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March 2013, Issue 13
CONTENTS Prose: John Matthews Mercurochrome Matthew Fogarty To Swim at This Hour
8-10 11-16
Nonfiction: D.I. Sanders Profanities for the Dead
17-18
Poetry: Les Kay “Variation on Traditional Metaphorical Sublimation (The New World)” “Housekeeping Notes for Future Crocodiles in Cincinnati”
20 21
Robert McDonald “Postcard Discovered Under Joe Cornell’s Bed” 22 “Dear November” 23
Editor’s Note About Us Submission Guidlines Bios and Credits
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5 4 6 25
UMBRELLA FACTORY WORKERS Worker in Chief
Anthony ILacqua Fiction Editor
Amanda Bales Poetry Editor
Julie Ewald Copy Editor
Janice Hampton Art Editor/Design
Jana Bloomquist Nonfiction Editor/Web Developer
Mark Dragotta
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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
Dear Readers,
I cannot explain where my love of the subversive started. Sometimes I think it may be that I am part of the subversive generation, Genera-
tion X. However, love of subversion is not exclusively reserved for any generation, and Gen X was not exclusively known for dismantling the system. And when it comes the subversive art projects, the best one I’ve seen was in the mid 1990s on a billboard just outside of San Francisco. It was a bank’s message with a powerful image of a stagecoach drawn by horses. The message said “Buck the System.” Someone changed ‘B’ to ‘F’ and I have felt that way ever since.
Yet, what is considered subversion today? If it’s not the government, or the 1% or the reality of it all, what is it? What is the “system” and
how do we overthrow it? And is Mark Vonnegut in his introduction to his father’s book, Armageddon in Retrospect, right when he says: “Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts”? The thought occurs to me today that reading and writing may be subversive only in that an alarmingly few people read and write. Writing is one thing, that I get. Not everyone wants to write, it’s a nasty laborious process often with very little return. Perhaps writing is so thankless because nobody is reading. An AP-Ipsos poll last year claims that one in four people read no books last year, and excluding them the average adult read four books. Four books in 365 days? And worse still, no books? No reading?
Books are one thing. Literary magazines are another. I’ve long held the belief that only writers read literary magazines. What’s worse, many
writers who submit to literary magazines have not read the very magazine they submit to. Very limited market, right? So, we can guess that most folks do not read. We can guess that very few writers and even less readers invest their reading hours into literary magazines. What does this have to do with subversion?
To read Issue 13 of Umbrella Factory Magazine cover to cover can’t take all that long. We have a couple of poets, a few writers, hardly a
drop in the bucket of literature. Hopefully, reading of poetry or prose makes a person think or feel. An hour or two of your time reading and thinking and feeling has got to be more stimulating than the anesthetization of two hours of reality t.v. There are no advertisements or agendas within the pages of UFM we just want readers. We’ve curated a new issue and we think our poets, Les Kay and Robert McDonald, are great. And we think our writers of prose, D.I. Sanders, John Matthews and Matthew Fogarty are great too.
Perhaps this is exactly how it’s done. This is exactly the agenda we want to create. I implore you to read this magazine. Tell others about
it too. Tomorrow morning when you mix with the world again and the conversation comes around to something on the television, interject with this statement: “I read a great piece of prose called “Profanities for the Dead,” the last few sentences, wow.” When the others get confused because you used the word profanities simply nod and go on: “Do you think literary magazines still cultivate the poets of our generation?” If you are still matched with raised eyebrows, wide eyes, or uncomfortable laughs simply add in: “Reading is sexy.” You must say sexy because it gets a better response than subversive.
In the meantime, thank you again for reading. Thank you for investing your time. I’m excited to present these poets and writers to our audi-
ence. If Issue 13 pleases you, please read our 12 back issues. Should you get hook on reading literary magazines, please see newpages.com they are a wonderful group of people who have curated lists, reviews and links for thousands of journals, publishers and magazines.
Read. Submit. Comment. Tell everyone you know. Stay Dry.
Anthony ILacqua, Worker
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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 or featured artwork/photography of Umbrella Factory Magazine. For our cover 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.
We accept submissions of three to five poems for shorter works. If submitting longer pieces, please limit your submission to 10 pages. Please submit only previously unpublished work.
In addition we accept any artwork or photos for consideration in UFM. We archive accepted artwork and may use it with an appropriate story, mood or theme. Our cover is square so please keep that in mind when creating your images. Image size should be a minimum of 700 pixels at 300 dpi, (however, larger is better) jpeg or any common image file format is acceptable.zz Please include your bio to be published in the magazine. Also let us know if we can alter your work in any way.
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. Please include your name and contact information within the cover letter.
SUBMIT YOUR WORK ONLINE AT WWW.UMBRELLAFACTORYMAGAZINE.COM 6/
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NONFICTION Nonfiction can vary so dramatically it’s hard to make a blanket statement about expectations. The nuts-and-bolts of what we expect from memoire, for example, will vary from what we expect from narrative journalism. However, there are a few universal factors that must be present in all good nonfiction. 1. Between 1,000 and 5,000 words 2. Well researched and reported 3. A distinct and clearly developed voice 4. Command of the language, i.e. excellent prose. A compelling subject needs to be complimented with equally compelling language. 5. No major spelling/punctuation errors 6. A clear focus backed with information/instruction that is supported with insight/reflection 7. Like all good writing, nonfiction needs to connect us to something more universal than one person’s experience. 8. Appropriate frame and structure that compliments the subject and keeps the narrative flowing 9. Although interviews will be considered, they need to be timely, informative entertaining an offer a unique perspective on the subject. Please double space. We do not accept multiple submissions, please wait for a reply before submitting your next piece.
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. On your cover page please include: a short bio―who you are, what you do, hope to be. Include any great life revelations, education and your favorite novel.
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prose In the dark of the kitchen, my cigarette glows. Across the room, the Mr. Coffee gurgles. A snapshot of lightning occasionally lights the room. I can’t sleep through storms. I might stay awake for hours like this, giving in to my insomnia, only to be rewarded by sunlight and a precise headache. But, alternately, I might hear the faint hiss of a driver’s error on the expressway that borders our backyard, followed by the guttural scrape and buckle of metal on metal; the harrowing crash of glass; snapping trees and silenced screams. Tonight is one of those nights. There is a rough bang followed by aluminum can crumple then a deeper, more ominous sound of a muffler gone loose or off from underbrush. A final thump not unlike a fist hitting a pillow, then nothing but drilling rain. I put down the nail file and wave my cigarette quickly under the tap, switch off the coffee maker, and hurry upstairs to my husband Gary, who is asleep in bed, unaware. When I shake him, he wakes instantly, sensing the electric charge in the air. His eyes search mine for confirmation and I nod. We both dress. I pull the medical bag from the closet. Gary gets the lantern. We move across the saturated lawn as water seeps around our feet. Rain blasts against the reinforced golf umbrella. As soon as we see the headlamps of the battered car, Gary stops and calls 911 on his cell phone. A woman is lying ten meters from us, face down, not moving. A man is twisted at a cruel angle in the driver’s seat, his legs obscured by mangled steel, a cowboy hat still affixed to his head. We go to the woman first. Her eyes are blue and lifeless. She is beautiful. I can smell her perfume through the downpour. I place a blanket on her; we have lots of blankets. The man is talkative, animated by fresh shock, but we’ve seen this before. We’re only witnessing the final jerks of life. He laughs as blood pours out of him at a tremendous rate.
“My wife,” he gasps. “She OK?” “She’s fine,” Gary says. “The ambulance is on its way.” “I thought this was the exit,” the man sobs. Gary shakes his head. “Up ahead,” he says. “I guess I made an exit,” the man says, attempting a joke. “It’s a common mistake,” Gary tells him as he gives the man a drink of water from his canteen. Above us, through the branches, a trucker shouts from the road. “I called for help when I saw him go off the highway,” he calls to us. “Anything I can do?” We can hardly hear him through the rain. “No,” Gary and I shout back in unison. “OK, then,” the man calls back; we can hear him only faintly. I wonder whether he’s relieved that we won’t require him to navigate down the steep, brambled slope—that he doesn’t have to see what we see. Then we hear him again: “Are they gonna make it?” As if we’re doctors; as if we’re qualified to say. Our medical bag is full of the most ineffective of medical supplies: Band-Aids, Q-Tips, aspirin, Mercurochrome. “Everybody’s gonna make it, I think,” Gary shouts to the trucker, just as the injured driver whispers, “Shit . . .” and expires. It’s strange here in the night without our neighbors, Amber and Dwayne. But the Falks’ house stands across the yard, dark, empty, and for sale. It’s the only residence besides ours within a half mile of here. The Falks are now in Tucson, where Dwayne is at a new job. I know Amber misses times like this. We talk occasionally. Almost the first thing she will ask when she calls is, “Any turn-outs?” Turn-outs are what we call the people who mistake a pull-off on I-83 for an exit that seems overdue and take a slide down a seventy-five-meter slope into the wild end of our property line.
It’s an unsafe place for a pull-off. It’s deceptive, especially at night and with the actual exit so close. You have fog or rain or sleet or darkness or distraction, and things happen. Why the highway department has not remedied this hazard is a mystery; surely someone is keeping statistics and knows that this is an accident-prone area. We’ve met the same ambulance drivers, the same police, and the same tow-truck operators more than once. Gary and I have shuddered at the waste of it all, but our drafted letters have never been mailed. Sometimes we wonder at the capacity of our own ghoulishness: our need for disfigurement, for tragedy, our addiction to it. Our lives so far have been otherwise free of grief and misfortune. Our childhoods were not ripped apart by divorce or molestation; family members have not been afflicted with incurable diseases. Perhaps we fear the inevitable breach of this shelter. We view horrific gore from our backyard, but once you’re beyond the blood, there is calm in knowing death a little better and knowledge in realizing that it does not care what it looks like. Ultimately, there’s also relief in knowing that, at least for now, it’s not you. Amber and Dwayne understood this. We found them outside one chilly night when a teenage driver turned out into our yard ten years ago. We found Amber and Dwayne in possession of the medical bag I hold now; with the lantern Gary keeps. That first time, the sight of blood-soaked grass and the smell of dripping oil and burnt flesh made me retch. Only when authorities arrived did I calm down a little. That’s when Amber put a hand on my shoulder and said, in a way that was part apology, part warning, and part something else, “This happens a lot.” ***
It’s happened eight times in ten years— regularly enough that I know the type of weather that causes it and will become sleepless when that weather arrives. I have a crash log in my
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prose desk, entries written in longhand in blue ballpoint pen in a cheap drug store notebook. In it, I list names and ages (when I know them), makes and models of vehicles, personal traits of the victims, injuries sustained, causes of death. Sometimes I look at the log and wonder about the empty lines that I haven’t filled yet. I’ve caught Gary doing the same. Somewhere, someone living now will be entered on the blanks. On that night years ago when we all met for the first time, Amber, Dwayne, Gary and I became a team, a united organism. After that, we were not unlike soldiers ordered to the front, emboldened only by each other’s company. In numbers, we felt like we could face down anything. We assisted the unfortunate victims however we could, expressing words of comfort, but usually there was little we could do. We rarely had to alert each other. Asleep or not, it was something we were always listening for. When we heard the telltale sounds, we emerged from our homes and walked across the yard, hyperaware, wondering what shape death would or would not take. *** When Gary and I learn that someone has bought the Falks’ place, we don’t talk about it much, except to hope aloud that they will be nice people, hopefully not too young or too old. Hopefully with kids already grown up or decided against. On the Saturday the movers arrive, we’re having coffee and reading the newspaper on our wraparound upper-level porch. The porch was a major selling point of this house for us. When we first saw it, we imagined ourselves just as we are on this particular day, sitting here with our coffee and newspaper, eye-level with the surrounding tree cover. That would be nice, we said. The Falks’ house has a fully finished basement with a workroom and a built-in Tiki bar. Gary was always envious of that bar, but he would never have traded the porch. Not in a mil-
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lion years. We give a friendly wave and shout hello when we see the new couple, and they wave back. They seem about our age—early forties. We don’t see any kids, and no kids’ stuff is being unloaded. “Let us know if we can help with anything,” we say. To Gary I say, “We’ll stop over tonight with cookies or wine.” “They won’t want to be bothered,” Gary says. “Believe me,” I say, gesturing to the wilderness that surrounds us, “they’ll want to be bothered.” We visit that night and meet Rick and Maggie Miller, transplants from New York City. Rick is in the banking software industry, and has taken a job with less plane travel required. Maggie is planning on finding a job teaching ESL to grade-school children. It’s confirmed: no kids. The bottle of wine gets opened amid a hundred boxes that haven’t been, yet. I admire Maggie’s willingness to let things lie—to admit to herself that she’s done enough for one day and relax. I tell her the things I know about her house. Helpful things. Pleasant things. Gary and Rick talk golf and cars—passions they share. We invite them over to our place for a tour and then sit on the porch with some open beers. At some point, we notice as they glance toward the expressway, but all Gary says is, “It’s a little closer than we’d like, but luckily it never gets too loud. Terri actually finds the traffic soothing.”
“Just stuff flung off from the highway?” he asks Gary. “Maybe. But some cars have actually turned out too soon,” Gary says. “Some cars have been down here.” Another month, and then another. Gary is promoted to Vice President at Barlowe Refrigeration. My online-based jewelry business starts to attract more customers. Now we’re into winter, the first snow of the year. It’s another night when I can’t sleep; this time, I’m thinking of the first snow of the year three years ago, when an SUV flipped over and a man named Marty Sikes was crushed. I read in the quiet of the kitchen and smoke. Outside, the wind swirls; white, innocent. I turn a page in the supermarket novel I’m reading when I hear a noise like a gate at a horse track flinging open. There are heavy thuds and crashes, followed by silence. I can’t see anything much out of the window—it’s too far back. Gary is already up and dressing. We get the bag, lantern, and blankets and go outside. The fat flakes whirl around us, landing and melting on our faces. The moon lights up the snow, turning it blue. The Millers’ house is dark and still. This time, it’s a woman in a pickup truck. She is unconscious, twisted against the roof of the crumpled cab. Blue jeans, Harley T-shirt, a boozy smell. There’s a pack of Parliaments in the snow. Gary calls 911 while I reach in for a pulse. From behind, we hear footfalls that startle us, and I wonder if the same sound scared the Falks on that night ten years ago. The Millers *** look like ghosts. Blank-faced, they stare at the truck, not comprehending. Many chats and visits later, Gary and Then they look at Gary and me, at our Rick have been to the ranges and the local base- medical bag and lantern. At our composure and ball games, while Maggie and I have been an- preparedness. tiquing and biking the many trails that wind Something begins to take hold. around here. One day Rick is clearing away old I hand a blanket to Maggie; her fingers twigs in the backyard and finds pieces of vehi- close on it tightly, automatically. cles—reflectors, other odd parts. I lead her to the body.
To Swim at This Hour Matthew Fogarty
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prose Both he and Liz are feeling cold and stiff. The boy isn’t helping. “Ibuprofen?” she asks. “Medicine bag’s in the trunk. Thanks, though,” says Howard. Enzo’s giggling seven-year-old laughter from the backseat floats high in the car above their words and above the drone of the Disney soundtrack that’s been playing on repeat for the last four hours. He’s making funny faces again in the rearview mirror. “You look like you’ve got a headache,” she says. “I’ll live,” says Howard. She’s been saying things like this, trying to diagnose him the last couple of weeks. He thinks maybe it makes her feel better. She looks uncomfortable in her seat. Enzo’s laughter turns dark as he makes faces at passing cars. “Hey! Not okay!” says Howard. “Maybe we should stop.” As Liz says this, Howard checks the rearview mirror. “Let him run around a little bit. Burn off some energy.” “Maybe this guy should get off my ass,” he says to the mirror. Echoes of “assssss” resonate from the back. Howard turns to Liz. “We’re almost there. Vacation doesn’t start until we’re there.” Vacation: fifteen years for two weeks away. The CD shuffles back to Track One. *** The sun directly overhead, the heat in the car building, Howard steers the car toward the exit ramp for Flatbill Lake, the loud regular rumble of the tires on the highway giving way to the more muffled but higher-pitched roll of the local byway, a two-lane blacktop through miles of alternating farmland and forest, intervals of warm sun and steam-filled shade. After a time, on their right, they get their first glimpse of the east bay of the lake growing above the horizon. “Check it out kiddo. We’re almost there,” says Liz and Enzo is quiet for a moment in exultation. The shoreline wends away behind tall trees and, visible only in patches through the patchwork leaves and fences and walls and gates, the mammoth vacation homes of the east side. “Is that our house?” asks Enzo, pointing to a huge, white, pillared estate that seems to span an entire shore. Liz turns her head low to see out the window. Howard doesn’t look. “No,” he says. It’s the type of house with two staircases and a dock and boat, with bay windows and four levels that they could count from the byway, the house gradually fading away, becoming smaller, the road carrying them westward into forest where the lakeshore moves north. “Maybe someday,” says Liz. “When we win the lottery.” The forest, too, falls away, and at its edge the car turns north,
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the speed limit lowers to 35, and they drive slowly through the small town of Flatbill. A ‘50s diner called Rays. A bait and tackle shop. An old four-pump gas station that looks like it should be attended by a condensed old man named Vern or some other imaginary wrinkled character. A stoplight. A convenience mart. A run-down chain grocery store. Another bait and tackle shop. Behind this main strip, there’s an airfield, a slate gray hangar with a green roof, a two-story control tower, and rows and rows of parked Cessnas. Howard sees Enzo in reverse, watching through the back window as a small private jet flies low, appears to hover at an indiscernible distance, either having just taken off or preparing to land. And then, again, forest -- dark, lush green forest. “I think we’re next on the right,” says Liz, referencing the map and directions she printed before they left the house. Howard read through them three times before they left, checked them against a paper atlas to make sure he wouldn’t lead them astray. He turns the car into the trees down a one-lane dirt road hedged on either side by tall maples, their leaves in full sprout at the height of summer. Sunlight flashes through the trees on and off in strobes and shadows. In one such flash, Howard imagines the green leaves turning deep orange and fiery red in death, detaching at the stems before they’ve even known life, falling and falling--like a summer rain--to the mud, laying there, crusted and wilting, until they’re covered over, drowned under a heavy snow. The trees part and the road ends in a semi-circle of small cottages, each a story tall and not much larger than a one-room schoolhouse. “We’re number five. I think it’s the one on the left,” says Liz. Howard brings the car to a stop in front of the house. He throws the stick-shift into park and cuts the ignition. A long exhale in the new quiet. “This is ours? I thought it’d be bigger like that other house,” says Enzo. Howard turns to him. He tries to smile for the first time since they left home. “Are you kidding? The west side’s the best side. We can watch the sun come up.” *** Inside, the house is larger than it appears from the road. Off either side of the small foyer there are two bedrooms, one with two twin beds, the other with bunk beds. To the back of the house, there’s a living room with a long red plaid couch and a wood-burning fireplace. Separated from the living room by a dining table is the kitchen. “Not bad, huh buddy?” asks Howard. Enzo presses his face against the floor-to-ceiling window. Outside there’s a small patio, a long grassy play area with a grill, green Adirondack chairs, and a
weeping willow tree. “Where’s the beach?” asks Enzo. “It’s right down there. Can’t you see it?” Howard points to where the grass slopes downward to a small frontage shared by the other houses on the row: a small rocky beach and, at last, the long blue lake. “Barely. No way we can make sand castles with that.” Howard says, “It’s not really that kind of a beach, buddy.” Liz steps up behind Howard, hugs him around the waist. He turns to her. “How about you?” “I think it’s lovely,” she says. Her smile isn’t quite as broad, he thinks. “Reminds me of my parents’ house. When I was a kid.” “But there’s no place to play really,” says Enzo. Howard’s fist tightens around the car keys, his shoulders rise. “There’s an entire forest and a lake. A million places to play.” “And there’s no TV.” “Use your imagination,” says Howard. He looks up toward the ceiling, like looking in the rearview mirror. “We should have gotten the big white house,” says Enzo. “I bet they have a TV.” “Well kiddo, this was all we could afford. Some day you’ll learn about money and how hard you have to work to earn it,” says Howard. He closes his eyes. “Why don’t you just earn more?” asks Enzo. “Why don’t you just get off my--” “Enzo,” says Liz. “Why don’t you go put on your trunks. We’ll go swimming, okay?” There’s a moment of quiet in the house. Howard breaks it, says, “I’m going to finish unloading the car and then I’ll run into the city and get some supplies. Are you okay taking him for a swim? Did the doctor--” “I’ll be fine.” She takes a beat. “I thought we brought most of what we needed in the cooler.” “Yeah, but I was thinking I’d get a couple of steaks. Put ‘em on the grill. Do my special steak for Enzo.” “Your special steak?” She laughs. She wraps her arm around his expanding midsection and runs her free hand through the tangles of his brown hair, though it has thinned and doesn’t quite tangle anymore. The bend of her arms -- the bends at her elbows, the bends at her wrists -- reminds him of the last time they tried to have sex, that awkward morning when Howard slept late into the rush hour and decided to wait at the house rather than sit in traffic, that morning that the two of them found she had less energy than before. At first he thought it was just that he was too heavy for her. “Howard, don’t worry about him. They don’t know what they’re saying. This place is great. There’s sand and water. They’ll forget all about it once
they’re in.” “Yeah I know,” he says. He thinks about laying his head on hers and about how, over the years, her hair has changed scents, how it used to smell like green apples and coconut and now smells more a combination of peaches, peroxide, and detergent. “Just thinking I may get us some charcoal or something. Just to get a moment to myself. I won’t be long.” *** Back in town, Howard stops first at Ray’s Diner, its 1950s nostalgia, its faded blue awning, its burnt neon sign in script: “B eakfa t All D y.” Bells chime as Howard enters and the three white-haired couples seated at tables all look toward the door and then quickly turn back and return to their quiet eating. Howard walks to the counter, tries to pull out one of the attached orange chairs but it only swivels, and he sits half on, half off the chair. *** In the Ray’s parking lot, Howard sets his coffee on the pavement. He removes his wristwatch, kneels on the cement, and goes to work under the front seat of the car. He wedges his hand under the seat, cautious of the sharp edges of the bolts and brackets holding the seat to the car’s floor. He digs like a blind archaeologist, sifting past empty candy wrappers, used straws, an abandoned picture book (Corduroy), and the other detritus that somehow ends up under things. “Where is it?” he says to himself, frustration building. Sweat accumulates on his forehead, drips into his eyes as he digs, as he waves his hand through the empty spaces. Feeling a small zippered plastic bag, he says, “Aha,” and he pulls it out from under the seat slowly and with care. He groans as he stands and he wicks back the few strands of hair that have fallen out of place. He opens the plastic bag, and inside the plastic bag there’s a paper bag filled with coffee beans, and he carefully unfolds that bag from the top and feels through the beans, displacing a few beans that fall to the cement and bounce and roll under the tires of the car. One by one he extracts a menthol cough drop, a lighter, and a softpack of Marlboros, which he opens and from which he pulls a cigarette. He layers these items on the curb, puts the cigarette to his lips and lights it, takes a drag, and exhales deeply, as though he were a water balloon and the cigarette were a nail and the smoke a flood of involuntarily dammed water. Even in his release, he’s careful to keep the cigarette an arm’s length away from his clothes. Howard sits on the low curb at the level of the treadworn tires, his knees at his chest stretching his jeans and pressing at his waist, his bladder. He can feel the sun on his pale white arms and on the advancing patch of bare skin at the top of his head. Better
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prose not stay out too long, he thinks. He might get burned and Liz might notice. The cigarette halfway expired, a black Lexus convertible, top down, swings into the lot at speed, and turns into the space next to the Camry, nearly crushing Howard’s feet. Again he stands with effort. He tosses the last half of the cigarette to the sidewalk. The driver, a tall man with pink cheeks and shock white hair, waves to Howard as he closes the door on the Lexus. “Didn’t mean to rush you,” he says. “Sorry. Just trying to sneak one,” says Howard. He presses the cough drop from the wrapper. “Well, have a good one,” the man says. As the man passes, Howard bends to pick up the coffee bag and sees the man’s crisp white boating shoes. “You too,” he says to the ground. *** The grocery store--a Food Lion--smells like old cheese and spilled beer and cardboard, and there’s a faint hum from the coolers spanning the center aisle and from the fluorescent lights burning overhead. The store sound system plays a faintly audible Bob Dylan song about a rainstorm. At the back of the store near the butcher counter, Howard surveys the packaged meats, all of them bloodied, Howard checking the price of each cut and choosing the flanks. He also finds a small bag of charcoal and a bottle of store-brand Worcestershire sauce. “Looks like you’re going to have a nice little family barbecue,” says the cashier, an obese woman with a nametag (“Kathy”) and a curly mess of black hair, her voice muted in some way and her smile seeming sarcastic, her seeming emphasis on “little.” “What do you mean by that?” asks Howard. He grips his wallet. “Just being friendly,” Kathy says, her words struggling to pierce Howard’s attention, which is concentrated on the register total. The nicotine from the cigarette courses through him, pounds from within, his head feeling heavy. He can only hear empty sounds, like the quiet between the vague staccato beeps of the scanner, like the heart rate monitor. “Paper or plastic?” “Pardon me?” he asks. She points to the stockpile of bags next to the register. “Paper, please. Sorry.” “Have a good one,” she says, handing him the receipt. *** Approaching the last of the two bait and tackle shops, Howard sees a sign, “Rods and Lures: 2 for the Price of 1,” thinks for a second, and swerves the Camry in front of a BMW into the lot. *** “You were gone a long time,” says Liz from the kitchen. “I
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was worried about you.” Her hair is wet. “What’s that?” he asks, not hearing her. “I said, ‘I was worried about you.’ Thought you’d run off with some teenage beauty queen or something.” “You’re my teenage beauty queen,” Howard says, smiling at her from across the room. He’s wanted to say something to her, but hasn’t come up with the words and now only vaguely remembers the sentiment. He thinks maybe that’s how these things get forgotten. “Ah, I see, you’ve been up to something,” she says and Howard thinks how there are moments in his life with Liz when it seems she knows every thought that floats through his head. And other times it seems like she doesn’t know him at all, when he’s like a fish in a tank to her, distant and floating in murky water, separated by glass, him unable to breathe other than in his own brain. Though she, too, has become more of a mystery to him. “Just got us some charcoal and some steaks,” he says. “And ...” she asks, nodding toward the bag from the bait and tackle shop. “They were having a sale. Thought I’d teach the boy how to fish.” “Howard, have you ever fished in your life?” she asks. “No, but it can’t be that hard,” he says, crossing toward her in the kitchen. “I’m going to take him out there after dinner.” He goes to wrap his arms around her and then remembers the cigarette and pulls back, makes a graceless move redirecting his arms to the refrigerator door. He grabs a can of beer and sets it on the counter. She grins. “I thought fishing was a morning activity,” she says, watching through the window as Enzo sits suspiciously still in the backyard. “I don’t know. I just wanted to find something fun for us to do together.” He opens the beer and takes a long sip, the beer tasting minty from the remains of the cough drop. “I also got secret ingredients for my special steak.” “By ‘secret ingredients’ you mean you bought Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper.” “Shit,” he says. “Actually forgot the salt and pepper.” Howard sees the lingering smile in her eyes. It buoys him. “Ha. Well cook away, my love,” she says, stepping past him out of the kitchen. Her laughter echoes, fills the house with sound. *** Dusk. The moon rises slowly in the east, its reflection tracing a short path across the water, the sun stubbornly refusing to yield as it sets slowly over the house still casting enough light for Howard and Enzo to be able to see. The lake’s surface shimmers with this reflected light, this battle between two celestial bodies, and the lights from the houses on the east side, too, dance and twinkle and
dazzle making it seem as though the water itself is alive at the surface though its depths grow only deader. Howard and Enzo are at the water’s edge, standing in the rocky sand, fishing rods extended, lines cast into the shallow water. “Dad. Mosquitoes are biting me,” says Enzo. “They’re part of the experience, part of the fun,” he says, his focus intense on the rod, looking for any sign of a bite. “It’s not fun. I’m going to be itchy. And I’m bored.” “Just gotta be patient, buddy. That’s what learning to fish is all about. It’s an important life skill that every boy should learn,” says Howard. “I want to go inside.” Enzo articulates this, his speech formal and staccato and yet muted still. “That’s fine if that’s what you want to do. But you won’t get to eat any of the fish that I catch.” “I’ll take that chance,” says Enzo, suddenly seeming to Howard as though he’s grown up, as though he’s a teenager headed off for college or even older, working a low-level desk job. Funny how I used to picture him doing big things, thinks Howard, but over time letting my ambitions for him sink. Though Enzo still waits for his father’s approval. “Fine,” says Howard, and Enzo drops his fishing rod, turns, and runs back toward the house. Howard can hear the screen door slam twice. Liz walks up behind him, grabs at his shoulders, which are thickening again with tension. He maintains his focus on the line in the water. “Catch anything?” she asks. “Not yet.” He tightens his grip on the rod. “Maybe they’re all sleeping at the bottom,” she says. “Enzo wasn’t a fan.” “I think he used up all of his patience for the day in the car.” “I just wanted to teach him something useful. Something he could do for himself.” “Awful profound for a Saturday night.” He still feels the empty space between him and her. He notices that his hands are cold, that his knuckles are white like fast water, that he can barely feel them. “I just don’t want--” He stops, his words float away. “’Don’t want’ what?” “Nothing. I don’t know. Like he’s never done anything of his own. Like he’s in a hole and can’t swim out of it--” “Howard. He’s seven. He’ll be fine. Let him play.” “--nobody can hear him.” “He’s got a loud voice,” she says. “People across the lake can hear him.” Howard’s eyes and mouth narrow. “That’s not-- You’re not--” He stops himself, his grip on the rod strains the muscles in his forearm and in his neck. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry.”
“Come inside,” she says. “It’s getting buggy out here.” He looks out to a steel and wood platform floating on the lake, only bleakly visible in the darkness. “All I’m catching here are earthworms and sand.” “Then come inside.” “I’ll be in in a little while.” “Come inside. Your family is making brownies.” “I’m all right,” he says. “Fine,” she says. After a moment, she turns back toward the house and he opens another can of beer. *** Breathing heavily, he pulls one last awkward stroke through the cold water up to the side of the platform, his left hand towing the fishing rod and a six-pack of beer behind him. He first lifts the beer and the rod and bait onto the platform, and then pulls himself to the side, throws a last leg kick up over the top, strains, and finally rolls onto the platform. On his back on the platform, he exhales and spits foul lake water off into the gray-black distance. He sits up, exhales, looks up toward the moon and the emerging stars and out toward the lights of the east side. He wriggles a beer out of the industrial plastic rings, opens it, and drinks it in three gulps, hoping to overwhelm the taste of the lake water, though it doesn’t work and he quickly takes a second beer and then another, gasping breath heavy in between. He throws his legs over the side of the unstable platform, positioning himself at the edge, and he casts a line and settles himself, the other side of the dock rising just slightly behind him, displaced, and for the first time since leaving home, he feels at ease and almost relaxed, almost outside himself. The beer, the gentle rocking of the platform against the small moon-driven waves, the reflection of the night’s light on the surface of the water, and the dark below: they all calm him. He moves his wet hair back in place and opens another beer. *** With darkness advancing further, he can barely see the shore now. Houses in the distance are only lights to be turned off, and his own home, his rental, has faded to black. He can sense now only its general direction. The cool stolidity of the lake water fills his nose, the absence of sensation somehow noticeable below his general numbness. He sees a light out toward the far end of the lake that seems to be moving and that is indeed moving toward him, advancing slowly and growing. He hears, drowned by the water still in his ears from the swim, the hum of the boat’s motor, which grows louder and louder and then presently quiets as the boat pulls alongside the platform and Howard pulls his legs up out of the water. The platform dips and heaves slightly in the boat’s wake. The white-haired man from the diner, now donning a crisp white
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captain’s hat, is behind the wheel. A younger man and woman are with him. She wears pearls. “Ahoy friend,” says the old man. “Sneaking another? We won’t tell.” Beer in hand and a little tipsy, Howard stands shakily with a groan, still wet from his long swim. The heave of the dock sways precariously under him. “No sir. Just doing some late night fishing.” The younger man laughs. “Ah ha, catch ‘em while they’re sleeping. I like that. That’s brilliant. What an idea.” His laugh flows through his words, like a stream through rocks. “Forgive them please,” says the woman. “They’ve been drinking.” “Yes yes,” says the old man. “There’s a lovely little float-up restaurant across the lake. They make excellent mojitos,” he says, taking care to articulate each of the words. “Of course, you’ve got to have a boat to get there.” The old man laughs once. The walls of the beer can begin to ripple in Howard’s hand. Says the young man, nodding toward Howard’s waterlogged jeans and shirt and hair, “I suppose you could swim there. Yes, maybe you should swim there.” “Maybe you should … you should … get your ass back to the right side of the fucking lake,” says Howard, surprised at his own force or at least surprised at the force that propelled outward the words he was thinking, the words that surfaced like escaping air bubbles and him breathless from it and swaying. The young man’s eyes mirror the waxing moon. “Maybe you should come down here and make me,” he says. “Henry, stop. Just stop it,” says the woman. “You’re acting like a child.” “Don’t mother me, Elizabeth,” he says. “Liz,” Howard says to himself, dazed, his head seemingly filled with water. “Liz doesn’t know where I am.” “Look friend. Don’t mind my son. He’s just looking for a fight,” says the older man to Howard. “He took a bath on some energy stocks this week.” “You have to tell everyone,” says the young man to his father. “We’re happy to give you a ride back to your house. It’s dangerous to swim out here at this hour. You could drown.” Howard looks down toward the edge of the dock, toward the boat. The planks of the platform look pulled up, potentially rotting. He notices a gash on his knee where he first pulled himself up. “Liz,” he says again to himself, suddenly more sad than angry. He exhales. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just--” “Come on, mister,” says Elizabeth. “We’ll drive you home.” “Yeah,” he says. “Thanks.” Howard gathers his rod and bait and the remaining beer and steps carefully along the platform to the boat, still shaky, the feeble lake waves rippling under both. Howard goes to step off the platform onto the boat,
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onto the step on the side of the boat, but he moves too quickly. His boat foot slips and his legs split and as he falls he tosses the rod and bait into the boat. Henry reaches out a hand to grab him, but only gets his shoulder. “Grab him,” says the older man. “Fuck--” shouts Howard as he descends and his knee shatters against the side of the boat and moved by the force of his kick the boat begins to float backward from the platform. Howard’s legs pull backward and the pull of Henry’s grip brings Howard’s torso forward toward the boat and his forehead hits against the side of the boat. He falls backward into a ‘v’, blood leaving a trail as he goes under. *** In the dark, Howard regains consciousness, though his vision is still murky and he can hear only the pulsing of his own head. He tastes the familiar lake water. He looks up toward the surface. Black. And then senses a light from behind him. Hears a drowned-out “Elizabeth.” Realizes he’s headed for the bottom. Tries to turn. But his body won’t move. He exhales, air escaping in bubbles, his nose blocked with water, his mouth now blocked with water, his world all water, black and airless, water pressing in on him, pressing in all around him. The water taking him, filling him, the volume exploding him or the pressure imploding him or simply him just still with the water surrounding him, encompassing him, head spinning slow. A dead or dying mass in the water. He tries to focus on Liz. On her face. On the scent of her hair. Tries to breathe in her scent. He tries to focus on hooked fish, on the bowed rod, on the reel. He closes his eyes, his grip tense. Feels her wrapping her arms around his waist. Her chin on his shoulder. The feeling fading. Fading until feeling is almost gone. All feeling gone but the faint drowned feeling of arms around him. *** On his back on the boat he can see what little’s left of the moon. His right knee throbs numb, as does his back. He senses an advancing headache. He tastes fetid iron. *** Howard limps through the shallow waters of the black rocky beach toward Liz, lit up behind the glass pane windows of the rental house by the lamp on the table, her in a tee shirt with her long hair in a ponytail and a book closed on her lap, him with his bloodied head and his torn denim and his rock-cut feet, and he sees her eyes turn down at the corners and he wonders if she needs him, and she stands, walks out of view, toward the door maybe or the bedroom, he thinks, and he follows slowly toward her.
Profanities for the Dead For David Knapp
By D.I. Sanders
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nonfiction
“Cock-sucking, goddamn piece of shit.” I tried not to listen to David. We were standing in the grass patch at the front of our trailer park, watching the game, waiting for our turns at bat. David was a few years older than me, saying these filthy things. He took another swig from his inhaler and continued. “Cunt. Asshole.” I didn’t want to be called a pussy—whatever that was I couldn’t be sure, but it was obviously not good—so I didn’t plug up my ears with my fingers. And I didn’t tell him to shut up. (Actually, I wouldn’t have ever said shut up, still too vulgar for me at age 7.) It would have been a stern “be quiet!” I had a very limited understanding of meditation then: touching each middle finger with the ends of each thumb, closing my eyes and chanting. I couldn’t do this either though. I didn’t want to be called a fag. Again, what did this word even mean? I tried to move my mind elsewhere but couldn’t. David was four years older but his arms were skinny enough that I knew I could have fought him. Maybe not win but I could have hurt him. Didn’t do this either though. I prided myself on being a good kid. I imagine him saying, “Thinks his shit doesn’t stink.” My pent up anger and resentment towards David was enormous. I’d always say no to offers to play outside when it was only David asking. “Cock. Twat.” I don’t remember him ever trying to explain the inhaler or about the scars on his chest. Then again, David never told me he loved baseball either, but nothing could be more obvious. Always then and even in my mind now, he’s got a glove under his arm and an aluminum bat in hand. Once, my mother said David had been born with a hole in his heart. Countless surgeries. More surgeries than he had birthdays. The only reason David would stay indoors on a warm day would be forced recovery from the scalpels. There must have been a mountain of debt for his parents, understandably desperate to save their little boy. “Shit. Piss.”
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And then one day, there were no more profanities. Because there was no more David. I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t feel some relief. Even if he was a sick kid and I didn’t ever actually wish for him to die, I considered there to be a certain ugliness in what David had brought to the world. He was someone who went out of his way to say nasty things during his short time on Earth. The men and boys of the trailer park got together soon after David’s death to play a baseball game. In honor of David. Despite being a scrawny thing, I played a solid first baseman. A few innings in, a thirty-something year old neighbor playing shortstop scooped up a ground ball and launched it my way. The runner had easily beaten the throw but bumped into me with the ball still in flight. The important thing is that I couldn’t get my mitt up in time and the ball said hello to my nose rather abruptly. I ran crying for my mother. I did a lot of blubbering that day while the others tried to calmly walk me back home. They were so calm that it was obvious I wasn’t communicating how damaged my broken nose was. If I had, they would have been enraged and upset too. I remember being truly frustrated because I couldn’t fully express my pain to these idiots speaking in soothing voices. I could feel David looking from a distance—probably calling me a little bitch. If I felt that same pain now, I would be able to communicate the pain just fine. I would say without thinking, “For Christ’s sake, this shit hurts like a bitch.” But I was above all those bad words then. Too pure for the verbal depravity. David wasn’t just someone with a dirty mouth though. He was a terrified kid living with a death sentence and I had only experienced a small fraction of the pain and frustration he felt every day of his entire life. The difference between us? David had figured out one minor way to temporarily relieve some of that inner rage. “Shit. Piss. Cunt. Cock. Asshole. Twat.” David always used these words but none of them ever did a good enough job. They couldn’t do justice to how he was really feeling: Cosmically fucked.
POETRY
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Variation on Traditional Metaphorical Sublimation (The New World)
Les Kay
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Cracked lenses, can’t (really) afford new glasses—familiar refrain—but they are fine. Just a little nightmare catching up with history— a screw loose, a lens leaping from its frame. Fixed it myself! Look, if you can. All those smudges, scratches on the glass . . . darkening a summer morn, a familiar refrain. Let’s get out of here. Move somewhere warm and lovely where spectacles dangle from trees, ripening for your pluck.
Housekeeping Notes for Future Crocodiles in Cincinnati On Ludlow off Cornell Place speckled house geckos hibernate or would given a little less latitude or will given 2.5 more degrees Celsius on average, or rather, no one, not even Wall Street soothsays miroclimate change, only the gathering will differ and something will breathe through skin.
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Robert McDonald
Postcard Discovered Under Joe Cornell’s Bed In my little hotel room I am an actor, and the mirror although dusty and smudged with the fingerprints of strangers becomes an Italian opera stage. Then night comes, with the mutterings of sullen caged birds, and night arrives like the death of the world’s last goldfinch. I’d hoped that one of the other guests used to be the sun, but I must say she seems so unusually pale. The desk clerk told me, confidentially, that she is an owl who decided to abandon the blue realm of winter If I can just find a pen, I will sketch a map of the night sky, my mother. Hurry, find her, she is drowsing in the forest in the form of a swan.
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Dear November, I tried to recall the dream of flying: I’d followed my father; he raised his arms and leapt from the cliff—a steady flap of strapped-on wings, keeping him above the green draw of the sea. What was the warning he shouted over his shoulder, the words blown away in salted wind, the net of sunlight on the waves, the gulls wheeling cry— I woke. At the sink I splashed cold water on my face. I rubbed yellow sleep grit out of my eyes. Ran a comb though my hair, and a white feather briefly caught in the teeth: a swan’s sigh, a pillow’s leavings, —it drifted down to the floor. Nothing I have ever desired has come to me on wings.
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bios
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Born and raised in the square-mile suburbs of Detroit, Matthew Fogarty currently lives and writes in Columbia, where he is an MFA candidate at the University of South Carolina. He is an alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Revolution House, WhiskeyPaper, Zero Ducats, and Utter Magazine.
Les Kay is a doctoral candidate studying poetry at the University of Cincinnati. He earned an MFA from the University of Miami, where he was a James Michener fellow. His poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals including Tar River Poetry, Eclipse, PANK, Jabberwock Review, South Dakota Review, la fovea, Blue Earth Review, Redactions, Cellpoems, and is forthcoming in Whiskey Island and The Santa Clara Review.
John Matthews graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 1991. He has worked as an office equipment mover
and in many different library jobs. As the “M” half of the comic “A.M.”, he drew artwork for the Evanston-based monthly, Strong Coffee, also contributing short stories. He did illustration work for the website, FamousDreams.com which cataloged dreams about celebrities. He used to play drums for Villa Park rakehells, Six Slug Vacation. His writing has appeared in the anthologies What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years? And It’s All Good: How Do You Like It Here Now? His work has also appeared in Wisconsin Review, Pindeldyboz, Opium Magazine, Word Riot and several others. He lives near Chicago with his wife Rachel and their American bulldog, Darla.
Robert McDonald’s
work has appeared recently in Right Hand Pointing, Pure Francis, Sentence, and kill author, among others. He lives in Chicago, and blogs at livesofthespiders.blogspot.com.
D.I. Sanders is originally from Ohio but now happily resides in Chicago. He primarily writes fiction and has been published
in magazines such as The Broadkill Review and Mosaic (OSU). Currently, he is writing a novel, traveling when possible, eating too much and not reading enough. www.disanders.com
Fabio Sassi
started making visual artworks after varied experiences in music and writing. He makes acrylics with the stencil technique on board, canvas, or other media. He uses logos, tiny objects and what is considered to have no worth by the mainstream. He still prefers to shoot with an analog camera. Fabio lives and works in Bologna, Italy. His artwork is featured on our cover. His work can be viewed at www.fabiosassi.foliohd.com
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stay dry.
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