down in the dirt
internet issn 1554-9666
(for the print issn 1554-9623)
Janet K., Editor
http://scars.tv.dirt.htm
http://scars.tv - click on down in the dirt

In This Issue... Christopher Hanson Jonathan Beale Marlon Jackson Eric Burbridge Travis Green Kerry Lown Whalen Liam Spencer Matthew Horstkotter Mike R. Weaver Michael Greeley Stanley M Noah Jim Long S. R. Mearns Dempsey Garcia Kelly Haas Shackeforld Josette Torres Roland Stoecker Harry Noussias Jason D. Cooper Phillip A. Ellis Kelley Jean White MD John Poblocki 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:

Crimson Socks Christopher Hanson The blood boiled In the bottom of my shoe And had it not been for the Dream and requisite Starvation, A hunger born only yesterday, I’d have simply walked, Walked anywhere, walked away – Leaving dignity to the whims of Drink...never dumb, but numb; The path of least resistance. It’s within that second And second swipe Of burn to my ankle, Alcohol unto a wound And far from belly, That I recognize Achilles And the tendon That now throbs – Our brotherhood Sealed in weakness, wanton suicide And early grave Should I break and break and Break. In desperation, I open my wallet and look to her, Two eyes atop gloss, For the memories that fade During these deadened hours - Smiles lying in wait and simpler times As I pull up my sock, So that the cotton soaked with the Sweat of others and their hours Seals my very own crimson away. I sigh. I continue on; You do too - 4 more hours to sleep And one more payday to eat.

Why? Jonathan Beale Cut the air He cried out in his anger and is rage Voices twisting and whispering in the still morning air           The last word beholden as our escapes Retracting the Tsunami - the point of timelessness Motionless - And then. And then the blind magnificent lust that saves us

Jeff Helgeson reads this Jonathan Beale poem Why? in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading this Jonathan Beale poem Why? in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

about Jonathan Beale     Jonathan Beale’s work has appeared in Decanto, Voices of Israel in English, Penwood Review, MiracleEzine, The Screech Owl, Danse Macabre, Voices of Hellenism Literary Journal, The Journal, Poetic Diversity and Ink Sweat & Tears. His work has been commended in Decanto and Cafe Writers competitions 2012. He studied philosophy at Birkbeck College London, and is from Middlesex England.

Struggling     Marlon Jackson     Inhaling sharply, like the deep drag of a cigarette.     I can’t think properly but the cringing thoughtsin my mind makes me wanna take that step to a dangerous decision.     Where life could be over if that mistake is made so idignent.     I wish to be preeminent and sentimental.     I wish for forgiveness and to be less temperamental.     I wish for that print or a touch that means much, to build my way to the top and end all this struggling.

Life is... Marlon Jackson It is what you make it, even with the pros and cons as long as i breathe i contemplate to reach and go beyond whatever roadblocks that come across me. With pressure i’ll break through them Just faith and persistence with hope to keep my mind lucid Sometimes the circle has an opening for me to see, a new path to approach, with grace oh yes indeed. Life is everything as long as i breathe     and I’ll never stop my conquest until I’ve reach my destiny.

two lines from The light is always there Marlon Jackson Down in the dirt I seemed to be buried within but the light is always there...

Jeff Helgeson reads two lines from this Marlon Jackson poem the Light is Always There in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading two lines from this Marlon Jackson poem the Light is Always There in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

K.M.A. Eric Burbridge     Today it was hot, stinking hot and ozone levels were forecast to be sky high. I didn’t have to work today but off I go. When I slipped my recently paid for blue Camry into I-94 traffic I started to change my mind. But, I needed to wish Amy the station secretary happy birthday. She looked out for me over the years and I appreciated it. But, Milton Michaels, the station manager, didn’t and he kept her and others from being promoted or honor any request for transfers, especially mine for engineering. Dirty SOB. My nonchalant attitude and usage of sick leave didn’t merit any higher plains of thought or responsibility. His words not mine. Michaels took pride in being the owner of a tutorial service for public school students. He told his pupils not to be like his employees; be responsible. That’s the proverbial slap in the face. We take good care of our customers, but guess who got the credit? It took decades for me to cultivate my attitude about the world and its problems.     It is very simple; kiss my ass.     At my age with a slight gut, six feet plus and a pretty good build, I still had enough left for that.     My solution to today’s heat; finish my route by noon and kick-back. I flipped on the brake to my defective mail cart, stood at the corner and covered my eyes from the glaring sun. In the past ten years River North’s diverse population of professionals turned this area full of dilapidated warehouses into lofts, townhouses complexes and high rise condominiums. I had several hours to kill, and the best place to do it was four blocks away. I meandered my way through the returning lunch crowds to my destination. *     The 345 Barrington Building is the newer of a cluster of unique condominiums. Its high price and design is puzzling. Some of Midland City’s hideous architecture has been built here in the past decade, 345 is the crown jewel of this tragedy. The dingy grey concrete construction has eighteen stories with three units each, attached at ninety degree angles. It looks like a lopsided honey comb. The floor to ceiling windows help cushion the visual shock of this monstrosity. Housed on the first floor is a plush sports bar called ‘Circle’.     Circle, the epitome of sports bars catering to the very rich. Its northeast corner location with smoked floor to ceiling windows gives the patron’s a panoramic view of the river with privacy. Glass top tables and leather chairs with thick chrome pedestals lined the outer walls and windows. In the rear, close to the bar are booths recessed in the walls. Suspended from the ceiling in the middle are four flat screen TV monitors that cover all angles. The chrome and glass bar is mounted on stainless steel pedestals and it forms a semi-circle that connects to a large central core. Full length mirror panels are strategically located so no entrance or exit escapes observation. The brilliant rays of the sun pierced the tinted glass of this exquisite hideaway. The chandeliers transformed light into beautiful dancing patterns on the walls. The state of the art sound and ventilation systems was pronounced, but not intrusive. That allowed conversation and thought to coexist. The crystal clear tones vibrated from hidden speakers massaged my soul like masseur’s fingers.     At the end of the bar Matthew, the owner, polished and stacked glasses. He got an ear full from a salesman who talked as fast as he shuffled papers in his attaché case. Matthew loved his place and his down to earth demeanor was responsible for its success. Being a good listener contributed to his huge profits. Tall, thin, but muscular with graying hair on his temples and an ex-Hollywood face; he struggled not to get involved with the female patrons. He glanced up; excused himself and rushed towards me.     “Connors, where you been?” We shook hands.     “Working hard.”     “Well, it looks good on you.”     “Thanks.”     “Have a seat.”     “The heat is brutal. I’ll be right back.” I hurried down the hall adjacent to the bar pass several public rotary pay phones. I pushed open the door to newly remodeled washroom with contemporary fixtures and plenty of light and ventilation. I don’t know about everybody else but I judge any place that serves food by the way they keep the bathroom. Circle’s is always clean and didn’t smell like a toilet. I rinsed my face and made various expressions in the wall to wall mirror and concluded I look good for fifty-five with a receding hairline. *     I spun on my stool and scanned the crowd that sat by the windows and watched the sail boats on the river. Matthew eyes focused on me intensity. “I thought you transferred or got fired, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”     “You know me; I stay one step ahead of them.”     He picked up a glass and filled it with ice. “What can I get you?”     “Godly gin.”     Matthew shook his head and smiled. “If everybody drank like you I’d be out of business.”     I watched my swirling water dissolve the fresh squeezed lemon. The cold tartness made me perspire. I studied some of the patron’s reflections in the mirrored walls. Nestled in a corner booth with a view of the river, only one head was visible of a very lively group. Matthew brought a tray of drinks; one of them stood to adjust her clothing.     Sheila Allen! It had been ten years since I saw her.     A curvaceous statuesque woman with the gift of deception that rivaled her beauty. Her multiple personalities kept you guessing. She wore tan pants and a sheer crème colored blouse. Her blond shrieked hair was still styled short and highlighted her perfect face. She never did like me. When promoted to relief supervisor, she wrote me up. A big typo, something I brought to the attention of her superiors and the union made her rescind it and that stymied her next promotion. She glanced my way and did a double take. Her heavy mascara eyes narrowed with hatred and hawk like precision. I watched in the mirror when she changed seats so she could observe me indirectly in the mirrors. She got on her cell and never took her eyes off of me, as if she were reporting to someone.     Did she still hold a grudge? Why? They say she’s a top lawyer for one of the city’s most prestigious firms. And she’s still mad? That’s crazy.     I shook that thought and finished my water. When I turned, she looked the other way, snapped her phone shut and grinned with satisfaction.     Several large sailboats passed by the picture window headed toward the system of draw bridges that led to Lake Illiana. The colorful flotilla paused and then circled at a bridge waiting for the operators to raise and lower it. Pedestrians seemed fascinated with the parade of the wealthy headed for their watery playground. I heard a familiar cackle from the entrance. Jim Rissman leaned on a polished black cane cracking jokes with the doorman. The cuffs on his tailor made navy blue slacks sat perfectly on top a pair of five hundred dollar shoes. He reached in the pocket of a monogrammed white shirt and gave the doorman a tip. Jim walked toward the bar with obvious discomfort.     “Connors, where you been?” I moved out a chair to make it easy for him. His rugged tanned complexion grimaced from pain when he sat. “You didn’t have to do that.” He spun in the seat, looked at the crowd and waved at the women in Sheila’s booth.     “What happened to your leg?”     “Arthritis. And, you didn’t answer me, Connors. Where you been?”     “Working hard, Jim, you know I can’t hang in here. I can’t afford it.” Jim is probably worth billions. He would be the first customer when Matthew opened and most of the time I’d bring the mail inside. Over time the three of us got close. Jim offered to send me and the wife all the world. That was his way of showing friendship, but if I couldn’t afford half of it, I wouldn’t feel right. The jovial smile and oversized blue eyes had a sad shadow that couldn’t be hidden. “You lose weight?”     He dropped his head and beckoned for Matthew. “A little...don’t I look great?” His sarcasm was obvious. I smelled liquor on his breath, unusual for him when he first gets there. Jim sighed; “truth is I feel like shit.”     I looked and tried not to stare. “Don’t look at me like that Connors, I’m sick.”     “Rissman, where you been?” Matthew asked. “You go buy another bank or what?” He grabbed a glass and poured him a drink.     “As a matter of fact, I did. I didn’t get the usual rush out of it.” He shrugged, downed his drink and broke out into a sweat. “Give me a napkin.” Jim wiped his face and pointed at the glass. “And some Godly gin on the side...just for you, Connors.” Matthew filled the order and went to the other end. “How long have we known each other, Connors?”     I sighed, spun my water and glanced at him. He stared with intensity. “I don’t know...ten years or so? Why?”     “Long enough for you to know I’m not a liar.”     “OK.” I got nervous like he was getting ready to hit me. “Don’t tell me where the bodies are.” I laughed and hoped that would change the subject.     “It’s nothing like that. I need to talk to you about something. You got a minute before you go back to work?”     “Yeah, I’m finished for the day.” The only thing we ever talked about; wine women and sports. His low opinion of women buffered him from heart break and money kept him from having the time. Lucky man, some would say. I felt eyes on me. I shifted in my seat and spatial vision revealed an obese shadow that belonged to my manager, Milton Michaels. He stood by the entrance flanked by his superintendent, Roderick Davis. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there; understandable since Michaels denied him numerous times to manage his own station. Michaels caught my eye and beckoned for me to step out into the vestibule. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. A bright red tie dangled from his fat neck and rested on his pot belly. I looked, determined not to flinch, no matter what. His snide look turned to a frown when I kept ignoring him. He paced back and forth like a caged animal. He dabbed sweat off his face, snatched open the door and stuffed the rag in his pocket. Two steps and security stopped him in his tracks and requested ID. He snarled and looked for his ID. The guards were poised to eject him at any minute. Michaels explained his business while they checked his credentials. They looked at Matthew, who looked my way. I nodded and he signaled to let him in. Michaels walked the perimeter of the brightly lit dance floor. He smiled at a few patrons and hesitated when he saw Sheila. She tried to duck the attention and glanced in the mirror to see if I noticed.     I noticed. You ratted on me, you dirty bitch!     Michaels walked up to me. “You are not supposed to be here on the clock, Mr. Connors.” I smiled, didn’t say a word and sipped my water. “Give me your keys and ID, Mr. Connors.” He stepped closer, his eyebrows arched and nostrils flared.     “If you put your hands on me, Michaels, I will fuck you up.” I kept smiling.     He stepped back. “I’m not touching you.” I gave it to him. “You’re fired. You know that don’t you?”     Jim turned and gave the fat executive a dirty look. One of those, please say something to me looks. Michaels shot Jim a look, his eyes narrowed. “Excuse me sir this does not pertain to you.”     “Look asshole, I—”     I touched Jim’s leg and hoped he’d shut up. He picked up his drink and downed it. Michaels shook his head in disgust. “You might consider AA, sir,” he hissed.     “What!” Jim shouted.     I grabbed his arm. “Jim, I got this. Trust me, relax.” He snatch his arm away, turned around and signaled for a refill.     “You live dangerously, Michaels.” I said. He grinned and walked away.     “Connors you should slap that prick. He fired you.’     I shook my head.     “What you got to lose?”     “You’re already, Jim. Don’t get your pressure up. I told you I got this. He can’t do shit.”     “Well, I don’t have to take it.” Jim reached in his pocket. “See this miracle of technology,” waving his Blackberry. There’s not a government on Earth I can’t contact. You think I’ll let that piece of shit insult me? I hate to be a bully, but fuck it. What’s his name?”     “Milton Michaels.”     Jim’s fingers raced across the keyboard. “My secretary will have a letter to his boss in a minute. Fuck with me, he’ll damn the day.”     “Well, if you just have to be upset.”     “Upset...you’d think you’d be happy, Connors.”     “Listen to me.” I reached over and covered the computer. “Get your head out of the machine.” He had a puzzled look on his face. “I know the system. Fax your, whatever, to this number. OK.” I told him the number.     “OK, cool...done.” He put the device away. “Now listen to a story.” His posture and expression indicated his sincerity. “I came from an extremely wealthy family. They own some of everything and what they don’t, they have stock in. There’s one requirement to enjoy the family fortune; an education. Which was fine with me, but unlike my siblings, I chose a small town college. Not that I didn’t have the grades for an Ivy League school, they just didn’t appeal to me. So close to home I stayed.     My senior year I saw my dream girl. Sandra was six feet.” Jim made an outline of her shape. “With personality and a sexy voice. She should be on the radio. She had a complexion like a girl from Brazil, a perfect set of teeth and a scar under her right eye. She wasn’t a beauty queen, but she had a really good face. I’d seen her, but other than a glance, she didn’t pay me any attention. We were formally introduced by a mutual friend at a wild frat party where Sandra’s dance stole the show. She teased like she’d strip, but she didn’t. She finished and bowed to a hefty round of applause and flopped down next to me. Those blood shot eyes mesmerized me. She took my drink and downed. “This one’s safe, right?” She asked. “Of course,” I said.     “Ah, love at first sight.” Jim cracked a smile and continued.     “Yeap, she was a breath of fresh air compared to the other females on campus. Her mature persona attracted me, but her childish practical jokes strained our relationship. But, I fell for her anyway.” An icy coldness entered his blue eyes and the muscles in his jaws tightened like he’d bitten steel. “If I knew then what I know now,” he said. “We spent a lot of time together and nothing else seemed to exist.” Jim paused, spun his glass and adjusted his diamond studded Rolex. “And, of course, we graduated and went our separate ways. It hurt, but I got over it. It left me scarred and the door to my heart shut or so I thought. That was a long time ago, but I bumped into her a few years ago. We picked up where we left off; the curves and crevices of her body hadn’t changed. I couldn’t get enough and, of course, our careers separated us again. Then I decided to look her up. My people told me she had been hospitalized here in Midland City at County Hospital. After I landed I drove like a bat out of hell to see her. I don’t know what to expect. When I went in her room,” Jim sighed and shook his head. “I was horrified. She was a hundred pounds lighter; her eyes were sunken in her skull and her skin all blotchy and peeling. A heavy set male nurse stood over her adjusting monitors and stuff. It smelled like a bed pan in there. I walked over and kissed her on the forehead and whispered in her ear it was me. Her cracked lips uttered the words, “I know.” The nurse said she’d just awakened and she would perk up in a minute. I asked about her chances. He shook his head and said the most they could do was make her as comfortable as possible. She looked at me with a strained smile; her lips quivered while she labored to speak. I leaned closer to hear her whisper, “I meant to call...to tell you I’m sick, but you understand, don’t you? I hope you’re not sick too.”     Jim’s speech was slurred and his eyes were glassy. One more drink and he might fall out of the seat. I shifted in mine to restore circulation and noticed the Friday evening crowd trickle in.     “I know this is boring, but I’m gettin’ to the good part. Bare with me. First, she breaks my heart and now she suggests I might be sick. She’s on the AIDS ward and I might have it. Why? What did I do to deserve this shit? She had an expression of finality on her decaying face. Her eyes closed with her last breath. She was dead and part of me joined her. Maybe she was delirious and thought I was someone else? Maybe, I didn’t have it. Maybe, this monster tried and missed? I panicked, I had to know. She did shit like that all the time. She got off on the look on people’s faces, but she died before she could tell me. Then I found out she was on that ward because ICU was full. She didn’t die from AIDS.”     “That’s quite a story. I know you’re glad, it’s over,” I said. Jim’s skin had aged and he wheezed with every breath. He might not have HIV, but something’s wrong.     “I ain’t finished. I’m no stranger to treachery in business, but my personal life’s a mess. Every time I care and love, I get screwed. I became bitter. It’s as if Sandra’s morbid sense of humor possessed me. I started breaking hearts without remorse; convinced everybody’s a gold digger and liar. I’d play dirty tricks on them and wouldn’t tell them anything. Find out it’s a lie on your own. That’s risky, but I didn’t care. The worse I treated them the more they liked it. It’s crazy.” Jim peered into his drink and stirred the ice. “Now I feel bad about that shit. This is where you come in.”     “Me...What do I have to do with it?”     “Be right back.” Jim stood, hesitated and balanced himself on the seat back and walked toward the washroom.     Mathew walked over and watched Jim head to the back. “He must be sick again. I had a cousin who looked like that. Pancreatic cancer got him a year later. That shit’s got a high mortality rate.” He wiped the bar and refilled our drinks. “I hope he’s alright. You don’t find down to earth guys that rich and powerful. I miss the days when the three of us sat here and solved the world’s problems, but things change. Here he comes; fill me in on what’s up with him.”     “OK.” Of course, I had no intention on telling Matthew anything. I don’t betray a friend’s trust.     “You didn’t slip me a Mickey did you? You guys might try to advantage of me,” Jim laughed and stirred his drink.     “No, you’re not my type.” It was good to see a smile on his face.     “You, Mr. Connors, have a serenity that’s enviable. The whole world can kiss your ass.” Jim looped his hands. “That’s worth all the money in the world.”     I never thought about that, but that is a good thing. “Well, thank you.”     “I want that peace and tranquility.” Jim perked up with excitement. “Look at the way you handled that manager. That’s good.” Jim’s eyes seemed to plead in his search for peace. “Listen, I got cancer, maybe its terminal. They don’t know yet. So, I hope for the best and plan for the worse.”     “Jesus...Jim, I’m sorry...Damn. Ah...Is there anything—”     “I appreciate it, Connors.” Jim interrupted. “But, I want redemption. That’s the word I’m looking for.” Jim wiped his face and drank my water.     “For me it was simple, I went to AA. It saved me and my job. Check it out. If not AA, go to some other support group.”     “Got it. Thanks, Connors and another reason I’m here are those gorgeous creatures by the window.” He looked at the booth where Sheila sat. “See em’.” I nodded, but I still couldn’t see them all. “Well, we share the same philosophy. The opposite sex sucks. I break hearts, but those bitches destroy their prey. They work on guys establishing relationships, building trust and then make it seem like it’s their fault when their world’s come tumbling down. Their victims are pillars of the religious and business community. I’m a wimp compared those bitches. Today is sort of a reunion. They insisted I be here. We sit and talk about the damage we’ve done to people. It’s like keeping score.”     “That’s sick” I said. “Are you serious?”     “Yeah. You want to meet those animals?” “Not really—”     “Come on.” Jim tugged at my arm. “They won’t bite, you’re with me.”     “That’s what scares me, but OK.”     We walked over and they were all smiles and shot to their feet, hugged and kissed Jim, except for Sheila. She smiled, waved and gave him a fake grin. He introduced me as a long time friend. I forgot most of their names as soon as they said them. A tall Scandinavian looking blonde with great cleavage, a Latino whose long black hair stretched to her waist and caramel colored Sheila with her sculptured behind, displayed racial diversity at its finest. Their lively behavior resulted from all the empty glasses scattered on the table. All eyes were on Jim, so I acknowledged their warm greeting and excused myself. I appreciated the politeness, but it was obvious they wanted to chat in private. Sheila shouted for another round then they huddled to talk about whatever. *     I watched CNN for awhile. Jim returned and patted me on the back. “Well, Connors they seemed to like you except for Sheila. What’s that about?”     “She ratted on me; called Michaels and told him I was in here. I can’t prove it, but I know it. It’s a long story why she hates me. We worked together years ago.”     “So, she got you fired or whatever?”     I shrugged, “Not really, but she tried.”     “Not really,” Jim mocked. “Well, how about I fire her? Don’t look puzzled. One of our companies has her firm on retainer.” Out came his Blackberry again. “In a couple of minutes her boss is going to call and she is out of here like a bat out of hell.”     “Don’t fire her—”     “I didn’t like her anyway.” Jim snapped. “Fuckin’ snob.”     “Just dangle her over the flames,” I suggested.     Jim shook his head. “Boy, Connors, you ain’t human. Anybody else would say, fuck her.”     I saw Sheila jump up excuse herself, rush pass and cut her eyes toward us.     Jim laughed and shook me. “I told you. Boy are they going to light a fire under her beautiful round ass.”     “When your hands move like that, it makes me think you want to grab it.” We laughed.     “Umm...maybe. I’m a little surprised they ain’t as angry as I thought for cutting them loose. But, they’ll get over it. Like I said before I cannot do that shit anymore.” Jim moved close and his blood shot eyes sharpened and he lowered his voice. “There’s a secret I want to tell you. Olivia is gorgeous—”     “Wait a minute. Which one’s Olivia?”     “Don’t look now, the Latino...you forgot already?”     “I’m not good with names; faces I don’t forget.”     Jim sighed. “Well, Connors, Olivia is really an Oliver.”     He just looked at me his expressions frozen. “You lying.”     “No, I am not. I know what you’re thinkin’...again. She’s petite, no Adam’s apple or large hands and feet and no five o’clock shadow.” Jim started to grin. “I saw you drooling. You’d wear her out. Wouldn’t you?” Jim laughed. “How does it feel to be attracted to a man, Connors?”     “Fuck you. I’m not attracted to him...her.”     “Oh, lighten up man. He fools everybody. He’s ninety percent woman except for the organ. And he won’t get a sex change. He likes it. He gets the love and affection of a woman while enjoying the man thing. Being born that way he doesn’t have to go through any hormone therapy or whatever they do. He’s smart enough to tell you up front before anything happens; no surprises. He’s very careful about his associates. Angela and Sheila know who he deals with they’re his back-ups. If one of their, I call them victims, wants to get banged with a strap-on, they suggest Olivia come along for the real thing. And the blonde, Angela, with the beautiful tits, her specialty is women, especially in the clergy. Ministers beware.”     “How do you meet these people? How did you get to be in this hurt club?”     Jim hesitated. “Long story.”     “Why am I surprised?” That’s a stupid question after all the entire world is his playground. “What made them like that?”     “Abuse...sexual, verbal, physical and emotional, the cop-out of the 21st century. People are falling for that bullshit even when it doesn’t apply. I wonder how many jobs have been created by that word. The world did it to me; now it’s payback time.” Jim giggled, disgusted. “I wish I’d never met those gold plated bottom feeders.” Jim looked at his watch. “That’s some story ain’t it?”     “Yes, it is. This is true and not one of your jokes. Right?”     “Right,” Jim pushed his scotch away. “I got to meet a very attractive lady who has helped inspire a change in my life away from that vermin.” His phone rang and he excused himself. He walked to the entrance for better reception and privacy the stepped outside. I watched the vultures swarm around his friends. All that gold plated misery, but some people would kill to be their position even with the problems. Jim came back in, that’s when I noticed that Michaels left my cart. Asshole. It’s hard not to hate that guy.     “Your eyes are glowing. Is that love or what?”     “Maybe, but whatever it is it feels good. She’s tall, tan and not so young, but she’s lovely. I know I sound silly, but I enjoy talking to her. She’s got those understanding eyes that comfort you when you share a problem even though there’s nothing she can do about it. When I hold her and she melts in my arms and we become one. She’s wealthy so I don’t have to worry about her being a gold digger. She’s well built and we can’t get enough of each other. She’s the fresh start I need and with your advice, AA. That’s why redemption will crown a new beginning for James Rissman and maybe...wife. Some day you guys will get to meet her.”     When those words left his mouth Jim’s liquor caught up with him. He sat erect with his hand propped under his chin. He snored and started to sweat. Whoever his new friend was she’d hit the jackpot and gave him the boost he needed after his diagnosis. I looked out at my cart and saw a statuesque redhead in a white pants and a revealing green blouse greet the doorman. She had one helluva tan for a redhead. She stepped past the security desk, scanned the floor and waved at Jim’s friends. *     Jim let out a tremendous fart. Matthew discreetly sprayed the area and looked at the time. “It’s been fifteen minutes; sleeping beauty will wake in a minute.” He stood by with the decanter and started counting. “In five more minutes he’ll come to life. How does he do it?” Matthew asked.     “I don’t know, but its good his catnaps sober him up, sick or not.”     Jim stirred in his seat and his chin slipped off his hand. That snapped him back to life. He opened one eye. “Pour me another drink.”     We laughed. “You haven’t changed. Good.” Matthew said and poured. “I started to wake you as soon as your snoring drowns out the TV.” He handed him a towel. “Wipe your mouth sleeping beauty. Enjoy some peanuts and popcorn.” Matthew dumped the bag in a bowl, balled it up and mimicked a three point shot at the end of the bar. “Am I good or what?”     Jim stretched and looked in the mirrored panels behind the bar and ran his bony fingers through his hair. “It’s warm in here,” and fanned his face. “I’ve had enough for the time being,” he said. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a money clip that could pay my mortgage for six months and peeled off several hundred’s. “That should cover my tab.”     Matthew scooped it up. “That will do it. Thank you, sir.” He counted it and walked to the register. He threw his hand up to acknowledge an order shouted from the noisy booth of Jim’s beauties. A hush came over the Circle when everybody looked toward the noise. Several guys swarmed over the booth. One of them crowded Olivia. She pushed him away and one of the security people worked his way toward them. Olivia shook her head and he stopped in his tracks and retreated back to his desk. The lively group calmed with the unwanted attention. A graying middle aged guy with chopped hair had his face buried in the flow of hair going down Olivia’s back. He pushed aside a hooped earring, nibbled on her neck and made her flinch.     Did he know or even care what Olivia was?     She moved her head and gave him a peck on the lips. They grabbed their drinks and toasted. The deep tanned redhead sat with her arm draped around the Scandinavian looking Angela. It looked casual since the booth was crowded, but then their lips locked in a passionate kiss.     “Matthew, there’s going to be an orgy by the window with the river as a backdrop.”     He looked. “That’s nothing, you made it seem like their clothes were off.”     Jim turned from the TV. “Did I hear orgy? Jesus...” Jim stared in disbelief. “That’s Crystal, my girl. What the fuck is she doing?” He stood and stumbled. I jumped up to catch him. He recovered, grabbed his cane and started toward the affectionate couple.     “Jim...Jim,” Matthew rose his voice, but it was too late. Jim stood over them. Crystal looked up. Her smile disappeared; her eyes bucked in fear and surprise.     “James, what are you doing here? What’s wrong honey?” She turned cherry red with embarrassment. Hard to do with such a deep tan. Angela gave Jim a snide grin and rubbed Crystal’s head in a comforting manner.     He attempted to grab her. She jerked away. The guy with the chopped hair sprang in his feet. Jim looked and his eyes narrowed. “Do you know who I am? I will ruin you. Sit down this don’t concern you.” He wisely walked away.     Security stood on both sides of the booth. “Mr. Rissman, calm yourself or you have to leave.”     “OK...Step outside, Crystal, we need to talk,” Jim demanded.     “No! You’re drunk...And, I don’t belong to you. I tried to tell you my preference, but you seemed to be in a dream world. I’m sorry,” she said.     “Sorry, my ass.” Jim shot the security guards a dirty look, turned and walked back to the bar. An eerie silence hung over the place even Miles Davis’ tune didn’t break it. Jim sat, head in hands and started to breathe heavy.     “Jim...Jim, try to relax.” I hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack. Matthew tossed me a towel.     He wiped his face. “I don’t believe this shit, Connors. That’s why those bitches insisted I show up. It’s a set-up. All along it was a set-up. How did they know I cared?” He hesitated. “I shoulda known...I shoulda known. Never drop your guard.” His glassy blue eyes began to water and then he blinked them clear. “Fuck it, I’m still going to do that AA thing, Connors. I’m leaving.” He reached over the bar and shook Matthew’s hand. “I’ll be in touch.”     I watch Jim limp away and the noise returned to normal. I couldn’t help but think, what goes around comes around. “I’m right behind you,” I said. I looked over at his so-called friends. The hurt club had sinister grins on their pretty faces. *     The searing heat made the door handles untouchable. I leaned into the door to open it. We were slapped in the face with waves of humidity. “Man, it’s hot,” Jim frowned and wiped his forehead. “Now I feel sick, the kind of sick with that damn Sandra. I hate it.”     “You driving?” I knew he didn’t belong behind the wheel. My time was running out I had to punch out.     “Yeah, I’m parked on the corner.”     I adjusted the bags on my cart and walked toward the corner. “Is that your Caddy? What is that a ’59?”     “Yeah...she’s a beauty, ain’t she? I love those fins and that fire engine red metallic paint job.”     “Leave it and catch a cab.” We stood there and admired the classic and so did a lot of the rush hour crowd. Traffic was hectic as usual; honking horns and blocked intersections.     “Yeah, you’re right.” Jim stepped off the curb and heads turned at the shill sound of skidding tires. A cab slammed on its brakes to avoid a bicycle messenger. The messenger swerved and missed another car just when Jim turned toward the classic’s right fin. The messenger hit him and propelled him into the fin of the Caddy. It punctured his lower torso for a second. He hit the pavement with a thud, rolling and clutching his abdomen. The messenger catapulted off the bicycle and landed on the hood and rolled between the classic and the car parked in front. His bike flipped and slid under a car that stood in traffic. People ran to attend to the messenger.     I rushed over to Jim. He was doubled up in the fetal position and struggled to stretch forward. I knelt next to him. “Jim, be still.” Blood trickled out the side of his mouth. He kept trying to hold on to me. Matthew and Crystal pushed their way through the crowd; a stranger tossed a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. Crystal knelt with a blank expression her on face and dabbed blood off his lips. He attempted to speak.     Sounds of sirens approached and Jim grabbed Crystal’s arm. He coughed up blood as he formed words and smiled. “I forgive you, even if you don’t—” He closed his eyes and the smile remained on his face.     The crowd parted and the paramedics went to work and put him in the ambulance. They closed the doors and they pulled off. Matthew stood there in shock and shook his head. My stomach was in knots. Crystal left and went back inside. I told Matthew I had to go and hit my cell as soon as they hear anything.     Someone moved my cart. That was nice. I’d forgotten about it. I started walking when someone called me. I turned to see Sheila approach with an icy glare in her eyes. “Connors, what was that back there?”     “What the fuck did it look like? That was our friend lying on the ground. He might die.”     “Friend, my ass! If he was a friend he wouldn’t have tried to get me fired, because a certain person, I won’t mention any names, has a problem with me,” her eyes glared with hatred.     How does it feel, bitch? This is the second time you tried to mess me up. Well, I win.     I put on my innocent face. “I don’t know what you are talking about. So...now that means you are just like normal people. How does it feel?” I snapped my fingers. “I know what you can do to get another job. Wiggle your tush, that’ll do it.”     That’s what you did at the station.     A vein formed in the middle of her forehead and her nostrils flared. “It’s too bad you weren’t on the ground next to your boy.”     “Well, I’m not bitch. And stay the hell out of my way.” It’s amazing, people do dirt and when it comes back to them, they can’t take it, especially the privileged. Assholes. *     Amy had her back turned talking on the phone and shuffled papers in her file cabinet. She increased a couple of dress sizes since working in the office, but her light pink skirt and blouse fit well. And, as usual her hair and make-up were flawless. Her speech accelerated trying to make a point to whoever was on the receiving end. She didn’t notice when I entered. My keys and ID were stacked on some paper work next to vase of birthday roses. That had to be my emergency suspension pending removal.     “Amy.” She jerked and grabbed her chest.     “Connors, you scared me. Did you get the text?”     “Text?” I looked at my phone. “Damn, I forgot to turn it back on when I left the station.”     “You OK?”     “No, I just saw a good friend get hurt in a freak accident.”     She gave me a sympathetic look. “Sorry, anyway, somebody called you in. I had this thing on speaker and Michaels heard. It’s been years since I heard that voice. I can’t make it though.”     “Sheila Allen did it.”     “Sheila...Sheila,” she pondered the name. “Oh...that Sheila, uppity Sheila?” I nodded.     “Michaels rejoiced when he walked in the Circle and saw you.”     “You didn’t tell him?” I asked.     “No...I know you want to see the look on his face when you say...I’m retired,” she laughed. “If he checked the manpower sheet he’d know. He’s been gone a month. You’d think that would be the first thing he’d check, but that lazy jerk leaves it to me. I’m not telling him shit. Let him find out the hard way. That’s what he did to us when we applied for promotions and transfers.”     “Thanks. You get a fax, a complaint?”     Amy’s face lit up, “I sure did,” and pointed at it. “That’s one helluva letter, Michaels really pissed somebody off.”     “I sat there in awe; he got real nasty with one of the richest people in this part of the world. So, I suggested the letter be faxed to this number. I figured you might know how to best expedite it.” I winked and Amy started to laugh. “Happy birthday and thanks. I appreciate the help though the years.” She put the papers in her desk and locked it.     “Thank you, Mr. Connors. You got a good heart.”     The door opened and the smile vanished from her round face. I knew it was Milton Michaels. The draft when the door closed filled the room with an odor of smoke and sweat.     “How did you get in the building, Mr. Connors?” Michaels stood there with a perplexed look on his face.     “With letter carriers in and out of the building, you mean I have to tell you.”     He looked, a smile formed on his leathery wrinkled face. “It’ll be a pleasure to get rid of you and others who hate to come to work. You’re a bad employee set in your ways. What will someone your age do? You cannot do anything else.”     I saw Amy’s head drop suppressing her laughter. “I don’t know. There’s my locker key; now it’s time to swipe out.”     “When you do, I add unauthorized penalty overtime to the charges.”     I strained not to laugh in his face, but my grin left him bewildered. “I would tell you to kiss my ass, but I didn’t start this job being belligerent and I’m not leaving that way. Good bye.” He peaked out the door and watched me swipe my card and ducked back inside.     I sat in the car and waited for the AC to cool me off when a text came through.     He told me to walk your removal papers over to the district office down the street. Of course, I took your gift and forwarded a copy to Washington. Thanks again. Give ‘em hell, Connors. I hope your friend is OK.     Amazing, he still doesn’t know today is my last. Well, he deserves whatever he gets form being too reliant on his secretary and discriminating against his employees. *     I decided not to let the past experiences with management linger in the heart. I forgive them. Jim’s injuries weren’t as serious as they thought. Good. He got his second chance at happiness. I’ll see if he might retract his complaint and maybe that will change Michaels attitude. I sat on the bed and watch the ceiling fan blades whirl and pass through the kaleidoscope of colors the TV projected on the walls. But, now it’s time to get started around the house.

Gone Travis Green I promise I did my best to make her stay Yet she left me, so this must be my fate, Still it’s not just his love she stole away ‘Cause my call of life she did obliterate. She’s left and I cannot love another My heart’s crumbled and glued to the furniture Because a part left with her evermore She alone can give what I had before. I can not make it through the night alive Still if I did, I’ve already vanished: To feel my skin fade and no way to survive; She left me where I cannot move ahead. Merely one can craft the other one, one And that my word, is the girl that is gone.

Jeff Helgeson reads this Travis Green poem Gone in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading this Travis Green poem Gone in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

Lost Time Kerry Lown Whalen     Loaded down with shopping bags, Annie wandered along the bottle shop aisle, checking out the merlot and shiraz wines.     A man approached, his face questioning. “Annie?”     She looked at his olive skin, dark eyes. “Nick.”     He smiled, eyes crinkling. “It must be ten years. You haven’t changed a bit.”     Her heart thumped. She’d met Nick in her first year of university and adored him. So did her friends, but she was the lucky one he’d invited to parties and plays. “What are you doing in Randwick?”     “I live around the corner.”     Her eyes widened. “So do I.”     “Got time for coffee?”     “Sure.” She turned to the shelf, selected two bottles of merlot and paid at the checkout. He tucked them under his arm and guided her to Coffee Culture on the corner. Their table overlooked the park.     “You’re looking smart, Nick. What’ve you been doing?”     “All kinds of things.” Their coffee arrived and he leaned back. “You first. What’s news?”     “Well, I married Tom six years ago. In Brisbane. We came back to Sydney early this year.”     “Kids?”     “Sadly, none yet. But we’re working on it.”     “You a qualified librarian now?”     She nodded. “Just waiting for the right job.”     She watched him rip open a sugar sachet, empty it into his cup and stir. Coffee sloshed over the sides.     He spoke softly. “Ever think about me, Annie?”     She blushed. “Sometimes.”     “We were good together.”     “Young though. And you were into drugs.” She sipped her coffee.     A muscle flickered in his cheek. “Surprised when I dropped out?”     “We all were.”     She noticed his hand shaking as he held the cup. “It was tough but I’m fine now.”     “I’m glad.” She gazed at his face, thinking about what might have been.     “I’ve started a business.”     “What kind?”     His face brightened. “I’ll show you. We can be there in fifteen minutes.”     “Not today. It’s Tom’s birthday. I’m cooking a special dinner.”     His jaw clenched. “How about tomorrow?”     “What’s the rush?”     “I’m proud of my achievements. I want to show you.”     She hesitated. “Give me your mobile number. I’ll let you know.”     Even on special occasions, Tom’s mother liked to eat early and Annie bustled around the kitchen, browning the chicken and throwing ingredients into a casserole. A large splash of merlot provided the finishing touch and she popped the dish into the oven. The fragrance of chicken and herbs permeated the house.     Memories of Nick filled Annie’s head. She had photos of him from their uni days, a carefree time of parties, barbecues and movies. Over the years, she’d wondered what had become of him. Thank goodness he’d turned his life around.     She swung open the door when she heard Tom’s footsteps on the path. “It’s the birthday boy. Have a good day?”     “Yep.” He kissed her. “I missed you though.”     The doorbell’s chime announced his mother’s arrival. Annie watched her ruffle his hair and thrust a gift wrapped in blue tissue paper at him. “Happy birthday, darling.”     Tom threw off the wrapping paper and held up a white shirt. He hugged her. “Thanks, Mum. I can never have too many business shirts.”     “You have to look the part now you’ve made it to the top.” She beamed at him.     Annie winced. “Why don’t you two chat while I serve dinner?” She headed to the kitchen.     Next morning Tom hurtled out the door, shouting over his shoulder he’d be home late after a few drinks with the boys. Annie sighed. She’d meant to tell him she’d seen Nick, but hadn’t had a chance. She shrugged. It didn’t matter – she’d tell him tonight.     She emptied the dishwasher, made a cup of tea and sat down at the island bench. Through the kitchen window she watched dark-lipped clouds build and wind gusts shake the Moreton Bay Fig.     The phone rang. “Guess who?”     “Nick. How’d you get my number?”     “It was easy. What time will I pick you up?”     “I can’t make it today. I’m tired, had a late . . .”     “If I promise to have you home by lunchtime will you come?”     She hesitated. “I have things to do . . . but I suppose they can wait.”     “I’ll be there in half an hour.”     “You’ll need my address.”     “I’ve got it.” He hung up.     How did he know her address, phone number and married name? It was a bit scary. Had he always been so pushy?     She riffled through her wardrobe looking for a casual outfit. At the far end was a black top that would go with her beige skirt. She tried it on. A glance in the mirror showed a fit, well-groomed woman.     When the doorbell dinged, she took a deep breath and opened the door. Nick stood framed in the doorway, a Greek god.     “You look terrific.” His Adam’s apple shifted as he swallowed.     He bundled her into the car and roared down Alison Road. Annie didn’t have a clue where they were going. Hunched over the steering wheel, Nick wove in and out of traffic. He passed Randwick Racecourse, the golf links and entered an industrial area where factories and a brewery belched smoke into the air.     He pulled up outside a dingy warehouse indistinguishable from a row of others. Under a darkening sky, papers skittered down the street, flirting with car tires and gutters before fluttering away. He opened her door.     “Is this it?” she asked, as she climbed out. “There’s no signage.”     He shrugged. “I’ve been busy. Haven’t got around to it.” He unlocked the solid wooden door. “You’re in for a surprise.” The door slammed behind them, shutting out the gloomy day. He shot home the bolt and guided her over a concrete floor to a sliding door.     Hair on the back of her neck bristled. She shouldn’t have come.     “Close your eyes.”     “No way!”     He slid the door open and flicked the light switch. “Voila.”     Fluorescent lights illuminated the area. She blinked, unable to believe her eyes. Clustered in the far corner beside a stove and fridge were a King-sized bed, two chairs and a table. Huge blank canvases leaned against the wall in the immense space between them and the furniture.     “There’s a bathroom.” He pointed to a closed door near the bed.     Annie’s pulse quickened. “I thought you lived in Randwick.”     He reddened. “My parents do.” He waved his arms. “I can please myself here.”      She turned to him. “What sort of business is it, Nick?”     Confusion etched his face. “Can’t you see?”     Her body swayed. She was locked in a warehouse with a delusional man. And no one knew.     She watched Nick open the fridge and reach for a bottle of champagne.     “Sit down.” He pointed to a chair.     “It’s morning, Nick. Too early for champagne.”     He chuckled. “It’s never too early for champagne.” He popped the cork, filled two flutes and handed her one. “Here’s to us. It’s been too long.”     She sipped. “It’s lovely. But I rarely drink alcohol.” A bitter taste lingered on her tongue. “It’s obvious you’re an artist. But what’s the plan?”     The words spilled out of his mouth along with flecks of saliva. “I have energy to burn. Don’t need much sleep.” He pointed to the blank canvases. “I’ll cover those in no time. Create masterpieces. It’ll be a dynamic business. We’ll be up to our armpits in money.” He topped-up her glass and re-filled his own. “Drink up, Annie. It’s not every day we begin a new venture.”     What was he talking about? His new venture had nothing to do with her. His irrationality suggested a mental illness. Could he have bipolar disorder? Her throat tightened. A symptom was increased libido. Bile rose in her throat when she looked at the bed. Her pulse raced.     “Do you still take drugs?”     “No.”     She thought he was lying. “How did you get clean?”     “Rehab.” He drummed his fingers. “Why all the questions?”     “I haven’t seen you for years. I’m interested.”     A smile played on his lips. “I guess you never got over me.”     “That was years ago. We were just kids.”     “Rubbish.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m going to make up for lost time.”     “No. I love Tom. And I want to go home.”     He slammed his fist on the table. “You’ll do as you’re told.” He gulped down the remaining champagne and grabbed her wrist.     A black curtain dropped.     Howling wind and rain thrashed the warehouse as Annie stirred. Forgotten by Nick, she lay shivering on the bed, a sour taste in her mouth. Slapping crimson paint on canvas, Nick worked with his back to her, his brush making bold strokes on the white background. Paint fumes filled her nostrils.     Her head spinning, she lowered her feet to the floor and straightened her clothing. Nick remained immersed in his creation. Carrying her coat, bag and shoes, she tip-toed to the door. Rain hammered the iron roof as she slid the door open and crept into the foyer. The bolt on the wooden outer door yielded smoothly. She stepped into her shoes, shrugged on her coat and shuffled along the bleak, rain-swept street to the main road. Pain lanced her abdomen as she sheltered under the awning of a vacant shop. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground.     The rain had eased when she regained consciousness. Abandoned warehouses surrounded her, water gushing from their broken downpipes. Lights dotted the street, their sickly glow reflecting on wet bitumen. She fumbled in her bag for her mobile and dialed. Tom didn’t answer. It was nearly seven o’clock, ample time for a few drinks with the boys.     She tried to stand but her legs gave way and she sagged to the footpath. A feline shape slunk along the road, its head turning to look at her. A distant siren wailed as she re-dialed, but Tom didn’t answer. She sucked in several deep breaths, struggled to her feet and crossed the road to read the sign – Reeve Street. Leaning against the pole, she dialed Yellow Cabs and waited, her body rigid as another spasm struck.     Minutes later a cab pulled up, the turbaned driver flashing his white teeth.     “Hop in, lady.”     Her teeth chattered all the way home. She unlocked the front door, turned on the light, pulled off her sodden clothes and staggered to the bathroom. She sat in the shower recess hugging her knees, hot water spilling over her shuddering body. Nick had spiked her drink, but what else had he done? The possibilities terrified her. Why had she agreed to go with him?     Goose bumps pricked her skin as she lay on the lounge waiting for Tom. The mantelpiece clock chimed several times before he staggered into the room, reeking of beer.     “Why aren’t you in bed?”     “I’ve been waiting for you.” Tears filled her eyes. “I had pains. Was worried I’d miscarry.”     He blanched. “What did the doctor say?”     “I haven’t seen him.”     “Why not?”     “Too scared.”     He gripped her hand. “What can I do?”     She propped herself up. “Hold me.”     He wrapped her in his arms. “I’m frightened, Annie. What if we lost the baby?”     She sighed, knowing she couldn’t explain what had happened that day. Instead, she pressed her cheek against his. “Let’s hope it was a false alarm.” The warmth of his arms reassured her.

Kerry Lown Whalen biography     Kerry Lown Whalen lives with her husband on the Gold Coast of Australia. She has won prizes in literary competitions and had short stories published by Stringybark Publications, Bright Light Multimedia, Pure Slush and Down in the Dirt magazine.

Attempting Poetry Again (oy!) Liam Spencer Heavy silent gray still, lifeless thick with rot Dishevel surrounds emptied bottled dirty glasses food left out to spoil Remindful of hours before life overflowed laughter addictive joys of brain chemistry temporary treasure Bodies lie silent struggling to overcome severely induced slumber self inflicted Sore mouths and muscles Intimate strangers One eye opens pain flows to the temples then to the lungs Upset stomach deep thirst Slow rise quiet hobble Staring at red eyes Drained face Half dead body Numb of pain from decades of earning but not getting A silent stumble Milk from the fridge right out of the carton immediately absorbing Preserving the dead silence Realization of nudity Thoughts and feelings return Combining normalcy and absurdity Regrets run long Last night was not one Needs were filled

Hanging the Innocent Matthew Horstkotter The noose tied With his neck in mind The platform constructed Center stage in town The mob piles in Alone in his cell He waits Threw the crowd they led him They yell in disgust Chanting for his death Guilty he was found A crime he was innocent Searching through the faces Looking for the truly guilty With a mask They hide amongst the others Cheering on his death Knowing it should be them Center stage on this platform Facing the faces Anticipating the quick snap Now they are the guilty ones Hanging the innocent

Haiku Mike R. Weaver drinking the wine of autumn

Josslyn’s Milk Michael Greeley     I am flunking all of my classes and I no longer care in the least. I’ve given up on everything that makes any kind of logical sense. I used to believe that things happen for a reason, that there are signs in nature that lead us to happiness, that God, herself, wishes the very best things for her children. But this is untrue, unfortunately, for, mentally, I have devoted every last drop of my energy toward reuniting with some fundamental Source principal. But it has become lost and I am now poor as death and estranged from lucidity.     I see faces in the trees. Do you ever see them? They are mostly demons, old men with long whiskers and eyeglasses. But nature grants them a holographic appeal, a grainy cadence that makes them appear more as apparitions than reality. I once was sitting with an old friend, perhaps it was a boyfriend, in one of those broken-down automobiles teenagers drive, while he smoked pot from a gutted cigar. I guess I had a few drags of the thing, myself, now that I think about it, but I really wasn’t all that high - just high enough to begin seeing faces in the trees, I suppose.     On this specific night, however, I saw an old man quite succinctly in the outline of the branches, in the shadows that were cast upon its leaves in the neon streetlights. It was just a face, really, but the artwork of nature, herself, was whimsically cartoonish, ‘childlike’ even. I asked my boyfriend, Demetrius I believe his name was, if he saw anything in that specific tree – anything out of the ordinary. After sucking down some more marijuana smoke and blowing it in my face, he gave it a good look through those circular, dorky-looking, plain-jane bifocals of his. I abhorred those glasses, and always told him as much. He was half-black, half-white. I told him he’d look more mature in a sleeker pair, but he never listened to anything I had to say. It was true, though. That I am sure of it, because I oftentimes overheard others whispering advices to him to that same effect. He shrugged them all off, and afterward would look to me with a soft scowl, partly because I am white, which I’d then return with a nice, big smile.     But, through those same, goofy glasses, he was able to see the very same thing that I did in the leaves of the trees. “It’s an old man wit’ glasses,” he said, half-asleep it seemed.     I went wild with zeal, as you can imagine, flabbergasted by the fact that he saw the same exact thing I did inside the illness of nature’s embrace. But he shrugged off the significance of the event as nothing more than a coincidence, an anomaly, which deflated my enthusiasm in a swift, calculated ‘once and for all’.     But he was right, was he not? Little things like that hold no concrete significance. If they did, then I would be rich and powerful, a mighty queen upon her throne, forthey, these meaninglesscoincidences, follow me like the plague.     But I look much too deeply into such matters. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you the same thing. I am overly intuitive, to the point of fault, for no one understands me, and it has left my practical sensibilities all but non-existent. I can hardly hold a job, which is somewhat unfortunate, because my mind works well enough and my intellect is, in all honesty, sharper than most. I went to college, received good marks in classes that don’t mean a God-damned thing in the real world, and I have been a floundering toadstool, stumbling from job to job, ever since.     I enjoy reading. I like books. I enjoy religious topics, especially when in relation to a historical context, but, of course, interests in things such as these will get you absolutely no where when it comes to the nitty-gritty of paying the man his share. But, nobody really seems to mind the fact that I wasted my education in studying things that do not matter.     I still live with my father, and I’m 29 years old. He teases me, but he understands me more than most. He knows that I am eccentric, that I’m sort of waiting for that ‘perfect fit’ to come along and swoop me off my feet. Too bad it does not exist, which, in all honesty, causes me to become depressed to the point that I sleep for 13 hours 4 of 7 days out of the week.     I work at a small bookshop right now, doing clerkship duties, stocking shelves, ringing up sales, simple things of that nature, and it holds me over. But I’ve been finding myself making my way ever-more-frequently out to the bars after work, and to any number of fast food joints thereafter. I am getting fat, and I do not like to feel flubbery goo about my midsection. My friends tell me that there is nothing abnormal going on with me, that it can merely be attributed to the changing of the seasons, but I am beginning to worry, for there is a dreadful ache to all of it, this changing of mine, as well. Damned autumn! It is without a doubt my least favorite time of year. Something in the leaves falling from their cozy, nesting places magnifies this uncomfortable, unfounded intensity within me. I wish to leave, to go anywhere but here. But where?     I haven’t mentioned a word of this to father, for assuredly he would laugh at any endeavor of mine which implies any hint of independent swagger, but I feel I must do so if for nothing but my own, mental health.     I have begun to see omens in numbers, faces, the speed at which cars drive, to the point of lunacy. I have begun to lose grip on reality, and, though I tell no one as much, at least I am able to recognize this fact for myself, which indicates that things aren’t that bad. I’ve begun to see bulls in my head, vagrant sounds that cascade all over me symbiotically. I can’t trust anyone and I can’t let go of anything. I clutch at the books I carry at the store as if they were my children, and scratch at my fingernails when no one is looking, half-desiring to pull them off, the other to polish them until they dissolve, for I have become filthy.     My father has noticed the deterioration of my abilities, the strangeness of my mannerisms, but he says nothing about them or me. He is content to watch me watch the television, as long as I am there, safe at home with him. He does not like me going to the bars, though he does not mind me going out on dates. Sometimes he even lets my boyfriends sleep over. He will fall asleep early, and leave me and my partner, who now is named Teddy, alone to partake in our pleasures, sex namely, without a peep of condescension. He has a vaporizer in his room, which is quite loud, so he cannot hear the moans of pleasure emitted from the living room as my beaux and I fornicate, for it is not love. And, when it is not love, it is fornication, for fornication is copulation without strong, emotional ties. This is not to say that Teddy and I are not magnanimous, or at least that he is when it comes to me. It is just that we are not ‘in love’. Do I love him? Yes. But I love the physical sensations he provides me more than the words and ideas that escape those cute, little lips of his. Is this wrong? Probably.     My dad is a retired firefighter. He is home often, if not all the time. Ours is a small, tinkering house trapped inside a quaint, darkened street inhabited by various local, brick-laying types. It is nothing fancy. Nothing of mine is fancy, for I am a firefighter’s daughter, and plain. I am plain. I cannot stop scratching at my fingernails.     Our living room points out toward the street, where a wide window draped in see-through white linen overlooks our somewhat healthy, somewhat crab-grass encrusted front yard, which is encompassed by symmetrical, square-shaped bushes that my father likes to trim with his electric hedge cutters as if he were some kind of professional gardener. But, he’s not.     There are stains all over our carpet. Not big ones, but they are all there – crusty and thick, browned. The carpet itself is a yellow-ochre, old-looking, drab. I enjoy looking at our drapes, the ones I picked out, because they are flowing, soft and delicate. During spring we open the windows so as to let the wind flow through them. Big deal. I could sit there for hours and watch this simple phenomenon, witch that I am, just the wind going through the drapes. Our brown-orange kitchen with the old, wood cabinets and the sickly-looking, fake plastic, tile floor makes me want to vomit. There is always a big gallon of whole milk in our fridge. I cannot stand drinking it, but I always do, often times with hunks of meat. I’ve asked my father to stop buying it, but he does so anyway, which I find incredibly strange, because he does not even drink it. He might put some of it in his coffee, but that’s about it. I am the one who drinks the majority of it, and I hate myself for this because it upsets my stomach. I drink it anyway. I need to leave so I can get away from it – the milk. I need to move somewhere else so I don’t have to drink it anymore.     My father always sits on the couch that faces the front window, which is pointed at our box television that gets every station in the whole world. The couch is made of an indifferent material. It is yellow-brown and cradles a set of kneaded pillows. Everything is brown. A right-angled, wooden frame holds it all together – nothing fancy. I find it comfortable, but he sits on it for hours without complaint. He never complains, for there is nothing to complain about. He is a stoic male, mustached and thin – a man’s man, yet quiet. If I were not his daughter, I would find him quite attractive, and my girlfriends have made comment to that effect, how handsome he is, though I do not notice his appearance all too often. He is quiet, and he just sits on that couch and watches his one sports channel without end. There are 1000 channels and he just watches the one. That is his life, and he is content with it. When it is I who is in control of the channel, I cannot make up my mind of what to watch. I flip through every station without ever stopping for air. I will find something that I like, leave it on for a split second, then turn it off in search of something better. My father laughs at my inability to commit to a single show, then he tells me to turn it to a quiz show, which is a program we can both appreciate. I am smarter than him, and often times I defeat him when it comes to those useless information quiz programs, but he is better at fill-in-the-blank shows, and, kind person that he is, he watches both with me with an equal frequency, so as to keep things fair. It is almost as if we are married. My stomach is churning from all of this milk he feeds me. It gives me the runs. I am disgusting and weak.     But at least I have a job, right? I have saved up a decent amount of money, about $7000. That would go a long way in any city town, right?     The same people keep walking into my work, the place where I put the books away, one by one, and place orders on computers so as to get people the publications they desire. What else do I need, right? Why should I need anything else? Aren’t I supposed to live simply? That is the right thing to do.     The same faces.     I see the same faces all of the time. One resembles my little cousin, Annie. She’s always drinking coffee at the bookstore, the stranger, that is, not Annie, herself. The stranger always smiles even though she is ugly. Annie is merely 6 years old, and she is cute, and lively, but also somewhat bossy for her age. The stranger is an uglier version of her. She comes into the store everyday, grabs a cup of coffee from our small café, and reads the newspaper. I think she’s crazy. I don’t even know if she really knows how to read. Ha! I think she looks through that paper looking for signs of what she is supposed to do with her life. I would if I was her. She always talks to everyone and throws together sentences that don’t make any sense. She keeps talking, though, about just about anything. Most people shun her, push her away so they don’t have to deal with her oddness, while others welcome the opportunity to chat with a psychopath. I say ‘hi’ to her, then pretend that I’m busy so I don’t have to fake interest in her endeavors.      The bookstore itself smells fantastic: brewing coffee and the ancient, worn wisdom of rotting leather and paper. It is loft-esque in its complexion, with thousands of books held upright by bright, wooden shelves that look like they are about to break with age. They are splintering, wooden bones. There are hidden coves that extend off of the main strip of shelves that lead to secret spaces adorned with elderly, red-plush cushion chairs made of rich mahogany. If only there was a fireplace, the place would be heaven. But there’s not. So it isn’t. I’ve told the manager, Turk, to have one installed, and he’s considering it, but still has not harnessed the masculine aggression necessary so as to make things happen.     I’ve fornicated with a number of boyfriends in the storage area. Turk has entrusted me with some keys to the shop and I have closed the store, locked up, countless evenings with no one there but myself. Often times I’ve had a boyfriend come to pick me up after the hours on my daily schedule have concluded, and so I’ll treat them to my body within the store as a ‘thank you’ for giving me a ride home, though the exchange is mutual, for I enjoy fornicating in public places where I might get caught.     The milk inside my stomach sticks to the lining. I can feel it. It is like a glue and it leaks from my intestines. I should be wearing diapers if I am to continue drinking it. I should just leave. But where would I go?     I have told Teddy that I wish to exit this place, and he is adverse to the idea, but not to a dying degree. He brings over 6 packs of beer or takes me out to one of the local dives so as to buy me drinks. Everyone is always buying me things. I swear, I do not ask them to do it. They do it of their own volition. I try to stop them, but they do it anyway, for I am their little child, their baby that drinks too much milk all of the time and needs a diaper because it leaks out of her ass.     Sometimes I feel this drunken darkness inside of me. It heaves in scrambling seas along lonesome, gray waves that are not meant for anyone to witness but myself. I see myself, or what I think to be myself, alone on a tiny row boat amid the enormous, toppling ocean; only that I am a man in a hooded garb, rough-faced with baby skin, and I remain in a single spot, expecting the boat to capsize as the tide washes below me in violent gusts. I am oblivious as to which way to turn, for there is no land in sight. I surrender to the disposition, pull my hood over my head, and bear the deluge of the sea in a cold, wet, misery. I even have dreams about this image, and I’ll awake in a cold sweat inside the room that looks exactly as it did when I was 15 years old. I must exit this place. But where shall I go?     I scrape at the paint on the walls in my room for enjoyment, to ease my tension. I enjoy the shrill twinges of pain that shriek through my skin as I grind them across the rigid surface. My boyfriend should be coming shortly. Like I said, he knows of my plans. He laughs and says that there is nothing he can do about it. Part of me wishes he would say ‘don’t go, stay here with me. Don’t ever leave, just stay, and we can be married, have children, and live forever in a white-laced malaise,’ but this never occurs. Nothing good ever happens.     I listen to the same, tired radio I’ve been listening to since I was 17, the one which my father gave me a few years after my mother died. It used to be hers, box-shaped and old, with one of those multiple-CD players, probably the first one ever in existence.     I listen to some classic rock station that plays nothing but the same, lousy tunes they’ve been playing for the past 20 years or so, but I am too lazy to get up and turn it off. I’d rather scrape the wall with my fingernails, one stroke after the next, as though it were sex, and I was the one doing the penetrating. I catch myself in the middle of these thoughts and realize that my mental faculties are deteriorating. But what else is there for me to do? My room is a rectangular box, caked in white paint and old posters of bands I used to like when I was a girl. I am so God-damned old. A fluffy, puke green carpet rests under my feet. I sit on the same bed I’ve had my entire life, that now has begun to emit a moldy, shit fragrance that I attribute to the waste that leaks from my person. The length of the bed is just small enough so as to fit the width of the room, so that it is lodged between the walls like tightly packed, tin cars parked along a busy, urban street.     I am drowsy. So, incredibly, drowsy. I guess I’ll pour myself some coffee before he comes. Coffee eases my nerves to an exceeding degree, even though it makes me race after everything, as if life itself was something to be won. I just wish there was something for me to race after, to win, that there was something to give my all to. But, there’s not – just the bookstore and this old, tired room. I fiddle the strands of carpet between my toes. I twist the crust that has solidified along their threads, the goop that has amassed after countless years of being tread on by myself and God knows who else. Too much milk. I put too much milk in the coffee again, and now I feel it line my bowels, immersing them, drowning them in thick, foaming fat. I drink the rest of it down as the doorbell rings. There is Teddy. I shall be leaving now, probably to go see a movie, which he will pay for, and I will let him. I’ll let him play with my breasts as we watch it. We will kiss during it and he will ask me to perform felatio on him as the movie progresses, but I will refuse him. But I will fornicate with him when we return to my father’s house, and then I will go to sleep.     Teddy is a mechanic – nothing fancy. There is nothing fancy about my life, for I am merely a fireman’s daughter. My father is pleased by Teddy’s line of work, for it is masculine, and Teddy is somewhat known throughout town for his quality of work. My father wishes for me to settle down with him, to attain some stability, but I am unsure Teddy really wants that. He might even be cheating on me behind my back. What is more is that I do not even care, really. If he asked me to marry him, I would say yes, mostly to appease my boredom, my father, and to have a safe life, which could forever be filled with books and milk and coffee. That doesn’t sound so bad.     Teddy is somewhat handsome. All the girls in town think so anyway, particularly my friends. We always talk about sex, penis size, that sort of thing, which is kind of inappropriate if you ask me. I’ve been fornicating with men who I don’t really love for ages, it seems, without any deep connection, and the sentiment of meeting that person has become a trivial fairytale inside of my heart, though it is also one of the only things I can hold on to that keeps me somewhat sane. Otherwise, I am just a 29-year-old loser who lives with her father. If there was someone who understood me, though, I might not be so savagely bent inside of my own skin. I would now be something to be considered, I guess. But I don’t even know what that person would look like, how they would behave, because that person does not exist.     And so I slip downstairs, wide-eyed due to the coffee and the extremeness of my ever-wandering, current predicament. I snatch at the grooves in the shaky, wooden banister so as to appease the instability of my own mind, and am greeted by the two men, father and lover, chatting selflessly at the opened, wood-engraved door with the tiny window at its heightened center. “Yeah, Chuck Mercy came in to the shop the other day with a ’57 Roadster he’s been working on, looking to get some work done on the interior – the upholstery I guess...” says Teddy.     “Chuck Mercy? He’s still putting together old cars? Well, I’ll be. I haven’t seen him in ages. Does he still sport that same haircut? The shag?” says father, while mimicking some imaginary hair on the sides of his face.     “With the cap still on, right?” says lover.     “Yeah, with the some stupid cap on...the same one everyday – of some little league team he coaches – G&M I think? Fallon’s company? Something like that?” says father.     I approach the pair lovingly, like good daughters do. I let them talk while making my presence felt, but am in no rush to interrupt. I’d rather be quiet forever, to tell you the God’s honest truth. But we must speak to others, and I am somewhat good at it, though I secretly despise it and lie with an unfaltering passion.     “Yep! He wears that same one,” says boyfriend.     “Well, I’ll be. Some things never do change, do they?” says father with that whimsical smile of his. “And what about you, little lady?’     “How are you doing, sweetheart?” says my lover, and dives in for a kiss on the cheek. I allow it, as does father, radiantly. I am beginning to think he likes Teddy more than I do. Maybe that is why I am with him in the first place. My mind races to illogical conclusions.     “Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that. Nothing special or out of the ordinary,” I say blandly, though with a certain, endearing sense of gaiety.     “That’s my girl, alright. You’ve been trapped upstairs in that room of yours all day as far as I can tell,” says father while turning toward my mate. “That’s all she does all day is just sit up there and listen to music. I’m beginning to wonder if she’ll ever grow up and get on out of here. Maybe you can help her with that, Teddy.”     I smirk mildly, sarcastically, as always. People know me as being heavily sarcastic. It’s who I am. I am sarcastic in a luring fashion, so as to maintain an edge of some sort while maintaining my likeability. Teddy puts his arm around me playfully, as if I am one of the buddies he plays tackle football with every Sunday at Brookdale Park. He should have noogied me in jest, but refrained.     “I’ll make a woman out of her, yet, Mr. Kirk,” says Teddy.     That is my last name, my father’s name: Kirk. Josslyn Kirk. It isn’t so bad. I’ve heard worse. There are worse lives than mine, and those that are infinitely more gratifying.     “I hope you do, son,” says my father, somewhat sheepishly due to the forcefulness of Teddy’s mannerisms. “Now, if you two don’t mind, I’m going to return to my programs – big game tonight...”     “Ohio State versus Arkansas,” says Teddy.     “That’s the one,” says father. He picks up an old newspaper off of an ornate cabinet that is plastered against the front wall, one which is caked in an embarrassing amount of dust, though neither male seems to notice or mind this reality in the very least. “What are you all up to?” says Mr. Kirk as he plops comfortably onto his favorite sofa.     “Just a movie...” I say, trying to force some words outward so no one thinks I am a mute. It does not sound contrived, like I am dwindling inside of myself, swimming round a pole with neck attached to a tethered rope in a lake that has no bottom. For that is how I feel always and everywhere for whatever reason. Dad takes a seat on his favorite sofa, picks up the remote control with all the yellow buttons on it and clicks on the dial. It makes that dull, clicking noise, the one you get excited at when you hear it because you know it’s time to watch TV for a couple of hours, to sift through other people’s problems so as to escape the insanity of your own life. The high from the coffee really begins to kick in and I start to fiddle my thumbs against my pockets. If I could, I’d tear the deadened flesh from them in order to rub the smooth skin underneath. I don’t know why I think of such things, I honestly don’t wish to. I just do. Teddy places his arm about my hip, and I flinch at the touch, enough so that I wonder if he noticed the movement, if he thought it odd and if my father noticed him noticing me, for it is a sexual rub, so I take it to be anyway, and, though I am sure my father knows that we fornicate, I have never been remotely intimate with anyone in front of him. Teddy now places his arm about my person while Daddy shifts in his chair.     “Just a movie, huh?” he says, though the diction of his voice reveals that it is obvious that he wishes for us to leave so he can continue into his evening in relative peace and quiet. “And what movie would that be?”     Teddy has now wrapped himself about me with great masculinity, an action that that reflects his intent of staying until a somewhat formidable exchange has been surmised. His open display of affection causes my words to drawl forth in lumpy puddles of discomfort – stringy porridge: “Um, I think – I think we’re...”     “‘Lincoln’. We’re going to see ‘Lincoln’,” Teddy says gratuitously, thus rescuing me from any abysmal response I might have currently mustered.     Father is unimpressed at our banter. “Oh, that movie with Daniel Day Louis, right? Tell me how it ends,” he says while placing his feet upon the wooden table in front of him. He does not look at us. Either he cannot or he won’t. I am unsure which it is, and all of a sudden a rich anger is livened within me. It dies as suddenly as it has arisen, for the most adamant layer of my psychological defense system is quick to shove the reaction solemnly into some twisting tendons wrapped about my right hip. But this is not the first time I’ve noticed it, the anger, the hidden rage that I feel toward him and toward all the men in my life in general. It is at this point in time that I wish to fuck, not fornicate, or make love, but to fuck coldly and with no other emotion than raw anger, for that is what I feel toward him.     “Yes. Will do, daddy. Enjoy that little football game of yours,” I say in a demeaning tone, though he hardly flinches at my advances toward him.     “I will, honey. Be careful out there, would you?” he says coolly, hardly looking at me. The coward. The thing is that I can feel, deep down, that Teddy’s advances are making him as uncomfortable as I am. I grab the frilly lapel of Teddy whatever-his-name-is’s bomber jacket and push him out the screen door with not just a little gusto.     “Whoa-ho! Watch it there, little girl!” he says to me gaily, though with pursed lips I follow through with the movement so as to acquire the desired effect; namely, he and I leaving the house.     “So long, Mr. Kirk,” says my stoolie jerk of a boyfriend, my pea-coat puppet, as he flops his ugly arm languidly about at my father while stumbling past the white-paint-chipped, rectangular doorframe.     “Take care, Ted,” is all he can say. “And be sure to tell Chuck Mercy that I said ‘hello’”.     I have shoved him completely out of the door at this point, but he still manages to stammer out some drivel past me toward my keeper. “Uh, sure thing, Mr. Kirk.”     “Good bye, daddy dearest,” I interject.     “So long sweetheart,” says father, without the least bit of feeling or care. I suppose I should be grateful for his aloofness with regard to the machinations of my life. At least he is not some sort of control freak, though, if he was, though, I’d probably have left by now. Instead, his coldness drives me onward into the night toward something I am passionless about – except, of course, for the sex.     We reach Teddy’s pickup truck, which is so exponentially masculine that one needs to place his or her boot on the raised pedestal wrapped about its circumference so as to boost oneself inside, a trait which I find wholly ridiculous and am sure to point out whenever my sarcastic levels are high enough to assuage the crimson words from spilling out of my loose lips. .     “What was that about?” he says, as we both slam our respective doors to their designated resting points. We post ourselves tightly against the leathered backs of the truck’s pleated, dark-gray interior.     “What was what about, Teddy?” I say smoothly, darkly. I do not know whether I should reach for him or not. The desire to fornicate has left me, and I do not know how to relate physically to another unless the act of sex is implied. Still, I reach over the plastic, rubbery divider that is dotted with various cup holders filled with loose change, pennies mostly, that have been drizzled with the sugary sap of overflowing fast food beverages over the course of time, immaculate. I dip my hand into the one filled with the most change, and I begin to flick my fingers through his hair while twiddling the cold metal coins between my fingers, a most unnatural act, through he does not seem to notice. He remains silent for some, strange reason, like something is bothering him. “What was what about? Hm? Answer me,” I say again, my voice somewhat bedeviled in silvery strands of lust. My hands caress each strand of his curly, bronzed skull, fucking them as deeply as possible with each stroke, an act which is sure to initiate arousal on his part. His countenance softens at my touch, his tension becomes putty between my fingers, and I have him entranced.     “That! You just shoved me out the door while I was trying – while I was trying to talk to your dad! You always do weird shit like that, like you don’t want me talking to anyone you know or of getting a closer understanding of who you are...” he yells.     “Aw. I’m sorry. Did I hurt your feelings?” I say in a half-serious, half-condescending manner. It is a tone which I’ve found myself using with an ever-increasing level of succinct tact, as it muddles the mind in porous layers of confusion that leaves the intended recipient open to calculated influence, namely, that which I choose for them and to which they will succumb.     “Fuck you,” he says, brushing my hand away in the process so he can start the engine of his big, tough, macho monster truck.     I sit back in my seat with a pout, like I don’t know what’s going on. “Why, what’s wrong with you? What did I do?”     “You’re a fucking slut. That’s what you do...” he says underneath his breath.     I guffaw at the obligatory remark, and am somewhat stifled by the sobriety of its boldness. “I’m – I’m awhat?” I say with the utmost surprise. I stop my hand from retracting toward my chest, my heart specifically. It is an act that signifies victim-hood, a disposition I most wholeheartedly abhor and embrace with the totality of my being. The coffee races through my veins, and I lick the long-dissolved sugar from the chapped, upper portion of my lips. Teddy turns the wheel slightly to the left and pulls forward slowly. The orange leaves of the overhanging maples that line either side of the street flutter organically, wonderfully over and past the front windshield as we swoosh away them.     “I said you’re a fucking slut, Josslyn, and you know it,” he says. He’s begun to grind his back teeth somewhat, an act I’ve never seen him do before. It lends his complexion a gross quality, somewhat deranged it might be said. It is at this moment in time I notice the darkened circles beneath his eyes. They are without humor and riddled with a solemnity unbeknownst to me. I become afraid to the point of excitement.     “Teddy, I’ve – I’ve never seen you in such a state. I – why are you calling me a slut? Did I do something? This is a...you...you’re never –“     “Shut up, Josslyn,” he says with judicious gravity. It is getting dark. The grayness of autumn illuminates the evening in a resolute shade of death. I feel his shoulders brighten. His anger is severe. He knows something that I do not.     “Why I – I -...” Teddy turns right past a number of children playing basketball on the corner of the street. Their laughter concerns me. My mind begins to reel around in circles of misshapen stars.     “Where are we going?” I ask with the voice of a child, it seems. The sound of it sickens me, for it lacks power.     “To the movie. Do you still want to go?” he asks. His shoulders have sunken again. Sensing weakness, my spine becomes erect.     “Yes, maybe after you tell me what’s going on,” I say, faking concern to the best of my ability.     “Nothing,” he says. “Forget it.”     “No. I won’t. I don’t feel like having these accusations thrown at me for no reason, without-without there being any explanation as to where they come from,” I say.     “God, Josslyn, just shut up. I’ll take you to the Goddamn movie, pay for your goddamned ticket, get you a tub of buttered popcorn and one of those jumbo sodas you like, if you just shut up. Then, at the end of the night, we’ll go back to your place, you’ll suck my dick for 15 minutes, we’ll screw, and then we can watch some late night TV – one of the generic, studio-brand guys like Letterman that you love oh-so-much...”     “Wow, how romantic,” I say without nerve. We begin to pull onto the highway, RT 3 West, though now all the racing in my head causes me only to see the dizzying streams of light created by our speeding past the fixated lamps that dot the path before us. “I should really stop drinking coffee,” I say aloud after recognizing how absurd his silence is.     He keeps driving, resolute in his purpose, but not toward anything in particular. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to turn there?” I say. We’d just passed the Dunkin’ Donuts on my right hand side at the Watchung Ave. intersection. I hadn’t been paying any attention, but the flowery orange and purple insignia always does well in catching my attention, not to mention that the spot is a frequent residency concerning my before-work ritual – a large, double latte with oodles of milk and sugar. “Don’t you know where you’re going?” I continue. The agitation and overall nagging tone in which it is spoken startles even myself.     Teddy’s brow bends downward, enough so that his baseball cap casts a somber shadow across the sharpness of his nose and eyelids. His beautiful, dark umber tufts flow in picturesque curls from under that same hat, enough so as to grab my concentration away from the swelling anger that is now causing his cheeks to redden.     “I’m not going the usual way. I’m taking Broad. Is that alright with you?” he asks. He flits his head forward in a sharp wince with the final three words or so, enough so I can see that he is deeply troubled. I soften.     “Jesus Teddy. What is it, already? What’s the matter with you? Why are you so angry?” My voice flirts with playfulness, but I cannot help my now overwhelming concern within me that something is deeply wrong with the situation. “Seriously, alright. What is it? Come out with it...”     I see him veering to the right so as to enter RT 46, a busier highway in this little town of ours. “You’re not going on the highway, are you? What, are you dumb? There’s sure to be traffic,” the sting in my voice is thick with witchery. Even I am impressed by the exacerbated assiduousness, the amount of negativity that is garnered through my words.     “There’s no traffic, Josslyn. It’s fucking Sunday.” He switches off the push-in knob to the volume-control meter on the radio. I’d hardly recognized it was on at all in the first place. My jaw locks in an awkward twitch so that my top, right incisor twists further over the bottom one. Then I bite down and feel the sharpness of my teeth with my tongue.     “Well, are you going to have out with it and tell me what the fuck is going on with you, or are you too much of a chicken shit?” I say. The level of subliminal abuse with which I address him is becoming admittedly enjoyable. I sneer aloud, but he does not turn to face me. His anger wavers and his features become soft, vulnerable, to the point that his shoulders droop pathetically, thus implying his submission to my control.     “Did you think that I would not find out?” he says weakly, his voice trembling like a tattering, little boy.     “Find out what, honey?” I fake sympathy some more, and brush my aching claws across his cowering shoulder so as to feel his trembling limbs He brushes it aside with a hefty sigh and becomes erect with scornful anger once more, which strangely appeases my baser membranes.     “That you’ve not only been seeing Bart Sempser for the past 3 months, but that you-you-you...”     “What? Spit it out, already!”     “...That you sucked his dick on my bed at the last party I threw...” the veins in his neck stiffen, and he cranes it forward grotesquely so as to enable him to scream with insanity. “You-you slut!”     “What? I...That is...,” I laugh because it is funny, “...That is...absurd! I was withyou the whole night, you idiot!” My voice remains taught and confident. Even through my bouts with madness, I’ve retained the knack of a professional liar’s wit.     He turns to me slowly. The sun dips behind a row of orange trees that line the horizon. The setting sun appears pink, and paints the surrounding sky in its likeness, though the clouds that dot its concourse have given way to a darker shade of purple.     “I passed out at the end of the night. Do you remember that, Josslyn? I’d had too many of those brandy shots you’d been feeding me all night...the ones from the bottle that Bart had brought.”     I laugh again, fancifully, enough so that my head tilts backward grossly. I imagine my neck to look like that of a chicken, with rivers of fat folding upon one another in a disgusting mess of veins. But, most certainly, that is not how it looks at all to the poor creature to my left who I’ve cheated on.     “And? So what? All you can do is laugh? All you can do is...” *     All was relatively calm until this point, but at this moment in time some loose wiring snapped to life inside of Teddy’s right leg. A mammoth vein now grew at the center of his forehead, a sizeable blotch from which swiveled rivers of blood extended across the duration of his brow. His hands gripped the matted wheel enough so that the sweat that had been condensing on the inside of his palms began to collect at his wrists and drip into his lap.     “...And all you can do is...is...laugh at me?” the final words were yelled with extravagant momentum, with enough verve so as to force Josslyn back into her leather, grooved seat without the least bodily intention of doing otherwise. She knew then that she was, officially, ‘in trouble’.     “Well, I-I...” she stammered. “That is, by far, the most ludicrous accusation anyone has ever laid at my feet,Teddy. I-I cannot even speak right now because I am so confounded at –“     “Shut up, Josslyn. Iknow. Just shut up,” Teddy now bent downward so as to grope at something below his seat. Josslyn, much too agog so as to inquire about his meanderings, merely laid her gaze on the soft horizon, and did her best to imagine the warm safety of her bedroom.     After a prolonged continuum of sordid silence, Josslyn found it best of her to prod and poke the young man for a greater understanding of this current dilemma, much to the chagrin of the heated bull to her left. “The accusation is simply preposterous, Teddy. I-I never did that! I would never do that to you. You know that!” she yelled. Her voice was childlike.     Teddy now began to whimper solemnly to himself, almost to the point of tears, as he felt a blackened, invisible cloud begin to arch its way up into the upper right portion of his neck, directly below the jaw; in the corresponding lymph node, quite possibly. The Styrofoam, plastic walls that internalized the machinations of the mini malls to their lefts and rights flew by them in sacred confusion. “Jeremy said he saw you two...”     “Well Jeremy is a liar! You know how stupid he is!” Josslyn returned. “Why didn’t you say anything at my father’s? Everything was hunky-dory just 10 minutes ago. What’s changed since then? Why’d you bring me out here in the first place? Just to yell at me? Some actor you are!”     The coldness of the impending winter began to seep through the molecules of the vehicle, causing both to shiver in acquiescence toward some insurmountable fate that was upon them. “I do not believe you,” said Teddy. The way in which he ground his teeth now was forceful enough to rip them from their roots. “I do not believe that you have been faithful to me. Nor have I been faithful to you. I have cheated on you numerous times, with different girls, but never with someone you knew. I spared you that. I am pathetically hurt. I see that bastard Bart every goddamned day of my life. Everyday I have to see Bart and think about this – that image in my head. It’s been...driving me...mad. It makes my bones coil into knots.”     He bowed his head, flicked the right-turn signal on with a flip of his wrist and roared across two lanes on his way to the nearest exit. Josslyn did not notice the sudden movement of the vehicle, as she was much too immersed in the horror that Teddy, too, had been unfaithful. The angst-ridden pain in her heart was a new phenomenon, one which she wanted to get as far away from as possible.     “You’ve been cheating on me?” she asked.     “Same as you,” returned Teddy.     The road directly off the exit was relatively empty, and broad enough so as to allow the young man to pull onto its shoulder.     “What are you doing?” asked the young woman.     Teddy put his truck in park.     “Get out,” he said, as plain as the woods that now surrounded them.     Josslyn laughed some more. “What, are you joking? You brought me all the way out here just to drop me off next to the woods? Is this your way of getting back at me?”     The sagging sun teetered in between the crevices of the autumnal foliage that surrounded them, as sober beams of sunlight illuminated both of their faces in a purposeful manner. “No. I just wanted to see your reaction. And, now that I have, I’m done with you. Get out.”     “Are you serious?” she asked.     “Deadly,” he replied.     They were staring at one another now. Both appeared beautiful in the drifting light, though it was now clear that at least one of them did not wish to leave. Teddy’s face became severely grave and the countenance of his glare did not leave her. The blackness underneath his eyelids highlighted his glower to the point of causing her to falter about the handle of the door without looking at it entirely.     “Well,” he said mockingly. “Go on ahead, slut. Get out...”     Josslyn swiveled her head this way and that so as to have a gander at the surroundings about her. The wooded acreage about them was palpitating with the thickness of trees, but it was not of a sizable dimension. There was a mini-mall not but a mile away. She could simply walk there, call her father, and return home. There she could enjoy the comfort of her father’s soundless company, a fresh mug of coffee, and perhaps a movie by her own, lonesome accord later on that evening.     “Fine,” she said gruffly, and, in a sudden burst of energy, exited the vehicle as sturdily as she could so as to not reflect an ounce of regret or weakness.     The coolness of the air came as a shock to her skin, but she alleviated the duress caused by the conjoining of the two mediums by hoisting her collar about her fragile neck. The truck remained beside her as she swung to behold a small path that led through the wood, up and toward the mall on this side of the highway. While remaining consciously proud enough to not look backward, she groped toward the dirt pathway while tucking her delicate hands into the swells of her sweater pockets. A lone, sports car flew by her on the same side of the road – Briars Neck Avenue, was it? The corner of her line of sight picked up the diminishing redness of the truck’s break light, which now gave way to nothingness, as the hum of the engine now starkly announced its rejuvenation to shedding trees on either side of the road.      Teddy watched her carefully as he pulled away, ever so slowly, and became surprised at her ability to unflinchingly abandon him without a single glance of retraction. It was no matter. Things were going exactly as he had planned. He’d said what he needed to, dropped her off at the designated trail that led to the Clifton Commons, and now she ambled toward it, an unknowing fish headed for the gummy worm upon a sharpened hook.     The young man fumbled beneath his seat once again, this time wrapping his calloused finger authoritatively about the hilt of a pistol he’d planted there the night before. The idea of killing someone had always made his blood boil with a kind of ecstatic bliss, for whatever reason, though he’d bought the gun to begin with merely for self-defense purposes. But the bitch had really done it. No one had ever cheated on him in his life, and the thought of such tortured him so abruptly that he’d even considered turning the weapon upon himself.     “Instead,” he’d conjectured, “I shall direct this hatred outward at that which vexes me. Why is it I should harm myself and play the role of victim, when, instead, I could inflict the pain that has been given to me back to its rightful owner.”     And so Teddy, ex-quarterback of the town’s high school football squad not but ten years prior, and a veritable local legend of sorts, decided to murder his cheating whore of a girlfriend, not but one week earlier to the day. He’d imagined the ludicrous idea would gradually leave him upon the moment of its conception, but, instead, it only grew in its readiness to be conceived, for the young man not only spoke to his nagging lover on a daily basis thereupon, but also fornicated with her twice over the course of the week while maintaining the secret’s grunt inside a black pit that had now developed inside his tummy. The weight with which he deplored her very existence bubbled along the lining of his gut with a vehemence he did not understand, nor desired to.     The young man saw Josslyn’s visage disappear completely inside the thick of the trees before bending the wheels sharply around a course curvature in the road to his left. His eyes remained fastened on her, thus causing him to become distracted enough so as to veer into the oncoming lane slightly. A series of livid cars horns was now emitted from a black sedan traveling in the direction opposite to that of the would-be murderer. What followed was the corrosive mangling of roughened metals and fiberglass grinding into one another consistencies at intense speeds. Luckily, Teddy’s safety belt was roped about the broader expanse of his chest and waste, though shards of splintered glass, those of which the front windshield was composed, now stabbed their way through those tender layers of skin about his cheeks and neck.     The force from the blow of the hardened, leather airbag was akin to that of being jabbed square in the nose by some mid-ranking, prize fighter, though Teddy hardly noticed as much, for the unconscious concern now resonating within the depths of his adrenal glands now focused on the skittish motion of the now out-of-control automotive, which drifted steadily backward toward the heavy trunks of the trees behind him. In another, less poignant crash, the truck’s hind sides skirted along the circumferences of a number of thinner maples until smashing its back bumper squarely against a mightier oak.     His first thought amid such chaos was that his hands were wet. He lifted them to realize that they were drenched in voluminous amounts of blood, as was the white, sports team sweatshirt that was adorned therein. Upon further inspection, Teddy surmised that his nose had been broken due to the air bag’s insipid blast. This was the single fact that his mind rested on as the smoke from his truck’s injured engine arose through the truck’s hood and blew in weak gusts toward his face.     Josslyn, who was now 15 yards or so inside the depth of the woods, returned backward to the street in a gallop so as to gawk at the reason for the explosion of grinding metal that she’d heard just 10 seconds earlier. A tortured, heaving row, Of shattered cars lay at the apex of her breast. Encompassing a skinless vestige, A lone body, it now did rest, Upon the street not but 50 paces Or so from her blurred vision. Her skipping ankles did buckle in strident leaps, All but vanished was her derision. Though the man that lay before her, Was not the man she’d thunk at all, But the one with whom she’d fornicated, So as to breach her suburban droll. Bart Sempser lay there motionless, His eyes wide and white with death. His cheeks and nose were shred right off, As if he dabbled in smoking meth. Dear Teddy sat in driver’s seat, Clutching down at his plastic, baggy savior, Only to see through rising heat, Josslyn’s peculiar behavior. For through glossy eyes, she now did cry, Upon Bart Sempser’s crimson, torn up sweater, While holding his dead head in tenderly in her arms whilst screaming “Why?” Upon the sight of Josslyn’s angst, Her impassioned soliloquy, A malignant thought then filled his heart: “Why has she gone to him and not to me?” In a surging flood of daze-filled hate, The man scrambled for his gun, Then stumbled out the driver’s side, And pointed it at the sun. The blood now seeped in dying waves from his stomach, It did seem. And sure enough, a sprig of glass, Was stuck therein and far between. Amid oozing guts, his pork-filled hole, He spat, “Surely, I will die...” “...Do I truly wish my final act, To bear the heading ‘Eye for Eye’”. So it was that dear Teddy dropped the gun And fell down to his knees with dread. And watched his woman bemoan the death Of his worm-food fated friend. All went black, with a final breath, he knew it was the end... ...Instead the wise, young man awoke Inside a soft, white-lighted room. Where a tender nurse, with creamy skin Above him now did swoon. “You’re a lucky one,” the words were plain, But he understood them all too well. For this hospital bed was holy writ, Compared to the rotting vestiges of hell...

The Fall of Berlin, 2 May 1945 Stanley M Noah Russians are at the Fuhrerbunker, now. Where is A. H. and his new wife, Eva? In this hour the dirty work had to be done. Up came the six bodies of Goebbels’ murdered young children. Killed by their parents, Magda and Joseph. Placed on the grounds side by side. The broken, bent burnt, their eyes open, looking at nothing. The cold objective camera moving, rolling slowly did a good job filming each child. Each the subject of what remains in a total war. After identification the duty was over. It had been very emotional for some, others just a methodical dreadful process. Then the Russians, framed in black and white, turned, lit cigarettes and disappeared. In long days that followed there was the clean-up, brick by brick and shovels. Street cars and rail came back. Outdoor cafes opened with the smell of coffee and flowers. Retail shops, too, had the latest apparel. Then, all of a sudden it was 1950. The Fuhrerbunker! Where is it?

Janet Kuypers reads the Stanley M Noah poem The Fall of Berlin, 2 May 1945 from the September/October 2013 v119 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading the Stanley M Noah poem The Fall of Berlin, 2 May 1945 from the September/October 2013 v119 issue of Down in the Dirt magazine live 11/20/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

Sanctuary Jim Long     The door was open, and there, lying in a fetal position in the far corner of the sacristy, was the body of a bear.     I closed the heavy, oak door against the pre-dawn silence of January’s bitter cold. It sounded like a peal of thunder in the empty church.The bear didn’t move.     My breath was visible in the uncomforting glare of the room’s only light, a circular, fluorescent ceiling fixture. On second thought, I opened the door a crack.     I went to the thermostat and turned it up. It would be a while before it was noticeably warmer, since the heat would have to fill the high, gabled ceilings first. But by the time the first parishioners started to file in for six-thirty mass, the chill would be gone.     I moved softly to the animal. What was I doing? I should be on the phone to the police, or game warden or something. I mean, brethren and sisters, here’s a for-crying-out-loud BEAR. In my church! Something held me back, though. It looked so...human, lying there. It wasn’t big as black bears go, a male, maybe two-hundred pounds. Probably last year’s cub. I tentatively touched one hind paw with the tip of my shoe. Nothing.     I squatted down beside it. Its head rested on its right forepaw. Its left paw was tucked against its muzzle. I couldn’t see its chest move, but then I noticed that the guard hairs on the paw nearest its nose fluttered ever so slightly. I watched for a moment. The fluttering would stop, then repeat, about ten times a minute. It was alive, but just barely.     Fetching a flashlight from the broom closet, I examined the bear more closely. I laid my palm on its head—not the warmth one would expect. Lifting each eyelid in turn revealed dilated pupils. Not good. But was it the same with bears as with people?     Maybe it was sick. Or hurt? Feeling a little braver, I ran my hand over the coarse fur of its back and flanks, but could detect nothing. I played the flashlight beam across the black coat. I knew I’d have trouble turning its bulk over to inspect the other side. Something gleamed in the light, near the hidden part of its neck. I peered closer. A dart, no, a needle, attached to a cylinder with plastic fletching at the end, protruded from the skin.     A tranquilizer dart—or poison. Saint Augustine’s a rural parish, and work being what it is in this depressed area, hunting and fishing help keep the wolf from the door. Hunting occurs out of season, and there are game protectors who will look the other way. But hunting is one thing; this is another. The dart didn’t have official markings. It was a silent method of bringing down an animal, usually at night, with a light to mesmerize it.     But it wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t clean. You had to follow the animal while it stuporously crashed through the brush away from an enemy it couldn’t comprehend, then dispatch it with a knife where it fell, as it rolled the whites of its eyes in bewilderment. About half the time the animal wasn’t found. It would die of exposure, helpless, not understanding why its legs didn’t work.     Is that what happened to you, my friend? Grasping the dart, I pulled with a firm, quick stroke. It came out cleanly, leaving a tiny drop of blood. The bear shuddered involuntarily. “Sorry, fella.” My voice sounded out of place in the stillness.     From the front of the church I could hear the first arrivals make their way to their seats. They were comforting sounds—coughs, babies protesting the bulky winter snowsuits, rubber boots squeaking on the polished floor, the creak of worn, oak pews. It was time I got ready.     Should I cancel the service; tell somebody? No. The creature had been through enough. It might yet live, but I doubted it. And if it died, what better place? I turned the thermostat up another notch. I grabbed a couple of altar boys’ cassocks from a rack and covered the bear, patting its head. Why did you come here, bear? #     I lit the two candles on the altar, and marked pages in my missalette for today’s readings. There were no altar boys at weekday morning mass. Most of them had farm chores to contend with in the early hours, before getting ready for school. Most of the parishioners had gathered in the front pews; a few sat in the back. There were fifteen people, about normal for a Monday. I began.     “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”     I couldn’t take my mind off the bear. Why here? I couldn’t escape the feeling of significance, something important in the bear’s presence. Come on, father, I mentally chided myself. It’s just a dumb animal that wandered in out of the cold, nothing more. Right.     The congregation recited the contrition. “Forgive me for all that I have done, and all that I have failed to do...” What have I failed to do?     In the middle of the reading from the Old Testament, it occurred to me. What if the bear wakes up during mass? It would be groggy; wouldn’t be able to find a way out. It might hurt itself. Or, good God, it might come out here. People would panic. They could be hurt! What was I thinking of, not telling anybody? Please, let it sleep ‘til mass is over.     I listened, waiting for the terrified animal bawl, the sound of sharp claws clattering on varnished floor as it tried to escape. But there was no sound, except the soft clink of expanding pipes from the heating system.     The Gospel was ended. The people sat back in their seats expectantly, waiting for my homily. What would I say to them? All I could think of was that bear. I just wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. Forgive me, Lord.     I was going to talk about the wise men, and their trek to visit the Child, but the picture I had in my head was of the hunchback and Esmeralda. The misshapen wretch who brought the falsely accused and hunted girl into the church for protection. No, sanctuary.     “There came three wise men from the east to Jerusalem, and...” This isn’t it, I thought. This isn’t what I want to talk about.     “They saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down, and worshiped him—” I frowned and coughed into my hand. People began to look at one another and shift uneasily in their seats. I took a deep breath and put away my notes.     “Uh—when you least—um—” Easy, now. Start again.     “We’re all scared at one time or another, and there are many degrees of fear. Sometimes we’re afraid of losing the one we love: a child going away to college, a parent dying of cancer, or a marriage gone sour. It may be that we fear death, or disease.     “And sometimes, we are afraid of life itself. Oh, not so much the day-to-day struggle with job, bills, and people who want something from us, but a deeper fear, a fear of not having anyone, no living creature to turn to, not even an enemy. It is this fear of complete aloneness, of not being acknowledged as a living, breathing member of life that haunts us all.     “We may not ever admit it, but it’s there, in the background, waiting. Waiting for those times when we’re lying in bed in the dark, open eyes staring at nothing, when our very soul feels like a dried, black husk. When even the sleeping presence of a loved one beside us offers no solace. “It creeps upon us—a tickle of terror we can’t quite define—setting little rivulets of cold sweat trickling, chests tightening, and hearts stuttering. It is a primeval fear, like the fleeting brush of cold scales against your feet under the covers.     “We all need to be needed. We all need to feel loved. Think of those whose lives we touch everyday. Do we make a difference? Do I make a difference? Do I? Yes, I think so. If nothing else, we offer ourselves as a mirror, showing others that we cry, laugh, and hurt too.     “Be a mirror, my friends; let your brother know that he isn’t alone. Let the warmth and light of your soul brighten his reflection.     “Amen.”     Several people looked at me kind of funny, like I’d just told a dirty joke. One old man smiled at me with glistening eyes, nodding in agreement. Most just sat stiffly, waiting to see what I’d do next.     Just then I heard something from the sacristy, a soft sound. Padded claws on varnished hardwood? Oh God, please don’t let it come out here now. But no one else seemed to have heard it. I pushed ahead, afraid to stop, wondering what was happening in there.     The rest of the mass passed by in a haze. I did it by rote, hoping the people wouldn’t notice, or at least not to mind, just this once. I hoped the relief wasn’t too obvious on my face when it was finally over.     “The mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”     I watched them file out, hoping no one would decide to talk to me. None did. The silence settled like a blanket when the last person had left, leaving me to stare at the sacristy. No sound came from there, just the drip of water from the eaves as the sun began to warm the roof. I genuflected as I left the altar, sighed deeply, and entered the room. #     It wasn’t there, and if truth be known I think I knew the bear would be gone. Maybe it wasn’t ever here. But when I went to the corner and felt the floor, it was still slightly warm. It lived, then. I smiled.

Distances S. R. Mearns I could never build those words high enough, to bridge the voids in our differences. Letters came, and between us went, measuring distances in happiness spent, or in each others corresponding sorrows Those words un-spoken, although ringing true never flew as birds, over far literary oceans to nestle near my heart, singing of love and lives we should have built, but buried, down that damned divide.

Jeff Helgeson reads this S. R. Mearns poem Distances in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading this S. R. Mearns poem Distances in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

Struggling after Armageddon Dempsey Garcia Civilization is in ruin, Everything I used to know Was taken by that plague, Buildings are deserted, ruined, or gone, Bodies of the dead litter the streets. I’m the sole survivor of my family, Reminding myself, “Shame on you,” For failing to protect my loved ones I wonder if the sweet emotion of love Still exists in these trying times? Like a wandering hermit crab, I wander the land, searching for shelter None of what I ever find lasts long, For sooner or later, the dead find and raid it, And I’m forced to keep moving on As I wander, I find other survivors, We’re all armed with guns or blades In case another wave of the dead strikes, The blades are stained in blood As proof of our trials of survival It seems like a never-ending struggle, I ask “Will we make it alive?” Who knows when we’ll find Salvation And live the rest of our lives In a place we can finally relax?

Bear Witness Kelly Haas Shackelford     At 3:00 am, I reached for the ringing phone on my nightstand. Taking a long breath, I braced myself before placing the phone to my ear. I knew who it would be. She called every night at the same time.     “Tell me it happened,” my baby sister cried, sobbing through each word. At thirty, her fifth nervous breakdown loomed.     “Rainey, it happened.” Sitting up in the bed, I did not bother to cut the lights on.     “Tell me he did it,” she whispered, in the same fragile voice she had used as a five-year-old to beg me each night to make him stop. As if, my being two-years older than her, had given me superpowers. I tried to protect her, but I always failed. Resisting only brought harsher punishment.     My fingers balled up a fistful of starched sheets and I said. “He did it.” Bile rose up, burning my throat, recalling the scent of his sweat pooling in putrid puddles on me. Pushing the puke down, my skin crawled, thinking of his beard scrubbing across me, leaving wounds no one cared enough to question.     A long scream burst from the phone. Every night, it was the same primal scream as if its very tenor could shatter his bonds.     Last week, no longer able to cope, Rainey’s fourth husband left her. Long ago, I gave up on any thoughts of a normal relationship. Listening to her cry, I choked back my own tears. I could not stop it then, nor can I fix it now. All I can do is bear witness to the truth.     “Tell me, I’m not crazy,” she pleaded.     “Honey, you’re not crazy.” I assured her. We told our mom, once, and she beat us with the toilet brush, calling us dirty, lying whores.     “Tell me, he’s dead,” she whispered.     “He’s dead.” I said, recalling his heart attack, standing over him, refusing to give him the phone. Sweet sixteen and a murderer. But, at last I was Rainey’s superwoman.     Hearing the click on the other end, I knew she would cry herself to sleep. I placed the phone back on my nightstand and slid back into bed, but sleep would never come. It never did after her call.     Sighing, I began to play out in my head the case I would present in court the next day. My biggest one as a prosecutor, and I had to nail it.     A week later, sitting alone at the prosecutor’s table, my stomach churned. The verdict was in. For years, the accused doctor, Timothy Laner, raped his daughter. When Rebecca turned eighteen, she told the ugly secret, and I believed her.     “All rise,” the bailiff shouted, signaling the judge was walking in.     Pushing myself up from the hard seat, I looked over to the Rebecca staring at the floor, huddled beside the victim’s advocate. No one in her family believed her. They were all sitting on the other side of the room, hoping for her rapist’s release.     “Please be seated,” the judge announced, sitting down and looking over to the jury. “Have you reached a verdict?”     Tuning out the judge, I sat and mulled over the case. Listening to the formalities would torture me even more. As a special prosecutor for sex crimes, I had witnessed worse scumbags than the doctor walk free. It was easier to believe the kids were lying than believe that monsters lived among us.     I glanced over to jury as the bailiff handed the verdict to the judge. “Does everyone agree on the verdict?” the judge asked. All the jurors nodded their heads. “Then, Madam Chairwoman, please read the verdict for the court.”     An older woman stood up, looking over to the accused, she announced. ”Not guilty on all counts”.     Erupting in cheers, the family hugged each other as the rapist slapped his grinning attorney on the back.     “Tell them he did it,” Rebecca shouted, pleading with me as I turned around. ?On the way home, I stopped by the liquor store, purchasing my punishment. A giant bottle of Absolute 100-proof vodka, and hoped it would eat away the memory of Rebecca screaming she was not crazy as the paramedics strapped her to a gurney and hauled her off to the psych ward.     Pouring glass after glass, I lost count, until peace swallowed me.     The next morning, the sun slapped at my face as I lay sprawled out on the living room floor. I snatched up my phone. “No, no, no,” I shouted, sick to my stomach. I had failed her again. Twenty-three missed calls from Rainey.     Hitting redial, my fingers trembled. No one answered. I grabbed the small vase off my coffee table, slinging out its artificial contents and purged myself.     After wiping away spittle, I keyed in my voicemail code and listened to the messages. Each one begged me to pick up and affirm her truth.     Frantically, I sped across town to her house. I pounded on the door with both fists, but no one answered. Raising up my leg, I kicked the door in, and raced to her bedroom, stopping at the doorway. Collapsing onto the white carpet, I wailed. Rainey’s fixed eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her lips had turned blue and the sheets stained red. The razor blade lay beside her, mocking me. It had been her savior when I had failed.     On the walls, she had scribbled in her blood, I am not crazy.     Gathering her up in my arms, I moaned for hours, rocking and rocking. Around three o’ clock in the morning, I gently placed her back down.     Picking up the razor, I flipped its blade over and over through my fingers. Slowly, I plunged its tip into my left palm and sliced, opening a gash. With my right index finger, I wrote on the wall, he did it.     Grabbing a pillowcase, I ripped it in strips, taking a piece and tying it around my bleeding hand. I still had work to do before my peace could come.     Sitting at her computer, I logged into my account, pulling up my own lawyer’s email. I explained to her to have Rainey’s body cremated and the ashes spread over the ocean, and to pay for it with the money I had stashed in my safe at home. I typed in the combination. I no longer had any need for money.     Closing the laptop, I knew I only had two more tasks. I went back into her bedroom, and picked out the yellow sundress Rainey was to be cremated in, and then I kissed her goodbye on her forehead.     Sliding back into the car, my fingers snatched up my discarded purse and I looked inside, checking my 9 mm. I stroked my stained, bloody index finger across the black steel. Its power promised me the release of my last task.     An hour later, I pulled up to the familiar house and jumped out of my car. Legs shaking, I rushed up the gravel drive with gun in hand. Banging on the door, I did not care who I woke up. I wanted the world to see. I wanted the world to bear witness.     Timothy Laner jerked the door open, but before he could utter a lie, I aimed my 9mm at his forehead, and pulled the trigger.     My body crumbled down on his front porch steps, and I tossed the gun away from me as I waited.     When the first officer arrived, I begged him, “Tell me he did it.”     Having known the case, he replied, “he was a shit bag”     As they cuffed my hands behind my back, I said, “tell me I’m not crazy.”     The officer sadly smiled, shaking his head. “You’re not the crazy one.”     As they closed the bars to my cell, I shouted, “tell me he’s dead.”

Ode to My Old Third Shift Instructional Support Job Josette Torres The bulletin board on the first floor, covered in Take Back the Night posters, gave me a chuckle as I checked each classroom: flip on light, walk across room, push mouse, point remote at projector. I had already taken back the night with each step across the quiet. My nightly tasks were too easy, the taking, the checking, two minutes flat if I was on point. The sheer amount of keys I carried would leave permanent damage to a would-be attacker’s face, but at two o’clock in the morning the only damage being done was to undergraduate livers in the bars blocks away from campus, from me. Drunks shuffled and stumbled and fell and bellowed their way across darkened grass as I locked one building and unlocked the next. I was paid to walk unafraid then, a forty-five cent shift differential separating me from the dayside crew. They handheld instructors, talking them down from computer-mediated cliffs, while I floated in an iPod-generated cloud between schools of higher education. Students drank themselves silly while I climbed stairs, sat on chairs in empty labs, ate dinner at four a.m. in deserted lounges. The silence between midnight and sunrise was why I did it. The sound of my breath in the dark was why I stayed.

Josette Torres brief bio     Josette Torres received her MFA in Creative Writing from Virginia Tech in 2010. She also holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Purdue University. Her work has previously appeared in The New Verse News, Emerge Literary Journal, and 16 Blocks, and is forthcoming in Ayris and One Forty Fiction. She is the Writer in Residence at the Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Collect Call Roland Stoecker I whispered I love you into the wind. Has it reached you yet?

Jeff Helgeson reads this Roland Stoecker poem Collect Call in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading this Roland Stoecker poem Collect Call in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

Trash Alley Demon Harry Noussias     Some people refer to it as Trash Alley - rats, alley cats, dirt, litter, garbage, beer joint back door, fire escapes, dumpsters and a large cardboard box.     He refers to it as Home Sweet Home.     No one knows his name, and no one cares. Better just to call him as they see him - the bum, worthless leach, filthy dog, scummy pig, worm of the dust, dumb jackass, sewer snake, and all else on the zoo’s roster. A name would mean respect. It’s more comfortable this way.     There is no beauty to be seen in Trash Alley. But, everyone doesn’t need to see beauty.     On the fire escape, three stories up, a flower pot sits. If it could stand and walk it would leave this place. But, it’s stuck here. Out of it a single dandelion grows. Why a dandelion? Maybe its yellow is symbolic of the sun; warm glow, cheerful, bright future. Maybe its hardy nature inspires us to endure and overcome. Maybe it’s none of these things.     Every morning she waters it. A rusty sprinkling can. Bad tasting water. But, plants don’t care. Sometimes she misses the pot. The drops of water fall the three stories pounding the large cardboard box below, the cardboard box that he sleeps in. It awakens him. But, he doesn’t mind. She will greet him with a friendly good morning. An ever so slight touch of kindness. An angel from above.     Everyone doesn’t need to see beauty. Everyone doesn’t need to see the ugliness either. Some people don’t need to see at all. She is blind.     Just another day in paradise.     It should have just been another night in paradise as well. But, who cares what should have been?     Night brings darkness. Darkness brings .... Well....     You know. You’ve seen it. In the movies. A guy goes down into the dark basement where it lurks. And it gets him. Serves him right for being so ignorant. A blond bimbo decides to go for a swim in the lake where the monster alligator waits. She gets eaten. Good for her. Stupid bitch. A fool takes a shortcut through the woods at night. But, you know. Yeah. We all know.     It was just a shortcut.     Three pistol packing hoodlums took their nightly shortcut through Trash Alley. It doesn’t matter their names. Just hoodlums. Better off dead. No one would miss them if they were suddenly struck by lightning or run over by a truck or maybe a demon would come and take them to hell.     Does anyone really believe in demons? Do hoodlums?     Shots rang out. Horrifying screams were heard. Bodies torn to shreds. A quick flash of something dark. But, what?     Blood was everywhere.     Next day. The investigation was routine. Cops didn’t care. Neither did anyone else. Just some dead criminals. Good riddance.     At least it was gone from the alley. Things could return to normal. There was no need to get involved. Anyway, who would believe the story? It’s best to mind your own business.     But, reports persisted. TV, radio, newspapers. Other attacks. More deaths. Terrifying gory details. How it toys with its victims, and if they escape it will return to finish the job. How efforts to stop it were in vain. Bullets didn’t work. Trapping didn’t work. Electricity didn’t work. Nothing worked.     The media dubbed it “The Trash Alley Demon”. The media loves a juicy story, especially when someone dies.     Anyway, it is just better to mind your own business and not get involved.     But, you know what is to follow. Yeah. You do. We all do.     He stood. Middle of the night. In the dark. In the alley. Beneath the fire escape. Drinking from a bottle of cheap booze. Maybe he was standing guard to protect his blind angel from above. Maybe he was just getting drunk.     All was still and quiet until he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Then he knew. And he was gripped with fear.     The demon crept slowly toward him, like a cat stalking a mouse. Toying with him. Playing with him. Tormenting him. He dropped his bottle, shattering the glass and spilling his precious booze on the pavement. What does a mouse think when its head is about to be crushed in the jaws of the cat? The demon moved forward, stepping in the spilled alcohol. Suddenly it let out with the most frightening sound imaginable. And then it ran off leaving behind only a stench. The stench of burning flesh.     The question was not asked. But, the answer was given. The demon could be killed with alcohol.     Simple plan. The blind angel. The fire escape. Sprinkling can full of booze. He as prey. The demon would come after him. The exact moment. He would shout. She would shower the demon. The demon would be sent to hell.     Great plan. But, where do you get booze in the middle of the night when everything is closed?     Thank the stars for Trash Alley’s dumpsters, especially the beer joint’s dumpsters.     A thousand discarded bottles. A couple of drops left in this one, a few drops left in that one. All emptied into the sprinkling can. There was more than enough.     But, would it work? Would he freeze with panic? Would he be able to shout? Would she hear him? Would she pour at the right time? Would she hit the target?     One more thing. Would they feel sorry for the creature?     Hell no, they wouldn’t feel sorry for the creature. This wasn’t some ridiculous movie.     This was going to take time and lots of patience, lots and lots of patience.     Finally the seemingly endless eternity of waiting came to an end as the demon entered the alley. It approached. Not cautiously. Not stealthy. But angrily. And with great speed.     She waited to hear his shout. But, he couldn’t shout. The demon had him by the throat, toying with him, letting up on its grip to allow him to gasp for some air before reapplying its vise like hold. More pleasure in a slow, painful, torturous death. He felt his life slipping away.     Then came the shower from above. The demon’s bone chilling cry filled the alley as it went up in flames. It burned into complete disappearance. Not a trace was left except the stench that would remain for three days.     Later he asked how she knew when to pour when she didn’t hear him shout. She said she could hear his heart beating.     This whole thing started very suddenly and ended very suddenly.     They vowed never to tell anyone about this. And you know why. Because no one would believe it. Neither would you.     Eventually this whole thing would be forgotten.     All would return to normal.     And calm and tranquility would once again return to the paradise that is Trash Alley.

Time Jason D. Cooper Every single day your beautiful eyes change from hazel to gray as all the colors of my memories fade away.

Jeff Helgeson reads this Jason D. Cooper poem Time in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading this Jason D. Cooper poem Time in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

The Country Church Phillip A. Ellis The track, which was dirt, damped down by faith in something other than the clear skies of summer, and the three pines that barely cleared the roof, had led to church. We’d go each Sunday we’re there with dad, as he built the farm, and after he moved in, sun clearing through panes of clear glass, some coloured, from memory. The hymns were long familiar by the time I had clearly forgotten the church, from long exposure elsewhere, but yet they were new here, unexplored. The wooden walls, and the lack of ventilation trapped us into such an atmosphere of stifling heat, somnolence, the voice a chant and burden. That was then. This is now, time having passed as time always does. I went back, a short time ago, and passed the church. I felt that I had never strayed. The track’s still dirt. The pines have shrunk, somewhat, the church is still, if somewhat greyer. The sky is still an unmarked hue. I feel that I had never strayed. I did not enter in. Time’s mysteries remain unmarred. I had not gone on Sunday, preferring my profane rest, my atheism secure. And, looking down from the farm towards the tin roof, burnished, brightly metallic under the sunlight, I felt the heat, heard the buzzing of the flies.

Some Kelley Jean White MD times when the evening stretches ahead the children gone out with their friends times when the house is still no foot on the step no water running no door opening slamming creaking swinging times these evenings stretch and think times silent but wind and crickets I almost forget to hate being alone

Jeff Helgeson reads this Kelley Jean White MD poem Some in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine

See YouTube video of Jeff Helgeson reading this Kelley Jean White MD poem Some in v119 of Down in the Dirt magazine live 10/16/13 at the open mic the Café Gallery in Chicago (C)

I Wasn’t There John Poblocki     I needed the money for an engagement ring. After all, it was the height of the Viet Nam War and there was a pale of resignation that life had to be lived right then and there or perhaps not at all. I had witnessed too many lives left unlived, so when Lloyd asked if I was interested in working overnight down by the river at the shoe factory stripping and waxing the office floors, I had to said yes. It’s a decision that I have carried with me to this day.     I didn’t know Lloyd except through my part-time job pumping gas at the corner Sunoco station where he was a mechanic. I worked there during vacations from college and we had very little in common. He was a high school dropout who was drafted into the Army and did thirteen months in the jungles of Nam, returning home to a career of greasing car chassis. If you went to college you got an automatic draft deferment as long as you carried enough credits to be a fulltime student and didn’t flunk out. I was in my senior year waiting for a draft deferred job offer (there were plenty of those if you knew where to look), a 4-F physical draft deferment (which my doctor had virtually promised for a football knee injury), or worse case, a slot in the National Guard. Anyway, I wasn’t going to Viet Nam. In addition to the easy-outs, I was opposed to the war, which by 1968 had become very unpopular. I was never one to go against the flow of public opinion, so that may also have been a factor. And let’s be right up front: I was scared shitless of taking my last trip in a body bag; aka a coward’s deferment.     Lloyd and I had barely spoken in the summer of ’68 when we worked together almost every day. When Christmas break came that December, we picked up where we left off, pretty much ignoring each other, until he needed help with an overnight job doing floors at a shoe factory. I was reading a book in the gas station office when Lloyd walked in stirring his coffee with his screw driver.     “Hey college boy, how would you like to make fifty bucks for one night’s work?”     “I’m game. What do I have to do? Drive the getaway car?”     In 1968, minimum wage was something like $1.30, so fifty bucks was almost a week’s pay for someone like me pumping gas. Lloyd didn’t get my joke or chose to ignore it. He always looked like he was about to go off and he made me a little uncomfortable. I think I was afraid of him even though he and I were about the same size. There was something about him that was intimidating. Something unpredictable. I knew I could match wits with him intellectually but he had thirteen months of experience killing people he didn’t see eye-to-eye with. Or maybe that he just didn’t have fond feelings for. Either way, I didn’t want to piss him off.     “The job is easy if you’re not too much of a pussy college boy who needs his mamma to tuck him into bed by ten. I’m used to going thirty-six hours on patrols in snake and tiger infested jungles and then sleeping in a swamp with leeches sucking my blood. Working all night waxing floors is like a vacation for me. For you, it’s probably too tough. I’ll just find someone else, pussy boy.”     “What are you saying? Just because I go to college doesn’t give you the right to disrespect me.”     “Yes it does. It gives me the right. Just because I didn’t go to college, doesn’t give you the right to ignore me and not talk to me. I’m giving you a chance to make some money, not be my friend. You want it or not.”     “I want it. I don’t mean to ignore you. It’s just that, that...”     “Forget it.”     Next day, we both worked until 7 PM, me pumping gas and washing windshields, he replacing a clutch on a 1956 Buick. His normal appearance was a little unkempt, to say the least. I don’t think Lloyd had washed his hands, face or hair, or by the downwind odor, any other body parts in a few weeks. His pickup truck had a similar ambiance. Lloyd drove and I sat on the broken springs that served as the passenger seat. I could see the street through the floor. On the way to the shoe factory, we picked up some beer, burgers and fries and drove down to the base of a steep, mostly dirt driveway, past a nonchalant security guard in a shack. The sprawling red brick, four story mill complex had large, old windows (a few broken by kids with rocks), a flat roof and a loading dock that sat between two sections of the plant. It was dark with minimal outdoor lighting and other than the security guard, there was no one at the factory. The parking lot was surrounded by a broken and sagging chain link fence with more gaps than fence. An abandoned trailer with flat tires was parked up against the loading dock. The river ran along the other side of the mill complex opposite the parking lot.     He parked his rusted hulk near the loading dock under a small flood light, and I pulled out the food and beer. Lloyd reached into the greasy fries with his greasy hands and left greasy stains not only on the bag, but on some of the fries. Then he licked his fingers and grabbed another handful. I decided against the fries and stuck with burgers and beer. We ate furiously without talking; then Lloyd ran up to the office to unlock and I lugged the stripping machine and buffer along with drums of stripping fluid and wax out of the back of his truck.     By the time we got the equipment and supplies to the second floor. he downed three more beers. Said it was his lunch that he didn’t have time for. I was wondering how this night was going to turn out. We started by moving furniture from one office to the next. I was in charge of logistics and muscle power. Lloyd provided moral support. When the first room was empty, we began pouring stripping fluid on the floor; Lloyd said he was real good at pouring stuff and laughed. I didn’t get it, but by then he had had six beers, so I didn’t try real hard to get it either. There may have been nothing to get. I ran the stripper across the linoleum as he sat and watched, but I didn’t care because it was easy work and he was drunk enough to worry me.     Suddenly, he jumped up and said, “Hey pussy, can I show you something, something I only show my friends?”     “Sure. I’m game.”     He ran or stumbled his way out to his truck and came back with a little bag made of what looked like Chinese silk, with a draw string at the top. He leaned into my face and shouted, spraying me with his beer spit. “Know what I got in here? Know what’s in my little bag of tricks? Huh, college boy!?”     “Lloyd, whatever it is, it can’t be legal.”     Lloyd was about six-foot three and a hundred and seventy pounds. He was wiry and had a wild, aggravated, fearless look. It got more fearless as he got drunker and he was making me nervous. He opened the bag and accidentally spilled the contents on the floor in the stripping fluid. It looked like a dead mouse or part of some dead and dried animal.     “God damn it, pick my ears up, don’t let them get wet in that shit.”     The contents looked a lot like little ears, only dried dark brown and black and all shriveled up. I thought it was a Halloween prop, like something from a joke shop and reached down to pick them up, when a hairy thing fell out of the bag and I caught it in my right hand. It too was brown and black and all scabby. I suddenly realized what this stuff was. And Lloyd was rolling on the floor holding his knees and screaming with laughter. He rolled into the scrubber and knocked it into me. I was freaking out with the sight of amputated body parts. I knew they came from Viet Nam; maybe from someone who had their ears and scalp removed while they were still breathing. Someone lying in a rice paddy gasping for their last breath, and perhaps looking up at buck-toothed Lloyd laughing at them.     A few weeks before, the press carried stories about the My Lai massacre. I had wondered who could commit such atrocities; not what kind of person, but who, actually, the person. And here he was. Lloyd could see I was repulsed and this made him laugh even harder. He eventually stopped and picked up his ears and scalp. I went back stripping the floor, but after the shock wore off, I wanted to talk.     “Lloyd, how did you get your trophies? How did that happen and how’d you get that stuff?”     Grinning through his less than perfect dental work, Lloyd said, “Shit man, I can get some for you too. I sent some back home to my old man and he thought it was funny. My platoon did that shit all the time. If you saw what we saw, you would’ve got some souvenirs too. It was how we got along. We actually had cuttin’ contests. We cut off other stuff too.” I put up my hands for him to stop; I thought I was going to be sick, but he kept talking. I wanted to ask him why, but was afraid to and Lloyd seemed to be sobering up. He took a step towards me, looked right into my eyes and I thought I could see something in him at the verge, like he was about to breakdown. Instead he said, “There was nothing wrong with it. Everybody did it. You don’t get it college boy. These gooks were killing my friends. And I was getting even by taking their ears. Sometimes I took their eyes too. Those bastards deserved it.”     I finally said, “Don’t you see something wrong with this? Don’t you see that killing and torturing people isn’t right. Was everyone dead when you started cutting them up for souvenirs?” Lloyd looked at me like that thought had never occurred to him, like it was a revelation that killing someone and cutting them up, not necessarily in that order, was not okay. He twisted his face into a corkscrew, which made him look deranged, or more deranged, and screamed into my face through a spray of spit with his arms flailing to the sides, “Fuck you. You weren’t there. You were sucking your mother’s tits when I was living in a fucking jungle. I saw my best friend half eaten by a tiger. You didn’t see what I did. You didn’t sleep in a swamp with snakes for six months. So shut the fuck up, mother fucker.” Blue veins were extruded in his neck and on his forehead.     I thought now was a good time to get back to work. Lloyd looked like he could kill me; I didn’t want him to notice I had ears, eyes and a scalp. He started drying the floor, and I continued stripping the brown linoleum. He worked like an insane person, banging and throwing things that disagreed with his effort, all the while mumbling more curses under his breath.     The job was pretty much finished around 4 AM. I had already put the furniture back in place, and Lloyd had brought the equipment back to his pickup. I walked down the stairs to the loading dock, and when I got outside, Lloyd was sitting at the edge of the platform with his feet dangling back and forth in a rapid, exaggerated, forced cadence, not like he was relaxing, but like he was winding up to explode. And with what I now knew of Lloyd, that was not a good sign. I said, “Hey buddy, job done. Let’s get some breakfast and get ready for work. It’s almost time to get back to the gas station.” I wanted to leave. I didn’t really want to be alone with this guy down by the river behind a shoe factory at 4 AM.     He looked up at me from directly under the flood light which gave his face a monster shadow mask. He looked like he was drunk again, but when he spoke, I could tell he was completely sober. He said, very deliberately, “Pete my friend. You don’t know shit. You weren’t there. You can’t judge any of us. Unless you saw your friend blown up right in front of your eyes because he said he would be point man for that patrol when it was your turn, then you can’t be my judge and jury. You and the rest of your hippy dippy ass friends against the war don’t know shit.” Then he started to sob with his face in his hands. He cried hard, his body heaving uncontrollably, “It’s not my fault. Joey said he would run point for me. I didn’t ask him to. He just volunteered. I think he knew the booby traps were everywhere, and he saved my life. Maybe he just wanted to die. It’s not my fault man. Not my fault. And don’t blame me for the ears and shit. I know it was wrong, and yes those bodies were already dead and cold. Stone cold. When we found them, they were already dead and rotting. Some were partly eaten by jungle animals. What the fuck do you think I am, crazy?”     He went on, “Don’t you think I know it was wrong? Don’t you think I have nightmares every single fucking night? Every time I hear a noise I jump or duck for cover ‘cause I think it’s an incoming. I see Joey’s face on every street corner. I hear him calling me. I hear babies crying all the time, and when I look around, there’s none there. Where are the babies crying from? Their graves? I’m losing it man. I can’t take it anymore.”     “Lloyd, you’ve got to talk to someone. Don’t they have people in the army who you can talk to about this stuff?”     “The army is filled with crazy mother fuckers. I saw those guys over there. No way I’m going to talk to those piss ants, no way.” I was wondering what I had done to Lloyd. I was worrying about his frame of mind. I wanted to help; I really did. But I was so tired I couldn’t focus my eyes. I thought we would talk more in the morning and we got in the pickup, Lloyd started the cranky Ford engine that coughed, sputtered and spewed blue smoke as we drove up the ramp out of the parking lot at Hudson Shoes. It was 5:30 AM when he dropped me off at my house. I said, “See you in a couple of hours at the station, right?” He looked into my eyes and I swear I saw into his soul; I hope he saw into mine. I wanted to tell him it would be alright. I got to work at 9 AM and Lloyd should have too. But he didn’t show up for work that Saturday. He didn’t answer his phone all day. The gas station owner and I drove out to Lloyd’s rented, run down dump of a trailer that was about five miles up the river and backed up to the falls. His truck was parked in the back yard, with a German shepherd pacing back and forth along the river and barking at me. I knocked on the door and shouted to try and wake Lloyd. It was already 3 PM and he should have been up by now, even after working all night.     They found Lloyd’s body hung up on a submerged branch in the river about a mile from his house, just west of Hudson Shoe factory, where Lloyd and I had our talk about what he saw and did in Viet Nam. Where I accused him of doing bad things. Where he told me he already knew it was bad. Where he told me about his nightmares and crying babies. Where I looked into his soul and then let him go.     I was the last person to see Lloyd alive, so after the body was found on Monday, the police wanted to talk with me about what we were doing before Lloyd decided to fall into the river. I was the one who volunteered to the police that we were together. It wasn’t like they had conducted an investigation and discovered that I was with him or anything, but that’s the way they interviewed me. The sergeant said he wanted me to come down to the station so they could “complete our investigation,” which from what I could tell when I got there had consisted of three cops sitting around, eating donuts and telling jokes. I interrupted them in mid laugh when I arrived. The room smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes. They invited me to sit down in a heavy steel framed chair with a torn red vinyl seat. The floor was the same brown linoleum Lloyd and I had stripped and waxed two nights earlier. The lighting was bare fluorescent bulbs that kept flickering and buzzing, but no one seemed to notice.     “Where were you Saturday night when you last saw Lloyd? And what exactly had you two been doing?” This guy must have gotten his training from Dragnet. I looked at the finest of the Town of Westbridge, and said, “As I told you over the phone, when I called you, by the way, Lloyd and I were doing the floors at the shoe factory Friday night into Saturday morning. He dropped me off. That’s the last time I saw him.”     “But tell us what was his frame of mind. What did he say when he left? And what’s with the attitude? We just want to find out how he got into the river at 5 AM. Most people don’t go swimming that time of day.” The two other cops started laughing. This was hysterically funny stuff.     “Well, I don’t know what was on Lloyd’s mind, and I can’t tell you why he was in the river, and I don’t see a lot of humor in this.” I was wondering myself what was on Lloyd’s mind, and whether I had pushed him too far, or didn’t reach out far enough. A lot of things were running through my mind, like babies crying from the grave, and things Lloyd had seen and felt. I was disgusted that these three fat donut eating jokesters were talking about something they were incapable of comprehending. What were they going to do with what I told them? Put it in a file and have another donut? Make joke out of it?     “Look, we’re sorry about your friend, and we’re just trying to find out if this was an accident or a suicide. Since you were with him that night, you probably are in a position to help determine that. So if you want to help out, fine. If this is too much for you, then we’re sorry to ask you to come in, and you can leave.”     I said, “Well, if you want to know the truth, Lloyd was killed by the Viet Nam war, just like his best friend and just like about 50,000 other soldiers who didn’t want to go over and fight this stupid war. He was tortured by what he saw and couldn’t live with himself. It was no accident. Add him to the war casualties. He was actually killed in Viet Nam.” I got up and walked out. I heard them laughing as I went down the front steps.     I walked home thinking about Lloyd and what he lived through, how it wasn’t his fault, and how much I hated what the war had done to guys like Lloyd and to the country. I tried not to think about whether I was the reason he had jumped into the falls behind his house, or if he had thought about it before he even met me. But I wasn’t successful. It’s something I have thought about my entire life and the reason I never questioned another Viet Nam veteran about what they did and what they saw. I had no right. I wasn’t there.

the carpet factory, the shoes Janet Kuypers 1995 i heard a story today about a little boy one of many who was enslaved by his country in child labor in this case he was working for a carpet factory he managed to escape he told his story to the world he was a hero at ten put the people from the factory held a grudge and today i heard that the little boy was shot and killed on the street he was twelve and eugene complains to me when i buy shoes that are made in china now i have to think did somebody have to die for these will somebody have to die for these

Watch this YouTube video (1:54) from Living in a Big World You can also see the above video on Bollywood

Watch this YouTube video (1:53) 07/17/07 from Living in a Big World You can also see the above video on Yahoo

Watch the YouTube video (3:29) 10/15/07 practice for the A Foot Fantasia show, Chicago

Watch the YouTube video (3:08) 10/15/07 practice for the A Foot Fantasia show, Chicago You can also see the above video on Hot Flicks

Watch the YouTube video 4:22, during the performance art show A Foot Fantasia on the 1st day, 10/16/07, with additional instrumentals, at the Peter Jones art gallery in Chicago You can also see the above video on Lyrics Mode or Sexy Sexy Boys videos

Watch the YouTube video 3:31, during the performance art show A Foot Fantasia 10/17/07, the Peter Jones art gallery, Chicago

Watch the YouTube video 05/31/11 at the Café in Chicago (from her ISBN# book Close Cover Before Striking)

Watch this YouTube video of the intro to the 05/31/11 open mic at the Café in Chicago, plus her Close Cover Before Striking poems

See YouTube video (19:36) of Kuypers 05/31/11 at the Café reading her writing:The Carpet Factory the Shoes, Taking Out the Brain, Tell Me, All the Loose Ends, Filled with Such Panic, Leaving for Work, Accounts for the Need of Gun Control, January 1995, Me or Him, Gun Dealers and Gas Stations, and Domestic Violence in America Nashville TN (stick)

fireflies Janet Kuypers 1992     We went to an empty bar, like we normally do on a weeknight when we know we have to get up for work in the morning but we just don’t care anymore, and we drank, and we made fun of the people at the bar, especially the men, like the bartender with the sagging butt that we had to stare at whenever he made a drink, and then we drank some more, and then she talked about the love of her life who just broke up with her. She said she would marry him in a minute if she still had the chance. I still didn’t see it, he was a young, prematurely balding farm boy, but I just nodded. Yeah, it was love, and I knew where she came from, and we got depressed, and then we rambled on about how we hated our jobs, how we wanted to be independent, and then we started to laugh at everything, that’s what drinking does to you, I guess, and then we drove home.     She parked her car at my house, so when I got us home (I still don’t know how I did it) she stood in my driveway, looked up at the sky and said, this looks like a sky to sit on your driveway and drink coffee in tupperware bowls and look at. I told her I didn’t want coffee, but I had an old blanket and we could sit in the lawn and watch the sky.     And we looked at the sky and found objects in the clouds (it didn’t take long for one of us to find a penis), and then I chased a firefly, and then we sang songs from cartoons. And we couldn’t stop laughing.     I told her about how my older brothers and sisters used to take the ends of fireflies and smear them on their shirts so their clothes would glow for a few minutes. Then I promised her I wouldn’t smear any insects on her.     And we noticed after a while that the dew was settling on the blanket, and all over us, and besides, it was getting late, she had to take the train downtown early to get to work tomorrow, so I picked up the blanket, threw it to the side of the driveway, and waved good-bye as she drove down the road.     I left the blanket there and walked inside. I’m sure I could fold it up in the morning.     A week later I had a dream that I knew I was going to die. I didn’t tell anyone else about it because I didn’t want them to worry. In my dream I was making a videocassette message to all my friends. A good-bye message, so to speak. I told Sheri that I hoped her marriage went well, I told Kevin to not worry about business so much, I told Bobby I respected him. And then I got to you. I told you to really look at your life -- was it so bad? Your boyfriend broke up with you. Your job isn’t your dream job. But Christ, there are unwed 17-year-old mothers on welfare that kill their sick infant children because they can’t read the directions on their prescription bottle. Dream job? You’ve got a job, and it pays well. Boyfriend? You’re talented and attractive, you don’t have to be alone. We’ve got roofs over our heads. We’ve got food on the table, we’ve got clothes on our backs, and we have friends. We have reason to celebrate, not to cry.     Well, in my dream I was dying, so I wasn’t going to have these things. But I’m not dreaming, I’m not dying, I’m not dead. I have all these things. We have all these things. And we have the fireflies.

Watch this YouTube video Live at Getting Wired (camera #1 at Starbucks, Chicago, 08/08/09)

Watch this YouTube video Live at Getting Wired (camera #2 at Starbucks, Chicago, 08/08/09)

See the full Getting Wired show video w/ this poem (camera #1) This film is from the Internet Archive

See the full Getting Wired show video w/ this writing (camera #2) This film is from the Internet Archive

Why I’d Marry You B>Janet Kuypers 1992     I wanted to sing to you the song that reminded me of him. You see, I sang that song to him years ago, before he hurt me so, I used to think it was such a beautiful song, and now all I can think of is all the pain he caused when I trusted him so.     I resigned myself to him. How could I have given him such a beautiful song? I loved music then, was revered for my voice, and I wanted to share my gift with someone. There was no one else. I settled for him, I thought no one else would love me, and I opened myself to him, just to find out he was not music but the sound of a car accident. The sound of chaos. And now, when I think of that song, all I hear is the crush of metal, and all I feel is the pain of the survivor of the crash.     My past should not be like that. Music should not be like that. I should hear birds singing, orchestras.     That is why I came to you with the song. I wanted to sing it to you, in my now aging, hoarse, unrehearsed voice, so I could think of flowers in bloom again when I hear music. And we sat on my living room floor, were we playing cards?, on that little grey carpet, when I told you I wanted to sing it. You sat attentively, not four feet away, waiting for me to start. And I began to sing, like the many times I heard the song play in my mind.     But something was different, wrong, this time, it was not how it was supposed to be, I only heard the crash, and I didn’t hear the birds. I didn’t know what to feel. And I started to cry. But I had to sing the song, I thought, don’t worry, just keep singing, the pain of trying to remember in order to forget will soon disappear. But it didn’t. By the second verse, not even half way through the song, I was sobbing; crying so hard I could barely speak, much less sing. So I stopped. And cried.     And you sat there for a moment, watching me cry, waiting to see if I would stop. I couldn’t. The tears were streaming down my face; I couldn’t regain myself. And then you nudged your way over to me, and grabbed me, grabbed me harder than I have ever been held before. And you sat on the floor, and pressed my head into your chest, and rocked me back and forth. And I could tell by your breathing that you were about to cry too. You, who had never heard the crash, or felt the pain. You, feeling my pain.     And then you began to sing. Your cracking voice sang the next line of the song, and it made me cry more, but only in my love for you. And the both of us cried and sang the rest of the song together. I don’t know if it was the song that became beautiful, or if it was the fact that you brought your beauty to me. But for one small moment, after the echo of the crash had stopped, I could begin to hear the birds.

Janet Kuypers Bio     Janet Kuypers has a Communications degree in News/Editorial Journalism (starting in computer science engineering studies) from the UIUC. She had the equivalent of a minor in photography and specialized in creative writing. A portrait photographer for years in the early 1990s, she was also an acquaintance rape workshop facilitator, and she started her publishing career as an editor of two literary magazines. Later she was an art director, webmaster and photographer for a few magazines for a publishing company in Chicago, and this Journalism major was even the final featured poetry performer of 15 poets with a 10 minute feature at the 2006 Society of Professional Journalism Expo’s Chicago Poetry Showcase. This certified minister was even the officiant of a wedding in 2006.     She sang with acoustic bands “Mom’s Favorite Vase”, “Weeds and Flowers” and “the Second Axing”, and does music sampling. Kuypers is published in books, magazines and on the internet around 9,300 times for writing, and over 17,800 times for art work in her professional career, and has been profiled in such magazines as Nation and Discover U, won the award for a Poetry Ambassador and was nominated as Poet of the Year for 2006 by the International Society of Poets. She has also been highlighted on radio stations, including WEFT (90.1FM), WLUW (88.7FM), WSUM (91.7FM), WZRD (88.3FM), WLS (8900AM), the internet radio stations ArtistFirst dot com, chicagopoetry.com’s Poetry World Radio and Scars Internet Radio (SIR), and was even shortly on Q101 FM radio. She has also appeared on television for poetry in Nashville (in 1997), Chicago (in 1997), and northern Illinois (in a few appearances on the show for the Lake County Poets Society in 2006). Kuypers was also interviewed on her art work on Urbana’s WCIA channel 3 10 o’clock news.     She turned her writing into performance art on her own and with musical groups like Pointless Orchestra, 5D/5D, The DMJ Art Connection, Order From Chaos, Peter Bartels, Jake and Haystack, the Bastard Trio, and the JoAnne Pow!ers Trio, and starting in 2005 Kuypers ran a monthly iPodCast of her work, as well mixed JK Radio — an Internet radio station — into Scars Internet Radio (both radio stations on the Internet air 2005-2009). She even managed the Chaotic Radio show (an hour long Internet radio show 1.5 years, 2006-2007) through BZoO.org and chaoticarts.org. She has performed spoken word and music across the country - in the spring of 1998 she embarked on her first national poetry tour, with featured performances, among other venues, at the Albuquerque Spoken Word Festival during the National Poetry Slam; her bands have had concerts in Chicago and in Alaska; in 2003 she hosted and performed at a weekly poetry and music open mike (called Sing Your Life), and from 2002 through 2005 was a featured performance artist, doing quarterly performance art shows with readings, music and images.     Since 2010 Kuypers also hosts the Chicago poetry open mic at the Café Gallery, while also broadcasting the Cafés weekly feature podcasts (and where she sometimes also performs impromptu mini-features of poetry or short stories or songs, in addition to other shows she performs live in the Chicago area).     In addition to being published with Bernadette Miller in the short story collection book Domestic Blisters, as well as in a book of poetry turned to prose with Eric Bonholtzer in the book Duality, Kuypers has had many books of her own published: Hope Chest in the Attic, The Window, Close Cover Before Striking, (woman.) (spiral bound), Autumn Reason (novel in letter form), the Average Guy’s Guide (to Feminism), Contents Under Pressure, etc., and eventually The Key To Believing (2002 650 page novel), Changing Gears (travel journals around the United States), The Other Side (European travel book), The Boss Lady’s Editorials, The Boss Lady’s Editorials (2005 Expanded Edition), Seeing Things Differently, Change/Rearrange, Death Comes in Threes, Moving Performances, Six Eleven, Live at Cafe Aloha, Dreams, Rough Mixes, The Entropy Project, The Other Side (2006 edition), Stop., Sing Your Life, the hardcover art book (with an editorial) in cc&d v165.25, the Kuypers edition of Writings to Honour & Cherish, The Kuypers Edition: Blister and Burn, S&M, cc&d v170.5, cc&d v171.5: Living in Chaos, Tick Tock, cc&d v1273.22: Silent Screams, Taking It All In, It All Comes Down, Rising to the Surface, Galapagos, Chapter 38 (v1 and volume 1), Chapter 38 (v2 and Volume 2), Chapter 38 v3, Finally: Literature for the Snotty and Elite (Volume 1, Volume 2 and part 1 of a 3 part set), A Wake-Up Call From Tradition (part 2 of a 3 part set), (recovery), Dark Matter: the mind of Janet Kuypers , Evolution, Adolph Hitler, O .J. Simpson and U.S. Politics, the one thing the government still has no control over, (tweet), Get Your Buzz On, Janet & Jean Together, po•em, Taking Poetry to the Streets, the Cana-Dixie Chi-town Union, the Written Word, Dual, Prepare Her for This, uncorrect, Living in a Big World (color interior book with art and with “Seeing a Psychiatrist”), Pulled the Trigger (part 3 of a 3 part set), Venture to the Unknown (select writings with extensive color NASA/Huubble Space Telescope images), Janet Kuypers: Enriched, She’s an Open Book, “40”, Sexism and Other Stories, the Stories of Women, Prominent Pen (Kuypers edition), Elemental, the paperback book of the 2012 Datebook (which was also released as a spiral-bound cc&d ISSN# 2012 little spiral datebook, , Chaotic Elements, and Fusion, the (select) death poetry book Stabity Stabity Stab Stab Stab, the 2012 art book a Picture’s Worth 1,000 words (available with both b&w interior pages and full color interior pages, the 2013 ISSN# color art book Life, in Color, and Post Apocalyptic. Three collection books were also published of her work in 2004, Oeuvre (poetry), Exaro Versus (prose) and L’arte (art).