Temper Literary Review 2017

TEMPER LITERARY REVIEW 2017

TEMPER 2017

Temper is a literary arts magazine produced annually by undergraduate students at UMass Dartmouth.This year’s edition includes many unique pieces of prose and poetry that range from race issues, to emotional revelations, to thought-provoking psychological thrillers. This collection represents the many facets of the writing community growing up around us. We hope our contributors’ imaginative efforts will foster appreciation of literary art, while inspiring others to join this community and continue their creative endeavors.

Happy reading!

Alyssa Marshall Managing Editor

CONTENTS 1 In for a Finger, In for a Fist Matthew King

5

The Cake is a Lie

6

Ripped Away

9

Eyes in the Dark

16

K

Samantha Howard

Rachel Pichette

Raid & I am the Night Sade Smith

18

Wiffle Balls and Cigarettes

21

The Island of Juda

30

A Walk in his Shoes

32

Whitney’s First Week of School

34

Tapped Out

Matthew Medeiros

Danielle Stevens

Chelsea Chapelle

Cassandra Raposo

Christina Musser

41

We Followed

42

The Monster in Your Dreams

44

Ceci N’est Pas Une Pipe.

46

Abuela, the Squaw & the Matador

52

Orchard’s Thorns

Shawna Fox

Sabrina Pacheco

K

A. Marshall

K

Managing Editor: Alyssa Marshall Content Evaluators: Alyssa Marshall Matthew King Morgan Banville Jonathan Moniz Cassandra Raposo Rachel Pichette Stefen Welch Dan Simcock Graphic Designer: Dan Simcock Faculty Advisors: Professor Lucas Mann, M.F.A. Professor Caitlin O’Neil-Amaral, M.F.A.

1 Temper Literary Review Spring 2016

IN FOR A

FINGER, IN FOR A

FIST

Matthew King

As far as good times go, one could do worse than having cancer. Sure, there are some downsides (chances at survival depending on what type of cancer you have, losing all your hair, staring into the empty abyss of your own mortality and still trying to get out of bed in the morning) but most of the time it’s low impact chillaxing while everyone acts as if you are a live grenade that might go off randomly.

People on the outside like to talk about ‘the battle’ with cancer, as if it’s an event at the Circus Maximus, but to be honest I spent most of my time in bed playing videogames. There was little to no physical effort involved in my entire treatment. The doctors actually advised against it! People tend to put cancer survivors on a pedestal. Not every person that has survived cancer is an awe-inspiring heartfelt story of perseverance.

There are two types of ‘characters’ you end up with after surviving cancer: someone with an inspiring and uplifting story of survival in the face of adversity, or an insufferable bastard who ‘went through something’ and came out the other end a bit more weird for wear.

I suppose it’s up to you to determine which character I am. Some days it feels like one, most days it feels like the other. There’s probably a reason I was never the bald-headed posterchild of Dana Farber.

I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, or ALL, when I was thirteen years old. I like to joke that I’ve had it ALL, but no one laughs at that except my mom. Like most thirteen year olds, I was a moody and apathetic piece of shit. Cancer did wonders for that.

Before you go making assumptions about my character based on my experience, let me fill you in: I don’t treat Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 1

every day like it’s my last because of surviving cancer, I don’t live life to the fullest, and I sure as shit don’t appreciate every little moment. Surviving cancer does not suddenly turn one into the Dalai Lama. I’m simply a guy who won the genetic lottery and had cells that were just a little too excited about the whole ‘be fruitful and multiply’ idea.

Courtesy of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, I and several other chemo kids had been invited to a baseball game between the Redsox and the Braves, at Turner Field in Atlanta. There were sixteen cancer kids going, all deemed just the right amount of sick to not be killed immediately by plane travel or southern heat. The first few days were fantastic. We were on an all-expenses paid vacation with twenty-four hour intense medical supervision (A doctor and two or three nurses from the DFCI always tagged along on these trips, for no apparent reason). We were staying in a luxurious hotel, and when we weren’t hanging out at the field, we got to do whatever we wanted in the hotel rooms. That might have been risky given that we were a bunch of 14-17 year olds, but what it amounted to was a bunch of napping. Being on chemo really tuckers you out.

Guess the chaperones had all their bases covered.

On our final day in Atlanta, we watched the Sox and the Braves butt heads on the diamond, or whatever lame metaphor for battle is applied to a baseball game.

As the day at Turner Field wore on, I started to feel tired, and progressively sicker. By the time we left, I had the chills, and by the time we made it to the hotel, I had a low-grade fever. When you are on chemotherapy and you suddenly come down with a fever, you need to immediately get yourself to an emergency room. I don’t know why. I’m sure that it has to do with some kind of excruciatingly painful death, but then again, maybe having chemo in your blood and getting a fever gives you superpowers?

2 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

Anyhow, I came down with a fever. Normally this would be a routine procedure. I’d get a fever, my mom or dad would drive me to the emergency room, and I’d have to spend the night there with an IV. The situation was complicated by the fact that I was south of the Mason-Dixon line, a thousand miles from my parents and the high tech, practically futuristic nexus of hospitals in Boston that I trusted.

The doctor and nurses tried their best to get my fever down, but my body loves to back the wrong fights. In the end, we had to go to the hospital. We took the trip in the chartered bus that the DFCI had got for all us happy campers. There’s something weird when there are only three people on a chartered bus. Nothing good is happening in that situation.

I have a history of throwing wrenches into pre-planned events such as long weekends or vacations because of being sick. The thing about being on chemo is you can have good days and bad. There’s no rhyme or reason to when they come or how long they will last, but when a bad day appears and gets really bad you need to get your ass to a hospital so you don’t shuffle off your mortal coil.

I was run through the Emergency Room at the speed of a child learning to read, and given a temporary room where the ER doctor on duty could examine me more closely. When he arrived, I couldn’t help but marvel at his appearance. He had the look and swagger of a Good Ol’ Boy, like Boss Hog wearing scrubs and a lab coat, spittin’ tobaccy into a brass spittoon between saving lives and breaking hearts. The doctor and nurse that accompanied me had a chance to ‘talk shop’ and compare notes with Bubba MD. Treating this situation with the seriousness that it called for, the doctor pulled on some rubber gloves and began his examination of me. I’m used to a nurse rolling up with a cart that has a widget on it that can identify your temperature,

measure your blood pressure, check your oxygen level and wash your balls, all in one go. This doctor was practically covering me with leeches in comparison.

I’m no stranger to physical examinations. After being poked and prodded five thousand times by a bunch of different doctors, I became a connoisseur of the checkup. There are little variations from doctor to doctor, some dive in with all the grace of a trained pianist, while others do their best to simulate what it would be like to be frisked upon entering a Soviet Gulag.

The doctor that was currently examining me however had an exotic method that I had yet to experience in my career as a professionally ill person. With no warning, fanfare or pomp, the General Lee of doctors surreptitiously slipped his gloved finger into my saggy white ass. What I affectionately refer to as the Point of No Return, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 200 dollars, Go Directly to My Butthole. No pause, no ‘bend over and cough’, no Crisco or Vaseline. He got in there with all the demeanor of Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs.

Time slowed down. I remember looking over at the doctor and nurse that came to the ER with me, eyes roiling like a panicked horse, and they looked surprised. That’s what really intrigued me about this whole situation: While Bubba MD was probing my nethers looking for southern pride, my doctor and nurse were judging his method. From where I was, I’d give him a perfect 10 just for courage. I guess he found whatever he was looking for because he called for a full retreat and pulled his forces out of there. There are few situations where the length and circumference of a finger can make or break your day, and this was one of them. Thankfully he tossed the gloves after he was done and didn’t decide to do an oral examination.

There are

T W O

T Y P E S

of ‘characters’ you end

up with after surviving cancer:

SOMEONE WITH AN INSPIRING AND UPLIFTING STORY of survival in the face of adversity, or an

INSUFFERABLE BASTARD who ‘went through

something’ and came

out the other end a bit more weird for wear.

No hospital, however high tech it is or how educated Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 3

the staff are, moves at light speed. If you go to the ER, you should probably bring a survival bag and a tent, because if you aren’t hemorrhaging blood from the eyes, they won’t see you until your number is called. It’s a lot like the butcher’s shop in that respect. The process of getting me set up in this hospital took around four or five hours, so when I finally laid down it was around 2 or 3 am. The doctor and nurse that had been silently at my side decided that now would be the best time to give me the good news. I would not be making the trip back to Boston with the rest of my immunocompromised comrades. I would instead be staying here in the hospital until my mom could come and retrieve me. Of course, as soon as I had come down with a fever, the chaperones got in contact with my mom. My mother, being the goddamn saint she was and still is, immediately started looking for flights to Atlanta. She knew that fucking things up astronomically was my specialty. I always was her problem child, and dammit if I’m not the favorite because of it.

Most clowns usually get the message when you don’t want to see them. The two rainbow-painted jackasses in my room, however, weren’t having it. They insisted on staying, probably sensing that I was defenseless, without tribute or an automatic weapon. I decided to bargain with them. They could hang out in my room if they dropped the clown act and just talked to me like regular people. They took a few seconds and had their own little clown moot. I was hoping that they would just decide I wasn’t worth the trouble of ‘cheering up’ and move on to some other poor bastard, but it wasn’t in the cards.

I’d love to say that I stayed stone-faced the entire time they were with me, but being in a strange hospital thousands of miles from home was starting to get to me. We started chatting, and I realized that once you looked past the demonic slathering of greasepaint and jauntily tipped hats, there were actually kind-of-people underneath. They must have taken a special shine to me, because they spent most of the day in my room, So there I was: a stranger in a strange land with a just shooting the shit. looser-than-average butthole and a keen sense of the deficits present in the healthcare systems that exist in When my mom finally arrived at the hospital, I was the south. After the doctor and nurse left, I conked out almost to the point where I could look at them without and dreamt of home. What I awoke to was the stuff shuddering and breaking into a cold sweat. Sensing of nightmares. For some insane reason, most hospitals that their work was done, the clowns screeched to believe that sick children are in need of only one thing each other in a language only they could understand, to get better: clowns. Go to any major hospital, find the and stalked out of the room in search of other, weaker wing where they keep the almost-dead kids, and you prey. As soon as they were out the door, I looked my will find a clown infestation. I didn’t realize that this mom in the eyes and said those magic words that do trend would continue in the south, but I was wrong. nothing to speed up the process of leaving a hospital.

Usually, when I had to stay in a hospital for more than a day or two, I would make sure that my parents taped “Get me the fuck out of here.” a sign to the door that said, NO CLOWNS, in big bold letters. Who in their right mind would think that a child dangling on the brink of endless sleep would want to see a grease-painted maniac dance around in ill-fitting shoes?

4 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

THE

CAKE

Lie IS A

K

made thus (terra firma), falling through years

toward my esoteric splat!— even now across possibility

infinite, a cough kicked-up

or sneeze—the horrible stirrings of allergy in the Universe’s left lung; any wheeze a threat to sturdy the belt. so what good is the whole world? annihilating, any minute (now?), since there has ever only been one, ‘perchance’ waits like a statistic to claim me, whom was raised believing (a wish of many) nequaquam vacuum.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 5

Samantha Howard

RIPPED AWAY

Today was supposed to be a fun day for you. You were going to the beach with your family! It was a luxury that you didn’t get very often, maybe once a year if that. So how did this happen?

6 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

The beach is as crowded as ever as you walk through the sand with your family in tow. You’re so excited you can hardly stand it but when you look at the expanse of water your jubilation dulls. “The tide is out!” You cry in disappointment. This wasn’t what you had wanted! You wanted tall waves that you could dive under or ride on top of. Not shallows that you can wade in. The water is placid and the sand underneath is easily visible.

You pout at your mother as if she could fix the tides.

“You’ll just have to make your own fun with this. I’m sure you and your brother can find something to do.” She chides you in that tone that means ‘if you keep complaining you’re going to be in deep trouble.’

You give a deep sigh of resignation and look to your older brother. He’s only older by one year so he still wants to play with you but sometimes you can really feel the difference. His eyes follow a girl in a bikini and you throw the empty neon green bucket at him. “Race you to the water!”

You crow as you’re already making your way there. Your mother yells a scolding remark but you ignore it and keep running. You can feel your brother coming up behind you fast. This makes you laugh as you both race into the shallow water.

“Got you!” He bellows triumphantly lifting you into the air. You screech from the surprise and flail your limbs. You weren’t expecting to be caught, you were expecting a race. You play off your surprise with a laugh so your brother can’t make fun of you for being scared.

The two of you spend the afternoon messing around, collecting seashells while running back and forth from the surf to the blanket to get food. As your brother and you play more in the water the two of you start moving out farther and farther from the shore, not noticing because the water has

stayed shallow. Suddenly you notice you’re the farthest person out from the beach. You look back to wave at your mom and you see how far you truly are from her.

The smart thing would be to start moving back toward the beach but you’re confident with your older brother near you. The tide is out, it’s no big deal, right?

nefarious pull of the deep water holds you in place and drains you of your energy.

“I can’t! I can’t! Help me!” You cry to them, to anyone.

You wave your arms in panic as you struggle to hold yourself above the water. Treading water is all you can do and it’s not enough. You start to feel as though rocks All of the sudden you’re swept away from your brother. are tied to your ankles, weighing you down until you When did the water get higher?! You panic. You try barely have any energy to fear your impending demise. to swim back toward the shore but you don’t seem to be moving toward your mother, in fact you seem to Over everything - the whistling and yelling of the be getting pulled farther away. Your body is dragged lifeguards who just don’t understand what is happening further out into the vastness surrounding you. You try to you as well as the other oblivious people of the to play it off as if nothing bad is happening, you don’t beach - you hear your mother. The woman who has want to believe it. You’ve always been a good swimmer, spent her entire life scolding and chastising you, starts why can’t you get out of this now? yelling at you again as if this is all your plan. As if you want to be out in the middle of the ocean fearing for You paddle in one spot trying to hold your face above your existence as a human being. “Come in right now! the level of the surf. You want to get back to shore but Get over here right this instant!” She screams at you the surrounding darkness seems to hold you. There’s from the beach, which just makes your panic escalate. water everywhere. The freezing navy beast seems to go on and on without stopping and you are stuck right in But that panic gives you just enough energy to cry out the middle of it. You wave your arms in between trying to her, “I can’t!” You try your hardest to get her to hear to fight its grasp in the hopes that someone will see you. Your mother is your last hope. You flail your arms you but to no avail. You’re on your own and the water in the air to show her there is no way you can get to is a persistent predator. her but you barely pull them from the water. Again the waves start their vicious pull, you’re moving closer It feels as though you’re going to be stuck in this one to...something. There seems to be some destination in spot for eternity before the whistles start. High pitched mind for the element that surrounds you but you have shrieking coming from the perched lifeguards on shore. no idea where that is. You look around weakly for your You know it’s for you. You’re in a dangerous spot. It’s mother but you’ve lost her from your view completely. too far out and they want you to move. You try, you use all your strength in an attempt to get back to shore, to Suddenly a calm comes over you. You realize there’s your mother, to where things felt safe. You can’t. The no point in fighting, you have no more fight left. Your Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 7

limbs move slightly in an attempt to hold your face above water but you still dip under the surf, sputtering water into your throat and possibly lungs. The sky is wide above you and your eyes are drawn there. The occasional seagull flies overhead but mostly it is just an expanse of light blue. Never ending blue, just like what you’re trapped in. But the blue above brings tranquility while the dark stretch of navy below causes terror. You focus on what’s above. “You gave it everything you had.”

You tell yourself as you give up the fight completely and allow the ocean to have you.

Then you’re grabbed! Real arms have a hold on you and you cry out in happiness. Your mother! She has appeared just when you thought no one would. You hold onto her as best you can without impeding her powerful strokes. She pulls both of you through the water as if the ocean’s grasp is nothing to her. Soon you’re on the shore. You just flop down on the sand, exhausted. Your body has never felt so drained. You can barely pay attention as your mother and brother are pawing at you and kissing you, so happy to have you safe in their arms. They get you to the blanket to cover you with towels, they’re seeing to your every comfort.

You try to tell them that you’re fine, but you’re really not. The shock is still in your system and your mind is still trying to process what truly happened.

Your family packs your things up letting you just sit on the sand when the piercing whistles begin again. You panic at the sound, as if you’re back in the water, as if you’re struggling again. You reach for your brother for comfort but your brother is too distracted to soothe you. You get up to ask what is happening when you come face to face with a police horse.

“You need to gather your family and move from the area, please ma’am.” The officer says to your mother and you give her a frightened look. Was this your fault? The irrational thought circles your brain while you move 8 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

toward your mother.

“What happened, officer?” Your mother asks in a way that is demanding. Even though you were going to leave anyway your mother feels the need to get an explanation.

“There’s been an incident ma’am, we just need everyone to clear out of this space.” He says to her again and pulls his horse in to make a close turn before leaving you there confused.

“Stay here with your brother.” She says to you before striding off in the direction of the commotion. You stand with your brother for what feels like an eternity to your drained body. When she comes back her face is pale and she just kisses your cheeks. You grab her wrist and tilt your head in a way that implies the question without having to ask. “Two people have drowned in the riptides. They saved one boy. He was the only survivor.” She says in a tone that gives you shivers.

You can’t say anything to that. What had almost taken your life in the same moment took the lives of two others. You look at your mother wanting to cry but have no more tears left.

“Let’s go get dinner, kids,” your mother says in a fake happy voice and ushers you and your brother to the car.

“Come on.” You walk ahead of both of them leading them to the car. The dark shadow of what happened and what could have been lingers over you all for the rest of the day.

eyes in

THE DARK Rachel Pichette

I flicked on my directional absentmindedly as I turned onto Brinkerhoff Street. The nearly five-hour drive from Manhattan to Plattsburgh had left me with a stiff neck. Since I moved to the city I hadn’t been driving as much. I’d forgotten how draining road trips could be.

“When will you be back?” Vivienne snapped her gum in my ear.

“I’m not sure yet,” I answered.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come.”

“No you’re not.” I sighed. “You can’t stand Aunt Agnes or her house.”

“I never said that,” she laughed. “I mean, its true, but I never said it!”

“You’re the worst,” I told her.

“I have to go,” she said ignoring me. “There’s a huge party tonight and I have to get ready.”

I opened my mouth to protest but she had already hung up. Typical. She had no sense of responsibility, it was finals week and here she was out partying. My phone started ringing again almost immediately. I glanced down at it, Charlie, the screen said. My boss. Again? I hit the ignore button and put my car in park. I was in no mood to deal with him right now.

He was probably calling to try to align my chakras over the phone with his reiki energy or some shit. Charlie never seemed to understand the Spring 2016 Temper Literary Review 9

meaning of a day off. Being his assistant essentially meant being his mother full time. He was an old hippie but also the CEO of a company that produced solar lights. He was constantly trying to make the corporate office into a shambala or something. I tried to shake off my annoyance as I pulled up to my aunt’s house and parked beside the old oak tree that flanked the driveway. At least I would get a break from that.

It was only a little past nine when she insisted that I go to my room and get settled. At the top of the stairs was the bedroom that had always been mine as a child. When Mom was alive she taught second grade, but during every summer break she brought us up to Plattsburgh to stay with Aunt Agnes. We had hated it of course. Viv wanted to be at the beach. And I’d had some of the worst dreams of my life in this room. The door creaked loudly as I pushed it open.

If I had remembered the house as dismal in my I’d forgotten how uninviting it was. Aunt Agnes had childhood it was even more so now. It must have been tried to brighten it up for me with a vase of flowers on beautiful once; the paint smooth, the lawn green, and the dresser and a floral bedspread that was supposed the rooms cozy and inviting. Now it was just a house to inspire happiness, but the room was beyond help. with chipped paint and too many rooms, the garden The peeling wallpaper still made it feel as though the hopelessly overgrown and the gutters filled with leaves. walls were closing in. The smell brought a shudder of recollection. The same, black fingers brushing against Aunt Agnes was at the door waiting for me. Her me, eyes peering in the dark. wrinkled face was contorted into a smile. She looked even older and more fragile than I remembered. She I sank down on the bed, shaking the thoughts away, had droopy raisin skin and clear blue eyes that peered and listened to the three impatient voicemails Charlie out from under her puff of white hair. had left me. He apparently decided to rearrange all the furniture in the office to harmonize the feng shui.

“Emma,” She said warmly. “So good of you to come I hadn’t even been away for a day and he was already all this way to see me.” making a mess. I rolled onto my side with a groan thinking about the damage control I was going to have “Of course,” I said opening my arms to her hug. “I’ve to do when I got back to New York. My phone lit up missed you.” with a text from Viv. She ushered me inside and the musty air filled my nose. I noticed she wasn’t moving well. She took slow creeping steps leaning heavily on her cane. We sat down on the decrepit sofa, dust rose from the cushions under our weight and Aunt Agnes brushed at it habitually.

“Vivienne’s sorry she couldn’t be here,” I started. “She has finals this week.”

Having fun with Aggie??

It wasn’t like her to check in twice in one day. She must have almost felt bad about not coming. I ignored her and shut the lamp off. I was exhausted and from my long drive.

It must have been around 3 am when I heard it, barely audible, but there, a horrible little voice dancing along “You’re the good one you know,” Aunt Agnes said with the edge of my consciousness. You’ve come home! It sang a wink as if she knew what I was thinking. When I was triumphantly. I jerked awake and then laid still. Just around her I always felt like I was being closely studied. the loud silence of darkness surrounded me. I stiffened 10 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

i heard it, barely audible, but there, a horrible little voice dancing along the edge of my consciousness.

you’ve come home!

suddenly at the sound of footsteps approaching, but though she was the one who paid for the swing set. it was quickly followed by the thud of a cane. I could She hadn’t liked leaving the house much even then.

She would just watch from the window, peering out hear Aunt Agnes muttering as she drew closer. from behind the purple curtains. I glance over at the “Emma is a good girl. So nice of her to come visit me. window, half expecting to see her looking out at me. I You remember her I’m sure...Yes she is very pretty...” swallow the last of my coffee and figure I’d better to do and then I couldn’t hear her anymore. some grocery shopping for Aunt Agnes. She slept most of the day and I was starting to wonder if she was sick.

Maybe she was starting to go a little senile, but the pauses in the conversation were unsettling. Small spaces I didn’t sleep much better the second night. The air in held for her own, silent Q and A. my room felt heavy and hard to breathe. I woke up a few times feeling restless. I was just dozing off again When I woke up it must have been around ten, Aunt when the silence was broken by a deafening crash Agnes was still asleep. I rifled through the kitchen, but followed by a piteous moan. there was no food in the house. She had coffee at least.

A few minutes later I shuffled onto the back porch “AUNTIE!” I shouted as I jumped out of bed. I with my mug. The wood was nearly rotted through, fumbled desperately for the light switch in the hall. but the backyard had always been the only feature of There she was at the bottom of the stairs, her body the house that I liked. The old swing set Aunt Agnes crumpled. She was muttering hysterically to herself. had bought for us had all but crumbled. I remembered when Mom first assembled it. She was always good “I tripped. It wasn’t him. He wouldn’t hurt me. Never. with tools. I never asked how she got to be so good No, never. NeverNeverNever. He needs me. I take care with tools. of him. NeverNeverNever.”

Viv used to like to swing as high as she could and She was still speaking incoherently when the ambulance then jump off. She said it was like flying. I was always arrived. It was a miracle she was alive, with a fall like more cautious, I liked having Mom push me instead. that at her age. She slipped into unconsciousness as Aunt Agnes never came outside to play with us even Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 11

the paramedics picked her broken body up off the hardwood floor. *

*

*

I sat in the hospital waiting room with my head in my hands. Aunt Agnes’s hip had broken during the fall, it felt as if I had been waiting forever to see her. The doctor politely informed me that she was in recovery, and though the surgery had gone well, she wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

i opened my mouth

to scream but the sound

died

i n m y t h r oat.

Why does she walk around the house in the dark? The thought frustrated me, along with her ramblings. They him while I’m gone.” It wasn’t her words but the way must have been the product of her fall, but I thought her white fingers curled around my wrist that sent a of that voice. cold chill through me.

“You can see her now, she’s awake,” the nurse informed “Auntie--” me. I grabbed my bag and went in to see her. She looked more fragile than ever in her hospital bed.

“I have to be with him. I NEED TO BE IN THAT HOUSE!” She yelled hysterically. I hit the button to “Emma,” the happiness in her voice was comforting. call for a nurse. She began crying and tearing at her hair.

“Good, it’s you.” I sat down by her bed and took her cold hand in mine. “I need to go home! Tell them I I tried to calm her, but she was clawing at me. “Auntie need to go home, would you?” stop you need to stay still!”

“Auntie, no, you can’t go home just yet. You just had “ISAAC WILL NEVER FORGIVE ME!” Her surgery. You need to get a little rest and then you can voice was loud and low, her eyes serious and intent on communicating something to me. It was worse than go home,” I tapped her hand gently.

I’d hoped.

“I need to be in that house. He’ll think I abandoned The nurses had to sedate her. She spit at them. They them and they need me.” told me they had never seen so much fight in a patient “Oh, Auntie. I think you’re a little confused after the who had just gotten her hip replaced. The cause of her little episode was assumed to be stress and trauma. It fall. It’s ok. It’ll all get better soon.” would pass, they assured me.

Something hard crept into her eyes. She cocked her head to the side and stared at me.

But that night Aunt Agnes died of a pulmonary embolism. They said it was a common complication “You won’t understand him like I do. You won’t love of this kind of surgery given all of her risk factors. But 12 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

something about our last conversation haunted me.

She had been so desperate to get back to the house, back to them? I rubbed the bruises on my wrist from her fingers.

When I learned Aunt Agnes passed away in the night I tried to call my mother. I did it instinctively. The car accident was seven years ago, but my first reaction still was to try and call her. My mother always had the answers. She always knew what to do in a crisis. But she was gone, and the only family I had left was Vivienne.

Sometime in the middle of the night I woke suddenly.

It was cold in my room I pulled the blankets more tightly around me. As I did, I glanced at my closet door.

I had left it slightly ajar. I shut my eyes quickly and lay still. Ignore it. For a moment with the moonlight streaming into the room it looked as though a dark face was peering out from behind the door. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself it wasn’t real, I had to open my eyes...When I did a thin black figure was leaning over my bed—a shadow with no discernible facial features, a strange mix of animal and man. Its back was contorted and hunched as it hovered over me.

The next few nights I hardly slept. I hated being alone in that awful house with a funeral to plan and Aunt I opened my mouth to scream but the sound died in my throat. Long black tree branch fingers reached Agnes’s things to sort through. out and traced the side of my face. They felt like ice.

Then it started. Shadows moving in the corner of my It leaned in close. I was paralyzed, staring transfixed eye, gone when I turned my head, subtle noises, drafts at where eyes should be. without explanation. I was able to chalk it up to a creepy house, lots of stress and an active imagination, but I Then it was gone and the screams in my throat found couldn’t let go of the ramblings of my likely senile aunt. life, I managed to muffle them with my pillow. I turned every light on. I should have left the house then.

While cleaning out her room I found letters addressed to Agnes Millstone signed by Margery Tulle in a box The next morning was sunny and bright. But no amount with some old faded photographs stuffed under her of sunshine could banish the tightness in my chest. bed. On closer inspection it turned out they were love Vivienne had driven up for the funeral, and arrived this letters. I was reminded with a pang of regret how morning. I nibbled some toast as she slurped her cereal little I had really known about my Aunt. The letters and complained about how her hairdresser had made spanned a period of 10 years, a decade long romance her highlights too bright. I was glad she was there.

I had never known about. The most recent letter was dated 1976. Aunt Agnes would have been around forty. Aunt Agnes’ funeral was a small affair—too small. It I knew it was a long shot that she would be alive and was pitiful really. Vivienne had taken a Megabus up willing to talk, but I wanted to try. Maybe there was to Burlington and then crossed the lake on the ferry. something about Aunt Agnes that she could tell me, She was supposed to stay with me for a few days and help me understand her better and this crazy obsession help me clean out the house (even though I suspected I would do most of the cleaning). Aside from Vivienne, with her house. the priest, and myself Aunt Agnes’s mailman was the A quick Google search told me that Margery Tulle was only other guest. It was depressing to know that she living not far from the house. I planned to stop by the had had no one. After the service I glanced back to next day. That night I fell into an easy dreamless sleep. an old woman sitting in a pew near the back of the Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 13

church. Her silver hair was pulled back into a tight “I think so,” I whispered. bun. Her thin face, though aged, was one I recognized.

“If you were smart, you would burn that house to the “Excuse me, are you Margery?” ground and never look back.” She stared at me for a long moment then said, “You’re too much like Aggie,” She turned to me and paused. “You must be a niece.” and turned to walk away.

Her lips tightened with what looked like dismay.

Vivienne came up behind me. “Who was that?” She “Yes, I’m Emma,” I said, holding out my hand. She asked. shook it.

“No one,” I said shifting uncomfortably. “Just an old After another momentary pause she finally said, “Your friend of Aunt Agnes’.” aunt and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.” Then she glanced down at her black shoes and smoothed her “I didn’t know she had any friends,” She snapped her gum. I turned away from my sister in disgust. dress. “But its only right I pay my respects.”

“Thank you,” I offered. “I’m sure she would appreciate I don’t know why I didn’t tell Vivienne about the it.” shadow or Margery. I should have but something held me back. I wasn’t ready to share it even though it “Aggie probably wouldn’t remember me.” She shook terrified me. She started sleepwalking again, like she her head slowly. had when we were little. It happened at least twice a week, and she never had any recollection of it afterward.

I touched her shoulder. “She kept a box of your letters From my room I would hear stomping around the and photos of the two of you together in her room.” house in the middle of the night, opening doors and slamming them closed again. Her eyes were always “That’s nice to hear,” she said softly. “She was consumed open, blank and expressionless. with that house, and I, I—I just couldn’t,” her voice trailed off.

It was around that time that I began to hear the singing.

I would wake up in the middle of the night to it. I “Margery,” I was searching her face, “did my Aunt ever didn’t have to see the shadow to know that it was mention someone named Isaac?” him. The voice was hypnotic and eerie, but there was a beauty to it. He sang to me in a strange language. It Her eyes darkened. was nothing like I had ever heard before, but somehow seemed forgotten.

“Don’t say that name,” she snipped.

I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. He became like a drug I stared at her for a moment, and remembered the to me. I needed to hear him sing. It was soothing as shadow leaning over my bed. I shuddered. She nodded I fell asleep, his lullaby, it became part of my nightly knowingly. “So you know who I mean.” routine. The singing, so sweet and gentle, it wiped away Margery’s warning. She mustn’t have understood that 14 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

he was sad and lonely. That he needed someone.

I stopped answering Charlie’s calls, stopped planning to return to work, and suddenly everything about Vivienne started to bother me. I hated the way she chomped her cereal in the morning and stumbled home drunk from the bars at 2 am. I hated the way her voice sounded. I hated the way she floated through her life without a care in the world. He hated her too.

I could feel it.

I felt like I was putting on glasses for the first time.

The world sharpened quickly.

He was like poison, a perversion of nature that strangled everything it touched, and I had made the mistake of pitying him. In that moment something inside me snapped.

It felt like someone else had control of my limbs.

Someone else went to the garage to get the gas can that had been sitting there for years. Someone else doused She begged me to sell the house so that we could finally the house in gasoline and found the matches. Someone go home. She insisted that I needed to get out more, else went outside and lay on the lawn laughing until and that I spent too much time by myself. the fire department came.

She didn’t know that I was never alone.

*

*

*

I woke up one night to find that all was quiet. There was no sound of Vivienne’s sleepwalking or Isaac’s singing.

The silence felt heavy and suffocating. Something was wrong.

The nurse comes to give me my pills. They don’t believe me when I tell them about Isaac. The walls of the institution are too white. I miss the peeling floral wallpaper and the damp smell of must. I miss the way people look at sanity. I miss my sister, even though “Vivienne?” My whisper sounded loud in the darkness. she is selfish. The wheels of the med cart roll away as I flicked my phone’s flashlight on, its white light casted my head starts to spin. I can still hear Isaac whisper. on a figure standing a few feet away at the top of the He still comes to see me some nights. I can feel his stairs. Startled, I jumped back, my heart slamming eyes watching me in the dark. At least he doesn’t touch against the inside of my chest. “Vivienne,” I whispered. me anymore.

She stood facing me, her head lolled to the side, her eyes staring forward blankly.

“Vivienne, come away from there.” I was still whispering as I inched towards her holding out my hand. A strange smile spread over her sleeping face and with a jerk she flung herself backwards down the stairs. I heard her head smash against the wood at the bottom with a sickening thud.

For a moment I stood rooted to the spot in horror. I heard Isaac laughing, It was you, his voice sang and my body went cold.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 15

A symbiotic relationship works as such:

RA

ID

Sa de

Sm

ith

A clownfish needs anemone.

A flower needs a hummingbird.

Do the oppressed need the oppressor?

Is the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Black, brown, red and yellow bodies necessary?

Who asked to be lynched?

Who asked to be ripped off their land, sold in another?

The Cherokee and the Wampanoag do not require colonization and genocide for a healthy lifestyle.

The Japanese and Jews do not politely ask for dimly lit internment camps instead of their own homes.

At the age of seven, I did not need to be called “little nigger”.

People of color suffer in every part of the world why?

This oppression is not mutualism, this is parasitic.

Parasites ruin crops, trap families and destroy life itself.

What we require, America....is raid.

16 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

I AM THE

Sade Smith

NIGHT I am like the night. Dark, mysterious, deep and profound. You come to me for clarity. You sit in my everlasting shade to become one with your thoughts. And you know what, freaks come out at night. HAHA. I love to watch them crawl from their shady posts, seeking my stars to make wishes upon, and to dream and love with one another.

I am like the night. Light cannot touch me with its burning rays. I am cool and sweet, like berries in the summer. Farmers sigh with relief at the sign of my moon rising from the depths of this world. I call in the hard laborers, the animals and the children for solitude. They look up to my moon for the man who can answer their most sacred inquiries. Who can answer their most sacred inquiries? The sun is too hot, too far to reach. The sun knows nothing of what these people wish and dream and hope for.

I am like the night. Dark skin, cool to the touch, and sacred is my body which God has created in His image.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 17

Wiffle Ball & Cigarettes

Matthew Medeiros

This past summer I had a big cookout at my house. The first large gathering since my fiancé and I purchased it two years ago. We invited everyone we knew; her family, mine, friends, neighbors. We bought hotdogs, burgers, and five flavors of soda, paper plates, and plastic cups. We rented tables and chairs, filled the propane tank, and set up corn hole and other lawn games. “Cookout starts at 11,” we told all invitees.

It was almost one o’clock and only my uncle, my fiancé’s mother, and my high school friend were there.

Anxiety devoured me. The pressure to keep a large crowd entertained and fed was weighing me down; even worse, most of our family members would be meeting for the first time. People not showing up would be a disaster, my money would be wasted and I’d feel insignificant. Fortunately, people came, they ate, they talked, they had fun, and the highlight of the whole day was a massive wiffle ball game played amongst the men.

I hadn’t played wiffle ball since middle school. For a person who loves baseball and competition in general it was an absolute delight. It’s the perfect mixture of nostalgia, camaraderie, and plastic. It’s also the only time I ever hit home runs and even those home runs should have been more frequent.

“When I get better, we’re going to play wiffle ball.”

Aside from common salutations and my name, those are literally the only words I remember my late uncle Bob uttering to me. As a sixth grade baseball fanatic the idea of my sick uncle running around playing wiffle ball was an uncertain excitement; equivalent to a military 18 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

dad reuniting with their family; you just didn’t know if an out of tune acoustic guitar. I would fiddle with the they would be there until they were. My uncle wasn’t. wooden instrument while he lay in his bed, motionless and silent, apart from the constant hum of oxygen and We don’t always grasp the severity of illnesses labored breathing. On his bedside table sat a stainless as kids, the same way we never think our favorite steel bed pan (that grossed me out) and the buzzer, baseball players will cheat. I remember being at my his eerie buzzer. grandmother’s house, where my uncle lived, sitting on the floor watching TV brushing my hand through Uncle Bob communicated with a buzzer; so when he the hideous orangey-brown fluffy carpet that always made me wiffle ball promises he sounded more like strangely felt sticky and clean at the same time. I’d get a robot than a human. The buzzer was a small silver up occasionally to venture to the fridge stocked with device about the size of a pill bottle; the sound it made pudding and other junk food. Then, from the other side reminded me of the game Operation. For my uncle of the house I’d hear it. My uncle was calling for my to harness the gadget’s power he had to force it into father or my grandmother, but instead of words it was the side of his throat, hold the button down, and talk. a noise, a buzzing sound, “bzzz bzz bz,” as if someone The vibrations of the buzzer mimicked the motion of was getting a haircut down the hall. Sometimes he’d my uncle’s voiceless efforts and allow him to speak. He be wanting me to come and it was always the same, had to use the buzzer because of a hole in his throat “when I get better, we are going to play wiffle ball,” the size of a silver dollar. He had surgery to remove and I couldn’t wait because, of course he’d get better. his larynx due to throat cancer, and that’s how he got the hole; a tube, similar to his oxygen ones, was put Aside from the hopeful quote, my memories of my through the hole to feed him. Being around him made uncle Bob are either disturbing or disappointing. I me queasy and nervous. You try to play it off that sitting remember the smell of his room. It smelt like a mix by his bed with him in his condition is normal so that of hospital, musk, and urine; making it the area 51 of he doesn’t feel bad. I longed for the day he got better my grandmother’s small house. There were oxygen and we played wifflle ball. tanks and equipment covering the floor to the left of his bed; a large silver tank with similar backup and Despite knowing my uncle as an old bedridden man smaller blue ones that went in the basket of his walker with salt and pepper hair, abnormally long eyebrows, for the few occasions that he braved himself out of bed shaking wrinkling hands, and a big nose - I always to experience the rest of the house, or even outside the knew I’d be able to have fun with him when the day front door. I was always afraid to touch the tanks or came. He came alive in stories. My mother’s brother, anything with buttons and dials that were attached uncle Peter, was a childhood friend of my uncle Bob to my uncle and the tubing that led to his nose. His and he always generated laughs talking about Bob. room had a poster of Elvis, a collection of records, and There was the time he jumped out of a station wagon Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 19

naked and streaked down New Bedford streets. My uncles, along with friends, formed a street basketball team and whenever uncle Bob got a rebound he’d scream, “Boards, Boards!” to let everyone know ‘this short man can play.’ While his parents were out of the house a younger Bob would move around the furniture in their apartment and play street hockey, indoors! He would also disappear for weeks at a time and not leave the house. Peter said he had some mental issues and would “hibernate”, and then reappear, back to normal, like a broken robot that’s been fixed. Old photos show my uncle with confidence and an infectious big smile. I imagined that was the face he’d make when we played wiffle ball or that maybe he’d scream out something hilarious after an exciting play.

A part of me wishes he’d been more honest and not filled me with false hope. I remember one time when uncle Bob, craving and desperate for nicotine, struggled his way to the phone, flipped through my grandmother’s outdated Rolodex and called our family friend, Steve.

He asked Steve to bring him cigarettes, hole in the neck, oxygen tanks and all. He succeeded in guilting Steve into compliance. Upon hearing of this event I thought,” wow, Steve is an idiot,” but also, “ why does my uncle ensure me with recovery and then make it further unreachable?” It wasn’t always easy to love and respect uncle Bob amidst our difficult relationship and his poor decisions. Still, being a child, I yearned for wiffle ball with him.

I remember his wake; it was the first I’d ever been to.

His body was cold and white, his eyebrows still bushy but proper, he was peaceful. I grabbed his hand and kissed his forehead, not really knowing if I wanted to or how else to go about things. I was never mad that he didn’t get better but was disappointed he didn’t seem to want to. My grandmother was a mess, and my dad seemed relieved that his brother had moved on and was no longer a burden. I never got to enjoy a game 20 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

of wiffle ball with my uncle but I did take away some things I’ll never forget. He battled his entire adulthood with an addiction to cigarettes and I only knew him for the worst times. I’ll always be grateful that, at the very least, my uncle taught me what not to do, and that’s got to be good for something.

THE ISLAND OF

J U D A I write this story in honor of my grandfather, Bumpa, and the lives affected by Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Their hearts are forever imprinted among the earth. For the Earth holds their prints, as proof they have lived.

Danielle Stevens

The flowers, grass, and trees rustle as palm trees sway in the breeze. The sky is streaked with dark blue.

Off in the distance a circle of orange surrounds the pebble sun. Waves crash into piles of rocks, covered in barnacles and sea snails, but the scene is not what Juda focuses on. Under the small palm tree, whose shadow slowly stretches among the other shadows, her brown ears focus on the sounds of the moment. Her eyes close. The gentle calm waves on the sands transcend her. Her chest rises with each deep breath. Her toes crunch sand at the edges of her palm leaf mat.

Wake up Juda.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 21

...she looks into the night sky,

dazzled by the billions of

constellations, the

stars, the galaxy itself.

Shining above it, a

blue planet with green shapes and covered in white puffs...

That is home, Juda.

Home. Not here.

Her pale green eyes snap open. The world around her rushes into reality. The waves crash against the sand and rocks. The breeze’s chill brings a shiver. She wraps her hands to rub her arms. With a heavy and shaky sigh, her frail hand reaches for her walking stick. She looks at the it, her thumb tracing the vertically aligned words that she’s carved from top to bottom. Juda rises from the worn out mat. Her legs quiver as she stands. Her body still shakes as her heart quickens at one thought.

“I… am… old… Where… rescue.”

Now is not the time. Attend to Nightly duties.

Her thumb brushes the words on the bottom stick.

Night: Check Fence for Damages. Carefully, she walks into the sea of trees about twenty-four steps behind her.

The sandy path marks thousands of footprints. Hardly a single blade of grass grows here. The ocean waves can still be heard in the distance, but a hundred crickets chirp over them. Juda continues forward, unwavered by the buzz lights blazing in front of her. Upon the nineteenth step, a fence comes into view.

The fallen and chopped trees are shaped into a rough point. The trunks stand deep in the ground, with the twine rope wrapped around them in random zigzags and swirls. Juda walks towards the first trunk, that secures almost half of the fence. Juda wraps her fingers around a knot there. Her vision blurs as she closely inspects it. Still holding the tight rope knot of leaves, she sidesteps continuously to the next trunk, then next.

The sun’s rim starts to dim by the time she makes it to the end. She traces her thumb on the next chore.

Check Fire Poles, Light with sticks IF safe. At the edge of the fence, she enters through the small plastic door latched onto it. The fire sticks line the entrance to her campsite; mostly a stick hut with fabric and an orange raft as its roof, patched with tree leaves where it has

22 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

torn or ripped. One leaf covers up a word leaving only ‘NA’ visible and part of a blue round shape. Behind the campsite there is a rusted metal skeleton. Metal bars weave around each other and out. Half of the skeleton is buried and leaves a deep scar on the campsite grounds.

She faces the first fire stick closest to her.

cause hacked slices. She cuts over the roaring heat of the fire, moving away so slices can fall into the bowl at her feet. Today was “catch fish day” in her journal.

She takes out the freshly caught finfish. Dumping it into the bowl, she looks into the night sky, dazzled by the billions of stars, consetllations, and the galaxy itself.

Shining above it, a blue planet with green shapes is She takes a drift stick she finds next to the entrance covered in white puffs. A little gray planet with holes and walks over to the campfire with one stick and two floats next to it. In her green eyes floats life with a stones are in her hands. The stick is coated in grease, round, gray asteroid circling around it. with a piece of cloth wrapped at the end, burnt from That is home, Juda. Home. Not here. use.

Now rub the stones together and make them spark “I… am… old… Where… rescue?” She crackles. Tears on the stick. drip down between her wrinkles like rivers against banks. But her eyes are still focused on the blue planet At the first attempt, the stones slip. The third time, and the overpowering scent of cooked fish. Then she she yelps when a rock hits her dirty finger nail. After hears an odd sound. A roar causes the trees and a multiple tries, fire blooms into the only source of light hanger of trinkets to move. in the darkness of her night. The stones are placed back in her bag. She stares into the burning sticks behind Juda. Something comes! Hide or Challenge? the glow of the sunset. A little spoon fits in slender tan hands; slight wrinkles grows at the edges of the palms. She shakes in her stance, and screams into a fit. Her fists The sweet and juicy flavor of orange sherbet fills her pound against her head. Eyes close tightly against the mouth with a chill. A bell of laughter sounds across mysterious force of noise. Twisting lips pull wrinkles the sky with the brightest sunlight of day. into long thin lines. Her heart pounds rapidly in her heavy chest. It lasts long enough for the tart fish to Juda. Wake up. burn, mush, and become caked in char.

Juda feels the next words: Cook Dinner. She slowly ~~~ passes an old flashlight, scraps of metal, and a ravaged torn white cloth and gloves. She lights up the fire Existent rubbery tips squeak as they rub her hair. A pit with fresh wood. The torch is placed next to the smooth sensation spreads through her. Her voice makes walking stick. Above it are wooden sticks holding a a small purr. hanging metal bowl.

Juda. Wake up. It relaxes you.

Take a fruit and today’s fish.

She opens her eyes slightly. Petting her head, a figure in She takes a green and brown round fruit - tart in taste a suit sits above her. But not just any suit. Glass reflects - and with a worn knife she cuts slices. Shaky hands the bright blooming fire, next to a face opening its eyes Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 23

as she is. She gasps. The reflection gasps. In the image The suit pets her head, sending the soothing wave again. was an old women wrinkled like the old leather boots The purring voice eases her fears and anxieties away. on her feet. Her hair is white and silver and thinned out enough for a loose bun on top of her head. The old It is all right Juda. This creature won’t hurt us. woman cries. Her hands clutch her head.

Her hands uncurl with ache and drop to her sides. She “My… Face… I… am… old… Where… rescue?” never stops repeating the words. The suit lays her on the bed again, placing the blanket around her shoulders.

The suit carefully carries her in its arms. It walks towards the small hut, while she remains shaken by It makes odd gestures with its hands, fingers and arms the reflection. in various poses. At the end, a hand is curled with a thumb up. She is silent for a moment.

What to do Juda? What do you do in this situation?

This creature made you happy. Clap for it Juda.

She is frozen. The old woman in the reflection has locked its eyes with her, black orbs shaken with fear A small clap rises from her. She watches with and the colors of life lost. The only fear is existence. amazement. She keeps on clapping. A slow rhythm The suit places her on a bed and wraps her in a blanket. turning into a patty cake version. She whispers “Pat...

The bed is made of leaves and tied trees, a worn and ty... Ca...ke, Pa...t….ty Ca...ke, Ba...ker’s M...aid, Ba... raggedy blanket and dirty pillow, all in a ditch circle. ke Me a Ca...ke a Fa...st A Yo...u Ca...” She continues She reaches out for the stick that is on her side. She to hum the song. The darkness of night around them only gets a handful of dirt in her hand. becomes daytime brightness. A child with a bright smile and short black fuzzy hair hums with her. She Where’s the stick Juda? pets his wool hair. He giggles with a bright smile.

She throws the blanket off of her. The suit backs off as she pushes it out of the way. Her hands searching around the bed. Her body shakes frantically, her face sweats off dried tear stains. The suit person gains ground on its feet and grabs hold of her.

Protect yourself Juda!

She punches the round reflection multiple times. The first are weak, but the last are filled with the strength of fear. The suit grabs hold of her hands now. The punches left only scratch the surface and a sharp pain into her knuckles. She screams out scattered words, “Stick! Instruct. Stick. Need! STICK!” 24 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

Wake up Juda!

Her shoulder is tapped. The suit is holding multiple sticks of various sizes. He places them in front of her.

He gestures his hands again. Moving his arms and hands left to right.

Oh! Juda, it’s playing again! You love this!

She claps her hands again. Her thin lips smile widely.

She feels young again, but the air is thick around her.

Two rubber gloves clasp her hands. The suit points down at the sticks. He takes one and shows it to her. She looks at it still smiling. There are small, big, thin, and

bare skinned sticks. None of them give her a reaction. clothes, broken glass, and plastic bits are around the Then he shows her the one stick with scratches on it. fences tied into knots. Inner walls are covered in tally marks; rows upon rows of tally marks. The bedside is There Juda! near the fire, covered in tarps and cloths, the same ones Juda wears tied by a palm tree rope belt. She hugs her Her hand immediately grabs it. Indeed it’s hers. The legs in front of the burnt food in the pan, sitting close length and writing stand out. She traces the words, to the suit who gives her the silver package. Her eyes looking for the right instruction. If Something Strange dart at the strange silver shining in its hands.

Happens: Head to The Carved Tree.

It wants you to take it Juda.

She rises from the bed and walks with her stick. The suit follows her, hurried and frantic. Juda drags herself She takes the package. It fits in the palm of her rough across the site to the northeast, where a round tree hand. The surface is smooth, but her fingers cause it to stands in between the fences. The base is carved with squish. Her head turns in curiosity. She pokes her finger strange words and cut with stabbing marks. She reaches at it. It squishes like the fish she catches. She pokes at to the tree and with her free hand she reaches over to it again. She smiles a toothy grin. Poke after poke, she the side hole looking for one of the dirtied journals. smiles. The suit places its hand on her shoulder. She They are all worn and covered in leaves. She sits down stops playing and looks at it with big eyes. It takes the on the tree and traces each notebook for a mark. 2016. package carefully and tears it open. She gasps.

2019. 2022. 2026. 2030. She feels for the one journal she is looking for, no year, a star carved into the front It broke our toy! cover. She takes it out and opens it. She looks at the words, her eyes scrunching as she tries to decipher the She growls at it with hardened eyes. The suit waves strange text. its hand signals her for a no. Its big fingers take out a flat and dry yellow thin. It mimics eating the thin and The only words in her language are on the last page: then places it in Juda’s hand.

“Look. Rescue. Astronaut suit. Bring home.”

It wants you to eat it Juda.

This is the sign Juda. The creature can bring you home.

Slowly and cautiously she bites into the thin. Her teeth make a crunch. She gasps in fear of a broken tooth.

She looks up at the suit. He places his hand on her But a blaze of sweet and light flavor waves through shoulder. her. She reaches her hand out. The suit gives her the silver package full of the sweet thin. She devours it bit “I… am… old… Where… Rescue?” by bit. The suit touches her shoulder and waves at her.

She waves back. ~~~ The suit is playing with a long stick picked up from the The suit opens a silver package. The black stick lights up fire pile. She watches it carefully with crumbs on the the whole campsite, revealing the life of Juda. Hanging corners of her mouth. It makes squiggle lines in the Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 25

mixed dirt and sand. It looks like its painting, moves like brush strokes forming various shapes. Then vivid colors come into play. Two kinds of greens against each other, forming shade after shade. Tiny strokes create a blade shape. It pulls together, colors scraping into blades of grass, splashing behind the most beautiful sunset of oil strokes.

Wake up Juda!

Rest Juda. You Deserve Safety.

The suit turns. Its rubber hands are replaced by tan hands. One hand holds a sharp metal piece. It raises its hands up in surrender. Juda watches. She traces the

The scent of roasted food pulls Juda from sleep. Her vision blurs as she opens her eyes. Bones crack as she stretches her arms out and straightens her back. Her hand reaches out for her stick and traces along the words. Morning: Get up, Dress, Brush, Cook Breakfast.

Afternoon: Chop Wood (North of Camp). Attend “What do you think, Juda?” The voice is sudden and Garden (East of Camp). Gather Food (West of Camp). deep voice. The owner of the brush, with hands strong Settle (South of Camp). enough to snap it and black skin covered in spots of green.

She rises from her bed and walks across the room.

There is a plastic gray box. She wipes off a layer of dust “W...Wonderfel.” She says aloud. to reveal “NASA” written over a circle, and faded with time. She opens the lid, but its empty.

Juda! Pay Attention!

Where are they Juda?!

The suit taps her shoulder. A chill passes through her from its touch. It gestures to her to look toward the She rummages into the box. Her brush should have ground. The suit had made a picture of words. She claps been in there. A book with peels on its cover, white her hands. The empty silver package falls off her lap. cloths, an empty bowl, and forgotten dusty things. Juda She pats and slaps the suit’s shoulder. The reflection breathes quickly. Beads of sweat form on her forehead. looks back at her. At the moment, the old lady’s eyes She hobbles outside. meet hers, she pauses her excitement. The reflection points towards the empty package, mimics her fingers Calm down Juda. eating the thins. The suit shakes its hands signaling no.

Juda’s lips pucker into a pout. Her wrinkles become a She pants heavily with rising heat, but she witnesses long frown over something she’s lost. only one thing in the campsite: chaos. The suit struggles with a box beeping red in his hand, the red glow The suit reaches out its hand and strokes her head. reflected in the reflection. Everything feels unfamiliar.

Her face lightens up into a smile. She moves closer Silver boxes make trails in the soil stretching from the to the suit and lies on its lap. The suit waves it arms entrance. An open box holds a white suit. Close to it and torso in confusion. Juda takes its arm and places is Juda’s stuff and a saw shining its sharp teeth. Bits of it on her head, intimating for it to keep soothing. It tiny wood still clung to it. The peeling book sits opened, continues to stroke. She purrs, smiling and curling up the slight fade of the photos are still there. The bowl to her rescuer. holds its big hands. She screams at the sight.

~~~ 26 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

stick looking for the carved writing that will help in this situation. Afternoon: Chop Wood (North of Camp).

Attend Garden (East of Camp). Gather Food (West of Camp). Settle (South of Camp). She rubs her head and bites down on her tongue. Her grip on the stick hardens. She throws it at the suit, but it lands in the fire pit. It catches fire, swallows up the carved words.

The suit falls on its side and crawls toward Juda. It opens its hands and kneels in front of her.

Go to the tree Juda.

on the mirror. It cracks the reflective surface. The old woman stares back at her with eyes full of rage.

“Don’t look at me!!!” She screams as her heart beats rapidly enough to burst. ~~~ A beep echoes in the helmet. A static noise ranges in the inner speakers. The suit keeps screwing on the helmet, until from the static, a low voice speaks out.

Juda hobbles over to the tree. Her hand clutches onto “Come in, Roger198. From NASA 2.1 base.” her chest, the other pulls at folds in her dress.

The suit’s helmet clicks. The helmet twists off and the air hisses. The suit breathes in deep. The pebble sun’s Where’s the tree’s hole? yellow ring hangs over the face of a young man. His Her arms wave frantically up and down. She kneels, skin tan, and face angular, with a beauty mark under hitting her knees hard. She cries out. A pair of hands his left eye. His hair is shaved at the sides, short blonde touches her shoulders. She shrugs them away, and sees hair in the middle. His green eyes shine like spring her knees on the trunk, white with fresh blood from grass, but are creased with a burden upon them. a cut. Wood chips and shavings cover the ground.

She pounds her fists against her head, harder, harder “Roger198 responding. I apologize for the delayed into her skull. She twists and turns in agony as she report.” backs away from the tree. She screams a pitch into the morning. Her mind slowly dips into nothing.

“What happened?”

“14:45 hours. I have landed on a distant planet northwest of Earth, close to the planet Mars. I have found one “Juda? What? Don’t leave? Don’t leave. I won’t be able island above sea level. Aquatic life unknown…but…I have encountered something surprising.” to reach you!”

“What… Where… Rescue?”

“WHERE… Rescue!!!!”

“What?”

JUDA!!!! STOP!!!!

“Juda Admiral was on this planet.”

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

“… You mean THE Juda?!”

The suit tries to reach for her. It struggles to stroke her “Yes. Juda, 63, NASA volunteer for a space exploration, hair, while holding on to her arm. Her head bumps 2016.”

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 27

“It’s been 30 years. How is she?” The voice pulls away, chopped down the tree. I will bring samples back for a muffled version of “We will have to organize another the lab.” shuttle to get her back to Earth. It’ll probably take “Alright. We need a full report on the island and on another year,” comes over.

Juda. Bring in samples of the environment and Juda’s “Command Center,” he interrupts, “Command Center! things. Where is the body?”

I said, she WAS on this planet.”

“Below a palm tree.”

“Was?” “I’m sorry, Roger198. The body will be too much weight “She passed away 2:38 hours ago at the age of 92.” for the rocket in addition to all of the samples. You’ll have to leave her on the island.”

“Of—of what?”

“Alright. Roger198 out.”

“To begin with, when I encountered her, she behaved with anxiety and aggressiveness. I did my best to help “Command Center out.” her stabilize, but my communication speakers were down. My helmet was also jammed shut. I tried using He presses the speaker’s small cancel button. Two beeps gestures, but it only made her more distant. She laughed and then the static goes silent. The back of his hand at me like a child. Then by some circumstance, I found wipes the sweat accumulating under the hot sun. The her journals in a tree. They date from 2016 to 2039. She boots crunch heavy on the sand. was calm through the night, I examined her journals and think she may have been suffering from Alzheimer He thinks about Juda’s, remembering the feeling of the disease. This morning, she woke and returned to her force she put into that head bump, the fast pace of her erratic behavior. I tried to calm her, to build a fire, keep heart. When he finally let her go, she ran from him. her warm. But she got really upset when I chopped He takes the pathway to the beach. Right now she sits down a tree to try and fix my comms. She had a fit, on a worn out leaf mat, legs crossed, her face tranquil. punching herself, and pulling her hair, and I think her Her head rests against a low tree branch. There is a heart gave out.” gentle breeze of sea air blowing whisps of her silver hair around. He doesn’t disturb her body, but he watches “Your presence was the trigger.” and wonders, “What were you thinking about here?”

“I know that.” “...How did you fix the communications?”

“There was a glinting station of medal at the top of the tree. I had a hunch it was interfering with communications, but I couldn’t risk climbing it, so I 29 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017 28 2016

14:45 hours. I have landed on a distant planet northwest Earth, to

the

Mars...I

of

close planet have

encountered s o m e t h i n g surprising.

What?

Juda Admiral was on this planet. … You mean THE Juda?!

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 29

a walk in his

Chelsea Chapelle

SHOES

The cold air whipped in spirals down the snow-covered streets and in the corner of a very old and white bricked building he sat. This man, a man some called a hero but many called a nobody. In his past, he was called Ducky. He was gambler. A man with a dream. His name was given to him with the luck of drawing 2’s yet always winning. This man, he sat, covered in snow and the wind spiraling down his neck sending chills down his spine and reaching out to his limbs. His baggy tan overcoat could not protect him from the chill. He didn’t flinch though. He didn’t move at all.

He was frozen. He was frozen in the life he once lived. In the riches, he owned and the ones he loved. He was frozen. His eyes closed slightly as he held the memories behind his tears, tears which were provoked from the bitter cold and not the memories. The memories were vivid, so vivid they were difficult to miss.

I walked by this man every day. I offered him food and cash in which he never accepted. He liked to give advice. “Be with the ones you love; the money is not enough to buy them back.” He would say this every day that I saw him but I continued my way to work in my navy blue freshly ironed suit with my bleached white dress shirt and my tie tightened ever so neatly. “Hang on to your dreams and don’t follow the ones who want you to complete theirs.” He would add as I continued to walk away in my four hundred and fifty-nine dollar shoes down the freshly paved sidewalk.

The man would fade back to his memories in which he would live forever.

Ducky they called him. The man who could draw 2’s and win any hand.

A big-time gambler. A risk taker. He never spoke unless giving advice, giving his words of wisdom to those he saw that resembled himself from a distant past. He enjoyed the cold as he lived for many years in the heat in the streets of Vegas where he would hide from the world and gain a living through sin. He had seen far too much sin in the jungle in ’68, taking a man’s hand for his fraudulent winnings would never send that cold chill down his spine as did the wind. Some say he should never live this way for all that he has done. Others say he deserves to live this way for all he did thereafter. I would say he is not living at all.

30 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

Every night I walk home and pass this man. Once again, I offer to him hot food and cash and once again he refuses. He has more than enough to live comfortably in this world. He may be lonely but he would never be alone. He has more than enough to have all that he wants, but this seems to be all that he has ever wanted. Once again, he gives advice, “Choose to be a good man, choose to lead a good life, and those who follow will be good too.” I never thought these words applied to me. I was always a good man and led a good life. I had good people who surrounded me. I went on my way, “Our lives are nothing but a mirage and there is nothing better than starving yourself to see it.” His words followed my footsteps.

I sit on this corner, covered in snow. My eyes barely blink and I live in a memory. The cold air whips around and down through my spine then branches out through my limbs as I grab the hand of a sophisticated young man passing by, “Bringing in profit does not equal good and being good may not gain profit.” The man pulls his hand back and looks sadly down upon me. He will not heed my advice. He carries on with his business down the smoothly paved sidewalk in his finely shined shoes. The shoes that I once walked in.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 31

On Monday, I became invisible.

Whitney’s

first week of school

Cassandra Raposo

It was the first day of 5th grade and I was headed to Emma’s lunch table. Emma helped me a lot in 4th grade.

We stayed after school together while we waited for our moms to pick us up and played make-believe at recess. When Mallory and Jessica joined our class, we pretended we were Princess Jasmine, Ariel, Aurora, and Rapunzel.

I wanted to ask them if we would still play princesses.

But when I got to Emma’s table and smiled at my friends, they didn’t say hi to me.

“Hi guys!” I said loudly. Maybe they hadn’t heard me sit down. I waved, but they didn’t see that either.

On Tuesday, I shrank down to the size of a caterpillar.

We went outside for recess. I went to our make-believe castle under the big slide and waited for my friends while I combed my hair with a make-believe fork.

I heard feet tapping above. “Where’s Whitney?” said a voice I knew was Emma’s.

“I don’t know,” said Mallory. “But I heard something else about her. I heard she has to do 4th grade math all over again.”

Jessica laughed and I thought I heard Emma say “loser.” She slid down the slide, and when she got to the bottom, she still didn’t see me.

32 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

On Wednesday, I moved through things like a ghost. Web, a story about a pig and a spider who made friends.

The teacher picked me to read a page out loud. But Emma was going to her cubby getting her book for whenever I meant to say Charlotte, I accidentally said math class – 5th grade math – when I tapped her on “Car-lotte,” like car instead of chair. the shoulder.

Emma was sitting behind me. With every “Car-lotte,” “Why were you mean to me?” I asked. Emma stood she kicked the back of my chair, and every body laughed straight and shrugged the shoulder that I tapped her at me. on. She didn’t answer. She stood straight like that until I walked away. I had to get to my special math class After that, I was invisible again. anyway. But I think she didn’t feel my tap because my hand went through her shoulder like I was made of nothing.

On Thursday, I was a chameleon.

I felt embarrassed around Emma and her friends. I didn’t want them to know what was wrong with me.

We had gym class together. Basketball. I was afraid that someone would throw the ball to me and it would slip through my fingers. Emma and them were on the other team. I couldn’t embarrass myself in front of them.

The padded wall of the gym felt cool against my back as I stood there behind the basket. I stood there until I thought I blended in with the blue padding. Nobody noticed me after that.

On Friday, I meant to finally go up to Emma’s table and ask her to be my friend again. Nothing weird had happened since that gym class. I had a good feeling when I got on the school bus that morning.

Literacy came before lunch. We were reading Charlotte’s Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 33

tapped out Christina Musser

The night you left almost killed me, every single one of them. You had been my neighbor my entire life. I remember running into you on a cold December night at Target, away from the safety of our winding road. You asked me for my phone number, and I didn’t know that you were going to kill me. But first, happiness.

You were a sailor who could never be found without his medium-brown boat shoes, the same shoes which conjure up memories of you every time I see them on someone else. You asked me to hang out and told me you’d come over at 7:00. The first night, you showed up at my door; handsome and unfamiliar, yet the most familiar face I had ever laid eyes upon. I had seen you going to soccer practice as a teenager, a lime green Mariner soccer shirt hung on your tiny frame, all of your gear in a bag slung over your shoulder. When you were twenty-one and could have your first drink I thought about how much older you were and I played with your family’s cat in my backyard. Her name was Dreamy and I summoned her across the street from your yard daily.

I would see you come and go out of your shell driveway in your white car but never wondered where you went because I was 11 years old and I had more important things to think about. On Christmas Eve years later I saw you and your family taking a horse-drawn carriage down the street, singing Christmas carols all the way: your beautiful mother with her long, grey braid, your father, who worked on his boat every day of the week, and your brunette sister, smiling and full of life. And then there was you. I had seen your face throughout the stages of your life - different faces, but all still yours, for twenty-three years. But I had never really looked until now. You were ten years older, and your face wrinkled in places mine didn’t. You had salt-and-pepper hair that stuck up on the top, and I thought about how your hair would be around for a long time. You had a beard and mustache that were deep chocolate brown and matched your eyes. Your teeth were straight and

34 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

white. You were skinny, and your clothes looked baggy on your tall frame. Your button-up shirt was red and vertically striped and bunched out in the front, and it was visible how much extra material your pants had aside from what held your skeletal legs. But we were going on a date, so I wasn’t going to say anything. I didn’t even feel anything toward you until I heard you laugh. When I saw how your eyes squinted and glowed and your cheeks tightened up, and the way it conveyed a moment of perfect happiness stopped my heart and I was done for. I didn’t know what was about to happen, but it was too late to turn back.

out of a piece of a styrofoam cup. We drank flat Sprite.

The air was crisp but summer was coming. The boats were starting to be transported into the harbor and to their respective moorings. You owned a mooring and I thought that was something that a real adult would have. We talked about the neighbors in the fluorescent-lit building with a low ceiling. Was anyone even in the Mattapoisett Yacht Club? I had never seen this building despite living here, across the street from you, my entire life. You had a slight tan but I had never seen you this close up, so I wouldn’t know. You told me how you spent the winter in New Hampshire and We walked down to the Mattapoisett Inn. Side-by- how you drink caramel bedtime tea every night and we side down our quaint road, asphalt darkened from an laughed about things that probably weren’t funny and afternoon rain, passing trees we had both passed a I don’t even remember how it felt to be talking to you. million times, both looking over to watch the boats I didn’t know you. But you were home to me already. bob up and down in the little blue harbor. We ordered take-out food upon arrival and I didn’t know why when The first nights we spent together were quiet and sweet. we could just eat there. You had a plan. As we waited Your bedroom smelled like laundry and I was paranoid and talked, our faces lit up like we had known each that your dad would come into your room and see other our whole lives. But then again, we had. The fish me, the neighbor, in your bed. But he never did, and tacos were ready and we set off on the biggest adventure my reputation with him still stands. We talked about of both of our lives. Since we had never really talked, your sister and how she babysat me once. And I told you asked what I liked to do and wanted to know her I wanted to show her my bathing suit top, which what I was doing now. I told you how I was a writer was mustard yellow with pink daisies and ugly anyway, and a photographer and how I loved Wes Anderson but forgot that I had taken it off and flung it into the and you walked beside me in awe that you had never sink already, so I flashed her and was forever scarred known me. You told me about how you loved to go even though I didn’t have boobs yet. Your sister also skiing and how you slept on your boat in the summer had horses. One night you took me out to see them and you had just started a new landscaping job and even though I was terrified. You said you would show were learning how to do stonework and I had never me how to gain the horse’s trust and I stood there in felt this much of a pull toward anyone, so suddenly, silence and darkness and watched your silhouette blow ever. We walked together, two separate lives colliding gently on the end of the horse’s nose. I thought you for just this moment into a spectacle in the air, and I were kidding, but I did it, and it was weird. Horse girls didn’t know what kind of crash was about to ensue. were always weird, I thought, and I hoped you didn’t like the horse that much.

We broke into the Mattapoisett Yacht Club, which apparently is a thing, and sat down at one of the tables Your mother had died and my father had died and inside. We had no utensils so you forged a spoon for me that was a thing that made us feel like we knew each Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 35

we walked together, two separate l i v e s

colliding colliding for just this moment into a spectacle in the air, and i didn’t know what kind of crash was about to ensue.

36 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

other. We went in the hot tub at your father’s house and you turned on the colored lights and I watched your face as the light changed from red for ten seconds, to blue, blue, blue, I liked the blue, to green and then to purple, let’s keep it on blue. I watched you in the blue and you told me you never wanted the night to end. You told me I had doe eyes and I thought it’d be nice to be a deer.

You parked your white 2000 Chevy Impala at the Mattapoisett wharf all the time, but actually on the wharf, because you had a permit. One night getting out of the car there was a wharf dance and we danced to Riptide by Vance Joy. Every time I hear that song I stop and listen to the entire thing and think about how you made me want to jump off the wharf into the freezing water and sink to the bottom and never come up.

You took me out on your sailboat and we sat on the boat and talked for hours about whatever our lives were then. I didn’t really even like the sailboat and wanted to throw up almost every time. One time we slept there and that really messed me up. I woke up at three in the morning to water dripping on my face because you had forgotten to close the hatch or the porthole or whatever, and the boat was rocking and I freaked the hell out, but I was with you so everything was okay. I had you. You looked into my eyes and told me how refreshing I was. How at peace you were when I was there. I was something to you. I was here and I could hold your hands. I held you in mine before you self-destructed.

We were in my house and we had a six-pack of Yuengling and you sat up in bed and drank most of it while I was tired and drifting in and out of sleep and the next day you told me you were an alcoholic. And I thought about all the times we had drank together and you didn’t say anything. And I didn’t even really know

what being an alcoholic meant or if it really mattered and I didn’t really care because we would talk on the phone overnight and you had a mooring and I was your reason now.

When you left, the six beer caps sat on my bedside table and I didn’t know they would be the last remnants I would have of you. You disappeared and when you reappeared in two weeks you told me you loved me but you had to get better. I didn’t really even know what that meant but that time brought me lower than any of the other nights had. I was below the ground. You told me you couldn’t see me until you were okay and I cried on my bedroom floor for hours, my red face hidden in my knees, knees bunched up in my arms.

And you didn’t want this but you had to do it. And it was too quick and you looked like you were going to cry and then in a second you were gone. Time stopped and I barely knew you but our lives had intertwined and why did you have to go away? I was too sensitive for this and I knew I would not make it. Before you, I cried watching documentaries. Bringing my dogs to the dog-sitter for the weekend made a sick fruit grow in the pit of my stomach. This was not something I could handle. And you were across the street and I felt like I was going to drown.

But you still loved me so everything was okay. I waited like a patient dog, thinking about you morning and night and late morning and in the middle of the night and pretty much every fucking second of the day you were on my mind.

The next time I saw you, weeks had passed and I was walking down the street and you were walking home from working on your boat. You told me you missed me and that you were sorry and we spent the night together. The fireworks in my mind were going off in brilliant displays of blue and red and glittering gold.

The only victory I knew anymore; you were here with

me. I was worthy of your time. I didn’t ask you about anything and just enjoyed the fact that I was in your presence. I lay beside you, looking over every so often to see the silhouette of your eyelashes, nose, lips, and shoulders in the moonlight. I thought of what my life was before you. Empty, it seemed, in comparison to being with you. Did you still think I had doe eyes?

It felt like a piece of glass was lodged in my throat when I thought about having to say goodbye to you and not seeing you again. The weight of this feeling had taken up residence in my body and there would be no returning to who I once was. I realized during the night that I was now addicted to you and sank heavily into the reality of it all.

The morning came too quickly and you took off at 6:00 to go to work. I knew not when or if I would see you again and you were cold now. There would be no more overnight phone calls. There would be no more dinners. No more walks to the beach at night. No more sleeping on the sailboat, which I would have done without thinking twice. You told me you were going to AA meetings but I knew you weren’t. You would be back when it was over, right? How long would it take?

It was late summer and I felt like I wouldn’t make it to the winter. You had affected me so deeply. My insides shuddered and my mind stopped when I saw you drive down the street or when I passed you working in the garden at a house in town. Chills radiated throughout my body when I watched you walk down the driveway to get the mail. Whenever my phone rang, I saw your face in my mind and prayed that on some hopeless planet it would be you. I didn’t eat, and I couldn’t listen to the radio because Riptide came on every few songs and I would have to pull over and break down into tears. My life was contingent on you. My body slowly sank into withdrawal as I realized that you had captured me and I was in this whether I wanted to be or not. There was no way out.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 37

Days passed and I watched your shitty white car arrive home from work. Day after day I watched you walk inside after a day of hard labor, your brown work pants and evergreen t-shirt, your work boots, your salt-and-pepper hair that I hadn’t touched in weeks. I didn’t know if you still smelled like laundry but I bet you did. What was in the backseat of your car? Did you think about me? Every question that my mind created at all hours of the day and night drove me insane and I was in hell knowing that I would never know the answers. Knowing you wouldn’t come over anytime soon stung and stuck firmly into my body like a stinger that wouldn’t come out. That couldn’t come out. My heart was inside of me still but pieces of it were breaking off and falling into the depths by the minute. I felt like a dead woman.

One time you told me you really wanted to see me and I spent three hours getting ready. Everything would be okay again. We were going to go out to dinner and I listened to Dave Matthews Band and I was high again but this time I was alone, and you were coming over soon so I could let myself be happy right now because it was going to end with you.

You never came. At 9:00 I sank to the floor with my head in my hands and cried. And I said I was done.

And I was done.

I decided to wean myself off of you. I was going to go about this by doing “Ten days without Jim” and every day I was going to do something that made me happy and not think about you because you didn’t care and I didn’t need you. And I was a strong woman and I deserved better. Right? Yeah. So I did it.

On day four I heard a knock at my window around 1:00 in the morning and it was you. I ran through the house and opened the door to let you in and we embraced for a long minute in the dark entryway. You smelled like 38 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

laundry and cigarettes and with your arms around me it felt like no time had gone by. This was home. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could survive on pieces of you and long periods of emptiness and then you again. I was fine with this. I couldn’t believe I thought I could go on without you. That night you told me how you thought I was the one you were supposed to be with and that you would always love me and that you didn’t want to hurt me. And I smiled and said “okay,” all the while dying inside. I could never get out “this isn’t okay” or “you need to talk to me” or “you’re slowly killing me” or “you make me want to die.” And when I finally learned how to say those things in the following months, there was no effect. Texts and words and letters and phone calls and quiet tears and loud, screaming tears and I know you love me, why can’t we just talk? I begged you. You met me with radio silence, but I still thought the world of you. But right now we were together so none of that mattered. We talked about everything.

You told me if we got a dog, you wanted to name him George. “George?” I said. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no way we’re naming the dog George.” I thought about us, and George, and if you would just disappear if we were together. I didn’t think so, but how could you bear to do it now? And you couldn’t leave George, right?

But you loved me, so none of that mattered. My brain was filled with endorphins and the drugs were in my system. The world swirled slowly around me in colors purple and red and blue, and the entire universe was there with me right then. My mind was at peace. I started to get a little dizzy with the lightness of it all. I felt all the happiness and comfort in the world directly concentrated into my bloodstream, and you were there, too. You were there. Right?

And then you were gone again, and the high was taken away. And I had never felt this before, the need for a drug so strong that I would do anything to have it. Not before you. That I would sacrifice any and all aspects of myself, my intricate, beautiful self, in order for you to

write to me. In order for you to stop by before work.

In order for you to want to talk to me. I would spend hours thinking about you, wondering why you weren’t talking to me, hating every part of myself because you weren’t here. Thinking about what I could do to bring you back. I neglected myself day after day, and woke up in sadness after nights of dreaming about you. This absolute ecstasy and then total devastation; I had never known it. Until you.

The withdrawals and the highs continued for months and I began to get used to it and almost to like the game. And then a year had passed and one day I woke up and I realized I was gone. And you were still there and you were fine but I was not. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I had withered away into nothing but a girl who loved you with everything I had left, and I still didn’t even really know you.

I drove myself crazy waiting for you, watching you, thinking about why you weren’t talking to me. I spent afternoons carefully calculating when I could walk the dog so that I could maybe run into you as you were walking to the boat or home. Were you thinking about me? I was going crazy and I eventually started to think that it was only because you offered me but a sliver of yourself. If you had given yourself freely I would be long over you. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I was a shell of a person now. You were in my life like shards of glass scattered throughout my bedroom in places I didn’t want them to be. And I stepped on them day and night and it still hurt just like it did when you were there. I ran into you outside the Mattapoisett Inn on a windy September night and your chocolate eyes looked at me full of frozen nothingness. “I just don’t care anymore. I can’t do this,” you said with no disposition. “Do you still have feelings for me?”

I questioned innocently, as if you hadn’t completely torn apart my life and quietly exited the scene behind my

back. As if you hadn’t left thousands of tiny shards in your wake, each which hurt more than the last. As if you still having feelings for me would fix everything and your path of destruction would somehow transform into this being okay. Your hair still looked nice, and I still loved the way your face wrinkled each time your expression changed. But you didn’t smile this time.

Your eyes didn’t squint. They didn’t light up.

And it was just over. No fireworks, no grand goodbye, no I love you, no apology. You walked away indifferent to the fact that I had burned everything I was alive, just to keep you warm. I had burned everything. I was alive just to keep you warm. But you were cold, and didn’t care, and I had withered to nothing.

And that was it. I had become numb to it all. I was gone. I looked into your eyes for the last time, quietly snatched my life out of your scissor-hands and walked away.

I don’t know who you are anymore or when I will see you again. It still kills me when I see your shitty white car pull in the driveway. George will probably never know you. The first weeks without you were eerily quiet. I half-expected you to break into my room in the middle of the night. But I don’t see you anymore.

You told me you’d come back and you still haven’t but I think I will run before you ever can.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 39

we

Followed

40 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

Shawna Fox

They came to us during the night, after we had closed our eyes but before we truly fell asleep. We thought they were dreams when we saw them enter our room through the moonbeams, like angels or shadows of light. But then they spoke to us.

We followed them down the stairs.

They were bright, beautiful. Their shining eyes and musical voices pulled us from our beds and into the dark hallway where we tiptoed past our parents’ door. Then we raced them down the staircase, giggling and tripping the whole way.

We followed them outside.

They wanted to show us something. They tugged on our hands and danced in the corners of our eyes as we opened the front door and stepped outside onto the cool grass.

We followed them down the street.

They pulled away from us. We ran to keep up, called for them to slow down, but no matter how hard we tried, they were always ahead, ringing with silver laughter. It was getting hard to see them through the thick, night air, so we ran even faster.

We followed them to the pond.

They took us down to the silent beach where we had swum just that afternoon with Mommy and Daddy and Katie and Lizzie.

The water was so dark and still we could see the black reflection of pine trees in its surface. Nothing moved: not the thick, heavy air, nor the hazy purple clouds obscuring most of the sky. When they glided into the July-warm water, there were no ripples to disturb the perfection of that mirror. We buried our feet in the coarse sand and watched as they drifted away from the shore, their constant laughter still sharp and clear as ice, even as they got harder and harder to see. They were blurring around the edges now; their faces were morphing, twisting, bulging; but they called to us in familiar voices and spoke of places unseen, places of light and shining spires. Places only they could show us.

We followed them into the black water.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 41

Sabrina Pacheco The Monster In Your Dreams

The

MONSTER

in your

D R E A M S

Sabrina Pacheco

M y jaw i m m e di at e ly dr op p e d t o m y s t om ac h .

At this point I couldn’t hold it in any longer, tears started to stream down my face. He hugged me tight and told me, “Don’t worry sweetie, everything is going to turn out alright. I’m sorry.” But he couldn’t fool me, I could see right through his act. I couldn’t find any words to say to him, so I went up to my room and thankfully he didn’t follow me. I tried and tried not to think about it and I tried to think of something else, something happy. After a while the house just seemed so quiet and my own thoughts were beginning to swirl uncontrollably. I walked slowly down the stairs to get a glass of water. The clock that hangs from the wall when I turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs showed the little hand on the six and the big hand on the two, two thirty in the morning. No wonder the house was quiet. Dad must have gone to the bar when he realized he wasn’t drunk enough to sleep. I could see a figure sitting in my dad’s “Football Sundays” recliner. All of a sudden, the television turned on at full volume. I dropped the glass of water on the floor and covered my ears with the palms of my hands. I kept my hands there as I made my way to the recliner. I grabbed the remote from its arm and turned the television off, but when I turned back to the chair there was nobody sitting in it. A tingling feeling moved up through my spine and I instantly feel cold. I look around the living room and the kitchen but there was only darkness 42 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

and quiet. I brush this feeling off and began to clean up the glass because I knew when my dad got home he would not be happy with me if he saw the mess I’d made. I cleaned it up so fast that I barely felt the pain of the small piece of it that stuck in my skin on my left arm. Wouldn’t I have felt it prick me? Maybe I’m so used to feeling pain that it has become second nature to me. Just being in this kitchen gives me bad memories of all the pain I have felt over the years. The worst of all, and the one that began the endless cycle, is the memory of my mom’s death.

Drunk driver they said. Makes me laugh at the irony of it now.

Nothing was ever how it should have been after that. My dad lost himself in pitiful despair and I was left with no one. When I let the memory fade away, I cleaned my wound, put a bandage on it, and carefully threw the glass in the trash. When I turned towards the staircase, I saw the figure sitting on the last three steps. He was just looking at me, watching me for what seemed like hours but was actually minutes. I wanted to turn away from his hideous green face with huge eyes and a mouth that looked like a shark’s, with its teeth ready to tear you apart. I couldn’t make my eyes turn away and I couldn’t make my legs move. I was a statue that could only see what was right in front of me.

There was no way to protect myself because my whole body went numb. The figure walked towards me and immediately hit me across the face with no explanation. When I turned back I could see the hurt in his blue eyes. It didn’t prevent him from grabbing my arms with the type of strength that seemed so familiar to me. He threw me down on the kitchen floor. The only thing he said to me then was, “Don’t worry sweetie, everything is going to turn out alright,” before he kicked me in the stomach. My eyes opened wide as I woke and I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. I kept telling myself it was just a dream. Then I noticed some bruising on my arms and my face hurt when I touched my cheek. I walked over to the mirror in my room and saw it all. I looked like the walking dead and felt like it too. As I lifted my shirt I saw a huge red circle on the right side of my belly button. Almost immediately there was a voice at the door, “Good morning sweetie. I made some breakfast for you.” After I didn’t respond, the monster in my house said to me, “I’m sorry.” I put on some concealer, threw on a sweatshirt, and went downstairs to eat some breakfast before school.

DON’T WORRY

SWEETIE,

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO TURN OUT ALRIGHT.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 43

K

hoked Magritte, painting the world by not painting it, and instead painting not a pipe. better for its Mu-white backdrop and irony, as a piece of art denouncing images, perfectly content with resting on the slats of a cold studio’s wooden floor.

44 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

hoked Magritte,

there is no pipe.

and i laughed;

there never was.

suddenly flooded by recollection,

language imposes itself upon all things,

adding that as another

haughtily believing existence is a privilege

to the index of private experiences

for it to bestow—

i cannot fully share;

nothing but names and places—

i realized that i live inside

but the world is not fixed,

a smoked-out world

it is energy;

built of ideas,

it is me

intimate and heady,

lying flat-out

of historical memory--

on the slats

lavish, summarized malcontent

of a cold studio’s wooden floor,

inherited as i grew—

bleeding color,

forever shifting like the doldrums of color

with this gripe against air;

that wraps my head up in ‘I’.

(as language again fails me) muttering simple expletives only to myself, i’ll do my best anyway.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 45

ABUELA, SQUAW MATADOR the

& the

A. Marshall

Jesus went to Abuela and told her I was acting like a girl from the Telenovelas. He shook her bed and woke her up and told her I smoked cigarettes. I guess he had his eyes closed when her granddaughter, it was her abuela not mine, made out with me in front of Jimmy Lamen so he would get us Popsicles. In hindsight, maybe she was right. Maybe I am the devil. I was the one who came up with the idea to dismantle the doorknob, rod from shaft, so we could sneak out of her bedroom to places like Jimmy Lamen’s in the first place.

One morning we were climbing back through the window. It was early, I still had Bobby Carter’s saliva on my face, and as I hoisted her up, her foot, my ten fingers, she told me, “Abuela thinks you might be the devil. Jesus warned her about you, and she warned me.” That’s what she said, and then we heard Abuela banging and yelling in Spanish and she told me she was performing a prayer of exorcism.

Jesus never shook my bed, always just seemed to shake his finger at me from a floating face in the sky, but the devil, well, the devil came right into my bedroom. I woke to it, her, the devil, looming over me. She had hair like a horse, stark white, parted down the center. Her lips were red, or maybe they weren’t, it’s possible the years have painted them, but her hands were circling over my body. And she had the longest fingernails, but they weren’t curled under, not like they should have been naturally, like the lady’s that sold me cigarettes at the convenient store on Main. No, they were long and sharp, like excess had turned them into daggers.

47 Temper Literary Review Spring 2016 44

I convinced myself to run. “No matter what,” I said to myself, “there or not there, you get up and run.” I opened and shut my eyes without moving my body.

Hoped I was dreaming. I was just a kid. At least three times I did it. Asleep or awake, it didn’t matter, the devil didn’t leave me. She was just standing there, circling those hands, like a witch over brew. But I made it out.

I ran right by her and down to my parents’ room where I slept on the floor at the foot of their bed. I couldn’t stand the smell of my mother’s breath. I’d have rather died by sharp, red fingernails, then endure the heat and smell of her false concern. But the devil never did come, didn’t follow me down. The only things haunting me that night were the birds. The fucking birds, man, but not the devil. I spent the next day tired and that was it. It’s no wonder I’ve struggled my entire life with mediocrity.

hands curl with what I can only imagine is arthritis.

The left is stuck in a half fist. Her pointer finger is almost extended, with bulging joints that make what should be curves sharp pivot points.

I hate the fucking city. I avoid it whenever I can, but my tarot reader lives there, in a total shit-hole not far over the bridge. A triple-decker, looks like it’s about to topple over. I mean it literally looms over the street.

And she looms, too, right over death. She is thin and bent. Her glasses are at least two inches thick. Her

“No,” I told her. “I’m not a skeptic.” And, really, I wasn’t.

The first time I went to get my cards read she came out dragging an oxygen tank with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. We stood on the porch while she smoked it with her good hand. Mark, a friend was with me, Mark looked from her, to me, to the caution sign on the door. No open flames, no smoking, it said. No one blew up if that’s what you’re thinking, but inside, it did look like a bulk wholesale place had exploded. I’m getting ahead of myself though. First you had to pass by the sweaty man, the sweatiest man, sitting shirtless on the couch. He was bald and fat, had one of those hard round bellies that looked like it hurt, and he was really fucking sweaty. She bossed him, “Put your shirt Sometimes, when I’m waiting at the bridge, the old on, Bob,” she said. There were at least three cats that I decrepit piece of turn-wheel machinery that makes saw, but all the peeled back tins of Fancy Feast on the way from suburbia to the stench of the city, I watch window wafted hints of more. And then there were them. The birds. I watch them fly, swooping down in the columns of metal shelving stocked with cereal and unison, turning left, then right, sharp turns, carving soda, so much cereal and soda, that it did look like a arches. You can’t trust an animal like that; something bulk wholesale place had just exploded in there. I mean, that can sense the slightest airflow change through the she had to be preparing for the apocalypse, and this placement of a winged rudder. No, the birds belong was before that was a thing. to the devil. Owned and paid for by some iron clad covenant signed in an ancient forest by a blood covered Mark went first. Blah, blah, blah. He’s so basic, but beak. Those little suckers are definitely dancing to the when I was up she told me some real shit. Three beat of the devil’s fiddle. great spirits surround me. Two male, one female. One of them has never even walked the earth. I think we And so is the city. You can hear the devil strum along can guess which one that is. She knew I was Native with the heavy thud of the subwoofers, trying to impart American, and, save for a view from a certain angle pain, the authentic experience, right into the pulse of I’m careful to avoid, I don’t look like Pocahontas. “On its sidewalks. One guy rolled down his window and your father’s side,” she said and then pointed to a card, had his neck tattoo call out to me. “Chica,” it yelled tapped it with the finger that was stuck. “This is you,” over the loud thump of bass, “Hola, chica.” I started she told me. I was a girl, in a white dress, chained by her to roll my window down, but he drew a line across his waist to a tree. I laughed, but my hands were sweating. neck and laughed as he peeled out.

“You’re a skeptic,” she said.

“I see,” she said. But I didn’t. She pointed to the Hanged Man and then to the Wheel of Fortune. “Karma dictates skepticism isn’t a good path for you.” I didn’t really answer. Karma and I had been in a vicious stalemate for Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 47

years. Then she looked at me hard and said this, “Take a copper penny, bleed your soul, and bury it under the roots of a tree.” She got up and left. Bob came in and told us to leave our money on the table.

When Jesus went to Abuela talking shit about me, shaking her bed and down my morality, she said he told her my path hadn’t been decided yet. I asked her about it after the morning I heard the exorcism. Something about her voice that day had me shook. It brought back the memory of that night in my bedroom, but I never was able tell her about it. Not because she treated me badly. No, I think she thought of me as part crusade, part test for her granddaughter’s salvation. After I asked about the exorcism though she got more affectionate, started to hug me whenever I came in. Sit with me at the dinner table. I guess she thought paella would save my soul. She said she prayed for me, counted those tiny beads in my name or something. She gave me one once, a rosary, hung it right around my neck. I asked her which bead would get me a shit ton of money and out of this God forsaken town, but she told me not to swear and said it didn’t work like that. I keep the beads on the corner of my bed for sentimental reasons.

Abuela died a long time ago. I couldn’t get home for her funeral, but I sent flowers with a card that read, “So far anyway, the paella’s kept my soul above water.”

Sometimes I wish I had talked to her about that night with the devil. When she died, I felt like I lost the one person that might have been able to explain it to me. The only person I ever did tell was my brother, all those years ago. The birds were keeping me up, so I went upstairs and woke him. He laughed at me then started moving my china dolls at night.

Every Christmas, for years, my French grandmother stuck one of those suckers under the tree. They lined the shelves above my bed and covered the top of my dresser. A small army of puckered painted lips in velvet waistcoats and lace-adorned sleeves. Anyway, he moved them. At first it was subtle. He’d just put one of their hands up, or turn a doll’s stand so its back was to me.

He went as far as taping a GI Joe knife to one of their hands, the strawberry blonde one dressed in red. Then he moved it to my nightstand. When I woke up I 49 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017 48 2016

Then it hit me, this was the moment,

the

covenant

was coming, but nothing happened, except that I realized I was playing with

blood

jumped, but it didn’t take me long to know it was him. I took his Kid Brother, dressed it and colored its face like Chucky, then left it at the bottom of the basement stairs where he had to pass to get to his bedroom. Chucky scared the shit out of him. He shoved it in the sump pump. I didn’t know my dad would beat him. Maybe being touched by the devil is genetic.

I woke up last night to bleeding walls. Actually it was a bleeding matador hanging on the walls. An old boyfriend had given it to me, a Spanish bullfighter painted on a canvas made of velvet. Mark taught sociology at NIU, and somehow, in my estimation, it was this that precipitated his affinity for flea markets.

I met him at school, sitting at one of the tables outside his office. I liked the irony of sitting in that particular department to hide from the noise of society and the people that might know me, and then karma delivered me him or him me. He gifted me the velvet painting,

and I really thought it was something. I would stay up late watching the Antique Road Show, imagining how much money it would bring me. I guess that’s what we do when we’re young, try to assign value and meaning to things, fit squares into circles, hoping something will manifest, something will stick. I later found out it was just one picture from a set of four, which was fitting.

Turns out, so was I.

call her back. My brother died. OD’d last night. She’s all pain and why me. I hang up on her and take a nip from my bottom drawer. I drink it right there in the office, don’t bother with a bathroom trip. I lift it up to the sky, salute the heavens where I hope my brother has made it, and just in case he hasn’t, I pour a little on the rug. I think about our life, about the moments that changed me. He always made me laugh. Even when he was gagging over spilled mayonnaise, getting yelled at It never appeared on the Antique Road Show. It’s not by my mother for dropping it, my father with a raised worth a dime and it’s hideous really, but much like backhand standing just behind, it was me he focused Mark it made the move nonetheless. Maybe I hang on, me, he made laugh. For whatever reason it comes it here in my bedroom as a warning or a reminder. to me. I never buried the damn copper penny.

Whatever the reason, I still have it, and last night it was crying. The matador was just waving that red cape I have a good enough buzz on. I keep my drawer pretty and bleeding tears. After I noticed the tears I thought well stocked. I’m not sure if all pennies are copper, or the whiskey had gotten to me and I’d better have if I need a special mint, so I Google it before I leave. something to eat. I went downstairs and rummaged Pennies before 1982 are. Carol asks where I’m going. out a banana. I came back to a still bleeding painted I ignore her and make a beeline down the stairs, to the matador. I ate the banana and watched as it slowly exit, then my car. I start picking through the change trickled down the velvet. The viscosity seemed strange cup and find one from 1979, but I can’t really figure to me, thick, so I swiped it with my forefinger, rubbed out what I’m supposed to do with it. I drive over the it between my index and thumb. Then it hit me, this bridge to Olga’s, the tarot lady’s house, but when I get was the moment, the covenant was coming, but nothing there I’m pretty astonished to see the oxygen sign is happened, except that I realized I was playing blood. I gone. I knock on the door, but no one answers. Peek quickly wiped it off on the end of my hair and when I through the window, and it’s empty. I go to my car to went in the bathroom I cut the piece off, put it in the find the scrap of paper with her number on it but it’s locket I’m wearing now. It’s sitting on top of a picture not in the glove compartment. I call Mark to see if he of my Indian grandmother. has it. He says he doesn’t remember going to no tarot reader. I think he’s being a real bitch. Trying to fuck I checked if it was a new moon last night. Low and with me. I tell him so. He says it doesn’t matter what behold, my old squaw of a grandmother was right. I think because he doesn’t have the number. Then he Story goes, she would call and say, “John,” that’s my says, I’m sorry about your brother, and I hang up on father, “John, it’s a new moon, don’t you go out to those him. The audacity of my mother. bars tonight, just stay inside.” She always said the full moon was child’s play, but the new moon, the new I know I have to bury the penny under a tree, and I moon wasn’t anything to mess around with. I wish I remember Olga telling me to bleed my soul, but I don’t had listened to her warning. It was rash to cut off a know what it means. I’m not even sure I have a soul. piece of my hair in the front like this. I had to wear it I go to the liquor store and get myself a big bottle of up to work today. whiskey. The nips aren’t going to cut it today. I take a sip in the parking lot and then notice a cop parked in Carol works the front desk. She’s a nosey bitch. Always the corner. He’s holding one of those radar guns out asking where I got this or that. Touching me. I keep the window. I put the cap back on and carefully put it my locket under my shirt so she doesn’t ask me any back in the brown paper bag. I try to be quiet. Crumple questions. Around ten I go to the bathroom. Come back the top slowly, but I get pissed when it won’t fit under to a message from my mother, says it’s an emergency. I the seat. The bag is so damn loud as I try to force it. I Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 49

peek over my dashboard and then settle for the floor, and it works because he doesn’t follow me. I drive to my grandparents’ house. They’re both dead now, but I park out in front anyway. I walk to the bottom of the street. There are woods there that my brother and I would play in. I used to hide in the patches of poison ivy. He was allergic and I wasn’t and if I couldn’t find any patches when he was close, I would just lie. He never took the time to learn what the leaves looked like.

The path we used to take is grown over. It’s barely visible, just a small dip in the green where the overgrowth meets but hasn’t grown up tall enough to fully blend.

I push through it, penny in pocket. It takes me a while to find a tree that seems worthy enough for the process.

This one is tall, looks like its been around a while. I put my fingers in the grooves of the bark. Pull at it.

It doesn’t break off and I figure that’s a good sign. I take out the penny and think about what it means to bleed a soul. I should have brought a knife with me.

It seems appropriate that I should actually bleed and I press my nails into my palm to test the pain. I look around for something, but I can’t find a rock sharp enough. Where’s the devil when you need her finger nails? I pace. For a while I just walk in circles. I start pushing off the tree with my foot, letting my weight rock me in and out. If it were any other day I would call my brother. Bring him some smokes. Sit on the porch of wherever he was living and shoot the shit about being raised by wolves. Enjoy the small success of still being alive.

Not today, I think. Not today. I sit at the bottom of the tree. I wish I hadn’t given up the smokes for juiced ginger and carrots. Built up this pretty little façade with throw pillows and table lamps. I might as well drive a mini-cooper. I’m the one that got away. I’m the one with the job and the car and the roof over my head; the roof that covers the walls with the fucked up bleeding matador. I laugh a little when I think of this. Not many people know the old me. Abuela’s dead. Her granddaughter moved to Jersey in ‘99. Mark never really knew me to begin with and my parents think my success somehow deems their sins forgivable.

My brother, he knew me. He was the place where the disparity somehow bridged itself and carved out a 50 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

space for me. He tethered me to the world, made me feel whole. Something starts to rise in my chest and the panic level hits ten thousand. I start to pace again.

I pick up a stick draw in the dirt. I write: Abuela, The Squaw, The Matador. I circle them. When I do, the tears start pushing up at the corners.

My father poked my eye on the side of the highway once. Pulled that minivan right over because I said something he didn’t like to my mother. “Did you hear that, John?” she complained. And so he screamed at me, the vein in his forehead pulsing blue, and his spit flew, and when I went to wipe it I think he got skittish because he jammed his finger right in my eye. I cried then, but I think it was involuntary.

My heart is pounding now. Something is closing in on me. I try to focus. Bleed your soul. Bleed your soul.

This is what I say. I feel like it would be easier with that bottle of whiskey. I walk back to the car to get it, take a few swigs and the world seems ok again. The buzzing settles, but I want to just go home. Overhead a swarm of birds is sweeping, swirling and diving, maybe ducking and dodging. I swear three tiny arrows branch off toward the heavens while a single line darts straight down to hell, toward me. I take my whiskey and my penny back into the woods. And while I walk I cry. I just cry and cry and cry. The tears fall out and soak my face, soak my shirt. I vomit too. If the path to hell is paved with good intention, then the path to whatever the hell this is paved with tears and vomit.

When I get back to the tree I drink. I drink and talk to my brother. I tell him about the time dad accused me of being on LSD because he’d told me little gnomes turned that bridge, operated the crank that opened and closed it and I’d told dad. I tell him about the time I told Carol I couldn’t use mayonnaise to crisp up chicken skin because it was made of whale fat and I was watching my figure. The whole office had a good laugh. He wouldn’t have remembered saying it, but I remember. We were fucked up kids. We had a fucked up life, and he made it all tolerable. Somehow I managed to get out and he got sucked in. I tell him how he gets the credit of my success. How these stupid lies he told me gave some semblance of youth in a world that was

too cruel for normal innocence. I get mad about the My hand is bleeding. It’s dripping down my arm. A time he told me he wasn’t my real brother. Different drop slides off of my elbow and onto the names in fathers, he said. Same struggle, I say. the dirt.

I sit on the roots of that damn tree and I cry and talk to no one. I tell myself he can hear me, but I know better. He died for my sins. Shit, he lived for them too. That makes you Jesus Christ, I say out loud, but I don’t hear him laugh. I pull out the locket and open it. My hair is clean. There’s no blood on it. Somehow this comforts me and when the calm washes over me I feel like this is symbolic of that old gypsy’s goal. I find a rock and dig a hole in the ground. I laugh as I slam it hard into the dirt, lifting it over my head and smashing it down. I cry and laugh and continue on wondering what the fuck I’m doing. Then I dig the dirt with my fingers. I like the way it feels when it presses in, separates the nail from the skin. And when I get far enough, deep enough, I put the hair and the penny in and I cover it back up.

I wish I had my pocketknife. The one I found in the flea market in Brimfield. The one I’d given to Mark. He commented on the Damascus blade, and the French rosewood, turning it over in my hand. I knew he wanted it and so I gave it to him, but then I saw it on Jenny Litchfield’s desk. She smiled when I admired the piece.

Her cheeks got red. “A friend,” she stumbled, “gave it to me.” I take another swig of whiskey and pour a little on the mound of dirt I’ve curated.

Then I get up and chip the outer bark off the tree and it occurs to me. I grab the whiskey bottle and smash it over a rock, the rock I will sit on every Sunday from now. I pull out a large piece of glass to bind us, immortalize us into the exposed wood. I let my hand bleed as I scratch in his initials, then mine. A bird calls out, and the wind picks up, leaves rustle overhead. I look up just as the flock responds to the first call in unison, “caw, ca-caw,” they scream, and the noise hurts my ears. I drop the glass and cover them. Squatting, I watch the birds swirl up toward the sky before they dive back down, head straight for me. They get past the tree line, but a rudder changes their direction and they make a sharp left and then dart back up before disappearing entirely from my view.

I stand there a while, pressing on the wound, staring at the mess I’ve made. I can’t pull myself away. It starts to get cold and dark. Both hands are covered in blood and I can feel it drying on the side of my face. I wipe what I can on the bark below the initials, and I think, I guess I’ve signed the covenant now. Problem is I’m still not sure with who.

heart My

is pounding now.

Something is closing in on me. I try to focus.

Bleed your

soul

Bleed your soul.

This is what I say.

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 51

Thorns orchard

K

high art is an explosion, undercutting fisticuffs in favor of smashing grapefruit into some poor woman’s face —strangling her slowly (a life of people and moments) on our behalf— for us narrated each second with the beautiful finality of well-chosen words.

but the better copy is always upstairs at home (else burned), the original, not to be betrayed by the day or its epiphany—the madness of sound made by a train’s stop, (and fast forward) where I might have glimpsed to see another fuming beauty cleaning bitter citrus off her blouse.

52 Temper Literary Review Spring 2017

Spring 2017 Temper Literary Review 53

Never

trust

anyone who has not brought a

BOOK

w i t h

t h e m

.

Lemony Snicket

TEMPER LITERARY REVIEW 2017