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MiddleGray ISSUE #05
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MiddleGray www.middlegraymag.com
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Middle Gray Magazine is a quarterly online publication featuring emerging artists of various disciplines including, but not limited to, Visual Arts, Music, Literature and Performance Arts. This arts journal is part of “The Middle Gray,” an arts organization that supports emerging artists by giving them space and opportunities to showcase their work while being fairly compensated. Our intent is to build a place that encourages the social connections and collaborations that nurture a vibrant creative community. We are an online-based organization with expectations to grow and evolve into a physical space.
We want to welcome you to our community and we hope you enjoy this experience. We are very eager to have you as part of The Middle Gray. With this issue MiddleGray completes its first year of publication and we want to give extra special thanks to all the artists being featured in this issue, the ones who have been featured before and to all our friends and followers for your support. Your enthusiasm and appreciation has made this project possible. Much love, The Middle Gray
© MiddleGray 2014 All Rights Reserved info@middlegraymag.com Cover Drawing by Kathryn Shriver Graphic Design: Catalina Piedrahita
All contributors to MiddleGray retain the reproduction rights to their own words and images. Reproductions of any kind are prohibited without explicit permission of the magazine and relevant contributor.
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There is a mouse in our house.
Her life is a passport that keeps her from daytime travel
Hay cosas que nos encuentran
Epidemiologists estimate a seventy percent probability
When you’re seven years old
Lady, d out M
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don’t single Muslims
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Inside ZAK ALEXANDER ROSE - 6 ADRIANA LECUONA - 18 ANDREW FISH - 24 KATHLEEN JONES - 34 LAURA KNAPP - 38 DAISY NOVOA VASQUEZ - 48 CATHERINE EVLESHIN - 54 MARIA ALEJANDRA MATA - 60 JASMON DRAIN - 70 KATHRYN SHRIVER - 78 JUAN C. ALVAREZ - 90 C.S. FUQUA - 92 LA TOMATERA 94
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Zak Alexander ROSE Zak Alexander Rose is a Boston based visual artist, working primarily with photography. He recently graduated with a BFA in photography from the Art Institute of Boston. His goal as an artist, and person, is to discern between what is a construct, and what is worth holding onto.
www.zakalexanderrose.com
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r
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Where I Attempt To Sleep
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VI
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Gets Up
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Going Home
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personal “My personal work is a collection of offshoots from the past four years. In life, I have found that the fleeting truth of the constructed world is the largest opposing force in my life. The natural geometry of the world, and the cycles of life within, are aspects of life which have been constant. I find that in the constants, is where I feel that there are things that are true in this world.�
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Adriana LECUONA Ms. Lecuona’s work has appeared in Dark Matter Journal, The Acentos Review, S/tick, John King’s The Drunken Odyssey podcast and The Pennsylvania Gazette. Currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Goucher College, she holds an MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Scat There is a mouse in our house. Under the kitchen sink, droppings, like exotic black rice kernels, lie scattered on my otherwise pristine shelf paper. There’s poop on the dishwashing detergent box. Poop on the Hefty bags box. I threw out my dishwashing gloves. Just in case. Though I had jammed SOS pads into the gaps in the cabinet bottom where the pipes go--its only possible entry--the mouse pushes or chews through it. I don’t know. Unfortunately, we’re not new to scatological frustrations. It’s bad enough already. Dosi, our formally-feral tom, poops on the rug by the French doors in the kitchen. Regularly. There are worse places. We know. As this is an improvement of sorts, Vic and I are hesitant to enforce any behavior modification program. His preferred loo denied him, Dosi might just start pooping--even peeing--on the couch. Perhaps even the living room rug. A certain randomness might develop. Then we’d find ourselves stepping on wet spots or on mushy brown objects in the dark. Pooping by the French doors is, let’s say, a compromise of sorts. It’s easy to clean and predictable. The problem is contained. Dosi patrols the kitchen at night with particular vigilance by the sink cabinet. In the mornings I find him there in alert and upright guard or actively sniffing around the cabinets. Sometimes, he rests full-body on the floor with one paw outstretched. In case, I suppose, he dozes off and the mouse would happen to run within paw’s reach. Our other cat, Oe, regards the whole situation with detachment. She will, at times, pose with a cocked ear in the direction of the kitchen cabinet, her tail curling around her bottom. Most of the time, however, Dosi’s vigilance annoys her and she’ll nip his butt as she chases him out of the kitchen. Our best guess is that the mouse is attracted to the odor of the trash can which we store under the sink. We don’t have a garbage disposal and though we take out the trash regularly, it could be that the food odors are strong enough to entice a mouse. But it can’t climb the trash can. Can it? That fact is clear. I’ve been wishy-washy. I haven’t firmly established that a definitive boundary must be established between us. The mouse is to live outside. We live inside. I just need to communicate that more clearly. I re-stuff the pipe openings with fresh steel wool of the paint-supply store variety. I clean everything under the sink. I wear a mask as I sweep the little kernels of mouse poop into a pile but the kernels stick a little. And they are hard to pick up since I’m wearing gloves. Cursed mouse, I mutter under my mask. I thoroughly clean the turquoise and white shelf paper lining the bottom. Then I disinfect it with Lysol. I even spray the dishwasher detergent box. Just in case. A few days later, there it is again. Tiny murine turds. On my interlocking-white-boxes-on-turquoise-background shelf paper.
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Okay, then. Maybe a little testing of boundaries is to be expected. I need to act with greater resolve. That’s all. I decide to leave the cabinet doors open. With the trash can in the middle of the kitchen. Dosi and Oe can now enter the cabinet. I’m not sure what I mean exactly. What my intentions are. I don’t want the mouse to die necessarily. I harbor no death wishes. I’m a live-and-let-live sort of a person. I just want him to live somewhere else. If it’s made clear to the mouse that the cats can access him by way of open doors, he should reconsider. Right? A mouse can abide some amount of logic, I’m wagering. There’s now no safety zone inside. The message is clear: inside this house = very bad. A house with two cats, however neurotic the one, curmudgeonly the other, is not a place where he ought to be. At some level, the mouse will understand that danger is something that can--and should--be avoided. As if danger is not part of nature. Or does not have to be.
Two nights pass. The sound of a cat’s urgent patter wakes me. I sit up in bed. Oe lies curled up by my feet. Dimly, I see Dosi run into the hallway from our bedroom. I hear small little squeaks that sound electric or digital to me. Not real. Through a sleepy haze, I feel a moment’s surge of worry. Did Dosi finally catch the mouse? One particularly sharp neuron fires the idea that I might find a dead mouse’s carcass on my bed. Should I get up and close the bedroom door? I flop back on my pillow and sleep before I can answer myself. . In the morning, I find that Dosi has parked himself in the living room. After a few moments of close observation, I determine that Dosi is surveilling the underneath of the television cabinet. Can a mouse climb or jump? If the mouse can’t climb the two steps out of our sunken living room, things don’t look good. For the mouse, that is. Throughout the day, Vic, Galvan and I check the goings-on in the living room. Dosi is resolute. Every so often he gets up from his semi-reclined position and sniffs all along the television cabinet. At times, pawing underneath. There is a peaceful détente in the living room until later in the day when inexplicably Oe gets annoyed. The old feline nips Dosi in the butt, who, for a moment is distracted from his prey. The mouse scurries out from under the cabinet. This is my first sighting of the mouse. The mouse is so tiny it could be a dust ball. It is smaller than the toy mice we buy our cats. I didn’t know that real mice could be that small. Perhaps the mouse didn’t need to chew through or push through the steel wool in the cabinet after all. It’s slightly larger than a quarter, not including the tail which is longer than its body. To my eyes, the mouse is smaller than its poop-to-body size ratio should warrant. I feel strangely duped. Have I made a mistake? Is a creature this small really a menace?
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The mouse races along the baseboard. Dosi vaults over the sofa in wild, wide-eyed pursuit. Under the steps barring its freedom out of the room, the mouse freezes. Dosi, interestingly enough, sniffs around as if the mouse is not right under his nose. Emboldened by Dosi’s blindness, the mouse darts under the piano. Under the upright piano, what is the mouse to do? It’s a great hiding spot. There’s no way the cats will get him. There may even be fish flakes that have fallen from my son’s aquarium. Maybe. Maybe not. There is no water, however. Please figure this out, urges my mental telepathy to the mouse. Then leave. Okay? Just leave. In the evening, we put on a movie: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. During the intense Quidditch scene when Harry and Draco chase the golden snitch within the bleacher seats, Dosi gives his own chase. We pause the movie. After a particularly prolonged scamper, silence falls but for a faint but unmistakeable squeaking sound. “It’s in his mouth!” Galvan yells. Dosi paces around in front of us, like a tiger in a zoo cage. His mouth is closed. He looks as if he doesn’t know what to do next. Pussyfooting out of the room, he seems conflicted. Beyond all reason, I wonder if Dosi doesn’t wish he had a pocket. Or a pouch. I don’t want to think about the mouse inside Dosi’s mouth. Vic cheers, “Way to go, Dosi! You’re earning your keep!” When Dosi comes back in the room, he doesn’t have the mouse. I’m relieved. Hopefully, the mouse is packing its boxes and moving out.
The next morning, I wake up early in hope of a quiet house to myself before Vic and Galvan wake up. As I pass the eat-in area of the kitchen, I notice a form on the floor that is decidedly organic. I quickly look away. I move to a corner of the room, the vantage point with the greatest distance away from the form on the floor. From here, it’s easier to look. So I look, squinting, so that my eyelashes obscure potentially unpleasant sights further. The form looks even smaller than the mouse I’d seen yesterday. I believe I see a tail--unless it’s cat grass. Which it very well could be. I scan the room. From my safe distance. Then I notice another form next to a puddle of cat vomit. I look away. Now that form looks more like the mouse I saw last night. I fight the urge to look at the previous form but lose. These forms are decidedly different. One is smaller and dark. The other is just a bit larger, with gray fur. As I turn away in disgust, I notice cat poop by the French doors. And more cat vomit. But no more tiny bodies. Great. Just great. Two dead mice. Maybe one was the baby of the other. I had assumed the mouse was male, why? Anyway, I can’t clean up the mice. It’s beyond me. I can’t get too close to the dead bodies. Should I happen on a close-up of these dead mice, it’ll haunt me. I could wear sunglasses but what if it’s the touch I remember?
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Vic. He’ll have to be wakened. He’ll dispose of the dead mice. Nevertheless, I do my part first. I clean up Dosi’s poop as well as the vomit by the door, keeping my back toward the lifeless forms on the floor. I block the entrance of the eat-in area with a chair so that Galvan doesn’t discover the gruesome sights there. Good-naturedly, Vic takes it for granted that he’ll dispose of the mice. I apologize for not having the wherewithal to do it myself. He gets out of bed and I set him up nicely: plastic bags, Lysol, two parts dry paper towel, and four parts wet paper towel. I demonstrate how he might use one bag as a glove of sorts. In full-on bed head, Vic bends down to start work. I stand behind the kitchen island feeling grateful and expectant, as if finally the kitchen will be mine again. Vic grunts. “This is really gross,” he grunts. I turn away although I can’t see anything with the kitchen island in the way. “Well,” he adds, “you don’t have to worry about it being two mice.” “What?” “It was just the one.” Oh God. “What did you tell me that for!” “What? Two halves make a whole last I checked.” “Stop!” I don’t know where to look. “I didn’t want a visual!” “But you didn’t see anything.” Vic stands holding the bag out. One swatch of his hair sticks straight up. “This is worse! Now I’m going to have the puzzle of it circling my thoughts, forming into all sorts of images.” “I thought you’d be relieved. We didn’t have two mice.” “No! That would’ve been preferable!” I stand for a few minutes looking out the window at the monstrous rhododendron bush taking over our backyard. I wonder if I can hypnotize myself into forgetting about the mouse. At my feet, Dosi cries his great big mournful yawns. He’s been occupied these past couple of nights, so he hasn’t had my attention. Vic likes to say that I’m “his only friend in the whole wide world.” And it’s true. Dosi cries again and I turn away. There’s no way. I can’t pet him. I ignore him as I go upstairs to shower. He howls a low, tremulous wail. That is where things stand now. I will eventually pet him. Probably soon. Right now, the hazy images of the mutilated corpse in the kitchen, the sense of last breath, and the lingering feeling
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of the ordeal, are still strong. Why should I be cold towards Dosi? He was doing what was in his nature. Completely, utterly within his nature. I helped him along. Opening the cabinet doors. Depriving the mouse of his normal escape route. The truth is that I’m angry at Dosi because I’m angry at the mouse. But the mouse is dead and it feels rather useless to be angry at a dead mouse. One that was rather cute, truth be told, if it wasn’t frequenting my kitchen cabinet. It feels rather mean to be angry at a dead, cute mouse. And I really rather not think of myself as a mean person. Why didn’t the mouse leave? Maybe it couldn’t. That’s one possibility. Maybe it didn’t know it had options, so to speak, or it was simply incapable of thinking logically. Then, maybe it was more logical or sane or something than I am. Maybe it accepted the idea of cohabitation with less-than-ideal house mates. Maybe it accepted that danger is a given. Why leave a warm home, with appetizing smells emanating from the trash can, plenty of crumbs, two declawed cats, one of whom couldn’t be bothered. And human inhabitants with a philosophy that might just be something like live-and-let-die.
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Andrew FISH
Andrew Fish is a painter whose work explores human expression and the subconscious in contemporary life, and reacts to rapid changes in image creation in the digital age. Fish attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City and worked as an art handler at various alternative and commercial art galleries in the 1990s. He studied under artists Marilyn Minter, Don Eddy, the late Jack Potter, and Clarissa Sligh, to whom he was artist assistant. Fish grew up in a Vermont printshop, where he first learned how technology could transform the rendering and reading of imagery.  He previously worked at the Jim Henson Company in New York and the Governor’s Institute on the Arts in Vermont, and has built and paraded puppets with the Boston Puppeteers Cooperative for two decades. He was also an educational technology specialist at Massachusetts College of Art and Design before becoming a full-time artist. Fish is a recipient of a 2014 Somerville Arts Council artist grant, a New York Studio School Summer Session Scholarship Award, and a League Residency at Vyt Distinguished Artist Scholarship. www.wanderingfisheye.com www.facebook.com/pages/Andrew-Fish-Painter/187333194657534
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Man vs Tree
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Meeting The S
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Meeting The Shadow 02
Shadow 01
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On The Road - 29 -
“My work examines human expression and the meaning of image creation in contemporary life. The Information Age has inundated us with imagery like no other time in history. Through digital technology and social networking, we are exposed to an endless stream of raw, manipulated, and enhanced images that are widely shared and replicated. My work seeks the meaning and relevance of painting in this era. “
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“My paintings often depict figures whose shadows or gestures become continuations or extensions in space of themselves — visual representations of the psychological and emotional content that we unwittingly expose in the digital age. As a painter in an Instagram world, I react to the ephemeral nature of digital photography by celebrating its popular motifs while also rejecting its immediacy. I seek a painterly aesthetic but mimic photographic visual language through calligraphic mark making. The images in my paintings can resemble their spontaneous digital counterparts, yet a process of longer meditation and traditional materiality yields a distinct atmosphere and rendering of the figure. The end result is a tangible object that ideally provokes contemplation of the act of making and sharing imagery, and of our relationship to physical and virtual space.”
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T
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Strange Weather
The Discovered Country
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Kathleen JONES Kathleen Jones holds an MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where she was a teaching assistant in the Publishing Laboratory and an intern at Lookout Books. She works as a teacher and freelance designer in Wilmington, NC. Her work appeared most recently in Iodine and Gesture, and is forthcoming in Ninth Letter Online and Baldhip.
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The Cactus Holds Down a Teaching Job Her life is a passport that keeps her from daytime travel to longings that go unguessed. Her body is a citizen of the wrong country. She repeats the habits of cacti, mumbles declarations like a monarch who crowned herself. She is a teacher, matron of the map and desk, but is also a night-blooming cereus by other names: Princess of the Night / Honolulu Queen / Queen of the Night / Short-lived Love. Which is to say: female, prickly but delicate, an object to toss by wilting time. She wakes up exhausted every morning. She is better at night. Before bed she scents herself with hyacinth / iris / citrus zest / crisp greens. And when night makes another day, she collects its distinct perfumes: A Friday afternoon’s clean chalkboard, sponge heavy with water scrubbing the dust until she has made the tiniest supply of clay to stain her sleeves at the wrist. The metal tang of laundry quarters, ridged edges rubbed smooth by countless fingers, their skin slightly her skin now. Double transaction. Above her body, the smell of sleep at rest on her hair but fading every hour she can’t return: detergent / sweat / the city across the ocean she visits most nights. Its neighborhoods are night-blooming and more beautiful than home, where she is alone and violence—tincture of money, poultice of blood— is only heightened by her choice of fine cologne. The memory of an old lover no one asks after or knew she had. The foreign constellations for which she dreams up English names.
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Cold Night When I invent a reverie I tend to invent velvet rope. Even mental, a museum is not for the skin that wants to lean against a cool wall, that wants a box fan to chill its sweat. Tonight, a cold night, I made a museum of my neighborhood. I drove slowly past every recognizable still-lit porch and they all became a picture of three months from now. I could look but not touch. My friend N says everything has a name, and summer is the name of sitting together on a pollen-stained porch, the ceiling a constellation of round light bulbs mimicking the sky beyond, lighting up our beers, flickering to warn of a storm. The crack of thunder and a chorus of dogs to howl damp and blue all down the block. Here the screen-door scratch of the sweet cat who wants out. But that is not tonight. Tonight is cold. I named the porches summer, each one a snapshot to nudge me past winter. Each one an art, aloof but tender as a canvas in a frame, a masterpiece resemblance of home.
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A Dusty Fertility Is Still Open For Locusts by: Kathryn Shriver
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LAURA Knapp Laura Knapp is a recent graduate from the New England School of Photography in Boston where she studied fine art and portraiture photography. Laura previously studied at Bennington College in Vermont until 2012, but left after two years to learn as much as she could about photography.
www.laura-knapp.com www.facebook.com/lauraknapp.photography
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La Ura “I have always seen the world in an architectural way where objects, body parts, and colors become shapes and forms. I use photography to visually join my body with an environment. I am inspired by places I have never been to because I love exploration and experimentation. In fact, a huge part of my inspiration for some of my self-portraiture comes from not looking through the viewfinder. A great deal of the time, for me creating self-portraits involves trust, embracing the element of surprise. I am a shy woman. It is fun for me to think about the surprise people feel when looking at this work based on the way I am normally perceived in the world. Self-portraiture allows me to showcase my true personality in public: what exists on the inside which I usually keep for myself without having to act loud and exuberant all the time. On the outside, I almost always want to keep to myself and be quiet. Self-portraiture creates an outlet for the more reserved; it allows me to exhibit the most dynamic parts of my personality, despite what other’s preconceived notions may be. Creating self-portraits continues to inspire me to prove that I am more than I appear to be at first glance, all while simultaneously learning more about myself and the perceptions of the world around me.”
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Laura’s work continues on page 50 - 47 -
DAISY Novoa Vásquez Daisy Novoa Vásquez es una escritora chilena-ecuatoriana. Emigró a los Estados Unidos en el 2002. Desde entonces ha vivido en varias ciudades del país y trabajado para empresas de medios de comunicación y publicidad. Ha viajado extensamente por Norte América, Europa, Asía, y Latinoamérica. Estudió en los Estados Unidos y Corea del Sur, y actualmente está completando su maestría en Boston. Contribuye como columnista para el periódico El Planeta de Boston y para varios portales en línea. Daisy escribe mayormente poesía y cuentos cortos, abarcando una variedad de temas y estilos. Su nueva publicación es el libro de poesía: Fluir en ausencia, Artepoética Press, New York, 2014
Daisy Novoa Vásquez is a Chilean-Ecuadorian writer. She emigrated to the United States in 2002. Since then she has worked for media companies and advertising agencies in various cities. She has traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Daisy´s undergraduate studies were conducted in the United States and South Korea, and she is currently completing her master’s degree. Daisy is a contributing columnist for the Hispanic newspaper El Planeta of Boston and for online websites. Daisy writes poetry and short stories covering a variety of themes and styles. Her latest publication is the poetry collection Fluir en Ausencia, Artepoética Press, New York, 2014
www.daisynovoavasquez.com
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DONDE LOS CIELOS SON ESPEJOS Hay cosas que nos encuentran a nosotros. ¿O nosotros las encontramos a ellas? Acaso vienen ya de otras vidas, de mundos paralelos, donde los cielos son espejos. El punto de balance de mi cuerpo está sobre mis labios, pero tú neciamente crees que está entre mis piernas… Te sujeto la mano solamente porque la música que suena la he escuchado antes y me aterra… Y por si acaso: En otros mundos, —en otras vidas— yo fui hombre y tú doncella…
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VOLVER A LA ISLA Puedo resucitar la isla, traerla a mi memoria; raíces por debajo del agua crecen como manos cubiertas de anillos de esmeraldas. Recuerdo el papel crepé, turquesa y delicado de sus aguas, y pececillos de colores nadando concupiscentes hasta orillas templadas. Manglares abriéndose paso entre las olas… En sus copas de racimos verdes como tulipanes de algodón se posan garzas y gaviotas. Quiero volver a la isla donde la gente se ama en sus playas, no sobre la arena tibia y placentera sino entre la cadencia de mareas cálidas. Donde hay tulipanes que vuelan alargando y emancipando sus alas, cortando el calor del aire con ternuras geométricas y proezas extrañas.
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VERSIÓN EXTRAOFICIAL DE MIS SOMBRAS Recorro la ciudad, túneles obscuros me succionan, veo miles de moléculas escaparse de mi piel y con la velocidad dejo atrás mi alma. Se pierden mis ojos en movimientos de paredes que se derriten, por mi cuerpo avanza la vibración de un tiempo irreconocible. En cables de alta tensión un pájaro le canta a la mitosis de mi ser, he dejado de ser la misma para convertirme en la versión extraoficial de mis sombras.
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Laura Knapp’s work starts on page 38
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CATHERINE Evleshin Catherine Evleshin’s fiction appears in Words Apart Magazine, Animal - A Beast of a Literary Magazine, Fiction Vortex, Mused - BellaOnline Literary Review and forthcoming in Agave Magazine and Canary Journal of Environmental Crisis.
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Dream Act 2014 “Epidemiologists estimate a seventy percent probability that lethal infections will emerge within the next three decades, capable of killing millions of humans before containment.” Each weekend, Sam Childress watches doomsday reports that crowd the channels on his oversized television screen, as if a lawyer could make a difference in the perilous future of the planet. At the sound of a car outside, he hits the “PAUSE” button. From the bay window of his West Hills home in Portland, he watches a gleaming black Audi roll into the driveway and pull up next to the gardener’s pickup that flaunts a César Chávez decal in the back window. Exciting the crows atop Douglas fir trees, Sam’s law associate, Marco Guzmán, pauses to wave at the sturdy youth trimming rhododendron bushes, then springs up the steps. Today’s visit will be more than the usual Saturday afternoon beers and shop talk. The scent of the young lawyer’s cologne follows him into the elegant living room with the bad painting of Great-uncle Charles over the mantle. The old man had helped Sam through university and bequeathed him the home, so the portrait stays. Marco points outside the bay window. “Why doesn’t your gardener fix up his old junker?” Last spring, Sam had asked the same question and noted the boy’s cautious sigh. “Claims he knows nothing about cars. He’s saving money for college.” “Now if he just had a path to citizenship.” Fourteen years into the 21st Century, and no agreement on solutions. “It took me a half hour to detour around the immigration rally in Pioneer Square. Thousands blocking the streets.” “Did you happen to see Ashley?” Sam at once applauds and frets when his Harvard-bound seventeen-year-old joins public protests. Like her mother, an instinctive political activist. “Impossible to spot even her blonde ponytail in that mob.” From the kitchen fridge, Sam digs out two beers. After the obligatory “Salud,” Marco grins. “So you’re crossing over to the dark side?” “Haven’t decided.” Sam is taking on criminal cases again, leading to speculation around the water cooler that he may become a deputy district attorney. He heads toward his desk in the corner of the living room. “Take a look at this message I received this week.” At the computer, he opens his inbox. “Check out the date.” Posted May 1, 2057: 1400 hrs. “My name is Luz Calderón and I live in Pacific Green. My Cuban father is an investigative journalist who gets into trouble enough on his own, so I am always careful with my words, even though you, my incredulous readers, inhabited the earth before I was born. I am twenty-five years old, and would be described in your time as if I were something to drink, coffee-and-cream, you get the idea. My mother and older brother died two decades ago during the worldwide Pandemic. After the collapse of the United States into a dozen regional governments like Pacific Green, the United Christocracy, and Deseret (you know it as Utah), we terrified survivors fled the suburbs of Portland for security inside a botguarded electric Fence that, to this day, keeps out refugees from the Wilderness. The TV station started broadcasting again and aired my father’s show every evening. I grew up wanting nothing -- except respect. My father has explained that my learning difficulties are the result of malnutrition and education interrupted at a critical age. My apartment overlooks the inhabited city on the west bank of the Willamette River. - 55 -
Portland’s east side, with no services, harbors only squirrels and raccoons, miles of derelict homes, broken power lines, and freeways to nowhere. Dominating the horizon is Mount Hood, from June to December bereft of snow above the timber line. I have seen images of Portland before climate change transformed the world. Did you know that, as the oceans rise, the Willamette River will flood your streets? Motor vehicles are no longer allowed downtown. I have a job at the Archivum, today’s term for your Main Library, the Georgian edifice nestled among high-rises. I walk to work in climate-controlled comfort through elevated plexiglas pedways with moving floors, and look down on streets converted into canals, gardens, and bike trails. I can’t help but think of us as rats scurrying along barn rafters. Most Portlanders remain single and make no promises. My play partners work in the tech industry and earn twice as much as I do. They think I’m stupid because I don’t understand techspeak. They say that history and literature written in past centuries is nothing but lies. I have read about nonconsensual sex prevalent in your era. None of that now. We wear a nanolink audio Chain, so that a potential victim can instantly alert the authorities. Felons get a dose of Amnesik, which turns them into permanent idiots before they are thrust outside the Fence and left to dodge hungry Wilders. While grateful for the security of the Chain, during play I can’t forget that every spoken word is monitored. I have read about private conversations between lovers back in your day. Delightful.” Marco grins. “Play... sounds sweet. In fact, for being disabled, this woman is quite articulate.” “Forty years in the future, verbal types like us may have to settle for low-status jobs.” “True, lawyers wouldn’t find much work if there were arbitrary penalties, no secrets, and no feds to decide who gets deported.” “If such a pandemic strikes, my daughter will be in her mid-thirties, perhaps raising my grandchildren.” Marco smirks. “Come on, man. You’ve been spammed.” “You didn’t receive this post?” “I would have deleted it.” A laugh. “You could get a computer virus from the future.” It isn’t the first time tech-savvy Marco has warned Sam about opening questionable messages, but never from the year 2057. This woman not yet born had written “my incredulous readers,” so she must have sent it to others. “Keep reading. It gets better.” “I’ll tell you about my first and only love. I was fifteen and had never been with a boy beyond a few grope sessions. My father said that men would take advantage of me, so they could brag to their friends that they had played the daughter of a celebrity. Unskilled laborers, most of them Latinos, are restricted to the farmlands and industrial parks outside the city. Soon after the collapse, it became apparent that the Fence had to be extended to protect workers’ families and prevent Wilders from stealing food. Although the mayor of Portland is named Enrique Lopez, he is powerless to change the no-expansion policy that limits the urban population to 100,000 educated and trained adults and their children, or to those rich enough to buy their way into West Hills. My father has forever obsessed over issues of social justice. He decided to do a story about farm workers who complained of toxic working conditions in Bella Vista, one of Portland’s satellite communities (Woodburn, to you). Curious, I accompanied him. As the press heliplane approached the Community Center, my breath caught at the sight of a five meter mural of César Chávez, his gentle countenance looming over the throng of workers outside. Despite their shabby clothes, the young men looked magnificent -- bronzed skin, workmen’s muscles, stares that burned holes through me. A square-shouldered youth came forward to testify. His voice set aflame my love-starved body. When finished, he smiled at me - 56 -
MiddleGray • 5 without showing his teeth. The following Sunday, I told my father I was going out to study at a friend’s house. Instead, I caught the train to Bella Vista. Joaquín Esquivel (I call him Jack) met me at the terminal, and you can guess the rest of the story. For two years, Jack and I made love in any one of a hundred vacant houses around town. One November night, while his family celebrated the Mexican Day of the Dead in the cemetery, I stayed past midnight at Jack’s house. My father came out to Bella Vista and caught us. Jack said, ‘We’re going to get married.’ We were only seventeen. In a voice I won’t forget, my father replied, ‘She will never marry you.’ That was the last time I visited Jack. He now has a wife and I have nothing but men who play me. For a glimpse at him once a month, I fulfill my social service in Bella Vista. At the town meeting, I listen to grievances while he watches from the back. His wife is about to give birth to their second child. When I think of Jack, I get a pain under my ribs. “ [End of post: No comment box] Marco exhales. “Your daughter shows great imagination.” A lop-sided grin. “I was hoping the mayor’s name would be Marco Guzmán.” “Why would Ashley describe herself as a brown-skinned latina and bring up that audio-chain business?” “She knows women of color will be the majority in 2057. And we all fear for the First Amendment.” “Why a pandemic that happens twenty years from now, when this woman is a kid? And Ashley would never say ‘aflame’ or ‘countenance’ or ‘bereft.’ She couldn’t identify a Georgian building or a barn rafter. The writer loves old books, like a librarian.” Marco looks out the window at the sky. “Do you believe in wormholes, the Einstein-Rosen Bridge or whatever it’s called, that’s supposed to bend space and facilitate time travel?” “I don’t see The Terminator appearing any time soon, but messages from cyberspace? For the Internet to function, satellite GPS clocks have to be tweaked to coordinate with earth time. Who knows what scientists will develop in the next forty years?” “Another documentary got you going?” “I’ll admit I can’t follow the new theories of time and space. I’m still back in the Newtonian Age. Just grateful the computer obeys when I log on.” “Did you try to post a reply?” “Aborted.” This woman may have no proof that her messages arrive forty years back in time, but that doesn’t dissuade her. They drift to the window. Each Saturday, daughter Ashley has watched the young gardener until time to bring out lunch, then sat with him “to practice her Spanish,” leaving Sam in agony over their careful body language and frequent glances toward the house. Today the young man must wish he were at the rally instead of shoveling fertilizer around rose bushes. Sam returns to the computer. “Here’s another message, sent the next day.” Posted May 2, 2057: 1700 hrs. “I am Joaquín Esquivel. Luz don’t know about my hacker friend who helps me access her files. Please excuse my writing. They closed the schools during the Pandemic, and never opened them again for the workers. I’m not as stupid as I sound. Lucita knew that. You gotta hear my side of the story about her father, you know, the big shot media man with his face on the news every night. He talks alot about helping the workers get a fair shake, but that don’t include playing with his daughter. I shoulda fixed that lock on the front door. After her old man catches us naked as babies, he growls at Lucita to get dressed, and raises his finger to my face. If you touch her again, he says, I’ll see to it that you and your friends are exiled for sedition. - 57 -
Out into Wilder country? Good as a death sentence. I worked alongside a coupla pendejos who ganged up on a girl. The guards threw them outside the Fence and we heard Wilders killed them. Probably hungry. The summer before, her father went to bat for us when we got thrown in jail for protesting. I wasn’t about to push my luck this time. I have a daughter now, so I guess I understand. I loved that girl, but she wasn’t about to become a trabajadora sweating in the fields. Bad enough to dump me like that, but she let me peek into her world and snatched it back. It makes me wanna slam my fist through a wall.” [end of post] Marco’s faraway look. “My father came from Chiapas and worked in the fields around Woodburn.” “How did you pay for law school?” “Small scholarships and big loans. How old is your gardener?” “Still in high school.” Sam once asked the boy if he played on the soccer team. He said he had to pick up his sisters from school and watch them until his mother got off work. Sam and Marco return to the window. A crow lands on the tailgate of the gardener’s pickup and studies them with one eye. Marco asks, “Why do you think you were chosen to receive these messages, besides the fact that you’ll open any trash addressed to you?” “Perhaps Luz Calderón and her boyfriend believe an e-challenged lawyer can alter history.” Sam watches the gardener rinse his hands under the faucet by the birdbath and clean his sneakers on the grass. “Marco, if you knew you had only twenty years left, how would you spend them?” “Hmm. What I’m doing, I guess... career, friends.” Life for the young lawyer is one long salsa dance -- enjoy today and let the details sort themselves out. “Would you work in the district attorney’s office if you got the chance?” A longer pause. “My father would give me The Look.” When they see the gardener approach the front door, Sam and Marco step outside to meet him. In English as unaccented as Sam’s own, the youth reports on work completed and accepts cash from Sam. “I’ll be back next Saturday, Mr. Childress.” A polite nod to Marco. He turns to go, but Sam says, “Come inside a minute.” Dark brows twist and Sam softens his voice. “What is your favorite course in school, young man?” “I’m good at math. Computer engineering is the wave of the future, don’t you think?” “I suppose so. Are your grades high enough to get into a good university?” “Straight ‘A’s. But I’ll be lucky to pull off community college.” Ashley’s veiled expression last Saturday as she watched the gardener from the window... Earlier in the spring, Sam had noticed a small bandage on her inner arm, now a red dot of a scar, likely a contraceptive implant. “I’ll make you a deal,” he tells the boy. “Keep up those grades, and for everything I’ve paid you since you started working here, and from this day forward, I’ll match dollar for dollar, and deposit into a college fund in your name.” The boy turns to Marco, who shrugs and says something in Spanish. The brows relax. Sam sits at the computer.”Can you wait while I prepare a contract?” “I can wait twice that long, sir.” “Your full legal name?” The young man hesitates and glances again at Marco who assures him, “It’s okay.” “Jesús Antonio Ortíz Ramos.” After checking the spelling, Marco leads the boy into the living room and they converse in Spanish. With the contract completed and signed, the gardener smiles. “Mil gracias, Mr. Childress. This is the best day of my life.” Jesús Antonio Ortíz Ramos bounds down the steps and begins loading tools into the back of the pickup. Marco finishes his beer. “That muchacho’s hopes for the future just took a giant leap forward.” He indicates the computer screen where Joaquín Esquivel’s words smolder back across forty years. “You see what happens to dreams thwarted.” They watch the pickup clatter down the driveway. From the rear window, César Chávez smiles back. - 58 -
MiddleGray • 5 Sam offers another beer and releases the “PAUSE” button on the television to play the final scene of the pandemic documentary. A half-hour later, while credits roll, Marco nods toward the screen. “Maybe your girl saw this program.” “I was going to recommend it, but she gets upset when she hears about disasters. She worries that Portland will fall apart at the first earthquake or power grid collapse.” Sam shuts down the television. “And she could be right.” Marco exhales again and hands over the second empty can. “I’d better get going. I had to bring home work this weekend, and there’s a band to catch tonight at the Conga Club.” At the doorway, he says, “You know, Sam, there are tricks to finding out who sent those messages.” “Not sure I want to know.” The house now silent until the women in his life return from their Saturday adventures, Sam checks his inbox. A new message, this one dated a mere two decades hence: Posted January 10, 2036: 2200 hrs. “I am journalist Daniel Calderón, filing a report with the last of my batteries. Hardfought wealth and celebrity do nothing for a belly that clutches from hunger and a mind burning with grief. Today I buried my wife and son in the garden and covered the area with leaves. Despite my efforts, hungry scavengers will probably find them. An hour ago, my five-year-old daughter Luz, the remaining light of my life, woke up screaming. I held her emaciated body next to mine and checked for fever, but her forehead felt cool. At dawn, I will once again explain that she must remain quiet and hidden inside the house. Each time I prepare to leave, her hollow eyes grow large. ‘What’ll I do if you don’t come back, Papi?’ I have no answer. Gripping the loaded .38 in my coat pocket, I wander rutted streets, desolate gardens, ravaged warehouses. Each corpse I encounter lets me know that there is one fewer person to compete for food. I have reported on disease, famine, and genocide in desperate regions of the world. I never dreamed it would happen here.” [end of post] Sam pours himself a scotch on the rocks. Any one of the catastrophes predicted on the science channel would expose Portland’s fault lines, its unfinished progress. So little time to prepare. By the time he finishes the drink, Sam knows what he must do. That night at dinner, he asks about the rally and learns his wife had joined Ashley in support of the workers. These blue-eyed dreamers recount the fervor of ten thousand Oregonians chanting in solidarity. Ashley asks, “Dad, which immigrants do you represent?” “I haven’t handled immigration for a while. Marco takes the Mexican cases, if that’s what you’re asking.” Icy stillness. “I’ve decided to withdraw my name from consideration for deputy district attorney, and I’ll go back to doing immigration. Marco is swamped.” He flashes his best smile. “How would I explain my family’s activism?” His wife lays her hand on his arm. Ashley breaks the silence. “Jesús texted me about the contract. He won’t disappoint you, Dad.” In an apocalypse, Sam might survive, only to lose his family. But until then, he will do whatever it takes to stand tall in their eyes. He takes his wife’s hand, and reaches for Ashley’s wrist across the table. “Tonight I feel lucky to be alive.” His daughter looks like she wants to ask if he’s been smoking something.
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María Alejandra MATA María Alejandra Mata was born in the city of Caracas, Venezuela in 1987. She developed an interest in the arts from a young age. Mata went to Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas and graduated in Social Communications, with a major in Visual Arts. Performance arts were always of her interest, and she took part of the theater group at college for a couple of years until she moved on from the stage to the front pit photographing live performances. María Alejandra later decided to relocate to Boston to attend the New England School of Photography where she obtained a certificate in professional photography.
www.mariamataphoto.com www.facebook.com/MAMFotografia
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Where It Hurts “Where it Hurts” is a series of self portraits about how emotional wounds show through the skin and manifest physically. They are an interpretation of the artist’s personal experiences and conflicts through a painful and violent time. The concept evolved into a short series that depicts the inner conflicts in Venezuela and how they affected Mata as an immigrant. “The intensity of our emotions can “break” us from the inside. We can see them and feel them until we finally manage to heal ourselves.” -María Alejandra Mata
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JASMON Drain Jasmon Drain is a 2010 and 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee. He was a finalist in the inaugural Terrrain.org fiction contest and a Notable Story of the Year (2013) in the Gemini Magazine fiction contest. Also, he has been published in Bird’s Thumb, The Chariton Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Ginosko Magazine, Indian River Review, The Jet Fuel Review, Lit Up Magazine, My Story Lives Magazine, New Purlieu Review, New Sound Magazine, The Quotable Magazine, Reverie, Sliver of Stone Magazine, Specter Literary Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, The Vermillion Literary Project, and the Wilderness House Literary Review.
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Headlights in Black Berlin When you’re seven years old, and at that age only, you have an objective view of the world that keeps you happy. It keeps you safe. Nothing matters. Everything makes sense. You have no opinions or worries. No one argues, fights, scuffles or disagrees. There is plenty of food to eat, water to drink. The small patches of grass along your neighborhood block are just enough to play in. Everyone is beautiful. All things make sense. I turned eight in the year 19 - -. “Boy, get your ass from around that wall,” my mother yelled from our porch. Her voice always could travel much further than you’d believe her small body should’ve allowed. As I heard her speak, I’d gather my toys, which usually consisted of a few action figures and a small car I imagined was their vehicle, and trot back to our house. “It’s dinner time,” she continued yelling. When I’d get close to the steps I paused, toys tight in my left hand. I was so small that I still had to crawl or hop a bit just to make it to the top of our porch. The stairs were steep. Mother would stand there, waiting. She had these wide and bright eyes that reminded you of the headlights on a Chevy, and her left hand was planted firmly on her hip. That hand was so stiff at her side I figured there was a gun-holster there, something to keep it in place, similar to that of a policeman’s. It would be complete with a small slot to keep each finger safe. And she yanked it quickly on the draw, whenever I got anywhere near that wall, crashing the inside of her hand against my head so hard I knew small particles of hair were removed. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from by the wall and fence?” I nodded my head. “Didn’t I?” I nodded again. Guess she didn’t hear my answer. At that moment I looked up slowly at my mother. I didn’t have to raise my head high considering how short she was. “Didn’t I tell you about staying away from over there? You gonna’ get in some trouble down that far! Play close to this porch or you won’t be able to go out alone!” I continued nodding. Mother’s skin was the color of a pretty cookie, with modest freckles around her eyes acting as the spots on a chocolate chip. She wore her hair down and around her ears and if you looked at her from a distance you wouldn’t believe she had a toughened bone in her body. While putting her gun in its holster she’d collect the toys, which fell from my hands after the blow upside my head. She then took a last glance at the end of our block where the wall-fence was. It was as though she expected a fifty-armed monster to come running from over its ledge after us. “You need to stay away from that end of the block, son,” my father said as he rose from the couch. He didn’t work weekends. And normally on Saturdays, he’d be there on the couch
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for the next forty-eight to fifty hours watching every college basketball game. The two extra hours were a prime example of Father’s patience. Although the ball games were only shown on Saturdays and Sundays, he’d sit in front of the television those extra couple of hours hoping he could see another game or catch some extended news coverage of the days sporting events. Said sports took his mind off things. Mother sat all of my toys on one end of the couch, grabbed my hand, and walked me down the long hallway of our home and into the bathroom. She never said anything once we walked in; she simply turned on the water, while giving me a fierce look with those headlights. But I couldn’t stop thinking about why I wasn’t allowed to go near the wall-fence. Once I was done washing, I’d walk slowly to the back of our house where the kitchen was. Mother always had all three places set. It was immaculate. There was a clean plate for your salad, finished with a small fork meant for that specific purpose. She chose different colored table cloths for each day of the week (Saturday’s were green.) And there were separate glasses for water, wine, and juice or milk, which I had to drink. Since my father desired to be a health-nut, a true balanced diet proponent, each meal we ate had to contain at least one of the major food groups. We ate every version of wheat bread, or rye and raisin bagels for breakfast. Mother baked chicken and meats so many different ways I trusted that she read books on culinary nightly while everyone slept. There normally was a small helping of fruit I was to eat as dessert. Although we ate healthy, I was still overweight for an eight-year old. And my father hated it. After Mother and I sat at the table and waited for at least ten minutes, he’d finally come into the kitchen. This was the time each and everyday that I’d notice just how much of a mixmatch couple my mother and he were. Father was maybe five-foot eleven, but standing next to Mother who couldn’t have been anything close to five-feet herself, he looked every bit of six-two. I hoped to gain his height, not hers. Even at thirty-five, years removed from the Marines where he was a sergeant, my father wore his hair in this buzz-cut you couldn’t believe a black man trained his hair for. He’d do an overview of all the food Mother prepared, and if it was to his liking, which ninety-nine percent of the time it was, he’d give her this wide smile that revealed his cigarette stained teeth. “Thank you, babe,” he’d say. Then he’d look at me and frown. “Eat this good food, son. Appreciate it. Maybe it will help you get into better shape.” The two of them sat at the kitchen table chit-chatting like they were still boyfriend and girlfriend in high school and not a husband and wife of almost nine years. I’d shift my head back and forth, using my set of headlight eyes which matched Mother’s and the large forehead I inherited from Father to see and make an attempt at processing everything. (Father said that having a large forehead meant you had a bigger brain.) They talked of politics, race relations, what our neighborhood was like back in the day, their parents, their cousins, my school, my grades, my weight. They even spoke briefly about my cousin Kristopher who was always in and out of prison for robbery and vandalism. But they never brought up what I was most interested in: the wall-fence at the end of our block. Sometimes, after dinner in the summer, or on weekdays when Father wasn’t driving the city bus, my parents would take me out for long walks through our neighborhood. We never, ever, went to the right when we’d walk out the door. Always left. I kicked soda-pop bottles that had to have withered in from other areas, small scraps of paper which looked as though they’d been torn from a notebook twenty years previous, all while holding my father’s hand. Even when I glanced back to look at our block as we achieved a certain distance, my father grabbed my face by the chin and turned me forward. “Never look at that wall, son.” He’d stare at me directly in the headlights. “Face forward. Never look back. Never.” We’d eventually end up in one of the large vacant lots on our block, maybe tossing a football or softball around, or chasing one another to see who was fastest. It was easy to enjoy my block. I was almost like a kid living on a farm, except we raised no animals save for the mice
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from the field that left small droppings in every corner of our house, and an occasional raccoon or skunk you had to keep your distance from. Looking back now, our block looked like what a neighborhood would resemble had the Cold War never ended and we’d been hit by a nuclear missile strike, or maybe a hurricane with no mercy. It was desolate. There were only four houses around, counting both sides of the street, two of which were boarded and rotting away. The Sampsons lived across the way from us toward the opening of the block, in a brown painted two-story building that Mother said they’d owned since she was a young girl. Mrs. Sampson was an old woman that never came outside. I spotted her on mornings in the window while heading to school or ever so often when I tossed the football around with Father. I’d miss catching it on purpose just so I could shoot my body to the end of the block near the wall. No cars came on our block. The mailman dropped all our packages, even letters or items that may have been marked ‘fragile, handle with care’ on the corner’s curb. The only thing saving our mail from blowing away like the debris along the street was the fact that the mailmen were kind enough to bind the letters with rubber bands. My parents knew exactly when the mailman was to arrive; they had a schedule set up, and he’d toss everything to be delivered to us from his truck as though it were a bomb. He’d keep driving without looking back. He must have gotten advice from my father. Even the school bus that picked me up in the early morning would only stop on the corner, not daring to drive down the street. Mother or Father had to walk to our corner each morning, extreme cold or heat, so the bus would ship me to school. All seats on the bus were filled when I’d get on in the morning. They were assigned to us specifically, name-tag above the window corresponding with your seat like a cell to a prisoner, complete with I.D. number. Mine was toward the back, about three rows from the untouchable rear door our bus driver told us sounded like a fire engine’s siren if we touched it. He always likened it to the wall at the end of my block, telling the kids on my side of the school bus that it wasn’t to be gone near. Everyone on the bus would make the catch-your-breath sound and look directly at me or my seat partner, Gerry Sampson. (Who was never allowed outside.) Lonnie Briggs and his partner Terry Sims were the darkest boys in our school and they both lived so far away it seemed as though when the bus dropped them off we were going on a field trip. Those were the only kids I talked to on the bus; those were the only kids I talked to in the entire school for that matter. The other side of our bus contained the kids that lived, as my mother described it, “over there.” We were not to talk to them. But I went against that often because I didn’t see any reason not to. They were in none of the same classes as I, and at lunch they sat on the opposite end of the cafeteria. But we shared the gymnasium during physical education class. Our cafeteria reminded me of a visiting room in the prison downstate where my cousin Kristopher was. The walls were this bland version of white concrete, with little dips and crevices similar to a face with bad acne. Sometimes I ran my hands along them because I enjoyed the gritty feeling they gave. The room was brightly lit with overhead bulbs longer than my entire body and it was decorated with pictures of men we learned about in school. We sat on long steel benches that were extremely cold even in the warmer months, and they were separated in similar fashion to how we were on the school bus in the morning. The other students came down in line first, and by the time my class had arrived, those others were already seated and eating. Didn’t matter. I wanted to get to know the other kids. So, on more than one occasion I lifted from my seat after finishing lunch early, and walked to the other side where they were. I’d ask those other guys how they were doing and what their names were and why they always sat on the other side from us. No one answered. Most simply stared at me as though saying, “hi,” was offensive in their language. “Henderson!” my teacher Mr. Roberts yelled. “Get back over on your side and sit down.” Nothing was scary about Mr. Roberts. Only thing was, his beard was this strange shade
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of brown and hung down close to his neck. It looked as though he could kidnap you, hide you there, no one would know. There was so much hair on his pale face that when he talked you couldn’t see his mouth move even if you were looking right at him. But no matter what, I never got an answer from the other students. After questioning my father about the day’s encounters, he’d say, “Stay on your side of the world, son. Mind your business.” The bus dropped me off at the corner of my block each day for months and months but the entire ride home I continued wondering why things were the way they were: the separate seating, the wall no one wanted to tell me about, the separate eating, the fact that no cars dared venture down my block, the secrecy of my parents, and the real reason why I was let out at the corner when other kids were chauffeured to their front doors. One day, toward the end of the school year, the bus dropped me off at the corner of my block about fifteen minutes early. I decided I’d use the time, when no one would be standing on the porch waiting for my arrival, to answer at least one of my questions. The vacant lots of my block began growing irregular spots of grass which resembled splashed paint on a canvas. There was very little debris blowing in the street that day. I tightened the straps of my book-bag along my shoulders as though it were a parachute and I was a soldier jumping from a plane. When I got to the wall I analyzed it closely for the first time. Usually I’d take whatever toys I had and play at a close distance but never within enough space to see the small cracks. The brick was red and had chinks and minute traces of erosion that came from the weather. Toward the left and the right ends, almost forty feet in each direction, was a long rusty fence that extended so far into the vacant lot it seemed as though it ran right into the sun. I felt as if I’d walked into a museum. The wall had to have been over seven feet high. At the top was a small pillar, painted white, where birds spent quite a bit of their leisure time. Immediately I took my hands, opening and closing my fingers toward the palms trying to get blood flowing into the tips. It took three jumps before my dark hands gripped the ledge and I was able to pull myself up. All I could hear in the background was Mother and Father yelling, “Tracy, get your ass away from that wall!” But they weren’t there. The moment I turned my head to face what was on the other side of the wall my opinion of everything, including my block, changed. I saw houses sitting side by side like children lined in a playground. The paint was as vivid as those in cartoons and there were so many cars I wondered if it was even safe for me to jump from where I was standing. But I did anyway. There were tall green poles on each end of the street that had long necks like ostriches, with orange tinted lights hanging from their tips. They had to, when lit, have been able to brighten an entire city. I began walking. “Why would everyone want to keep me away from this?” I asked myself. “It’s beautiful here.” The pavement was clean, there were garbage cans in front of each home with numbers corresponding to the address, and mailboxes attached to the side of front doors, branded with what I assumed was the name of the family living there. There was very little noise although kids were playing. Many of them were or looked similar to those that sat on the other side of the lunchroom. Each stared at me as though they’d never seen me before in school. I continued walking. The sections of grass in front of houses were cut into a square so perfect I couldn’t have drawn them with a ruler. After a few moments I began hearing people talking loudly behind me. I figured maybe a couple of the boys had gotten into a small tussle which needed to be broken up. I then approached a house to the left where a tall woman, almost as tall as my father, stood in her door peering out at me. She had long straight hair and was yelling at someone in
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another area of the house. But I didn’t have to make out what she was saying, nor did I get the chance to. The noise in the background had grown loud. Louder. Extreme. “You don’t belong on this side!” One teenaged boy yelled once I turned around. He pounded his fists into one another. There were so many people standing around that I immediately began thinking of how I’d get back to the wall. It was too late. Although I was eightyears-old and just making five-feet, and that boy at least seventeen and six-one, he pushed me to the ground so hard I thought the concrete pushed back when I landed. Those headlights on my face absorbed the picture of these people: teeth showing like hungry wolves or dogs protecting territory, prepared to rip at my limps for trespassing. The crowd hovered over me, spitting, yelling, groaning, grumbling, spitting. I was an overweight and polar-opposite of my father, but I lifted to my feet with agility and shoved through the crowd like a linebacker. Running fast down the block I bumped into one of the garbage cans, spilling trash along the sidewalk and lawns. I didn’t fall. I didn’t stop. The laces of my shoes were loose and I begged to not trip over them. The angry crowd was directly at my back. When I got close to it was when I noticed what explained the wall, what explained its extended fence that stretched to what seemed like Germany. There was a makeshift sign, spray-painted in bold red across its face. It read: Don’t cross. Keep separate from them. I knew I wouldn’t be able to jump the ledge or even get a clean grip on its slippery surface in time enough that the crowd wouldn’t hurt me. So I stood there just analyzing the letters painted across its surface. I noticed the fence on each side. The brittle nature of rust on its far end. How its dull color at that moment matched my skin. The crowd was no longer chasing me. Their yells contained the same volume as before. I turned back to look at them, defying everything my father said. My face surely was no longer bright with eyes resembling my mother’s headlights. I was something similar to that crowd right then: sensitive, fearful, defensive, curious, angry, confused. Something close to them, close to the other people who lived over there. We were closer than we’d ever admit. However, my curiosity would never bring me there again. Neither Mother nor Father would have to scold me; I’d sit on my side of the bus with no questions; I’d eat lunch in the prison rivaling lunchroom, on my side, separate from those that were different than me. But when I looked up at the ledge at the top of the wall, hearing the harsh words behind me, I swore it was lined with barbed wire. That I couldn’t go back. I would leave something on this side of the wall. I jumped and hung on, book-bag feeling as though it were filled with chunks of brick from the wall, eventually climbing to the other side. Mother was standing in the middle of our block, our block with four houses, no mailboxes, small patches of grass, no garbage cans, no kids, and trash blowing around as though it were being lifted by a ceiling fan. She was circling around and waving her hand against her side. The left one was in its holster. She stared at me when we got close. But I never looked her in the eye. I simply walked past her onto our porch. Dinner that night was different than any other. My parents of course did their normal talking, but this time I was included. Father spoke to me about black history. Mother spent time going over our family heritage. And then they explained the wall. Years before I was born there was a race riot in our city between the whites and blacks because of a fight that took place between two high-schoolers. From what my parents said excessive violence was used to restrain the black teenager. His entire family in the end became involved. Lawns were flooded with trash. Store windows were broken.
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Cars vandalized. Homes burned. Mother said that when she was younger our neighborhood was one of the most beautiful in the city. It was filled with brilliantly colored homes like those I saw on the other side of the wall-fence. Children played in the streets. The mailman delivered to everyone’s door. But three people were killed in the riots. Many of the homes on our block took the brunt of the damage. She said most of the black people moved away and our block, by most people’s standards, was not worth stepping foot on. Even the black people thought it bad luck to be anyway near it. The wall was built to cover the road and keep cars from passing through to either side. The fences, which I found out extended some six blocks in each direction, were there as a safeguard for people walking. From what my parent’s said, both groups agreed that keeping everyone separate was the safest idea. My parents never asked me the details of what happened when I was on the other side of the wall. I didn’t really want to tell. From that point on, I’d walk out onto my porch for whatever reason and take a long glance through my headlights at the wall. The spray-painted sign was as prominent in my memory as ever, although I knew it rest on the opposite side. I got into the habit of turning my back on that wall, as my father instructed me my entire life previous. I’d take careful note of my block’s entirety, staring at the dry patches of dirt and gravel that I knew pretty homes once rested in; I’d walk to the corner because I had to. I was eight-years-old when the wall taught to me stay away from anything on the other side; it taught to me to stay away from anything that was different.
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by: Zak Alexander Rose
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Kathryn SHRIVER www.facebook.com/KathrynEulellaShriver
Kathryn Shriver is an artist working in drawing, beading, and embroidery. She was born in Buffalo, NY, has studied in Paris, New York, and Aurora, NY, and currently works and studies in Montreal, QC where she is an MFA candidate at Concordia University in the Drawing and Painting department. “A brain holds much more information than a mind actively understands or consciously accesses. Within the recesses of overshadowed memories, evasions of intuition, and the synapses of decision making, there is a murky barrier preventing connection— a failure of recognition, an inability to communicate. Perhaps a considered excavation and translation of such shadowy psychological content into tangible form might allow for common triggers and associations to develop and for communication and understanding to occur below, above, and within the realms of language and conscious thought process.“ - Kathryn Shriver
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Carriages Of Homes Pulling Up From The Sand
Time Is Liquid, Pliable, Mendable, Shape-Shifting And Finite, Hand Loomed Seed Beads
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I Deeply Fear The Failings Of The Dermis
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“With general interests in gender, fanciness, and states of protective detachment, busy anxiety, and defensive distraction, I test the ability of fabric, patterning, and ornamental elements to suggest and reveal psychological and emotional content. I use meditative drawing, beading, and sewing techniques to help me cultivate the quieter workings of my brain in connection with my work (and subsequently, the viewer) through long, considered engagement and physical contact with each piece. The ultimate goal in my projects are to find out what my brain, body, and memory know that I don’t yet consciously understand and to inspire curiosities, questions, connections, fears, sensitivities, and considerations in viewers. I aim to make small connections between my subconscious, personal memory, unique experience, and anxieties with those of others, but most of all, to create a situation that requires quiet thought and consideration with no single trajectory or goal in mind. Associative thinking and quiet meditation are important. So many things in our world are big, loud, clever, and exciting. I solidly believe there are highly important small, delicate, boring things that we need to know how to approach, handle, and benefit from as well.�
I Always Hoped My Skin Would Grow Inward
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But most of all, I will not die “With my current project, But most of all, I will not die, I am exploring the revelatory and communicative potential to be found in memory-based, poetic, and absurd phrases from my own journals. Selecting and organizing the most potent and appealing phrases, I have found a compelling trajectory in what at first seemed like nonsensical and disparate automatic writings. Anxiety about being touched, the failings of the physicality of the body, mortality, and the end of the world revealed themselves as major themes. My objective is to organize, open up, explore, and expose the content of these phrases in order to offer them up for connection, contemplation, and conversation. By making small works in response to each phrase, not only do I now have moveable and tangible byproducts of formerly elusive meaning, but I also allowed
memories, logic, and anecdotes that lead to each of these phrases to resurface or appear. The opening up and re-materialization of rich and potent experience enriched my criticality in relation to the project and revealed my deep entrenchment and connection to haphazardly written phrases. The intention is that when viewed, these works become curiosities that evoke a lot of unanswerable questions, ask for sustained, close attention, and ultimately some discovery of commonality or revelation from within. Nonsense is not solely nonsense, and ambiguity is an entryway rather than an obstacle to understanding; poetry clarifies, distillation enriches meaning, and abstraction concretizes.“
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But Most Of All, I Will Not Die
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Pull Out Every Hair One By One From Each Finger
Skin Is Not Always A Barrier
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When The Whites Of Eyes Fill In Black A Body That Betrays More Virility Than It Can Offer - 89 -
Juan C. ALVAREZ Juan was born in the city of Bogotรก, Colombia and graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, with a dual major in Contemporary Writing and Production and Music Business/Management. Throughout his career, his compositions and arrangements have been characterized by the combination of different genres, including fusions of traditional South American rhythms with contemporary instrumentation and Harmony.
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El Mono Music is a startup Production Company founded by Colombian Producer, Composer and Arranger Juan C. Alvarez in January 2014. The company focuses on the production and promotion of independent artists particularly in the Greater Boston music community.
Currently Juan is working on the production of a 7-song EP for artist VictorÁ, titled Alusión. He’s also Co-Producing Nicolás Castañeda Group’s debut album Renacer, which is expected to release later this year. Juan has worked as a Associate Producer and Assistant Engineer at Keep The Edge Studios in the city of Quincy and has participated in several projects independently; including the original composition for the exhibition Oniria by renowned Colombian plastic artist Nadín Ospina, the production and band leading for the Colombian Ensemble at the Berklee International Folk Music Festival 2013 and participation as Music Supervisor and Sound Engineer in the project Ciudad Sonido in Bogotá, Colombia. www.elmonomusic.com www.soundcloud.com/juanalvarez3
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C.S. Fuqua C.S. Fuqua’s published books include White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems ~ Vol. I, Hush, Puppy! A Southern Fried Tale (children’s picture book), Rise Up (short fiction collection), The Native American Flute: Myth, History, Craft, Trust Walk (short fiction collection), The Swing: Poems of Fatherhood, Divorced Dads, and Notes to My Becca, among others. His work has appeared in publications such as Main Street Rag, Pudding, Dark Regions, Iodine, Christian Science Monitor, Cemetery Dance, Bogg, Year’s Best Horror Stories XIX, XX and XXI, Amelia, Slipstream, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, The Writer, and Honolulu Magazine.
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Radical Lady, don’t single out Muslims when a born-again white boy blew up those Oklahoma babies. Didn’t see you in the street then, demanding internment of evangelicals. Don’t glare for extended time. I may lose myself in the cavern behind your eyes. And do I really need to answer, You ain’t a Christian, are you? This thing we may agree on: Holy radicals will be the death of us all, but, of course, our definitions of radical and holy will never tolerate one another.
Trips Big accomplishments and good works. Get while the getting’s there. But when the getting’s got, let wonder set in -those years of punching clocks, hunching over computers, scrubbing those floors, conducting that meeting, pressing that CEO’s fleshy palm. At some point, recall a random trip you took, the wish to stay at the point of arrival, the promise you’d return. Tell yourself you might yet. But what if it’s changed as much as you have?
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www.facebook.com/latomateragaleria
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Después de 5 meses de trabajo en el diseño, exploración, experimentación y montaje, La Tomatera Galería Café abrió al publico el pasado 28 de noviembre en el bario san Antonio de la ciudad de Cali, Colombia. Nos complace anunciar que, a partir de esta edición, Middle Gray Magazine incluirá una selección del arte actualmente en exhibición en La Tomatera. La Tomatera Galería Café, es un espacio pensado y diseñado para los amantes de la ilustración, la fotografía, el diseño, el arte y la buena cocina. El objetivo es ofrecer un lugar para la exposición y promoción de artistas locales, brindándole al publico obras que se ajusten a diferentes presupuestos -- bajo un modelo rentable para los artistas -- así como una oferta gastronómica variada, con el fin de ofrecer experiencias diferentes en la ciudad. “En La Tomatera estamos comprometidos con la diversidad y creación constante de nuevas opciones para nuestro público. Para esto siempre estamos en búsqueda de nuevos artistas, fotógrafos y sabores.” explica el fundador Iván Salazar. The Middle Gray y La Tomatera seguirán trabajando juntos buscando formas de beneficiar y acercar a nuestras respectivas comunidades. After 5 months of design, exploration, experimentation and set-up, La Tomatera Gallery Café opened its doors on November 28 of last year, in the historic neighborhood of San Antonio, in Cali, Colombia. We’re pleased to announce that, starting with our current issue, Middle Gray Magazine will include a selection of the artwork currently being shown at La Tomatera. La Tomatera is a space designed for enthusiasts of illustration, photography, design, art and good food. They have built a place dedicated to showcasing and promoting local artists, providing their audience with artwork for every budget in a model that’s profitable for the artists. This, in addition to a diverse food offering, aims to offer a new experience to their community. “At La Tomatera we’re commited to diversity and to bringing new options to our public. We’re always in search of new artists and new flavors.” explains founder Iván Salazar. The Middle Gray and La Tomatera will continue to work together, seeking new ways to benefit our respective communities and to bring them closer together.
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MiddleGray
Submissions to MiddleGray Mag are ongoing. Please click on the correspondent link for more information on how to submit work: Letters Music Visual Arts Other Media
Stay up to date with The Middle Gray www.middlegraymag.com www.facebook.com/themiddlegray www.instagram.com/themiddlegray www.twitter.com/middlegray www.themiddlegray.etsy.com
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THE
MIDDLE GRAYCafé
On Etsy
The Middle Gray Shop on Etsy was born in an effort to support the The Middle Gray project by integrating Visual Arts and Culinary Arts and forming a sustainable Arts Café. All The proceeds from our Etsy Shop go towards funding the growth of The Middle Gray through various projects.
Thank you for reading!
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