Crack The Spine Issue Fifty January 8, 2013 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2013 by Crack the Spine
Contents Jacob Ferrier Firebug Brian Hobbs My Pal Nichole Rued Static & Harmonics Joseph Plasan Howard at the Blue Cafeteria Samuel Snoek-Brown Period Rachel Berger My Bird of Paradise Randi Wilson Prey Erica Bowell Making Love, Friday Afternoon Hush
Jacob Ferrier Firebug
The husk of the house I torched still sits undisturbed by nose-held-high society or it’s perhaps a refuge for one or a few of them thousands of nouveau pauvres that slink through the alleys and parks of Our Fair Town. I like to think that these life-in-a-shopping-cart people are the only true Americans left; everyone else sits unthinking in front of their television and argues about which this-or-that happens to be pregnant, divorced, or in charge of the country. All this talk of hard work and freedom and rights, and all around us the houses we can’t afford are filled up the same people that used to turn down bolts at the fab-plant or put out ingots at the steel mill. No one sees them people, I figure, or someone would get to doing something about it. I don’t want to sound like one of those old-timers from inside that talk about how the world’s gone insane and nothing makes no sense no more; seems to me it’s always been that way. Yeah I read some books while under lock, some of the older stuff, and you see the same thing over and over. Reverend X tried to find the answers through religion. Before that, Thoreau thought the best thing to do was pull up and dig a root cellar out in the woods, and build a little shack on it. He went to jail for not paying his taxes because he didn’t support the war in Mexico, which was about slavery in Texas. There’s a hundred years between X and Thoreau but it all comes back to the same thing, and now another fifty years later I wonder just how much of it’s about the same thing again. America’s got a great memory, it’s just really short, as they say. The sun’s hot on the head and the ancient lady on the porch of the next house over starts crooning about how it was arsoned some fifteen years ago and still no-one got to doing anything about it. She’s squinting under the heavy light; maybe that’s why she don’t recognize me ‘cause I’m sure as sure can be that she welcomed me and the kids to the neighborhood all those years ago. Then again between now and then a lot has happened and I’d bet I don’t look nothing like I used to, or ought to, had I grown the way I should. She says the city owns the property but don’t have the money to tear it the rest of the way down. I get that; half the houses on this block look like the Indian fortresses out in New Mexico, the sun-blasted remains of a civilization that up and left some time ago. The grasses come up to my chest which is no small distance. “You lookin’ to buy that land?”
“No mam.” I got my hands placed on my hips and all I can do is shake my head at it. I’ve not made my way back here since I set it in my mind that it had to go up, even after I was a free man again it wasn’t worth the trip nor effort. Soon as they said I could jump state I jumped and didn’t look back, and didn’t step back neither. The USA’s a big place and I found plenty of time to get lost somewhere else, when things were good you could make a little living just about anywhere doing anything, so that’s what I did, but about the time we got engaged in that desert imbroglio things started to shift in a bad way. Yeah America and its memory again. My dad was in the ‘Nam and he came back alright according to him, but it wasn’t till after I was inside that I got to understanding that look he always had in his eye. I never knew him before but he always seemed a man that was deeper than a Texas well. There was something black inside him and sometimes I got to thinking that the devil was inside his chest waiting to burst out and have his way with me. Maybe that’s why I took to setting things on fire. I dunno. Maybe the devil in my dad’s chest got a hold a me and I just wanted to bring down the world. It’s hard to say all these years out why I did what I did or how I got to doing it; that me died the day that gavel came down like a smack on the forehead from the preacher. But my dad died not a year after the verdict of the thing that’d been killing him all his life, so I’ll never know. I guess that’s the tragedy of it all; I get old enough to where I might finally be able to understand something about the gears that are turning, but the opportunity has passed. You just get to knowing that you could know, but never get to knowing itself. That old lady, what was her name… anyway now she’s on about something. “The clouds are lower now than they used to be. It never used to be like this.” “Mam?” “There’s always clouds in the sky now, never used to have them all the time. Used to get clear skies, but not anymore.” The sky today is mostly clear but for a few of the big cotton-ball type. Cumulus, I guess. Little bit dark on the bottom like they holding a bunch of water on a band of air and are just looking for a few degrees cooler to drop it on us, but that won’t be for hours yet, if at all. “No more clear skies. I haven’t been up this way for a long time so I can’t say I’ve noticed.” She prattles about how someone’s got to do something about it, and I let her, nodding every now and again so she thinks I’m listening. Poor old bat’s seen too much, I guess, and had to start making up little catastrophes so as she can ignore the big ones. After she gets a bit of her wind out I interrupt her with a nod toward the house.
“When’s the last time someone’s been in there?” “Oh.” She don’t say nothing else for what might be a minute and made me wonder if she’d started sorting through memories or started getting lost in them. “I’d say almost fifteen years, since the fire.” I decide to take a look and pry the plywood off the doorway; the nails let loose without effort ‘cause of rot and all I need are my fingers. I prop the board against the frame and peer into the cave. “You can’t go in there.” “I aim to.” “Don’t be silly, it ain’t safe in there. If you don’t step in something sharp or go crashing through the floor you’re liable to die from the toxic air.” “I’ll be fine.” Each step crinkles as cinder-rocks turn to dust; the air’s not bad in here, and I can feel a draught moving through to the open door. Everything’s like I left it save for it’s all black now, the sofa’s still there facing the old TV but it’s half burned now and the glass’s smashed. The table I used to put my feet on and drink a beer after a day at the plant still there but it’s covered in wrappers of chips and candy bars and frozen dinners and that sort of thing, and there’s a pile of newspaper and cardboard in the corner and some rags and towels to go with it. Yeah, someone’s lived here, either some meth or heroin junky that can’t see the world around them no more, or some half-mindless drifter whose lost their think after years of being hungry, or maybe just some desperate type. Some American. I step into the kitchen and without thinking I flick on the light switch but of course it stays like a coal mine. The sink’s full of stuff that looks like diapers or rags or something and smells like it’s been used as the commode more than a few times, but there’s no flies so I figure it’s been a while since anyone’s been here. There’s empty 40s and single-shot liquors on the table and scattered on the floor and the liquids dried in all of them. The back door’s where whoever it was or maybe a bunch of them came in, they pried the plywood off and then came through just fine like it was supposed to be that way. The fire never got bad back here so it was just the smoke damage; everything’s still covered in a layer of black dust save for where fingers have taken it off; the wall beside the kitchen entrance has a streak like someone’s been rubbing against it over and over again, and I can’t help but be mad that someone lived here after me. I knew I’d aimed to make it go away and yet it remained like a taunt. I can feel the laughter of the old house on every draught that slides through it.
I step down into the basement and it’s filled with needles and cheeseburger wrappers and smells like excrement. I spit out of frustration and turn my back on it. The second story’s on my mind but I can’t get the courage or settle myself to climb the stairs. Don’t want to see it, don’t want to know. I gather up the newspapers and some of the wrappers and some cabinet wood from the kitchen for kindling and pile it up right at the TV set and the center of the house. I’m aiming to finish the job and damn the consequences. One for the books, anyway. ‘Man commits same arson.’ The pile looks tidy enough and my days as a firebug tell me that it’ll take the whole house in a hurry now that everything’s half burned and all the frame’s exposed by the firemen last time around. It’ll come down before the truck arrives, even without gas, just the draught and my bic lighter, and I’ll be sitting in the grass across the street watching it all come down. Maybe there’s no such thing as reformed. Maybe I still am a firebug. I take one last look around the living room, trying to get up my disgust at the whole thing enough to finish the deed. “Aw, hell,” and I kick the little pile over and drift out the door without another look back. The old bat croons at me the moment I step back into the sunlight. “You’re Mason, ain’t ya?” “Yes mam. I am he.” “I thought so. I didn’t want to say nothing till you went inside then I knewed it for sure. You were such a nice man; why did you have to go lighting all them houses on fire?” “I dunno mam.” “Well you should’ve stopped before you got to your own place. Besides we had to replace all the siding on the side of the house after it melted.” “Well I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t my aim to do nothing but my own place.” “It’s old news now.” She waves me up to the porch and so I climb the three rickety steps and take a seat across from her. I see she’s got this metal pail sitting filled with ice and beers and when she sees me looking she hands me one and we each crack one open. “I don’t remember you being a beer drinker.” The bat waves her hand and then slugs some of it back so I do the same. “My husband never liked me drinking so I kept it to myself. But he’s dead now and there ain’t nothing on the TV save for the same lies so I get to drinking out here and waiting for that rain to come in.”
“Yeah, you said something about it always being cloudy now.” “They say I’m crazy but on all the papers it says ‘being of sound mind and body” and then I sign my name so I know I ain’t crazy.” There’s a twinkle in her eye like maybe she knows the joke of it all but I say nothing and so she gets discouraged about the clouds and we sit sipping the beers for a while. After I finish I set my can on the deck and stand to make my way out. I say goodbye to the woman and tell her I hope she stays on this porch drinking beer forever, but she just swats it away and says “Ain’t long now.” As I get down the first step she asks my backside “Mason, did you come back to light a fire and finish the job?” “Yes mam. Those were my intentions exactly.” “Well, why didn’t you.” I mull this for a while and look out across the street full of empty houses and it occurs to me that not a car has come by in this whole time I been here. Somewhere far yonder I can hear mufflers and downshifting trucks, here there’s just the crickets, a few jays, and the old bat. As I stand there one of her clouds crosses the sun and for a few moments the air seems cold on my arms, but it passes just as quickly. “Mam.” I try to think what to say but the harder I try the less I can come up with. So I tell her that. “I don’t know why.” She shrugs as if losing her interest and stares off into the empty lot across the way. “I guess I just don’t see the point.” I say goodbye again and start walking back to my truck. I can’t help but notice how shiny and new it is, not a dent or scrape on it, and the paint’s still got that factory luster, and inside it smells just like the assembly line it came off of. I watch the house disappear into the blocks I put between us and can’t help but notice that I don’t feel nothing at all.
Jacob Ferrier seeks to tackle universal issues in his work. He lives under the maxim "knowledge begets wisdom; wisdom begets freedom." His stories have appeared in Crack The Spine, as well as in Panache Journal and the Saginaw Valley State University magazine Cardinal Sins. He is currently seeking representation for his novel.
Brian Hobbs My Pal
There have been some strange things here, I tell you. Like the time my old buddy Billy had a pool party and suddenly there were sharks all in the water. Everybody was screamin and runnin around all nutso. Then, there was Mrs. Gluck, who had all those cats and when she died they died too! I heard stories that the smell in her house after she croaked, could make your hair turn white! But 'spite that, 'spite dead cats and sharks, nothing beats my old friend RadioHead. He was old when I met him, already losing the sound out of the speaker in his face. Sometimes one of his knobs would drop off and I would pick it up for him. He was a funny old guy, the big radio, you know, like those old Telefunken ones with the big knobs and the big speaker, well that's RadioHead's face and it's perched on a pair of wiry thin shoulders that hunch perceptually. The old dude couldn't talk, maybe because he had a speaker for a mouth and all, but boy, could the music come out of his face. I like to "fellow" him around when he would come by with that long, loose gait ahis, all swingin his arms and the like. He gets this idea you see and all the kids hear soft music whirlin out of his head like angel's wings rubbin together toward heaven. I stole that line from a book, but you know what I mean. Sos theres all these kids and the music and all and they just fellow him. Maybe they are playin baseball or war or you know playin at knock and run, but that music, its kinda like the ice cream truck comin down the block, with that little jingle and you've got your grubby hands in your pockets lookin for nickels, dimes and the best, quarters. It brings a smile to my face, thinkin about him, that music and before he's turnin the corner, I'm there to meet him. He keeps his head low, his shoulders hunched, maybe cause his Radio Head gotten a little too heavy in his old age. But there he is and I'm smili and he turns the knob on his face and a happy little song comes out. I used to help him around, when he got the cane and he used to stumble a lot. I was one of the last that sees Radiohead around anymore, he's sittin out on his porch and he got a sad song comin out that speaker. He lost one of his knobs and I was at summer camp, so I couldn't find it for him. Those older boys know he's old and play jokes on him. These boys got cars and radios in their cars and they
got music that they can play for themselves and who needs a dumb old Radiohead anyway? But I like him and I take care of him. We sit on his porch and watch the sun drop under the earth and he plays them sad, wistful, songs and sometimes I get up real close to hear them and maybe I can't. But I am dreamin of the sky and that music and of angels playin up in heaven. It's Radiohead and me and it's alright.
Brian Hobbs earned the dubious degree of the English Major, a degree which guarantees he will make “Did-you-knowstatements� of a literary degree to a mixed company during cocktail parties. Therefore, those not interested in English, alas, or writing, even greater alas! are not interested in what he hopes to be illuminating comments. To support his writing fix, he works for a local proprietary school, both teaching, which he loves, and managing the desperate behaviors of eight diverse psychological constructs of people by a method of cajoling, pavlovian responses, and e-mails with tiny red flags on them. He has been published semi-recently by Glass: A Journal of Poetry and this renewed his ardor of publication and sends his meager writing out as baby blue birds chirping from his nestbrain.
Nichole Rued Static & Harmonics
The t g
a
n
m
i
b r
o e
u n
r i
brushes your ears, your cheek. You breathe it in, the rattle of cymbals vibrates against your chin. The thumb roll is a choke hold, It brings dopamine to a blackwhite close, your neuron moat that froze breaks with the shake/ of a left tired hand. Still, the sheets remain on the stand, t i c The ghost notes you wrote p
h ed in repetition,
notation in harmonics on a staff i t ion
pos
frequency (what hertz) depends on equal temperament—this isn’t just an accident, but your key signature— coincidence? or consequence? Perhaps a simple arrangement of chromatics—semi-tones honed in.
Your compulsions r e a c h to crack bones rock the boat—psychotic undertones scribble and scratch, peel fingernails b a c k, the quick now pink and sensitive, like those of your ragged therapists. You watch
as them
nicking
they
to work
against pens
create
music,
. notepads,
bringing out the sound.
Nichole is a recent graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming in various journals, including Sheepshead Review, Underground Voices, Verse Wisconsin, and others.
Joseph Plasan Howard at the Blue Cafeteria A teenage boy sits in a blue cafeteria, in the last stool of the last table alone as one hundred conversations ring around his head. Many sounds can be heard, the first bellows of young men in puberty, the sporadic high pitched cackles of giddy teenage cheerleaders, even a large chocolate chip cookie being pulled from its wrapper by someone to the boys left that he can’t see; all of these noises shoot down Howards spine. No one seems to be aware of his existence. He occasionally skims a line or two of the book clutched in his hands to calm his nerves, to appear busy in the cafeteria. He doesn’t read the book, the ‘prop.’ His right leg pulses underneath the table at 200 beats per minute. His arms form a concrete triangle structure atop the table, glued together by his book, the ever unread keystone to this defensive barricade. He peers through seams in his long, shaggy hair cut; sizing up anyone who treads within five feet of him. A trio of boys passes by his table, all well clothed and well showered, smelling of popular television commercial perfume, laughing and poking at one another, Howard stares at his book, keeping his head down. Inside Howards head he screams: “Someone; anyone, sit down beside me. Make me feel comfortable, one person, anyone.” Howard looks at the clock with wet eyes, noticing that twenty minutes remain until the end of lunch period. He cannot wait for the bell to ring; to get lost in the current of other teenagers flowing through the high school canal system on their way to class; children filtering into their designated tombs, popping their books upon their desks, feeling affable; feeling as ‘at ease’ as they did in the cafeteria… with their stupid fucking friends, joking about ‘getting pussy’ or chatting about auto mechanics; the boys anyway. Howard would sit at his desk with his mind in a panic and his lips locked, his head pointed downward to a textbook splayed open to a random page somewhere in the middle. Howard looks at the clock with angry eyes, eighteen minutes left. He thinks to his self; “What is wrong with ME?” His stomach turns in
hunger at the sight of a slice of pizza being carried away atop an obese boy’s lunch tray. The large boy is accompanied by two other large classmates, all tromping along in a carefree manner only feet in front of Howard. “What is wrong with ME?” If anyone where paying attention to Howard they would be aware that he never had a tray of food in front of him during lunch time, he never ate during school hours. Howard thinks: “Am I really so ugly, so unapproachable, that after two months I shouldn’t have one single friend?” Howard looks to the skull tattooed on his right forearm and pulls his eyes away quick in embarrassment. He is both proud and ashamed of his tattoo; he had thoroughly planned and worked very hard for them but he would rather be dead than to be caught ogling his own skin. Tattoos were not a rarity in the all boy reform schools; Howard had seven of them and each one had been a meager attempt to catch up to his peers. But here in school none of the other children had any tattoos. Howard would not trade his collection of body art in for the world; he was proud of his tattoos; sometimes they were all he had. Howard looks at the clock, it reads: 15 minutes and counting. A group of spray tanned, bleach blonde cheerleaders float by Howard with empty blue trays in their hands and a shiver runs down the boy’s spine at the sight of them. He would like to swoop down and wisp away one of these assembly line beauty queens and commit unspeakable acts. Howard thinks: “That’s what I am… like a crow or a vulture… sucker of dead meat… destined for a long road ahead.” Howard looks at the clock, it reads: 14 minutes and 30 seconds. This was the fifth high school Howard had been goaded into this year; he thought of the other cafeterias in which he was forced to inhabit, In those cafeteria’s he had never felt especially welcome either but he can remember always being able to latch on to a lonely straggler for conversation. Sometimes he could even squeeze himself amongst a group at the ‘pothead’ table. Howard makes a game out of recollecting the high schools in his mind and the friends he had at those places; a lot of his information is inaccurate, spilling from one high school cafeteria to the next: “In Emporium there was Gary,” [Gary was also a misfit, a round boy; they whisked away their shaggy bangs and leafed guitar magazines in unison until the bell rang] “and In Union High there where Pete and John.” [The topic of lunchtime discussion in Union High never strayed far from the consumption of pharmaceutical medication, Howard felt quite welcome there] The recollection of Howards past cafeteria friends went
on… Howard looks at the clock, it reads: 14 minutes. Howard thought about his monthly urinalysis: “I bet most kids don’t have to deal with this. Is that pot from last week going to show up? I took the Niacin pills and drank the water too.” Howard may have been in the middle of a delightful conversation with one of his peers if he never knew what the inside walls of ‘Juvey Hall’ looked like. He sits in misery, with his head stuck in an unread book; his foot beating two hundred miles per hour. He knew how to make the “bad” types of friends; it came easy to him. All he had to do was act in a “bad” type of manner. Howard looks at the clock, it reads: 13 minutes and 30 seconds. Howard cannot help but wonder [in the last stool of the last table alone in the blue cafeteria] if “bad” was all he ever knew. Perhaps being “good” means “just as well dead.” Howard looks at the clock again; this time it reads eighteen past twelve. He flips the cover of the book clenched between his hands; the jacket read On the Road by Jack Kerouac. It had been a gift from some older guy outside the local tattoo parlor whom had been bragging about the war to some college girls when Howard stopped by; the man had intricate Japanese tattoo work up and down his arms and was smoking. Howard thought “the guy essentially had to pry the college chicks off of his body with a crowbar… and he had tattoos. Maybe there is hope yet.” The man told Howard that On the Road would change his life someday, this all happened about a month ago and Howard hadn’t read more than a few sentences. There was no sense in trying to read it now. The clock Reads: 12:19… only eleven minutes to go. A tune rises up upon Howard’s lips, a tune from the D.C. punk band Fugazi, Howard begins humming to himself: “I am a patient boy… I’ll wait I’ll wait, I’ll wait I’ll wait…” A thin girl passes him in a bright yellow dress and pays no attention to him “… my time is water down the drain…” people are getting up from their tables, “everybody’s moving, everybody’s moving… everybody’s moving, moving, moving, moving…” A girl named Sarah, (a girl whom he had accosted for sex), passes by him now… she doesn’t even award Howard an angry look “… please don’t leave me to remain…” no one gave Howard angry eyes anymore, no one gave him ANY eyes; perhaps this was the price of adulthood… maybe no one would sneer at him, smile at him, or talk to him again. Perhaps adulthood meant living in a gray world in a rank and file with your mouth sewn shut “here in the waiting room.” The clock reads 12:22.
*** Later this day Howard would be in the principal’s office with his mother, she would be signing him out of school for good. It would soon be winter time in Pennsylvania and Howard wouldn’t be able to afford a heat bill, the ice forming on his jangly bones would force him to seek better employment. Having too many tattoos and no friends that weren’t up to their noses in drug debt, Howard, would be goaded into getting his G.E.D. and joining the U.S. army… infantry... machine gunner. He would get a 6,000 dollar bonus in Korea; he would blow it all on expensive hotel rooms in Seoul, whisky dinners, and tattoos. (He would get large raven tattooed across his throat before returning to his new unit in Ft. Bliss Texas. The people in Texas would soon kick Howard out of the military with a bad-conduct-discharge. Howard did two months in Miramar naval Brigg, a small prison; it did not compare at all in cruelty to ‘Juvey hall’) It took a bout of solitary confinement for Howard to finally read On the Road, and the tattoo artist had been right, it did change Howard’s life forever… upon exiting Miramar naval Brigg Howard bought a one way bus ticket to L.A. (he had already haphazardly discovered the west but he would keep in the tradition of the late poet and ‘discover’ the rest of California… writing it all down as he went. “Discovering” things proved to be much harder than Howard had expected, he ended up not going anywhere. There was no real goal to anything he was doing.) A girl named Jenna would eventually find Howard sleeping in a door jam in Long Beach. Jenna was a gypsy stripper by trade, (meaning that she worked for one strip club in California one month and perhaps another in Maine the next.), it didn’t bother Howard. They eventually moved to El Paso Texas. Jenna got Howard a job working as a bouncer for a place called the candelabra. Jenna and Howard stayed together for quite some time before Jenna caught Howard in the bedroom with a soldier named Jillian Rain, both naked and shivering like horses.
Samuel Snoek-Brown Period
She said she wasn’t in the mood for anything, not even oral, not on a day when her flow was thick as the candle wax from that unscented chunk in the bathroom, as full as her tumbler of cheap wine. He said, “Fine, you go ahead and flow. Go ahead an get drunk, too. It’s like you’re drunk just on being a woman.” She flicked her cigarette butt at him and told him to fuck himself. He called her a mean drunk. He said, “You sit there and you flood, sit there while you garden your fingers.” She said, “What the hell are you talking about?” And he said, “You clip and you hedge. It’s like some sort of zen with you.” She studied her nails, set aside her emery board. He said, “I don’t even care.” He changed his mind. Instead of abrasive page-turning, the leaves in his book chafing against each other, or leaving her her zen to walk away and disappear, instead of these, he slapped his book shut and he leaned forward and grinned. He said, “No—You know what? It turns me on.” She said, “Stop it.” He said, “No, it’s like you have little vampire lips, all slippery and evil-looking, and it excites me.” He scooted to the edge of his chair, leered at her. “They smell like mud in some fertile swamp, like moth larvae. What’s the word? Pupating.” She shifted, crossed her legs. He lowered his voice, looked around the empty living room. He said, “You know what I want? I want to drive your blood to a lather. Go ahead, show me what’s so fucking nasty.” He sat back against his chair and threw an ankle across his knee, readjusted his book. He wasn’t smiling anymore. He shook his head once and read. But she wasn’t ignoring him. She eyed him like she eyed her patients at the psychical therapy clinic; she uncrossed her legs, let her knees fall open slightly, and leaned toward him. The rings of green encasing her irises looked black, not just the pupils empty but the whole of both eyes, those normally emerald nimbi now obsidian, now glistening. She said nothing. She stood from her chair and stepped over to face him, put her thumbs in the collected waistbands of her green sweat pants and her gray biker shorts and her thick cotton panties and she tugged down on them, dropped it all to her feet, dark pad and old panties and everything. She looked at him; he did not
look at her. He couldn’t. He laid his book in his lap and watched her feet, the pile of clothes, the dark stain like a bullseye in there. After a minute, a minute and a half, she bent and hauled up all those clothes back around her waist, worked the elastic back and forth over her hips in a way that, in reverse, would have had him panting, and she left him. Staring at the floor.
Samueal teaches and writes in Portland, OR. He also works as production editor for Jersey Devil Press, and lives online at snoekbrown.com. Samuel’s work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, Ampersand Review, Fiction Circus, Red Fez, and others, and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review and SOL: English Writing in Mexico.
Rachel Berger My Bird of Paradise
a visit to my grandfather in Mexico I saw him last week on the patio, his tan off-set by palm leaves and banana skins. I didn’t notice his wrinkles – as if the sun had pulled him away from his eighty-seven years. But his shoulders were still beak-curved and pained. Lazy off the tiles and nestled in the musted bark of a tree he grew a blossom from its leaf hatches, his living stained glass of green and guava orange. Within the origami purple plume was a single stain of dew. This is for you, he said, my little dying paradise now perched in the vase with common yellow peonies, a pair of scissors on the table.
I couldn’t tell him to let it breathe where it had been. There was a margarita in my hand, too much salt, lime pulp sticking in my throat. With sap on our fingers we learned it wasn’t dew at all.
Rachel is a currently displaced American living in England and in the process of earning an MA in Creative Writing. She is also working on taming the ever elusive novel while traveling the world. Until recently, she was unpublished.
Randi Wilson Prey
I was a month into my senior year of high school when I was convicted of the murder of Jeremy Schroner. The doctors called it a mental break. They said that as I lost my grip on reality, it was inevitable that I would lash out at someone—anyone that got in my way. In a way they were right. I was suffering—but when it came to me lashing out, I can assure you my target was more than some random stranger. I spent most of my time that summer bouncing between work and friends, saving for my chance to make it out of the volatile cocktail that had become my home. Mom believed that image was everything and Dad believed that as long as the world saw you as perfect, nothing could possibly be wrong. I guess that’s why they stayed together. They had so much in common. And there I was, the disappointment that time forgot, mooching off their roles as the parties responsible for me. After all the time wishing I had some place else to go, I never thought that the last weeks before school started would give me the means I needed or the desire. Looking back now, it’s funny how the place you think of as being the safest can easily become the catalyst that changes your world. But I guess that’s why they call life unexpected, right? Like I had done almost every day before, I walked into Alex’s house, grabbed a soda out of the fridge and made my way to the basement. No one was home, but his parents had given me a key so I could come over when I needed to get away. It had been a long day of “clean up in isle four” and “excuse me ma’am, when I bought this, the price tag said it was only five-ninety a box.” I was done with people, and judging from the look on my last customer’s face when I told him to take-a-hike, he knew it. I stretched out on the couch, resting the remote on the coffee table next to my soda. Right then, all I wanted was some alone time. I heard the front door open and close, the sound of heavy steps on the stairs warned that someone was coming. Lifting my head, I glanced over the back of the couch and groaned as Jeremy appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
Jeremy was Alex’s older brother. The not-so-nice side of the gene-pool. Rumors were that he had gotten into some trouble while he was away at school and they had pulled his scholarships, which was why he now lived at home with his parents. I pushed myself up until I was sitting cross-legged and nodded hello. He smiled and walked over to sit in the chair on the other side of the coffee table. He leaned back in the chair, his hands resting on the arms of the chair. His eyes stared back at me, making me uncomfortable the longer his eyes stayed glued to me. I pulled my legs up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my knees as I forced a smile and tried to turn my attention back to the TV. His tongue slipped between his lips, coating cracked skin with saliva. He looked hungry, but it wasn’t a hunger I wanted to satisfy. Sitting alone, I tried to avoid his gaze. I looked out through the glass sliding doors to a backyard that sat barren within the perimeter of the fence. To the flower pots that time and random bouts of weather had worn down to jagged cliffs holding back packed mounds of moss and earth. “You spend a lot of time here, don’t you, Ally,” he said, drawing my attention back to him. “I‘ve seen you here, every day after work. Guess you must really like something about this place. Maybe it’s my brother you like—maybe that’s why you keep coming back.” He shifted forward in his chair until he was perched on the edge, a predator coiling. “Not really.” I pulled in on myself, making myself a smaller target. I kept glancing at the stairs, waiting for Alex to come back; waiting for someone to give me a chance to get away. “No? I could’ve sworn you seem happier when you’re here.” Rising from his chair, his lanky frame unfolding to hover over me, he leaned in closer. His hands braced on the back of the couch on either side of me. His breath coated the side of my throat, his lips brushed my skin. “Maybe it’s not my brother that brings you back—maybe it’s someone else that you keep coming to see.” A shiver ran up my spine. I swallowed convulsively as my stomach pushed up into my throat. The urge to run was beating through my limbs with each pulse of adrenaline-rich blood. I wanted to shove him out of the way and put some space between us. I wanted to call Alex and tell him that his brother was a creeper, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t find the nerve to risk my safe place. I didn’t think it was possible, but Jeremy leaned in closer. I pulled as far away from him as the couch would allow, turning my head as he exhaled. I could taste the fog of beer and chips on his breath, making me gag. Pushing up from the couch I shoved Jeremy back and raced for the stairs, my hand clasped tightly over my mouth as I fought to hold in whatever my stomach was trying to give up. Acid hit my tongue,
saliva flooding my mouth, clogging my throat. Hands grabbed me and lifted me back as I reached the base of the steps. I caught a glimpse of the sky through the glass of the front door at the top of the stairs, leaves from the tree out front rolling in the breeze. I tried to scream but his hand clamped over my mouth. I focused on the light of the day outside, my arms outstretched to the possibility of escaping this. I was pulled back into the grey shaded interior of the basement. As I was pulled to the floor, I kicked out at him, trying to break his hold but he pulled me farther into the basement and dropped me. I stumbled out of his grasp and my head collided with the wall. Stunned, I fell, my pulse pounding through the bruise I would see the next day. He straddled my legs and grabbed at my arms as I clawed at his face. I wanted to rip out his eyes, those eyes that stared down at me, groping over my body. I caught him in the face, my nails leaving jagged cuts along the corner of his jaw. He grimaced and pinned my hands to my sides, adjusting his weight so that his knees pinned my arms to my sides. Leaning down, he grinned and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. I turned my head towards the sliding doors that looked out into the backyard, praying that someone would see—someone would come to help. I struggled to wriggle free of him as I watched the dust from the barren ground whipped about the broken frame of an old swing set, its one remaining swing swaying lazily in the breeze, dragging the links of its broken chain which once held it aloft. I focused on that swing, the broken-in rubber seat, the hardened and cracked surface of the plastic that looked so much like the ground. I don’t know how long he stayed once he was done. I don’t know how long I lay there staring out at the links of that broken swing dragging in the dust. At some point I got up—I got up and picked up my things. I didn’t bother to put on my shoes. It would have taken too long, and I needed to go. The ground was cold against my feet. And the farther I walked, the farther the cold crept, up through my feet and then into my calves, up through my knees, taking over my body, one limb at a time. When I was halfway home I remembered that going home meant dealing with my parents. But that didn’t really matter. I didn’t want to go back—I couldn’t go back. I wanted to go home—to crawl into my mother’s arms like I used to do when she was watching television. I wanted her to stroke my hair and hum softly to the music of the commercials, and feel the rumble of her laugh when she saw something funny. But when I got home there was a note taped to the refrigerator that said she had gone out with my father; they wouldn’t be back until late. And that I should make myself something to eat.
The thought of eating brought my stomach back up into my throat. Rushing to the bathroom, I barely made the toilet before everything I’d eaten that day, and possibly the day before, came back up. I hugged the porcelain bowl, my face resting against the cool rim. What was I supposed to do in this situation? Should I cry? Is that ok—was I allowed to cry? When I was sure I wasn’t going to be sick again, I pulled myself up from the floor and stood in front of the mirror. The girl looking back at me was different. There were some similarities: her hair was the same color as mine, her eyes, while the same color, looked pale compared to mine, her skin seemed paler too. I raised a hand and brushed my hair back from her face but it only made her seem pale and fragile, so I let it swing back in and hang over her face. Turning from the mirror I stepped into the shower and sat down under the spray. The water beat down, loosening my muscles as the heat from the water spread through me. I scrubbed until my skin was on fire and then scrubbed some more. I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, hoping the darkness would lock me away from the world. But I could still smell him. I could taste his breath. Each breath made me gag. Crawling free of the sheets, I pressed my back to the wall and pulled my knees to my chest. Hours later I heard the click of the front door. My parents were home. Sitting alone in the dark I listened to my mother laughing about something. My father grumbled that he didn’t know what was so funny. But I could hear the laughter in his voice. They made their way past my room and I heard their bedroom door close. I was alone. I didn’t sleep that night—or the next few nights after that. When I woke up the next day, my phone had registered a couple of missed calls. I had dialed my voicemail and listened as Jeremy’s voice asked me to meet him, offering up another round of fun. Slamming my phone shut, I chucked it at the wall and watched the pieces scatter as it broke. My mind replayed that night. It wouldn’t let me forget. Every sense I had was trying to keep me trapped in my memories. When the first day of school rolled around I told myself that I was ready to face the world. But as I crossed my room I froze in front of my mirror. The girl that stared back at me was the same fragile, pale figure that had taken up residence in my mirror over the last couple of weeks. I smiled at her and she grimaced, her teeth bared as if she were a feral animal waiting for me to offer her my hand so she could drag me in. I stared into her eyes, challenging her to do something. But she seemed content with staring
me down. I turned my back on her and grabbed my backpack from the chair in front of my desk. I couldn’t let her get to me. Walking into school was like becoming an attraction at the local zoo. People stared at me, whispered conversations faded as I passed groups of people that I used to call my friends. I spent the entire day avoiding any form of communication, afraid that if someone asked me about my summer that I would end up screaming or crying. The teachers ignored me and the students gradually began to avoid me. When the last bell rang I stumbled out the front doors and, unfortunately, straight into Jeremy. He was leaning back against his car, waiting for Alex to find him so he could drive him home but the second he saw me, he pushed away from his car. I hurried to catch the doors of a bus as they closed but he grabbed my shoulder and steered me towards his car. The more I tried to pull away, the tighter his grip got. “I’ve been calling you, Ally. Where have you been?” I shrugged, turning as much of my body away from him as possible without ripping off my own arm. He pulled me over to his car and pinned me against the door. He leaned in and drew in a deep breath. “You still smell good. I’ve been wanting to see you again.” I gulped down a river of bile and tensed. “My phone—my phone broke.” Students passing around us, turned away, intentionally ignoring the weird girl and her creepy friend. I searched the crowd for someone who would meet my eyes, acknowledge me, but everyone was in a hurry to be somewhere else. Alex appeared at the entrance and waved as he rushed through the crowd and up to Jeremy. He was smiling and seemed really happy about something. “Hey guys.” He looked at Jeremy and then back at me. “Hey, Ally.” He turned back to Jeremy. “Hey, I just got invited to join this club and I was wondering if you could come back and get me in about two hours?” Jeremy smiled. “Sure, bro. Let me just run Ally home and I’ll be back for you later.” Alex nodded, shot me a smile and turned to race back into the building. Jeremy turned to me. A smile spread across his face, his eyes locking onto me and clinging, like fingers around a favorite toy. He opened the passenger door and pressed me into the car. As he climbed in and started the engine, he glanced over and caught my eye. I pulled my gaze from his and turned to stare out the window as the school faded into the scenery behind us. I watched the neighborhoods roll past and wished that I had found an after-school club of my own to join. The rest of the week passed in a haze as at the end of every day I found myself trapped in the car with Jeremy. I tried finding other ways out of the school but every time I thought I was ok, he found me. If I managed to catch the bus, he’d be waiting for me when I got off of it; if I stayed after school for a
club, he’d be waiting in the parking lot to grab me before I could catch the late bus. I even started avoiding Alex so I wouldn’t run into Jeremy accidentally. I had become the prey—the animal running from the inevitable grip of its hunter. The morning of my arrest, I called Jeremy and asked him for a ride to school. I told him that I wanted to talk to him. When he pulled up outside my house I was waiting for him, a smile on my face as I walked down the driveway and climbed into the car. Leaning over, he kissed my neck. “How are you this morning?” I swallowed the urge to gag and pushed my body up against the door. “I’m fine.” My voice was a soft murmur among the noise of the traffic as we wound through the neighborhood and out onto the main roads. I shifted in my seat and his hand landed heavily on my knee and began to slide up my thigh. I pulled my bag to my chest. We pulled into the back lot of the school and he scooted closer, his hand sliding up along my ribs. His breath rasped in my ear. “How much time do we have before you have to go?” My hands gripped my bag tighter to my chest as I stared out the window. Drawing in a deep breath, I slipped my hand inside my bag, my hand gripping the only answer I had. I let my bag drop to the floor as he shifted closer. I caught a glimpse of the knife in the window and turned to look him in the eye. He grinned, taking this as his cue to continue. I turned away from him. Light reflected off the window and for a moment I could see her, the girl from the mirror, staring back at me. She looked pitiful. Her face was drawn and pale, her hair hanging over her features like a curtain. The feeling of a warm hand made me look down at my stomach. His hand was under my shirt. I looked back up and the girl’s reflection disappeared as a bus turned into the lot, unloading the first round of kids. Looking over at him I smiled warmly, my teeth bared. He looked unsure for a moment, his hand withdrawing from under my shirt. I leaned forward and pressed my cheek to his, breathing into his ear. “Let’s see how long it takes for you to bleed out?” He gasped as I shoved the blade up between his ribs. I felt a slight pop as the knife pierced deeper. His eyes widened as I shoved the knife in up to its hilt. Looking down at it protruding from his chest he raised his hands to mine where they had stayed wrapped around the hilt. I waited for blood to flow freely from the wound but it was more like a trickle at first. I pushed the blade in farther thinking that I had done something wrong. How hard could it be to stab and kill someone?
He tried to push away from me. He reached for the handle on his door but I pulled him back. His breathing became shallow and quick. His eyes met mine and he opened his mouth to speak. His words were cut off by coughing, as blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He gagged, and reached out to me but I pushed away and leaned back against the door. Collapsing back into his seat, he fought to draw in air, his eyes watching the kids walking calmly into school, oblivious of what was happening just half a parking lot away. I tilted my head and stared out the window at the sky and the trees, the leaves rustling in the breeze, a couple falling as they were pulled from their stems by the wind. Another bus pulled into the driveway as I climbed from the car and made my way into school. The eyes of students that I passed locked on me and the whispered conversations got louder. I froze halfway down the hall and turned as I saw movement in the glass to my right. Looking back at me was the girl from the mirror. Her shoulders were pulled back and she smiled at me, pulling her hair back to reveal her face. I smiled back at her and turned to push my way through a crowd that was gathering in the halls.
Randi Wilson is a writer/sculptor currently finishing her Masters in creative writing. She has had poetry published in Journey Magazine. She splits her time between her love of writing, her love of sculpture, and hanging with her 150lb. bucket of drool, lovingly referred to as Cooter.
Erica Bodwell Making Love, Friday Afternoon Out of the marsh of this week, trudging, parting reeds that razor tiny cuts in my hands, I collapse onto the grassy edge, panting, and turn to see flashes of flannel through the curtain of stalks. You follow with an armful of apologetic bittersweet, and step out into the bright October blue, a boot sacrificed to the mud. Above us Canadian geese honk and clamor, arrowing what for days we forgot. Look up.
Erica Bodwell Hush
In my dream, it’s a music festival kind of summer day, where all day I think ants are crawling on my feet but it's only the grass brushing, brushing. You materialize behind me, your chest, hips, forearms tipping me back into your long swallow, slaking, slaking. You exhale the words I'm here or you're beautiful or what did you say? This morning, the kinetic trace of your breath still on my neck, I find that overnight, after months of playing dead, the cyclamen’s waxy, variegated leaves are beginning a wet unfolding. Within days its upswept petals will wave like prayer flags, reminding us to turn the page.
Erica Bodwell is a poet and attorney from Concord, New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared or will be appearing in Red River Review and Emerge Literary Journal.
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