Cellar Door Fall 2009 by Cellar Door Literary Magazine

CELLAR DO 0 R

THE UNDERGRADUATE

LITERARY

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH VOLUME

XXXVI

CAROLINA

MAGAZINE

OF THE

AT CHAPEL ISSUE

HILL

_II!III

ÂŠ Cellar Door 2009

All rights reserved Cellar Door, the undergraduate literary magazine of the University 0 . '. f N ad' rth Carolina at Chapel Hill, is published twice annually and welcomes submissions from all un er graduate students currently enrolled. GUidelines for submission can be found online a t http://studentorgs.unc.edu/thedoor.

Publication of this issue of Cellar Door was made Possible in part with a generous granttra7 the Creative Writing Program's Blanche Britt Armfield Fund for Poetry at UNC Chapel Hil. Cellar Door also gratefully acknowledges the generous financial support of the UNC Student Government and the Department of English Gift Fund.

STAFF EDITOR-iN-CHIEF ART FiCTION POETRY

LAY 0 U T &

H.t. Spelman

EDiTOR EDITOR

Sally Symons L. J ill Dwiggins

EDITOR

Matthew

0 E 5 I G NED

Fie

[ TOR

Poindexter

Zena Cardman

T REA

5 U R ER

ART

5 TA FF

Grayson Bland Rebecca Egger Lucy Sears Sarah Smith

5TA FF

Maria Devlin Stephanie Komoski

T ION

Sarah Smith

Sam Lemley John McElwee Liz Turgeon

Elizabeth Walker POE

TRY

5 TA F F

Zena Cardman Maria Carlos Mary Cook Patrick Dowd Alisha Gard Ella Ott

DES

IG N 5TA FF

Rebecca Egger

FUN

D RA I5

A D V E R TIS WEB

MAS

N G

Lauren Peters berg

IN G

A. Rees Sweeney- Taylor

T ER

Marianne

FA C U L T Y A D V I 5 0 R

Michael

Gapuz

McFee

CO V E R Garrett Herzfeld

TERRENCE

PRIZES 6 7

WINNING PIECES JUDGES

ART 10 19

BILLBOARD AND CHURCH FLOAT Larissa Kaul

Mary

Catherine

CRANES

GIRL Jodie Kim

39 44

SAME AGING PROCESS STYX Liana Raux

48 51 56

BLACK SHEEP Ariel Rudolph UNTITLED Hannah Easley WE WILL SAVE US QUICK Matt]ones

PIXELS

Mary

Catherine

Penn

Matthew]ernigan

Katie Martin

FICTION

12 31

I APOLOGIZE FOR THE EYESIN THE BACK OF MY HEAD Jodi, Kim UTILE THING IN A BIG PLACE Ariel Rudloph

THE CHERUB

PROJECT596 Angela Tchou

MAC AND CHEESE Arthur Fischel N'GAMIA Julie Teasdale

Kathleen]ones

POETRY 8

STORIES WITH HOLES

David

Hutcheson

9 11 33

WINGS Michelle Hicks LADY MECHANIC Michelle Hicks HONESTY SINGS THE BLUES Hannah Bonner

34 36 38 42

HONEYMOON Hannah Bonner PRELUDE Hannah Bonner WATCHING DISHES Tyler Mollenhopf LONG WEEKEND Katherine lndermour

DISTANCE

HOMONYMS Caroline Fisher

Caroline

Fisher

GLOUCESTER ON THE CLIFFS OF DOVER

REVELATION

INTERVIEW WITH TOBIAS WOLFF

Michelle Hichs

Emily Hylton

INTERVIEW

NOT

H.L. Spelman

ES 68

CONTRIBUTORS

find more art, fiction, and poetry available exclusively

on our website at

http://studentorgs. unc.edu/thedoor

ART

FIR

SECOND

T HI R D

Liana Raux Styx Larissa Kaul Float Katie Martin

Pixels

FICTION

FIR

SECOND

Kathleen Jones The Cherub

Arthur Fischel Mac and Cheese

T HI R D

Ariel RUdolph Little Thing in a Big Place

POETRY

FIR S T

Michelle Hicks Lady Mechanic

SECOND

T HI R D

Caroline Fisher Homonyms Katherine Indermaur Long Weekend

JUDGES

PAM

PEA 5 E (A R T)

is an author, artist, and the founder of indie publishing

camp,any Paintbox Press. Books she has created include The Garden is Open (1999), Macy s on Parade Pop-Up (2002), Derby Day Pop~Up (2005), and most recently Pop-Up Tour de France (2009). Pease is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture and Art. She received a Master of Arts in Illustration from Syracuse University in 1998. Pease serves on the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission as chair of its school Artists-in-Residency program, and as Adjunct Professor at UNC's School of Information and Library Science she has taught courses in the art of the picture book and international

K EV I N B ROO K 5

(F i

children's

ION)

literature.

is an internationally

acclaimed novelist

whose fiction incorporates elements of crime, thriller, and dark comedy genres. His honors include, among others, the Branford Boase Award for Martyn Pig (2002) and the Deutscher J ugendlitteraturpreis and North East Book award for Lucas (2003). His book Black Rabbit Summer was shortlisted for the 2009 Carnegie Medal and his most recent work, Killing God, was published this summer. He lives in North Yorkshire, UK with his wife. Find Brooks's blog at www.myspace.com/kevinbrooksauthor or excerpts from his novels at www.thisispush.com/voices/brooks.htm.

TON

Y H 0 A G LAN

(P 0 E TRY)

has published

three collections of poet~

ry: Sweet Ruin (winner of the 1992 Brittingham prize), Donkey Gospel (winner of the 1998]ames Laughlin award), and What Narcissism Means To Me (2003), nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His latest book, Unincorporated Persons

of the Late Honda Dynasty,

is forthcoming

from Graywolf

Press. The Academy

Arts and Letters has praised his work, saying, "Tony Hoagland's irnaginatio~ ranges thrillingly across manners, morals, sexual doings, kinds of speech both lyncal and candid, intimate as well as wild." He currently teaches in the graduate writing pro~ gram at the University

of Houston.

_________

I STORIES

WI TH DAVI

HaL D

HUTCHESON

It seems like everything Worth remembering happened When I was five, every story I never tell the same way twice. Sometimes Nick D'mico falls In the bear trap my brother made us dig Three or four or even five feet deep With our hare hands and twists His ankle in the plastic bucket

Filled with bleach, Ruining his Nikes. Sometimes I tell the truth: We couldn't lure him Behind the tree house, Or he saw through the leaves To the patchwork of sticks Coveting the hole I'm not even Sure We finished. Either way, It's all abo:ut the digging. Shirts off, sticky grit Beneath Our nails, topsoil, Granite in black mud Groundwater, day, ' Handfuls of dirt tossed Behind us in piles, Dunking Our heads In the cool sludge.

WIN MICHELLE

G5 HICKS

On the pavement of the parking lot, what I thought from a distance was a piece of split wood turns out to be severed bird wings. Terminal joints spread as if in the apex of flight, the wings lie with enough room for a hied's body between. They ate hinged open like an oyster shell, mother-of-pearl regarding the sky. The wings don't want for their body. They are softer. The fleshy, torn-off shoulders are caked with yellow dust and busy throughout with black ants. When that work is done, the feathers will all blow away. Their hairs make the finest-toothed combs. The ants are small enough to tunnel away the marrow in the bones. Bones hollowed for flight, or hallowed.

I I

BILLBOARD

AND

CHURCH

LA D Y

MECHANIC

MICHELLE

C K 5

tells me Honey, it's by the spirit and grace of the Good Lord that car's still running, 'cause mechanically I just don't see how it could be. She has a laugh like a cough. Though it is only 8 a.rn., she tries to serve chocolate cake to me. I tell her the car starts fine and she says, well, Honey, do you can tell she's a God-fearing lady so I tell her that I pray'cause it seems]esus is answering your prayers, she says, somehow or someway. She hands me a mug of coffee, mixed nearly white with sugar and cream. I don't think

pray? I

that she has the same God as me. But today it seems that her God is the only God: God of grease, God of internal combustion whose glory itself is a contained explosion, whose miracles only the trained mechanic can see. Because sometimes I do pray. I pray for an end to blindness, and to war, and to the world's decay. I pray extra to Mary, hoping on her woman's grace. Instead, I get a spark plug that works against all odds. A transmission that shifts though the gears are misaligned. A battery that just won't die.

I ArOlOGllt

rO~ THe e~t)

He came back from the army unable to speak. For the record, there was no war,bUI his throat was so clogged with bad blood, I don't think he dared open his mouth. When he did, he was nearing thirty, an age I can't imagine him to be at all;the ~rst thing he did was to thank his mother for all the cooking she'd been doing for hun; the second was to check himself into a hospital.

He Was checked out a week later to free up his bed. The day after his discharge, he had lunch alone in his roorn at his parerrra' house; he borrowed his father's pliers and proceeded to pull out every single one of his teeth, laying them neatly on hIS windowsill in two rows of strangely shaped and bloodied ghosts. Three other people were in the house at the time: his mother, his father, andhis younger brother were eating in the next room, watching television on low~volume; he was being so quiet they thought he was sleeping. When they heard a soundof impact outside, as loud as a gunshot, they were worried it would wake him. for the record, there was no gun; it was a falling body hitting pavement.

My mother and I may have never spoken again if it hadn't been for my grand' mother's death. Over the fervid affair of the way I want to live-peddling draw' ~ngs for pennies, said my mother-we caved from age-old things brewed tOOlong In our shared blood-screamed senselessly-spilling things we should have then -but never now, when so much is buried. She,mg had a mother to mourn and so I consoled mine. That night, rear-stained and ach , We feU asleep in the same bed, our hands linked in a vow renewed. On the narrow streets of Busan, he and I are walking hand in hand-on an errand from our mothers to buy rice cakes for Grandmother. In my dream, he and I

ďż˝ r~t ~A(K or MY ~tAD JODIE

KIM

are nearly the same age, five, six, or possibly seven. In my dream, we are aliveGrandmorhervjung

Vee, our mothers and I.

We sit clownto tea in Grandmother's bedroom; soft sunlight falls in papery strips through the blinds, illuminating the white of Grandmother's hair; it shines the polished wood of the prayer heads strung around her neck. I sit in the lap of my soft-spoken, moon-faced aunt, in the embrace of her big hollow bones; even in my dream, her liquid gaze is perpetually startled; she is sometimes smiling, fleeting and sad. lung Vee sits in the lap of my mother, his lanky limbs spilling over from her petite, avian frame; in the vivid dark sharpness of her eyes, there is something like remorse. Our mouths ate moving-aU of us are opening and closing our mouths. But there is no sound in the room, only undulations of the air and the heat of our breaths-until we are submerged in the hot humid air, a heap of bodies, indistinguishable limbs; we are bubbling from our throats, but only in an effort to breathe.

My mother tells me of his funeral after it has happened. It is a wise thing, she says, that I had not attended because Grandmother never would have approved of me attending such a shameful event, hasty and hushed. After over two decades spent on foreign soil, my mother believes I've forgotten the consistency of our blood. Admittedly, I remember nothing of my difficult birth in Busen, very little of the consequent devotion of my extended family. My mother likes to tell me stories of how treasured I was as a child. My grand-

mother, her mother, who cared only for sons and understood too muc~ abo.utr ing daughters, hiked miles up a mountain in Busan with a bad knee to LIghtmce in her favorite temple and bow over and over again through the night at the fee a fat, laughing Buddha-in thanks that I was born, that her daughter, my motl was still alive.

I was a cherished, beloved thing. At gatherings, I was the centerpiece, pearl-gle: porcelain handled as an heirloom by the privileged few. The rough and tum Sons of my aunts, though destined to carry the family name, were forbidden En upsetting me, upturning me, lest I chip and mar irreparably. My cousins Do Wook and Hong Yee-r-oldee, rambunctious, their grown-growing muscles achi to bully-learned to ignore me for the most part, as snow white vulnerable a must have seemed.

At this point in the story, my mother suctions her tongue from the roof of h mouth, a SOrt of savoring sound-nostalgic and guilt-tinged. She is no doubt thin ing of the way the adults had admonished those boys to leave me alone. The tu ting stops and the corners of her eyes fall slack, she is suddenly brimming wit fondness; she smiles like a whisper still not meant for my ears-and this is whe she thinks of my cousin Jung Yee.

e lung Ye was the eldest of the sons, older brother to Hong Yee and equally Ido ized by Dong Week. lung Yee was the handsomest, the tallest, the fastest, th strongest-and turity in a child.he Was the quietest, an uncontested measurement of infinite rna

His qUi~tness stemmed from a gentleness Incongruous to his built-big and sturdy feame; on the I"ge span of his thick, knobby fingers laid a graceful silence, He was fascinated by my II h' I' " handling of me smaI dness, luminescencej so de freate was hIS b wI Iteness, k my newborn h hi . fingerpnnt. On the cusp , of ou t ever new " more t an the faintest graze ab ISk my Own' memones-egg_whlte ghosts that grow " reaII t hrough, fall bloodied_m m th d h 0 er s Story en s ere, teary-eyed and repeatmg a t h e ways he barely touchedY me.

I am possibly six. In the aftern 0 h k o have my f rst tooth pulled Wh a n, myhmot er ta es me to a rubbery-smelling man torturer sh ows me t h e tooth路 . I en t eI tears d b and h wretched, raw screams dry, the P early and hi'arm ess In t he pink ' am repu se y ow something that had looked so fold f rn usr have dug d eep Into ' h b s a my gums t e ones of ' Wh has Spiky, merciless roots that the blood-fleck ed t h i109 rn . my]aw. my palm I 'Ien the leering man tries to place t

scream untr he has the nurse dispose of it.

In the evening, the entire story is relayed again and again at my grandmother's pl~cewh~re the extended family is gathered to feast. Everyone nearly and actually mingled m my blood has had a good laugh at my mother's apt description of how I'd recoiled from the sight of my own tooth and refused to even touch it. I am sullen but my mother has let me wear my favorite party dress. The women are in the kitchen, preparing dinner; the men are in the sitting room, chain-smoking and betting pocket money on red plastic cards. It is bad luck and bad form for children to see the betting, so my cousins and I are forbidden from the sitting room; we hide away in various parts of the apartment to make our own play, In Little Uncle's room, Hong Vee and Dong Wook are playing on a Gameboy; the screen is too small for three so the two boys ignore me. I slink out of the room to find my father in the circle of uncles. Little Uncle clicks his tongue at my presence, Uncle j in blows smoke in my face and I start to cough; my father humors me for a bit, letting me sprawl against his back, arms curling around his neck, but he soon tells me to go play with my cousins, affectionately enough. When I ask where jung Vee is, I am told he is doing homework and that I shouldn't go bothering him. My father turns away from me and suddenly, Big Uncle's hands are around my waist and he is settling me onto his lap. It's okay, he says, it's okay. His thick, ripe lips peel back to reveal square, yellow teeth. Ah-gah can go play wirh jung Yee, he's probably just drawing again. I grow pinched and tense in his grasp, at being called his babychildj I cannot stand Big Uncle's puffy body reeking of stale smoke and sweat, his rubbery, pink~smooth, floppy hands and the cabbage sick-sweet of his breath. Wriggling free from the confines of Big Uncle, I make a dash for Grandmother's room where J ung Vee must be. Behind me I hear my father apologize for my sake. What are you drawing? In a fluid motion,Jung Vee is shifting his sketchbook from his lap as I sidle in; he is solid, warm, and smells of sandalwood. Can I see? But 's I d hid d his fingers are smoothing the eyelet lace at the he case tne cover a rea y, an 1 hem of my skirt. Nothing, be says, I'm not any good.

' I d I' ht d with my own cleverness. Jung Vee .. ' Y au can't be drawing norh ing, say, e Ig e I h .h d noi andmother's vanity lined WIth arrcrerrt nee

aug s WIt me, an pOints to my gr . hild , b I Th h d lik 'nfants in bone dust porcelalO; we c I ren wme ott es. ey are 5 ape 1 e I

i I

I I

I know better than to disturb

them. I can help, I say. Let me help.

No, not there, he says , and points again-and I look to the wall beyo.nd,wh the lamp-lights hit the bottles and refrecr-c-I see then the army of eene trans cent ghosts and because he cannot deny me-almost anything-he showsme b shadow drawings.

The have eyes, were

last time I saw him, I was surprised by how little his face had changed; I cow recognized him anywhere; it was easy to ignore the electric ferocity ofh the pulsing in his jaw from his iron-clamped teeth-when all I recogniz the familiar Contours of a beloved memory, a cherished, blood-bound boy

knew once.

We stood in opposing corners of his square bedroom while I took in how messiv he was nOW-a bulked up. towedng man. His arms remained strapped aroundhi chest, live-wire tense. Oh-ppha, ghen chan ah?-came out thin and broken. He stare through me, unblinking, unseeing. After the silence, my aunt ushered okay.

me out of the room.

It's okay, she said,it'

Befote I c~uld leave, Big Uncle Presented me with wooden Preyer beads and, hoo of Buddh>St poems. Clamping my hands in both of his he pled Forme to peayfo s bles.'ing , metcy, cr possibly forgiveness to tid the bad'spidts ruining his son,the dev,l who has ctudely stitched his son's mouth shut. The skin of Big Uncle's hand Was paper-thin, his fingers bone-dry and tangled with blue-green veins. The sick manfeverish had aged Frail and thin; I maeveled at the impudence of his breathing andfel the shame of my awn. I fear him said the I d d h . h 'il try to h'urr someone?gnar e an s nveled man before me , who knows when e

His face has gone wild. bu . hi '. . ., h wrestle G' gglng IS eyes, 拢lanng hiS nostrils, clenching his Jaw e s me On rand mother' I h broid . Iik bull . H e IS . t hiIrteen and I am six s P I路us em rOI ered sleeping mat '. snortmg . e ha snowy eyelet Iace, an d In . Spite . of .hi am weanng my princess gown trimmed Wit . h school uniform and h I k' . IS ContOrted face, ] ung Yea is in his cnsp, s .arp e 00 s Just like a prince should. He has the gtace to ptetend m str . . I fall-With his 0 pen pa Im to catch Y ength IS some Sort of match for his. Inevitably, th b k f e ac 0 my head so that he can nestle me

against the pillows. It is impossible to pick between the sound and silence of mirth, so we laugh through teeth gritted in stretched-wide smiles, forehead to forehead until our visions blur our features; it becomes almost like crying, absurdly alone before a mirror.

In the aftermath, I confess to him that I don't like Big Uncle, that I hate him. Don't say that, he says, that's your Big Uncle; he's my father. I curl in closer and jab a thumb against where his heart beats loudest. But I like you, and J like your mom, and sometimes I like Hong Yee, too. He shakes his head, smiling, and presses the pad of his thumb against my mouth. You shouldn't talk bad about your family. Don't you know we all love you? Lulled, tired of play and hungry, our breathing grows even, but we are wideawake, so young and thinking of family and of love. Outside the bedroom door, our mothers are calling us to dinner.

Do you remember Jung Yee?-my

mother asks.

father is sound asleep and she

is getting restless on the long flight. I am silent; I look to the monitor overhead; an hour and a half to go according to the estimate. It has been nearly ten years since we left Busan. Your cousin Jung Vee's not well. He's been living with his parent.s. Don't say anything when you see him; you'll just make it awkward for your Big Uncle and aunt. I close my eyes hut beneath my eyelids, it's boiling hot and something scorching starts to brew in my throat; I open and close my mouth, desperate, soundless; I want to tell my mother how much I remember. I remember the futility of women whispering in the kitchen, of the way they " d f h ay they clamped their mouths ..' h ush ed when their chddren appeare ,0 t e w that children know things to their blood, when t he men came aroun; d I remem ber that no one needs to tell them anything. I remember I found his shadow drawings magnificent, beautiful and.sad in aywa,r " b king up from a nap In]ung ee s J did not fully comprehend. I rernern er once w a J h h h id I t i g to cry because r e ot urn! c osconcrete-walled bedroom. I rem em ber star In I . arerte smoke, heavy sweat, pa 1e et-room smelled so sticky, sickly sweet-r-ata e erg .' d hi" h If-nightmare I ImagIne tee oytng pink rotting-perhaps in the throes 0 f a arr-r , d h "f I d d burning' I Feare t at 1 opene my ' bile in my throat-so heavy, c1ogged ,an

I mouth it would all come spilling out of me-the ashes of my blackedinsidoodes. cried until I felt sturdy arms Surroun d 109 me, warm an d sme lIing . of sandalw ' i I hadn't even known that he was back from the army.

I open and shut my mouth. My mother snaps, w h at are you doi mng.> You lcoklik .I a stupid fish, and suddenly we are both uproariously laughing, and my fatheqo t from his seat and clears his throat, frowning sternly at his women: people are sur ing and we are wiping at Our eyes.

lung Vee is sitting on the floor, still dressed in his neatly pressed school uniform his back is against one of my grandmother's magnificently tall cherry wood ward robes, there's a sketchbook in his lap and a pencil spinning between his 6nger he's staring face to face in the mirror of my grandmother's vanity. Oh-ppha, I call to him with my asymmetrical smile, oh~ppha, like he isn't a mere extension of th branch, but on the very same twig as I.

I sit in his lap and his chin rests atop my head. He lets me tum the pages ornis sketchbook, and I am never more conscious of my chubby little fingers as Istruggle not to smudge his drawings.

"Oh-ppha, let's play."

If rnerno-c se,ves, child'en recognize the femcity of blood-bound love; it is innate -minus the poetics of the ages we grow into, when we can only convey a shadow of what we knew then. Our mothers are sisters, says the sec urit y of his arms; my beother, I am your sister I say, holding tight, eirborne in our games. Our sounds -loud and to"entia I-fill the rOom and bum thcough its cracks. I fall from the air one last time; he catches me easily and settles my feet on the ground. He takes my ha d dId h b bOth. h n an t res hold of Grand he-' b d ea s us to t e eckoning of our mot ers. b nkc me. mOt er s e room. he turns from the doorway to look ac at 'h ' s, POintIng to is teeth, my teeth. Are you okay? "Eung I say. noddin and s " , , the da rk Val Id Were h g toothmiling for him. Press ing my pink tongue-tip through my had been.

"Chen chan ah;J" he ask J

FLOAT

LARISSA

KAUL

T 0 B IA 5 W 0 l F F two

novels

have established

's two memoirs, four collections of short stories, a his reputation as a living master and have won h

numerous honors including the PEN/Faulkner Award, The Los AngelesTirr Book Prize and the Academy Award in Literann-e Frorn the American Academ Arts and Letters. This September he visited campus to give a public reeding al meet with students as part of the Creative W fiting Program's new "Living Wr er-s" class.

Going into my interview with Tobias Wolff, I had my first question ready. j recOunted in his acclaimed memoir This Boy's Life (1989), Wolff fabricatedanaj plication to win a scholacship to The Hill School a small boarding schoolinea ern Pennsylvania, which, incidentally, I attended foe my last three yem ofhig school. Wolff drew on his time at The Hill, cut shan by a host of demeritsand subsequent expulsion in his sen ice year, to wr ire Old School ( 3), a novel center on an aspiring

writer

and the visits

of several

literary

giants

200

to his prep school.

I Was all set to ask him about What it was like to move from a single-parent hom m a working-class town in Washington State to an east-coast boarding scho Tobias Wolff, however, is disarmingly personable (at one point dur-ingcur talkb ,"voked the "five-second rule" to recovec a potato chip that had fallen to theca pet), and we had already been chatting for a few minutes by the time I managed tUrn my tape recorde I r b d this i view hence beglnS ..

mediasr ori. res.

corgot a out my opening

H.l.

question,

SPELMAN

ISinter

eEL LA ROO m

â&#x20AC;˘,[ .d r-

0 R:

And

what prompted you to come hack to that experience and

write about your time at The Hill? W0 LF F: I'd had it in mind to write about italmostsincegoingthere,becausethere wastheshockformeofcomingthere. I was interested in writing about it in the same way somebody would be interested in writing about visiting a foreign tribe or an exotic country. eEL LA ROO 0 R: It still is very much a tribe unto itself. WO LF F: It is, absolutely. It had its own foyers and banners and language and dress,and allcompletely different from where I came from, what I'dgrown up with. There was that collision of cultures, I guess you could say, the one I brought with me, internalized, and what I was confronting. I found that unsettling and yet exciting, and it made a very vivid impression on me. It challenged my self-conception-it's an inspiration to work, later on. It sets ascene in you. Di scoveries about the nature of arrangements between people, the importance of money and class. Though human beings do chop themselves up in any group into some sort of hierarchy, nevertheless the class system as it operates in the country as a whole I'd never really seen before, and I got a sense of it there. I could see, for example, the way certain masters-not all of them, but significant members-treated some boys differently from other boys. Sometimes because they'd taught their parents, which is a little bit more understandable. Some of them had great names, you know, and one could sense

a certain deference on the part of the masters to some boys . . There's alw I a hierarchy whenever there's a community-it just sorts ttselRE ou ". h' watching these girls, the day before yester day, a II gom 'gro us h, malltnr dresses. All praying they get into the sorority they want. but they won c , eEL LA ROO WOLFF: thing.

0 R: It's a ritual. every year.

There must be a lot of braken hearts arouri d here, after that sort I

eEL LA ROO

0 R:

I'm t.old it's less intense here than at other schools.

w 0 L F F: Is that right? So those are the things that produce a shock ro rhe syster a little bit, that remain memorable over the years or maybe reveal somerhing abcu yourself and the society you live in, and human arrangements in general.Thos are the kinds of things writers turn to. eEL LA to writing of a shon con.scious

ROO 0 R: And how different was it setting out to write a novel, as oppos a short story? Rereading Old School, each section felt like it had the tautne story; there wasn't the digressiveness that comes with a novel. Was that6 decision. on your part?

W 0 L F F: Yes, certainly the structure was-and the way I conceived it, it led itself to that, with these visits from famous writers. There's a marker, if you

rn,

C ., cul'Or t he progress of the novel with the progressive frenzy over eac h vrsit minating in the visit of God Almighty himself, Ernest Hemingway. I did want that, and the novel in its original form Was a lot longer.

C ELL A ROO

0 R:

What kind of stuff did you find yourself cutting out?

W 0 L F F: In the original draft of the novel, One of the original drafts, I had rhe bOY-the narrator-going home with a couple of his friends ior vacation, so you gOt a look at their lives. [ had him go home to Seattle for the summer, and yoU saw what things were like there. But it just didn't feel right to me when [got it done, and the reason w th I h h h f h heel Were dlsslpattng th. ". as at t aug t t at these excursions out 0 t e sc f 't ir I b Tb ere's something ae l concentratIOn of the novel ' the concentrated energy 0 I. t e crazyright? y normal standards about how these kidsget50 Warke d up about thesel things,

CELLAR

DOOR'

A b .

oarding

school is such an isolated

world; you don't realize

.y;

how crazy it is.

as rir

WO L F F: It is crazy, and the minute I took them out of the school, it made it

less reasonable to think that. So it's like a prison or an army barracks. The enclosedworld breeds its own emotional intensities, its own values even. And the minute you let fresh air in, those things seem a little absurd. I didn't want them to seem absurd; I wanted the reader to follow these things and become involved in them. So Ithought the novel worked much better when I confined all the action to the school. eEL LA ROO 0 R:

The only book of yours I haven't read is Ugly Rumors, which

you don't list among your publications.

WOLFF: You don't want to read that. That's why I don't list it among my publications.Ithought it was a good novel when I wrote it, when I published it, but when Iactually started reading it again when it came out, I was appalled and Istill am. C ELL A ROO 0 R:

What was it, if you don't mind my asking, that appalled you?

W 0 L F F: It's preachy. Preachy, melodramatic. C ELLA ROO 0 R: About Vietnam,

correct?

.. I di g lot of Graham Greene at W 0 L F F: Yes, it was set In V retnam. was rea In a the time. C ELLA

Nothing

R DOOR:

wrong with that.

W 0 L F F: No but I took some of the wrong lessons from him, and it was forced.

' . ovel without some sense No Doeat that point probably could have wntten a n f· h . • f d . k irteas to some a It t at ernof influence from Catch-22 and there s a orce JO 1 'f I " d ver well, and I ve never e t b arrassed me I don't know it just didn t stan up y h h . ',. I [ik some things better t an at th at way about anything else I ve wntten. lei'nee , . That nove shau ld h ave ers, but I'm proud of everything I ve wrrtten sj rn-efl k h . id h It was a u e t at It got been kept in a drawer and probably Wall ave. . ' h - retty muc h·varus hed,so picked up and published. And it didn't go anyw ere p no harm done. CELLAR

DOO

Do you know kow muc h

the cheapest

copy on Amazon-com

_______

II read contemporary writers. You read Tolstoy and say "Man that Tolstoy sure canwril and then go back to your desk.

W 0 L F F: Generally, that's true. I tend to read history, or classics, whenI' doing my Own work. I guess I still do that, to protect myself from the possi ity of infection from other writer-so I'm not religious about it, though. I USI

to be a little more stern with myself about quarantining myself from enin that might take me out of my own voice and way of seeing things. I rememb once I was reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy while I was writi

a short story. One day I came back, and I'd re-read as I was writing, andthe: were sentences that weren't like mine at all. It can happen. It doesn't bappe so much anymore.

eEL LA ROO 0 R : I'd like to talk about your latest work, Our Story Begins. would imagine it has given you a chance to looh bach, to get a retrospective on your boa of work.

L F F: A lrttle bit, yes.

It goes back some time.

eEL LA R DO 0 R: Three decades. And you re-edited

some of those stories.

L F F: All of them,

C ELL A ROO

0 R: All of them?

W a L F F: Even the neWer I di hi I le C t Ion. i I d on •t h ave an h ones . . e ired again when I prepared them for r is co I was do: Y eSltatron about doing that. It was funny-I mentions' OIng It to a friend of '

really be do' her?" mtne, another writer, and he said, "But shculd yo' pering with I~get a,td· And I said "Why not?" And he said, "Well, it's liketam ev i erice or re-t h' . , cue Ing a painting in a museum." CELLAR

DOOR'

B .

ut I pa,'nted that,

I d'd h

I t at painting. W 0 L F F' A d ddi • n 0 y enough h when he visited hou h' now t at I mention it, I think it was Picassowho, h ses Were peopl h d ' . d . roue them on their II I e a paIntmgs of his, would go up an re we s. do that.

C ELLA graphs?

DOOR' .

at did you find yourself dOing to these stories? Cutting para-

I " m

Jrd

I I)

WOLFF: Occasionally; very rarely re-writing a little scene, re-shaping it just a little bit. Mostly it was on the level not of changing any character's names or any of the major events of these stories, or the endings, but the language.If I saw something I just knew I could do better, if I saw a word too much, or the wrong word, or an inadvertent repetition that had escaped my notice before, or something like that, then [ would definitely change it. I don't have any regrets; I think it was the right thing to do. I think they're better stories for it. But you always can run the danger, which I freely admityoucould make them worse. You're not the person who wrote that story thirty yearsago.You could spoil an effect by imposing the standards of the sense of the storythat you have now on something that wasn't written out of that particular senseof the story. ( ELL A R DOOR:

How did you pick the title, Our Story Begins?

WOLFF: It had been the tide of a story that was in my second collection. I didn't care that much for the story; I didn't dislike the story but I didn't thin~ it wasstrong enough to be included in my selected stories. But I thought the tit le wouldbe a perfect for the collection as a whole. C ELL A R DOOR:

What was perfect about it?

W 0 L F F: First of all I'm

not John Barth. I'm not trying to confuse the readedr I b riments So I wante when 1 tell a story. 1 tell stor-ies, they're not a oratoryexpe . " to establish a tone of "Heres a story. Sit d OWOI 1rsteri.

eEL L A R DOOR: k'

It sets up such a rapport between

o l F F: I hope so. It also invites you !OU and the reader and the people in the W

writer and the reader.

d of commonality between to see a In . I liked it as a way 0 f we Icom stones. t

mg. dhearing your stories eEL LA R DOOR: I have to admit, last night at you.r ;~: /~fdn't know how funny out loudfor the first time-l knew that they were funny, t when I read mornen s h- d {the )t"u.nny t hey Were. Ihad only mentally laughed at about a t Ir 0 ,

them. d C ar verr , tOO . When he would WO L F F: They used to say that about R aymon 1 uld say "I didn't hi 11 f and peop e wo , read ,15 stories out loud they were rea y unny,

II know those stories were supposed to be funny when I read them." eEL LA ROO 0 R: How do you negotiate those different seriousness, and then humor, and then irony on top of it all?

tones-a

profou.ndma

W 0 L F F: It's just the way I see things. Someone once said that the siruario was critical hut not serious. May b e t h ey salid rhee srr.uatron was tragic but notser si o u s, Even In t e worst t Iu lOgS, t hese funny t hi lOgS happen. In The Brothers Ka" . in rh mazov, there's a conversation around the dinner table, and the old man isaskin each of his Sons if they really do believe in God. eEL LA R D 00

This is early in the book, right?

LF F: It's early. And who's the sweet one, it's ...

C ELLA R DOOR:

Alyosha?

0 L F F: Alyosha. Alyosha says, "Yes, I do." But not just reflexively" he thinks about it fat a minute" But Ivan, the cynic, who writes papers on ob scure church positions just to show how absurd they are, he actually gives Some thought, too, and he says, "No, no I don't really think there's a God. And the old man says, "I hope you're right, but if there is no God, who is laugh ing at us?" And there's that sense of the way in which the things in this worldhard as they are-often have this charge of the comic about them. It's han to describe.

eEL LA ROO

0 R: And hard to separate, too.

WOLFF" It"s It' l"k "H ' hi " thi . 1 : s not 1 e ere s a color on the palette. ell use t .IS 10 . J story, and there s a color-I'll mix this in." All the things come together. So," not so much a delibetate introduction of different elements into the story as it i, a way of seeing things that comes out.

CELLAR DOOR" Y I . yau say that"" Writing can't be taught. and I agree. But you a 5(k say that what YOU: teach b C fd路 oung WTiters IS to ecome better editors of their own wor d !tors y.:uhgl~e somework? advice to young writers at UNC who are trying to become bette e ~u OJ t eu- OWn

W 0 L F F; Well, partly it has to d

ith a

Wit

h W

f h' at I was saying yesterday, a rer t

reading-someone asked me for advice about patience. You have to he better editorsof your own work, but only after you've written it. That's the big thing. Youhave to learn a way of getting your work down without whipping your~ self,standing over yourself like some kind of censor as you're writing it. Then whenit's down, you have to learn to disentangle yourself sentimentally from yourwork. You cannot become attached to it sentimentally. You have to read it withas cold an eye as you would read someone else's work. That doesn't mean unloving,but it means that you do not become unduly attached to moments in a narrative,or language, that you are willing to hold everything up for considerationand reconsideration, and test it again and again. And edit it-to pretend to yourselfthat someone else wrote it, and it's your job to make it better. Very few writerswrite really well right off the bat. Almost all the writers I know revise a lot.That's where the sheep and the goats get separated. There are people with tremendousnative talent who never learn to revise, and in fact are kind of hostile to the idea of revision because they think it's a crime against their spontaneity. I think very few of them actually will succeed as writers for that reason. It reallydoesrequire a sifting, and a cool, critical eye. That can be learned, I think. Butnobody can just put the writing in you. That comes out, and then you can learn)"I'm doing this well, and I'm doing that not quite so well, and I'd like to dothat better," ( ELLA R DOOR:

w 0 l FF:

Coming to know your own strengths.

A little bit, yes. Coming to know yourself.

T H IN G

LITTLE I NAB

P LAC

ARIEL

RUDOLPH

Atthe museum bicentennial, I displayed a forty-five foot long afghan that covered anentirewing of the American gallery and you made a blue monochrome painting that covered an entire wall. At the opening, you swirled your wine at your nose andate lycheetarts. You wore a dress you'd made yourself. "~ne has to look through your paintings,

to travel through

the void of them," a

snivelingart dealer said to you.

"Exactly,"you said, flushed

with wine and pride.

"Andyour piece, Michael, a fabulous commentary on kitsch culture," he said to me, winking. "You two make a wonderful couple." I gave him a curt nod and threwhisb' usmess car d away

irh my nap ki10.

Wit

dee wandered the balls. The west wing was dominated by an enormous wooden onut and a twelve-foot-high balloon dog crafted from stainless steel. Do~ens crowded d Li id f J nit's practicalaroun a Pollock. "You could craw msr e 0 It. mea I ly envir I .,. . b id Y ki d of environment onrnenrat, you said to the artist est e me. our In too, the surface covered in wild dribbles of navy paint and a haze of lavender. I imag' d falli . .' .' W dId t bling into the r abme you alling mto It like Alice In on er an um 1 . bit h I J Th big things in a [ito e, you and all the other artists at the show. ese were I b tie pi, d d Th ight we took a ca eel an that was the only reason anyone care. at h n , Irh my finger, h orne,and I traced the map on the back of the museum brae u re w t . h thinking of what a small dot New York made in the crazed grid of big W~y~. Around h h d k b t you were asleep, t err us, a t ousand neon signs lit up tear, U 0

,I colors flickering across your face.

The next week, I went to the Met and saw something you would callsilly.Ac moth, hanging from the artist's own hairs knotted together, all by i[selfina~ I thought the room was still, but the tiny air currents of my body set th~th~n swaying, jittering around madly like the world was faUing off its axis, likeIt still alive. I hadn't seen an so alive in a long time.

I started to notice what was beautiful. The sound of ice cubes in aglass. Tbeloo someone's face at the grocery when they find the perfect cantaloupe. Theclam of light from the avenue stabbing through the blinds at night. The rose warm city light on the soft belly of snow clouds. The effortless grace of a waitress a heavy tray. These are all bigger than my work, bigger than_your work,bi than me.

What's left to say? It's all beautiful, but God himself could fly down on astar~ you wouldn't see it. You're lost here, stuck in a tornado-din of languages,cur hi路essmgs, cnes, . c h eers, yells, prayers, a churning quake of noise wit h noepic . en! When I die, I will be a little thing in a big place. My soul wilt flutter throughI street:, pasr clotheslines and taxicabs and hobos and dumpsters, all of the~ be.autlful than anything I will have ever seen. Up and up and up, and bUlld ~lU be tiny, people will be tracing their little dark paths, the world will becinc in an e~dless net of spangled traffic lights and pale highways filled with be,e cars. Htgheand higher, and it will all be perfect and minute, focused as iflr deWdrop. ~I

Then I will have seen something.

HONESTY 1.1

HANNAH

THE

SINGS

BLUES

BONNER

om.

â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘

record

It is October and a flock of geese are migrating in the twilight, their heads, necks, oiled and black, something instrumental in the allegretto of their wings.

'g'

ed rle

As the first guests arrive, andasjen turns the Skip]ames from side A to side H, I step out onto the back porch.

Insidethe house I overhear Tony quote "8 1/2" when he says Happiness is being able to tell the truth without ever making anybody suffer, which makes me think that Skip j ames must be an advocate of honesty when he sings

I'm soglad, I'm so glad, 1 don't know what to do I'm tired of moaning, I'm tired of crying for you. And as]en undoes her hair and casts its shadow over her shoulder, fivefriends raise their glasses to a freedom good manners will never allow. And as the white disc of the sun slips into the horizon's sleeve, and the laughter and geese recede, I sensewe are all trembling on the rills of our own records, styluses in the lock grooveJ waiting for the catch to pass and let the music through.

,I HONEYMOON BONNER

HANNAH

A girl peels apples In the stone COurtyard Below me. She has small hands, Almost avian. The sky is dull As pigeons. Gray tufts of clouds Ruffle, then rest, Pink rims The sun's white eye. Somewhere Someone is burning Dead leaves In a metal wastebasket, The Scent of cinders Peppers the air. She is barefoot. The apple peels unwind Between her fingers Like a tube of lipstick Twisting Out From its silver case. She licks her lips And r touch my OWn. I have forgotten why I came to the Window.

Beyond the window, And the girl, and the apples, And you, suddenly So close behind me, The mountains rumple, Black against The white disk of the horizonThe arroyos and rises Uneven as your lace negligee That now pools Around your ankles On our cloven, Cedar floor.

II PRELUDE HANNAH

BONNER

after ltDays of HeavenJJ

Sheared hay heavy as a piano. A woman pressing her fingers to the straw, holding down a chord. Horses against the gold harvest. Men eating apples in the dark. The white Cores gleam like teeth in the hollows of their mouths. The Scent of black cigarettes: cloves and cracked leather. One man finds a parasol in the field, its body broken by the wind. He tears the fringe off with his teeth, thinks of the WOman with the hands hard as piano keys, SWipes his palms On the back of his jeans as if about to touch an instrument

no one has ever played.

Gil

I WATCHING TYLER

DISHES MOLLENKOPF

Soap suds are thick enough [0 scoop in hand, to smear onto that distant expression on her face when she's lost in the belly of the sink, on the sand of Some beach white as this foam, or arctic ice, or the cake we once smeared onto ourselves young and laughing when it caught in her lace. But that spirit has eloped, so I watch spaghetti dissolve off plates and spoons in tepid water, oily with dish grease from the meat and the bitter resolve she must have shed in there before her startled rush to the bedroom. A slam right on cue, and it's my turn to lose myself in the sink, where knives glitter like the sunfish that used to live in the fake pond out front, before snow entombed them last winter. I watched each day as spring approached, until at last the freeze unclenched its fist, the surface sweating when gray late路winter clouds yielded, punching holes of fresh light through to pockets of fish air, cold puffs of hidden decay. After the ice thawed, I watched moonlight scatter off their underbellies, bobbing in the night.

MATTHEW

JERNIGAN

THE KATHLEEN

JONES

CHERUB

The truck broke down sixteen miles a rmore. P'rcture the sundip , , oursrideo f Gil' ping Iowan the horizon, pushing its rays between the naked trunks onrhem:n tainside. The truck is beige and rattYi it belonged to Dad. There aretWO Y standing in the sun. One is crouched by the front wheel, his blondcurls SW~~ and sticking to his cheekbones the muscles of his shoulders broad ands{raif~ agamsr , hiIS t-s hiITt. Th e or h er :IS c hewi eWing on lri15 Iingerna!'I 5 In ' the middleo t, road, toeing at beer bottles they had planned to recycle.

The blond grips the wrench and presses down with his weight. Thelugd" h ire d oesn ' t move. "Great idea Anton. T hiIS was Just ' on t e tire a spectacular i Iea ' 'Come on, Emmet! It'll be fun!' Yeah. Tons." Emmet tears the wrench 0[[tht U' nut and pulls himself to his feet. "We're stranded in the middle of oowherean. you're just gonna stand there!"

A' nton 1S strange r. n the low light. His silhouette is thin, . museIes wiry, fro ~ e necessity 'f 0 teenage life. Imagine how the sky looks now. Th e me u~u , him wild and rug ged an dr,go corever m every dii rect rorr. H e turns awav. ay Behtnd the Em~et is the color of the sun, his blue eyes rimmed red, and for a moment are SIX years old, home alone grappling on the kitchen floor. curls

"D' on t worry, uItt [e one." He steps forward to tangle his IingersI'0 Emme "W 'll fi . . e X It and be right on our way ok?" .h

W "We'll fix it, yeah!' Emmet knocks the hand away. "That's whatwedo,ng t e fix all the problems you get us into" "Yeah Ik "A . h Iknowy d ' . ' now. rrto n touches Emmet's chin. "Sorry about t at. 'lid, On t like me btl d ' , I notunU â&#x20AC;˘ v ou On t mind, I wouldn't like me either, At east, I.. " somethmg wack Ad, in the OU' y, goo story. Something to start conversations I room?" "Fucle you" E h fall' 'mmet s aves him backwards. , as If he were expecting it

h k butdoesn1 Anton stumbles ac

Now back u F h' I k likeants ne:( to th h' h p. rom t e top of the mountain the two boys 00 , Ac e 'g way The' hi , lik ytheng,' a dr! b . Y re Ittlng each other and it doesn't look I e an hit nVes y The d L' id 'k cklesVi . aUt InSt e looks at the asphalt in front of him, his nu

onthe steeringwheel. The boys have fallen into the dirt. Inside the car, a child pressesher nose to the window. The adult reaches back and swats at her. If they seeus,they'll open the doors and climb in right next to you, fill the car with their bloodand sweat and nothing will be the same. They breakapart and surface for air. Anton wipes his mouth, doesn't know whoseblood is on his hand. It looks the same, smells the same, tastes the same. Emmethas one hand on the bed of the truck and is vomiting into the dirt behind it. It's probably carsickness. The motel room was twenty-five dollars and a three mile walk. Emmet claimedthe single bed, and Anton was forced to collapse on the couch with the trash can in his lap, spitting a mouthful of blood into it periodically. "Emmet?" The TV flickers on. Emmet rolls onto his side to face the wall. Anton stares into the mess of blood and mucus at the bottom of the trash can. Somewherethey're in Dad's truck miles north of Gallimore and Anton is breakingthe speed limit while Emmet leans his head out the window not like a beagle, but like a Doberman or a wolf. Elsewhere Anton is touching Emmet's shoulders, shaking him, saying, Let's go. let's go now, what is here that you need, this is what you need. "I'm going for a swim."

Anton looks up. Emmet's

hand and eyes are on the

doorknob, "It'll be cold." The door clicks closed.

The TV is painfully

loud.

Anton

stands and turns it

off. Silencefor a moment, then a splash. The motel room opens directly to the measly outdoor pool. Anton cr,acks the doorjust enough to lean against the frame. The pool is small, six feet at Its deepest, and the chairs are fragile and broken like the skeletons of birds. The only lightsare high above, mounted on the second floor. Emmet arches out of the pool on the upstroke of a butterfly. His skin is yellowish in the haze, shadows exaggeratedon his back. He reaches the edge of the pool and turns. He propels underwater,silent, like something that belongs there, before emerging just enough for a gaspof breath. The surface breaks beneath his arms with a clap of thunder. . t kes His favonte fl . Anton watches him swim laps in a frenzy 0 f b utter y s ro d hi b h h li gs to the ladder an IS strongest. Emmet does not slow down, ut w en e c 10 I hi h h 1 B ads of water co ~ IS C est heaves, and he rests his forehead agamst t e meta. e 째

leeton his shoulders and catch the light.

LO N G WEEKEND KATHERINE

INDERMAUR

On the bus, in rush-hour traffic, I saw a car go up in flames, A Russian couple, sitting across the aisle, took out their toy-sized cameras, zapping the flashes against the windowpane, I watched the skeletal frame of the car writhe in a blanket of deep orange. I t was charring the bones to black. I remember how cold it was outside on Thursday, atone, with the air cleared by autumn and the wind tugging at the sides of my boxy fleece as Iwalked across the hospital parking lot. Your mom and I took the elevator to the fourth floor, You pulled up the paper garment, wincing. Thirty-six staples, perforations, lined your beautiful stomach. So exacted, I wanted to rub my fingers over them to affirm your flesh, to feel them like ribs, assurance. Friday: I watched you spoon jello, saw the bloody urine samples, held the arm without the IV as you stumbled in laps around the hall. And Saturday you asked to step outside to breathe air free of sweat, of piss, of latex and antiseptic. I dressed YOUj I tied your shoes.

Sunday morning, while your mom was away, yougently pressed my hand to your crotch and closed your eyes for a languid moment. With morphine路ringed speech, you said it was good to feel pleasure. not pain. The nurse came in to change your IV and she couldn't find your vein for four minutes. That night, you could sit up by pressing a pillow againsr your stomach, as hard and heavy as a railroad lie.

It would keep your body from splitting open, they said. I was afraid to touch your tender skin, watching it all happen as if through And suddenly-that car: youwincing, it writhing; you wasting a.way, it burningj ~our intestines tangled in a jar, Its frame cooled by the rain.

a window,

detached.

PROJECT NGELA

TCH

596

0 U

Theroomis dimly lit with a soft orange glow, forcing the redwood chair I sit to turn a deepblack. The color of fossils. My hands rest on a melon, balanced

my lap, I study the translucent skin of the fruit as I have studied her face. Have &ten thebeautyand the promise and the future and the adventure in it-a knock at the door. "Sonny,witt you go to the Xu's home tonight?" asks my mother. "We to buy that melon for you to sit here and

tnt through too much trouble hit rot."

,Suddenly,the weight I feel is not that of the melon in my lap, but a greater vmessresting sickly in my stomach.

"Yes, alright. JIll go now." ~ welg 'h' t Stand to leave,

stomach

bursts

suddenly

into

'IWhat should I say?" I ask. "Y ou will know when you see her. If I tell you,

be truthful."

then

chest

it will

not

"Andwhat if Ican think of nothing to say?" "Thenthe air will be so heavy that no words could suffice." : canonly hope she means a heaviness of excitement. step into a warm night and notice fireflies for the first time that summer.

O land, R'no k' on th e melon in my hands, and I watch as it scales my fingers b e f are rc ertng, f I o t y and flying away. atehWalkingthrough the streets of Shanghai, my mood is changing-some steps f eavywith determination some so soft not a grain of dirt is displaced by my deett.1canconcennare only on J my direction as I stare ahead to t h e s ky, swat h es 0 f

'P bluecutl'k b I I e paper y angular, black city buildings. pausefor a moment before I push open the door to her building. And I walk

up each floor to her home, my hand skimrnirig t hee coo . . cool rat railiIng . Eachst'pâ&#x20AC;˘ ,ff. a deep thud but the sound returns to me lik 1 e t e roar 0 a h f symphony-withe

ascending "';oment growing more agitated and ever more beautiful.. . At the top stair, the sound IS so earenmg. ree as [ au . dr. I r I h gh l embeing csrri and my soul rattles within me when I knock-once, twiceThe door opens, and my heart is suspended on a string.

"Sonny. What are you doing here?" she asks. d hi "1 came to give you this melon. T h ey are hdar to comebyantlSO,d rs ou eat It ng t away. "I run out of wcrds.and , d nlsc '. especially Sweet. You s hld"h offer the fruit, balanced in my hands-outstretched in my arms. Sude Y I

feel like a child.

"I did not ask for this favor," she replies, her eyes fixed past my sheu clers, a stern and tired gaze. "I saw you riding your bicycle In circlesaroun my school yesterday." "It's good exercise,"

I reply.

Her eyes focus and settle hard on mine. In a moment of grace and ury, [ door shuts-my arms still Outstretched, balancing the melon.

t weig s muc h more now, and I h ug it to my ch est as I run in leap down the stairs-my mind racing ahead of my steps-and throw op the building door. di I lk h wa now, and t Âˇe fireflies are suspended In e nightand f h!' . t hee air ai as Iif rrhe h stars ave descended on me. My breathing slows, and I ree t e welg tl I feel th 'hta me on In my arms agarn, . escape. . my h eart beating throug h' Its h 0 [1ow rm . d, as if it we trying to

I cannot return home with fruit still in hand, so I walk to a COUSin. 's house and eat the melon. I tear the rind, revealing the translucent green flesh in gorg and valleys. I scrape the seeds from the center with my fingers and tear into! e Sweet frUit, eating until my body feels heavy and my mind light. I throw theres into a wastebasket, carefully rearranging its COntents to hide the rinds and seeds. I close my eyes and feel my soul settle, shivering.

And there are perhaps only moments before I open them again, but forrne it is an eternity in which I wallow through judgment and rejection. A slowrh.ll brushes me back to awareness, and I am spit back into a world of glittering "n"rion. I pull my COat close. It was my father's, though it may as well belongto any man walking the streets.

He left Shanghai to begin a new life in America before I could even speak. Now,. I receive letters from him, but I conjure images of him only when 1pullrh, two Sides of this Coat to me for warmth. I once sent him a picture of rhe detonarion of the first atom bomb at LopNor. I had clipped the photo from a newspaper, the deVice dropped into the ocean as if rr were a stone tossed into a tub of water; drops Stopped in mid-action, blooming Iike a pe~ny. They found it; they opened the letter and charged me with giving nenonal secrets, rho ugh in my mind it were as though I were merely giving away flowers.

ell :cit

!Ii,

:If

I wanderback through the streets, wondering if my father has made this sametrip,with the same feelings and the same thoughts in his head. Icanmakehim into whatever Iwant him to be, and I begin to wonder where heiS whathe is doing at this second. Just to know that he is alive, breathing and moving withhisown aching hopes and waking dreams while I am-to know there arecertaintiesabout his reality, that it is daylight and that my blood runs through hisveins-to think of him eating his food or looking out his window, raising his handwhileIlower mine-but I stop before I begin to imagine that there is very muchin commonbetween us. Athome,my mother sits with two large bowls on the stairs. In one, pale yelI

lowbeans,in the other, their withered brown shells. She picks through pods deftly, hands moving with weight and precision throughthe air as if she is unweaving an invisible tapestry. Without lifting her head,sheasksabout the melon. Before I speak, she has intuited the answer. "She is very practical," she says. "Peoplewho are practical do not fall in love," I reply. "Andare you a practical man, Sonny?" she asks. . "Absolutely not." I reply softly and walk as if pulled by a string Intomy room, It is a humid night and breathing is difficult as I undress. On nights like these,I often sleep naked on top of the bed to ease my body into cooler temperatures,but the vulnerability I feel when the air laps my skin leaves me fighting off amillionminiature nightmares before I am finally at rest. And while I am between wake and sleep, the rain begins to come, and I dreaman animal is running towards me with the aggression of a white-ca~ped Waveon the beach. And just as the beast is so close that I feel its hooves as Vibrationsthrough my soul, I cover my head with my hands and clench my eyes. I wake upto a clap of thunder and a blinding streak of lightning that, for a moment, turns everythinga metallic blue-and all my wordly possessions, all that I am used to, disappearsinto a single brilliant light. That night, I dream of lying.

BLACK

SHEEP

ARIEL

RUDOLPH

DISTANCE CAROLINE

FISHER

These nights, I fall asleep in dayclorhes often, sometimes waking with crinolines crushed by my weight, their Sunday bounce flattened. Other nights r don't take off my workboots, don't release the woolly smell of socked feet. I wake with the sash frommy hair fallen around my neck in sleep. And I have dreams, my clothes winding and tangling around me; I can't keep my balance in them. I topple drunkenly down, hands gripping the rug. You fall beside me, seeking stable ground, not touching me at all. We roll over unlevel floor, now only inches apart. My clothes bunch around me, crumple away without my help, without a touch, like dried leaves.

HOMONYMS CAROLINE

FISHER

Say organs and it's unclear whether you mean the instruments that make the fugue of the body or the ones looming in cathedrals. Say plain and the adjective describes the landscape, the topography unremarkable, the land guileless and broad. Say left and I would turn, maybe to change direction or maybe to see who had gone. But say love, and sometimes you could mean the way a dim room brightens at midday, when the sun comes from behind a cloud, and you are still in bed. You could mean crying. You could mean candles burned to their ends. You could mean the cardinal the cat left on your Stoop, still intact, one red wing crossed Over his chest, eyes darkened.

EASLEY

MACANDCHEt~~

ARTHUR

FISCHEL

So I've got this restaurant, and look, just hear me out, we know whatyouwan before you order. Really, no joke, this is how it goes: you'll come in and s,u Lou that's me, the owner, and I'll be like, Ok cool, go grab a table, and you'll s't,dow~ and talk for a second about a painting, the sky, et cetera, and boom-therestht food smelling all good in front of you, and you're thinking, Ok, where'sthecam era? Don't ask me how we know, we just do. And if you try to buUshitus and sa: you wanted something else, if you're sitting there like, Uh, I mean thislooks gOOC but who eats a salad at 10 in the morning?, we'll be like, You, duh. Because yo' do. Like I said, we know. And I know you're thinking, Well, just nutstothatl.n~ going there, no way, too creepy, but I swear it's ok, and I tell you I'd changeit t I could because it gets way boring doing everything in advance. So nowaitres but we got busboys, though. Busboys like you wouldn't believe. They even wea these red aprons with thick white stripes, because it makes them looklikepepper mints, and who, I ask, isn't into that?

Can I tell you what happened one day? A fine day? I'm going to tell you.Soit'sjU another da y, a fi ne d ay, an d everyone's cool, totally not borhering heri me.andtber, around4 a 'Ic ock or so, h ere comes along this guy. He's got two kiids Wit"hhim) agl an.d a boy, and they're all fidgeting like crazy. He said he was Sam Marconilan this . lovely eate ry wou ld b"e so ever kind, could he please have a goddam tableso ktds could use th 1 d h b cksear? e CUstomer-on y bathrooms before they crappe tea

So [ seat him do h.il h i ki d lik Well,,1 wn w 1 e IS Ids run off, and he's looking aroun I e, h '. w at IS thiS? Ca I 1 h d n'teor S h . n p ease see some menus please? And of course t ey 0 h otenhegetsallt'h d " hhdrinks' kids' wire y, an starts drinking his water and ten e I s Waters a d h h ' " d cksan , n t en e starts chomping on the ice in these big lou era 1 everyone around h'. whate . rrn turns to him as if to say This jerk. Because I mean can you thtnk about a J h ingaw on hi " Iik . IS ice 1 e It' hi guy d I"who " Comes to your restaurant and starts c ornp S t IS e ICI0US thing, which it's not?

Then his kids came ba k f ashed thti hands t II C rom the bathroom way too quick to have w . ha ' ota y not fooli M Marconi) already d k h ng anyone, and they see that their dad, r. in run t ei chomp rr waters. So what do they do? They go ahead and start

entheirice,roo,and then Mr. Marconi gets some more ice from his glass to chomp on,andsoall threeof them are just sitting there chomping away like they're speaking intheirnativetongue. Wellhy this point you can guess there were some lookers, and I'm telling you thereweresomeheavy looks. About every big-necked guy in the place was practicallyhoveringan inch out of his seat, like he's ready to jump except he's got his wife'shandon his arm, and he's looking at her like, Please, let go, I don't care if I'vegottwo strikes and your mother's in town, just please will you please let me please knocksomebones to this ice-chomping guy, please? Justthena busboybrings out the food, which you'd think would be a huge relief sinceit meantMr. Marconi and his dirty-handed kids would have to stop chompingtheiriceat least for a few minutes while they chomped on their lunch, but it doesn'tworkout that way. No, Mr. Marconi goes quiet and looks at his plate, then th~busboy,and then back to his plate again, like it was dog meat he got or something,whichit wasn't. "What is this?" he asks the busboy. "Macaroni and cheese, sir," the busboy says ... And on the side there, well that's ketchup." And it was, just like he said. Soheturnsto leave, but Mr. Marconi gets his arm, and remember he's still got his kidsWIth the crapped-on hands seated across from him, an d h e says, "W e did tnt ' g,ettoorderyet. Which just goes to show how little attention people pay to signs, Sincefromday one we've had this sign out front saying Welcome to Lou's-r-We ~no~What You Want, Really. And I even thought the Really part was,pushngIt, I mean, what else can you do? People got signs all around them, like on thestreetand in the store and they still don't know what the fuck is up half the t" ,Ime,Yougotto get their attention with crazy colors and naked girls, but w hat my Ideais,what I think would be just peachy, is putting some guy with a cymb~l or something by your shit, so when he plays, people look at him and think, Gee 1S he ;~mething,I ought to go buy this or that particular piece of shit before gone. mtellingyou,cymbals and signs, signs and cymbals. Wrong turn? Can t find the melonais! e:~N0, I d'on t think so, no way, not on my wate h . 0

AnYwaythO

h MM路 starts in on this busrce-c omptng, can't-read-a-sign r. arconl ." ' y, who,may I just say was totally undeserving of this royal ball-busttng. Liste n B'UsterBrown he says "Listen Tommy Bahama. I don 'k t now w h at your operationis but I"' d hod , hi If "that's me the customer, I get t b.i IS thO "an e pomte to imse , ' " 109 calleda menu, which tells me everything you've got back in there. And he

!xl

,IS

_______

thumbed toward the kitchen. "I get to look at this menu, and I get to c~oosewh I want, and then-and this is the brilliant part-r-I have the wonderful ideatote you what it is you've got back there that I just so happen to want. And thenwh do you think happens?" And then the busboy, want."

you got to give him credit,

says, "But this is whatyO

And that's true it's what he wanted. I knew it, my kitchen knew it, eventhebal busted busboy knew it, saw it coming a mile away before Mr. Marconi and~~ crap-handed kids ever came through the door and ignored our sign. Imean,that Likeour thing. Remember?

But Mr. Marconi, he's not having it, and he's all looking at this busboylike,~f man, I am going to slay this red-a pro ned youth unless I see a piece of pap~,r WIt! food names written on it in the next, like, two seconds, but then he says, Can tell you something?"

So he starts out saying how since the age of, like, zero people have alwayskidd芦 him about his last name by giving him macaroni and cheese to eat, and howtha was at nrst ok because once upon a time he really couldn't get enough of thestuf Family Picnic Day at his dad's work? Macaroni. Easter at cousins' houseupinVe mont? Macaroni. A birthday at the Chuck-E-Cheese? Bam, right there, macaro always. But then he's doing the whole growing up thing, trying new cuisines,tak . grr. Is out to eat-an d please believe these are places you do not order macae. on 109 and cheese-but, blahddy blahddy blah, asshole waiters still exist and givehirr macaroni and cheese anyway, and now he's here with his kids and couldhepleas please see a menu or be brought a horn or a flipper or a hoof or a ballsack, justsr long as it isn't noodles or cheese or a combination of the two?

"Give him the ballsack!" says someone at the next table over and someoneels , , starts clapping, but no one picks it up. Then his kids start laughing becausetheyVI hea r d "b a IIsac k" twice " now, and this, you can tell, is it for Mr. Marcom. " Hes' go that Rambo look" irr hi f d I'n tb i " go 109 on In IS ace, all angry and stupid and dangerous,an hirrking, If that were me? If those were my kids? And then I'm thinking,JuSthO sharp are the knives we give to Customers?

The busboy-you g tt I h" . don" k 0 a ove im-r-rells Mr. Marconi not to worry, since we I eekPthathParticular cut of meat on hand in the back Freezer and Mr. Marconiju 00 s at im th I 'p. I . lik e way you ook at roadkill. Meanwhile his kids have just gonee eptl~, 1 e eyes rolled back and laughing like it's the Rapture I mean justbeyoO repatr, and all these e 1 h 'fOOl o h d P op e, t ey stop eating and turn all like, J eepers, scm ug t to a someth路 h . g" Ing or t ese adorable little hyena children here are gOln rupture.

Someone, someconcerned and upright citizen most likely, says they're calling an ambulance, andyou can believe that Mr. Marconi is not about to wait around only toexplainto someaa-year-old EMT that his kids are in fits because he didn't want toeatmacaroniand cheese. So he leaves. Just up and goes without paying, takes his kids bythe wrists and out the door, gone. Because, I mean, what else could he do? W!tat cananyonedo when they realize they've been the bad guy from the start? But thenI get to thinking, This bill is absolutely,

totally unpaid. And it's not like hiskidsdidn't dumptruck their food down their mouths, either, so what gives? Whydoeshe, this man, who was fairly warned we knew what he wanted, and whochoseto ignoreour warning, why does he get to skip out? Just walk to his car? Driveawayand maybe, later, hopefully neuter his kids? I ask you, is that kosher? No,I don't think so. Fuck that indeed. Sooutthe backdoor I go, and I get in my car and follow him out of the parking lotandontothe highway. His windows are filled with junk-newspapers and soda ~ansand clotheson hangers-and he's got one of those egg-shaped things for carrymgevenmorejunk strapped to the roof, so I know he's a long way from home. All atoundus,signsfly by too fast to read (hello, cymbals guy, you are where now?), anddayturns to night. He's a careful driver, and his left blinker is busted out, so whenhe mergesin front of me he sticks his arm out the window and waves to indicate, and I wave back in the darkness like, Golly, a broken taillight-what a crazyworldwe live in! Because it is; that's true. You're born, and then you walk aroundfor a bit until you can't anymore. I'll say this about Mr. Marconi-r-it's all he'sdOing,just walking around, and when he gets home to his wife or maybe his dog,he'llstillbe walking around. He'll walk around when he sleeps, and when he dreams,he'll be walking there too. Biking? Walking. Canoeing? Walking. He'll bewalkingwhen his daughter tells him she wants to join the army, and when his s~nopensa successfulproctology firm. He'll be walking when he has to go on V ahu~ forhis insomnia, and walking when he almost dies from the shakes he gets t?,mgto stoptaking it. And if you're wondering about me, I'll be there, right behind,bringingthe heat, blocking the sun. So I get bored with following his busted carandturn around? So I wait awhile to get him the bill, so what? You think I, ~ilhthesedeliciousand uh, hello, psychic meals and all, am too busy telling my kitchenwhat folks are going to want? I'll write the next, like, ten years' worth of thatshitdown,or better yet, I'll get a busboy to do it so I have time to walk out to ~ pat~mglot and slash his tires. And if Mr. Marconi goes NASCAR on me an d ~~kes Someweird exit before I know what's what, I'll still be there, right behind .IIn withthat little black book and a pen to sign and a look like, Uh, hi, yes, hello Sir,~hopeyou remember me, really, since you ought to remember me, so be sure youreSure,becauseif you jerk me around-me, who's come all this way-and say you,don'tknowmy face, then I'm calling you on it, and I'm calling hard, because ~ft~ . own, motherfucker, you've known a long nrne.

, JULIE

TEASDALE

For Bony, who listened to so many stories

Ed Cash,the camel, lived with his twin brother Royce, and with a rooster named gar, The three of them slept in a white clay shack on the palm tree line of theSwahili Coast. Royco slept most of the time, waking only to drink wine

and compl"am ab out t h e sweat dripping off his eyelashes. Edgar was a young ~unkrooster-a teenage rooster-with an industrial piercing through his wattle . .3,sh Was the quietest of the three. He loved to walk through the slums and the Cities smell' h "" " " mg t e marijuana and the roasting goat meat, listening to the Maasai "lfflorss' f h ' f 1 ~ I mg or t e tourists. But he loved the beach most of all. He loved to ee e ndian Oce an waves was h over hiIS f eet. . It was June of ~o06. A bad time to be a camel on the Swahili Coast. The A Rtl'Came!M had d' ovemenr had begun to take shape. The Anti-Camel Movement 'rt eCldedto rid the coast of camels-the cigarettes as well as the animals. lneywerec 11 . h 1 r . 0 ectmg t e camels from the edges of the city and the inner coasta tglens rou d' h h CIlh I"k' . n mg t em up, loading them into trucks where they jostled eac et1emgd' , a fi Id . re rents In a stew, carrying them to a field close to the Indian Ocean, Ie :to With ~andydunes and wavy pale elephant grass. They went from store in hre, taking all of the cigarettes from their slum-sellers and piling them theae~pon the same field. They planned to burn all of the cigarettes and with mt e camelcorpses. The movernent had " 'C omrrus' sianet a come about oddly, and because of the District a w . A storywas circulating that that the District Commissioner was born to omanwho'd I eaten slightly rotten camel meat just before he was born. Loca

mythology blamed the carnel meat for his drooping lower lip, premature wrinkles, and hairy neck. A caricature of him appeared in the Mombasa Times, a skillfuldrawing of a dromedary in his uniform. He decided that camels must be eliminated. If camels were gone then there would be nothing negative with which tocompare him. He would be respected, he thought. So camels were rounded up from the edges of the city and the inner coasts, and loaded into trucks where theyjostle each other like ingredients in a stew. Cash had learned of the Anti-Camel Movement from Edgar, the rooster,who had watched two soldiers hatter with an old man. The old man was sittinginan alley, his back resting on his camel. Wearily the man asked why he hadto sell his camel. Why couldn't the camel stay with him, he asked. The soldierssaidall camels were outlawed, even this decrepit one. If the old man didn't wantmoney they would gladly take it away for free. Edgar rushed back to the twin camelswith the news. Cash began to keep to the sheltered areas of the coast, mourninghis city walks, troubled.

, He didn't talk to humans. Ever. But he hung out with a wild-eyedlittleBrit ish-Kenyan named Jade. Her family lived far away, and so she didn't seemany camels-mostly just hippopotami that floated in the rivers like marshmallow in Cocoa and wheezed in the night. Her family came to the Swahili Coasttw~c a year. She had freckles on her nose and brown eyes and a wide grinwlth di 1 I 1. , lmp es ike tiny riverbeds along the edges. She brought scratchy browncoco nuts that had fallen into the sand to him; he stepped on them and crackedthem She drank the coconut milk like water, tipping the coconuts up and spillingthe sweet Contents a n her nec k an d ragge d Jean . of . shorts, and she brought hirm bits 1

mango skin which he ate with delight and with drool dripping from his lips,H,e gave her long rides every day, up and down the beach from early morninguntl

~~~set. She called him Charlie Brown, not knowing hi~ real name, and shewrote 1 poems for him and chanted them in a high shy voice. Charlie Brown,Char' ~~ rl~wn. On the beach he does walk clown. H~'s the camel of our rown. Charli ar ie Charlie Brown.

~tt;

Cash had found Ed . M way gar m ombasa, the port city just a few kilometersa ' young rooster had b I' . ' hr him his body k" een ylng in the ocean where the dock men t ew H was sick broc 109 10 the waves, t hee r! tide taking bits of his feathers out to sea. e ecause the a 1 h ' n was the rainwat h dr i n y water e d been able to drink, aU across the ocea er t at npped th h h hi 'gCOn tainer he'd roug t e rusty holes in the roof of the s IpplO Come across thÂˇ . hi It waS full of old 1 h e ocean m. The container had been rrusera e. I Cot es, donations fA. . I mostyl and he'd rn d rom merrcan universities and hcspite s . a eanestforh' if ThecOt tatner's Vent lmse out of a green pair of hospital scrubs. . s were narrow a d f h d d thenr was dark atal d h new, tree little slits above his hea ,an , e, an at He'd ' h 'd rUnout . warned throughout his sojourn that e

The

â&#x20AC;˘

ofhis carefully rationed cockroaches, or that the crew would find him and wring his neck when they made it to Kenya. But they didn't. They eyed his feathers insurprise,because his feathers had an odd green tint to them, and they threw him into the ocean. Cash brought him home, which was difficult. He'd told Edgar to climb ontohis hump, and Edgar did, but when Cash stood his front feet up, jerkily, he threw Edgar off the back. When he stood his back feet up, he threw Edgar off the front. Finally Cash picked up the bedraggled bird in his yellow teeth. Edgarscreechedand swore the whole way home, humiliated and complaining aboutthe camel's rotten-potato breath, but he was secretly aching with thankfulness. He was a punk teenage rooster from San Francisco. He loved Garbage and RageAgainstthe Machine. He had an industrial piercing through his wattle. Ithad almostkilled him to get it. When Cash arrived with Edgar, Cash's twin, Royce, was sleepingoff a hangover in the corner. Their shack was made of white plaster andcoraland its thatch roof was falling in at the edges, letting rain drip through Ontothe dirt floor. A thin creek ran along one side. Royce had one eye that wanderedoff to the left-so he could see everything at once, he said-and a tuft of blackhair that poked off to the right. Cash and Royco were loners, strays, orphans. Their parents had been sold to a Moroccantrader when they were young, and had plodded, plodded, plodded, alltheway across the Sahara, all the way to Northwest Africa. Far away from the twins. Edgarwas an orphan of sorts, too, almost. Cash asked him one day where hisfamilywas. "I don't know," Edgar said. "Why not?" "I left them in San Francisco," he said. "Mom was a stray chicken. She got into acid all the time. I think that might be why I'm green. I grew up along the wharf,eatingbits of shrimp, alone, mostly." "San Francisco," sighed Cash. "I've never been. But I saw it in a book once and I've always wanted to go. If I weren't born a camel, I'd have liked, to have been-soh, I don't know. A cab driver. In San Francisco. Giving people ndes, but . notOnmy back" "Yeah," Edgar said. uYou'd be a nice one, too. Most cab drivers there

. d trre

to run me over." ?" Cash digested this. "How did you end up here? In the Indian Ocean. f h "Well .. said Edgar "I found a whole mess of cockroaches in the back 0 t at I

shippingcontainer, and I went in to eat them, and the doors case "Ah," said Cash. I t made sense. "I' Id d d . K m ga I en e up 10 enya,

d."

h." Edgar said.

oug ,

'lCould

have

h h thought Kebeenworse. "Much worse," agreed Cash. Though he had seen no ot ers, e U

nyathe best country in the world. Edgar cried in his sleep sometimes.

itiful and a little ri d icu 1o us

It was P

watch: a green rooster, standing with one foot tucked up underhisbe!ly,tt dripping off his beak. In the day he was loud and obnoxious, makingfua blind Arab who sold necklaces on the coastline, or talking and talkingand until Royco begged permission to step on him. Both camels lovedhim, ~ because he needed them. Sornetimes they sat at the edge of thepalmtrttlin watched him. He ran towards the water, only to turn and flee againwhtDl waves approached him. He scratched Rage lyrics in the sand wilhhis fft(. nrc not a slave, things like that, and with somber eyes watched(he lidclJu words away.

Fewer and fewer camels appeared on the beach. Cash andRoycoW about it , Even the word for camel-N'gamia-began to disappearfrom pc! speech. The ACM paid the coastal dwellers for their camels-and thenstaug them. The slum butcheries began to overflow with camel meat.Stacksofth meat sat rotting in the gutters, fitting the slums with the stench.Carnclu cnmellasagna, camel biltong, camel stew.

Jade heard news of the anti-camel movement in her 4th gradegrof1f class in Naivash a an d erie cr i d f or a wee, k She could not imagine ' ' tbe C"",.;d> l h e camel.

E~gar and Cash had spent one final day on the beach,Ali that~y,d Ilaye d In the su hi d b hontC lh h' n, watc mg the tiny fishing boats that dotte t e e crmlt crabs th h d F' h menbt in t' h at rus e from side to side by the water, tSer d,'! 1ger s ark and t d d d ff h.esan wa.s h' Una an re herring. The sun reflecte 0 t ..; w rte and fleck d ith h waltrwith . e Wit s ells, and occasionally the clear green stingrays. "let's g0 h " "Nol L • orne, Cash said sadly, "Sleep." " "F' ' .,et s swim in the creek," said Edgar. "We'll be hiddenthert.h_ . icki mg up the chicken by his . rteet. Edgar l-'" 5lde dowme, said,asC h • pte n, SwaYing T'h h d figured out that it was the eastes ' t w~y~ (0 lravel. . ey a

The shack la

h'dd

f from""

The creek .Y I en a bit within the palm tree line, not ar ...... ~.. hi next to It W f II df r VJ'" l1lUe:lf into th as u of old palm fronds and frogs with te ee~,J;# h yena.s from b eh iWater . V ervet mon k eys chattered overh ead' "Whu,,; e lnd the bu h "H Cash had's es, ee hee hee!" J¢l~ lhe Anti-Carne{uMSt gotten into the river behind a pile of palm fronds....~ Edg ar. UN ello'" h Ovement ' aneofthtlI1 ' so [d'lets wa 1ked into the cleanng. , e said uA ' green chicken!"

Cashstayed in the: water

behind a palm log, out of view. Edgar ran

evards the shack. IINot the shack, Edgar!" Cash whispered frantically. "Royce's in there! The menwon't hurt you ...they just want to look at you!" But it was too late and the rooster fledinto the shack's dark interior. A moment later, Royce's voice could le heard,bellowing."You stupid fowl, if you wake me up one more time, I'll kill ,00,.." Helumberedto his feet) and then fell silent, seeing the men. "Ah!" one said, forgetting about Edgar. "N'gamia!JJ They prodded the nmelwith the butts of their M-16's and herded him out of the woods and away

fromthe ocean. EdgarandCash waited until dusk, crept through the bushes, and walked to ihe killing field, There was a mound of cigarettes about the size of a sand dune, burning, the smokewoodsy and acrid. There was a river next to the field, down in abitof a ravine,surrounded by foggy acacia trees. Cash scooted down the bank to theriver,keepinghis body down, groaning softly as he scraped his belly on the rocks. Edgarcooedquietly, alarmed. Off in the distance, on the plains, two rhinos werestandinghalf-asleep. On the other side of the field lay the smoky, dirty city,

andtotheirrightlay the Indian Ocean, green and still. Cashsliddown into the river to keep his body hidden. The water was cool. Thetwolay quiet for a long while, watching painfully as the men led out camel aftncamel,slittingtheir throats with machetes and throwing their bodies onto the cigarette bonfire. Severalhours passed and Cash still couldn't see Royce, and didn't know what 10 doif he did see him. Something bumped his leg. He stiffened for a second, im ' , k d b.i . t the brown agtmnga crocodile,but the thing was soft. He po e is nose m 0 water, tryingto get a hold on the thing with his teeth, and as he did he felt anoth~r oInd anothersoft wet thing bump into his body underwater. He finally got. a gnp onthenrstoneand pulled it to the surface. It was Royco's ear he'd been pulltng o~, 'II ff the left his halt and Cash recognizedhis brother immediately, his eye str 0 to ' . d 10 h iah h h d d I and were tnstea t e ng t. T e soldiers had tired of burning t e ea came s thrOWing theminto the river. 11 When the so Iditers Edgarbegan to sob little sobs that were not punk at a . h d u'f ' h b k Edgar watc e , -m or the night, Cash pulled his twin's body up onto t e an. . k Ra' , li d the twtnS lay awa e pplng his green wings in alarm. He had istene to. bout d Ik icb. b ut their parents, a an te ,every night, into the late hours of the rug r: a 0 w more Ind' . b ' ite Frui C h Ed ar reflected, was rio IanmUSIC, a out their Favorite ru its , as, hi g\'f h ld be the And Cas wou of anorphanthan he was. And Cash had saved is I e. Dexl to die. l screeching H into the sums, He peckedCash on the neck and fie.d . e. ran..n b is nec k 5h aking. He ran a nd squawkingand flapping his wings, . t h e plerclng t .' d pper. He ran . I rnon JUlce an pe . pUt t he oldwomen selling roasted white .corn 10d e etttng . hei h ir- braided tntO t err at d past t he tourists who sat reading magaztnes an g Chand trie not d . think about as. teadlocks.He ran and coughed and rried not to 61

Pt__

to notice the flecks of Roycos blood that dotted his ankles. He thought abouthis mother, so far away, and he thought about the twins' mother. Finally he ran into a pile of trash, floundering, his feet slimy and stuck in the wet newspapersandthe rotting pineapple, and he fell into the pile and lay very still, unmoving. Heknew what he had to do. And he was so afraid to do it. Another rooster walked into the alley. An old one. He was smiling and balding, most of his feathers gone, and he was pecking at the ground at pieces of popcorn. He noticed Edgar. "Damn, bird!" he said. "You green!" Edgar said nothing. The older bird eyed him. "Whe-e's your family?" Edgar pointed East with one wing, towards the plains of the elephantgrass, and West with the other, across the ocean. The older bird inspected him closely"You high?" he said, blinking twice. "No," Edgar said. "Why the hell you here?"

Edgar lifted his body out of the muck without answering and shookhimself from top to bottom, fluffing his feathers to shake the grime off. "Do youknow where the leader of the Anti-Camel Movement is?" he said. "Si mbali," the old bird said. "Not far." He jerked his chin upwardsroindicat e that Edgar should keep walking towards the end of town. In Ken ya, " not Far" ar was t h e answer to any question of distance. He thanked

the ol.d rooster and walked, slowly this time, slowly, slowly, slowly, with tears and bits of trash creeping down the feathers on his cheeks. After three hours,he came to a tall gray building with a sign that read ANTI-CAMEL MOVEMENT HEADQUARTERS in thick black letters above the door. Dusk was falling. He hopped onto a barrel behind the house and looked h trough th b . h ears 10 t e window. There, in the kitchen he could see the shelvesHI h t e pantry heavy - h fl d â&#x20AC;˘ kh . . .' Wit our an spices and beer, and he could see the coo urn mlng In a watery t . h h b b d one WIt er ack to him. He crept in through the ars an fl e d for the pa t h h -I f n ry, were e rummaged with his beak through the shelves unn h e ouri d rat poi T ' d m h f h b' rsori. eanng the plastic bag open with his beak, he swaltoweas uc ate uter powd e r as h e co u Id, leapt over the startled cook's shouId er, and di d h re on t e COUnter. "Lord!" said h " ' . in his k S . t e cook. A green chicken!" She picked at the metalplercl~g neck. taring at hi f I k dhls feathers Sh k rn or a moment, she began to hum again, and p uc e f . e coo ed him up fi hi k . dbitsO tomato ad' rn a ne c IC en curry with coconut nee an n pmeapple and Th I him voscspecrt I egg. e eader of the .Ant i-Camel Movement ate mg y and died "M . eat of green chick ' h " d the headlines of th M b e.n pOisons ead of Anti-Camel Movement, rea d e am asa TImes th d Th _ ed ofdee camels this tim II I' e next ay. e caricatures reappear , e, a c ad In the ' 'f I . arettes Pc k ing out fro h' man s uru arm with packets of Came erg m t err pockets. J

Cashreadthe headline, with great surprise, over a drowsing tourist's shoulder,Hesat downon his haunches like a large, stiff haired dog and thought about it all afternoon.He sat for long hours in the dusk, feeling the ocean wash his chunky feet.Kenyanspatted him as they walked past, and fed him, and talked to him. He wasoneof the only surviving camels on all of the Swahili Coast.

Feelinga hand on his neck, he gathered the slobber in his mouth, preparing to spit.Buthe choked back his slobber when he swung his long head around. It was a girl withbigbrown eyes and deep dimples. It was Jade. Shepattedhis nose and touched his ear. "Charlie Brown?" she said. "You're Supposed to be dead!" He foldedhis front legs and put his chest on the ground. She clambered up ontohis neckand sat balanced on his hump, like a tiny monk on a hilltop, her arms wrappedaround her knees. The two of them sat quietly and watched the African sundropdown into the horizon over the red and frothy waves.

GLOUCESTER CLIFFS OF

THE

DOVER MICHELLE

HICKS

Once, in a dream, I clawed out my heart & felt reliefgone was its incessant weight. Now, as in the dream, I am alone & I am in everything. My hearing has sharpened to my heart's cavernous beat. As I sat beneath the tree, my blind fingers wormed over sticks, daggers that I pressed pointe between my ribs, trying only to release the sounding.

I did not know the weight of my eyes; it was slight, but now my head feels lighter, as if a manipulator lifts it away from the rest of me. Sometimes, he must release his white string because my chin sinks to my chest. I am not used to balancing the new weight. I rest my heavy chin & make out the new smells of my skin & my skin crusted in mud & the dried blood that has made me a second skin. I know this by its sensitivity: I can feel all six render-points of the insects that crawl in a chaos over me. I can smell the warm infancy of larvae through the earth. The cliffs led me by their name. Now that I am open to them, I can feel the salt & hear the plunging spray. Before, across the unkind moor, the gloaming plain, I had only the pull of dover guiding me. The stones of the cliffs send their taste to my palate, wafted by the air that I breathe through my teeth & press with my tongue. The stones have not drunk up the sea that pounds them, or eaten up the earth that spawns them. The sea swims with bright eyes. Against the sea's pull the earth is not steady; it trembles, rock succumbing to a darker space that whittles the stars down to coins.

A slimeof salt forms around my mouth & it is enough to sustainme. Fire is forever ruined. The ever-cooler currents of airwarm me by reminding me of the one that came before. My world empties of the whisper of dover. The cliffs' sound is that of a shell rolling on the sea's floor. When they drain away,my sound is that of a shell. I am pummeled by the waves & growslippery with green. My outwardness is worn, siltingdown with dover & the once~cliffs to toss on the floor of the sea, to wash out & be plucked at by birds on the beach of Normandy, indiscriminate from the stones, the dead fish, the bulbsof seaweed. Time has molded into the hollows that housedmy eyes. I see with it, all across the darkening strait.

REVELATION EMILY

HYLTON

After he played a reading of the Qur'an for me I told him I loved the quiet between each ayah, when the qari's voice reverberated and faded off. The quiet, like an open space in your heart, for God to move in, I said, speaking slowly, leaving between each phrase a silence in which I could hear my breathing and his slow breaths.

P I X ELS KATIE

MARTIN (AT

RIGHT)

Hannah Bonner is a senior Asheville, North Carolina.

English major and Creative Writing minor from

Hannah Easley is a senior Studio Art major and Creative Writing minorfrom Charlotte, North Carolina. Arthur Fischel is a senior

English major from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Caroline Fisher is a senior Charlotte, North Carolina.

English major and Creative Writing minor from

Garrett

sophomore

Herzfeld

from

Charlotte,

North

Carolina.

Michelle Hicks is a senior English major, with minors in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing, from Lafayette, Louisiana. David Hutcheson is a junior English major and Creative Writing minor from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Emily Hylton is a senior Arabic and Political Science double-major, with a minor in Creative Writing, from Asheville, North Carolina. ~atherine Indermaur is a junior English major, with minors in Creative Writtng and Music, from Raleigh, North Carolina. ~atthew

Jernigan

is a sophomore

ington, North Carolina.

Environmental

Health major from Wilm-

KathleenJones is a freshman Matt Jones is a senior

History

major from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Studio Art major from

Louisburg, North Carolina.

LarissaKaul is a junior. Communications and Studio Art double-major, with a minor in Social and Economic Justice, from Wilmington, North Carolina. Jodie Kim is a senior English and Studio Art double-major, with a minor in CreativeWriting, from Charlotte, North Carolina. Katie Martin is a junior Studio Art major and Creative

Writing minor from

Raleigh,North Carolina. Mary Catherine Penn is a senior Photojournalism minor from Wilmington,

major and Creative Writing

North Carolina.

LianaRoux is a sophomore English and Anthropology

double-major from Fay-

etteville,North Carolina. Ariel Rudolph is a senior Studio Art major, with minors in Creative Writing and Graphic Design, from Asheville, North Carolina. AngelaTchou is a senior Journalism major and Chinese minor from Johnson City, Tennessee. Julie Teasdale is a senior English major, with minors in Creative Writing

and

Hebrew,from Loiyangalani, Kenya.

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