CCLaP Weekender: November 14, 2014

CCLaP Weekender

From the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography

November 14, 2014

New fiction by Joseph G. Peterson Photography by Tiberio Frascari Chicago literary events calendar November 14, 2014 | 1

THIS WEEK’S CHICAG

For all events, visit [cclapce

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14 7:30pm Lynn Kanter

Women & Children First / 5233 N. Clark / Free

womenandchildrenfirst.com Kanter's previous novels include The Mayor of Heaven and On Lill Street. She was born and raised in Chicago, but currently lives in Washington, D.C. with her wife. Her newest novel, Her Own Vietnam, is based on years of research and interviews with women Vietnam veterans, many of whom had kept their military service a secret.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16 10am

Mom+Baby Holiday Circus Women & Children First / 5233 N. Clark / Free womenandchildrenfirst.com Families with kiddos ages 0 to 5 are invited to enjoy activities, story time, snacks, and giving. Mom+Baby (www. mombabychicago.org) is an organization that helps create legislation that supports women and children. The book and toy drive will benefit the Chicago-based not-for-profit, Share Our Spare (http://shareourspare.org).

7pm Uptown Poetry Slam

The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / $6, 21+ slampapi.com Featuring open mike, special guests, and end-of-the-night competition.

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GO LITERARY EVENTS

enter.com/chicagocalendar]

7pm Asylum

Le Fleur de Lis / 301 E. 43rd / $10

lefleurdelischicago.com A weekly poetry showcase with live accompaniment by the band Verzatile.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17 7pm Essay Fiesta!

The Book Cellar / 4736 N. Lincoln / Free bookcellarinc.com Essay Fiesta takes over The Book Cellar once again for an evening of Live Lit. Get here early to grab a seat and grab a drink! All donations go to 826CHI! 8:30pm Open Mic

Kafein Espresso Bar / 1621 Chicago Ave., Evanston kafeincoffee.com Open mic with hosts Chris and Kirill.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 5:30pm Lisa Samuels

Stage Two / 618 S. Michigan / Free colum.edu Lisa Samuels has published nine books – recently Wild Dialectics (2012) and Anti M (2013) – as well as multiple chapbooks, soundworks, and essays in imaginative writing, theory, and critical practice. Her work focuses in ethical attention by way of imaginative unknowing, in identity and relation in mobile civic spaces, and in performative criticism.

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7pm The Open Door Readings

Poetry Foundation / 61 West Superior St / Free Poetryfoundation.org Each event features readings by two graduate writing program instructors and two of their current or recent students.

November's Reading features Lewis University’s Simone Muench and her student C. Russell Price and Northwestern University’s Reginald Gibbons his student Christine Pacyk.

7pm Write Club!

The Hideout / 1354 W Wabansia / $10, 21+ ianbelknap.com Literature as blood sport. Prize money to charity.

7:30pm Homolatte

Tweet Let's Eat / 5020 N. Sheridan / Free homolatte.com This month's show features Nic Kay and Desiree Galeski. Hosted

by Scott Free. Enter through Big Chicks at the same address.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19 7pm Cafe Gallery

Gallery Cabaret / 2020 N Oakley / Free, 21+ chaoticarts.org/thecafe Kottyn Campbell and the open mic.

7pm Guts & Glory

Schubas Tavern / 3159 N Southport / Free, 21+ facebook.com/gutsandgloryshow Bold, badass storytelling. November's line-up is killer!!!! Lily Be, Alicia Swiz, Jeff Miller, Zach Stafford and Stephanie Sack. See? Also, hosted by two cuties.

7pm Local Author Night

The Book Cellar / 4736 N. Lincoln / Free bookcellarinc.com This month we are pleased to present Chris Bower (The Family Dogs) Peggy Shinner (You Feel So Mortal), and Margaret Chapman (Bell and Bargain).

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7:30pm Adrian Matejka & Matthew Shenoda

Stage Two / 618 S. Michigan / Free colum.edu

The poets read from their works.

9pm

In One Ear Heartland Cafe / 7000 N. Glenwood / $3, 18+ https://www.facebook.com/pages/In-One-Ear/210844945622380

Chicago's 3rd longest-running open-mic show, hosted by Pete Wolf and Billy Tuggle.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20 6pm Fifth Wednesday Journal Release

The Book Cellar / 4736 N. Lincoln / Free bookcellarinc.com This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments and conversation are also free. Reservations are not required. Early arrival is recommended. Please consider a donation to help support this program. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

7pm

Diane LoveJoy Women & Children First / 5233 N. Clark / Free womenandchildrenfirst.com Cat Lady Chic serves as an antidote to this unflattering stereotype by celebrating the Cat Lady with a compilation of artful, playful, and sophisticated portraits of accomplished women and the pets they love. A longtime publishing professional and dedicated Cat Lady herself, Diane Lovejoy is publications director at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she has overseen production of more than 100 illustrated art books.

To submit your own literary event, or to correct the information on anything you see here, please drop us a line at cclapcenter@gmail.com.

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ORIGINAL FICTION

God talks to me. May as well. Nobody else does. Nobody saying anything friendly at least. I keep saying, maybe it’s because I’m lonely. But who isn’t? Maybe it’s just me talking to myself. But the voice is unmistakable. I hear it here, in my head. It has nothing to do with me. It talks outside myself.

“Go into the wilderness,” it says. “And do it.” I don’t quite know what it means about wilderness. I do know, however, about the other thing, about doing it. I don’t know though— if I want to do it, if I can do it. God’s voice keeps speaking, urging me on, letting me know things even angels shouldn’t find out.

A LONG GO

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Photo: “that which was to be demonsrated,” by Dan Muriello [flickr.com/dan0].

Used under the terms of his Creative Commons license.

OOD SLEEP

BY JOSEPH G. PETERSON November 14, 2014 | 7

“Take this broom,” my boss says. “Take this shovel. Go into the parking lot and clean it.”

The place is Wonder Foods. My boss is Feral. But the way he says it, it’s like he’s some sort of prophet. Take this, take that, go into the wilderness and do it. I grab the broom, a shovel, step outside, and—somehow—I can’t believe it. Tonight’s the night I’m crossing over.

When I get down to cleaning, the parking lot is desolate. I pick up every cigarette butt. I pull out every weed. Garbage blows in from the street. Plastic bags are caught up in the bushes. A sodden diaper is tossed in a ditch. I collect two dead birds and everything else that is broken and ruined and has found its way here, to this lowly and forgotten place, and I throw it all out in the trash.

It’s so late when I finished, it’s early. I’m leaning against the dumpster, staring at the night sky which tries to be dark even though it’s polluted orange by the streetlights. I feel empty and alone. There’s nobody to say goodbye to, nobody to ask forgiveness from. “All right,” I say to God’s voice. “Speak your last words.”

On it goes, “You are a zero and an emptiness. You are a blank that will only produce blanks.”

Out of nowhere comes this screeching sound and I turn to see where it’s coming from. As the noise rushes closer, pinpointing me in the scope of its decibels, I realize that this sound, so terrible and menacing, is meant for me.

“Don’t move, you son of a fucking bitch, or I’m going to kill myself.” If it was the devil himself risen from hell, I couldn’t have been more terrified.

There, before me in what seems slow motion, an old beat-up car glides in off Milwaukee Avenue and skids to a halt in the gravel. The door flings open and out jumps this huge man with a gun pressed to his temple. I whirl around in terror and run.

The voice screeches, “Don’t move!”

I freeze.

“You’re it, motherfucker.”

The large man’s vocal cords are straining. Blood vessels rise like a road map of bad emotions to the surface of his face. He starts jabbing himself with the gun. I stand for a long moment, watching him. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I almost start laughing, but don’t. I’m not sure whether this man is going to kill himself or if, in a fit of derangement, he’s going to turn and blow me away.

“All right,” I say calmly. “This is your pal, Henry, talking to you. Put the gun down.”

He doesn’t move. He stands there motionless, flabbergasted, as if trying to digest my words, trying to figure out how to react. He’s so still, sweat 8 | CCLaP Weekender

running down his cheeks. I wonder if I’m not dreaming him, and if, in the shock of it, my brain hasn’t shut down, mid-hallucination.

“Hey,” I yell. “Put the gun down!”

His lips curl beneath a pair of nostrils that look as if they’ve both been slit open, like someone ripped his nose-rings out.

“Fuck you!” he screams. “I said I’m blowing my head off.”

His knuckle grows white as it wraps around the trigger. I close my eyes, expecting the flash of his gun, followed by his brains, his skull, and his hair flying across the parking lot.

“Hank,” he bellows. “That was the name of my dog. I don’t have a dog no more. Used to have one though. Used to call him Hank.” He lowers his eyes a little then lifts them to look at me. “That’s what I’ll call you. Okay, Hank?”

“Give me the gun,” I say.

“Shit, Hank. Things are really bad now. I need your help. Don’t you see? I mean, I should kill myself.” He rubs the scar between his eyes with the barrel of the gun and gives me this crazy smile. “Know what I mean?”

“The gun,” I say.

“Thought so, Hank!”

I step into the shadow of the dumpster to avoid his eyes.

“Know how I can tell, Hank? Because the moment before you pull the trigger, you’re more alive than ever. That’s the miracle of this situation. Things start coming clear. I can look at you and see you’re suicidal, just like me.

Whereas an hour ago, two hours ago, before I ever got this fucking Colt in my hand, I would have never known you were thinking the same thoughts as me. Only you lack guts, Hank. Bet you never screwed a virgin. Have you, Hank?”

I don’t answer.

“Have you, Hank?” He starts waving the gun over his head trying to force an answer. “Tell me, goddamn it!”

“No,” I say. “I’ve not screwed a virgin.”

“Ha! Thought so, Hank. You’re probably a virgin yourself. But that’s okay.”

“Put the gun down,” I tell him as calmly as possible. “And bring it here.”

“Listen to you, Hank! You ain’t got no guts hiding by that garbage can whispering to me like that. Step out here, like a man. Take some heat. You won’t be a good point man otherwise.”

I step out.

“Takes guts to screw a virgin, Hank. Yessiree. You screw a virgin, you can blow your brains out. Same difference.” He starts to get hysterical. “I never knew that till now, Hank. World’s full of surprises.”

“Listen,” I say carefully. “Hand over the gun before you harm one of us.”

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“Once fucked a girl in Niagara, Hank. If you can believe it, fucked her in the waterfall spray. She was a virgin, Hank. Hopped the fence with her in the middle of the night. Guards were up and down that place like mosquitoes after nightfall. At first, she didn’t know what she wanted—but I showed her.

Once we were down there, maybe it was after midnight, she was so excited she jumped me, tore the clothes off my back. She turned out to be a blonde nympho. Couldn’t get enough either. A young one too, only seventeen.

When we got back to the hotel, I locked her up in the room for three days and shared her with my friends. What do you think about that, chief? How’d you like to have done something like that once in your life? But you ain’t got no guts, Hank!”

He starts laughing and, as he laughs, I watch the gun barrel swing slowly away from his temple and rock around so that it’s pointing at me.

He drops to firing position and fires two bullets directly at me. They whack into the steel side of the dumpster. I collapse to the ground.

Traffic passes by without stopping.

“You are a shit-fuck,” God’s voice says.

He directs the smoking gun back to his head but he changes his mind and points the gun at me.

“I did that for your sake, Hank. You won’t pass up a virgin next time.

Because now you’ve got guts. Don’t forget that. I just gave you guts.”

I don’t move. I don’t open my mouth. I’m staring straight down the barrel of his gun, right into his eyes. His lips are spread apart. He’s got beaver teeth.

“Get up, Hank.”

I don’t move.

“Get up, Hank—son of a bitch—or I’ll blast both our heads to hell.”

I don’t know what to do. I can’t think straight. I get to my knees and that’s as far as I get.

“The gun,” I croak. “Give me the gun.”

He starts speaking in a rational voice. “You want to kneel there like an alter boy, suit yourself.” He starts pacing back and forth. His elongated shadow stretches to the base of my feet. He keeps jerking the gun to his head, dropping it to his side, jerking it back to his head. The shadow makes it look as if I’m every bit in line with his sights.

We’re more than twenty feet apart, yet I can see the powder marks from the gun barrel form a black O against his temple. It looks like a target.

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“Jesus, Hank. Things are bad.”

He stops pacing and collapses to his knees. We’re looking eye to eye.

We’re more than twenty feet apart, yet I can see the powder marks from the gun barrel form a black O against his temple. It looks like a target.

“Things are bad, Hank. I traveled all over the city tonight, down so many side streets and through so many no-fuck neighborhoods. There’s folks after me. I have ideas in my head only a long good sleep can kill.”

He smiles at me and pokes himself in the head with the gun, then lowers it.

“I drove till I found you, Hank, standing by that dumpster.” He smiles at me again. “That’s right. You, Hank. You’re the one I chose tonight, because you understand, don’t you?”

I don’t move.

“But you got to help me, Hank. These things can’t wait for you to get brave. You got to come here, get in my car, and go for a ride.”

I don’t say anything. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself exiting this world through a tiny bullet hole in my chest or my head and again I hear God’s voice in my head, “You are a shit-storm and a zero. You are a sum of nothing adding up to nothing.”

“Well, Hank,” he yells. “You going to help or do I have to blow my brains all over the goddamned parking lot in order to prove a point?”

“The gun,” I say, one last time. “If you would just set the gun between us or throw it over your shoulder into those bushes, I might feel more in a position to want to help you.”

We don’t move. Our eyes meet. He breaks out laughing real hard.

“Shit, Hank! You got more guts than I gave you credit for.” He lowers the pistol, spins it in his hand like they do in the old westerns. He gets to his feet and says, “Okay, Hank. Between us.” He walks up ten paces, sets the gun on the pavement, and walks back to his position. He gets down on his knees.

There we are, two desperate men in the empty parking lot. We’re kneeling twenty feet apart and there’s that simple weapon of human destruction lying harmlessly between us. I spend a long time looking at the gun. The handle of the gun is lost in darkness and only the very tip of it, jutting into a cone of light from the parking bulb above, is visible. I stare at it, wondering if I can do it. If I can run over there, snatch up the gun, and somehow find the courage to pull the trigger. I try to imagine what would happen in that last moment: the final life pictures flickering through my mind, a brief moment of pain, or non-pain, and then, perhaps, a weightless sensation as I drift quickly away from this troubled world and high into the stratosphere where the air is thin and moves very fast and where, but for the whisper of a star, I’ll be gone forever. The gun is between us. It’s as if he can read every thought that crosses November 14, 2014 | 11

“We ain’t going to race for it, Hank, because you ain’t going to win. And if you want to run from here, you still ain’t going to win, because I’ll fucking steam roll you with my piece of shit car. But if you want to save both our lives, Hank, come and do what I ask.”

I keep my eyes on the gun.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Come with me for a ride, so you can hear what’s on my mind.”

“Tell me here. I can listen.” I don’t make a move to get off my knees.

Neither does he. It’s dark as hell but for the parking light above. Both our eyes are focused on the gun. He starts talking and because he’s kneeling, it’s almost as if he were in a confessional booth.

“Hank, Jesus. I’m a sinner. My whole fucking life is a sin. It was a sin from the day I was born and it’s been a sin ever since. And I’m tired of this sinful life. Tired, so I feel as if I’ve got to offer an apology. Like, I’ve got to be sorry for one damned thing or another. And there’s a wall of hurt so high now, I don’t have the strength to crawl over it and fix all that’s wrong.” He reaches in his pocket for a cigarette.

“Like any of us do,” I say, not taking my eyes from the gun.

“I mean—” He struggles to regain composure and lights the cigarette.

“Want one Hank?” His voice trembles with emotion.

I don’t answer.

“They’re Salems,” he says, smoke drifting my way. “Started smoking them in Fallujah off some skinny little dude named Roy. I called him Sir Roy! He always had a pack with him and he always kept me by his side— there’s pictures of us smiling and smoking in full combat gear. He said he had a vested interest in protecting me and these Salems were going to be our voodoo to fend off harm. We built up a huge supply of them as part of our protection plan and all we did was smoke. He was handing me a cigarette in the DMZ when an RPG went off near us and, like his switch got turned off, he was dropped where he stood—felled by shrapnel. I was untouched and saw him lying there in a pool of blood—the unlit cigarette was still in his mouth. Shit, Hank that dude dropping like that really fucked me up. But war is war, right?”

I don’t move and he can’t provoke me. He no longer has the gun.

“Right, Hank?” he yells. “Jesus, I got problems. The cops are after me.

I’m living under an alias. I’m running out of money. Everyone’s out to get me.

There’s this guy, Billy Anderson—I borrowed ten thousand dollars from him and he wants his money back. But it’s gone and I’m so broke I can’t pay it back. Then there’s this woman friend of mine, Alice, who came home drunk and told me she’s leaving and I beat the hell out of her and pulled my gun and almost shot her and now she’s got the police after me. Then there’s Sir Roy. 12 | CCLaP Weekender

He keeps coming after me, haunting me. I see him every night in my dreams with that cigarette in his mouth and the dead look in his eyes. I swear, Hank, he’s after me and, one day, he’s going to get me. Shit, look—I got the shakes.”

I’m on my knees. I don’t know what to do. But as if an invisible hand were guiding me, I rise up and walk to the gun. He doesn’t move. His face is all busted up like he’s about to cry. He keeps saying bullshit about being a sinner who needs to ask forgiveness.

God’s voice continues, “You are an emptiness that will never be filled.

You are an endless repetition of nullity and a shit-storm to boot.”

“Forgive me Hank. Forgive me.”

All of my responses to God’s voice come up empty, yet on it trudges. “Go into the wilderness,” it says. “And do it.”

And so I do it.

I grab the gun, check the magazine. There’s one bullet left. I replace the clip and put the gun to my head. Take this, take that, go off into the wilderness, and do it. I start to squeeze the trigger. I let my mind wander wherever it pleases. But it doesn’t go anywhere. It stopped moving. It’s stuck in place. I wait another moment to see if there’ll be a feeling of peace. But there isn’t. I feel nothing. I concentrate on the weight of the gun, which is heavy and solid in my hand. The handle seems hot, as if it’s been heated by a lifetime of suicidal thoughts. So this is my gun, I tell myself. And this is how I follow the emptiness and take my life—in a parking lot with some lunatic breaking down in front of me begging, “Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.”

Strange that it should happen this way. I hear a bird chirping. I pull the trigger. C

Joseph G. Peterson grew up in Wheeling, Illinois.

He worked in an aluminum mill and in the masonry trade as a hod carrier to pay for his education at the University of Chicago. He is the author of four novels: Beautiful Piece, Inside the Whale, Wanted: Elevator Man and Gideon’s Confession. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters. His story collection Twilight of the Idiots, comprised of the pieces being published in this magazine over the next year, will be put out by CCLaP in 2015.

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Featuring

Patricia Ann McNair plus six open-mic features

The CCLaP Showcase A new reading series and open mic

Tuesday, November 25th 6:30 pm City Lit Books | 2523 N. Kedzie cclapcenter.com/events

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To sign up in advance for an open mic slot, write cclapcenter@gmail.com

Tiberio Frascari

PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURE originally published May 2014

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flickr.com/tango34 | CCLaP Weekender

CCLaP Publishing

Jamie has lost his brother Matt to the war in Afghanistan. What he finds harder to deal with is that he soon starts to lose a sense of Matt. Hurt and confused, Jamie decides he must travel to the place where Matt was killed--he must go to Kabul. There he finds a surreal landscape of mercenaries and soldiers, violent teenage terrorists, diaspora-trained lawyers in a land currently without law, and where he strikes up a friendship with a beautiful, headstrong local woman. As Jamie’s life descends into a series of unwelcome encounters, and Afghanistan descends further into chaos, things reach a climactic head for the British bluecollar slacker antihero, and it soon becomes clear that his rash trip to a land he doesn’t understand may end up holding deadly consequences. A major new literary achievement, and one of the most metaphorically astute looks yet at the Millennial “War on Terror,” The Wounding Time is a darkly poetic contemporary masterpiece, and marks the brilliant literary debut of London author Hussein Osman.

Download for free at cclapcenter.com/thewoundingtime

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The CCLaP Weekender is published in electronic form only, every Friday for free download at the CCLaP website [cclapcenter.com]. Copyright 2014, Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. All rights revert back to artists upon publication. Editorin-chief: Jason Pettus. Story Editor: Behn Riahi. Layout Editor: Wyatt Roediger-Robinette. Calendar Editors: Anna Thiakos and Taylor Carlile. To submit your work for possible feature, or to add a calendar item, contact us at cclapcenter@gmail.com.

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