Death: a magazine for the enthusiast and non-enthusiast alike #1 by DEATHMAG

Scott Barry.................................................................. Barry..................................................................02-03 BIG KING DEATH PLAY / Phil Elverum.........................04-05 Shawn Records Records............................................................06-07 OASIS / Michael Sage Ricci..........................................08-09 Ricci STRANGERS................................................................10-20 STRANGERS................................................................ Chris

Browning

Roren

Stowell

/ /

John Jennie

Wilmot Hayes

/ /

Marco Nathan

Kaye Cearley

Ariana Jacob..................................................................... Jacob.....................................................................13 Maya Hayuk................................................................ Hayuk................................................................18-19 DEATH & POLAROIDS / James Boyda..........................21-23 Erika Somogyi.............................................................. Somogyi..............................................................24-25 SEA ANIMALS / Tom Spanbauer Spanbauer..................................26-29 Liz Haley...................................................................... Haley......................................................................30-31 FUNERAL REVIEWS REVIEWS....................................................32-34 Donal

Mosher

Khaela

Maricich

Blair

Mastbaum

Forrest Martin Martin...................................................................35 Dana Bruington Bruington................................................................36 front cover: F. Martin back cover URL & Funeral Reviews title: Jesse Lee Stout publisher/editor: Forrest Martin copy editors: John Wilmot & James Boyda thanks to Nathan Cearley for the title and initial concept of this magazine visit www.deathmag.com for more information about the contributors "Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed." issue #1, February, 2010 ÂŠ

Scott Barry

from the show one Foot in the other World the other Foot in the other World

WiZards in the sKY With diaMonds

Scott Barry

Phil Elverum Characters:

DEATH - a threatening guy in a wolf or bear mask. Loud bellowy voice, ignores boundaries, very insistent, not respectful of the other characters’ personal space, or the audience’s. Lives in a cave. VILLAGER - a straight forward, hardworking Midwesterner. He is extremely involved in his day-to-day activities and doesn’t usually consider death. DEAD BODIES - lifeless corpses covered in blood. SURVIVOR - a lucid and perceptive woman covered in blood. She sees things for what they are and wants to unveil what is veiled. The hero of the story.

Setting:

DEATH’s cave is on one side, a dank, dark tomb, and the rest of the area is empty. The performers will sort of make the set by describing their invisible surroundings. This can be performed anywhere.

ACT ONE:

(Scary music ﬁlls the theater. Lights are low.) DEATH: (coming out of his cave, sung in a “rap music” style) i’m Big King death, i hold Your Breath! i’m above and below you. i’m behind you in the snow. What do you want? an apple? You want a globe? You want some suntan lotion? You want a rose? You want a map? You want a road? You want some wilderness? do you want nice clothes? Well, i can’t offer any of these, but i’ve taken them! i’m loaded with them! and i’ll take all you’ve got, and i’ll crowd out most of your thoughts, ’cause i’m Big King death! hold Your Breath! i’m Big King death! i hold Your Breath...! (During this, DEATH takes things from the audience and returns with them to his cave, trailing off.)

staged in 2001 on the Paper Opera tour with Khaela Maricich & calvin Johnson

ACT TWO:

(Enter VILLAGER.)

SURVIVOR: (gasp!) death, you’re beautiful!

VILLAGER: i am from the Midwest. My family has traveled the Greater Great lakes region for many generations following work; diving for old logs, surveying wildlife, building docks, ﬁshing...but now that sucker Death has taken my Grandpa and Grandma and parents, and i don’t have the keys to the truck! how’m i s’posed to get to work? (Lights go out, loud sound effect of a plane in a tailspin.)

DEATH: (singing) i held out my loving limbs welcoming, i opened my shutters and sang, “the guest room in my large house is decked out for you,” but, my love, i just scared you away. so i kept my arms wide and i stayed soft inside while my bad reputation went wild. You thought i was a thief, but it was you who was weak and by holding on tightly you lost.

VILLAGER: looK at that airPlane sPiralinG toWards the Ground! it’s a FireBall!

SURVIVOR: (sings back) But i can see you now. Will you be with me?

(Lights come back on, revealing DEAD BODIES all over the place and a wrecked airplane mess. DEATH’s scary background music starts again. DEATH enters, this time with a human arm hanging out of his mouth.)

DEATH: i am here. SURVIVOR: always be with me. DEATH: i am here. SURVIVOR: Be in my backpack.

DEATH: i’m Big King death. hold Your Breath! My appetite is endless, and i like eating everything! i’m sitting under your chair right now rotting the legs, i’m the gravity below your bridge. i could give you tetanus and then ﬁ nish the job. I can take you out in so many ways! I’m in your marrow. i’m in your room. i’m in your clam chowder. i’m in your womb. i decay your teeth. i’m the moth to your sheets. i’m the sun to your beef. i’m your scary release. (Exit DEATH, enter SURVIVOR.) SURVIVOR: i am alive. i am the lone survivor of a terrible plane crash. i remember everything. it was awful. People were freaking out. (looks around at DEAD BODIES) nobody’s freaking out now... and here i am, alive still. i don’t know where i am at all and nobody else is around. i see a hill over there, and above it the moon, as usual. those red lights look like radio towers, and (sniiiiiiffff) that smells like manure. i could be anywhere... i aM anywhere! i’m going to stay like this! i am neither alive nor dead. i don’t KnoW anything. i have nothing to worry about because i’m invincible! (DEATH’s music starts up, DEATH enters abruptly.)

DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be in my picnic. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be at the laundromat. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be in my bad moods. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be in my blind games at the pool. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be with me in my leisure. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be with me in my laziness. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be with me on my wedding night. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be with me alone.

DEATH: What?! Who wears that invincible disguise?! (singing/rapping:) i’m Big King death! i hold Your Breath! there’s no escaping me, mean rough death! I’m ﬁerce! I don’t care! I’ll eat your face! SURVIVOR: (interrupting) Who are you? What do you want? Why do you make such cruel threats but move so gracefully? is that a mask? What’s your deal? Why do you have to be such a dick about everything?

DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be always wrapped around me. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be with me bold. DEATH: i am there. SURVIVOR: Be with me brave. DEATH: i am there.

(DEATH’s music fades, and he removes mask. DEATH has a human head but black eyes.)

(They are embracing as they leave together singing.)

THE END

Shawn Records

untitled

Shawn Records

Michael Sage Ricci

he white-hot room, sun sliding through the open window. august. the hands of the woman, the woman in white. they are cool, blessedly cool, like water on my face, ice in the desert. “Who are you” i try to say, but my lips are cracked from fever, my throat raw from vomiting. across the room is scott, my lover. he is standing against the wall, as if he is holding it up. and he is dim, unreal, oh lover where art thou? in a dream. a dream of life. he is looking down at his hands, holding his thick torso, like to hug himself. how rare the times i have seen him cry. tears aren’t his normal language. the woman in white makes the noise of silence. “shh.” to my ears her sounds are like her hands on my forehead. everything about her is liquid and cool, an oasis in all this heat. i am burning inside. has it been even a month? a month of the disease tearing my world apart inside me. the virus in my blood, in my lungs, how glass replaces air with every breath in. every breath a task, a mountain to climb and pray not to cough because to cough is to invite the spirits back. those spirits of ill, the shaking ones, the chilled ones that mean pain or violent bloody hacking, or worse, shit the bed again, piss myself or vomit, vomiting and sweating and shitting away almost ﬁfty pounds of my own ﬂesh. And that means the sheets need to be cleaned again and for that they have to move me, then it’s a big spirit party all in capital letters. Pain. the spirits that remind me my body is running down. Party over, out of time. the party of my failure, all our failures. the inescapable time of my own death. a breeze in through the window, pushing back the

linen curtains. Brief relief on my face. the lady in white, where did she come from. her blond hair pulled back and her white starched dress tight around her. But the sun hits it so i can’t make any details, just blinding white, stark contrast to scott across the room. he is so dim. this stranger bringing water to my lips, just wetting them, i can’t swallow right now, but the moisture is enough. oh lady of the moisture, i think i’m about to die. did i say that out loud? Because scott must have heard me, he is getting dimmer in the room as he slips his body down the wall and lands on the floor. His voice so far away, crying crying. all of everything, the whole world, is this what we are reduced to in our final moments? I was born to be more than a shit stain on a three-year-old mattress. “oh honey,” the woman in white said. i will call her nurse, she looks like a nurse. i must be that far gone, when did scott hire a nurse? “oh honey,” she says again. i hear the chickens outside in the yard. We were just city boys, moving to the country to start a new life. no one told us thirty-five chickens were too many. Too many every day, the chores the chores. a life of hauling water and shoveling shit. i thought i was supposed to love it, and i tried, but every day i was getting weaker. every day it was harder to walk up the hill. the virus in my bloodstream multiplying over and over, exponential death overwhelming my immune system until one day i was almost blind, a yellow fog covering everything. and scott, so dim, getting dimmer every day with each fight between us, each T-cell dying in my blood. But the yellow is only around the edges now, the nurse sitting next to me on the bed, she isn’t yellow at all, just bright. and familiar. like my Granny when i was a boy, how

she held me when i had scarlet Fever, not afraid because she had had it too. Yes, she is an oasis. “shh.” What was happening to time? then or now. scarlet Fever or AIDS. Granny or The Nurse. In these ﬁnal moments, none of it matters, just the coolness of her hands, the moisture against my lips. Please, i don’t care if this is death, i only want to stop hurting. and the nurse heard me. the light brighter in through the open window, the sounds of chickens like from far far away. “oh yes honey,” the nurse said. “oh yes. You can make this all go away. is that what you want?” “Yes,” i said. “take it all away.” And Scott on the ﬂoor at the foot of the bed crying louder saying “noooo,” soft and long like an animal, a dog come to eat the chickens. this is what death looks like. My bowels releasing themselves yet again in the bed and i don’t care, let it go. let everything go. let the spirits come in again and this time i will leave for good. leave the pain in my lungs, in my joints. My vision will be clear again. the nurse so clear and bright in front of me. “really?” she said, and her skin was so pale, almost see-through, like i could see the wall in back of her. “the whole world?” she said. “You could say goodbye to the whole world?” and that was the moment. My moment of choice. i knew it. somehow the nurse did too. outside the window, it was open and bright and silent. i could feel something out there waiting for me. how the chickens got quiet, like the

the nurse laughed, and her laughter was like water now too, and the white of all her teeth ﬁlled the whole room. White and heat and the sounds of chickens through the open window, bouncing off her, white and heat all around me, and i was slipping away. smell my shit in the bed, feel it against my back and legs. all my joints hurt worse than before. “You go to sleep now,” she said. “don’t leave me,” i said, but it was too late and she was already gone, disappeared now for good, nowhere to be seen. i was falling away, the yellow coming back in around the edges of everything, swallowing everything up. i want to stay i tried to say but it was too late. somehow i had made my choice. Scott was there on the ﬂoor still and I felt so alone. From far away the smells of sick, all that pain, and the yellow was covering everything, everything yellow and yellower, then everything was black, and i was too far gone to care.

y neighbor Barb found me like that. hours later after scott had left for work. Barb heard the dog barking, needing to be let out. she found me and got me to the bathtub and cleaned me off, and yes it was a big spirit party of coughing and shivering and pain. But i was more solid now somehow, and the yellow stayed away from my eyes, never came back again. and when Barb got me back into bed, back into fresh clean sheets and the window open, everything felt new, new like the blowing fresh air in through the linen curtains. “Where is the nurse?” i said.

All of everything, the whole world, is this what we are reduced to in our ﬁnal moments? I was born to be more than a shit stain on a three-year-old mattress. dog was right outside their coop. do i really want to be alive? “i’m scared,” i said. and the funny part is, i was only scared to stay. dying would have been so easy. the nurse just laughed. “of course you are.” i never saw a smile like that before. how her mouth was so big, those big pink lips and the white behind the lips, her teeth in a smile, they shined as bright as her uniform. it was the chickens that helped me stay. the chickens outside my window sounded so far away and i thought how unfair it all was. i had so much hope riding on those chickens. My little Mamas i called them. Fresh eggs every morning. Walking with them, scooping out the corn feed. simple. Wholesome in a way i never knew life could be growing up outside new York city. it was all so new. so new and full of hope. the hope that stayed with me even later, much later, after i was back for real, back to my chores and the chickens, back to dealing with Scott and our ﬁghts and our strange ways of loving one another. “i don’t want to die,” i said.

Barb just looked at me, not sure what i was saying. then she smiled and put her rough cool hand on my forehead. “Your fever broke,” she said. i wanted to sit up but there was no way that was happening. Barb didn’t even have to try to stop me. “the nurse,” i said, but it was all i could get out, and i knew there was no answer. Barb just smiled. i could tell she was worried but she didn’t want me to see. the way she looked at me, she was measuring the weight loss with her eyes. “You should go back to sleep,” she said. “tell her thanks,” i said. and before i fell back to the deep blackness, all i could think of was chickens. chickens and eggs, the mama chickens roosting in the fresh hay. the summer breeze in through the linen curtains, that breeze blowing in all the clucking and the smells of the sun-warmed earth into that white-hot room i will never forget. all that white, all the coolness of her touch. all that hope. like my death. like the nurse. Mine and mine alone.

Death & Str angers TIM Chris Browning

I COULDN’T SEE HIM at ﬁrst. There were tubes / light blue hospital fabric / brown brick wall pattern / white mattress / skin / pink raw skin / and hair. It was a mosaic, in the winter light. it was an accident. My eyes couldn’t see what they saw. i saw a stranger, a different man. i did not see my father. Where was he?!!!! it was a raw bear, a desperate and confused baby. it was emotion and missing body weight. it was sweat and smell and stupidity, the diet version. it was darth vader with his helmet off, and the ridiculous shit-eating grin of an aging WasPy matriarch on her last hormonal ﬂash in Nantucket, or of an idiot golden retriever... “charlessessessssssessssarlssssssssssss...” he lurched at me, all whites of his teeth and eyes, grinning, desperate, afraid, and at the same time saying “everything’s okay,” pulling tubes and moving machines as he went. “hi,” i waved. i could not believe that this Picasso before me was all there was left of my father. Just catheters, feeding tubes, an assless hospital gown, nasty hairy pink skin, dumb girth, and the smell of feces, urine, and sweat. God, he looked like he had sweated away about 40 pounds...such a fool! such an asshole. so many years of ice cream, and cigars, and wine, and now he was gone. it was like he was an old drunk woman now; only the part of his brain that was emotion seemed left. “charlesssesarlsssarlssssehhharlsssssarlsssssssssarlsss....” “tim.” “You need to lay back.” “lay back,” my uncle ned directed him, like it had just been some kind of temporary canoeing accident, or maybe it was because he had already absorbed the impact of my dad’s stroke days before. he was probably the next to go, i thought. Why did i get born into such an ugly family tradition of depression, drinking, and gluttony? My uncle left the room, and my dad and i continued checking in with our looks. there was nakedness in our eye contact. in those seconds it was as though i were six-months old and my dad was tucking me in under the stars; seeing me, knowing me, loving me, for all that i was worth. or maybe he was the baby. or maybe we were two souls in the great expanse of the universe truly seeing each other. i couldn’t help but think that he was looking for my mom in his looks to me. Where was my mom? that’s what i was to him i realized, an extension of my mom. that’s the way he knew me. it was like true love, in our seconds. the truth. Just watching each other and communicating with our same technique of distant eye contact from the years before, looking around and telling a story of our closeness by continuing to glance away. We were as distant as ever in our lives now. 10

My uncle and i slowly walked to the end of the empty hospital hall. “that man is not the same man as your father. Your father was a great man, and that man is not nearly the man that he was.” We stood by the third ﬂoor window. I started to cry, I needed this moment so badly. “don’t do that, come on now,” he cut me off. i stopped. and there i was, forever and impossibly hermetically sealed, just like the transparent, terrible, and perfectly thick pane of glass that i leaned against and peered out from. Out, from the now impossible and terrible ﬁnality that had become the institution of my dad’s stroke in Portland, Maine...

THE BLOND John Wilmot

WHENEVER I TELL SOMEBODY that i was on the rowing team in college, at some point in the conversation, as casually as possible, i mention the time we found the body. suddenly excited, people will sit up straight. eyebrows arch in surprise. they always ask, “in the water?” nope, on the shore, i say, and their faces invariably register confusion. so i pause for one moment to let them wonder, and only then, when their curiosity is fully excited, do i tell the rest of the story. it was suburban atlanta, in the little town of roswell, a well-to-do community situated above the chattahoochee river and worlds away from the struggles of urban life. there was nothing special about that morning, except maybe an ominous sky. Black and silver clouds roiled overhead, and instead of the usual serene, mirror-like water, a brisk wind was kicking up choppy waves. i was rowing alone in a single that day, and it was tough going. Lacking motivation to ﬁght the elements, i had quickly fallen behind and lost sight of the eight man boats. then, turning a bend in the river, i was surprised to see that the others had stopped near the nature center. there was something on the bank. as i got closer, i could see a pair of feet, then a body. then, in her hand, a gun. the other guy in a single was rowing ashore to see if she was alive. he shook his head, and our coach ordered me back to the boathouse to call the police. suddenly, i was pure, focused energy. rapid pace, powerful stroke, excellent technique. now that speed was truly of the essence, i discovered a drive and purpose that had always eluded me. With muscles burning and heart pounding, i felt exhilarated, vital, totally alive. i was pleasantly surprised, impressed even, by my performance. it was one

Death & Strangers clean houses overlooking the river. Perfect lives in perfect order. she had probably come at night, slipped past the locked gate, walked down the unlit boardwalk over the marsh through blackness. at the end, open water. she had to step down a couple of feet to the earth, find a clearing, then lie down on the cold mud. despite the darkness, despite her fear, despite whatever demons that drove her to that point, she managed it all quite neatly. With the same meticulous care she focused on her perfect life—that life that had come apart—she ordered her final moments. Legs together, elbows tucked in at her sides, she was arranged with ladylike composure, as though she had deliberately settled down into her own coffin. There next to the river we found her body, so well cared for in life, lying in the dirt. I wondered what had defied her obsessive control and sent her here. divorce? Bankruptcy? illness? and i felt bad, because i was only willing to give it a moment’s thought. to me, her death was a good story and a great day on the river. to the cops outside, it was just a break from routine. to somebody, it was going to be a big deal, but eventually even they would forget to remember. all that effort to make her life what she wanted and all that suffering as she failed, they were hers alone. the fate of us all. so i was not going to let her ghost haunt me. i rowed away without looking back. instead, i was planning my future, the one in which i would be mentioning, as casually as possible, the time we found the body.

DOOMSDAY IN A BLACK BAG Marco Kaye

Scott Barry

of my best days on the water. decades later, when i think back on that morning, that’s what I remember first. i found a pay phone and called, and the police took us all in for questioning. it was just routine. nobody doubted the obvious: suicide. hours later, back from the station, i was sent to retrieve the boat that my teammate had abandoned on the shore. at the nature center entrance, there were easily a dozen patrol cars, lights flashing just for the hell of it. Jolly, uniformed men huddled together, laughing and talking with their buddies. one of them told me excitedly, “We haven’t had a body in ten years!” Every officer in town was there, he said. exciting stuff. and he proceeded, with obvious relish, to tell me about the previous body—that guy who took the curve too fast and bounced clear over the guardrail and into the swamp. He was missing for years without a trace until a fisherman dropped a line right down on the car. i could tell he thought it made a much better story than this. to my surprise, they didn’t care if i entered the crime scene; the investigation was over. they were just waiting for the coroner to show at that point. so i followed the boardwalk through the marsh to the end, the same path she had taken the night before. no police. i was alone with the body, which seemed already forgotten. a life so hopeless that it led here, and even now, nobody cared. We were all having such a great day. i made sure not to look at her face. there was a gun in her hand, and i understood right away that she had put it to her head. no telling what was left of the face. But the boat sat just a foot away from her, and i had to glance down to keep from brushing against the body with my bare legs. she was blond, i remember, the color of privilege and happy ignorance. the color of having more fun. and she was expensively dressed in tasteful pastels, with stylish, if practical, shoes. careful discipline shone in every detail of her neat and controlled appearance; she had even managed to keep her figure into middle age. somebody’s mom, i guessed, one of the wealthy women whose lives revolve around their high-income husbands, popular children and well decorated, immaculately

OH, SUPERMAN. i never really knew you until you were dead. of course i knew of you, but it was your movie incarnation, the one chased by richard Pryor and bad green screen effects, with which i was most familiar. oh, i loved comics. i read the Marvel classics, the new image series, and todd McFarlane’s Spider-Man, just nothing set in Metropolis. When my mom set down the newspaper on the breakfast table and told me that they were killing you off, i became one freaked out twelve-year-old. remember, 11

Death & Strangers ding in the corner, a drop of milk from my cereal bowl or, in a reversal of how superman maintains his powers, the sun would fade the pages and the resale value would plummet. like most hobbies, after collecting turned into a business it became a lot less fun. Plus, i was going to high school; wasn’t this stuff for kids? Up to that point, I had encountered several ﬁctional deaths: Bambi’s mother, the terminator, that one guy at the end of A Separate Peace. nothing shocked me more than when they killed off an american icon, however temporary that ended up becoming. no stranger’s funeral prepared me more for when i would have to say goodbye to my real heroes.

you were an american institution, superman. Would the same powers stop production of coca-cola? Would donald kill Mickey to become King of disneyworld? Was spiderman next? i got my dad to drive me to the comic book store, where the mood was somber but sales were brisk. these were the heady times of variant covers, metallic inks, and holographic editions—gimmicks, but interesting ones for a guy my age. For superman’s death, they made sure my attention and

For Superman’s death, they made sure my attention and allowance would be grabbed.

TEN-TWELVE Roren Stowell

HAVE THIS THING i do: When i see photos or videos of dead people, i look at their clothes. i gaze at the mangled leg with the tennis shoe hanging off sideways. i look at the shirt glazed in dark blood. i look at the watch face frozen in time. i imagine the person waking that morning. i imagine them tying their shoe, buttoning their shirt, fastening their watch, not realizing that it would be the last time. i look at all of these images and wonder if the person had any clue, maybe a cold shiver up their spine, that they were dressing themselves to die. In October of 2002, I flew to Bali with my friend Cathy, for our one month vacation between contracts in antarctica. i had been to Bali several times and had fallen in love with the cheap, laid-back island life. My previous trip was shortly after september 11th, and people thought i was insane; indonesia is home to more Muslims than any other country. however, Bali itself is predominantly hindu, and there were few actual threats. the sunset over Kuta Beach on october 12th was a rose pink splash across the sand that inspired us to go out and experience the nightlife of Bali. showered and dressed, we dove into the festivities. on the street we passed a shop selling loud shirts covered in skulls, bloody knifes, dice, flames and naked women. The shirts were horrible, but I loved them. some famous designer from some previously famous band created the shirt so it was a hefty penny, especially by indonesian standards. despite the price, i decided to get one and put it on. Fate sent us to Paddy’s, a two-story, open front nightclub overlooking the street. The first level was packed with hundreds of people dancing and lines for giant tropical cocktails. We went upstairs and found a fairly calm area that allowed us to watch the dance floor, as well as the

allowance would be grabbed. the death issue was sealed in a black bag imprinted with a red S logo, dripping blood. i bought two copies—one to keep, one to read. it came with a memorial poster, obituary, commemorative stamps and a black mourning arm band. i’m not sure if i ever wore the arm band, but i still have a sealed copy of the comic at my parent’s house, resting in a state of suspended animation. the funeral included everyone in the dc comics universe. captain Marvel, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green lantern and aquaman walked behind a stately horse and cart containing the casket. the procession led up to a statue of superman bearing, somewhat quizzically, a bald eagle or very large falcon on his arm. President-elect Bill clinton, accompanied by hillary, made a speech. i don’t remember what he said, but i bet obama would have said it better. three months later, things got super strange. the superman comics were relaunched and four new heroes emerged claiming to be superman. Was his death nothing more than a publicity stunt? i felt betrayed, but i still made my dad drive me two hours to meet one of the artists who illustrated the series. With a shaky hand and a “move it along kid” attitude, he signed a card featuring the four replacement heroes. after the identities of the four alternate heroes were identiﬁed, the real Superman came back, with the long hair of a rock star. it turned out that superman wasn’t dead, merely in a state of suspended animation. the death of superman came at a time when i was in a comic collector’s euphoria. i wasn’t buying comics for reading. i would slip them in polyethylene bags with a piece of card stock backing. i knew what mint meant. the slightest

conversation station

Ariana Jacob

photos: Anna Gray

Death & Strangers Str angers masses outside. screaming, hollering, whistling, thumping music—the atmosphere was a swirl of festive madness. cathy and i were deep in conversation, killing off a few giant cocktails, when a group of rugby players dressed like school girls in short plaid skirts and white shirts tied to show their navels stormed into the front of Paddy’s carrying miniature ironing boards. all we could do was stop and watch the madness unfold. it was at this time that an odd thing came up: Above the dance floor hung a giant disco ball about the size of a volkswagen Beetle, the ball suspended in the air with a giant chain through a chunk of old moldy wood. cathy asked me, “don’t you think that disco ball will eventually outweigh the wood that it’s hanging from and fall?” This question still haunts me as less than five minutes from that moment the disco ball would fall and crush those below it. at 11:00 p.m. i go to the bar, order one more drink, and walk back over to cathy who is looking down on the dance floor. Cher’s “Do You Believe in Life After Love” comes on. People holler and cheer. cathy wants to dance. at 11:03 p.m. the loudest explosion wipes out scores of people on the dance floor and lifts the ground beneath us. The disco ball drops from the ceiling and falls upon scores of bodies laid flat on the dance floor. People start to scream and run for the exits. cathy and i stop for one second and watch the madness unfold below us before deciding it’s time to get out of the club. starting down the stairs, the next bomb goes off with a force fifty times that of the first. The blast literally pushes me through the air back to the top floor, and the entire stairway below me collapses. deaf and blinded and in complete shock, i come back to on the top step and realize i still have my cocktail in my hand. i look down at the drink and am mildly impressed that, despite a second explosion and being shot back up a stairway, i have managed to spill barely a drop of it. i gently set it down and come back to reality amidst the screams and flames and sudden carnage all around me. i heard cathy’s voice from under pieces of fallen ceiling and ran to her. We made our way to a broken window and jumped to the roof of a parked car. the street was now indescribable chaos. on the ground, i saw a man writhing in pain as people stepped over him. he was burned like a marshmallow held over a fire, and when I tried to pick him up, his skin slid off his body like the brittle marshmallow crust. he screamed and squirmed out of my arms. i realized there was nothing i could do for him. cathy yelled, “roren, we need to go! i can’t do this to my family!” at that moment another victim fell right in front of me. i picked her up and started carrying her down the road. i could smell her burned skin and hair. cathy screamed, and i looked down to see the woman’s insides hanging out,

blood pouring from her body. i set her down in front of a shop where two local men were standing in shock. “help her, please,” i told them, but there was nothing they could do except be with her while she died. We walked on. drawn by working lights, we passed through a luxury resort whose garden had become a makeshift hospital. one guy’s foot was hanging off by a chunk of muscle. a burn victim was being lowered into the swimming pool, and his screams will always haunt me. dead bodies were covered with trash bags or bloody shirts pulled up over the faces.

Deaf and blinded and in complete shock, I come back to on the top step and realize I still have my cocktail in my hand. the carnage was immense. The true fear set in as we walked away from the flames and areas where the people were screaming and crying. every once in a while, a person would run past and ask if we saw such and such person. We set out for our hotel in hopes of collecting ourselves. Away from the flames, the air got cooler, and the sounds became more distant. at our bungalow, people gathered to watch fires burning downtown. We told everyone what we saw. i washed the blood off my arm in the pool, and we both checked our bodies for serious wounds. hours went by. a call was made to my grandmother. My hearing was gone on my right side, and the other ear was ringing. But i was alive. as cathy lay in shock on the bed behind me, i watched myself in the mirror while i undressed, button by button. all i could think was, “thank God i did not die in that horrible shirt.” death does not get much closer than that night. hundreds were killed. People not ten feet from me were blown apart, yet i walked out with little more than cuts, ringing ears, and a bad shirt. For those who died, i can say that at least they died in paradise.

Death & Strangers THE SERVICE OF STRANGERS Jennie Hayes

THE MORNING OF THE third day, the corpse started talking to him. “What a mess, huh?” the corpse said. the man looked over. the corpse lay as it had since the first day, head splayed to the side against the stone, eyes half open, mouth parted as if expecting communion from the rocks. “don’t talk to me,” the man said. “Why not?” asked the corpse. the man adjusted his sitting position so his legs were out in front of him and moved them up and down. his left foot kept falling asleep. “Because you’re dead.” “that’s really no excuse to be rude,” the corpse said. the man thought about this. there was a smear of mud on the neck of the dead man that had dried and begun to crack. It made the shape of a flag. They had been underground for a long time now and the corpse was starting to smell. “Besides,” said the corpse. “We’re both dead.” the man thought about this also and decided not to answer. if he didn’t answer, maybe it would stop talking. he put his hand to his chest and felt his heart beating. then he banged on the rock with his hammer for a minute or two. he stopped and put his ear against it and listened for signs of rescue, the far-off clink of a hammer, the dull ratty hum of a drill against stone, but there was no sound. the corpse laughed. “Funny,” it said. Before it had been a corpse, the corpse had been an oversized, friendly samoan named domingo. domingo loved sardine sandwiches. he had an oversized, friendly wife and four oversized, friendly kids. the man and domingo were friends. they played pool together at the bar in town, and he slept on domingo’s couch on nights he fought with his wife. they worked the same shift. When the accident happened, Domingo had been in front of the man, the heft of his fingers fumbling with the latch of the cage, humming a song by Gloria estefan. the man opened his mouth to make a joke about this when the noise came, and domingo was dead. “i liked you more when you were alive,” the man said. “that’s understandable,” said the corpse. the man shifted his legs again. he hummed the Gloria estefan song for a while, but it hurt his throat so he stopped. then there was nothing to do but think. after a few hours, he wished the corpse would talk again. “cold down here, hey?” he said, to be sociable, but the corpse didn’t respond. He turned the flashlight off and looked for light, some little crack of light up above, but still there was nothing.

he thought about writing a note, but he wasn’t sure what to say. he remembered words from a poem he read in high school. What was it about? the old lie of something. he wondered what his wife was doing right now. Yelling at somebody for this, probably. that made him smile. he thought of her tight little teeth going up and down. he thought about his mother in her tiny room, clapping at the tv shows. he thought about the ground above him, covered with homes and buildings ﬁlled with people he’d never met. He remembered what his grandfather liked to say, stamping into the kitchen in the evening with his hair full of dust, the thick of his teeth behind his smile. they’ll always need coal, he thought, and he closed his eyes.

WATCHING 1366 STRANGERS DIE AND NOT CARING BECAUSE I AM A DRUG ADDICT Nathan Cearley

I HAD TWO KITTENS then, George and Boo. George was either inward and shy, or he hated us and his go-lucky brother and breathing cigarette smoke and eating cheap ass dollar cat food. he was that kind of kitty-like light grey that looks dusty and white and wispy in the proper sun. sometimes he was a spirit. his eyes were a crazy aqua green crystal shattered against a milky white pool. an earth splattered in a glass of milk. he was eyeing me from a corner in the apartment’s living room. Boo was on the chocolate fake-leather couch smiling. he was a little black puffball that noticed, all too often, i was entirely fucked up and out of control. he was deep. he understood water, ﬁre, sky, and earth. they are both long dead now. Boo ran away a couple years after i moved to nashville. he liked being freed from all those cramped up lower east side tenements. i opened the door, and he ran off with a hobo bag and a ham sandwich. George was run over by a couple of dixie crackers in a big ol’ cherry red suv with fat tires the size of a texas jail term. these fucks rented the place beneath me and liked to party really hard with fake speed and seventeen year old girls. i found him in the alley behind the nashville house, and his brown guts were splattered across the pebbles, mud and tufts of yellowed grass. When i found his carcass i wrapped him up in an old rain-shot blue tarp. i picked him up and nearly vomited—the weight of his dead body was like the weight of the abyss. the corpse just plummeted down. i couldn’t handle the experience; so i threw him away in the neighbor’s garbage bin. i was going to bury him, but by then i was living alone in the world, and, without him, i

Death & Strangers about the craziness when something more insane occurred. a plane zoomed across the horizon and impaled itself into the side of the second World trade center building. Just like that. nothing to it. everybody gasped. i blinked and ran back into the apartment. s. moaned, “What the fuck are you doing?” i yelled some gibberish and was already on the phone. this was a day off. I was sure of it. I just had to ﬁnd a persuasive way to put it. “K.,” i screamed into my boss’s voice mail, “i just saw a plane crash into the World trade center, and i can’t make it into work. this is so messed up. i can’t believe it.” i performed my bit in the most affected voice i could conjure. But really, i was happy because i could probably score more drugs and stay home. this was the best excuse ever. My boss had to be sympathetic. i was already trying to calcu-

had nothing to hold me back from freaking out. i just had to let things go...God bless you, George. i am sorry. so Boo and George are watching me hop around. i was late to my lame-ass job as an editorial associate, and i was kind of worried because i was always screwing up. i was tugging on some pants and pulling a shirt down over my head. My girlfriend, at the time, was still knocked out and i was swearing and fucking sick of it all. i hated myself. My sinuses were glued shut, and i was sweating, and my lower back felt swollen and twisted into knots. Beyond the cats, i really didn’t have a reason to live. i had been up all night snorting cocaine and heroin. i felt like i had fruit pits for innards. i am a scientist. and given that disposition i had, until that day, always been assured of the impossibility of the spiritual world and its fine weave of ghosts, spells, voodoo, and “Oh, I just feel it” crap. i liked witches because i was into heavy metal. But i was not into chamomile tea and your feelings. i hate intuitions. i’d much rather listen to “Mr. crowley” than read aleister crowley. however, with George and Boo as my witness, something happened that morning to change my certainly on the subject of science against magic. I wished something into reality. I willed an event into existence. “KAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!” i had just tucked it all in when i and the cats shuddered. s. muttered something from the bedroom and rolled over. “don’t worry. it’s just a car wreck,” i shouted back. George scattered under the kitchen table, and Boo froze. i thought to myself—and this is true—“i hope it’s a fucking disaster, a fucking terrorist attack. i don’t Want to Go to WorK todaY.” I ran downstairs expecting to find a taxi buried into the side of a minivan. i was already late to work, so i didn’t see the harm in adding to the tardy. More importantly, the situation would likely give me a real world excuse. however, when I walked out onto Orchard Street I didn’t find a wreck. instead, a mob of hasids, arabs, and Puerto ricans were on the corner of delancey staring into the distance. it was pretty much everyone who hocked stuff from the orchard storefronts. i strolled down to the corner and asked, “What’s up?” nobody said shit but a couple of guys pointed southwest. i looked up and saw the fuss. one of the towers was on fire. Smoke poured out of a hole in its side and twisted into the sky. i imagined a giant cigarette had been put out on the tower’s walls. i was about to run back up to the apartment and tell s.

late how to score some heroin and get high. “S., wake up! The World Trade Center is on ﬁre! We have to go help out!” i wanted to make sure and do something important in order to justify the day off. she muttered from beneath the comforter, rolled out, threw on some clothes, and we ran back out to delancey. there was a crowd then, and everybody had an opinion about the culprit. however, rather than going home to their families, the men stuck it out to argue with one another in one of the greatest and most useless debates ever evidenced by Man. i got a headache. this was boring. “We have to go help out,” i encouraged s. who was trying to ﬁgure it out for herself. I needed a story good enough to cover my later indiscretions. i needed details. i had to possess examples and narratives. i needed names, places, and tragedies.

Death & Strangers she nodded manically, excited by the absolute spectacle of it all, and we ran down through china town and towards the Financial district. But this was nuts. there were hundreds of people trying to escape the disaster, and we—and another hundred dumb shits—were trying to get to it. once we got to the Brooklyn Bridge, our path forward became impossible. s. looked at me and begged, “look at all these tanks and cops. can’t we just stay here?” she was right. thousands of people were pushing against each other, and from Brooklyn, a continuous assault of military vehicles was pouring into Manhattan. this was no accident. the crowd had come to the same conclusion, and the angry masses cursed the enemy. We walked up and onto a concrete island tucked safely between the current of troop carriers, tanks, ﬁre trucks, police cars and ambulances. “i’ll be right back,” i yelled. there was madness everywhere. it was like watching an ocean

i wanted to get high. i had the best excuse ever. i was guessing this was a foreign attack and the city would be on lock down. i heard mutterings about the closed subways and bridges. We were stuck here and free to do whatever we wanted! i was hoping my dealer was awake by now. i had license to get high for days. i ran down the street, past the caddy, and into a little chinese bodega. there were two instant cameras stuck to a corkboard. “how much for the camera?” i yelled. the little lady was ready for business and appeared unaffected by the chaos outside. “twenty bucks,” she said ﬂatly. The camera was usually ten, and the catastrophe markup pissed me off. i took out my cash. i was fucked because i only had a twenty-dollar bill. if i spent all my money, i wouldn’t have any leverage with the drug dealer. i needed at least ten to score something. “no fucking way,” i said in some lame, prissy way. i ran back to the bridge. s. was there crying, as was most everybody else (unless they were screaming, or shouting, or doing something equally sentimental). i was worried about getting back home and waking up my dealer. he lived downstairs from me, and i was hoping he hadn’t left to “help out” too. i needed him to be asleep and stupid. he had to be ignorant of this, or i was screwed. “let’s get the fuck out of here…there’s nothing we can do down there,” i said in the most fake rational way ever. s. glared at me and screamed, “i thought you wanted to help these people!” i realized she had a point. “look at it,” i said, pointing at the smoldering building, hoping the tragedy, all by itself, would make my case. there was a black guy in a fancy suit crying. he was next to me and i was trying to ignore him. s. went back to staring at the second smoke stack. “What’s the problem,” i asked him like a worm at dachau. it was a made for tv movie. he was late to work, and yes, his work was in the second World trade center building. Everybody he worked with was on ﬁre. He was some kind of business guy; so it was hard for me to feel any sympathy. after all, i needed drugs and couldn’t pity a capitalist. he hugged me and cried on my shoulder. over it, i looked at s. with that “let’s get the fuck out of here” glare. But as soon as he backed off, something entirely fucked up and supernatural happened. everybody, literally hundreds and hundreds of frantic people, became quiet. that stranger’s black caddy cracked aM commentary on possible attacks and hijacks and enemies here or there and maybe missile attacks and tragedy and the White house and Pennsylvania and the Pentagon and where was the President, when—and we were all staring, i promise, right there and

with thirty moons. Hundreds ﬂeeing. Hundreds coming. hundreds unsure what to do. like waves following a patternless order, the thousands of bodies crashed into each other until redirected into another and yet another. The ﬁrst building had already smashed to the ground. You could see a weird, yellowish fog swirling up from the rooftops. those poor souls that lived through it were covered in soot and debris and making their way east towards escape. a stranger left his black caddy right there in the middle of canal with the radio blaring. he was standing next to us, entirely unconcerned with his ride. the radio was trumpeting news commentary, and he didn’t give a shit his prized possession laid open to the world. cops whizzed by it, and thugs had other things on their minds. everybody was focused on the smoldering second tower. Watching and waiting.

the universe, ii

Maya Hayuk

Death & Strangers into the face of it—the facade of the second tower literally cracked and jigsawed into a million tiny pieces of light and reflection, and, finally fragmented and shattered, dropped, with its iron frame and one thousand and some nice people, into the unflinching Earth. We all shut up while our eyes remained locked on the space where the second tower once stood. We had missed the first tower’s demise, so this was something new, foreign and shocking. a thousand people dying. crushed bodies, mangled faces, burned children. Dead fireman and police officers. The moment became a great set of lungs and inhaled the sound around us. it was an event beyond silence. a sonic curse roared from the disaster’s center, and a second, seemingly larger, plume of smoke arose in the distance. clear about the plume’s ferocity, the masses turned and fled. as the thousands walked east, the angry cloud circled nearer and nearer. People picked up their pace. some ran. Others, already painted white by the first tower’s collapse, floated by like ghosts in a graveyard. They didn’t make eye contact with anyone and seemed to be drifting up and away from the Earth’s sacred firmament. at delancey and orchard, the noxious cloud reached our heels. an old man passed by, hunched over, oblivious to us all. His suit and briefcase looked drenched in flour, and a spectral wisp of the fine powder fingered out from his little brown derby. two pink trails appeared beneath his eyes. the trace of quiet tears. i couldn’t care. i wanted to get a beer. i was hoping the little iraqi bodega on delancey was open so i could buy one of those big coronas. that way, i could spend just a little bit of my twenty and still get some dope. it was time to relax. i was stressed out. i walked into the bodega and to the cooler. all the Middle eastern guys were talking quietly. i tried to smile and be a goodwill ambassador. they ignored me. they knew the change in the weather. they were making get away plans. i didn’t give a shit about my failed international diplomacy, because i was literally a half block away from my apartment and drugs. i grabbed s., and we ran across the street and to our place. she looked down at the beer in my hand and scowled, “i can’t believe you are drinking at a time like this…” Her moral grandstanding flowed, but my mind was centered and calm. i am here. he is likely here. on my way up the stairs, i could hear his television set blaring from behind the dull, crimson door. i have seventeen bucks. Shut up. Be quiet. Just another moment. One more second… inside the apartment hid two freaked out kittens. George was hiding beneath the bed, and Boo, usually well composed, was curled up under the writing desk. the fog was upon us, so we shut all the windows. somebody 20

turned on the tv. s. tried to call home but all the lines were jammed. “i’m going to see t.,” i muttered. i cringed while waiting for her response, but she didn’t say a word. it was the sign i was looking for. I walked down a flight and banged on the door. T.’s mother opened it up. We could hear the kids at the top of the stairs crying and a woman wailing. in fact, the upstairs lady’s husband—the twins’ father—had died in the blast. they were illegal from the dominican republic. america was over for the remaining three. “Hola,” t’s mother whispered. “i need to see—,” she was pushed away by t. before i could finish. “its fucking nuts out there,” he said, very straightforward. “can i get some dope,” i asked, unconcerned with his observation. his face was expressionless. i thought i was fucked. i worried “don’t bother me during major national tragedies” was somehow on the list of drug dealer violations—one that also included “don’t bother me before noon” and “keep strangers away”. however, he nodded and let me in. his mother was in the kitchen frantically cleaning. his sister, maybe eleven, was in her room shouting spanish curse words into a cell phone. “stay here,” t. said. i waited in the kitchen a couple of seconds. the windows were all cracked open, and the death fog could be seen funneling in. The sun reflected off the window pane and intersected the dust, giving it a gold glint. i forgot what it was and thought it beautiful. t. came back and pressed into my hands the biggest chunk of heroin i had never paid for. it was gigantic—a couple hundred dollars worth. he didn’t even ask for the money i owed him. “see you later,” he told me. he sat back down in his living room and turned up the news. “i’ll be upstairs,” i mumbled, trying to act cool. and i was there—for four or five days. It was a paid vacation. after all, i had been through so many traumas. according to human resources, it was time to heal. i hid the dope in the sleeve of my Melvin’s Bullhead album. i lied and told s. i had about a quarter of what i really had. she still had to work, so i could sit around and listen to the endless commentary and smoke cigarettes and snort dope all by myself. i had hit pay dirt. Me and the cats, we cuddled.

ostalgia, always, is the love of what vanishes. it is a longing for that which is irretrievable. over the past two years, Polaroid instant photography has ebbed toward this brink. it has threatened to disappear into the sea of postindustrial history, a vestige of mechanical technology in a digital age. But in absentia, we have learned to appreciate the Polaroid again. We no longer take for granted its unique magic: the push-click of a button, the whoosh of two rollers, and a ‘negative’ envelope, spit out, that develops into a photograph before ever-wide eyes. the nostalgia for the Polaroid is so deep and dear that it sparked a global activism. the “save the Polaroid” movement, lead by the impossible Project and SavePolaroid.com, mobilized millions of Polaroid devotees across the web to petition for the resuscitation of instant analog photography. With good grace, new ﬁlm and cameras are promised for 2010. But as the Polaroid struggles to reemerge as a viable product in the digital era, we want to ask: what does all this nostalgia for a disused media form mean? it is not the loss of instant pictures that is mourned. all digital pictures are now ‘instant’ pictures. our devotion to the Polaroid is tied to its particular vulnerability. in its passage from ‘mechanical wonder’ to ‘detritus’, the Polaroid marks a path, one towards oblivion, that we all persevere toward. We live but to immolate in the hands of that most ancient of horrors: death itself. and, we are so quick in the frying pan. as such, the nostalgia for this aged technology stirs an opaque desire. it allows us to touch something darker, something alluring and forbidden. in its closeness to ‘death’, a Polaroid arouses us to embrace (the image of) our fading selves.

hat emerges early through the Polaroid is its snapshot quality, its ‘aliveness’. We use the Polaroid to document in close-up what lies immediately around us. We can easily snap! up our environs and the faces of friends and lovers, ourselves. like a photo booth, the Polaroid produces inexpensive pictures that can be made quickly outside of the studio. the Polaroid also provides immediate visible evidence. it makes ‘instant’ photographs and ‘originals’ at the same time. But if Polaroid pictures are easy to make, they are not merely throwaways. We love Polaroids, because they manifest a tactile sensuality and encourage a spontaneous engagement with the world. nascent in our hands, we are thrilled as a Polaroid bursts forth and comes to be. these images enliven the moment and excite in us real desire— the promise of something like sex. to “shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture (Hey Ya!)” is to revel in the fantasy that these pictures allow. over time, the Polaroid image takes on an almost organic life cycle. it materializes miraculously—born as it were by an act of enchantment. then, due to its nature, 21

ebb and ﬂow of (im)permanence. Through a Polaroid, we abide these ineffable forces in all our lives.

he Polaroid conjures an uncanny domain. it is an inbetween realm, a threshold of the past and present, the living and the phantasmic at the same time. it was in this space that i found repose during a long illness. For this, i am grateful. i say now that the Polaroid brought me back to living. From the time i was 25 until i was about 31, i lived an illness that was, as best as i can describe it, a constellation of pains. It was a confluence of GI cancer, a chronic gut infection, a wrath of red blisters and a syndrome that tore my ligaments apart. I felt for five years undead. i often use the term ‘cancer’ to make a complicated, broad illness coherent to other people. When my friend’s stepmother once pointedly asked me, “What exactly is wrong with you?” i couldn’t rightly say. all she could see was that i had lost a decent amount of weight but nothing beyond that. i was still young, had all my hair, and was the beneficiary of excellent care. If I had tried to explain in detail, it would have taken too long. i felt then about her question as i always do about illness. i want to both talk and not talk about it at the same time. illness is a dark passenger, a constant presence looming just beneath skin. it is hard to give a proper face to or speak of. illness steals away youth and friends, colleagues and jobs, ice cream and grilled steaks—even the one most loved. and, most importantly, it runs away with the safety of the body. it pries it out of hands that scratch and claw to cling to the semblance of a former, healthy self. it looses so much. This is the fight to live: to try to regain what has been disappeared without consent. For me, this fight war was fought quietly. i lived it indoors, away from too many people, over years. When i ventured out, i tried to experience something beyond hurting. this was time to spend away from the contingencies of my body. and when i was ‘up’, i learned to turn ‘life’ on like a switch, for a few good hours. With much time, i did get better and continue to do so. this is the great curse and blessing of enduring an illness. to remain alive is to have the privilege to acknowledge an unbelievable, almost impossible state-of-being. illness affords the clarity that you are of the world and simultaneously outside of it. the Polaroid came back into my life at this prescient time. it provided me an outlet to express this unspeakable, remarkable thing that was happening without saying a word. importantly, the Polaroid did not deplete me. it was light and easy to carry. it made fast images that i didn’t have to take to be developed. Polaroid pictures so became my document of an ‘unreal’ age. “diary of a dead Man” is a photographic diary comprised of my Polaroid self-portraits taken over the course

I he fel al r t t ill wa que hen bo nes ys st ta th s. d ion abo th lk ta I o as ut a l w e k a a b I sa bou an nt out m t d t e it no o tim at t e.

the image slowly begins to mature, fade and disintegrate. soon, its connection to the here and now wanes. like the human body, the Polaroid is subject to the physical laws of the natural world. the Polaroid image weathers. if you leave a Polaroid in the sun, it will blister. in the cold, the Polaroid will harden and crack. unlike other photographic images that can be reproduced from a celluloid negative or a digital file, the Polaroid can never be replicated. This is its lure. It bears its afflictions. Its scratches, cracks, and fading colors testify that our pictures are like our memories, unique. safely sealed in a photo album, this decay may be slow, almost imperceptible. over years, however, the Polaroid will regardless fade away. its gelatin emulsions will yellow and crumble. the photograph will age into something unintelligible. this is its end. only shadow or ash is left. in a picture, we expose ourselves to the possibility of limits. the photograph recalls a time and place that once passed before a lens and lingered only long enough for a picture to be taken. to take a picture is thus to catalogue a future death. neither our bodies nor ourselves can ever be again as they once were before the camera. This is what all moments fi xed by the art of the camera come to mean. Photographs inscribe the traces of a temporal past, however long gone, that continue forward to remind us that we are never so far removed from the ‘problem’ of time. the Polaroid lays bare this deadline. as its material degrades in plain sight, it becomes phantasmic. Faces we have known become strange, almost dim. the background blackens and looks unfamiliar. the past, we see, is slipping away right in front of us. We cannot stop it. in kind, the Polaroid confers a prophecy. it represents something being lost to consciousness. through the repetition of taking photographs, we can make contact with something integral: the mounting total of losses (a sum of vanished ‘instants’ or ‘moments’) that come to define our lives. As our images go, we, too, will age. our bodies will fail. and, we will be dust. in a state of decay, the Polaroid utters this loss. it is a shell of its former self—so like our own bodies that become strangers as we age. it is the frailty of Polaroid pictures, their almost human-like consciousness, that endears them to us and requires our love. if every Polaroid is a ‘little death’, we endure through these pictures the series of passings, ‘tiny cuts’, that brand mortal time. in some small way, we so practice and prepare for the biggest loss that will come to us all. over this loss, we shall hold no power. this is the paradox of all human existence. We live while knowing that we will die and, consequently, are ‘already dead.’ loosing, then, is also the feeling of living. it is a recognition of the 22

of a year and a half. if illness is an arc, these portraits were made during the ‘middle years’ (2006-2008), at the top of the curve. the project began as a record of my physical recovery but evolved something more. it became a mode of selfmythmaking. the photos enact fantasies suggestive of the many and often unseen facets of illness—those humorous, joyful, erotic, boring, painful and sad. the diary considers what the (photographed) body both reveals and, importantly, conceals of the experience. these photographs open up to a possibility. illness can bring an awareness of something greater than the limit of the body itself. the Polaroid allowed me what doctors try to prevent and healthy people often ignore: a proximity to death. the Polaroid took the trace of my failing body, my image, and made it even stranger to me. this was a great comfort. in this way, i could use the Polaroid to craft an elegy. these photographs vanished what i needed to be free of. these pictures, in their drift toward disappearance, interred a body that was no longer my own. over time, this practice allowed me to cast off fragments of my self. and if i could shed these layers like a skin into Polaroid pictures, i could preserve something core, something inner. this something, that which could not be looked at, diagnosed, biopsied, or CAT scanned, was salvation. It could not be ﬁxed by a camera or easily known—annihilated. the willfulness to get better, to live, moved me forward in

time. i had to leave the old body behind, leave it to death. and while i am now marked, i am also something other, hopefully deeper. i am still here. i am not a mere surface of a photograph (yet). “i shall die, but that is all i shall do for death.”

st. vincent Millay, edna. “conscientious objector.” The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry. ed. Jon silkin. new York: Penguin Group, 1996. 236.

PriMitive vision

Erika Somogyi

on and on

Erika Somogyi

tor, disease, and cripple. that’s what i heard the doctor tell Mom, that she had a cripple, and because of his disease, he had to be in an incubator. i heard those words all the time and thought about them all the time, even when i did my chores. i asked Barbara to write them out for me in longhand. i thought about them even more after russell came home, after they let him out of the incubator and he came home. But he looked just like a baby to me. after all that talk, after all those words so many times, my brother looked like a baby to me.

asked her to show me what was wrong with him. it was still winter when I asked, sometime within the ﬁrst ten days of his one hundred days, after he got home from the hospital, before the time when she thought she had smothered him, before the time when the pigs got out, before he died in the spring, after the chores were done, and after school and before supper. i asked her to show me in the late afternoon what was wrong with him, when it was not day and not night, when the shadows were long and running in together and when the chickens ﬂew up to roost, to sit, and to listen to the world. on the porch, before i went in, before i asked her, i could smell her bathing him. i took off my coat, my cap, my mittens, pried off my overshoes on the top step, and all the while, in there, in the kitchen, i could smell her: the ivory soap, the steaming water in the porcelain pan, the baby oil, and the clean diapers. all of those were her smell, and his.

hen i asked her, she did something that she hadn’t done in a long time. she picked me up. she leaned her body so that her hip held me. her arm was around me, the flesh of her arm against my arm, the smell from her armpit under the red housedress. she showed me russell’s head and said, “You see how his head is so much larger that the rest of him is?” and then she showed me his foot. it went over to the side, and she moved it up so that it was straight, and then she let it go, and the foot went crooked again. “that’s his foot,” she said, and then she sat me on the table. she took russell’s hands in hers. “they will not open,” she said. “i have to open them for him and put powder in there for him.” she pried open his right hand and told me to put my finger in there. I didn’t want to do it because his palm looked like a terrible blossom to me, or like an egg that the rooster had got to. she said, “come on, you wanted to know.” So I put my finger in there and my brother grasped my finger.

hese were my chores: to water and feed the hens, to gather the eggs, to water and feed the baby chicks under the brood lamp, and to slop the kitchen garbage to the pigs. they were Barbara’s chores too, but most of the time i liked to surprise Barbara when she came home from the third grade at st. Joseph’s school and tell her that everything was done and that we were free to do things, to play if russell wasn’t crying; free, for instance, to make cocoa and sit in the kitchen, and free for Barbara to try and show me how to write in longhand the way she could do, and sometimes Mom would come and have some cocoa, too, if russell was sleeping and wasn’t crying. another part of my chores was making sure that the doors were locked and that the windows were shut up tight in the coop for the hens, and especially for the chicks. dad said that if an owl or a hawk or some kind of varmint got in there we’d lose all of the chicks for sure, because the ones who weren’t killed right off would suffocate in a heap trying to get away. i want you to know that dad gave this chore to me especially, not to Barbara, and i was always careful to lock the doors, and i always checked the windows, even though they were too high for me to reach, and sometimes at night i would wake up and think i had forgotten to lock the doors and to check the windows. Before russell was born, the new word that everybody said was brood lamp. after he was born, they were incuba-

efore russell came home, i don’t remember much. there are some photos of me and Barbara, and sometimes of Mom, standing and squinting into the sun that i think i remember living in. But it’s hard to say which came ﬁrst, the photo of me and the experience of living it from it, or the living of it reminded by the photo. i do remember six things: i remember when our dog toby died. he came over to me and stood next to me for a while and then did the same thing with Barbara, and then he went into the barn and died on the hay. i remember Mom saying that animals do that, that they say goodbye before they die.

a story by Tom Spanbauer

i remember a lightning storm that blew one of the poplars in front of the house over. the sky was black and it was day and we prayed the rosary loud and lit a candle and dad wasn’t home. i remember Mom taking the paring knife out of where the silverware was in the kitchen and going outside and sitting on the patch of lawn she had planted and digging dandelions out of the grass with the paring knife. i remember the door of the dead. it was a game that Barbara and i played, and the way you played it was you would go into a room, into the room which Barbara and i had together, and we’d close the door and then you’d say that the closed door was the door of the dead, and them we’d get scared, or i should say that i would get scared, and then after saying “the door of the dead, the door of the dead” over and over again, we’d make scary sounds and then Barbara would open the door, and it was always the same thing, i was always the one who ended up yelling, no matter how many times i told myself i wouldn’t yell this time. i remember that everybody said brood lamp. Before russell came home, that’s it: six memories. But after russell came home and before he died, those one hundred days, are not just a memory, not just some things i am recalling, and it has always been that way for me.

he house was warm all winter, that winter, and there was steam on the windows that i was not allowed to swipe through, which was ice in the morning and blue and orange when the sun was up. dad carried in wood and stacked it high by the stove and on the porch. sometimes i helped. russell cried all the time and never slept, although i know that’s not the truth. there were times that he was not crying, times when i stood by his crib and he wasn’t crying and he was sleeping. i wasn’t allowed near him because he had a lot of mucus and i had a lot of childhood diseases in me like measles and mumps that he could catch and make him more sick, but i still snuck in a lot and looked at his head and his foot, but mostly i looked at his hands, to see if they had opened up yet. sometimes russell was awake and not crying and he just lay there quiet, his eyes rolled back up a little, as if he was looking at his head, too, as if he were wondering when the egg would hatch, as if it was a problem and he was planning a solution, a way to make it go away,

and he was trying so hard that it made his hands ﬁsts. i woke up once. it was spring i think by then, the river was high and russell was crying and i was surprised that he was crying just the same way that i had been surprised by his crying when he ﬁrst got home in the winter, and then I wondered if my brother had always been crying and if i just didn’t hear him anymore or if he had stopped for a while, for days, for weeks, and then started up again. My brother’s cries were like the sound the pipes made when you turned on the water in the bathtub, that sound, and then the sound like the pipes were singing high, off tune. sometimes the pipes didn’t make that sound, but mostly they did, and sometimes i didn’t hear them when they did, and only remembered that they had made that sound when it was over.

hat afternoon she ran out of the bedroom and walked around the house, inside, near the walls. i was making incubators with my Tinkertoys on the floor of the front room, Barbara wasn’t back from school, and dad wasn’t home. i could hear my mother crying and walking around and around. I thought that she might run out into the field and that dad would have to bring her back again and he wasn’t even home like the last time. i didn’t know what to do when she cried but cry, and i didn’t know at all what to do at all if she ran out into the field. And then she said, “Tommy, you have to be a grownup now. i’ll make us some coffee and we’ll put the cloth tablecloth on the table and we’ll have a cigarette. i’ve got something i want to tell you, but you must be a grownup for it to work, and then you must never tell anybody ever. do you promise?” “Yes,” i promised. she took out the tablecloth as she spoke to me, and floated it down onto the table. I had seen her do that with Russell, float his blanket up in the air like that, like a fan, and then let it settle on him, and then flip it up again and then let it settle again. russell liked that. i think i could see him almost smile whenever she floated the blanket down on him like that, floated it onto him, so soft, like a big bird flying. i was watching her when she took out the tablecloth, and wanted to be lying on the table and let it come down on top of me; that clean wave of air, her smell, the slow graceful descent. she put four tablespoons of coffee into the percolator and plugged it in. she went to the bathroom and pulled the bobby pins from her hair and fluffed it out, and put lipstick onto her lips, and blotted her lips with a square of toilet paper, and let the square float from her hand into the air onto the floor by her high heels with no toes in them. She had put on her high heels and her nylons with the seams in them and her brown dress with the orchid all the way down the front. i wet my hair and parted it, and put the clip on tie on my white shirt on the collar, and polished my shoes the way i would do if i was going to church. she poured us coffee in the cups that matched the saucers and she smoked. i smoked, too, French-inhaling, my hair slick, me in my tie with her, with 27

her having coffee in the afternoon. But it’s not the truth. i didn’t smoke. there was her lipstick on her lucky strike, and there was her lipstick on her cup. “Just now, when i was sleeping with russell,” she said, “i woke up and i was laying on top of him. i thought i had smothered him. i thought he was dead. tommy, you know what that means, don’t you? dead?” “Yes,” i lied. i didn’t know. i knew the door of the dead. i knew that my dog toby said goodbye ﬁrst. “i thought i had killed him,” she said. “and this is the part where you have to be a grownup and never tell, tommy. thomas? i was glad,” my mother said.

t was spring when the pigs got out. sometime within the last ten days of his one hundred days, and this day, the day that started out with the pigs getting out, is the most important of all of the one hundred of those days. Mom had bought a window fan for the window in her bedroom for russell with her s&h Green stamps. the June grass was already going dry and the river was back down. dad had built a pen out of wire fencing and old doors in the corral behind the barn, with part of the pen in the river so that the pigs could lay around in the water and the mud. those pigs were in that water all the time. dad called them the bathing beauties. the brood sow he called esther. esther Williams, he called the brood sow. that day when they all got out was a saturday, because school was still on and Barbara was home and wasn’t sick, and it wasn’t sunday, because we didn’t have our sunday clothes on and didn’t go to church. dad was usually home on sundays, because there wasn’t supposed to be any servile work on sundays and he wasn’t there that day, and so that was the day when Barbara and i walked out the back door of the barn and there were the pigs, out of their pens, squealing around the corral. “Pigs are out! Pigs are out!” Barbara yelled, and then i yelled it, too.

om flipped her fingers the way she always did when she was nervous when she heard anything about the pigs, and went into the bedroom and looked at russell, who was sleeping. Barbara and i looked in after her. the room was dark and the fan was on. My mother turned to us and put her finger to her lips and motioned for us to get out of there, so we went into the kitchen. We weren’t in there long before suddenly a streak of red shot past us. it was Mom. “last one to the corral gate is a cow’s tail!” my mother yelled, already down the steps of the back porch, opening the screen door, stretching out the screen door spring and going into the bright large flat dusty world; we followed her, first past the little green square of lawn with no dandelions in it, then past the rose hanging on to the back fence, then past the gas pump, then past the Buick, then onto the graveled yard that stretched out acres between us and the corral gate, 28

Mom ahead, the skirt of her red housedress flying up above her knees. Barbara right behind her, my sister’s hair blowing like her mother’s, her legs like her mother’s—those females. i stopped running. i stopped running and stood and watched them running. Mom cleared the three poles of the fence like a bird flying, like something wild leaping, and Barbara never hesitated. My sister dived under the bottom pole and rolled and stood up next to her mother. they smiled at each other. i stood there and watched, and my mother and my sister smiled at each other. A flock of sparrows flew over the ridgepole of the barn then, between me and the sun, and i was there watching things. the barn, the house, the pole fence, the gate, the pigs out, Mom and Barbara, everything different, everything different and bright, nothing the same, and i felt as if i had never even been anything before. “come on! come on, cow’s tail!” my sister yelled at me, waving her arm. “We have to get these pigs in before they get to the river!” “sooo-eeee! soooo-eeee!” Mom yelled. “sooo-eeee! soooo-eeee!” Barbara yelled, and so did i. We circled the pigs. Mom got between them and the river, Barbara got in the middle and me on the other side, and we herded them slowly back into the pen, our arms out to make us wider. “sooo-eeee!” we all yelled. one of the doors of the pen was down, the closest one to the barn, so we had a corner to herd them into. We were doing pretty well until Barbara pointed to the door lying on the ground, to the door that was part of the pigpen, which the pigs had knocked over, which was lying there like a door into the ground, underneath the dry cow manure. My sister pointed to the door and said, just only so i could hear, “the door of the dead.” i was almost standing on it. i was almost standing on the door of the dead. i jumped right out of there and yelled with all my might, which spooked the pigs, and they ran back out into the corral, through the place where i was supposed to be standing, and went straight to the river, esther Williams in the lead, and the rest of them after her, the rest of the bathing beauties running after esther Williams.

hen the fat sow dived off the riverbank, the same way i think a ballerina would dive, poised in the air, and then, when she hit the water, gliding like a seal, gliding as i thought esther Williams would glide, through the current towards the small island of brambles and scrub elms some feet off from the bank, when that pig went just like that, i stopped and looked again, looked as i had looked before, stopped and looked at what the world looked like. it was a world that was suddenly full of things, mysterious things, things that weren’t me. i could see my mother and my sister doing everything they could do to keep those pigs out of the drink. they were screaming and waving their arms and putting their bodies

more people. i was supposed to stay in “Tommy, you my room and so was Barbara. in the what kitchen, on the table, was the cloth know tablecloth and the percolator and the that means, cups with matching saucers, a chocodon’t you? late cake and red Jell-o with fruit cocktail in it and bananas. they put russell Dead?” in his bassinet in the bedroom. i wasn’t “Yes,” supposed to go in there, but i went in I lied. I didn’t there when nobody was in there, even though there were people everywhere, know. some of them crying. the fan was off and there were candles all around him and everything was white: the blankets, the bassinet, his nightie. it smelled like him in there, like her. he was just lying in there the same way i had seen him so many times, his eyes closed, the covers pulled around him. i touched him a little on the shoulder, through his nightie, and he was no different. But then i pulled the cover back and saw his hands. they were open, palms up, sunnyside.

in front of the pigs, but it was no use. Mom was able to grab one pig by a hind leg and drag it away, but the pig kicked and squealed and Mom didn’t have enough energy to pull it any farther, so there they stood, Mom and the pig in the middle of the corral, a standoff, the pig kicking and my mother jerking with every kick. Finally she had to let go. the pig ran and dived, just like the others, and swam, just like the others, to the island where esther Williams was with the rest of the bathing beauties. it got quiet then. Mom just sat down right there in the manure. they were gone. all the pigs got wild, got crazy on us, and swam away, dived the way they weren’t supposed to, got out of there, swam like other animals, like sea animals, not like pigs, swimming, dumb farm animals diving, swimming, escaping, showing off. it was then that i saw the owl in the tree on the other side of the river, just above the bank, just a little ways past the island where the pigs were, in shallow water you could wade through right to the tree where the owl was. if you moved your eyes a little, the owl would disappear like magic, but then, if you knew how to look, it would appear again, out of the leaves and out of the twigs, there were its eyes. “sons of bitches!” Mom yelled. she picked herself up off the ground and picked up a hard horse turd and threw it at esther Williams. and then she picked up a rock. she spun in circles, around and around, winding up for the pitch, twirling a dust devil, her arms in the air, her skirt riding up, a dance, and hurled the rock with a sound from her inside and deep, a grunt, and the rock sailed through the air and went through the window of the chicken coop, the side where the baby chicks were. there was a little sound, a slight shattering in the sunny afternoon, and that was all. “Sons of bitches!” my mother cried, her ﬁsts, like Russell’s, aimed at the sky. “damned sows, damned sows sons of bitches!” i didn’t tell dad about the broken window in the coop, because russell died the next day. no, actually it was Monday that russell died, because the next day, the day after the pigs got out, was sunday, and on that day dad got the pigs back with the horse, had to lasso each pig and bring it across one at a time, even though it was sunday, but it was an emergency and not that servile. I was picking up my Lincoln Logs off the ﬂoor of the front room, or tinkertoys; Barbara hadn’t been home long, and i had done the chores. i had leaned a board in front of the broken window and was going to tell dad about it at supper. We were going to make cocoa because russell wasn’t crying. Mom was sitting in her special chair, she and russell’s special chair, holding him the way she always did, rocking, when she said, “Go get your father—russell’s dead.”

n the day of the funeral it rained. Barbara says it was sunny, but i remember there were umbrellas and that we all stood under umbrellas, and that i was wearing my overshoes. i stood to the right of the Monsignor and the altar boys. i got to smell the incense. My grandmother was behind me. Barbara stood by me on the side, and then aunt Marie, aunt Zita, aunt alma, aunt Marguerite, and then Mom here on the other. dad had bought her a new coat. it was navy blue, with big buttons. Behind dad stood my other grandma and Great-aunt Monica. When they lowered the casket, i thought about the door of the dead in the corral on the ground the day the pigs got out and that russell was still alive, but this is what is most important about what happened that day and the thing that i remember most of anything, in those days, those one hundred days. it’s that dad started crying so hard that they had to wipe the rain off the folding chair so he could sit down. as soon as i saw him sit down like that, i was on my way to him, and i was halfway there, just past aunt alma and almost to aunt Marguerite, before Grandma, the one behind me, got ahold of my arm and pulled me back, past the ﬂowers, past the door of the dead, and put me back in my place; in my place in front of her, back in my place, seven females from my father.

here was a reception at st. Joseph’s hall. Barbara showed me her classroom, although we weren’t supposed to go upstairs. i heard aunt Zita say that it was a blessing, because there was so much wrong with him. afterward, we went home. Mom drove, and when we got home i changed clothes and did my chores. the board was down from the window of the coop and all the chicks were dead. it looked to me that those who weren’t killed right off by the owl had smothered in the corner, in a heap, trying to get away.

his part is not as clear as other parts. What happened next are these things: Monsignor cody was there, and so were aunt Marguerite and uncle Pat, and

parts of Sea Animals previously appeared in The Quarterly

Liz Haley

t: Frontal sloPe b: What You should ProBaBlY tell PeoPle

a Bath in the sea

Liz Haley

Jesse Lee Stout

THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR met us in the vast victorian hallway of the funeral home, giving well-oiled condolences, then introduced his son, stating that he had done the reconstruction work on my grandmother. realizing that fatherly pride had trumped mortuary decorum, he added, “i think you will be pleased.” the talented son was slim and pale, with long, well-groomed, damp hair. he had huge blue eyes, blinking constantly. i was hot instantly for him and had a rare bout of sinful guilt. the attraction may have been mutual —he watched me intently, but all warm feeling was killed by the idea of him in a basement, wearing rubber gloves, reconstructing my grandmother. the old folks walked to the casket introducing themselves as if my grandmother were simply hard of hearing and in the hospital. they wished her a safe journey home with an ease that made it seem she was being discharged back into the world of the living. 85-year-old Myrtle placed her hand over my grandmother’s and stood so still that she, too,

seemed lifeless except that her hand, ridden with Parkinson’s disease, quivered over my grandmother’s immobile fingers. there was a quality of a vaudeville theater, even an old burlesque parlor to the viewing room—all the cheap gold on frames and chandeliers, the heavy red velvet curtains, the soft, sappy organ music. in her casket, wearing what appeared to be stage make-up, my grandmother lay still under a warm spotlight. she could have been a magician‘s assistant waiting for the lid of the box to close before being sawed in half. Walking up, i noticed that the talented son had done serious work on my grandmother. she’d died of a throat tumor that had climbed up into her mouth and caused half her jaw to be removed. My last images of her were of a sagging, disfigured face and eyes dim with painkillers. it was shock enough that her jaw was now perfectly fi xed and all traces of the construction were hidden by make-up as thick as any natural membrane; but her mouth, always rounded,

even monkey-like because of her buck teeth, was now smooth and even. she had the smile of a stranger. My grandfather came behind me. he’d always thought open casket funerals were vulgar, so i watched him carefully. he looked down at his wife’s new face, pulled a set of glasses from her dress pocket, placed them on her face, said, “You look good, Ginny,” then wept. My aunt, the witch, came in a black cloak with ropes of pentacles around her neck and eyes running with heavy makeup. she entered the room sobbing hysterically and clutching a stuffed unicorn under one arm. ceremoniously, she walked to the casket and placed the unicorn on my grandmother’s breast. “Guide her safely,” my aunt whimpered and whirled away toward the door. i looked at the tiny animal, white, and plush, with small pleading, plastic eyes. “God,” i thought, “they’re going to bury it alive; they can’t leave the poor thing in there.” -Donal Mosher

LAST

SUMMER, I had a trip planned to visit the Pacific Northwest, with the special intention of visiting my uncle roy. he was 82 years old and living with cancer. he was doing well, but it felt important to see him while i could. i was planning to see him in anacortes, Wa on august 6th. the week before my trip, i got the news that he’d very suddenly died. the date of the funeral was set for august 6th. another branch of the family had scheduled their annual camp-out in anacortes for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th, so they would already be in town as well. at the funeral, i tell my uncle roy’s widow, aunt sonja, about the coincidence of the dates, and she replies sweetly, “oh, isn’t roy so considerate?” My family and i arrive in anacortes the evening before the funeral. We are too late for the driving tour of all my uncle’s favorite spots around town, but just in time to attend the rosary service. there’s a whole schedule of events planned in honor of my uncle. as far as memorials go, my uncle’s is probably as good as they get. In film speak, I guess you’d call it a crowd pleaser (as opposed to a tear jerker, or a dramatic tour de force). My uncle lived a good, long, happy story. it makes for satisfying memorializing. at the rosary, the priest leading the service is young. he recites the prayers in a way that sounds like he enjoys the sound of his own voice. one of uncle roy’s sons has nine kids, and in the pew behind me are seven of the nine, rosary beads in hand. I hear them confidently reciting all the rosary prayers from memory, while my dad and i fumble through the printed program. the funeral the next day is a full catholic Mass, with all the rituals. the young priest announces that only practicing

catholics are welcome to receive communion. there’s a sign on the bathroom door, out in the entry way, which says not to use the bathrooms during mass. i become aware during the service that my aunt sonja is not taking part in any of the catholic rituals. i realize she never converted to my uncle’s religion, which surprises me because my uncle attended mass every day and was a fairly in-charge kind of guy. this strikes me as incredibly poignant. We get in the car and drive to the cemetery, which is about 25 yards behind the church building. on the casket, there is an arrangement of fishing nets, lilies and spherical glass fishing floats. It is mostly silent as the casket is lowered

into the ground, accompanied only by the cranking sound of the casket-lowering contraption, and crying. a gregarious cousin of mine who lives in southern california is enlisted to emcee the reception after the funeral. the parish hall looks like it was built in the 1970’s, with soaring natural colored wooden beams and large high windows in a scandinavian style. the architecture dwarfs my cousin, at the front of the room with a microphone. his manner as emcee is personable and enthusiastic. Family members and friends go up and tell stories, mostly about fishing in Alaska with roy. an old friend of roy’s tells a fishing story that lasts fifteen minutes. during the telling

I’m very ﬁdgety, but by the end of the story i’m happy that roy’s friend got to tell it. at the reception, one of my cousins interrupts the storytelling to announce that all the Maricich’s are taking a photo out in front of the church. the announcement happens at a moment that does not feel like the end of the reception. there are about a hundred family members in attendance, and they all seem to leave for the pictures. i feel uncomfortable when i think about what is left of the reception after the family exodus. out in front of the church, one of my older cousins is very intent about getting photographs of the family. she seems to have more passion than vision about how they should be arranged. should we just have the grandchildren of roy in this one, or should their parents (roy’s kids and their spouses) be included as well? My mother steps in and offers additional bossiness and equally little vision. i am ordered to take most of the photos because i have a nice camera. the hundred or so relatives loosely assembled stand in random clusters around the steps, awkwardly stepping in and out of the camera frame. the mania over the photographing feels like a grasp to capture the life that we have while we have it. i make promises to post all my photos online so my family can access them. i should do that. -Khaela Maricich

THE ONLY MAN wearing yellow is also carrying an umbrella, which is strange in the setting of the new Mexican desert in summer with no threat of a cloud, real or imagined, within a hundred miles of this gathering; a funeral for a beloved 59-year-old woman. We know most of her friends (one

photo: Amy Spielholtz

was a ‘60s catwalk model, and one drove down Pch once, telling us which houses she’d given blowjobs in). the only family members present are a B-movie robert redford ex-husband named thomas, his wheelchairbound, former flight attendant new wife named lucinda, and two sons: sean, visiting from Berlin, and scott, who has driven down from seattle in one go, fueled by nothing but adderall and strong green tea. I learn all this from rapid-fire dialog between the members of the funeral party. Words are spoken so fast and so carelessly that whole new imaginary sentences form in my head, independent of what people are actually saying. or maybe it’s just the speed that i’ve taken to drive here from san clemente, california. it’s hard to determine if people are sad or just really, really relieved and happy. no one is happy when someone dies, but there is a definite version of ecstasy in the air. about a third of the way through the day, the man in the yellow suit, without saying anything, disappears and never appears again. he may have gone to his hotel room or his house, if he lives near here. someone whispers that the dead woman had an affair with this man, but no one’s sure. there is a feeling in my speed-fatigued brain that he must stand for something, that if only i could untangle the symbolism behind this yellowdressed, unnamed, unacknowledged man of about 50, i would know why everyone is acting so strange. i stand back and watch the event, trying to see it for what it is. People are gathering in a desert resort for a funeral of a much-beloved woman who died of melanoma days earlier. they stand under bright sun to honor her. this is an aesthetic irony,

i think, and everyone standing around with champagne in their hands is bothered to the point that they are rifling through their bags and pockets for sunglasses. during the course of this nontraditional funeral (no priest or religious figure leads the ritual; no sappy words are spoken unless you find Great American poetry sappy), family members and friends stab each other in the back. one son steals $60 from the other son and buys bourbon with it. the ex-husband cries, confessing that he doesn’t think nearly this many people will attend his funeral. a pretty friend, the one who retold her blowjob locations, talks of honoring this unnamed woman. she thinks each of them should enact what was great about her in their own lives. People smile and sort of cry and then quickly forget this wellmeaning platitude. as the sun starts to set, i look around and acknowledge to myself that this southwestern setting is truly captivating. the resort is minimal—white boxes with goofy sandstone formations in the background, a cute shirtless native american boy riding a horse around the grounds. i wish

he was wearing head feathers. the sunlight is annoying, but in a way it makes us think about the dead. it truly gives the sense that human beings should not inhabit the desert of the american southwest, and that heaven, if there is one and if we ever get to see it, is most likely a bright light scenario. after the funeral was over, the people gathered around went to a huge Mexican restaurant that looked like it could have been a setting for a Quentin tarantino movie; heightened, huge, american. there was a strong sense —as long tables were dragged together over the Mexican tile ﬂoor —that this group of family and friends wouldn’t be seeing each other after these margaritas and tacos because the matriarch was gone, dead, burned and inserted in a water-soluble urn that would be illegally dropped into the lagoon in hawaii she liked to swim in as a girl, the lagoon where her boyfriend, a surfer, was killed by a shark. -Blair Mastbaum

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Forrest Martin

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Dana Bruington

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