budget press review #8 by Johnnie B Baker

BUDGET PRESS REVIEW #8

Budget Press Review #8 johnnie b. baker, publisher Featuring Sean Andress Devon Balwit Lana Bella Billy Bridwell Stephen T. Brophy Joshua Didriksen Evan Guilford-Blake Renee Gurley Robyn Joy Catfish McDaris Leah Mueller Norman J. Olson Tim Philippart Cheryl Sonstein Kristin Stadum Patrick Strong Lynn White and johnnie b. baker Fall 2016 Content and layout ÂŠ 2016 Budget Press Artists and writers retain all rights to their work.

budgetpress.net Cover art by Norman J. Olson

Josefina’s Thoughts on God Renee Gurley My nine-year old friend Josefina collects boxes. You should know that. She often brings me a box to show me on our daily bus rides to school. This Monday, she brought a box in the shape of a cross complete with little rhinestones on it. She holds up for me to admire. “Ewww…Josefina…I love it especially the rhinestones,” I say. “That’s my favorite part too,” she smiles back and tilts the box just so in order to get the rhinestones to do that special thing that rhinestones do…sparkle. We admire them for a minute, but then I have to ask, “Where did you get THAT box? Your grandmother?” Her grandmother knows about Josefina’s love for boxes too. All the boxes she has shown me have been little boxes her grandmother has slipped her this past year. I met Josefina’s grandmother once accidently in the office. We spoke of the specialness of Josefina and I walked away knowing that Josefina’s grandmother likes Josefina almost as much (maybe even more) than I do. Josefina shakes her head no. She did not get this cross box from her grandmother; she tells me that got it at a confirmation. “Wow, did you get confirmed, Josefina?” Again, she shakes her head no. “My brother got confirmed and he gave his guests these.” Again, she tilts the box just so to let the rhinestones shine. Her brother gave out boxes? I bet it was the grandmother’s idea, I think. “I can’t wait to get confirmed,” she suddenly lowers her voice. “Really,” I hunker down the seat so I can hear her, “For the boxes?” She smiles and shakes her head like no, silly and then she looks over her should to make sure no one is listening and she whispers, “Because I want to know God better.” So do I, I think, but I keep this to myself and instead ask, “Why?” “To make sure he is who he says he is.” I have had similar thoughts myself. I ask, “How will you know if God is who he says he is?” 1

“Why?” “To make sure he is who he says he is.” I have had similar thoughts myself. I ask, “How will you know if God is who he says he is?” She looks at her box, tilts it and thinks for a second or two. Then, she looks up at me and says, “I would ask him some questions.” I am curious because I have some questions for God myself. I ask, “What questions would you ask God to make sure he is who he says he is?” Again, she looks at her box, tilts it and thinks for a second or two. Then, she says, “I have three questions I would ask.” “And what would they be?” “First, I want to know why God sent down Jesus to save us. I want to know why God didn’t just come down himself.” I nod. Yep, Josefina, that is something I sure would like to know myself. “Two, I would ask him why he won’t tell us when the end of the world is.” I nod. Yep, Josefina, that is also something I sure would like to know myself. “Three,” Josefina again looks over her shoulder to make sure she shares this with only me, “I want to know why he sent us here.” I ask myself this everyday, Josefina and then I ask a question, “Josefina, where were we before were here?” This time she shakes her head yes and raises her chin to the sky, “We were up there with him.” “Like angels?” Again, she shakes her head yes and then, she looks at her box, tilts it and thinks for a second or two. Then, she whispers as if she is sharing a secret she certainly knows, “It’s better up there.” My eyes well up with tears and I pull my sunglasses over my eyes despite the grayness of the day. I am struck with the images of my dead boyfriend’s who died a year and half ago of cancer and I think of the last couple of months he had on this Earth. I see the weight he lost; I see vomiting; I see the screams of 2

pain; I see him lying there naked waiting for a nurse to give him a towel bath and smiling with a simple request that he whispers, “Sing to me please;” I see me wrestling with him to keep his catheter in, so his privates won’t bleed; I see the look on his face when he leaves; I see relief. With Josefina, I have to agree and I manage to tell her through the waves of grief that pass through me, “Josefina, I tend to agree. Can I ask you question?” Again, she shakes her head yes. “Do you think we go back to God when we die?” She looks at her box, tilts it and thinks for a second or two. “Yes, I think if we don’t do anything bad.” “Where do the people go that do something bad?” She looks at me straight in the eyes this time, “That’s another question I have.” Me too. And then the conversation slips away; Josefina and I both get lost in these thoughts of God. And then the bus ride ends. Josefina and I grab our backpacks and walk towards the school. She walks beside me and then she raises her chin to the sky and again says, “It’s better there.” “Where?” “Where God is.” I think of my boyfriend again and I think of the suffering we all go through and that Josefina will have to go through and I whisper to her before she heads up the stairs to her third grade class, “I sure hope it is.” She nods and says without a doubt, “It is.” "Good," is all I can manage to say...tears are too close. I walk away from Josefina and feel reassured. For some reason, I believe this kid.

Playing For All the Marbles Catfish McDaris Spaniard blew some luck into his palm as he tried to rattle a seven or eleven from the red and white bones. He let them fly up against the wall, seven. Three more passes before he crapped out. Dice wasn’t his game, seven card stud was his pleasure. Spaniard knew he was slowly sinking in a quagmire of gambling quicksand. The house always won in the long run, but he wasn’t playing in a casino. Billy was a construction boss and pal of Spaniard’s, he asked him to go to Moscow, Kansas to build a grain silo for the Butler Corporation. He’d worked on a few silos in Texas and New Mexico. Moscow was just a tiny town north of the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. The concrete work was finished, the galvanized steel work was left to do. The building itself was basically simple. You set up a crow’s nest steel pole, then built the slanting roof on the concrete apron of the fifty foot concrete concave funnel. Jacks were installed all around the roof and the walls were built on the ground and lifted slowly into the air. Each section of the circular building was bolted on with rubber grommet bolts and nuts. Everything was waterproof, to keep the grain dry. Billy forgot to mention to Spaniard the silo in Kansas would be the biggest in the world. Besides their eight man crew, there would be crews from Texas, Kansas and possibly Oklahoma. Billy knew of Spaniard’s gambling fever and he warned him to watch himself. There were some nickel, dime, quarter games, Spaniard watched to see who seemed interested. One half assed cowboy with biker tattoos and some blue tear drops next to his eye, supposedly signifying three men he’d killed in Huntsville Prison, watched everything. An older guy watched the watchers, Spaniard heard he was Amarillo Slim, the famous card shark. He didn’t even look at the game, pocket change obviously held no interest for him.

The eagle flew on Friday, that bird screamed down from the sky and filled all the workers pockets. Booze, weed, and wild women seemed to flow like the Rio Grande. The dice came out, the serious card game started. Spaniard was playing his game, seven card stud, High Chicago style. Seven stud meant two cards down four cards up and the last card down. High Chicago meant the high spade down or in the hole took half the pot. Spaniard was ahead close to a thousand dollars on the table, not counting 4

seven card stud, High Chicago style. Seven stud meant two cards down four cards up and the last card down. High Chicago meant the high spade down or in the hole took half the pot. Spaniard was ahead close to a thousand dollars on the table, not counting the six hundred he’d slipped down his boot. Spaniard twirled his parakeet skull good luck piece. He’d been waiting for the right pot to clean up, Spaniard got the queen of spades in the hole. The ace came up, then the king, so half the pot was his whether he won or not. Spaniard slowly raised each bet, Amarillo Slim knew what was happening. Slim flashed a sign to his jailbird pal, Jocko, that he misdealt giving Spaniard two cards at once. It had been a set up all along and Spaniard knew his goose was cooked. He tried to get his coyote knife from his boot without the money. Spaniard heard the pistol cock and felt it shoved in his ear. Jocko said, “Your balls aren’t big enough to mess with Texas, boy. Do you know who we are? Do you have any idea?” Spaniard said, “You’re El Chapulin Colorado or the Birdman of Alcatraz and he is Harry Houdini.” Spaniard got up slowly and backed out of the room. He got in his old Buick and turned on the radio, to an FM station KOMA from Oklahoma City. They were playing a song he knew, so he sang along. “She caught the Katy and left me a mule to ride,” he thought Taj Mahal wrote it. A few months later Spaniard was told Jocko and Slim were in Amarillo, Texas spending green like John D. Rockefeller. He called a lady friend. She shot Jocko in the face while he was eating a hamburger. Her bullets drove a pickle in his eye and lettuce up his nose. Amarillo Slim didn’t do well either, his brains were stuck to the wall. They resembled a Valentine’s Day box of candy with night crawlers trying to escape. She gathered forty two thousand, some pinky rings, and other fancy jewelry. As she left, she took out a playing card, it was the queen spades. She flicked the card between their bloody corpses.

Lana Bella ANOTHER EVENING AMONG SHADOWS AND TERMITES a day of gains and shortfall distilled into gears of bolt that liquefied as a low winter, wearing me with burnt sugar smoke squeezing between cracks of my oiled fingertips-I held the stare and will of a late moon over the thin give of this white room, sentient enough to crease air into fine grains, rowing in synchrony-slight flick of a finger fell to the veering questions my lips discarded, ballooning like a jet of human life glutinous inside the termitesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; gut, swishing as yellow flesh of winged alates--

THE OLD HOUSE At the man's familiar touch, December raw worms through the carefully dug lives sought shelter inside those tinier breaks of glass of an old house. There is a world in here, he knows: the longest aged dark showed up sutured at birth fearing the bevy of things of simple brilliance; spider webs grow down from the broken sky, forever stitched round then round in aerial silk of moxie; and of course, the chorus, the restless faces of rusty hills press against the glass, wearing masks of his dead children, peering with eyes that moaned the color of searing pyres.

THE WAY WATER SLEPT BESIDE ME I had expected only to touch the surface, where October moon pulsed my buoying frame in the water. To see how far I will sink, I leaned with the weight of my bone into the pull of amniotic calm, eyes filled to the brim in indelible skin of the briny rib cage, fingers scattered the ribboned swirls. As though I was the voyeur masqueraded as the shore, whose brush of calligraphy dipped at the edges of requiem, baying the amnesiac wails swimming through the sleep that consumed me.

SEARCHING FOR THRILLS Leah Mueller It's best not to call a guy for a date after you meet at a dive bar, especially after he bites you while you're singing karaoke. You're standing on the stage, belting out a rendition of “The Thrill is Gone.” Your eyes are shut, and you're really getting into it. Suddenly, a man leaps from the crowd and clamps his jaw around your right foot. He's young, dark-haired, and has a lean, perfect physique. You scream “OUCH!” and kick him, but not very hard. Later, he gives you his phone number, invites you to call whenever you want. It's a typical Saturday night at the Java Jive. The bar is a Tacoma institution, a one-time home to two pet monkeys appropriately named Java and Jive. The monkeys are dead now, and so is your marriage. You're singing karaoke because you're trying to forget everything. You're a lonely 41-year old single mom with two kids and a decaying house on the north end of town, and you know what it feels like to have your thrills vanish. So you're singing your lungs out, and some guy bites your foot. Who can blame him? You ought to blame him, but you don't. As the days pass, you stare at his number and wonder whether you should call. You realize this a terrible idea, but you're still intrigued. He scrawled his name in pencil, so it's hard to read, but you can tell his name is either Dan or Don. It doesn't matter, because he's cute, and you're horny. You haven't had sex for six months-which isn't a long hiatus for some, but for you, it's an eternity. You call the footbiter, discover that his name is Don. He's pleased to hear from you, and agrees to meet later in the evening. You feel excited as you dress for your date. You crank the stereo, have a glass of wine, and plan your seduction. Don is obviously a direct sort, so you probably won't have to do much. You wander nervously around the house, and finally switch off the music. You look in the mirror and smile at your reflection. You look good enough to eat. You are more than ready to be eaten. You and Don have agreed to meet again at the Jive. The two of you sit in the back room beside the video games, and stare at each other across the battered table. You smile and ask how 9

he's doing. He shakes his head and tells you he's not doing well. He doesn't look upset, he's merely stating a fact. “Do you read the News-Tribune?” he asks. This strikes you as an odd non-sequitur, and you nod with confusion. “I subscribe to the News-Tribune” you assure him. “I read it every morning. Well, most mornings.” Don scoots forward in his seat. He leans in your direction, and speaks in a low voice. “Did you read the story about the guy who was arrested downtown for throwing a newspaper box through a nightclub window?” You nod slowly. “Well, that was me. I would have called you sooner, but I've been dealing with a lot of legal shit.” You remember the story. Two weeks ago, your best friend Sarah spent the night at your place, and you read the newspaper together. “Look, Sarah” you said, laughing with derision. “Some asshole got really drunk and smashed a picture window downtown with a newspaper box, right after they threw him out of the bar.” Sarah laughed and took a gulp from her coffee cup. “Idiot” she said. “Shit like that is why I quit drinking.” Maybe YOU should quit drinking. You're not an alcoholic, but you've come dangerously close, especially in recent months. Don continues, “I hurt my back when I threw the box, and they had to take me to the hospital. They gave me some really strong Oxycontin, so the night wasn't a complete loss. It helped me sleep better in my cell, later on.” He laughs. “How have YOU been?” Horrified, you gape at Don. His youthful, unlined face gazes back at you from the other side of the table. His expression is earnest, like he wants your approval. He is fifteen years younger than you are, and obviously has mother issues. You have bad boy issues. Under better circumstances, this would make for a perfect match, but not tonight. Your vagina shrivels like a punctured inner tube, and your horniness wafts out the door into the parking lot. You watch it roll across the line of rusted cars, until it finally disappears entirely. It's okay, however. There's still time to catch the late movie on TCM.

TEXAS STEELCAGE DEATHMATCH Excerpted from the novel Citizen Skin Stephen T. Brophy “TONIGHT! TONIGHT! TONIGHT! LIVE! At the PSYCHODROME! Two WORLD CHAMPION KILLERS battle to the death in LIMITED BALLISTICS COMPETITION! THEN! Thrill to the terror as a BUSLOAD OF SCHOOLCHILDREN is dropped to Earth FROM OVER 3000 FEET IN THE AIR! MEANWHILE! Two jetliners filled with passengers COLLIDE in mid-air and over 400 people must parachute to safety over a LAKE OF ACID! NEXT! Magician DAVID BLAINE and over HALF A TON of TNT will make an entire city block DISAPPEAR! FINALLY! Innocent bystanders meet FIERY DEATH in an arena with NO SAFE EXITS, while CHARLES MANSON engineers an Amtrak train filled with YOUR CLOSEST RELATIVES into the mouth of a LIVE VOLCANO!” Judging by the roars of bloodhungry approval, the rafterpacked crowd at the Psychodrome doesn’t give shit one that most of what the fight announcer just spewed over the loudspeakers is pure megamphetamine-fueled hyperbole. About the only true words in the whole mad rant are “tonight,” “live” and “killers.” But “world champion” killers? More verbal diarrhea. Neither me nor Bilge was ever a world champion anything. As for fighting to the death? Hell, I hope not; I just want to give the freaks a good show. “In this corner, weighing three hundred and fifty pounds in his underwear, and God knows how much in all that other shit he’s wearing, the steel-jawed, machine-armed master of mayhem, the man who—legend has it—brought Nightguard to his knees...” They go extra wild at that; much as I try to deny my involvement, it has made me a crowd favorite. “...The one, the only, the inevitable and possibly indestructible...HandCannon!”

I bound into the cage and play it to the hilt, raising my good arm and my gun arm high above my head as if the victory’s already mine, clasping the barrel with my hand and jutting out my prosthetic metal jaw like some kind of bionic Mussolini. I feel ridiculous, my black leather pants too tight around my thick legs and slightly bulging middle, my torso bare beneath the crossbelts that hold my various implements of potential destruction. Ladies’ and men’s underwear, dead flowers, full beers, concession stand nachos, and a broken lighting rig rain down around me as the huddled masses explode into screams of wild approval peppered with the occasional boos of hatred. Hey, it wouldn’t be much of a contest if everyone loved me, right? “And in this corner, weighing a freakish three quarters of a ton and not wearing much besides his underwear, the man—if you can call it a man—who once broke Cellular’s spine in three places and spent thirteen years imprisoned in the Isolation Zone! He’s half Neanderthal and 100% cannibal...he’s big! He’s bad! Heeee’s...Bilge!” We all hear Bilge before we see him, the seismic rumble of his footfalls reverberating though the ruins of the Astrodome— never the same since the throwdown at the Libertarian National Convention—as he thunder-stomps his way into the squared circle, looking for every quivering ounce like a sumo wrestler who ate another sumo wrestler, then washed him down with all the beer and schnitzel at every Oktoberfest in the known world. Back in the day, he used to run with a trippy little whippet of a psychopath named Filth, the Laurel and Hardy of brutal mercenary death-dealing. I don’t know what became of Filth, but maybe when we’re in close, I can get a look inside Bilge’s mouth and see if there’s any pieces of him stuck in the big guy’s teeth. “You boys know the rules! No rules! Get in there, draw some blood and do your best to be the one who comes out with a pulse!” The crowd sounds are drowned out by the blare of security klaxons signaling the start of our bout, and I haven’t even fully turned to face him before Bilge lets loose with a big hurtling, face first and upside down, into one plexiglass wall of the cage. I hit 12

the mat and roll to a crouch, unloading a non-lethal burst of hard rubber riotbusters at his belly because what am I, a monster? Like I said, I don’t wanna kill the guy. Not for this kinda shit money. Bilge just giggles like they tickle, some of the rounds bouncing harmlessly off his undulating gray flesh while others disappear between his fat rolls. As he comes toward me, eyes alight with the promise of more worlds of hurt to come, he picks one from his navel and, grinning, tosses it into his slobbering maw. This pig’ll eat anything. Maybe even me. I roll out of the way as both his turkey-sized fists slam the mat where I just was and the whole cage reverberates, the floor buckling beneath his blows. While he’s focused on freeing his fists, I reset my jaw and try to formulate my next move. I hear Seattle’s nice this time of year. But running away’s not an option with this crowd, so I spring off the closest wall, do a mid-air tuckand-roll and come down with both bootheels planted firmly on his back. Or it would be firm, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s an amorphous blob of flesh with legs and a head. My boots sink deep on either side of where I think his spine should be and the skin seems to hold on, like I’m caught in a quicksand of metahuman tissue. He swings me around that way, and the bloodlusters and death-groupies love it, roaring their approval and starting to chant his name. I can feel the tide turning against me even as the world spins in lazy tilt-a-whirl circles, and I realize why the League paired me off against this one. I’ve been winning too much, for too long, and the luster’s started to fade. Maybe my fifteen minutes woulda lasted longer if I’d actually put the finish on Nightguard, but probably not by much. These short-attentionspanners want the latest, the greatest, something new and different and it might just be Bilge’s time to shine. Oh well, it was a fun ride while it...aww, who’m I kidding? This sucks.

Paper dolls Kristin Stadum "You look better on paper," he said, this man with whom I'd somehow tangled my life for a while, and my mind floated on a gust to a book I was reading in India. Wind through the window tore at the pages and ripped free the corners, which swirled and danced through the bus like snowflakes. Paper snowflakes. Rock paper scissors. Paper covers rock. I wondered what happened to the paper dolls of my childhood. Where did they end up? Did I throw them out? They must have been gone by the time I left for school or the house was sold. Did they even survive fourth or fifth grade? I could barely remember how they looked, but I imagined eyes too big, a smear of a mouth, and flat, lifeless hair. The edges would have curled. The paper yellowed. Their clothes were probably brittle and torn. The dolls themselves blurred in my memory, but I remembered drawing girls (and sometimes boys) with my #2 pencil on sheets of wide-ruled paper. With plastic safety scissors, I cut around the forms. Then, I lightly traced their shapes as a guide for the clothes I designed and colored with waxy crayons or the thin, light lines of colored pencils. I placed tabs to keep the clothes in place, and then, cut again. The rest of the process fades from my memory. The dolls themselves. Dressing them. Sharing them. I only remembered the smell of the crayons and scratching of pencil. I remembered the weight of a crayon in my hand. I remembered working alone alongside my closest friends. We created and traded paper dolls and their clothes; then, we outgrew them. We pushed them aside and saved our paper for notes folded into neat little packages and furtively passed. Over the years, the notes turned into letters than morphed into cards of congratulations on graduations, weddings, and babies, cards of sympathy, letters not sent and words not spoken. 14

Over the years, the notes turned into letters than morphed into cards of congratulations on graduations, weddings, and babies, cards of sympathy, letters not sent and words not spoken. We grew up. Was he still in a paper doll phase? Was that what he wanted from me, something flat and lifeless, something on a twodimensional plane? I had read that story. I had seen that movie, and it didn't end well. It never ended well. "It's my own fault," I thought. "I've written myself into a corner." The stories I wrote, they were true. They were stories of me. They were stories of my life, but I was both more and less than that. I had thoughts. I had depth. I had emotion. Not even Rita Hayworth could live up to herself.

"Every man I knew went to bed with Gildaâ&#x20AC;Ś and woke up with me," she said. I was no Rita Hayworth, no Gilda, glamour girl, or femme fatale. I was just me, and I was tired of fighting. "What do you want?" "I want you to be what you were." Scissors cut paper. "I don't think that can happen."

Norman J. Olson

Recovery Manifesto Robyn Joy I’m turning 40 this year and I have finally broken up with alcohol. We have been in an on again off again (mostly on) relationship for a good 20 years. I started drinking when I started forming my personality, discovering my sexuality, exerting my independence. I continually put myself in dangerous and harmful situations – labeling it as being “impulsive,” spontaneous” and “fun.” But really it was about the fact that I thought I needed to play the victim to be wanted. I drank and used to feel complete, to feel validated, to feel pretty, to feel confident, and to be the girl that everyone wanted around. I had endless disasters (selfharming, sexual assault, financial trouble, divorce, loss of friendships, etc), but I didn't quit because I hit rock bottom. I hit that a couple times and drank harder. I was briefly sober in 2012 after a sexual assault that happened while I was incapacitatingly wasted. I went 90 days with a once a week outpatient counselor, but it was with gnashed teeth and white knuckles, and on day 91, I went back in full force. I continued on and I thought I was remarkably functional - doing everything expected at work, maintaining relationships (for the most part), magically staying safe (aside from a few near misses and that time I sprained my hand trying to take my boots off) - but I was getting sicker and sicker inside. At the end of 2015, I was drinking a bottle of wine when I got home from work, popping anti-anxiety meds, and going to the bar to drink more every single night. I was blacking out a lot, and if I wasn't embarrassing myself, I was starting to get scared of myself. This wasn’t a new pattern, I have been licking my inner wounds with mind alteration and self-destruction since I was a child in one way or another, but I was starting to want something different for myself.

In November 2015, I was recovering from finalizing my divorce, which led to owning and selling a house by myself. I was also trying to understand what it was like to love someone who didn’t secretly hate me. I wanted things to feel as good as they appeared, but they didn’t. I admitted that I needed help to my fiancé, my job, and an addiction counselor and decided to try an inpatient rehab facility. Mainstream models of recovery never really resonated with me, and I figured this would be the case 19

here, but I needed to break this 20+ year cycle with something more extreme than myself. While the isolation from temptation was great and I met some great people, I jumped ship a week early because by week three I felt I wasn’t going to make any more progress there. I stayed completely sober for about a week, and then I relapsed and struggled through all of December, trying to be "sort of sober." It wasn't the most terrible I've been, but I really wasn't committed to or prepared for sobriety, even though I still wanted it so badly. I now know that I do not drink like a normal person and to try is only going to awaken my little gremlin-wolf-snake-beast who's thirst is unquenchable. My last drunk night was New Year’s Eve 2015. I drank lots of wine and champagne, and most likely popped a Lorazepam or two. I staggered to the store and came back to the apartment with a ridiculous amount of wine, even though I was already slurring. We arrived at a party and I was completely wasted, trying to be coherent but barely standing up. Friends and acquaintances were all just looking at me with this expression that I can’t ever forget – lack of surprise, because I am always that drunk. It stuck with me. I woke up on the first day of 2016 with a new feeling. I was to be married to the sweetest man in 7 months and I didn’t want my future to look anything like my past. I looked at my fiancé and told him I was ready to stop drinking and I really meant it, for the first time in my life. He took me for a walk and he made a video of me dumping the last bottle of wine over a cliff. I haven't had a sip of anything since. I am celebrating 9 months of sobriety in the next few weeks. I am learning about taking care of myself ahead of everything and anything. I actually don't miss the drinking itself that often. I'm in the process of re-figuring out my personality because I was drunk every fucking day for so long. I've realized that I am a lot more introverted than I thought, and it’s something that has been both excruciating and fascinating. I used to participate in social things for the sake of making people believe I liked the right things that would make me the most likable. I became whatever I thought would make the most people pleased with me. I also liked anything that gave me an acceptable reason to be drunk. I now want seclusion and independence a lot more than I ever have before, but I also fill my down town up with nourishing 20

things like yoga, therapy, art projects, research, and just things that are going to keep me pushing forward. I've found great support and empowerment in being honest and open about the fact that I am sober now. It holds me accountable, and it also gives me a chance to inspire or even help others who are struggling. Sobriety is not the easiest thing, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really one of the hardest, but it has definitely been the best thing to happen to me in my ongoing healing process so far. (*This piece is culled from my recovery themed perzine â&#x20AC;&#x153;Best Intentionsâ&#x20AC;? and an interview I did for the online blog The Sobriety Collective*)

Two Rons donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make a Right!

Cheryl Sonstein

Billy Bridwell The demon. He rode up on a chopper carried from the depths of Hell. A warlord turned a martyr, turned a demon, showed himself. The pathologic liar introduced him as a friend, but hesitance kept apprehension hidden on my sleeve. He was called up from the ranks of resistance and resigned, a turncoat of the others where he had the route inside. The plans, the key, the passageway to let us safely in - to set the trap and detonate, to disappear again. A ghost, a bomb, a demon and the pathologic liar, set out on the only road that hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t felt the fire. Snipers, ambush, minefields and an open sky ahead, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The bombers are expected, so keep your cover first.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The bomb, he prayed so quietly and only to himself, his explosives double checked and fastened tightly to his chest. His heart beat slow, deliberate, as he calmly counted on. The detonators kept unwired and wrapped around his waist. The demon moved ahead and the liar got in line, the bomb followed single file with my place held behind. Armed and ready for the trial as souls accept their fate, we left the road some twenty yards and held it as our guide. A western wind and setting sun and early evening stars, were tokens of remembrance back before the war was lost. The travel felt too easy and the silence held the same. The target came in closer as we rearranged our ranks. The liar took the lead and with him his heavy arms, his stories might be shit, but his aim had proven strong. The bunker fortified by steel and the blood of innocence, the door was sealed up tight and the bomb set to detonate. The demon made assurance that this was the passage in, unguarded route into the depths, our target was the same. A small explosion, just enough to blast apart the lock, the liar rushed and so did I, the bomb held the sign of the cross. The bunker was abandoned; it showed no sign of war. The liar stopped dead in his tracks as I kept pressing on. An explosion in the chamber as the barrel let its pay, the liar fell hard to his knees, his face cried streams of blood. The demon held the handle as it smoked I turned to face, I raised my rifle as he sneered and 26

kept pressed hard on me. A burst of laughter, and maniac, he spoke his true intent. Born of fire and carried up to cleanse this road ahead. He fired fast and hit his mark and I became the ghost, and as I fell I saw a light, the devil's word held true. The bomb had taken to his waist and wired himself in. His chest still held the plastic, his trigger in his hand. The demon at the threshold, the depths calling him down. The bomb spoke soft, his trigger pulled, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I prayed not for myself.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Devon Balwit Baby They yell throw the baby, but she will not let go, her hair already blazing wings of dark smoke. We’ll catch the baby, they promise, shaking their sheet to shoo doubt; her fingers dig deeper. Suspended between disasters—his mother’s flaming, the shouting of strangers—the baby wails. She decides without warning, a letting go that is more a push. The baby plummets. Do they catch the baby, or do they miss? Fate is indifferent, and one must never drop a baby.

Sock Hard if you turn the crank, but hidden gears release nothing, kick the machine, tip it over and you will still be satisfied, and if someone laughs, sock hard so their next grin wears blood, line up your losses and riddle them with buckshot, release the dregs of the day to hone your aim, and if a lover tumbles into anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bed, take an axe to deadfall so your heart bangs louder yet, and if no one hears, balance over traffic on the thinnest of wires until, struck by the shadow of your daring, even your enemies look up.

NBA Playoffs 2016 I nursed a single pint the whole night up at the bar (not a drinker), a real bro (not a bro), head cranked back, lenses reflecting the oversized flat screen above me, tracking the players (ours? theirs?) back and forth through their dribbling, pick and rolls, screens, behind the back passes, lay ups, jumps, three-pointers, free throws (lingo!), asked my neighbor You a fan? (bonding), he replied Spurs. I nodded as if I knew who they were, how their playoffs were faring, surreptitiously trying to elbow those I’d come with, whispering sotto voce Spurs? Each time my team (Golden State Warriors, Steph Curry’s eyes! Dreamy!) made a basket, I raised my arms in a tiny stadium wave, a little like the Pope giving a quick, two-handed benediction. When our guys turned over the ball (more lingo) I shouted reeeejected! (Telemundo does basketball: GOOOAL!) When their guys completed an impossibly graceful play (ball movement!), I also cheered (why not? They have mothers, pull their jerseys over their faces and cry when they lose). When Blazers’ fans (local team) started heckling GSW fans (Californians driving up real estate values), I looked around nervous (exits?), remembering pictures of British footballers (our soccer!) crushed to death. Apparently, this ribbing was all in good fun, no punches thrown (comradely). Within four or five points till the end (“close game”), we stood, we cheered, (still a full two inches in my glass at last call—cheap date!). Another GSW fan threw his arms around me after they won (hunky!) and again by the bathrooms (?) and again out front (drunk!). I followed into the night, reciting Curry, Green, Iguodala, Barnes, Thompson, Livingston, Bogut, Ezeli, Barbosa, Speights, Varejao, a rosary of trash talk, sweat, flexion, leap, delighting in a thing done (poetry in motion?) well.

Escalations of Kindness Tim Philippart I am out to buy a sweater at the big mall in Grand Rapids, Mi., two floors, a food court and three escalators. I park close --just under the theaters (covered parking) – happy that I don’t have to walk in the rain. I stroll by Panera’s and veer right to go down to Sears. About fifty feet from the bottom of the “up” escalator, I see her. She is old. It’s getting harder to find someone older than me to say that about. You ever notice how one doesn’t generally call someone their own age -- old. I guess that might change as I get older. I think I might start calling other people, “old like me” or “older than me.” Probably, after that, I will just start calling them “old” again, even if they are younger than me. This older-than-me woman, complete with canvas dock shoes, khaki pants, and a white polyester blouse, mostly hidden by a hip length, grey London Fog wind breaker is confused and worried. Her gray hair, streaked with invasions of white, barely creeps down her neck. A blue veined right hand rubs fretfully against the right side of her face as she looks at the escalator. She walks 180 degrees from right to left around the escalator, giving the moving steps a wide berth, finishing the semi-circle and walking back again. She rubs, walks and worries. I don’t need to use the escalator. I am on the floor I want to be on, but she looks so worried. I stroll over. “You OK?” She stops walking, keeps rubbing and doesn’t respond to my question. She eyes the escalator.

I try again—changing my approach—“Is there anything I can help you with?” She stops rubbing and, sort of, looks at me. She glances at my feet, my chest and peeks, furtively, over my right shoulder but never looks me in the eye. Why should she look me in the eye? This grizzly looking, young old man that I have become is not someone I would warm up to. “I’m afraid of the steps,” she says with a soft, near 31

trembling, voice. She rubs her face a little more furiously now and two-steps back and forth, side-to-side. “So fast,” she says, as we eye the steps zipping past us with what now looks like the speed of light. Thinking I would be helpful, I question, may I help you up the escalator? “That” stimulates eye contact. She rubs a little harder. Pupils contract a little more. She says nothing. From on high comes a faint voice. “Get on, you will be alright.” A man, at the top of the escalator, two or three inches shorter than the woman at the bottom, encourages her. A little old man with an ear-protector hairline says, gently, “come-on.” The woman is confused and frightened and, at his exhortation, becomes a little more agitated. She is afraid and he just has never been trained for a situation like this.

I say, “Take my arm and we will get up to your husband.” To my surprise she takes my arm. Well not quite “takes”--- she tourniquets my arm. Her left arm grabs on for dear life as it coils constrictor-like around my right arm. “She” shoves “me” toward the escalator. She pushes me on. We hold on. We make it. The summit is scaled. She blinks eye contact. He says, “thank you.” They take off, and, I suppose, thinking of pillars of salt, never look back. I go back down the escalator, veer left around Panera’s. Get in my car in a covered parking place. Staying dry. Wondering for a minute about my future. I don’t want a sweater anymore but, I always look around when I am at the bottom of the up escalator.

Lynn White The Graveyard of Dreams The rubble and wire are the graveyard of dreams. The long march to the wire is the graveyard of dreams. The long march to nowhere is the graveyard of dreams. The ocean is the graveyard of dreams. The desert camps are the graveyard of dreams. The swollen, empty bellies are the graveyard of dreams. When even the dreams of the graveyards are shattered will the broken dreamers waken?

A Question of Place ‘Who the fuck is Alice?’ said the March Hare inhaling hard. ‘She’s rather large’ said Dormouse coughing as the smoke ring engulfed him. ‘I find her quite intimidating, actually, not the little girl I expected. Really, I hope Hattie doesn’t invite her to the party. I don’t think she would quite fit in.’ ‘You’ll sleep through it anyway’, said the White Rabbit consulting his watch. ‘It’s time. We should go.’ The March Hare lit another cigarette. ‘We should all change places if she’s there’ said Dormouse. The March Hare blew out more smoke rings. ‘Who the fuck cares if she fits in or not, in a mad world no one has a place. Hatter knows that. He’ll be asking her questions. He knows the place of madness.’ ‘All in good time’, said the White Rabbit consulting his watch. ‘He’ll ask her who she is’. ‘There’s no answer to that’ said Dormouse. ‘No one knows who they are’. March Hare lit a cigarette. ‘If she can’t answer Hatter’s question, then she has no place. There’s no answer to that’. ‘In time there’ll be an answer.’ said the White Rabbit. In time we’ll know our place. In time we’ll know the answer to who we are. Then times will change again’. 34

Magic Words They say you have a magic tongue that can weave the words falling from your mouth into tapestries laced with gold thread. Curl the words into scented ringlets of flowers formed by petals shining like stars even in the sunlight. I want to catch them and hold on to them without any rearranging. To soak myself in their perfection, indulge so I can keep them with me when the magic turns dark black and the golden threads hard, when you turn them to sharp steel. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still your words with a kind of magic twisted together by your tongue but they have become projectiles, explosions of your anger and despair falling, but no longer falling gently. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to catch them and hold them now so that I can rearrange them back into what they were.

Passed The wedding wreaths and burial bouquets have a story to tell. The bridesmaids and the poll bearers are the narrators of history and hearse, presenting it now in the present. A present that has already become part of the past. The ever present past waiting to be narrated, to become alive again. Both dead and undead reaching back and forth coming together to tell their stories and celebrate passing lives.

Joshua Didriksen

Hazardous to your Health Evan Guilford-Blake CHARACTERS: SONNY - male. 35-55. Successful, assured and arrogant CORINNE - female. 30-50 - Sonny’s executive assistant NATHAN - male. 30-55 - Apparently mild-mannered, but volatile SETTING: An elevator of a large office building in a large urban area TIME: Approximately the present AT RISE: Visible is the suggestion of a mid-level floor in a high rise office building. NATHAN, a man in his 30s, is seen inside as an elevator door opens. SONNY, in his mid-40s, and CORINNE, in her 30s, continue to converse as THEY enter the elevator. SONNY: ... wants it he can damn well be there on time or he can fuck himself, y’ know --NATHAN: (Hurrying to the elevator) Excuse me; this is going up? SONNY: (without break) --- what I mean? Yeah. Up. So get in, fella. NATHAN: Thank you. And Merry Christmas. CORINNE: Merry Christmas to you. Sixty-eight, right, Sonny? SONNY: Yeah, Corinne, sixty-eight. (SHE presses a button. Door closes.) So anyway (HE takes out a cigarette and lighter.) I also told him 41

it’s worth every god damn dime of thirty-one thousand and if they don’t want to spend that kind --Excuse me. What.

NATHAN: SONNY:

NATHAN: Please -- don’t light that in here. Oh? Why not?

SONNY:

NATHAN: (Jovially) Santa night leave a lump of coal in your stocking. It’s against the law. And it’s a matter of courtesy. To the rest of us? SONNY: What “rest of us.” There’s just me and her. NATHAN: And me. And it really bothers me. CORINNE: Sonny, it’ll only be a min--SONNY: Hey, fella -- I lease three floors of this building. Who the fuck are you? NATHAN: Just another passenger. But smoking’s hazardous to your health. All of ours. CORINNE: Sonny, maybe you should wait till --My name is Nathan.

NATHAN:

SONNY: Oh, his name is Nathan. Well, I really didn’t like the way Nathan said that. You hear me, Nathan? Fella, you want somebody to do something, you learn to --- (The elevator dings.) Besides, we’re here. C’mon. (The door opens, all three step off. NATHAN withdraws a gun.) It’s the end of the hall, sixty-eight thirty-four.

Sonny?

NATHAN:

CORINNE: Sonny, he’s got --- (NATHAN fires. SONNY falls.) Jesus, I...

SONNY:

NATHAN: I told him it was hazardous to his health. Merry Christmas, Corinne. (HE re-enters the elevator. CORINNE stares as the door closes.)

The end

After-Party Boy Patrick Strong Winter in LALA Land at this post gig after-party at a swank deco home in the Hollywood Hills of some rocker chick with a Daddy Warbucks who has the cash to keep her away from the main mansion. To her credit, she's not a pacifier-sucking clubber dancing to some masked geek with an open laptop, and somehow she and her upper crust crowd still like actual musicians who play real live music, so one plus in her corner for being so relatively young and trying to live in a dying dream with the rest of the losers in leather and denim. Must be a new rich kid retro fad. Everybody was hammered; everybody but me. I had the shittiest vehicle in the drive, and it was full of equipment that I had to get home safe and sound: Mr. Responsibility to the rescue. I was only there as the ride for the pussy hound of bassist, and one of the girls in the "in-crowd" needed to add his STDs to hers. So, instead of being back home where it's safe from cruisers full of cops looking for cash and heads to smash, it's social beers and awkward conversations with the saved by money crowd while observing them in their natural habitat. My skills as a musician lost their use hours before and once off the stage, my cool veneer is shed in two lines of talking to me. The guitarists and singer were nowhere to be found; they probably bolted when that last run of blow didn't materialize, already rushing back inland before the stimulants were overran by the booze, beating the sunrise like drug sucking vampires. It was about that point in the morning right before sunup, where the night is the darkest it's going to get; the cocaine that was fueling the party ran out, and the whole thing wound down quickly like a child's toy in a quick mechanical spiral, leaving the detritus in its wake: empty booze bottles everywhere, a pile of ransacked takeout bags, a passed out pill-head couple on the couch in a deep nod like life-sized, Gothic rag dolls, a circle of discarded acoustic guitars and hand drums in the living room some Satanic, metal-head Kumbaya that's more of a pre-mating ritual; that's when Mr. Bassman and the dirty dishwater blond with the blue streaks in her hair and more tattoos than a biker 44

went to one of the bedrooms to pound it out. He gave me the thumbs up signal that it was okay for me to leave; his expertise as a cocksman will guarantee him breakfast and a cab ride, but for some reason, I didn't leave. I had been forced into this world again, and I wasn't done hating these people yet. Muffled music and moans came from the several bedrooms in the back of the otherwise quiet house. Not a book on a shelf anywhere. Idiots. Not even any albums or CDs; everything is digital. If it wasn't for their clothes, the framed Pink Floyd poster and the fact that they were at a live music venue, you wouldn't even know what their music taste was. One last piss before I hit the road, and I ironically took it near a kidney shaped pool. It was a glorious night. Full moon over the sea of lights that is LA, a choppy and brisk breeze off the ocean that tells you it's what we call winter here, and I did my business in the rich girl's shrubs, adding a bit of nitrogen fixing agents to the soil. As I turned around to go back in the house to look for a bottle of booze to steal, I noticed the hostess in a deck chair next to the pool as she tried to light up a cigarette and failed a couple of times. Before my eyes adjusted to the dark, I hadn't seen her there. She was smashed, the cocaine overtaken by the booze and probably a handful of pills. She had hate in her voice when she addressed me, "Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here?" "I'm the drummer." "Well, we don't need one of those right now," she practically hissed. I might as well have been the gardener or some waiter with the wrong order. She's gorgeous, a rocker's dream girl but with an ugly soul when it comes to the surface (still a rockerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream girl). Finally able to hold her lighter on long enough to find her cigarette, she lit up her smoke and illuminated her face and body, legs splayed off the chair with the high black mini-skirt open for business and totally commando. Her shaved to the bone snatch had so much metal in it, it looked like a fly-fisherman's mini-tackle-box, the lures glimmering in the quick light of the flame. She hissed again, "We don't need you here anymore." 45

I laughed a bit realizing the feeling was mutual and started to walk toward the open sliding glass door. Her hand with the cigarette dropped; she started to pass out in the chair, and her head went back as she started to throw up a little. Fuck. Fucking stupid Adirondack chairs. Might as well have bean bags surrounding the pool. She couldn't be at a standard deck chair at a table and fall forward while puking. The last thing I wanted to do was assist this chick who had been giving me the evil eye all night and ended it by addressing me like the help. I pondered what level of evil it would be to just stand there and watch her choke on her boozy vomit, but I did the nice guy thing, got to her, pushed her forward a bit and got out of the way for the shot of puke that was coming, most of it right in the pool for three points. I wiped her face off with an expensive Ebay score of an ancient AC/DC concert T from the 80s, and carried her 105 actual soaking wet ass to the couch; she had jumped into the pool with her clothes on earlier. I plopped her down face first on the leather couch, and she came back to life a bit, arching up her butt and hiking up her skirt over a flawless ass that had escaped from a porn set. “You want to fuck me, don’t you?” she said, not even looking at me. It seemed reflexive, a machine doing its programmed task, i.e. not sexy. “No, I don’t,” I whispered in her ear. “You’re doing a fine enough job of that yourself.” She passed out almost instantly, snoring against the leather of the couch, and then I did fuck her, sort of. When I was carrying her, a wad of wet hundreds, probably the cash for the last failed coke run, fell out of her pocket. So, I scooped that up, payment for services rendered, grabbed unopened bottles of upscale tequila and bourbon from her bar and made my way out of her house and back to my proletariat existence with the rest of the dirt people in the inland valleys.

Credits Sean Andress has been making art for over 20 years. His fascination lies in distorting the human face and figure to the point of violent abstraction. He lives in Southern California. Devon Balwit is a poet from Portland, OR. If she's not teaching or writing, she's throwing Frisbees to her dog or pulling ferrets from her closet. Lana Bella is the author of two chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016) and Adagio (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming). She resides in the US and Nha Trang, Vietnam, and can be found on facebook. Billy Bridwell is from the small towns and deserts of Arizona. He spent years singing and writing punk songs and is now trying to slow the stories down with Leftover Pieces/Leftover Press. @leftoverpieces Stephen T. Brophy is the LA triple threat: writer/performer/ sociopath. The first three volumes of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Handcannonâ&#x20AC;? chronicles can be found on Amazon or ordered from Budget Press. stbrophy.com Joshua Didriksen is from Jersey City, New Jersey. His work has appeared in Reality Beach and Super Kings. He can usually be found sitting in the dark on the computer. joshuardidriksen.com Evan Guilford-Blake writes for adults and children. His novels Animation and The Bluebird Prince and the story collection American Blues are available on Amazon. He lives in Georgia. Renee Gurley is a writer/traveler/teacher living in South America. Her book The Rape of Etta Place, which details her experience bringing a violent crime in Bolivia to justice, is due in 2017. Robyn Joy has been making something out of nothing since 1976, sober since the first day of 2016. She is currently working on issue #3 of her perzine Best Intentions. She lives in Vermont.

Catfish McDaris works in a wig shop in a high crime area of Milwaukee, and once shared a chapbook with Bukowski. His latest book, Sleeping with the Fish, can be found on Amazon. Leah Mueller is the author of the chapbook Queen of Dorksville, and two books, The Underside of the Snake and Allergic to Everything. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, where she makes an awesome vegan pesto that brings all the boys to her yard. Norman J Olson is a small press poet and artist who has published hundreds of poems and artworks in 15 countries and all over the USA after years of rejection. He lives in Maplewood, Minnesota. normanjolson.com. Tim Philippart sold his business in 2015. He has been published by Silver Birch Press and Pure Slush among others, but wishes he had not waited decades to pick up the pen. He lives in Michigan. Cheryl Sonstein lives in San Diego where she hangs out with So Say We All, San Diego Writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ink, and The Narrators. Her perzine in 100 years weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll all be dead is available from Budget Press. She enjoys seducing older men for sport. Kristin Stadum lives in Washington DC, where despite her mathbased career (or perhaps because of it), she writes daily for her blog, Candy Sandwich. Her perzine I Belong Here is available from Budget Press. Patrick Strong hails from Rivercide, California. He has been published in Temp-Slave, The Church of Sub-Genius, Hitlist and numerous Budget Press publications, but was rejected by Hustler. Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com johnnie b. baker is the editor and publisher of Budget Press. He has been published in The Radvocate and Paper and Ink among others. His perzines My Snow-globe Life #1 and #2 are available from Budget Press. He lives in San Diego, California.

I'm not one of those strangers you should start talking to just because I'm there. I'm really not good at that, and will end up making you feel uncomfortable. I will inevitably say the wrong thing. Not by choice. But because you are making me uncomfortable. johnnie b. baker

Back coverâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Sean Andress 49