LEVITATE Magazine Issue 4 by LevitateMag

L EV I TAT E ISSUE 4

L E V I TAT E LI TERA RY M AG AZ IN E ©

Copyright © 2020 by LEVITATE Literary Magazine All rights to the material in this journal revert back to individual contributors after LEVITATE publication. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2020 LEVITATE Literary Magazine c/o Creative Writing Department The Chicago High School for the Arts 2714 W. Augusta Blvd. Chicago, IL 60622 www.levitatemagazine.org

LEVITATE accepts electronic submissions and publishes annually. For submission guidelines, please consult our website above. ii

2020 Staff Editors-in-Chief Jonah Weber and Israel Solis, Jr. Managing Editor Susanna Lang Lead Art Editor Emily Sanchez Lead Poetry Editor Caitlin Hubert Lead Prose Editor Daniela Morales Design Geoff Gaspord Contributing Poetry Editors Luca Favis, Claudia Gonzalez, Jocelyn Vertiz, Trinity Simmons-Brooks, Israel Solis Jr., Aiyana Alexa-Marie Thomas Contributing Prose Editors Samuel Nelson, Jonah Weber, Julian Zimianitis, Emily Sanchez Contributing Art Editors Trinity Simmons-Brooks, Israel Solis Jr., Aiyana Alexa-Marie Thomas Social Media Trinity Simmons-Brooks, Israel Solis Jr., Aiyana Alexa-Marie Thomas, Julian Zimianitis

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Table of Contents Art Emanuela Franco Jump on the Water 1 and 2 1 Stanislava Ivanova Water Lilies 13 Kelly Emmrich Forest Gal 14 Chris Lin Dao-Heng 盯 (Stare) 15 Megan Greene Paper Plane 16 Brett Stout In the Service of Boredom 32 Of Landscaping and Nightmares 33 Nancy Marshall Last Light at Leland Pond 34 Elena Rossato The Modern Thinker 35 William Staples Two Fish 43 Nalani Sexton Perturbation 44 Kacie Finnegan Collage 5 45 Leah McInnis Where Is the Beach? 46 Creative Nonfiction Paige Ferro A Clan of Large-Breasted Women 4 Arielle Schussler Ninja Assassin 21 Fiction Zach Murphy The Real HarMar Superstar 36 Sam Claussen Our Pastor 52 Poetry Curtis L. Crisler Fireflies on Interstate-30 2 Julia Aloi Lemon Squares 3 Eden Bailie old water 12 Hunter McLaren I’ve Known Circles Like You 17 Monikers 18 Emma Sloan Rupture 19 Zoé Nellum Photography 38 Run 39 Rachel Neve-Midbar Laundry 40 Riley Mayes omission 41 iv

Table of Contents ii Poetry (continued) Angelica Mercado-Ford The Other Mexico 42 Tashiana Seebeck Salvation Troupe 47 Kristin Gustafson silence: a decaying sestina 48 Nicole Scott Euphotic Zone 49 Michael Chin Round 51 Mehvish Rather Songs from Captivity: 15 August 2019 57 Pablo Otavalo Lift your lamp beside the golden door 58 Themed Dossier: Connections Jeff Hersch Time to Smile (Visual Art) 60 Alexis Groulx Consider the mosquito bites (Poem) 61 Belinda Nicoll Square Pegs (Fiction) 62 Gaby Bedetti Enchantment (Poem) 66 Nick Padron Up On the Roof (Fiction) 67 James Penha Junk (Fiction) 73 Miranda Campbell Sharing Flagler Beach (Creative Nonfiction) 81 David Spicer Secrets to a Long Life (Poem) 90 Russ Edney Beyond Beating Wings (Fiction) 92 Contributors’ Notes

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Jump on the Water 1 and 2 Emanuela Franco Diagonal photographic composition and black-and-white photos This image and the cover image are taken from the photojournalism project “Let’s Play,” which aims to record images of children playing in the streets of Brazil. “Let’s Play” reviews the games currently forgotten by most children who live in large cities. Rescuing the games of the past is fundamental in that society where new technologies invade everything. One of the focuses of the project is the social isolation of children living in large skyscrapers, locked up as a result of the expansion of urban violence. Answering certain questions to reflect on the importance of playing in the streets with friends: Are they still playing on the streets as in the past? What kind of games do children practice in the year 2020? Can it be compared how the children of the interior of Brazil played in 2006 and how they play in the year 2020?

Fireflies on Interstate-30 Curtis Crisler We all packed up, three cars deep to head into the darkness for Red Lobster, after my oldest niece graduated from Thea Bowman Leadership Academy. We waited too late, on CP time, so we had to wait for tables, for a buzzer to light red. The Heat play Spurs, game four. Outside, in parking lot, we amped up, fourteen folk strong—not counting other couples, families. The small niece wanted to race the middle niece—I-30 at their backs. Then, the oldest niece, Miss Graduate, kicks off her flips, and runs down middle sister. The breeze shoves our heads. Every face in the parking lot smiles at the sisters racing, knows how youth needs to howl under blue black magic sky. My family’s a bit loco, but this night shared the good side of crazy. I looked to my sister, who gave us three heavy-handed, sharp-tongued, reaching-for-things-beyond-Gary Indiana girls. “That’s why we push” rings throughout my head. That’s why I sizzle a smile towards my sister. My sister catches it, examines its intent— returns my smile with some heat on it. Since I was the only male in our house, I taught her to throw a tight spiral. How strange, she taught her girls to neon-light the dark. 2

Lemon Squares Julia Aloi You tie your hair up with a strand of white ribbon, a wooden spoon in the clutch of your spare hand, as you blow the excess powdered sugar from the counter, forming granulated clouds in the sweet air. I gather the lemon rinds into small peaks and rearrange them into circles and scatter them again and again and again and you glance over and tell, not ask, me to stop. As I am scraping off the yellow bits from behind my fingers, scrubbing my nail beds until they are raw and red and opened, I begin to wonder if you ever made lemon peel mountains as a child and what your mother would have thought of them.

A Clan of Large-Breasted Women Paige Ferro I come from a clan of large-breasted women. They run in the family. Huge boobs, that is. No one in my family runs that much. Our figures are not conducive to running. I tried for a time, but the feel of my fun-bags swinging and shimmying in the wind took all the fun out of it. I did enjoy watching the other women running at my gym, their tits bouncing in brightly colored spandex. I don’t buy new bras often enough. Big tatas run in the family. My knockers hit when I was in fifth grade, and they brought with them whirlwind emotions and a lot of crying and body odor and unsightly hair that I didn’t realize had to be shaved so very often. My breasts were a pain the minute they sprung through. Literally, pain. Such a foreign sensation, growing breasts. A dull ache of skin and muscle and then all of a sudden, where there was nothing, there is something. Tender, sensitive little knobs in the middle of my chest, a swelling under my shirt that jutted my nipples forward, suddenly prominent, noticeable, embarrassing. And something even worse than embarrassing: wicked, inappropriate, bad. Something to be concealed, covered up, hidden from prying eyes and curious glances. My body betrayed me in fifth grade and I never forgave it. I was one of the first young women in my grade to sprout. My breasts came in hard and fast. By the time I was in high school I was a DD cup. All the boys noticed. They never didn’t notice. I couldn’t escape any attention—on all sides of me, people looking at me, eyeing me up. So much packed into those glances! Jealousy, fear, love, hate. Desire. Greed. Expectation. I was only eleven. I was only fifteen. What did I know of the world, yet? Something instilled in me before birth, something no one prepared me for: being a woman. The pain almost knocked me to my knees as I walked the dusty schoolyard with my friends. We were in our last year of elementary school. A group of boys ran past and jabbed at us with their poky elbows, jeering, snickering, pushing, showing us how much they liked us with their torments. The pain was quick, fast, sharp—a blow landed just right on my chest; an easy target. I couldn’t breathe around the pain, around the yelp welling in my throat, around the snot clogging my nose. I tried not to choke on my own phlegm. Keep quiet, my inner self hissed. If the boys found out they’d made you cry, they’d just come back for more. Love hurt back then, when pushing a girl to the gravel meant you liked her, and if her knees skinned and her tights ripped open then you were in love. You proved your love with her blood. 4

This was expected. There were parts to be played here. This was normal. This was how our world worked. Little girls told to stand in rows to be inspected, pushed, prodded, our edges tested and pinched to see where and how we might fill out. Young boys with grubby fingers and hidden fears who could not cry on the playground lest they be labelled “crybaby” and later, “pussy.” This is what we were taught, with words and without them. Watching our older selves through the mirrors of our siblings, our parents. How were we to know this is not how love works? It was all we saw. So much of what I knew about how to be a proper young woman was speculation. The most basic, innate parts of being a young woman, of being a girl, were the parts no one talked about. And it only got worse as we got older. I missed the day at school, in fifth grade, that reproduction and sex and puberty and changing bodies were finally explained. I had one chance to see The Movie, and I missed it and fell in love instead when I met the young girl who would grow up to become my first girlfriend. I was in a during-school program designed for “the smart kids”—the ones who could fill in little white ovals on standardized tests the best. I am sure there was more to it than that. It was more to me than that—I was made to feel special once a week. I wouldn’t have given that up for anything. Someone, some kind of benchmark telling me I’m worth it? Yes. I dove right in. Every Wednesday, a boy in my grade and I were taken by bus to meet and do projects with the other students in the program, who came from schools all across town. That was where I met Hera. We were in third grade. She didn’t immediately recognize me six years later when we met again at a mutual friend’s house, but we reacquainted ourselves and that night, on New Year’s Day, at 12:01 a.m. in a field in the valley, she was my first kiss. All of us, my six friends and me, running through the snow in our underwear and I turned around and asked her to kiss me. And it was perfect, and it hurt, too, because all love hurts, it turns out. But in fifth grade I was not so worried about girls as much as I was preoccupied with boys, and with the unfamiliar terrain of my new body. It was a death sentence to me to have missed such a pivotal step to adulthood as seeing The Movie, as finding answers to the questions I couldn’t and wouldn’t ask out loud. My friends had to tell me about it later, after I came back to school. I tried not to appear too eager. I had to listen apathetically. Everyone treated The Movie with airs of disinterest, disdain. Inside, we were all begging to finally know what this body odor and hair and hooters stuff was all about, and why, oh God, why was it happening to us? The Movie was actually two separate movies, my friends told me: one for the girls, and one for the boys. Projectors were brought out, the students 5

divided. The male gym teacher was elected to monitor the boys. Familiar faces came onscreen: the twin sisters Tia and Tamera from the sit-com Sister, Sister. They smiled with their big white teeth and used their hands as they talked, sweeping tan palms in supposedly reassuring circles. Any comfort provided by seeing a friendly, recognizable face to help navigate the unfamiliar road ahead quickly dissipated as the twins started talking about things that at first made you giggle, then gag, and then just stare. So many things happening all at once! These changes in our bodies they were talking about were already taking place. The Movie was too little too late for many of the young girls in my class—myself included. Already I had had to explain away a pair of crumpled, rust-stained pants shoved into the corner of my closet. The look on my mother’s face as she carried the pants to the trash only confirmed what I already knew: this was dirty, dangerous stuff we were dealing with here. The aching, swelling breasts my mother hurried to hide on me with a training bra, two white cotton triangles that chafed my nipples; the swelling in my stomach I felt around the young boys on the playground, and some of the girls; the ache I felt that told me feeling that way about girls was wrong. I never initiated talking about my body if I didn’t have to. I couldn’t take that look on my mother’s face again—disappointment. I hid and ignored as much as I could. Our teachers never acknowledged or warned us about The Movie but the other students did. Older brothers and sisters mocked our ignorance, our youth, our naivety. The embarrassment of it, of us. They pitied our positions from atop their thrones of knowledge, forgetting all too soon they had been the ignorant ones before. We heard rumors that The Movie would be playing before it was actually announced. I approached my teacher before the bus came that day and asked if I shouldn’t stay at school. My teacher assured me that she had no knowledge of The Movie playing that day, and that even if it did and I missed it, it didn’t really matter because hadn’t my mom already explained everything I needed to know about “that stuff?” No, she hadn’t. But I didn’t say that. My whole body lit up with a sweltering, itching blush. What could I say? I knew nothing. Admitting so was not an option; the teacher would think I was lying, would think I was dirty, would think that I wanted to watch more dirty things and see this movie, this naughty movie. I stammered that yes, of course, Mom had told me everything! I was just checking in. I boarded the bus with the lie gnawing at my insides. It wasn’t the first lie I’d ever told. I was already proficient at it. But this one felt big—what was I missing? Ignorance, the route I’d so often taken before regarding these 6

matters of the body, in this case was anything but bliss. Would my ignorance, this time, get me killed? My body was already attacking itself in every which way—which of these ways were normal, expected? Which were signs I was already dying? I wouldn’t know until it was too late. How did I get there, on that bus? Standardized tests, little blue booklets of math, reading, pictures, problem-solving, that we, the second-grade students, were to go through and answer to the best of our capabilities. My classmates groaned in exasperation as the teacher led us through the instructions. They threw up their skinny arms over their faces, mouths agape, they flopped themselves over the backs of their chairs, miming death, struck down by the inanity and burden of the task. I relished the entire testing thing. Teacher passed out special blue pencils for us, two of them, an extra to use if the tip of one broke. We were to raise our hands politely if both pencils proved unusable, but we were not to leave our chairs, not even to grind our own pencils. Teacher would do this for us, or better yet, would provide us with entirely fresh ones, as many as we liked, because these pencils were I started young lying about special, and these tests were special, and we had to fill them out the spe- what I knew of that world, cial way as Teacher instructed, the and from there it seemed I delicate ovals of the pages thick and dark with graphite, none of could never stop. Could not it spilling outside the circle. The stop hating my body for its tense, precise rules and timeline of every betraying function. the whole experience delighted and terrified me. The testing went on like this for two days; instructions and pencils handed out at the start, a break in the middle for snack, then lunch, tests delicately filed away. A few weeks later, I was taken, along with a handful of other students, downstairs to a back room in the school basement, the room where my Girl Scouts troop met sometimes, for more testing, different tests. Those tests distinguished the final two students from the masses: myself and a boy from the other class. Every week we embarked on special adventures: dissecting cow eyeballs, flying in tiny planes, researching and building dioramas of endangered species. Through this program I met Hera. We were standing around architectural blueprints and mock-ups to help us create a utopian city. I fell in love with her then and there, but I had no words for the feeling. Only a glow when I looked at her. She was certainly the biggest lie I’d told. Sex and love and all that came with were always big lies for me; I started young lying about what I knew of 7

that world, and from there it seemed I could never stop. Could not stop hating my body for its every betraying function. Could not stop the flush on my face as I looked at Hera. Could not stop the sparks I felt between my legs as I straddled and grinded on the large knot of fraying rope that acted as a swing dangling from the wooden play fort in my backyard. Had I known what I was doing, perhaps it would have scared me away from it, from such obviously naughty pleasure-seeking. But I had no idea what was happening then. My classmates had learned all about masturbation, and I stood and lied when my teacher asked, was I up to speed? “Yeah,” I said, face flushed red with guilt and misery and panic. “Mom has told me about…that stuff.” The lie pushed its way out of my boiling body and from my mouth and then it was gone, out there, said, and I could do nothing. I boarded the bus like I did every week and even then, the gym teacher was wheeling two black glinting TVs down the hallway, separating the boys from the girls, dividing us, to be conquered by all we did not know. My mind raced the whole day. What was going on back at school? This was something important and I was missing out and I had no idea how to tell my mother that I was missing it, or how much that scared me. I had already seen hints of what was yet to come for me through my sisters. I knew I had reason to be afraid. I looked up from my book one night in time to see my mother pull my sister into the second bathroom, closing the door most of the way behind them. I knew a secret meeting when I saw one. Through the crack in the door I watched as my mother opened the top bathroom cabinet and reached up on tiptoes to grab something from the very top shelf. A crinkly bag, like the kind you got at the dentist with the new floss and toothbrush and little toy you’d picked from the drawer as reward for not biting anyone that day. This bathroom was where people went to do and say and feel things they didn’t want seen or heard or noticed in my family. Both bathrooms in our house were on the same floor, the middle level, with all the bedrooms. We had only three stairs separating the ground floor from the middle floor but technically my childhood home was four stories, basement to attic. This bathroom was known as the second bathroom because it was the one around the corner. The other was directly up the stairs from the main living room. Even though the second bathroom was the one closest to the bedrooms, it was probably the openness of the first bathroom that disqualified its candidacy for the clandestine. The second bathroom was where my parents showered together before they got divorced, where my mother went to cr y after the 8

divorce, and where the “supplies” (pads, tampons, menstrual relief) were kept before all male presence left the house. The stuff that needed to be tucked away, this bathroom was where we tucked it. I spied on my sister’s initiation into the world of womanhood and I marveled at the cloak-and-dagger scheming it required. There were whispers and furrowed brows as bits of cardboard-wrapped cotton and wrappers that crinkled like candy were pulled out, one by one, examined, and then replaced. A few months after I’d missed the showing of The Movie played at school, I underwent the womanhood rites, pulled into the bathroom by my mother and handed a bag of goodies I didn’t want. A training bra to capture my new buds. Pads, pulled apart and then delicately put back in their wrappings after demonstration of their use. Tampons I wouldn’t experience until much later, my first time swimming when on my period. My mother had to help me insert the foreign matter and I was told how exceedingly lucky I was to have a plastic applicator versus a cardboard one. I had only to deal with that horror sparingly—the cardboard ones never went in right the first time, but had to be applied again and again, the ring of cardboard getting gummy, red, thick with musk and shame. I don’t remember what my mother told me about my body, about sex, about the nature of the period and why it happened. I don’t remember, but whatever it was that was said did not instill within me a confidence about the whole thing. Our bathroom tryst was kept nice and short. My mother may have sensed my panic, seen it written on my face, or perhaps she was such a seasoned veteran that she nailed The Talk in under five minutes, never really mentioning biology or organs or God or the more unsavory bits about my bits. Each previous time when I’d had some sort of “women’s” questions or concerns, like in third grade when I discovered a tiny, perfect red pimple on my mound and I poked delicately at it with the tip of my fingernail and it broke open, I went trudging to my mother, sure that this was something that should be divulged and certain it was not something I wanted her to know about. Within the next week, I was whisked to the doctor and climbed carefully onto the crinkling white paper that stuck to my sweaty palms and tore. The doctor carefully explained how common this was: something about clogged follicles, puberty, but I didn’t hear beyond the prognosis that I was fine. I wasn’t dirty (much) even though I was warned not to touch the red bumps. (I never listened, then, or into my teens or twenties.) The doctor distilled all the information directly to my mother, handed her white information sheets which she stowed in her bulging black purse. We left the office 9

and went to Albertsons, where my mother let me pick out chicken tenders and coleslaw for lunch, and then I went back to school clutching the warm, crispy battered chicken, relieved to be done with that. I remained cautious and wary around my mother the days after, lest I do something wrong again and she point to my recent past indiscretions to use them against me now. I felt the same way standing there in the bathroom two years later, letting my mother’s information wash over me, not hearing a word beyond the roar in my ears, the pounding of blood blazing in my face. I could only nod mutely and hand back the crinkly bag to be stowed again in the bathroom cupboard. I accepted everything that was said as truth, point-blank. I’m fairly certain my sister had a lot more questions. My reticence may have stemmed from attempts at self-preservation from the embarrassment of it all. Sex and blood and periods were not something we were supposed to talk about in good company, and that lesson was instilled so firmly in me that I refused to rewrite the rules even for my mother, even if it was for my own good. I don’t remember talking to my mother about sex or birth control. I don’t remember my first period, though I remember seeing the evidence carted away. I don’t remember talking to my mother or anyone else in my clan of large-breasted women regarding problems so common among us all. I suffered through them all alone, unwilling to the end to reveal just how alone and scared I was. I do remember my new breasts coming in, how it hurt, how itchy was the training bra that other girls in my class were so thrilled to wear. I remember the white-hot panic that overtook me on the playground when a group of boys walked by and one reached out his grubby hand and latched on to the back of my bra, pulling it away and releasing it with a snap that resonated across the basketball court. The clasp holding the whole thing together came apart and I felt my pudgy breasts come loose, swinging. I clutched at my chest and raced for the steps to the locked school doors. The doors were always locked at recess, to prevent kids from coming back in and running amuck, but the janitor inside mopping must have seen something in my face—my eyes wide, brimming with tears of equal self-loathing and loathing for the boys who did this to me, mouthing silently, pleading with him through the pane of glass. He let me in and I ran to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and tried to wrestle myself back into the contraption. The salt from my eyes dried my lips and made them crack. My lips are always chapped. The full mysteries of womanhood unveiled themselves to me slowly. Rarely did I go seeking answers or insight from trusted sources like my mother, or my doctor. I instead turned to my friends to fill in the gaps. This 10

was my attempt to figure things out on my own and not subject myself to the embarrassment and even guilt I felt when talking about such unsavory topics. Having no outlet through which to convey my fears and uncertainties about what was going on in my young body, I was constantly afraid that whatever it was could not be good and it surely meant I was going to die. Since that was obviously the only explanation for why my breasts hurt and why I was bleeding so much, from everywhere it seemed, I decided to spare my mother as long as I could. Any unfamiliar pain in my breasts could only be breast cancer, of course, and the introduction of routine breast self-exams suggested by my doctor only propagated this idea, as when I fondled myself ungracefully and with an air of great disgust and guilt, I would find lumps and bumps in one breast that I couldn’t be sure were in the other. How I hated touching my breasts, feeling them squish in my hands! How I longed to know if the other girls’ tits felt that strange, that loose and heavy in their hands, in my hands. I envied the other girls’ tiny buds—perky, round, cup-able. I coveted them. I wanted them. I couldn’t want them. It was wrong. All of this was all wrong. I strapped myself back into my bra and pulled my shirt over my head and huddled in bed, crying, satisfying myself with visions of me dying young, bald, and lonely, blaming the God that ever cursed women with such terrible afflictions as breasts, vaginas, and wide hips, and with them a whole onslaught of terror: cramps, headaches, bloating, pregnancy, stares, and that terrible burning glow in my stomach I got when I stared at other girls. These were the kinds of things you couldn’t admit—this was the weakness that came with womanhood. Pain, panic, humiliation—this was life, now. Snapped bra straps, and breasts that came in too fast, and a pair of pants rolled up in the corner of the closet that I didn’t remember staining, and tissue paper stuffed into my panties and bits of the paper falling out to the gym floor because I’d forgotten a pad that day and none of my friends had yet bloomed and I was too embarrassed by the natural cycles of my body to ask the gym teacher for help. This was the stuff you didn’t talk about. This was being a woman.

old water Eden Bailie i’d gotten used to slow things: solitude, vegetation breaking down, glass panes thinning but i went west and hit pavement cracked by earthquakes and agave plants spitting out yellow seeds into heat that made hair go gray and curl like week-old sage taken from the desert and brought back to burn. and then back again, slowly, feeling my burnt skin peel around new jewelry and shed an old self glad to return to small things, bright eyes; salmon with silver bellies against the current that leads to dirty, hot water and is made clear, and still, returning as the snow that falls in powder and silences the pines, over the horses that stand like ink in puddles of cream.

Water Lilies Stanislava Ivanova Acrylics on canvas My work focuses on the contrast between urban life and nature. I am inspired by concrete walls overgrown by ivy and tree branches, train underpasses covered in graffiti and grass, a strong New York summer rainstorm beating against my window, the decaying Red Hook warehouses, tiny alleys, and the way the air smells on the first few days of September. It is my aim to create paintings that bring a moment of serenity and calm to the viewer. The cycle of creation and destruction is important to my work, as is the constant growth and rebirth that nature promises to us.

Forest Gal Kelly Emmrich Digital paint, Photoshop I am an illustrator and animator whose drawings and animations explore the interactions and emotions of colors and the absence of color. I work primarily digitally using Photoshop and a Wacom Intuos drawing tablet. My hikes in the forest behind my house inspired my current black-and-white texture collection.

盯 (Stare) Chris Lin Dao-Heng Typographical design 盯 stands for “to stare” or “to gaze.” It can be an introspective or a hateful stare, but never loving. My typographical design work documents my progress of re-learning Mandarin Chinese, primarily a logographic letterform. I illustrate the character’s meanings and properties by turning the attention to its radicals and phone-semantic compounds, resulting in a nonliteral and experiential picture that can be felt.

Paper Plane Megan Greene Colored pencil drawing and collage “Paper Plane” is one of my recent drawings, made using smooth and often dense layers of colored pencil, as well as collage. Each work in this series forms a closed universe, of orbs and waves, radiance and refraction. Lines interweave, bend, and probe; shapes echo and fold. My aim is to create a sense of phenomena, illogical yet precise and convincing.

I’ve Known Circles Like You Hunter McLaren on Wednesdays when I fix my pointer finger into the middle of your ripe and spiteful palm, a key in a flesh lock, unsafety opens easily for our company. on Saturdays when you drink from my mouth, careful to avoid the angelfish swimming in there, dividing up lip waters with tooth and scale rowboats. on Mondays when we crucify our bodies on humming telephone poles, making new religions every time we say fuck, this is how we pray, I’ve swallowed retribution for you. on Fridays when my mattress gets flung up straight with other mattresses, we let gravity pull them, big voiceful dominos. I regret dragging home a new mattress. When one week eats the other like Eden’s snake connecting with its own tail, circles have no edges, like you have no edges. When we turn the hourglass on its side so the sand lies arrested.

Monikers Hunter McLaren I was born from anagrams. Violent rearrangements of poltergeists I’d already been, places I’d already bled. I was born from ellipses, insisting spaces littered with trophies I once owned, blank nostalgias I keep missing. I was born from spliced sentences and bruised letters, breathless doves spelling out my past in the clouds, beetles clicking in the dips of my collar bone. Reminding me of the anagrams, how I’m meant to fit them together so they can sing again. Tavern servant, night thing, danger garden, drapes spread—skinning hares to spell out warnings in the snow with connecting pelts. I was born from languages that knot my tongue and crush my windpipe. It’s been known that I’ll vomit up curses when I drink too much—sometimes I drink too much. Secure rescue, spare pears, stone notes, spool loops—it’s all the same. Tricks of the tongue, mother mouth birthing me at every opening close.

Rupture Emma Sloan I’ve hoarded this story in my mouth for months. The words clot behind my teeth. Every time I write this it swallows itself whole in a new way. How easy it is, I think, to make a woman waking up under a new ceiling a study in flippancy. To make the exposé of their entangled limbs— her palms sliding slick up the second language of his chest, the threadbare leather of the couch creasing under their combined weight— the butt of a joke we all laugh at together. Dear so and so, I could write, hope you’re doing well. My condolences that your girlfriend is a cunt. Quick, painless. A shot we take with salt and lime and throw up later, our wet cheeks pressed to the sharp wool of the bathroom rug. Dear so and so, I could write, this ache is one I’ve carried for too long, because I was too sad to place it at your feet. I had dreams about my teeth falling out all September. It just hurt to think that every story is about being left and not the person leaving. Dear so and so, I should write, I think what I’m trying to say is, I am sorry that it took me this long to realize that our lovers could drop the memory of us 19

from a second-story window and not one person in the crowd would try to catch it.

Ninja Assassin Arielle Schussler Her fiancé liked to say that if a ninja were hired to assassinate her, she would never see him coming. If a ninja were hired to assassinate anyone, she would reply, no one would see him coming. Therein lies the appeal of a ninja assassin. If anyone whistling, dragging sleigh bells, and wielding a live chainsaw was coming after you, her fiancé would revise, you would never see him coming. She would shrug and relent. So what? she said. There is no ninja assassin. You will not survive this world, he would say. No one does, she would say back. *** Her fiancé had a strategy when eating at a restaurant. She never fought his inclinations, as unnecessary as she thought they were, because the seating arrangement meant so much to him. Much more than it did her. He had to sit facing the door, in a maneuverable position. He would never sit on the inside of a booth. He always had to sit on the outside, even if his dominant left hand would bump against her dominant right as they ate. Around the time they first started dating, he told her that the back panel of his backpack was bulletproof. Who is going to shoot at you? she asked. Are you Jimmy Hoffa after a Nicholas Cage/John Travolta-esque Face-Off operation? Are you actually a Monacan prince? Do I get to be Grace Kelly? You never know who or what is out there, he said. You have to be prepared. He carried a knife or two everywhere he went to “to be prepared.” She never understood any of it. Being prepared to her was coming to class on time, having read the previous class’s assignment. It was coming to barbecues armed with veggie burgers because she knew most people wouldn’t account for vegetarians at their meat-centered celebrations. It was coming to an interview having done the research about the company and the position and trying to remind herself that certain words should not come up during the interview—even if the interviewer asked what her past coworkers had said about her customer 21

service abilities and even if her old coworker actually did say that she was so customer-service-oriented, she would suck the customer’s cock if he asked her to (something she did divulge once while interviewing at a children’s toy store). That was being prepared to her. It was not carrying a knife. It was not having a bulletproof backpack. It was not sitting on the outside of restaurant booths facing the door. *** Five months after she moved in with the man who would later become her fiancé, she started talking to her ex-boyfriend again. They were together for four years, on and off. It had not been a healthy relationship. He had told her that her mind was broken. He had told her that her body was broken. She couldn’t let go of him. He couldn’t let go of her. Eventually, she did let him go—but she was never good at cutting people out of her life. She worried about him. She invited him over to her new home. The man that would later become her fiancé was not happy. He did not like her ex knowing where they lived. He took one of the knives he normally kept in his pocket and placed it behind the Blu-Ray player. If anything happens, he said. Remember: Slash. Don’t stab.

Nothing happened. ***

Whenever she passes construction workers on the road directing traffic, she waves at them. Thank you, she mouths behind the windshield of her car. They smile back. She doesn’t envy their job—the weather hot, drivers’ tempers even hotter. She wants them to know she appreciates their patience and their hard work. She thinks it is important that they know that she knows they are human. That they know they are being seen. She doesn’t think much of it until one day she drives her friend to the store and her friend witnesses the wave. I love that you wave, her friend says. Her heart soars. *** 22

She moved a lot as a child. Seven elementary schools in three different states and two different countries. It was hard on her. She could never fit in—her clothes, her interests, her language. She could barely communicate. The topic of basic sentence construction seemed to be covered at any particular school while she was at another. She was never anywhere long enough to connect the gaps in her education. It was hard for her to connect with people. She never knew what to say or how to say it. She would try to make friends, blend into circles of girls in her peer group, but she couldn’t. The girls knew she was a fraud. They humored her during lunch and during classes, but when it came time for afterschool social activities, she was never invited. So she drew. She knew how to draw pretty well. She drew to keep herself busy, to keep herself company, and later, she drew to connect with others. She didn’t need to know how to speak the language to communicate. They would come to her for her art. And no matter how ridiculous the request, she would draw for them: owls, dogs, Disney characters, Pokémon creatures, paper dolls, romance comics. When she was overseas, she learned how to quick-doodle Donald Duck. Her peers would bring blank pieces of paper to her, and she would turn out a portrait like a machine: first, a squiggly line for the opening of the beak, then, the beak’s outline, two ovals for eyes…she could complete a Donald Duck in fifteen seconds flat. But she prolonged the process, slowing the trailing of her pencil across the paper, stretching time as long as she could. She knew that they came for the Donald Duck—not for her. She knew they would leave after she was done. She wanted to hold on to them as long as she could. But the difference would amount to seconds, not minutes. Then she would be alone once again. She hated being alone. Being alone meant you weren’t worthy of someone else’s time. She promised herself that she would never make someone feel unworthy like that. Everyone deserved to feel worthy. *** She was at a Welcome event for the incoming Philosophy majors at UC Berkeley. There were crackers and cheese and wine and students and professors. She was always bad at this kind of thing. After awkwardly saying hello to a couple of her professors and fellow classmates, she wandered over to the cheese and crackers and tried to busy herself. The food table was safe. Crackers were safe. Cheese was safe. 23

She met an older man’s gaze, and he walked across the room to her. He held out his hand and introduced himself by name. She shook it, flustered. Of course she knew who he was. Everyone in the department did. Most students matriculated just to study with him. Later when she recounted the story to the man who would become her fiancé (a fellow Philosophy major at UC Berkeley), his mouth gaped open in surprise. That professor hates interacting with his students, and he hates going to those kinds of events. There are so many stories of fans and students trying to engage with him, and he turns around to go in the opposite direction, pretending not to see them. You’re telling me he just came to you and introduced himself? Yes, she said. Held out his hand and everything. I thought you said you never took any of his classes? Not a single one. *** If a man on the side of the road dared to maintain eye contact for too long, her best female friend would redirect both of them across the street. She never understood. How can you see someone looking unless you are looking first? And how can anyone read the language of a gaze? What if people are just lonely? she wondered. Sometimes people are lonely. She knew being lonely. *** She took AP Art in high school and put together a series of acrylic paintings, each on oblong canvases with colorful skyscapes and a single faceless, long-limbed creature. Always alone. When her pieces were on display, she liked to watch people look at her work, and she knew they knew what she was painting. She knew that they were lonely too. A couple of people asked if they could buy her pieces. She said no. Instead, she gave them away—to her boyfriend of four years, to her parents, to her friends. When she and her boyfriend of four years broke up, she considered asking him for her painting back. It was her favorite. But she didn’t. She worried that he had thrown it away. 24

*** She would go to her mother’s apartment at least once a week for dinners on Fridays. Even when she was at school in UC Berkeley, she would drive out in her bright blue Mustang at the height of rush hour and try to make it before the sun set. There was a man in her She didn’t want him to feel mother’s apartment building, an older man, who liked to stand out- uncomfortable or embarside and smoke late at night. She rassed, and her heart sank. would pass him as she came and She thought he actually liked went, always acknowledging his her—as a person. presence with a smile or a hello. He started to engage her more in conversation with each passing through. He knew her mother, he said. He asked about her schooling. Her life. Her relationships. She liked making connections. She liked saying hello to him. She liked feeling worthy of his time. She thought he was lonely. One night, he embraced her and kissed her, his wet mouth wide open, sucking on her jaw as she instinctively turned her head away from him. She tried to pull away without arising suspicion. She didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable or embarrassed, and her heart sank. She thought he actually liked her—as a person. She didn’t want to say hello to him anymore after that. She would circle around the block if she saw him outside by the apartment building door, but he knew her car. He would try to walk out and stop her. She would try to find back ways through the building to avoid him. Sometimes she would arrive late to dinner. Her sister didn’t like him. He’s creepy, her sister said. And he is always asking about you. She stopped seeing him around the building as she started visiting her mother at different times. The night her mother moved out, her fiancé mentioned him for the first time in what must have been years by then. “Do you remember that old man? I saw him tonight, standing outside by the gym windows. He was watching the women run.” *** Before she meets the man who would later become her fiancé, she is friends with a boy who looks like a man—tall, blue eyes, with a 25

military-mandated haircut. They meet in an art history class, where they learned about Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. He is nice to her and drives her to school because she got into a car accident, and her car is gone. She walks with him in the park by her home one day. He looks at the green grass and the green trees and the blue skies and turns to her and asks what she would do if he tried to rape her. She keeps walking, trying not to miss a beat. She doesn’t know how to respond. She doesn’t. Years later, after he demands that she take off her shirt in his car while she is in tears talking about her home life, after he yells at her for not wanting to come with him to the Marine Corps Ball, after he tells her he doesn’t like the man who will later become her fiancé, he texts her while she is getting ice cream with a friend and asks her if she would care if he committed suicide. She texts him back and says of course she would care. She doesn’t want him to feel alone. *** Once when she was still single, she brought her journal to coffee with a male acquaintance, a potential date. Inside the bound book was a collection of diary entries, but also watercolor portraits, inked sketches, and saved mementos—old ticket stubs, photobooth print-outs, hand-written cards from friends, each carefully arranged. She was proud of her work. She believed it was the quickest way into seeing her, to connecting. She gingerly offered him a peek. He flipped the pages, never really looking at them. His eyes always strayed back to her—her face, her neck, her lips. He smiled at her crookedly. He licked his lips. He handed her book back. She tucked her journal into her satchel. *** A member of her cohort was new in town, and this was her home. She read all of the graduate student profiles before she went to orientation, and was intrigued that he had won some sort of contest. She was new to writing. She had a lot to learn. She offered to show him around town—since she knew it so well and since she had been the new girl at school multiple times in her life. She knew how hard it was to be somewhere new and start all over again. He tried to pay for their food. She allowed him to pay for dessert. She discovered that his birthday was in the next couple of weeks, and 26

she felt bad. She always believed birthdays were important. She didn’t want him to be alone on his birthday. She helped organize a get-together with the department so that he wouldn’t be alone. She attended, knowing that she had an event after. She warned him that she would leave a little early. He drank a lot. He accused her of avoiding sitting near him. He got angry when she chose to talk to someone else. He yelled at her to leave the party. He sent her text messages all night. You may not know what I am capable of, he wrote. But you will find out. He apologized the next morning. I was drunk, he said. I was lonely and sad and in a new place, and it was my birthday. And you were so nice to me. I am so sorry. She accepted his apology. Sometimes circumstances get the best of people. She didn’t want to make school awkward. A month passed. Everything seemed ok. He asked to meet so that they could discuss a writing exercise. She said sure, that he should meet her at her place and that they would drive together. She drove him to get a Pizookie—something they didn’t have in Tennessee where he was from. He drank two beers. She tried to talk about the assignment. He told her to break up with her fiancé. She told him it was time to go home. He finished his drinks. She drove him back to his car. He wouldn’t leave her car. She filled the space with words. He didn’t move. She tried to make him laugh. He tried to kiss her. She moved her face. He wouldn’t get out of the car. She offered to drive him home. He wouldn’t get out of the car. She offered to take him to BART. He wouldn’t get out of the car. She offered to call him an Uber. He wouldn’t get out of the car. She asked him to leave the car. He eventually did. His eyes never left hers. 27

She came home crying to her fiancé. Her fiancé locked all of the doors. He looked out the windows, shut them, and pulled down the blinds. Her fiancé asked her why she told him where she lived. Her fiancé asked that she stopped giving out her address to people. Her fiancé checked on the two locked black crates in the closet. Her fiancé checked to see if the keys were where he had left them. *** Her fiancé tries to take her to the range with him. They are in the house, her fiancé says. You need to know how to use them. I don’t think someone who is uncomfortable with them should shoot them, she says. You won’t get comfortable until you get used to them. I don’t want to get used to them. I don’t need to get used to them. You need to be prepared, he says. If I were a woman, I would want to be prepared.

Being prepared for her was not this. It was not learning how to shoot a gun.

And she never does shoot a gun. Not even when her fiancé buys boxes of ammunition, pays for their tickets into the range, purchases targets, and buys her the mandated goggles and earplugs. She watches him shoot the guns. They stay at the range for hours, the boom of gunpowder, bullets, and shattering targets splintering her ears. Her interest, low to begin with, completely depletes. She eventually leaves to nap in the car. He continues to shoot as she sleeps. *** Her fiancé buys her pepper spray after she tells him that not only will she not learn to shoot a gun, she won’t carry a knife either. The pepper spray will fit in your purse, he says. He wants to prepare her for the ninja assassin attack. She always leaves the pepper spray at home. She doesn’t want it leaking on her journal. 28

*** It is her first real college party. She is single for the first time in four years—after four years of being told she was broken, after she decided that it wasn’t her that was broken. She made friends in the theater department. The people are nice and fun. They invited her to the party. She never really drank before. She goes to the party and has six shots. Seven shots. Maybe eight. She runs around the party smiling and giggling and hugging everyone. Giggle giggle through the living room. Giggle giggle through the kitchen. Giggle giggle up and down the stairs. Everything is funny. The world is silly. Then she crashes. She begins to cry. She doesn’t know why. She lies down on a couch and cries. Three men come. One sits by her head. One stands behind the back of the couch. One sits by her legs. What’s going on? says the one by her head. A hand begins to rub her leg. I don’t know, she says. The hand travels upwards. Are you okay? says the one behind the couch. No, she says. The hand is past her thigh. Tell us what’s wrong, says the one by her feet. Fingers move aside her underwear. Please just go and leave me alone, she says.

She squirms.

The next day, she tells the friends that were at the party. They shrug. She doesn’t bring it up again. ***

Years after she graduated from UC Berkeley, her sister messaged her on Facebook. Did you hear about the Philosophy Professor at Berkeley? her sister said. He is being sued for groping one of his students. She didn’t have to ask which Philosophy Professor at Berkeley. 29

She knew.

She later shares the story with a former classmate. He responds: It is unfortunate in that his behavior, assuming this is true, also tarnishes his intellectual strands of thought. She thinks of the man who wouldn’t get out of her car, and she looks him up. He became a high school teacher. She thinks of his female students. She wonders when a link will be shared with her. She should have found a way to stop it. She blames herself. *** One night she is at a dinner with her fiancé and another couple, at the other couple’s house. After a dinner of boxed pasta and then a dessert of boxed cake, they talk about what they would do in the case of a zombie apocalypse. This is not a new conversation—they’ve had it before. Her fiancé and the other man and woman all own guns. They all know she doesn’t. They all know she hasn’t even shot one. They begin to mentally stockpile weapons. She is quiet, spearing the crumbs on her dessert plate with a fork. Boxed cake is a shame, she thinks. There’s no art in boxed cake. They turn to her. Wouldn’t you want a gun? the other man asks her. At least one. You would need to defend yourself. Prepare yourself. She shrugs. What did you say the last time? asks the other woman. You were going to live in a tree? A cave. She was going to live in a cave, says the other man, laughing. Oh right! And you were going to paint the cave! the other woman laughs even harder. Paint the cave! What are you going to eat? How would you take care of yourself? She shrugs. So what? she says. There is no zombie apocalypse. You would die, says the other man. You wouldn’t survive that world. She thinks of her paintings, the doodled Donald Ducks, the drawings of owls, the dogs, Disney characters, Pokémon creatures, paper dolls, 30

romance comics. Her creations. Her carefully braided ropes of connection. She knew that her art was still out there in the world, whether displayed proudly in a home or in lying in a garbage ditch. What mattered was that the art was out there, and that people knew, either for the briefest of moments when they received the piece (before disposing of it) or for a longer moment when their eyes would stray to it as they stared at the walls or when they went through the boxes of loose-leaf paper they kept in their attic, that they were not alone. What mattered was not the survival of the art. It was the occasion for it.

No one would, she says. But my paintings might. ***

After her ex-boyfriend came to her place, she went to the apartment he shared with a roommate. He ushered her into his room and left the door wide open. It was strange to be there. She looked around. She saw stacks and stacks of CDs. A bed with no frame, mattress right on the ground. Blue wrinkled sheets. A couple of music posters. A big screen TV. A couple of gaming consoles. And then—her painting. A lone figure climbing up an endless spiral staircase, taking measured steps away from the golden skies into a deep red atmosphere. The figure’s yellow, elongated body is deformed by its ascent—its long arms clasped together at the hands in resignation, its head drooped down by an exhausted craned neck, its lower legs stretched hair-thin by its ceaseless scaling of the staircase. And yet, though deformed by its task, the figure continues to climb, one step, one pad of a foot against hardened concrete, at a time. She looked over at him. You kept it, she said. Of course I did, he said.

In the Service of Boredom Brett Stout Photograph

Of Landscaping and Nightmares (opposite page) Brett Stout Photograph

This collection of art has the basic overall theme of “creative destruction.” I’ve taken my own works, which are mainly (industrial and street) photographically based, and art in themselves, and defiled and deformed the original prints with an assortment of random and common household items and products, as varied as drywall screws to floor and glass cleaner, to birth new art from already existing art. Nothing will be perfect when partaking in chaos, nor is it meant to be. The new art could come out as anything really. In the end I never know beforehand, which adds to the appeal and originality of it.

Last Light at Leland Pond Nancy Marshall Digital photograph The rookery at Leland Pond near my home offers shelter to hundreds of shorebirds during their migration. Around dusk, when there is just a little bit of light left, the birds fly in at night, coming back to their roosts in the trees. It is a mysterious moment full of sound and motion.

The Modern Thinker Elena Rossato Watercolor and gouache My paintings are a visual interpretation of the human psyche and the feelings we experience through everyday life.

The Real HarMar Superstar Zach Murphy Semisonic’s melancholy anthem “Closing Time” plays while Steve finishes up his last night as a security guard at HarMar Mall. This is almost too good to be true, he thinks to himself. The unsung hero gazes at his reflection in the Famous Footwear window. He’s kept in great shape, he’s clean-shaven, and his crew cut is sharp enough to cut through a delivery package. But for Steve, this job was never about catching shoplifters or looking tough. This job was about returning stray carts to their rightful stores. He’d graduated to transporting six at a time. Three under each arm. He’d mastered the proper form for maximum speed and efficiency. A broken wheel was never enough to slow him down. If there were an Olympic event for cart transporting, Steve would be a gold medal winner. This job was about setting up yellow “Caution: Wet Floor” signs. Perfect placement is key. The signs have to be immediately noticeable, yet not in the way of walking paths. He couldn’t handle the thought of someone tripping over the sign itself. To avoid any slippage, he’d scan the floors and check thoroughly for ceiling drips. Even a slight indicator of condensation would deserve a heads-up. Or a heads-down, depending on how you look at it. Most important of all, this job was about making people’s days just a bit better. He’d pleasantly chat with frequenters of young and old, and he’d crack jokes at any given opportunity. Some of the jokes were off-the-cuff, and others were rehearsed. A laugh would make his day. Steve was lonely at home, but at HarMar he felt alive. He felt like he mattered. He wonders how the place will fare in his absence. He hopes that whomever takes This job was about setting over his job will continue to let the up yellow “Caution: Wet eccentric homeless woman stay warm during the winter at her usual Floor” signs. Perfect place- bench near the food court. She never bothers anyone. ment is key. He thinks about how he’ll miss the regular mall-walkers that he now considers his friends. He knows more about some of their families than he does about his own. He regrets how he never quite built up the courage to talk to the lovely girl who works the front desk at Pearl Vision. He was too shy to even make eye contact. 36

Steve shuts down the lights on the empty hallways and locks the main door. He re-checks it exactly seven times, as usual. He heads out to his little Nissan Sentra and takes one last look at the place. His pride stands on his immaculately ironed sleeve. His duty shines like his polished shoes. Steve’s next mission is to take care of aquatic animals at the Como Zoo, and he’s completely ready to take the plunge. That joke—that’s one of his rehearsed ones.

Photography Zoé Nellum How are you right before me When I buried you in my dreams? I ripped the fabric of time and color apart And shredded the laminated shape of anything That would remind me of you. It was a living moment but I plan to be The Grim Reaper of memories And kill it.

Run Zoé Nellum The bile is burning, turning cold in my throat How much longer is this journey? The blood pricking pain into my feet on bare, broken Concrete cannot take much more. My lungs have long forgotten how to beg for oxygen. Is that what kept me alive? No time to think, my legs must battle gravity Until I coll ap s e.

Laundry Rachel Neve-Midbar She hangs her family’s linens, lifts, shakes, glances up at each before she pins them to the line. Behind her grape leaves coil under the sun, red & gold against the deep, green pines, readying themselves for sleep under a sky so potent she can reach her hand up and caress its cotton texture. Sheets and blankets, gray with age, riffle in the breeze. Tonight her daughter will sleep in a fresh bed— the daughter who greets the van each day at 6:30 AM, her wheelchair packed inside like a suit into a closet— the chair that embraces her all day, every day—her dark head held between headrests that could be a lover’s hands, but are just blinders shielding her from the world. Her long hours divided between waiting to be touched and being touched, the competent touch given a baby, a bottom wiped, food spooned into her mouth. Tonight she will come home to the embrace of bed linens that smell of sun and cumulus, of clouds that have sailed gradually, gracefully on.

omission Riley Mayes the field in the morning with my feet in the dew, a white dress hung on my small frame like a sheet. this is the first thing i kept for myself. the heartbeat fluttered in the tendon of my neck and my eyes grew wide in this deliverance. later, the street at night, my back against the gravel, the streetlamps casting tangerine onto my shoes, the stars, little eyes in this silent stillness, a hunger born from me. to exist where no eyes fall is hardly to exist at all. these moments sealed with the candle hold me like a mother’s arms. it lives in spaces, small and breathing: skin brushing skin, or the music before the sun rises. i have always been this way, this playing: what a wife i would make with these secrets i store like spoons. 41

The Other Mexico Angelica Mercado-Ford shakes me up, bullies coins of ethnic from my pockets, convinces me to love pizza, forget tortillas, says fajitas the wrong way. Changes my name, smooths my r’s, tells me to sit straight be quiet, accept accept accept. The other Mexico, teaches me to lie, forget my words, defines beauty. Steals my food, my art, steals my skin, wears it to the gala to the beach to the photoshoot calls it her own. And when she is home, she sheds it off, hangs it up, and goes to sleep in safety.

Two Fish William Staples oil, acrylic and sand on canvas My practice is a continuum with the western art tradition—one that advances primarily through color, line, form, and pictorial space. For me, these formal conventions constitute a vital intellectual endeavor, allowing me to test my knowledge of color, to experiment with diverse materials to produce new surfaces and textures, and to reconsider how the viewer perceives pictorial space by exploring the boundaries between abstraction and representation. Most recently, I have concentrated on traditional western pastoral scenes of bathers, trees, and animals while drawing inspiration from Chinese landscape painting and the French Barbizon School.

Perturbation Nalani Sexton Photograph With my photography, I like to take self-portraits and make myself into a different character or person every time. I use unique and interesting physical characteristics. I also use emotion, facial expressions, and/or makeup to describe my character. My characters usually represent my identity in some form. They may represent my individuality and self-expression or my emotions. I take all my photographs completely by myself with my Canon camera and tripod. I also do all the makeup, setting adjustments, and costume design myself. I believe concepts are a very prominent aspect of my work. I spend a lot of time thinking about the meaning of each piece I create. For the photo, Perturbation, I wanted to create a piece that was raw and emotional. This piece represents feelings of anxiety. I hope to have people relate to, connect with, or understand the feelings in this piece.

Collage 5 Kacie Finnegan Collage These collages are part of a series about what it is like when you die. They depict a place of limbo that is both familiar and strange at the same time.

Where Is the Beach? Leah McInnis Found objects, 6”x6”x8”, 2019. I am a contemporary artist based in Victoria, Canada, on traditional Lekwungen territory. I have a multi-disciplinary practice that includes video, sculpture, architectural interventions and writing. The immediacy of my feelings are reflected in the work I make and the platforms on which they are released. My projects are linked by the use of literary and cinematic devices that reflect my own social observations — marked by a particular earnestness in the wake of absurdist philosophy. “Where is the beach?” is a phrase common amongst certain subcultures, often alluding to a laidback attitude. In making this particular sculpture, I was wondering why some people seek out what is familiar when they travel. Perhaps it is the desire to rebuild one’s self in a new environment?

Salvation Troupe Tashiana Seebeck Stars came to me in a dream wearing three-piece suits, drinking curdled champagne, as the dead often do without noticing decay past their noses. Primping in hope of us retaking interest, relooking up, or reworshipping their archaic cross-cloud marching. Over ballroom skies they celebrated / commiserated / river-danced / birthed / weeded. Baked crumble cakes of dried meteor dust, shot silver fireworks of Aries’ design. Frolicked for light centuries to invade wobbly mundane wishes rather than bonfires / blood sacrifices / salutations / deathbed prayers / poultices. Forgotten but still burning, they lived waiting for faith’s quiet return as I wait to scourge God or whoever will tax / regurgitate / vlog / seduce / nurture what’s left of us.

silence: a decaying sestina Kristin Gustafson on days like this, i crave silence, wish the bees rattling in my brain would leave me in peace, buzz off to a different flower in need. my chest is filled with unanswered questions, balloons ready to pop at any moment, sighs my lungs are ready to kiss goodbye. he asks if i am “okay” before he says goodbye i hold him tight enough only our heartbeats break the silence every “okay” is a baby bird not quite ready to leave the nest, falls to the ground too soon, leaves this world too soon, i need a different word than “okay” on days like this, i need a different word for “goodbye.” i always know that he will come back, when he leaves, and i know he will always return, and bring back his settling silence, the lack of ringing in my ears, a silence that is not quite a sound so much as a feeling, fills my lungs with enough air for once, leaves me breathing on my own. he leaves and the noises get louder.

Euphotic Zone Nicole Scott I found it hard, the notion of swimming in my oversized blouse. The overwhelming sense of space to fill. My eyes were blue and my lips were pale. My blood was bluer and had a more confident breaststroke than me. It waded without panic, laughing at the crescents that were my closed, sad eyes. Living things could live inside me, and they would be afraid of drowning. My skin became an ocean, welling up as the fish 49

demanded I give birth to something. It has been a long time coming – the toe-tap makes a ripple, the clap of a chest fragments my sea. The light permeates the transparency of what used to be so much like glass.

Round Michael Chin The most beautiful part of my body is my wrist where my son’s mouth rests and drool collects. Stiff now because I won’t move it for fear of waking him. See how that wrist glistens in stillness. Hard to imagine it could rotate in an ellipse. Hard to imagine the earth rotates in one, too, such a massive thing. Hard to imagine so much exists outside this room. Hard to imagine a world’s roundness, like it’s hard to imagine the roundness of an eye when all we see is a sliver. His eyes open a sliver. His head rises and while he blinks away sleep, a string of drool and the ache in the joint connect us. His mouth opens in an oval cry.

Our Pastor Sam Claussen This story is dedicated to my father, the Reverend John Emery Claussen. Gone from this world, he will forever be remembered by many as Our Pastor.

Our Pastor walks down the red-carpeted aisle that separates pews older than he. The sunlight adopts the color of the stained glass, shining down like a shattered rainbow on the path he must walk. The pulpit seems far away, an ocean away, a red ocean filled with the blood of the friends and family Our Pastor has laid to rest. He’s their escort to the grave. He led them as best he could. He believes that, or at least believes that he should. They once filled these wooden pews. Now they fill their wooden coffins. The organ bellows the hymn “It Is Well.” A very popular choice of Our Organist. “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrow like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul!’” Perhaps Our Pastor liked it fresh out of seminary, but now as his bones long to rest, and the breath comes short to his lungs, the hymn seems a lie that almost causes his sunken cheeks to blush. He counts twenty-four people in attendance today. His flock, gathered to listen, gathered to hear His words dissected and spoken through Our Pastor. There’s one child among them, a granddaughter of Martha Sanders. What’s the child’s name? Beth? Yes, Our Pastor thinks as he steps up the chancel toward his pulpit. For Bethlehem. It’s been a year since Our Pastor has seen Martha in attendance, and he hasn’t seen Beth since her dedication. His wrinkled hands grasp the stalwart pulpit. He sighs, using the leverage to take the last step. Our Pastor closes his eyes, takes a breath before he smiles and turns to face his Church. “Good morning, Church,” he says. Is that my voice? Is that the voice I’ve used all these years? I speak His word with this voice? He is quiet in his greeting. Beth is the only one who hears him. “Good morning Pastor!” she shouts obnoxiously, the way children do, as if the whole world would stop to listen. The Congregation wakes at this and says in as much unison as could be expected, “Good morning, Pastor.” Our Pastor clears his throat. Only one child in attendance. No lively youths giggling to each other, passing dirty notes scribbled on the donation envelopes. He had been among them when he was young. He had sat in these pews, had listened to His Pastor speak the Good Word, but only when he had been separated from his friends and had nothing better to do. Where are the children? 52

“I hope this beautiful day finds you well,” Our Pastor says. “I hope these rays of God-given light warm your skin and bless your path. What a glorious day to join together in celebration of our Lord.” I hope we find that warmth. If you find it before I do, guide me to the fire. The expectant faces of stone stare at him. What do they want? What do they seek that I can provide? The silence is constricting Our Pastor. It’s comfortable and contagious, the warm coils of a python, the gripping muscles beneath the smooth scales pulsing, squeezing, ending. He clears his throat. “I was sitting on my couch last night when a thought struck me,” he says with a coy grin. The microphone is scratchy and as old as his tenure. “One of those crime shows droned on, you know the ones that always seem to be on nowadays.” The Church mutters their agreement. “Bleak shows,” Our Pastor continues, “fifty minutes of pain, of suffering, of sin. Fifty minutes of agony the likes of which no man should wish upon another. Yet there I am, watching. I assume most of you do as well, or The silence is constricting there wouldn’t be so many CSI’s or Our Pastor. It’s comfortLaw & Order’s.” Beth kicks the pew in front able and contagious, the of her. The knock echoes throughwarm coils of a python, the out the church, serving to wake the older of his parish in the rear of the gripping muscles beneath nave. She carries the light. Can I teach the smooth scales pulsing, her how to make it shine? Will it flicker, squeezing, ending. will it fade? If it does, will it rise again, like the sun on the horizon? Or will the moon forever shine, a pale reflection of the light she once was? “So why do we watch? What purpose does it serve, other than to depress, to drag us down to the depths of despair that flows 24/7? Surely only the vilest among us would get any pleasure from the most despicable crimes against man I have ever seen. Why don’t we simply turn it off?” Our Organist accidently leans on the keys. The billowing, vibrating gold pipes ring out in a deep, thunderous rumble that shakes Our Pastor’s already quivering knees. It goes on and on, the growling of the pipes, bouncing around within his head in unison with the dark clouds, and now those dark clouds swirl into a terrible storm, a ship-sinking storm that churns the sea like a witch’s cauldron, and Our Pastor clings to the shipwreck that was once his integrity and mission but now is nothing more than scattered planks of good intentions. The water pulls him under the waves, and the beasts from the depths of his own mind rise from the salty darkness, tentacles reaching 53

and grabbing and pulling him further down. “Sorry,” Our Organist whispers as he steps down from his namesake before sitting in the front pew. The Church chuckles at the mistake. Our Pastor smiles. “Best you’ve played all year,” he says with a playful wink. The Church continues to laugh until it’s acceptable to stop. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, the—” episode where the young man gutted his girlfriend for texting another boy a picture of herself naked, which the other boy distributed amongst his friends, and the girlfriend probably would have killed herself anyway— “crime shows. Why do we watch such suffering? Well, we don’t watch for that, do we? We don’t watch for the first fifty minutes of pointless violence; we watch for the final ten minutes of hope. That’s why we tune in. For the retribution, for everything to get better. For the criminal to get what they deserve and the detective to smile on camera, telling us everything will be alright. That’s why I watch.” He smiles a rare, genuine smile. How is that? How did it come so easily to me after so long? I suppose we sometimes find relics in the dust. The Church isn’t following his logic. Most are older than he is, although all things considered Our Pastor isn’t very old, but god does he feel it. “Which leads us to our sermon today, on the Book of Job,” he says. Finally he sees recognition in the face of the Church. They smile, knowing what they’re in for. “First,” Our Pastor closes his notes, “are there any joys or concerns?” Hands go up. These people save their woes for him. Each week they wake up on Sunday morning, planning what they’ll say and how they’ll phrase it, hoping to find comfort in expressing it to Our Pastor and through him to Our God. How can I carry their troubles? My back isn’t as strong as it once was, Lord. I can hardly carry my own cross. Our Pastor points to the oldest man in the Church, a man Our Pastor remembers from when he was a child in Sunday school, a good man with a bad memory. He had explained to Our Pastor one stormy Sunday morning that God gives us the rain so we can better appreciate the sun. The church is stuffy today. Sweat beads along Our Pastor’s forehead. He dabs it with a used Kleenex he takes from his pocket. He points to the man who had once taught him of the coming light. The Old Man grips the pew in front of him, Beth’s pew, and shakily stands to his feet. “Debra’s back in the hospital, and this time the doctors are sayin’ she’s likely to stay.” The Old Man’s bottom jaw quivers. This isn’t caused by misery, but one of his many medical conditions. The Old Man’s body fights to hold everything together. He reminds Our Pastor of that old, poorly stitched quilt his sister had thrown in the washer after she’d spilt their mother’s wine on it. “Please keep us in your prayers.” The Old Man sits down on the padded 54

pew, nods with a forced smirk to the couple next to him, not much younger than he. “I’ll be visiting Deb tomorrow,” Our Pastor says with an attempt at a comforting smile. “I’ll bring those candies she always used to have, the ones she’d hand out to the kids when I was growin’ up. What were those?” The Old Man looks confused, shakes his head. Our Pastor clears his throat. “We’ll keep her in our prayers.” Our Pastor looks to the Church, praying for a joy. An Older Lady, not quite as old as our Old Man, stands swiftly to her feet. She’s the one who comes every Wednesday to speak with Our Pastor in his office. She has wrinkles on her face like war paint, lines she has earned from the many conquered arguments she has won through pure and unrelenting stubbornness. She wears a green dress with a yellow sunflower pendant and a wide-brimmed hat to match. Beth looks as if she’s about to run for the door. Most children don’t understand the world enough to comprehend and empathize with others’ concerns. The church doesn’t have a volunteer for Sunday school today, so her grandmother forces the little girl to struggle against her nature, the will to explore and sing and be merry. When did my Church become a place where children must sit still? Beth wears a wide-brimmed hat as well, drooping down around her head. Odd for her age. It’s purple, in direct contrast with her orange t-shirt which was apparently earned from some type of “Fun Run Fundraiser.” Our Pastor tries to remember if it was one of the many he’d attended. “You all know my son Mark,” the Older Lady begins, not bothering to wait for acknowledgement. Her lips are pursed, Our Pastor half-expecting them to whistle like a tea kettle from the pressure of whatever she’s attempting not to say but knows she must. “He’s back in rehab.” She blushes. It looks unnatural on her bleach-white face, her cheeks already caked in blood-red blush. “Keep him in your prayers.” This last part was not a request. The Older Lady sits down, eyeing those who dare to stare. “Mark’s a good boy,” Our Pastor says. “Talented. God gave him a gift for music. Perhaps he’ll play guitar for us, when he’s better.” “Mark doesn’t play guitar.” The Older Lady hisses at Our Pastor as if he’d revealed some dark secret, as if the guitar was worse than the needle. She crosses her legs and arms, leaning back in the pew. Yes he does. He played in youth group all the time. He told me how he dreamt of playing on stage, and to him our church was Woodstock. He was going to play right next to my pulpit, right…right there probably, where the sound would hit the Church just right. Something sweet, something that we’d all hum for the rest of the day. Mark made those strings purr. But every teenager goes to youth group one last time. They never know that they’re not coming back, but I can always tell. 55

“We’ll keep him in our prayers,” Our Pastor mutters. He wipes his nose with the Kleenex, tucks it in his palm instead of pocketing it. “Any joys?” This was a plea. Silence from the Church. Our Pastor takes a deep breath, can’t remember the last breath that left him satisfied. “Or concerns?” he asks quietly. Martha Sanders pats little Beth on the back before standing. Take a seat, Martha. You keep your burden. I don’t want it, can’t stomach it. Go ahead and take your seat. Let me talk about Job for a little while, say a quick prayer. We’ll sing a little song and be on our way. Save it for another day. Let’s all go live this last Sunday free from whatever you’re carrying in your heart today. Give me the week and I’ll be ready to shoulder it. Go get Beth some ice cream, let her stay up a little late tonight. Can you hear me over this restless sea? Can you see my fear in the dark? Turn your ship around and set sail. Leave me to drown, that’s fine, just don’t weigh me down. I’m already sinking. “Well, you know my daughter and her husband aren’t believers.” At this Martha covers Beth’s ears. “They don’t know we’re here right now, but—” I would spit on the cross if only you took your seat— “Beth’s a little—I mean a lot sick, and I wanted my church family to know…” Martha’s voice is squeaky as she holds back the sobs, tears rolling down her cheeks. She pats Beth’s little head, causing the wide-brimmed purple hat to slide backwards, revealing the hairless scalp beneath. “She’s been so strong—” She carries the light. “—so brave, while the rest of us have been so weak. I don’t want to—I don’t want to get into details but…” Martha shakes her head, wipes a tear, and bites her lip before taking her seat. Our Pastor walks out from behind the hollow pulpit that has a cross embedded on its front, and in that moment Our Pastor feels he and that old pulpit aren’t so different. Our Organist returns to his station and begins to lightly play a hymn: “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended.” Our Pastor falls to one knee, as he’s always done, looking out at his dwindling Church. Where have our joys gone? The organ bellows, and he feels himself lost at sea again. This hymn is louder than the rest, louder than any song that has ever played in His Heavenly Name. “The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. The Darkness falls at Thy behest. To Thee our hymns ascended, Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.” Our Pastor closes his eyes and bows his head. “Let us pray.”

Songs from Captivity: 15 August 2019 Mehvish Rather Silence, the imprisoned left on the road1, weeps today. In the middle of the azaan the Imam weeps today. The sun shines upon an empty Eidgah The crickets buzz during the day as the world sleeps today. The rot inside the apple has spread to the skin Let’s watch what their seed reaps today. Behind locked doors and shattered windows, Patiently Jashn-e-Azaadi2 peeps today. My soil has absorbed blood for thirty years Freedom will grow in it after this silence seeps today. They snatched the last three decades away from us They are blind to 19893 as it leaps today. They strip us of our dignity with guns to our head Shame upon their struggle of independence creeps today.

At the time, all the separatist and mainstream political leaders were arrested without a cause by the Government of India, along with 4000 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir. 2 Celebration of freedom 3 1989 marks the rise of militancy in Kashmir and the rebel movement against India. 1

Lift your lamp beside the golden door Pablo Otavalo for Brandon and Karissa For we must fall in love under whatever regime, and there is reverence to lighting a candle even if all you revere is the light, the scent of softening wax, a soundboard of spruce, a handful of grass, under whatever regime, we must fall in desperate love with what we revere in each other. There is reverence in city lights on misty streets, under whatever regime the slivered moon cradles our shadow. We must under whatever and always, for the light gleams

and is gone.

T H EMED D O S S I ER: CO NN EC T IO N S

Time to Smile Jeff Hersch Collage I provide analog collages for the modern being. Like my thoughts, these pieces are often constructed in short, frantic spurts of energy, with bursts of self-doubt, though calm and subtle. Also like my thoughts, these pieces represent everyday observations and conclusions about the vast world that erratically suffocates us, with little time for a quick escape or chance to relax, as we are currently inhabiting an advanced state of infinite stimulus. My works lend themselves to your own interpretation of meaning – if any – but should also serve as inspiration and demonstrate the simple notion that you too can and should create something/anything on a regular basis.

Consider the mosquito bites Alexis Groulx How they swell fast, how they seem to bubble up before your eyes. How when you see a mosquito landing on the soft back of your hand you don’t swat it. You let it feast on the parts of you that hurt. Think of your blood moving along inside another living thing. Will she feel the sorrow that feasts on you? Will she want to give the blood back? Return to sender. Stay silent & still & let them make a veil of legs on your body. Say thank you. Say Please don’t go.

Square Pegs Belinda Nicoll At the end of fall, the trees stripped bare of their leaves and our home of its usual gaiety, we follow the hearse in the funeral home’s sedan. My father and Uncle Ezra—who’s as good as family, albeit a gentile one—sit in front with the driver, all squeezed up, their dark suits accentuating our gloom. I’m perched on the edge of the back seat between my mother and brother. Looking over my shoulder, I count aloud the cars trailing us. “Ten, altogether.” “Twelve,” says my brother, his legs crossed awkwardly and his hands gathered in his lap, like he’s holding in a pee. “Most of them attending out of curiosity,” says my mother. The procession moves through the main street of our town. The ritual reminds me of last year’s Miss America pageant. I imagine being the envy of an adoring audience, but an ache deep in my chest suppresses the temptation to practice a regal wave. Hugging myself, I dare to say, “What if Grandpa’s soul ends up in purgatory?” My mother emits a snort, a sob escapes from Uncle Ezra’s throat, and our driver shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “It’ll be nirvana for him…he was a good man,” says my father. I sigh dramatically. “And my theology teacher is an old hag, but what if she’s right? What if the destiny of the soul is dependent on God’s judgment?” “Screw people in authority who think it’s a good idea to scare the bejesus out of you with threats of retribution,” says my brother with bitterness that catches even me by surprise. My mother pats his knee. “Now, now; let’s rather imagine Grandpa reincarnated as someone destined for greatness.” I nod my head to convince myself that Grandpa will be met by a welcoming spirit guide rather than a disapproving God. A veil of quietude falls over us, until my father shakes his head and repeats his new mantra: “I can’t believe he’s gone.” Uncle Ezra responds with tender recollections of the past. My brother slumps against the door, groaning. I flash him a sneer. What does he know about suffering? It’s not like he’s being plagued by menstrual cramps. My mother comments on a stale smell inside the car and gags for emphasis. The driver digs in the glove compartment and hands us each a peppermint lozenge. Our sucking lulls us back into silence. I gaze at the tree-lined sidewalks dotted with flower boxes and striped awnings that frame worn storefront displays of mom-and-pop shops, including Uncle Ezra’s delicatessen—our small-town American reality, as my mother 62

calls it. Straightening my posture, I ponder my late Grandpa’s role of human rights campaigner in the history of our community. Somewhat bigger and more colorful than the ragtag villages scattered throughout the surrounding rural area, ours boasts some notable farmsteads and an ornate church built by Danish settlers, which serves both the Presbyterians and the Catholics, since the Sacred Heart cathedral was lost to a tornado several years back. For the Catholic services, the Celtic Cross is switched out for one with Jesus nailed to it. The church is used for weddings and funerals by out-of-towners, an open-door policy allowing people like ourselves—neither devoted attendees nor mainstream believers—to use the facility on an as-needed basis. I brush my hands over my lap to smooth the wrinkles from my dress, hoping to squash the images that hang in the air like flecks of dust, conversations that stop when we walk by, casual stares that morph into scrunched-up noses or tight lips. To the uptight Christians, we are “pagans.” To the elites, we are “fruitcakes.” To the old guard, my family is a “queer bunch.” I brush my hands over my At the church, my mother leads the way to the entrance, then lap to smooth the wrinkles grabs my hand and pulls me down from my dress, hoping to the aisle like someone determined to get the job done as quickly as squash the images that hang possible. The pastor, waiting at the in the air like flecks of dust, pulpit, nods his head in greeting. conversations that stop when My father, brother, and Uncle Ezra, together with three other pallbear- we walk by, casual stares that ers, bring in the coffin. The men morph into scrunched-up take their seats, my father next to noses or tight lips. my mother and my brother sandwiched between me and Uncle Ezra. At sight of the lonely coffin, a hollowness floods my being, and my lips start trembling. I notice my brother giving Uncle Ezra’s arm a gentle squeeze. A thought strikes me like lightning from the great beyond, and I swing around to look at my parents—which one of them will go first? Letting my tears fall freely, I close my eyes and beam Uncle Ezra words of consolation. There’s some knocking and scraping as friends and foes fill the rows directly behind us. Finally, everyone is seated and the service begins. Clearing his throat, the pastor reminds the congregation that “in life and death we belong to God,” before he proceeds with a reading from Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” I wipe my tears, close my eyes, and press my palms together against my heart. If only I could have one more day with Grandpa…have one more heart-to-heart with him…ask him 63

one more question. I listen for a sign, but the only sounds I pick up, other than the pastor’s voice, are sniffs and sighs, and someone hiccupping. Opening my eyes, I steal a glance left and right, wondering what’s going through the minds of my people. My mother is staring straight ahead, lips pursed and shoulders square, probably still angry at Dr. Abbott for his inability to revive Grandpa after his stroke, convinced our town’s only physician has more brandy in his veins than brain cells in his head. My father shakes his head every now and again; he’s clearly still a long way from acceptance, the last stage of grief, according to my school counselor. My brother seems contentedly slumped in his depression, his shoulder pressing against Uncle Ezra’s. Is that where he’ll be looking for guidance now, considering…their likeness? Feeling a twinge of envy, I turn my head to focus on the pastor. After the ceremony, with the rest of us in tow, the pallbearers carry Grandpa’s body to its new home, the public cemetery behind the church with its straight paths, manicured lawns, decorative flower beds, and an intermingling of religious gravestones that contradicts the divisions of faith in our community. The gray sky hangs over us like a backdrop behind the actors in a play, causing a twitch in my spine. As my family huddles together, shoulder to shoulder, I try to imagine what our lives will be like without the person who’s always had a kind answer to everybody’s questions, a ready solution to their problems. Grandpa was my father’s go-to guy, my mother’s do-gooder, and my tight-lipped brother’s number one confidant. A soft mumbling jerks me out of my reverie—Uncle Ezra saying the Kaddish. As I lean in to listen to the Jewish prayer, my eye catches the memorial to the left of Grandpa’s grave. I never knew my grandmother; she was gone by the time my brother and I were born, a family detail that shifts my attention to the open, green space to the right that’s been reserved for Uncle Ezra. He now steps forward to throw a handful of dirt on his dead lover’s coffin. One by one, we follow his example. When he falls to his knees crying and tearing the pocket of his shirt, my mother gestures for me to help her usher the onlookers back to the church, where a volunteer group will serve refreshments. Before I enter the vestibule, I look back over my shoulder; my father is shoveling dirt on the casket, and my brother is on his knees beside uncle Ezra, his arm draped around the old man’s shoulder. It strikes me how my grandpa’s death has changed their roles, with the sixteen-year-old now comforting the seventy-year-old; some months back, when my twin brother came out, Grandpa and Uncle Ezra were by nature his safety net. How lucky he was, they said, that he could embrace his true self so early in life. By the time we get back home, dusk has set in. Proceeding in different directions, we each switch on a light. A heaviness hangs in the air as my brother and I help my mother set the table with the leftover refreshments the 64

volunteers have packed in plastic containers. But empty stares have replaced our appetites. Then Uncle Ezra gets up, saying “Goodnight” in a tired voice. As he leaves the dining room to make his way to the garden cottage he’s been sharing with Grandpa, his stooped figure causes me to choke on a lump in my throat. I jump up. “Wait! I haven’t said goodbye to Grandpa yet.” This creates commotion, before my father says, “Let’s go wish him a good journey.” Some minutes later, nestled in blankets under the Yellowwood in the garden, we watch the sky fill with stars as we often did with Grandpa, imagining which one might be him. As I take in this new togetherness—him up there and us down here—I swallow down the lumpy grief.

Enchantment Gaby Bedetti In a light Manhattan drizzle I walk along with my millennial son, weaving around scaffolding, both of us wishing for an umbrella. Out of the mist, I speak of my grandfather, how as a youth, he dodged bombs in Albania. To pass time in the trenches, he memorized poems by Leopardi. Today’s gloom begins to lift. As we wait for the rain to relent, I remember a walk through a field to an aqueduct on the Reno. Eldest grandchild, I felt honored to be alone with my grandfather. He paused in the middle of that meadow to recite a poem. I was enchanted. Today, my son and I huddle under a canopy, wondering when the rain stopped, wishing we had a poem to share and in no hurry to move.

Up On the Roof: Summer of 1961 Nick Padron The heat was so bad Jackie’s handball felt like bubble gum when it bounced off the curb. An August heat wave had kicked in around noon and everyone on the block had taken off to the Amsterdam Avenue public swimming pool. And now Jackie was as bored as only a fifteen-year-old can get in the summertime. The gang never bothered to ask anymore why Jackie always refused to go swimming with them. Everyone had a theory about it, and many of them had been discussed at some time or other, but no one could say why for certain or cared anymore. Jackie pocketed the clammy ball and bopped across the way. A boy, a girl, it was hard to tell in those baggy chinos and over-sized T-shirt. 137th Street was deserted. All that came up from the Hudson River was a nasty breeze that blew in Jackie’s face on crossing the street. She pushed the iron and glass doors into the lobby of 600. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke, fried food, and old people. Jackie rode the clanking elevator up to the top floor and climbed the rest of the stairs to the roof. The door swung out with a penetrating squeal and there was Birdman at his usual spot, his back to the empty pigeon coop, a cigarette dangling from his lips, unstirred by what would have been the natural response to see who had opened the loud, squeaky roof door. “Hey, man, what’s up?” Jackie stumped up the three wooden steps to the coop’s platform. Birdman’s narrowed eyes smiled. “Hot enough for ya?” “Freaking A.” Jackie dropped down next to him. The pigeon dunk stink steaming out of the cage was so bad it amazed Jackie how Birdman put up with it. Jackie figured after so many summers minding those birds, his nose had probably burned from the fumes and he couldn’t smell it anymore. For Jackie, this was part of what you had to bear to spend some time with him. “Jesus, it’s ten times hotter up here. How do you take it?” Birdman shrugged one shoulder. “Got no choice. I’ve got to be here in case they come back early. Someone’s got to lock up.” He shot the kid an askance look. “Like it’s news to you.” “You think the flock’s gonna come back now with this roof hot like a furnace? It’s like ninety-some freaking degrees. They’re probably out in Central Park or something.” “They might come back early. You never know. Besides, they don’t go off that far.” 67

“How do you know where they go? They talk to you now?” “The flock is getting old. That’s how I know.” Birdman glimpsed over his shoulder at Jackie. “Pigeons can’t talk. But the aviary tells me a lot of things about them. I think you know what I’m talking about.” “I guess.” Birdman called his pigeon coop his aviary. It was no different from any you found on rooftops all over the West Side, handmade with discarded wood boards and cheap chicken wire, with a roof made of junked zinc sheets. What made Birdman’s coop different was his devotion to it. The way he had built it up through the years, the pigeonholes and feeders he had added to it, and the hours he spent every spring repairing the damage the winter season left him. This year Birdman had painted the coop white because it was the only paint he could afford, and as he himself had forewarned, it now looked twice as dirty and stained than previous summers. “How come you didn’t bring the portable with you?” Birdman asked, popping open a can of Rheingold. “The batteries are shot.” “Have you heard how the game is going?” “Not today,” the kid said. “But I got my money on Maris.” “Sheeesh, Jackie. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “And you do?” “Hell, yeah. Maris is just lucking-out. Mickey Mantle is the man. He’ll beat Ruth’s record and leave this guy so far behind, you won’t hear from him again.” “Ah, Birdman, you ain’t always right about these things.” “It’s OK, Jackie. It doesn’t matter to me much either way as long as the Yanks come out on top. That’s all I care about. Hell, these players nowadays, they come and go. It’s not like before. The Yankees, they’re the only thing that matters. That won’t change.” “Freaking A, Birdman. I’ve got no argument with you on that.” “I just like to know how the game is going, is all,” said the Birdman ruefully. “I’ll find out for you later. I’ll go down and check on how it’s going.” “Thanks, Jackie. I’ve got to wait here. You know, till they get back.” He cocked his head at Jackie. “And what’s that I heard about you betting? Where did you get money, anyway?” “Nah, I didn’t make any bets,” Jackie said. “I was just saying.” Jackie liked Birdman most because he was never surprised by anything. No matter how outrageous a tale he was told, what wonderful or horrible news he heard, he always listened to it as though he had known it all along. Like when Caryl Chessman was executed, his reaction was “I knew it all 68

along.” Even though his lawyer got a federal judge to issue another stay just one minute before they gassed him up. All ’cause the judge’s secretary misdialed the number. Birdman shuffled and shifted his weight around trying to find a more comfortable position on the narrow deck bordering the coop. Sometimes his languid gestures and quiet moans when he moved reminded Jackie of a wounded cowboy. “Birdman, you still feeling bad about Palomo?” “Sure. You’ve seen what happened to the flock since he didn’t come back. Sure, I’m sore about it, Jackie.” “How many females have you lost so far?” “I stopped counting. About half of them are gone, I guess.” “Palomo was something else,” the kid said. “A stud pigeon if there ever was one.” “Palomo was beautiful, Jackie. Remember last summer when he came back with five. Five females in one afternoon. Ever heard anything like it?” “Yeah, I remember.” “Maybe the hens just gone out looking for him and got lost. Or somebody’s snatched them,” Jackie said. “Got no way of knowing,” said the Birdman. “It’s not their fault. That’s their nature. Females—” Birdman released a humorless chuckle and glanced over at the rubber ball bulging up in the side pocket of Jackie’s chinos. “They’ll fly off with any dominant male that coos them. It’s how they are.” “So who do you got left?” Birdman squinted his eyes at the kid. “You know who’s left. You asked me about it yesterday and I told you. You know damn well who’s left.” “Damn, Birdman, don’t have to talk like that to me. I ain’t supposed to remember everything you say.” “OK, Jackie, you’re right. I shouldn’t talk like that to you. Not to you.” Now Jackie stood up even more annoyed at his last remark and began pacing over the wooden platform, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. Birdman focused his cowboy eyes on the worn-out Keds with red laces stomping past him. “Hey, Jackie, I didn’t mean it the way you think. OK? Sit down, will you? Here,” he said, handing the kid his pack of Luckies. “You can have a smoke if you like.” “How many you’ve got left?” Jackie said, sitting down again. “Don’t matter, take it. Just don’t get dizzy and want to puke again. Go slow this time. Don’t puff so hard like you did. Just savor it, like.” “I got the hang of it. It only happened because I had a big lunch. I know how to smoke. It ain’t like you need a high school diploma to smoke, Birdman.” 69

“You calling me a dropout, there, kid?” Jackie peered at the Birdman’s expressionless face and laughed. “Come on, Birdman. What could they teach you in school you don’t already know? I can’t even imagine you in a classroom with them dungarees and those greasy biker boots.” Birdman chuckled. “I can’t help it if you got no taste in dressing.” He flipped his cigarette butt and watched it fly over to the tar roof floor. Then he stretched his legs out in front of him, his black boots dull and heavy as he dragged them over the boards. Jackie often wondered what it would be like to have legs as long as Birdman’s. Sometimes she wished she could be so no-sweat sexy like him too. The sun began to beat down on them and they moved to the shaded side of the pigeon-house. From this angle, they could see the Hudson River over the treetops on Riverside Drive and the New Jersey cliffs on the opposite shore. Across the roofs to their left, high above the massive dome of Grant’s tomb, a solitary kite was flying high the sky. Straight ahead, directly “Come on, Birdman. What in above the shimmering surface of could they teach you in the river was the Alcoa zipper sign school you don’t already with the moving words. On the stood the metallic strucknow? I can’t even imag- clifftop tures of Palisades Amusement Park ine you in a classroom with lit up in the sun. them dungarees and those “Ever been to Palisades?” “Once,” said the Birdman. greasy biker boots.” “I’m not much for crossing over to Jersey.” “I dig going to Palisades,” said Jackie, trying to hold back a cough. “The last time we went they had this show with a big orchestra and everything. It was great, man. The Coasters came out and sang. They were the coolest.” “Who’s that, one of them new singing groups?” “Jesus freaking Christ, Birdman. You don’t know the Coasters? Where’ve you been, man?” Jackie jumped up and went into a spastic song and dance, head bobbing, fingers snapping, sneakers skidding on the wood planks. “Charlie Brown, he’s a clown…Cool, Charlie Brown…” “Sit down, will yah,” Birdman said, laughing. “You look like you’re having a fit.” “Come on, man. Don’t tell me you never called your English teacher Daddy-O.” “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.” “Ah, Jesus, Birdman, you’re such a square.” 70

“I guess.” “Anyway, you’re not supposed to like it. You’re too old. What are you? You got to be like thirty,” Jackie said, sweaty-faced from play-dancing and wincing at the idea of such advanced age. Birdman took a long drag of his cigarette. “You think I’m thirty?” “Well, are you?” He grinned; it was more like a grimace. “Not yet, kid. Not yet.” They gazed out at the view in front of them. Jackie’s round, soft face suddenly hardened with a thought. “Birdman, do you think there’s something wrong with me ’cause I don’t want to go to the pool with the guys?” He shook his head. “No.” “Birdman, why is it you never go out with girls?” “I go out with girls.” “Never seen you with one.” “That’s ’cause I haven’t had a steady in a long time.” “You never talk about it any. Why don’t you tell me about your girlfriends, Birdman?” “Sheeesh,” he hissed. “Like I’m going to talk about it with you.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Nothing. You out of your mind?” “Why not?” “Because you’re a kid.” “You know,” Jackie said. “I know why you don’t want to talk about girls with me. I asked you, but I know what you think.” “So you do.” “Yes, I do.” Jackie’s shiny brown eyes were fixed on Birdman’s face. “Damn right I do.” “What’s eating you now, Jackie?” “Nothing. Forget about it.” “All right then,” Birdman said. “Tell me why don’t you want to go to the pool with the guys?” “For the same reason you don’t want to tell me about your supposed girlfriends, I’d bet. Am I right?” “Sure. Whatever you say, kid.” “Jesus, man. You’re so weird sometimes.” “I’m weird all the time, Jackie.” “I’m leaving. This cage of yours is filthy. Look at my chinos—” Jackie said, cursing and spanking the seat of the trousers. “I’m splitting.” Jackie started down the steps. “It’s too freaking hot.” “You don’t have to go,” Birdman said, his eyes on the boats on the 71

river. “I got to go, anyway.” “Come back and tell me how the game’s going, will you.” “If I get a chance,” Jackie hollered back. The roof door squealed. Jackie didn’t come back that afternoon. Maris and Mantle batted two home runs each at Yankee Stadium and the Yanks came one game closer to winning the pennant. Before sunset, the flock returned to the coop. Without counting them, Birdman knew they were fewer than the ones he had let out in the morning. The females looked nervous and unhappy, and he wondered if he would ever have another male like Palomo. He locked up the cage and threw the empty beer cans in the trash bin. Out of habit, he went over to the roof railing and leaned over it. He was six flights over the cobblestone, seven if you count the roof. Why not? he said to himself, looking down on 137th Street. I’m not going to kill myself over Palomo. I didn’t do it over Patty O, or when I lost the Harley. Didn’t do it over the dishonorable discharge, didn’t do it when I should have. It wouldn’t mean a thing now. Down on the street, the boys from the block were back from the pool. They were all over the stoop of 601, towels around their necks, arms flying with teenage fire, talking about all the fun they had. While Jackie stood to one side leaning on the rail, the lone girl in the bunch, as always. Birdman had known for a long time why Jackie refused to go to the pool with the boys. It was easy to understand, he thought. In spite of all she tried, she knew the boys would never accept her as one of them or ever would. She was a girl and they were boys in the heat of adolescence, what else was there to say? Still, Birdman felt sorry for her, for having that problem. He had learned a lot from her since she started coming to see the pigeons. She understood his loneliness as he did hers, without having to talk about it. Today’s little episode was a fluke and nothing to worry about, he thought. The heat was to blame. Now Jackie was alone on the stoop. She was bouncing her handball against the sidewalk with bored swings of her arm. The sun was beginning to set and the Sunday strollers were coming out of the buildings. She slipped the ball in her pocket and waved up at the Birdman leaning on the roof railing. He waved back and she went inside.

Junk James Penha At least once a week, my mother, with a bag of Stella D’oro biscotti in hand, visited Rosa Pedalino across the street. Rosa served an espresso so powerful my mother needed to add milk and sugar before taking a sip or dunking a biscotti. She never helped herself to the anisette from the bottle standing atop the doily decorating the top of the kitchenette table at which they sat. Rosa, in contrast, not only sweetened her coffee with the liqueur, she filled her cup with it when the espresso was at its dregs. Rosa reminded me of my grandmother: they were handsome rather than pretty women, both stout, both wearing papillomas under their right eyes, both fluent in an Italian-accented English, both fond of flowery housedresses, laughter, gossip, and of my mother. Rosa was probably as old as my grandmother, but her Clairol blonde hair fooled me into thinking she was younger. I don’t know when or how Rosa and my mother became friends. It must have happened soon after we moved, when I was three years old, to one of the many houses just built for baby-booming families in our Queens, New York neighborhood. It always surprised me that my mother and Rosa had found each other inasmuch as I cannot recall ever seeing Rosa outside her big house, oddly distinctive with its siding of red shingles more common to roofs than to walls. I doubt Rosa had visited our home with the welcome wagon—or any time thereafter. It’s also hard to believe that my mother, who kept herself, her children and her home obsessively neat and clean, dared to visit Rosa in her ramshackle house in the middle of a junkyard. But she did, and she often brought me with her. In the 1950s, central Queens was in transition as affordable housing developments devoured forests and warehouses and truck farms. The Pedalino place was a remnant. Rosa’s husband Joe, a junkman by trade, must have bought the land on the cheap during the Depression. He organized the building of a three-story house amidst maples and crab apples trees and subsequently surrounded it with the odds and ends of his profession: broken bric-a-brac, bent bicycles, worn tires, empty ice boxes, lockers, and cabinets. It is likely the red shingles Joe used to side his house were the leftovers from some other construction site. “A deathtrap,” my mother called the junkyard, but never in front of Rosa. Seeing me fidget after one biscotti and a glass of milk, she would say, “Go, Gilly, go find Carlo. I’m sure he’d like to see you.” And my mother would raise her eyebrows high enough to furrow 73

her brow in contradiction to her about-to-be-spoken words, “I’ll see you at home, honey. Have fun.” I took her meaning: Don’t step on a nail because if you do you’ll have to get a tetanus shot or die in agony with lockjaw! Carlo was Rosa’s grandson, her late daughter’s boy who still lived with his widowed father in the Pedalino homestead. Carlo and I had been acquaintances ever since we were small. Not only because my mother and his grandmother were friends, but also because our fathers, both long-haul truck drivers, often worked the same routes. And, of course, we lived across the street from each other and were in the same grade at school. But I had many better best friends, and Carlo was taciturn, not too smart in class, tall and curiously hairy for an elementary-school kid, and, as my brother said, just plain weird. But when we found ourselves walking a mile together every morning to get to seventh grade at the new middle school, we discovered just how much we had in common and became almost inseparable: Saturday matinees at the RKO for a double feature, a couple of shorts and twenty cartoons; weeknights watching wrestling, all the cool ABC detective shows like 77 Sunset Strip, and, of course, Disneyland on TV at my house; and imagining our own Fantasy, Adventure, and Frontier Lands in the junkyard. One morning, in front of his house where we’d meet up for the walk to school, Carlo told me to wait a minute. “You gotta see what my grandfather bought.” I followed him to the back of the junkyard where he posed like a movie star in front of a big old four-door DeSoto. “Wow! Does it run?” “Well, for one thing it has no tires,” Carlo pointed out. “Yeah, I can see that, but does the engine work?” Carlo felt around in the grill for a latch and opened the hood. “I doubt it,” he said. There was no motor, no battery, no radiator—only the forward frame of the car. “Too bad.” “Yeah, my grandfather will sell it for scrap sometime. But for now, we have a He-Man Woman Hater’s Clubhouse!” Fans of the Laurel and Hardy, Three Stooges, and Little Rascals shorts broadcast on television every afternoon, Carlo and I often imitated our favorite scenes. I was Laurel to his Hardy, Curly to his Moe, and Spanky to his Alfalfa. On our walk to school, we pieced together from memory the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club oath to which Spanky demanded adherence: I do solemnly swear to be a he-man and hate women, and not play with them, or touch them unless I have to, and especially never fall in love and, if I do, may I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours or until I scream bloody murder. “We need a sign,” Carlo said as we approached the school building, 74

“like the one the Rascals have in the movies.” “We can ask April Tempo to draw planks of wood on poster paper,” I suggested. She draws headings that look like wooden park signposts to introduce each section of her notebook.” “She may not like helping us with the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club.” “No,” I said. “She’s cool.” But at lunch April pushed away the rolled-up poster paper and crayons I offered her. “Have you noticed, Gilly, that I am, if not yet an adult woman, a girl?” My face reddening, I nodded. “Of course, April. But it’s only for fun.” “What’s really funny is that you call yourselves ‘He-Men.’ Well, this guy maybe.” She pointed at Carlo. “But you, Gilly? A He-Man? Charles Atlas . . . and Gilly? Tarzan . . . and Gilly? More like Wally Cox and Gilly!” She had a point. I was skinny and bespectacled like Mr. Peepers, the sitcom character Wally Cox had made famous. “I know, April. It’s for fun.” “Okay, just for fun, I’ll draw the background of a sign for you . . . rascals.” She smiled. “But you can finish the sign with the name of the club yourselves. You’re not going to get me to spell out Woman Haters. Take it or leave it” “We’ll take it! April,” I said. “You’re the best.” “But not good enough for you, it seems.” She took the Crayolas and in ten minutes had fashioned three broad planks across a sheet of poster paper. “Beautiful,” Carlo said, holding it up. “By the way, Gilly,” April said, “what’s that pledge the boys in the club take?” I poked Carlo in the ribs with my elbow, and we stood tall with our right hands high to intone: “I do solemnly swear to be a he-man and hate women, and not play with them, or touch them unless I have to, and especially never fall in love and, if I do, may I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours or until I scream bloody murder.” “I think you broke the pledge already by asking me to ‘play’ with you for the last half-hour.” “That’s okay,” Carlo said, “Spanky and Alfalfa were always breaking the oath.” “It’s all in fun, Darla,” I joked. “I mean April.” “Ha-ha,” April deadpanned. “Seriously, thanks, April. You are seriously the best!” After school, Carlo and I piled into the front of the DeSoto, tossing our books into the back seat after retrieving a roll of masking tape and the sign April had made onto which we had emblazoned in Rascalese: 75

HE-MAN WOMAN HATERS CLUB NO GURLZ ALLOWED

We affixed the sign so that it showed through the front windshield. “It’s official!” I said. “It’s official!” Carlo said. Utterly satisfied with ourselves, we reclined in our seats and fell asleep. When I awoke, I saw Carlo already had his eyes wide open staring at me. “What?” I said. “What is it, Carlo?” “Nothing. It’s just . . . we don’t really have to hate girls, do we?” “Of course not! We just like to be like Spanky and Alfalfa. We’re pals just like them.” I paused, taking time to admit, “You’re probably my best friend now.” Carlo, smiling, leaned back in his chair. “You’re my best friend too.” It was still standard time and, by 4:30, already getting dark. Our clubhouse was dappled from the streetlights on our block. “Can I ask you something a little strange, Gilly? Since we’re best friends.” “I’m used to your weird questions, Carlo.” I thought of my brother. “Okay. Does your dick get big and hard sometimes?” It was too dark for Carlo to see me blush, but I could feel the heat in my cheeks. “Yeah,” I quietly confessed. “You know why?” “Sort of.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, this is a kind of funny story. A year or so ago, I was taking a crap on the toilet and had to pee. But instead of peeing into the bowl like usual, I peed straight ahead and got the floor all wet. I didn’t mean to do it, but it kept happening. So I asked my brother about it, and he said I’d better tell our dad. That scared me. I thought I was sick or something. But my father explained . . . the birds and the bees, you know?” “I know!” “But it’s all so hard to believe,” I said. “That you make babies that way . . .” “Have you cum yet, Gilly?” “Where?” Carlo laughed wildly. “Where? Now that’s funny!” “What’d I say? I don’t get it.” “Where! In bed maybe. You never had a wet dream?” “Wet the bed? Not since I was really small. But my brother—” “No! Gee, for a smart kid, you’re not really so smart, Gilly.” My face incarnadined further. 76

“You know,” Carlo proceeded to enlighten me, “you don’t pee in a girl to make babies.” “You don’t?” “No, little Spanky, you cum.” “I don’t get it.” “I can see that. I’ll show you. Pull down your pants.” “No! Are you nuts?” “Hey, Gilly, we’re best friends. You gotta trust me. I’m gonna show you something amazing. Here, I’ll do it first.” Carlo loosened his belt, opened his zipper and slid his pants and underwear down around his feet. His penis had to be twice the size of mine in length and breadth and lay in a nest of curly hair. I was still bald down there and so even more reluctant to reveal myself. “Come on! You too. I’ll help.” I let Carlo strip me as he had himself. He didn’t mention the immaturity of my pubes. He was my best friend after all. “Make it hard.” “Huh?” “Make your dick like it gets on your toilet. Here, look.” He took his own penis in his left hand and stroked it. In seconds, it was huge. I was mesmerized. I was paralyzed. Carlo placed his right hand around my penis and moved it up and down. It felt good, and it grew too. Did I already say I was mesmerized? And paralyzed? Except for my dick! “Hey, don’t just sit there.” Carlo said. “You rub mine, while I do yours. It’s more fun that way.” I wondered later how he knew it was more fun that way. I guessed that I wasn’t his first sparring partner in this sport. But at the time I took hold of Carlo’s hard-on, I wasn’t thinking. I was following his orders and my desires. Not only was his dick rock hard, it was as tightly hinged at its bulb as the girders I coupled in my erector set constructions. And so when Carlo, during another practice session in the DeSoto, used the word “erection” as a synonym for hard-on, it made perfect sense. Carlo’s skin moved up and down with my left hand, and somehow that excited me as much as it did Carlo who grimaced and swallowed what sounded like grunts. I felt kind of frightened and woozy and was about to tell Carlo to let go of my dick when gobs of white stuff poured and popped out of his dick, not only onto my hand but all the way up to his nose! I felt something completely unlike pissing from my own dick as it discharged a thick liquid like Carlo’s but without as much power behind it. “Wh-wha-what? is this? What was that?” I said, my head bobbing on the back of the seat, my hands raised in confusion and inquiry. “That . . . was so good,” Carlo replied. “Wasn’t it?” “I’m not sure. It scared me a little.” 77

“Only the first time. It was your first time cumming, right?” I nodded. “I guess I have a few things to teach a straight-A student like you.” Carlo giggled. “Can you teach me how to clean up?” Carlo reached down into his right pants pocket to retrieve the red bandana he used as a handkerchief and wiped my still-upraised hands and my no-longer-upraised dick before turning it over to rub his own face, arms, and lap. We weren’t very dry even as we raised up our underwear and pants. “Next time,” Carlo said, “I’ll bring a towel and a bowl of water.” Next time? There were plenty of next times in the DeSoto—enough that Carlo witnessed and congratulated me We never came close to on the emergence of my pubic hair and, from time to time, the power being caught by Carlo’s of my ejaculations. “Jesus, I think family. His father was usu- you came more than I did,” Carlo to admit—in exactly the same ally on the road with my had words—from time to time. dad; Rosa never set foot in We had a standing wager that the yard; and Joe was hardly the one whose cum first hit the of the DeSoto would have furtive. His truck was fes- roof to buy two sacks of White Castle tooned with cowbells to let hamburgers. Plus onion rings! No folks know the junkman was one ever won the prize despite our regularly cheating by lifting our in the neighborhood, and so asses a couple of inches above the we always had warning when seats to get closer to the goal. We he drove into the junkyard. had to suspend the competition in the winter when we shot our loads under a heavy quilt Carlo had secretly borrowed from a closet in his grandparents’ basement. We never came close to being caught by Carlo’s family. His father was usually on the road with my dad; Rosa never set foot in the yard; and Joe was hardly furtive. His truck was festooned with cowbells to let folks know the junkman was in the neighborhood, and so we always had warning when he drove into the junkyard. This is not a story about adolescent humiliation. Nor is this a story about the awakening of love, but it is most surely about the awakening of sex. Carlo was my living, breathing, heaving sex primer. In the DeSoto, we even got around—literally around in the back seat—to sucking each other off. And in a move that horrified before it pleased 78

me, Carlo licked his fingers and carefully maneuvered them into my anus while asking me to do the same to him. But, no, we never fucked. What surprises me even more is that I never fell for Carlo. He was hairy, as I’ve said, but not at all simian. He was gentle and had bright brown eyes that engaged me as much as his hands and his dick. We were intimate and absolutely best friends for a year. I don’t know why I never fell in love with Carlo. But I didn’t. Joe sold the DeSoto for scrap soon after Carlo and I finished seventh grade. We had no other clubhouse nor did we dare to have sex, or whatever we —or you—would call our pastime, in our houses. In July, my parents sent me to summer camp where I did develop crushes on a few of my dorm buddies. But although, paired off on overnight excursions, we sometimes agreed to jerk ourselves off in the privacy of an A-frame, we never touched each other, and I don’t think I yet understood that I was gay. My teachers deemed me book-learned enough to skip eighth grade and proceed to the local high school for freshman year. My daily schedule and routing thus varied from Carlo’s, and so we rarely encountered each other in the ensuing years before his grandfather could no longer resist the amounts of money offered for his land by developers. By the time I was a high school senior, the Pedalinos had moved . . . somewhere. Four two-family houses replaced the junkyard. It had to be ten years later, in Eddie’s Sweet Shop, the famous Queens emporium for homemade ice cream where I had long promised to take my boyfriend Jay, that I heard from the doorway, “Gilly!” I was by then Gilbert or Gil. I was Gilly only to relatives or someone who knew me back when. This time it was Carlo, looking buff and far more handsome than I recalled, accompanied by a gorgeous woman, two rambunctious little boys, and a baby girl in a carriage. Carlo lifted and swept me off my stool at the fountain and hugged me tightly in the air. When he set me back down on the floor, and we looked at each other, I felt the kind of breathlessness and palpitations I had come to associate with love. That made no sense now, and I tried to shake it off as Carlo introduced me to his family, and I presented Jay to them. We moved to a table in the back of the shop, Jay and I carrying our massive dripping three-scoop cones. Inquiries were made and answered about the health of our parents, our jobs, domiciles, and where we had met our partners before the conversation turned to the excellence of Eddie’s ice cream and to reminiscence. “Gilly and I were members of a chapter of the He-Man Woman Haters Club,” Carlo began. “The only members,” I added. Jay raised his eyebrows. He knew 79

the story. “No, c’mon, not really,” said Carlo’s wife Linda. “You certainly do not hate women! Did you then?” “No,” I said. “We spent no time hating anyone. It was just a Little Rascals thing.” “Actually,” said Carlo, “it was more of an explorers club.” I reddened but forged ahead. “Yeah, we honored DeSoto.” “Oh, shit,” Linda exclaimed. “You’re Carlo’s DeSoto guy?” She laughed and flicked the top curl of whipped cream from her banana split in the direction of Carlo’s nose. “Honored DeSoto?” she said. “More like dishonored from what I’ve heard!” “But I—” said Jay, reaching across the table to steal the maraschino Carlo had yet to eat from his sundae, “—I have to thank you, man. Not only did you teach him well . . . you left this for me.” Jay popped the cherry in his mouth.

Sharing Flagler Beach Miranda Campbell First Kiss, Almost In the early afternoon of my freshman year of high school, I wait for Adam to pick me up from my mother’s house. It’s our first date—my first date ever, really. Adam has his permit. I’m only fourteen. So technically I’m waiting for two people: Adam and his best friend Mark. Mark isn’t our chaperone, but he is our ride. I get a text from Adam. I’m outside. I sigh. I was worried he might come to my doorstep, but this is better. I don’t know what’s standard. I have no standards, but the doorstep feels too formal, too soon. I walk out to Mark’s Chevy Avalanche to find Adam sitting in the passenger seat. He smiles, his mouth full of braces, and motions with his hand for me to get into the back seat. I’m disappointed. I may not have had standards leading up to the night, but I like Adam a lot. He’s my first real crush. I want him to want to sit next to me. I open the backseat door and grab the handle on the upper inside to hoist myself up onto the black leather seats. We exchange “hellos,” “how are yous,” and drive toward Flagler Beach. I don’t expect the date to go a certain way—good or bad—because I have nothing to compare it to. Yet somehow there is still pressure, compression I feel in my whole body. I feel like I might mess it up with another person watching. Mark and Adam talk about professional soccer teams: Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. “Miranda, who’s your favorite team?” Mark asks. “I actually don’t watch soccer.” “But don’t you play?” Though I know it wasn’t Mark’s intention, I feel stupid, like having to skip a question on a quiz. “I guess I just prefer to play more than anything.” I fiddle with the seatbelt. Adam laughs. “You can’t do both?” I know they’re teasing, that it’s meant to be lighthearted. Still, it feels like a strike against me. I look out the window. We’re passing over Flagler Beach bridge, and I turn just in time—at the peak—for the best view of the Intracoastal below. At the apex, you can see the calm, still water stretch for miles, maybe even as far as Ormond Beach, a town fifteen minutes away. Small docks leading to expensive homes, made of treated wood and metal roofing, line the 200-foot waterway. Boats of all sizes float at the ends of docks, waiting to cruise the channel. The sun sets from the opposite direction, peeking through spaces 81

between trees and homes. Obscure shadows made from the tops of trees reflect along the water. I turn my head and face the direction we just came from, the bottom of the bridge receding the closer to the beach we get. The sun is blinding. I shade my eyes, and face toward the front again. Fourteen years of living in this town and this view never gets old. I still wish to see the beach at sunset. “Where do you guys want to go?” Mark asks. I say, “Anywhere” at the same time Adam says, “Sally’s Ice Cream.” At the end of State Road A1A, Mark makes a left turn. He parks outside a tiny, pastel-pink shack with a large white sign that reads “Sally’s Ice Cream” in squiggly blue lettering. My legs make a suction sound as they peel off the seat. I pray my armpits won’t do the same if I lift my arms. Adam pays for my waffle cone. We eat together at a wooden picnic bench overlooking the beach. The murky waves crash and send sea spray up into the air. The waves, more a lull than anything, are comforting in their clash against the coquina rock sand. I realize I’m too quiet. I want Adam to like me, but I worry I’ll say the wrong thing. Sometimes I want to reach back in time and tap my younger self on the arm. Speak! When you like someone, it’s so much easier to not try, to abandon the feelings. It’s so much easier to stay home. Adam and Mark bring up a recent soccer match they watched on TV. They use words like “hat trick” and “Messi.” I smile and nod. I follow along. When we’re finished with our cones, Mark suggests we walk the boardwalk. I wonder why he’s still here with us. Could it be that Adam asked him to stay? That he’s just as nervous as I am? Whatever the case, I’m relieved. I didn’t realize how much I’d need a buffer. We head three blocks north toward the pier. The wooden brown slats on the roof create a large upside-down V, a small nook for sightseers and fishermen to gather their gear before walking onto the exposed pier. On both sides of the deteriorated roof, FLAGLER BEACH is spelled out in white, blocky lettering. The letters are worn, the edges yellowed and eroded from wind-blown sea salt. It’s one of my favorite parts about Flagler. The atmosphere feels so opposite of commercial. I hold my black Volcom flips flops as we walk the blue paneled boardwalk, the cracked wood rough against my bare feet. We come to the giant, colorful chalkboard—a makeshift community mural—brimming with signatures, doodles, and often profanities. The chalkboard is at least thirty feet long and six feet tall. It borders the side of The Funky Pelican, a beachside brunch restaurant connected to the pier. Chalk in assorted colors sits on the railing for tourists and locals to decorate the chalkboard. It’s covered top to bottom by the end of each day, the board a mass of colors, pictures bleeding 82

into one another. Someone from The Funky Pelican hoses it down every few days, the canvas is restored to a plain blackboard, and the mosaic begins all over again. Today, there are a few blank spaces. The three of us stop and sketch. I pick up a thick blue piece of Crayola chalk and write my name in loose cursive. It’s sloppy. I erase it and do it again, over and over until I think it’s perfect. I look up to see what Mark and Adam have drawn on the opposite side of the board. I see a small soccer field. Two cartoon men stand on opposite sides of the field—one with a soccer ball at his feet, the other waiting for his opponent. They each wear a jersey detailed with a player name and number. One reads MESSI, the other RONALDO. Tiny emblems—team logos—are etched into the corner of the jerseys. I feel like I’m on a double date. Adam and me. Adam and Mark. I wonder what Adam is thinking. I wonder if he thinks the date is going well. We haven’t interacted as much as I’d hoped. In a way, that makes me feel like there is still a chance. I haven’t yet said the wrong thing. They call me over and encourage me to draw my favorite professional soccer player. The only one I know is also one of the most famous in history: Mia Hamm. But she retired years ago, so I draw myself instead. CAMPBELL #4. I put an FPC emblem in the corner, the abbreviation of the high school where the three of us attend and play soccer. They give a half-smile, the kind you give when you’re trying to be polite. The last stop on what’s started to feel like a guided tour is the actual beach. We walk down the wooden staircase leading to the orange coquina-rock sand. Once we’re on the beach, Mark breaks away, telling us he’ll be up at his truck. He turns to leave. I realize I don’t want him to go. Though I want to be, I’m not ready to be alone with Adam. I clench my teeth and scrunch my toes, tensing one body part at a time until I feel a cramp in my calf. Adam and I make trivial small talk. We ask each other’s favorite food, favorite color, favorite television shows. The occasional car passes. I hear reggae music from the rooftop of Fuego, an outdoor bar across the street from where we sit. People laugh as they sit on the stone edge that surrounds the large bonfire out front. I can’t hear the waves as much as I could before. “Can I kiss you?” Adam asks, but the question feels forced and unprecedented. Though I know Mark isn’t interested in me, he’s made a point to engage with me more than Adam has this whole time. My muscles tighten again. Adam’s damp brown hair hangs just above his eyebrows. In that moment, I realize I’m not ready to date. I’m not ready to be more than a friend. I search for something, anything to say. “I don’t think so.” 83

A few weeks later, as I come around the corner of the 700 building on my way to Mrs. Alvez’s Biology class, I see Adam in the courtyard at school, holding hands with and kissing tall, blonde Taylor Hastings, the girl I heard had been pining after Adam for months. He chose to go on a date with me, but in the end, he chose her. I think back to our beach date. I’m not surprised. They break apart from their kiss. I look away just in time. I have to walk past them in order to get to first period. When I do, I pretend I don’t see them. When the Music Stops Dan picks me up in his mother’s white Tahoe. He comes to the front door even though I ask him to let me know when he’s outside. He says hello to my mother, shakes my stepfather’s hand, and tells them our plans for the night. Dinner in Flagler Beach, home by ten o’clock. When he starts the car, Sublime plays through the speakers. Dan and I bond over music. Sometimes it’s the only thing we talk about. Sublime, Slightly Stoopid, Arcade Fire, Rebelution. Our uncomfortable silences are filled with musical rhythms. Sometimes, when he has his guitar with him, he’s the one that plays them. In the car, when each song ends, I want the music back. I want the next song to start. When we get to Flagler, we eat UFO’s—a saucer shaped burrito filled with chicken, cheese, and all the toppings of your choice—at A1A Burrito Works. Afterward, we walk a couple of blocks to a 7-Eleven. Dan buys me a Diet Coke and himself a Sprite, and we walk down the boardwalk. “Odd or even,” he says. “Huh?” “Just pick one.” “Okay…odd.” He nods his head at something high above and behind me. A group of pelicans fly past us. He stares at them as they pass, squinting his eyes as though in concentration. “Ah, so close,” he says. “Ten. Even.” He explains that whenever you see an approaching flock of birds you say odd or even. Without looking, the person you’re with guesses how many birds might be in the flock. He laughs and says, “I know, it’s stupid.” “No, I like it.” We play this game throughout the night, in between conversation. It surprises me just how many birds pass in a single beach outing. I wonder where he learned the game, how many other girls he’s played it with, if any. Eventually he asks if I want to walk along the beach. I say yes. We take off our flip flops and leave them underneath the staircase at the First Street boardwalk. Flagler Beach is deserted, quiet, free of spring breakers and tourists. It’s the kind of beach where it’s safe to leave personal 84

belongings—a laid-out beach towel, beach bag, cooler, etc. You can go for a walk or run across the street to a gas station for snacks and know for certain everything will be where you left it. Dan and I walk half in the sand, half in the lukewarm ocean water washing in and out. We leave footprints in the sand. My bare feet step on jagged shells, cracking them into small pieces. The sharp stabs feel good. Our arms bump against one another every so often. Each time Dan apologizes. I want him to see it as an opportunity to grab my hand. After a few more bumps he finally does. We interlace A couple seconds into the fingers. We stop and stand face to embrace, it’s uncomfortable. face. The sun has set. I can barely My arms have fallen asleep. make out the features of his face, but I know his light-brown, wide- My left elbow digs into his set eyes are there, his nose that side. Despite this, I want to hangs so low that when he smiles, power through. the bottom of it seems to touch his upper lip. He puts his arms around me and kisses me on the lips. I know it’s not going well when his teeth mash against mine. We can’t find the space where lips are supposed to meet. We stop soon after and keep walking. We don’t say anything for a couple minutes. I wish for music. When we get back to the Tahoe, a loud boom followed by a crack erupts from somewhere in the distance. A fireworks display decorates the sky in blues, greens, reds, and golds. I lean on the hood of the car, watching the bright explosions. Dan sees it as an opportunity. He sidles up close behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. My back is to his chest. A couple seconds into the embrace, it’s uncomfortable. My arms have fallen asleep. My left elbow digs into his side. Despite this, I want to power through. That’s what you do when you want something to work. You overlook the small disparities that don’t amount to anything other than first-date jitters. You fight for it. “Yeah, I’m uncomfortable,” he says, laughing it off. He moves his body so that we stand side by side, no longer touching at all. We watch the rest of the fireworks in silence. Friends with the Occasional Benefit My best guy friend Brian drives us to the beach when my mother and stepfather are on their nightly bike ride. This makes it easy to sneak out my mother’s stash of vodka. “It’s Monday Funday,” he said earlier over the phone. He picks me up twenty minutes later. I walk out with a Zephyrhills 85

water bottle full of a Stoli and pineapple juice mixture. He tells me that’s not enough. I roll my eyes. A few minutes later, I come back out with a water bottle and a half. “You know it’s a school night. I can’t be out late,” I say, sliding into his Mustang. He doesn’t respond, just smirks and backs out of the driveway. He drives a few miles down the road to Flagler Beach and parks on the south side of the pier across the street from Giuseppe’s. It’s been closed for hours, but I can still smell pizza grease steaming from the glass doors, the tiny, square window looking out onto the boardwalk for beachgoers who’d rather grab a to-go slice than have a sit-down meal inside. We walk down the wooden boardwalk, water bottles in hand, and leave our shoes at the bottom of the stairs. Our feet sink into the wet sand with each step. We take swigs as we walk, letting the alcohol warm our bodies, giggling a little more every minute. My lips feel numb. I smack them together to make sure they’re still there. Eventually Brian and I stop to sit in the sand. We reminisce—best days, worst days, high school graduation in a month, where we’ll be going afterward. Brian is my good friend, my good friend that I like to kiss. It is a mutual affection. I feel I can say whatever is on my mind. “Hey Brian, I forgot how you kiss. I think you should remind me.” He laughs. I can see every one of his teeth. “What a line,” he says. “I might steal that.” Today, he tells me it’s a line he uses on girls he’s previously kissed. Today I think, what a stupid thing to say. We kiss for what feels like a few hours. Eventually my mother texts me that I need to come home. When we get back in his car, he plugs his phone into the auxiliary cord. We belt a song we both love the whole way home. There’s no goodbye kiss because that would be weird. When we see each other at school the next day, he asks if I’m going to this weekend’s baseball game. I tell him of course. He suggests we ride together. We act as though the night before never happened. Limbo Ben and I meet each other next to the pier in Flagler Beach. I pull into any empty parking spot in my mother’s emerald-green van. Ben leans against his white Subaru sports car. When I get out, he lingers for a moment. I move toward him, and we hug. His dark brown stubble brushes my chin in the recoil. I breathe in his clean but spicy cologne. We meet at the beach to talk about the previous weekend. He’d heard I kissed another guy. Ben and I aren’t together; we’re in that cloudy intermediate stage, figuring each other out. But still, he wants to know why I did it. That’s fair. Instead of walking on the sand, we hoist ourselves up onto the 86

light-blue railing that lines the boardwalk, dangling our feet over sunburned shrubbery and cacti, and face the dark ocean. The sun set a few hours ago. All I can see is the white foam of a wave crashing. He puts space between us, more than usual. The dim moon is small, hanging low over the water. It gives off as little light as the weak orange glow from the overhead streetlamps. “So, why did you kiss him?” Ben doesn’t look at me. “I don’t know,” I lie. Ben and I have hung out several times, always in group settings. The first time I met him, I was with one of my best friends, Meagan. She introduced us. “You guys would be so cute together,” she said. In high school, this seems to be one of the main criteria for dating. One Saturday morning, Meagan and I surprised Ben by showing up unannounced at his house. It had been awhile since they’d hung out. She wanted to see him. I remember her calling it a perfect opportunity for him and me to meet. She made breakfast and caught up with his parents. I sat at the kitchen bar top and watched, waiting for Ben to wake up. I wondered then if Meagan’s matchmaking was her effort at due diligence or an attempt to transpose any feelings she had for him onto me. I was never sure Ben and I were a good idea from the beginning. Doubts aside, I gave it a chance. “You don’t know why you kissed him?” Ben asks. The truth is I do know. I want to tell him I could never really let his closeness with Meagan go, how when they play-wrestle, right in front of me sometimes—Meagan’s shirt rising up and revealing her pale, flat stomach, Ben’s hands gripping her torso, just underneath her breasts—it feels intimate. It makes me think I should leave the room. I want to ask him why we don’t hang out one on one, though he and Meagan will fall asleep at each other’s houses. But I also want to be a cool girl who accepts these things and is never bothered by them, let alone brings them up. Instead, I tell him the reason I kissed another guy is because I was drunk, which isn’t a complete lie. But it’s a half-truth. It seems I haven’t learned a thing. Since my very first date, I haven’t learned to find my voice. I wonder if there’s some sort of middle ground to be reached. Maybe once I figure out what I want, I’ll figure out when to speak up. I like Ben, but it turns out I like a guarantee more. I like knowing for certain what I’m up against. I like the familiarity of being in control. He tells me he doesn’t want to stop hanging out, if that’s what I want. “Don’t tell me now though. Think about it.” I nod and say, “I will.” Our butts become numb after sitting on the narrow railing for too long. I suggest moving to one of the pavilions next to us. Before I sit on the bench, Ben stretches his body along the wooden picnic table and faces up. 87

He pats the empty space next to him. I lie down, put a couple feet between us, and stare up at the sky. Looking straight up, it seems so bright, the stars big and bold. The streetlights must have turned off a while ago without our noticing. My hands lie at my sides. Ben’s are clasped over his stomach. I think about reaching for his hand, but don’t. We lie across the table, side by side, in a limbo of sorts. I’m surprised but relieved that we can be like this with each other, favoring the quiet. It seems clear to me: neither of us wants to ruin a good night by talking just to talk, just to fill a silence that doesn’t need filling. For a moment my mind wanders back to Meagan. But Ben is here with me, and I suppose that counts for something. Two is a Crowd I go to the beach alone, too. I pack my Australian gold sunscreen with the built-in bronzer, a towel big enough to fit three of me, whichever book I’m reading at the time, and a couple of water bottles in a brown-and-white embroidery tote bag. I drive to Flagler Beach in my red Chevy Malibu and turn left toward Northside. I drive at least ten blocks north. The further away from the pier, the emptier the beach. When I park alongside the road and get out, I smell burnt eucalyptus drift through the air. I smell fried fish and hamburger grease from the beachside restaurants that line the other side of the road: Finn’s, The Golden Lion, Turtle Shack Café. Call it sticky, call it fishy, call it too much sunscreen; no other smell reminds me more of home. I find a spot on the sand, lay my towel over the uneven patterns, and sit. When the heat becomes unbearable—the sun beating down on my skin, my whole body slick with sweat and salt—I walk into the ocean and wade a few feet in the water. Never further though. I wonder how when I was a kid I could go so far out into the ocean, sometimes to the end of the 100-foot-long pier. I think, good for her. It seems to me that girl had more nerve. Now when I’m in the water, I swim to where the waves break, diving head first under each wave right before it crashes. When the temperature hits 90 or more, every dunk in the water is refreshing, like a cleansing, a washing away. My favorite time to go to Flagler is the evening, that odd time of day where the sky turns from light to dark without warning. The sun starts to set but takes its time. The yellow-orange glow turns to light pink, sometimes purple, always at a slow crawl. Then out of nowhere, the colors go dark all at once. I like seeing both sides of the beach. One is so distinct from the other. I like that when the sun sets the ocean turns into a faraway sound, a rushing in and out of waves that I can’t see but know for certain are still there. When I take myself to the beach, when I’m there alone and there’s no hand to wonder if I should reach for, there’s no pressure. I feel a peace 88

unlike any I’ve felt when the space beside me is filled. Sometimes when I’m at Flagler Beach and I notice a formation of birds flying toward me from the distance, I look away. I think, odd or even. I look up just as the birds fly past and do the calculation in my head. I don’t always guess right, but it’s the work that counts, the act of trying and trying until I get it right.

Secrets to a Long Life David Spicer My great-grandmother, Kiki Rosenberg, immigrated to California. Now a Chicagoan, she learned her philosophy from an electrician husband: keep amphibians as pets, take lovers who look like Cleopatra whether women or men, and live up to your self-image. She’s 109, so it’s worked. And don’t use lavatories more than twice a day, she admonishes. I’m only 28 and try to limit my whiskey intake, but she says, Aw hell, Sonny, a little bourbon never hurt nobody. I knew a conquistador in Argentina— I was his secretary—who drank a quart a day, became a millionaire, and lived to be 82. The circumference of his head, though, was the size of a pregnant bowling ball. I love my great-grandmother: I never feel embarrassment when I’m with her, even if she doesn’t believe in the sacrament of matrimony. She says, I ain’t a practitioner of any devices of pragmatism. And I’m proud of her testimony against the Nazis: she wore a gladiolus to court and wanted to interrogate them, but the prosecutors thought that since she was a civilian, she wouldn’t be plausible. Later, she received a mechanical engineering degree and now she’s competitive in national Bridge tournaments. I can’t get over Kiki: she survived the camps, cancer, radiation, and her favorite song 90

is Democracy. She’s outlived all her descendants except me, but I’ll be damned if I don’t break her record.

Beyond Beating Wings Russ Edney A butterfly floated through the air. Carried along on a warm summer’s breeze, it twisted and turned in a gentle, rhythmic manner, much like a ballerina on a well-lit stage. Its wings were a white as pure as Heaven itself and the sunlight appeared to reflect brightly off its delicate features. It was like watching a spirit slow-dance toward me. With the long grass moving as much as it was, I lay prone in the hope that, in this rough sea of green within which we both found ourselves, perhaps I might be its island. I watched as it fluttered around my feet for a while, sometimes close, sometimes far, but almost always in the same drunken fashion, never quite sure whether my feet were safe haven or not. I felt neither happy nor sad when it moved off toward the tree line some way behind me, only thankful that we’d shared that brief moment together. “Chihiro!” The word seemed to come from As the rustling increased a faraway place, carried for miles in volume, I imagined for a on the wind that swept through the moment that the old faded reeds all around me. I wondered, if only for a second, whether hat was the bow of a ship, the word had been whispered slicing its way through the in another life yet had somehow found its way to me in this one. thick flora. “Chihiro! Are you there?” My name again. And louder this time, too. I raised my head above the grass. “Chihiro! Ah, there you are! Wait there, I’m coming!” said the voice. There was a rustling from somewhere over to my right, and when I stood, I saw the peak of a straw sun hat slowly meander its way over in my general direction. “Over here!” I shouted. The hat slowed then came to a stop. “Here!” I yelled, “I’m over here! You’re going the wrong way!” The hat started moving again, now on an intercept course with me. As the rustling increased in volume, I imagined for a moment that the old faded hat was the bow of a ship, slicing its way through the thick flora. As the rustling grew louder still, I let my imagination run wild. This was my favorite spot for doing so, after all. Finally, having reached the area in which I’d been lying for most of 92

that morning, the ship’s captain parted the brush that bordered me with a gentleness that suggested great care, and stepped inside. It was Mizuki. “Tonbo’s dead,” she said. She’d delivered the news in what was fast becoming her trademark style: curt, efficient and to the point. I saw a news desk in her future. The shadow of a bird passed overhead, its smooth, steady arc circling us. “OK,” I replied after I’d had a minute to digest this news. Mizuki continued to stare at me. Her face gave little away as to how she was really feeling: the perfect news anchor. Rather, it was the awkward shuffle of her feet that belied her real emotion, as well as her age; she’d turned seven only last month. I took a deep breath. “OK,” I said again. “Let’s go see Granny.” Above us, the bird beat its wings and flew off to the south. Granny wasn’t home when we arrived. Mizuki uprooted the blue hydrangea in the pot beside the front door and removed the key, a spare that for 50 years had remained “hidden” in the same place under the same plant without a single incident of loss or theft, despite everyone in town knowing its whereabouts. It was uncertain whether Granny knew this or not, but if she did, she didn’t let on and if she didn’t, well, she had some seriously trustworthy neighbors. I took the key from Mizuki and jiggled the lock until the latch made its usual clunking sound to indicate I’d found the magic spot, and then I slid the door open. “Hello! Hello!” The greeting was so unexpected that I jumped, snatching up Mizuki’s hand and squeezing it hard in the process. “Ow!” she said, wrenching it free. “It’s just Lemon! Look!” She pointed down the hallway where a large bird with a big, hooked beak was waddling its way toward us. Its feathers were the color of a light rain cloud, its tail a vibrant red. It was perhaps not the most beautiful of parrots, but neither was it ugly. It was, however, Mizuki’s best friend. Recovered from my fright, I bent down and tried to scoop Lemon up in my arms but she dodged with surprising speed, instead choosing to leap into Mizuki’s outstretched arms. Mizuki giggled and gave her a tickle. “Did you miss us, Lemon?” she asked. I rolled my eyes. Lemon. What a stupid name for a parrot. Granny had named her that years ago after discovering the bird’s love of the sour yellow fruit. For some reason, after Mizuki had been born, Lemon had taken a real shine to her, and the two had been thick as thieves ever since. “Come on, you two,” I said. “Let’s go inside and wait for Granny. You 93

take Lemon and I’ll make tea, alright?” “OK,” said Mizuki. “Come on, Lemon, let’s go.” Lemon clambered up Mizuki’s arm until she reached her shoulder, where she nestled against her head. “Hey, that tickles!” giggled Mizuki as they moved off down the hall together. I looked on and felt an odd pang of jealousy over their relationship. It was funny how emotions like that could creep up on you. Then, feeling stupid for feeling that way, I went to make tea. Granny came through the door just as the kettle started its aggressive little whistle. I lifted it off the gas burner to stop its complaining, and set it down on a tray set with three empty cups, since I assumed Granny would want tea too. Then I took the tray through and placed it on the small table that was the centerpiece of Granny’s living room. Our living room, I should say, as we had all lived here since mom died. “Oh, you girls are already home?” Granny said with surprise as she entered the room. “Granny!” Mizuki shouted with genuine joy, then ran over with such a start that Lemon almost tumbled off her shoulder. “Oh, you are a sweet thing,” smiled Granny when Mizuki wrapped her arms around her waist, burying her head in the thick woollen jumper that grannies always seem to wear. Amazingly, Lemon was still hanging on to Mizuki’s shoulder, just like a jealous lover. After a hug that seemed to last forever, Granny managed to prize Mizuki’s arms apart and, with a nod of gratitude, accepted the steaming cup of green tea that I was holding out to her. She sat down at the little table, folding her legs beneath her. “So now, what have you girls been up to?” she asked, taking a sip. “Granny, Tonbo’s dead,” Mizuki said in her matter-of-fact way, staring at the ground. Granny looked over at me. “Chihiro, is this true?” I felt my face flush red; the question from Granny was innocent enough, but something about being asked to confirm whether Tonbo was dead or alive, just after Mizuki had told her that he was indeed dead, made me feel like a prison snitch of sorts. Mizuki seemed to pick up on this and before I could answer shouted, “It is true, he’s dead! I saw him lying there not moving! He is! He’s dead!” Then she burst into tears. Granny reached over and pulled her close. “Shh, Mizuki, shh. It’s alright, I believe you. It’s OK.” She stroked her hair reassuringly and a sudden memory came back to me of our mom doing the same thing to me whenever I was upset. A sharp pain stabbed at my chest as Granny said, “Do you know where he is, Chihiro? Tonbo?” 94

I shook my head, but I hadn’t really heard her. The pain in my chest was still there. Mizuki, however, had regained some of her earlier composure and sniffed, “I know, Granny.” “OK, then,” Granny said. “Let’s get our stuff together and go find him. We can’t let him stay there. Chihiro, there’s a large shoebox upstairs in the attic—could you please go and fetch it?” I nodded, the pain in my chest subsiding. “And bring that old blanket down with you as well, would you? You know, the one the moths love,” Granny added. I nodded a second time then turned and headed for the stairs. Attics can be scary places, but not for me. To me, attics are dark only until you turn on the light; they’re dirty only if you never go up there to dust; and they’re unorganized only if you never go up there to organize them. I suppose I had Granny to thank for my fearlessness because she had always made sure to keep her attic well lit, free of dust, and extremely tidy. It took me all of 30 seconds to find the shoebox and the blanket to which she’d referred. The latter was folded on a shelf on the other side of the room from the shoebox, which was on the floor by the door, so I went and retrieved that first. Then I returned to collect the shoebox. For some reason I expected it to be empty as I bent down to pick it up, so it came as quite a surprise to me when it weighed a considerable amount more than I was prepared to lift, catching me off guard and almost causing me to drop it. Curious as to what was inside, I put down the blanket and removed the lid. My heart stopped. Inside was a pile of old photos, some still in their little plastic print shop jackets, others splayed loosely about. And on the top of the pile was a photo of our mom. I wasn’t expecting to see her here—we thought we’d lost all the photos of her in the fire. My mind raced and I felt as though time had frozen. Everything around me dissolved and my entire body seemed to shut down; only my vision remained, fixed upon the smiling face of our mother. I almost forgot to breathe and, when I finally exhaled, a great surge of emotion came bubbling up with it, the sadness I suddenly felt threatening to drown me. I touched my face and realized I was crying. “Chihiro? Is everything ok?” came a sudden shout. I’d forgotten Granny and Mizuki were waiting for me. With a silent prayer, I pocketed the photo and wiped my eyes, pushing the thoughts of my mother from my mind. Then I took a moment to compose myself, emptied the box of the remaining photographs, and went to meet them both downstairs. 95

Outside the sky had turned a mottled grey and big fat clouds hung in it, threatening to burst and cover our world with a watery sheen. We walked in single file, Mizuki leading the way. She held her yellow umbrella high over her head, reminding me of one of those tour guides you so often see leading long lines of snap-happy tourists from one sight to the next, their little group flag waving atop its pole. Our dead cat tour continued for another ten minutes, winding its way through the narrow streets, Mizuki at the front, me in the middle, Granny at the back, before Mizuki finally stopped and pointed her umbrella in the direction of a big sycamore tree. The rain hadn’t yet come but the air had grown heavy. “He’s over there,” Mizuki said, tracing circles in the dirt with her foot. We looked in the direction she was pointing. At the base of the tree we could see a small brown lump. It wasn’t moving. Granny put an arm around Mizuki. “Mizuki, you can stay here if you’d like?” Granny said, “Me and Chihiro will go get Tonbo.” But Mizuki wasn’t having any of it and shook her head vigorously. “Are you sure?” Granny asked her again, and again she shook her head. “OK, then. That’s very brave of you,” Granny said, taking hold of her hand. “And how about you, Chihiro?” “I’m OK,” I said, touching the photo I’d stashed in my coat pocket earlier. “Good,” Granny said. “Let’s go.” The first thing I noticed when we reached Tonbo was that it didn’t look as though he was dead; in fact, it very much looked as though he was just asleep. The second thing I noticed when we reached Tonbo was that he definitely wasn’t asleep because, up close, I could see that his chest was no longer rising and falling to the tune of his breathing. Granny knelt beside the body. “Hand me the blanket will you, Mizuki?” she asked. Mizuki did so, looking for all the world as though she were about to burst into tears again. Granny took the blanket from her and draped it over Tonbo’s body. “Chihiro, could you give me the box, please?” she said. I did as she asked then watched as Granny, checking that the body was wrapped tightly enough in the blanket, transferred Tonbo to the shoebox, making sure to replace the lid when she was done. “What now, Granny?” Mizuki asked. Her voice wavered but it no longer looked as though she were about to cry. “Now, Mizuki, we’re going to take him home and give him a fitting burial. That way we can say goodbye to him properly,” Granny said. Mizuki gave a small nod and Granny picked up the box. “How about that, Chihiro? Does that sound good to you?” 96

It occurred to me that I hadn’t said anything for a while, so I said, “I think Tonbo would like that.” “Alright then,” Granny said, casting her gaze upwards. “Let’s get moving before the rain comes. Mizuki, lead the way.” The heavens opened just as we turned the final corner home. Fat teardrops fell from the sky, exploding around us in quick succession. Up front, Mizuki had opened her umbrella and was busy twirling it around and around, giggling all the while, the water spraying off it like fireworks off a pinwheel. Its bright yellow contrasted with the deep grey that seemed to have settled over everything, her laughter cutting through the weather’s somber tone. Having watched Mizuki for a while I looked behind at Granny, who threw me one of those warm, comforting smiles that grandmas are so good at throwing. I returned it, confident that she was thinking the same thing as me: it’s amazing just how quickly a seven-year-old can flit between moods. When we were little more than a few feet from the house, we heard a whistle sound out; Lemon had been awaiting our return. As soon as Granny opened the front door, Lemon leapt up at Mizuki with such speed that it caused her to cry out in surprise. Then she clambered up to her favourite spot on Mizuki’s shoulder and nuzzled against her head again. With Lemon sitting there, Mizuki looked just like a pirate. “How about a cup of tea?” Granny said while we all stripped off our wet clothes. Mizuki looked unsure. “What about Tonbo?” she asked. “Oh, I’m sure he won’t mind,” Granny replied, resting her hand atop the box. “Tonbo loved tea. I’m sure he won’t begrudge us one while it’s raining.” True, Tonbo had been a strange cat. Granny said that ever since he was small, he’d taken a liking to her green tea, and she would often place a small saucer down next to her when she was having some, which he would lap at with gusto. Growing up, I had tried to feed him all manner of other things I thought a cat would like, but he’d always refused, his eyes finally lighting up when I gave up and put the kettle on to boil. Perhaps Mizuki had been remembering the same thing because she appeared a tad more cheerful after Granny had said this. Wrapping an arm around Mizuki’s shoulders and guiding her toward the kitchen, Granny said, “Chihiro, won’t you be a dear and get the table ready, please? Me and Mizuki here are going to make some lovely green tea, isn’t that right, Mizuki?” Together they disappeared into the kitchen. 97

I watched as steam rose from my hot mug of tea in a long, stretchedout white wisp, climbing up, up, up, and then disappearing just when it was within touching distance of the ceiling. The effect was almost hypnotic. At one point, I hovered my nose over the rim of the mug and was surprised to find that, after a few seconds, it was as wet as a dog’s. Across the room, Granny and Mizuki were sipping their own teas. Lemon was perched on a chair next to them, tearing at her namesake, half a lemon that Granny must have found for her while in the kitchen; she didn’t look at all bothered by its sourness, perhaps a testament to how many she’d eaten over the years. “What will happen to Tonbo now, Granny?” Mizuki asked after a time. “Well,” Granny began, “we want Tonbo to feel at peace. He was a happy cat when he was alive, so we want him to feel happy in the afterlife as well. That’s why I thought he’d like it if we buried him here, out back in the garden under his favorite tree; he used to love lazing in the shade it gave during the summer.” She smiled as she seemed to recall the memory. Mizuki’s face scrunched up like a ball of paper—she was obviously giving it some serious thought. “Granny,” she said eventually, “What’s an afterlife?” Granny took a long sip of tea before answering. “Well, Mizuki,” she said, “Many people believe that the afterlife is what awaits the soul of a person after they’ve died. Once they’ve left this earth, they journey to a spiritual land where they can rest in peace in what many people believe Heaven to be. Think of it as like moving house, Mizuki. We all die, and once we do, we move on from this house,” Granny reached over and pinched Mizuki’s cheek, “to another one.” Mizuki giggled and brushed Granny’s hand away. “In fact, Mizuki,” Granny continued, “there are some people who believe that the souls of the recently departed leave the body in the form of a butterfly to carry out this journey.” Granny made the shape of a butterfly with her hands and flew it over Mizuki. “What’s a soul, Granny?” Mizuki asked. Granny smiled. “Well now, a soul, Mizuki, is the essence of a living being. We each have one: you, me, Chihiro, even Tonbo and Lemon over there. In fact, all living creatures do. It’s like your whole personality wrapped up tight inside you.” She reached out again, finger pointing at Mizuki’s chest. “In essence, Mizuki, it’s everything that makes you you!” Granny suddenly prodded her in the ribs, causing Mizuki to explode with laughter. It was a nice scene, the two of them laughing, and I was happy to be witnessing it, despite the heavy overtones. “So the afterlife...is that where Tonbo will go?” Mizuki asked. “Yes,” Granny said. “That’s where Tonbo will go.” 98

“And mom too? Is that where she went?” Mizuki asked. The question seemed to take Granny off guard as it did me; we both choked on our tea, spluttering and spilling it everywhere. I ran to the kitchen and fetched a couple of towels. “Thank you, Chihiro,” Granny said, as I handed her one upon my return. She dabbed at the tea that had spilled in her lap. Then she put the towel on the table and answered Mizuki’s question. “Yes, Mizuki,” she said. “That’s where your mother is now.” It took Mizuki and me less than 30 minutes to dig the hole that would serve as Tonbo’s grave. Granny picked the spot, about three feet from the base of the old pine tree, exactly where he’d liked to lounge on those hot summer days. The ground had been softened by the earlier heavy rain, so the going was much easier than we’d expected. As Mizuki and I busied ourselves with digging, Granny draped an old white handkerchief across the top of Tonbo’s box, fastening it in place with a safety pin hidden by some of the blue hydrangeas she’d clipped from outside of the front door. As we worked, the sky continued to threaten rain, the clouds gathering in sallow-looking clusters above us. It was, I supposed, perfect funeral weather. Granny mumbled something to Mizuki who disappeared inside, only to return a minute later with three umbrellas cradled in her arms; she handed them out like candy and we accepted them gratefully. “Chihiro, would you help me with this, please?” Granny said, gesturing toward the box that held Tonbo as the first few raindrops began to fall. “What shall I do, Granny?” Mizuki asked. “Well now, you’ve got the most important job of all, Mizuki: you get to supervise. That means you have to make sure that we place Tonbo down just right. His box can’t be askew, it has to be as flat as can be so that Tonbo can rest comfortably, OK? Can you do that for us?” Mizuki nodded earnestly. “OK then, let’s lower him in—quickly now, it looks like it’s really going to rain.” Together Granny and I picked up the box and, under the watchful eye of Mizuki, placed it carefully into the hole. Being able to feel the weight of Tonbo’s body inside the box yet at the same time know that it was no longer Tonbo—at least, not physically—was a strange sensation; how could something, or someone, that looked so alive really be dead? Earlier, under the tree where we’d found him, Tonbo had looked as though he were just sleeping; could that still be the case now? Though I knew, of course, that it could not, 99

that there was no way, and yet my mind grappled with the reality of it all the same. When Mizuki gave the all clear (she was taking her supervisor role very seriously), Granny stood up and said, “Chihiro, Mizuki, would either of you like to say anything?” “I miss Tonbo,” was all Mizuki said. Granny wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. “I know, Mizuki. We all miss Tonbo.” She gave her a comforting squeeze. “But remember, he’s still here. He’s just moving house.” At this, Mizuki smiled a little. “So, is there anything else you’d like to say?” Granny asked. Mizuki shook her head but she no longer looked quite so sad. “And what about you, Chihiro? Would you like to say anything?” I touched the photo of our mother that I had in my pocket. It had been just over a year since she’d died and I realized that it had been exactly that long since I’d seen her face; when I’d found the photo of her in the attic I’d suddenly been scared of forgetting her completely, and it had been that thought that had caused me to burst into tears. But now, remembering Granny’s words to Mizuki, I realized that the image I had of my mother wasn’t built upon a single image but upon the multiple memories I had of her: the softness of her skin, as delicate as a day-old peach; her smell, sweet and floral because of the rose water she always wore; her elegant movements, as graceful as the slow steps of a crane. All these aspects of her personality combined to create not one two-dimensional image but a three-dimensional essence. As the rain began to fall, I realized I was crying again, though unlike the last time in the attic this time was different, something had changed. Mixed in with the sadness there was a small bit of joy that came with the understanding that I didn’t need a photo to remember her; my memories could do that for me. Hot tears combined with cold rain and streamed down my face like water off a mountain pass. I removed the photo from my pocket and placed it in the grave. “I won’t forget you,” I said. I looked over at Granny and Mizuki. Together we filled in the grave. The next morning, I lay in the field of long grass again, basking in the summer sunshine, watching as cloud after cloud passed me by in the hot blue sky, their shapes ever shifting. Like river water, a warm breeze swirled around me and playfully tickled the bottoms of my feet. As I lay there, I noticed a bee fly overhead, its buzz growing louder then fading away. I watched its erratic flight, twisting and turning in all manner of 100

ways, and wondered how it had come to master such a balance in life as to be so serious yet so whimsical. As it left, its place was taken by a butterfly that floated in on the wind and landed, its wings spread wide, on the flower closest to where I sat. I watched as it flexed its tissue paper wings in slow-motion, seemingly unconcerned with its surroundings or with who might be watching it. And I smiled.

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Contributors’ Notes JULIA ALOI is a writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is an editor for BatCat Press, where she also practices a variety of bookbinding techniques. She serves as the managing editor of the award-winning literary magazine, Pulp. Her work has been published in Balloons Lit. Journal and Sheepshead Review. EDEN BAILIE is an author and writing student. Her work has been featured in Lithium, Foliate Oak, Piece Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Pennsylvania, where she writes to pass the time until the world ends. GABY BEDETTI is Professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, where she teaches Comedy as an Artistic Approach. Her poems have appeared in Asses of Parnassus, Down in the Dirt, and elsewhere. Every June, she enjoys posting a daily poem on the Lexington Poetry Month blog. She is co-translating Henri Meschonnic’s poems from the French. Find her work at https:// gabriellabedetti.wordpress.com. MIRANDA CAMPBELL graduated with her MFA in creative writing from Georgia College and State University. She freelance edits for Triplicity Publishing. She’s a sucker for tacos, The Office, people who can quote The Office, and a good used bookstore. Much of her inspiration comes from her favorite place—her home, Flagler Beach, FL. Her work appears in The Laurel Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, littledeathlit, Saw Palm, Dime Show Review, and others. MICHAEL CHIN was born and raised in Utica, New York and currently lives in Las Vegas with his wife and son. He is the author of three full-length short story collections: You Might Forget the Sky was Ever Blue from Duck Lake Books, Circus Folk from Hoot ‘n’ Waddle, and most recently The Long Way Home from Cowboy Jamboree Press. Chin won the 2017-2018 Jean Leiby Chapbook Award from The Florida Review and Bayou Magazine’s 2014 James Knudsen Prize for Fiction. Find him online at miketchin.com and follow him on Twitter @miketchin. SAM CLAUSSEN is a novelist and short story author from Des Moines, Iowa. His work has been featured in Blackbird Magazine, Ampersand Literary, Sanitarium Magazine, Longshot Island and as a House Writer for Think Liberty. You can follow him on Twitter: @sjohnclaussen. 102

CURTIS L. CRISLER was born and raised in Gary, Indiana. Crisler has five full-length poetry books, two YA books, and five poetry chapbooks. He’s been published in a variety of magazines, journals, and anthologies. He’s been an editor and contributing poetry editor. Also, he created the Indiana Chitlin Circuit. Crisler is a Professor of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). He can be contacted at www.poetcrisler.com. CHRIS LIN DAO-HENG is a graphic designer and art educator currently based in Chicago, IL. Born in Taiwan and raised in the west coast of Canada, he explores the relationship between words and pictures, narratives and subtexts, and the highbrow and the profane. Lin is the owner and operator of the freelance design/illustration firm AbaloneMoney. RUSS EDNEY was an English teacher in Japan before deciding that he loved the country more than he loved the teaching. Since then, he has returned numerous times for the sushi and stories about the spirit world, most recently during the 2019 Rugby World Cup—though he didn’t see any of the rugby. He writes and resides in London. KELLY EMMRICH is an illustrator and animator living and working in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work has appeared in the magazines Moonhood Magazine and Dream Noir. She studied creative writing and animation at the University of Mary Washington. She is currently working as a beer label designer for a microbrewery in Afton, Virginia. PAIGE M. FERRO is a queer writer and editor living in Bend, Oregon. By day, and sometimes night, she is the Adult Programs Coordinator with Deschutes Public Library. When not writing, she can be found reading more than one book at a time, dabbling in the Tarot, and picking cat hairs off her various sweaters. Follow her on social media at @Ferro3Paige, or find her online at www.paigeferro.com. KACIE FINNEGAN (she/her) is a student at the University of Cincinnati, studying Fine Art. EMANUELA FRANCO is a Brazilian journalist, with more than ten years’ experience within Brazil and Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and the United Kingdom). Jump on the Water 1, the cover image, has previously been published in Pursue Pictures, Stoneboat, The Ephimiliar Journal, San Antonio Review, The Wire’s Dream Magazine, The Scriblerus Arts Journal and Azahares Literary Magazine, and is published here with the artist’s permission. 103

Jump on the Water 2 is published for the first time in Issue 4 of Levitate Magazine. ALEXIS GROULX’s work has been previously published, or is forthcoming in Blue Lyra Review, Bridge Eight, Civil Coping Mechanisms, Gravel, Off the Coast, Sun & Sandstone, The Missing Slate and others. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Born in Buffalo, NY, MEGAN GREENE graduated magna cum laude with a BFA from the University of Notre Dame and with an MFA in visual art from Rutgers University. She is represented by Regards in Chicago and Tillou Fine Art in NYC. She has been teaching in the visual arts department at ChiArts for nine years. When he’s not hunched over his desk cutting and gluing clippings, JEFF HERSCH finds the time to play in bands and volunteer as the executive director of Flemington DIY, a non-profit community art space in the town where he grew up. KRISTIN GUSTAFSON graduated from Otterbein University in 2019 with a BA in English Creative Writing. She currently lives in New Albany, Ohio. This is her first published work. STANISLAVA IVANOVA is an emerging nonbinary queer artist working in acrylic and watercolor paints, creating abstract expressionist paintings, and a graphic designer with over a decade of experience. She currently lives and creates art in Woodhaven, NY. NANCY MARSHALL received her MFA in Photography from Georgia State University in Atlanta in 1996, where she also taught photography at Emory University from 1988 to 2005. Find more of her work at http://nancymarshall.net. RILEY MAYES is a full-time student and an intern for a transnational feminist journal, and she currently resides in Massachusetts. She is interested in explorations of temporal and spatial relationships, and the configuration of self between these two axes. These are concepts she experiments with in her poetry. Her work has been published in several print and online publications, including Dovetail Literary Magazine, Canvas Literary Journal, and Sudden Denouement Collective. 104

LEAH MCINNIS is a conceptual artist, writer, designer and arts worker. Her work has been exhibited widely, both locally and abroad. McInnis is a founding member of Mope Collective and continues to collaborate with artists in Winnipeg, MB, and Brooklyn, NY. She is currently based in Victoria, BC, where she keeps a studio at the Ministry of Casual Living and works with the Victoria Arts Council as outreach coordinator. HUNTER MCLAREN is a graduate of Central Michigan University, where he studied English Language, Literature, and Writing. While at the University, he completed and received the Creative Writing Certificate. He is an emerging poet with much to say and few published pieces. ANGELICA MERCADO-FORD is an artist and writer who inhabits the borderlands in between two cultures, two countries, and two identities. Mercado-Ford was born in Mexico, grew up in Fremont, NE, and now resides in Sioux Falls, SD. Both Mercado-Ford’s artwork and poetry have been used as educational tools to draw awareness to important issues. Her work has appeared in the Briar Cliff Review, Cream City Review, Acentos Review, Roanoke Review, Glass Poetry Press, among others. ZACH MURPHY is a Hawaii-born, multi-faceted writer who somehow ended up in the charming but often chilly land of St. Paul, Minnesota. His stories have appeared in Haute Dish, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, WINK, and the Wayne Literary Review. He lives with his wonderful wife Kelly and loves cats and movies. ZOÉ NELLUM is an undergraduate attending Wilbur Wright College and an alumna of ChiArt’s 2019 Creative Writers. She won Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards for three pieces in 2018. For two years, she was an editor for Levitate, so she is elated to see what transformations will take place with this issue. RACHEL NEVE-MIDBAR’s collection Salaam of Birds has won the 2018 Patricia Bibby First Book Award and was published by Tebot Bach in December 2109. She is also the author of the chapbook, What the Light Reveals (Tebot Bach, 2014). Rachel’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Blackbird, Prairie Schooner and Georgia Review as well as other publications and anthologies. Rachel’s awards include the Crab Orchard Review Richard Peterson Prize, the Passenger Poetry Prize and nominations for The Pushcart Prize. Rachel is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. More at http://rachelnevemidbar.com. 105

BELINDA NICOLL holds an MFA degree from Queens University of Charlotte. Excerpts from her self-published memoir, “Out of Sync,” have appeared in My Gutsy Story Anthology and Eclectic Flash (she was awarded a residency by Jentel Artist Residency Program to work on the book). Excerpts from her work-inprogress novel have appeared in IHRAF, Mystery Tribune, and The Raven’s Perch. Her micro fiction has been published by Tupelo Press, Reader’s Digest, Friday Flash Fiction, and The Centifictionist. PABLO OTAVALO is from Cuenca, Ecuador but now lives and writes in Illinois. A recipient of the 2013 and 2014 Illinois Emerging Poet prize, his work has appeared in Rhino Magazine, Jet Fuel Review, Structo Magazine, Ninth Letter, Glass Poetry Journal, Tupelo Press, and No Tender Fences: Anthology of Immigrant & First-Generation American Poetry. NICK PADRON lives in Madrid, Spain and Miami, FL. His writings include sketches for television, interviews, and music reviews. His short stories have appeared in numerous print and online literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. His novella, It Tolls For Thee, was rated number one at Zoetrope All-Story series in 2002. He is the author of two novels, including Missing Symphony, an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award finalist. A native New Yorker, JAMES PENHA has lived for the past quarter-century in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his verse appeared in 2019 in Headcase: LGBTQ Writers & Artists on Mental Health and Wellness (Oxford UP), Lovejets: queer male poets on 200 years of Walt Whitman (Squares and Rebels), and What Remains: The Many Ways We Say Goodbye (GellesCole). His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry. Twitter: @JamesPenha MEHVISH RATHER is a writer and a filmmaker from Kashmir. Her films have been well received all over the world and they have also won awards. But she considers herself a writer first. She draws most of her inspiration from Kashmir and Jhelum for her poems, her stories and her films. She firmly believes that any art form sculpted from pain has the power to save us from despair. ELENA ROSSATO is a 19-year-old self-taught artist based in Italy.

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ARIELLE SCHUSSLER is a writer and editor living in the San Francisco Bay Area. After dropping out of art school, Arielle went on to earn her BA in Philosophy at UC Berkeley and then a dual MFA in Fiction and Non-Fiction at Saint Mary’s College of California. She was the winner of Hunger Mountain’s 2019 Nonfiction Contest and a finalist of Ruminate’s 2020 VanderMey Nonfiction Contest and the Chattahoochee Review’s 2020 Lamar York Prize. She is currently working on a collection of essays. NICOLE SCOTT is a West Virginia native and graduate of Marshall University with B.A’s in Creative Writing and Classical Studies. She also has an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University. She once crashed a husky sled in the arctic of Finland. Her blog, poetry, and other published work can be found on her website nicolescottpoetry.com. NALANI SEXTON’s creative work consists of a variety of visual art forms, including photography, sculpture, collage, and drawing. The artist’s work is based on concepts they believe are important, such as death, emotions, experiences and self-image. The artist strongly believes it is important to create meaningful and visually appealing work that shows the world who they are as an artist and person. TASHIANA SEEBECK is a recent graduate of New York University and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. Her work can be found in West 10th, New York’s Best Emerging Poets, Jam & Sand, and forthcoming in Digging Through the Fat. She would like to thank her parents, her friends, and all the sea turtles out there. EMMA SLOAN is a poet, essayist, and journalist with 100+ works across 10+ publications. Born and raised in Vancouver, she now makes her home on (mostly) sunny Vancouver Island. She’s an advocate for writing in bed, slippers as the main form of footwear, and long romantic walks to the fridge. Follow her at @emmacsloan for writing updates and news. DAVID SPICER has published poems in Santa Clara Review, Synaeresis, Chiron Review, Remington Review, Third Wednesday, CircleStreet, The Bookends Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Moria, Oyster River Pages, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks, the latest being Tribe of Two (Seven CirclePress). His second full-length collection, Waiting for the Needle Rain, is now available from Hekate Publishing. His website is www.davidspicer76.com. 107

WILLIAM STAPLES is a painter who is based in the Hudson Valley and Brooklyn, New York. He earned his MFA at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2002. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Mr. Staples was a finalist for the 2018 Artadia Award New York. In 2005 he was given a “12x12: New Artist/New Work” solo exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; in 2010 he was included in a group show at the gallery Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California; and coming this December he will have a sixth solo exhibit at 65Grand gallery in Chicago. In addition to painting, Staples has also curated five exhibits, most recently “Around Flat” at the Knockdown Center in New York City. Mr. Staples has taught studio arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University and currently teaches drawing for the Bard-Prison-Initiative. BRETT STOUT is a 40-year-old artist and writer. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He creates mostly controversial work usually while breathing toxic paint fumes from a small cramped apartment known as “The Nerd Lab” in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His work has appeared in a vast range of diverse media, from international indie zines like Litro Magazine UK to Brown University. He is tired of talking about himself at this point and prefers that his artwork speak for itself.

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