Crack the Spine Issue Thirty-Five
Crack The Spine Issue Thirty-Five July 29, 2012 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2012 by Crack the Spine
Contents Steven Garza Nobody’s Son, Nobody’s Woman Andrew J. Stone A Cold Ham Sandwich (on whole wheat) Robert Laughlin San Francisco A Pundit C.S. Fuqua Directions Kevin Zambrano Morning Thunderstorms in Tampa Andrew Hamilton Immigration Howie Good Storm Coming
Steven Garza Nobody’s Son, Nobody’s Woman
“Well, I was driving home after the conference. I remember it was late in the afternoon and the sun had almost set. I was worried I would have to drive home in the dark, which I hate to do, but I needed to get home so I did it anyway. I wasn’t sure whether or not I had left the stove on and my phone had died on me so I couldn’t call home, and I couldn't call my husband’s phone.... “I had stopped at a fast food restaurant to pick up a burger and the fast-food-taste was still in my mouth. I remember that.” “Could you tell me a bit about the conference?” “Oh sure, of course. Well, it was a conference for “high-functioning” kids like him, like my Arthur, and I was there just to see what they had to say I suppose. I worried so much about him, you know.” “And why is that?” “Well, he never really had any friends for one. I was a nurse at his school when he was younger and all I remember is him being alone pretty near all the time. Just alone, drawing or whispering to himself with little giggles.” She smiled while she laughed a little through her nose. “Oh, and spinning! He just loved to spin. Like a chubby little top with his arms spread apart he would spin in circles and circles, and he would never get tired; he would never get dizzy.” “Okay, so you were driving home and then what happened?” “Okay, well, I was driving home, not too quickly but at a good pace you know, and my mind was wandering. I watched the yellow bars of paint on the asphalt. I kept staring at them and then I saw they could change direction depending on how you looked at them, or thought about them or something. Shooting away then toward you then away then toward you. “I had my sunglasses on since I was driving west and the sun was setting and I saw that through them it looked like all of the windows of the cars, and even some of the asphalt, and even my own windows, were covered by rainbows; like they were smeared with oil. You know how oil can shine in the sun like that, like on sunny days when the cars sweat that stuff onto their parking spaces. “And so I kept driving and I began to think about Arthur; I almost always do and it’s no surprise since I was coming from a conference for him. And I thought about how I have no idea who he really
was. I mean I knew him-I was his mother for pity sake-but I mean I don’t know the person he would’ve been if he wasn’t…sick…you know? I wondered how he would’ve been if he wasn’t so, if he didn’t speak so....thick..... “Then I felt bad and started to watch the lines again and the rainbows. Oh! I should mention this: and then I saw a piece of paper rolling alongside my car. Well, not so much rolling as kind of tumbling, you know, in the wind; almost right next to my window. And I watched it for a little while since it looked kind of peaceful you know: just tumbling or rolling in the wind like it was and then, sure as I’m here, the paper rolled itself into a little cat or something that ran right next to my car! It was pretty weird for a while, but it ran into the tall grass on the side of the road and I forgot about it pretty soon. “I guess I was near halfway home at this point and I saw there was quite a few torn tire treads on the road, you know the kind those big eighteen wheelers drop like peeled skins, and then I’m sure among them I saw a king snake, those big black ones people like to keep around because they eat other snakes like spaghetti string. And I saw it wriggle off into the side of the road and after that I was real jumpy because I didn’t know which spaghetti-string-eating snakes were torn tire treads and which torn tire treads were spaghetti-string-eating snakes. So I stopped looking at them and tried to stay near the center so as to not run over them, because Alex always says snakes can stay in your tire treads and come out and bite you once you’ve stopped.” “Alex is your husband right? Can you tell me about him?” “Well, his name is Alejandro, as you probably know, but I just call him Alex most of the time. He’s a good father, though not so good with Arthur, and not so good of a husband. He’s a bit like a bear you know, or some kind of animal that only cares to pass on his blood or seed or whatever, so he treats his kids good and makes sure I treat them good too. I mean, of course I do; I love them much more than he could. Though I suppose there’s not much hope in Arthur continuing his seed, which could be why he’s not so nice to him. I wonder if he will always feel alone with everyone miles away....” “Okay, so you were driving home….” “Right, well I was driving home and I began to notice the bars again. I strained my eyes to see if I could see the end of them, but I was mostly just entertaining myself I guess. Then I actually dozed off for a moment.” “You fell asleep while driving?” “Yeah, well just a little bit. I dreamt that I was returning from work at the elementary school and that Arthur was still at school with me. I dreamt that he was talking to me about a movie that recently came out that he might go and see with some kids. I told him that would probably be fine and that I
would drive him and whoever of the kids might need a ride. He thanked me and asked me what we would be having for dinner. And I told him we could have spaghetti or macaroni. He said he preferred macaroni. And I told him I did too. Then he started singing the song from the macaroni and cheese commercials in a jazzy voice and we laughed together.” “Had anything like that ever happened before?” “No, never.” “Then what happened?” “Well, then I continued driving. And a big truck driving in the other direction honked at me and I nearly drove into the gutter, but stayed on track and managed to dodge a few torn tire tread snake things. The sun had nearly set by this time so I took off my sunglasses. I was kind of surprised because before I had put on my sunglasses in the first place, everything looked normal, but after I took them off a shiny rainbow sheen still covered my windows and the road and the windows of the eighteen wheelers that passed in the other direction. The taste of my fast food dinner was still in my mouth, and I became really aware of it. I stuck my tongue out in the mirror and saw that the white part on the back of my tongue looked like it was covered with a thick hair, like coral or whatever those deep ocean animals are called. I tried to brush it off with my nails because it started to scare me; it looked so ugly, but then it started to hurt and bleed and I couldn’t see it anymore so I guessed it was gone And the taste in my mouth was replaced by the coppery taste of my blood, which was better than the hamburger. “I started thinking about the stove again and wished I hadn’t forgotten to charge my phone. I kept imagining returning to a burned down home and hearing our neighbors say, “no one got out alive” and seeing the firemen holding a burnt crispy piece of meat and thinking “Oh my, that’s Arthur” and not knowing what to feel afterward.” “Then you arrived at home?” “Yes, around then I turned onto the road that led to my house and tried to search the sky for smoke, but couldn’t see since it was already very dark. I pulled up to our driveway where the yellow orangish sodium lights were already brightening the highway and blocking out the stars like little ugly baby suns. I checked the mail; and was disappointed to see there was none. The house was not burnt down. I pulled up to my parking space and walked into my home. I heard my keys ring like a big clumsy bell or wind chimes while I hung them up and turned to the space between the dining room and the living room and saw a deep hole in the floor.” “A hole?”
“Yes, but not like a crater more like a straight hole in the ground, like a well. And it just kept going down and down and down and I couldn’t see the bottom, just black. I threw down a penny, but didn’t hear a thing. It looked like something had drilled through to the other side of the world.” “I see.”
Steven Garza is a native of borderland South Texas, where he was born and raised until leaving to attend Yale University. He studied film, literature, and foreign languages, and has been working as a teacher since. Steven Garza hopes to continue writing in many genres: short fiction, novellas, poems, epic poems, and screenplays. He also practices filmmaking as a still somewhat inexperienced director of documentary and fiction film. He prays he will hone his skills in both writing and filmmaking.
Andrew J. Stone A Cold Ham Sandwich (on whole wheat)
is breaking off an engagement through a text is walking in on your spouse & your father, fucking and we watch Henry hand-hammer Lisa and we watch the sea swallow the swimmer as we wait for our fellow friends to feast in our graveyard on flesh & corpse
Andrew J. Stone is a pseudonym for life. Andrew J. Stone is a pseudonym for death. He hates the sun, sleeps under its shine. Previous publications include: Phantom Kangaroo, Full of Crow, Danse Macabre, Yes Poetry, The Toucan Mag, The Rusty Nail, Negative Suck, Thousand Shades of Gray, Four & Twenty, With Painted Words, Short, Fast, & Deadly, and many more. He recently finished an ekphrastic chap of poetry and is seeking publication.
Robert Laughlin Poems of Net Addiction
What My Bottom Line Should Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate My quota is a thousand words a day. For after all, I’ve got my bills to pay. My latest piece went live. It’s time to get An update to my profiles on the Net. I write a few critiques of workshop fare. Noblesse oblige—back when, I started there. My readers send their emails every day. I have to answer: goodwill equals pay. Two subs rejected? Send them on, don’t mope. And write the details up for Duotrope. It’s night. I wrote a thousand words; that’s swell. But not a one, a single one, to sell.
A Pundit I’m never grumpy when the siren sounds cueing me to the latest headline on the wire if I’m sleeping, it’s worth it to get up and read a news flash before anyone in the world then say who to believe in a celebrity tiff or why that new-minted legislation is a crock I take a dozen news services, wouldn’t take one that puts up stories with no comment board I work at home and make my hours so I’m free to post 24/7 never more than five minutes after news goes to cyberpress and get that all-important lead time for “most popular” first to comment frames the debate: how many people too busy to read a story scroll down for summaries on the board that means from me oh, how I feel the tingle of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire for whom the other 48 are just their big wagging dog
Community The chat that never ends: The fans who never meet Are, each and every day, In loving, wired embrace. Their families and friends, Their neighbors on the street, Seem continents away, If not in outer space.
Robert Laughlin San Francisco
A man who took a lifetime vow of poverty bestowed its name, And anyone who pays a mortgage in this town has done the same.
Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He has published 100 short stories, 200 poems and one novel, “Vow of Silence.�
C.S. Fuqua Directions
The woman doesn’t rise, the chair situated in the edge of the traffic line as she staffs her daughter’s wall of art. Like me, she is always at these events. She asks about my daughter, brow rising when she hears mine will live at home during college, dropping upon news of a full scholarship. She says her daughter’s going half the country away. I spot her daughter further down the exhibition hall, motioning complaints to a friend, both edging to the far end. And then I see my daughter, headed toward me, grinning.
C.S. Fuqua’s latest book is the satirical SF novel Big Daddy's Gadgets. His other books include If I Were... (poems for children), Alabama Musicians: Musical Heritage from the Heart of Dixie, Trust Walk (short-story collection), The Swing: Poems of Fatherhood, Divorced Dads, and Notes to My Becca, among others. His work has appeared widely in publications such as Main Street Rag, Dark Regions, Iodine, Christian Science Monitor, Cemetery Dance, Bogg, Year's Best Horror Stories XIX, XX and XXI, Slipstream, The Old Farmer's Almanac, and The Writer.
Kevin Zambrano Morning Thunderstorms in Tampa “The weirdest thing about Florida,” Mark said, “was the daily thunderstorms.” He had returned the day before from a quick trip. We were waiting for lunch at the Mexican restaurant we always used to frequent, passing the time by talking about his visit. “Actually,” he said, “something weirder happened. Well, not weirder. Weird in a different way. Do you remember my cousin, Chuckie?” “No,” I said. “He works with Homeland Security. He’s just a bureaucrat, basically. He wanted the job because he knew they wouldn’t ever fire him. He originally was going to be a schoolteacher but it didn’t work out, I guess. I’ve never been clear on what exactly happened with that. Anyway, now he works for the government. Agent Chuckie. Not Charles. Chuckie. “So then I’m at my cousin’s wedding in Tampa, my and Chuckie’s mutual cousin, and it’s mostly old people watching the couple do silly shit while the rest of us sat at the bar. ‘The rest of us’ being pretty much only Chuckie, aside from me. We get to talking, and Chuckie tells me about his job. What he does is he audits security at U.S. ports. Makes sure they’re up to all the codes. And it goes without saying that audits piss people off.” I nodded, because that’s what I felt like I should be doing. “Some of these port guys are basically gangsters,” he continued. “He could find himself in a precarious situation. These are all Chuckie’s words.” Mark coughed. “Most likely not, but one never knows. “And right after he tells me all this Chuckie lifts up his jacket and shows me his gun. He carries it everywhere, without exception. He has one of those government permits that allows him to. He takes his gun on fucking airplanes. Think about that.” I thought about it. I imagined it was empowering, on one hand, and also nerve-wracking, but more than anything else it sounded psychotic. “So he has this gun at the fucking wedding, man,” Mark continued, “and we’re drinking and he’s showing me his gun, taking it apart and shit, and a few people are kind of looking over but too freakedout or scared to say or do anything. I don’t remember being scared, but I know I couldn’t speak when I tried, and I realized later that I hadn’t blinked the whole time he had the gun out. Chuckie asked if I wanted to go drive out to a swamp or something and shoot it with him. When I said no thanks he got up and just left. They found him a mile or two away, several hours later, firing bullets into the wetlands.” I suppressed a laugh for a second, and I looked at Mark and saw that he was smiling too, and we both
laughed for a bit. I was laughing because I laugh when I can’t really articulate how I feel about something. “It was weird,” Mark was saying, “the whole thing, so weird, like the way a dream is weird. One of those dreams that’s like any other day, but just, I don’t know, a little bit off. After you wake up, you start off the day thinking that your dream was actually real, but eventually you realize that it was too strange to be.” “Only this was a thing that happened,” I said. “Yeah,” he said. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s just—that’s me in him. I’m related to this person.” The waiter brought out food. We thanked him. “But the thunderstorms, that was the weirdest. I wasn’t there long enough to get used to them, but I liked them. I’d always wake when it thundered. I’d lie up at like five in the morning, waiting for the room to light up all of a sudden, and I’d count the seconds until the thunderclap. Lightning came so close that it shook the whole room, and I could feel the shaking in my bones.” Mark was quiet for a moment. “Anyway, that’s basically it as far as Tampa goes.” “I only went to Florida once,” I said, “was when I was a little kid, nine or ten. My family went to Pensacola. They say Pensacola has the whitest beaches in the world. We flew into New Orleans and drove through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama.” He nodded. I took a drink of my glass of water, which had been sitting on the table untouched, sweating. “I don’t remember much about the drive,” I continued, “except for one stop in Alabama. We were at this park, or a rest stop maybe, someplace to go to the bathroom. I didn’t go to the bathroom. I just sat in the car.” Mark shifted his weight on the chair. “What I remember about the rest stop,” I said, “was that there were some guys there with clothes all decorated with the old Confederate flag. Stars-and-bars bandanas over their faces, you know? One of them had a swastika tattoo. Southern skinheads, I guess. I pointed them out to my father when he got back in the car. He ignored me, so I brought them up again. He asked if I was getting hungry, and I told him yeah, that I’d like to stop at Carl’s Jr. or someplace, and he said that they don’t have Carl’s Jr. down there, that it was called something else, and we drove on.”
Kevin Zambrano is from Long Beach, California. His poetry has appeared in Into the Teeth of the Wind and his journalism in The Santa Barbara Independent. He will be attending the fiction MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College.
Andrew Hamilton Immigration
Losses are vacuums sucking mind out of skull. They leave cavities of air that collect dust— particles I reassemble to map blueprints— new languages I learn, reciting my own name in hallways of mirrors, watching r’s roll down lips that memorize pronunciation, foreign alphabets— thick accents that confuse a stranger who stares alone at an alien’s reflection.
Andrew Hamilton recently graduated the University of Tennessee where he won the Woodruff, Bain-Swiggett, and Knickerbocker creative writing awards. He is now applying to graduate schools to achieve his MFA. His work has been accepted for publication byBlazeVOX, Yes, Poetry, and Emerge Literary Journal.
Howie Good Storm Coming
I I let the dog in. Dogs don’t leave fingerprints. II Every sad utterance of the wind is a lie. Every word it writes down has another spelling. III Fireworks are illegal, the dark & sparkling memory of a garbled dream. All night I hold a match to the fuse.
Howie Good admires a thing done well.
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