Crack the Spine
Literary magazine
Issue 113
Issue 113 May 14, 2014 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2014 by Crack the Spine
Cover Art “Hardwood Traffic” by Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier Writer and photographer Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier is a French Canadian Métis who's works have been published in national and regional papers, literary and vocational journals as well as heritage museums. She's written and photographed everything from news, fashion, music, lifestyles and business to sporting events. Never without her camera, she likes to find the unusual within the mundane and ordinary. To see more of Karen's work, visit Synaesthesia Magazine, Dactyl, Vagabonds Anthology, Fine Flu Literary Journal and Zen Dixie Magazine to name but a few of the places her work is featured. You can follow her on Twitter.
CONTENTS
Sandra L. Campbell Running on Fumes in 1999
Mark Belair Perky
Kaitlin Bartlett Like Glass
Russell Buker Frieze
Mike Mulvey Mother Mary is Watching
Steven Fortune Dodge & Redefine Lifetime
Gilmore Tamny Burnt Coat & Unburned Crepes
Aaron Caycedo-Kimura Taxi de Toledo
Sandra L. Campbell Running on Fumes in 1999
She’s
a young black woman, but you wouldn’t guess it by looking at her face. Once what was clear, beautiful, caramel skin is now marked with acne scars and deep black swollen rings under eyes which once sparkled with hope and curiosity. Dark brown eyes that have seen too much in just a twenty-eight year life span. She wraps herself tighter in her old 1970’s fake fur coat. You remember the kind. Standing only 5''2 she reaches over the dank, musty cupboard to grab a spare pipe. Luckily, she
has an extra match. She lights up, takes a toke and forgets what it feels like to poor, black, and homeless. In her chemical-induced haze, she allows herself to lazily drift back, like many times before, to a childhood in Dewitt County. Hockheim, a small Texas hamlet, is where she spent her best days as a child. Every morning, she’d wake up, jump out of bed, and race her brother to feed the horses and chickens. Her favorite, Jesse James, would always gallop in her direction, bending
and shaking his head up and down toward every kind word she spoke. Then, to top off her morning, momma would give her one of those big bear hugs and piggyback her to the wood table for a hot breakfast – country and Texas style. Seems too good to be true? It wasn’t; life for a young girl was not always peachy cream. Parents fight and children watch. But she could always count on the long grassy plain ahead of her. Nothing but acres of green. A haven that was full of possibilities. Sometimes
a patch of land is the only friend an introverted girl can have. Watching her father work the small farm was a real treat for her. Mr. Mc Nary was 6’0 tall and glided when he walked across the country lawn. It made her feel safe. Normal. The same normal feeling she gets now from the carefully measured tokes from her crack pipe. Good feelings don’t last long, she muses. Snapping back into her grim reality she sees her regular partner. “Did you save me some?” he says in a low raspy voice. “Hell, no,” she retorts. “Gotta go for mine. Get some from Tina. She’s always high.
Knows how to get the good stuff.” The partner shakes his head. “But, I'd rather have the shakes than ask that bitch for anything. You ask. You owe.” The partner lost his job and family two years ago. Steady employment? Not likely. Orphaned long ago and thrown from one foster house to the next, he never learned to maintain stability. Raising children? A joke at best. Especially for a man that was never shown love. Depression and self-loathing fueled his addictions. Ignorance and prejudice sealed his previous incarcerations. Dire habits and excuses built on bad memories
are bound to this man now. “Besides, I jumped Snazz on the street for a couple of hits. Son-of-abitch cut me. Surprised the hell out of me. Guess times are hard. He didn’t feel like being charitable. But, I got my smoke,” the partner affirms triumphantly as if accomplishing a moral victory. “I hear you and I’m glad. I mean, glad you got tweeked, not cut,” she replies and smiles. She thinks back to a moment in time when she needed a hit bad. She remembers trembling in a pseudocold environment that her body had been forced to create. No detox. Too soon for that.
Just plain, straight up feigning. The racing thoughts and a goddamn ache that only a white, hard beauty could satisfy. The cold northern wind blows through her like a hot knife. She was broke. Again. She didn’t lack education. She graduated with honors from a local university. But she did make mistakes, like getting involved with a sometimes sober, strung-out musician. Family and long-time friends questioned her sanity and judgment. How could a smart, young woman with a promising writing career acquiesce to such an
addiction? It was easy. She got hooked immediately, then lost her job. With no money, she had not the means of reaching her high. The high. That wonderful, crazy, dream-destroying moment of clarity where everything appears crystal. Everything has brought her to this moment. Standing under a dim street light, she sees him. He's in a Jag. She is wearing that raggedy, fake fur coat. God knows, her hygiene isn't the best. Probably hasn't seen water in weeks. But it really doesn’t matter to him. He has immediate access to life’s necessities and grows hundred dollar
bills like trees. She is desperate in her craving and loneliness. With a few dirty remarks and a quick exchange of cash, the deed is done in a nearby alleyway. She hides in the darkness and watches her john drive away. How did she get here? This terrible place. She imagines Alice falling down the rabbit hole. How far will she tumble? She tries hard to erase pictures of happier times from her mind. That rush of bringing a story to print that could change a community. Endless days of dipping her feet in a nearby lake when she wanted to sip coffee and be alone. No. Self-reflection is too
painful. So, she buys a pint of whiskey to dim the senses. She detests her prolonged stay in this town. A wretched existence. Secretly, she longs for a one-way ticket out. She takes a few staggered steps, and then, a black-out. He knows he isn’t imagining things. As he nears the bottom of the staircase, his steps quicken. There she was. Lying at the foot of the stairway, of what appeared to be a ritzy apartment building. “Hey, are you okay, down there?” Groggy, and still partially high from last night’s trip-fest, she slowly sits up and hugs her chest to her knees.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I guess I just dozed off. Thanks for asking.” His gaze goes beyond her disheveled mask. All he can see is a beautiful, young, frightened woman who has given up on life. He's moved. “You’re welcome. With all due respect, you might be more comfortable doing that in a bed," he said jokingly. He recognizes her predicament. If he comes off too selfrighteous, he’ll scare her away. She looks at him and cocks an eyebrow. Just her luck; she falls asleep in the middle of nowhere after being high all night and the first idiot she runs into thinks he’s a comedienne. In the
back of her mind, she begins to ponder how the hell she got there. No memory of this event. “So what happened? Did you just lose track of time?” She gave him another quick glance. Her mouth was dry and she felt like crap. Not necessary and too embarrassing to admit that she just passed out cold. “No, I didn’t. I just fell asleep. Could, you help me up, please?” she says in a soft, strained voice. He grabs her hand and helps her to her feet. Her skin is cold. She is trembling. Her disorientation is wearing off too, so she will be ready to leave soon. Even though she is just a
stranger to him, her obvious turmoil is familiar. He couldn’t just let her leave. “Can I take you somewhere? Do, you need anything?” She glances at him momentarily. Damn. He seems decent. “Thanks for your concern, but no. I better leave.” She slowly straightens her posture, and dusts herself off with a long forgotten air of dignity. She carries her gait as steady as she can out the door. She turns the street corner and tries hard not to gag at the humiliation of being a junkie. Trembling hands grapple the cool, rough exterior of the alleyway wall. She chokes back
tears that finally make their way down her dirtstained face. As he watches her turn the corner, he hesitates to call her back. He realizes that he didn’t even get her name. “Wake up sweetie. Time to take your medicine." The woman gently rouses her awake. Through half-closed eyes, she fixes her gaze on the woman bent over her. In a panic, she searches her surroundings, shocked to find herself lying in bed in a room situated with curtains and windows. Hospital. “What the hell? Oh, damn. The room is spinning.” The woman smiles broadly. “It’s
spinning because you got up so quickly. You’re still drowsy from the sedatives. Lie down and relax. We’ve got some things to discuss." Irritated and confused, she winces and does as the woman suggests. She swallows and realizes that her mouth is dry and swollen. “How in the hell did I get here? All I remember is passing out at the foot of some stairs…I think inside some fancy ass apartment complex. Damn, my back,” she replies in a raspy voice. The woman grabs a chart and sits down in a seat beside her. “Ashley, you’re lucky to be alive. You really took a bad
knock when you were trampled by that car. Instead of a bed, you should be lying in a casket. Count your blessings.” Bewildered, Ashley takes a minute to digest the startling news. “I don’t even remember what you’re describing. The last thing I remember is having this conversation with this guy at that apartment. I remember he didn’t try to fuck me. I remember that we just talked. God, I feel really dizzy. Feel like hell.” The woman looks at her with motherly love. “That’s to be expected. We had to pump you full of charcoal. You overdosed Ms. Sanger.” Overdose.
That word echoes in her ear, blocking out all doubt. She had done it. Hit rock bottom. The woman continues. “You came without any identification. After a little bit of leg work, we were able to contact your family. They discussed your situation. We got their permission for a temporary, involuntary hold. But tomorrow you’re free to go.” The woman sighs heavily. “If you think what I’m about to say is bullshit, then you can leave tomorrow as planned with a couple of coupons for some hot hospital food. I know you. I’ve seen you here more times than I care to
count. You are addicted to anything that will get you high. Even selling your ass isn’t too high a price.” Ashley’s eyes roll upward toward the ceiling. She opens her mouth to speak, but the woman's tirade stops her cold. “I was never a fan of Nancy Reagan and her just say no shit. I believe in hard questions and solutions. You almost didn’t make it to even wake up and remember who you talked to last night. You are lying in an intensive drug rehab center. Stay here a month. Get clean. Try to figure out what drives your addiction. You have nothing to lose, except maybe your life."
The woman gets up and glides for the door. By the way, I’m Shirley. I’m one of your two counselors.” The room becomes pregnant with a heavy silence. The only voice Ashley can hear is the one in her head screaming failure. The tears come like an avalanche. Notions of sobriety play with her eyelids, until they become heavy so that she doesn’t fight their closure. Ashley awakes to the heavy pounding of rain against her hospital window. The moonlight beam serves as a welcome spotlight for Ashley as she touches the window pane.
Unafraid of the lightening, she fingers the coolness of the glass. She can smell the rain and feels oddly cleansed. Humane. Shirley had given her too much to think about. In a crackinduced haze she would have wanted to cut Shirley for her blunt, abrupt speech. Now, somewhat sober, she winces at the thought of how her body will react from the imminent down. Inwardly, she knows Shirley is right. Ashley sits in the semicircle of patients feeling raw and on edge. She gapes at the man in front of her. She could have bit her tongue off. “Good morning. Most of you
know me well. For those who don’t, let me introduce myself. I’m Mark Gradney. Your fearless leader and facilitator for this group. I’m real informal. You do all the hard work of figuring out how you got to this point, which I affectionately refer to as an “addict’s life.” Ashley recognizes him. It is the same voice that tried to comfort her in that apartment hallway. What a twist of fate. She feels embarrassed. “I was halfway through graduate school and I just couldn’t cut it. Too much pressure. Hell, I saw my dealer more than my professors,” replies Mark. “I know what
some of you are thinking. A counselor that was an addict? Let me explain it this way. I’m more than my cravings. Being an addict doesn’t define me and shouldn’t define you. Recognizing that this weakness is something you’ll have for the rest of your life is the starting point. Everything in your life after that is a definite upgrade.” Ashley laughs in spite of herself. Mark locks eyes with Ashley. He found her after the car hit her. He remembers that she looked like a tousled Raggedy-Ann doll lying in the street. He brought her here. She won’t forget his kindness. And she could relate to
Mark’s confession. Addiction took her places she never dreamed of going. Ashley begins to gradually let her guard down. She guesses addiction doesn’t take holidays. Even for therapists. Obsession. An equal opportunity offender. As the laughter dies, a young black-haired girl interrupts the lightened mood of the group. With her words she brings a familiar sadness. “I wasn’t in grad school and I wasn’t smart or nothing. I didn’t have shit after high school. My parents saw to that. Barely had a mommashe spent most of her days hopped up on pain
killers. They didn’t prescribe them like they do now. So, my mom would steal prescriptions and have me walk them to the drugstore. That pharmacist used to look at me so strangely. I know he knew something was up. But he never said anything. Just filled the order.” Tears rolled down the girl’s face. “When she overdosed, I didn’t know what the hell to do. I kept screaming her name…. begging her to wake up. When the ambulance came they found me lying in the corner. It was like I was frozen. In a state of shock…I couldn’t get the
words out to answer their questions. I started getting high after that. I did smack, crank, cocaine….alcohol. Anything to get buzzed. After I turned 19….I split. I haven’t seen my mom since. Stayed on the street mostly. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. I don’t know if I even care.” Mark studies the girl carefully. “You care. You just don’t want to go back to that life-style. I can’t blame you. Two addicts in a house is a disaster waiting to materialize. It’s the equivalent of having a volcano erupt. Don’t you agree?” Mark glances at Ashley and gives her a
knowing smile. He's glad to see her. Alive and sober. The group ends with a brief prayer and the patients quietly file out, talking amongst themselves. Ashley wanders out onto the beautiful, manicured grounds overlooking a small lake. She never thought a rehab could look so calm and serene. She figured any place where a junkie had to dry out would be a chaotic mess. She mused that the most pitiable sight, other than seeing someone high had to be watching the same sonof-a-bitch come down. She remembers her cousin’s funeral and how in love she was with him.
She recalls the look on the mourners faces. Odd, mixed expressions of disgust, pain and sorrow. The look that every addict knows. It made her sick to her stomach. On his death bed, he warned her about the consequences of street life. He told her, “Sister girl, it don’t much matter if the street is Madison Avenue or a ward in the ghetto. The destination is the same. Nowhere.” But here? Rehab? Shit. She thought. One world overloaded with twelve steps and moronic, selfhelp messages delivered in ninety-second soundbytes; the other, a world where dignity exists in the slow burn of a pipe
or the tip of a dirty needle. The very thought of living in this new existence was enough to make her want to get high. Fear. She laughs, breathes in deeply, and decides to face it and maybe recover.
look and slowly shakes her head. “What?” She asks in clear curiosity. “Well, I’m not half as funny as I thought I was. When I was high, I was the life of the party. I was always telling jokes, getting laughs. Hell, the next Lenny Bruce. But, “Meditating on the when I finally got sober, I meaning of life?” She discovered that it wasn’t turns around. It's Mark. natural talent. It was just “Are you okay? He asked. the coke. I’m not that She breathes in slightly funny anymore. But I’m and replies, “Ask me that clear about me. Happier.” rubs her question in another Ashley month. I haven’t been shoulders for warmth. “I sober for a long time," guess it’s a trade off. If I she says quietly. “I don’t stick with this, I’ll know who I’ll be.” Mark probably lose my jaded smiles. “You know what attitude,” she replies. the worst thing about Mark reaches for her “Now, that getting clean was for me? hand. Ashley gives him a weird wouldn’t be so bad.” She
takes his hand and begins to wonder what going home might be like. Dewitt County. Nothing but acres of land and nothing but possibilities. “No, it wouldn’t be so bad. Not bad at all.”
Mark Belair Perky one night / our parents went ballroom dancing / so my sister and i / to amuse ourselves / thought we’d free perky / our old blue parakeet we closed all the windows / so perky couldn’t actually escape / then opened his cage to let him / for the first time we could recall / fly about a bit perky stepped right up to the lip of his door / leaped out then / to our open horror / and stifled hilarity / failed adequately to fly perky smacked on a table / shot into a wall / soared up to a ceiling corner then / chirping crazily / crashed to the floor we finally finagled poor perky / back into his cage / with the help of our father’s old crusty fishing net and when our parents returned from their rare night out / flushed / tipsy / talkative / bumbling into tables / we stared at them / unsure whether to laugh or cry
Kaitlin Bartlett Like Glass
I
didn’t even knock him down. I wanted to—I wanted him to fall hard against the tile floor of the school hallway. To bruise. But he caught his balance just in time, and I drew my fist back, quick as a bungee cord. Pain bursts from my knuckles, but I don’t care yet. I stare at this boy with the floppy dark hair whose name I don’t know and I want him to fall. Behind me, my brother is silent.
building. I sit in the waiting room and read books I borrowed from my teacher while Gideon’s speech therapist tries to get him to say the word “where” without stumbling over the letter W three times. I’m not allowed to know what happens in Gideon’s meetings. Even Mom doesn’t go into the room with him anymore. She sits with me and flips through beauty magazines.
I
The
barely remember Gideon without his stutter. The parenting book on Mom’s bedside table says it’s normal for kids to repeat the same syllables over and over when they’re learning to talk, but that’s supposed to stop once they’re four or five. Gideon is eight and still stuttering. On Wednesdays after school, Mom picks us up and drives us to a big office
clomp-clomp of teacher heels echoes down the second grade hall, and I know someone tattled. No one ever runs to a grownup when the floppy-haired kid calls my brother “Broken Record” or tells him that someone programmed his brain wrong. But they sic a teacher on me. “Lilia!” It’s Miss Talbot. My teacher. “What’s happened here?”
My first thought is, I wonder who she left in charge of the class while she’s gone. Anytime she needs to leave the room for a minute, she always selects a student she trusts to report any mischievous behavior. Usually, that student is me. All the kids around me squawk explanations even though she’s talking to me. I bite my lip. It’s pretty clear what happened. Meanwhile, my brother’s teacher emerges from the bathroom, and seeing her shock almost makes me giggle. I bet a fight has never broken out during a class bathroom break before. The floppy-haired boy wails his version of the story, not so tough anymore. He’s half a head taller than the rest of his class, and I wonder if his parents enrolled him in school a year late. His black sweatshirt is baggy and his face is round, helping him take up even more space in the hallway. Miss Talbot looks from him
to me. Still, I don’t talk. “Come with me, both of you,” she says. She adds something in a low voice to Gideon’s teacher, but I can’t hear it over the cawing of second grade chatter. I almost reach behind me to grab Gideon’s hand and tug him along but stop myself. Which is worse: dragging him to the principal’s office with a bully or leaving him behind with other kids who might follow the bully’s example? I glance over my shoulder at him as Miss Talbot leads me away. He looks so small.
The
floppy-haired boy’s name is Ricky. Miss Talbot drops him off at the nurse’s office to get an ice pack for his cheek, which is flushed pink with a hint of purple flowing up to the surface. Good. I better at least leave a bruise. Miss Talbot doesn’t say a word to me, just guides me down the main hall
with one hand firmly on my shoulder blade. She probably figured out I lied to her when I raised my hand and asked to use the bathroom after seeing my brother’s class walk by our open door. I want to explain. I’m still the same girl she lent her personal copy of Tuck Everlasting to, the same girl she calls on when no one else knows the answer because she’s sure I do, the same girl who stays inside during recess to help her cut out construction paper letters for next month’s bulletin board. But I don’t say anything. She steers me into the front office and plops me down into one of the waiting area chairs. “She’s here to see Principal Reynolds,” she tells the receptionist, who nods. Miss Talbot’s eyes sink back into her face, heavy with disappointment. She pushes open the office door and leaves. Back to her English lesson on Holes. I’d been looking forward to hearing her
read the story aloud. “What’s your name, honey?” the receptionist asks. She probably isn’t supposed to be that nice to me since I’m in trouble, but she looks about my grandma’s age and maybe old ladies can’t help but be nice. I speak for the first time since I punched that Ricky kid. “Lilia Thompson.” “Grade?” “Fifth.” “Miss Talbot is your teacher, then?” I nod. Miss Talbot is the only teacher I’ve ever had who pulls thick books off the school library shelves when we visit as a class and says, “You can handle it,” when I gasp at the page count. And she’s the only teacher who will listen to my chatter when I bolt to our classroom early the morning after finishing that book and exclaim, “You were right, this book is awesome!” And she ignores the hissing, “Teacher’s pet!” from the other kids in
class and tells me how well I’ll do in middle school next year. I wonder what the middle school thinks of girls who punch other kids in the hallway. I might’ve just thrown away everything Miss Talbot and I have worked hard for without thinking twice. “Well,” the receptionist says as she doodles my information onto a form, “the fact that I don’t know your name means you’re not a regular in the principal’s office. I wouldn’t worry too much.” She winks at me, but then again, she doesn’t know what I did.
Itty
bitty Giddy. That’s what they were calling him when I walked down the hall, wooden bathroom pass clutched in my fist. I should’ve whacked that Ricky kid across the face with it. I’m not sure what made me angrier: that they were mocking him or that they’d found new things to tease him about. It’s not just his
stutter anymore. What’ll be next? His bright red hair? His freckles? His big sister with the maniac fist? In the split second before my knuckles connected with Ricky’s face, I wondered, what if this makes everything worse? But by then it was too late to freeze my punch.
I’ve
only seen Principal Reynolds at school assemblies, introducing performers and speakers. From far away he looks young, like Dad does in my baby pictures, tall and a little intimidating in his suit. Up close he looks sleepy. Maybe we kids wear him out. “Do you need an ice pack?” he asks after I sit in the cushiony chair on the other side of his desk. I’m cradling my fist in my other hand. My knuckles are turning purple and ache when I bend my fingers. That stupid Ricky kid must have sharp cheekbones. At least I know enough
not to tuck my thumb inside my fist before I punch, thanks to Mom. I don’t want to say yes—it’s too much like accepting defeat—but my eyes start to tear up. Principal Reynolds rises and tells me to sit tight, striding out his office door. While he's gone, I wipe my nose on my sweatshirt sleeve. My hands shake a little, too, like they sometimes do in that last half hour before lunchtime. I wonder if Principal Reynolds will keep me here through lunch. Maybe he’d let me get my lunchbox from my backpack in Miss Talbot’s classroom and eat here. Just so I won’t be shaky anymore. The door opens again and Principal Reynolds presses a paper towelwrapped Ziploc bag of ice to my hand. “Here you go.” I half-smile and feel a tear slip into my mouth. After a minute, he asks, “Feel
better?” I nod. “Think we can talk about what got you sent here?” I stare down at the ice. “Miss Talbot tells me you hit a boy from another class. Can you tell me why?” When did he talk to Miss Talbot? She dropped me off and left the office right away. I wondered if teachers had secret telepathy. “Because,” I say. I wait for him to prompt, “Because why?” but he doesn’t. I realize he’s not going to argue with me. He might actually listen. “He was teasing my brother. And not in a fun way.” “How did you know Ricky was teasing your brother?” “I—” I pause, arranging my story carefully. “I was walking to the bathroom and saw them. Their whole class was on a bathroom break.”
“And what was Ricky saying to your brother?” “He was making fun of how small he is. But it’s not fair,” I add. “Gideon was a preemie, so of course he’s smaller and skinnier.” I learned all about premature babies when Dad first took me to visit baby Gideon in the hospital after he was born. He had to live there for eight weeks before he was strong enough to come home. I stood on a stepstool a nurse brought out for me and stared at him through a wide window. Dad said the clear box Gideon was in was called an incubator, just like they used to keep baby chickens warm at the petting zoo. Gideon had the same fluffy orange-yellow hair as the chicks until a nurse shaved it off, and his hands reminded me of their feet, bony and kind of creepy. All the nurses knew I was visiting, and they kept saying, “Congratulations, big sister!” But it
didn’t feel right. I hadn't even met him yet. He didn’t know I existed. He was just a baby I saw behind some glass. I barely saw Mom during those two months because she stayed with Gideon for as long as the nurses allowed her. Dad was the one I bombarded with questions. Why is Gideon so tiny? Why did they shave his hair off? What were those tubes up his nose? Is he ever going to live at our house? Dad tried his best to answer, but mostly I think he wanted to avoid scaring me. “The doctors are helping Gideon get stronger,” he’d say. Or, “He’ll be a healthy little boy soon, just you wait and see!” So I saved up all my scariest questions for Mom. After NICU visiting hours ended, she’d flop down on the couch and I’d squirm up to her, bury my face in her neck and whisper, “Did they hurt him at the hospital
today?” And she would always tell me the truth. The day Gideon came home, I finally got to hold him. Dad sat me in the corner of the couch and propped my elbow against the armrest. Then Mom slid a sleeping Gideon carefully into my posed arms and I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. I was scared that the slightest nudge would shatter him into tiny pieces. His baby chicken looks had mostly disappeared, leaving behind a baby the size of my Cabbage Patch doll, the one I’d practiced rocking and burping in the weeks before. I must’ve looked terrified, because Mom smiled and brushed my bangs out of my eyes. “It’s okay, sweetie. Why don’t you give Gideon a kiss on the head?” I peered down at his little bald head and pressed my lips as gently as I could to a spot above his eyes. And he
didn’t cry. Didn’t scream out in pain. His eyes opened and stared right into mine. So blue they seemed clear. Like glass.
My nose is running and I try to snuff it away. Principal Reynolds plucks a tissue from the box for me, and I hold it up to my nose. “You understand,” he says, “that punching or hitting or any kind of fighting isn’t the right way to solve your problems. Right?” I nod from behind my tissue. “Being in fifth grade is a big responsibility. All the younger kids in the school look up to you. You’ve got to make sure you set a good example. Make them want to be like you.” “I already have Gideon,” I mumble. “I don’t want any more younger siblings.” He nods like he understands—I wonder if he has a younger brother, too—and continues, “Can you think of
a better way you could’ve handled the situation today?” I mumble something about getting a teacher, but I don’t believe it. When Gideon told his teacher that floppyhaired Ricky had been calling him names, all she did was move him to a different desk on the other side of the classroom. She didn’t make Ricky stay in his seat during recess or send him to Principal Reynolds or even make him apologize. Right now Ricky is probably gnawing on a lollipop in the nurse’s office. A few months before Gideon was born, Mom and Dad took me to Uncle Kenny’s for Thanksgiving. My cousin Dennis, who was a year older than me, got angry that I was playing with his toys and started pinching me to try and get them back. I had three or four red marks on my arms before Mom caught him. After yelling at him, she took my hand and led me into the kitchen. She sat me on the counter,
looked straight in my eyes and said, “If he pinches you again or hurts you any way at all, you kick him. Okay? You defend yourself.” Twenty minutes later, Dennis pinched my neck. I let out a screech, leaned back on my elbows and kicked with both my feet like I was pedaling my tricycle in a race. I connected with his shins over and over—and his stomach once or twice—and didn’t stop until Dad leapt out of his chair and snatched me off the floor. “Why did you tell her to do that?” he demanded of Mom later. He’d warned me on the drive over to be on my best behavior. He and Uncle Kenny used to fight as kids—and as adults sometimes, too—so we all had to be careful and get along today. It was Thanksgiving, he said, we needed to be grateful. Or at least appear that way. “Because my daughter will not be bullied by a spoiled child,” Mom
replied. “Especially not in front of my eyes.” I scowl at Principal Reynolds. “Nobody else helps him,” I say. “None of the teachers pay attention. But I do.” When the kids cackle at Gideon, when their voices squeak and twitch over the same syllable again and again in mocking, I feel it. Probably as much as Gideon does. And I bet Mom does too, fifteen minutes away at home. Even Dad, stuck in a boring work meeting, must know. It’s like those kids plucked out our guts and are pricking them with darts. Last time I had a checkup, my doctor gave me a shot and jabbed the needle into my arm so hard, I felt like a balloon she wanted to pop. I screamed so loud I scared the nurse scribbling on my file. That doctor needed to know I was hurting, and now the entire school knows, too. “What happens next year when I go
to middle school?” I ask, knowing he probably won’t—or can’t—answer. What could I do, stuck in a different building four or five miles away, if Ricky or a new bully started teasing Gideon, or worse? Who would be there to stick up for him? Principal Reynolds is silent for a moment. Then he picks up the phone on his desk and hits a few keys. “Miss Talbot? Lilia is going to stay here with me for the rest of the day. Could someone bring her lunch to my office, please?”
Once I finish eating, he makes me talk to the guidance counselor. I forget her name the moment she tells me. Her hair is blond and short and her smile is too understanding to be real. She asks me to draw a picture of my family and I tell her I’m not a good artist. “That’s okay,” she says. “You aren’t being graded. Just draw them the best
you can.” We wind up as ugly stick people with legs where our necks should be and arms sticking out from our hips. The only part I get right is our hair color. Macaroni and cheese orange for me and Gideon, and a mix of orange and brown for Mom and Dad. Then, because I sort of get into the coloring thing, I draw our house behind us and some vertical green lines under our feet to show we’re standing in the front yard. “That’s lovely,” the guidance counselor says from over my shoulder. “Is that your younger brother standing next to you?” “Yes.” “Can you tell me about him? What’s he like?” I twist the macaroni and cheese orange crayon around and around in my fist like I’m trying to sharpen it. “He’s in second grade. His favorite color is red. He likes watching The
Rugrats on TV. Fish sticks are his favorite food.” “What kind of person is he?” she presses. “Is he loud? Quiet? Funny? Serious?” “Um, quiet, I guess.” I frown, thinking. “But only at school. He’s loud at home, especially when he plays with my dad.” “Do the two of you ever fight?” “Sure, sometimes.” “Who wins those fights most of the time?” I shrug. “I win some, he wins some. Fifty-fifty.” The guidance counselor finds this interesting for some reason. She raises her eyebrows and smiles. “He can hold his own in an argument with you, then?” When I don’t understand what she’s asking, she rephrases, “He sticks up for himself and what he wants? He doesn’t let you get your way all the time?” “Yes to the first, no to the second.”
“So he is capable,” she says slowly, “of taking care of himself. Or he will be one day.” I slouch down in my seat. “Can I go back to Principal Reynolds’s office yet?” The guidance counselor shakes her head. “He’s a little busy at the moment. He said he’d come and get you when he’s ready. In the meantime, why don’t we chat a little more?”
When
Principal Reynolds finally comes to get me, Mom is right behind him. “Hi, baby,” she says, sinking down into the chair next to mine. I’ve never seen her like this except on those nights she came home from the hospital after sitting with baby Gideon all day. Her eyes are red. I scowl at Principal Reynolds. “Your mom and I have been talking,” he tells me, “and we think we’ve figured out a plan. Tomorrow,
you’re going to apologize to Ricky for hitting him.” He holds a hand up when I start to protest, and I fall silent. “I’ve spoken with Ricky, and he plans to apologize to Gideon for the way he acted today.” “Yeah, right,” I mumble. Mom shoots me a look, but I can tell inside she’s proud. The two of us, she always tells me, are never too scared to smash the glass when we don’t like what we see. Principal Reynolds continues, motioning to the guidance counselor, “Mrs. Mickelson and I will work with your brother’s teacher to resolve the bullying issue, even if it means moving Gideon to a different classroom. I will also talk to Miss Talbot about today’s incident so we’re all on the same page.” I smile a little at that, hoping that one day Miss Talbot will lend me her books again. “And once a week, you’ll meet with
Mrs. Mickelson.” I fight back a groan. “For how long?” “Until she’s sure you won’t try and punch any other students again. I think you and I are pretty clear on that now, but just to be sure.” I look at Mom, hoping she’ll try and get me out of it. She nods, like she’s trying to convince us both that spending my lunchtime drawing Crayola pictures isn’t a waste of time. I guess I should be relieved I’m not in more trouble. “Just for a while, my little Mama Hen,” she whispers, kissing the top of my head. “Until we get this all fixed.” I let my head slump onto her shoulder and let her support my weight, just for a minute. For the first time today, I relax. “Since it’s almost the end of the day, why don’t you go home with your mom?” Principal Reynolds suggests. I stand, my moment of calmness gone. “I have to pick up Gideon first.”
He smiles, like he’s relieved something is finally going right today. “I’ll call his teacher and let her know he’ll be leaving early.”
I
peek through the window of Gideon’s classroom door. He’s sitting at his desk in the front row, coat on. Waiting for me. Every day when Miss Talbot dismisses us, I sprint down the hall against the flow of students heading for their buses. And every day I find him in the same spot: at his desk, the only one still in the classroom besides the teacher, waiting patiently for me to pick him up. Sometimes I get so angry at him. Sometimes I think he brings the teasing on himself. When he gets nervous he babbles, which only magnifies his stutter and he trips over words he never normally goofs up. And I want to shake him and scream, “Stop talking! Just keep your mouth
shut!” even though I know that’s not fair. It’s the only way I can protect him, the only option I’ve got left after today. But now he’s sitting quietly while the rest of the class scribbles into their workbooks. He’s not even looking at the door because he already knows I’ll be here. I raise my fist and knock on the door.
Russell Buker Frieze As one who often falls asleep in restaurant booths over breakfast it is slowly possible to perceive myself in you: we walk in mist, wet fog- you were always willing to devour but now red, rusted hands startle youa wind from somewhere pleads for remember, wisps me everywhere, desires to remain, this much moisture or eyelids roar may never come this way ever again
Mike Mulvey Mother Mary is Watching
Once
again I sat in the principal’s office. But not for disciplinary reasons, at least not this time. This time I was interviewing for a job. And in a parochial school of all places. Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows High School. If Sister Constance, my elementary school principal, could see me now, surely she would see the irony and exclaim, “God does indeed work in mysterious ways.” Mrs. Noonan, the school secretary—an abundant middle-aged woman with red hair and
green eyes—sat behind a large gray desk piled high with manila folders and white forms, typing. “Sister Patricia should be here any minute now,” she said, offering an assuring smile. “She’s in a meeting with Father Dolan.” As I patiently waited— and tried to smooth out the coat hanger-inflicted wrinkles in my khakis—I noticed that Our Lady’s main office wasn’t large by public school standards. In fact, the desks of the principal and the school secretary sat just a few feet from each other. The walls, painted a color I had
long ago named Parochial School Puke, held the requisite portraits of assorted saints and martyrs: Saint Peter, crucified upside down; Saint Christopher, beheaded; Saint James, beaten to death. A picture of the Holy Father hung on the wall behind Mrs. Noonan. A tall, life-like statue of the Virgin Mary stood on a pedestal in a corner by the window, behind Sister Pat’s desk. A higher authority, Jesus H. Christ himself, nailed firmly to a dark wooden cross, hung on the wall between two windows and the desks of Sister
Pat and Mrs. Noonan. Having spent my formative years in the arms of Mother Church—as a student at Saint John’s Parochial School—I should have felt right at home. But sitting in the main office and surrounded by all those dead saints, the Pope, Mary, and the CEO, once again I felt like that kid who spent more time in the office than in class. While I nervously picked at imaginary lint and glanced at the clock on the wall for a third time in so many minutes, I reluctantly confessed to myself that I had no one to blame for my failure to land a teaching job after commencement but
myself. While just about all my college classmates had landed teaching jobs last May, all I managed was part-time work tutoring summer school for minimum wage at the local junior high by day and clerking at a convenience store by night. Neither required my BS in Education. But after three years in the Army, I saw college as a place to make up for lost time. In partial compensation for giving up the best three years of my life, the government sent me a check every month to go to school. Not much, but enough to pay for tuition, books and . . . well, let’s just say that Arlene at
the package store on White Street and I were on a first-name basis. There was always a hint of suspicion in her voice as Arlene eyed me and the two six-packs of beer, the pint of blackberry brandy, quart of Vodka, half-gallon of cheap Burgundy, fifth of Four Roses, and two bottles of Schnapps sitting on her counter by the register. “Is all this for you?” she’d ask rhetorically, a slight, almost Mona Lisalike smile on her pale and wrinkled face. “Of course,” I’d reply, smiling back, batting my blue eyes and dredging up what little was left of my youthful innocence.
“Would I lie to you, Arlene?” Her knowing silence was my only answer. I was twenty-one and everybody’s best friend on a Friday night when they needed a bottle of cheap wine to fight off a bout of homesickness, drown painful memories of a relationship gone bad, or expunge visions of a rotund Dr. Bailey reciting passages from Moby Dick. For four years I partied by night and slept in class by day, if I bothered to go to class at all. The price I paid for this hedonistic approach to college and life was a 2.597 GPA, far short of my friends’ and the
expectations of most, if not all, public school systems. In desperation— it was the last week in August, my fridge was empty, and the rent was overdue—I turned to a placement agency, a last resort for desperate jobseeking college graduates with a 2.597 GPA and desperate school systems trying to fill their less-than desirable teaching positions or fill a last minute vacancy.
bloodshot eyes like a sharp stick, a painful reminder that while everyone else was at work, I was still in bed. A queen-sized bed that had seen better days . . . and nights. “Hi, this is Peter at the Teacher Placement Agency. I . . . uh . . . didn’t wake you, did I? What time is it . . . ten-thirty?” “Noooo, I was already up,” I lied. I didn’t have any kids to tutor until 2:30. I was planning on lying around in my boxers until lunch. In my When I sat up to answer mind I pictured a the phone last Thursday, disappointed, a ray from the schoolmaster-like frown midmorning sun poked on Peter’s disapproving through the parted brow. “I have a position for curtain into my
you, but it’s in a parochial school. Are you Catholic?” I’d have told Peter I was a tree-hugging Druid if it would get me an interview at the Rochester School of Forestry. “Sure. Well, sort of. An occasional Catholic. A lapsed Catholic. A recovering Catholic.” Maybe I shouldn’t be such a smart-ass. “How much does it pay?” “Remember, this is a parochial school,” said Peter, “so it’s about a third less than public school pay, but it’s better than tutoring for minimum wage.” “Any benefits? Health plan? Retirement? Front
row seats at ten o’clock Mass?” I’d pay for this irreverent jocularity, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe that’s another reason why I lay in bed while my classmates were getting their classrooms ready for the new school year. “Uh, no,” replied Peter. Great. Can’t even afford to get sick. “When?” “Next Thursday, 11:00 a.m.? Will you be up by then?” “I should be.” Now who’s the smartass, Pete? “Next Tuesday sounds good. I’ll clear my calendar. I’ll even brush my teeth.” “Next Thursday . . . write it down.” I could
hear Peter sigh. “The interview is at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows High School, for a position teaching Ninth Grade English.” “English?” Shit. In college I majored in Education and only minored in English to be near Erica. She minored in French. I tried one semester of French, but bailed when I got tired of conjugating French verbs. And I hated writing all those useless research papers in my literature courses, but Erica helped. Truth be told, she wrote most of them for me. I still couldn’t make heads or tails of The Waste Land or Paradise Lost. Thanks
to Dr. Bailey, though, I knew Moby Dick had something to do with whales. “Yeah. Looking through your file here . . . you didn’t list it as one of your subject preferences even though you minored in English . . . and glancing at your transcript, it wasn’t one of your favorite subjects . . . They just had a teacher leave because of an unexpected pregnancy.” “One of the nuns?” If there’s a god, I’m gonna burn. “No! One of the lay teachers . . . leave it alone.” Now Peter sounded annoyed. “Just kidding.” “They’re desperate
and need someone right away.” “Desperate. So you called me.” Thanks Pete. Remind me to pay your placement fee in pennies . . . or empties. “See Sister Patricia, the principal. You have a good chance of landing this job so leave the irreverent humor at home . . . and don’t forget to wear socks.” At my interview with the placement agency, I’d forgotten to wear socks with my sandals, which, of course, Peter noticed. I did, however, wear a tie, the clean one. If Erica had been there, she wouldn’t have let me walk out of our
apartment sockless . . . or wearing sandals.
“You always see the cup half empty,” she’d said, just before she drove away to Vermont and a teaching position at a private school.
“Okay.
Promise. Socks, no irreverent humor.” “Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows High School is in Waterbury. Do you need directions? Remember what happened when I sent you to Rocky Hill?” “Yeah. I went to Rockville instead. I knew the name of the town had a ‘rock’ in it, though. I was tired. I’d worked the four to midnight shift
at the convenience store.” Another lie. I was out late the night before and hung over. “Okay . . . Before I go, sure you don’t want directions . . . to Waterbury?” “No. I’ll find it. I’ve been there before . . . It’s just off I-84 . . . right?” “Sure you can teach English?” “Piece a cake, Pete.” “Alright. Call me back and let me know how it goes. Good luck . . . the interview is next Thursday. And remember, it’s Waterbury, not Watertown . . . or Waterford . . . or . . .” Peter’s voice trailed off as he tried to think of
other cities or towns that had ‘water’ in them. But I also detected an air of uncertainty in Peter’s usually upbeat voice. Uncertain as to whether the agency should have taken me on as a client? Or whether I would get lost on my way to Waterbury? “Right. Waterbury. Don’t worry, I’ll find it. Thanks, Pete. God loves ya!” English. And in a parochial school of all places. Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows High School, I would soon discover, was a poor parish located in the east end of town, on the divide between a working-class
neighborhood of tripledeckers and an area of run-down and halfempty mills that lined the south bank of a polluted river.
“I
think I hear Sister Patricia coming now,” said the genial Mrs. Noonan. “Thanks.” I pulled at the collar of my shirt again. Was the office too warm? Or was I coming down with the flu? Beads of sweat began to gather on my upper lip. But I was desperate, so when Sister Patricia finally walked in, smiled, introduced herself, shook my hand, sat down, and asked, “Can you teach English?” I
lied. Like a rug. “Yes, Sister,” I replied, smiling with all the mock sincerity I could muster. I turned on that Irish charm that had stood me so well all through college and at least a half dozen girlfriends. If I went to confession this lie would cost me at least three Hail Mary’s, maybe four. Sister Patricia seemed pleasant enough. About forty, she reminded me of my grandmother in an old picture that sat on a table by the window in my Uncle Ray’s living room. For some reason, I found the fact that Sister Patricia wore civvies, not the forbidding black nun’s habit, comforting.
If she’d looked like one of those Grim Reapertypes that hovered over us at Saint John’s, I might have frozen up. The only clue that Sister Pat belonged to a religious order was the oversized crucifix that hung from her neck and nestled in her ample cleavage. By the conservative cut and gray color of her clothes, she could be mistaken for a clerk at the DMV. “Do you go to church every Sunday?” asked Sister Pat. Behind her, on a pedestal in the corner, stood Mother Mary. “Yes, Sister,” I replied, hoping Mary was preoccupied with other, more pressing church matters.
Another lie. Another three Hail Mary’s. “How often do you go to confession?” Never, was the God’s honest truth. It would take too long to recite all my transgressions, and besides, I had better things to do with my Saturday nights. Sweat worked its way through my T-shirt and into the pits and back of my dress shirt. I hoped it wouldn’t soak through to my new gray tweed herringbone sports jacket, bought just for this interview. Would she notice? Would she think I was lying or just nervous? Or nervous from all the lying? Maybe it was too hot in here. For some reason
Sister Pat seemed more interested in my soul than my academic credentials. I glanced over Sister Pat’s shoulder. Mary was still there. Watching. I took a chance and lied once more. “Only when I need to Sister, which isn’t very often.” Another three Hail Mary’s. Maybe a halfdozen Our Fathers. I hadn’t been to confession since . . . Should I tell her I was once an altar boy? Or, truth be told, I was an altar boy once . . . in the Army . . . and I was drunk at the time. To be fair, we were in a forward area and our platoon had just
returned from a patrol where we’d suffered three WIA. My buddies and I were working on that pint of vodka Bobby brought back from R&R when our platoon sergeant ordered me to help Father Donnelly set up his field altar. As I fumbled with a folding table, Father Donnelly asked if I would help him serve Mass. “I’ve never been an altar boy before, Father, I’ll probably just fuck it up.” “It’s easy. After you pass out the missals, just watch me,” he said smiling. He told me he’d give me the high sign when he wanted me to ring
that bell . . . I forget what he called it . . . and help with Communion. I wondered if I should tell Sister Pat but omit the details. I let it go. After what seemed like an eternity looking into my eyes, looking into my heart, and deep into my soul, trying to decide whether I was an abject liar and sinner— which I was—Sister Patricia smiled. She must have bought it. Or she must have been really desperate for a replacement. She stood up, shook my hand warmly and said, “Welcome to Our Lady. School starts next week, Monday, sevenfifteen sharp.”
“Thank you, Sister. Seven-fifteen, sharp.” I smiled. English. Of all subjects. But anything was better than tutoring a bunch of morons by day and working the night shift at that convenience store with an asshole for a boss who was always checking to see if I’d helped myself to a twenty from the register. But all I took was an occasional bottle of Coke from the cooler late at night when business was slow and I was nodding off. Maybe a small bag of chips now and then when I was running late and missed dinner. And that’s no lie. I was a
lapsed Catholic and a With time he might make sinner, but no thief. a competent teacher— and wondered why she’d “I’ll leave you with Mrs. offered me, of all people, Noonan, then,” said the position. They had to Sister Pat as she came be desperate. But at from around her desk what they were paying, and headed for the door. they couldn’t be too Glancing at “She’ll have you fill out choosy. some forms and give you Sister Pat’s desk again, I only one your schedule.” Sister noticed Patricia smiled and left. I application file lying thought I saw her make there. Mine. “Congratulations and the sign of the cross as welcome to Our Lady,” she walked out. After an interview that said a smiling Mrs. had lasted a little more Noonan, shaking my than one minute—three hand and holding out a questions was all—I had file folder. “Here are a teaching job. I saw my your class lists, teaching school application, my C and D- schedule, laden transcripts, and handbook, and tax forms. three lukewarm letters Over there,” she said, of reference sitting on pointing to a pile of Sister Patricia’s desk— books sitting on a folding
table by the wall, “you’ll find the teacher’s editions of your text books.” Thumbing through the tall stack, I found a workbook and teacher’s edition for Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition. “Jesus, is this still in print?” I mumbled to myself. “What?” asked a slightly startled Mrs. Noonan, looking up from her desk. “This is still in print,” I said, smiling. “Great text!” “Oh.” The furrows in her brow said she wasn’t buying it. I also found the teacher’s editions,
workbooks, and supplemental materials for my other courses. And at the bottom of the pile, a Catechism. “Are all these mine?” I asked uneasily, turning to Mrs. Noonan. “Yes. You’ll be teaching two sections of Freshman English, two sections of Developmental Reading and Writing, and one section each of American literature and Study Skills. Oh, and one class of religious instruction.” “Holy Christ,” I said under my breath. Again Mrs. Noonan looked up from her desk. “I was looking at the cover of the Catechism. Nice picture of Jesus.” I could
tell by the look on her face that, once again, she wasn’t buying it. Keep it up, numbnuts. You’ll be out of a job before the school year even begins. Five different subjects. Seven classes a day. Now I understood why my interview had taken only one minute. I was beginning to wonder if that lay teacher was really pregnant. Maybe she lied. “Why did that other teacher leave?” I asked, thumbing through the Warriner’s, wondering how in the name of sweet Jesus I was going to bullshit my way through this class. “Oh, she got pregnant.
At least that’s what she told us. Too bad. She seemed nice. A little nervous, though.” Nervous? She was probably exhausted and on the verge of a breakdown from teaching all these subjects. I’d get pregnant too, just for a freakin’ breather. My growling stomach reminded me that I’d missed breakfast. With my new sports jacket, I hadn’t dared chance the drive-through window at Burger King this morning. I was hoping Sister Patricia hadn’t noticed the faint outline of an old mustard stain on my blue tie. How had I missed it this morning? Erica would have caught
it. “Mrs. Noonan?” “Yes?’ she answered without looking up from her desk. “Where’s the cafeteria?” “Oh, we have no cafeteria. Students eat lunch in their classrooms with their teachers,” said Mrs. Noonan almost apologetically. Not only was there no cafeteria, I learned, there was no library, no gymnasium or PE teacher, and no art or music program either. I’d be with my students all day. No break except for lunch and twice-a-week recess on the blacktop playground behind the school. My students and I
would get to know each other very well. Well enough for them to discover my ignorance and ineptitude? Was the cup halfempty or half-full? I had a real job, but I’d be teaching from 7:30 till 3:15 with only a halfhour lunch break . . . and I’d be eating with my students. Still beat the hell out of working at that convenience store, waiting to be shot by some whacked-out drug addict looking for ready cash late at night. But there was no cooler full of packaged cheese and cold cuts to snack from here at Our Lady, just a coffee urn on the counter of the school
office . . . but I didn’t drink coffee. No flipping through the magazine rack at midnight— somebody say hello to Miss October for me— when only the drunk and the stoned are out, looking for snacks, another six-pack, or trouble. English. But, I have a job. I have a job. I have a job. Repetez après moi. J’ai un travail. The cup is half-full, Erica.
Steven Fortune Lifetime
Dodge & Redefine
i. As far as stars go I'm big in the vicinities that matter I dodge and redefine every corner they attempt to wrap around my routine in smug attempts to align me with their elastic grope like a severed head in a slingshot What I can't dodge for the life of me are the mindless clutches of the limbs scattered sacrificially in my name in this die-deprived Game of Life
I don't want to play I don't want to be the cause of the shortage of the limbs snatched from the line they need to track their mortal resources
ii. I reckon the hormonal mouths of their ambition wowed and fluttered inked reminders of the one who ghostwrote this script Attention human words Have fun inside the fanzine I cleverly remodeled in the image of a book of maps And don't pretend to not believe in the pixilated possibility of finding yourself locked in a character beneath the craggy thumbnail still attached to the holder of my different world's eye
Gilmore Tamny Burnt Coat & Unburned Crepes
It
was 1957 as it perhaps always was
and always will be. Entering the dove-gray living room, filled with soft dove-gray furniture, Betty opened up her luxuriant fur coat and let it drop it to the floor. Ned, who had headed to the cocktail tray without bothering to remove his black evening coat, picked the fur up and threw it on the fire, returning his attention to his drink. Betty laughed, watching the rush of sparks and shuddering flames surge up the chimney, the coat coming perilously close to tumbling back out of the fireplace. Betty and Ned were both quite drunk, and while this manifested differently in respective forms of indolence and recklessness, so far they had been of a perfectly complimentary nature.
“What a silly party,” Betty said dropping her limbs to the divan in no particular order. “But sort of fun,” Ned said. Betty giggled in mockery or joyful agreement. Ned paused, holding the bottle of gin. “ ‘The Bridge Over the River Kwai,’ ” he said, his expression thoughtful. “What about it,” said Betty. Ned shrugged pouring out the gin. “Everyone’s talking about it. Didn’t you notice?” He poured himself the martinis. “But still I have no idea what it’s about.” “Oh, I can’t be bothered. I’ve burnt enough goddamned bridges in my life,” said Betty. Ned thought this a bit of affectation and let it pass, uncommented. “Do you have anything to eat?” she
asked. “I would so like a crepe.” “A crepe,” repeated Ned, frowning. “You know, a crepe, silly,” said Betty. She sighed elaborately and at great length, usually a signal for Ned to make love to her, but now, he sensed, really having to do with these crepes. “There is a cookbook,” he said. “And eggs and flours and milks and things in the cupboards. I bet we could give it a go.” “Let’s do it,” enthused Betty, not moving. “Shall I try?” asked Ned. “Yes, why not?” said Betty. “I must just have a bit of a doze meantime, if that’s all right. Mind turning on the hifi?” “On?” Ned said. “You know I can’t sleep without some noise, darling. That’s why I like your snoring so much.” “Well, we’re lousy with music here,” Ned said. This was not strictly true
considering only two records sleeves sat next to the hi-fi, including one for the record on the player. He leaned over, switched it on, lowering the arm, to what was, it turned out, Rachmaninoff, the volume already quite loud. She smiled, eyes closed. “Oh, how awful,” she shivered. “Perfect. Nothing to do with absolutely anything. That I know of, anyway.” She yawned and nestled deeper into the dove-gray divan. “Betty,” Ned said, leaning closer to be heard over the music. “You sleep now, sure, but if you don’t wake up when I bring in whatever it is I get up to in that kitchen, you’ll be in my black book for years to come.” “All right, Ned,” she said, waggling her hand in a manner that constituted neither a gesture of parting, however momentary, nor an agreement to eat crepes, but a sudden interest in the sensation of moving air.
It took
nearly an hour and a half, but
Ned, who had never cooked in his life, made a success of the crepes. He was prone to such startling and unpredictable acts of such competence. While he stacked the crepes on a plate under a silver bell, he’d heated up jam in a little pot, and having rejected whipped cream as being too arduous, entered the living room bearing a tray and wearing an apron. The Rachmaninoff continued to blare, the hi-fi set on an automatic replay. Betty was staring at the fireplace. “Ned, did we really run over that—” “Yes,” said Ned. “What on earth was a rocking horse doing in the road?” “How should I know.” Betty stared. “And later—that funny graveyard, with those very unhappylooking geese—did we break into that— ?” “Oh, yes.”
“How drunk we’ve been,” said Betty. “And did we really burn Aunt Jeanie’s fur coat,” she said looking, it must be said, only the smallest bit aghast. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” said Ned putting down the tray in front of her. “I suppose it was. Oh, Ned,” said Betty as she turned as he lifted up the silver bell with a flourish. “Just look what you’ve done. I’m gone to eat every one.” They were really very delicious and buttery with little crunchy spots and velvety ones and they ate with relish. “Ned!” Betty said. “Hidden depths! What a talent you have—for hidden depths.” “Well, I do seem to have ‘The Crepe Instinct,’ anyway.” Betty giggled. “Was he really from Yale? Professor ‘Sex Instinct.’ ” She lowered her voice basso profundo “ ‘Would you like the extreme honor of
being interviewed for my most important work yet, ‘The Sex Instinct.’ ” Ned waggled his brows. “His New York editor says it’s going to be a bestseller.” “So grotesque.” She shook her head and dug her fork in deeper. “Ned, this act of creation has quite made up for your act of destruction.” “I suppose you’re going to tell your Aunt Jeanie the fur coat was my fault.” “Indeed I am. Because it was,” “It was,” he agreed. Shelia glanced at the clock. “She’ll be by this afternoon.” “All right,” Ned sighed. He pushed his plate away, replete. “Oh, I need a nap.” “Let’s lay on the rug right here. By the fire.” “There’s a perfectly good bed upstairs, Betty. And the smell of burnt fur…” Ned’s eyes darted around as if the smell were a bird alighting from tree to tree.
Betty waved this away. “Almost gone. And that Rachmaninoff has made such an inroad through my brain it seems a sorry thing to stop before it’s tunneled all the way out the other side.”
They wedged Ned’s coat and the dove grey couch and divan pillows and their bodies till they were fairly comfortable. Ned fell asleep instantaneously. Betty had after a thoughtful moment crawled over to fish out the fur’s buttons from the cooling fireplace, made of some exotic bone that had fallen off, unharmed, by the fire. She polished them off, put them in her pocket and fell asleep against Ned. Noon became one, then two, and Roseanne, the housemaid, in a neat, dove grey maid’s outfit, who’d so far heeded the edict of the home to never ever wake anyone up, ever, under any circumstances, with the exception of fire, entered with the news an Aunt
Jeanie was now in the foyer. “Oh goodness,” said Betty. “Do make me some coffee like a dear, will you, Roseanne? And send Meanie Jeanie in.” “She’s not the least bit mean,” said Ned. “No. But it rhymes so nicely. And it’s like calling one of those gigantic men who toss people out at bars ‘Tiny.’ ” Aunt Jeanie, Meanie Jeanie, Dr. Mrs. Jean P. Wafer, entered, a tiny woman with heavily lacquered greying blond hair, a fur coat and a cane. “Aunt Jeanie,” greeted Betty, “Terrible news. Last night we burned that delicious sable you gave me. And we were so drunk we couldn’t even work up a healthy regret about it till now.” Aunt Jeanie’s eye filled with tears. “Oh, no,” said Ned. Aunt Jeanie turned her head, repressing a sob. Betty turned to Ned. “Oh, Ned. We’re
awful. Perhaps you can make her some of those crepes.” Ned shook his head: perhaps he did, in fact, have the Crepe Instinct as he knew they’d do no good. Aunt Jeanie continued to weep through coffee, tea, toast and some sort of argument Roseanne the maid seemed to be having in the kitchen with a boyfriend. Finally, Aunt Jeanie could speak. “How can you bear that Rachmaninoff?” she asked through her handkerchief. “You do get used to it,” said Betty. “It feels ennobling.” She sighed and looked out the window. “Although I thought I heard Elvis at one point when I was sleeping. Crooning along.” Ned made a face. He wasn’t a jealous fellow by nature, and had been and would be indifferent to Betty’s lovers past, present and future, but there was something about just mentioning the Elvis fellow that made him want to
smash a dove-grey lamp. Aunt Jeanie smiled and then her eye drifted to the fireplace. “Did Uncle Jake give it to you?” asked Betty. “Before you gave it to me.” Aunt Jeanie nodded. They discussed the fire, the fur, what the coat had looked like on fire, fires, arsonists, bears accidentally got on fire by campfires, and Uncle Jake’s infrequent gifts for another hour. “Uncle Jake came up from the slums, the very worst,” said Betty in aside to Ned. “Oddest conception of money. Would put together a positively palatial apartment for Aunt Jeanie on the upper west, but say buying her flowers too expensive. Still, she wrested a few fur coats out of him. But she had to get cancer for that, didn’t you, Aunt Jeanie?” “That’s right,” sighed Jeanie. “Double mastectomy. He finally caved. He was very good to me, though you know.”
Ned, expression blank, as he had grown intensely bored, nodded. Roseanne entered with a tray of sandwiches. “Oh lovely,” said Betty. “Might I have some scrambled eggs as well?”
One
very long day later, after Betty
pestered Ned for crepes, protestations of undying love, expressions of regret about the coat, love-making and a trip to Bermuda, they sold the third of Ned’s four cars. With the money they bought Aunt Meanie Jeanie a new sable fur that they had sent over with a bottle of champagne. As she had given the fur to Betty this wasn’t quite an exact recompense, but nobody seemed to care too much, and Aunt Jeanie had been most touched. Two years later, after Betty and Ned had married, honeymooned in Bermuda, attended Aunt Jeanie’s funeral, opened an expensive and
rather awful steak house in Maine, traveled across Europe, had a stillborn child, and divorced, Betty sold the buttons from the burnt fur to a secondhand haberdasher. She’d found them squirreled away in her jewelry box and found herself unable to throw or give them away. Betty emerged from the store, and seeing the vagrant she’d noticed on the way in sitting on the stoop, handed the money from the buttons to him, like money did not quite exist, which he sensed and quite rightly hated her for. “I’m only giving you this money, old friend, if you go eat pancakes,” she said to him with a wink. “A real pancake breakfast.” She glanced around gauging at the light on the buildings. “Or pancakes for lunch, as it were. No wait—good, lord. Early dinner? Oh, I do have a hangover.” He agreed to the pancakes in a manner that indicated he wouldn’t get
pancakes and he knew she knew he wouldn’t and he felt no obligation to whatsoever. “Communist,” he said to her, after a moment. The defiance behind this caught her attention for a moment, but she was uninterested. As she eyed him, skimming over his matted grey beard, unkempt hair and palatable air of desperation, her mind wandered. She thought of how she never quite knew what Marxism was, of spies (she’d read an article that morning), of what kind of coats spies wore, of fur coats, of what naughtiness her Persian cats might be getting up to in her newly renovated penthouse, and then the wind stirred a candy wrapper around her ankle, a kind she had stolen from a five and dime as a child and she thought of destiny, of pain and of a missing alimony payment. Then, in neat black mink stole and matching hat, with a finality and
deliberation, that belied the fact she’d never intended to do anything else, she left.
Aaron Caycedo-Kimura Taxi de Toledo Quixote’s ghost charges his Peugeot through ancient ravines, threads his lance without flinching around corners cut from the mountain. Like saints in the cathedral’s arches, Toledanos on either side fade into doorways before we pass, talk family, work, cell phone plans. My driver has memorized every vein in this rock, like El Greco’s brush that licked muscle and bone of Apostolic hands. Plaza de Colegio Infantes, Tres. Nowhere to pull over, he halts with cars behind, unloads my luggage, gallops off with a va-le! Cervantes in his glove compartment.
Contributors Kaitlin Bartlett Kaitlin Bartlett is a short story writer, coffee addict, and frequent visitor of bookstores. She is currently pursuing her MFA in fiction at Chatham University. Mark Belair Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Atlanta Review, Fulcrum, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East, The South Carolina Review, and The Sun. His books include the collection "While We’re Waiting" (Aldrich Press, 2013) and two chapbook collections: "Night Watch" (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and "Walk With Me" (Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2012). For more information, please visit Mark's website. Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier Writer and photographer Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier is a French Canadian Métis who's works have been published in national and regional papers, literary and vocational journals as well as heritage museums. She's written and photographed everything from news, fashion, music, lifestyles and business to sporting events. Never without her camera, she likes to find the unusual within the mundane and ordinary. To see more of Karen's work, visit Synaesthesia Magazine, Dactyl, Vagabonds Anthology, Fine Flu Literary Journal and Zen Dixie Magazine to name but a few of the places her work is featured. You can follow her on Twitter.
Russell Buker Russell Buker recently retired from Shead High School where he taught English and Creative Writing. He has also coached for many years: football, baseball, basketball and tennis. Russell has had numerous poems accepted in many publications in the U.S. and in Canada: The Antigonish Review, The Windrow Anthology, The Cape Breton Collection, Pottersfield Press, Goose River Anthology, Germ Magazine, Portland Press Poetry Section, The Aurorean, Felt Sun, The Aputamkan Review, Germ Magazine River Muse, Page & Spine, Maine Writes Anthology. Russell has also served on the board of editors and written book reviews for Off the Coast Review. Sandra L. Campbell Ms. Campbell is a native Houstonian and a graduate of the University of Houston with a degree in psychology and a minor in political science. After graduation, she embarked upon a four and half year journey working with men, women, and children at the local mental health agency in Houston. Since 2004, she has worked as a corporate language trainer providing private ESL lessons. During this time, Sandra parlayed her passion in writing and acting in an array of venues. In 2009, Ms. Campbell starred in "The Vagina Monologues" at the Ensemble Theater and was awarded a poetry fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. She also received an honorable mention from the Fort Bend Writer's Guild for her feature film script, "Hyde Park." In 2010, Sandra self-published "A Practical Guide to Learning American English: Useful Tips for High Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced English Students," which is based on her teaching techniques in ESL. Aaron Caycedo-Kimura Aaron Caycedo-Kimura is a poet and visual artist. Born in Santa Rosa, CA, he now lives on the East Coast, where he earned a Master of Music at The Juilliard School in New York City. He is an art and design contributor
to Connecticut River Review, and his poetry appears or is forthcoming in Off the Coast, San Pedro River Review, Mouse Tales Press, and Connecticut River Review. Steven Fortune Steven Fortune began writing creatively in 1997 and obtained a Bachelor Of Arts in English Literature and History in 2001. While at university, he served on the editing staff of several publications, including News Editor for the campus newspaper, and Editor-In-Chief of the school's creative arts journal. Since then, he has appeared in several literary journals, and is currently a Poetry Editor for Miracle Magazine. Mike Mulvey Mike Mulvey, the illegitimate offspring of a gin-addled Dorothy Parker and a Guinness-stained Brendan Behan, is an instructor of English at Central Connecticut State University. He holds degrees in English and an MFA in Creative Writing. He’s been published in over a dozen or more literary magazines and journals, print and electronic, based in the US and the UK, some of which you’ve probably never heard of and a couple that are now belly up. But last year he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Umbrella Factory Magazine. Gilmore Tamny GIlmore Tamny spends a great deal of time writing, drawing and playing guitar in Somerville, MA. Her stories, essays, artwork, interviews and short stories have appeared in Chickfactor, Petrichor Review, Foliate Oak, Turk's Head Review, 3Elements, Pithead Chapel and Meat for Tea. Her novel, "My Days with Millicent," is being serialized online at Ohioedit and has this handy quiz to see if it might interest the reader: Her drawings can be seen online.
Visit www.crackthespine.com to review our submission guidelines or to subscribe