Crack the Spine
Literary magazine
Issue 116
Issue 116 June 4, 2014 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2014 by Crack the Spine
CONTENTS
Christopher DeWan Blog of the Last Man on Earth
Carolyn Rice Olema Valley
Denise Kodi Speaking in Tongues
Jim Warner Thrills, Pills, and Second Hand Belly Aches
Jerry McGinley Intruders
Elaine Silverstein Mr. Carpinsky
Christopher DeWan Blog of the Last Man on Earth Monday, 3pm It started with the sound of nothing, which was unusual even at that time of the morning. The power was out in the kitchen, and when I peered out the window, there was no traffic, no one on the sidewalk, no construction sound, no plane passing overheard, no hum of electricity, nothing. There was no one. Sometime overnight, everyone had disappeared. Everyone except me. I assumed, then, I didn't have to go to work; so I finished a book I'd been reading for
too long. I made myself a sandwich, and finally, not knowing what else to do, I went back to bed, around 3pm. I really needed to catch up on sleep. Monday, 11:30pm I woke suddenly, wellrested but draped in so much darkness: dark as far as the eye could see. Haha. People are still missing, or seem to be. Maybe it's an elaborate hide-and-seek. It's so quiet that it hurts my ears. That is, in the quiet, I hear a highpitched whine. I've been told that this is the onset of hearing loss: the
pitches I hear are the pitches that I no longer can hear, if that makes any sense. I wonder, then, is deafness actually loud, a cacophony of all pitches? I'm wide awake; it's midnight; I'm the last man on earth. It's flattering, really. My whole life I’ve wondered about disasters and apocalypse, and now I’m the center of one. But it’s frustrating, too—so many things left unfinished: the report I was writing on at work, which Alex told me was quite good. Alex is my immediate supervisor. (Or maybe I should say
was.) Also, I had Mets tickets for next week. They were playing the Orioles. It's harder than I expect to pass the time in the dark, but it gives me unexpected joy—the dark gives the familiarity of my apartment refreshing newness. I also stub my toe, badly, on the corner of the sofa. I walk through my neighborhood. Everything seems to be where it belongs: cars are parked, trash cans lined neatly against the walls. The black outline of a nearby skyscraper blots out a patch of stars. In the dark, there are more stars than I've ever seen in the city, but I
don't remember the of course there aren't, names of any of the because I'm the last man constellations. on Earth. Anyway, it's not like Tuesday, 5:45am very many people called I start jogging. I don't me before. usually jog. It's funny how we behave Tuesday, 12:48pm differently when there's I'm standing in the no one around to see: middle of the Brooklyn there's no one who Bridge, underneath the knows I don't jog, so I twine of steel cabling. can be a jogger if I want. The wide sidewalk on Central Park is covered the bridge is empty. The in light mist, and I twitch lanes of traffic on either with vague foreboding: side are empty. The "Don't go into the park water below me is calm, alone!" but everything is so But when you're truly quiet that I can hear it alone, no one is a danger. roaring by. Tuesday, 11:21am I keep glancing at my cell phone to see if there are any new messages, but
Tuesday, 4:55pm I get guilty pleasure reading Cosmopolitan magazine. It's
embarrassing because it’s a chick’s magazine, but I read it whenever I go to the doctor or the dentist. I like knowing what women are supposed to be thinking about me. Every issue of Cosmopolitan is almost exactly the same as the last issue: it has articles on sex positions and how to “drive him wild in bed.” Cosmopolitan has more sex in each issue than Playboy. I'm surprised they manage to come out with new issues each month, since eventually they must run out of sex positions. But I guess people forget, so they don't mind reading the same things twice.
It occurs to me that the Cosmopolitan I read today in the park outside City Hall is the last Cosmopolitan that will ever be printed. I wonder, does that mean the hairstyle they describe will be in fashion forever?
in this building are quiet, and clean, and polite. (Were.) Sometimes they'd hold the door for me when my hands were full with groceries, and sometimes I'd do the same for them—so we were neighborly, I guess is the word. I bring a box of Girl Wednesday, 8:15am Scout Cookies, so that if I decide to go door to someone does open their door in my apartment door, I can ask them if building to see if anyone they want one. is still around. I've lived You'd be amazed by in this building for three the variety of doors in years and I've never my apartment building. knocked on anyone's You'd think they'd be all door till today. the same, bought in bulk, I like the people who at a discount rate, but in live here. (Lived.) fact nearly every one is a (Liked.) (Insofar as one little different. I imagine can like people to whom they've been replaced, we don't speak.) People one by one, over a long
period of time. Some doors seem incredibly heavy. One, on the third floor, is light like the closet door in a child's bedroom. Knocking on that door is like knocking on paper. No one is answering any of the doors. It was a forgone conclusion, but I got caught up listening to the sounds that my knocks made without ever really thinking about why I was knocking, till the paperthin door knocked me out of my reverie. I climb out on my fire escape and eat some Girl Scout cookies. I pour milk to go with the cookies, but the milk has soured, and I throw it
out after a mouthful. That was the last milk I will ever have. I might never wash that taste out of my mouth. Thursday Though there is no one else left in the world and therefore the status of my obligations is vague to say the least, still, I am a man of my word: I spent my morning paying bills for my cell phone and cable. I won't do it again next month, though, if this continues, since neither of these services has been working for several days. I also decide to finish the report I started at work, the one which Alex liked so much. I bike to
the office. Without traffic, without stoplights, without car doors, without pedestrians in crosswalks, biking is the purest joy: it's really like flying. I'm quite productive, working alone. The phone doesn't ring once. When I've finished assembling my PowerPoint deck, I do a practice run of my presentation in the conference room. It goes well, I think. On the way home, I head west and watch the sunset over the Hudson. I wonder why I didn't do this more often, before. Then I bike home, the strobe light on the back
of my bike seat flickering suits that it's hard to to protect me from non- decide which one to existent traffic. wear to work. I'm not sure when I became that Friday, Early Morning sort of person, but the My watch stopped and transformation wasn't I'm quickly losing my awful, like I might have sense of time, but I wake imagined. If anything, naturally just after dawn. the third suit was Today is the day of my liberating. The first two scheduled work suits were obligatory, presentation and I but this third suit decide to go ahead with seemed somewhat for that plan. My fun. PowerPoint deck has got I put on the third suit. a kind of structural It has pinstripes. elegance and it deserves But as I'm tying my tie, to be shown. I notice there's a blemish I own three suits and I on my face, a black spot have trouble deciding on my cheekbone, like a which one to wear. I beauty mark. I've never never expected I would seen it before. It is be the sort of person to sudden and alarming. My own three suits, the sort heart quickens, and I of person to have enough wonder, should I call a
dermatologist or an oncologist?, before I realize that phones are dead and there are no doctors. I am alone with my blemish. Looking closer in the mirror, I see that the blemish is nothing: it's not a pimple or a lesion. It's a tiny spot of pure nothing, a little black hole on my cheek. I poke at it with tweezers and the tip disappears. It is unsettling, and I decide not to go to the office today. Friday, Late Morning I've returned to the paper-thin door on the third floor and I'm smashing it down with my tennis racquet.
"Hello?" I call out, after destroying the door. "Anyone home?" The apartment is nicely furnished, and very clean and comfortable, and has a very fresh smell. There is a vase of cut flowers on the kitchen table, and I fill the water in the vase, though the flowers are nearly all dead. "Hello?" I call out again. The view out the window is good. I wonder what she pays in rent. Then I notice: there is water running. The shower is running in the bathroom. "Anyone there?" I ask again. "It's me, from
upstairs." I turn the knob of the bathroom door, and push the door open with my tennis racquet. Steam pours out and fogs my glasses; I can't see a thing. "Hello?" I pull back the shower curtain. There is no one, just hot water pouring down into the drain. The showerhead is very nice—one of the overhead ones that pours out like rain. On my way out, I borrow a stack of DVDs from a bookshelf, and bring them back to my apartment.
main character (a French girl named Amélie) has the television on in her apartment with the sound turned down. She looks over at it and notices a news clip: a horse has escaped its corral so it can run, side by side, with a team of bicyclists. Amélie watches in wonder and decides to record it on her VCR. Later in the movie, she gives the videotape to another character, who also watches the scene with silent wonder. I doubt either one of them could explain why it was wonderful, but it was, Sunday night and they knew it, and it There is a scene in the made them happy. movie Amélie where the I felt the same way
about the movie Amélie. I can’t explain why, but when I saw it, it made me feel happy to be alive. Monday morning I decide to learn French. I practice saying, Sans toi, les émotions d'aujourd'hui ne seraient que la peau morte des émotions d'autrefois: "Without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday's." I don't really know what it means, even in English. Evening Something strange happening with time. I don't mean in the sense that "Time flies when you're having fun" or that, in absence of
outside obligations, we lose track of days like children in the summertime. Whatever is happening, it is alarming in a way that it never was when I was a child in the summer. I blink my eyes and a week goes by. Or anyway I think it's a week. It might be longer or shorter. There's no way to know. It happens in the midst of a day, too: sometimes I'll sit at my kitchen table in the morning, flipping through a magazine I've already read, and then, after twenty minutes or so, the sun will begin to set. But then twilight lasts
for days. When I look in the mirror, I think I look much older than I remember. But then as soon as I concede this is the case, I seem much younger. I'm losing track of things. Something's not right, but there's no way to measure, and no one with whom to compare. And I'm not sure when I stopped eating. Thursday or maybe Sunday Of course I wasn't watching the DVD of Amélie. Electricity had been out for days, weeks, who knows how long? Instead, I stood the DVD box on top of my
television, and I watched the box. I stared at AmĂŠlie for hours, days, who knows how long? And she stared back. "Hello," I said. "Bonjour," she answered, and proceeded to tell me, in detail, in French, everything that had happened in her movie, to the best of her memory. I don't know French, so she would stop periodically to recap in English. "Thank you," I said. "De rien," she replied. "It's nothing." It was, without a doubt, the best movie I've ever heard. Some Time Later
I find that the people I used to know are beginning to blur in my mind. I remember a funny story, something I did once with a guy named Adam. I laughed out loud when I remembered this story. Fun times. Then I realized, "Oh. That wasn't Adam." And I couldn't remember who it was. Since no one has any further use for street signs, I've begun to paint them over with the names of the people I knew. I walk around during the day with a can of green paint in one hand and a can of white paint in the other, and I gradually re-map the
city: Jonathan Street. Caroline Boulevard. Adam Lane. Before I forget. I rename Broadway after my mother, whatever her name was. Middle of the Night, I Think I had a nightmare that everything that's happened recently was in fact only a dream. In the nightmare, I woke up, and the world was still full of people, same as it ever was. My alarm clock chimed and beckoned me to another workday, and I was filled with great emptiness. Then I woke from the dream, and the night was still, and the city was
empty, and everything was as it had been. I went to the bathroom for a glass of water, and noticed the black hole on my cheek has grown, now big enough to fit a finger. Later "What do you want?" Amélie asks. "What do you want to do? Ce qui vous veulent faire?" "I want to write a manifesto." "Bah!" She wrinkles her nose. "Your life is a manifesto." My life is a manifesto. "Ma vie est un manifeste!" Daytime and Tomorrow I have more paint now. I
roam the city, and one by one, I'm painting over all of its billboards. Left to our own devices, maybe we all become artists. I am painting enormous murals, scenes I remember from my life. As I paint, I remember everything, everything I ever did, everyone I ever knew. I remember long forgotten years and feelings of communion: road trips and road trip games; sunburned days at the beach; present-wrapping and unwrapping; long, hot innings of stickball; queuing at the funeral buffet, everyone sad and hungry for potato salad; dashing through woods
and soccer fields and streets; reaching inside shirts and skirts and pants to clutch and claw at love, without yet knowing what love is or that there’s obligation in it, but starved for it just the same; the betrayal every time a shoelace breaks or an ankle twists or a phone call goes unanswered, every time a tooth sink eagerly into a cherry tomato that bursts with secret rot; every morning waking alone. I remember every birthday, every congregation, every rainy afternoon at the cemetery, every “I do.” I remember the smell of my mother, the tinkling of the mobile ceramic
swans over my crib, the cozy caress of the satin baby blanket. I remember, before that, sweeping forests far as the eye could see; thick, rolling oceans; endless, mind-flattening plains. I remember fields coated with mustard gas; the groans of sinking ships; piercing bullets and bayonets and the sticky warmth of my own blood; I remember rounding Cape Horn, scaling Mount Everest, building the Pyramids brick by behemoth brick; I remember Pangaea, and the terrible, explosive rending of the Moon. I remember the ignition of the Sun, and the swirling center of the
galaxy, the whip of its arms screaming through the vacuum. I remember the end of infinite density, the Big Bang, a gasp of breath, a baby's laugh, a cosmic orgasm, the same spasm of anticipation that comes at the dawn of love, the true fear of loss; and I remember, before all that, the bottomless, bottomless silence—like the silence I hear now. It's all right.
Carolyn Rice Olema Valley Olema Loke—Valley of Coyote, Creator abundant, fertile lowland—Tomales— windswept hunter-gatherers place of Coast Miwok —acorns— ripen as they fall to the ground (so do we) we trap fish, steelhead dig clams in the bay we trap ducks obsidian hatchets, abalone jewelry —oysters—
thick middens of shell abundance of fish and fowl in winter the marsh flooded in summer it was dry birds and land life migrated, bred terns pintails willets godwits sandpipers coho salmon and steelhead in Olema Creek then came Californios ancient Mexican families farming. A good milker could do a string, two dozen cows in two hours— strong hands— when Marshall was the cream stop when the redwoods still stood.
ducks
curlews
Denise Kodi Speaking in Tongues
A
year after we moved in with him, my stepfather began hollering jabberwocky into the telephone for a family friend who was "battling dark forces." This linguistic phenomenon, Dean told us, was called speaking in tongues and it was a gift conferred upon him by the Holy Ghost. Compelled by curiosity, my mother and I would listen through a crack in the door, while Dean called upon the name of Jesus and made guttural, otherworldly noises. I thought of all the horror movies I'd seen on cable, films I wasn't supposed to be watching about demonic dolls and girls who played with Ouija boards. Should Dean really be messing around with ghosts? "It's okay," my mother whispered, "it's a good ghost, sweetheart. Holy." My stepsisters came for a visit one
weekend when things took an even stranger turn. The phone rang per usual. Dean sprang from the table, bible in hand, and rushed to answer. We heard, "Hi Elaine. How're ya doin'?" And then it began: a fervent plea to Jesus Christ, to banish Lucifer to Hell and... well, we couldn't understand the rest. He began speaking in tongues. I'd grown somewhat accustomed to the creepiness of the whole thing and sat at the table trying to finish my pot roast without sensing a pair of ghostly gnarled fingers grabbing at my ankles. My mother affixed a pleasant smile to her face and tried making chit-chat. How was the drive? Did they hit any traffic? But the girls were unresponsive and alarmingly pale. "How long has this been going on?" one of them asked.
"Oh, a couple of weeks," replied my mother. "Maybe longer." The girls exchanged glances. The middle daughter shivered quite suddenly and had to rub goosebumps from her flesh. Out in the living room Dean said, "Shambalalalala neestos boris!" My mother blinked, dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, and explained that Elaine was in the midst of a crisis. "He's providing spiritual counsel." The girls looked at us like we were sorely naive, which of course we were. My mother and I were new to the world of evangelicalism and all its particulars. I'd only recently learned, much to my chagrin, that being bornagain was an expression and not a literal fact. Apparently, Elaine's socalled spiritual crisis was equally misleading. "She's not calling to get counseling," the oldest daughter informed us. "No?" My mother raised her
eyebrows. Had she misunderstood? In hushed voices they told us that Elaine was not who she appeared to be, a statement which made my mother's face fall. I was thinking they meant Elaine had a secret identity, like a spy. But Elaine's identity-- her true identify-- was far more dangerous. "She casts spells," the middle daughter said, her voice trembling. "She can make people them do things against their will." Surely they had the wrong person. Before meeting Dean and his family, my mother had worked with Elaine at Farmer's Insurance Company and the two became fast friends. Elaine had soft auburn hair and dimples in both cheeks. She wore glasses and could be painfully shy. She described herself as a "bone-again cwistian" because she had trouble saying her R's and, before introducing my mother to Dean, spoke highly of his "wisdom" and
"weliability." Somehow this did not coincide with the image of someone who dabbled in the dark arts. My mother winced like a migraine was coming on. "I don't ... quite understand..." Out in the living room, Dean continued his glossolalia, his voice calming to a low, Russian-like murmur. "Kroměstký bobo," he said softly. "Sputnik? Toto-mojo kamala..." Sensing our unwillingness to believe, the girls launched into a story involving an exorcism that went awry. Some years ago Elaine became possessed by a demon. No one knew why. She had not, to anyone's knowledge, played with Ouija boards and while she'd listened to rock music, it was mostly soft rock, like the Carpenters. They theorized Elaine's demon had been there for decades, biding its time, until the right moment presented itself to wreak havoc. The girls wouldn't elaborate on the
demon's activities. They would only say that he spoke through Elaine and said things about their father which were outright lies. An exorcism was due. Dean called up his preacher friend and they began. I tried to picture the ghastly ordeal- a younger version of Elaine, her dimpled face and oversized glasses. I imagined her slumped back in a chair, arms splayed, eyes rolling around. Dean's children huddled together on the floor, while Elaine's demon "uttered untruths." Dean and his preacher friend stood with bibles in hand. In great booming voices ordered the demon to be silent! In the name of Jesus Christ, they commanded it to leave. But it didn't. It wouldn't. Because sometimes exorcisms didn't work. "Why not?" I asked. Wasn't God more powerful than a demon? Of course God was more powerful than a demon! But demons were
stubborn and the possessed person had to want freedom. Elaine did not. Despite numerous exorcisms, she remained possessed, speaking lies about Daddy and scaring the hell out of them. About this time, Dean wrapped up his phone call in the living room. "Yer gonna be fine," he said in regular English. "Yep, I'll be prayin.' Good Lord's gonna keep ya safe!" He plunked the receiver in its cradle and returned to finish his pot roast. The girls dropped their demon talk as soon as he walked in, but before leaving they told my mother and me to watch him carefully, in case he began acting peculiar. I wondered: How are we supposed to know the difference?
As
it turned out, we didn't have to watch Dean closely or worry about any unholy voodoo, because Elaine got herself locked up in a mental
institution. Unbeknownst to any of us, in addition to having Dean shout holy gibberish into the telephone, she had also been seeing a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist felt it was best for her to get away from "certain influences" and continue her therapy in a safe, nurturing environment. Dean was miffed. "Getting counsel from some ungodly lunatic?" He tried calling her at the psych ward, but they wouldn't put his calls through.
Alone
in my bedroom at night, I thought of Elaine and her demon whose name, according to the girls, was Ralph. Ralph didn't seem like a good name for a demon, especially one living inside someone who couldn't say her R's. Then again, what did I know? Religion was terribly confusing to me. All those invisible forces fighting for your soul. But there was something appealing about Ralph. He seemed to give Elaine a
voice. Ralph granted her the power to disagree with Dean -- which was something none of the rest of us could do. I knew it was wrong to wish for a demon, but I wanted one just the same. Someone to confide in, someone to object to Dean's nightly tirades and the welt-raising lashings which inevitably followed. Maybe if I had somebody like Ralph, I could find a voice too. Tra-la-la boom ba-ba, a gentle fiend cooed in my ear. Which meant: Holy shit, kid. Listen up. You gotta get outta here.
Jim Warner Thrills, Pills, and Second Hand Belly Aches Internet porn payoff Sundays don’t seem as holy anymore as they did when I was a drunk. In print sober, clean bill of health, lower case c-Catholic guilt makes me missionary fixation boredom, peeling paint like pint labels. Sweating a Shiner Bock vacation, spun from College Station, like advice Larry Hineman once gave me wanna start a bar fight? wait ‘til quarter to closing time, toss a bar stool into a crowd of bromance metaphors, then leave. In verse I’ll tell you I was responsible for it but really I’m just responsible--like bran muffins or James Taylor or holding
hands to cross the street. Fit to this frame, a cage, alter paged face, thinned out Iron and Wine irony beards. Self-possessed with instep instincts swing away wildly, post-happy hour, when cubicles sleep like lions but sacrifice like Counting Crow-honesty, Post-it notes scream “I too was once alive.�
Jerry McGinley Intruders
It
was an old house, so creaks and moans were not unusual in the middle of the night. But something seemed different. The clock read 2:17. Sarah was sleeping peacefully next to me. I listened until I was sure it was footsteps I heard, not just structural shifts. I slipped out of bed, crawled to the closet, and grabbed my gun. I bypassed the heavier 12 gauge and grabbed the over-under .410 shotgun/.22 caliber rifle. I eased the weapon from the fake leather case trying not to wake my wife. She hates guns,
especially now that we have four grandkids coming to visit. I’d have gotten rid of both guns, but living on the river eight miles from town, I liked the security. I opened the drawer to my night stand and dug out two .410 shells and two .22-long bullets. I eased open the breech and inserted one shell and one bullet, putting the extras into my pajama pocket. I focused on the quiet sounds of the night. The steady tread of feet moved across the kitchen linoleum, across the carpeted living room, and down the hall
toward the bedrooms. Soft voices crept down the hall. I considered my options. I didn’t see any. I raised the gun, ready. I crept to the opened door and peeked down the hall. The moon was coming through the hall window just enough that I could make out two shapes approaching. I raised the gun and gazed down the barrel. Two figures approached cautiously. Maybe they heard me. In the moonlight I detected the glint of metal reflection in the left figure’s hand. They were armed. I drew a bead on the figure with the gun.
When he lifted his hand carrying the gun, I pulled the .410 trigger, dispatching five tripleaught pellets into his upper torso. Instinctively, I squeezed the second trigger, launching the .22 caliber slug into the upper chest of the second intruder. Both collapsed, moaning and writhing. My wife screamed behind me, and I turned quickly and shouted, “It’s okay! Call 911. I just shot two burglars. They’re still alive. Ask for an ambulance and the police. Do it now!” Shocked, she scrambled toward her night stand and fumbled for the phone. She was
punching in numbers when I reloaded my weapon and carefully approached the fallen prowlers. I inched slowly. The victim of the shotgun blast was now still, but the second intruder was making horrible gurgling sounds and whimpering. I moved closer. Keeping my gun focused on the bodies on the floor, I switched on the hall light. I gasped in disgust. The still figure was my neighbor, a sixteen-yearold kid that kept an eye on our house whenever we were out of town. Beside him was a young girl, sucking air through a hole in her throat. Why didn’t I shout out a
warning? Good God, I thought, we never called to tell him we came back early from our trip to Miami. In his hand I now saw a silver liquor flask. Damn kids just wanted a private place to be alone. What harm would it be? “Sarah,” I yelled, “tell ‘em to hurry. It’s Chad and a girl.” I was frantic. “I’ll try to save the girl.” From the bedroom I heard agonizing sobs and Sarah mumble something I could not understand. I bent down over the girl and fumbled through blood to find the hole in her throat. I plugged the opening with my fingers. I felt the weak throb of
blood trying to escape. Her cries kept getting weaker. I held on furiously, knowing the ambulance was still miles away.
Elaine Silverstein Mr. Carpinsky
On January 12th, just a few days after my fifth birthday, I cracked the code. My first experienced miracle. I simply woke able to understand the difference between “t” and “v” by their shapes. And in no time, I was picking out the cans of Campbell’s tomato soup from the ones holding vegetable soup. (It was in the olden days when a mere label, unadorned with a fullcolor picture of the contents, graced the can.) “Just give her a book and she’s happy,” my mother proudly reported to my grandmother, who kindly rewarded me with a quarter when she stopped by to visit one afternoon. The three of us stomped through the slush to go around the corner to Awrey’s Bakery for a bite of cake to have with our tea. Awrey’s was special to me because it had a
revolving stand of Little Golden Books. I could turn the stand and consider the possibility of ownership. This day I was a buyer with hard cash in the pocket of my corduroy overalls. It took many twirls for me to decide which book to choose. Finally, after narrowing my choices to The Little Red Hen and The Poky Little Puppy, I happily spent my twenty-five cents to buy the puppy book. From that day to this, whether standing before a rack of best sellers in an anonymous airport newsstand or scanning the recommended treasures in my favorite bookstore, eponymously named Books and Books, the pleasure of choosing which book to make mine is profound. In short, my mother was right about me. Of course, in those days my mother was always right.
“Up and at ’em, spring vacation is starting a day early for us,” my mother announced one Friday morning. She yanked fiercely at my window shade, sending it spinning with a noisy thwat as it rolled up, the string and ring beating against the shade. She turned her attention to my drawers. “I’m laying out your clothes. Go fix yourself a bowl of Wheaties. I left the box on the counter.” My mother was using what my father called her drill sergeant voice. “We are going to Grandma’s for Pesach. We won’t be back until Sunday.” A car trip from the west side of Detroit, where my parents and I lived in a cozy apartment that had four rooms and a tiny kitchen where my mother broiled lamb chops and scrambled eggs with lox and onions for the three of us on Sunday morning after my father and I had slipped around the corner to buy fresh bagels, to spend a few days with my
grandparents, who lived with my two teenaged aunts and a grown-up uncle in a very big house on the east side of town, took considerable preparation. My father left our apartment early in the morning while my mother and I still slept to get to his job in my grandfather’s flower shop not far from my grandparents’ home. He would take three buses across town so that my mother could use our car to drive us over later in the day. My mother busied herself for a long time filling two suitcases with the clothes she thought we might want during our stay. When she finally called out, “Go push the elevator button for Tony to come up. He needs to help us bring down the suitcases,” I had become lost in the meadow with Ferdinand the Bull and did not respond. My mother was panting, doubled over, pushing a yellow tweed suitcase. She passed my open bedroom door.
“Hey, Miss Nose-in-a-Book, did you hear me?” I scrambled to my feet to summon our doorman/elevator operator/handyman. “So where are you ladies off to?” Tony picked up both suitcases, bending his arms; his ropy muscles bulged out of his short-sleeved white shirt. “You sure didn’t pack light.” “We’re going to my folks for the holiday.” “Right,” Tony nodded. “Jewish Easter.” “Something like that,” my mother agreed. My mother handed Tony a dollar bill once he had settled our bags in the trunk. “Have a nice holiday, Tony. Buy a chocolate bunny for your girls.” “Thanks, Mrs. Ross. You drive carefully; lots of crazies on the road.” Tony opened the passenger door for me and I slid in next to my mother. Usually when Mother and I made
the long drive across town we would switch on the radio to listen to our soap operas. But today, after we had pulled into traffic, my mother made no effort to turn on the radio. “Are you ready for tomorrow?” she asked. “I think so.” “The first time is always the scariest.” “I did them last year.” “Yes,” my mother agreed, “But you only did one question. This year you’re doing the real deal. Did you bring your papers so you could practice?” I pulled the mimeographed pages out of my book bag to show them to her. “In English or Hebrew?” My mother laughed. “What do you think?” I began, “Ma nish ta nah…” I sang through the Four Questions several times, my mother coaching me on the melody.
“You got it, kiddo.” She finally seemed satisfied. “We’ll practice again tomorrow.” She took her hand off the steering wheel and pushed in the cigarette lighter. “Get me a cigarette from my purse, would you, sweetie. I really need a smoke. And you can turn on the radio.” I pulled a cigarette from her package of Pall Malls and handed it to her. Then I flicked the switch just as the announcer was posing his daily question: “Can an orphan gal from a little mining town in Colorado find happiness married to one of Britain’s richest, most handsome men?” My mother inhaled deeply and let the smoke come out of her nose. The two of us turned our attention to Our Gal Sunday. As we pulled the green Buick into the driveway of my grandparents’ big red brick house, my father, who was sitting on the stone steps, stood up. “Phillip, what are you doing out here?”
“What does it look like? Waiting for you.” “Don’t they need you in the store?” “Your father gave me an hour for lunch.” He held out his hand to help my mother from the car. Mother laughed. “I’m perfectly fine.” “Still, you need to be careful.” He glanced down at her stomach. “We don’t want to lose this one.” My mother shook her head. “Shaa…the kind,” she whispered. “So why don’t we tell her?” he whispered back. “Not till after three months.” The conversation between my parents was conducted in a code language I didn’t comprehend. They called it mameloshn. In time I would understand that it was Yiddish. I would also learn to understand more than a few words. Not enough to be fluent, but enough to laugh at a few jokes. “Mirry, you carry your books,” my mother raised her voice to speak to
me. “Daddy will get the suitcases.” “Hey, Ketzel,” my father said. “You’re going to have a great day. Mr. Carpinsky is waiting to meet you.” “Who’s Mr. Carpinsky?” “You’ll see. You’re going to love him.” My father was grinning. “And tomorrow night the whole family will love him.” “Meshugah.” My mother sighed and shook her head. I hardly noticed, my attention drawn to the open front door where my grandmother stood waiting for us, her bright red hair covered by a clean white cotton kerchief tied at the nape of her neck. “At last, you’re here. I was getting worried.” She gave my mother a quick hug and took my hand. “We’ve got a lot to do.” “Don’t worry, Ma, the cavalry has arrived.” My mother grinned at her mother. “Where are Betty and Marilyn?” “They are in the kitchen,” she sniffed, “but your sisters aren’t the
best help. I can tell you that.” She turned to my father. “Phillip, just leave the bags at the foot of the stairs.” “How about if I take them up? I’ll introduce Miriam to Mr. Carpinsky.” “First lunch. We don’t have all day to keep the kitchen open.” We followed my grandmother across the large, shadowy living room. A deep red Persian rug, rich with blue and turquoise flowers and vines, covered most of the floor. In the corner stood a shiny black Steinway piano draped with a long blackfringed, heavily embroidered, Spanish shawl. Portraits of relatives I mostly didn’t know, some smiling, some serious, framed in heavy silver, were arranged on top of the shawl. Against one long wall, a carved white alabaster mantelpiece displayed a pair of graceful black ceramic panthers, heads lowered, glaring at each other. On this mild spring day, the fireplace was unlit, screened by an ornate brass fan that covered the
opening. We continued through the silent dining room, a room only used for special occasions like birthdays and tomorrow’s Seder. It was furnished with a long mahogany table and eighteen high-backed, upholstered chairs pushed up to the table. On the sideboard along one wall stood two of carefully polished brass candlesticks I knew had once belonged to Grandma’s mother and had come to America wrapped in a pillowcase. Grandma pushed the thick swinging door between the dining room and the kitchen. “Look who’s here,” she announced. “Just in time.” My aunt Betty was standing next to the sink, picking apart chicken extracted from the vat of golden soup now cooling at the back of the stove. A delicious aroma from the rich soup and whatever else was being prepared perfumed the air in this busy room. Aunt Betty’s hands
were shiny with the grease from the skin she was discarding. She looked down at the soft, no-colored meat. “Not very appetizing, is it?” Cora, Grandma’s longtime cook, was vigorously mixing together a mirepoix of vegetables and spices. She winked at me. “Betty, you just don’t have the knack.” Aunt Marilyn was on her knees in front of the refrigerator. She was pulling out plates covered with wax paper and lining them up on the floor. “Ma, which of this do you want to serve for lunch?” “Everything. Put it all out on the table; we need to get rid of it all.” “Mac and cheese too?” Grandma shrugged. “Why not?” My grandmother didn’t keep an authentic kosher kitchen. But she had her rules. She didn’t allow pork in the house and we never had butter on the table when meat was served, although there might be butter melted on the
vegetables as well as milk in the mashed potatoes. Shellfish were not permitted (although both she and my grandfather loved to eat lobster in restaurants). Ice cream was OK, but only with birthday cake. On one side of the kitchen there was an archway leading to what the family called the breakfast room. It was a cheerful room with high clerestory windows. Once the staff dining room, now it was the room where the family took most of their meals, everyone seated around a large, round oak table. Today it was covered by a black-and-whitecheckered oilcloth. A handsomely carved wooden Lazy Susan turntable, holding salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard, sugar, and oil, sat in the center. On the table was an assortment of platters and bowls holding bits and pieces: the last of a meatloaf with hard-boiled egg in the middle of each slice, cold beet borscht, a few pieces of herring in
tomato sauce, leftover coleslaw, cold canned green beans, macaroni and cheese, and sliced tomatoes, as well as a pile of empty plates and knives and forks wrapped in white cloth napkins. “This is the last bread for eight days.” Grandma set down a basket of sliced rye. “And here is my famous chicken salad.” My mother brought over a heaping bowl of chicken salad on top of some lettuce leaves. It was a recipe I would ask for again and again when I was older, but chicken with apples and oranges and celery and slivered almonds tinted yellow by curry was beyond my five-year-old palate. “C’mon, Mirry,” my father said, “have something to eat, and then I’ll take you to Mr. Carpinsky.” “Who?” my Aunt Marilyn asked. “You know,” said my father, “the gentleman in the bathtub.” “Oh, that Mr. Carpinsky.” My aunt smiled at me. “I’ll bet he’d like it if you
read to him.” I looked around the table and saw nothing I wanted to eat until WillaMae, Cora’s sister-who-helped-outsometimes, brought in a platter of hot dogs. “No buns,” my mother explained. ”But we can wrap your dog in this nice rye bread.” My mother peeled away the crust then wrapped my frank in the bread and neatly dabbed it with just the right amount of mustard. “And here, one of my dill pickles.” Grandma put one on my plate. She poured me my own glass of Vernor’s ginger ale over ice…what a feast. After lunch my father took me upstairs and stopped before the closed bathroom door. A large paper sign was taped to the door. “Can you read that sign?” my father asked. CARP IN BATHTUB. BEWARE!!! “What does it mean?” I asked my father.
“C’mon, I’ll show you.” He knocked at the door. “Mr. Carpinsky, are you in there?” I heard some splashing. “He’s taking a bath. Should we wait?” My father opened the door and walked straight across the black-andwhite-checked tile floor toward my grandparents’ massive bathtub, a long white marble slab I had always found so fearsome that no amount of coaxing would get me to take a bath. On those occasions I had to bathe at Grandma’s I preferred to shower wearing a frilly, flowered shower cap with one of my aunts or my mother standing just outside the shower door. Not only was the tub huge, but, for a child who believed a little girl can fall through a rabbit hole and a baby elephant can fly, the drain in that tub was very scary. “Miriam,” my father said, “This is Mr. Carpinsky.” I looked over the side
of the tub that stood higher than my waist to see a huge black fish swimming lazily in the water, his tail slapping the sides as he swam from one end to the other. I was living in a world of Ferdinand and Babar and Peter Rabbit and Ping and a mother cat who scolded her three little kittens for losing their mittens; a carp in the bathtub fit in just fine. I spent the afternoon sitting on the floor next to the tub, my back against the side, as Mr. Carpinsky swam up and down. I read to him, and when I got tired of reading I told him a few of the stories I knew by heart. He was a very good listener. Mr. Carpinsky and I got along just fine. “Miriam,” my father said, opening the bathroom door, “We need to go.” “Do I have to? I’m in the middle of reading to Mr. Carpinsky.” “Grandma’s closed the kitchen. Everyone is busy cooking for tomorrow. We have orders to eat out.”
“Where’s Mommy?” I asked. “She’s in the second kitchen with Grandma and Cora. They are getting ready for a big project.” The second kitchen was my grandmother’s domain. Cora did the cooking upstairs, but when Grandma had a project like strawberry jam or stewed tomatoes or dill pickles, it was in the large, high-ceilinged, basement kitchen with its big black stove, deep gray granite sinks, and long steel counters. In that kitchen my grandmother was completely in charge. “What are they making?” “Oh, something good, I’m sure.” “Do they need me to help?” “Maybe next year.” My father gathered up my books and took my hand. “Let’s go.” “Can I finish reading to Mr. Carpinsky when we get back?” My father looked at me. “Mirry, you know Mr. Carpinsky is a fish?”
“I know, but he’s a very intelligent fish.” My father laughed. “And you are a very intelligent little girl. Actually, he’s a carp. Mr. Carpinsky is just the name I gave him.” I nodded. “Like a nickname. Like you call me Ketzel and my real name is Miriam.” My father nodded. “Well, yes, but different.” My father had found a brush in one of the bathroom drawers and brushed out my hair before we went downstairs, where my grandfather was waiting for us. “I’ve said our good-byes,” my grandfather said. “I told them we’d be back in about an hour.” He handed my father his car keys. “My wife said we should take our time. They are grating the horseradish.” He chuckled. “So maybe we should go to Joe Muer’s for lobster?” “Whatever you want, Pa.” My father took the keys.
As soon as we returned from dinner, I sprinted up the stairs to see Mr. Carpinsky. The bathtub was empty. “Daddy, Daddy,” I wailed, leaning over the banister. “Come quickly!” My father came running up the stairs. My mother and grandparents followed him. “Miriam, what is it?” “Oh, Daddy,” I sobbed, “Mr. Carpinsky has gone down the drain.” “He didn’t go down the drain,” my grandfather laughed. “The ladies took care of him.” “I told you, Phillip,” my mother hissed at my father. Her mouth pinched into a tight line. “It was just a little joke.” My father spoke in that secret code. “Maybe not such a good joke; I thought she’d understand.” My father knelt so we were eye to eye. “Miriam, you know Mr. Carpinsky was a fish. Right?”
I nodded. “You know people eat fish?” I nodded again. “So?” I looked at my mother and grandmother. Both of them were wrapped in white butcher aprons streaked with blood. “But Mr. Carpinsky was a very special fish,” I managed to say in a very small voice. We had more Seders at my grandparents’ home. The next year, when my father suggested I show my baby sister the carp in the bathtub, I would not. Nor would I help make gefilte fish. I complained of the smell. In time, grandma found a fishmonger who would grind her fish. The carp in the bathtub became just another page in our family’s history. We grew up and moved on. Still, I have never been a fan of gefilte—or, for that matter, any—fish, except maybe now and then tuna from
a can…heavy on the mayo.
Contributors Christopher DeWan Christopher DeWan has published numerous short stories, in journals recently including A cappella Zoo, Bartleby Snopes, The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Jersey Devil Press, Necessary Fiction, and wigleaf. His story "Hoopty Time Machine" was winner of The Binnacle's "Ultra-Short Competition," and he has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Learn more on his website. Denise Kodi Denise Kodi is an award-winning writer who tackles tough subjects with humor and sensitivity. Her stories and essays have been featured in Poem Memoir Story, The Sun, Skirt Magazine, Progenitor (for which she won the Creative Nonfiction Prize) and elsewhere. She is the author of "Blessed," a brutal and brutally funny memoir about growing up in a home with a family curse. Blessed is represented by Ms. Julia Kenny of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. Denise has worked with at-risk youth and cofounded a charitable organization to encourage young writers through anonymous gifts. She lives in Denver, CO and is a sucker for rescue dogs. When not writing she can be seen visiting local shelters and dragging one home. Read more about Denise on her website.
Jerry McGinley Author of four published novels and over a hundred published poems, stories, and articles, Jerry McGinley is the founder and publisher of Lake City Lights Online Literary Magazine. Carolyn Rice Carolyn Rice is an archaeologist, activist and poet who taught college extension courses in the fields of art and creativity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems have appeared inWest Marin Review, City on a Hill Press and the Marin Poetry Center Anthology. Ms. Losee currently chairs the Annual Marin County High School Poetry Awards on the board of the Marin Poetry Center. She owns and manages an archaeological consulting company, and lives with her husband and son in Tiburon, California. Elaine Silverstein Elaine Silverstein is the cofounder and cochairman of Beber-Silverstein Group, one of the largest woman-owned, privately held advertising agencies in America. The agency, which is now in its 33rd year, has represented clients as diverse as Leona Helmsley, whom they made a queen, and the National Organization for Women, for whom they worked but could not pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Elaine has been recognized by my industry with multiple awards. Elaine grew up in Detroit and now lives in Miami. She is a wife, mother, sister, aunt, mentor, and now in middle age she finds that she has stories to tell. Elaine’s work has appeared in Aethlon, Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, Lilith, North Atlantic Review, Palo Alto Review, Phoebe: Gender and Cultural Critiques, RE:AL, Talon Magazine,and Westview.
Jim Warner Jim Warner's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals including The North American Review, PANK Magazine, Five Quarterly, The Minnesota Review, and is the author of two collections "Too Bad It's Poetry" and "Social Studies" (PaperKite Press). Currently, Jim is the Managing Editor of Quiddity housed at Benedictine University in Springfield, IL and writes the weekly column Best Worst Year for SunDog Lit.
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