CCLaP Weekender
From the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography
May 15, 2015
New Fiction by Joseph G. Peterson Photography by Melissa Jean Birckhead
Chicago Literary Events Calendar May 15, 2015 | 1
THIS WEEK’S CHICAG
For all events, visit [cclapce FRIDAY, MAY 15
7pm Bad Karate With Dan Shapiro and Mason Johnson Chi PRC / 858 N. Ashland / Free https://www.facebook.com/events/806484266099927/
Mason Johnson and Dan Shapiro have written a new show. They want to test it out on you. They also want to give you free pizza. The show will have guests. They will be good guests. The show may also not have guests. This might be a podcast. Free (shitty) beer (and also feel free to BYOB). That is all.
SATURDAY, MAY 16 3pm Paper Machete The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / Free, 21+ thepapermacheteshow.com
A “live magazine” covering pop culture, current events, and American manners—part spoken-word show, part vaudeville review—featuring comedians, journalists, storytellers, and musical guests. Hosted by Christopher Piatt. 7pm Crook & Folly Book Cellar Reading Shebang The Book Cellar Cafe / 4736 North Lincoln http://bookcellarinc.com/event/depaul-lit-magazine-reading https://www.facebook.com/events/896031133772128/ries.info
Come join Crook & Folly at The Book Cellar and enjoy readings from writer's we've published! This will be fun. No doubt. Readers include: Mame Kwayie, Kate O'Brien, Tim Hillegonds, Lisa Applegate.
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GO LITERARY EVENTS
enter.com/chicagocalendar]
8pm Blackout Diaries High Hat Club / 1920 East Irving Park / $10, 21+ blackoutdiaries.info
A comedy show about drinking stories, a “critic’s pick” at Red Eye, MetroMix, and Time Out Chicago. Comedians share the mic with “regular” people, such as cops, firefighters, and teachers, all recounting real-life tales about getting wasted. Hosted by Sean Flannery.
SUNDAY, MAY 17 10am
Sunday Morning Stories Donny's Skybox Studio Theatre / 1608 North Wells / Free
We performers are pre-booked. We feature novice as well as seasoned storytellers. On or off paper. 7pm Uptown Poetry Slam The Green Mill / 4802 N. Broadway / $6, 21+ greenmilljazz.com
Featuring open mike, special guests, and end-of-the-night competition. 7pm Asylum Le Fleur de Lis / 301 E. 43rd / $10 lefleurdelischicago.com
A weekly poetry showcase with live accompaniment by the band Verzatile. 7pm Waterline Writers at Water Street Studios Water Street Studios / 160 South Water / $10 waterlinewriters.org
Curated reading series.
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MONDAY, MAY 18 8:30pm Kafein Espresso Bar Kafein Espresso Bar / 1621 Chicago Ave., Evanston kafeincoffee.com
Open mic with hosts Chris and Kirill.
TUESDAY, MAY 19 7:30pm Homolatte Tweet Let's Eat / 5020 N. Sheridan tweet.biz
With Scott Free, featuring gay and lesbian spoken-word artists.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20 6pm Lyricist Loft Harold Washington Library / 400 South State / Free youmediachicago.org
“Open mic for open minds,” presented by Remix Spoken Word. Hosted by Dimi D, Mr. Diversity, and Fatimah. 9pm
In One Ear Heartland Cafe / 7000 N Glenwood https://www.facebook.com/pages/In-One-Ear/210844945622380
Chicago's 3rd longest-running open-mic show, hosted by Pete Wolf and Billy Tuggle.
To submit your own literary event, or to correct the information on anything you see here, please drop us a line cclapcenter@gmail.com
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CCLaP Publishing
It’s 2039, and a political faction called the Lifestyle Party has risen to power under the Presidency of Deepak Chopra. The new government bans scientific innovation and introduces a set of policies focused entirely on maximizing personal happiness. So why is Grady Tenderbath so unhappy? Believing that he’s fallen short of his professional potential, he buys a personal robot muse to nurture his talent and ego, while his wife Karen, a genetic scientist, becomes more entrenched in her lab. But just when Grady seems on track to solve his career crisis, he discovers a new problem: he’s swooning for the empathetic yet artificial Ashley. Not only that, he’s distracted by haunting visions of Karen transforming into...something else. Half speculative fiction and half marriage thriller, Rise of Hypnodrome explores how future generations might draw from the realm of epigenetic engineering to eventually control their own biology. Whether human or robot, the characters in this cutting-edge science-fiction novella have one thing in common: an irrepressible desire to evolve.
Download for free at cclapcenter.com/hypnodrome
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ORIGINAL FICTION
“Chicago Police” by Ceyhun (Jay) Isik [flickr.com/cerased]. Used under the terms of their Creative Commons license.
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The sun was so high in the sky that July day, so blinding bright that even though he wanted more than anything to be a good, honest cop—even though he made a private vow to himself the day he graduated from police academy never to wear them—that sun hovered high in the sky almost like a ferocious bird of prey and it seemed ready to attack him any moment. Before he could help it, he did it—he paused, then swore with disappointment, then finally lowered the oneway, mirrored sunglasses to his eyes. “Hell,” he mumbled. “It’s bright out here.”
VOICE
BY JOSEPH G. PETERSON May 15, 2015 | 7
Then almost as an afterthought he added, “And bloody hot too!” He adjusted the eighteen-inch collar around his twenty-inch neck, then shifted the blue polyester pants that squeezed his crotch like a bad omen. Wayne was a new cop, a rookie cop. Today was his first day out on beat and he was driving solo. He was to keep his eyes open for details no ordinary citizen would notice (he was just an ordinary citizen but days ago and perhaps, he thought, he wasn’t prepared for this). He’d watch the derelict buildings for signs of vagrant occupancy. He’d ticket the abandoned cars parked in the street and he’d call revenue trucks to pull any vehicles away that looked malign. He’d keep his eye on the gangs of white-shirted youth gathered on the street corners, their pants sagging at their thighs, and he’d look even more closely at the less obvious population—the elderly and children, searching to see who might be participating in the off-the-books shadow economy or who might genuinely need his help. He’d roll quietly through the neighborhood, keeping an eye open for things that didn’t make sense, looking for signs of trouble. And if he found trouble—well, then he’d have to deal with it. He wished he wasn’t feeling so terrified. He hoped against hope, for instance, that he’d get through this day alive. He wasn’t sure. He felt uncertain, scared. He took a step, his shirt straining against his back muscles. His flak jacket was chafing. He cursed the fact that he was a big man and that these clothes, clearly too small for him, made him feel even bigger than he was-bigger than six-five, two-seventy. There’s no chance of hiding, he thought. No chance in clothes like these. It was time to cut losses, move forward into the day, forward into a career that terrified him. He hoped he could get through it without getting killed. He froze, took another step, froze again, adjusted his collar. He took another step and heard from the radio a voice. The voice said, “Hold on there, Wayne.” Wayne already knew, like all cops know, that the voice would follow him throughout the course of the day, the course of his career, follow him everywhere he went—that immutable voice mixed in with squelch coming in more clearly and persistently than any voice God ever spoke in. The voice was businesslike, disinterested, nasal. Wayne heard the voice and stopped midstep, poised on the ball of his foot, ready to descend the stairs to the parking lot where his car waited for him. But he retracted that step, pirouetted around, and responded to the voice as if it were already an instinct with him, as if the twenty years of dreaming to be a cop left him with a Moses-like faith in the abstracted, commanding godvoice (oriented genetically to respond to the radio’s voice as faithfully as Moses responded to the godvoice). Wayne removed his hat, stepped clumsily back into the dark station, pants squeezing 8 | CCLaP Weekender
against his legs, shirt straining at his shoulders, sensing the nickel-plated .500 Smith & Wesson against thumb knuckle and then stepping deeper into the office, he located that voice with his ears which continued in its persistent droning tone. For a long moment, he was a blind man. Then he remembered his glasses. He lifted them off and his eyes came back to him. There he stood, facing the captain who hunched over a computer keyboard, analyzing some data, and the sergeant who was leaning quietly against a table, quietly but somehow aggressively intent. The sergeant was fat and squat, pock-marked and greasy as a sweating hog. He was chomping on the end of a cigar and he looked serenely at Wayne from two cold, blue eyes. A billy club swung at his hip. “Hey, Henry,” the sergeant said to the captain. “Have you ever seen anything like this kid?” Henry, the captain, was too busy looking at his computer screen to turn around and look. “You smoke cigars, kid?” The sergeant asked. Wayne shook his head no. “C’mon, kid,” the sergeant said. “Relax. You’re too uptight. What, you think I’m gonna shoot you or something? I’m the good guy. The bad guys are out there, on the streets. I’m like your mother. I care for you.” Looking Wayne over, his pants too short for him, his collar too tight for his neck, the sergeant proceeded to make a small joke. “Who the hell dressed you anyway kid? Your little sister?” Just then, the captain turned around and said, “Sarge, it looks like some drug activity at Drexel and 47th.” There was a moment of silence. The sergeant became very serious. He removed the unlit cigar from his mouth and, without taking his eyes off the captain, said, “Jesus.” Wayne looked at the captain, then at the sergeant, then at his own hands. He suddenly wanted to become invisible, which at six-five, two-seventy was an absurd thing for him to want. But he loved his life too much to suddenly give it up for a drug deal that was going bad, especially a drug deal at 47th and Drexel Boulevard. He’d only been a real life cop for a total of thirty-seven minutes and already he could smell bad luck. And this was bad luck. He knew it. The sergeant knew it and the captain, dark-skinned and tatted to his knuckle-bones with arms strong from pushing a wheelchair, knew it too. The fact is, Henry Jones, the police captain in question, earned a Bronze
Star for bravery and valor in the Iraq War. In southern Iraq, he rescued three of his fellow servicemen from a burning vehicle that had been hit by May 15, 2015 | 9
an improvised explosive device, and he deterred and killed with his M16 seven enemy combatants who descended upon them. When he returned from the war, he rejoined the police force and had been a stand-out cop in their department—a stand-up cop, for that matter, until he responded to a call about a possible drug deal going down at Drexel Boulevard and 47th. Not only had it been a moonlit night that night three years ago but a quiet night, and rolling cautiously into the intersection, radioing for backup, Henry had been shot upon and ultimately paralyzed from the waist down before those back-ups arrived. Wayne read the stories of Henry’s valor over the breakfast table in his walk-up apartment and then at the BP gas station where he worked as a gas station attendant before becoming a Chicago cop. BABY SAVED BY POLICE OFFICER, one headline read. RICHARD M. DALY VISITS OFFICER IN HOSPITAL, AWARDS HIM HERO MEDAL, read another. The articles explained how this Bronze Star decorated vet of the Iraq War endured enemy fire in the combat zone but faced even more dangerous fire on the gang-banger streets of Chicago. An editorial written in the Tribune compared Chicago’s inner city streets with Fallujah—and the drug gangs as ruthless as the Taliban. They were inciting war with the police department and this incident was just another salient example. It was reported that bleeding profusely from gunshot wounds and carried away by ambulance, Henry Jones remarked, “It’s hell out there. Send in the troops.” This statement, seized upon by the Trib’s editorial board and converted into WAR IS HELL AND SO ARE OUR STREETS, caused the editors of the paper to ruminate on the Iraq War experience, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the welcome-home our vets received, ultimately plunging into the oblivion of mass forgetfulness the very act of valor that created it—one cop, seven gunman, and a baby. The baby, six-weeks-old, had been stashed in the backseat of a blue Caprice Classic, the door had been left open, and between Henry Jones and the seven gunman was the car. In a moment that lasted a lifetime, Henry Jones began to perceive time itself, perceived it as if it were some sort of veiled presence that hung poised and motionless above the intersection, only to be suddenly kicked into gear by the sound of a car alarm, the voices of the seven gunmen, and the sounds of the shots walloping into the side of his unmarked Crown Vic. It was in the compression of those few, swift moments when Henry Jones not only realized what the outcome of the situation would be—him dead, the baby perhaps already dead—but when he discovered or rather sensed who he in essence was and always would be. “I’m an animal, a lousy fucking animal, and this is a lousy, mother-fucked-up world.” Henry Jones pulled the trigger, drew another bead, took a hit in the leg, and before it was all over, he forgot everything—forgotten how, lying ripped apart on the pavement, he’d taken 10 | CCLaP Weekender
out all seven gunmen. Even now as a captain on the force, he remembers only this, as if it were some talisman to go along with his physical wounds—that he was just an animal, and that this world, humanity itself, was a perverse, evil, and mother-fucked-up bitch that can only be righted with maximum force. The captain looked upon Wayne for the first time and said, “He’s just a boy, sarge. Hate to send him on this, his first time out. We need force to combat this.” Wayne stood transfixed by the department hero. “That’s okay,” The sergeant said. “We’ll send him anyways.” Then turning to Wayne, he spoke very carefully, “Now what I want you to do, Wayne, is to get close to the scene, you understand, but I don’t want you to do anything until your back-ups arrive. Got it?” Wayne shook his head yes even though he didn’t understand at all and he said, tersely, “Yes sir.” “Now go ahead. Go get’em, tiger. And don’t be scared. They’ll smell it on you.”
Wayne shook his head yes even though he didn’t understand at all and he said, tersely, “Yes sir.”
Wayne steps outside again. His one-way sunglasses drop down to the bridge
of his nose and this time, he’s consumed with a dread that this may be the last time he ever steps out from the dark interior of a room into the bright sunshine of day (suspecting that in a few moments, he’ll be doomed to step from the sunlight into a coffin). He also forgets that he’s as big as he is and therefore forgets about his blue polyester pants that squeeze his crotch like a bad omen. He also forgets that it’s hot outside. He forgets that he’s a rookie cop and that this is his first mission. He also forgets that this is the first time he grabs hold of the door handle of the cop car and squeezing the handle as if it were a trigger, opens the door to the car, which like some train engine on the only tracks leading out of town, will take him (like the car driving itself ) to 47th and Drexel Boulevard. He even forgets to notice that he’s sweating big tear drops of sweat and mixed in with the sweat are tears because he’s crying and terrified. He doesn’t realize that he’s crying or that the car takes off out of the parking lot like a cop car is supposed to take off out of a parking May 15, 2015 | 11
lot en-route to serious danger, its tires screeching, the car bounding into the oncoming lane of traffic, the lights switched on and flashing. He doesn’t realize any of this because he’s become obsessed with a spot just beyond the windshield of his car. It’s a spot of light reflected off its hood and peering into that light as if it were some sort of crystal ball, he tries to discern the near, inevitable future. And as he looks into the light, he hears that godvoice mixed in with squelch to interpret what he sees. There will be seven gunmen, the voice begins. They’re gang-bangers from the Almighty Black P-Stones and they’ve set a trap for you. As you roll slowly into the intersection (heading west down 47th street), you’ll spot the pale blue Caprice Classic on the northwest corner of the intersection. It’ll be on Drexel Boulevard. The front door will be slightly ajar and before you even bring your car to a stop, you’ll notice a baby wrapped in a blanket lying in the driver’s seat. You’ll think the baby’s dead, but she isn’t dead—it only seems that way. This baby has a name which you’ll learn about later, but for now she’s a helpless baby, she doesn’t have a name—and her life, like yours is about to be, is held in the balance. Next, before coming into the intersection and before the back-up squads arrive, you’ll pull over and leaning down so that only your eyes can peer over the steering wheel, you’ll try to assess the situation. The intersection will be quiet and scrutinizing the baby to see whether she’s alive or dead, you’ll see her left hand clench into a tiny fist, as if that were motion enough you get out of the car. As soon as your feet step on the pavement (your polyester pants squeezing your crotch like a bad omen), you’ll see the seven gunmen and they’ll see themselves as a reflection glinting off the surface of your one-way, wire-rimmed glasses. They’ve set themselves up behind the blue Caprice and they’re counting on the fact that you’ll hesitate when it comes time to shoot because there’s that baby and it appears to be alive and you don’t want to turn this intersection into a war zone with the baby caught in the middle. It turns into a war zone anyway. You didn’t even have to fire the first shot. And your instinct will say run but I’m telling you, it’s time to be thinking like a soldier. It’s time to kill or be killed. However, even as I say this, even as I begin to concede the irrevocable logic of this statement, my heart tells me that it’s a terrible world we must live in when such a statement is allowed to be elevated to the stature of irrevocable logic. Even so, the bullets, which will sound like ghosts making high-pitched whistles as they float past your ears, will start whacking into the door of your car and one bullet, ricocheting off the street curb, will hit you in the left thigh and cause you to scream out in pain. But you don’t have time for pain when the bullets start flying. All you have time for are your instincts and the instinct you should most listen to is the instinct that tells you to save the baby. When Wayne pulls up to the intersection, the back-up squads have yet to 12 | CCLaP Weekender
arrive. There is a blue Caprice. The door is open. Wayne steps out of his car and crawls over to the Caprice to grab the baby (absurdly picturing her small hand reaching under a pillow for the tooth fairy) and pulls her to safety. Wayne mumbles under his breath, “The animals.” Before he can even stand up, the shots start flying from everywhere—hitting him in his arms, his legs, his flak jacket, his head. 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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CCLaP Publishing
Paul McCartney is not a celebrity himself, but works on the edges of that industry, unhappily toiling away at a tabloid devoted to famous deaths and the public’s ongoing fascination with them. But one day he discovers a mysterious red button on a back wall of his new house, which when pressed causes the immediate death of a celebrity sometimes half a world away. And what does this have to do with the eyeball in a glass jar that his biggest fan has recently mailed to him? Find out the darkly hilarious answer in this full-length debut of British absurdist author Stephen Moles. A rousingly bizarro exploration of fame, identity and mortality, this novella will make you laugh and cringe in equal measure, a perfect read for existing fans of Will Self or Chuck Palahniuk. You might not think a book about death would begin with the word “life” written 27 times in a row, but then you have yet to enter the strange but compelling world of Paul is Dead. Best approached with caution and with tongue firmly in cheek!
Download for free at cclapcenter.com/paulisdead
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Melissa Jean Birckhead PHOTOGRAPHY FEATURE May 15, 2015 | 15
Location: Chicago, IL Melissa Jean Birckhead was born and raised on the outskirts of Houston. Preferring to infiltrate the system by working inside out, she examines and dissects counterculture; the obscure of human nature. A graduate of The School of The Art Institute, Melissa continues to live and operate in Chicago. She insists that Chicago has deep magical properties and rich historical roots that are perfect for her work and studies. Her interests are human forms as character studies ; a photo being proof of the collection of experiences with another body. She likes to depict the underdog,the outcast’s, the forgotten, and shamed, as well as creating fictional characters that embody a sense of mystery, awe, and otherness. Melissa tries to familiarize with esoteric information and reflects it in her actions, rituals, and photography. Her thoughts and ideas circle around dream images, dream states, and out of body experiences.
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CCLaP Publishing
A darkly surreal yet absurdly funny short-fiction writer, Matt Rowan has been a Chicago local secret for years; but now this latest collection of pieces, all of which originally appeared in the pages of the CCLaP Weekender in 2014 and ‘15, is set to garner him the national recognition his stories deserve, a Millennial George Saunders who is one of the most popular authors in the city’s notorious late-night literary performance community. Shocking? Thought-provoking? Strangely humorous? Uncomfortable yet insightful on a regular basis? YES PLEASE.
Download for free at cclapcenter.com/bigvenerable
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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 2015, Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. All rights revert back to artists upon publication. Editor-in-chief: Jason Pettus. Story Editor: Behnam Riahi. Layout Editor: Wyatt Robinette. Calendar Editor: 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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