Issue fifty-six
Crack The Spine Issue Fifty-Six February 26, 2013 Edited by Kerri Farrell Foley Collection copyright 2013 by Crack the Spine
Contents Logan Seidl To See Beyond It R.C. Li City Hall Steven Minchin Over Exposure Henry Sane Dendromutate Brendan Adams Dual Negatives Amber Kovach Invasion of the Toe Snatchers Chris Dungey Right of Way Anthony Ward Post Man
Cover Art By Eleanor Leonne Bennett Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 16 year old internationally award winning photographer and artist who has won first places with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, Nature's Best Photography, Papworth Trust, Mencap, The Woodland trust and Postal Heritage. Her photography has been published in the Telegraph , The Guardian, BBC News Website and on the cover of books and magazines in the United states and Canada. Her art is globally exhibited , having shown work in London, Paris, Indonesia, Los Angeles, Florida, Washington, Scotland ,Wales, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Germany, Japan, Australia and The Environmental Photographer of the year Exhibition (2011) amongst many other locations. She was also the only person from the UK to have her work displayed in the National Geographic and Airbus run See The Bigger Picture global exhibition tour with the United Nations International Year Of Biodiversity 2010. Owner Credit: Michael Allcroft Antiques
Logan Seidl To See Beyond It Because of his stories I have always wanted to cut down a perfectly good tree. The pine scented forest mixed with 2 stroke oil. Things, he said, every man should claim. Better, to do it with cowhide covering my hands, holding his axe. With each strike the slivers of life will be removed, until there is nothing left. My dad showed me how to sharpen the axe and drink Whiskey out of the bottle, through the long nights in our mobile home, talking of the tress he cut down. Me just a boy who never believed he would fall. Still hearing his voice tell me, important messages need to be printed. Not that anyone remembered them in six months. Once he trimmed a tree for the owner just to see behind it. It’s not the same, he said, if you can’t see the blue water beyond the pine needles.
Logan Seidl is currently a Truckee Meadows Community College student, where he sits on the board for TMCC’s Literary and Art Journal the Meadow. To learn more about Logan and find upcoming publications, check out his new website http://loganseidl.com that will launch on Feb. 28th. He would like to thank his loving wife Judi “Lady Fish” Seidl for her support and dedication to his craft.
R.C. Li City Hall
The girl that stared back at Rita from the full length mirror looked liked she was dressed for a quinceañera. This was probably due to the fact that her mother had managed to stuff her slightly taller and curvier frame back into the same dress that she had worn to commemorate her passage into womanhood at 15. Three years later, some slight alterations had to be made. The dress had been transformed into a halter lace confection that now fell just above her knees. Rita wondered what other important day of her life she was going to recycle this same dress for. At this rate there wouldn’t be much material left. “¡Ay qué chuchi!” said her godmother pinning a white cloth rose to her ponytail. She had sewn it especially for her and Rita wished she hadn’t bothered. Everyone was going to such trouble. Her mother stepped closer to her and hugged her tight. “Qué linda,” she agreed. The two older women stood on either side of her and beamed wide smiles at her reflection. Her mother touched the blue streaks in her hair and muttered: “Tenés que teñirte el pelo.” “No, ma,” she said moving her face away from her mother’s touch. She was not going to die her hair black. Her godmother made a tisk tisk sound. Rita stifled a sigh. She wanted to fling off the white Payless shoes her mother’s friend had bought for her and throw the dress into the trash. Just because she was dressed for the part didn’t make the event more real. If it was up to her she would show up in jeans and a t-shirt and call it a day but her mother had set her foot down, insisting on the dress. “It’s ok, right Rita?” said her mother tipping her chin down to look into her eyes. With a small smile Rita nodded. A slight cough made the three women turn around. Her father stood at the door to her bedroom looking in on them. This whole time while her mother and godmother plotted out the details of the big day her father had not expressed an opinion letting his wife take care of everything. Rita remembered all the times when she was little that she had run to him to beg him to let her take off whatever ridiculous puffy pink fluff her mother had dressed her in. He would always just hug her and tell her she was the prettiest in girl in the world.
Now Rita just smiled at him and gave him a shrug. He winked at her before heading out for work. *** As soon as she turned eighteen her mother made an appointment with an immigration lawyer who gave free consultations. A man with spiky black hair and an orange tan told her that he couldn’t do anything for her unless she was married. Satisfied, her mother shook the man’s hand and guided Rita into a nearby coffee shop. They sipped their coffees silently for a bit before her mother placing both hands on the table said: “I know someone.” “Ok,” said Rita. “So?” “He is good boy Rita.” “Ugh, gross mom!” she said finally understanding. “Listen!” said her mother grabbing unto her hands. “His mom only charge a little.” “Mom no” she said. She hadn’t even had a date to her high school prom and now she was supposed to get married? Rita looked down at her cup of coffee as her mother shared her plan. He was the son of one of her friends and he would charge them only a couple of thousand dollars. She wouldn’t even have to live with him for long, he had enlisted in the army and in a couple of weeks he would be leaving for training and then who knew where he would be sent afterwards. Once Rita has gotten residency she could start applying for a scholarship to go to college, then after a few years she could get her citizenship. And of course once she got her citizenship she could sponsor her parents. How could she say no? *** Everyone that saw them together would imagine their marriage to be a shot gun wedding. With acne scars crisscrossing both cheeks and gangly ears that stuck out of the side of his shaved head her “fiancé” Paul looked to be about fourteen. During their first meeting at his home their mothers had left them alone in the living room. Rita had sat on one end of the plastic covered couch and wondered if it would be rude to just stand. Even though all the windows in the apartment were wide open the air was stagnant and smelled of piss. She soon learned why as a tiny dog squatted under a table and peed on some newspapers. She looked at her future husband to be as he shot some Germans in the latest Call of Duty videogame. “So….”
“Yeah?” As if from a deep trance Paul’s eyes quickly shifted over to her before returning to the game. “What school did you go to?” she asked. “High School of Graphic Communication.” Rita observed the television as his character evaded enemy fire. Her eyes drifted over the photographs that lined the wall above the television. Here was Paul giving a gap toothed smile in his first grade class picture, there he was, a slight peach fuzz above his upper lip, in his high school graduation picture. “Why are you marrying me?” she finally asked. He blushed, paused his videogame and bit his fingernail before replying. “When your mom told my mom how much she would pay it sounded like a good deal you know?” he finally answered. *** Rita gulped down the last of her beer trying to wash the memory away. Every time she thought of Paul’s response her cheeks burned in embarrassment. “We need a shot over here! It’s her bachelorette party!” yelled Maura at the bartender. She had come down from Rutgers for the special day and was staying with her for the night. They had discovered the bar their senior year of high school. They had been looking to test the fake IDs they had purchased in Times Square, to their surprise no one had even bothered checking. “On the house,” said the bartender winking at Rita while filling her glass with a shot of Jameson. She welcomed the burning feeling as the liquor settled in her stomach. “Oh my god! He is so hot,” whispered her friend in her ear. He was, decided Rita. She imagined sucking on his lip ring. “So, where are you going to live?” asked Maura. Rita frowned. “I’m sorry, if you don’t want to talk about it…” said Maura sipping her beer. “I’m moving into his place,” she answered. Her mother had already packed all of her things. She would be sleeping on their plastic covered couch in the same room that their dog did her business. They had to make it look convincing. The worst part was that her mother had started to really buy into the idea of the marriage. She kept telling Rita how brave she thought Paul was for risking his life for his country. “Well, maybe the army will transform him into a sexy G.I. Joe,” said Maura.
Rita laughed. “I doubt it” “Well maybe he won’t make it-“ “That’s a horrible thing to say,” said Rita suddenly feeling nauseous. “He’s doing me a favor.” “I know, I know I’m sorry,” said Maura twirling herself back and forth on her stool. “It’s just that I can’t believe you’re getting married!” “Tell me about it,” she muttered. “I’ll be right back.” She hopped off her stool and headed to the bathroom. As she rinsed her mouth to clear the taste of vomit her phone started to vibrate. It was her mother. She was still looking at the screen debating on whether she should answer or not when she opened the bathroom door and walked straight into someone waiting in the hallway. “Whoa, there!” A pair of strong hands grabbed her to keep her from falling down. “I’m so sorry,” she said. It was the bartender. His body felt so warm against her. “Are you all-“ She didn’t let him finish his question. She leaned up on tippy toes and kissed him. *** “You look hot!” said Maura looking at her up and down admiringly. Rita snorted in reply. Where was he? They stood outside the doors to City Hall with her parents. Her mouth felt like sandpaper. She was getting sick of the stares she was getting from the tourists. One had even taken her picture. None of the other happy couples she saw entering the building seemed as dressed up as her. Her mother patted her hand while her father wiped his brow with a handkerchief. All had been forgiven apparently. Her mother had not been too happy with Rita when she had stumbled into the apartment early this morning. “¡Aqui estamos!” yelled Paul’s mother waving her hands at them from across the plaza. “Sorry,” panted Paul coming up to her and standing awkwardly in front of her. He was wearing black pants with a blue shirt and a grey tie. She could picture his mother fixing the tie for him. “We took the express train and ended up in Brooklyn instead.” “All right we’re running late, everyone get together,” said Maura lifting the camera up. She was in charge of documenting the day. Paul wrapped one arm around her shoulder while she hugged his waist lightly. She could feel the sweat from his back.
“Say cheese!� called out Maura. Rita thought of the bartender and smiled. His name was Johnny, they had made plans to see each other later in the week. Once they were done with pictures her father came up to her and hugged her. She held on tightly to him wishing they could come inside with her but her mother thought it was too risky. Finally her mother tugged on her father’s hand and he let her go. She watched them walk over to a bench before turning around and following the rest of the group inside.
R.C. Li is a librarian by day and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her stories have appeared in the online literary journals Prick of the Spindle and Storyscape.
Steven Minchin Over Exposure
Ansel says it’s ok to be exposed in the darkroom red light’s actually blinding and everyone here is lined up naked anyway He speaks as if he holds a secret just under his Adam’s apple Ignoring that we came to bring something like it from blankness Ignoring that mine may be prettier, his more red and yours wet and ready to go He knows that we’re all standing around here trying to get bigger growing vulnerable in our raw condition, propagating in dark exposure and getting off because when we walk out there and hit those walls Everyone will know what we did in the dark, what he held below his throat will be glad I came, exposed, hung- there- we’ll die having spread wide our names
Steven Minchin is a poet, a painter and and upstate instigator. He ruined or made his mother's Thanksgiving day in 1974, and plans to attempt to do the same to many more.
Henry Sane Dendromutate “Does my skin look like tree bark to you?” Not this again. My neighbor Randall, a complete idiot, is blown out of reality on some weird drug. He bought it at a kind of back alley festival for all things illicit—a place he called “The Real Good”—from a bug-eyed guy with spiky white hair and a lower half I could’ve sworn belonged to an ostrich. “Got yer Dendromutate, man,” he said. “Turns you into a damn tree, I swear. Craziest shit in the world, man. Forty bucks.” Randall didn’t say a word. He just casually traded the guy two twenties for what looked like a greenish acorn, which he promptly swallowed. That was an hour ago. Back in my apartment, we’re watching TV as he starts to feel the effects. “Does my skin look like tree bark to you?” he asks again. From the moment we left The Real Good, he’s asked this same stupid question at least fifty times. And it’s getting old. Just don’t look at him anymore, I tell myself. You’ve checked many times and seen nothing out of the ordinary. And you’ve told him so. No tree bark, no anything. So just let him freak out and get it over with. He’s got the whole couch now, with plenty of room to sprawl out and act as weird as he likes. When he’s done, he’ll leave. For now, just sit here in your recliner, keep a comfortable distance, and stare straight ahead at the TV. But it’s not that simple. Like most idiots—especially idiots on weird drugs—he’s hard to ignore. “Well? Did you hear me? Come on man, I’m serious here—” I groan in defeat. Alright, I say to myself, indulge him. You know he’ll never stop until you respond, so just do it. But don’t look at him. Not yet. He’s obviously nearing his peak, which can be a shocking scene. “Tree bark?” I ask, focused on the TV. “Your skin?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says frantically. “Feels like wood, like oak, yeah oak, oaken, like oaken bark. Oaken? Is that a word, oaken?” There’s some program on TV about octopuses. Octopuses? Or is it octopi? “Does it feel like that all over?” I ask halfheartedly. “Or just certain places?”
“It’s everywhere, man,” he says, his voice growing in fret. “Yeah, everywhere. Here and here and here and here. And there’s these layers. And I feel this stuff, like moss, growing back here, on the back of my leg. It just keeps growing and growing, getting thicker and fuzzier and itchier by the second.” He stands quickly and I see him in the corner of my eye tracing a jittery finger up and down his leg. But still I don’t look over. What I can see is good enough—and I’m not impressed. The octopi-octopuses on TV are far more entertaining. “You look fine to me,” I say. “No, no, man, seriously, this is serious! I feel it, it’s there, this fucking moss! And it’s still growing! It’s even thicker now and it’s climbing up my back, don’t you see? I know it’s there—look! Holy shit, it’s wrapping around my ribcage!” Again I see him acting weird in my periphery, but I pay little mind. He removes his shirt, brushing away the vaporous moss from his side, panicking the way idiots on weird drugs tend to panic. In wild desperation, he flails his arms and legs, but I don’t care enough to look over and find out why. “And my head, man, my head!” he screeches. “The juices are thickening, like syrup, or—oh, God!— it’s sap! Sap? Yes, sap! Sap is filling inside my fucking head! This is bad, man, this is really, really, bad!” An idiot on weird drugs. I’m already tired of it. “Please, man, I just want to watch TV—” “No, don’t you see? This Dendro-fucking-mutate, man—it’s working. It’s really working! I’m becoming a goddamned tree! An oaken, oak tree!—oaken?—yes, oaken! It all adds up! The bark, the mossy covering, and now this accursed sap! And now I feel it moving too, this sap! I can feel it coursing through my veins, tightening my muscles as it replaces my dear sweet mammalian blood! Fuck me, it’s becoming molasses! Oh God, this is the worst-case scenario! And it’s real, man, so fucking real!” Suddenly the octopi-octopuses are the greatest things ever. But because of Randall’s maniacal spoutings, I can’t hear what the narrator is saying about them. Just don’t look at him, I remind myself. Ignore this stupidity, watch your octo-whatevers and wait for him to cool off. Maybe a quick word of consolation will speed things up— “Relax, man—” “Shut the hell up!” he yelps, high-pitched and spastic, his arms still flailing. “Easy for you to say! You’re not the one turning into a fucking shrub! So just shut your face if you’ve got nothing better to say!” I sigh, leaning forward so I can hear the TV over Randall’s idiotic freak-out. “Can I ask why you’re so concerned about all this?” My eyes stay fixed on the TV as I point to the screen. “I mean, look at the
octopus. He’s constantly changing himself to look more like his surroundings, stalking his prey, completely hidden from predators, and it’s all because he blends perfectly into the natural setting. Seems to me you’ll have the same advantage he has. Except you won’t just look like the natural setting—you’ll be the natural setting.” For the first time, Randall is quiet. The drug has apparently run its course. After a moment I look over and find him rooted to the spot, his limbs petrified, no longer flailing. He seems mesmerized by the TV. I’m not sure what to say. “Want some water?” I finally ask. “Please,” he replies calmly. “After that I suppose I’ll leave.”
Henry Sane currently manages the online fiction journal Swamp Biscuits and Tea. His fiction can be found in such publications as The Medulla Review, Jersey Devil Press, Big Pulp, and Subtle Fiction, to name a few.
Brendan Adams Dual Negatives
His face wasn’t the same as I remembered. It was harder and full of jagged edges like the one that ran along his nose. This new face had learned about homemade knives and the proper placement of their dull blades. It took wallets when it approached people from behind in snowy parking lots at dusk and so I went for mine. This hadn’t been part of my well-rehearsed plan - a quick fist to the gut, hard enough to send his face buckling forward into my rising knee. Travis would kneel in front of me, cupped hands catching free flowing blood. A few drops would come free and land on my shoes. I didn’t know it was supposed to be that moment. Not until I recognized the voice. It was deeper, older but it was nostalgic and it was warm. It didn’t make the menacing noises I expected, being owned by a face like that. Travis asked if I wanted to have a cup of coffee and it was too late. I had to say yes. “It was hard to find you, Benny.” No one calls me that anymore, I said, though I was the only one who heard. I poured milk in my coffee and watched light brown clouds billow through the black. “How’s that?” Travis pointed his fat thumb over his shoulder, at the office across the street. I shrugged. I’d seen people pulled out of the canal that were less bloated. More blue, but less bloated. At least I got that part right. He picked at the sweaty bits of his t-shirt, clinging to his skin. “It ain’t making you rich, though.” He reached across the table and pinched my tie between his fat, tattooed fingers. It was a little old. That was true. “What do you want, Travis?” He smiled that same old smile, though the teeth were yellow now. It was the smile of someone who got what he wanted. He’d been practicing for years. I switched off the radio, ending the non-descript stream of smooth jazz muffled under my car’s humming heaters. The dashboard clocked hesitated between 2:59 and 3:00. I sat in limbo.
Travis knocked on my window so I rolled it down a few inches. He pointed at a dark bungalow across the street and said something I didn’t listen to. Ice and snow crunched under his feet as he walked away. I took rhythmic breaths to quell the churning. It didn’t work. You’d think I’d try something new, rather than stick with failure. Cold sweat puddled in my armpits as I jogged across the icy street, trying not to slip. The house was empty. It felt even colder than it was. A ratty old lawn chair stared at a little TV, propped up on a precipitous tower of milk crates. Empty husks of beer and takeout lay strewn across the floor. My job was to load. An accomplice at worst, a little richer at best. Travis opened a door into a room full of stiff white light and iridescent green. The sickly sweet scent wafted out of the warmth before dying in the cold air. He pulled out garbage bag after garbage bag, branches and leaves sticking out like broken bones. I loaded, slipping and sliding down the sidewalk and across the street to his beaten pickup. A thick blanket of heat built between my skin and the layers of sweaters and jackets. I might not have been as skinny as I used to be either. I threw the last bag on the pile and admired our work. I felt proud of such an obvious deception. Endorphins cruised through my bloodstream like drunk drivers and I ran back into the house. Travis didn’t seem to share my elation. I offered a quick, friendly jab to the stomach, like we used to, back when sudden movements weren’t threats to survival. I don’t think he meant anything by it. The blunt edge came out too quick for either of us to think about it. Reflex is a habit and all habits can be hard to quit.
Brendan Adams writes poetry, short stories, and creative non-fiction. He has also been known to be a journalist. When he is done being a Philosophy student, he will no doubt find an array of gainful employment in broader society. He lives in Canada, a Prairie boy rattling through the urban bowels of Montreal.
Amber Kovach Invasion of the Toe Snatchers
I sit on the edge of a wooden dock. My feet dangle in the murky sea. I feel a flutter between my toes and a swish of water as it cascades over my ankles. What lurks there below my feet? Should I be afraid? My toes become wiggly worms reaching for air. Bobbing off the dock like a fish lure teasing its enemy. Silvery lines rush upon them, breaking the sheen on the water. Only to their dismay. A dog barks in the distance. His toes tear into the earth. This disturbs the sleeping slugs. I stand up and notice my toes are missing. But that doesn’t matter. For the fish have joined me
and are walking on the wooden dock wearing what’s left of my toes.
Amber will be graduating from Boise State University this May with a degree in English-Writing. This will be her second degree because her first proved to be useless. This is her first published work and her dogs are very excited. I suppose her family is too. She applied to Graduate School recently and is hoping to start working towards her MA in Rhetoric and Composition. She is from Montana originally but currently resides in Boise, Idaho with her two kids and husband.
Chris Dungey Right of Way
I saw Larry Musgrave on his bicycle as I drove into town to kill some time at Gallery Mug. He was on his old three-speed, tricked out with saddle baskets full of beer and soda empties. His grimy mackinaw hood had blown off so that his gray hair flagged every-which-way in the breeze. I didn't honk. I didn't want to startle him. I went by as he strained up the Highway 24 overpass, north of town. There isn't much shoulder there where it bridges an old rail-bed that's been converted to a hiking trail. It was late afternoon so I figured he must be on his way to the rotating soup kitchen in Lapeer, probably at St. Paul's Lutheran because it was Friday. That's how I knew the guy--from volunteering, myself, at Presbyterian. It was maddening to watch him go to work on the free, day-old baked goods we set out for clients to take home. Larry's particular obsession/compulsion is to remove the donuts or loaf of bread, shuffle them, and then repackage. That, and he insists that every course on our menu be piled in layers on his plate--salad, fruit, stew, roll, cottage cheese, pickle, pie, the works. Well, that was just Larry and I've gotten used to him. But if you saw him alternating rye slices with white then cramming his dessert into the same wrapper, you'd wonder if, just maybe, he was skipping his medication. Gallery Mug had opened in the old business section of Lapeer. You've heard this story a lot lately-there isn't much traditional business being transacted in the old business section. Unless you count the lawyers at the County Courthouse. The town is now buffered on three sides by big-box stores and brand-name outlets, all sprouting on the outskirts. Luckily, downtown renewal grants have kept the main street spruced up. And, you can still eat and drink in the old business section, downtown. The genuine Tex-Mex place and the trendy Thai place are popular. There's a Coney diner and a sit-down pizzeria. Oh, and you can buy scrap-booking supplies, seven versions of the Bible, overpriced baseball cards, or a vintage sport coat in the fleeting attempts at small business.You can get your nails customized, take friends to a paint-it-yourself ceramics party, be measured for a mountain bike, then sit in a piano bar. You can get a throbbing caffeine buzz because Gallery Mug is just one of three coffee joints downtown. There are three more out in the township, close to the big-box barns. You'd recognize their names.
I liked Gallery Mug, at first, because it was quiet. It's quiet now because they're probably going under. Jean and her husband Ty started out with a decent concept--displaying and selling art (read crafts) on consignment in a coffee house ambience. But it turned out that they were less interested in art and atmosphere than in saving souls. They're both youth ministers on the side, for some charismatic sect with a spire on the church building that reminds me of a spear head. The folk singer they brought in was an ex Christian-rocker who'd had a doctrinal schism with his old band. The rock band that sets up once a week are local kids who sound like they've just started rehearsing. Again, it's Christian rock and the one time I heard them, they couldn't seem to get all the way through most of their tunes. At least the acoustics were good--someone was having a showing of quilts that week and all the walls were heavily draped. I can't tell you why I still hang out in the Gallery Mug. I know it makes me sound like a minion of the anti-Christ or something, but youth prayer meetings and praise nights instead of poetry readings seemed like a betrayal at first. I prefer my sacred music to sound distinctly different than what I can hear on any young Country station. But, the place is quiet if I have something to read, and there are tables up front in by windows on either side of the entrance if I just want to watch the street life go by. Pedestrian traffic in the old downtown now consists, mainly, of lawyers escorting their clients into the piano bar or the other bistros; Goth kids skipping school or skipping going home from school to add piercings in the tattoo shop. I've always been a sucker for underdogs, anyway, even if I have to cringe when I hear Jean and Ty waxing floral about the conservative values they imagine themselves to be the last bastions of. They temper their more strident opinions for the sake of business, but you know Jean would like to save those Goth kids--scrub off the mascara and rinse the dye out of their hair; cast out the flesh trinkets like so many unclean spirits. Too bad the kids will probably exorcise her business first. I forgot about Larry as I cruised on into town. There wee a couple of empty diagonal slots in front of Gallery Mug so I parked, snagged my cell-phone and a fresh New Yorker off the passenger seat, and went in. "Hey, lady! Can I have an application?" I called to the empty tables. It was our running joke because many kids who com in for a scone or Danish are really just looking for a job. I don't think Jean and Ty will ever be able to afford hired help, other than babysitters to cover their overlapping shifts. "Anybody here?" Jean came out of the back carrying a bundle of paper towels. She carried them into the men's room where a mop bucket held the door open. "I thought you were retired."
"And I thought you were bound and gagged in the back somewhere. Actually, my pension might be in jeopardy. Haven't you heard?" "Tell me about it," Jean said. She stepped behind the counter and began washing her hands in the sink. "Between Delphi and G.M. and everyone else on the food chain, it's killing us. Large black?" "Yeah. Have you got any of that Sumatra today? That made the hair on the back of my neck stand up." "Just the house blend today. Sorry. I had to dump out my special grinds yesterday when I closed." "Geez. That's a waste. Where's your Courthouse crowd been?" "I don't know." She fit a white lid over my drink and rang it up. "But the kids kinda make up the difference with hot chocolate and Jones Sodas." I didn't have the heart to tell her that those kids were probably driving away more business than they brought in. Right on cue, three youths arrived as I wandered over to a window seat. There were two wraiths in leather, abyss-black hair falling in one face, and spiked up above the other. They appeared to have modest hips and breasts but their companion's gender was less certain. This person wore black, fringed buckskin and knee-high storm trooper boots. The hair was as black as the girls' but fell on only one side. The other side was shaved. The eyes were starkly lined but that was my last clue. The kid had neither lipstick nor a whisp of adolescent mustache to close the argument either way. Outside, a low, late-blooming sun glared through the November overcast. Young people, loitering outside the ink parlor and on one of the ornate municipal benches, dug for their shades. All of them tapped out fresh cigarettes. The blustery wind carried the smoke away along with their laughter, which seemed to announce Larry Musgrave's arrival. He put the kick-stand in the center of the parking slot next to my car, claiming the entire space. He eyed the kids helplessly but had no chain to lock up the bike. Jean wouldn't appreciate him dragging the bag of empties indoors. He glanced back twice at his treasures piled in the baskets then stepped in. I'm ashamed to admit that when he walked past me without a greeting, I felt relieved. To engage Larry in conversation is an act of Christian civility on a par with going the extra mile or handing him the shirt off your back. There is no such thing as small-talk with Larry. Simple observations about the weather or the Red Wings can become Odyssey-length narratives requiring near rudeness to terminate. I heard him interrogating Jean at length about the ingredients in a bran muffin he might purchase. Once satisfied, he declined the house-blend coffee. I heard him ask for water. He had bent her ear for nearly five minutes about the muffin. I could have slipped away easily but had waited too long. "You sittin' here, Cliff?"
I sensed Larry looming over my shoulder--that one-shower-a-week funk that I can produce only during deer season permeating the section. In my peripheral vision, his moustache seemed to bush out of his nose and curl toward his ears. It made sense, too late, that he'd come back near the window to keep watch on the bike. "Well yeah, Larry. Yeah, I'm sitting here." "No, yeah. But what I meant…You know." "No one's sitting with me. Make yourself at home. You're gonna miss that Lutheran supper, though." "Nah, I'm frickin' rich tonight. It's the first of the month." He hunkered down opposite me, for the best possible view of the street kids. It would give me a great view of whatever he planned to do to that muffin. "I never seen you in here. I come in the morning. That one kid out there's pretty scary. Scares me anyways. Wouldn't that hurt? All that hardware stuck in yer face? Hurts me just lookin' at it." The big kid nearest Larry's bike wore his magenta hair in dreadlocks. His chubby face was impaled by more than a few bangles and hoops. I guess he was kinda scary, though his back was to the bicycle and he seemed bored with anything but the girl hitting him up for a cigarette. "He's a piece of work, Larry. Just try to remember when you were young." I had to remind myself of that life cycle lesson every day or I'd be irate most of the time. "Or, I could just look at my own damn self. What'a ya think? Ain't nobody scarier 'n' me, for Chrissake! How 'bout I get a bull ring in my beak. What'a ya think?" I actually didn't want to think, except about changing the subject--to keep him from getting started on any one thing. No diamond studs or mascara would improve those eyes, I was pretty sure, already sunk in their own shadows. Crow's feet radiated into his tumbleweed hair. "I think you're pretty enough," I said. "Well thank you," Larry mumbled a lame Elvis. "Thank you ver' much." "But listen," I continued. "I wonder, is that a safe spot for your bike?" He studied the gathering rabble out front, which now included a few late-season skateboarders. "Oh, I'm aware, partner. I'm aware. You wouldn't know to look at me but I could get out there real quick. I'd jump one a them little buggers like stink on doo-doo." He pinched off a bit of the muffin and raised it to his mouth. "Nah, Larry. I meant where you parked it. Somebody turning in next to me won't see it 'til they've run over it."
Now his focus returned to me, his eyes squinted to accusatory slits. He glanced down long enough to take another pinch off the muffin-top. I saw him give it a half-turn so that this nibble was removed exactly opposite the first. "You are prob'ly dead right, partner. The drivers around here‌I never seen, for not knowin' what to do around yer bike riders. Nearly put you inna ditch every time. They don't care like other places." Then, I did a dumb thing. Rather than suggest, immediately, that he go out and bring the bike up near the window, I asked him for totally unnecessary information: "So, where's the best place to ride? Where do motorists give you your propers?" "My what?" "Respect. I meant respect." He stroked his stubbled chin. He tweaked another bit of muffin from the three o'clock position on the pastry then began to chew into the speech I had all but begged him for. "Well now, lemme think on that. I have rode about everywheres," he prologued, crumbs spewing. "I think it was in Marine City at this VA home they had us in. See--they let the citizens stand right out inna street, you know, with Tootsie Rolls 'n' what-not for that one disease--whatcha-call-it. Guys right out inna intersection sellin' Christmas papers. No news in 'em, just braggin' up their charity they done that year. Nobody said dick about it 'til it was us got out there. 'Cuz they said we couldn't be held responsible. Guess we was supposed to walk our damn bikes onna sidewalk. Nobody didn't wanna get sued runnin' over a vet. It hadda be up in Brown City. Brown City, they give you the right-of-way. Hell, yeah! Even the boss cop said 'that's the state law,' riders and walkers, everybody. Guys inna cars gotta evade an' avoid ya at all times. Guys inna cars--no exception. Brown City, that was." Larry took a breath. "That was a good home up there. Just mostly vets. Your towny citizen feels better 'bout post-trauma stress an' Agent Orange guys than 'bout your schitzos 'n' what-not. They liked us better 'n' them Alzheimers wanderin' around. I parked my bike any damn wheres. Anybody messed with it, it was on them, brother. On them! We had the right-of-way. You know what, though?" He leaned over the table, staring me down again. "What's that, Larry?" I watched him remove the nine o'clock morsel from the muffin's emerging clock-face. His pinkish eyelids shuttered down in their dark sockets like a doll's laid for a nap. "I gotta piss like a Siber'an race horse 'n' I'm not even on the coffee." He stood up by stages, gripping his waist as he straightened his back. "Could ya keep an eye on my stuff? It'd just be for a minute."
He turned and hobbled away before I could answer. Some parts of his bone structure had seized up while he sat. Maybe he'd ridden too far. Come to think of it, that was a perfect summary of the life he'd been dealt. And you couldn't hear about any of it and remain unaffected. I imagined all the loser jobs and rigid sleeping places. Sure, I'd guard his junk, however futilely if someone decided to hop on the bicycle and book away from there. What I couldn't do by then was make a run for it myself. I didn't have to watch for long. Suddenly, the kids scattered. they disbursed in all directions with a studied nonchalance, as if each had just remembered a prior commitment. I heard the door to the tattoo parlor clunk shut as a few ducked in there. Then a police officer strolled into the scene. He spoke to a young girl, one lone woman-child who'd held her ground on the bench, brazen with assumed innocence. She shrugged, laying her leather arms on each side of the back-rest as casually as she could. The cop quickly gave up on her and stepped over to Larry's bike. I stood up. Larry had not emerged from the bathroom--not even a flush or running water, yet, from in there. The cop fondled his mustache as he examined the bike's cargo. He pulled out his citation pad as I stepped out the door. "Hey, man," I called. "I was just gonna move that." He drew his pen and clicked it with the same dramatic emphasis he'd probably use to chamber a round in a pump shot-gun. "It isn't your bike though, is it?" "Well, no. No. It belongs to a friend. I was just‌" "Yes, sir. I believe I know who it belongs to." Now the pen became a tiny baton between his fingers. "Then you must know he can't afford that ticket," I said. "OK if I just bring it up here for him?" "You do what you need to do. Thing is though, he's been warned. Wouldn't take much for some motorist to slam this across the sidewalk," the cop said. "It's a projectile waiting to get launched." "I was just telling him," I said. "He was going to move it when he came out of the john." I lifted the bike over the curb, bottles clinking and can metal popping in the baskets. "Anyway, this one's only five dollars." the guy seemed to be having some kind of internal debate. "Might finally get his attention." I wheeled the bike up near the window. The sidewalk inclined slightly toward the street so I tested the kickstand. "You think he'll remember from one ride to the next? even if he pays it?" The officer began to write. "That would have to be his problem at that point," he said. "Besides which, Larry may be crazy, but he's not stupid. I've seen him ride in traffic and use the correct turn signals." He handed the pink copy to me. "If you wouldn't mind giving him that? Not saying we don't owe these people. Some of 'em got us buffaloed, though. Tell him 'have a nice day.' You too."
"Geez," I groaned. "You guys." "Come again, sir?" "I just always wanted to say that first; that 'have a nice day.' You're too fast for me." He turned and went back to the patrol car, letting me have the last word. He reached in on the passenger side to deposit his cap, before going around to climb behind the wheel. In the failing light, I couldn't tell if he was amused or irritated, but it was a good opportunity to drop it. I read the ticket. He knew Larry Musgrave's address, if not the exact room number. Through the plate glass, now dimly because Jean hadn't turned her lights on yet, I saw Larry standing back from the table. He looked like a scarecrow allergic to corn. "What'd that yahoo want?" He asked as I reentered. "You won't believe this. He let me move your bike then wrote me a warning for parking over the line." I slipped the ticket into my hip pocket. "Says I'm encroaching on a slot occupied by you illegally. You lucked out, big time." His eyes closed down again. "I never heard a that shit. I wouldn't pay that. Uh-uh." I didn't sit down. This was as good a break as I could hope for. One good lie deserved another as I improvised my exit strategy. "I don't have to pay anything, Larry. It was just a warning. He chewed me out about the two-hour limit, too, so I better shove off." Larry remained standing for a moment, etching an hour hand into the muffin with the nail of his pinky. "A written warning, huh? Never heard a that, either. Must be your lucky day." Finally, he sat down. "Well, you drive easy now. Be just like that sumbitch to change his mind, come back atcha." "I hear that," I said. I zipped my jacket. The painted ones had reassembled out front. That cop wouldn't want to get too far away from the threat posed by disaffected youth. "Keep your nose clean. I'll see you next week." "Mmm-hmmm," Larry grunted. He did one last weird thing with his eyes, flexing the wiry brows like a bathing beauty tattooed on a bicep. His mouth remained a noncommittal flatline. "Don't try'n run when they come for ya. That don't never work out." *** I adjusted the volume on the car stereo and fastened my seat belt. The fancy street-lamp globes provided by the downtown renewal grant were beginning to brighten. Larry waited behind the plate glass of Gallery Mug for the next provocation.
I backed out carefully. Friday evening traffic in downtown Lapeer multiplied exponentially after 5 PM--for the restaurants and bars, of course. Sure enough, the cruiser crept back from the opposite direction. They like to circle through the Post Office lot two blocks west, another place where kids in cars and kids on skateboards might need to be rousted. I waved before easing the shifter into first gear. Larry didn't wave back. He had his game face on for all those alien forces waiting out on the street. I don't know if he is capable of seeing the irony of his distrust. I can see it, though I can't always blunt it with enough tolerance of my own--like giving those kids a chance to do right before getting my sphincter in a knot. Sure, they make me nervous. That's pretty much their role in life. But, am I any more spooked by them than by what that cop can accomplish with a pen or any of his other compliance devices? Maybe we'd all just have to slow down and give them a little more room on the shoulder; resist the urge to lay on the horn.
Chris Dungey is a retired auto worker, still sub-teaching and taking sports photos for local papers around Lapeer, MI. He calls University of Michigan-Flint his alma mater. Chris enjoys hiking and camping at sports car race venues and is currently looking forward to the 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida. He has had more than twenty stories published. He appeared most recently in print at Storm Cellar, Controlled Burn, and the current number of Gargoyle. Last year was also a busy one online where his stories were published at Oklahoma Review, Northwind Magazine, Midwest Coast Review, and Squalorly.
Anthony Ward Post Man
“This is where you enter my life. Get inside my head. Hear my thoughts. I’m sure people hear them anyway. They read me like a book. But to them I’m just a pamphlet. A flyer of the image they have of me. Nobodies interested in the book. Our lives are no longer letters. Just post notes, delivered in numbers, which I deliver day after day, door to door, depositing snacks of life to the snatching dogs that snarl behind the doors—like hyenas—twitching curtains as I leave. I sense them watching me. As if I’m the star of the show. Their faces pressed up against the glass that protects me, which makes me feel like my life’s some sort of cosmic punch-line that’s finally been let out, where everyone knows something I don’t. That I’m not in on the joke—that I’m the joke! I’m almost thirty three and haven’t been born. An outsider who internalises until practically inside out, a negative of the image people expect of me. I think people don’t like me because they think I don’t like them. Though I’m just not like them. They think I’m indifferent when I’m only being different. I just prefer to be left alone if it’s all the same to you. I seek solitude so I can get on with myself. Though lately, the room’s become overcrowded. I talk to myself but never listen. I no longer have anything in common with myself. I used to get along just fine. Then I caught myself out, discovered I’d been cheating, having fallen in with myself much too deep, having been passive to speculation. I want to take an active role in my life. But people won’t let me. I prefer to remain alone because they make it hard for me to live. They tell me to get a life when I’m more alive than they are. They call me a loser when I’m not competing. They say I’m sad because I’m assertively happy. They want me to be simple as I tend to think hard. They’re like one big commercial on a loop. ‘Be individual like us.’ ‘Join us in being yourself.’ ‘Know yourself, buy what we tell you.’ ‘Be part of the in thing, and don’t be left out.’ ‘Be like us, be free from yourself.’ I cannot stand the collective mentality, ganging up on people in packs, spurring each other on like ravenous carnivores tearing people apart, chewing them up then spitting them out. Animals don’t attack others animals unless they feel threatened. Maybe that’s why they don’t like me. Maybe I threaten them with my individuality, so they have to reduce me to ridicule, afraid to speak for themselves. They have nothing to say to you when they’re alone, except to muster a half digested
greeting or acknowledging gesture as they pass you by. It’s as if my individuality intimidates them so they have to humiliate me, because I think for myself, I’m into my own thing. I will not give in. Determined to prove I’ve as much right to be me as anybody else. I don’t have to change for anyone. I did try changing for them. I made myself completely obsequious to their insecurities, tried helping them with their problems. Then they struck back at me, kicked me while I was down, their collective ignorance overwhelming me as they pushed me and pulled me, smothered me with their self importance, and I struggled through them, a remnant of what I was, tossed aside like a discarded skin off the meat they liked to gnaw. I wasn’t even meat—just vegetation. Something left on the side, thrown into the refuse and trodden on. No longer any use, merely fodder for the more fortunate who don’t see you as they walk over you, who when they do see you you’re nothing but an inconvenience beneath them, insignificant, except to the doctors who are practically regarded by them as environmentalists of the mind—hippies who talk rubbish. These ‘mental health professionals’, as they call them, they treat with scepticism by the more socially adapt. Their concerns for the future of society are derided by the simplicity of the solution, which is to cast us aside and leave us to rot, or at least keep us out of their way. That’s their attitude towards us failures, we wastes of space. These Mental Health ‘beatniks’ diagnosed me as suffering from depression. They tell me I’ve been experiencing acute psychotic episodes, which I’ve since come to believe as a fact, despite being science fiction to those who prefer to think of me as having an attitude problem, something that ought to be dealt with and put right. Who’re just the sorts to do it, precipitating the symptoms until they’re as much a part of the problem as the solution. But they have the solution sorted, all ready to be administered as they see fit. They think of depression as nothing more than a feeling you get when things aren’t going your way; a mere act of selfishness that should be shrugged off while you just get on with it. And yet who can blame them? There was a time when I was a sceptic like them. I thought just how they did. Now I see things differently. I know things that they may never know as they continue on their way in blissful ignorance, unaware of the dark cloud looming over the horizon of the pandemic that’s coming. Something they think of as a mere myth, something completely insensible that won’t ever come about. They will not even know until it’s got a hold of them. The only symptoms being their sense of unworthiness, their self esteem all but gone; their lack of enthusiasm for things that once made it easy for them to feel alive, which will then make it hard for them to live. With people asking what the
matter is, being unable to say because they won’t know themselves, wanting desperately to be happy while being completely incapable of being happy. The trouble is nobody feels happy anymore. Societies been spoilt. Thinking they’re hard done by. They don’t sympathise, they empathise because they think they’re depressed. Whenever you go to the high street these days everyone looks down. I remember when people who worked in stores would smile at you and welcome you in. Now they look at you as if you as if you’ve just walked in on them. Some don’t even look at you. Just carry on reading whatever magazine they’ve took off the shelf. Some carry on packing the shelves while you wait. Serving the customer is no longer the priority. Customers are a nuisance. The customer is always wrong. When the girl at the checkout is distant to me I feel responsible. Though there’s this one girl who’s nice. She almost smiles at me when I come in. I imagine myself talking to her but I can’t imagine myself doing it. Not in a public place. I can only converse with women when alone, on a one to one basis. Though I can never get them alone, that’s why I remain single while everyone remains suspicious of my sexuality because I don’t have a girlfriend. Yet I’m straighter than they are. The joke’s on them! I like women more than they do. I’ve adored the female form ever since I was born. I never had a latent period. I dare bet my eyes were drawn to the pretty nurse as I entered the world. The trouble is my roving eye casts heroines out of self imposed mythologies. I turn them into statues, surmounted on pedestals. I’m always after someone specific, not just someone that’ll have me. Like the girl on the checkout. There’s no-one like her, never has, never will. She’s the last beautiful girl. I dream of taking her out, to a restaurant, but I don’t like to eat out. I hate to see people eating in public. It should be done privately. When they eat there’s an arrogance to it, a certainty in what they’re doing, a defiance I can’t stand. Their mouths roving like an entity in themselves, like something nonhuman. Their eyes scuttling in their sockets, ready to burrow into you, get beneath your skin. I tend to avoid eating in front of others. It makes me uncomfortable just to eat with this relentless flatulence. It’s like my bodies a container with the pressure building up, the torsion in my ribs making me fully aware of my respiratory movements, the tension making my veins feel as if they’re being pulled like strings on a puppet, so I have to move rigidly, as if trying to balance my thoughts so that they don’t overcome me— make me lose my balance. I don’t like being disturbed, having my thoughts distracted. I can’t stand any interference that prevents me from thinking. I need to control my perception of myself otherwise I’ll go out of my mind. Though if I’m out of my mind, then whose thoughts are these? They cannot be mine if this were not my mind. And if they are mine I must be in my mind.
Sometimes my left hand feels as if it’s made of plastic, as if it doesn’t belong to me. It’s even occurred to me that it doesn’t, and the person it does belong to wants it back—though I fail to see why they would. My body’s nothing but a burden. I like to cauterise it with cigarettes in order to thaw the coldness I sense inside, trying to gain my own attention. The immediate focus becomes impulsive towards any cicatrise. As if people are witnessing the inevitability of the body—and thus themselves. That’s the thing! A physical complaint garners sympathy, something that can be grasped, but mental complaints cannot be grasped, garnering only derision and resentment. Nobody cares if your problem is mental. They just think you’re mental and leave you alone, (if you’re lucky!). But many don’t. They like to leave some comment or other and put it in your cup instead of giving you something to help you get back on your feet; prefer to leave you on the street scorning you for not having a job, when often their attitude’s the reason you fail to have a job in the first place. Their ignorance precipitates the problem. But, hey, that’s life. You just got to get on with. Chin up. Keep your head up high. Stay on your feet. Keep going. It’s a survival of the fittest. If you can’t keep up you’re left behind. If you fall you’ve had it. It’s this fight that prevents me from giving up. I remain an individual who’s beginning to realise who he is, while they remain disillusioned under the illusion of their superiority, sharing schadenfreude with glee. Not savouring life but stuffing themselves with it until full of ourselves. Thinking they know who they are. Thinking they’re defined by their success. With no idea their sense of identity lies within a chemical balance as much as our very existence lies in the equilibrium of physics. That the very state they’re in relies on neurons and hormones as opposed to their intuitiveness and innovation. Unaware that the veil of supposition can be pulled back at any time like a curtain to reveal the set behind as realise you’ve been so wrapped up in your character that you forgot you were acting, merely part of a play devised by someone else. No longer in control of what happens to you, accepting your fate obsequiously. Your life a formula that appeared to be working out until you find out it’d being going wrong from the beginning. I remember that moment as if it were now. Being suddenly overwhelmed by this notion I’d become the centre of attention. It made me catatonic, unable to move for fear of toppling over, as if my head were about to roll from my left shoulder. For months I’d been feeling like Achitophel, frustrated at the fact I knew what was troubling them but couldn’t get them to listen. Trying to sort out their lives, relieve them of their problems. Then I had an epiphany—as if I’d been hit struck across the head with it—and I realised all the while I thought I was helping them they were in fact trying to help me. I was an
accident waiting to happen. Soaring through the air on top of it all, before my world was turned upside down and I became submerged beneath the pressure that’d been building up over time. As if all my awkward life had been inevitably coming to the point where I’d trip over myself; fall flat on my face, tumble down and down until I reached the bottom, everybody looking down at me, not helping me up, ready to laugh at my misfortune, their faces grotesque and distorted, like demons revealing their true identities, the phantasmagoria of their natures revealed, as if heaven and hell had been coexisting as my sense of self all along before tipping towards the infernal animosity of my recognition. I can still feel the tingling in my body. An embarrassing incident echo’s and amplifies your sense of self to the point you can no longer bear it, making you feel as if everybody else knows everything, while you feel aggravated by the fact they seem to be keeping things from you—that you’re the only one who doesn’t understand. I remember the doctor asking if it’d occurred to me that they weren’t keeping anything from me; that my confusion was brought about by the fact they didn’t know what to do; that their expressions weren’t that of disdain, but remorse. But I suspected he was trying to trick me, trying to throw me off the scent, not realising I was on to him, merely confiding in him in order to try and sway him, to fool him while trying to feel him out, determine what he knew. He said I was suffering from paranoia; that I had delusions of persecution. Maybe he’s right. But maybe he was trying to confuse me. I can’t be sure. I think it’s better to be cautious. Better not to trust anyone—nobodies above suspicion. Not even me. My own thoughts are invasive, as if they’re being transmitted into me. My mind’s like a radio not quite tuned in marauding on the point of acuity. My consciousness hisses with the interference of evasive doubt that prevents me from thinking clearly. Picking up signals I hadn't previously received, feeling a heightened sense of reality, as if none of this is real, like I’m watching it happen through a screen that protects me from what I accept with a sense of defiance, while still retaining a hint of disbelief. I sense things in the same way as if it were a film, spooked by an ominous foreboding atmosphere, as if something permanent was going to happen, but I don’t know what. I feel as if I do know, but I just can’t let myself in on it.” “That’s time, see you next Thursday?” said the women at the desk acknowledging the clock above her certifications. “Yeah, see you next Thursday?”
Anthony Ward has been writing in his spare time for a number of years. He derives most of his inspiration from listening to mainly Classical Music and Jazz- since it is often the mood which invokes him to set his thoughts to rest. He has been published in a number of literary magazines including South, Word Gumbo, Perspectives, Message in a Bottle, and Blinking Cursor amongst others.
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