Crack the Spine
Issue Twenty-Nine
Crack The Spine Issue Twenty-Nine June 18, 2012 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2012 by Crack the Spine
Contents Phil Lane Panic Karie McNeley Monotony Turns You On John Biesecker Cold Turkey Jamie Nichols Damned Pink Ladybug Shirt Stephen Mead Under Covers, My Life as a Reading List Steven Minchin Vandal Line One Patrick Jackson Things Could Be Fixed
Cover Art “Reflecting� 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.
Phil Lane Panic Rain falls like pangs into the bucket of sorrow that is my life. Shit, I should write that down, he thought. It’s as good as anything Bukowski ever came up with. As he trudged beneath the ashy aura of the streetlamps, his body ached under the heft of thirty years of dread. I’m going to get cancer. What if I already have it? I’m out of shape. Maybe I have diabetes. I need more Prozac. Better go to the doctor. No, don’t. He’ll want to check my blood pressure. If I don’t go, he won’t find anything. He struggled to light another cigarette in the wind. Why not? I’m already getting cancer, he figured. The beer was getting to his head. It fizzed and bubbled, bounced off his synapses with bleary, bloated confusion. There was a dust on everything, a vapor, a pall. The entire landscape had taken on an ethereal quality; the air was mercury thin, the sky was alien and full of angst, colored auburn by the swirling leaves. He felt like he was plodding across the surface of the moon, taking care not to fall into a crater. Just getting home will indeed be one giant leap for mankind. He was lightheaded, enervated. For a few weeks now, he’d had this sense of being there but not really being there. He was living an out of body existence, watching himself float from failure to failure. His amateur research labeled it “dissociative disorder,” a feeling that the world is not real. He looked down at the pavement; it was black and slick like Formica, almost icy under a varnish of rain. He looked up at the clouds: big, fat and fluorescent, they were cardboard cotton-candy cutouts taped to the sky by kindergartners. It all looked like nothing more than props arranged haphazardly. Buildings adjacent and askew, dropped from the sky and abandoned wherever they had landed, lives built around them, families and towns that gathered need by need. Everything seemed manufactured, fabricated, and he had been conditioned to accept it as such. He passed a frame shop, the display window adorned with elaborately trimmed, exorbitantly priced pictures. One of them caught his bloodshot eye: a painting of a man sitting alone on a stone wall above a gray, listless shoreline, his head down and an empty bottle in his hand. Below him, a maelstrom of waves crashed against the beach. It was beautifully, wonderfully somber. If I had that, my room would be complete. I know just where to hang it. The picture mollified him. He forgot about his lightheadedness, his constant thoughts of disease and disaster. All of his concerns could be bought for the outrageous price pinned to the painting. He was further placated by the angles of her apartment building rising out of the ether like a mirage. He looked up at the window and could just barely make out a silhouette: feminine, otherworldly. I’m in love. He called her the Angel of the
Tenements, a romantic nom de plume for a hopeless fantasy. I’ll just walk the dog in front of this building until she comes out to talk to me. She’ll notice right away that I’m different; she’ll see that I’m mysterious, tortured, profoundly attractive. One more cigarette, he thought as his apartment announced itself with dreary familiarity. Why not? I’m as good as dead as it is. But, at the very least, things would be different tomorrow. I’ll get up early to buy the painting, I’ll walk the dog in front of the angel’s apartment, maybe buy a book by the Dali Lama, even do some push-ups, I’ll embrace the day and be happy. If he woke up tomorrow, that is. There was always the pending doom that rested just underneath everything like a tremor. The day is an eyelid behind which rods and cones of despair fire with blind abandon. A train rushed past: a bombardment of noise and light. He cursed the Industrial Revolution, the clang of progress, the monster mankind. A plane droned above: a hundred tons of human cargo hurtling across the sky. He pitched his head upward and wished for a crash—not in a macabre way, but simply out of morbid curiosity. I wonder what it’s like when that big fucker goes down. The bodies being hurled across the cabin like ragdolls, the shattering of bone, metal and steel exploding then raining down like shrapnel. Shit, he thought as the plane zoomed past, maybe next time. He turned the key and staggered into the apartment. He looked around at the catastrophe of living— the dishes in the sink still streaked with food, the clothes strewn across every available fixture, the empty bottles, the overstuffed ashtrays. I am the curator of a strange museum of dust and accumulation. As he shook out the match he’d used to light his latest cigarette, he regretted that he hadn’t tossed it into the bookshelf. They’d burn nicely, these books he would never read. And they would take with them the modern mess that surrounded him; everything would be eaten alive by the greedy, insatiable flames. I see myself: a mound of flesh on the funeral pyre of it all. He opened the refrigerator and found a beer amid the odd assortment of condiments. He snapped the tab on the top of the can; an aluminum report echoed through the emptiness. He drained half the can in one long gulp. Why not? Now that there’s a new me, I deserve a little reward. Cold compensation for another hot day in hell. The alarm clock started shrilling at eight. He knew it was the first day of the rest of his life. He knew the painting was waiting for him in the shop window. He knew the Angel of the Tenements was ready to fall in love with him. But his head pulsed like an off-kilter washing machine. Life is punching me in the face; God is beating the shit out of me. Feels like a brain tumor. Or maybe an aneurysm. A woodpecker’s habitual hammering provided a sadistic soundtrack. This maniacal carpenter had no regard for a man’s hangover. If he could make it to the window, he would feel no compunction about
shooting the little bastard. A puff of feathers in the wind…silence. He turned the alarm clock off. What did it matter? The picture would be there tomorrow, so would the angel. The impudent sun forced him out of bed at noon to an unbearable wobbliness. There was no time to buy art or to try and catch the Angel of the Tenements before he would have to leave for work. Once again, the day has revealed itself as a sham, a charlatan, a ruse. He felt like the floor might give way or his knees buckle under the strain of his convenient disease, his illness du jour; he knew he had to call in sick. But before he could call the store with another outlandish excuse, the room blurred and contorted as everything shrank between the ridges of his eyes then spiraled down an imaginary drain. I’m freefalling into a hole, a void, an abyss…I must be somewhere near the center of the earth. Finally. Finally, I’m free. I’m leaving it all behind. Later that day, he walked into the doctor’s office past the impersonal walls and plastic palm trees. It was the first time in his life he had entered that building without fear for what the doctor might tell him. I’m ready to hear it. My death is a painting needing only a signature. He knew just how to react: the stunned, stricken expression, the cries of denial. It would be a well-choreographed dance. The doctor would be impressed, moved. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you,” the doctor said in a monotone that implicated his patient as a malingerer, a liar. .“But…but earlier, I was on the ground for two hours! And what about the dizziness, the confusion, the-“ “Panic,” the doctor said dispassionately. “Stress. Are you under a lot of stress?” He saw himself walking along a stoic shoreline, grayed under a languid winter sky. His shivering, anemic hand clutched a half-empty bottle. An angry sea crashed nearby. Jets rushed overhead, locomotives sped to the side, artificial noise thundered in every direction. He was in a war zone. It’s a war of attrition in which I am being whittled to nothing by the manic advance of the world. “Not really,” he replied, deflated. He looked down at the checkered linoleum dejectedly. I live to die another day, another time, another way.
Phil Lane's poems have been periodically appearing in print and online for the past decade. He lives in New Jersey with his Boston Terrier, Tug, and teaches English for a private tutoring company.
Karie McNeley Monotony Turns You On When nouns and verbs mean nothing, it is safer to escape the sounds and explore the saliva drizzle in the corner of your lover’s mouth while she speaks. Even though you can’t actually see her. She is there, and so is the saliva. This could be considered a disgusting sentiment, but you know where else her saliva has been so it shouldn’t bother you. Save the bother for the readers. Save the spider webbing for dessert. The monotony of mouth-corner saliva turns you on more than PlayBoy, so stop playing. Boy. Girl. Both. Because even when the nouns and verbs mean absolutely nothing her mouth is and will always be watered. Karie McNeley is a 25 year old poet, artist, and student from Lakewood, CA. Her poetry has been published in Gutter Eloquence, Pagan Friends, Words & Images, Prospective Journal, and Bank-Heavy Press. She has forthcoming publications in Tears in the Fence, and PEARL and is an editor and artist for Bank-Heavy Press, a small-press publishing group founded in 2011 and located in Long Beach, CA. Her first book is due to be released in the summer of 2012 and published by Bank-Heavy Press.
John Biesecker Cold Turkey I hate the sweetness. Hate the soft warmth that expands to my fingertips, wraps around me in false embrace. Burns in my gut. I hate the way my ambitions, my plans for life, for the year, even for the evening, dissipate with that hollow ringing that fills my head, starting behind the eyes and unfolding into my ears. I hate the way it leaves me with nothing but an aftertaste. Sickly sweet. She never minded the drinking. Never minded at all. Instead she aided and abetted, wild threesomes of an entangled, tragic trio. Her, me, and the whiskey. Inexorably knotted together, staggering onward as one. Staggering nowhere. There were brief moments of happiness. Sweet highs smothered by the lows. Saturday mornings spent walking to and from the bakery, her soft hand in mine, our breath white mist before us. Sitting together at the park, her warmth under my arm as she pulled bits of poppy seed muffin with purple painted nails, tossed them to the birds. In the dark recesses of the night, sweet sweat across my brow and her arm across my chest as she breathed slow, deep whispers, “I love you.” Her words, interwoven like our legs, were substantial, solid, something I could stand upon without the fear of falling, failing. But much like the whisky’s sallow, sweet embrace, those moments only lead to regret, a splitting head and bitter tongue. She always returned to him. The one with money, the one with charm. The one who was all the things that I am not. She returned to him simply because he demanded it. It would last a day. A week. Sometimes two. His attentions hard to hold, his affections based on convenience and control, he’d leave her spinning, desperate and disillusioned, grasping for something to fill her void. Me. The phone would ring, shatter the hollow depths of night when her loneliness waxed. “Bradley?”
I should hang up. “Bradley, I’m sorry. I fucked up. I know!” Always sorry. “Please, Brad. I need you. You are my rock. Please. ” She knew I would crumble. She knew that my reticence was only a show, a façade of self-will and selfworth. She knew I would grab my jeans from the floor, come to her, sometimes shoeless in my hurry. Always. Perpetuating the cycle. Until now. This time, I made the stand, stood tall and firm. This time I took the first step, became a man who doesn’t need her softness, doesn’t need her blue eyes that smile even when her mouth does not. A man who doesn’t need anyone to make his life worthwhile. A man. Strong. Sober. I ignored her call. Let the phone ring; lay in the dark with a pillow over my head. A pillow that smelled faintly of her shampoo. Her shampoo and stale beer. Lay in the silence until her loud rap at my door. There she stood. On my porch, black hair across her pale forehead, across eyes red with regret. She crossed her bare arms in the chill, no jacket in January. Asked to come in. Pleaded. Not this time. My words echo in my head, my voice, sharp and strong. Above us. Between us. Cutting the cold air, protecting me, saving me as I shut the door. Locked the handle and the deadbolt. Turned out the lights. Now this dark empty apartment holds nothing but the sounds of traffic and my own breath. Sounds which cannot fill the space between white walls, between memories of better times, of shared secrets under the warmth of my down comforter, of coffee and a blueberry scone on a Sunday morning as we chatted at the table, knee to knee. I remember our hushed whispers of escape, starting anew. I would quit the convenience store. Become something real, respectable. She would quit waitressing, go back to school. She always loved math. Was good at it. Why not math? An accountant, maybe? We would become real people, with real lives.
Healthy lives. A well intentioned future in our idle musings, a ‘forever together’ we built one conversation at a time. Or at least I built. The phone rings. I will not be useless. Resolve tastes like bile. Answering invites only defeat, opens the door to a return to something less than a man. I will not allow that. Cannot allow that. It rings again, expands to fill the empty apartment and my hollow head. Accelerates my heartbeat. My breath. No. It rings. The bottle by the phone, centered on a scratched oak table. Half empty or half full? Something you want so badly that you can taste it on the tip of your tongue, smell it faintly with each breath, sits before you. But you know that to relinquish control to this desire results in nothing but a burning stomach and sleepless night of reliving false memories, and illusionary could-have-beens. No more. Still, it rings. I’m half empty and a total fool. She wants me. I have no choice, I never did. If I could find my car keys, I would go. Are they buried in the heap of yesterday's clothes, cigarettes and empty beer cans? Lumped in the corner under a damp towel and an empty bottle of red wine? I need a maid, or to be made. Made to clean up. But cleanliness is next to Godliness, and I'm better bellying up to the bar beside a more nefarious character. No white clothes and chorus of angels here. More black leather and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Something tells me that the devil likes Lynyrd Skynyrd. Southern Fried Satan. Headlights split across the giant crack in my windshield. I hate night driving. My eyes cannot adjust to those brief flashes of bright illumination. My ancient jeep wanders on slick roads, unsure, back and forth in a steady weave. Streets slide by without my conscious recognition; white knuckles steer, follow a pattern so often used that consciousness is not necessary. My patterns are too easy to follow, my concrete resolve no more substantial then the snow across the windshield. A few well worn words and that resolve is shed like
a woolen blanket in a night suddenly turned warm, drenched arms flinging back what was heavy and oppressive across the chest. She loves me. One more time of “One last time�! This time my life of day dreams, built one moment at a time, while on the bus or in the grocery store, or walking home in the biting rain at midnight, this time these visions of perfection will coalesce like dew on a peach on an early fall morning, and like that peach, the sweetness will be worth the wait, the stifling hot months, uncomfortable moments. How much of my own self do I believe? Does it matter? Her wooden door needs painted, cold and rough under my rapping knuckle. My feet seem out of place, worn brown boots against pure white snow. Please don't answer the door! Soft light and warmth break into the beautiful harshness of the frigid night, welcome me with open arms. She swallows me, pulls me close. Her heat, her scent, her being, overwhelm, my arms want nothing more then to hold her. Feel her. Inhale the sweetness. She opens her mouth and I fall into the abyss. Rose colored lips frame the blackness, the void. No light escapes as her delicate fingers flutter across my back, and a great sadness, a helplessness, becomes me. I need more, I need less. I need all the things I dream about at night, buried under my worn blanket. Trembling fingers brush across the smooth perfection of her naked skin. My lips graze her neck, her breast, the soft skin of her belly. Amazing what shape and texture can do to the human mind and spirit, how it fuels the longing, the desire. This hunger owns me, narrows into a razor sharp point, becomes the frenzy, the flesh, the slick sweat and sharp fingernails. Oblivion never felt so good. But the euphoria fades, leaves me with nothing but that faint sweet taste on the tip of my tongue. She lies, motionless. Although her body radiates heat, and my chest is slick with our intermingled sweat, my hand trembles, barely contained energy and emotion. And dread. She notices nothing, not now, not ever. The green ceiling fills the space before my eyes as she talks at me. Conversation is not necessarily communication. Her words provide no comfort, no hint of the answers which could relieve the pressure of regret that stretches taut across my skin, builds behind my temples, ready to burst. Answers needed in a desperation that escapes my eyes, derails her train of thought, her post coital chatter, just for a moment.
Allows me an opening. “We need to talk, ok? I … I just can’t take this back and forth. You know that. I need to know. Are you finished with him? … Seriously ... Finished ... 100% …. Are we now together? ..100%. .. Forever? … Promise! “ Each phrase separated by an emphatic pause, as if this solemn spoken slowness will finally make her see, make her understand the finality of the situation. She sighs, the only sound outside of the heartbeat in my ears. “Promise? I don’t know. I … don’t know.“ Blue eye look away, refuse to meet mine, stare at her fingers twirling the unraveling thread of her comforter. “I’m not promising anything. It’s not that I don’t love you, I do. You know that. It’s just that I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’m just…, well, it’s just … I’m so confused.” She inhales, killing me in the space between her breaths. Sighs. “I just wanted to see you again, that’s all. I can’t promise anything right now.” Her options left open, leaving me none. “I understand.” Barely above a whisper, more an exhalation over dry lips than intentional words. She lays her head on my chest, her breath warm across my skin. I am prone, but not relaxed, instead restless and uneasy. “I miss this. I really do.” She says, takes a drink from the bottle. Holds it out. For me. The phone rings. Amazing how the briefest facial expression, tiny changes of the lines around her eyes, communicates what the years hadn't. It’s not that I have again gone from loved to discounted and discarded. It’s that I have never been anything else but, despite her words and my beliefs to the contrary. I have never counted. Have never mattered. I won't ask who is calling. I already know. She rolls away, wrapping the blankets about her as she sprints to the phone, abandoning me to the chill of the night. Perhaps he has changed his mind. Love is not blind, it chooses to ignore, tucks the reality away in the recess of subconscious where it can never be seen in full view, just taunting glimpses that can never quite be grasped or focused on, but whose shadows remain. I hate myself for coming, for perpetuating this mistake, this misery, for reinforcing the disappointment and disillusionment, this poor opinion of me that we both share.
Anger can be calm. A tense, calculated calm, like the slow deliberate rise from the bed, wordless void crushing the air out of my lungs. Love is not calm, but Love is forever. And Rage is now. The long buried impulse, always lurking, always threatening, now manifested in one frantic moment, rips the phone from her hands, from the wall, through the window, shattering glass in giant shards, some which remain unmoved in the battered, wooden window frame, hanging, reaching inward, the giant teeth of an angry maw. As the cold invades through jagged edges, our wild, scared eyes meet in a question. She finally sees me. And knows what I need. My answer, my solution, my closure and completeness. Her eyes widen, see my hand, a fist, clenched, trembling. The frozen hills surround me. The broken muffler bellows like a chainsaw cutting virgin timber, violates the snow silence of the empty valley, a belligerent scream. “I am here! I am alive, my stench and very presence cuts the peacefulness and fouls the air.” The ancient suspension moans and the engine wails like the soon to be following sirens. Snow blows across the windshield in crystalline splashes, and my slick hands slip around the wheel, the road lost in white haze and alcohol. A rapidly approaching tree reaches out and tosses my Cruiser to the side, a crumpled toy, spilling me across the snow. A stick can be broken like a neck. A crack, a snap. The stain from the bark which takes forever to wash off in this accusingly cold stream. Air may be cold, but water sucks the heat out of you in an instant. One moment you’re warm by the fire, the next you’re an empty naked soul on a lifeless stream bank at midnight, arms spread wide as all the warmth drains from your body to violate the white snow in scarlet rivulets which stain and freeze. I hate myself. I have always hated myself. Maybe that's why I sought the solace of a beautiful girl. To validate myself. Make the me worthwhile. To shout to the world, "See, I must be worth something for such an exquisite creature to deem me worthy! See!" And I hate myself for punching nothing but a wall, for breaking nothing but myself. For still loving her. John Biesecker lives in Colorado, where he spends his time chasing after his small children and writing in the wee hours of the morning. Links to his other published stories and excerpts from his novels can be found at JohnBiesecker.com.
Jamie Nichols Damned Pink Ladybug Shirt
We’d just heard our neighbors from across the street got a new van with automatic sliding doors. That was something of science fiction to a five year old. My older sister and I walked over to play with our neighbors inside it, but just as I was about to step in, the oldest neighbor girl said I was not allowed to come inside. “Why?” I asked. “Because you are wearing a pink shirt.” “But she is wearing a pink shirt” I said as I pointed to the younger girl. “Well, yours has ladybugs on it.” She was right. I chose to wear my second most favorite shirt that day. In a last effort to get inside the car, I looked to my sister who was standing behind our leader, but she turned her eyes away from mine. I retreated home. In my room I glared into the mirror at the shirt. How could my ladybugs betray me like that?
Jamie Nichols hails from Torrance, California where she studies art at the local community college. She is a supporter of local farmers and sustainable living and you can find her clerking at Whole Foods Market on the weekends. She never once gave poetry a chance until she took a class with Clint Margrave, a local Long Beach poet, who changed her paradigm on that.
Stephen Mead Under Covers, My Life as a Reading List Books, emotionally, are easier to manage than people. This has been a slow-dawning realization for me, not crystallized in fact until I wrote that preceding sentence here in my 48th year on this planet. I think of an Anne Tyler character who has this notion that if shook awake in the middle of the night and asked what she most wants in the world she will respond with “to be left alone.” I think of Greta Garbo vanting the same aloneness and also of the poet H.D. taking on the persona of Calypso in one of her poems, Calypso on her island seeing her paramour approach from a distance and thinking “now my beautiful peace has gone.” Of course there is no proof that these beings wanted to be left alone to read. For all we know they wanted to be left alone to practice aerobics without public embarrassment. Still, regarding reading, to a more extreme degree I can picture the brilliant actor, Burgess Meredith, playing a man in a certain “Twilight Zone” episode, a man who happens to be passionate about books. I can remember this man living through a particularly apocalyptic time and apparently being the sole survivor. Nevertheless he is in his glory because he stumbles upon a huge outdoor staircase completely covered with books. “At last, at last,” he says, but then his glasses fall off and the lenses break so he doesn’t even get the solace of the printed word to end his days with. Many of the plotlines of the “Twilight Zone” were punitive like that: careful what you wish for. Of course the lenses manufactured in reading glasses today are, (sorry Rod Serling), much more durable than the ones worn by the poor character played by Mr. Meredith, and if I had the misfortune of surviving a global apocalypse even a die-hard book lover like me would be more worried about what happened to other living things, not to mention shelter, water and food. It is somewhat heretical to admit to a love for literature in this age of much more glitzy highertech entertainment, but oddly enough I don’t see myself as being entirely misanthropic despite how I prefer books to video games. Reading is more fulfilling when one lacks manual dexterity and hand/eye coordination. Actually, in my twenties through my thirties I tried to be quite a bit more of a social animal and did this mainly through the role of listener. As a listener it was easier to conceal what literary/artistic aspirations I held, and if there were books I wanted to read which inspired these aspirations, I at least put them off until company left or went to bed. If someone was confiding his or her troubles to me I would have been a pretty insensitive confidante to put on erudite airs and say “Yes, well sorry about your broken heart and nervous breakdown, but how about that Tolstoy? Quite a guy don’t you think?” Also, not talking about myself was a good self-protective method should my secret creative aspirations turn out to be delusions of grandeur.
In my commercially unsuccessful novel “Hang onto Your Teeth” I tried relaying what functioning in this capacity meant via a protagonist named Jocelyn Lintel. Jocelyn, for example had “been a bookworm, her life a richly imagined continuation of an interior story. Her real life had been chores and school assignments and being loosely acquainted with those as much on the fringe. Fiction, reality---she saw it all as a gripping hodgepodge of detective work…Back then though, she…hadn’t been clear, cognizant of any of this…She didn’t know that reading was a game of telescope. She didn’t see that she was turning the lens both the large way, the small, and all of this … to glean the knowledge learned and apply it to the motivations of those in the world. The thing is, none of what she learned quite related…” By my early forties I increasingly came to a separate peace with the knowledge that “it”, bigpicture-wise, might not quite ever relate so why not just try to enjoy life more, including reading? There is evidence of this pleasure in pretty much every room in which I dwell, but the evidence is most apparent in the hallway running the length of this apartment. Not only are there two bookcases on either side of the living room entrance, but also tall sturdy cardboard packing crates with flaps folded in so paperbacks can fit neatly. The old bromide holds true both literally and metaphorically that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but neither should you judge a bookcase by anything but its contents. I remember this on those annual occasions when I dust and blow the cat hair off those two warped plastic bookcases and the open cardboard dolmens beside them decorated with fabric scraps. Yes, they are all fairly wobbly as more books are removed while I dust and cough, but even when they topple over many written treasures come tumbling forth too. It’s a point on the scoreboard of folly when I can see my reading life in a humorous light since I took it so seriously in my youth. Back then I would enter libraries and feel quietly intensely stimulated on one hand, the neurons firing on all cylinders while I searched for specific titles, but on the other hand I also felt somehow diminished, as though it were a moral failing that I would never find the time to read all the necessary works in the greater halls of knowledge. Back then trying to keep up with what some unseen Greek Chorus assured me were the essentials of literary greatness was in itself Sisyphean and I think overshadowed what the Classics actually offered. Many of these books were imprints from Penguin and The Modern Library with pages in the back listing titles to reassure me that I was still a dumb bunny unless I found and read these other masterpieces also. I have no idea where I got this bizarre inferiority complex from or, in retrospect, how much my reading ambitions were actually guided by it, since my reading hunger had a tenacious current of contrariness as well, meaning I would purposely not read a book if I felt too many invisible experts were urging me to. It was like going off on a tour group of Spain and finding out that, sure, the main sightseeing attractions are an absolute must, but, man, does there have to be yet another Picasso on every street, and what’s in that strange little shop around the corner, the one with the sign reading “Shrinking Violets Unite”? In other words, if I liked an author who also happened to have a reputation for literary greatness I would most likely go and try to find every book by that person, but then again, ah, fickle heart, moving down rows and rows of books, I might get sidetracked by an intriguing title along the way.
I guess I should have expected this for even in High School while enjoying “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” I’d go home to sneak in “Fear of Flying” with a flashlight under the sheets. There was much to learn about feminism from Erica Jong’s humorous intelligent novel, despite what conniptions my mother had about me reading it. Of course she wasn’t any more bowled over when I read “Portnoy’s Complaint” or “Myra Breckenbridge”. In the long run, both sung and unsung, there really are enough literary geniuses to go around. Anything else is kind of like name-dropping, and when I look at my rinky-dink bookshelves I am relieved by the myriad collection of genres and styles, just as I still love going to the sacred shrines of libraries or both used and online bookstores and trying out authors just by reading descriptions of their books or leafing through passages. Perhaps this is genetic since my mother was a voracious reader as well; capable of liking both P.D. James, Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers in addition to Ellery Queen or Dick Francis, without having to set up a salon and invite guest panelists in to decide who was the most entertaining. I learned from her that books could be magical escapes and if not a cure-all against loneliness or boredom, then at least a reliable form of companionship. Sometimes while cleaning my bookshelves I can feel what titles are still like touchstones, talismans which came into my life at particular times to become keys for even more doors further on. I yet possess some childhood favorites: “The Upside Down Man”, “The Wind in the Willows”, “A Wrinkle in Time” in addition to an illustrated scientific book called “The Migration of Monarchs”. I can yet palpably feel what journey each story set me off on. One of the traits which attracted me to my current partner is his ability to be completed absorbed by the written word too. It is wondrous to be able to sit on opposite ends of the couch, sharing a blanket while feet touch, and our breathing synchronizes to the separate rustling of pages. What? You were expecting the gay Karma Sutra? Sorry, but some of you may go ahead and cast your salient eyes elsewhere for now, since he and I can be intimate while slipping under covers of vellum stock and plots where we place ourselves as puzzle-solvers loving the riddles. He too has helped me get over the neurosis of wading through a book I might find interminable but somehow ought (Oh Greek Chorus), to feel otherwise about, while also reintroducing me to the richness of fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction genres; his own tastes and bookshelves slowly simmering and commingling with mine. It is as if we have the platonic affinity of the New York writer, Helen Hannf, her antiquarian literary tastes leading her to the British Bookseller from “84 Charing Cross Road”. Ah, but I should not jeopardize our luck since that might send arrows into the original premise of this essay, that books, emotionally, are easier to manage than people. Actually I know such a statement to be a generalization which does not hold water. Actually I can feel the emotional freight of certain books by simply glancing at their spines; books which have the power not just to affect moods but belief systems, books which may have a protagonist so strong in identity as to entwine like a chameleon where I might find myself susceptibly speaking with that Dybbuk’s voice. Those are the books which others might wish to ban but that may also open the greatest channels for learning, for self-discovery,
though perhaps not. Sometimes books are just thoroughly compelling due to the emotions stirred up either due to the action or how much the reader fights understanding the motivations/ideology of a character the reader actually detests. I mean I’m not entirely comfortable relating to the sad childhood of a flesh-eating zombie, but if I learned how to write like one, and threw in some car chases involving global viral contamination and thermonuclear missiles, I might be better off. The truth is I feel I have much more of a talent for being a reader than an actual writer but that to be either could turn into some sort of Rod Serling Cautionary Tale if not done in moderation and allowing room for other humans, at least one or two, whether or not they share a common interest in books. My bookshelves might disagree but I don’t really think I can count on them should the need for a Heimlich Maneuver arise. This is not to say that they are not life-saving in their own fashion. If I can be very still within myself there are times when I may sit before them and almost detect their milling interior activity. The two-tiered bookshelves are like row houses and the tall cardboard shipping containers, high-rises. The characters in the books know of one another’s ability for transposition, transmigration even. I can almost hear them visiting one another through their landscapes of stately manors, work camps, intergalactic castles and little apartments. They are waving, singing, glowering and having philosophical debates. They are cheering one another up or finding one another aggravating and impossible to manage. They are not so different from us in their attempts to relate and, wait… what’s that Fanny Hill is saying this minute to Anna Karenina: “Listen, forget shifty Count Vronksy. His estate has paintings with eyes that move. Just hold onto your son you and keep your head screwed on tight!” Such sage advice, whether from books or humans, ranks among the best a person can possibly hope for.
A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, and maker of short collage films. His latest project, a collaboration with composer Kevin MacLeod, is entitled "Whispers of Arias", a two volume CD set of narrative poems sung to music,http://stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com/ His latest Amazon release, "31 Kisses", a poetry-art hybrid, is a celebration of romance for lovers everywhere regardless of sexual orientation.
Steven Minchin Vandal Line One you pumped into everything shocked the night phoned once are you calling from the back porch no one ring back one rant about a bow to the star and the symbol of Cancer you pumped your place with emptiness just me and your phone shouting You in the middle of fabricating one shout out from your cell from the bed room you broke in to call I'm in
your living room shocking the night call again
Steven has spent the past three years confused, believing he was an asteroid. Once back on Earth, a trip which merely required him to lift his head, he found himself again crashing hard in New York’s capital city. There he found his mistakes, murmurs and travels appearing in Four and Twenty, mad swirl, Short, Fast and Deadly, vox poetica, and Heavy Hands Ink. Steven continues, unless he’s dead, at which point he will not. He plans, at that point, to switch from continuing to silently cohabitating in an omnipresent way.
Patrick Jackson Things Could Be Fixed Ray was tired. So very tired. He pulled the sheets back and, one foot after the other, crawled under. The mattress creaked and dipped as it accepted his weight. His whole body seemed to be throbbing, but the comfort of the bed allowed him to forget for a moment as he let out a long sigh of relief. It feels so nice to lie down, he told his wife, Mary. I’m exhausted. You and me both, she said. She started to rub his back. I went too hard today, maybe, he said. Maybe, she replied. The cool sheets rested against his bare thighs. Ray lifted his legs, forcing the tucked in sheets to give up their hold at the end of the bed. Then he took a pillow and stuffed it between his knees. You all settled? Mary asked. Yes, he answered. He turned so that her frame was in the concave of his body, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. You feel so small, he said. I feel fat, she replied. I’ve been eating too much. That’s ridiculous, Ray said. He ran his calloused hand down her back, slightly massaging it, stopping at the mole near the bottom center of her back. Your body is perfect. He nuzzled his face towards her neck, breathing in her scent – a mix of lavender and cucumbers, some new body wash he gave her for Christmas. He gently kissed her neck, feeling her smooth skin touch his lips. Ray pushed his pelvis into her. Ray, she said. What are you doing? What do you think I’m doing, he said as his hand moved towards her chest. Mary put her hand over his, squeezing it lightly. I’m just really tired, is all, she said. I’m sorry, honey. You’re tired? Ray asked. Fine. He turned away from her so that they were now back to back. He turned on the radio next to the bed that was already on his favorite jazz station -Cool Jazz 101.3- and he set the sleep timer for 30 minutes, adjusting the volume so it wasn’t overwhelming. He looked at her over his shoulder. Goodnight, he said.
Goodnight, Mary answered. Ray began to drift off, his mind playing between the realms of sleep and awake, the jazz providing a tranquil background. His body’s aches were forgotten for the time being as slumber embraced him. Cough! His eyes shot open. He was frightened, as if it was a gunshot that went off instead of just a cough. Sorry, she said. You okay? he asked, his heart racing. The jazz music had shut off and the only light was from the artificial blue glow coming from the clock radio, which read 1:13. Yeah, Mary answered. It was just a tickle in my throat. I didn’t mean to wake you. Goodnight. Goodnight, Ray replied before shutting his eyes again. He began to count down from 99, a method he had been using since he was a kid. Cough! Cough! He was just getting to the 70’s when he awoke. This time it was louder and continued for a couple of seconds. Sorry, she said. I just can’t get rid of this tickle. Could you get me some water? Ray lay there, silent, his eyes shut. He just wanted to go to sleep. Nevermind, I’ll get it, Mary said, though she didn’t make a move. He groaned and swung his legs out onto the cool hardwood floor. It’s all right, he said. After a long yawn, he made his way out of the room. Ray held his arms in front of him, waving them around waiting to make contact with the wooden support beam that was poorly placed in the middle of the living room. He cursed the pitch-black room. There was no light coming in from the windows due to the thick crimson curtains that were shut because Mary hated the glare when she was watching her afternoon soaps. Too preoccupied with the beam, he forgot about the coffee table and ended up bumping his knee into the sharp corner. The glass candy dish rattled. Shit! Ray cried out, stopping and furiously rubbing his knee. Ray? You okay? Mary called from the bedroom. I’m fine, he replied. He ran his hand up the smooth wall until he found the light switch. He flipped it and suddenly the threatening obstacle course was illuminated. Ray walked into the kitchen. Their plates and a large black pot were left in the kitchen sink, giving off a strange odor like rotten banana peels. You want ice cubes? he called out. No, thank you, she replied.
He filled the glass with water and flipped off the kitchen light. Standing in the doorway, he tried to map out the living room mentally before he was ready to switch the light off. The bare walls stood out even more to Ray as he glanced around the room. There were no pictures of him and Mary, nothing that really made the room theirs. It could have easily belonged to any person in particular, really. The thought made him uneasy, so he shut off the lights and returned to their bedroom with the water. Here, he said, holding the glass out. He could barely make out her light green t-shirt she wore to bed. She sat up, pulling a pillow and stuffing it behind her back. She took the water from him and swallowed in big gulps. When she stopped, she was breathing heavily. Thank you, she said. No worries, he said, kissing her on her forehead. Mary’s knees were pulled up, creating a small tent underneath the blankets. He noticed she was more towards his side then hers. He crawled back under the covers feeling slightly crowded, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to sleep. Goodnight, he said. Goodnight, she said. Cough! He didn’t know how much time passed before the coughing began again. Ray’s eyes shot open. He wasn’t sure if he fell asleep or not. Had he slept at all? He couldn’t remember. Sorry, she whispered. You should cover your mouth, Ray said into the pillow. What? He picked his head up. I said you should cover your mouth when you cough. Okay, Mary said. Geez. I said sorry. I know, Ray said, flipping the pillow over to the cooler side and laying his head back down. I am not trying to be mean or anything. I was just saying. Got it, Mary replied. Could you move over a little bit? Ray asked. She moved without saying anything. He looked at the clock. It was nearing three. He started to worry. Ray shut his eyes. He wanted sleep so badly. Another long day tomorrow, and he barely made it through today. He needed his sleep. But the cough wouldn’t stop. Cough! Cough! Cough! Don’t say anything, Mary said after the fit. I’m sorry. I don’t know what it is. Do you want me to heat up some water? Make you some tea? Ray mumbled.
No, I’m fine, Mary replied. Go back to bed. You sure? he asked. I’m fine, she said. This time Ray did not shut his eyes. He lay on his back, staring at the dark ceiling. He thought about when they visited their friends last week, Steve and Evelyn, and how their one kid had put up all these star stickers that glowed in the dark on his ceiling, and he showed Ray each of the different constellations. Ray had to admit, he had been impressed. Staring at his ceiling, he knew there would never be any stars up there. Not in this bedroom, or in any of the other ones they had. The cough returned followed by a phlegmy sound. Mary reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the trashcan to spit in. Ray didn’t say anything. He wanted to say how tired he was, how he had work in the morning. But he just placed his face in the pillow. Cough! I’m going to make you some tea, Ray said and he threw off the covers. Are you mad or something? Mary asked. She knew the answer. She was dangling bait off the side of the boat, waiting for Ray to bite. No, he replied, but maybe tea will help you. You should have let me fix you some in the beginning. He left the bedroom, flicked on the living room light, and walked into the kitchen. After filling up a mug with water, he placed it in the microwave for three minutes. As the microwave hummed, he leaned back against the counter, rubbing his eyes and yawning. The mug went around and around in the dim glow of the microwave. When it dinged, Ray took out the glass, put some honey in, and stirred it. Then he put the tea bag in and sauntered back to their bedroom. Though it was dark, he could see her silhouette sitting up in bed. She looked wide awake. Here you go, Ray said, handing her the cup. Thanks, Mary replied. No problem. Ray waited until she took a sip. He knew he shouldn’t say anything, but he had to ask. You’re not smoking cigarettes again, are you? Ray, why would you even ask that? I haven’t smoked cigarettes in years! Ever sinceI know, I know, Ray interrupted. I’m sorry. It’s just that you used to cough like that when you used to smoke a lot of cigarettes, that’s all. I’m sick, Ray. I told you I don’t feel well. I don’t appreciate these accusations from you when I just feel sick, Mary said, placing the mug on the night table next to the bed. Thanks a lot.
I’m sorry, Ray said, placing a hand on her back but she shrugged it off. You’re never going to trust me, are you, Mary said. No matter what I do, you’re never going to let it drop. What are we even doing then? Don’t talk like that, Ray said. I do trust you. I love you. They lay in silence for a minute before Mary shoved off the covers. I’m going to sleep out in the living room, she announced. He thought he should say something, but it was too late. He watched her dark figure walk past the little slice of light from the moon that cut the room in half. She slammed their bedroom door. Ray put his hands behind his head. He wasn’t even tired any more. The sound of a car passing outside broke the silence as its headlights briefly illuminated the room, casting long shadows that disappeared just as quickly as they arrived. The ground sounded wet, though he couldn’t be sure if it was still raining or leftover from the previous day. Ray felt they were into something now and he wanted to get up and flesh it out. Talk all night – well, what was left of it anyway – it that’s what it took. Things could be fixed, he knew it. But he stayed in bed, letting it go and praying that he could finally get some sleep.
Patrick Jackson holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He has had works published in Grey Sparrow Journal, and The Cynic Online Magazine. He grew up in the small town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. After graduating college, Patrick moved to New York City where he has been teaching and tutoring writing for several different CUNY colleges for the past five years.
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