Crack the Spine
Issue Twenty-Seven
Crack The Spine Issue Twenty-Seven June 4, 2012 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2012 by Crack the Spine
Contents M.A. Istvan Jr. The Stage in Question Bracketing ‘Outside’ Problems Mitch Grabois Shade-Tree Mechanic Melissa Hamilton-Warwick Electrolove & Techsex Homosapians Jad Josey Beneath That Equal Sky Rachel Adams What You Bring Along Chris Vanjonack Reactions to a Punch in the Face Dave Morehouse User Manual Final Appearance
Cover Art “Dreams of the Past� by Todd J. Donery After many years of being diverted from my original career path in photography I am back in school to finish my degree in Photography/Digital Imaging. Over the years, I have had various exhibits of my work in the Minneapolis, MN area, which is where I reside. My images have been used for websites, a calendar, album covers, and slide shows for musical performances. Most recently I have been published on the online literary journal, Midwestern Gothic and exhibited in the Edina Art Crawl. I enjoy all aspects of photography, but I have found my preferred artistic expression is in composite imagery.
M.A. Istvan Jr. The Stage in Question It’s the stage where you take your time rummaging through the junk mail seeing what each item has to say, where you’re comforted by the presence of each, where you keep finding yourself slipping into buying their expressions of care.
M.A. Istvan Jr. Bracketing ‘Outside’ Problems We only think about “inside” problems, problems within the known universe: pandemics, war, asteroids, the sun using up its fuel. But there’s always that analogue to child hands clapping a bubble.
M.A. Istvan Jr. is pursuing a PhD in Philosophy and an MA in English at Texas A&M. His poetry has appeared in the Moose & Pussy and will next appear in the Penwood Review.
Mitch Grabois Shade-Tree Mechanic Day One I recognized the knock on my office door as Nurse Amy’s. I’d only just completed my morning prayers, ending, as always, with Dear God, let everything broken be unbroken. Though of Scandinavian descent, Amy is short and dark. “I hate to tell you this, Hank, but Tiffany has escaped.” “She has an appointment with me in five minutes.” Amy’s look was pitying. “She went out on grounds privileges yesterday afternoon...” “Yes. . .?” “…and just kept going.” Chippahitchka’s Main Street becomes a highway as it leaves town both east and west, but we don’t think of grounds privileges as an escape risk. Despite the hospital’s indignities, despite being at the mercy of ward staff who are uneducated and often mean, only a tiny fraction of patients have the nerve and the wherewithal to plunge back into the predatory world. The roadway is not asphalt but the bodies of Doberman Pinschers, Tiffany had written, and the bodies of black men with huge blue muscles Sometimes they all come back to life Still, a yearning to swim in her father’s pool, a desperate longing for her children, so immaculately conceived that they had never been born, or an urge to feel the dangerous textures of the world against her skin, any of those could have pushed Tiffany to run . “Has Fez been informed?” I asked Amy. “Fez” is Mike Fellows, our Unit Director. “Yes. I let him know before I came to see you.” So the clock was ticking. Law and practice dictated that there would be three days during which the cops might find her. If not apprehended within that period, Tiffany would be officially discharged and, a few days later, her bed would be given to a new patient. Nurse Amy’s expression seemed to say, “Don’t wait, Hank, go find her.”
Day Two They are rough when they come to wake me in the morning~—they are mean They have taken everything and my body is my only refuge and even that is not mine These drugs these insistent drugs Everything is gone but they want me to get out of bed and brush my snaggle teeth Can't you hold me, Hank? Hold me close as if I were beautiful? I was beautiful before my father made me swim in Love Canal Nurse Amy knocked. She’d brought me a cup of coffee. “It’s hard to think of Tiffany out there, hitchhiking,” she said. “Of all our patients, I think of her as the most vulnerable.” In my years of working at the hospital, I have developed a sort of x-ray vision, the ability to see inside the patient. Under the ugliness is often beauty, under dysfunction, capability. I catch glimpses of Tiffany before her illness smeared and distorted her. I see her in sunshine, looking up from where she is kneeling in a bed of rich earth in which she’s planted flowers. Her white blouse is soiled. She doesn’t care, but it’s the carelessness of vibrant life, not the dull apathy of disease. You say Brush teeth make bed comply comply but how can I comply when I have no shore no breath no friend? Can't you just be my friend Hank kiss me even if my teeth are dirty even if they are grimy gritty not Close-Up teeth? Day Three I was neglecting my duties, spending more time in my office, praying and thinking about Tiffany. There are certain unwritten rules. A psychologist doesn’t mount a personal search for an escaped patient. However, as Fez would say: Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. I crossed the campus, crossed Main Street, and pulled open the heavy glass door of the Gate. I’d taken Tiffany there for lunch many times. The other diners scrutinize me— they are ready with hidden buzzers to call out the murderers and rapers If you leave me alone I will be meat for their Dobermans
When you go to the bathroom I am frightened and throw all our food on the floor The restaurant was nearly empty, in that vacant time between lunch and dinner. Leona the waitress finally came over, and I asked if she’d seen Tiffany. “What, that sweet girl jumped up and ran away?” Leona was being charitable, or sarcastic. Tiffany had several times subjected her to the rawest insults. The air was unseasonably chilly as I walked the four blocks to Highcastle Pharmacy. The counter girl hadn’t seen her either. I stood in front of the lipstick display and read the names of the colors. Tiffany always took a long time looking—you can’t hurry a woman. You buy me a tube of lipstick I shake from medication and you guide my hand you think I am full of disease but to have illness you must have life and the drugs have taken away all life So you are safe with this zombie You can afford a tender moment with this zombie I always examined her newly colored lips closely, then made her look into the small, blurry mirror on the lipstick display. In those moments I sometimes imagined what it would be like if all the barriers between us— including her illness—were suddenly to collapse, and we could be together. Fez’s nephew, Toto, was in a grunge band, the Ceades of Destruction. Toto had ugly, prison tattoos, hair cut in ragged patches, and eyes that spun like pinwheels. I knew that the Ceades’ house had been one of Tiffany’s hangouts, when she was free on grounds privileges. When I walked in, Toto was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. The body of his guitar was on his chest and its neck stretched down between his legs. “Wazzup, man?” he said. “Have you seen Tiffany?” “Yeah, she’s here. She’s been shagging Freddy the Sandwich, our new drummer.” How can one’s heart both soar and fall to the pit of one’s stomach at the same time? I was ready to vomit with elation. I saw myself as a character in a horror movie, plunging Freddy’s drumsticks deep into his eye sockets, and taking Tiffany by the hand, home to her ward. “You want her?” Toto led me into a room with a cum-soiled mattress on the floor, no sheets, no pillows, and empty beer cans scattered around. “Not here,” said Toto. “They probably went to score some weed. You can hang out and wait if you want.”
I nodded. “You gonna bust her?” “She’s involuntarily hospitalized,” I said. “She needs treatment.” “Aw, she’s no more wacked than the rest of us.” “She’s a chronic schizophrenic.” “Yeah, man——and someone once slapped a Ford logo on my Gibson guitar. Dig, sometimes you’ve got to let people be who they are, work out their own karma. You can’t just lean in like a shade-tree mechanic, spray ‘em with WD-40 and re-torque their internal combustion with your giant fucking wrenches, you know what I mean?” “Yes, you’re saying that terror and confusion are Tiffany’s fate, and we should just step back and let her die under a freeway somewhere.” “Listen, I’ve got to head for the McJob, man, but make yourself home on the range.” Drowsy, I lay down on the spot where Toto had been. I picked up his guitar to use as a blanket, just to see what it felt like. When I awoke it was night and the house was dark. I sneezed four times and felt dizzy. I’d probably inhaled some methamphetamine from the couch cushions. I stood up, still holding the guitar. I thought it would make a good weapon. I headed for the room where Tiffany had been crashing. No grunge punk was going to interfere with my treatment plan.
Mitch Grabois was born in the Bronx, New York, and currently lives in Denver, Colorado. His short fiction has appeared in close to seventy literary magazines in the U.S. and Canada, most recently in Memoir Journal and Marco Polo Arts Mag. His story “Shade Tree Mechanic” is adapted from his novel, TWO-HEADED DOG, which was published in April 2012 by Dirt e-books, an innovative publisher of contemporary novels founded by New York literary agent Gary Heidt, who has represented several award winning novelists. Mitch Grabois is a psychotherapist who has been employed in a variety of clinical settings, including working with chronic schizophrenics in the famous (and notorious) Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, Florida. TWO-HEADED DOG is based upon that experience. TWO-HEADED DOG mixes aspects of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with elements of Love Story. It is the tumultuous, heartfelt story of Hank Ribinthal and Tiffany, a psychologist and his patient, in constant conflict over treatments goals and means. When Tiffany escapes, Hank feels compelled to leave his job and search for her, and his world gets ever stranger and more dangerous. Sad and poignant, funny and outrageous, TWO-HEADED DOG is a page-turner.
Melissa Hamilton-Warwick Electrolove & Techsex We’re letting our world crawl by us. The flags of trees clamber every cobblestone. Yet we ignore emotion & let lasting sensation pass. Pig nation. Conceptualize a culpable macrocosm. Indulge in bootlicking adoration. Descend into a reservoir of enlightenment. Let your center clock implode.
Melissa Hamilton-Warwick Homosapians Are we more than just a bag of bones? I nub around the giggling trees. My buffalo blows smoke rings in the breeze. Who are we to say they’re not like us. We all breathe and we pus. Peel my tissue back pin me on the wall. Inspect my insides you may be appalled.
Melissa Hamilton-Warwick is currently a junior at the University of Minnesota, studying interior design. She was born and raised in St. Paul, MN. She has shown her art pieces in multiple galleries in both Minneapolis & St. Paul. Melissa's future goals include; continue to make art, writing and publishing a fiction novel, owning her own interior design firm, traveling the world/learning about other cultures, and to truly be happy.
Jad Josey Beneath That Equal Sky On the nights when gunshots cracked the dark stillness of the valley, Jimmy would lie awake in his bed and listen for Paloma’s voice, the sound of her door creaking open, the padding of her tiny feet on the wooden floorboards. He would hold his breath, fearful that even the tiniest stirring would bring her fully awake. Sometimes the house remained quiet, and he fell asleep listening to the negative space those shots carved out of the night, his arm stretched across the empty place beside him in the bed. On the nights that Paloma did come to him, she would creep up slowly to his bedside, her small feet a whisper across the bare floor. “Daddy,” she would say. “Is he killing them again?” She would look around awkwardly with her halfclosed blue eyes, searching for something solid and safe. In the cool darkness of the night she looked almost too aware. These things weighed more than her tiny body. Jimmy would brush back her long brown hair and tell her that everything was okay, that everything would be okay, and then he would pull her up into the bed, let her head rest in the crook of his arm, and he would dig his heels into the mattress and rock slowly until her breathing was slow and steady. Tuck, the man who lived closest, shot wolves for a living. In the years before Isabella died, Jimmy saw Tuck only rarely and always in passing. There was a lot of space between them. When Jimmy and Isabella signed the papers on this piece of land, anxious to migrate west from the flatlands of Ohio, neither had ever seen a wolf before. It was a seven-acre stretch of land divided neatly by a wandering stream. It lay on the outskirts of the county, butted up against a lush backbone of hills. It was easy to be solitary neighbors, separated by more than fences, and the land beyond the copse of oaks to the east—where sometimes a tiny light could be seen on the outskirts of their property—was a sort of no-man’s-land in Jimmy’s mind, a place beyond the boundary of his own life. When they had first arrived, the nights were more silent than anything Jimmy had ever heard. There were no gunshots. Jimmy reveled in the quiet, and Isabella seemed more content than she had been in a long time. It was vast and dark and beautiful and theirs, and it was exactly where Isabella wanted to die. The soft edges of their post-honeymoon existence had become squared off more quickly than either of them could have expected. They had been married two summers when Isabella was diagnosed with lupus. She fought through several months of deep depression, days and nights of angry wondering. She began to curse the flatness of the Ohio landscape, the barrenness, the bleak magnanimity of the sky. There was no movement,
she told Jimmy, and she needed something to meet the quavering she felt in her bones. Jimmy had already begun gathering their belongings—even if only mentally—on the day she finally found the bearing on her life’s compass. “Jimmy,” she had said, “Let’s just pack up and get out of here. This isn’t where I want to be when…” She stopped, her voice trailing off. “When you get better,” Jimmy finished for her. He rubbed both her hands between his own. They were very cold. “I’m not going to get better,” she whispered. “But right now I feel good, like there’s something bigger than all of this, and smaller, too. Somewhere between the ocean and the mountains. I want to go somewhere and feel tucked in and safe.” Something behind her brown eyes trembled. “Then we’ll go,” he had said. He didn’t tell her that he’d already put his notice in at the feed store. “I’ll start making the calls tomorrow.” And so they found this piece of land, and it seemed to solidify something between them, a thing more permanent than either of them could name with words. Jimmy could barely remember the moments between seeing the Ohio dust in his rearview mirror and their first night in the new house. But he remembered that first night with amazing clarity. They sat on the porch swing, moving lazily back and forth and watching the sun disappear behind the low hills. Isabella pressed herself into his chest, and he twisted her long dark hair around his fingers. She was especially tired that night. From behind the tilted shadows of the hillside came a long, slow howl. A chorus of several others followed. He felt Isabella stiffen against his chest. She sat up and craned her neck in the direction of the setting sun. “Look,” she whispered. Her eyes were alight. “What is that?” She pointed toward a small stand of leaning oaks on the hillside. Jimmy saw the silhouette loping through the tall grass. It stopped for a moment, then turned its head skyward, and a deep howl resonated from the dark shoulder of the hills. “I think that’s a wolf,” he said. He had seen his fair share of coyotes moving across the prairie flats of Ohio, and this wasn’t a coyote. He tightened his arm around her shoulders, preparing for a fear to rise from her. “That’s beautiful,” Isabella said. Her eyes were bright with tears, and her face glowed in the fading light, a tawny gold that caught the flecks of color in her irises. He left her on the porch and shut the screen door quietly behind him, and then he built a small fire in the living room stove. He watched her through the window, her knees drawn up close to her chest, blanket tight around her in the gloaming. Then he went to their bedroom and pulled the naked mattress from atop the box
spring and dragged it next to the fire. He dug through several boxes to find their warmest blankets, spread them out neatly on the mattress, and then he went and lifted her into his arms from the porch swing. They were both convinced that this was the night upon which Paloma was conceived, a night when the howling of the wolves seemed to tumble down from the dark western hills. There were many nights after that when Jimmy would arrive home to find Isabella sitting on the porch swing, rocking slowly back and forth with her favorite brown blanket draped across her growing belly, waiting patiently for the howling of the wolves. The months during her pregnancy were hard. Jimmy was working overtime at the mill, trying to earn extra money for the farm equipment he planned to buy. On some nights he would return home, covered in the fine powder of soy and wheat dust, to find Isabella curled up on their bed, the joints of her knees and shoulders burning so badly that she could hardly move. Other nights he would lay awake and listen to the cold rasping of her breath, trying to wish away the fluid that filled her lungs. It seemed absurd to him that a tiny life—a little being they had created together—was growing by the moment in her womb while her body waged war on itself. It was during these months that the gunshots began. Jimmy awoke with a start one night, the echo still rumbling across the hills. He turned toward Isabella and saw the whites of her eyes in the darkness. He reached toward her and she jerked away, startled by his movement. “What was that?” she asked, her voice thick with adrenaline. Jimmy pulled back the down comforter and swung his naked legs out into the cool air of the bedroom. He walked to the window and peered out. There was no moon, and he could barely see the tall sugar pines in the distance. “What is it, Jimmy?” she asked again. He turned and looked at her. She was sitting up, leaning against the headboard, one hand resting on her extended belly and the other knotted around a handful of bed sheet. “Maybe hunters,” he said. “I don’t know.” He walked back to the bed and climbed in beside her. He took her hand, the one clutching the bed sheet, and massaged the joints of her fingers, her knuckles, her wrist. “I’m so tired,” she whispered. He could hear it in her voice. “I’m trying to be strong, but I’m just so tired.” She slid down and laid her head upon his shoulder. “Your shoulder’s bony.” “You always say that.” “Because it always is,” she said. The silence gathered for many moments. “You’ll feel better after the baby’s born,” he said, finally. He rubbed at the tendons in her wrist and watched her fingers curl loosely.
“I know I will,” she said. She sounded less sure than he wanted her to sound. He pulled her closer and rested his hand upon her belly. “Not too long now,” he whispered. “Not so long at all.” They didn’t actually meet Tuck until several years after Paloma was born. It was on the evening of their sixth wedding anniversary. Jimmy’s mother had driven out from Ohio for the week, giving them leave to have dinner out on the town while she looked after Paloma. After dinner, on the drive home, Isabella had pointed to the old tavern at the center of town, the Rose Bud. “That’s where you and I are going to celebrate,” she said, leaning in close to Jimmy’s ear. She smelled like jasmine. “That’s where we’ll start, at least,” she whispered, and he felt her smiling next to his ear. He steered the old pickup into the dirt lot. “What about Paloma?” “She’ll be fine,” Isabella said. “Your mom won’t mind watching her for a couple more hours.” She tugged at his sleeve. “Come on.” “You sure you’re not too tired?” he asked. The times when she felt good were like a line pulled too taut, always on the verge of breaking. She pushed open the truck door, then looked back at him. Her dark eyes were moody, and she looked younger than she had in months. “Don’t make me change my mind, Jimmy,” she said. She smiled at him. After three drinks, those dark eyes were glossy. A ringlet of hair had fallen across her face, and she stroked at it with her fingers. She looked at Jimmy with an intensity that made him shift in his chair. “I don’t want to leave you and Paloma alone,” she said suddenly. He met her gaze. “I know.” “Not the way my mother and father left me. Not like that. I didn’t have anybody left. Now I have you and Paloma.” “Isabella,” he said quietly. “You’re not going anywhere yet. We need you.” He reached for her hand across the small table. “I can feel it. I can feel it in deep.” She raised her hand to her chest. “In here,” she said. Her head lowered a bit. “I’ll get you home now,” Jimmy said. He tucked his forefinger under her chin and tilted her head up gently. The bar door banged open, and they both turned to look across the bar. Jimmy recognized Tuck. He had a severe face, with ruddy hair and a gray mustache that swallowed his upper lip.
“What’s it gonna be, Tuck?” the bartender asked. He swiped a towel around the rim of a mug. “You having water or whiskey tonight?” “I reckon I might have me a bit of both,” Tuck said. He held something dark in his hand, and he raised it to his chest. He stroked at it gently with the tips of his fingers. A titter moved its way through the men in the bar. “Gotcha one tonight, did you?” a man said loudly. Tuck looked at him and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “Yes, I did,” he said quietly. “But I don’t want no man drinking to it, alright? That’s for damn sure.” The man at the bar waved his hand back and forth loosely. “Yeah, yeah, we got it, Tuck. We got it.” “Lemme see it,” another man said. Jimmy looked at Isabella. Her eyes were wide open, bloodshot. Her hand was balled into a fist on the table. Tuck handed the dark thing to the man closest to him, who passed it along to the man next to him, and so on. Several of the men paused to really look closely at it, holding it up in the dim light of the tavern. The fur shone like oil, dark and slick. “Is that his right one or his left one?” someone asked, chuckling. “Look at that thing.” The man held the paw up next to his hand. “That’s a big one, for sure.” Jimmy looked around. A man sitting at the table next to them lifted his beer in Tuck’s direction. “Goddamn government finally lifted the ban on hunting wolves last week,” the man said. He took a long swig of his beer. “Tuck’s the best damn hunter in this county. Used to get him one or two a week before the state shut him down.” He smiled. “Even after.” “Jesus,” Isabella said quietly. “We have to get out of here.” There were tears shaking in her eyes. “I don’t feel so good. I want to go now, Jimmy.” He helped her to her feet and guided her toward the door, his hand pressed lightly into the low of her back. Isabella raised her left hand in front of her eyes, blocking her view of the dark paw as they passed by the man holding it at the bar. Jimmy’s throat was tight. He could feel Isabella trembling against his fingertips. As they rounded the end of the bar, the quiet neighbor stepped forward into their path and thrust his hand out at Jimmy. “Name’s Tuck,” he said. “You and me are neighbors.” Jimmy took the man’s hand. “I’m Jimmy,” he said. He looked over toward Isabella, whose face was turned away. “This is my wife, Isabella.” She tugged at his sleeve. “She isn’t feeling so well right now.”
Isabella turned and looked at Tuck. Her brown eyes looked black. “My god,” she said, and her voice trailed off. Jimmy pushed her toward the door. His hands were on her shoulders. She shook one arm loose and turned back toward Tuck. “You ain’t no man,” she said. “You ain’t no man at all.” Jimmy pushed the door open and steered her out. The air was cold outside, fresh and clean. His nose stung when he inhaled. Isabella leaned her head onto his shoulder as they walked toward the pickup. The ground was loud beneath their feet, and the sky was bright with moonlight. “I don’t know which is worse, baby,” she said. She tucked her long fingers inside his shirt. “I just don’t know.” Jimmy wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, but he didn’t want to ask. For the next two winters they endured the crack of rifle shots. The wolves were most active in the cold, wet months, although Isabella saw and heard them all throughout the year. On some nights Jimmy would awaken to see her standing at the bedroom window, staring out across the moonlit hills. She didn’t talk much about the wolves, but Jimmy saw in her movements that they never left the forefront of her mind. On the nights when the shots tore through the silence, she would stiffen in bed next to him, and he could feel her crying silently. Jimmy would wrap an arm around her, pulling her close, trying to bring her back into the warmth of their house, back from the tall wet grass and sugar pine shadows where he knew her mind was. Her condition began to worsen steadily. She would have several months of remission, months when her energy seemed almost normal, but the wheezing in her chest never quite subsided. Then she would relapse, spending hours in bed each day with Paloma nestled in beside her. When the doctors told her to prepare herself for the worst, she was resolute, as though she had been expecting the news. Jimmy had just returned from the farm supply warehouse, having finally saved enough money to put three acres of land to seed. He found Isabella curled up on the porch swing, rocking Paloma slowly. Paloma was tall for a five-year-old, and her legs dangled awkwardly as her mother held her close. Her skin was the same color as Isabella’s, and her irises reflected the same dusky spots. “Jimmy, I need to talk to you,” she said softly. She shook Paloma gently, and the young girl raised her head. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, smiling. Jimmy felt as though his heart would break. “Be a good girl and go get mommy some lemonade, okay? It’s in the pitcher in the fridge.” “No ice, right?” Paloma asked, looking back as she opened the screen door. “That’s right, baby. No ice.”
Jimmy sat down on the swing beside her, tucking one of his legs up underneath him. She pressed her feet into him, and they were cold through his jeans. He took them between his hands and rubbed them, trying to push heat through her skin. “I need you to be strong, Jimmy,” she whispered. He nodded his head and looked over his shoulder toward his truck in the driveway. He thought of the bags of seed that lay in the rusty truck bed, of the dormant life that sat waiting for the spring, for his hands, his earth. “I can feel it,” she said. “I can feel it, too,” he said. Her feet refused to grow warm between his hands. He scanned the hills for the familiar shapes darting through the tall grass. He felt her gaze hard on his cheek, and then she turned her head toward the hills, too. “I haven’t seen any of them for awhile,” she said. Paloma came banging through the screen door, a tall glass of lemonade clutched in her small hands. “There’s no ice in here, Mommy,” she said. Isabella took the glass and raised it to her lips. Jimmy noticed that her hands were shaking slightly. He stood up from the swing, placing Isabella’s feet down gently. He tucked the edges of the blanket around them, feeling the cold even through the fabric. “Come on, Paloma,” he said. “Come help me sort the seed while I unload the bags.” Paloma skipped down the porch steps. Jimmy walked around behind the porch swing, leaned down, and kissed Isabella on the top of her head. He let his lips linger there for a moment, breathing in the smell of her, then turned and followed Paloma down the steps to the truck. Two months later, Jimmy put his wife in the ground and became a widower, a single father, and a farmer. Isabella died three days before Paloma’s sixth birthday. Now, several months after the cold, rainy funeral service, the Pacific Northwest was awakening to springtime. The stream ran cold and clear, and the small nooks where the current eddied were ropy with thousands of frog eggs. Wildflowers sprang from small crevices, and the valley floor teemed with fireweed, Indian paintbrush, lupine, poppies. Jimmy cleared more land than he needed, inspired by the dark earth that steamed in the early morning sunshine. His tools and clothes were greasy before the last of the rains had stopped. He purchased a gaspowered tiller that smoked and bucked in the dirt beside the shed. Two weeks after he bought it he had it
running smooth and loud. The land was full of rocks and old roots. He spent days clearing the field, happy for the distraction of hard labor. The nighttimes were the hardest, when he and Paloma sat on the porch swing and swayed back and forth in the fading warmth of the evening. Together they scanned the hillsides for signs of the wolves. One evening, while Jimmy was sanding the rough railing that surrounded the porch, Paloma called to him from the swing. “Daddy, look!” She sat up on her knees, the porch swing cantering wildly to one side. “I see one!” He looked in the direction of her tiny finger, and in the settling light of dusk he saw the shape of a wolf padding slowly beneath the sugar pines and firs. The wolf moved into the grass of the hillside, out from the covering of the trees, and stopped. It seemed that it was looking right at them. Jimmy turned his head slowly toward Paloma, setting down the electric sander gently. Her eyes were wide. Her small hand still hung in the air, but her tiny finger had relaxed, curling slightly toward her palm. There were large tears shaking in her eyes. “Paloma…” he said. Her small lips quivered. She looked too much like her mother. He turned back toward the wolf. It stood still on the hillside, looking in their direction. A breeze blew from the west, and he saw the thick fur behind its neck move in the wind. Then it turned and loped away slowly, looking back toward them several times until it disappeared into the darkness of the trees. Paloma was shivering. Her chest moved in and out rapidly, and she drew in ragged breaths. Jimmy moved toward her, and she burst into tears, her arms held high above her head as he approached. He picked her up and held her, and she wrapped her thin legs around his ribs, threw her arms around his neck tight. Her tears were hot on his skin. He carried her inside and sat down on the couch with her still clinging to him, and he rocked slowly back and forth until her body stopped shaking. Soon she was breathing slowly, deeply, twitching lightly in her sleep. Jimmy felt his own tears come then, and he cried silently and carefully while she slept against his chest. The next morning Paloma padded slowly into the kitchen, and he greeted her with as much of a smile as he could muster. “Look outside, Paloma,” he said. “You can see the sprouts in the field.” The kitchen was thick with the scent of onion and garlic. He stirred the crackling skillet with a wooden spoon. “This year is going to be something else, baby. You just wait.” She was silent, and there were dark circles below her eyes.
Paloma reached to her braids and looked up at him. Her almond eyes were distant. Her mouth was drawn into a thin line. His hand stilled, the fork he was whipping through egg batter coming to a rest. “Daddy,” she said quietly, almost whispered, “Did you hear the guns last night?” His eyes dropped to the bowl of eggs, and the fork moved again in quick little circles. He set the fork on the counter, then poured the batter into the skillet and bent to look at the stovetop flame, adjusting the heat to just above a simmer. “Yes, I did,” he said. “Momma didn’t like that man, did she?” “It wasn’t the man she didn’t like. She just didn’t like the things that he did.” He paused. “That he does.” “She said it wasn’t right for him to shoot the wolves. She said no one should shoot them. How come, Daddy?” He took a deep breath. “They made her feel a certain way inside,” he said. “They reminded her of something… something more free.” He was silent for a moment. “Something about the wolves made her feel happy, I guess. It’s hard for me to explain.” “I felt it last night, too,” she said. He looked into her eyes. They were soft and gentle. They looked too old to belong to her. “I felt what she felt.” Paloma ran her finger along the grain of the kitchen counter, staring at him from across the island that separated them. “I miss her,” she said suddenly. “Yesterday, when I woke up, I couldn’t remember what she smelled like.” Her eyes again filled with tears. “I couldn’t remember.” He reached out and ran his knuckles across her cheek. “Your mom smelled like flowers. She always did. Don’t forget, baby. You don’t have to forget.” But he knew what she meant. His body was also starting to lose the memory of her. Paloma scooted down from her chair and walked into the hallway leading to her room, scuffing her feet along the wooden floor as she went. Jimmy breathed a deep sigh and looked toward the ceiling, then picked up the wooden spoon and stirred the breakfast in the skillet. “There ain’t much you can do about it, Jimmy,” Lawson said. He was a cranky old man known for occasional streaks of kindness. The town was full of stories about Carl Lawson, a retired county judge revered by those who did the catching and loathed by those who got caught. He and Jimmy had developed a quiet friendship at the feed store, where Carl shopped every Sunday after church. Mrs. Lawson taught at the small Montessori school in town, and she drove Paloma home in the afternoons. “I spoke with the Bureau, and they
say he can shoot any one of them that poaches someone’s animals. So far, there isn’t anyone who’s seen him shoot a gray that wasn’t going after livestock.” “It isn’t right,” Jimmy said quietly. “A man’s got a right to protect his own, don’t he?” “That’s just plain bullshit, Carl, and you know it.” Jimmy was surprised at the anger in his own voice. He sat back into his chair and wringed his hands together slowly. “They’re like trophies to him.” “Jimmy, the man won’t even drink to shootin’ a wolf. He ain’t doing it for sport. He’s just trying to earn a living like the rest of us. People ‘round here pay him to protect what’s theirs.” “I haven’t heard of anyone’s cattle being killed. The only thing getting the chickens are the damn raccoons.” “Maybe the man’s doing a good job.” “Paloma’s been hearing the shots nearly twice a week since the first thaw. This thing is tearing her up, Carl. It isn’t right for a man to shoot wolves.” His voice wavered for a moment. Lawson leaned back deep into his chair, hands tucked behind his head. He drew on the cigar that hung from his lips. Then he leaned forward, yanked the cigar from his mouth, and slammed his palm on the desk in front of him. “Goddamn it! We all had to shoot our share of wolves back in the day. Now you leave him alone, you hear. Until you see him shooting some gray in an open field—one that’s more than a mile away from someone’s cows—well, then you come back and tell me about it. Till then, he can hang ‘em on any goddamn fencepost he wants to.” His chubby face was red. Tiny purple veins stood out on his nose. “He doesn’t hang them on the posts, Carl,” Jimmy said quietly. “Well, then.” Jimmy stood up and put his hat on. His hands were shaking slightly, and he tried to will them to stop. “Well. Thanks for listening.” He was almost out the door when Lawson spoke. “I know your girl has been through a lot. You both have.” Jimmy paused and looked down at his hand on the polished brass fixture. It wasn’t what Lawson said that held him in place. It was something less tangible, something buried deep beneath his voice. Lawson cleared his throat. “You know I believe you. I hope you know I do. I just don’t know what to do about it.” Jimmy drove home in a darkening mood. He was late getting home, and Mrs. Lawson would have already dropped Paloma there. He didn’t like to think of her home alone, even for a moment. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her from the entrance to their long driveway, and he turned down the dirt road with
lighter shoulders. As the truck idled along, he realized that she was staring up into the sky, hands hanging loosely at her sides. There was blood on her arms and on the front of the orange vest she wore. Jimmy was out of the truck almost before it stopped moving. She didn’t seem to notice him, just swayed a little back and forth. He ran toward her, then stopped suddenly. “My god,” he whispered. At her feet was the crumpled body of a gray wolf. Its fur was matted in a dark collar of blood. Its tongue hung loosely from its mouth, nearly touching the ground. “I found him, Daddy.” She looked down at the wolf, then looked away. She shuddered and wrapped her arms across her chest. Tears were streaming down her face and neck. “He was out by the tool shed. I heard him whining and I found him there. I was scared of him. He was staring at me, and then he got real quiet. He was real quiet.” She began to sob, and Jimmy strode to her and picked her up, pulled her close against his chest. “It’s gonna be alright, baby. It’s gonna be alright.” He looked down at the dead wolf. Its eyes were dark and empty. “Don’t you worry. It’ll be okay.” There was a short streak of blood in the dirt path leading to the shed. He tried to imagine her leaning over the dead wolf, wrapping her tiny arms around it, dragging it toward the house by inches. She was so small. “He was so heavy, Daddy,” she said. “I wanted to bring him inside, but he was just so heavy—” Her voice caught in her throat. He took her inside and ran a hot bath. She stood still while he stripped off her bloody clothes, and then she lay shivering, even as he added more and more hot water to the tub. It was as though her bones had chilled to the marrow. They didn’t speak while he washed her gently with a soft sponge. After he had toweled her dry, he lay with her on the couch murmuring her into sleep. Then he carried her to her bed and lowered her down gently. She lay shivering even after he covered her with two thick quilts. He looked out the window of her room toward the hills and the trees. The sun was just creeping behind the mountains on the western side of the valley. The pines threw long shadows. He went outside to the shed and retrieved his shovel. Then he dug a deep hole beside a tall fir near the house, hacking away at the large roots with the blade of the shovel until his hands tore with blisters. He wrapped the wolf in a faded blue blanket and set him into the ground. He covered the grave with rocks, then went inside and put a kettle of water on the stove. Be right back. He set the note upon the kitchen counter where Paloma would find it if she awoke. He walked quietly to the doorway of her room and looked in. She was breathing deeply, slowly, and she had stopped shivering. Then he went back into the kitchen, poured whiskey into a mug and added a splash of hot water. He put on his heavy coat and stepped outside. The air was crisp, hard to breathe. The stars littered the
sky. He stood quietly and let his eyes adjust, and then he started walking down the road, toward the light of the cabin he could just make out through a dark blot of trees. “Well, I’ll be—Evening, Jimmy. Come on in.” Tuck stood back and held the door open for him. He looked bigger in the small space of the cabin. Inside was thick with the smell of oil. A rifle leaned against the arm of a worn sofa, polished and gleaming. Tuck shut the door behind Jimmy and moved past him into the kitchen. An old percolator hummed on the stove. “Offer you a cup?” “I was hoping for something stronger.” Jimmy gulped down the remnants in his mug. “Mind if I…” He nodded his head toward an old rocker across from the sofa. “Make yourself at home, Jimmy. You ain’t never been here, have you? Place has looked like this for years. Still ain’t no woman to clean the damn place up.” He leaned up to the open cupboard above the stove and began rummaging through some dusty bottles. Jimmy’s boots clanked across the old floorboards of the cabin. He eased down into the rocker. “I guess it doesn’t get too dirty, living by yourself,” he said. He tilted his head and leaned in toward the rifle to read the inscription on its barrel. “My daddy gave me that rifle. ‘Go with the grace of God,’ that’s what it says. My momma made him put that on there before he gave it to me. I was just about fifteen years old, I reckon.” He held out a bottle of whiskey and shook it at Jimmy’s cup. “Fill you up?” Jimmy nodded, and Tuck filled the mug about a quarter full, then added a splash more. “Need ice? Water?” “No, sir. Fine just the way they made it.” He paused. “Been hunting lately, Tuck?” Tuck offered a slight smile. “Matter of fact, I have.” He turned and walked back into the kitchen, took the percolator from the stove and poured a cup of coffee. The liquid was black. It looked like syrup. He moved in sharp jerks, set the percolator back on the stove loudly. Jimmy stood up and moved toward the iron stove that glowed there in the room. He set his mug down on the mantle and rubbed his hands together, putting them up to his mouth and blowing. Then he waved them over the top of the black iron, felt the draw of heat. His eyes were fixed on the mantle, on a small leather pouch with a dark brown drawstring. “What do you keep in here?” Tuck looked up at him from the kitchen. He rested both hands on the linoleum counter. “That’s a tooth I found when I was a boy. A wolf tooth. I’ve kept it in that pouch since I can remember. Gives me luck when I go
hunting.” He sipped his coffee, steam rising up around his cheeks. “Excuse me a minute, Jimmy.” Tuck walked past the den and into a hallway, then turned into a doorway and disappeared. Jimmy sat back down in the rocker and looked at the gun. He rocked back and forth slowly. Then he bent forward and ran his finger along the barrel of the rifle. It was cold and oily. He leaned back and took a long swallow from his mug. The whiskey burned his throat. Tuck walked back into the den and sat down on the sofa next to the rifle. He took a sip of his coffee, shifted toward Jimmy a bit. “How’s your little girl doing? I know her heart must be broke right in two.” Jimmy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She’s doing okay. She has good days and bad days. Today was a tough one for her.” “Well. I hope she gets along alright. I surely do.” “Thanks, Tuck. I appreciate your asking.” The men sat awhile in silence. The moments stretched out and Jimmy looked around the room. There was a yellowed photo on the wall above the mantle. Jimmy squinted his eyes toward it. “That’s a picture of my daddy. He was a pretty mean old man, but he taught me about living. He taught me about what a man’s got to do sometimes. Ain’t nothing can change a man after awhile, I reckon.” Tuck looked down at the floor, then leaned forward as if to get up again. “Get you a refill…?” “Sit down, Tuck. I think I’m fine. I should be going soon, anyhow.” The room was warm and dry. His vision felt steady. “You just got here,” Tuck said, but he stood and walked around behind the sofa. “Sure you don’t want another?” “No, I’m okay.” Jimmy put his hands on his knees and got up from the chair. “Thanks for the whiskey. I should get back. That’s some rifle you got there, Tuck. Some rifle.” He tilted the mug to his lips and emptied it, swallowing hard. He traced his fingertips around the edge of the barrel. Then he walked to the door and opened it. “I guess things just are what they are,” Tuck said. He stood in front of Jimmy, chewing on his moustache. “You come back anytime you want to, Jimmy.” Tuck held out his hand. Jimmy reached out and shook it firmly. His palm was rough and dry. “’Night, Jimmy. Careful out there.” A cold breeze swept into the cabin, and Jimmy zipped his coat up around his neck. “Goodnight, Tuck.” The road was dark. Jimmy walked home with his hands in his pockets, his fingers rubbing unconsciously against the calluses on his palms, breath steaming from his nose in a wispy vapor. The gravel crunched beneath
his feet. “I’m coming home, Paloma,” he said aloud. His teeth ached in the cold spring air. He thought of Isabella, imagined her rocking back and forth on the porch swing, listening to the silence of the night, listening for the howl of the wolves. He pulled a hand from his pocket and wiped his nose, then unzipped his jacket and reached inside, placing his hand over his heart. It beat strong against his fingertips. The sky was an inky purple, dirty with stars. He moved underneath it as a man of grace moves.
Jad Josey lives on the beautiful central coast of California, where time is marked by tides and driftwood. Most of his writing is done in the wee hours of the night, after his toddler and infant twins are tucked safely into bed—it is a quiet time to tap away at the keyboard, listening to the droning ocean buoys in the distance and watching the beam of the lighthouse sweep by at regular intervals. Jad received his M.A. in English Literature from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and he currently works as a copy editor and sales manager. His non-fiction essays have appeared in All-Life.com, Common Ground, and, most recently, Overland Journal. His true literary love is the short story, and this is his first published work.
Rachel Adams What You Bring Along
You drove in long bursts from Arizona toward the sharp New England coastline, truck bed stacked with nested furniture; boxes of bromeliads tucked one against the other, roots secure within their tight-packed bark enclosures; the kitchen set, newspaper-separated, eggshell blue, all tethered against the rattles and jolts of the road. The land poured out ahead, pale and shapeless, edges of the plains dipping into a vague shadow-haze, and when Ohio gave way to the green and violet rise of West Virginia, you were struck by its contours, the assertive three-dimensionality of it all. There had been too much sun — everything yellow and white, scraped raw. The East was heavy and damp, storms pushing through with a resonant grind, plumping the streets into streams and then dissipating, echoing far along the macadam and in between the houses' water-swollen shingles.
And somewhere, south of your intended route, there was a trail bordering a reservoir, parallel to the attenuated deer-path and leading down to a point, naked but for a mat of neon-bright moss and thin maples. Crossing the Berkshires, your ears remembered the gravelly tramp of feet stepping in unison there, synthetic jackets squeaking against branches, and the picnic quilt, mothball-tinged, spreading out along the underbrush, scattering the sparrows as it unfolded beneath a puzzle of hand-sized leaves, safe from the rain.
Rachel Adams is a Baltimore native and a longtime resident of Washington, DC; the editor of several publications at a nonprofit advocacy association; the founder and editor of Lines + Stars, a DC-based literary journal; and a freelance writer. Her poetic work has previously been published in Blueline, Arsenic Lobster, Town Creek Poetry, Four and Twenty, Blue Unicorn, Barrier Islands Review, Ophelia Street, Grasslimb, and Urbanite Baltimore and is forthcoming in Melusine and the Conium Review. She received her BA in English from the Catholic University of America and her MA in writing from the Johns Hopkins University.
Chris Vanjonack Reactions to a Punch in the Face Lately I’ve been reading a lot. It’s classics mostly. Stuff by Hemmingway and Orwell. Of Mice and Men and Animal Farm. Works like that, that get built up in the public consciousness as these iconic literary texts that make you think, you know, Jesus Christ, somebody like me could never get more than seven pages into the thing. But then when you actually sit down with them, before you know it, you’re already half way through and you can’t stop turning the pages. There’s nothing all that hard to understand about them. There are no intricate metaphysical questions being answered. No, they are just morality plays. Anyways, I beat the shit out of Johnny Daniels today. He was walking home from school a while after the last bell rang. There was nobody around, nobody watching, so some buddies and I followed him home and beat the shit out of him. We crept up behind him and shouted at him. When he turned and saw us he gave us this little nod, like we were all buddies, like we were just saying hello. We kept shouting and he kept trying to ignore us. Finally someone shouted “Get him!” and we all took off, chasing after him. He ran and ran before Roland Rosewater caught up to him and threw him to the ground. To his credit, Johnny retained his dignity. He did not cry. Mostly he just played dead. Roland rolled him onto his back and pinned his arms against the grass. Johnny didn’t struggle. Roland’s parents are going through a divorce. He told us a couple weeks ago. He said it didn’t bother him too much and that it was just a thing that was happening, nothing to make a big hubbub about. He’s been acting strange though, quieter than normal. And so it was kind of nice to see him holding that kid Johnny down, grinning like an idiot and intermittently letting out a burst of manic chuckles. It felt like the old him. I ran over to them, let my legs fold in and skidded onto the grass, right up next to them. I pushed Roland to the side and grabbed Johnny by the collar of his plain gray t-shirt, shaking him a little bit. I said something to him, probably something nasty but not anything that I can recall. When he didn’t say anything back to me, I dropped his collar, squared my fist and punched him straight in the middle of the face. When you punch someone in the face, time slows down a bit, like a slow motion scene in an action movie. You can feel your fist falling down on the other guy, and there’s this indescribable sort of thrill that comes with it, this cool shiver down the back of your neck, this rush of adrenaline. The moment that the fist makes contact is always interesting for the other person’s reaction to it. Sometimes they don’t have one at all and they just
sort of blink at you, like they’re trying to comprehend what just happened. Sometimes they start cursing a lot, letting out every swear word they’ve ever heard their dad scream at their mom. Sometimes they cry. Johnny just let out this little yelp of pain. It was here that I almost felt a little bad for him, because you could just tell that he was trying so hard not to say a word during the whole thing. As I pulled my hand back, I was surprised by the consistency of his blood. Normally when you bash someone’s nose in, it just kind of bleeds profusely the way it might if you pick it too much. Here though, a gooey string of blood attached itself to my hand and so I shook it off like jelly. Johnny winced in pain. Still though, he was trying to stay silent, like if he didn’t make it fun for us, we might just stop. Considering it, I looked up at buddies. They all surrounded Johnny and I in a circle, Roland and Jimmy and Stephenson all watching over me like some kind of guardian archangels. They all nodded. I balled my fist once again and socked Johnny in the stomach. As I did, his legs flopped up a little bit and he gasped in between punched, taking these long, pained gasps for air like a dying animal. He gasped and gasped and there was something sort of comical about it. I pictured it playing out in black and white in some old silent movie from decades ago, his actions and expressions exaggerated just a little for comedic effect. The whole audience would be in stitches. I punched him a few more times in the stomach until all the rage was out of me. The rage and the anger come from nowhere in particular, just small little problems and stresses piling up until they reach a tipping point. I guess it’s the kind of thing that happens to just about everybody. In health class, we watch videos about natural highs designed to make us love life instead of drugs. They say that a natural high is an activity that releases endorphins, that makes you feel euphoric for a few seconds. They say that a natural high comes from whatever it is that makes you truly happy. They say that you don’t need drugs to feel that momentary, earthly bliss. As I stood up, laughing with my three archangels, I remembered all that nonsense about natural highs and earthly bliss. My heart beat faster than it maybe ever had. I felt an uplifting kind of joy that people say they experience after finding God for the first time. I smiled. And so laughing together, we left him there, collapsed on the ground, coughing sporadically and trying desperately to recapture his stolen breath. I wondered if he felt as good as I did. Chris Vanjonack is a writer from Littleton, Colorado. He is currently a student at Colorado State University studying English Education and Creative Writing. This is his first publication with Crack the Spine.
Dave Morehouse User Manual Begin: Caress her face. Two fingertips, then three, cheeks, lips, and very tips of earlobes lingering three, maybe four, minutes. Continue: Downward, employ more of your hand with emphasis of fingertips. Neck and clavicle (No further!) a subtle retrace to her face. Rule of thumb, no pun, is four minutes. Progress: Alternating breast, tummy, breast, tummy,
more firmly, erring toward gentle touching if anything. A tender nipple brush is fine, nevertheless Don't Obsess! Four minutes; must I repeat? Focus: Firmly now, hands not fingers, to linger at this juncture is paramount. Reprise a brief detour to the shoulder, a kiss to the earlobe, a single finger trace of the jaw, returning to the abdomen. Complete: Unhurried reward is worth the wait. Firm, then light thigh massage ever so slow to go to the doorway. Now, and only now, enter the fold.
Dave Morehouse Final Appearance I peek, poke my face in the Ford window and see seven twenty pound propane tanks.
Dave Morehouse writes music, poetry, and short fiction while practicing for the A.D.D. Olympics. He can be found playing fiddle and concertina by Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The neighbors and fish are apathetically considerate. His poems have been published in EveryDayPoets and an inspirational book of poems, Psalter for the 21stCentury.
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