UFM 28
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CO NT EN T S Prose
PHOTOGrAPHY
Jessica DEALING
JIM ZOLA
“WesLEY”......................................9
PAUL EWING
“SHE BELONGS TO ME”..........14
LOU GAGLIA “SIN”.............................................18
“EIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS”
Poetry YUAN CHANGMING
“RECIPROCITY” 37 “UPDATED: CHINGLISH VS. AMERICHINA” 38
SEAN MADDEN “A RARE OCCASION FOR DEEP CLEANING” .... ZAV LEVINSON ........................................................................22 “HINTERLAND” “LANGUID” “WEATHER WATCH”
Editor’s Note About Us Submission Guidlines Bios and Credits
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UFM June 2017, Issue 28
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UMBRELLA FACTORY WORKERS Editor-In-Chief
Anthony ILacqua Copy Editor
Janice Ilacqua Art Director
Jana BrAMWELL
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Umbrella Factory isn’t just a magazine, it’s a community project that includes writers, readers, poets, essayists, filmmakers and anyone doing something especially cool. The scope is rather large but rather simple. We want to establish a community--virtual and actual--where great readers and writers and artists can come together and do their thing, whatever that thing may be. Maybe our Mission Statement says it best: We are a small press determined to connect well-developed readers to intelligent writers and poets through virtual means, printed journals, and books. We believe in making an honest living providing the best writers and poets a forum for their work. We love what we have here and we want you to love it equally as much. That’s why we need your writing, your participation, your involvement and your enthusiasm. We need your voice. Tell everyone you know. Tell everyone who’s interested, everyone who’s not interested, tell your parents and your kids, your students and your teachers. Tell them the Umbrella Factory is open for business. Subscribe. Comment. Submit. Tell everyone you know. Stay dry
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hello there UFM editor’s letter - June 2017 Welcome to Issue 28 of Umbrella Factory Magazine As I always say, we are pleased to present yet another edition of Umbrella Factory Magazine. As always, I’m pleased, if not a little floored that we were able to pull off another issue of our humble magazine. As always, I’m bragging about something seemingly simple yet is anything but. I spent the first six months of this year really thinking about online literary magazines. I mean, the online literary magazine is the community that I belong to, so I figured I would spend some time really learning about how it works. The truth is, since we formed Umbrella Factory Magazine in late 2009, I have seen so few online magazines. And in 2009, believe it or not, the literary community I knew was not only not online, they shunned online magazines. There were online magazines then and I was familiar with a few of them. I liked Blood Lotus and I loved Fiction Weekly. We did not model ourselves on them, we just wanted to connect writers and readers using the online forum. This year, however, I really took a deeper look into the world of online magazines. I used New Pages to do my research. I used their “big list of lit mags” and filtered it to online journals that take fiction. The number hovered around 650. Of that number I researched and submitted work to 100 of them. This was an experience. So far, I’ve had 8 publications. I’ve had just over 50 rejections. I had withdraw a few pieces for various reasons, and one piece was withdrawn for me. I submitted, as close as I can ascertain, about 10 pieces to magazines that have folded or have not opted to continue. And I currently have about 25 pieces still out there. All along the way, I’ve really studied each of these magazines. I’ve learned that the literary community is very small. I see the same names over and over again. I’ve learned that many of these magazines work the same way as we do. I’ve learned that some magazines are operated efficiently and quickly, at least where their writers are concerned. Along the way, it has occurred to me why these magazines are so important. They fill a need. I’ve always believed that literary magazines are only for writers (and the people the writer knows) and now I know why that’s so important. I think getting a publication, even if it’s on a literary website, is a big deal. It validates the work a writer does, even if the only person who reads it is the editor who accepted it. It gives the writer a chance to connect with other writers. And it gives a meaningful connection to the reader at large. My father, for instance, read a short story of mine in a recent magazine and made some interesting insights into not only the world of the online magazine, but about my story and my way of seeing the world. In this day of hyper-connectivity aren’t we all looking for a deeper, more intimate connection? Isn’t taking the time to read a short story or a poem a way to connect with the writer? Isn’t the act of reading a way to connect with our own imaginations? And for those of you reading this because someone you know is featured in this issue of Umbrella Factory Magazine your investment in reading may deepen your knowledge of the person through their writing. Of the fiction in this issue, we welcome back an old friend, Lou Gaglia. We’re meeting for the first time Jessica Dealing, Paul Ewing and Sean Madden. As you read the words of these writers, whether you know them personally or not, please know how important their work is. I will, almost without fail, learn something from the poets we feature in our magazine. This issue is no exception. Yuan Changming, aside from a great contribution of poetry, is one of the editors of Pacific Poetry another online journal out of Vancouver, BC. I cannot recommend Pacific Poetry enough, it has been a real treat for me to read. Of Zav Levinson’s poems, “Weather Watch” specifically resonates with me, I suppose because I live in a small town which I feel is populated with old trees, old people, and old memories not my own. Rounding out the issue are the photographs of Jim Zola. Thank you for your support for this issue, #28 and the 27 which came before it. We’ll see you in September, Until then—
Read. Submit. Comment. Tell everyone you know. Stay Dry.
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submissions
Submission Guidelines:
Yes, we respond to all submissions. The turn-around takes about three to six weeks. Be patient. We are hardworking people who will get back to you. On the first page please include: your name, address, phone number and email. Your work has to be previously unpublished. We encourage you to submit your piece everywhere, but please notify Umbrella Factory if your piece gets published elsewhere. We accept submissions online at www.umbrellafactorymagazine.com
ART / PHOTOGRAPHY
POETRY
Accepting submissions for the next cover of Umbrella Factory Magazine. We would like to incorporate images with the theme of umbrellas, factories and/or workers. Feel free to use one or all of these concepts. Image size should be 980x700 pixels, .jpeg or .gif file format. Provide a place for the magazine title at the top and article links.
We accept submissions of three (no more and no less) poems. Please submit only previously unpublished work.
We also accept small portfolios of photography and digitally rendered artwork. We accept six pieces (no more and no less)
We do not accept multiple submissions; please wait to hear back from us regarding your initial submission before sending another. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your piece immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. All poetry submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter that includes a two to four sentence bio in the third person. This bio will be used if we accept your work for publication.
SUBMIT YOUR WORK ONLINE AT WWW.UMBRELLAFACTORYMAGAZINE.COM 6/
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NONFICTION Let’s just say nonfiction is a piece of expository writing based in fact. Further definitions are as follows: piece-a work with a beginning, a middle and an end. Expository writing-writing with a purpose such as, but not limited to, explanation, definition, information, description of a subject to the extent that a reader will understand and feel something. Think about the cave paintings of 30,000 years ago, they tell a story. And for the modern man, a good film documentary conveys its purpose. A film about Andy Warhol and his friends who liked to drink and smoke and screw is interesting. A film about how I felt at age ten and watching the adults in my life drink and smoke and screw is not a good idea.
FICTION Sized between 1,000 and 5,000 words. Any writer wishing to submit fiction in an excess of 5,000 words, please query first. Please double space. We do not accept multiple submissions, please wait for a reply before submitting your next piece. In the body of your email please include: a short bio—who you are, what you do, hope to be. Include any great life revelations, education and your favorite novel. Your work has to be previously unpublished. We encourage you to submit your piece everywhere, but please withdraw your piece if gets published elsewhere.
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PROSE
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WESLEY Jessica Dealing
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prose “What’s his name?” my daughter asked as we bumbled our way down the neatly manicured suburban streets. She was nervous about meeting new people, something we shared. “William, Honey. No…Wesley. I think it’s Wesley.” I wished silently for her to stay quiet the rest of the ride. I wasn’t a good mother. I had very little patience with children, even with my own child. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She was looking out the passenger window, wearing the same somber expression she always had. The familiarity of it gave me comfort. An intrusive thought: a good mother wouldn’t be soothed by such a solemn disposition in her daughter – Weren’t you supposed to want a chatty, cheerful, light-hearted little girl, perhaps even a bit precocious? Leah was none of these, and I hadn’t done anything to change that. “What does he like to play with?” Leah asked. “Toys, Honey. I’m sure toys,” I said, sounding brusquer than I meant to. It did the trick, though. In the rearview, I could see Leah looking down at her shoes, quiet. The gift sat beside her on the backseat and took up more space than she did. Normally, a five-year-old’s birthday party was the last way I’d want to spend a Saturday afternoon, but this particular birthday party was being thrown by my new boss, Noelle, for her son. The exciting thing about this was that there was a new position open at my firm, and, as far as I knew, I was the only person from work she’d invited. I couldn’t help thinking she planned on promoting me. What I didn’t know was that in a couple hours I would be jobless. I didn’t know Noelle well. We worked at a large accounting firm and where she was the director. Word had it that the senior manager was quitting because the company had decided to hire Noelle externally instead of promoting him. We had all been working non-stop to prepare for his leave and, Noelle, although she had only been with us a few months, needed to choose someone to take his place. There were rumors around the firm that she was nuts, but I tried not to buy in to office gossip.
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Now, Leah and I pulled up to the massive colonial dream house with a couple minutes to spare. The driveway was steep, but the adjacent walkway looked safety-friendly for someone wearing heels (me). It was lined with red impatiens that led to curved steps, up to deep green double doors that were bordered by two decorative columns, exclamation points on the grand architecture. “Whoa!” Leah said, looking up at the house. She slammed the car door and bounded up the walkway, her blonde pigtails bobbing against her back. I yelled for her to slow down. Manners were everything today, which I had repeated at least three times this morning. Meanwhile, I struggled with getting the gift out of the car. Since the skateboard didn’t come in its own box, I had to find one myself that was large enough. I had doubts about the skateboard being too dangerous – I wouldn’t buy one for my own daughter – but Leah insisted, so I also bought a helmet, elbow pads and knee pads just in case. Leah waited for me at the front door and asked if she could ring the doorbell. I straightened her pink polka-dotted dress out first. The doorbell rang a low melody that we heard clearly from the welcome mat. Noelle opened the door. I reached out to shake her hand in greeting but she ignored me and crouched down until her face was level with Leah’s. “What is your name, Princess?” she asked. Her eyes crinkled at the corners and her smile was wide and warm. Leah answered, looking down at her toes. “Well, Leah, we’re going to have lots of fun today! We have cake and ice cream inside, and games and party favors…Does that sound like fun?” Leah nodded. “Come with me. I’ll introduce you to everyone.” Noelle took Leah’s hand and led her into the foyer, leaving me on the doorstep holding the professionally-wrapped gift. I followed them inside, and, seeing no one else around, I balanced the gift in my left
arm while closing the front door behind me. Noelle’s home was just as magnificent on the inside as it was on the outside. I stood on the rug, trying to determine if this was a household in which people wore shoes or not, when an earnest-looking man in a maroon sweater vest and khakis – and loafers – came out and greeted me. “Hi there. I’m Al, Noelle’s husband. Here, let me put this on the gift table,” he said, reaching for the present. I cleared my throat. “Hi, Al. I’m Lauren. I’m sure Noelle’s told you about me.” “Uh…yeah. Yes, of course. Follow me. Everyone’s in the kitchen.” We walked across the marble floor, the hallway echoing the click-clack of my pumps. We ended up in a spacious kitchen where Noelle and a woman I’d never seen before were chatting. I became aware that I was overdressed. Noelle, as I had noticed at the door, was wearing jeans, and the heavy-set woman next to her was wearing cut-off shorts and a battered black polo. I straightened my dress uncomfortably, feeling like a tangerine in its bright color and matching heels. Al excused himself to put the present in the next room and to go keep an eye on the kids in the backyard. “Lauren, this is Joy, my sister,” Noelle said. We exchanged hellos. Through the sliding glass door, I could see Leah playing outside on the swing set with the other children, all of them wearing party hats. Leah looked like she was having a great time – tagging a boy and running behind a slide in a burst of giggles. “I see your daughter found some playmates,” Joy said. I smiled. “Which ones are yours?” “All three.” She sighed heavily and wiped imaginary sweat off her forehead. There was a boy about Leah’s age, maybe a bit younger, and two older boys, I guessed about seven and eight. They were the only ones out there besides Leah. “Where is your son, Noelle?” Joy’s smile disappeared and she opened her mouth and closed it again.
“Oh, he’s already at the table in the dining room waiting for cake,” Noelle said, laughing lightly. Joy’s smile returned, but I was confused. He wasn’t playing with the other children? Just sitting at the table by himself? Leah ran up to the sliding glass door and tried to open it, but it was too heavy. It took her three attempts. She poked her head through, and, out of breath, gasped, “Mommy! I need to tell you something.” “Not now, Leah,” I snapped. I told her to go back outside and play with the other kids. “We’re setting up the cake, now,” Noelle told her gently. “We’ll call you when we’re ready.” Leah started to protest, but I shot her a look, and she returned to the swing set. Joy offered to fill cups with lemonade and scoop ice cream into paper bowls in the dining room. It was only myself and Noelle in the kitchen. She stuck five small candles into a chocolate sheet cake and sighed as she fixed the big 5-shaped candle in the middle of the brown goopy frosting. “They grow up fast, don’t they?” “Sure do,” I said. I casually brought up how busy it was lately at our firm. “Yes,” Noelle agreed. “It really makes you appreciate the weekends. I just adore spending time with my family. That’s really the most important thing, you know?” She smiled a tight line. “Sure,” I said. “But I also find work extremely rewarding. Oh, and I hear that John’s leaving. Just incredible! He’s been there like, what, twenty-two years?” “Yes, he’s leaving in a few weeks. Let’s not worry about that right now. I try to leave work at work.” She winked. She had made her way to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Pinot Grigio, then grabbed one of the plastic cups from a stack on the counter and asked if I would like some. She handed me a cup and said, “If anyone asks, it’s lemonade.” I vaguely wondered why we had to lie when Joy stepped into the kitchen and asked if we were ready.
“Yes!” Noelle replied, raising her cup enthusiastically. “Call the kiddies!” Joy opened the door and yelled cake! to the kids. They immediately scurried inside, voices still rowdy with adrenaline. Joy led them to the dining room. I followed close behind. Leah hung back from the boys and tugged on my dress. “I really need to tell you something,” she whispered. I swatted her away and nodded toward the other children, who were seating themselves at the dining room table. Noelle had finished lighting the candles, waiting until we all sat down so that she could make her entrance with the cake and we could all sing “Happy Birthday.” The boys were pounding their fists on the table with plastic fork in one hand, plastic spoon in the other, shouting “We want cake! We want cake!” Leah sat down and tried to sneak a spoonful of ice cream before the cake came. “Hey!” I hissed at her and she stopped, spoon still mid-air. “The adults are sitting at this end,” Joy told me, and took my arm to lead me to my designated chair. I scanned the table for Noelle’s son – I was still not sure of his name – but there were only the same children that were playing outside. As I sat down, I noticed a jar at the other end of the table, at the head of the “kid’s side.” It was about the size of a milk carton and filled with some sort of fluid. It was wearing the same purple party hat that the kids were wearing. What the hell was that? And what was that floating in the fluid like a jellyfish? I gulped. No way. Just then Noelle entered with the cake, and everyone started singing. I had no choice but to join in. The cake was placed in front of the party hat-wearing jar. I glanced at my daughter, who gave me a meaningful look and raised both eyebrows. I suddenly gathered that this is what she was trying to tell me earlier. She wanted to warn me. No doubt the boys told her outside. Wesley was in the jar. Wesley was the globby piece of tissue suspended in fluid, who
apparently got birthday parties thrown in his honor. I counted my breaths to keep from gagging. When the song was done, the children clapped and cheered. Two of the boys were sitting on either side of “Wesley,” and the kids were told to blow out the candles together. The youngest boy told the others that his wish was for Wesley to be able to play with them someday. His brother yelled at him to keep it to himself or the wish wouldn’t come true. The cake was served, and when Noelle put a piece in front of the jar, I excused myself, saying I needed some air. I walked into the kitchen and opened the sliding glass door to the backyard as if in a trance. I wondered briefly if my knees wouldn’t buckle before I could sit down on the deck steps. I wondered if I was going to faint. I was seated and clutching the wooden railing with one hand when Joy took a seat beside me. I hadn’t even heard the suction-y whoosh of the slider door being opened. Maybe I hadn’t even shut it. “I’m sorry, Lauren,” she said, stroking my arm. “Someone should’ve told you.” My head was hanging down. I was still trying to steady my breathing and the pounding of my heart. I couldn’t get the image out of my head. It had been served cake! “Is there really a baby in there?” Joy hesitated, sighed. “If you could even call it that. It’s how she grieves. I don’t know you, and I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through a miscarriage, but it’s hard. It’s been very hard for Noelle. She’s always wanted a child, and Al…” She shook her head, looking toward the horizon, where low puffy clouds were floating easy and weightless across the sky. They looked like a herd of sheep. Perhaps a neighbor was counting them as he drifted off in a nap on a hammock. That’s the way to spend a Saturday, I thought glumly. “Anyway,” Joy continued, “if you want to leave, I understand. I can make something up to tell Noelle. But if you stay…just…please
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prose don’t mention it as if it’s just an object. To Noelle, it might as well be her real, live son.” I considered my options. Noelle might be offended if I left. And I wanted – needed – that promotion. I could make it through this. At the sound of the door opening, Joy and I turned. It was Noelle. Her face was flushed, and there was a red haze in her eyes, hinting she probably had more than one plastic cup of Pinot Grigio. “We’re opening presents now if you’d like to join us.” I peeked at Joy, who said, “Sure, Noe, we’ll be right in.” So we were doing this then: opening presents for an imaginary child. “She gives the gifts to charity,” Joy whispered to me as we stepped inside, precipitating my question. Noelle sat down on a plush armchair in the living room. Four gifts surrounded her on the floor, and the jar was placed on the coffee table in front of her, still wearing the party hat. Al stood next to her, an arm on her shoulder. They were both smiling, reveling in the attention. I tried not to roll my eyes. I couldn’t believe I spent so much time worrying about getting the perfect gift. Joy handed Noelle a present wrapped in blue paper, explaining it was from their parents. It contained four outfits; three of them tee shirts and shorts, and one dressier outfit of navy blue corduroy pants and a red sweater with a navy stripe across the chest. There was much oohing and ahhing. The three boys and Leah were sitting in a semi-circle on the floor but they weren’t paying attention to the gifts so much as playing with the party favors. Leah was blowing on one of those paper noise-makers that unraveled as it filled with air. The boys were playing with tiny colorful dinosaurs that I remembered from my day, the little rubbery ones that sold for a quarter apiece at the toy store. The next gift was from Al – who, after Noelle read the card, was rewarded with a peck on the cheek. It was some interactive toy with a bunch of knobs and buttons and was supposed
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to help children “Wesley’s age” learn cognitive skills or something. Joy’s gift was the latest action figure. “I picked it out!” The seven-year-old boy said with pride. “I picked our gift out, too!” Leah told him, no doubt delighted to have something in common. Noelle opened our gift next. She was one of those people who gushed over how pretty the wrapping paper was, and peeled the tape off carefully so as not to rip it. It was agonizing to watch. When she was done unwrapping ours, she folded the paper into a neat square and placed it on the end table beside her, on top of the pile of other wrapping paper squares she had made for herself. I had to hand it to her, though, she did this all quite deftly for someone who was beginning to slur her speech. “Oh, wow!” Noelle gushed, uncovering our gift and holding up the skateboard, the helmet, and the pads in turn. Now that I knew Wesley wasn’t a living boy, my safety concerns were moot. I hoped that the relative extravagance of the gift won me some brownie points toward the new position. At the least, it couldn’t hurt my chances. Noelle thanked everyone for their generosity, and I grabbed my handbag at the side of the couch, ready to get the hell out of there. “Not so fast!” Noelle said in a singsong voice. Then said with a sly smile, “Kids, you can continue to play longer if you’d like. Adults, it’s cocktail time!” Al leaned down as she was getting up and whispered something in her ear about having enough already. “Oh, nonsense,” she replied loud enough for all of us to hear. “It’s a celebration.” I felt a tug at the hem of my dress. “Mommy, can we play with our sidewalk chalk in the driveway?” “Huh?” I asked. Leah had a small box of chalk in her hand, one of the party favors she must have gotten. “Absolutely!” Noelle answered her. “Just don’t go past the sidewalk or you’ll end
up in the street, okay?” Leah grabbed the hand of the four-yearold boy and the older two followed. Noelle instructed the adults to stay where they were while she got some homemade sangria out of the fridge. I excused myself to go help her. Maybe now that the “birthday” part was done, she’d be more willing to talk about work. When I entered the kitchen, Noelle was finishing a guzzle of sangria by herself. When she saw me, she stopped in her tracks and then shrugged, refilling her glass. “I wish Al drank,” she said. “It would be nice not to feel like he’s babysitting me. It’s just that this time of year is always so hard, you know?” Was she aware, then, that Wesley wasn’t living? I couldn’t tell. Here in the kitchen, the façade seemed removed. I told her I understood. I let her talk while she poured a healthy serving of sangria into each glass. Then I said, “So I got all the files done this week. Erikson should be ecstatic.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lauren! Lighten up on the shoptalk, would you?” She tried to use that airy laugh of hers, but it didn’t cover the edge in her voice. “Can I ask you a question?” I said. “Why me? Out of everyone in the office, why did you only invite me?” “You have a five-year-old,” she said. “This is a party for a five-year-old. Doesn’t that make sense to you?” “Noelle, I need to know…where do I stand with regards to the senior management position?” “Oh, Jesus!” She said. “All right. Honestly, I haven’t even thought about it.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “I’ve had other things to think about lately. I was going to review the applications on Monday and go from there. Satisfied?” But I wasn’t. Far from it. “I’m going to be honest here. I’m a single mother who works extremely hard--” “So, because you’re a mother do you deserve the position more than Jim, who also
works hard but doesn’t have kids? Or what about me? Maybe you think you deserve a higher position than myself because I don’t…I don’t…” “No, of course not!” It dawned on me that I was being stupid. We had both been drinking, and this was the time of year of her miscarriage, which probably didn’t cause her to sympathize with my motherhood woes. “Good,” she said, and I felt her gaze on me, looking me over, sizing me up. It felt like icicles. We carried the drinks back to the living room in silence. Joy and Al were sitting on the sofa, making light conversation. Noelle set the drinks on the table. “What is going on?” she screamed. She ran to look out the window to the front of the house, where the children were playing in the driveway. “Sweetie, it’s okay. They asked if they could play with the skateboard. They promised they wouldn’t go past the sidewalk,” Al said. “Leah isn’t allowed to ride skateboards,” I said. “Not that!” Noelle snapped. “Wesley!” Sure enough, the jar was seated on top of the skateboard. Leah was sitting at the top of the driveway, and the oldest boy was at the bottom. Noelle raced to the front door and yanked it open. “No, no! Stop! You’re going to hurt him!” Leah had just given the skateboard a push, and the slope of the cement lent it more speed. The boy, waiting to catch the skateboard, looked up at the sound of Noelle’s frantic screaming and missed it, the skateboard and jar rolling past him, across the sidewalk and into the street. All we could do was watch. The jar jiggled back and forth on the skateboard, which quavered over the gravelly asphalt like a ship sailing choppy waters. The skateboard hit a small pothole and we gasped collectively as the jar tilted one way, then the other, tipped over on the skateboard, rolled off and landed with a shatter onto the street.
“Nooo!” Noelle’s scream quickly turned to loud sobs. Liquid pooled in the middle of the street. The skateboard sat in this shadow, in a puddle of Wesley. I guess the skateboard was too dangerous after all. Al rubbed Noelle’s back as she cried, crouched down with her hands over her face. At this gesture of kindness, she turned on him. “Why aren’t you upset?” she demanded. “That was your son! Do you even care?” He let her vent, a saint in my opinion. “How could you let them do that?” she continued. “They asked if they could play with the skateboard. I didn’t see that they took the jaWesley,” Al said. “We wanted to give him a ride on it,” Leah said. “Don’t even start with me, young lady!” Noelle put her hands on her hips. “Look at what you did. You broke my son.” Leah’s eyes watered. I don’t think she’d ever been yelled at by anyone besides me. Noelle turned to me. “I think you and your brat daughter need to leave my house now.” She’s drunk, I told myself. Drunk and traumatized. And that’s why I didn’t slap her, or cuss her out, or throw my glass of sangria in her face, even though I wanted to. Even though my daughter was crying but hiding her face so no one could tell. Even though I suddenly didn’t care about the promotion anymore, or even if I kept my job. My daughter was watching, and I was determined to set a good example. I handed my glass to Noelle and said, “We would be delighted to leave.” I took my daughter’s hand, and together we marched down the walkway lined with the red impatiens toward the car. When we got in, I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure Leah was buckled. I noticed her eyes were red and puffy, and I felt a tenderness in my chest. As I pulled away, I saw the small party make their way back into the house – Joy gave
me a small, awkward smile, her boys trailing close behind her. Al was gently guiding Noelle toward the front door as she sipped at my glass of sangria.
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SHE BELONGS TO ME Paul Ewing
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prose Have you ever been in love? She asked. We were lying on my couch. I wasn’t drunk anymore, just tired. I wanted to tell her yes, I had been in love. More than once even. To let her know you never get over it. At least I never do. To let her know it was okay she was missing somebody that wasn’t me. But something about her had changed. I don’t think I can explain it. You really had to be there. The change was in her face. There was this tenderness and vulnerability more beautiful than I imagined possible. It was breathtaking and painful, and at the same time, it gave everything else in this life meaning. Legs are nice, but they can’t compete with that. She belongs to me now, because no matter what else happened, that most delicate of looks was mine to keep. She was there to return my sweater. I liked her having it. Her wearing it gave me hope. It made me think she couldn’t hate me. I thought she wore it on days she needed to feel some sort of connection to me. Some sort of lingering closeness. It’s not like it was a nice sweater. I had given her the sweater months before. The night had gotten cold, and she needed something to keep her warm. She loved me then. She didn’t when she returned it. So many things had changed. When she dropped off the sweater, I didn’t want her to leave. Would you like a beer? I asked, because I couldn’t think of anything else that might make her stay. I’d like to, she said, but I have a lot of other errands to run. I had somehow gone from being the man she loved, to being just another item on her to do list. She could cross me off now, and move onto other important things like getting her oil changed, doing her laundry, and putting out her recyclables.
I took my time answering her. I knew I wasn’t going to get it right, but I didn’t want to say anything so stupid I couldn’t walk it back. She was getting impatient with me. Fidgeting in the seat. Trying to put down the window which didn’t work anymore. We had hooked up a few times a year or so before, but she was involved with somebody else, so I didn’t press the issue. When we found ourselves with another chance, it was like fate was winning. In spite of our missteps, things were finally working out. It was going to be a funny story for me to tell at our anniversary parties. But all of my hope for a bright and shiny future turned into me just wanting to get laid. It’s a pattern of sorts. “Aside from your parents’,” I said, “I don’t know where we’re headed.” And that was that. It may have been the cleanest break-up I’ve ever been associated with. She stopped calling, and I explored other options without regret. We were standing in the middle of the empty dance floor. She was feeding me a piece of cake. The man she married that morning was at the bar watching a football game, doing shots with his best man. “You’d really like him,” she said. “When we met, he reminded me of you.” “It’s good cake,” I said. I can’t speak for anybody else, but I made damn good use of the open bar. Can you see the pattern forming?
We said goodbye for the last time, hugging in a parking lot outside the bar. Lingering like we normally did. It wasn’t supposed to be a finale. She was going to call. We were definitely going to get together. “Don’t look so sad,” she said, “I’m just I wanted her to spend the night, but she getting married. It’s not like I’m dying. We’ll couldn’t. We were driving to her parents’ house, still see each other.” which was where she stayed when she was in But I knew we wouldn’t. I knew this town, and she asked, “Where do you think we’re thing, whatever the hell it had been, had run its headed?” course. What the hell kind of question is that?
A much wiser person told me many years ago, during a shockingly long stretch where I was indulging the beauty of drink, listening to Tom Waits records, and breaking most of my things, that I was never going to understand women. And I’d love to say I’ve proven her wrong, but the one constant connecting the years to the women, and then connecting it all back around to me, has been my lack of understanding. It was so grown-up. It was rock and roll. It was a couple of martinis and a cigarette covered with lipstick. And the woman was perfect. She didn’t want anything other than the sex. I didn’t even know that was possible. I’d heard stories about the relationship free sex, but I just assumed they were urban legends. Something made up for the movies. Something that only happened to much cooler guys than me. Maybe the whole thing was too grownup. Too much not me. I never wanted to understand why spending the night talking to one woman could be so much more satisfying than spending the day actually fucking another. I need after each relationship has ended for there to be space. Lots and lots of space. Ideally, they should leave for Paris. That’s actually happened. Twice. No shit. They got on a plane and flew to Paris. That sort of thing can spoil a guy. I follow many simple, yet at the same time, mysteriously complex patterns with women. In the beginning, there is the doing nothing. Second, there is the putting myself in places to be near her. Which is basically the doing nothing with a twist. To be around her is a good thing. I figured this out in the eighth grade. I was in love as only the eighth grader can be in love. All that Romeo and Juliet end of the world kind of love. We didn’t have the vampires and sick kids back in my day. I was waiting it out. Which is a third pattern, and still an important part of my playbook. For all my years of trying, I haven’t come up with anything better than what
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prose sort of worked for me in junior high. She liked three or four guys before me that year, but I knew they wouldn’t last. Conviction of destiny being a fourth pattern. I did the only thing that made sense. I waited in the places I knew she’d be. A stalker at thirteen. Eventually we got together, and when she had enough, we stopped being a couple. A fifth pattern. It’s been over twenty years and I still feel uncomfortable when I bump into her with her kids. “I know what you want from women,” she said. She had that way about her. Not arrogant necessarily, but always thinking she knew everything just the same. And who knows, maybe she did. At the very least, she had to know more than me. More than seeing her again, sleeping with her even, I wish she would have explained what it was she thought I wanted. I never thought I wanted anything. At least not anything specific. The wanting is usually a big part of my problem. Either I denied it, rationalized it away, or was paralyzed by it. Very seldom have I been able to run across a field and embrace it. And maybe it’s that fear of desire more than any selfloathing, but there’s something that makes me distrust a woman’s interest in me. And there’s something that makes me thirteen again, but not in a good way, when I want a woman to have an interest in me. This life can be complicated. I’m not very good at this life. I like it well enough, I just don’t understand all that much of it. I don’t understand why that woman wasn’t stopped from marrying Ted Bundy. Stopped from having his baby for Christ’s sake. I don’t understand why those seemingly ubiquitous sports analysis shows last longer than the games, with the second guessing going on for years. And I don’t understand why I stay awake and watch them. I don’t understand why men write to Playboy and say Miss May was the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen. That somebody would have that much time, that much conviction, that much desire for the woman who posed nude last month never made sense to me. Was
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Miss May really that much better than Miss April? If nothing else, shouldn’t they at least wait until they see what Miss June was like before making such an important decision?
love started. Usually, I was well in the middle of the mess before I knew what hit me. After we separated and were barely speaking, and most of that speaking being awkward and loud on my part, I walked alone She was smoking, a habit she picked up through the car wash. When I paced the empty again. She was getting married in a month, and streets, too drunk for sleep, left alone by my alprobably there was a lot of stress. She was the cohol with this great need, it was to the car wash most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I keep writ- I roamed. Hoping it might cleanse me. That it ing the editors, but she hasn’t reappeared. It’s might make us whole again. almost as if I imagined her. But real or not, she was exquisite. Beyond any of the words I had to Most of the time when I think about her, describe her. I think we were just so young. It’s a cliché, I I found a picture of her stuck in a book a know, but things were so much simpler then. Not few years later, and she looked normal enough coincidently, I was getting laid on a regular basis waving back at me in her sweat pants and t-shirt. for the first time. It’s been so many years now I But at the time, she was my mountaintop. She don’t remember all that much about her. What it was somehow more than what I considered pos- was that brought us together. What it was, other sible from this life. I live in fear of seeing her. than the sex, keeping me there so long. Of running into her at the grocery store or the Mostly I remember the postgame. The mall. Of having her name casually brought up way we mistreated each other like people in by old friends. Of finding out she was just a reg- our situation tend to do. The way it dragged on ular woman. for months, never seeming to end. A dragging on which lasted longer than the relationship it I don’t miss her, maybe sexually some- self. I still have the shirt she borrowed, a questimes, but I don’t doubt if we’d stayed togeth- tion which led to our first date. It’s torn in three er, if she had chosen me and not that other guy, or four places and has been out of rotation for we’d be married. And if I’m being honest, we’d years, but I can’t throw it away. She’s married be divorced by now, and I’d be one of those sad now. Has a couple of kids even. I know this bemiddle aged men seeing his kids four or five cause I stalk her on the internet. I’m happy for days a month. her. Really. I am. Why shouldn’t I be? It seems funny she picked that other guy out of spite. Seems silly she wanted to hurt me. I should have said, I need to get home, so Wanted to show me what I’d so carelessly given no, I can’t have a drink with you tonight. Thanks away. anyway for asking. But when it came down to it, I was more I fell in love with her very quickly. dude than smart, so I shouldn’t need to further I had known her for five, maybe six days, explain my weakness. My instincts were right, it definitely wasn’t a full week, but it was the which surprised me. Part of my rationalization summertime, and life moved at a different pace. for not stopping it was my track record of be We were walking from a bar to a house ing so wrong the previous six or seven months. of some friends. It was the first time we were Hell, I’d been wrong as wrong can be for years. alone. We took a shortcut through a car wash, The whole thing was a horrible mess. and I can’t say I remember what we talked about, From her lying to everybody we knew, to the and I know there was no physical contact be- death threats I got from her ex-boyfriend, who tween us, but by the time we came out the other didn’t consider himself an ex, and who I still half side, I was in love. Simple as pie. It was the first expect might kill me someday, to her odd form time, the only time, I can say I know when the of stalking, it was all a bad scene.
It marked the beginning of a shockingly long ready to be with somebody who loved me. stretch where I punished myself for my old mistakes I thought wrong. by indulging in my shiny new ones. The clock in my car read 11:11. She would be the first in line, waiting with a Make a wish, she said. friend. My job was to check ID numbers when people We were heading out for a late snack and a entered the dining hall. I didn’t know more than her couple of cocktails. I thought the night before we name and number, but it happened we knew some of were completely finished. We hadn’t had much to bethe same people, and a year or so later we ended up the gin with, but whatever it was, I decided it was time for closest of friends. I always knew we would. Just like it to end. But things aren’t always up to me. And less I never doubted we were going to be a couple. Even than twenty four hours after I decided it was over, it when I was with somebody else, and totally happy. was starting fresh. Even when I was with somebody else, and ridiculous- What the hell, I went with it. ly in love. But it never happened. And I knew as she sat across the table from me I wouldn’t tell this to anybody who knew her, all I wanted was for her to love me. But that wasn’t and especially I wouldn’t tell her, and probably I’m what I’d wished for. just full of shit, but she’s the one that got away. The one that was never given the chance it deserved. May- I cut the marriage announcement with the picbe things were meant to be different. Maybe we were ture of her in the big white dress out of the Sunday meant to be more than the occasional comment, the paper and stuck it on my refrigerator. We live in a occasional liking of pictures from our very separate relatively small town and I’d known for months she lives. was engaged. It never bothered me. I was told by another woman I spent some time misunderstanding—I I had the chance to get back with her, and I wasn’t kidding about this being a small town—who took it. happened to be a friend of the family and a guest at the I don’t even know if I wanted to be back with wedding, she had made a stunning bride. That didn’t her. I may have just been trying to prove a point. I bother me either, because they always say that. may have just been hoping to get laid. I may have just been bored. I couldn’t help thinking how much better off I had no plan. I had no expectations. She had she was without me. I just wouldn’t let myself be in initiated the reconciliation, not me. I really thought love with her. She was crazy about me, but I couldn’t we were going to make it work. I thought the first return it. I wanted to, but I couldn’t give her half of time around I wasn’t giving it a fair chance. I thought what I felt for a woman I was never anything more things were better than I’d let them be. I was older than a distraction to. And it was that inability, more this second time. More mature. I thought I was ready than her actually getting married, which bothered me. to put in the effort and make it work. I thought I was
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SIN Lou Gaglia
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prose Tommy from next door and Jesse from across the street and Uncle Peter leaned forward on their plastic balcony chairs and called after the walking woman. Their voices started low and mixed with laughter and then rose to a shout the faster she walked. Steve, standing behind them, watched her head turn to the brownstones across the street, and then Steve looked at his father who had come frowning from the kitchen with his coffee. He motioned to Steve to go back to the living room. His cousins Angie and Al told Steve they weren’t allowed to watch TV, and Al didn’t want to have a catch. “We can’t.” “Grandpa would want us to play,” Steve said, then heard another hoot from the balcony. His father was outside the porch’s threshold, quietly sipping coffee. “We can’t,” said Al. “Mom said no. And Grandma, she’s—” “Just a catch. It’s been a month.” “No,” Al said, turning away, shoulders slumped. “How can we? Grandpa’s gone.” And they both walked back through the kitchen to sit on the plastic covered living room couch. Downstairs Steve’s mother was with his grandmother, making gravy for late afternoon macaroni. The upstairs where his Aunt Maria, Uncle Peter, Al, and Angie lived was quiet except for the loud talk on the balcony that overlooked Union Street. Just down the road was the school where Steve liked to play ball when they visited Brooklyn from Long Island, but now he stood frozen—a weekend stay ahead of him, his glove in the car’s back seat in the slanted driveway, and the Mets game already starting on channel nine. Al came sullenly back into the kitchen and asked Steve if he wanted some cake. “No, I want a catch.” “We lived with him, you didn’t,” Al said. “All you think about is baseball.” Steve turned away and hurried past his father who was returning from the balcony. He raced down the kitchen’s back stairs to the driveway and reached through the open car window for his glove and ball. Then he bolted down the block, with Tommy and Jesse laughing after him
to hit a homer, to go get ‘em, to run those bases, kid. He didn’t look back. “God’s going to get you,” Al had said at the wake when a family friend, Carmella, looked at Steve mischievously and curled the corners of her mouth to make him laugh. His shoulders quaked and then he couldn’t stop. The mourners—some of them relatives he didn’t know— looked over and smiled a little, relieved to smile, while Steve escaped to the back of the room, giggling. Still, Carmella drifted over and gave him one last imperceptible smirk that made him burst out laughing while Al glared at him from his front side chair. “God will get you,” Al told him later in the vestibule. Steve passed through the elementary school’s gate on the way to the handball court where a strike zone was outlined in chalk against the flat stone wall. He looked at the sky, at the mixed white and gray clouds. He threw the ball high and hard into the air and caught it, and then tossed it softly against the school’s brick wall. God would get him for laughing at the wake, and maybe even for throwing the ball up at God or something. “I didn’t throw the ball at God.” For leaving his cousins. For laughing at the wake. For Cristina too. Just for looking at her in class at school, God would get him. A sin to look. She was in his English and social studies classes, and they’d found out they shared the same birthday at her party in their 4th grade class. When she was missing from 7th grade homeroom for two weeks, other kids insisted she was raped, first as a joke—and then it became the truth somehow. His classmates stood in a circle before school or during recess. She was raped, they said, by her uncle, or by a family friend, or by a strange man who came into her room, or by some high school guy. The rapists changed but the story stayed the same. He’d looked into the faces in those circles and remembered Cristina helping him with math in 5th grade, and he remembered liking her a little before she disappeared from school, when he
told himself that, yes, she was pretty. And when she returned to school after several weeks, he tried not to look at her while she stood by herself at recess or with a friend, her shoulders sloping but her face even prettier and the way she walked even more beautiful. In the cafeteria she’d passed his table and he forgot himself and remarked to David Gerstin that she had a pretty face. “What?” David said. “She has a nice face. Cristina.” “You look at her face? I’m looking somewhere else, man.” He glanced at her during recess or in the hallway or in class. And now, tossing the ball against the stone wall, he missed the strike zone box and he thought of her again, saw her vividly, and leered at her in his mind the way David Gerstin did. “God, no.” He wound up and threw a first pitch at the box, and then another. He wouldn’t think. He’d be Gooden or Fernandez or Tanana and go after the Houston Astros lineup, starting with Biggio and then on to Finley and Bagwell. He’d go after them, strike them out, throw hard, pop the ball against the wall past their flailing bats; he’d chase away those thoughts as he chased the ball, even as a voice inside him said, You’ll go to hell now. Lust, lust. You’re just as bad. He threw the ball wild high at the strike zone and chased it when it bounced left. Grandpa’s gone and you play ball. You laugh at his funeral think these thoughts. God’s going to get you. He threw the ball down the middle, hitting the “X”. Or maybe He won’t need to get you. I’ll pull you down myself, kid. The walking woman came toward him along the sidewalk. He’d seen her before during the week of the funeral, walking by the house and around the neighborhood. She was old but young-looking, and she wore shorts and sunglasses. Her head swiveled while she walked, liked a bird’s head, as though it were part of her exercise. Sometimes from the porch he’d seen her pass, talking to herself and counting something off on her fingers. It was only today that her
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prose head wasn’t swiveling. She’d turned away from their taunting shouts, and she wasn’t talking to herself or counting on her fingers. He stopped throwing to watch her approach. He’d never seen her complete face, only the smile underneath her sunglasses. Her neck was wrinkled even though she had a thin younglooking body. She looked his way and smiled under the sunglasses and waved. He waved back from his waist. “How are you?” she called. “Okay.” “Beautiful day.” “Yeah.” “Thank God it’s not hot, though.” She smiled and crossed herself and walked on with another wave and smile, looking quickly left and then right again. You looked at her too, said the voice to him. She was doing the sign of the cross, kid, and you looked. What did I just finish telling you?” “Shut up. Shut the hell up.” You just said hell. “God, just shut up.” You told God to shut up. “No, I told you. I swear you can’t bother me.” You swore. I’m making room for you down here. He wound up to pitch. If you don’t hit that strike zone you’ll go to hell. He missed low. Another chance, then. Double or nothing. If you don’t pitch a strike you’ll die tomorrow. His pitch either hit or just missed the inside line on the box. You’re gone, that’s a miss. “I hit the line.” You know you missed it. “Shut up.” Cristina is bad enough, but even that woman—married and old, and you’re still looking. Creep. “Shut…up!” Even if a man looks at another woman he’s already committed adultery in his heart. Re-
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member that one? He stood firmly on an imaginary pitching rubber. First pitch by Gooden to Biggio. He bore down, wound up and threw the ball hard, too hard. Ball one, outside. Remember the priest? He said even if you look…It was a direct quote, for God’s sake. He pitched a strike (…even if you look) but then gave up the game, moving closer to toss the ball high against the brick. He tossed high and caught, tossed and caught, trying to think only of the ball coming back down at him. Playing basketball at recess he’d stopped to watch Cristina walking alone near the fence at the end of school property. Her shoulders folded forward, and her arms were across her chest… Even if you look— He turned away and went out of the gate, heading back to his grandmother’s house. Next door Tommy sat on his stoop, arms resting on his knees, hands dangling. He smiled. “You win the game, Stevie?” “No, just threw it around.” “I got the Mets on upstairs. You can watch a few innings.” Steve looked up. No one was on his grandmother’s balcony. “They’re all inside,” Tommy said and stood up. “Your Uncle Pete’s busy yelling at your cousins, so you don’t want to go in there yet.” “I can’t watch. We can’t watch TV.” Tommy frowned. “That’s over there. I’m over here. I got the game going now. Schourek’s pitching. Easter Sunday, man.” He looked at his aunt and uncle’s empty upstairs porch and at the closed downstairs curtains and then at the sky, the sun breaking through now. “Up to you,” said Tommy, turning to go inside, and Steve followed. Tommy’s small apartment was nothing like his aunt and uncle’s or his grandparents’. It was only a one room combination living room and kitchen with a bedroom and bathroom in the rear. No plastic covered Tommy’s couch. Newspapers and magazines—baseball, hockey and billiard magazines—were all over his one table.
A cereal bowl was out. Old bottles of milk lined the counter, and socks were strewn near the hallway closet door. The green of Shea Stadium’s field was showing from a high shot on TV as Tim McCarver’s cheerful clear voice told everyone that the bottom of the fourth inning was about to begin, and with Greg Swindell not having allowed a hit, the Mets were trailing 3-0. Steve stood before the TV and watched. “Sit, sit, relax,” said Tommy. “Couple of innings, then go home after Uncle Pete stops screaming.” “What did they do?” “I don’t know, who knows? Maybe they laughed. Cracked a knock-knock joke or something.” Tommy smirked, then bowed his head. “But…you know, he just lost his father. And your father too, he just lost his father, too, so… you know…” Steve thought of his father, quiet on the balcony, drinking coffee while the other men laughed. “But then again,” Tommy said, looking around, thinking. “Your father don’t belt you around, does he?” “What?” “He doesn’t take it out on you.” Steve shook his head. Tommy went to the kitchen cabinet and took down a glass. “You want a root beer?” Steve saw the dirty glass but wanted the root beer anyway. “Okay.” “Your father’s a good man. He was like my big brother growing up.” Tommy came back with the root beer and handed it to Steve. “Sit down, will ya? Relax.” Steve sat. “I was in elementary school, right up the road here,” Tommy went on. “Your father was in college, I think, much older, but he looked out for me. No one touched me.” Steve thought of his father watching quietly off the porch and then curiously when Steve stormed out of the house. Tommy and Jesse had talked dirty to the woman but his had father stood there frowning. “He’s a good man,” Tommy repeated and there was a knock at the door. Steve stood, ready to snap off the television, but it was Tommy’s
girlfriend, carrying a bag. He’d forgotten her name. He watched her lips while she told him how nice it was to see him again. Then she and Tommy went into the bedroom and closed the door and Steve sat down to watch the game. The Mets finally got a hit in the fourth but didn’t score, and then Schourek gave up another run in the fifth to put the Mets behind, 4-0. Between innings, with the game officially half over, the laughter from the bedroom made him sit up on the edge of the chair. He got up and stood near the door, ready to leave, but sat down again when it was quiet. Then there was only Tommy talking, low and pleading. He heard her say, “Parcheesi” or “that’s cheesy,” and Tommy laughed and said, “What?” “That’s cheesy,” she repeated. “Come on,” said Tommy, and Steve stood up again. There was one more insistent “Parcheesi” or “that’s cheesy” from her, and Steve walked out, carefully closing the door. Al and Angie were on the couch upstairs, Al morosely looking through a magazine and Angie sniffling. Uncle Peter was out on the balcony now, a wine bottle on the table, his hand closed around its top. There was no sound except for Angie sniffling, the clock ticking, and the muffled voices of his aunt and mother and grandmother downstairs. He went into the living room and sat on the plastic-covered chair across from his cousins. “Steve, come here.” His father stood under the frame of the guest bedroom door, staring Steve down. He stood and went to his father slowly, and his father’s fist came up and hit his jaw—a short-distance rap that stung him and snapped his head back. Tears filled his eyes. He looked at his father, mouth open. “You know why. You know why.” And his father tapped Steve’s head hard with his forefinger before walking away. Steve sat with Al and Angie on the couch, and later he found a baseball book to read and some blank paper and a pen with Al’s school things. He spent the late afternoon on the porch carefully writing out the lineups and pitching staffs of every baseball team in the majors, and
making up pretend games on paper, all the way to a World Series. Later, from the balcony, he heard someone call out a window to someone else that the Mets had come back and won 5-4. Steve couldn’t find who’d yelled or who he’d called to. At dinner downstairs he and his cousins sat off in a back room next to the kitchen to eat, and Steve looked up at the enormous portrait of his father and Uncle Peter’s older sister who had died when she was twelve. On top of the corner cabinet he saw dusty board games stacked— chess and Connect Four and Parcheesi—and beside the game were statues of Mary and Joseph and other saints. He heard the voice of Tommy’s girlfriend saying “Parcheesi” or “that’s cheesy” in his mind. In the spare bedroom at night, alone in the dark, he stared at the statue of the Virgin Mary and at the large cross of the dying Jesus on the wall, and he knew why. There were too many whys and too many strikes—and all of those whys and strikes were strikeouts. Soon his father came into the room and sat on the bed. “We’re going home tomorrow,” he said, and he put his hand on Steve’s head. “Sleep,” he said softly, and he left the room. Steve’s eyes moved from the cross to the statue, then followed the lights from cars that ran along the wall. And as he waited for the next car light to pass, he whispered to God to please help him be good, until he felt too sleepy to think.
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A RARE OCCASIon FOR DEEP CLEANING Sean Madden
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prose Newly engaged Jeremy Rosenbaum had just arrived at his Los Feliz bungalow when a photo of his parents cocktailing together in Reno brightened the screen of his phone. “Everything okay?” he answered on speaker. “That meshugener Felsheim crapped on my powder room floor.” Sure that the spotty reception had skewed his mother’s words, Jeremy took the phone off speaker, and pressed it firmly to his ear. “You’ll have to repeat that, Mom. I don’t think I heard you right.” Sharon Rosenbaum’s voice, clearer than before, escalated to a formidable shrill. “Felsheim. Feces. Brand-new marble.” Jeremy killed the engine of his Lexus, a college graduation gift now several years old. Earlier that night, at her condo in Fairfax, Sharon had hosted a dinner party for Jeremy and his fiancée, Zoe, and Zoe’s parents, Howard and Monica. Howard, an award-winning film composer, was the meshugener in question, but one surely innocent of this crime. “It was Mr. Goodbar, Mom,” Jeremy said. At this Sharon groaned, the way she always did, whenever her son made too much sense. “If only it were that simple,” she said. “This is human shit. No dachshund could have done this. And besides, Goody was in the backyard all evening.” “Toilet overflow?” “Floor’s bone dry.” Jeremy, bereft of additional, plausible explanations, squinted through horn-rimmed glasses at the downtown skyline. It was at a Hanukkah party last December, on the twenty-second floor of the U.S. Bank Tower, that he’d met Zoe, the prettiest, Cornell-educated associate at Galbraith & Blanc. His father, Phil Rosenbaum, had just passed, and Zoe’s kind spirit and easy humor proved a balm that holiday season for his pain. After only a few months of dating, she accepted his proposal, and since then, the path to the altar had been smooth and straight. Now Sharon, for some reason, was trying to trip them up. “Why would Howard,” mused Jeremy, “an accomplished, civilized man, crap on your floor?”
“I have no idea,” said Sharon, as though accosted by the question. “But he was the only Felsheim to use the john, and I know you didn’t do it. Quite frankly, I’m insulted neither Monica nor Zoe went in there.” “Why should that insult you?” “They think I’m unclean.” “That doesn’t make sense.” “Monica thinks I have bad taste. She pursed her lips at my china.” Jeremy removed his glasses and gave the bridge of his nose a hard pinch. “You’re imagining things.” “I’m not imagining this.” “Well, it wasn’t Howard.” “And I’m Lena Horne,” she said, in rebuttal. Jeremy wished he could disprove his mother, but the evidence, he had to admit, was stacked in her favor. And since Phil had in life done just about everything for his bride, Jeremy felt obligated to attend to Sharon’s problems, no matter how asinine. He offered to help her clean in the morning, but adamantly she refused. “If you love your mother, you’ll help me clean now.” “I just got to my place.” “If you love your mother,” repeated Sharon, and hung up. On his drive back to Fairfax, Jeremy felt compelled to call Zoe, who’d elected for the both of them to abide by Jewish custom and live with her folks in Culver City until after the wedding. But the closer Jeremy got to his mother’s, the more appropriate it seemed to assess her predicament in person before dialing any numbers. He kept his phone in his coat pocket. Wire-haired Mr. Goodbar, named after orthodontist Phil’s favorite cavity-causing candy, yapped at Jeremy as he unlocked the front door. Sharon scolded the dog from the powder room. “Cram it, Goody! It’s your brother.” Mr. Goodbar, upon seeing Jeremy, tackled a plush goose in the galley-style kitchen. “Don’t let him out,” said Sharon, addressing her human son now and referring to the white plastic safety gate behind which the dog
was contained. “He was just at the groomer’s, and I’ll be damned if he gets shit on his coat.” Jeremy reached over the gate and scratched the underside of Mr. Goodbar’s scraggly, caramel-colored beard. Then he went down the hall to find his mother standing with folded arms beside a wet brown turd. At dinner, Sharon had worn a cashmere sweater and practically all the diamond jewelry she owned. It was the most polished Jeremy had seen her in six months, since Phil’s funeral. Now she donned a silk bathrobe. Sheepskin slippers hid unpainted toes. In the bathroom, Jeremy could detect the putrid odor of defecation lurking amidst Sharon’s best efforts to mask it: Lysol, a lit cinnamon-scented candle. The overhead fan was on full blast. “Jesus,” Jeremy exclaimed. “I manage to make a nice borscht and babka,” said Sharon. “Resurrect my old, gregarious self for a few hours.” “I can see why you think this is human.” “It was Howard,” Sharon affirmed. Jeremy also noticed the painting on the wall: a still life of tangerines piled into a dark blue bowl. His own artwork from high school, salvaged from the garbage, he assumed, by Sharon, after he’d cleaned out his old room. Had it been hanging there all along, since Sharon moved in? “You were quite the artist back then,” said Sharon, eyeing him. “I couldn’t let you throw that away.” Jeremy lacked a response to this, and returned to the matter at hand. He knelt down beside the specimen, and studied its long, lumpy shape. He held his glasses to his face, to prevent them from slipping off into the filth. He knew now that his mother hadn’t been fooling him, but something, amongst other things, was nevertheless amiss. “The closer I get to it,” he said, “the less it smells.” Sharon raised her penciled eyebrows at the ceiling, and, as if stating the obvious, said, “Smells drift up, like good souls.” Sure enough, when Jeremy got to his feet, the odor intensified. “I just don’t understand, though,” he said,
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prose peering down the hall, “how this wasn’t Goody. You brought him in after dinner. This must have happened while you were washing dishes.” Sharon glared at him over the top of her bifocals, as if she’d just witnessed him try to crack a safe with a cotton swab. “I know you’re not around much anymore,” she said, “but if you recall from the old yard, Goody’s poops are like little knishes. This, we can agree, is a kishka.” She tightened the belt of her robe. “It was Howard all right.” “It wasn’t.” “It was an attack on the family,” declared Sharon. “I don’t think so.” “A deliberate attack.” “No.” Sharon rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky Zoe’s such a sweet girl, or else I’d make you find someone new.” Jeremy might have laughed then if he hadn’t felt so frustrated. “I’m not a teenager anymore,” he said, nodding at the tangerines. “You can’t make me do anything.” “I know what’s best for you.” “What’s best for me is if you respect my decisions.” “Well,” said Sharon, as if winding up to bat, “Howard Felsheim decided this evening to shit on my floor. How’s that for a decision?” “You know Howard couldn’t have done this.” “Why not?” “Because it’s completely and utterly insane,” said Jeremy, relieved to let his honest opinion fly, like a shotput that had rested too long on his shoulder. “The Felsheims are fine people. Fine, decent people who would never defile your home.” “You really think so?” “Of course I think so.” Her oddly coy smile—the one she flashed whenever her madeup mind found amusement in his ignorance—had unnerved him. He was twitching inside, angry that she could make him feel so small for disagreeing with her, when he was so clearly right. But he wouldn’t let her see him falter. He would
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keep his cool at all costs. “God, I know so,” he added. “We’re talking about Howard Felsheim here. He treated me to a round of golf at his club last week, and you think he—” “You never made time for your father like that.” In the kitchen, Mr. Goodbar barked, and Sharon shifted her glare. She was referring to the last seven years of their lives, how Jeremy had been too busy with law school and now his job to do much of anything but study or work. His relationships with family and friends had suffered as a result; and even though Phil’d assured him he understood, whenever Jeremy, still living at home, would decline a game of pingpong or a trip out for ice cream, Jeremy had felt badly all the same. Why Sharon was sending him on such a massive guilt trip, after his earthly time with Phil had expired, he couldn’t quite fathom. Mr. Goodbar flung the goose across the tile, and Jeremy, stoic, looked on. Sharon bit at a hangnail on her thumb, and then started down the hall. “Why don’t you get the shovel from the patio,” she suggested. “We’ll scoop that monstrosity into a bag. Bleach’ll do the rest.” Before the aneurysm claimed Phil’s life, and Sharon downsized to the condo, the Rosenbaums had owned a Tudor on a lush half-acre in South Pasadena. Avocado trees shaded a tiered swimming pool. Begonias skirted the black wrought-iron fence. The neighbors had gardeners, but yard work was the closest thing Phil’d had to a hobby, and he’d enjoyed doing it all himself. That is, until his son was old and strapping enough to take over. Jeremy would always remember the Fourth of July weekend when the cord on the lawn mower got stuck. He called across the yard, through the open kitchen window, for help, and Phil, who’d been mixing guacamole with his hands in a heavy wooden bowl, stepped away from the task without washing up. Jeremy alerted his father to his slimy green fingers, but Phil just grinned, like it was no big deal, and took the mower by the helm. When he gave the cord a swift tug, it loosened up at once, and the engine rumbled back to life. Then sud-
denly, inexplicably, the mower slipped out of Phil’s precarious grip and took off towards the fence. In a matter of seconds, its blades grinded Sharon’s begonias to bits. Much to Jeremy’s delight, Howard and Monica had guffawed at this tale when he shared it after dinner. Before Zoe could offer her own anecdote—how her father, despite his musical gifts, could neither snap his fingers nor whistle— Sharon silently excused herself from the table. Mr. Goodbar, goose in tow, followed Jeremy through the kitchen and out the French doors onto a small square patio. In the corner of the yard, a mere fraction the size of their old one, was a brick planter bed, out of which Sharon had recently ripped up too-thirsty ghost fern to make room for drought-resistant succulents. In the center of the planter bed was the shovel, stuck upright in the dirt beside a suspiciously deep hole, too deep, Jeremy thought, to have been left vacant by the fern. He turned to Mr. Goodbar, who sat wagging his tail near the Weber grill, and inspected a soil-encrusted paw. Jeremy marched inside, shovel in hand, and said, “Mr. Goodbar’s been digging.” He stepped back over the gate, but the loop of his shoelace got caught on the latch, and the whole thing came crashing down. Sharon emerged from the garage, where she kept the bleach, just as Mr. Goodbar abandoned his goose and scampered into the powder room. “Goody!” Sharon shouted. “No!” A moment later, the dachshund proudly trotted out with the turd in his mouth. Sharon lunged at him, but Mr. Goodbar darted away and leapt onto the living room sofa. “Grab him, Jeremy!” Sharon said, but Jeremy, in his compromised state, was going nowhere fast. His shoelace was still hooked on the latch. Hurriedly he hobbled over, dragging the gate behind him. But before he could get to the sofa, the eek eek of the dachshund’s chewing assured all present that this had been one big false alarm. “It’s fake?” said Jeremy. He put the shovel down and wrestled the turd out of Mr.
Goodbar’s jaws. When he squeezed the turd, and it squeaked again, Sharon said, “Oh, dear God.” “That’s why it doesn’t smell,” Jeremy said. “It’s a toy.” He gave the turd another, more forceful squeeze, and laughed in amazement at such a feat of engineering. “He must have found it buried outside.” Jeremy tossed the turd onto the sofa, beside Mr. Goodbar, who snatched it up immediately. He chomped on the turd, making it squeak with each bite, and Jeremy, chuckling, returned the fallen gate to the kitchen. In the meantime, Sharon had begun to sob. “Mom, are you okay?” said Jeremy from the hall. When he came back into the room, she turned from him. “It’s just a toy.” “I know,” she sniffled. “What’s wrong, then?” The turd squealed in Mr. Goodbar’s grip, surprising him. “No one liked my dinner,” said Sharon. “What are you talking about no one liked your dinner?” “No one complimented me. Not even my own son.” “I told you it was good.” “After everyone went home you did. You could have said so in front of our guests.” She faced him then, and Jeremy, mystified by the thin rivulets of mascara trickling from her eyes, and moreover, the unspoken expectations mothers had of sons, knit his brow. “Didn’t I say at the table the borscht was good?” “No, Jeremy. You were too busy making your father sound like a buffoon.” “A buffoon?” “You made him out to be a putz,” said Sharon. “Like he just walked around all the time with guacamole on his hands, destroying things.” She fell onto the sofa, and Mr. Goodbar, on account of her nearness, more carefully guarded the turd. “I didn’t imply that,” said Jeremy. “Your father was a good man.” “I know.”
“He was a mensch.” “I couldn’t agree more.” Sharon dabbed away black tears with the collar of her robe. “Everything you have—we have—is because of him.” Jeremy looked out the window at his car, and understood then why his mother had excused herself after dinner: in telling his story, pure intentions aside, he’d betrayed his father’s memory. The sixteen-year-old boy who’d painted the tangerines, who’d happily taken breaks from his homework to hang out with his father, would never have done that. He rested his hand on her shoulder. “Dad always complimented you, didn’t he,” he said, “on your cooking.” Sharon took his hand and pressed it softly between hers. “I want to say something, okay?” The gesture made Jeremy feel uneasy, and, historically speaking, he never much liked what came after such prefaces. But he acquiesced. His mother glanced at Mr. Goodbar, out of whose mouth dangled the turd like a fat cigar. Then she gazed upon her human son’s hand the way Jeremy had noticed her gaze upon Phil’s casket when it was lowered into the earth. “You’re going to be a husband, Jeremy,” she said. “You’re going to be Zoe’s husband, and you’re going to have Howard and Monica as inlaws. And I want you to have a good relationship with them. That’s important. Very important. I want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. It’s all your father ever wanted, and would want, now, if he were here to say so. But just because you’re going to be a part of another family doesn’t mean that we’re not still a family. You, and me, and Goody.” Jeremy said, “I know,” twice, and Sharon locked eyes with him, as if at once to assert her sincerity and assess his own. After a moment, she broke her stare. She let his hand go, and got up from the sofa. Mr. Goodbar pawed at her robe, and when she lifted him into her arms, the turd dropped to the floor with a soft thud. “Howard Felsheim is not your father,” she added. “He’ll never be. He may be a successful music man, and your golf buddy, and he may not have shit on my tile, thank God, but he’s no
Philip Rosenbaum. He just isn’t.” Mr. Goodbar licked her cheek, and Sharon, as if to return the kindness, bounced him like a newborn. “If you love your mother, don’t forget about your father. Be as much like him as you can.” Jeremy nodded to show he understood. His father was a man to emulate, no doubt. He knew that. He just wasn’t sure he agreed with all she’d said about Howard. Still, he was willing to accept her opinion for what it was if it meant putting the evening to rest. He embraced her, as he thought he should, and Mr. Goodbar, smooshed between them, let out a contented purr. At his mother’s insistence, Jeremy stayed for a slice of babka. While they ate, Sharon sheepishly admitted that Phil, while complimentary of her cooking, never so much as touched her varnishkes. After she and Mr. Goodbar retired upstairs, Jeremy headed out onto the patio and called Zoe, who informed him that her father had found the turd on the floor, and had figured it was the dog, but didn’t want to mention anything for fear of humiliating Sharon. At this Jeremy laughed, more puzzled than ever as to how and when Mr. Goodbar had deposited the turd where he did. He wished aloud that his father had lived long enough to meet Zoe, to know her as his daughter-in-law. Zoe seconded this wish, and said, “I love you,” and invited him over for breakfast in the morning. Jeremy said he’d be there and goodnight and went to sleep in the guest room, too weary to make the drive back to his part of town, to a house which, until Zoe moved in, would not feel like home
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PHOTOGRAPHY
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EIGHT PHOTOGRAOHS -Jim Zola
“I am attracted to light and darkness, to angles and the beauty of the normal distorted. My photographs are all taken using an iPhone.”
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POETRY
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Yuan Changming
RECIPROCITY In the climate of my heart You will evaporate into the blue If I am too hot; or become frozen If too cold; but you will always Remain clear, soft, pure, ready To flow gracefully, as long As the temperature is mild enough
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Yuan Changming
UPDATED: CHINGLISH vs. AMERICHINA As halfyuans climb near
Meanwhile, many a gambller
The wall-e to celebrate
From our goveruptioin has to
Freedamn newly gained
Prepay for his own corpspend
From the innernet
Like a real shability because they
As well as from don’trains
Cannot remain emotionnormal
We antizens find ourselves living
After breaking the harmany
A livelihard and getting poor
As they receive canslsensorship
In the stuckmarket
Or play suihide with their conscience
Full of niubility Some renowned profartssors
There are people mountain people sea
Keep playing zhuangbility
All yakshitting over there
By acting like tuhaos
You can you up; otherwise
Trying to sponsor foulsball
No can no bb, since you know Well: no zuo no die
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Zav Levinson
HINTERLAND Not old, not elderly, not young,
Does his mind turn,
he sits in his easy chair,
like a compass needle to the north,
next to a window,
to those he held in his arms,
a light on,
hearts beating
a book in his lap.
against his chest, whose thoughts
Eyes closed, asleep
he could read in their faces?
perhaps only resting does he rest easy,
Is he moved,
do warm memories
as a thunderclap moved our ancestors,
caress his body?
to fear God’s mighty grip?
Or does loss, like fear
I fall so easily
make his skin crawl?
into these places, where the light meets the dark.
Does he recite his pain and measure his decline? Or does he dream of running across fields to a far horizon, his thoughtless body glistening under a broad sky?
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Zav Levinson
LANGUID you sit
Or the old lady in the mall,
as if mourning amongst your dearly departed.
alone at the next table
Was it that old cotton pullover you stumbled upon
her eye cocked,
at the back of the closet,
as if expecting trouble?
faded, threadbare
How she moved
with the pocket in front and the floppy hood,
like a tiny ballerina
that you once wore
unsteady en pointe.
with a soldier’s pride,
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long forgotten,
Sometimes the world
like a photograph
shrinks.
at the bottom of a box of photographs
You become the eyes of a dog
of you
in a kennel, watching
in your glory, then?
unable to change anything.
WEATHER WATCH Summer
Alighting in the dusk
highways
of ice and street lights
windows open
bundled and booted, bags in hand
at sixty miles an hour,
the beauty
time compressed
of a deep purple sky, of a half-moon
to warm air
frozen to the sky, of spirit trees
to urgency.
stark, black spines praising the night.
Winter through the living room window,
Your elderly neighbours
the slush at plus two
like spirit trees, like memory,
the gray-white sky at two
trekking treacherous terrain
in the afternoon, like a man
for groceries and conversation.
growing old. The streets and sidewalks A crowded bus
the ice and light
at rush hour
the empty nests
clutching the bar
in leafless trees
clothes dripping, in the warmth up close with your neighbours, rocking as the bus lurches peering through grimy glass for your stop, squeezing to the door.
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bios
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Yuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart and one-time Best of Net nominee, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. Currently, Yuan edits Poetry Pacific (www.poetrypacific.blogspot.ca) with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver; credits include Best of Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1299 others.
Jessica Dealing currently resides in Miami, Florida. She enjoys family, cheese, and discovering all the macabre creatures that romp around in her imagination.
Paul Ewing lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with his wife Liz. He is a stay at home parent to their two small sons, Jackson and Davis. His stories have appeared in The Allegheny Review, The Baltimore Review, Pennsylvania English, and Word Riot.
Lou Gaglia is the author of Poor Advice (2015) and Sure Things & Last Chances (2016). His fiction has appeared in Eclectica,
Columbia Journal, Umbrella Factory, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. He teaches in upstate New York and is a long-time T’ai Chi Ch’uan practitioner. Visit him at lougaglia.com
After ten years of writing prose, Zav Levinson has emerged as an active poet, inspired by his life of rebellion, love, loss, politics, religion, and woodworking. Zav’s poems have appeared in Poetry Quebec and SWEPTmagazine. Sky of Ink Press will publish his chapbook this fall.
Sean Madden is an analyst at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Kentucky. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The John Updike Review, Dappled Things, and elsewhere. He lives in Lincoln, California, with his wife and son.
Jim Zola has worked in a warehouse, as a security guard, in a bookstore, as a teacher for Deaf children, as a toy designer
for Fisher Price, and currently as a children’s librarian. His poetry has been published in many journals through the years. His
publications include a chapbook -- The One Hundred Bones of Weather (Blue Pitcher Press) -- and a full length poetry collection -What Glorious Possibilities (Aldrich Press). Zola currently lives in Greensboro, NC
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