Voices Breaking Ground by NY Writers Coalition

Writing from The Prince George & The Times Square Edited by Ann Lewinson & Arnine Cumsky Weiss

N Y W R I T E R S C O AL I T I O N P R E S S

Writing From The Prince George & The Times Square

NY WRI TERS COALI TI ON PRESS SPRI NG 2017

ISBN: 978-0-9986029-1-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017935056

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Upon publication, copyright to individual works returns to the authors. Editors: Arnine Cumsky Weiss & Ann Lewinson Layout: Daisy Flores Cover Image: Concerto by Robert Maitland Interior Images: Abraham Lincoln the Third, Robert Maitland & Ann Quintano Voices Breaking Ground is a collection of writing and art from NY Writers Coalition’s supportive housing workshops at The Prince George & The Times Square NY Writers Coalition Press, Inc. 80 Hanson Place, Suite 604 Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 398-2883 info@nywriterscoalition.org www.nywriterscoalition.org

Illustration by Ann Quintano

Contents The Prince George Introduction By Arnine Cumsky Weiss Dream Michael La Bombarda

My Muse Robert Maitland

Stephanie Ann Quintano

Enlightening You Michael La Bombarda

Thread Ann Quintano

Bedbugs Michael La Bombarda

The Intruder Michael La Bombarda

The Fedora Ann Quintano

Howard Goes to Times Square

Michael La Bombarda The Remington Ann Quintano

Two Continents Michael La Bombarda

The Rooming House Ann Quintano

When Michael La Bombarda

Potatoes Ann Quintano

Photograph: Circa 1950s

Michael La Bombarda World AIDS Day Kelly Parker

Invisible Ann Quintano

Poem About Beauty Michael La Bombarda

Poem Michael La Bombarda

The Times Square Introduction By Ann Lewinson Two Pieces (Stories/P.S. of a Writer)

Demetrice Heyward Apology to William Carlos Williams

Gary Roth (Dr. Lafter) Idle Rene L. Santiago

Summer Memories Gary Roth (Dr. Lafter)

Memories of Coney Island Gary Roth

(Dr. Lafter) Lovey and Peacy Adapha Medina Beach

Tired Adapha Medina Beach

Homeless is my Name Emmeline

From the Gettysburg Address Variations

Abraham Lincoln the Third Acknowledgements

About NY Writers Coalition Inc.

Illustration by Ann Quintano

Introduction Part I The Prince George Hotel, a landmark on E. 28 th Street between Madison and 5th Avenues, was the site of the very first NY Writers Coalition workshop more than a dozen years ago. Writing workshops have been offered on and off since that time, but they started back in earnest in June of 2015. On Monday afternoons on the 10th floor in the art room, a group of writers gets together to create – create work that is rich, funny, poignant, touching, irreverent and new. But it’s not just the work, it’s also the process. Following the guidelines of the Writers Coalition, the work is created in the workshop in response to prompts (or not), it is shared among the group (or not), everything is treated as fiction and the feedback is only what you like and what you remember. The Prince George is unique in many ways, but especially because the group not only writes together, the participants live together and see each other in the elevators, coming and going in the lobby and at building functions. The level of respect, kindness and support that the participants show each other is a lesson to behold. Week after week, it’s amazing to see the same prompt interpreted in unique and different ways. The writing gets better because of the push and the encouragement of the group. Individual successes are cheered collectively. Just like the grandeur of the building listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, this workshop, its participants and the work that is generated are nothing short of precious gems.

A RNINE C UMSKY W EISS Workshop Leader, The Prince George

Spring 2017

Photograph by Ann Quintano

Dream Michael La Bombarda Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve stopped Dreaming of you. Gone is the image Of us walking Along a beach Holding hands. Gone is the kiss I give you on parting Each night from you. Gone into thin air Is the balloon I gave you That held my heart. I cannot dream Of you any longer Since you Became me And I you. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream Of that For an eternity, And some more.

My Muse Robert Maitland My muse is a web footed goose Flapping hysterical wings Irking responsibility Squawking and running afoul Unreasonable Embarrassing Demanding sanctuary Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s such a surprising silly thing That I have to take care of it I have to It escapes my attempts at reassurance Quacking and flatfooting it In no particular direction Squawking at the blue sky Squawking at the green earth I shrugged and looked in on you You are beautiful in repose Asleep in the cool bedroom shadow And on this piece of property You sleep And my goose tucks her wings And I wait for the loveliness of rain.

Painting by Robert Maitland

Stephanie Ann Quintano Stephanie was one of those whose mind was destroyed by madness. She had loved and lived passionately. Then faded. Wilted. She didn’t know what accounted for it; was almost not aware of it except that her legs were so heavy that she was unable to move and was stuck in one place, one dismal place. She didn’t sulk, that was too gentle a word to describe what was so devastating, so tragic. She didn’t sulk; she plummeted. And Stephanie’s fading was in no way the beginning of a great plummet. There must have been sinews made of harm and brokenness snarled inside her creating this person that needed only one small push to begin unraveling-spun out arms and legs askew. They all stood in a row and swore, “I didn’t push her. No one did.” Some, in the periphery of her life, explained it, “Misfired. Misfit. She wasn’t made right—right from the beginning.” “Poor Soul”, someone else had said, “Poor Soul,” and shook their head. Stephanie didn’t shake her head. She never moved her head because she feared pieces of it would fall out and shatter on the tile floor of the bathroom where she sat most often, back propped to the porcelain tub cool in sweltering August days. She saw remnants of her mind disappear for fear, for nostalgia, for disappointments; for hunger. She would never shake her head. Folks shook their heads at her with, “Tsk, tsk, poor soul. Poor Soul.” Who knows where it begins inside a mind once sharp and gallant and gleeful—where it begins to untether itself from reality. Gone is that one place, can you find it? Can you see it, then, avoid it? Circle around it or will it catch up to you still, as if it was meant to be; premeditated? The gods at play deciding Stephanie will go mad now. And it was the last time she would ever shake her head— stepping out of the bath like a Bonnard or Degas; damp, thick towel about her; a damp print from her foot on the bath mat; her hair long,

thick black swirls scooped off her neck and flung over as she bowed her head, as if she could fling her whole self into a summersault, but now shaking her head to dry her locks, and running her fingers through her hair casting light spritz of water spraying, spraying everywhere the towel is dropped from her hands, and her pale, rounded body naked in the yellow light. It was the last time she remembered shaking her head. And now covered in layers of clothes, her hair dull and matted, she sits in a corner on the floor and someone in white approaches her with a tiny paper cup with four pills; one blue, two white, one green, round and rectangular and she thinks they say, “Poor soul, take the pill, you’re ill. Then you can shake your head again. Bravo, Brava, well-done, my poor, poor soul.” But she cannot be sure if they said that or if it was a voice in her head or in the wall and something told her to get up and dance and so she did. Someone had given her an invitation to a waltz and so she went and she glided past a mirror while on her stocking feet and she glanced this way and that and she saw in the mirror a raving beauty with glorious blue-black shining hair and a beautiful red satin dress and stiletto heels and she said, “I love that woman. That’s who I want to be when I grow up.” And the room broke into applause and all the dancers gathered on the floor and began to glide, the waltz, the beautiful waltz. And she felt it had worked—the four pills—they had given wings to her feet and she smiled and she glided past the mirror again and saw the plump girl in raggedy sweats and matted hair most of which they had shorn off and her eyes were vacant where pieces of her mind had fallen out and shattered and she said, “Poor soul, poor soul. God help me if I ever become like her.” And she wrote a nonsense rhyme and chanted it to herself: When Stephanie was a child of three She gathered stones for all to see A black, a gray, a pinto one She gave each a stone and began to run She ran for all to try and catch She ran right into the raspberry patch She ran until she hit a pole

She cracked her head. They said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Poor soulâ&#x20AC;? When Stephanie grew, the crack grew with her They sent her to doctors to get well swifter She ate their pills and cried real tears She almost died from all her fears She finally died at 93 As loony a tune as ever there be She left no note for any to see She left no note for you or me This is when Stephanie was allowed to go home: when she was well enough to comb her hair and they let it grow in without shaving it, but it never grew in again thick and bouncy. Her eyes no longer had dark circles but neither were they bright and although, perhaps, not vacant, they had nothing she desired to see. She was indifferent now, not sad. She would never be on fire again. They has succeeded in their task. They had tamed her. No one ever invited her to waltz again.

Enlightening You Michael La Bombarda When I see you, I see a young woman Whose beauty exceeds Her ability to contain it, But that is good. It overflows and pours On the heads of passers-by, Men and women Of all races and creeds. When you turn your eyes In my direction, they light Up my many imperfections. To touch you would be A heinous crime that I will not commit with My lustful hands. If you knew how much I yearn for you in my heart, You would not even talk to me.

Thread Ann Quintano Melissa Saunders expected little from Rudy Perkins. She had given Rudy a bracelet which she had woven with embroidery floss left over in the toss bin by her mother’s chair—the chair, an upholstered affair with fine dark walnut. Melissa always felt the lamp by her mother’s chair gave a uniquely warm and radiant light. Her mother had let her sit there when she wove Rudy’s bracelet and it made her feel wondrously grown up and special. She felt that the radiant light stayed in her hair like a finely knit lace caplet. She had chosen yellows and reds and blues for the weaving and used long strands so the bracelet, when tied off, would have feathery tails. Melissa had loved Rudy Perkins from the get-go. She knew her to be the big sister she always wanted and actually had once. The sister she had once before the asthma attack had stolen every last breath from her and she had “wheezed her way to heaven”, her mom had said while she grew grave and heavy with sorrow. Rudy had the same dark freckles as her sister, Eloise, and smelled the same bath-fresh Ivory Snow smell. She smacked her gum; she twisted her hair about her middle finger. Now, perhaps, Rudy would twist the feathery ends of the friendship bracelet. “Thanks Melissa,” she managed to offer up reluctantly and walked off smacking her gum, mumbling with her friends, leaving Melissa far behind. Melissa, dejected, went home and found her mother in her chair with the warm lamp on. She crawled up into the chair next to her mom and laid her head on her mother’s chest, her eyes far away. “Momma,” she said in her quiet, thoughtful voice, “I miss Eloise,” and all her mother could say was, “I know, child” and all her mother could do was to give her loose strands of red and yellow and blue embroidery floss from her toss bin.

Bedbugs Michael La Bombarda Bedbugs, I fear you. I don’t want you In my apartment, Because I have many books And I do not want to throw them away, Or pack them up to get rid of you. I’ve been bitten by bedbugs before In a midtown hotel And I asked to be moved to another room, So I would not be a tasty morsel For your brethren. A friend of mine has bedbugs And I won’t let him visit me For fear of an infestation. I told him if he gave me bedbugs Even after his treatment of them, I would never talk to him again. Bedbugs, I don’t need you For entertainment. I hardly watch television Or listen to the radio. When you are thinking Of crawling under my apartment door, Stop in your tracks and take the elevator To the lobby and crawl into the street Where you will be well received And not even feared over as I do here, Though sarcasm is the province of poets Who are bitter better with a pen in hand. Bedbugs, don’t bug me, little bastards. Bedbugs, die! I will not bleed for you.

The Intruder Michael La Bombarda Preparing a meal In this tenement kitchen Is daunting. The oven, Though recently cleaned, Is challenged by roaches. The yellow light from the row Of bulbs, a starlet’s vanity, Is depressing. My brother, whom I haven’t Seen in ten years Is coming for dinner. It’s his birthday, the occasion Of our reconciliation. The snow outside is gathering Quickly into white plots of Asphalt and concrete. The noise is acute, as if a window Were open, and the street sounds Closer because of it. Then I hear A crash and someone’s hurried Footsteps in the apartment. I reach for the butcher’s knife, And hold it menacingly before me. The intruder is in front of me. His eyes are wide open, As he stares at the knife. He has a gun aimed At my stomach.

“Give me your money,” He says. “I wouldn’t Do otherwise,” I answer. I open my purse and give Him a hundred dollars. Then the doorbell rings. It’s my brother in the foyer. “Not a word,” the intruder Says, and he walks out Into the hallway. When he is out the front door, My brother, whom I’m very Happy to see under these circumstances, Walks towards me and gives me a hug, Asking me, “Are you all right? Did you just see a ghost or something?” “No, I just had an unexpected Visitor, but he left before you Came. I’m ready for a drink. Josh, what will you drink with me?” First, though, I reach to the Kitchen table and grab the gift I bought him for his birthday. Then I pour two stiff drinks And tell him all about it, Since the opportunity is gone For him to be a dead hero.

The Fedora Ann Quintano There was a man on the corner outside my window across the street from the Third Avenue El. He wore a tan, belted rain coat and a brown felt Fedora. He seemed pensive, preoccupied. I don’t think he was waiting for anyone. It seemed more likely that he found he needed to stop and think a bit, and so he did. Right there. It was a hot summer’s day and we didn’t have air conditioning. Almost nobody did and so the windows overlooking the streets of our railroad flats were where we spent our days hoping for a breeze, any small hint of moving air. I had watched Mr. Perkins in 5B wait on the same corner. He waited for a friend, a spouse, his eight year old son—I couldn’t be sure because at one time or another all seemed to appear beside him. He never traveled very far—they all came to him because he used a walker and on Thursday afternoons, the one day I guess he could afford an aide, a uniformed woman would be by his side. Over time I had watched him grow less and less able, walking slower and slower until one day he was no longer at the corner. Jessie’s Gyp Joint was the store in front of which the man in the Fedora stood. His hands rifled through his inside coat pocket until he found his pack of Lucky Strikes, turned the pack upside down tapping it until one cigarette protruded. He lit it and I watched the end turn bright orange, the edge of the paper ashen and he blew out the first puff through his mouth and nose simultaneously. He was a tall man and lean with an aquiline nose and dark, close -set eyes and an inquisitive turn of the lips. Whatever he had been thinking of seemed to have been thought successfully because his face lightened away from the intensity. He seemed almost to smile at himself. My own father left when I was three. I vaguely remembered his scent, one of cigarettes—the first puff, the first heady smell of tobacco that made me cough, then laugh. That is the only memory I have.

Every man that comes to that corner of Third Avenue and 85th Street reminds me that I have never had a father and makes some longing stir in me and some imaginings rise up. A man I conjure up out of a simple, long ago scent and the sight of a suited man holding a Lucky Strike. There is a green pole upon which the stop and go signs light up alternately alongside an overfilled trash can. The man with the Fedora steps aside as a homeless man approaches and begins rifling through the trash. He finds a discarded cup and raises it to his lips on the off chance there is anything left in it. A glass coke bottle is lucky—about two small sips remain and then the dark liquid disappears from the very pale green hue that washes over the bottle in the sunlight. He unwraps paper after paper and peeks into brown sandwich bags withdrawing empty butcher wrap. I watch as the man in the Fedora watches him and I’m not quite able to make out his expression. I can’t read him—whether he is angry or disgusted or sympathetic and I feel frustrated because, for some reason now, it is imperative for me to know. Then I see him reach into his raincoat pocket and pull some change which he extends to the man by the garbage. The man thanks him and heads to Jessie’s Gyp Joint from which he emerges seconds later chewing on a candy bar. The man in the Fedora once again is lost in thought. The afternoon heat is rising and I wonder how he can stand in suit and coat and hat, but I think he is like my uncle Lennie who also keeps the formality of suit and tie no matter how hot it is. I feel the small stream of perspiration run from my temple down to my jaw line, then drop from my face onto my lap. My tee shirt and shorts stick to me. My breath is hot, and smells from the street are rising now in the heat wafting up to me. The rank smell of summer streets. Urine from doorways, dog shit. The hot dog vendor’s sauerkraut, the accumulated garbage in the sacks in front of the buildings. Piles of them, open cardboard boxes with debris and rancid garbage. It is funny I think to myself, that I never particularly watch the women. I am only vaguely aware of women passing in their checkered Peck and Peck suits; their hair in bobs and page boys their

chunky heels tap taping the grey sidewalks. I’m aware when Mrs. Finch in 3C walks her two Pekinese, Chu Chin and Chow Toy. They are ugly little dogs, I think—but God knows I would never tell her—their faces smashed in; tongues hanging out; long brown and black hair. They pant, and drool trickles down their tiny heads. It makes me feel as if their ratty fur is in my mouth and I want to spit in some automatic reflex to it. But, mostly unaware of the women, I am always aware of the men, and it is not lost on me that I am always looking for a father—but not just any father—my father. The man on the corner in the Fedora fiddles with his wristwatch now, raises it to his ear as if to make sure it is ticking. Time must be going very slowly for him. It is for me too. Last year when I was still in grade school it seemed days went quickly and I was always running out of them. Now, with my new awakening to longing, they move slowly but inevitably. Finally, the man in the Fedora looks up. He sees me. I think to wave even tentatively because probably he needs encouragement to come up here. So eventually I wave and he waves back and smiles but he doesn’t move. It is one of those smiles that admits to someone being cute, a child, and is somewhat dismissive. I am certain he must know who I am. I am certain he must come upstairs after long, long last. He lights another cigarette and I can smell it as I used to, and it makes me cough then giggle. He is moving now, removing his hat for just a minute as he wipes the sweat from his bald head with his handkerchief than replaces the Fedora to his head. He steps off the curb now and across the street towards what must be my building and I lose sight of him. After all these years I know he is coming back, and now crossing the street to ring the bell downstairs. And I wait in the heat in the darkening flat for the ring. But there is only silence.

Howard Goes to Times Square Michael La Bombarda It was 1969. Richard Nixon was president, and Howard was a virgin. Howard called up his friends Gerry and Tom and told them he was going through with it, and if they wanted to come along with him to Times Square he could use their support. He was tired of being a virgin at the age of nineteen. Going through with it meant that he would go to Forty-fourth Street, east of Seventh Avenue to The Overnight Hotel where he had seen some prostitutes hanging out in front and would ask one of them to sleep with him for twenty dollars. He took the F train with his friends from Jamaica, Queens, which is where they all lived, to the Rockefeller Center stop at the Fortyseventh and Fiftieth Street station. There he and his friends split up. They went to walk around the Times Square area; he over to the hotel on Forty-fourth Street. From where he stood on Forty-fourth Street he could see the bright dizzying lights of Times Square in the background. There were two prostitutes in front of the hotel, and Howard walked up to one of them and asked her for a date. She was wearing a light blue and green dress with black high heels. She was a tall plainlooking redhead. She looked him over and sized him up. “I can see a cop a mile away,” she said, “this is entrapment. I’m just waiting for my boyfriend to show up.” “I’m not a cop. I’m just a horny college kid looking to get laid. I’ve got twenty dollars to pay for it,” said Howard frankly. “Twenty-dollars is not enough. Thirty is the price. Take it or leave it.” “I only have twenty-five,” Howard bargained, “couldn’t you make an exception?” “Oh, all right,” she said impatiently, “go into the hotel and rent out a room. You do have money for the room, don’t you?” Howard walked into the hotel and up to the counter. He was put off by the commercial transaction, but he knew it was de rigueur for

the occasion, so he went along with it. “Do you have a room available?” he asked. “No, we don’t,” said the desk clerk emphatically, who was only a few years older than Howard. “I just saw someone rent out a room,” said Howard. “They took a key and went up in the elevator.” “That was the last available room,” said the desk clerk. “Honestly, we don’t have anything right now. Maybe something will open up in an hour or two. We had a couple of guests who checked in for a few hours. Their rooms should be empty soon.” Howard walked out of the hotel dismayed by the run-around. He walked up to the tall redhead. “There are no rooms available,” he said sheepishly. “I got the feeling he didn’t want to rent me one.” She looked incredulous. She sized him up once again, then said, “I’ll go in and talk to him. It’s probably your trench coat; you look like a cop.” Howard waited on the sidewalk while the other prostitute looked his way. The redhead came back a few moments later. “He thinks you’re a cop. I know a place around the corner. It’s not as nice as this one. It’s a fleabag really, but they’ll rent out a room to you. Follow about a hundred feet behind me. I’ll wait for you in front of the hotel.” Howard waited for her to get a hundred feet ahead of him. Then he followed her. He looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was trailing him. A cop car drove by and gave her the look-over, but she kept on walking. His heart was beating faster, and he was excited by the prospect of sleeping with her. When she got in front of the hotel, she stopped and waited for him to catch up. Then she told him to go upstairs and rent out a room, and she would be up in a minute. “I’d like to rent out a room for a couple of hours,” Howard said. He was up a flight of stairs from the street but shielded from its noise. “Do you have any available?” “You have to pay the over-night rate. We don’t rent by the hour here. That’ll be twenty dollars, please?” Howard was pulling out his money a bill at a time from his wallet. Then the man said, “Fill this out.” The man handed him a clipboard

with a registration card clamped down on it. Howard made up a fictitious name and address while he filled out the card. He handed it to the desk clerk, who read it over, and then asked to see his identification. Howard pulled out his driver’s license and showed it to the man. The desk clerk read it, not skipping a beat. “Everything checks out,” he said. Then the prostitute arrived at the hotel desk. “Hi, honey,” she said. “Did you get the room?” She put her arm around his shoulder and pecked him on the cheek. “Yes,” Howard answered. “It’s number 15.” “That’s up a flight of stairs,” said the desk clerk. The prostitute walked up the stairs ahead of him, and he noticed how pale her ankles were as he walked up the steps behind her. When they got to the room, she gave him another peck on his cheek. He opened the door. The room was small, but had a desk and a night-table and a dresser. “Get undressed,” she said. Then she started to take off her dress, then her bra and panties. She kicked off her heels. Howard removed his coat, shirt, pants, underwear, and shoes. He glanced at his erection, which was as hard as a diamond. She had large breasts with bright red nipples. Her mons veneris was also a bright red, and there was little extra weight on her body. She was beautiful except for her ordinary looking face. After the sex was over, and she and Harold were getting dressed she said, “Did you like that? My name is Molly. It was your first time, wasn’t it? I’m always in front of The Overnight. The next time they’re sure to rent you a room. Leave this room about a minute after I leave it. We don’t want to be seen leaving the hotel at the same time. That’s to protect you from getting picked up as a john.” Howard waited in the room. He thought about what had happened both happy that the sex was over and missing the mystery it had been to him all these years. He looked at his watch. Then he walked out of the room. He said good night to the desk clerk. He walked down the steps to the sidewalk. A block away he could see a squad car stopping in front of the prostitute, a cop getting out of the car, grabbing Molly by the arm, and pushing her into the back seat. Then Howard began to run. He ran all the way to the Fifty-third

Street—Lexington Avenue station, looking behind him along the way. When he got to the platform and the train arrived, he caught his breath and boarded the train. While riding, he rehearsed in his mind the details of what had happened, so when he called his friend Johnny the story would flow coherently. He wasn’t going to run the risk of getting thrown into jail, so he wasn’t going back to see Molly again, he said to himself. Two months later For the last two months Howard had gone over in his mind every second of his lovemaking to Molly, and only because he had seen the cop get out of his car, grab Molly, and push her into the backseat of his squad car, that he did not go back to Time Square to proposition Molly again. He talked to Gerry and Tom about it, his two friends that had accompanied him to Times Square, and they both told him to forget her. They both said that since he had gotten laid, he had fallen in love with her. That if he pursued this any further he would end up in jail. Monday morning he went to his college classes in Bayside, Queens. Howard went to York College and back in the late sixties it was located in Bayside, Queens, and not Jamaica, Queens, as it is now. His English class was his favorite. It was English 102, a course that covered Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Jonathan Swift, and some Restoration Drama. He thought Shakespeare a genius. Although that was not an original thought, it meant to Howard that Shakespeare had understood human experience and had captured it for all to see in the form of his plays. They were reading Hamlet at the time. He saw himself as the Dane troubled by indecision. Should he go see Molly or not see her. Whether it was smarter to forget her, and thus escape societal punishment for transgressing its moral codes, and the embarrassment before his mother, father, and friends, etc. After English class he went to the cafeteria where he sat down with Melanie, a girl he dated with Jason now and then. They both went out with her. They were a platonic threesome. That is they did everything together—go to the movies, bowling, theater, and study too. They also did a lot of commiserating. At least Melanie did the

commiserating as Howard and Jason were constantly falling in and out of love, though both of them were as timid as a deer. They had each slept with one woman, and though they both desired Melanie they both felt that sleeping with her was out of the question. Together they went to see Dionysus in 69 acted by The Performance Group at the Garage on Mercer Street based on the play The Bacchae by Euripides. Remember this was 1969 and full nudity was rare in plays at that time, and all three of them would not have been surprised if the theater was raided in the middle of the performance. The following Monday Howard stayed in to do his homework. He was trying to get as many as he was able to that semester, and though Jason wanted to take an evening drive to the North Shore of Long Island, Howard stayed home. He studied his anthropology, history, and English. The following night he would study physics and music. All day Wednesday Howard knew he was going to Times Square that night, so he told his mother he was going to a movie in Manhattan, and he would be home by eleven o’clock. He took the F train to 42nd Street and then walked to Forty-fourth Street to the Overnight Hotel. There was a streetwalker in front of the hotel with teased black hair, a dark-colored overcoat, and black high heels. Howard walked up to her. “Hi, I was looking for one of your friends. Her name’s Molly. I went out with her a couple of months ago.” “Oh, Molly, you haven’t heard, have you?” “No, what happened?” “She’s in bad shape. Her boyfriend that crazy pimp, Bullet, beat her up. He broke a couple of ribs, her right arm, and marred her face some. She’s been in the hospital for a few days, and I hear she’ll be in for a few days more. Whatever you do, don’t mess with Bullet.” “What hospital, and what’s her last name?” “St. Clare’s. Her name’s O’Shaunessey.” “You must be Snowflake. Molly mentioned you. Anyway, thanks for the information. I’m off to the hospital.” “Hey, why don’t you ask me out?” “I really need to see Molly.”

Howard walked slowly to St. Clare’s, but he decided to stop at Smith’s tavern before continuing. He had two shots of Jack Daniel’s and two bottles of Budweiser and felt somewhat more sure of himself. He was excited by the neon and street lights and rush of pedestrians flowing through the streets in the Midtown area. When he reached St. Clare’s in Hell’s Kitchen, he went to the admittance desk and asked for Molly’s room number and stopped in a gift shop to buy her some assorted flowers before going up to her room. On the elevator ride his stomach flipped over and over despite the drinks he had had beforehand. He didn’t know what to expect when he saw her, but in the meantime he got off at her floor and followed the arrows to her room, and then he read the small letters spelling her name outside her doorway. He walked inside the room and Molly stared at him as he walked to the foot of her bed. “I hope you don’t mind me coming to visit you, Molly. I never told you my real name. It’s Howard. I heard what happened to you and wanted to pay you a visit. Are you hurting?” “Who are you? Oh, wait I remember, you’re that college kid. No, I’m all right. I’m healing. However, I’m tired with ‘the life.’ This is the umpteenth time I’ve been beaten up, by johns and by pimps. Johns are sick. I can understand that. But the pimp is the one who is supposed to protect me. That’s it. Not one more time. I’m going back to Binghampton. My sister has a room to let. May as well let it to me. I’ve got some money put away, enough to last me three or four months until I get a job waitressing. Bullet is in jail. I reported him to the cops. He’ll be there a long time.” “That’s good. You’ve got a plan. I think you should do it. I’m kind of glad you’re getting out of the business, even though it affects me personally.’ “Oh, don’t say that. You should get yourself a girlfriend, not a whore. Go away. If I never see you again, it’s because I’ve turned my life around and gotten out of the business. Thanks for the flowers, but you go on home now, Howard. And stay away from hookers. They’re no good to anyone. Bye now.” Howard did not want to put up any resistance. Suddenly he saw how foolish he must have seemed to Molly, and if she didn’t think him foolish, at least he himself felt as if he should have taken Gerry and

Tom’s advice to stay away from her. He quickly sized up his situation and took her advice to leave. “Bye now, Molly, I’ll never forget you.” Howard walked out of the hospital. He hoped he hadn’t upset her, but now he felt as if he had straightened things out with her. He had taken advantage of her, even though he had paid her for her services, and now he had made it up to her by visiting her in the hospital and inquiring about her health. If there is a god, he must be smiling at me, he thought. Then he walked down the grimy subway steps, put his token in the turnstile booth and waited for his train on the platform to take him back to his home in Queens.

The Remington Ann Quintano It was an old Remington: grey, sturdy, a bit bulky. It smelled of the cigarettes my father smoked near it: the Lucky Strikes, a white pack with a bright circle of red. It was my mother who used the typewriter. She was working on her second novel and often, in fits of utter frustration she would tear up pages and pages of her work and rail against everything in general; the creative life in particular. I caught her one time in the bathroom, door ajar, and she was standing over the sink in which sat three or four chapters of her novel which she had set on fire. She watched over the burning with a detachment that frightened me. I couldn’t quite make out what the field of my mother’s emotions was: discouragement, rage, frustration—perhaps a hollow, aching sadness. She was a tall woman—tall for that period of time; for her generation, and her deportment was elegant and refined. Though born here, her mother was British and my mother as well had studied a few years in London so she had a mild English accent which became more accentuated when she was angry. She was angry often enough but perhaps, no more so than anyone else’s Mom. I was fascinated with the old typewriter—with the black ribbon which, when worn enough, would display imprints of the letters one on top another in a greying out. When bored, I would come near the old table where both the Remington and my mother sat and stand by her chair and watch her fingers fly across the keys; the clapping sound ringing a staccato licking through the room. The keys were round black disks with white letters and I was fascinated that the letters were in a peculiar order, not at all alphabetical and wondered how my mother could type without looking at the keys, staring straight ahead at the onion skin paper; a thin sheet with an airy, almost bubbly translucent surface.

I stood silently by. I was never sure if my mother was oblivious to me or if she was purposely ignoring me in the hopes I would go away and leaver her free to work. She also said nothing. A halfdrunk cup of tea with milk sat in its saucer nearby, its tan liquid gone cold and unappealing. The toast and marmalade she had made—she liked to burn her toast, then scrape a layer of the burnt crisp off the top layer—sat half eaten on a blue and white plate next to the tea. I studied the bite marks on the toast. They were those of a strong woman. My mother was strong even in the fragility of her body—a body that had survived TB but at a cost. I watched her long, thin fingers and my thoughts drifted to a hug—to those hands and arms wrapped around me; a me no longer invisible to my mother. And then she said it and removed her racing hands from the keys, “come here, sweetheart, and give your mother a hug.”

Two Continents Michael La Bombarda You didn’t come to visit me In August as you promised You would. Now it’s September And I’m disconsolate For both of us. I feel you drowning In work you can’t Get out of; I keep missing you Like an amputee His lost limb. Either you’re sinking By the demanding job You require, Or you’re here Beside myself Through my caprice. I wanted to say I miss you Like a missing part Of me that I love.

Painting by Ann Quintano

The Rooming House Ann Quintano His room was just off the top of the staircase on my floor. I had to pass it regularly on the way to my own room some five doors down the long corridor which was painted an institutional green. Haldol green. The green that was supposed to be calming, and so used in prisons and mental asylums. His door ajar, he sat still and upright. The outline of his body was sharp and crisp, a sculptural essence imparted to him by the very nature of silhouettes. His was an unimposing black statue that seemed to have been relegated silent and powerless by the same fate that brought him—all of us—to this rooming house. He sat in a chair placed alongside a table, and with the narrow bed shoved against a dirty wall, it was the sum total of all that filled his room. Its barrenness was enhanced by a vague and pale orange haze: a nicotine remnant. But all signs that might accompany cigarettes—an ash tray, matches, crushed butts, the rolled white paper dangling precariously from his lower lip—were absent. It was as if—although he no longer smoked and hadn’t in years-the orange haze which he pumped into the room over the years when he did smoke, refused to leave, condemning him forever for having made those choices; the habits of weak men, some say. A reminder that would not leave, and with it all, the detritus of his life lived here was to hover over him, taunting him in these, the later years of his life. He seemed hauntingly vulnerable there; this silhouette in an empty room. His door propped open less by choice than necessity; the desperate striving for air in the sweltering heat trapped in the tiny rooms, stacked up on concrete in the city’s late August veneer. I would see him in the hall often, dressed in black, a silent brooding figure who would come alive briefly when I greeted him, respond to the small talk about weather (what else was there for us to speak of) then slip back into that place he occupied. A sad and dreadful terrain, I knew, and as such might not be all that different from my own territory when my door, unlike his, was shut.

I never left my door open. I had tried once or twice when I was dripping with sweat, even as I sat naked on the edge of my bed watching TV. I was willing to try for some cross ventilation. I pulled on shorts and a loose tee, propped the door open. But I felt incredibly exposed. The discomfort of it was not worth whatever small benefit of moving air it afforded. Only one or two people had passed by my room at the end of hall and headed to Tracy’s room to buy ‘loosies’ from him. That little room did a brisk business after the first of the month when the people’s checks came in. Doors ajar in the sweltering heat. Doors ajar even as the heat lifted, because there were the thoughts of death and being forgotten and going unnoticed even as you lay dead. These thoughts that the door, ajar, defended against. A glance in by a passerby. A body noticed on the floor. Notifying the desk. Notifying no one after that because there was no one to notify. On the way to the staircase, I would also pass Room 12 where the relentless reeking of cigar smoke had caused Ricky, the industrious young man next door, to plug the door stop of his neighbor’s room with a rolled towel. When I first saw it, I imagined the old man inside had turned on the gas to kill himself, and had somehow finagled the towel from inside his closed doors, with the help of an ingenious manipulation of wires and pulleys. But we have no gas in our building and the towel trick seemed an impossible feat, and I had to wonder why my mind always went to suicide in the script I wrote for myself of the world around me. There were four or five metal folding chairs in the lobby usually pulled close—pulled desperately—toward the one wide picture window that overlooked the street and thus the lives of others, others more ambulatory, more prosperous, more energetic than ourselves. At three in the afternoon when the mailman usually arrived, the lobby would be crowded with folks waiting for the mail. It seemed a wondrously magical time of expectancy; the feel of Christmas. But most of us went away empty handed, the drone of the desk clerk’s “Nothing Burt”, “Nothing Willy” resounded through the lobby. Some of us didn’t even ask, just peered into the empty slots behind him. It was a senseless ritual after all. This eager longing was, perhaps, something we had learned in our youth when promises still seemed possible. Now, we all acted out this empty

ritual as if, if we didn’t approach our mail box with some hope, we might as well pack it in all together. And some had, of course. Suicides were not uncommon here and many of the rest of us lined up as though in a bakery taking tickets for the next, and then the next, and then the next of us to die. Staff would leave a picture of the passing tenant on a small table in the lobby. Occasionally someone would walk over and look, hold the picture up closer to their face, shake their head in a weary futility, put it back down and walk away. Occasionally too, someone might look at it more keenly making sure, after all, that it wasn’t their own face pictured there; their own life ended. But, you see, when they walked away, I was never sure if they were relieved or disappointed. The lobby was no cooler, of course. It was just a change of view. Just a chance to be in the presence of others for a few moments, to take stock of the fact that we were part of something vaguely communal and that we stood there in some obedience to the dictate that we are social beings. I wait till later in the evening to go outside. It is a bit cooler then and the sky losing its vibrancy to an impending night fall, allows me to walk about somewhat clouded from view and for others on the streets to be seen by me only indistinctly—a dusky muted gray. And like the orange haze of room #6, this dusky gray is also the consequence of years of ill habits as though I had practiced failure and withdrawal and emotional fragility and so it swathed me now in grey indistinctness. A garment of my own choosing is then a reminder that this is what I ordered when the chance came to bid on life, bid as if it might appear on the Home Shopping Channel late at night, the small blue glow of the TV. Sometimes, then, in the dark of the evening, I walk by the river. The air seems lighter there. The air itself seems able to flow, windswept, more loosely like the dark river below it. If I managed to salvage a few bucks from my Social Security check, I buy a cup of coffee and sit on a bench until it is thick black out–as black as it can get in a city that is determined to be rescued from the dark by a desperate display of lights. If I sit long enough there, it begins to feel as if I am one with the blackness and that it is all consuming and that

there is no clean sculpting of me into a silhouette because there is no light against which my body might be set. The night is a rich, thick black that has a soft depth to it and is pleasant in a calm sort of way. Eventually, I go back and climb the narrow stairs. At the top of the stairs, the door is open still and now his silhouetted figure is cast against a wall lit by a small table lamp. The ubiquitous orange haze has taken on a glow. I head back down the narrow green hallway to my own room where I will close the door. And with the door shut, and me alone, I think that perhaps there is something to be said for orange, after all.

Photograph by Ann Quintano

When Michael La Bombarda You took the gum Out of your mouth And put it on the lid Of your coffee cup, I fought off The impulse To reach out And put it In my mouth And taste it, Tactile as A nipple, Malleable As a breast-Some parts Of the whole woman That I want, yet you Just sat there smiling, And I knew then Yours was no Acte gratuit, Impulsive act With no motive, But simply the result Of an action, And I was impressed By your sanity-Where put it? There! Yes, Very impressed.

Potatoes Ann Quintano Rebecca knew the earth to be rich and fruitful, even after she no longer lived on the farm on which she had been raised. But she remembered the smell of the black soil—the wild mushrooms that sprung, willy nilly, after the rain and smelled of dirt and spores and mold. She remembered the smell of the young potatoes; the feel of the older, larger ones; the Russets, the Yukon gold, the Idahos. Her fathers’ was one of the last potato farm in Bridgehampton and she loved the way she could wiggle her toes in the thick damp soil one minute, then jump on her bike and pedal to the ocean the next, to dig her toes there, overturning a hermit crab here, a black and purple mussel shell there; startling the plovers and sanderlings; basking in the heat; the cry of the gulls—a black headed tern. Rebecca knew the earth to be rich, but the feel of it was far away. She felt now only concrete under her toes—the only birds those pigeons that were ubiquitous in the city and the sounds that of honking and sirens and hawking. Her heart was breaking under the weight of stone and grit and soot. The soot that accumulated on her window sill of the old walkup was black and oily and made her think, once again, of the rich soil and the tan and red skins of the potatoes. She went to the market and dug her hand in the bin of potatoes pretending she was simply choosing some; selecting as one might a melon, or an avocado, but really she was absorbing the skin through her pores; the smell soaked into her nostrils. She began to cry and tried to withdraw her hands to wipe her tears but couldn’t. Her hands were lost in the potato bin. A shopper stared. Another pulled her cart away from the scene. A young worker in a blue apron approached her “are you alright? Can I help you?” he seemed to ask simultaneously. “No, you don’t understand. I need potatoes” and she began to sob and the young man grew stiff and awkward and backed away deciding not to try and comfort her.

She finally withdrew her hands; disentangled from the Russets. Her nails were dark with the dirt of the potatoes. She looked at them through the blur that was the last of the tears in her eyes. She went home empty handed. She waited for night to fall so she could sleep. She waited for sleep to come. She dreamed of her toes on the pebbles of Noyac Bay; in the sand at Sagg Main; in the dark soil. In the very darkness of her sleep, all she wished then was that she would not wake up.

Photograph: Circa 1950s Michael La Bombarda Sir, I’m trying to ignore the fact That you are blowing cigarette smoke In my face, and even when you stand With the cigarette between your fingers I’m still the victim of your horrid habit, I said. I think Oriental women should be use To their husbands or lovers smoking In front of them—Who am I to be, Husband or lover? Did you like The paintings in the exhibit? I still have a fondness for figurative Paintings, though I’m slowly being won Over by these Abstract Expressionists. Jackson Pollock, now there’s a character— Splashing paint on his canvasses, and Someone comes along and calls it Action Painting, and now he’s a success, He said. I like the use of color for color’s sake, I said, trying to be Entertaining and civil with the man, When all I wanted to do was put out The cigarette into his forehead, but thousands Of years of cultural conditioning prevented me From doing it. Would you like a cigarette, He offered. I thought you’d never ask, I said. I took the cigarette and broke it in two. Then I placed it in an ashtray beside us. Why did you do that? he asked flummoxed. I was helping you quit smoking, I answered.

World AIDS Day Kelly Parker Today being World AIDS Day I wanted to share a story. This particular story is about one of the head nurses at the former St. Vincent's Hospital Spellman/Cronin 7th floor AIDS Ward whose name I will refer to as Nurse A. On many of my hospital stays at St. Vincent's I got to know - as well as I could get to know – Nurse A. St. Vincent’s was the first hospital to have a "designated," AIDS/HIV unit/floor. It began on the 7th floor of the Spelllman building and then spilled over into the attached 7th floor of the Cronin building. Sometimes having a "designated" area (or as we patients called it - "AIDS Ward"), was not always great especially if coworkers visited and, of course, unknowing family members came to visit but the purpose was beneficial and I am very proud to have been a part of it. Nurse A was one of the only nurses who wore the older, original nurse’s uniform and from the first introduction she was very cold and mean, but she could also be straight forward and tactful. With each hospital stay I would notice the same demeanor. Other nurses, NP's and patients I have spoken with since the early 90's have had similar experiences. I say this with all due respect knowing that I was in fear, even though she was just doing her job. It was still odd though watching other nurses who were also afraid of her and not understanding why she would give certain patients a harder time than others. On one occasion, when I had a really bad reaction to the medication of liquid Norvir and was hospitalized, my friend at the time took me for a walk. (We were allowed to go for walks with our IV's if able) I was taken by my friend to the first floor, then walked past the (now demolished) chapel, then past the cafeteria to the court yard. Once in the court yard, my friend and I sat on opposite sides of a shed where we shared a joint. It wasn't frowned upon by doctors or most nurses as I would come to find out that that was the place where patients secretly/knowingly smoked. Then I got back to the room the problem was not so much the pot but that the fifteen to twenty minute allowed for a walk had

stretched out to 45 minutes. I was lectured by Nurse A and told that no future walks were allowed until I improved. She did not want to have to send out security to find me. As the days went by and through other visits I learned more from Nurse A than from others. You see, Nurse A had to put up with all the real pains in the ass (not the patients), the doctors. At St. Vincent's Nurse A taught me that at least in that time, I was a commodity. By that I mean that Nurse Aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pressures were put on her by the leading HIV and Internal medicine doctors at the hospital. I began to understand that while most doctors and the hospitals wanted to save lives that the reality was that in a lot of cases it was still politics. Certain doctors thought they were more important than other doctors. Certain doctors wanted their patients taken care of first and they wanted Nurse A to see to it. Certain doctors wanted everyone to know that they had more patients than other doctors and therefore should call all the shots. I learned that certain doctors thought that if their patients were surviving better while others were failing, then they would have bragging rights. I understood from Nurse A that I should only focus on building better relationships with doctors that actually cared about me and not the ones that wanted to use me as their guinea pig (even though we were all guinea pigs). Nurse Aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pressure were more than I could ever imagine. It wasn't just the all night crying from certain rooms from patients, families and friends because Nurse A wasn't there to cheer me up or hold my hand, that was for others - and she had no problem with that. She would always, of course, explain a procedure or the need of a procedure better than others. Over the years you would catch Nurse A changing the flowers of your suite mate, especially when they had no visitors. She knew every smell of every flower. It wouldn't please her if you caught her doing these or knowing these things. She wouldn't like me writing about her, even now. She wouldn't like me knowing that she saw more people dying of AIDS than anyone at the hospital. I also know/learned from her and many doctors, therapist, advocates, and disability Attorneys the most difficult job was to not take their work home or they/we, wouldn't/couldn't survive. She wasn't there to be a hero. I want to tell you these stories because other people won't or can't.

I realize I am not mentioning pressures from a hundred other directions - that I don't know everything. There were many great doctors at St. Vincent's and in some ways competition (from still an incurable disease) is healthy. I know I am LUCKY to not have suffered so many things my friends suffered. I know my friends and I did a lot of damage to ourselves. God bless Nurse A, and people like her. Now since St. Vincent's has turned into luxury condos in 2017 averaging $15 million each, God bless all the hundreds of Angels on the 7th floor. I miss so many friends. I hope many people in the world today taking and surviving on medications will understand how many people died for them at places like St. Vincent's. The last time I saw Nurse A was in 2008 and we had a long discussion about whether it was actually called the "AIDS Ward" or a "dedicated Special Needs area." Even though Wikipedia (see below) defines it as the first AIDS Ward - I will always let Nurse A have the right to call it whatever she wished as I know "AIDS Ward” was not what Nurse A wanted people to remember it as but rather an easier place for her and others to take care of so many.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: St. Vincent's HIV Center St. Vincent’s was the epicenter of New York City’s AIDS epidemic. It housed the first and largest AIDS ward on the east coast and is often referred to as the "ground zero" of the AIDS epidemic. As one of the first institutions to address and treat HIV and AIDS in the 1980s, St. Vincent's HIV Center was one of the oldest, most experienced and most renowned HIV treatment programs in the US. It provided coordinated outpatient and inpatient primary care and case management services to HIV-positive adults, pregnant women, and children, and also provided HIV prevention services, AIDS education programs, HIV clinical research, and support groups. In addition, SVCMC developed the unique Airbridge Project, which coordinates care for HIV-positive patients who make frequent trips to Puerto Rico. Father Mychal Judge ministered to Catholics dying of AIDS in the early years of the epidemic. Tony Kushner features the hospital in his play Angels In America and How to Survive a Plague.

Painting by Ann Quintano

Invisible Ann Quintano It wasn’t because she was short, because she wasn’t really. Well, no shorter than any child of eight and she certainly didn’t vanish because of her weight: no skinny, minnie. She was a substantial girl— not fat—but solidly there and so, she wondered how it was that her parents never saw her. They went on about their business clanging pans as they made dinner or brought the glasses down and filled them with ice for their scotch and soda. She tried not to get entangled under their feet and in so doing annoy them, but she did make excursions into the midst of them, sometimes with a drawing she had made and was eager to show them. There was the arithmetic test—all long division—that she got 100% on; there was the little short story she wrote about a china horse. But she would be buffeted from one pair of legs to the next, scrambled in there, occasionally a hand swiping off the top of her head; her shoulder buttressing up against her mother’s skirt. “You using this tonight hon’?” and she would hope “hon” meant her but it was only her father extending the jar of Ragu to her mother. They would laugh and scatter to either end of the room, him making the salad, she the pasta. When her father settled on the fat chair after dinner with his pipe, Rebecca placed herself strategically on the ottoman at his feet. She planned something to say but it was difficult to imagine what might serve to deserve his attention. Should she mention about the school soccer game or tell him she was learning the recorder or how Billy Henderson pulled her hair. He said nothing to her and she felt she has used up all her best sharings already. The stacks that sat in her room of test scores, and pictures and stories with gigantic “Great!” sprawled across them. The silence was a large and ominous space in which you could get lost. Into which you could fall, limbs flying, and never land safely. She sat on the ottoman looking at her father who once or twice

looked up from his paper and seemed to gaze right past her. She said nothing. Somewhere she had conceded that she was in fact invisible and so she said no more and didn’t scramble underfoot anymore and then gently tore up the corner of her story where it said, “Great!”

Illustration by Ann Quintano

Poem About Beauty Michael La Bombarda The rain falls And flowers bloom Until they fade And fall over. A green lawn, And a flower bed Where take place Beautyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhaustion And dark demise.

Poem Michael La Bombarda

There is a quick way to create a poem Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just start typing and see what happens. There is a room with lots of pictures Hanging on a wall with labels Underneath them explaining the artist And the painting. We are now in a museum And before we were just typing. See how All the pictures make themselves available To everyone. And they are almost free! You are now photographed and have Entered the museum where a student Will now paint you and hang you On the wall with the other pictures And paintings. You are immortal. Breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy eternity.

Illustration by Ann Quintano

Introduction Part II Like the Prince George, the Times Square Hotel is a national landmark. A grand hotel built in 1922 for single men, it soon welcomed tourists (with a separate floor for single women) and New York Times reporters who worked next door. During the motel craze of the sixties it was renamed a “Motor Hotel,” and although you could not, of course, drive a car to your door, you can still see the “Free Parking” sign in Taxi Driver. The building’s conversion in 1991 by Rosanne Haggerty and what was then Common Ground was a linchpin of the redevelopment of Times Square. Now marble staircases lead to a cast-iron mezzanine exhibiting tenant artwork, and in the late afternoon, the musicians who live here play the grand piano in the gilded lobby. With 652 units, the Times Square is the largest permanent supportivehousing residence in the country. After an absence of several years, NY Writers Coalition resumed its writing workshop here in March of 2016. We meet Monday evenings at Top of the Times, a common room in the penthouse with a floor of glazed terracotta tile and windows on three sides overlooking a riotous cityscape of LED screens and old theater signs. We gather around the electric fireplace in winter; in warmer months we write outside on the sprawling terrace. We read poetry, listen to music, close our eyes. Some take the prompts and run with them; others come in with their own projects, with a need for quiet time and feedback. We talk about what we liked, and we like a lot. The method works, and its fruit is borne out in these next pages, as varied and idiosyncratic as the writers who call the Times Square home.

A NN LEWINSON Workshop Leader, The Times Square

Spring 2017

Two Pieces Demetrice Heyward

Stories Stories are told when quietness is boring. Then again, a story is in a sense a portrait revealing the writer! The thunder of the tales, roaring.

P.S. of a Writer I am a writer –– I am a writer –– I am a writer Never do I mind the people –– I am a writer. Never do I poet a little –– I am a writer.

Illustration by Ann Quintano

Apology to William Carlos Williams G a r y R o t h (D r . L a f t e r ) My sincere apologies for being greedy because I ate all the plums, for being hungry; I just got carried away until they were all gone! What’s the lesser evil or the greater of the two: being hungry or taking someone else’s possessions without permission? Personally, no one should have to be hungry regardless of the outcome. If you’d like, I’ll go out and purchase some more and better-quality plums, otherwise suck it up and take it as your loss! Besides, those plums were ready to be made into stewed plums! If there were other ripe fruits, I would’ve eaten them!

Idle Rene L. Santiago

They had broken up the night before. He stood in front of the building he worked at the next morning smoking cigarettes. He was down on his luck and love wasn’t on his side. He lit another Marlboro. Red to be specific. It was like he was playing the lotto, hoping to hit the winning number. 1 cigarette, 2 cigarettes, 3, 4, 5…. Each one was a battle against the odds, and a fight to keep her out of his head. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 cigarettes. What was supposed to be one for the sake of clearing his thoughts turned into a schizophrenic smoking session. 15 minutes went by. He felt like a poser. He was embarrassed, they both worked in the same neighborhood, but he kept a stiff upper lip. The thoughts of shielding himself from the possibility of seeing her again came to mind. Dressing differently or using a subway entrance he normally didn’t use wouldn’t fix anything. He couldn’t avoid her. He straightened himself up, then walked back into the office. On his next break he stepped out and bought a pair of outfielder sunglasses, the same kind A-Rod used when he played third base for the New York Yankees. They were the triangular-shaped ones that kind of looked like Oakley’s but half-framed and with soap bubble-colored lenses. He lit another cigarette and imagined he was in the dugout instead of the doghouse.

Summer Memories G a r y R o t h (D r . L a f t e r ) I always like summer, mostly because of all the fond memories. Although at times the sun’s too strong and hot, there’s always airconditioning, or going into the sprinkler when I was a child, or the pool and the beach with the hot sand burning my feet. Then I couldn’t wait to hit the water or the sand that was wet, and build sand castles with a little pail. Although the beach wasn’t my favorite place, unless I was on my friend Steve’s boat. I was age 14, usually out in Copiague, Long Island, where they had a couple of houses. To this day I take the LIRR out there for $7.50 and the day’s never wasted. Going in the bay one time during a hurricane was wild and scarier than anything I had ever done, even to this day! The waves were like 10 feet, and violent, even though it was the bay! After that Steve’s mom would make spaghetti with crabs that we caught earlier, maybe even some fresh raw littleneck clams or zuppa di clams, which was my favorite! Steve’s mom passed away around 5 years ago, and nobody has been able to copy her recipes.

Photograph by Ann Quintano

Photograph & Illustration by Ann Quintano

Memories of Coney Island G a r y R o t h (D r . L a f t e r ) I first experienced going to Nathan’s with my friend’s brother at two or three in the morning when sleeping across the street at my friend Steve’s house, playing cards all night, gambling with his brother, who is now a professional gambler. I also remember my parents waking me up with Nathan’s when they came home, bringing franks, French fries and Ipswich clams. Then I had a friend Cootie, who worked across from Nathan’s in a booth that sold corn, bags of sugar-coated popcorn and cartons of cigarettes; he didn’t allow me to pay for anything! I ended up smoking too many cigarettes; now, because of them I have developed emphysema, and because of all the sugar shit I ended up with tons of cavities and root canals, which eventually led to me having lost all my teeth. But those were the days! At age 15 and 16 I was like a 40-year-old midget! There was a place across the street on Stillwell Avenue called Eddie’s Fascination, which also was a gambling spot that used rubber balls that people had to roll in holes on a table to light five lights in a row. Coney Island was all that and more, especially if you were a young boy and felt big, like you conquered the world. Years later I had my band play right by the parachute jump, which closed down due to too many accidents. My friend Cootie fell in a hole by the parachute jump. We renamed that place the Cootie Memorial Statue after he messed up his leg and was hospitalized and tried to sue, but was unsuccessful. He ended up hurting himself and getting fatter than he was already!

Lovey and Peacy Adapha Medina Beach Marva sat at her dinner table and savored the last of her meal. She patted herself for being an excellent cook. Tonight she had prepared skirt steak with a toss of vegetables. Golden corn kernels with baby asparagus tips, young plump carrots and baby pearl onions, all in a light soft butter sauce spiced with a dash of cilantro and a pinch of salt. The steak she had seasoned with light sprinkles of salt, black pepper and garlic. She let it stand for twenty minutes, then slam fried the steak in her favorite saucepan with light oil. The dinner preparation took her all of forty minutes; she was now tired. It had been a long day but not tiring––instead a productive and happy one. She had received her first paycheck today after being out of work for a year so this was indeed good, and a cause to celebrate. Marva rummaged through her cupboards and refrigerator for a half-open bottle of wine; not that she drank, but she thought to herself it would be nice to have a sip. After looking for several minutes she realized she was out of wine, period. The weather was lovely and there was still a bit of sunlight outside. She’d enjoy it and purchase some wine or ice cream with cake. These were the options she offered herself this late spring evening. As she approached the door to leave, the phone rang. She answered it––it was her very overprotective ex-boyfriend Efan; she felt her heart inside lightened from its temporary loneliness. She would love to have the company this evening, she thought, but none of the past. He had invited her out for the evening: a walk in the park and dessert. She agreed, so she grabbed her coat and hat and left her tiny apartment. They met at Marva’s favorite spot in the park, the Grotto White, where couples came to be alone. She was glad to see Efan and at the same time surprised. He had brought her a celebration gift.

“Congrats,” he said, “how’s our new Chef’s Assistant doing?” She looked up at him and smiled. “Well, what have we here?” she exclaimed and reached out to him to sit near, as she took from him the parcel in his hand. “What wonders have we here?” She chided him and beamed as she looked into the bag. There inside was a full-size glass jar with two little greenback swimmers. “Gosh!” she exclaimed, “turtles, Efan!” “Yes,” he replied, “your new houseguests, if you’ll have them.” “Of course, of course I will. Thank you, dear. Do they have names?” “Nope, you’ve got to name them.” “Well, shall we do this now?” “Preferably,” he said, looking at her tenderly, “I still want us as a couple. You know that.” “Yes, I know Efan; can we talk of something else?” “Yes, yes,” he said, “how’s our girl’s first four weeks been? You look smashing but tired, love.” “Yep, I am a bit tired,” she said, “but had a lovely day. It’s basically orienting myself to my new boss and the kitchen. Oh, and guess what? It’s dessert day Thursdays at the job. That reminds me, we need dessert, and these babies need names.” They got up to leave. “I really do love this place, Efan, don’t you?” she asked him. “I never come here without you,” he said. “I am going to name the more active swimmer Peacy and the other Lovey.” “So, their names are official then?” “Yes they are: Lovey and Peacy. Peacy can’t stop moving and in fact, wants to get out of this jar, and Lovey’s named after this lovely day and the mood I’m in. This has been a year, right, Efan? Yep, a year I have been out of work. Well, let’s go get…what? I’m in the mood for strawberry shortcake with whipped cream and raspberry syrup with two scoops of strawberry ice cream and a tiny glass of white California Zinfandel.” With that announcement they kissed each other on the cheek and continued walking toward Tory’s, their favorite café and restaurant. “Are you happy?” he asked. She looked at him; she could feel her soul lightened from that grey place she had been without him.

“Yes,” she replied. “Efan, you just surprised me with two little babies, those lovely turtles. And I have just finished a semi-harrowing day at work. It was hectic and now we are going for dessert together.” He took her hand and, as usual, he felt that old sweetness of calm and inner peace. Yes, she would always be his. She’d named the turtles after his very soul’s feeling for her. It was a beautiful experience to be in her presence. He squeezed her hand. She looked at him and smiled.

Tired Adapha Medina Beach

Daphne raised the tap to increase the powerful flow of the water. Its loud rushing sound in and out as she lifted dishes, cups, pots and pans from under it temporarily blocked out the sound of the TV. Every now and then she’d glance over at the screen to see a bit of news. Now she went back to the dishes. Then, out of nowhere, a weakness shook her as if her heart was being drained of its life. She stopped for a second, sat down and took a deep breath and exhaled as tears welled up in her eyes: Why can’t I just pack a suitcase and walk out of this place of torture and Hell? Why can’t I just leave! She took another deep breath, dried her tearful dark brown cheeks, got up, picked up her black and blue coat and her handbag to check to see if the $200 was still in it. She grabbed her red plaid scarf and red hat, twisting her keys in her hand. She repeated to herself, “My life is worth saving. I can’t let this filth of a man beat me anymore.” She slipped on her blue coco shoes and touched the doorknob and let the door slam behind her. He was out for the evening. After getting his mid-afternoon sex he’d be gone for a while, she thought as she approached the elevators. Now was the time to leave.

Homeless is my Name Emmeline I like the street, no matter how my community is carefully and affectionately watching for me. I like to feed in the garbage and ask for change. I shower once in a while because water don’t like me. Our friendship has increasingly become mistrustful no matter what effort I put in. Weird odor is my favorite perfume. Don’t pay attention to my dirty clothes. It is my earthly suit. This body you see is just like a tent that I live in on the earth while transitioning to heaven. I am born of the Spirit and my real self is my inner man. These little troubles are getting me ready for eternal glory. Very soon I will put on my glorious body. Believe me, in heaven there is no Homeless. My mansion is awaiting me, my everlasting home is ready; that is why I am stronger and courageous every day. I dance, and I shout and I smile and I bless someone to make his or her day. I don’t care about the earthly wicked label: call me HOMELESS. This is my advice to you: Put a tax on unbelievers for the breath of life they are taking for granted so that they can prepare for Eternity. Please don’t miss Heaven; that place is too, too sweet.

Illustration by Ann Quintano

From the Gettysburg Address Variations Abraham Lincoln the Third Four years and seven months ago the untimely death of Trayvon Martin on February 26th, 2012 brought forth on this continent a new BLACK LIVES MATTERS MOVEMENT, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all minorities are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure an unconstitutional police state. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of many fields in many cemeteries as a final resting place for those innocent victims who gave their lives that that nation might someday live in peace and freedom without undue police powers. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should the replace law enforcement with holograms guided by artificial intelligence, which is vastly superior to the lack of intelligence we have all experienced with the police. Trust me, I have been arrested three times because the police and the DA’s office neglected to speak to the witnesses, or view the video cameras, plus they pretended to not understand First Amendment political speech. In the same way the tech giants and city planners want to implement self-driving cars also powered by artificial intelligence to save lives, we could save lives by replacing the police with an cell phone app. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate––we can not consecrate––we can not hallow the grounds of the cemeteries of the innocent victims of police brutality. The brave men, women and children, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what crimes law enforcement did against the people here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that

from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of all minorities and all peoples, by the people, for all people, shall not perish from the earth. —September 26th, 2016

Painting by Abraham Lincoln the Third

Acknowledgements

We share our belief that the world is a better place when everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s voice is listened to and respected. Many thanks go to our foundation, government, and corporate supporters, without whom this writing community and publication would not exist: Allianz GI, Amazon Literary Partnership, Emmanuel Baptist Church Benevolence Fund, Kalliopeia Foundation, Meringoff Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. NYWC programming is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. We rely heavily on the support of individual NYWC members and attendees of our annual Write-A-Thon. In addition, members of our Board of Directors have kept this vital, rewarding work going year after year: Timothy Ballenger, Jonas Blank, Tamiko Beyer, Louise Crawford, Atiba Edwards, Marian Fontana, Ben Groom, and NYWC Founder and Executive Director Aaron Zimmerman. We would also like to thank the staff at the Times Square and The Prince George, including Jessica Stinchcomb, Renna Ayyash and Jace Prokupek. To find out more how you can sponsor a NYWC Publication or Program, please contact info@ nywriterscoalition.org or (718) 398-2883.

NY Writers Coalition Inc. (NYWC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that creates opportunities for formerly voiceless members of society to be heard through the art of writing. One of the largest community-based writing organizations in the country, we provide free, unique, and powerful creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in our society, including at-risk, disconnected, and LGBT youth, homeless and formerly homeless people, those who are incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, war veterans, people living with disabilities, cancer, and other major illnesses, immigrants, seniors, and many others. For more information about NYWC programs and NY Writers Coalition Press publications visit www.nywriterscoalition.org

Writing from The Prince George & The Times Square

FEATURIN G MICHAEL LA BOMBARDA ROBERT MAITLAND KELLY PARKER ANN QUINTANO DEMETRICE HEYWARD GARY ROTH (DR. LAFTER) ADAPHA MEDINA BEACH RENE L. SANTIAGO EMMELINE

NY Writers Coalition Press is proud to present Voices Breaking Ground, a collection of writing by members of NY Writers Coalitionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s workshops at The Prince George & The Times Square. For more information about NYWC creative writing programs and NYWC Press publications, visit WWW.NYWRITERSCOALITION.ORG

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