Tough lit VIII

Buzzard Bay, by Bob Ferguson

Every issue we present books we believe will entertain, intrigue, and educate. This issue we focus on crime writers.

In the Shadow of War, by Philip Palermo This is a love story and a religious story set inside the Iraqi and Hezbollah-Israeli Wars of 2006. American Marine John Naples relies on the Holy Ghost and the love of his finance, Ann Spencer, to get him home safely and victoriously while his fellow marines are being killed to his left and right. Story details and research are accurate compiled for two years leading up the writing that took place during the actual Hezbollah v. Israel war.

John gets transferred for a spell to that front and then back to Bagdad and the ratlines front. From Iraq to Dana Point in southern California, we feel the wings of the Holy Spirit wrapped around Naples making the Holy Spirit real, not a ghost.

Find this and other e-books by Philip Palermo on I Just don’r F-ing Get It! by Sunshine Right "Witty... Full of humor and a good sense!"—LA. Journal of Comedy.

"Finally, someone addresses travelers on their improper behavior. Sunshine Right definitely hits the mark with her direct and entertaining humor." – Platinume Elite, Manhattan, New York.

"Hilarious page-turner is a must read for seasoned and first time travelers.

We need to lobby congress to place this book in the seat back pocket of every aircraft carrier."—Flight Attendant, Anchorage, Alaska.

"From the pictures I saw in this book I learnt what I was doing wrong."—Passenger, Boone County, West Virginia.

Sunshine Right was born in Queens, New York. She has since lived in 6 states and 7 cities. Currently, she lives with her partner in Texas.

Sunshine has been a flight attendant for 15 years. Her hobbies are writing, traveling and golf As Meryl Streep would say, "That's all..."

Available for purchase at Www.SunShineRight.com

Bob Green and his family get the opportunity of a lifetime by becoming involved in a new farming project in the Bahamas. A plane crash confirms his suspicions as to why the farm has been operating at a loss. The project is not what it seems on the outside.

The discovery of drugs on the airplane put all their lives in jeopardy. Instead of leaving well enough alone, Green decides to fight back. He becomes involved in a world of intrigue, sex, violence, and drugs. In doing so, he finds out that there is a fine line between good and evil. An assassination attempt in Canada goes terribly wrong during a vicious snowstorm.

When the sky clears and the bodies pile up, it becomes quite apparent that this was no hunting accident. Two men escaped. Bob Green was motivated by the love of his wife and family, Henekie by the death of his best friend and mentor, but mostly by greed.

Unwittingly, these two bitter enemies become embroiled in a bitter power struggle between a Columbian drug lord and the CIA in the Bahamas. Available on .

As a young boy, Bob Ferguson lived in a remote area of Canada without electricity or telephones. His evenings were spent listening to an old battery operated radio and daydreaming of faraway places.

Later in life, he traveled extensively. His travels to the Bahamas and their stories stirred his imagination and were the root for this novel.

The author and his wife live in Fiji. Their children and grandchildren live in Canada.

Bob: As Life Goes On--Lessons One Doesn’t Want to Have to Learn,

by Rosalie H. Contino, Ph.D. One phone call hurt Rosalie so much.

Bob's boss told her that her brother had to retire because he wasn't as reliable as he used to be, and the company didn't want to be liable for any accident caused by his disability. She couldn't believe that the company that Bob served for forty years treated him like a thing—he was dispensable.

Nonetheless, she agreed that her brother had to retire. Robert "Bob" Contino was diagnosed with a mild case of schizophrenia, or as Dad used to say "A tip of the iceberg. Rosalie knew that taking care of her sixty-one-year-old brother would be a challenge. She noticed her brother's limping, but Bob was more physically sick than she thought. As laboratory tests were administered to him, more and more ailments manifested itself—some eventually fatal. For the love of Bob, Rosalie put off many of her plans to take care of him as she has vowed to their deceased parents. He annoyed her with his sarcasm and impertinence, but looking back at her brother's life and the painful experiences he had to endure, she put everything into its proper perspective and remembered Bob fondly as she reflects on the lessons in this book. Find this book on and http://www.dorrancebookstore.com/ Dr. Rosalie H. Contino, PhD, lives in Brooklyn, NY where she did her doctorate dgree in Educational Theater and Costume Design at NYU. Now retired, she is a writer, playwright, costume designer, and lecturer. Rosalie's first book, "Born to Create,” (Dorrance Publishing) details going back to school at age 40 to fulfill one’s dreams.

Culture Clash at Torkham Gate Story and photos by Rex Lee Applegate

Torkham Gate Border Crossing Point – Eastern Afghanistan The swarthy Afghan Border Police (ABP) officer pounded away at the hapless young boy. With a camouflage uniform, protruding belly and thick black mustache, the Afghan conjured images of a bullying Sadam Hussein as he pummeled the child. The victim, a waifish 10year-old, fell to the ground and tried to crawl away. Afghans passing by gave a wide berth to the scene as they made their way to the border with Pakistan.

At a nearby US Army Observation Post (OP) a 20-year-old soldier took this in and reacted immediately – running over and shouting at the ABP officer to stop. The policeman looked up in surprise. Though he could not understand the American, it was clear to the Afghan that he was incensed. Dressed in full battle rattle and screaming in fury, the soldier was not to be ignored. Stifling his own anger, the Afghan backed away and let the boy scurry off.

At first blush the actions of the soldier seemed a no-brainer. What red blooded American is going to stand by while an oafish thug beats up on a little child? It was another unsavory performance by the corrupt ABP. Of course he did the right thing.

Maybe not. There was a back story to these events that called for a more sophisticated interpretation – a view requiring a degree of experience and awareness that is rare for an American in Afghanistan on a one year tour. As a Customs Expert working at Torkham Gate for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), I started to get a handle on this only after I was well into my second year in-country. There were many such clashes - misunderstandings that sometimes revealed as much about Americans as Afghans.

These were not serious affairs – most Americans in Afghanistan are properly trained in the basics: don’t discuss religion; always show respect for Islam (don’t burn the Koran!); never look at or interact in any way with the women; shake hands with everyone in sight etc.

Rather, these mix-ups were more low impact and reflected notions so ingrained in Western culture that some consider them universal…and they are not. Both soldiers and civilians, myself included, made such misassumptions as we moved down the learning curve that is service in Afghanistan.

What was really happening with the ABP officer and the kid is an example. At Torkham Gate there is a vibrant “push cart” service for the thousands who daily walk across the border. It is a fairly long trek and many hire these carts to haul their baggage, their children and even their women. Young boys and men push the carts, which they rent for the day from the “Push Cart King” who controls the whole trade. It is an organized business and fees are based on what is being hauled.

Along the route are police checkpoints in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. At each point a set push cart fee is collected. Also based on what is being hauled, the fees vary from 50-100 Pakistani rupees about 60 cents to $1.20. Collections are pooled and used to supplement the impossibly paltry wages paid by both governments.

Without this “informal income,” which some call bribes, the policemen would be unable to feed their families.

The kid being beaten was pushing a cart and had tried to sneak by without paying his fee. He wasn’t inexperienced and unaware – everyone knows where and how much to pay. This act therefore required the ABP officer to teach the child a lesson. After all, the little brat was taking food out of the mouths of his children. In Afghanistan disciplining kids is everyone’s business – not just the parents – and it usually starts with slapping.

So, what the American soldier saw as brutal unprovoked child abuse was business as usual in Afghanistan. The kids just have to be taught to obey the rules. The ABP officer was offended by this interference and complained to his commander, who took it up with the US Army commander. The US Army commander, on his fifth tour (Iraq and Afghanistan), was well aware of the back story and promised that in the future these issues would be handled through the chain of command. It wasn’t a big deal…just another little bump in the relationship between Americans and Afghans.

Most episodes of culture clash at Torkham Gate involved traffic management and the American ethos of safety and order. Soldiers at one OP were required to control the flow of vehicles on the main road to the border. This was a force protection measure to mitigate the danger of vehicle born IEDs. Traffic was stopped until there was room on the road for it to proceed without backing up in front of another OP farther down. It was a simple matter, which on some occasions was made unnecessarily complicated when a soldier took it upon him or herself to enforce American safety standards – particularly as they pertained to people riding on the outside of trucks.

All of the truck drivers had assistants who often chose to ensconce themselves on the protruding front bumper of their truck while transiting the port. Also, one of the most popular forms of recreation for the local kids was to jump on the back of trucks and ride them across the border. Sure, it was really dangerous…and yes…sometimes somebody fell off and was run over…but hey…it was a lot of fun!

Common riding position for a driver’s assistant

Typical push cart scene 2

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

Scraps, Rifles, and Crutches

by Hither Kusum

Shivam cried profusely when he entered the makeshift shelter and sat in a corner when his corpulent and dark-colored wife, Shobha, dressed in a nightdress inquired of him for the reason behind his sadness. She was rushing out of her shabby and cluttered kitchen when his naked and bruised feet drew her attention. She frantically ran towards him and volleyed a number of questions upon him, “What happened to you today? Has the war again started? Did someone chase you down that dusty road?”

Shivam was choking with sadness and was unable to speak. He was unable to bring any scrap for selling today, so they and all their kids had to sleep on empty stomachs. She started beating her forehead and crying volubly over the tragedy that had struck their family.

When Shobha left the shores of her village for Mishuna island, she was a coy 16-year-old dumpling of a girl, whose eyes constantly twinkled in anticipation of happiness awaiting her in her married life and countenance was painted with optimism, but her hopes got dashed when her land, where she had come after her marriage to a shy, but handsome, Shivam, got heavily ravaged by bombs.

Raging with wrath and desperation Shivam gulped down water from a pitcher standing in the clutter of the kitchen and settled back to try and sleep. “No one dies due to hunger,” he claimed. “We have survived this dirty war and managed to live in this rat hole of a house where we hide in constant fear of death and arrest!” he fretted.

Shobha did her best to calm him down and tended to his mangled feet. He began narrating the incident that caused him injury: “I had almost tricked those tough military men with their sophisticated guns from arresting me and entered the restricted area, where loads of scraps were strewn about unattended. I discreetly started picking those metal rods and leftovers of bicycles and weapons with the imagination of providing a grand feast after I would sell the huge collection in the city. But how did I know that some landmines were planted there? I hit one of them. There was a loud noise and a giant mushroom-like explosion enveloped the area. Those military men started rushing with their guns. I was scared to death. On injured feet, I skidded towards a thicket of bushes and lay like a corpse for some five hours.” Shobha embraced him and kissed his dust-smeared face. He was shaking with fear. She laid her head on his folded legs and reassured him, “You are alive, breathing and talking with me. I would have died of shock to see your bullet-ridden body in a coffin.

Hold me and kiss me under the shadow of this moonlight, which is so distant yet so near and so ignorant of human tragedies. Let’s go near that least-ventured pond, where mermaids and fairies descend in the silence of the night, and celebrate the music that flows in the pond, which we had failed to notice in the chaos of war.” She took his trembling hands. “I will borrow a cup of rice and lentils from Nilima” – another member of that ill-equipped camp.

When Shobha knocked on the recently painted rickety door, Nilima with disheveled hair, but with a magnetic smile that had failed to fade away despite war and scarcity, opened the door. Her baby, who was born in the camp, was dangling across her waist. She made hot coffee and poured it into two steel mugs, which were twisted at some corners. She said in a deep breath, “My husband, Keshab, never appeared after the war, but I will survive. With this runnynosed child, my desire to live has strengthened. Maybe I will start doing sweeping and cleaning jobs to feed him. I don’t mind if that elderly, pot-bellied Mithas proposes to me. Though he is short and has scrubby hair, he has wealth that none of us has.” Nilima detested ferreting for scraps like others in the camp. Their intimate and 4

effusive conversation ended when birds started skimming in Nilima’s courtyard. Shobha, with a choked voice, mentioned, “I want that Shivam should be with me till my death. This war has left us penniless and it ravaged our land. Even if I have to live my entire life in this dilapidated and over-crowded camp, where queues for everything never end, I don’t mind. But I want Shivam’s touch and love. Without his presence, I am like ivy, constantly dependent on others to live.” Her quailed face was soaked in tears as she imagined that intruder, called Death, knocking on her door.

It seemed fear was discreetly wandering everywhere. No one knew how to escape from this constant fear. After watching death and vandalism from such a close distance, being alive seemed a prayer granted. Like ghosts in search of peace, people at the camp never slept during those exhausting, long nights. They rather spent their time shedding tears over their memory, which failed to forget those gruesome incidents: Meghna was pulled out and raped; Mansoor was shot dead; Unni never returned from war. Echoes of wails, the sounds of pain and suffering, reverberated throughout the camp throughout the ten-day long war.

The next day, despondent Shivam was hobbling through the deserted road when he was accosted by a soldier in an unimaginably dilapidated state. Simmering with anger, he had just thrown away his weapons and was smoking profusely to whisk away those gruesome images of war. A thick funnel of smoke circulated around his stressed-out face. He jumped in the middle of the road and halted Shivam from proceeding ahead. With droplets of sweat trickling down his face and some patched on his forehead, he looked sternly at him. He stomped his boots on a patch of grass and questioned him aggressively. Shivam dodged the soldier’s grip and roared loudly, “I am going to forage for scraps, so that I sell them in the scrap market and manage food for my kids. Don’t show me your fist and those hawkish eyes. I no more fear you and your fraternity than I do starvation and death itself!” The soldier in scuffed dirty green trousers barked at him, “On this dirt road and with those obsessive ideas, which were ingrained in my mind by the system, I was forced to spend my entire youth kissing and swallowing the granules of the dust and watch those lifeless expanses bereft of beauty.” He cast his eyes towards his boots and said, “They announced that we were undeterred by fear and were men of grit. But I was as shaken as those leaves on a tree caught in a storm. That night when I fired unblinkingly at that crowd, huddled in a corner like a pack of sheep, I lost my soul. Out of remorse, I downed a wine bottle and vomited the next day. It was my mind that had stopped living and was inebriated with lust that compelled me to rape that woman of that poor farmer, who wailed profusely when I took his wife like a rapacious dog. Why did I rape her? Such questions keep plaguing me.

My restless mind is exhaustively looking for peace and sleep. Now and again I slip in and out of the stagnant stage of unconsciousness. I tried slapping and splashing water on my face to recover, but I failed like the way I failed in the battle field.”

Shivam kicked him in his stomach and wanted an explanation for the war. He was raging with anger and wanted back his land and all those near and dear whose lives were lost. As he calmed down, he nostalgically remembered his tall and broad-shouldered uncle, who loved food and was over-affectionate towards that widow living next door. He stared questioningly towards the soldier. “He was always full of life and never harmed anyone. But when the war started and bombs rained on our place, he tried desperately to save his life by taking shelter in a grocery shop that sold dried fish and curry leaves.

He had touched my hands and had assured me about his love for me.

After that incident I never found him, but I am still looking for him, or maybe I am looking for the life that disappeared along with him that day.”

By the time they had finished their conversation, it was getting

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

dark and birds, which were also scared to venture out in the air, were seen flapping their wings in joy after a long time. Both men watched those birds as the sun and trees waltzed on the music of the air. After days of endless death and destruction, they were observing the ways of nature that had remained ever punctual and full of life.

They smiled at each other and both slumped down against a tree.

Looking up into its branches, they noted new leaves and a nest with four tender eggs resting against each other. While whispering to each other they soon slipped into a deep slumber to the mellifluous lullaby of air and rustling leaves floating around them.

When they woke up, they were taken aback to see a man on wooden elbow crutches grinning at them. The short but sound siesta had rejuvenated their vanquished souls. They looked in a confused manner at the crippled man, who after a short struggle sat along with them and introduced himself. “I am Shrikant, and I am a debtridden poet who lives on the other side of the Nakshatra River, where women used to often huddle around and whisper their personal secrets in each other’s ears, but after the war they merely peep from their small windows and wonder where other women are.

I, too, had a diligent father and an overprotective mother, who were gunned down in front of my eyes. Though I escaped, but while running frantically for my life, I hit a landmine hidden in a steel pot and lost my robust legs. For days I writhed in pain and tried to commit suicide, but the spirits of the people, who had wished to live, haunted me and halted me from killing myself. Since then, I am a poet and a writer, and I observe life and smile at the number of tragedies that will never stop from haunting us.” He then nudged them with his elbows to remind them that he wouldn’t harm a single hair on their heads. This spontaneous congregation of three strangers, but still related to each other due to war, was slowly transforming into an overwhelming moment. They looked into each other’s eyes and saw the similar streaks of apathy for war. Tears welled up, and they clamped their hands on their eyes to veil the flow. Metal scraps, a soldier’s rifle, and a pair of crutches lay on the dirt road like memorabilia in a museum.

Shrikant reflected for some time and then said poetically, “This war has created new landmarks – vandalized buses, ruined houses, stores riddled with bullet holes— but one landmark continues to be the most-frequented yet invisible space. It’s a haven for people like us running short of luck. It heals the invisible wounds of all passersby.

Commoners being chased by the police, policemen being chased by the politicians, and politicians chasing money all come to this place, where they unmask their real faces, hidden till now from the people.

Interestingly, this place is also one of the most egalitarian places, where one and all indulge in drinking to forget, to remember, to dream, and to sleep.”

The three men got to their feet and shook off the dust and sleep.

When they entered the toddy shop, it was swarming with people, who had come from all over the places to tranquilize the madness of their memories. There were farmers, plumbers, shopkeepers, soldiers, students and whores all around. Tumblers of toddy were being circulated, and the place seemed absolutely different from the outside world. Those women with revealing cleavages and twinkling eyes kissed those exhausted soldiers, who buried their unclean faces in their long hair. One of the drunken farmers, who had become penniless after losing his crops in the war, looked at Shrikant and announced, “Better to die in the arms of a whore than due to those bombs.” Shrikant nodded back in agreement and smiled at his wisdom.

Meanwhile, a soldier with a wry smile yanked Shivam, who along with others stood in a corner with an overhead light, away from the group and ordered, in his drunken state, to accompany him in finishing a bottle of wine. War had rendered him despondent. He drank to expunge the war demons stalking him. He smiled at Shivam VOL 8, ISSUE 2

and revealed, “They hanged those youngsters in front of my eyes.

Some of them didn’t even have the traces of whiskers. They repeatedly said that they were innocent, but those policemen with unbuttoned shirts and smell of alcohol dancing on their lips ruled out their contention. Now, I am being chased by their spirits, trying to shake my soul, and seek remorse or implore for forgiveness.

Innumerable times they woke me up in the middle of those excruciatingly long nights and sought answers for those almost impossibly unanswerable questions. Initially I got scared of their distorted faces, but now I believe I can’t survive without those stalking spirits. It’s my fate and fate of all people around here who have come here to feel the transitory phase of happiness, which has eluded all of us.”

Shivam could relate to the inebriated soldier overwhelmed with guilt and remorse. He immediately took one of the tumblers of wine and gulped the entire content in one go and announced, “To all those spirits who squat invisibly along with us in this room, and who were forced to kiss death when they had almost wedded life.”

People around tried to hide their tears, but none succeeded.

Everyone wiped his or her face, clouded with the memories of loved ones lost in the din of war.

The blasts of bombs and the roar of gunfire were now replaced with intoxicating song and cheer. The toddy shop reverberated with singing, dancing, and celebrating new friendships and a new lease on life and .

Writer’s Note As a writer, I strive hard to not deviate from the path of presenting discriminations, prejudices and real-life experiences, which often take a back seat, especially in today’s assembly-line production system of the publishing industry. Moreover, I strongly believe that a writer owes responsibility towards society and its people; hence, s/he must use words for bringing forth some of the thought-provoking realities and experiences of people, which cannot be ruled out. Stories, particularly those based on real-life experiences, can assist a society in critically engaging with the culture and religion of the present time and can enable its readers in transforming themselves into catalysts of change.

In South Asian countries, writers, especially native writers, have and are playing a crucial role as pressure groups, who, through their writing, have drawn attention of readers located worldwide who have, till now, deliberately ignored issues and debates. Hence, as a reader and writer who grew up in one of the tribal-majority areas, I have been immensely inspired by the works of our native writers. Simple, yet deeply contemplative, stories of Mahasweta Devi, Sadat Hasan Manto, Amrita Pritam, Mahadevi Verma etc have assisted me in intricately examining East Indian society and its divisive forces.

Moreover, writing pertaining to some of the new issues related to ‘identity politics’ has drawn my attention too.

At the same time, I also grew up reading popular pulp fiction and fascinating stories related to ‘magical realism,’ as it transported me into an almost unimaginable realm of the universe. As a child, I earnestly believed in fairies, mermaids, trolls and dwarves; but as an adult, lost in the ups and downs of a metropolitan life, I yearn for these endearing characters more than ever. Also, I have been immensely inspired by Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Kamala Das, Pablo Neruda, Orhan Pamuk, etc. Like any other writer, I am not just smitten by words but also by theater and cinema. From the direction of cinema, Piero Paolo Pasolini and his works have given a new meaning to my works.

Well, the crux is that I love reading and I am literally married to words.

Among many things, I love leafing through books and magazines, inhaling the fragrance of an old novel, seeing big and bold letters of a story, sketching the characters in my mind while reading books of all sizes and shapes arranged in a row or piled on high. I believe we can never fully satisfy our ever-dissatisfied souls; therefore, the only right way to control its restlessness is to keep on writing – good, bad, short, long – till the end.

Currently, I stay and work from my small rented apartment in Delhi, the capital of India, with my partner Sukesan Kanka, an emerging painter and sculptor. I did my higher education from Lady Shri Ram College and Jawahar Lal Nehru University in Political Science in Delhi. — Hither Kusum

WWW.IDEAGEMS.COM

5

The Parkway Murders

by Barbara-Helene Smith

Janice fluffed the pillows, pulled the comforter around her and opened this month’s Mystery Book Club selection. She read a few chapters before her eyelids began to close. During the night, the same dream kept repeating, not exactly a nightmare, but disturbing. In the dream, she was walking a dog in a park. Suddenly the dog began barking and pulling on the leash. She tugged at his collar, but the dog was focused on something in the brush and wouldn’t budge. She bent down and peered into the bushes. A severed, human head stared back at her.

The next morning, Janice recalled the dream and was confused.

Why would she dream about a dog she didn’t have? Then she remembered the book she was reading prior to going to sleep. In the second chapter of The Parkway Murders, a woman walking her dog found a human head in the bushes. Janice breathed a sigh of relief.

She had been dreaming about the story.

Janice poured a glass of orange juice and put water into a pot for oatmeal. She nearly choked on the juice when she read the newspaper headline: Human Head Found in Grancy Park. The park was only a few blocks from her home. She skimmed the article. A woman, who had been walking her dog at night, found the head.

What a creepy coincidence.

The newspaper article kept popping into Janice’s head throughout the day. The similarities between the story and her dream left her rattled. That night, Janice read the book again. In Chapter Four, a jogger, stopping to rest after a long run in another park, found a second head. Janice tossed and turned before finally falling asleep.

The dream came quickly. This time, she found a severed head while jogging. When she awoke, the sheets were soaked with her sweat.

As Janice drove to her job at the library, the two disturbing dreams continued to haunt her. I can’t let them affect me. They’re only dreams. She shook off the feeling and turned on the radio. The music suddenly stopped. A newscaster interrupted the program to announce another human head had been found at dawn by a jogger in Memorial Park. * * * After returning home from the movies late Friday night, Janice turned on the Channel 10 News while getting ready for bed. She was coming out of the bathroom when she overheard the anchorwoman report that a third head had been found earlier that evening by some boys playing baseball in the County Park. A third head! She wondered how many more heads would be found in The Parkway Murders book, but was too tired to read any more chapters.

Saturday morning, Janice had planned to go shopping, but decided to read the book instead. She hadn’t slept well after learning about the third head and wanted to know what was going to happen next in the story. She made a cup of coffee, curled up in the corner chair and began reading. The first two victims had been identified as homeless men. Three pages later, a family on a Saturday picnic found a third head in the park. At least it wasn’t some kids playing ball.

The sun faded behind a bank of clouds and the room became chilly.

Janice reached for a nearby blanket and pulled it around her. In Chapter 12, bikers found a fourth freshly severed head in a nature reserve. This time, a figure was spotted running from the scene.

Shadows from the trees prevented the bikers from getting a good look at the suspect, but the person appeared to run with a limp.

The last chapters described how Detective Daniels, the attractive, thirty-something, tall, blue-eyed, blonde officer in charge of the investigation, identified the murderer from fingerprints on a garbage bag found at the crime scene. The police tracked down a mentally ill, 6

homeless man, who admitted to chopping his victims with a machete because he believed they were stealing his possessions. Janice closed the book, disappointed with the ending. I really didn’t like the story.

It will be interesting to hear what the other Mystery Club members think about it.

The more she thought about the book, the more it disturbed her.

The recent murders are too similar. Three heads were found in different parks. What if a fourth head is found in the reserve? She made a decision. The library is closed on Monday. I’m going to the police. Maybe I can prevent another murder. * * * At the Central Police Precinct, Detective Amy Green questioned the officer in charge of the case. “Is there any connection between the victims?”

“Not so far,” he replied. “The first victim was a Vice President in his company and a family man. No domestic issues and no financial problems.” The officer stopped to flip pages in his notepad. “Several years ago, he was questioned by police after a colleague committed suicide.”

“Still no identification of victim number two,” another officer answered. “Victim number three was reported missing by his wife on Friday night when he didn’t come home from work. He was employed by the gas and electric company and had no criminal record.” The officer stopped to take a swig of his coffee. “There is one thing, however. Victim three was questioned by the police last year when his boss was found dead in his office.” Detective Green gave him a questioning look. “Turned out the man had had a heart attack.”

“Keep digging,” Green commanded. “The heads weren’t well hidden. The killer wanted them found. People don’t want to go to the parks because of what they might find in the bushes or they’re afraid their head may be next. We’ve got to solve this case quickly.”

Several minutes later, Janice walked into the police station and asked to speak to the person in charge of the murder investigation. A woman in her mid-forties with short, brown hair and glasses came from behind the counter.

“Hello, I’m Detective Green,” she said. “I understand you want to speak to me about the murders.”

Janice extended her hand and introduced herself. “Janice Winslow.

Thank you for seeing me.” She’s not a tall, blue-eyed blonde like Detective Daniels, but both lead detectives are women. “There may be another murder,” Janice announced.

“Please, Ms. Winslow, come into my office.” Detective Green unlatched the door next to the counter, led Janice into a small room and motioned to a chair. “Now what’s this about another murder?”

Janice clasped her hands in her lap and paused before speaking.

“This may be just a coincidence, but I’ve been reading a book called The Parkway Murders and…” She took a deep breath and described the events.

“That’s quite a story,” Detective Green responded when Janice finished. “There are some similarities to our case,” she stated, walking around the desk. “I appreciate your sharing the information, but as you said, it’s probably just a coincidence.” She opened the door. “Thank you for coming in.”

Janice rose from the chair and left the Precinct. “Well, that was a big waste of time,” she said under her breath. Detective Green certainly didn’t take me seriously.

“What was that all about Chief?” the officer behind the counter asked.

“The woman read a book about four murders where the heads were found in different parks. Apparently, the murderer was a mentally ill, homeless man who went around killing other homeless men. She believes a fourth murder may be imminent.”

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

“Well, we know at least two of the victims weren’t homeless,” the officer countered with a smile. * * * Janice contemplated her meeting with Detective Green the previous day. It really irks me that she didn’t take me seriously. I know it’s probably a coincidence, but she could have humored me.

What if there really is a copycat serial killer?

She turned on her computer and searched the library database for The Parkway Murders book.

Unfortunately, only the people who currently have books checked out are listed. It doesn’t provide a historical record. She scanned the data. Three people have copies of The Parkway Murders, two men and a woman. I doubt a woman would have committed those gruesome killings. It would have to be a man. Albert Nelson has been a member of the library for years. Mark Phillips only joined recently.

Not much else I can do with this information. She let out a sigh.

Chances are if there is a connection, the person would have checked the book out a while ago in order to plan the murders. * * * Later that afternoon, Detective Green slammed down the phone and stared out the window.

“Jensen!” she yelled through the open door. A man in his early fifties rushed into the room. “Another head was found in the Washburn Nature Reserve. Call the City Library and ask Janice Winslow to stop by the Precinct on her way home from work. She’s the reference librarian, I think. Ask her to bring a copy of the book.

She’ll know the one I mean.”

At five-thirty, Janice entered the Central Precinct. “Thank you for coming in, Ms. Winslow. Please sit down.” Detective Green hesitated. “There’s been another murder.”

Janice looked puzzled. “I didn’t hear . . .”

“It hasn’t been announced. We’re keeping the details of the killings quiet until we can get a better handle on the case.”

“Was it found in the reserve?” Janice asked.

Detective Green nodded. “Did you bring the book?” Janice reached into her purse. “Good. I want you to tell me the story from the beginning.” * * * The next morning, Detective Green called a meeting of the officers involved in the case. “Let’s go over what we have so far,” she began.

“All four victims were middle-aged men, but there doesn’t seem to be a connection.”

“There may be another angle,” an officer suggested. “Victim number one was promoted after a colleague committed suicide and victim number three received a promotion after his boss had a heart attack.”

“What about victim number 2?” Detective Green asked.

“His name is Paul Doon.”

“The name sounds familiar,” Green said.

The officer checked the file. “Mr. Doon was an investment broker at Alvin and Alvin. A member of his firm was killed in an automobile accident five years ago.” He looked up at Detective Green. “You and Mark investigated the accident.”

Detective Green nodded. “That was several years before Mark retired.”

“Funny you should mention Mark,” an older cop interrupted. “I ran into him yesterday and we had coffee.”

“Gosh, I haven’t talked to him since he left the force. How’s he doing?” Green asked.

“He looked good. Took early retirement, shortly after you became Chief. Said he’s off the sauce and is doing some traveling.”

“Glad to hear it,” Green responded. “He was a good cop. He didn’t start drinking heavily until his wife divorced him.”

“Good cop, yeah, but with a lot of baggage,” the officer countered.

VOL 8, ISSUE 2

Green nodded. “Now let’s get back to the case. Although there doesn’t seem to be a connection among the victims, the first three all appear to have been questioned by the police at one time. I want the background of each of the four victims thoroughly investigated and the reports on my desk by close of business tomorrow.” * * * Janice felt somewhat vindicated after the second meeting with Detective Green. Although she couldn’t prevent the fourth murder, she believed, in some small way, the information she provided might be helpful.

“There was a man looking for you, Janice,” her assistant said. “I told him you were at lunch. He didn’t leave his name or a message.”

“What did he look like?”

“Tall. Late fifties or early sixties. Dark hair, receding hairline.

Nothing distinguishing.”

Janice shrugged and returned to her desk.

She worked until an hour after the library closed. As Janice drove out of the parking lot, a dark sedan pulled away from the curb at the same time. She drove several blocks and turned right. The sedan also turned the corner.

Is that car following me?

Janice stopped at Safeway for milk and let out a sigh of relief when the dark sedan continued down the street. Must be my imagination.

On her way to the Mystery Book Club meeting that evening, Janice spotted a similar dark car parked at the end of her street. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. I swear that was the same car. Am I getting paranoid? * * * The next morning a patrol car parked in front of the house. “Janice Winslow?” the officer asked when she opened the door. “I’m Officer Bloom,” he said, holding up his shield. “May I come in?” Janice looked at the badge, then stepped aside.

“Where were you last night between eight and ten?” he asked.

“I was at my Mystery Book Club until nine thirty. Why?” “Are there people who can verify your presence?”

“Of course. Will you tell me what this is about?”

“Detective Green was murdered last night.”

Janice’s mouth flew open. “Oh, my God. That’s terrible.” She shook her head in disbelief and stared at the officer’s face. “What? You think I killed her?”

“No, but we’re contacting everyone she saw during the last few weeks. You were at the Precinct twice.”

“She wasn’t be… I mean, they didn’t find her head…“ “No. She was shot.”

“Oh. Thank goodness.” Janice hesitated. “I mean, thank goodness she wasn’t…”

“I know what you meant, Ms. Winslow.”

“Do you think her death is connected with the murders?”

“We don’t know. It may have been a robbery.” He started towards the door. “Thank you for your time.” * * * As Janice entered the house that evening with an armful of flowers from the front yard, a dark sedan pulled away from the end of the street. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up again. I seem to notice that car everywhere I go. I think the serial killings are starting to get to me.

She placed a vase on the table and peeked out the window. The same car was parked across the street. Janice closed the drapes, then locked the back door. Without turning on the living room light, she double-locked the front door. Who’s in that car? She didn’t have a good feeling. They may think I’m crazy, but I’m telephoning the police.

“This is Janice Winslow at 144 Nome Street. I believe a dark sedan has been following me the last couple of days. Now it’s parked across

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the street from my house. Could you send someone to check it out?”

“I’ll see if a patrol car is in the area and have it drive by,” the man on the other end responded.

Janice turned off the light and peeked out the living room window.

The car was gone. “Damn” she said out loud. I feel like a fool. She continued watching for several minutes, but it didn’t return.

Hopefully, the police will drive by, not see the car and won’t stop at the house.

Fifteen minutes later, the front doorbell rang. “Damn!” She peeked out the bedroom window, but didn’t see a black and white.

“Hello,” she called through the front door without turning on the light.

“Ms. Winslow. This is Detective Phillips,” a male voice answered.

Why would they send a detective to answer a routine call?

“Just a minute, I’m not dressed,” she called out and ran into the kitchen. She grabbed the phone and punched redial.

“Central Precinct, Officer Hanken speaking.”

“This is Janice Winslow. I called about twenty minutes ago regarding a car parked in front of my house at 144 Nome Street.”

“I remember,” the officer replied.

“Did you send Detective Phillips to the house?”

“Just a minute,” he responded. The wait seemed to take forever.

Janice felt the blood throbbing in her head. “A patrol drove by about ten minutes ago and didn’t see a car. Is the car still there?”

“No, but there’s a man at my front door who says he’s Detective Phillips.”

Janice saw movement out of the corner of her eye. A shadow passed the kitchen window. She grabbed a knife from the counter and slid to the floor. “The man’s walking around to the back door,” she whispered into the phone.

“What? I can’t hear you,” the officer called out on the other end.

A glass panel in the back door shattered. “He’s breaking into my house!” Janice screamed and dropped the phone. A hand reached through the broken window. Janice crawled into the dining room.

She heard the lock click on the back door. Her breathing stopped.

She remained motionless for a moment. Hearing footsteps, she raced into the living room.

Her sweaty fingers fumbled with the door locks. She glanced back to see a figure standing in the archway. As she reached for the doorknob, an arm grabbed the sleeve of her bathrobe. She turned and jabbed the knife several times into the darkness. The man screamed and loosened his grip. Janice wrenched free and ran into the street.

Police cars appeared from opposite directions. Janice stood frozen in the middle of the road.

The man, who called himself Detective Phillips, bolted from the front door and started running. Two police officers followed in pursuit.

“Stop! Police!” one shouted.

A third patrol car swerved onto the sidewalk in front of the fugitive. Phillips pulled out a gun and aimed it at the officer.

The cop crouched behind the opened car door. “Drop the weapon,” he ordered.

The night was deathly quiet. Janice held her breath and stared at the man. S pavement

8

Detective Phillips raised the gun. Janice stopped breathing.

“Don’t shoot, Phillips,” an officer shouted. “Don’t do it.”

A single shot rang out. Phillips fell to the ground. * * * The next day, Officer Bloom knocked on Janice’s front door. He stared at her ashen face. “Are you all right, Miss?”

“A little shaken, but alive. Please come in.” She gestured to a chair and sat on the couch across from him, her hands tightly clenched in front of her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“When the police searched Mark Phillips’s apartment, they found Detective Green’s badge and a copy of The Parkway Murders. We haven’t located the murder weapon yet,” Officer Bloom explained.

“Everything I’m telling you is off the record. We’re not releasing any information to the media until we have all the facts. Understand?”

Janice nodded. “Why did he do it?”

“We may never know his motive, but suspect he might have resented young, successful people and he snapped.”

“Why kill Detective Green?”

“At various times during his career, Phillips handled cases involving each of the four victims. It was only a matter of time before Detective Green would make the connection.”

“But why come after me? I didn’t even know him.”

He looked at Janice, then lowered his eyes. “One of our officers met Phillips for coffee and told him about your parkway murder theory.” He paused. “Consider yourself lucky, young lady. Phillips was determined to tie up all loose ends.” * * * The following morning, Janice made her usual bowl of oatmeal and scanned the newspaper. There was no mention of Detective Phillips or anything more about the murders.

She left for work early to finish research for a library patron. Rain from the night before glistened on the sidewalk, sending tiny plumes of moisture radiating upward. Janice rolled down the window and took a deep breath of the clean, fresh air. It was a beautiful day and, for the first time in over a week, she could relax.

Turning into the parking lot, she spotted a dark sedan at the end of the street. Her hands tightened around the steering wheel. Then she smiled. Funny how your imagination plays games with your mind.

Janice locked the car and punched the code onto the keypad at the library’s back door. As she walked towards her desk, she noticed the cart beneath the book drop was askew and two books had fallen onto the floor. Janice picked them up and pushed the cart next to the table where the assistant librarian would check the books in later that morning.

After putting her lunch in the refrigerator, she started a pot of coffee. The sound of grinding metal startled her. Janice stopped to listen. A book dropped onto the floor. She smiled and sighed. I forgot to put the cart back underneath the chute.

On the way to her desk, Janice stooped to pick up the book. She stared at the cover and froze. Blood rushed to her head. Her knees weakened. The book nearly slipped from her hands when she dropped to the floor. Her heart pounded and she began hyperventilating. Janice shook her head in disbelief. It’s not possible.

In her trembling hands was a copy of The Parkway Murders stained

TOUGH LIT. VIII

on p.33)

IDEAGEMS

Through My Brother’s Eyes

by Linda Spoerner

The crack of the gunshot sliced through the quiet, suburban morning. The boy stood mesmerized while the gun shook uncontrollably in his hand, the acrid smell of gunpowder permeating his nostrils.

Blood bathed his sister’s face. When the impact of his deed penetrated, his arm trembled so violently that the gun clattered to the hardwood floor.

“Oh, my God!” His scream sounded like the cry of a wounded animal.

The child threw her hands to her face and fled from the room.

Stumbling down the hall, she smeared the streaming blood on the walls. The boy stared, stupefied as the blood saturated her favorite blue and white checkered blouse. His sister collapsed to the floor, her agonized shrieks turning to whimpers.

I have to do something! Grabbing a towel, he pressed it to the child’s face in a feeble attempt to stem the relentless flow of the oozing, red fluid. There’s so much blood! What should I do?

The boy had no idea how long he squatted next to the small figure on the floor. He had a vague awareness of wailing sirens outside, followed by a rush of people into the house. Through his haze he became cognizant of a screaming neighbor woman and two men bearing a stretcher. They lifted the small, crumpled figure and carried her outside.

A strong hand yanked the boy to his feet by his collar and spun him around.

“What happened here, young man?”

The frightened boy looked into the hard face of a Los Angeles deputy sheriff. “Somebody broke in and took the gun.” He blurted out the lie. “I tried to stop him.”

The deputy reminded him of his father. They had the same crew cut and handlebar mustache. A stream of tears began to slide down the boy’s cheeks.

“Where’s your mother?”

“At the store.”

“Your father? At work I suppose?”

The boy nodded. A huge lump in his throat made it hard to answer.

“The weapon and ammunition are in the master bedroom.” A second gruff voice spoke behind him. He knew it belonged to another officer.

“What do you want to tell us?” the deputy asked. “Nobody broke in, did they?” The man picked up the boy’s hands and turned them over.

“There’s gunpowder on your hands, son. No one broke in, did they.”

This time the question sounded like an accusation. The boy couldn’t lie. The deputy’s long mustache bobbed up and down when he spoke, just like his dad’s. His piercing, blue eyes demanded the truth.

“No, sir.” Sobs wracked the boy’s body. “She was watching TV in the den! I didn’t think she’d come into the bedroom! It was an accident!

I thought the safety was on.”

“How old are you?” The deputy’s face showed no sympathy.

“Twelve.”

“Is she your sister?”

The boy nodded.

“Don’t shake your head. Speak up.”

“Yes, sir.” His voice sounded small and frightened.

“How old is she?”

“Three.”

The mustached man stared at him, disgust written all over his face.

“Three years old. Did you do it on purpose?”

“No!” the boy cried out. “I told you, it was an accident.”

VOL 8, ISSUE 2

“Save it,” the man snapped. “Whose gun is it?”

“Mine.”

The boy was led away and shoved roughly into the back of a squad car, where he attempted to slump out of view. The normally serene street was chaotic. Curiosity seekers mingled with concerned citizens. Several emergency vehicles lined the street.

The boy sat in silence during the ride to the station. What will happen now? What about my sister? Is she dead?

Mustache didn’t utter a word as he marshaled the boy into a small room. Left alone, he surveyed his surroundings in horror. This is the Sheriff’s station! The frosted glass in the door offered little relief from the harsh, white glare of the room. The only furnishings were a small table and two chairs.

The boy laid his head on the table. His mouth tasted like gunpowder and his stomach churned so badly he thought he might vomit. He kicked the legs of the chair. I didn’t mean to do it. I just wanted to load the gun. I really thought the safety was on.

The boy’s mind wandered back to the previous spring when his uncle gave him the gun.

“I don’t like it,” his mother had said. “He’s not old enough.”

“It’s bird shot, for hunting,” his uncle insisted and his father agreed.

The boy squirmed on the hard, metal chair. His mouth felt like cotton and his bladder was full, but he didn’t dare express his misery to anyone. What’s going to happen to me? Will they put me in jail?

He must have fallen asleep. The next thing the boy knew, Mustache and his father were standing over him. He reluctantly met his dad’s gaze. His father’s face was swollen and the usually lively, blue eyes had a dull cast.

“We’re releasing you to your father’s custody,” Mustache said. “I don’t want to see you in here again.” ”Let’s go,” his dad ordered.

His father unceremoniously marched him to the car and ordered him to get in. He wanted to know about his sister, but was afraid to ask. The smoke from his dad’s cigarette blew across his face and drifted out the wind wing. He took a little comfort in the familiar aroma he associated with home.

When they pulled into their driveway, his dad spoke for the first time since leaving the station. “Your sister’s alive, but that’s all we know. Right now, I want you to stay in your room. I can’t stand to look at you.”

Passing the living room, the boy caught a glimpse of his grandparents and mom. They were all crying. He wanted to say something, but followed his father’s instructions.

The boy threw himself onto the bed and kicked off his shoes. He tried to count the squares on the ceiling, but lost track. Familiar muted sounds floated in through the partially opened window. The high-pitched bark of Sasha, the dog next door, and the slamming of a car door, were followed by the thud of a front door as it closed. He pictured the neighbors gathered around their dinner tables, thankful this tragedy hadn’t happened to their families.

He wasn’t sure of the time when his grandma brought him something to eat.

“We still don’t know anything. Your parents are at the hospital.

Grandpa and I will stay with you tonight.”

She left him alone to eat, but the food stuck in his throat. He spit the mashed up glob of white bread and greasy bologna into the trash and managed only a few swallows of milk.

Grandma hates me. She couldn’t look at me. They all hate me. * * * The following day, an eerie silence hung over the house. The boy wandered out of his room in the late morning. He noticed the blood had been cleaned off the walls. A few dark smudges still marred the white paint, but when he stared at them, he found it hard to believe those spots were blood. Later, he learned the neighbor woman who

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had heard the gunshot, organized a group of women to clean up the blood.

The family crept around the house like strangers. His parents spent most of their time at the hospital. When they were home, they barely spoke to him. His seven-year-old sister, Kathy, constantly appeared to be on the verge of tears.

Time blurred. It didn’t matter if it was day or night. Everything he did seemed mechanical. Sometimes he wanted to put his fist through a wall, but knew this would only get him into more trouble. Instead, he rode his bike until exhaustion overcame him.

Finally, on the third or maybe fourth day, his mother sat down with him and his sister, Kathy. His mom’s voice shook as she spoke. “Your sister is going to live, but she’s going to be blind.”

A sickening fear gripped his stomach. “When will she be able to see again?”

“We’ll check with doctors,” she explained, with tears in her eyes, “but unless there’s a miracle she’ll be blind the rest of her life.”

The boy covered his face, trying to keep the tears from seeping between his fingers. Kathy sat beside him on the sofa and cried softly into a pillow.

“We weren’t sure she’d live,” his mom continued in a choked voice.

“The doctors warned us if she did, she might have brain damage. We are very lucky. God answered our prayers.” * * * The next day school resumed after Christmas vacation. The boy dreaded facing his classmates. The story had appeared in the news.

At school, some people stared and whispered, but his friends rallied around him. They became angry with the students who taunted him.

Eventually most of the jeers faded away.

His sister came home two weeks later. He couldn’t bear to look at her. Scars peppered her forehead, nose and the area around her eyes. The once large, hazel eyes, now sunken and expressionless, would never again look up at her big brother with love and adoration. She couldn’t distinguish day from night, and screamed if she was left alone.

This is all my fault.

The boy feared the inevitable punishment from his parents. When his father called him to the garage, he braced himself for the whipping of his life.

“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am, young man.” His father sounded tired and sad. “We went over gun safety many times and you still disobeyed me. How can we ever trust you again?”

“I thought the safety was on. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t help to be sorry now. You knew the gun was off limits.

Your mother went to the store for a few minutes and left your sister with you because she had a bad cold. You were supposed to be watching her. What you have done has changed our family forever.

Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir.” He looked down and shuffled his feet on the concrete floor.

“Look at me.”

The boy raised his head. The disappointment in his father’s eyes was worse than any punishment he’d ever received.

“It’ll be a long time before you earn back our trust.” His dad spoke matter-of-factly. “Right now, we have to focus on helping your sister.

That means all of us.”

The physical punishment never materialized. I wish he’d beat the crap out of me. A whipping was preferable to the constant disappointment he saw in his parents’ eyes. * * * Later that year, the family sold their house and moved to a different suburb. “It’ll be a fresh start for all of us,” his mom said.

His parents enrolled his sister in a nursery school for blind children 10

and she became a happy, little girl again. He attended a school where no one knew what he had done. Things should have been better, but he sensed his parents could not forgive him. They never mentioned the shooting, and he couldn’t talk to them about it. He visited a psychiatrist, but the boy believed the doctor blamed him too.

They all hate me. This thought became his mantra. And why shouldn’t they? I hate myself. It’s all my fault she’s blind…for the rest of her life. * * * This incident was referred to within my family as “the accident.” My parents rarely spoke of it and then only in hushed tones. My siblings and I took our cue from them and seldom broached the subject until we reached adulthood. Many of my memories from that time long ago remain vivid, but I needed to learn more. I questioned at length, those involved who were still living. Some individuals were reluctant to discuss it, but I persisted.

After years of silence, I felt I deserved to know every available detail, because I was that three-year-old girl.  Linda Spoerner was born and raised in the suburbs of Southern California. She attended San Diego State University, where she received a degree in English Literature. While in college, a professor had one of Linda’s term papers published in a local feminist newspaper. After graduation, she worked as an Associate Editor for The Mainstream, a San Diego-based magazine. She helped compile and co-edit a cookbook in Braille and large print. Her short story “The Last Stop” received an honorable mention in Writer’s Digest’s 78th annual short story genre contest.

Linda lost her vision in a gun accident as a small child, but has not allowed her disability to keep her from pursuing her passions. New computer technology makes it easier for Linda to indulge her love of writing. She writes short stories and personal essays on a computer that is equipped with a speech output program. Her subject matter often revolves around her life experiences as a totally blind person. In April 2012, her article “Parenting Blind” appeared in The Imperfect Parent, an online magazine.

She has been married for over thirty years and is the proud mother of two adult children. Linda enjoys travel and she and her husband look forward to doing more of it in the near future.

TOUGH LIT. VIII

Ripples

by Peter Patrikios

The civil war in my psyche Began shortly after we met Your kind gesture echoed in my mind It rippled out from the center Its perfect circles disrupted By the uneven sediment below (See Peter’s bio on p.33)

IDEAGEMS

The Con

by Ann Robinson Dusk and gloom were approaching as Jason walked up the treelined drive to the old mansion. He admired the towers and gables of the old Victorian, the ivy crawling up its bricks, the ornate gardens where he once worked. All his now, complete with resident spirits – or so said the old man. But Jason did not buy that. He was a practical, logical guy. The dead did not make comebacks. No ghosts. No demons. Just tricks and illusions.

Of course, tricks and illusions had just won him this house. He enjoyed that irony as he walked past the azaleas and noticed a large mound of fresh dirt. Why was that, he wondered. The old man had just died. No one should be working now.

The old man. It had taken some time to meet the old man. He was somewhat of a recluse out here on the point and rarely left the estate. So Jason took a job with the company that maintained the grounds. A few months of uncharacteristic hard work and backslapping won him a spot on the team that serviced the house.

Not too long after that he met the old man who liked to wander his grounds and chat with the workers.

Jason had impressed him with a persona that was, if he did say so himself, a brilliant fit for the old man. The old guy had been an officer on a destroyer in the war. After the war he had risen in the ranks and retired an admiral. This house had been in his family for generations, but he was the last. His only child, a son, had died in Vietnam. So Jason had become a young homeless army vet, scarred by combat, working menial jobs. He threw in history buff with a penchant for WW II and then spent hours in the library on research.

He had impressed even himself with his newly acquired knowledge.

From there it was simple. The old man was eager to talk and when he discovered Jason’s interest in the war and history… well… it was just too easy. A bit too easy, he thought at the time. The admiral’s mind just seemed too sharp. Way too sharp. In Jason’s experience, the sharp ones figured him out fast and sent him on his way long before he could reap any benefit. This guy, though, didn’t seem to fit the mold. He appeared to like Jason immensely and invited him to visit frequently. Finally, last summer he had offered Jason the vacant gardener’s quarters. They had spent more and more time together, and Jason had surprised himself by finding his discussions with the old guy intriguing. Jason could not understand, however, how such an intelligent mind could buy into ghosts and spirits. The admiral often talked about the ghosts of his ancestors who roamed the mansion. He thought he would be joining them soon. Jason was never a serious listener on this topic and that seemed to irritate the old man. It was their only point of disagreement. Jason had not thought it necessary to con him on that issue. And, in truth, it was difficult not to laugh at the old man when he brought it up.

Once he had the admiral in his pocket, his only other concern had been the attorney, a man of the admiral’s age whose only client now was the admiral. They had been close since the war, having served together on that first destroyer. Jason had never liked the guy although he could find no reason for the feeling. The attorney had always been the epitome of polite, until today at the signing. Jason could swear the attorney had smirked when he handed him the keys… Just a slight twist of the lips and then it was gone. Had to be his imagination. After all, the house and the fortune, or most of it, were now Jason’s. What was there to smirk about?

He had reached the front door. Time to take possession of his new home. And the door was wide open, waiting. Jason crossed the threshold and was startled as the door slammed suddenly behind him. Gust of wind, he thought. The interior was a museum of military history. A suit of armor in the foyer, civil war guns, myriad VOL 8, ISSUE 2

swords and pistols, and even a small cannon graced one corner of the dining room. In the kitchen, Jason found a bottle of champagne chilling on the island. Well… pop that cork and settle in for the first night. Champagne in hand, Jason roamed through the first floor of the house. It was just incredible that it was now his. A dream come true, he thought. Maybe I should settle down now, find a wife, raise a family. Intriguing thought.

Jason found his way to the guest room. He had decided to sleep there for a while, maybe permanently. He could not bring himself to take over the admiral’s room.

He was startled awake sometime later by thumping noises. Things that go bump in the night? Really, what was in that champagne? he thought. He got up to investigate but could find nothing on the second floor. Downstairs, however, he could swear the living room furniture had been rearranged. Now really, he thought. The cook and maid were gone for a week. There was no one in residence but himself. Maybe they hadn’t been moved at all. No… he had been in this room hundreds of times. The sofa was not against the windows.

It was on the opposite wall. And the moose head… it was never over the fireplace. The coat of arms hung there. Where was it now? He felt his spine tingle. Oh, this is ridiculous, he thought. There has to be a simple explanation. The attorney probably took the coat of arms.

He had said there were a few things of the admiral’s he wanted. And the front door had been open. That was it. And furniture was moved in the process. He returned to bed and sleep, chalking up the noises to the normal creaking of an old house. The “ghosts” would have to do better than that.

He was once again startled awake—this time by lights and whirring noises. And was that a bit of fog he saw in the doorway? No… just an illusion. He got up to investigate and turn off the lights. Maybe the old guy had some kind of timer to discourage thieves. The attorney had not mentioned it. The noises were probably just the furnace or something similar in the house. As he headed downstairs, he looked into the living room and stopped dead in his tracks. The moose head was back in its rightful place as was the sofa. And the coat of arms hung once again over the fireplace. What is this? he thought. His spine tingled. Relax. No big deal. Simple explanation. He had been really tired and probably just dreamed it – the excitement of ownership and all.

He continued to the kitchen and found a blender, mixer, and toaster all out on the island and operating. What was this? These appliances were not out before. He was sure of it. Was he dreaming?

He pinched himself. The tingling in his spine intensified. Had the cook returned early? The maid? Possibly. He turned off the appliances and left them on the island. As he left the kitchen, they started up once more, startling him. Now his spine was vibrating, and a hollow pit opened in his stomach. Oh, this is ridiculous!, he thought. Probably a short somewhere. He walked back to the island and unplugged all of them. He eyed them closely as he backed toward the door. As soon as he turned to leave, they were on again. He jumped a foot off the ground and turned to see them all plugged in, whirring and popping away. The hollow in his stomach was now a gaping hole, and the tingling had spread to his whole body. He felt light-headed.

Completely unnerved, he backed out of the kitchen with an overwhelming urge to flee. He rushed to the front door, but it would not open. Skirting the island and its whirring, popping appliances, he ran to the door in the kitchen. That door would not open either.

There was glass though. It’s my house and my glass, he thought. He grabbed a towel to wrap around his arm and jammed it through the window. It didn’t go. Stopped dead by rock-hard glass. The pain shot through his arm and into his collar bone. Excruciating. He tried several other doors and windows. He could not get out.

An unfamiliar panic was rising within him. He took a deep breath

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11

Women’s Suffrage

Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.

by Claudia Aragon I was once asked if I was going to vote in the then upcoming presidential election. I quickly answered, “Yes, of course. I’ve voted in every election, local and presidential, since I was old enough to vote.” Sometimes my choices on propositions as well as politicians have been wrong, or my choices never quite made the cut. That fact of life is true for everyone who’s ever voted. Like the saying goes…If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. In order to make a difference we have to try. There are no guarantees of immediate change, or success, and the process can be tedious at best. It’s just important that we all get out there and try to make the changes we feel are important by exercising our right to vote. After all, if we don’t strive to effect a change someone else will, and it may not be the right choice for us, or our families.

It was just before I turned twenty and the presidential election of 1976 was just around the corner. I was living in Yuba County, just north of Sacramento, and I remember the excitement felt among my friends and myself. It would be the first time we would all be old enough to vote for the president. During the previous presidential campaign in 1972, we had all worked at various campaign headquarters… some for McGovern and some for Nixon. Inspired by her courage, some actively campaigned and worked for Shirley Chisolm. Not only was she a woman, but she was black. Some felt it could work to her advantage and others felt it was two strikes against her. She surprised everyone with an outstanding total of 152 votes at the Democratic National Convention, but lost the nomination to George McGovern. Even though George McGovern won the nomination, he lost the presidential election to Richard Nixon.

We were all still too young to vote, but busied ourselves by putting out door hangers and handing out flyers trying to drum up voters. A few of us, myself included, manned (or should I say wo-manned) the th phones and stuffed mailers. The signing of the 19 Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was a big topic of conversation with us, and we were actively trying to find new ways to give the female vote a voice.

Ironically, women could run for President before they could vote for one. The only exception to the rule, due in part to their status in the community at large, were women of means. Women who owned property and had amassed a great deal of health. The first official record of a woman running for President, was Victoria Woodhull, in 1872. She was a member of the Equal Rights Party and her vicepresidential choice was running mate Frederick Douglass.

In 1884, Abigail Scott Duniway rejected her nomination by the National Equal Rights Party and the nomination was given to Belvia Ann Lockwood instead. Lockwood ran for President twice. The first time in 1884, with Marietta Stow as her running mate and the second time in 1888, with Alfred Love, who was later replaced by Charles Stuart.

After the Civil War there had been increased agitation among the th women regarding their right to go to the polls. In 1869, the 15 Amendment was being signed into law which would give newly freed black men the right to vote. When asked for their endorsements, the feminists were split.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were opposed, refusing to sign the endorsement, for it did not include giving women their right to go to the polls as well. They formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, which campaigned for and attacked VOL 8, ISSUE 2

the issues for women’s rights at the federal level, this included giving property rights to married women.

Other feminist suffragists, including Lucy Stone and Julia Ward th Howe, endorsed the 15 Amendment, arguing that once the black man had the vote, the women’s vote would soon follow. Stone and Howe formed the American Woman Suffrage Association, which fought for women’s voting rights through state legislation.

Both groups were passionate in the beliefs and pursuit of their goals for women’s rights. In 1890, the two groups merged under the new name, National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). During that same year Wyoming became a state and was the first state with a general women’s suffrage, aka vote, written into law. In 1869, while Wyoming was a territory, the women held the right to vote and that right had not been rescinded after statehood was granted.

As the founding women of the NAWSA began to age, the leadership roles changed hands and in 1915, Carrie Chapman Catt became the association’s president. Of all the women in the organization, she was the most politically aware, looking for legal and non-threatening ways to win the fight for women’s rights. That was not to be the case with Alice Paul. She had a more strong-arm approach and was forced to resign from the NAWSA. Not one to have her efforts thwarted, she organized and formed the National Women’s Party, and held mass marches and hunger strikes.

Woodrow Wilson officially took office in January of 1917. World War I was in full swing and it was a general belief at that time that women were only supposed to support the war effort and the president.

The female suffragists refused to have their demands silenced by anything, including the war. Alice Paul thought it ironic that many women at home and abroad were fighting in the war effort to support and make the world safe for democracy, yet the democratic process was not practiced at home.

She organized groups of women to picket the White House. The subsequent arrests began in June of 1917. The women were usually charged with obstructing traffic, and the women protestors were viewed by many, including the prison officials as suffragist traitors.

On November 15, 1917, while picketing in front of the White House, holding signs that read, ‘Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?’ Thirty-three women were arrested and taken to the Occoquan Workhouse, in Virginia. Although the women were innocent, defenseless and posed no threat, they were jailed simply for the act of carrying signs in front of the White House. Signs imploring newly elected President Wilson to grant them the right to vote.

After the women arrived at Occoquan, many of whom were returning protestors, they were greeted by the warden, W.H. Whittaker, who ordered the guards to teach the disrespectful suffragists a lesson.

After all, how dare they picket President Wilson's House, asking for the vote?

That night, November 15, 1917, became known as The Night of Terror, as forty club wielding prison guards, given the word and blessing by Whittaker, went on a brutal rampage against thirty-three women, wrongfully arrested for ‘obstructing the sidewalk.’ By the nights end, the women were barely alive. They had been kicked, choked, dragged, pulled by the hair, pinched and slapped. Some were lifted into the air and thrown forcibly against the concrete walls and floor, or stabbed with the shafts of their broken banners.

Dora Lewis was dragged by her hair and thrown into a dark cell, where she hit her head on the iron bed, knocking her unconscious.

Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who thought Lewis had been killed, was terrified and subsequently died of a heart attack.

Lucy Burns was handcuffed to the cell bars, hands above her head

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Waking Up Daddy

by Linda Barrett

Queenie woke up that morning on her favorite living room bed. Stretching out her golden furred legs, she emitted her tired old groan. Jerking her old body around, she rolled from her side and looked around her. Sitting up, she shut her German shepherd black lined eyes and winced from the lumps inside her head. She stepped front paws first off the red velvet couch while her hind legs stretched slowly out behind her.

"Is Daddy awake?" she asked herself, large eyes questioning her favorite human. Standing in the middle of the living room, she opened her black German shepherd grandparent’s muzzle to stretch it out into a slow, tongue rolling yawn. Her hind leg scratched her white furred belly before trotting to the stairs.

She used to climb up them to Mommy and his room with much more energy. Since she hurt her back jumping onto the big bed, she couldn’t trot up them without enduring so much pain. This day, she wanted to wake him up when she was younger.

It took much effort limping up the steps but she did it. She stood before the white door and scratched at it with her front paw. One scratch and then silence. She strained her lop ears listening for the faint sound of Daddy’s radio and his scratchy morning smoker’s cough. The radio talked about human things which she didn’t understand.

She scratched at the door again and waited. Daddy didn’t cough as usual. Her ears jerked, poised upright for the sound of his coughing fit.

"Where is Daddy?" she thought.

She pounded on the door. She did the same thing with Mommy when she wanted to come in from the backyard. If she did that long enough, Mommy would cry and let her in the house again.

Queenie lowered her head and poised her ears again. She anticipated the crack of his leg joints and the rumble when he got off the bed. She sniffed at the air. Her scaly black nostrils checked for his cigarette smoke and his man odor but the air felt cold.

Skeeeratch!

Her claws reached out, scraping at the door’s white paint.

"Daddy! Wake up and let me in!" she indicated with her nails.

No response. What was wrong?

She smelled the air in the bedroom.

It had a cold, raw odor. Queenie grew worried.

She banged and banged with her paws, her head darting around her for help.

"Mommy!" she thought, "Mommy! Daddy’s not up!"

She peered down the stairs, expecting Mommy to come up and help her.

Mommy came to the bottom, her yellow hair bound back in a hair band.

"What’s wrong now?" Mommy sang in her disgusted tone of voice, holding onto the bannister as she climbed up to see the dog.

Queenie stared up at her through her foggy eyes.

"Daddy’s not awake!" she said, "I can’t hear him or smell him! Please open the door and help me wake him up!"

Mommy twisted the door knob and Queenie rushed in ahead of her.

Mommy called Daddy by his name familiar to other humans: David.

Queenie moved about, trying to see what was going on in the bed.

Daddy looked like a mountain, covered under the wide spanning red quit with the exception of his black and gray swirled hair. Queenie’s nose took in the strange, cold, rotting odor emanating from the bed. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”

Mommy let out a cry. Queenie’s ears perked up and she stood up, craning her head to figure out what went on. “Mommy,” she asked, “What happened?”

Mommy turned to Queenie and grabbed her by her collar. She dragged

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Queenie out of the room and forced her down the stairs. Queenie still wanted to know what happened. When they landed in the living room, Mommy went upstairs and slammed the bedroom door shut. Queenie stood by the stairs, perking her head to and fro to make out the sounds Mommy made in her human language. Queenie heard that sound every weekend when Daddy drank his whiskey and yelled at everybody in the family. When he banged the doors in his anger, Queenie used to run upstairs and hide in Linda’s bed because the constant loud sound scared her. Linda cried with Queenie when she put her arm around Queenie to comfort her.

"What’s wrong with Daddy?" Queenie wondered. She couldn’t get up on the couch and sleep again because she was worried. She looked out the window to see if any squirrels were trying to get over the porch’s railings to eat out the tulip bulbs in their pots. A few cars flew past.

Mommy’s cry startled her to turn her head to the upstairs again.

Queenie’s ears jerked up. Her heart pounded in her golden furred chest.

"What’s wrong, Mommy?" she said.

She heard the slow, heavy thud of Mommy’s feet going down the stairs. Queenie stumbled off the couch and came up to her, her brown nose questioning what happened. Mommy’s eyes let out streams of liquid. Queenie came up to her and studied her face. She trotted in front of her, her crooked back zigzagging into the dining room. Mommy reached down and petted her head once and then went to the kitchen.

Queenie followed her in there to the thing hanging on the wall called the telephone. Mommy took its horn off its hook and dialed a few numbers.

Queenie watched in confusion.

Mommy made choking sounds and more water came from her eyes.

She called up someone with the news. Something about Daddy.

Queenie rushed up and down the living room. Mommy sat down on the couch. Queenie came up to Mommy and rested her head against Mommy’s leg. She stared up at Mommy, wide Cocker Spaniel eyes pleading for an explanation.

"Why won’t Daddy wake up?" she asked, scratching at Mommy’s hand.

The siren caused Queenie to stare out the window. Mommy got up and went to the door. She saw two paramedics coming up the driveway with a folded table and black leather bags. They had on their coats because it was cold. Queenie rushed up to the storm door to put her nose up to its glass. The men looked as old as Richard and Brian.

Would they stay for a while and sit with her and pet her? Richard and Brian had them over for food, drinks, and laughter. She wanted to beg for food and petting. The two young men entered and spoke in blunt, dull grumbling language to Mommy. She showed them where Daddy lay.

They slowly ascended the stairs with their folded table between them.

One of them spoke into a box at his side. The box made funny sounds and tried to talk like a human. Queenie peered around the stairs to see what they were doing. She heard grunts and groans referring to Daddy as ‘he’ and ‘the body’. Queenie looked up at Mommy and her red face.

The two men came down with Daddy on the folded table. They put a sheet over his face and went down the stairs very slowly. Queenie squinted to see better. Something followed them very close behind.

"Daddy!" Queenie was surprised to see him in his heavy white sweater and brown pants. He also had one shoe on. He carried the other one in his hand.

Queenie trotted up to the door as Daddy went out the door with the two men. She went to the door, watching Daddy go away into the square car with the loud noise and the sparkling lights.

"Daddy!" she shouted in her doggie muteness, "Come back! Take me with you!!"

Mommy pressed Queenie to her side, rubbing her hand up and down the dog’s neck.

"It’s okay, Daddy’s not coming back! He has to go away," Mommy said in her high, worried voice.  (See Linda’s bio on p.33)

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15

Straws

by Lela Marie De La Garza “As soon as you get through with your ‘little busybody routine’ I want to ask you something.”

Valery felt her entire body clench. The words “little busybody routine”, delivered in that not-quite-nasty voice, meant “I know you don’t have anything to do. You’re just pretending to be busy in order to impress me with what a hard worker you are, but we both know better, don’t we?”

Morris leaned back in his chair, a thin smile (just this side of a smirk) on his face, watching as Valerie cleared the table. Now she paused, forcing her voice to stay very calm. “What?”

“Never mind right now. Just go ahead and do whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t want to interrupt you.”

“Look, if it’s important—“ “It’s not important. You get finished with your ‘work’. I’ll sit here and wait.”

“You couldn’t just ask me now?”

No, no--let it wait till you have time to sit down and listen. I know how ‘busy’ you are.”

Valery carried a stack of dirty dishes to the counter, loaded them into the dishwasher, turned it on. Morris sat, arms folded, smiling, waiting. She finished clearing the table, wiped it. Then she picked up the broom. If he insisted on playing this game, fine. She could play it too. “I’m not going to let him manipulate me,” she vowed. “I’m not going to give in. I’m not…”

Morris unfolded his arms and began to drum on the table, humming softly to himself. His tapping fingers sent a clear message: “I know you spend your days lying around reading and watching TV, because this little flurry of activity is only for show. But I’m going to sit here and pretend I don’t want to interrupt your ‘important’ work.

You know I’m just pretending, of course, but you can’t admit that.

And you’re going to have to stop and sit down in a few minutes anyway, because you can’t stand the sight of me sitting here with this smile on my face.”

Maneuvers such as these had the power to send Valerie into a maniacal, screaming fit. A direct attack would have been manageable. Sarcasm and innuendo were not. Morris used the rapier, not the club. Over and over, Valerie determined to turn his own weapons against him—matching his calmness with ice and answering the poison from his tongue with venom of her own.

Inevitably she failed. No matter how hard she fought to remain in control, she ended in a flood of hysterics, with Morris waiting patiently for her to subside, that mocking maddening smile on his face.

Oh, but he wasn’t going to get to her this time. True, she wasn’t a workaholic like his mother, but she kept the house in reasonable order. More than reasonable order. In fact, she kept it damned clean! But Morris was a perfectionist. Nothing was ever done quite well enough. And he had the eyes of a hawk for anything left undone. With an effort, Valery moved the broom across the floor.

She would not stop and sit down and fold her hands on his whim. Or for his amusement.

Morris yawned, stretched, looked at his watch, checked the clock, folded his arms, crossed his legs, then uncrossed them and began tapping his toe lightly on the floor. Valerie felt something trembling inside her. It was a familiar warning. She found she couldn’t take a deep breath, so she settled for a couple of shallow ones. “Okay, then, if it’s not important—“ “Hey, don’t worry about it. I want you to be able to give me your full attention.” It wasn’t the words. It was the tone of sweet reasonableness that sent a hot streak of fury through Valerie’s chest, into her throat, straight to her lips. She opened them, ready to let 18

out a tirade, then firmly closed them again. What had he done wrong? Nothing. Here was a husband thoughtful enough to wait till his wife finished her work before he imposed his wants on her. If he knew that her work was only make-believe, yet was willing to go along with her pretense at busyness, why that only put an extra shine on his halo.

Morris looked at his watch again, then the clock, raising his eyebrows in astonishment. He glanced at her quickly, then carefully averted his eyes and cleared his throat. It was one of his mannerisms that affected her like nails scraping across a blackboard. She felt her control slipping. Grimly she clung to it. If she broke now, he would win. And if she gave in and sat down, the victory would still be his. It would be a tacit admission that, yes, her work was only a game, designed to create the illusion of herself as homemaker, and that, no, nothing she did was important beside his wishes. Unfortunately, he was going to have one victory or the other—as he had known from the beginning. She couldn’t go on this way. Not while he sat there with that patient, tolerant smile, rocking back and forth.

Carefully programming each move, stiff with the effort, Valerie got the dustpan, swept the small amount of trash into it, emptied it, and put both broom and dustpan back in the kitchen closet. Anything else could wait. Every nerve in her body felt like an overstretched rubber band. Let Morris have his triumph. The relief would be worth it.

She sat down, facing him. “All done?” he asked brightly, cheerily.

“Yes.” She forced the word out, not letting it seem forced.

“Sure?” Valerie kept quiet. She wouldn’t let him push her any further. “Sure?” he asked again, in that same bright, cheery voice.

Valerie gritted her teeth. She knew what he was doing now. He would keep on repeating the same question in the same way until she gave up and screamed or gave up and answered. Either way his power would be established.

“Yes,” she sighed, letting him have it—only a little more to give up.

“Good. Now. Will you please make me a cup of coffee?”

Valerie let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

Briefly she wondered how it would feel to bring the palm of her hand as hard as she could against the indulgent smile on her husband’s face. Her fingers tingled with the urge to find out. Knowing better than to ask, she still had to ask “Why did I have to stop everything and come over here and sit down in order for you to ask for coffee?”

“I didn’t want to cause you a problem. I wanted to make sure you were all finished with your little ‘work’ first.”

Valerie didn’t trust herself to speak again. She got up, took a cup off the shelf, filled it with water and put it into the microwave. “I should have told him to go to hell,” she thought. “But I didn’t. I never do.”

She never did. Morris couldn’t be faulted. His remarks, however vicious, never took a direct form. He threw them out as casual comments; the subtle undercurrents only she could read.

On her housekeeping…

“Be nice if you’d dust the furniture once in a while.”

“I wonder why you never vacuum?”

“Wouldn’t it be great if we had something besides meatloaf every other day?

On her appearance…

“Here’s a dress that’d look good on you—if you’d only peel a few inches off those hips.”

“That stuff you use on your hair doesn’t hide the gray very well, does it?”

Actually, Valerie was pretty well used to these barbs by now. She could blow them off as a routinely unpleasant part of her life. There were other things, specific incidents, that couldn’t be dealt with so easily…

The water in the cup began to simmer. In a few seconds she’d take

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

M.’s Story

by Charlie Canning

After M. had slashed her left wrist with a sushi knife, she had thought that everyone would leave her alone. Since she’d only cut one of her wrists and had done that an hour before her mother was coming home, the counselor said that she hadn’t really intended to kill herself. Perhaps he was right. She could have slashed both wrists in the middle of the night or jumped in front of a train.

That she was still alive meant that she still wanted to live.

M. did want to live. She just didn’t want to go to school. But her parents and her teachers and her neighbors and everyone else wouldn’t leave her alone. A fourteen year old belonged in school with other fourteen year olds. Staying home all day reading books and staring out the window was unnatural. Her mother begged and pleaded, her father went from stern disciplinarian to confidant and friend. Teachers came and went. But M. wouldn’t go to school. The last straw had been when the teacher decided to send a different classmate to her door each day with the homework.

Of course, the teacher had good intentions. She’d wanted to involve the whole class in getting M. to go back to school – to show M. that she was wanted. But it didn’t make her feel that way.

Instead, it had put her under enormous pressure.

Sending a different classmate to her door had been like sending a different warrior out to do battle with her day after day.

At first, she had gone to the door to meet her classmates. But then her mother had invited them in, offered them tea and something to eat. It had been awkward for everyone. M. had withdrawn further still. She stayed in her room in the late afternoons until she’d heard her mother close the outside door. Then she would come out into the living room.

Her parents had told her that her behavior was rude. It probably was. But her anguish was beyond their notions of politeness. M. only wanted to be left alone. But they wouldn’t leave her alone. So she slashed her left wrist with a sushi knife so that they would leave her alone.

Of course, she had thought about doing this before. She knew that the bathtub was the best place because in a bathtub you could keep the blood flowing. She had read about that. The water would prevent the blood from coagulating. Plus it was clean. There wouldn’t be a big mess.

She filled the bathtub full of water and then went to the kitchen to get the knife.

She filled the bathtub full of water and then went to the kitchen to get the knife. She got into the tub with the knife. The veins on her wrist were indistinct but she knew that they were there. Otherwise, how could the doctors take your pulse? That was anatomy.

While she held the knife in her right hand, she had an impulse to hold what she was going to cut in place with her left hand. But she couldn’t do that. She smiled. That was humor.

M. dragged the knife across her wrist. The knife was so sharp that it cut her to the bone in a single motion. She looked at the thin line.

There wasn’t any blood yet. She put the knife down and peeled back the cut. The blood came.

She swooned. People weren’t supposed to cut themselves with a knife. She dipped her wrist into the water and watched the blood spiral out of the wound.

When the ambulance arrived, she’d lost a liter of blood. Although it hadn’t been enough to kill her, it had been enough to make a lasting impression on everyone around her. Her parents became more loving and her teachers and classmates more solicitous.

It was a nightmare. M. had thought that by attempting to kill VOL 8, ISSUE 2

herself, she would be left alone. But it had had the opposite effect.

Now she was never left alone. She had to leave the door open to her room and her mother rarely left the house. M. felt sorry for her.

When summer vacation ended, M. went back to school.

Upon her return, M. rejoined her old class. She was on the mend – everyone said so. And yet everyone treated her like she was mad.

People lowered their voices whenever she entered the classroom.

Her teachers talked in hushed tones and drew the blinds as if loud noises and bright sunlight upset her.

M. took to riding the trains far away from home. As long as she didn’t leave the station and returned to the same place that she left, it didn’t cost her anything to ride for an hour or two. She’d buy a ticket for the next stop and then not get off. Soon she’d be in another town where nobody knew her. People would look at her with that same glazed-over expression that they used to look at her with before she had tried to kill herself. Once she felt OK again, she would get off the train, cross over to the other side, and return home.

Were it not for this new pastime of hers, M. would never have seen the woman standing on the platform. The woman was always at the same station in the late afternoon, looking down onto the tracks as if she’d lost her wallet or her keys. After seeing her there several times, M. decided to make this station the terminus of her turnaround. She’d get off the train at Kurokawa Station and idle around the platform for a few minutes to watch the woman before she climbed the stairs to the opposite side.

The woman was in her late twenties or early thirties. She might have been a secretary or a sales clerk from the clothes that she wore, but she was obviously unemployed. Otherwise, what would she be doing on the train platform day after day?

Perhaps she’d lost her job and hadn’t been able to find another one. She must have had a job at one time because she still dressed like she did. Maybe she had had several. That’s the way it was these days. Permanent jobs were hard to come by. Most young people were on yearly contracts. If at the end of your term your contract wasn’t renewed, you had to look for a job all over again. Each time, it got more difficult. You had more experience but the employers weren’t looking for that. They wanted bright, young graduates that they could mold into their own image.

Perhaps that was it. Perhaps she had lost her job. She still looked smart – only now her shoulders sagged and she gripped her handbag like it was the ripcord of a parachute.

Or maybe it had had something to do with love. Maybe she was in love with some young man who turned out to be married. He’d passed himself off as a single guy and nobody had told her otherwise. After she had fallen for him and fallen hard, she’d discovered that he had a wife and kids in a distant town.

What could she do? She should break it off, of course. The guy had been unfaithful to his family and deceitful to her. But what did the heart care for such morality? She was in too deep for that. She could no more stop seeing him than she could stop breathing.

M. was enthralled. Watching the woman and theorizing about her life became M.’s obsession. M. even journeyed to the faraway station on weekends to see if the woman was there. She was not.

She was never there on a Saturday or a Sunday The next hypothesis to test was how long the woman remained on the platform.

Again, M. made the trip in the late afternoon. Only this time, she loitered around the station until 5 p.m. At exactly 5 p.m. by the station clock, the woman turned on her heel and left the station.

Just as M. thought. The woman was not there to take a train.

Perhaps the woman was there to meet someone. People often bought a platform ticket to meet someone who had just arrived or to say goodbye to someone who was just leaving.

But if she were waiting for someone, then she would look from left

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21

to right or from right to left, wouldn’t she? She would also look up into the faces of the people getting off the train. But she didn’t do that. She just stared straight ahead with her head bent gently forward. She seemed to be patiently waiting for the train to pass – as if the train were obstructing her view of the rails.

M. had one more hypothesis to test. The fact that the woman left the platform each day at exactly 5 p.m. made M. think that the vigil was work-related. Had standing on the tracks become her job? If that were the case, then the woman could probably be found there at 9 o’clock in the morning. M. had a school holiday coming up. She would go down there early one morning to see for herself. * * * M.’s mother had grown increasingly worried. She’d been nervous and high strung since M. had tried to kill herself. She should have been at home – if she’d been at home, M. would never have cut herself with the knife. Since that time, her mother had the groceries delivered and did not leave the house when M. was there.

But things had been going well. M. had been going to school. Not only that, she’d been going off on her own after school and not returning home until supper time.

According to the counselor, this was a good thing. All the same, it was worrying to M.’s mother. You could kill yourself outside the house, too. Many people did. So M.’s mother decided to have M. followed.

The detective agency that she contacted handled all kinds of cases.

Most of these involved discrediting people to bring about either a divorce or a personnel action that would lead to dismissal from work.

In cases of divorce, things went better if one party could prove infidelity. This wasn’t always easy. Sometimes, the person whom the client wanted to divorce was so unappealing to the opposite sex that claims of infidelity were hard to believe.

That was where the detective agency came in. If the client were a woman who wanted to divorce her husband, they would hire an attractive young woman down on her luck to entrap the man. They would then film or record the liaison and that would be the end of the marriage. If the client were a man who wanted to divorce his wife without paying alimony, then they would find a man to seduce the wife. If they could not find a suitable Romeo, someone from the detective agency would fill in.

Discrediting someone to force a dismissal from work or a resignation usually involved sex, too. The best way was to arrange something between an adult and a minor. The cell phone and the Internet worked perfectly for this because no one could be sure whom they were dealing with until it was too late. Plus, the cell phone and the Internet left a trail.

But there were other ways to get a person fired or make them quit.

All you had to do was to stage a series of job-related embarrassments. This was usually enough to get the ball rolling. The person’s co-workers could be relied upon to finish the job.

But putting a tail on a junior high school student?

The agency decided to put their newest employee Sakai on the job.

Since he was only 22 years old and still wore his interview suit to work, Sakai would blend in perfectly on the trains. How observant could a junior high school student be? Sakai’s inexperience would hardly be an issue.

When Sakai first got the assignment, he was surprised because what the girl was doing on the trains, he had done, too. There had been hours to kill in between job interviews – time spent staring into the void: telephone poles and billboards, besieged rice fields, factories and warehouses, houses with shuttered blinds. On one occasion, he’d ridden a Nankai train all the way to Nagoya. If he’d left the station then he would have had to pay ￥2,500. But he’d just crossed over the tracks and taken the train back to Osaka. Five hours

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on local trains. Five hours to think, “What am going to do with my life?” He hadn’t known then. He didn’t know now. But he had a job.

He’d followed the girl three days before he realized that the reason that she was stopping at Kurokawa Station every day was so that she could watch somebody else.

If he’d had more experience, this might have struck him as ironic but it didn’t. He just thought it was strange.

After a week of following the girl, his interest had shifted to what the girl was doing to why the young woman was standing on the platform. What was she doing there? The woman didn’t move. She just stood there for hours on end like a statue or a pole.

When Sakai submitted his report to the office, they’d told him to determine the relationship between the woman and the girl. So he’d begun digging up what he could find out about the woman.

He’d started with the stationmaster. Certainly, he must know something. The stationmaster told him that, yes, he did know something about the woman. She’d become such a fixture at the station that they’d begun referring to her as Hachikochan.

He’d learned her name because she’d filed a claim for some lost papers. While the stationmaster couldn’t give Sakai her details, he’d be able to find out for himself if he lost something.

Sakai went to the lost and found office to report a missing cell phone. The clerk gave him a clipboard with many notices attached.

Since it was a small station, it did not take him long to find a claim made by a 28-year-old woman for some lost papers.

It was from six months earlier. He copied the information down on a new lost and found form, crumpled up the paper and put it in his pocket. “Sorry,” he said to the clerk, “But I’ve found my phone.”

The woman’s name was Tanaka and she lived in a block of studio apartments nearby. Her building was a ten-storey concrete structure with its back to the railroad tracks. To cut down on the noise, all of the doors were on one side. The windows were at the opposite end and looked out onto a parking lot.

Sakai called on the building superintendent. Did she know a Ms. Tanaka in 311? Of course, she did. What a pitiful case! She didn’t understand why Tanaka-san just didn’t go back to Kyoto. Standing on the platform like that day after day! Did the superintendent know why? Not exactly – it had something to do with work. But Tanaka’s former co-worker might know. She lived in 411.

At first, the woman in 411 didn’t want to talk to him. But when he told her that his interest in Tanaka was confined to the person who was following her, she agreed to speak with him.

Tanaka was from Kyoto and had come down to Wakayama for work. It was too far for her to commute every day, so she had rented a studio apartment in Kurokawa.

Initially, Tanaka had been a good worker – everyone said so. But she was proud. Although she was just a contract worker like herself, she’d made one of the permanent employees look bad. It hadn’t been hard to do – the person was incompetent – but you couldn’t do that. So they had conspired against her.

The new copying machines had a memory function that Tanaka didn’t know about. Every time that you made a copy, the copier would first save the image before it printed out the requested number of copies. This meant that you could remove the original from the copier and still make copies of the last image displayed.

Once you put a new original on the copier, however, the previous image would be erased.

One of Tanaka’s duties was to make copies for the weekly management meeting. She had been given this job because she was a contract worker. The boss didn’t want the contents of the documents getting out to the permanent staff before the meeting.

Tanaka seemed like a bright person – more importantly, she was discreet. She mostly kept to herself. So he’d asked Tanaka to make the copies.

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

Pretty Little Thing

by Timothy J. Bontempt

To any casual observer, Agnes Hayes looked like a woman without a care in the world as she stood in the checkout line at Pierson's Grocery on that Monday morning, her few purchases stacked neatly in the child-carrier portion of the shopping cart and her lovely face printed with a bemused smile. She was neatly dressed in comfortable summer attire, white buttoned blouse tucked primly into her light beige pants, sensible grey shoes on her feet and her hair pulled back and tied into a utilitarian but attractive ponytail. She was barely thirty years old, her birthday a week ago yesterday, and though she tried to downplay her looks, she was a very beautiful woman. Men found their eyes drawn to her when she entered a room. Women envied her. Children and puppies, animals of all sorts, approached her without caution, responding to some innate desire to be near her. Agnes exuded confidence and affability, and she always had a smile and a kind word ready for anyone who spoke to her first.

Standing in line that morning with her carton of eggs, gallon of milk, and half-pound of chipped ham from the deli, Agnes appeared as calm and confident as always, but inside, she was anything but.

Inside, Agnes was a tempest of conflict. Until a few days ago, her life had been a neat and tidy bundle of routines, and routine comforted her and made her feel all was right with the world. But suddenly, all her routines had been disturbed, broken, and with each passing day she felt less and less like the figure of the confident, put-together woman she appeared to be. Nevertheless, she was determined to carry herself as if all was right as rain.

As she stepped up to the counter and stacked her purchases neatly on the rubberized conveyer belt, Agnes noticed that two old men, a young mother and her child, and a man dressed so shabbily that he could have been a beggar, were all looking at her across the checkout aisles. The old men and the beggar were staring unabashedly, but the young mother simply glanced up to see what it was that had so captured her baby's interest.

Agnes had been a remarkably attractive person all of her life. Even during her awkward stages of puberty when she was plagued with growth spurts and new hair and pimples and she had a habit of tripping over her own feet, people were always drawn to her. As a young child, the interest of strangers frightened her; as a gawky teen, their presence made her overly self-conscious. As a young woman easing into the self-confidence of her newfound beauty, she finally accepted that she had some odd kind of attractiveness and even learned to like it. Now if she walked into a crowd and no one seemed to notice her, it was not a very good day.

Today she hoped her personal magnetism would overpower her inner conflict and hide her terrible secret. She hoped that every brain behind every eye that turned her way would assume that everything was alright with her and thereby with the world. She hoped no one would suspect that she had just killed her boyfriend and had cut his corpse into a hundred pieces in her bathtub.

"Good morning, Agnes," said the cashier as the man in front of her in line put away his wallet and gathered his bags and left. The milk, ham, and eggs rolled forward and Agnes stepped up to join them.

The cashier, a pleasant older woman named Belle, whom Agnes had once worked with in a secretarial pool a few years ago, had a habit of asking Agnes every time she saw her what was new and exciting in her life. Agnes already prepared herself to face Belle's inquisition.

"What's the story today?"

"Oh, nothing much happening," Agnes said calmly and with as little inflection in her voice as she could muster. She did not want to do anything that might give her away. "Same old routine."

Belle laughed. "I hear you," she said. "Nothing much happens 24

around here, does it? I guess that's why I moved here, really, to live somewhere where I could open the newspaper in the morning and not read about murder. Back in Youngstown, it seemed somebody got slaughtered every day." She sighed. "The world's a mess, alright.

Will that be all for you today?"

Agnes nodded and opened the small pocketbook she carried in anticipation of paying her bill and getting the hell out of there. Belle read her the total from the little green screen on the cash register and Agnes fished a twenty out of her purse. As she slipped the bills out, she suddenly lost her grip on the purse and it fell to the floor, landing just so that it spilled its contents all over the aisle. The people behind her were shuffling their feet to avoid stepping on her lipstick and keys and credit cards. Agnes blushed, handed Belle the twenty, and knelt down hurriedly to gather the mess.

A couple of people nudged her things that had landed near them forward with their shoes. Only one person bent down to help her, the man Agnes thought might be a beggar. He had come over from the adjacent aisle just to help her. She was at once grateful and embarrassed that she had so readily disregarded him. While others were waiting impatiently for her to finish and get out of their way, this nice man had lost his own place in line to come help her. She smiled at him, and he smiled right back, revealing some of the yellowest teeth she had ever seen.

"There you are, Miss," the shabby man said. His breath stank of something sweet and yeasty. "You're going to jail."

Agnes blanched. Did she hear him correctly? Did he know what she had done?

"What did you say?" Agnes asked sharply.

"I said you're doing well," the shabby man with the bad teeth repeated. "No worries. Your purse is all picked up and you're doing just fine."

Agnes breathed an audible sigh of relief, and regretted that, too.

She was sure she was going to reveal herself as the murderer she was. She was wound so tightly she thought her jumpiness alone would give her away.

She thanked the shabby man and thought for a moment about offering him a few dollars. If he was a beggar, he could use it. If he was just a man with poor personal hygiene, he would be offended and might even cause a scene. She just gave him a weak smile and closed her purse. Belle handed her the change from her purchase, said something about the curse of Mondays, and bid her a good day as Agnes took her purchases and left. She could still feel the eyes on her, but this time they were not simply admiring. They were scornful, accusing. Agnes left the store as quickly as she could without actually breaking into a run.

On the drive home, Agnes saw a patrol car parked in an alleyway between two houses across the street. The car was in the shadows, but she could clearly see the lights mounted atop the roof. The road on which she lived was long and straight and was a popular shortcut across town, and there were always people driving far too fast. The patrol car might belong to the Highway Patrol, a speed trap to catch people with lead feet. But it was close enough to her house that it might be a police car staked out to watch her home. Maybe one of the neighbors suspected she had done something terrible and had tipped the boys in blue. Maybe they were just waiting for her car to turn into the driveway before they moved in and busted her!

Agnes slowed down as she neared her house, allowing herself a moment to consider her options. If she parked in her driveway, the patrol car across the street could swoop in behind her in seconds and block any escape. If she did not return home, the cop might radio his colleagues and she would be hunted down. She decided she would go home. If she was going to be arrested, it might as well be as far away from crowds as she could get. Only the neighbors would see the fiasco here, and most of them were already at school or off to work.

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

Agnes parked the car and held her breath. She watched the patrol car in the rearview mirror, and her heart skipped a beat as it started to move out of the alley. Agnes felt an overwhelming urge to run, to jump out of her car and run as hard as she could. They were going to catch her and take her to jail and then execute her, all because she killed her boyfriend. They would not care that he had it coming, that he was a terrible person. They would only see what she had done and they would see that she thought the whole thing through premeditation, they called it, and she would suffer and die. Agnes felt her heart pounding in her chest. She was trapped, and her life was over.

The patrol car pulled onto the street, crossed two lanes of traffic, and pulled right up behind her in her driveway. The driver got out of the vehicle and started walking toward her window. He tapped on the window, and Agnes nearly wet herself. She rolled down the window slowly, and she could feel the sweat under her arms as she turned the knob.

"Is this your house, Miss?" the officer asked.

Agnes gave him a sickly nod.

"Have you seen any suspicious looking people loitering on this block lately?" the officer asked. Agnes just looked at him. This was certainly a strange way to begin an arrest.

"We received a report of a suspicious male loitering in this neighborhood the last two nights, and I am investigating. You are the first resident I have seen since I arrived," he explained. "The man was described as male, undetermined age, dressed in dirty or mismatched clothes, unkempt hair. One of your neighbors reported seeing him pass through this neighborhood five times in a two-hour period last night. Did you see anyone fitting that description?"

Agnes shook her head. This officer was not here for her at all! "No, officer, I was rather busy last night, right up until I went to bed. I don't think I even looked out the window all night." Why don't you just confess that you were hacking up a dead body? she asked herself ruefully. You just can't keep your mouth from running on, can you?

"Well, if you see anything suspicious, give us a call," the officer told her. "There are a lot of crazies out there, and a lot of perverts. This guy might just be a transient, but he might be a peeping tom or a sex offender, too. It happens even in small towns like ours."

The officer bid her a good day and walked back to his patrol car and got inside. She watched as he pulled away and then got out of her own car and grabbed her bags from the passenger seat. She saw the officer's car pull into a different alley two houses down, and she let slip a little sigh of relief. She walked up to the door of her house and slipped her key into the door. Her hands were still shaking.

She was glad to be home, despite what had taken place here not two days ago. She had scrubbed and scoured the apartment all night after it happened, and while there was no longer a trace of blood to be found anywhere inside, she thought she still caught a whiff of the stench of raw meat now and again, but it was probably just her nervous imagination. The remains were safely and securely locked away in frozen storage, so no smell could possibly escape. She was surprisingly comfortable here even now, and looked forward to a drink and a long, hot shower to help her unwind.

She wanted that drink first. Her encounter with the police officer had pushed her nearly to the edge of her self-control, and her nerves were shot. Every step she had made today, every action she had taken and every word she had spoken seemed to be conspiring to expose her. She wondered for a moment if guilt had something to do with her agitated state, but dismissed the thought promptly. After all, why should she feel guilty about what had happened? He had it coming, and she had done the world a favor.

She walked downstairs to get the drink she needed, and switched on the overhead lights. The basement had been her boyfriend's domain. He had finished it and furnished it as he wanted it done. It was rich in earthy colors and hardwoods, and the preserved heads of VOL 8, ISSUE 2

several animals hung as trophies on the walls. The room was lit with recessed lights, making it seem warmer than it was. There was a full bar in one corner and a large-screen television in another. The only piece in the room that seemed somehow incongruent was the bright white chest freezer that sat along the wall at the foot of the steps.

Agnes opened a bottle of bourbon, the best her boyfriend stocked, and leaned on the mahogany bar as she poured herself a glass. Her eyes lighted and stayed upon the chest freezer across the room. How fitting it was that the freezer was Stuart's final resting place. Agnes had never wanted to buy it, but Stuart had practically bullied her into the purchase. He wanted it to store the venison he was sure he would bring back from his hunting trip in March. He was sure he would bag a buck of record size, and the huge freezer would be a necessity. Agnes grimaced as she recalled that grating, whiny voice of his as he pleaded with her to buy it. It was the voice of a whiny child, the same voice he used when he begged her for sex. Come to think of it, it was the same whiny voice he had used to beg her for his life.

What a terrible man.

She lifted the cup to her lips and was anticipating the soothing burn in her throat when something slipped from the glass and touched her lips. She drew the glass away to look at it, then dropped it to the floor when she saw what was inside. The glass shattered to the floor, the human finger inside it bouncing awkwardly among the shards.

It was certainly Stuart's finger, but how could it be there? She was meticulous in storing each and every scrap in separate plastic freezer bags, even the lost strands of hair she found. Someone had been here, in her house, and not only knew of her crime but was using the knowledge to toy with her.

A floorboard creaked overhead.

Whoever had done this was still in the house. Her heart racing, she wondered what to do. She obviously could not call the police, so she would have to deal with this on her own. She searched her memory for a weapon in the house. There were none. She refused to let Stuart keep his guns in her house. What could she use? Her knives were upstairs in the kitchen, and the intruder might be waiting there for her. She had to defend herself. What could be a weapon?

Stuart's wooden cane, the one he always called his good walking stick. It was a heavy maple cane with a solid brass handle in the shape of a duck's head. His crippled left leg demanded he walk with it. Agnes had put it in the freezer too, just to make sure everything of his was in one place. She walked across the room, lifted the lid of the freezer, and looked inside. Dozens of zipper-seal plastic bags filled the chest, and the cane rested on top. She pulled out the cane and gripped it at its base, so she could swing the brass head like a hammer if she needed to.

She crept up the stairs and opened the door into the kitchen as quietly as she could. She peered around the door frame in both directions, but she saw nothing amiss. She heard the floor creak in the living room. She took a deep breath and ran into the room, cane swinging.

No one was there.

Agnes kicked off her shoes and tiptoed from room to room in her socks to make her movements quieter. From the living room she crept to the bedroom, then from the bedroom to the bathroom, checking closets and the shower. She found no one. She went back to the kitchen and checked the pantry. She was alone.

But she knew someone had been here, because a dismembered finger doesn't climb out of a freezer and dive into a whiskey glass on its own. The thought that someone was in the house with her now was frightening, but the idea that someone was aware of what she had done and was playing with her absolutely terrified her.

Well, she told herself as she toyed with the brass head of the cane, she was alone right now. She would lock the doors and windows and maybe call a locksmith to change her locks. So much adrenaline had

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25

Sunday Funday

by Kira Larsen

John, Steve, Ezekiel, and I bounced over the twentieth tree root since we’d began our Jeep journey off main roads through the woods, “offroading.” We had beer, weed, and cigarettes, rotating them unceremoniously amongst ourselves. A light layer of snow covered the January leaf-strewn, root-strewn ground. John’s Jeep scraped several times over a root, a rock, it was hard to tell. He stopped every five minutes, crouching to inspect his vehicle. Ironic to be caring about its condition then.

I got out at the first inspection and wandered a ways through the woods to pee. I squatted behind the largest tree I could find within a reasonable distance from the vehicle. I could see the boys in the distance, but was pretty sure they couldn’t see me.

Ezekiel was missing when I smilingly returned, ready for more unceremonious substances.

“Where’s Ezekiel?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked, stumped.

“I mean, he was just here. Did he go ahead to check the trail?”

“He wasn’t with us,” Steve said, cautiously.

“Yes, he was, John!” I scanned John’s eyes imploringly. “You remember. Ezekiel was JUST HERE.” “I had to pee.” I whipped around to see Ezekiel smiling. I smacked him.

“You guys are assholes,” I said, half to tears.

Scrape! I winced. Scrape! I winced again. The Jeep tilted almost completely sideways. I thought we on the right might slide to the left as John floored the engine over a mound of dirt and sticks.

“To the right,” Steve told John, leaning his body out the passenger window inspecting the ground. “To the right, right, right, right. Left!

Okay. You’re good. Little your way. Little my way. Little your way.

Stop! Wait!” He hopped out of the Jeep, transfixed his gaze on the front right wheel. “Go! Go!” John floored it. Debris flew. “You’re good. You got it! Beautiful!” Steve hopped back in. “Just beautiful!”

He took a swig of beer and began to tell a joke.

The Jeep wove and shook as we continued digging deeply into the earth, overcoming obstacles we set before ourselves. Our goal was to reach the other side of the woods where we could take an easier road back to the main. This tedious, crazy regimen is how we chose to spend our Sunday.

“Sunday Funday!” Ezekiel said when he had first clambered into the Jeep with us from his mom’s house.

It was a fun day indeed. Ezekiel joyfully snapped pictures in an almost continual stream of us boozin’ and bowlin’ and being idiots.

“I’m gonna take that fuckin’ phone from you if you don’t put it down,” Steve threatened.

“Aww!” Ezekiel mocked as he snapped Steve’s angry picture with it.

An hour into revving, sliding, and swerving, while hauling up another loose meaty hill, a branch punctured the left back tire and we listened to the air drain completely. The remaining three tires spun viciously, debris flying into the windows and past some of our faces. John aggressively switched between reverse and drive but the Jeep, boxed in by a tree stump behind it and gnarly thick tree roots ahead, merely sank into soft dirt amid its own deep tire tracks.

Already, we had appeared stuck a few times but John skillfully maneuvered out of all those trouble spots within minutes. I wanted to believe he’d quickly get us out of this situation, too, but since I know nothing about Jeeps or the woods, I searched his face for my information. He looked both concerned and like he was trying not to look concerned.

“No problem!” he cheerfully said as he cut the engine and hopped VOL 8, ISSUE 2

out to inspect the flat on his hinds. “I can fix this.”

The others promptly joined him, pulling out tools John had stashed in his trunk.

“Thank God I have a spare,” John said.

After changing the tire, they began hacking roots and uprooting roots and hauling away stumps in the way of the Jeep moving either forwards or backwards.

Steve explored the path ahead a quarter mile and discovered that, if we were able to move the vehicle forward at all, we’d only be stuck again shortly by a large tree lying across the path. “No point going any further,” he said. “We’ll have to turn it around.”

It was 5:30 and the sun was dropping quickly. The geography remained nearly as disastrous as it had been to get us stuck in the first place. I stood in the woods on the crunchy blue snow watching the men numbly, my feet beginning to freeze through my canvas sneaks, starkly aware that they would not warm and that the day would not brighten and that the men are not discovering new tools and that the Jeep is not moving.

I stared as John, seven feet directly in front of me, sliced with precision and fire-vigor through a large tree root. Smack! Smack!

Smack! His strength unworldly. His deceptive muscles obedient.

Steve had begun axing the same root but grew tired quickly and handed John the axe. “You’re better at this, John. Here.”

“Yeah, let He-Man do it,” Ezekiel said through a laugh as he heaved a small fallen tree away.

Smack! Smack! Smack! Wood shards extended from the target spot like fireworks. My eyes grew wide watching them.

Steve broke my trance approaching me. “Nothing to worry about,” he breezily said. “We’ll get ‘er out o’ here tonight. One way or the other. You doin’ all right?” I nodded politely, putting on my most positive face.

I stood in the woods as long as my feet could tolerate the cold. I didn’t want to rudely wait in the Jeep the whole time. As it were I wasn’t doing any single thing to help. The few somewhat useful ideas I had already shared with the group were already thought of and already discarded for not, as it turns out, being useful. Ezekiel periodically abandoned his work to stand with me, saying sweet things, joking.

Thirty minutes later I was driven back into the Jeep, the interior of which was noticeably colder than when we first got stuck. I put my gloves and my hat on, thankful I brought them. I applied lip gloss to pretend I was somehow in a luxurious situation. John opened the trunk to get a saw and peered in at me.

“Sorry it’s so boring,” he said, jovially. I wanted to say, “Sorry. I’m a useless lump watching you three slaves.”

I watched them through the back window for a while as they stooped and schemed and debated various uses of various tools, waiting for a novel thought to be displayed in their eyes, faces, or voices. No novel thought seemed to be.

Steve, at 38, grew annoyed with the “younger boys,” whom he was mad at for knowing more than him and for remaining calmer but whom he claimed to be mad at for knowing less than him and for needing guidance.

He now screamed to the woods, “No point being down there, boys!” John and Ezekiel were back where the Jeep had come from on the trail inspecting reverse-exit possibilities. When Steve had done the same thing on the trail ahead of the Jeep, he was “thinking of the future.” Now that John and Ezekiel were thinking of the future, he blamed them for neglecting the present. “I’m up here in the real world,” he shouted, “where the problem is. Any time you two wanna join me, feel free.”

“See, you gotta be stern with them,” he said to me, ducking his head through the lowered back window. “That’s how men talk to each other. They yell. These guys, they’re all right once you get ‘em on the right track. They’re young still.”

WWW.IDEAGEMS.COM

27

I wanted to smack him, tell him to shut the fuck up, he was lowering morale and they are perfectly capable. But I just smiled, thinking if I kept him pleasant-feeling he might keep the others pleasant-feeling and they might then think of an alternative to walking several miles through the cold, black woods.

I transfixed on the dashboard of the Jeep. I breathed shallowly but steadily and noticed now the horizon was blue-black after fading from yellow to pink to light blue.

When I looked behind again through the back window, I saw Steve and John slowly approaching the Jeep, John limply holding his axe and Steve empty handed. They looked very worried. Steve looked like he didn’t know what to say and John looked like he didn’t want to say what he had to.

I didn’t want to ask what I had to. It was too cold, too late, too dark, too isolated for jokes.

“Where’s Ezekiel?”

After a tense, five second pause, John said, “We don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“Well, let’s see,” Steve mocked.

“Shut up, Steve,” John snapped.

John looked like he was being forced to stab a child in the chest.

He took a deep breath. “He was with me inspecting the trail. He went off a little ahead. When I was leaving I called to him. But he didn’t answer. I went ahead and looked for him. I kept calling but he didn’t answer.”

A little vomit entered my throat and I had no liquid to wash it down with. We’d drank all the beers. I wondered then if we should have drank more or less of them. I scolded myself for thinking about beer during this moment.

“We have to go look for him!” I frantically said.

“We have to get out of here!” Steve snapped.

“What are we talking about?” Ezekiel asked. I whipped around. He was standing in the woods, his face a bluish tint.

I hugged him hard. “Where were you?” I asked, releasing him.

“I had to pee.”

My next question was interrupted by the fight John and Steve suddenly broke into.

“You goddamned motherfucker!” John screamed. He pushed hard into Steve’s chest.

Steve stumbled back, tripping over a tree root then twisting his ankle as he slipped on the snow almost into a split.

“You prick!” he shouted when he finally rose, rubbing his ankle.

“It wasn’t my fault!”

“Jesus, John!” Steve moaned, rubbing his ankle more.

“No one’s responsible!” John screamed. “No one.”

“It was your idea to come out here!”

“It was your idea to drink all the fucking beer!”

“Yeah, well. You’re the one who was driving when we got stuck and if we hadn’t been stuck so long, Ezekiel wouldn’t have needed to drunkenly pee in the first place! He would have peed back at the house, not in the middle of the dark freezing fucking woods!”

“You brought the fucking beer!” John said again.

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked. “Ezekiel’s right here.”

I turned to him. But he was gone.

“He was just here, I swear!”

“It’s time to go,” John said sweetly.

“Where’s Ezekiel?”

John looked resigned after all to stab the child in the chest. I could see he believed there was no other option.

“Casey. Do you remember last winter? Sunday Funday?”

“Where’s your axe?” I asked, suddenly noticing it was not lying around anywhere as I expected it to be after John must have tossed it down for the fight. “Did you put it away?”

“Do you remember?” John asked.

28

“Where is your axe!?”

“When Ezekiel and you were dating?”

“We came out here,” he continued, “off-roading, we got stuck, Ezekiel went off to pee...”

“He’s dead, Casey. You’ve known this,” Steve said.

“You goddamned motherfucker!” John lunged at Steve and they tumbled as viciously as boars over painful-looking roots. John had Steve pinned. “No more!” he growled into Steve’s face. Steve threw John off of him, dusting himself in humiliation.

The black horizon turned blood-red.

“This is a sick joke,” I said.

“Casey, this is not a joke,” John said mildly, placing his hand on my upper arm, wincing from his tumble. I shivered. “Steve’s a prick and I’m sorry, but he’s right. You’ve woven in and out of reality since it happened.” He took a deep breath and continued.

“We came out here off-roading. We got stuck. Ezekiel was pretty drunk and he wandered into the woods to pee and never came back.

They found his body a couple days later. He had passed out on his back and vomited. He choked on his vomit. We did our best to search for him that night, but we had to get out of the woods. It was dark. I had to drive out on my rim. Remember?”

I shook my head. “No, that was tonight. Tonight we got stuck.

Tonight he wandered off to pee. I just saw him!” The tears sliding down my cheeks turned to ice.

“I know you see him,” John whispered. “But he’s not really here.

Look.” He pointed towards a grey object four yards away shimmering under the moon.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Go see,” John said. Tears filled his eyes. Steve stared at the ground, shuffling his feet.

I walked towards it, unable to feel my feet or my heartbeat. All night, I hadn’t seen this—a gravestone with “Ezekiel Always” carved into it.

“You guys are sick,” I hissed and began to storm off. “You just put this here now.”

“Casey, please!” John said, crying, running up to me. “Please, Casey. We play along sometimes as if Ezekiel were really here because we don’t know how to tell you. You were so distraught. You spent two months in the hospital after it happened. You wouldn’t see anyone for a long time. After you started seeing us again, you had these spells. Where you thought Ezekiel was with us. We didn’t know what else to do.”

“YOU didn’t know what else to do,” Steve said.

“Shut up, Steve! She was his fucking girlfriend.”

“No,” I insisted. “He’s not dead. We did break up but we’re still friends. He just plays games. You all do!”

“No, Casey,” John said. “He died. Look, I’ll prove it.” He walked to his Jeep, got in, ignited the engine, and reversed on a trail now free of the stumps and roots they had been clearing all night.

“You’ve been working on doing that all night. Bullshit.”

“No!” He cut the engine, hopped out and faced me. “We came out here to remember him. It was a bad idea.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “The tire!” He grabbed my hand, pulled me to the left rear tire. “Look! No flat. No hole. No tree branch tonight.”

“You changed the tire, asshole.”

“No flat in the trunk!” Steve said.

He, too, grabbed my hand, and led me to the trunk, which he opened and fanned like Vannah White. Nothing.

“You guys are such pricks! You went down there in the woods, stashed the flat, told Ezekiel to hide, had him pop back, disappear again, then told me this shitty story. I’m never speaking to either of you again!”

I started stomping through the woods to find Ezekiel. My name slowly removed itself from their shouts. I’ll dig beneath the

TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

Fear of…

by Carole Christman Koch Fear of… you name it, I probably had every one of them already. I’ve overcome some fears, and others I simply keep. They’re too hard to surmount. I decided to go back to my childhood and up to present day, to see if I could figure out where these fears came from.

My first encounter with fear was the Boogie Man. I never truly saw the guy in all my 70 years on earth, but I believed in him for a long time.

I think each of my 9 siblings and me became connoisseurs in the art of scaring each other. All of us, at one time or other, hid under a sibling’s bed, waiting quietly for them to come to their bedroom, lock the door, and climb into bed. Of course, the timing had to be perfect for “the hand” to make its move. We all loved the shriek of terror!

Even into “teen-hood,” I continued to check under my bed and the closet. I recall one late night when Mom forced my door, due to my blood curdling screams. Eventually, she realized, the Boogie Man I saw, clad in a dress, was my very own dress hanging from a floor lamp.

The Boogie Man must have loved all the attention he received from me. He followed me no matter where I moved.

In my first marriage, my husband had to leave for work in the middle of the night. No matter how tired I was, feeding babies during the night, or up with a sick child, I was never too tired to carry and prop a kitchen chair, under the door handles for both back and front doors. It worked.

Those chairs kept many a Boogie Man from entering and harming me or the children!

Some 20 years later, and into my second marriage, I found the Boogie Man still at my doorstep.

My husband would attend most of the Penn State football games.

Usually, he’d sleep over at his parents’ home the night before the game.

This meant I had a choice. I could stay over with one of my sisters or my children, which I sometimes did. But I also loved alone times to read into the wee hours of the morning.

When I decided to stay home alone, my husband pampered me. Before leaving, he’d check windows, and with a smile, he’d say, “Carole, I checked all over the house. There is no Boogie Man. You’ll be just fine.”

I trusted my husband completely. Yet, just in case, I kept a bat and an open container of pepper under my bed. For extra protection, I would keep a light on downstairs and a hall light on upstairs.

I imagine I was about 55 years old when I said to myself, “Carole, this is ridiculous about your fear of the Boogie Man.” I decided to do something about it. For one year, almost every day, I did an affirmation, “I am no longer afraid to be home alone.” It worked. Easton is the last city I had… “almost” encounters…. with the Boogie Man. Recently, I just learned about a new product on the market for children. It’s a spray to get rid of the monsters in a child’s bedroom after a nightmare. Geez! If only this would have been out when I was a kid, I could have conquered this fear by the time I was seven!

I also have a fear of giving change when someone gives me money.

This one, I know how it got started. I was about 13 years old when I joined a 4-H club. We had to do some kind of farm project. I decided to raise chicks. Chicks are cute when they are little, but then they “poop” and you have to change the paper in the cage every day. Eventually, they grow into a pretty good size chicken. Once they were “of age,” they got butchered. I hated every minute of it. Finally, Mom had the chicken dressed and ready to sell.

On one particular day, Mom and Pop had to go somewhere. Mom told me someone was coming for two chickens. She told me how much they cost. The party buying the chickens arrived and handed me the money. I took the money and stuck it in my pocket. The lady then said, “I’ll need change.”

My fear kicked in right then and there. Sure, I had learned to count change in school, but this was a real live person standing in front of me. I

did find Mom’s purse and the lady helped me with the counting. Ever since that day, I have shied away from giving change. It’s not that I can’t do it, and it’s rare that I have to, but when I do, my memory cell clicks in from that darn chicken episode!

I believe I can trace back my fear of public speaking to my one-room schoolhouse days. We had to memorize poems. Once memorized, we had to stand up front and recite the poem in front of some 30 kids. That was where you heard snickering if you forgot your next line, while stuttering and stammering. Not a fun time.

In these one-room schools, the children always put on a pageant for the Christmas season. Parents were invited to attend. It was this particular Christmas, my teacher, Mrs. Kutz, chose me to memorize “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” I loved Mrs. Kutz, but this was the most terrible thing she could have asked me to do. It was hard enough to recite poetry in front of your peers, but now I had to do it in front of dozens of parents. I got through it all right, but I truly hated every minute of it.

It wasn’t until my senior year in high school that I realized how far my fear of public speaking had gone. The senior class was presenting a humorous play. I loved humor. I found out they were looking for auditions for a music teacher who had very few lines to say and didn’t need to carry a tune. I knew this would be perfect for me.

I was among two others who auditioned for the part. All we had to do was go on stage, read 2-3 lines with emphasis, and then sing “do re me” off key. I waited in anticipation, following the other two auditions. Now I’m on stage. I read my lines with the most horrible, croaky voice I could muster. When it was time to sing my off key notes, absolutely nothing came out of my mouth. That ended my speaking career for a long time.

It wasn’t until I became a church secretary, close to 45 years of age that I tried again to overcome my fear. My pastor was retiring. I loved to write and decided to write up a “roast” for his retirement party. I hadn’t really thought about reading it in public, but felt I could handle it. I did just that. Got lots of laughs.

Soon I graduated to reading scripture from the pulpit. I figured, “What the heck, you can read, Carole!” I will admit I had anxiety the first few times. But I worked at positive statements, “I can read with poise and ease” each time I was scheduled to read. Before long, anxiety was gone. I had overcome my public speaking fear.

I have a few animal fears. Mice for one. If I have to set a trap for a mouse and actually catch one, I throw the mouse and the trap away. No mouse ever ran after me and chased me around the house. I just don’t like the critters.

I’m wary of snakes too. When I was a young mother, one summer, I decided I’d get some large stones, from the creek behind the house, and place them around my flower beds. In reaching and lifting a stone, a small snake jumped out at me, hitting my arm. That ended the stone carrying. I was now in fear of snakes.

Many years after the first snake incident, I was working for my brother.

A nephew of mine also worked for my brother. He knew of my fear of snakes, but he was mischievous. One day, my nephew ran after me with a little garter snake. I ran away screaming. He ran after me dangling the snake from his hand. Tiring, I stopped and yelled, “If you don’t stop, I’ll faint.” I was about to do just that, when he stopped chasing me. I thought that was the end of it. That evening, I opened my jewelry box only to find “the snake” in it. I grabbed that box with the jewelry in it, took it outside and threw everything in the trash. I don’t know if I was more mad than scared at that point!

I have one more fear. I’d guess I’d call it a miscellaneous one. If our ketchup bottle is near empty, my husband places it back in the cupboard upside down. He wants to be able to get every last bit of ketchup for his next use. If I find that bottle upside down, I immediately turn it right side up. Why? Any kind of vibration could make that ketchup bottle fall over.

If I’m ever alone in the house and hear something like that fall, I might revert back to that darn Boogie Man again!  Carole Christman Koch is a retired church secretary who is married with four children, five grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren.

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TOUGH LIT. VIII

IDEAGEMS

JOANNA, Part 1

by Regis F. Boyle

It was the summer of 1940. The place was rural Missouri, just over the Arkansas line where Hugo had rescued Joanna from being sold to a whoremaster by Mother Mary's Home for Girls, fourteen years ago.

Joanna brushed the long strands of light hair from her pretty face as she stirred the stew on the iron stove in front of her. She wore a clean but well-worn housedress, which Hugo had bought secondhand for her, three years ago. The front-buttoned gown had survived a pregnancy by leaving it unbuttoned as she grew. Fortunately, her large breasts remained firm, inasmuch as she did not wear a bra, nor had she ever owned one. Her only shoes were a pair of men's work boots.

Her shapely body, which had developed that sensuous softness by having a first child, swayed to the rhythm of classical music coming from a small radio in the living room. She hoped the song would end before Hugo came in from the fields and the radioman, with his soft voice, would tell the name of the piece. Her eyes closed at what she thought was a violin, gave her an unknown feeling, the likes of which only that "fancy,� as she called it, kind of music-of music could give her.

Joanna's thoughts drifted as she looked over at the comer of the kitchen and imagined that Libby was there playing with the wooden truck and wooden train engine that Hugo had carved for her.

Libby had just turned one year and could already place the only two toys she had end to end and call out "Momma, Momma," and when Joanna would turn toward her, the baby would proudly smile and clap her hands. Joanna, in turn, would laugh and clap at the accomplishment. The wood carvings were the only things that Libby knew were hers.

Libby was the only thing on earth that Joanna knew belonged to her. Every morning, Libby would wake and hurry to find her toys. She did that every single morning. Then, one morning, she did not wake.

Joanna turned from the stove and walked to the rear of the century old two-story farmhouse, past the well-worn bare wood cupboards, homemade chairs, the iron sink and the shiny wood icebox that had never felt the coolness of ice. Without looking, her hand touched the wood of the box. She liked the smooth, natural feel of it on her fingertips.

She looked out the back window, as she had done so many times during the past two years to the picket fence surrounding the weed covered grave of her lovely blue-eyed baby. She had asked Hugo not to cut the grass or the weeds on the grave, thinking it would be like a blanket over Libby to protect her from the cold of winter.

Here Joanna stood, picturing her child playing with the toys that had been buried with her. Hugo said that it was a shame to waste the toys in the ground, because he could sell or barter them with another farmer for something useful. When she insisted that he put them in the box with Libby, he did.

That memory always invoked the horror she felt on the day of the funeral when six men showed up with the preacher to attend the burial. They were the town tramps the preacher had recruited by promising food and drink, just to stand at the wooden box lowering.

Joanna refused to stand with that smelly trash and watched the fiveminute service from the window where she stood now.

After the burial, the tramps and the preacher came into the house and tracked mud in every room, stole her knives and forks, ate or pocketed every bit of food in the house and drank all of Hugo's dandelion wine and homemade beer.

Joanna did not leave the house on the day of the funeral, nor had she left it since.

It had been two years since she so much as stepped out onto the VOL 8, ISSUE 2

front porch. She had also told Hugo that she did not want anyone else ever to come into the house. Hugo did not understand, nor did he ask her why. Although she no longer picked or weeded the fields, she worked just as hard while in the house. She cleaned, boiled, jarred and sealed the crops, which Hugo deposited into the kitchen, seven days a week. The new arrangement did, however, leave his evenings free, whereas before that time those hours were spent, along with Joanna, canning what they had harvested that day. He didn't understand, but he enjoyed the benefit.

Hugo's only attempt to console Joanna after the funeral was to say, "We can have another baby, who you'll like just as much as the first one." Hugo's like that, she thought. He never understood the feeling she had when she held Libby for the first time or hearing her tiny baby's first word, "Momma,� or the love that gushed from her breast as she suckled the first and only thing in her entire life that she ever loved.

After he said that, Joanna would not allow him into her bedroom at night to lie on her anymore. He did not understand that either, but simply started taking a few dollars out of the tin can behind the icebox, stay in town on Saturday after he sold the vegetables at the farmer's market, and come home smelling of perfume. Once he casually told her about his favorite Saturday night whore, a large colored woman name Ophelia. Her only thought at the time was that she hoped having Hugo lay on Ophelia was more fun for the whore than it had ever been for Joanna.

Joanna was lonely. Less than a week after Libby was born, she strapped the baby to her breast and returned to working in the fields. After two months, Hugo made a cradle for the child, which Joanna could pull along in an old toy wagon as she moved through the rows of com, tomatoes, and beans. The baby was never of out Joanna's sight from the day she was born. She would talk to Libby or sing the "darkie" songs she had heard the colored pickers sing in the cotton fields of Mississippi. She was not lonely in those days.

She had her Libby. She needed, not wanting anything else. Now she had nothing.

She blew a kiss toward the baby's grave, turned from the window, and as she walked back toward the stove, she paused as her eyes looked up at the small print picture tacked to the wall above the sink.

It was a rural scene of a peasant woman in a field near a quiet river.

She had cut it out of a magazine that Hugo brought home wrapped around some carp he had bartered for in town. It caught her eye as she unwrapped the fish to clean them.

She asked Hugo to make a frame for the picture but, although he said he would, he never found time to do it. Never a day passed that she failed to admire it as she washed and dried the dishes in the sink.

She did not understand why it looked blurred but she enjoyed the picture even though she didn't know why. Maybe, she thought, it was because it was my picture.

Once again, her thoughts turned to the beautiful music coming from the radio but, just then, a noise from the yard meant that Hugo was coming in for supper. She hurried into the living room and quickly turned the radio off.

Joanna emerged from the living room as Hugo came into the kitchen. He was a very large, brutish looking, dark haired man of fifty, wearing bib overalls, a sports cap bearing a fertilizer ad and mud covered work boots.

"Hi", he said loudly. "How are you? I'm tellin' you, I'm really hungry tonight. Is that stew I smell? Um... It sure smells good." He swung his leg over the back of a chair and sat down. His voice was harsh, but his words were not. It was Hugo's nature to be loud.

"Wash your hands, they're muddy," she said matter-of-factly. Hugo frowned but obediently rose and went to the sink.

"Oh, by the way," he said "I took on a drifter early this morning to pull the weeds, so I could spend more time on the crops."

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Joanna looked dismayed. She knew that it was useless to argue.

Other drifters had come to the house, supposedly looking for work, but they always came late in the day just in time for supper. After they ate on the porch, at her insistence, Hugo showed them where to bed down in the barn. Come morning, they were gone, along with anything they could steal. She had gladly given hungry drifters a little something to eat when they just came to the door and asked for food without pretending they were looking for work. She knew that these were hard times for everyone.

"I know what you are going to say," Hugo said defensively. "He's already put in a good day's work and he ain't asking for any money, only some food and a place to sleep for two days and he'll be gone.

He's a clean looking fella, you'll see. He'll be coming up for supper after he washes at the pump."

A rush of anger filled Joanna as she returned to the stove. She heard a noise on the porch. The thought of another dirty tramp coming to the house brought back that painful day of two years ago.

She picked up a bread knife and raised it as if to strike. "I'll throw some food out onto the porch, like people do for their dogs," she said to herself, "And then I'll..." She became aware of the raised knife and quickly put it down on a platter by an uncut loaf of bread, without finishing her thought.

Hugo rose, walked to the screen door, opened it and said, "Come on in, meet the missus. She'll fix you a plate of stew, but you'll have to eat it on the porch." Joanna looked toward the door as the man stepped inside.

"This is Michael," Hugo said, "He will work here for two days without any pay, eat breakfast and dinner, and be off down the road again." He rattled off the terms as if reading a contract the two men were about to sign.

Michael nodded. She was surprised at his appearance. He was about her age, thirty, tall and slim with soft dark hair that was neatly trimmed. His face was sun burned, but the color served his looks well. His blue jeans and flannel shirt didn't look right on him, she thought, and then she noticed that he wasn't wearing shoes. She stared at his stocking feet for a moment. When she looked up at him, he looked down at his own feet, sheepishly smiled and said, "Oh, they were muddy so I took them off and left them beside the porch."

A slight smile crept across Joanna's face. His voice, she thought, sounded like the man on the radio that talked about the fancy music.

She stared at him and then realized that he was staring at her.

"I don't mind eating outside," he said softly, breaking the silence, "I don't want to intrude on the family dinner." His voice was quietly sincere as he turned toward the screen door and opened it as he spoke.

"That won't be necessary," she replied without thinking. "Please sit down, "she said almost automatically, forgetting the antagonizing thoughts she had only seconds before. "We're having beef stew. I'll fix a plate for you." She sat a plate piled high with stew in front of Hugo who began to consume it almost before it had settled on the table.

She put a small portion of stew on Michael's plate and sat it before him.

"It smells delicious." He sat with his hands folded on his lap and appeared to be waiting for something.

"Well, go ahead boy, eat up," Hugo mumbled though a mouth full.

He grabbed the uncut loaf of bread and ripped off a large piece, which he jammed into the stew. He stuffed it in his mouth for a moment, pulled it out and added, "Whatcha waiting for?"

"I was just waiting for the missus to join us, sir."

Joanna turned from the stove and stared at Michael. The second smile in two years rippled across her mouth. The anger she had felt was no longer there. It was replaced by curiosity about this quiet stranger she had allowed to come into the house.

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"You'll starve to death with that attitude around here," Hugo said.

"Joanna never eats with me. Lord only knows why, young fellow.

Now, go ahead and eat, then I'll show you where to sleep in the barn." With that Hugo rose, grabbed another hunk of bread, and wiped the last smattering of stew off his plate. He lumbered away and disappeared out the screen door.

Joanna sat across the table from Michael. For some reason she was afraid to look up at him, but she knew that he did not touch his food until after she began to eat. Her eyes raised enough to see his ringless manicured hand pick up the bread knife, slice off the rough end that Hugo had left, put that on his plate, and cut a clean slice and leave it on the platter for her. Joanna regretted giving him a small serving of stew knowing she had been thinking of other drifters who had come, eaten, and gone without working for their meals. She wanted to ask if he wanted more, but the words would not leave her lips.

Joanna wanted to hear his soft voice again, like the man on the radio, but they ate in silence. She could feel him staring at her.

Joanna knew that men had always stared at her. She hated it because she was aware of what they were thinking. But, while the thought of this man staring at her made her uneasy, it was because of the old dress and the work boots she had on, not because of what he might be thinking.

Without looking at him, she rose and carried her plate to the sink.

He did likewise.

As she turned and took the empty plate from his hand, to her amazement, saw that he was gazing at her print above the sink.

There was a pleased look on his face. It was the same she felt on her own when she paused so many times to enjoy the picture.

"Why are you..." she tried to speak, but the words stuck in her throat.

"I'm sorry, you said something?" Michael said, looking down at his empty hands.

There was a smile on his face. Joanna had wanted to ask him why he had stared at the picture, but just then, Hugo entered the kitchen.

"I'll show you where to sleep," he said. "Come on, get a move on. I want to listen to the radio before I go to bed." He walked into the living room and turned the radio on.

The sound of a violin brought a look of panic to Joanna's face.

"What is this?" Hugo spoke in a surprised tone. "Who turned my hillbilly station off for this noise?"

"I must have moved the dial when I dusted today," Joanna lied.

"I'll change it for you." She hurried into the living room, but paused for a moment listening to the melodic violin solo, then turned the dial until a twangy sound blared from the small radio.

"That's my kind of music. Let's go," said Hugo, as he pushed open the screen door and started out. Michael turned to Joanna.

"Thank you very much for dinner. It was excellent," he said, extending his hand.

She was taken aback. He withdrew his hand, nodded to her, and went out the door.

Joanna's heart sank. She had so wanted to ask Michael about the print. She felt herself move quickly toward the door, but as always over the past two years, could not cross that threshold to the outside world. Suddenly, the house was silent.

In a few minutes Hugo returned, went into the living room, sank down in an overstuffed, well-worn chair, leaned his head back and hummed along with Tex-somebody-or-other whose nasal tones filled the house. Joanna appeared holding a tray with three uncapped bottles of beer. Drinking was a nightly ritual for the tired, overworked farmer of the house.

"Thanks. What do you think of him?" He gulped down half of a bottle of beer‌ To be continued in our next issue

TOUGH LIT. VIII

(See Regis’s bio on p.33) IDEAGEMS

Authors’ Bios.

Rex Lee Applegate is retired from U.S. Customs where he excelled in the authorship of arcane government reports and memoranda. After two years teaching English and History, he began contract work related to his Customs background. This included a recently completed two year assignment with USAID in Afghanistan. His central writing project is a series of alternative history/time travel stories that indulge his passion for both history and science fiction. In addition, he is working on notes and vignettes that explore the experiences of American civilians working in Afghanistan.

Donna Krause resides in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA, with her husband and cat. She is a proud mother of three. Donna attended Gwynedd-Mercy College and graduated Cum Laude in Sociology and Social work. Donna has experience in the mental health field as a therapist. She is in tune with others’ needs, as she is a spiritual person. Donna is well-read in psychology and spiritually based books.

She writes poetry that centers on what inspires her in life. Donna is also an avid movie buff.

Janet B. Reed was born on a small chicken ranch in Canoga Park, CA. The ranch was not big, but the area was the home of many cowboy entertainers of the 40's and 50's. This gave Janet a wonderful playground to ride her sister's horse among movie sets and ranches.

Her husband managed multiple corporate ranches and farms in North Carolina. She continued with her education at university while raising three children in an environment that was diametrically opposite from her background as a child and young adult. An experienced horsewoman, Janet writes about all the wonderful and not so wonderful experiences she had while ranching and learning how to adjust to a completely different culture.

Barbara-Helene Smith has worked in academia, government, and the private sector. Her non-fiction articles have been published in peerreviewed scientific and professional journals. She discovered story telling after enrolling in a summer creative writing course. Fiction set her imagination free and she was hooked! An avid fan of mysteries, she can usually guess the outcome long before the book or television show ends. Inspired by intrigue, she uses her experiences from previous careers to plot suspense stories. “The Heist” is an excerpt from Death by Dysfunction, a mystery novel in progress.

Peter Patrikios was born in Philadelphia PA. Initially he had an interest in pursuing a medical degree. However, after one semester in medical school, he realized his true passion was acting. He has appeared on stage in Philadelphia and New York and has made several notable appearances in film and television. Learn more at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665952/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 Art and poetry have always been a passion for Pamela Burhoe. For her creativity is an amazing outlet. Pam considers herself a jack of all trades but master of none. Currently she is a biology student with a 4.0 average. Music, painting, writing, and sculpture will always be a part of her life. Pam has struggled through many obstacles and art has saved her by allowing her to express the feelings in her heart when sometimes she couldn't speak it or fully understand it.

Linda Barrett lives in Abington, Pa. in the same house for almost 50 years. She works as a service associate in a large supermarket and actively pursues writing as a lifelong passion. Writing spurs every moment of Linda’s waking life.

VOL 8, ISSUE 2

Lela de la Garza is 67 years old and has spent most of those years writing. She recently joined a wonderful writers' group which gave her the initiative to start sending her work out. Lela was born in Denver CO but has lived in Southwest Texas almost all her life.

Currently she resides in San Antonio, TX, with three-and-a-half cats.

Carol Francey lives in beautiful Victoria, B.C. with her boyfriend. The youngest of three children she was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1948.

She discovered the power of writing in Grade 2 when she anonymously observed an older child laughing at all the right places while reading her poetry posted in the hallway. She is a Simon Fraser University education grad social worker, now retired. She looks forward to studying and reading new fiction.

Charlie Canning taught English for 10 years at three different universities in Japan before enrolling in the PhD program in creative writing at the University of Adelaide. He has co-edited a collection of Japanese American literature, written an academic writing textbook, and published many articles and reviews. The 89TH Temple is his first novel. For more information about his second novel The Sign of Jonah and a memoir of spiritual experiences called The Butsudan, please visit the author website at: http://charliecanning.com/home.html.

Paul Karwowski was born and raised in New Jersey. After attending college, he served in the Navy on a flight crew in Patrol Squadron 26 in Brunswick. It was in Brunswick where he met his future wife Pinky (Margaret). After the service, they got married and eventually built a home in Topsham in 1971, where they raised two boys and a girl.

Paul and Pinky now have six wonderful grandchildren. Paul’s activities have included camping, white water canoeing, sailing, and golf. He started writing in the early 90's, but then golf and work took much of his time until his retirement from Bath Iron Works in 2010.

He then joined People Plus where he enjoys the Write On! group and ping pong along with his golf and family activities.

Timothy Bontempt is a professional long-term substitute teacher based in Columbiana County, Ohio, who has been writing short stories and novels for the past 15 years. An experienced broadcast engineer, computer technician, and bodybuilder, Mr. Bontempt is a collector of books and films who hopes someday to earn a steady living from the craft of writing.

Kira Larsen is a writer whose focus is on healing the human heart.

She explores the spaces the heart can create and the images within those spaces. Her poetry has been published twice in the college literary journal, Revisions. She holds a degree in Creative Writing.

This is her first published story. To learn more, read Kira’s blog: http://kirawrites.blogspot.com/ Harry Towne is 74 years old and has been living in Costa Rica where he taught English for 10 years, then retired 3 years ago. Harry was once active in community theater in Washington State and was a high school drama teacher for 12 years before moving overseas.

Other than journals, “The Mission” is Harry’s first writing effort.

Regis F. Boyle is 78 years old and from Toledo, Ohio. “Joanna” is his first serious attempt at writing fiction. Regis graduated from Toledo University after serving in the U.S. Army in the early 1950s. He later served as a police officer with the Toledo department for 9 years.

Leaving as a Detective Sergeant, he then went on to work as an FBI agent for 20 years, serving in 4 different states before retiring and taking up contract work with the CIA for another 15 years. Regis is now retired.

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