From the Editor First off, this issue looks amazing! We have Katherine “Kat” Wister to thank; Kat designed our cover, the table of contents, and all the genre covers, and thanks to her skills, vision, hard work, and perfectionism, we have our best-looking issue yet. I suggested making Nocturnal Animals by Kate Goltseva our cover art somewhat early on in the game, and the more pieces (especially Fiction) we accepted, the more worthy it became of representing the content of this issue as a whole… The funny thing about the Fiction section is that there’s a theme and uniformity of atmosphere going on, though it was completely unintentional – many of our pieces have the recurring theme of insanity or losing one’s mind, and for the most part, they’re dark and disturbed, or else they’re “taboo,” or raw and personal. There are many different flavors for you in our Scripts section, inspiring stories and sentiments shared in the Creative Nonfiction section, and verses to delight in in our Poetry section. The Artwork section is my pride and joy – it’s busting with talent and variety and is extremely enjoyable to browse through. You who are reading this will want to find a comfy reading spot, because trust me, you’ll be glued to it for quite some time – this issue is jam-packed with exciting reads and artwork! But, before you turn to our table of contents, I want to thank our instructor and publisher, Julie Amparano Garcia, for being one of the nicest and most dedicated professors out there (she’s the one prof I know I’ll keep in touch with after graduation). And I also want to thank all the editors on board for Issue 19 – each one has worked hard and been enthusiastic about making this issue a truly great one. Plus, they’re all really friendly people who have been a pleasure to work with. And lastly, some appreciation for the Editor-in-Chief, who has set herself to editing and proofreading every single page in this issue – don’t know what we’d do without her [me]! - Rachel Passer
PUBLISHER Julie Amparano Garcia Editor-in-Chief Rachel Passer Design Director Katherine “Kat” Wister Senior Fiction Editor Rachel Passer Fiction Editors Lee Breisblatt Morgan Hoper Jakob Salazar Christopher Stuart Bria Thompson Katherine “Kat” Wister Senior Poetry Editor Poetry Editors
Kacee Allard Jessica Lane Abigail Murray Addison Rizer Christian Serrano
Senior Creative Nonfiction Editor Creative Nonfiction Editors
Morgan Hoper Lee Breisblatt Addison Rizer Jakob Salazar
Senior Scripts Editor Scripts Editors
Addison Rizer Lee Breisblatt Morgan Hoper Jakob Salazar
Senior Art Editor Rachel Passer Art Editors Kacee Allard Jessica Lane Abigail Murray Christian Serrano Christopher Stuart Bria Thompson Katherine “Kat” Wister Senior Alcove Editor Addison Rizer Copy Chief Rachel Passer Lee Breisblatt Christopher Stuart Marketing Department Ruth Dempsey Staff Photographer Bria Thompson CANYON VOICES is a student-driven online literary magazine, featuring the work of emerging and established writers and artists. The magazine is supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts, & Cultural Studies at Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. To subscribe, please click here. Click here for submission guidelines.
Cover image: Nocturnal Animals by Kate Goltseva See the Artwork section for full image
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
RAD-E-ATION by Erik Minter
FICTION Decay Peter Wollman
Apocalypse Soon Pete Malicki
Floss Ryan J. Krebs
The Painting Daniel Rodriguez
The Frenchman Arthur Davis
Summer's Song Luke Allison
Beast Patty Houston
POETRY Outside From the Inside Anne Whitehouse Salt-Rising Bread Anne Whitehouse Genetic Distance of Zero Jaimi Garcia
We Fade Faster Than Stars (recalling John Keats) Fanni Somogyi Chicago Street Preacher Michael Lee Johnson Apocalypse Upon Us Gerard Sarnat
Time Moves in Perpetual Motion Andrew Ricky Roberts
Pink Ladies Natasha Deonarain
Waiting Dates Cody Wilson
115°F Natasha Deonarain
Prayer Morgan Hood
Leaf Traces Diane Webster
Autumn is almost here and so is our Passing Fanni Somogyi
Poetry Month Winners • Jordan Garcia • Liza Cohen Hita • Mindee Bahr
CREATIVE NONFICTION Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
Unspoken Memories Sophia Steuber
In Retrospect Tom Wade
Here Be Decapods Kyle LauritaBonometti
Midnight Reverie Sara R. Lander
SCRIPTS The Stranger Analisa Chavez Say Your Prayers Gaige Johnston Larry The Pool Boy? Gabriela Ramirez Stay Amar
Professor Morey’s World’s Best Disease Pathology Class Gaige Johnston Saint Francis de Los Barrios Allan Havis Something About Endings Amanda Beck
AUTHORS ALCOVE Anne Whitehouse:
Sara R. Lander:
Searching for Immortality
Life and Learning after a Near-Death Experience
Cody Wilson:
Amar:
The Most Human of Crafts
Life Should be Crazy
Peter Wollman:
John Bayalis:
The Many Avenues of Inspirations
Simple Things that Have Appeal
by Christian G. Serrano
by Addison Rizer
by Bria Thompson
ARTWORK Erik Minter
Manana Tsilikishvili
John Bayalis
Elise Mendelle
Kate Goltseva
Sulena Alvarado
Linda D'Elia
Richard Lussier
Dan Tocher
Pascal Wagner
Jefferson Muncy
Dale A. Dahlberg III
Matt Biondo
SenaTuesday
Anayansi Jones
Jeff Foster
Amar
Chanler Araiza
Christine Guenard
Lauren O'Donnell
by Jakob Salazar
by Morgan Hoper
by Abigail Murray
ABOUT US Our Mission Contact Us Submission Guidelines Staff Pages
Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
________________________________
Decay Peter Wollman ________________________________
The Painting Daniel Rodriguez ________________________________
Apocalypse Soon Pete Malicki ________________________________
The Frenchman Arthur Davis ________________________________
Beast Patty Houston ________________________________
Floss Ryan J. Krebs ________________________________
Summer’s Song Luke Allison ________________________________
Blue Ascent by Jeff Foster (See Artwork for full Image)
FICTION | PETER WOLLMAN
Decay by Peter Wollman
Ken — like many a married man — did the dishes, mowed the lawn, nodded patiently and waited for the sweet, sweet release of death.
On the way to the parking lot, he threw the brochures into the trash. On the way home, he picked up his prescriptions.
“Are you listening?” the doctor asked. Ken smiled. Medical school was tough. He deserved the illusion of his full attention. Dr. Simon continued. Cancer. That was the bad news. The good news was he had a better than fair chance of beating it. He had gotten the slow, creeping stalker-like cancer, not the jumping-out-from-theback-of-the-couch, serial-killer type cancer. The doctor put a stack of brochures in front of him and explained the initial drugs he was prescribing: one for anxiety, one for pain, one for the nausea that had brought him there in the first place. As his mind drifted, he outlined the plan for treatment. Ken kept smiling. He hated plans. His manager, his wife, this doctor, God almighty. Everybody was full of plans. Ken was bad at making plans, meaning he was constantly the victim of somebody else’s plans. Plans meant somebody’s goals intruding on his down time. Plans meant more work where work wasn’t wanted.
“
He had sympathy for chickens. Every religion seemed to spare some species. Jews and Muslims gave pigs a pass, Hindus didn’t kill cows. But everybody was on board with killing chickens.
He parked the car in the driveway. It was early evening. Eva would be making dinner. A bag of medicine would cause questions. He took the pills for nausea and hid the rest in the glove compartment. “Well, did they find out what was wrong?” Eva asked, looking up from the cutting board. “Nothing serious,” he said. “They think it might be stress. What’s for dinner?” “Chicken soup.”
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FICTION | PETER WOLLMAN
Chicken, fish, chicken, fish. It was part of Eva’s plan to eat well, to bore themselves into good health.
“I’ll go to Home Depot, get some fertilizer, borrow the neighbor’s spreader and fertilize that lawn.”
“It smells great,” he said.
There was a pause.
He was sick of chicken. It wasn’t personal. He had sympathy for chickens. Every religion seemed to spare some species. Jews and Muslims gave pigs a pass, Hindus didn’t kill cows. But everybody was on board with killing chickens. As an animal, it got no more respect than a potato.
“This weekend,” he added.
He’d read that a chicken was just a way for an egg to make another egg.
“Why don’t you go and buy the fertilizer tomorrow?” she asked. “On your way home from work?” He looked up from the soup and they locked eyes. There was only one correct answer. Ken knew better than to get into land war with this woman. Keep the battle within. Still, every time, he felt the urge to counter-attack.
From a chicken’s point of view, life was short, brutal and terrifying.
Then he remembered.
From the egg’s point of view, the universe made perfect sense.
“Hold on,” he said, excusing himself from the table. “I think I forgot to lock the car.”
# The first half of dinner passed in blessed silence, but since he’d assured her everything seemed okay, before the soup was cold Eva felt confident to bring out the cannons. “The grass needs attention.” “I mowed it a few days ago.” “Spring is coming, it needs fertilizer.” “Okay.” “Okay what?” Ken considered the conversational options. He decided to stay on safe ground.
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He went outside. He opened the glove compartment, found the bottle he was looking for. Xanax. He read the dosage, swallowed a pill and went back inside. “You were saying?” he said. Eva stated that there was no excuse not to get the fertilizer tomorrow, and began to recap a whole list of projects that were suffering because of his procrastination. Hanging the towel rack, cleaning the gutters, taking the car in for an oil change. As she talked instead of becoming increasingly stressed, he could feel himself becoming increasingly relaxed. When she was done, instead of snapping, he yawned. She looked fuzzy.
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FICTION | PETER WOLLMAN
“You’re right,” he said, getting up. He kissed her on the top of the head. “I love you, I’m going to go to sleep now. I’m very tired.” “What about the dishes?” “Tell them not to move.” He was asleep as soon as his head was on the pillow.
“
Ken didn’t mind, they were just getting older. He was getting bald and fat. The main occupation of his underwear was keeping his balls above his knees. But she had lived in herself when she was beautiful and seemed to miss those days.
with nothing better to do than to fertilize and pull weeds all year. “Good morning,” he heard behind him. “How’d you sleep?” “Good morning, darling. Fantastic, thanks for asking.” “I see you did the dishes, but they stunk up the house last night. You should have at least rinsed them off before you ran off to bed. Next time—what are you swallowing?” “Vitamin,” he lied. “And why are you in your pajamas?” “I took the day off.” “You feel okay?” “Just a little groggy.” She looked suspicious, but she had to go. They bleated affections to each other and he watched her car leave the driveway. Before she left, she reminded him about the fertilizer. Ken nodded calmly. #
# The next morning, Ken was up early. By the time he heard Eva, he had cleaned the kitchen, called in sick. He stared out at the lawn while he waited. Ken knew he was married when he had a lawn. Before this needy piece of dirt came into his life, obligation was purely theoretical. The lawn was green enough, he thought, but it was flanked by two superior lawns, deep green and free of crabgrass. His neighbors were savages,
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As the drug kicked in, he made his way to his chair. Eva wasn’t a bad person, just a disappointed wife. Was there any other kind? The problem was that, three decades ago, she had believed in him. She saw his potential. She had no idea that Ken considered himself a finished product. This was really the foundation of every argument. She loved the man he might become and didn’t understand why he
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FICTION | PETER WOLLMAN
stayed the same. He loved the woman he met and didn’t understand why she’d want anything to change. Kids were the immediate solution. Four in a row. They marched through her body like Sherman’s army and left her looking like Atlanta from the neck down. Ken didn’t mind, they were just getting older. He was getting bald and fat. The main occupation of his underwear was keeping his balls above his knees. But she had lived in herself when she was beautiful and seemed to miss those days. Ken reached into his pocket. He held up the bottle of Xanax and shook it like a baby rattle. There were enough pills for a month, maybe longer. He had no idea scientists had invented a mute button. If he’d found out about this sooner, he could have been a better husband. A shadow caught his eye. He noticed a chicken walking across the living room. Its body was plucked and marinated, but its head and feet were normal. The bird stopped, looked at Ken with one eye, spun his head around, looked at him with the other, then ran to the back of the house.
been needy, but unlike a lawn they had given him some joy and moved away. The lawn had been fertilized. The gutters had been cleaned. Not on schedule, it had taken longer than Eva wanted, but Ken didn’t mind. All he had to do was calibrate the dosage to her disappointment and he felt fine. He was in his chair one day when he heard her call out from behind him. “Ken, have you seen the chicken?” It wasn’t just him then. After the first sighting, he had seen others. They would always do the same thing, catch his eye and run to the back of the house. They were all headed in the same direction. He thought they might be migrating. That was crazy, though. Chickens were not a migrating species. He hadn’t mentioned it to Eva. It seemed too strange, like a hallucination. It was good to know he wasn’t crazy. “Come here,” she said. He followed her voice to the kitchen. Her head was deep inside the refrigerator, like an ostrich.
That’s odd, he thought, nodding off.
“I bought some wings,” she said, “And I can’t find them.”
They normally didn’t have chicken two nights in a row.
“I don’t know,” he said.
#
“There should be some breasts and thighs in here somewhere as well.”
Eventually, all his children had called, asking about his health. It felt good to be loved, at least to be considered less hassle alive than dead. Like a lawn, they had
“That’s odd.” “The eggs are missing too.” She took her head out and looked at him. He fingered the pill in his pocket.
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SPRING 2019
FICTION | PETER WOLLMAN
“Are you sure you don’t know?” He shrugged. They stared each other down for a few moments till she sighed and went to the pantry. He let go, pulled out his hand and went back to his chair. # A week later, Ken was watching a World War II documentary while Eva was organizing the closet. It was a mess, she said. He thought he’d heard her ask to help, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t leave his chair anyway. They were deep into the Holocaust. Nazis. Assholes with plans. If they had stayed home, relaxed, none of that suffering would have happened. Nobel Peace Prizes should be given out for lack of ambition. Ken had been dying for almost a month now, but still felt pretty good. The pills were working. Long term, he knew he should be answering the hospital’s phone calls. Short term, he had the History Channel. “What the fuck is this?!” he heard Eva shout from the bedroom.
“Why are you staring at my dirty clothes?” he asked. “You don’t smell it? “ “Why would I want to smell it?” “It’s rotting.” She took him by the arm and made him stare into the hamper. She had pushed his underwear and socks aside. Down below were the chickens. Five or six of them, staring up. Help us, he felt them say. He saw the horror in their eyes.
“
He couldn’t leave his chair anyway. They were deep into the Holocaust. Nazis. Assholes with plans. If they had stayed home, relaxed, none of that suffering would have happened. Nobel Peace Prizes should be given out for lack of ambition.
“Something about the Holocaust,” he shouted back. “IN HERE, KEN.”
“What the hell is that?”
“What?” he asked.
“Chicken,” he said.
“HERE, IN THE BEDROOM.”
“What the hell is it doing in your laundry?”
He put the Holocaust on pause and went to the bedroom. She was standing over his hamper, a towel over face.
Help us, the chickens repeated.
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“Eva,” he said, “I have cancer, I’m dying.”
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FICTION | PETER WOLLMAN
“Oh, for chrissakes. I don’t know what’s up with you the past few weeks. Clean this shit up,” she said, slamming the door on her way out. Followed by the wheels to her Honda squealing as she sped away.
He would be asked to explain himself, but not really. It would be more of a listening exercise. Besides, how could he explain? To her, chickens were just breasts, thighs, wings, drumsticks. Maybe giblets if she was making soup. She didn’t see them as parts of a larger whole, tools of eggs.
#
It was better not to try.
Two hours later, the Holocaust was finished and Hitler was dead. Ken turned off the television, went to the bedroom and took the chickens out of the hamper.
Sleep might be a better strategy. He took out the bottle. He filled his mouth and reached for a glass of water.
You can’t stay here, he told them. It’s not safe. She’s angry. We’ll die without you, they said.
About the Author
You’re better off in Finland, he said. He took them to the backyard. One by one, he threw them over the fence. Flying over the pine planks they looked terrified. He wished them luck. As he was walking back to the house, he heard barking, then the crunching of bones. Oh, he remembered. He had forgotten the neighbors had a dog. # Ken lay down in bed. Eva was right. The room stunk of decomposing poultry. She would be back soon. If not soon, eventually. She hadn’t taken any of her overnight cosmetics. The life insurance policy was somewhere in his desk.
CANYON VOICES
Peter Wollman lives in Tempe and works in China, commuting between the two. He has enough frequent flyer miles to buy a 737. In Tempe he is tenderfoot-ranked member of The Mighty Central Phoenix Writing Workshop. In China he has a company exporting bamboo products and agitates for the reclassification of panda bears as obese, hung-over raccoons. He holds a degree in Anthropology. Really, he should have known better, but hey—it was fascinating at the time and it’s too late now. His favorite novel is Moby Dick, to the degree that he named his infant son Queequeg. Yes, Queequeg. He will have a lot of explaining to do.
SPRING 2019
FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
The Painting by Daniel Rodriguez
“Do you believe in hauntings?” Professor
A slight chuckle from two students. Professor
Brown asked his German 18th Century Art class. It was one of those obscure classes in the university that drew only an audience of anywhere from five to ten students a semester. This year it was a plump seven
Brown was not completely amused.
students and one teenage assistant who helped him with displays and projects.
from the Mad Painter, Joseph Liebert. Now, I know some of you who have a good literary mindset may wonder if I am reaching a connection to H.P. Lovecraft who had a mad writer of the ‘Necronomicon’. I would state,
Professor Brown had scratchy facial hair, a clean top mixed with pure white skin, dark
“An interesting note, Sin,” he responded. Sin being short for Cindy. “Today we are going to be looking at the most infamous painting
eyes, and it drove the girls mad. He knew this more than anyone; how they pictured him playing with the light bush beneath his lips and chin, the long strokes of petting his thick hair. He could see them often staring,
though, that the man who painted this picture,” he tore down the cloth to reveal a painting, “was indeed, as legend goes, off his rocker.”
rather gazing, at his face and what was the rest of his body. He couldn’t tell if he should ignore this and be strict in his lectures, but on occasion he found himself milking the pauses and standing in front of everyone
The painting was of a lady dressed provocatively in red, her strawberry colored lips the clear centerpiece. Her eyes seemed almost void of a soul, her hair a vast darkness flowing over the corner of the
before he got to the action of his lesson.
couch she was lying on.
Truth was he may very well have been a vain man.
“This is what is written on the back and as you can see, this is the genuine article from Joseph Liebert. ‘Painting Number 3:
The class did not immediately answer. After a pause, one girl amid a daydream rose her hand in hoping she would give the answer he wanted. “Well, I do believe my mom’s aunt’s house was haunted.”
However, we know this painting more as, ‘The Lady.’ Before I talk about the specific features, as you may know, this painting has a series of horror stories associated with it.
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
Even believed by the Vatican to be haunted
head to take it all in. He averted his gaze and
at one point in time.”
all he could see was green discoloration as his eyes tried in vain to adjust to normal. He squinted his eyes closed and heard a series of steps. Click-clack.
“Long ago . . . As the legend goes, there was a village, quaint and quiet, with only two hundred residents. Joseph had moved there to get out of the city life. He always dreamt of a house overlooking an orchard. His perfect life
He wiped the first dust out of his eyes and saw just legs in broken-down shoes. She was a peasant girl, probably a farmer’s daughter, or a poor man’s wife. He looked up to her waist, to her stomach, and followed it up to
would be a simplicity he could bask in.
her neckline. Her neck was bare in front of him. She wore a dress that was worn and raggedy, hanging slightly off the shoulder. The edge of her skin going from her shoulder to her neck; the neck, drifting down towards
Rivaling that dream was a young local who was said to be both a charming and brilliant
“
The voices were always laughing. He ran to another room and slammed the door. In front of him was a cold and silent canvas.
painter who would soon become world famous. His name would be forgotten with time but for the sake of the story he shall be called Cliff. “Cliff worked days as a shopkeeper’s assistant. He had recently moved out of his parents’ home and found his own in a back room. One day, he was stocking the front shelves when she walked in. The light from the door hit Cliff’s face, and he was paralyzed because he foolishly allowed the positioning of his
CANYON VOICES
the top of her chest. Her blue eyes, the color of fresh water, stared at him. She smiled softly. She was perfect in his eyes. They instantly found themselves drawn to each other. While they had little in common other than their common lives, they quickly became inseparable. Joseph met her a few days later while setting up his supplies and canvas. The air had begun to cool and a gentle breeze formed pushing his head to see her swimming. Beside the lake was Cliff. He had already begun painting the water, how the currents were moving and the clouds in the distance. Joseph looked back down, at his blank canvas and its silence. He had not been
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
getting “the feel” that had been joyfully
right through it. Joseph was losing his mind
plaguing him most of his life.
as he allowed himself to imagine cruel voices spinning around him in laughter.
The closest thing he had to a muse had died of illness long ago. It was a love from afar, but recently, in his mind she was by his side,
The voices were always laughing. He ran to another room and slammed the door. In
creating works of art, guiding his hands and whispering paint colors and their combinations in his ears. He knew he never really heard, saw or felt these things, but they flowed from him freely as the blood of a
front of him was a cold and silent canvas. He bought it long ago in a foreign flea market. It was being saved for a special occasion. But where was his muse? Where was the soul he wished he could capture in this sheet of
fresh cut. Two women he had painted previously. Most of his work was landscape and architecture. But the women, the two he had found, had revolutionized everything he knew about art and beauty.
fabric and material?
She came out of the water, her underdress brashly allowing him to see her curves and waves that molded her body. “She was designed by the hand of God.” That was his
“Come.” He said quietly. He could hardly hear himself. “I said come.” This time it was a clear whisper. The haunting rectangle was looking back in defiance.
words and even from that distance, he could see the water element of her eyes. What caught his attention most was not just the water in her eyes, but the red of her lips as they pursed into a smile. He reached out his
“I need the muse! Give me the Muse!” He was demanding it with every bit of his existence, in a hope that his own will would be able to warp reality. If he could call the
fingers into the air and they lingered, pretending to move with those shapes.
sky green, it would be green, that was how he wanted it with this non-painting.
He slammed the door shut on his empty house. Alone, he was always alone. His
A tantrum followed. As the day became night, he was huddled into a corner. Failure,
models use to keep him a quiet company but now he was with his silence. The world was moving without him and he without it. He took his steps and slammed his failed painting against the wall. It merely bounced
that was all he could feel. He was an “artist” only by the foolish coincidences that those things he happened to create were considered art. In reality, he was nothing. His only good work was not his own, but
and came to a stop, so he kicked his foot
inspired by another source.
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
His tears were a strange unwelcome comfort. He hated how they tickled as they brushed down. He hated how he felt like he could not control them. They were let loose and he could not put them back. Art was a strange
Three weeks later, a party was being held in Munich. The mayor had bought himself a new piece and wanted to flaunt his charitable donations to the art community. He saw it more as a means to expand his popularity,
concept that had given him all he had, and he could not harness it. If only he had chosen a profession.
but these events became more a sanctioned meet-and-greet for artists and often newer talents would rise up in mass whispers during these gatherings.
The image of Cliff, his rival, a more humble artist but rising quick came to his mind. His style, the paint strokes were sharp, the edges smooth. They had purpose, and they did not copy what they merely saw, but rather captured the essence; the soul of the subject. Critics claimed similarly of Joseph Liebert’s work, but even a fool can find abstract art to be the work of genius. Joseph found his mind wanting someone to knock on the front door, give him a reason to leave this void of a room. As he could not will the blank canvas to talk to him, he could not will a stranger to knock on his door. He could not leave the room with thoughts of Cliff’s amazing talent running through his head, or the new girl he knew Cliff would immortalize into a masterpiece. That girl, he would kill to paint her. That was when the canvas answered him. “Paint. Me.” He smiled, and she smiled back.
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“
That girl, he would kill to paint her. That was when the canvas answered him. ‘Paint. Me.’ He smiled, and she smiled back.
Cliff’s name was being mentioned a lot, and he bought himself the most humble of suits, as he brought his lady with him. To the outside world, they saw her as plain, but Joseph knew better. At this point Cliff had sold two works, which he created with great depth and time over the course of two weeks since he met his new lady. Tonight would be Joseph’s night, though. What the world did not know was that he had entered three pieces into the gallery auction down below. His best works yet. Ever since he found the Muse, his talent had reached its peak. But it was all a lie. Every painting he was going to unveil tonight
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would be a piece to an argument in three
other’s work. Cliff because he believed that
acts. The goal was to get the lady to be his model, so he could capture her soul.
locals should stick up for their own. Joseph, rather though, would be known as the only talent from their little town, not a second runner.
Cliff and Joseph found themselves meeting in front of the Mayor’s new “whatever it was.” Their contact came first as a collaborative effort of berating a child-like drawing of a vast canyon on an expensive parchment that could have been put to better use. Put in easier terms, it was shit.
“
The picture, however, had its horrific flaw. The lips, they wouldn’t stay red! The muse would often come from her painting, and wrap him in her arms to comfort him, and she told him, today would be the last.
“To think I still have to work a day job,” Cliff gave his remarks. “Heard the guy made enough tonight to build a house for his child,” Joseph had responded.
“I heard you have been working hard,” Joseph looked to Cliff, seeing if he could spot any weakness in his rival. Cliff shrugged it off, a wannabe act of humility. Cliff was for the most part humble but when he went on his creative strings, his confidence would often be noticed by those around him. Joseph knew this look all too well. It would be a lie if Joseph claimed he did not have the same affliction of smugness when he knew he was working on a good piece. “My work is my work. But yes, I am trying to circulate some new pieces.” “I got two being auctioned off tonight,” Joseph responded. “I’ll let you have a look sometime next week at what I have been working with.” “Does it have anything to do with your new catch? Got yourself a new muse?” Cliff went red; his skin flushed so easily when it came to girls.
“This should not be allowed to reproduce. The growth of humanity as a whole has been infected by this existing.” Cliff had always been good with sarcasm, to Joseph’s liking. Never had either talked bad about each
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“What about you? You said you have two being auctioned tonight. You got something at home that you are not showing us?”
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
A dark feeling hit Cliff as Joseph responded
“Yes.” He just stared blankly into space as
with one question. “Your new friend, would she model for me?”
she kept petting him. He was hers and he was grateful for the pleasure.
The quaint small village, once so peaceful was now under attack by a series of grizzly
The door opened and the lady walked in.
deaths. Cliff had begun to drink himself to sleep on a nightly basis. The woman who had once been perfect was coming to see him less and less. Joseph would stand in awe as the Muse continued to direct his hand; his
More time passed. Ten victims had been tallied, all young, all beautiful. Cliff had quit his job, burned his old artwork, and would no longer take visits from her as she would come to him. The last communication
painting was becoming more lush and full of life with each passing day.
anyone had of him, Joseph had sent Cliff a draft of his final work. There was his girl, captured more than just by accuracy but into the essence of a being he would never possess. His life was meaningless as was his
There was one problem, though: the lips. They were pale. Growing more white and ash by the second. Those beautiful ruby blood lips were a disaster. Not at all like the object he was painting, the soul he wished to capture.
quest to bring forth the beauty of this world into paint.
“Paint me,” the Muse said.
ups and was waiting for Katrina to come. What a needless name. He looked back at the imperfect work he had dedicated the last few weeks of his life to. Katrina, while simple, loved every moment of it. She seemed like
Joseph could see the figure of the woman, lying down in a beautiful red dress just staring into his soul. She winked at him.
It was now the last day of Joseph Liebert’s painting. He was doing a final set of touch-
she was born to model for others. “But, I…” He was trying to argue that no matter how perfect his model, the lips could not obtain the proper redness to reflect her soul. “I am yours as long as you keep painting me. I will give you the entire world.” He felt her arm come forth from the canvas and run her fingers through the back of his hair.
The picture, however, had its horrific flaw. The lips, they wouldn’t stay red! The muse would often come from her painting, and wrap him in her arms to comfort him, and she told him, today would be the last. All he had to do was finish the last details. “Soon,” she said as he composed himself. “Soon.”
CANYON VOICES
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
She went back into her painting and a
“Right there is fine,” Joseph said in a manner
beautiful operetta number began to fill the air. He was always a fan of the classics. As he begun to sway left to right, his head moving with the crashing waves to the notes and motion, the door was knocked.
that talked her down.
“Mr. Liebert. I am here.” “Coming, Lady Katrina.” The music instantly stopped as he put down his utensils and went for the wooden door. Katrina stood in front of him wearing a more simple set of clothes, those from the street. “You sure you don’t need me to wear that dress?” She asked coyishly. He knew she liked to dress up. However, for the finale, all he cared about was fine tuning the facial features and her hair.
She took a deep breath, and at once a strange serenity hit her face. She was in her element. It was perhaps the only thing about her that fascinated him. He sat down in front of the painting. The chair had a little extra comfort than normal. The brush felt a little extra light. It hymned in his hand. He waited for the muse to speak. The day turned into evening and before the sun finished its set, he finished the painting. But something was wrong. The lips went from a perfect blush to a see-through pink. No matter how many times in the past he had retouched it, the lips would not stay red. The girl in the painting began to cry.
He guided her by the hand to the couch. The sun was setting in just the right position for the shading.
“Stop it, please,” Joseph pleaded. “Make me perfect.” The woman in the
“Should I smile? Make a silly face?” Katrina asked.
painting looked at him with wanting eyes. “Okay.”
Joseph didn’t care for her musings. Back when it all started, he enjoyed her little bits of personality, but more and more, she may have been a child playing and talking with herself. It was not her overly energetic voice he sought. This lady was just a vessel.
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Katrina could not understand this conversation he was having. “Is everything alright?” “Blood. I need blood.” Joseph Liebert looked to his subject.
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
“What?” Katrina looked back curiously.
He slit her throat.
Joseph composed himself. “You see, blood can keep its red color the longest, more so than any paint, and for me to accurately capture your soul, I need to polish these dull
Katrina’s blood sang songs of ecstasy as it was properly applied to the pale lips of the painting. They had found their home. At long last he had done what he had always dreamt
lips with ruby blood.”
of doing, he captured the soul of an individual onto the canvas and it was good. The muse standing next to him simply turned his neck just a little and gave him a demonic kiss.
She did not have an answer for that. She just stood there. “You see, the blood of all those other girls would only liven the lips for a moment because they didn’t fit the piece. To make this peace perfect...” Joseph stood up. Behind Joseph, she could see a faint figure, with sharp teeth, a hint of red eyes, and horns. It had a female figure. It looked like it put a hand on Joseph’s shoulders. She wanted to run but her soul was bound by the painting. She could feel herself chained to the couch that Joseph had painted her on. He walked to her, step by step, the shadow of the demon growing stronger and stronger. She wanted to scream. Joseph knew so, because they all wanted to scream. He grabbed the comforting top of her head. He let his fingers feel the integrity of her hair and the mass collapsed under the weight, down to her scalp. He got his grip, knowing he could move her head and neck side to side. There was no need to look into her eyes.
“
Joseph composed himself. ‘You see, blood can keep its red color the longest, more so than any paint, and for me to accurately capture your soul, I need to polish these dull lips with ruby blood.’
“Cindy, can you stay and help me put these materials back in the art department closet?” Professor Brown asked. Cindy was always a people pleaser. Plus, her crush on the Professor probably helped her decision as well. “Could you grab those?” he asked her. She went to the front table where he left his lecture notes for the class.
He grabbed the palette knife.
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
Cindy sifted through them and saw a picture
“Yes, I did want to get you alone, if you don’t
of Joseph Liebert. “Was he really a serial killer?”
mind.”
“So the legend goes. Do you believe it?”
She instantly couldn’t think straight thoughts. This was real, not a fantasy. As she smiled, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Cindy shook her head no. To believe he was a serial killer would also mean that she would have to believe the other elements of the story.
They came to the art department door and she felt herself fearful yet having a deadly anticipation for the future moments she knew were about to come.
“And what of his rival? The other painter?” she asked.
“So, Professor, did you hear about the rumors that some girls went missing?” She was trying to make conversation, not sure how to fill the silence.
He shrugged. “I don’t know if he really ever existed. A lot of the story is legend. They do say a lot of legends are based on some level of truth, though. I think it too sad that there is this idea of another with the same artistic power as Joseph Liebert but that he was forgotten by time. It happens, though, all too
“They probably just dropped out. A lot of people find that college is too tough for them.”
often.”
told in class.”
“So, what does legend say happened after?”
The room was antique-looking, not a hint of modern technology anywhere. It also felt strangely devoid of life. The middle of the
“Apparently, he simply shut himself away from society and died of illness alone.” He grabbed the painting and they left the classroom.
“Yeah, but it just reminds me of the story you
room was a wide-open space. It would have been fit for dancing, if the two wished to dance. She smiled at this thought. She saw, though, that he was not smiling. Professor Brown simply put the painting against an
They were walking down the hall when she began, “So Professor, I don’t know how to say this, but…” she recalled a strange look in the professor’s eyes as she sat in class. She felt herself feel desired, and it was a strange
easel and once again unfolded the cover to reveal its spending glory.
yet slightly embarrassing comfort.
looked strange. Nothing had changed; every
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No longer did Painting Number 3, or The Lady, look like a work of genius or beauty. It
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FICTION | DANIEL RODRIGUEZ
line, curve, and color was exactly the same,
The smell was the first thing that hit her. The
but Cindy didn’t know how she felt about it.
dead bodies were about six in number. They had been discarded. It wasn’t supplies he put into his own personal closet in the antiqued art department.
“Tell me, before we put the rest of the stuff in the closet, what do you think of this painting? Use everything I taught you about color, contrast, and even background, to critique it.” Cindy wanted to see something nice. She wanted to see a happy story. She wanted to see a girl of great beauty lying on a couch smiling with strawberry colored lips. Something inside her was telling her otherwise. It was fear, the same kind when she used to be alone at home for the first
The last thing Cindy felt was her windpipe collapse under an immense pressure. She likely blacked out before she died. Professor Brown took out a crude box cutter, slit what was left of her throat, and painted those pale lips red with blood. He had to please The Lady.
time. “It is a beautiful work, but…”
About the Author
“But the smile. It is the smile, right?” the professor asked in a sigh of defeat. “The smile is kind of creepy,” she responded. “So, it’s not a trick of the light in here. I was afraid of this.” The professor began to pace. He then added, “I was really hoping it was just me. That such tragedy could befall such a beauty … The color is fading …” She didn’t have time to understand as he directed her to the closet and gave her the key.
Daniel Rodriguez was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1986. He has written one unpublished novel and is currently working on two more. He loves the theater, anime, video games, and a good story told in any medium. His most recent work is an urban fantasy novel called Battle Mage which he hopes will be completed and ready for publication by year’s end.
She opened the door.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
FICTION | PETE MALICKI
Apocalypse Soon by Pete Malicki
I can’t find the milk. I’ve been up and down each aisle five times but there’s no milk anywhere. There’s no one in here which I should probably find strange but I don’t. I go back to aisle three and check behind the Oreos. Oh hey, it’s the milk. Who put it there? I reach in and grab a gallon. Something smashes behind me. I turn. My heart almost turns to lead when I see the man. His clothing is torn, his hair looks like it’s been ripped half out, his arms are bloody. He staggers towards me, eyes glazed and unblinking. Then he says, “Brains!” I drop the milk and back away, and he starts stumbling faster. I turn to run and another bloodied man grabs me and tries to bite my neck. A moment of confusion.
Jesus, yes it’s the fourth time this week. Did I make that my Facebook status or something? I’m so damn tired but I have to stay awake through school. This all started because of movies. Every second Sunday, Jules and I do a themed movie marathon. First one ever was Pixar movies, then obvious stuff like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. We’ve done heaps and heaps of TV series and we even did the entire Fast And Furious franchise. Most recent one was zombies. World War Z, 28 Days Later, I Am Legend and Shaun of the Dead. Now, I am totally not scared of zombies. What am I? A five-year-old? Zombies are stupid and impossible. But ever since we did this I’ve been having these really vivid dreams and it’s starting to get out of control.
“That’s the fourth time this week.”
I head to university and put the undead out of my mind for a while. I sit up the back of Global Economics and watch the room fill up. This old guy Benson who has this creepy crush on me sits beside me and stares discreetly at me for a long creepy minute. He totally waited until there were no other seats before sitting down so I’m stuck.
This is already established. I send her away and step into the shower to rinse off the sweat and maybe a little pee. A bit later I call my girlfriend. “Hey Jules, how you? Yeah, I’m alright. Nah, I’m alright. It’s… yeah, another one of those dreams.
The professor is talking about how China is communist politically but fiscally capitalistic… exporter of cheap goods thanks to low cost of labor… low regulation something government something.
That’s the fourth time this week. I don’t normally have dreams of any kind but this last week has been nightmare after nightmare. Mum comes in. “Honey, you okay?” “Yes, Mum.”
CANYON VOICES
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FICTION | PETE MALICKI
The key thing I learn today in Global Economics is that Global Economics is an effective cure for insomnia. I wake up when my spidey sense senses that Benson is about to zero in on my inner thigh so I jump up and run to the loo. I can’t willfully go back to that creep so I go to the library and try to study what I’m missing. I read a book called Twentieth Century Economic Policy in China, but all I’m thinking is “What would I do if a zombie came around the corner?” I’d… run through natural sciences and kick that wooden table in. The leg would be good for both whacking and stabbing. Or I could make a break for the window past the self-help aisle. What am I doing? I need to study.
“
Fears?! ‘I don’t believe in zombies, Jules, and I’m sure as heck not scared of the apocalypse.’
The rest of the day passes unproductively. That night I dream I’m in class with Benson squeezing my thighs and staring like real deep into my eyes. It’s more disturbing than the three zombies that come in and maul the Global Economics students. I wake up screaming when one grabs me from behind and starts eating my head. “That’s five times now, bumblebee.” I send my mother away and try to go back to sleep but now I’m scared of what I might dream so I lie awake until dawn.
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The day passes in a sleep-deprived blur. Two days later I have the dreams again, and this time the zombies are fast. It’s utterly terrifying. I have to do something about this. Jules comes over and we brainstorm ways to stop the nightmares. Sleeping pills? I’d rather not start at the extreme. Increase my exposure to zombie films. What, immunity through acclimatization? I doubt that’ll work. Meditation, sex – worth a try – exercise, cutting out cheese, listening to Bach. Then Jules says, “Babe, I think you need to face your fears.” Fears?! “I don’t believe in zombies, Jules, and I’m sure as heck not scared of the apocalypse.” “Maybe you’re not but your subconscious is.” Now that was an interesting thought. I know zombies are not possible but subconsciously I might be scared of the whole concept, just like intellectually I know all cola is the same but subconsciously give me a Coke right now damnit. Jules looks around my room. “Move your wardrobe in front of your door tonight. If there were zombies, they couldn’t get to you. That way your subconscious will feel safe.” I follow her advice and block my bedroom door before I go to sleep. Funnily enough it does make me feel safer. My dreams are sweet and filled with frolicking kittens, snow-capped mountains, an awesome round of laser tag and a really hot topless JESUS CHRIST A ZOMBIE JUST BURST THROUGH MY BEDROOM WINDOW!
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FICTION | PETE MALICKI
I wake up screaming. Mum is pounding on my door. She can’t get in. I get up but there’s a lot of pee this time. “I’m alright,” I say. “That the sixth time this week!” she says through a crack in the door. I skip school. Mum goes out so I don’t get to ask her but I need to sort this out or I’ll go crazy so I spend two hours nailing old fence posts I nick from down the street to the outside of my window frame. I take this super serious so I do one row horizontally then one row vertically over the top. I don’t dream that night. I wake up in my dark room, dress, push the cupboard out of the way, open my door AND MUM’S A ZOMBIE TRYING TO CLAW MY EYEBALLS OUT. Argh! Now my dreams are tricking me into thinking I’m awake when I’m actually still dreaming. Are you serious? I move my cupboard and storm out of my room. Find a guy to install bars on all the doors and windows. It’s going to cost three months of my crappy retail wages but it’s the only way. I call Carlos. Carlos is a short Spanish guy who is two hundred and forty pounds of pure, steroid-enhanced power. “Carlos? Make me strong.” Every day the nightmare creatures find a new way of getting to me and every day I counter them. I take my mum to Kung Fu. She’s a black belt in four months. The zombies are backed up twenty feet deep and overrun the house. I buy a katana from some dodgy Russian guy on the internet. My dreams demonstrate that
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this is no good for close quarters fighting so I get my hands on a couple of knives. Still getting swamped so I make a plan to get a suit of plate mail armor. They’ll never get through that. Mum corners me a few days later while I’m dragging furniture around with my non-dominant arm and doing knife moves with my good one. “Honey,” she says. Long pause. “Honey, are you being bullied in class?” “No.” “It’s just… all this army stuff. I found the crossbow, love. You’re not planning anything stupid, are you?” “Stupid? No, Mum, I’m just trying to get fit.” “By installing razor wire on the roof?” I pause. I think about it. “Best workout I’ve had in months.” I tune Mum out and look her up and down. She’s not in bad shape; she’s only fifty-three and all that Kung Fu is doing her wonders. She could hold her own against the zombies, at least for a while. Would I be able to take her out if she turned? I don’t know. Just because your mum’s an undead monster doesn’t mean it’s easy to lop her head off. In my next nightmare I’ve cleared the neighborhood of the dead and I’m trying to build a giant wall to keep the place safe. Dream me is a hard ass now. A zombie – which had been inside a house I thought I’d cleared – comes out of nowhere and collapses on top of me. It’s a
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FICTION | PETE MALICKI
big fat one and I’m trapped beneath it. Damn it. I need to cater for this scenario.
it happens, I will be waiting right here to slap it in the face.
My greaves arrive a few days later. I drop out of school to get in more hours at work so I can afford the rest of the suit. I’m spending a lot more time at the gym too, and please don’t tell my mum but Carlos slipped me some special sports drinks so I’m getting totally ripped. I run for hours each evening so I have the stamina to escape a horde of zombies if necessary.
Come and get me, apocalypse.
Seven months later the final piece of my armor, the gauntlets, arrives in the mail and the suit is complete. I wear it to bed and finally I get decent sleep… for a couple of weeks. My nightmares keep exposing more weaknesses so I keep coming up with new strategies. Every day I become a little bit more prepared. Every day I get stronger, faster, smarter or otherwise more capable of survival.
I am ready.
About the Author
People don’t talk to me these days but what good are people anyway? Everyone I meet is a potential enemy in the apocalypse. I start heading deep into the forest near our house and building fortifications there. A few rooms behind thick high brick walls. I dig a moat. Stock up on canned food. I collect years of supplies. Decades. I sleep here for weeks at a time. Then I stop going home. People don’t really come out here, but when they do, they find me in full plate mail with a razor sharp blade or three. They don’t stick around for long.
Pete Malicki is an Australian playwright and author whose scripts have been produced 920 times around the world. He has won 24 major awards and had 42 works published. As a producer, Pete holds a world record for running the longest 10 minute play festival in history: Short+Sweet Sydney 2012. He teaches playwriting, performance, and career development skills for artists.
It took many months but I finally feel prepared for the end of the world. When
CANYON VOICES
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FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
The Frenchman by Arthur Davis
In the stink of his cramped office at the west end of the prison compound Dr. Phillip DuBarry reached a conclusion well before considering the possibility of Bernard Costa’s plea. “I think my head is shrinking,” Costa repeated, unable to contain the racking fear that had plagued him since the discovery. “And, what do you think caused your condition?” Dr. Philip DuBarry asked with practiced indifference, as he had treated every prisoner over the last eighteen months of his internment. A Frenchman and self-ordained patriot exiled to Devil’s Island because of his uncontained slander against Napoleon III, DuBarry scratched out Costa’s statement in his file, if only to occupy time and space.
“But I’m concerned. Yes, concerned. Very concerned.” It was almost noon. The good doctor was hungry. Even knowing that he would receive better rations than the rest of the prisoners was a modest comfort.
“
The forty-eight-year-old had been convicted five times of petty thievery. The fact that he believed his head was shrinking was further evidence of what DuBarry assumed were serious emotional imbalances.
“I don’t know.” “But you must have some idea?” “No,” Costa answered. DuBarry leafed through Bernard Costa’s file. The forty-eight-year-old had been convicted five times of petty thievery. The fact that he believed his head was shrinking was further evidence of what DuBarry assumed were serious emotional imbalances. “No?”
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At first, he was grateful for what was only supposed to be a temporary confinement for the slander of his words on a night of too many parties, too much wine, too much temptation, and an inexcusable excess of drug-driven indiscretion. When the court expanded upon their initial verdict and condemned DuBarry for behavior, not just against the state but against society itself, any hope of returning to his life, his medical practice,
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FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
his family and of regaining his reputation, disappeared.
institution that brought fear to the most hardened French criminal.
Devil’s Island was as distant a location as one could get from the salons of Paris, a tract of misery much closer to the heart of pure darkness than anything civilized man had come upon in the whole of the 19th century.
Later that night, DuBarry returned to his meager quarters and examined the tips of his fingers as if they held a secret he had yet to decipher. Was the man’s head slightly smaller than he had anticipated? He rolled over onto his back, jerking back his feet when he felt something soft and slimy slithering across his ankle.
DuBarry got up, came around the desk, set the faint tips of his fingers over the imperfections of the man’s skull, as would any trained phrenologist. “You seem fine.” “I knew you would say that.” “Did you think I would simply agree with you?” “I had really hoped you would tell me my head wasn’t shrinking.” “For me to be certain of that, I would have to undertake extensive measurements of the spherical contours and irregularities and compare those measurements over subsequent visits.” “Please sir, I need your help.” DuBarry knew that what he had said, the lofty-sounding description of the seasoned phrenologist, which he was not, was a total fabrication, though not as great an infamy as Devil’s Island itself, a festering, forty-square-kilometer penal cesspool on the coast of French Guinea which had once been a haven for lepers. The year was 1870—the beginning of the Third French Republic. Devil’s Island was nineteen years old and already an
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The jungle heat and humidity and the cloistering fauna produced so many crawling and flying vermin there was no place to turn for safety or comfort. When it wasn’t raining, it was boiling hot. The air clung like a mat over your lungs. There were days when it was impossible to breathe. And he had 1,286 days left in the sanctuary for France’s most egregious offenders, those with a history of unrelenting violent and antisocial behavior. “How are you feeling today?” DuBarry asked, a week later. “Much better, very much better, sir.” “According to our last conversation you complained that your head was shrinking?” “Oh, no. I was mistaken. I hadn’t slept well in days, and I think I was imagining it all. I apologize, sir. I didn’t mean to take up your valuable time.” “I see.” “I wasn’t myself. You know, the wretched heat. It can make you believe what isn’t.”
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DuBarry had been allowed to take a few old medical texts with him as part of his baggage. It was made clear that when he was settled in he would be responsible for looking after the sick and malnourished, the insane, the beaten and abused—and those ravaged by others whose temperament, disposition, size, and authority made that kind of exploitation inevitable.
“
During DuBarry’s brief internment on Devil’s Island, he had heard stories that two men had been beheaded.
The physician that DuBarry replaced was a notorious drunk who routinely offered medical treatment in return for sexual favors. DuBarry had found several references in his texts to phrenology and its social importance and understood that the science attempted to define human characteristics or faculties by interpreting the shape, contour, and irregularities of the skull. “Well, let me have another look.” This time DuBarry’s examination was careful and methodical, taking measurements, making notes, trying to recall his readings in comparative anatomy. To reach any medical conclusion would be a difficult task, and impossible to demonstrate unless
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rigorous observations were well documented. The next day under the boiling sun DuBarry watched a withered Bernard Costa complete the perimeter walk around the prison compound, a daily ritual required of all inmates. Then there was the issue of the thread that Costa had first mentioned to prove his claim with an urgent, almost compelling, certainty. If it was indeed hanging in his cell it was easy enough to remove and examine. “Ridiculous,” DuBarry said, recounting their first encounter. Costa had made a knot near each end of a small piece of thread and when the thread was wrapped around his head the knots touched. After weeks of repeated measurements, Costa claimed that the knots were slowly overlapping, confirming his suspicion that his head was shrinking. After the twenty circuits Costa staggered back to his quarters, a cell with an iron bed outfitted with ankle manacles, a small bucket, and a single window that looked out onto a jungle teeming with crawling beasts that ravaged his skin, clawed at his feet, and were eager to lay their eggs in his mouth. During DuBarry’s brief internment on Devil’s Island, he had heard stories that two men had been beheaded. The inmates had been lined up and forced to watch the ceremony as a warning that even the slightest infraction could result in the most brutal of consequences. The last man, a character named Marcil, was serving fifteen years for molesting a young boy then killing the child’s inattentive father with a brick. SPRING 2019
FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
When it was discovered that Marcil had a habit of talking to himself, someone reported that he was plotting against the State. Shaking and crying, denouncing his captors and their God, he was bound and gagged and led up the rickety scaffold that inhabited the center of the prison compound. He was blindfolded and thrown to his knees.The Commandant, a perversion of unrelenting brutality, described the offense in great and compelling detail, the threat that Marcil posed to the liberty of the State, the resulting decree of guilt and the punishment, and in the same breath the blade was released.It slipped down the wooden tracks and landed on the back of Marcil’s sun-scarred neck, but did not venture more than a few millimeters beneath his skin. Upon inspection, it was found that the wooden guide tracks were swollen and warped from the humidity. The tracks were greased, the blade raised, and the lanyard yanked back again. No one in the crowd of anxious onlookers moved, spoke, or flinched. Staring at the tall wooden structure set precisely in the middle of the prison compound, DuBarry believed the Commandant wouldn’t take kindly to an inmate making false claims, or the new physician entertaining the possibility of such an outrageous fabrication. *** “How’ve you been feeling this week?” DuBarry asked a more contrite Bernard Costa.
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“I sleep and wake and walk the compound, eat, and go back to sleep,” Costa said, as if half expecting a lashing, or being sold to tribesman along the coast for their amusement. “So, let’s see what we have,” DuBarry said, revisiting Costa’s file, which was now thicker, as DuBarry had become preoccupied with the possibility, if even remote, that his research might lead to a meaningful medical discovery and a way to have his sentence commuted and return home to his medical career, a hero. The Commandant might also consider the reward for assisting, indeed encouraging, the discovery of such a possibility, and returning to Paris with his famous physician. “I am fine. Feeling quite better today.” “Have you ever had any hallucinations, dreams, nightmares, and dizziness?” DuBarry asked and went on to elaborate on a wide range of symptoms. “I believe so,” Costa answered, agreeably, to many. “Excellent. Then we shall continue,” DuBarry said, and deftly traced the contours of the man’s frontal and parietal lobes, the irregular patch of swelling behind both ears and what felt like six to eight-millimeter granular eruptions covering the crest of his skull under Costa’s oily mat of hair. DuBarry drew imaginary contour lines across the top of the skull, indicating the site of extreme emotions, foot trouble, sexual dysfunction, tremors, creative thinking, and abusive behavior.
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“What’s that?” “I am examining the back of your head for deviations from standard formations.” “Formations?” “The faculties of human behavior are localized in the brain, and more developed functions are evidenced by
“
He placed the belt around the crown of Costa’s head and inserted a foot-long stick he had found to cinch the makeshift tourniquet.
in his own right. He is considered the father of phrenology.” “I don’t understand.” “I wouldn’t expect you to,” DuBarry said, and continued. “Phrenology is the study of the anatomy and contours of the human skull, which it is believed will reveal a person’s disposition, characteristics, and talents.” “And whether they’re going mad?” “If one is skilled in reading these contours, it may well reveal a range of pathological and psychological irregularities.” “Then you don’t think I’ve made this up?” “If you have, you will come to regret your deceit.”
enlarged brain areas that show up as irregularities in the external conformation of the human skull.” “It hurts.”
“But the knots? They overlap now. It was only a feeling at first when I touched my head, it just felt different,” Costa answered clearly, and with conviction.
“This does?” DuBarry said, retracing his steps.
That evening, everyone was marched into the central compound to witness a prisoner who had already served twelve of his fifteen-year sentence lashed into unconsciousness, a strident rebuke for taking too long to complete the compound walk.
“No, no. Sorry. I was mistaken.” He finally wiped his hands on a filthy rag and stepped away from Costa. “Interesting.” “What is?” “Though I don’t think it’s anything unusual.” Costa turned around to face DuBarry from behind. “How can you tell?” “I’ve read the works of the famous Viennese physician, Dr. Gall, an eminent scientist
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DuBarry knew that he could not engineer the facts or corrupt the measurements. The thing he felt might buy him additional time, if there was any possibility of substantiating Costa’s fears, was to shave the head of the prisoner making observation and measurement more accurate. By pretending to read
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directly from one of his medical texts DuBarry convinced the Commandant, who was drunk enough that night, that finding malformations in Bernard Costa’s skull could be the basis for greater achievements in fighting crime itself. On DuBarry’s orders, Costa was removed from his quarters and dragged to the platform housing the guillotine before a gathering of startled prisoners. “Why? What is this?” Costa screamed, pleading for his life when he realized where he was being taken. “Oh God, I am a terrible person. I’ve lied and cheated and stolen, and hurt others for reasons that now fail me.” *** “Now that we have exposed the full dimensions of your skull we’re going to try a more aggressive approach to your remedying your condition,” Philip DuBarry announced with renewed vigor when Costa arrived the following afternoon. Costa’s skull was filthy, scarred with pustular growths, scabs that would never heal in the stinking heat, epidermal malformations DuBarry couldn’t identify, and unremarkable manifestations he expected he would find in most other inmates, though with somewhat less virulent infestations, abnormalities, and marring. “I believe there is a growing hesitancy—a timidity, if you will—in your brain to continuing to contract as we knew it has already committed itself to. I therefore have decided that rendering some meaningful assistance would be of value.”
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“My brain?” Costa said, realizing that it was the first time he had heard the word, or noticed a belt coiled on the good doctor’s desk. “Help, to ensure that it does not retreat upon its earlier manifestation,” DuBarry explained. “I see.” Two prisoners were being escorted along a narrow path past the doctor’s window. One of the guards spoke of the woman he had been with the night before while the other boasted that he had been with her the night before that. “I suspect that your head, having shrunk, is now struggling to reverse its own natural evolution,” DuBarry said. He placed the belt around the crown of Costa’s head and inserted a foot-long stick he had found to cinch the makeshift tourniquet. The leather belt was quite old and around five or six centimeters wide. “What are you going to do?” “Your head had begun a shrinking process which, if not completed, may threaten your own survival. Using this technique, something I read about in my research, we’re merely assisting the inevitable.” “I see.” “In fact, I wish I had learned of this treatment sooner.” “Of course.” “Now, let’s begin,” DuBarry noted, and with a twist of the wooden stick the leather belt creaked alive and tightened
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FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
around the crown of Bernard Costa’s defenseless skull.
to save Bernard Costa’s life, which he had now convinced himself was in peril.
At first Costa was relaxed and resigned to the experiment. But as the doctor twisted the tourniquet, listing over and over how important it was to capture and maintain the body’s natural momentum toward diminishment, Costa became concerned, and pulled away.
When Costa returned for the second session several days later he was greeted with a surprise. “What’s that?”
“This may be painful at first, until your head begins to shrink of its own accord.”
Costa drank the half-filled glass of cloudy, bitter-tasting liquid. The opiate DuBarry had concocted from the small inventory of less powerful drugs he had already been siphoning off for his own personal
“I understand.” “This treatment is essential if we’re going to prove your claim.” Dubarry was careful not to get too close as Costa struggled to keep his hands at his sides and not thrash about. Dubarry knew that if in any way he was touched, even grazed, it could be viewed as an assault and would have to be reported to the Commandant. “Based on my research into the brain function and modern phrenology, this treatment was designed to stem the tide of cranial expansion and return the patient’s skull to its initially reduced state. From that point, the skull would grow ever smaller until it could no longer support the mechanics of the body upon which it is affixed.” DuBarry had practiced this response several times over until he had constructed a conclusive and compelling argument that would support his prognosis, one he would use to galvanize the press upon his return to Paris, and which supported the experimental and imaginative treatment he had prescribed
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“A solution that will relax you and allow the process to continue at a greater pace,” DuBarry said.
“
‘I was born a fool, and will die a fool,’ he moaned, reaching up, searching the wall for the thread that had cursed him from the beginning.
use, struck with profound effect on Costa’s central nervous system, compromising his senses, focus, and resistance. “This is as it should be,” DuBarry said to himself, as Costa stared absently out the clinic’s window. Philip DuBarry tied the belt around the forehead, inserted the stick, and gave the tourniquet one full twist, cinching the band to where it had been at the end of their last session.
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FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
Bernard Costa remained in a haze of indifference. DuBarry gave it a quarter turn, watching the edge of the belt make a reddening indentation in the thin skin around the man’s skull.
compound and, ignoring Costa’s unconscious state searched as he could. As he suspected, there was no length of string to be found anywhere.
Costa was unaware of what was happening, which gave his doctor greater license than he might have expected. At the end of the session, Costa had to be carried back to his cell by two inmates under the watch of a suspicious guard.
By the time the guards roused Costa the next day the flesh covering his skull was so swollen and welted it looked like he was wearing a hat that had been pressed down over his ears and brow.
“I was born a fool, and will die a fool,” he moaned, reaching up, searching the wall for the thread that had cursed him from the beginning. Picking it off its familiar perch, he shredded the frail filament and tossed it out into the darkness. Tomorrow, he decided, he would confess the fabrication, if only to end the torture and accept the punishment. By now, most of the inmates had differing views on the possibility that one of them had a shrinking head. They were both critical and curious, disbelieving and envious. DuBarry concluded one more session, even with the opiate-induced stupor to insulate Costa from the excruciating pain, and the man’s head might split open like a ripe melon, instead of returning to its fully diminished state. It could also so irritate the skull chamber, its internal and surrounding tissue, that it could swell up and make all future treatment impossible. DuBarry stopped by Costa’s cell. while the other inmates were walking the
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DuBarry decided to accelerate the frequency and severity of the treatments or, he believed, he would soon be unmasked. The guards lashed Costa to a chair as Dubarry administered a stronger dose of the narcotic. “I’m sorry, my friend,” DuBarry said, rushing through the procedure and in doing so further vexing Costa’s skull chamber and surrounding tissue. The guards dragged Costa back to his cell, his head so swollen with renting tears in his scalp and above his eyes it was impossible to tell where his face began and the destruction ended. On the second day of this accelerated treatment, the guards carried a withered Bernard Costa into DuBarry’s office. DuBarry sat behind his desk, leather belt in hand. The air had become stagnant. The smell of decay and excrement, even when the ocean’s breeze tried to cleanse the land, smothered the island in a suffocating stench. “What are you waiting for?” DuBarry continued twisting the leather strap in his hands. Just sitting, staring,
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FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
and twisting, as though the belt was alive and undulating with expectation. He pushed back his chair, got up and came around his desk, unfolded the loop and lifted it into place, but was stopped short of tightening the strap by Bernard Costa’s hand. “Lower,” Bernard Costa pleaded softly.
“
…it was impossible to tell where his face began and the destruction ended.
DuBarry was shocked by the touch of another man’s hand, and one who was so far beneath his station. He knew that what Bernard Costa had done could cost him his life. “Please,” Costa coaxed again, his frail grasp locked on the doctor’s wrist. “I don’t understand?” “Yes you do.” Philip DuBarry had no sense of where and when he might be released from the clutch of the madness that he had first encouraged, then embraced, then perverted for his own advancement. The scope and breadth of his infamy had caught up with him in the night and racked him awake, exposing the fraud he had become from the once nobility of his medical calling and dedication.
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DuBarry loosened the leather strap and let it drop around Costa’s throat, first noticing the darkened blue welts on the man’s shoulders and back, as if he had been violently restrained and held down from the rear. DuBarry tightened the belt around Costa’s throat, then hesitated. “Please, you must save me.” The good doctor inserted the wooded stick between leather and neck, tightened the belt and raised his glare to the far wall of his office. A large cockroach was making its way along the corner at a brisk pace, as if it were being chased. The cockroach quickly disappeared into a crevice in the corner. There was nothing else moving in sight. The sounds of muffled voices coming from the compound outside his window were a faint reminder of where he was and how far he had fallen. Almost as an afterthought, DuBarry’s focus drifted back to the figure in front of him. Bernard Costa’s head was slumped forward. There were no visible signs of life. DuBarry released the leather cuff from the inmate’s neck just as a guard passed his window. The guard barked an obscenity, raced into the office and pushed DuBarry aside. Another guard followed and restrained the good doctor who was, at that moment, grateful for the intervention. As though no one had already noticed the fractured skull and accompanying wounds to Bernard Costa’s head over the last few days, the guards stood curiously around the prostrate man.
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FICTION | ARTHUR DAVIS
A brief inquiry was held the next day. Official records were kept. DuBarry stood, his hands bound, his mouth gagged so he wouldn’t be able to cloud the proceedings. After a careful and thorough investigation, the Commandant came to the determination that Phillip DuBarry had, on his own and without administrative permission and with malicious intent, carried out what they called “sick and insidious experiments” that might impugn the integrity of those dedicated professionals whose purpose it was to minister to, and protect, the less fortunate.
am a simple Frenchman condemned to an evil beyond imagination.” A year to the day and an hour later, and only partially recuperated, though not from the permanent cranial and facial disfigurement, and blindness in his right eye, Bernard Costa’s sentence was commuted. Another year passed until he could be heard, “I remain an innocent man who has suffered and, with God’s grace, I will find a way to redeem myself,” as his wheelchair was maneuvered down the gangplank into a waiting throng of reporters at the port of Marseilles.
DuBarry spent the rest of the day facedown in his cell, unable to recall how many times he had been beaten and abused by the guards who felt he had violated their trust. As dawn broke the next morning, DuBarry was taken into the center of the compound, lifted to the platform, administered last rites after the verdict was read for the courtyard full of prisoners. DuBarry was shoved to his knees, his head overhung the slot at the base of the guillotine. ***** Among the crowd of prisoners lined up to witness justice was one curious glare from a man sitting in a chair carried onto the grass and held erect by a pair of guards. Costa watched as the executioner yanked down on the lanyard. DuBarry’s head fell from the base of the guillotine into the red-stained basked below as Bernard Costa could be heard, “I
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About the Author Arthur Davis is a management consultant who has been quoted in The New York Times and in Crain’s New York Business, taught at The New School and inter-viewed on New York TV News Channel 1. He has advised the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, Senator John McCain's investigating committee on boxing reform, and testified as an expert witness before the New York State Commission on Corruption in Boxing. Over ninety tales of original fiction, and several dozen as reprints, have been published. He was featured in a single author anthology, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, received the 2018 Write Well Award for excellence in short fiction and, twice nominated, received Honorable Mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2017. More at www.talesofourtime.com.
SPRING 2019
FICTION | PATTY HOUSTON
Beast by Patty Houston
My friend and I were out shopping at the Kinky Frenzy in December, the day of the longest night – my friend in the dildo aisle, me reading a greeting card that showed a man and woman in bed, him asking her if she smokes after sex, her saying she doesn’t know, she’s never looked – when I saw my friend chatting up a clerk and thought: if she chats him up much longer, she’s going to want one of those power-driven exciters. And then she didn’t stop gabbing and she picked a dildo out of the line-up and dropped it at the checkout. The Deluxe Beast. Usually, I don’t even inspect the stuff she hopes I’ll plunk down the dough for. Usually, I just text her: No way, No pay. Then we usually shop someplace new and I hope she doesn’t keep trying to break the bank, because I’m the one who owns Cheap Tires while my friend, once again, was between jobs and, believe me, I value my tires more than my friend. But she’d never wanted a glee utensil before, so I walked to the counter and took out a fifty. In the parking lot, no friend. While I waited in the car, I unwrapped Beast and studied him. He was handsome, trim, compact, robust with a healthy glow. He didn’t look plastic-rubberish at all. I inserted the batteries. The growling sound was delightful so I picked him up and let him massage the palm of my hand, because suddenly I needed to know if he could handle a committed relationship. He was just so strong – howling between my fingers, moaning, indefatigable – that I thought I would fall in love with him but not before I knew whether he was capable of a mature union because that would affect my plan, of course.
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But then, rubbing him over my forearms the way I was, I remembered last weekend. Last weekend, I was at a retread convention, sitting beside another entrepreneur, who also is handsome, trim, compact with a healthy glow, and who also is robust. This entrepreneur was talking up airless tires, “tweels,” all the time keeping rhythm on his knees to a fast tune the band played. So I pulled him to his feet and started dancing him. The next song was slow and then I hugged him close, shut my eyes and, feeling the full effect of all those valve-stem-tinis, I pinched his tookus. When I opened my eyes, I saw right away that my husband had misconstrued the meaning of my gesture. His face went red and he walked away.
“
He was handsome, trim, compact, robust with a healthy glow. He didn’t look plastic-rubberish at all.
“An entrepreneur,” my husband said on the drive home, then swung out of traffic and dropped me off at my friend’s place because that wasn’t the first or even third time I’d pinched an entrepreneur’s derriere not my husband’s. I called my husband the next morning to explain my behavior when I’d danced with the entrepreneur. “I thought he was you,” I said. “Really.” Then he said, “I want a divorce. Really.” and hung up.
SPRING 2019
FICTION | PATTY HOUSTON
Now here I was - no husband, no entrepreneur, no one – holding the bliss accelerator my friend lured me into buying - and I asked myself: What if someone sees me tickling my cleavage with this young man? Not good, surely. Beast agreed. He throttled down his speed, as if to say, “Are you going to hanky panky on me, too?” “No,” I told him. “I’ll be true.” I flipped his switch off and sat him in the seat beside me. I put my arm around him. He didn’t shrug me off, and I thought I heard a low yelp, non-battery related. While we sat there, I confess, I let my imagination run roughshod. Tell me, though, who could sit in a car next to a beast at moonrise and not fall madly in love with him? All I wanted was, for once, to stop cheating and be true. I began by telling Beast it was okay if he didn’t yet know if he could pledge to a long term liaison. “You’ll know in time,” I told him. “I’m a patient woman.” He didn’t lunge or snarl, which I took as a good sign, so I began opening up to him. “You know my friend?” I asked him. “The one who picked you out of the line up? My friend shouldn’t even be in the Kinky Frenzy. She’s engaged to be married. Still, it seemed inevitable she’d want you. She’s a two-timer. I might just tell her fiancé. It would serve her right. Once I saw her hula a circle around my husband and she slid her hands inside his back pockets and clamped his booty.” Beast didn’t react. He just sat there unperturbed, staring through the parking lot lights to the moon, as if saying, If we are going to make it, you must spill all the beans. So, I kept talking. I told him about the summer afternoon my husband and I sunbathed nude on our backyard deck when a bee stung my husband’s
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genitalia – how, on my way to find the baking soda, I tried and failed to choke back my guffaws. I didn’t mention to Beast that I was the one who applied the concoction to my husband’s boo-boo. I continued on and admitted that I no longer spoke to my mother because she insisted I was a chronic hiney-squeezer and told me to stop. She said I had to apologize to my husband and keep my pincers to myself from now on. She said this on a fall day when we were raking leaves in her yard. “No,” I said. “Yes,” she said and then, because she was too mad to see straight and because the garage door was at half mast, she walked forehead-first into the door, stunned herself silly, and fell straight backward, landing on the pavement – a flawless double whammy. I attempted to not chortle as I helped her to her feet but lost that contest, too, and so, of course, she’s not discouraging my silent treatment one bit. “She had no right poking her nose where it didn’t belong,” I said, “so I skipped her birthday and Thanksgiving.” I still had my arm around Beast, but I stared straight ahead because of what I was about to admit, which was that, as much as I hated it, my mother was right. I should have sworn off fannynipping and begged my husband’s pardon. I should keep my pincers to myself, that I had been untrue for much of the four years we were married. I blurted out to Beast all the messy details: the lug nut caucuses, the load capacity happy hours, the hubcap rotation parties. “I was a bad wife,” I told him. Those were my husband’s exact words. I didn’t save my amour any of my wandering fingers’ faults. After what seemed a long time, I looked over at my beau, still seated beside me, still not
SPRING 2019
FICTION | PATTY HOUSTON
shrugging off my arm. He despises me, I thought. “I’m sorry,” I said. I started to pull my arm back when I heard a soft purring and I realized it was a happy sound. I even thought I saw a smile, as if he were saying, You’re not so bad. And that was when I fell head over heels. I hadn’t felt such joy since earlier that evening when I’d tweaked my friend’s fiance’s buttocks while my friend mixed up a fresh batch of drinks. “I’m a Judas,” I said. “I Judased earlier today.” Beast continued to croon. Is there more to it than you’re telling me? he seemed to ask.
“
Certainly, he was not truthful. Certainly, he was not entitled to a soft spot in my heart.
“No,” I said and then sank back into my seat that felt better than any memory mattress I’d ever enjoyed. I had never felt so relaxed, so at ease. I felt renewed, rejuvenated. “How did you do that?” I asked. “You’re some kind of shaman, aren’t you?” A dildo urned shaman seemed plausible: how could I feel so serene if he wasn’t? “Mystical,” I said, because it was confusing crushing on a modern-day shaman.
Cincinnati for the Film Fest that was going on downtown that week. I understood that Beast was a cinema mogul who was visiting the Kinky Frenzy to check on sales from Wild Man when my friend came along and plucked him up. I turned to face Beast. “You didn’t tell me you were a film director,” I said. He gave me a wily grin, which made me wonder if he’d been saving this revelation for later, after we were better acquainted, because he didn’t want to scare me or come off as cocky. “I’m pleased to know you,” I said. “You’re awesome.” And he was. I pictured our future. I would sell my tire business and leave the Midwest, my friend, my mother, my husband, and travel with Beast to LA, the Academy Awards, the Oscars. I would be his gaffer, gripper, his location scout. Then, after I’d validated my ardor and commitment, my divorce would be final. I’d marry Beast and, at last, feel euphoric in this glum world. I was so chipper about our future that I was about to buckle Beast’s seat belt and drive away when my cell phone rang. It was my friend. “I’m at the Kinky Frenzy,” my friend said. “Where’d you go? “You wanted The Deluxe Beast.” “No I didn’t,” she said.
I straightened my spine, wondering how much I would like steadfastness, and that was when I saw something sticking out from the discarded package on the seat beside Beast. I picked it up and by the parking lot lights read Wild Man – it was a DVD.
“Forget it,” I said. “Just tell me how much longer the Film Fest will be in town.”
So, he wasn’t a shaman then. He was a movie maker. That was a bitter pill to swallow until I overcame it by realizing he was probably in
“Phooey,” I said. I hung up and folded my arms tight around my middle. Clearly, Beast hadn’t been straight when he said he was in the movies.
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“That got cancelled,” she said. “Citizens for Community Values nixed all the fikky-fikky flicks and called it off.”
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FICTION | PATTY HOUSTON
He wasn’t in the movies, he was just a typical, everyday dildo, who was waiting to be procured by a climax-deprived consumer. After I’d exposed my actual shadow side, promised myself to him, proposed a life together, he fibbed. And if he lied about being a cinema mogul, then how could I believe anything he said or had yet to say? I was so miffed that I almost lashed out at him. I have experience in that area. I know how to hurt a significant other – how to con, how to distort, how to slash tires. But I didn’t lash out because an insight came to me: If he was capable of such deceit, what other cock-n-bull stories would he tell? I projected ahead to our future: me mixing martinis at the kitchen counter and Beast crouched in front of the cabinets. And since he is a miserable varmint, he opens the cabinet doors and crashes every dish and glass to the floor, like my husband did. And no way was I going through that again. This projection altered my view altogether and I drew back because I was utterly fearful of Beast, as fearful as I am of my mother, and my husband, of anyone who can smoke out my inner chicken. Hold your horses, I told myself. Sure, there was nothing I wanted more than to ditch that beast, but I also didn’t want to hurt his feelings when I did. I’d sat through enough therapistrecommended sensitivity training to be considered somewhat of an expert on gentle abandonment. I counted, a thousand and one, a thousand and two, studying Beast from head to battery well. Certainly, he was not truthful. Certainly, he was not entitled to a soft spot in my heart. Still, ours was a unique connection, so I wouldn’t wreck what we once meant to each other by behaving badly, no, I would let him down him kindly, and
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after casting Beast aside, I would re-enter the Kinky Frenzy and find my friend, who, by now, would have fancied any number of gratification gizmos; I’d talk her out of every one of them. Then we’d return to her place and her fiancé, where we’d consume many more drinks. It slipped my mind why Beast had ever rattled me to begin with. So, I turned to face him where he sat in the passenger seat beside me, giving me an ear-to-ear, because plainly he still felt optimistic about our coupling. And, as tough as it was to admit we were finished, it was the sober thing to do. “Take it easy,” I said. He’d begun bristling as sadness and anger crept over him. “Sure, we’re sweethearts now, but as the years pile up, your hackles would rise and, surely, you would shrink from me.”
About the Author Patty Houston lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two daughters. Other than short stories, she is a dedicated journal writer. She swims laps regularly and credits the repetitive movements with many a story idea. Patty teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her stories have appeared in Santa Monica Review, Oxford American, Witness, and many more journals and magazines. She is hard at work on a novel that she hopes to complete soon.
SPRING 2019
FICTION | RYAN J. KREBS
Floss by Ryan J. Krebs
Feb. 14, 8am. I take dental hygiene really seriously. I floss twice daily, once in the morning and again at night. People want to know why I floss in the morning. They ask me if I eat in my sleep. They don’t know that plaque builds overnight, throughout the day and whenever you keep your mouth shut for over an hour. I don’t talk much. Blood. Blood means you’re doing it right. A couple of years ago my dental specialist told me that I was unnecessarily agitating my gums and that eventually it would lead to necrosis. I told him that he was unnecessarily agitating my eardrums and when they turned black and green I’d send him the hospital bill. For the record, my gums are bubble-gum pink. I showed them to security when they pushed me out the door. Another red ribbon for the collection. When forty-five strands of used floss are laid on top of each other they look like a heart. Not the kind you see on a Valentine’s Day card, the kind a doctor pulls out of someone’s chest for a transplant. The little strands of white that curled around my fingertips hold the mess together like little sinews, weaving in and out of the red mess at the bottom of my metal wastebasket. I don’t own a toothbrush. Brushing is for pussies. If you floss right, all you’ve got to do is rinse. Every time I think of those poor idiots with the electric brushes I laugh to myself. Pushing the problem from side to side doesn’t fix anything, even if the vibrating head feels nice. They’ll never learn. I like toothpaste, though. I used to eat it by the tube when I was a kid. My mom bought the storebrand strawberry-mint and would find me behind her dresses with tri-color whitening gel all over my jeans. She made me wash them off myself. When I missed a spot, the kids at school would laugh at me, but the nurse always gave me an extra tube of spearmint during our oral exams. The stomach bubbles got worse until I passed out in high-school gym. When I woke up, the doctor told me that I was having too much of a good thing. It took three weeks for my cravings to stop. Sometimes I’ll squeeze some onto my finger. The smell reminds me not to lose control. I’m fully aware that this routine takes time. I’m not in a hurry. Sometimes I have to do it over, just in case I missed something the first couple of times. When you have a method, you’re safe. I’m not going to take risks with my teeth. I take dental hygiene really seriously.
“
‘Blood. Blood means you’re doing it right.’
Feb. 14, 8pm. I can’t feel normal things. Especially on a day like today. I like to wrap the floss around my fingers until the skin turns purple. When they turn blue I have to stop. I’ve had too many close calls. People don’t understand it. My first girlfriend told me I hurt her feelings so I let her hit me
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SPRING 2019
FICTION | RYAN J. KREBS
in the face with my toy truck. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t feel anything at all. Not even the stitches. I’ve broken ten bones and have assorted pieces of metal in my chest and legs. I’ve never had a cavity, though. I can floss with my eyes closed. I can floss in my fucking sleep. When I look in the sink, I see blood and I know I did good. I make another heart in my wastebasket and smile. I sent my dentist a Valentine today. I do it every year. I guess that makes me a romantic. My lawyer won’t be happy. He says I’m playing with fire. I told him I don’t do that anymore. The skin stopped growing back. Sometimes I make him shake my left hand, just to see him squirm. Maybe that’s mean. He’s just trying to help. When the police come I’ll ask if they floss. I know they don’t. I always smell donuts when they read my rights. It’s not the first time it’s happened. The last time I saw my wife cry, she told me she had a broken heart. I asked her if it hurt and she laughed at me. She laughed like I had toothpaste stains on my pants. When I came to bed the sheets were warm. The mirror on the wall was broken so I looked at my reflection while they pulled the pieces out of her arm. Everyone cried at the funeral. I didn’t. I was jealous. The bacteria that rot your teeth can’t survive when you die. She’s probably smiling up at me right now. Revenge is a perfect set of teeth. There’s something soothing about the smell of toothpaste. I like to carry a travel-size around in my pocket. When I see the wind blow against the leaves on a tree, I twist off the white cap and take a deep breath. Maybe I’m nostalgic. I still get tri-color stains on my pants, though. I know I should feel guilty. My mom raised me better. She told me baking soda is good for blood stains. There’s baking soda in toothpaste. Floss is strong, and if you have enough of it, you can make it into any shape you want. A heart…a noose. Maybe people don’t like flossing because they can feel it. They can feel the tugging. They can feel the twitching. They can feel their gums swelling and beating. I don’t have that problem. I floss twice a day, sometimes more. When I look at the crusted crimson pile in my wastebasket I know who I am. I can control it. When I cry it’s not because I’m hurting, it’s because I can’t. Trust me, I’ve tried. I can’t feel normal things.
About the Author
Ryan J. Krebs teaches high school English and lives in Phoenix. Having graduated from Arizona State University with a focus in English Literature and Philosophy, he has grown into the role of a creative writer. Most of his work is meditative, concerned with societal ills and illusions. He writes by hand and leaves a long trail of dead gel pens behind him. On any given day he can be found on the fifth floor of the Burton Barr Library, pulling on the left side of his mustache. The more grey hairs he finds, the more interesting his life seems to become. CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
FICTION | LUKE ALLISON
Summer’s Song by Luke Allison
It was a sweltering summer, days spent looking for shade, eating ice cream quickly before it dripped and melted on your hand at the local Tastee-Freez. I was seated in a rusted green Ford pickup, my friend Brad’s ride. I watched the only traffic light blinking on Main Street. Brad pulled out a beer from the truck’s chrome toolbox. A farmer’s tan painted royal bronze on his neck and forearms. Sweat beaded up his brow; Indiana is notorious for its humid summers, the armpit of the Midwest.
“
Brad was always telling stories about almost having sex. I didn’t even have stories to tell. I swore if I didn’t get laid by graduation, I’d have a goddamn coronary. I’m not lying. Brad and I were sitting in the parking lot of The Freeze, and it’s well past 11:00 p.m. The broken parking lot light flashed on and off. The last carhop, Cindy with the freckles, walked to her beat-up Civic, smiled and waved. She was waving at him, not me. Cindy and I never talk.
“Yes, I mean no. Her parents walked in.”
Brad and I took turns puffing on a one hitter. The smell of marijuana wafted through the cab, hanging heavy on the ceilings and the backs of our throats. He usually saved his lungs for the season, but he wasn’t playing summer ball. Only varsity. Didn’t want to get hurt. Scouts don’t come to summer league, everybody knows that. I watched him eye Cindy as she sauntered into her ride. Her thighs directed anyone’s gaze toward her hourglass figure. He is unapologetically lustful for every girl, and I’m just happy to be along for the ride. A song came on the radio, the electronic pop song of the summer. He quickly turned the knob to a country western station.
“Where?”
“Want to go someplace?” I asked.
“Her living room on the white sofa.”
“Where? Like, Alejandro’s?”
Brad was always telling stories about almost having sex. I didn’t even have stories to tell. “And that’s when I gave it to her, Mark,” Brad said, talking with his hands high above his head. Athletic motions, long muscular arms, signs of a future scholarship pitcher. “Did you have sex with her?” I asked.
“Dear God,” I said.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
FICTION | LUKE ALLISON
Alejandro’s was a liquor store and gas station in southern Illinois, across the old rusted Wabash bridge, where you could buy booze at seventeen. “No, we go there too often,” Brad said. True, I thought. I rolled down the passenger window the rest of the way, lit a smoke, and put my feet on the dash. “You bastard,” Brad said. He eyed my feet on the faux leather dash. I smiled. “I smoke too much,” I announced to the night air. I’ll quit later, I thought. The night hummed of cicadas. Brad put his truck into first gear and turned his Detroit Tigers ball cap backwards. We drove around the loop, a row of houses on the forgotten outskirts of town. The sun was setting and it fell behind the homes. Illuminating the backs of ranch style homes, tiny little boxes, each holding its own family, flag, and field dog. We flew down Willow Lane, then off to the gravel connection road to Maple. That’s where we always raced. Burnt rubber and teenage ambition. Much later I would learn that every seventeen-yearold feels infinite, indestructible, and idiotic. But then I just held the door handle as Brad popped it into fifth, and then sixth gear. “Shit, man. Fuck,” he said. I eyed the speedometer. 70…80…90… 100…120. The truck hauled ass down the country road. We knew Maple in our hearts: that slight bend to the left, the big oak tree where Eddie “Snake” O’Neal
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slammed his red Firebird. He got out alive, but the tree still bore the scars of a forgotten youth. One cross lies at the end of the road where a guy named Jimmy, with a stomach full of whiskey and a head full of drugs, smashed his father’s Ford Bronco into the light post. The wreck was so long ago, I barely remembered it. The story was passed around like a note in our elementary halls. Brad and I had been friends since first grade. We had done everything together. We talked on the phone almost every day after school. A habit I now notice was unusual for boys our age. We had paper routes together, got leeches in old man Raymond’s creek at twelve where the honeysuckle grew next to the forgotten latrine, and both got our first kisses from the very same girl, April Lisby, in the summer before eighth grade. The summer where I was in a hospital bed for two weeks after my bike wreck. He gave me an Indiana Pacers jersey, probably his dead brother’s. I saw Brad cry only once. It was Christmas time. We were Freshmen in high school. I had just got back from Ohio visiting some relatives, a funeral or wedding, I can’t remember. The ones on my dad’s side of the family with bad teeth and the insistent nature of talking about Jesus. I got back to town and it was still morning. The sun was new to the sky and I asked my parents if I could go see what Brad got for Christmas. I got to his house as Brad was feeding his cattle. He was 15 and I was 16. He stood above a heifer. She was feeding her young. He hadn’t noticed me walking up the snow-covered path; each step making
SPRING 2019
FICTION | LUKE ALLISON
the soft sound of angel’s feet. He was watching the lone calf sucking on its mother’s teat in the frosty morning. Steam emitted out of the cow’s nostrils. There was a supreme silence. Time seemed to stand still. I was glued in place next to a dead Maple tree. Then I saw a single tear fall down Brad’s face. I hesitated, and when I approached, I pretended not to notice. We made it, the final turn. Stretched out, the wind whipped through the cab tossing my long hair. Two deer poked their heads from the July corn. Their eyes were two yellow orbs in the night. Brad flicked off his lights. Silence. The deer wandered back into a row of field corn. Brad reached out across me. “Watch out, Mark.” The truck seemed to take us to Alejandro’s. It willed us there. Maybe it was the fright of almost killing those precious animals, but it was probably because there was nothing to do in our little town, and we were young. I watched Brad as he entered the shop. He made some joke I couldn’t hear, probably in Spanish. He worked in the melon fields in the summer; a small-town boy’s education. He strode out with a fifth of Red Rider’s Gin bouncing at his hip. That stuff tastes like medicine. We pumped gas, bought ice, limes, smokes, and tonic water. He put the truck into gear. We floated up to Mt. Everly Cemetery. Put down the Emergency brake. We could see for miles. I saw the tiny red light on Main Street and the cellphone tower blinking at the Christmas tree farm.
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We rolled our windows back down and chain smoked cheap cigarettes. Took our first tastes of gin and tonic. The gin making that delightful glugging sound as it splashed on the ice in the red plastic cups. I leaned back taking a long pull straight from the bottle. Brad played with the radio dial trying to find something perfect. The song came back on the radio. A lullaby of gentle guitars and synthesizer like a 1980’s hit. It had been playing on almost every station all summer long. It reminded me of the infinity of outer space and he said it reminded him of birth.
“
Summer’s song played on. My head was going crazy with an ocean of thoughts.
“We’ll see each other,” said Brad. “What?” I asked, knowing what he meant. “After high school, I mean.” “Yeah, I suppose.” “I’ll be at Crawford or Jasmine,” Brad said – junior colleges where he wanted to play ball. “You’ll be in some library, upstate, reading big books like Shakespeare.” “Ha, maybe.” “Yeah, there will be a mess of nerds like you. And you’ll all recite poems in the woods to each other. Some artsy shit like that.”
SPRING 2019
FICTION | LUKE ALLISON
“I guess.” “It’s just we won’t be neighbors here. We won’t have sons on the same little league team or daughters in the choir.” I just nodded. I saw it in his eyes. “I will. You won’t.” I nodded. I understood. “I’ll be here. I’ll have five kids with some redhead from Eastland Hills. And drive to church. Not you…”
appreciated his tight muscles. An athlete, God I love baseball. The summer chorus frogs answered us with their song in the distant hills. A barn owl echoed from the trees above us. The world smelled fresh and new. The night was hot, humid, and full of stars. After, we said nothing for the longest time. I lay in his arms. The world stood still for the last time. Then we went our separate ways. I started down the road I had taken my entire life, and then the new one I walked down that night, for the rest of my life.
I kept nodding my head. I wished he would shut his damn mouth. I felt the tears welling up inside of my face. I saw it on his face, and everything made sense. It was so clear. Blank, but caring. I had suspected it, but how had I never known for sure? We were many drinks in. To be honest, I had lost count. Brad pulled my neck close to his face. I smelt the booze and sweat. His lips linked with mine. Soft lips. The cab of his truck began to fill with our body’s heat. Our bodies slowly intertwined. Everything was happening so fast. Summer’s song played on. My head was going crazy with an ocean of thoughts. Waves of emotion tumbled through my body. I knew this felt perfect, and that I had always wanted this. He knew my secret, but I never knew his. The windows fogged up, but I hardly noticed as he pulled off my shirt. He was on top of me. Athletic body, long and tan. My hands shook from the excitement of the moment. I reached up and kissed him, starting at his neck and going down his body. I had never
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About the Author Luke Allison is a 2017 graduate of the University of Evansville. He writes literary fiction and journalism. His journalism has been published at Sauté Magazine, Evansville Living, and readunwritten.com. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, collecting vinyl records, watching classic films, and learning to play guitar.
SPRING 2019
Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
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Outside From the Inside Anne Whitehouse
We Fade Faster Than Stars
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Fanni Somogyi
Salt-Rising Bread
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Anne Whitehouse
Chicago Street Preacher
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Michael Lee Johnson
Genetic Distance Of Zero
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Jaimi Garcia
Apocalypse Upon Us
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Gerard Sarnat
Time Moves in
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Perpetual Motion
Pink Ladies
Andrew Ricky Roberts
Natasha Deonarain
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Waiting Dates
115°F
Cody Wilson
Natasha Deonarain
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Prayer
Leaf Traces
Morgan Hood
Diane Webster
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Autumn is almost here
Poetry Month Winners
and so is our Passing
Jordan Garcia
Sanni Somogyi
Liza Cohen Hita
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Mindee Bahr ___________________________
The Weight of the World by Elise Mendelle (See Artwork for full Image)
POETRY | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
Outside From the Inside by Anne Whitehouse
From Isamu Noguchi to Man Ray, Poston War Relocation Center, May 30, 1942 Here, in the internment camp in the Arizona desert our preoccupations have shrunk to a minimum— the intense dry heat, afternoon dust storms, and the difficulty of feeding ourselves on thirty-five cents a day. Outside from the inside it seems history has taken flight and passes forever. Here time has stopped and nothing is of any consequence, nothing of any value, neither our time nor our skill. But I must remind myself, work is the conversation I have with myself, and space is supplied by the imagination. Here, there is the memory of ancient places, wind and sun, endlessness, where I came from, and where I will go. Oh, for a mountain peak, a glacier glistening in the sun. Oh, for an orange, Oh, for the sea.
Poet’s Recital
“The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museumin Long Island City, Queen, just across the East River from Manhattan, was artist Isamu Noguchi’s (1904-1988) studio during the latter part of his life, and now it is a museum and garden featuring his sculpture and other work, such as his set designs for Martha Graham’s dances. On a visit to the Noguchi Museum in February 2018, I noticed in an exhibit case a letter from Noguchi to the photographer Man Ray written in 1942, while Noguchi was in the camp. “Outside from the inside” is Noguchi’s phrase. Noguchi’s letter developed into my poem.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
Salt-Rising Bread by Anne Whitehouse for Genevieve Bardwell
From ruined valleys wound by rivers lined by riprap and slag, whose steep banks overgrown with vines are like jungles in summer heat, where the stench and dust and dirt are in the air one breathes, and from higher up in the hills and hollows where the roads are few and poor and strewn with boulders, and people stay put for hundreds of years— from these tight-knit communities and hard-to-reach places came this miracle bread raised without yeast. A pinch of table salt, saleratus, or baking soda added to a bit of cornmeal, milk, and flour; or a couple of sliced potatoes, a teaspoon of sugar; or lentil or chick pea flours starts the rising. Once a baker used tree bark, and it turned out all right. A mystery in the wild microbes makes the starter foam and gives it flavor, turning something smelling rotten into something so delicious that dying men and women recall it with nostalgia. A fickle fermentation that doesn’t always work; moods and weathers alter it.
The starter can’t be left too long or used too soon, the baker ever-watchful for the window of time to add warm water and flour to make a sponge and wait for it to foam again. Add more warm water and more flour to knead a dough, shape into loaves, set till light, and bake in an oven. Yeasted sourdough starters grow at room temperature and can be kept alive for years. Raised by the release of carbon dioxide, sourdough is light and airy, with a crackly crust. Raised by the release of hydrogen gas, salt-rising bread has a close, dense crumb, a white color, thin crust, and flat top. Its starter needs warmth to ferment and must be used immediately. The best way to eat it is toasted with butter, the food of memory in its simplicity, this smell and taste redeemed from the past.
Poet’s Recital
“In April 2018, I was invited to present my short story, “Abby,” with Bottom Dog Press at the Appalachian Studies Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. While at the conference, I attended a presentation by Genevieve Bardwell on salt-rising bread. She is the founder of the Rising Creek Bakery, dedicated to keeping a nearly lost tradition alive. Genevieve’s presentation led to my poem.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | JAIMI GARCIA
Genetic Distance of Zero by Jaimi Garcia
when I was in your womb your nourishment was mine
your life
you birth me in pain
your heart beat for mine your life for nine months was mine your pain was not mine
the zero became wide outstretched arms of your embrace
in the space of your held me at the edge zero was so close too close
you said.
“Genetic distance is the term used to describe the number of differences or mutations between two sets of Y-chromosome DNA or mitochondrial DNA test results. A genetic distance of zero means that there are no differences in the two results and there is an exact match. For instance, parents and their children have a genetic distance of zero.�
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | ANDREW RICKY ROBERTS
Time Moves in Perpetual Motion by Andrew Ricky Roberts
Time is in perpetual motion A freeze frame Sounds good to me If we’re just livin in a simulation Then what’s real life anyways It’s only the moment that lasts The thing that stays stagnant That one stoppage in time Timeisinperpetualmotion And time will never last And there ain’t no time to stop the commotion Time’s in perpetual motion And every good thing Comes to pass Time is in perpetual motion And you can’t stay neutral On a moving train Time moves in Perpetual Motion And if you want To stop The movement You really Can’t Better go insane Better to have control over your situation Or you’ll probably go sane
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And freeze time Thus taking out of it Only what you want Thus ruining that Pretty picture frame Like killing a flower When you pick it Outta the ground But at the very least You got a memento To remember The moment by As if it were all worth it If only to live A lie Time is in perpetual Motion All these people will Soon, one day die Time is in perpetual motion All these things will come to pass Time is in perpetual motion Even the best things never last Time is in perpetual motion Every bad thing comes and goes Time is in perpetual motion There is no end or beginnin Only slow Moving Time Moving Too fast
SPRING 2019
POETRY | CODY WILSON
Waiting Dates by Cody Wilson
Today the language of my waiting is a piano I play softly, my foot pressed to pedal, and every word-note is held out for her—my language and the fridge’s hum. My language and her breathing into the mirror. My language and her clothes’ wrinkles steamed straight. My language helping her get ready for wherever it is we are going this evening as my body sits piano-benched and my fingers press out the sound of I could wait for you forever. Today the language of my waiting is my body on the floor, the day’s soft groan filling the room with ocher. It’s the pat of my fingers not on her spine or the keys but on my phone screen as I flick through the day that I’ve been with too long. While I wait for her to get ready for wherever it is we are going tonight, I learn that even the carpet speaks if I press my ear against it like a phone call’s empty ummmm before I dial.
Waiting Dates appears in Cody Wilson’s chapbook “Nobody is Ever Missing” CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
POETRY | MORGAN HOOD
Prayer by Morgan Hood
Alone in a long mire calling out to you and The fireflies to dance on this grave, tell me My name, tell me how to get out of this place An aching tree and a stinging bee and my own Breath in front of me I am damp in the humidity I am cold in my humanity I have reached out at the snapping insects To ask them if maybe they know what time it is Whose year it is Or where the sun has gone
“I wrote “Prayer” when I was thinking about the intersection of industrialism and nature and capitalism's effect on people and the world. It's kind of like Alice in Wonderland except Alice is trying to navigate the perils of late capitalism instead of Wonderland.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | FANNI SOMOGYI
Autumn is almost here and so is our Passing by Fanni Somogyi
A yellow field rests near the highway, Cameras roll as we walk through an almost hidden path. This mellow moment refuses to stay: As always love’s reaper is time, it (already) clasps the scythe. Concrete contrasts with yellow ocher vision-scape: We walk silent, eavesdropping birch whispers, Hand held, but imminent fracture oh, I wish to escape! Treaded Amsterdam roads, feet form blisters, Skin breaks; sudden seagull shriek rips through languid air Its sound tugs minds from inner caves to be set free In a surreal scene. Only your hand’s warmth Embraces me in this reality. The yellow begins to make me feel unsteady As the color of ephemerality.
Poet’s Recital
“Autumn is almost here and so is our Passing was inspired by an afternoon with a now friendturned lover. On our last evening in Amsterdam we solemnly walked back to the hotel on the outskirts of the city. I wanted to soak in everything from that walk; it was bitter-sweet. With this poem I commemorate our shared time and the imminent good bye. ”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | FANNI SOMOGYI
Fade Faster Than Stars (recalling John Keats) by Fanni Somogyi
A spirit in the moon recommends a rendezvous… To rekindle past selves who drifted apart Now, celestial speech decides our agenda And the big dipper lends its light as I read: Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart… We have sought and found each other led by The logic of gravity following sidewalk cracks, To a meadow surrounded by toil and monotony: A multi-level highway system, which is the heart of the megapolis. We, together (alone) are encapsulated in its interior In refuge and captivity. With so many possibilities can we watch, be, love Only each other until the final leaf falls? For now, it is enough to lie under the waking waves of the morning sun…
Poet’s Recital
“We Fade Faster Than Stars was partially inspired by John Keats’ poem Bright Star, and my aim to question modern love. Rather than focusing on a personal memory I was interested in creating a brief narrative that imagines two characters within a very urban setting. The poem wonders if loving a single person is possible when there are so many possibilities and individuals to meet.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | MICHAEL LEE JOHNSON
Chicago Street Preacher by Michael Lee Johnson
Street preacher server of the Word, pamphlet whore, hand out delivery boy, fanatic of sidewalk vocals, banjo strummer, seeker of coins, crack cocaine and salvation within notes. Camper on 47th from Ashland to California promoting his penniless life, gospel forever Kingdom drifter here comes your reward.
Poet’s Recital
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | GERARD SARNAT
Apocalypse Upon Us by Gerard Sarnat
Once jaded aqua earth's burning up. Flames eat LA this Fourth of July, not waiting for usual Labor Day infernos. Strange summer rains reign death-by-mudslide. Coyotes creep down, steal Chihuahuas, toy poodles. But equal opportunity nature sears everywhere: steely heat waves stalk babies and seniors from Hong Kong slums to sultry South Bend. While the Middle East cannibalizes herself. in Haifa -- one of two extant mixed cities, Katyushas from Lebanon wipe out Arabs haggling fruit next to Jews in the souk. What might Jesus preach ‘bout Hezbollah bombing her Nazarene brothers? Why would Chosen People make mountains from molehills? Burn, baby, burn.
Poet’s Recital
“Although short, "Apocalypse Upon Us" evolved over a long time. It started more than a decade ago in our Hollywood Hills bungalow listening at night to coyotes howl when coming down to pick off pets while nearby Malibu on the coast collapsed under mud when rains followed wildfires. Sweltering summer travels to South Bend globalize to Hong Kong then accelerates with the also-cannibalized Middle East before concluding with a sly but threatening allusion to the Sixties/Seventies’ Black Panthers’ “Burn, baby, burn” — which is now applied slantwise to climate change.” CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
POETRY | NATASHA N. DEONARAIN
Pink Ladies by Natasha N. Deonarain
some hang in there, crawling back into and through themselves, shrinking their bodies to be as faint as possible so they’ll never have to fall. others let go, free-fall until they land hard with a thud. they won’t let their bruises heal but prefer instead to rot, making it as unpleasant as possible for everyone else to endure. some like a bit of s&m. they get a bite bit from their taught flesh, bemoaning pain and pleasure, watching plump lips and canines drip their sweet juice. those who wait are caught by caressing hands and carried away in baskets of glory, carefully placed on top of tables and inside crystalline bowls where their life is painted into stillness.
“Pink Ladies extends this idea to the different ways we can each choose to face our mortality.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | NATASHA N. DEONARAIN
115°F by Natasha N. Deonarain
How did you make me feel that day? I’m trying to remember but it was so long ago. A thousand cactus needles stuck deep in every pore until I stood with my arms waving motionless in the acrid air, rotting from the inside out. In the desert we make furniture from skeletons we find in the dust, carefully plucking flesh from bone. But there’s no ceremony before or after. We simply use and reuse, each aspect a colorful reincarnation of one source. I remember now. How you made me feel.
“These days, I find myself contemplating where I came from and where I'll go after I die. In 115°F I was trying to remember what I’d been told before I was born and found my answer in a clear message offered by the Sonoran desert.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY | DIANE WEBSTER
Leaf Traces By Diane Webster
Like a nude woman lying in the grass beside the river’s edge as she caresses her finger into the flow lazing by, the leaf dips into the water and traces a trail quickly filled and grooved as wind nods and awakens the parent tree arm like a nude woman giggling at tickling sensations.
“I noticed a tree limb bent over the river; a leaf trailed a groove in the water as the current moved past. Looked like when a person dips her finger in water, and my imagination played with that image. "Leaf Traces" was born from that image.”
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SPRING 2019
POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
The School of Humanities, Arts & Cultural Studies
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH CONTEST
Granville Transit
Back to Stranger by Dan Tocher
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SPRING 2019
POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
First Place
Sneaker Soul by Jordan Garcia
A wash of white drips. Suddenly light blazes blank. Sundays that is, a wall painted tulips wave the wind catches breath. Between a hello— forever a goodbye, see you later. Suddenly light collides Bound in a box Tied with a background the light settles same expression five fingers touch— darkness moves too fast.
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SPRING 2019
POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
Second Place
The Natural Way of Life by Liza Hita Cohen
The natural way of life on this tierra libertad Con un jaro of water and cup in hand With your footprints, amor, y tobacco Our trenzas woven with ribbon We set out to follow this path of the flor y canto Along this red road, the color of suffering, of battle Struggle and difficult intentions with heart and hope and ganas These cuatro vientos traveling to the edges of earth and beyond Caressing warm coral reefs and clear, clean waters Deep violet ocean mysteries And cold pristine polar ice caps A mama bear, white and wise, prowls around snowy tundra No thaw yet…no food yet She searches Just icy sunshine upon endless pure frozen silk The wind carrying the canto of the year long winter To the desert where the cresting sun still dares to be 115 degrees Bold, humble, and dry The nopales still bare juicy fruit Wet with the seduction of quiet monsoon whisper Far off in the distance The roar of the storm has barely touched down The lightening piercing the piel of the cracked earth Mixing muds and blood colored sand dunes Creating the mole of the tierra libertad That no endless unrepentant, fiery echo of cowboys and Indians can kill Home to the walking warrior spirits of our gente crossing in the night Their dreams and hopes paving mystic dust storms hovering above the desert floor Quiet, they walk Holding the hands of their children Who also lost their lives Because it’s not just the tired-faced bracero that gets strangled by thirst in the blistering heat No, they all walk together Y con our prayers, the canto hondo – the deep song Brings some of that arctic air down upon these travelers Migrants, mystics, mothers Sprinkles some of that pristine white billowy magic upon las flores del desierto Weaving between las hijas little toes Running barefoot upon la tierra libertad Upon la frontera With the wood peckers and lizards and migrations upon migrations of different ancenstros Ones we can’t even claim to know The soft melody of the snowy dusk cools the day light Brings peace to these lost lives Looking still to cross, but not over some border Crossover, to Mictlan Where the dead can rejoice their presence in eternity And again guide the cycle of the living Be part of the long jornada upon this tierra libertad CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
Third Place
A Matter of Dying by Mindee Bahr
This is a blackout poem. In blackout poetry, a poet uses a marker to already established text, such as this page from Albert Camus’ Existentialism, and redacts the words until a poem is created.
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SPRING 2019
POETRY CONTRIBUTORS Anne Whitehouse Anne Whitehouse is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press, 2016), as well as a novel, Fall Love.
Jaimi Garcia Jaimi Deanne Garcia is an Arizona native who calls the coast
of California home. A graduate of ASU (BA, English and Creative Writing) is currently a graduate student pursuing a MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles.
Andrew Ricky Roberts Andrew attended Evergreen State in Olympia. He grew up in Tucson and did his first two years of college at the University of Arizona. He studies film.
Cody Wilson Cody Wilson teaches English and Creative Writing in Arizona. He has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. His chapbook, Nobody is Ever Missing, was published by Tolsun Books. Some of his work appears at Juxtaprose, The Southampton Review, Juked, New Ohio Review and Arc Poetry Magazine.
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SPRING 2019
POETRY CONTRIBUTORS Morgan Hood Morgan Routh is a fiction novelist, author of the series Moogie Covenant. She currently attends ASU West. A native Phoenician, you can get to know a part of her in the works of art she produces. Within every character are pieces of her and the experiences that she has gained, many of them learned the hard way.
Fanni Somogyi Fanni Somogyi is a Hungarian born artist and poet studying Sculpture and Creative Writing at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work explores networks, the effects of technology on memories, and how distance affect relationships. When she is not fabricating metal sculptures in her studio, she can be found with her nose in a book or avidly composing her next poem. Currently, she is also working as an assistant editor for the Full Bleed literary journal.
Michael Lee Johnson Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 1042 new publications, his poems have appeared in 38 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites. Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry.
Gerard Sarnat
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Gerard Sarnat is a physician who’s built and staffed homeless and prison clinics. He is also a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. He is a member of the longest-running U.S. Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group, and served on New Israel Fund’s International Board. Currently, Gerry is devoting his energy and resources to deal with global warming. Sarnat has won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize. Gerry is published in many academic-related journals. Gerry’s writing has also appeared widely throughout outlets in SPRING 2019 the U.S.
POETRY CONTRIBUTORS Natasha Deonarain My previous history includes winning second place in the 5th Annual Chandler-Gilbert Community College Stand and Deliver Poetry Slam Competition (2013) for my poem Gaia which was also published online at Poetry for Living Waters. My poem Indigo was featured in The Little Red Tree International Poetry Prize Anthology (2012). I’ve also published numerous nonfiction works that have appeared on websites and in print including Kevinmd, GlobalTrends and various others. I’m currently working on my first chapbook God Speaks to Doctors: An Uncommon Collection and hope to have it completed by June 2018. I currently live part-time in Phoenix, Arizona and Denver, Colorado with my husband and enjoy yoga, swimming and watching snow fall.
Diane Webster Diane Webster grew up in Eastern Oregon before she moved to Colorado. She enjoys drives in the mountains to view all the wildlife and scenery and takes amateur photographs. Writing poetry provides a creative outlet exciting in images and phrases Diane thrives in. Her work has appeared in "Better Than Starbucks," "Eunoia Review," "Philadelphia Poets," and other literary magazines.
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SPRING 2019
Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
________________________________
Unspoken Memories Sophia Steuber ________________________________
In Retrospect Tom Wade ________________________________
Here Be Decapods Kyle Laurita-Bonometti ________________________________
Midnight Reverie: A Momentary Suspension of Life Sara R. Lander ________________________________
Try Again Later by Richard Lussier (See Artwork for full Image)
CREATIVE NONFICTION | SOPHIA STEUBER
Unspoken Memories by Sophia Steuber
October 21st, 2011. The day after our car crash, I went to school and didn’t tell anyone about what happened. My group of friends stood outside of our class before school, chatting about homework and annoying siblings, and I stood smiling, pretending nothing was wrong, as if my mom and I hadn’t stood shaking in the rain the night before, while our totaled car got towed to an impound lot.
Police lights split the darkness, lighting rainstreaked windows red. While my mom stepped out of the car to speak to the other victims, I still had my seatbelt on.
I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t say anything. It’s not that it was too horrible to utter—the rain made sure it hurt the cars more than the people—yet it felt simultaneously too big and too small to say in the open. How would I even say it? So, I got in a car accident last night. We hydroplaned and took two cars with us. No one got hurt besides our Mazda. Why even say anything?
So began my silence.
I didn’t speak in the minutes after the crash, either. When my mom scrambled to deflate her airbag and hazy smoke curled through the sudden quiet, the driver of the car we hit appeared at our window. His eyes were clear, his brows furrowed in concern as he tapped his knuckles against my mom’s door. Breathing slow, she popped it open, and the man asked the same question my mom had asked me moments after impact: “Are you okay?” It smelled of humidity and burnt hair, and tears striped my cheeks, sobs stifled into my fist. My mom answered for the both of us while I cried in the back seat—not because I was in pain. I just couldn’t stop, too embarrassed to uncover my face in front of this stranger.
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“Are you okay?” the officer asked, after, when my mom was on the phone and we stood huddled on the sidewalk beside the wreckage. I couldn’t answer, and I felt dumb for it.
I expected to feel worse after—shaken, aching, unable to focus. But it was my mom that wasn’t taking it well. She spoke of her sore neck and her nightmare-crowded sleep, and I was caught between wanting attention and feeling selfish for wanting it. I see now that the oscillation kept me silent in the moments after the crash, at school the day after, with my friends when they asked after my family.
“
These memories have faded to chiffon thinness.
As always, my mom filled the empty spaces. She’s the best talker I know, a skill she cultivated as a Kindergarten teacher at Foothills Elementary, wrangling five-year olds in the day, consoling helicopter parents in the afternoon, and arguing with frivolous principals in her free time. With family and friends asking after the
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crash and our health, she was the first to hold my hand and recount that night, to smile and assure that yes, we’re okay; yes, Sophia’s okay. But she could only answer for me for so long—now she couldn’t even break the silence for herself. She had planned to work until she would receive her full benefits, or at least until I graduated from Foothills—and she almost made it. One sick day turned to weeks of missed school, and with each day spent at home, the less she promised a return. Unable to work through her PTSD, she retired in April of my eighth-grade year, two months before my graduation. I was left to tell my teachers, who knew me since I was born, that my mom was sick. I doubt they believed the story. They knew my mom longer than I was alive: weeks of absence in the middle of the year suggested something much worse than an ambiguous “sickness.” But what could I say? No one in my family would even utter the words depression or PTSD. The euphemisms and tip-toeing was ominous, considering other family members’ histories with depression. You would think this, of all things, would be something we could talk about. But it wasn’t that my family didn’t know what depression was. It was that depression seemed antithetical to my mom’s personality. The night of the crash, we were driving home from school at 7 P.M. because my mom cares voraciously. I would be stuck in her classroom from three o’clock to seven as she made lesson plans, graded papers, and prepared worksheets for the next day. Of course, this chronic overworking wasn’t for a hefty paycheck; she just wanted the best for her students, and you could say it paid off in connections. We can’t go out in public without a past student recognizing her, somehow recalling a “Mrs. Steuber!” as soon as they spot her black hair and floral tops, perhaps too petite, too Chinese, and too charismatic to be CANYON VOICES
forgotten amongst an otherwise monotonous school. She doesn’t always remember their name in return, but she always recalls a family, a characteristic, an anecdote. So, it was strange, the weeks after the crash when my mom stopped getting out of bed. It was an overnight transformation, PTSD from the crash mooring her to her mattress. Every morning, I would go to her room before school, navigating through the darkness to lay in the bed beside her. I never knew what to say. Instead, I’d touch her hair and her sleep warm shoulder, whispering hello as morning light barred her bedroom walls. The silence was so vast, and I had no idea how to fill it. Helpless, I quietly wondered if she’d be like this forever. These memories have faded to chiffon thinness. I don’t remember the details. I only remember my mom turning away from me into her pillows. It was four months of this, exchanging monosyllabic conversations with my mom, asking her the compulsory “how are you feeling?” in place of an evident “are you okay?” My family has never talked about it, not even after my mom found the right combination of medication and rediscovered herself. How could we talk about it when we couldn’t even call it what it is? We continued in silence. Nine months after the car crash, two months after my mom’s full recovery, my grandpa Chin passed away. My brother and I were in the living room, watching the Olympics’ women’s backstroke, when the landline rang. Down the hall in the den, my mom answered the phone. The women’s arms cut through the water in arcs, sending up spray while the crowd cheered, and the announcers droned. As the women kicked off for their last lap, my mom’s voice splintered the announcers’ low drawl. “What?” I wouldn’t have
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thought anything of it, if my mom’s voice didn’t crack, abrupt and strangled. Exchanging a glance with Nelson, I walked down the hall out of curiosity rather than alarm, and I didn’t stop until I saw my mom red-faced, tear-stained. “Grandpa’s dead,” she said, phone at her side. Blunt. No more euphemisms.
and mis-filled spaces. I should have broken the silence when I had the chance.
There was nothing to say. My mom got ready to leave for my grandparents’ house, moving between rooms with glossy cheeks and the phone gripped in her hand. My dad was with her, at least. He knew what to say.
Three months ago, the car crash came up at dinner, one story among dozens exchanged between extended family. An uncle’s truck morphed into a cousin’s crash which morphed into our totaled Mazda and my mother attempting to remember the details, so long ago now. While cousins and uncles interrogated her, I sat nauseated with a memory I so rarely let myself relive. What happened? Where were you coming home from? When did the police show up? Why were you alone?
Meanwhile, Nelson and I sat on the couch, with the Olympics running in the background.
She struggled to answer. “I was with you,” I said. Easily forgettable, I guess.
He put his arm around me, but I wasn’t crying yet. This was not something my family could ignore. We had to answer tough questions about the funeral and my grandma’s future. Forced conversation made it easier to grieve.
My mom lit up with the memory—right, she laughed, she was coming home from school.
But as much as we confronted the loss as a family, I didn’t see or talk to my friends about my grandpa until months after his passing. What would I say? My grandpa died. It’s been a hard summer. It felt insurmountable. I still hadn’t told anyone about the crash, or about my mom’s depression forcing her into retirement. I didn’t know how to talk about my life without feeling insignificant, attention-seeking, too emotional and not emotional enough. I still don’t. Sure, I’d had a bad year, but my mom had a worse year, so was it bad enough to voice? Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t the victim of the crash, and I wasn’t the victim of anything that came afterward. I figured, I was okay, anyway. I should learn to take up less space.
Of course, I was with her. The words came easy for her then.
About the Author Sophia Steuber is a junior at Arizona State University and Barrett, the Honors College with a major in English. Born in Phoenix, she lives with her amazing mom, dad, brother, two cats, and two turtles. She spends most of her free time writing and hopes to continue her higher education in Arizona after graduation. This is her first published work.
I missed my chance, I think. It all happened too long ago to cry about now and too recent to pretend I’ve forgotten. Too much wanting and not wanting. Too many unanswered questions
CANYON VOICES
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CREATIVE NONFICTION | TOM WADE
In Retrospect by Tom Wade
I “Know whence you came.” * Born in a simple farm house to a couple just out of their teens, he was the third child of eight. His circumstances were typical of those who lived in rural, western Missouri during the first quarter of the twentieth century, which is to say his family, although not destitute, owned a small plot of land they farmed with a mule and muscle. His parents called him Jiggs, the name of a comic strip character who despite an unexpected fortune desires to return to the ways of his working-class beginnings. The appellation stuck, not because, as protestant teetotalers, they perceived it ironic to bestow the moniker of an Irish Catholic personage on their son; they weren’t given to this type of irony. My guess is they were more comfortable voicing this nickname than what was on his birth certificate, Garland, and its idiosyncratic resonance set him off from the herd dubbed Bill, John and Buddy. He was my uncle. When I was four or five, I would visit him and my aunt for a few days at a time. An early memory was his teaching me to call my aunt “Mammy.” No one labeled his station “tenant farmer,” but that was what it was. The land he farmed and the house he lived in belonged to someone who resided a hundred miles away, and with whom he shared the proceeds of the CANYON VOICES
operation. By the time I was a teenager, I could tell his earnings were meager: The house was without a bathroom and the furniture was old. I became moored to his family through his son, who was my age. One source of income for my uncle was baling hay for other farmers, including my dad. Three times a summer I’d await him and my cousin, looking forward to the arrival of the bulky, red baler and the teenage crew who hauled the hay bales, on a two-ton truck, from the field to the barn’s hayloft or an outdoor stack called a hayrick. When I was in my early teens, I helped the hay haulers—one or two of whom tossed bales onto the truck bed and another stacked them—as the driver, maintaining a pace of five miles per hour. A few years later, I moved up a rung on the labor ladder to tossing, stacking and unloading the unwieldy bales. It was an unpleasant job; the dust and straw clung to our sweaty skin, forming an itchy coating. Summers were lonely times, miles from a town or even a small cluster of houses, and I was too young for a driver’s license; thus, the two days every six weeks, baling and storing hay, were social events in my small world. These occasions and the company of my cousin gave me a break from the summertime tedium. During these years, I spent the summer
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months working on our farm: Besides work in the hay fields, I engaged in a variety of jobs such as mowing pastures and cultivating corn. When I was sixteen, my dad got out of farming, which meant I had nothing to do for those three months, so I called my uncle. He brought me on to haul hay full-time, and because he lived about twenty-five miles away, I lodged at his house during the week.
“
We accepted each other: He knew I was impressionable and would see the truth as I matured; knowing he would not change, I responded to his bigoted claims with tepid rhetoric.
Although I’d visited them hundreds of times, these extended stays revealed an environment I had not imagined. The routine of hauling hay and doing chores on a small farm, with lots of chickens and a few cows, was familiar. What I didn’t foresee was a social atmosphere different from anything I had experienced. While I was exposed to views unlike my own—at school, in the community, at church, and on sports teams—my interactions with those outside my immediate family were one-dimensional. In Jiggs’s household, the other dimensions emerged. My uncle was outgoing, not hesitating to strike up a conversation with anyone —
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friends, strangers and foes he encountered. His gregarious nature was a balm to my anxious and confused adolescent sensibility. My parents were loving but we had few joint interests to discuss. Jiggs, on the other hand, who could find commonality with every person he met, was the first adult who didn’t patronize me or dismiss my judgments (on most subjects). Much of the talk was about farm affairs— discussing if clover cut yesterday will be ready to bale today, should we change the truck’s oil—but we sometimes veered into current events. By my second summer, we both agreed the Vietnam war was ignominious, for overlapping but not corresponding reasons. And on the infrequent occasions civil rights protests were broached, we remained cordial, knowing we disagreed in a fundamental way; he believed blacks to be disruptive, arrogant and wrong, and I took the position they were attempting to rectify injustices. We did not make headway when the subject was race. We accepted each other: He knew I was impressionable and would see the truth as I matured; knowing he would not change, I responded to his bigoted claims with tepid rhetoric. My parents were sensitive to how others perceived them and their children. As I left each morning for grade school, my mom met me with a fingernail file to clean my grimy nails. My dad, when pitching in to help neighbors vaccinate cattle or laboring in the fields, put in more effort than anyone else, and insisted that I do my part, as well. For reasons I don’t understand, I didn’t want to be seen with my parents or siblings in public settings. I recall I was embarrassed by
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my parents’ frugality—they drove used cars and our furniture was hand-medowns from my mother’s family. I yearned for autonomy (albeit due to my concern I’d disappoint them, I had a paradoxical need to please my parents). They understood my desire to appear unconnected: They didn’t go to baseball or football games in which I played, save one game when they parked beyond an end zone, and all of them—sister, brother, mother, father—watched the action from inside the car. Jiggs’s household was different. I remember evenings in which their kitchen was filled with friends and relatives who came to borrow a tool, ask a favor or socialize, and stayed for supper. In these gatherings of seven or eight, I was unlike myself: my shyness replaced with an easygoing disposition, my responses emotional, not intellectual. I felt accepted; I didn’t have to be better than my sister or brother, or anyone else. While in my parents’ home it was important I do well in school and catechism classes, these were not benchmarks my aunt and uncle employed to evaluate me. I was received as I was, welcomed in spite of my borderline usefulness. However, though blind to it at first, I began to perceive that those with whom I gathered held a picture of the world divergent from my own. While restive, I had few qualms about my future, which I imagined as a fair sky with scattered, inconsequential clouds, but for Jiggs and those around him the sky was laden with dark, threatening clouds. Their work was dirty, strenuous and sometimes dangerous; manual tasks alien to the better-off. The war in Vietnam was
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taking their sons and brothers to places with unpronounceable names. I remember a sixty-year-old man in a pickup truck who couldn’t hold back the tears from losing his nineteen-year-old boy. I remember a friend of Jiggs’s saying he was told by the undertaker that the body of another husky young man (whom I didn’t know, except for a chance meeting on a neighboring farm at which he was recounting a night of “bad pussy”) brought home from the conflict was missing his legs—a fact the undertaker didn’t tell the family. Their boys were killed so that a populace alien to them could live without the shackles of communism, a sorry justification to these small town and farming folks. Whereas the kitchen table confabs were for me agreeable moments of spontaneity, they were for them respites from their hardscrabble existence, in which they vented their grievances. Yet they had champions; the main one was George Wallace, who was running for president. Wallace, the Alabama governor, promised relief and respect. If president, he claimed he would get the United States out of the war in Southeast Asia in ninety days, either by winning it outright or, if unwinnable, withdrawing American troops. He pledged to stem the flow of foreign aid and to beef up Social Security and Medicare. Nevertheless, I don’t recall his policy positions—even his stance on the war for which their boys bore the onus—being discussed by my farming relatives and their friends. What they were drawn to was the demeanor he displayed in his angry rhetoric about “pointy-headed liberals” as he spit in the face of polite society, and by his loathing of the black race. Though excited by his
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swagger, it was Wallace’s fight against civil rights that galvanized my kin and acquaintances. He proved his mettle by standing in a schoolhouse door blocking the mixing of the races, and he would return the country to better times in which the elitists who ridiculed and humiliated them would receive their comeuppance. I stayed with Jiggs and his family,
“
My uncle and aunt took in stray dogs and kids like me.
hauling hay for two cents a bale, sweating in dusty fields, swimming once or twice a week in murky brown ponds which met my bathing needs (there wasn’t an indoor bathroom), and putting up with the intolerant words that surfaced from time to time. Early in my third summer, I had an opportunity to work in a warehouse, at much better pay for regular hours, out of the sun. I turned the offer down; an act viewed as foolish by everyone except my uncle. “He wants to stay here,” he told the others in a soft tone; added explication was unnecessary. My uncle and aunt took in stray dogs and kids like me. When I visited them a few years later they were sheltering one of my cousins, who suffered physical and emotional abuse from selfish, callous parents. The maltreatment left him in a stunted psychological state. Jiggs and his wife tended to the wreckage for stretches of weeks and sometimes months. The kind acts notwithstanding, my aunt and uncle and those in their orbit were
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believers: They believed sophisticates deemed them inferior; they believed their needs, hopes and aspirations were neglected and derided by those in charge; and they believed people with dark skin were irresponsible, dishonest, predatory, and a source of wickedness. But they had Wallace and his ilk, who spoke truth about their circumstances and who would bring justice. Around the supper table, they talked of what would improve their lot: the first step was to subjugate the dark savages who were ruining the country with their demands for the same rights as those held by white people. Ignoring their intolerance, I was attracted to a climate created by persons who got by but who didn’t prosper. They didn’t own large tracts of land; they didn’t work in jobs esteemed by the community; they didn’t have the prestige of success. What drew me weren’t emblems of status, it was the sensation of comfort one feels under a warm quilt on a cold night, and security like that of living in a house for which the doors never need to be locked. Despite our differences, in their presence I was privileged. Yet, for those who didn’t look like me, these kith and kin and others like them throughout the country fostered a dissimilar climate. II “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.” Against believer opposition, the sixties brought changes to the way non-whites were treated, the most significant of which was the dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the South. The conventional SPRING 2019
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thinking is the country was appalled by the wrongs done to African Americans and legal remedies would bring resolution, starting with the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision in 1954, and then the civil rights laws, addressing public accommodations in 1964 and voting rights in 1965. Official sanctions did eliminate certain egregious practices, but outside the scope of the law, egregious behavior continued. The consequences of white society’s attitudes —an amalgam of beliefs held by those resistant to change and indifference—are evident in the oral histories of students who integrated schools in the 1960s, collected by the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston. In 1965, two girls in Georgia, Sherry and Janice, were among eleven African American students integrating a high school of 1,100 students. They knew the abasement of segregation, relating an episode that took place when they were eight or nine years old in a movie theater. Black patrons had to sit in the balcony, but on one occasion all the seats were taken when they arrived, so they went downstairs. As one of them described it, she was stopped by “this white man. . . screaming to me, ‘Nigga get back up in that balcony’ and I was terrified.” Their mother had told them they sat in the balcony because the seats were cheaper, which they assumed was true. On another occasion, “we had crosses burning in front of our driveway, in our driveway” because “white Bible school teachers [had] come into our church and the police. . . told them that they could not come back to the church.” The adults
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didn’t talk about these incidents in front of the children. Even though just eleven and twelve (they had skipped a couple of grades in elementary school), Sherry and Janice decided to go to the white high school because one of them and her friend were bullied by a few students at the black school. Even though they had experienced episodes of bigotry, one noted, “we had a fairly sheltered life and we just didn’t know much about racism or anything. . . I saw the sign in the principal’s office about the Freedom of Choice Plan, so I proposed to [my friend] that we go to [the white high school].” There were other reasons for the move such as the “rickety” buses the black kids rode and the hand-me-down textbooks with “ten years of white kids’ names” in them. The first day was portentous. The bus driver “refused to stop and the kids hung out the window and yelled the N-word.” At the school, Janice recalled the reception by other students, “I just remember . . . for a very long time. . . only one person who spoke to us because she was very overweight, and she was very poor, and she had some disabilities. . .she was already ostracized and so she spoke.” However, under duress from her white peers this girl, herself an outcast, abandoned the budding friendship. The black students were harassed without let up: regular bomb threats and evacuations, taunts and “the screaming of the N-word”, getting pushed into lockers. “It took me about a year to believe that they really hated us,” Sherry stated. In a subtle twist to their torment, their days were structured so that the black students
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couldn’t offer each other support: In the early years, either because of their small number or with intent, they were isolated, “one to a class. . . always by yourself until the end of the day.” Throughout their high school years, Sherry remembered, “If you walked into the library and sat down at the table everyone would get up and leave. If you walked into the cafeteria and sat at a table, they would all get up and leave. When we were on the busses, they wouldn’t sit with us. . .” There were instances the adults enabled the bullying. One year when both girls were in the same homeroom, the teacher would leave and while she was out, the boys “spit on us and [sprayed us with] water pistols in our face.” The white students who weren’t taunting them remained detached except on one occasion. A white boy, ignoring her protests, nominated Sherry for class president. It was clear to her these students, after years of cruelty, wouldn’t grant her a leadership position. “[O]f course they soundly voted me down. I remember being angry at him because I feel like he did that to make himself feel good.” Nevertheless, though it was grudging, she did make an inroad. Sherry was the first black student in the school’s history named to the National Honor Society. New members were inducted at an assembly attended by all the school’s students; the honorees weren’t told in advance they were selected. Although with her good grades it should have been expected, she was astonished when a current member walked into the audience, pinned a CANYON VOICES
ribbon on her and escorted her to the front of the student body, in a ritual meant to recognize her accomplishments. But in Sherry’s words, “everyone started screaming and hooting saying ‘there’s no such thing as a smart nigger. You must have made a mistake.’ And I remember just kind of blanking out while I was standing there.” Years later, when a class reunion was being planned, someone called their parents trying to get contact information on them in order to send an invitation. Their reaction, as Sherry puts it, was “we were mortified. . . why would we want to do that. . . they didn’t talk to us; have anything to do with us the whole four years.”
“
We experience guilt when we commit an impropriety; we suffer shame when we engage in a dishonorable deed.
In response to a query about the effects of their experience, they revealed that because white females were passive, they were less threatening. “I think one thing that kind of carried with me . . . is that I saw white males even as being more racist than females. . . probably because white females, especially in the South, were taught to be more docile and they weren’t as open. And the males were more openly hostile, they did the things with the spit balls, the pushing into lockers and the things like that,” Janice said. Sherry, who told of having white friends she met in college and at work,
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disclosed, “even today my first inclination with white men is, ‘Ok, when is the racism coming out?’” III “[A] civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary to be wicked but only that they be spineless.” I want to blame the racism afflicting this country on ignorance and selfishness. Racists view themselves as neglected and they live in an environment centered on emotions. They are a cultural force, a juggernaut fed by indignities, both dubious and real. The irrational enmity suffocating us is their fault. Because this account assigns responsibility to a discrete group, I am encouraged the problem can be rectified. While growing up, I was in the presence of persons expressing their disdain for the minority race. I made an effort to separate myself from them, to show I was different by volunteering to tutor black adults and by disagreeing with my uncle about the issue of race (though staying quiet around others in his sect). Through these mild
acts of dissent, they all knew my position and feelings. With this compromise— acquiescent when facing believers but active behind their backs—I escaped rebuke. Still, for years I felt guilty for what I did and what I didn’t do. Despite the popular disparagement of this type of remorse as a heartfelt though soft-headed response to unrealistic dreams of racial harmony, I couldn’t avoid it. However, when I got an inkling of the devastating consequences of these acts and omissions, my guilt was replaced with shame. We experience guilt when we commit an impropriety; we suffer shame when we engage in a dishonorable deed. When guilty, I feel regretful; when shamed, I feel contemptible. My shame arises from more than benightedness. I have grown aware of what motivated me: In matters of race, it wasn’t about doing good, it was about feeling good.
*Italicized quotes come from James Baldwin’s book, The Fire Next Time
About the Author Tom Wade is retired from the state of Georgia where he held management and executive positions in the state’s public health and social services agency, the university system, the technology authority, and the governor’s office. Before going to work with the state, he was with a nonprofit community action agency. He came to Georgia as a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer in 1970. Since retiring he has been a volunteer ombudsman (advocate) for residents of long-term-care-facilities for seven years. His essays have been published in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Communion, Jenny, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and Wilderness House Literary Review, and Squawk Back. He earned his master’s degree in public administration and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia.
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CREATIVE NONFICTION | KYLE LAURITA-BONOMETTI
Here Be Decapods by Kyle Laurita-Bonometti
They say destiny is a thing undiscovered. Well, sometimes, when I wake up, stumbling to the back porch, desperate for a cigarette, I think about that. Destiny is a thing undiscovered. When I was twenty, I woke up in a hospital bed, wondering what on Earth my life would be. Wondering what made sense. Wondering if I was locking myself into a place, or if maybe I was saving myself. Now, when the cars drive by and I smoke, looking at headlights shining in the dark, and wheels, whispering on the asphalt, I sometimes think of all the ways it could have been, and all the ways it now is. It’s one of those things that can get you if you’re not too careful. I have been very careful in recent years. “Kyle! The dishes are dirty!” There’s a moment when you’re sitting on the couch, with your head in your hands, and your hands are pressed against your face, and your nose breathing in all the shit that ever befell you, where you realize that the dishes are, in fact, dirty. That they’re your dishes. And that you’ve been leaving them in the sink for your mom to look at every morning, from the last night, when you stumbled in, half-drunk, burrowing through the cabinets for anything with the words “expires in two days,” and you drink vegetable soup through a plastic straw, pulling up half-rotten potatoes like your life depends on it, and you look out at the darkness of the night and wonder what the hell happened and that nothing, nothing in the world is going to make you feel any better except your own gumption, or perseverance, or will, or whatever, and you ask yourself, “What the hell am I doing?” and that’s something. And you think to yourself, “Just get
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up and do the dishes,” and you get up, you get up, and you do the goddamn dishes. You scrub at them with the ferocity that begets the animal you think you have let yourself become, and you pour Ajax over the sponge like holy water, and you hear it running down through the faucet like God’s unbelievable gift to this green Earth, and that’s a thing. Maybe these things become us, in a way, or, we become them. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. You decide.
“
Maybe destiny isn’t a thing undiscovered, but a thing that could be discovered, if you let it.
But I’m talking about destiny here. And destiny, they say, is a thing undiscovered. Like rocks on the beach when you’re a kid. Flipping them over, searching for little crabs that scuttle away from you in the suctioned pools that have formed from changing the flow of time. And you look at barnacles, clinging to the bottom of these stones, and wonder, “How could they ever have gotten there,” as if they were waiting, just for you, to lift that stone and discover that they existed. Maybe that’s destiny. Maybe destiny isn’t a thing undiscovered, but a thing that could be discovered, if you let it. I don’t know. All I know is that when I was a child, and crabs scuttled through my fingers, and I picked them up to place them in the moat I was digging around my tiny sandcastle, I didn’t think about destiny. I
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CREATIVE NONFICTION | KYLE LAURITA-BONOMETTI
didn’t think about how every moment, every thing, every change of heart and decision to do the dishes, or not do them, could be like a stone in the river that you could leave unturned. Or that that stone, that crushing, heaving boulder, could be lifted - and that by lifting that boulder you could stumble onto something grand, something incredible. That you are going to bask in the toil and the sweat and the bare backbreaking decision to lift the stone or let it be. But I like the sweat. I like the intoxication that breathes through skin. The amphibian euphoria, the discipline, the sun-exuding spray of the sea, because it speaks to me now. And through that voice, I find, that in those moments, sitting on the couch, I remember crabs, scuttling through my hands, and picking them up, to build a sandcastle where there once wasn’t one.
About the Author
Kyle lives in Portland, Maine. Aside from long walks on the beach and horse drawn carriage rides in the park, he enjoys drinking pulpy orange juice and listening to 90’s rap through the eight-dollar speakers his roommate snagged at Goodwill - good on you, Dave.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
CREATIVE NONFICTION | SARA R. LANDER
Midnight Reverie: A Momentary Suspension of Life by Sara R. Lander
“Sunset and evening star, / And one clear call for me!” — “Crossing the Bar,” Alfred Lord Tennyson
It was an early Sunday morning when I decided to explore the afterlife on a black pony named Midnight. It wasn’t a conscious decision per se, but I did choose not to ride back for my helmet when I fell off the first time. So, you could say at this point I was practically waving my hand in the air to catch the eye of fate. My life as a young girl revolved around my horses—until it didn’t. Pre-incident, I was that slightly strange girl in middle school who wore shirts with horses, went to horse summer camps, and was never available in the evenings because I had to be home to feed my numerous horses, sheep, goats, chickens, and llama. Lees’ Feed and Western Store was one of my favorite places. My Sundays were completely off-limits for hangouts, not for religious commitments, but because Sundays were the days I went out on the trail with my parents. But when you get hurt doing something you love, in my experience, your passion for it doesn’t die instantly. Instead, it’s a gradual death where you miss one Sunday, then
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another, and then you struggle to remember the last time you went riding on the trails you loved so much. Before you know it, you’re about to sell your horse, the fear is eating you alive, and yet you feel compelled to get back on one last time. In the same way passions die gradually postincident, your brain cells begin to die from the moment you’re knocked unconscious. According to Medical Daily, the longer this state of unconsciousness, the greater the number of cells and tissues that die. The risk of brain damage goes up exponentially. One symptom of mild brain damage from concussions is amnesia surrounding the traumatic event. While it’s true there are holes in my memory of that day, I remember the lead up to the incident and the something that followed very clearly. The colors are stuck behind my closed eyelids. Was it all a dream, though? Or, if only briefly, was I sent headfirst into the afterlife? “And may there be no moaning of the bar, / When I put out to sea,” It is 2010. I’m a fourth grader enjoying her weekend away from school and Mrs. McCurry’s class. The most important detail,
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though, is that it’s Sunday: Cronan Ranch day. I wake up early and put on my jeans and an old Prospector Soccer shirt before going to the hall closet, digging through the musty clothes and worn cowboy hats to find my boots. My twin sister Erica’s still sleeping in. Soon my mom, dad, and our black lab Buddy will hit the trails. My mom and I help gather the horses. The work is easy enough, but after my dad backs up his old Ford truck and gets out, his horse Albert sees the halter and runs. It’s a game Al likes to play every time we go. We pile into the truck, the back seats covered in Rolo wrappers and empty Coca Cola bottles. Cold air blows in my face because the windows don’t roll up, and Buddy is crushing me as he leans his whole body out the window to enjoy the rush. All in all, it’s a rather normal trip.
This time, though, my pony Midnight, seeing my parents horses Albert and Monty further ahead, decides to leap over the small wall. Not expecting him to jump, I manage to grab the horn of the saddle for dear life, still clutching the lead line so Buddy doesn’t run off. Considering it’s such a small jump, it’s not surprising I manage to stay on, but even as Midnight happily rejoins my parents I can’t help but feel a bit dazed. We ride a bit further along the trail, taking the path that goes by the movie set on the way down to the American River. My parents laugh about Midnight’s reaction, and I hand Buddy’s rope to my dad. The shock doesn’t leave me, and I feel a bit dizzy before I pitch to the right and slide onto the ground. The fall hurts, though not as much as it could. Lying there on the ground, I realize I don’t have my helmet on.
“
I was practically waving my hand in the air to catch the eye of fate.
Once we’re at the ranch we find a close parking spot as it’s early enough that the place isn’t crowded. We tack up our horses, and I swap Buddy’s leash for the pony lead line I’d occasionally attach to Midnight and hand to my dad if I didn’t want to fight to keep him from stopping every five minutes to eat the weeds along the trail. I’d been feeling confident recently and since I didn’t bring a pony only to walk the trail with our rambunctious labrador, by using the lead line we could essentially walk Buddy alongside our horses.
I say as much to my parents when they turn around.
I climb onto the saddle on my side of the trailer and steer Midnight for the closed gate to the trails. The gate has open sides big enough for a horse to walk through, and a two-foot-high wall our horses normally knock into before sluggishly stepping over.
“No,” I say, glancing back at the gate that looks small from this distance. “Too far. There’s no point.”
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“Do you want to turn back and get it?” my dad asks as he dismounts to help me back into the saddle. My world is still a bit tilted. Nothing I can’t handle. I could power through.
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Looking back on the layout of the trails, either the world seemed a lot larger when I was younger or I was just being lazy, because the first fall had occurred a meager half mile from the entrance. Unaware of any consequences for my decision and having yet to learn that bad things come in threes (the first likely having been Midnight’s leap over the gate) I pressed on. I watch Buddy twist my dad’s arm, and eventually the movie set comes into sight. When a normal person thinks of a movie set they think of chairs, bright lights, expensive cameras, and a lot of people. This movie set is different. This one has a large, incredibly old oak tree, a few picnic benches, a rundown wooden ranch home and a wooden barn to match. It’s the abandoned set of the 2003 Hallmark film Love Comes Softly, and today, it’s going to bear witness to another filmworthy scene. In hindsight, if I had known I’d be an actress in what was about to occur, I think I would have asked for a stunt double, or at the very least worn something nicer for when I met my fate. “But such a tide as moving seems asleep, / Too full for sound and foam, / When that which drew from out the boundless deep / Turns again home” By the time we reach the set I am relaxed again, enjoying the relief of the shade. I reluctantly allow Midnight to munch away before we trek down to the South Fork of the American River. My dad slackens Buddy’s rope since there’s no one around. Everything is calm when I see a black blur down to the right. I feel a violent shudder go through my pony, feel with my legs as his shoulders contract and then release. I reach for the horn again, but my neck snaps
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backwards and my feet come out of the stirrups—and my world? My world goes dark, but not for long. Thankfully, I don’t get the chance to feel my head collide with the ground or the only rock on the movie set. It’s a shame I didn’t get to feel like I was flying though. What a feeling that would have been, even if only for a moment. Instead I’m standing in a golden field of wheat. It’s all I can see for miles. Gone is the short, frost covered grass of the trails. Gone are my parents, our horses, and Buddy. The sky is a blinding blue. There is not a sound to be heard, and only a slight breeze. I will never be able to recreate this level of silence. I can’t remember if I was standing there alone or if I talked to anyone while I was there. I do remember the feeling of being watched. Every effortless step I took through the field that should have offered resistance felt like it was being analyzed. I didn’t feel happy or sad, only a bit uneasy, as if I didn’t belong there just yet. Reality bleeds back into my consciousness. The over-saturated colors are gone, and I’ve returned to the muted colors of winter transitioning to spring. As I take a breath, I find there is water where there should be air, and I begin to choke on it. When I double over, plastic bottle crunching in my hand, I realize I can hear again. “Hey! Whoa! Slow down. What’s wrong, Sourdough?” my mom asks. I can only widen my eyes and take in the world around me as I finally catch my breath. It all feels wrong. I’m sitting on the picnic bench underneath the large oak tree, our
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horses tied up to the left. My dad stands next to them and my mom sits to my right. “I just? I woke up drinking water.” I pause for a moment as my thoughts catch up to my mouth. “This isn’t—how did I get here?” I knew something had happened with Midnight, but I had no recollection of how I ended up on this bench, plastic water bottle in hand and apparently trying to drown myself.
“
I had been a shell of a person, trapped in my own mind while my body did what it wanted.
My parents then told me how Midnight bucked when Buddy ran underneath him. “You were unconscious for roughly a minute or so,” one says. “The ferrier rode by and we had to argue with him not to call a helicopter to fly you out of here,” the other interjects. I blink before protesting. “What? But I wasn’t awake until just now!” My insistence I had come back to consciousness just seconds ago confused them. To them, when I first “woke up” they had talked to me as I lie on the ground. Asking me questions about my name, birthday, and who my friends were before helping me up. Apparently I had left off a few people they thought were my friends. Today this makes me laugh, as I think back then I subconsciously knew those people wouldn’t
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stick around. That or my subconscious self was really petty. I wouldn’t be surprised either way. In the moment though, their comments went right over my head. I was hyper-focused on the lapse in reality I had just experienced. What did I see? Where did my consciousness go? Even more troublesome, what does it mean if I didn’t go anywhere at all? “Twilight and evening bell, / And after that the dark! / And may there be no sadness of farewell, / When I embark;” It’s disorienting to be told something that should be a recent event in your life when it feels like someone else's experience. I always thought out-of-body experiences should feel like watching everything play out from overhead. This felt like I had been a shell of a person, trapped in my own mind while my body did what it wanted. It was terrifying for a control freak like myself. But, because my parents were obviously concussion experts and I didn’t appear to have lasting issues, I was never taken to see a doctor. “We should head back now that you’re awake,” my mom says, as if offering a diversion from my confusion. We wait around a bit longer until I feel up to walking back. My parents mount their horses, but I don’t. I take Midnight’s reins and take a few steps, trying and failing to keep distance between us. Midnight doesn’t want to be the last one back so he’s constantly nudging me with his snotty nose as if to push me out of the way. I didn’t appreciate this gesture anymore, but I had no choice. I couldn’t just sit there and
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wait for my dad to bring the truck around. I had to keep walking. An irritated snort from Midnight breaks my resolve. I snap. “Stop it!” Tears come to my eyes from the pain in my tailbone with every step. I still don’t look at him. I would have run away if I could, but he would’ve just followed me. He didn’t know any better. My head didn’t hurt on the way back, thankfully, but I still felt a bit groggy. I was disoriented from the disparity between my waking and unconscious experiences. I had probably been up and moving around for a good ten minutes before my double perceptions merged into one reality. When we got back home my parents were careful to check me for any of the concussion symptoms they found on the Internet. I lay with part of my face pressed into the cold, fake leather couch. The drone of the TV made my sluggish mind want to drift. My dad would shout and clap twice in front of my face to keep me awake. “Ah! Not yet. Just a little longer,” is what he’d say each time. I only rolled my eyes and groaned, offering half-hearted resistance. “Let me go. I’m tired,” I’d reply, but he kept up the routine. I don’t like to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t.
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When the allotted amount of time passed and I could finally give in, I slept for a dreamless fourteen hours. On Tuesday I returned to school and recounted the story. Until I began to lose people I cared about, I never thought much of the strange occurrence that day. For one, I’d never realized people don’t typically dream when knocked unconscious. Plus, the following school years were filled with enough drama I deemed “important” that I didn’t reflect upon the experience until 8th grade. See, I wasn’t raised in a religious family. My parents believed we could come to whatever conclusions we wanted about the world. At ten years old I had a vivid imagination. Before the incident I believed our lives were stories in a book, and every word we said was pre-written. Our world continued because someone was reading our storybook. Dreams occurred when that person put the book down and we could write our own story. Death meant the person had reached the end of the book. After the incident, my conception of the universe changed drastically. I can’t tell you if what I saw was part of the afterlife, a simple dream, or a memory of a life I don’t remember. What I can say is that if it’s true that when you’re knocked unconscious, you’re not supposed to dream. If it wasn’t a dream, how do I explain what I saw? In the years since, my active imagination has not dissipated, though it’s now grounded in a better understanding of philosophy and the human psyche. I used my Sundays no longer spent on the trails to brainstorm theories not just about the incident, but about reality
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more broadly. Unfortunately, one explanation brings far more comfort than the other. The “spiritual theory” I came up with proposes that when I was unconscious, my brain cells began to die, and I started transitioning to someplace between our living reality and the afterlife. Maybe I perceived that world as silent because our sense of hearing is one of our last tethers to this life. Or, perhaps, the incident was like sleepwalking, and I was just trapped in my mind while my body interacted with the world around me. This version is not the one I want to believe in, not only because it denies me hope that there will be a world after death where I can meet up with the people I’ve lost, but because it makes me wonder if this could happen again to someone. What if the next time this happened to me or someone else there is no return to consciousness? If you can never really know some else's reality, how can you tell if they aren’t there? The most unsettling question of all I’ve ever asked myself about that day is who took over while I was trapped in a dream-like world. Was it my subconscious? Or was it someone else who, if only briefly, had wanted a chance at the life I unknowingly tried to throw away when I didn’t turn back for my helmet. I’m afraid I won’t get the answer until, as Tennyson said, I “see my Pilot face to face / when I have crost the bar.” Roughly four years after the incident I sold Midnight to a trainer and her young son who was far younger than I had been when I started riding. With them went almost all my passion for riding. If not in this life, perhaps in the next one I’ll get on a horse again. CANYON VOICES
Maybe that horse will be a spunky black pony who was once known as Midnight. Before that time comes, however, I’ll have my fear and the silence of an otherworldly memory to comfort me.
About the Author
Sara R. Lander is a freshman studying English and Political Science at ASU. Coming from a small town outside Sacramento, Ca., Sara spends a lot of time reading, which naturally grew into a love of writing at a young age, both serving as outlets for her imagination. She loves to write about human thought processes, striving to put into words the complex ways in which we think about our own experiences. For her, having a career where she can write in any capacity means the difference between a mundane existence and freedom. Sara is fascinated by the way stories, just like photographs, can become snapshots of history. In the future, she hopes to continue traveling with her family, learning new things about herself and the different perspectives the world has to offer.
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Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
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The Stranger Analisa Chavez ________________________________
Say Your Prayers Gaige Johnston ________________________________
Larry The Pool Boy? Gabriela Ramirez ________________________________
Stay Amar ________________________________
Professor Morey’s World’s Best Disease Pathology Class Gaige Johnston ________________________________
Saint Francis de los Barrios Allan Havis ________________________________
Something About Endings Amanda Beck
Thoughts by Chanler Araiza (See Artwork for full Image)
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The Stranger by Analisa Chavez
Characters: Tony: A young, hopeless and hardworking daydreamer living in an impoverished city supporting his family. Tony is jaded and unaware of his untapped potential that he hides away in shame until someone dares him to take the chance of a lifetime. Stranger: The Devil himself. He is charming, witty, diabolical and manipulative. He loves his job, he lives for it. Bus Driver: 30’s-40’s, obese middle-aged man. Always with a cigarette in hand and smile on his face. “He’s the one-way ticket to hell.” Rashad: He is an infamous rapper-singer, dancer. A playboy with “swag” and a smooth talker; confident. Tony’s Mom: 50’s, diagnosed with cancer; dying. She is kind, caring and loves her children dearly. Isabella: 8 years old. Tony’s little sister. She’s smart, courageous, assertive in her attitude and sassy. Setting: A run-down bus stop in the city with graffiti marks on sidewalk. Interior of bus as well. EXT.DAY.BUS STOP. A MAN IS SITTING AT A BUS STOP ALONE, LISTENING TO HIS HEADPHONES. HIS NAME IS TONY. HE IS DRESSED IN BAGGY, RAGGEDY, JEANS WITH AN OVERSIZED T-SHIRT, JAMMING OUT TO MUSIC. A STRANGER TO TONY, IN AN EXPENSIVE NAME BRAND BUSINESS SUIT WITH A BRIEFCASE, SITS NEXT TO HIM. *”The Stranger” by Billy Joel is playing. (Song fades: THE STRANGER looks spiffy, is casually confident, witty and charming.) STRANGER Excuse me, excuse me!
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(TONY takes off his headphones. TONY is reserved and timid.) TONY Yeah? STRANGER What’s the last stop on this bus? TONY Van Buren. (TONY puts his headphones back on. THE STRANGER pulls out a cigarette and a lighter. The lighter doesn’t seem to work. He taps TONY on the shoulder, who is listening to music.) TONY Hey man, what the fuck?! STRANGER Sorry. TONY I don’t like being touched. STRANGER You got a light? (With a cigarette in his mouth) TONY Yes. STRANGER I need a spark. (TONY looks at him in disbelief. Pulls out his lighter and hands it to him. THE STRANGER doesn’t take it, he cues TONY to light it for him, expectantly. TONY is somewhat amused, and irritated. TONY lights it for him, feeling like he doesn’t have a choice.) STRANGER
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Thanks. TONY Don't mention it. STRANGER Where you headed? TONY I’m going to work. What about you? You look a little overdressed to be taking the bus in South Phoenix. STRANGER Well, if you must know, I take pride in my appearance. Can’t say the same for you. TONY I’m headed to my site. STRANGER Do you do like construction, landscaping or something? TONY So, you just assume because I’m Mexican, I work construction? STRANGER I never said anything about you being Mexican, but hey good to know you’re Mexican! Si se puede right?! (Goes to hand-five TONY; TONY doesn’t high five him.) It’s Cesar Chavez... You know Obama said that too. His campaign was a commercial success, thanks to me. TONY Right, like you had anything to do with that. STRANGER You don’t believe me. TONY
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Look man, whatever you’re on, just leave me alone. STRANGER Oh, I’m sober for my business deals. You know, “gotta keep it professional.” TONY So, you’re in business? STRANGER Oh yeah. Serious business. TONY Great. So, what do you do for a living? STRANGER I grant people their deepest desires. TONY Cool. Well, good for you, making the world a better place and everything. STRANGER You know, you don’t seem like someone who is... TONY Is what? STRANGER Well, I was just going to say happy. You know, thriving and- (looking at TONY’S figure) wellfed. TONY Is this what you do, insult random strangers at bus stops? STRANGER It’s just an observation.
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TONY Maybe I’m tired. STRANGER You’re young, you’re like 21? You should be full of energy. TONY Look at me, I’m not exactly driving a BMW on my way to my dream job. STRANGER Why not? TONY I’ve never had the luxury. STRANGER It’s not a luxury, it’s a right. So, I’ll ask again, why not? TONY Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I wake up at 6 in the morning and walk to catch the city bus every day at 8 on an hour commute, counting down the seconds until the day is done. STRANGER That sounds shitty. TONY I pray that I can get home safely on my way back, just hoping to make it through the neighborhood while avoiding gang members harassing me or trying to recruit me. STRANGER So, you don’t want to be in a gang, or have to take the bus for the rest of your life. You told me everything you DON’T want. TONY Yeah, there’s a lot that I don’t want, I guess.
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STRANGER What is it that you do want? It’s not the toughest question...or is it? TONY I don’t know, I just work. STRANGER You just work. Work to survive? (Hinting at his choice of transportation.) Did you know you humans are the only species on the planet that pay to live on this God-forsaken Earth?! It should be free! But it ain’t. You ever wonder why that is? (Taking a last hit of his cig and tossing it.) TONY That’s just the way things are. STRANGER You think that’s fair? You work your ass off, pay taxes, while your president gets a write-off while his undercover Russian dick fucks your country in the ass. No lube either. You think that’s fair? I mean, if guys like him can have whatever they want and get away with it, why can’t you? TONY Because I’m me. There’s nothing special about me, okay. I don’t knowSTRANGER You can’t even be honest with yourself and say what you REALLY WANT. Hmmm? This construction shit isn’t who you are. If you could be anything, and there was nothing stopping you, what would you want to be? (After a long pause.) TONY I want to be a singer, and I rap a little bit, but my mom says there’s no future in that. STRANGER Parents can be the destroyer of a child’s wildest dreams. TONY
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She means well, and I love my mother. STRANGER Of course, you do, that’s why you’ll live your life according to her expectations. Breaking bones and working your ass off until the day you die, just to struggle. Now, that doesn’t sound a lot like love, does it? TONY She does the best she can. STRANGER You do the best you can. Supporting her and your little sister. Helping her fight stage 4 lung cancer. TONY How the fuck do you know that?! STRANGER It’s been a rough 6 months hasn’t it, Tony? TONY How do you know my name? STRANGER I know everything about you, Tony. TONY Hey man, fuck off! I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, butSTRANGER 6 years old. Kindergarten. 97’. You asked Araceli Gonzalez to marry you and you were crushed when she didn’t accept your ring pop. That didn’t stop you from serenading Becky. TONY How the-
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STRANGER Your sister is your favorite person. When you were nine years old, your father died shielding you from a gang drive-by, saving your life. He wasn’t so lucky, now was he? TONY I’m telling you, man, get away from me! STRANGER I know the guilt you feel from his death. If you didn’t ask him to come and see you sing at your talent show, he never would’ve been there to die for you. (TONY is holding back his tears of the memory.) TONY Stop. Just stopSTRANGER I know that you cry yourself to sleep every night, praying for your mother’s health. (THE STRANGER moves closer to TONY, inches from TONY’S face.) TONY Who are you? STRANGER God hasn’t answered your prayers, has He? And guess what, Tony, He’s not going to. Your mother’s fucked! (TONY grabs the man by his suit and shakes him angrily.) TONY Shut the fuck up! You shut the fuck up, you Wall Street looking piece of shit! You don’t know a damn thing, okay! I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you right now! Right now! (THE STRANGER begins laughing.) STRANGER
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If I don't know anything, then what’s got you so worked up? (TONY lets him go. THE STRANGER pulls out another cigarette, puts it in his mouth, then as he snaps his fingers, a candle-lit fire magically lights his finger, and then he lights his own cigarette. TONY watches. Then THE STRANGER offers one to TONY, TONY takes it and THE STRANGER lights it for Tony.) TONY Something tells me you’re not here for the bus, are you? STRANGER Not exactly. You’ve got a gift. You’re talented. I can take away the pain, Tony. All of it. TONY I don’t understand. STRANGER Work for me, and I can give you everything you’ve ever dreamt of, Tony. I can cure your mother; your sister won’t have to grow up in this shitty neighborhood. TONY It’s not that shitty. STRANGER She’s quite the cutie and she’s going to grow into quite the señorita. You know these filthy schmucks rape girls to get initiated. It’s disgusting. You work so damn much you don’t have time to protect your sister. You think your sick mother can? I can get your family out of here. And hell, I can make you famous. (THE STRANGER brings attention to his suitcase, opens it and brings out a piece of paper with TONY’S name on it, and a space for a signature.) STRANGER All I need, is your signature. TONY My signature?
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STRANGER In blood, of course. TONY No. (The Stranger snaps his fingers, and a song can be heard with Tony’s voice from the future.) TONY Is that my voice? My song? STRANGER It’s a hit, baby! (THE STRANGER lets TONY enjoy the moment then snaps his fingers and cuts it off.) STRANGER But I mean, if you’re not serious about your future investment, then we can just part ways now. TONY No, no, no. I just, I don’t know what I’m signing exactly. STRANGER Well, in exchange for my services...you’re mine. TONY Whoa, whoa, whoa! Dude, I’m not into that whole bondage thing. STRANGER I’m flattered, Tony. But that’s not exactly what I meant. TONY What did you mean? STRANGER
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I want...your soul. TONY That seems a little steep, don’t it? I mean, I don’t even know if any of this is real. (The bus arrives.) BUS DRIVER Getting on? (THE STRANGER looks at his watch.) STRANGER You’re right on time. Come on, I want to show you something. (TONY and THE STRANGER get on bus. TONY begins to pull out his money.) BUS DRIVER Don't worry about it. STRANGER Pick a seat. (Both walk down the bus row and find a seat. The bus begins to travel.) TONY So, is this a business trip? STRANGER Something like that. (A young man dressed in black leather pants, with a red muscle shirt, a black leather jacket with a silver chain, and sunglasses begins singing and dancing in the bus. He looks like a star. A spotlight is on him, and he gives a brief 15 second intro of his talent. TONY is star struck. THE STRANGER is smiling and begins clapping at the end of his performance.) STRANGER Rashad, that was incredible.
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RASHAD Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you. STRANGER I know. This is Tony. He’s your biggest fan. (TONY is still in shock.) RASHAD Hey, my man! Wassup, it’s great to meet you. TONY I-I-I can’t believe this. You’re Rashad! RASHAD Last I checked. Well, it was Dorca Shmorka. You know, before the name change. STRANGER Yeah, we had to change it, your parents really screwed you with that one. TONY I still can’t believe it. The one and only. Bro, I’m such a fan, truly. Respect. RASHAD Thanks, man. (The bus stops.) RASHAD This is where I get off. STRANGER Take care, Rashad. Send me a postcard or something these days. I like to know how my favorite clients are doing. RASHAD
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You got it. We’ll catch up at the Stoney’s after party. STRANGER I’ll hold you to it. RASHAD Maybe I’ll see you around, Tony. (RASHAD exits the bus.) STRANGER Great kid. Too bad. TONY Too bad what? (TONY’S mother enters the bus. She looks bright, happy and healthy.) TONY’S MOM Tony! (She rushes over to Tony and gives him a hug.) TONY A’ma? TONY’S MOM Mira me. TONY Mom, you look...better. It’s not possible. TONY’S MOM This man has cured me, Tony. It is possible. STRANGER
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What can I say, I have the magic touch. TONY This is a miracle. A’ma you’ve never looked better. I don’t know what to say. TONY’S MOM Sign the paper, Tony, para mi, por favor. TONY A’ma, it’s not that simple. TONY’S MOM How can you be so fucking selfish?! You’re not a real man. Not like your father. He wouldn’t just let me die. He wouldn’t even need a second to think about what’s best para his familia. You make me sick. (The bus comes to another halt that causes everyone to jerk. TONY’S MOM falls to the floor and has a hard time getting up. TONY begins helping his mom up.) TONY A’ma, are you okay? (His mother’s sudden appearance is deadly, sick and stage 4 lung cancer. She begins coughing blood.) TONY’S MOM Look at me, Tony. Do I look okay? (TONY’S MOM falls to the ground slowly, dying.) TONY A’ma! A’ma! Please, please don’t leave me. (TONY grabs THE STRANGER by his jacket.) TONY Bring her back!
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SCRIPTS | ANALISA CHAVEZ
(His little sister, ISABELLA, age 7 comes running in from the entrance of the bus.) ISABELLA Mommy! Mommy! (ISABELLA runs to her mother on the ground. Picks up her mom’s head and puts her mother’s head on her lap, caressing her mother.) TONY Isabella? What are you doing here? ISABELLA How could you let her die, Tony? STRANGER Yeah, Tony. How could you? ISABELLA You were supposed to take care of us. TONY I’m trying, Bella. ISABELLA Then why is Mommy dead? It should’ve been you that died, not Daddy. (TONY is crying.) TONY Bella. TONY This isn’t real. This isn’t real... TONY’S MOM Oh, but it is, Tony. It’s very real.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ANALISA CHAVEZ
(TONY is hysterical at this point. He doesn’t know what’s real or not and his fear has taken over. The camera zooms to his face as he screams in terror at his reality.) TONY Nooooooooo! (Cut to Bus Stop.) BUS DRIVER You getting on? (TONY is suddenly coming down from his terrible experience on the bus, almost like when one wakes from a bad dream. He is alone at the bus stop, looks at his watch, it’s 8 a.m. He’s still shocked.) BUS DRIVER Look, I ain’t got all day, you gettin in or what? TONY Yes. (TONY takes the money from his pocket and pays for his ride. Finds a seat. THE STRANGER pops up next to him.) TONY Jesus! STRANGER Not exactly. TONY What the hell do you want? STRANGER You know what I want. (TONY is silent.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ANALISA CHAVEZ
STRANGER You’re not an easy one, are you? Look I’m on a time crunch. If you change your mind…Here, take my card, repeat this mantra 6 times. Not 7, not 8, but 6, and I’ll be there. (The bus comes to a halt. THE STRANGER stands up.) TONY This isn’t my stop. STRANGER It’s mine. You’re not the only one with a job. (Smiling). (THE STRANGER jumps out the door. After the doors shut, TONY rips the card in half. His song begins playing on the bus again. The song fades.) VOICE OVER We’re back with 103.9 and you just heard newbie Artist, Tony Lopez with “All my love” taking over number one for 6 weeks in a row. He just won 3 Grammys, one for new artist of the year, he’s coming to Phoenix, ya’ll. This kid is on fire! Call in at number 9 and get hooked up with some Tony Lopez tickets before they sell out. (VOICE OVER fades) Next, we have... (TONY looks at the ripped-card in his hand and puts it in his wallet.)
About the Author Analisa Chavez is a screenplay writer. She writes in her down time, and enjoys writing about anything that she feels needs to be said. This is her first publication, “The Stranger.”
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ANALISA CHAVEZ
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
Say Your Prayers by Gaige Johnston
Characters: TED, leader of a band of rustlers, who was blamed for raiding the local town armory before disappearing. SHERIFF KEATON, a man of fifty some odd years, who is an experienced veteran who prides himself on a long-upheld oath made to truth and the law. He knows Ted as a simple ne’er-do-well who has pushed his luck and has come to the end of his line. DEPUTY CLARKE, a jealous drunk. Was quietly blamed by the town for negligently letting Ted get away with the armory robbery. Clarke wants revenge on Ted for tarnishing his chances at the Sheriff’s badge which he still desperately wants. *All speak in west Texan accent. Setting: On and at the base of a steep hill surrounded by cliffs in the Palo Duro canyon in southwest Texas. Clear sunny day. Time: Noon (Rustlers are riding alongside a large herd of stolen cattle, up until they go over a steep incline that plateaus to a small area of grassland surrounded by impassible cliffs –a dead end. All five rustlers make it up the hill, but they lose all except for one of the herd. The criminals are trapped; however, if the lawmen try to clear up the slope in pursuit, they’ll be completely open to a clear line of gunfire before they can retaliate. The herd of cattle settles a good distant behind the backs of the lawmen. THE SHERIFF decides to try at negotiation as the lawmen dismount from their horses and approach the base of the hill with rifles aimed at the ridge.) SHERIFF KEATON: (SHERIFF KEATON, pauses to quietly pray himself.) Lord, please help me hang these men. Amen. (Out loud to TED) Alright, Ted… Well… that’s enough, ain’t it? (Silence from the hill.) Ted, I’ve arrested and hung a lot of your sort before. Shot a lot of your kind too. Y’know I much rather bring a man back to town than a corpse. (More silence from the hill.) DEPUTY CLARKE: Ted? Don’t be such dumb sonofabitch! This has been the biggest stink show of cattle chase I’ve ever seen. Enough’s enough. Just save yourself whatever dignity you have left, before you become the dumbest sonofabitch to get himself trapped inside a canyon,
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
with a load of bullets in his guts and pants full of shit. Y’know why Sheriff Keaton hates dragging corpses into town? It’s cause they smell like(The sound of a series rifle fire cuts him off. TED roars profanities and kicks up a load of dirt at the edge of the hill, just out of view of the lawmen, creating a thick cloud of dust over the top of it. The commotion echoes off the walls of the canyon, amplifying and carrying off the sound like thunder further down the gorge. The lawmen tense up beneath the hill, eyes locked on the dust cloud.) DEPUTY CLARKE: Christ, those fools are wasting all their ammo in a fit. If we keep agitating them and they keep that up, well, we can clear the hill and take ‘em without a fight. SHERIFF KEATON: Watch your blasphemy, and don’t be naïve. This is a bait if I ever saw one. Those sound like the Winchester rifles stolen from our armory. Those rifles can hold 15 rounds, plus they probably have our revolvers to use if we take the bait. (Gunfire ceases.) DEPUTY CLARKE: HEY TED, YOU’RE THE DUMBEST SONOFABI…. TED: JUST COME UP THE HILL, YOU GUTLESS COWARDS. I AIN’T CONSENTING TO NO NEGOTIATIONS! IM GONNA SHOOT YOU, CLARK, RIGHT IN YOUR SMUG MOUTH! YOU’LL SEE! DEPUTY CLARKE: We ain’t dumb enough to go up that hill like you, Ted. We can see farther than ten foot in front us. Getting trapped in a canyon… only thing dumber than that is walking into a line of gunfire! SHERIFF KEATON: Any of you boys up there listening? Y’all don’t have to die in the dirt today. Just know you don’t gotta follow Ted. There’s four of you and one of him. He got you into this mess, but I can get you out. (Sounds of arguing ensue beyond the hill and ends with couple of audible loud slaps.) TED: Sheriff? Keep that boy Clarke quiet. I mean to speak and I ain’t going to be interrupted or agitated by him, or else I’m going to shoot my hostage. (The sheriff and deputy look at each other alarmed.) SHERIFF KEATON: You say you got a hostage?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
TED: Yes, sir, you bet I got a hostage. Oh, it’s worth more than your deputy. It’s this here cow I got up here with me. I’m going to shoot it, no matter what happens if you don’t listen. Oh, and another thing, don’t you dare go addressing my boys again! DEPUTY CLARKE: If this ain’t the biggest shit show, then... TED: Oh, I mean it! You see a cow’s worth over 50 bucks, but men are worth nothing, or at least not anymore because you can’t buy or sell ‘em nowadays. What if I killed one of you? They’ll just rent someone else to play deputy or sheriff, but they gotta buy a whole new cow if I kill this one. SHERIFF KEATON: (to CLARKE quietly): Well, so much for your ingenious plan of irritating him ‘til you think he’s really shot all his bullets. Keep quiet… you already lost all our guns. I ain’t letting you get this cow killed, so help me god. DEPUTY CLARKE: What? We should make him kill that cow just on principle that a human life is worth more! (SHERIFF KEATON looks at CLARKE with contempt and then spits on the ground.) SHERIFF KEATON: Ok, I see your point, Ted. Please, don’t shoot the cow and just come down here. TED: You know up until a second ago I was full of the devil. We was mad desperate. You think we came up this hill by accident? We weren’t gonna outrun any lawmen while steering a herd, so me and my crew were trying to trick you into following us up this hill, where we was gonna shoot you when you was coming up. DEPUTY CLARKE: (whispers) Bullshit. TED: I was ready to kill, and I was ready to die. Now, after seeing you chicken shits being too afraid to climb up a hill… well… and now we’re talking instead of fighting… This ain’t the glamorous last stand I was looking for. Y’all robbed me of my chance at glory. SHERIFF KEATON: That’s right, we’re talking. There wasn’t no glory anyhow in this affair. It takes a brave man to stand up to justice though… TED: Justice? Whose justice? I ain’t ever heard such blasphemy. It’s like I was trying to tell my boys, you was trying to trick. You gonna hang us, Sheriff, for trying to steal cows. SHERIFF KEATON: Yeah… I’m gonna hang you all for rustling. That’s the law.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
DEPUTY CLARKE: (CLARKE looks at SHERIFF KEATON surprised.) (Quietly) Sheriff, how you think we’re gonna get them to cooperate with you talking like that. You senile old bastard! TED: And where’s the justice in that? You’re gonna kill five men over some cattle like we’re some goddamn murderers? We were only ready to kill you cause we knew you were gonna kill us, no matter what. It’s just like how I was saying, a cow is worth more than a man. The only reason you hang a man if he shoots another man is cause you don’t want a worthless lynch mob doing it, but you’re out here hanging people over an attempt to steal cattle… cause cattle is actually worth something! SHERIFF KEATON: I ain’t fixing to hang ya for no other reason than it’s what I know is right. It’s the best thing I can do with desperate rustlers. TED: Well, we got one condition before we come down this hill, hands in the air. That is, no hanging or any such thing. You know damn well what I’m saying, Sheriff. Look here: You got all the cattle that we tried stealing except for one, and you still got all your boys in one piece, but you don’t got us. The way I see it, you can be the hero if you just be reasonable and let us off easy without no hanging. You got the cows, the criminals, and most importantly, all your boys. SHERIFF KEATON: No deal. I’m the Sheriff, not a hero. DEPUTY CLARKE: (Startled) Sheriff?! (TED starts kicking up dirt and fires from his rifle a few times in anger, screaming profanities at the lawmen. The sound is deafening as DEPUTY CLARKE shouts in the SHERIFF’S ears while lowering his rifle.) DEPUTY CLARKE: Look, Sheriff, if you’re dead set on not charging them while they wasting all their shots, then all we gotta do is promise we won’t hang them. Those boys are dumber than dirt. All we’ll have to do is write something in paper and they’ll believe anything. No trouble! Here look, I’ll write something in this journal and have the boys sign it… SHERIFF KEATON: Get that thing out my sight and get your hands back on your gun... lowering your defenses like that… I ain’t lying to no one, especially before I hang ‘em, and I’m hanging them. DEPUTY CLARKE: Why you gotta be such an old stubborn fool! They don’t deserve honesty. It’s like I’ve been saying, you need replacing. (TED finishes hollering and shooting. DEPUTY CLARKE goes ahead with his piece of journal paper and starts quickly getting the signatures of the other lawmen.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
TED: You can’t honestly expect us to comply, you dumb sonofabitch! We got more sense and dignity than that! Rather go down in glory fighting! Rather get a shot at shooting Clarke! SHERIFF KEATON: You and your glory, Ted! You know what I’m trying to do for you and your boys? I’m trying to save your souls! Bring you to justice in this world so the Lord will go easier on you in the next. Don’t you want to see a priest to take care of your soul before you die? Don’t you, boys? Deputy Clarke was lying. I don’t hate hulling corpses back to town ‘cause they smell like shit. It’s ‘cause I rather send men to the Lord than to the Devil. That’s my justice. But your glory, Ted, it’s dying and fighting and screaming in the dirt, and never taking a second to make peace with yourself and your Maker. It don’t make no sense… Just come down, boys… It’s going to be alright. TED: Bullshit! Murderer! I’ll take you! SHERIFF KEATON: I’m your only chance at salvations. What are you even going to do once you get out of here after killing a bunch of a lawmen? You’ll have the whole frontier looking for you. You’ll never sell off this cattle. You’ll never wipe your hands clean of unjust killing. You’ll be outlaws ‘til the end of your days and damned ever after. You’ve lost your chance here on this earth, but I can still save you. (Silence comes from the hill top for a good moment. The sound of approaching footsteps can be heard. Some of the boys cry out but TED shushes them and then speaks.) TED: You know… that don’t sound so bad… being saved and all… you have me fearing for my soul, Sheriff… ain’t ever thought of my soul since I was a kid. I… I want to come down. I want to be saved… but we’re too scared. We don’t want to die… DEPUTY CLARKE: Look, Ted, down here I got a note signed by all the other lawmen except Keaton saying we won’t hang you if you comply. I swear to God. It don’t matter what Keaton says. He’s an old fool and we won’t listen, just come down. (The footsteps come closer and TED’S cowboy hat just barely peeks over the top.) SHERIFF KEATON: What the hell are you doing, boy?! Listen, Ted! He’s lying! He’s trying to fool you! They’re going to hang you anyway! (TED pulls back and him and his boys starts shouting and shooting again, this time kicking up even more dust and making even more racket than the last two times. The lawmen are tense and completely focused on the hill, expecting TED to do something crazy.) DEPUTY CLARKE: What the hell is wrong with this idiot?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
(Just then, in the midst of the deafening blasts, several horse riders with rifles armed and ready come up and around the cattle herd and catch the lawmen by surprise. The sound of rifle fire completely hides their advance. The lawmen, startled, all raise their hands up in the air and surrender. The riders dismount and begin tying up the lawmen.) DEPUTY CLARKE: What the hell is…? (CLARKE is kicked in the gut and gagged like the rest of the men.) TED: Hey, bring Clarke up here, boys. He’s the one that looks like a rat. I want to see something. (They bring CLARKE up the hill. TED fishes through CLARKE’S jacket till he finds the note.) TED: Ah yes, this note here has all the names of every lawman down there who thought they could trick me. Lying, murdering bastards. (TED looks at KEATON) Y’know Sheriff, I was never planning on coming down, no matter what. I was just stalling, you see? Just now I was peeking over the cliff to see how close my boys were. I was waiting patiently for ‘em. You see, when I found this hill I just knew it would be perfect for trapping cowardly lawmen who wouldn’t chase us up it. This canyon just echoes gunfire for miles, also the perfect signal for the rest of my boys farther away. There was no way you could hear a bunch people sneaking up on you if I got your attention… SHERIFF KEATON: You have a devilish mind. (A rustler gags him and turns him tied over onto his stomach.) TED: I had a plan all along… but you almost talked me into something with that soul bit… you’re the only honest lawman I’ve ever seen, and you’ve taught me a bit about saving. We’re gonna let you go, even if you weren’t gonna let us go, cause I know you’ll be righteous. Maybe that makes you worth more than a cow. Anyways, I think that’s justice. But Clarke and your boys are lying, jealous, murderers, who would see us die just for the fun of it. Ain’t no chance for them at living a worthy life, so I gotta save them. Alright, boys, you heard me?! I’m gonna give you all a chance to take a shit in a bush so you can die unsoiled all dignified like and say your prayers before I punish you just like old Keaton taught me. (SHERIFF KEATON looks up at TED with withered, honest, just, and horrified eyes.) TED: Oh, don’t worry, Sheriff. Me and my boys will do just fine selling off this cattle. I already got a plan. You should know not to underestimate me by now. C’mon, you should know, what with the kind of Maker we have that’s always forgiving lying murderers, that I’m the sort of guy that can weasel out of hell.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
About the Author Gaige was born in West Valley, Utah and grew up in Magna, a suburb of Salt Lake City. He lived there until he was eleven, until his mother moved him and his sister to west side Phoenix. He’s done a few things that he’s proud of that he could say here, but generally he really doesn’t like talking about himself, unless it is to make a good impression on someone he likes. So, all that he would like to say here is that he supports small publications and any organizations that promote the recognition and visibility of people expressing themselves and their ideas through original thinking and creativity.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
Larry the Pool Boy? by Gabriela Ramirez
Characters: Mary (26): A beautiful housewife Jonah (27): Mary’s sarcastic husband Aiden (6): Their nephew Angela (46): Mary’s mother Setting: Aiden’s sixth birthday party. (JONAH and MARY sit in the living room and watch their nephew AIDEN, who is sitting in a chair across the room, pick his nose.) JONAH: God, what the hell is Aiden doing? MARY: Picking his nose. JONAH: Should I call him out on it? I mean, that's disgusting. MARY: Not in front of my sister. You know how she gets. JONAH: Yeah, but… (watches in disgust) someone needs to do something about that. And if Jen’s not gonna do it… MARY: That’s what kids do, Jonah. JONAH: Kids are fucking gross. What kind of parent lets their kid do that? MARY: You know, with your luck, our kid would probably build sculptures out of the stuff. JONAH: Sculptures? Like Michelangelo? MARY: I thought he was a painter?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
JONAH: No, no, he was a sculptor too, right? Which reminds me, we need to watch that documentary on that sculptor guy, Zukowski. MARY: Wait. Oh my god, did you see that? Did you see him put it in his belly button?! JONAH: Does he think he’s slick? (MARY tries to contain her laughter.) JONAH: Do you think he collects them? Jesus, what else do you think he has in there? (The couple laugh. After a brief pause, MARY clears her throat.) MARY: Do you think we’ll ever have kids? (JONAH takes a long sip of his drink.) JONAH: I thought you said you didn’t want any? MARY: Yeah, but I don’t know. Sometimes I think it wouldn’t be so bad. JONAH: I still feel like I have a lot of growing up to do, you know? I don’t think I’ll be ready for kids any time soon. Or maybe ever… who knows. MARY: Hmm. JONAH: What? MARY: No, I mean, with the whole open marriage thing and all, I get it. You need more time to… mature. JONAH: Mature? Ok, you blue-haired Ramona Flowers wanna-be. MARY: Hey! I told you I didn’t like that joke. JONAH: The boys thought it was funny... MARY: (mockingly) The boys thought it was -- god, see what I mean? (JONAH looks around the room then whispers.) JONAH: Ok, look. Wanting to have an open marriage doesn’t make me immature. Plus, you were on board with it. You said it would be good for us.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
MARY: (whispering) I know, I know. I’m just wondering if it’s really necessary to keep it going, that’s all. JONAH: (whispering) I mean, it’s not necessary to do anything, but we both want to, right? MARY: (whispering) I don’t know… We’ve both had our fun. But maybe it’s time we focus on our marriage and stop entertaining other people. JONAH: (whispering) And by “we” you mean “me,” right? MARY: (whispering) What are you talking about? JONAH: (whispering) Oh please, you haven’t gone out in weeks. Last guy you were with was the pool boy, right? Larry? You’ve been out of the game for a while, sister. MARY: (whispering) You don’t know that. JONAH: (whispering) I totally know that. MARY: (whispering) Oh? And how— (ANGELA walks into the room with a huge birthday cake filled with colorful candles. She starts singing “Happy Birthday” and everyone follows along. MARY and JONAH sing along, too.) ANGELA: Alright, Aiden, make a wish! (AIDEN blows out the candles. Everyone claps.) JONAH: (whispering) I bet he wished for a never-ending cold so that he’d never run out of snot. MARY: (whispering) Nah, he definitely wished for an uncle that knew when it was time to grow up. JONAH: (whispering) No, no. He definitely wished for snot. (ANGELA hands JONAH a piece of chocolate cake.) ANGELA: Cake, mijo? JONAH: I’d love a piece, thank you. ANGELA: And you, Mary? MARY: Absolutely. Thank you.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
ANGELA: What are you two doing over here all by yourselves? You’re so secretive. JONAH: We were just discussing Aiden’s nose-picking problem. ANGELA: Oh god, I keep telling Jen to do something about that! But you know how she gets about being told how to parent. Can’t tell her anything. (Simultaneously) MARY: Yeah, it’s unfortunate. JONAH: She’s the worst. ANGELA: Welp, what are you gonna do, right? Enjoy the cake, kids! (ANGELA walks away and JONAH digs into his cake.) JONAH: Ugh. So good. MARY: Definitely. You know what would make this taste even better, though? JONAH: Snot? (AIDEN runs to JONAH and MARY.) AIDEN: We’re opening my gifts now, wanna come see? JONAH: Of course, bud, we’ll be right there. JONAH: (To MARY) Anyway, where were we? MARY: You were just saying how we were ending the open marriage because we’ve outgrown it. JONAH: Exactly! Wait, what? (JONAH laughs uncomfortably. MARY stares at him intently.) JONAH: Wait, you’re serious? MARY: I don’t think we should do it anymore, Jonah. JONAH: Oh… are you not happy anymore? I thought things were going great. You said you were loving the extra time to yourself. (He looks around to make sure no one is listening) And the sex—the sex is amazing! What happened? Why are you having second thoughts?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
MARY: See, the thing is— AIDEN: (From the living room, in a sing-songy tone) Uncle Jonah, Aunt Mary, where are youuuu? JONAH: (To MARY) God, this kid is a fucking nightmare. ANGELA: Hurry, hun! Your Aunt Mindy has to leave soon, we gotta get this going! MARY: (To JONAH) We’ll just talk later, ok? At home, maybe? JONAH: Yeah, ok. (MARY and JONAH watch AIDEN open his gifts. Theirs is the last to be opened.) AIDEN: Ok, this one’s from Aunt Mary and Uncle Jonah! JONAH: (Whispers to MARY) What’d we end up getting him? Legos? I forgot to ask. MARY: Not exactly… (AIDEN tears through the wrapping paper and gets to the gift.) AIDEN: Uhh… what is this? ANGELA: Oh my god! Is that what I think it is? MARY: (Awkwardly) Surprise, everyone. JONAH: Wait, Aiden’s big head is in the way, I can't see. What is it? (ANGELA begins to cry. Everyone in the room makes “aw” sounds.) AIDEN: I don’t get it. What is this, Uncle Jonah? (AIDEN unfolds the ultrasound photos in the box then tosses them to JONAH.) MARY: You’re gonna be a cousin, Aiden! (MARY timidly turns to JONAH.) MARY: And you’re gonna be a dad, Jonah. (Awkward pause) (Jazz hands) Surprise!
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
(Before JONAH can react, the family bombards the couple with hugs, kisses, and well wishes. JONAH stares into the abyss and says nothing.) — SCENE TWO
(JONAH and MARY are driving home. Neither is saying a word. JONAH looks pale. MARY looks like she’s about to burst into tears at any moment.) MARY: Say something. (JONAH says nothing.) MARY: Ok, fine, I’ll say something. Look… I wasn’t sure how to go about telling you so I figured— JONAH: So you figured this was the way to do it? By telling your entire family before you told me? Are you kidding? You couldn’t think of a better way? MARY: I’m sorry, ok? I panicked. JONAH: Way to make Aiden’s birthday about you, by the way. MARY: Ok, look, I know that wasn’t the best way to go about it. JONAH: You had so many opportunities to tell me, Mary. So many! Two hours ago when Aiden was knee-deep in his nose; last night while watching Thrones when the witch killed Khaleesi’s baby; the other night when we did Family Guy trivia over at— MARY: Family Guy trivia? JONAH: I don’t know - Stewie’s a baby, Peter’s a dad; it works. MARY: Can you just chill for a sec. JONAH: No—No, I can’t just “chill for a sec,” Mary-Anne, cause you just told your entire family that I’m going to be a dad. A whole ass dad. Me. Are you crazy? MARY: Whoa, whoa, what? Why are you acting like this is on me? It takes two, Jonah. JONAH: I know, I know, but you should’ve told me. We should’ve discussed this in the privacy of our own home first. We should’ve— MARY: What is there to discuss?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
JONAH: The technicalities… MARY: The technicalities? JONAH: God. This sucks so bad. MARY: Wow. Great. That’s what every woman dreams of hearing when she tells her husband she’s pregnant. JONAH: No, no, I’m sorry. It’s just a shitty situation. MARY: Why? Because you’re not ready to give up your “bachelor” lifestyle? Even though you have a wife? A wife of four years that loves you and is carrying your child? JONAH: Don’t start, ok? Don’t start. You agreed to the open marriage! You said it was a great idea! You said it would revamp our relationship! MARY: Damn it, Jonah! I said that because I didn’t want to lose you. We’ve been together for fifteen years, so it was only natural that we’d one day become curious about being with other people. But now? Now things are different. Now there’s a baby in the equation and it’s time to do what we have to do. JONAH: What if I don’t want to do what I have to do? MARY: What are you saying? JONAH: What if— MARY: Are you walking out on me? JONAH: Shit, Mary… MARY: Oh my god. You’re walking out on me. JONAH: Mary, I have to tell you something. MARY: What, that you’re a coward? That you’re— JONAH: Infertile. (Pause) MARY: What? JONAH: I can’t have children.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
MARY: What are you talking about, Jonah? JONAH: I had a vasectomy last year—after our pregnancy scare, remember? In that moment— when I thought I was going to be a father— I realized that I really didn’t want to have children. Ever. So I had it done. MARY: I’m sorry, I’m not understanding. How could you have had a vasectomy without me noticing. JONAH: Pretty simple procedure. Technology has come a long way, Mare. MARY: Is this a joke? JONAH: It’s not. MARY: This isn’t funny. (Pause. Jonah sighs) JONAH: Here’s the bottom line, Mary: That baby isn’t mine. MARY: No. JONAH: Yes. MARY: Absolutely not. JONAH: I don’t know what to tell you, kid. MARY: Wait, wait, wait. So you had a— JONAH: Vasectomy, yes. MARY: And you didn’t tell me? JONAH: I think you’re missing the bigger picture here. MARY: Don't you think a wife should be involved in a decision like that? How could you not tell me? JONAH: We never wanted to have kids! Plus, you didn’t tell me about being pregnant, you hypocrite! MARY: That’s something completely different! You had a vasectomy. Without telling me! I’m your wife! Do you not understand how fucking horrible that is?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
JONAH: Not as horrible as getting pregnant by your side piece, my dear. (MARY finally comes to the realization that she’s having the pool boy’s child.) MARY: Oh my god. JONAH: There you go. Now you’re getting it. MARY: Oh my fucking god! JONAH: You shouldn’t have told your family, babe. MARY: Larry? Larry?! JONAH: I know hun, it’s pretty fucked. MARY: He has the IQ of a tadpole! JONAH: Well, that’s kinda harsh. MARY: He says “conversate” instead of “converse.” JONAH: The man has a great jawline, though, you gotta give him that. MARY: Jonah, oh my god. What the hell are we going to do? JONAH: Beats me, babe. MARY: Oh god, I have to call Larry. JONAH: That conversation’s gonna suck. Do you think you can put him on speaker? MARY: What are we gonna tell my family? JONAH: I mean, you’ll probably kill your mother of a heart attack, but… MARY: Why did I do that? What on earth possessed me to tell them all before I told you? JONAH: What can I say? You’ve always had a flair for melodrama. MARY: What am I supposed to tell my mother? That I’m in an open marriage? That a tadpole for brains impregnated me? She’s gonna disown me! (MARY starts hyperventilating.) JONAH: Just breathe, hun.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
MARY: My father’s surely rolling in his grave right now! JONAH: No, no, your father was an understanding dude. MARY: How are you not freaking out right now? I’m having Larry the pool boy’s baby! How are you not on the verge of throwing up? JONAH: Look, shit happens. It sucks, but it’ll work itself out. (MARY stares into the void for a few moments then loses it.) MARY: This is all your fault! You and your... vasectomy! JONAH: Look, Mare— (MARY begins to cry into JONAH’S shoulder.) MARE: I can’t believe this is happening. JONAH: Hey, look at me. It’s all gonna be ok. MARY: What are we gonna do? JONAH: I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna order some pizza, watch Game of Thrones, and deal with this shit in the morning. How does that sound? MARY: I can’t… JONAH: Yeah you can, c’mon. (MARY says nothing. JONAH sits next to her on the couch and wraps his arm around her.) JONAH: Do you think the baby’s gonna be able to breathe underwater? (MARY gives JONAH an incredulous look, then storms off.) JONAH: Aw, c’mon babe, I was kidding! (MARY doesn’t respond.) JONAH: Alright, well I’m gonna order that pizza now. Does cheese sound good? (MARY doesn’t respond.) JONAH: Ok, cheese is it!
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
 
About the Author Gabriela Ramirez is a cosmetologist, aspiring writer, and Secondary Education major with an emphasis in English at Arizona State University’s West campus. She is currently finishing up her first collection of poetry and prose, and has also written scripts for both stage and film - two of which have been picked up for production by a group of Arizona State IAP students. She plans to pursue her Masters degree - despite her intense fear of crippling debt - and hopes to teach creative writing at the collegiate level. In her free time, she runs a foreign horror-film blog, paints, and collects Harry Potter prop replicas and memorabilia. She can be contacted at gsramire@asu.edu
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GABRIELA RAMIREZ
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMAR
Stay by Amar
Characters: Sam: Tied to a chair. The Shadow Man: Mysterious silhouette figure. Voice is altered to hide their identity.
ACT I FADE IN: INT. EMPTY ROOM – TIME UNKNOWN (SAM is tied to a chair. There is a sack covering SAM’S head. There is also a table in front of SAM. SAM tries to get out of the chair but has no success.) SAM: (Panicking) Hello? Hello?! Sam’s voice echoes within the room. SAM: (Screams) Somebody! Help me! I need help! Help! A WOMAN’S VOICE (O.S.): Sam? SAM: Mom? Mom! Yes, it’s me! It’s Sam! Where are you? I can’t see anything! (the voice does not answer) Mom?! Mom! Can you hear me? Please say something! Say something! Please! Mom. Mom! (SAM begins to sob.) Yelling: What is this? Where the fuck am I? (Beat) Mom… Please, mom… A phone on the table begins to buzz. Sam cannot answer it due to being constrained. SAM: (to themselves, still sobbing) What is going on? AN ALTERED VOICE: Hello, Sam. SAM: Who are you? What is this? SHADOW MAN: There is no need to be scared. We are safe. Here. SAM: (panicked) We? What do you mean “we”? Who are you? (THE SHADOW MAN places a bowl on the table. He then pours tiny circles inside of the bowl.) SAM: (confused) I… I don’t understand…
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMAR
SHADOW MAN: Here. Is where we stay. SAM: (yelling) Stop it. Stop it! I don’t understand! (THE SHADOW MAN pushes the bowl closer to SAM and walks away. SAM cries.) DISSOLVE TO: (SAM is trying to get out of the chair. Muffled sounds of SAM yelling for help. Eventually SAM is exhausted. Footsteps echo in and SAM shoots up.) SAM: Mom? Mom… SHADOW MAN: Hello, Sam. SAM: Please. Stop. This is torture. What have I done? What have I done?! SHADOW MAN: We are safe. Here. SAM: What is here? Is this a joke? Please, I don’t understand. Answer me. (Silence) SAM: I want to go home. SHADOW MAN: Sam. Why are we here? SAM: Goddammit. This isn’t funny. This isn’tA RANDOM VOICE (O.S.): Nah, it’s chill. I get it, uh, just let me know when you’re free. Ok? SAM: Jesse? Jesse! Oh my god is that you, Jesse? SHADOW MAN: (slowly) Who is Jesse? SAM: Jesse… Jesse is my best friend. Since elementary school. SHADOW MAN: Where is Jesse? SAM: What? I don’t know… We’ve been – We... SHADOW MAN: Where is Jesse? SAM: I don’t know. I don’t know! Why are you a- I don’t know. SHADOW MAN: I thought you were best friends. You do not know where your best friend is? SAM: (trying to get out of the chair) We don’t talk as much. We’ve both been busy. SHADOW MAN: Too busy to talk with your best friend?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMAR
JESSE (O.S): Nah, it’s chill. I get it, uh, just let me know when you’re free. Ok? SAM: Jesse… How long has it been? SHADOW MAN: You are safe. Here. SAM: No… Stop fucking saying that. I am not safe here! What is “here”? Tell me! SHADOW MAN: Sam. Here is your creation. We are safe. Here.
ACT II SAM: I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to leave. SHADOW MAN: Outside these walls is danger. Have you forgotten Quinn? SAM: What did you just say? (Silence) SAM: No. Answer me. What did you just say? SHADOW MAN: Have you forgotten Quinn? SAM: Quinn? (Yells) Quinn? My ex Quinn, is that who we’re talking about? That Quinn? SHADOW MAN: You are in pain. Sam. SAM: I’m losing my fucking mind aren’t I…? (THE SHADOW MAN approaches SAM and removes the sack from over their head. SAM has a blind-fold on. SAM tries to get out of the chair again.) SHADOW MAN: In front of you is a bowl of Skittles. Skittles are your favorite. Take as many as you’d like. SAM: I’m strapped to the chair. That’s not funny. SHADOW MAN: There is nothing constraining you to the chair. Besides yourself. (SAM realizes their hands are free.) SHADOW MAN: Take as many as you’d like. (SAM reaches into the bowl and begins to eat some of the Skittles.) SAM: I don’t understand… (SAM reaches towards the bowl and touches a heavy cloth like material.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMAR
SAM: What is this? (Feeling the material) This is mine. (The material is SAM’S blanket.) SHADOW MAN: Everything here is yours. Sam. (THE SHADOW MAN puts a gun to SAM’S head. SAM does not move.) SHADOW MAN: You are not safe. Here. SAM: I know. (THE SHADOW MAN pulls the trigger. The gun does not fire.) SHADOW MAN: You were very lucky that night. Sam. SAM: I know. A RANDOM VOICE (O.S.): I just wish you told me sooner. I’m your sister. Guess that doesn’t matter to you, huh? You just push everyone away. Probably why you feel so al(The phone on the table begins to buzz. SAM does not answer it.) SHADOW MAN: Why do you do the things that you do? SAM: I don’t know… It just spiraled out of control. You don’t realize the damage until it’s too late. I haven’t talked to Jesse in- I don’t remember. Or my mom. Or my sister. I took them for granted. I never called back, reached out, I don’t deserve them. SHADOW MAN: It is not too late. Sam. You are not safe. Here. SAM: I understand now. I understand… (unties the blindfold) (SAM removes the blindfold. SAM is looking at their reflection. There are several figures standing behind SAM. Their heads are cut off from the shot. SAM is crying.)
About the Author Amar is currently a junior, at the ASU West campus, studying Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance. His journey into the art world all started when he was born. Even as a newborn baby Amar managed to successfully cry in the key of E-major (his favorite key to sing in ‘til this day), shoot a documentary on what it was like to be a fetus (capturing never-before-seen footage), and retiring by the age of two. Amar’s hobbies consist of drawing (typically specializes in cartoons), shooting films with his friends, composing music, acting, going out on photo-shoots, editing photos + videos, and shout-complaining about minor things that won’t affect him later on in life but are extremely irritable to him at this current moment in time. Amar is also the president of the Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance Club, and has goals to one day own his own production studio. His Instagram is: @slynematic, and it’s open for everyone to see. Because that’s exactly what Amar wants. For people to look at him… And give him attention. All the time. Because that’s what he likes.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
Professor Morey’s World’s Best Disease Pathology Class by Gaige Johnston
INT. University Amphitheater Classroom – Day CHARACTERS: PROFESSOR MOREY: medical pathology Professor of 45. Terribly terminally ill. Driven, good-humored, bitter. PHIL: a young TA initially assisting Professor Morey; humble and dutiful. ASHLEY: a student enrolled in Professor Morey’s class; nice and caring. MARIAH: a student enrolled in Professor Morey’s class; a Type A personality. ED: a student enrolled in Professor Morey’s class; a bit of an idiot. (It’s the first day of class for PROFESSOR MOREY’S pathology class for second year medical students. PHIL pushes PROFESSOR MOREY in a wheelchair connected to an oxygen tank, an IV, and a heart monitor. PROFESSOR MOREY is wheezing and sweating profusely. His complexion is ghastly, and his body is a shriveled husk. He is dying from terminal illness. He smells like piss. Some of the students become uncomfortable, others are intrigued. PHIL sets up PROFESSOR MOREY’S podium with a 10-gallon spittoon, a large case filled with emergency medical supplies, a defibrillator, a giant biohazard bin, and some Kleenexes. PROFESSOR MOREY coughs profusely till he spits up some bloody phlegm and begins addressing the class.) PROFESSOR MOREY: I trust all of you have already read the syllabus. (Cough) I hope so, because I don’t have time to go over that kind of shit. There’s a pretty good chance I might die before this course is over. (cough) (PROFESSOR MOREY points at his TA. The TA smiles and shrugs his shoulders.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
This is my TA, Phil, who I’ve been using as a nurse temporarily. This is partly the role you all will be assuming. Introduce yourself, Phil. PHIL: Hi, everyone. Don’t worry, I’m sure Professor Morey will be in good hands with you guys. Oh, don’t look so worried. I’ve learned so much more from taking care of him than I ever did in any medical class. Trust me, this will be a fun class. (PROFESSOR MOREY suddenly gestures for his spittoon which PHIL fetches. MOREY proceeds to vomit into it.) PROFESSOR MOREY: (Sniffs & spits) As you know, there’s a special requirement for passing my class. I’m dying. (Sniffs) I was misdiagnosed several times, by several different doctors, some of whom were my friends, those dumb bastards. (Clutches fists and yells hoarsely) Goddamn them! Because of them, my completely manageable disease developed into a terminal illness! (PROFESSOR MOREY begins coughing dreadfully till he passes out. PHIL splashes some water on MOREY. MOREY regains consciousness.) ASHLEY: Professor Morey! You shouldn’t be here. You’re way too sick to be teaching. PROFESSOR MOREY: No! I believe I’m in the position to teach the best disease pathology class ever taught. I’m sure the misdiagnosis rate for terminal and potentially terminal diseases is over 20%. (Begins hackling and continues to hackle through student dialogue.) ED: (Whispers to Mariah) This is why I’m going into homeopathy next year. Homeopathy never hurt anyone. That’s the only field where you can have a clear conscience. MARIAH: Quiet! I don’t want to miss this. PROFESOR MOREY: (Hackle fit ends in bloody puke fit.) Oh God… oh my… (Sniffs) Ahem. So, considering the misdiagnosis rate, I’ve made it so no student may pass this class without diagnosing my true disease. Anyone who misdiagnoses me will fail. You have until I die to figure it out. (Coughs) Although, you should be able to diagnose me today since Phil is going to give you all the necessary information. (Coughs) Phil, please… (PROFESSOR MOREY immediately slumps back in his wheelchair and nods off.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
PHIL: Yes, Professor Morey. I’m passing around some papers detailing Professor Morey’s condition (Passes papers around.) To summarize, Professor Morey was initially evaluated with symptoms of sneezing, coughing, sore throat, headache, wheezing, fatigue, dry eyes and mouth, and extreme itchiness as a result of hives. He saw another doctor and he confirmed the Professor’s suspicions of allergies. MARIAH: Well, what are his current symptoms, after the disease has progressed to this point? PHIL: His initial symptoms remain, with the addition of the kind of ungodly flatulence only a dying man is capable of, tonic seizures, nausea, muscle pains, a subconjunctival hemorrhage, vomiting blood and bile, ulcers, soul wrenching night terrors… PROFESSOR MOREY: (Screams while sleeping) GOD HELP ME! PLEASE GOD WHYYYY!? PHIL: …Foot pain, chapped lips, delusions, dysphagia on the account of swelling, dysarthria, thus the wheelchair, excessive yawning, hemolysis, and progressive heart failure. So, each day three students will monitor and attend to the Professor. Remember… under no circumstances are you allowed to call emergency services for Professor Morey. You will be flunked if you do this. You guys are solely responsible for him. PROFESSOR MOREY: (Screams while asleep) I CAN’T DO THIS! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! OH GOD! PHIL: …He made up this whole symbolic ritual about ordering you guys into three clusters and casting a die each day to select whose turn it is to care for him, but I’m not going to get into that. The three of you are one and two on the die. You guys are three and four. You guys are five and six. (Rolls die) Alright, you guys can come up. (ASHLEY, MARIAH, and ED are selected.) (PROFESSOR MOREY regains consciousness, and immediately gestures for his spittoon, which ASHLEY gets for him, and THE PROFESSOR proceeds to vomit.) PROFESSOR MOREY: Alright, I’m back. I’m ready. I’m feeling good. Phil, have you filled them in? PHIL: Yes, Professor. I have already selected today’s participates.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
PROFESSOR MOREY: Ah… so you three were the unlucky chosen. Let the ritual of the die remind us each day of our 1/3rd chance of being misdiagnosed in our time of desperate need. (Cough) Let it remind you of the possibility of suffering my fate. (Looks at his student’s blank faces.) Do you guys get it? Die? As in we’re gonna die. MARIAH: I thought the estimate was 20%. PROFESSOR MOREY: That’s a bullshit conservative estimate! (Sneezes) It’s more like a third. You’ll figure it out if you ever become a doctor. Oh, to think… to think… (PROFESSOR MOREY suddenly jerks back. His raisin husk of a body shakes sporadically. Foam bubbles around his mouth.) ASLHEY: He’s having a seizure! What do we do?! PHIL: His fate is now in your guys’ hands. Look through your handouts. If I forgot to mention it, you’ll all fail if he dies while in class. MARIAH: Well then, he’s not dying on my watch, so help me God! I didn’t come so far into medicine to fail now! (Begins ruffling through the papers.) ED: I can’t handle this! I’ve never worked with sick people! I thought you were supposed to be eased into this shit. MARIAH: It says he takes Buccal Midazolam as a rescue pill for seizures! (ED retrieves it from a bag on the podium.) Yes! Quickly! Put it in between his mouth. (ED pries open PROFESSOR MOREY’S rotten mouth and immediately runs to the Professor’s spittoon to vomit.) PHIL: Please bring your own container to vomit into if you need it. (ASHLEY picks up the pill and puts it into THE PROFESSOR’S mouth.) ASHLEY: Oh… It’s like a rusty half broken bear trap caught a javelina and it’s been dead in the sun for five days. ED: What’s happening now? His lips are swelling up! Oh, his entire face is swelling up like a balloon! MARIAH: Unbelievable! It says here that he has allergic reactions to all seizure medications! We need his EpiPen stat!
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
(ED takes out an EpiPen and stabs it directly into THE PROFESSOR’S in-caved chest, into his heart.) ASHLEY: Jesus Christ! Why would you do that?! You’re supposed to stab it in his thigh or anywhere but his heart! ED: Wha… but I remember in the movies… MARIAH: Idiot! Those are adrenaline needles! If you kill the professor and I fail because you, I’m gonna rip your thick head off! ED: All of those classes! I can’t think straight! I’m sorry! (PROFESSOR MOREY clasps his heart and a look of pain spreads over his face as he struggles to say a word.) ASHLEY: He’s probably having a heart attack! Check to see if there’s any Aspirin! (MARIAH retrieves some Aspirin, crushes it, and throws it into Professor Morey’s mouth. PROFESSOR MOREY’S condition worsens until he quits breathing.) Oh… He’s dying! We need to call the police! MARIAH: Over my dead body! (MARIAH rips THE PROFESSOR from his wheelchair and begins performing desperate CPR.) IF YOU’RE GONNA DIE, DO IT AFTER I DIAGNOSE YOU! C’MON, YOU BASTARD! STAY WITH ME! LIVE! (ED takes his seat back at his desk and begins looking at his hands despondently.) ED: I’ve killed a man… and I haven’t even gotten my medical license yet. ASHLEY: (ASHLEY looks up at the students feverishly taking notes sitting in the auditorium.) What are you doing? Somebody get help! (All of the students continue writing without acknowledging ASHLEY. One student points at a poster of the Hippocratic oath: “I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant.” ASHLEY takes out her phone.) MARIAH: (Speaking breathlessly while performing CPR) Ashley, remember our syllabus! Our agreement... ASHLEY: Hello?! Yes, we need an ambulance to Midwestern University, room 212. Our Professor is under cardiac arrest! (PROFESSOR MOREY springs back to life and jolts up to look at ASHLEY.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
PROFESSOR MOREY: You! You’ve just failed the test! Only lasted one day, huh? Get out of my class. (ASHLEY looks at MOREY in shock and, without a word, goes to retrieve her backpack and walks out the door in near tears.) MARIAH: Professor Morey? Are you alright? PROFESSOR MOREY: (cough) Never better. I’ve been doing this for about a year. MARIAH: Professor, your student over (Points at ED) there almost killed you. I believe he caused your heart problem just now. PROFESSOR MOREY: It’s alright. I’m not mad. That’s part of the learning process. ED: Sir… if you would’ve died, and I was responsible… MARIAH: I don’t mean to interrupt, but I think time is of the essence. Sir, I can’t imagine you living till next class. I’m going to try and make my diagnosis. PROFESSOR MOREY: You’ve seen my charts. I think you could be ready… Let’s hear it. Whisper it so the others don’t hear it. MARIAH: Is it… stage 12 super-duper cancer? (PROFESSOR MOREY’S eyes well up with tears as he looks at his students, then looks away.) PROFESSOR MOREY: No… but that disease was one of my many misdiagnoses. Get out my class, you fool. (MARIAH collects her things in shocked silence but turns to MOREY before leaving.) MARIAH: You can’t get away with this! I’m reporting this to The Dean! (Exits) (PROFESSOR MOREY looks at ED.) PROFESSOR MOREY: Well then, I guess you’re all that’s left for today’s group. Look, kid… I need you to clean out my spittoon. ED: Nope! I’m withdrawing! (ED storms out of the class.) PROFESSOR MOREY: Y’know, that means it’s up to you, Phil… OK, class dismissed.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
About the Author Gaige was born in West Valley, Utah and grew up in Magna, a suburb of Salt Lake City. He lived there until he was eleven, until his mother moved him and his sister to west side Phoenix. He’s done a few things that he’s proud of that he could say here, but generally he really doesn’t like talking about himself, unless it is to make a good impression on someone he likes. So, all that he would like to say here is that he supports small publications and any organizations that promote the recognition and visibility of
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | GAIGE JOHNSTON
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Saint Francis De Los Barrios By Allan Havis
SCENE ONE (Inside the deserted storefront on a desolate Tijuana street. Dawn, two weeks before Easter. FRANCIS is finishing a little cigar as he stands looking out a broken window at the night sky. Near him is his attractive friend, disciple and la médica joven – young medical intern/nurse.) FRANCIS: Needless cold steel Seven inches Maybe longer Under a cloudless sky For my naked people My starving people My lonely spirited people Streets are left dead The dying all have fled Needless cold steel Is everywhere And nowhere The city is broken I wear fishnet stockings My legs are shapely Do I prefer high heels? You fucker! I have to admit The black bra you bought Is a smartly perfect fit. And the soft fabric hat ¡No es caro gorras! The boy in me Is the girl in glee Kiss me in a dark alley Handsome prince
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Criminal princess Jesus is there too We whistle at him We whisper Jesus (pronounced Spanish style) Fuck me, Or kill me Just don’t, Ignore me, ¡Dios mio! SELINA: You joke too much. Francis, stop it. FRANCIS: Stop what? SELINA: You scare me. I’m a nurse. Para! Basta! FRANCIS: You think you’re a nurse Just because You look like a nurse? Or some doctor in training? I never saw your degree On any wall In any glass frame Never got your fancy resumé. Never got your business card. La médica joven? SELINA: It will be dawn in an hour. You’ve been awake all night FRANCIS: Full moon. SELINA: Do you howl at it Like an errant wolf? FRANCIS:
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
In the last thirteen months I am living a life Nocturnal. Sidewalks follow me. Forming silhouettes Of the Holy Mother. SELINA: Well, Francis my dear You really moved around From city to village to town Mexico City and Ecatepec Then for pure fun La diversion To little Puerto Vallarta To Guadalajara Now here in TJ Lovely Tijuana! Where life on the border Must seem out of order FRANCIS: For a border town Tijuana stands apart from Juárez And to San Diego, El Paso falls short. SELINA: You don’t like Texas, querido. FRANCIS: I think California is a little more progresivo, verdad? SELINA: Creo que sí. The Pope is coming. FRANCIS: The Pope you say? SELINA: Straight from the Vatican.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
FRANCIS: To Mexico? SELINA: Yes. FRANCIS: To see us? SELINA: To see you. FRANCIS/SELINA: His name is Francis. FRANCIS: ¡Que coincidencia que tenemos la misma nombre! SELINA: The Holy See received documentation Of all your miracles and other wonders. FRANCIS: I’m not a magician. SELINA: No one called you a magician. FRANCIS: I’m not a saint. SELINA: No one called you a saint. FRANCIS: I don’t raise the dead. SELINA: Thank God for that! Outside each encampment An oil stain takes shape Drawing the face and body
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Of the Virgin Mary It happens every 21 days Bleach and water Fail to scrub the street. Blood can be cleaned. But not this darker hue. Soaked into the ground. FRANCIS: Why this Pope? SELINA: He speaks Spanish, ¡querida mía! He’s a polyglot. The Vatican is impressed With our free health clinic And how you have cured HIV patients without drugs. FRANCIS: I’ve cured no one. The youth of Mexico Have cured themselves. END OF SCENE — SCENE TWO (The MAYOR and CHIEF OF POLICE enter) MAYOR: Buenos días, Francis. FRANCIS: Buenos dias, Mayor Sandoval. Too early for social call. Too late for murder. MAYOR: Funny, funny. You know the Chief of Police.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Brand new guy. Beautiful face. Sings like an angel. Look at his shoulders. The man is a mountain. He married my sister. I gave him this job last week. He can kill a gringo And shed a bucket of tears. He’ll last a year. Maybe two. FRANCIS: How did you find me, Mayor? MAYOR: I have spies. I have radar. I have GPS. Stamped inside your ass. FRANCIS: Que quieres? MAYOR: You have the Vatican calling You have riots at the border crossing You piss off the animals on our farms You can start a fucking earthquake Enough is enough, Francis. Bastante! SELINA: You’re afraid of all this Francis of Los Barrios. MAYOR: Look. I know you for years. When you were wearing mascara And giving $3 blowjobs Selling nickel bags Supplying coyotes Bastante bien Hay mucho dinero
FRANCIS: I’m off my knees.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
MAYOR: Time to put you back Right on your knees. Can’t waste a moment Thousands are coming to see you. Soon there will be millions. So much for Border Patrol. We have photos. We have videos None have been uploaded yet With progressive The Holy See Life’s carnival can’t delay The privilege of green money FRANCIS: You were seen last year On a street not far from here In your sleek German limousine Buying oral sex and a magazine MAYOR: (Laughing). I never buy such things, Francis. I get loving favors for free. CHIEF OF POLICE: We all know our city cancer Street killers in knee pants Live music for the dead dancer Bleeding red from any stance Cártel Tijuana Nueva Generación Replaced Cártel Arellano Félix Money and Drug Machination In pure structure, a double helix FRANCIS: Are you a Catholic? Are you a sinner? CHIEF OF POLICE: Is he talking to me? FRANCIS:
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
I’ve seen you at the brothel. In Zona Norte. CHIEF OF POLICE: Tijuana has no brothels. FRANCIS: Tijuana has no churches. CHIEF OF POLICE: Are you mocking me? FRANCIS: I think I once fucked you. Primer Callejon Coahuila. (CHIEF OF POLICE lunges at FRANCIS. SELINA and MAYOR physically intercede) SELINA: No fighting! MAYOR: Alejandro! (MAYOR grabs the CHIEF OF POLICE’s shirt collar) CHIEF OF POLICE: If I don’t knife him today, I will by tomorrow. MAYOR: Pichacorta! CHIEF OF POLICE: You think he’s holy. MAYOR: I do. I have proof. CHIEF OF POLICE: Yesterday he had lipstick. Today his lips are chapped He has a rash. From his chin to his ass Mother Teresa never worked Late at night on her fucking knees.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Never wore high heels and leather. MAYOR: The Pope is coming soon. To see Francis de los Barrios. You have to protect the Pope. Our city has to become Safer than Disneyland SELINA: What about the sewage? MAYOR: Our sewage or across the border? SELINA: You can’t have a tsunami of sewage When the Pope steps off the plane. FRANCIS: She’s right. Fix the sewage. MAYOR: That takes a year. FRANCIS: You have three days. CHIEF OF POLICE: Let me slice him. FRANCIS: There is a corner room for you. In Hell’s High Tower And you will crap in your pants. Each and every hour After you check in, Alejandro! When you call out to Satan Just the bald night porter comes With a bucket of butter Canglión de mantequilla You mix it up sweet A rich banquet complete
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Capitán de la policía loco And dine on shit al fresco. (FRANCIS produces flowers magically from the gutter) Flowers of pain Flores de dolor I see the orphan children So close to city jail Last week we tutor them A yellow bus ran past the guard rail The driver was shot. Qué lástima (A FATHER carries his 12-year-old BOY who was just shot) FATHER: Mi Hijo! Mi hijo! Fue abatido por la policía O recibió un disparo por la banda El podría morir (My son was shot by the police or shot by a gang. He could die) (SELINA approaches the man and child. The CHIEF OF POLICE, his hand on FRANCIS, tries to block FRANCIS from approaching the FATHER) SELINA: Usted quiere Francis. (The FATHER nods yes and cries) FRANCIS: The boy has three bullets Lodged just above his third rib MAYOR: How do you know? FRANCIS: Your hand… (The CHIEF OF POLICE slowly drops his grip along FRANCIS’ arm)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
SELINA: He’s nearly dead, Francis. FRANCIS: He’ll live. (FRANCIS slowly steps to the FATHER and BOY. He puts on hand over the BOY’s forehead and the other hand on the wound. The BOY cries aloud and FRANCIS lifts the BOY to his feet. The BOY has found new strength and clutches at his chest wound. FRANCIS pulls his hand away from the boy’s chest. FRANCIS is now in great agony. The three bullets are now lodged inside his hand and SELINA sees that FRANCIS needs a bandage immediately to stop the bleeding) SELINA: Oh my God! Francis! (SELINA rips off her scarf and wraps it around the hand of FRANCIS) FRANCIS: The boy will live. He needs stitches now Don’t waste time. Mayor Mayor Put him inside your limousine. (FRANCIS steps slowly to a resting place, a window seat or some such structure) MAYOR: Listen Francis When the Pope arrives You cannot be in the gutter We think it is best That we take you past the shore On a magnificent yacht Security is job number one. FRANCIS: The cartels have fast boats. MAYOR: Yes, that’s true.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
FRANCIS: What does the Vatican want? MAYOR: The Vatican says The Pope likes whale watching. SELINA: You motherfucker— FRANCIS: The Mayor likes a good joke. MAYOR: I’m getting more death threats than you. FRANCIS: ¿Verdad? MAYOR: And I got twenty body guards You got twenty thousand angels FRANCIS: I will give you Half of my angels If you free the innocent Inside La Mesa State Penitentiary Of the 3000 La Mesa residentes 300 are wives and children of prisoners Liberación de los presos inocente No one really gives a fuck If they all hang Like wet laundry MAYOR: I’ll shake on it, Francis. A man of my word But I can’t see when Your angels cross to my side Since they prefer mass suicide
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
FRANCIS: Then let’s shake. Por favor, amigo mio (FRANCIS extends his hand without the blood wounds. The MAYOR hesitates. Lights fade) END OF SCENE — SCENE THREE (A 20 foot fishing boat one mile from the coast of Mexico. On the boat is POPE FRANCIS, the ARCHBISHOP of Tegucigalpa Honduras, FRANCIS, SELINA, and the boat captain) ARCHBISHOP: Holy Father, we have 15 minutes left. POPE FRANCIS: Throw away your watch, my son. ARCHBISHOP: I promised the Cardinals. POPE FRANCIS: I promised The Holy Virgin. ARCHBISHOP: He doesn’t talk at all. POPE FRANCIS: She talks for him. ARCHBISHOP: The Mexican nurse? POPE FRANCIS: You don’t like Mexicans Because… because You come from Honduras Selina has sanctity She protects him He is vulnerable
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
He is Holy, this I know. The ocean light Reveals the silhouette The Holy Mother Follows his shadow It brings tears to me. (SELINA helps FRANCIS walk up from the hull, to join the POPE. FRANCIS is frail) ARCHBISHOP: The twelve decoy boats Are going back to the harbor. We pledged to return Before they do. POPE FRANCIS: One may ask What can I do? As collector of paper, Old clothes or used metal, A recycler. What can I do Before all these problems, If I barely make enough money to eat? Am I a thief? Amor et melle et Felle est fecundissimus ARCHBISHOP (Translating from the Latin): Love is rich with both honey and venom FRANCIS: Auribus teneo lupum ARCHBISHOP (Translating from the Latin): I hold a wolf by the ears POPE FRANCIS (Gently laughing): The Holy Mother protects you, my friend. You can let go of the wolf.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
FRANCIS: The wolf is not Mexico, Holy Father. I am no saint, Your Excellency. Sins surround me. Stain the earth and sea. The clouds are heavy. My veins clogged with opiates. The wolf is me, your Holiness. My carcass on a million mattresses What color am I? POPE FRANCIS: Today you are blue Like the Pacific waters. I smell salt in the air. It is good. When we hit shore. You walk behind me. There will be cameras. I’ll turn to you. Look for my ring. This hand. A weighty palm. Kiss the ring. Not for my vanity, Francis. We both bear the name. Kiss the ring. I will bless thee And in turn Our world will sense A genuine day of calm. This journey was never A tour of the criminal border Never think it so. The Catholic World Looks for Saints In museums and cathedrals Not me, not now. Jesus came from revolution
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
There is a new revolution Under your unsteady feet Francis de los Barrios Audi, vide, tace ARCHBISHOP (Translating into English): Hear, see, be silent. FRANCIS: Oh Holy Father In my dreams In my darkest dreams Our peaceful lands vanish As the thin air turns ashen The vast green seas roil Che Guevara bath oil Ancient Venice sinks New improved Cuba stinks Fidel Castro dies Mother Teresa flies The Galápagos submerge When I awake The veins in my arm Bulge purple and blue The sound of orgasms And screaming children Titan missiles fired Blast landmines rewired Locust from clouds Dropping softly like snow POPE FRANCIS: I see your tears. FRANCIS: Delusional? POPE FRANCIS: The Virgin Mother’s hand Rises just above your left shoulder.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
FRANCIS: Truly? POPE FRANCIS: My son, yes. You are not delusional. END OF SCENE — SCENE FOUR (The Tijuana Lighthouse – Playas de Tijuana – a few feet from the U.S./Mexico border. The building stands at 105 ft., and the while light can be seen every 6 seconds for 22 miles. Sounds of car wheels squealing, cars crashing. FRANCIS addresses a large assembled crowd) FRANCIS: Your food, I think Taken from the trash Makes TJ life stink You die in a bus crash Dios, you pay to play Happens every day Que sucede todos los días Your shitty medicine too Expired 5 years on the shelf No mystery here, not a clue It’s time to take care of yourself (FRANCIS steps down from the lighthouse platform, crowd loudly cheers and makes noise) The Pope loves you. He has a big heart. You know this. Christ is in him. The Pope fights for you. Today. In Mexico. Now. Hoy. En Mexico. Ahora. You must fight for yourself. The Pope whispers To me so I can Shout to you.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
Wake up! Tell your friends, family March to the border This Sunday at noon. One million Mexicans. A living sea of souls. Pope Francis will see us On camera. On television. On his iPhone. The Drug Cartel Can go to hell. La Migra And The White House… Los Estados Unidos El hombre malo El Presidente El Impostor Grande Bad Hombre MAN IN THE CROWD: Santo Francis! ¡Escucha escucha! ¡Una plaga de Abejas y avispas! ¡Desciende en la guardia de fronteras! WOMAN IN THE CROWD: Francis! A plague of hornets and bees! Attacking the border guards! Millions and millions of killer wasps! MAN IN THE CROWD: ¡Una señal del cielo! WOMAN IN THE CROWD: A sign from Heaven! The hornets are only killing The armed police guards. The people are crossing Without harm. MAN IN THE CROWD: ¡El ruido es increíble!
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
WOMAN IN THE CROWD: The sound is unbelievable! FRANCIS: All land will be Holy You can’t buy land God gives you clean soil In praise of work and toil Rich soil from earth No wall between Death and birth (FRANCIS removes his robe, letting it drop to the ground) Sing with me, people. Loud enough for angels to hear. Toda la tierra espera al Salvador All earth is waiting to see the Promised One, And open furrows await the seed of God. All the world, bound and struggling, Seeks true liberty, it cries out for justice And searches for the truth. Thus says the Prophet to Israel: A virgin mother will bear Emanuel, One whose Name is, God With Us. Our Savior shall be through whom Hope will blossom once more in our hearts. Mountains and valleys will have to be made plain. Open new highways for our God. Who now comes closer for all to see. Open the doorways wide as can be. In lowly manger the Promised One appeared. We feel his presence on earth today. For Christ lives in us, and is with us now And through eternity. (Sounds of rifle shots. FRANCIS falls to his knees) END OF PLAY
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | ALLAN HAVIS
About the Author Allan Havis has had his plays produced at theaters across the country and in Europe. He has had works commissioned by institutions such as England's Chichester Festival, Sundance, and San Diego Rep. Havis has written nineteen full-length plays, is the author of two novels, a cult films book, and was editor for three volumes of political plays. He is the recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Kennedy Center/American Express, CBS, HBO, National Endowment for the Arts Awards, San Diego Theatre Critics Circle 2003 Outstanding New Play for “Nuevo California�(co-author Bernardo Solano). He served as Marshall College provost at UC San Diego from 2006-2016 and is Chair of Department of Theatre & Dance at UC San Diego.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMANDA BECK
Something About Endings by Amanda Beck
Characters: Molly: early 30s Richard: early 40s Setting: It's about 7:30 in the morning and MOLLY is in the kitchen frying eggs and bacon. The sun is shining, birds are singing - it's a nice day. (MOLLY, early 30s, is smiling as she multi-tasks in the kitchen. She is frying eggs and bacon on the stove and starting the coffee pot. She sets two mugs, a sugar jar and creamer on the table as her husband comes down the stairs.) MOLLY: Good morning, Richard. Did you sleep well? (RICHARD, early 40s, is MOLLY’S husband of ten years. He walks into the kitchen, eyes wide with surprise to see his wife awake and productive at this hour. He's dressed as if he's going in to work.) RICHARD: I did. Took a couple of your sedatives. Best night's sleep I've had in months. (He's shocked to see a big smile on her face.) Uh, Molly… (She turns her head in his direction, still smiling.) MOLLY: Yes? RICHARD: (with a frown on his face) You're, um... cheerful this morning. MOLLY: Is that a bad thing? RICHARD: No… not at all. (Pause) When was the last time you took your medication? MOLLY: Oh, a few days ago, I guess. Why do you ask? RICHARD: You’re just...different, that's all. MOLLY: I made some breakfast for you. Will three eggs be enough?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMANDA BECK
RICHARD: Sure. MOLLY: Great! The coffee will be ready in just a minute. (She smiles at him as he plays on his phone.) It's been a long time since we've had breakfast together. RICHARD: (Still on his phone, thumbs working furiously.) It's been a long time since you've cooked anything. MOLLY: Are you going in to work this morning? RICHARD: Yeah. MOLLY: You haven't taken a Saturday off in two years. Can't you just(RICHARD’S phone rings. MOLLY turns around to get the eggs off the stove while RICHARD answers the call.) RICHARD: Hey…Yeah, I'm going to be a little late this morning... (His tone gets a bit softer.) I told you, I can't...But...She's making breakfast...Yeah, I know...Okay, in a bit…Bye-bye. (RICHARD sets the phone down as MOLLY brings him a plate of eggs and bacon.) RICHARD: Where’s my coffee? MOLLY: (She turns and goes to the coffee pot.) Getting it right now, darling. (She brings the coffee to the table and fills up his mug, then her own, and sits down. RICHARD puts cream and sugar into his.) RICHARD: Why did you stop taking the medication, Molly? MOLLY: It was supposed to make me happier and, well, I guess it finally did! RICHARD: I think you still need it. MOLLY: I just wanted to enjoy this one breakfast with you. (She smiles at him from across the table) RICHARD: (sips his coffee) Fine.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMANDA BECK
MOLLY: How’s the coffee, Richard? I made it a little strong, just how you like it. RICHARD: Yeah, it's not bad. Probably the best pot of coffee you've ever made. (RICHARD starts eating his eggs and bacon between sips of coffee while MOLLY sits back in her chair, watching him. He doesn't seem to notice or care. She holds her mug of coffee in her hands, enjoying its warmth. As he's almost finished, he looks up at her, surprised she is still there.) RICHARD: (he glares at her, annoyed) You sure you're feeling okay? MOLLY: I am, Richard. I've never felt better! It's a beautiful day! Would you like me to refill your cup? (He rolls his eyes and pushes the mug forward a little. She gets up and fills it.) RICHARD: (he scoffs at her) Never felt better? Really? I can't get a guy out here for another week to fix that pool that I paid eighteen thousand for. My brand-new Range Rover is making noises, but I can't get that into the shop until Monday. And tomorrow I have to play golf with Jim and that little shit, Brad, who wants to audit my accounting department. If he does that, I'll lose my job! We'll lose everything! But I'm glad you're feeling good, Molly! MOLLY: I don't know why you paid so much for a pool. The beach is just a quarter mile down the street. (RICHARD’S irritation is evident.) RICHARD: You really ought to take your medicine. If you're having an episode, it will take weeks to get an appointment with your doctor. (He grabs the mug, leans back in his chair and drinks.) MOLLY: It's a great day, Richard. How were those eggs? RICHARD: You really have lost it this time. (Takes another sip.) You gonna drink that coffee? MOLLY: It’s a little too strong for me, I think.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMANDA BECK
(He continues drinking and picks up his phone again, texting.) MOLLY: The Wilson's left for vacation a few hours ago. (She notices that he isn't even listening to her, but she continues anyway.) MOLLY (CONT’D): I went over there to see them off. They've asked me to watch the dog while they're gone. (Her expression changes, she knows he is ignoring her.) Are you texting Cindy? (RICHARD looks up, almost choking on his coffee.) RICHARD: What? MOLLY: Oh, Richard. I know about Cindy. RICHARD: Cindy…who? MOLLY: (laughing) She told me. At the Christmas party. Two years ago. RICHARD: What? Molly, you can't believeMOLLY: I’m not upset, darling. (She smiles again.) The way I see it, she was doing me a favor. Our marriage died years ago. (RICHARD scowls at her, gripping his coffee mug tighter.) RICHARD: You always drink too much at those parties. Everyone sees it. Your mind is playing tricks. It's time for you to take your pills. MOLLY: One glass of wine doesn't make me drunk, and I'm done with the meds. They don’t do anything for me. RICHARD: (angry) What? MOLLY: I’ve decided that I'm leaving. (He smiles a smug, amused smile.) RICHARD: Leaving me, huh? (laughs a little) You need the medication, Molly. You can't be serious. Where do you plan to go?
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMANDA BECK
MOLLY: First, I'm going to borrow the Wilson's new Carrera and go to the beach. I’ll figure it all out while I’m there. Then I’ll come back, pick up a few things, and go to the airport. Anywhere but here with you. (She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a set of keys, and sets them on the table. RICHARD looks at her and realizes that she is, in fact, serious. His face becomes flushed, and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Sweat appears on his forehead and he is on the verge of anger. MOLLY maintains a smile, but she stands her ground.) RICHARD: And what about me? You're just gonna leave me here? MOLLY: Well, yes. RICHARD: Do ten years of marriage mean nothing to you? MOLLY: More than it meant to you. (RICHARD takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself, but he is starting to look ill.) RICHARD: Don’t leave me here, Molly. Please. You're my wife and I love you. Remember, at our weddingMOLLY: Ugh. I wish I couldn't remember. RICHARD: Our vows. Together until death. (She looks at her watch, as if to ask it a question, and frowns.) MOLLY: You’re right. And it's taking longer than I expected. I've done something wrong. I'm sorry, darling. I've failed. RICHARD: Then let's try again. This could be a new beginning for us. You can’t just leave. (RICHARD tries to set his mug down, but it spills on the table. His face is red, almost purple.) MOLLY: Here, let me clean that up for you. (She doesn't move from her chair and watches him. RICHARD extends an arm across the table, eyes bulging as he starts coughing and choking.)
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
SCRIPTS | AMANDA BECK
RICHARD: (gasping for breath, hugging his sides) Molly... (His condition continues to worsen as MOLLY remains in her chair, watching him. Finally, he takes one deep breath, cries in pain, and falls forward, his face making a loud thud on the table. RICHARD is dead.) MOLLY: (almost in disbelief) It worked... (She stands, picks the keys up off the table, and turns to walk away, taking a final look over her shoulder.) MOLLY (CONT’D): Go to hell, Richard. (She walks through the front door, leaving it open, and makes her way to the house across the street.)
About the Author Amanda Beck graduated Magna Cum Laude from ASU in 2018 with a writing certificate. Aside from scripts, Amanda also dabbles in writing fiction, memoirs, and the occasional poem. “Something About Endings” was her very first script and first published work. In addition to creative writing, Amanda is also a grant coordinator for an educational nonprofit organization in Mesa, Arizona.
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
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Erik Minter
Manana Tsilikishvili
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John Bayalis
Elise Mendelle
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Kate Goltseva
Sulena Alvarado
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Linda D’Elia
Richard Lussier
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Dan Tocher
Pascal Wagner
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Jefferson Muncy
Dale A. Dahlberg III
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Matt Biondo
SenaTuesday
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Anayansi Jones
Jeff Foster
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Amar
Chanler Araiza
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Christine Guenard
Lauren O’Donnell
Day’s End by Linda D’elia (See Artwork for full Image)
ARTWORK | ERIK MINTER
Erik Minter
KEWL-AID | mixed media on aluminum
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ERIK MINTER
CYPHERFUNK | mixed media on aluminum
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ERIK MINTER
RAD-E-ATION | mixed media on aluminum
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ERIK MINTER
CONT:ANIMATE | mixed media on aluminum
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ERIK MINTER
Detail – FIDG-IT-SPINNER | mixed media on aluminum
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ERIK MINTER
TROLLLurker | mixed media on aluminum
Erik Minter currently resides in New Jersey. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute. After graduating, he went on a variety of creative paths, both in the commercial design space as well as working for many established visual artists. During this period, he won awards for his design works. His own work has been featured in both boutique hotels and group gallery shows. Erik’s work entertains capturing an emotion through an experience, perhaps one you once had or dreamt. There always seems to be a kind of subtle figuration within his fluid abstraction, whereby in his process, the painterly outcomes create visual surprises. It’s kind of a choose-your-own-adventure scenario. Instagram – @erik.minter
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JOHN BAYALIS
John Bayalis
26th Ave. Rain | watercolor
Morning Fog | watercolor CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JOHN BAYALIS
Foiled | watercolor
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JOHN BAYALIS
Havana Dusk | watercolor
Havana Shop | watercolor CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JOHN BAYALIS
La Pizza del Born | watercolor
John Bayalis showed an interest in art early on being educated in the Northeastern U.S. He was influenced by the works of Hopper and Wyeth and realism became the primary importance for him. Mr. Bayalis earned a BFA degree in art and an MFA degree in painting at the University of Delaware and taught at levels from elementary school through college. He pursued an active studio and exhibition schedule throughout his career, being affiliated with fine art galleries throughout the United States including The Leslie Levy Gallery in Scottsdale, Az. and the ACA gallery in New York City. He has also participated in juried exhibitions throughout the world. Bayalis resides in St. Petersburg, Florida with his wife Margaret, a painter as well. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and has traveled in Ireland, England and France conducting painting workshops and working on location. Among his honors are an award of a DSAC individual artist’s fellowship grant and selection for The Watercolor Page in AMERICAN ARTIST magazine where his work graced the cover. Recently he was featured in Watercolor Artist magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. His works are included in private and corporate collections throughout the United States. CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | KATE GOLTSEVA
Kate Goltseva
Nocturnal Animals | oil CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | KATE GOLTSEVA
Nocturnal Limbo | oil
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | KATE GOLTSEVA
Nocturnal Limbo | oil
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | KATE GOLTSEVA
Golden Moon | oil
Kate Goltseva was born in 1989, Kiev, Ukraine. She studied at the National Academy of Arts and Architecture, Kiev and then in SVA, New York, USA. Kate Goltseva is an interdisciplinary artist who works with physicality of human and nature visual appearance and perception, using techniques based on randomization of patterns, unpredictability and uniqueness. Her art is inspired by transpersonal psychology, anthropology, human cognitive/perceptive systems, fragmented memories and non-verbal communication. Visualizing her memories of people and other living creatures through organization of smallest patterns into solid meaningful systems, she investigates the emotional laws of sensual perception. The techniques Kate is using are based on marbling, where each tiny randomly generated pattern is unpredictable and unique. This logically doubles her idea of how we tend to organize the visual fragments of the world into holistic systems, looking for familiar patterns in everything around. “My work is an anthropological research of a sort” - says Kate - “We never know exactly what guides our behavior and emotions. Sometimes our belief in what we see is based around stereotypical impressions. The objective vision, when we see the nuances with the help of intuition, is what actually makes us human”. CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | LINDA D’ELIA
Linda D’Elia
Change of Direction | acrylic CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | LINDA D’ELIA
Roots of the Papyrus | oil
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | LINDA D’ELIA
Day’s End | acrylic
CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | LINDA D’ELIA
Flying North | acrylic
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | LINDA D’ELIA
Full Bloom | acrylic
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | LINDA D’ELIA
Spring Symphony | acrylic
Linda D’Elia paints in her studio in North Charleston, SC, where she has lived for 5 years. She has studied painting at the Scottsdale (AZ) Artist’s School, the Austin (TX) Museum of Art School, and The Art Center of Williamson County (TX). Her work is in collections in AZ, TX, FL, NY, MA and CT. Her work has been exhibited in TX and SC. As a children’s portrait artist for many years, Linda has sought new ways to express herself artistically through abstract work. Nature presents color and form as a starting point for interpretation. Clouds, weather, land formations, water and plants provide starting points for subjects. Tension between light and dark, chaos and calm, culminates in work to engage her viewer. Her tools, brushes, palette knives and scrapers, help present work that is varied in texture and movement.
To view her work, go to www.lindadelia.com. CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | DAN TOCHER
Dan Tocher
The Writer | digital
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | DAN TOCHER
The Printmaker | digital
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | DAN TOCHER
Only God Knows | digital
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | DAN TOCHER
Irises in Vase : Oil
Back to Stranger | digital
Dan Tocher is best known for his abstract paintings. His works can be seen from many different viewpoints. Each of his works has its own inner mythological system. Yet still he considers every painting a mirror, but not a mirror reflecting the viewers face, but reflecting the individuals soul. Much of his work includes abstract entities he refers to as "strangers." He dreams his strangers also struggle for meaning in our reality, and hope to find their answers in our abstraction. Dan has over twelve years experience in digital painting on computers. He's now moved to painting on an Android tablet. He believes by limiting his digital toolbox he's challenged himself into a greater creativity to overcome its limitations.
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JEFFERSON MUNCY
Jefferson Muncy
Visions | oil CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JEFFERSON MUNCY
Void | oil
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JEFFERSON MUNCY
La Llorona | graphite and oil
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JEFFERSON MUNCY
Sematary | graphite and oil
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JEFFERSON MUNCY
IT | graphite and oil
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | JEFFERSON MUNCY
Coronation | oil
Jefferson Muncy is an illustrator and gallery artist specializing in dark fantasy and surrealism. After earning his BFA in Fine Art, from Memphis College of Art in 2014, he moved back to Dallas where he currently works. He creates visuals confronting our view of the unknown, exercising confrontation with our fear of uncertainty.
Since moving back to Dallas, Jefferson has been working as Graphic Designer while perusing illustration. He’s created album covers and book covers for independent authors. His primary goal is illustrating a book cover for Stephen King, so he's currently working on a series of horrorinspired illustrations to help him reach this goal.
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | MATT BIONDO
Matt Biondo
Medicine | oil and enamel
Royal | oil and enamel CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | MATT BIONDO
Wild Thing | acrylic and mixed media
Borrachita | acrylic
As a Phoenix transplant, Matt Biondo's practice has come to draw upon a stream of consciousness and nostalgia for the starkly childlike expressiveness of color. Through painting and drawing, Biondo unfurls an idiosyncratic amalgamation of explorative studies of both the emotional and cerebral. Art historical references lay the foundation for the development of a body of work that is, in essence, highly autobiographical. In these selected works, Pollock and Bacon frame the visual elements that inform the confluence of the autodidactic and original work.
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ANAYANSI JONES
Anayansi Jones
Dripping Vase | ceramic
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ANAYANSI JONES
Beautiful Decay | ceramic
Fermentation | ceramic
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ARTWORK | ANAYANSI JONES
Self-refraction | acrylic
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | ANAYANSI JONES
Self-image | acrylic
Amanda, known as Anayansi Jones, is a graduate of University of Central Florida, obtaining her degree in Studio Arts. Anayansi has always had an affinity for the arts, and during her last year of college, she picked up ceramics and continues to create abstract ceramics along with her paintings. As an artist, she believes it's important to experiment and try new mediums, and to make a copious amount of art. Through many failures, you can create something unexpectedly beautiful and that's what she strives for. She currently resides in Orlando, Florida and participates in many local art exhibitions as well as curates them. Her long-term goal is to continue doing art exhibitions and break into the regional, national, and international art scene. She wants to work on many art projects such as public art sculptures, murals, interactive art installations, and whatever other opportunities come her way. Learn more about Anayansi on her website: https://anayansiartworks.com/ and follow her on Instagram for weekly updates @Anayansi_artworks CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | AMAR
Amar
Girl With the Pink Hat | photography
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SPRING 2019
ARTWORK | AMAR
The Adventure Begins | photography
Amar Al-Jabiri is currently a junior, at the ASU West campus, studying Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance. His journey into the art world all started when he was born. Even as a newborn baby Amar managed to successfully cry in the key of E-major (his favorite key to sing in ‘til this day), shoot a documentary on what it was like to be a fetus (capturing never-before-seen footage), and retiring by the age of two. Amar’s hobbies consist of drawing (typically specializing in cartoons), shooting films with his friends, composing music, acting, going out on photoshoots, editing photos + videos, and shout-complaining about minor things that won’t affect him later on in life but are extremely irritable to him at this current moment in time. Amar is also the president of the Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance Club and has goals to one day own his own production studio. His Instagram is: @slynematic, and it’s open for everyone to see. Because that’s exactly what Amar wants. For people to look at him… And give him attention. All the time. Because that’s what he likes.
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ARTWORK | CHRISTINE GUENARD
Christine Guenard
Node | collagraph plate and mixed media print
LV-426 | collagraph plate and print CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | CHRISTINE GUENARD
Don’t Forget the Dark | collagraph plate and mixed media print
Christine Guenard is best known for her biomorphic collagraph plates and prints created from materials such as cardboard, trash, found objects, paint, and intaglio printmaking techniques. A recent graduate of the University of Central Arkansas with a BA in Art Education, Christine desires to share her joy for artistic creation not only through her art, but also through teaching. She is a member of the Arkansas Society of Printmakers and currently lives in Cabot, Arkansas with her two daughters. “I am fascinated with cyclical designs and flowing organic shapes. With each work, I am directed by the explorative process of mark making and the employment of the unconscious. My process is influenced greatly by the grattage method created by early surrealist Max Ernst. Regardless of the type of media I employ, my work flows and develops mark by mark, where one mark determines the next. My media of choice is printmaking, specifically collagraphs created by the manipulation of matboard, trash, found objects, and the addition of a variety of acrylic paint and varnishes, the accidental texture created guiding the composition and outcome of the work.”
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ARTWORK | MANANA TSILIKISHVILI
Manana Tsilikishvili
Sunny Day in the Beach | oil
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ARTWORK | MANANA TSILIKISHVILI
Dotty | oil
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ARTWORK | MANANA TSILIKISHVILI
The Garden of Earthly Delights | spray, enamel, oil
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ARTWORK | MANANA TSILIKISHVILI
Girl on Cell | charcoal, oil
Manana was born in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia, a satellite state of the USSR. When she was a young girl, she was fortunate enough to have a teacher who recognized her talent and encouraged her to express herself in line, form and color. In order to support herself during young adulthood, she enrolled in the Light Industry Technical College and obtained a degree in textile manufacturing. She used the skills she acquired in college to open a fashion boutique. Her ability to use color and form in design made the shop successful. In 1999, she came to the United States and was inspired by the many possibilities for art in the country. She rediscovered her love of fine art. She found herself surrounded by a free artistic environment, new materials, rich literature, as well as incredible libraries and museums. Using these new resources, she continued to teach herself new techniques. Her work now possesses a spirit of freedom expressed in a wonderful world of lines, form, colors and symbolism textured by oils and other mixed media. Each piece of art is an honest and pure reflection of various periods of her life. Her paintings capture emotions from her heart and soul. Finally, she depicts her experiences of life with intensity and drama. She has exhibited her work in locations around the tri-state area including Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey. She is constantly searching for new opportunities for collaboration with other artists, gaining new perspectives and engaging with new audiences. CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | ELISE MENDELLE
Elise Mendelle
Strength | oil
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ARTWORK | ELISE MENDELLE
The Weight of the World | oil
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ARTWORK | ELISE MENDELLE
A Sleight of Hand | oil
I’m Here | oil
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ARTWORK | ELISE MENDELLE
Onwards and Upwards | oil
Art for Elise is about capturing a moment in time and expanding that moment; by looking beyond the painting, she tries to capture a thought, feeling or emotion so the viewer can explore and anticipate what comes next. Through recent commissions, she has allowed people to see their family in a different way through enhancing a chosen memory while still retaining it in pure and creative form. She is continuously progressing and achieving more and more with her art. She has recently attempted a new style of portraits, with a looser and more experimental, expressive nature. She uses oils on canvas; she loves the way the paints blend into each other and she is working on developing her brush strokes and conveying a lot on the canvas with less paint. She is also trying different colored backgrounds to make an impact on the overall painting. CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | SULENA ALVARADO
Sulena Alvarado
[Untitled] | watercolor, acrylic, flowers
[Untitled] | watercolor and acrylic CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | SULENA ALVARADO
Irises in Vase : Oil
[Untitled] | watercolor and acrylic
Sulena Alvarado is 20 years old and getting her Bachelors Degree in Primary and Special Education. From a very young age, she was drawn to Art and its various forms like dancing, singing, and painting/drawing. They each hold their own beauty but painting is by far her favorite. She is one of three children and a born and raised Mexican. There has always been a stigma against skulls and death. She wanted to portray it in a different manner. She wanted to show the beauty in the darkness by surrounding it with flowers, light, and color. Death isn’t the end but the beginning, and skulls are just our anatomy and they shouldn’t be seen negatively. In fact, she thinks it’s beautiful because underneath we are all the same no matter the color of our skin or the wealth in our pockets; we are all bones underneath.
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ARTWORK | RICHARD LUSSIER
Richard Lussier
Huh? | acrylic
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ARTWORK | RICHARD LUSSIER
Sunset in Paradise | acrylic
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ARTWORK | RICHARD LUSSIER
One Extra | acrylic
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ARTWORK | RICHARD LUSSIER
Irises in Vase : Oil
Try Again Later | found object junk sculpture
Richard Lussier is a twenty-eight year old artist from Western Massachusetts. He mainly paints in acrylic, but has done pieces in watercolor. He does many different art styles: Abstract, Pop, De Stijl, Minimalism, Mixed Media and others. He also does junk art wire sculptures with junk items he finds around his hometown. Richard is also a vegan and has been one for four years, but was a vegetarian since he was twenty. His musical tastes are rock n' roll, soul, punk and some alternative bands. He plays guitar, bass and ukulele. He's a big movie fan, especially horror films and is also a fan of anime. Also, he's an avid reader of almost all genres of books and has attempted to write his own stuff as well. You can see all his artwork on Instagram – @r.j.l.paintings.
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ARTWORK | PASCAL WAGNER
Pascal Wagner
Freedom | digital CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | PASCAL WAGNER
Soul | digital
Exploded Soul | digital
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ARTWORK | PASCAL WAGNER
[Untitled] | digital
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ARTWORK | PASCAL WAGNER
Thunderstorm | digital
Pascal Wagner or P.M. Wagner is a 20-year-old artist from Germany. He started creating art when he was about 18 years old. Shortly after he got Photoshop as a present, he fell in love with the program. He went from creating amateur fan pictures for Facebook fan pages of the TV series The Walking Dead to creating high resolution and very detailed artworks. After 2 years of Photoshop, he could create a lot of things, but he's still learning new things every day. He is currently doing a training as a media designer which he has wanted to do since he was 12, so creativity determines his life.
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ARTWORK | DALE A. DAHLBERG III
Dale A. Dahlberg III
Blue Monte Carlo | acrylic
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ARTWORK | DALE A. DAHLBERG III
Pink Sofa | acrylic
Black No. 1 | acrylic
Dale A. Dahlberg III lives and works in a suburb of Minneapolis, MN, after living in Mesa, AZ for ten years. He started his art career as a portrait photographer before learning blacksmithing and studying the string bass. He began painting in earnest using acrylics in 2016, starting with a focus on abstract art before shifting to figurative work. One of his paintings has been on the cover of a record by Nevada experimental musician Aloysius Scrimshaw. Dahlberg has also exhibited his work in Minneapolis. His art is in several private collections across the United States, and one of his most recent paintings was acquired by a collector in Ireland. More of his work can be seen on his website, daledahlberg.com.
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ARTWORK | SENATUESDAY
SenaTuesday
Mixed Desire | acrylic and spray
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ARTWORK | SENATUESDAY
Between Hard Place | acrylic and spray
Play Post Office | acrylic
Kwabena Sena Alexander, known as SenaTuesday, was born and raised in the Votla Region but lives in Accra/Ghana. He is a self-employed full-time contemporary, Neo expressionism artist. He believes that he has great ideas that can change the world through his art. His heart is open to new possibilities, new adventures, and meeting new people. He leads an active lifestyle. This is a big world and he loves adventures. He’s ready to achieve his goals and take his art to a new level.
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ARTWORK | JEFF FOSTER
Jeff Foster
Blue Ascent | photography/ digital paint
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ARTWORK | JEFF FOSTER
Strong Delusion | photography/ digital paint
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ARTWORK | JEFF FOSTER
Propaganda | photography/ digital paint
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ARTWORK | JEFF FOSTER
Soft Portrait | photography/ digital paint
Jeff is a native of northwest Missouri, growing up primarily in St. Joseph and then moving to Maryville. He mixes digital painting and photography in a series of concrete and fluid narratives, with a wide family influence of television, radio and music that have shaped his vision as an artist. He is equally influenced by the old masters as well as today’s technology. Jeff also does found object sculpture as an extension of the digital worlds that define his work. He is self-taught and began in art with playing drums and writing poetry, having had some success as a poet with two books published. Having come to all of these more or less individually, he now places these influences together in his creative world. Coming to photography and digital painting late in life (2000), the computer and the camera opened up the pictures he had in his mind where before only words had been the outlet. Starting with disposable and then 110 and 35 MM cameras and then progressing to digital and getting his first computer and software, he began to experiment and explore. He also began to study other photographers, painters and sculptures, all genres, and is an avid art book collector. And as it is with his music and poetry, a hard to pin down primary discipline, so it is with his art, a combination of many themes. www.jeffryfosterart.com www.instagram.com/jeffosterart CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | CHANLER ARAIZA
Chanler Araiza
I Can’t Give What I Don’t Have | acrylic CANYON VOICES
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ARTWORK | CHANLER ARAIZA
Thoughts | mixed media
Arizona born and raised artist Chanler Araiza creates unique pieces of art that transcend social norms into loving awareness. Mother Earth’s influence of impermanence is interpreted through Araiza's use of opposites in color, shape, depth, and pattern to emulate the unbalance in all relationships at the moment. Araiza hopes that with her art, the viewer will be compassionate to acknowledge the contrary images in order to be in the presence of harmony. Araiza is a dynamic, biophilic artist and an altruistic female. In each piece of work, she shows maintaining a path of curiosity to discover new techniques, while expressing a lionhearted attitude. She began her passionate and creative journey into her crafts as a young child, thanks to her grandmother. Now living in Sedona, she has discovered the willingness to be vulnerable to receive all life's offerings and to share her interpretations with all.
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ARTWORK | LAUREN O’DONNELL
Lauren O’Donnell
[Untitled] | digital
[Untitled] | digital
Lauren O’Donnell is a young artist, aspiring to work within the medical field, filling her time working on commissions and studying for exams. Art came to Lauren at a young age – being raised by an art teacher, art projects were always a must. Over the years, she fell more and more in love with watercolors, as her mother had, bringing the beautiful elements of the human body and art together. Lauren aims to work as a pelvic floor physical therapist, as women and sexual health and wellness are her number one passions. These elements come through in her art, both digitally and through watercolors. She includes all types of women, in all their forms. From art to anatomy, Lauren balances her sanity through small watercolor creations and large digital pieces. Instagram: @laurenshmauren_ CANYON VOICES
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Red Woods — Rosa Alberi Simonton (See Artwork for full image)
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Anne Whitehouse Searching for Immortality Christian G. Serrano
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Cody Wilson The Most Human of Crafts Addison Rizer __________________________________
Peter Wollman The Many Avenues of Inspiration Bria Thompson
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Sara R. Lander Life and Learning after a Near-Death Experience Jacob Salazar __________________________________
Amar Life Should Be Crazy Morgan Hoper __________________________________
John Bayalis Simple Things That Have Appeal Abigail Murray
Blue Monte Carlo by Dale A. Dahlberg III (See Artwork for full Image)
AUTHORS ALCOVE | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
Searching for Immortality Anne Whitehouse Talks Poetry and Life by Christian G. Serrano
Author of “Outside From the Inside,” and “Saltrising Bread,” Anne Whitehouse has published the novel “Fall Love” as well as numerous poetry collections, “The Surveyor’s Hand,” “Blessings and Curse,” “Bear in Mind,” “One Sunday Morning,” and “The Refrain.” Here, we further understand the poet and the poetry. Can you begin by telling us what led you to become a writer? My parents loved to read and I inherited that love from them. I fell in love with the music of words at a very young age. It started with nursery rhymes. One misty moisty morning when cloudy was the weather, I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather… By the time I was ten or so, I had memorized dozens of poems without meaning to just from reading them over and over. At one point I planned to read through the children’s section of our local public library in alphabetical order by author. As I would take down a book from the shelf, I imagined a child at some point in the future taking down one of my books; the thought made me happy. That a book is a gift from its author to unknown recipients and that it can continue to benefit readers after its author is no longer alive seemed beautiful to me then and it still does. Writing can be a form of immortality. To be a writer one must be a listener as well as a reader. When I taught creative writing, I would ask my students to eavesdrop on overheard conversations, write them down, and turn them
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! into dialogue. The fact that I like to listen to other people’s stories and people confide in me also led me to become a writer. Can you tell us about the books or authors that have been the most significant in your development as a writer? Every time I make a list I realize what I have left out. Many books have been important to me. I am going to limit this discussion to some of the books and authors I encountered in my childhood since they were crucial to me in my formative years.
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During some of the most intense weeks of my life, I wrote my way to the scene I had imagined. I realized it was not an end but a beginning
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
The first chapter book I read was Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. I remember how difficult it was for me in the beginning, but by the end I was hooked. Charlotte was a good friend and a good writer—was there ever a better eulogy than this one? Animal stories as well as fairy tales appealed to me such as Black Beauty by Anna Sewall. I loved Hans Christian Anderson’s The Tinder Box. When I discovered an author who had written a series or a collection, I was delighted. The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables and the sequels by L.M. Montgomery. I loved the English children’s authors—E. Nesbit, Noel Streatfield, Eleanor Farjeon, George Macdonald, Andrew Lang’s Fairy Book collections. I don’t know if children read those books anymore. Of the stories in E. Nesbit’s The Children’s Shakespeare, King Lear affected me the most because I had three sisters and knew what it was like to feel coerced by my parents and have to vie for their attention. It would have been easier for Cordelia if she had given in to her father, yet I also understood her stubborn refusal. My mother was always trying to make me give in to her, and, although I suffered from my stubbornness. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
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There is something perversely enjoyable in our macabre fascination with others’ misfortunes.
I loved the songs in Shakespeare: “Full fathom five…” and “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun.” I loved the small poetry collection—101 Famous Poems, Silver Pennies, and More Silver Pennies,
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Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Poems for Young People—and an Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature. My grandmother used to recite “The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear. My mother loved Emily Dickinson, a love that I inherited and had the famous 1955 Johnson edition preserving her capitalization and punctuation. One of the first adult novels that had a huge effect on me was Jane Eyre. I took it down from my parents’ bookshelf having no idea what it was about; I was immediately drawn into Jane’s childhood trials. I identified with her sensitivity and her independence. Out of principle, she also refused to give in when it would have easier for her to do so. Of the Greek myths, I was haunted by the story of Oedipus. I shuddered with terror to think of his fate and I realized that there is something perversely enjoyable in our macabre fascination with others’ misfortunes. What was it like to visit the Oracle? I tried to imagine it, but I could not. In the Bible, I was drawn to the stories of Joseph and Moses. Joseph lacked humility and Moses lacked confidence. They were men with failings yet they became great leaders. I sympathized with their frustrations and their struggles, and I appreciated the narrative arc leading to Egypt and back. I loved biographies. In my childhood, there was a series called “The Book of Knowledge” that sold for a dollar in the magazine stands near the checkout line in the A&P grocery store in Bessemer, where my father’s parents shopped. My grandmother, knowing of my love for this series, would constantly be on the lookout for new volumes for me. They were sold in random order—nos. 38, 21, 5, 15—with articles on an eclectic range of topics, e.g. Archimedes, Precious Metals, Benjamin Franklin, the voyages of Captain Cook. I loved the unpredictability of the topics and I believed that if I read all the series, I would be knowledgeable. In the poem “Outside from the Inside”, you begin by writing “From Isamu
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
Noguchi to Man Ray”. Who are these people and why are they important as it relates to the poem? The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Long Island City, Queen, just across the East River from Manhattan, was artist Isamu Noguchi’s (1904-1988) studio during the latter part of his life. Now, it is a museum and garden featuring his sculptures and other work such as his set designs for Martha Graham’s dances. Noguchi was born to a Japanese father and American mother. During World War II, he volunteered to be interned with other Japanese-Americans, thinking that he could teach them arts and crafts and help make their experience more useful and bearable. He was sent to Poston War Relocation Center in the Arizona desert. Once there, he found the conditions so dire that he immediately regretted his decision, but it took some time to secure his release. On a visit to the Noguchi Museum in February 2018, I noticed in an exhibit case a letter from Noguchi to the photographer Man Ray written in 1942, while Noguchi was in the camp. “Outside from the inside” is Noguchi’s phrase. Noguchi’s letter developed into my poem. In that poem, the desert seems to be a place where time and elements are unforgiving. Can you expand on this idea for us? For prisoners, duration takes on a quality that Noguchi distilled in his phrase “outside from the inside”. The prisoner leads a separate existence detached from current events. Prison routines dominate his reality. With this changelessness and the daily struggle to exist comes the sense of despair which Noguchi described and I sought to convey in my poem. For Noguchi, these qualities were exacerbated by Poston’s location in the Arizona desert. Noguchi and the other JapaneseAmericans who were interned there were out of their element in an alien environment different from any they had ever experienced. The
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timelessness of prison existence was exacerbated by the vast timelessness of the desert. Actual salt-rising bread originates from Appalachia, historically eaten by pioneers. What took you to write a poem like “SALT-RISING BREAD”? In April 2018, I was invited to present my short story, “Abby,” with Bottom Dog Press at the Appalachian Studies Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. While at the conference, I attended a presentation by Genevieve Bardwell on saltrising bread. She is the founder of the Rising Creek Bakery, dedicated to keeping a nearly lost tradition alive. Genevieve’s presentation led to my poem. In the same poem “SALT- RISING BREAD”, you evoke magical images that seem to pertain to the nature of the people and the bread itself. In other stanzas, you speak on the science of the bread. Can you tell us more about this contrast? Much of Appalachia is desecrated by mining and rural industry carried out without regard to the environment, yet it is still a stunning landscape with areas of great beauty: poor, isolated, and magnificent. In “Salt-Rising Bread,” I sought to highlight those contradictions.
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Writing can be a form of immortality.
Historically, people from Appalachia have been conditioned to harbor an inferiority complex about where they were raised and their homeland traditions. It’s the “barefoot hillbilly” stereotype. However, in the last 30 years or so, there has been a concerted effort to preserve and treasure the native Appalachian folkways and to counter Appalachia’s negative views of itself.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
Bread is the staff of life, one of the basic foods. Salt-rising bread, which was born of necessity in Appalachia, is unique in the universe of breads. The leavening process in salt-rising bread has a mysterious and unpredictable quality that is different from yeasted breads. There is no other bread like it in terms of its flavor and chemistry. Overall, do you consider your poetry having a specific theme or technique? I don’t consider my poetry to have a specific theme or technique. I set out to make poetry out of my everyday life and the lives of others. I take my inspiration where I can get it. Over the years, I have learned that an idea is like a dream; you think you will remember it if you don’t record it, but most of the time, you don’t. As I wrote in one of my Blessings in my Blessings and Curses series: When inspiration comes, attend to it. Drop everything else. Listen carefully. You get one chance and one chance only. To receive the blessing, you must be prepared to receive it. Let yourself be its instrument. The intention and expression are up to you. Besides poetry, I noticed that you’ve also written novels. Can you tell us a little about them? After my first poetry collection “The Surveyor’s Hand” was published, I felt I had come to the end of something and I began to concentrate on writing prose, albeit a poetic prose. I wrote prose poems and short stories. Most of them have been published in literary journals. Recently I organized them into a collection I am hoping to publish. My novel “Fall Love” began as another short story. The idea came when a man I knew vaguely from the neighborhood invited me to see his garden on the roof of a pre-war Upper West Side apartment building. On a beautiful May evening, with slanting yellow sunlight and warm breezes, I encountered a vision of loveliness in
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the garden and in the midst of it, I was introduced to my acquaintance’s partner, a man who was disabled and stayed close to home. As I was leaving, I had the strangest feeling, a tingling sensation. I realized I had seen the setting of my next story and recognized two of my characters. At the same time, I was thinking of Helena and Hermia in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, how they are friends and rivals and foils for each other—Helena is tall and blonde and Hermia is short and dark. Helena is quiet and Hermia is talkative. What if, I thought, they were not only friends and rivals, but given a special circumstance, they were also lovers? Thus, “Fall Love” was born. I constructed my characters out of bits and pieces of myself and of people that I knew or had encountered.
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Often, I like the minor writers better than the major ones.
During some of the most intense weeks of my life, I wrote my way to the scene I had imagined. I realized it was not an end but a beginning. Because the real story was what happened after the encounter, not what led to the encounter. That was when I recognized that I was writing a novel and I went into a crisis because I had no idea how to do it. Had I known then how much effort it would require of me, and how long it would take, because of so many false roads I went down, I never would have done it. But after having put years of effort into it, I couldn't give up. “Fall Love” was published just after September 11, 2001; this was not a good time for a romantic tragicomedy and it did not get the attention that I had hoped for. Even though “Fall Love” is not well known today, I am proud of it. It recently had a small revival when it was published in Spanish translation as "Amigos y amantes". I had the privilege of working directly with the remarkable translator, Manuela Canela.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
For those who may be interested, “Fall Love” is available as a free or virtually free e-book at these locations: Smashwords, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble. For a price, in hard and soft cover here. In the years since I published “Fall Love”, poetry returned to me and in the past ten years, I have published three full-length collections, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, and Meteor Shower, as well as two chapbooks, Bear in Mind and One Sunday Morning. What has your goal (or dream) as a writer been? When I was younger, other people had goals for me; I struggled and failed to reach them. As time went on, it became clear that I was not a commercial writer. I felt I had to justify my writing because it didn’t make money and that caused me a lot of unhappiness. It took me years to figure out how to make my living while doing the kind of writing I was meant to do and still have a family life. Not everyone can write a bestseller, and there is a place for books with small audiences.
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I encountered a vision of loveliness in the garden
Often, I like the minor writers better than the major ones. I am grateful for whatever talent I have, and I try to make the most of it. Each work brings with it its own set of problems and stratagems and issues to be worked out, and so I try to approach each separate piece I am working on—be it poetry, fiction, or nonfiction—with the intention of making it the best it can be. How often do you write?
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I don’t write every day. Sometimes I am too consumed with the business and details of my life to settle down and find that quiet space. Writing demands a lot of energy. When I finish an intense writing session, I am more exhausted than if I were exercising for hours. As I get older, I find I have less energy and creativity, but I try to use what I have more wisely. I need to be alone when I write, although solitude can also mean being in a café or a library, if I can stay in my own private space. I need to feel that no one is watching me, so I can lose my selfconsciousness. Then I can attend to the inner voices of my writing. Yoga, meditation, and exercise help center me and I engage a lot in non-verbal productive activities like cooking and gardening; that refresh me for the mental labor of writing. What does your writing space look like? I have a desk, but I don’t do my creative writing at it. I like to be comfortable when I am writing, which for me means having my feet at the level of my hips so I’ll sit on a bed or on a sofa with my feet on the coffee table, in an armchair with a footrest, on the ground or on the floor. I’ll write in my living room, my bedroom, outside, in a library or a café. My two favorite writing cafés are on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the Hungarian Pastry Shop and Edgar’s Café. I am honored that the Hungarian Pastry Shop has framed the covers of my last two poetry collections. Recently, I have been writing essays and giving lectures about Longfellow and Poe, another reason why I am so fond of Edgar’s Café. Here are some links to “Longfellow, Poe, and the Little Longfellow War:” Lecture at Longfellow House-Washington Headquarters, Cambridge, Mass., October 2018. Lecture at Maine Historical Society, Wadsworth Longfellow House, Portland, Maine, July 2018. “Poe vs. Himself.” New England Review Jan. 2018.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | ANNE WHITEHOUSE
“Poe and Chivers.” Rascal Journal Dec. 2017. If you could take only one of your works of writing (book or individual piece) to an island, which would it be and why? I would take the unfinished manuscript of whatever I was writing at the time, so I would have something to work on while stranded on the deserted island.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | CODY WILSON
The Most Human of Crafts An Interview with Cody Wilson by Addison Rizer
Cody Wilson teaches English and Creative Writing in Arizona. He has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and his work has been published in Juxtaprose, The Southampton Review, Juked, New Ohio Review and Arc Poetry Magazine. His chapbook, Nobody is Ever Missing was recently published by Tolsun Books. The chapbook explores little moments of life, love, grief, and empathy through images of sockedfeet, light bulb changing, and pictures tucked into the sun visor of a car. In this interview, Cody talks about his new chapbook Nobody is Ever Missing, his obsession with hands, favorite poems to teach, and the empathetic power of poetry. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with us! You’ve recently had your first chapbook, Nobody is Ever Missing, published. Can you tell us about that process? What has been your favorite moment so far? Of course! And thank you! I’m delighted that Canyon Voices is interested in my work—the magazine and the staff had a major impact on my choice to pursue publication, since my first published poems were in one of the early issues. Nobody is Ever Missing is basically part of my master’s thesis. I graduated last January from Queens University of Charlotte with an MFA in poetry, and I realized, in the process of creating a 65-page thesis, that my obsessions informed my subject matter. I am obsessed, apparently, with
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Read Cody Wilson’s poem, “Waiting Dates,”
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I have seen students connect with other perspectives through the medium of poetry. It’s a beautiful thing. Poetry is just one evidence of life, after all.
hands (more on that later), but also with memory and identity and the fear of losing oneself and the people one loves because of memory loss. The title comes from Berryman’s “Dream Song 29,” in which the speaker imagines, or dreams, an act of sabotage to a loved one, and this line comes as a reassurance that he did not kill off his loved one—it was imagined. I guess that line resonated a lot with my views of how memory (artificial or real) can be both an act of self-preservation but also self-sabotage. Anyway, shortly after I graduated, my friends over at Tolsun Books had recently published their first few poetry books, and they asked if I’d
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | CODY WILSON
be interested in submitting. I didn’t feel confident in submitting my manuscript as a whole, because in a lot of ways, the thesis was a thesis and not a book. So Nobody is Ever Missing came as an act of reflection as I parsed through the thesis to find a narrative. That was fun. My wonderful editor, Heather Lang, helped me organize the manuscript and cut some hands out of it. She pointed out that I used the word “hand(s)” over 30 times—more than there are actual poems! How has teaching influenced your writing? And vice versa, how has writing influenced the way you teach? This is a great question, and a tough one for me to answer, because I think a lot of what happens in both teaching and writing is subconscious, but I will say this: I am constantly thinking about my students. I carry them with me like I do lines of poems and images. Getting to teach poetry and read student work is really exciting, but often when I teach, I don’t write much. It can sometimes feel like too much of a good thing. I separate the independent act of writing and discovery from the acts of discovery that come about through group discussion, conversation, peer editing, and that sort of thing. There’s certainly poetry in all of that—in connecting and sharing experiences and learning to see things from other perspectives. I would say that empathy informs every poem I write and every lesson I teach. This grasping, flailing, embracing is a way to seek out and cultivate connectivity, which is, in my mind, more important than any other craft. It is the most human of crafts. What’s your favorite poem to teach to students and why?
CANYON VOICES
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‘This grasping, flailing, embracing is a way to seek out and cultivate connectivity, which is, in my mind, more important than any other craft.’
I have a lot of go-tos, but I try not to get too comfortable, to feel like I “get” a poem too much that I start to take possession of it. Two really short poems that I like to start a class with are “Bag of Mice” by Nick Flynn and “Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath. There is so much to discover in each of these, and feelings are unpacked word by word, line by line. Nobody is Ever Missing features many moments of loss, but also of connection. Particularly in “Ride Along”, there’s a strong sense of empathy as you write, “I want to care / not for him, but about him.” How has poetry changed the way you empathize? Have you seen it create more empathy in students of yours as well? J.D. McClatchy said that “love is the quality of attention we pay to things.” I think that writing and reading poetry forces the brain to make unique connections that otherwise wouldn’t be made in life. It can rewire the way a person thinks, and since there is so much emphasis on honesty in feelings in poetry (Victor Hugo wrote that you owe reality nothing, but the truth about your feelings everything), and since that is something that brings people together, it makes a lot of sense that poetry can cultivate empathy. I have seen
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | CODY WILSON
students connect with other perspectives through the medium of poetry. It’s a beautiful thing. Poetry is just one evidence of life, after all. A recent poem of yours, “ASL on Memory” was published in New Ohio Review. In it, your poem is accompanied by a video of the ASL signs you write about. How do you think video can enhance poetry? Take away from it? Make it more accessible? Thanks for reading that! I think that all forms of art and language are complimentary. Ekphrastic poems are really fun to read and write because they engage with not just another art form, but the sort of transcendent human experience when making art. I loved seeing that poem signed. It was a really meta moment for me.
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I think writing can be a form of self-care as much as it can be of selfscrutiny.
Some couplings are bound to create distractions from the work. I care a lot about the intimate act of reading poetry off the page, so I’ve always been a bit hesitant to engage in performance. I like isolation when engaging with art, to allow myself undivided attention. There is this really cool project, though, called Motionpoems. Natalie Diaz, an Arizona poet and teacher at ASU and all around wonderful human being, had her poem “American Arithmetic” adapted into a short film by Mohammed Hammad, and it’s one of my favorites.
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In your chapbook, you write about many big, important topics, but through little moments. Loss and isolation, but also socked feet on a countertop while changing light bulbs. Love, but also pizza crust and photographs tucked into sun visor. Richard Price has a quote that reminds me of your chapbook that goes, “The bigger the issue, the smaller you write.” Was this a conscious choice for this collection? Why is it important for you, if it is, to highlight smaller, daily moments? Hugo again: “In poetry, the big things tend to take care of themselves.” I agree with Price and Hugo. The images I’m most affected by in poems are the concrete ones. I think being hyper focused on little details can be really rewarding. Those details inform the whole. I have terrible eyesight—I’m nearsighted, and when I take my contacts out I have to bring things really close to my face to see them, but when I do that, it’s like I’m looking at a whole new object. I like to think this way when writing. I think it all comes back to the old adage that showing is better than telling. When I was a kid I was fascinated with tiny trinkets. I still have many of them. It’s crazy how one little object has so many associations, memories, and stories in it. Ironically, I’ve found myself saying “look at the forest, not the trees” in a lot of contexts, especially in education, but I don’t think that way with poems. As someone who has been published in Canyon Voices before and now has a chapbook published, can you offer any words of advice for aspiring writers?
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | CODY WILSON
Man, I’m just getting started myself. I barely just got here, so we’re in it together. I’m never satisfied. Don’t dig yourself in too deep, and if you happen to, come equipped with a ladder. Read and write every day. Read diverse voices, far different than your own. Get into writing groups and interact personally with writers. Don’t make your mind up about anything. Listen and be perceptive. Speak kindly to others, and when you like a person’s work, tell them so and why. Writing is a lonely craft, so building a support system is really important. Seek honest feedback from peers, and avoid ever feeling over congratulatory or satisfied. Don’t seek compliments, but welcome readers’ experiences. I think writing can be a form of self-care as much as it can be of self-scrutiny. Above all, have fun making arbitrary sounds and symbols create very real feelings, one of which is joy.
CANYON VOICES
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | Peter Wollman
The Many Avenues of Inspiration Peter Wollman Tells All by Bria Thompson
What do Moby Dick, comparisons to clown porn, and chicken bones all have in common? Well, not much. But all three have somehow inspired Peter Wollman, author of Decay, either in life or in his writing. Wollman shares with us his creative inspirations as well as his thoughts on writing in this amusing interview.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you became a writer? Were there any authors who inspired you? When I was three I almost choked to death on a chicken bone. This gave me a terrible stutter. The stutter kept me reading as a way to avoid conversation, and writing as a way to communicate. Eventually the stutter cleared up, but by then my habits were hardwired. I think stuttering is a gateway disability for a lot of writers. I’m a big fan of James Joyce. What I like about Joyce is how his style changed dramatically over time. His early work, the short stories, are very accessible, but by Finnegans Wake he was clearly in orbit. Aside from chicken bones and literary titans, the biggest influence was my parents, who infected me with their love of literature and writing.
How often do you write? Once a day. The muse doesn’t always show up, but the door is always open.
In your bio you talk about loving Moby Dick so much that you named your son after a character in the book, how did that
CANYON VOICES
Read Peter Wollman’s short story, “Decay,” in the Fiction section.
go over with the family? And what makes Moby Dick so special that it influenced your son’s name? Moby Dick…. Moby Dick is like clown porn. It’s not for everybody—not something you’d recommend in polite company—but those who fall for it fall hard. I experience it as series of philosophical essays strung together by a flimsy ‘man vs. fish, fish wins’ narrative. I was born a Catholic. Naming Catholics is easy. The priest rolls a 12-sided dice and rolls again if it comes up Judas. I’ve retired from the faith, so it made sense to go to my own personal bible for the kid’s name. Starbucks was taken and the wife thought her side of the family might have a problem pronouncing Ishmael. We settled on the cannibal. Queequeg sounds like ‘sunflower’ in Chinese: 葵葵. When it comes to naming a child, you really only need to convince the mother, and she’s exhausted when they bring the paperwork. The rest of the family doesn’t need to sign the forms. He’s three now. Hopefully before he starts dating, Nicholas Sparks will write a novel with a
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | Peter Wollman
Queequeg as the protagonist. Look what he did for Noah. (For non-MD nerds who think I meant man-vswhale, not man-vs-fish, please refer to Chapter XXXII, Cetology)
What was going on in your life during the time that you wrote Decay? Nothing too exciting. I was in the middle of the first draft of a novel and needed a break. I look forward to someday publishing this novel and making hundreds of dollars.
Did this time period in your life heavily influence your story? No, the influences came from a few years before. They were ideas that kept coming back like herpes. It felt good to get them down on the page.
This story sparked some debate when we all reviewed the story, what was the main idea that you wanted your audience to get out of this story? I’m glad it was worth talking about, but I wonder what the debate might have been. It’s a story, hopefully there was some entertainment value in the reading.
with an idea. For example, originally it had a thousand extra words of white-hot lawn hate. It started to become a story about lawns. Melville probably would have recommended I keep all that in. (By the way, one of the best things about Phoenix is that the climate is openly hostile to lawns. In that respect, Phoenix has a lot in common with Antarctica.)
While writing this story what did you feel? Did it energize you, exhaust you? Was it cathartic? Upon finishing this story, what did you feel? More energized than exhausted. When the chickens showed up I knew I had a keeper. Once it was done I felt, well, time to get back to the novel.
“Decay” is dark but humorous, focusing on the psyche of a dying man, do you find yourself writing stories with themes similar to this one? Apparently. I’ve been openly accused of being dark and humorous. I’m not trying to be funny, I think it’s just a by-product of being honest about being alive, in the same way farts are a byproduct of beans and consciousness is a byproduct of thinking. It’s fun to lift up the rock and see what crawls out of the brain.
The core idea is the line that from a chicken’s point of view, life is short, brutal and terrifying. From the egg’s point of view, the universe makes perfect sense. It seems possible to me that the meaning of life might be very bad news.
What was the most difficult part about writing this story? Sometimes the writing is hard, like pushing a dead donkey across sand. Luckily this one came out relatively easy. The most difficult part was getting it down to about 2000 words. I think that’s a good length for a short story. I have a tendency to run off CANYON VOICES
SPRING 2019
AUTHORS ALCOVE | SARA R. LANDER
Life and Learning after a NearDeath Experience An Interview with Sara R. Lander by Jakob Salazar
Sara R. Lander is a freshman at Arizona State University studying English and Political Science. “Midnight Reverie” is her first-ever published work. We spoke to her about her creative process, the near-death experience that inspired her work, and her plans for future writing. What was your creative process in starting “Midnight Reverie?” How did you approach organizing it? I first made a list of all the things that had happened to me in the past nineteen years, and then narrowed it down to the ones I still held unresolved feelings towards. Ultimately, I settled on writing about my pony Midnight, as I wanted to use the story to make peace with what happened. From there, as I started planning how I wanted to organize the story, I realized I wanted to begin in the present day with me reflecting back on my childhood. Through some workshopping, I realized it would be best to then jump in the scene so my readers could learn along with my past self about what happened. Lastly, I settled for ending by circling back to the present day and giving everyone a taste of the place I arrived at emotionally once the essay was complete.
CANYON VOICES
Read Sara R. Lander’s “Midnight Reverie” in Creative Nonfiction
What I found remarkable is that the “place” you arrived at emotionally at the end of the essay, at least to me, was one of peace with your near-death experience, but also of intense interest in knowing more about life, death, and the universe. Do you see your near-death experience as kick-starting a life of intellectual curiosity and questioning, or was that curiosity already there? I think I was always very curious, but naturally as a kid I never really concerned myself with the idea of dying. It always seemed so far off. Instead, I was more interested in the idea of magic hidden in our world, so after the neardeath experience I think I was pushed away from imaginative curiosity and more towards critical
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | SARA R. LANDER
questioning and trying to explain the reality of things with hard facts. This made me a pretty angry kid, but after a while I realized I didn't want to be skeptical of the world so much as try to understand what happened with more of an open mind towards the fantastical and the factual co-existing, so I suppose I have this incident to thank for both my grounding in realism and current inquisitive nature.
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‘I was pushed away from imaginative curiosity and more towards critical questioning and… hard facts.’
What was your inspiration for incorporating the Tennyson poem? How did you see it as connecting to your story? I’ve always loved Tennyson’s poetry, and while I myself struggle to write poems, I love listening to people read poetry, whether poems by classic poets or their own slam poems. It was because of the way some slam poems are structured where they preface a part of their story with a one-liner before moving to the next part that I got the idea to start each part of my story with a line from a poem. Thus began my searching through some poems I knew that discussed death or the afterlife, and having read Tennyson’s poem again, I felt like his ability to capture a person’s calm acceptance of dying could really add some beautiful sentiments to what I feel today thinking about what happened.
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Did you find it difficult to describe your near-death experience? From how you write it, it feels almost beyond words. I definitely struggled with writing this piece. I was trying so hard to do my experience justice, since I didn’t want to sound as if I felt like what happened to me was more traumatic than what has happened to anyone else. There are plenty of people in this word who have come much closer to dying, and I’m beyond grateful this is the closest call I can remember. Still, what happened with Midnight and my dog Buddy took away a huge part of who I was at that age, and since it’s difficult to put into words things we ourselves don’t understand or are afraid of, I struggled with conveying both how I felt at that time and my thoughts towards the experience now. The only part that came easily was the basics of what I saw while unconscious, as I was able to stick with exactly what I remembered of that event without losing myself to overanalyzing it. Understandingly, you describe how your near-death experience distanced you from Midnight, and from horses in general. However, Buddy catalyzed the incident, too… did you find yourself wary of him as well? Why or why not? Actually, my lack of fear of Buddy after the incident has always been something that stumped me. My parents had explained it wasn't Midnight's fault, it was Buddy's, yet while I knew the truth, I couldn't bring myself to be angry with the dog. I think this was because I didn't associate Buddy with physically hurting me, but Midnight, so every time I got back on I couldn't help shaking thinking about how easily he could hurt me again. To my damaged trust, Midnight
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | SARA R. LANDER
was the weapon, Buddy the wielder, and thinking in the short term, it had seemed much easier to assign blame to the pony who had reacted badly. While I'll probably never fully understand why I solely feared Midnight instead of Buddy, I am thankful I don't have a fear of dogs, as they're much more prevalent in society than horses tend to be. What do you want readers to take away from your story? I would love for readers to take away the message that it’s okay to be afraid of something you used to love, in the same way it’s okay to be afraid of something and still have a part of yourself that loves it. I think it's easy to tell yourself to get over your fear when other people are telling you to get over it, but in my experience that doesn’t work. I’ve accepted that I’ll stop being afraid of horses when I’m ready, and I’d like it if my readers could learn to be accepting of their own fears and the fears of other people. How does it feel to be a published author as just an undergrad? Honestly? I’m a mixture of excited and terrified. I’ve always felt like writing is a strength of mine, but actually sharing my work and having potentially a much larger audience makes me a bit worried people will find my ideas boring. I’ve learned from my dad, though, who also writes in his free time, that not everyone will like your writing, so it’s best just to be proud of yourself. Despite my insecurities, I really am grateful for this opportunity and happy if even one person might read my work and enjoy it or be inspired to write their own.
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Do you plan on writing more creative nonfiction stories of this kind, or are you more interested in other kinds of writing? I love the genre of creative nonfiction, and I’m certain I’ll write more creative nonfiction stories as I continue to experience life. In the future I’m interested in exploring the ways writing can push its boundaries into other mediums of art, such as with video essays. I’d have to learn the ins and outs of film first, so for the short term, I’ll probably stick to learning about other forms of creative nonfiction and writing fiction pieces.
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‘It’s okay to be afraid of something you used to love.’
What kinds of fiction do you write or are you interested in writing? One day I'd love to write historical fiction, considering I read a lot of the genre, though right now I'm more likely to write mysteries or fantasy stories set on Earth or in a world similar to our own, as I really enjoy world-building and creating complex characters.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | SARA R. LANDER
Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark; For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar.
Sara R. Lander incorporated the poem “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson into her memoir, “Midnight Reverie.” Below is the full poem:
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | AMAR
Life Should be Crazy Reflections and Advice from Amar by Morgan Hoper
Amar's work has been published in both the Scripts and Artwork sections of this issue of Canyon Voices. He is also the president of the West Campus IAP club and founder of Community Art Night. It is probably safe to assume our readers are somewhat familiar with his creative abilities, but we contacted him to learn a little more.
shoot) because it gives me a lot of room to be creative, plus, it gives me an excuse to buy a bunch of weird toys from Goodwill and spraypaint them silver (because everything is silver in the future, baby).
Can you tell us a little more about yourself? I’m a junior at ASU West studying Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance. I enjoy acting, making music, taking pictures of my friends, editing videos, and shooting short films. I’ve pretty much been an artist my entire life up until this point, and would like to continue to be an artist until the day I die. I’m also a Virgo, a Scorpio rising, my moon is Aquarius, my sun is in the tenth house, and I have a crapload of Leo. I hope that information speaks volumes about my character. Can you tell us about your background as a writer? Growing up, I always loved writing stories. English was usually my favorite subject and my best subject (I suck at math. Just wanted to throw that out there). As I grew older though, my writing shifted from small tales to concept albums. I spend a lot of time thinking of stories that can be told through songs and it’s such a different way of writing that I really adore exploring. When it comes to typing up scripts, I really like sci-fi a lot. Sci-fi is so fun to write (and
CANYON VOICES
Read Amar’s Script, “Stay,” in the Script section.
What inspired you to write Stay? My goal with Stay was to keep it as open as I could. I feel like a lot of the stories I write are pretty linear and straight-to-the-point so I wanted this story to be open for interpretation (I wanted different people to feel different things with this one story). I also wanted to give directors the creative freedom to do whatever they wanted and not be held down or limited by the writing. What role did gender play in the creation of your characters in Stay? I never had an actual gender in mind when it
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | AMAR
came to writing the characters. The characters in Stay were written to be played by any gender (which is why I picked gender-neutral names for some of the characters). I feel as though “Mother” can be switched to “Father”, “Sister” can be switched to “Brother”, even “Shadow-Man” can be switched to “Shadow-Woman” and it would still work out. The main role gender has for these characters are the fact that they can be intertwined by anyone. What was the most significant challenge you faced while writing Stay? I think the biggest challenge was definitely the ending. I retyped an actual conclusion several times, but then I realized I should just keep that open as well (which is funny since I normally dislike open-ended stories). I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s interpretation of the story by shoving my personal ending down their throat, so keeping it open made complete sense to me.
Where can others interested in your work go to find more of your canon? I actually do not have a place where my writing is quote-on-quote “published.” I really want to have my own website (sometime in the future) that has all my work posted (pictures, music, short films, writing, etc.). I’m not good at coding by any means (I literally know nothing about coding), so this website’s going to be created through a 3rd party company (I’ll have to do more research first). It’s definitely something I will be working on whenever I have time to kill; but as of now, I got nothin’. Sorry! Professionally, what is your goal for your writing? It’d be awesome to have the opportunity to one day travel the world because of my writing! Even leaving Arizona (because of my writing) would be HUGE for me.
If you don’t mind sharing, what is your interpretation of Stay?
What is the most challenging part of the writing process for you?
I don’t want to go into too much detail about it (don’t want to ruin it for anyone), but for me, it has to do with growing loneliness and the isolation that comes with it over time. Some readers interpreted it completely different though, and I am very much okay with that! I feel any interpretation of the story is the correct one.
The most challenging part about the writing process (for me) is trying to stay on course. I always have an idea of where I want a story to go but as I begin to progress further and further into it, the story begins to transform and sort of go off course from the original idea. Sometimes this is a good thing because having a story evolve into something better than what was originally thought about is a positive thing. But other times it can be a bad thing because I end up writing myself into confusion. I find myself always going back to different parts of the story and making changes to them because the old ideas don’t fit in with the new vision. I don’t think there’s a single story I’ve ever written that I haven’t scrapped and rewrote multiple times. Plus, I like to overuse commas when I write. It’s a habit I’m trying to
Do you have another story or project in the works? I do! I am currently in the planning stages of a short film I wrote called INDIFFERENCE. The short film will be directed by one of my good friends, Jacob Nichols, and will be shot by me! We’re very excited about this project, so wish us luck.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | AMAR
break and the process has been challenging. Keep me in your thoughts. How do you deal with writer’s block? I don’t like forcing a story. If I’m not inspired, I’d prefer not to write it. What really helps me with writer’s block are my friends! My friends do a really good job at throwing out their thoughts and we can spend literally hours just going back and forth with different ideas. It’s really nice to have those people in my circle who know how to inspire me, and share the same passions as me. However, if my friends aren’t around, I usually try and draw inspiration from other artists (can be other writers, visual artists, movie directors, musicians, etc.). Like I said, if I’m not inspired to create it, it’s not getting created. What advice would you give to aspiring authors? Always accept feedback with an open mind! As artists, we tend to get super tunnel-visioned whenever working on a project for too long. It’s really nice having those people with fresh ears and eyes to be able to comment on your work from a perspective that isn’t your own. A lot of the time, my peers have really great ideas that I would have never even thought of if I kept my stories under wraps. There will be ideas that don’t necessarily fit with your particular vision, but keeping an open mind will help you filter the ideas that fit and the ideas that don’t. Critique is all apart of the overall process.
which was written by Jeff VanderMeer, and the overall themes and metaphor is suuuuuuuuuper inspiring. If you haven’t seen Annihilation you probably won’t understand this, but to my people who know what I’m talkin’ about, THAT FREAKIN’ BEAR IS INSANE! LITERALLY GOOSEBUMPS. Ok, that’s all I’m going to say now haha. What do you think is the future of reading/writing? Virtual reality for sure. One of these days, we’ll be looking at stories from a 360-degree view. TV screens are about to go instinct, I’m callin’ it now. Who would you say is your biggest critic? All my friends. I take their critiques pretty seriously since (as far as I know) they care about my wellbeing. They usually have the most to say too. If I were to create some dumpster-fire, I know they’d be the ones to put it out. And then throw the gross ashes on me when I’m not looking. If you had to choose a pen name, what would it be and why? The main alias I usually go by is: Sly. It was a childhood nickname given to me by my brother, so I just go by that whenever I don’t want to go by my real name. Some people think it’s a bit odd but I personally feel like it fits!
Has any particular author or book influenced you as a writer? If so, how?
Has any particular mentor been influential in your development as a writer?
As of lately… I have to say Alex Garland. He wrote and directed Ex Machina which is one of my favorite movies of all time! I think about the story and how he pieced it together All… The freakin’… Time! He also directed Annihilation
Julie Amparano Garcia has been an amazing mentor for me! I always love her crazy ideas and her passion about writing! She does such a good job at making my writing feel important (which really skyrockets my motivation [and a little bit of
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | AMAR
my ego haha]). She has been such a wonderful supporter, and has opened up a lot of opportunities for me this year. Is this the first script you’ve written? It is not! I’ve written several scripts before this one, and all the scripts I write are vastly different from each other. This is definitely the first script I have written that is not strictly made to be shot on a camera though. It’s a really open story, so I can see it being either a play or short film (whatever a director wants to do with it). Do you favor any form or genre of writing over the others? It’s so bizarre because the things I like to write are very opposite of who I am. I enjoy writing serious tragedies more than comedies, even though I’m a very not-serious kind of guy (who likes to make people laugh). I have no problem with writing comedies (I actually find them to be super fun to write), but the jokes get old after awhile haha. I feel like tragedies are a bit more realistic, so I think that’s why I favor them a bit more than anything else. But sci-fi is where it’s at! You can keep things realistic, but then come up with random stuff and just say “IT’S THE FUTURE, BABY” so no one can call you out on your inaccurate information. I heard about a certain intergalactic-JohnWick-in-space-like film that you worked on, care to share anything about that? So last year, me and a group of friends were assigned to create a short film as a final project. We wanted to go ALL OUT. I’m all about challenging myself so the story we came up with was wild. The short film was called SHATTERED VENGEANCE and it was supposed to be split into two stories. One story was from the perspective of this Master Bounty-hunter, and the other story
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was from the perspective of this Master Thief. We even wanted to get fancy and have the Bountyhunter story be a tragedy while the Thief story would be a comedy (but both characters are still in the same universe). We never really got to finish that film though, but one of these days we’ll pick it back up again! (I hope)… Tell me about your writing process? So pretty much I spend a lot of time just thinking about stories to tell. They always hit me at random too. Like, I’ll be driving and then BAM! Car accident. Just kidding. But I’ll just get hit with this wave of inspiration, so I write these thoughts down in spurts so I don’t lose them. Or sometimes I draw the vision in my head onto paper and write little notes next to it (without the little notes, I miss out on the context of the drawings [because I forget]). After the ideas are thought of, I just start to write. I like to organize my stories in different acts; it keeps things more structured for me. And after everything is said and done, I let people tear it apart so I can go back and revise the whole thing. That’s essentially what I do every time, nothing really special haha. Your hair seems to be a big part of your persona, care to talk about it? I’m bounded under contract to not discuss the topic of my hair. If word gets out, the universe as we know it would be destroyed. I’ve already revealed too much, let’s pretend this conversation never happened. Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers? If your life isn’t crazy, you’re not doing enough.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | JOHN BAYALIS
Simple Things that Have Appeal An Interview with John Bayalis by Abigail Murray
John Bayalis resides in St. Petersburg, Florida, with wife Margaret. After retiring from teaching in 2001, John and his wife decided to open the Bayalis Studio. He regularly participates in art exhibitions and painting workshops. Throughout his career, he has been presented with numerous awards and recognitions. Most recently, these include the DSAC individual artist’s fellowship grant and selection for the Watercolor Page in AMERICAN ARTISTS magazine where he was featured on the cover. During our interview, John talks about what factors have shaped his artistic style, the importance of creating work that appeals to an individual, and how teaching students has shaped his perception of art. Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. You’ve been the recipient of several honors and awards, including the DSAC individual artist’s fellowship grant and selection for the Watercolor Page in AMERICAN ARTISTS magazine where your work was selected as the cover. This recognition is quite the accomplishment. When did you realize you were interested in pursuing art as a career? I was interested in drawing at young age and my mother, having recognized this, arranged for me to have painting lessons at age 9. I was taken with it, even doing commission for some of my elementary school friends and continued to paint and draw through my schooling. In college, after disinterest in the more practical majors, I
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John Bayalis’s artwork is featured in the Art section.
switched to art major in my sophomore year. My performance was average, and desiring a more stable career choice, I pursued an additional degree to also teach art. This choice gave me time for gradual discovery of my painting interests and honing my skills. I worked my way up through various levels in the public school system all the while building a career as a professional artist as well. In your biography you mentioned that the works of Hopper and Wyeth and realism have influenced your art. Would you mind elaborating on that? The art education I received in college in the late 60s and early 70s emphasized the works of modern masters like Picasso, the French
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | JOHN BAYALIS
impressionists and the Abstract Expressionists. I did have access to the Delaware art museum and The Brandywine River Museum which opened in 1971. There I viewed the works of Wyeth and Hopper which showed a skill level that appealed to me and a connection to American culture. I did find the world of Wyeth too personal and somewhat dated, yet his mastery of watercolor and tempera techniques inspire me very much.
“My wife and I retired from our jobs in education in 2001 and decided to do what we had always wanted to do which was become full-time artists”
What else has inspired your work? The movement in the late 1960s of photorealism was very interesting to me. I came across the work of Richard Estes, Chuck Close and others in New York and was drawn to hyper realism more than anything else I had encountered. I had grown up with experiences shaped by TV, film and print media and found a real connection with their work. I did however find the application of oil paint and air brush to be too slick and lacked a feel for the artist’s touch in the work. When did you open the Bayalis Studio and what made you decide to open it? My wife and I retired from our jobs in education in 2001 and decided to do what we had always wanted to do which was become full time artists. We worked with some galleries and took to the outdoor show circuit in Florida as well as the Northeast doing 15 to 18 events per year. It was a
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learning experience working closely with people buying my work and meeting lots of other artists. It was a great feeling of independence and a lot of hard work too. I have been showing my work in Scottsdale, AZ. Since the early 1980s at the Leslie Levy Gallery. Leslie now is strictly an online gallery but I had participated in many shows at her physical space on Main St. Most of the art displayed on your website and the art that was submitted to us was done using watercolor. Why did you decide to use watercolor as your medium? My selection of watercolor as my primary medium dates back to when I started teaching after college. I was trained as an oil painter but with working all day, setting up an oil painting studio for a couple of working hours at night proved to be counter-productive. I started experimenting with watercolors so in effect I am basically self-taught in watercolor and immediately recognized the appeal for me. My love of drawing and detail was able to be used more effectively and the transparency enabled me to create a luminosity I never saw in my oils. I made much better use of my time as I could leave a painting when I wanted and pick right back up on it. Are there any other mediums you work with? I do paint in oils occasionally in the field when doing some plain air works and enjoy pastel and charcoal drawing when working with the figure. But my major studio work is done in watercolor. Your art is incredibly realistic and very vibrant. How long does it take you to achieve this effect? Painting times can vary depending on the subject but for a full sheet (30”x22”) it is normally a 50 to 70 hour process. Like most realist painter
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | JOHN BAYALIS
friends I know, we never really feel a painting is finished. Can you talk about how teaching art classes and workshops have influenced the way you view art? I learned early on in my first teaching job as an elementary school art teacher that I constantly learned from my students. They showed me that I had to understand the art process on the most basic levels in order to teach and it enabled me to do the same in my own work. The importance of art appealing on a primal gut level is quite evident in young students making art. What advice would you give to people that are interested in learning how to make art, but don’t know much about creating art? First find out what visually appeals to you and why. It may be about colors or form or something else. Look around the world of your everyday life and find simple things that have appeal. Make photographs or even sketches if you prefer and analyze them to judge their appeal. There are many types of art materials out there and depending on the images you prefer, there will be several you can experiment with. Learn by trying things out first or if your skills are lacking, then find resources or instructors that can guide you in learning.
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AUTHORS ALCOVE | JOHN BAYALIS
Morning Fog by John Bayalis
La Pizza del Born by John Bayalis CANYON VOICES
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ABOUT US CANYON VOICES LITERARY & ART MAGAZINE is dedicated to shedding light on the works of emerging and established writers and artists. Founded in the spring of 2010 at Arizona State University’s West campus by one professor, Julie Amparano Garcia, and six students, this journal strives to bring the creativity of writers and artists to light within the community and beyond. Supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies at ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, CANYON VOICES accepts writing and artwork from writers and artists from all corners of our planet and from all walks of life. The work of maintaining and producing this magazine is entirely student driven. Since its formation, CANYON VOICES has expanded into a full credit, hands-on class. Students build a full literary journal each semester, heading every aspect of production, including soliciting submissions, editing, marketing, design and layout, and publication. We strive to bring you an eclectic range of voices each semester.
OUR MISSION At CANYON VOICES our mission is to provide an online environment to highlight emerging and established voices in the artistic community. By publishing works that engender thought, Canyon Voices seeks to enrich the scope of language, style, culture, and gender.
CONTACT US Questions, comments, feedback? We would love to hear from you. Contact us via email at: CanyonVoicesLitMag@gmail.com You can also visit us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/asucanyonvoices
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
SUBMITTING WORK To submit your work, please send it to CanyonVoicesLitMag@gmail.com. Be sure to attach all the work you wish to submit to the email. You may include an author biography and a photo, which will be included in the magazine should your work be chosen for publication. We are affiliated with Arizona State University, and we uphold academic standards. If your work is accepted we reserve the right to make changes. You will be contacted should your work require more extensive edits. We accept simultaneous submissions. All documents submitted should be double spaced with a 12 point font, in either Times New Roman or Arial. Poetry may be single spaced. All written documents must be submitted in (.doc) or (.rtf) format. Artwork may be in JPEG format. All work submitted must have a title.
FICTION Up to two stories may be submitted per issue. Each story may be 20 pages or fewer.
POETRY CREATIVE Up to six poems NONFICTION
SCRIPTS
Up to two may be submitted scripts may be Up to four stories per (no longer than submitted per issue. Two pieces may two pages each) issue. Script be 20 pages. per issue. maximum 15 pages.
ART Up to ten pieces, with at least 300 dpi or JPEG format (<1 MB). Include detail on medium.
EXPLICIT MATERIALS Because this is a university magazine, submissions containing sexually explicit material and explicit language will be reviewed and determined eligible for publishing depending on the context of the material in the work. Material deemed inappropriate or gratuitous will be rejected. READING PERIOD Our editors read submissions in August, September, and through October 15th for the fall issue. The reading period re-opens in January, February, and through March 15th for the spring.
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STAFF PAGES : EXECUTIVE BOARD
Julie Amparano García is the founder, publisher, and advisor of the CANYON VOICES literary team. Serving in the School of Humanity Arts and Cultural Studies at ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Amparano García oversees the school's Writing Certificate Program and teaches a variety of writing courses that include scriptwriting, cross-cultural writing, fiction, persuasive writing, and others. She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles in 2006 and is working on a collection of short stories and a play about children and war.
Julie Amparano García
Publisher
This is the third consecutive issue of Canyon Voices that Rachel has worked on (clearly, she loves being a part of it). Rachel, 25, is originally from London but has been living in Arizona since age 13. Last summer, she finished writing her medieval gothic-fantasy novel(la) (word count of 45K) – she has been working on getting it published for the past few months. She is currently waiting to hear back from a publisher that requested her full manuscript (keep a lookout for R. J. Passer if you like medieval fantasy)! Along with writing, she paints (mostly abstracts) on the side. Rachel is very passionate about art and is very proud of this issue’s artwork section because there’s LOADS OF ART.
Rachel Passer
Editor-in-Chief, Senior Fiction Editor, Senior Art Editor
Kat Wister is an illustrator and writer of the fantasy genre. She is currently working on her BFA in Drawing along with her certificate in Creative Writing to aid her in her goals to publish her works. Her art enhances the visual experience of her stories so others can see what she imagines. One day, Kat hopes to combine her visual and written art in a published work, whether that be a novel or maybe even a comic.
Kat Wister
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Design Director, Fiction Editor, Art Editor
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STAFF PAGES : SENIOR EDITORS
Kacee Allard is a junior at Arizona State University's West Campus. Growing up in the rural state of North Dakota, she had the urge to attend university far from home and in a more populated area. Having been inspired by the power of words from a young age, Kacee decided to pursue a degree in English. There has never been a day that Kacee has doubted whether or not a degree in English is meant for her. Although Kacee enjoys academic writing, she also enjoys putting aside time to journal and reflect. At the age of 18, she published a selfhelp journal titled Every Day is a New Day: A Journey to Finding Your Inner Light. This was her first work published and most certainly will not be her last. Ultimately, Kacee aspires to get her Ph.D in English and become a professor.
Senior Poetry Editor, Art Editor
Kacee Allard
Morgan Hoper graduated as a valedictorian candidate from South Mountain Community College (SMCC). Her short stories and poetry were published in the South Mountain Review while she was a student at SMCC. She is currently collaborating with two directors at Arizona State University (ASU) to have her “Reapers” script adapted to film. She is also currently directing “The Stamp” a stage play by Gabriela Ramirez, when she is not working as a circulation attendant at her local library. While Morgan is excited about graduating summa cum laude from ASU in May 2019, she is going to miss being a senior editor for Canyon Voices.
Senior Creative Nonfiction Editor, Fiction Editor, Scripts Editor
Morgan Hoper
Addison Rizer is senior at Arizona State University pursuing a degree in English with a certificate in writing and LGBT studies. She was one of six undergraduate writers selected for the Undergraduate Writers Showcase at Piper House in November of 2017. She is interning with the Department of Justice as well as with NASA's Psyche Inspired project as a writer. In the past, she worked as an interview editor with Superstition Review. She’s had work published in Kingdoms in the Wild, Strange Creatures, Canyon Voices, Trouble Child, Anatolios Magazine, and Libraerie Magazine. She loves writing, reading, and movies critics hate.
Senior Scripts Editor, Poetry Editor, Creative Nonfiction Editor
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Addison Rizer
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STAFF PAGES : EDITORS
Lee Breisblatt is an English Major senior who is about to graduate from ASU West with an undergrad degree. He is also autistic, which has from a young age caused some difficulties in his life, such as pronouncing words, recognizing social cues and relating to people. But as he grew up, he got better about his difficulties with the help of his immediate family. He became one of the editors of this magazine’s issue to gain experience in being part of a magazine group and potentially use that experience in a job as part of an official magazine group. This will be his second semester of being part of Canyon Voices staff and this will bring him one step closer towards his end goal of being a fiction author.
Lee Breisblatt
Fiction Editor, Creative Nonfiction Editor, Scripts Editor Jessica Lane was born and raised in Arizona, but she hopes to explore other cities upon graduating in 2020. Originally a Elementary Education major, Jessica has since switched over to pursuing a degree in English. Expressing herself through writing has always been her first love and her on-going passion. Writing creative non-fiction is what she finds most rewarding and interesting. Having read several short stories from the American gothic genre, she feels inspired by authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Ambrose Bierce, and Nathanial Hawthorne. Eventually, she hopes to explore careers in editing, teaching, and publishing. When she’s away from work and school, Jessica likes to paint, go outdoors, and listen to music. She has a few creative projects in the works, and she plans on getting some of her work published one day!
Jessica Lane
Poetry Editor, Art Editor Abigail Murray is pursuing a degree in Biology and in Psychology at Arizona State University’s West campus. This is her first year editing for Canyon Voices. In the past, Abigail was a Staff Reporter for her high school newspaper, the Precedent, where she wrote over eight articles, and edited countless others, for publication. During her free time, she loves to explore art galleries, create abstract paintings, read novels, and contemplate traveling the world. After she graduates, Abigail plans to travel to Europe and pursue a Master's degree in Student Affairs and Higher Education.
Abigail Murray
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Poetry Editor, Art Editor
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STAFF PAGES : EDITORS Jakob Salazar is a graduating Senior majoring in sociology and minoring in women and gender studies. He has been a Senator for Undergraduate Student Government West for the past two years and is currently the President of West Mock Trial. Additionally, he is a Research Assistant for the Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality group (FROGS), and in this role moderated at the National Women's Studies Association 2018 conference. After graduation he will study law at Gonzaga University. Jakob is from Seattle, Washington and writes and records his own music. In his spare time, he mostly reads academic nonfiction but enjoys classic novels as well. He yearns for a side gig as a music critic.
Fiction Editor, Creative Nonfiction Editor, Scripts Editor
Jakob Salazar
Since high school, Christian has had an interest in literature and language. At the age of 17, his children’s short story was awarded a prize along with 20 other writers from around the world; the contest being in Bilbao, Spain, he was invited to read his story as the only American. Christian is currently enrolled in courses to further explore and enhance his writing. Christian also has his heart extended to music, especially jazz, classical, and Latin American boleros. If he doesn't have his head in a book, you’ll probably catch him playing the acoustic guitar or alto saxophone (just ask his neighbors!). Christian’s dream is to become a journalist and a fiction writer. But if given the chance, he wouldn't mind joining a Charlie Mingus-style jazz band and play those tunes he usually hums in class.
Christian Serrano
Poetry Editor, Art Editor
Christopher Reinking Stuart was the first sapient being to emerge in the universe’s youth, billions of years ago, and he invented civilization, art, and literature. Of course, we have to cover that up, so he pretends to be a 28-year-old university student pursuing an English degree, with the hopes of using the knowledge gained to help in his future career as an author of fiction. Born in Florida, he grew up in New York, came into adulthood in Arizona, and is ALL AMERICAN!
Fiction Editor, Art Editor
Christopher Stuart
Bria Thompson is a senior at Arizona State University completing her degree in English Literature. This is her first year editing for Canyon Voices. Previously, Bria was an editor for The Tab ASU, where she wrote news stories about ASU, and edited other contributors’ stories, for publication. During her free time, she encourages other women to heal their relationship with their bodies through photography, eats an unhealthy amount candy, and writes endless personal essays. After she graduates, Bria plans to travel and build her budding photography business.
Fiction Editor, Art Editor, Staff Photographer CANYON VOICES
Bria Thompson SPRING 2019
Nocturnal Limbo Kate Goltseva