A Common Purpose: Generations of LGBTQ Writing, from the workshop at SAGE

A Common Purpose: GENERATIONS OF LGBTQ WRITING

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A Common Purpose: Generations of LGBTQ Writing From the Workshop at SAGE Spring 2009

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Copyright © 2009 NY Writers Coalition Inc. Upon publication, copyright to individual works returns to the authors.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Editor /Layout: Deborah Clearman A Common Purpose contains writing by the members of a creative writing workshop conducted by NY Writers Coalition Inc. for SAGE. NY Writers Coalition Inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides free creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in our society. For more information about NY Writers Coalition Inc.: NY Writers Coalition Inc. 80 Hanson Place #603 Brooklyn, NY 11217 (718) 398-2883 info@nywriterscoalition.org www.nywriterscoalition.org SAGE is the world's oldest and largest non-profit agency dedicated to serving lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender older people. Since its inception, SAGE has pioneered programs and services for the aging LGBT community, provided technical assistance and training to expand opportunities for LGBT older people across the country, and provided a national voice on LGBT aging issues. In 2005 SAGE became the first official LGBT delegate at a White House Conference on Aging. In 2008, SAGE presented its Fourth National Conference on LGBT Aging, entitled “It’s About Time”, sponsored by AARP. For more information, please visit www.sageusa.org.

SAGE Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders 305 Seventh Avenue, 6th Floor New York, NY 10001 www.sageusa.org

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INTRODUCTION It was almost two years ago that I began leading this writing workshop at SAGE, a social services organization for LGBT elders that works out of the LGBT Community Center in Manhattan. The group had already been meeting for some time with a different leader, and despite my nervousness that it would take awhile for me to get my footing with this established group, I was immediately welcomed by the participants.

Since that time, we have all continued to welcome each other to the workshop again and again—we keep coming back to the group week after week, through times of great pain in our lives, through times of hardship, times of joy, times of loneliness, and times when we’ve feared our creativity has dried up, that our writing is no longer inspired. And we find, when we come to each other in this workshop, that our pain is a little less, our hardships slightly lifted, our joy intensified, our loneliness abated, and the well of our creativity dug deeper.

When Tom writes one of his rapturous poems that leaves the group in awe, asking how he did something so marvelous, he shakes his head and says, “It’s the group, it’s the group.” Martin has several times taken me aside to tell me that he writes in our workshop things he could never write at home, alone. This is certainly 6

true for myself. The twelve of us have a synergistic quality as artists, and when we write together, as we do every week, it is as though we are pulling from some common source, a source we all share, a source that is comprised of our own individual brilliance and some kind of magic we create together.

This workshop is a gift for the people who get to participate in it weekly, and we’ve collected some of our favorite pieces so that we can share the gift of this experience with you. May each person who finds this book find in it some part of the creative power of this workshop. We certainly have enough to share.

Alex Samets, Workshop Leader April, 2009

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WHERE I’M FROM Pat Slone I’m from green parks tennis courts, swimming pools lots of tall trees somewhat defused by the sun.

I’m from a search for quiet music to shut out the noise.

I’m from violence a search to find myself.

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THE WORDS Carol Demech A new definition—so, now I’m queer. Huh, you say?

You’re confused? Imagine how I feel. Words again— definitions, semantics, and queer theory. Have you ever read queer theory? It’s mostly written for academics, by someone who is working on their dissertation. It’s usually dense reading and sometimes needs a reread to understand. It could be written in simple terms, but you’ll never get your PhD that way or get tenure. I’m going to cut through the highbrow jargon and theory and look at the basics. Queer— strange, unusual, out of alignment, odd, unconventional, eccentric, of a questionable nature or character, deviating from the expected or normal. Yup, that’s me, except the questionable character part.

After discovering one of the finer things in life— women—I was called a lesbian, a dyke, a homosexual woman, a gay woman, a muff diver, pussy licker, pussy eater, sicko, degenerate, man hater, and now queer. I don’t want to confuse you any further, so I’ll tell you up front—I am not a sicko, man hater or degenerate, but I am a queer, gay, a lesbian, a dyke and a feminist too. And yes, I am a muff diver, a pussy licker and a pussy eater. I also fuck pussy and ass.

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I am a woman who loves pussy, yours and mine. I’m a connoisseur, an expert in pussy. I have a PhD in Pussy with a specialty in fucking. When I came out in the early 1970s we were lesbian feminists. Lesbian by itself was scary. Pussy lovers, lesbians, were subjected to a lot of ridicule. Lesbian feminists were pussy lovers with a cause. We wanted equality for all women, not just lesbians. But that wasn’t enough. We were more than lesbian feminists, we were DYKES. We proudly strapped on our woman dicks and fucked eager pussy.

We wore leather and introduced our accoutrements to pussy. We fucked pussy with our hands. We fucked pussy with our tongues. We fucked pussy with our women dicks and our toys. We shared pussy, yours and ours. We became pussy experts. We did pussy workshops and taught pussy. We earned our PhD in Pussy. Pussy came looking for us.

We are now older women and pussy still comes looking for us. Hot pussy has a memory. Sometimes it is an older, mature, seasoned pussy, and other times a much younger pussy who wants a master of pussy. So, call me a dyke, a lesbian, a muff diver, a homosexual, a pervert, a man hater, a pussy licker, or a queer. By the way, we don’t ever plan to retire.

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WOMYN Tom Marsh “Cast off the shackles of yesterday, shoulder to shoulder and to the fray, our daughters will adore us and sing in grateful chorus: Well done, Sister Suffrage.”

Mary Poppins.

Do you know what people think is wrong with us?

Why do we have to always cover with makeup and fuss, with shadows and liners and bras and stuff?

Why can’t we all just be us?

Should I color my hair and brows with a natural tint?

I once tried a red hair stint.

Then I was blond and tried a more natural kind of ashen white (after the first cancer fright).

A lovely womyn said to me, do what you want, just be free.

We wrestled in the library underneath a steel tree.

She was a vivacious womyn who was really interested in me, as a person not as a him or he, so I carry that memory of 12

the womyn from Iceland who told me I should take a stand, even if I was one of the “Boys in the Band.”

And my hat is always off to Barbara Tuchman, who I missed because of a law school exam, that was on property rights and land.

Opportunity knocks once and it’s wise to answer.

It passes fleeting like a gay dancer, when it goes, you’ve missed the opportunity to answer, are we all equal or is life a roll of the dice, a chancer.

Writing is like driving a car at night: you never see further than the headlights but you can make the whole trip that way.

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THE NOTHING THAT IS AS IT SEEMS Barry Blitstein The nothing that is as it seems invites me to share a meal.

With two spoons we dip into one bowl, Two mouths we eat one thick soup.

And then, our face bristles scraping each other’s cheekbones, we chew buttered bread, sip one dark wine, tear with our teeth one dripping steak.

The nothing that is as it seems passes melting cherry vanilla ice cream from its mouth to mine.

And then the touching begins.

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WHERE CAN I FIND A FOAM VERSION OF YOU? Carol Demech I don’t care how it’s made as long as it’s a version of you.

Long legs of foam rubber, soft and pliable, bendable, smooth, breathable. I can stretch them, move them, wrap them around my body. Foam from your lips like the top of an ice cream soda—sweet and delicious. Eyes that are the tops of waves—dreamy, foamy, gently rocking me. Your foamy breasts melt into my hands. I lick their goodness. I taste the flavor of your cunt and come up with a foamy mouth. I sink into your foamy form.

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THE ANGUISHED SOUL WRITES ON Martin R. Norregaard Love comes and goes in circles While telephones never ring on time.

Hearts break silently As our conversation brittles on.

Sincerity’s awkwardness Disappears, Unrecognized, unmourned.

It seems, therefore, that love, Though unprovoked, Occurs too frequently To be neglected.

And yet it is‌ And yet it is.

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SOME PEOPLE Joyce Epstein Some people are like speechless beach plums and fleshy clouds.

They, too, hang heavy in what feels like an airless room. Their heaviness is the mostly genetic depression that entombs them like a cocoon. They don't roll around in their heaviness, like medicine balls. Their heaviness is almost robotic in nature and when they do take an action it is by rote, as if they have done those same activities over and over. They look outward and sometimes around in blank stares. They look otherworldly, at times, but their flesh betrays their humanity. It would signal hopefulness if, like beach plums and fleshy clouds they would, over time, take on the altered life of a chrysalis.

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HE KNEW HE WAS IN TROUBLE Charles Fatone He knew he was in trouble when he saw the black rubber scuff marks from his official Boy Scout shoes marking up the kitchen linoleum. His mother worked as a dressmaker in a factory and washed and waxed this floor once a month, and she had just waxed it last week. He looked under the sink for housecleaning supplies, taking one of the cleansers that assured on its label, “Hasn’t scratched yet!”

He got on his knees and started to rub out the markings but soon saw that as the marks faded the wax finish disappeared, leaving drab patches. But at least the black marks were gone, he said to himself.

He sat at the kitchen table, head in hands, wondering if she’d notice. Oh, she’d notice all right! Nothing escaped her. She was a perfectionist when it came to maintaining an immaculate home. Even when he was put to bed at 7 PM he couldn’t avoid her coming in, tucking his blanket and sheets under the mattress on both sides. He was bound like a mummy with only his head and hands showing. He once crawled under the sheet and put his head where his feet usually were, but after a minute he reversed himself.

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Each Saturday morning the smell of Clorox and Windex filled the air. His mother would burst open his bedroom door, raise the blinds, open the windows and shout, “Rise and shine! It’s time to get up. There’s a lot of work to be done so get out of bed.”

Then she began to strip off his sheets and blankets and replace them with sheets freshly laundered. He could barely get out of her way in time. She was a whirlwind of purposeful frenzy, maintaining a time schedule in her head that everyone in the house had to adhere to. She’d say, “This should take you only ten minutes, then go get the Windex and do the outside windows.”

The compliment she frequently got from family and friends was, “My God, Clara. How do you keep the apartment looking like a showplace?” And she did.

And she definitely would notice the difference in the wax finish on the floor. He couldn’t figure out how he made all those marks.

“Pick up those damned feet of yours,” his father yelled when walking home from a movie. And his mother always said, “Stop that squinting! If you keep that up your face is going to remain that way for the rest of your life!” They talked about him a lot; about how he wasn’t living up to their expectations of him; about his school marks which were just passing. He rarely noticed his smudged eyeglasses since he was used to not being able to see anything clearly. They 22

talked about sending him to a reform school to straighten him out if he didn’t shape up. He wasn’t a roughhouse kid who liked boxing or the perfect little gentleman with good manners and always obedient. He wasn’t the son either of his parents had in mind. He wasn’t even somewhere in between. He was someone else and no matter how hard he tried, he always failed, and there was no end in sight. He felt like a lost cause.

What could he do? What could he do? How long would it take for him to outgrow all his faults, when he turned eighteen? It would have to get better by then. But in the meantime his only solace came when he was at the movies where he could lose himself in the people on the screen. He fantasized being Sonja Henie’s son or her skating partner. Now that was a world he could really enjoy living in. “Look,” he said to himself. “Let’s face it.

It’s not going to be so easy.”

He stared at the kitchen floor and thought, “This is going to cost me a lot.”

It was only September, but he knew what his mother would say when she saw it. “You don’t know how hard I have to work to give you this perfect home, and look at this! I don’t know what I have to do to make you obey me.

Maybe the reform school is the answer. Tell me what you want for Christmas. Roller skates? Well, forget it! Don’t count on it. You can walk like the rest of us! Now get out of my sight while I try to fix this mess.”

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TEDDY BEAR AND CONDOM Tom Marsh “Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men.

Feared by the bad, loved by the good, Robin Hood.”

I wish you two would be quiet up there if you could.

It’s time to go to bed and you should.

Now behave and be good. I would come up if I could, but I have dishes to wash and clothes to sort and groceries to put away, so down here in the kitchen I have to stay.

“Hanky Jaw won’t you stay.

Now that Mom and Dad are away.

I feel safe when I’m under your sway.

So please Hanky please, don’t go away.

Please stay and help keep the goblins away.”

Where’s my new Hanky Jaw now that I’m older and gray.

Is this one special person that will keep the lonely goblins away.

Is there someone around to hold and hug like Hanky Jaw of yesterday.

Should I keep a condom and lube.

In case a lover hops out of the boob tube.

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He strolls right in and sits on my bed.

As I lie there thinking of what could be said.

Do we make decisions that affect us for life?

Must we couple to sail through the strife.

Or is it really a day at a time, if that’s the best I can find.

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THE IMMIGRANT Joan Renzetti Durant Somewhere I read “Weep for the children who return old, sick, strangers” The hills are perfumed with violets, he said On mountaintops snow and clouds meet In winter hungry wolves roam the street Like a prayer he repeats The olive tree crooked and old puts out new shoots right through the belly of its trunk before dying I am my father’s memory The home he left two wars ago becomes my own I can’t go home again, he says except to die where I was born Through me he returns Here in the valley of the Abruzzo where the Sangro meets the sea I look for him in the stones of the piazza and those pictures of heaven 26

they are piecing together on the crumbling walls of San Giovanni in Venere I don’t want him to know that the bombing of his town was ruthless I find him in his sister’s eyes the letters that she saved like ancient scripts from war to war about his life as an American I do not say I smell no violets, nor tell how vine and fig are without soil to grow how mountaintops are filled with sores that Liberation could not heal and for every church there’s an orphanage I do tell him that there are still no automobiles in the street but soon there will be movies when the public hall is rebuilt My father’s voice becomes a poem read long ago Paese Their footprints gone Their names are vanishing The street of black caped men and women in mourning Wider than death or sons across seas 27

are long as Quattrocento’s sleep and still they sit in doorways those madonnas listening to angels As if they didn’t know their time is past On my return, my father stood on the deck waiting for me as I walked down the plank of an old Liberty Ship from World War II. I shall never forget how he held on to me and could not let go. I had become his home and sister, the mountains and stones of the piazza and even the grave of his mother and father and the return of time itself.

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ON MY BLOCK Barbara Police When I was a little girl, my block was really magical.

There was a wonderful candy store that had all sorts of candy, comic books, and a soda fountain. We also had a grocery store, with big pickle barrels in the front, and a soda bin, with big pieces of ice that made the soda very cold and tasty. Once a day in the summer a Good Humor man would stop in front of my house, and he would have the most delicious ice cream. All this talk about food was making me hungry.

There were other things also, like riding, playing ball, and in the evening all our neighbors would come out and sit on our steps and talk and laugh. We really were like a big family. It was wonderful.

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NEEDS Alex Samets She made a slow pirouette, her skin silver and scaled by the shadows, serpentine. Her eyebrows drew into long, straight lines as she looked at him.

“I just think,” he stammered, “we should keep it.”

He looked like a wolf in this half-light, his teeth long and yellow where his lips curled back.

“It’s the right thing to do. We’ll make it right, we’ll…” his eyes were red and swollen, his face puffy, pathetic.

She folded her arms across her chest, sucked her lips.

He reached out and flipped the switch on the wall, the living room suddenly burning around them, books blazing in the shelves, the mirror on the far wall molten, her boney back reproduced.

“I want it,” he said, his voice dry from the fighting, cracking with thirst. “It’s what we need. For us. We need it for us.”

She put her hand on her stomach, shielding the nostrum from his misplaced desire.

He turned his attention upward.

“Please,” he asked the ceiling, “please.” He began to barter, inventing things to trade, and as he talked, he 30

paced toward her and away, his loafers silent on the carpet.

“I love the name Martha. Or Angela. Or Angelo. I’ve always liked Ben. Ben or James. We could convert the office. Maybe paint it yellow, what do you think?”

Slowly she reanimated and walked to the couch. She sat down, he still traipsing behind her, the length of the room taking him seven paces in either direction.

“I love the name Kelly, for a boy or a girl, I think…

What? What did you say?”

He paused, frozen halfway between one wall and the other, and listened to her voice humming softly the tune of a lullaby their mothers had sung, her palms pressed over her ears.

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INSIDE Alex Samets And now, with the baby come and gone, she had no reason to stay. Yet she stayed. He wondered at that and then he tried not to let his thoughts light on her in any meaningful way, afraid that mere focus would startle her into the realization that she should depart.

Days and weeks went on and still she remained with him. She tended her lilies in the garden, fed sparrows in the feeder, and as summer ended she helped him guard the house against the coming chill. Together they stretched plastic across the windows and stapled it taut. Now, from inside, the yard looked always luminous and pink in the distorted light.

The river froze end to end that winter.

He observed her nervous orbit through the house, picking up an imaginary clutter as if the baby had not passed and was instead a tyrant, flinging bowls of spaghetti against the wall, overturning boxes of toys, tearing the pages from books. She puttered in this way, adjusting the commonplace around him, and she could not settle.

In spring when the ice was cracking loud and deep, he said, “Maybe you should talk to someone.� She drove herself to the doctor and imagined a car seat strapped in behind her. The doctor wore slacks and a 32

diamond necklace. She told the doctor that she imagined a baby, a baby with her all the time. When she got home, she showed him the tablets the doctor had given her and offered him one, laughed. He laughed too.

And then summer was full on them and she lay in the yard topless, her body oiled and browning. When he suggested she put something on, the neighbors, she smiled a sweet and succulent smile and said, “what neighbors?�, and she rolled over. She stopped cleaning entirely and for awhile a comforting entropy took over, the house adjusting to grief, maybe, to loss, and then he noticed in himself the puttering, the putting together, the putting back, of things that had never really come apart. The lilies wilted in the heat, the sparrows looked elsewhere for food.

One day at the end of August, a day so hot it reminded him only of the coming cold, he returned from work to an empty house. He began to wander around straightening piles, refusing decay, when he heard it.

He could not place the sound, this wild, howling sound like a steam-organ, a calliope’s locomotive wail. He walked to the window and looked out. There she was, in a bright blue bikini, glistening with oil, crying.

He went to her then, out the screen door and across the lawn, knelt beside her and drew her to him, and still she keened a sound so loud all he could think was, I have to get her inside.

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WAVES WHO DARE Joyce Epstein The shore fumed at the wave: "How dare you get me all wet! Back off! Go to low tide. Have some boundaries. Why not ask me if this is a good time for me to have you wash over me?"

You wash over me like my mother when she blanketed me and overwhelmed me with her loud criticisms. She did not know how to regulate her emotions; like you, wave, who just burst on the scene without an invitation. My mother did not know how to self-soothe. Do waves have the ability to self-soothe, to regulate their roaring onrush of emotion-laden water?

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THE RAIN CONTINUED Barry Blitstein The rain continued.

We walked, barefoot now, Cold water licking our knees Clothing heavy as sod.

Holding hands, Caring nothing for this drowning world.

In this late summer dusk, Cold blue light barely glancing at our bodies Rain streaming down our heads and faces.

His face and mine, My rain washing his chest, His rain washing my back.

And the clothing, heavy as sod, Fell from us into the swirling waters, As all of us: Sky and night, rain and water, Continued to deepen and rise.

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WHEN THE RAIN STOPPED THE SKY OPENED UP Barbara Police 1. One morning I heard a tremendous amount of rain hitting my window. It was sort of scary, but then all of a sudden, it stopped, and the sky turned blue, with a beautiful rainbow.

2. I am not a good scrabble player, so for me, it always seems bad.

3. “Let me open it up for you.” I hear this many times, because I cannot see. People trying to be kind say these words. In reality, I can open my own things. To my surprise, I usually figure out what it is all about by myself. I thank them anyway for caring.

4. I think one day I will be able to see. There are doctors and scientists working on it right now.

5. Harry hated snowstorms. Harry hated snowstorms because the thought of being stuck in for days, or weeks, alone was to him very frightening.

6. The morning sun tasted like cotton candy, soft, sweet, and pretty to look at.

7. Just open your eyes and don’t blink. When I do blink, I don’t know I am doing it.

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REMEMBERING AN AFTERNOON IN SPRING Gregory Terry The last time I was caught in the rain we were walking in Prospect Park, stopping to do a little shopping at the open farmers market out in front of the entrance to the park. Then we continued into the park. At this time I felt a few drops of rain at first. Then all of a sudden the sky seemed to open up. It was quite a downpour.

Neither one of us had an umbrella. So we started walking real fast, looking for some kind of shelter.

Then I spotted a gazebo on the side of the lake. I suggested we find shelter there until the rain stopped.

There were three other people already there. We paid no attention to them. We were just enjoying the moment and ourselves. Feeding each other grapes.

After about forty-five minutes or so we decided to brave the great outdoors once again. About this time there was just a light mist. It seemed like we had the whole park to ourselves. And the sun started to go down. It was a very romantic setting and feel. I will never forget that day.

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THE NEW GIRL Arlene Spunt Sara sat at the breakfast table. Chris, her dog, nudged at her leg. His bowl was empty. Sara pushed him away, and he started to cry.

Sara’s mom, who had been loading the dishwasher, stopped and sat down next to Sara. “Chris is hungry,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to go to the new school,” said Sara.

School would be starting on Monday and this was a new school for Sara.

“You don’t have to,” said her mother. “It’s your choice.”

“I wish I knew the other kids,” said Sara. “How will they treat me? Will I have any friends?”

“I don’t know,” said her mother. “But you had the same worries when you went to camp, and you loved it.”

Chris again nudged at Sara’s leg. She got up and started filling his bowl.

“I loved camp,” said Sara. “They knew about kids like me.”

“Kids like you?” said her mother. “Kids who love animals, who love to sing, who love to read, who are creative.”

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“Kids who can’t see. Kids who get laughed at and teased. Remember Camp Jonah? I stopped after two weeks.”

“And you can stop here too if you want to, but I think it will be OK.” Chris nudged at Sara’s leg and she got up and gave him water. Tucks brushed her leg and she started opening a can of food. Tucks brushed her leg again purring, and Sara bent down to give her a friendly pat.

“I hope you’re right,” said Sara.

“I have a surprise,” said her mother who had gone back to the dishwasher. “You’re going to be in Class 4, and I’ve arranged for you to meet two girls from your class. They’re twins. I met their mother last week when I visited the school.”

“When?” asked Sara, who had started to eat.

“Today,” said her mother. “We’ll have lunch at Karter’s. We’re meeting them at one o’clock.”

“What should I wear?” asked Sara.

“How about a pair of jeans?” said her mother.

“I have an idea,” said Sara. “Can I wear the shirt you got me with Chris’ and Tabby’s pictures?”

“Sure,” said her mom. “What a great idea!”

When one o’clock came, Sara was nervous. She and her mom arrived at Karter’s, but the twins and their mom weren’t there. They decided to choose a table near the window so Mom could see when they arrived.

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A few minutes after one o’clock Tony and Barbara came in the door, announcing that their mom had gone to park the car. Tony was a chubby girl with short curly hair. Barbara was taller with her blonde hair in a braid.

“We’re twins,” said Tony, who had sat down next to Sara.

“Do you look alike?” asked Sara.

“Can’t you see that we don’t?” said Barbara.

“No,’ said Sara. “I’m blind. I can’t see.”

Sara’s mom saw that the girls looked shocked. They didn’t say anything. Mom said,” Your mom didn’t tell you that Sara is blind?”

“No,” said Tony. “She just said that there’s a new girl who she wanted us to meet.”

“Oh,” said Sara’s mom. “Have you met anyone blind before?”

“No,” said Tony.

“Not me either,” said Barbara.

“I’ve met twins before,’ said Sara. “My friend Nancy is a twin, but I sure don’t like her brother. I like her big brother. He’s cute.”

“How do you know he’s cute?” asked Barbara.

“How do you know he’s cute if you can’t see him?”

“That’s easy,” said Sara. “I have friends who can see and they tell me. He plays basketball and he’s the best player on the team.”

“I play basketball too,” said Tony.

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“Not me,” said Barbara. “I like to skate.”

“I skate too,” said Sara, “but I’m not very good.”

“How can you skate if you can’t see?” asked Barbara.

“Sighted guides,” said Sara. “And also in the special rec center they have roller skating and we go slow and it’s OK.” “What else do you like?” asked Barbara.

“I love music. I like to sing. I love reading and I like writing stories. I was in a drama group last year and that was really fun.”

“How can you act when you can’t see?” asked Tony.

“I can be a villain and very, very mean,” said Sara, sounding very much like a villain.

“And I can be a policewoman and put the villain in jail,” said Barbara.

“And I’m so mean and terrible that I can plan my escape,” said Sara, again sounding very much like a villain.

“And I’m the principal of the school and I’m casting you both in the school play,’ said the twin’s mom, who had come in and heard the girls talking, and was now sitting down.

“Have you ever been in a play?” asked Tony.

“Yes. In my special school. I played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.” 42

“Special school?” asked Tony.

“Yes,” said Sara. “I went to a school for kids who are deaf or blind and we had some kids who were both.”

“Deaf and blind?” said Tony. “How awful! How did they communicate?”

“Manual alphabet,” said Sara. “I’ll show you.”

“Could you talk to them?” asked Tony.

“Yes,” said Sara. “Some of them. I have one friend who is deaf and blind. She can hear a little, but mostly we spell to each other.”

“It seems weird to me,” said Tony.

“It seemed weird to me in the beginning too. I haven’t always been blind. I could see a little until I was four. When I met the deaf blind kids, I was scared that I could lose my hearing too.”

“I was always scared of blind people,” said Barbara, “But you seem OK. What happened to your eyes?”

“I was born with eye problems,” said Sara. “When I was four I developed an eye disease called glaucoma and lost the rest of my sight.”

“Were you scared?” asked Tony.

“I was very scared,” said Sara.

“She wanted to be with me all the time,” said Sara’s mother. “She’d cry whenever I had to leave her with anyone else. Even leaving her in her room for a few minutes was hard for her. She wouldn’t sleep alone in her room until she was almost seven.”

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“Mom! You’re embarrassing me,” said Sara, almost knocking over her water.

“I’m sorry, honey, but it’s really nothing to be ashamed of. You had a big adjustment to make.”

“Mom, can we eat? I’m hungry,” said Sarah, putting her napkin in her lap.

“Me too,” said Tony.

“I can eat a horse,” said Barbara.

“Not a horse,” said Sara. “I like horses. I’m an animal lover. Look at my shirt. These are my pets, Chris and Tabby. I got the shirt when I came back from camp. I rode horses at camp and I have another shirt with a picture of Tonto, the horse that I rode most at camp. Mom, can Tony and Barbara come back to the house?”

“Can we? Can we?” asked Tony and Barbara.

“I don’t see why not,” said their mom.

“I’ll show you tricks I taught Chris,” said Sara.

“Can Tabby do any tricks?” Barbara asked.

“Scale tall bookcases in a single bound, destroy rolls of toilet paper and paper towels, knock over lamps and fans and be adorable,” said Sara. “He’s also good at getting piles of litter all over the floor.”

“Sounds cute,” said Barbara. “Is he friendly?”

“Very,” said Sara.

“This should be fun,” said Tony. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat lunch.”

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REFLECTION Charles Fatone One hangover morning while pissing in the bathroom sink, Elliott winced at his reflection in the mirror. “Oh god,” he thought. “I’ve turned into my father without any warning.”

He remembered a night in Brooklyn as a kid lying on a twelve foot parapet that spanned the Brighton Beach train tracks. After working all day in a factory, his parents would visit his sick grandmother in another part of Brooklyn. Elliott knew they would not be back before nine PM and he didn’t want to go home to the dark empty apartment. As he fingered his house keys he looked up to heaven, looking at the stars, trying to gauge the distance between him and the sky. Some stars seemed so far away they were tiny pin dots. Others were bigger and brighter. He imagined other planets circling around each of those stars with other races of people going about their business. But what kind of business?

“And what will ever become of me?”

Many years later, he began going to parties and bars on a blurry carousel of quick sexual encounters with interesting strangers. There would be morning-after hangovers, his head in the toilet vomiting last night’s stingers, followed by Roquefort salad, shrimp Diavolo, 46

and cream puffs under chocolate sauce. Looking at the mess in front of him he would moan, “What the fuck’s happening to me?”

Then his many resolves to get his shit together. No more booze. No more cigarettes, even though his smoker’s cough was the only thing that got his eyes open in the morning. From now on he swore he would lead an abstemious life, with maybe only an occasional pasta binge. He began waking up at six in the morning without an alarm clock. He would go to the bathroom to wash his face, ears, neck, and arms with a hot washcloth. Then he’d flush his sinuses with warm saline water from a neti pot. While daubing his wrists with sandalwood oil he pictured himself doing Joan Crawford’s morning ritual in “Mommie Dearest.” He did yoga postures for forty minutes before breakfast. It didn’t last…

The next fifteen years were a smear of changing directions with deep depressions that followed lost opportunities and thwarted love affairs. He avoided making lists, since they only became promises never kept.

People had always noticed how much he resembled his mother. Now he saw the middle aged face of his father looking back at him. Well, maybe it 47

was his father’s turn. He reached for the juice glass half filled with vodka and saluted the mirror. “Hair of the dog,” he said.

“But when will it be my turn?” Would it ever be his turn? “What the fuck ever happened to me? Let it go,” he whispered to his reflection. “Life goes on with or without you.”

He downed the vodka and went into the kitchen to the smell of morning coffee.

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THE CHEF Gregory Terry Cooking is my way to release stress. Pot roast to vegetarian lasagna, bouillabaisse (fish stew), coq au vin (chicken cooked in red wine), casseroles of every kind, omelettes of all sorts. I got started in the last few years baking breads, cakes and pies. I love inventing new ideas for desserts. My favorite pastime is putting on a great dinner party for my best friends. Starting with hors d’oeuvres, then maybe mushroom soup, then a great entrÊe over the top. Finish with one of my surprise desserts such as deep dish peach or apple or berry cobbler or strawberry shortcake dripping with strawberry liqueur.

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WHAT I WANT YOU TO SEE Martin R. Norregaard This is what I want you to see since I see it all the time every day every hour every minute every second all the pain and misery and anguish that pervades the central soul of earth my mother your mother our mother wounded dead and bleeding humanity and drying and dying with tears and moans and sighs the sighs the best of all disappearing into the air the atmosphere which still remains above the gutted shells of cities and towns and valleys without water without rivers without birds or bees or crawling creatures despite the fecundity that existed in the beginning before time before GOD before the light and then the darkness when all that existed was me and then you 50

and after GOD arrived then there was jealousy but not between you and me because there there was love and admiration and affirmation and then the leaves came small and tiny and hair-like growing ever larger in front of our eyes all of them but still we could see and breathe and smell fecundity while GOD was busy with HIS precious Adam and HIS afterthought Eve but we were already there and we watched despite our sleep and our death which lasted all these years or so it seemed to us who upon awakening had the task of trying to find one another once again before it really became too late to dream to think to be grateful for love and death and anguish and pain and suffering so do not choose to close your eyes to life and death and dismemberment but rather LOVE walk on with me and see those things we used to see while trying to remember past joys and triumphs even if such things could never exist for such as us the stigmatized of all those sad dreary soulless ones who spend their entire lives searching for the fulfillment that they know is theirs but that we too the only two still alive know will never come because it doesn’t really exist nor did it ever just as you and I and God don’t exist despite our wishing it were otherwise which means that the life which isn’t real must always have more meaning than the life that is and all of this is what I want you to see before it really is too late and we both once more will meld and disappear into the misty depths of the fragmented imagination of a child still waiting to be born.

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THINGS THAT ARE UNSAFE Barbara Police Unsafe, just the word makes me feel uncomfortable, the thought of a high stairway with no railings to hold, a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, being in the middle of a crowd at Rockefeller Center. In an elevator with the numbers all mixed up, being in a subway station with hardly any lighting. Being in a store and smelling smoke, being on a roof on a windy day. Eating something that looks like it can move at any moment. Being in a rainstorm, with too much lightning. And most of all, having all my insecurities come forward at once.

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LETTER TO SOMEONE Pat Slone Dear Someone, I want to tell you about myself and a friend of mine, who has had the same childhood as mine, with no love and no guidance. We both have grown into adults, strong, and really in need of nobody’s help.

We both had horrible parents who would not have known or cared if we came home at night. As a child I did my homework in the library. But you know, I was sent to sleep-away camp beginning at age six. I loved being away for the summer. I grew up across the street from a park and playground, and a pool. When I was ten years old I became the Nok-Hockey champ of the Bronx.

You know, it’s the magic of childhood to be able to play happily in the park with no thought of the horrors at home.

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FUN LIFE Gregory Terry The sand is very hot on his feet as he walks along the beach; he dives into the water with his head bobbing in and out of the waves. He hip hops through the jellyfish and broken seashells. Then the sun falls and the breeze starts blowing fresh mist through his legs and even cooling his stinging feet. Trying to run as fast as he can as the seagulls fly around him he runs into the salted sea again for what it seems like hours because in his mind he should have won top honors when he was in his high school swimming team; he only won third place. His mom greeted him that afternoon throwing her hands up screaming, “What is this world coming to when people can’t see a true athlete in their midst!”

Back to the beach. He finally finishes his swimming. I stand there proudly with a towel yelling, “You are a champion of all champions of swimmers.

Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps have nothing on you.”

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THE UNTHOUGHT KNOWN Joyce Epstein Whispering and secrets were no "secret" to her. That's how things went; that was the norm. To be direct and open, to attempt a connection was threatening. What was enticing and served as a "hook" to get attention was to talk about someone else's pain or shame as if it was peculiar to them, as if it was ostensibly in a vacuum and could not ever be a human, universal situation, i.e., something that was perfectly imperfect.

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MY VISION Martin R. Norregaard Once in a vision God became as a grain of mustard, a black seed, small, right in front of me. Reaching forward, I took this seed of God with my right hand and inserted it directly through my chest into the center of my beating heart. In that self-same moment I found myself encased within a huge, gigantic heart, beating and throbbing mightily, protecting me from my enemies forever.

Safe at last, I knew Whose Heart that was!

Opening my eyes I found myself once more sitting in my room, but this time with a difference. After all, it is not such a bad thing to be trapped, however briefly, within the beating Heart of God, to be surrounded by God’s all-consuming Love; now is it?

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JUST A FEW; THERE ARE TOO MANY TO MENTION Carol Demech Carolyn is timeless—she never goes out of style, Cubby is a flower child still listening, Joy was like a percolator with overflowing coffee and it wasn’t DECAF! Jane was a broken piece of Lenox, Linda was warm cocoa and burnt cookies afraid to come out of the oven, Liz was a Caravaggio painting, beauty that brought tears to your eyes, and then the dark subject matter that made you sob, Nina is a fine wine—looks and tastes better and better as she ages, Ruby was opportunity knocking, Me, I’m still looking.

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BECAUSE IT IS SO COSTLY Barry Blitstein Because it is so costly I hold your exhaled breath in my hand as you sleep, Let it caress my skin Enter me through my pores Fill me with its erotic warmth: That I may return it to your body With all of mine.

And through this thermodynamic economy Keep your treasure safe within us.

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Barry Blitstein Joan Durant Carol Demech Joyce Epstein Charles Fatone Tom Marsh Martin R. Norregaard Barbara Police Alex Samets Pat Slone Arlene Spunt Gregory Terry

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