torches n’ pitchforks
teacher edition WINTER 2013/14
VOL. 6 NO. 1
Cover Art: “Holy” by Dido Haas
CONTENTS
Jeffrey by Carey Fitzgerald Cadillacs and Casinos by Carey Fitzgerald Whadda YaThink? (Slam Poem) by Nancy Knowles Barn by Amy Sabbadini The Vagabond Fugue by Gypsy D. Sideshow
6 12 14 21 22
Us by Randi Shol Fried Doughboys by Randi Shol Son in Winter by Rachel Scott Sarrett Empty by Rachel Scott Sarrett Prayer for Gage by Rachel Scott Sarrett
32 34 36 42 43
(Burn) by Amy Kosciuszko Blue Sky Ashen by Lori Tuter Freedom Lost by Heather Snyder Wiles The War of Words by Rebekah Picard Breaking the Sky by Rebekah Picard
46 48 52 54 56
Dido Haas is a Dutch artist, photographer and blogger focusing on the medium of virtual worlds. Her artwork has recently been celebrated in Avenue Magazine and has also been featured in several galleries. Together with her partner Nitro Fireguard- a digital sculptor and machinima filmmaker from Franceshe owns and curates the Nitroglobus Gallery, an interactive visual arts space in the virtual platform of Second Life.
Jeffrey By Carey Fitzgerald The boy found Jeffrey just outside The House of Mystery…a cold creek ran through that place, and Jeffrey was lying in the bottom of the tiniest pool just off the side of that creek. “Can I keep him Mom? I’ll take good care of him, I’ve always wanted a salamander.” The boy’s mom knelt down and squinted to make out the rusty reddish amphibian resting in its little water hole. A spider sat guard on its web, spanning right across the opening of the creature’s home. She felt a chill. “You’re so scared of spiders mom,” teased the boy. “We’re here for the House of Mystery Tour, not a pet search,” responded his mom. “If it’s still here when we’re done, we’ll talk about it.” Surely the slimy creature would move on by then, tumbling down the cold waterways, finding itself safe from the hopes of a fiveyear old boy. The boy thought otherwise as he followed his mom to join the tour. The guide shared peculiar stories and lore about the property. For years this mysterious house was a place of gravitational irregularity and impossible physics. A true 6 //torches n’ pitchforks
torches n’ pitchforks // 7
vortex confirmed by the fact that neither the chirp of a bird nor the buzz of an insect could be heard. At the tour’s end, some complained of dizziness or headaches, others swore they’d seen miracles and magic.
on that 4-hour drive home.
The boy was not impressed, and could think only of his mother’s promise. He burst out the front gates and ran on down to the spot where he last saw the salamander.
She quietly argued to herself that maybe it wasn’t such a bad decision, and it really would be nice to add something to that terrarium since the butterflies had all hatched and been released.
“Ha! Still here, he’s still here. Boo-Ya. I get to keep him! Boo-Ya!”
“Keep him inside of that bottle please.” “I was just checking on him, Mom.”
Later that night the boy slept next to his new pet’s make-shift terrarium. “Whoa, wait a minute. I said we’d talk. What “Get it off your pillow son. It needs to be if it’s illegal or dangerous?” close to its water…and no, it won’t be scared sleeping by itself. No, it won’t be cold with“Come on Mom!” pleaded the boy. out your blankets.” “Those things are harmless,” chuckled a strange voice. The resident groundskeeper shoveling across the way had overheard the negotiations. “Played with ‘em all the time when I was a kid. They don’t cause any trouble.”
She kissed her son good-night, assuring him that Jeffrey would be very happy and safe in his big new home once they got to school in the morning.
“See Mom! I’ll put him in this bottle with creek water for the ride home. He can live in the terrarium in your classroom.”
The next morning she awoke to her boy in a stealth yet frantic search in her own bedroom, trying not to wake her.
She tried to think of a rebuttal, wishing the man had stuck to shoveling, ,” Fine…let’s just get out of this place.”
“Good morning?” asked his mother. “What are you doing?”
“Boo-Ya! Boo-Ya!” The delighted boy immediately announced the name of this creature to be Jeffrey.
“OK Mom, good-night.
The boy looked guilty as he peeked under the bed and into the closet. “Nothing.”
As memories of the new pet startled her The boy and Jeffrey made good companions awake she demanded,” Where is Jeffrey?” 8 //torches n’ pitchforks
“Well, we were scared Mom, so we slept on the floor by your bed last night.” “We?” she said. “Me and Jeffrey. Something scared us and we snuck in and slept here. I know he was right here…he’s gotta be here somewhere.” She looked around the room with irritated disbelief, noticing the part-way unpacked suitcases, closet full of shoes and bookshelves full of nooks where a salamander might be. “GO GET READY FOR SCHOOL!” “But Mom, you said Jeffrey needs water... !” “I KNOW WHAT I SAID!”
think I see a little .…BOO-YA!” The boy emerged from his mother’s room with a smile as wide as his face, and a perfectly alive Jeffrey in his hands. Off to school they went. Jeffrey fit well into his new terrarium that morning. They placed a large tub of water with seaweed and snails snug beside the dirt. The boy was amazed as the salamander dug right into the earth and ate a worn! “Why don’t you take Jeffrey down to the science teacher? He knows all about Oregon wildlife.” “Is he the one with the tarantula in his classroom?” “Yep, hurry before school starts.”
She took a few deep breaths, softening to his The boy proudly carried Jeffrey in his panicked plight, “Go get ready for school. I hands, right on down to that science classwill help find your lizard.” room. “Salamander!” “Right.”
“Um, Mr. Science Teacher…um, do you know what kind of salamander this is?”
The wise old teacher inspected the tiny amAs the boy got ready for school, she secretly phibian with wide eyes. A wave of urgency hoped they would not locate the lost Jeffrey, struck him and without a word he lead that and that maybe her son would forget about boy straight back to his mother’s classroom. him. Maybe, she would just find a shriveled body of what was once a tiny salamander “Your boy’s salamander is not a salamander while she was vacuuming someday. at all. It’s a newt…a rough-skinned-newt. The pores of this guy‘s skin continually emit “Come on son, let’s go, the car is running, a fatal toxin. Most folks who come into can’t be late!” contact with these die within 30 minutes. Not a good class pet. Wouldn’t allow the “Wait one more second Mom, I think, I kids to touch this one without some type torches n’ pitchforks // 9
of gloves…or ever really. Nope, not a good class pet.” “Boo-Ya!” Chimed the boy. “He’s poisonous!” The mother turned pale and dizzy, she felt as if she might get sick right there. “Oh my gawd, put it back in its cage son, right now…and WASH YOUR HANDS! A LOT!” The boy did as he was told, not quite understanding his mother’s concern. It was time for school to start anyways, and his friends would arrive soon to show off his poisonous newt to! As the science teacher went on his way, he offered one last word of advice, “Whatever you do, if you do decide to get rid of it, do not introduce it to our ecosystem.” “So, no flushing it?” she tried to laugh. “Not by water, or by land.” What does that leave then, she thought to herself? She locked the terrarium lid extra tight as students filled up her classroom for the day. The boy enthusiastically informed his classmates about their new visitor. Every chance she got that day, the mom searched the rough-skinned newt online. Sure enough, pictures of “Jeffreys” with their fiery orange bellies and reddish-rusty backs, popped up, followed by stories of tragedy. Five decades ago, three dead hunters were 10 //torches n’ pitchforks
discovered around a campfire. They showed no signs of injury, and nothing had been stolen. The only strange thing about the scene was the coffee pot. Curled up inside was a newt, the most ridiculously poisonous animal in America. One rough-skinned newt divided up and eaten can kill 17 people. She read on to learn that Oregon held the record of death by newt. Another caption read: “A single drop of the newt’s fatal toxin will kill 300,000 field mice...the most deadly toxin known to science.” WHAT? No. This thing in my classroom that my son slept with last night? And who knew the unit for measuring toxicity was field mice? Her hopes to defy that crazy science teacher’s words were smashed. The only piece of information that relieved her was that those who have come into contact with the toxin would violently die within 30 minutes. And her son…was still alive. So was she. No one else had touched that little package of evil. The bell rang after an endless anxiety filled torture. For fear of being fired and for lack of a better solution, she smuggled the entire terrárium home. Good idea Mom, we can bring him home every night!“ Lying in bed, she tossed and turned riddled with a mentally induced fever until finally falling off to sleep. Nightmares plagued her about Jeffrey poisoning the school. Kids falling mysteriously ill all over the place...a
headline read: Careless Kindergarten Teacher Kills 17 Kids. “Not by land or water…not to our ecosystem.” This played again and again in her dreams. Then it hit her. She had to get the thing back to its home. It was late. She was tired. She was crazy. She loaded her sleeping son into the car. They drove all night through an endless downpour, over the drenched pass, back towards the valley. Hours went by, hallucinating through a blurry windshield. As her son slept and Jeffrey floated in a water bottle similar to the one they had kidnapped him in, she drove on and on. She could not explain why her son seemed immune to the creature’s deadly poison. She only knew she had no option but to get it back to where it came from. Up that windy one-lane road the rain turned to drizzle. Darkness shrouded the creek, except for a single dim light shining across where she remembered the groundskeeper’s shack to be. Death, rain, darkness, curses or poison would not stop her. “Wake up, wake up son. I need your help.” “Where are we Mom?” he asked. “We’re taking Jeffrey home.” “The House of Mystery? Sweet!”
bered finding Jeffrey in only days ago. Gluck, gluck, gluck. The water poured out of the bottle into the stream. “I think he’s better here Mom, he’s always close to water…just like you said.” “I think so too.” She thought she could see Jeffrey’s tiny black eyes shining an evil smile at her from the bottom of his tiny dark pool and a shiver shot though her again. To this day she has not seen Jeffrey in the flesh again. But only if it were that tidy and perfect of an ending. Because that isn’t the whole truth. You see, that lady doesn’t like to tell this story, she’d rather keep the secret to herself. She did wake up that night sweating from nightmares, but returning the newt to its home never happened. That would’ve been the right thing to do, instead the ending has been buried in secrecy for almost ten years. Did she flush it, burn it, run it over or release it into the Deschutes? “What did you do with him Mom?“ We may never know the answer but we have learned this:
As he clutched the water bottle full of death If you happen to cross paths with a friendly close to his body, they slid down the muddy faced, fire-bellied, rough skinned newt, you bank. The glow of the moon barely lit the might want to leave it alone. contours of the small pool they rememtorches n’ pitchforks // 11
Cadillacs and Casinos
by Carey Fitzgerald Blazing through the desert in fancy cadillacs endless summer journeys speckled with roadside truck stops gazing at scorpions set in glass and turquoise Indian jewelry just the two of us. pretend lazers zap every lonely car on the road pressing buttons on the door panel “What are you doing back there?” “We’re in a spaceship Grandma.” just the two of us
penny-arcade shooting gallery monsoon approaching lightning paints the sky thunder fills my ears rainy desert dirt; the best of any smell just the two of us casinos rolls of quarters, jackpots slot machines, racetracks playing hookey from school win, place or show just the two of us Tucson gravesite touching the marble etching of your face I kissed you again I hugged you again just the two of us.
Terracott
by Dido
ta Army
o Haas
Whadda YaThink? (Slam Poem) By Nancy Knowles I say, Whadda ya think about the argument the writer’s making? Robby leans back, arms crossed, no textbook. Robby’s body language says, If I don’t try, my failure means nothing. First term of college, Robby is a dead end and doesn’t know it. Standstill. Deadlock. Stalemate. Impasse. Behind the barricades but the revolution is over. Robby borrows my textbook, Kicks back in his chair, begins to read. The hush - of reading - fills the room. Thud. The chair legs hit the floor. Thud. The book hits the desk. Thud. Robby’s heart. Beats. In the cage. Of his chest. Robby hunches forward. I think, Is he about to kiss the page? Robby starts to rise, leaning his elbows on the desk, Knee on the desk, knee on the desk, then he leaps up on the desk. Robby shouts, This is all bullshit! Three paragraphs, and Robby. Is on fire. He. Has something. To say. What might happen if he read the whole piece? Maybe he wouldn’t have failed my class.
16 //torches n’ pitchforks
Governor Kitzhaber says, 40-40-20. Kitzhaber says, Completion rate. Kitzhaber says, Accountability. Cowed, I think, Robby’s failure is my failure. But Kitzhaber doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand. His school system has already failed Robby. His accountability will only make it worse. Robby doesn’t do the work because Robby doesn’t like it. He has the skills; he doesn’t use them. He chooses not to buy the book, not to read, Not to leverage the learning He. Is. Paying. For. Who. Taught him. These strategies? Robby was raised in a school system Where cost-cutting placed over 35 kids in one class So teachers. Can’t. Know. Robby. Doesn’t have desk at home. Robby is late for school because the sitter is late for work. Robby secretly likes Chaucer but plays Halo So he can speak video game with his friends. Robby was raised in a school system Where state tests keep kids from getting their hands on computers, Where reading is about whether answer a is better Than answer b is better than answer c. Or d. Not about people. And the attempt to live ethically. In the world. A school system that doesn’t have time for recess (state testing). Spanish (A.Y.P). Art (fidelity). Music (data-driven). A school system that doesn’t value teachers’ data. Where outcomes ask students to think critically and creatively And schools penalize students for being critical and creative. Where borderline kids are retested retested retested So that schools. Get the percentiles. And kids. Get the message: You. Fail. A school system with zero tolerance for bullying. Bullying its own students. Hypocrisy. Is today’s. Vocabulary word. torches n’ pitchforks // 17
Robby was raised in a school system Where kids take pride in dodging learning And can get by By clicking meaningless a. d. b. c. Because the institution says: You. Are meaningless. I say, learning is about risk-taking. Learning is about coaxing one’s heart over the barrier So that the mind and body will follow Into. A revolution. That will Change Lives. Learning is about connection, Finding a teacher with authentic authority Who tells the truth about what matters. Learning is about finding friends in people who challenge our thinking, Partnering with communities to contribute our talents, Communicating with the dead. Whose words. Live On InSide Us. Sustenance. In the darkness. Learning is about standing in the dead end, Facing the blank, blind windows, And shouting, I have something to say! Learning. Needs to be worth. Robby’s time. I say, What do you think About the argument I am making?
18 //torches n’ pitchforks
torches n’ pitchforks // 19
“a lot of bry
20 //torches n’ pitchforks
yn” by
Barn
by Amy Sabbadini I pull off the pavement and onto the washboard, slowing to stay between the white fences of the narrow driveway. My car is engulfed in dust as it stops under the locust trees. My boot steps out of the mechanical world and into the past. Walking into the barn, sweet smells of hay and horse fill my nostrils. Saddle leather is smooth and fragrant in my hands as I move my tack out of the locker and into the crossties. Grabbing a halter, I push open the stall door, murmuring a reply to her nickering welcome. I fasten the buckle behind her left ear and lead her out, tie her, and begin grooming. Shavings cascade out of her tail as I brush. She watches me with rearview vision as I wipe down her legs checking for wounds. We talk as I groom, mine audible and hers pantomimed. She swishes her tail when I pick up her nearside hind to clean the hoof. Pad, saddle, girth, sigh. Reins, bit, caveson, throatlatch. Whip under my left arm, I lead her out into the sunlight, tighten the girth and adjust the stirrup leathers. Left foot in the iron, I bounce on my right and swing up, settling in. Deep breaths until she stops fidgeting. I close my legs, shift my hips and send her forward. There is no place I’d rather be. torches n’ pitchforks // 21
Set in a virtual platform moments aft blood body has been destroyed, Xand consciousness navigates a new world to regain his humanity.
VAGABON Gypsy D.
(first published in
ter his flesh and der del Mar’s d in an attempt
ND FUGUE Sideshow
n BOSL Magazine)
Book One: The Xandromachia Chapter One: The Awakening
X
ander has a recurring dream that he swears is real. He floats in his mother’s womb, arms outstretched, triumphant; rejecting the confines of his fetal curl. Instead of the darkness of an ordinary womb, his is glowing, like the egg-yolk sunset of his grandfather’s lava lamp. In this halo of orange womb-light, Xander’s full head of raven hair rises, kelp-like, defying gravity—
Xander.....Xander wake up... a voice in his head speaks,
Xander...Fade in from the black ink of your consciousness to the blur of swirling orange light. You are underwater, motionless, slowly sinking down. Spent fuel roars ablaze on the surface, like the fluid surface of the sun, an amoeba of fire, Xander...Xander, you are dissolving into the cold and burning sea. You are dying. You are dead. Silence...
Then, a twitch. A full-body spasm. The white noise of surf—
arp h s e h t , h t a e of his br s s e n e r a ight. w l a s i ’s e r r e e d h n T a . s X h is eyelid h f o e t begins wit c n ane c l o g i n v i l g p n i p i s i r r a w o ound of s e h T inhale, the sl . t s ast. r m fi t ’s a r e t n h o g i o l h h c ys muc ainst a nearb g Blurry. Too a amors l c l i a s s a v s cool i d n i w e h T dribf r u s e h t s a bare s i h r e v o s e l b ithw n e h t , s e o t sand e h t , s w a r d der w o p y l t s i r g a f his o e d i s e h t n o st... e h c s i h . . . e c a f kin, all over his s burned. not .... Not burned of The brush in the wind ethe trees b e yond him, th d whispere holler of thin , trunked towering trees pine just ping , p i r l e r h t e t e a g o w t a ter. Se a huddled W ? a otters. n e i s a f g o a t d i n s u a o s w amilian m , r like, where a i l i m a f by. The r a e n e r o h s the
I
The inhale and exhale of the shor ters crackin e and the c g oysters on hortle of o their bellies memory. X t, a lucid GPS ander cann ot see these shrapnel of ship horn s t h i ngs. Not ye ounds. He t. A distant is not maro threads i o n e ts d. The dista nt bellow path of sou nd slowly toward him . His head throbs. Tem ples ache. The ache a ll the way to the bac ks of his eyes, like th ose hung over morni ngs with, what was h er name again? The shore. The tide, t he tide? has deposit ed him here. Doe s know how not . Did they actua lly let him go? Who? Eagerness flows out of his b reath, yet the desire to stand up and see is not s trong e r o n ll himself o ough excep light. The h v t to e r . S h ields his ey orn bellowi es from the ng closer.
He whispers bread crumbs to himself...
He whispers bread crumbs to himself, knowing that his words are few. His words are fugue. An airplane passes overhead at a low altitude. Buzzing...almost strafing by, then fading away. Then the engine faltering, buzzing, sounding much like those spring wound doorstops in his grandfather’s house. The one behind the bathroom door when he went on his knees to hear the sound while his grandfather was shaving. The wagging buzz until it became stationary, the buzz changing pitch toward the end in a higher urgent whine. Urgent like the place again in the back of his head. A sinking feeling that this is not his memory. Who’s memory?
He fingers the back of his head, behind his neck, what feels like gyroscopic hardware and tubes attached to his skull. Heaviness, blurriness at the touch, as the whine of the spring doorstop engine of the overhead plane grows higher to nothing? A humpback caterwaul? In and out, the fugue state countdown. The desire to begin, to boot up. The desire to rise and stand. Desire not yet big enough to overcome the sagging violence of his eyelids. The desire to just hunker down, stay and slumber. The breezy whisps lulling him back toward silence. Toward his desire to become gravity itself.
An explosion of sound.
The bellow of a cargo ship’s horn upon him.
The shockwave hits his chest in a bending rush.
He feels the vibration in the hardware on his head.
He is alive.
He is most definitely alive.
Xander begins to rise...
US
by Randi Shol There was a freedom with you I soared I believed I loved Being with you was always enough. Immigration separated us But you were always in my heart Countries, boarders were between us You were always so close Love was always enough. My passport Your passport The stamps tell our historyOur arrivals Our departures The calendar date circled The days waxing or waning. Visas over extended, immigration police, lawyers, deportation How did we become so unwelcome? Me in yours You in mine. Barred in our separate countries Did we decide love just isn’t enough? 32 //torches n’ pitchforks
“from behind” by
Fried Doughboys Randi Shol
Minnesota is famous for two things: nice people and its 10,000 lakes. My grandma, first generation Norwegian, was known for one thing: her bread and it made her legendary. The folks in Wee Town population 11 always knew when it was bread day. The yeasty aroma rose with the sun; filling the town with the smell of baking bread. Growing up in a rural community, I thought I had less opportunities offered than city kids. My youth drift by with countless days sitting in the green grass. There I had time to discover my landscape. Sitting all day, I not only remember the way the clouds moved over the country just before a storm, but how things smelt. The fresh cut alfalfa in the fields, the sweet smell of whiskey on my grandfather Walt’s lips when he’d sneak a nip while no one was looking, the car grease on my father’s stained hands, lilacs blooming in the spring- and then there was the smell of fresh bread. These scents link me to my past, to my childhood. Nowadays, when I catch a faint sniff of whisky, grease, or baking bread; I am transported back to the land, back to the hay fields, the rusty cars in the back lot, to the forest of trees. I am back in the rural life that was, so timeless that I could predict the rhythms of life through my senses. Wee Town was nestled between the Langseth Farm and Bucholtze’s. Our neighbors milked cows, drove tractors, and bucked hay. Wee Town, the hub of the farming community, was so small that kids in the big city of Fergus Falls, where I was bussed for my schooling, teased me about blinking while they drove by and thus missing my whole world. The big brown house on the corner of County Road 1 and route 26 was mine and six of us lived there: my mom and dad, my sister, my two brothers and me. Grandma and grandpa lived in the little white house next to ours. The yellow steal body shop was converted into the natural food Co-op. Then there was grandfather’s shop and gas station. The final home before County Road 1 swept the passing cars through belonged to the three people that ran the general store and bar. This was our town. During the long hot humid summers, I didn’t have much to look forward to from day to day. Since I was the youngest, rumored to be spoiled, I would spend my time ducking from my older brother’s arrows and staying out sight of their bee-bee guns. My Ken doll hadn’t been so lucky- his six-pack stomach bore a hole where the bullet entered and it rattled inside of him until he disappeared with my childhood. Generally, I would slip out of the house early to hide from my sister. Spending time with her meant I would be her slave. Parlayed to her princess needs- fetching ice water, buttering all four corners of her toast, foot massages, and her chores. With not much else to do, but count cars that drove by with grandpa, bread day became 34 //torches n’ pitchforks
my favorite day. These days were the ones that warmed me through the sub arctic winters. The days that I lived for, because on these days grandma, Pearl, made me a special treat. As long as I can remember, Grandma Pearl rose with the sun to start the laborious task of baking bread. Just as the rosters were crowing and the dew melted away, my grandma would start the day descending into the depths of the basement to where she keep a 25-gallon drum of flour. Filling her bowl, with the right amount to make a dinning room table full of loaves, she ascend the stairs to the kitchen the smallest room in the house and eventually the hottest, but the one that I loved the most, because that is where grandma fed me. Grandma fed all of us, always. Everyone agrees that grandma made the best homemade bread in all of Ottertail County. It was probably true because when she retired to the high rise, her family members stopped by for a visit. While chatting, we all secretly hoped she’d offer us a hunk of bread slathered in butter. Of course, she always did, she was our grandma and grandma always wanted us to eat her homemade goodies. While I do not disagree, those thick pieces of bread were like eating big pillowy clouds. Savoring each bite, I pulled it apart holding the larger hunk in one hand and nibbling on a piece in the other. It was one of the beast treats especially if it was fresh from the oven. So quickly, I learned when bread day was. I knew, because I could smell the yeast in her extra large metal bowl that straddle the kitchen sink while it rose. Just before the sun was in the middle of the sky, I would be lurking around grandma’s porch. I’d play some sort of imaginary game outside her kitchen window, so she’d see me, hear me, and call me into her kitchen. When the lard started to liquefy in her cast iron pan, I’d hear the screen door creak and then my favorite words would fall from her mouth, “Randi, git in here - I’m frying up doughboys”- abandoning everything, I flew into her boiling kitchen. She would reach her hands into ballooning bowl of dough and pull out a lump. The grease popped when the dough met it. Impatiently, I sat salivating waiting for the first side to brown, than the next. Removing the greasy doughboy from the pan, she’d plop it on my plate. I’d pour mountains of sugar on the pools of melted butter. Devouring the first one quickly, grandma would already have a second one frying in the skillet. I’d eat the next with just as much white sugary goodness and then I’d ask for another and another, until grandma grew tired of my never ending appetite for doughboys and told me scat. When grandma died in 2012, her legacy was: seven children, 25 grand children, 51 great grandchildren, and 36 great great grandchildren, but to me, her legacy will be fried doughboys. torches n’ pitchforks // 35
Son in Winter
Rachel Scott Sarrett I have two favorite memories of my son Gage as a toddler. The first occurred before he was one year old. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. His exact words were, “Mom, this is a delicious sandwich.” The second happened when he was three. We were driving from Portland to Corvallis, playing math to pass the time. First we talk about busses. I said, “There’s a bus. What if two more busses were there?” He says, without contemplation, “Then there would be three.” I ask, “What if we subtract one?” “Two busses.” On another drive, about a year later, I taught him the concept of exponents. If I times two by two three times, how many do I have? He knows, it’s eight. I tell him, that’s called two cubed. If I times three by three two times what do I have? Nine, he knows. I tell him, That’s called three squared. In the middle of fifth grade, Gage’s teacher, Ms. Allen, told me, “I’ve taught Gage all I can. Especially in math. He’s beyond anything I can offer.” At her suggestion, Gage moved into sixth grade. At the middle school, he earned the nickname, “Lone Wolf ” because he usually sat by himself.
“Lot” by
During Gage’s junior year, he discovered his fashion identity. Buying suits for a 6’1” 130 lb young man proved difficult. Dress slacks in size 28 x 34? Suit jackets in 35 long? Impossible. As he donned his suits, he also donned a more exuberant personality. He pursued leadership positions in speech and theater. He mentored and recruited new students to each activity. At the end of his junior year, he even began dating his first girlfriend, another member of the speech and theater community. Gage and Kathy canoodled backstage between scenes at play practice, and on the bus to speech tournaments. During the summer, Gage spent his school clothes money on gifts for Kathy. Then, in December, Gage experienced his first broken heart. I hope someday a new image will replace this one: He is sixteen. It is December. Winter break from school. On Sunday, Kathy breaks up with him by text message. She won’t tell him why. She changes her Facebook status to single. I rub his back as he lays curled in the fetal position. I want to curl him into my lap and twirl his ringlets in my fingers like when he was one, but I can’t. I can only say, “I know it sucks, but I promise it will get better. It won’t feel like this forever.” On Monday, he gets rejected from Pomona, his dream college. On Tuesday, he won’t change out of his sweats. On Wednesday, she agrees to meet him, and he showers and gets dressed for the first time since Sunday. I take Rylee, my youngest child, ice skating. We leave early because she’s too cold. I open the front door. Rylee enters behind me. Gage stands in the dining room, dabbing at blood seeping out of his side with a handful of paper towels. “Gage, what happened?” He points at the bloody butcher knife on the counter. “What were you making?” I look in the kitchen, for the cutting board, for half chopped meat or vegetables, even though I know Gage doesn’t prepare anything more complicated than Hot Pockets or Cup O’ Noodles. He shrugs, the characteristic Gage shrug. “Gage, what were you trying to cut?” “Myself.” “What? Why?” Shrug. 38 //torches n’ pitchforks
I come closer, examine the wound in his lower abdomen. It’s deep. I’m confused. “You need stitches. Come on, we’ll go to the clinic.” It’s cold outside. I think I tell him to hold a towel on the wound. I think I drape a sweatshirt around his shoulders. I keep my voice matter-of-fact as I tell Rylee, “Gage had an accident with the knife. I need to take him for stitches.” Her brown eyes, just like mine, expand, “Is Gage okay?” I can see the beginning of tears. “He’ll be okay. We just need to take him for stitches. I’m going to call your dad and have him pick you up, okay? Gage will be fine.” I grab a clean washcloth, and tell Gage to put it on his cut. I call Rylee’s dad, all the while keeping my voice calm so as not to alarm Rylee. “Jason, Gage cut himself with a knife. I need to take him in for stitches. Can you please pick Rylee up? I’ll tell you details later.” It’s so cold. In the twenties. And dark already at 4:30. I wrap his sweatshirt, then a fleece blanket around his shoulders, steer him toward the car. As we drive, I tell him to keep pressure on the cloth covering his wound. The blood just seeps. I think it should be gushing, but it’s just seeping. I ask him, “Why, Gage? What were you thinking? What were you trying to do? Why, Gage?” Through clenched teeth, and with something that sounds like malice, he says, “I don’t want to talk to you. This is your fault.” At the clinic, I tell the receptionist that my sixteen year old son has stabbed himself. “On purpose?” She asks. A nurse immediately ushers Gage into the back. I sit in the waiting room. I have his phone, look through the messages, try to find something from Kathy. I text his best friend Sean, ask if he knows what happened, why did Gage do this? Sean shows up at the clinic. Gage needs X-rays, to see if he’s damaged any organs. It is at this point, when the doctor tells me he thinks Gage might need surgery to repair damaged organs, that I cry. I call Gage’s father in Iowa. He wants to fly out immediately. I convince him to wait and see what’s happening. torches n’ pitchforks // 39
The X-rays come back, and the doctor calls me into the exam room with Gage. Gage has been taking two PE classes at the community college, the last of his high school graduation requirements. His cardio fitness and yoga classes have added muscle to his gangly frame. These muscles stopped the knife from going in farther, preventing him from cutting into his organs. Sean talks to Kathy, makes her tell him exactly what she said to Gage. After an hour of threats and cajoling from Sean, Kathy relents. She had said: You’re trying to make me into something I’m not; you’re smothering me; Your mom always interferes; you should just go kill yourself. The doctors at the clinic aren’t sure what protocol to follow for a self-inflicted stab wound, so they call the hospital in Bend, thirty minutes away. Gage must undergo a mandatory psych evaluation and stay on suicide watch for at least twenty-four hours. We wait in the emergency room for hours. Around ten, the doctors finally see him. They pack his stab wound--stab wounds are treated by packing, not stitches. If stitched, the wound would fill with an enormous blood bubble and wouldn’t heal. He’s admitted to the hospital on suicide watch in the pediatric ward. I drive home. When I get home and open the car door, a little black and white kitten jumps from the floor of the passenger side and streaks out my door, into the early morning darkness. The cold feels like its paralyzing my face. The next day, Gage and I meet the psychiatrist together, first. Gage tells the psychiatrist, “If that’s what she wants, then I’ll give it to her. I’ll give her whatever she wants so she can be happy.” He talks with Gage alone, then says he will call me later. I return home. When the psychiatrist calls me, he informs me that Gage’s choice in self-inflicted wounds is melodramatic and “really weird.” If a hospital psychiatrist, who I’m sure has seen a myriad of bizarre behaviors, thinks my son’s weird. Part of me admires his lack of conformity, while most of me sobs and breaks. The psychiatrist says he’s never, ever seen a suicide attempt by gut stab before. I spend a few hours in Gage’s room. I bring him books and magazines and DVDs. He doesn’t speak to me. Or look at me. I tell him that he has no right to take my son from me. I cry a little. The psychiatrist recommends a treatment facility. Central Oregon doesn’t have one for 40 //torches n’ pitchforks
adolescents. Gage will need to travel to Portland, to Legacy Emanuel Children’s Hospital. The psychiatrist assures me it’s the best adolescent treatment facility in the state. They find him a bed there in two more days. He is transported in the middle of the night. He won’t be home for Christmas. The day before he leaves, on December 23rd, firemen visit the pediatric ward, delivering gifts and wishing all the hospitalized children a Merry Christmas. Dan and Aria begin driving to Oregon from Iowa, arriving on Christmas Eve. I drive back and forth, over snowy mountain passes, to the hospital in Portland where Gage still refuses to speak to me. He curls into a ball beneath his blanket, his back to me. He keeps the thermostat at 80 degrees and I sweat while I try to find a topic of conversation. On Christmas Eve, I am alone in Portland. I go to the movies at Lloyd Center mall by myself. I spend half of Christmas in his room, with Dan and Aria too. I deliver a few of his presents. he opens them listlessly, says, “Thanks.” I drive home Christmas afternoon, to spend the evening with Rylee. On the mountain pass, I become caught in a blizzard. I don’t have chains. I’m stuck on the side of the road. I call my mom, in Nevada. who I know can’t do anything, and I cry. It’s Christmas, and my son just tried to kill himself, and I need to get home to see my daughter, and I’m stuck on a mountain in a blizzard. With front wheel drive, I eventually manage to gain forward momentum again. Without studded tires or chains, I trudge home, barely making out the road between the white flurries and my tears. It takes me five hours to get home instead of the normal three. I spend the rest of the holiday season traversing the pass, driving from Central Oregon to the hospital in Portland. As the New Year nears, Gage asks me to finish submitting his college applications which are due on December 31st. One of the essays he gives me to edit and submit tells about a day, two years prior, that he walked to a bridge over the dry canyon. On the bridge, he considered jumping. He intended to end his life. However, as he looked down, he saw people walking in the canyon. At the sight of the people, he had an epiphany: he could make the world better, contribute to humanity. He walked back home, determined to make his mark through theater. I typed his essay, all the while wondering how I could have missed my son’s wish for death. I failed him. Gage is supposed to be released New Year’s Eve, but he still seems disengaged, uninterested in “getting well.” The doctors tell Dan and I Gage has Asperger’s and social anxiety. They also say according to the IQ test they gave him his IQ is only 120, so I think they are full of shit. torches n’ pitchforks // 41
He returns home on January 2nd, eager to direct his one act. He’s prescribed sleeping pills and antidepressants, but doesn’t like the way they make him feel. He sees the psychiatrist from the hospital for a few months. He seems off kilter until April, when he decides which college to attend in the Fall. By the time he graduates in June, he seems fine. And yet, every day I worry that I’ll have a voicemail from his college in Cleveland telling me he’s dead.
Empty I miss my son like I’d miss an eye. Nothing in this world looks the same without him here.
Prayer for Gage You made my favorite Mother’s Day card when you were in 2nd grade. Unlined paper folded in fourths contains the inscription: When I grow up, I’ll be bigger than you. When you first arrived in May, weighing in at 6lbs 2oz, you lacked the typical excess folds and layers of baby flesh and instead looked like a wrinkled old man. You continued to elongate never gaining girth. I don’t know when it happened, but I now must look up, up, up to you at 6’2”. Soon I will leave you at an airport security gate. You will board a plane bound for two-thousand, three-hundred and fifty-three miles distant, and I will miss your face your silence next to me that is not silence but a filling of space and your body down the hall sleeping so deeply that sometimes even though you’re seventeen I still lean in and wait— When you disembark my child my son my only boy don’t forget to call your mother. I have only one son one you one best friend. I’ve read our culture fosters a prolonged adolescence, but you my son my boy have always seen through wiser older eyes. You’ve set yourself apart— from your silence to your dashing button-down shirts and your ever-growing collection of neckties and eclectic blazers from eBay. But remember that Polonius was a pompous ass and although clothes are fun, It doesn’t take Armani to make a man. Let your voice be heard. Deliver your monologues torches n’ pitchforks // 43
to the back of the auditorium. In social situations, say what you feel, rather than answering with that shrug of the shoulders and tilt of your head. Forgive my moments of ineptitude, including the time I slapped you because you ran away from me at Target and when I finally found you, you wouldn’t stop screaming. I was still learning not only motherhood but selfhood. Begin all the journeys I could never afford as a single mother on an English teacher’s salary—take voice lessons, piano lessons, ballroom dancing. Learn to cook something other than spaghetti. Answer the calling you have to change the world. Sleep Before 4:00 AM so you’ll make it to your 10:00 AM classes eager ready to learn. Discover love that brings joy not a break up by text that leads you to stab yourself in the stomach with a butcher knife and I open the front door and find you in the kitchen dabbing at the seeping blood with a paper towel. Then two weeks of institutionalization at Legacy Emmanuel Children’s Hospital where you cocoon in a suicide-proof room you heat at eighty degrees and curl on your side, your face to the wall when I visit. And eventually put yourself back together. My boy you’ve pushed yourself toward perfection more stringently than I ever would have pushed. I wanted to assuage all, but you, my self-reliant boy, didn’t wake me when you were seven and you vomited all over your bedroom floor. Scarlet fever relegated only, “My throat hurts a little.” 44 //torches n’ pitchforks
Swine flu was no excuse to miss the PSAT. Some mothers might implore sons to do their best--but I implore-stop sometimes just to laugh with someone. Life isn’t only the list of accomplishments posted to your resume. As you pack your final box, I try not to remember you standing in the kitchen bleeding. I try remembering standing ovations, debate trophies, “A” littered report cards, twirling your ringlets as you collapsed in my lap before you grew independent the way you climbed, little monkey, atop all our furniture the nonsensical jokes you’d tell me when I’d drive you to school the way your room smelled before you learned that boys need showers. Remember Gage, that you are precious brilliant special you are my son my boy and loved. Always loved.
torches n’ pitchforks // 45
(Burn)
by Amy Kosciuszko On the day the world ended, I wore a crown And you wore an eye-patch. We sat on our roof And watched the city burn. The cockroaches put on party hats And the birds huddled in groups, Shaking soot from their feathers As they tap-danced on the hot pavement. On the day the world ended, The sun screamed as she bled Into a purple sky. The stars winked silver And the moon wept blue, Until all the colors melted together. I told you it was the most Beautiful thing I have ever seen. You traced your finger along the roof And wrote, “I know” Into the ashes.
46 //torches n’ pitchforks
“Lost Town” by
Blue Sky Ashen by Lori Tuter
Swirling bath water drained from the tub as I heard running, then a door slamming. I stood, listening. The car started 48 //torches n’ pitchforks
and I grabbed a towel, running. Standing in the front window of our house, I looked up the rolling road that dipped down and over a hill for a white car, our car, racing toward something. There it was. I stood silent. Smoke rolled thick and dark in the distance. I scrambled for the phone. My friend’s mother answered. Fire. Your barn. Fire. I stood frozen until I
“golden ‘Spirit’” by understood. Our barn was on fire and I needed to go, now! Grabbing jeans and a sweatshirt I bolted out the door. Stormy, aptly named for her disposition, stomped in her stall, knowing the air was wrong. It took but a moment to bridle her and dash for the gate. Luckily, in the late fall, gates were left open to livestock, making a quick path as we chased the black smoke rising like an evil
genie from the lamp I knew to be our barn. Leaves of burnt orange, yellow, and red lay crisp along the trail, heralding our coming. Galloping around the last bend we stopped short at the sight before us. Stormy stomped and side-stepped, snorting from the run as well as from the smoky nightmare before us. The old, gray, weatherworn structure was enormous in my child’s eye. Flames engulfed it, licking the doortorches n’ pitchforks //49
way, sucking the high beams, swallowing the barn of many childhoods. Firemen were frantically crawling everywhere like ants reconstructing their home that had been recently demolished by a careless foot. What foot had destroyed our barn? As with anything scary and unknown, I sought out Dad. Dad was solid. He was fourth generation of this land, patriarch of what was left of a once sprawling ranch. With the passing of each generation, the land was divided and parted to those next in line. Some awaited the inevitable with reverence and respect, while others anxiously awaited, like dirty vultures circling a soon-to-be carcass. I had heard stories whispered and growled in the late evenings when adults thought young ears were asleep or distracted. Our family was spattered with both reverence and dissent. My grandparents had passed less than a year before and there was a great deal of contention between my father and his sister. She was trying to bypass the will left by their parents, demanding land that was not rightfully hers. Dad always left these discussions discouraged and saddened by the conflict with his sister. Her husband and my dad were closer than brothers. My uncle had been emotionally retreating from his wife, and my parents mumbled resentment and anger that she was pushing my uncle away. We did not know what truly ailed him, we could only assume. Dad stood speaking with a man I did not recognize. At times they would point toward something then lean in closer to hear one another over the roar of the blaze. My mother stood silently at his side. I knew she was mute to the scene before her, des50 //torches n’ pitchforks
perately trying to suppress anything emotionally threatening. She turned to gaze off to the peaceful fields behind her, as though wanting to cling to what was good and clean. Seeing me standing on the hillside brought her to action. She left my father’s side and ran to me, tears streaking her face. “You shouldn’t be here!” she wheezed out. “What happened?” I screamed through the choking smoke. Stormy was becoming more and more agitated as the flames grew and the smoke thickened. I was really having to work to stray astride. Jumping down, I asked again, “What happened?” Fresh tears ran down my mother’s ashen cheeks. “We don’t know. The neighbor called your dad and told him the barn was on fire. The firemen got here just after we did. They talked to your dad and they all agree to let it burn. It’s too late to save it. We are just too late.” Her eyes flashed fear. Flames thundered as we stood in silence. I could barely handle Stormy and I desperately needed something to do, so I remounted and let her sprint north to the back forty, the forested trees blocking the view behind. Smoke rose above, but I kept my eyes down. This could not be happening! Running seemed to have settled Stormy a bit, but I felt no relief. I needed to go back. The grass in Late August was crisp yellow with hints of green peeking through below. It rustled beneath us as we cantered in a not-so-direct path back to the barn. That barn was the playground of my youth. Hours and days in the heat of the summer and the shadows of winter were spent exploring and imagining in that
grand barn. Loose hay from before my memory lay forgotten in webbed corners. I would always enter slowly, anxious and wary, each visit revealing secrets not discovered before. To the right was a deep grain bin that stood empty, not attracting young curiosity, while rising just beside it stood a ladder enticing me to climb to higher curiosities. Hesitating on the last rung before surfacing, my eyes would always dart side to side as though something might lie in wait. Digging through dusty, abandoned boxes would sometimes reveal something new or interesting, but more often than not, my attention would be drawn to the large open window. That window looked over the entire world! I reigned over the vast fields to the north forty and as far west as the sun set. The world belonged to me from that noble view. Nothing noble remained of the window that now spewed forth venom and horror. Slowing to an anxious, jittery walk, I hopped down to watch. Dad was talking with a small group now, and mom was off to the far side with my aunt watching as beams collapsed, crashing to the ground, exploding in a roar of anger. Knowing to not interrupt the adults, we fidgeted around the fringe of fire, wanting to know more. The smoke grew thick and dark as the flames settled into embers and embers to ash. In my young mind, the excitement died away with the flames, and I turned toward home, back across the golden fields unscathed by this family blight. The smoke lay behind me. Stormy snorted and threw her head in frustration as I unbridled her and tossed her flakes of sweet hay that had been recently baled. I leaned heavily
against her side as she ate, breathing in her earthy scent mixed with the odor of sweat and smoke. It was a few hours before my parents returned. Leaving the fire behind, I passed the time eating a huge bowl of Cheerios and watching cartoons. Hearing the crunch of gravel as the car neared the house, I jumped up, running to the back door to meet my parents. I waited at the top step of the garage anxious to hear more news of the fire. As Dad climbed the stairs I could tell he was exhausted. His face was somber and heartbroken. My heart fell remembering that had been the barn of his childhood and of his father’s, too. It wasn’t my loss, it was our loss. My father stopped on the top step and just looked at me. “We have bad news,” he sighed, then waited. Nervously, I asked, “What’s wrong?” “Well, it wasn’t just the fire. Uncle Bob, well, they, well, they found his body in the barn.” He just stood there, shaking his head slowly as if he didn’t really believe what he was saying. “You’re joking,” I choked out. His eyes bore straight through me as he quietly, slowly said, “I would never joke about such a thing.” He turned and slumped to his room. Turning to my mother, she avoided my eyes, her lips trembling, and shadowed my father to the back of the house. There is more. My child mind knew this. It would never be the same. It would be different; quiet. The smoke would clear, but the sky would never be quite as blue.
torches n’ pitchforks // 51
Freedom Lost by Heather Snyder Wiles
Suffocating hands grip my neck, Like all my air, the very air I breathe is being sucked slowly out of me, Dreams vaporize before my eyes in the blink of bad decisions, The peace my soul once had is disturbed on a deep level, There truly is no rest for the wicked or for those that make wicked choices, A faith that is bankrupt carries me slowly to the church doors each Sunday, Awaiting the words that will usher in my rescue, Meanwhile the black cave of my existence seems to permeate all my relationships, There is a sense that this journey will end in tragedy, And in all honesty I would welcome it, At least it would be an end and an end is a new starting point, So badly do I wish to escape, to fly far away, But my wings are clipped and I am the one who clipped them, Now I must suffer and await the outcome, I cannot look at myself in the mirror without feeling shame and hate, And yet I arise every morning waiting for the moment of release, When it at last comes it is at a painful cost, I am still broken inside and out, from the depths of my soul, But I have the one thing my spirit wanted most, freedom.
“mysterious wave�
“bleeding feathers”
The War of Words Rebekah Picard
For most, words come first For some, walking and words go hand in hand I was the latter My first word was synonymous with my first step It has been this way ever since When words are sparse, I walk for clarity When words are teeming, I walk for tranquility I was often scolded as a child for harsh words, numerous words, and misplaced words 54 //torches n’ pitchforks
They are lions that I have yet to tame I try to let them tip toe on my tongue before plunging to the earth, but the great plunge comes too quickly and too often Tears sometimes follow, not always mine, not always theirs It has been said that words have the power to create reality And that reality creates words Linear or circular? What is the difference? The Emotion is the same either way At least mine is All we are left with is warring words The war is not named because we imagined it We imagined it because it was named Now They own us We struggle to take back what we never lost I never lost control They were never mine to control They weren’t yours either Those words did not belong to you So why do I hold them close after you spit them at me? Articulation, speculation, instigation, stagnation, temptation, alienation, all under one nation Wordnation I look for new mantras like an ant looks for crumbs This is my religion I fell in love with words when my sister sang Kumbaya to me. I couldn’t sing words so I spoke them I wasn’t eloquent so I wrote them I wasn’t “a writer” so I swallowed them I couldn’t keep them down so I teach them Usually they teach me. Now I walk and talk too often, forgetting that they don’t always need to go hand in hand. torches n’ pitchforks // 55
Breaking the Sky Rebekah Picard
Go further Go outside, Beyond the cracked oak tree that stands between you and the pool of water Tip toe around the scratchy bark and dip a tiny toe If only to know, if only to know Glance sideways Catch the flicker from a corner as yet unseen Gaze at the reflection as it multiplies, Distorting you like a ferris wheel breaks the sky Try a hand too Let it clench your insides, tugging at sloshy organs, Grasping at tender muscle, soft like a peach If only to reach, if only to reach Look straight ahead and watch your nails evolve black from caking mud, Attracting flies Peel it off chunk by chunk, Breaking the seal If only to reveal, if only to reveal Slide down the cement Embrace its cold, stiff structure Cradle it like a mother holds a weeping child Let the merry-go-round toss you to the ground Your childhood once again found If only to say you can, if only to say you can Go further Remember her golden strands of hair, his speckled chin, Their tired eyes Her deep dimple, his rough hands Their clear tears If only to say you lived, if only to say you lived 56 //torches n’ pitchforks
torches n’ pitchforks // 57
A big thank you goes out to our teachers who bravely shared their movement and color to our publication through her evocative photog The Nature of Words for the
‘tunnel of light� by
r best work, as well as to the colorful Dido Haas, who brought both graphic compositions. And finally to The Oregon Writing Project and eir ongoing support. -J. C-D
About torches n’ pitchforks: EST. 2008, Founded and Edited by Jim Churchill-Dicks CONTACT: torchesnpitchforks@hotmail.com ‘hunting for voices that rise above the angry mob.’ torches n’ pitchforks online literary journal is dedicated to exploring the evolving relationship between form and content in creative writing, while also unleashing promising teen’s and their educator’s voices to the public. Underwritten by The Nature of Words, with additional support provided by the Oregon Writing Project.