Literary brushstrokes ~ fall 2015 (final)

Literary Brushstrokes

Photo by AJ Huffman

Fall 2015

From the Editor We had a number of delays in publication, not the least of which was the Managing Editor suddenly becoming the only person driving the publication of the journal. As a full time RN by day and an English Professor by night, there was little time for work on Literary Brushstrokes.

The journal has had the good fortune to have some very patient writers who were willing to wait for publication, continuing to willingly allow Literary Brushstrokes to publish their work even though so much time had passed. As Managing Editor, I am extremely grateful to those writers and artists who waited patiently for publication. This journal is filled with the work of talented writers and the cover is graced by a fabulous photo.

As always‌ Good writing paints a picture in the mind of a reader, so Literary Brushstrokes seeks to paint a literary picture in the mind of its readers.

Enjoy!

Mary Mary Chrapliwy, Managing Editor www.LiteraryBrushstrokes.com

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Fall October 2015 Vol 4, No 1

~~~~~~~ ŠOctober 2015

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Table of Contents Poetry Philadelphia Lullaby by Steven Babin– page 4 Last Friday’s Newspaper by Yuan Changming – page 5

Creative Nonfiction On Storytelling by Leah Van Vaerenewyck – page 6

Flash Fiction P. Mento by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois – page 7 Tuluros and the Shapers by Philip King – page 8 Misplaced Baby by Stephen Wechselblatt – page 10

Fiction A Diamond Whose Home is Everywhere by Bob Carlton – page 12 Crackers and Cheese by Jack Coey – page 13 A Kiss in the Rain by Miriam Foley – page 15 Number’s Up by Michael C. Keith – page 18 The End of Benny By Tom Larsen – page 20 Bullskull by Stephen McQuiggan – page 26 Queen of the Indians by Terry Sanville – page 29

Artist and Author Bios – page 33

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Philadelphia Lullaby by Steven Babin He stayed near the corner of Walnut and Broad. blew that horn through streets fried in deep city lights.

His tattered hat, and ill fitted jeans, made clear he was a stranger to this side of the city, though the city was his, and he was the city.

Came through dark alleys, sidewalks off the chart.

It soothed, moved, and lulled, up past the street lamps, lingered just below night’s wide sky. by windows of gentrified high-rises, drifted into my room on the 8th floor, and other rooms I knew heard the sound—the roar of his trumpet.

A miraculous symphony arose; it wasn’t the music, for he knew only two songs-Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and The Pink Panther.

The beauty of the notes in the simplicity; a persistent dedication to his charge; resonated an urban tenement with a soul of art he knew he was a plowman, menial to craft, but he played nonetheless late into tomorrow.

An austere composition, the solaced assurance needed to sleep.

Da . . dum, . . . . .Da . .dum, . . . . da dum, da dum, da dum, da dum, da dummmmmmm.

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Last Friday’s Newspaper by Yuan Changming Like a small leaf Rolling along From curb to curb Beside or behind Each running wheel You have become Heavy, even heavier Than the headline Of the front page Once the wind stops, you Will get stuck right here Among all the withered Leaves of history

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On Storytelling by Leah Van Vaerenewyck I spent a long time trying to remember how stories were told in my family, but each time I searched my memory, I came up blank. Had they been so dull that I had forgotten them? Had they been so terrible that I had repressed them? How was it that I had no memories of stories told? Storytelling, the craft in which I have earned a master’s degree, the work to which I have devoted countless hours, the pastime from which I have derived boundless joy and sorrow; yet somehow, this mode so central to my adult life seemed absent from my childhood.

For days, I felt removed from my own continuum. I could not go on like this.

So I invited my father over for dinner. I was standing at the sink washing the prep dishes, wearing yellow rubber gloves and listening about his week in the New Hampshire woods in his new camper, The Egg, this year’s upgrade from the tent he had made his home during the month of September for many years past. He spoke of the cold air, the morning frost, coffee in bed, the wood stacked long and high beside the houses that peppered the winding road up to his camp site. He reveled in the luxury of propane heat and solar powered lights. Sixty years old, and I finally have everything I want, he said. He chronicled his troubles connecting to the futures trading platform he had been using and told me about the approval process for a new, more reliable provider.

He had no kill story to tell this time, but there had been many since he started bear hunting seven years ago. His stories, his friends’ stories, the bears’ stories relayed with a fine attention to sensory detail and nearly expert pacing as he built tension that propelled toward the climax, which was sometimes the shot, other times the trailing, and still others the moment when the hunter realized he had not made a clean kill; that there was a wounded bear running or hiding fearful in the woods. I was always ambivalent about these tales. I admire nothing more than a person who creates joy and satisfaction in life, and I’ve seen the practice, skill and strength it takes to be a good archer, but I cannot settle peacefully with the idea that there is triumph in killing.

Here, in the time it took to wash a few cutting boards, open a bottle of Malbec and pour two glasses, I had heard the story of the seasons and the story of a week in the life of a modern camper, but still I could not remember a single story from the many dinners we had shared with my mother and brother Jason, and later my paternal grandparents throughout my childhood. So when my father asked me about classes, I told him first about my composition student who cannot read English, my struggle getting a group of seventy non-English majors engaged in a literature course, and my mounting anxiety about an upcoming observation. And finally I told him about an assignment I was given. How I had to write about the use of story in my family. Who told the stories, what they were about, and how they reveal what is valued.

“But I can’t remember any of the stories we told,” I said.

I hoped he would remind me of stories from when he and my mother were still married, of times when they shared in the telling, handing off important moments to one another the way my fiancé Jeff and I do now. I wanted him to call forth memories of the tales of wisdom and history my grandparents added to the mix when we moved into their house when I was eleven. We had family dinner every night. I was forced to drink milk and say a grace that made no sense to me. I had once found a beetle in my soup. I remember these things, but no conversations, no sharing, no invitation to share.

“No, I don’t suppose we did tell many stories back then,” he said.

Before we moved, my parents had fought, oftentimes drunkenly about finances and custody of me and my brother, the threat of divorce surrounding us like wallpaper. The shouting matches were punctuated by glass vases crashing to the floor, chucked remote controls splintering cabinet doors, furious palms pounding on wooden tables, and, finally, a slamming door, delivering the promise of temporary relief. I learned in those years to value silence, not stories. If they were quiet, they were not fighting. If I said nothing, I could upset no one.

When we moved to my grandparents’ house this became an explicit rule: children are meant to be seen, not heard; they speak when spoken to. Few were the nights that my grandfather could make it from the living room couch to the dinner table, but ever-present was his diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. When he passed, Alzheimer’s came to sit with my grandmother. Messy stories were spooling from our lives. The decay of a Korean War and fire house hero suggested by a commode that needed cleaning beside the couch, the story of absence settling into its fibers; the story of a stern, long-time substitute teacher and mother of five losing her mind along with her ability to dress and wash herself unfolded daily as my mother guided my pants-less grandmother back

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into the house or called down to the bar at the local Veterans of War to confirm that Grandma had once again walked there in search of a gin and tonic. She had no stories left to tell, and she didn’t know who we were, so we became like no one.

Over time, tales of events before I was born were revealed to me. Stories that weren’t mine, but that determined so much of my life. Once, when my older cousin Kristi and I played by an oak tree at our grandparents’ house she said “Don’t you know that Jason is only your half-brother?” I didn’t even know what a half-brother was. Jason was a whole person, and though he didn’t seem to like me very much, he protected me and only told on me sometimes. When I asked him what Kristi meant, he told me it meant that his father was someone else we didn’t know, and that my parents had told him this story, leaving it up to him, a nine-year-old boy, to tell me, his seven-year old sister, if he wanted to.

Years later, after both my grandparents had passed, my brother told me another story he heard from another cousin. My father had a scar on his nose, and I had asked about it before. He said it was from an accident.

A bad accident. Once at a family reunion, I heard his cousin Lisa start to tell the story of that bad accident, but my father looked at me, and then her and shook his head. I remembered this only when Jason and I were jumping on the trampoline in our yard after Thanksgiving dinner in short sleeves because the fall was mild that year. He told me that my dad, not his, had been drunk driving in that accident and his best friend went through the windshield and died. Jason told me with satisfaction that my dad, not his, had gone to jail for killing someone. We did not want the stories that we had, and we did everything we could to avoid their telling. It was, I think, in the tension between the happening and telling where I grew up.

When I was an adult, about to close on my first home, my father came to sleep on the couch of my small apartment, because he and my mother were finally divorcing. Years after their wedding photos had been smashed and burned in the side yard, when the question of custody was no longer relevant, the puzzle of their incompatibility remained. As we tried to understand the pain and neuroses my mother suffered, those fits that held her loved ones at bay, my father told me another story. One about my maternal grandmother who had been abandoned by her father after her mother died; a story about my mother’s first pregnancy at age sixteen, two years before she became pregnant with my brother; the story of my grandmother whose nickname was Peanut beating my mother until she aborted. This wasn’t, but was, his story. I never saw my mother’s mother again. I did not go when the rest of my family gathered round her hospice bed. I did not throw dirt on her coffin when she was lowered into the ground, because I wasn’t there. I cannot explain myself to my aunts and uncles and cousins who shun me now, because I did not honor the passing of their beloved matriarch. This wasn’t, but was, my story.

Time collapses on the telling of these tales, and we are sunk into one another’s anguish. We cannot harness the wildness of our own stories, so we tell someone else’s.

~~~~~~~ P. Mento by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois The desert turns into a garish painting by a man who has signed his name P. Mento. A telephone is ringing, with the old fashioned ring tone. I am wandering the desert trying to find the telephone. I’m thinking: this is a dream; this is Surrealism. But it’s not.

They wanted to put Frieda Kahlo into a box, a box called Surrealism. She went along for a while; then she bailed.

Her box was a coffin. She didn’t look pretty on her death bed. Her fat, cheating husband had a faithful heart. They couldn’t put him in a box either. Diego Rivera was too big for any box.

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The telephone keeps ringing. It’s a former girlfriend who wants me to start a detective agency, to find out where our love went. It was strong for a while, but then became weak, like a bodybuilder who abandons steroids.

She wants me to find the steroids. She wants our love to be enriched by performance-enhancing drugs, Viagra and the blood of Christ.

I refuse to start a detective agency, so she camps in the woods behind my house, and stalks me. There’s already a lot going on behind my house.

Behind my house is a forest of zippers in which deer wander, stalked by hunters with automatic weapons.

Behind my house, Maverick waves, high as mountains, crash down on my garbage cans and my son’s rusty bike, the one I bought at a yard sale for five dollars and fixed up.

Behind my house is an active volcano belching sulphur and other toxic gasses, and I see my son set his rescued bike on its kickstand and run into the house to test our fire extinguishers.

Behind my house is an auto plant that no longer makes cars, no longer makes anything, but every Sunday, members of a religious cult cut through my yard to attend services inside. I put up signs, No Trespassing, but took them down when I realized how silly I was being. With all the threats we face, why should I worry if my lawn is pristine as Astroturf or trampled to mud?

And then there’s my ex-girlfriend. From an upstairs window, I see her drop trouser, squat, and take a shit on my lawn.

~~~~~~~ Tuluros and the Shapers by Philip King Tuluros was a great star in a deep, timeless corner of the universe. Around him orbited a quiet, nameless planet. After eons of silent being, the planet bloomed into life, and became a home. Tuluros already loved his silent companion, and as time went on, he came to love its creatures--for their imagination, their passion, and their wit. Time continued to pass, and the creatures became violent, reckless things instead. Tuluros's heart grew dark.

One day, after endless ages of living a helpless witness to violence, Tuluros looked upon the planet and its destructive, intelligent, beautiful species, and he decided he'd had enough. He was tired of watching. Tired of hoping for peace. Tired of the foolish whims of the planet's foolish young.

He decided to gather his strength. Every day for millennia, Tuluros focused what little energy he had on reaching out. As time stretched, he felt himself stretch, ballooning outward until his day of great sorrow came, and his reach engulfed the planet. He felt the planet's crust liquefy against his warmth.

Continents became molten seas. The oceans, the mountains, the animals, the deserts: all became fire.

His dreadful, self-imposed chore complete, Tuluros shed his skin, forgot his name and the past. For a long time, he was alone in his corner of the universe with nothing to occupy his whirling young mind but lifeless rock. Eons passed until he composed himself. Finally the ending of the planet's life had been forgotten, and solitude pleased him.

Countless ages came and went. As he dwelled there alone, burning for the sake of none, he grew lonely.

He could not explain why, but the silence began to frighten him. One day, he noticed new faces near the silent planet: a star and a comet. They stopped when they neared the planet, and he summoned the courage to use his voice: a voice that had not been used since the star named Tuluros became a fire without a name.

"Hello, travelers. It's nice to see new energy here. You are so full of warmth, and peace, and I am very lonely. Will you stay with me a while?" His voice was thick with sorrow, and croaky.

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The new star spoke in two voices. "We have nowhere else to be. We could stay and keep you company," said the first voice. It was gentle and warm, a sonic beam of midmorning summer sunlight. The second voice was deep and rumbled like thunder free of the impetus of lightning. It said, "We are simply passing through, but we'll stay a while, if it please you."

The comet then spoke in two voices of its own. "We would love to play, if you don’t mind. Perhaps on that world we could pass the time?" The sound of this voice was like stepping on a three-day-old layer of ice on a snowbank, followed by the cushioned impact of a sudden fall into soft snow underneath. The voice that followed was coarse, grounded, and rhythmic. It said, "You would have to do nothing but be. We are many enough to build for ourselves, and care for our kind, you see."

The young sun once named Tuluros pulsed. His heart was overjoyed at the thought of new life within his sight. "Please, use this world as you see fit. For me, there is no touching it."

As the satellites came to the planet, they split into four new forms.

The star separated first. Its light became a shining woman with eyes like the moon; its weight a man without form, but with a presence as formidable as gravity and the night. The comet split into an icy woman and a man made of stone. Together the four of them plummeted toward the silent planet's surface.

The woman who was ice melted and settled on the planet as the firmament, the sea, and that element needed for the sustenance of life. The rocky man at the center of the comet shattered and became mountains and continents and shaped new vessels for life from clay; and it all grew so beautifully that his counterpart wept.

The rains she was made the land flourish. The star woman let go of her light, and it encompassed the world, spread into everything that grew on the planet. She danced with the creatures made of earth, and then with the earth itself, shaping beings of light and filling everything with new spirits and excitement at the joy of living.

The invisible man that accompanied the star woman followed her light. His touch imbued transience into everything she illuminated. When the sun once called Tuluros asked why the formless one would choose to impart death to his creations, he replied in his solemn voice, "Every existence must be a story, and every story must have an end." And though his words carried sadness with them, he was not sad.

The sun then asked, "What do I call you shapers who visit with me?"

The four beings wondered together, and each spoke in turn.

"Velsaana," said the light woman after little consideration.

"I am Valtanoor," crooned her other half.

"My name will be Vaaruna." The voice drifted like snow.

The last voice was heavy, and spoke with conviction. "I would be ViĂ°rinn."

Velsaana asked, "And what do we call you, bright one?"

The sun replied, releasing another wave of energy. "My name is Vaaten." He found himself with many questions, but asked one. "What would you call this world you all have shaped?"

The shapers were ponderous in their reply. "Is it not called something already?" asked Velsaana.

Vaaten said, "No, and I had none either until you found me. I had none with which to share a name, you see. I do not remember if such a time has been."

Vaaruna chimed, "You should name it--no one else--just as you were the one to name yourself. We merely visit here, and not for long. This world was here before us, and it will remain here after we've gone."

Vaaten relinquished his walls and felt his warmth pour freely for this new world and the ones who banished his frightful solitude. He gazed at the planet, and he knew its name. "Valemda," he said, and the words were right.

~~~~~~~ Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 9

Misplaced Baby by Stephen Wechselblatt A tingling in his wings as moisture freezes his feathers and they curl upward, as if burned by the biting wind.

The stork rides ancient currents of air into the highest heavens towards Yakutsk, 280 miles south of the Arctic Circle, His beak’s frozen shut, a good thing because he can’t drop the tiny bundle he’s carrying to its new home. So different than the snow-white infants he usually delivers up north. This baby has light-mahogany skin, delicate brown hair, pillow-soft cheeks Cupid ’s bow lips and brown eyes so dark as to be almost black, but aglow in the sun.

Avoiding all thoughts of ice, the stork peers down at a bleak uninviting landscape: 2,000 miles of yearround permafrost, scattered homes built on stilts. As he passes over the Lena River on the way to the destination, the stork encounters freezing fog, which limits visibility to 20 or 30 feet. He dips down low, hoping to see houses.

Finally the stork arrives at his destination. Fur-clad locals scurry through a central square adorned with a statue of a strident Lenin, with one arm aloft and pointing forward, unfazed by the cold. Then there’s the sound of second hand Japanese cars, their engines running all day to keep them from conking out, their exhaust adding to the fog that clings to the city. There are miles of identical white apartments.

The stork felt sorry for the bundle. What would it have to look forward to except endless, icy winters in a land with few visitors and fewer diversions? Get used to it, little one: sawdust for breakfast and horse meat for dinner. The stork also feels for the poor Yakutian yearlings, reared in miserably cold temperatures until they’re old enough to be slaughtered and turned into thin slices of horse liver with spices. If they’re both lucky, the horse and the child, the family will be wealthy enough to eat marinated reindeer meat and semi-frozen slices of raw river fish instead.

It’s time to stop thinking. That’s the chimney coming up on the left.

And so a beautiful brown baby girl is delivered. The midwife gasps. Family and friends look at each other in shock. No one speaks.

The distraught father walks out into the night in his shirt-sleeves and picks up a bottle of vodka that lies in the snow. Less than an hour later the baby is named Gorchit (bitter-taste).

The stork returns to its base in the Santa Ynez mountain range, flying over the semi-arid valley to the lush slopes, high over the tilted peaks of the crest that provides such a formidable barrier to human development. As soon as he lands, the Chief Stork glares at him. Seems he’d made a terrible mistake.

“What could you have been thinking?” the Chief shouts, flapping furious wings. “You were supposed to deliver that baby girl to a family in Youngstown. You’ve taken the poor thing to the other end of the world.”

“Sorry. I must’ve misheard you. My hearing’s not what it used to be. Maybe I’m getting too old for this.”

“That’s no excuse. You go back right now. Give them the right baby. And bring the other one to its real family.”

“What if the couple in Yakutsk won’t part with her?”

“Don’t think. You’re not good at it. But if you have to, think about the woman in Ohio. It’s her third baby.

She thought the delivery would be quick and easy. Yet here she is, a week late and growing bigger by the minute.”

The old stork blinked, filled with a deep-set exhaustion he was powerless to combat. Trembling took hold of his feathers. He took a deep, deep breath, picked up the new bundle and flew off again to ride the heavens, so high that guilt couldn’t reach him.

When he arrived back in Yakutsk, the Russian couple gladly exchanged their baby for Gorchit. The stork breathed a sigh of relief. Now, if he could only remember where to the deliver the baby. The right place this time.

The Chief had told him in no uncertain terms not the screw it up again. Said he must go to Youngstown.

Or was it Jamestown?

Too tired to moan, he barely had the energy to flap a languid wing against an abject forehead.

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A Diamond Whose Home is Everywhere by Bob Carlton I will never forget the day I died, because it is every day. There was the smell of coffee and the soft light of a perfect dawn. There was no dew on the grass, but the freshness of spring eternal inundated the air with an unimpeachable joy. And there were peaches. It would be difficult to imagine a more perfect day to take a walk that lasts forever.

Believe it or not, death is actually a gradual process. What we think of as death is only the final moment of that process, by which the whole of creation becomes reacquainted with one of its wandering pieces. When you consider all the moving parts that have to be taken into account, all the calculations necessary to accomplish the most accidental, simple demise, it is no wonder that we are essentially dying all our lives.

As I looked across my backyard from the porch, I saw the dimmest of paths worn into the grass. It led straight across the yard and into a small wooded area. I did not recall ever having noticed either the path or the woods before, yet somehow they seemed to be entirely in their proper place, as if just waiting for my recognition.

I began to stroll casually across the lawn and into the woods, where the path, noticeable but without the look of constant use, meandered through.

Sometime around midday, I emerged from the darkness of the woods and into sunlight that was brilliant without being bothersome. I stood at the bottom of a low hill, up which the path continued, and at the base of which stood a sign: “Elysian Fields—This Way.” I made my way up the hill with what seemed like no effort at all.

At some point along the way, I realized that there was a man walking with me. While I was a bit surprised at first, his presence there felt perfectly natural, and while I did not recognize him, he was somehow entirely familiar, like someone you know only in a dream. When our eyes met, we nodded to one another in greeting.

“Going to the game?” he asked, though the question hinted at a statement of fact.

“I guess so,” I answered, surrendering at that point to whatever it was the day had to offer.

“Good day for it,” he said, squinting into the sky from beneath a baseball cap that bore a logo with which I was not familiar. “Name's Smith, by the way. Virgil Smith.”

“Bob,” I replied.

Atop the hill stood a small wooden ballpark. My companion and I entered beneath the grandstand, where I fished out of my pocket a ticket I never knew was there. From a nearby concession stand I purchased a program, hot dog, popcorn, and beer, for all of which I had exact change. We emerged from the concourse back into the daylight, where I was presented with a view of the most beautiful baseball field I had ever seen. We made our way along the first base line out to our seats in the right field bleachers.

The entire atmosphere was like the perfect game that can only be played in the mind. Throughout the large, yet comfortably spaced crowd there was laughter and impassioned talk of the game, as families set out blankets on the center field backdrop and father's played catch with their children. I looked out on the field where the players warmed up, and saw Hall of Famers at every position. It was all so beautiful and strange my curiosity was finally aroused.

“So what's with the ballgame,” I asked.

“You know them all, don't you?” Smith replied, motioning to the players.

“Yes. I mean, I guess they are as I imagined them to be.”

“This is how you will make your way back. For other people it's something else. For you, it's baseball.”

“But why baseball?”

“This is all about returning to the origin. What is myth, what is metaphor but making a connection to origins, to a reality that is the bedrock of our everyday existence? For you, baseball, more than any ancient myth, is how you made that connection. You see, you don't make that last transition all at once. It takes time, like salt dissolving back into the ocean one grain at a time. What you think of as 'you' will slowly fall away, but you'll feel no sense of loss. Just the opposite as a matter of fact.”

“So then, there's nothing left of me? As me, I mean?”

“Sure there is. You're there, every time your son says your name, every time your daughter thinks of you.”

“All I am is a memory?”

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“All? Man, that's everything. What are we to ourselves but the memory of what we've been and done?

What is anyone to someone else but an image in their minds? And you are that image. You know yourself through being seen by them.”

“It's all very confusing. It's like none of it is real.”

“Real? Of course it's real. Reality is wider than the human mind can comprehend. I'm as real as real can be and I died on a beach in Normandy long before you were born. But I'm real to you now because you are here.”

“So we're like ghosts?”

“In a way, I suppose, though not in that chain-shaking, scary way most people think of—ooh, long fly to center, DiMaggio’s got room. Makes it look easy, don't he? So smooth. Anyway, there are patterns. Over time some of these patterns might re-form. Ghosts, Deja vu, reincarnation, and as I say, the conscious use of memory: it's all one part of the universe calling back to itself, reforming and rearranging the imperfect patterns of a recollection, a little knot of turbulence forming and dissolving back into the vast flow. Remember, perfect consciousness subsumes, but does not obliterate, self-consciousness. So we're all still here, though none of us has what you would consider an individual immortal soul.”

As the innings went by, I began to see so much more of the game than I had thought possible. When Lou Gehrig fouled off a Satchell Paige fastball in the sixth, I heard the crack of the bat as if I had a dozen ears, saw the ball from my seat in right field, even as I rose with the rest of the fans on the third base line to try and catch a souvenir. In the bullpen, I could see, even count if I wanted, the seams on a Candy Cummings clam shell curve as it spun what to living eyes was a perfect white. I could hear the flags rustle in the slightest breeze, feel the leather of the oiled glove drinking deeply. Through the eyes of the grass I watched ground balls skip through the infield, felt the warmth of the sun on the passing bird's wing.

The crowd began to stir as the bottom of the ninth began.

“This is what we've been waiting for,” Smith said. “Power versus power.”

“Think of it like a particle accelerator,” said the man sitting next to me, who turned out to be Albert Einstein. “The Big Train sends the atom spinning around and around at near light velocity, and it impacts with Mr. Ruth's bat, shattering matter into near-massless wave-particles and tremendous energy. The results can be quite spectacular.”

“Yeah,” said Jimi Hendrix, leaning forward in his seat to look at me past Einstein. “Like a guitar string, you know, like, you pluck it, and the tone spreads out, man, vibrating across the universe forever.”

“That's one super string,” Einstein said, breaking into a fit of laughter at his own joke. As I turned back to the field, Johnson went into his windup.

The pitch shot plate-ward, a blur to the naked eye, but from my vantage point I could clearly see it, as Walter Johnson saw it, as Babe Ruth saw it, even, at the moment of impact, as the ball saw itself. First, there was the electric jolt of contact, then the exhilaration of acceleration and ascent. I rocketed over the fence and out of the ballpark, moving with increasing speed into the sky, through the clouds, beyond the day, and into the infinite night, lost, yet at home, among distant stars and the dust that drifts far beyond the expanding ripples of Man's first utterance of the name of God, to a place no eye can see, no sound can reach, yet still everywhere at once.

Now, I fall to earth in every drop of rain, burn with joy in the heat of birthing stars, and whisper my name in the dreams of the loved ones I left behind.

~~~~~~~ Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 12

Crackers and Cheese by Jack Coey The news of his death came in the morning. He awoke with a hangover, and thought about the woman last night. The phone rang, and it was his mother telling him of his father’s death.

“I have an appointment at the funeral home for ten-thirty,” she said, “will you go with me?”

He answered he would, and hung up the phone. He sat in a chair; laughed and cried. When his emotions ebbed away, he remembered her name was Maura. Byron was thirty-four years old. He shot pool with Maura, and they had fun until he wanted sex. He tapped his foot on the floor when he thought how she grabbed his hand.

His head pounded pain, and he realized it was a specific moment when events turned bad with a woman. It was like that moment in a song when you have to hit the high note that’s just out of your range; that transition from friendly to intimate; that moment when you touch the body part that reveals your desire – that’s when her hand grabs his. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, he thought. His father’s name is Tyrone. Was, he thought. He remembered the time his father embarrassed him in front of other actors when he fumbled a line. He missed his cue a couple of beats, and his father said in a loud voice, “Pick up your cues, Byron!”

He heard giggles from behind him, and his face flushed. He returned to the present, and went to the sink and got a drink of water. He always was fascinated by architecture, and his father would get him parts in the shows he was doing, and he ended up doing it for a career. He was five foot ten with black hair and blue eyes, and was handsome enough to get cast on his looks. He opened the cabinet door looking for aspirin; he took an aspirin, and walked into his bedroom to change his clothes to meet his mother.

It was the Morgan Funeral Parlor on Spruce Street. He helped his mother up the steps, and was greeted by a gray-haired man in a black suit. He quietly led them to a room with a round table and chairs. They sat, and the man introduced himself as Gus Morgan. Byron was feeling better, but when Gus spoke, he couldn’t hear him.

“I’m sorry I can’t hear you,” he said.

“He said the cremation is at four this afternoon,” said his mother.

Gus smiled benignly.

“Oh!” Gus said something else.

This asshole is doing this on purpose, thought Byron.

“What!” he yelled.

“Byron!” yelled his mother.

“I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

“He wants to know how we want the ashes.”

“Can’t he put ‘em out with the trash?”

Gus softly chuckled, and said in a louder voice, “Against state law. We are required by law to turn the ashes over to the families.”

“What do you do if there is no family?”

Gus lost his smile; he didn’t enjoy being questioned. “Mrs. Conroy, you don’t want your husband’s remains?”

“Bad enough I had to deal with him in life.”

“Oh yes, I see,” said Gus. “Give ‘em to me, and I’ll get rid of them,” said Byron.

Gus smiled.

Byron set the cardboard box on his bookshelf, and wrote “Dad” on it in black.

The next trash day will be Dad’s exit from this world, he thought. He thought he had a hard day, and needed a beer, and decided to go to The Four Winds. Just before he threw the light switch, he grabbed Dad from the bookshelf.

Stan was the bartender at The Winds, and he knew Bryon enough, he didn’t have to ask. Byron sat on a stool and set Dad on the bar.

“What that? Chinese takeout?”

“Meet my father, Stan. This is Tyrone Conroy. Dad, this is Stan, the bar-keeping man.”

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“You’re shittin’ me, right?”

“Dad’s not quite himself today; you’ll have to excuse him.”

“You can’t keep that…. him… there.”

“Why not?”

“Byron, I got a hard enough time as it is getting stiffs in here to drink, never mind, with a corpse on the bar.”

“It’s not a corpse. It’s dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”

“And this bar is where my cash is.”

Byron slapped his knee. “That’s a good one, Stan.”

A woman came in, and sat one stool away from Byron. Both men looked at her, and she smiled back comfortable with the attention. A guy down the bar called for another beer. Stan walked away. Byron and the woman had a momentary glance.

“She’s hot,” observed Byron.

“What’s that? Chinese takeout?”

“Tyrone Byron Conroy.”

Her eyes got wide. “You mean ….like….his ashes?”

Stan came up the bar. “What can I get you?” he asked.

“I’ll have whatever he had,” she nodded toward Dad. Stan laughed. “As long as you don’t tip like him.”

“What? Did he stiff you?”

Stan laughed and looked at Byron who wasn’t laughing.

“Glass of Chardonnay, please.”

“House or Three Veils?”

“House is fine.”

“My name is Byron Conroy, and this is my father, Tyrone.”

“And I’m Stan.”

They shook hands.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

Byron and Stan looked at each other. Stan poured her glass of Chardonnay. She had long black hair, too white teeth, and a pale face. Byron saw her long fingernails.

“Can I get you something from the kitchen?” offered Stan. She didn’t answer. She held her hand in the air.

“Wait a moment. Tyrone is talking to me.”

Byron and Stan looked at each other.

“Cheese and crackers?” she asked. “American or Swiss?” Another moment. “Tyrone says he wants American.”

“I don’t think you’re funny,” said Byron.

She shrugged.“I guess I’m not a very good actress.”

“Maybe you’re playing the wrong part is all,” said Byron.

Stan went to the other end of the bar.

“I worked with your father once.”

“Really? We’ve never met before.”

“It was in Albany about six years ago. We had a two month run.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that show. He hated it.”

“He wasn’t very good.”

“That’s unusual.”

“He tried to have his way with me, and I hit him with a cane. Gosh! He was angry.”

“Yeah, he had a thing about women.”

“He came into my dressing room about the third night of the run. I didn’t know him at all except from the show. He came at me totally erect, and I grabbed a cane, and gave him a whack.”

Byron forced a grin.

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“Other actresses I talked to said the same thing about him, and they let him have his way. Not me though,” she grinned, “I hate men.”

“That’s too bad….”

“Doesn’t bother me a bit.”

Stan came back. “You live around here?” he asked.

She acted like she didn’t hear.

“Don’t bother Stan.”

“Am I getting crackers and cheese or not?”

Stan looked at Byron, and Byron jerked his head. Stan walked to the kitchen.

“Your father was excellent in The Dungeon of Shame.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But that was the beginning of the end.”

“It went to his head?”

“Did it ever. Women, booze, money…”

The woman was thoughtful.

“That show we did in Albany there was a funny thing that happened which I didn’t think much of at the time. It was during a rehearsal one night, and I had to use the bathroom. I walked up the aisle to the back of the house, and there was a women standing in the back in a frumpy coat and hat, and as I walked by I could see tears running down her cheeks. Your father was on stage struggling through a scene.”

Byron was pained.

“I’m guessing it was your mother…”

Byron looked down at the floor.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Byron struggled to speak.

“She was always that way. She tried over and over to get him to love her, and he was incapable of it.”

Byron was crying. “I always was angry at her for it – the way she demeaned herself….”

“Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I really should go.”

The woman got up and walked out. Stan was standing with a plate of crackers and cheese.

~~~~~~~ A Kiss in the Rain by Miriam Foley She woke gasping for air. Looked up to see a spider building a nest in the corner of the ceiling, watched how it stretched its endless string with hairy acrobatic legs and went back and forth, back and forth, busy in its work. By the end, a fluffy cloud-like pouch replaced the hole that was there. She imagined baby spiders crawling out of it with time, and a thin smile spread on her face at the circle of life. She lifted the duvet to one side, sat up and put her feet on the floor. Her bum sank into the mattress and all at once she breathed in deep, dug her hands into its edge and pushed herself upwards.

The room was dark, cold. She walked across the rug they had made love on when they’d first moved to the house, all young and full and supple-skinned, and took her dressing gown from the back of the door. His hung there, limp and heavy.

Grey diamonds of light darted into the room, uninvited, and jumped all over the walls when she pulled the curtains open. It was raining. She watched the drops trickle silently like tears down the other side of the window pane.

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She had always hated the rain. Michael had loved it. Oh, how he loved it. On one of their first dates, after they had drunk too much wine in a pub and he was walking her home, she began running to get out of the rain but he had stopped, reached his arms out palms up, and told her how the wet, cold drops made him feel alive.

And she had run back to him, not caring for once about the rain seeping into the collar of her lovely cream blouse, and they had kissed. Young fools in love.

The carpet was thinner than it used to be and the knock through her heels shook her with every step as she thumped her way back to the bed. She folded the duvet down; straightened the pillow. She looked over at his side, walked around the bed and lay down. She snuggled her face into the pillow, slid her hands underneath, but his smell wasn’t there and the sheets were cold.

The scream of the phone made her jump, as if she were a child who’d been caught with her hand tucked in her mother’s purse. She lay still while it rang impatiently and counted four rings. She wondered if it was Jack or Simon. Neither of them had been in touch for weeks. If they asked, she would say she was in the shower. She was quite certain they wouldn’t, though.

Michael would be cross with her for being mean to them. Not answering the phone when all they wanted to do was wish her a happy birthday. She wondered if he would be cross with them, too, or if he would say they were young and busy living their lives. High fliers, that’s what their type is called in the papers.

She would go for a walk on the heath. That’s what she would do. They had always gone for a walk on the heath on her birthday. It was one of her favourite things. And she would go down to the kitchen and there were always twelve beautiful lilies lying on the table. For the past forty-seven years she had got her lilies and her walk in the park. That was more than a lot of girls get; she was a lucky one.

She walked slowly down the stairs, her hand sliding over the banister as she went, feeling the grooves of the wood he had sanded and varnished, passing over the hole where he’d accidently dug the chisel in too far. She had told him off, told him he should pay more attention and now they’d have a bloody hole in the bannister. Now she was grateful for it. The small triangular dent reminded her of him, every day.

She filled the kettle and put it on to boil. The bubbles erupted and the switch flicked, and she was pouring the hot water into the mug when the doorbell rang.

“Who is it?”

“Floral service,” said a voice.

She unhooked the chain and opened the door. There was a young woman holding a bunch of white lilies.

A small van sat, still running, in front of the house.

“Mrs. Patterson?”

Sarah nodded and the woman handed over the flowers. She got a pen and pad from her pocket and held them out. “Sign here, please.”

The lilies danced as she scribbled her name with a wobbly hand.

“Have a nice day,” the young woman said, before turning and walking down the path and jumping into the van.

Sarah closed the door; inhaled the sweet smell that wafted off the lilies. They tickled her nose. She went woozy and knew she was going to fall, loose and limp, to the floor. She got onto all fours and lay down, her face sideways, looking at the lilies.

She breathed deeply and fought the temptation to cry herself back to sleep, there with the soft fibers of the carpet beneath her face.

When the moment passed, she sat up against the wall, took the bunch in her hands and counted. Twelve.

She searched for a card, a note. There was nothing. She got up, holding onto the wall for balance, and carried the lilies into the kitchen. She lay them on the worktop and got a pair of scissors to cut the plastic. She searched between the stems.

It could have been one of the boys. She got the phone and dialled Jack’s number. He answered quickly.

“Jack, did you get me flowers?” she said urgently.

“No, sorry, mum,” he said, distracted. He had a lot of people working under him. Very busy.

She hung up before he could say anything else.

Then, to Simon. “No,” he said. “I thought… because Dad…” She hushed him. “Don’t worry, love.” She hung up.

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In the front room, she got her numbers book from the table and dialed the flower shop.

“I just got delivered twelve lilies. Could you tell me who ordered them?” Sarah held the phone with both hands.

“Sure, just a moment.” Music came on the line and Sarah focused on breathing.

A click and then a voice; “Hello?”

“Hello.”

“The flowers are from Mr. Patterson.”

Sarah stared at the cards that had by now become a part of the mantelpiece, part of the fixtures and fittings, they had been there so long.

“Mrs. Patterson?” came the voice.

She nodded. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. My husband died five months ago.”

A pause; then; “It was definitely your husband.”

“I see, thank you.” Sarah put down the phone, not thinking to ask how she could be so certain.

Back in the kitchen, she buried her face in the lilies and breathed in their scent, over and over again.

Inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling.

There he was. She found him. She could smell him. Sweet like summer evenings with freshly-painted fences. Tears ran down her face. She closed her eyes; there he was. With no tubes and no beep, beep, beep.

Smiling, his lake-green eyes twinkling and seeing into her the way they always had. He always knew what she was thinking better than she did. Her cheeks flushed as if she were a girl again, walking along with her arm linked in his, as if he were down on one knee with a small loop of wire from the Christmas cracker, asking her to be with him forever. She hugged him and whispered, yes, yes.

She got the scissors and vase and set about cutting off the bottoms of the stems. She told him about the dream when she is drowning and wakes up gasping for air. She told him the worst was sitting alone in the front room, with his chair empty beside her. Or in bed, how she couldn’t bring herself to sleep on his side.

Slowly, she removed the leaves that would spoil the water, cutting each stem diagonally and placing each lily in the vase one at a time. She turned each one until it was just right.

For the first time since Michael was stolen from her, she wasn’t freezing cold in her bones.

When she was finished, she carried the vase into the front room and placed it in the middle of the coffee table. She wiped the layer of dust off the wooden top with the palm of her hand, wiped her hand on her dressing gown, and went upstairs.

She put on her best blouse, her favourite green skirt and beige tights, and a cream scarf around her neck.

She put her pearl earrings on and pinned her thin silver strands into a bun, muttering all the while. She contemplated herself in the mirror. What struck her was the bagginess of her skin, and how low her tired, glassy eyes now hung. She sprayed her wrists with perfume, rubbed them together and dabbed behind her ears. She went downstairs, smiling when her finger found the hole, and into the front room. Her chest rose high when she breathed the lilies in deep. She got a pen and pad and wrote a note for the boys: “Sorry for worrying you. Your dad got the flowers. I love you both, Mum.” She left it on the coffee table for them to find. She wondered how long it would be before they would come looking for her.

At the front door, she paused to turn back and look through the hall and into the kitchen. She smelled her lilies one last time, unlocked the door and went outside. She didn’t bother to get her coat or an umbrella. She clicked the door quietly.

She looked down the path at the gate and there he was, waiting for her. He took her arm and held her tight as they walked together through the rain. He wouldn’t let her go, he said, wouldn’t let her slip. You eedjit, she told him, but she liked it. His arm kept her warm.

They walked slowly – he had always said there was no need to rush. The opposite to everyone who would run for cover, like she had all those years ago. She talked and talked, not tiring of it even though it was more than she’d said in months.

“You did it that day you wanted to go for a walk by yourself, didn’t you?” she said. She had been upset he hadn’t wanted her to go with him. “You didn’t just get them for this year, did you?”

He shook his head.

She knew it. “How many years did you order?” she asked, incredulous and smiling.

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 17

He shrugged.

“What a devil” she joked, slapping him playfully on his arm. He had always been a box of surprises.

They took their favourite route, up through a clearing you’d miss if you didn’t know it was there, past the ruins and through the dense trees. Her shoes got muddy but it didn’t matter. They laughed at the spatter on her tights. They went to their secret place, up high near the edge where you had a clear view of the rooftops and could look all the way down.

It was quiet; still. There was just the whisper of the leaves and the shush of the rain.

He pointed out where the mud was slippery and she followed him, reaching for the hand he held out for her. And then he stopped, reached his arms out palms up, and told her how the wet, cold drops made him feel alive. And she ran to him, not caring about the rain seeping into the collar of her lovely cream blouse, and they kissed. Young fools in love.

She twirled in his arms in the rain, and laughed like a girl. She, too, felt alive. Then she remembered the sachet that was taped to the plastic that she left on the table. She would have to mix it in the water when she got home, after she got the locksmith.

~~~~~~~ Number’s Up by Michael C. Keith Never make predictions, especially about the future.

–– Casey Stengel Much to his amazement as well as bafflement Will Carpenter found that he could make a certain type of dire prediction. The 82 year-old member of the Hornsby, Idaho, senior center appeared to possess the dubious ability to forecast when a person would die. While he could not provide any specifics surrounding a person’s demise, Will could cite the actual day of death. Indeed, he’d done so on three occasions just over the past year.

When numbers first appeared over a friend’s head, Will thought that perhaps he was having one of his silent migraines. In the past he’d seen flashing lights that distorted objects before him. But this was different–– he’d never seen numbers just dangling in mid-air. When a second elderly friend––who’d also had figures floating above him––died, Will connected the dots and realized the digits formed the date that an individual would pass.

With some reluctance, Will told his best friend, Guy La Pierre, about his disturbing visions, hoping he’d keep them to himself.

“That’s pretty crazy, Willy. You have your eyes checked? Didn’t you say you had some problems seeing things a while back.”

“Yeah, I did. The doc told me I have these migraines that mess up my sight, but this is different. No flashing lights . . . just clear numbers hanging over people’s heads. I figured out what they are, too. They’re dates … the day, month, and year when the person standing or sitting under them is going to die. It’s happened a few times now, Guy. Saw them before Karen died and again a week before Craig had his heart attack.”

“Now, that’s got to be a figment of your imagination, Willy, You should get them old peepers checked out again. You never know what could be causing those, ah . . . hallucinations. Could be serious.”

“They’re not hallucinations, Guy. I see what I see and then something actually happens. I’m worried because just yesterday I saw numbers over Alex’s head.”

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“Alex Boswell? What was the date?”

“The numbers were 9/17/15.”

“Well, that’s just a week or so away. Let’s see if what you’re saying holds up. Not long to wait.”

“Should we tell poor Alex?”

“What? Tell him you’ve seen the date that he’s going to croak dangling over his head. Shoot, Willy, he’s 91! You tell him that and he’ll surely die.”

Will agonized over a possible course of action but in the end decided that Guy was right; there was little he could do. What was going to happen was simply going to happen . . . Then, sure enough, on the 17th of September, Alex’s daughter found her father dead in his recliner.

Since Guy was bad at keeping secrets, it wasn’t long before rumors spread about Will’s disconcerting talent. After having correctly predicted Alex’s demise, most residents of Hornsby steered clear of him, fearing he might reveal their final day. To his surprise and chagrin, the owner of the town’s dry goods store, Mary Harding–– a longtime friend––asked if he might determine her expiration date. At first he baulked at the very idea but then agreed to come see her because of her unrelenting insistence.

When Will entered Mary’s store the next day, young Simon Burwell was there. For some reason he would never understand, Will found himself blurting out the set of numbers he saw suspended near where the man stood.

“10/21/2015!”

“What was that?” inquired Simon, taken aback.

And Will immediately realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

“Nothing . . . nothing at all. I was just . . . “ “Did you predict when I would die, like they say you can?” asked Simon, now with a smug grin on his face.

“No . . . not really. I mean . . .”

“Well, that’s just a bunch of crap anyway. Easy to predict when them old folks are gonna’ cork off. Hell, anyone look at them could tell they were about to kick the bucket. You just got lucky . . . or you put some poison in their mush.”

“My mind was just drifting, sorry,” said Will, nervously.

“Don’t let it drift too far. Might find yourself running over one of them wrinkled up ladies you fancy at that old fart center,” said Simon, giving Will a sideways glance as he left the store.

“Now, what was all that about, Will? Did you see his death numbers?” asked Mary.

“Well, yes . . . I mean I may have. Not sure, really,” replied Will. “So why in the heck do you want to know when you’re done with it all, Mary?”

“Haven’t been feeling all that chipper lately and figured I might as well know for sure so I can get this place in order. Don’t want my kids to have to clean it up after me.”

Will looked above her head and took a couple steps back. “Think you’re out of luck, Mary. I don’t see a thing.”

“C’mon, Will. Look again. You saw them other folks’ dates.”

“Yeah, but, sorry, just don’t see any numbers for you. Could be you’re going to live forever, so you don’t have to tidy up.”

“Maybe the numbers you saw near Simon were mine. Could have been meant for me instead of him.”

“No, I don’t think so. If they were for anybody, they probably were meant for him. Sorry, Mary.”

“Well, could you come back in a few days? Maybe the date will pop up then.”

“Sure, Mary, I can do that.”

Will left the store and headed home. The thought that the numbers he saw at Mary’s store might have been Simon’s troubled him.

And they had begun to trouble Simon as well. At first he paid little attention to his encounter with Will, but after a while he began to wonder if there was anything to what he’d heard about the old man being able to predict when someone would die. As his initial concern grew, he began to fixate on the idea that 10/21/15 was to be his final day on Earth.

That’s only 3 weeks from now. Could be dead then. Jesus, what if . . .? thought Simon, gulping at a beer as he sat on the steps of his trailer. Maybe I can do something with the time I have left. Right some wrongs.

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Over the next couple of weeks, Simon reviewed the sad path of his life and became a changed man. He gave his ex-wife the back alimony and child support he owed her, paid his long overdue bar bill, and cleaned up the rubbish that had accrued around his ancient Winnebago.

When 10/21/15 arrived he drank himself into a stupor and blacked out. When he came to, it was early the next day.

“Lordy me, I’m still alive!” he bellowed joyfully. But then he realized he was penniless as the result of all his recent good deeds. “Shit!!!!” he growled, and then heaved up on his blanket.

Meanwhile, a customer of Mary’s dry goods store was surprised to find it still closed a good hour after it normally opened. She called Mary’s son, Calvin, to see what had happened. Just twenty minutes later Calvin found his mother lying on the floor behind her store’s cash register with no pulse.

That morning Will felt that what little energy his old body still possessed had seemed to drain away. He had all he could do to lift himself from his bed. Sitting on its edge, he caught his image in the bedroom mirror. And there above his reflection appeared the numbers 10/22/15.

“Okay,” he mumbled. “Okay . . .”

He lay back on his bed, closed his eyes, and waited.

~~~~~~~ The End of Benny By Tom Larsen Maybe she loved him. Who knew with Kathleen? More likely she decided it was time to get married and Benny fit the husband bill. He was a merchant marine with a healthy pension and a habit of being miles from home. So he wasn’t handsome like Scott, or the Asian gangster with the sliver Porsche. Benny had a house, a Harley and a cabin up the coast. His life was insured for a quarter mill!

I’m not saying Kathleen’s mercenary. She’s had higher rollers but rich can be a bitch. The hot shots had to learn the hard way. They might be wiser but they’re not as rich. Maybe its coincidence, but when the dust settles Kathleen’s usually on top.

So she married Benny and settled in the Sunset where we didn’t see her and couldn’t even picture her. At first Benny bankrolled a hair salon - Hey Baby – a Bay Area rage with the ego-impaired. Just the name spoken in that smoky purr was enough to keep the phone lines humming. Sadly, few of the calls had to do with hair and most went no farther than Kathleen’s greeting.

"Hey Baby."

Sigh. Click. Hum. While Benny was at sea Kathleen was faithful in her way. There were other men, to be sure, or a woman if she was feeling that way, but she never brought them home and she didn’t let them kiss her. When Benny was around they fucked like monkeys, sleeping in mornings until the fog lifted. Kathleen learned to keep house and work the appliances and she closed Hello Gorgeous for the week, then for good. After years in the fast lane she became a housewife. Likely as not it was just what she needed, but those North Beach nightclubs were never the same.

I only met Benny once. Andree and I rented a beach house for a weekend bash. Kathleen showed up with a short guy on a crutch with his nose in a splint. Some story there but the details escape me. What I remember is Benny taking charge of the fireplaces, humping by all weekend in a striped bathrobe with a log under one arm and the crutch under the other. Didn’t say much, even to Kathleen, but late at night those bedsprings were bouncing.

Could be she loved him. With Kathleen, who knew?

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A month later Benny was dead. He’d been riding his Harley up on Twin Peaks when he lost control and hit a pickup. Make that double indemnity plus the house and pension and our girl was sitting pretty. A blinding bright side, if you ask me. Hey, I met the guy once. His freaking nose was in a splint!

I don’t recall the funeral but I know she had him cremated. I was there the day UPS delivered the ashes in a wrapped box with Kathleen’s address in thick magic marker. The box didn’t look big enough to hold all of Benny, but some of him would have to do. Kathleen said he talked about having his ashes scattered over the Pacific and invited us to join her in putting him to rest. We respectfully declined.

Weeks later the box was still there, on end, beside the sofa with an ashtray on top. Doubling as doorstop until she lost track of it, not what he’d wanted but not that bad. Still around, though not so you’d notice, turning up months later when the movers took the sofa. Coated in grime and tangles of hair, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Benny?" she held him in her arms picking at the dust bunnies. "Oh baby I’m so sorry. What must you think of me?" Then to me. "What must he think of me, Jack?"

"He’s dead kiddo. He doesn’t think anything."

"I didn’t deserve him. Benny was the best."

"A prince."

"Finally gets his nose fixed and what happens? He breaks everything else."

"So what do you want to do?"

"Take me to the pier, Jack. Oh would you?" she pleaded. "If I don’t do it now I’ll never do it."

I held a hand up. "I don’t think so Kathleen. I’m no good with the dead."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease," she hopped up and down to make her voice jiggle.

"It’s a phobia," I told her. "Nothing personal, you understand?"

"You never liked him, did you?"

"He was great. With the bathrobe and the crutch? Ask Andree, I was nuts about the guy."

"Give me your keys. I’ll do it myself."

Not much chance of that. The last time she took my car she and a girlfriend skipped to Tahoe for a weekend. With Kathleen you take your lumps, but I expected more from Andree.

"OK Kath, I’ll take you on one condition. I don’t get any of him on me."

"I didn’t want him on me when he was alive."

"Don’t worry. I’ll do the dirty work."

So off we went.

It wasn’t far to the Berkeley pier, but we got caught at a train crossing and I started to fidget, Kathleen nodding the cars along, Benny lengthwise on the seat between us.

"Maybe this isn’t a good time, Kath."

"Don’t make me lose count."

A kid waved to us from the car up ahead. We could have waved back, but the train was endless and it started to drizzle so we stared daggers at him instead. The kid waved gamely, switching to the left when the right "We should have brought a spoon or something. How are you going to get him out of the box?" " … 183 … I’ll just turn it over and pour him out … 185 …"

"But that’s not scattering in the true sense."

"Why isn’t it?"

“That’s more like dumping. Scattering implies range. You can’t scatter in one spot."

"You made me lose count."

The kid was goofing now, grabbing the waving hand as if to stop it, swaying wildly to our indifference, unmindful of the gates rising, head-first into the window when daddy hit the gas.

"So tell me Kath, … what are you gonna do with the money?"

"Hmmmm?"

"The money?"

"Hey Jack, I’m still in mourning here. Sheeesh!"

"I just wouldn’t want you to do something, … you know …"

"Stupid?"

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 21

"Yeah."

"You don’t have to worry. Ben’s sister is helping me out."

"His sister? Look, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but Ben’s sister might not have your best interest at heart."

Actually I did want to tell her what to do. There was a long shot running at Golden Gate Fields and rumor had it the fix was in.

"I got a tip on a two year old for the third race tomorrow," I came right out with it. "Going off at sixty to one."

"Rita says to put it in bonds."

"Rita?"

"Ben’s sister."

"What kind of bonds?

"She says they’re safe."

"What could be safer than a rigged horse race?"

"Listen to you Jack! Hustling a grieving widow. Benny had a hunch about you."

"Benny-schmenny. The man was out of his league."

We made the turn onto University heading west. Kathleen scanned the Keystone marquee, tapping a nail on the box of Benny. For a time she knew all the boys in the band, but a year had taken her out of the loop.

Passed San Pablo and a trio of squad cars, over the bridge to Frontage road. The bay ran gray and choppy to our left, a wall of fog moved in at ground level.

"We’ve come this far. I owe it to him."

"Me? I’d pick a warmer spot. Say, up on the mantel facing the television."

"Ben loved the water. You would have liked him, Jack."

"I don’t like anybody Kath."

With notable exceptions, in a highly charged but unconsummated way I’d had it for Kathleen since she was a sixteen. Ours was an older brother to sexpot sister sort of thing that seemed always on the verge of boiling over. Andree sensed my infatuation and vowed to kill me in my sleep should we cross that line. So far it’s worked like a charm.

"What about Andree, huh Jack?"

"OK you got me there."

Fact is I love my wife to a degree that is palpable. Our twenty-year marriage is the envy of neighborhoods coast to coast. I was as likely to cheat as I was to pluck an eye out and nobody knew this better than Andree.

Married to a one-woman man, as it turned out. Sometimes it’s as simple as that. I don’t screw around and I hate deception, but I am real big on steamy flirtation.

"That Benny, how was he in the sack?" I broached to the subject.

"He was a tiger, Jack. Pain and pleasure in equal measure," she gave a coy smile. "Or didn’t you know I like the rough stuff?"

"He hurt you?"

"Never laid a hand on me. Benny just fucked your brains out."

"Not a pretty picture, Kath."

"He was from a family of sadists. One of his uncles was the last man gassed in Folsom prison. Benny said for his last meal he ordered a dozen steamed clams. Didn’t eat them, just pried them open and looked at them." " …!"

"I thought you’d like that."

How did Kathleen feel about me? Her conversation was thick with innuendo, but no more so than with dozens like me. A big heart but hard to follow. The curse was you could never know it. She loves me, she loves me not, with Kathleen you were on your own.

"So about my long shot filly. Say the word and I put a grand on her nose. Easy money, que no?"

"It’s all tied up in court, Jacko. Becoming a rich widow is a time consuming process. But if it makes you feel better I can tell you this. If I had it, I wouldn’t give it to you."

"Is this about Andree?"

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 22

"No it’s not about Andree. Hey I love you Jack, but I know you too. You’d charm the leaves from the trees if you could turn a dime on it."

It was about Andree, the leaves in the trees thing, a dead giveaway.

"I just don’t want you to pass up a sure thing, Kath."

"Well you know I’ve been pretty lucky lately," she gave me a wink.

It was still drizzling as we made the turn into the parking lot. A squadron of seagulls circled overhead divebombing bread bits left on the beach. We stepped out of the car and into a gale. The pier melted into the fog, those ghostly pilings thick as tree trunks. Kathleen grabbed the box of ashes and made her way across the lot.

"How far out do you think we should go?" I had to shout.

"To the end," she yelled back. "You can stay here if you want to."

I DID want to but something pushed me along. The thought of her out there alone with the dead, unsuspecting me back here in the open. The main fright flick no-no’s duly dispensed with.

"This pier is a mile long!" I screamed after her. "What fucking difference could it possibly make where we do it?"

She kept going, getting smaller, passing in and out of the fog like the credits were rolling. I hurried after her pulling my jacket over my head. A twenty-minute walk on a good day, in a headwind it would take us forever. I came up from behind and grabbed hold of her hand, turning her to face me.

"Will you stop and think for a minute? Look at it out there! You’re gonna get us both killed!"

She pulled free but I grabbed for her shoulders so she gave me a stiff arm and twirled away, running headlong into the fog, her laughter dancing in the wind. She wanted to make a game of it; some hide and seek in the cold and the wet. I didn’t want to play in a very bad way but staying there alone seemed even worse.

"KATHLEEEN!" I broke into a trot. My feet thumped the weathered boards, a pound of loose change jingled in my pocket. Wind cut through my clothes and I could hear my lungs rattle. I kept thinking I saw her but she’d turn into a trashcan or bait shack or nothing at all. In less than a minute I was sucking wind.

"KATHLEEN!" "What?" right behind me.

"Give me the box." I said without turning around.

"He told me the tide would carry him out to sea. He said to do it from the end."

"You discussed this? What are you telling me?"

"Benny was afraid of dying. He came from a long line of brutal, short-lived people."

"This is crazy. You know that, right?"

"Come on," she took my hand. "The walk will do you good."

So we walked. I carried the box under my arm with my jacket zipped to my chin. Kathleen’s waterlogged sweater stretched to her knees. Halfway there the wind died and the fog floated in roiling swirls. In minutes visibility was the length of a lamppost. If the power failed we were there for the night.

"Jesus, you can taste it," Kathleen took a bite.

"Easy kiddo. You don’t know where that fog’s been."

"Oh Jack, just look at it."

And as we did something shifted in the distance. A shoe scraped as a figure emerged. Tall, wearing a dark slicker, carrying a tackle box but no fishing pole. As he approached we could hear him mumble, low and growly, a black man’s lament.

"The bitch be talkin’ bad about me. Got to put things right. Time to be a man about it. Show the bitch what’s what."

Stopping when he saw us.

"S’up?" a different voice, thick and unfriendly.

"Hi, …" we left it at that.

"Got a smoke?"

"Sorry."

"Got fitty cent?"

I gave him my change and he shuffled off without a word.

"Pretty scary," Kathleen looked after him, hugging herself.

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 23

"Scarier yet, he’s between us and the car."

"I wonder what he was doing out here?"

"I wonder what’s in the tackle box?"

"Let’s go. If he comes after us you can bonk him with Benny."

We walked quickly, Kathleen on my arm now. Foghorns sounded off the Golden Gate and the mist moved in layers as the wind picked up again. Right before we reached the end of the pier the fog cleared and we could see the city lights across the water. We stood with our faces to the wind.

"Well, here we are," Kathleen looked to me. I took the box from under my arm and noticed, for the first time, the thick seal of tape. I searched for a seam. There was none to be found.

"Just cut it, Jack."

"With what?"

"You didn’t bring anything?"

"I wasn’t even coming, remember?"

"It’s just tape. You’ll think of something."

Ten minutes sawing away with the car keys, a lame attempt to shear it with nail clippers, assorted slashes with the stem of my belt buckle and I was out of ideas. Kathleen worked an edge free with her fingernail, but the strip tore in a thin thread.

"I’ll just smash it open." I started for the piling but she grabbed my arm.

"Jack, no. It’ll get all over. I can see it clear as day."

"It’s gonna get all over anyway. You don’t expect every little bit of him to go merrily out to sea, do you?"

“You know something? You can be a heartless son of a bitch," she let go of me and turned away. I wavered for a moment then raised the box like a club. Kathleen let loose with a scream.

"YOU DO AND I’LL NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN!" "So what, then?" I held myself in the smashing position. "Walk a mile back to the car for a tool than walk a mile back? Count me out."

"Don’t hurt him, Jack. He’s been banged around enough. Just throw him in the way he is."

"You mean it?"

"It’ll be like a boat," she brightened at the thought. "Ah jeez, that would be nice. Can you just see it?

Passing under the Bridge for the last time.

"You got it," I heaved with all my strength. The box windmilled off and disappeared without a splash.

"Oh God!" Kathleen dashed to the rail. For a second I thought she’d go over and I saw myself just walking away, pretending it didn’t happen, missing her madly but shouldering on. I may be heartless, but I wasn’t going to die disposing of Benny.

"Be careful of that rail. … Kathleen, come over here."

But she stayed where she was forcing me, against every instinct, to go to her.

"He’s gone," with a catch to her voice that might have been genuine.

“Yep.” "But no, not really Jack. The chaplain said he would live forever in our hearts."

"Some of us, sure."

"And if I ever have kids I’ll tell them about Benny and he’ll live in their hearts too. Even after I’m gone."

"Though technically they wouldn’t be his."

"Oh, … right. Well anyway I did what he wanted."

"In a sense."

As we started back I put an arm around her in a brotherly/sexpot sisterly way. Now that we’d done it I felt good about the whole business. Not our style really, Kathleen and me, seeing things through to the end like that.

But now Benny was where he wanted to be and the tale would be added to the legend Kathleen. The time we went to scatter Benny’s ashes and couldn’t get the fucking box open.

"What will you do now, kiddo?"

"I don’t know, Jack. I was thinking of moving to Hawaii. Get a place on the beach."

"Hawaii? Do you know how far away that is?"

"From where?"

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 24

"Anywhere!

"I think I would love it, Jack. I can remember watching quiz shows when I was a kid. Sometimes the prize would be a trip to Hawaii and they’d show pictures of the hotel on the beach and then a jet flying into the sunset.

I used to dream about going."

"Kath, it’s an eight hour flight!"

"I couldn’t believe it when they’d take the bedroom set or the Samsonite luggage. It made no sense to me, you know?"

"You’ll be lonely in Hawaii."

"Right," she looked at me and snorted. "A rich widow with a house on the beach?"

"Andree will worry about you."

"Andree worries about me when I’m sitting next to her."

We re-entered the fog bank, keeping an eye out for the mumbler with the tackle box. In the absence of Benny I took off my belt and held it to my side with the buckle end down. What I intended to do with it wasn’t quite clear, but it seemed to assure us and we plodded along. Through pea soup thickness and pockets of wind, the whole way back without seeing a soul. At the end of the pier we made a hard right and followed the lights to the parking lot. My car was the only thing in it.

“You OK?" I cranked up the heater.

"You’re the best, Jack, bringing me out here. How can I ever repay you?"

"Put a C-note on tomorrow’s long shot. I promise you its money in the bank."

"A C-note. You kill me, Jack."

"Or you can lend it to me and I’ll pay you right back."

"Trust me Jack. I haven’t a C-note to spare."

In the end she did move to Hawaii. For a year or two we’d get rambling letters or pre-dawn phone calls, but then the money ran out and she slipped back to Berkeley. Last spring she remarried. The new husband is six years her senior with a seven figure income and a fetish for feet. We met him one time before we moved east and he seemed all right, once you got passed the imagery. In any event he’s worth a bundle and with the heart murmur and the coke habit he may be all the husband she’ll ever need.

As for Benny, he never made the Golden Gate. The tide took him north and if there’s any justice, he went bobbing by the racetrack as my long shot faded. Passing under the San Rafael Bridge, slipping past San Quentin and the Richmond refineries, washing up on the rocks near Lupe Santos’ backyard Madonna, there to lay until Lupe came to pray. Momma Lupe was old but she knew the score. What the tides bring in belongs to the finder.

The box looked small enough to carry, but was big enough to make it worthwhile. The rocks were tricky but Lupe was careful, testing each step, taking her time. The box was sealed with tape, the address soaked to a smear. Her heart raced as she felt the weight of it, heavy as the answer to all her prayers. Back in her kitchen he sliced through the tape, saw words stenciled on the lid with an address in the city and a telephone number. Lupe called the number to see what was what then ran screaming from the house when they set her straight.

The next day Kathleen got a visit from the Berkeley police. They had Benny with them along with a citation for the illegal disposal of remains. Where Benny is now is anyone’s guess. Last I saw of him he was sticking out of a Nordstrom bag behind the spare tire in Kathleen’s trunk.

~~~~~~~ Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 25

Bullskull by Stephen McQuiggan Raw power, orgasmic and unsettling, ran through Reno’s veins. Coop’s prolonged glances in his direction did not annoy him, although they were surely meant to, and even Ray’s persistent drumming couldn’t get under his skin the way it normally did. He hated Coop, hated Ray, hated the band, but he would suffer them so he could feel this power. It was the same after every show.

They had been playing in youth clubs and church halls for little money and smaller crowds before he had met Coop. Within a week Coop had bought a bass and joined the band, sacking the keyboard player and changing their name.

“We need to go in a darker direction,” he had told them. “We are now BullSkull, servants of Satan and rock n roll! Remember guys, the Devil is big business nowadays. We’ve gotta milk it for all it’s worth.” It had all been uphill from then on.

In a few short months they had ended up here at the Buffalo Club, playing to over two hundred people each and every night. It was the start they needed, the start he had been telling his mother about every time she brought up the subject of a “proper” job.

Not content with taking over the band, Coop had soon commandeered his girlfriend Sally too. He had laughed when Reno had found them together in bed; coop waving a huge black wand he’d introduced as “Rambo the vibe”.

“There are millions of chicks waiting for us man, the secret is not to get too attached,” he’d explained later, and Reno had pretended to forgive him for the sake of the band. He felt sad whenever he thought about Sally, about his mother, for he had not seen them in such a long time. That was the price of success, he guessed.

Coop had been talking about moving on lately, about leaving the Buffalo, but who was he trying to kid. He might have turned them around at a difficult period but that didn’t give him the right to think he was the leader of the band. He was only the bass player, and a pretty lousy one at that; he held a tune the way he held his drink. Reno was the singer, Reno wrote the songs. He was BullSkull.

It had been his idea to wear the leather jumpsuits with the swastikas on the chest (and they had cost a bloody fortune), his idea to have chicken guts strewn across the stage. He had written their anthem, A Lemon Christ, long before he had ever met Ian Cooper.

One day he would write all the songs, his would be the lone name in the brackets, his would be the acclaim. That sole name, Reno Van Anthony, would eclipse the pedestrian Cooper. So what if they gave him stick about it. He might not have been born with it but it was his true name. He allowed himself to start planning his solo career in his head, practicing his interview technique, when he was interrupted.

“I think you should cut out that clap trap between numbers Bugsy,” said Coop.

“I told you not to call me that. It’s Reno.”

“I thought it was Paul Malone. My bad. Anyway, you’re beginning to sound a bit of a prat Bugs. The punters only want to bang their head, not listen to a bloody theology lecture.”

“Maybe you should concentrate on playing the notes in the right order Ian, leave the crowd to me.” Reno smiled to himself, he knew Coop hated being called that. He watched him carefully, trying to gauge his reaction, but Coop sat on top of his amp, rolling a cigarette and acting like he hadn’t noticed. His bass protruded between his legs like an exaggerated phallus. He always made Reno feel inferior without even trying.

“All I’m saying is we should get back to basics,” said Coop. “Y’know, cut the crap and just rock. We’re beginning to sound like the band you were before I joined.”

“We were a damned good band before you joined!”

“The Drunken Uncles? For fucksake Bugs, sorry, Reno, the first time I saw you, you were playing Bon Jovi covers!”

“We were being ironic.”

“You were being moronic.”

Not again thought Reno, every bloody night the same old thing over and over again. Maybe if he played along it would keep Coop quiet. Maybe if he stopped bitching he might actually start practising, and then maybe, just maybe, they’d have a rhythm section that actually kept in time some fucking night.

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 26

“Okay hotshot,” he said, trying not to sound sarcastic but failing miserably, “run some ideas past me, let’s all benefit from your wisdom.”

Coop’s bloodshot eyes stared at him hatefully, and even Ray’s insistent beat stopped momentarily.

“I’m serious man, I’m listening.”

“Okay,” said Coop, blowing smoke through his nose. Reno hated that affectation and Coop knew it; he made a mental note of the score. “I suggest we leave out A Lemon Christ.”

“Save it for the encore you mean?” Actually that wasn’t a bad idea, save the best for last.

“No, I mean scrap it altogether. Friday night, bottle of wine, your cranium busts, it’s crap! It’s embarrassing and I’m sick to the teeth of it.”

“Okay. To be honest I was getting tired of it myself.” No fucking way Cooper, you were always jealous of that song. “Anything else Ian?” “Yeah, don’t call me Ian anymore,” said Coop, looking bemused at his “victory”, “and I won’t call you Bugsy.” Reno felt like laughing in his face.

“How about we play some of your stuff Coop? It’s about time we beefed up the set a bit.” Reno tried his best to sound sincere, but he would rather suck hot vomit through a leper’s sock than play any of Coop’s bland rubbish.

“Full on Death Metal?”

“You bet, though I prefer to think of it as Hardcore Despair.”

“For real?” Coop’s face bore all the wonder of a child’s on Christmas morning. “I have so many ideas man, it’s frightening.”

“For real. It’s time BullSkull moved on to the next level. I think we both know you’re the guy for the job.”

“Y’know, I always thought you were mad at me for porking Sal when you were working nights.” Coop seemed on the verge of tears.

Her name’s Sally you bastard, and I made love to her, that’s the difference between you and me. That and talent. I’m not an animal. I loved her. “She was just a cheap slut Coop, no sweat man.” He fought back tears himself. “Plenty more where she came from when we hit the top.”

Coop regressed further into his childlike trance at this revelation.

“Even Ray could chat her out of her knickers and into his where we’re going buddy boy.” Coop always liked it when he called him buddy boy; he always got off on that big brother trip.

They laughed together over Ray’s repetitive backbeat. It felt good, and for a moment Reno was reminded of how it used to be.

“We’ll have even more guts on stage, maybe even a dead cow!” laughed Coop, and they cracked up; even Ray had a twinkle in his eye. “And we’ll make our next show here our last, our farewell gig man.” Coop raised his arms to the ceiling, his body shaking with excitement.

Okay, thought Reno, joke’s over, but he laughed along all the same. “Yeah, we’ll bring the house down,” he agreed, but his mind was already wandering.

Dust fell like jaundiced snow from the bowed ceiling. Shadows huddled on the damp walls, trembling black on sickly yellow. The poker machine sang contentedly to itself in the corner. Reno sat listening to Ray’s interminable death march, master of all he surveyed.

The conversation broke down, and when Coop suggested they scrapped the jumpsuits it ceased altogether. Coop was still smiling though, as if he had a secret, as if everything he thought was not already etched on his big dumb face. Ray said nothing, but Ray didn’t count; the smell coming from him was too much to stomach at times.

As he watched Ray drum feverishly on the table, Reno felt thankful that they had a rehearsal room, and that they had it in the Buffalo. Why would they want to leave?

He could remember the time they had tried to get the old carpet warehouse off McCluskey’s mum a few months ago. Coop had rang the old bat because he said women of all ages found him irresistible. He had used his posh voice which Reno always found sinister.

“So if you could just let us use the place to practice in, we would do it up for you. We would pay you and everything.”

“No.” Point blank. Final.

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 27

“You don’t understand madam, we would leave just as soon as you found a buyer. It would be worth more by the time we had finished with it…”

“I said no.” She was insufferably intractable.

“You’re making a big mistake love. When we get famous, fans are gonna travel across the globe to see where we cut our teeth. It would be a rock n roll Mecca, a goldmine…”

“Who is this?”

“We’re BullSkull, who the fuck are you!”

Now they had a place of their own and they would never ever leave.

He thought it best to get some sleep, save some energy for the gig, but he knew if he did then the nightmares would come. They would whisper of a past life, of something more than this, something solid and real.

The dreams would drive him crazy he thought, if he wasn’t crazy already.

He cleared his mind, pushing Coop and all other distractions to one side. Only the band mattered. Like his father, the wino, whoremonger and fulltime bullshit philosopher, always said - “You worry, you die. You don’t worry, you die. Why fucking worry?”

“For Christsake Ray, give it a rest!”

He knew it was pointless, knew Ray couldn’t hear him, but he got a kick out of waking up Coop; probably dreaming of taking over and introducing power ballads into the set. Reno had heard about his kind before; the music business mafia they called them. Perhaps Coop was a plant. He juggled with the idea awhile before letting it drop; nah, no brains, a weasel sure enough, but nothing upstairs. Still, he would have to keep a closer eye on Ian in the future.

They heard the roar go up outside the dressing room. It was time to take to the stage once more. Amen thought Reno.

“Rock n roll!” said Coop.

Ray made some strange strangulated gasps in his ruined throat, and finally stopped drumming.

“Let’s go out there and give them a night to remember,” said Reno.

It was these moments that he existed for. It did not matter now that Coop wanted to move on, they would play here forever. They had become part of the Buffalo Club, their name was synonymous with it. Reno knew every single face that awaited him out there, had seen them every night for so long they felt like family.

They had burned here together, all of them, their blood boiling in the inferno. What greater bond could there be between a band and their audience?

Coop strummed impatiently on a bass string as Reno felt the power surge within him once more. It caressed his whole being, from his restless feet to his tingling scalp. As they made their way onto the stage he could feel the heat of his ambition rising, threatening to engulf him. He took a deep breath and let it smolder; there would be plenty of time for Coop to burn on that pyre. He took the roar of the crowd as tacit approval of his deceit.

It was going to be one hell of a show.

~~~~~~~ Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 28

Queen of the Indians by Terry Sanville My skirt snagged on one of the bus seats. Someone pushed me from behind. I stumbled along the aisle toward the open door but caught myself before falling down the steps. Standing alone in front of the schoolhouse, I chewed on the end of my braided hair as kids milled about. Thirty pairs of eyes seemed to stare at only me, at my too-long skirt, at my glasses, at my battered Buster Brown shoes. A bell rang in the clapboard building’s tower. With a groan, everyone moved inside.

The vestibule held a tabletop basin full of water with a tin ladle and towels. Cloakrooms opened off either side of a dark passage that led into a single classroom with a wooden floor that stank of coal oil. I followed one of the bigger girls into a cloakroom.

“Hey, what grade you in?” she asked.

“I…I’m in first.”

“You go over there.” She pointed. “Only second and third graders allowed in here.”

I hurried across the passage and set my sack lunch on the ledge above the hook where I hung my jacket and beret. Paper bags and a few lunchboxes decorated with cartoons filled the shelf. Aisles divided the classroom into three sections. I stood there confused, not knowing where to sit. A top-heavy woman strode toward me, smiling. She had twisted her blonde hair into a bun and wore a black dress with bright flowers, like the ones Daddy painted for greeting cards and on china. Brown moles speckled her face, with a large raised one just above her upper lip.

“You look lost,” she said. “Can I help you?” The mole quivered when she spoke. Her voice sounded like a crow’s.

“Yes. I…I’m in first grade…I don’t know where to sit.”

“You’re in that section,” she said and pointed. “You must be Margaret Colgrove, am I right?”

“Yes ma’am. How…how did you…”

“I spoke with your parents last week. We don’t get many New York City folks out here in Pennsylvania Dutch country. They told me you’re smart as a whip. Are you a smarty-pants?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Well, I guess not,” the woman said and chuckled. “Here, I have the perfect seat for you.”

She grasped me firmly by the shoulder and steered me to a desk near the front. I leaned forward in the seat and studied the desktop, ink-stained and covered with crude drawings and words carved into its surface – Fuck, Shit, Pussy. I didn’t know what they meant but I felt sure they were naughty.

I lifted the desktop and peered inside at two well-chewed pencils, a lined tablet, and three books. I grabbed the thickest volume and was about to flip it open when the teacher rapped a pointed stick against her desk.

“All right, class, settle down. Jonathan, could you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.”

A tall boy wearing a work shirt, blue jeans, and heavy leather shoes stood, along with the rest of us, and began reciting. We faced the flag in the corner next to a framed picture of President Truman. The boy’s voice faltered when he got to that tricky word indivisible. During the pledge, the teacher stood next to her desk and waved a paper fan in front of her flushed face. After the Pledge and with a toot from the teacher’s pitch pipe, a girl with green ribbons in her hair led us in singing the Star Spangled Banner, followed by Jesus Loves Me, Old McDonald Had a Farm, and Pop Goes the Weasel. The teacher perched on the corner of her desk, slapping the pointed stick into the meaty palm of her hand to keep the beat.

“My name is Mrs. Knoxstead. That is how you should address me. Since we have many new students I want every one of you to come forward and tell us your name, then write it on the blackboard, if you can. Let’s begin with the third grade.”

A parade of closely-shorn boys and bobbed-haired girls spoke with thick accents and had weird last names like Wormkessel, Raffensperger, and Zettlemoyer. A few had metal braces on an arm or leg. Most struggled to write their names on the board while the rest of the class giggled. When my turn came, I stood straight, kept my feet together like Mama had shown me, and recited my name. I sounded like my British grandfather. A wave of laughter flooded the room and I froze.

Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 29

After a few moments Mrs. Knoxstead cleared her throat. I turned and picked up the chalk from the tray and wrote my full name on the blackboard in longhand. More laughter erupted from the class. For days I’d practiced writing it in my sketchbook. Mama had said that with all its loops and curls, my signature looked very artistic.

Mrs. Knoxtead smacked her stick against the desk and the room quieted. “Where did you learn to write like that, Margaret?”

I stared at my shoes. “My Mama and Daddy showed me.”

I hurried back to my seat. But the giggles returned as other first graders trooped to the front. One girl wet her pants and a couple older kids were told to clean it up, leaving the room smelling of Pine-Sol. The class settled down to a low rumble as our teacher worked with the third grade on reading. She asked each student to read until told to stop, and helped him or her with sounding out the difficult words. By the time she got to the first grade, a few of the kids had their heads down on their desks and snored. The lesson felt painful. Most of them couldn’t read anything.

When it came my turn, I started slow and picked up speed. The room quieted. I had read several pages before Mrs. Knoxstead told me to stop. Before I could escape outside for morning recess, she cornered me.

“Margaret, did you understand everything you read?”

“Oh yes, those words were easy. For the hard ones, my Daddy lets me use his Funk and Wagnalls dictionary.”

“What do you read at home?”

“My Mama’s poetry books and Daddy’s New York Times. My Mama reads to me and my sisters every night and I follow along.”

Mrs. Knoxstead shook her head and smiled. “During our reading sessions, I want you to go over to the library and start going through those books.” She pointed to the stacks of worn hardback volumes loosely arranged against the sidewall. “Read whatever you want. But right after lunch, I want you to read to the class for ten minutes, so pick something…something interesting that will keep them awake. We’ll start tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mrs. Knoxstead.”

I hurried outside to recess, proud that the teacher had asked for my help. The children had already gathered in groups. None of them invited me to join them. When I walked toward them, they turned away. I didn’t know what to do. So I went back inside and doodled in my sketchbook until Mrs. Knoxstead chased me out.

That night at the dinner table, Mama and Daddy asked me questions about school in between bites of rare roast beef, canned green beans, and boiled potatoes. Nancy and Carolyn, my little sisters, sat wide-eyed and listened.

“So do you like your Teacher?” Mama asked.

“Yes, she’s nice. But I can’t understand her sometimes.”

Mama laughed. “Yes, it’s that low German accent. I heard it in New York when I was growing up. It’ll take some time to get used to…don’tcha know.”

“What about the children?” Daddy asked. “Are you getting along with them?”

“Yes, I guess.”

My parents looked at each other as if expecting me to say more. So I plunged ahead.

“There are kids with these weird metal braces on their arms and legs.”

Daddy looked startled. “That is a shame. They must have been stricken with Polio.”

I remembered reading the word Polio in the newspaper. It sounded bad but I didn’t know what it was. “And there are girls that wear white caps…and printed dresses that look like they’re made from flour sacks.”

Mama smiled. “They’re Mennonites…they dress very simply, probably keep to themselves.”

“Yes, yes, and there are these others that wear plain gray skirts.”

Mama stopped eating and stared into space for a moment. “I think they’re called Dunkards. Their families came here from Germany a couple hundred years ago.”

Daddy laughed. “It sounded like you said Drunkards. They’ve got plenty of them in Germany too.”

“You should talk.” Mama scowled and popped a chunk of buttered potato into her mouth.

Over the next few weeks I learned the pecking order of our school. The girls with the prettiest dresses with ribbons in their hair and the boys with the flashy lunchboxes lived in town, just across an open field from our

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schoolhouse. The boys with close-cropped hair and ringworm scars and the quiet girls with plain clothes that rode the bus with me came from the surrounding farms.

The days grew colder. The older boys kept the school’s Franklin stove stoked with corncobs and lumps of coal, “anthracite” the teacher called it. We got our first snow in early November and I spent recess and lunchtime charging through the powdery drifts, the effort keeping me warm. The kids played games of Tag and Red Rover. I watched them from the hillside in back of the school. It wasn’t until we started fighting soldier and Indian battles that I got invited to join in.

“You look like Pocahontas,” Gloria Winkler said. She pulled on my long braids. “You can be Queen of the Indians.”

Naturally, all the popular kids were soldiers and everyone else, mostly farm kids, were considered Indians.

The tribe included the children with metal braces. Our band of misfits stomped through the snow into the woods, broke up into groups of twos and threes, and crept through the trees, trying to outflank the advancing cavalry riding their make-believe horses up the hillside. I got good at planning battles, but not at making friends, spending more and more time by myself in the library.

On days too cold to play outside, strings of screaming kids rocketed around the classroom. I stayed at my desk and doodled in my sketchbook or read from The Hardy Boys or Wind in the Willows. The boys pulled my braids and called me Four Eyes because of my glasses. Mrs. Knoxstead ate lunch at her desk, read the Ladies Home Journal just like Mama, and ignored the uproar.

On one such day in early February, ice covered the windows and I could see my breath. Suddenly, my favorite red beret sailed across the room like some kind of flying saucer. A roar went up from the kids. I bolted to my feet and charged down the aisle toward Larry Truxler who waved it over his head.

“Keep away, keep away,” he yelled and slung the crimson disk to Betty Smaltz just as I reached him. The game was on. The kids held onto my cap and taunted me with catcalls and jeers until I almost reached them, but always too late.

“Come on, give it back,” I whined. My chest heaved from all the running.

They ignored my plea and the more I dashed about, the more they laughed.

“Throw it here, throw it here,” Richard Snook yelled.

As the hat flew over my head, I leaped into the air and with flailing arms tried to grab it. But I missed.

When I landed, I lost my balance and toppled into a row of desks, pulling one over on top of me. The tremendous crash tore Mrs. Knoxstead away from her reading. The room quieted as she rose and moved toward me. I lay on the floor in a heap, eyes leaking tears. My right knee throbbed.

“Did you hurt yourself, Margaret?” she asked, her voice surprisingly soft and calming.

“Na…No, Mrs. Knoxstead,” I whispered. “I just want my….”

“I know, I know.” She helped me to my feet then turned to the class and boomed, “All right, lunchtime is over. Take your seats…and give Margaret back her beret.”

I returned to my desk and rubbed my red knee. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I wiped my runny nose on my sleeve and turned to face them.

“Here,” Gloria Winkler said, offering me my cap. “We didn’t mean ta make you cry. Ya know, the Queen of the Indians is not supposed ta cry.”

“Who says?” I muttered and squeezed my eyes shut, sending more rivers down my cheeks. I held my breath to keep from sobbing, feeling angry and frustrated. I had never done anything bad to those kids. Why would they treat me like that? Would they ever like me? Sadness washed over me, a kind of cold dullness that I often felt during dark winter afternoons when the sun barely made it over the ridge tops to shine into our classroom.

With spring, the cold weather disappeared and the trees grew leaves. The hillsides turned lush and green, except for the white blossoms of the flowering dogwood. The woods provided better cover for our Indian raiding parties. But I still had no friends, not even the crippled kids. Nobody had invited me over to their house, and the few farm kids I had asked to come to my place said they couldn’t because of after-school chores. I suspected that even though I lived on a farm, I wasn’t a real farmer since Daddy painted artwork in his studio for a living and let the land go fallow.

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One day I had read the class a couple chapters from Black Beauty and decided to draw horses during the afternoon art session. Daddy had taught me how to draw since I was four. I carried my sketchbook everywhere. At the end of each day I’d show him my drawings and he’d point out how I could make them better. He wouldn’t let me use color, only pencil and ink.

But at school, we’d each been given a set of ten Crayolas. That afternoon, I drew a prancing stallion with a pencil, then colored it in with the crayons. Alice Glodfelter, a popular town girl, looked over at my artwork. Her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open.

“Gee, Margaret, that’s pretty. Can I have that when you’re done?”

“No, I have to show it to my Daddy.”

“Well, can you draw another one for me?”

“Sure, I guess so.”

I copied the first drawing and decorated it with bright colors, making it look like a merry-go-round horse.

Alice loved it and after school showed it to all of her friends. The next day Tommy Hollinger asked me if I’d draw him a horse.

“I’ll pay ya a penny if I likes it.”

I agreed. By the end of the week I had orders for at least ten horse portraits and my price had gone up to a nickel. Then Linda Schmidt handed me a black-and-white photograph of her boxer dog with its sad eyes and asked for a drawing. I charged her a whole dime.

My Father exploded with laughter when he heard what I’d been doing.

“Don’t sell your work cheap,” he told me. “People will bloody well take advantage of you. They think artists are a dime-a-dozen. If you’re going to be an illustrator, you’ve got to be smart.”

“I just want them to like me,” I replied.

He shook his head, waved cigarette smoke from his face and continued working on his latest project, some kind of Army poster for the Korean War. During the spring of my first year, I sat on a bench under a crabapple tree and sketched the kids playing in the yard at lunchtime. I gave Mrs. Knoxstead a pencil drawing of the schoolhouse and coal shed, and even the smelly outhouses, which I tried avoiding but couldn’t always hold out until I got home. While I drew, a couple of the girls and maybe a boy would sit next to me and watch my hands fly over the Strathmore pages. One or two tried to imitate what I did, but learned that art is more than just copying what you see…it’s deciding what to put in, what to leave out, and from what slant you look at things.

I had tried looking at the other kids from as many angles as my seven-year-old brain allowed. But I just didn’t fit in…and while they became friendlier, we didn’t become friends.

~~~~~~~ Literary Brushstrokes ~ Fall 2015 ~ Page 32

AUTHOR BIOS S. Babin holds a BA in English Literature from the Ohio State University, and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He lives with his family, and works in Columbus, Ohio. His work will be forthcoming in The Wayfarer; Spark: A Creative Anthology; Bop Dead City; Cactus Heart; Star 82 Review; and many more.

Bob Carlton (www.bobcarlton3.weebly.com) lives and works in Leander, TX. Yuan Changming an 8-time Pushcart nominee, is the world's most widely published poetry author who speaks Mandarin but writes English. Currently, Yuan co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver, and has since mid-2005 had poetry appearing in 1019 literary publications across 32 countries, including Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review and Three Penny Review.

Jack Coey started out as a street sweeper in Times Square, got cast in a musical with an out of town run, until it was discovered he couldn't hit a note so it was back to his broom. He watched people walk up & down the street, while leaning on his broom, and thought, I should write about this. He can't spell any better than sing a note, but he decided to bluff his hand instead of living with what might have been.

Miriam Foley writes for an online publication and her short stories, poetry and personal essays have been published in several literary journals including Litro Magazine, Irish Literary Review, Synaesthesia Magazine, as well as Hello Giggles. She has recently completed her first novel set between London and Ireland. You can find her on Twitter @Miriam_Foley.

A.J. Huffman’s photograph graces this month’s cover. She has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her new poetry collection, Another Blood Jet, is now available from Eldritch Press. She has two more poetry collections forthcoming: A Few Bullets Short of Home, from mgv2>publishing and Degeneration, from Pink Girl Ink. She is a Multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2100 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com Michael C. Keith is the author/coauthor of 30 book volumes and dozens of articles on the subject of radio and broadcast studies. In addition to his non-fiction books, Keith has published a dozen creative works, including an acclaimed memoir––The Next Better Place––a young adult novel––Life is Falling Sideways––and 10 short story collections––most recently The Near Enough. His fiction has been nominated for several awards, among them the Pen/O.Henry Award and the Pushcart Prize. He is a professor in the Communication Department at Boston College, the former chair of education at the Museum of Broadcast Communication, a member of the executive advisory board of the University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media, and most recently a member of the board of the newly created Newton Writer’s and Publishing Center. www.michaelckeith.com Philip King is an artist and writer living in Portland, Oregon, with his partner and two cats. When he isn't painting, writing, or copy editing for Pathos Literary Magazine, he can be found cooking, eating, reading, or practicing viola.

He has an unhealthy relationship with astrology, and wears too much black.

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over six hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition.

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Thomas Larsen has been a fiction writer for fifteen years and his work has appeared in Newsday, New Millennium Writing, Puerto del Sol and Best American Mystery Stories. His novel FLAWED was released in October 2014.

Stephen McQuiggan is allergic to politeness; one kind word could kill him. He lives in Northern Ireland for the sake of his health. His first novel, A Pig's View Of Heaven, will be published by Grinning Skull Press in 2015.

Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his in-house editor) and one skittery cat (his in-house critic). He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, poems, and novels. Since 2005, his short stories have been accepted by more than 200 literary and commercial journals, magazines, and anthologies including The Potomac Review, The Bitter Oleander, Shenandoah, and Conclave: A Journal of Character. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his story “The Sweeper.” Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing.

Leah Van Vaerenewyck writes from Massachusetts.

Stephen Wechselblatt retired from a moderately satisfying career in strategic communications and moved to the creative mountain community of Asheville, North Carolina. He started writing fiction about a year and a half ago.

At the moment, he’s taking a breather from his first novel.

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Literary Brushstrokes

Submissions to: www.LiteraryBrushstrokes.com

ŠOctober 2015

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