Canyon Voices Issue 14

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kruti Brahmbhatt

Outside the City of Death

Landon Snodgrass Staircases

Kristin Beaven

Ashes

Gary Lawrence

Double Play

Kevin Finnerty Freedom of Movement

Ryan Dunham Hotel Sadness

William Miller

The Dog in the Cemetery ■ The Mistress of a Mistress

■ Open Casket

John Tustin

Since You ■ Reaching Out and Up

Mara Yoder American Girl

Holly Day

Where We Meet ■ Wife in Denial

Andrew Garvin

I’ve Met Someone ■ Aquarium

Gary Lawrence Famous

David Plimpton

Lessons from a Horseplayer

Morgan Routh

Missed Connection

Melee

YOUNG WRITER SPOTLIGHT

Aidan Macias

Hank’s Final Moments

SCRIPTS

Brooke Fauver

Conversations with a Gun ■ Three Scratch Marks

Robert Caisley

Durafab

Kaitlin Thern & Rome Johnson

Penelope and the Wild, Wild World

Max Cano

The Green Mirror

Steven Luna

Wing and Claw and Hoof and Tail

Abby Timmons

The Architect's Ballad

Danny P. Barbare

The Songbird So Sweet

John Grey

The Sound of Dry, Dry Wind

Christopher R. Vaughan

Twin

Kyle DeClerck

Gloria Cuádraz

Lindsay Marcus

Gabriel Evans

Melissa Kruger

Li Mahalik

Alexis Thacker

TABLE OF CONTENTS

William C. Crawford

Jacklyn Anderson

Bill Meister

Melissa Walter

Giada Cattaneo

Suzanne De Keizer

Indunil Madhusankha

I See Her Hands

Tony Valencia Jr.

Trepidation

Kat Lewis

21 ■ Even When the Clouds Come

Abby Timmons

Writing Novels on Napkins

Ben Cleveland

Digital Audio Recording

S!r-Mud

Digital Audio Recording & Lyrics

Derick “DJ Hoopz”

Washington

Digital Audio Recordings & Motion Graphics Video

AUTHOR’S ALCOVE

Manny Felix

Think Like A Writer

Gary Lawrence discusses genre and the writing practice

Brittany Sheldahl

Dinner and an Interview

Talking heritage and organization with Brooke Fauver

Joshuat Nava

Katie Howard

Letty Guerra

Kristina Strava

Joshua Herron

Nico Anjelo De Garriz

Keith Laber

Allen Forrest

Celeste Byers

Aaron Glasson

Sean Burdeaux

Digital Audio Recordings

Syd Lyrics

OmAr JahFari

Digital Audio Recordings

Sarah Edwards

‘Never Stop Never

Stopping’

Steven Luna puts outside interests aside and keeps on writing

ABOUT US

Our Mission

What we’re all about Contact Us

Where to find us online

Submissions

Guidelines for submitting Staff Pages

This is the Fall 2016 crew

Aaron Glasson Music Video

Chris Allen Short Film

William C. Crawford

Author Zora Neale Hurston says, “There is no agony like having an untold story inside you.” At CANYON VOICES, our mission is to encourage emerging writers, poets and artists to tell their stories, whether it’s with words, paint or the snap of a camera. Here on the pages of Issue 14, you’ll find stories, poems, scripts, essays, and our newest addition, digital arts. The work is from artists of all walks in life who have unleashed stories from deep within.

One of these stories was particularly touching to our staff. It was written by Aidan Macias, a sixth grade student. He had an untold story that needed to be released and it was about Hank, a “gray Australian Shepherd with spots” who died right in front of his eyes. Aidan’s mother told me she didn’t realize how crushed her son was by Hank’s death until she read the story. This is the power of the word. It allows us to liberate those stories and give them life on pages that can be shared with others.

Issue 14 is dedicated to all of those stories inside of us. Not all of them are tragic. Some are inspiring, others are humorous and thought provoking. We hope you will sample them all.

All of this is brought to you by the wonderful student editors who make up CANYON VOICES. I tip my hat to them for their dedication, their vision, and their hard work. I must also pay homage to my former student, Olivia Tejeda, who designed our original template and worked week upon week to help us complete this issue. Finally as always, deep thanks go to my Division Director

Louis Mendoza and Dean

Marlene Tromp for their support.

CANYONVOICES

Publisher

JULIE AMPARANO

ASTRID CASTANEDA, Lead Poetry Editor

PATRICIA COLOMY, Copy Editor

ASHLEE CUNNINGHAM, Creative Nonfiction Editor, Co-Lead Art Editor

SARAH EDWARDS, Lead Fiction Editor

MANNY FELIX, Lead Creative Nonfiction Editor

SANJA GERKOVIC, Fiction Editor, Art Editor

SARINA GUERRA, Digital Arts Lead, Co-Lead Art Editor, Scripts Editor, Staff Photographer

ERIC JOHNSON. Poetry Editor

SAMANTHA JOHNSON, Poetry Editor

KAYLA MANGINELLI, Scripts Editor, Art Editor

AUBREY RYCHEN, Creative Nonfiction Editor, Art Editor

BRITTANY SHELDAHL, Scripts Editor, Art Editor

BEN STIREK Creative Nonfiction Editor, Art Editor

SHELBY TURNER, Lead Scripts Editor

SHAYLEE WILLIAMS, Fiction Editor

NEW COLLEGE DEAN’S OFFICE

Vice Provost & Dean

Marlene Tromp

Associate Director

Louis Mendoza

Marketing Department

Lauren Griswold, Ruth Dempsey

CANYON VOICES is a student-driven online literary magazine that features the work of emerging and established writers and artists. The magazine is supported by the students and faculty of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies at Arizona State University’s New College. To subscribe, please click here.

Click here for submission guidelines

Front Cover: UNTITLED by Letty Guerra

Back Cover: MONA’S MIGRATION by Li Mahalik

See the Artwork section for full images

All uncredited artwork from Pixabay.com.

Illustration by Giada Cattanio (See Artwork for full image)

FICTION

Inks 2 by Katie Howard

(See Artwork for full image)

Kruti Brahmbhatt Outside the City of Death

Landon Snodgrass Staircases

Kristin Beaven Ashes

Gary Lawrence Double Play

Kevin Finnerty Freedom of Movement

Ryan Dunham Hotel Sadness

Steven Luna Wing and Claw and Hoof and Tail

Abby Timmons

The Architect's Ballad

Outside the City of Death

By Kruti Brahmbhatt

This was the second time Shamaldas Patel had come to die at Moksha Bhavan. The rays of dawn shimmered across the Ganges, bathing the temples, shrines, Ashrams and domes in a golden hue and hymns. Enshrouded by the fragrance of incense, ash smeared monks meditated on the banks while priests and tourists dipped in the holy waters. Everyone in Varanasi seemed to know where Moksha Bhavan was located, though there were no signs leading to it from the busiest intersection of the city that bustled with cycle rickshaws, Bajaj Chetaks, bicycles and a few black and white ambassadors.

“Remember, we came here before, in 1984, two days before Indira Gandhi was assassinated,” Rajni said to Vishnu while signaling Lachho to bring her father inside. She ironed her wrinkled, bottle-green bandhani sari with her palm.

“Yes, yes, I remember it well. It was a bad time. It was a bad time.” Vishnu shook his head and fumbled to find a guest register from a set of dusty tomes behind the counter. The table fan on the counter screeched and spit dust in the space around it, mostly on Vishnu, the target of its wrath.

Vishnu told Rajni that he had seen over 18,000 people die at this place, and he could predict if a person was going to die. He didn’t think Rajni’s father, Shamaldas, would die this time either. He added that non-resident Indians came from as far as Mauritius, Japan, America and Tanzania. His predictions remained accurate in

those cases too. Rajni told him that her father was insistent and kept murmuring, even in his sleep, that he wanted to go to Varanasi and die there.

While Lachho helped Shamaldas walk up to the allocated room, Rajni waited to ask Vishnu a question.

“Is there any discount for the returning guest?”

“No discount,” Vishnu said as he showed his two bare hands and shook his head. “We are giving rooms at subsidized cost anyway. This is not business for us, you see. We let poor people stay here for free. The money has to come from somewhere to run this place.”

Vishnu explained that people came here to die. They wanted Nirvana but didn’t want to pay the price. He helped families to cremate their relatives, and when a person didn’t have anyone to look after them, Vishnu took special care of the guest. He even sat with them at times and asked if they had any final wishes that he could help bring to fruition. Sometimes a person wanted to talk to an estranged brother or sister

and apologize over a fight that took place decades back and ruined their relationship. Sometimes they asked Vishnu to play sitar music more frequently. Before Rajni left, Vishnu explained how people carried so much weight all through their lives and only thought of shedding it when they came closer to death, when they knew they couldn’t carry it any longer.

In the room, Shamaldas rested on a bed with his gaze fixated on the Ganges. “I just want to go to the abode of God,” he muttered and continued chanting mantras and rotating the prayer beads in his hands. In the past few years, Lachho had heard this sentence from his master many times, but he nodded obsequiously, pretending to believe his words.

Rajni kept her handbag on the study table and observed the room for a while. She opened the wardrobe cabinets, had Lachho clean them with a piece of cloth and asked him to help her rearrange the room. They moved aside a mini dining table, chairs and a wood-carved magazine stand in the corner so that her father wouldn’t trip on any of it.

“My feet are burning. Someone massage my feet,” Shamaldas said, directing attention to himself. Lachho came to his bedside and started massaging his feet.

Rajni decided to take a stroll in the corridor. She called her husband, Navin, and asked if he thought her brother, Aditya, would come this time. Navin told her not to have any hope. If he wanted to come, he would have by now. She asked him if the kids were studying for their exams and if the maids were cooking per the

weekly menu she put on their fridge door. He assured her that he could come any time she wanted him there.

Rajni wished her father had chosen a different time to come to Varanasi. All his life, he had thought only of his own needs. The last time he had an epiphany that he was going to die, Rajni’s younger son was barely two. She had to leave him in the care of her mother-in-law. This time too Shamaldas wasn’t frail. He could walk with support and clutched to life as tenaciously as before. He berated Lachho when he didn’t get his tea or meals on time or forgot to place his shoes under the bed. She knew her father nagged her and Lachho, because they listened to him. Aditya hadn’t even spoken to him in the last four years. In spite of Aditya’s cold treatment, Shamaldas craved to hear from him, to see him again. All her life, Rajni wanted her parents to have this yearning for her. She did everything she could to spin their love towards her but rarely succeeded. Rajni saw Vishnu in the corridor.

“Vishnuji, don’t you get dejected seeing people die every day?”

He grinned and said that they celebrated death here. At the beginning of his thirty-five years working in this supervisory position, he confessed that he was frightened to live at the compound. But eventually he decided to raise his family of five in this same building. Now everyone at his home was used to sickly bodies and soiled sheets. The screams of pain became background noise like the constant horns of vehicles they heard outside the gate. Before Rajni left, Vishnu handed her a letter, Shamaldas’s letter. The mail man hadn’t come

“He grinned and said that they celebrate death here.”

that day. He requested she post it herself in a mailbox outside.

Rajni placed the letter inside her handbag. She was curious. The letter had an address of some place in Bhopal, and per her knowledge, the Patels did not have any connection in that city. Besides, her father was not fond of writing letters. He never wrote a letter, even when he travelled abroad on business trips leaving behind their entire family for a month or two.

That evening, Aditya called Rajni’s hotel. “Aditya, are you coming?”

“Let him die without seeing me. I am not coming.” Aditya hung up the phone as curtly as he had slammed the door in their last meeting four years back.

Unlike Rajni, Aditya was given love, attention and family resources unsparingly, and he took all of them for granted. Rajni, on the other hand, had to go a great distance to gain her share of love and attention. She scored higher than her brother and did everything he couldn’t do in their childhood like fetching things from upstairs in the dark for her mother, bargaining with a vendor, maintaining a good student image throughout her school years.

“No, Didi. I won’t. Because I know that old man won’t die. He is a hypocrite. All he wants is to cling to life as long as he can and order people around.”

“That old man is also your father. Can’t you be grateful once for what you have received? Our father has kept some properties for himself so that his living expenses could be taken care of. You know, old age has its own problems. I haven’t even asked for my share, because I don’t need it,” Rajni said in a stern manner, devoid of any warmth.

“It’s the son who inherits all the wealth.”

Rajni didn’t chide him on his regressive ideas. She also didn’t say that he shouldn’t have been given a penny when he refused to care for his father and abandoned him. Instead, she told him that their father remembered him and wanted to see him one last time before he died.

While growing up, she often wondered if her father loved her at all. She envied Aditya for the way Shamaldas pined for him. She wanted to tell her father that his son didn’t deserve his affection after abandoning him. She hadn’t confronted him earlier for she lacked courage, but now it was more to protect the tenuous relationship they built in the last few decades.

Shamaldas was self-absorbed in his youth and constantly travelled to expand his business. When his first wife died during childbirth, he was trading automobile parts with a dealer in Chennai. The second wife, Rajni’s mother, was fifteen years younger than him and had studied up to the third grade. She read him newspapers in the morning when he was in his eighties and could no longer read. When Rajni’s mother died a decade back, Shamaldas didn’t show any sign of grief and hired Lachho to fill the void. Lachho read newspapers for him, massaged his feet, walked him to the park and bought necessary things from the market. Lachho came everyday at seven in the morning on his black bicycle which he had purchased secondhand from a milk man.

“While growing up, she often wondered if her father loved her at all.”

“Bhaiya, how much would you charge for the boat ride?” Rajni wanted to see Varanasi and decided to take a tour of the Ganges River to witness the activities along the city’s ghats. She wanted to witness diyas, burning day and night, and the sounds of brass bells and incantations to soothe her agitated mind.

“Two rupees. I am also a guide and have studied Upanishads from my uncle. I can explain the history of this place for an additional payment of two rupees.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ram Manohar.”

“You are a good salesman for sure,” said Rajni, giving him an additional two rupees. Rajni sat on the edge of the boat and picked up a floating marigold from the river.

“Didi, this is a city of death. I see bodies blanketed by white shrouds and orange marigolds on these ghats everyday. Funeral pyres burn nonstop here, melting human flesh on piles of mango wood. My uncle, who works at this ghat as a priest, told me that around thirty thousand bodies are burnt at this ghat every year. Thousands of people come to bathe in the Ganges. It’s a good business. My entire family makes their living from death. Last year, some Japanese tourists came just to see the rituals.” The guide recited the speech he must have used on hundreds of tourists. Rajni observed his yellowish teeth and bleached white shirt that blended well with the background, the same colors of the buildings around them.

“I can also show you best places for Banarasi silk saris,” he said, pointing his finger towards a series of small shops surrounded by dilapidated buildings with narrow staircases.

“I don’t need to buy this time.”

“Didi, Prem Chand, Tulsi Das, Sitar maestro –Ravi Shankar, Ustad Bismillah Khan, are all related to this city in one way or the other. This city is compared to the supreme reality— brahman, one which is without expansion or contraction, without change, without any form, unmanifest, which encompasses everything and is everywhere ” In between their conversation, Rajni read lines by the poet Kabir from one of the buildings they passed.

Seeing the grinding stone turning, turning, Kabir began to weep.

Between the two stones, not a single grain is saved!

Rajni thought that no matter how fiercely her father clutched to life, he would have to let it go one day.

On her way back to Moksha Bhavan, she saw a mailbox and remembered her father’s letter. Before she could post it, the letter escaped her hands and fell in mud. She wiped the mud with the end of her sari. She couldn’t help but open the letter.

The letter was addressed to Jaanu. It was a nickname and before she read the entire letter, she scanned it again to see if it contained the lady’s real name. To her disappointment, it didn’t. She sat down on a large stone under a tree and began reading.

I am writing this letter as much for my own peace of mind as to soothe you. I am sorry I let you down sixty-five years ago. I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but I have not loved anyone as much as I have loved you. Two marriages, children, grandchildren, success in the business world, nothing could ever come close to the happiness I felt with you. Look, here I am, still a coward, and I don’t have even the guts to put your name on my will in my last time. Honour is the most useless of the societal inventions but, having carried the weight of it all these years, I am incapable of unburdening myself now. I am dying. No matter how the world perceives me after my death, I know within my heart that I am a failure. There is no greater misery than that of living an unauthentic life. At least, you remained true to your love for me

and waited for me all these years. I know that you will be able to die peacefully. I hope our daughter and you are well. Please forgive me, if you can.

When Rajni returned to Moksha Bhavan, she saw Lachho stroking her father’s feet.

“He was breathless earlier and then he said he had a burning sensation in his legs and hands,” Lachho said, massaging Shamaldas’s feet with petroleum jelly.

“Give him whatever he wants,” Shamaldas whispered. “I want to see my son. I don’t want you to keep anything for me. The gold is dust for me if I don’t get to see my son at my last moment. Call him and tell him I want to see him. His father is waiting for him,” Shamaldas finished with tears in his eyes.

Rajni went to reception to call Aditya. She wondered if she should say anything about the letter to Aditya or Navin but only asked her brother to come at the earliest and told him that he would get whatever he wanted.

“I spoke to Aditya. He is coming the day after,” Rajni said.

As soon as Shamaldas heard this news, he sat up for the first time in the past four days and demanded to

watch TV. The anchor was voicing his opinion on India’s economic crisis.

Shamaldas listened attentively. He clapped and blurted out, “End of license raj! Finally we have got common sense. There is still a long way to go.” Shamaldas spoke as if he was participating in the debate on TV. It was evident that the change in his disposition was not due to the turn in India’s economic policy but because Aditya consented to visit him after all these years.

“Papa, you should sleep now,” Rajni said, getting up from her seat.

He started chanting Sanskrit mantras, closed his eyes and gave his glasses to his daughter to put away.

All she wanted to do was to send Lachho outside the room and ask her father about the letter. She knew that doing so would make him feel worse though so she continued pretending as if she knew nothing. She didn’t see the point in burdening someone else with this secret either, which she knew would remain with her all her life. If her father couldn’t have peace at the end of his life, at least he deserved his good name to continue after he was gone.

“Beta, you have come. Sit beside me,” Shamaldas said, putting his hands on Aditya’s shoulder.

Shamaldas asked about his daughter-in-law and kids. He asked if Aditya’s son still played hockey and if their house renovation was complete.

“Rajni, bring something to eat for your brother. I will eat jalebi today. Beta, in old age, what can you want more than seeing the person you love the most? Mostly, it’s love that nourishes us in this age,” Shamaldas said.

“Papa, you know, I can’t let you stay at my place. We can’t take care of you.” Aditya moved away from the bed and sat on the chair.

“Beta, but you can visit me often, can’t you?”

“We have met now. What’s the point? I left an important meeting to come here. I will be leaving by tonight,” he said, eating his golden brown jalebi and relishing it as if he was in a restaurant. They heard an old woman shrieking in the next room during their conversation. There was a crowd of half a dozen people outside her room.

“Son, I have asked Rajni to give you whatever you want. Tell my daughter-in-law that it’s for her.”

Rajni woke to the tune of bhajans. In an hour, Aditya arrived.

“Didi, how is he?” Aditya asked, putting down his small suitcase.

“He is doing much better since he heard you were coming to see him.”

“Papa, I am going to Burma next week to evaluate export possibilities. My business incurred loss last year. I need to find new markets for my product. I am going to freshen up,” Aditya added, getting up. He whispered to Rajni that their father looked perfectly healthy to him.

“He is doing much better since he heard you were coming to see him.”

“You seem to be disappointed to see him doing well,” Rajni said in a sarcastic tone, looking at Aditya with her piercing gaze.

“Not disappointed, but a person should go when his time comes. He is ninety-eight now. How long would anyone want to take care of him? He is like my five-year-old son. When someone gives him money on Diwali, he says no a couple of times before accepting the money. Why this hypocrisy when you want it so badly? Our

man in front of her and the one who wrote that letter were the same man.

“Beta Rajni, give me my shawl. I am a bit cold.” Shamaldas requested it in his stentorian voice. Rajni opened the chest where she kept Shamaldas’s clothes. She brought new clothes in case he died and needed to be changed into them. She fumbled to find a shawl but instead saw her father’s Nehru jacket.

Rajni still remembered hiding dried fruits in the pockets of the Nehru jacket to eat later. She stole one rupee and sixty paisa for a movie from that jacket. With a college identity card, she got twenty paisa back, which she spent on a plate of samosa during the break. Aditya got Rs. 5 in pocket money. Rajni knew she deserved as much as Aditya received so she found various ways of securing money. Sometimes her grandmother gave her money, but, for the most part, she took it from her father’s wallet without telling him.

father says no to life but, seeing his appetite for it, I don’t think he means what he says about dying.”

“I knew my son would come see me,” Shamaldas told Lachho.

It was the first time in the last four months that Shamaldas got up from bed on his own. He began exercising with the support of a chair. He rotated his neck clockwise and counterclockwise then rotated his hands in the same way. His white dhoti opened up during this movement. He turned around and fastened his dhoti again and started lifting his legs one by one like an army man. Rajni wondered if the

Rajni calculated a rough amount her father would require to live at his current standard of living. She decided to sell some of her mutual funds from the portfolio she built over the years while teaching in a high school. Rajni had taught for almost a decade. She wasn’t passionate about teaching from the start, but she liked being independent. She had invested in mutual funds, silver and gold to diversify the risk. Investing was one of the skills she picked up from her father. Navin insisted on paying for their house, car and all the other expenses so her investments had remained untouched all these years.

Having nothing else to do, Rajni asked Vishnu questions whenever she saw him in the corridor.

“Vishnuji, isn’t it strange that people believe that dying in this place can free them from the circle of life and death?”

“It’s a matter of belief. You must have faith on what you cannot grasp with your mind,” Vishnu said in his tranquil voice. His bright eyes and calm mannerisms reflected the wisdom he carried in his heart. Rajni found herself listening to the tales of dying men and women from the man who had witnessed the deaths of thousands of people.

While leaving Moksh Bhavan, Rajni came to Vishnu to hand over the key to their room.

“You were right in your prediction about my father. His health, in fact, has improved since we came,” Rajni said, smiling.

On the fifteenth day, Rajni, Shamaldas and Lachho settled in a black Ambassador car and left for Indore. Shamaldas insisted on wearing his thick glasses to see verdant fields outside. They stopped at a hotel for dinner and to rest for a couple of hours. Shamaldas demanded to eat Khaman, a side dish he was fond of. Rajni fed him with a spoon, and Shamaldas finished a half plate of Khaman covered in coriander and sesame. He was adept at chewing food with his gums. He had refused to wear dentures for years and preferred soft food he could easily chew. Rajni noticed that his bald head, massaged with almond oil, shone under the red and yellow lights of the highway hotel.

In the morning, when Rajni saw prayer beads lying under Shamaldas’s bed, she tried to put them back in his hands. He did not respond. His eyes lay closed. His mouth was slightly open. She knew

Aditya was in Burma and out of reach. She had brought a white sari even when she didn’t believe her father could die this time. They went back to Varanasi for the funeral. She could have called Navin, but she decided that she wanted to light the fire on her father’s funeral pyre herself. It was so rare for a lady to perform this ritual that priests around the ghat approached and asked if there was no male who could perform the rights. When her mother had died, she had stood away from the funeral pyre and didn’t have the courage to go closer. She saw her father’s half opened mouth for the last time and wondered if he wanted to say something to her. She lit the fire with trembling hands in the presence of priests chanting mantras and waited for flames to evaporate the vestige of her father’s physical form. Later, she dispersed his ashes in the Ganges and wandered around the congested streets of Varanasi. The chaos of the city brought a strange sort of relief.

This story first appeared in THE FORGE LITERARY MAGAZINE. For more information on author Kruti Brahmbhatt, please visit our Contributors Page.

Staircases

By Landon Snodgrass

They fell in love beautifully and elegantly. Not in the average way of ascending an embroidered staircase with each step deepening the affection they felt for one another but rather as a stream flows and pools without any regularity of a consistent step-wise pattern. Their hearts didn’t beat with a systematic rhythm but rather as wind on the strings of a violin without patterns or uniformity.

Their lives together didn’t follow a path set forth by a precedence. They broke all barriers and journeyed in any direction their hearts desired. Their wanderlust was as a longing for a forgotten world that they would someday see. As their peers progressed through the usual states of love predestined by society they wound about the world and their feelings incoherently.

When she died he was thrown fast into a dark spiraling schism as if the weight of her loss contained such gravity that he fell into an orbit. He split off from the orbit and attempted to find the path out of the blackness but he always found himself back into the motions as the reel spun and the frames wound to the top of the screen. For where there were turns others could take sharply he only knew how to round and where there were lines others could walk straightly he could only take twisted. The beauty of his love was now the downfall of his recovery.

For more information on author Landon Snodgrass, please visit our Contributors Page.

Ashes

By Kristin Beaven

Keith Harper had been shot and killed, this much was known, but what happened to his shoes was a mystery. There were witnesses who said that he had been shot in the street on a cool October evening, just before a concert began at the downtown arena. Harper had escaped from prison months earlier, and he had changed his nose and his hair. He was completely unrecognizable from the pictures that were being shown of him, but when the body was taken in, dental records showed that it was indeed the man that the police had been searching for.

The witnesses said that it had all happened so suddenly. There was a gunshot amidst the huge crowd of people gathering on the sidewalks outside of the arena, waiting for the doors to open. Music was blaring on speakers attached to the building, and it mingled with the live music from the bar across the street. At first no one realized what had happened. People were dancing, laughing, and talking to each other in voices meant to rise above the blaring music that surrounded them. The sound of the shot was just one more noise on the crowded street. Some of the witnesses said that they took it for a car backfiring. People didn’t realize what was going on until the man collapsed to the ground. It was a close range shot; a bullet right in the head. Harper’s body went limp and he buckled to the ground,

blood and brain matter covering the pavement beneath him. Screams and shouts for the police began to mingle with the blaring noises. Amidst this confusion the shoes were removed from Keith Harper’s body. They were never found.

Casey did not want to go out to the dumpster. He knew that he had to, but he did not want to. He looked out of the McDonald’s window, and saw the wooden fence where he had led the man earlier. Guilt stabbed at him, but he did not know what to do. His heart was pounding in his chest. It was equal parts fear and indignation. He had to think of something to stop this. He slid his hand into his pocket and felt the keys to the dumpster. He ran his other hand over the back of his head. He could feel the bruised patch of skin beneath his hair, still tender to the touch. The pain in his feet had not subsided

either. He had to think of something, but there was no time now. He drew a deep breath, got the trash cart, took out the keys, and headed outside.

The smell of rotting garbage was horrible. Dwayne was pressed there, beneath the lid of the dumpster, atop a pile of putrid trash that had been ripening for three days in the intense July heat. He had been there for over an hour now, and the only thought that he could muster was that the boy better come. He better come, or he was as good as dead. Dwayne had made a deal with the sixteen year old two days ago. He was starting to second guess himself now. Casey was smart, and that was the problem. Dwayne had worked with smart ones before, and in general he did not like it. There was nothing more dangerous to a conman than a lackey who could think for himself. Still, it was a lucky thing that he had the kid. The other one, Lance, had gotten too greedy, and too close to Peter. Besides, Dwayne could feel more secure with the smart one; Casey was meticulous, and more importantly he had something to lose.

Dwayne had stalked the McDonald’s for over a week before he made his move. He would go in as a customer, order a drink, and subtly watch the movements of the staff. He was like a hundred other habitual customers. No one paid him a second glance. That was when he had chosen Lance to bring into the plot. He was a tall gangly boy of about seventeen, with watery gray eyes and oily blond hair. This acnecovered kid was the general type that Dwayne liked to have working for him: ignorant, greedy, and disposable. Dwayne had made the decision

when he saw the kid cash out an order on one of the other worker’s registers, then slyly put the ten-dollar bill into his pocket rather than in the drawer of cash. Dwayne knew how to get this type on board. He approached the kid one evening when he was up at the front counter by himself. He asked the kid if he wondered why he was in there every evening.

“Not really,” the kid had answered with a blank and careless expression on his face.

“I’m in here every night,” Dwayne had told him, “because I’ve been watching all of you.”

The kid had looked at him curiously, his sweaty red marked face a perfect mask of puzzlement.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about mister, but—“

“I’m talking about the money that you stole from that drawer the other day,” Dwayne had said in a lowered voice. The kid had shot a nervous look over his shoulder to make sure that the manager was not listening. The sweat glistened more prominently on his face as it turned a deeper shade of red.

“Look, man, I’m sorry that I took that money,” he had whispered urgently. “I don’t know if you’re some kind of cop, or what, but I swear I’ll put it back—“

“Wait, wait, wait, kid,” Dwayne had said, holding up his hand to stop him from talking. “Who said anything about putting it back? I don’t want you to put it back, I want you to help me. It takes a special kind of skill to be able to swipe something that cleanly and not get caught. That’s why I picked you: because you’ve got the skill, kid. Now what’s your name?”

The sweat glistened more prominently on his face as it turned a deeper shade of red.

“Lance,” he had answered.

“Well, Lance, I can tell that you’re the kind of person that I want on my side.” Dwayne was a very persuasive liar, and he knew how to appeal to a person’s vanity as well as their greed. Once he had the boy’s attention, Dwayne told him the story because he knew that in this instance nothing would be more persuasive than the truth, or at least part of the truth.

“Ever heard of Keith Harper, Lance?”

“I think I remember that name from the news. Didn’t he get killed a few years ago?” Lance asked.

Dwayne nodded, “He did. What would you say if I told you that I know the guy who killed him?”

Dwayne watched Lance’s face. This was the real test. Lance did not draw away, or look startled. He did not look frightened, nor guilty. He looked eager. Dwayne could see a twisted interest gleaming in the kid’s watery eyes. He had no qualms with what Dwayne had just said, in fact he wanted to know more. Dwayne decided that he had passed the test.

“Wasn’t there some big deal about his shoes going missing?” Lance asked.

It was just the question that Dwayne was hoping for.

“Yes there was. It confused the police, but in the end they let it go.

Figured that the killer had just taken the shoes as a trophy,” Dwayne smiled, “but that’s not why he took them.”

Lance looked even more eager, it was almost pathetic. “Why did he take them?”

“He took them because Keith Harper had stolen something,” Dwayne said, “something that a group of people in New York were willing to pay a million dollars to get back.”

The kid’s eyes glinted with greed. “What did he steal?”

“He stole plans,” Dwayne said.

“Plans for what?” Lance asked.

“I’m afraid that I can’t tell you that, Lance,” Dwayne said with what he hoped was a regretful look on his face, “the guy that I know, Peter, he keeps that information to himself. It’s safer that way.”

Lance looked somewhat disappointed, but Dwayne quickly brought him back, “I don’t even know what they’re for,” which was a lie. Dwayne would not have jumped on board if Peter had not told him what the plans were for, but it was best that only two people be privy to that information.

“Peter was the only person who knew that Harper had the plans,”

Dwayne said, which

actually was the truth, and made Dwayne’s position feel more secure. If no one knew that Harper had the plans, Dwayne would have no competition to worry about. “Harper had changed his appearance since his own brush with the law,” Dwayne told Lance, “and Peter was one of the few people who knew where he was and what he looked like. Peter was keeping tabs on him.”

Dwayne paused and gave the boy a second to take in what he was saying, then he continued, “Peter figured out that Harper was keeping the plans in a false bottom in one of his shoes. He kept them on him at all times, even wore them to sleep in. When Peter heard what the group in New York was willing to pay to get the plans back, he made his move.”

Dwayne paused again and observed with satisfaction that Lance was engrossed with what he was saying. The boy was leaning forward and listening with every fiber of his being. “He killed Keith Harper, and he took the shoes. By that time the cops had linked him to a different incident. They were looking for him, and they were bound to find him; he has kind of a distinctive look. He decided to lay low for a while, and he buried the shoes while he waited for everything to blow over.”

“So now it’s blown over?” Lance asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” Dwayne answered. “The cops did find Peter and he served a couple of years, but luckily he was imprisoned with me. I had been there for a while, and I was already working on an escape plan. He told me about his little buried treasure, and in exchange for getting him out he said that he would split the

money with me fifty-fifty. Now I’m willing to give a good chunk of that to you if you can help us.”

Lance looked impressed, the greed in his eyes glistening to a crescendo, then a mild look of trepidation clouded his acne covered features. “Why me?” he asked.

“Because, like I said, I need a guy like you on my side. We need help getting the shoes dug up.”

Lance still looked slightly uneasy, “what if we get caught?”

Dwayne forced a laugh. “You? Get caught? I just saw you take that money as smooth as you please. I don’t think you’ll get caught. If you do don’t worry. We’re not asking you to do anything illegal. You just help us dig up the shoes, we give you your share, and everyone wins.”

The expression on Lance’s dull face smoothed over, and the greed replaced the apprehension once again.

“Okay,” he said, “so where are the shoes buried?”

Dwayne leaned in closer, “Do you know when this McDonald’s was built?”

“A little over a year ago,” Lance answered.

Dwayne nodded, “Harper was killed just over three years ago. Peter buried the shoes in an empty lot, across from an abandoned gas station.” Dwayne smiled as Lance’s eyes slowly registered what he was saying. “That’s another reason that I want you on my side, Lance. We need an inside man, and don’t worry, you will definitely get your share.”

…the greed in his eyes glistened to a crescendo…

Dwayne waited there in the dumpster for Casey, the boy that he did not trust. This one had recognized him. He realized it on the same day that he had recruited the other kid, Lance. He had been talking to Lance in a low voice, when he felt eyes on him. He looked up and saw that the slight sixteen year old was looking at him from his spot near the drive through window. This boy was small, with round brown eyes that stared at Dwayne with a fearful recognition. The boy quickly dropped his head when he realized that Dwayne had noticed him, but the damage was done. Dwayne knew that the kid had recognized him.

Dwayne was clean shaven, where he had had a full beard in the picture that they were showing on the News. His hair had been cut since that picture as well, and he had lost about fifteen pounds. These were all the reasons that he was the one in the McDonald’s rather than Peter. There were pictures of Peter everywhere, and there was no way for Peter to change his look without wearing a mask. No one knew Dwayne. No one made the connection between his thin smooth face and closely shaven head, and the rugged bearded bear of a man that was being shown on TV. At least no one had until now. Dwayne knew that he had to do something, and quickly before the doe eyed boy ratted him out. Greed and vanity might not work as well on this one, Dwayne thought. He would have to use another appeal.

Dwayne asked Lance what the doe eyed boy’s name was.

“Oh, that’s Casey,” Lance had answered. “He’s a pain in the neck,” He added hurriedly, clearly worried that Dwayne was taking an interest in someone else for the job.

“What time does he get off?” Dwayne asked.

“In about twenty minutes,” Lanced had answered.

“Which car is his?”

“He drives his mom’s beat up Ford pickup,” Lance told him. “The one with the busted out window,” Lance smiled proudly, “I did that myself.”

Dwayne nodded. The kid, Casey, wouldn’t rat him out right away. He would want to watch and wait to make sure that he was right before he went to the police. Dwayne knew the type.

Dwayne had gone back to the abandoned gas station across the street. He came back to the McDonald’s not five minutes later with a crow bar in his hand. He skimmed the darkening parking lot, and in the glow of the yellow light coming from the restaurant he found the Ford pickup. It looked like it was on its last mile with its missing tail light and black chipped paint. There was a dent on the side, and the passenger side window was covered by a piece of tarp held on by some silver duct tape.

Dwayne climbed into the bed of the truck, he lay down, and he waited. It was only a few minutes before he heard Casey come towards the truck, car keys jangling as he took them out of his pocket. Dwayne listened to him fumble at the driver’s side door for a moment. He then heard the door open, and the kid slide in. Quickly, before Casey had time to shut the door, Dwayne rose up. The light was dim, but he was very practiced in this sort of thing. He swung the crow bar heavily, and felt the metal collide with the kid’s head. The kid went out stone cold. Dwayne moved rapidly and methodically. He pushed Casey over onto the passenger’s side, seated himself in the driver’s seat, took the keys from the unconscious kid’s hand, and drove back to the gas station. The method of persuasion that Dwayne used for Casey was somewhat messier than the one he had used for Lance, but no less effective. Fear was almost as strong as greed and vanity.

“Whoa ho ho, look who’s awake,” he heard a rasping man’s voice say.

Casey’s eyes began to focus better. The man in front of him was tall and dirty, with lank dark hair hanging around a face scarred from the left eyebrow down to the right jaw. The scar went straight down through the left eye and took a good chunk of the nose off. Casey had seen him before, on the News, he was Peter Calloway. Another man was beside him. This was the man who had been at the restaurant this evening. The one that Casey had recognized. He was Dwayne Stewart, a robber, drug dealer, and con artist who had escaped two weeks ago with the suspected murderer Peter Calloway. The two of them stood over Casey, and he felt the sweat run down the back of his neck as Peter Calloway pulled a box cutter from his pocket. Dwayne Stewart sat down beside his head.

“Casey isn’t it?” he asked.

Casey stared at him, but didn’t answer. He felt the other man, Calloway begin to remove his shoes, and his heart nearly stopped.

“When we ask you a question,” Calloway said in a gruff half whisper, “we expect you to answer.”

Casey’s heart was pounding a mile a minute. He woke up in the gas station with his hands tied behind his back. It smelled like oil, dirt, and sweat. There was a dim light overhead, and bits of trash and odds and ends merchandise were littered around the walls. The back of Casey’s head was throbbing. He was lying on his side. He raised his head up slightly.

Casey screamed out in pain as he felt the box cutter slice down into his toe nail. He felt the cold blade cut down through the hard outer surface of the nail, and the hot stinging liquid that must have been blood begin to run down his toe and onto his foot. The blade traced the length of the nail, and then cut deeply into the curve of his toe, sliding down towards the top of his foot. He felt the cool, dirty air hit the exposed flesh where the toe was now split. His breath was coming out in shaking gasps, and he felt the cold sweat glistening on his forehead.

“Let’s try this again,” Dwayne said. “It’s Casey, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Casey gasped.

“Good,” Dwayne said, “and do you know why we brought you here, Casey?”

Casey glanced down at the man crouched down at his feet.

“Don’t look at him, look at me,” Dwayne said, reaching out and jerking Casey’s face up so that he was staring up at the clean shaven man. “Do I have to ask again?”

“You brought me here to kill me,” Casey said, struggling to keep his voice steady, “because I recognized you at the restaurant.”

“Wrong,” Dwayne said, and for the second time Casey felt the knife cut down into his toe, this time scraping the toenail completely off. The pain was excruciating, and Dwayne slapped a large calloused hand over Casey’s mouth as he screamed and tears began to stream from his eyes.

“We brought you here, Casey, because we need your help,” Dwayne said, still pressing his hand over Casey’s mouth. “The only reason that we would want to kill you is if you inconvenience us, in which case we wouldn’t just kill you, we would take your mom first. And don’t think that I mean just me and Peter. We know people. If you get him or me arrested, we have a hundred friends who will be on your trail faster than you can scream.” Dwayne removed his hand from Casey’s mouth. “Now, it would be unfair of us to lay down this rule without telling you the things that would inconvenience us, so let me go over the list.”

Dwayne held up his first finger; “Number one, you don’t go to the police.”

He held up held up his second finger; “Number two, you don’t tell your mother, your friends, or anyone else about us.”

He held up his third finger; “Number three, you do exactly what I tell you to do. Do you understand?” Casey’s mind was racing along with his heart. He caught a glimpse of Peter Calloway raising the box cutter a third time. He thought about his mom, sitting up and waiting for him to get home.

“Yes,” he gasped, “yes, I understand.”

Dwayne was beginning to get way too uncomfortable in the dumpster now. Rotting fish was the dominant odor, and his stomach was beginning to churn as he lay beneath the closed lid. Finally, he heard the sound that he had been waiting for. The wheels of a trash cart coming over the pavement, and the jingle of keys. He heard the boy, Casey, unlock the padlock on the wooden fence door. He heard him pull the trash cart in and shut the door behind him. Then sweet relief as the lid of the dumpster was lifted up and he was greeted by fresh, clean, night air mingled with the smell of french fries. Casey looked darkly at Dwayne as the con artist lifted the black bag of tools that he had been clutching. Dwayne tossed it over the side of the dumpster and it clanked as he swung his legs over and dropped down beside it.

…Casey felt the knife cut down into his toe, this time scraping the toenail completely off.

“Remember, Casey, if anything goes wrong, your mother is going to be the one to pay the price,” Dwayne said.

Casey looked daggers at him, but nodded. The boy lifted the lid of the trash cart and began to unload the bulging trash bags into the dumpster. As he worked Dwayne looked through a small gap in the fence. There was only one other car in the parking lot besides the pickup truck that Casey drove.

Casey cleared all of the trash bags from the cart, and when it was empty Dwayne climbed inside. Casey closed the lid and began to push him back towards the restaurant.

“You’re sure no one else will be around?” Dwayne asked.

“There’s supposed to be three of us on third shift, but Kate went home early like she always does, and the manager’s on his phone in the office. He gave his keys to me, so he’s not planning on coming out any time soon,” Casey answered him.

“Good,” Dwayne said.

Lance was not happy that they had brought Casey into this whole thing. Dwayne had told him that it was necessary, but Lance was still angry about it. He was also angry that Dwayne had ordered him and Casey both to go to the gas station tomorrow night. He guessed that Dwayne and Peter wanted to hash out a plan for getting into the McDonald’s. They already had tools and everything that they needed to dig up the floor in the closet. That was where Peter figured that the shoes were. He had buried them forty yards from the road. That put them in the center of the McDonald’s, which would have been the store closet in the back where they kept the brooms and mops. Lance felt a thrill of excitement as he thought out the plan in his head. They would dig the shoes up. Dwayne and Peter would handle the technical stuff when it came to selling the plans, and he, Lance, would come out with the ten thousand dollars that Dwayne had promised him. The more he thought about it, though, the more he was beginning to feel like he deserved

more than just a measly ten thousand. After all, he would be the one to help them get into the McDonald’s. Without him they wouldn’t be able to do anything. They needed him. Come to think of it, did he really need them? It couldn’t be too hard to find a buyer for the plans. He pictured what he would do if he had the entire cut of money for himself. He smiled at the prospect.

Casey stood outside of the gas station. He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to do it. He drew a deep breath. He didn’t know why they had asked him and Lance to come there tonight, but he was sure that it would not end well for them. This was what he had told Lance when they worked together this morning. Lance only cared about getting a share of the money. Casey felt bad for not telling him the whole story, but he knew that if Lance knew that he would not be getting any money, then he would not help. Casey looked through the window. He could see Dwayne lounging on the empty counter with his feet propped up in front of him. Casey glimpsed the black sneakers that Dwayne was wearing, laced tightly to his feet. Peter Calloway sat in the corner on an over turned trash can. He held the box cutter in his hand, and was flicking the blade in and out. He didn’t even seem to notice Dwayne’s shoes. Casey crouched there and watched them. He had considered that there were witness protection programs. He had thought about calling the police, thinking that if he did get Dwayne and Peter locked up, he and his mother could be taken somewhere safe, but he had dismissed that idea. If these guys could escape once, who’s to say that they would not escape again? He did not like what he was

about to do, but it was the only way. Casey heard a noise from the other side of the building. He turned to see Lance coming around the building with a gasoline can in one hand and a metal bar in the other. Casey took the can from him and began dousing the building in the clear liquid. Lance thrust the metal bars between the two handles of the gas station door. When the building was well covered in gasoline, Lance took a box of matches from his pocket. He struck one, threw it down, and the building went up in flames.

Lance had listened to Casey when Casey told him that he thought the two conmen were planning on killing them tonight. It made sense, Lance thought. The two guys needed them to figure out where the shoes would be buried within the McDonald’s, but after that they could probably manage getting in on their own. Lance and Casey would no longer be useful to them. Lance didn’t like Casey, but he knew that Casey was honest, and it made sense. That’s why Lance had followed Casey’s plan tonight. Now that Dwayne and Peter were out of the picture, Lance knew that he could carry out the plan on his own. He looked over at Casey through the glow of the blazing light. He wasn’t too worried about him. Casey knew about the shoes, but he didn’t want anything to do with them anyways. He was too much of a goody-goody. The only problem that Lance could see was that Casey would probably go to the police now. But he, Lance, could make threats just as well as Dwayne and Peter could. He approached Casey now, as he stood in the glowing firelight.

He approached Casey now, as he stood in the glowing firelight.

“You better not be planning on getting anyone else involved in this,” Lance said to him. “I’m going to McDonald’s tonight, I’m digging up the shoes myself and I’m selling those plans, and if you say anything, I’ll cut your throat.” He liked the way the threat sounded as it came out of his mouth, but he was disappointed that Casey looked more stunned than scared.

“Lance, the shoes aren’t in McDonald’s,” Casey said, “let me borrow your phone, we have to call the police now.”

“What! NO!” Lance said, indignant that Casey was now trying to give him orders. He guessed that Casey’s plan with the gas station had gone to his head. Made him think that he had some say now. Lance would have to show him. He drew back his fist and punched Casey square in the nose. Blood flew everywhere as Casey’s head went back. Lance then grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

“What do you mean ‘the shoes aren’t in McDonald’s’, isn’t that what this whole thing was about?” Lance demanded. He shook Casey by the collar “ANSWER ME!!!” he shouted in his face.

“They were in McDonald’s,” Casey said, “but Dwayne was playing everyone. He hid in the dumpster last night. He made me sneak him in. He dug up the shoes himself. He told me not to tell Peter or you.” Casey shook his head, “Look Lance, just let this go. You don’t want to be involved with any of this.”

Lance felt like his world was crumbling. He punched Casey in the face again, just because he felt like it, then it occurred to him that his plan could still work. “WHAT DID DWAYNE DO WITH THE SHOES!!!” he demanded, shaking Casey again. Casey shook his head again. “WHAT DID HE DO WITH THEM!!!” Lance screamed, fitting his hands around Casey’s neck. Casey’s throat

was thin, and as Lance squeezed he felt a savage pleasure in the way the windpipe compressed beneath his fingers.

Casey’s face was turning red, and his eyes were bulging. “He’s wearing them,” he sputtered out as Lance squeezed his throat.

Casey fell to the ground coughing and choking as Lance pushed him away. He hit the pavement with a thud, but pulled himself up quickly. He got his bearings and looked towards the gas station, which was now engulfed in flames. To his horror he saw Lance pull the metal bar from the door, and rush into the burning building.

“LANCE, NO!!!” Casey shouted, but Lance did not listen to him. Casey looked around. Surely someone had called the fire department by now, but he knew that the nearest fire station was quite a ways away. They would not get here in time. “LANCE!!!” he shouted again, but to no avail. He took in a deep breath, and ran towards the building.

Two women sat in McDonald’s the next morning, sipping their coffee. They both looked out the window where they could see the ruins of the gas station across the street. Police and fire trucks were still there. The parameter of the lot was fenced in with yellow tape. The place had burned to the ground.

“Such a sad thing to have happened,” the first woman said, “I heard that it wasn’t an accident.”

“Really?” the second woman said, “I hadn’t heard that.”

“Yeah, it was all on the news this morning,” the first woman said, dropping her voice down to a conspiratorial tone. “Apparently, someone from in here called the fire department last night. They thought that the building was empty, and

that the fire was just a freak thing that had happened. You know, gasoline left over from when the place had been up and running.”

The second woman nodded. “That’s what I had figured when I heard. I thought someone must’ve thrown a cigarette down or something.”

“I think that’s what everyone thought,” said the first woman. “But when the fire department came last night they realized that it didn’t happen that way.”

“Why, what happened?” the second woman asked.

“They found four bodies inside. They were all unrecognizable.”

“Oh my goodness!” said the second woman. “What a bizarre thing to happen, especially in this town.”

“Yeah, and that isn’t even the most bizarre part,” the first woman replied. “They didn’t say this on the news, but Pam’s husband is one of the firemen who went last night. She says that the bodies and clothes were pretty much burned to cinders, but they were able to make out that one of the bodies was barefoot, and that another one was holding what was left of its shoes.”

“That is strange,” said the second woman. “I wonder why he took his shoes off?”

“I guess we’ll never know,” said the first woman, taking another sip of her coffee.

“They couldn’t tell anything about the shoes?”

“No,” said the first woman, “they were pretty much burned to ashes.”

For more information on author Kristin Beaven, please visit our Contributors Page.

Double Play

By Gary Lawrence an-o-corn.

It’s a weak grounder to the right side. The batter spins, falls to one knee, then tosses the bat aside and lumbers toward first.

Peck smirks as the ball bounces weakly toward him. He pounds his glove once with his fist. The smirk turns into a smile. He rolls his lit cigarette to the side of his mouth, squints, steps right, gathers his thin lanky frame and hunches down, glove close to the ground and hands cupped over his glove like they teach you in Little League.

Peck has the ball—then doesn’t. He scoops a handful of air toward second base. His hand swings in a beautiful arc beside him like a ballerina’s might, fingers slightly separate and arched upwards.

The runner from first pounds past Peck. Our shortstop Brett’s at the base, glove up waist high, waiting. He steps across the bag at the last second to avoid the sliding runner.

Momentum carries Peck away from the ball toward the pitcher’s mound. He swears, spits out his cigarette, reaches back, tries once,

twice, then finally, from his hands and knees, scoops the ball weakly from the ground, barehanded—to no one.

Hey, it’s beer league. Who cares?

Peck crawls back to the dugout like a stray dog sneaking home after a long night of carousing. The other team scored five runs and took the lead that inning.

“Had it all the way, huh?” We laugh at him. A few guys fall down, imitating his surehandedness. Peck sulks. I get him a beer.

“Fuck me,” he says softly.

The police report from later that night said Peck drifted over the center line on Highway 72. A two-lane blacktop. A blind hill. Distracted driving, they determined. The cars hit head-on on his side of the hill. Flush in the on-coming lane.

The other driver, a local farmer in a two-ton pickup, was fine. Peck, in his little gas-efficient, beater Pinto, died instantly.

It’s the booze, we say out loud the next day at work. It’s the divorce, we think silently, instead.

At the funeral his wife and two daughters grieve quietly. They are gorgeous women, redheads all. John’s girls got their mom’s good looks. The oldest is a junior in high school; the youngest, just starting. I met Jackie, his wife, once before, at one of those quarterly management reviews where you can tell if it was a good quarter or bad by the hors d'oeuvres they served: if it’s shrimp cocktail, it was a good quarter. If it’s those teenie weenies wrapped in a bun, the quarter was bad. Then and tonight, she’s all business.

She’ll get the house. She’ll get the insurance. She’ll get his full pension from work.

If you look closely, you can see the relief on her heavily-painted face.

They found the divorce papers in the car seat next to him. What was left of them. What was left of the car seat. What was left of him.

Unsigned.

For more information on author Gary Lawrence, please visit our Contributors Page.

Freedom of Movement

By Kevin Finnerty

Most fifteen year olds think they’re ready to live. Many wish at one time or another they could just die. Almost all of them can see the freedom they imagine they desire just beyond their reach.

Fifteen-year-old Drew Canton rode in a minivan driven by his mother. He rode in the passenger seat because the law said he was still too young to drive. He rode alone (not counting his mother) because his parents had long ago decided one kid was enough. They’d fulfilled society’s implicit demand to act like everyone else and breed.

Jackie and Tom didn’t really believe, but ultimately agreed to conform when everyone they knew told them they’d see things differently when it was their own baby, their own child, their own kid. That turned out true enough, but they still decided one was enough.

Drew Canton wore his maroon and gold Babe Ruth League baseball uniform while Jackie drove him to his game. During the school year, Drew had friends or classmates he called friends. During the summer, he only had a dog named Murph for company. The Cantons didn’t have any neighbors yet, just a few large empty houses nearby. They’d purchased the first home in the newest exburb subdivision, in the

suburbs’ latest suburb, just before the start of the Great Recession.

Murph retrieved balls that Drew threw on his front lawn because Murph was a retriever and retrievers like to retrieve. But Murph couldn’t drive Drew to his game even though he was old enough in dog years because Murph was a dog and dogs don’t drive.

Jackie drove Drew because her son needed a ride to his game. Jackie thought Drew was a wonderful player, but she didn’t think of Drew as Drew. She thought of her son as Andy because she and Tom had named their son Andrew Jason Cantor and she’d called her son Andy ever since he was born.

Last summer, only a few days before he entered high school, Andrew Jason Cantor informed his parents he no longer wished to be called Andy. He wanted to be known as Drew.

Jacqueline Kathleen Cantor didn’t agree with her son’s decision. She loved her Andy and for months had accidentally or otherwise continued to call him by that name from time to time. By the time she drove her soon-to-be-sophomore to his baseball game, she no longer said the name aloud. She only thought of it when she thought of her son.

Jackie left work at three to come home and pick up her son and drive him to his game. She took a lot of her leave in two-hour increments

During the summer, he only had a dog named Murph for company

throughout the year. She knew come next year, Andy (or Andrew as the license would officially say) would likely buy a used car, for her son hardly spent any of his money. Jackie believed he was saving for something and presumed he wanted a car. To drive himself to his games and other places far from their quiet home.

Jackie knew she’d still leave work early on game days. She loved watching her son play. She thought he was better than he was.

Drew was a pretty good player. An All-Star in a league that didn’t feature the best competition in the state. Drew could field, hit and throw pretty well. He lacked power but, boy, could he run.

But that was as a sprinter, not for distance. And it would have been too far for Drew to run from his home anyway.

Drew believed his parents had purposefully purchased a home far away from everyone else to isolate him. Fifteen year olds think like that.

Jackie and Tom had actually sought to isolate themselves. They hadn’t fully considered the impact on Drew (who was Andy at the time) when they made the decision two years earlier. They knew a bus could take him, first, to junior high, and then high school. And that it wouldn’t be long before he got a license himself. They hadn’t imagined what fifteen year old Drew (or even imagined fifteen year old Drew, for that matter) would think.

Drew had run freely through the neighborhood without neighbors with his dog while waiting for his Mom to pick him up. He felt trapped now that he was in the minivan driven by Jackie. Drew turned his head to the passenger window and leaned against it. He heard his Mom speaking but didn’t pay attention to her words.

“You beat this team last time, right? What was the score?”

Jackie looked back and forth between the road and her son.

“You had a couple of hits that day, if I remember. Do you know if you’ll face a different pitcher this time?”

Jackie felt her pleasantness failing. She’d tried baseball as a last resort when her son had largely ignored and only grunted responses concerning his meals, chores and day at home.

“C’mon, Drew.”

His mother’s accentuation of the name he knew she disliked caused Drew to roll his head from the window toward the center of the minivan. As expected, he saw Jackie’s disappointed look.

“I’m just trying to be nice,” she said.

“I’m just trying to be quiet.”

“Aren’t you always complaining about not having people to talk with where we live?”

“No offense, Mom,” Drew said, hating himself even as he allowed the words to escape, “but you’re not exactly what I had in mind.”

“How could I be offended by that?”

Drew rolled his head back to the window.

“Look at me.”

Drew turned back and observed his mother stare at him for what seemed an inordinately long time. Not saying anything. She sported the disappointed look he saw too frequently of late.

She had shorter hair than he because she went to the stylist every month. Drew hadn’t let anyone cut his for more than three.

Fifteen year old Drew didn’t shave regularly even though he had sufficient, wispy facial hair. He’d tried it once and found it impossible to avoid causing his zits to burst and bleed. Drew found it more palatable to occasionally be told that he looked like a billy goat.

The car horn broke their stare.

Jackie immediately re-focused her attention on the road. She gripped the wheel tighter and looked about to see what she might have done, what she might have missed.

Fifteen year old Drew still didn’t fully perceive the world around him. He returned his forehead to the glass and sighed.

The blaring continued and Jackie realized it came from the car behind her. She lifted her hand as an apology for whatever offense she’d committed. Her gesture failed to appease the driver. She watched the car behind her pull up

ridiculously close, expressing its anger with the invasion of her personal space and the constant noise.

Drew eventually had enough. He held up the middle finger of his left hand, covered in a white batting glove, in the air. He didn’t look to see the driver’s reaction but smiled to himself and closed his eyes when the honking stopped.

The driver of the 1970s Chevy raced beside the minivan and gestured that Jackie should lower her window. She again waved that she was sorry for any offensive action of which she was guilty.

Jackie slowed and the driver alongside did the same. When she sped up, he did too. Just as she considered pulling off the road, the driver slammed on his horn once more.

Drew opened his eyes and looked past his mother at the guy with prematurely thinning blond hair and a stubbly beard. He saw the driver angrily yelling at his mother.

“Just ignore him.”

Fifteen year old Drew gave the Chevy driver both middle fingers this time.

“Drew, stop.”

Drew heeded his mother’s advice and put down his fingers. He was in the process of rolling his head away one more time when he heard the shot. He thought he could see blood particles coming at him right before the crash.

Drew awoke in the hospital but immediately wished he hadn’t. He didn’t feel any physical pain but imagined (and hoped) he was injured badly.

He thought he could see blood particles coming at him…

He looked about and saw a large machine beside his bed. It beeped slowly, steadily. He gazed at his arms, chest and legs. The machine didn’t appear to be connected to him, except to his left arm and finger.

Drew lifted his hand. The beeps became more erratic. He held his arm in the air until a nurse entered, followed by his father and the woman he presumed was his physician.

Drew’s father was in his early fifties but looked closer to sixty. He was completely bald save for a horseshoe-shaped ring of gray hair.

Drew met his father’s eyes for a couple of seconds. Long enough to confirm what he already suspected.

“How do you feel, Andrew?” the physician asked. The short Asian touched his head and neck, then checked the machine.

Drew closed his eyes tight as if this act could bring an end to everything. It only caused a tear to escape each eye.

Drew heard his doctor and father exchange words but couldn’t understand what they said. He thought perhaps opening his eyes might help, but was afraid what he might hear. He rolled his head away from the others in his room. And then he was out.

Dr. Patrick Rasmussen worked out of a clean, white office in a downtown high-rise. He specialized in adolescent psychiatry. Most of his patients thought their problems were unique, but the vast majority expressed the same sentiments: the failure to feel they fit in with or without a corresponding self-loathing.

His patients came from families of means and most had above-average intelligence. They brought a higher level of cynicism and skepticism to counseling. Many prided themselves in seeing through his questions, exposing his own defects, and turning their therapy sessions into something other than their intended purpose.

Dr. Rasmussen’s least favorite juxtaposition — least favorite because it followed such a common and predictable pattern —occurred when his teenage patients discovered he was a smoker. Far too many times afterwards, they asked how a man with a death wish could urge others to focus on the good things in life and how someone seemingly unable to practice selfcontrol could propose others do just that.

Dr. Rasmussen had practiced long enough to know he could not, or at least did not, help all of his patients. He liked to think he assisted most in achieving at least incremental improvement

and that many of those who trusted him experienced substantial gains.

Dr. Rasmussen appreciated new challenges and understood Drew Canton would present one. He met with Drew on a daily basis (weekends excluded) for two weeks before a necessary breakthrough occurred: Drew’s awareness of self and the world outside. Prior to that, Dr. Rasmussen had diagnosed Drew incapable of distinguishing one day from the next.

“It’s good news,” Dr. Rasmussen told Tom Cantor. “It means your son is probably ready to return to being what we would recognize as a real person.”

“That’s great.”

“But...”

“But what?”

“But it also means he will feel again and he will have to process what occurred. Up to now his mind has enabled him to avoid that.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You have to watch him more closely.”

“I’ve already been doing that.”

“He couldn’t do anything before.”

“Now he might?”

“Now he could.”

Drew hated the last couple of weeks of summer when his father, or someone asked by his father, monitored seemingly every move he made. Drew kept his tongue in check because he didn’t believe he had the right to complain. About anything. Ever again.

Then Tom Canton came into his bedroom and tapped his sneakers. He gestured that Drew should remove his headphones. Drew complied.

“I want to talk to you about something.”

Drew feared the worst.

“I know it’s your birthday in a couple of weeks, but I think maybe you should hold off getting your license.”

Bad, but not the worst, Drew thought. But bad.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be behind the wheel of something so dangerous right now.”

Drew dropped his hands against his thighs, allowing the gesture and accompanying noise to express his dissatisfaction until his father turned to leave the room. Drew intended to have another internal monologue, but this time the words escaped as Tom reached the door.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

Tom turned.

“Not myself or anyone else.”

Drew imagined his father hating his son, the child he hadn’t really wanted, for killing his wife. But he thought Tom’s watery eyes and droopy shoulders made him look sad.

“I know.”

The words hung there. Seemingly forever.

Drew carried them with him to his next session with Dr. Rasmussen, the last before the school

Drew imagined his father hating his son, the child he really wanted, for killing his wife.

year started. Unlike all of the previous ones in which Drew did not speak until asked a question, he introduced the topic this time.

“What did you want him to say?”

Drew held his hands between his knees. He sat as always in a chair a few feet from Dr. Rasmussen, but thought for the first time maybe he should lie down on the couch situated in the outer ring of the office.

“I don’t know. Something more.”

“Maybe he was waiting for you to say something.”

“Like what? ‘I’m sorry?’”

“I don’t know.”

“He doesn’t know that?”

“I’m sure he does. He might not even think you have anything to be sorry for.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No, I wouldn’t share our conversations with your father without your permission.”

“You can tell him that.”

“It wouldn’t be my place.”

“I thought you were supposed to help.”

“I’m supposed to try to help.”

Drew slid back into and then down the chair. He waited until he’d almost hit

the floor before pulling himself back up. “I go back to school tomorrow.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I’ve been looking forward to it for some time. To escape solitary confinement. To be with other people. But suddenly I’m not so sure.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They’ll all know.”

“They’ll all know what?”

“I killed my mother.”

“You didn’t kill your mother.”

“Oh, right. I caused her death.”

Dr. Rasmussen waited for Drew to raise his head and for their eyes to meet before responding.

“You. Did. No. Such. Thing.”

Drew discovered he disliked high school even more than he expected. Those he’d considered friends now just seemed like people he knew, classmates. He imagined them speaking about him behind his back, and, in any case, he no longer wished to engage in their trivial banter.

Drew took no interest in the present or future. His mind constantly wandered into the past.

The only subject he found remotely interesting was history, which was strange because he’d he previously thought the subject to be the bogus account of the powerful. He’d always preferred the detached perfection of mathematics, but now math seemed empty, cold. By midsemester, U.S. History was the only class in which Drew actively participated.

“But we don’t know what happened yet. Was she brainwashed or did she go willingly?”

Drew’s words stopped his barrel-shaped teacher from physically moving about the classroom and topically leaving the class discussion of Patty Hearst. “She was eventually pardoned for what that’s worth. But you’re right, we don’t know for certain.”

“There’s got be more.”

“There are lots of books on the subject. It would be an interesting topic for your research paper.”

“Did she write any?”

Mr. Atkinson hiked his pants before stroking his well-groomed beard. “I’m not sure.”

“How can we know without getting inside her head?” Drew paused and saw all the eyes in the classroom upon him. “If then.”

“If then exactly.”

Better patients make for better doctors. Dr. Rasmussen knew Drew wanted to get better and not wallow in self-pity. He expected Drew would eventually tell his father what had happened. Still, he was surprised how quickly this occurred. Dr. Rasmussen tugged on his khakis and leaned forward in his chair.

“I wanted him to know,” his patient concluded. He’d spoken quickly and with great urgency.

“How did he react?”

“He cried.”

Dr. Rasmussen listened as Drew sucked air in hard through his nose, then blew his breath from his lower lip up towards his eyes. He let his patient have a moment. He glanced at the box of tissues he kept on the nearby table but refrained from mentioning them, lest Drew become more self-conscious that his behavior was being observed.

“The thing is, I think Dad and I can work things out. Even if he harbors anger towards me. I can take it. I deserve it. But how do I fix things with Mom?”

“You think she’d blame you for what happened?”

“No way. She’d be even more forgiving than Dad.”

“So what do you have to fix?”

“Being a little shit. Not just that day.”

“You mean being a teenager?”

“How’s that an excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse, but if you’re self-centered and self-focused at your age, you’re far from uncommon.”

Dr. Rasmussen watched Drew’s feet bounce. He half-expected the boy to jump to his feet and walk about the office.

“Yeah, well, maybe if people grow out of it, they can apologize. Make it up to their parents. I can’t. Not to Mom.”

“You’re right, you can’t.”

“Then what can I do?”

“You learn to live with yourself, as all of us learn to do. We can focus on that next week.”

“Next week?”

“Yes, I think once a week should be sufficient going forward.”

“But I like coming here.”

Dr. Rasmussen watched his patient turn his head away and presumed Drew was embarrassed by how his words sounded.

“How goes it with your friends, your schoolmates?”

“I feel I don’t belong.”

Dr. Rasmussen hid a slight smile behind his tablet. “You sound like a typical freshman.”

“I’m not.”

“We’ll talk about that.”

Not all wounds heal. Not completely anyway. Even with time. Sometimes the wounded escape with only a reminder. Other times the wound grows larger, deeper, even as the open sore closes. One can only hope the pain becomes less immediate.

Throughout the school year, Drew found himself speaking more with his father. The amount of words they shared on a daily basis returned to the level they’d used before but the content had changed. Sixteen year old Drew realized that for many years almost all serious conversations he’d had about life had been with his mother.

He’d spoken to his Dad about sports and school and possible careers.

He’d spoken to his friends about sports and movies and music.

He’d spoken to his Mom about things he did not understand. Why girls did certain things. If it was okay to feel a certain way about something even though TV, the Internet and people in general seemed to say the opposite. About things that are hard to describe but seem important. About things that go to your core.

Drew still couldn’t speak to his father about these things unless the conversation evolved from something else. But more often than not, it did. There was no one else. Still, it was almost a year before he asked the question that had been at the forefront of his mind the entire time.

“Do you think Mom knew I loved her?”

“Of course she did.”

Drew placed his cards on the oval, kitchen table. The answer had come too quickly. Drew wanted his father to understand he’d asked a very serious question.

Tom laid down his hand as well. “Of course she did.”

“You learn to live with yourself, as all of us learn to do.”

“I didn’t say it like I meant it, even though I did. I didn’t act like I did, even though I did. I don’t think I even thought like I did, even though I did.”

“You’re much better than you give yourself credit for. You’re a good person and a good son. Your Mom knew that just as I do.”

“I don’t feel that way.”

“I can only tell you how I see you as a person and what your Mom told me she saw in you. We both always felt so very lucky. We weren’t sure we even wanted a child and we ended up with a son that far exceeded anything we could have hoped for. You have no idea.”

Drew wiped his tears with the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “What, Dad?”

“What it means to have a child. You bring this living thing into the world and suddenly realize you have absolutely no idea what to do with him. Even though you’re the one who set the life in motion. You try your best but as time goes on you recognize so much is out of your control. You see how many things can and do go wrong even with other parents you know are just like you — good people with good intentions.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t turn out as well as you would have liked.”

Tom reached out and grabbed Drew’s arm. He held it tight and waited for his son to lift his head and to find the words he hoped would enable him to understand.

“You don’t get it. I don’t expect you to. Not yet anyway. But you need to hear this: you made your mother and me better. She wouldn’t have

been as good a person as she was without you. And I’m not saying I’m good by any means, but I’m sure I’d have been much worse without you. And I’m absolutely sure your Mom and I wouldn’t have had as good a relationship (or maybe any relationship) but for you.”

“Why do you say that? I haven’t done anything.”

Tom shook and then grabbed his head. “That’s my fault.”

“What is?”

“The way you’re feeling. You’ve been great. Always have. I wish you recognized this. It’s my fault you haven’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.” Tom turned over his cards. One away from gin. He rubbed them hard against the table. “I’m trying to figure out what to do or say so you will.”

Drew sat back in his chair. He exhaled. “Just talking helps.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, like this. And with Dr. Rasmussen. Even though I can’t really say why. It’s not like we ever reach some momentous discovery, but I feel calmer after. And when some time has passed I can look back and feel like progress was made, even though I don’t know how.”

Tom thought a great father would have found the right words to say next but nothing came to him. He’d never expected to have to raise his son alone. His eyes darted back and forth

between his son and the cards before them, uncertain whether he should make or avoid eye contact.

Tom picked up his cards because he believed anything he could say would spoil his son’s more perfect statement. He rose slightly in his seat, then stopped. “Want to play another hand?”

“Sure, you take the points on that one. You were

going to win.”

Tom collected all the cards and shuffled.

“No, we didn’t finish. You never know what would have happened.

For more information on author Kevin Finnerty, please visit our Contributors Page.

Hotel Sadness

By Ryan Dunham

The only thing left from the complementary breakfast by the time I wake up and make my way downstairs to the lobby is one final cup of lukewarm, burnt coffee. I think about grabbing a piece of crispy bacon from the table next to mine. I think about rummaging through the trash for a half-eaten, half-buttered biscuit. I think about demanding they make a second (third?) batch of scrambled eggs from the front desk. I think about those stupid dreams I was having that kept me asleep an extra hour.

One cream. Two sugars. Neither helps with the taste. Neither warms up the liquid to a drinkable quality. But I need to wake up. I need to get ready.

“Sleep well?” a voice asks, but it’s not directed at me. It’s coming from an old lady asking her potential husband. What do I know? Maybe they’re on their honeymoon. Maybe they’re having an affair. It’s the twenty-first century, man.

I’m about to finish my coffee when I remember that there’s a Keurig with a single-serving capsule waiting for me in my room. I leave my full cup on the table in defiance.

Shit. By the time I return to my room the maid has already exchanged my Keurig set-up with

nothing to replace it. I’m supposed to check out in an hour, but shouldn’t she have replaced it with an uncontaminated capsule for the next guest? Maybe nobody’s renting my room today. Maybe there are too many vacancies in the hotel.

I don’t have any clothes to re-pack because I’m still wearing the clothes I had on when I checked in three days ago. I didn’t bring a suitcase because nobody was going to see me for more than one of the three days I was here, so nobody would realize I was wearing dirty clothes. I left the book I was reading on the airplane because I had finished it mid-flight and had nobody else in mind that might have wanted to read it. I didn’t bring a toothbrush because I forgot that complimentary toiletries only include toothpaste and no brush.

There’s a customer service report card on the desk by the TV but other than the breakfast situation I don’t really have an opinion on my stay. Last night was the only night of the three that I stayed in my room. I’m excited to go back home and use my toothbrush. I’m excited to go back home and use my drip coffee maker, which is still better than the Keurig. It’ll be a temperature I’m satisfied with. It won’t burn. And as I’m closing my hotel room door behind me, I’m reminded that I need cream and sugar. I think about stealing a handful of each as I descend in the elevator, but by the time I return to the lobby someone has already packed the rest of the complimentary breakfast supplies away for the day.

“Did you enjoy your stay?” the clerk asks me as I hand him my room key. “Um.”

“Please visit us again,” he continues as he hands me the receipt I don’t need. I paid in cash so there wouldn’t be a paper trail, yet here he is ruining my ruse.

I step outside and reach into my pocket and pull out my final eight dollars—not enough for a cab to take me to the airport. Not enough time to walk. I look for an ATM, or at least a store that would give cash back, but by the time I spot something I remember that I didn’t bring my debit card. I find a bus station and look at the schedule and calculate that I’ll have just enough time to make it to the airport, print my boarding pass, pass through security, and catch my flight. No time to browse the highway robbery shops for a new book. No time to stop at the overpriced cafés for a latte. Great, I think. I’ll be able to sleep on the plane.

I make it to the gate in just enough time to find out my flight has been cancelled, indefinitely. Everybody else in the terminal has already gone

home, or back to their hotels, or to the airport bar, or to wherever else they came from. I step up to the desk and ask what happened to my flight.

“Fuck off,” she says. “Um.”

“Company went out of business. All flights are hereby cancelled.”

“Well how am I supposed to make it home?” I ask. I really liked this airline, but apparently my loyalty wasn’t enough to keep them in the black.

“I really don’t care,” the desk clerk says rather harshly. “I’m out of a job. And I’m not qualified for anything else.”

Do you go to school to be an airline terminal desk clerk? I think of asking her, but she’s already on her cellphone. I’m about to reach into my pocket for mine, so that I can call my wife and tell her that I may be a little late, to start dinner without me, but I remember that I didn’t bring that, either.

I spend the next three months walking in the direction of home during the day, and signing into cheap hotels with a fake name by night, convincing the night desk clerks that I’ll pay in cash the next morning when I check out. There are a lot of clerks who’ll be paying for my rooms out of their paychecks when their managers

finally realize their mistake by letting me stay for free; I sneak out in the early morning, before the hotels start setting up their complementary breakfasts. I no longer need caffeine to wake me up in the morning. I no longer need to set the complementary alarm clock so that I can leave just before sunrise. My only concern is that I’ll have a fun and exciting dream that I

don’t want to miss that’ll keep me in my room before it’s too late.

My wife is probably wondering where I am. Before I left, we were planning on having a child. On the pace that I’m on, by the time I make it home the kid would have been born by then. The kid would have already lost his first tooth. The kid would already have started to rebel against us. The kid would already have gotten married and have had kids of his own. Shit. I’d be a grandparent by now if I had only made my flight.

After another two and a half weeks of traveling by foot during the day and sleeping for free at night, I find a hotel with a “Going Out of Business” sign posted outside the lobby.

“What’s the deal?” I ask the clerk. She seems indifferent, playing on her phone like the airline clerk months ago.

“Stay as long as you’d like,” she says. “What do I care? I’m out of a job.”

This time I want to know. This time I have to find out what’s happening to the company.

“So what’s the story?” I ask. “Will this place be abandoned? Will a previous guest haunt the third floor, especially room 316?”

“They’re tearing this whole area down,” she tells me. “I guess they’re making room for an airport.”

I quickly calculate my location in relationship to where I’m headed. I quickly calculate how long it would take to tear all these buildings down, clear away the remaining foliage, pave a runway, build an air traffic control tower, and ship at least one affordably priced airplane with complementary peanuts. Probably another four months if I keep doing what I’m doing. Probably four years to build the airport. Fuck it, I’m tired and my legs hurt. **

I stay in my room for what seems like eons until finally there’s a knock on the door. It’s a man in a bright orange vest and a smudged yellow hardhat.

“Didn’t think anybody was still here,” he says with a laugh.

“Um.” I didn’t bring my razor so my beard might be a little too long for this guy’s eyes. I didn’t bring deodorant and the hotel stopped sending up complementary shampoos and mini-bars of soap long ago, so my body might be a little too pungent for this guy’s nose. “What can I do for you?” I ask. “I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“Well you need to leave,” he tells me. “We’re tearing this building down in less than an hour.”

“For the airport?”

“For the airport,” he repeats. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

I need to get home. The gutters are probably clogged with leaves. The driveway probably needs to be shoveled. The flowers probably need to be watered. The swimming pool’s chlorine levels are probably all out of whack. “No,” I tell him. “Well, yes, but I have no way of getting there.”

“Do you have anywhere to stay in the meantime?”

I have no idea where I am anymore. I didn’t pack a compass. I didn’t bring a map.

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “I saw woods behind the hotel when I got here. I know how to build an emergency shelter out of sticks and leaves and mud.”

“Won’t do you much good,” he continues. “We’re clearing out those woods once we’re done with this here building.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Suit yourself.” He tips his safety helmet at me. “But get out of my building.”

step inside and see what the desk clerk has to say.

“Sorry,” the woman says as I walk in. “We’re booked solid for months.” Maybe I’m visiting someone who has a room. Maybe I’m just here to use the bathroom.

“Is there a Vanessa staying here?” I ask. I can only hope.

The clerk strikes a few keys before asking me for a last name, and I can’t remember if my wife took mine or not when we married.

“Well can I give you my name in case something opens up?” The clerk nods and I give her another fake name.

“You can wait in the lobby,” she says over her monitor. “You never know when someone might leave all of a sudden.”

“Thanks,” I tell her, and I notice a coffee urn next to an almost empty container of sugars and creamers. There’s one creamer left. Two packets of sugar. The coffee’s still hot and it’s not burnt. In fact, there’s just enough for a second cup of coffee. I grab another clean mug from the rack and pour a black cup of coffee in the second cup. Just the way my wife likes it.

I spend the last of my energy finding a bus station and I spend the last of my money on a bus pass. The driver says he can take me as far as a ten-minute walk from my house. Just enough time to rest. Just enough time to figure out what I’m going to tell my wife. But I fall asleep before I figure something out. The driver shakes me awake from a dream I wanted to continue having when we reach my destination.

I walk the last few miles to my house, only to find a hotel in its place. A sign outside says “No Vacancy” and a smaller sign below that says “We do NOT serve complementary breakfast.” I have no other choice but to

I’m the only one in the lobby when a hand grasps my shoulder and asks if I’m waiting for anyone. I recognize the touch more than I recognize the voice.

“I used to live here,” I tell the almost mysterious stranger. “With my wife,” I add. “We were going to start a family.”

The stranger lets go of my shoulder and walks around to the opposite side of the table. “Mind if I join you?”

She sits down and takes a sip of coffee, then a bigger sip after confirming that the temperature is adequate. “Just the way I like it,” she says.

It’s been too long to tell if this woman is my wife. It’s been too long to ask her if she remembers me.

“My name’s Vanessa,” she says.

“Do you have a last name?” I ask. Maybe something will trigger. But I didn’t bring a picture of my wife with me. I never brought a memento that only Vanessa and I would know the meaning of.

“Just Vanessa,” she replies. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Where’s your wife?” Vanessa asks.

“Um.”

Before I can think of a better answer I’ve fallen asleep. I dream about my wife, Vanessa. I dream about the new, maybe-my-wife, Vanessa. I dream that I never left. I dream that I packed all the things that I ended up needing on my journey home. I dream a dream that I never want to wake up from, so I don’t.

It’s not death. It’s not sleep. It’s not some made-up fantasy world. I dream until I’ve figure out which Vanessa is which, until I’ve figure out if they’re the same person.

And in my dream I’m at peace. In my dream I have everything that I need. In my dream I decide it’s the best place to be. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing is out of place.

After a bit of conversation Vanessa feels comfortable enough to let me stay in her room. She tells me she’s already used the mini-bar of soap, but I’m welcomed to take a shower if I want to. She tells me she’s already used the Keurig machine, but I’m welcomed to use the dirty paper cup for water—there’s a complimentary ice machine down the hall by the elevators.

“You look tired,” she says.

There are two twin beds. One is made the way only a maid could make it, the other’s covers are torn from their tucked position and the pillows are in places nobody would rest their head.

I don’t bother to get under the covers of the made bed. I don’t bother to fluff the pillows beneath my head.

And in my dream I wonder why we ever bother waking up. I wonder not why we dream in the first place, but why our bodies and our minds decide that enough is enough and that they would rather go back to a reality that’s pale by comparison.

In my dream there are no hotels. In my dream there are no airports or buses. In my dream, Vanessa and I, whichever one I’m dreaming about—you can never quite tell in a dream— start a bed and breakfast.

Rooms are free for as long as the guests would like to stay.

We only charge for the complimentary breakfast. That’s the catch.

For more information on author Ryan Dunham, please visit our Contributors Page.

Wing and Claw and Hoof and Tail

By Steven Luna

We walk and we talk on the path growing slim through the trees through the trees with the sky going dim as the goldgleaming sun gilds the limbs and the leaves and the reeds and the weeds on these mystical eves when the feathering heathering blossoms rush past and the thickets grow thicker to greet us at last and the shadows are rich in this mythical wood where nothing behaves like we’ve learned that it should as we wander and wonder how far we can pass through these snickers and flickers these shimmers like glass of the fairy lights gleaming or maybe they’re eyes and the penny-flutes whistle their beckoning cries through a swirling and curling mysterious mist that spreads an allure too alive to resist or maybe it’s breath from a menacing lung churning bittersweet smoke where the mosses are hung and maybe the scritching scritch-scratching we hear isn’t rabbits a-scamper or sheltering deer or fairies or pixies but something more queer something threatening beckoning lumbering near and our laughter goes silent our mirth chills to fear and it seems now this trek was a horrid idea ill-advised into such everdarkening parts and the shadows swing low on our questioning hearts and the chitteringchaw of hoof and claw goes skitteringscattering our nerves chafed and raw and the leather of wings that clatter and flap and circle above as we enter the trap of the jaws and the maws that chatter and clack but the road’s disappeared and there’s no turning

back so we walk but we walk ever-slower we go while our hearts cry out run! and our feet tell us no! and we try not to cry in our shivering skins with our quivering hands and the madness that spins in our heads in our souls in this spiraling gyre of terrors unseen that collude and conspire and lick at their lips and lash with their tongues and gnash all their teeth and heave with their lungs and they screech and they squeal and they squawk as they stalk pulses shudder and hammer we stumble and clamber as we walk and we walk and we

For more information on author Steven Luna, please visit our Contributors Page.

The Architect’s Ballad

By Abby Timmons

Ibuilt this house with my own two hands, on the greenest plot of land in town. Elle liked green grass. When I took her to see the land, she stepped out of the carriage, white-gloved hand in mine, started running and pulled me to the ground. Laughing, her brown hair whipping out of her bonnet in the rough New England wind, she fell upon that green grass and like children, we stared up at the clouds waltzing across the blue summer sky and tried to pick out shapes in them.

“We will be very happy here, Walter, won’t we?” she asked, her blue eyes adoring.

I pulled her close. “Always,” I replied, with utter conviction. It was at least partly true.

A gust of wind bellowed, bringing with it a sweep of storm clouds from the sea. A wiser man might have recognized it as a foretelling, might have heard the whisper in the wind, a warning from beyond. But wise I was not. I was nothing except young, and blessed with good fortune and optimism.

I built a grand three story house, magnificent carriage house and an acre of land for gardens and children. On the topmost floor, I built my Elle a cupola, a windowed dome from which she could view the harbor. When the house was finished and I went away to collect my parents from the Old Country, Elle often wrote to me from that spot. When I returned, she saw my ship come in and ran

down to the harbor to meet me with the other officers’ wives. She planted flowers; perennials, so they would return each year. And a willow tree, that I would watch grow up its entire life.

And we were happy, for a time, though the happiness, at least, was not for always.

It happened in the third winter. Elle was round and glowing proudly with our first child. Little did we know this child would never see the light of day.

That was an exceptionally cold winter, the kind that makes your skin feel paper thin, your bones brittle. We moved our bedroom to the third story, as the rising heat from the furnace in the cellar made it marginally warmer. One night, we were preparing for bed. Shivering, Elle sat brushing her long brown locks of hair. They shimmered in the light from the oil lamps on the bedside, and I watched admiringly.

Then she jumped up quite suddenly. “Rufus!” she cried. “Where did Rufus go?”

She was referring to her beloved terrier, a little rat of a creature that irked me to no end, but which she adored. “I haven’t seen him since he chased Mrs. Peterson to the cellar.”

“The cellar? He can’t stay in there all night.” She grabbed her dressing gown from its brass hook on the wall and put on my carpet slippers. “I’ll go get him.”

“Darling, why don’t you let me?” I implored. “I cannot have you walking down all those flights of stairs in your condition.”

“My condition?” she repeated. “I’m pregnant, dear, not an invalid.” She kissed me quickly on the cheek, took a candle in hand, and made for the door. “You worry too much.”

I rolled my eyes. She had quite a mind of her own, my wife, a fact that many an acquaintance had warned me about before we had wed, and for which I only loved her more.

Still, I worried as the minutes ticked by and I did not hear her footsteps on the stairwell. Perhaps that dog was causing trouble. I waited ten minutes, then, annoyed, went after her.

The house was silent, the housekeeper long gone home for the night. In the dark and quiet, a nagging feeling of unease rose from the pit of my stomach. I took the stairs faster than normal, my nerves rising as I descended. I wished I had the sense to bring a candle.

The second floor was far colder than the upstairs, and had there been any light, I knew I would have seen my breath.

I revel in the memory of that cold now. Such sensation, such an awareness that I was alive!

Had it not been for the sense of dread I felt, or the terrible events that transpired, it would have been a most dearly held memory.

I reached the back door, and as I turned the knob, many things happened at once.

Rufus’s frantic barking, if one could call it that, for I had never heard an animal make such sound.

The smell of smoke assaulted my senses; my eyes watered, I coughed uncontrollably, adding to the noise.

And beneath these sounds, there was another: utter, dead, silence.

“Elle!” I cried, running down the stairs through the haze. “Can

you hear me? ELLE!”

But she couldn’t hear me. When I got down to the last stairwell, I saw why.

She was broken, spread facedown at unnatural angles halfway down the steps. The metallic smell of blood overpowered even the smoke. Strange, I thought numbly, even as I charged straight through the fire, burning off all my hair, rolled her over and checked for a pulse. Strange the very essence of life has such an industrial smell, like it isn’t really alive after all. Like none of us are, and we are instead just machines, built in some fictional image of a God who

abandoned me that night, and going through the motions of life until our mechanical hearts break down and smear our essence all over the cellar steps.

The fire spread. I probably could have stood up and been fine, but I did not. Instead I held her mangled, distorted body to mine until I couldn’t feel anymore. When I lost consciousness, I didn’t realize I had died.

The next thing I knew I was standing beside the physician and the fire chief, and they were explaining to a neighbor that someone must have slipped, dropping the lamp. That the fire had not spread up the stone walls or across the stone floor of the basement, and that they had put it out before it had ruined the upstairs. I wanted to tell them that I was sorry, that I should have insisted on going down instead of her, but when I opened my mouth and tried to speak, nothing came out but smoke, and they couldn’t hear me anyway.

There are no instructions on being a ghost. No manual to consult, no answers to your questions. No one told me where the woman I loved and my child had gone, or why I couldn’t go with them. I understood as much of my condition as the story tellers who fictionalized me, as the many children I saw come and go over the years who swore to their parents they saw someone on the back steps, in the corner of the basement, only to be chastised for having such wild imaginations. But I was there, stuck, always.

The flowers she’d planted died of thirst, their roots overtaken by weeds growing wilder with each passing year, the grass we’d once rolled

around on higher than my knees. Then one year, men came. I saw the house I’d built restored by other hands that were not gentle, not artists’ hands. They were not architects, just machines. I watched them divide each floor into its own apartment. Years later, other men converted the carriage house into a garage. I watched the world develop and change from the confines of this prison I’d built around myself. And I tried to escape.

After a hundred years, I was sure I could not leave the property. I could go outside and wander around the yard, I could enter the carriage house, I could even go into the front yard and watch as they put up more houses around mine, as the sign for Linden St. went up on the corner. But I could not leave. I was bound to this land. I had signed the papers, having no idea how binding a contract it would be.

In the year 1914, I had a breakthrough. One evening, while the woman living in the first floor apartment cooked dinner for her family, I passed my hand through the stove’s flame.

And the most amazing thing happened.

Pain. I felt pain! Shocked, I screamed, snatched my hand back to examine it, but it was not burned. It had the same translucent quality the rest of my body did. But oh, how it hurt! Beautiful, wonderful, searing pain! But immediately followed a surge of sadness. How lucky are the living, I thought, staring at the mother humming to herself, to feel alive without it.

However, I had learned something: fire was the answer.

“When I lost consciousness, I didn’t realize I had died.”

I watched the family eat dinner together, talking, laughing, clueless to me staring at them from the doorway wondering how to die. Could I start a fire? Sometimes I could move things, if I tried hard enough. If they left a candle burning, could I tip it? But as I watched them, coveting their ignorance, their joy, I realized I could not. If I started a fire and they got hurt…no. I would not subject an innocent family, innocent children, to the fate that had befallen mine.

So it had to be an accident, then. I had to wait, and hope it would happen on its own.

More years passed. The willow tree grew as tall as the house. I watched dozens of families come and go, their children grow up and stop climbing its branches. Although I grew accustomed to invisibility, spending my days watching others live theirs, sometimes the loneliness became stifling, and I attempted to make contact. They could never see me, of that much I was certain, not for longer than a second so brief it seemed imaginary. But they could feel me; a cold breeze as I waked through them, though it was summer and all the windows were closed; an odd flickering of lights as I passed my hand through the wall into the wiring. Feel me, but never see me.

I longed for a connection. And in January of 2004, I got my wish.

The house was in shambles. Once blue paint faded to a dull grey and chipped away, revealing patches of bare brown wood underneath. The ivy growing in the front yard became wild, taking over the entire front of the house. Sometimes the landlord found the time to cut the grass, but generally it grew knee-high, and was really more weeds than grass. Neglected, surrounded by a neighborhood of beautiful Victorian homes, the exterior finally reflected what lay inside: a mourning, rotting piece of soul, both haunted by my own ghosts, my wife and child and the families I’d grown attached to over the centuries

who would always, inevitably, leave; and the haunter.

The second floor was empty, the family gone, leaving behind silence heavy with dust and broken pieces of children’s toys. I wandered the rooms, tried to recall what their laughter sounded like, the many children who had passed through this house. Then, one day, I heard that sound again, from the front hallway, coming up the stairs. The door opened, and in walked a new family.

“This is the dining room,” the landlord was saying.

“It would be perfect for an office, wouldn’t it?” the woman turned to her husband and said, her eyes, so like her daughter’s, twinkling. “And a classroom. We homeschool the kids,” she added to the landlord.

“That works too!” he was quick to say, surely just hoping, as I was, that someone would want to live in this pitiful place.

But they loved it. The two young ones, a girl and boy, ran around exclaiming over everything; the quaint hallway connecting the master bedroom to the one they would be sharing, the screenedin sun porch off of the kitchen – “Just like Nana’s house!”- and, most of all, the backyard. I watched the girl stare out the window in silent awe, her eyes actually filling with tears of wonder, and I wanted to know where she came from, what place, what life, could possibly make this one look so beautiful.

The mother walked to her daughter’s side. She didn’t touch her, but as she mirrored her daughter’s awed stare, the girl looked up and said, “I love you, Mummy.”

The mother smiled and said, “I love you too, Elle.”

If I’d had a heart that could beat, it would have stopped.

They moved in less than a week later.

Of all the families I’d watched over the years, this was the first, and the only one that was ever mine.

It didn’t take long, though, to realize I didn’t know which was darker: the ghost watching the family in secret, or the family full of secrets and ghosts.

and at night, following their father around adoringly, a man who was too young to be forced to give up on his dreams and who was always, perpetually, tired.

I never doubted that she loved her children, but I doubted from the start if she knew what love really meant.

Still, they persevered, as all families do, I suppose, and found things to be happy about. Little Elle spent hours reading outside, her back against the tree, which she childishly named Willow, played games with her brother, and sat for ridiculous amounts of time trying to befriend aloof stray cats.

She quickly became like a book I could not stop reading. Through her I learned to love my house again. That first spring, she read The Secret Garden and began a quest to restore the yard. “It’s beautiful,” she’d insist, “it’s just hiding.” She divided her time between reading and weeding, and delightfully uncovered perennial flowers that first spring.

“This time will be different,” the mother said as she and the father laid down to bed on the first night. “I’m going to get better this time, I promise.”

And although he smiled tenderly and held her close, his too-old eyes had a look that said she’d broken this promise before.

She was, quite simply, a drunk. “Homeschooling” was code for letting the children raise each other during the day while she slept off a hangover from the night before,

After her example, her father and the landlord began efforts to bring my house back to life. They spent a whole weekend taming the ivy, while I hung from the second story window watching, nervous that little Elle would cut her hands on the thorns. She always insisted on helping.

One afternoon I watched, perched in the tree, as she pulled dead grass from around some daffodils. “There, now you can breathe,” she said, echoing the book. “You’re my own secret garden.”

Then she turned around, and froze.

For a moment I didn’t understand what she was staring at. I looked behind me, from left to right, searching for something out of the ordinary, before I realized: her eyes were locked on mine.

The world seemed to stand still as I waited for her to look away, frown, convince herself that she hadn’t really caught a glimpse of me, that it was a shadow, a mistake, nothing. They always did. But she didn’t. She kept on staring, the first time in centuries that someone had looked at me, not through me.

I wanted to speak, but I wondered…did I even still have a voice? It had been centuries since I’d tried, only to produce nothing but a thin cloud of dust and smoke.

But this time, when I opened my mouth, I made a sound.

“Can you…can you see me?”

She nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Walter. And you’re…Elle.”

“Do you live here too?” she asked.

I actually smiled. “Yes. I built this house, a long, long time ago.”

“Are you a ghost, Walter?”

My smile faded. “I…yes. Are you scared of me?”

She paused for a moment, watching me quizzically. Then she merely shrugged, and my universe turned upside down.

“You’re a good ghost. I can tell.”

From then on we were friends. I never even visited the other apartments anymore, but lived on the second floor with this family, my family.

But I never forgot my Elle.

“Do you miss your family?” little Elle asked me one afternoon as she weaved crowns out of dandelion flowers.

I paused, considering. “Yes…I miss them every day, but not the same as I once did. We are different. I am sure they still exist somewhere, but we exist in different worlds. It’s not the same as missing someone who is still alive.”

She looked down at the flower in her hand. “That’s how I feel about my mom,” she replied, fingers tearing the weed into pieces.

“It’s like even when she is here, she’s not. She’s always somewhere else, in some other world where there’s no room for anyone but her. There’s no point missing her.”

She often said things like this, far too old and sad for her age.

As Elle learned to hate her mother, so did I. It was a gradual process, a subtle whittling away of my sympathy for her pain, my willingness to overlook her many, many shortcomings. The tipping point came when Elle was 11.

It was a cold day. Elle sat in the living room reading, and I next to her, reading over her shoulder as I often did, one of her favorite stories about an orphan who discovers he is a wizard. She liked books about orphans.

Her mother was in her bedroom. From behind the closed door we could hear her laughing, talking on the phone to a man that, if past experience was any indication, was probably not her husband, the clinking and pouring as she refilled her glass. Aside from flinching when that laugh rang out especially loud, Elle acted as though she couldn’t hear.

Then the door opened, and she came out. Elle glanced at her—red cheeks, glazed eyes, dangerous smile—then back at her book.

She stood swaying in the doorway, surveying her daughter. Then she slunk over and sat down on her other side.

“What’re you reading?” she asked sweetly.

Wordlessly, Elle turned the cover in her mother’s direction.

“Nice. Do you want to play a game? Or take a walk?”

Elle just shook her head.

“Why not?” Her face fell into a childish pout. “You don’t want to spend time with me? Don’t you think I’m any fun?”

Slowly, Elle lowered her book and met her mother’s gaze, her own eyes steely. “I think you’re drunk – at noon,” she spat with venom. “That’s the only reason you want to spend time with me. You just want me to tell you it’s okay. You don’t care about me.”

The ticking of the clock was the only sound that followed.

They stared at each other. Her mother’s face transformed: shock, hurt, anger, but then –nothing. Her face drained of all emotion, becoming more terrifying than if she had burst into rage. She leaned toward Elle.

Elle stood up. Her book fell forgotten to her side as she took several hasty steps backward, and tripped on her own feet. This brought a manic laugh out of her mother. Laughing, she followed after Elle, her eyes and feet perfectly steady.

I tried to stop her as she chased Elle around the house. With every ounce of strength I had, I tried to grab her and pull her back, prayed to a God I didn’t even believe in anymore, but it was no use. My fingers slipped through her like I was

nothing but wind. Laughing like a Macbethean witch, she kept running.

Elle skidded to the bathroom door, slammed it behind her. The lock clicked. I slipped through it, watched her curl up on the floor, arms around her legs, hyperventilating.

Her mother banged her fist on the door, screeching, “Let me in!”

“No!” yelled Elle.

A few more minutes of her pounding fists, then the sound of her body slumping against it onto the ground. Racking sobs.

“You don’t know what it’s like to have someone not care about you!” she cried. “You don’t know what it’s like to be abused!”

“I do,” Elle whispered, but only I could hear her.

Eventually her mother left. But Elle stayed. Curled in a ball, her eyes glassy like she was the one who’d been drinking, perfectly still.

I tried to speak to her. “It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

She didn’t move.

“Elle? Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“Elle? Elle!”

Desperate, I waved my hand in front of her face. She didn’t even blink.

I was in denial for a few days. She must just be tired of me, I told myself. She wants to be alone. She’s become afraid of me. But they were all lies. She wasn’t ignoring me - she didn’t know I was there.

Winter came. She wandered around the yard, shivering, hands buried in her pockets. “Walter,” she sighed, turning her face up to the falling snow. “Where are you?”

“I’m here!” I shouted, inches from her ear. “I’m right here!”

Still, she couldn’t hear me.

What followed were the darkest of times.

What’s worse, I often wondered, being mute or having a voice no one can hear? Elle seemed as miserable as me. She didn’t sit next to Willow anymore. Instead she spent most of her time in her room, curtains drawn tight, writing sad poems and doodling pictures of eyes dripping tears.

One day when Elle was 13, her mother left and never came back. Elle and her brother started going to school, and I was alone all day. I took to following the landlord’s cat around, but even she couldn’t hear me.

Then the phone call came. January 13th. Her mother had suffered a stroke, was found alone in a hotel room in Philadelphia, of all places, and was in a coma. The father gathered the children in his office and they sat on the old carpet floor while he struggled to explain the concept of “brain dead” to thirteen and eleven year-olds.

Things moved very fast then. The very next day she was taken off life support. There was a funeral. Then three months to the day after she’d died, the father remarried. His children were windswept, broken.

He and the new mother sat them all down in the living room one night for a “family meeting,” a

frequent and irritating occurrence in this new family.

“We’ve decided we need a change,” the new woman, whom I didn’t much like, explained. “A new start, where there are no bad memories. So we’re moving to Arizona!”

No. No, it couldn’t be. As I listened to their speech about new beginnings and how this was the best thing for everyone, I stared at Elle’s face. She wore the glassy-eyed stare she got whenever she wanted to be somewhere far away from reality— “in some other world where there’s no room for anyone but her.” I couldn’t make myself believe that I’d never see their faces again. This couldn’t really be happening.

But it happened. They packed up and left that summer. Elle cast one last sad look around the empty kitchen.

“Don’t leave me alone,” I begged. “If you’re gone no one will know I’m still here.”

For one fantastic moment I thought she saw me. Her eyes lit up and she mouthed my name, looking expectant. But then her face fell, as it always did. She let out a heaving, heartbreaking sigh, and then she was gone, footsteps retreating down the staircase.

I chased them down the driveway. As far as I could go, until I hit the invisible barrier keeping me imprisoned. I watched their car turn the corner.

And then I spent the next year walking around the yard in circles.

For one fantastic moment I thought she saw me. Her eyes lit up and she mouthed my name, looking expectant.

When you’re alive, your life is measured in firsts: first steps, first words, first kiss. When you’re a ghost, your existence is nothing but nevers. I counted all the nevers without Elle. I’d never get to see her grow up. I’d never see her go to high school. Never listen to her talk to her parents about college. Never watch her face light up as she opened her first acceptance letter. She’d never be able to hear me again.

No one moved in for a long time. The house had a bad reputation in the neighborhood. They said, rightly, that it was haunted, that there were probably traces of drugs leftover from the mother before she died, that they didn’t want to live somewhere the police had taken to just driving by because they’d been called there so many times.

Without the father, the yard fell back into ruin. The ivy grew wild again, the lawn was never cut, nor weeds tamed. The feeble front fence, hanging on for years by a few twigs, blew over in a strong wind, and was never replaced.

After a year I finally went inside. Dust an inch thick coated everything like snow. They had left nothing behind, no broken toys or bits of trash. Nothing to indicate that a family had loved, died, and broken up here, or that at one point, a little girl who looked just like my wife had called me a good ghost and been my only friend.

That was the year I stopped counting time.

Eventually a new family moved in; a single mother of two. Though they didn’t stay long. She didn’t like the feel the place had, she said. It felt dark, ominous. Not the kind of place children should be raised.

It was a house in mourning, grieving the many lives lost here. This was not how it was supposed to be, when I laid board upon board and built it from the ground up. This was not

how my life was supposed to be, my art becoming my prison.

I watched as the winters got colder. The landlord packed up and moved down south, selling the building to another. More tenants came and went, and came and went. And still I lived on, in solitude, in silence. Never again would I try to speak.

One spring, I noticed all the tenants preparing to move at the same time. I sat on the kitchen counter on the third floor, listening to them talking and packing.

“I guess they kicked everyone out,” said Laura, an art student. “Sold it for next to nothing, and whoever bought it is making everyone move.”

“Yeah, but they helped everyone find a place,” replied her roommate Kim. “And they gave us, like, four months. You just waited till the last minute.”

Laura shrugged, wrapping glassware in newspaper. “I don’t want to leave. I like it here.”

Kim shivered as if a draft had blown through, but the room was warm. “I won’t miss it,” she said, her eyes glancing around the spot where I sat like she was seeing something out of focus.

In time all the apartments were left vacant. I revel in the solitude, no living around to envy, and return to haunting the second floor.

I sit on the windowsill in the kitchen, looking out across the backyard. Then I hear something. The front door downstairs? Footsteps on the staircase? I turn towards the sound, and then a key turns in the lock. The door opens.

I can’t believe my eyes. It’s Elle! Little Elle, though not so little anymore. There are fine lines around her eyes, which are steely, like the night her mother chased her around the house, all

trace of optimistic youth gone. She’s wearing all black; pants, and a hooded jacket.

She stands in the doorway, looks around, takes a deep breath. Leaves the door open.

She still can’t see me. But it is enough that I can see her.

“I promised myself I’d come back for you,” she says, and I know she’s talking to me. “You were my friend when I didn’t have anyone else, and I’m sorry I left you. But I’m here now, and I think I know how to save you.”

It is then that I notice a can of gasoline in her hand.

“I published a book,” she says as she unscrews the cap, begins dumping it everywhere. “I bought this place with the money and helped all the old tenants find new homes. Better homes.” I follow her from room to room. “Nobody deserves to live here. It’s a prison for both of us. So many bad memories…” she trails off, hands shaking.

I follow her downstairs. She dumps more gas down the hallway, along the stairs. I stand in the doorway as she goes outside, turns around, and looks me right in the eye.

“As long as this house stands, neither of us can be free.”

Then she lights a match, and throws it.

The flames rise fast, engulfing me. I feel it burn me, but I welcome the pain. Pain letting me know I’m real, I can be hurt, I can live and die.

The fire spreads, the light blinding, orange and white against the night, so hot on my face. I look through the blaze, and there’s Elle, and she’s not little anymore, but still mine. Still the girl who saw the good in everyone, who loved all creatures no matter how ugly and undeserving,

who grew up too fast, saw far too much pain, and who heard my voice when not another soul could.

“Goodbye, Walter. I forgive you, Mom,” she says. A smile lights up her face before she turns and runs.

Sirens roar in the distance. I turn my face up to the sky, arms outstretched at my sides. All the noise, heat, dissipates. I’m rushing up, up, up through a tunnel, where at the end I hear my wife, laughing.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” she says, and smiles.

And as the house I built goes down in flames, I am free. For more information on author Abby Timmons,

FICTIONCONTRIBUTORS

Kristin Beaven

Kristin Beaven is a senior majoring in English online at Arizona State University. She has had poetry published in Valencia College's Phoenix Magazine, and her short story "The Genie of Aizdihar" was recently published in Volume 23 of The University of West Alabama's Sucarnochee Review.

Kruti Brahmbhatt

Kruti Brahmbhatt is a Young India Fellow and a World Economic Forum – Global Shaper. She has been educated in the US and India and currently lives in Ahmedabad. In former lives she was a development professional in India and an entrepreneur in the US. Now she divides her time between teaching and writing.

Ryan Dunham

Ryan Dunham is currently a doctoral candidate at Ohio University in Mass Communications. He earned both his B.A. and M.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Binghamton University. Ryan's work has appeared in Helix Magazine, Jersey Devil Press, Ricky's Back Yard, and Eunoia Review, and is forthcoming in The Bookends Review His interests include dystopian literature, professional wrestling, chess, and the Grateful Dead.

Kevin Finnerty

Kevin's stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Lyra Review, Fiction on the Web, The Quotable, The Rain, Party & Disaster Society, VLP Journal, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from Columbia College Chicago. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and a pug named Shakespeare.

Gary Lawrence

Gary Lawrence currently teaches composition and creative writing at Glendale Community College (GCC) and Cochise College. He's earned a B.A. from Rockford College and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His flash fiction work "BJ" won first prize in the 2016 Cochise Community Creative Writing Competition. Gary's stories have been published in Short Story America (Volumes II and III), Four Chambers, Mirage, and The Rockford Review

FICTIONCONTRIBUTORS

Steve Luna

Steven Luna puts his psychology degree (from ASU, no less – fear the fork!) to fantastic use by inventing people for others to read about. His fiction includes “The Joe Vampire Series,” “Songs from the Phenomenal Nothing,” “Starfire and the Miracle Tree,” “Simeon Croom and the Treasure Star,” and “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” He's also the co-founder and Viscount of Dapper Press, the world's foremost literary laboratory and boutique publisher of fine fictions. Learn more about his peculiar brand of whatever-it-is at www.thestevenluna.com

Landon Snodgrass

Landon Snodgrass wrote “Staircases,” which appears in the Fiction section. This story marks his first appearance in CANYON VOICES.

Abigail Timmons

Abigail Timmons is a former student of Arizona State University-West, where she studied English and Psychology for two years before electing to pursue a career as a freelance writer. She writes poetry, short stories, and is currently working on a novel. She strives to blur the lines between fact and fiction in pursuit of finding the truth somewhere in between, through writing that draws heavily on the supernatural and her knowledge of the human mind. A resident of Phoenix, Arizona, Abigail lives in a home bursting with other artists, inspiration, and dogs.

Image by Giada Ca)anio To see more work by this ar5st, visit the Artwork sec5on

POETRY

(See

William Miller

The Dog in the Cemetery

John Tustin Since You

Mara Yoder American Girl

Holly Day Where We Meet

Holly Day

Wife in Denial

Andrew Garvin

I’ve Met Someone

Andrew Garvin Aquarium

William Miller Open Casket

Danny P. Barbare The Songbird So Sweet

John Grey

The Sound of Dry, Dry Wind

Christopher R. Vaughan Twin

Indunil Madhusankha

I See Her Hands

Tony Valencia Jr. Trepidation

Kat Lewis

Even When the Clouds Come

Kat Lewis

21

John Tustin

Reaching Out and Up

William Miller

The Mistress of a Mistress

Abby Timmons

Writing Novels on Napkins

Flowers in the Pond by Celeste Byers

Artwork for full image)

The Dog in the Cemetery

By William Miller

I drew an X on Marie’s tomb, left a dollar bill.

I walked the tight maze slowly, past oven graves in the walls. And then I saw him a black lab on the broken brick path. He ran away so fast I didn’t know if he was real …

I walked that maze again but only saw a few tourists. Dogs, guides to heaven or hell-I tried to remember the old stories.

I didn’t see that dog again, though I heard him bark, sharp and clear.

For more information on poet William Miller, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Since You

By John Tustin

You madden my body. You set it trembling.

Since you

I like my face

I like my hair

I like my teeth

And my scars grow endearing. Your hands fold over sadness. Your hands scoop me up And they hold me in position. I lie in repose and smile tonight

Since you.

The sun is so gentle on me

Since you.

Women in the street so beautiful, Noises of the street less obtrusive. And your laughter in this room Is an inoculation against all the rest of it.

The music plays a room away

A little tinny and warped through the wall. It grows more beautiful, threading Through a maze of walls

To sweeten my ears

Day by day

Since you.

Since I kissed you. Since I felt you.

Since you

This room slowly spins

And my hands remain calm and still. Since you I begin to move

At last.

Slowly, but I move. I need to.

For more information on poet John Tustin, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

American Girl

By Mara Yoder

Mary, Mary, popularity, Skinny jeans and classic Sperrys, Air-brushed look and Starbucks coffee: All these things tell them your worth.

Mary, Mary, see them staring, Analyzing what you’re wearing, Act like you don’t feel them burning Eye holes through your skin-tight shirt.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, Many secret weights you carry. I have worn your brand of happy, I have felt your hidden hurt.

For more information on poet Mara Yoder, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Where We Meet

By Holly Day

In bed, in the dark, your fingers brush the jagged “x” that marks my damaged past. I flinch out of habit, force myself to be completely naked with you tell you how you can make a happy face with a lighter home-poke tattoos with a safety pin and India ink.

I trace the pattern of your own damaged flesh, ribs shattered and warped, a mangled child written in pages of skin half-crumbled to dust ritualistic burnings—here, I defy you to tell me I had it bad, we had it bad. With you, I stand in defiance of the past

remake myself in images of celibacy angelic visitations, with a heart as pure as ice.

Wife In Denial

By Holly Day

I hear the screams from the bedroom imagine her staring back at me with wide, blue eyes but it doesn’t do any good.

I tell him to pick up after himself when he’s done I’m not doing the laundry this time, either.

I hear the conversations coming from the room afterwards and I know it’s just him, it’s him speaking in two separate voices his and hers, and it is nothing I want to know about.

I walk above the corpses I know are in the yard lightly careful with my garden spade, avoiding any fresh-turned dirt sprinkle wildflower seeds over the suspicious berms instead.

For more information on poet Holly Day, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

I’ve Met Someone

By Andrew Garvin

I’ve only seen my dog for days or my dog has only been seen for days or for days I’ve only seen my dog—last month I was off work and explored the realms of my apartment with finesse: a fake silver ladle, a chocolateraspberry ornament, hula-hoop, and posters with various dogmas— if you can imagine the nooks I crawled through then you know the perils of being home for an extended period of time when missing a sponge, soap, candles, and a razor; what’s most amazing is the effort it takes to put on clothes in the morning when it’s just you and the lights flickering on and off because you don’t really know how your body works even in a morning spot check in the mirror: do you look good or is death nearing, thereby skin lesions, liver spots, flaky hair that falls to the ground in circles like old feathers— a warning from the future when someone new has entered the house this fine morning so I can’t avoid myself.

For more information on poet Andrew Garvin, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Aquarium

By Andrew Garvin

On a riser he’s seated dead before the glass. Fish swim like bumper cars, confined to their zone and turning at each corner until starting the whole movement again. He doesn’t remember how he arrived admiring the large tank from the amphitheater, he’s alone there.

Something, or someone, has called and he’s come. There’s no welcome; the tank his souvenir of a journey.

Has he always wanted to be there? No, not necessarily. The creatures continue in their infinity circle.

Do they realize they follow the same path behind the same fish, in the one aquarium with him as their audience?

He knows they will die and vanish from the tank in seconds, or years, new sea life will take their place and more will arrive thereafter. He waits for his turn. How long before the fake coral Bleaches, fish evolve, change color— him with only his dead sight through the clear glass to what swims inside.

When can he move on? The blue ocean in the dark room; this must be real, water must drain somewhere.

For more information on poet Andrew Garvin, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Open Casket

By William Miller

A grieving man drove a Model-T all night.

And he reached the graveyard before the pine box was buried, the first dirt tossed.

He asked to see the body, one last time, and the lid was lifted free.

And he saw his brother, the one he played with on this very hill of stones.

They fired cap pistols, fell down; death was ten seconds…

And they ate dinner on the ground, told stories about his brother at different ages.

They talked and laughed until the evening shadows fell across them, their brother come home.

For more information on poet William Miller, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

The Songbird So Sweet

By Danny P. Barbare

The songbird unafraid to sing so sweet punctures the dead air with its beak.

For more information on poet Danny P. Barbare, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

The Sound Of The Dry, Dry Wind

By John Grey

If this land could breathe, it would sound like a door swinging on a rusty hinge. There’d be short, grasping puffs that barely made it to the lungs, a sorry wheeze as oxygen stumbled blindly back out into the searing air.

And if the land could speak, its arid tongue would surely apologize. But even if it had a voice, it would be throat-sore by this, reduced to parched silence.

But the land can neither breathe nor speak. Mostly it just whistles. That takes some doing with no moisture in its lips.

For more information on poet John Grey, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Twin

By Christopher R. Vaughan

After Gwendolyn Brooks

And when you have forgotten sledding on New Year’s morning, and winter Friday mornings before school,

And most especially when you have forgotten snow days— When you have forgotten our snow day leap-out- of-bed, Or tobogganing down the slope piled on Dad's back, Him flat on his stomach and us two camel's mounds, Shrieking faster at the top of our lungs, And would you let us dodge snow tubes between the spruces? And can we premise our pancakes on chocolate chips?

And what if a blizzard, and what if the whole week off? And when you have forgotten our snowdrift daybreak, And how the caked snow slid, if we dried by the radiator, And how our slippers slid off, if we tiptoed at the griddle, And how we uncorked two mammoth pancakes, if Dad looked away, That is to say, if he left us to our giggling mouthfuls And cackling splattering batter

And see-saw battles of mental math

And hollering show-tune harmonies as we wiped up, I say when you have forgotten that, When you have forgotten our bedroom-fort promises To be each other’s dressiest bridesmaids, And how we vowed to make home no more than ten miles apart, And how we lighted the lamp when the other had nightmares, And how we unraveled our college letters under separate dorm lamps, And how we shrieked as we downhill skied on winter breaks, And how I almost crashed when I sped to see you admit yourself into the coldest fortnight, When you have, I say, forgotten all that, Then you have forgotten what it was when you were me, And we bundled up at the top of each hill together.

For more information on poet Christopher R. Vaughan, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

I See Her Hands

By Indunil Madhusankha

I see her hands when she dearly holds mine with hers She has cold, but lingering hands So, I can still feel the very warmth The skin shriveled and clustered with lifeless wrinkles They have a pinkish hue and a scatter of dark red spots Her aged hands are the portrait of a great life story daubed with enormous sweat and tears The reflection of a triumphant odyssey full of love, courage and perseverance and also a strength, a staggering strength, so lavish to enliven generations

For more information on poet Indunil Madhusankha, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Trepidation

By Tony Valencia Jr.

To never amount to anything

To stay in my same town

To stay in my mother’s house in my same room

To be here with no achievements

To be without any success to my talent

To have empty rewards for my goals

To have thousands of hours of practice sharpening a skill go wasted

To see my mother’s look upon me of nothing to show for all her investment in me

To not be anything for my own brother to look up to

To have all those against me toast in cheers for their win

To have all my efforts go unrecognized

To end my life only a dreamer

To have my writings never be read, my music never heard, my art never regarded and appreciated

To be nothing but background noise

To be stagnant

To never fulfill my conviction,

This is my greatest fear.

For more information on poet Tony Valencia Jr., please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section

Even When the Clouds Come

By Kat Lewis

Cookie dough crusted hands wrapped around a glass of red wine seem to clean rather than smudge. The taste of your fingertips matches the taste of your smile and I wonder how the fog floating at our chests on the walk to Mattituck doesn’t scare me – but only scars me. Good memories leave marks too in the homunculi of our minds. Or is it the cerebellum?

You always knew more about science – more than I could ever read in textbooks or on plaques in Galileo’s museum in Florence. Do you remember when we stared at the skeleton of the earth (or, as you corrected me, an armillary sphere)?

We looked at how Antonio Santucci dissected the world into wires, and we dragged our own fingers like scalpels across the globe –from New Jersey to New York, Zurich to Lörach –cutting countries into bite-sized pieces that tasted like the cat-printed dirt in Athens. The world was already so small, and you made it smaller. You handed it to me, cookie-dough clean, and I kept it in my pocket until it fell out on an ATV ride as I scraped the dust out of my eyes.

You promised that we’d find it again. We searched through falling stars on Masemoore Road and in Ethiopian films at Cannes. Sometimes in cornfields with the black of night over our heads, I hope we never find it. Even when the clouds come and rain bends the stalks, all I can think about is how I could get used to the taste on your lips of cookie dough and champagne.

For more information on poet Kat Lewis, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

By Kat Lewis

At the blackjack table, the dealer asked if you were my boyfriend. You scoffed and said, “No, thank god.” And all I could think of was the time we were drunk in my kitchen, a foot apart with heads tilting sideways. I loved the color of your eyes back then, but I didn’t know that they were contacts –irises manufactured by the intelligent designer Acuvue.

Then there was the time on your rooftop with that firework-flamed sky, and the way you stole an eyelash from my cheek, but never let me have my wish. Or the time you held my hair while I vomited Saltines and Svedka in your shower, and you said I walked in my heels the way a cow limps through its own shit.

Later that night, you were down forty bucks, and I counted black chips in the bathroom stall with desert chapped lips and toilet paper stuck to my sole.

For more information on poet Kat Lewis, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Reaching Out And Up

By John Tustin

As I was reaching out And up With uncertain, Scarred and jaundiced hands, So were youAnd we pulled ourselves out Of the vast worthless ocean Together And now we sit In this small irresolute boat That is rocking on a sea Fertile with sharks That have smelled And even tasted our blood In the dangerous teeming Soulless Water

Blackened already With the darkness Of so many Unloved And unloving Souls Who have been torn And devoured Or simply stopped trying To tread

And now litter The bottom Like shipwrecks

So let us sit Side by side, Dip our oars in the water And row, Any direction you choose. Let’s aim once And aim well: If we fail We die together And surviving alone Is worse, I’m certain. And this tiny worn out Boat Is preferable To the tears and blood Of the sea.

For more information on poet John Tustin, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

The Mistress of a Mistress

By William Miller

At the outdoor café, on our first date, she told me she was a mistress. She had her own condo but was on call for the man who gave her everything.

Now she wanted something for herself, a lover her own age most of all.

Discretion went without saying, though he and his wife would never find out.

And we’d have great times, two naughty children hiding in the closet.

Then she paused, and I said the only thing my corny romantic self would let me say.

I still believed in love, finding my soul mate, the “one” still out there.

She said she understood, kind of, and asked me to walk to her new car.

Then she thanked me for our date, winked and slid into the leather seat.

And I stood there like a fool with flowers, not wanting to go home by myself.

For more information on poet William Miller, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Writing Novels on Napkins

By Abby Timmons

I want to write novels on napkins from under a bridge While the rain beats down on my concrete ceiling, While my breath comes in puffs and my hands lose feeling, While above me gas-guzzling Hummers crash, careening Into a pristine Mercedes, poverty-proof Porsche

Over the edge

Of the open walls of my open home

While I sit in the cold, content to grow old

Writing novels on napkins.

For more information on poet Abby Timmons, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

POETRYCONTRIBUTORS

Barbare

Barbare resides in the Upstate of the Carolinas. His poetry has appeared locally and abroad. He attended Greenville Technical College. And studied English and Creative

Holly Day

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minnesota since 2000. Her published books include Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, Piano All-in-One for Dummies, Walking Twin Cities, Insider’s Guide to the Twin Cities, Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, and The Book Of, while her poetry has recently appeared in New Ohio Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry book, Ugly Girl, just came out from Shoe Music Press.

Andrew Garvin

Andrew Garvin is working on his MFA in poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where he also teaches creative and expository writing. He enjoys traveling to new places with his Rottweiler named Ruby.

John Grey

John Grey is Australian born short storywriter, poet, playwright, musician, Providence RI resident since late seventies. . Has been published in numerous magazines including Weird Tales, Christian Science Monitor, Greensboro Poetry Review, Poem, Agni, Poet Lore and Journal Of The American Medical Association as well as the horror anthology What Fears Become and the science fiction anthology Futuredaze Has had plays produced in Los Angeles and off-off Broadway in New York. Winner of Rhysling Award for short genre poetry in 1999.

Kat Lewis

An alchemist of semantics, Kat Lewis transmutes graphemes and phonemes into tales that chronicle human frailty. As an author of four novels and three feature length screenplays, she wrestles with the differences between monsters and humans. While studying Monster Literature as a visiting student at Oxford University's Worcester College, Lewis investigated the question of whether or not there is good and evil or only circumstance. When she isn’t writing or rewriting, Lewis directs short films and hosts free creative writing workshops. Lewis graduated from The Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Writing Seminars.

POETRYCONTRIBUTORS

Indunil Madhusankha

Indunil Madhusankha is an internationally published budding young poet from Sri Lanka. He is currently an undergraduate at the University of Colombo. He achieved three gold medals and a silver medal from four All Island English Essay Competitions. Indunil compiled his first collection of poetry entitled, Oasis when he was sixteen and he is currently working on his second collection, Reflections of Life and also on a book titled, A Rare Kind of beauty, Yet Unexplored: A Selection of Modern Sri Lankan Sinhala Poetry featuring a translation of a set of select Sinhala poems written by some famous Sri Lankan poets.

William Miller

William Miller teaches in the MFA Program in Children's Literature at Hollins University. He is a widely-published poet and children's author. His poems have appeared in many journals, including The Southern Review, The South Carolina Review, The Hollins Critic, Nebo, Shenandoah and Prairie Schooner. His books for children include The Bus Ride, with an introduction by Rosa Parks. He lives and writes in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Abby Timmons

Abigail Timmons is a former student of Arizona State University-West, where she studied English and Psychology for two years before electing to pursue a career as a freelance writer. She writes poetry, short stories, and is currently working on a novel. She strives to blur the lines between fact and fiction in pursuit of finding the truth somewhere in between, through writing that draws heavily on the supernatural and her knowledge of the human mind. A resident of Phoenix, Arizona, Abigail lives in a home bursting with other artists, inspiration, and dogs.

John Tustin

John Tustin graduated from nowhere, edits nothing and has no awards. His poetry is forthcoming in Poetry Pacific, Your One Phone Call, Bare Back Magazine, Newtown Literary Review and others. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry is a link to his poetry online.

Tony Valencia Jr.

Antonio Valencia Jr., aka Tony, The Swordsman was born and raised in West Phoenix. A Chicano and Chiricahua Apache born of a strong and independent mother who has always been his hero to support him. He always had a knack for music and later wordplay, from listening to his mother’s records to the freestyle phrases and jokes in his family. It was not until eighth grade when praying to God for a calling that he was challenged to a rap battle. He knowingly was not a rapper of any kind. Today, he makes music, shoots videos and performs.

POETRYCONTRIBUTORS

Christopher Vaughan

Christopher R. Vaughan is a teacher and poet based in Minneapolis. His work has been published, or is forthcoming, in Amethyst Arsenic, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Off the Coast, Eunoia Review, Review Americana, Prick of the Spindle, Prompt Literary Magazine, and Connecticut River Review. He was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize.

Mara Yoder

Mara Yoder was raised in Huntingdon, a rural town in central Pennsylvania. She is a senior English Secondary Education major at Grove City College. She wrote her first poems for a required creative writing course during the Spring semester of 2016. The course forced her to study and experiment with different forms, and she discovered that writing poetry “isn’t so bad.” During the same semester, she taught lessons on poetry writing at a school for delinquent male youth. As they wrote poems, the students taught Mara that reading, writing, and sharing poetry can bridge gaps between people and cultures. Thanks to these students, she continues to write poetry.

Spiral Galaxy with Dark Matter by Melissa Walter (See Artwork section for more work by this artist)

CREATIVE NONFICTION

Moment of Realization by Lindsay Marcus

(See Artwork for full image)

Gary Lawrence

Famous

Davis Plimpton

Lessons from a Horseplayer

Morgan Routh

Missed Connection

Melee

YOUNG WRITER SPOTLIGHT

Aidan Macias

Hank’s Final Moments

Famous

By Gary Lawrence

My dad was Famous. I mean literally. That was what everyone called him. Not just me growing up, but everyone. Famous. My old man could drive farther, faster, better than any other trucker in the world.

Just ask him. He’d tell you.

At the time I thought he was special. Hell, at the time I thought I was special. Probably every dad must be famous to his ten-year-old boy somehow or other, right? Maybe long, long ago even my grandpa was famous to my ten-yearold dad, huh? I’m famous to my own kids now, too, I imagine—for a little while yet.

Staying famous. Now that’s the real trick, isn’t it?

Dad drove a tractor-trailer truck cross-country and was only home on weekends. First thing that one Saturday in February we headed over to Donut Land for a glazed donut and coffee

for him and a cream-filled long-john and chocolate milk for me. I was ten at the time. Donut Land was a small white cinder-block AFrame building with big soaring windows and orange-painted wood trim, next to the tracks on Auburn Street. The two huge aluminum-framed glass walls came together at the top like two sides of a triangle leaning on each other. A white Formica counter and orange-cushioned chrome stools surrounded a bunch of tall wood shelves against the walls. The shelves were filled with large wire baskets, and those wide wire baskets were filled with donuts of all shapes and sizes on wide sheets of waxed paper. With its high, pointytopped, wideopen entrance, Donut Land could’ve been a church if the windows would have been stainedglass and it was a little bigger maybe, and there were pews instead of stools.

This Saturday, with his tax return money bulging in his front jeans pocket, Dad walked through the swinging glass doors like he owned the place. He strode fast and pointed his hips and

feet to the outside a little when he took a step, like he’d learned when he marched in the Air Force, he’d told me a hundred times before. He said it made him look more “official” to walk like that. To me it just made him look like he took up more room than he really did.

“The usual, sweetheart,” he said to the waitress, halting at attention next to his stool and drawing his hand across the bristly top part of his flattop before he sat down.

“You got it, Bob. Er, Famous,” she said, already pouring his coffee in front of him. “What about you, honey?”

I’d trailed behind. By then I was spinning back and forth on my stool at the counter, thinking about how good that long john was going to taste. It took me a second to figure out she was talking to me.

I had a flattop haircut like my dad’s. I pushed my black Buddy Holly glasses up my nose so I could see her better. Her breasts jiggled a little in her low-cut blouse as she leaned toward me. “I’ll take the usual, too, please.”

She smiled bigger at me. My dad rolled his eyes and ordered my long john and milk.

He was a natural talker, my dad, a guy people flocked around when he was telling a joke or one of his stories, which was pretty much all the time. He took pride in being able to talk to anyone about just about anything—it didn’t

matter who they were or what they did for a living.

This time, this Saturday he started telling the story about how he stole Grandpa’s brand-new Buick for a joy ride when he was a kid. Even though I’d heard this story a million times before, I still got caught up in it every time because of the way he could tell it.

“Marked the tires on the street with chalk first,” he said to the guy across the way from him at the counter, raising his eyebrows.

I don’t think he’d ever seen that guy before, he was just convenient.

“So’s the Old Man wouldn’t know I moved it.”

The guy nodded, like he understood.

“My brother Tommy and me, we drove that Buick around all weekend, cruising for chicks.”

The guy dunked his powdered-sugar donut in his coffee. I licked the whipped-cream topping off the end of my long john.

“Cruised the A&W over on Main Street—know where that is?” he said with his arm out, pointing north. “Then a couple hours before the Old Man got home, we filled ’er up with gas and started driving around the block backwards to roll back the miles.”

The guy held his wet donut in front of him, ready to eat it but not wanting to be rude.

Then a couple hours before the Old Man got home, we filled ‘er up with gas and started driving around the block backwards to roll back the miles.

“But my brother Tommy, he couldn’t back up to save his life, the dumb ass, so I had to do most of it. We knew the Old Man would’ve written down the mileage before he left. He was one cheap son of a bitch, I’m telling you.”

Dad leaned forward, shaking his pointy finger at the guy. “So what happens when the Old Man got home? Tommy went right over to him and told him I’d stole the car.” He sat back in his stool.

“Got smacked good that time, but it was worth it.”

Dad saw me listening then, I guess, because he bent down toward me. He hung there long enough for me to get a whiff of his Brylcreem and Old Spice. Then he said to me real loud: “I ever catch you doing anything like that, I’ll whip your ass.”

He looked straight at me for a couple seconds. I fought to stare back at him. Then his face exploded in a big white-toothed laugh and he looked around at everyone there. The wet half of the guy’s donut flopped off into his coffee. All the other people in Donut Land laughed too, including a couple construction guys in checkered shirts that had just walked in, like the laughter was contagious.

The waitress tried not to laugh, tried to look like she wasn’t really laughing, like she wasn’t really paying any attention to him, but she couldn’t help herself.

I knew the feeling.

After we finished our donuts we went to Bill’s Aqualand and Pet Store in the new mall on the East side, across town from where we lived.

“I’ve been thinking it’s time we had a dog around the place. What’dya think?”

I bobbed my head, both excited and scared. So much for Mom’s new washer and dryer from the tax return money, I thought.

Dad walked through the store and up to the puppy cages like he’d been there before, straight to those squares in the walls with the windows right next to the big aquariums and kitty litter. He looked the windows up and down slowly, his arms crossed over his chest with one hand holding his chin, one finger laying up on his cheek.

“What kind of dog is that yellow one there?” he asked when a girl clerk about eighteen finally came up.

“That sandy-colored one?” she pointed. “She’s a cockapoo.”

“A what?”

“A cockapoo. A new breed. A cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle.”

He snorted. “Well, I’ll be damned. How the hell’d they do that?”

The clerk blushed. “Same ole way they ever get anything, I guess, sir.”

My dad laughed and the clerk smiled. She had dimples in her cheeks. “How big will she get?”

“Not too big. Fourteen, fifteen pounds max,” she said, making a small box in the air with her hands.

“Cockapoo, eh?” He smiled, thought for a second. “I like that. Wrap her up or whatever the hell else you need to do. We’ll take her.” Then he peeled three fifty-dollar bills from the silver-and turquoise money clip in his pocket, and pressed them into the clerk’s small hand.

“That hold her for now?” He smiled his Donut Land smile, reached up and stroked his flattop back again.

“Yessir.” The girl blushed and walked away quickly.

“You know Jeff,” Dad said while the girl was getting the puppy ready to go home with us, “I had a dog named Buddy when I was about your age. My old man just brought him home one day, kinda like we’re doing now.” He picked out a small pink collar with fake diamonds on it. “Buddy was part cocker spaniel, too.” He threw a bag of puppy food in the cart. Stopped.

“Buddy got himself killed when I was fifteen. He paused again at the Milk Bones, grabbed a box of “smalls,” then got a chrome food and water dish with a wire stand, too. “Same year Tommy and I stole the Buick, come to think of it.”

I thought he was going to tell me something more about how Buddy got killed, or some secret part of the Buick story he hadn’t told in the donut shop, like maybe his dad had run Buddy over or something.

Instead he said, “My old man still had a picture of that damn dog in his wallet when he died. Sixty-seven years old, thirty-five years later, and he still had a picture of that damn dog in his wallet.”

Mom told me later when I told her this story that that picture of Buddy was the only picture Grandpa had in his wallet when he died.

Dad never mentioned that part.

So we went out for donuts and brought home a puppy that Saturday. The pup sat with me in the front seat all the way back to the house. I didn’t quite fill up the passenger seat back then, I was such a skinny kid, so she stood half on the seat and half on me with her front feet on the armrest and her back feet on my lap and her wet nose barely reaching high enough to look out, smearing the padded window ledge with dog spit.

Our house was in the middle of a block of lookalike houses on Lawndale, the last block before Ridge Avenue. Across Ridge were the same tracks that went by Donut Land. Across the tracks and that grassy field were the West High baseball diamond and Welsh Elementary, the school my sisters and I went to.

We whipped into our driveway going fast, like Dad usually drove, and made a little screech when we stopped. My older sister Carol and my younger sister Ann were doing dance routines in the front yard, even though it was cold out. CarolAnn we called either one of them, because they were always together and defended each other to the death no matter what. They stood so close to each other most of the time that there was hardly ever any space between them. So we just combined their names, too, to go along with that, and it stuck.

She snapped her eyes at us, first me, then him, then the girls, daring us all to say something with her thrust-out face and set shoulders.

Of course they fell in love with the golden-haired puppy as soon as they saw her, like Dad and I knew they would.

We walked through the back door into the house and I turned right into the kitchen with the dog in my arms. She looked real cute in her new pink collar. CarolAnn piled in close behind me while Dad hung back. Mom was drinking coffee and reading the paper at the kitchen table. I could tell how mad she was right away by how tight her face got.

“You didn’t think to talk to me first about this?” she said to me instead of him, like it was my fault. I froze in front of her and clutched the dog tight. Mom didn’t like it that even then I was as tall as she was and I was only ten, so she didn’t stand up. But then Dad took the pup away from me and held her up close next to Mom, and she put her front paws on Mom’s chest and licked her face. Everyone was quiet. Nobody breathed. Mom tried not to smile (she was funny that way too, like that waitress, maybe), but then she started talking baby talk and cuddling the tawny pup.

“I think we’ll call you Ginger,” my mom said, looking around at us. “Unless you’ve already named her, too?” She snapped her eyes at us, first me, then him, then the girls, daring us all to say something with her thrust-out face and set shoulders. Then she stood up and walked away, swaying her hips in her housecoat and noisily kissing the dog’s ears. You could hear everyone start breathing again.

None of us were surprised when it fell to Mom to train Ginger to go potty outside, Mom least of all. She kept her from barking at every little blowing leaf and made her walk on a leash right too.

Dad was gone most of the week anyways, so it was just Mom and us around the house. Mom worked nine-to-five as a secretary, so my sisters and I had a little time to ourselves at home after school usually, but she left us notes every day about the chores we were supposed to get done before she got home.

During the week everyone was serious and quiet and tried not to take up much space. It was like that until Dad got home Friday night or Saturday morning, depending on where his run took him that week.

Unlike Mom, Dad spoiled Ginger something awful, like that was his job.

Once when I was twelve, after a big Sunday dinner Mom made special for Carol’s birthday, Dad fed Ginger some of his people-food scraps. Mom couldn’t stand a dog that begged at the table, let alone one that would eat at the table.

She snapped her eyes and made her “tish” sound with her tongue. My sisters and I had seen that look often enough to know not to make eye contact and to be quiet.

Dad just leaned over and fed another handful of leftovers to Ginger like it was nothing.

Mom slammed her fork on the table, sloshing some milk out of her glass. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Bob.” She glared at him, daring him to feed the dog another scrap. My shoulders tensed, waiting for the explosion; my sisters stared at their plates harder.

Dad just laughed like he was at Donut Land sipping coffee, and this time slowly set his whole plate on the floor for Ginger.

“That dog’s got fewer germs than you do, Barbara. What’s your goddamned problem?”

Mom got up and grabbed all the plates off the table, as many as she could carry, whether they had any food left on them or not.

“I don’t have any problems. Except you.” She didn’t bend down to pick Dad’s plate up off the floor. She stood stupidly for a second with dirty dinner dishes piled in her arms. “You’re disgusting.” Her lips curled when she said it; then she slammed the plates hard into the sink and stormed out of the kitchen.

I don’t know which of us laughed first – but someone at the table did, and we had all we could do to keep quiet.

If Mom heard us from the living room that day, she never said. Of course it wasn’t one of those things she’d want to talk a lot about, anyway.

street once a week, my chore was to feed Ginger and make sure she always had water in her bowl. My sisters had to let her out and clean up her house messes, which made them throw dishes and groceries and pillows and whatever else they could grab around for a while whenever Mom told them to “do their jobs.”

They said I was the “favorite” in the family because I was the boy, that I was “the lucky one.”

Days like that, Carol would dump all the silverware out of the drawer into the dishwater just so I had to rinse and dry it.

Of course, my sisters were never around when Dad got on my case, it seemed.

Like that time with the dog food, when I was thirteen.

“Jeff, got a question for you,” he started one day.

“Yeah, Dad?”

“You eat today?”

“Yeah, sure. Why?”

“You drink anything today?”

I looked at him, crinkled my nose. “Yeah?”

“That a question or an answer?”

I swallowed hard. “An answer.”

“Then tell me again. The whole thing.”

“Yeah…”

“Yes.”

Besides drying dishes and taking the trash out to the garbage cans and putting them out on the

“Yes, I ate and drank something today. So?”

He nodded his head. Then he stood up suddenly, wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck, shoved my head toward the empty dog dishes and pointed, like he was rubbing a dog’s nose into a wet spot on the carpet. “Then why in the hell are Ginger’s dishes empty?”

Soon as he let go of my neck, I opened a can of dog food quick at both ends like he’d taught me, pushed the meat into Ginger’s dish whole from the can, then chopped it up with one of the thin sharp lids before I set it down. He stood

I was fourteen then.

My sisters usually let her out in the morning. That day, though, Dad was home and up first so he let Ginger out himself. From my bed upstairs I heard him walk across the living room, open the door, and let her out.

Half a minute later he was yelling out the door: “Goddammit, Ginger, get back here.”

He must’ve been in his underwear when he let her out or he would have gone out and got her right then. I heard him walk back to the bedroom, heard the change in his pockets jingle as he tried to slip his pants on quick, heard him hop on one foot and bang into the wall.

“Son of a bitch.”

I imagined Ginger streaking across the street over to Holland’s to see Happy, their nasty old basset hound, like she did when my sisters let her out the front when they were too lazy to walk her around the block on her leash like they were supposed to.

there and watched me until I filled the water dish too and crushed the can and threw it and the lids in the garbage. Then he turned and walked away without another word.

I wish he would’ve just smacked me and been done with it right then. But that wasn’t his style.

Not Famous.

It was on a sunny mid-June Saturday that Ginger got herself killed.

I heard my dad yell Ginger’s name again, then right after that I heard another sound, like the smack of a wooden bat on one of those brown leather mush balls with the red lacing from gym class that don’t hurt when they hit you. That day it sounded like the mush ball popped when it got hit and those thin red seams all came undone.

Dad exploded out the door and I jumped out of my bed, pulled my jeans on and crashed down the stairs.

When I got to the door I saw a long green Ford Falcon wagon stopped crookedly across our

street with its left front tire on the curb closest to our house. A pretty blond girl who didn’t look much older than me was sitting in the driver’s seat. A tall man on the passenger side of the car —her dad, I guess—had already gotten out and was walking around to the front grill.

He had a flattop like my dad’s, but his was gray around the ears.

I saw Ginger lying in the street by the curb under the car’s high chrome bumper. She was on her side, her legs and feet sticking straight out. She was panting, the tip of her tongue hanging out and touching the dirty tar street. Dad knelt, shirtless and shoeless with both knees on the pavement, staring down at Ginger. His hair was mussed and wild looking, not all slicked in place with Brylcream like usual.

All I had on was a pair of old jeans, not even zipped. I fell to my knees next to him. I was dizzy and a little sick.

“What do we do, Dad?” He’d always bragged about seeing plenty of accidents on the road. This was nothing. He’d know what to do, I thought.

Dad didn’t say anything. He slid his hands under Ginger to pick her up. But she whipped her head around and bit him on the forearm. Two bright red holes appeared suddenly on his tanned arm.

Then for the first time I saw a puddle of darker blood on the street under Ginger’s tail. Even though I was kneeling, for a second the whole street got black and I thought I was going to topple over.

“Ran out.” The man from the car said softly, both hands out from his body, his palms up. “From over there.” He pointed at Holland’s across the street. He was talking to my dad, I guess, but my dad didn’t look up, so he turned

his eyes to me. “Just ran out in front of us. No time.”

Behind him in the car the girl sat frozen in the driver’s seat, tears on her pale cheeks, eyes wide, fists white and still clutching the steering wheel at the 10-2 position like she was taught.

“She has her permit,” the man said.

“Get me a towel,” Dad said. It took me a second to realize he was talking to me.

I jumped up and ran back toward the house. Mom stood halfway down the porch step in her short white house coat and silver-sandal slippers, one hand over her mouth, elbow in her other hand. Her blue eyes were wide and the whites showed, like the girl driver’s did. With her streaked hair up high, wrapped in toilet paper and hair pins to hold its shape, she looked like that statue of the Egyptian queen in Miss Winter’s History class.

“Get a towel, quick!” I yelled at my sisters huddled in the doorway. Carol turned first, then both she and Ann disappeared into the house. Finally they brought out a dark green towel. By then I was pacing back and forth.

“That isn’t one of my good towels, is it?” Mom said.

I took the towel and ran back. Dad was still on his knees where I’d left him. He’d managed to pick Ginger up by then and held her with her back against him, holding her half on his lap, half against his bare chest. She whined weakly. Her feet stuck straight out, and her body jerked once in a while in his arms.

He stood up, took the towel and covered her head, then walked stiffly up the driveway toward our garage behind the house. The man from the Ford wagon followed him a few steps, saying

again how sorry he was. I got up and followed, too, but glanced toward the house as I went.

Mom stared at me from across the yard. Snapped her eyes at me in that way she had. Then she turned and I heard her say, “Go on inside, girls. It’s over.”

The man from the car stopped at the curb. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, and didn’t take his hand off for what felt like a long time.

I could only look in his eyes for a moment, then had to look away.

When he let go of my shoulder he walked back toward the driver’s side of the Falcon. He crouched down next to his daughter at the open driver’s door; her hands still gripped the steering wheel tightly.

Tears streaked her cheeks. The man peeled her hands off the wheel, helped her out, and walked her gently around the back of the car to the passenger seat. He practically had to put her in the car, had to pick up her long legs to tuck them all the way in so he could close the door, then walked quickly back to the driver’s side and drove off.

By the time I got to the garage Dad was headed for the back door of the house without Ginger.

“Where you going, Dad?”

He strode through the back door without answering. I stood there wondering what to do with myself.

I worked my way over and looked at Ginger lying in the front seat. Her head was still covered with the towel, and her chest didn’t seem to be moving anymore. I slowly reached in through the window and touched her. Her body jerked and I jumped back. I could see her shallow breathing

then if I stared right at her chest and the towel and the seat all at once.

I remembered the day we brought her home four years ago, when she stood on my lap and bounced on my leg and slobbered dog spit across the same window I leaned through now.

Dad came back out a moment later wearing a wrinkled shirt, shoes but no socks, and different pants. His hair still looked wild. I could see the two red holes Ginger gave him in his forearm when he climbed into the car.

He didn’t say anything to me.

“Where you going?” I asked again.

He started the car.

I was close to him then. I looked him in the face, thought for a second about reaching through the open window and grabbing him and squeezing

his shoulder like that other father had grabbed me…but I didn’t.

Couldn’t.

He put the car in reverse and turned past me to look out the rear window.

“Take me with you.”

He backed the car down the driveway.

“Dad! Take me with you. Please?” I yelled.

He bounced out of the driveway, squealed off down the street.

He didn’t look back.

I watched the car until I couldn’t see it anymore. I stood there in the empty yard for a full ten minutes. I wondered if we had any pictures of Ginger, where they were. Maybe the girls were already getting them out? Then I wondered

about my dad, about whether he had a picture with him, a picture of Ginger stuck in his wallet like my grandpa had had a picture of Buddy stuck in his.

I didn’t doubt it.

He came home an hour or so later. Alone. Not looking quite so Famous.

Nobody said anything about Ginger’s accident all that day. Later, when I did my chores, I saw the bloody green towel in the garbage can. Mom got rid of Ginger’s dishes and leash somewhere else, I guess…they were gone when I got up to put food and water in them around suppertime.

After that morning we never talked about Ginger in our house again.

Ginger’s pink collar lay on the kitchen counter, where Dad had put it, sat there for a couple days. Nobody wanted to touch it. On the third day I took it and hid it in my room under my bed in the box with my baseball cards.

Things went on for a while after that, but they were never the same. Later that summer Dad took a load of truck parts to Washington state on a Monday morning like usual, but didn’t come back. Mom acted like that was a normal thing for him to do. She said that going on was the normal thing for us to do. So we believed her and we did it.

We went on.

We never talked about that in our house again, either.

Ten years later I saw my old man again. A call out of the blue after all that time; he’d finally found one of our messages, I guess.

My wife Jenny and I got a call from him at nine p.m. on a Wednesday night. He was still driving trucks. “All I ever knew how to do,” he laughed on the phone. He was just passing through, had to run a load of apples from Washington state to Detroit and pick up some engine parts to bring back.

Even though it was February then, below freezing, windy, a 60% chance for more snow that night, Jenny and I hurried as fast as we could, piled the kids in the car, and drove the sixty miles north up there from Rockford.

We met him just off Interstate 90 at a truck stop in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Once we got to the truck stop I called his cell, and he talked us over to where he was parked in the large gravel lot by the rest of the tractor-trailers. When we pulled up, he swung down out of his dark-blue Peterbilt using the chrome side bar.

Even after all those years, he looked the same.

I got out into the cold and walked toward the truck. Jenny stood by the car and held baby Rob in her arms; three-year-old Angie hung at her knee. My dad hadn’t met any of them before. I’m not sure he knew they existed.

He stepped closer and took my extended hand. “You know the difference between pussy and parsley?” he yelled out in the truckers’ parking lot. He waited a tick. “Nobody eats parsley.”

His face exploded in laughter.

I froze, my hand still in his grip, wondering how long he’d saved that one up just for me. I knew he’d practiced it to himself plenty of times in the truck. He laughed so loud in the cold night air that I was sure he could be heard across the gravel and above the idling trucks by anyone stupid enough to stand there.

A shiver flared up my spine and settled cold across my shoulders. I thought, decided, then swallowed hard.

“You were wrong, you know.”

He stopped short in the middle of another laugh, a frown quick to his face. He tried to pull away but now I held his hand tight. He recovered in an instant.

“Me? Wrong? Never!”

He grinned and tried again to shake his hand loose.

I hung on.

“About the cars. Grandpa’s Buick.” I paused. “The mileage doesn’t come off when you back up.”

He thought about that for a second. Looked down at his feet, looked back up at me. “Yeah, well, I never said it did.” He snorted. “What the hell did we know? We were just stupid-ass kids.”

Photo courtesy of the author

I let his hand go then. We stood still for another moment.

“Come on over and meet the wife and kids,” I said, sweeping my hand toward our car. “We brought baby pictures of our little guys, pictures of Carol, and Ann, and their families, too.”

He looked at me with his mouth hanging open, like I’d just asked him what his name was.

“Do I look like a picture-kind of-guy to you?”

Then he marched over to Jenny and the kids, heel toe, heel toe, feet pointed out every step, covering the open ground between them swiftly. He stopped at attention in front of my wife and kids, brushed the bristly part of his flattop back with his hand, then held that hand out and smiled his big Donut Land smile.

“So…who the hell are you?”

For more information on author Gary Lawrence, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

Photo: William C. Crawford

(See Artwork for more work from this photographer)

Lessons From a Horseplayer

By David Plimpton

Iplead guilty. I occasionally bet on thoroughbred horse races. No more, though, are I a horseplayer – defined in one dictionary as “a person who habitually bets on horse races.” But, to the bitter end, my mother was a dyed-in-the-wool practitioner of the Sport of Kings.

Born in 1912, she was raised on a dirt-poor, tobacco-road Kentucky farm. She escaped to Chicago early in the Depression, fresh out of high school, with rooming house and help-wanted ads.

When I was seven in 1948, a few friends stayed overnight. We happened to parade naked from the bathroom to the bedroom, only to be confronted by my mother. Our awkwardly splayed hands failed to cover our private parts. Was she shocked? Did she avert her eyes? Not at all. “Don’t worry boys, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all,” she said with an indulgent smile. Shock, wonder, relief, boyish giggles. When I recovered, I was impressed at how adroitly she put us at ease. Although I wasn’t able to express my thanks, the event created a silent bond between us, which grew in fits and starts.

So, on a summer Sunday in 1956, though only a 15-year-old greenhorn, I was anointed her companion for a trip to Belmont Park, a stately emporium of horse racing on Long Island, New York. She didn’t have to drag me kicking and screaming. I’d seen enticing photos of throngs plastered to the Belmont rail watching the horses hurtle to the finish. I also looked forward to the time with her. We often sat at home reading together, contented introverts who didn’t have to say a word. But subdued, comforting energy passed between us.

As we spiraled to Belmont, my mother said something like, “I’ll be honest with you. If you win, there’s a rush, you’re on top of the world. You want more. But if you lose, which happens a lot, you’re not only poorer, you feel like an empty balloon, a failure. So you

might want to just look, listen and learn. Or only bet what you can afford to lose. And remember, the track only returns four-fifths of what’s bet. The house keeps the rest.”

In answer to her query, I admitted I’d brought all my money, $75. I didn’t tell her what was up my sleeve – the racetrack as a means to secure my holy grail – a mottled forest green 1950 Pontiac Chieftain that sat forlorn on a New Jersey used a car lot with a $150 sticker price. I was too impatient to sit back and wait for my truck farm earnings to pave the way. My mother didn’t try to stop me. She just muttered, “Okay, maybe you’ll learn a lesson.”

As Long Island started to stretch out before us, she gave me a tutorial on odds, likely bet payoffs, how to back up a win bet with a place bet (the horse finishes at least second) and/or a show wager (the horse finishes at least third).

“That way,” she said, “you get some money back, and maybe even a small profit if your horse doesn’t win, but comes in second or third.”

My mother next advised me that the win, place and show betting pools were separate from each other. “The odds on a given horse are often significantly different in each separate betting pool,” she said. “On the tote board, for each race, you only see the win pool amounts bet on each horse and that horse’s odds based on those amounts. Fine if you bet to win. But what if you decide to make place and show bets?” My head was swimming. I waited for more. Silence.

Then she told me what to do at the betting windows, “Give the race number, amount and

type of the bet, and the horse’s program number, not its name. Say across the board to bet win, place and show together, like 5th race, two dollars across the board, number 3, and have your six bucks ready.”

“But I was hoping you’d bet for me because I’m too young.”

“Don’t worry. You can handle your own bets. When the clerks have to look up at the ceiling to see your face, you won’t have a problem. Just don’t look nervous, mumble or hesitate. “Remember, money talks and bullshit walks.” Easy for her to say.

Belmont was like some old-time potentate’s summer playground. A high, brick, ivy-covered facade with arched window panels, an infield beautified by a large pond and small islands dotted with trees, all plunked down inside a green heaven. It had a main race course – an unpaved, but groomed, superhighways which folded around two turf courses. The infield and three race courses were like huge crop circles. The Clubhouse dripped amenities, such as spacious boxes for racingworld dynasties. The grandstand went on forever. There were hundreds of parimutuel betting windows. A large paddock and saddling area were dominated by deciduous skyscrapers.

The place had more excitement going on than the few major league baseball parks I’d visited, where fans dozed off while the pitcher sampled the catcher’s entire repertoire of signals before acquiescing to uncork an offering to the twitching batter. I remembered very few exciting plays, while at the track, clerks waved around twenty-dollar bills every half hour; all you had to

“Remember, money talks and bullshit walks.”

do to snag one was slap down two bucks too win on a 10-1 shot and have some luck.

Belmont’s many-pronged sensory overload engulfed me: a purposeful mob’s press and roar, green, blue, yellow, red, purple, orange, brown, black and white jockey outfits, magnificent horses thundering down the stretch, an electric buzz as post time approached, alluring and poised females, and the sniff of hotdogs, cigars, beer and perfume.

My mother’s ardor for the races crystallized when I saw we had to spend a ton of time traveling between suburban New Jersey and Belmont in summer weekend traffic. She said we had to be organized – arrive early, handicap the first few races, reserve grandstand seats near the finish line by draping the Daily Racing Form’s unneeded parts (data and expert tips for the umpteen racetracks other than Belmont) over the seat-backs, thus saving the extra cost of comparable Clubhouse seats.

Though 44, my mother turned male heads, looking even younger than the 39 she claimed to be. It made me reflect on the juxtaposition between her bleak Kentucky childhood and her lean, stylishly-dressed Belmont figure floating around, ready to launch her mad money.

In the second race, while I was still trying to keep up with her, my mother won on a longodds filly, Sew, Wash and Wear, exclaiming, “Hot damn! Now I’m playing with the track’s money.” That concept would later help sustain

me through what would otherwise have been hopeless days at the races.

I wished I had asked why she picked Sew, Wash and Wear, but I didn’t. The only connection I could see was her love for sewing, which she learned from my grandmother on an ancient, foot-pedaled Singer sewing machine. It was one of her few positive childhood Sew, victory hinted she handicapping. Like Racing Form’s past performance data (horses, jockeys, trainers, post positions) and expert tips. As I observed my mother in action, I wondered if she relied on sentiment, whimsy, intuition, nuggets from the Form’s small print, all of the above, or something else.

In the next race, she put $30 to show on an even-odds favorite, but no win or place bets. The horse finished third, just good enough to pay off. I watched fans dejectedly tear up what I assumed were their worthless win and place tickets. With a wink, she gave me her ticket to cash. Perplexed, I returned with $75, about $15 more than the horse would have paid had it won. “Hey Mom, your horse paid more to show than it would have to win,” I said. “How did that happen?”

“Didn’t you listen when I said you see only the win pool amounts and odds show on the board?”

“Oh, yeah, right, right!” I said, still not having a clue.

For once she explained, flipping over her program to reveal some scribbles. “It’s called an overlay,” she said. “The win pool reflects the crowd’s rating of the horses, because that’s where most people put their money. But, here (as she pointed her pencil at some indecipherable math), percentagewise, the crowd put only half as much money on my horse to show as they did for it to win. So it had worse odds in the show pool than it deserved, creating an overlay, which was a show bet more favorable than a win bet for the same horse, especially because it only has to finish third to pay off.”

“How’d you figure this all out?” I asked.

“When I lived in Chicago, someone I met at Arlington Park taught me.” There were too many questions swirling in my head to ask more.

Around the fourth race, my mother looped her arm around mine and said we had to visit the paddock. “We’re not gonna know diddly-squat unless we inspect the horseflesh and the riders,” she said.

In a few minutes, we were leaning over a whitewashed fence, as she tried to engage a jockey in banter. He was about to canter his horse to the racecourse as post time neared. So I guessed he, or any other jock, would have little time for crowd interaction. But my mother explained her favorite pilot, Eddie “Banana Nose” Arcaro, had once given her a discreet wink and nod when she inquired about his horse. I could understand if Banana Nose caught my mother’s bold teasing smile, deep

sultry voice and wavy, auburn hair pulled up and back from her forehead before it cascaded down in waves – a woman seven inches taller than he was, even without high heels. But could she rely on his endorsement?

“How’d the horse do?” I asked.

“It placed. Nipped at the wire. Even though I lost the win bet, I made 20 bucks on back up bets. The next time I checked with him, Eddie merely arched his eyebrows. I knew I was on my own. Hated to pass, but he was right; his horse finished fourth. Crying shame. It was beautiful silvery gray.” Did she imagine things? Her head wasn’t in the clouds, so I reserved judgment.

After a few races, I asked if she had a system.

“Not really. Anyway, it might jinx things if I tried to explain my choices. Sometimes I’m not sure myself.” It was as if some magical bubble surrounded her bets, easily punctured by a question and answer session.

“Go ahead and bet the same as I do if you want,” she said. “Just don’t ask a lot of questions. You got your own Form. You can see the horses and riders.” Maybe she actually hoped I’d lose.

Around the sixth race, my mother was jazzed over a roan filly, Pewter Blonde, with a 12-1 morning line and her man, Eddie Arcaro, in the saddle. No leisurely arm-in-arm stroll to the paddock this time. Even with a long stride, I couldn’t keep up as she dashed through a weekend sea of 20,000. “David, get the lead out!” she yelled back.

Eddie ‘Banana Nose’ Arcaro, had once given her a discreet wink and nod…

I swear Banana Nose gave her a wink and nod when she lobbed the ball into his court, “Is my money safe with you today, Eddie?” A tiny smile of recognition seemed to grace his sunburned kisser as he secretly gave her the good news.

With the track’s money – the Sew, Wash and Wear proceeds – I zipped to the windows, barely on time, to lay down $30, $10 across the board, on Pewter Blonde, which went off at 10-1, most punters swayed by recent out-of-the-money finishes in conditions similar to this race.

chicken with its head cut off (My mother’s expression) as bookie, banker and waiter. Once the queen in her throne, among the hoi polloi, decided on a race, she’d dictate her bets. I had to write them down to lessen the chance I’d fumble the ball at the window. By then it was almost post time and I had to hustle my behind, find the shortest line and place our bets, so as not to experience a racing fan’s nightmare, being shut out. She had told me to allow enough time to avoid that calamity. Easy for her to say.

Imagine post time closes in. The oblivious lout at the window asks the clerk inane questions and makes a bunch of two-bit bets – win, place, show, daily double, exacta, quinella. You finally reach the window, cash ready, only to be greeted by a sickening buzzer announcing post time and crippling the betting machines. You’ve been shut out. Suppose my mother picked the winner and I had to tell her you I didn’t have the ticket to cash. Sure as hell she’d make me cover it.

Lo and behold, Pewter Blonde felt the bite of Banana Nose’s whip, deftly alternated between hands, and crossed the wire two lengths ahead. My mother whooped with joy and enveloped me in a bear hug. It felt like Killer Kowalski was crushing me and wouldn’t let go.

Pewter Blonde and Banana Nose returned about $24 to win, $15 to place and $8 to show for each, in effect, five six-dollar across the board bets – almost two and a half C-notes, no small potatoes in those days.

My imagined effortless, exciting and rewarding day was turning into an unanticipated apprenticeship. I was running around like a

Before long, I spied one of Belmont’s few $50 betting windows, and intriguing, ill-lit recess at the end of a row of regular windows, reserved for the few who could afford its Siren call. As the ninth and final race loomed, my mother still worked with the track’s money – some wins, places and shows, while I, experimenting with two dollar bets, was down $15. I had $60 left. The $50 sign, in large digits, beckoned boldly.

To save the day, I seized on a 7-2 shot, Kentucky Roman, the second lowest odds horse. I dubiously reasoned it would come in second, grasping for some significance, as I had seen my mother do, in the name: Kentucky, my

mother’s place of origin, and Roman, from my Latin studies. It hadn’t run in 40 days. I remembered she said more than 30 days since a horse’s last race was a good rest, but more than 90 days was a layoff, a sign it needed a race or two to get back into form. Good enough for me. I laid out my reasoning to her.

“You sound like me,” she said, echoing my thoughts moments before.

Then I sprang the clincher, “I wanna bet $50 to place.” That’s $400 today. A hiatus as I wondered if she was still breathing.

Finally, a loud sigh, “That’s a hell of a lot to bet on one race. A show bet would be less risky, but if you’re dumb enough to put that much on a horse, go ahead.”

Heedless, I charged ahead. Despite my mother’s assurances, as I neared the $50 window, I feared a hawk-eyed clerk would nail my unlawful status and ask for a driver’s licence. All I had was my Boy Scout card. The line was short and, in seconds, I peered into the un-hawk-like blue eyes of a tall, willowy woman, college age, high cheekbones and short, dark hair trimmed neatly across her forehead. No time for small talk, even had I possessed the skill. Luckily, or maybe unluckily for the long haul, she wasn’t out to nail underage fools with cash on the barrelhead.

Kentucky Roman came in second by a head, my heart ready to burst as its lead over the third place horse steadily eroded right up to the finish line. The horse and its jockey, my saviors, returned a cool $165, netting $115, my wallet now stuffed with $175.

I felt a magical radiation of power and confidence, as I tooling around in my 1950 Pontiac, with bread left over for a quick return to the races. And my other wish came true –another chance to see the heavenly clerk. She

gave me what I dreamed was the same knowing, seductive smile she might give other big operators who frequented her lair. But then another of my mother’s aphorisms echoed, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Her congratulations were muted, “You’re damn lucky. I’m not sure I’ll let you come with me again.”

Of course, she did. Our next trip that summer was to Monmouth Park, one of the Jersey Shore’s crown jewels. I still hadn’t absorbed my mother’s point about my Belmont beginner’s luck. It didn’t help when Lady Luck handed me another big winner. This is like taking candy from a baby! I thought. I must have bloomed a shiteating grin when I told her the result.

“I see you’re playing with the track’s money, but I wonder if you know what to do next.” was all she said.

“What? What should I do?”, I said.

“I think it’s better if you learn the hard way.”

A few years later, in 1959, I proudly chauffeured my mother to Belmont in the successor to my Pontiac, a red and white 1955 Ford Fairlane. During the drive, I told my mother about the tough time a high school friend was having. His parents were getting divorced. I suggested they were being selfish about their own happiness at my friend’s expense.

My mother blurted out without a prelude, “Before I met your father, I was married for seven years. I had to get a divorce. I’m not proud of it, but it was for the best. At least we didn’t have any children. If I didn’t tell you now and you found out later, you’d think me a hypocrite for not saying anything about it now.

Keep in mind before you judge people, you better at least walk a mile in their shoes.”

Continuing, she explained her first husband had been a high-flying Irishman who made good money as a commercial pilot, so she could start to lead the good life by, for example, playing the ponies at Arlington, where he was a regular. So, I thought, he was the one who led her down the garden path. My mother had become a model and flew around the country, appearing before purchasing agents clad in “foundation garments for women,” as she laughingly put it, for A. Stein & Company, which is how she met her husband. I didn’t need to see the old photos – slim, lovely, 5'9" – to know she was a natural for a model and that any male pilot would be happy to have her as a passenger.

She told me about the straw that broke her marriage’s back. Her husband’s pride and joy was a flashy, immaculately cared-for roadster. My mother took it on an errand and got into a fender bender. When she got home, shaken up but not badly injured, and told him, he was horrified. Without a word about her condition, he charged outside to inspect the damage.

“It hit me then. He cared more about that goddamn car than me. Remember that when you find the girl of your dreams,” she said.

In 1960, having made it to college, I tried to go it alone at the races and was soon down to my last ten bucks, thanks to a $30 loss on Peppa Deppa, a 20-1 sure thing at Lincoln Downs in Rhode Island. Ironically, the tip came from a Chicago college friend who, like my mother, learned his errant ways at Arlington. In the gray November parking lot, my fate became clear –my dough almost gone and gas gauge near empty. I hung my head. A grate-covered drain was barely visible, but out of the subterranean depths my mother’s voice seemed to issue, like a medium for the Furies, ...if you lose...empty

balloon...failure...only what you can afford to lose...learn a lesson...dumb if you put that much money on a horse...learn the hard way. I thought, Dammit, my mother started with nothing in the Depression and ended up with her head screwed on right. With all my advantages, if I can’t get this monkey off my back, I’m a sorry sack of shit. I started to turn over a new leaf.

Around 1962, at Belmont’s cousin, Aqueduct, again in the company of my mother, another lightbulb flashed. Sew, Wash and Wear, from that first day at Belmont, now a nine-year-old campaigner, was running again. My mother bet on it despite long odds. Of course, I thought, her concern for the underdog. Sew, Wash and Wear was an underdog, a disadvantaged filly, entered at long odds against males. My mother and my grandmother had been poverty-stricken underdogs, only a half step above the Negroes who lived in the area. If underdogs had integrity, she gave them a thumbs up. Thoroughbred racehorses, who for a feedbag gave their heart and soul every race, fit the bill.

My mother’s affinity with underdogs reminded me of her scorn for racist white trash. She believed in fairness for persons of all races, ethnic or national origins, religions and backgrounds, never tolerating prejudice and hypocrisy. She wasn’t a civil rights hero. But she paid her black cleaning woman very well. Though she was smarter than I was, wellinformed and articulate, my mother recruited me, as a college graduate, to write recommendation letters when the cleaning woman’s kids aimed for college. More than once, apparently unafraid, she objected orally to loud redneck racist comments. When the miscreants saw the look on my mother’s face, I think they might have seen their own mother and, like shamed, chastised children, piped down. I hoped I wouldn’t be drawn into fisticuffs

defending her honor. If it happened, I knew I wouldn’t have any choice.

“White trash are despicable because they need to have someone lower on the totem pole to look down on and blame for all their ills,” my mother said. “Otherwise, they’d have to look in the mirror and see how pathetic they are.”

David, you give everyone respect and stand up for disadvantaged people, regardless of their color or background. Give up your bus or train seats for women, children and the elderly, hold the door for them, and stand up when they enter a room, whether they’re brown, red, yellow, white or pink. I’ll make you into a gentleman if it kills me.”

Once, I decided to test her belief in equal rights by asking what she’d say if one of my sisters came home with a Negro she wanted to marry.

“Hell, David, I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn. What matters is what a person is like inside. Physical beauty is only skin deep.” I was stunned.

That 1962 day at Aqueduct, at least four white, gray or roan horses were running. A few were Native Dancer’s progeny. She bet on them all, telling me Native Dancer was a gray champion who won 21 out of 22 career starts, many of them stakes races. If a horse had a pearly color, she’d bet it two bucks across the board. If, as a bonus, Native Dancer was an ancestor, or it was a filly, like Pewter Blonde that day at Belmont, her wager would vault to $5 or $10 across the board. Didn’t even have to be the chalk (the favorite), though it often was if Banana Nose

Arcaro was up or Native Dancer was in its lineage.

In 1963, just after I graduated from college, my mother and I celebrated by revisiting our old haunt, Belmont Park. Suddenly not totally satisfied with the Form’s statistics, tips, her mystical theories and visits to the paddock, she started to run ideas by racetrack denizens. Mostly men, they looked to me like scruffy losers. But, my mother was a keen and discerning observer of human, as well as equine, types. So I kept an open mind.

A few targets were acquired after she had me watch the windows right after races to pick out anyone regularly cashing tickets. If I did, I was to follow the mark to places where they loitered – so she could spring her trap.

Weighed down by the new chore, I wondered anew how the hell I was supposed to handicap the entries and do all her assigned chores? I was busier than a one-armed paperhanger (her expression) and began to realize why it was I, and not my father, who served as her lackey. Before long I rebelled and said I hadn’t come up with any candidates when I hadn’t even done her requested stakeout. Rather, I leaned against a stanchion out of sight, occupied by the Form and attractive females who happened by. At least I didn’t follow them.

I assumed the targets wouldn’t want to share their hard-won wisdom with strangers who might follow suit and lower the odds on their picks. Often I was wrong. The secret wasn’t so much her attractiveness, smile and charm, which she could pour on when a few stiff drinks

“In the gray November parking lot, my fate became clear…”

brought her out of her shell. It was mostly her method.

Situated near the fingered victim, she’d engage me in a disingenuous handicapping discussion loud enough to be heard, “David, the four horse looks like it’s ready to win for a change, and the odds aren’t bad. Whaddaya think?”

I was ready with a memorized counterpoint, which I delivered like an auditioning actor, “I dunno. I like the three horse, because X rides him today and he’s got a better post position than his last race.” She usually leaned toward one of the two horses.

“This way we got three possible helpful responses – the horse I like, the other possibility and a third one if he volunteers one,” she advised.

If she could tell the mark listened to our little dialogue, she’d query, “Can you help us settle our dispute? Who do you like this race?” At the same time, almost flirting, she’d try for eye contact. If she received an encouraging response, she listened, floated questions, and incisively explored what she heard. Even if she didn’t buy any forthcoming tip, she’d drop two bucks to show on it.

“The winner pays on win, place and show bets, the second place horse on place and show bets and the third place horse only on a show bet,”

she told me. “So you’re not betting against yourself unless you play more than three horses to show, two to place or one to win.”

After the search for expertise didn’t produce a winner for several races, I ventured, “All this effort, laying it on thick (my father’s expression) with every Tom, Dick and Harry (her expression), and zero winners to show for it. I think it’s a waste of time, especially my running all over Hell’s half acre (her expression) to spy on people.”

“Hell’s bells, David, a little patience! We’re not looking just for the winner in the next race, but things for the future you don’t easily find in the Form. Remember the guy with the cigar mentioned the trainer who’s magic with turf runners. I tuck it all away up here,” my mother said, tapping the right side of her head with an index finger. “As for laying it on thick, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Just stick with me, kid, and you might learn something.” Maybe she didn’t want me to lose.

By the early 1970s, my mother, still only 39, developed new patterns concurrent with a bad back. She’d install herself in a clubhouse seat,

wrap herself in the Form, the post parade, and her secretive musings, sustained by my ceaseless errands to make bets, cash tickets, get drinks, bourbon (a positive Kentucky legacy) and soda, and cigarettes, Camels.

Within a few years, our racetrack ventures were relegated to the happenstance of a visit home married to a convenient venue. My parents were living in the Boston area, so it was Suffolk Downs and Marshfield Fairgrounds during its August fair meet.

Around that time I was shocked to learn from my sister that my mother’s father, who I never met, had been a white-slaver, transporting women across the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana, or so it was alleged. He was convicted of Mann Act violations and sent to federal prison. I worked up the courage to ask my mother about how he had treated her. She said she’d tell me later. Finally, in a clipped answer to my questions on our next trip to the track, she said he was a depraved, violent person, the worst kind of poor, white trash.

My head throbbed with helpless rage at the abuse I imagined she had suffered. Thinking about it was like a nightmare where someone puts a gun to your head, forcing you to watch a film featuring torture of helpless women. I couldn’t do it, wondering if I’d have the guts to say, “Go ahead, pull the trigger.”

In the late 70s, my parents left Taxachusetts and biting breezes for Tryon, North Carolina. The next summer, my mother told me, “I’m a prisoner of air conditioning down here in Dixie. It’s hotter than Hades and 100-percent humidity outside.” In addition there weren’t any racetracks nearby.

So, by 1982, it was on to four-seasons southwestern Vermont, which, not by a total coincidence, was a stone’s throw from Saratoga

Race Course. The Spa, as it’s known, is a whitewashed classic in Saratoga Springs, New York where thoroughbreds labor in the vineyard of the Spa’s six-week summer meet. Glitterati dominate the Gilded Age style of the Saratoga Clubhouse.

During my parents’ first summer in Vermont, my father got a complimentary Saratoga box, where we rubbed elbows with racing elite. My mother, with a cane and leaning on my arm, and I had just viewed the horses up close and were headed back to the box. Just as I stopped to place our bets, she spied Jimmy the Greek, the well-known sportscaster and Las Vegas bookmaker. In a green plaid leisure suit and enough jewelry to set up as a street vendor, the Greek slipped into the $50 line – the Saratoga version reduced by inflation to a $17.50 shadow of the 1956 Belmont version.

“Let’s get behind him and see if we can hear who he likes,” my mother whispered fiercely. Ah, memories of past gold mined from racetrack cognoscenti. I thought of saying, Whaddaya mean “we,” white man? But I didn’t, dodged fans, and got into line only two in back of The Greek, my mother tracking me with a new alacrity.

She said, sotto voce, “Lean forward, David, so we can hear him.” I didn’t think it squared with racetrack etiquette, such as it was, to loom over the person between me and the Greek. But I was tall and complied as unobtrusively as possible.

The Greek reached in a front pocket presumably for a wad thick enough to choke one of the horses headed for the starting gate. No luck for the Greek this time. He frantically patted down all his pockets in vain, threw up his hands with a face of sour frustration, and wheeled out of line, cashless and ticketless. I looked at my mother with raised eyebrows.

“Wow! The Greek pulled up lame,” she said.” If I knew what he was gonna play, I definitely would’ve done the same. When you’re shut out, the horse you picked usually ends up in the money and you don’t have diddly-squat.”

This dipped me into my mother’s rural Kentucky beginnings and the power which superstition, jinxes, myth, talismans, and premonitions had over her. She’d never attend the races on Friday the 13th. A number 7 or 11 horse often received a kicker bet, but a number 13 horse none at all. If she found a bill on the sidewalk and couldn’t find the owner, she’d save it, earmarked for the next trip to the track. Her charm bracelet carried a horseshoe and she always wore it to the track. Who am I to say it didn’t work.

Over her career, I believe she was in the plus column, as if some mysterious energy had been transmitting messages and premonitions from the horses, jockeys and trainers to her sixth sense. She seemed to have an uncanny ability to synthesize those signs, the Form’s data, her observations, and tips, resulting in a handicapping virtuoso. I can’t claim the same, but I had some good days, mostly when I followed her advice.

Eventually, the inevitable psychic and physical separation of mother and son, her failing health, and my preoccupation with my own path, completed the downward plunge of our treasured joint ventures.

My mother and I had spoken several times about her chain-smoking, never mind all the bourbon.

“I know I signed my own death warrant,” she said. “But I’ve had a better run than I ever thought possible. Just keep the bourbon, with plenty of ice, and Camels coming and make me as comfortable as possible.” I held her and cried as silently as I could.

Since my mother died in 1985, I’ve frequented many racetracks, sometimes as a lone wanderer seeking to recapture the magic of those times together, even taking a solo Florida vacation to play the horses at Gulfstream Park. It didn’t work. I’d hear, “It’s post time!” or “They’re all in line!” or “They’re off!” and up would surge her smiling face, her warm voice, her grip on my arm as the horses raced for home. I’d end up fighting to hold back welling tears.

It’s been impossible to replace her inimitable presence, maternal touch, and magnetic aura. When alone at the races, I drift through an inescapable vacuum of loss, tinged with sorrow, compounded by the shadow of no worthwhile purpose. I wish I’d grabbed one of the chances I had to tell her outright how much it all meant to me. I think she knew all along.

For more information on author David Plimpton please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

“Let’s get behind him and see if we can hear who he likes…”

Missed Connection Melee

By Morgan Routh

Airports are the vanguard of culture clash. I was already worn down by the first plane ride, the flight had endured rough turbulence and no sights except blinding grey-white clouds. Thick and overstuffed baggage clung to my back, I resisted the urge to slump under the weight as I marched with the overcrowded passengers across the jet bridge. My eyes darted around and soaked in the flurry of the airport terminal.

As I passed the wide glass walls the sky’s overcast clouds continued to brood. I could hear the thunder drum and rumble, ominous of the coming storms. Many of the crowd gathered around the giant flat-screen TV to get a bearing on when our flights were scheduled to leave. I groaned at the bold script that read HEATHROW TO PHOENIX— DELAYED.

A crash of lightning struck in the corner of my eye and the pouring rain followed. It rapidly attacked the ceiling and walls incessantly. Through it I could see a final line of planes take off west into the last of the non-threatening cloudcast. Suddenly the whole list of departures started converting into delays. The terminal erupted into disaffected conversation, furious passengers started making for the seats. I opened my phone and checked the flight status there, it had nothing but the same worthless news.

I grabbed a seat to wait out the delay, hoping the thunderstorm would call a ceasefire soon. Thousands of exchanges happened in a single moment around me. My eyes closed briefly, trying to avoid an uncomfortable exchange of my own. I was so tired. As much as my wanderlust had driven me out to travel, the fiery adventure had long drained from me. I wanted to collapse head on into the embrace of familiarity; the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport waited, my family and home ready to take me in. The plane would touch down and the pale winter sun would arch overhead, blanketing the landscape with fresh rays of warmth. I could shed this parka for t-shirts and blue jeans, dry heat would spread across me from the tips of my ears to the crescents of my fingers. My chest ached for the wide desert and limitless blue sky again.

The cold from the freezing concrete floor and hard metal armrests continued to chill my feet and arms. Home was only a picture in my head. Reality was the bleak greys of the concrete and sickly white skins of the Europeans.

The activity around me seemed neverending. Beside me young, bright students breathless in anticipation barely contained themselves for their journey. The girl to my right swung her legs and tapped away gleefully at her phone. She fiddled with the cross on her chest and hummed pop songs lightly to herself.

Abruptly she stopped. She started furiously typing, her hand cupped over her mouth.

“Aster?” The girl on her other side leaned over.

“He just broke up with me,”

The friend leaned over more and Aster turned the phone, “over text.” Her tone disarmed.

I shielded my attention with my phone and pretended I wasn’t listening.

“Oh gosh.” The friend’s voice welled in anger, “How could he be so impersonal? What happened?”

“He said I was just too stupid!” Aster’s voice was breaking.

The friend grumbled, “Oh Aster, oh don’t cry. It was just a month.”

Aster’s venting continued, “I thought we were better than this. Look what he said, ‘I thought that whole praying before bed thing was funny at first but you actually believe in all that stuff. You should know you’re just being controlled, you’re a drone.’ I never minded hearing his opinions. He has a lot of hate for Christianity but I thought that we would just move on.”

I didn’t need to look up to see the tears, they were as certain as the rain. “Oh gosh, he uses his own experiences as his only truth. He struggles to believe or understand things he hasn't experienced himself.”

She rambled to herself, pouring over moments of ambiguous dialog, lost in a search for extra meaning. Her friend gasped. “Did you, you, see the Facebook rant he just

posted? It’s, it’s, nevermind—wait what does that mean?”

“What?”

My head snapped up to look at them. Hot embarrassment reddened my cheeks and I snapped my head back to my phone. Luckily they hadn’t noticed.

“Aster. What did he mean when he said ‘I’m going to expose her for who she really is.’”

Aster’s whole body started shaking. “Oh no. No no no no no.”

The friend’s expression suffered a shock. “Does he? He doesn’t have anything on you, does he?”

The fragile girl cringed, pulling her coat tighter together.

A moment of realization lit her friend. “They aren’t...pictures.”

Aster’s face dove into her hands, then they clamped into her hair in an onset of full panic.

“Why would you let him do that?” Disgust welled underneath her friend’s tone. “The whole parish is online!”

Aster’s body suddenly convulsed in agony, her tears exploded into sobs.

“He said nobody would find out.” Turmoil lined her defeated trust.

Her friend collapsed into speechlessness. “He’s texting me again-”

The intercom opened up through the airport, a tinny voice called passengers from the flight I came in on to the information desk. I

heaved my luggage up over my back and tried to navigate the slipstream of the masses. I was swept up into a formation of suits. Focused men and women armed with briefcases and their stonewall seriousness, they filled the lines around me and mentally sparred with each other; their weapons of choice were the quick sales pitches they’ve trained to unrelenting perfection and creative yet conformist business cards made for crucial lasting impressions.

The waiting started to claim the battery power on my phone. Slightly familiar faces appeared in the crowd, the travelers in front of me shared my last flight, the ones behind me also. I listened with hope as the teller supplied an optimistic schedule to the women ahead in line. The delays were being lifted for the hiatus in thunderstorming.

Finally at my turn the clerk punched in my information and scrutinized the information.

“Your flight has been cancelled. There isn’t any information on your missing connection.”

“What? Can I get another flight to Phoenix instead?”

The lady shook her head. “None have been scheduled. I don’t know when information will be available.”

She looked up then and indicated the next person to join the front line. I felt the people behind give me a nudge to face the teller. I felt like somebody had thrown me off a cliff,

and during my plummet I saw another barrage of planes take off into the sky. Everyone else was back to busy, productive cycles.

“I’m stuck here?” I angrily interrupted.

She beckoned the next people in line to move forward.

“Hey!” I barked. Her face disfigured into an ugly glare.“I cannot help you at this moment.” Then she returned to providing others with the happy news of their flights.

The TV screens indicated that all progress had returned to normal, except for the disheartening line HEATHROW TO PHOENIX CANCELLED. I pulled up the airline website and hit the refresh button on my schedule over and over; it simply repeated the reality of my lost connection. My phone then alerted a low battery warning, I rushed to find a seat with an outlet. To my dismay, the seats and charging kiosks were jammed with people. I shut off my phone and sunk down on the floor of an unoccupied corner.

Multitudes circulated, leaving, entering, hellos, goodbyes. I felt so stagnant, there wasn’t a path to get home. It was so hard to be still when everyone around me made

progress. Even if they waited they still were moving in a direction they wanted to go.

A horde of strangely dressed people from India filled the terminal. They passed the businessmen, the tourists, and the students. The whole group was in awe at the new sights they were seeing. Women clad in traditional but colorful oranges and reds stood out the most. They each had a red dot on their head too. Meaning for the garb was lost on me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off as they explored the airport.

A trio of Indian women broke off and confronted the water fountain to my right, staring and chattering to each other in their unfamiliar syntax. It was clear they were taking a logical approach to the fountain, gesturing and pointing at the few droplets welling at the drain. One of them tapped the rubber guard around the spout, another knocked on the metal around it. Their hands explored the metal rim, tapping and twisting and poking, the machinery left them lost but focused on victory.

To my surprise a lady who had been impatiently waiting behind them cut in to fill her water. She had a starch white tracksuit, a black fanny-pack, shiny kicks, and a visor. All three ladies ricocheted backwards as the rotund tourist forced her way through the line. Her huge body completely blocked the scope of the Indians’ target and left the mechanics of the fountain still a mystery. I sighed in disgust when I noticed a bald eagle tattooed to her ankle, she wasn’t helping any stereotypes.

More or less oblivious to the tourist the three women returned to their pursuit. Unable to resist anymore I stood up and tapped the button on the water fountain. All three jumped in surprise at the water shooting out.

They looked up at me and then nodded, mimicking my motion and conversing with each other. They all tested the button themselves and then scuttled into a tight formation: one held the button down, another stood aside to make room, and the last reached to collect the water. I stepped backwards and turned on my phone, with one last glance I realized the lady was washing her hands and face in the fountain. If I were in a better mood I would have chuckled, the bathrooms were right next door. They had no idea we had specially designed rooms used solely for optimized cleaning and grooming. But the ladies seemed content and the first one finished out by gathering a handful of water and slurping it. They regrouped, letting another hold the button and cycled to all get their fill and rejoined the greater unit of tourists.

My phone buzzed, an email informed me there was a change in the Phoenix flight.

Before I was able to do anything else the screen went dark and the little thing shut off

“Wait!” I whispered.

I pressed the power button furiously, hoping that it could somehow scrape together enough energy live a little longer. Dead.

In a frantic search for an outlet, I pushed through crowds and dodged all of the landmines that scattered across the floor. People, food, animals, and eclectic souvenirs all skewed the paths and sights around me. Everyone was still piled on the nearest outlets. I started forcing myself down the maze of hallways and stores. Plenty of materialism and useless sights, I wandered through the department stores and tried to sneak looks at the wall behind racks of overly expensive shoes and clothes. Clerks gave me dirty looks, recognizing what I was doing.

I found myself at the security checkpoint that led into the terminal. There was an outlet. Somebody though, was plugged into it. I cradled my little phone and sat beside him. He silently acknowledged my existence with a glance or two. His phone was fully charged but he was playing a phone game that drained a battery quickly. I sat there and waited for him to stop ignoring me. He wouldn't unplug his phone, and he didn't stop playing the game.

A business man accidentally kicked my foot as he passed by, I yelped but he didn’t slow or even notice. He turned sharply to a door

and swiped an entry card. A small sign above the frame read “business select lounge.” I peeked inside as the door closed behind him. An attendant in a smart uniform received him and his credentials.

I continued to cling to my bags and my dead phone. Every second rotted to waste while I waited and waited for nothing. The guy continued to hog the electricity; faint but unending phone music still tinkled away. Lines marched through the checkpoint. More of the same flowed. Business people continued to execute their travel plans with faces smoothly constructed into neutral and almost unfeeling gazes. No others noticed the lounge though.

All of a sudden the attendant sped out and made a break for the bathroom. The ajar door started swinging closed. Impulsively I grabbed my smallest rucksack and chucked it. Just in the last moment my bag cut the door off from meeting the automatic lock. I scuttled across the hall and snuck inside.

It was a paradise in the middle of purgatory. They had a secret haven at the epicenter of unfamiliarity. Wide glass walls overlooked the main pen of regular populous below, fashionable sofas and cushions invited comfortable sitting with thick armrests to bar contact with others. I sped inside and felt the heater warming my skin as I glanced around. Off to the side was a movie theater, and to the other side was a fully stocked bar and tender.

I wasn’t cultured enough to appreciate the displayed expensive art. Suits and fashionistas slid into states of calm, a small reprieve of such high stress lives.

It was a paradise in the middle of purgatory

They lingered sparsely, each looking perfectly styled and pristinely shaved. I tried not to be conspicuous while everything about me projected a complete lack of belonging. My baggage was embroidered with the student touring service that had booked my trip, my hair was messy and my bohemian outfit screamed that I hadn’t really groomed in a long time. I belonged with the crowd below, swirling en masse with the commoners. The middle of the room had wide spaced chairs for comfort. Every man is an island here. The catering lined another corner of the room. I passed alcohol with imaginative labels written in languages and distinct calligraphy that I could not begin to read. A grid of boxes sealed behind clear doors took the majority of the space. Each cell contained a different fully prepared meal. Everything was complimentary.

My stomach roared when I drew nearer to the provisions. Every meal looked more interesting than the other. I could feel a tingling sensation in my chest as I pictured the savory experiences of each choice. I popped open the door with the chicken cobb salad and stole away to my own private armchair. There equipped was multiple outlets of every type. When I plugged in my screen vibrantly buzzed to life, I discovered that a connection was finally arranged to take me home. It was eight hours away.

I eased, whiling for the first time since I left home. Orchestra music serenaded in the background while the meal’s delicately constructed aromatics sang to my stomach. I gobbled savagely through the meal, crunching and munching and smacking my lips. I had forgotten to get a napkin, but that didn’t matter as I speared artsy food with my

fork. It’s so good! I dully thought. The food was so satisfying that I couldn’t think of anything else to feel except nom nom nom nom.

A man sat not far from me, he was on the phone and looking out at the crowds below. There weren’t any wrinkles in his well pressed suit, his hair was slicked back, and he was decorated in solid gold accents: a lapel pin, a tie clip, a massive gold watch on his right hand.

His words spun out fast and definitive, “Make a buy for no more than 34%, we’ll keep negative control until I get back. Janson’s idiots thought they could do a takeover while I was with Brody in Lucerne. NO—I know—no—I’m not going to touch anything over twenty on that one. Something doesn’t smell right with those analysts. The breakup is just way too sweet, it’s making me sick…”

Through his accent I could put together the words, but I couldn’t understand it. I felt myself leaning closer to try to understand him better, and at that moment I gasped with excitement when I caught the sight of a person opening a cabinet nearby and pulling out pillows and blankets. Excitedly I gathered my fill; when I returned I found the recline button and stretched out comfortably. For the first time in a long time I could feel heat swaddling my body completely, insulated under the soft blankets. Reminded of home, I imagined the final stretch of the

car ride back. A watercolor perfect sunset stretched far across the horizon, dust and heat would put the circulation back into my body, filling it a state of harmonious relief. I would grin and tell all of my friends of the fantastic adventures and secrets of the unknown…

“Excuse me.” My eyes shot open.

The attendant glowered down at me. His pale face only illuminated by that horrendous white-gray coming through the windows. I sat up and the heat instantly evaporated from my body.

“May I see your membership card?”

His cold expression pressed for the information that I couldn’t give.

“Miss.”

I reached down and heaved my luggage up to cart it on my back. My whole body threw forward and creaked in anguish. I followed him out. The freezing temperature made me shudder and stumble. The guy at the outlet still played his phone game, nameless faceless horde of people bustled through the terminals, and when I opened my phone I looked at my wait time. Seven hours, thirty minutes to go.

For more information on author Morgan Routh, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section.

I gasped with excitement when I caught the sight of a person opening a cabinet nearby and pulling out pillows and blankets.

WRITER SPOTLIGHT

Hank’s Final Moments

By Aidan G. Macias

Have you ever had something ripped away from you? Have you ever had a friend dying right next to you? I have and that is what it was like when Hank died.

That day Hank (a gray Australian Shepherd with spots) appeared to lay peacefully, but I knew something was wrong. I tried to tell my aunt something was wrong, but she was too busy. I was infuriated that she cared more about her agenda than Hank’s safety. I gave up and that was my greatest mistake.

Just nine hours later that “something” turned into a grave and deadly condition. I could hear Hank struggling to breathe. His lungs were filling up with liquid. My aunt rushed him to the vet. My cousin, Andrew, and I kept our fingers crossed, but we knew the chances were minute. We went to Andrew’s bedroom and played video games to escape this cruel, soul-crushing world. We were going through the five stages of grief and that video game seemed to extend its arms like a mother would; but, all we were doing was pretending everything was all good and nothing was wrong. We just could not accept it. We could not bear the fact that this could be Hank’s last day. What seemed to be endless hours passed filled with sorrow and despair. Finally, I heard the door open. I rushed to the door and I instantly knew Hank was gone.

When I left my aunt’s to go back home I viewed death a completely different way. I used to think death was sad, but I did not understand how cruel and terrible it truly is. Hank was gasping for air as his lungs were filling up with liquid. Just that very fact changed everything I thought about death.

For more information on author Aidan G. Macias, please visit our Contributors Page at the end of this section

CREATIVE NONFICTIONCONTRIBUTORS

Gary Lawrence

Gary Lawrence currently teaches composition and creative writing at Glendale Community College (GCC) and Cochise College. He earned a BA from Rockford College and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His flash fiction work "BJ" won first prize in the 2016 Cochise Community Creative Writing Competition. Gary's stories have been published in Short Story America (volumes II and III), Four Chambers, Mirage, and The Rockford Review.

David Plimpton

After a 50-year career in the law, David Plimpton now devotes full time to writing, including a historical/crime novel almost completed involving the Teamsters, the Mob and college-age vigilantes in 1960 New Jersey. Plimpton mostly grew up in New Jersey where he was forced to play the numbers by mobsters in a Teamsters warehouse. He had already started to learn about gambling from his mother, who is featured in his essay, “Lessons from a Horseplayer.” In 1972, he started published articles, essays and other expository pieces in the legal field. His work has been published in Alternatives, a journal published by Jossey Bass and Wiley Periodicals. The latest, an essay on the Federal Appeals Court decision upholding the arbitration decision suspending Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, appears in the June 2016 issue.

Morgan Routh

Morgan Routh is a novelist and 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.

SCRIPTS

Brooke Fauver

Conversations with a Gun

Robert Caisley

Durafab

Kaitlin Thern & Rome Johnson

Penelope and the Wild, Wild World

Max Cano

The Green Mirror

Brooke Fauver

Three Scratch Marks

Artwork by Katalina Banga (See Artwork for full image)

Conversations With A Gun

Screenplay by Brooke Fauver

INT. SHOOTING RANGE

Close on YOONA's face (20s). We hold on her sunken in expression. She's listening closely to the sounds of a trigger being pulled and gun fire around the vicinity. In deep concentration, she examines the damage on each target with the different sizes of bullet holes made by different guns.

YOONA

(Takes a deep breath)

I finally stopped flinching.

YOONA, satisfied with her new ability, stands to leave. She nods to the EMPLOYEE (20s) that let her in, after a bit of flirting, and opens a door to let her out.

EMPLOYEE (Teasingly)

I've never seen anyone walk into a gun range and not wear shooting ear muffs or have no gun on ‘em.

YOONA

In my experience, only one of those things are absent in the game I play.

EMPLOYEE

You could really hurt your hearing.

YOONA (Teasingly)

Oh it can do a lot more than that.

EXT. PARKING LOT

YOONA gets into her 2010 Mini Cooper and drives out of the parking lot of the gun range. As she stopped at a red light she observes people doing everyday things, watching them from each mirror of her car such as; walking dogs, window shopping, and laughing with loved ones. Fixing her mirror, she waits for the green light and drives off.

EXT. YOONA’s GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE - DAY

She stops a house in a middle class neighborhood, turns off the car, and sits in the driveway.

Calmly, she begins whistling “Pomp and Circumstance.”

YOONA looks outside the window to make sure no one is looking and reaches into the back seat. With caution, she pulls a small revolver out of a black Jansport backpack and without facing it at herself spins the cylinder. YOONA then sets the revolver carefully in the passenger seat and continues to reach inside the backpack. While attempting her task, a car pulls up at the house next door.

YOONA (Flinching)

Shit.

Turning back around quickly, YOONA casually starts the car. The neighbor waves to her knowingly. YOONA nods in response.

YOONA (Gritting teeth)

First I had to worry about someone seeing a gun, now I have to worry that there's a fucking witness next door.

YOONA slams her fist on the steering wheel.

YOONA

The fucker saw my face.

YOONA watches the neighbor walk into their house then turns off the car. She reaches into the backpack again and pulls a gun silencer out and screws it onto the barrel. Quickly and carefully she puts the gun into a small purse and exits the car.

INT. HOUSE - DAY

Standing at the doorway, YOONA takes a gander at a house that has been possessed by many memories. She admires the banister of the staircase, the living room with its empty sofa, and the dining room to the right that sits coldly alone with nothing but a center piece in the middle. Shaking her head and coming back to her senses she calls out.

YOONA

Hello!

No one answers.

YOONA (Relieved and to herself)

No one’s home.

She takes the opportunity and climbs up the stairs to the second floor of the house with some steps creaking along the way. She pauses at the top of the stairs and observes the hallway where two bedrooms reside. To make sure no one is home she calls out again.

YOONA Hello!

YOONA starts forward and opens each of the two bedroom doors and takes extra care to makes sure there are no occupants. She makes a sudden turn to the right at the end of the hall and sees that the attic door is open with the ladder pulled down. As YOONA reaches the ladder she looks up at its eerie entrance and clutches the small purse containing the gun closer to her chest and using only one hand climbs the ladder.

INT. ATTIC - DAY

Looking around carefully YOONA sees a myriad of faces staring patiently back at her, all of them from different heights. Her eyes pan left and right noticing that the light fails to encroach on the room. Across the room, YOONA notices a STRANGER standing curiously, as if awaiting her arrival.

STRANGER (Welcoming)

So, we finally have an opponent! Come and sit so we can get this game started.

YOONA

You were waiting for me?

STRANGER

I am never far from you so... I guess you can say I was waiting for you.

YOONA crosses the room towards the STRANGER and they both eerily sit down at the same time, facing each other. The STRANGERS face can't be seen due to it being covered in dark shadow. YOONA uncomfortably looks at the small window above the STRANGER’s head and sees that the sun has hidden behind the clouds.

STRANGER

It's quite dark in here, isn't it?

YOONA shifts in her seat.

Yes it is.

YOONA

STRANGER

It's better that way. If you win, you won't be able to see all of the ugly mess one of us is about to create.

YOONA

Do you think it will really be that messy?

STRANGER

Of course! Russian Roulette is definitely not a clean game! Nor is it a silent one, which is why I ask that you bring a silencer. Which reminds me, do you have the game object?

YOONA reaches into the small purse she hasn't stopped clutching since her arrival and pulls the revolver out carefully and shows it to the STRANGER in the minimal light that the room provides.

YOONA (Confidently)

I didn't bring any bullets for it though. However it holds 6 rounds. If we have the right ammo, it will work.

YOONA

It's a 1895 Nagant. It took a bit of searching but I managed to find it in a pawn shop.

STRANGER

You seem to be more versed on weaponry than I. To be perfectly honest I didn't know you could put a silencer on a revolver.

YOONA shows a sign of reminisce on her face then smirks.

YOONA

The guy at the gun range was more than knowledgeable and accommodating when helping me.

STRANGER

All the same, the pack of bullets under you chair should suffice. Take one out and load the cylinder. You know how to do that, correct?

YOONA

I do.

YOONA loads the gun and spins the cylinder for what seems to be the thousandth time. She looks at the STRANGER and smiles as she cocks the revolver.

YOONA

How do you want to do this?

STRANGER (Small laugh)

Personally, I don't like holding guns, so when my turn comes just point the gun in my direction and pull the trigger. We can take as long as we like. There's no rush.

YOONA

OK, I'll go first I guess.

The STRANGER gestures with their hand.

STRANGER

By all means.

Close in on her face. YOONA holds the gun up to her head, stares at her opponent at eye level and pulls the trigger. The revolver responds with a click.

STRANGER (Curiously)

You didn't flinch?

YOONA

I must admit that I practiced a lot before coming here.

STRANGER

Interesting... Have you told anyone about your coming here?

YOONA (Offended)

No. It's none of their business what I do. It's not like they'd care anyway.

STRANGER (Calmly)

I did not mean to offend, we are playing a game after all. It's just that . . . Most times when playing this game, for I have played a lot, the person in front of me always flinches.

YOONA

Oh?

STRANGER

Flinches let the other player know that the other has not resigned themselves to death yet, therefore it's even more interesting when a player actually has.

YOONA looks at the gun in her lap and begins to contemplate what the STRANGER just said.

YOONA

I anticipate this will be the last time I play this game.

STRANGER

Explain. After I take my turn, if I'm so lucky to hear it.

YOONA points the revolver at the STRANGER and pulls the trigger. Again the revolver clicks creating the only noise in silence of the room. The faces in the attic stand quiet in observation. YOONA places the gun back in her lap and looks up at the shadowed face sitting in front of her.

YOONA

(Smiles impatiently)

I've played this game a few times now and have decided to leave this one to chance. The only conversations I seem to have today are the ones with guns.

STRANGER

Well, guns do allow for the deepest of conversations to be conceived... Also that was not much of an explanation. If you are unsatisfied with something, tell me. Like you said, this may be the last conversation with a gun you ever have.

YOONA (Defensive)

We are not here to inquire.

STRANGER

Even so, I'm listening.

YOONA

You are probably the only one that has listened.

STRANGER

What a curious sentence? Have we played this game together before?

YOONA

Unless either one of us has been resurrected from the grave I don't think so.

STRANGER

(Reminiscing)

This still feels like a familiar scene... I'm curious, do you always whistle “Pomp and Circumstance” when you're alone?

YOONA looks at the STRANGER surprised by the sudden question

YOONA

You could hear me?

STRANGER

Like I said, I'm not far away. (Quickly)

Isn't it your turn?

Eyeing the STRANGER carefully now YOONA puts the gun to her head and leans on the barrel as if to ask the stranger more about their curious observation.

YOONA

If I live through this round, I'll let you in on a secret.

The STRANGER smiles and leans back in their chair again eerily similar to YOONA and patiently waits for the result. Repeating history, the revolver gives a silent click. YOONA closes her eyes tightly and sits up straight.

YOONA (Cont'd)

I'm always alone in my every day life. I go home, I eat, I watch TV, and I play with the internet. My friends and family used to contact me all the time, but now they don't. I'm not sure when I started to feel this way, but what I do know is that I can't help the way I feel.

STRANGER (Sympathetic sigh)

It's all in your head.

YOONA

I guess it is.

STRANGER

It's all in your head because you put it there.

YOONA

That's what they all say.

STRANGER

I know how you feel.

YOONA

Because you are the only one who listens. Who has listened.

STRANGER

It's because we've played this game so many times.

YOONA

We are strangers to one another.

STRANGER

Doesn't mean we can't have an understanding, we are having a conversation with a gun after all.

(Continues)

Your family, your friends. Seems they aren't around because you won't let them be around.

YOONA

(Whispers threateningly)

Shut up!

STRANGER

Am I wrong?... Your silence is your undoing. They are not here because they don't know your sorrows, your thoughts. If something isn't said it's impossible for it to be true to others... such as the people you claim never listen.

YOONA now sits at the brink of tears.

Shut up!

YOONA

STRANGER

I bet when they see you, you can't tell them how they've wronged you. I bet that you have had so many chances to tell them but you don't because you think it will burden them, but in reality, you are only burdening yourself.

YOONAS face fills with anger as she places her hands to her ears in order to stop hearing STRANGER’s words.

I said be quiet!!!

YOONA

STRANGER

You only say that because you know I'm right. You know that if you admitted those things, you wouldn't be here in the first place. When we first started the game you said you trained for it. Pathetic.

YOONA

(Breathing heavily)

It's not pathetic.

STRANGER

(As calm as can be)

Oh but it is, neither you nor I can take our life by our own will. We have to play this game and do what was it you said?

(Pauses)

Leave it up to chance?

After STRANGER’s speech ends, YOONA removes her hands from her head, allowing sound to reach her ears again. However, she managed to catch every word the STRANGER said without a problem.

YOONA (Strained voice)

Yes, it's a game.

This is a game.

YOONA looks at STRANGER.

(Sniffles)

A game of chance.

YOONA (CONT'D)

STRANGER (Unfazed)

I believe we have passed the third round and it is my turn. Unless, you are feeling like we should stop and live to see another day.

YOONA

No, we have to continue and finish the game.

STRANGER leans forward, face still unseen.

STRANGER

Okay then.

(Encouraging)

Point the gun and pull the trigger.

YOONA

(Annoyed and unsure)

Yea, okay.

STRANGER

Feeling unsure? Close your eyes, sometimes it helps.

YOONA

I only do that when I'm scared.

STRANGER

I know.

How?

YOONA

STRANGER

Just pull the trigger.

YOONA raises the revolver in compliance and looks at the window. Clouds still hide the sun. Anxiously she looks back at STRANGER who sits calmly. Close up on her hand, YOONA is clasping the revolver, her knuckles white. YOONA shakily moves her pointer finger to the trigger. Biting her lip she pulls it back, the only noise is a little empty click. With tension still in the air, YOONA lays the revolver in her lap, not ready for her turn yet.

YOONA

I'm just going to sit here for a little bit and wait, if it's alright with you.

STRANGER

Of course it is. We have all the time in the world, remember?

YOONA

There are only two shots left.

YOONA looks at the revolver

YOONA

Making it this far makes me kind of angry.

STRANGER

It does?

YOONA

Yes it does! My life is shit, remember?

STRANGER

Are we going to continue on with that conversation? With only two shots left?

(Sighs)

Usually this game ends fast, but with you it just seems to go on and on. We can never seem to end it can we?

YOONA Today, one of us will.

STRANGER

We don't know that yet. Don't resolve to make it out yet, there's still room for the game to stand in your favor.

YOONA

Wouldn't matter in the slightest if I were to lose now.

STRANGER

Sure there is. You have friends and family remember?

YOONA

Remembering isn't enough anymore.

STRANGER

You say that and yet you don't give yourself the chance to. You already agreed unknowingly that you don't want to burden them. What you don't know is that they are supposed to be burdened. A lesson learned over time, I'm afraid.

YOONA scoots her chair back and looks at the revolver in her lap. Her body clearly stating she doesn't care for the STRANGER’s constant prodding of her life.

YOONA

I have tried... They just don't notice.

STRANGER

Because you won't let them. If you ask me this is a very poor excuse to play this game. What are you even doing here?

YOONA

I just want to be.

STRANGER

Do you want them to miss you that badly?

YOONA

I . .

STRANGER

How selfish. You can't even think about them. That's right, don't hang on. Their so called ignorance of you is what they'll notice the most.

YOONA

(Refuses to agree)

That's not the point.

STRANGER It is.

YOONA stares hard at the STRANGER.

STRANGER

Their so called lack of understanding is why you chose to take it upon yourself and let them know of your existence. Losing this game for you is a way of getting the attention you, as ungrateful as you are, do not deserve.

Before YOONA can retaliate, STRANGER continues.

STRANGER

(Randomly)

Why were you whistling “Pomp and Circumstance?”

YOONA confused by the sudden subject change but resigns to answering STRANGERS question, against her better judgement.

YOONA

(Hesitant)

Before I walked into the house I thought of my high school graduation and how that was supposed to be the beginning of my life. Then I thought about how the next graduation of my life was going to be death. Like you said at the beginning. Unlike the others I have resigned myself to it freely.

STRANGER

And yet you still play this game. It's become quite the trend. Perhaps you are not as resigned to death as you think you are.

YOONA

(Again offended)

I am.

STRANGER

People don't play this game so they can lose their lives. You see it as a means to an end, others see it as a way of reveling in the fact that they live. Your way of winning this game is by simply losing through death, which is beside the point, and that my dear is why you have not resigned yet.

YOONA (Intensely)

Stop pretending to know me. You know nothing.

STRANGER

(Light chuckle)

Then tell me, what do you know of this game and how it's played?

YOONA

Sure, others see it as a way of feeling alive, but I see it as a way to feel closer to death. Every time I pull that trigger I feel peace.

STRANGER

I wonder, does that peace come from the feeling that you're still alive?

YOONA

What do you mean?

STRANGER

Your face, during the game from what I've noticed, is at it's most peaceful after the trigger is pulled and nothing happens.

Looking back at YOONA’s face we see deep contemplation about STRANGER’s words. Physically from the moment YOONA has entered the attic we can see that she has begun to unravel. Her posture is no longer confident but slumped.

Her eyes now look down then instead of straight forward at the STRANGER. When she does look at the STRANGER she carries a pained expression. For the first time since the beginning we see her start caring about the end result of the game.

YOONA looks up.

YOONA

I never claimed I wasn't scared about ending my life or that I am unrelieved when after the trigger is pulled and I still stand existent.

(Pause)

Everything that you have said till now is a partial truth to how my actions should be perceived.

YOONA, no longer touching the gun, looks at her hand and traces the natural lines on her palm. STRANGER sits calmly across from her waiting for more explanation. Before saying anything more YOONA looks at the window and obliges.

YOONA

I just want to feel like I matter again. It's my fault that I have not asked others about how my existence matters to them, and it is also my fault that things have gone this far. But when you see others and how they lead a life without you, it hurts. It's not because they have forgotten me that I've chosen to do this. It's because we have become so comfortable with the way things are now that they forget I suffer. My life revolves around them not myself. That's why I have to finish this game. Not to prove a point, but to stop how I feel.

YOONA sits tall again and picks up the gun and stares at it. She takes several breaths to slow down the deafening sound her heart beat is making in her ear drums. With her left hand she brushes her hair over awkwardly to the left and

scratches the combed over side anxiously. With out warning to the STRANGER she puts the revolver to her head and closes her eyes.

YOONA

(Eyes shut)

There are only two shots left in the cylinder which gives us each a fifty fifty chance. If I lose now, then I still have one more shot to decide whether or not I want to cheat the game and end it all here. My life is in my own hands now STRANGER.

(Swallows)

Lets see what will come of it.

With no sounds of protest she pulls the trigger and this time YOONA responds with a flinch. Close up on her face and we see her eyes though still shut show worry at no sign of pain or impact. Her heart beat was so loud in her ears that

she did not hear the click sounding from the revolver. Shakily YOONA lowers the revolver and opening her eyes wide she begins to cry.

YOONA (Incoherent) NO!!!

Tears are streaming down her face now as her face still shows shock and betrayal. Her breathing making it hard for her to hold the revolver properly.

YOONA (Yelling)

I’m not supposed to win!

YOONA wipes her eyes with the hand that's still holding the gun clumsily. She looks at STRANGER apologetically and her vision blurs their silhouette as her eyes continue to fill up with tears.

STRANGER (Calm)

Congratulations, you live to see another day.

YOONA

I'm not supposed to! Out of all the fucking possibilities this had to be the outcome!

(Hysterically)

I can still cheat! I can still end it. I still have the gun in my hands I can use the last shot for myself!

For the first time STRANGER’s voice has emotion.

STRANGER (Sadly)

Don't... It's not your time to go yet. You need to tell them how you feel.

I don't know if I can.

YOONA (Crying)

STRANGER

You can. You should. You will.

(Pause)

Don't cheat this game. They won't forgive you if you do. You damn well know that the people in your life care about you. You have just been living in your head so long you have to remember to ignore it now and then.

(Laughs)

You have to get out of your head kid, and try. You know deep down that you won't become happy unless you try. Now take the gun point it at me and count to three.

YOONA

I can't do that! You won't exist anymore if I do.

It's okay.

STRANGER

(Softly)

I'm never far away from you Yoona

YOONA stops crying for a moment as realization spreads across her face. She rubs her temples in deep thought as the rooms feels like it's spinning sideways. Her reality begins to blur as the entire encounter between her and STRANGER replays in her mind. Looking up YOONA breathes calmly again and looks carefully at STRANGER.

YOONA (Calmly)

How do you know my name stranger?

STRANGER sits quietly and doesn't answer YOONA's question.

YOONA

You said you heard me whistling while I was in the car. You seem to know things that I have not even told the people closest to me.

(Questioningly)

Who are you?

STRANGER

Finish the game and you'll see.

Zombie like YOONA points the gun at STRANGER. Like her STRANGER sits up straight. YOONA, now sweating and moving slow braces her body, ready for the back fire of the revolver is about to make. YOONA pulls the trigger and a silent burst of sound breaks from the revolver, after a shattering noise.

Close up on YOONA’s face and then back to where STRANGER was "sitting" the clouds clear and release their grip on the suns rays allowing light to enter in spotlight and all that can be seen is a shattered mirror with a fresh bullet hole where STRANGER’s head was just a second ago.

YOONA stands and drops the revolver.

Downstairs the front door opens, revealing the jingling of key from and unknown source. As we zoom out to leave the room leaving YOONA we notice that the "faces" YOONA saw while entering the attic are actually portraits of people that have been carefully placed on the floor or propped on dusty furniture. Some with bullet holes where their heads are.

For more information on author Brooke Fauver, please visit our Contributors Page.

Durafab

A One Act Play by Robert Caisley

Characters:

HUGH: He is out of shape, balding, in his early 60s.

FIONA: She is striking but not pretty, in her mid-40s.

Setting:

Various locations in and around a Holiday Inn, one of the newer ones, in a large city.

Performance Notes:

Nothing realistic.

1.

HUGH and FIONA are getting ready for work. Two separate hotel rooms.

FIONA is applying make-up, and practicing her presentation.

HUGH is deciding which necktie to wear. First he ties a blue one. Then he ties a red one. By the end of the scene he settles on the blue one.

HUGH: I work for Durafab. We are a custom corrugated cardboard manufacturer specializing in cushioned packaging for the medical and high-tech industries. I know what you’re thinking, “that sounds pretty exciting,” but as my mother likes to remind me, I’m just a cardboard salesman.

FIONA: It was over 50 years ago that former President & CEO … 53 years ago today … In 1957, Durafab founder Wade Ridgeway, Sr. had a clear and simple vision: To change the … revolutionize. To revolutionize the custom cardboard packaging industry.

HUGH: I’ve been with Durafab fifteen years. It’s funny. I always think Durafab sounds more like a company that manufactures vinyl siding than cardboard. But we don’t. We just manufacture cardboard. It’s inevitable that someday we will have to start manufacturing synthetic foam crating, because that’s the direction the industry is heading. I wrote a memo on this very topic to Mr. Wade Ridgeway, Jr. the new President and CEO of Durafab. My only acknowledgement was the receipt of a facsimiled memo a week later saying, “Thank you for your memo.” But to date, I have witnessed no shift in corporate philosophy. Which means: I probably won’t be working for Durafab another fifteen years. The hubris of leadership!

FIONA starts pulling on a pair of stockings. She gets a run in the first pair and has to try a second pair.

FIONA: He had a clear and simple vision: To revolutionize the custom cardboard packaging industry by creating a unique … a groundbreaking … by creating an innovative company large enough to meet the demands of the most complex packaging specifications, etc. etc. … together with the industry’s fastest turnaround time from order placement to order fulfillment, without ever sacrificing quality or safety.

HUGH: My wife left me five years ago for her tennis instructor. His name is Bruce. I actually really liked Bruce, we got along very well. He’s grounded and spiritual. We once had an interesting conversation about Mahatma Ghandi and the meaning of life over lunch at the Spaghetti Factory and Bruce insisted on picking up the check, then after we went to a Maple Leaf’s game. The Leaf’s lost 5 – 3 to the Red Wings. I’m not much of a hockey enthusiast, but I went in deference to Bruce, as he is something of a fanatic when it comes to sports of any kind. I didn’t know anything about Mahatma Ghandi, except Ben Kingsley

played him in the movie, until I met Bruce. And when I once confided in him that I was self-conscious about my burgeoning midriff, he shared with me an old wrestler’s trick for losing five pounds of water weight in one night by sleeping in a plastic trash bag with the head and arm holes cut out of it. So when she left me and took the kids, it was not just like losing a wife and my kids, but also like losing a really good friend. My friend Bruce.

FIONA: How did he do it, you ask, Durafab’s charismatic leader? The answer is simple …

She gets a text message. As she reads it, she continues.

FIONA: A company large enough to meet the demands of the most complex packaging specifications, but small enough to know every customer by name. From the get-go, the secret corporate recipe was teamwork … the central company philosophy … the company motto was teamwork.

HUGH: I collect antique typewriters. Well, I think antique’s technically not the right word, because I think it only applies to items of at least one hundred years of age. Most of my typewriters are from the 1930s and 40s, although I do have a Universal Crandall No. 3 from 1893 and a functioning Elliot-Fisher manufactured in the early 1900s. It won’t surprise you, that from time to time I receive solicitations to purchase one of these models for considerable sums of money. Considerable sums. But I would never relinquish my Elliot-Fisher, nor my Universal. I would never relinquish any of my typewriters. Even the models it is difficult and time-consuming to locate ribbons for. I love my typewriters.

FIONA: What does teamwork mean to you? Internally, we form a cohesive, collegial team of manufacturing, sales and marketing professionals. Externally, we … err … um … externally …

FIONA carefully ties an elegant silk scarf around her throat. She stares at herself in the mirror throughout HUGH’s next speech, getting the scarf just right. HUGH takes a pair of small scissors and trims his nose hair.

HUGH: I own a duplex. So, technically, I don’t live with my mother, I live next door to my mother. I know what you’re thinking, with such an interesting occupation and lifestyle, how come you’re not actively dating?

FIONA gets another text message.

HUGH: Because Durafab has a strict anti-fraternization policy, which precludes me from any work-place romance. I work all the time, so I have no other conceivable options for things of a romantic nature.

HUGH and FIONA peel the backs off two adhesive nametags and slap them onto their chests. They take a final look at themselves in the mirror, as the lights take us to …

HUGH is showing a PowerPoint presentation. He has a laser pointer.

FIONA is seated with her back to the audience. She occasionally takes notes.

HUGH: And this next slide, if I can get the clicker to … okay there we go: this ... this projects end of quarter numbers company-wide. And this orange bit, here, no wait, the green bit … that is the Northwest region. You should have this in your packets if you’d like to make marginal notes. You can keep the pen. As you can see by the shaded column on the left ... (he points) here ... our newly

2.

Conference Room.

appointed regional sales manager Fiona McMullan ... round of applause (brief, half-hearted clapping) is making exceptional progress in the territory. Volumes are up. Visibility has been enhanced. And she has successfully lined up “meetand-greets” with folks we’ve been trying to get in bed with for years. (Weak attempt at humor) Pardon my French. (No one laughs.) Well done, Fiona ... and only, what, three-four months into the job?

FIONA: One year.

HUGH: A year. How about that. (He aims his laser out at the audience, playfully.) Browne? Luntz? Van Horn? You fellas, heck all of you fellas should watch your backs. She’s breathing down your shirt collars. No, but seriously, all joking aside ... our newly appointed regional sales manager Fiona McMullan is doing marvelously and corporate couldn’t be happier. Why don’t you stand a give a little wave.

FIONA stands and gives a little wave. There’s a smattering of applause, led primarily by HUGH.

HUGH: Some of you probably met Fiona in err, uhm …

FIONA: Milwaukee.

HUGH: . . . last month, yep. Which is where some of you also had the pleasure of rubbing elbows with our new V.P of Marketing, Alvin Davidson. Is Al here yet?

FIONA: He’s ordering the sandwiches.

HUGH: I’m going pass the baton to Al here in a sec. But first, some advice: over the next two days, you be nice to this man. You be nice to this man, and you find time to buy this man a drink. Maybe he’ll let you in on the secret to his success. How to get the corner office at Corporate … with a view of the river … and Melanie, that firecracker assistant of his … and that new Lincoln Navigator. (At the back of the room, a commotion as someone enters) There he is! Look at him back there smiling. Now there is a man we can all look up to … or envy … a man who has it all. A dream job. A terrific family life. The respect of his peers. An impressive carbon foot print. (He laughs.) Can you tell I’m envious of that new

Navigator? (Suddenly, quite serious) Well, I’m here to tell you, Durafab did it for Alvin Davidson and Durafab can do it for you.

HUGH (cont’d): Some of you know this: Alvin’s been with Durafab almost as long as we’ve been in business. (Brief applause, led mostly by FIONA) He knows the product line inside and out. He knows how to pitch, he knows how to close. He knows how to build fierce customer loyalty. I’m not ashamed of resorting to cliché here, but: “What this man has forgotten about this company is more than most of us will ever know.”

HUGH (cont’d): Today Al’s going to go over the new promotional materials and then after lunch, Al’s asked our newly appointed regional sales manager, Fiona McMullan, to give a short presentation on … what’s the talk on, Fiona?

FIONA: Team-building.

HUGH: On team-building. There you go. I know we’re eager to hear what she has to say, so ... I’m told they’re sending up sandwiches in fifteen-twenty, this is a working lunch and we’ll be breaking down into teams. So, Al —?

He extends the laser-pointer.

HUGH: Oh, before I forget, we have a special treat lined up for later this afternoon. If you were at last year’s National Sales Meeting, you already know about this craziness. We’ve got the go-carts again this year. It’s a private party, the whole track to ourselves. And Alvin ... am I right about this? Alvin is our reigning champion. His is the time to beat. So: Browne, Luntz, Van Horn, all of you guys, and , sorry, ladies as well, you get a shot at the title. I believe we have some T-shirts and ball caps for prizes.

HUGH (cont’d): Please join me in welcoming our new V.P. of Marketing, Al Davidson.

Applause. And then … The sound of go-karts zipping around a track carries over—

The sound of go-karts fades out. HUGH’s having a one-sided conversation with the [unseen] bartender. He’s a few in. At the same time, we see FIONA, very drunk, in her hotel room, trying on one sexy, fashionable cocktail dress after another. She’s drinking white wine straight from the bottle.

HUGH: When I was a kid, my dad always went on business trips. Canada. Bangkok. Philly, PA.

HUGH (cont’d): Whenever he left, I prayed time would stand still. Prayed for rain, flash floods, blizzards. At school I prayed for bomb threats. A city-wide blackout. Anything to bring a screeching halt to life.

HUGH (cont’d): I was a weird kid, I guess. While others minced about on the playground, I’d cower under a raincoat staring at my glow-in-the-dark Timex tick-ticking the painful moments away.

HUGH (cont’d): But life doesn’t stand still. It spins round and round. A broken record.

HUGH (cont’d): Then you blink. You’re sixty-five. You’re going on a business trip. And your son’s crying in the airport terminal. Sorry. Babbling.

3. Hotel bar.

He shakes the ice-cubes in his glass looking for a refill. He takes a photo from his wallet: regards it at length.

HUGH (cont’d): That’s my son, that’s Eddie. Well, that’s him a couple years ago. His hair’s a little longer now. The Bridging Ceremony for Boy Scouts. The Arrow of Light I think they call it, down at the lake. You can’t really see the lake. You got kids? You got a family?

HUGH (cont’d): Me ... I got four. Three girls. Then a boy. Total surprise. Four growing kids.

HUGH (cont’d): O, talk about headaches!

HUGH (cont’d): But you have to stay involved. That’s the secret. You have to ask a lotta question, cause they don’t just volunteer. As my mother always likes to say about parenting, “it’s okay to be nosey.” It’s okay to ask them what’s going on in their lives. You sit them down once in a while and you say, you say, “So what’s up with you?” Because between their texting and tweeting and the other thing it’s, who knows, Charlie Manson could be their prom date.

HUGH (cont’d): I got Janice ... she's my eldest ... I spoke to her on the phone just this morning matter-of-fact. It’s snowing where she’s at. I asked her “what’s going on in your life, Janice?” and she told me. She was very upfront, very forthright, which I appreciate. She told me she was out all night with this fella she met at the ice rink. He drives the Zamboni, for Christ’s sake. What kinda future is that? Zamboni driver? You think that comes with dental? Although, if she’s happy, I suppose ...

He takes another photo from his wallet.

HUGH (cont’d): That’s Janice. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “your daughter’s unusually tall” but that’s because she’s standing on one of those little Rubbermaid step unit thingies. She is, in actual fact, of average height. She’s awfully handsome, though, isn’t she? She gets her red hair from her mother. They all do. Janice is going to college in the fall. For viticulture. Know what that is? Sounds like something you catch from spoiled food, doesn’t it? It’s growing grapes. You know, for wine. She wants to work for a winery. Kids are so ... specific these days. Not sure how we’re gonna afford the tuition yet.

He takes out another picture.

HUGH (cont’d): That’s the twins. I don’t know why they’re on the back of a tractor. Probably some kind of field trip. They’re always on field trips. Their mother’s very “hands on” when it comes to their education. They’re always going someplace and then I get to see it all later on Facebook. Or the kids make me a PowerPoint. Seriously, kids these days are so technically inclined, but I’m all: PowerPoints for me all day long, PowerPoints now when I get home on the weekends!

Another photo.

HUGH (cont’d): And that’s their mother. That’s Niagara Falls. That’s why she looks wet. That’s why her hair’s doing that. Ever been there? There’s a continual drizzle. In winter there’s a foot and a half of ice in the parking lots, it’s like a hockey rink. That’s a few years back, though, now. Five or six maybe. Has it been six years, already? See what I said about the red hair?

HUGH looks at the photo for a long time, then puts his wallet away. Then he removes another wallet from inside his jacket. Pause. He stares at the photo.

HUGH (cont’d): You ever watch anyone die?

HUGH (cont’d): You probably heard about it. It was all over the news. There was a whole crew from CBS using the lobby as a staging area. You’d think Brad Pitt was staying at the Holiday Inn.

HUGH (cont’d): I still have the guy’s wallet. He handed it to me right before he climbed into the go-kart.

HUGH (cont’d): Stupid, huh? Grown men. In go-karts. Zipping around a track. In brightly colored helmets. In the rain. In business suits. I still have his wallet.

He regards it.

HUGH (cont’d): They said, “Who’s up first?” And of course our new V.P. of Marketing’s got to be first, because he’s the reigning champ. He’s in his

shirtsleeves, he ties his necktie around his head, ya know, like a joke, like a Kamikaze pilot. He wasn’t being racist, but it was a little … or … well, anyway it was a joke.

HUGH (cont’d): He puts on the helmet and climbs into his go-kart. He looks a bit idiotic, because Al Davidson is like 6’3” so he’s got to fold himself into that cramped space like an Indian contortionist. Remember that fellow? That TV special? This is goin’ back a ways. The 70s. Yogi Kudu? He’d slow his heart rate and fold himself into a glass box ... this big!

He illustrates.

HUGH (cont’d): Anyway, Al Davidson’s finally all tucked in, neatly folded into his go-kart, when he scootches around a bit to free his wallet from his pant’s pocket. He tosses it to me, then he hands his glasses to Fiona McMillan, our newly appointed regional sales manager and he goes, “Tally ho!”

HUGH (cont’d): “Tally ho!” in this goofy English accent and off he goes into the drizzle, sailing around the track for a practice lap.

HUGH (cont’d): Al Davidson’s not half-way round ... not even half-way, when he hits the guard rail, and that go-kart sorta does a little hop onto two wheels. Our newly appointed regional sales manager was the first to notice something’s not quite right. She goes, “Is he okay? Is he okay” and so now the whole sales team’s watching this thing unfold.

HUGH (cont’d): Al’s go-kart flips over. It was like a scene in a movie.

HUGH (cont’d): It just does this lazy little flip, like a leaf or something, onto its back ... into a terrible skid. Before he comes to a stop we’re, all of us, we’re tearing across the track ... and everyone’s on their cell phone ... the entire Durafab National Sales Team ... and not one of us having the first clue what to do in a situation like that.

HUGH (cont’d): Our new V.P. of Marketing’s not moving. One of the wheels is busted clear off the kart.

HUGH (cont’d): There’s just this foot sticking out the bottom, and the bone was ... you know ... you could tell is was shattered, but we ... me and Luntz and

Browne and Van Horn ... we roll the cart back over and now Fiona McMillan is screaming her head off, “Don’t touch him, don’t touch him.” And I try ... I ... I try to do the CPR, you know? The ...

HUGH (cont’d): It’s Durafab’s policy that employees are nominated as Emergency Response Leaders on a rotational basis. I was the division ERL last year, for example, but not this year. Nobody could remember who the division ERL was this year. So that’s a policy we’re going to have to scrutinize.

HUGH (cont’d): At the hospital, they tell us it was a massive coronary. They tell us our V.P of Marketing was probably dead before the go-kart even hit the guardrail. So.

HUGH (cont’d): If Al saw me in here right now ... with rocks in my scotch ... he’d have a conniption. He was a purest. Single malts. Nothing else. Top shelf stuff Speysides and Highlands mostly.

HUGH (cont’d): Fifteen years I known the guy, I never tried the stuff. I’m strictly a seven and seven man, myself ... but you know, in honor of ...

He opens Al’s wallet and looks at the pictures inside.

HUGH (cont’d): To his credit, Durafab’s President and CEO, Mr. Wade Ridgeway, Jr. personally called Al’s wife and made an appearance at the hospital. That’s her.

He shows the bartender a photo.

HUGH (cont’d): That’s Helen. She’s somewhere in the hotel right now. Got in a couple hours ago. I don’t know if she brought the kids.

Another photo.

HUGH (cont’d): That’s the kids. Look how curly this one’s hair is. Al Davidson didn’t have curly hair. Neither does Helen.

HUGH (cont’d): I’m meeting Helen tomorrow to return Al’s wallet.

HUGH (cont’d): I suppose our newly appointed regional sales manager Fiona McMillan still has Al’s glasses.

He continues fishing through Al’s wallet.

HUGH (cont’d): He’d been with Durafab almost as long as we’ve been in business. What Alvin had forgotten about this company is more than most of us will …

He’s stopped by the discovery of another photo in the wallet, folded up into a back seam. He places the wallet on the bar. Unfolds the photograph. He stares at it for a long while. Fiona passes out drunk in her

She has an armful of binders. [There’s lots of air in this scene.]

FIONA: Hi.

HUGH: Hi.

FIONA: I’m recycling the extra conference packets.

HUGH: Oh. Yeah..

FIONA: And name tags. We can use the same binders.

4.

FIONA enters.

HUGH: What?

FIONA: For the Corporate Retreat.

HUGH: Okay.

Pause. FIONA watches the PowerPoint. She cocks her head to the side.

FIONA: (Re: the slideshow) It’s this the new line?

HUGH: Uhuh.

FIONA: Do you mind?

HUGH: Uhn-uh.

Pause. FIONA sits down beside HUGH, the stack of binders in her lap.

HUGH continues to click through slides. They sit there. Click. Click. Click. After a long beat, HUGH looks across at FIONA.

5. FIONA has a small choux pastry on a plate.

HUGH: How is the pastry?

FIONA: I’m a monster.

HUGH: What?

FIONA: Do you believe in God?

HUGH: I think I did in the 80s.

FIONA: I believe in God. I believe in sin. Sometimes we do things we shouldn’t and we don’t get punished, and we think, maybe I’ve cheated the system, maybe God’s making an exception for me, so we go on committing all these petty misdemeanors, we drink the diet Pepsi in the break room fridge knowing full well it belongs to someone else, or late at night, late at night when there’s no one around we run through a red light because we’re tired of waiting, and nothing happens to us, does it, nothing ever happens, and we’re emboldened by this, we become arrogant.

HUGH: They have cameras now.

FIONA: The point is we continue indulging in these things.

HUGH: Indulging?

FIONA: Things we shouldn’t be doing, and soon these things begin to escalate until they’re no longer petty misdemeanors, they’re high crimes. And then one day—for whatever reason—God decides: “Right, that’s it! Time for a little comeuppance.” And he reminds you who’s really in charge.

FIONA puts a very large piece of pastry into her mouth and she really has to work at swallowing it. She winds up getting powdered sugar and whipped cream on her nose and she doesn’t notice it. She’s oblivious.

HUGH: I didn’t know if I should call you.

FIONA: (Re: the pastry) I’ve eaten six of these today.

HUGH: Sometimes I think I should do the opposite of what I’m thinking.

FIONA: After it happened, after I left the hospital, I couldn’t feel my face.

HUGH: Your face?

FIONA: Like when you’re small and you’ve been out all day in the freezing cold, and you’re called inside for supper and your mother grabs your cheeks, and it’s

no longer skin, it’s totally numb and lifeless, it’s cardboard. That was me. I was completely numb, but mostly it was my face. I thought to myself, if anyone looks at me right now, all they’ll see is a blank round head, no eyes, no mouth, no features whatsoever, just this fleshy … mound. I gave the cab driver a hundred dollars and said keep driving until this runs out.

HUGH: That’s funny.

FIONA: What’s funny?

HUGH: I did the same thing. Cab driver. Money. Except I only had a twenty, so …

Pause.

FIONA: Can I tell you something?

HUGH: Want more coffee?

FIONA: While convalescing from breast cancer last winter, my sister June journeyed to Sedona.

HUGH: That’s the desert, right?

FIONA: There she climbed atop an impressive red rock formation in Coconino National Forest. It was designated as a vortex meditation site.

HUGH: A what?

FIONA: A healing center.

HUGH: Oh.

FIONA: There was a man …

HUGH: What man?

FIONA: … an intuitive.

HUGH: At the vortex?

FIONA: He was telling a group of tourists that the universe knows only one crime.

HUGH: Oh. What’s that?

FIONA: Theft. Pause.

FIONA (cont’d): And it is the worst crime one can ever commit.

HUGH: I thought you were going to say murder. (A weak attempt at humor) Or tax evasion.

FIONA picks up a knife from the table.

FIONA: If I were to take this knife …

HUGH: Uhuh?

FIONA: … and stab it into your heart …

HUGH: Why would you do that?

FIONA: Just as an example …

HUGH: Okay.

FIONA: … if I were to impale you, to sit here and watch you slowly bleed to death … that is a crime of theft. I’m robbing you of your life. Or, or … if you are married, say if you are married to someone and I knowingly enter into a relationship with you, are you following me?

HUGH: I think so.

FIONA: I mean, if you tell me about your wife, if you say “My wife makes profiteroles that are far superior to these,” and still I lean in and I kiss you with full knowledge of the consequences …

HUGH: Uhuh?

FIONA: … it’s a crime of theft. I have stolen you from your wife. I’m a thief. I’m a monster.

HUGH hands her his napkin.

HUGH: You have some cream on your nose.

She takes it and wipes the cream off.

HUGH (cont’d): My wife doesn’t do desserts. She does casseroles. We eat casseroles all the time.

FIONA: I don’t remember the last thing he said to me.

HUGH: I do.

FIONA: What was it?

HUGH: Tally ho!

FIONA: Tally ho?

HUGH: I don’t think it was to me specifically. Maybe to the group in general. I want my last words to have some significance.

FIONA: Yes. Some impact, some … I don’t know …

HUGH: I want them to reverberate.

FIONA: Yes!

HUGH: I’ve thought about it my whole life. I already composed them.

FIONA: Your last words?

HUGH: Yup. Wrote them on the night of my fiftieth birthday. I keep them on a little card in my wallet.

FIONA: No you don’t.

HUGH (cont’d): I do.

FIONA (cont’d): Get out. What does it say?

He takes a little card out of his wallet and hands it to her ceremonially.

FIONA (cont’d): (Reading) “I tried my best.”

Beat.

HUGH: I was careful to avoid exaggeration.

She takes a pair of men’s glasses out of her purse and hands them to HUGH.

HUGH takes them and puts them in his pocket.

HUGH takes Al’s wallet out, pulls out a photograph and hands it to FIONA.

HUGH: I thought you might like this before I returned it.

FIONA looks at the photograph and very slowly puts her hand over her mouth.

FIONA: This is Milwaukee. The marketing summit.

HUGH: It looked familiar.

FIONA: It hadn’t been going on that long.

HUGH: I never … for a second …

FIONA: What? Suspected? You were going to say. It’s not a very nice word is it?

HUGH: I’m not judging. I’ve never been good at that.

He sips his coffee. She looks at the photograph.

FIONA: Walking beside the lake first day we met, he asked what my “long-range plan” was. I hadn’t formulated one. I made it up, on the spot. He seemed to be mesmerized by everything I said. Even dumb stuff. The wind off the water was unforgiving. Look: you can see my hair going sideways. Alvin gave me his coat and then his scarf, and then he asked this stupid anorexic skateboarder to take our picture. I kept thinking she’s going to run off with Alvin’s camera, and I was actually bracing myself for a scuffle with a teenager when he kissed me. Al. Not the teenager. Just to be clear.

HUGH: Okay.

FIONA: I didn’t really like him very much. I know that reflects badly on me. I went to bed with him because I don’t like myself.

HUGH: I liked myself in the 80s.

FIONA: He told me that it was his son’s birthday and would I help him select an appropriate gift. We spent all afternoon shopping together at little boutiques and specialty shops and never bought a single thing that could be considered remotely appropriate for a nine year old. He kept saying “this scarf would look terrific on you.” “You can pull off a color like this.” “Everyone needs one of these,” and he’d pull out his credit card. After a while, I capitulated. I think it’s a kind of exploitation.

HUGH: What is?

FIONA: Generosity. I mean, I knew he was expecting reciprocity. A return on his investment, so to speak.

HUGH: He pressured you?

FIONA: I’m not a little girl. Quick beat.

FIONA (cont’d): Life is a two-way street. The more things he bought, the more implicated I became in a scenario that was becoming … inevitable. But I didn’t care. He wanted to buy me things. I’d never had anyone want to spend money on me. Not even lunch. Not even a cup of coffee. To have someone make a fuss over you, it’s nice.

FIONA (cont’d): The sex wasn’t very satisfying, which is typically part of the criteria, isn’t it, for these types of … dalliances?

HUGH: I wouldn’t know.

FIONA: All I’m saying is …

HUGH: What are you saying?

FIONA: … at least in that regard, it wasn’t cliché. (re: the wallet) Are there pictures of his family?

HUGH nods. HUGH hands her the wallet. She looks at each of the photos. This takes some time.

HUGH: I’m not married.

FIONA: What?

HUGH: You said, if I tell you about my wife, if I said “My wife makes profiteroles that are far superior to these,” and you leaned in and kissed me with full knowledge of the consequences, then you’d be stealing. But I don’t have a wife.

HUGH (cont’d): I did have a wife. But I don’t anymore. I didn’t like myself when I was married. It’s hard to be around that … so she found someone who did like themselves. And could play tennis. I’m not particularly athletic.

FIONA: I have bad dreams.

HUGH: The trick is to not eat within three hours of going to bed.

FIONA: Is that true?

HUGH: Something my mother always said. I never questioned it. I don’t have bad dreams. I don’t have dreams at all, really, dreams I remember. I’m trying to remember the last dream I had. (He tries to remember the last dream he had.) Nope.

FIONA: With me, sometimes it’s a flood and I’m trapped inside my house. Sometimes there’s a fire. Once a giant grey dog was chasing me through a maze and I kept going the wrong way and I knew the dog was getting closer because I could hear it gnashing its teeth.

HUGH: Oh, my god!

FIONA: I was petrified.

HUGH: I know what you’re thinking.

FIONA: (She looks at him) Okay, what?

HUGH: Durafab has a strict anti-fraternization policy.

FIONA: I wasn’t thinking that.

HUGH: I’m just saying we’d have to careful.

FIONA: Careful?

HUGH: We’d have to be very tightlipped about a workplace romance, you know? To safeguard us from termination.

Silence. They stare at each other for a very long beat.

FIONA: (Re: her profiterole) Would you like some of this?

She offers a mouthful of her pastry to HUGH on a fork. He leans in and eats it. He gets some cream on his nose and doesn’t notice.

HUGH: I don’t live with my mother. I felt compelled to clarify that.

They sit together in silence, drinking their coffees, as … FIONA’s motivational speech plays over the rest of the scene. They sit, and they sit.

FIONA: (Voice-over) Thank you Alvin for the flattering introduction, which I don’t deserve, I’m sure. Please continue with your lunches. I don’t think the vegetarian options have reached the back of the room yet, so if you could pass those sandwiches round …

FIONA (cont’d): In 1957 Durafab founder Wade Ridgeway, Sr. had a clear and simple vision: To revolutionize the custom cardboard packaging industry by creating an innovative company large enough to meet a customer’s most complex packaging specifications, small enough to know every customer by name, a company offering unsurpassed client service, together with the industry’s fastest turnaround time, without ever sacrificing product quality or workplace safety. His recipe for success: team work.

The light begins to slowly fade on FIONA’s diminishing voice. FIONA and HUGH remains seated throughout.

FIONA (cont’d): Internally, we are a team of dedicated manufacturing, sales and marketing professionals. Externally, we form a team with our clients. Look to your left, look to your right. The person sitting beside you is your very best chance for success.

Blackout.

Penelope and the Wild, Wild World

Script by Kaitlin Thern & Rome Johnson

Characters:

PENELOPE: Age 16. Has lived with her father since her parents’ divorce and resents her mother’s attempt to reclaim custody.

DENISE: Mid-40’s. A put together and proper woman. Her divorce settlement has given her a cushy life and the financial stability to develop her career as a food critic. After a decade of adventure, she has finally decided to move to the countryside and build a relationship with her distant daughter.

Scene:

PENELOPE and DENISE are in the car on their way to DENISE’s home, where PENELOPE will now be living. They are tense and awkward. DENISE keeps a tight smile on her face as she drives.

Penelope: I hate you.

Denise: Sit up straight, dear.

Penelope: I mean it, I hate you.

Denise: Okay, I’ll bite. Why do you hate me?

Penelope: You’re asking me?

Denise: Your father and Natasha are getting a divorce. You know she’s going to get the house, so you would have had to move anyway.

Penelope: I could have stayed with her.

Denise: Every time you can be bothered to pick up the phone when I call, you tell me how much you hate her.

Penelope: Well, maybe I hate her less than you.

Denise: I see.

Penelope: Yeah, she’s a lame-ass, but she’s still cooler than you.

Denise: If you start to miss her then I’ll invite her over once we get settled.

Penelope: Oh, well aren’t you just “Miss Open Arms” all of a sudden.

(PENELOPE turns on some music. DENISE turns it off.)

Denise: I know you’re upset about leaving the city, but you’ll have just as much fun in Springfield without all of those negative influences.

Penelope: You know, they say you small town peeps smoke more weed than us city folk.

Denise: I’m sure that isn’t the case.

Penelope: You know, you may be right. I could have been thinking about heroine.

Denise (becoming frustrated): What are you trying to prove, Penelope?

Penelope: That you’re an idiot.

Denise: Why?

Penelope: Because you named me.

Denise: What?

Penelope: Penelope Poinsettia Banks–I mean, what the fuck were you thinking?

Denise: Well, it was all I could do to keep your father from just naming you Penny Banks.

Penelope: But Poinsettia?

Denise: You were born four days before Christmas. I thought it was beautiful.

Penelope: Well, it’s a bitch to spell. I mean, could you imagine how awkward it would have been if you ever actually had the chance to introduce me to someone?

(mimicking) Oh, this is my daughter Penelope Poinsettia. I named her myself. had to go through the trouble of writing my name down on school forms or in doctors’ offices? It would have just taken forever.

Denise: What are you trying to say?

Penelope: Nothing!

Denise: We could have named you Happy.

Penelope: What?

Denise: You know, Happy Banks. You’re lucky I got all of my hippy years out before I met your father.

Penelope: Is that supposed to be a joke?

Denise: Never mind.

(Penelope tends to her smartphone.)

Denise: Who are you texting?

Penelope: Nobody.

Denise: Then what are you doing on your phone.

Penelope: Get off my case.

Denise: No, I want to know. There is nothing you can do that would surprise me at this point, so just tell me. Is it your dealer? Your stoner friends? Perhaps a do-rag-wearing, motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smelling boyfriend?

Penelope: (Laughs) Wow, mom.

Denise: What is it?

Penelope: I don’t have a boyfriend.

Denise: (Pause) Did Natasha ever put you on birth control?

Penelope: God, mom. You really think I’m some harlot, don’t you?

Denise: I’m your mother. I think it’s time that we had a talk about what happens when you come of age and the risks of certain activities.

Penelope: No, that time probably would have been when I got my first period, which you wouldn’t know anything about since you were in Japan and dad was still married to Brit. I’m sixteen now. I’ve had three required sex-ed classes, been lectured by five teachers, two doctors, and one nosey dentist, I’ve known four classmates who’ve gotten STDs and one that got pregnant. So, yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m good on the birds and the bees. (pause) Hey, can you stop here? I need to pee.

(DENISE pulls the car over and PENELOPE gets out. DENISE watches until PENELOPE is inside, then begins screaming and banging the steering wheel while sobbing. This goes on for some time before she composes herself and wipes her eyes. She is smiling tensely again as PENELOPE returns.)

Denise: You know, I think I may want a little snack. Would you like anything?

Penelope: Yeah, how ‘bout some chips. Or maybe some chocolate. Or pizza! Gas station pizza is gross, but we should still go get some.

Denise: I think we can make that happen.

Penelope: I still want the chips though.

Denise: Fine. (she heads inside)

Penelope: (hollering out the window) Barbeque flavor!

(PENELOPE turns up the music until it is almost at the speakers’ limit. She bobs her head in time, sits back and takes out her phone. She sends a text, puts the phone away and then checks it every few seconds for a response that doesn’t come. She gets more disappointed each time she checks. DENISE returns to the car with a bag of chips and a protein bar. DENISE turns the music down and starts the car.)

Denise: The cashier said there aren’t any pizzerias for almost an hour.

Penelope: Fine, whatever. I have chips. (examining the bag) Ew, these are baked.

Denise: They’re better for you.

Penelope: They’re sad. (she holds up the bag and pretends to make it talk)

The Bag: (Mimicking) I will never reach my full potatoey potential! I am a trap! I’m only healthier because they separated me from my brethren and sold you a vacuum sealed bag of air!

Denise: Eat your chips, dear.

Penelope: Whatever. (eats the chips)

Denise: There’s a bowling alley in Springfield. I hear a lot of the young people go there.

Penelope: Then what would you know about it?

Denise: Very funny. I am not that old. I have fun, I’m with it.

Penelope: You’re older than all of Dad’s other wives. You were older than them even before he married you.

Denise: They do keep getting younger, don’t they?

Penelope: Technically, Brit was the youngest. She was before Natasha. Chloe’s the next oldest after you.

Denise: Perhaps he decided that he wanted someone at least old enough to buy their own alcohol.

Penelope: I don’t want to talk about dad anymore.

Denise: Okay. (Pause) I think you’ll enjoy your school. You won’t have to wear a uniform anymore.

Penelope: Finally, more opportunities to show off my Skrillex merch.

Denise: I didn’t know you liked cooking.

Penelope: (Laughing) I thought you said you were “with it”?

Denise: What?

Penelope: It’s “Skrillex”. With an X. It’s music.

Denise: Oh, that makes more sense.

Penelope: Want to hear some?

Denise: Sure, as long as it’s not vulgar.

Penelope: You’re no fun. It depends on the song, but I’ll find something.

(PENELOPE plugs her phone into the car stereo and plays a thumping song.)

Denise: This isn’t so bad.

Penelope: Wait till it drops, that’s when it gets good.

(The beat drops and PENELOPE begins unashamedly jamming out.)

Denise: (Shouting over the loud music but not turning it down) Whoo! This is good! (she bobs her head until the song ends) My turn now.

Penelope: This ought to be good.

(DENISE plugs her phone into the car stereo and a cello cover of a classic rock song begins playing. It takes PENELOPE a moment, but she begins to get into it.)

Penelope: Okay, not bad.

(PENELOPE and DENISE pass the cord back and forth for another few songs as the conversation continues.)

Denise: You know, your new school has a few music clubs. You should join one. It will help you make friends.

Penelope: I guess, maybe.

Denise: And the classes are very competitive for a public school. I have you enrolled in all AP courses. It’ll be tough, but I know you can handle it and we can always get you a tutor.

Penelope: You picked all of my classes without even talking to me?

Denise: Your father sent me your transcripts, so I saw what you were already taking. You’ll still be in an alternative gym class, although here that means volleyball and tennis, not croquet or whatever they had you doing.

Penelope: That’s not the point. I should have a say in the classes I take.

Denise: But you sell yourself short, dear. You get good grades. Why not push yourself a little?

Penelope: I get good grades because I’m pushing myself. But fine, whatever. I shouldn’t expect you to ask me what I want. You’ve never asked me that.

Denise: Oh, don’t be so dramatic. I left one of your electives open. I filled out the other one, though. You’re taking economics.

Penelope: Oh my God. Why are you doing this to me?

Denise: It’s a useful skill. You’re not going to live with me forever, so you should know how to do taxes and invest in stock and whatnot.

Penelope: No! Why are you doing this? Just showing up and pretending you’re here to save me, but really you’re just disappointed and want to see if you can micromanage me into a better human so you can get back at dad.

(DENISE is struck by this. She waits some time before speaking again.)

Denise: Penelope, that’s not what happened. I don’t want to try and change you, but I do want to protect you. Your father asked me to take care of you after the divorce and I wanted to. I never planned to have to take charge like this, but the life you’ve been leading isn’t healthy. You clearly need a firm hand.

Penelope: You don’t know anything about my life! You don’t because you never ask. You didn’t even send me a Christmas card last year.

Denise: You told me not to! Remember, you proclaimed at Easter earlier that year that you were a secular humanist now and if anyone tried to push any “Christian Bullshit” on you again, you would start burning crosses in the front yard. It’s no wonder I’m concerned when you behave like that. You’re rude and belligerent, you’re are angry at everyone, your father says you barely talk to him when he sees you--which is almost never because when you’re home you just hide in your room--and you’re on drugs!

Penelope: I’m not on drugs!

Denise: Don’t lie to me! You’ve been talking about it for weeks, how you’re going to miss your hook-up and how people smoke more in the suburbs. You can’t turn around on all that just because there will finally be consequences for your actions.

Penelope: I just didn’t want to live with you. You’re such a prude and I didn’t think you’d want to take me if you thought I was on drugs.

(DENISE pulls the car over.)

Penelope: Also, when it comes to detecting sarcasm you’re about as perceptive as a brick.

Denise: Penelope, you are my daughter. I may want you to do well, I may be firm, but I love you. Thinking you were going down a bad path just made me want to take you in even more. I only want what is best for you.

lot, but I want to get that back. I want to make up for it.

Penelope: Dad wasn’t around much after you left me either. I ended up with a string of step-moms who lived in fear of becoming the next Ex-Mrs. Banks. At the end of Chloe’s run, she spent all of her time drinking and crying. I was 10. But, whatever. If you want to make up for lost time, spinning my life 180 degrees is not the best way to do it. Did you think that showing up after all this time and saying, “Pack your things, your whole world is going to change!” would make me like you? I mean, jeez, at least take me out to dinner first.

Denise: Of course this isn’t what I wanted, but what was I supposed to do? Just let your father leave you with some woman he wasn’t even married to? It’s one thing to have his wife raise you, but his 26 year-old ex? Call it selfish if you want, but I’m not letting you room with some child who thinks she’s your mother!

Penelope: Yes! You didn’t care the first three times a stranger raised me, and at least Natasha and I get along.

Denise: (interrupting) But I am your mother! Me! I carried you, I gave birth to you--you are my child!

Penelope: You’re still not listening to me!

(PENELOPE storms out of the car. DENISE puts her hand on the door handle and starts to open it. DENISE looks in the rearview mirror as PENELOPE walks off. DENISE closes the door, takes the key out of the ignition, and waits.)

For information on authors Kaitlin Thern & Rome Johnson, visit our Contributors Page.

The Green Mirror

Script by Max Cano

Characters:

AUGUST: A patient female in her twenties who can see the bright side of anything. Lately, August’s dark side has been too much for her to handle.

SKYLER: A twenty-something male who finds no positivity in his life and is mostly exhausted with it all. He is ready to give up trying to live normally.

Gender and physical appearance do not matter for either character.

Scene:

SKYLER is at a bus stop, almost in a trance-like state. There is very little light or foot traffic. AUGUST is yelling at him from the car.

August: Skyler… Skyler… Skyler! Get in the car.

SKYLER snaps out of it, looking confused. SKYLER gets in AUGUST’S car with no dialogue. They drive in silence until they arrive at their home. They enter.

August: Do you want some coffee?

Skyler: Yeah.

August: How do you want it?

Skyler: Black, please.

SKYLER takes a seat in the living room and AUGUST begins making coffee. Time seems to suddenly jump as AUGUST hands him a cup of coffee. AUGUST sits down across from SKYLER as he takes the cup.)

Skyler: Thanks.

SKYLER begins smelling the coffee as AUGUST breaks the silence.

August: Sky? How are you doing?

Skyler: I’m good. Fine.

AUGUST stares at SKYLER.

Skyler: What?

August: “What?” What were you doing out there so late?

Skyler: Can we at least wait until we’re done with the coffee to have grown up talk?

August: No.

Skyler: Well, you know as much as I do.

August: Yeah? So you have no idea what you were doing or where you were going?

Skyler: August, I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to talk about it. Right now, when I’m here, can we just sit here and enjoy our coffee? Please?

August: No. I drove an hour and a half to find you and that’s my favorite coffee you’re drinking, so I think I deserve a little conversation.

Skyler: I know you do, but these conversations always end up with you acting like my therapist.

August: Skyler, this is the only way I know how to deal with your—our situation.

Skyler: Okay, but right now just talk to me. Let’s talk about the weather, anything else. I don’t know how many times we’ve done this. I’ve told you that when one of “them” comes, it’s like a blank space, so this conversation will go nowhere fast. Just let me handle it, I’m fine.

August: No, you’re not fine.

Skyler: Yes! I…

August: I don’t believe it.

Skyler: So what, you don’t believe it?!

August: Well, don’t tell me you're fine when you’re clearly–

Skyler: Okay, I’m not fine! Is that what you want to hear? I’m not fine with waking up in random places, I’m not fine not knowing if I might hurt someone or myself, I’m not fine with the continuous fear I may never come back. I’m not fine.

Flashback to a confrontation between SKYLER and AUGUST while DOMINIC, SKYLER’S second personality, is present. AUGUST is knocking on a closed door and tries talking to DOMINIC.

August: Sk–Dominic, please open the door.

DOMINIC does not answer.

Are you hungry? I’ll get whatever you want.

DOMINIC does not answer.

Okay, if you need anything I’ll be out here.

AUGUST lays her head on the door and the flashback

Skyler: I mean, how can I be fine knowing what I make you go through everyday?

August: It’s not so bad.

Skyler: Will you stop that? Stop being so calm. August, I continuously push you away and tell you awful things that “I” would never normally think of saying to you.

August: I know.

Skyler: Most people would count that as pretty bad.

August: Well, we aren’t most people.

Skyler: Yes, we are.

Flashback to SKYLER’S final personality, OSCAR, walking out the front door aggressively. AUGUST is chasing him.

August: Skyler? Skyler!

Oscar: Leave me alone!

August: Skyler!

Oscar: Get your hands off me!

August: Skyler, where are you going?!

Oscar: I’m not Skyler! Look at you, you’re a sinner, you know that? I’m not going to stay in this house with a filthy whore like you. Smoking and drinking everyday. You’re going to hell you know that?

Flashback ends.

Skyler: I mean, why are you still trying? Just send me somewhere so I don’t hurt you. So I can be someone else’s problem.

August: Is that what you think you are? A problem?

SKYLER Scoffs. Beat.

August: Would you believe me that it’s worth it?

Skyler: Yeah? What exactly is it worth? Is it worth being publicly humiliated? Is it worth driving around until 2 o’clock in the morning? Or how about not being able to have a simple meal? Look at me. That can’t be worth it.

Lengthy beat.

August: You’re worth it. Skyler? You are worth it. Every little bit of time I have with you is worth it.

Skyler: Oh, God.

August: Listen. Let’s say you have a favorite song–I mean, one that really connects to you, one that is just perfect–you listen to it in the morning and every time you go to bed because you can right?

SKYLER nods in agreement.

August: What if you weren't allowed to listen to it for ten years? You’d start forgetting what it sounded like, what the lyrics were, you might of even forget it was your favorite song; but once you finally hear it, it takes you back to what you felt. It would be the best thing you ever heard in that moment–the best thing you would ever hear–until it leaves again.

Silence.

Skyler: Damn it, August. Damn it, that was good.

August: That was good wasn’t it?

SKYLER and AUGUST grin and laugh before it goes silent again.

August: Hey. You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.

Skyler: Yeah… I’m gonna get another cup. You want one?

August: Sure.

SKYLER takes AUGUST’S cup and leaves the room. AUGUST sits back with a tired look and slowly begins to hear SKYLER yelling and throwing things around in the other room. The cycle continues.

For more information on author Max Cano please visit our Contributors Page.

Three Scratch Marks

Screenplay by Brooke Fauver

INT. COLD STERILE POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM

ANITA (23) sits lazily in a chair, across from her sits Roger (23) his investigation partner Spencer (30s) stands in a corner observing the interrogation waiting to jump in at any moment. ROGER slams a file on the table, ANITA stares unimpressed.

So... Anita is it?

Yea.

You wanna tell me what really happened here?

ANITA shifts in her chair annoyed.

ANITA (Sighs)

I've already told your partner everything. What's the use of telling it again?

ROGER (Amused)

I need to hear the account myself ma'am.

ANITA

(Offended)

Ma'am!?... Ma'am? You look younger than me!? How old are you!? Don't ever call me ma'am again!

ROGER (Unfazed)

I'm 23, same age as you.

ROGER holds a hand up before ANITA can protest.

ROGER

I just graduated from University with a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice, just in case you question my qualifications. And now I'm an investigator for El Paso PD so...

SPENCER gave a small chuckle from his corner, ANITA looked at him furiously and crossed her arms.

ANITA

Ok... so?

ROGER

I just thought I'd butter you up a bit before you tell me your oh so scary story.

ANITA scratches her head, her face suppressed to angst. ROGER leans into the spotlight hanging above the table interested.

ANITA

(Sighs)

I was home alone preparing to leave for the next morning when I heard a growl coming from my fathers bedroom.

ROGER

You are home from spring break correct?

ANITA

Yes... As I was saying, there was a growl coming from my dad's bedroom and when I walked in I noticed strange footprints on the floor and then behold!

(Fake shock)

I saw a carnal beast ready to pounce on me.

ROGER Carnal beast?.... And what did it look like exactly?

ANITA

Just take my word for it OK. I'm not crazy.

ROGER

(Mockingly)

Tell me what the beast looked like ma’am.

I was home alone preparing to leave for the next morning when I heard a growl coming from my father’s bedroom…

ANITA ignores his comment and her expression changes to contemplation. She looks down at the table and then at her lap. On her legs we see several red scratch marks in intervals of three. Flashbacks start to disrupt her mind.

INT. ANITA’S HOUSE

Only ANITA'S face is seen as we close in on the small flashback watching her get away from something that's growling. She's on the floor scooting away to the open light of a door frame. The beats snarls are high pitched and unnerving. The beast's claw can be seen just as ANITA is exiting to the hallway and brutally claws her legs several times before she escapes.

INT SPENCER AND ROGER’S OFFICE SPACE

The two men enter their small office full of clutter. ROGER goes to a projector screen and pulls up a map of the city of El Paso and adds a dot where ANITA'S house is and labels it Chupacabra.

SPENCER

I can't believe El Paso has this fucking problem still man. You'd figure after we took care of the Chupacabra nest last year that we'd be free of this crap.

ROGER rubs his eyes, stress becomes his full ailment now.

ROGER

I know, and this case has become not only work but it's personal as well.

SPENCER

What the hell are you talking about? Psh personal.

ROGER

That women was someone I've known since band in college about 2 years ago. She didn't recognize me and it's got me a little upset.

SPENCER looks on interested in his young partner’s romantic problems.

SPENCER (Teasing)

I knew there was something different about you when we were questioning her. (Smiles)

She's pretty cute. I must say I approve. However.

ROGER side eyes at SPENCER'S "However".

ROGER

However?

SPENCER

You might want to wait after this case is over to hit on the woman. I don't think she's in the best state right now. Hell, she doesn't even live in this state right now Roge.

ROGER

I know... Anyways back to the case.

SPENCER

(Under his breath)

Always the workaholic.

ROGER

Did you say something?

SPENCER

No nothing I was just yawning to myself.

After making an unamused face at SPENCER, ROGER goes on with his train of thought.

ROGER

(Pretentiously)

In order to capture this damn thing and put it down we unfortunately need to use Anita as bait because, as we of the "Secret" El Paso Monster Disposal team know, once the beast in this case, a Chupacabra, has tasted a victims blood that they haven't killed yet will come back and finish the job.

SPENCER

(Pretentiously)

The only thing that remains is that we actually have to set up a plan to get the beast to show up without hurting your girl.

ROGER (Sighs)

We have a long 24 hours ahead of us partner.

SPENCER

I'll start looking up the architectural plan of Anita’s house.

EXT. CAMINO REAL HOTEL

ROGER and SPENCER pull up to a nice hotel over looking a small plaza. The sun is going over the city. A GUARD stands outside at the entrance and comes over to open the passenger door.

ROGER

Any problems last night?

GUARD

Not one.

ROGER

How's the girl?

GUARD

She's up and ready to leave... I'm not sure she slept at all last night.

SPENCER

Good... Neither did we.

GUARD

She's quite a handful honestly, kept yelling at us for not letting her leave the room.

ROGER (Authoritative)

You didn't tell her why, did you?

GUARD

Just that it was a precaution.

SPENCER

Anita's about to ask a lot of questions. You go get her Roge, I'll take care of the bill.

INT. COLD STERILE POLICE ROOM

We come back from ANITA'S flashback and ROGER is examining ANITA'S body language a little worried.

ROGER

Anita?

ROGER reaches a hand across the table and knocks on the table snapping ANITA back to reality.

ANITA (Softly)

Yea?

ROGER

The beast? Can you describe the beast?

ANITA

I didn't really get a good look at it because it was dark. All I know is that it had eyes that reflected into light like a dog’s and it had three claws.

After the encounter you called the authorities, correct?

Yes.

And before your encounter were you expecting anyone at all? A friend perhaps?

(Confused)

No?... Why?

ROGER looked at SPENCER after asking the question. ANITA could see that they both knew something she didn't. ROGER opened the file that lay in front of him and pulled out several pictures. ANITA looked on confused as he shuffled through the fold. Once he found the picture he wanted he turned it so ANITA could see.

Victoria?... What about her? ROGER

(Suspicious)

You know this girl? ANITA

I've known her since middle school.

ROGER

Were you expecting her at all?

ANITA (Confused)

No? I mean no one usually expects her, she just shows up when she wants to see you, no call or anything.

ROGER sat back in his seat unsatisfied laying the picture of the smiling VICTORIA face down on the table the other photos held tightly in his grip. ANITA now panicking at a hint of accusation coming on continues.

ANITA

Why?... Should I be worried? I mean is she OK? Does she have something to do with me?

ROGER

Why, is there something you would like to admit to?

ANITA (Startled)

No!? At least I don't think so!

ROGER

I'm going to show you some of these... the less graphic ones.

SPENCER

Roge

ROGER looks at SPENCER who walks over concerned.

ROGER I don't think she knows Spence. ANITA Knows?

ROGER doesn't say anything and hands ANITA the photos face down. She looks up at SPENCER and then at ROGER for a last approval and slowly begins to face the pictures towards her. The first was of a mutilated torso making ANITA cringe and look back at the two detectives. The second was of the woman's legs who just like hers had several scratch marks in intervals of three. The third brought ANITA'S suspicion to reality. ANITA

(Whisper)

Oh no...

(Raised Voice)

She was in my house!

(Shouting)

THIS WAS IN MY HOUSE!!!

ANITA stood up and pushed the pictures away, SPENCER and ROGER now on their guard. As she stands the chair she was sitting on gets knocked over and she puts her hands on her ears and starts hyperventilating.

ANITA

She's dead.... Victoria is dead.

ROGER stands and goes over to ANITA and puts a hand on her shoulder.

Anita, are you sure it wasn't a person you saw inside you house tonight? Are you absolutely sure no one was in the house with you while you were there?

ANITA's head begins to hurt as she thinks again about all the events that took place 3 hours ago. Nothing comes to her mind except VICTORIA'S dead glass eyes. SPENCER gently moves ROGER out of the way and faces her towards him.

SPENCER

(Comfortingly)

Anita look at me... Look...Good now breath with me.

SPENCER coaches her through an inhale and an exhale and manages to slowly take her hands away from her ears. ANITA slows her breathing down and answers ROGER’s questions.

ANITA

There was no one in the house with me, I swear. My dad left out of town for work two days ago and I was getting ready to go back to school tomorrow.

(Teary) ANITA (Cont’d)

All I know was that as soon as I was getting ready for bed I heard a growl and went to my dad's room to check it out and I was attacked by that thing. I really didn't know she was there or even coming over.... Am I in trouble?

SPENCER

No, no, no. We just needed to confirm that it wasn't you who committed the crime and as of now we don't know who did, so until then we had some officers get some things from your house for you and we are going to put you up in a hotel for the night. This unfortunately means you have to stay in the city and state until we can confirm otherwise.

ANITA

School starts on Monday... I'll have to get in touch with my professors till then.

ROGER

What ever you need to do we'll try to help.

(Cautiously)

We are sorry to put you in this situation but, we will need you to return to the crime scene with us tomorrow night.

ANITA

Well, it is my house.

ROGER

(Small laugh)

Yea... Go get some sleep.

After ANITA is escorted out the two men turn off the camera recorder in the room and turn off the light.

INT. CAMINO REAL HOTEL

ROGER moves through the lobby passing people on vacation and waits for the elevator. His facial expression show's nervousness. The ding startles him just a little and he exits. He first looks around and moves to ANITA'S room. Before knocking on the door he takes a deep breath.

ANITA (Muffled)

One second!

ROGER hears ruffling movement coming within the room and what sounded like a thump and a curse; he smiles. ANITA opens the door, her hair is freshly wet from taking a shower some speck off water still on her skin.

ROGER (Clears throat)

Are you ready ma'am?

ANITA

Oh... It's just you. What did I say about calling me ma’am?

ROGER (Smirks)

Sorry... Are you ready Anita?

ANITA makes a small smile her face a little exhausted.

ANITA

Yea, I'm just getting my stuff together. The guard told me you'd be here soon.

ANITA opens the door wider so we can see the full spectrum of the room. The bed is a little messy, a tray of empty dishes sit on the night stand. ANITA By the way?

ROGER

(Distracted)

Hmmm? ANITA

Why wasn't I able to leave the room the whole time I was here? I mean I don't think that anything could keep whatever I saw last night at bay. So being here seemed rather... pointless.

ROGER

Well... It was just a precaution. ANITA

Don't give me that bullshit Roge.

ROGER seems taken aback at the use of his nickname. He looks ANITA in the eye and begins to explain.

ROGER

Believe it or not... This hotel was built to protect people like you. People who are in danger from things in this world people don't understand or can't explain.

ANITA

What am I hunted by?

ROGER looks around as if someone is listening and leans into ANITA.

ROGER (Whispers) A Chupacabra...

ANITA (Calm)

Well... I've heard of strange things before... How do we kill it?

ROGER (Sighs)

We need you to go home.

ANITA Home?

ROGER Home.

SPENCER (Brightly)

Everyone ready?

EXT. ANITA’S HOUSE

The gang stops in front of ANITA'S house and assess the outside. Police caution tape rope off the entire perimeter. Some windows are shattered and the front door lays on a hinge. The gang look at each other and share encouraging nods.

INT. ANITA'S HOUSE

Slowly and cautiously the gang enter the house. Furniture lays askew on the floor and glass lays on the carpet. The house is a complete mess.

SPENCER

The clean up crew is going to have one hell of a job to do once we are finished here.

ANITA

You guys sound like this is a common occurrence.

ROGER

It's more common than you think. El Paso stands right by the border of Mexico so foreign beasts hop over sometimes. Not all immigrants make the cross over because they get eaten.

SPENCER

Fortunately we try to keep them alive and well. Can't really say the same for the border patrol though.

ANITA

(Incredulous)

How does the media not get wind of this.

SPENCER

Would you believe that a beast

SPENCER motions with his hands

SPENCER

(CONT'D)

With three long ass nails and demon like eyes that looks like a demented dog existed.

ANITA

I guess you're right. If I heard someone say that, I'd want to lock them up in a psychiatric center.

ROGER moving around finds a lamp intact on the floor and goes to nearest plug and turn it on so the room becomes illuminated.

ROGER

That's why after this little adventure tonight you might not want go on and tell people.

ANITA

(Laughs)

Trust me I won’t.

On the hard wood floor there are black scratch marks and what looks to be dried blood.

ROGER

I wonder who's blood this is… ANITA (Worried)

I hope it's not my dad’s cat!!!

SPENCER

Trust me it's not, when we came to the scene we made sure to grab that little guy and put him in witness protection at an animal shelter. ANITA Shame... I kind of hate him.

SPENCER shakes his head at ANITA'S words and lowers a duffle bag on the ground and shuffle through it's contents. He takes out a knife with a cross handle a small pouch of some kind of powder and a small bottle full of holy water which he tosses to ANITA.

SPENCER

You'll be needing that.

ANITA opens the top of the bottle and sits on the side of an over turned couch.

ROGER

Spence can you toss me the rifle.

SPENCER

I will HAND you the rifle. (Scholarly)

Gun safety first.

After SPENCER hands the rifle to ROGER after a little bit of sass, he opens the pouch and starts to make a circle on a part of floor that he cleared out of salt. Once done he motions to ANITA to sit in the circle.

SPENCER (Cut off)

Now Anita remember what I said on the way over here…

ANITA

I know, don't leave the circle until the beast is slain

(Uneasy)

I still don't see the safety in this.

ROGER

Chupacabra's are essentially demons. Exotic... But nonetheless demons.

ANITA

How the hell can salt stop a demon!?

SPENCER

Well... It was blessed by a priest.

ANITA

Oh my god…

ROGER sighs in exasperation and goes over to ANITA placing his hands on her shoulders.

ROGER

Trust us... We know what we are doing.

ANITA

I don't doubt that...

ROGER But?

ANITA

I just don't trust myself to stay in this circle when it comes for me.

SPENCER

It'll be OK Anita.

You'll see.

(Thumbs up)

ANITA

I just don't want you guys to get hurt I guess... I mean... fuck... I was supposed to leave town today!

ROGER

(Discouraged)

We promise to get this taken care quickly so that you may leave tomorrow morning.

ROGER leaves the room after comforting ANITA. She hears the disappointment in his tone and watches him as he leaves. SPENCER pretends not to notice anything. However, ANITA attempts to get answers for ROGER'S behavior. ANITA

This may be a dumb question.

SPENCER Hm? ANITA

Does Roger like me?

SPENCER

(Amused)

That is a dumb question.

SPENCER looks at the door to make sure his partner isn't listening.

SPENCER

The kid lost someone to a beast worse than this one... My guess is that you kind of remind him of her.

ANITA (Avoiding)

Does your wife hate your job?

SPENCER (Amused)

As a matter of fact my HUSBAND, loves what I do.

OH!

ANITA (Surprised)

SPENCER (Laughs)

Listen... Go easy on the kid.

ANITA I...

SPENCER

I'm not asking you to start anything with him... Just... After this... Talk to him.

SPENCER hands ANITA a walkie talkie pats her on the back and exits. ANITA looks around with unease and sits on the floor in the middle of the salt circle waiting for her "doom".

The gang waited for about 30 longs minutes. ANITA at this point bit her nails down to the skin, the bottle of holy water clutched in her hand.

EXT. ANITA'S HOUSE

SPENCE and ROGER stood outside on the lawn waiting to take action at a moments notice.

INT. ANITA'S HOUSE

While ANITA waits she hears something rustle inside of the kitchen. She stands quickly and listens again. A growl echos towards the front room of the house. She picks picks up the walkie talkie from the floor in the safety of the salt circle and begins to contact the others.

ANITA (Shaky)

It's in the house now... It's moving towards the front of the house.

ROGER (Radio)

We are on our way.

SPENCER

Do not leave the circle!

ANITA lowers the radio and turns to face the entrance towards the kitchen. From the darkness two yellow eyes stare back at her. She bends down to pick up the bottle of holy water careful not to make any sudden movements. The lamp bulb breaks because of the energy now radiating the room. The only light that can be seen is what's coming from the streetlights and moon from outside.

ANITA (Whispers)

Roge... Hurry…

At her whisper the beast moves into the slim light, the light bouncing off it's ugly built frame. It looked like a ugly hairless dog yet it's back was raised to pounce like a lion. It's feet sure enough had three razor like nails shooting from its paws. Drool was coming from it's mouth as it was staring ANITA down... It wanted dinner.

ANITA

It really is ugly.

ANITA raises the bottle of holy water ready to toss some at the Chupacabra. Just then the door burst open and the beast leapt at ANITA but stopped mid air not able to penetrate an invisible barrier that was surrounding her.

SPENCER

I CANT SEE SHIT... LIGHT THE FUCKEN LANTERN ROGE! ROGER (frustrated)

DON'T WAIT FOR ME!

Once ROGER light the room ANITA splash water in the beasts face. It squirms and uses it's paw to clear it's face. By the time it recovers ROGER and SPENCE gather themselves together and ROGER points the rifle at the beast shooting it in the head. Incapacitated more SPENCER jabs his knife into it's heart and kills it. It's blood like thick black tar layers itself on the wooden floor.

ANITA (Confused)

That seemed really easy?

ROGER

(Breathing hard)

Almost too easy.

SPENCER

It's smaller than the other's we've killed don't you think Roge?

ANITA steps out of the salt circle

ANITA (Sarcastically)

This is what you call small?

As the three stand over the dead beast they hear a growl come from behind. Slowly they turn around, a bigger uglier beast stands before them.

SPENCER

Looks like we killed the baby.

ROGER (Panicked but softly)

ANITA slowly get back into the circle.

The beast doesn't wait and leaps into the air and lands on ANITA knocking SPENCER and ROGER out of the way.

ROGER NO!!!

ANITA shields her face with one arm while trying to keep the beasts fangs at bay. Unfortunately it's claws were digging at her body scratching her horribly as she screams out in pain.

SPENCER

(Gritted teeth)

Son of a bitch!

ROGER shoots the beast in the face just as it clamps it's fangs into ANITA'S arm. He quickly crawls to her during the beasts confusion and tries to unclasp it's jaw. SPENCER comes to his senses and wobbles over.

SPENCER

(Hurt)

Cover your eyes Anita…

ANITA follows his instructions with her one free arm. SPENCER calculates and stabs the beast in the head. Some blood gushes onto ANITA.

ANITA (Spitting)

My arm still isn't free!!!

ROGER I got it!

Pulling a knife out of a holster from his shoe he cuts a the Chupacabra's jaw. Poor ANITA was getting drenched in tar blood. Once her arm was free she and ROGER push the beast off of her.

SPENCER

I just called our medical team and clean up crew. They should be here shortly... Help her clean up a bit before they get here Roge.

ANITA sits up disgusted, ROGER helps her up and helps her carefully to the nearest bathroom and helps her sit in the tub. ANITA cradles her arm as ROGER turns on the water to help her rinse off.

ROGER (Sadly)

I'm sorry you got hurt.

ANITA

It's not your fault... I left the circle.

ROGER

It could have gone a lot worse.

ANITA places a hand on ROGER'S face

ANITA (Comforting)

Hey... We got the beast didn't we?

ROGER (Cutoff)

Anita…

SPENCER walks in on their moment, ANITA pulls her hand away.

SPENCER

(Awkwardly)

They're here.

ANITA turns back to ROGER

ANITA

Help me to get to the ambulance, yea?

ROGER helps ANITA get up and out of the tub. Several paramedics meet her at the bottom of the stairs. They sit her on a gurney and lift her to take her to the truck.

EXT. ANITA'S HOUSE

ANITA and ROGER sit together while the doors are open, a paramedic is doing pre procedures on ANITA'S arm. SPENCER comes over with a man at his side.

SPENCER (Happily)

Anita, I would like you to meet my husband.

ANITA

Oh?... Hey!

They shake hands.

JONAH

Hello Anita! It's nice to meet you!

SPENCER

Jonah here is in charge of the cleanup and remodeling.

JONAH

That's right... Now did your parents use lots of Martha Stuart or Wayfair?

ANITA

(Happily)

I honestly don't know.

JONAH

Well I'll try to make it look like how it originally did.

ANITA

Thank you!

SPENCER

Babe let's leave these kids alone now.

SPENCER pulls JONAH'S arm while he protests.

ROGER (Calm)

They are good people. ANITA (Calm)

Yes they are.

PARAMEDIC (Authoritative)

Time to take off to the hospital. ANITA (Smiles)

Looks like you got be for a few more days Roge.

ROGER

I could get used to it.

The ambulance doors close and the vehicle drives off.

For more information on author Brooke Fauver, please visit our

SCRIPTS CONTRIBUTORS

Robert Caisley

Robert Caisley was born in Rotherham, England. His plays have been performed across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom and translated into Italian and French. In 2014 he was nominated for a Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Original Script for his play Happy, which won the 2014 SOTA Award for Best Play, the 2014 BroadwayWorld – New Jersey Award for Best Play, and was a 2012 Finalist for both the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s New Play Conference and the Woodward/Newman Award for Drama. He premiered two plays this year—The Open Hand at Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, TN and A Masterpiece of Comic… Timing at B Street Theatre in Sacramento, CA. Both be published by Samuel French, Inc. later this year. Other plays include: The Lake (Walnut Street Theatre, Mill Mountain Theatre.) Robert teaches playwriting at the University of Idaho.

Max Cano

Max Cano is an Interdisciplinary artist with a focus in theatre and film. He graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelors in Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance. When it comes to the content behind his work, he is very driven behind the ideas of psychology, religion, and consciousness. He also implements phenomenon in his art that can be more philosophical than scientific. The Green Mirror is a short film Cano wrote, directed, and acted in for his Senior Project. The story deals with the fragility of memory, happiness, and the strength of human relationships. This piece hopefully will leave the audience looking back at themselves, and will highlight the lengths we will go for each other.

Brooke Fauver

Brooke Fauver is a Junior at Arizona State University in the Film and Media Studies Program through the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. She is an aspiring screenwriter and director. She draws her inspiration from her hometown of El Paso, Texas and her Mexican heritage to influence her writing. Brooke Fauver’s two pieces “Three Scratch Marks” and “Conversations with a Gun” were written to further her degree progress, as well as for potential projects. She hopes to start a career in TV then aspires to move to making films.

Kaitlin Thern and Rome Johnson

Kaitlin Thern and Rome Johnson are both seniors at Arizona State University and are the copresidents of ASU West’s queer and trans club, Spectrum. These two have been collaborating on scripts and fictional short stories since they were fifteen years old, living on opposite sides of the country. Their relationship was made stronger by their mutual love of creating worlds, characters, and stories, which is why they write many of their works under the penname “Union”. They are currently working on a novel for NaNoWriMo, and they hope that their stories can expand their reach and allow them to engage with readers and writers around the globe. When they aren’t writing, Kaitlin and Rome spend their time preparing for graduation, playing D&D, planning their wedding, and taking care of their hamster, Karen.

A Shadow of Memories by Alexis Thacker

ARTWORK

Kyle DeClerck

Gloria Cuádraz

Lindsay Marcus

Melissa Kruger

Li Mahalik

Alexis Thacker

William C. Crawford

Jacklyn Anderson

Bill Meister

Melissa Walter

Giada Cattaneo

Suzanne De Keizer

Joshuat Nava

Katie Howard

Letty Guerra

Kristina Strava

Joshua Herron

Nico Anjelo De Garriz

Keith Laber

Allen Forrest

Celeste Byers

Aaron Glasson

Byers & Glasson

Sean Burdeaux

Yvonne by Celeste Byers

(See Artwork for full image)

Kyle DeClerck

Composed of nuances, patterns and abstractions; the natural environment is ever moving and changing. The purpose of Kyle DeClerck's photography is to empirically render on film such abstractions and distinctions as he interprets them. With a background in photography and studio art, DeClerck's photographic foundation is in the large format process. Kyle works with a diverse selection of chemical based photographic mediums and processes. To see more work visit www.kyledeclerck.com

Colliding tectonic plates thrusting Precambrian metamorphic rock vertically through sheets of limestone and granite gave birth to one of Earthʼs most impressive mountain systems. Extending from northern Alaska to New Mexico, North Americaʼs western Rocky Mountains and surrounding ranges are made up of rugged remote peaks and valleys. Due to extreme geographic nature and size, the majority of these mountain environments remain predominantly unexplored and undocumented. This ongoing body of work portrays realistic peculiarities unique to individual mountains and their surrounding ecosystems.

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Sea level: Film

Alder. Chugach Mountain, Alaska. Eleva8on ≈ 875' : Film

Byron Glacier. Chugach Mountain, Alaska. Elevation ≈ 430': Film

Alpine moss, Alaska Range. Elevation ≈ 3,300': Film

Coastal grass. Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Sea level: Film

Birch. Chugach Mountain, Alaska. Elevation ≈ 900': Film

Gloria Cuádraz

I am originally from the borderlands of Imperial Valley, California. I moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1994 to accept a faculty position at Arizona State University, where I am an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies. A scholar by day and an artist anytime I can squeeze it in, I resumed my interest in art in the late 1990s and ended up more interested in oil painting than other mediums. I find my inspiration from fellow artists as much as I do from the “greats.” I particularly enjoy painting in bold and warm colors-- colors found in Mexican pottery and old clay bowls-- objects made and shaped by the labor

of human hands. In keeping with my love for all things old, many of the objects in my still lifes are antiques. I enjoy painting florals as well and am comfortable working from photographs, although I much prefer painting from live set-ups. My scholarly interest in the history of Mexican labor in Arizona has also led me to begin painting workers in various contexts. If I can capture a moment of beauty, light, and a sense of the labor that allows us to enjoy those moments, I am more than complete.

Flower Worker of Carlsbad : Painting

Fiesta de Colores : Painting

Grandmother’s Kitchen : Painting

Lindsay Marcus

I am a senior at Northern Arizona University, majoring in Photography with a minor in Communications. I have been a photographer for five years now. I have my own little small business called LN Photography. When I’m not busy with school, work, or my photography, you can always find me outdoors. Whether it’s hiking, mountain biking, or laying around in my hammock.

Life in the Fast Lane: Digital

Hidden, but Still In Sight : Digital

Moment of Realization: Digital

First Sign of Winter : Digital

Melissa Kruger

Originally from Southern California, I moved to Utah five years ago to pursue a B S in Mathematics and am currently back in school to get my B.F.A. in Graphic Design at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, UT. Most of my pieces were taken in Swaziland or South Africa where I photographed wildlife and everyday life of those living nearby. Although I do have a small photography business, I mostly take pictures for pure enjoyment. Some of my other passions include web design, serving others abroad, taking my cat on walks and attending concerts.

Li Mahalik

Artist’s Statement

A painter’s eye helps us see the world through a fresh, magical filter. In a glance, our eyes can register millions of bits of information. It can also help us decide in a split second if we love what we see. The visual world is full of beauty and surprises in places large and small, created by the light and the subtle shadows that follow. The light helps us identify and enjoy what’s surrounding us. Allowing our brain to feel, see and transform beyond the everyday objects using beautiful colors, shapes, values, and lines, is another way of seeing life with an artist’s eye. Nothing can be more impressionistic than an abstract, because our inner sense of beauty resonant in a heartbeat with what we see and love without words. Abstraction is a powerful tool for transformation. In my world, art is about expressing the senses of beauty and the wonders of the mind.

Education

Arizona State University B.A. in Painting

Studies at Scottsdale Art School

For more information, visit www.LiMahalikArt.com

The Merchant II : Oil on Canvas

Mona’s Migration: Oil on Canvas

Notebook : MM with acrylic, charcoal, and paper

Alexis Thacker

Alexis Thacker is an interdisciplinary artist and ASU graduate based in Phoenix, Arizona.

William C. Crawford

William C. Crawford is a writer and photographer based in Winston-Salem, NC. He was a combat photojournalist in Vietnam. He has published extensively in various formats including fiction, creative nonfiction, memoirs, book reviews, and essays. His new book is highlighted elsewhere on this site. He had a parallel career as a social worker and community organizer. There, he wrote biting editorials on behalf of the powerless, such as abused children, the frail elderly, and victims of enforced state sterilizations. He is known as Crawdaddy to his yellow Lab, Scout.

Rusting Miner’s Truck in Golden Hour : Digital Photography

Sprawling Wall : Digital Photography

Urban Slot Canyon : Digital Photography

Euclid Street Relic : Digital Photography

Desert Water Hole : Digital Photography

Sydney Harbor Nocturnal : Digital Photography

Desert Water Hole in Monochrome : Digital Photography

Mt. Whitney in Winter : Digital Photography

Crawdaddy’s Office Window : Digital Photography

Backstairs Funk: Digital Photography

Wrecked Car Fender As Modern Art: Digital Photography

Jacklyn Anderson

Jacklyn Anderson hobby is taking pictures of birds. Along with birding and photography, she likes to hike, write and spend time outside. Visiting all the national parks in the USA is on her bucket list. So far, she has been to 20 out of 59. Her most important accomplishment is her family, which includes six children and 12 grandchildren. In 2002, she graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Integrative Studies. She volunteers at the Desert Botanical Garden.

Snowy Egret Reflection: Digital Photogaphy

Bill Meister

Bill Meister was born in Pasadena, CA., and has resided in Riverside, CA, for the majority of his life. Bill is retired now after serving 25 years in law enforcement, currently living in the small community of Idyllwild, CA. Bill began his interest in photography during his junior high school days; taking photography classes, learning the basics of photography and how to develop his own film. He says, this has never been more than a hobby and he enjoys sharing his work with others through social media or photo albums. He finds great joy in photographing nature, above and below the oceans as well as landscapes and aviation, with an occasional portrait here and there. Bill says he tries to include photography in all he does, whether it be mountain biking, scuba diving or for a day hike, regardless of where he goes or what he does, rest assure, his camera will be close in hand.

Scripts pier at sunset, San Diego Ca.

Fern Falls in Yosemite National Park, Ca

My pet Blue and Gold McCaw named Harpo

Abandoned rail line, running through the mountains of the Imperial Valley, Ca

Winter in Rifle, Colorado

Early morning at Convict Lake, Mammoth Ca.

Christmas Tree Worms on Polyp Corals off the coast of Cozumel Mexico

Spotted Moray among the Polyp corals, off the coast of Bonaire

A pair of Gray Angel fish, off the coast of Cozumel Mexico

Coral heads and red sponge off the coast of Curacao

Beechcraft airplane in the early morning sun at Chino Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino Ca.

An old barn I spotted as I drove through Minnesota

Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is a San Diego contemporary, abstract artist of geometric shapes in balance, often mimicking the structures of astrophysical objects. Her work is characterized by hard angles, symmetry, and an obsessive dot-work shading technique. After graduating with a B.F.A., cum laude from the University of Rhode Island in 1998, Walter worked as a graphic designer, social media administrator, and science illustrator for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Recently, she stepped away from the first two responsibilities to dedicate more time to her personal artwork. However, she also continues to be a science illustrator for various

NASA missions, illustrating the wonders of the Universe such as black holes, supernovas, and neutron stars. In May 2016, Walter exhibited her work at Teros Gallery in a solo show called “A New Stellar Order.” This collection was heavily influenced by the extraordinary, astronomical objects she studies in her work with NASA. Her pieces have also shown in other San Diego galleries, including La Bodega Gallery, Vishuddha Creatives, Thumbprint Gallery, Gallery D, and San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. You will soon see Walter’s installation and 2D work in the gallery at the San Diego International Airport, for their upcoming “Intergalactic Dreaming” exhibit.

Spiral Galaxy: Drawing

I Grow From Your Heart: Drawing

Geometry of a Fallen Tree : Drawing

Spiral Galaxy with Dark Matter: Drawing

Giada Cattaneo

I am an Italian illustrator and a word-lover with a strong Italian accent. Someone calls me "Honey Jade." I moved to Miami after completing my Bachelor's degree in History of Contemporary Art at the University of Bologna. I have collaborated with many editors and publishers in Italy: Enrico Folci Editore (Roma), SensoInverso Edizioni (Ravenna), UAOEdizioni (L'Aquila), Eventualmente Edizioni (Palermo), Freaks Edizioni (Faenza), Cacofonico Editore( Faenza), Fermenti Editrice (Roma), Progetto Flaneri Edizioni (Roma), Zacem Cultural Association (Savona), L'URLO Magazine (Ancona), il Cacofonico Magazine (Faenza). In the United States, my illustrations have been published in :Fourteen Hills Magazine ( San Francisco

State University), Mantis (Stanford University), Black Scat Review, Meat for Tea Magazine, The writing disorder, Puerto del Sol ( New Mexico State University), The B'K bitchin' kitsch, Sincerely Magazine, The Fem Magazine, 13th Floor Magazine (University of Nebraska).

My website is www.honeyjade.com

The

Suzanne De Keizer

The Body Positive Project was created to spread love and positivity. So many people are unhappy with their bodies, whether they think they are too old or too fat or too tall or too whatever. The media has warped our sense of beauty to unattainable standards. With my Project, I aim to break those standards. In the summer of 2017, I will be publishing a zine featuring people of all different body types, ages, backgrounds, sexuality, cultures and styles. Each and every one of them is beautiful in their own way. I want to help people fall in love with themselves again. I want to show that there isn’t just one kind of beauty.

Joshuat Nava

Joshuat Nava is a travel, fashion, and concert photographer from San Diego, California. For more about the artist, follow him on Instagram at @nava_photography.

Katie Howard

Katie Howard is a San Diego born and raised illustrator who received her Bachelor in Fine Arts from San Diego State University in 2013. Although having practiced many classic mediums, illustration is the tool she always goes back to. Her illustrative styles have evolved but she has stayed true to a surrealistic narrative nature. Currently, running the Alternative Arts shop, Little Dame, Katie practices curating and representing current artists around the country. She recently curated a taxidermy installation in the Museum of Photography with business partner Simone Weinstein Grossman. Since the opening of Little Dame in November of 2015, Katie has created a product line highlighting her illustrative works called CrimsinClover, where she practices creating products that feature current work. Katie is a singer of two San Diego bands: Big Bloom, of a surf metal genre, and Citrus, a soul and funk fusion band. For more about Katie, visit: www.crimsinclover.com and www.littledameshop.com

Record Player

Letty Guerra

Letty Guerra was born, raised and still resides in the small farming community known as the Imperial Valley located on the southernmost part of California close to the Mexican border. Although she has always liked to be creative with projects such as sewing and scrapbooking while she was a stay-at-home mother raising her four daughters, it wasn’t until 2009 when she got her first DSLR camera as a Mother’s Day gift. Ever since that day, photography has grown in her heart as much as the crops grow in the Imperial Valley soil! As her daughters all make their way into adulthood, Letty has dedicated more and more of her time to photography. She is now the owner of a photography studio in her hometown of Brawley, California. Her portfolio is now quite filled with photographs of families, seniors, sports, weddings and events. Recently though, in her off time not spent at the studio, she enjoys photographing the world through her macro lens. “It’s just so beautiful when you can see the detail.” she says. “I love the beauty of art in everyday things we usually take for granted.”

www.lettyguerraphotography.com

Kristina Strava

Kristina Strava recently graduated from the Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance program at Arizona State University. In the arts, her passion is in technical production, film and photography. In both film and photography, she mainly loves to capture the beauty in nature and people in our world who serve and help others. The photo, A Servant’s Hands, captures a servant of God, helping a man build and giving the man a new place to live. People come together to change one man's life. This picture and The Dolphins at Dana Point are some of Kristina Strava's best works.

Servant Hands : Digital Photo

Dolphins of Dana Point : Digital Photography

Joshua Herron

Between working minimum wage and studying computer science full-time at Imperial Valley College, Joshua was finding little time for photography in his life. To compensate for the time invested in school and work, he would often go out in the middle of the night, resulting in shots like this one. With the help of friends, he was able to create this photo just off of Osborne Overlook (on California Route 78) by lighting steel wool and spinning it toward his subject, throwing a rain of sparks on her. Joshua has since left his job as a sandwich artist to pursue a side career as a photographer to support himself through college. He has so far received a grand-prize award in his school's student art exhibition, and was just able to land his first photo in a magazine for ASU. Look out world, he's going places.

You can find him on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/herron.joshua/ or on facebook at https://facebook.com/josh.herron.39

Desert Rain

Nico Anjelo De Garriz

Nico Anjelo de Garriz is an interdisciplinary artist and ASU graduate based in Glendale, Arizona.

Keith Laber

I am an emerging sculptor working primary with stone and steel, to create reminders of our human truths, and our absolute connectivity. I was born in Ironton, Ohio, which, at the city’s peak, was the foremost supplier of iron ore in the world. Iron ore is a rock from which iron is extracted to make steel. Only as an adult have I realized that the materials essential to my form of expression, rock and steel, are those that proved so viable for the town from which I came. I grew up with my twin sister, which was an extraordinary gift in so many ways. She was the first evidence of my connectedness with something outside of myself. Evidence that came from our obvious shared appearance, as well as our shared experiences, interests, thoughts and feelings. In her, I saw that I was the same, but different; me, but her as well. Our

sisterhood provided me the feeling that I was never alone in the world, and as I grew older, I began to sense those same feelings of relatedness in others. This notion of underlying connectedness became a natural expression in my work. Through sculpture, energy and intention takes the form of something familiar, accessible and tangible. Through sculpture, we see our connectivity to others, our importance and relatedness, our mutual humanness, and create from nothing, and everything, the absence of aloneness, the joining of self to the whole. Laber can be reached at 602-381-0943 or through email at kl.honestforms@gmail.com.

Fluidity 6: stone/cantera

Fluidity 1: stone/cantera

Fluidity 4: stone/cantera

Allen Forrest

Graphic artist and painter Allen Forrest was born in Canada and bred in the U.S. He has created cover art and illustrations for literary publications and books. He is the winner of the Leslie Jacoby Honor for Art at San Jose State University's Reed Magazine and his Bel Red painting series is part of the Bellevue College Foundation's permanent art collection. Forrest's expressive drawing and painting style is a mix of avant-garde expressionism and post-Impressionist elements reminiscent of van Gogh, creating emotion on canvas. The artwork here is part of his London Noir series.

Art website (pain0ngs for sale):

h8p://allen-forrest.fineartamerica.com/

Celeste Byers

Celeste Byers is an avid nature worshipper and dream recaller from Ocean Beach in San Diego, California. Her work combines inspiration from the natural world, everyday life, inter-dimensional realities, and the subconscious mind, taking form in a variety of mediums including film and animation, paintings, drawings, music, murals, and sculptural installations.

After graduating with a BFA from Art Center College of Design in 2012, she has been working as an artist, freelance illustrator, designer, and muralist with a variety of individuals and companies including the New York Times, Warner Bros, American Express, PangeaSeed, Medium.com, and Lucky Peach Magazine. She has painted murals in the United States, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia.

All That Exists

Nomastay

I Dreamt There Were Tiny Orca Whales in My Hands

Shadow light

Yvonne

Blue Moon

Melt

My Friend the Hawk Moth

Flowers in the Pond

Aaron Glasson

Artist and creative director, Aaron Glasson, has a diverse portfolio that consists of vibrant murals, paintings, illustration, films and interactive installations. He is from New Zealand and now lives in San Diego, California. His work is autobiographical, inspired by his life, lives encountered, and the sometimes inexplicable nature of being. Aaron enjoys exploring the coexistence of both the unseen and the observable. Aaron is also the creative director of PangeaSeed, an international organization collaborating with members of the art, science, and environmental activist communities to raise awareness and education surrounding the conservation and preservation of threatened marine species and ecosystems.

Everything is Perfect

Mossy Rock Man

Espiritu de Mika

Senor Lavanda

Las Dimensiones

Our Molecules are Intertwined

Urani

COLLABORATION:

Celeste Byers & Aaron Glasson

Celeste Byers and Aaron Glasson live in Ocean Beach, CA. and have been collaborating since meeting in Sri Lanka in 2013. Both their collaborative and their individual art practices consist of vibrant murals, paintings, illustration, films and interactive installations. This body of work is a collection of selected paintings spanning the past three years created in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the United States, Mexico and New Zealand. The artwork takes inspiration from the natural world, everyday life, inter-dimensional realities, and the subconscious mind.

Ovni Bus : Mixed Media Mobile Installation

The Fearless Garden

Forever Dolphin Love

Auntie Fran's Adventure

Sean Burdeaux

Sean Burdeaux is an artist from San Diego, CA. In 2014 he self-published his first zine, “Pharmaceuticals, Lemonade”, and is planning to release two new collections of poetry in 2017. His work deals with anxiety, identity, and the compulsion to find/make meaning.

Feel Weird

Sean Burdeaux

Sean also releases music through numerous projects spanning a number of genres, including bedroom indie-folk ou9it Paper Forest, instrumental beat project Where The Fawn Grows, and experimental soundscapes under the name Mercury In Retrograde. He composed the soundtrack to Crimson’s Kiss, which won the Best Original Soundtrack award from the SoCal CreaLve & InnovaLve

Film Fest in 2014.

Sean manages a bike shop in a tourist town and runs www.itsokayimcrying.com, which he uses as a vehicle to present his own work and the work of other San Diego arLsts.

DIGITAL ARTS

“I Grow From Your Heart”

by Melissa Walter

(See Artwork for full image)

Ben Cleaveland

Digital Audio Recording

S!R-MUD

Digital Audio Recording & Lyrics

DJ Hoopz

Digital Audio Recordings & Motion Graphics Video

Celeste Byers

Digital Audio Recordings

Syd Lyrics

Jahfari

Digital Audio Recordings

Aaron Glasson Music Video

Chris Allen

Short Film

Ben Cleaveland

Ben Cleaveland is an interdisciplinary artist and ASU graduate based in Phoenix, Arizona.

To hear more, follow him on SoundCloud at: soundcloud.com/babenskisign

En Rojo : Digital Audio Recording

S!R-MUD

Sarmad Muhammad Khan is an interdisciplinary ar4st and ASU graduate from Karachi, Pakistan.

To hear more, follow him on SoundCloud at: soundcloud.com/sarmad-khan-2

Memories of My Dreams : Digital Audio Recording

DJ Hoopz

IN A WORLD where the oppression of creativity is an epidemic sweeping the nation, ONE man dares to rise above…

His name is Derick Douglas Washington.

Also known as DJ Hoopz, Derick is an entrepreneur, tailor, music producer, sound engineer, photographer, and cinematographer—but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It may seem like his success comes easily, but it has been a very long and troublesome road leading up to this. At the young age of 10, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. With no guarantee of tomorrow, he lived everyday like it was his last. With the power of his friends, the love of his family, and the need to discover more about life, Derick found the will to live. Now, at the age of 24, Derick remains ambitious with plans to pursue a career in the arts and also hopes to be a role model for kids that walk the same path.

For bookings and more information, please contact through email at deejayhoopz@gmail.com.

Left To Be Gods : Motion Graphic Video & Inspired Digital Audio Recording

Celeste Byers

Celeste Byers is an avid nature worshipper and dream recaller from Ocean Beach in San Diego, California. Her work combines inspiration from the natural world, everyday life, inter-dimensional realities, and the subconscious mind, taking form in a variety of mediums including film and animation, paintings, drawings, music, murals, and sculptural installations.

After graduating with a BFA from Art Center College of Design in 2012, she has been working as an artist, freelance illustrator, designer, and muralist with a variety of individuals and companies including the New York Times, Warner Bros, American Express, PangeaSeed, Medium.com, and Lucky Peach Magazine. She has painted murals in the United States, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia.

To hear more, follow her on SoundCloud at: soundcloud.com/celestebyers

Walk Home (feat. Jesus Gonzalez) : Digital Recording

Circumstances : An Original Song in Progress (Verse Rapped)

One night something crept upon me

Keep in mind the reaper sBll haunts me

Been havin' them nightmares lately

But in a beFer frame

I dreamt of hazel eyes and rain

A human being happy yet in pain Ricky Johnson was his name

Got that inked in black and grey

A liFle something for ya memory

Don't worry though

I know your story bro (Chorus Sung)

I know in life that you'll have circumstances Steady lookin' for them second chances

I lost my cuddy now he's watching over me

But you just can't quit today

There's too much that you goFa do now

I just want to make my family proud

We ain't never coming down

Na na na na...

Jahfari

CoroNation : Digital Audio Recording

Omar LyOn Bahari is an interdisciplinary ar3st and ASU graduate based in East Mesa, Arizona.

To hear more, follow him on SoundCloud at: soundcloud.com/berzerkeleymade

Me Against the World : Digital Audio Recording

Aaron Glasson

Artist and creative director Aaron Glasson's diverse portfolio consists of vibrant murals, paintings, illustration, films and interactive installations. He is from New Zealand and now lives in San Diego, California.

His work is autobiographical, inspired by his life, life encountered and the sometimes inexplicable nature of being. Exploring the coexistence of the unseen and the observed.

Aaron is also the creative director of PangeaSeed, an international organization collaborating with members of the art, science, and environmental activist communities to raise awareness and education surrounding the conservation and preservation threatened marine species and ecosystems.

Understanding (of What Shall Not Be Understood) : Music Video

Chris Allen

Pursuing a career in modern cinema, Christopher Allen is a recent alumnus of ASU’s IAP program with a focus in Film and Digital Media. Striving for creative liberty and in the hopes of enhancing and mastering his craft, he aspires to attend UCLA’s Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media. Using a camera with the precision of a paintbrush, Chris conveys his ideas in hopes of superlative results.

Screen Captures from Angst

Angst : Short Film

On his deathbed, coping with regret and misery, Mr. Joshua Adams engages in a debate with his subconscious in the form of an old remnant of his past.

Chris Allen

AUTHOR’S ALCOVE

Manny Felix

Think Like A Writer

Gary Lawrence discusses genre and the writing practice

Brittany Sheldahl

Dinner and an Interview

Talking heritage and organization with Brooke Fauver

Sarah Edwards

‘Never Stop Never Stopping’

Steven Luna puts outside interests aside and keeps on writing

London Noir AF 2 by Allen Forrest

(See Artwork for full image)

Think Like A Writer

Manny Felix Chats with Gary Lawrence

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? How long have you been writing?

I am originally from Rockford, IL, a city of about 130K people just west of Chicago. I was originally born in France while my dad was stationed there in the Air Force. I was born a couple months premature at an air force base in southern France. I grew up in Rockford, attended public schools there and graduated from Rockford College – a small liberal arts school also there – with a BA in English, and a secondary teaching certificate that I never used. I worked 30 years for a local aerospace manufacturer, and retired at 54 to earn my MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2011.

I’ve been teaching college composition and creative writing classes since.

Growing up, we always got books for Christmas, and my mom always had books laying around. I didn’t really start writing seriously till I took a couple creative writing classes at Rockford College, and then in the mid 1990s I entered a few “spontaneous” writing contests sponsored by the Rockford Writer’s Guild. They gave you a prompt at 9:00 am that you had to incorporate into a story that you had to turn in by noon. I placed in the top three places 3 out of 4 years, and won once -- but then never really did any more serious writing until I started my MFA program in 2009.

Life kept getting in the way.

Did you excel in creative writing as an adolescent or was your passion in another subject?

I have always been passionate about reading, and read many biographies as a kid. But I

Gary Lawrence’s work appears in the Fiction and Creative Nonfiction sections of this issue

wasn’t really serious about literature or writing until college, and even then it took my MFA program in my mid fifties for me to really work to be a writer.

A funny story about me and the MFA (Masters of Fine Arts degree). I took the MFA track not because I wanted to be a writer – it was more that I didn’t want to be just another researcher that did yet another few papers on Shakespeare et al. And deep down, I thought an MFA would be easier.

Boy, was I wrong.

You released Baffled, your self-published, hard-copy collection of stories, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Baffled was the collection of works for my MFA program at VCFA, give or take. I decided to selfpublish when I wasn’t allowed to overrule the edits of my original publisher. Little did I realize the stigma that still surrounds self-published materials in the literary world – it’s getting better, and closer to equal billing -- but it has a long

ways yet to go and many “power’ paradigms to overcome.

The MFA program at Vermont College was a two-year low-residency program broken down into four semesters. Every six months, you met on the Montpelier campus with your classmates, the mentor/instructors (all working writers) and administrators for a 10-day “intensive” consisting of writing, workshopping, instructor and student talks, and graduation. Each student was assigned a mentor/instructor every six months to work with –you submitted monthly packets of writing and reflection, got comments for improvement, then got another mentor for the next semester at the 10-day “intensive.”

Part of the degree requirements was to write a creative thesis – a collection of the works you wrote during the program. Baffled was basically that creative thesis, revised and tightened. I selfpublished the hard-copy book in 2013, with the production assistance of Tim Johnston of Short Story America. It is a collection of stories, exercises, an interview and an essay or two – I had originally hoped to teach a creative writing curriculum from it – which I am doing now on my own in workshops here in Sierra Vista.

What was your inspiration for writing "Famous?"

The inspiration for “Famous,” like many of my stories, was how I experienced growing up in my family and my home town, Rockford. Baffled and “Famous” especially was a form of narrative therapy for me: my experiences with my father and family and Rockford formed the base, and I compressed and created and conjured a bit here and there to make these experiences “literary.”

What do you find most satisfying about writing creative nonfiction?

I have to admit that when I first write a story, I don’t know whether it will turn out as fiction or creative nonfiction, since so many of my stories have a bit (or a lot) of autobiography in them. Perhaps a part of writing a story that is most satisfying to me is first to get the story of what actually happened down – that is the therapeutic part – then shaping those ideas into something

that is literary, something that will not only interest others but will also help them experience what I experienced. In this way, my readers and I are often able to make connections to some larger truths about us all.

Could you explain a little about your writing process? How do you approach new ideas?

As stated, many if not most of my ideas start with a scene or an event that usually happened to me. That idea rattles around in my head and pops up often enough that I start to pay more attention to it. Indeed, if I try to forget about it, it just comes back stronger – like a mosquito. The idea kicks around and sticks around usually until I write it down, or another idea pops in and joins

I have to admit that when I first write a story, I don’t know whether it will turn out as fiction or creative nonfiction

the orbits of the first idea my mind, like two BBs in a tin can. To me, this is when I know I have a story idea – two ideas connect in a way I didn’t see before.

Two BBs, of course, are louder and more annoying than just one, so I am usually forced to write them down to get them to be quiet. In the process of writing them down, or capturing the main scene or event or idea, I have to fill in with situation or back story or other, so while I have an inspiration I don’t always know exactly where I am going, and try to stay open to other ideas that occur to me in the process of writing them down/capturing those main ideas.

The most important part of my process, perhaps, is that I (1) try to capture the ideas in a story form, however rough, in one writing, and (2) let that draft sit for as long as I can – usually

a minimum of a few days but often weeks or months, and in some case, years. After that, it is a cycle of “revise, revise, revise” and “wait, wait, wait.” I have been working on some stories, some published, some not, for ten or more years.

Another important part of the process, for me, inspired by Mark Twain, who took 10 years or more to write “Huckleberry Finn,” is to always have stories in many different stages to work on – that way, whether your Creative Guy or your Judge shows up when you’re ready to write, you always have something to work on.

You have won many awards for your writing, is there one you’re most proud of?

You mean besides being selected to be included in Canyon Voices? This is my first CNF publication/selection, and I am pretty excited about that.

I think awards and even publishing itself shouldn’t be the goal of creative writing, because you have so little control or influence on those items – but yes, awards and being

published are gratifying and an affirmation of what I am trying to do and say. Two “awards” stick out: Getting my first story, ‘Why I’m Here” published by Short Story America, getting that call; and most recently, placing first and second with “BJ” and “Kid Brother” in Cochise County’s 2016 Creative Writing Celebration’s fiction contest. We just recently moved here recently, and this was a strong affirmation that I am in the right place for me.

Any new stories you have been working on recently?

There’s always new stories – but as Louise Erdrich once said in an interview, “I’m still writing the same story I’ve been writing all my life.” The theme just takes on different shapes.

My most recent story, in the dormant “waiting” stage at the moment, is about an incident in Walmart where I got behind a mom and baby new to the food stamp program here in AZ, and the reactions of the customers and employees to that. Another story-in-the-works is getting injured playing with some boyhood friends when I was 8 or 9 – in a place we weren’t supposed to be playing. I’m also a little stuck on a story about getting injured while building pole barns (tried to cut my hand off) – but it’ll come.

Gotta trust that process.

Any plans for releasing another book?

Nothing solid yet, but my original goal in Baffled was to write a short story sequence, a series of stories held together by a common story arc (see Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine or Stuart Dybek’s Coast of Chicago or I Sailed With Magellan). Like a novel, but where each “chapter” I ALSO a stand-alone short story. Baffled didn’t quite make it in this regard because not all the stories are related; so since then, since Baffled was published, I’ve been writing stories to sort of “fill the gap” and complete the sequence. I have about a half-

cozen new stories to pick from now, so I’m probably pretty close.

In your opinion, what makes good creative nonfiction stand out?

To me what makes any good writing stand out is its effect on the reader. I’m also a fan of Hemingway and Carver and Amy Hempel and other minimalist writers, so getting the most impact with the fewest words and/or explanations scores points with me. As a reader I’d much rather be shown one thing and make my own conclusions as to what it means without being “told” so much in so many words by the author. I like to stretch as a reader and to stretch readers as a writer to make them think for themselves. But I also realize that this doesn’t happen on its own, and that writing craft and techniques have a large part here. There is nothing quite so satisfying to me than finding a clue in a piece of writing that was there all along, that the writer either intentionally or unintentionally put there for me to find, that parts the seas and makes the connections that make a story make even more sense.

An example of this is perhaps in order. “Famous,” the story selected for Canyon Voices,

can be seen as a father/son story and/or a dysfunctional family story. In one spot, it mentions the Grandfather’s dog Buddy, and how the grandfather had a picture of Buddy in his wallet when he died. In a climactic scene later, the boy in the story wonders if his dad has a picture of their dog in his wallet? Finally, near the end, at an impromptu family meeting after years apart, the boy (now a man) asks his father if he wants to see some family photos. “Famous” replies, “Do I look like a picture kind of guy to you?” The impact of dogs on a family, the kind of love a family has or doesn’t have for one another, the collateral effects of such affections or absence of affections generation after generation isn’t stated – but all these ideas are there, and the image of “pictures” carries it along.

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

If you mean by ego you mean self-confidence, then I’d say yes, self-confidence helps a writer. Indeed, self-confidence in your own voice and ability is sometimes all you have.

If on the other hand by “big ego” you mean the inability to listen and change your writing for the

better, then my answer is no, a big ego hurts a writer.

I think Wallace Stegner said it best: The difference between a good writer and a great writer is the ability to revise their own work. To me this includes not only the ability to change, but also an attitude that is open to change and at least considers and weighs any suggestion for improvement. Be humble as a writer, in the best sense: The root of the word “humility” is “humus”: open to growth.

It can be fun to write under a pen name? Have you? If not, what would it be?

I have written under a pen name, and sometimes use it in my classes to disguise my own works so as not to intimidate the students or impact their ability to point out what could be improved in a piece. It is a bit fun and very gratifying to hear their reactions and insights into one of my own stories –even if I disagree with them, they’re still reacting and thinking, and they make me think -- which is always good.

I’m not going to tell you what that pen name is.

But let’s expand this idea. I can also see how writing under a pen name can be not only rewarding and can even make the writing possible – especially in CNF. I heard a talk once at VCFA about masks, the kind you put over your face, and how we can look for ideas about what to write, what our secrets really are, if we could put on a mask and not be “discovered.” It is a way to become more true to our own stories. In CNF as well, I see a related “mask” in changing names, changing sexes, changing exact situations in stories to protect those still living or innocent that were involved.

Finally, another form of a “mask” is to write in the second-person “you.” Pick someone you want to talk to but for some reason can’t or won’t. Tell them what you really think. Could be good or bad or angry or sad or endearing – but it will almost always be packed with emotion, emotion you might not know you have. Writing in second person “you” is a great way to connect yourself with your deepest feelings. My story ‘You Just Had To Do It, Didn’t You?” is one example of this – a young boy addresses his mostlyabsent father in a “letter” of sorts.

Anything you would like to add?

I think separating and comparing fiction to CNF can be futile on the one hand, but interesting and rewarding on the other. To me, all writing is writing -- even the aerospace technical writing I did for thirty years had a process and approach and sense of creativity and innovation that I still rely on today in my teaching and creative writing. To me, the difference between CNF and fiction is one of degree: Is your work 30% true and 70% fiction? Is it the other way around? I might go as far as saying that all creative works have an element of “true life” in them: That’s what makes it possible to effect our readers. Even the most bizarre, far-out sci-fi has an element of human nature in it. Look at Bradbury, Serling, Vonnegut, Asimov, Clark, Lucas – others.

Random question - Metallica or Megadeath?

OK -- had to look these up! Not into thrash metal, so can’t pick. My musical tastes go back further, to the likes of the Beatles and Three Dog Night and Blood Sweat and Tears and Chicago. I can also be caught listening to the classics on the local NPR station. ■

Dinner and an Interview

Brittany

I started my interview with Brooke sitting in our living room in our sweats together while we were both eating dinner.

So Brooke, you have not one but two pieces accepted into this issue of CANYON VOICES, how does that feel?

It’s unreal. It really is unreal. I didn't think anything I wrote for fun would get any type of attention to be honest.

Sheldahl talks to Brooke Fauver Brooke Fauver’s screenplays are featured in the Scripts section.

Why not?

That’s a really good question. I guess because they’re kind of out there topics. You need to find your audience.

Isn’t that the point though? Pushing boundaries and writing about things that haven’t been touched.

That is true, one of my pieces, Conversations with a Gun, was really hard to write. It was very personal, whereas the other was more of a fun piece to write. I guess when you get something personal that pushes boundaries, that’s where something good hits, I guess.

That’s true. Obviously it paid off though. Are you happy with that struggle of writing it?

Yes, I’m actually super proud of what I wrote.

As you said, the second piece wasn’t personal, so what inspired it.

Well I guess it is personal because I wrote it about my hometown. I heard a scary story from a teacher that used to live in El Paso called “Emily” about the Chupacabra, and that inspired me in some ways I guess. I tried to get a lot of that Mexican folklore supernatural feeling.

So are you very connected with your hometown? Do you pull a lot of your inspiration from it?

Surprisingly I do. I always wanna represent El Paso as best as I can, so I base a lot of my stories in El Paso. There’s not a lot there.

What do you mean there’s not a lot there.

Its a small city! There’s not a lot to do there. All you can really do is go to the movies. There’s only the border, the food, the people. You can only really create family dramas from that entire city. But the people have done a lot more in places that have a lot less.

I mean that’s cool that you feel connected enough to your home to weave it into all of your work intentionally.

I mean, its the only place I know inside and out. So of course, I have to do that.

I mean, obviously, El Paso doesn’t have a Chupacabra, right?

She laughed at me for a solid minute

I mean maybe, who knows

So, because I know you, I know you have Mexican heritage. Do you consciously use magical realism, or is it something that just flows out naturally when you're writing?

It really flows naturally. Most of the time I don’t even think about it, it just happens.

Because magical realism is a predominantly Mexican and Hispanic theme in writing. I wonder if it’s something that you’ve been so used to that it comes out when you write.

I have actually never thought about that before! Thats so funny. I guess it must be the folklore and growing up where I did. That’s probably why I'm so dramatic.

Do you have any screenwriters that you look up to in particular? Or a filmmaker that really inspires you?

As for screenwriters, I like Aaron Sorkin. He’s a very political writer, and he’s written A Few Good Men, several TV shows having to do with real life topics. As for directors, I like Wes Anderson, and I guess thats where most of my imagination comes from. It runs wild with his work.

Is there any specific genre you're aiming to write for?

Most of the time I want to write comedies, but I end up either writing a dark comedy or a dark drama. I can't seem to get the comedy down, it always ends up a little dark somehow.

I thought “Three Scratch Marks” was funny, but you're right, in a kinda dark way. But that’s not a bad thing.

You know, I actually didn’t think that was funny at all. I thought it was whiney and dramatic. But maybe if I tried to write a drama, maybe a comedy would come out.

You could definitely try.

So, I know you're a film student at ASU. What’s your eventual goal? Writing? Directing? A bit of it all perhaps?

Yeah, a bit of it all. Writing and directing would be the dream job I think.

You’re gonna go straight up Tarantino? With the writing and directing and the dark comedy.

You know, probably. I can see myself shocking audiences everywhere. Win an Oscar for best Blood Direction. Oh god I’m totally kidding

Do you have a writing process, or is it more of a whatever happens in the moment.

Whatever happens in the moment. Organization is for bitches. She laughs. I’m just kidding I just can’t do any type of organization while I’m writing. It just doesn’t work.

I know “Three Scratch Marks” is the potential pilot for a show, do you have any plans for continuing it?

Honestly no. But several people have mentioned that I probably should continue it. So i’m still deciding if I wanna go down that road. It’s really not my favorite thing I’ve ever written.

I guess that means people see it’s potential, and thats definitely a good thing.

It makes me proud they see its potential, I just don't see its potential.

At least if you're ever in a writer’s block, you have something to go back to.

I mean I guess. Maybe it’ll get picked up by the CW. ■

I can’t do any type of organization while I’m writing. It just doesn’t work.

‘Never Stop Never Stopping’

Sarah Edwards Chats with Steven Luna

When did you first get into writing?

I started writing when I was twelve years old. I wrote some really bad poetry, which turned into bad song lyrics, which led me to write bad short stories and better poetry in high school. I had some ideas for novels when I was in college, but I wasn't really convinced I could finish one it until I was in my mid-thirties.

Who influences your style the most?

I really love the voice Neil Gaiman wrote with in the book Stardust; I think when I write fantasy or whimsical stories, I definitely hear that cadence and delivery in my head. For contemporary things, I really can't say I have a single influence...I think I assimilate qualities of probably everything I read, and they merge into a single voice. Sometimes, it comes surprisingly close to how I speak in real life.

What inspired "Wing and Claw and Hoof and Tail?"

I was working on a collection of short stories about the ways in which having magical experiences might not be such a good thing, and the idea of a single-sentence image that moves from good to bad to potentially terrible sprang to mind. It ended up not fitting the tone of the collection so I left it out, but it was really fun to work on, so I kept going until it was finished.

Would you say that the piece "Wing and Claw and Hoof and Tail" is reflective of the rest of your work?

I'd say it's probably the most unique thing I've written; the language choice and the rhyme

scheme sort of pushed me in a direction I don't usually go with my writing. I will definitely try other experimental things because of it.

Have you been published anywhere else?

I have eight novels published through the publishing company I co-own, called Dapper Press, and more on the way. I've also been published in a few charity anthologies, and in a few issues of Canyon Voices, including a story called Keepers, which was the basis for my latest novel. My short story Last Shift was nominated for the 2013 Pushcart Prize, which was pretty incredible. What an honor that was (and still is)!

Do you have a "day job" or is writing your occupation?

Alas, I do have a day job. I program databases for a gift card company. Still hoping to be a fulltime writer when I grow up...NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING.

Steven Luna’s short story is featured in the Fiction section.

What are your aspirations as a writer?

On a very real-world level, I would love to make a living at it, and to expand my canon to include musicals, plays, screenplays, and illustrated children's books (currently working on all of those, plus more novels at the moment). On a more personal, deeper-meaning level, I hope my writing stimulates imagination and escape in my readers, makes them laugh and cry and feel all the things, and gives them a point of view of the world they might not have had otherwise.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

If you've convinced yourself that somehow you don't have time to do it, know that writing makes a wonderful replacement for television watching (or Netflix, or web-surfing, or...). It's what replaced mine when I started. Also: give yourself permission to write poorly at first, and be open to feedback from someone whose opinion you trust to be honest and helpful. It'll help you figure out what you want your voice to be, as well as what you need to work at in order to make it so.

Anything else to share?

Thanks much to CANYON V publishing the poem, and for representing the best in literature and art in Arizona and beyond. For anyone who's interested, check out thestevenluna.com or dapperpress.com to learn more about what I write, or find my work in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon. ◼︎

ABOUT US

CANYON VOICES LITERARY MAGAZINE is a burgeoning journal dedicated to displaying 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 and six students, this journal strives to bring the creativity of its writers and artists to light within the community and beyond. Supported by students and faculty of ASU’s New College (HArCS), CANYON VOICES accepts writing and art from undergraduates, graduates, faculty members, and the community.

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, offered through Arizona State University New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Students build a full literary journal each semester, heading every aspect of production, including soliciting submissions, editing, marketing, design and layout, and publication. We eagerly anticipate further involvement from students interested in magazine publication for our future issues.

OUR MISSION CONTACT US

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.

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.

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, such as grammar and punctuation. 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.

CREATIVE NONFICTION

Up to four stories per issue. Two pieces may be 20 pages.

SCRIPTS

Up to two scripts

ARTWORK

Up to ten pieces,

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.

Our editors read submissions in August, September, and October for the fall issue. The reading period re-opens in January, February, and March for the spring issue.

Julie Amparano 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, Prof. Amparano oversees the school's Writing Certificate 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.

Sarah Edwards is currently finishing up her English BA at ASU West and will be graduating this coming spring. This is her second semester with CANYON VOICES and her first semester as lead fiction editor. In addition to CANYON VOICES, she is a freelance writer and runs her own Phoenix arts and culture blog. She hopes to continue building her writing and editing career after she graduates. When she isn't reading or writing, she can be found at an event in downtown Phoenix or relaxing at home with her pup, Riley.

Sanja Gerkovic is finishing up her junior year at ASU and working towards a BA in English. She took a few detours in life, but realized that she always comes back to writing and finally settled on getting serious about pursuing her English degree. It has not always been an easy journey (as she has had to slightly tame her wanderlust in order to focus on the task at hand), but she is excited to see what new opportunities will arise after graduation. Sanja decided to work on CANYON VOICES to see if editing and publishing are areas she might pursue in the future. She is hoping that if she has learned nothing else through this process, she at least knows now that she has the discipline to focus on finishing a novel, a life long dream of hers. In her spare time, Sanja enjoys reading everything!), watching her son play baseball, and planning her next vacation.

Shaylee Williams is a junior at Arizona State University. She is in the process of earning a degree in English accompanied by a certificate in Creative Writing and Publishing. She hopes to one day become an editor or literary agent focused on Young Adult literature. She is fully convinced that young readers have the power to change the world.

Julie Amparano Founder, Publisher, Advisor

Sarah Edwards Lead Fiction Editor

Sanja Gerkovic Fiction Editor, Art Editor

Shaylee Williams Fiction Editor

Astrid Castaneda is a junior at Arizona State University majoring in English. Ironically, English was her worst subject up until a few years ago. She enjoys reading and writing creative fiction and poetry while listening to the sound waves of classical music to inspire her. Astrid hopes to get into editing and publishing after earning her B.A.

This semester marks Eric Johnson’s first semester with CANYON VOICES. He is a private guy who, as a poet, values content rather than gimmicks. In addition to poetry, he has recently added script writing to his repertoire.

Samantha Johnson is a senior at ASU and works as a Poetry Editor for CANYON VOICES She is currently pursuing her BA in English as she plans to work in Publishing or Social Media Management after finishing college. Samantha's hobbies include reading, traveling, playing sports, and listening to her favorite

Lead Poetry Editor Astrid Castaneda

Poetry Editor Samantha Johnson

Poetry Editor Eric Johnson

Lover of Bicycles, Professional Wrestling, Handheld Gaming, Heavy Metal Music, Journal Writing. Then - Now - Forever.

Ashlee Cunningham is a sophomore at Arizona State University. She is currently pursuing a degree in Film and Media Studies. She joined CANYON VOICES this semester with the hopes of learning how a magazine publication works. After taking this class she has been inspired to one day work at a top magazine publication and hopefully start her own magazine publication. She has loved being able to read so many different submissions and see into the lives of others through art and creative writing. In the spare time she occasionally has, she enjoys perusing Netflix and editing pictures on Photoshop.

Aubrey Rychen is a sophomore at Arizona State University, and is pursuing a Secondary (English) Education degree with a Writing Certificate. Aspiring to publish her work, she enjoys writing creative nonfiction and personal essays about her life, family, and experiences. She joined CANYON VOICES this semester to learn the process of editing and publishing a literary magazine so that she can take these skills and apply them to an editing profession. In her free time, Aubrey loves working with children, reading, and writing, and dreams of owning a personal library and having the perfect window seat.

Ben Stirek is a screenwriter, film buff and concert enthusiast. In CANYON VOICES he gets the opportunity to read, rate and select the best stories that come in, along with the other staff. He states that editing is a surprisingly great way to grow as a writer. Stirek is an Arizona native and plans to continue on with screenwriting and film production.

Manny Felix Creative Nonfiction Lead Editor

Ashlee Cunningham Creative Nonfiction Editor, Co-Lead Art Editor

Aubrey Rychen

Creative Nonfiction Editor, Art Editor

Ben Stirek Creative Nonfiction Editor, Art Editor

Shelby Turner is a junior at Arizona State University currently working on her BA in English. Wanting to eventually become an author, she felt joining the CANYON VOICES staff for a second semester was the perfect fit in accomplishing her goals. Shelby believes that working as a Scripts editor has had a significant role in her own writing and will always be grateful to see all sides of the editing process.

Sarina Guerra is a proud Chicana and senior at Arizona State University working towards concurrent bachelor’s degrees in Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance and Interdisciplinary Arts & Science. With the support of her family, the California native hopes to one day become enamored with a career that satisfies her creative mind, humanitarian heart, and vagabond soul. In her free time, she’s a foodie, writer, dancer, actress, photographer, existentialist, activist, adventurer and whatever the word is for a person who genuinely delights in holding pretty rocks.

Brittany Sheldahl is a senior at Arizona State University. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in English with a minor in Business and a Master's Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. She is first and foremost a writer and lover of art and took CANYON VOICES this semester to see the other side of things. Brittany hopes to one day either work as a museum curator, or as a screenwriter. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading, drawing, painting, and cooking.

Kayla Manganelli is a junior at Arizona State University. She is currently working on her BA in English with a focus on Education. She wants to, one day, become an English Literature teacher and help kids ignite a passion for the written word. In her small amounts of spare time she enjoys reading, creative writing, musical theater, punk rock and red lipstick.

Digital Arts Lead, Co-Lead Art Editor, Scripts Editor, Photographer Sarina Guerra

Scripts Editor, Art Editor

Brittany Sheldahl

Scripts Editor, Art Editor

Kayla Manganelli

Lead Scripts Editor Shelby Turner

SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED MARCH — AUGUST SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED MARCH — AUGUST