Vol. 4 — No. 1
this is a lit mag is a bi-monthly literary magazine, published in Atlanta through PaperCrane Press. We are dedicated to publishing fresh, insightful work by writers of all genres, new and old, who deserve a wider audience.
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“Uncivilized” : They found the boy in Central Park, looking like no one had ever loved him. “His body was crawling with ants,” Stabler said. “Ants.” Two days later, they arrest his teacher, who as it turns out had loved him just fine. “Contact” : Stabler discovers that his wife believes she saw a UFO, back when she was in her early twenties. He lies awake all night, wondering if this explains the memory loss, the PTSD, the night terrors. His wife wakes up weeping and screaming, on cue. “Russian Love Poem” : When they bring the mother up to the stand, the new DA asks her what her name is. She closes her eyes, shakes her head, rocks back and forth in her chair. She begins to sing a song softly under her breath, not in English, the syllables rolling out of her mouth like smoke. The DA looks to the judge for help, but he is staring at the witness, his eyes distant as if he is lost inside of his own head. “Monogamy” : Stabler wakes up one night to find his wife staring at the ceiling, tears soaking the pillow next to her head. “It was spitting,” she says. “My fingers smelled like metal. I was so scared.” For the first time, Stabler understands.
Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU, Carmen Maria Machado
“Asunder” : Stabler works out every morning at the precinct. He does tricep curls. He does crunches. He jogs on a treadmill. He thinks he hears his daughter’s voice crying his name. Startled, he trips on the treadmill and his whole body slams against the cinderblock wall. The path rolls toward him in endless loops. “Manhunt” : Stabler has determined that he is not even a little bit gay. He swallows his disappointment. His mouth tastes like orange peel. “Sacrifice” : Benson leaves her handsome date at the table, in the restaurant, waiting for the drinks. She walks down an empty side street. She takes off her shoes and walks down the center of the road. It is too hot for April. She can feel her feet darkening from the blacktop. She should be afraid of broken glass but she is not. In front of a vacant lot, she stops. She reaches down and touches the pavement. It is breathing. Its two-toned heartbeat makes her clavicle vibrate. She can feel it. She is suddenly, irrevocably certain that the earth is breathing. She knows that New York is riding the back of a giant monster. She knows this more clearly than she has ever known anything before.
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Alfalfa, Dick Barnes
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In the office where we worked, a windowless kitchenette stood at the end of a hall; in it, an espresso machine proudly rose from a countertop made of cold marble. One day, we craved the coolness of the marble, the heat of bitter caffeine, at the exact same time. In the kitchenette, we reached for the knob, then for the nozzle. Our hands touched, our skins tickled. The machine roared, let out steam. Still, we laughed it off. We said, Excuse me. We returned to our desks and emulated the motions of coworkers. You see, we had both offered our freedom to other people long ago, and they’d accepted. The next day it happened again. And again. One of us, though we are not at liberty to say who, began to suspect the presence of a powerful force. For a while, only a few people shared our secret. After nodding at these people over glasses of stale iced tea, as they advocated for restraint and touched the tips of our shoulders, we’d often find gray spots under our skin. They looked like bruises. We knew what they were. We had no escape, the force was reminding us, lest our friends’ words fool us.
Stand Still, Shelly Oria
Once, we bought a special detergent, legal in our state only for the use of veterinarians with pure intentions. Over the small kitchenette faucet we hunched, as one of us tried to scrub the other clean. We squeezed grainy matter out of green tubes. It didn’t work.
What could we do? We said goodbye to our spouses, affectionately kissed them on the cheek, avoided their eyes as we reached for the door. We left many items behind. We held on to our keys. Anything else, we knew, would be too cruel. We found a house with leaves on every window. We were undressing each other so often that some days putting clothes back on seemed a waste of time. We had a plan: separate apartments. It’s the difference between cooking to surprise a lover, and cooking because your lover is hungry, we said. But every morning we’d wake up together, unable to remember the previous night. Unwittingly, we started using the same Laundromat. At the grocery store, we found ourselves aware of each other’s preferences, shopping for two. Why am I choosing semi-soft tomatoes? one of us would think; I always said soy can’t be milk, the other would mumble, carton in hand. Soon, the elaborate ring of keys felt heavy in our pockets, and the clinking sound it made annoyed us. We found a house with leaves on every window. We were undressing each other so often that some days putting clothes back on seemed a waste of time. We appreciated the trees for this reason—they made it so we could be naked and believe ourselves unobserved. Except, that is, for the force, which, we assumed, if it wanted to watch us would not be deterred by greenery.
After a while, one of us—and it truly doesn’t matter who—had a crisis in the family. We have different memories of what the crisis was—one of us believes a beloved aunt fell ill, while the other remembers it clearly as a sibling’s drug problem. What is not in dispute is that solving the crisis involved travel and an extended stay, and that while one of us was packing, the other felt terrified, and thrilled. While one of us was away, the other started working long hours, creating expectations in the office that later proved difficult to amend. We were not working in the same office by then, but we were still in the same business—figuring out if companies needed to get bigger or smaller—and we both understood the nature of that business. We still talk about that trip often—it seemed to take something away from us, and perhaps give something in return. We admit that freely, often over a glass of wine, and one of us tickles the other’s knee to remind us we are still playful. These days, we have a good division of labor in the household. We hug each other often, to convey support. Over time, we got in the habit of taking our own clothes off when needed. When you undress yourself, you have plenty of time to close a curtain, and so the trees grew less important. But we still loved the green on our windows, especially when the yellow of the sun mixed with it a particular Stand Still, Shelly Oria way. Such views were hard to come by
in our state—most living quarters were overlooking other living quarters. We fully accepted that our love for our windows meant staying in our rather expensive home. And we accepted that that, in turn, meant one of us—the one making more money—had to work even longer hours. It seemed necessary to have a home that looked like a home, if we were ever to have children, which we kept feeling we would want next year. That’s life, we both said, and shrugged. During the workday, we texted each other often. These days, we have a good division of labor in the household. We hug each other often, to convey support. We cook—dinner, sometimes breakfast, and definitely brunch on weekends. We own a humidifier. We’re big on personal hygiene—a shower or a bath every day, sometimes two. Showers and baths are taken separately, for convenience. We fantasize about a big house. Our big house would have exposed-brick walls, a fireplace, and a Jacuzzi where two people could bathe together and save time. The big house is not our only fantasy: sometimes we fantasize about other people. (It’s only natural, we remind ourselves; we try to forget our past.) We eat cereal frequently. We often stay up late. We take turns buying soap and toilet paper. We never watch Doctor Phil. Occasionally, we see our friends, many of whom have developed a drinking problem. They spike their iced teas, lean back, and stare at
things we can’t see. They don’t touch the tips of our shoulders. They ask about our house and our jobs, and we ask about theirs, but most of the time no one answers. Sometimes they ask about our old spouses, about how they’re doing. We say we hear one of them got a dog, the other a cat. We say both of them have moved away. We say from all accounts they are happy, dating. For all we know, these things could be true. Sometimes we go to parties. We talk to new people at these parties—some couples, some who are not coupled. These people are mostly attractive, and sometimes they say things like Hi, I’m Shira. They find an excuse to touch one of us while the other is eating Brie in another part of the room. I love your shirt; is it silk? When we come home, we look for gray spots under our skin. We shake a little as we uncover ourselves to see. Every time, our skin is clear. We stand there for a moment, looking. Then we start touching each other with relief. We realize, of course, that one day the force may strike again, leaving one of us breathless at the side of the road. We realize, but we try not to think about that. When we do, we say things like This understanding only makes us stronger. Sometimes one of us nods, says, Right, then adds, But how, exactly? It’s as if all that exists for us is the present, the other says; in it, we must stand still, hold each other firmly.
Sticks, George Saunders
We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us. Dad began dressing the pole with more complexity and less discernible logic. He draped some kind of fur over it on Groundhog Day and lugged out a floodlight to ensure a shadow. When an earthquake struck Chile he lay the pole on its side and spray painted a rift in the earth. Mom Every year Thanksgiving night we
died and he dressed the pole as Death and hung
flocked out behind Dad as he dragged the Santa
from the crossbar photos of Mom as a baby. We'd
suit to the road and draped it over a kind of
stop by and find odd talismans from his youth
crucifix he'd built out of metal pole in the yard.
arranged around the base: army medals, theater
Super Bowl week the pole was dressed in a
tickets, old sweatshirts, tubes of Mom's makeup.
jersey and Rod's helmet and Rod had to clear it
One autumn he painted the pole bright yellow. He
with Dad if he wanted to take the helmet off. On
covered it with cotton swabs that winter for
the Fourth of July the pole was Uncle Sam, on
warmth and provided offspring by hammering in
Veteran’s Day a soldier, on Halloween a ghost.
six crossed sticks around the yard. He ran lengths
The pole was Dad's only concession to glee. We
of string between the pole and the sticks, and
were allowed a single Crayola from the box at a
taped to the string letters of apology, admissions
time. One Christmas Eve he shrieked at Kimmie
of error, pleas for understanding, all written in a
for wasting an apple slice. He hovered over us as
frantic hand on index cards. He painted a sign
we poured ketchup saying: good enough good
saying LOVE and hung it from the pole and
enough good enough. Birthday parties consisted
another that said FORGIVE? and then he died in
of cupcakes, no ice cream. The first time I
the hall with the radio on and we sold the house to
brought a date over she said: what's with your
a young couple who yanked out the pole and the
dad and that pole? and I sat there blinking.
sticks and left them by the road on garbage day.
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The stone gazes of dead heroes judge him less harshly than the milk white mountaineers to whom he sells fleeting tastes of happiness. The generals and martyrs stand sentinel in their secluded arbors; they have become commonplace idols. The only homage they now receive is his, when he seeks the isolation his livelihood necessitates. For no appreciable reason he notes a square, black sticker subletting space on the Jeep’s bumper as his customers mount their hasty withdrawal. Proudly it proclaims the occupants have “Seen Rock City.” He doesn’t doubt it; he can picture their stacked leather shoes slapping staccato on rocks older than folly, hear the misplaced laughter of hopeful hooligans who despise their parent’s wealth. The mountaineers never laugh in his presence. They stumble through the transaction with the jittery fingers of promised prom night lust and mumble their gratitude away from his face in their rush to exit stage left. It’s not fear, no more than his own smirking bemusement is derision; two worlds meet in these shady glens, under the stern visages of dead men and their artillery, and no one quite knows what to do with the energy which sparks from such galactic collisions. He reaches up to stroke the smooth cheek of one of his granite companions, taking a comforting poetry of promised protection from the cool, unyielding hardness. He always does this, in
appreciation for their allowing him the use of their homes. The city hosts dozens of these glens, five of which he rotates as a storefront. Even now, with so many years of shadowy commerce behind him, he finds it peculiar that only he favors the abodes of the stone soldiers, only he superstitiously seeks their warding watch. He does not know if these men fought for the freedom or enslavement of a people. It doesn’t matter. Whatever these men fought for, whatever cause has cast them into stone permanence, they are his soldiery now; he is their general. Laughing at the irony, he moves to survey the territory his soldiers fought and died for; perhaps to take, perhaps to hold. His storefront lies atop a ridge stretching languidly along the city’s side, spooning lovers of geologic proportions. City lights wink an orange promise of prosperity, installed by fat men who reek of costly colognes. In younger, leaner, more honest years he hated those men, saw the city and its lights as a fetid product of negligent greed. He has left behind hatred, left behind hopeless aspiration to inclusion in their ranks, and sees them now with the benign, vaguely affable banality of coworkers. They milk the city and its milling people from one end of the spectrum, he from the other, and it is only their sons he ever encounters, passing through his periphery on their paths towards inevitable dominance of their domains. He
has learned to love the city. “I keep account of my hits and my misses,” he says into the emptiness yawning wide and cold before him. His soldiers voice no opinion, but the cellular phone in his pocket responds with a merry tinkling. In its emerald glow he finds the voice of his child. His customers paid well, and tonight’s fish will be fresh, properly broiled, without the slippery breading of poverty. He is proud of his capability to provide, and why shouldn’t he be? There is a significant cost to love.
The General, Wesley Smith 13
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. So the tree rustles in the evening, and we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts. When a tree is polled, it will sprout new shoots nearer its roots. A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginnings and
its
promise-filled
childhood,
as
though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.
Roots, Josue Gonzalez 15
America, Allen Ginsberg
I'm addressing you. Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.
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I am a very old and sick man in slouching in a folding chair on masturbating to the smell of hi meal for dinner. A bottle of wh My obese pitbull, who is also ol tongue trying to lick the whisk hate the man I have become an
Anonymous OkCupid Profile
n a 10-gallon stetson hat my grandson’s porch, is wife cooking my favorite hiskey lies broken at my feet. ld and dying, has cut it’s key off the shards of glass. I nd curse the man I will die as.
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this is a lit mag ISSN (0847-9097) is published bimonthly. The known office of publication is PaperCrane Press, 85 Mayson Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA. Printed and mailed in the USA by PaperCrane Press. Single issue price: $5.95 Annual Subscription Price: $60. Cover Paper: Inkpress Linen Matte 200 g/m 2; Interior Paper: Inkpress Duo Matte 180 g/m 2; Body & Display Type: Benton Modern. Designed by Joss Wakamo