Blackwater Review 2005

Blackwater Review

Blackwater Review

A Journal of Literature and Art

Volume 3, No. 1 Spring 2005

Okaloosa-Walton College

Niceville, Florida

Blackwater Review aims to encourage student writing, student art, and intellectual and creative life at Okaloosa-Walton College by providing a showcase for meritorious work.

Writing Faculty Sponsors:

Vickie Hunt, Lucia W. Robinson, Amy Riddell

Poetry Consultant: Charles Myers

Administrative Assistant: Rebecca Reid

Art Faculty Sponsors:

J. B. Cobbs, Benjamin Gillham, Stephen Phillips

Lyn Rackley, Karen Valdez, Ann Waters

Art Direction and Photography: Benjamin Gillham

Graphic Design and Photography: Jennifer Eggers, Riotta Scott

All selections published in this issue are the work of students; they do not necessarily reflect the views of members of the Administration, Faculty, Staff, District Board of Trustees, or Foundation Board of Okaloosa-Walton College.

©2005 Okaloosa-Walton College

All rights are owned by the authors of the selections.

Front cover: “Bustie” Emulating Diversity and Pluralism Raku fired clay by

Rosanna Michelle Boylan

Acknowledgments

The sponsors are extremely grateful to Dr. Jill White, Senior Vice President of Okaloosa-Walton College, who made this issue possible. We thankfully ackowledge the encouragement and support of Dr. James R. Richburg, President, and the help of Terry Comeau, Manager of Graphic Services, and all those students, staff members, and instructors who have contributed to, encouraged, and assisted publication.

We are grateful also to Christian LaRoche (Mrs. James N. LaRoche), who for nineteen years has sponsored the James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest in honor of her late husband. After serving in two armed conflicts, Mr. LaRoche taught in the Communications Department at Okaloosa-Walton Junior College, at the same time developing his own considerable gift for poetry. The winning poems of the contests of recent years are included in this issue.

COLOR PLATES

Kareem’s Roti

Ron Frazer

Marcus ate a dinner of salt fish, bread and cocoa tea with Agnita’s four children, sitting on the rocks behind her shack looking west down the hill into the village of Victoria. Beyond the pastels of the village and the glare of the beach, the Caribbean was changing from midday turquoise to deep blues and oranges. Sylvia, his mother, had left early that morning, telling the little boy to mind Agnita, a skeletal Indian woman who lived two doors away, and she’d be home right after dinner.

Marcus enjoyed the street party that was customary every night after the dinner dishes were washed. The young men brought out boom boxes; one or two women made ice cream; and everyone gossiped or walked up and down the road in the cool breeze, calling out to the old folks sitting on their front steps. Marcus joined the other five- and six-year-olds, chasing the goats, chickens and each other until sundown, when the mothers began pulling them away one by one to scrub off the dust and sweat. When the last child was called, Marcus went back to his shack, took a bar of coconut soap from the table, and removed his tattered T-shirt and dirty peach-colored shorts. Wearing only his briefs, he went to the standpipe near Agnita’s house to wash. There was a wait while two laughing women in frayed housedresses finished washing their naked toddlers. Marcus knew better than to jump in ahead of a mother at a standpipe.

After the women moved off with their children on their hips, he crouched down under the faucet, using it like a tiny shower. The cool water and soap felt good as he rinsed off his day. As he walked back up the hill to his shack, the trade winds blew from the jungle to the east, chilling and drying his skin.

Back at his two-room wooden shack, he put on his other pair of white briefs and hung the wet pair on the string that his mother had nailed along the western side of the shack, facing the sea. Then he sat on the stone step on the east side of the shack, Frazer / 9

facing the jungle and the mountain, to wait for her. The party continued around the rum shop higher up the hill. The tsk-tsk beat of the Reggae was all that reached him, the rest of the music scattered by the trees and the wind. After an hour the eastern sky had become quite dark; he knew there’d be no more buses, so he went inside.

He wanted to leave a light on for his mother, just in case she was able to find a ride home, but he was too short to reach the matches where she kept them on the ledge at the top of the wall. Leaving the kerosene lamp unlit, he climbed into the creaking steel bed. He put his hand in the depression that her body left in the old mattress and fell asleep remembering the feel of his hand on the great wall of her back and the smell of coconut soap on her skin.

Marcus awoke disoriented in the morning. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he was about to call out when he remembered that she hadn’t come home. He had always awakened to the sounds of her moving around the house or clanging aluminum pots on the charcoal stove behind the house. He put on his T-shirt and shorts that had a little worn patch on the bottom where his briefs showed through, took a pink dollar bill from a tin on the table, and walked to the little shop at the top of the hill for some bread and cheese.

The lady at the shop ignored him while she served all the others — men who had come in to buy a single cigarette and girls who needed an egg or a pat of margarine for the family breakfast. When the shop was empty, Marcus stretched up to rest his forearms on the counter that ran completely across the shop, dividing the customer waiting area from the stock. He held the dollar up and said, “Bread and cheese, please.”

The shopkeeper, an elderly, rounded woman in a floral print headrag, took a loaf that was slightly larger than a hotdog bun, sliced it lengthwise and made a cheese sandwich from a few slices of oily cheddar. Marcus gave her the bill and wandered back home, nibbling as he went.

Arriving back at the shack, he sat on a rock across the road to eat the last bites of his breakfast. An ancient man

passed on his donkey, his gardening tools clanking in a burlap sack tied to the saddle, with the air of a tiny general leading troops into battle, his back straight and his frayed felt hat cocked to one side.

The hours inched by with that imperceptible speed reserved for small children forced to wait. Marcus walked up and down the road, playing with other children from time to time but keeping the house in sight in case his mother returned.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, Marcus was sitting on a rock by the rum shop listening to the music and watching the bend in the road where his mother would appear. Two men were talking loudly in the shop.

“Yeh, man! De government truck hit dat woman, boy. De woman live in dat house dere.”

“What house dat?”

The two men came out of the rum shop, and one pointed at Marcus’ house. “Dat house. You know de woman, man! She fat-fat, boy. She on de bridge in Grand Bras yesterday. De truck take de whole bridge. De woman broke up. She dead-dead.”

Marcus looked from the pointing finger to his house and back to the man’s watery red eyes. He decided the man was drunk. His mother had missed her bus, or the bus was broken down and they were fixing it today.

At dinnertime Marcus went to Agnita’s house. He could see that she was staggering drunk. Snarling and grumbling about the extra mouth to feed, she gave him a piece of chicken and some breadfruit. Marcus ate, thanked her and went back to the rock across from his shack.

He didn’t feel like playing tonight. He made marks in the dust with a stick and worried about his mother. The street party started up; the other children played around him, moving up and down the street in waves of bodies, chatter and laughter. Two young women stood in front of him for a while, admiring a new baby. The crowd in the rum shop would explode with laughter from time to time. The reggae continued from several machines scattered along the road, each playing different songs. He decided to wash up and go to bed.

Frazer / 11

This time he was determined to light the kerosene lamp. He put the machete on the table and slid a rickety chair close to the table so he could climb up. Then, standing on the table, he flicked the matches onto the floor with the tip of the machete. He sat on the chair, removed the glass chimney and struck the match. Smoke billowed from the wick as it came alight. Marcus turned the brass knob right and left until the smoking stopped, then replaced the globe.

For a few seconds as he watched the steady flame, he replayed, then rejected the words of the man about his mother’s death. Marcus turned and looked at the wall beside the front door. A rusted saw, spanner, and pliers that had once belonged to his father were hanging from nails driven into the bare boards. He remembered his father’s death two years earlier –the waiting for his father to return from the fishing areas that were so far out in the sea that the boats couldn’t be seen even from the hill.

A round, tray-like gardening basket was in the corner of the front room. Marcus put the machete back in the basket where his mother kept it. An image of her slipped through his mind: she was carrying the basket on her head as she walked to her garden, holding the blade of the machete lightly in her fingers. She would be home soon.

He went to bed, leaving the lamp burning on the window sill so his mother could see when she came home. He told himself that she must be walking home. Her pillow still smelled of the earth, but the sheet no longer smelled of her body and coconut soap. He fell asleep.

A blast of heat and light woke Marcus. The entire front room was burning, and flames blocked the only door to the bedroom. He stood on the bed and crawled out through the open window. Dropping onto the uneven ground, he lost his footing and rolled a few feet down the hill, ending up face down in the dirt.

People were already gathered on the road to watch the shack burn by the time Marcus walked past his burning bedroom and climbed up on the concrete retaining wall that kept

12 / Blackwater Review

the single-lane road from sliding down the hill. He sat there for a second or two, but the heat was burning him. He walked across the street and stood with the crowd.

The neighbors on either side went to the standpipe to fill plastic buckets with water. As the flames grew, they sprinkled water on their own shacks to keep them from catching, but no one tried to save Marcus’ home. Even had someone cared, it was beyond saving before the first spectator arrived.

After an hour, the mumbling neighbors returned to their houses. No one spoke to Marcus. In his white briefs, with brown blotches of dust on the deep black of his skin, he sat on a rock across the street and watched the fire die. A few hours before dawn, he moved to the retaining wall and continued to stare at the glow of the coals and the little sparks that crackled and spattered. His mind was numb. He was too tired to think. Images of his mother and the inside of the house would wander into his mind for a moment or two, then disappear like wisps of smoke, leaving him staring again at the blackened wood.

When the sky lightened in the east over Mount Standhope, the house was gone. A few charred boards that had once been the floor joists still smoked.

Marcus was hungry.

He went to Agnita’s house when he saw her children come out to sit on the rocks for breakfast in the morning. Agnita was unconscious, but Helena, her ten-year-old daughter, built a fire in the little lean-to behind the house and gave Marcus an egg and some bread for breakfast. Then he went back to the rock across from the burnt shack to wait for his mother. The Immortal trees on that side spread over half the road, making a shady spot with a nice breeze.

Midmorning, the man who had rented the shack to Sylvia walked up the road. He beat Marcus with a switch pulled from a tree. Holding the small boy’s wrist, he slashed at the exposed skin, leaving welts and cuts on Marcus’ face, arms, back and legs. All through the beating, he grumbled quietly to himself about the stupid boy and the damned lamp. When he

Frazer / 13

couldn’t hold the boy off the ground any longer, he dropped the wrist and walked away, leaving Marcus shaking, sobbing and bleeding in the dust of the broken road.

Marcus watched the man disappear down the road into the village. Just as the man passed out of sight around the curve, a whining, ancient Land Rover crawled into sight, zigzagging up the road as the driver carefully avoided the potholes. Marcus pulled himself to the side of the road and slumped onto his rock.

As his crying faded away, Marcus looked at the damage to the visible parts of himself. His sweat stung the scratches and cuts. It hurt to move, but he knew he should clean up.

He saw Helena sweeping the dirt yard around her house. Marcus went to her because he’d seen her caring for her brothers after Agnita’s beatings. Helena took him to the standpipe and used a bar of Detol soap to wash the dust, blood and soot from his bruised skin. She gently dabbed the trickles of sweat and blood with a cloth until the bleeding stopped.

Marcus stayed close to Helena for the rest of the day. Because it hurt to move, he mostly sat and watched her do her chores and care for her brothers, who were both younger than Marcus. She fed them all, and at sundown the four children slept in the rag pile on the bedroom floor. Helena held him tenderly. Except for the slenderness of the girl’s arms, it felt like his mother was holding him. Helena’s little brothers were restless and talkative. Gradually they ran out of things to say and fell asleep. When Agnita came home from the rum shop, she stumbled into her bed still dressed.

The next morning an angry Agnita ran him off. “You tink I keep you, eh? You tink I got money? Got nothing for you, boy! Go, find you someplace! Go!”

Marcus hesitated. He had nowhere to go.

“Now!” Agnita snapped, taking a step toward him with her slapping hand raised.

Marcus backed away to get beyond striking distance. He looked at Helena’s sad, sunken eyes. She looked back and shrugged her shoulders.

He walked down the hill into Victoria. All day he shuffled along in his little white briefs with the soot-stained bottom. He wandered around the places where his mother had taken him, standing for a few minutes at the door of the drygoods shop where she bought cloth and lingering outside the grocery where she occasionally bought canned food. Mostly he watched the women getting off the buses from St. Georges. Several of them looked like his mother at first as he stood on the sidewalk looking up into the afternoon sun, squinting to see their faces in the glare.

As the village quieted down for the night, he found a long-empty house with a wide set of steps in the rear. A dry mop lay on the top step, where he lay down with the mop for a pillow. His skin was itching and sore. It was hard to find a position where a cut wasn’t pushed against the rough concrete. He eventually slept for a few hours until the mosquitoes started biting him. It was hard to sleep after that. He’d doze off, but the buzzing and the bites would wake him again. Around dawn he fell fast asleep.

He awoke midmorning, hot and hungry, not having found anything to eat the previous day. The sun was now shining directly on him. Marcus decided that there should be food near the main road. He went first to the women who sat near the Nutmeg Pool building where his mother sold her vegetables. He half-expected to see her sitting there with her lettuce stacked in front of her. A toothless old woman, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with her bananas and plantains, watched him for some time. He wasn’t begging; he didn’t know how. He just stood quietly, looking at the food. She took a banana from a handful of ripe fruit that she was selling.

“Here, boy. Take and go.” She held out the banana.

Marcus took the banana and ran behind the building. It was a good size and filled the small boy. After a long drink at a standpipe, he wandered over to the beach, a busy and noisy place. Some teenage boys were playing soccer on the sand; fishermen were dragging their skiffs up on the beach with the first catch of the day; and some young men were playing reggae on a

Frazer / 15

boom box so loudly that the buzz in the tattered speakers was louder than the actual music. It was a good place to watch the buses arriving from the capital.

Whenever a bus came into the village, Marcus would run over and stand by the conductor, looking at each face until everyone was off. Then he’d walk slowly back to the beach and sit on a crate in the shade of a shop.

By lunch time, Marcus’ hunger was back. He returned to the market area, where he noticed a Rasta with a roti stand made from bamboo and rough boards. He walked over and stood downwind of the stand so he could smell the curry. The Rasta was busy getting ready for his lunchtime customers, so he didn’t notice Marcus at first. Eventually he finished his preparations and slumped over the counter to wait, propped up by his forearms. Then he saw the little black boy standing at a respectful distance.

“Come, boy. Talk to me, man.”

The Rasta had made three tall stools for the front of his stand, one red, one yellow and one green. Marcus crawled onto the red one and gripped the edge of the counter with both hands.

“I hungry.”

The Rasta looked at Marcus’ bruised face and scratches. “You come to de right place, man! I make best roti in Victoria. Dey good-good, man! Everybody say so.”

The Rasta put some potatoes and a little chicken in a roti and handed it to Marcus. “Easy man, it hot-hot.”

Marcus nibbled slowly at the edge of the steaming pastry as the Rasta rambled, “Yeh man, Jah does provide all for we. Jah good-good to we. Jah make everyting you see, man. E-vry-ting! I-man give you roti, but it really Jah does give. Ras Tafari!”

Marcus had no idea what the words meant, but he liked the Rasta’s wide, white smile, and he liked that the Rasta was very dark like himself. Marcus smiled. He ate the steaming roti slowly, carefully testing each piece of chicken or potato to see how hot it was.

As Marcus finished the roti, the Rasta said, “Now, man. Is time to clean you mouth. You know dis bush?”

The Rasta laid a small stick on the counter, thinner than a pencil.

“Naa, man. I never see dat,” said Marcus.

The Rasta brought out his cutlass and cut two pieces about three inches long. He handed one to Marcus. He peeled off the thin bark while Marcus imitated him. Then he chewed one end between his molars to fray the ends.

“Dere, man. You chew and make brush to clean you mouth.”

Marcus smiled and got off the stool with his new toothbrush in hand.

“You come back any time, man. Any time you hungry, Jah does give you more roti.”

“Thank you.”

The Rasta leaned over the counter and held out his hand. “No problem, man. I Kareem.”

Marcus shook his hand. “I Marcus.”

Marcus walked off toward the beach — down to the water this time to wash his skin. He took off his briefs and waded in until the water was across his chest. The water stung a few of the scratches, so he washed quickly. He rubbed the briefs between his hands as he’d seen his mother wash them in the river so many times. He put them back on and climbed up on the keel of an overturned skiff to dry off in the sun, clean his teeth, and watch the boys playing soccer.

About two o’clock the government bus came up from St. Georges and stopped on the main road. Marcus ran over and stood by the door and looked at each woman as she got off. As the bus pulled away, Marcus stood on the emptying street, facing the sea while the passengers walked off in all directions.

He went back to the beach, climbed onto the skiff and sat watching the soccer with his back to the sea and his chin in his hands. About four o’clock, another bus pulled up on the main road.

Marcus got off the skiff and took two hesitant steps toward the bus, then climbed back up on the skiff and faced the sea.

Frazer / 17

Growing up Texas

Ron Frazer

I treasure him tiny in one hand, as I once held his mother, heart of my heart, that cold Indiana morning, an unsullied soul, all hope and wonder, smiles and kisses;

She sends me pictures of Texas, of him doing Texas things; I caress the colors of his changes; Each passing year he peers back at me, a fading black and white, in winter framed.

A Dance

LaTisa Anderson

Daddy gave me poetry

On a gleaming Saturday morning, when we could hear the crisp autumn leaves crunch beneath our shoes.

Created my first poem from spelling words, my imagination dancing on paper rhythm and soul.

Bursting with as much color as Disney’s Fantasia. He would say, “Write, little girl, make those words boogie a boogie on the page.”

I soon realized my pen could stitch up wounds like Susie King Taylor’s needle for those Civil War soldiers long ago. And I believed him, Oh how I believed in him. I believed his promises until they shattered in my heart, ricocheting like silent gunshots. His lies strung together, line dancers arm in arm, swinging their legs in succession to the music in my head.

Yeah, my daddy gave me blues and bad news. My Sweet Daddy gave me poetry. Good thing, too. Anderson / 19

Game Over

Linda Suzanne C. Borgen

If you were holding my head underwater I would be more able to draw a breath than I am right now as misery’s daughter, swirling in a slow, languid dance of death. There is only need to argue when one still cares if one is understood or heard, but as for me, I am finished and undone. I shall not offer for debate a single word. Game over. I retreat and refuse to play. Throw the dice in my direction and I Will bat them the other way--far away. Apathy, atrophy, pick one--watch it die. A map of the road so passionately run. I played, cared, cried, and now I am done.

Paradise Pummeled

Malina Gabriel

We circled paradise. Through the clouds we could catch glimpses of the tiny island and the vast sea that surrounded it. Closer and closer we flew to the emerald-green and deep navyblue abundance. Through the plate glass a little strip became visible. I saw the runway and took a deep breath.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon....Fasten all safety belts as we enter paradise. It is ninety-six degrees in Colombo, and it is 1:43 p.m. Thank you for flying Lufthansa.”

It was a bright, sunny day. The flight had taken seventeen hours. It felt good to stretch my legs and actually walk somewhere other than the lavatory. My father always looked proud to be home, but this time there was something different about him. We walked down the stairs onto the black tarmac. I could see fumes rising off the ground in a blur. We walked toward the small terminal in all its grandeur, welcoming travelers to the promise of an unforgettable vacation.

My stepmother, Mary, was with us. She’s a doctor but she looked like a tourist, or a missionary. I had my father’s native skin coloring. Unlike us, she stood out, as most Americans did. Her pasty-white New England skin coloring gave her away. The women of the island had mocha and olive skin that was draped in ornately designed saris, fuchsia with gold designs, bright oranges and reds, all white, all blue, and my favorite, teal and gold with fringes. These ornate sheets were draped all over their bodies, showing just enough to be seductive yet conservative. Those old enough to wear bindis, those dots in the middle of the forehead, sometimes put jewels in their place. My stepmother wore a white button-down oxford and khakis with bright white tennis shoes, and a big floppy hat to protect her delicate face. She wore no makeup; she’s not the type of woman to worry about such things. She’s practical and realistic. Some of the native women wore makeup, but most were naturally colored.

Gabriel / 21

We got our luggage and headed out to find a taxi. It was like walking out of a theater after a matinee. The sun was blinding, so blinding one couldn’t see the driver grab the luggage and throw it into his taxi. It was a scam to get business and rob the other guys of the fares. We were stuck with the Tamil version of Mario Andretti coming off crack. He was crazed until my dad said something in Tamil and he slowed down and took us straight to the hotel. We didn’t know what my father said, but whatever it was, the driver acted like he feared my father. I knew that feeling. He intimidated people easily, and his temper was quick.

The hotel was made of marble: marble steps, marble walls and marble floors. The rugs looked as though they were made in Turkey, finely woven, intricate designs too nice to walk on. There was a statue of Ganesh, the Hindu god with an elephant head, in the foyer. I knew very little of the religion because we were devout Catholics. The hotel sat in the middle of the capital. At night this city looked like Tokyo. The streets were busy with peddlers and beggars and tourists buying up miniature elephants and tigers and likenesses of Vishnu, Ganesh and Shiva. We went out for dinner that first night. My father was craving mango chutney and curry. I was craving ice cream. The night air was hot and muggy. I was under strict orders from my father to stay close and not wander off. I hadn’t paid much attention to the “guards” at the airport, but that evening we encountered many more dark-skinned men with beards, dressed in green army uniforms, carrying guns. When we passed them my father would nod, never saying a word. They would eye my stepmother as if she were a goddess.

At each corner we passed dirty, begging kids. When they saw Mary, my stepmother, they would swarm her. Mothers and fathers would stand back and hope that their child would bring money back. My father would pull packs of gum out of his pocket to give them. This seemed to be better than the money they had hoped to get. They would all smile and thank him and bow to my stepmother. When we finally made it back to the hotel, there were more guards at the entrance. They stopped us and

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asked for our passports, eyeing my father intently. He held dual citizenship in Sri Lanka and the United States, but his passport was a U.S. military passport. They asked him a few questions as to why we were in the country. He told them we were just visiting family.

A civil war was going on in the country. The native Tamils had formed a militia against the governing Sinhalese. The Sinhalese had come to Sri Lanka from India and were rapidly taking over the country, implementing their new laws and keeping the Tamils in poverty. At least, that is how the Tamils saw it. My father’s family happened to be Tamil. For all the good it did, my grandfather had served in Parliament, which was like working in the White House. Now that a different generation of people had taken over Parliament, things had changed. Tamils all over the country were being killed. My uncles and cousins were joining forces with the Tamil Tigers to fight against the army. Looking back, I see my father was in a really tough situation. We had heard about all the fighting going on, but seeing it was different. We had in fact gone to Sri Lanka to help get my grandmother and two of my aunts out of the country. My father is the oldest son in his family, so when my grandfather died the family became my dad’s responsibility. My stepmother often said she felt like “The People’s Bank of Sri Lanka.” Being the wife of the oldest brother came with its own burdens. She would soon find out what a heavy load my father carried with him. We all would.

The following morning we rushed to the train station. In order to get to the other side of the island we had to travel by train first and then by taxi or bus. Colombo is on the western side of the island, and my father’s family comes from the easternmost province. The trip takes at least six hours by train and then another three hours by bus. As the taxi came to a screeching halt outside the train station, we grabbed our bags and ran to the train. We passed men with big machetes selling young coconuts to drink. This was soon to become my favorite drink. Women walking barefoot with hand-woven baskets on their heads were yelling “Vade, Vade!” I asked my dad what they were Gabriel / 23

Finally getting on the train, we settled in our seats. I sat by the window and Mary sat beside me. A man obviously overworked and probably drunk was sitting beside her. My father gave his seat to a woman who had been sitting on the floor with her baby. She was grateful. An ornate red and gold sari covered the child’s face as he suckled his mother’s breast. I turned my gaze toward the window. The city quickly vanished as the vast countryside came into view. Desolate and dry was the repeating picture in the window. Monsoon season had come and gone, leaving no trace. With each stop we drew further away from civilization. Houses became straw-covered huts, rows of little shanties. Children would run alongside the train. That same mantra was shouted over and over again, “Vade, vade!”

My stomach turned. Coconut trees stood tall, with bamboo mixed in here and there and everywhere.

Soldiers were patrolling every stop. The man beside Mary had long since passed out. His greasy head rested on her shoulder. Each time she moved to get away, he straightened himself and gave an apologetic smile, but soon he found her shoulder again. I laughed. My father, however, didn’t find the same humor in it as I did. He pulled the guy up by his shirt and started to yell at him. Not knowing what was going on, the man began to plead for his life. At least that’s what it looked like. As the scene escalated, a soldier traveling on the train came over to investigate. He was armed with an M-16. The greasy-headed man soon became hysterical, getting everyone around him worked up.

Once again we had to show our passports to the officer. He looked at my father’s over and over again. The man

24 / Blackwater Review saying, and he quickly turned and paid a woman, who handed him a piece of newspaper with something wrapped in it. He handed the “Vade” to me. “Eat it. It’s good,” he said. I looked at it. It was three balls that had lentil seeds cooked in them. I smelled them. This was my ritual before I ate anything. They smelled gross, but I had to try a bite. They tasted just like they smelled. It took everything I had to swallow it. I made a face, and my dad laughed.

who had caused all this chaos was soon forgotten about. My father was now being scrutinized. Again he explained that we were just here to visit family. The officer never left my father’s side from that moment on. Our stop was coming up. We were entering Batticola, the city one of my aunts lived in. It wasn’t a big city, but it wasn’t small enough to be considered a village. My aunt lived behind the church. My uncle met us at the train station, greeting us with kisses on both cheeks and patting my father on the back and shaking his hand. He said that we must hurry. The curfew was about to begin. “They will shoot you if you are caught in the streets after seven.” Shoot us? I thought he was being overly dramatic. We got into a taxi and went three blocks. We could have walked, but the luggage would have slowed us down.

We walked beside the church on the little path between the bushes. There was a pomegranate tree close to the path. I remembered my aunt Sahayam peeling the skin of the fruit away for me when I was a child. The closer we got, the hungrier I became. My aunt Petieval greeted us at the door, excited to see my father. She wasn’t one of the sisters we were coming for, but that’s how she wanted it. The house smelled good. She had been preparing a feast all day. Curry and jasmine mixed with the salt in the air.

After dinner we sat around and talked. My cousins were a lot younger than I was. The only English they knew was “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” so we settled in for fifteen verses of “Twinkle, Twinkle.” About halfway through, a little boy came running through the back door with a message for my uncle. We could tell he was very upset. My uncle pulled him into the back bedroom to talk. My aunt informed us that he was my uncle’s errand boy.

The boy left, and my uncle emerged from the room looking concerned. “You must not try to go to Vagarah tomorrow,” he told my father. “The army thinks you are a spy working for the ‘Tigers’ and the ‘Tigers’ think you are working with the U.S. government and the Sinhalese army. They want to kill you.” He was adamant about our staying at his home. But

Gabriel / 25

we were supposed to go to my grandmother’s house the next day. My father and Mary talked about it. He told her to stay behind with me because it was too dangerous. She wouldn’t hear of it.

That night I lay on the bed wide awake while my cousins slept on the floor around me. I could hear gunshots fired a few streets over. My stomach was getting upset. I had to go to the bathroom, so I grabbed a lantern and made my way to the back of the house where the bathroom was. The only electricity was a light in the kitchen. When I got to the bathroom, I closed the door and looked around. It was nothing like the modern, marble bathroom at the hotel. There was no toilet. I shone the light around the room. There was only a bucket filled with water and a trench that had a footprint drawn on either side of it. I really had to go. I woke my dad up. He told me I had to stand on the footprints and wash with the water. I wanted to hold it.

The next morning when I got up, everyone else had been awake for a while. They had devised a plan for us to get to my grandmother’s house. We were supposed to take the next bus that came, but my uncle knew some of the taxi drivers. He arranged for one to take us to Vagarah. When we finally got into the taxi, my aunt stood there crying, begging me to stay with her. My father assured her we would be o.k. As we drove away I tried not to think of what my uncle had said. “Mahal, we will be o.k.,” my father said to me. He called me Mahal only if things were serious, as when I broke my leg or when he and my mom got divorced. I was scared.

The taxi driver looked through the rear view mirror at us and said, “They are looking for you, sir. They have started burning the village ahead.” My father said something in Tamil, and the taxi driver apologized. He quickly turned and said, “Please, sir, the army is just ahead. I must stop soon.” He, like everyone else, feared for his life. The smoke from the burning village was drifting into the outskirts of Batticola. The bus we were supposed to take was a few streets ahead of us. All of a sudden we heard a big boom followed by gunshots.

We entered the main road of the village. I saw a woman crying, her face covered in soot. She was holding her son, who couldn’t have been more than two. The army troops were walking by with their guns, threatening everyone. More gunshots were heard. Huts and other living quarters were still burning. Men were hauling buckets of water from nearby wells to try to extinguish the fires, to no avail. Soon there would be nothing left. Children were running around aimlessly, looking for shelter from the army.

As I looked out the window, a man was screaming at a soldier. The soldier took the butt of his rifle and cracked him in the head. The man fell to the ground. When he tried to get up, the soldier shot and killed him, then shouted at a big army truck that was rolling by our taxi. Another soldier was standing in the back of the truck, firing a machine gun into the fields and streets on the other side. The truck stopped, and two soldiers threw the man’s lifeless body in the back of it. As the truck passed our car, my father told me not to turn around, but as a curious kid I turned around anyway. The bed of the truck was packed with dead bodies. I couldn’t stop staring at it. This oncebeautiful country was now in shambles.

We moved a little further up the street, and the taxi driver said, “Please, sir, I must ask that you get out here. Walk up that street and down two blocks. I will pick you up.”

My father wouldn’t hear of it, so we continued on. Just ahead, traffic was veering to the far right. As we did the same, I saw the end of the bus sticking out of a hole in the road. The hole was big enough to fit two busses in. The loud boom we had heard was the bus being blown up. We were supposed to be on it.

“Sir, please keep your head down. They think they have killed you,” the driver said softly. I was amazed at how well he spoke English.

We were all stunned to the point of silence. The rest of the drive I looked out of the window at a paradise that had been pummeled. Coconut groves were destroyed. Tea plantations had been taken over by the government for the export business. The whole country was a mess.

Gabriel / 27

A few hours later we entered Vagarah, the village my father was born in. It didn’t look the same. My uncle’s house was burned down. Ruins were all that remained. I wondered where my uncle and his family were staying. As we approached my grandmother’s plantation, the taxi driver stopped. “This is where I must let you out. That is the army’s headquarters, and they surely will kill me for bringing you here.”

We looked at my grandmother’s house, and on the veranda was an army flag. They had taken it over. Mango trees bowing over with their offerings still stood in front of my grandmother’s home. We got our bags and stood on the side of the road as the taxi left. A herd of goats came walking down the street. They passed us without taking notice. I remembered chasing the billy goats as a child. The dung beetles were right behind them, pushing balls of manure down the road.

My father told us to wait outside the yard as he went into his mother’s house. The guards jumped up and stopped him. I knew he was going to be killed. But as apprehensive as they were, they soon calmed down. He stood there talking to them for quite some time before returning to us. While he talked, I looked around for someone or something familiar. The tall lemon tree in the yard had been small when I had first seen it. This was the tree that my grandmother took a thorn from to pierce my ears. I wondered where she was. I looked to my right, and there was the well I fell into when I was five. My aunts were supposed to be giving me a bath. I was soon pulled back into reality.

“What the hell were you joking around with them for?” my stepmother asked.

“It’s o.k., dear, I speak Sinhalese as well,” he smiled. “They think I’m part of their army escorting the missionary through the country. And you’re the missionary. Amma and the girls are staying in the church down the road. I want to kill these sons of bitches.” His accent made his English sound funny.

“I’ll show them a damned missionary,” Mary said as we walked down the street to the church. Most of the homes had been destroyed, leaving everyone to make shelter elsewhere.

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People were living in huts newly constructed from the rubble they had scrounged from fallen houses, as many people as twelve to a hut. We finally made it to the church. There must have been twenty-five families crammed into the little church. We found Amma and my aunts, who were overjoyed to see us. My Amma was a short woman with a pot belly who wore her long silver hair in a bun. I sometimes think that’s what I’ll look like when I get older. She would always sit in a corner somewhere with her legs crossed and puff on a pipe. She reminded me of the laughing Buddha. She always had the ability to make the best of a really tough situation.

They had been huddled together in prayer. There was nothing we could do that night, so we stayed in the church as well. The women told us how the army had come in and taken the house over. The soldiers told them to leave or die. My aunts tried to take some saris with them but were told to leave them behind. The soldiers had given them to their wives and girlfriends. My grandmother’s possessions were taken out in the yard and burned. She had nothing but the sari she wore. Even as broken as she was, she still tried to baby me. We couldn’t speak because of the language barrier, but we had our own way of communication. I wanted to tell her we were taking her out of that place, but instead I held her hand tightly.

The following morning my uncle showed up, a different uncle than the one in Batticola. He came to tell us to catch the next bus going to Jaffna. My father followed his instructions. We all got on the bus and headed north. I took a long look around; we all did. For some of us this would be the last time we saw the village we had called home. It was heart-wrenching.

The drive to Kandy was pretty. This part of the island had not been disturbed as much. The bus wound its way up the side of a mountain that was green and lush. The road we were on was called “hairpin bend” because it was narrow and steep, and the bus would have to back up a few times in order to make the turns. My aunt told me stories of many people dying in automobile accidents on this road. People going too fast to see the road would fly off the side of the mountain. She said that people prayed to die like this now.

Gabriel / 29

We stopped in a village along the way to pick up more passengers. I had been sitting by a man who was holding a box. Soldiers boarded the bus to do their routine checks. When they came to my row and saw the box in the man’s hand, they ordered everyone off the bus except the man with the box and me. My father started to protest, and the soldier turned his gun on my father and ordered him off the bus. I told my dad I would be o.k. The other guard turned his gun on the man with the box. Before the man could say anything, the box moved and two shots were fired. The box flew open and a chicken fluttered about the bus. The man sitting next to me slumped in his seat. I was covered with blood. My father ran back onto the bus and pushed the guard out of the way. He grabbed me and held me tight. I was in shock. The soldiers carried the man off the bus and had the driver clean up the blood so we were able to leave. I didn’t want to get back on the bus, but the soldiers were ordering us to. My dad sat beside me the rest of the trip, promising never to leave me again. I heard very little of what he said. All I could think of was the chicken flying around and the officers laughing at each other. I shuddered, hearing the gunshot over and over in my head.

When we finally got to Kandy, I was sick. As we got off the bus, children swarmed Mary, begging with their hands held out, groping and pulling on her until she was unnerved and screamed for them to leave her alone. They scattered at first but then quickly reappeared. My father took money from his pocket, but they only turned their nose up at him. They wanted her money. My Amma said something to my dad and she laughed a little. He just shook his head in disbelief. As I lay with my head in my Amma’s lap, my eyes took in the beauty of Kandy as a retreat for my helpless mind.

Kandy seemed to be untouched by the cruelty that darkened the island. Flowers were blooming everywhere, sending a fragrance through the streets. There were trees everywhere with exotic birds and wild monkeys in them. The air was cool because of the altitude. It felt like rain forest because of a slight mist in the air. The streets were crowded with trucks, taxis and

bullock carts. This city was unscathed by the war around it. I wondered how this was so. Little shops were filled with handmade carvings of all the different gods that I didn’t know the names of. Others displayed batik clothing and jewelry. Younger women wore dresses instead of the traditional saris. This was a “college town” with little eateries on every corner. Still, there were children and adults begging at every turn. People mostly spoke Sinhalese here.

I was still shaken by the bus ride. My Amma held me and rocked me like a baby. I was fifteen, but I felt two. My father found a place that actually sold ice cream and brought me some. I ate it gratefully and promptly turned around and threw it up. My nerves would not allow anything in my body. My aunts babied me while my father and Mary discussed their next plan of action. They arranged for two taxis to take us back to Colombo. My aunts and Amma rode in one, and we rode in the other. This ride took us down the mountain and along the coast. There was the Indian Ocean, big and beautiful. The sand was white against the teal-green water. There were still remnants of a paradise that once was. I wondered if my Amma would ever get her house back. And once again I thought of all my eyes had witnessed.

My sleep in the hotel room was interrupted by dreams of a soldier with an elephant head. His tusks were ripping down the walls of my room. I woke up several times in a sweat. Finally morning came. I had my bags ready to go first. I couldn’t wait to go home. Everyone gathered in the lobby and waited for our van to take us to the airport. I thought I had seen all the violence I could handle. But I was wrong. An army truck came rushing by our van, and in a moment’s time a boy riding his bicycle was hit and decapitated. The bicycle tires were mangled and the boy’s head was lying in the middle of the road. The army truck just kept on going. I cried for someone to help him, but there was nothing anyone could have done. I looked at Mary. She was a doctor. She only shook her head. “He’s dead,” she whispered. My Amma and aunts immediately began saying a prayer.

Gabriel / 31

The airport was busy. I noticed the soldiers this time. My awareness was on high alert. I wanted to hurt them all for all the pain they were causing everyone. I scowled at them when we passed. I looked around at the people who worked there. They seemed oblivious of what was going on outside the walls of the airport. Oblivious is probably the wrong word; it was more like they were numb to it all. When they called our flight for boarding, my Amma had tears in her eyes. This was her home, and she was leaving it. I held her hand tightly and squeezed. She smiled and pulled me closer.

“We’re taking you home, Amma,” I said.

“Home,” she repeated.

We got on the plane, and soon we were climbing high into the clouds. I looked out the window one last time. Paradise was gone. Smoke and blood were covering my eyes. I still see the flag raised between the mango trees in my dreams and pray that my father’s home will soon be returned. It has been sixteen years, and still the fighting continues.

Fallen Star

Luke Schofield

When you gaze up at the midnight you see your friends are still up there swimming, calling you to dive back in.

When you gaze up at the midnight you see an airplane in your old neighborhood pulling a message through the clouds: “Be content.”

Your constellation is calling to you, the deep blue praying you’ll understand that falling stars are few and far between.

The Birth of Abstract*

Stefanie C. Duurvoort

There was a cobalt sky

Stirred with pinked clouds of white, A hued sun of perfection

Reflecting an amber light.

The trees were bowed so gently

Like vines upon a trellis

And a lake of purest crystal—

Leonardo would be jealous. The paints worked like magic

A true joy to the eye.

That’s when I heard a buzz— And in entered the Fly.

He was so cocky, With glass wings

And ten thousand eyes. He wanted adventure

A thrill

So he decided to take a dive

Right into the golden sky.

Oh, carefully I aimed

To dislodge my helpless foe, But the paints became evil And the Fly had far to go.

He tumbled into grasses, Mixing cadmium yellow

Into the viridian green. Next he scrambled to the creamy clouds

Creating a soupy scene.

Frustration with a palette knife

Chased this bandit across the land With unnoticed smearing Smudging Scraping

Created by my hand.

Finally a victor

Tossed the psychedelic corpse away, Took a calming breath Before viewing a wasted day--

There is a fallout sky Blobbed with pinked clouds of green, A hued sun of distention Reflecting a ghastly dream. The trees are mushed so greatly, Much too overzealous. And a lake of malformation— Pollack would be jealous. The paints work like voodoo A true grimace to the eye. All resulted from an uninvited buzz When in entered the Fly.

*First place, James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, 2001.

Duurvoort / 35

Redemption and the Two-Dollar Carnival

Joanna Soria

Vertigo kept me from the swirling lights, the hypnotic pitching, until mother surveyed the menagerie, hoisted me onto a hollow-eyed wooden steed named Lightning; said, “try it,” and I felt the visceral wrench like gravity from a tightrope over Times Square

Rising, falling, faces blurring, becoming conspirators in the dizzying scheme; I almost forgot the singeing smack of her hand across my flushed cheek that morning; Watching the Queen of Olympus as she rises, falls, becomes

a valiant white mare, unbridled, with golden mane thrown back, muscles tense, hooves beating the air, now a swan, snowy wings stretched and reaching for ambient light beyond the jaundiced glow of the decaying, beer-stained carnival; and now

the tiger, crouched outside my door at night when I lie sleepless in my bed, holding my breath and straining to hear, praying it’s the gentle click of a cockroach spooking around in some shopping bags by the door

Flecks of gold-esque paint and the odor of rust on my hands, hands almost numb from gripping the post that impaled Lightning; red mouth, teeth; the swaying ground bleeds into sky

After treating me to a carousel ride and a cherry snow cone, Mother considered herself forgiven

Mermaid on the Moon

Joanna Soria

One day, I found myself able to reminisce over chocolate mousse with my latest soul mate, the one with the intense hazelgreen eyes, and I laughed about my days before Pilates, power suits, and orthodontic intervention because I’ve got it so together now. I recalled all the times that my cheeks tingled and my tongue felt like Jell-O wrapped in sandpaper, like when I was six years old and it was time to recite my part of the Nutrition Day school play, only I couldn’t think of my lines. So I just stood there cooking under the stage lights while the audience looked on sympathetically, aware now that certain vital information regarding the food pyramid would never be relayed to them, at least not via the petrified radish that tugged at her red tights and helplessly scanned the crowd for Mommy. And then, in time, the Nutrition Day fiasco faded into a dot on the radar when compared to the disaster that struck when I was twelve....

I lay on my bed with my arms folded across my chest and stared up at the popcorn ceiling for a while, and then I raised my legs high into the air and pretended I was walking on it. But it wasn’t the ceiling any more, it was the Moon. I figured that the Moon was the only place I could go to escape the humiliation that would haunt me here on Earth. After replaying scenes over and over in my mind and finally deciding that I couldn’t bear to relive another unhappy ending, I returned from the Moon to take Nessie for a walk.

She trotted happily through the puddles as though she wanted to torture me with her cold drippy nose and sneaky terrier smile, as though she knew of the horror that had befallen me. And the sun wrestled its way from behind ashy clouds, determined to get a peek at the Loser Girl.

As we walked, I realized that none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for my hair. I had this theory that had allowed me to blame all my decidedly bad luck over the past

Soria / 37

twelve years on my moppish head of hair. It’s because there are two types of people, and anyone can determine which type she is by simply trying to run her fingers through her hair after waking up in the morning. Category 1 is inhabited by the lucky people who wake up with decent, run-your-fingers-throughit hair. These people generally have the juiciest love lives, the most stylish wardrobes, and a decent shot at becoming the next pop music sensation. Category 2 houses the unfortunate people who wake up with bad hair and, consequently, the odds stacked against them. Case in point: me. How could I rise and shine and hope to have a good day when it looked as if a guinea pig had collapsed on my head in the night? While Mom insisted that I had overdosed on Kool-Aid and The Learning Channel, my dad affirmed that I was onto something with my theory. (Note: Dad had morning hair that made him look as if he had been electrocuted.)

We passed the house where Judith used to live, and I thought of the afternoons that she, Chelsea, and I had spent frolicking on her lawn pretending we were horses. Once, Jordan and Derrick Abbot hid in the bushes and lobbed an arsenal of pinecones at us.

“Run, ponies, the meadow is under attack!” they screeched. They’d been our mortal enemies ever since. But even when we were under constant threat of attack by the Abbot boys, life was easier before we had to worry about junior high politics or spend hours trying to choose outfits that would impress boys like Cliff Walden and David Hartford. My David Hartford.

Nessie and I wandered past the Brennans’, and I could see Mrs. Brennan sitting out on the front porch swing drinking lemonade with Ms. Maddie Lowenstein. As I passed, the two lavender-haired ladies looked up and smiled and pretended not to be talking about Don Patrick’s decision to paint his house chartreuse or Connie Wright’s sudden passion for Lambada lessons with a dance instructor that was younger than her dancing shoes. As I moved out of earshot, I pictured Ms. Maddie Lowenstein setting down her lemonade glass, all caked around the

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rim with mango lipstick, and whispering, “Did you hear about what happened to her at school today, Jeannie? Poor girl. And look what the humidity does to her hair....”

Misery and hunger took turns gnawing at my stomach as Nessie and I looped around and passed Chelsea’s house. I thought about knocking on her door, but I couldn’t face her. I didn’t want to see her toss her long, Category 1 hair that always looked nice, even on Saturday mornings: Saturday mornings when we would wake up from one of those sleepovers where we allowed Judith to “braid our hair,” which really meant to get it all knotted up and stuck in ponytail holders that would eventually have to be ripped out. I didn’t want to hear Chelsea tell me how it wasn’t the end of the world and how embarrassing things happen to everyone because as far as I knew, I was the only person who got hair tied into sailors’ knots and who still wore loafers and plaid skirts. Plaid skirts of doom. I just wanted it to be summer again so we could spend all day in the pool and be mermaids. Embarrassing things never happen to mermaids.

Nessie was starting to look around and sniff the air with her “I need to pee” face, so I herded her back to my yard because Mom always made a big deal about how a dog should “take care of business in her own office.” As I waited for her to finish, I heard a basketball bouncing in the distance behind me. I froze as the bouncing grew louder and louder, closer and closer. I knew who this was going to be, but I turned and faced him anyway, hoping for the best.

“Hey,” Cliff said smugly as he chomped on a wad of gum. “I heard you fell flat on your face after chorus class and your skirt flipped up. Dave Hartford saw it.” He bounced the ball with one hand and brushed curly blond hair out of his eyes with the other.

“It rained...the sidewalk...it was, it was real slippery, and I had these new shoes...” I stammered, my voice trailing off against my will. My cheeks were burning.

“Hartford thinks you’re kinda old to be wearing smiley face flower underwear.” And then Cliff laughed one of those

Soria / 39

laughs that can be heard from under water or outer space. “Hey, are ya wearin’ ‘em right now?”

I knew that I had to defend my honor, or at least the honor of my smiley face flower underpants, but I couldn’t think of a thing to do or say. I reached back into my memory and thought of the time I had “The Big Crush” on Cliff and he asked Chelsea out instead of me. I thought how he didn’t invite me to his Halloween party that year but managed to throw a fistful of candy corn at me during gym class. I thought of his curly blonde hair and the watermelon-flavored gum that he never stopped chomping on. I reached back, and the basketball was at mid-bounce when humiliation and desperation collided, when my fist and Cliff Walden’s stomach collided. What happened after that was blurry, but I eventually noticed that while Cliff had been...neutralized, Nessie had disappeared. My moment of victory was cut short by a runaway Scottish terrier.

Cliff was probably still reeling when I took off down the street, my adrenaline still pumping, my fist still clenched and twitching. I blazed past old Mr. and Mrs. Richardson, who held hands as they strolled under the trees on their daily walk. I wondered if Mrs. Richardson had ever had a horrid underwearexposing accident in front of Mr. Richardson. I looked back at them and theorized about the embarrassing things that must have happened to them over the years.

I finally found the fugitive poking around a mailbox near the end of the street. Snatching up her leash, I dragged her back toward our house, alternately discussing what a bad dog she was and how good it had felt to punch Cliff in the gut.

Halfway back, Nessie let out a yelp and skittered behind my legs. Spartacus, the Campbells’ freakishly large German shepherd, had escaped his yard and came bounding out of nowhere. He reached Nessie in less than a heartbeat’s time and sniffed and slobbered at her roguishly. I picked her up and held her high in the air, but Spartacus kept jumping on me and pawing at her. The terrified Nessie dug her claws into my skin as I stood there trying to swat at the big dumb shepherd. Unable to

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frighten him off, I yelled at him and at Nessie, who was scraping at my neck.

I didn’t notice Jordan Abbot coming out of his house, still wearing his soccer uniform. His cleats struck the ground with a clippety-clop as he ran at Spartacus and chased him down the street. I exhaled and lowered the shivering terrier to the ground, trying to ignore the red “Jordan Abbot is a pony poacher.... Jordan Abbot is your sworn enemy...” banner that surged through my mind like CNN tickertape. I rubbed my scraped arms, mumbled a “thank you,” and hoped that I was still allowed to hate him even though he had just helped me. He offered to walk us the rest of the way home to make sure the dog didn’t come back, and I accepted, regretting that decision almost instantly. I knew that Jordan knew about “The Incident” because he played soccer after school with Cliff the Loudmouth. I walked in silence, knowing that he was waiting for just the right moment to begin pummeling me with tales of the day’s misfortune. But he kept shuffling along, looking up at the sky and whistling. I felt I should’ve taken my chance with Spartacus; at least with him I wouldn’t have to (a) come up with a logical explanation as to why I was wearing smiling floral panties, or (b) run the risk of becoming the first documented case of death by humiliation.

Jordan waited until we reached my yard. I forced out a quick half-smile and a “Thanks again” before hurriedly dragging Nessie toward the house. I had just touched the doorknob and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard Jordan say, “Hey, I heard about what happened.” I bit my lip and whirled around.

“What about it?” I growled through gritted teeth.

“You won the Spelling Bee yesterday.” He shrugged. “Congratulations.” He put his hands in his pockets, and as he turned and shuffled away, I smiled. It was a full smile that hurt my cheeks because I hadn’t smiled all day, a smile bigger than the ones on my underpants.

“Thanks!” I hollered, waving my arm like I was on a deserted island and signaling a rescue chopper. I was still smiling when Nessie and I went inside.

Soria / 41

That night, as I walked on the Moon, I wondered if Mr. Richardson ever had the chance to make fun of Mrs. Richardson about a horrid, underwear-exposing incident. And I wondered if he had chosen not to.

Then Hazel-Green laughed one of those laughs that can be heard from under water or outer space.

“That’s funny,” he said as he stirred at his mousse. “I never would’ve pictured you as a geek when you were younger.” And I felt a little weird because I hadn’t really pictured myself as a geek either...until now. But I laughed because he had no idea that I went to the big Homecoming Dance my junior year with a guy who picked me up in a 1987 Chevy Blazer decked out with cow-print interiors and a black light, a guy who presented me with a Keanu Reeves poster instead of a corsage. I wouldn’t tell him that it takes hours with a flat iron to make me look as if I have Category 1 hair, if I could admit to him that I still believe in the Hair Theory at all. And I wouldn’t ask him to share his embarrassing childhood stories with me because I knew he wouldn’t have any. (But he did have a sophisticated wardrobe, and by candlelight he bore a striking resemblance to the chiseled, shirtless wonder on the cover of this month’s Rolling Stone.) And as I sat there staring at him, I realized that he would never know that I still walk on the Moon. And then a black light clicked on in my head and I muttered, half to myself and half to my chocolate mousse, “Oh, I think I get it now....”

So I ended up on the Moon that night. My cheeks tingled just a little when I thought about what had happened that day, how HazelGreen had looked at me almost sympathetically as if it was Nutrition Day and I’d forgotten my lines or something. And by now he was probably out at a club with his “associates,” breathing the free air. I was strolling on the Moon, wondering how I was going to spend my Friday nights from now on, when I remembered that there was a Discovery Channel special on TV about the psychology of birth order, a special that I would actually have the time to watch now. So I camped out in front of the TV, all curly-haired in PJ’s, with my bowl of Frosted Flakes, and learned. About birth order, and emergency medical procedures, and the ten deadliest species of spiders, and the history of flight....

My Temple Forgotten

Gina Wallace

I hear it when I sit down, stand up, or kneel. The soft gentle whisper of my body crying. Crying for help, crying for relief, crying for attention.

My body is a temple I haven’t worshipped since childhood. Years have passed without renovation or remodeling. Drapes hang sloppily from crooked valances. Wallpaper flakes and crumbles. Wooden floors sit cracked and faded.

My building, my temple seems forgotten, beyond repair. Yet, despite my years of neglect I wouldn’t refuse you if you asked to worship.

Poem for a Straight Girl*

Melanie E. Coerver

You have noticed that sometimes I must look away. Sometimes I blush when you smile at me. Sometimes I won’t sit next to you. Yesterday you looked up at me And your dark eyes asked why. I just laughed.

But inside I was wailing out. Look; I have no answer for you. Because (my darling,) you are a child of sunlight, You don’t know the darkness of a world that doesn’t love you. When you look at me, your face is bright with ignorance. You sense pain but can’t guess why.

Beyond your imagination or thoughts, In a world apart from all the roses, boyfriends, malls and movies... In the deep part of the ocean, A cold dark place, Strange and beautiful fish swim Singing their silent songs.

This is a world you have never seen or imagined. This is an ocean made of the tears of the rejected. (My darling,) you don’t know these waters...

You don’t know my heart. It Is like a deep sea fish Shy and electric. A translucent beauty few understand.

Few people of your world see deep sea fish. And when they do, It is only after they have been Baited, tempted, Hooked in the head and Drawn into the cruel bright light of a different world.

This new pressure causes their bodies to burst And as they gasp out their final dying breaths, People regard them with horror And call them warped and ugly.

(My love,) I can’t answer your questioning eyes

Because you may tempt me with a thin thread of connection And draw me up to a place where the pressure would kill me. And once I had been drawn out of my place You could look in my heart and call it warped or ugly.

And if I saw horror in your eyes, The pain would cause me to burst; to die.

So I stay here

My heart swimming alone In a cold dark sea A world apart from you.

Sometimes I look up Through the abyss of sea (Those fathomless tears) At your world It glimmers above me—like a tiny star. So impossible to reach. So easy to love. And I sing for you the silent song Of the deep sea fish.

*First place, James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, 2002. Coerver / 45

Day Lilies

(or If I were a day lily and you liked flowers)

Caitlin Pierson

I would tell you if you could hear. But you’re sugar-coated glazed over twice in the red sweetness that old flower ladies leave out in the sun for the hummingbirds.

And the beat of their wings so soft drowns out the slightest noise that I make Because your ears are attuned like radio antennas to some far-off station that makes you forget the shortness of this season.

Meanwhile the ornamental bushes in the old flower ladies’ garden drop their blossoms to the first passerby.

You never could get past the garden gate, could you?

And I’m still waiting for you to come close enough for me to whisper in your ear “it’s spring.”

You Speak

Caitlin Pierson

Day

blue rays of darkened sunlight (why do they call it sunshine when it glows?) dance upon the windows as they reflect the open scroll of the sky rolled out and held back by weights—the clouds you could write a thousand words and still not say as much as that empty page

Night

reflections of the silver-blue the moon and the sun are the same light—the lamp to illuminate that parchment the stars—tiny inkblots where the writer stops his work only lips can say the words of deepness—they can only be reflected on the empty page

The Astronaut

Sidney Speer

The day the fish died I rowed unaware. My sculls dipped into the water at the instant when dawn melts the horizon, and nothing seemed different about the morning except that it was perfect. Every morning is.

In my boat, the combinations of wind, water and light are always accented by noise. Most sounds come from above, as distant as a Lear jet, as constant as the bridge traffic, as lamentable as the heron scolding me, yet again, for entering his realm as he retreats. Often the sounds mingle with the soft slap of the oar blades and my measured breathing to fade unnoticed. Noise from below, however, is so infrequent it can alarm and sometimes terrify. On this morning I was startled by stirrings which rose from saucer-like eddies, not unlike the puddles from my oars, that dabbled across the surface. These eddies were formed by fish spinning in corkscrew circles. I had never seen this, but most things I have never seen, so I thought it must be a breeding ritual and continued the rhythm of my strokes. The stirrings wove texture into the sounds of the morning.

By all measures it was an uneventful row, except for what I saw. I was sighted on the radio tower, rowing straight down a narrow channel, when the astronaut captured my attention. Like a rocket rising from a launch pad, a fish, a small fish about as big as a hand, shot straight into the air about three feet. This fish was not skipping across the surface or dancing in air like a dolphin. This little fella jumped about eight times his body length and hung suspended, struggling in space for an instant before his tumbling descent. I thought perhaps this fish, distinguished from all others, determined that his liquid world was not the only atmosphere and tried to make the leap of faith. And then I rowed on.

Denial is a funny thing. It is usually a refusal to believe what you know to be true, but sometimes it manifests as blatant ignorance. Like the time I cooked my friend Vinny

Antolini’s exotic turtles. His was quite a collection--a softshell tortoise, a snapper, some funny terrapin--about ten in all, left in my care while he went back East. In the wee hours as I was feeding my newborn, I was fascinated when the turtles all started clamoring onto a large flat rock. It was a frenzy. As one climbed on, he would knock two off. Very arresting behavior, I mused. But I was tired and the baby was fed, so we went back to bed, never realizing that the aquarium pump had shorted and was heating the water and that when I saw those turtles again they would be soup.

It was blatant ignorance when I saw the fish jump. I rowed on with fanciful thoughts of the fish that would be bird. Of heroic searchers who find the key to new dimensions of physics and energy. Of the first amphibians, those determined slugs that pulled themselves through swamp to solid ground. Of the first flights in space, and of the future when we might realize that an entire atmosphere exists just where we never thought to see it. Very amusing behavior, I mused. But I was tired and it was late, so I went off to work, never realizing the fish were spinning to ease the sting of their rotted flesh, or that the astronaut launched himself from desperation, not inspiration. He sought to be the last fish alive.

It dawned upon me the next morning, and soon everyone knew. Red Tide. The first kill destroyed the fish. Floating lifeless on their sides, they jostled at the water’s edge, piled three deep, big and small. They were strewn atop the water like autumn leaves fallen on the grass. I could not take a stroke without slapping a carcass, pushing it toward others and leaving a v-shaped wake of death behind me. The jellyfish came in droves to eat the waste. A week later the jellyfish fell, leaving gelatinous flowers just beneath the surface and piling cartilage cups on the sandy bottom. In another two weeks the dolphin deaths were reported and we grieved. But within a month the newly hatched eggs became fledgling fish, and we thought there would be life in the bay still and again. So we forgot. Then, almost a year from the worst, the yearling fish fell after the fall fertilizing, and this time even the eels succumbed. Now there is only sterile sand.

Speer / 49

It was blatant ignorance. We assumed our population could multiply a thousandfold and the waters would be unchanged. We believed we could trap it, spear it, eat it, drive it away with noise and waste, and the sea life would simply move aside yet somehow stay intact. Reporters told us we did not kill the fish. It was the harmful algae blooms, those renegade toxic dinoflagellates that swept the life from our waters in a random freak of fate. It was denial of the first degree. It continues, and in any conflict between the ecology and the economy the denial will triumph. Otherwise we will not grow.

But in the distant future, when the renegade toxins come ashore, when the bodies of our children’s children are bagged up like fallen leaves in winter, we might revisit the astronaut. A young man will vaporize himself attempting to transcend. We will applaud his vision, then realize he intends only to escape to another time and space the day before the people die. And this time, if they tell us we are not the cause, there will be no denying.

Who’s Bringing the Ham?

Brooke Johnson

“They’ll put too much lipstick on her,” Donna said, pulling out her needles and a fresh ball of yarn.

“She wanted them to retire closer to home,” Helen said, counting her loops, making sure the rows were right.

“Who’s going to bring the ham?” Evelyn asked, without looking up from the shawl she was working on.

“I told Ed I’d help pick out the dress,” Ruthie offered, settling herself on the couch next to Donna because the rockers were taken.

“I was planning on taking some baked beans,” Evelyn went on with her head down.

“She never did wear much lipstick, if she wore any at all. But mark my words, they’ll put her in some shade of bright red.” Donna started a new project, a Christmas sweater for her eight-year-old grandson.

“It’s a shame she didn’t get to go home before she died.” As Helen spoke, she rocked faster and knitted slower.

“This was her home, and Ed was family. I told him I thought the blue dress she wore to the Shrine Club’s New Year’s Gala a couple of years back would be a good choice,” Ruthie said, wishing she had a rocker. Knitting on the couch made her back hurt.

“You know, maybe I should fry some chicken instead. Do you think anybody will bring chicken?” Evelyn said.

“That blue dress with the polka dots?” Donna asked.

“No, I don’t know who’d bring fried chicken, but I know someone will. Just bring the beans and maybe some divinity,” Ruthie answered. She waited a few seconds, then asked, “What’s wrong with the blue dress?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, but do you think she ought to be buried in a dress like that?” Donna asked.

“You know,” Helen said, “she had started taking a heart medication on top of her blood pressure pills a few months ago. I bet the doctor knew her time was coming.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that dress. It looked great on her.” Ruthie spoke with an almost indignant tone.

Johnson / 51

“You’re right. But when they put the lipstick and eyeshadow on, that blue dress is going to make her look like something she wasn’t,” Donna explained.

“Divinity is good idea. People may want something sweet,” Evelyn said, head still down.

“I hope Ed is going to be okay. Who’s going to take care of him?” Helen asked.

“What was she not?” asked Ruthie.

“She wasn’t the type,” Donna retorted.

“Joe told me Ed said she’d died in her sleep. That’s a good way to go, in your sleep,” Helen went on.

“Helen,” Donna broke in, “No way is a good way.”

“All I’m saying is that she went real peaceful,” Helen defended.

“So who’s going to bring the ham?” Evelyn asked.

Randomness*

Kaitlyn Ducharme

Squeaky shoes

And this day never Ends

Of paper

Shriveled up into ashes

Burnt

Dreams and Wet socks from rainy Skies

Of hopes

Promises, even, of life in Death

Is here, and All I have is Squeaky shoes

*First place, OWC Collegiate High School sophomore writing contest, 2005.

Ducharme / 53

On the Color of Love

Alison Dunn

As I was growing up, Grandpa always told me in his deep Southern drawl, “Oil and water don’t mix, just like black and white don’t mix neither.” But once I started painting and saw what new colors I could discover, I had to disagree with him. Black and white do mix. They make the color gray. And that was exactly the color life became when I met Nickolas. Not at first, of course. In the beginning, life was bright yellows, oranges, pinks and reds, like the bursting forth of a sunrise. The closer we became, the more life took on shades of green, like summer. The only time I experienced blue was when he wasn’t near. Nickolas was orange because he was strong, and yellow because he was calm. I was usually red because I was quite the extremist. But Nickolas said I was pink because I was sweet and had a big heart. Whenever I had a grueling day at school, he would bring me to the roof of his flat to show me the stars, and the sounds of the city below seemed distant. When Nickolas had a demanding week with his kids at the Boys and Girls Club, I would drive him to the coast and we would stand with our toes buried in the sand, the chilly waves lapping around our ankles, the ocean sparkling like diamonds. These were our ways of making the world seem right again.

Our world was surrounded by laughter, friends and our love for each other. It wasn’t until I took Nickolas home with me for spring holiday that the colors in the rainbow all seemed to swirl into one massive gray cloud. As we stood in my mother’s kitchen holding hands, we could have heard a pin drop in the midst of all the stares.

“Oh, um, welcome to our home...uh...Nickolas... right?” my mother stammered. “I’ll show you your room.” She sent quick glances at the rest of my family and led my love down the hall. My dad smiled nervously, then quickly resumed reading the Sunday newspaper. Grandpa just glared and silently brushed by, out the kitchen door.

As the next three days passed, I quickly realized that mixing black and white just didn’t! Not in the South, even though it was the twenty-first century, damn it. As our black and white essences moved in and throughout the small country town I had grown up in, we experienced the gray lines we had always heard about. My family was blue, the deep, loyal kind: they would always love me, but certain ones, like Grandpa, had a hard time accepting the diversity I struggled to let in. Back in the city, however, as I soaked up the complexity of colors sparkling from my ring finger, I couldn’t help but think that the color of our relationship couldn’t have been any clearer. We were meant to be together, whether black, white or gray.

Viking

Abe Toner

It had taken most of the day to gather wood, but Robert had finished building the pyre. Putting the body on it, the same one that had required three men to drag out of the desert, had taken over an hour. Twice the body had fallen on him just as it reached the top. Robert could’ve done it easier with help, but a promise was a promise. His brother would have laughed had he the breath to do it. The trees of the valley surrounded them with the flame of the season. His brother would have approved. It was their favorite season from childhood, the time before the world went to sleep. He looked at the valley and thought of the future that now seemed so bleak.

When his brother had left, the world was alive, the trees rejoicing in the sun as he stepped on the plane. His brother was off to fight the oilman’s war, while Robert stayed behind. They both had their duties, his brother’s to war, and Robert’s to the man neither one loved. At first Robert had hated his brother for leaving him behind, but he did not want to disappoint this man who had helped raise him. Robert thought of the games they had played in this same valley when they had been kids. He remembered the battles they fought as teens, followed by the love of blood. With that same love he lit the pyre and watched it burn with the sunset. A promise was a promise, and his brother would have approved.

Silver String*

Jessica Paliza

You always drew me

Prettier than I really was

I’m a rough sketch

Smeared charcoal

And jagged edges

But with your pen

You’d draw me

With perfect curves

Standing

Tall

Hair flowing

Like a flag in the wind

You’d move my bangs

Out of my face

With your fingertips

And look at me

With unsteady eyes

Trembling like a Glass of water

We’d stand there

Silent

And sometimes I would Believe

What you saw.

*First place, James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, 2003. Paliza / 57

Since Henry

Sidney Speer

All cats are black by night, I whisper, standing on her chest. My white whiskers sweep across her stare. We used to play, I with the mouse, rat, rabbit or vole pierced upon my fangs. Your stern admonitions, “Outside, take it outside.”

I spat my captive. It scurried for life. You chased me chasing it.

Remember? I purr, giving sharp caresses. Recall the raven I ensnared between your chair rungs?

A great surprise on your returning. Bigger than I, though just as black. What was that legless creature I dropped upon your feet? You danced and shouted till Henry boxed it in a trap.

I rub against her. I am like smoke to you since Henry gasped his last sad breath. I curl in the bend of your arm and watch with one eye as you close two. You have fallen, but my taste for death is still an appetite.

Now in darkness at your doorway I offer a new prize. I know you hear my invitation, but still you lie, Singing neither praises nor chastisings. I parade my trophy past your bed, flirting you to follow.

In your porcelain tub white whiskers are invisible. While I gambol, I know you listen, Ears clenched against the scream of death that satiates my hunger.

From this cold enclosure, my chewing echoes. A head, four feet and tail are all I leave, For you are like smoke to me since Henry gasped his last sad breath.

Medal

Bobby Roy

He traced the folds in his face

Fingered the last whisper of pale hair

He drew a finger along the broad pink line across his naked chest

Where the surgeon removed the shrapnel forty years ago

He remembered the gentle rustle of the tall grass

The sinister silence

The click when his friend’s boot touched the ground

The dull ringing after he lifted it

He remembered the surgical instruments that peeled back his flesh

That removed the invaders that missed his vitals

He remembered biting down with his teeth and eyelids

Trying to squeeze the pain out of his body along with the metal shards

He touched the scar, remembering the funeral

The flag-covered coffin

He remembered the crying wife and the confused children

He remembered 21 thunderclaps

He pulled a white, washer-worn shirt over his head

He smiled at the images of Snoopy and Charlie Brown

But beneath the thin fabric he could still see

The source of a million restless nights

Outside in

LaTisa Anderson

Didn’t feel good ‘bout that self. Went and got implants to hold that chest high To stop those shoulders from slumping like thirsty flowers. Face lifted with implants and collagen, not to mention teeth whitening So when that long-awaited smile did brighten the dark horizon It would be a model sunrise. Still got those worry lines. Wearing that frown knit tight as a sweater. Wrinkled forehead botox softened. Troubled signs erased. Getting a clean slate. Not a damn sign from the face of wisdom of age.

Think again. Dynamic wrinkles are a definite sin. Liposuction becomes the vacuum for those earth bellies and labor thighs. Had to get that augmentation to get a perfect stimulation, to get that certain...certain Self-esteem.

Carving beauty into the outside Craving it will sink in.

Snow Goose

Caitlin Pierson

Studies Show That Migrating Non-Native Species May Confuse Other Natives

I have been a child of the South for as long I can remember, not counting some distant memories of birth through age three that took place in southern California. Those memories were formed before my parents packed my sister, my brother, and me up and took us off to northwestern Florida on an airplane. The memories that I love the most are my Southern memories. I fit in the South like a hand in a glove. I’m not a redneck, though; I don’t have a gun, don’t wear camouflage, don’t go hunting, don’t speak with a sharp twang in my voice, don’t go mudding in large trucks after it rains. I’m more of the Southern belle type. I like sitting outside on sweet spring days while sipping iced tea—sweet, of course.

The snow goose is a creature that lives up north and migrates to the south every winter. The extreme cold of the northern regions, though tolerable to the snow geese, is not preferred to the warmth of the more southern regions of the eastern United States. Most of my family is from the South. Everyone on my mom’s side is from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Now and then my mom takes us all to visit. My dad’s family doesn’t fit in, though. His relatives, all of them, are from distant lands known as Orange, New Jersey, and Warwick, New York. I’m not even sure these places are part of America; they’re probably part of Canada. Being Canadian would explain why they are so different from the other side of the family tree. Getting snow might also contribute. Sometimes in the Florida summers it gets so hot down here that you could cook bacon and eggs on the dashboard of your car. I can’t even imagine what snow must look like. I think it must be mentally scarring to be very cold one minute, then have a feathery substance that should be found only in freezers drop down in clumps on your head. Snow is Pierson / 61

The beaches in this part of Florida have white sand. We call it “Florida snow.” On one of these “white snow” beaches is a pair of medium-sized cottages attached to each other, with a short path leading directly to the beaches. These cottages are owned by a company called Sea Houses. Now, Sea Houses makes money by renting out these cottages. Inside each of the Sea Houses cottages, the walls are coated with an awful pale green paint called “mint.” Mint didn’t quite do the color justice. “Sick babies in a maternity ward” was a much better name for it. It made the threadbare beds and couches look green too. Even the windows glowed with the sickness. The weather was as perfect as it could get in January, grey and wet and sloppy. Grandma and Grandpa were very excited to come visit us. We were, too, in a way. We started by spending Monday afternoon and evening, Wednesday afternoon, and all day Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa. This was very enjoyable at first. My little brother, Mike, liked the food. My sister, Marla, liked hearing about exotic places like New York City. My mom liked not having to cook, and my dad liked spending time with his parents. As a family we had decided, though, that being with Northern grandparents was a bad thing. That was until the night of January twenty-sixth, their last night visiting us.

Flying south for the winter is a group function for the snow geese. They can be found in large groups flying towards their warmer destination. Snow geese often have a leader flying at the front of their “V” shaped flying formation.

62 / Blackwater Review enough to change the habits of good people and turn them into mutated abnormalities—people who put butter instead of mayonnaise on ham and cheese sandwiches. I mean, come on! That can’t be normal! But anyway, my grandma and grandpa from New Jersey are coming this January for a visit. They like to come in January because they say the weather is “just so nice and warm.” Right! They must have some skewed perception of warmth. Kinda like snow geese. But this whole story is not about how weird Northerners are. I’ve told you all this because I want to tell you about the last year they visited.

It was a Saturday morning, and we were all driving in our white Dodge minivan to the Sea Houses cottage. The sky was thick as pea soup and the air was slimy as the skin of rotten potatoes. Halfway through our drive the clouds dropped their payload. My little brother, Mike, let out a hollow laugh and started to count the raindrops that landed on the window in a whisper-voice.

“It’s rainin’.” My mom stated the obvious. “Hard.”

“No kiddin’.” Marla voiced her sarcasm.

Marla looks like Julia Roberts with the cynicism of an old war vet and the kindness of Stalin. She pretends to be just like Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias. Only she isn’t. She is like a fishing lure. A worm on a hook looks good to fish—but it hurts. Maybe I’m being unfair to her. All I know is that we have always been archenemies. I am no Superman, though.

“It looks bad out there.” I had to admit the weather concerned me.

“Your face looks bad,” Marla attacked.

“Shut up, Marla!” I defended.

“You’re the dumb one, Gloria, why don’t you?”

“Why don’t you both?” My dad hated any sort of noise that wasn’t “constructive.”

My dad, when he isn’t driving, eating, or watching C-SPAN, is reading a book. I think he reads books all the time to distract himself from the life he lives. He is kinda like a tree in my mom’s garden—transplanted. My dad met my mom in a semi-neutral state. Maryland wasn’t part of the North or the South. A couple of weeks later when they both moved out to California (where they had ME!) for their jobs, their relationship really got going. My parents met, got married, and moved, and before Dad could blink, they had moved again and we were all living in the deep, deep South. If my dad were a coin, then the flipside would be my mom. She is exactly like my dad except that everything is turned upside down and switched around. She played football in high school and wrestled in college. Instead of constantly reading, she enjoys constantly talking. She doesn’t go by her name, Sylvia; she goes by Dixie. I think my dad is still suffering

Pierson / 63

from culture shock even though he married her twenty-five years ago. He really needed to see someone from his homeland, so, to him, visiting grandparents was a blessing.

The arrival of the snow geese at their desired destination is sometimes a loud one. They like to announce their arrival and communicate to each other through a series of loud honks. At other times the snow geese may be more reserved and intent on adapting to their new environment. No matter which one they choose, they are always noticed.

Our noise level simmered at low all the way to Sea Houses. We darted out of the car like frightened mice while attempting not to get wet. Grandma and Grandpa received us with their arms wide open. Who knew two people could hold their arms that wide? We dried out over a dinner of pork loin, butter noodles, and baby carrots. Poker by candlelight resulted in only a few fights between me and my sister. The evening so far had been tame, but my mom, my sister, and I were all on edge. Good things don’t happen unless bad things come right after. Or at least that’s true about relatives. Later on, all seven of us scrunched onto the couch and watched The Russians Are Coming. The moment was kinda good in an old-movie or Hallmark-card sorta way. Where is Russia?

As the TV screen faded to black, the room suddenly joined it. From outside we heard a loud blast of thunder.

“Mom.” Mike, the silent one, decided to break the stillness first.

Mike was one of those kids who never learned to read until second grade. It wasn’t because he couldn’t learn his numbers, though. Mike was an undiscovered Einstein. He just wouldn’t talk. He might’ve liked to play with cars or thought that airplanes were awesome or known how to divide by zero, but who would know? When he did speak, everyone listened, if not to hear what he had to say, then to gawk at him.

“Mom.” Mike repeated himself. “I was bored so I took Daddy’s keys and hid them. And guess what?”

“What?” Mom didn’t need to ask; we’d all guessed by his tone.

“I don’t know where I put them. And guess what else.”

Mike’s throat made a scared scraping noise. “I don’t think we can find them in the dark.”

There comes a time in every person’s life when she feels she can’t handle things, when she feels she has lost control. I was surprised to be feeling one of these moments already. Fourteen is way too young to have to deal with things like being trapped with relatives. I’m sure my sister must have been feeling the same thing about her seventeen years. My brother, though, was probably feeling that his twelve short years were coming to an end. Considering that a “steel magnolia,” a football player, and a brat (I am ashamed to say) were trapped in a dark cottage called Sea Houses with Bob Feldman and his parents who owned a Cadillac with snow chains on it, sudden death for Mike might have seemed highly likely. It wasn’t that Grandma and Grandpa were so bad. It was just that Mom, Mike, Marla, and I couldn’t relate to them. We also didn’t want to try.

Flashlights, down comforters, some snacks, all found in random places, joined us in the living room. The couch was excommunicated. The floor was attacked and settled on.

“Gloria, I always thought that you might make a very good archeologist one day.” Grandma is one of those rare women who speak in clear, crisp English. It was amazing how incorrect her thoughts were, though. I thought of dirt and old bones and wrinkled my nose. Mike was lying on the other side of the room drawing a picture in the dark. I don’t know how he can see very well in the dark, but he can. His thin wrists swiveled and swooped as he dragged a crayon on the paper. He drew a large goose skimming the top of a lake with its wing tip. We had seen one just like it when we were dragged on another family trip to the hills of Tennessee and the birthplace of moonshine.

“Are you kidding?” Grandpa blustered, breaking my thoughts. “Ty Cobb, the greatest baseball player of our time! Well, of course he is!”

My grandpa is sort of like the wind. He speaks in sudden and unexpected gusts about politics and sports. Grandma is an anxious sort of person, stimulated by sound, and every time my grandpa says something, she jumps. Before Grandma

Pierson / 65

and Grandpa came over to visit us, they vacationed in Italy. Grandma told Marla stories about Sorrento and walking on the beach wearing a scarf, holding Grandpa’s hand, while listening to him recite poetry. I personally didn’t believe any of the romance. Grandma can’t stand the beach or the sound of her husband’s voice. Instead of spending time with her husband, I think she makes up schemes to live vicariously through her grandchildren—us. I saw an Outer Limits episode like that once.

After some interesting conversation and later some lack of it, we went to sleep. While we were sleeping, the power company got their act together. Later, at around midnight, Mike wanted some water. At least that’s what we think; he wouldn’t say anything. He reached the kitchen and let out a coyote howl. As the rest of us woke and ran to him, we saw, with our power back, what was wrong. Creeping and crawling all over the counter were the biggest cockroaches that I had ever seen. Dad raced off to grab the bug spray while Marla fainted, Mom swatted at them, Grandpa blustered, Grandma trembled, Mike still howled, and I just stood there frozen.

The snow geese can be inconvenient at times. They often wander across streets and into the paths of oncoming cars. They create ruckus at night with their honking, and they often take over lakes and parks. No matter how bothersome these creatures may get, they still do serve a purpose in our ecosystem. Snow geese are a vital part of the cycle of life, they are a basic part of the food chain and, even in death, they contribute to the nitrogen cycle. These beautiful but sometimes annoying beasts do serve a purpose in our great and wonderful world.

My family said goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma while they were waiting on the front porch for the exterminator, who told us he would be there an hour before we decided to leave. We found out, after the roach incident, that Mike had the keys all along. We have no clue why he did what he did that night. No one knows. He won’t talk.

Paul and the Duck oil on canvas

Lynda Cast

Paris en Automne wood

Rusty Adams

Untitled conté

“Jericho” Phillip Kilpatrick

Pablo charcoal

Joyce M. Cross

Bay Crossroads

digital image

Paul Lijewski

Max McCann

Catfish watercolor

Sweet Tangerines

Ana M. Poddubny

pastel

In My Eyes

black & white photography

Megan Recher

Ivan Deadfall–Palms & Pinecones

pen & ink

Rhoda Ramirez de Arellano

Guardian Since 1888

black & white photography/sepia tone

Maria B. Morekis

Stormy Day digital 3-D design

Tim Russell

William John Sharratt

Daffodils wood

First Earthly Union of Man and Woman clay

Linda H. King

Monet clay

Joan M. Langham

Kevin M. Cook

Raku fired clay

Mississippi Midnight*

Caitlin Pierson

we slept in the bed in my great-uncle’s bed my sister and i the night before the day before his funeral our leaving his wheezing must have sounded harsh bubbling in the silent air as he crawled beneath the sheets we squirm between now, two nights post to the final cough, heaving of his chest, gasp, and sigh signaling his acceptance and relinquishment to the future

*First place, James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, 2005 Pierson / 83

The Rollercoaster

Amber West

There’s always a line. Everyone wants on this ride. Some have ridden more than once. I have butterflies in my stomach. I thought I had been on this ride before, But as I get closer it looks unfamiliar. I know I am in uncharted territory. I am ready—but I’m not. I can’t get hurt—or can I?

It’s my turn now.

My stomach’s in knots. I almost feel sick.

Everything starts off nice and slow. Then I plunge.

My heart’s racing. I’m upside down, I close my eyes.

I hear myself screaming. I want to get off... But I love this ride.

A Crown for Silence*

Michael A. Burke

Silence cast me out from heaven— bright and white, this angelic frill a tuft of Love, the fallen feather of a balding bird, gaunt wingless torso dotting the Sun in silent descent: discarded seraph or climbing demon?

A raucous world looms before me— no, a wordless world of ticking ticking, ticking little bobbly-headed bombs, throbbing toys, greasy feet walking, stomping, over grimaced faces—pantomime:

“We are all children who walk and tick in time.” Feed me another line

“I saw a blind man buying blinds.” They jest and laugh in time react to my inverted climb in time. Click click went the pantomime the land mine behind the smiling housewife’s blistered back, held in sweaty palm, pink polished false fingernails squeezing the metal hair, pulsing scars now bare as she just stares and stares

I stare. Falling deep into the darkness of shadows stretching through these bursting streets like condom crowns, swishing fetal thoughts around, gargling babies like Chronos with rabies. Sullen swarms of skin

hidden by Gucci, Faded Glory and all the in-betweens.

Sway went the wave, one side to the next shore to the ocean and back. Falling with no shadow slipping soundless into Eden, I saw the demons feeding there— careless fetuses squirming through black meadows, dewy fingers, umbilical fish-line. Feed me another line as the beasts all bray in time as the Sheep all pray in time as the beasts and sheep all prey and feed. All in good time.

Silence cast me out from heaven eyeless angels weeping winnowed tears, vegetating at the bottom quiet as quiescent peers.

*First place, James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, 2004.

86 / Blackwater Review

Group Therapy

Kevin Taylor Ray

I open the “Raider Reader” campus newsletter and see a listing for the various student organizations here at OkaloosaWalton College. Some very interesting clubs are listed, the Baptist College Ministries, the Creative Writers’ Club, the Prime Time Computer Club, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Young Republicans. These all seem like your normal group of student organizations, except for one-- Students Against Life At Danger... SALAD! Salad meets every Tuesday after lunch, in an old storage room turned clubhouse in the H building on our main campus.

Deciding to join this club, I search through the H building for the meeting room, which seems oddly placed in the back corner of the college gym. As I approach the door, I hear laughter. When I knock, the laughter stops and I faintly hear through the door, “Shhh!--put it away, put it away....”

After a long pause someone shouts, “Nobody’s here!” I look around the gym, wondering what’s going on, as a few students working out seem to just ignore what happens in the club room. I knock again, and the door quickly cracks open. Someone peers at me through the crack and says softly, “What’s the password?”

“Hi. Uhh... I don’t know the password. I uhh... want to join the group,” I say with a nervous smile.

“What color is the elephant? And Jackie’s dress in Dallas?”

“Jack’s elephant... what?”

“Patrick, move!” a bright voice says, forcing the door open. “Hi! I’m Kelly Mi. Welcome to Students Against Life At Danger.”

Kelly shakes my hand with a huge smile, pulling me forcefully into the room and slamming the door shut behind me. The dark old room smells musty, and its banged-up walls are covered with posters of Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, and Amnesty International. A round table sits under a small light in the center of the room facing a huge digital widescreen Ray / 87

television. In the middle of the table is an odd-looking Apple computer, a state-of-the-art laptop with a clear oval disk between the keyboard and the raised-up screen.

“What’s your name?” Kelly asks politely.

I start, “My name is--”

“Hey, you dress like a narc!” The guy at the door quickly muffles out the sound of my name, thrusting his finger in my face.

“Shut up, Patrick!” orders Kelly. “This is Patrick. Unfortunately, he trusts no one.”

“That’s right,” he says, staring at me with a goofy look and wide-open blue eyes.

“Over here...” Kelly scans over to the table where four other students sit, “is my assistant, Cheandra.”

“Hi!” Cheandra enthusiastically affirms.

“This is Omar.”

“Surf’s up,” Omar smiles, giving a peace sign.

“This is Elsa.”

“Greetings,” mutters Elsa gloomily.

“And this is Juan.”

“Yo-yo-yo!” Juan shouts, swinging his fist in the air.

“You picked a great day to come, today we’ve got a mission!” Kelly exclaims.

Patrick puts his serious face about an inch to the side of mine. “Lucky for us all, I brought my... megaphone,” he whispers, glancing down at his hand and then back up at me.

“All right, guys.” Kelly slides over to the laptop, and they all quickly surround it. “Here it is, the beautiful Euonymus Nosdikus... the Violet Five-Leaf Orchid!” Kelly clicks a button on the keyboard, and the clear oval disk beams up a colorful holographic image of the plant in the air.

“Ooohhh... aahhh,” they all mutter as the cool image rotates in front of us.

“Awesome!” yells Omar.

“The early Egyptians believed the five-leaf orchid brought its owner profound knowledge, real knowledge that held the secrets to the origin of the Universe,” remarks Elsa. “Then, rather

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mysteriously, the orchid began to disappear at a rapid rate.”

“This is one of the rarest plants in the Southeastern United States,” says Kelly. “And it’s being held hostage by an English professor. It’s in Dr. Vickie Hunt’s office!

“I knew it! I knew she was up to something, with all that so-called innocent... karaoke,” says Patrick.

“All right, take it easy, Pat. Today we’re gonna do it. SALAD is gonna free the five-leaf orchid!”

“Hey, wait a minute,” says Elsa. “You can’t just carry a bush out of an office, this is Florida for heaven’s sake!”

“It’s not a bush, Elsa,” says Kelly.

“Last week we tried an easy job, with just Patrick hittin’ it. Dis don’t sound like a one-man hit to me,” says Juan.

“Dudes, he’s right. We don’t know how many bushes could be in that office. There could be two,” says Omar.

“Two?” asks Cheandra with concern.

“Worse... there could be three!”

“Three bushes!” they all yell.

“Guys, stop calling it a bleeping bush! It is definitely not a bush. Bushes are special in their own little way, but they are common and ordinary compared to the five-leaf orchid,” Kelly claims with frustration. “For once, let’s just focus on the mission. And Patrick, don’t you dare bring that stupid megaphone.” She flicks off the light and turns on the widescreen with a laser-equipped remote. “Dr. Hunt’s office is room 006 in the E building.” The digital campus map zooms in quickly on the building, and the room lights up green. “The office is perfectly placed at the end of a long hallway, next to a corner fire exit, which should provide the cover we’ll need.” Kelly uses the laser pointer to show her strategy.

“All right, who’s going in this time?” she asks. “Not you, Patrick!”

“Narco!” Patrick points at me. “You gotta prove yourself, newbie. You’re going in.”

“No way! I don’t even know what you guys are talking about,” I say.

“Why you here, den?” asks Juan.

“Because I want to be part of something... something good.”

“You gotta prove you really want to be part of this, prove you got what it takes to be a rebel,” Patrick says, pointing in my face, trying to intimidate me.

“Why don’t you all do this kind of stuff at night?” I ask.

“Hello... the faculty offices are locked at night, we don’t want to get into trouble... duh!” says Cheandra.

“All right, fine, I’ll do it!”

“Yea! You are one of us!” they chant, “You are one of us!”

As we peer around the hallway corner across from Dr. Hunt’s office, we hear, “No! I said I want my Mercedes with plaid leather interior. We’ve gone over this before!”

“She must be on the phone,” whispers Kelly.

“Impossible in this world? Do you know who you’re talking to? I put the capital H in the word Hunt... follow me? No?

Okay, we’ll see what’s impossible.” Dr. Hunt slams the phone down and stomps out of her office. We all duck back around the corner, tripping and falling over each other with the subtlety of a herd of buffalo.

“She left the door open. Now’s your chance, go!” Kelly urges me.

I stumble out from around the corner and see groups of students lining the hallway, some talking and some studying. My heart is pounding as I tiptoe the short distance to the office, where I can faintly hear a classic 80’s station playing Belinda Carlisle. “Ooohh, Heaven is a place on Earth.” When I get close enough to see into the room, I see four neatly placed five-leaf orchids near the window, getting sunlight. “Four bleeping bushes!” I mutter to myself. “How many of these things are there?” I wipe the sweat from my brow and begin to take one step into the office, when I hear... click!

“Hey, everybody! That’s a Narc!” Patrick yells through the megaphone while pointing straight at me.

I freeze as all the students in the hallway stop what they’re doing to stare at me. As the group runs off, I see Dr. Hunt in the distance, charging back towards her office.

“Hey, you! Stop right there!” she demands.

Dr. Hunt runs inside the room and immediately looks up at the orchids and then down at the Starbucks vanilla latte on her desk, “Oh, my precious, thank heaven!” She turns back to me. “Who are you? What do you want?”

I say, “My name is--”

“You dress like a Narc. Get out of here!”

Furious, I burst into the clubroom to see the whole group laughing hysterically. I slam the door behind me and they all straighten up, pretending they don’t know I’m there. I run over to Patrick and grab his shirt, shaking him. “What the bleep is wrong with you!?” I shout.

Kelly grabs me. “I’m sorry. We had to know if you really believed in what we’re doing here. We couldn’t take a chance with a total stranger. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“I never want to see any of you... ever again!” I look around the table slowly, at each shameful face staring down at the table. “Never!”

Next week, we all huddle around the computer again.

“This is it, guys, the rare and beautiful Delphinium Magtalenus... the Purple Night Heron!” says Kelly.

“Ooohhh...” we all mutter.

“Bodacious!” Omar exclaims as he waves his hand back and forth through the holograph, buzzing it off and on when his hand touches the image.

“Stop that!” Cheandra smacks his hand.

“Ouch, dude!”

“The early Greeks thought the purple night heron held the key to finding your other self, and therefore continuing the eternal life cycle in the Universe,” explains Elsa. “The search for the heron became more and more difficult, as the heron was cursed through a far-reaching conspiracy and then began to lose its real identity.”

“This is one of the most elusive, rare birds in the Carolinas, and it’s being held in a cage by Dr. Jill White, in the Senior Vice President’s office,” Kelly says.

Ray / 91

“I didn’t vote for her. Did you guys vote for her?” asks Patrick.

“Don’t even start, Patrick! Every time, we go through this....” Kelly turns off the light. “The v.p.’s office is in the administration building, building A. The digital TV zooms in on the administration building. “Her office is in the back righthand corner. There’s way too many people working inside this building, so we’ll have to go in from this side window.”

“A lot a’ heat, yo!” says Juan, as Kelly uses the pointer to be exact.

“We’ll have to be really sneaky this time, but I think building C-1 will provide enough cover to get the bird out safely. Any questions?”

Kelly turns back to the table to see us all wearing black ski masks.

“What the bleep? Patrick, did you bring ski masks today?” she asks.

“Oh, I brought more than ski masks, sweetheart. I brought theme music!” says Patrick as he holds up a small tape player and clicks it on. “Check my stealthy moves!” As the music starts, he sneaks around the walls of the room.

“Dunt, dunt-dunt, Dunt, dunt, dunt-dunt, dunt-Diditoo, diditoo, Dit-oo!” We all hum and dance along with the music.

“Oh, no! There is no way you’re playing the theme to Mission Impossible while we’re doing this, Patrick,” Kelly yells. “That is so stupid!”

“Come on, I’ve always wanted to pull off a crime with Mission Impossible playing,” he says.

“This is not a crime! The real crime is caging animals and not doing anything about it. Everyone who lives their lives pretending that it doesn’t matter to cage animals is committing a crime,” Kelly answers.

“Yes, living in denial is a real crime. Against yourself and everyone else,” affirms Cheandra.

“Let’s get back to the music issue. I mean, the idea is to blend in, Patrick,” explains Elsa, “Not to say, ‘Hey, everyone, we’re the musically inclined thieves!’”

“We are nothing thieves! Except for freedom. Okay, we are stealing back freedom. Now, let’s go. And Patrick, don’t you dare bring those ski masks,” Kelly orders, “or that music!”

Following Kelly, we make a mad dash for the A building across campus. It’s like 98 degrees out, so I’m not sure why we’re all wearing black ski masks, which is what all the students must be thinking who are stopping to watch us run by. Crouching down in the bushes by the C-1 building, Kelly turns to us. “Take off those stupid masks. I’m serious! Okay, I can see the night heron’s cage through the window now, hanging above the left side of the v.p.’s desk.”

“That bird is creepy, dude, it’s lookin’ right at us,” says Omar, a little spooked.

“Okay, Elsa, this time it’s your turn,“ says Kelly.

“Oh, my lord, it’s actually... it is biting its tail! I’ve seen that before, the early alchemists used it as a symbol for ‘the beginning is the end is the beginning.’ That is a bad sign for this mission!” Elsa exclaims. “There is no way I’m going in there!”

“Okay, Che, it’s me and you, then,” says Kelly.

“Bleep! no, yo!” Juan protests, “We da most one-dimensional and typecast characters in dis group. We goin’ in!” referring to Omar. “We gotta do sometin’ fo’ all our peeps.”

Juan has the window open, and he’s in the office in two seconds. Then he’s trying to pull Omar through.

“Hey, newbie, let’s go! We’re not gonna let those stoners screw this up,” Patrick says to me. He pulls me over to the window as I try to grab my mask. “You won’t need it,” he claims.

As I climb through the window, I look around at one of the most neatly organized offices I’ve ever seen. Books, manuals, and papers are filed in meticulous order along the shelves and on the desk.

“Hey,” Patrick says to me with his mask on.

“Y’all have your masks on! I didn’t get mine--” I say as I head back to the window.

“You won’t need it! Go over there, and tell us if you hear anybody coming,” Patrick says as he shoves me towards the door. Ray / 93

Patrick jumps up on the desk, kicking off papers as he approaches the right side of the birdcage, where the tiny door is. Juan jumps up on Omar’s shoulders. Omar stumbles into a bookshelf as he approaches the left side of the cage, knocking off books.

“Careful!” I whisper.

The bird moves back and forth to the right and the left, not knowing which side is safer. Patrick carefully lifts the cage door and slowly starts to put his hand in. The bird trots over towards Juan and looks him in the eyes, then quickly moves toward Patrick, threatening to snap at his hand. Patrick regains his nerve and slowly puts his hand back in the cage. The bird then quickly turns its head and looks dead straight at me. Patrick gets his fingers right around the bird and then...

“It’s You!” the bird screams at me.

Patrick jumps down off the desk, kicking off books and papers, and Omar and Juan slam into a bookshelf, falling to the floor.

“Shhh!” I run over to help Juan off the floor.

We all huddle quietly under the birdcage, listening for footsteps that might approach from outside. The birdcage gently squeaks back and forth on its hook in the ceiling. We scurry back over to the window as the night heron keeps a watchful eye on us.

“I told you that thing is creepy, man!” whispers Omar. “It bleepin’ talks!”

“I’m out, Holmes!” Juan opens the window again.

Patrick grabs Juan. “No way we’re giving up that easy. Come on, pull yourselves together! All right... I got something for you no one can resist, little birdie.... How’s about a little Frank?”

Patrick pulls the small tape player out of his pocket.

“No!” I whisper, grabbing it.

“Let go, Narco!” he says. We start wrestling around the room for control of the device.

“Give it tha-haa-”

“Take your, no-no-no-”

“Hey pssttt-pssttt--”

“Marco!” the bird shrieks, as we come to a cold stop. We glance up at the birdcage, and the bird isn’t there. We look around the room and find that Juan and Omar are gone too.

“Marco!” we hear again from the opposite side of the room. Our heads turn.

“Polo!” Patrick says. We wait for a few seconds and hear nothing. Patrick and I look at each other, wondering what the bleep is going on.

“Marco!” the bird says from another part of the room. Quickly we turn. Patrick points behind a small stack of manuals atop a corner table. We tiptoe over to the table.

“Polo,” I whisper. We hear nothing.

“Get ready,” Patrick whispers. He holds up his hands and gently grabs the sides of the manuals, wiggling his fingers. Then, he pulls the manuals off the table.

“Phew....” We both breathe a sigh of relief and turn around... to see the heron swooping down from the tallest bookshelf, straight down into my hair.

“Aaghh!” As I feel the claws of the bird dig into my hair, I hear the distinct sound of Sinatra singing.

“It had to be you,” piano, “It had to be you,” piano, “I wandered around,” crash! “And finally found,” smash! “The somebody who,” boom! “Could make me be true,” pow! “Could make me feel blue,” bang! “And even be glad, just to be sad,” crack! “Thinkin’ of you,” piano....

Stumbling around the room, I finally get the bird off my head. Then, as I look up, the heron flies back down at me, so I start swinging.

“Some others I’ve seen Might never be mean! Might never be cross Or try to be boss! But they wouldn’t do! For nobody else Gave me a thrill! With all your faults I love you still!”

I fall to the floor as the night heron flies back into its cage. “Baby! It had to be you!” The Senior Vice President is now standing over me in the middle of the room, holding Patrick’s tape player. “Wonderful you!” I glance over at the window, and outside is Patrick, in his mask, flipping me Ray / 95

the bird. “It had to be you!” ( trumpet: dun-na-na--dunt!) She clicks off the tape player.

“Get up! Right now!” Dr. White screams. “Look at my office!”

Every bookshelf, every table, her desk, and every piece of paper is knocked over and scattered across the floor.

“What is your name?”

I don’t even bother to say it.

“Wait a minute,” she says looking at my clothes. “You dress exactly the way Dr. Hunt described that student who was screwing around in her office last week dresses! You dress like... like.... my in-laws! Get out of my office!”

Absolutely furious, I burst into that clubhouse room again to see the whole group hysterically laughing. I slam the door shut behind me and run straight for Patrick.

“Hey!” he yells. “Don’t get bird poo on me, now!”

Patrick runs to the other side of the table. When I go one way, he goes the other, like two children playing tag.

“You set me up!” I claim. “You knew I needed that mask!”

“Yeah, so? I don’t trust you. I never will.”

“Please calm down,” pleads Kelly. “I’m so sorry that happened. I didn’t intend for the two of you to go in. Please come back next week?”

“Bleep, Kelly!” I shout. “Bleep every single one of you!”

“Fine! Then go!” screams Kelly, slouching down in her chair.

“I will!”

“Good!”

“I mean it!”

“Me too!”

I stand there looking like hell, with hair sticking up in the air and scrapes on my face, a total mess. “I will go... and never come back!”

“See ya!”

“All right, I’ll see y’all next week.”

“Ughh,” they all moan.

“This is it, everyone, the rare and beautiful Cornus Eternitus... the tropical Pink Tang!” says Kelly.

“Wowww...” we all mutter.

“Radical--”

Cheandra quickly points at Omar. Omar flinches back his hand in pain.

“Early Native Americans found the pink tang fish at the coral reefs off the Keys. They believed the fish held the key to a long life, through an appreciation of the cyclic self in nature. Ensuring a healthy ecosystem for future generations ensured an immortal life force,” explains Elsa. “Recently, the world’s coral reefs have impetuously declined, putting the pink tang in short numbers.”

“This is one of the most elusive and rare fish off the coast of Florida, and it’s being held in a tank in the Dean’s office!” Kelly exclaims.

“See! I told you James Dean was still alive! I saw the rebel last week at Wal-Mart buying Rogaine and a Britney poster,“ claims Patrick, pointing at Elsa.

“Shut up, Patrick!” Kelly orders. “No arguing today, guys. Considering last week was the worst Salad disaster since the Selendang, you guys owe it to me to focus on this mission. Okay?” Then she catches a glimpse of someone filming her from behind Patrick. “Patrick, who is that?”

“Oh, uhh... I convinced MTV to film the next Real World here. It’s gonna be called “Real World: Okaloosas.”

“Bonzer, mate!” Omar yells as Juan and he slap a high five.

“Thank you, sir. Goodbye,” Kelly says as she quickly ushers the cameraman out of the clubhouse. “Don’t you guys see it? We are the tang fish, and our little table here is a coral reef. This is a little slice of Heaven, a place where we can be our real selves, and if we don’t act soon, it’s going to be extinct. Look at all of us, how different we are. We need to stay unique, because you know it’s only a matter of time before the gray people in gray suits try to shut us down!”

“This is our Zeitgeist, everyone. The tangs aren’t just Ray / 97

diminishing; the few that are left are having to adapt, to turn clear so the hunters can’t find them,” adds Elsa.

“It sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? That is exactly what’s going on in this country. If you don’t believe what the people in charge say, they tell everyone you don’t belong here, and then, pretty soon, you don’t. I don’t remember America being started on that kind of ideology,” says Cheandra.

“Thank you, guys, that was so beautiful,” smiles Kelly, hugging Cheandra.

“So, which one of us here is the pink tang?” asks Patrick with a monkey on his shoulder.

“Oh! Oh! Me! me, me,me,me!!” Omar stretches out on the table with his hand up.

“Patrick! What the bleep is that?” Kelly screams, freaking out.

“Oh, this is my uncle’s helper monkey,” he says. “Yeah, he’s gonna help us steal the fish.”

“I can’t believe you brought a monkey today, Pat!” Kelly slouches down in her seat and covers her crying face. “That’s it! I can’t take it any more. I quit!”

“Kelly, why? What’s wrong?” asks Cheandra.

“His name is Reuben,” consoles Patrick. “Look, he does tricks... Reuben! Guess what’s in my pants!”

“Aak!” Reuben screams with horror.

Kelly jumps up. “None of us is the bleepin’ pink tang! We are all frauds!!”

“Hey,” Omar says sadly, as if the statement hit him really personally.

“Bro’ man’s sensitive,” Juan says, rubbing Omar’s back.

“What have we ever accomplished? Huh? Any of us with Salad?” asks Kelly.

“We fostered that homeless cat for a little while, until it almost clawed Patrick’s eye out,” offers Elsa.

“All right, here’s a better question... and I want each and every one of you to answer it. With all our misguided efforts, we are still frauds. Why are you not who you really are? In order to fit in society? Elsa, why don’t you go first, since you’ve got an answer for everything.”

“The soap box is obviously, and very strangely I might add, occupied right now,” snaps Elsa.

“Okay, fine, I will go first,” says Kelly. “I love animals. But this group is really a way for me to gain forgiveness for what I unwittingly started as a child. When I was eight years old, my parents took me to the Gulf Breeze Zoo every weekend. I wanted to be a veterinarian. We were in the simian house one Saturday, when poo started flying everywhere! I dove for cover, but I was too slow, and... I got hit right in the face! I looked up and the monkey was jumping up and down laughing at me, grabbing himself, and flipping me the bird!”

“Can you teach Reuben that?” asks Patrick.

“My parents were really angry, so they decided to do something about it. They have a lot of money, which is how we get all this equipment in here. They wanted to start a group to make sure that will never, ever happen again, at any zoo. We were still somewhat new to America from Japan, not completely understanding the variations in the English language, so we drove around with a bumper sticker logo on our minivan saying, ‘Honk if you want to spank the monkey, right now!’ Everyone seemed to be supporting us, honking and smiling. We gave them all a big thumbs-up as they drove by. We were so happy to be doing something, to be helping others, to be helping ourselves!” She cries harder. “I even went on TV and said, ‘We should all teach that dirty monkey a lesson by punishing him... with a spanking!’ It was all so humiliating! We started a group called the ‘coalition of the righteous,’ and we had flags on our houses and cars saying, ‘We’re better than those dirty animals,’ and ‘We are always right, especially when we’re wrong.’ We became powerful, with the backing of a local bank owner and a church, and so the Okaloosa County mayor developed the largely over-manned, secretive, and tax-absorbing Department of Zooland Security to protect us all while at the zoo. And so then, the department came up with the brilliant idea to put little straight-jackets on all the monkeys.”

“Aaakk!”

“I would’ve immediately started an opposition group

Ray / 99

called... (points repeatedly at Kelly with each word) ‘Big... Bad... Monkey Pride!’ and we would’ve derailed your efforts, renegade style!” exclaims Patrick.

“We achieved nothing; we just hurt ourselves with all that paranoia. The monkeys still figured out a way to throw poo. And they won an even larger victory, because we did all that harm against ourselves afterward, worrying and not trusting each other. We were no longer free! As I got older, I realized the monkey was caged and frustrated; it wasn’t his fault. We caged him for our own benefit! We cage monkeys!”

“Aakk!”

“It’s the reason I started Salad,” cries Kelly, covering her face in shame. “I transformed from a joyfully ambitious future veterinarian into a frustrated and bitter activist.”

We all sit in silence while Kelly cries... except Reuben, who is wrestling with Patrick, trying to grab his nose.

“All right, who’s next?” Kelly finally regains her composure. “How are you not yourself? Who is next?”

We all look down at the table.

“Aak!”

“Patrick, how about you, then?” asks Kelly.

“It’s your turn, Che’....”

“It’s Juan’s turn....”

“Word! Omar, you up....”

“Yeah, but you can tell Elsa really wants to go, dude....”

“...You’re next,” Elsa says, looking at me.

Silence fills the room like fog.

I look at Kelly, and I’m thinking whether I should answer that question. She stares back at me. I wonder if I should say what’s really on my mind.

“Go ahead, say it,” Kelly says, as if she can read it. “If you don’t connect with us... you are never coming back.”

I smile.

“I’m here to stop this group because of the non-democratic agenda of a dictator like you, deciding who can and cannot join this club, based on the way they dress. We know you have a collaboration with Ryan May, the organizer of Students

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for a Democratic Society, who is trying to influence the college administration to fund rallies designed to promote unpopular ideas throughout the student body!”

“Aaaahhh!” Kelly finally loses it and wrestles Patrick for control of the monkey.

“Hey! Let go! You’re not gonna spank Reuben, are you?” yells Patrick.

“I’m setting the monkey free, Patrick! Once and for all!” Cheandra jumps on Patrick’s back, pulling his head back as Kelly pries Reuben out of Patrick’s hands.

“Aaakk!”

Kelly runs over to the door, pulls it open, and slings Reuben out into the gym.

Reuben flies through the air to the fitness inspirational techno tune “I’ve got the power!” Dunx! dunx! dunx! dunx! Dunx!.

“You got my spot, bro? Here goes 165...” a student brags, lying down on a weight bench.

Reuben lands on the student’s stomach, hops to his head and clutches around his face, frightened, as the weight bar bounces off his chest, and then the plates strike the floor with a horrible clatter.

“I’ve got the power!”

“Aahh!! A monkey-dog-thingy!” screams one of the aerobics girls, pointing at Reuben.

“Aakk!” Reuben jumps up, bounces off the wall and flies through the air, landing in the hair of a lady on a treadmill. She freaks out and jumps off the machine, slamming it into a pane of glass.

Dunx! dunx! dunx! dunx! Dunx! “I’ve got the power!”

The shattering glass spooks Reuben towards the row of exercise bikes. He jumps on the back of one rider, who topples over onto the machine next to him, knocking them all over like dominos into more shattering walls of glass.

“Go, Reuben!” Patrick yells. “Avenge me, my little piston of wrath! Bring it all down! Tear the system down!”

“Aakk!” Reuben chases the screaming aerobics girl in circles around the gym. Ray / 101

The fitness instructor tries to play hero, slinging bottles of Powerade at Reuben, aiming them the way a quarterback would a football, missing horribly and smashing stacks of weight plates over and knocking the inspirational pictures off the wall. All the students run for cover.

“Check his moves!” boasts Patrick, as Reuben narrowly dodges one of the bottles.

“I’ve got the power!” Dunx! dunx! dunx! dunx! Dunx!

“Aakk!” Rueben jumps on the instructor’s head. He freaks, slamming into all the Nautilus machines, smacking them down to the hard floor. Running for safety, the instructor dives over the drink counter and slams into the stereo, which crashes to the floor with a tiny explosion.

Dun-dun-dun-xx-xx-x...

The CD skips a few times and the power slowly fizzles out, signaling the end of the carnage.

I glance over at Kelly and the rest of the group standing outside the clubhouse door in utter amazement, eyes wide open, jaws extended, as Patrick’s monkey has managed to single-handedly destroy the entire college gym. Through one of the shattered planes of glass I squint my eyes to focus in on the MTV cameraman crouching down outside, filming all the action. He zooms in on Patrick.

“YES!” Patrick yells as he drops to his knees, stretching his arms to the air. “Thank you, Lord! All my dreams have now come true!” A tear drops from Patrick’s eye. “That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen....”

Dr. White and the Dean come running through the busted main doors of the gym.

“What is going on in here? Who is responsible for this?” demands Dean Englett.

“Aakk!” screams Reuben as he hops up on the drink counter. And then, in seemingly slow motion, Reuben slings poo through the air. It smacks right in the face of the OkaloosaWalton College Dean of Students.

/ Blackwater Review

“You got a Zen-Buddhist explanation for why that just happened, Elsa?” asks Omar. “Yes.... Shit happens.”

Of course, the college ordered the immediate disbanding of Salad. Particularly after MTV aired the Dean’s five smelly minutes of fame a week later for its opening Real World season. I remember the first time I read about Kelly Mi in the newsletter, “Local activist makes a big difference fostering a homeless cat!” Although it was my agenda to discredit her and bring her down, I realize how much I admire her. I admire how much she’s willing to fight for what she believes in, for what could be right, even though she doubts herself sometimes. At least her group were attempting to put aside their differences and take action to achieve a common goal. The rumor is Kelly has applied to a veterinary school for after she graduates from OWC next semester. I hope she’s accepted, I really, really do. With that thought, I remember what my goal really is. I pull out Patrick’s small tape player and play my own theme music, the distinct sound of Mick Jagger. Then I open the “Raider Reader” and wonder who’s next. “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name! ‘Cuz what’s... puzzlin’ you is the... nature of my game....”

Clifford’s Golden Lions

Luke Schofield

Clifford lay sprawled on the green sofa as the early morning sun tiptoed into the living room. He slowly drew air into his open mouth, each breath sounding more and more like the neighbor’s lawn mower. The television screen held soundless images of the “Abjuster,” serving only as a night light for Clifford’s trips to the bathroom. On the coffee table, a spiral notebook waited for Clifford to fill the pages with tales from the Old West, of the Talley brothers and their bank robberies, and the fat sheriff who had trouble riding his horse. His dream of being the next Louis L’Amour seemed so close to realization.

His visions of galloping horses and jangly spurs suddenly morphed into the frantic romp of two Jack Russell terriers coursing through the living room, their collar bells ringing. Five-by-eights and frames with multiple wallet-sized pictures of Clifford’s wife’s children from another marriage kept close watch on him, always wearing Christmas sweaters or t-ball uniforms, waiting to beat Clifford with an aluminum Junior Louisville Slugger or a teddy bear in green and red if he ever made a wrong move. He had always felt as if he could sleep better if they would just close their eyes.

He was also a firm believer that he would have better mornings if his wife’s piercing eyes would not wake him from her shadow of a recliner across from his paisley hideaway. She was the second thing he saw every morning right after the ceiling. Sometimes, she was even the first thing, usually on the mornings when she stood over him, beating him with a toilet plunger or a dog leash. This morning she sat with her coffee and a relatively calm terrier.

“Get up, Cliff,” she said, swallowing a sip of altered coffee. “I need to talk to you.”

Clifford closed his mouth and worked his eyes open. The ceiling was still there, and Dottie was right across from him in her chair, massaging the terrier’s ear.

“Cliff,” she started again, this time with more force.

“I’m awake, Dottie.”

“Cliff, I’m going today.”

“Early, huh,” Cliff said, looking up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, Sherrie and me are driving up after lunch.”

“Well,” Cliff said, caring less and less with each passing second, “You girls have fun.”

Dottie flipped the television off of mute, stood up and over the coffee table by the sofa, and took a cigarette from the pack on the table, knowing each cigarette in the pack belonged to Cliff. “Cliff, do you have any money?”

Cliff turned his head from the television that was audible now, left that way so he would have to get up to get the remote to turn it back to mute. The process ensured that he would not be able to go back to sleep.

“No.”

“Well, are you gonna get a job, Cliff?” she yelled.

Cliff sat up. “Dottie, I can’t work.”

She wasted no time saying, “You’re worthless.” She stormed out of the living room, down the hall, and into some world that Cliff hadn’t been a part of in nearly five years: the bedroom. Of all his marriages, Dottie was the wife that resembled Cliff’s vision of the devil more than any of the others.

From down the hall he heard Satan yell, “Go watch your blasted football! When you get back, I may have just burned this blasted house down!”

Cliff got up and stretched. He traveled the highway of carpet to the alcohol-themed bathroom with Dottie’s half finished bottles of vodka and gin adorning the vanity and a shelf above the toilet.

Clifford stood outside on the front step, letting the winter wind raise the hair on his arms. He positioned a cigarette between his lips, then slid his arms through the sleeves of his flannel shirt, helping the startled hair to settle down. Finding room in his pockets for numb fingers, Clifford started his trek to the football field.

Schofield / 105

The wind aggravated Clifford’s neglected hair, rearranging the part down the middle that Clifford couldn’t care less about. He took long strides, shortening his steps when a sheet of ice posed a wintertime obstacle. Behind him, he heard a car horn.

“Hey, Cliff,” the driver of the Jeep said, “how’s the walking, buddy?”

“Hey, Doug.”

“How much longer?”

“Six months.”

“Damn, man, how’s your back?”

Clifford listened to the hum of the engine and the car radio. He raised his voice to reply, “It’s still there.”

“You ever gonna work again? I can talk to the boss man for you.”

“I don’t know, man. I’ve really been working on my book a lot.”

Doug laughed, shook his head, and looked forward. “Well,” he said, “I’m gonna head on. Take it easy, man.”

“See ya.”

The football field waited patiently for the cleated hooves of galloping youngsters to leave their tracks within its sidelines. Its dull-looking chain link fence enclosed the epitome of youth athletics. Weekend after weekend, Clifford found himself hiding in the seemingly innocent chaos of ten- to twelveyear-olds running around, knocking each other down. The harmony of shoulder pads colliding and chin straps buckling made Clifford’s Saturday mornings complete. While people all across the nation gathered around barbeque grills and motor homes outside stadiums for tailgate parties, Clifford had chosen instead, some fifteen years earlier, to become entirely engrossed in the world of YMCA youth football. Tall stadium lights and upper decks, marching bands and nationally broadcast games held not even a wick to supportive parents with umbrellas and coolers, shouting things like “Good job, Billy,” and “Way to go, Jimmy!” Clifford could smile, watching the confusion of the little cheerleaders and the players with their total lack of technique, full of dreams.

106 / Blackwater Review

He would always tell Dottie, “A writer has to step back sometimes and find another place when he’s frustrated.”

“You work at an effing tire plant,” she replied, throwing a flower vase.

Clifford knew she didn’t, and couldn’t, understand the therapy this pastime provided. Hours and hours spent weaving tales of the dusty frontier, muddy streets, and rowdy saloons often drained Clifford to near empty, leaving him with a space that Dottie refused to acknowledge. He always felt that her tackling skills mirrored those of the boys on the field. She hit high, rarely knocking Clifford down unless he hadn’t braced himself.

Clifford made his way up the bleachers, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the warmup routine of his beloved First National Bank Golden Lions. He exhaled that common winter steam and watched as the boys had fun with their share, pretending (when adults weren’t watching) to smoke. Some of the players jumped up and down, others stretched, and two boys threw a football back and forth.

Clifford found his seat by Ronnie Fenton. The cold bleacher sent a shock wave up his spine and reminded him of the phone number he had taken from a commercial on television touting a lawyer who specialized in helping individuals hurt on the job. The guy had done absolutely nothing to help Clifford. Pondering that for a moment, Clifford realized how thankful he was that admission to these games was free.

“Hey, Ronnie,” Clifford said, still looking forward at the group of Saturday- morning warriors preparing to scuffle with the enemy.

“Cliff, I’m freezing,” Ronnie replied.

“Yeah. It’s cold.” Clifford turned his head to the other end of the field where Miller’s Cash and Carry Sledgehammers went through similar stretch-and-fart noise routines. He watched as the largest boy on the team touched his toes, stretching his hamstrings in an oddly professional manner.

Clifford balanced on his wallet, finding the equilibrium he was used to. Still looking forward, he said, “Dave’s kid’s gonna play, I see.”

Schofield / 107

“He always plays,” Ronnie replied, lowering his cup of hot chocolate. Clifford cleared his throat in disgust and turned his head back to the Golden Lions’ side of the field. He squinted, trying to prevent the moisture in his eyes from freezing. “Our guys look loose, kinda carefree,” he said.

“Yeah, almost a little too loose.”

“How was Junior this morning?”

“Ready to go,” Ronnie replied, this time with a newly discovered confidence. His eyes lit up at any mention of his son.

With those three words said, the paper banners ripped, teams lined up, and for forty-five minutes the Golden Lions attacked the Sledgehammers like the Talley Brothers on a Dodge City bank. Clifford looked on with restrained intensity while others jumped to their feet, yelling and screaming. “Hit him!” “Put a lick on him!” “Bust him!” Dave’s kid was stung, pecked, slapped, pricked, pinched, smothered, and covered, all game long. He stood taller and wider than all the other players on every team in the league but would no longer be the subject of parent debates on whether he should be allowed to play because of his size. The lamb lay down while the Lions enjoyed their victory pizza.

***

Standing on the highest bleacher row, Clifford looked out over the field. He surveyed the landscape and let the wind touch him with a chilly uncertainty. He took in the trace of smoke from its winter wings and examined the tracks that stretched far out of sight.

Outside the chain link, Clifford found his Palomino had returned. Most likely it had been spooked by the scent of smoke, Clifford thought. He admired its color, the pale blond coat holding the brown leather saddle. His rifle was still tucked inside its holster on the side of the saddle, his trail rope wound in a circle hanging close beside. Clifford mounted the impressive steed, gave it a pat on the neck, and gently spurred it forward. He rode back home to sift through the ashes of another failed marriage, to see if his notebook, by some caring fortune, had been spared from the flames.

108 / Blackwater Review

Pap in Pictures

Malina Gabriel

The box lay open, and there was his entire life rummaged through and out of order like the chaos of the day. I am missing him and there he was, bundled in his cap and blanket while his mama waved his arm at the camera. I put my hand in the box as if I were sticking it in a hat to draw out the magic number; the number was four. In his lederhosen, looking humiliated, he stood by the flagpole and saluted. Paper sticking as the next image is peeled apart. Two, on a tricycle with a lollipop hanging out of his mouth. 12, white apron on, helping bag groceries at the family store. 16, in his uniform, his hair wisping under his cap, wide-smiled and gleaming as Mama cried. Edges were worn and curled from being held every night.

A letter, “We are sorry to inform you...missing in action...,” his name on it. The signature at the bottom, tearsmudged. My goose bumps made me shiver.

23, Pap and Millie, on their first date, standing in the doorway. 17, Pap and Red, faces dirty, except for their smiles, holding the captured Nazi flag. I held that flag with all its signatures and traced his name. 19, after returning from the war, sitting on his Indian, the tailpipe glistening. He was not the boy in the lederhosen anymore. His muscles bulging through his army shirt. 25, Pap, with Millie holding her stomach on their wedding day. That smirkish grin, that his daughter would soon own, plastered across his face.

25, pastel pinks and greens on his stomach, as we both slept. Chaos finally catches up and the box is whisked away. I cry.

Gabriel / 109

Old Stick

Ron Frazer

Saw a brittlecone pine clinging to a rock in the Sierras; looked dead to me, like driftwood stuck in a crack.

They say it was there when Jesus calmed the waters. So what’s it got to show for three thousand years, a shadow?

Interesting getting old. Maybe the way to get really old is to take very little and give nothing back. Be a brittle old stick.

At Eddie’s on 9th and Peachtree

Joanna Soria

Red-faced ancient on wooden barstool eats alone, stabs at steak and eggs with a shivering fork, floods the plate with Tabasco that spills like liquid flame of Pompeii, but slower.

Brings fork to meat, meat to mouth, eyes a waitress as she leans across a booth: foreign flavor, lone survivor of time and tobacco

Shapely waitress with methodical grin seems to enjoy idle chit-chat with omelet lovers, taps pen on pad and grapples for syrup-sticky pocket change, then stumbles back to 211B like a runner after the 10K, but slower.

Sleeps with the light on and shares a bed with Jack Daniels— and others; spills magma down the throat to dull the senses, wipes the day’s grime on her apron.

Isolationism

Bobby Roy

A sharp, high-pitched whine startled Jeremy’s eyes open, cracking the thin film of sleep that coated his eyelids. He was forced to shut them again quickly as small blades of light penetrated the slanted blinds covering his window and stung his dilated pupils. He was sitting at his desk, his arms folded into a makeshift pillow in front of his keyboard. A halfempty can of soda sat to his right, the bottom sealed to the desk by a coat of sugary residue. His back ached from sleeping in his computer chair all night. Forcing himself to stare through the clouds in his eyes, Jeremy quickly reread the document displayed on his monitor. “WWII and the End of Isolationism by Jeremy Ellis” was centered in bold at the top of the screen. He reached onto his bed and pulled his backpack free of the tangled sheets that he hadn’t slept in the night before. He clicked the “print” icon, grabbed a clean change of clothes from the pile next to his bed, switched off the alarm, and staggered into the bathroom.

Jeremy twisted the quartz knob above the smooth, white bathtub, allowing hot jets of water to hiss out of the showerhead. He let the water flow over him, hoping it would wash away the fatigue from his restless night. The uncomfortable position he’d slept in left him groggy. He scrubbed his face with a bar of vanilla-scented soap in the hope that the sharp, sweet scent would wake him up.

He shut off the water and dressed himself. He always wore t-shirts and jeans. Staring at his face in the mirror for a few minutes, Jeremy ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair, which hung just below his ears and covered his forehead. His blue eyes peeked out from behind a translucent wall of brown fibers. He ruffled his hair, giving himself a disheveled look. His faded shirt and jeans looked awkward on his skinny build. He smiled, remembering arguments with his parents over his hairstyle and clothing.

112 / Blackwater Review

“You’re a representative of this family,” his mother would often say, “and you need to dress decently.” But ever since his father and older brother had died in a car accident, his mom had stopped fighting with Jeremy.

Jeremy descended the staircase, sliding his hand down the brown wooden banister, and skipped the last two steps, landing on the soft grey carpet of the den. He walked into the kitchen, finding it clean but empty. The plain off-white wallpaper gave the room a soft glow, while the leaf-patterned border along the top helped break the monotony. It was subtle. His mother had always preferred minimalist designs to gaudy and loud patterns. A familiar-looking yellow note stuck to the refrigerator door caught Jeremy’s eye.

Jeremy, I won’t be home until late. I’m showing three houses today, and I’ll be at the office late doing paper work. There is food in the fridge. Be good in school. Mom. His mother had been forced to get a job as a realtor to provide for her family after the tragedy. They had nearly lost everything when she slipped into depression. It had been difficult for him to picture his mother unhappy before the accident. She seemed imperturbable. Afterwards, he would find his mother lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, her eyes thick and puffy, used tissues carpeting the floor around her. In the morning it would all be gone. She never admitted to crying. She never got upset around Jeremy.

Jeremy reached for the same cup he used every morning and poured himself a glass of milk. This never would have been possible before the accident. Glasses were a precious commodity in the mornings with everyone rushing to get to school or work. Dishes would be piled in the sink and remained unwashed until that evening. Between the four of them, they used up every glass in the house within a day or so. Now, dishes were abundant. Many would simply sit in the dishwasher clean, only to be washed three and four times before they were used.

He sat in the living room on a bright-green oriental couch, sipping his breakfast and staring at the pictures on the walls around the room. Most of the pictures were of the four of them. One, of his dad carrying his old dog Max, forced a smile

Roy / 113

“What were you thinking?” she had yelled. “I have enough trouble taking care of the kids. You’re away at work during the day and Jeremy and Brandon are away at school. I’m going to wind up training and taking care of it.”

“The man at the pound assured me the dog was already housebroken,” his dad replied gently. “You won’t have to train him at all. Just feed and walk....”

“I don’t care what he told you,” she interrupted. “The dog certainly isn’t staying in the house.” The dog slept on his mother’s stomach that night. She was just like that. She would get angry at first, but in the end she was too kind to remain angry with anyone.

When Max had died two years ago, they had all gathered in a corner of their backyard to give him a funeral. The body wasn’t included in the funeral because his mother couldn’t bring herself to carry it home. They had dedicated a section of the garden to Max and planted a dogwood tree in the center.

His favorite picture was of his mother and father’s wedding day. They had eloped from college, his father twenty-two and his mother only twenty. They looked so happy in the picture. The resemblance between Jeremy and his father was uncanny. While his older brother had favored his mother, Jeremy had the same build, skin tone, and eye color as his father. His mother used to remind him of it constantly.

“Don’t listen to a word those girls say,” she would whisper while ruffling his hair. “You have the most handsome face in the world. I know, because I married a man with the same face.” While Jeremy looked very much like his father, he had always found he was much closer to his mother. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his father, just that he always came to her with his concerns and problems. She always seemed to have an answer that made him feel better. He always felt warm and secure around her.

114 / Blackwater Review onto Jeremy’s face. The dog had been a present for his mother on Valentine’s Day twelve years ago. His mother hadn’t been happy about it at first.

Jeremy hoped his mother would remarry someday, not for his sake but for hers. He knew she wouldn’t, though. She was too much afraid to become entangled with anyone else, afraid for Jeremy’s well-being. His mother worked long hours to maintain the lifestyle that his father’s engineering degree had provided them. He and his brother had never had to go without before, and she wanted to ensure that Jeremy never did. She didn’t have time for a boyfriend.

When the money had first started to dry up, Jeremy’s mother was enrolled in several therapy sessions a week and hardly noticed the financial problems that loomed ahead of them. Once she realized what might happen to them if she didn’t find work, she became angry with herself. She quit the therapy sessions and began a crusade to find a job, any job. She eventually found job as a realtor, showing houses every few days. He saw her a lot then. She would come home from work in the evenings and fix dinner for the two of them. Still, she didn’t make enough money. It looked as though they would lose the house after a while. Once, Jeremy came home and found his mother sitting in the living room. She simply sat, staring out the window until she noticed Jeremy. She grabbed and hugged him. Her cheeks were hot and sticky.

“We’ll be all right, do you hear me?” she whispered into his hair. “I’m going to get more work, I promise. You don’t have to worry about a thing.” She worked longer hours after that. Eventually she was working six days a week and always put in overtime. On Sundays she would rest. Jeremy rarely saw her. He knew she was doing it for him, but he wished she would come home early sometimes. He wished she would just let go of the house.

Jeremy finished his drink, left the cloudy glass on top of the dishwasher, and walked back up the stairs to his room. His paper sat in the printer tray. He collected the pieces, stapled them together, and slid the finished product into his backpack.

“I guess that’s it, then,” he muttered, crossing his history paper off his mental list. He took one last look around his room, collected his things, and headed into the hallway.

Roy / 115

Locking the front door behind him, he approached the trunk of his car. He tossed his backpack inside and took one last look back at his house before he left. It was a large house, much too large for just two people. It was an unnecessary two stories high, but he knew his mother would never sell it. She wasn’t a practical person but a sentimental one. Jeremy turned the key in the ignition. The car began to hum and vibrate beneath him. He pushed cans and papers from beneath his feet so he could operate the pedal unobstructed.

“I really need to clean this up,” he muttered as he backed out of the driveway. “Oh, well, I’ll have plenty of time this afternoon,” he thought, “plenty of time to clean up the mess.”

116 / Blackwater Review

Smile

David Hunter

The girl has a good smile, wide, with lots of teeth. It makes a pretty face beautiful, and he can’t help but peek at her over his paper. He rarely smiles, and when he does it never reaches his eyes, for that would mean happiness and he doesn’t live there anymore. Anna had a contrived smile, tight-lipped and sneering, used only when something could be gained, like a new tennis bracelet or a trip to Vegas with her girlfriend. Anna smiled at the door when she told him about the other man. Anna smiled across the courtroom when an unsmiling judge told him she got the house and the kids. Anna even smiled when she declared how sorry she was things had come to this, but she and the kids needed a father who didn’t live for his job.

The girl is smiling at her friend as they talk about a biology final and whether to bring cheese dip or sausage balls to the Christmas party. He knows he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but the friend has a loud voice that makes him grit his teeth. The girl has a soft voice, and he wonders what it would be like to kiss her. Not that he ever would. She’s too young, too pretty, too good. The girl reminds him of Zoey and he thinks of the class they shared his sophomore year. He wonders, as he often does these days, why he chose Anna over Zoey. Zoey would never tell people the cubic zirconium ring she made him buy was real because he couldn’t afford what she deserved. Zoey would never have a girlfriend cover for her while she and the other man went to Atlanta. Zoey would never do a lot of things, including forgive him. He wishes Anna hadn’t been so good in bed, or at least he hadn’t been so willing.

He sees a shadow fall across his paper, snapping him back to the coffee shop. He glances up and the girl is smiling at him.

“Sorry if we were being too loud, sir,” she says, and he sees that her eyes fit her smile. “I guess we’re a little excited about the holidays.”

“Didn’t notice,” he says pleasantly, and his voice is warmer than one might expect.

She turns to walk back to her table, and he calls back after her, “Good luck on the biology final.”

He smiles.

Hunter / 117

That One Time

Stephanie Thomas

I didn’t mean it, really. Sometimes things happen when they’re not supposed to. Like, when I’m taking out the garbage and accidentally forget to. So, yeah, it’s still up in the yard, rather than down by the street. But no, really.

I forgot to. And that’s okay, really. The guys’ll come again next Monday to get it. And the two extra bags on the side.

And then there’s when I was supposed to clean up the mess the dog left because I forgot to let him out and he just.... Well, yeah. You get the picture, really. That was bad, and yeah, I won’t do it again.

Just like how I won’t forget to do the dishes so that the house never smells like rotten broccoli for two days. Really.

But there was bleach, and that helped a little, but only if you like the smells of bleach and rotten broccoli mixed. So I won’t do that again. Really.

And then there’s that one time, when I went out and got drunk. Well, I didn’t mean to run the stop sign on the way home. The needles and then the cold...well.

That was scary. I definitely won’t do that again. Really.

The Ones They Don’t Lock Away

Tamara Luthy

Observation: in a public school, any surface that can be written on by students will be. In study hall we had those brown tables with the weird peely fake wood stuff on them. Of course the fact that the stuff can rip off means that everyone must rip it off and then draw on the cardboard/cork/whatever underneath. There’s always a Satanic symbol, always a few generic Ashley loves Jordans, and always some swirly doodle carved into the wood. Today’s addition:

I dream of European lovers I haven’t met.

I looked over at the guy who wrote it. He was new, probably another military brat like me, and had the coolest hair I’d ever seen on a real guy. It was all shaggy and dark brown, and swirling around his head like he’d slept on it funky for six days.

The poor guy’s name was Jeremiah Dumas (pronounced Doo-moss), so everyone called him Jeremiah Dumb Ass like that was such a clever play on words. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard him speak before, except to correct the teacher when he mispronounced the name and made all the real dumb asses hoot with joy. Jeremiah. I love the name Jeremiah.

“What does that mean?” Wow. Even I was amazed at my brazenness.

“Uh?” I caught him in the middle of adding little artsy flourishes to the word “lovers.” He blinked and looked at me as if he thought he was invisible and was stunned to find that wasn’t true. He had those funky birth-control glasses with the half-inch-thick lenses. They made his eyes look unnaturally bulgy and a bit froggish, but in a cute way.

“That thing. On the table, about the European lovers? What’s the significance of that?”

“Oh, it’s painted on a wall at FSU. In red paint. My friend Anthony told me about it. He goes there and thought it was funny.”

He said it as if it had answered my question, but now I was even more confused. I guess I could have said, “Oh, I see” Luthy / 119

“So why did you feel the need to write it on the table?”

“I don’t know.” He went back to adding an extra swoop on the end of “met.” Very curious.

I brought The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying to lunch with me in case Brittany wasn’t there. People tend to give you weird looks if you bring a book like that to some public place, but then again they also leave you alone. When I was a lot younger, like six or so, the teachers asked my mom if I could skip a grade. My mom decided that it would only make me socially inept or something to go to school with people older than me, so my parents said no and left me with my peers. I think if she’d known how socially inept I’d be without the extra year’s difference, she might have said “Screw it” and let me skip.

Not that it would have helped me necessarily. I’ve got one of those terrible baby faces that makes me look about twelve, and I’ve got braces. Braces, plus a five foot nothing height, automatically gets you at least two years deducted from your age. I’ll probably be carded for alcohol until I’m like thirty, and by then I’ll be gratified. But right now...I hate it. People are always saying, “In ten years you’ll be glad at your youthful appearance.” Not young, but youthful.

Only two more weeks, though, and the braces were coming off. I was inordinately excited by this. Yippee! I’ll almost look my age. Immediately I thought of Jeremiah. I wanted to tell him, but he’d probably look at me and be like, “So?” I mean, how’s that for a booty call: “Hey, baby, I get my braces off in two weeks!” I’m sure he’d be very impressed.

Brittany rushed in and complained.

“Ugh! Sorry I’m late. I had to stay after and talk to Mrs. Sanger about my notes. They were due today but I fell asleep on the couch as soon as I got home yesterday and didn’t wake up until about an hour ago so I didn’t get a chance to type them.

120 / Blackwater Review or “Cool” or something else like that, but what kind of person writes I dream of European lovers I haven’t met on a table in study hall? I had to know.

I missed half of my first class today because Mom didn’t wake me up so I missed the bus. Again. You know why she didn’t wake me up? She went shopping! And then she didn’t come home from Wal-Mart or wherever she was until like ten minutes after school already started and I was like, ‘Mom. I told you to wake me up at five. Where’ve you been?’ And then she was like, ‘I had to go buy you some breakfast.’ And then I was like, ‘Breakfast? Mom, I have to go to school!’ And then she handed me the bag and it was an Egg McMuffin that was all cold and didn’t even have any bacon on it, so I threw it away and we left. I think Mrs. Sanger was mad. I hope she didn’t count me tardy again, because then it’ll be my sixth tardy this year and that’s two absences. Gosh!”

It’s weird, because Brittany is one of those people nothing ever really happens to, but she always has something to say and always manages to make it interesting. She and her mom have this loud and dramatic relationship. You’d think they hated each other to hear them talk, but they actually get along strangely well, aside from all the yelling. They’re a lot closer than I am to my parents, anyway.

We grew up together, in a weird way. Our parents knew each other when they were stationed together in Hamburg and we were still in diapers. We used to steal each others’ bottles and then run around her mom’s kitchen table. Man, we were the best of friends. It’s great how kids make friends. It was so much easier back then; your best friend is the kid who helps you take your Barbies on safari and doesn’t laugh too hard when you accidentally swallow a bug. Then when we were about six her family got shipped away, and later mine did too. Strangely enough, eight years later I saw her here on the first day of high school. Her dad got shipped back here to Eglin and mine retired from the Air Force and became a slimy civil servant. Her parents had just gotten a divorce about a year ago, when he was about to be shipped off again. He left, they stayed, and we’re best friends again.

I wanted to tell her about Jeremiah and what he wrote on the desk, but she was still breathing heavily and feeling talk-

Luthy / 121

I stayed up a lot later than I wanted to that night, thinking about imaginary conversations I could have with Jeremiah Dumas. I’m already a bit of an insomniac, and it doesn’t help that my room is positioned so that the light from the streets cascades in at all hours of the night. We don’t have any curtains, just these flimsy Venetian blinds. The ends are all brittle and break easily, and I always snap the ends off when I’m upset or sad. As a result, the only bits left on the side of the blind next to my bed are really high up. That doesn’t help keep the light out, but sometimes it helps me sleep.

I bet he’s an artist, the way he doodles millions of little boxes and swirls and goofy cartoons on his notebook. Maybe he could be someone who gets it. Maybe we could actually have a decent conversation.

I hoped that maybe he’d been wondering about things like God and the nature of people too. Maybe we’d share some awareness, some special kinship because of it.

In a weird way, he reminded me of this guy I knew back when I was in sixth grade and he was in eighth, who tried to argue with me about the perfect society. Back then I was still Catholic and trying to love humanity despite our mean ways. He had this theory that the perfect society could only be achieved if we let go of superstitions and belief in the afterlife. (I probably signed myself at such a suggestion, pious little idiot that I was.) He said we were almost to the point in science where we could manipulate cells so that they would reproduce indefinitely, maybe forever. If the cells could live forever, he said, theoretically we could too.

I was horrified. He said that once we accepted our “cosmic insignificance,” we’d have no need for creativity or compassion or love. We’d have the comfort of safety and a brotherhood of man; who needs love when you can have logic? Love

122 / Blackwater Review ative, so I just sat back and listened to her describe the biology lesson. I’d tell her later. I love Brittany, even though outwardly we have absolutely nothing in common. Some friends are just as great at fifteen as they are at five.

is messy and fake; love is an outward search for something missing inside.

It freaked me out to imagine millions of complacent, hollow people who couldn’t even feel enough to know loneliness. So I drew him a picture of what I thought a person in his perfect society would look like: gaunt limbs, grey flesh and an evil, misshapen little head. I called it “Creature of Pure Logic,” which was his pretty little catch phrase for the future Man. It looked like something out of a Tool video, but I thought it mighty clever at the time. I showed it to a friend of mine, and she said, “It looks like him!” It did, kinda. Of course I felt very very validated, as if I had proved my point by drawing a mean caricature of him. It was only later that I gave his opinion a second chance. I guess the reason his idea bugged me so much was that, deep down, I thought he had a point.

Five days later, I felt comfortable enough to actually talk to Jeremiah. Before that, whenever I saw him I’d just sit stock-still except for my fidgety leg. I’d bury my face in a book and pretend to read while I really observed him. But today, he started flicking this little ball of paper back and forth, back and forth. He miscalculated at one point and it landed in front of me. I flicked it back and we started playing table soccer. Maybe the fact that he’s playing with me means he is interested. Maybe I should say something brilliant and he’ll want to know more about me.

“You know, I think you’d really like Nietzsche.”

“Meechee? Is that a person or a food?” Mmm, this may not go too well. My whole conversation, which I had painstakingly gone over in my head all week, relied on his knowing who Nietzsche was.

“A person. He’s like this German philosopher?”

“Oh, that guy! Sorry, I thought you said something else. I was like, Meechee? What is Meechee and why would I like it?”

“So you’ve heard of him.” Instant ten cool points for Jeremiah.

“Is he the one that everyone says went crazy?” Luthy / 123

“Yeah, he did. It’s really strange how he went crazy. He was always talking about how the strong do what they can to exploit the weak and stuff, and how the weak just have to take it. But then one day he saw this guy beating a horse and freaked out. He threw himself on the horse.”

“Oh.”

Enter awkward silence.

“They think he might have had syphilis or something.”

His lack of expression made me nervous, so I decided to keep talking. Silly me.

“So yeah, I think you’d like him. He’s really pessimistic and all, but he has a point.”

“How’d he get syphilis?”

“I dunno. Probably the usual way people get syphilis.” This was not how I had imagined this conversation at all. I wish Brittany was here, she’d start babbling about something inane and funny that would distract him from my sorry attempt at conversation. I’m so not good at this.

“I don’t know if I believe that people go crazy at all.”

Off topic, but hey. He responded at least. “What do you mean?”

“Well, who are we to judge what’s sane and what isn’t? How could we know? Maybe they’re the only ones who know what’s really going on and that’s why they ‘go crazy.’ It’s just too much to handle.”

Excellent observation! Ten more cool points for you! “So are we the crazy ones? The ones they don’t lock away?”

“I don’t know. Are we?”

“Are we?”

“Maybe.”

When he grinned that deeply, his eyes no longer looked froggy.

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Contributors

Rusty Adams of Crestview is inspired by nature and natural themes and uses them and poetry in his artwork.

LaTisa Anderson, of Dale City, Virginia, is in the United States Air Force. She was the winner of the OWC African American Student Association first open mike night and hopes to be featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam in the future.

Linda Suzanne C. Borgen, a returning student, enjoys camping on the beach in August and riding roller coasters.

Rosanna Michelle Boylan found that “Bustie” had a mind of her own in personifying various ethnic backgrounds in the diverse colors of an Awabi shell glaze.

Michael Burke, now an OWC graduate, won the Rietta W. B. Howard Prize for Excellence in Writing and Literature while he was still a high-school student.

Lynda Cast of Shalimar, a professional musician, is thoroughly enjoying her return to art classes after many years.

Melanie Coerver of Fort Walton Beach is nearing completion of her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Antioch University of Seattle and working as a scientific engineer.

Kevin M. Cook, a 21-year-old engineering major, thinks his passion for pottery “may be the beginning of something beautiful.”

Joyce M. Cross of Shalimar, formerly of Santa Barbara, CA, is attending art classes “because my daughter sent me.”

Kaitlyn Ducharme is a fifteen-year-old sophomore at OWC Collegiate High School. She was born in Bedford, Massachusetts, on May 14, 1989.

Alison Dunn is an Early Childhood Development major hoping to graduate in the fall. One of her goals in life is to be an ambassador to children in underprivileged countries.

Contributors / 125

Stefanie Duurvoort of Niceville is pursuing a degree in nursing at Auburn University/Montgomery. She does volunteer work and edits the newspaper of her Air Force ROTC unit.

Ron Frazer, a technical writer living in Niceville, Florida, taught secondary school math and science following the U.S. intervention in Grenada and writes mostly of his experiences on that island. He has been published in SandScript and will be published in African American Review in 2005.

Malina Gabriel spends time with her menagerie and loves to garden: “It’s therapeutic.”

Ian P. Glending of Santa Rosa Beach enjoys working with a variety of media but prefers charcoal and oil painting.

David Hunter is a military child who lived in Huntsville, Alabama, from 1985 to 2002. He currently works as a mechanical engineer for General Dynamics OTS in Niceville, Florida.

Brooke Johnson plans to graduate from The University of West Florida in the summer of 2005 and then to pursue a career writing gaming reviews.

“Jericho” Phillip Kilpatrick has worked as a mural artist in New Orleans and a computer graphics designer in Atlanta. He plans to pursue a master’s degree in art therapy.

Linda H. King discovered an interest in art after a career in accounting and finance and plans to continue with sculpting to bronze.

Joan M. Langham, who formerly worked out of a studio in Orlando, has participated in many group shows and juried art shows.

Paul V. Lijewski of Shalimar plans to become a Web designer and follow his dream in Arizona.

Tamara Luthy is a senior at Okaloosa-Walton Collegiate High School who wishes to study philosophy and anthropology. She lives at home with her family and their multitude of dogs.

Max McCann of Shalimar has been painting for a few years and plans to take classes in sculpture and perhaps carpentry.

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Maria B. Morekis has taught mixed media art, photography, fused glass, and “soon” pottery as a volunteer in the Okaloosa County school system for more than 22 years.

Jessica Paliza of Niceville continues to write poetry at the University of South Florida in Tampa as she studies cinematography and plans to work in film.

Caitlin Pierson, a junior at OWC Collegiate High School, won third place in the James N. LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest in 2004 and first in 2005. When not writing or studying, she sings with a contemporary rock band.

Ana M. Poddubny, born in the Republic of Panama, has been painting with pastels and finds the Niceville area a great artistic inspiration.

Rhoda Ramirez de Arellano is the daughter of a musician and an artist who gave her every encouragement to follow an artistic career. Now in the latter half of her life, she finds that she expresses herself best visually.

Kevin Taylor Ray followed Hunter S. Thompson on and off the emerald shores near Eglin and Hurlburt Air Force Bases. “May I be so lucky as to continue in like fashion on that quest for the truth. God Bless.”

Megan Recher plans to study architecture and photography in San Francisco after graduating from OWC.

Bobby Roy is an 18-year-old senior at the OWC Collegiate High School.

Tim Russell enjoys all the computer arts, would love someday to be a computer animator or game designer, and is eager to join the real world.

Luke Schofield has always wanted to write, first western and adventure stories, then songs and poetry. His influences include Gary Paulsen, Douglas Adams, Faulkner, C.S. Lewis, and Poe.

William John Sharratt, married and the father of two children, has a B.S. from UWF and has retired from the Air Force.

Contributors / 127

Joanna Soria is a member of Choctawhatchee High School’s 2002 Hall of Fame. She is a fan of the artists Christo and Jeanne Claude.

Sidney Speer enjoys a good adventure and finds writing to be one.

Stephanie Thomas is an aspiring linguist as well as a poet. She enjoys music and knitting and dabbles in digital imaging in her free time.

Abraham Toner was born and raised in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. He has lived in the Florida Panhandle for the last four years.

Amber West currently resides in Freeport, Florida. She has enjoyed writing for thirteen years.

Okaloosa-Walton College 100 College Boulevard Niceville, Florida 32578 www.owc.edu

Okaloosa-Walton College is an equal access, equal opportunity institution.

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