Cabildo Quarterly. Issue #3. Spring 2013. Belchertown MA; Orono ME. I was debating Swedish fish, roasted peanuts or licorice. poem for lions and bears by Megan London i. what I am is variable & shifts with the light but always I choose a fluid form— ii. you’ve got yr claws & yr dens—I’m all ears—hear resonance of roar score the reverb— Megan London lives and writes in Bangor, Maine. She is the editor of The Accompanist. Moloch by Quenton Baker I didn't mean to swallow. It started as a yawn but the crops grew so they kept bringing their children. I was never even a god, just a hungry space with a mouth wet enough to be important. They still bring them to me, the children— begging me to eat the ornament of a sick womb. Sometimes it's a boy, usually it's a girl, more often it's just darkness. They spread their legs, their hearts, and shadow and disaster bent into suckling life rifles out. It's all I can do to sever the umbilical cord and swallow, chew and swallow and chew and chew, do my part to rid the world of anyone who would feed me their disease of love. Quenton Baker was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. A graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program, he now crushes the game from great heights. He currently lives in Portland, Maine. New York International Airport - 1948 by TG Lawton He had planned on an earlier start, to be well on his way before crowds swelled the train but lingering in bed had put him behind schedule. For fifteen minutes, he waited on line at the subway booth, impatient with those who did not know the cost, did not know the route, did not know a damned thing, and never acknowledged that he should have known to buy his tokens earlier in the week. Anxious to be on his way, he thrust one token in his trousers pocket, fed the other into the turnstile and stepped toward the jammed platform just as a packed train pulled in. As he had predicted, interest in the new airport and the gala flight program was immense. People were traveling from all five boroughs, Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and beyond, to be a part of the
grand event. There were families with chirping children, veterans of the most recent war eager to spot the aircraft they had perhaps themselves flown, veterans of the war before that, men closer to the Doctor’s age, taken just as he was with the progress of technology. There might even have been unlucky passengers with no interest in the airport and exhibition, people on their way to work, to shop, to visit friends or relatives. Christmas joined them and was miserable. How much more he would have much preferred being driven but it had been years since he could afford a cab and knew no one in his neighborhood who owned a car. He recalled with pleasure the days when his business partners drove him to restaurants and cabbies waited patiently for him outside his factory. A kind Spanish lady offered her seat to him. He was courtly in refusal - how old did he look, after all but she insisted and he could feel his grasp on the strap weakening. He thanked her and sat, reminding himself that he must not exit the train at the wrong station. The man next to him read a newspaper and Christmas was envious. Preparations for the day had upset his routine and he’d been unable to scour the neighborhood for a discarded copy. He tried to read the headlines: GREATEST AIRPORT IN WORLD OPENS TODAY. Yes, yes, he already knew that. SENATE DEFEATS… He could not see the rest of the page, very unfortunate as he took great interest in Congressional business, having once testified in front of a Senate committee. When had that been? The thirties? No, earlier than that. Shortly after the Great War. It didn’t matter, he had testified all the same, invited by that same senator who had intervened to get him the Liberty engine. Doctor William Whitney Christmas, esteemed aeronautical pioneer, told that committee exactly what was wrong with the aviation business in the United States, told them why, in spite of the largest manufacturing capacity in the world, not a single American combat aeroplane flew over Europe. Why him? Because of his vast knowledge of aerodynamics and its ancillary disciplines: electricity, chemistry, physics, meteorology, naval architecture. Oh, it had been a tour de force, a culminating moment in his career and a chance to lecture the nation on the inefficiency of its air defense, the bureaucracy he faced in producing his aeroplane, the sheer bullheadedness of those who ignored his gifts. He had been prepared to win the war for them with his array of flying machines. He told them of the Bullet, the Streak, the Hawk and the Battle Plane, his multi-engine bomber, of their capacities, of their devastating abilities against the enemy. Why hadn’t they been deployed, they demanded to know. He could not recall his reply but he remembered the cherry trees were in blossom. Washington had been lovely that day. * If the scene on the train had been unpleasant, that at Aqueduct Station was horrific. All but the most local of riders took their first steps from the train with bewildering uncertainty. Where to next? Doctor Christmas wanted to get his bearings but could not stand motionless in the throng. The crowds behind, quicker to orient themselves and unwilling to wait any longer after the punishing ride into Queens, propelled him forward to what he hoped was the exit. In a way, he was grateful that the decision was made for him and that he had no choice but to move but he intensely disliked others being so close and swatted several times at someone who pushed up against this back. At the turnstiles, the crowd became a crush and all forward momentum came to a halt. A trickle passed through to the other side, enjoying for a few seconds some freedom of movement before coming to the line of bodies climbing the stairs to street level. Only here was there any decorum, thanks to a policeman motioning the crowd up to the shuttle buses. The officer knew that his voice, drowned out by the yammering mob and the buses on the avenue, could not be heard by any but those closest to him so he didn’t even try. As each train disgorged passengers and they passed through the stiles, he
jerked a thumb over his right shoulder, speaking only when necessary, already bored with the detail. When three teenage boys made tentative moves to leap the turnstiles, the officer thwarted them with a look and a snarl, happy for a break in the tedium. The last of the teens went through at the same time as Doctor Christmas then rushed to reach his friends who were already mounting the stairs. It was slow going. He held up the crowd to maneuver alongside the banister but was glad to have something on which to hold. Resting at every third step, looking at advertising placards for Rexall, Woolworth and Buick automobiles, he was overtaken and passed by those unwilling to wait. At the top of the stairs, he barely had time to catch his breath before he was hustled aboard a bus by another police officer. Once again, a kind person offered him a seat and he nodded off almost immediately, thinking of the lovely taxi cab that once took him to and from work. * Jolted into wakefulness by a squeal of brakes and a sudden lurch forward, he looked around fearfully, eyes wide behind his spectacles. A boy’s voice, high and nearly angelic but tainted by that awful New York accent - Saint Michael of Flatbush - asked where the airport was and when would they get there. Christmas focused on the voice, used it to calm down. The airport, of course. He clutched at his pockets to make sure he still had his change purse. Somewhere, another child who had yet to master sibilance, spoke. “Oh, now it dopped again. Daddy, the bus dopped.” Yes, buses usually dop at dop signs and traffic lights. Now dop your whining. The bus ahead of theirs gave a great fart of black exhaust as it accelerated again and they pulled into an open expanse of flat land, dry, dusty and bordered at a great distance by low rise buildings and trees, very similar to airfields he had once stood upon though he could not now recall the names. That was frustrating but he triumphantly realized what the young boy hadn’t: this was the airport. There could be no mistaking such a remarkably undeveloped area within the confines of New York City. The boy and his family – father, mother and younger brother – would not recognize an airfield, and why should they? What need to visit an airport would they have but for the opening of this splendid new one? He smiled benevolently and was about to speak when the bus jerked forward, rocking him in his seat. As though his memory had been shaken free, he suddenly remembered the names of those fields: Central Park, Sperry Field, and another. What was it? The last name escaped him but the physical features of all blended into one. He thought of stunning green grass runways, bustling hangars, men in overalls, a pleasant watchman, and aeroplanes that resembled his own. When had he last been to an airfield? Too long to say but he was unquestionably at one now. The boy repeated his question and Dr. Christmas answered. “We are at the airport right now, young man.” The boy looked with consternation at the man who had drawn attention only while asleep, his snores provoking titters. It had been inconceivable that anyone could sleep on such an exciting day, doubly inconceivable that anyone should think an empty parking lot was the airport. “Where?” he demanded. As if in response, the roar of an aircraft engine overwhelmed the bus’s wheezing motor and a large shadow passed over the bus. Christmas pointed a gnarled finger past the window to a long row of tents bedecked in red, white and blue, and rapidly filling bleachers. An unidentifiable cargo plane appeared briefly before descending out of view. “Wow!” said the boy. “Not much of an airport,” sniffed the mother, whose enthusiasm for the event did not match her son’s. “Makes you wonder why we bothered coming out all this way.” Christmas wagged the finger. “It takes a long time
to build an airfield. And besides, it’s not the field that’s important. It is the airplanes that take off from them.” The boy turned to his mother. “It’s the airplanes, mom.” Christmas saw what they saw but imagined the field on the other side of those tents to be so perfectly like Lufbery that he could blink his eyes once and find the Bullet, throttle open, moving across the sky… Lufbery. Christmas chuckled with the pleasure of recalling that long lost name, soft private laughter, just loud enough for the family to notice. “I was recalling an airfield just like this one,” he said. “Though I suppose that this one is much bigger.” “Are you a pilot?” asked the father. “Many years ago.” The boy’s eyes widened. “You fly airplanes?” “Not for a very long time now but I built them during the war.” “What kind? Mustangs? I love Mustangs!” The boy’s hand shot up in the air, finger splayed like wings and did his best impression of the engine they had just heard. Christmas struggled to place the name, distracted by the boy’s mimicry and confused by the huge number of aircraft he had known throughout his life – bombers, fighters, mail planes and sport planes. Martin, Curtiss, Gallaudet…but he could not recall anything called a Mustang. “No, young man, I built an airplane called the Christmas Bullet. Have you ever heard of it?” The boy shook his head. “It’s quite a machine, the speediest of all planes. It annihilates distance flying over mountains and other obstacles…” The boy’s parents glanced at each other. “…Its wings are like those of a bird. Flexible and supported on the cantilever principal.” He refocused to look down at the boy. “I don’t suppose you know what that word means, do you?” Again, the boy shook his head. Christmas held out both hands flat, one above the other. “No struts, no supporting wires. Both sets of wings were attached to the fuselage at the joint and at that joint only.” “Both sets of wings?” the boy asked with a sneer. “Which war were you in, mister?” Christmas glowered and the mother draped her arm over the boy’s shoulder and chest, pulling him close. On top of the crowds and the heat, now she had to protect her child from strange old men. “Be polite, Scotty!” she said then added, looking at Christmas. “Sorry.” Scotty tried to wriggle free but his mother was unrelenting, nearly dragging the child off his feet as the bus came to a stop and the family shuffled to the front. Christmas remained seated, angry at the mother’s baleful glance back at him and the boy’s ignorance. These people would not be here now had it not been for men like him who labored mightily to defeat the Hun. He was the last off the bus and took the three steps to the ground carefully, as he took all steps these days. Old age was not yet accompanied by mishaps; he didn’t even need a cane but there was no point in being foolhardy. The bus driver waited impatiently while the old man descended, barely allowing him time to step off before closing the door closed and roaring off. There were buildings in the distance: part of the city or part of the airport? Christmas could not tell. He was certain only of the tents in front of him and the thousands of people streaming toward them, of the entrance, a narrow gap between two lengths of high chainlink fence designed to funnel the crowd in from this makeshift parking lot. Above the entrance, a yellow banner with black lettering read “New York International Airport, Grand Opening July 1, 1948.” A line of flagpoles stretched the length of the fence but the flags were limp, wind from Jamaica Bay having died in transit across the field. Everyone walked slower now, matching his pace,
then came to a stop as they joined a line for entry. What was the hold up? Had humanity forgotten how to walk through a gate? He straightened himself, eliminating with difficulty much of his stoop, and was happy to find that he could see above the heads of those in front of him. Happier still to find that there were actually several gates allowing ingress and the line was not as long as he had supposed. Yet people at the front of the line still paused before entering, each having brief conversations with uniformed men at the gates. He looked carefully, trying to ascertain what they could possibly be talking about when he saw signs posted at each entranceway. With a wave of anger, he read one, wondering how he had missed this in the newspapers. It should have been printed boldly so that he would have known before making the trip. Admission $1.00. It was clear to him that the newspapers had not included this vital information at all, that a conspiracy existed between the press and the Port Authority designed solely to bilk the public of their monies. $1.00! He lived off of that amount for two, occasionally three days at a time and could not afford to pay it now. Could he? There were two dollar bills in his change purse, rolled up like straws, one within the other and he had come so far already. He twisted his neck, looked behind and saw the ever increasing line of people as one bus after another left off groups. Would he be allowed to make a return trip to the subway so soon? He might be stranded for hours before he could go home. And what about the men who expected to see him, other members of the Early Fliers, who would be disappointed if he did not enter? Another plane roared overhead and the crowd cheered. They were so eager to get in. He could almost feel their impatience to be though the gates. If the bus did take him back to the trolley, how could he fight against the flow of the crowd? So many people ahead, so many people behind, all moving in one direction. And he did have those two dollars. The fee galled him but he had already come so far. He would go in. However, Letters to the Editor would certainly be written when all was done. Determined to enter with little fuss, he took the change purse from his breast pocket well before he was at the gateway. No one would accuse him of gumming up the line. He undid the snap, removed the bills and pulled them apart, simultaneously attempting to smooth one out and return the other to the purse but unable to accomplish either. The admission taker took the green curlicue with a grumble and flattened the bill before slipping it into the pay box. Beyond the entrance stretched an avenue like a carnival midway, crowded with people, food stalls and exhibitions. Doctor Christmas straightened again to peer ahead, saw the enormous tails of airplanes jutting into the throng and, for the first time since leaving his apartment, was excited by the prospect of the day. He made sure the change purse was firmly closed and returned it to the pocket inside his coat. A coat! He would not need it today, the heat already uncomfortable, but he would not consider being outside of his apartment without one, or a tie for that matter. Standards had to be kept. He stepped on tip-toe again to look at the planes, wishing to see them better. There was an odd distraction, a man coming directly toward him, pushing against the flow just as the Doctor had feared doing moments earlier. The nerve… Christmas made brief, disapproving eye contact before settling on his heels and looking down to match his steps with the pace of the crowd. Without warning, he felt a powerful blow to the side of his chest as someone – it must have been the man headed to the exit - walked fully into him. They locked into an inadvertent embrace while the stranger mumbled apologies. “You’re alright,” the man said, a declaration more than an inquiry. “You’re fine. Sorry about that.” Moving off quickly, the man parted the crowd with deft thrusts of his shoulder, face hidden, before disappearing behind the surging wave of people. Christmas looked back, eager to give the man a lesson in civility. Not only was he disrupting the entry of guests but he had nearly
knocked down an old man. Damn it, he hated referring to himself as old. Someone said, “Come on, buddy, move along.” So Doctor Christmas did.
T.G. Lawton lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. The Christmas Bullet is his first novel.
YOUR HOLY RIBBON by Erica Vega glittering ribbon made of dust |made of coughs on the sidewalk trailing behind|ghosting ahead wondering why you believe in standing at the end or/or at the beginning when you’re really expanding larger than this body|larger than your form feeling to a not known come, my love, come until you come to know a rose quartz you’re always only always you-you-you on a ribbon of forever Erica Vega does her poeting in Illinois. She is working on her first novel. THE ORACLE PT. 2 by Drew Kalbach The oracle gets a nose job. I can prove prophecy but only in hindsight. I can swim the feed black ocean with my water wings and my good-faith. I can relax my skull until it feels nearly gone. I can wait in the lobby I can wait in the lobby I can wait in the lobby I can wait in the lobby until you press start and let the oracle get a mouth full. I walk backwards beholding. The world is another skipped frame. You, the oracle, shambled from geometric hedges into ever more square rows of cars. Into the distance, on through horizon, start pressed twice now, start pressed twice in the lobby beginning to empty. I can wait. I can prove. Drew Kalbach is from Philadelphia. He blogs at www..actuarylit.com
This is the third issue of Cabildo Quarterly. (It all depends on what your definition of a quarter is: this time it’s five months, but hey, who’s counting?) Michael T. Fournier, hot plate; Lisa Panepinto, pistol mama. Print run of 1000 copies, March 25th 2013. Available for free from discriminating purveyors in/around greater Belchertown MA and/or Bangor, ME. For additionals, it’s a buck per (or five bucks for a stack) to Cabildo Quarterly World Muster Roll, PO Box 784 Belchertown MA 01007. We can be found digitally on issuu.com, pdfcast.com, and, of course, at Cabildoquarterly.tumblr.com (updated every Wednesday with new work from contributors, reviews, interviews, essays and whatnot), but the point, really, is to be discovered, be it on a bus, train, or in a bathroom, so we prefer the analogue version to its digital counterpart. Previously unpublished submissions are hella welcome: fiction of no more than 3000 words to the address above or, preferably, to cabildoquarerly@gmail.com, and/or 3-4 poems to lmpanepinto@gmail.com. Simulataneous submissions are okay. Mike will on tour this summer with Mike Faloon of Zisk fanzine fame, in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine: watch the webpage for updates. And by the time you read this, the debut CD by Mike’s band Dead Trend -21 songs in 28 minutes! -- will be available at deadtrend.bandcamp.com. Thanks, as always, to patron saint Todd Dills, and to Katie Lattari for being the hostess with the mostess in South Bend, to Liz and all at Quimby’s for general awesomeness, Adam at Pioneers Press, Peter and Kath of Three Rooms Press, and Keezer and Shelly (and Turnip!) for mad distro. In heavy rotation: Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”, Eccentric Soul’s Deep City Label comp, The Evens “The Odds,” John Wayne’s Seatbelt EP, Lee Fields “My World,” Forgetters’ debut, Joe Lally’s “Why Should I Get Used To It,” Parquet Courts “Light Up Gold,” Pere Ubu “Dub Housing,” Raincoats’ first LP and Sun Kil Moon’s “Among The Leaves.”. Now go start your own ________!