by Emma Carr

and black Converse abscond with our two BMX bikes and throw them in the giant trunk of a gleaming gold Thunderbird, all caution and thought of consequence vanished from our minds. The chase was on.

Josh and I had been inside the Allsup’s convenience store buying orange popsicles; our bikes were leaned up against a pole outside. For a split second we had our backs turned, and then the bikes were gone. We met the surreal image of a dude running across traffic with one bike in each hand. Then we were out there, after him. The gold car screeching away, other cars honking at us, our screams of “Motherfucker!” carried on the air. And that’s when I saw the brick, just before the car reached the red light at Girard, after which we wouldn’t have a chance. Lying there on the edge of the sidewalk was an intact red brick, maybe a doorstop for the Lobo Theater, or maybe it fell off a truck. But I picked it up and, with a rush of might beyond my years and size, I hurled that brick and watched it sail in slow motion; it was an instance of knowing once it left my hand the brick would hit the back windshield of the low rider. I felt a wave of panic and regret even as it hurtled end over end, but mixed in also was glee, triumph, and already a change in direction and a mental map of our quickest escape route. For that is exactly what happened. A tremendous smash, followed by another braking screech, then seeming silence. The glass stayed in place but shattered through and appeared suddenly white from our vantage about fifty yards back. All four doors opened and legs came at us, fast. We were gone. Around the corner and into that short, steep alley, our sneakers sliding on the gravel but guiding us to the one spot nobody would see, where we could hide and let the attackers run by. Behind the weeds under an old loading dock, there was a short door in the wall that we had rigged to latch closed from inside; and within the dark crawlspace we had flashlights hidden, and we knew the way across the low, dusty floor to a ladder that followed the pipes up a shaft into the building itself. At the top was

50 a hatchway onto the flat roof, and from there, if we had to, we could climb down the other side down a fire escape and one big tree. A godsend, that we happened to be near this place while running for our lives. As if in a perfectly executed football play, or on a ski run never veering from the fall line, Josh and I disappeared. We lost our bikes, but got to watch from on high some pissed off and humiliated dark-haired thieves scurrying around an alley they didn’t know, shouting hatred and wielding knives at the specters of children. And for once, we had the story to tell upon returning home, home to other friends in other alleys, safe from all the dangers of house and family.

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Nature's Yoni

by Jenna Jaffe Melissas

52

Church

by Tennille McElrath

Red velveteen threads like thick hair remain where wrinkled hands worried smooth patches, where backs rode straight against unyielding wood. Down the dusty aisles and past moldy hymnals an upright reposes like a hollow tooth. Any step here would sound like bone on bone.

The wood groans as if remembering the resounding words of the past. Dauntless words dismissed the darkness and uncertainty, not like a floodlight, but like a glow through a pupil. Tiny bubbles vitiate the glass of the grimy windows. Dust clumps on cobwebs like knuckles on long, emaciated fingers.

One room. A toybox on the surface of the earth. The broken doorway gapes like a mouth that once spoke great truths.

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