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