EAST COAST INK Issue 002 - Great Heights by East Coast Ink

east coast ink issue 002 | great heights

ISSUE 002 EAST COAST INK Spring 2014

“great heights”

C O N T E N T S EAST COAST INK | Issue 002 L E T T E r

f r o m t h e e d i t o r 2

P O E T R Y 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I n C o l d F l e s h , D r e a m i n g F i r e .................. .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................. .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Wa l k i n g T h ro u gh , R i d i n g H o m e Thought Experiment, 1967 Portrait Upon Reading the Communist Manifesto Looking Downward No Longer Impresses Me Daydreams oppression My Body Is Just Maybe, Adieu

F I C T I O N 1 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M o n s t e r

.................. The Place to Go .................. Trick or Treat

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To p o f t h e W o r l d .................. My Cousin Stella

w r i t e r s p o t l i g h t : e r i n m c c a b e 3 1 M I C R O F I C T I O N 3 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 0 / 5 / 2 0 0 3 N O N F I C T I O N 4 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S p e c t r e .................. She and I

eci staff owner, editor-in-chief Jacqueline Frasca associate editor Austen Wright fiction editor Erika Childers nonfiction editor Jill Shastany

East Coast Ink Issue 002, Spring 2014: Great Heights.

Cover photo and images on pages 7-8, 42, and 45-46 by Jacqueline Frasca.

East Coast Ink magazine is produced four times per year and is an individually owned and operated publication. For additional content , please visit ecimagazine.tumblr.com and connect with us @ecimagazine. Pitch us your creative nonfiction and submit fiction, poetry, micro fiction, book reviews, mixed media artwork and photography to ecimagazine@gm ail.com . Copyright of all materials reverts to the individual artists and authors. No materials may be reproduced under any circumstances without written permissions from the editorial staff.

letter from the editor I wa n t yo u to pictu re a time in your m ind when you were not even just ha ppy, b u t c o n te nt . T h ey a re o f te n ext rem ely different em ot ions, one t ied to an o f te n f l e e t i n g a n d ve r y vu lne ra b le elation, and t he ot her possibly t he m ost fu l f il l i n g s t a te of mind yo u ca n ex is t in. When I was newly fifteen, my fam ily we nt o n va c a t i o n to D is n ey Wo rld for the very first t im e. My sisters were very yo ung a n d p ro b ab ly d onâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; t re me mb e r m uc h of it , but I have hundreds of snapsh o ts to ke e p i t f res h in my min d ; wro ught iron gates along Duval St reet in Key We s t , ku m qu a t tre e s linin g th e s id e walks in Kissim m ee, the divers t hat brought up oys te r s for mys e lf a nd my two sisters, in whic h t heirs had pink pearls and mine wa s f i t t i n gly g ray. B u t wh a t I re me mb e r most about t hat t rip is how every night I st aye d up u n t i l t wo or th re e wr itin g a collaborative story long distanc e wit h my g i rl f ri e n d via e ma il. Still to this day one of the m ost am azing art ist s I k now, s h e wo u l d wr ite a n ins ta llme nt and send it and I would do the sam e. Co l l a b o ra ting with s o me o ne creat ively who I t hought to be far superior to mys e l f , n ot on ly a s a n a r tis t b ut also as a person, is one of t he only tim e s I h ave eve r f u lly fe lt con te n t . Im portant , wanted, adm ired, even, dare I say, e qu a l . T h at is o ne gre a t h e igh t of my life t hat st ands t all and terribly sol ita ry. T h i s is s u e of East Coast I nk is all about feelings of c ontent t hat are e ithe r c u rre n t o r comple te ly va nq u ished; rapt ure and sex; suc c ess and powerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; s o me o f t h e t h i n gs th a t h ave th e a b ilit y to t ake us farther away from ourselve s tha n we c a n s ob e rly b e lieve p os s ib le. They say when we are lowest and highe s t we a re , re ga rd le s s , n ot ou r s e lve s . Som et im es that c an m ake for the best s to r y te l l i ng . T h e s e a re h e igh ts of all kinds, som e of whic h c an tear you d own a s e a s i ly as th ey ca n ra is e you up. I a m th rille d with b o th the writ ing and photography we rec eive fro m o ur c o n t r i b u to rs th is is s u e , a n d a m forever grateful to t hose who subm itted the ir wo rk to b e p a r t o f ou r s e co nd issue. By helping us grow, we get to help yo u g row a n d s pre a d yo u r work; toget her who knows what kind of heights c o ul d b e re a c h e d ?

Jacqueline Frasca

editor-in-chief

alex khatchadourian

[ poetry ] in cold flesh, dreaming fire Kelsey Pratto

Lie on your back and look up into the night sky. The forlorn winter stars melted, ice-like, into shivering constellations,

and died caressing the roots of space. I melt , too, just like the razor fringe of icicles on the roof, weeping away their bodies. The poem weeps away the poet . Growing, it feeds upon the fire in my fingertips.

To breed fire you need wood, a spiritual truth long buried beneath the snow, this beauty-broken bone the only thing remembering.

Toward the constellations I extend trembling tribute, striving against my skeletal limitations to rip through sound, a call for nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ending. In the smoking darkness I lie and listen to primordial bellowing reverberate up through the fissure from which I first heard the death-cries of demons not strong enough to break the crust . Diamonds fall into the galaxy and drown.

But at the summit of midnight , after years of blindly making your way up the mountain of time, stop. This is a moment of silence, a second chance to remember the places where last nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s faces bleed.

Walking through, riding home Stanley M. Noah

It all started one morning a few years ago. Left the house, down porch steps, across the lawn to the sidewalk. But this was a somewhat different day. One like I had never seen. I could smell wood and coal burning. And all the houses had chimmeys. Suddenly, I noticed walking forward was also like walking backward in time. Children playing roll-the-ring. A forgotten game. All women had long hair, long dresses, sun hats as if they were characters right out of, Gone With The Wind. Then a breath of horses could be felt on my back shoulder. A big mare coaxing me to ride past barns, haystacks, rolls of king cotton and down by the silver river, old man river, the Mississippi. And on board a noisy steam boat toward home. Every minute of it like another life like another memory, traveling like a trunk full of letters with dried pressed flowers between pages, taken to an attic beside a small window that never forgets.

thought experiment, 1967 Steven Klepetar

We walked home on a beam of light and the universe ( yes, that expanding bag of matter and mostly space which bends in the presence of objects large and small, that mystery without walls or smiles, whose music is the wail of quasars) flashed past , red-shifted from where we watched, unconcerned with unicorns or the breeze in our hair. It was my eighteenth birthday, you had just turned fifteen.

We held hands, the park bright and cold, our mingled breath climbing toward a sky so blue and painful we didn’t even stop to shed our skins as bubbles of our lives tumbled from frozen hands.

Portrait

Cathy Cohen Paint each highlight on her head rose and cadmium red. Draw her mouth with a tentative grin. Know the risks. Sketch fontanelles, width of cheekbone, smooth, pale skin. A mistake to the jaw matures it , echoes that of her mother, who wanders a suburbs of whirling cars, well-meaning neighbors on corners. Something about the eyes is off, But the jaunty shoulder, the curve of her neck is exact , bringing tears. How could you know that look before she told a joke? Useless to say she now sniffs your paints and lifts your brush, On vast white paper you scribble whole conversations. You will never be done with the sketch of this child. Taking shallow breaths, her mother puts one foot down, then the next on rolling ground.

upon reading the communist manifesto Carly Feinman

I understand some things. Complicated systems sprout from simple seeds. Political parties are always upset . Anything can be achieved in a few years. Listen.

Lords serfs apprentices journeymen slaves are planted in a circle facing each other directly but their eyes are shut their roots are tangled and the real fruit of their battles lies not in the yellowing pages of books but beneath the bloodied gauze of fresh thigh stumps. Society is just a splitting up of two great hostile camps two great hostile camps in incubation beneath a general’s desk lamp.

Like every article of commerce people only live so long as they sell themselves deeper and deeper below what can be articulated into print . This is essential. Collisions across borders bend men into machines and machines can bend anything. Remember, production is in direct proportion to monotony.

Masses organize into fat packs of empty pockets and dirty fists, crowds stand like soldiers in a factory. The trees keep growing, their fruit shines from high limbs like a gentleman’s shoe or a ripe black scalp. When a peach falls its decay only makes the tree stronger, makes those green leaves seem all the higher.

looking downward no longer impresses me Jillian Sacco

Sizzling of the residual waves on the rough sand, had been a favorite sound. Salt washes a warm essence up through my soles or maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the sun transferring its waves through the tops of my ears. Each blink brings in focus One: a gray mass smoothes into blue, smearing into a salted brown. Two: the horizon line stretches so wide that I couldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve sworn if I stepped a little forward I would collapse into its wide, smiling arms. Three: the sky falls into the ocean as the water pulls in the boat . No longer blind, I cascade into the shallow water. Closer and closer I bring myself to the wooden mess ahead. Sooner and sooner I realize it is not the same as I remembered.

Each step pulls apart the boat , planks tearing from its belly. They fall in front of me, beckoning me closer. One step, one plank gradually one leap, one plank Building upward Carrying me skyward Looking downward no longer impresses me. Below me the ocean gets smaller. A darkness grows larger and darker with every inhale. Planks spreading wider, I am suspended. At last , a boat suspended in shards. The darkness greets me with grand arms and an even greater grin.

mary lou ferguson

daydreams

Jennifer Keogh The yelling starts and I close my eyes. I open them, alone in sanctuary: a fire-lit cave. I take in the new surroundings. I learn each stone by its colored grating. If the yelling reaches me, I’m ready.

The more I know, the more gray my eyes become. They will defend me, now. I run hands through hair and feel leather, slender movement and little love bites from new pets.

I don’t jump or cringe; they feel familiar atop my head, like they ’ve always been there.

Here, there is no more black eyeliner on white nights. There are no more doubts about forever or hands that can only hold too tight .

Here, I am Medusa and you are merely a man.

oppression

Christopher Mulrooney for that the city doth cry out in its very stones

pull them down and the countryside if it moans

“Dandelion forest,” carina allen

my body is just Marlee Gaffey

i could skim you like cream from the top of raw milk. my body is just a shape, i mean, my body is a cup for when i am thirsty. i am not thirsty.

Dane sager

maybe, adieu Katie Mendes

I fell out of time and into wavery scarves of seconds glittering of snowflake anticipation, and minutes of quiet purring joy. Tonguing thickening clouds of breathsteam he has always been a familiar stranger; every joint is a champagne cork, white marble smile that bubbled

over wooden lips. Oh daddy dear, tell me a tale. Tell a story in ten words or less, tap fingers pointed like guns twice against her hot temple, smile and half a tooth still bloody. Tell a story with one word, bang, and sock away the other nine. Turn to a cat and say, I’ve got your tongue. We sat together on our heels in the smoke and snowfall, the plumed weapon of breath melting. Cars slide into the lot , ice over easy. The alcohol tasted like soap. It is not enough for maybes and notk nowh owsg rating cheepcheap common sense, fail me now.

Maybe you didn’t write LOVE on her battered wrist but LIVE instead, maybe you stole all the magnetic a’s off the fridge, you’re not the one who highlighted instructions on a macaroni box, so you broke all the chalk and wrote the name of your childhood dog above the sink.

Maybe “hostile” is a fuzzed blue comforter three months past laundry day, every lint ball sharp as the word “cut ,” the word “bitch,” the word “scream.” Maybe I’m naive, sentimental, but I believe in the common kindness like a common cold running thin in threads of worno ut heart chambers.

”Moonrise,” Carina allen

[ fiction ] monster

Alessandra Siraco Kenny had lots of friends, but he didn’t usually want to hang out with them because, more importantly, he had a driveway. It was square and covered with leaves a lot of the time, so he could sweep them up in patterns and pretend the broom was a microphone or a weapon. His friends would always ask to come over and play, or for him to go to their houses, but he liked to be alone outside most times so he usually said no. He lived in a house with his parents on a street that ended with the paved piece that his mom called a “cul-de-sac,” but that he called a driveway. “Cul-de-sac” sounded too fancy. His house faced another house and stood next to a third one; they all were in a circle around the paved part . He liked to think of it as his driveway even though his dad said it was for parking and not for playing. On nights when his dad was at work and his mom was busy making dinner, Kenny would go outside and make up stories. He didn’t have any siblings, and he decided that he would just make up stories and use the driveway as his thinking space. Even when he was with his friends he thought of stories, tucked them away in his head and tried really hard to remember them for when he got home and could be alone again. He decided to make up one about a monster that climbed out of the woods. The driveway was bordered on three sides by houses but on the fourth side was a forest , deep and dark, that his mom wouldn’t let him go in alone. The forest had a small fence in front of it that used to be plain white but now had a bunch of chips on it from cars accidentally hitting it . Kenny had also written his name in block letters there once, but then he thought that might be mean in case someone else wanted to write their name and he had taken up all the space on the white fence post . He crossed it out and wrote “sorry ” next to it in a different color marker. Mostly, Kenny watched the neighbors for ideas when he wanted to think of new stories. He hadn’t met the new people who moved in next to him yet but he had seen them carrying suitcases a few weeks ago. He listened to them talking as they came in and out of the house, and he knew the girl’s name was Jess and the boy ’s was Harry. They were older than Kenny but not really grown-ups. They lived together and he heard them fighting sometimes, but they had always just smiled at him and kept walking. He noticed that Jess liked to smoke and used to come outside and smoke while still talking to Harry through an open window. Kenny wondered if the house got cold because she was always opening the window to talk through it .

When he heard them fighting through the open window, sometimes Kenny imagined that he was trying to save Jess from Harry. He would prepare a dragon and a spear to throw at the boy in case it got violent and he’d come up to the window at night to save her from whatever it was they were yelling about . But today they weren’t home, so Kenny decided to make up a monster story. He always wanted to be outside. He didn’t like playing video games—he thought they were boring. His mom spent a lot of time cooking. She made healthy food, something called “keen-wah,” and it took longer to cook than stuff other kids his age ate, like yellow mac and cheese. Sometimes when she said “keen-wah,” Kenny thought she was saying his name funny until he remembered that it was their food and she was cooking it slowly. He took a giant stick that he always used to help him think of his stories. He’d found it at the edge of the forest after a big rainstorm and it was almost as tall as he was. He kept it underneath the fence, on the other side of it so no cars would run it over, but close enough that he could reach it without going into the forest . It was early in the morning. He could still taste the English muffin he had for breakfast on his tongue. He didn’t like English muffins but his mom said they were good for him, so she made them for him with no butter or jelly or anything. She said that stuff was “fake.” Kenny liked fake things, like stories, but he didn’t tell her that . He didn’t tell anyone about his stories. He tried to swallow spit so he could get the taste of the English muffin out of his mouth. The story should start with a monster that came out of the forest . The monster was covered in pine needles, like the ground was in the wintertime. It looked like a person, but it was fat with pine needles all the way to its core. It would be big. Monsters were usually big—taller than he was, taller than his dad even. The monster would be almost as big as the tree in the middle of the forest . He’d never actually seen the tree up close, but he could see the top of it pointing above all of the others. The monster had brown eyes that blended in with the brown, old pine needles that dotted its face. It wouldn’t be a boy or a girl, but just a monster. It held a pine needle sword that was thin but sharper than all other swords. If it hit you, it would dig deep into your heart and leave a tiny hole forever. Kenny held his stick straight out in front of him, over the fence and facing into the forest . The monster would move slowly. He adjusted the stick in his hand, feeling the rough bark of the tree rub off onto his fingers. He kept it sticking straight out for a few minutes and imagined the monster moving closer and closer to him. It was getting angry because it couldn’t move faster and its pine needles began to fall off one by one as it struggled to come toward him. His arm began to hurt but he didn’t put the stick down. If there was really a monster he would have to be brave, he thought , and strong. He couldn’t just put his weapon down whenever his arm began to hurt . “Kenny,” his mom said. He could hear her coming out of the house, the screen door shutting behind her. It was the fall, and she was probably coming to give him a sweatshirt . He didn’t turn around. “Kenny,” she said again. He heard her take a few steps crunching on the leaves that he’d missed when he was sweeping the driveway. She sighed. If there were a monster, he wouldn’t be able to turn around. His mom should know that .

“Kenny.” She was mad now. She always got mad on the third time. He turned, still keeping his arm stretched out with the stick. As he turned he whacked a car that was parked in a spot next to him. “Oops,” Kenny said. He looked up to the neighbors’ window. They owned the blue car. Kenny knew that because his mom told him they were nice people but always parked their car crooked. “What are you doing?” his mom asked. She handed him a sweatshirt . He took the sweatshirt with his other hand and put one sleeve on, but he couldn’t put on the other sleeve because he was still holding the stick. He stood like that for a minute. His mom watched him. She might be laughing at him in her head, so he didn’t look back at her. Instead of laughing, she came over to Kenny and helped him into his sweatshirt . It was too big for him so she rolled up the sleeves. His mom always smelled like cookies even though she didn’t eat them. He didn’t know why she smelled like them. Maybe it was because she was always in the kitchen near sugar and chocolate chips that she said were the healthy kind. “Do you want any of your friends to come over today?” she asked. He shook his head. “I’m playing a monster game,” he said. His mom smiled but only one side of her mouth went up. “But don’t you want to hang out with your friends?” He shook his head. “It’s nice of them to ask you to play,” she said. “You should play with them. It’s more fun to play monsters with other kids, isn’t it?” Kenny nodded; that’s what his mom was waiting for him to do. She always wanted him to play with other kids. Whenever she found out that they asked him to play and he said no, she’d shake her head. She told him that she wanted him to have friends and he told her he already had friends. Lots of them; that’s why they always asked him to play. “They ’re going to stop asking you,” she said quietly. “If you don’t say yes sometimes they ’re just going to stop asking.” She went back inside the house and Kenny saw her in the kitchen which looked out over the driveway. She began cooking something. Kenny wondered if it was for her breakfast or for lunch. He didn’t think they would stop asking—they seemed eager all the time—but he didn’t know if he would care, either. His friends were nice but they weren’t as exciting as his monsters. He didn’t think it would be more fun playing monsters with his friends. And he didn’t call it “monsters” in his head. It was his story—it wasn’t a game and it wasn’t something he played all the time even though his parents thought he did. It changed every day. It wouldn’t be any fun to fight off monsters with his friends. It was only scary if he was standing in the middle of the paved driveway watching a pine needle monster come out of a forest . Alone. “Why do you like playing by yourself ?” Kenny ’s friend Dean asked him. “Don’t you want to play with us?” Dean always seemed to stare at him hard when he asked Kenny to play, as if he was waiting for the right answer.

They were in carpool and Kenny was sitting next to Dean. All their moms had mini-vans so the seats were in twos and threes. Dean sat next to different people every day, depending on who he liked the most that day. It was usually Kenny. Kenny didn’t know why people liked him, but Dean had told him once it was because he always seemed busy. He said that people wanted to hang out with him because they knew they were special if Kenny said yes. Kenny didn’t tell them that he only said no because he liked playing stories by himself. Nobody knew that he made up these stories and he didn’t want to tell them. He didn’t want to have to share them. Kenny looked out the window and adjusted so that his backpack was further from his feet and he could stretch. Dean’s mom’s car smelled like her perfume: flowery. “Yeah, I like playing with you, too,” Kenny said to Dean. It was true, but Dean always wanted to play video games and Kenny didn’t like them enough to play with Dean all the time. Dean glanced at Kenny and slid down in his seat . “We’re going to go to Ray ’s house tonight to play video games,” Dean said. Video games hurt Kenny ’s eyes, but he didn’t say anything to Dean. Dean didn’t say anything else and Kenny waited for the invitation, but it didn’t come. He could feel Dean staring at him in the car and he knew he was waiting for Kenny to ask if he could come. He turned away and watched the trees go by as they left the neighborhood. A few days later, Kenny was back in the driveway thinking about the monster. He stood with the same stick in his hand. The bark had worn down so that where he held the stick was smooth. He stood facing the forest . The monster was close by now, almost to the edge of the fence. He put up his other hand as a shield and made a sound in his head, dum-dum-dum-dum, a drumroll to get the excitement going. Then he heard a car door close and people crunching on the leaves next to him. He looked over and saw Jess and Harry holding grocery bags. Jess was wearing a big sweater that went down to her knees and Harry was wearing sneakers that were white and shiny. He watched them as they carried grocery bags in and out of their house. They looked like they were arguing. Kenny saw Harry roll his eyes. “Whatever,” Jess said, and she pulled more bags from the car. Harry took a trash barrel and began dragging it to the curb. Jess came back out to the car for the last plastic grocery bag. It crinkled and broke as she pulled it out and a can rolled under the car. “Shit ,” she mumbled, and then looked over at Kenny. He was still holding the stick straight out . His arms didn’t hurt that much anymore because he had been practicing. He didn’t like the word she’d said but he’d heard her and Harry say it before when they thought nobody was around. The girl looked at him and he forgot to look away. He usually remembered not to stare, but he had been distracted by the way they were moving—fast , like they were in a rush, and the way they were talking—angry.

Jess stared back at him for a minute, then she bent down and reached under the car to pick up the can. Kenny watched as she pulled up her jeans and stuck the key in the lock. He heard the snap as the locks of the car went up. She pushed her bangs out of her eyes then she turned to face him. “What are you looking at?” she said. She adjusted the plastic bag on her fingers and Kenny saw the red marks on her skin from the bag being too heavy. “Well? Are you going to answer?” Kenny didn’t answer. He wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers and Jess looked so angry, staring at him and holding her heavy grocery bag. He hadn’t heard Jess speaking so angrily before—he usually thought Harry was the angry one—and it felt scary being directed at him. He heard Harry walking back around the corner of the house. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Kenny,” he said. “Hi, Kenny,” she said. She said his name slowly, like his mom said “keen-wah,” but meanly, saying it loudly, not looking at him. When she said it , Kenny felt his stomach drop and he realized that she didn’t know him at all. She didn’t know that he had been listening to her and Harry, that he knew a lot about them. She didn’t know him and she didn’t seem to like him; the way she spat out his name, a tiny piece of spit flying from her lips, made it seem ugly. Uglier than the ugliest monster. “Jess,” Harry said, putting his hand on her arm. She flicked it away and began stomping towards their house. “He’s fucking staring at me,” she said. Harry looked at Kenny and smiled before turning around and following the girl. He waved as they went into their house. Kenny stood there looking after them. He could see them moving around in their kitchen, the girl throwing things from the bags onto the counter, the boy putting things away like Kenny ’s mom usually did. Jess looked so angry and Kenny felt a knot in his stomach. He wondered if she hated him, if she was mad at him, if she thought he was stupid to stand there, if she wished she lived next to someone who wasn’t always outside, who would talk to her instead of stare at her. She probably thought he was weird, standing in the driveway with a stick held out for a long time, staring at a forest that nobody even went into. All alone. Kenny tried to go back to his story but he wasn’t scared of the monster anymore. He tried to see it coming towards him again, but whenever he stuck the stick out all he saw was that girl’s face, her angry glare and the sounds of the can rolling on the cement and her spitting out his name. He put the stick down in front of the fence, on the other side where the cars drove up, and then he moved it forward a little so that it was lying straight across the parking spot . He hoped that tomorrow when a car drove up, it would run the stick over and crack it in half.

troy shirbroun

The place to go Cody Strait

Peter Proud had switched the radio off and told his daughter to listen. The road snaked along the clean mountain range. When he had seen it as a boy, he had thought of giants molding them out of clay. “Listen to what?” she asked. “Amy, I just want you to look around. I loved it up here.” “I can look even if the radio’s on,” she reached for the knob—he told her no. “Can’t we just look, now? Please? I thought we could talk,” he said. “We’ve been in the car for three hours.” “I know—I know that . Just for a little while, I want the radio off.” They pulled into the scenic area: a notch on the side of the road. It was lined with a low fence just where the ground dropped down into a deep valley. Peter could barely coax the girl out of the car for a picture. “Uncross your arms please,” he said, holding the camera. She let them fall limp by her sides. “Pull the headphones out too.” “Just please take the picture, dad.” The camera clicked. “Good,” he said, looking disappointed. “We can go.” They rounded a corner and passed the peak where the Old Stone Face had been. He explained how it had fallen and how it had looked when he was young. “Your grandmother has a great picture of it ,” he explained, “with some climbers dangling from the side.” “Okay.” “I love it up here. I think we’ll have fun. There’s a little amusement park across the road,” he said, “and the thing I read says there’s a slide that comes down the mountainside.” “Sounds nice.”

They drove less than a minute to their building, crossing the tracks of the scenic railroad on the way. Amy carried her bags inside while her father looked at the barbeque area across the lot . “Dad,” she shouted, coming out of the building shaking her head. “What is it?” “Our room isn’t ready yet .” “What?” “The maid is still in there.” “For how long?” “I don’t know.” “Well,” he said, leaning on the car, “how about we check out the river?” She shrugged. “It runs right behind this place; the Saco.” “I wanted to go eat .” “We can. Right after this, we’ll go eat at the little café. We can sit outside if

you want .” He put her bag in the trunk and shut the door. “Please? It’s beautiful.”

As they were walking, the train was making its way past the resort on its way to Crawford Notch. They turned to see children with their parents waving to the people from the side of the tracks. The path leading to the river was muddied, so Amy took off her shoes and held them. Peter offered to hold them, but she said it was all right . The Saco River was shallow in many spots that year and had been for a num ber of years before. Children stood with their inner tubes in the middle of the bed and the water only came up to their waists. The riverbank was covered in sand and large rocks which made walking a little difficult . The parents were sitting on the rocks yelling to the children in the water. A red-haired child was making his way up against the current and he was warned not to get too far away. The boy seemed not to listen or to care. Peter was recalling old times at this spot . “We took you here when you were little,” he said to Amy. “I know.” “We couldn’t keep you out of the water.” “I don’t really remember.” “Well, you were little.” He convinced her to walk along the bank with him in the same direction that the red-haired boy had gone. Just then, they were calling his name: Andrew, they yelled. When the two turned the bend they could see Andrew bobbing in his tube some distance away. He was steadily moving towards the shore, then turned and began to cross again. Peter spotted something bright orange on the opposite bank caught in a thicket of roots and rocks. He squinted at it for just a few moments before turning back to Amy. “When I was a kid,” he said, “I used to come out here with your grandpa. We’d stand with these little nets and keep minnows in a bucket . They make great fishing bait .” “That’s mean,” she said. “I suppose.” Andrew was close to the other bank when he started to scream. He waded frantically towards his parents who were making their way to him. They asked what was the matter and Peter distinctly heard him answer, “dead man.” The body of the hunter was bloated, dressed in camouflage, with an orange vest zipped up to his throat . No one got a good look at it until uniformed men waded to the other bank and brought it back. It took some time for the police to show up. By then, only Peter and the other father remained. Amy had been sent to wait at the little café. “This is really something awful,” Peter said. “I feel bad for the kids,” said the man, “They love it out here.” “Yeah?”

“Sure—but , now they ’ll never want to come back.” “That’s too bad. Really awful.”

He found Amy sitting at the bar with a soda. The room was empty except for the bar tender. Peter took a seat by his daughter and ordered a bourbon. “We don’t have to stay if you don’t want ,” he said. “Why?” “I was just trying to take you somewhere nice.” “It’s all right .” “I loved taking you here. But we can go in the morning.” “It’s really not a big deal, dad. We should stay.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. It’s nice—the mountains are pretty.” “I know all this stuff has been hard for you over the past year,” he said. “But , it’s important to me that we spend time together. That’s kind of what this is about .” “Okay.” They each sipped their drinks in turn and discussed eating in the café. “Did you see the body up close?” she asked. “Yes.” “Was it gross?” “It was how you’d expect ,” he said. “How come you sat at the bar?” “It felt like the place to go after seeing a dead body.” He laughed. “Am I wrong?” she asked. “I guess not .” “Also, I like the big windows.” Peter nodded, “So do I.” The day was still bright and clear and the view of the mountain across the road was like a postcard. They ordered up two more drinks from the bartender and moved outside to the little café. Peter felt he had made great progress with Amy, and as they waited for the food, they heard the scenic train passing again on its way back from Crawford Notch.

Trick or Treat Brad Costa

It’s only in retrospect that our lives make any sense. The leaves scratched across the pavement as the potato sack scratched across my skin. I was young and we were poor, so a mop head as a wig and a potato sack shirt became Raggedy Andy, although I never saw Andy wearing anything quite that threadbare. It was Halloween, one of the few nights of the year I truly loved—a mix of the occult and the candy. We weren’t permitted much candy in our house. Sister was allergic to just about everything and Brother was diabetic and allergic to all nuts. But on Halloween, I was allowed to indulge my sweet tooth, to go house to house, and collect as much sugar and chocolate as I could fit in a pillowcase only to rush home and devour some. For the remaining week I could have a stipend at school each day and then the rest was donated to other local poor families. We were standing on the sidewalk in front of the house waiting for the last minute locking up when the phone rang. Usually we didn’t answer it , afraid of bill collectors, but Uncle had been missing for a few days; he had told us he was coming over and never materialized. Fearing the worst , Father took the phone out of its cradle. I ignored the voices, just tried to get my things together, when Father hung up and said we had a change of plans. Uncle was in jail, something about stealing a car while drunk and on junk and crashing it in front of the police station. We were heading into the heart of the city to post bail; the bail money was always kept hidden underneath a loose floorboard for a night such as this. We all knew about the bail money, but we never talked about it; just slowly retrieved it and let the stash build back up for the next time a family member was in need. Brother and Sister were out somewhere, probably at parties. It was just Mother, Father, and me. I remember looking up and asking if I would still be able to go trick-or-treating, as it was the most important question to me at the time. Father said yes. He didn’t want to go into the jail for various reasons, so Mother would have to post bail for her brother-in-law. Father would take me around the neighborhood which surrounded the jail. We sped over and parked on a random side street in the middle of the housing projects next to the jail. We walked Mother all the way to the front door before turning around and walking back. I was naïve and thought that the neighborhood would not affect my haul. Halloween was sacred to me; so long as you put time and effort into your costume you were treated to sweets. I was wrong. House after house, door after door, we were greeted with the urban mindset of ‘why did you come to my door?’ We were greeted by men holding knives on a few occasions, not in threat but because they were tweakers and had forgotten it was Halloween, paranoia running so deep they thought they would have to fight to survive at any moment . Some houses had guns lying around. When we eventually walked back to the car, I had 12 pieces of candy, all fun-sized. Not exactly the great stash I had imagined.

troy shirbroun

We got home that evening and went about the proper preparations. Uncle got in the shower to wash off jail and, bit of the booze, Father sat just outside the door, and Mother went around hiding the liquor. I went to counting my candy, all 12 pieces, over and over again as if somehow they would multiply. Uncle got out of the shower and stumbled into the kitchen. He had forgotten to clothe and was naked. Father started to yell immediately, but Mother wasn’t looking. She had been staring at me oddly for the last few minutes. She got up quickly, walked over to me, grabbed my pillowcase, and walked to the door. “Well… are you coming?” she said as she looked back. It was late when we walked outside, and quiet . I could hear Father’s voice for a block or two before we got away. At first I thought we had only left so I could ring some more door bells. I thought we were walking far because the front porch lights were off and in this neighborhood it meant ‘do not come near.’ After another four blocks I looked back and saw Mother smoking a cigarette, a rarity, something that only happened when she was really stressed. I realized she was following me and that I could go where I want . I made my way to the Nice Houses. These were the houses that my friends and I used to sit around and wonder what they could possibly do with all that room. They were only a few blocks away but a world apart . They were multiple stories tall, they had wide windows, and one family. Even two car garages couldn’t hold all of their vehicles. Each house had a basketball hoop while we shared a communal one with no net . I knew Mother would realize where we were after one stop. I had to pick my house wisely. It was the music that attracted me, something haunting yet lively drifting from a house surrounded by parked cars, laughter dancing on the breeze. The lights were still up which meant I could go and ask for more candy. Slowly, ever so slowly, I made my way to the door and rang the doorbell. It was a novelty bell and it sounded like a ghost . The most beautiful woman I had ever seen answered the door. I can’t remember her features at all, but I remember thinking that I would never fall in love with another face, the way only children can. A man walked up beside her and stared down at me, wearing what I would later discover was a tuxedo. “Yes?” That single word jolted Mother back to the present and condemned my social status all at once. “I’m sorry, your light was on and…” Mother stuttered. “It’s too late to have your child out on the streets.” His voice cut like acid and he closed the door in my face. Without a word we turned and walked away, tears building up in my eyes and throat . The beautiful woman startled me by touching my shoulder. When I turned around, she had a plastic bag filled with candy all different varieties and sizes. “Sorry about all that ,” she said to Mother. “Here you go. I like your costume.” She handed over the bag and retreated. That was all she had to say. It didn’t matter that I had to go back to my own

neighborhood where I belonged. Nothing else mattered except for the beautiful woman. And in the years to come, it would be the memory of her and her beautiful house that would keep me warm at night .

erin mccabe

writer

spotlight Erin McCabe

Ha i l i n g f ro m Su s s ex Co u nty in nort hern New Jersey, E rin Mc Cabe first c a me to o u r a t te n t i on in Is s u e 0 0 1 o f Ea st Coast I nk . I n t hat issue readers c ould f ind n o t o n ly h er micro f ictio n b u t a lso her photography. She c ont inued to impre s s o u r e d i to r i al s ta f f in th e s p r in g “Six Word Story ” c ontest , where her s u b m i s s i o n, “Ar tis t fo u nd d e a d at his c ubic le,” won by a landslide. A p e t-love r ta king a ga p year before c ollege, we spoke to Mc Cabe abo ut yo ga , h e r l ove o f s till life , a n d how she reluc tantly fell into writ ing.

How long have you been doing yoga? Is it a daily routine for you?

McCabe: I’ve been doing it for about three years, but on and off. Recently, within the past couple of months, it ’s become a daily routine. S o I practice at home almost daily, and then go to classes throughout the week.

What are you hoping to pursue in college as a major? Do you have your heart set on a school yet? McCabe: Well, I wouldn’t say my heart is exactly set on it , but I plan on going to Princeton University. I’m honestly not sure on a major yet . I had a plan to major in molecular biology, but the more I think about it , the more I’m leaning away from it . I think my plan right now is really just to not have a plan. I’ll take classes that interest me, and see where it goes from there.

Alright, let’s talk about drawing and photography. Do you stick to mainly digital photography or are you interested in darkroom work as well? What do you like to draw?

McCabe: Digital photography and instant photography. In high school, I did darkroom work. I don’t have access to a dark room anymore, but in college I’d like to do more analog stuff. Recently, I’ve been really interested in instant photography. I’ve got an old Polaroid, and a modern day instant camera. It ’s a lot of fun, but digital will always be my main focus. As for drawing , I’d say I doodle more than draw. I just like to doodle most of the time, and see where it goes. S ometimes I do sketches of just random objects throughout my house when I feel like it .

Have you ever considered going after a writing major? Writing as a career? McCabe: Yes, it ’s definitely an option!

Would you be happy as strictly an author, or would you go into journalism, or editing, or publishing...?

McCabe: Well, I sort of have a goal to get a children’s book published at some point in my life. Though, I know I would need a more steady salary, so I think I’d also be a journalist or something of the sort if I took the writing path.

Are you more interested in telling other people’s stories than your own? McCabe: Good question. I think I could go either way. I’d just like to tell interesting stories, whether they ’re mine or someone else’s.

Gotcha. So what drew you to writing?

McCabe: Due to some scheduling conflicts during my senior year of high school, I was stuck taking creative writing . I wouldn’t have chosen to take the class on my own, but I’m so glad I did. I definitely had a love/hate relationship with it , but it did make me realize that I do love writing .

What did you hate and what did you love?

McCabe: I hated that I had writer ’s block way too often, but my procrastination definitely didn’t help. But once I came up with a topic/story that I found really interesting , that ’s when I loved it .

Do you remember your favorite assignments/prompts from that class? Or your favorite story you wrote? McCabe: My favorite assignment was definitely the children’s book. And that was probably my favorite piece of work. I also loved ballads and sonnets. Before that class, if I were to write poetry, it was just free verse. S o I really liked learning about the different types of poetry.

What do you find yourself writing most? Children’s literature, poetry...?

McCabe: Poetry, definitely. I haven’t written a short story since that class. I’d like to try it again, but I always seem to get bored with them.

writer spotlight

Tell that to the 200+ story fragments I have on my hard drive. Are you a big reader? Do you want to be? What writers inspire you? McCabe: I used to read all the time. I really want to get back into that . As for writers, I used to be really into John Green. But since all the publicity he’s gotten, he doesn’t seem as great to me anymore? Honestly I don’t really know why. I read two of Markus Zusak’s books and absolutely loved them! He’s definitely an inspiration, especially his book, “I Am the Messenger.”

So you’re not the type of writer we’d find holed up in your room on weekends scribbling in notebooks and turning pages. McCabe: Aha, oh not at all.

How does it feel to be published when you were only recently bitten by the writing bug?

McCabe: It feels great . It ’s definitely motivational to keep going! Though I have to say, I never expected to win this contest . I almost didn’t even send in my story. I was definitely caught off guard with winning .

what’s your writing process like? Do you write pretty consistently or only when inspiration strikes? Do you find yourself writing late at night, early morning, with a cup of coffee or tea...?

McCabe: I write pieces when inspiration strikes, but I’ve got a journal that I try to write in daily. It ’s usually just me writing about my day, but sometimes I brainstorm writing ideas in it , as well. I pretty much always write at night . And I write in my bed, which a lot of people say isn’t good, but I’ve just never been fond of desks. I usually do my first draft handwritten. I find hand writing much more enjoyable than typing .

Last question and then I’ll let you enjoy your Friday night. What does writing give you?

McCabe: Writing gives me a place to dump all my ideas, emotions, frustrations, anything really. It ’s too much to have it all floating around in my head, so writing gives me a place to put it all.

writer spotlight

my ideas My ideas are not light bulbs over my head, but rather, strings of lights wrapped around my mind. These strings of lights, they occasionally trickle down my arm, reaching my fingertips, and landing themselves upon a page. There on that page, perhaps they stay illuminated, perhaps they grow and grow and illuminate string after string. Or, perhaps they shut down. Utter darkness. But the ones that stay illuminated, the ones that illuminate others, these strings of lights, these ideas, these are gold.

my tripod the world is my tripod wobbling rocks stacks of books sandy beaches fallen trees i’ll place my camera anywhere and it’ll capture me

Our World up high If only we could hike up the mountains to experience the Earth at its best , to see those waterfalls, nature’s own fountains. Up there we’d have no bills, standards, or tests, but we could reach and perhaps touch a cloud, to be one with the atmosphere, so free. On that great expanse we’d be not a crowd. A view so grand, all the things we could see. Surrounded by such a glorious sky, how can one care about anything else other than this planet’s natural high, to know there’s so much more than just yourself ? Ah, but I will settle for this instead dreaming of such a life while on my bed.

writer spotlight

remember jack? I once knew a marsupial A kangaroo named Jack He led me throughout Australia And then he led me back Jack was not your Average Joe He only had one eye He was a cyclops kangaroo And this is not a lie Jack was even able to fly With his very own wings A flying cyclops kangaroo Oh, and he also sings

So me and Jack got pretty close He told me all he knew But the thing I remember most He told me he knew you

Jack never got to say goodbye So this is his farewell Just a message from Jack through me Remember to stay swell If the name does not ring a bell Think of a kangaroo A flying cyclops that could sing It’s Jack I promise you

He said he showed you Australia The same way he showed me And you had a rather good time Until you had to flee

the starving artist The starving artist is real. Not because the artist can’t afford food. No, not because the career of the artist is so lacking in profit that the artist has not a dime to spare for nourishment . Not at all because the artist can’t even pay her bills. The starving artist is real because the artist is so wrapped up in her current project , in her lat est idea, in her own little world, in her paint brush strokes, in her shutter release, in her string of words, in the possibilities of creation. The artist is so wrapped up in art that she can spare not a thought for food. She can’t be bothered with the mere idea of mastication. The starving artist is real not because the artist lacks the means to fill her stomach but because the artist lacks the desire to have a stomach full.

writer spotlight

mary lou ferguson

[ micro fiction ] 10/5/2003 Adam Barrett

It was Sunday morning, 6:02 a.m. Clayton Lloyd had finished his morning coffee and decided to take a walk in the woods behind his house. As he walked towards the path, breaking tiny mirrors of dew built up on the grass, he heard a group of birds calling back and forth to each other in a beautifully complex rhythm. There was a gust of wind and he wrapped his windbreaker around him tightly. The leaves were beginning to change and fall from the trees. They crunched beneath his feet , and Clayton Lloyd thought of everything beautiful in his life: the first time he heard Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” playing catch with his father in his youth. He walked past the stream and stopped for a minute to admire the way it whispered to him. Clayton found a certain peace in nature he couldn’t find elsewhere, and he couldn’t imagine anywhere else he would rather be in this moment . He followed the path as it curved and twisted until he got to the clearing. Sometimes, if he came early enough and was quiet enough, Clayton could catch a group of deer congregating in the field, but it was too late and he just saw the sun peeking over the tops of the trees. Then, Clayton Lloyd reached into his waistband, pulled out his pistol, pressed it hard against his temple, and, with more conviction than he had ever done anything in his life, he pulled the trigger.

alex khatchadourian

top of the world Dee Travis

Eddie looked around with concern as howling winds pushed the walls of the tent inward. The summit of Mount Everest was no place for a nine-year-old. Brushing empty juice boxes aside, Eddie opened his pack and found just two marshmallows remaining. He might not last the night . “Temperature check?” he asked. Hillary answered without looking up, scribbling in her diary. “Still two million below.” It felt like it , too. Eddie tucked his hands into his armpits and rocked. A woman’s voice suddenly pierced the dark. “Kids, pizza time!” Pizza! Perhaps they ’d survive after all. Eddie made for the tent door when Hillary grabbed his arm. “It’s just what they ’d want us to think.” Of course— an enemy trick, and he had almost fallen for it . Eddie loaded foam balls into his gun as Hillary lifted the last water balloons. “Ready?” she said. He nodded. A count to three, then Hillary ’s hand arced with the zipper, cold rushed in, and two explorer-spies charged forward with guns blazing, their last stand, screaming into the night from the top of the world.

my cousin stella Isabelle St . Clair

My seventeen-year-old cousin Stella was in love with the Orion constellation. We were stretched out on our backs in her backyard, the cool grass tickling the napes of our necks, when she first confessed her love. With the dark sky draped over us, she pointed out the three brightest stars—Orion’s Belt . That distinct pattern is called an asterism, she said in affectionate voice. I gazed hungrily at those three little stars and extended my eight-year-old hand toward them, wanting to pluck them from their astral fabric and cradle their glowing bodies. How those stars never fell down to Earth, how they never disappeared, and how they never reached back at me were beautiful, tragic mysteries. Even as I lay thousands of light years below, I couldn’t help but feel a part of the constellation, too. So as my cousin Stella painted the Orion constellation above me, she taught me to forget the love I never received and to embrace a new one.

decisions

Erin McCabe

She did what they expected her to do. She thought what they expected her to think. She wanted what they expected her to want. Then one day she made a decision. She decided to make her own decisions.

[ nonfiction ] spectre (apart but not forward) Emma McPherson

She visits me between bouts of endless transcribing, fingertips on the keys the way leaves blow along city sidewalks where the wind feels most alive and full— intersections cutting through mid-rise rows—as the tapping becomes louder than the voices they chase, she visits me and the scream in her laugh liquefies like part of a stream, running cold trickles down my ribs and forming ice in my stomach, the smell of chemical dye, acrylic paint , shampoos full of fruit and engineered softness; a sensory Hiroshima, lighting with a fire so quick you blink yourself out of your body and into the black. She visits me and it tugs at my reins, rears me back as though I really was worth opening to like a day lily, able to take it back and give it up with the sun and moon, really was worth giving up so young like maybe she was mistaken (maybe attention just always feels like love) like maybe when the fun turns into bramble rips in the skin it’s time to retreat to the girls with charcoal fingertips and charred kohl eyes—she visits me all day and drops my blood below freezing in my veins and says I didn’t want it anyway—I let it loose, I gave it no curfew, unlocked the door and let it choose which way to run. She visits me. She visits me on long drives in other people’s lines, she seeps in other people’s stories like a sighting down the hall at a locker that isn’t mine, like learning to write yourself notes again, like being too polite—a mercy smile, a laugh that snaps spines. She comes in and sometimes she was there first , looks up as I realize I’ve been still in the doorframe like a statue constructed for Hesitation, the very real and very solid artifact of what it looks like when your synapses forgot which is fight and which is flight . She visits me in board meetings while I sit across from our clients and all their years, strewn amongst figures and miles and every inch of themselves they ’ve pretended to sacrifice for a common project , as feet away beyond concrete and glass raccoons balance at the helm of an oak, grooming and scratching with unwavering confidence that the drop to the fallen leaves below is not a reality they could be part of. Physics has denied that a scientific possibility, much like how gravity doesn’t know how to let the cavern beneath my ribs inflate with anything but air and emptying, shallow breaths; much like when inertia told her body to keep moving apart but not forward. She visits me. She comes in when she pleases, the same way she nonchalantly takes me

around the neck the few times a decade we’re with high school friends and she’s as soft as lake spray against warm skin or long locks falling on your bare lower back when propped up on your elbows in bed—she visits me whether I’m present and awake or a puddle of skin and bones on hardwood floors, devout but not divine, and whether she comes or not I always find myself looking.

she and i

Abby Ringiewicz Vulnerability is a bitch: an invasive, impractical bitch. She’s knocked on my door several times over the years—several doors, actually, as I’ve never stayed in one place for longer than it felt new and disposable. She’s followed me across oceans and borders, both physical and conceptual; she’s watched me jeer at her, impaired by my own ignorance. Once, she snuck into my single, unclean bed and refused to leave. She held me down late into the afternoons and early into the wet morning hours. I was made a mockery of: She coaxed me into bargains I didn’t believe in and feelings I couldn’t understand She tried to make me feel; maybe she succeeded. After a year her grasp loosened, and I was free. But free doesn’t share the happiness of its counterpart , freedom. Free is an escape: it’s a miscalculated leap of faith in yourself that later buries you in the depths of another miscalculation. She tricked me into burying myself. She has the combined wit and purity of all of my past opposers. She followed me to a new place. I hadn’t seen her since the last interim I had lived in—I’d kept hidden from her so that she couldn’t find me, and for a while, it worked. I had stayed out of her reach, bouncing around and filling my time with habits of no permanence or passion. In the absence of freedom, I was free—don’t be misled: I was unhappy—and removed from her selflessness and the consequences I’d learned. I enjoyed the new place too much. I enjoyed my new accomplice far too much. And, since enjoyment mirrors happiness, she found me, and she tugged at my doubts with her all-knowing scrutiny. She feeds on temptation, on my impulsiveness and inability to accept her. I learned her habits and I learned to evade them. I didn’t offer mangled sheets or promises for her to cling to. I left no evidence of her, no trace that we had met before. For me, it was bodily and immediately gratifying, and she hated that . She watched with anger, sadness, and, I think, envy. I put physical pleasure above the emotive. She was out of her element , out of her wake—and so she left .

Her intentions were good, but I refused to accept them; my ignorance had already assumed her untrustworthy and overzealous. And in her leave I fell apart . Without the game of avoiding her I had nothing to feel for, and my pleasures became idle. She wasn’t there when my knees bled; when my skin blotched; when my thoughts swelled. In the dark, I learned that she had been protecting me, and that’s when I surrendered. I had crumbled without her weight , too weak to separate my emotions from urges, wants from needs. I learned her love and warmth through another, most generous individual. He scooped me up—a very deep, heavy scoop—and lifted me out of my selfish trenches. Out of shame, I couldn’t look at her; instead I looked to him for her guidance, and he replied with patience and love. We compromise, she and I: I have space with which to exercise my limitations, while accepting her necessary power.

“Along the East coast”

e a s t c o a s t i n k | i ssue 002 | grea t h ei gh ts