Crying & Punishment by Autumn Rose Frantz

CRYING & PUNISHMENT A Collection of Creative Misdemeanors

Maine College of Art 2015

CRYING & PUNISHMENT

CRYING & PUNISHMENT A Collection of Creative Misdemeanors

Maine College of Art 2015

ÂŠ 2015 Maine College of Art The writings in this book are the property of each respective author and may not be copied or reproduced without their permission. All rights reserved. Book design, cover design and photographs by Autumn Frantz

Foreword I am tickled magenta to introduce this publication of the 2015 edition of selected works by MECA Creative Writing students. Great thanks is due to Professor Mark Jamra and his loyal Oompa-Loompa Graphic Design students for compiling and designing the book you are now gingerly holding and cherishing. This collaboration between the Graphic Design Department and the Liberal Arts Department is the brainchild of Professor Jamra, and his vision and energy represent the interdisciplinary spirit at the heart of MECA. The pieces in this book represent the amazing diversity of student writing talent at the Maine College of Art. Some might say disturbing, outrageous, or stunningly inappropriate, but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll stick with amazing, for now. The range of originality, style, subject matter, and outright neurosis inherent in the works in this compilation remind me once again why my colleagues and I love MECA. It is a rare sanctuary where freedom of expression thrives, and young minds constantly delight us with the raw, tender, splendid yearnings of their unique journeys. We are all blessed to be part of this creative exchange, which is why I say Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be damned if I teach anywhere else, or something. Claude Caswell, Ph.D. Associate Professor Liberal Arts Department

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Contents 14 Michelle Alvarado Anchor Babies 20

Emily Armstrong Corona Gold

What Does It Sound Like Free Verse About Nothing Relevant Metaphors 26 Allison Bonin Eleven Lines of Bonin Magic Hell Diver Intercourse Hark! You Seaworthy Scumbags! Daytime Drama, Unicorn Style Mr. Caswell’s Practical Writing Class 38 Anna Gross Definitions Trigger The Southern New Hampshireist’s Guide

Dylan Hausthor Carly’s Cosmetics Will Give You a Free Mirror 46

Short Story #4 Short Story #5

56 Coral Howe Sorry Your Children Saw Me Having Sex 62 Adhem Ibrahim The Glitch and I 66 Sayre Lenard I Wish Elastic (Waste)band

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72 Richie Mahoney The Castle Walls What’s Going On With Me Lately? 82 Adra Kristina McBride My Life in Ten Lines Color Awkwardness Free Verse Men What’s Going On With Me These Days? The Cube Going to Hell Accidentally Salacious Candy Secret Monologue Infernal Reapings: It’s a Morgue World 122 Isabelle O’Donnell Moan 128 Sarah Oppeit Babies Yellow Godhood: The Inevitability of Winter Storms 134 Becky Samowitz Observations Rum and Crackers 148 Claude Caswell Let It Burn Bad Nights In Belle Curve

CRYING & PUNISHMENT

Michelle Alvarado Anchor Babies

Anchor Babies Our parents are the reason we are still here and we are their forgotten dreams, For they are fragile humans longing to feel the earth beneath their toes, To remember when all this was just trees. They sit crumpled, caving in on themselves, telling stories of their homeland Please, please, tell me, do not forget your stories Stories in which your chest harbored your husband’s tears after fifteen hour long days Stories of hardships trying to feed your family of fifteen Stories of poverty and hand-me-downs Stories that make us thankful for our lives today We are born – Anchor Babies, we turn into children fading in the breeze Longing to feel the cool crisp air Cause we are half American, half this or that Half our lives we’ve been made to feel like half a human being Can we ever reach 100%? What happened to this land is my land, this land is your land? You’ve grown us some metal hooks and have kept us grounded in this soil you call “the free land” You’ve made us impossible to deport because the 14th will save us all “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction

thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.” People, the America of your dreams is gone No longer are you ashamed of such poverty existing here No instead you say, “Undocumented and reaping our country!” You look down upon the town in which you live in with shame, We look up to you and think what a shame that such stupid ignorance exists here. But wait… listen People, this America is changing. We are more than just a variation of brown, Or a variation of Spanglish. You preach, “You have to learn English if you’re gonna live here!” And we anchors are praised, exclaiming, “Oh my word, you don’t even have an accent!” We smile and reply, “It’s just another side effect of being an American.” People, America is changing and if you think it’s gonna stay your “Uncle Sam wouldn’t have it any other way!” Think again cause you have to learn Spanish if you’re gonna live here. Listen to the immigrant youth coming out of the shadows Declaring their status as undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic Listen to us standing up for our people, for we can only imagine their pain.

ALVARDO

To be denied a simple doctor’s visit, To be denied a decent job, To be denied an education here in the “Land of Opportunity” To be denied a chance at a better life. La vida es una fuego que nadien nunca gana (Life is a war that no one ever wins) You see my mama had a dream but gave it to her children Now she sits slowly shrinking, slaving away to make your homes seem like the American dream. I’m angry because I’ve got a sister who’s trying her hardest to build a family on this land of gold And I’m angry that I’ve got a brother who’s running wild with anger That this country can’t see him as a living, breathing human being And not just a percent I’m angry that I’m the only one, first generation to suck what I can from this land that seems to be turning into a land of Internet societies, bound from human contact, lacking empathy.. I’m angry because a person’s worth is still measured by the color of their skin Or the fluency of their language. I’m angry that anyone of Hispanic descent is classified as Mexican As taking jobs and being lazy How is it that this country is built on American pride

And yet less than half the population knows the Star Spangled Banner Or the year the U.S. declared their freedom? America, accept this change and ask yourself, If not me, then who? If not now, then when?

ALVARDO

Emily Armstrong Corona Gold What Does It Sound Like? Free Verse About Nothing Relevant Metaphors

Corona Gold Yellow like the piss-warm Corona I need to slug down before a restless sleep And black like Walter, the cat, who can barely comfort me. He purrs to let me know he loves me yet all I can think of are his piss-yellow eyes Which remind me how thirsty I am. And I want to turn my light off and watch those demons dance on my ceiling but The rusted piss-tinted lamp asks me to further quench my thirst. Now Walter crawls over my yellow painted skin which reminds me that the Piss-yellow Corona inside me will Make me glow this shade of yellow forever.

What Does It Sound Like?

It sounds like that shitty song

you always used to play for me.

Like ductape being ripped from

the almost empty roll,

And the screaming, crashing music that

you liked to fuck me to.

Like the sound of your big, clunky, tan work boots

traipsing down the hall and into my bedroom.

The way you incessantly chewed on the

skin around your nails.

How you laughed silently while

always managing to frown; like when you told me how

I either love you when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m drunk or

hate every annoying thing you do.

The way you told me that you were just bored and

that you forgot how much you loved benzos.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the bloodcurdling scream that scratches into my skull whenever

we meet again in my sleep.

All of this reminds me to hate you for

ever wasting my love on a thing like you.

ARMSTRONG

Free Verse About Nothing Relevant Do you ever feel so fucked up and fucked over That the only thing left you can do is go ahead and fuck yourself? You’d rather shove your fist up your cunt than spend another endless Day around the people that make every pore in your skin fucking bleed. It’s that kind of hot, bubbling, rotten blood lurking in some Deep dark part of yourself and you start to think about how much Easier it would be to waste away in some shitty, mold infested basement apartment With a big fat dildo up your ass than to face every individual who’s mere Presence makes you swallow your own vomit every. single. fucking. day. If this were feasible (to any sort of “normal” human) The whole fucking universe would become nothing more than a Nest of addicted mutilated masturbation hermits. Maybe then I would decide to go for a stroll outside.

Metaphors I am

your shadow and

the noose wrapped around your neck.

a thorn rich rose in a field of daisies waiting for you to pick.

I am

the crack in your voice and

dust particles suspended in the golden air

of your living room in the sunset.

I am

the white knuckled fist that smacks the

side of your face; I am even

the blood, tumbling off your whiskey drenched lips.

I am

your nightmarish demons that hide

inside your sweet, soft dreams, I chase away

your hope and paradoxically become your happiness.

I am

every thing you told me you wanted and

everything that you did not.

ARMSTRONG

Allison Bonin Eleven Lines of Bonin Magic Hell Diver Intercourse Mr. Caswellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Practical Writing Class Hark! You Seaworthy Scumbag! Daytime Drama, Unicorn Style

Eleven Lines of Bonin Magic Allison Sister of Sue NOT Sue Nutty Who feels at peace with herself, exhausted, and slightly hungry. Who needs love, a solid concept for her final project, and to use the bathroom. Who fears the future (not anymore), all of my hair falling out, and giant spiders. Who desires a good piece of fruit, a loving companion, and a better paying job. Who would like to see pigs fly, sushi for dinner, and my package in the lobby of the school. Who gives her time, undying attention, and no cares whatsoever for that bullshit (mmmhmm!). Who loves her little sister, walks in the preÂwinter snowstorms, and bed. Resident of my own version of the universe, AllieLand, the magical place where ice cream Sundaes are the staple and everyone drinks for freeâ&#x20AC;Ś Bonin!

Hell Diver Atop a ladder, tall as space, Barrel chested and bearded face, Ricky Rocket, at a speeding pace, felt his heart begin to race.

This Rocket fell right from the sky, A wingless man that tried to fly, makes women faint, and grown men cry “WATCH OUT!” They shriek, thinking that the Ricky Rocket would die!

Off the diving board he leapt, toward a small bowl of water, As he plunged further and further, hotter and hotter, and hotter. The air licked his eyeballs like the tongue of a cat, he knew once he fell, he wasn’t ever coming back.

None such a great feat for such a great striver, for the strong, the bold, the Heinous Hell Diver!

BONIN

Intercourse (The first time my little sister learned about sex) Cow Sex Driving by a field one day, A pasture full of cattle. When out of the window my eyeballs see, a bull begin to straddle. My little sister, nine years old, hears the escalating mooing. She turned to me straight faced and said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Allie, what are they doing?â&#x20AC;?

Mr. Caswell’s Practical Writing Class Mr. Caswell is a respectable British gentleman who educates his darling class on the joys of practical writing. He strolls into class on time in a smart wool paisley suit with a monocle and top hat. As he walks by his students rise to stand and pledge allegiance to the honorable education they are about to receive. And then after a chorus of perfectly harmonized voices rings out, “Good afternoon Mr. Caswell.” “Good afternoon my cherubs, let me pontificate on the supremacy of practical writing in a respectable and humbling way, where you my students are to absorb the precious drops of knowledge that roll off of my brow like little, unworthy sponges. Please, cower in your inferiority.” Going down the row he greeted each one of his students with a bland, generic response based off of their superficial personalities and lack of talent. Sir Mr. Caswell waltzed over to a young lass sitting smartly in her chair, “Good afternoon Miss Bonin, how sensible your hair looks today! What average coloring!”

BONIN

Hark! You Seaworthy Scumbags! Cap’ Salty Stallion: Captain of the swashbucklin’, seascourin’ crew o’ the mighty Lady Salty Bottom!! Recently the crew was defeated in an international pirate soccer tournament by their rival pirate gang, the Sweet ‘n’ Sour Seaponies, and Cap’ Salty Stallion is trying his darn bearded best to rouse his crew out o’ the depths… Cap’n Salty Stallion: Now I know ye feelin’ down in the depths about losin’ to our pussyfootin,’ lilylivered, grogsnarfen, land lubbin,’ hog’s head sluggards… those sweet ‘n’ sour seascoundrels! (Everyone in the crowd BOOS!) [He is pacing, peg leg starting an odd rhythm, and stroking his beard.] But me crew I got, ye swinebags, ye are the best crew this ole’ stallion can e’er wish far! Why! I’d bet me last gold tooth, well… it’s me last tooth, that ye pox faced scumbuckets ar the best crew out o’ the whoooooole God fer saken ocean! Aye, eye’ll go right ahead an’ tell ye whot I love about yehs… Ahhhhh… Bart, Bart thah Drunk! for the sloshy, grimy, greasy rum that always had fish bones floatin’ in it that ye served with Wed’sday’s brunch! And ye, Tobias thah CashStrapped! for bailin’ ye olde cap’ outta jail when he punched the barwench for touchin’ his crotch! …an’ who can ferget Conroy thah Bald! fer bein’ so damn bald that we ne’er need a more seaworthy shimmerin’ spotlight in all me pirate days! Why, me own sweet’eart… Dolores Firepants fer settin’ the cap’n’s pants ablaze, if ye know what I mean! An’ Snake Butt Azriel! Aye, a’ lovely hag, with the knack o’ charmin’ e’ery snake that made it’s way aboard our humble ship, a reg’ler Medusa! [Turns around… “Yeeesh!”]

Ah! an’ me firstmatey, Scowlin’ Sandy Drake! fer scowlin’ so harrrd that ye face shriveled up soooo much ye look like a walkin’ anus, scarin’ away any prospective looters! … Edward Birdbrain! Arrg! fer commandin’ a mighty flock o’ ‘gulls to poo atop an entire portside town, we need not an easier time pillagin’ if it wern’t fer yer nasty winged rats! Aye… they war screamin’ fer days in that shit storm. An’ last bot certn’ly not least! Me own Musket Ball Blaine! fer craftin’ the finest balls we have evar SEEN! Yer balls are top o’ the list in my book, Aye! Yer two balls sink a ship, that they do! Why, any cap’n around woud SHIVAR HIS TIMBERS fer a crew like ye lot! [Raises his glass in a toast!] Aye... SO QUIT YER BLUBBERIN’ YE BILGE RATS... AN’ GET BACK TO WORK!!!! [All the various limbs flail in the air as a unified response:] Crew: AYE AYE, CAP’N!

BONIN

Daytime Drama, Unicorn Style Berry Pink Lord: Berry Pink Lord is a sassy bright pink unicorn, and he just recently got a horn transplant that he hopes everyone comments on. His magical power is to make wishes come true. Nightshade Pretty Foal: Nightshade is very abrasive and is always being told off by his younger brother, Berry Pink Lord. He is coat is black as night, and his magical power is that he protects children from bad dreams. Violet Celestial Reins: Violet loves to look after the other unicorns, especially Berry Pink Lord. He is a white unicorn with purple flecks and a dark blue mane, and he casts mischievous spells. Conflict: Forbidden love: Berry Pink Lord and Violet Celestial Reins long to be together, but Berry Pink Lord’s oldest brother, Nightshade Pretty Foal, forbids their love!! Enter Berry Pink Lord (BPL) and Violet Celestial Reins (VCR), they are at the rainbow fountain where magical wishes can come true. It is customary to bring the unicorn of your dreams to the fountain, where one may confess their love to another. BPL: I asked you to come here this night, for I wish to tell you how I feel about you, after all this time… VCR: Oh, Berry Pink Lord, is it safe to be here alone? What if Nightshade Pretty Foal sees us? I don’t want him to catch us! BPL: No, he’s away banishing the dark and terrible dreams from the minds of little children, just like how I must banish the loneliness from our hearts!

VCR: Oh, Berry, you don’t mean.. Will you make my wish come true? BPL: Yes, I love you Violet Celestial Reins!! [And with the tap of his hoof, BPL shot a bright pink star out of his new horn into the nighttime sky, when the star reached the atmosphere it exploded into a shimmering heart.] BPL: Please be mine! VCR: I accept you! [Both unicorns nuzzle their horns together, when suddenly, out of a boom of thunder and a thick black cloud, Nightshade Pretty Foal makes his entrance.]

NPF: WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY LITTLE BROTHER YOU PIECE OF TRASH!?

[Nightshade Pretty Foal concentrates the pure nightmare energy he’s absorbed from the dreams of children, and shoots it at Violet Celestial Reins. Berry Pink Lord deflects the beam with his own magic derived from granting wishes.] VCR: BERRY! NPF: WHY MUST YOU BETRAY ME, BROTHER? BPL: You cannot tell us how to live!! Our hearts and our destinies are intertwined forever!!! Retreat into darkness, you downtrodden fiend! Nobody even likes you. [Violet Celestial Reins used his own mischievous magic spell power to transform Nightshade Pretty Foal’s horn into a carrot. Nightshade can no longer perform magic because of the simple trick.]

BONIN

NPF: I AM RUINED!! YOU SHALL RUE THE DAY YOU HAVE CROSSED THE BROTHER OF I, NIGHTSHADE PRETTY FOAL, YOU DEMON BEAST! [Nightshade Pretty Foal teleported away in another cloud of black smoke, leaving Berry Pink Lord and Violet Celestial Reins alone at the fountain again.] BPL: You are brave for standing up to my brother, my sweet. VCR: Anything for you, my Berry Pink Lord. [The two unicorns trot away happily, their tails wrap together like a couple holding hands, off into the moonlight, off into eternity…]

Anna Gross Definitions Trigger The Southern New Hampshireistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide

Definitions English Paper Titles, n. A moment of brief and often misguided wit to distract readers from the content to follow. English Composition 101, n. The attempt to convince distractible young adults to acknowledge the written word and their creation of it as something to be celebrated and criticized. Art Student, n. Someone paying a great deal of money in the present to make very little in the future. A maker in the making. Bookshelf, n. A place for all the things you could fit on your desk if not for the piles of books. Classwork, n. Homework to be. Homework, n. An educational sleep minimizer. Painting, n. The art of controlling reflected light until the brain comprehends it. Abstract Painting, n. The art of controlling reflected light until the brain cannot comprehend it. Friend, n. Weapon of mass distraction, but also motivation. Best if washed often. Monday, n. A theory generally not accepted by the public at large.

The Ten Commandments, n. Copyright 2013 The American-Israeli Corporate Enterprise. Hell, n. Motivation for the easily persuaded. The Beatitudes, n. Behaviour propaganda to encourage docility. Also a retirement facility in Arizona. Elliptical, n. An exercise machine for those who do not attend Maine College of Stairs. Cell Phone, n. A human leash-law, enacted. Conclusion, n. The act of repeating an idea and hoping people agree with you. An ending of thought exploration and a plague upon this earth.

GROSS

Trigger When I was fourteen I wanted a horse. I actually had two at the time; Hawk was a cute little sorrel Arabian-cross, and Kari was a bay standard-bred pacer. They were both old though, and living out retirement in my father’s fields. I’d grown up falling off of Hawk, and had taken riding lessons for years after. I finally got my way after my mother agreed to send me to horseback summer camp before looking up the price. After that she told me to “find one and make my own camp.” After searching through a ton of ads for horses way too nice for me to afford, I landed on one of a cute little appaloosa. Pretty color, gelding, broke and sound. We went to see him. The first time I saw him he was standing in a round pen, knee deep in mud and manure, and half covered in it. His fur was long, dull and coarse, doing nothing to hide the fact that he was skinny. He was entirely uninterested in me, and stood there in his mud and ignored everything. After a meager test ride and vet check, we bought him for easily five times what he was worth. The registered name on his paperwork was Bar S Pierre Cardin, but I named him Trigger. From the start, we didn’t really get along. I was inexperienced and beaten down by life, and he was resentful of people and depressed. It was quite the combo. When he started to put weight on, his distant indifference turned into open dislike and explosive anger as he finally had energy to vent. I still have scars nearly to the bone on both hands, and wore band-aids on different fingers every day for most of a year from working with him every day on the line. Today I could have straightened him out in a week, but back then I didn’t know shit. I just wanted my horse to like me like everyone said theirs did. Other kids on the internet talked about how their horse was their confidant they cried to, their best friend, whatever. I wasn’t into crying, and I didn’t see any of those things with Trig. I just saw a frustrated, intelligent creature who was stuck with me. Eventually, I didn’t know what to do. Hawk and Kari were put down in fall, and Trig and I were alone. I got in the habit of taking him for walks like a dog, down side and back-roads and up into the forest trails. Somewhere along the way there I think we decided we liked each other. He picked up the habit of looking me dead in the eye from time to time like a shepherd dog, something I haven’t

seen a horse do since. I started riding him more, in lessons and at home, and we got a bit better. It took years, but we got pretty damn alright. We got a solid enough understanding and respect of each other that I’d ride out alone into the woods, climb trails and run as fast as he could go along long stretches of dirt road. When I showed up, he was happy to see me. It got to the point where he started treating me like the ‘top horse’ in his little world, and would try and lay down to nap if I was around to stand guard, on cross-ties, on his lead rope, in between gymkhana runs. It was interesting to explain to the people who were sure he was dying. I could vault on from the ground and hang out, or get a lead-rope on first and blast around to chase sheep or my friends. No one else wanted to ride him or much liked him; they only remembered the sullen, angry, skinny little horse. I didn’t mind. People like to say “like horse like owner,” the same they do for dogs. And I think it might be true. All my friends were terrified to gallop their horses, and I got why. Their mounts turned into jittery, frothy messes when allowed to actually go, which had a lot to do with the fact that they never got to. When Trigger ran, the world shut up and came into focus. He had the long smooth stride of a thoroughbred, and an absolute calm. It’s the clearest my head has ever been. When one of us had steam to blow off, we’d run. It’s a level of trust you just can’t explain to someone who hasn’t been on a horse; it all looks easy until you’re on a thousand pound animal with an opinion. I sold him the evening before MECA’s move-in. I wanted to keep him until one of us kicked it -he deserved nothing less-, but there was no one willing to take care of him with me gone to Maine. And even if there had been, it would have been a long and lonely four years for him. Still, it feels like I gave away my friend with no way to warn him, without asking permission. I’m hoping college is worth it.

GROSS

The Southern New Hampshireist’s Guide to Long Distance Lesbianing (A Hindsight Manifesto of the Best Intentions)

1. Just because you’ve had zero interest in dating anyone for your mortal existence thus far doesn’t mean you won’t find someone that gets you. They just might be confoundingly far away. 2. Find her in a strange place, the stranger the better. A multi-writer online forum about sci-fi/fantasy prison gang war is a prime choice. 3. Never lie to her. Not once. Not about anything. Start it as a personal social experiment and an inside joke with yourself. 4. You will find that this level of emotional trust in a person is ridiculously intimate, and freeing. Try to let her know without sounding like either a weirdo or an otherwise compulsive liar. 5. She just might agree. Try not to be too floored; grateful and ecstatic is more becoming. 6. Gayness is not like rifle enthusiasm; you don’t need ten in your house to be a real fan. Who gives a shit what your orientation is or was when you knew how she wrote and what she read long before it ever occurred to you that you didn’t know what color her eyes were? 7. You’ll want to share things that just aren’t immediately feasible, and it’s alright. There will be a time for midsummer forests and rivers and blizzard’s quiet. For now, describe them; she fell in love with your words after all.

8. Murphy’s Law applies. If there is a dorm, the internet will not work. If there are holiday periods, work managers interfere. Patience is a sin, but you’re good at it. 9. The future is open and for your purposes, endless. You know her better than anyone else on earth, and she probably knows you better than you yourself. Never feel the need to compare it to other relationships, your happiness is not something you measure in troy ounces and put a value on, and neither is she. 10. Her name is Grace, or Candice, but mostly Grace when you aren’t addressing envelopes.

GROSS

Dylan Hausthor Carlyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cosmetics Will Give You a Free Mirror Short Story #4 Short Story #5

Carly’s Cosmetics Will Give You a Free Mirror My mom told me that I needed to get a job if I was going to live under her goddamn roof. I couldn’t find any good ones though, so I needed to get a job at a local telemarketing place. We sold lip gloss I think. It was something for your lips… lipstick maybe. I didn’t like that job. All I wanted to do was sit there, but I couldn’t. Every time someone would hang up on you, and the computer automatically dialed the next number. I hate computers. I have a computer at home though, so maybe I like them. I don’t know. I know that I hated this job though. I just had to talk at people all day, there was never any rest. Except sometimes you got someone’s answering machine. When that happened, you were lucky. You could sit there not saying anything, just enjoying the silence. Have you ever gotten a long voicemail with nothing on it? It was probably me. Next time you get a long voicemail with nothing on it, you should stare at the wall for the entire duration of the message. That was the highlight of my day. It was the only time I didn’t have to think about someone else’s useless life, and could instead focus on my own. Except I couldn’t even do that. My ‘workspace’ was less of a cubicle and more akin to a key in the middle of a computer keyboard. It was about the same size as that. Maybe a little bigger. There were other people that worked there. Other people that were wasting their time by wasting other people’s time. I was in love with the person who sat behind me. I never learned his name, but I liked the way his voice sounded. Sometimes I was able to spin around and look at him while I was leaving a silent voicemail. I really liked his hairline. His hair was really thin and short. He used gel that made the back of his head look like it was wet all the time and each of the tiny little strands would stick together, making his head look like it was being pierced by a million tiny wet black toothpicks.

Underneath his hairline was the first of three mysterious lumps. These were kind of rolls that are common between obese and balding people (incidentally both groups that this man belonged to). These lumps were constantly puzzling to me. For one, they were always sunburnt. The rest of his body was the same color as milk after you eat all of your lucky charms out of it, but then there were three bright crimson rolls that faded into his hairline. I really liked looking at them. They made me think about reuben sandwiches. There was a woman to the left of my work station that I didn’t admire quite as much. She was a remarkably similar shape to the man behind me, but less intriguing. Her body was a similar color (if not a hair more sickly looking), and she always wore purple. The kind of purple that makes you think of porcelain dog sculptures sitting on a doily safely stowed away in a glass cabinet. She was so excruciatingly dull that I feel as if I am wasting my time writing about her, so I will stop. On my left there was my favorite neighbor. It was a small black boombox. No one knew why it was there. I named it Boomy. There was a small dividing wall in front of me, and on the other side there was an elderly woman. She had worked there for the entire duration of her long life, but was quickly deteriorating. She frequently went off-script during her phone calls. One day I was in the middle of trying to convince a customer that her lips would be much more content if she chose our product when I heard a small piece of this woman’s conversation: “Well, I don’t understand... Yes... Ma’am, let me clarify- you are displeased with our product because why? That’s disgusting... Ma’am, our product is intended for your lips, don’t be crass… No! Your face lips! Ma’am, I suggest you find medical attention at once... My son has that exact problem… No… Well that just seems like a sort of rash. When my son had this problem I just mixed some teatree oil together with some furniture polish and rubbed it on a few times a day… Gone within a week.... I know… Okay, thanks for shopping with us – would you like a free mirror?” I thought that this was a very funny conversation, and was paying much too much attention to it. The person on the other end of my phone had hung up. It was alright though, they weren’t going to buy anything anyway. One day the man that sits behind me brought in his personal computer to use while he was on the phone with people. One day I turned around and his little

HAUSTHOR

sunburnt rolls were much more red than usual. I am pretty sure he was jerking off under his desk. There were pictures of ladies with no clothes on his computer I think. That’s probably why he brought it in. I think that I probably imagined that. I remember looking under my own desk one time though, and the underside was very crusty. Maybe everyone jerks off under their desk. What if a telemarketer called you and they were jerking off? That would make me uncomfortable. I didn’t like that job. All I wanted to do was sit there. On Tuesday last week I was sitting at my desk allowing this terrible job to do whatever it wanted with me. The only interesting thing that had yet happened that day was the man behind me laughed at something that the person on the other end of the phone had said, and he snorted so hard that a booger had shot out of his nose and landed on the desk. I saw the whole thing happen and it was very funny. Other than that, Tuesday was going precisely as most do. I was on the 168th phone call of the day when the person hung up. I listened to the rings as I always did. One… two… three… four… five… When the ringing hits five, it is almost guaranteed that you are going to get a voice mail. I breathed a teeny sigh of relief, but almost threw up a moment later when I heard the mechanically recorded voice on the answering machine. It was my own voice; I had dialed my own number That was the worst day of my life. This is the message I left myself: “Hi, this is Thomas from Carly’s Cosmetics. This is awful. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. When I listen to this I’m going to hear my own voice. It is going to make me more sad than I have ever been in my life. I’m going to know how I sound to everyone I have called. Nothing in my life will be this terrible again I hope.” After I stopped talking I let the machine record my silence until it stopped. That was the last phone call I will ever make as a telemarketer. I guess the moral of the story is to be nice to salesmen. Unless they’re yelling about their children’s rash. Or wear an ugly shade of purple. Or are jerking off under the table.

Short Story #4 About once every week I like to go to the local nursing home. There is a wing of the building that is dedicated to only patients with severe Alzheimer’s or dementia and I really like to spend time there. I especially like to spend time with one of the old women. I don’t actually know her name. I don’t think she knows her name, much less mine. The nurses always call her different names. I just call her ‘Lady’. I went to the home last night and found Lady in the back of the small house that she lives in sitting Indian-style on the grass. I sat down next to her. Here is the beginning of our conversation: “Hello, you lady.” “Hi.” “Do you remember me?” “Yes. I think so. You look familiar. Did I meet you at a bar a few days ago?” “No.” “Oh.” “I’m your old pet. You used to call me kitty-kitty.” “Oh yes, I remember you. You used to eat all of the litter in your box and poop in your water dish.” “Yes, that was me.” Some people say that I am a bad person for lying to old people, but I don’t mind. I sat with her for a few minutes and neither of us said anything. The whole time we were sitting there she was pulling the sun-burnt, dry, dead grass out of the ground and putting it into her lap. “What are you putting in your lap there? Are you going to bring it inside?” “Of course I’m going to bring it inside. They are my babies. I’m not going to let all of my babies be alone outside, they will catch a chill.” “Ah. Your babies look thirsty. Did you watch the news earlier today?” “Of course I didn’t watch no news. I don’t have time for such nonsense. My babies wouldn’t be able to be out here alone for the entirety of a television program, don’t be so outrageous.” “Why? What would happen.” “Well, they get nervous. My babies have anxiety, you know. So do you; but you are much too self-absorbed to ever realize that.”

HAUSTHOR

Lady was hurting my feelings at this point. I’m very sensitive you know. I could feel my eyes getting wet already. At least when tears start falling Lady’s babies would have some water to drink. “I remember when you were my cat. You were nothing but a self-absorbed little shithead. I’m glad I have my babies now instead of you.” “Stop it, Lady” “Oh, yes” We sat without talking for a time. I pulled myself together. She stood up all of the sudden, startling me and making her fistfuls of grass babies fly everywhere. Before turning around to go inside, she sighed and told me: “I love abortion.” That was a strange way to end our conversation, so I followed her inside. Even though I come here every weekend, the people that work here don’t like me very much. They tell me to go home and not to bother their patients. I don’t mind though, I like it here better than home. Lady was already in front of the television when I got inside. She was chewing on her fingertips and watching Jerry Springer make a fool of a transgendered emo kid. She was laughing very hard. “Look at that dumb idiot child! Look at his face! He wants his penis cut off, and stare at it until it turns the color of his hair!” I suppose I should tell you, I don’t much like Lady. Lady is not a nice lady. Almost everyone here is nicer than Lady. I told her that she should be nicer to the television. “Kitty-kitty,” she said while staring at Jerry Springer “You are just the dumbest. You have no babies, you have no mother, you have no dad. You should go onto this television program.” I was very surprised. She had never remembered anything that I had told her for more than a few minutes. But she called me Kitty-kitty. Maybe she was getting better. A nurse came in and handed Lady a small slip of paper. She hardly glanced at me. I don’t think she knew who I was. Neither did Lady if it comes to that. Lady didn’t even look at the piece of paper in her lap, she just kept watching Jerry run around the stage like a deranged bat, eager to make people cheer his name. After a few minutes, I decided that I plucked the slip of paper off of Lady’s lap. It was a list of possible food options for dinner.

Chicken Salad marinated in vinegar Beans and Rice Ziti with Meat Sauce Wonder Bread Pot Roast There were small boxes next to each item, waiting to be checked off. There was a disclaimer at the bottom of the card saying that you could only check off one item. I checked off the Wonder Bread option and put the card back onto her lap. Lady goes to bed almost the exact same time every night. She doesn’t let me come into her bedroom. Apparently she doesn’t let anyone in her bedroom. I was sitting on the floor outside of her bedroom, waiting for something to happen and watching her through her open door when a nurse came in. She was holding a platter with a loaf of Wonder Bread on it. It looked very dry. Lady accepted the platter with a polite small smile. She pulled herself up, picked up the knife and fork that accompanied the loaf, and promptly began carving the outside off of it. I sat there on the floor for what seemed like hours, watching Lady cut the brown skin off of a starkly white loaf of bread. It reminded me of a National Geographic I saw once. It was on indigenous norse people carving the pelts off of wolves and wearing them as coats. There was bread skin all over Lady’s bed. I fell asleep on the floor.

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Short Story #5 I went back to my hometown last week. I was walking around downtown when I saw my old babysitter. He’s a nice man, probably 50 years old now. My sister and I used to call him Dumb George. He’s a short, portly man with rough black hair covering every inch of his body. When I saw him he was wearing a white tank-top underneath his official NASCAR certified Carhartt jacket and bright blue denim covering his already hair-covered legs. I hadn’t seen George for a long time. I asked how he was. “Well boy, I’ve had many a better day. I ran into a little bit of trouble with the law the other day.” George was a well-known weed farmer. I figured this had something to do with it. “Ahh, George I’m sorry! Did they arrest you?” “Arrest me! Hah! No not at all. Didn’t even ticket me or nothin’! Thank goodness.” “Well what was the trouble then?” “Oh gracious boy, you really want to know? I suppose you’re old enough now. You remember my old trailer Betsy dontcha?” Betsy was a small trailer that George used to live in. “‘Course I do!” “Well I was out of town last week and my bastard brother-in-law dragged my trailer into his backyard. The fucker poured gasoline all over her and torched her like the the end of those joints he’s always smokin’! Just tossed a match on and lit up the woods like dawn had come a few hours early!” “No!” “Yes! And as if to injury to insult, him and all his drunk pals made some sort of game out of it. Apparently the bastard convinced Arnie Wescott to try and jump over ‘ol Betsy with his Jeep! He just reved right up and plowed into her- as if she wasn’t already a goner damn Wescott had to drive into her with his Jeep. Apparently there was an old propane tank that I had left in there though and KABOOM old Betsy struck back! The noise must have been louder than a thousand shotguns though, because just a few minutes later the pigs come driving right up into his field. They jump out of their little pig-mobiles and come shouting and screaming over to where the explosion was. Oh man, I wish I was there to

watch all those drunk bastards trip and fall over themselves trying to explain why there was both a trailer and Jeep on fire. Well a few minutes later the damn fire department was there spraying water and chemicals everywhere. They probably ruined all of his crops that weren’t burnt to a crisp. Well anyway, the cops ended up just giving the idiots a slap on the wrist! No fine, No ticket, No arrests! Well as you could imagine I was right well furious when I got back and couldn’t find ol’ Betsy anywhere. Finally I figure out that she’s a pile of charred scrap metal in the middle of a field and I was wanted to kill the man. I couldn’t find him anywhere though, he mustah been hiding from me; knowing that I wanted to rip his arms off. Well just a couple days after he torched my baby I pull up to a gas station to fill my pickup and who do I see at the pump next to me? My goddamned, no good, shit eating, suck fuck brother in-law. So I walk over to him right? And I’m acting all innocent and nice like asking if he had seen my Betsy around. He says to me ‘Oh yeah George, actually I think I did see her a couple-a-days ago. I think you must have flicked a cigarette butt by her, ‘cause there were flames licking up the side of her.’ Oooh, I was so mad, let me tell you. The bastard couldn’t even tell me the truth. So you know what I did of course, I shoved him to the ground, pulled the gas nozzle out of his pickup, took his boots right off his feet and filled them both up with good old gasoline. That’ll teach him not to torch another man’s trailer let me tell you. “You poured gas into his boots! George! Did you get in trouble?” “Not any at all. The pigs showed up again but after hearing my story they just took off! Didn’t even give a care. I tell you, if you’re not a bastard you don’t get treated like a bastard.” George is a wise man.

HAUSTHOR

Coral Howe Sorry Your Children Saw Me Having Sex

Sorry Your Children Saw Me Having Sex My parent’s house bred me to be sneaky and quiet. I had to take the safety off my lighters because flicking them too forcefully could wake up my sleeping parents. Our rooms were only separated by paper thin walls. Because of these uncomfortably close quarters, some nights I would lay awake bracing for the sounds of marital shenanigans. However, these sounds were never heard. Because of the lack of evidence, I assumed my parents never had sex. I was honestly surprised when my brother was born. I assume I was a lone spore from some tree fungus that floated onto some underpants hanging on the line outside. The conception wasn’t of this world, because my parents barely even kissed each other. Some people may say I lived the best kind of life. Despite this handicap my parents graced me with, I eventually understood the mental and physical undertakings of naked hugging. I gathered data from a variety of sources, mainly ancient lore and stories from Hustler. I learned that squealing like a stuck pig is hot, and foursomes should always have an equal innie to outie ratio. I made sure to take note that before intercourse, we must exchange our most recent blood test results to clear any concerns about sexually transmitted diseases. We could even go to the hospital together. Sex ed. helped considerably. I also learned of the wonders of triple absorbency. You know why America supports Israel? They make our tampons. Every time a cramp rips through my uterus, I shout “Oy Gavalt!” and chop up a line from my estrogen pill. Think which side of the holy land you’re on next time those Christian taxes pay for your abortion candy. By my second year in high school, I was stuck on some guy. He had flowing blonde locks, a skeletal grin, an emaciated frame, and a laugh like something off Beavis and Butthead. We met through friends, and I asked him out at his Junior prom. Both of us were covered in cystic acne and played video games, so obviously I had already started planning our wedding. Because he was my first anything, we waiting an excruciatingly long time to get down to the bare bones business. Although it is considered memorable to have sex for the first time, I thought it was pretty anti-climactic for a variety of reasons. I skimmed over it like a condom packet in shaky hands, and in an instant everything became pretty normal. Sex was like brushing my teeth in routine, but it felt like a dick straight

to my brain. You say stupid things, you do stupid things, it feels great, and for some reason, you cannot remember your name. I bet Tiger Woods was truly addicted to sex. I still don’t give a fuck about golf, though. Now, back to my living situation. See, when this whole fondle-fest started going down, I didn’t actually have a place within my home to do it out of the omnipotent eye of my dad. The noise would give it away instantly. My dad would also frequently check up on us in the form of questions like “Do you like hot dogs?” to stories beginning with “So uh, I was looking for my pliers the other day..” It was so obvious. Dad, you’re so transparent. Because of this hinderance, we got creative. My death machine, the ‘99 cherry red Volvo, was obviously the next best choice. The radio could play a sappy song, I could roll the windows down, and the upholstery in the trunk felt like a scouring pad on my ass. However, on this particular occasion, we got too adventurous. You see, there was this little park that was really only used during the winter months for the ski rink. During the summer it was a patch of dust with a few benches and swings. The superior playground was at the elementary school, so who would bring their children there? I bunched up a few sheets, threw them in the back of my car, and puttered down to the location hoping nobody saw us along the way. The sun was shining, and a cool breeze wafted through the loins of the earth. By choosing to bone on the earth, it was like we were boning earth. This experience was as spiritual as it could get, and as a part of the ceremony I did a couple whippets and chanted “Whip it out, cub scout!” The comforter was made for a twin bed, but we made it work as we carefully adjusted our bodies until we were covered up to our necks. It could only get sexier from there. Birds chirped, almost encouraging our sinful, exhibitionistic lifestyles, and I could really feel the romance in my cervix. Suddenly, a little voice caught my attention. Initially, I thought God was reminding me, in some small way, to wrap that shit, but then I saw them. What a family they were. Their children looked just like them. I saw a community in that family, helping each other throughout the day to brighten each other’s lives in some small way. I also saw a particularly uncomfortable situation about to unfold. We proceeded to make like pancakes and stay flat and sticky. There is no way they could see past our clever ruse, our bodies melted to the fabric like paste. They would look at the comforter and think, “How strange, someone left their bedding here. People really are irresponsible with possessions these days.” At

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least I hoped they would have thought that. Instead, I heard a familiar snickering. Oh, they knew. I could hear their children on the swings somewhere in the background. I hope they got tetanus from the rusty chains. They seemed to linger near us for an eternity, maybe waiting for us to emerge like pasty, naked groundhogs hissing in the sunlight. After a long, awkward silence, they strolled away. I realized I wasn’t breathing. The mood was pretty flaccid at that point. We quietly packed up and listened to the radio on the way back to my creaky old house. He left shortly after, and like a true sap, I walked him to his car and watched him drive away. Honestly, I look back at this experience and see the sort of awkward charm that comes from first love. It was like having liquor for breakfast. At that point I didn’t care that I was greasy, trollish, or bearing a sweet mustache, for I had found my partner. My pal, my penis. Sadly, I realized that I was not ready to marry this penis, because although he was a genuinely wonderful person, I kept having odd premonitions about being the pants in the relationship. Coral doesn’t do that, I need a man to hold my hand. Much like Jackie Chan, I quickly chopped his heart down before my last year of High School. I already had plans to live alone so nobody would bitch about how pig disgusting I am. I might marry someone’s mom in the future just to get something done around my house. However, I still think about this person of firsts from time to time, and hope they’re enjoying their life. But more importantly, I think about those innocent children and the unspeakable things they saw that day. I’m sorry, children unnamed, it doesn’t go there, but we were trying to make it work. Let go of your anger.

Adhem Ibrahim The Glitch and I

The Glitch and I Aug 12th, 1989. A glitch. A fluke in the midst of chaos. I hatched, naive. They come, they go, they argue and laugh. They believe, they lie. They toy, break, they fix and cry. He’s on the television again, talking; I learned a secret, we are a secret. I shan’t tell, we survive. 1996! We’re leaving, goodbye. It’s different, they sound different. They don’t know how to communicate. I don’t care. Grapes are good, mountains are big, the water is far. Dad died today, They cry, I don’t get it, for weeks, all four sob. Why? We’re leaving, goodbye. It’s different again, 97. I don’t know how to communicate. I won’t go back until Mr. Math Teacher loses that green stick. Dogs in the street, mine all mine, I know why they cried.

Fight and play, night and day. I’m not like them. I still know the secret. We are on a mission, waiting, offices, and picture taking. A baby bird that looks like a baby rat fell from a tree. Farewell… It’s all new again, this is it, the goal. Breathe it in, 99 is only the beginning. “A B C” “Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?” and “The Giving Tree.” I need to learn, to blend. Eminem, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin. Legs that are a stairway to heaven. A joint and whiskey, I know why they cried I need to get away. Caged, literally, like nothing should be. It’s okay, the universe within is much larger than the simple one I’m in. I’m a collection of memories, hopes, fears and dreams. I am the smile in that moment on that afternoon in that June that happened then. I am an anachronism frozen in retrospect, placed in an era never meant for me. I am an artist.

IBRAHIM

Sayre Lenard I Wish Elastic(Waste)band

I Wish If I were a heavenly body, I would stretch far over the earths atmosphere, and let down my curtain of burgundy warp,

And I would weave an alternate destiny for those who chose to abandon their own.

My weft would comprise of October fields and the light of an Indian summer. The treetops would be my loom, and I would weave an alternate destiny for you, me, everyone, and everything would be different.

If I were a heavenly body, I would stretch on and on forever. My legs would touch at the crests of highest ocean swells. Dipping starry, blackened toes into waters that boiled with fish, silver scales and rubber lips cresting at the surface, and kissing my feet.

The tides would rise with my waking stretch; Mighty release following kinetic power and ability. An arm as long as the night sky, and twice as dark.

If I were a heavenly body, the birds of this mortal realm would prefer to roost in the crook of my arm as opposed to any gilded aviary, and I would carry the notes of a thousand bird songs and I would sing a song of new destiny for you, me, and everyone, and everything would be different.

If I were a heavenly body, I would exist forever and not at all simultaneously. You would know not of my name, face, or physical characteristics. And yet you would climb atop my knees and sleep upon my giant palms, extending like an ocean of flesh. You would play amongst my many lashed, tugging on golden dreadlocks that hang lowly, swingingly slowly, in time with the heartbeat of the universe.

Undulating inwards, planets and stars and clouds of ephemeral, noxious gases, colliding and destroying one another, rearranging the universe and sculpting a new destiny for those who chose to abandon their own.

LENARD

Elastic (Waste)band I feel like my chest is falling apart at the seams. Like my heart is an over abused, much loved pair of elastic pants. It heals when those who use it needs reassurance and comfort. It functions to serve the user, Faithfulness and sincerity guiding motion and verdict. It expands to you dimensions, So honestly yours; So truly meant to be like this. So crucial to my heartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s form and function. I am worn over and over, until I exist as only a threadbare, Fraying, Fabrication, Of promised affection, Unwavered support, And positive reinforcement. I am loosened and broken in the back of your underwear drawer, No longer able to fein attractive reverberations of strength and durability. I am all used up. I have nothing left in my infinite stitches, To build you up

Or pull you back together. You tire of my tears and stains, my weakened structural integrity. I am no longer what you need and therefore I am disposable. But I will still wait, and silently be there for you. Treasuring your dead skin cells, Who belonged to the person who once loved me.

LENARD

Richie Mahoney The Castle Walls Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Going On With Me Lately?

The Castle Walls He woke up on the ground. Riley hated camping. His idea of camping was a Four Seasons suite with a large fire place and maybe wearing a flannel. He stretched and cracked his back and turned over. He didn’t even want to come on this trip, but he was trying to push himself to break out of his isolated state. He looked over to see if anyone else had woken up. Nicole and David’s heads were still tucked into their pillows. Jonah was turned on his side, presumably playing a game on his phone. Riley went over and sat by the fire that was now nothing but warm embers. He placed some brush on it and combined it with some lighter fluid. A small flame licked up at him and burned his thumb. “Fuck” Riley grunted, backing away from the fire. He just wanted to get going for the day. “Hiking” he thought to himself, “Why did I even agree to this trip?” However, Riley knew that of he didn’t go on this trip it could very well be his last opportunity. David and Riley were still best friends, but he had really drifted apart from Nicole and Jonah. The group dynamic was rocky already, and they all lied to themselves in order to make this trip happen. He could hear the rest of the group begin to russell and he put his shoes on and chewed at the sandwich he had in his bag. He tried to remain optimistic. Six hours later the group had hiked about five miles into the beautiful Maine coast with mountains and ocean views galore. Riley and Nicole stopped to Instagram the beautiful sights while Jonah and David lay on one of the cliffs watching the sky. It appeared darker than usual. They hoped it would pass and that they wouldn’t have to try and camp in a storm. Nobody wanted to be soaked all night. A few more hours passed and the sky opened up and it began to rain. “You’ve got to be kidding me” Riley complained. “It’s not even raining hard, don’t be a pussy” Jonah shot back from the head of the group. Jonah always tried to belittle Riley. He was an expert in the area of sly digs. The group pushed on, hoping to find a more suitable area to set up camp before the storm really picked up. It seemed like within fifteen minutes the storm had turned into a hurricane like beast. The wind howling like a crazed animal and rain smacking against the ground with such force. The area Nicole had in mind to camp was flooded but she claimed that Greenwich Castle was nearby and their last hope. The group jogged against the wind and rain, often slipping and falling over each other in the darkness

mixed with flashes of lightning. A large stone castle came up on the horizon and they dashed towards it. Greenwich Castle was an old castle like building with Gothic architecture, that was now open to tourists to take pictures of and explore. With a storm like this, it made a perfect shelter. They walked into the damp, cold and dark castle. David led the way with a flashlight and they found themselves a center room away from all the open doorways that were spraying rain in towards them. They could still hear the wind and waves crashing against the coast in the distance. They realized they would be stuck here till morning and better get warm. They stripped off their damp clothes and tried to find any spare clean clothes or blankets that weren’t soaked and would offer some warmth. “You couldn’t check a weather forecast before you dragged us all out here Nicole?” Jonah said clearly annoyed. “Listen if it wasn’t for me, I never would have even gotten you guys outside. God forbid you breathe fresh air for more than 5 minutes a day Jonah” Nicole spat back. “When did you become such a bitch? We get it your vegan now and do CrossFit, Jesus Christ.” “Fuck you Jonah, I didn’t even want to invite you, but David insisted.” David looked over embarrassed, hoping to stay out of this fight. Riley rolled his eyes at the flare up, and said “Leave it to you too to provide the entertainment for the night” putting his arms behind his head. “Well I’m glad you’re content, it’s nice to see you not bitching and moaning for once. Seriously dude, this is the first time I haven’t heard doom and fucking gloom from you” Jonah glared. “Bite me Jonah” Riley flipped him off. “No its kind of true Riley, you’re always such an asshole lately and so negative. Being friends with you can get emotionally exhausting.” Riley clearly starting to get upset and pushing that feeling down that he knew he shouldn’t have come along. Riley cleared his throat, “I’m an easy target because I’m honest, that makes me an asshole? And like you guys are so perfect! You two were always quick to jump on me. Have you ever considered why I’m negative or speak with honesty instead of being fake? Because being sweet and nice to everyone got me fucking nowhere. You both still talked shit about me to anyone who would lend an ear when

MAHONEY

I wasn’t around. Oh, yeah you thought I didn’t know that? Nicole, you gave me a huge speech about how I was the best friend you had! Where were you last year? Where were you when I had nobody else to turn to and was at such a shitty point in my life? You were out with Andrea. Oh you guys just clicked, and you couldn’t spare a moment to your depressed former friend. So fuck you Nicole. You are the least loyal person I know.” Nicole’s face twisted with a mix of anger and hurt. “You have no right, I’ve put up with so much of your shit. I’ve defended you to so many people” Nicole’s voice shook. Riley didn’t back down. “Stop acting like you did me a favor by being friends with me. Like it was such a burden. You’re no fucking peach to deal with either sweetheart. You have a distorted view of yourself. David is the only person who didn’t just use me when it was convenient and then leave me.” David had been silent, watching his three friends go at it. He realized him getting involved would get them nowhere. He got up and went to watch the storm. “I’m going to take a siesta, you guys are off your shit tonight” David muttered. Nobody even heard David. The floodgates had been opened, as the storm roared even louder outside. “You’ve always been a bitch Nicole, we all know. You’re an attention seeker, a liar and last but not least your fucking coke problem. Your apartment looks like a fucking Peanuts Christmas special. It’s the first snow Charlie Brown!” Nicole slapped Riley as hard as she could, her eyes stinging. She balled her fist and connected with his face. “How dare you! You have no idea who I even am. Fuck you! You’re an asshole.” Jonah grabbed Nicole off Riley, his nose dripping a crimson red river. The blood leaking out of him just as quick as the emotion was. He wiped his nose, and spit out on onto the cold stone floor under his boots. Jonah pushed her towards the exit of the room. “You won’t find the kind on snow you’re looking for on those trees” Riley hollered back as a last ditch stinger. It was just Jonah and Riley now. “That was fucking low man, you crossed the line” Jonah spoke solemnly. Everyone was aware of Nicole’s habits, but nobody ever dared speak about it. “She deserved it, I’m tired of her shit. I’m tried of everybody’s shit.” “Well man, that’s on you. Nicole is a great girl. We’ve spent a lot of time one on one the last few months.” Jonah looked up reflecting on his statement. Riley knew that look. “Oh my god, don’t tell me you too have been fucking around. Jesus Christ.

Are you that scared of being alone that you had sex with Nicole while she was strung out one night?” “It’s not like that man, and fuck you for even insinuating that. Don’t project your fucking ‘neurotic wallowing in self pity’ mind set on me because I made a choice to be happy. She makes me happy. I accept her for what she is.” “You’re a saint Jonah, maybe you should break it to her that you haven’t exactly been playing for her team all season long? Huh?” Riley let that long pushed down secret escape his lips. Jonah grabbed Riley by his jacket. “Don’t you ever fucking mention that again, do you understand me?” Jonah had made the drunken confession to Riley about a year ago when they were living in the same building and he crashed on Riley’s couch for the night. It was a night of no judgment being passed, an honest time. Jonah struggled with his sexuality all his life and clearly still was. Riley shoved Jonah off of him. “Whatever, continue living your lie of a life with Nicole. The coke head and the closeted LAX bro. God, too bad you two didn’t know each other in high school. That just screams Prom King and Queen. Pathetic.” “Consider the both of us done with you” Jonah walked out of the central room. Riley walked out into the corridor and saw sunlight starting to peak through one of the stone window ways. The storm had been reduced to a shower and there was a haze over the large green cliff the castle sat on. He woke David up and told him the storm had cleared. The two of them walked over to the cliff and took in the sight of the beautiful horizon. Riley pulled out a sapphire colored corpus that he often jotted down memories both good and bad in for the last year. He thought of adding in a few pages about what just happened. However, in a spur of the moment decision he chucked it out into the clearing off the side of the cliff ’s edge. It wasn’t a conscious decision, he didn’t have a noble reason. It was just a reaction. He didn’t want to remember the events of last night. He wanted to move on. But he didn’t regret his actions from last night. They all needed to get that out and effectively end their toxic relationships. They were dragging around the weight of their feelings with them for years. The emotional weight slowly ripping through their shoulders until they finally freed themselves last night. Riley and David gathered their things from the central room and prepared to trek back the path they came from. There’s never a good time for last minute goodbyes, but after what happened in the castle last night during the storm, this seemed like the right moment.

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What’s Going on with Me Lately? Move forward. Move forward. What’s next? I am always thinking of what is on the horizon and what the future has in store for me. I am a sophomore in college with a decision in majoring looming over my head. I run through the rolodex in my head, thinking to myself: “Pick a major, pick a job, pick a city.” Always trying to create a view of my future in my head. Hardly content to live in the moment, fuck the moment. I need security, I want to know what is coming next. A sneak peak, an extended trailer, a look into the crystal ball. I desperately want to know what my future looks like. Who is there with me? Where am I? Am I happy? All of these questions buzzing around my subconscious more times than I am willing to admit. A major is my next big decision in life. Do I major in graphic design? I seem to have an eye for color and type. I respond to design seen in magazines and advertisements. I’m eager to learn about the programs and not to mention the job opportunities. Arguably, graphic design is one of the safest choices in art school. It is marketable, in demand and covers a wide spectrum of opportunities. I can be hired by someone rather than be responsible for building my own business from the ground up. I could work with a team of other talented people, in a city like Boston or New York. However, do I really want to spend my life in front of a computer? Will graphic design become mundane to me after only five years and will I slowly start to dread my commute to the office in the city. Creativity for a career can be challenging. Design was also not my first passion. Arguably I have more experience and talent in photography. What if I graduate and can’t compete with the other talent out there? What if I can hardly land an interview in Boston or New York let alone worry about whether I’ll like the job there? As these thoughts consume my mind the next logical jump is to “Okay, well I’ll also be set up to major in photography. Photography is something I seemed to have a natural eye for, that I discovered in middle school. I used it as a way to connect with the people around me. However, as I found out in my freshman year I am more interested in portraiture, animals and generally work falling more on the “commercial” side of photography. This is not exactly accepted at a fine arts school. If I decided to major in photography, I’d like to work for a magazine or agency. I’d be interested in working in editorial, fashion and set shoots. Following along with a journalist who I would help paint a picture through a lens to

match their journal and article. I don’t see myself trying to submit my work into galleries and working to establish myself as a fine art photographer. Of course voicing these concerns and opinions is a sin in art school. You aren’t supposed to admit you might have doubts about yourself or your work. You shouldn’t pay any attention to the future, if you will make money or where it will take you. You should be led by passion, not reason. Unfortunately, I know myself very well. I would be happy pursuing photography and being passionate. But I wouldn’t be happy if as a result of that I couldn’t lead the lifestyle I desired and had become accustomed to. I will admit my true feelings, I’m not afraid of them. I want to live a comfortable life. I don’t need to be raking in the millions every year, but I also don’t want to spend my life paycheck to paycheck. I want to have enough money to, take vacations, buy a nice house, build a life for myself. Is that so wrong? Why is the subject of careers and money so taboo in art school? I have struggled with the definition of being an “artist” for a few years. I do consider myself an artist, but I also can go a long time without doing art. I want a career in the creative arts. However, I have friends who set up a studio in their basements so they could paint through the summer, while I was content to lay on the beach and go out for lunch around Cape Cod. That was my ideal summer. It didn’t involve being creative. It made me feel guilty at times. Did this make me less of artist or just a different kind? I am an artist. But it is not my only defining characteristic. My interests both simple and complex extend beyond art and design. My best friend is the polar opposite of me, an engineering major who excels at math and physics and loves to play soccer. When we are together it is rare that we are discussing art or engineering. We view those as our respective areas, and has almost nothing to do with our friendship. After being surrounded by artists for three fourths of my year, I find it refreshing to return to people who don’t want to talk about art. To have a wider variety of conversations, and hear about new unrelated things. I am in no way anti-artist, or I wouldn’t be in art school. I am extremely inspired by the people around me, from watching friends paint for hours or developing photos together till the early morning. I’d just like to establish that there are many variations of what an artist is. Fine art, commercial, professional, amateur, self taught, master degree holding. None of these make someone a better or worse artist or more qualified than someone else. I can respect all forms of art, and the different approaches people take to them. Art is subjective. That’s

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what is great about it. It is up to you, nobody can tell you what you are or how you are going to approach your art. If you have a crit that goes amazing for a piece of work you don’t like, you still end up not liking it. If you love a piece that gets ripped apart that doesn’t mean it is a bad piece or you shouldn’t be proud of it. So whether I decided to major in graphic design or photography, fine art or commercial, bachelors or masters, I am still an artist. That’s just what’s been on my mind lately.

Adra Kristina McBride My Life in Ten Lines Color Awkwardness Free Verse Men What’s Going On With Me Lately? The Cube Going to Hell Accidentally Salacious Candy Secret Monologue Infernal Reapings: It’s a Morgue World

My Life in Ten Lines Abandoned by biological family and was deposited to an orphanage. One day was adopted and taken away to a better life. Vaccinated and Americanized, becoming submerged in the new culture. Given a proper education along with delicate and proper mannerisms and how to eat right. Put into a Special Needs class for all of my elementary life because I had troubles with my reading, writing and speech. Excelled by working hard to be out of Special Needs classes by the time High School hit. Became a Cross Country and Track runner to become healthier and not obese anymore, because I had a junk food problem. Therefore became motivated to be a straight A student for the end of my high school career. Graduated high school with a Regents Diploma and got accepted into Maine College of Art with a challenge scholarship. Had a NYC opportunity this past summer 2014, to work at Juilliard and work on my drawing skills with my mentorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mentor. This motivated me to continue the rest of my year at MECA very strong. And I will.

Color Red is the one color that’s there for birth and death Its vibrancy makes the adrenaline rush & the blush rise- here’s to good health It’s a double edged sword representing both the in-love and the dead Luscious, sensual, romantic, horrific when it’s shed Like a moth to a flame, it blossoms like dread as it tantalizes Yet not a pretty picture when compared with zombies or newborn babies It masquerades itself to be elegant and dark the next It’s a skeleton key that opens up possibilities with pizazz and zest It’s the color with its own code of valor Red, this voluminous color means so many different emotions which I adore

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Awkwardness Unhinged bras, cosmetic flaws, first time kisses, unexplained extra dishes, imploded fishes from over eating, not enough seating, failed pen pals, and sketchy personals. Laughing at a joke two days late, being called out for being fake, and wishing you were out on a date.

Awkwardness is feeling like a one man freak show, without enough dough, thinking one day all the abnormalities will subside. Is there a remedy of some kind?

Frequent break outs, black outs, moldy oats and thrift store coats, along with feeling second hand used at the core. Pink ponies, past due chop suey, kung fu that went kablooey. Unfinished homework, unread blogs, with silent sobs. All high schools split into mobs and snobs. Looking like an amateur teen disaster…psych. Or even just standing frozen in front of a mic.

Awkwardness is being at school, like some dazed fool with an absent-minded teacher overtaken by a yapping feature, yelling at all that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done wrong. Or wearing a thong, or farts that may prolong, as the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smallest violin plays a song.

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Free Verse A hearse is the most fun car to own. All because you had no respect for the dead as you came into town. As long as you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t put it in reverse. Feeling dĂŠja vu as if it had been a curse. Look into the fun aspects of owning a hearse. Never have to worry about your purse. Having a cozy bed in the back, everything is in black, getting to the graveyard and shopping mall first. Being a Christian without going to church.

Men There aren’t many good things or even nice comments, I have about men. The reason being is because by the time I strike up a conversation they have their two feet out the door. Just like my mystery daddy at my birth. Personally I have nothing against men but they have this way of wanting me to rev up a chainsaw in midair with just one word. Boobs. Men are obscene and unclean while emanating this testosterone odor that makes me want to gag. Their animalistic charms and need to pee in the woods have no effect on me – doesn’t even make me swoon. Maybe perhaps I’m more aggressive than most women. Is that maybe in secret I am a man? How ironic would that be? I look in the mirror and I can see a beautiful female and the next day see the workings of a man. I’m horrified at this prospect. In the end to be revealed what our true roles were supposed to be but showing how far we strayed. But If I were a man I would be loving, devoted and enigmatic all in service to keep my dear young and lovely excited to be around me. Having her wonder what I would do next but do so as to not appall her. I would be less focused on the key going in some part of her. When it would be all more self satisfying to have her just unravel under my fingertips at how I whisper a poem in her ear. “Yes my dear I have you and you know it” is what I would whisper as I gently lift her chin. That concludes this disastrous cocktail of words, explaining why my personality is ready to steamroll them.

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What’s Going On With Me These Days? What’s happening lately is that my apartment has become crowded. It’s not the two roommates or the tight hallway or steep ladder stairwell or the mass amounts of empty food supplies, no. It’s so crowded that I can’t reach my bed without tripping over one of my characters. Recently this past week I worked double shifts on both physical labor and academic workloads. Now sleep is a delicacy I have yet to taste for the appropriate time needed to recharge. In the failed hours of sleep I am at my best creativity tapping into a new dark source so effortless that it’s scary that it is part of my psyche. After the long hours of the workshop this past week I kept going and going. Even going to a regular class at nights on top of the workshop hours. So insanity doesn’t even begin to describe this warped path I’m walking amazingly well on in terms of how exhausted I am. I have one mind but several characters, with several lives and several personalities and they all reside inside me until they come forth. I am not one to ever do drugs, drink or smoke or even give into sexual desires but this past week has made me feel like I have as I’ve fallen into another one of my rabbit holes. Where does this one lead, you ask? Depends on the emotional wave ripping through my entire being. In the beginning week the hole led me to a glass mansion filled with childhood monsters. And during the middle of the week it led me to a decimated and charred German house. Where a little girl sat at her blackened round tea party table. She was pouring tea for all her dolls as her gas mask clicked and she took in a Darth Vader like breath just as military airplanes flew over. A bomb went off in the distance. At the end of the week it led me to the City of Water, where I stood on a white checkered tiled balcony as the red velvet drapes flapped in the warm breeze. And what I saw was water taking on form as an actual living entity. Water droplets morph and spread into human like figures that embrace one another on a separate balcony. The figures were glowing like crystallized ice sculptures of salacious intent. It was beautiful to see the crystallized water structures of the entire city glow under the full moon as moans and gasps were released in the air as if it were a necessary oxygen. Then it led me to the world of the “Cloud,” a city on a cloud of machinery and gears hovering above the ghost past human civilizations that failed where the outcasts are flushed to. Even the ones who were so popular

and well known were betrayed by society itself and damned to the underworld of the city. Where the main character, Able, sees that the true failure is allowing technology to live for the individual. Then finally! And unexpectedly the rabbit hole led me to a post apocalyptic Paris city. Where a she-man named Rouge was fighting the Creator’s child mutations that kept crawling out of the tunnels and fountains all around the city. The city was glass walled with several electrodes. She had attempted to leave the city but was torn and the Creator made her become part man, to overcome her hatred of men. While enduring a truly horrific and septic like childhood of others, around her. I see those widening eyes of disgust or uncertainty about the condition my mind is in. Do not fret this is normal for me. These places are my coping mechanisms to enrich the dull reality my body is stuck in. I am not complaining because I enjoy working until I drop, love the food and the clothes I gravitate towards, grungy cargo and dirty t-shirts for working and elegant black lace skirts and a off shoulder blouse to show off my femininity during presentations and interviews. I enjoy the asexual sex while I sleep. But having these places whirling around inside my mind is what makes me excited and sometimes relieved to have this boring reality. Back to my over crowded apartment, it was a challenge at first because there was this awkward moment of can ‘I sleep there in the middle or at the end?’ as my characters canoodled my bed. There are so many of them and not all of them are from the same stories so it looked liked a warped cluster fuck, indeed. At some point I finally decided to make nice with my characters and try to get them to get along. And quit complaining about my book and movie selections and what I wore and what I wish I could wear. I was popping popcorn when my Adam Warrior character from one of my first real good thrillers decided to strike up a conversation with me. As he bit into an apple I couldn’t help but laugh. I did model him off of the Garden of Eden story, I thought to myself and could see he read my mind, chuckling. I could see Rouge, my she-male from the Insane as Red story I wrote, lingering in the doorway rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you?” Adam asked propping his elbows on the countertop watching me pulling out a glass. “Why don’t I what?” I ask aggravated. Adam just smirks at my aggravation. “Why don’t you drink, you look like you need it.” He adds. I flip him the bird. He laughs slapping my ass lovingly. “You’re so damn lucky you’re gay or I’d kick your ass.” I pout. Adam nods as he stretches.

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“I don’t drink because I don’t need it.” I answer. Adam just gives me a look as if to say “bullshit.” I eye-roll him when he doesn’t look. “Saw that.” Adam chides. I scream angrily. He laughs brotherly. “Hey that’s the problem when we share the same mind.” He adds pulling out my untouched bottle of Shipyard Pumpkinhead. He turns looking at it and cracking up. “You couldn’t get a stronger beer?” Adam complains. “Oh screw you.” I say as he pops off the top and takes a swig. “At least I am getting some, thanks to your untouched womanhood.” Adam winks as he walks back into my bedroom to his boyfriend. “I’m always an option.” Rouge whispers sensually in my ear and I could feel her growing erection. I drop the bowl of popcorn, all flushed. I run into my room and put on my running clothes and run for two and a half hours while my characters snoozed. When I peel off my running clothes and shower I was lathering the shampoo generously when I heard one of my characters. I groan. “I just want some shut eye.” I complain. “That’s too bad.” I hear Able from my ongoing Transference story on the other side of the curtain peeing in the toilet. “We’re all having fun in there and even my arch nemesis is getting along with me tonight. I like this. Want to see if you can get into the betting pool for tonight’s poker game?” Abel asks. “No! This is-!” I yell. Able flushes and washes his hands before leaving to my room. When I towel dry my hair and slip into my night dress I was turning on my laptop and loading Netflix. That’s when I could feel all my characters glued onto the screen. “Ooo! Can we watch the new Arrow season?” One called out. “No! American Horror Story!” Another yelled. “No, how about How I Met Your Mother?” One called out. I finally just put some Wipe Out on the ABC website all were satisfied at all the flying morons on the screen. Finally during the second half of Wipeout, one of my characters Jasmine from my Silence story asked about playing a drinking game. I can’t help but laugh as I look over my shoulder to see her sitting on her werewolf boyfriend’s lap. “Sure!” They all chime in. “Come on A.” Another side character begs as they drag me to the floor where glow in the dark shot glasses sat in a circle. Jasmine fills the cups and she smirks. “Okay A the first question: Have you ever indulged in a threesome in the

shower?” She asks. I choke on my bite of popcorn until Adam patted my back clearing my throat. “That sounds extremely crowded and no.” I say not drinking. Jasmine turns to Adam going speechless. “Yes?” Adam asks in his smooth tone that was dripping with sexual intent. Jasmine practically went bugged eyed but recovered making everyone laugh. “Have you ever wished A made you become a woman?” Jasmine asks. Adam drinks making me spit out my drink. “What? You made me gay and you’re surprised that I wish I could experience being a woman?” Adam chuckles. “I’ll take that under consideration.” I mumble drinking. Jasmine turns to Able. “Have you wished A would change in your ending?” Jasmine asks. Able doesn’t drink. “No actually I like that I became the new generation of human beings once learning to accept humanity for what it is and then realizing I was part cyborg all along. It really through me for a loop.” Able says happily. Jasmine turns to the next character Aurora from her shape-shifter story as she takes a shot and drinks before the question is asked. The black bangles clink on her bony wrists as her black lipstick smudges a little on the corner of her lips. She wipes the smudge with her thumb. “But.” Jasmine complains. Aurora shushed her as she takes another drink. “Now you may ask.” Aurora smiles as she puts her long white blonde hair back into a ponytail as her black leather jacket squeezes her plump breasts. Jasmine who was slightly side tracked by this recovers. “Have you wondered what would have happened if A didn’t make you so damn emotionless?” Jasmine asks. Aurora blows her a kiss. “Not really, I enjoy who I am. And I have my boy toy Damien to help me feel when I need to.” Aurora smiles as she gently pats her boyfriend’s bicep. Jasmine goes to another character Michael. “No dirty questions.” Michael warns Jasmine. Jasmine bites her lip. “Have you wished A didn’t make you stuck in limbo forever searching for your unborn child?” Jasmine asked, Michael snorts. “I actually am quite close to finding my daughter before the dark side of humanity finds her, thanks to A giving me a huge break in my story.” Michael

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winks at me. Jasmine turns to The Rag Dolls and black lipstick girl character who currently had her mouth sewn shut. “Uh never-mind.” Jasmine said turning to the next character, Lilah from the Bite the Bullet story. She was rearranging her tight bodice strings before she settled down and took the shot glass. “Have you wished that A didn’t change the nature of your lover in your story? I mean he was great in the beginning and then he became evil.” Jasmine complained making everyone laugh. “Well in the story I wish he didn’t change but looking at it from outside here yeah its pretty hot and I like me some bad boys.” Lilah smirks drinking. “Evil is all about perception.” Blaze, Lilah’s old flame in her story pips up from across the circle, winking. Blaze grins proudly as he takes off his cowboy hat and fusses with his dirty blonde mane of hair all chopped half hazardly by the wind in the west. “Indeed.” I agreed. End the characters corner. What’s going on with me these days is that I don’t know where my head is at and I’m enjoying it.

The Cube In a desert wasteland of ash the cube grows in my palm and grows until it’s a skyscraper of obsidian glass. It rotates and expands it envelops me and creates a dark lit room around me. The room is complete with red velvet drapery, gold paneling and wrought iron candelabra stands complete with a black and white checkerboard flooring. A cascading spiral staircase descends from the hole in the ceiling becoming broken and starts to move counter clockwise slowly. Rising up and down and out of my glass tower. No one can see in but I can look out at the world that’s abandoned or forgotten me. Inside the room the four poster bed sits by the balcony as my papyrus and quill and ink well await for me at my desk that hovers by my bedside. Outside I can imagine their places within the cube exactly. I bet even the clock in my all is continuing to tick, counting down to the end of my life. But there’s so much more yet to write, I think to myself as i stare over the wasteland and can see through its ground to see trapped water underneath. “Ah so that’s how I am meant to perish?” I pause to contemplate this. As I walk I can see my ladder protruding from my cube and then withdrawing back into its shell. I do not take the ladder’s help or broken staircase if you will. In the distance I can see a horse trotting towards me. It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time as it draws near. As it cuts me off from any chances of escape I can see its black obsidian flesh glistening. Ah so that’s where you came from, from my cube that’s apart of me. I conclude. As the horse watches me I can see its mane is a compilation of blood and veins flowing in and out of the horse’s crystallized glass skin. It’s a protector, I think but it also wants to be a destroyer, I realize. I call it away explaining I am not ready for it that if I did mount him once more I will not survive the process for a third time. The horse trots away. That’s when the storm began and pulls me around until the cube envelops me once more and I land on my bed. I look out my tower at the highest point and watch it break through the surface of the wasteland. Yes I am alone. But I’ve always been alone. I think to myself as I put my hand out to the sleeting rain. Watching as the rain removes my flesh and I feel great pain and pleasure from this until there is nothing left and I am nothing but energy that is released within the storm, the universe. I am finally free. That’s when I saw my crystallized vegetation: roses, that are just now beginning to grow on the edges of my glass tower and they shatter and rise up with me. This is the end and I’m so glad I’ve been afraid and tired of everything for so long. I am who I was meant to be.

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Going to Hell Accidentally 1. In the form of a boring lecture: Good evening, I’m Professor Strew, please take your seat and silence your cellphones. But before I begin the lecture I would like to read one of the many definitions for religion. A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world-views that relate humanity to an order of existence. Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe. Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may also include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration of a deity, gods or goddesses, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology. Beginning this lecture under the blood moon is bad luck, very bad luck. But let’s put our fears away and brush it off as excitement shall we? When haven’t we thought of heaven and hell? And what would happen if we accidentally went there? Throughout our lives we’ve had first hand experiences in hell like scenarios. Situations where yes we felt the devil’s presence whether it was through fear, hatred or uncertainty. Oh do you have a domination? Then I suggest you quickly leave out the back but that is not to say you will be spared one day from judgment. Who really is pulling the strings? Many philosophers had wondered this and chalked it up to the combination of society and the human condition. Wait though, if you truly opened up your imagination would you be surprised or excited at what you might find there? Let’s say if you knew for certainty that you weren’t going to hell would you do every horrible deed possible? Would you? But if you say no, absolutely not and go to hell anyway would you go kicking and screaming? Pleading that it was a horrible mistake of some kind? Then would you wish that you had taken your chance? Ah, now the masks finally begin to fall away as I see in everyone of you, a desire to uncover what’s inside yourself. To begin with facts think about every religion, what are their purpose? Is it merely to provide spiritual counseling? Well religion is there to make us believe that there is a place for us in the afterlife and that surviving life and all its suffering

will led us to a paradise. Unless if you were a Buddhist then if you had bad karma or if your actions were never completely selfless then you would be forced to be reincarnated over and over again as something less than appealing. At least until you had proven your worth and finally learned your lesson that you had failed in so many lives. Anyway continuing would you please look up at the board and you’ll see several images related to All Hallow’s Eve. Ah, now I have your attention. In several strict religions All Hallow’s Eve or Halloween is considered to be a long lasted Pagan holiday. Sorry to burst all the religious folks’ bubbles but in context to strict religious scripts, if you partake in any Halloween activities your considered evil in your deity’s eyes. But don’t take my word for it. When you meet your God or other spiritual supernova matter be sure to ask him or her or it. Since when did indulgence become a horrible thing? Ah I can hear the cackle from the religious history buffs in the back. Probably laughing at the mention of indulgence to indulgences, yes the payment Roman Catholic Christians paid to get into heaven. Seems odd or silly nowadays doesn’t it? No I do not mean the religious intent they believed was silly but that they paid a fee to get into heaven. Well I just recently looked over my previous taxes and I can say I think I’m screwed with the possibility of getting into heaven. Now don’t think about religion, the cosmos or even Halloween. Think about yourself as a single being. Think about all that you’d done. Now question yourself, do my overall actions outweigh the good or bad? If you believe your going to hell, don’t fret. Who says its all bad? The Irish philosophy paints the afterlife in a happy view from both points of view. If you go to heaven then you’ll be so overwhelmed with joy that you did. But if you got to hell you’ll be too busy shaking hands with new acquaintances that you won’t have time to be upset. Now before we depart I’d like to share my own view of hell and my expectations of it. It was on a Friday night when I had been given divorce papers and a stack of bills when I started to feel it. That nagging sensation deep within my stomach. I was either going to explode with rage or be sick or even possibly both. I could feel my world unravel so quickly it felt almost epileptic or seizure worthy. After taking several drinks of my finest red wine I finally calmed myself enough to breathe again as I tore up the papers. I even thought about praying for guidance thinking that would be my answer. But after waiting for four hours with no flashing signs on what course of action I should take, I grew impatient as you might expect. And this growing darkness that I was starting to become very aware of, was latching onto all my weaknesses right then and there. So what did

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I do? Did I... A. seek out a priest or B. pay the bills and sign my divorce papers and feel like a broken spouse? Or C. did I seek out a psychic and had a science with all the evil spirits in the universe to handle my grievance? Or D. did I pay my bills, sign my marriage away and schemed to get my child back to feel satisfied? Well I’m sure you all know the answer now that the police authorities have arrived to take me away. So in finishing my last lecture here at Devan Divinity’s Academy I know that I don’t have to wait for hell it’s been here all along inside my mind. Will I be engulfed in flames or tortured? But what I do know for sure was that I would have done anything to keep my child away from my spouse. So now I happily welcome the flames. Do I deserve to go to hell? I don’t believe so but I’m going anyway and it almost feels accidental. As if whoever is pulling the strings should look past the actions and more into the reasoning behind the actions. Are my actions that horrific? As Stephen King once quoted: “Ghosts are real, monsters are real, they live inside of us and sometimes they win.” So in parting take care of your souls and do not lie to yourself. Choose your actions wisely and never have any regrets or your hell will be all the more agonizing. That is all. 2. In the form of a country song: Woke up one Sunday morn’ looking past all the hay and corn Lost my child, lost my wife, lost my money, lost my life How can I possibly survive this knife? Rumors begin and they said I did it Ugh the people these days and the accusations on which they sit Went back to the cross roads in my mind to find the Devil inside Cause I got twenty four hours to live and sitting pretty in a prison ain’t how I want to spend one I’d go get some cigs, drinks and figs livin’ large until the end instead of being full of dread Woke up again this Sunday looking past all the hay and corn and at the faces looking forlorn Lost my mind, lost my strife, lost my place in life

How can I possibly survive this knife? Rumors begin and they said I did it Ugh the people these days and the accusations on which they sit Went back to the cross roads in my mind to find the Devil inside and did and he took my side Cause I got one hour to live and sitting pretty in a prison ain’t how I want to spend one I’d rather have Lilith come to me, take advantage of my flesh, putting me on a leash and walk me down the aisle of hell, putting my body up to sell Then sit in the cold plastic chair strapped down all alone Wishing I were home 3. In the form of a stained glass window: The oval stained glass window sits perfectly in its frame revealing the cuts of reds, purples, oranges and blacks. Its exquisite craftsmanship reels you in. As you approach you see it’s pieces shift. You look back over your shoulder to see if you imagined this or not. You see no one else panic so you do nothing. You look at the stained glass window and are fixed on the apple in the center of the composition. Below the apple’s rays of beam from it’s core as it melts the animals below. Shimmering into view are faces of people that are hidden in the trees around the apple and were not visible until now. Underneath this imagery to the next register, lies black diamonds of glass as it forms a largely depicted door that appeared to be menacing looking. Below this door are males lounging about in a library of sorts wearing uniforms and looking happily as they tote their scythes around. Below this is a pure white door looking like it was made of marble and below are females wearing warrior like costumes and looking angrily as they suspect all souls. Your transfixed upon this layering of imagery feeling something vaguely familiar about a person, place, script or certain time when you felt unsure of your own spirituality. Am I bad or evil for not agreeing with religion? This thought enters as the pieces of the stained glass illuminates. Below this door is a black box and it opens revealing all the past persons who had stared at this stained glass window. That’s when you try to flee but its no use you’re already part of the bigger picture. You cannot take it back and wipe away the temptation that made you look.

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Salacious Candy Chapter One: Devour “We all have internal demons but what happens when those demons meet up with other external demons? Is it natural or just Armageddon? Here at Devan Divinity Academy we strive to help bring out the worst in you for the sake of the known balance of the universe. Have no fear, if you are here it means it was meant to be.” –Devan Divinity Academy’s brochure “No Dad, please!” Was all he remembered of the nightmare as he awoke in a black limo that reminded him of a hearse. Rubbing his face and hearing the familiar Indian radio blaring in the car he slowly remembered why he was here as he could see groupings of stone castle like structures up ahead as they get off the ferry. Showing up at Devan’s Divinity Academy’s front steps by the ocean, Argen Titan looks around the island that’s off the coast of Florida near Miami. Stepping outside, nothing struck him as out of the ordinary except that he didn’t think anything existed here and that this campus was much more lavish than what he was expecting. His choppy black rat hair felt much more manageable as he pulled his trench coat tighter around his chest. There were black spires atop the buildings, with stained glass windows in every frame while gargoyles sit atop the rooftops. And for a split second he could have sworn their eyes glowed red. He shakes the image out his head just when the driver motions for him to climb up the stairs where a man waited in the doorway. Why doesn’t he just come down and greet me like a normal person? He thought as he grabbed his duffel and climbed the stairs. “Ah fresh transfer student meat.” The man laughs taking him aback when he offered his hand to shake, revealing he had a deathly pale white glow to his skin and black fingernails. People here sure do have a weird sense of humor, he thought noticing the man looked like death. In that moment when he shook the strange man’s hand he quickly pulled his hand away. He was sure that he had felt a shock of some sort or that something sharp had bit his hand as he starts to feel strange. After getting processed in the administrative wing Ar was relieved when he arrived at his boarding room. His left half of the room was left empty for him and it made him feel like he just got locked in prison. But he notices on the other side of the room is a pristine kept area with an already made bed, organized desk while posters on the various Academy’s clubs and old scripts on Heaven and Hell adorn the walls. What the hell have I gotten myself into? He thought staring at the posters considering them as pranks since they were about hell in some fashion.

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“Joy.” Argen sighs as he lets his duffel slump to the floor. “Do not let that bag of filth touch the floor! I just had it swept and mopped earlier this morning.” He heard his roommate boom making him all panicked. Argen recovers from jumping at his roommate’s loud voice. He turns to come face to face with his roommate who was in fact a long and gangly male who wore spectacles atop his head. The Academy uniform his only attire as his blonde spiky hair is disheveled with sweat. “Sorry?” Ar says as his roommate grabs his duffel and sets it on the empty dresser. “Don’t be. Rule number one here, do not apologize. We don’t have time for that.” His roommate smirks patting him on the bicep making Ar wince. “You okay?” His roommate asks. He nods. “Name’s Chase,” His roommate adds as he heads into their joint bathroom. “Name’s Argen… freak.” He says rolling his eyes and grabbing his mp3 player as he sits on his undressed mattress, dismissing his roommate. He closes his eyes and blares the world out trying to forget what happened last month. He jumps when he suddenly felt Chase tap his bed. “What?” He asks angrily. “I’d get into your uniform and wash up for dinner or we’ll be late.” Chase says as he goes to his dresser and puts on a tie. He stares at his roommate in disbelief. “No offense but I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass.” He says angrily as he rolls over onto his side. “Hey! I get that you don’t fucking care, I really do. I was there too. It’s where you’re at right now. But if you’re here, it means pissing off the head mistress is not the best way to start off the semester. Trust me. When I say this, if you act ungrateful and refuse to follow the rules you’ll wish you hadn’t. Now come on and bring your toy. Its orientation time,” Chase smiles as he rubs his hands together. When he gets to his feet he opens a drawer to see a sets of the same uniform complete with a tie. “Can you leave?” He says irritated. “Dude we share this room, go in the bathroom.” Chase says as he gets on his computer and types on a log of some sort in an opened spread document. Ar goes in and changes and has the tie sloppily looped around his neck. “Let’s go.” Chase says as he grabs his keys quickly pocketing them in his breast pocket. “What?” He demands when Chase stares at him.

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“One your fly is unzipped and your tie is a disgrace. Here.” Chase says as he attempts to tie his tie. “Let me the fuck go!” Ar yells as Chase lets go and leaves. He lazily follows and sees all the males running and walking to the dining hall. The campus felt like an ornate golden labyrinth to him as he walked down the staircase. He sees once he’s on a marbled tiled floor landing with the others that they have to walk up another flight of stairs that felt like a mountain. At the top he heaves as he suddenly stumbles and hits the railing looking down at the various staircases and tunnels below making him sick. “Oh great, thanks a lot newbie!” One of the guys yells at him for being sick. Argen’s legs buckle under him as he suddenly feels a pair of hands underneath his arms forcing him to his feet. “Do not say a fucking word and just keep moving. Don’t worry. I got you.” An authoritative male voice says hastily barely giving him time to register what was going on. Everything looked dimmer to him as he forced himself not to pass out in this stranger’s arms. As Ar looked to his left he saw Chase helping the stranger tow his sorry ass down the labyrinth of his new hell. “Jesus man! What did you do to the newbie, Chase?” The stranger’s agitated voice asks. “Nothing! He’s obviously sick from a detox of some sort. It would have helped to know I was getting a junkie for a roommate.” Chase says short. “Oh hush, you were once a junkie yourself. And remember who carried your sorry ass? Oh that’s right it was me.” The stranger whispers. Argen then heard silence figuring Chase had shut his trap as they made their way to an extravagant dining hall. It was all candlelit and made him think of an enclosed amphitheater as the tables lined against the vast room walls as purple velvet cushioned seats covered the benches sitting behind the table. He saw the benches were built into the wall as the rows were lowered down toward the stage below. “What the fuck is this place? Hogwarts?” He comments. “Not exactly.” The stranger says as he continues to force Ar to walk toward a poorly lit corner towards the back where a convenient hallway was. “Here, we can sneak in the bathroom and make him throw up before orientation.” The stranger schemes with Chase who nods. “Excuse me? Excuse me! Who the…who the hell…are you?” Argen asks as he forces his head up to look at the stranger’s face. The stranger looked like a pristine young adult male, about his age only he smelled better and looked clean-

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er than he probably did right now. He tries to look away but the stranger takes hold of his chin forcing him to continue to look at him. “What is it?” Chase asks the Stranger anxiously. “You know what Chase? Your roommate is positively gorgeous. And I think I just found a way for you to repay me.” The stranger smiles. He could feel his stomach tighten not liking how they talked about him as if he were a rare trading card. “Come on we gotta get him cleaned up.” Chase warns the stranger. The stranger nods as they usher Argen into what appeared to be an ornate bathroom. In that moment a lot of questions and fears circled him as he witnessed these two strangers forcing him to puke into a toilet. He had fought for the first three minutes until the stranger had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck forcing him to be still. Then Chase had put a latex glove on and forced two fingers down Ar’s throat making him puke. “That’s it be a good boy.” The stranger encourages. Rage filled Argen hating this prick already by the way he talked and treated him like his play thing. “Ahhaha, this one has some fight in him.” The stranger smirks. “Fuck you.” Ar growls as he hits the stranger in the face with the back of his head. He twirls around and throws a punch at Chase and misses as he dashes for the door. With the doorway half way open someone behind him forced it shut as he feels himself being dragged backwards. He could feel the stranger’s unbreakable hold on his arms as he tries to throw this asshole off of him. “That is quite enough.” Argen could hear the stranger breathe angrily into his ear. “Keep this up and I promise you you’ll regret it.” The Stranger adds just when Ar slammed his foot into the Stranger’s. He then bit his hand as hard as he could into the stranger’s flesh. When he gets let go of, he gets thrown across the room and up against the sink, bent over and gagging. Looking around, he tried to see if a weapon of any kind were around and was disappointed to see that only a soap dispenser was his only weapon. “Eugene! Enough man he doesn’t understand what’s happened to him!” Chase yells. Ar could hear Chase getting between him and the stranger and felt kind of grateful. “Oh I’ll make him understand!” Eugene yells exasperated as he tousles his shoulder length, wavy midnight hair with agitated fingers.

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“Fine!” Eugene adds as he backs away. Chase nods as he kneels before Argen who had fallen to his knees. “You have no idea how lucky you just got.” Chase breathes angrily at Ar. “Oh come on Chase it’s not like I was going to hurt him!” Eugene says aggravated. Chase looks back over his shoulder at Eugene in disbelief. “And exactly how is man handling the newbie going to help him?” Chase asks. Eugene shrugs seeing his point. “Exactly! And since he came from an abusive background did you stop to think at all? That maybe forcing him to be still and hoping he understood what was going on would be a bad idea?” Chase questions. Eugene motions with his hand to be silent. Argen looks at this exchange suddenly afraid. What the hell is this place? And who the hell is this guy who has taken an interest in him? He thought as he felt more vomit lurching its way up his esophagus, threatening to burn his throat. “Come on, come on get him to his feet. We have to go.” Eugene says suddenly very adult, it was a strange thing to hear from a male teenager. As if he weren’t a teenager at all but light years older than the age he paraded to be. Argen saw Eugene roll up his sleeves and dabs a black paper towel that had been drenched with warm water to Argen’s mouth. “Be still. I’m not going to hurt you. Just cleaning you up.” Eugene explains. Something in Eugene’s eyes made Ar hypnotized as he watches with horror that he was letting another male clean his mouth. It all felt wrong and weird to him as Eugene quickly combed his hair and Chase buttoned up his jacket. He felt as if he were being groomed, but for what? He thought as he started to feel less detached from his own body. “Good he looks normal. Let’s go.” Eugene said as he quickly washed his hands and ushered him out of the bathroom. Over his shoulder, Ar saw Chase ripping off his latex glove into a trash receptacle in the wall as he washed his hands with a ruby red soap. For some odd reason the color made him think of blood. He fights back nausea as he’s lurched forward by Eugene’s death grip on his wrist. Once Argen was forced to sit down he practically stumbled as Eugene helped him stay still and gently motioned for Ar to hold onto the red velvet railing before him and across the small plank of wood that was meant for eating off of. “Hold on until you feel you can sit upright.” Eugene orders. Argen does as he’s told but feels a pang of humiliation in doing so seeing Eugene leaving him

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to head to the staircase that led down to the middle of the room. The room was growing darker as the glow from the candles becomes annoying to his eye sight. He could feel someone sit next to him and could see Chase’s hair style out of the corner of his eye and relaxed. As if it couldn’t get any weirder it did as a cello and violin started to play a dark lullaby in the center of the room. What the hell? Is all Argen could think. Did Halloween come early or something he thought as he heard the tempo quicken. Suddenly when a male voice started to sing in a language he did not understand it bewitched him. He looked up and leaned forward to see Eugene singing. As if his face were a giant chalkboard of questions, Chase smirks and leans over to whisper something. “This is what students call the Devour lullaby. It makes the students aware of the life given from the meat we’re about to devour. We are to have respect and thanks for the animal’s sacrifice.” Chase explains. “Just don’t say anything.” He adds to Argen as a warning. I think I just became a vegetarian, Ar thought as he listened to the violent stress to Eugene’s vocal chords imagining how violent the animal’s end must have been. When the song ended everyone applauded as Eugene steps aside to let a woman walk to the center stage as she wore a red corseted dress with a red and lace jacket. Her hair was black and long as it was pinned into a bun. “Welcome.” She says angelic like. “This is the first feast of the semester and as such it’s only predictable that changes would come so before we get started with our dinner I just have but a few announcements. One being that all new students are expected to read the student code of conduct book found in their nightstand. Yes it’s been updated. Second there is a new professor for our soul splitting class. Please welcome Professor Jacklis.” The woman smiles as the room applauds as a professor across the room rises briefly looking pale and dead as his long blonde hair is pulled back into a silver clip. “Thirdly, all new students please be aware that after tonight you have a mandatory check up and are expected to donate a quart of blood to this academy. And fourthly, all new students you all will quickly understand the way this academy is run. It is run on a strict code. Follow the code and the rules and life here may be livable. What I mean by that is if you struggle to conform here others will persist until you do. All students here are male. Yes you may interact and even love one another but look to article eight in your handbook. If a new student does not accept you as his life partner here on campus then go to the next candidate. No, new students you are not expected to choose or have a partner but let

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me say this having one will increase your survival rate here immensely. And lastly, new students you may wonder what in the hell this place is.” She says bluntly making the room erupt with respectable laughter. When it dies down she smiles. “This campus is no ordinary campus. But you all already knew that. I can see it on your faces. If you’ve been admitted here it means your karma is very bad. It might not even have been your fault but this campus is here to guide you down on the path of darkness that you’re already stuck on. Hell is not at all what you think it may be. It has its own history. Well let’s say that the government that sent you here believing you all can assist us in our daily duties. Which are to keep the human balance of light and dark while fighting our defenses against the rabid angels on our borders on occasion. Only those who have a special talent for survival or playing between his light and dark aura end up here. It’s an extremely valuable skill to possess. It means neither the light nor dark know what to do with your soul. So you end up here. During the night our campus leaves its home station on the island near the coast of Florida. During the day we reappear and even cross the threshold back into the human realm prior to each assignment or judging of a soul. When a soul needs to release negative energy we intervene. Upon taking that negativity and we use it to weaponize our scythes. Fail to comply or fail our tests you will not be kicked out as you might be hoping. You will be punished and then lastly if you continue not to do bad deeds as part of our curriculum then you will be sentenced to purgatory. Ah, as I fear I have said too much. Part of the curriculum is free thinking and thinking on your feet. Do or die. That is how you will survive.” The head mistress smiles, sitting down as everyone applauds. Argen felt as if the rug had been pulled out from underneath him again as he felt his head spin and his knees tremble. Hell? I’m in a type of hell sector? He thought becoming sick as he cups his mouth heaving. Chase gives him a warning glare not to flee as servants were serving dinner in black hooded gowns. He ignored Chase and quickly jumps over him and runs up the stairs almost knocking over a servant. “Ah it appears we have ourselves a runner.” Argen heard the head mistress. He runs down the hallway past the bathroom he was in earlier. Frantic, he runs heaving feeling his chest might implode as he starts to feel dizzy. “Somebody get me out of here! I didn’t do anything to deserve this!” Argen cries in fear as he runs along the burgundy painted wall ending up in a circular room where several hallways are branched off. Suddenly the marble bust heads around him shush him making him jump and fall to his butt in fear. Ar looks

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over his shoulder and could hear people heading his way making him scramble to his feet and run straight down a hallway. He finds a door that looked like it led to the outside. As Argen pushed the heavy door open he stumbles out into a stormy night and slips on cobblestone as he looks around to see gargoyles posted on each railing to this insanely long balcony that wraps around the academy. He remembered seeing the gargoyles and thought they were stupid as he entered the academy. Suddenly the gargoyles turn and their eyes bleed angrily. Ar gulps horrified at this shocking sight as he slowly backs up to the door. “Oh shit!” Ar yells. Just when a gargoyle lurched toward him it scratched his arm just as he’s suddenly forced back inside the warm and dark light hallway and the door slams shut. Breathless, Argen could make out the frown lines on Eugene’s angry face by candlelight. “Ugh honestly! The audacity to ruin a perfectly good meal and then to insult the protectors of this academy!” Eugene scolds him. “What is wrong with you? Are you trying to get yourself killed or are you just stupid? Or do you really have no idea that you’re dead?” Eugene started yelling but ended softly. The truth lights up in Ar’s eyes and Eugene sees it, looking apologetically. “What?!” Ar yells as he slides down the wall to his butt. “What is going on?” The head mistress’s cold voice bellows in the small space. Argen cowers, covering his face as he weeps. “Was my message not clear?” She asks Eugene. He nods. “Yes it was and you were, but there was a problem with this newbie. The serum that all students receive upon entry immunizes them against spiritual toxins here. But his made him have a severe side effect: amnesia. He has no idea that he’s dead. All he remembers is that he was left here.” Eugene explains. The head mistress’s icy demeanor vanishes. “Ah that explains it.” She says motherly as she kneels before Argen. “What is your name?” She asks him. Ar just cries. “Argen.” Eugene and Chase both say in unison. She nods as Eugene helps her rise in her heavy dress. “Does he pose as a threat?” She asks. Eugene and Chase both shake their heads. “Then I entrust him to you both. I have a lot of explaining to do out there. And have a feast to continue. Oh, Eugene he looks rather dashing on your arm. Hope he’s a possibility for you.” She says wispily as she glides down the hallway. “Very well mother.” Eugene nods. When she’s gone Chase releases a sigh of relief.

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“She’s…she’s…” Ar stutters. Eugene shakes his head laughing. “No it’s what we all call her,” Eugene explains as he loosens his tie. Argen groans in pain as his arm stings as he sees his arm turning purple as his veins start to feel icy. “Chase!” Eugene yells. “I’m on it!” Chase yells back as he runs to a black box in the wall at the corner of the hallway and pulls out a packaged syringe. Argen chokes as he feels his throat tighten and he’s wheezing. “Alright, listen, you need to just try and relax,” Eugene warns as cradles Ar in his arms. Ar would have been pissed off if it weren’t for the fact he couldn’t breathe. Chase suddenly slips the syringe’s needle into one of the claw marks on Ar’s arm. Argen had screamed in agony as he could feel the floor vibrate from the orchestra in the dining hall. Chase draws back the infected blood and gently removes the syringe making him wince. “All black?” Eugene asks in fear. Chase shakes his head. “Dark purple.” Chase confirms. Eugene nods as he rolls up Ar’s sleeve to expose the raw flesh that’s infected. “Ah you’ve made quite the mess, Ar.” Eugene gently scolds as he pulls out a small golden dagger. Argen’s eyes grew wide with fear. “Oh relax, just going to scrape off the dead tissue and prevent your arm from having to be amputated. Chase, the antidote if you will.” Eugene says quickly as he begins to scrape off the purple skin. Ar yells in protest but realizes it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be, just oddly horrific. Chase inserts another clean needle into Argen’s arm sinking it into his bone making Ar turn green. “Look away.” Eugene says gently as he forces Ar to look at him. Fighting to get free, Argen is frustrated when he felt the horrible needle bobbing in his flesh. Eugene held him firmly against his chest, lifting the dagger off of Argen’s arm. Just then he felt an unimaginable pain when pressure squeezed his arm as he felt something being sucked out of him. “Ahhh!” He screams as Eugene holds his arm still. “Chase.” Eugene warns. “It’s the bone marrow! What do you want me to do? I’m going as fast as I can.” Chase says irritated as he pulls back on the rest of the virus and removing the needle easily. After this ordeal Chase applied a cream to the infected raw flesh and wraps gauze around Ar’s arm.

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“There he’s done. And I need to dispose of the materials and catalog them. Oh Eugene I think your boy toy just wet himself.” Chase adds before heading to the black box. “I did not!” Ar yells frustrated. Eugene looks at the crying Argen in his arms and holds him allowing him to sob. After Chase finishes disposing the materials and catalogs them he returns to help Eugene usher Ar into the bathroom they were in before. Chase locks the door as Eugene draws hot water in the sink and puts out a red cloth and change of pants. “We’ll be outside.” Eugene explains before Chase unlocks the door and they leave shutting the door. After he cleaned himself and put on a clean pair of pants he stood in front of the mirror looking haggard. He stared at the faint cut lines on his arms that were now white scars. He was thankful Eugene hadn’t noticed them but felt odd that he even cared what Eugene thought. There was a soft rapt to the door before Eugene and Chase reappear. “Come on, you need to eat.” Eugene coaxes holding out his hand. Argen just stares at his gesture. “Don’t worry we won’t make you go out there tonight but you do need to see what will follow for the days to come.” Chase adds. Ar walks past them trying to leave but gets ushered by them both to the entryway of the dining hall. Staring at the dining hall he saw all were eating on fine dining plates and were eating what appeared to be raw flesh. The sides were black cabbage and red potatoes with a glass of wine. He feels himself begin to fall as Chase and Eugene hold him up. When they led him away he was grateful, feeling nauseous. Back at the dorm room, he had stumbled inside the bathroom vomiting again. “What was that?” Argen demanded angrily when he finished vomiting. “Dinner. It’s what we get our energy from.” Eugene explains from in the doorway. “What type of animal?” He asks. No answer. Ar looks to Eugene and turns green. “Oh relax, it’s not like they were murdered or anything, they were already dead and we decided not to waste any of it.” Chase argues behind Eugene. “I couldn’t…I can’t!” He yells at the thought of it. “Then you’ll die from starvation dumb ass.” Chase adds before heading back to his desk. Eugene offers his hand again to Ar when he sees he is done being sick. Immediately Ar swats Eugene’s hand away in protest as he uses the sink to

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rise. Eugene leans against the doorway and watches Argen’s struggle with amusement. “Let me make one thing clear asshole. I will never agree to be yours in any form or at any given point in time!” Argen yells angrily at Eugene’s reflection. Eugene smirks. “Are you finished? Or are you going to continue to throw more empty threats at me with half assed curses?” Eugene asks making him speechless. “That’s what I thought.” Eugene concludes as he steps aside and watches Ar sit on his mattress with his hands in his hair. “Stand, Ar.” Eugene tells him but sees him refuse. “That was not an option.” Eugene says irritated as he forces him to stand. He stares at Eugene and then back at his dresser as he watches his bed sheets flow out of his dresser and fold themselves on his mattress, making his bed. “Whoa, calm down, it was just a simple cleaning charm.” Eugene tells a frightened Argen. “Who are you?” He demands. Eugene grins as he releases him and watches him sit on his bed stunned. “Are you the devil?” He questions but gets laughed at by Eugene and Chase. “I’m flattered.” Eugene says once he stopped laughing. Ar rolls his eyes in irritation at Eugene as he lies down on his side taking in the details of his room that he hadn’t noticed before. It’s as if anything gothic or dark like was considered in every aspect of this place’s design. Even the alarm clock was decorated with vein like wrought iron coils around its frame. Peeking outside his window, Eugene had jumped at the sight of headless horses running in the distance as a blood moon shines above. “Okay that’s enough exposure for tonight. The way you’re going you’ll scare yourself to death!” Eugene says as he pulls the curtains over the stained glass window. “Alright, Ar, this is the underworld run down. Everything that happens here works like clockwork. Alright?” Eugene says gently. Ar just nods as he begins to hear a pulsating thump beneath the floor. “Don’t worry that’s just the heater. And before you ask yes it runs on demon blood.” Eugene confirms Argen’s fear. “You need to stop being afraid. Alright? Like how you were when you first entered. The less afraid you are the more normal this place appears to you.” Eugene explains. Suddenly he smiles at his idea. Ar immediately gets up and realizes Eugene is planning something as he sees the door to their room has just locked. Chase chuckles as he types away on his laptop on his bed. “Stay away from me, prick.” Argen snarls. Eugene shrugs smiling as he forces Argen’s back up against the wall.

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“Want me to stay away? Make me and I will.” Eugene states simply. Angry, he suddenly fights Eugene with all he has as he feels their bodies wrestling on the carpet. When he looks at the carpet he could see the tendrils of carpet turning into spiders freezing him in fear as he suddenly feels Eugene pulling him to his feet. “Watch and learn.” Eugene says tiredly as he kisses the back of Argen’s hand. Slowly but surely the horrors of this world he was stuck in started to disappear. In that moment everything became clear and he didn’t know what horrified him more that he was in a sector in hell that scared him shitless or that a male had just kissed his hand. “Can I go home?” He mumbles before he falls unconscious hitting the carpeted floor feeling Eugene picking him up. In this moment he realizes Eugene had tried to break his fall. “Well? Do you think he’s going to make it or will he be cast back into purgatory?” Chase asks. Argen was unconscious but he could hear them feeling Eugene lay him down on the bed. “If he stops scaring himself to death he just might. Only if he weren’t so stubborn…and would let me…” Eugene trails on exhausted. “…devour him?” Chase finishes for him smirking. “Oh no you don’t you ass!” Argen’s subconscious screamed with rage at the thought of that. That’s when he felt Eugene pat his ass making him boil with hatred. “Do watch over my precious partner. I have a seminar to give tomorrow and I won’t be able to check in until late afternoon.” Eugene laughs as he opens the door. “Got it, I’m pretty much his wet nurse?” Chase says irritated. “You got it and oh can you give this to him?” Eugene chuckled, exchanging something with him before leaving the room. ‘What is it?’ Ar thought before falling asleep. Then the door shuts and locks once more.

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Secret Monologue

One… two… three Inside the room there is a stage and by that stage is a window and under rises the maiden, I, her… All fancily dressed in white with a blindfold as her glued shut mouth hisses, “instigator” You step forward touching but not really… remove the mask We remain still, I see your a thousand miles gone, don’t run from the spell you cast, don’t ask You did what you need and left your creation filled with indignation, now our past Cure this period of emptiness like death Your soul flesh you will unsheathe Behind this red velvet curtain I remain uncertain I am knowledgeable, I think, on how to entertain Soft illumination behind us, upon our flesh eyes of interest one… two… three… I was born for this to dance this dance of his Elaborate, extravagant like a laced up vagrant, with in hand a scythe Wielding judgment in our distilled night with a knife with heavy handed strife

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Hands intertwine, legs extend, back to chest as if we’ll last Flip and dip, one… two… three… we are like incest with perfect contrast As if our bodies have known each other forever My heart you’ve taken, my body you’ve exposed, but my sanity? Never! Dancing to the beat of deceit One… two… three… Aren’t I good enough to be your surrogate? String me up once more, let me be your doll I cannot run from this so I must attempt to survive and loll Raise my hands, extend my legs, twist my back show me how to be in a trance …Oh but only once more Don’t pretend that we haven’t done this before, it’s our seance One… two… three… We try to coax out love, try to provoke it but life cannot come to those already dead It’s together in which you’ve made her, I, her bled And I liked it, no sense to fight it, I’m all tight and contrite But it’s far better to engage in depravity with the devil I know Than the one I don’t and have show Bring me back from this purgatory once more on this undead midnight shore of dancing bodies we tore into In the mirror, I grow fearful, I don’t recognize her nor I but I sense the change all the same

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Now look! Look at the monster you’re about to create on this death date! You love the terror! One… two… three… It’s your sacred duty to do so, to coax the lie back in again and again That this is all normal, fine and okay… explaining it is she, I, she who are insane Especially after you have damaged, don’t refrain or explain, just detain As I on this revolving pedestal of stage glide and fly with white ribbons All our hatred and passion aside, lie like you mean it darling hiding behind those romantic partitions Saying, ‘Just a while longer before the frothy rivers flow to bring in the under tow and my favorite sensations’ As she, I, she whispers, “I don’t want to die.” She lets go and drowns inside herself in a warped snow globe on the shelf One… two… three… winds the music box of rotating figures at a masquerade It shuts and locks, pristine in the moonlight all sacred This is how I know how love works, wind it up and watch go, enter the show One… two… three…

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Infernal Reapings: It’s a Morgue World Victoria is a feisty brunette who enjoys singing old past time rock songs, dark chocolate, men’s colonial clothing, books, her cat Vic, who she named after herself and oh yes, dead bodies. She enjoys laying dead bodies to rest. She’s a brilliant mortician who's been working at the local morgue to release demon bound spirits from the deceased bodies. Problem with this line of work is that her body is open to possession. When she started to show symptoms her boss from on high, assigned Daniel, a mortician from London who has extensive experience due to his deceased partners being possessed. Daniel is a gentleman with black spiked hair, who enjoys practicing his pagan practice, making home made remedies and playing classical piano and oh yeah dead bodies. He enjoys dead bodies who tell him interesting stories. He is a prim and proper mortician from England who appears to be set in his Olde English heritage. But at nights he tears demonic souls who have taken possession of his past lovers and even a few co-workers. It’s a hush hush business and is as complicated as whack-a mole. Nobody wants to know what really goes on down in the morgue. It’s a dirty job in every sense of the way: from embalming to coaxing souls out of bodies. It’s quite exhausting but he has the stamina for it. Dontel is a tanned Latino and the boss of the morgue who files the paperwork and pretends he doesn’t know what occurs downstairs. He inherited the morgue business from his family and is tired of the living dead business while dealing with ghost ex-boyfriends who still come by for an occasional day of the dead orgy.

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Narrator: Welcome to an urban street in the dead town of Turtian but at dawn becomes Tattle, on the coast of Maryland where the dock is apparent nearby. Frame closes in on a Victorian looking house, the only one that hasn’t been bulldozed and still standing. Inside are two floors and inside the left bedroom is a dark purple embellished room. A room that contains a snoring woman with messy brunette hair matted to one side of her face from her drool. “It’s a dead world after all! It’s a dead world after all!” her alarm clock chirped on her wrought iron Victorian steam-punk bedside table. She sleepily slams it to the floor. Midnight, midnight, her brain registered as her sleepy eyes flitted open and closed to the thrumming beat of the party happening downstairs. Through the fog of her spirit stupor she faintly remembers a screaming blob that was her ex. “Oh shit, that's right, that’s what set me off tonight.” She remembers. Victoria: “Dontel!” Narrator: She yelled through her sleep deprived mouth that had drool rolling down her plump lips. Her rat nest fantastic hairdo moves underneath her sheets like a wet cat paddling up shit’s creek. Surfacing her sheets, she stumbles out of bed and limps downstairs and screams grabbing the orgy party’s attention. Dontel, her roommate, probably had shitted bricks at her seriously effed up Morticia monster style. She faintly heard voices talking quickly and worriedly until she saw them leave to a different room. Still standing on the stairs her legs shake and wobble as she starts to lose her balance as Dontel catches her in mid fall down the stairs. Victoria: “You! You are in fudging trouble!”

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Narrator: She belched before passing out in his arms. He sighs at the sight of his mangled roommate and employee and friend carrying her back to her bed before pulling out his cell phone. He dials and is relieved he got her partner from down at the morgue.

Dontel: “Okay, um you told me to call you if it’s an emergency? Well I think we just crossed from emergency to tsunami. Our sweet girl for the first time is smashed with Spirit. No I’m not kidding, yes as in possession. Man, want me to do your job for you? Yup, feel free to... but hate to ask but I’m kind of having a party right now. Didn’t know she climbed in using the fire escape. Yeah, would you mind? Thanks.”

Narrator: Dontel ends as he packs an overnight bag for her. After twenty minutes, Dontel opens the door to see his roommate's partner

Daniel: “Where is she?”

Narrator: He asks as he corrects his posture that was leaning into the door frame. He eyed the living suspiciously once catching sight of toys sloppily hidden in the couch cushions like a perverse easter egg hunt. He tears his gaze away from it trying to hide his own surprise.

Dontel: “This way to her majesty.”

Narrator: Dontel says exhausted as they climb up the wrought iron spiral staircase to the bedroom.

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Daniel: “Thanks. Just let me get her out. Umm, you may want to stay out of the way and oh do you possibly have some Oreo cookies on hand? We’re going to need those.” Narrator: The partner warns as he cautiously opens the door. He sighs at the sight of a knocked out Victoria as he covers her indecent exposure with a bathrobe. Daniel: “Oh Vicky.” Narrator: He adds as he scoops her up in his arms seeing she had been crying. Daniel: “You aggravating woman, I told you to call when you need me. Why didn’t you tell me it was your break up anniversary?” Narrator: He keeps talking to the unconscious Victoria as he descends the stairs. Dontel awaits them by the door and throws Victoria’s bag out onto the porch and salutes him. Dontel: “You brave man… oh well… thanks bye.”

Narrator: Dontel says as he shuts the door on them. Daniel, Victoria’s British partner down at the local morgue raises an eyebrow at the sound of a revved up electronic through the door. He goes wide eyed as he shakes his head of all possible dirty thoughts that popped to both of his heads at that moment. Traveling from the porch to his hearse deemed more problematic than he thought with a squirming Victoria who was in and out of her stupor.

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Daniel: “Behave!” Narrator: He commands an unsettling Victoria who had an attention span of a five year old. Victoria giggles. He sighs repeatedly in between pushed out breathes of reserved frustration at her neighbors who all had chosen tonight to peek out at the entertainment outside: them. At that moment this is when Victoria launches out of his arms like a cat and starts running. Daniel: “Are you possessed?” Daniel demands already knowing the answer but trying to see the changes in real time. Victoria: “Hahaha am I ever!” Daniel: “Mystery solved.” Narrator: Daniel grunts continuing after her. Daniel: “Do not make me do this!” Narrator: He yells as he pulls out the Ghost Sleeping tranquilizer serum contained in a syringe. Victoria keeps running. Victoria: “What are you going to do spank me?” (She giggles) Daniel: “You already know my sexual orientation and it is not that!” Narrator: He chases her down the street. Victoria: “The British are coming! The British are coming!”

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Narrator: Victoria lets out manically tripping over her own feet. Daniel: “Woman!” Narrator: He uses his old glory running day memories to sprint and catch her by the waist, stopping her as she swings around accidentally elbowing his nose. Daniel: “It’s going to be a long night.” Narrator: He sighs. Daniel hauls her over his shoulder as he hears her sing the Scorpion’s hit song ‘Rock Me Like a Hurricane’ and carries her to the hearse and takes out a syringe from his leather jacket pocket. Male Neighbor: “Oh look honey it’s a couple larping.” Narrator: Daniel cranes his neck. Daniel: “She is not —! Ugh never-mind!”

Narrator: He looks at the male and his female mate, exasperated trying to motion that what he was doing was strictly professional and he was merely rescuing his intoxicated co-worker. Male Neighbor: “Is she getting kidnapped?” (says to his partner)

Narrator: The female looks at the unfolding scene take place. Female Neighbor: “This is such a turn on… but… should we call the cops?”

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Narrator: She whispers back to him. Daniel hears a neighbor couple nearby. Daniel: “It’s alright! No abduction here!” Narrator: He tells the neighbors and waves them off. Just when he tranquilizes Victoria, the female neighbor drops dead. Daniel: “Ah don’t tell me it’s a morgue world after all.”

Narrator: Daniel added as he stares at the dead corpse. He sighs, remembering his dumb song he sang whenever he was in the morgue to add some cheer to the drab of death.

New Scene – opens to the morgue

Narrator: Down at the morgue Daniel has laid Victoria down on the couch in the break room by the vending machines containing soul nutrients to prevent possession. Daniel paces the break room before he heads into the detox hallway prior to slipping into his medical garb. Mask in place, he strides over to the recent dead body. He feels her vitals and does the necessary routine to make sure the body is in fact dead. After said routine, he revs up the heater before he takes a scalpel and makes an incision on the woman’s chest. Midway down, her torso rises.

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Isabelle Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell Moan

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Moan I have seen the minds of my generation consumed by the media, addicted fixated lonely, glued to the back-lit screens of instantaneous information searching for impetuous gratification, angel-headed hipsters longing for a true connection to the distant cosmos in the dregs of dorm rooms, who red lipped and pierced and smoke-breathed stood high in the corners of empty parks and orphaned rooms the graceless bumbles of his life or hers in the breath off a pulsating factory, who skull smiled for memories with glossy lips and scrunched up cheeks extolling the friendships of tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remembered past filled with imperative connections to worth, who straightened their hair their mind their body to the standards of beauty with ointments and balms and apothecary magics, who laughed with boys with girls with screens, hurriedly fucked in empty rooms in the backseats of cars in solitary bathrooms or silent beds, who worked till 5 in the morning on exigent assignments, blurry eyed with six styrofoam cups of dollar coffee and fierce determination until they crashed, triumphant, defiant and done, who huddled in chairs, wrapped in nylon blankets with roommates and friends of roommates watching romantic comedies trying not to wince at the portrayal of a life nonexistent in reality,

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cliche sugar sweet Splenda sweet sweet as the lips of good girls and bad boys pure under the coat of their hair gel pure under the black of their jackets the same rot black of their past now cleaned by the aseptic hand of Love, who explored each other physically searching for the limitations of their bodies and found instead the limitations of their hearts, who fell in love with pixels and strings of data recurring copulations of 1s and 0s in their minds their visions of futuristic eden, who smoked on stoops, under canopies sheltered from the wind passing a light back and forth in order to connect through the interchange of hands of words of warmth, who spent hours discussing the human condition and the mind washing of media, influence of the archaic on our brain and body, poised under the florescent lights of a room orange with admission, who leaned wide eyed over cafe tables and talked of feelings and thoughts and histories and boys while walking and eating pudding under the rising moon, who wanted to be angry feminists who were angry feminists indignant in the misuse of pronouns the labels of society the restrictions of our conditioning a lifetime of marinating in the stew of history, who longed for the ineffable truth of poetry and art, but were lost in how to find it through the hazy porn of advertising and the dregs of the hamster wheel of life, ah, Allen, we need you now, we have lost our howl to 140 characters of ants, black emoji lemmings endlessly jumping off the cliffs of timeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the ache of poetry and the truth that this is not who we are, we are cosmos creatures

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blazing with our soiled artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smocks over the carbon dioxide skies over the glare of Hollywood over our own sedentary selves, rising incarnate in the truth of beauty in the lies of beauty, unplugged the American dream stuck in the automated routine of acquisition that buffered the connections of the mind with the photoshopped heart of Art that was filtered through our water and is now in pieces lining the channels of our blood stream ready for the next google years.

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Sarah Oppeit Babies Yellow Godhood: The Inevitability of Winter Storms

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Babies Slimy, cone-topped sack of wailing flesh, Breaching the surface like a severely spherical, balding man Trying to squeeze his head between fence posts. In its wake it drags innards like a gown train: Fleshy tubes of blood and piss. Jellyfish membrane, unidentified remains. And then, when the excess muck is expelled: The noise starts.

Yes, your moist, bellowing, poop machine will be adorable. Of course I want to be there for the birth; Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be like watching a high school kid Eat the pickled three-headed pig on a dare. Disgustingly fascinating. Inevitably ends with a hospital bill. And besides, Someone needs to bring the whiskey.

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Yellow Yellow is an acquaintance found in hospital wards or against billboard backdrops. It is surreal, and forceful, and just a tad fake- like a personality set to overdrive, nothing It says or does is completely sincere. A commercial ad with a jaunty, jaw-breaking Jingle played too loudly so it can find you on the toilet and politely demand that you Shut up and pay attention. It is typically, helpfully condescending; favoring blinding brightness battering windshields on a Wednesday morning over a quiet hello. And it always brings those delightful lemon-drop cakes to parent-teacher night, sometimes with razor blades baked in, sometimes not. It figures life is more interesting that way. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not wrong.

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Godhood: The Inevitability of Winter Storms Whinnie liked to think her new hoodie was something special. Dappled gray like a horseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ass and superbly patterned to geometric bliss, it was pretty special. But not Special, capital S and all. Perhaps if Whinnie had purchased the garb with knuckle bones in some smoky shop in the mageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s district, other people would have begun to understand her deepening delusions. As it was, no one could convince her that the Mayfield Mall lacked the correct eldritch atmosphere for such a charmed cloth. Every mundane place is magic to someone, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d say, though there was some debate over whether or not the mall was hers. The hoodie never seemed to do anything extraordinary. It was a bit warm, the insides lined with tangerine fur. It even hung a bit long on the arms, giving her a frightfully youthful manner for a twenty-eight year old woman. Certainly, a distant cousin could have sworn it once took his cat into its furry depths and never spat it out again. Otherwise, there really was no justification for the day Whinnie climbed the old birch tree and jumped. Arms flapping, spare cloth flattened and thrashing, autumnal sun stealing across a suddenly surprised face as her knees kissed ground and shattered. The chipmunk would have sworn the grey predator with the geometric pattern had swallowed the fallen pink prey whole, but it was too distracted by the scent of winter storms. And besides, there was no one to tell.

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Becky Samowitz Observations Rum and Crackers

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Observations The old man at Goodwill walked merrily down the woman’s clothing aisle, playing a melodious tune with the harmonica pressed tightly to his lips. His oversized ears peeked out from his worn, blue baseball cap, and his tiny blue eyes stared intently at me through his large coke-bottle glasses. His skin had canyons of creases and wrinkles, which danced about as he played his heart out in the middle of the woman’s clothing aisle. My cat is sitting contently on his plum colored pillow on the window seat. The suns rays are casted directly on his peach colored fur, creating an almost metallic glow off his perfectly groomed coat. The tree outside the window sways gently in the cold wind, making the leaves flutter about like butterfly wings. This movement makes the sun-rays on my cat reflect off of him like a shimmering lake. My cat lays with his eyes closed, arms stretched, and basks in the autumn warmth, unaware of how beautiful he looks. He was in line in front of me. He was probably in his 40s, and wearing a biker’s du-rag. His leather skin was dark and rough from the sun, while his goatee floated off of his chin like a carpet leading to the entry of his mouth. He had a shiny eyebrow piercing, and old, faded tattoos covering all his skin that was exposed. When he smiled, he was missing one bottom left tooth. He smiled because he was holding a baby. I don’t know if it was his own child or not, but he loved this tiny person to the ends of the earth and back. Every second he gave the baby kisses, held him in the air and made the kinds of faces you can only get away with in public if you’re making them to a baby. The man cooed and the baby laughed. I love the phrase, “never judge a book by its cover.” The sun peeked through the overcasted sky, illuminating the apple orchard. We carefully walked through the rows and rows of apple trees, trying not to step on the fallen apples that littered the orchard. Many of these fallen fruit were rotten and splayed open, making themselves a free dining experience for flies and wasps. These flies were enormous, spazzy things that swirled around your head like a circling shark. The experience walking through puddles of applesauce and creating splashes of insects. Below every apple tree were oodles of beautiful, red, voluptuous apples. Under each tree the apples all looked like they had been spilled out of a marbles bag.

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The contents in the back of my fridge had been there for I don’t know how long. It was unidentifiable now, just a pile of green slump in the small container. The inside of the container was foggy and perspiration created little windows for me to try and identify the now foreign piece of food. The putrid green chunk was spongy and sprouted little black flakes of mold. White fuzz hugged the green lump, its texture looked similar to that of coral. There was also a nice layer of liquid at the bottom of the container, with little flecks of sea life floating around it. I didn’t dare open the container in fear that a pungent smell would singe my nostril hairs off. The container with the mysterious species promptly went into the garbage bin. The shepherd’s pie steamed on the stovetop, creating a delicious aroma in the air that made my mouth water. The mashed potato sat patiently, while the speckles of salt disappeared into its mushy surface. Cutting into the mashed potato revealed the delectable layer of yellow corn nibblets, and then the sizzling beef underneath. The art of cutting into the shepherds pie was like cutting into a cake, carefully and slowly, watching it fall apart as the big honking piece is then transported to the plate. Now it is big searing mess of yellow, white and brown on the plate. The colorful feast is then accompanied by long, smooth green beans. It is quite the beautiful sight. My old stuffed kitty sleeps next to me every night. He is worn, torn, and deformed. My kitty is black, with patches of his weathered fur missing. Both of his ears are gone, filed down the sewed foundation of where they once were. Black kitty’s plastic whiskers are almost all disappeared except for one. Most of his threaded pink nose is worn off, and his glass yellow eyes are the only element that is still in good condition. My kitty also has a gaping hole in his head from the thread giving out, his white stuffing peaking and sometimes spilling out like a brain being exposed. He has other various, smaller holes on the side of his half head, near his front arm and where his tail starts from his little round body. He has been sewn back together many times, looking like a little animalistic Frankenstein. Looking at him uncovers much of my childhood and how much love I have given to him over the years, and he still sits idly by and watches me as grow older. My grandmother is still as beautiful as she was in her prime. She is in her kitchen cooking up a storm. Her silver hair still has some streaks of blonde, and while it is usually in its normal updo, today it was unwrapped and dangling down to her buttocks like a shimmering waterfall. I have always loved

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my grandmotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mermaid hair. It swishing back and forth behind her as she prances from one side of the kitchen to the other. She pauses and finally puts it up in a twist at the top of her head. Her face is old, yet still holds its youth. Her wrinkles are very prominent, carved deep into her pale skin. Her gray eyes flicker behind her small glasses and she opens the oven to check on the pie. Her earlobes are pulled down from old age, with little gold earrings at the very end of the pruned lobe. My grandmother has a great, hearty laugh, but very bad teeth from all those 70 years of smoking. A couple of missing in the back and they are yellowed and give off quite the smell. Her fingernails are also bumpy and old, but her fingers are long and slender. Her lilac colored sweater hugs her tree like body, and her clogs make a thudding sound every time she walks across the wooden kitchen floor. The view of the Kennebec river from my grandparents house is spectacular. At the rivers edge, rocks are lined all the way down as the eye can see, and make a great place to sit and watch the water. It is such a peaceful and serene spot, the light blue water gliding past my dangling feet, carrying debris such as sticks and soggy plant life idly past. The occasional fish pops out of the water to say hello. The river is very wide across, about 200 feet. In the middle of the river in front of my grandparentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house is a small island with plenty of brush and one, lone tree that is home to a family of bald eagles. Sitting on the jagged, sun bleached rocks, I can hear the eagles screech out to one another. One is in the nest and the other is soaring and above the tree line on the other side of the river. There are also seals on a sandy bank parallel to where I am perched, and you can hear their burps and groans of glee as they bask in the warm sunshine. The large forest of trees that align the Kennebec are splashed with colors of orange, maroon, and golden yellow, making the sight utterly breathtaking. The air is brisk but the sun is toasty, and the crisp fall air swirls my hair across my face and squinting eyes. I sit there for quite some time taking in the abundance of wildlife and the beautiful day. It is a moment where all you can do is sit there and relish the beauty around you. I spy this woman around Portland on many occasions, and she is quite the spectacle. She is usually wearing all black attire, and her body shape is similar to that of a potato having arms and legs. She wears a go-go hat with the cap to the side. Her pants usually cling to her twiggy legs, and her shoes are usually a pair of dirty UGG boots or black boots. Her face is the most spectacular part of this human being. She plasters on dark, plum colors lipstick, and messy dark eye shadow surrounds her eyes like a raccoon. Her face isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t old, but not young either. Her

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hair is either hidden underneath her always worn hat or she doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any, save for a couple rat-tail piece that pokes out. She seems to happily wander the streets of Portland or get something at the Dunkin Donuts. She is a style icon and seems like a nice lady, despite her nut-case appearance.

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Rum and Crackers I’ve told Mister Cheese, the costumed fellow giving samples of cheddar outside of the 7/11, to leave me alone, but he doesn’t seem to get it. I guess he is either curious why I’ve returned to this same 7/11 for the 5th time this night, Halloween night to be exact, or he is just too friendly and desperately wants me to sample a cube of cheese. You would think after the second time of saying no he would get the hint, but this is not the case. It could be because of my outfit. I’m sure many girls wearing pirate costumes come to this particular 7/11 on a Halloween night, and Mister Cheese man over here must think I’m a different one each time. Only my attire is not a costume. The reason I have been to this damn 7/11 five times this evening is because of my shipmates. You see, I’m not dressed up like a pirate on this Halloween night because that was the only costume left at the store. I actually am a full time, certified pirate. A pirate who has been catering to her drunk matey’s and a demanding parrot all night, purchasing rum and crackers every hour on the dot, when believe it or not I have more important things to do. “Come on, Tess! It’s a night of Celebratin’! Be a good lass and find the nearest shop with me good ole rum.” Captain Periwinkle Beard had said, (Peri for short, if you call him by the name his mother blessed him with, ye be thrown overboard). This same routine went on and on, and now here I am, being bombarded by a man in a cheese costume, for the 5th time this night. “Hello Miss!” He chirped. “Would you like to try a nice, savory cube of gourmet cheddar cheese?” He gave me the cheesiest grin, ironically enough, and he shoved the platter of cheese cubes in my face, causing me to lurch backward and drop my 7/11 bag containing the rum. It smashed to smithereens on the cement. “Whoopsies!” He giggled. I gave him a perturbed glare. “Seriously? If you hand’t shoved your damn cheese platter in front on my face so abruptly, my rum contents wouldn’t be gliding down the cement sidewalk like the Amazon river!” I was mad, not just at this dumb man in a cheese costume, but at my mates and captain as well. Who do they think they are? I’m not their mother. At this point I was huffing like a crazed bull about to gut a taunting matador. “It was an accident! Terribly sorry Miss!” He nervously sidestepped to the right, noticing my bubbling rage. I grabbed the crackers out of the fallen bag, and began to stomp away.

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“I like you costume by the way!” I heard the cheese man call after to me. I almost blew a gasket. I swiveled right around and charged the cheese man letting my inner bull take over. He let out a girlish squeak as we made impact, sending his platter of cheese cubes sky high. I was now on top of this fool in a cheese suit, with cheddar cheese cubes falling down around us like delicate rose petals. It would have been quite a romantic sight, if it weren’t for the small knife I now held to his throat. “This is not a damn costume” I growled. “P-please Miss, I didn’t mean to offend! I just thought it was, cuz y-you know, its Halloween night and all!” He whimpered. He was pitiful. I pushed myself off of him and pocketed my knife. I looked around at his sample cubes sprinkled around the sidewalk. Mister cheese man was still laying sprawled on his back, looking apparently stuck, due to the fact he could not roll over wearing his blocky costume. He really did look sad, his arms and legs flailing hopelessly like a newborn baby in a crib. I rolled my eyes and helped him up. “I don’t need more rum.” I said to him. “What I need is for you to follow me.” “Follow you, why on earth would I do that?” He said, exasperated. I looked at him as I patted my pocket with the knife in it, and smiled at him. He looked at my hand then back and me, and gulped. “You’re not going to kill me are you?” He quivered. I smirked. “No no, I have something better in mind” I answered. We then began our way to the docks, and little did he know, to the Jolly Hollow. “Thar she is!” cheered Captain Peri as I hoisted myself over the Jolly Hollow’s wood railing. My shipmates, some of whom had already passed out, cheered along with him. Capt. Peri clumsily pushed himself up from sitting on a barrel, and wobbled over to me, putting his hand on my shoulder to steady himself. “Where is thee rum deary?” He hiccupped. Suddenly, at that moment, Kiwi, the Captains parrot, somersaulted down from the mast and landed behind him on the ships deck. “Wraaaak! Rum dear! Wraaaak!” Kiwi sang. The damn bird was intoxicated as well now. This was getting way too out of hand. I shook my head. “I don’t have anymore rum.” I said. The crew gasped. Capt. Peri burped with surprise. “Don’t have anymore? What in the hells are yee talking about?” He cried. “The 7/11 didn’t have any rum left. You guys plundered their entire stock.” “Arg! Curse thee 7/11! *Hic* we shall pillage and rampage it in thee mornin’!

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Right boys?” Cpt. Peri raised his sword unsteadily to the sky, while the rest of the pirates made a ruckus. Nothing excited these boys more than plundering. I sighed. “Listen, Captain, remember that it is Halloween night? And remember why we dock the Jolly Hollow on this particular night, and this night only?” I asked. Capt. Peri gave me a clueless stare as he stroked his dreaded black beard. He was too far-gone at this point. One of my shipmates, Ragamuffin, the burliest and strongest of our crew, raised his hand as if he knew the answer. As big as an ox and mighty as a sea storm, he was about as smart as a loaf of bread. I ignored him and looked back at my plastered Captain. “Nope? Well let me remind you. On Halloween night, it is my duty and has been for many years now to go onto this foreign land called America, and scout the neighborhoods for the best pirate costume around. Once I find the perfect wanna-be pirate, I lure them back to the Jolly Hollow, and we adopt and train them as our newest mate. This is how you found me remember? And Ragamuffin? Bellamy? Dom? Ring any bells?” “Ahhhhh! Yes!!” Blurted Capt. Peri. “Have you found a new scallywag for us Lass?” “Well, I’ve been trying too all night! You pirates have been making me run errands for you, so I haven’t had a chance to even go to a neighborhood yet!” I sputtered. I crossed my arms and tapped my boot, scouring each of my now guilty shipmates faces. Ragamuffin sniffled. “I have, on the other hand, found someone that will do.” I said. I turned around, brought my finger and thumb to my mouth and whistled. My mates and captain stared in astonishment as a yellowish squared form rose from the edge of the ship. Mister cheese man stumbled getting over the railing, flailed his arms like a baby bird trying to fly, and crashed onto the deck. The crew looked at this strange specimen, and practically all in unison began roaring in a fit of drunken giggles. I was very displeased. It was like watching monkeys riled up at the zoo. “What in the devil is this? This here’s no pirate! It’s a block of cheese!” Spat the captain, wiping away tears of laugher from his bloodshot eyes. Kiwi the parrot was even sputtering with glee. “This, is our new shipmate!” I proclaimed. “And the best I could do for the night” I muttered under my breath. I helped the poor soul onto his feet. He turned his head to me and mouthed “shipmate?” with a puzzled yet excited look in his gray eyes. I looked at my mates, who were still rolling around laughing

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hysterically like pigs in a mud bath. I shot them with my signature stern look. Almost immediately they put a cork on it, and a hush fell across the Jolly Hollow. I then pushed the cheese man over to Capt. Peri. “Oh! Ahem, uh…*Hic*, now! This here is ar new mate– wait, what pray be yer name?” “Uh, it’s Walter.” “Ar new mate Walter! Now, we needs to give this scallywag a proper pirate name, right lads?” “Aye!” They all agreed. The crew huddled like penguins keeping warm and put their heads together, mumbling amongst themselves. It was Ragamuffin who was the first to pop his head up for air. “Waffle!” He exclaimed proudly with a big goofy grin. “Aye! Ar new matey Waffle!” Shouted the captain, raising his empty pitcher. The boys whooped and hollered, as they came up to the newly dubbed Waffle and gave him the proper pirate greeting, spitting in their hands and giving a good hearty shake. Waffle looked overwhelmed, but also overjoyed, and looked over towards me to give me a sheepish, cheesy grin. *** I fell in love with becoming a pirate. My time on the ship was always an adventure. The pirates became my family, and really adopted me as their own. Not to mention, as Caption Peri put it, got myself a nice sturdy pair of cannon balls. I will say turning my life around, from being that dope in the cheese costume, being a pipsqueak, the runt of society, is finally over. I am now a hellish, rum drinking pirate. I’m sure my gram misses me, being the only family I had left on that island called America, but she will survive. Her dating life will be a lot easily for her now that I’m out of the picture, and it is satisfyingly less uncomfortable for me to witness. So the Jolly Hollow is my new home, Captain Peri, Tess, Ragamuffin, Dom and the others are my family. I love breathing in that dense, salty air, feeling the sea spit her spray at my face oh so weightily. I loved everything about this new life of mine, except for one thing. The night of my inauguration as the new matey aboard the Jolly Hollow was unlike anything I had every experienced. We set sail for the vast ocean under the golden beacons of constellations in the night sky. Tess had brought me down into the cabins to immediately remove my cheese costume (which was promptly thrown overboard) and get into proper pirate attire. Once I looked the part of

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a swashbuckling, skull-crushing pirate, I was ushered to the upper deck once again for the next step in becoming an official member of Captain Peri’s ship. I stepped onto the deck and was greeted by the yellow glow of many lanterns and candles. All of the pirate’s faces were spookily illuminated, all staring me down like they were famished lions staring at the last morsel of raw meat My heart began to thump against my chest a little bit. They had all sobered up quite quickly to my amazement. They looked like they meant business. What was I getting myself into? Captain Peri stepped forward, with Kiwi the parrot on his shoulder. Even she was giving me a glare like no other. I looked worryingly to Tess by my side. My legs were about to buckle; I could just see it now. Fainting in front of tatted, boisterous, and humongous pirates before their very eyes. This is was not the way to make a real first impression to a boat in the middle of the sea filled with these folk. Tess gave me a shove and there I was face to face with the Captain. His eyes were dark, like the sea around us. His leathered skin revealed many wrinkles that were prominent and deep, though he did not seem to be old. Among his dreaded beard were little treasures such as beads, bones, and feathers. When his chapped mouth broke into a smile, he revealed a few golden teeth. “Waffle!” He exuberantly hollered, making me jump a little. I heard a few snickers coming from amongst the pirates “As the captain of the Jolly Hollow, I would like to welcome yee as the newest edition to ar library full of battered, ruthless, sloshed and adventurous volumes of all shapes and sizes! By books, I mean my crew.” He winked. “But! You must first prove you have what it takes to be a ruthless sea bandit.” “Wraaaaak! Sea Bandit! Wraaaaak!” Kiwi squawked, flapping her wings. I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me or copying the captain. “Arg! Now Waffle, have yee ever stole? Ever smelled the smell of gold? Ever plundered a maidens treasure, if ye know what I mean? By thee looks of yer face, I would say the answer is no!” Capt. Peri let out a wheezing laugh, mouth open like a donkey, spit and rum breath shooting in my direction. Kiwi’s neck danced up and down, and I was sure she was mocking me too. The pirates cackled and slapped their knees. Tess blew hair out of her face and stood looking annoyed at her mates. Capt. Peri let out a few more wheezes, wiping his salty tears away from his eyes with his blinged out finger full of gold rings. The tips of my ears burned. “Ahaa…ahem…whew…sorry lad.” He cleared his throat and regained his

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composure. “Now! To be a pirate on the Jolly Hollow, yee need to have thee swagger of a pirate. Yee need to be a greedy, unscrupulous, brawny, murderous. If yee can’t prove yerself any of these qualities, you’ll walk thee plank!” As he shouted this last part he brought his sword up into the air and pointed with it to the right side of the ship, where a scrawny pirate showcased the plank the way a blond woman would showing what car you could win in a game show. I expected neon lights to start flashing around it. “So Waffle, yer task is this.” He went on. I started sweating like a sinner in church. “Spend the rest of the night in the crows nest and keep watch. Lookout for seabirds you can slingshot for food. If yee see any lights, yee ring the bell that’s up there to warn us. No sleepin’ off matey, or down to Davey Jone’s Locker yee go!” “Locker you go! Wraaaak!” Kiwi sang with pleasure. I looked at the captain dumbfounded. That was it? Sit as a watch guard for a few hours? What a piece of cheese! I couldn’t believe my luck. “Aye-Aye, Captain!” I answered! “Atta-lad! Ragamuffin, show our newcomer the way to thee crow’s nest. I hope yer not afraid of heights!” Being up in the crow’s nest that night was like being in the walk–in cooler at 7/11. The slashing winds gave no mercy and chilled me to the bone. My pirate uniform, at the end of the day, was merely a couple of scratchy rags, and added no warmth. The pirates had all gone to sleep in their bunkers below deck. Ragamuffin was at the stern, slowly guiding the Jolly Hollow on a quiet journey somewhere south. From my perch, I couldn’t make out if he had fallen asleep at the wheel or not. Either way he was a still, massive black form in the moonlit night. The glowing moon made everything below cast long harsh shadows across the deck, black and blue patterns dancing over almost every surface. The sea was sleeping soundly with the pirates. The moon also created tiny diamonds glimmering along the sea’s surface. Everything was serene and still, except for me. My teeth were chattering so fast I thought my jaw would take off like a plane. I was also shaking like a dog drying himself from a dip in the pool. As the night slowly went on, I began to become unsure if I was developing hallucinations from the cold or not. I kept seeing a shadow whip by me out of the corner of my eye. I thought the night was playing tricks on me, but being so cold, I couldn’t tell. Then the shadow swooped by me again. I definitely knew I wasn’t hallucinating since I heard the sound of wings flapping. It was a bird! A seagull!

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I clambered up to my feet, grabbing the slingshot Ragamuffin gave me. I pulled the string, and waited. The tension of the string echoed the tension of my now still heart. Suddenly, the shadow appeared right in front of my concentrated face. It scared me so much that I’m afraid to admit I let out a small toot in shock. The surprise also caused me to send my sling shot up in the air and missing my target completely, sending the rock I had tried to fling sky high and over the ship. In that moment of shock and silence, staring at the shadow now illuminated in front of me, the sound of my ammo could be heard plopping into the sea. It was indeed a bird, now perched on the crows nest’s railing. It was a good thing I missed though, because the shadowy bird revealed itself in the moonlight as Kiwi, the captains parrot. “Kiwi! What in the?” I gasped. Kiwi glared at me. I rubbed my eyes to make sure it wasn’t for a fact a hallucination. “Wraaaak! Kiwi hates Waffle! Wraaak! Waffle not meant to be pirate! Waffle is a sissy! Wraaak!” Kiwi screeched and flapped her wings violently. For a bird that seemed to be drunk the entire time I’ve been around her, she sure was persnickety about me being a pirate. “Oh, put a peg in it, you stupid bird!” I shouted back. “Wraaak! Stupid boy, stupid boy! Not man enough to be pirate!” “I said QUIET!” I don’t know what came over me in that moment. I reached into my pocket and fumbled for one of my left over toothpicks I had kept with me from my cheese samples, grabbed Kiwi by the neck, and held the toothpick to her eye. She began to flap her wings hysterically, screeching like a banshee. I didn’t care our little scene caused anyone to wake up, became I was fed up with these damn pirates thinking I was some sort of weak fool. “Now listen here Polly. I will poke both your eyes out if you ever call me anything like that again, got it? And I’ll make sure you have a nice visit to Davey Jone’s locker, how does that sound?” I snarled, squeezing my hand tighter around her velvet neck. Kiwi stopped flapping her wings and didn’t utter another vicious squawk. I kept my grip on her for a couple seconds longer, and then let go. Kiwi bolted away, and I was alone again, burning with adrenaline and anger. I made it through the rest of the night not so bad after that. Whose not tough enough to be a pirate now? It has been a couple months on the Jolly Hollow, and I’ve proved myself to be a pretty tough pirate. The pirates welcomed me with open arms and peg legs. I have forgiven Tess for holding a knife to my throat, and even though I

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annoy her greatly, as well as the rest of the crew, I think she’s grown a little fond of me. So remember that thing I mentioned earlier that didn’t fit into my “what I love about being a pirate” category? You can probably guess by now that it was Kiwi the parrot. But it’s alright, ever since that first night, she’s never spoken to me again.

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Claude Caswell Let It Burn Bad Nights In Belle Curve

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Let It Burn One clear day in early May my brother Charlie woke up in Malden, Massachusetts, and decided to kill himself. He was thirty-three years old. Jesus was thirty-three when they crucified him. I suspect the parallel ends there, but I always think of his age when I think of Charlie—how young he was, and how tired he must have been carrying that cross along the road of sorrows towards his own private Golgotha, the place of the skull. I was twenty-six. The year was 1973. I was teaching at the high school in Gray, Maine, that morning. Richard Nixon had recently resigned, the country was in somewhat of a shambles, and I was married for the second time. Sara and I were coming to the end of a very rough first year together, and my principal was rabid to fire me for insubordination and a host of other crimes against God and bureaucracy. I wasn’t thinking of Charlie. Like most of us dedicated to life, I was immersed in my own private hell. I don’t really know what Charlie was thinking that day. I can only imagine that he didn’t want to die in Malden, across the street from the house where the Boston strangler lived years before—the typical cramped and gritty Boston suburb, where the streets are always vaguely dirty and the faces are hard and hurried. Instead, he drove to Maine, to the farm on the Whitney Road in Gray, where we all grew up. I know he must have driven past the fields you can see from the turnpike, with the new green grass dotted with dandelions and bluets—the warm, moist air coming in his window, blowing his curly hair back. I know he drove down the Whitney Road past the house where my father sat drinking his whiskey and water feeling sorry for himself. Then he pulled into the wood road up near the end of our land near Terison’s Orchard—driving over the muddy ruts and pine needles deeper into the shade underneath the cedars, out of sight of the road. Once there, I imagine he turned the car off and listened for a while to the woods—sat for a while with the windows down—in no particular hurry at last. After that, all I have left are questions. Did he review it all then? Search for a reason to go on? Or was he already lost in the flood of his own despair? Did he see the shore, was he swimming towards the beach to rest, some peace, a quiet place to sit and think?

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Sometimes I see him open the door deliberately and slowly. Was he crying or far past tears? Was he going home finally after all the travels, all the blind alleys and words and letters and sorting and trying to figure it all out, all the going over and over it?—did he finally find a way to tie it all together?—was this the tomorrow he had put everything off until?—at last, completely now—the final moment, the last breath? I see him, with shaking but most careful, even sensual hands as he puts the hose over the tailpipe and snakes it through the back window—duct taping the crack clumsily but completely. He restarts the car and gets into the back seat— like a taxi passenger, like his own limo, his own hearse—rolls up all the windows and locks the doors. Then it is done. All he has to do is sit and drift away, like one of those balloons come undone from a child’s wrist at the Cumberland Fair, over the racetrack, over the ferris wheel, into the blue china bowl of September. Did he see the patches of sky through the cedar and oaks? Did he see the occasional flash of a chickadee or blue jay? Did he look back to all the summer days on the farm, all the winter nights around the stove, all the games of parchesi, all the fudge we made, and popcorn, all the things we said and dreamed we’d do if we survived the Whitney Road? Did he say goodbye? Did he imagine he’d be waiting for us in some green and sunny place? Was he quiet or did he scream his heart out—one last primal rage at the world, at the life that let him down? And so he was gone, leaving only his tired young body behind. Discovered by one of the old Whitney Road drunks, Barney Young, who wandered into the wood road to take a piss and drink his jug of home brew in the shade. Charles David Caswell. He was my older brother, now forever my younger brother—fixed in time—never aging. He was seven when I was born and had been the baby of the family for quite a while. My sister Alice says they caught him trying to smother me in my crib—jealous and distraught at his loss of special status. We always laughed at that. Sometimes I think I knew him. We shared a bedroom, with the rats and the wind seeping in the cracks with puffs of snow and the torn pictures of old movie stars that my sister Alice left behind to cover the holes in the dusty plaster walls. Me, the child lost in my own dream world of talking animals and little shoebox towns in the dooryard. Him, the increasingly angry, introverted young man. Charlie was always thin—just bones really, with pale skin and curly, deep brown hair. He was like a mist over the early morning fields—he looked like he was there, but he really wasn’t. He never was. I know that now. He was fragile,

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unconnected—and full of terrified rage. He had a wild look in the corner of his eye, like a spooked horse or a rabid fox, and it often scared me. He hated working on the farm in a way I never did. Harnessing the horse, pitching hay, weeding long rows of potatoes and string beans, hauling logs. I loved the smell of it—the plowed earth, the new mown hay, the split wood, the manure. But I was still a child, the family mascot, a woods elf who saw everything in a golden haze of magic alchemy. To Charlie it was just absurd drudgery, humiliating and futile—a personal insult. Endless days of jammed fingers and muddy clothes and bone weariness without thanks or reward. My father yelled at him constantly, belittled Charlie in a way he never did the rest of us, made him the scapegoat of all my father’s failures—as though he knew Charlie was too weak to do anything about it. Charlie just muttered under his breath in sullen defiance, but something kept him from really fighting back. He hated my father with a ferocious, terrifying, animal loathing, and my father either didn’t know or didn’t care. Charlie was invisible to him—just the least apt of his six children to be a real adversary or to accomplish anything worth boasting about at the Grange Hall or the Oddfellows. My parents had no idea what a thin thread Charlie dangled from. Maybe because he thrashed around so recklessly, they thought he was okay. Mostly they were just lost in their own relentless slide into poverty and illness and had no idea about anything outside their own nightmares. As Charlie’s teenage years went on, he grew progressively strange. One night in late April when Charlie was about fifteen, my parents were gone, and I was home alone with him. Every spring we burned the dead grass off the fields, as many old farmers used to do, but always with my father to supervise to make sure the fire didn’t spread. Charlie decided to do it himself—with that glint in his eye—maybe to prove something, certainly to spite my father. He ran down to the fields with me close behind convinced that the end of the world was close at hand. He had fashioned a torch out of rags and tar tied to a stick and ran around setting fire everywhere. I could barely see his darting, whooping figure through the smoke and flames. It was beautiful and wild, but I was scared of fire. I ran and doused a burlap bag with water—and yelling, “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” I tried to smother the fire around the edges before it reached the woods. I pleaded with him to help me, but he just laughed and bellowed at the sky, “Let it burn! Let it burn!” Somehow the fire died down, and he was near tears—defeated. My father never mentioned it. Those days were a strange and grudging war, and I tried to stay in the woods as much as possible.

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Charlie was always a sickly child—we all were, with whooping cough, scarlet fever, the croup, pneumonia, the flu, the measles, chicken pox, the mumps, tooth aches. But Charlie was particularly undersized and malnourished—with the aura of a momma’s boy, a sissy. They called him “Charlie Chicken Noodle Soup” at school. My sister, a year older—smaller but with the voice and spunk of a warrior—protected him, but that made it worse really, and he suffered. Then he caught rheumatic fever when he was thirteen—almost died—was in bed for half a year. They said his heart would be weak for the rest of his life. He certainly lived like he was going to die the next day—wrecking cars, drinking obsessively, sobbing in his room after parties where he was the carefree, drunken clown. I know, because I shared that room, and I heard him from under my covers. I pretended I was asleep. Women loved Charlie. He was one of those sensitive, brooding men they want to coddle and rescue, like Edgar Allen Poe or Chopin. He was fun and dangerous—and completely innocent in an otherworldly kind of way—like an emaciated saint from the Middle Ages one step ahead of the angry mob with pitchforks and torches, unsure if he was touched by God or the Devil. Charlie would fall in love with every woman on the first date, wanting to marry her. Then in a week he would crash and burn and move on to the next woman. This led to ugly car chases and ambushed arguments outside of restaurants and bars. Like all the boys in our family, women terrified Charlie because he thought they would become Esther, our mother—but at the same time he had a mystical belief that women could and would save him from the darkness circling his head. He wore that shadow like a canopy of death, like great looming wings brushing his cheek. I have no doubt that my mother at one time had a great and noble soul, guided by intense intelligence and defiant hope. But the Whitney Road wore her down, drained the life from her uterus and teeth and once athletic, swimmer’s arms and long legs. She was prone to dark moods and explosive fits of temper. I once saw my mother beat Charlie. I don’t know what he did, but she had him by the hair, pulling it back so his eyes were bulging, and she was beating his head into the kitchen wall. Something about Charlie unbalanced her—maybe it was guilt. She had babied Charlie for a long time, and she probably blamed herself for his emotional frailty—his determined focus on a personal apocalypse. All I knew during those times was that Charlie had more love to give me, even in his agony, than my parents did. His was a strange and troubling world

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that I didn’t understand, yet I tried to be around him as much as I could. One time I sneaked up the attic stairs to surprise Charlie in our bedroom. I used to sneak around like a forest savage, practicing stealth. It was just something I did to survive. I thought he’d laugh like usual when I burst through the old blanket that covered our bedroom doorway. When I peeked through one of the rips, though, I saw his face contorted in a terrible grimace, and I thought he was urinating in an old fruit jar. Something about his shaking body made me stop and sneak back downstairs—he seemed in pain—in a private ritual of rage. I know now he was masturbating, but he didn’t look happy about it. Like everything he did he was probably whipped bloody with conflict and shame. Nothing was ever easy for Charlie. One thing he made easy for other people, though, was laughing. No one could make me laugh like Charlie. We would get into laughing fits over nothing really—just a look—or when his voice would crack and he’d do a kind of exaggerated yodel with his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, making fun of himself. Other times he would ask about my school life, trying to be a good big brother, and he somehow knew two of the girls in my class were called Pamela Dollof and Barbara Dudley. He always got the names mixed up—he’d say, “How’s little Pammy Dudley and Barbie Dollof.” Then we’d giggle for ten minutes. He just had a sense of the comically absurd, and he could laugh at himself. Yet I never heard him ridicule other people. When Charlie was nineteen, a freshman in college, and I was twelve, our mother died of colon cancer. She was forty-six, at the end of a troubled, difficult road. Later that year Charlie took me on a cross-country car trip with him as he drove back to college in Kentucky. We had to pick up some people he’d promised a ride to, so we went through Vermont and took the ferry across Lake Champlain to New York. Charlie didn’t talk much on that trip. I remember him on the cold ferry ride in the thin dawn light, looking across the water into the wind, shivering and silent. After we picked up the guy in Lake Placid, we drove down to New Rochelle, New York, to pick up two Korean guys he went to school with—who had worked as busboys at a fancy restaurant. They were boisterous and loud—talking about all the women they’d had sex with, going “bareback” without rubbers, and drinking and parties. Charlie joined in, but his voice sounded shrill and strained to me, and I think he felt bad that I was there.

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When we got to Berea College in Kentucky, I remember sitting with Charlie in the almost empty Student Union in the afternoon, tired from the trip. Someone played Roy Orbison’s “Crying” on the jukebox, and one couple danced. Charlie’s face seemed made of stone. He seemed like a stranger. After he left me with my sister Alice in Cincinnati, Charlie disappeared for a while—left school—went AWOL from life. He turned up in Germany, as a private in the U.S. Army. When he came back to Maine, with stories of German prostitutes and an even more serious face, he studied economics with slavish diligence at USM, earning top honors. Then he went to Michigan State on a fellowship and earned a Master’s Degree—eventually becoming a Certified Public Accountant— America’s highest paid profession. He worked even more doggedly in Boston to climb the corporate ladder, becoming Chief Accountant at Price Waterhouse in two years. He married another accountant, Rachel Jacques from Biddeford, and they plunged into money-making with a vengeance. Charlie was drinking and working and running as fast as he could, but he finally couldn’t run fast enough. Those shadowy wings took him aloft from the world that never gave him any peace. If I could have one wish for my brother and me, I would hold him—I would run my fingers through that thick curly hair and kiss his cheek—and tell him how tenderly and truly I loved him—something I was too young to understand when I had the chance. Beyond his anger at my father and mother, beyond his terror of life, beyond his frailty and despair, he had a sweet, sweet nature—a gentle soul. He always told me stories when he came home from high school carousing, when he wasn’t too far gone with beer and grief. He called me Claudie his whole life. I miss him every day.

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Bad Nights in Belle Curve It was a dark and ambiguous night when I drove into Belle Curve, a damp and dreamy bayou town in southern Indiana. Far from the empty but familiar neon of the Interstate, Belle Curve was marooned in a sea of cornfields and swamps. I don’t even know if I could find it again. The sky was confused between spitting gray metallic bullets of rain on my windshield and simply coughing humid phlegm into the heavy gauze of early July air that hung over the village square like smoke from a crematory. I needed a place to crash, a place to hide, a place to plan my next stupid move, a place to write. It was 1968, and I was twenty-one and alone in a strange place, following a girl who was stuck in my mind like a rusty fishhook. As I turned onto one of the gloomy side streets lined with decaying Victorians and marshy, overgrown vacant lots, I saw a rambling mansion looming way back from the road through wisps of Spanish moss and patchy fog. A faded sign nailed to a giant chestnut tree by the road said “apartments to let.” I saw no lights except a dim bulb over a side door, as I drove down the washed out cinder driveway to the dark house. Inside I found a small table with a single rental agreement and a pencil on it. A faded typewritten note nailed to the wall said the only apartment for rent was a furnished single room at the top of the stairs, 3A, with a kitchenette and a shared bathroom, for $15 a week, cash only, to be deposited in the mail slot above the table. I had a bad feeling about the place, but I needed some sleep. I filled out the brief form with phony information, signed my name Langston Kerouac, and shoved fifteen ones through the brass slot. I thought I heard some shuffling feet on the other side of the wall, but I wasn’t sure. I grabbed my pack and sleeping bag from the car and felt my way up the three flights of pitch black staircase. At the top I saw several doors, but on the nearest one I could barely make out 3A. Inside I could see a single light fixture hanging down in the middle of the room, no bulb. Just then a shadow moved across the wall to the single cot under the window. Probably the wind in the trees outside, I said to myself, after I pulled my tongue back out of my throat. It was only later, back in Maine, that I let myself admit that the wind never blew in Belle Curve. I threw my sleeping bag on the bare, musty mattress and collapsed.

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I woke up sweating in the pitch dark some time later. I could see the full moon dimly through the mist and vines outside my window. In the sickly yellow light the vines seemed to be winding around the trees like Escher’s intestines in a Salvador Dali wet dream. Something told me I wasn’t alone in the room. It was darker than a lump of coal in a mole’s pocket, and the air was clammy and hot like an old jockstrap in a manure pile. I felt a chill at my own metaphors, and I thought I saw two red eyes staring at me a few feet away. Then they were gone. I heard a man sobbing somewhere in the building, and a woman laughing hysterically. I was beginning to think maybe I should have stayed at a Motel 7, where I might only get raped or robbed or toe fungus. I got my hunting knife out of my pack, put it on the windowsill by my head, and finally fell down the long tunnel to sleep. The next morning I woke to a steam bath of moldy heat as the southern Indiana sun beat through the haze into my head. The place just looked dingy and ordinary in the daylight, but it gave me the creeps anyway. The parking lot was empty as I pushed my VW bug up a small incline to jump start it. I grabbed some weak coffee and strong odor from the sullen waitress at a local diner, the Belle Bottom Café, and spent the day getting turned down for jobs all over town. By late afternoon I decided to go find what I came to see: Annabelle, or as I sometimes playfully thought of her: Anhedonia. I had met Annabelle Bonné in February at an open mike night at a coffee house in Cambridge. She was visiting friends at Harvard. She went to Rosary College, an all-girls Catholic school outside of Chicago. That should have told me something, but as usual I wasn’t listening. I was just trying to get warm from being out in the blizzard that night. My VW had been towed because I double-parked on two nuns on a cross-walk who were trying to raise money for Mother Theresa’s goiter operation. Annabelle pulled a guitar out of her purse and sang some folk songs nobody listened to. After 37 verses of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” I convinced her to sit on my lap and buy me a double espresso with sprinkles. She had long black hair that hung down over her face, and she wore a sack dress that camouflaged her shape more effectively than a mammary exam in Tijuana at midnight. She looked completely repressed and uncomfortable with every aspect of her body, like she had been wrapped at birth in emotional duct tape covering every orifice. I doubted that Don Juan, Hugh Hefner, and all the Harvard preppies at Phi Alpha Ralpha could tap this keg. Yet she was sensitive and narcissistically

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snobby in an artsy, privileged way. I knew instinctively that she would never know I was alive. She probably wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire. Naturally I fell instantly, hopelessly in love. Annie didn’t say much that night except that she lived outside of Belle Curve, Indiana. Reluctantly, after my beer-soaked wheedling, she scribbled her address on a soggy page I had torn out of an old Boy Scout Manual, from a chapter on the evils of causing nocturnal emissions yourself, something about taking yourself in hand and remembering a Scout’s pledge to be “brave, thrifty, clean, and reverent.” So there I was driving through the flat, steaming Indiana countryside on County Road 69 (naturally someone had written 666 on the sign in red paint), past cornfields and hog farms, irrigation ditches and shacks on stilts in the hazy distance with poor black people staring at me vacantly with a sort of disinterested hostility. I had the eerie feeling I had entered a David Lynch horror film about the Old South and any second a skeletal Scarlet O’Hara was going to jump out of the cornfields leading a pack of minstrel show zombies. It was hard to believe my Annabelle lived in this wasteland, but then I spotted an oasis of suburban kitsch that seemed to rise out of the swamp like a plastic orchid. The sign said “Grand View Heights”—“lots for sale.” I didn’t see much of a view, and it was as flat as Twiggy’s chest in an anvil camisole, but there were granite pillars on each side of the entrance, and I figured this is what Annabelle meant when she wrote what looked like “granny nude eights” in eyeliner on my crumpled Scout page right next to nocturnal emissions. The Bonné house was a huge, new two-story suburban house built in a circle of other pretentious development homes. It looked rich and generic at the same time, expensive and dull, white with the usual fake black shutters and the gambrel-roofed three-car garage. All that was missing was the “colored jockey” statue at the beginning of the crushed gravel driveway. Hardly a place for the Bohemian gypsy college girl of my dreams. She must be held prisoner here, I thought, waiting for my rescue. I was met at the door by a tall, lanky, red-faced young man, maybe 16 or 17. He had close-set eyes and pretty bad acne, kind of a ferret with pimples. He seemed to be in a rage. I thought for a moment he was going to start barking or bite me. “Who are you?” he snarled. “I’m here to see Annabelle,” I said.

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“Annabitch! Your little faggy friend is here!” he bellowed. “I’m her brother Frank,” he added. “My parents are going to despise you. This should be fun.” That idea seemed to brighten him up a lot. “My mother’s a castrating bitch—my father’s a sell-out eunuch—and my sister’s an uptight Catholic douche bag. I’m the only one in this house who cares what’s going on in this country. I’m going to Notre Dame in the fall. What do you do?” “I—I’m not sure,” I said. I think we were bonding. By that time we were in the living room, a large shapeless area that seemed a little like a cross between nouveau dentist office and a Holiday Inn lobby, where the bitch and the eunuch were reading the evening paper, seemingly oblivious— perhaps from long practice—to Frank’s piercing, slightly hysterical rudeness. They were each sipping what I assumed to be large cocktails, probably laced with Valium. Frank announced me in his delicate way. “This guy drove all the way from Maine to have sex with Annabitch. What a stupid asshole!” he cackled with his high-pitched giggle, and then sat down gleefully in the corner to watch the show. Eldon and Margaret Bonné looked at me silently, him with placid puzzlement and her with acid disdain, as though I had come to read the meter or sell them a vacuum cleaner, maybe with a waft of pig manure from my shoes. I awkwardly introduced myself as Ambrose Fitzgerald. I said I hoped I wasn’t intruding, but I had met Annabelle in Cambridge and she had invited me to stop by if I was in the area. The Bonnés gave each other a look that said no one would ever just be “in the area” of Belle Curve unless he was a lost fool or a pervert looking to defile their daughter. I didn’t dare ask where “Annabitch” was, so I was trapped in the dreaded parent/unwelcome blue-balled cad who isn’t fit to kiss the hem of our virgin daughter’s petticoat chat. Eldon Bonné, the father, droned on in a deep Herman Munster voice, while looking off in the distance with moist eyes. He seemed to feel the need to fill me in on his qualifications as perhaps a cut above the Hoosier natives. He said he was a vice president at U. S. Slicer, makers of quality kitchen knives and other sharp objects. It was a new company on the outskirts of Belle Curve, conjuring the image of a manufacturing complex of boxy, hideous buildings you called a “plant.” I shivered a little in the air-conditioned iciness of the Bonné Inquisition and the thought of a drab eternity spent in the clanking,

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joyless atmosphere of U. S. Slicer. I imagined horrible ad campaigns that used phrases like “the cutting edge of American kitchenware.” “They sent me out here from the main office in New York to get their new operation in shape,” Eldon said. “More like exiled to nowhere,” rasped Mrs. Bonné, “these people are inbred savages. Their idea of high fashion is going to J. C. Penny’s and then painting the town at Arby’s. The weather’s unbearable, the library has three books, and the nearest decent cup of coffee is two hundred miles away in Chicago—a hick version of Manhattan. If you had any guts or brains, we’d still be in Westchester where we belong.” “Margaret, please.” Eldon did indeed look as though one of those knives, if not his wife’s metallic voice, had relieved him of his manhood, such as it might have been. He was almost bald, with a few renegade strands of faded brown hair on top and a ring of grayish thatch just above his ears. He had a very prominent nose and spidery red veins in his cheeks. He was tall and lanky, like his son, but with a sizeable paunch, with his dress pants pulled up way too high, so his crotch looked like it was struggling for air. He wore a white shirt and a bland, tan tie, in case he was called in for an emergency memo-writing session at the Slicer plant, I assumed. Even sitting down he looked vaguely stooped, and he blinked a lot as he talked with his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a cork in the River Styxx. Eldon tried hard to be friendly, like an old family dog. “So,” he said, maybe trying to sound literary, “a stranger comes among us. Don’t mind Frank, we haven’t quite house-broken him yet.” “Fuck you, old man!” Frank screamed from the corner. “At least she hasn’t got my balls yet!” “Frank,” said his mother, “I cannot abide that kind of language. That’s slum talk, and I will not have it in this house.” Frank ran from the room with a stifled sob. I could hear him fading into another part of the house, still shouting “Fuck you all! Fuck you all!” I could see that Frank got his intense eyes and manic anger from Mother Bonné. She stood up abruptly, and although barely five feet tall, she was ramrod straight, like a matronly drill sergeant. For a moment I thought she was going to tell me to drop and give her twenty. I could see that no soft tissue in the world would ever be safe from her sharp beak of a nose and her grating, accusing voice. I learned later that she had been an educational administrator in the Bronx, in

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charge of discipline and security for five school districts. I had no doubt the East River was littered with the heads lopped off by her saber. Just then Annabelle walked into the room in another one of her designer sack cloths. “What are you doing here?” she mumbled. She didn’t quite resemble the cool folk-singing hottie I remembered meeting in Cambridge. Her hair looked unwashed, and it hung down covering most of her face. I’m not sure she recognized me, and she sure didn’t look glad to see me. I’ve definitely found my soul mate, I thought to myself. Dinner at the Bonnés was a simple affair. Frank gleefully spewed profanity between gobbling his roast beef and mashed potatoes, while his parents talked over and around him, perhaps pretending he was away at military school disemboweling his headmaster. Annabelle slumped in her chair in a bored trance, with her hair dragging in her food. Eldon tried to stay above the fray as the philosophical patriarch, repeating over and over, “This too shall pass,” his eyes misty with impotent patience. Mostly, though, it was a dissection of me, with the bloody scalpel Mother Margaret used as a tongue. She set upon me with nostrils flaring—wanting to know my goals in life, my plans, my strategy, my path to success—all the while sneering, having made up her mind that I wasn’t fit to pick lint off her daughter’s tampon. As I muttered incoherently—sagging under the onslaught, that, no, I didn’t have definite goals, no, I didn’t have a master plan, that instead I was actually searching, sifting, yearning, dreaming, seeking something more than a paycheck and two weeks vacation from U. S. Slicer—no offense—and would probably end up with no more money than Jesus or Thoreau, but surely just as dead—I looked across at Annabelle twirling a strand of her hair around a finger and rocking back and forth, humming, like the idiot child of Cleopatra just before being suffocated by a goat’s bladder full of camel urine. Is she the one? I thought. Am I going to bend her back on the cool moss underneath the pines until we sweat and weep and howl like ravenous muskrats, an incandescent, molten, maelstrom of sensual mortality—sex and death and love and hate spilling out on the wild land, scorching all before us? Maybe. Or maybe I was Cupid’s blind bloodhound slavering through the dark forest of Heartbreak Hell barking up a very, very wrong tree. I could feel the night’s humid despair raining down on my life as I drove back to my apartment, like black satin sandpaper on my eyeballs, seeping into my illusions the way the sludge from Indiana’s stagnant swampland made the night

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air heavy with primeval grief. Back in my room I was once again choked by the strangeness of the place. I never saw any cars around, but I heard plenty of voices rising and falling in intricate, weird rhythms, like a Greek chorus as ceremonial spears were shoved up their anuses by Persian rug salesmen. I also began to wonder about the guy I shared the bathroom with. I never saw him, but I heard him in there, coughing and sniffling, flushing and brushing. I smelled his cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. I could hear him unlock his door on his side, shuffle over and lock my door from the inside, then reverse this sequence on the way out—very slowly, almost silently, sneakily. Maybe he didn’t want to disturb me. Once he tried my door to see if it was locked on my side. I squeezed my hunting knife, ready. The lock was just a flimsy hook and latch. The door was so loose you could stick a finger through and flip the latch. I made up my mind to get a deadbolt the next day. Tonight I would sleep with a chair jammed against the knob. Later I heard him sobbing again, quiet and steady like an autumn rain on a pile of miscarried polliwogs—and a woman’s harsh laughter weaving in and out of the sobs like chocolate syrup through a fallopian tube. I wondered what he looked like and why he was crying. He sounded old, middle-aged, defeated, desolate, pitiful. I wondered if he knew how young I was, how lost, how desperate. I tried to settle down for another night in a dark freefall without a parachute, waiting to slam into morning like a blind beggar stepping off the subway platform, by reading my Nietzsche sex fantasy novel under the covers with my flashlight. Then faintly I heard a guitar and a girl’s soft voice singing very sweetly. Haunting. It reminded me of Annabelle—and I had a vague image of Odysseus tied to his mast—but I decided to check it out. I groped my way down the dark stairs to the front of the building. Sure enough, on the wide, rickety veranda, a willowy, blond young woman sat in a wicker chair playing a guitar, barely visible in the shadows. She motioned me up to sit beside her. I introduced myself as Waldo Melville. She said her name was Clementine, but wouldn’t tell me her last name—“it’s a bad name around here,” she said. Then she sang beautiful folk songs, looking at me intently, as though I was the only one in the world she cared about. After a while we just sat there in the quiet, watching the fireflies play tag. “I wish I wasn’t spoken for,” I said, “because I’d like to get to know you better. I wish you’d tell me your last name.” “I can’t,” she said. She started singing again: “Know me by the light, of the fire burning bright—you’ll know me by no other name.” Then she asked if I wanted

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to come inside. I could see a candle burning through one of the windows, and it looked like the curtains moved a bit. “Not tonight, Clementine. I have to figure some things out first. But come for a walk with me. It’s a nice night.” “Oh, I can’t,” she said quickly, looking over her shoulder towards the candle. I said goodnight and left her there looking wispy and lonely. I spent the next day with Frank, who was a lifeguard at the local cesspool called Belle Curve Lake, just out of town. I’ve seen cleaner water come out of a moose with projectile diarrhea. Not many people went in the gray-green, brackish water, and Frank spent his time lifting weights and listening to Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention singing songs like, “My Baby Does the Coca Cola Douche.” He thought this was hilarious. Then as Jim Morrison’s “This Is the End,” blared over the rec’s loudspeakers, Frank’s gang of misfit disciples wandered in, blinking like moles who had just crawled out of their own soggy underwear. Frank’s charismatic, fuck-laden aura was a magnet for all of Belle Curve’s aimless youth, trickling in like a Hieronymus Bosch parody of yokel counter-culture wannabes. In Frank they saw a cross between Abby Hoffman and Alan Ginsberg channeling Timothy Leary. Jobless, and having slept till noon in sweaty rat holes, they were dragging themselves through Midwestern streets looking for their angry Frank fix—their Tambourine Man—their rebel without a pause. What a gang it was. Rosie the hippy chick, wearing a tie-dye and bell bottoms on which she had embroidered skulls and peace signs made out of penises. Her long, frizzy red hair hung over her face onto her love beads. She communicated by giving the finger to anyone who looked at her. There was a kid named Rooker, tall and skinny, with greasy blond hair to his waist, in cut-off jeans and a leather vest. He was nervous and fidgety, and all I heard him say was, “Yeah, man, cool, cool.” There were five or six others, all with long, stringy hair or white kid afro perms, wearing sandals—some with military surplus jackets with upside down American flags sewn on. They all smelled like they hadn’t showered in a few weeks, or maybe slept in a hog wallow down by the “crick,” like disheveled, tattered refugees from the cast of Godspell, which hadn’t even been written yet. Except for one girl, who stood out like a mutant in Darwin’s nightmare. She had fine, sandy hair, perfectly combed, wearing a white, pressed blouse and lavender

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pedal pushers. She looked like a preacher’s daughter from a Sears & Roebuck catalog, and she giggled like a hysterical Barbie Doll at everything Frank said. The jewel in Frank’s crown of groupies, though, was Bill. Bill was a black man, much older than the teen mob, maybe in his late twenties. There always seems to be one older guy who hangs around with the teen rebel group—maybe to buy the booze and feel needed, maybe to impress the young girls and have sex with them. Bill was missing his two front teeth and talked with a lispy, raspy impediment. You could tell Frank wanted to impress Bill, and wanted Bill to know that he was going to free “his people” from centuries of discrimination—at least in redneck Belle Curve. Bill just let Frank talk, but I don’t think he paid much attention. Every once in a while he would laugh like Popeye, with an “ack, ack, ack.” But his eyes weren’t laughing. I could see pain in his eyes. He knew he was a token and that these kids wouldn’t be going home with him any time soon to a shack on stilts to eat chitlins and sleep on a bare mattress. He was there for the drugs and the beer and the free food. The pungently sweet aroma of pot smoke filled the air. In Frank’s private domain, where he could give free rein to his ranting to a sympathetic, stoned audience, I began to see another side to him. He was still a raving lunatic, but his rage had a wider scope, almost . . . humanitarian, at least in his rhetoric. He was messianically apoplectic about Jim Crow segregation, the war in Viet Nam, and the obscene stranglehold the rich had on the poor. “They call them ‘disadvantaged’!” he shouted, in his default volume of stentorian, “more like dis-fucking-membered by fat white guys in suits driving around in limos while they send poor black kids 10,000 miles away so they can make money on Wall Street from the war machine! Motherfucking white maggots! There’s going to be a revolution! America’s streets are going to run red with blood.” I was starting to feel a little envious of Frank. Underneath all his pimply hormonal tantrums, he cared about something more than carpe diem star-crotch romance. I began to wonder if Frank’s apocalyptic fantasies were more meaningful than my visions of naked woodland romps with Pan. He just seemed to be so sure of everything, while I was drowning in the existential ambivalence of Holden Caulfield in drag. After a couple of hours Frank seemed to mellow a bit, down a notch from homicidal to merely wrathfully frustrated. We separated from the crowd, and he started talking to me conspiratorially.

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“So you drove all the way out here to see my pathetic sister? What a waste. I’ve never been anywhere except this racist, flag-waving dung-hole. Did you know the Ku Klux Klan was started in Indiana? Did you see the shacks on the way to our house? They used to be slave quarters. Now they’re sharecropper hovels. What progress! I’m suffocating. Are you going to take Annie away from here? You really care about her?” “Well,” I said, “I’m not sure I’m qualified to take anyone anywhere. Plus I hardly know her really. She seemed different in Cambridge last winter. Here she acts like a lobotomized hamster on Quaaludes.” “It’s my parents! They’re everything I hate about America! They live in a plastic house with plastic faces and take plastic shits. My father’s a drone who thinks rocking the row boat of his life is a mortal sin. My mother’s a snob. Don’t let her contempt for the Midwest fool you. She’d give both my kidneys to the Belle Curve Chamber of Commerce to be accepted into Belle Curve high society. What a joke. They hate Jews and the French and Italians and Blacks and Indians—anyone who didn’t come straight from England shitting Bibles on the Mayflower. Did you know my mother’s making Annabelle compete in the local Miss America pageant? Arrgggh! She’ll win the talent contest with her singing, but you should see her in a bathing suit, with her fat rolls and pubic hair busting out everywhere. She’s so humiliated. I’m humiliated for her. And she takes it! I’d like to kill them all!” “Damn,” I said, “I didn’t know that. I would like to take her away from that.” “And they’re sending me to Notre Dame in the fall to be a good little Catholic boy and major in business and make a pile of money and be just as dead inside as my father. And I’m going to go! I hate ’em! I hate myself!” He suddenly threw his arms around me and started sobbing. People looked away awkwardly. But I could hear Bill “ack-acking” over the Grateful Dead. “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.” I wanted to believe that, but somehow I knew I was in over my head. I had opened a can of worms that were now entwining around my testicles like boa constrictors, and I was getting sucked into America’s heartland right down to its constipated large intestines. The Silent Majority was getting very loud in my head. Frank quickly morphed back into inspired mania. “What we need is to par-tay!” he said. “Tonight. The word around town is that you’re squatting at the old Gunness place, right?—and you’re old enough to buy booze?”

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“Just,” I said. “Perfect,” he said. “Bill doesn’t have a license, and no one in Bell Curve would serve him anyway, racist motherfuckers. You can buy a couple of cases of beer at the Liberty Belle Bar. It’s down by the railroad tracks at the end of Main Street, with the slaughterhouse and fertilizer supply store out back. We’ll be over as soon as it’s dark and the coffins open. Everyone will chip in, and we’ll pay you later.” I knew what “we’ll chip in later” meant—basically nothing—but I thought maybe a good drunken debauch is what I needed. I debated, though. I thought about leaving town right then, but something made me stay. I don’t think it was the thought of Annabelle in a bathing suit. The Liberty Belle Bar was a redneck dive with faded American flag decals plastered all over the front windows and a cheap plastic replica of the cracked Liberty Bell beside the entrance that looked like it had maybe seen a few latenight urination rituals. Walking into the dim, smoky interior I could see a huge American flag tacked up behind the bar, with a thick-necked, balding bartender in a stained, once-white wife beater eyeing me suspiciously. “You ain’t a hippy, are you?” he drawled. “We don’t serve long-hairs, traitors, or queers here.” There were murmurs and grunts from the sparse crowd of barflys and farmers. My hair really wasn’t very long, and compared to the Merry Pranksters of Belle Curve, I was dressed almost preppy, in tan chinos and a black T-shirt, but I was nervous. I hadn’t brushed up on Pig Ignorant since I was a kid in Backwoods, Maine, and my Jingoism had never progressed beyond singing “America the Beautiful” every morning in grade school. “I’m a college student from back East,” I said, “I need a case of Ballentine and a case of Pabst.” “That’s even worse,” he spat. “We don’t want outside agitators around here. Peaceniks and Commie-pinko scum. We feed Demonstrators to the hogs.” “Honest,” I said, “I’m none of those things. I’m majoring in Bible study and riflery. Just passing through on the way to a Billy Graham revival. I’m just here to see a girl. She’s in the local Miss America Pageant. I’m a patriot. I think John Birch is a prince. Nixon’s the one! And I will love Dan Quayle someday, I promise. Is that OKKKay?” For a minute I thought I saw a glimmer in his swinish eyes that he knew I was making light of his mental darkness. He knew something didn’t sound right, but it passed quickly as his few functioning brain cells remembered he was about to make a sale.

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“Tell you what, college pussy. You pledge allegiance to the flag behind me, and I’ll sell you the beer.” So I stood on a barstool with my hand over my thumping heart and recited the pledge. Then I led a rousing chorus of “God Bless America,” followed by a stirring rendition of “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” I even got some Bubbas to push my carload of beer so I could get it started. I should get that fixed, I thought. Back in the parking lot of my apartment building, I sat in my VW listening to Bob Dylan on the radio:

Don’t go turning on your light, babe, It’s a light I never know’d, Don’t go turning on your light, babe, I’m on the dark side of the road. When the rooster crows at the break of dawn, Look out your window and I’ll be gone, You’re the reason I’m moving on, But don’t think twice, it’s alright.

I don’t think Annabelle had even thought about me once, but it appeared I hadn’t really thought about her either. I didn’t know who she was or what she was up against. I was just another poetic narcissist chasing the shadow of his own fantasy—just a “ragged clown behind, I wouldn’t pay him any mind,” as Dylan would say. Okay, I thought, I’ll have this absurd party and then get out of town. I stopped by the veranda to invite Clementine to the night’s festivities, but the place looked deserted. No one answered her door, and I could see cobwebs in the windows that I hadn’t seen before. Upstairs in my apartment, the dingy barrenness of the place was depressing. I had one chair and a bed. Everyone will just have to sit on the floor, I thought. I cracked a beer and waited for dark. I heard shuffling in the bathroom. What the hell, I thought. I’ll invite the old guy to the party. When I went to the bathroom door, I saw the deadbolt had been forced, and it was hanging by one end—and the latch was also undone. I felt a wave of panicked nausea—mixed with anger. I tried the door. It was open. He was just closing his side when I went it.

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“Hey,” I said, knocking sharply on his door. “Hey. What the fuck is going on? Did you come into my apartment? Answer me. Open up.” “Go away,” wheezed a low voice on the other side of the door. “She’ll hear you. Go away.” “I don’t give a shit who hears me. What are you up to? I’ll call the cops”— which I knew I wouldn’t do, since I was about to host a party with beer I just bought for underage drinkers who would hopefully be smoking kilos of weed as well. “Get away while you still can,” the voice pleaded. “You don’t understand. You’ll burn. You’ll burn.” Ironically, that gave me a chill. I went back to my side and screwed the deadbolt back as best I could. Company couldn’t come fast enough. Frank and Bill arrived as soon as the sun went down, full of the high spirits that only alcohol and drugs can give lonely people. The rest of the motley crew trouped up the stairs soon after, amid giggling and mutters of “cool, man.” Frank was the Pied Piper of Belle Curve, and they followed him faithfully. Bill cranked his boom box with Jimi Hendrix and Three Dog Night, and the serious drinking and smoking began. Tabs of acid were passed around. Frank made speeches about the imminent Armageddon, and Bill cackled his Popeye laugh. Some of the kids cavorted in a kind of demented dance, part dosey doe and part stagger. It got louder and louder and the walls and floor seemed to spin and vibrate. I didn’t care. I was leaving in the morning. Goodbye Peggy Sue. Just then the apartment door flew open with a crash. Everyone stopped. Gracie Slick was singing, “One pill makes you taller, one pill makes you small,” as a wild figure covered in bloody scratches and mud stumbled into the room—long, dark hair sticking out full of leaves and twigs. It was Annabelle. I couldn’t believe what I saw. What in the holy pot-smoking tripping Jesus was she doing here? She had her guitar strapped on her back, and she was barefoot. She had walked all the way to Belle Curve from Grand View Heights, through cornfields and bogs, in the dark. I fell in love with her all over again. She came right up to me and kissed me like it was her last drink of water in Death Valley. Things were looking up. Even Frank looked happy for once. “Sing something for us, Sis,” he said. She sang an Elvis song: “Wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can’t help, falling in love with you”—looking straight at me.

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Wow. Wild horses, I thought, tied to my balls with barbed wire, couldn’t keep me from… getting the hell out of there in the morning. But maybe tonight would be okay. The party soon got crazy again. I wanted everyone to leave so I could be alone with Annabelle, but someone said, “We should do something—let’s have a séance.” I’m not sure where that came from—maybe it was a local custom for slow nights down by the hog troth. Before I knew it everyone was sitting in a circle on the floor with a candle burning in the center. “How does it work?” I asked, “I’ve never been in a séance. Rosie answered, after giving me the finger, as the local séance maestro, “You just decide on who to call back from the dead, and everyone holds hands and concentrates on that person, saying the name over and over. If it works, the person from the ‘other side’ speaks through someone in the room, and we get to ask questions.” “Okay,” I said, “let’s call back someone interesting, like Shakespeare or Leonardo da Vinci.” There was a chorus of drunken “boos” and “lames,” and Rooker said: “It should be someone evil and juicy, for fuck’s sake. It’s a party, not a fucking English class.” People started throwing out suggestions—“Lizzy Borden”—“Charles Manson” (someone said, “he’s not famous yet, plus he’s not dead”)—“Jack the Ripper” (“we don’t know his name”)—“Hannibal Lecter” (“he hasn’t been invented yet, and he’s fictional”). “I know,” said Rosie, “we’ll call back Belle Gunness. Supposedly she used to live in this house with her first husband. The place is named after him.” “Why should we bring her back from the grave?” I asked. “She’s a local legend,” Rosie said, after giving me the finger, “She killed ten husbands and some of her children. She kept getting away with it, until they finally got enough evidence to arrest her. They tracked her down to a big farmhouse just outside of Belle Curve. She lived there with her children, Clementine and Aquinas. Someone had looked through a window and saw her husband on the floor with his throat cut and her standing over him with a razor. When they came for her, she set the house on fire and stood in the front door laughing at them. Then she turned around and walked into the flames as the house collapsed on her. They only found her husband’s bones in the ashes, nothing else.”

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For some reason, I thought this was not a good idea, but I was outnumbered. So I sat holding Annabelle’s hand while Rosie described Belle Gunness—a stocky Norwegian woman with waist-length gray hair and icy blue eyes. We all concentrated and chanted her name. Bill did his ack-ack. Frank was getting bored. He hadn’t made a screeching harangue in over half an hour. I was getting thirsty, and I really needed to piss—although I didn’t want to go into the bathroom. People had been going in there all night, but I didn’t dare. All at once Annabelle started screaming, and her hand squeezed mine like an iron claw. I couldn’t let go. Frank was on the other side, and he couldn’t loosen her grip either. She pulled us both backwards, still screaming. I finally pried my hand away. “What is it, Annie?” I said, “What’s going on?” She couldn’t speak at first. We got her up on the bed, and she drank some water. “I saw a face coming at me,” she said, “it was in flames. Right at me. So ugly and hateful. This was a terrible idea.” The party was over—all the brave abandonment sucked out of the room. People left in silence, trudging through the empty beer cans and cigarette butts. “You coming, Annie?” Frank asked. “I’m staying,” she said. You could have knocked me over with a Belle Gunness femur covered in guacamole. As soon as everyone left, Annie took off her muddy poncho and pulled me down on the bed. She had a flannel nightgown underneath decorated with little pink devils carrying pitchforks. Must be a Catholic thing. Snuggling next to me, she whispered, Did you really drive a thousand miles to have sex with me?” This was going to be a night to remember, I thought. And it must have been, because here I am remembering it and writing it down—through the fog of years and wishful thinking, of course. This was it. Somehow I knew everything hinged on what I said next. “Did you really see a face in flames coming at you?” “No,” Annie laughed, “I just wanted everyone to leave. Now answer my question.” “No,” I said, “I did not come here expecting to ‘have sex’ with you—or even thinking about it, really. Don’t take this wrong, but you don’t quite give off the

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‘please have sex with me’ vibe. ‘Ride me like a freight train through the tunnel of love!’ Frank just said that at your house because, well, he’s Frank, and he was testing me, I think, and everyone else. I don’t know why I drove all this way. A quest. A fantasy. I mean, I did fall in love with you when I heard your singing in that club back East—with your dark eyes and sad face. You didn’t care that no one was listening, but I was listening. You sang some pretty cliché folk songs, but you sang them with soul, and then you sang a Leonard Cohen song: Susanne takes you down

To a place by the river You can see the boats go by And you can spend your life forever And you know that she’s half crazy But you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind

“Something like that. Well, you know the rest. Anyway, I wanted to go down to the river with you—and share tea and oranges that come all the way from China, like the song says. I tried talking to you afterwards, but I could tell you had your guard up. I was nervous. You were distant. But you sat in my lap and gave me your address here—never thinking, I’m sure, that I’d come here. “I’m stupid, and I shouldn’t have bothered you. What do I want? All my life I’ve wanted a grand passion, like Romeo and Juliet, Catherine and Heathcliff, Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.” Annabelle laughed at that, a warm and delighted laugh. “I love Winnie the Pooh!” she said, and we exchanged “Heffalumps,” and “Tiddly Poms,” and “Help, help, it’s me, Piglets.” “I’ll tell you what, Annie,” I said, “I admit I really don’t know you at all. But you awakened something in me. I grew up in the Maine woods, on a lonely farm, reading Thoreau and Robert Frost and Peyton Place and Wuthering Heights and all kinds of books about people living tragic, passionate, amazing lives. I saw you, and I wanted to stop preparing to live. I wanted to hit the road. See the world beyond the pine trees and blueberries and lobsters. You know that Simon and Garfunkel song:

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Let us be lovers, We’ll marry our fortunes together Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike We’ve all gone to look for America.

“So I’ve come looking. I stopped in Manhattan and stayed with some friends who live next to Harlem, working in a program for racial justice and voter registration. I heard Malcolm X speak. My car was broken into, and the next day the city towed my car. I saw the docks, Wall Street, Central Park, art movie houses, Times Square. It’s like a Fellini circus, a human kaleidoscope. Then I saw the rolling hills of Fennimore Cooper’s New York become the impossibly flat cornfields of Ohio and Indiana, with the giant scarecrow irrigation sprinklers marching like lost soldiers across the landscape. I saw endless truck stops and gift shops and trailer parks in the distance, and I imagined the ghosts of the Iroquois and Kerouac silhouetted on the horizon as the sun went down. And you, I always saw my image of you—some kind of transforming force of beauty and truth—like Gatsby’s green light across the water.” “That’s what men do, isn’t it?” she said, but not unkindly. “They see right through women to some kind of private Xanadu. Then they’re disgusted when you turn out to be a human being.” “You’re absolutely right, and I’m ashamed, Annie,” I said. “This trip was all about me and my little fantasies. Then I come out here and meet your very real family in this completely bizarre, unreal part of America that I never imagined existed. I feel like a cross between Gulliver and Alice in Indiana-land. I’m not sorry I came, though. Your family is something out of an O’Neill play, and I actually admire Frank’s commitment to changing the world, one profanity at a time. And you, Annie, I got to see what a real person you are—with a magical voice and a complex life and the courage to walk a long way in the dark.” “Frank’s really not so bad,” she said. “He has a good heart, and we love each other. He’s just scared, although you’d never know it from the way he talks. He’s afraid we’ll all end up at U. S. Slicer, cutting up our own intestines for sandwich meat. No matter how he talks, he does love our parents. Like my father says, he’s just not housebroken. And he does care about all the stuff he talks about—even if he might not understand it.” “And you, Annie,” I said, “what do you care about?” “I care about singing,” she said, “and doing something daring and good with

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my life. I want to go to California, to San Francisco and Los Angeles and San Diego. I want to learn to paint and maybe study acting. I’ve heard of a group called ‘The Children of God,’ who give up all their possessions and live in a commune and work with migrants. They’re not religious, just nuts.” We laughed at that. “I want to see America and the world,” she said, “just like you do. I want to see mountains and oceans and rain forests and temples. I want to fall in love and burst with joy every minute.” We looked at each other then, really for the first time. And we kissed, for what turned out to be the last time. There was a soft but firm knock on the door. It was Eldon, with Frank lurking behind him. “See,” said Frank, “I told you they weren’t fucking. He’s really a good guy— even though she’s a whore.” “Frank,” said Eldon, and it sounded like he meant it, “for once in your life shut up.” Stepping inside, Eldon said gently, “Come on, Annie, let’s go home. Your mother’s worried about you.” Eldon thanked me for “keeping her safe,” Annie and I hugged, and Frank and I nodded like rival spies over the Berlin Wall. Then I never saw the Bonnés again. I took a long piss in the sink and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. In my slumber of the dead, I saw an inky, black shadow seeping through the crevices around the bathroom door. It poured into the room like liquid evil until it became a woman’s shape with wild, snake-like hair. Then the face came alive in flames with shining blue eyes in the center and a gaping hole of a mouth, out of which tentacles of hysterical laughter reached toward me. I awoke so sharply I thought I heard a rib crack. The room was filled with smoke. I grabbed my backpack, jammed on my shoes, and was down the stairs in three jumps. The fire trucks were already there. I said to one of the fire guys, “ Did you get everyone out?” He laughed and said, “Don’t worry, it’s abandoned. No one’s lived here for years.” As I drove out of Belle Curve, after getting the firemen to push my car, listening to Jose Feliciano’s cover of the Doors’ “Light My Fire,” I thought of the cool, clear lakes of New England, and the icy green of the Atlantic. I don’t believe in ghosts, and Belle Gunness can kiss my ass.

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Michelle Alvarado Emily Armstrong Allison Bonin Anna Gross Dylan Hausthor Coral Howe Adhem Ibrahim Sayre Lenard Richie Mahoney Adra Kristina McBride Isabelle Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Donnell Sarah Oppeit Becky Samowitz Claude Caswell