The Quad – Spring 2015 by Grove City College

he T Spring 2015

uad Q Grove City College

Editors’ Note A little madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown — Who ponders this tremendous scene — This whole Experiment of Green — As if it were his own! -Emily Dickinson

The Quad Senior Editor John Gordon Junior Editor Laura Egan Department Editors Rachel Pullen (Creative Nonfiction) Nick Hiner (Poetry) Luke Sayers (Essays) Julia Connors (Book Reviews) Daniel Rzewnicki (Short Stories) Assistant Editors Adeline Fergusen (Creative Nonfiction) John Hermesmann (Poetry) Alicia Pollard (Poetry) Kelsa Battig (Short Stories) Julia Connors (Book Reviews) Daniel Chapman (Essays) Art Director Rebekah Fry Art Director’s Assistants Alyssa Baldwin Ryan Braumann Jenna Hershberger Nic Giorgi Liz Kruzenga Caroline Roberts Austin Zick Design and Layout Editor Abby Cliff Style Chief Laura Storrs Copy-Editors John Anastasio Rachel Reitz Bethany Wilson Liz Kruizenga Distribution Chief Mary Leone Conundrums Tucker Sigourney Marketing Director Rachel Reitz Faculty Advisor Dr. H. Collin Messer Editorial Advisory Board Dr. Joseph D. Augspurger, Dr. Daniel S. Brown, Dr. James G. Dixon III, Dr. Joshua F. Drake, Dr. Michael F. Falcetta, Dr. Gillis J. Harp, Dr. Charles E. Kriley, Dr. Julie C. Moeller, Dr. Jennifer A. Scott, Dr. Kevin S. Seybold Cover Art Rebekah Fry

Dear Friends, Springtime, which Emily Dickinson aptly names an “Experiment of Green,” is coming. Imagining its arrival conjures feelings of hope, yet in the earlier part of spring, I question how long it will stay. I force myself to expect another cold spell or snowstorm, easing the frustration if it does occur. This disappointed from the start attitude is not particularly hopeful or helpful for times of celebration. Yet the impermanence of spring is ever apparent; the constant struggle to seek permanence or stability in something that will always change. In this issue, many of our writers explore the impermanence associated with the passing of time. Grayson Quay’s short story, “Oyster,” recollects both the beautiful and jarring memories of youth, while John Hermesmann’s poem, “Stones,” reflects on the passing of a year, as we return to a place with new memories. We would like to thank Bekah Fry, who so graciously has agreed to create the next Quad cover series. You can see her first installment in this issue, in which she captures the regional charm of Western Pennsylvania through screen printing. We are excited to place this spring issue in your hands. Friends, thank you for your patience with this little magazine. We are grateful for your kind attention. Yours,

John Gordon Senior Editor

Laura Egan Junior Editor

Volume 7, Issue 3, Spring 2015 The Quad is published quarterly by students of Grove City College and funded by the college. The works in this magazine, however, do not necessarily represent the views of Grove City College, the editors, the advisor, or the editorial advisory board. The editors are responsible for the selection of articles; responsibility for opinions and accuracy of facts in articles published rests solely with the individual authors. The Quad grants permission for any original article to be photocopied for local use, provided that no more than 1,000 copies are made, are distributed at no cost, and The Quad is properly cited as the source. Anyone may submit to The Quad. Pieces are selected by a blind submission process. Submissions must be sent to quad.submissions@gmail.com. Include what department you are submitting to, year, campus mailbox number (or address) with your name and use 12 pt Times New Roman font, double spaced; when citations are necessary, use Chicago style. Any rejected submissions which are not returned will be destroyed. Accepted submissions may be withdrawn at any time. Anyone interested in writing a review should contact the editors. The Quad is available online at www2.gcc.edu/orgs/TheQuad

The Quad | S

pring

2015

VOLUME 7 ISSUE 3

Contents 4

Stones

John Hermesmann

American Primitives

Jared Billings

Short Story

The Bat

Chris Prosser

Poem

Close to Home

Emily Lundberg

Creative Nonfiction

The Meaning of Ephemeral

Holly Spofford

Poem

The Pen Doth Magnify the Lord

Ethan Mitchell

Book Review

The Trees

Chris Prosser

Poem

Oyster

Grayson Quay

Short Story

The Glow of Papaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Smoke

Anna Reed

Poem

On Dust

Nick Hiner

Poem

Deep Space

Emily Lundberg

Sleepwalking

Chris Prosser

Exit 17W

Dan Rzewnicki

The Beauty of Bark

Estee Beasley

Indelible Grace

Anna Mittleman

Conundrums On Barren Heights (Viking Conundricles, Part 3)

Poem

Creative Nonfiction Poem Short Story Book Review Poem

Stones John Hermesmann These stones are not unshaven stubble on a hillside face. They are not granite dandelions, the things of wishes, waiting to be picked and blown into the breeze, their shallow roots seeking temporary lodging. I imagine that sometimes they can feel relieved, releasing sighs upon feeling gloved fingers, stiff in the cold and reverently steady, brushing away the last of February snow, tracing an engraving of Esposito, Paulson, or Sherman, and placing flowers that fade on a stone that still stands. Watch – watch with the stones; in a moment, feet will tread away through winter’s last; in a year, returning with new memories and new flowers.

John Hermesmann (‘16) once took a group of preteens to a Renaissance Faire without losing a single one of them.

American Primitives Jared Billings

think livin’ is a darn near scary thing most of the time, and only sometimes do I get to really think to myself, ‘now Willie you can just take it all in here because I like this’. Thinkin’ that usually means I’m doin’ somethin’ wrong, because, like Pa says, life is ‘sposed to be hard. I knew he was right ‘bout life bein’ hard. I knew ‘cause we worked hard and even though I like to work, honest I do, there’s still a lot of work to do. I knew Pa’s life was hard and I knew Abe made it hard and I knew I made it harder. But that’s part of livin, ya know? Pa still loves me, I know he does. And I still love Pa and we all love Abe even though he can’t work as hard as Pa and me. But I know it’s ‘cause he’s only half my age and I think Pa knows that too. So Pa and me do most the work and Abe helps where he can, and life is hard but that’s how it’s ‘sposed to be. But, you know, those times when I get to sit and think that life ain’t hard are some good times. I get those thoughts sometimes when I go out right after the sun starts to bubble up over the hills near the Hastings’ Farm and the sky shoots red out over the fields. Mostly I walk out past our hill to the barn and whistle to the Holstein cattle and grab my tin bucket and move one by one down the stalls until all the cows are milked good. Pa says I’m ‘sposed to milk each cow halfway up my bucket ‘cause that’s ‘bout when they run out of milk. And when my bucket fills up I take it over to the big bucket in the corner of the barn and pour my bucket in. Most days I just go straight to the barn, but on some days I catch the moon runnin’ away from the mornin’ and makin’ blue streaks in with the red. I go past the barn and sit on top of the wooden fence that goes along our one field where Rodger the horse runs. Then I just watch the sky fade to its normal blue from the red and dark blue streaks. Rog stands by me and I pat his big stomach and talk to him like he was a race horse, “Rog you’re gonna run those other colts outta their horseshoes!” I say. He makes a little whinny and always waves his tail. Those are the days I can think thoughts of how life ain’t too scary all the time. I don’t need to get up that early to milk the cows, but on account of all my work and maybe seein’ the moon I’m more than happy to get out of bed before Pa gets up and starts gettin’ full. Some days Pa would get pretty full. I reckon today was one of those days ‘cause I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, I swear, but now I’m on shit duty. Pa called it pen cleanup when he talked to me, but I hear him say shit duty to himself when he does it so I know that’s what it’s really called. I didn’t mind too much today, ‘cause I got to think and be with the animals even though it does mighty stink. I grabbed my leather gloves off the nail hook in my room and got my good shovel from the porch and headed out to the barn. “Willie, wait fo’ me!” I always knew that voice even if he’d a yelled from a hundred and ten miles away. Abe still had that little kid talk and besides he was my half-brother so we kinda sounded the same. I turned around and I saw Abe trippin’ over his own two feet in Pa’s black rubber boots. He had long straight brown hair cut like a bowl ‘round his head and it flopped over his face when he ran. His cheeks were red from runnin’ up the hill after me. His face still had some of that baby fat that you get until you get to be my age. We didn’t much look alike, and I reckon if someone saw us they wouldn’t think we were brothers. My hair was blonde and curly, which I thought came from my Mama, but I didn’t know for sure. But yes sir we were brothers, and I liked Abe alright. I smiled when I saw him runnin’ up after me with his arms bent and movin’ back and forth fast as can be. “Well shoot Abe, now you ain’t on shit duty are you?” I said. “No, but Pa din’t give me work fo’ now, so I can help.” “Damn, you certain?”

Spring 2015

“Uh-huh!” Abe wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve. Didn’t seem to me like he washed his shirt in too long. “Pa is nappin’ by the big cherry tree by the road.” “Alright then, if you want to. Come on now.” Pa was nappin’, that sounded good to me. See, life ain’t too hard when there’s things like naps. But then again there’s always those things that make me think life is hard, so I got to be ready for when those things come by knowin’ life is hard even when I see things that don’t make it hard. I undid the steel lock on the wooden door to the pen and Abe and I walked in. I felt the sun beatin’ down hard, like it usually did ‘bout midday, so I unbuttoned my left overall strap and let some air in that way. Felt good. I turned around to look at Abe. He didn’t have no gloves or a shovel so I wasn’t gonna make him pick up the shit with his bare hands. I leaned over and picked up a rotten corn cob from the ground. This thing was black and there were six-legged buggers crawlin’ all over. “Abe, you see this corn cob right here?” I asked. Abe nodded and looked like he was takin’ this pretty serious. “Now you pick these up and put ‘em in a burlap sack so we can haul it back to the house and burn them up ‘stead of usin’ up any coal.” “Okay Willie, you got it. Just pick up the corns and put ‘em in the sack,” he said. I nodded my head and looked down and dug my shovel into the shit next to my boots. There was a whole lot, but that’s what you get with pigs and chickens and goats and Rodger the horse. And that’s why it was shit duty, ‘cause Pa knew there was lots and he knew it stunk. I just had to keep shovelin’ until Pa came and got me to do work somewhere else. Abe did good pickin’ up the corn cobs. I could hear him whistlin’ some tune which I knew but couldn’t remember what its name was. Somethin’ ‘bout the Old Mill. “Abe, now what’n the hell are you doin’ over here?” Now I knew that yell too from a hundred and ten miles away and maybe further. I whipped around to see Abe standin’ there dumb with the corn cob sack in his hand while Pa swung his legs over the fence. “I tol’ you to stay by the house. Don’ listen to nothin’ I say…” Pa kept mumblin’ to himself and gettin’ louder as he grabbed Abe’s arm and dragged him clear over to the other side of the pen. “Pa, I din’t know you said that,” Abe said, “Pa I din’t know!” Pa pushed him against the barn wall. There was mostly nothin’ worse than seein’ Abe get a beating from Pa. About the only thing worse was gettin’ my own beating, so I just kept shovelin’. “You shut up,” Pa said to Abe. He spit on the ground and kicked up the mud and shit with his boot onto Abe’s overalls. “Pa I’m sorry, Pa!” “I tol’ you shut up!” I turned away after Abe started talkin’ again. I know talkin’ to Pa when he’s in a fit is one of those things that make me realize how hard life is. Pa started hittin’ him and I heard Abe’s yellin’ and the slappin’ didn’t stop until Abe got quiet. I think Abe got it real good right on the face. I can tell the difference between that kinda beating and one that’s right on the ass. I know we’re only half brothers and all, but I swear every slap that Abe gets hurts me too. Once the slappin’ finished, Abe whimpered over in the corner between the wooden fence and the red-slat barn wall. I was too damn scared to look over my shoulder, but I still heard Pa mumblin’, “Damn kid wearin’ my boots…better take those off…I hope you happy wearin’ my boots...” “Here Pa, I’ll take ‘em off!” Abe said it through some whimpers and he pulled the tall boots off his feet and then his feet dug into the shitty ground. At least I guess that’s what happened ‘cause I wasn’t lookin’. When Pa came over to me, Abe was still cryin’ and Pa had his boots in his hands with his overalls undone and folded down so his whole chest was showin’. He looked at me with big black pupils that just got bigger and bigger the longer he stared. His white hair

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seemed like he done forgot to comb today or yesterday ‘cause the strands in the back were lookin’ pretty long and real curly. Those were the only strands he had anyway so I’m not sure why he didn’t comb them every day. His beard looked gray, not as white as his strands of hair in the back. There was that bent in his nose which probly only Abe and I could notice but we always did ‘cause when we got close enough to notice it then we knew we were gettin’ a beating. He looked sweaty and smelled like he’d been gettin’ full the whole mornin’. I never did like that smell. “You…You on double shit duty.” He was pointin’ at me and his yellow-nail finger got pretty close to my face. “Don’ come on back to home ‘til dinner time.” I knew he was really full on account of callin’ it shit duty in front of me and not pen cleanup. I just looked back at him and waited for a beating myself. “Yes’r.” “And you lucky if I e’en feed you an’ your dumb brother tonight anyway.” He turned around and walked towards the pen door kinda swayin’ up and down and back and forth like I thought he was goin’ to fall over into the shit. And I kinda wish he did, but he made it out of the pen and looked back at us again. “Abe, git on over here and come on down to the house.” Abe didn’t say nothin’ but just walked real fast over to the pen door with his feet squishin’ in the shit and mud. He walked out the gate and they both went ‘round the barn headin’ back to the house, Pa in front with the boots in his hand and Abe in the back snifflin’ and shufflin’ his steps every so often to keep up with Pa. I figured I had ‘bout five hours to kill on shit duty, so I had better get to it. I knew Gordie and Leonard from down the road always tol’ me that if I had to work for a long time then I shouldn’t start right away and I should take some breaks to make the time go away. But I was of the thinkin’ that workin’ makes the time go faster anyways and breaks just get me to thinkin’ ‘bout how darn scary life is, so I’m better off just workin’. I looked around at the pen. A couple pigs were eatin’ in the trough at the far end, but the other ones musta been inside the barn since it was so damn hot out. I unbuttoned my other overall strap and let the whole top fold down by my waist, just like Pa did. Then I took my shovel and dug it into the shit. Might as well start countin’ all over again. I worked real hard and took just one break to go see the pigs inside the barn. They were just lyin’ against the wall, all fat and hairy. I liked to go over and sit down next to them and rub my hand on their chest and say ‘good ol’ boy’. Those were some good pigs anyway. Once the sun started to move over towards the Yeske’s farm and the air got a little crisper then I left my shovel standin’ up against the barn wall and put my gloves in my back pocket and started to walk back over to the house. I had shoveled a whole lot of shit into those woods. Pa would be proud. I whistled that song Abe was singin’ earlier all the way over our hill. After I came up over the hill I was smack dab in the back of our house. I saw the old wood saggin’ under the weight of our tin roof, lookin’ like it soaked up the rain for a hundred years. Our house was up on some one-foot cement block stilts ‘cause in the spring the rain would sometimes overflow Buck Creek and start to wash up under the house. There were two windows on each side of the house, one on each side in the main room and one for me and Abe’s room and one for Pa’s room. Sometimes we opened the windows to get a breeze, but Pa didn’t like them bein’ open so mostly we just took our skivvies off once he went to bed. I picked up a stick next to the house and ran it along the side until I got to the front and saw Abe. He was sittin’ on the porch swingin’ his legs back and forth with his hands down by his sides. “Well hey Willie!” he said. Sounded like the whimperin’ was over, and that made me glad. He always did smile when he saw me. “Howdy Abe,” I said, “Where’s Pa?” “He’s inside makin’ dinner. I think we havin’ eggs.” “Fine then, why don’t we head inside?” I grabbed Abe’s hand and he jumped off the two foot porch and we walked

Spring 2015

up the three stairs to the front door. The door swung shut once we walked in and Pa looked over at us. “Oh there you is… here’s the vittles.” He looked tired and full. I could smell it still. We sat down at our small wooden table that Pa made in the shed a couple years back. Pa used to tell me he’d lived in this house for as long as I’d been alive and a couple years longer too. I did hear him say he liked the house once. He said he used to live in the house with my Mama and everythin’ was damn near alright. But it didn’t seem much like he liked the house now. I knew it made life hard on Pa, just like we did. “Thanks for cookin’ up Pa,” I said. He kept eatin’ his food for a couple seconds and then he looked up and stared at me. “How was the shit?” He said it real slow and stuck out his bottom lip and picked some eggshell out of his mouth. His teeth didn’t look too good no more. All chipped on the top, and on the bottom it looked like they were hollowed out or somethin’ with black in the middle. “I did good Pa, I shoveled a whole lot into the trees. I reckon it looks pretty clean and the pigs are probly happy with it,” I said. “Damn pigs don’t know if they walkin’ in shit or not.” “Yes’r.” No one said anythin’ else so it was all the clinkin’ of our forks on the tin plates as we ate our eggs and washed it down with fresh milk from the mornin’. Abe could barely reach the table and he had to grab his glass with both hands. He slurped up the milk with his whole mouth and wiped the milk left ‘round his mouth with his grimy sleeve and then smacked his lips and made a loud ahhh sound. “And you, you dumb lil’ bugger,” Pa looked at Abe and Abe’s eyes got big and he put his hands by his sides and wiggled his nose, “you like doin’ shit duty? You gon’ go back and leave when I need you for other work by the house, you gon’ go and pick up corns out the shit and i’nore me?” “No sir, I won’t sir.” Abe shook his head and his hair waved back and forth over his eyes. “Both y’all makin’ my life harder than it is. If you just do work like I tol’ you with no runnin’ ‘round like damn squirrels then we be a better farm and maybe make some more money.” We both nodded our heads and looked down at our plates. I knew when a fit was comin’ on and I knew it best to try to eat quick but not make it seem like I was eatin’ quick. Usually I just took big bites instead of a bunch of quick bites and before you knew it my plate was empty and I could head out to the porch to sit on the swing and skip rocks across the grass. But tonight I still had a lot of eggs left on my plate and Pa’s fit seemed to be comin’ like a hot summer storm. “Everythin’ was better until y’all showed up and started skimpin’ on work…” he mumbled, “you especially…you know you made my life harder and you know it.” He looked straight at me and I knew he was lookin’ straight at me ‘cause I knew why he was sayin’ I know I make his life harder. I do know why, and Pa’s right, I did make his life harder. “Yes’r, I’m sorry sir.” “Damn near twelve years ago we took that ride up to Greenville State and you popped into the world and it was ‘sposed to make the work go easier, but no you decided not to do that, did you?” Pa’s hands were wavin’ in the air and he was spittin’ food out when he talked. “Just like that you *pop* just popped out and killed your damn mother, didn’t you?” “Yes’r.” My eyes were wellin’ up and I was nervous Pa would see. “Hell you do know. Then I got this one over here and his mama just straight ditch me, huh? Ain’t that right Abe?” “Well I don’ know much ‘bout my mama sir, I ain’t never met her before anyways—” “Shut your damn mouth.” Pa didn’t yell this time, he just growled. Mostly this was scarier than a yell, so Abe stopped talkin’. Pa got up from the table and looked around and grabbed his bottle off the window sill and walked out the front

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door onto the porch. “C’mon Abe, let’s clean up,” I said. I wiped my eyes, but I swear I didn’t cry. Men don’t cry, like Pa says. Life is hard and I knew it was and I knew I made it harder on Pa on account of not bein’ able to work hard enough and on account of killin’ my Ma and all. I felt mighty sorry ‘bout that. Thinkin’ ‘bout what Pa said didn’t make me feel too good at all, so I just gave my eggs to Abe. I figured he needed them more anyway. Once he finished, we put the plates away and drank our milk. We thought it better to let Pa have his time outside, so we jus’ went into our room and laid in bed and looked out the window at the stars outside. We heard Pa slam the door when he came in ‘bout an hour later. He kicked a chair and mumbled to himself but I couldn’t hear what he was sayin’. I reckon I’m glad I couldn’t hear. I just kept lookin’ out the window wonderin’ why life was so hard and wishin’ I could run outside into the Hastings’ fields and lie there in the dirt lookin’ up at the stars all free, kinda like good ol’ Rog runnin’ ‘round in our field under the red and blue streaks in the mornin’. I woke up the next mornin’ a little later than usual on account of the sun not peekin’ in through my window. The clouds were coverin’ the whole sky makin’ everythin’ look a little gray. Didn’t look like rain but it didn’t look like it would be sunny anytime today neither. I didn’t want Pa to have a fit since I slept too much, so I jumped out of bed and put on my overalls and ran outside without even puttin’ on my boots. Once I got out the front door I heard yellin’ in the front near the road. I hoped it wasn’t Pa and Abe. But when I looked out from the porch I saw Pa right up in some other man’s face. He was bigger than Pa and had short brown hair that got curly in lines on each side of his face down past his ears. He didn’t have no beard and he wore a nice suit. There was a motor car behind him with a big yellow truck bed on the back with white letters on the side. I knew that truck came from in town near Flat Rock, and the man was sellin’ ice. He came around here every week or so, and Pa and him didn’t get along too well at all. He didn’t look too happy with Pa today either. “Angus, I’m not gonna just keep comin’ back and givin’ you ice like I forgot about your payment,” the ice man said. “Well hell if you don’, I tol’ you I would git the money next week. My boys and I will git down to the market in town and sell,” Pa said. I thought about the times Pa would hitch up Rog to our wooden wagon and carry eggs and some vegetables to sell in Flat Rock. That didn’t happen too much anymore. “I’ve heard that one too many times Angus. I won’t come back next week if you don’t have my money. It’s called cutting losses, you know.” “You damn townie, comin’ onto my land and disrespectin’ me.” Pa was gettin’ real close to the man. “I’m not disrespectin’ you,” he drew out that middle part of the word, “I just don’t want to keep givin’ away my ice for free. You don’t make money, and the town knows it.” “I support my family, you don’ know!” “You don’t have a family, Angus Boone. You’re just three spare parts that nobody—” The last part of that got muffled out as Pa put his head into the ice man’s chest and tried to tackle him to the ground. The ice man didn’t seem to expect Pa to go at him ‘cause he yelped a little and didn’t punch back until he was on the ground with Pa on top of him. Pa hit him square in the face with a punch, but the ice man scrambled away after Pa stopped punchin’ and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “You bastard,” Pa said. He was breathin’ real heavy. “You’re crazy Angus!” The ice man’s hair was pretty messed up and Pa had bloodied his lip nice and ripped his suit on the elbow. “I knew I shouldn’t even come by here and do business. I’m a good Christian and figured I’d do you a favor and forgive you after what you did.”

Spring 2015

“You shut your damn mouth you sonofabitch.” Pa pointed at the ice man with one hand while his other hand was restin’ on his knee. He was out of breath but he looked mad as hell. He turned around and spit on the ground and then looked up and saw me standin’ on the porch. The ice man kept talkin’ to him. “We all know what happened. Somethin’ like that doesn’t just happen and then go away and then no one thinks about it. We still think about it Angus. You think you can do whatever you want out here and, well, you may be able to. But when you come into our town and start violatin’ our good Christian values and hurtin’ our people…“ “Shut your goddamn mouth in front of my son!” Pa turned his head towards the ice man and yelled like he was almost scared for a second. “I tol’ you to stop talkin’ and git the hell off my land. We don’ like you and your suit and that damn motorcar pullin’ up outta nowhere disturbin’ us durin’ a damn nice workday.” “Is that your older one Angus?” The ice man looked past Pa and saw me and smiled a sneaky little smile. “So you mean to tell me you don’t want me comin’ onto your land and doin’ what I please…” He said that to himself and shook his head and looked at the ground for a second like he was decidin’ what to say. “Well, we’ll see how you like it.” He looked up at me. “Hey son, would you like to know somethin’ about your daddy?” Pa’s eyes got real big and he spit on the ground again and turned around towards the house. He walked right by me and went into the house real mad-like. “What’s he talkin’ ‘bout Pa?” I said as he walked past. He didn’t say nothin’. “What I’m talkin’ about is your Pa found some bug-eyed Betty in town some six years back. He took a likin’ to her but she wasn’t so keen on him. Do you remember that? ” I didn’t have any idea what the ice man was talkin’ ‘bout, but I kept listenin’. “And when she told your Pa no, he didn’t listen. Took her to some alley in town, holdin’ onto her wrist and not lettin’ go and he raped her. She cried and he didn’t listen.” His bloody lip was startin’ to stick out real far and one perfect drop of blood fell down in the dirt near his feet and mixed up with the dust. “You know what rape is son? Any idea?” I shook my head. It sounded like it was bad and I knew from the fightin’ that he didn’t like Pa but I didn’t know what he was talkin’ ‘bout. But he kept talkin’ and I kept listenin’. “Where you think your kid brother came from anyway? His mama didn’t want him so your daddy took him so as not to get put in jail and leave you two to live in the shit and mud with your pigs—” “I tol’ you to shut your goddamn mouth.” Pa came walkin’ real fast outta the house carryin’ his huntin’ shotgun. He shoved by me and walked straight up to the ice man and pointed the gun ‘bout one foot from his face. “Git in your car and git the hell off my road or I swear I’ll put a shell right through your head.” “Okay Angus….now calm down a second—” “Git in the goddamn car!” Pa screamed like I only heard him scream one or two times before. I thought he sounded like the devil. “I’m goin’, I’m goin’…” he took big slow steps towards the car and never turned his back to Pa. Once he got into his front seat he turned the key and paused and looked at Pa in the eyes. I reckon he could see the bent of his nose he was lookin’ so hard and close at him. “God save you and your boys, Angus.” Then he sped away real fast, turnin’ up dirt clouds on the way out. Pa spit on the ground and watched the car go all the way up the road and turn out towards town. When the motorcar was gone for sure he turned to me on the porch. “Where Abe at?” He asked. He dropped the shotgun next to the big cherry tree by the road that led up to our porch. “I don’ know, Pa,” I said. I was shakin’ a little bit and my voice sounded like it. “I’ll find him. Go git the eggs from the coop.” Pa looked worn out, but when I was walkin’ away I looked over my shoulder and saw him get into his shirt pocket and take out his drink as he walked into the house. He took a big swig and then saw me lookin’ and yelled, “Boy, I find you lookin’ back here one more time and not gittin’ the eggs like I tol’

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you I’m gonna give you the biggest whoopin’ of your damn life.” I started walkin’ a lot faster towards the coop next to the barn over our hill. All the time I was walkin’ over there, I was thinkin’. I knew Pa wasn’t a good man, but I didn’t know Pa was a bad man. Pa couldn’t be a bad man, ‘cause I knew I made life harder for him. On account of killin’ my Mama and all. But that ice man made it seem like Pa was a real bad man. Life was too hard to figgur’ out sometimes, so I thought I should just stop thinkin’ ‘bout it altogether. I came around the barn and saw our little chicken coop sittin’ there with the left half of the roof all fallin’ off. Right above the front of the little coop door was some fadin’ white letters that Pa tol’ me said Boone Chickens. He was real proud of that coop when he built it but I don’ think he worked on it since. That’s why the roof was fallin’ off. I crawled into the little door in the front and saw ten little stall spots for our chickens. Only twelve eggs today, so I picked up the eggs real careful from each spot and put ‘em in my big overall pockets. The chickens were all outside feedin’ on the nasty corns in the mud, so I didn’t have to worry ‘bout any peckin’ or scratchin’ from them. I crawled back out once I got the twelve eggs and started to walk over to the house. Chicken coop pickin’ was always one of the best jobs. I thought maybe Pa was givin’ me a easy work day. Once I came up over the hill and saw the house I figured I’d go inside ‘cause I didn’t see Pa. I walked up to the front door and heard some mumblin’ inside. Pa was sayin’ “we don’ need ice, damn kids don’ need ice for nothin’. I’ll go down to the market to sell if I want to.” I figured I’d sit outside on the edge of the porch. There were lots of clouds in the sky, so I sat down and tried to name every one of them. I lost track pretty quick since the wind was goin’ and the clouds were movin’. I saw one cloud lookin’ like a big ol’ rabbit, jumpin’ with those longs legs of his. And right when I saw that good lookin’ rabbit cloud I heard a bang so loud it made me fall of the porch. It was like a thunder bolt came down out the sky and stood in front of me and looked me dead in the eyes and clapped his big hands together. The bang echoed in the air and I could still hear it even after the echo was gone. The sound came from over by our barn over the hill, so I stood right up and looked to take off over there when Pa came out and slammed the door. “What’n the hell someone shootin’ off on my pro-per-ty for? I had ‘nough a these bastards comin’ onto my land and thinkin’ they can run me ‘round.” Pa was really strugglin’ with his words and I knew that meant he was darn full. I looked up at Pa and then looked over towards the hill and towards the barn and saw somethin’ movin’ towards the house. It heaved and jerked, not runnin’ real fast but goin’ ‘bout as fast as it could. And two seconds later I could see it was Abe cryin’ his eyes out comin’ up the hill. “God damnit,” Pa said. We both ran over to Abe and he was cryin’ somethin’ awful. I reckon I’d never seen Abe cry like this even after one of Pa’s worst fits. First thing I noticed after the cryin’ was the blood. All on the front of his overalls, and runnin’ down like it ain’t even dried yet. When he got close he mumbled through the tears and I could barely hear what he was sayin’. “I din’t mean to…it’s gon’ be okay…please say he’s gon be okay, Willie…tell’em I din’t mean to, Pa…please tell’em…” “Abe, quit your ramblin’ and speak up boy!” Pa grabbed Abe’s shoulders and yelled real loud and shook him real hard. “What’d you do boy?” “I…I... was quail huntin’ like you do, Pa,” he said, “ and I swear I was doin’ real good an’ bein’ careful an’ all…” Pa and I looked over to the cherry tree by the road and that shotgun he used to scare off the ice man wasn’t there no more. “Spit it out, god damnit,” Pa said. “I was…I was in the field and was movin’ real quiet. And I thought I saw some of them birds so I had the gun ready and I was gon’ shoot ‘em and give ‘em to you to cook for us and we’d have a big meal, Pa.” “What’d you do Abe?” I said real quiet. I was thinkin’ it and not aimin’ to say it since I didn’t want Abe to get a beating, but it came on out. Sometimes you know what’s comin’ and you don’t want it to come, and there’s that one little

Spring 2015

thing in your chest that says it won’t come, but it always does. I felt that way now. “Willie, I din’t mean to!” “Abe, what’n the goddamn hell happened?” Pa was gettin’ real mad. “I was ready to shoot those birds and then I heard somethin’ breathe behin’ me and I turned ‘round and fell on the ground and I swear I din’t mean to shoot an’ I don’ think I did, I think the gun hit the ground and it went off…” He got quiet at the end. “An’ I opened my eyes from bein’ on the ground and Rodger was lyin’ there and took it in the neck.” “Abe…” I whispered. My eyes didn’t have time to well up ‘cause the tears just started comin’. “Abe!” yelled Pa. Right then and there he punched Abe in the face. Right in the side of his face. Abe went down onto the ground and I thought the gunshot was the worst sound I’d ever heard but now I knew Abe screamin’ on the ground here was the worst sound I’d ever heard. “Dumb son...of…a…bitch! My live-li-hood…” Pa said it as he exhaled and got down on one knee and punched Abe right on the shoulder and then right in the side of his chest and then got up and kicked him right in the chest and then went right back to punchin’. Abe screamed and cried even worse, and I just stood there dumb and scared and froze up. I swear Pa punched him more than he punched that ice man. When he was done Abe’s face was all swole up and he was coughin’ like his lungs were fillin’ with water and he was clutchin’ his stomach like I’d never seen a boy do and his arm was purple and there was blood comin’ out his nose. Pa gave it a rest and then bent down and said right in Abe’s face. “I’m gon’ beat you harder than I beat your brother’s mamma dead.” “Pa…” I said. It was all I could get out through my cryin’. “Yeah I beat her dead, you hear that?” He turned to look at me. He was full and in the worst fit I’d ever seen and I think he liked it. He smiled a little bit and pointed his hand at me, “You sur-prised, huh? She think she could git away with what she did and not tell me. But I found out…” “Whatchu mean, Pa? Whatchu mean?” I hollered at him through my tears. He looked me dead in the eyes and tol’ me. “You ain’t even my child, Willie. That’s right. She ain’t give me a child an’ then go off an’ go makin’ you an’ come back and ‘spect me not to find out.” Abe was still screamin’ on the ground and shakin’ mighty hard. Pa looked at him and looked at me and said “She even dumber than you two.” He kept lookin’ at me and it looked like he got madder and madder. “Git outta here boy! I’ll do you next and Lord knows you older and can take it better and I can beat you worse.” So I turned and ran all the way over our hill and to our field behind the barn, cryin’ all the way. I hopped the wooden face and saw two buzzards circlin’ out in the middle of the field. I kept runnin’ out there and saw good ol’ Rog lyin’ on the ground. This was the first time I saw Rog’s chest not movin’ but I sat down and patted him just the same. “Rog, you still gon’ beat those colts and run them outta their horseshoes…I’m right here Rog…Abe din’t mean it, he swears…You’re the fastest horse I ever knew …” I was sobbin’ and gaspin’ for breath. I kept pattin’ his chest and didn’t even mind the stink comin’ from him that was callin’ the buzzards. He was Rog and he was my friend and I figured he knew it too. And right there ‘bout five feet from Rog was that gun. I hated that gun now and reckoned I’d go bury it in the woods. I walked over and picked it up and it felt real heavy. I didn’t know how Abe carried it all the way out here. He didn’t mean anythin’ though, I knew it. I stood there with the barrel right in my hands and the wind picked up like it was doin’ on and off the whole day. Everythin’ was quiet, except when the wind carried over Abe’s screams from the house. I looked at the gun and heard the screams and looked at Rog and thought ‘bout my Mama. I figured she woulda knew I didn’t make life hard. I bet she liked life all the same. That was my kind of mama and I figured that was who she was. I figured she

The Quad

had blonde curly hair like mine and wore the nicest dresses and woulda taught me school right there on the porch. And as much as I thought ‘bout her, I couldn’t see her since I never met her. And that made me think some more. I thought that Pa was a bad man, and I knew it now. I didn’t know it before and I thought it after the ice man and now I knew it. So I started walkin’ to the house, over the fence and past the barn and over the hill, with the gun in my hand and still cryin’, but not as hard. I got over the hill and saw Pa sittin’ there next to the big cherry tree facin’ the road with his drink in his hand. I could hear Abe in the house moanin’ and coughin’ even worse than he did before I went out to the field. I looked at the big gun in my hands and saw my feet movin’ even though I didn’t remember tellin’ them to move. I got over to the tree and Pa was on the other side of the trunk mumblin’ to himself and drinkin’ big swigs. I didn’t pay attention to what Pa was mumblin’, ‘cause I heard Pa’s mumbles lots of times and right there I came to the thinkin’ that they were all the same. Life was hard, and I knew it. But life was good too, and I knew that. I knew it from Rog and from Abe and from the red and blue streaks in the mornin’ and the pigs and the chickens and the clouds shaped like rabbits and the stars out my window. I stood there for a second on the other side of the cherry tree trunk, the wind slowed and whistled through the tree branches and I could feel it in my hair. I closed my eyes and breathed and put the butt of the gun on my shoulder and put the barrel out and put my finger on the trigger. Pa mumbled and took a swig and then I shot him right there in the head. The gunshot pushed me onto the ground and my ears were ringin’. The bang sounded different than Abe’s shot, and I wasn’t so sure why. Now I was back to cryin’ bad and dropped the gun where I was. I didn’t want to look at it no more. I stood up and started walkin’ over to the house but stopped in the middle of the road and threw up pretty good. My throat burned from cryin’ and yellin’ and runnin’ and throwin’ up. But I kept walkin’ to the house and walked up to the porch and through the front door and saw Abe lyin’ on the ground, arms wrapped around his chest and his head pulled down into his arms and his all legs curled up. I bent down and sat next to him like I sat next to Rog, ‘cept this time I put my arms around him and put my cheek on his head. “Willie’s here Abe. Ain’t no one gon’ hurt you no more. I’ll get you better. I’m here. Ain’t no one gon’ hurt you more.” “Where’s...Pa…Willie?” “Pa’s gone Abe, he’s gone. I tol’ you, ain’t no one gon’ hurt you no more.” Right there with Abe I thought ‘bout today and thought that I wasn’t gon’ let no one hurt Abe no more. And I sat up against the wall and he curled up in between my legs and I held him and patted his head and tol’ him that he wasn’t gon’ get hurt no more. I stopped cryin’ by now but my mind was still goin’. I looked down at Abe and then looked outside through the screen door. It started to rain big drops of rain on the cherry tree. I reckon I never felt like I felt there on that floor with Abe. I reckon it was the first time in my life that I felt like life was hard and scary but felt like it was good and worth livin’ at the same time.Q

Jared Billings (‘15) is a senior economics major. He recommends “My Old Man” by Ernest Hemingway as a more beautiful and tragic reading on fatherhood.

The Bat Chris Prosser He found himself trapped in the black prison of a bucket-like ashtray, scuttling quickly around. The sunlit blaze of dawn crisped his dusky skin. His echoes mottled the air but rebounded back in his face, unheeded and unused. He was flying blind, but I watched him turn skyward – it’s true, I thought — with parallels blocked, freedom was close, just up, and up, and up, And he reached for it, fluttering softly into the morning.

Chris Prosser (‘15) was, is, and shall be.

Close to Home Emily Lundberg “Mom?” Snippets of garbled jargon answered me. My cheekbone hurt as I pressed the phone closer to my ear. “Mom! What’s going on?” Mom’s shaky voice cut in and out. “Eighteen-wheeler . . . hit and run . . . your brothers and I . . . The van is . . .” Abruptly, she stopped. I looked down. The cell signal was lost. “What happened?” Dad demanded. My face betrayed me. I glanced at him in the driver’s seat. “I think mom and the boys were in an accident,” I answered, my voice small, hesitant. The Toyota Camry accelerated. The battered plastic interior shook as we sped along, scaling the white line of the country road. “God,” Dad said. “God.” I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Frantically I scanned the side of the road, my eyes sliding over muddy ditches and side roads. Dad zoomed down into a small ravine. “There,” I pointed. On the other side was an s-curve. I could barely make out our forest-green Ford camouflaged next to the murky-brown hill. The bright, flashing red and blue lights next to the van had got my attention. “God,” Dad said again. We pulled in behind the ambulance and police cars. My thirteen-year-old and eight-year-old brothers stood next to an officer, their faces pale and small under the hoods of their navy-blue rain jackets. But where’s Mom? I swung the Camry door open wide and stepped out. I could tell something was wrong about the van’s shape. The closest side appeared undamaged, but the entire vehicle was much too close to the hill. Our van was not that narrow. I walked behind it. The driver’s side was concaved in, completely crushed. Then I saw Mom. The paramedics were rolling her out on a stretcher, her neck in a brace. “Mom!” I ran up to her. Dad put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “Wait,” he said. I waited. Forty-five minutes later, I swung my feet in the ER waiting area at Silverton Hospital. My tennis shoes tapped the floor, alternating heel-toe, echoing down the gray hall. The nurse had ushered Dad and the boys inside a few minutes before, and I was left surrounded by empty seats. I bit my lip, ignoring the sharp pain. Why don’t they let me in to see Mom? The door to the ER opened and a hand beckoned me inside. “I’m so sorry.” The nurse’s face was apologetic. “I didn’t realize you were part of the family. Your mom is fine.” I ducked under Dad’s arm and clambered to Mom’s side. Dad and the boys were standing around her. She opened her eyes. “It’s okay,” she smiled. Dad put his arms around me. “It’s all okay.”Q

Emily Lundberg (‘16) concurs that bowties are cool. She loves traveling and hopes one day to set foot in each state. So far, she is up to 30 states (and counting ).

The Meaning of Ephemeral Holly Spofford Snow falls where there are no stars. Here, cold frost-kisses melt and whisper Touching gently skin and river. Earth cocooned in cloud slow-shivers And snow drifts softly to the rhythm. There, past crowds of moon and stone, Giants of energy slow-burn: Stars in deserts flaming fire Never feeling brush of snow. Here, feet tread in melting marks That say, “Here I have been before. Here another foot has been.” Old and ageless as a star? Or lonesome in a desert place? There, a spark sparks all alone. Not even snow caresses stars.

Holly Spofford (‘15) has survived Grove City winters with coffee, frothed milk, and dreams of daffodils. The beauties of snow, ice, and starry nights have startled her out of complaints and into appreciation during long walks to and from the apartments. (Sometimes.)

The Pen Doth Magnify the Lord Ethan Mitchell

n recent decades, the question of proper church worship

traditional, and liturgical worships clash against one another,

has been raised often throughout the American Church.

creating tensions within the body of the American Church.

The multi-denominational system grants Christians the

It is for this reason that Daniel Block’s book For the Glory

freedom to choose according to their own personal tastes and

of God is a vitally important read for any Christian interested

preferences of worship, and this is all well and good. Tenth

in the debate of true worship. Block, Professor of Old Testa-

Presbyterian in Philadelphia, for example, is constructed in a

ment at Wheaton College, wrote the subtitle to the book as,

way that the organist and the choir and all the instrumental ensembles perform in the back balcony of the sanctuary, obstructed from the congregation’s sight. This architectural design intends to focus the attention of the worshipping congregant on the LORD, not

“Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship.”

For the Glory of God, Daniel Block. Baker Academic; 2014. 432 pages. $34.99 Paperback.

the musicians. The former chief elder of this

After the reading the thirteen chapters dedicated to each important aspect of worship, the reader will assuredly feel some sense of recovery. As a historian, Block delves deep into the traditions of the Israelite faith found in the Pentateuch to discover and identify

church once told me of an incident that happened many years

common practices of the ancient religion. From the historical

ago that reflects this same cautiousness of worship. The chil-

roots of worship, Block ventures on to examine the Biblical

dren’s choir performed in front of the congregation, which

theologies of worship in daily life, in music, in drama, and

was reportedly unprecedented in the history of the church. Af-

even architecture (much to the joy of Tenth Presbyterian).

ter they had finished their song, the congregation applauded.

Due to his academic sensibilities, readers who are not fluently

Now, this may not seem to be a great controversy to some,

versed in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic may find some of the

but I am sure some of my fellow Calvinists have cringed just

portions impenetrable. But the triumph of For the Glory of God

now. The late James Montgomery Boice certainly did. When

resides at the end of every chapter, where Block ties the past

the congregation had finished clapping, Dr. Boice reportedly

together with an application present situation of the Church.

said from the pulpit, “Now that we are done glorifying the

Each chapter brims with a flood of research and information

children, we may return to glorifying the LORD.” Some may

that, when it is completed, will make the reader wish to take

find that statement harsh, but James Boice, along with his

some Pepto-Bismol and lie down for a few hours to digest what

director of music Paul S. Jones, constructed an atmosphere of

they have imbibed.

worship revolving around Solo Deo Gloria: Glory to God alone.

This book is in no way the end-all-be-all standard for the

This is but one example of a style of worship that differs im-

true method of worship, but it encourages the reader to ask

mensely even with other Presbyterian churches. Not everyone

pertinent questions and presents an astonishing amount of

believes that applause detracts from the glory of God, or that

thorough research. There is much to be gleaned from For

seeing the musicians makes the worship about them, or that

the Glory of God. I believe that it is the foundation of many

drums are of the devil and projector screens are his mistresses.

books to come that will hopefully bring about thoughtful, civil

Many Christians however, particularly those of a tradi-

discussions concerning this contentious issue in the American

tional bent, desire to define the right and true style of worship

Church.Q

based on Biblical example. The adage “What’s worship for you is not necessarily worship for me” does not bring peace to these believers. They want a set, unwavering standard. And so, the debate continues as the years go on. Contemporary,

Ethan Mitchell (‘15) is a senior English major and Theatre minor. Although he spent four years in a competitive marching band, people think he’s a pretty nice and funny guy. He hopes.

The Trees Chris Prosser Listen for whispers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; those trees growing sideways on rocks, pulling earth from the creek. Battles were waged here before we were formed; Hell melted rock and a planet was born. Still as the sky these trees, frozen in time, serve the old dispensation that nature deigned. Here they remember the war of their birth for eternity, stuck in a gait this far bent â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I see why they die in the Fall, but what courage to suffer rebirth in the Spring.

Oyster Grayson Quay

n a summer Saturday when I was nine years old, I decided that I wanted to become an oyster. It was late August, that point in the summer when endless possibilities have, by a process so slight and gradual as to be undetectable, been transubstantiated into finite realities to be counted, categorized, and remembered. Isn’t it strange how as a kid you count the days until the last day of school and when it arrives you count the seconds until the final bell, but by the end of summer you guiltily catch yourself wanting to go back? I guess we all shared the fear that if we didn’t do something spontaneous and memorable with our last few days of summer, we’d all find ourselves sitting at strange desks holding new pencils, heavy with the knowledge that we’d betrayed everything we’d promised to ourselves and to each other on the afternoon of no more teacher’s dirty looks. My decision to become an oyster was the direct result of one of these reckless attempts to make the summer “count” (that was how I thought of it at the time). The day before there had been a storm and my friends and I all knew that it would be a bad idea to swim in the creek, so of course we headed there. There were ten or twelve of us, marching in a staggered column behind the fearless leader of our neighborhood gang, Billy Palmer. We were still young and limited enough that we chose our friends more by proximity than anything else. Some of us grew into lifelong friends, but as we matured and differentiated it became clear that I had never really fit in. Billy brought us through the woods to our regular swimming hole, expertly circumventing patches of stinging nettle. Earlier that summer we’d rigged up a rope swing, but the creek was so high that day that the last foot of our rope, which usually hung well above the surface of the water, was floating bunched up in a coil on the creek’s surface, twisting lazily with the eddies and then springing back as the tension worked its way up the length of the rope. To swing, we would normally jump from an embankment that had formed around a large tree beside the stream, but on that day the water had swallowed all but the last few inches of our jumping-off point, obscuring the spider web of roots with which we’d anchor ourselves when we grew tired from treading water. With the rope dragging and the water high, we all immediately saw that anyone who tried to swing would just skim over the surface and then plop into the water from the height of a few inches, rather than letting go at the apex of a long arc and cannonballing in from several feet up like we were used to. Walking over, we’d all been sure of our ability to paddle from the creek’s deep center back to the bank even with the abnormally strong current, but nobody felt confident going in just to swim. There was no danger, really. A few hundred yards downstream there was a wooden bridge that led up the hill to the monastery. The bridge had an extensive crisscross of supports that we could grab onto if any of us got swept away. Still, there were jagger bushes on the bank where we’d have to climb out and nobody liked getting stuck, especially while wearing nothing but underwear. Billy was facing a mutiny. He knew that if it turned out that he’d led everyone through the brush only to make them turn around again, the whole blush of seven to nine-year-old boys would blame him for wasting precious minutes of what might well be the last good afternoon of the summer. Heavy sits the crown. Billy squinted his eyes and screwed up his face, an expression that he’d first assumed in response to a teacher prompting him to “put on his thinking cap.” It meant not only that he was thinking but that he wanted everyone around him to know that he was thinking. He needed to let his followers know that he was hard at work on a solution that would salvage the afternoon, his own position within the group, and perhaps even the summer itself. Without altering his expression, Billy thoughtfully stripped to his underwear and then, without warning, he cried out, “Geronimo!”

Spring 2015

Billy bounded forward and, placing his foot on the edge of the embankment, propelled himself upward and outward. He landed upstream of the rope and the current shot him downstream immediately. We all held our breath. What was he doing? Then, just as we were preparing ourselves to run parallel with Billy all the way to the bridge, he pitched himself sideways in the water and caught the knot at the end of the rope. The current pulled at him insistently, drawing the rope taught and yanking his head and chest up out of the water. As far as the creek was concerned, Billy might have been a leaf or a rock. It would either part around him or carry him off, but to accomplish the latter it would need to break his grip, snap the rope, or uproot the tree. Until that point I remember the events of that afternoon as a series of observations without any corresponding reflections or responses, but in that moment I recall being deeply disturbed that Billy might be swept away so blindly and without any regard for his wishes or even his identity. With his elbows locked and his mouth alternately grinning and sputtering, Billy called to those of us watching from the embankment. It took several tries for him to make himself understood, but finally he managed to shout, “Make a chain!” We all understood what he meant and the others quickly removed their clothes. T-shirts and shorts littered the ground like the aftermath of the rapture, but I stood by, still frightened by the risen creek. The others stood on the embankment undressed, kneading the earth with their toes, hesitating between the preparation and the plunge. My friend Tommy started forward, but then faltered, drawing the attention of the others. With their eyes fixed on him, he had no option but to follow through. Tommy took the same two steps that Billy had taken and pushed off from the same spot on the edge of the bank, superimposing his footprint crookedly over Billy’s. He hit the water just like Billy had but instead of grasping at the rope, he clamped his hand around Billy’s ankle and held fast, his slim body strung out to its full length. As the rest of the gang followed, I stood off to the side, envying them in their near-nakedness, suddenly and painfully conscious of my clothes against my skin. Beads of sweat stung my eyes, seeming a cruel counterpart to the coolly prismatic droplets with which the flailing limbs of the others decorated the air so wantonly. Those who had not yet jumped noticed my hesitancy and began to tease me, plucking at my garments and nudging me toward the mindless impetus of the water. Soon, I stood alone on the bank, watching the sputtering snake composed of my friends twist back and forth in the current. Their slim, young bodies, bare of pubescent muscle, strained to hold on. They’d all be exhausted later. Soon they discovered a new aspect to the game. The boy on the end—Ralph—climbed hand over hand up the boy in front of him, making footholds of knees, elbows, and shoulders, and then kept going. It was a slow process. Some of those he climbed over grumbled while others offered a hand. When he reached Billy, Ralph braced his left foot against Billy’s shoulder and, grabbing the rope with his right hand, managed to pull himself almost all the way out of the water. With his left hand and right leg making clumsy circles to preserve his balance, Ralph bent his left knee and pushed off of Billy’s shoulder, launching himself toward the bank. He caught a root, hauled himself up, and collapsed panting against the base of the tree. Our eyes met. It wasn’t disdain I detected, nor was it annoyance. There was no malice of any kind in his expression, but rather an innocent disconnection. What could the wet, nearly naked boy with the heaving lungs possibly say to me, who shared in none of it? Nothing, except “Come in,” an exhortation delivered with no understanding of why I hadn’t already. When I didn’t respond, he looked away, his joy not affording my disapproval a second thought, and plunged back into the water, this time grabbing Billy’s free ankle and creating a branch in the chain. The others soon began to follow Ralph’s example, clambering over each other, turning the moist bank into a mud pit with pressure of their hands and

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feet, joyfully slipping, painting their bodies with great gashes of mud and then instantly washing them off with a plunge into the creek. All but Billy, who stayed as the perpetual anchor. They streamed past me like an endlessly recycled parade. I couldn’t tell you exactly why I didn’t join them. I resisted taking off my clothes even though they were hot and scratchy, and I didn’t want to get wet even though I was drenched in sweat and the water looked cool. There was something in the gasping, sputtering mouths and the muddy, chafed hands that drew me forward even as it repelled me. I took a few steps toward the bank, freezing whenever I caught a glance that invited me without any more understanding than the current would’ve shown. It was all too dirty and too chaotic with too much straining of muscle against muscle and muscle against current. My head buzzed with all of it and it felt as though something, either within or without, was on the verge of bursting. I stood there watching the same few kids pass by again and again until Tommy grabbed me around the waist and flung himself into the water, dragging me with him. Looking back on it now, I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favor. He probably figured I’d come up laughing and splash him playfully. Anyone who has not been a child recently would not think a child capable of the all-consuming rage I felt, but there is much that adults forget about the darker aspects of childhood. I wanted to kill Tommy. I wanted out of the creek. Those two instincts battled and the latter won out. I broke out of his bear hug, bent my legs against his torso, and kicked off of him toward the bank, catching a root. By the time I’d pulled my body, made heavier by my sopping clothes, onto the bank, my hatred had broken into something rawer and hot tears mingled with the cool water dripping from my face, blinding and smothering me. It wasn’t just Tommy either. My bleary eyes and single-minded rage blurred the whole chain of boys into one long flesh-colored streak, wet, muddy, complicit, wanton, uncaring. I tore up a clod of dirt and threw it at them, but I overshot. Realizing that I was only making myself look foolish and refusing to let them see me cry, I yelled, “I hate you!” Then I turned around and ran home. I burst into the kitchen, dripping all over the tile floors and still crying furiously. My mother loved me, her first and only, very much. I remember how her face lit up when I first came in and then twisted itself into pity when she saw what a mess I was. Her voice told me right away that even with no idea of what had caused it, my pain had already become her own. “What’s wrong, honey?” I could only stammer, choked by tears and mucus and the lump in my throat. She abandoned the cookies she’d been baking and enfolded me in a hug, heedless of the stinking mud, and then stepped back. “Let me get you a towel.” She dried me off, repeating “Shh” and “It’s ok” as she did so, although it was the gentleness of her voice that soothed me more than the words. I stopped crying. The phone rang, but she ignored it and helped me out of my wet clothes and into clean, dry ones. Then she knelt down to talk to me. “Now. What happened?” “I wish I was an oyster!” In hindsight, I can imagine how much that exclamation must have perplexed her, but to her credit she didn’t let her confusion show, or worse, laugh. Instead, she let me make myself understood in the way of my choosing, convoluted as it was. “Why do you want to be an oyster?’ “Because nothing bad ever happens to oysters.”

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The obvious response would’ve been to ask if something bad had happened to me, but she played along. She knew that allowing me to explain in my own terms would yield a much more complete picture of what was wrong than prying facts out of me. “Oysters also don’t get to have any fun,” she said. I’d anticipated this response. Adults might think that children only ever think about fun, but I knew from watching adults that fun eventually went by the wayside. I could accept that. I could do without fun, even if that was all my stupid friends seemed to want. Mine was a higher goal: the cultivation of the pearl. I would rest in myself, far from brutish streams and nagging companions, and in that inner stillness I would create something valuable and lasting. Fashioned behind the stoic face of the oyster’s shell, the pearl would outshine and outlast all the fish that mocked the oyster with their color and speed. But my mother would never understand this and at the time I couldn’t have explained it anyway. So I came out with the facts, recounting the events of the afternoon up until Tommy pulling me into the creek. “Then what happened?” my mother asked. “I sort of kicked him to get away and then I swam up on the bank and yelled at them and then I came home.” “You kicked him?” She stood, marking the transition from comforter to authority figure. “Yeah! He pulled me into the water and I didn’t want to get in the water!” “Well that wasn’t very nice of him, but he probably thought you were just scared to jump and you’d be fine once you were in. He should’ve asked you before he did something like that, but that’s still no excuse to kick him.” “But he…” “Son, in life it never helps you to lash out.” “But I didn’t want to get in,” I whined. “It also doesn’t help to be stubborn. It runs in our family, but it’s not what I want for you. I know you like to swim. Why would you stay up on the bank instead of having fun with your friends?” I could only shrug and mutter. “You never have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she said. “Even if everyone else is doing it. In some circumstances, it can be good to dig your heels in like you did. If the others were doing something wrong like hurting an animal I’d be very proud of you for not joining in.” She bent down and kissed my head. “There are a lot of things we can change in life, but other things we’re just stuck with. Those things can either work for us or against us. It’s all about how use them. Do you understand?” “I guess so.” I didn’t. I’m still not sure I do, even all these years later. Not fully anyway. “Tommy was wrong to pull you in and he should apologize to you, but you also need to apologize to him for kicking him and to the others for yelling at them.” “I told them I hate them,” I said in a choked whisper. I was on the verge of tears again. I saw my mother’s face fall. She turned away from me, perhaps to hide brimming tears of her own. I’d never played well with others and to this day I’m not very good at making new friends. She’d failed to give me any siblings, so she blamed herself for my antisocial nature. Later, when I was in high school, she’d badger me to ask some classmate or other to hang out, but I wouldn’t. Instead, I’d just spend another weekend alone and she’d be torn between pity and frustration. “Why don’t you just say ‘Hey guys, I just got a new video game. Wanna come over Friday and play?’” she’d say, making it sound so simple, and I could never think of how to respond. To me, a true connection between human beings seemed nothing short of a miracle and any attempt to forge one so casually bordered on blasphemy. After a disastrous freshman

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year, she got me to go out for soccer and had me read Dale Carnegie and encouraged me to join clubs. Eventually, I learned to make myself participate. On that afternoon, though, she turned back to me with an expression that regarded me as utterly incomprehensible. It was the closest she ever came to giving up altogether on understanding me. “Why? Why, little child? Why can’t you just play with the others?” She fought to keep her voice steady. I stepped forward to embrace her, not seeking so much to comfort her as to allow myself to be comforted, but to my shock she put out her hand to stop me. No matter what the circumstances, she had never denied me a hug before that and she has never denied me one since. “No. Go back outside, find your friends, and apologize.” “But mom!” “Go,” she snapped. I realized that there was no more room for appeal, so I obeyed. Once I was outside, I walked around the house and watched my mother through the kitchen window. She took a series of deep, shuddering breaths and then cracked an egg into the bowl for the cookies, beating it until the yolk became light. All I wanted was to bake cookies with my mother. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option, but neither was returning to the creek. I knew as soon as I set off that I could never face Billy, Tommy, and the others that afternoon. The part of me that still fumed insisted that I’d never speak to any of them again, but my more rational core advised me to catch up with them the next day and apologize as casually as I could. Still, I had to at least head in their direction in case my mother decided to look out the window to make sure I’d listened. Rejecting my friends made me feel strongly independent, so I made up my mind to undertake a quest of my own. I hadn’t quite grown out of inventing my own mythology for my solitary romps—searching for lost cities, heading for a secret rendezvous with another spy, or even the nebulous but usually sufficient “fighting bad guys.” I would eventually abandon the practice, but something of it has stayed with me. I’ve always had the ability to harden myself around a task. When I started running for exercise in high school, the last few miles would demand as much from my willpower as from my muscles, but I always managed it. Writing long papers for college classes was the same; I had to present it to myself as a challenge rather than as a simple assignment. My myth-making instinct was not lost so much as refined. When I decided to head for the monastery, I didn’t create a scenario. That afternoon, I discovered my ability to parcel out significance to anything I chose without having to make up a story. I could make things matter solely because I decided they did. I was the hero in the epic of my life. No embellishment necessary. As I passed the swimming hole, I felt a twisting in my gut that radiated its tension outward to become a prickling sensation on my skin. The foliage was thick enough that I couldn’t see the others and they couldn’t see me, but I could hear them splashing and howling with laughter. I clenched my hands at my sides and kept my eyes front. A fleeting fantasy of smashing my fist into Tommy’s face crossed my mind, but I quickly thrust it aside, banishing all other thoughts of him along with it. Why punch him when I could make him cease to exist? I passed the swimming hole and the feeling subsided. Another few minutes’ walk brought me to the bridge. It was a plain wooden bridge almost too narrow to drive a car over. On the far side of the bridge stood an unadorned wrought-iron gate with saints carved into the stone pillars on either side of it. Both saints looked down in what was obviously intended to be prayer, but to my nine-year-old self looked more like navel-gazing. Their faces were serene. Beyond the gate, the dirt road sloped up the hill to the monastery. With use, most dirt roads develop two deep parallel ruts with a peak running between them, but aside from the occasional applicant—and on one occasion the year

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before, an ambulance—this road never saw use and therefore remained unmarred. I stood in front of the gate for a while, thinking of the best way to get around it. I could jump off the bridge onto the bank of the creek and walk up or I could try to shimmy around the edge of one of the sainted columns, but both options would likely land me in the jagger bushes. The only remaining possibility was to climb over the gate, so that’s what I did. I came close to ripping my pants while getting over the top, then overcorrected trying to reorient myself and nearly poked my eye out. Fortunately, I managed to catch myself and so was able to drop down and proceed up the road intact. I was about halfway up to the monastery when I stopped suddenly in the middle of the road, turned at a right angle, and walked into the woods. A few jagger bushes caught at my shirt and I had to carefully reach between the jaggers with my thumb and forefinger to move the offending branches out of my way. When I’d gotten about twenty feet into the woods, I turned to face the monastery once again and set off parallel to the road. It was slower going, obviously, but something in the flat directness of the road clashed with the import I’d assigned to my solitary quest. Like the creek, the path to the monastery seemed to be dictating a direction to me, pushing me along as though it had a current of its own. I congratulated myself on blazing my own trail through the woods, arduous though it was, rather than keeping to the simplistic and ready-made solution of those who had come before. Even over a decade later, I’m still no more certain of what drove me toward the monastery than I am of what kept me from the creek. In hindsight, it seems as though as a child I just did things and only later did it become so important to explain myself to myself. It could have been that I’d grown up so close to the monastery without ever having seen it, thus imputing to it a sense of mystery. The previous summer, Ralph and I had concealed ourselves in the grass and trained a pair of binoculars on the road, hoping to catch a monk sneaking out the gate on a secret mission or something. The sense of mystery went deeper than this, though. I was too young to remember at the time, but my parents have told me that when I was two or three years old, I mistook our priest for God. It was a simple mistake, one that any small child could make. They’d dress me up on Sunday morning and say, “Let’s go see God,” and there He’d be, the most prominent figure in the building. Then I started Sunday school and heard all about God raining plagues on Egypt and thundering all over Mount Sinai and I realized that the little man with the thick glasses who held me on his lap at the church potluck picnic and cut the grass in his front yard shirtless couldn’t possibly be God. With this realization, I moved God up the hill and installed Him in a more fittingly aloof residence in the monastery. Now I was almost there, ready to claim it all for myself. The monastery came slowly into view, the chiseled stone and stained glass of the structure carved into sections by the weaving branches as though the whole building were itself a stained glass image. I stepped out of the woods and back onto the road, walking the last fifty yards or so. When the road stopped rising and narrowed into a path that approached the front door, I saw that the façade of the monastery was composed of a large but plain wooden door bracketed by two stained-glass windows set several feet above the door and in the shape of rounded arches. The door was unusually shaped, almost square, and when combined with the ocular shape of the windows gave the effect of a stoic face. The windows, however, were all wrong. Rather than coming alive in the summer sunlight like they should’ve, heralding the projection of their scintillating images on the floors and walls of the interior, they appeared to be utterly dead. When I took a few steps closer, it became apparent that thick, black shutters had been closed over the windows from the inside. Even at nine years old, I felt that there was something wrong about shuttering stained-glass windows. The only possible explanation I could think of was that they were intended to stop the glass from being shattered by the wind during storms, but that hypothesis failed to explain why the shutters would be in use on such a perfectly calm afternoon as this. Besides, if that was what they were for shouldn’t the shutters have

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been on the outside? I began to walk around the building, hoping to gain some insight, and saw that the monastery as a whole was a long rectangular structure divided into two sections. The first was the longer of the two and appeared to be relatively unadorned aside from the shuttered stained glass windows that ran down either side of it. This would be the Great Hall where the monks would gather for meals. Between the windows, the sides of this section sported rounded, windowless, regularly spaced growths that I could only assume were the monks’ cells. The second section was much shorter, but stood a full story higher than the first and was decorated far more ornately with carvings and stained glass, through which the light shone freely. This would be the Chapel—no doubt separated from the Great Hall by another thick door—where the monks would celebrate the Mass, kneeling in awe of the True Presence. I needed to see inside, to know that there was more going on behind the doors and windows than the shutters would seem to imply. I circled back around to the front door, but could not decide whether to knock or to simply open it. After standing motionless before the door for a time, I turned and walked back around the side of the building, moving past the string of shuttered windows that lined the Great Hall between the cells. Then I noticed that one small section of glass had broken, leaving a small gap near the bottom of one of those windows. I knew that if I could find a way to reach, I could slide my hand through that small space and push the shutter open from the outside. The windowsill was several feet off the ground but after a few tries I was able to take a running start, propel myself upward a few more inches by pushing off the wall with my foot, and grab onto the ledge with both hands, bracing my feet against the wall for support. From there, it was just a matter of pushing open the shutter and propping myself up to gain a better viewing angle. At last, here was the glimpse inside the quiet, restful bower that promised to beget and contain all things of merit. When the shutter opened, I heard the monks before I saw them. They weren’t praying or chanting or talking or laughing; they were screaming. In the next instant I saw why. The monks stood in a circle facing away from each other and stripped to the waist, each lacerating himself with a leather whip. Their backs were webs of scar tissue with fresh red gashes laid overtop, blood coursing irregularly over the knots of misshapen flesh and spattering the flagstones with castoff droplets. Blood also ran down the whips and onto their hands, obscuring exactly where the whip ended and the hand began and giving them the appearance of scorpions turning their own stings on themselves. I couldn’t process what I was seeing, but looking back it seems that, not trusting in the monastery’s remote location, they had erected shutters and barred both sets of doors in a shameful attempt block out even the most prying eyes as within its walls the outwardly peaceful monastery rent itself viciously, warring and wounding. With each passing day, the monks must have been driven deeper into the pit of themselves until nothing but this struggle remained, until the staining and the cleansing overlapped, two streams from the same fountain. When I flung open the shutter, a beam of August sunlight fell with a crash that seemed almost audible into the center of the monks’ circle. At my age I hadn’t read Pope, but ten years later, the line “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind” would burn itself, retroactively and irrevocably, into the memory of that moment, rendering the line horrifying and the image of the monks pausing in their self-flagellation more horrifying still. I must have been perfectly silhouetted for them, outlined behind the myriad colors of glass, an observer, bringing to the light that which insisted on being done in darkness. With one voice, the monks let out a piercing wail. I lost my grip on the windowsill and fell to the earth. One of my shoes twisted off and my ankle burned with the impact. Ignoring the pain, I left the shoe were it lay and ran, not toward anything so much as away, out. Q Grayson Quay (’16) is a junior English major who still enjoys baking cookies with his mother.

The Glow of Papaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Smoke Anna Reed

Standing there, in the cold wintry night, I caught scent of a loose and airy smoke traveling towards me. I felt encapsulated by a frame, a white shimmering border. Inhaling this decorative scent that had perfumed the air, I was taken aback Back to a time when I saw him on the dimly lit porch step. His back curved like a shell withholding any warmth there was to gather. Knees bent at a perfect ninety-degree angle and his feet foreshortened, I watched. His hand gently lifted as his chapped and shriveled lips parted Allowing the warm cherry tobacco to fill his mouth. And a slow exhale revealed the smooth, fluid texture I had just seen in a different setting. I went back to the place in which he sat. The fogged air around him formed an aura of light, A haze that made him blurry as my memory was just that. Nothing more than a patch of white smoke to consume his being. I searched. I sought to see his body: The perfect arch and angles to his limbs, The gently raised facial hair above his mouth The glasses perched on his nose, The curve of the pipe that perfectly matched the shape of his spine, And the ease he possessed in the midst of a wintry night with nothing But the porch light illuminating the smoke he breathed. To form a frame around his body, he is the subject, the work of art A perfect composition, repetition in the bones, his spine raised. The form of his hands with a gentle grasp around an organic wooden pipe Exalted such beauty as to evoke an emotion of contentment upon his face. The prolific angle of harsh dark eyebrows balanced the lightness in his eyes. The flare in his nostrils reminds me he is living. The arch and expansion in his nose evokes reality like a pinch, A pulsating vein emerges from his cool pale skin, too real to be a fantasy. But then a cough was sounded and I return, Back to the harsh reality of a strangerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cigarette smoke. The distant fragrance that did not belong to him, The one I longed to smell, longed to see. But it was not him; he is not there. Anna Reed (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;18) is studying Communications, Studio Art, and Sociology. She is from Sewickley, Pennslyvania. Anna seeks to integrate the visual form of art into her writing by creating a mental picture.

On Dust Nick Hiner Ubi sunt qui ante nos In mundo fuere? Dust is your genetic material Floating through space like You wish you could, but you Are bound to breathe yourself In, to know the taste of life And death that suffocates The world and comes to Settle on white window sills.

Nick Hiner (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;15) thinks youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re really cool.

Deep Space Emily Lundberg

“Your saliva would boil at body temperature,” Nick was saying. “So I won’t spontaneously combust?” “No, your body wouldn’t even burn up.” Nick’s eyes were electrified with enthusiasm. “You would have a delightful, tickling sensation inside your mouth, because that and your eyes, nose and ears are exposed.” “But, there’s no oxygen. I wouldn’t be able to breathe,” I said. Nick nodded. “So, basically if I was in space with no suit, my body would be fine. I’d just die from suffocation in fifteen seconds.” Nick nodded again, smiling. I rolled my eyes. “Okay, guys. I don’t get it. But, you’re the brainiacs.” My chair scraped against the linoleum as I pushed away from the table. Nick, Rebecca, Emily, and Christine all chuckled at me. I grinned back. “Yeah, I guess there’s perks to hanging out with you chemistry and engineering-type majors.” I shouldered my backpack, zipped up my parka over my Doctor Who t-shirt and walked out of the cafeteria toward my next class. ***** I was eight years old the first time I ventured into literary space. I remember sitting on my parent’s faded blue couch, listening to my dad’s voice as he read to my brothers and me. I remember leaning back and closing my eyes, slipping softly away from reality. When I opened them again, black nothingness enveloped me. I was weightless, surrounded only by twinkling pinpoints, tiny representations of massive heavenly bodies. Two thousand fifty miles below me, the fifty-centsized Earth was an aqua and gray palette starkly colorful against the blackness. I marveled at space. Then Hollis’s scream stopped my heart. That’s when I remembered we were falling, Hollis and I. The spaceship had exploded and now Earth was growing closer and closer. I squeezed my eyes shut, petrified. Dad’s grave voice was the only sound in the room. He continued reading. A meteor flashed by. Hollis looked down and his left hand was gone. Blood spurted. Suddenly there was no air in his suit. He had enough air in his lungs to move his right hand over and twist a knob at his left elbow, tightening the joint and sealing the leak. I was still falling with Hollis. I had no suit, though. What would it be like to be in space with no suit? Oh, death in space was most humorous. It cut you away, piece by piece, like a black and invisible butcher. Dad looked up from The Vintage Bradbury book on his lap to where my brothers and I were perched, transfixed by the wonder and horror of space. It took several minutes for my imagination to return to Earth, to where I was, being introduced to the world of science fiction, to the world of impossible possibilities. ***** My dad watched Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969. As a child of the nineties, my fascination with space and time was fueled by short stories like Ray Bradbury’s “Kaleidoscope.” Ray Bradbury influenced modern science fiction and fantasy literature through his many prominent writings in the twentieth century. In 2012, Ray Bradbury passed away. President Obama said Bradbury’s “gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world . . . [he] also understood that our imaginations could be used as a tool for better understanding, a vehicle for change, and an expression of our most cherished values.” Even Steven Spielberg said Bradbury was “my muse for the better part of my sci-fi career.” For me, Bradbury launched an unlimited, rich exploration of realms beyond my experience, but within the reach of my mind. The black-and-white printed page probed my fascination with space more than any Star Wars episode accomplished

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through storytelling on screen. My obsession with stories birthed a cautious flirtation with science fiction and space odysseys, eventually basking in the Doctor Who television series, NASA documentaries, From the Earth to the Moon HBO miniseries, and Star Trek. Despite my ineptness at understanding the complexities of physics and astronomy, I found inspiration for my desperate captivation through the night sky above me and the inked pages at my fingertips. ***** “There,” I pointed. “Do you see it?” My breath fogged up my glasses in the chilly night air that October in 2014. “That’s the Dolphin—my favorite constellation.” My boyfriend Ben shifted beside me and followed my finger. Above us, faint, silvery twinkles formed a quadrilateral. I held up my iPhone and turned on my Night Sky Pro app. On the screen, we could see the constellation diagrams of the Northern Hemisphere above us. “Is that a satellite?” Ben asked. My screen indicated the Russian satellite was rapidly crossing the atmosphere. I tried to imagine what Earth would look like from that perspective. What would it be like to keep rotating around the Earth and never stop? Ben and I walked out in the middle of the road, across from the corn field. I had memorized many of the constellations from the summer before, but that was from the opposite side of the United States. I now looked at new stars and new angles of old constellations, feeling very, very small. The more I gazed upwards, the more I shrunk and wondered. Pieces of “Kaleidoscope” surfaced from my memory. I’ll burn, he thought, and be scattered in ashes all over the continental lands. I’ll be put to use. Just a little bit, but ashes are ashes and they’ll add to the land . . . “I wonder,” he said, “if anyone’ll see me?” I followed Ben, trailing the side of Pinchalong Road, glancing back up at the night sky every now and then, sometimes joyful, sometimes terrified. The vertical stare was dizzying and my feet felt light, like if I missed a step I might find myself rapidly falling amongst the stars. The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. “Look, Mom, look! A falling star!” The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois. “Make a wish,” said his mother. “Make a wish.” Deep space—an unlimited source for the imagination. I stole a glance upward again. The night sky is too beautiful. It made me want to cry. Q

Sleepwalking Chris Prosser Screams of seven thousand thousand haunt the seven decades since they exited throat. Auschwitz undigested sticks in throats generations removed. We drift in echoes that cannot be heard, that pierce if heard. We have not heard, but drift through echoing time. How does one cope? Before the screams, there was Darkness; into Darkness came War, and Fire began. Who has not seen the faces? Who has seen any face? War consumes Light, begetting screams. Fire congeals to Shadow. --We are children of Abram. Shadow-womb coddles like a cocoon of darkness. What have we seen?

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Battle has moved on, and with it, conviction: ideas make screams. Shall we impose? Or fall somnambulant through drifting slumber? They were like us, those screaming, and those making them scream: Mind catches Fire. Blazeless, blinded, We shiver, huddled in masses, Fearing sparks. --Things are softer than screams. What howling wind, what eager night devours sleep. A softer song takes hold. A song which crooning on and on has never feared the storm -Through chilliest land and strangest sea -When will we wake to Melody which lumbers through dark memory? Song can bend the fire into warmth, and teach us hope.

Exit 17W Dan Rzewnicki

e sat in the car and turned the ignition. The Mercedes roared to life in the garage. The brake lights of the sedan illuminated the early morning hours behind him as the garage door creaked open. The clock on the dashboard read 4:05. Fighting back sleep despite two cups of coffee, he relaxed into the familiar feel of his plush leather seats hugging his back and shoulders. He backed out of the driveway and headed for the highway, just as he had every day of the week since graduating college. Money never sleeps, his fraternity brothers at Harvard had joked as they made $10,000 trades at three in the morning the night before finals. None of them had realized that money doesn’t rest, take vacations, or fall in love either. He flipped on his turn signal, turning right at the end of his residential street onto highway 106, which he took to the Jericho turnpike headed west. He accelerated, the wheels churning over the pavement and pulling the sun up behind him. The collar of his Brooks Brothers oxford shirt tickled the underside of his chin. The first two buttons were unbuttoned, for now, with the sleeves rolled up. His flat black jacket was hung in the backseat. It would wrinkle if he wore it in the car. His tailored suit actually wasn’t as comfortable as the Brooks Brothers off-the-rack suits he used to buy, but the black suit hugged his thin frame better, and he made more money when he wore it. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he gripped the steering wheel. He drove too fast in the mornings; it kept him awake. He punched the gas pedal, flying onto the turnpike as he neared the end of the on ramp. He wouldn’t see another car between now and Wall Street (it seemed that way at least, but he guessed that couldn’t be true), but there was always a car passing on the turnpike as he neared the top of the on ramp. It never moved over. Murphy’s Law maybe. He never paid enough attention to see if it was the same car every morning. He should. Maybe then he could follow him to his destination and tell the asshole to move over in the mornings. Move over asshole. He would say it just like that. Don’t you know who I am? He might add that. I’m Peter Levicoff, and I own the biggest house and the newest car in Oyster Bay Cove. I get anything I want in New York and it doesn’t make a damned difference to me once I have it. No. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything. He sighed. Who knows, maybe it was someone who kept as tight a schedule as he did, someone else in a hurry to make money. Most people in New York were. The ones that weren’t were burnt out and too old to care. He thought a lot on his morning drives. Not that you could call 4 in the morning the morning, really. Most people were still deep in sleep. Most New Yorkers hadn’t even thought about sleep yet. They were either still dancing the night away in a night club or drinking the night away in the bar, pretending to have more money than they did or pretending that they were happy with all the money they had. He could have traded the hour drive from Oyster Bay Cove for a loft in the city and a walk to work, but he liked to put some miles between him and Wall Street when he left the Stock Exchange. Not that it mattered, being away just meant that he stayed glued to his iPhone in his million dollar home instead of staying glued to it in a bar, sipping cocktails and pretending to be happy with all the money he had made. Mostly he thought about work in the mornings, thinking of the emails he had to send and if Apple was going up or down. People thought you had to buy in to big companies to make money. The trick was to do your research and put a quarter million on a penny stock and hope like hell it grew. He had a lot of planning to do before the starting bell went off at 9:30, and it seemed that no matter how long he planned before the starting bell the 4 o’clock bell always came too soon. When he didn’t think about work, he thought about college, love, and the days that he didn’t have a care in the

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world. He thought about his fraternity brothers, and how all of them had thought they would grow up to be millionaires, spending their days on the golf course and their nights making love to their trophy wives. He hadn’t talked to any of them in years. The last time he had, they had all given up on Wall Street. I haven’t slept in months and I’m miserable as hell they said. He guessed they just hadn’t made enough money yet. He wondered if that was his problem. He didn’t like to think about that. When he pushed them out of his mind he thought about Laurie. “Laurie,” she had said with a playful smile when she met him, “all the vowels but the o.” He remembered her curly blonde hair draped around her pale blonde face and tumbling over the shoulders of her blazer. Her southern accent melted his heart, but he had learned not to let that show. You couldn’t let women know they had the upper hand. It was kind of like sealing a business deal. He thought back to school with Laurie. It seemed like they had eaten a thousand of Mr. Bartley’s burgers and had never run out of things to talk about while they were there. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe they had spent so much time talking about nothing that they had forgotten to spend time talking about things that mattered. The only time they talked about anything that mattered was the night they star-gazed like a couple of teenagers on Radcliffe Quad. He had told her that he loved her and he thought he was telling the truth. She had followed him to New York, helping him fulfill his dream of spending his days playing golf and spending his nights making love to her while the money rolled in. They bought a house on a loan in Oyster Bay Cove, home to prestigious country clubs and private schools for the kids. Well, it turned out there were never any kids, but he thought she would fit in well with the other country club wives. Even if she couldn’t play golf now she could learn to play just as poorly as all the other wives play. He thought back to the days of sitting on the terrace with his dad at the golf club in Harbourtown the summer before he went to Harvard. They had watched a group of women take about an hour to play the first hole, rolling the ball up the fairway. His dad called it playing hit and giggle. Wall Street had other plans. He spent his days in the endless bustle of the Stock Exchange, making trades and helping clients make trades and he spent his nights making trades and planning what trades to make the next day. She spent her days wandering through the city looking for something to break the monotony and her nights sipping cocktails and wondering what it would be like to be in love. One day she packed up and left. This life isn’t for me, Peter, she said. He stayed in New York, trading waking up in the morning and looking into innocent blue eyes for his morning greeting from the doorman. Good morning Mr. Levicoff, how are you today? Well I’m fine Harry, I have no family and no friends and I live by myself in a house big enough for thirty people and do you know how far it is to the west? He stayed in New York, dreaming of spending his days playing golf and his nights making love, all while the money rolled in. On these early morning drives he thought of skipping exit 17 towards Brooklyn and driving west until he found her. She said she was going west, away from the hurry and the money. He didn’t know why anyone would want to leave the money. Some mornings he thought of skipping the exit and leaving it all behind to see if she was right. Google Maps said 37 hours to Phoenix. 24 to Dallas. 44 to San Francisco. But why would he drive when he could fly? God knows he could afford a ticket. Hell, he could afford to buy a plane if there was no first class available. No, driving was better. He had gotten used to driving and he would need all 44 hours to figure out what to say to her. He would need all the time at the rest stops, too. It would be embarrassing if someone saw his search history. He could report with near certainty that the directions to Phoenix, Dallas, San Francisco and everywhere in between hadn’t changed in the last couple of years. (Had it been that long?) There had been some roadwork on I-80 West a little while back but he could get around that. Simple detour. He would clear the search history when he got home. Cookies, too. He mostly had it memorized by now anyway.

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But no, running away to leave it all behind was for kids like Huck Finn. Kids that hadn’t grown old enough to see that the world wasn’t going to change and that people weren’t going away. (Kids that hadn’t figured out that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, so suck it up Buttercup, and get to work.) Or maybe running away was for kids like Huck Finn that weren’t old enough to have dreams of playing golf and making love while the money rolled in. He took exit 17W, the wheels churning over the pavement toward Wall Street and pulling the sun up behind him. Q

Dan Rzewnicki (‘16) is an English major hoping to go to medical school. No, he’s not crazy.

The Beauty of Bark Estee Beasley When I first opened a copy of Lorrie Moore’s Bark, YOU” doesn’t advance the plot, but it makes Zora real and I was unfamiliar with her writing and unsure of what to the story authentic. The quirky yet believable characters expect. As I began to read the first story, I was immediately which populate her stories are similar in their desperate enthralled by the amusing yet poignant testimony of her hunger for fulfilling relationships. Like so many of us, each characters. However, I was soon surprised to find out that of Moore’s characters struggles with crippling insecurity. all the stories were about middle-aged people. What did I, The greatest tool of cohesion within Bark is, approa 21-year old student at a Christian liberal arts college, have priately, the motif of bark. In the pinnacle story of the to do with a collection of stories about middle-aged divor- collection “Wings,” Milton Theale, an elderly man nearing cees and their mid-life crises? I was pleasantly surprised. As death alone in his massive house, remarks, “No bark is I ventured deeper into the book, I realized that overarching worse than a bite. A bite is always worse.” As if to question truths about life and relationships were woven Milton’s philosophy, Moore puts this into every page with wittiness and skill. phrase to task, playing with the idea of Bark: Stories, by Lorrie Lorrie Moore specializes in, but is not “bark” throughout her stories. Her charMoore. Vintage; Reprint limited to, short stories – especially those acters “bark” at one another with loud, edition; 2014. 208 pages. that deal with broken relationships, terminal hostile words. They “bark up the wrong $15:00 Paperback. illness, and the Midwest. Moore’s career in tree” by futilely striving for fulfillment writing fiction began when she won a literary in doomed relationships. But, most contest in Seventeen as a 19-year old college student at St. importantly to Moore, her characters consistently protect Lawrence University. Her first collection of short stories, themselves with their own manufactured “bark”. This bark Self-Help, brought her critical acclaim as a fresh voice in is a rough exterior – a protective boundary keeping her contemporary fiction. Since then, Moore has published characters from harm, especially harm inflicted by each short story collections Like Life, Birds of America, and Bark other. as well as novels Anagrams, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, In “Wings,” the narrator KC is living with her rockand A Gate at the Stairs. n-roller boyfriend, Dench. Though she believes herself to Bark is a collection of eight short stories, each purely have been helplessly in love with him once, she now deabout relationships. Ira, a middle-aged divorcee, pursues scribes their relationship as simply “attachment.” Void of the loud-mouthed Zora who turns out to be obsessively tender feelings and intimate conversation, the relationship attached to her teenage son. An unnamed teacher reunites is only valuable as a comfortable living situation. When with her ghost friend, but the reunion is despairingly KC meets Milton, she shields herself with bark as a protecawkward. A middle-aged Michael Jackson lover attends a tion against intimacy and its unavoidable pain. When he bizarrely disrupted wedding with her terrifying 15 year old invites her in for coffee day after day, she refuses. Slowly, as daughter. her bark softens, her friendship with Milton grows. Their This collection of unique, relational stories remains im- conversations together are personal and deeper than any pressively unified. Moore weaves witty humor throughout she shares with Dench. This bark surrounds the hearts of the darkness of the stories as a cohesive bond. In each story, all the characters and cripples each of the relationships in she portrays emptiness and pain, sprinkled with jest. Zora’s the collection. In the first story of the collection “Debarkbumper sticker that says, “RED MEAT IS NOT BAD FOR ing,” Zora’s obsessive relationship with her son shields her YOU. FUZZY, GREENISH BLUE MEAT IS BAD FOR from closeness with another man. In “Foes,” social norms

Spring 2015

and conventions of politeness hinder any depth in personal conversation. Ironically, while the stories themselves are remarkably cohesive, the relationships within the stories are broken and limited. Protective bark unavoidably hinders meaningful relationships, whether romantic or platonic. Due to this protective mindset, relationships become about the self – curing the self’s heart ache, satisfying the self’s desire for sex, or making the self feel loved. After losing Zora, Ira cries out to his friend, “I can’t let go of hope, of the illusion of something coming out of this romance…I can’t let go of love. I can’t live without love in my life.” While this statement is understandable post-heartbreak, Ira does not cry over losing Zora, he mourns his own loss of love. Relationships in Bark are also limited by time. Over time, love dies out, children grow up, and people pass away. The most hopeful and fulfilled relationship within the entire collection is the friendship between Milton and KC. Milton successfully peels away KC’s bark with his own vulnerability and honesty. As a result they share a lovely, though unexpected, friendship together. But Milton dies and their friendship is abruptly ended. KC is left alone, regretful, with bark that is stronger than ever. Still, you may be wondering why you should read Bark. Well first and foremost, regardless of who you are, these stories are enjoyable. They are witty, well-written, and will

make you laugh in the darkest moments. But, most importantly, the relationships within Bark are undoubtedly true. All relationships, secular and Christian alike, are made up of two separate individuals struggling with selfishness, brokenness, and unfulfilled hopes. They are limited by distance, depression, insecurity, time, death, and many other hindrances. I think that Bark tells us this is ok. It is even ok for you, and me, and all people in Christian relationships. We are separate and struggling individuals. But our separateness is not wrong and our struggles in and of themselves are not wrong. In fact, it is our separateness and our own impediments that allow us to love. For, love would not be love if it did not require sacrifice. Love does not require us to move beyond our own struggles or to find a way out of them so that we can love others. It requires us to love in the midst of our insecurity, our doubt, our selfishness – our bark. Because we all suffer from the same case of imperfection, there is no need to be ashamed of our bark, no matter how gnarly it is. Even while we are still imperfect, Christ has had victory over our imperfections. We can boast of our “bark” knowing full well that He will use it for His greater glory. We can have peace with our “bark” knowing that it does not make us less worthy. And, we can find hope in our bark knowing that it will teach us to love.Q

Estee Beasley (‘15) has been watched by the Chinese government.

Indelible Grace Anna Mittleman Indelible grace, Whispered over and over again In my ear, Like the breath of the first stars, Pulsing through my chest Until I sing. A sweet voice of reddest rose Sweeps over my soul And kisses my brow, And my emptiness is filled Until all the earth swells Inside me.

Anna Mittleman’s (‘15) spirit animal is a flamingo. She’s not sure why, but everyone else says so.

conundrum On Barren Heights (Viking Conundricles, Part 3)*

In your journeys through an unknown land, you and your party come to a narrow passage through the mountains. A scout goes ahead to see whether the path can be safely traveled, but when she returns, she bears terrible news: on a plateau above the path just ahead, there is a sleeping dragon! The eyes of Olaf Smitsglomen immediately fill with the fervor of conquest and glory, and you spend the next fifteen minutes spinning your best rhetoric in an attempt to calm him down. Eventually, he agrees that the party ought to try to pass by without waking the dragon, and he asks you to come up with a plan. Using your impeccable knowledge of Viking acoustics, you determine that any more than 10 yodels (the standard Viking unit of auditory volume) is enough to wake an adult dragon. You run some quick experiments, and determine that, on the rocky mountain path, each of the members of your party will make the following amounts of noise: You

2 yodels

Glena Lightfoot

1 yodel

Henrik the Ample

4 yodels

Kligin Bigginfiggin

2 yodels

Olaf Smitsglomen

3 yodels

Olya the Loquacious

5 yodels

Sigrid of Quensilton

1 yodel

Thod the Carbuncular

3 yodels

You make similar measurements for all of your equipment: Baby dragon

5 yodels

Catapult

5 yodels

Another Catapult

5 yodels

Large Cow

4 yodels

Finally, you take note of the following considerations: > Obviously, each piece of equipment, the baby dragon and cow included, must be accompanied by one Viking. > If Olya is ever left unaccompanied, she will begin to sing opera, which will spell the death of everyone. > The baby dragon cannot be left alone with the cow, or else you will no longer have your cowâ&#x20AC;Ś and you've grown rather fond of that cow. > If you do not stay with Olaf to keep him in check while he crosses, he might try to slay the dragon by himself, which would be a terrible idea. > The baby dragon thinks Glena is its mother, and will not cross with anyone else. > If Henrik the Ample is left alone with Sigrid, he might attempt to kiss her, which would be very awkward. You have figured out by now that you will need to send everything across in groups. But suddenly, you hear a noise behind you, and turn to see that it's a second dragon, flying straight for the mountain pass! You estimate that, if you can send everyone across in only four groups, everyone will have enough time to cross before that second dragon arrives. What do you do? *See last semester's issues for backstory

Submit your answers to quad.submissions@gmail.com. The first person to correctly solve On Barren Heights will receive a free book of their choosing. Correct answers will be published in the next issue.

The Quad | Spring 2015

Volume 7 â&#x2122;Ś Issue 3 The Quad c/o John Gordon GCC #807 200 Campus Drive Grove City, PA 16127