Helena laughed. ᾸOf course not. It᾿s just fun to see you so excited to be on your own...Ᾱ She thought in the back of her mind that it was strange that Antony was pushing so much liquor on Lana, but not as much on her. She eventually decided that he was probably just being nice to her because she said she didn᾿t drink.     Helena was having a good evening, and it was nice to talk with someone other than Lana on her first night in Alexandria. Antony was there to bring food, though they didn᾿t eat much of it that night, and he was like a servant bringing drinks for anyone who wanted it. ᾸYou know, it is usually the woman᾿s job to cater to the group with food and drink pouring.Ᾱ     ᾸI know, but I᾿m right here,Ᾱ Antony said, Ᾰand it᾿s your first night here and you should enjoy yourselves. And you don᾿t know how good it is to see the two of you,Ᾱ he said, as he moved over two feet so he could hug her. ᾸIt᾿s nice to have people from my home town here, people I have memories with and stories from our past.Ᾱ     ᾸWell, I᾿m glad you᾿re here too, it᾿s nice ot have a sort of welcoming party for my arrival here.Ᾱ     ᾸI wish we came earlier in the weekend,Ᾱ Lana said. ᾸThen I might have places to go to celebrate our arrival.Ᾱ     ᾸYou have plenty of time for that,Ᾱ Antony said. ᾸBesides, now you have all week to look around and see where you᾿d like to go next weekend when there are more people out and about.Ᾱ     Another hour or two passed, it was getting very late, and Lana looked like she was about to pass out. Helena was drunk from the evening of drinking too; she was having a hard time holding her head straight up and her speech was getting slurred. Antony finally spoke. ᾸLana, if you want to lay down, that᾿s fine,Ᾱ and he turned to Helena and said more softly, ᾸI can go home in the morning to get ready for work, so I can stay here.Ᾱ He then leaned over and kissed Helena.     ᾸUm, if you want to, you can,Ᾱ Helena said, Ᾰbut there᾿s not a lot of room here.Ᾱ She looked over at their two beds, not five feet apart.     Antony glanced at Lana Passed out, still sitting at the corner of her bed. He looked back at Helena and put his arms around here. ᾸI can find room.Ᾱ     Helena had to wake Lana from her sleeping sitting position in case she wanted to get ready for sleeping on her reed mat for the night, but Lana didn᾿t even want to bother changing into clothes to sleep in. Lana just groaned, giggled a little when she saw that Antony was still there, and started to move her body so she could just rest there and get to sleep. When she found a blanket from one end of the mat, she dragged it up her body and turned her head to face the wall.     Turning around to walk back toward where Antony was sitting, she watched him pick up his glass of wine, then extend it out to her. ᾸWhat? That᾿s yours,Ᾱ Helena said about the drink he handed her, but Antony answered with ᾸWe still have some left to go through, and Lana won᾿t mind.Ᾱ     ᾸWe shouldn᾿t wake her.Ᾱ     Antony didn't even lower his voice, because nothing woke her. ᾸOf course not. But I don᾿t think she᾿s moving anywhere.Ᾱ Antony looked over at her sleeping on the mat, and it seemed that she moved her body and the linen cloths over her so nothing would disturb her.     They talked for a few minutes; Antony then leaned over and ran his hand along the side of her face and said, ᾸI᾿ve missed you,Ᾱ before moving to kiss her.     Ᾰ...I᾿ve missed you, too,Ᾱ she said, though he wondered if she just appreciated there being someone she knew in this new town and new country more than missing him specifically. She didn᾿t know what to think, but they were there together, and Lana wasn᾿t waking up. She kissed him back. But Antony kept being more physical with her, and although she wanted him to go home, and although she didn᾿t want to disturb her new roommate, passed out only feet away from her, she didn᾿t think to say anything to him.     The next morning Antony was still there, and Lana still wasn᾿t waking up. Helena saw that he was there and knew he had to go so she curled up into a ball at the far end of the mat before waking him. ᾸAntony, wake up. You have to go to work.Ᾱ     When Antony came to and saw that it was daylight, he sprung up to get his things together. He went over to Helena to embrace her and kiss her, but she moved herself away and whispered that he shouldn᾿t be late for his work.     His running out woke Lana, but only hearing the noises, she did not see him as he left. ᾸHelena... how long have I been sleeping?Ᾱ     ᾸIt᾿s morning, you᾿re fine, Lana.Ᾱ     ᾸDid...Ᾱ Lana looked around their home and saw they were alone,Ᾱ Did Antony stay over?Ᾱ     Helena knew Lana wanted Antony to have stayed over, and if he did Lana would think Antony would by obliged to marry Helena. Helena knew she did not want to be with Antony, but she feared anyone knowing what he did to her.     ᾸDo you see him here?Ᾱ she asked, hoping that would be enough of an explanation and Lana would not ask any more questions. Helena used most of what little water they had to try to scrub her skin and clean off from him, but she needed to take buckets to the nearby stream to get more water. ᾸOh, I᾿m sorry, Lana, but I used most of the water we had,Ᾱ Helena said. ᾸI was going to get water before you woke up.Ᾱ     ᾸWe᾿ve got extra barrels,Ᾱ Lana replied, Ᾰso I can go with you and we can get a lot of water so we don᾿t run out right away,Ᾱ she said as she moved off her mat to find walking shoes before she brushed her hair for going out. Helena and Lana got their belongings together to make the trip to get water for themselves.     As they got to the stream, there were only a few women there; Helena figures that most of the women probably already got their water from the stream earlier in the morning. Lana walked to the water with a cup and bucket, crouched down at the edge of the water and started scooping up water for the first bucket. She was working for a while because the buckets were relatively large, and she hoped that if she filled the buckets separately, Helena could walk back and forth with the water because of their weight once filled. Lana was almost finished filling the first bucket when she looked up to see where Helena was, so she could get the water and take it back to their home. In the distance, she saw Helena standing in the stream, with her knees into the water, dipping her hands repeatedly into the stream and splashing water onto her face.     Lana didn᾿t know what she was doing; no one else was getting into the water the way Helena was, and she started to worry. ᾸHelena,Ᾱ she yelled, and saw her silhouette turn to face Lana. ᾸWhat are you doing?Ᾱ     Helena didn᾿t have an answer, and waited a moment before yelling back her answer. ᾸI had to do this after our move, Lana.Ᾱ     Lana knew the almost full bucket of water wasn᾿t going to move, but instead of walking over to where Helena was, she thought about switching their roles and said, ᾸI᾿ll bring the water back to the home if you᾿ll stay here to fill the buckets with water. Is that okay?Ᾱ     Helena knew she couldn᾿t walk back and forth to and from the house repeatedly if she was soaking wet, so she started walking toward Lana. ᾸSure,Ᾱ she said as she got closer. ᾸI᾿m sorry I got drenched like this. I can fill the water buckets if you don᾿t mind the walking.Ᾱ     ᾸThat᾿s fine, I᾿ve got this first huge bucket almost filled, so I᾿ll just take it now. You start filling the other ones here and I᾿ll be back.Ᾱ     Lana reached down to get the large bucket filled with water for her trip back to their house. As she started to walk away, Helena took a bucket and saucer, then said, ᾸThanks, Lana,Ᾱ before starting to collect more water for them for their home.     Helena spent the rest of the morning working with Lana on getting food from the market they could keep for a week᾿s worth of food, and they finished trying to rearrange their belongings in their new home. Lana wanted to go back to the market to see if there is anyone she could meet there; Helena wanted to head straight to the library to collect information.     Walking into the library, she tried to see where she᾿d need to go for books for the word she decided she wanted to do. As she turned a corner to go to a wing that contained Greek fiction and nonfiction, a gentleman walked up to her. ᾸPardon me, are you Helena -Ᾱ     ᾸDo I know you?Ᾱ Helena answered, wondering who knew her name and wondering if she was not allowed there.     ᾸI᾿m sorry, I᾿m a friend of Antony᾿s, and he told me that his girl Helena is in town and would be coming to the library today.Ᾱ     She let a moment of silence pass before she answered. ᾸI᾿m not his girl, but I am Helena.Ᾱ     ᾸOh,Ᾱ he answered. ᾸWell, if you need anything at all, please feel free to track me down. My name is Pedibastet, and there are a few other people working here who knew of you being here, so I᾿m sure anyone can help you out.Ᾱ     ᾸThank you, I was just going to pull some books from authors like Sophocles and Socrates, or even some of Plato᾿s writings.Ᾱ     ᾸHelena, this section back here,Ᾱ the gentleman said as he walked further forward and turned right into a new wing with Helena following, Ᾰhas Greek work from writers as far back in time as Homer. Do you need help finding anything in particular?Ᾱ     ᾸNo, I᾿d like to just do some reading and take some notes,Ᾱ she answered, holding her tablet.     ᾸThere are extra ink wells at the tables over there, so good luck with your work.Ᾱ     ᾸThank you, Pedibastet,Ᾱ Helena said, as she started walking toward the aisles of books to see what her choices were.     She turned one corner and started reading titles of authors in the books set in rows on the shelves, listed in order of the dates of the writings.                    Homer     Hesiod     Alcaeus     Sappho     Archilochus     Aesop     Thales     Anacreon     Simonides     Theognis     Thespis     Aeschylus     Bacchylides b. c     Pindar                    Hecataeus     Sophocles     Euripides     Socrates     Lysias     Aristophanes     Plato     Herodotus     Thucydides     Xenophon     Demosthenes     Aristotle     Menander     Dyskolos          Helena grabbed two volumes form Plato᾿s work and was about to grab a book from Socrates, when Pedibastet walked from aisle to aisle to find her. ᾸHelena, we just received a copied set of books from the philosopher/mathematician Aristotle. I don᾿t know what you᾿re looking for, but there -Ᾱ     ᾸWhat do you have. I want to see them.Ᾱ     Pedibastet saw Helena᾿s eyes turn to saucers when he mentioned Aristotle. ᾸYes, these books were apparently in a vault until about 100 years ago, and they have been in a library in Athens. Before they were taken and brought to Rome, a scripter made a copy of the writings, and we were just able to get a copy of the volumes. So we have around 25 books.Ᾱ     Where are they? I᾿d like to look them over, please. And thank you.Ᾱ     They walked over to where the collection of books was held, and Helena immediately grabbed Nicomachean Ethics. ᾸI might take Magna Moralia after I look over this one.Ᾱ     ᾸGood first choice. I᾿ve heard people say that Nicomachean Ethics is usually favored over Eudemian Ethics.Ᾱ     ᾸI᾿ve got plenty of work to do right now, with these other two books I first took. But thank you for letting me know about Aristotle᾿s writings here in the library.Ᾱ     ᾸNot a problem at all. What are you studying for?Ᾱ     ᾸI...Ᾱ Helena didn᾿t know what to answer, because the ideas she just created in her head was that she wanted to write, but she knew that as a woman her writings would be ignored. ᾸI᾿m collecting writings and data for future work on a book.Ᾱ     ᾸDoes the writer have anything in the library?Ᾱ Pedibastet asked.     ᾸHe doesn᾿t, as of yet, I think he has just been collecting essays.Ᾱ     Oh. Maybe I know of his writings. What᾿s his name?Ᾱ     Helena had to quickly think of her pen name. ᾸAgathangelos Alcaeus is his full writing name.Ᾱ     ᾸStrength, and an angelic messenger - wonderful name for his work. I᾿ve never heard of the name, but I᾿ll keep an eye out for it.Ᾱ     ᾸWell, I should get to work for him, but thank you for everything.Ᾱ     Pedibasibastet saw Helena᾿s eyes turn to saucers when he mentioned Aristotle. ᾸYes, these books were apparently in a vault until about 100 years ago, and they have been in a library in Athens. Before they were taken and brought to Rome, a scripter made a copy of the writings, and we were just able to get a copy of the volumes. So we have around 25 books.Ᾱ     Where are they? I᾿d like to look them over, please. And thank you.Ᾱ     They walked over to where the collection of books was held, and Helena immediately grabbed Nicomachean Ethics. ᾸI might take Magna Moralia after I look over this one.Ᾱ     ᾸGood first choice. I᾿ve heard people say that Nicomachean Ethics is usually favored over Eudemian Ethics.Ᾱ     ᾸI᾿ve got plenty of work to do right now, with these other two books I first took. But thank you for letting me know about Aristotle᾿s writings here in the library.Ᾱ     ᾸNot a problem at all. What are you studying for?Ᾱ     ᾸI...Ᾱ Helena didn᾿t know what to answer, because the ideas she just created in her head was that she wanted to write, but she knew that as a woman her writings would be ignored. ᾸI᾿m collecting writings and data for future work on a book.Ᾱ     ᾸDoes the writer have anything in the library?Ᾱ Pedibastet asked.     ᾸHe doesn᾿t, as of yet, I think he has just been collecting essays.Ᾱ     Oh. Maybe I know of his writings. What᾿s his name?Ᾱ     Helena had to quickly think of her pen name. ᾸAgathangelos Alcaeus is his full writing name.Ᾱ     ᾸStrength, and an angelic messenger - wonderful name for his work. I᾿ve never heard of the name, but I᾿ll keep an eye out for it.Ᾱ     ᾸWell, I should get to work for him, but thank you for everything.Ᾱ     Pedibastet smiled and went back to the other hall where he was originally working, and Helena turned to the row of tables so she could read and starting taking notes on her tablet for future work. As soon as she sat down, she pulled the pen from the holder and gave it some ink so she could write down her first thing in her notes. At the top and center on the page, she wrote ιAgathangelos Alcaeus᾿, because she just gave herself a name for her future work.     The first thing she did was start reading over Nicomachean Ethics. She scribbled notes, and started immediately generating theories of moral and sound treatments for women who have been abused by men.     Ᾰ...and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?Ᾱ     Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 1 chapter 2     Helena knew that women were taught to be there for men, and they were taught to not fight back; she knew that women would not want to stand up for themselves, but something would have to be done if women would not be hurt from men in the future.     She had to stop and pull back from the table. She

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 weekly Chicago poetry open mic at the Café, 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 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, and the Stories of Women. Three collection books were also published of her work in 2004, Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art).