The Grinnell Review Spring 2017 by The Grinnell Review

Copyright © 2017 by the Student Publications and Radio Committee (SPARC). The Grinnell Review, Grinnell College’s semi-annual undergraduate arts and literary magazine, is a student-produced journal devoted to the publication of student writing and artwork. Creative work is solicited from the entire student body and reviewed anonymously by the corresponding Writing and Arts Committees. Students are involved in all aspects of production, including selection of works, layout, publicity, and distribution. By providing a forum for the publication of creative work,The Grinnell Review aims to bolster and contribute to the art and creative writing community on campus. Acknowledgments: The work and ideas published in The Grinnell Review belong to the individuals to whom such works and ideas are attributed to and do not necessarily represent or express the opinions of SPARC or any other individuals associated with the publication of this journal. © 2017 Poetry, prose, artwork and design rights return to the artists upon publication. No part of this publication may be duplicated without the permission of SPARC, individual artists or the editors. The Grinnell Review is printed and bound by Colorfx in Waverly, IA. It was designed using Adobe InDesign® CS6. The typeface for the body text is Perpetua and the typeface for the titles is Didot. Cover art: Saint (Ah Um)| Zack Stewart | screenprint Inner title art: Hit Like A Girl (II)| Lydia James | lace, embroidery floss, ribbon, fabric stiffener All editorial and business correspondence should be addressed to: Grinnell College c/o Grinnell Review Grinnell, IA 50112 www.grinnellreview.com

LIII | Spring 2017 ARTS SELECTION COMMITTEE Josh Anthony Olivia Caro

EDITORS Serena Hocharoen Eliana Schechter Leinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ala Voss Alejandra Rodriguez Wheelock Julia Shangguan

WRITING SELECTION COMMITTEE Thanh Mai Jeremy Epstein Ethan Evans Jenkin Benson Andrea Baumgartel Abraham Golden Lilya Woodburn Kristin Brantley

Contents W riting Jenkin Benson Mr. Lappe April Is the Cruelest Month Annalisa Brandt Samsara

10 15

Andrea Baumgartel Outside the Alumni Recitation Hall

Steven Duong Iowan Phenomena

Abraham Golden Old Silver Luck 50 6

29 39

Eliana Schechter Confirmation 8 Entry 14 Israel Is the Same Size of New Jersey 23 Dreams 38 Alejandra Rodriguez Wheelock Middle of a cup of coffee

Lou Engleman The Life of Graham Jenkins 31

Skin

Caleigh Ryan Our Lady of Sorrows

Kristin Brantley, Eliana Schechter Dreams

Julia Marquiz-Uppman

A rt Zack Stewart One Second 20 Score for Anticipation 42

Josh Anthony Lone Pair 20 (After Anders KrisĂĄr) Untitled (Paper Airplanes) 34 Julia Broeker Name A More Iconic Trio, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve Been Waiting

Olivia Caro Rastros de Dos Cajas 10 Period Book 17 Serena Hocharoen taking up space 18 i have taught myself silence Sarah Hubbard Ludi Artificum

Lydia James Hit Like A Girl 12 7

Letter from the Editors Friends,

This year the Review time-travels into the future, jumping from our 46th issue to our 53rd. Mathematically inclined readers will wonder why issue 47 does not follow 46, and we would like to take the opportunity to address this reasonable concern. Apparently, issue 47 already appeared back in the spring of 2014 and the number then rolled back to 45 for the edition published that fall. As if this wasn’t puzzling enough, your faithful editor-journalists did some digging and discovered that some years back a typo changed issue 30 into issue 40, conjuring an additional ten issues of rich publishing history with a single stroke. If this all feels a bit overwhelming, consider that this leap forward puts us where, until recently, we didn’t expect to arrive until the year 2020. The new ARH has risen out of the pit, presidential hopefuls are visiting campus, and your editors all hold steady, well-paying, and spiritually edifying jobs. See how fast four years fly by? We would like to express thanks for the opportunity the Review and SPARC have provided us to explore our literary and artistic interests. Thanks to Jim Sigmon at ColorFX for all the time and effort he has put into making this publication a reality and to the Faulconer Gallery staff for letting us host our release party in this wonderful space. Finally, thank you to all of the writers, poets, artists, and photographers who make this publication what it is. We hope you keep creating, no matter what uncertainty the future holds. - The Editors arts Serena Hocharoen ‘17, Leina’ala Voss ‘18, Julia Shangguan ‘18 writing Eliana Schechter ‘17, Ale Rodriguez Wheelock ‘17 8

“Damn, what are y’all so afraid of?” Junot Diaz, speaking at Grinnell College, Feb ‘17

Confirmation Eliana Schechter

1. Everyone has all these records of you. The doctor: your minuscule drug allergies. Your best friend: the names only you can bring up. Your parents: you before you became you; you when all you knew was secure. God: endless spreadsheet of data and memories, of how sacred a squished challah in a backpack can feel. An immaculate conception. We say tradition like it’s in the past.

2. There is something very particular about crying on dark planes above everything & so near to it all. Lightning strikes elsewhere. There are things we only know in other languages. The way my mother says b’vakasha liftot ha-vi-lo-note, open the curtains please as in why isn’t this house full of light? Naki! states the post-it on the dishwasher; clean as in empty this now. In our phones Ima and Abba become ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ just in case. There is the question of passing in these years.

3. How come people who haven’t seen me since I was three recognize me but people who haven’t in two years don’t? My brothers tell me no one ever comments on who in the family they resemble. Sometimes I think adults tell young girls how beautiful they are as insulation from the years of “we should fuck” to come. My psychiatrist highly recommends birth control as a side to antidepressants. Buzzfeed consistently says to expect three to four children given my favorite colors & salads. No one has voices on this plane. The static of air pressure overrides attempts at personalization. Tell the pilot to glide through the air like a bird; is that not what we came for?

Name A More Iconic Trio, I’ve Been Waiting | Julia Broeker| cement, steel, red wine

Mr. Lappe Jenkin Benson keeps snorting down phlegm like an eagle swallowing a squinny and stuffing his plaid chest pocket with a clip of ticonderogas filed to pricks measured by his veteran sense, scoffing and scoffing as he pop quizzes the wannabe green beret Dylan who is too unnerved by walls covered by strange longitudes and portraits of of Hitler and Marx to explain the difference between bizarre Bolsheviks and Saudi bazaars, to tell him about the smoldering geography of Dresden and Ho Chi Minh.

Rastros de Dos Cajas | Olivia Caro | paper, vinyl, avocado, blackberries, jello, and egg

Outside the Alumni Recitation Hall Andrea Baumgartel And where are the people going in their gray-green trench coats, artichokes shuffling steps, questioning mud onto sidewalks, sidewalks. Sidewalks that were thought on many times before, the rain. Hearts are playing hopscotch with the rain, who will win, so skipskip along, skipskip aloneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;thoughts alone but mixing together sky low, where? Chalk it up to a lecture lost, a mind game edible, the geese on the street that canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell flesh from foul. Or cut lines like windpaper, or skip a rockturned-plunked into the stringling gutter worms unaware, underfoot, the mind a worn course to barelywhere.

Hit Like a Girl (I, II, III)| Lydia James|Lace, embroidy floss, ribbon, fabric stiffener

Iowan Phenomena Steven Duong Most people believe that the sun generates its energy through nuclear fusionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in reality, it is home to a colony of bioluminescent koi, a teeming cloud of living, breathing light. The soupspill galaxies gathering above our heads tonight are far-flung schools of a home sun. Like us, they cannot retain solid form as the day wears on. When we spill into the hallways at night, when we break apart under the weight of winter casualties, peeling out of the driveway with nothing but our backpacks in the passenger seat, we exercise the tendencies

of those starborne carp, who knowing no pond but the sun, swim through the night sky and find a place to be quiet and soft and still, until their molten home drifts back into shape. We too are born of the sun, but you and I have learned to defy thermodynamics. We hurtle through space like jars of mismatched pills, never approaching a silence of motion. Even as we roost together on this bench, watching snow blanket the grass outside the dorms, I feel the powdered comets inside me swirling and chittering, struggling to leave us behind in the cold. We are an economy of tethered suns, and for now, we shine, stolid beneath lakes of soy and corn. 15

Entry Eliana Schechter On a wall in the heart of the room hang: one cobalt glass evil eye, one teal blue hand-size hamsa, & one ceramic earth-colored dove. White tea candle sits on the faux stone sill, edges fogged from smoke trapped under glass under heavy lid. A friend once told me that sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scared of life having a word count. Loss is jagged, reminds me of that standing mirror I broke practicing jetĂŠs, leaving purple walls reflecting in pools of silver geometry.

Ludi Artificum | Sarah Hubbard | monotype and screenprint

April is the Cruelest Month Jenkin Benson The coming spring must sadly bring a slew of boys to the loggia. Below the sun, guitars will come. A tuneless six string orchestra. Some folksy riffs and pungent spliffs congest community hours; The stirring loud releases down, an eager swell from Main four.

Despite the funk of song and dank, I find myself appreciating my final weeks in Powesheik, for soon Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m graduating.

Ludi Artificum | Sarah Hubbard | monotype and screenprint

Samsara Annalisa Brandt After Nighthawks by Edward Hopper I. A crescent curve grips the sky like a slit wrist. It drips celestial apathy on Earth’s dimpled proud flesh that speaks of self-immolation, the tight slice of axes, carved edges punctuated with meridian toothpicks. II. From a city bar stool, I tug at the world and watch it unravel, its limp mass spooling through my steepled fingertips. I peer at the images spinning into a Gordian knot of life-web.

III. A red-dressed woman binds her lips, wraps tongue around an invisible gag. She wants to pluck out the centuries-old silence like an infected, over-ripe tonsil and force it down her date’s throat. She smiles, glances at his drink, murmurs “How does it taste?” IV. The bartender leans down, pours another drink. He eyes the man’s fedora, the crisp lines of tailored clothes, stares at the apex of her low-cut gown. After last-call, he palms cash from the register and slips outside where shadows leave grease-stains on his starched white shirt.

Period Book | Olivia Caro| laser engraved acrylic sheet and acrylic felt 19

taking up space | Serena Hocharoen| handmade paper, thread, linocut

Middle of a cup of coffee Alejandra Rodriguez Wheelock

Do you remember that Monday morning, when I said I would meet you in the middle of a cup of coffee? I think I have met everyone important in my life in the middle of a cup of coffee, as sooner or later coffee is present in our encounter. Days later, do you remember when we looked up from the freshly baked red velvet cupcakes at the chalkboard in the café shop. You pointed at the writing in cursive “Before I die I want to...” Everyone was standing up to write an answer as if they were making an important decision. They moved and we moved, across the coffee shop as the Spaniards did when discovering the new world— slowly, with tentative steps and our minds wondering what stories the strangers around us held. I had my answer, but somebody had already written it out. So I proceeded to have a silent identity crisis because I wondered if someone was more me than me. I remember telling you, “This happens often; the last time

I was shopping for granola at Walmart.” You laughed and told me I was being dramatic. Then I grabbed your face and started: “Walmart. Imagine you walk through the neon-lit aisles of a store, looking for granola. Then you find the granola aisle between two tall structures full of candy. Your desired snack looks squeezed as if the sugary neighbors were closing in on an attack. The labels of all the boxes of the granola are solid colors; some letters are illegible.” I squeezed your face harder as if to stop your laughter from coming out. I proceed, “You notice that the granola area has no theme or color coordination but, rather, the boxes are crammed together rather than artistically arranged. Then, a sudden dread takes over your soul as you realize you have no idea what granola bar to choose; the choices are just too many: you question if you need chocolate in your life, if you need extra fiber, or if you are allergic to peanuts. Half an hour and a

then, a sudden dread takes over your soul as you realize you have no idea what granola bar to choose

hyperventilation attack later, you leave the granola kingdom defeated without oats and googling every single bar you encountered hoping to eventually find the right one…that is a horror story.” You were silent and dismissed my story while pretending to gulp liquid from a clearly empty cup. I played around with the small pool of liquid at the bottom of my cup to avoid eye contact and forgot you were present. We ended up observing each other’s pretend drinking behaviors because of the lack of conversation. I realized I was taught to drink black coffee while you were not. Earlier I noticed that, I stop and detect things that my taste buds would miss when first kissing the hot liquid. Before I take a sip, feel the fruity, floral and citrus undertones dancing on the inside of my nose. Then, I perceive the different tastes while the coffee is in my mouth. Today’s coffee tastes mildly of chocolate with undernotes of caramel: caffeine is an afterthought. However, you drink coffee as if it would automatically shock you to life; like electricity it rushes through you and you just plug yourself in. To escape your eyes I stood up and moved closer to the “Before I die…” chalk board to read the answers. I noticed someone, maybe with irony, wrote “live”. That was the only answer that made sense yet it was the vaguest of them all. I looked back at you. We were sitting there as craziness was unfolding in front of us. At a distance both from each other and others, we saw how strangers took brightly color chalk, reduced their

Lone Pair (After Anders Krisár) | Josh Anthony| digital collage

life philosophy into a word, neatly wrote it down on an overcrowded sea of neon-chalk scribbles and then walked away feeling accomplished –we saw color meet contemplation. We were meeting people, you and I and all of us, in the middle of a cup of coffee. I still wonder if you noticed.

One Second (page 1)| Zack Stewart| laser engraved and debossed artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book with screenprinted band 23

One Second (cover)| Zack Stewart| laser engraved and debossed artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book with screenprinted band 24

Israel is the Same Size of New Jersey Eliana Schechter

with overcompensating heat. Or, you also find some sense of renewal in the air. Perhaps the idea of enjoying Some mornings, I thought I would freeze before I even the cold, finding something meaningful in its frigidity got to the senior parking lot, even before leaving the seems masochistic. My excuse is that I grew up in a expanse of my driveway. The recently adopted 1994 home with central air conditioning and heating, both Chrysler Lebaron had intended usages; this was not of which were installed for the day the house is sold. it. High schoolers were not its intended passengers. My parents let the house rest at 62 degrees Fahrenheit With its canvas top, waiting the ten minutes for the in the winter and 80 in the summer. Going outside car to warm up was almost illogical. I felt that two requires little emotional preparation; the temperature minutes were sufficient; at least, that was as long as changes rarely shock me. Still, my mom had to remind I was willing to sit in the cold. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember any me to wear a coat outside when I first came home from thoughts from those mornings besides wow, my hands Jerusalem. are really trembling right now, and I hope the school busses This complexity of always-already encountering have gone past here already. We often talk about the need the world is what I remember in early January, back in to be present; how often we are present is another Jersey after a Middle Eastern winter with its unending story. rain, deathly slick stone streets, and sunsets beginning The maroon convertible in its last year of use around teatime. Without golden stone streets or street was a daily reminder of the need to encounter the signs immediately recalling convoluted histories, cold, encounter New Jersey winters, to take them winters in the States are almost neutral entities. as your own. I doubt that I thought about these American streets in winter match the skies most days, mornings in this manner then; I probably did not reminiscent of tabula rasa. Stuck shoveling endless appreciate the silence of winter mornings enough. piles of snow after the blizzard and awaiting the In the winter, things go one of two ways. You greet daily flight cancellation, being home carried a new the frigid air hesitantly, as a complicated necessity simplicity; one telling me to stay put, to forget about on the way to something else â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a class, a job, the Iowa. supermarket: all places with heating, perhaps even That first day on Mount Scopus I stood on a stone patio 25

overlooking the Old City, introducing myself to people, but really watching dozens of other college students form cliques – unsure of whether or not I was included in any of these. We all played Jewish Geography that day. For example, I met a girl who knows one of my friends from college and had a crush on my second cousin with whom she worked at camp. Another girl goes to my dad’s synagogue and would proceed to tell me her life story, insisting that I really did know her best friend, for the rest of the semester during our Hebrew class’s breaks. Over sweet potatoes, pearl couscous, and chitchat I was struck by the oddness of momentarily being an emotional receptacle. With a rabbi and cantor for parents, serving this role for people I barely know is not new to me. Yet, when I had impetuously decided over spring break to study abroad in Israel, the thought of being thrown back into this position had not been on my mind. What I’m trying to say is that I found what Martin Heidegger calls thrownness, an ontological state of finding oneself already in this world with a set of unescapable histories, realities, and future possibilities. The question almost becomes one of accommodation or resistance. Maybe a blank slate is what I, ironically, wanted out of Jerusalem. In some way, I wanted that stay to be one of (re)claiming a mainstream Jewish identity, one where I could pretend to be normative. I didn’t know what a mainstream Jewish identity would look like at this age, but I wanted it. Growing up with clergy for

parents, even within a liberal home I had found myself outside of what I saw as the two possible mainstream paths. Entering public school in late elementary school, I realized I lacked the cultural know-how on being Jewish without the religious linings. I found it hypocritical that others only went to shul (synagogue) on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; I was there twice a week at minimum. From sunset on Fridays to sunset on Saturdays, I only saw my family and whoever else was at shul that weekend. Shabbat outings consisted of shul, lunch and playdates at family friends’ homes, and the library. Each weekend I took out two books from the library; for years they consisted of the Uglies, Gossip Girl, the Princess Diaries, whatever teen fiction I could find that would teach me about adjusting to this secularized and increasingly gendered world. Only in the last few years of high school after a series of arguments would my parents let me hang out with friends before the end of Shabbat. Still, Jewishness as cream cheese and lox, noodle kugel, and synagogue only on high holidays does not not appeal to me. At the same time, I’m not sure that a ‘traditional’ one does either. Being in Israel did not feel real for the first few weeks. Each morning I woke up, sleepily walked a mile up Mount Scopus to Hebrew class, saw the Old City looking like a movie backdrop on the way, and felt somewhat dazed. In the evenings between quickly doing Hebrew homework and hanging out with people, I could be found in my room reading

books – mainly The Empathy Exams, to be exact – from the English used bookstore I had found by the main grocery market. I had wanted to be the kind of Jewish girl who had gone to Jewish sleep-away camp (and now Israel) and loved it. I had also wanted to find myself a nice Jewish boy and live stereotypically ever after. I lived with these odd fantasies in my head for that first miserable month until Rosh Hashanah. The weekend before Rosh Hashanah I went to Tel Aviv with friends, where the five of us stayed in a hostel room so narrow that only one person could walk between the bunk beds at a time. In the mornings, we walked across the street to the beach where we did our best to dodge the jellyfish. That Saturday night, after everyone had either gone to sleep or out to the clubs, I sat on the steps leading down to the cobalt water and imagined myself coming here every weekend. The next morning, I took a bus from downtown Tel Aviv to my cousins’ apartment in Ra’anana for Rosh Hashanah. That morning the traffic is hurried; the bus rides on the sidewalk at points. Everyone is trying to get home for the start of the Jewish new year. Ra’anana is a smaller, more suburban city about an hour away from Tel Aviv by bus; a city also known for the number of American olim. The word olim comes from the Hebrew verb la’alot, which translates as “to ascend.” Ben and Jamie, with whom I was staying, are my mom’s first cousins and modern orthodox Jews who made aliyah – another conjugation of la’alot – almost two decades ago. When I get there, Barry

shows me the computer room I will be staying in. A pale wooden bookshelf lines the left side of the room; generations of framed family photographs prop up American politicians’ biographies. George W. Bush smiles at me. An old Dell sits on a thin black wireframe desk. I’m putting my bag down on the faded argyle quilted futon when Ben remarks, “you know, the main room is on a Shabbat timer but the power will be off in the house for all of chag (holiday).” Shabbat timers are preprogrammed devices that regulate the timing of lighting or electricity so that one does not risk breaking Jewish law regarding things that are muktzeh, or ‘set apart,’ on Shabbat and holidays. Many orthodox Jews consider turning lights on to be like igniting a fire. I think these devices take away the agency to make that choice of observance and hold oneself to such a commitment. But I do not think much of Ben’s comment until later that night when upon returning to the room when I find that the lights really will not turn on and cannot find the cord to open the metal shuttered windows. Soon after that conversation, the others arrive. Mira, their daughter – the eldest (and unmarried) of three – comes first, and then Aaron, a silent cousin from another branch of the family who made aliyah a few years ago. A few hours later at sunset, Judy lights the candles, marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. Ben, Aaron, and I make our way down the six flights of stairs (since using the elevator is also considered muktzeh) and a few blocks over to their

shul. Walking downstairs into the basement of shul where the Sephardic service is held, the first sight is a mechitza, in this case a white lattice fence, that separates the room with folding tables and plastic chairs with makeshift covers lining each side. On the right hand side is the Aron Kodesh, the ark which holds the Torah. It is also the men’s side and from where the service will be held. Since my (women) cousins did not come, I sit by myself at table #2 on the left. On a humid summer day in modesty central, I’m left there feeling awkward in a long-sleeve shirt that covers my collarbones and a long, navy paisley skirt. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to look at the men’s side so unless I’m reading from my machzor (prayer book for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), the off-white wall facing me becomes the center point of the service for me. Some argue that the literal physical divisions and the overly modest clothing stabilize spirituality by preventing invasive sexual thoughts. From these divisions spring two rather homosocial spheres where each gender studies with itself, dances with itself, prays with itself. The erotic remains in these spaces, but is channeled into spirituality. By the time the service is over, there are five women besides me scattered around the tables. This issue of attendance does not exist on the other side of the mechitza. “Give it a try,” Ben and Jamie will tell me later that night when I ask about the mechitza. Of course, if you’re not heterosexual, the simplicity of this may be lost on you. It still is on me.

After that long hour, back in the main room of Ben and Jamie’s apartment we sit down for dinner. A set of wooden bookshelves lines a wall; these shelves hold modern Israeli literature, sets of rabbinic commentaries, recent Jewish legal writings, and so on. Leaning back against these, Ben mentions hearing from his dad about how interesting Maya’s wedding was. Maya is another cousin back in the States who had just gotten married. Over bowls of gazpacho, this becomes the dinner conversation. “It’s a shame she couldn’t find a Jewish boy,” Jamie says in a resigned manner before looking over at me. “What do you think of this?” “Of intermarriage?” I ask, not really understanding where this is going. “I don’t have an issue with it.” Suddenly, everyone is fascinated by whatever soup is left in their bowls. “Why? What do you guys think?” Ben looks at Jamie with the kind of glance that parents exchange as they silently agree on a way to handle something. “Well, we feel, well, I’ll let Mira speak for herself.” He leans his chair back against the bookshelf again. “I think it’s gross!” Mira blurts out next to me. I must have looked shocked as she quickly continues, “I mean, it’s really not that the person they’re marrying is gross, but the fact that they couldn’t take the time to find someone Jewish.” There is something crudely easy about saying this here, in the Jewish state where interfaith dating might be considered laziness at best–

if not other things. “We just really believe that Jews should prioritize marrying other Jews,” Ben murmurs as if a politically correct reiteration will shift the atmosphere. “Did you know that some people think it’s racist to only want to date Jews?” Maya declares. I just shake my head no. I’m simultaneously running through a list of people my brothers and I have each dated, and trying to remember if any of them were Jewish. Only one girl comes to mind. I’m left wondering whether Jews are a racialized group for Maya, whether there is something so intrinsically distinct about being Jewish that I’ve never noticed before in my multicultural environment. The next afternoon at lunch Jamie’s brother, a professor at a nearby university, will ask me, “What has your experience of anti-Semitism on campus been like?” When I respond that I haven’t experienced it, he will give me an incredulous look as if I have misspoken. That conversation quickly falters. Sometimes it seems that for some people critiques of Israeli government policy and behavior automatically qualify as anti-Semitism. This is not something I bring up. Clearly, I don’t have the right answers for this crowd. If I had only been there for a night rather than three days I might have said something, asked why racism came to mind for Mira, or why he

doubted my answer. There is always an awkwardness in confronting people, in asking the hard questions about beliefs, and – for me, especially – in overcoming avoidant tendencies. How do you address thrownness? In these moments I freeze. I have been trained to be a good guest, to politely disengage rather than disagree. Lately, this act leaves me feeling disembodied. There is always some dissonance between you and the world, between your identities and the extent of their recognition. In Israel, I begin to think about this more. Why did the presumption of heterosexuality feel heavier here? Perhaps, because these were supposed to be my ‘people’ when my Torah study partner from the university’s Hillel, an American-Israeli orthodox woman in her late sixties, told me that “homosexuality is a moral deviation and mental disease,” – a curable one, though! – I didn’t know how to respond. All I had asked was, “What room is there in your community for exploring nontraditional gender roles?” For a moment, I thought about coming out. The thought of her recoiling stopped me. I had argued against her disparaging comments on egalitarian parenting in the past, but all I could say at this moment was that I disagreed with her. Feeling incredibly unsettled, I found some way to leave early. Walking down the mountain that night, the

George W. Bush smiles at me

streets were empty beyond the occasional hum of the green city buses. Beyond my eyes blurring as I tried to collect myself, tried not to throw up, all I remember from that walk is the pale, tall grasses swaying under the lamplight at the main intersection before my dorm. Growing up, my mom would always quote our grandma when my brothers and I lied, saying, “What does it mean to you to call yourself an honest person?” I hated that response at the time. Now back at school, I increasingly find myself turning to this saying, trying to push back against the ease of avoidance in my own life. Yet, I rarely need it in classes where we’ve been trained to “attack the idea, not the person.” Theoretical religion does not require the same emotional labor that those discussions in Israel demanded, does not demand. The oddity of Israel was the sense of abandonment I felt in a place where I was constantly being ‘welcomed home’ with expectant questions about whether or not I too would make aliyah. Some people asked, “How are you?” Others cut to the chase. If I said I wouldn’t be making aliyah there usually was a patronizing response to be found on giving this decision time. So I settled on saying “maybe” when asked. “Maybe” provided an exit from the burden of proof that these conversations implicitly demanded, allowing for a few games of moral relativism. And so, amidst all the noise and food of Rosh Hashanah, I remember spending the previous Rosh Hashanah in Iowa. Again I am situated within offwhite walls, my dorm room a little cubicle barely

lit by the grey daylight. Perhaps there was a light on; depression flattens the memory, overlays the scene with multiple variants of the setting. There is old machzor in my hands that I have taken from a cupboard in the Jewish student lounge that held machzorim amidst old television remotes after a lackluster turnout at the previous night’s service. I am reading Unetaneh Tokef aloud, Unetaneh tokef kedushat hayom ki hu norah v’ayom uvo tinase malchutecha v’kiyon b’chesed kisecha v’teshev ahlav b’emet. We lend power to the holiness of this day. For it is tremendous and awe filled, and on it your kingship will be exalted your throne established in lovingkindness, and you will sit on it in truth.

class, I colored in such a hangnail with a ballpoint pen. For the rest of the day it dangled from my finger like a blue, shriveled appendix, until I finally snipped it off with a pair of nail clippers.) Sometimes blood seeps into the crescent of my nailbed, ringing it with red Julia Marquez-Uppman like nail polish improperly removed, and other times there is no blood at all, the skin parting easily from my finger, sloughing away with a whisper. Often my I sit in a small circle of people and listen to a woman I admire speak her mind. Her words are passionate and nailbeds throb with a dull ache, edged with raw pink spots, tiny open wounds. eloquent, but my eyes are drawn to her hands, which Today I work on a patch of tough, dead skin by the are more so: slender but strong, like ballerinas or ice nail of my left middle finger, digging and scraping skaters, they glide around in front of her in a dance of and tugging with the same intensity and focus that intuitive punctuation—unplanned, but exactly right. possesses the other members of my group, who all Something in their movement makes me think of angles, lines relating to each other, planes intersecting. lean towards each other, listening with concern. Our I look down at my own hands folded quietly in my lap. country is in dire straits and we must do something Then—automatically, it seems—I hunch over and begin about it. We must fix it, and the way we will fix it is scraping and tearing away the cuticles of my left hand to talk, to listen, to nod our outrage at each other. To avoid eye contact, I stare down at my raggedy cuticles, with the nails of my right. As usual, I am merciless, wishing I was one of them, someone with strength picking and worrying the tiny shreds of skin with and righteous conviction, someone unafraid. But I am savage abandon. As always, it hurts—not enough to merit a Band-Aid, just enough to sting a little, to pay a tired, so tired, and beneath that, in a deeper, truer part of myself, I am scared—too scared to speak, and too miniature penance. ashamed of my fear to name it. So the best I can do I do this often when I’m bored, when I’m anxious: it is sit here and pick silently, fervently, at my own skin burns just hot enough to distract me from whatever until I manage, finally—deliciously—to yank a scrap of it is I don’t want to think about. Sometimes I peel off small curls of skin, soft as shredded Parmesan cheese, it off. I will fix it by peeling away layer after layer of which I flick away onto the floor. Sometimes the skin disposable skin until my frightened heart is finally is too thick to rip all the way off, so it hardens instead into a stiff yellow stump of a hangnail. (Once, bored in exposed. I will fix it by pretending there is absolution 31

Skin

in the blood I draw from my own body. The fragment of skin I tore away leaves behind a pink, tender crevice into which the blood rushes hungrily, welling up into a shining bead. I bring my finger to my mouth and taste a brief saltiness as I suck it away. The woman I admire continues to speak, her cadence forceful and assured, her hands graceful. Her fingernails are unblemished, filed into a series of smooth, cold ovals. I watch them float in front of me and find them remarkable, like tiny, frozen-over pools, perfect and pristine.

The Life of Graham Jenkins Lou Engleman August 28, 2016, 9:33 PM I look up from my textbook for but a moment and find myself staring at opportunity. Long has it been since James Boswell captured the nuance of a gentle genius in his biography The Life of Samuel Johnson, too long, and now, with the world lost in a slough of despond, do we need someone like him the most to help remind us what we, we gentle sacks of sentient meat, are capable of, of the beauty we may create. Now I, a humble friend of one of the last great romantic poets aim to make what must be remade: to capture for our modern eyes these moments that too easily escape us. I will be the Boswell to Samuel Johnson’s Graham Jenkins. And what better subject to record? Majesty follows him, leaving beauty where he walks, the impression that at any moment, flowers could sprout from the ground! A true man of culture and purveyor of art, there is not a moment where he fails to impress. Take, for instance, this moment. I gaze across the sterility of the Oberlin College library and see him, sat upright in his chair, posture straighter than a ruler, his right shoulder edged in my direction, his computer

screen in full view. His feet, significantly larger than mine, lie still, one sat atop the other, with his ADIDAS harboring what, if I had this sort of fetish, would drive me wild. On his computer, I see his large hands, palms nearly the size of basketballs, scroll through a Facebook news feed surely more interesting than my own, as he releases a laugh that, I’m sure, shakes the library as a whole, although it may simply be my body quivering in reaction to his excitement. He beckons me and I see that his joviality stemmed from a video of a cat running full speed through what appears to be a green house. The cat crashes through a glass window, shattering it. He slaps my back, nearly shattering me, and then yells for the whole library to hear, “DUDE! THAT CAT IS FUCKING DEAD NOW FOR SURE! HAH!” To find pure joy in such a trying time, one must truly be great. 9:34 PM He sneezed. Someone nearby says “Bless you” quite loudly, not as loudly as him though, and he turns to them and laughs. Joy! In the face of impending sickness! Truly, the strongest will power of any man I have come to know. August 30, 2016, Roughly 2:30 PM

In our class, I cannot look away. He sits in his salmon polo shirt and describes the history of Ireland. I try to note everything he says, but alas, I am too lost in its magnitude. His polo has something other than a horse embroidered upon my Star’s breast. His hair, strong from the bleach he purged from his years spent treading water on his high school swimming team. His cheeks, curving along his prized primitive jawline, flush with blood, rosy, like that girl from that one music video The Killers put out. Honestly, objectively, he’s like a 7. At least.

September 8, 2016, 5:15 PM Although his beauty at dinnertime is unparalleled, this meal proved a bittersweet disaster. He was halfway through his third ice cream cone, his tongue touching the towering delight with the softest, simplest sensuality, when I could not bear to watch any longer. I looked down into my pasta and remarked, apparently much too loud, how incredible this very story was becoming, thanks entirely to his majesty. Unfortunately, I was slightly too loud, and the blubbering moron who followed him from meal to meal and class to class piped up, loud enough for all to Roughly 10:00 PM hear: “What will? What story? Are you a writer?” Same Salmon, same man. I ride the library bicycle This woman. Frailty personified. She masks her desk in order to achieve the right figure to cater his knowledge of my sweet Jenkins’s lack of outward attention. I hear him talking to his group of cute hipster affection for her with cheap nicknames, jokes, and friends, the ones I strive to join someday: “Dude, I’m criticisms. She takes photos of him at his most not even mad at Ryan Lochte. He can do whatever he vulnerable, launching ad hominem affronts to his wants. He’s so hot…” Forgiveness is a virtue that not visible genius. She screeches teasing nicknames, like all can embody, yet he does it with gusto and makes it “Jenky! Janky Poo! Jraham Genkins! Jowsty Boyo! look as simple as breathing. Gerkhin JeJop! Banksy! Jorbly! Jenko! Jenkuary! Jenky I overhear him say he was breastfed until he was Jenk! Jonko! Jeebly! Jinkies! Jenkenstien! Jenkman! 3. One asks him, “Were you a C-Section baby?” Gramberry! Grahampa! Grahambled Eggo!” I hear this He replies candidly, “No I was… expelled… mockery, and I seethe. Someday, I will end it. vaginally.” He puts his delight on hold, for my secret’s revelation gives him pause. This monster, wearing September 6, 2016, Time Unknown a denim shirt with small, tacky, embroidered cows Black and White Striped Polo jumping across it, in her sandals and socks and mom He is My Finish Line jeans; she must have gotten these clothes at some spinster’s estate sale.

I Imagine the barren warehouse where she picked dry the bones of a woman as lonely as she will be when she dies. I fantasize about the moment I will get to walk through her estate sale, observing a physical testament to a failed life, a merciless disaster open to the public from noon to five. What would I find if I were to peruse the aisles of the little she owned? I answer this question even before I finish asking it: nothing valuable. She sits at the dinner table with an oblivious, simple, dumb smile while he boils with anxious confusion. All attention falls on me. I look around for something to cram the gaping hole that spoiled my chance to document Graham’s perfection, to try to capture in prose a portrait of a figure so perfect it is as though he were carved out of porcelain. But instead, this dead eyed troll and her destructive carelessness have laid me bare. Without finishing my dinner, I was forced to flee.

longer stung my hands. I felt capable and inspired yet again. His birthday on the 19th will truly be a marvel for the ages, a reimmagination of The Iliad, The Odyssey, a new epic for a new world! October 19, 2016, He asked me to begin by specifying that he is not usually the type of guy to masturbate while on the telephone with someone, but sometimes one thing just leads to another. Shocked to hear such vulgarity erupt from my personal Fountain of Youth, the sweat on my palms begins to run wild. He gave me the tour of his favorite haunts: “Downtown Oberlin, or Blowberlin as we like to call it, really blows. But there’s some pretty rad stuff too. There’s this burrito place that’ll blow your mind. It’s like a Chipotle but less corporate, and they serve booze. I got this fake ID that says my name’s Elvis too. The guy who usually works behind the counter is like a 5, so it makes the fact that I’m a 7.5 stand out to the total 8.8 babe who also works there. Then there was this diner around the corner from there that was open 24 hours a day until Zak spewed there one time at like 4 AM after a night of playing this game called Captain Captain Hands, a variation on Edward

“Dude! That cat is Fucking dead now for sure! hah!”

October 5, 2016 I had not seen my Star for near a month, keeping to myself to avoid further shame upon both of us. But today! A day of miracles! He decided that I was passionate and skilled enough to document the events of his birthday party! A fantastic gift. The color has returned to my cheeks, and the thought of a pen no

Untitled (Paper Planes) | Josh Anthony| monotype suite

40 hands, where you duck tape two of those sort of small bottles of Captain Morgan to your hands and then can’t take them off until they’re both empty. After that the café only stayed open from 7 AM to like 3 PM. Zak’s super good at making his mark on history like that.” Beauty, diminishing by the moment. I try to hold on to what I love about him, but it slips through my fingers like sand. He says: “Zak was a Junior while I was a Sophomore. It didn’t change the fact that we were roommates though. We got along so well when we met each other at this party off campus and our eyes locked as soon as Drunk In Love started playing. We chuckled at each other and then went in for a hug, which was weird because neither of us usually hug people. I’m one of those ‘show affection by headbutt’ kinds of guys.” “This day is gonna kick your ass, Motherfucker,” Zak said, looking down at his fitness band that has a watch in it. He wears it whenever he goes to war, which are the names he gives to playing lacrosse and drinking, sometimes at the same time. “I can tell he has something planned. And whenever Graham has a plan, something got broken. And I got a feeling tonight it’s gonna be someone’s heart.” I used to think of Graham as a calming, subtle genius. But with him here laid out bare before me, I fear for my safety.

In about an hour and a half, they had demolished the pony keg that Graham and Zak had brought to Fort Dryheave, which is the, in their words, “baller” name they named their house. Graham ran to me and yelled, “My heart races! Flooding my body with blood flooded with the dopamine that flooded my brain because of drinking all of that beer, and I just can’t wait for my party to start!” But no one showed up to his party. It was just Graham and his two friends. And me, of course, watching, but not really there. How sad was that? He spent his whole party wondering when his party was going to start. His friend Jay had shown up a while back and was DJing, debuting Graham’s “sick” new mixtape that he named “A Vindication of the Rights of ‘Whoa, Man’.” At this point, a glass hit the wall right next to my head, spraying me with broken glass and liquor. I hid in the closet for the rest of the night, leaving in the morning before the sun came up. As far as I was concerned, my project was over. These three boys creating so much danger. It was a wonder they’d lived as long as they had. It feels infuriating to have your faith and hope crushed as a result of your own ignorance. I’d believed in him, truly, the way you believe in a fictional character, crafted perfectly in order to mean something to someone. I’d believed him infallible, but I was only ignoring his massive, fatal flaws. I have never felt lonelier than I did in that closet, having my trust betrayed and my hopes let down. Believing in him has

burdened me, and now, with each fleck and shard of glass I pull from my hair, each tiny slice on my hands, I am reminded of a truth I cannot avoid, the crushing fact that there is not a soul on this planet who is exactly like I want them to be. Later that afternoon, Graham sent me an e-mail containing what he wanted the conclusion of this piece to read: I came to and it was light out. The birds’ singing sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Cocaine was ground into the ridges of my corduroys and the house sounded empty. Usually on Sunday mornings there were people scattered all around on the lawns outside houses. When I looked out the front window our lawn didn’t look distressed. It looked like it had been mowed on Friday. The furniture was all tipped over and when my left foot hit the carpet, what I assumed was beer or bong water soaked into my sock. I saw Zak and Jay’s shoes, three of them on the rug, one of them on the living room table. Zak looked pretty peaceful when I walked into the kitchen. He was being spooned by the three-foot bong that he’d named Soulja Boy. You know how when your phone battery dies, and you plug it in the next morning, you get all the texts and messages and notifications from the night before,

and it vibrates like crazy? My head felt like it was buzzing like that. I felt for my phone and figured that since it wasn’t in my pocket, it must be buried under something. Picking up the garbage surrounding me on the floor, my hands felt like balloons filling with water, slowly. Every now and then I’d get a rush of blood and my eyes would feel heavy. I usually liked hangovers. The feeling I’d get when I woke up, whether I remembered the night or not, it made me feel like it was real. That it happened. It wasn’t a memory. It was a real feeling. I want to feel things. I don’t want to remember them. I want to feel things. I don’t really miss the memories I don’t have. I miss the feelings that go away when the hangover is gone. This hangover just felt like lonely failure. The house looked exactly like it did when I woke up the day before. No windows were broken. The light bulbs were all still intact, so no one played catch with those. That’s pretty boring. The fucked up thing about seeing my face reflected in our living room mirror that morning was that I wasn’t supposed to be able to because the mirror was supposed to be shattered into a million pieces all over the floor. Why would I want memories of a night like that? I’d rather wake up with a hangover, bruises, maybe a chipped tooth or a black eye than with a memory of how that night didn’t go how I wanted

He sits in his

salmon polo shirt and describes the history of ireland

it to. The only thing I ever want to happen is to not remember what happened, and to see it and feel it happening later. Nothing feels more real than all of the pain I’d escaped for a night rushing back to me in the form of a hangover. And when you look at the remains of what you’ve done while using? You’ve got to feel some pride when you pick up each individual shard of a full body mirror. The little slivers going into your finger, maybe a few spurts of blood, they all say to you: I did something. But I did nothing. Again. And that’s when I started to think that maybe we were the type of guys to not do much more than nothing.” He didn’t remember this, or ever mention it again, but while I hid in the closet he sent me a text asking me to make him into a fairy tale.

Dreams

Kristin Brantley & Eliana Schechter 1. Hands fishing through the candy bins, Kayla’s fingers pushed through something. She pulled her hands back from the bin immediately. Looking around the open air market, all she saw were vendors with their overflowing vegetable carts and haggling customers. “Cookie?” said an unfamiliar voice. Suddenly there was a vendor holding out a plate of frogs. The frogs’ eyes glimmered like the one in the healthy 2017 memes. She was really nervous and didn’t know what to say. Were they real frogs? “Don’t be stupid, Kayla” said Lila, suddenly at her side. Lila dropped a coin in the vendor’s hand and delicately scooped a frog into her hand. Before Kayla could say anything, Lila had bitten into the frog. Red liquid seeped from the corner of her lip.

away, you know how it is,” I would say. “Well, that’s interesting,” says the girl whose name I can’t remember, “Hopefully we can hang out soon. I’d love to hear more about that!” before walking away.

2. Sometimes I wonder what postgrad interactions will be like, maybe like, “Aw! Look how vague you still look! It’s so nice to see you! I’m a freelance pet walker now. What are you up to?” “Oh, I just finished working on a really cool dystopian film in L.A.. I’m just back here to remember why I moved

4. The museum’s flooding and my family is too caught up in the Ancient Egypt wing to leave. One more sarcophagus, they keep saying. Leave the Met through the steps, desperately avoid tripping down all of them. Try to take refuge in a Best Buy; get kicked out for wearing a football jersey on National Baseball Day.

3. In the middle of the night, ghosts appear like powerpoint transitions. Suddenly there, defying expectation, before swirling away. If you see the nyan cat, in your dreams you’ll learn how to zoom through the rainbow streaked air and do rescue missions for their own sake. In Season 60: White Supremacy vs. The Bad Side of Star Wars, you’ll zoom through endless operas, dodging the multitasking audience -- one eye on the stage, one on you. J and you will zoom rescue supplies through, watch your friends fall in endless spirals.

Our Lady of Sorrows old woman continues reading. “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman God, and to his throne. clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath her head a crown of twelve stars: a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and thousand two hundred and threescore days.” pained to be delivered.” The old woman keeps a statue of the Virgin in The girl says something, but the old woman cannot the front yard, and another in the upstairs hall. The hear her. The old woman waits for her to ask again. hall Virgin used to scare the girl when she was young, “Why are you reading this?” the girl asks. “This is and in a way it still spooks her now. She is a very important for you,” the old woman tells her. The girl pale Virgin, veiled in white and robed in blue; eyes glares, thinking it is a joke. The old woman continues downcast and hands stretched out toward the floor. reading. The old woman sometimes puts rosaries in the statue’s “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; behold a hands, or around the statue’s neck, like a Brahmin great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and dressing an idol. This used to scare the girl incredibly. seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third She imagined that at night, when everybody slept, the part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: statue walked into her grandmother’s room and took and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to her rosaries, maybe picked out jewelry from the box on be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” the dresser. And if she could walk to the bedroom, then “Grandma,” the girl whines. “Why are you reading she could walk downstairs to the kitchen to make toast this verse? It’s horrible!” or drink milk. She could unlock the door and let the “Don’t you glare at me,” the old woman retorts. outside Virgin into the house. The two of them could “Aren’t I your elder? I’ll read what I please, and you stand in the front room and read the Bible. They could will listen.” The girl giggles, thinking it is a joke. The go to the computer in the basement and read the news 41

Caleigh Ryan

online, or so the girl had once imagined. “Grandma, I’m serious,” she says. “I don’t like Revelation. Please let’s read something else.” The girl had not always been bold enough to talk back to the old woman, but she is having a reckless summer. She has just graduated high school with decent grades, and will go to college in the fall, out of state. She has cut ties with friends she no longer cares for. Her mother gave the girl a laptop as a graduation present, and she spends hours at a time reading college girls’ blogs, clicking through pictures of their dorm rooms, imagining professors that call her by her last name only, imagining a roommate that smokes cigarettes and stinks up their room. In her mind she berates the roommate: “You have to consider what I want. It’s my room too!” The mostly unformed roommate begins to cry. “I can’t help it... I’m an addict! I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” “Of course I understand,” the girl imagines. “We’re roommates. We’ll get through this together.” They weep into each other’s arms. The girl cannot wait for summer to end. She is a hostess at a pasta restaurant. It is a fine job. She must be gracious to the patrons and not give any server too many tables. If she does, they yell at her. They say, “Do you see how hard I’m working? Are you trying to kill me?” But she also must not give them too few. Then they will yell, “When was the last time you gave me a table? How am I supposed to get paid? I’m not hourly like you!” She is the only girl on the staff who is not old enough to drink. After work the servers go out

without her and have unimaginable fun at the bars. Each week the girl has two days off, and at her mother’s request she usually spends one with her grandmother. They usually go for walks around the neighborhood, play cards, or watch TV. In the evening the old woman reads the Bible and the girl must listen. “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” The old woman closes the book and breathes out slowly. “How old are you now?” she asks the girl, peering at her face. “I’m eighteen, Grandma,” the girl says. “Are you.” “Do you remember the party last month? It was a birthday party for me and Sofie.” The old woman says nothing. “My cousin Sofie,” the girl clarifies. “Your granddaughter. She turned twenty-two. I think you liked the party. You had a cake.” The old woman knows who Sofie is and she faintly remembers the party last month, but she often feigns ignorance to see how the children treat her. She feels that some of them are eager to see her debilitated, and she is likewise eager to see their meanness exposed. “Yes, yes,” the old woman says. “Eighteen. So soon you will marry and you will be a mother like me.” The girl chuckles uncomfortably. “Not to soon, I don’t think! I can’t have a baby, Grandma, I’m going to college in a

i have taught myself silence | Serena Hocharoen| handmade paper, thread, colored pencil 43

Score for Anticipation (digital score) | Zack Stewart| digital graphic score 44

Score for Anticipation (installation shot) | Zack Stewart| archival digital prints on Rives BFK with headphones, QR code, text

few months!” The old woman leans back in her chair. “Mary was twelve. Mary was twelve when God gave her a child.” “I don’t know if that’s true, Grandma. I don’t think that’s true.” “How would you know anything about it?” the old woman asks. “You don’t read the Bible.” The girl looks down at her feet in flip-flops, wiggling her toes. She doesn’t think it says that in the Bible, but the old woman is right that she does not know for sure. She feels a little sick to think about it. She answers the old woman, “well, you weren’t twelve, when you had my mom and everyone. You weren’t twelve.” The old woman laughs. She leans back into her chair and her stomach moves up and down under her shirt. “No, dear, I was not twelve. But I was not given children by God, but by your grandfather.” She laughs out loud, then leans in to the girl’s face and whispers “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun!” The girl squeals. “Stop it, grandma!” They are both laughing. “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered!” The girl had had sex once, a few days before her eighteenth birthday party. She had not told the old woman, or anyone in her family. But at the party she had felt somehow marked. As the family sang to her and Sofie she sweated, experiencing a sort of premonition that the song would end suddenly and

one of her aunts would grab her wrist and ask “why are you blushing, girl? What are you hiding? Have you had sex?” This had, of course, not actually happened, and her unease had dissipated as she ate her birthday cake. But as the old woman teased her now, she suddenly felt again that she was known. She had not enjoyed the sex itself, but she had no regrets for having done it. She was glad that she would not start college as a virgin. She felt smart. She had knowledge that she hadn’t had before, that most of her older cousins still did not have. She did not fear sin, like they did. She knew she would not be punished, struck down or made pregnant for a single act. But did the old woman know something else? “When your grandfather and I got married I was nineteen,” the old woman said, her eyes trained beyond the girl. “I didn’t go to college like you, you know.” “Yes, I know.” “And at nineteen I became pregnant, and at nineteen I bore your Aunt Mary.” “You did.” “It’s funny to me, how you and all your cousins say you aren’t yet old enough, not mature enough. Was I immature?” She does not accept an answer. “Then why should you be?” “Well it’s different now, Grandma. We’re able to go to college now. I can’t have a baby while I’m in school. I’m going to get a degree and be a computer scientist.” Her eyes are rolling with annoyance. She

does not understand why the old woman has started this conversation. “Of course, I waited until I was done with school also,” the old woman says. “I was nineteen, I had a high school degree... Yet the Lord in His wisdom lets us bleed at twelve. Why? Why is that, do you think?” The old woman still is not looking at the girl. The girl feels anxiety creeping in her throat. She no longer understands the old woman’s purpose. “I don’t know Grandma… I don’t know. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s evolutionary, it’s not social. We’re not supposed to have babies at twelve, Grandma. We can have babies whenever we want.” The old woman finally looks at the girl. She puts an arm around the girl’s shoulder and rubs it. “Oh, us poor things,” she says. “God only know what we are supposed to do.”

the thrilling idea that the two of them existed in limbo, outside of the consequences of normal time: their old lives were over and she had no reason to see him or anyone he knew ever again. Anything she did with him on that futon would be kept secret. She pulled away from him, enjoying how he looked at her sadly without saying anything. She walked across the room, closed the basement door, and turned off the lights. They could still see each other in the gloom. She pulled off her dress. She was right that she would not see him again. She knew it must seem mean, but that was the condition, even if he did not know it. When she fails the pregnancy test she is furious: at herself, of course, and also at the old woman for her premonitions. Why had she said those things about Mary, about marriage, about the dragon ready to devour the newborn child? Did she somehow know? The girl does not know what to do. She goes to work The girl had not seriously considered that she could at the pasta restaurant and gives each server an equal get pregnant. She had only had sex one time, after all, amount of tables. At closing she taps the shoulder of and it had not seemed serious. The boy was a friend the server who is kindest to her and asks her if they are of hers who had been interested in her for some time. going to the bar tonight. “No, honey, not tonight,” the He had confessed that to her when they were alone on server says, looking puzzled. “You know we’d love for the futon in their friend’s basement after a graduation you to go with us sometime. It’s nothing personal. But party. She was woozy from juice with vodka and she you’re eighteen, and you look eighteen.” was impressed by his boldness. She could not honestly “I know,” the girl says. “I was just asking.” tell him that she had ever found him attractive before The girl rides her bike home. It is past ten and there that moment, but if she kissed him she did not have to are few cars on the road. When one rounds the corner say anything. He kissed well, she thought, and he had she stares into its headlights as intently as she can until always seemed trustworthy to her. She was struck by she cannot see anything but a blue glow in front of her

eyes. She pulls to the curb and begins to cry. She does not know what to do. She cannot feel a child inside her, but she knows that there will be one soon. It is there in her guts somewhere, in limbo. The boy she will not talk to anymore is lost inside her body and he will not leave until he has grown limbs and organs, his own brain and a nervous system. She will have to go to a hospital and deliver him, she thinks, and she almost screams. Her blindness starts to dissipate. She gets back onto bike and pedals home as fast as she can. The house is dark. She leans against the counter and imagines herself in labor. She imagines a child suckling at her breast, dribbling milk onto her, horrible tasting milk that came from her own body. Feeling faint with disgust, she turns on the TV and sits on the couch, forcing herself to eat the pasta she brought home from the restaurant. She falls asleep there. The next day she wakes up very early in the morning; the TV is still on. She does not have work. She must visit the old woman. The girl’s mother has taken the car, so the girl bikes for half an hour to reach the old woman’s house. The old woman lives in the next town over, in a neighborhood of tiny brown bungalows with one or two bedrooms each. Most of her neighbors are also old. They keep planters shaped like swans on their front steps, or they keep Christmas decorations hanging

all year, or they tape up signs in their front windows promoting obscure local politicians. The old woman’s house has no decorations except a little shrubbery and, of course, the Virgin. This statue’s face and build are similar to the one the upstairs hall, but, unlike the inside Virgin, this one is made of white stone and her hands are held to her chest in prayer. Looped around her wrists is a delicate stone crown of thorns. The girl lays her bike down on the grass and kneels before the statue to inspect her. Her grandmother lives on a busy street and she can hear the cars going by behind her. The Virgin does not look twelve. She has thin, noble, features. Her hair is completely covered, like a Muslim woman in hijab, but the girl had always imagined it to be long and light. She tries to remember if the inside Virgin’s hair is visible, but she cannot. The real Mary, the girl who had a baby two thousand years ago, must have looked very different. The girl sits back on her haunches and thinks about the statues as she used to imagine them. Perhaps they did not desire to read the Bible and drink milk. Perhaps they were twelve-year-old girls. After they tried on the old woman’s jewelry they probably did not want to read the Bible, but to watch TV and drink pop with ice cream. If they went on the computer in the basement they would not read the news, but play games and go onto forums where they could pretend

It is there in her guts somewhere, in limbo.

to be other people. Maybe they wanted to prank call boys in their class. Thinking about being twelve makes the girl feels terribly sad. The Virgin in front of her is sad too, holding her dead son’s crown. “The dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” She does have that option, of course. The girl has thought about it before, but only hypothetically. She is religious, but not as religious as her family. She thinks of herself as a rationalist. She knows that an embryo need not be equivalent to a living child. Her family would not support her; she knows that too. But she would not have to tell them. She is not a minor anymore, and she has money saved. She looks into the Virgin’s pebble eyes. “I’m not immaculate like you,” she says out loud. “Look at me. I’m an adult!” She imagines the statue crouching down to her level, placing the crown on the ground, and choking her with her white stone hands. She imagines herself in a hospital bed, travailing in birth, paining to be delivered. She is at a Catholic hospital, and she is attended to by two veiled nuns, very young nuns, one dressed in white and another dressed in blue. She imagines herself fleeing into the wilderness. She shakes herself and stands up. She pulls her hoodie over her head to cover her hair. She walks her bike into the backyard and locks it to the rails of the back steps. She unlocks the house quietly, suspecting that the old woman is still asleep.

The girl has never visited this early in the morning. The house is eerily clean and still. The old woman has left the kitchen light on overnight, and there are a few dishes resting in the sink. The girl rinses them and puts them aside to dry, then tiptoes up the stairs. The upstairs hall is thickly carpeted and dark as dusk. She can dimly see the Virgin, illuminated by a moonish night light in the open bathroom. The girl remembers spending the night at the old woman’s house when she was very young. She had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and she had seen the Virgin silently washing her hands in the sink. The girl pulls a string to turn on the ceiling light. The brightness is enough to make her close her eyes for a moment. When she opens them she gasps a little: the Virgin seems closer than she was before. It is as if one of them stepped forward, although it is unclear which one. Breathing fast, the girl knocks quietly on the old woman’s door to see if she is awake. She hears an excited bark of “come in!” and slowly opens the door. The old woman is sitting up straight in her chair, holding her Bible and rosary. “Oh, it’s you,” she says lowly. “I was expecting Mary.” She looks overcome, not pleased to see the girl. “Aunt Mary lives in Florida, Grandma,” the girl says. The old woman is confused, scratching her eyes. “Your oldest daughter, Mary. She doesn’t visit often because she lives in Florida.” “Not her,” the old woman snaps. “I know she

lives in Florida. It’s a common name, Mary.” The girl’s heart is still beating fast. She thinks about the statue in the hall. “I’m not as senile as you think I am,” the old woman says. “You think I don’t know my own daughter’s name? I gave her that name. I fought for it. Your grandfather said it was too common. He said he didn’t want her to have the same name as five other girls in her class. I said he could name the next one, but Mary was too important to me.” The girl starts to say something, but the old woman continues. “You know I still know everything. I only pretend to be senile to see how you react. Just as I read you Revelation because I know you hate it. I would never read that if I was not trying to bother you.” The girl is not convinced. “Grandma, who did you mean when you said Mary?” The old woman leans back. She does not say anything. The girl is frustrated and afraid. “Please, Grandma.” “Why did you come so early today?” the old woman asks, and sighs. She still is not looking at the girl. “I needed to talk to you,” the girl says. “I can’t stop thinking about those horrible verses you read me. Why did you tell me all that about Mary being twelve?” “Come here, dear,” the old woman says. “Give me your hands. Look at me, look at me.” The girl looks. The old woman’s eyes are wet. “I never meant

to distress you. I am here alone all day; I was only having a little fun with you. You know I never meant to distress you.” The girl’s skin feels tight, and she knows she must be turning red. Her eyes sting and she looks down at her hands, clasped in the old woman’s. “Don’t cry, oh my dear, don’t cry!” the old woman says. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was only joking.” “Okay,” the girl chokes. “Okay.” She lays her head against the old woman’s knees. She is weeping like a child. The old woman pets her hair until the girl’s sobs subside. She looks through the Bible and reads a verse to the girl: “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” The old woman chuckles. “Does that one bother you so much?” The girl does not say anything for a moment. She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her hoodie, then looks up at the old woman, who closes her Bible. “It’s more than just my games, I know that,” the old woman says. “Something else is troubling you. Is that true?” “Yes, yes,” the girl says. “You can tell me, if you want. You can tell me, dear.” The girl suddenly looks behind her into the hallway. The Virgin is still there, her arms stretched out and down. She appears to gaze into the room. The girl struggles to remember if the statue always looked that

way. She is afraid again. “You can tell me, dear,” the old woman says again, squeezing the girl’s hands. “What did you mean when you said you expected Mary?” the girl asks, still watching the statue. “What’s that?” the old woman interjects. “I said, what did you mean when you said you expected Mary?” The girl turns to look at the old woman, who has looked away. “It’s nothing, child, I was just confused. You don’t usually come so early.” “Grandma, tell me. Look at me. Please. Who is Mary?” The girl is alarmed at the old woman’s failure to respond. She remembers seeing the Virgin in the bathroom when she was young. She had seemed to glow. She had washed her hands and forearms so slowly and serenely. The young girl had watched her for minutes, until the Virgin turned the faucet off and reached for the towel. Then the girl had run and cried, crawling into bed with the old woman, telling her she’d had a nightmare, a nightmare the just seemed so real. “Who is she, Grandma?” “Oh, my dear,” the old woman says, gazing toward the hall. “I think you already know.”

Old Silver Luck Abraham Golden

38 I think I found a job I like. It’s based out of a crappy little brick and cement house, spray-painted a dozen different colors in an attempt to disguise the years of abuse it’s put up with, like a clown from the wrong part of town. The only door is guarded by a quiet fellow that never tells me his name. I think he had his tongue cut out at some point. None of my business, that. My partners in crime are Large and Thin. It’s make no sense to introduce the two separately, as I’ve never seen them in different rooms. One’s large and one’s thin. The thin one’s tricky with a knife, and the large one’s got a revolver that looks like it came straight out of a pulp fiction novel. Near as I can tell neither are married, both eat at the same shop that smells like week-old flowers, and neither one is looking for anything in particular. Great guys, I promise. A typical day starts when a customer walks in, nervous and shaking. Usually poor, though some are rich people looking for a thrill. Large and Thin will push the customer into a wooden chair, place a six-chamber revolver in between us and start the camcorder. The customer and I take turns placing the gun to our temples and pulling the trigger. Thin is behind me, and Large is behind the customer, keeping us both honest.

They pay me five thousand dollars per round when there’s one bullet in the gun. The price doubles every extra bullet that goes in, up to the maximum of forty thousand dollars, or four bullets. I’m sure they make ten, twenty times my fee from ads. I’ve only seen them need to do something twice. The first time, I got nervous and Thin gave me a steel reason to keep playing. The second time, the customer realized that there weren’t any more empty chambers and, instead of weeping and blowing his brains out, he tried to kill everyone else with the convenientlyplaced revolver. It took approximately half a second for Large to shoot him in the back of the head. After that, customers got to see his quick draw before they sat down. Personally, I like the gig. There’s something amazingly fun about playing Russian Roulette for a living. 67 When I get my first papercut in over forty years it floors me. There I am, picking out a new book, perfectly fine. Suddenly, the worst luck I’ve had in decades shows up. A moment after I collapse from shock, an attractive young girl comes by to help me up. I thank her and take my book to the register. On my way home, sucking on my finger, I take the shortest path way, suddenly aware of shady alleys and busy intersections. I don’t care for this new found sense of danger. Once I’m home, twelve stories up, I spin a dime, flip a quarter, and make a six pence piece flow over my fingers. What the hell is going on? Five minutes and five called flips later, I sent the quarter up a sixth time. It comes down tails. I fumble

the six pence to the floor, not twenty minutes into my routine. The dime falls down and the flat falls silent. I spend an hour looking at a liver spot on the back of my hand I’d never noticed before, and examine a grey hair that fell down between my fingers. I’m getting old. These little misfortunes, they’ve gone unnoticed and piled up when I wasn’t looking. What’s next? I go online and start turning index funds and stocks into cash. Then I look for out-of-the-way places in the US. Worrying is next.

Figure it’s the nice thing to do. My younger brother’s home phone goes to voicemail, so he gets an address and a suggestion. I wonder if he’s still at that desk job, or if he’s moved onto something more interesting. Sis is too busy on set to talk for long, so I have to make it quick. I give her an address and my best wishes. I say she’ll need them. She laughs at that, long and hard, and promises to visit sometime this year. I laugh back and let a moment of silence lapse between us. I wish I knew her better.

67 (later) Two months, twelve days, and seven hours later and I’m done. Finally. The majority of my money is in various small towns scattered across my brother’s homeland, held in safes by sympathetic citizens, their doorposts marked by some old friends from back when I was a wanderer. Each homeowner’s got pictures of my brother, his wife, and his kids, and instructions to give them the briefcases. I beat a lot of odds for that cash and I’ll be damned if a country I haven’t lived in for forty years gets a cent of it. Two homeowners are given different pictures and different names, and I’ll have to make some calls to fix those plans properly. First though, some memories. I visit the graves of Mom and Dad and leave some flowers. Nothing fancy, just roses. That, and two bottles of Heineken. I drink half of Mom’s, but she never finished a whole bottle anyway. I do the whole talking-to-dead people thing, feel a little better, and walk off after tipping the groundskeeper.

67 (still) My twin’s wife still punches me as soon as I step in the door, but it’s not strong enough to lay me out proper. That was good of her. We have a nice dinner, and I spill the ginger ale, espresso and whisky monstrosity that I grew fond of in Italy on my lap. The children ask about my past, and I tell them some amusing lies about my time as a pirate/spy/scientist. They know I’m bullshitting them, but it’s funny bullshit, so they let me off with just some hugs. Once the kids have been packed off to bed, us adults reminisce over a tumbler filled with something strong. After we’ve each had another serving of alcohol (vodka for me, a Fireball for him, and beer for her), I lean forward and ask them to listen. I give them a list of addresses. I make them swear to visit them soon. The wife asks why. I look her in the eye and tell her she wouldn’t believe me if I told her. I ask them if any of their kids found any old currency. They say no. I ask about anyone taking it easy. They

laugh at that. Their kids are working hard. Good. I take out the three pieces of silver. One six-pence coin, one dime, and one quarter. I look at my twin and his wife, serious as I’ve ever been. Give these to your kids, one each, and tell them to never sell them or use them. They’re for emergencies only. Do you understand? Anywhere else it would’ve been hilarious. In their living room, close to twelve at night, with more than a few servings of alcohol in each of us, it’s as funny as an open grave. They take the coins and promised to give them to their children. They ask which coin should go to who. I tell them to give the six-pence to whoever gets into the most trouble, the quarter to the curious one, and the dime to the kid with the most common sense. They laugh, thank me, and offer a ride to the airport. I shake my head, relieved and lightened. I call a taxi and head to my redeye. The flight is delayed (first time I’ve experienced that since an exceptionally bad snowstorm in my teenage years) and I’m seated next to a young mother and her child. Of course. I sleep poorly that night. 68 (again) The universe has a weakness for irony. Bankers get crushed by falling safes, lovers crash into each other in their eagerness to meet, and war heroes choke on a stick of celery. You know. The sad-but-funny types of deaths. I always figured I’d go in an accident. The farmer picks up the gun, presses it against his head and, eyes closed, pulls the trigger.

Click. The farmer smiles in relief and the gun goes back on the table. I look one of the new thugs in the eye. He knows what’s going to happen. I tell him to mail my prize money to my twin. He nods. I pick up the gun and place it against my temple.

Contributors

He has a small book of art and poems called “Red Pepper Gouda Planet” coming out this spring.

Josh Anthony ‘17 Yes, Sarah :’)

Lou Engleman ‘17 Everyone else is introducing themselves so I thought why not? I’m from Twin Cities, not sure what I’m gonna be studying yet but maybe Computer Science? I’m really excited to meet all of you! Reading these other bios you all sound so cool!!

Andrea Baumgartel ‘19 thinks that oatmeal is a soup. Jenkin Benson ‘17 is a Senior English/Political Science major from Colfax, Iowa. This is his final contribution to the Grinnell Review. Annalisa Brandt ‘17 is an English major from Iowa whose favorite pastimes include horseback riding, hiking, and writing. Kristin Brantley ‘17 is happy to submit her final piece to the Review and move towards claiming post-grad Hollywood fame. Julia Broeker ‘17 realized that bread and cheese make life edible. Olivia Caro ‘17 only eats their cinnamon rolls toasted. Steven Duong ‘19 (he/him/his) is a second year English major who spends most of his downtime in the murky space between science fiction and poetry. 56

Abraham Golden ‘20 is a perfectly average college student trying to make his way through the lowstress life of Grinnell College. Serena Hocharoen ‘17 :\ Sarah Hubbard ‘17 Josh Anthony, will you marry me? Lydia James ‘19 wanted to study dinosaurs and art when they were 5 years old--now, at 20, they’re studying art but still want to be studying dinosaurs. But it’s never too late, right? Julia Marquiz-Uppman ‘17 is about done. Caliegh Ryan ‘17 is experiencing umami, “the fifth emotion.”

Eliana Schechter ‘17 thinks red radishes with butter are an avant-garde form of poetry. Zack Stewart ‘17 still isn’t a music major and probably won’t be one tomorrow, either. Alejandra Rodriguez Wheelock ‘17 wants all the mangos and tortillas.