Troubadour 2017

Troubadour Editor Terry Griner

Editorial Board Hope Hall Stephanie LaGassĂŠ Nathan Marona Katherine Masters Cynthia Seaburn Hannah Trevino

Advisor Jonathan Fink

Troubadour is sponsored by the College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities and the Department of English at the University of West Florida

Troubadour Contents WAYNE ABRAHAMSON The Battle of Lulu’s Brothel/30 JORDAN ARDOIN Hungry/7, 5 in 6/81 MICHELLE BELLANOVA sleepy fantasies/17, misplaced astronaut/43 RODNAY BREWER Dystopian Woman/46 JOEY DE CELLES The Policeman/84 JOHN DAVIS Untitled/53 SAMANTHA EARLEY Untitled/55 JENNIFER FOEHL-RODRIGUEZ Untitled/52 AMBER FORTUNE Still/61, Release/79 OLIVIA HAWKINS Faith Beyond Fears/66 JASMINE HOLMES Banshee/48, Deirdre/49 OLGA MARIA HILSDORF DA SILVA Untitled/51 MADELEINE HUTCHINSON On the Subject of Graveyards/58 DIANA JERNIGAN All the Way/92, Bone Ache/15 KENT LANGHAM The Fall/41 LAURA LEMBECK-EJIKEMEUWA Fish/47 KAREN MANNING Time’s Balm/74 CHRISTOPHER MILLS Rough Seas/50, Towers/54 MICHAEL MOBLEY Santorini Oil/94 RACHEL OLIVER the breeze blows/29 MELISSA PISARSKI Dear Brother/10, Transition/45 ANESIA SAUNDERS Untitled/56 LAUREN SHEWMAN Witches of Salem/24 SAMANTHA SMITH Whiskey Dick/73 MATTHEW STOTT Nowhere to Hyde/19 KRISTEN YUHASZ For Eleanor /1 The cover images “Deirdre” and “Banshee” are by Jasmine Holmes.

Kristen Yuhasz

For Eleanor

T

he ocean tumbled gently onto the shore, bringing with it carbonated bubbles that caught between his toes. On and on the waves went. Rising, falling, reaching land just to be reeled back again. As sure and steady as a clock. Tick tock, he thought, folding his arms and resting his chin on his knees. Time’s almost up.

“Hey, Ollie!” his dad called, surging out of the spray in one great breaststroke. “Want to get one more lap in before we leave?”

“No, Dad,” Ollie sighed. “No more fooling around. I’ve got to find something. Fast.”

He had been swimming all morning and still had not found a gift for Eleanor.

Of all the places in the world, the beach was Eleanor’s favorite.

She seemed to come alive the second her feet hit the sand, blonde hair whipping like tentacles in the trade winds as she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with salty air. Ollie was convinced she was half mermaid. The way she sliced effortlessly through the water, parting the sea with each stroke—how else could he explain it? Trying to keep up with Eleanor was how he learned to swim in the first place.

Now he was the best swimmer in his age division; he had a wall of gold medals to prove it. And all because his big sister loved the ocean.

But Eleanor had not been able to come to the beach today. The least he could do was bring a piece of it back for her.

The beach, however, was not cooperating. There were no skipping rocks to collect, no hermit crabs to catch, no shells to string into a necklace. Every washed-up conch in sight had been crushed to bits beneath the feet of careless vacationers. He was running out of ideas.

And time.

“Well you better get to looking then,” said Dad. “Your sister is waiting for us.”

Ollie remained still. Feet in the sea, rump in the sand. “What if I waste more time and still can’t find anything?”

Dad smiled, sitting down beside him. “I’m sure Eleanor will -1-

forgive you. She doesn’t expect you to bring her something back every time you go somewhere.”

“I know…” Ollie said. “It’s just that I always do. I always get her the best gifts. I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know.”

Dad couldn’t help but chuckle. To see his son sitting there, pouting in a pair of superhero swim trunks, nose freckled and hair sandy, was almost too much. “Yeah, you’re quite the heartbreaker there, Champ.”

A wave washed around them, and Ollie slapped some of it his way.

“Not funny, Dad.” “Okay, okay,” he conceded. “I get it. This gift business is of utmost importance. Why don’t you take her a jar of sand?”

“Lame,” Ollie said.

“A shark tooth?”

“Get real.”

“Your tooth?”

“None are loose.” Ollie collapsed back onto the shore. “Eleanor is fascinated by my baby teeth. Especially the ones with blood and gum on them.”

“Yeah, your sister’s a weirdo, isn’t she?”

“The biggest.”

Dad scooped up a handful of broken shells. “Too bad none of these are whole. I guess if you wanted to find a good one, you’d have to swim out to the sandbar.”

“Of course!” Ollie shouted, jumping suddenly to his feet. “The sandbar!”

How could he have forgotten? Eleanor always found the coolest treasures there. His grin grew Pacific-wide as he looked excitedly across the ocean. Its surface danced in the sunlight, sparkling blueviolet-turquoise; all of Eleanor’s favorite colors at once. Somewhere out there, where the water was lighter and the sand shelf was higher, waited the best gift ever.

And he was going to find it.

“I’m going to do it,” he said. “I’m finally going to swim to the sandbar. All by myself.”

Dad whistled. “It looks to be fifty yards out. Think you can make it?”

“Puh-lease,” Ollie puffed. “I swim double that in competitions.

-2-

Plus, it’s shallow.”

“All right then, Champ. I’ll be right here if you need me. But if you prefer a lifeguard, just scream SHARK!” “You’re trying to scare me, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he teased. “Now get out there. Your sister really is waiting for us.”

Ollie thrust his fist into the air, Superman-style. “For Eleanor!”

Then he grabbed his goggles and dashed into the surf, high-fiving a wave just before he dove under.

Like his sister, Ollie belonged under the sea. He could feel it as he pushed himself forward with armfuls of water, feet rhythmically kicking behind him. Above the surface, the sun bobbed like a watery light bulb, coating his freckled skin in bright, liquid ripples. Silvery fish darted below. Sudsy currents broke in the waves beyond. On he swam, drawing closer and closer, the sea floor sloping higher and higher until it met the sandbar, and Ollie rose proudly in the now knee-deep water. He waved to his dad, a little action figure on the shore.

“Okay,” Ollie said to himself. “Time to unbury some treasure!”

And the hunt began. All around him, X marked the spot; each one the potential hiding place of Eleanor’s gift. He dug and he scooped and he sifted, the sand getting cooler as his fingers wiggled deeper.

Then he felt it: a velvet, disc-shaped something. Breath catching, he gently lifted that something out of the water.

Ollie’s brows crinkled as he tried to name the treasure in his hand.

“A sand dollar?”

He had never seen one like this before. Palm-sized and dark purple, it looked more like a hairy hockey puck. Or an old fuzzy cookie.

The ones he usually found were bleached white and half broken, their porous insides exposed and crumbling. But this sand dollar was extraordinary. He turned it slowly, running his fingers along the five-petaled flower etched into its body. He couldn’t help but smile.

Eleanor would love this.

The longer he held the sand dollar, the more it tickled his palm.

So he inspected it closer. And he saw that the velvet coat—its film of little hairs…were moving.

“Whoa!” Ollie exclaimed. “You’re alive!”

His smiling morphed into a joyful giggling-fit. What a discovery!

-3-

He had always thought that sand dollars were just sea shells. Or mermaid money, as his dad would say. But he never knew they could actually be alive.

“Eleanor’s going to love you!” he said.

As Ollie sat on the sandbar, admiring his newfound treasure, one last curious thing happened: the sand dollar’s dark color began to fade. Its once spongy texture gradually drying out in the heat of the sun. Ollie could feel the little hairs bristling against his hand, grasping desperately for something his skin could not give. Without the sand dollar’s oceanic home, Ollie’s gift to Eleanor would not live.

“Great,” he said. “Now what?”

Ollie kicked open the car door and jumped onto the pavement before his dad completely parked. “Slow down, Champ!” he called after him, but Ollie was long gone, racing his shadow to the building, hands clasped in front of him like he was holding something precious.

A baby bird. A ladybug. A wish.

Or Eleanor’s gift.

The automatic doors slid open as Ollie drew near, and he tore across the threshold in a victorious, red ribbon finish.

But this race was far from over.

Down the corridors he went, damp sneakers squeaking loudly on the white linoleum. Bulletin boards decorated with construction paper butterflies rustled as he blew past. He didn’t need to follow the colored lines painted along the walls to find where he was going; this was a path he knew by heart. Door after door flew by, most of them shut while their occupants slumbered in the rooms beyond. The door he headed toward was always open.

At the end of the hall in the very last room, tucked into a bed of crisp linen, was a teenage girl. She was long-legged and skinny, wearing a blue knit cap snuggly on her head to keep the skin beneath warm. Her chipped black nails were gnawed to the quick, but her pale cheeks were flushed with laughter. Today was a good day. The girl and her mom had binge-watched their way through a stack of romantic comedies, and the lighthearted fun they brought was a welcome distraction. Especially since tomorrow would be a scheduled bad day. Between the girl’s red blood cells and white blood cells, something wasn’t quite right. But the medicine that flooded her body on bad days was supposed to fix it.

-4-

Around the room, positioned where she could see them, were all the gifts her little brother had given her over the past few months. A vase of hand-picked wildflowers. A build-it-yourself model sailboat.

Dozens of lucky, stumbled-upon pennies. Three gold medals won in her honor. Glittering cards. A stuffed dolphin that had taken six dollars and fifty cents to win.

Suddenly a boy burst into the room, his hands cupped tightly, bringing with him the scent of sea salt and sunscreen. “Eleanor!” he cried.

“Ollie-pop!” she said. “I was wondering when you’d get here.

What took you so long?”

He stumbled over to the bed, clumsily pushing himself on top of it with his knees and elbows. “I had to find you a gift!”

“Careful, Ollie,” his mom said, moving away the tube that trailed from the back of Eleanor’s hand to the clear bag hanging above.

Ollie didn’t know what was in it, but he was certain it was salt water.

Eleanor’s mermaid veins couldn’t go long without it.

Dad stumbled in next, breathing heavily as he sat in the chair beside Mom. “I know you like…swimming, Champ. But have you ever considered…track and field?”

Eleanor laughed. She brushed a flop of blonde hair from her brother’s eyes. “What did you bring me this time, Ollie-pop?”

“You’re not going to believe it,” he said. “I swam all the way out to the sandbar to find it. By myself.”

“No!” she gasped.

“Yes! I really did! The water was so clear, I could see everything! I swam and I splashed, and Eleanor… I saw a shark.”

“No!” she gasped again.

“No… I really didn’t. But when I got to the sandbar, I saw something even better.”

He paused for dramatic effect.

Eleanor pushed him playfully. “Come on, Ollie. Tell me!”

He smiled. “I saw a sand dollar.” Then he unfolded his hands.

But nothing was there.

Eleanor frowned, confused. “I don’t get it.”

“Did you know that sand dollars are purple?” he said. She shook her head, and he continued, “I didn’t either. But this one was. And fuzzy, too. Kind of like that dress you wore last Christmas. Remember?”

-5-

She nodded this time.

“So I held it and laughed, because it was perfect. I couldn’t believe I’d found something so pretty. And I knew you were going to love it, too.” Ollie paused again, his smile falling. “But as I sat there, it started to dry. Got paler and paler. Your sand dollar…it was dying, Eleanor.”

A soft silence settled in the room. Eleanor took Ollie’s empty hands in hers.

“So I put it back,” he said, sitting up straighter. “And the gift I brought? It’s not much, but it’s the best that I could do. For you I found a sand dollar, and for you it gets to live.”

Of all the trinkets scattered around the room—the coins, the toys, the little pieces of home—this was by far the most priceless one.

“Ollie,” Eleanor said. “This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten. Thank you.”

He exhaled a triumphant, exhausted breath. All of his time that day spent to make his sister smile. And it was a good one, too. Bright like the sun, setting adrift two ocean-blue eyes that were taking on water in the best possible way.

She hugged him tight, and he hugged her back.

There wasn’t anything Ollie wouldn’t do for Eleanor.

-6-

Jordan Ardoin

Hungry

E

xhausted and sweaty from a jog around the neighborhood, Tammy entered her apartment’s tiny kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She stared longingly for a few seconds at her roommate’s leftover Lo mein on the top shelf. A glance down at her pudgy tummy and thick thighs reminded her why she couldn’t eat it. With an exasperated sigh, she grabbed a sad little bag of baby carrots and slumped down in a chair at the table. She munched the carrots in silence. Before she knew it, she held an empty bag.

She left the kitchen, resolutely walking past the fridge without touching the handle. She made her way to the bathroom and took a long shower. She blow-dried her hair for no particular reason and put on a fresh pair of sweats. She took out the trash, even though it wasn’t quite full yet. She thoroughly scrubbed the three bowls in the sink. She vacuumed, she cleaned the bathroom, she organized the linen closet. Anything to keep her mind off the takeout in the fridge and the whiny pangs emanating from her stomach.

When she couldn’t think of anything else that needed doing, Tammy threw herself down on the couch. She pulled out her phone and checked her email. Two new messages awaited her. One was a brightly colored E-vite to a campus mixer next week. She deleted it without reading past the heading. Not ready, she thought. Not yet.

The other was from her doctor’s office, reminding her that she had an appointment in two days.

Tammy closed her eyes and breathed in the mustiness of her home. Sure, the place was small, and it always felt dirty no matter how much time she spent cleaning it, and the air conditioner barely worked, and the neighborhood wasn’t great, but for Tammy, this was a new start. Here, miles and miles away from her problems, she could finally fix herself. And if that took long jogs every day and eating nothing but vegetables, so be it. This was her new life. It was hard, and she hated it sometimes, but anything was better than what she’d suffered for the past four years. Anything.

-7-

High school hadn’t exactly been kind to Tammy, a chubby, freckled redhead who’d needed glasses since she was ten. Time and time again, she came home with tears streaking her cheeks, and time and time again, her mother assured her that she was beautiful. But Tammy knew the truth. She heard it every day from her classmates. They whispered it and snickered at her as she walked down the hallway.

They wrote it in little notes slipped into her locker. They said it to her face when she had the nerve to sit next to them at lunch. She was fat and ugly, and everyone hated her.

As she sat with her eyes closed, indulging in a moment of self-pity, her stomach unleashed an especially loud grumble. She groaned and poked at it, trying (though pointlessly, she knew) to make it shut up. She didn’t want to, she screamed at herself not to, but still she trudged to the fridge and opened it again. There, on the top shelf, the little white takeout carton still sat, beckoning to her, reaching out to her with open arms, offering her a moment’s solace. Screw it, she thought, as her stomach gurgled like an animal struggling for its last breaths. She put the Lo mein in the microwave and waited.

This time when Tammy sat down at the table, she felt genuine excitement. It would be her first real meal in weeks. She licked her lips in anticipation and plunged her fork into the little sea of noodles. She raised the bite to her lips—and stopped short. A voice in her head scolded her.

Look at yourself, you fat whore, it said. No wonder you’re still so fat.

You’re a pig.

Tammy dropped the fork and it hit the linoleum with a clang. The sound echoed around her. She stared at the fork sitting there on the floor, noodles still wrapped around its prongs. More voices joined the first, and soon a chorus was shouting at her, telling her how weak she was, how disgusting she was, how worthless and terrible she always had been and always would be. It was nothing new. In fact, the voices were all too familiar.

She pressed her lips together and fought the lump rising in her throat. This was her life. Skinny, blonde cheerleaders roared with laughter inside her mind. We told you, they said. Tammy squinted her eyes against the tears, but they rolled down her cheeks anyway. This was her life. Her mother’s voice murmured in her ear again, talking to her father when she thought Tammy couldn’t hear. I’m starting to -8-

worry about her weight, honey. It can’t be healthy. A rough sob escaped Tammy’s throat. This was her life. This would always be her life, no matter how far she tried to run. This was her life.

And she didn’t want it anymore.

-9-

Melissa Pisarski

Dear Brother

I

did not see him dead, as you will, dear Brother. I merely saw him dying in that quaint hospice house bordered by tranquil, freshwater lakes. Grandpa, in both of these alternate states of existence, will be equally unrecognizable as the crude, volatile man we knew in our youth. Our experiences will be markedly different, but there is advice I can stress. There are things I can promise: You will have several connecting flights in sprawling airports, despite the outrageous price Dad paid for the tickets only days earlier.

Beware your inevitable arrival at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. You will arrive at a terminal on the exact opposite side of the complex from your departing gate. That flight leaves in eight minutes. Speed through meandering crowds of faceless strangers hovering in swarms along your path. Vow to never come back to North Carolina.

After you board the plane to Michigan, winded and perspiring, the pilot’s annoyingly charismatic voice will fill the cabin to inform you of a maintenance issue. Use what little breath you have left following your sprint to the gate to sigh theatrically on behalf of all airline passengers.

Reach for Mom’s hand when the plane begins to ascend, dear Brother. She hates this part, but she won’t tell you. Her face betrays her, though, a marquee advertising her discomfort. Now playing: Tension upon Ascension. Make several bad puns to inject normalcy into the frivolous small talk.

“Do you think we will actually arrive on time?” she will ask.

“I’m not sure. It’s up in the air,” you will answer.

Receive her look of mild disgust with an opened-mouth smile.

Sling a few finger guns in her direction as she sustains her critical head tilt.

Mom had looked at Grandpa that way, dear Brother, when he would spill his coffee, leaving stains in the grout between the creamy beige tiles in the kitchen of our old Foxridge house when the first - 10 -

signs of tremor awoke in his hands. Do you remember? She had cast that familiar distaste in a concentrated beam at the back of his balding head when he would harp about whichever religion he practiced that week, yelling about the hellish afterlives for which we were destined.

Wonder which god will receive him. Decide it can’t be the ones that prohibited pork consumption because of the bacon and kielbasa cravings he indulged in his final days.

Acknowledge the aching vacancy in your own stomach from hours without nourishment because Mom never gets hungry. Hope the grumbling remains mute as to not worry her. Accept when it does not. Rejoice when she suggests an early dinner.

Stay patient when Mom can’t remember if Polish Village or Polonia has better mushroom soup. Agree to dinner at Polish Village and dessert at Polonia after 15 minutes of sitting in the stuffy rental car trying to pick one as Mom puffs menthol cigarettes. Descend the crooked staircase into the dark, narrow dining room of Polish Village and amble to a squat corner table set for two. Cringe, dear Brother, when Mom facetiously recommends ordering a bowl of czernina, with its broth of duck’s blood and vinegar. Compromise by instead ordering zupa ogórkowa and splitting a gołąbki, except order them by saying dill pickle soup and stuffed cabbage to intentionally irritate the inattentive waitress who speaks fluent Polish.

Agree honestly when Mom says the food was horrendously unauthentic, that you should have gone straight to Polonia. Emerge back on the surface outside of the building while the sun is still up.

Remark how strangely still time had felt down in the restaurant, how slowly the sun is dimming. Walk 32 steps across a single, cratered parking lot to arrive at Polonia, the red letter A missing from the signage on its façade.

Sip bitter coffee in a splitting vinyl booth. Order a ton of nalesniki to cover the disappointment of dinner. Mom will ask for raspberry and you will order apple, dear Brother, one of the few things left to choice during this trip. Request extra powdered sugar and a side of whipped cream while feigning regret for the diet you’ve obliterated.

As the teenaged server fetches these, Mom will affix her eyes to the savory items on the large menu sheet balancing on the edge of the scratched wooden table while silence fills the space between you. She - 11 -

will recall how much Grandpa liked pierogis, sauerkraut and potato, and which of his collection of ex-wives made them best.

“Say what you want about him, but Daddy knew how to flirt,” Mom will say barely above a whisper through a tearful smile.

Remember his cerulean eyes stark against the pale skin of his chubby face, punctuated by cloud-white eyebrows like foamy caps on Gulf waves. When you see him, they will be cloaked behind papery eyelids in eternal sleep. You can see their brilliance in Mom’s eyes, though, when she cries. They explode with a deep, violent impact like a paintball on tender skin. They become as blue as ours glow green, dear Brother, when they well with tears.

Leave Polonia wordlessly to travel back to the overpriced hotel that will become home for the seemingly endless week where days will pass in a blur of cheap meals and rushed sightseeing between the responsibilities that brought you here.

You will want to cry when Mom does, every time she does, the concentration of her pain prompting the precipitation of your own.

Look up and blink. Absorb the sentiment swelling to the surface.

Time for release will come when Mom retreats to the ground floor of your hotel to indulge in ash and smoke. Cry then. Cry hard, dear Brother. These are the only times you can.

It will have been days now, compounded hours of suppressed grief, retrospective guilt, illusory strength. It will make you physically sick like you used to be every day before school when we were just kids. Feel its corrosive threat scaling the back of your throat. Lurch rigidly as you expel raw chunks of your shuddering soul into the hotel toilet while Mom is away, the bleach fumes left by a diligent maid’s handiwork adding a chemical sting to your reddened eyes.

Mom keeps a small bottle of Visine in the front pocket of her worn handbag. Use it. Brush your teeth twice to cover the evidence.

Readopt your stoic demeanor.

Smile when Mom returns 46 minutes, four cigarettes, and one whiskey-spiked cup of coffee later. Wait for your turn to talk to Dad on the phone. Listen as Mom, smiling sincerely, reveres you as her rock, celebrates how strong you’ve been for her. Choke out a humble chuckle despite the residual sting haunting your strained throat.

Dad will sound chipper over the phone, giving voice to the Florida sunshine back home. He will ask how you are. Only talk about how - 12 -

great the strawberry milkshakes at Big Boy were or how many Tigers fans you saw hanging their heads as they walked through downtown Detroit after Tuesday’s loss. Avoid saying loss because it is too close to the reality of your visit.

Shift gears by mentioning your detour through Hamtramck, the four-square-mile borough with its liquor stores on the corner of every one-way street that our parents called home. Regretfully inform him that Polski Sklep sits vacant on its corner of Joseph Campau, but that the blonde woman on its sign still bears a striking resemblance to Mom if you look past the veil of grime acquired over months of neglect. The faded brick of the stately Kosciuszko Middle School Dad attended shows lingering evidence of summer construction, the dust barely settling before the first bell rang for fall. Mom will point out each house the family bounced between in her youth, many just down the street from each other. Some among the cramped shops our Great Grandmother owned decades before on Caniff, others on the oil stained streets of Belmont across from Pope Park where Pope John Paul II made a stop more years ago than we’ve been living, dear Brother, where his likeness hovers just above the town with outstretched arms. State fondly how strange it was to see the Catholic school where our uniform-clad Mom raised hell as part of the Class of ’85.

Hand the phone back to Mom after delivering a pained “I love you” to our indifferent Dad. Feel a pang of regret when you wonder if, when he’s gone, you’ll miss him the way Mom is missing Grandpa.

Register the pain radiating from Mom in hot waves like direct sun in the Florida summers we shared in childhood. Understand that you will be miserable.

Hesitate every night when Mom insists you sleep, dear Brother.

“Idź spać,” she will recommend gently, pronouncing it like “eech na spotch” to make you laugh.

Do not succumb to the weight dragging your eyelids to a forceful close, to a peaceful sleep. Not until she, too, is nestled beneath a puffy white comforter on a stiff hotel bed across from your own, until her face has softened with serenity. Give her no opportunity for even brief moments of loneliness.

You will awake on that day that I cannot possibly know, the final day Ol’ Blue Eyes, Stasiu, Pops, our Grandpa will exist as more than - 13 -

ashen dust and memories. I cannot tell you how you’ll feel when you don a borrowed tie and sit among estranged family, dear Brother.

I cannot predict how witnessing Aunty Patsy, his sister, grieve will affect you as you think of me, your sister, regretfully absent from the tear-drenched sendoff.

Imprisoned in grief, I will be shackled to my studies in respect of Mom’s adamant instruction that I not attend the funeral at the expense of my education. I will shake with choked sobs, secreting warm tears that send the ink of my notes scattering in dampened starbursts across college-ruled paper. I will absentmindedly review frivolous concepts in used textbooks while the reality of demise stalks my every thought, while the rest of you confront death like a weakened army of battered soldiers.

It is Grandpa we will lose, though it will be all of us that are lost.

These things, dear Brother, I can promise.

- 14 -

Diana Jernigan

Bone Ache There is a moment on winter evenings that aches in the bones When the moon hovers over the scraggly pattern of dormant brush And the white dunes glisten like snow except where the orange slices over them and cuts little rusty shadows as if in defiance of relinquishing the day to the low flying heron intoxicating the marsh and the fishermen rippling the pearly shore And the moon keeps straining upward

- 15 -

while the boats scurry in and stars wink in western windows for a dying moment then collapse When the sky shifts to purple and the moon sheds yellow All hangs white and ghostly and in that instant the heart breaks

- 16 -

Michelle Bellanova

sleepy fantasies When I can’t sleep at night I find myself staring out between the cracks of the blinds that drape themselves on my windows like canvas over wood.

I imagine myself pulling the stars out of their comfortable resting places on the overhanging velvet.

In a perfect world I would draw with their pointed ends the way the strands of your hair fell on the pillow, something about drawing patterns with constellations has such a funny ring to it.

With my body as the sole source of warmth against the threaded sheets beneath and above me, my eyes close and now I am drifting through the sky, coming home to you with streams of stars decorating my arms and legs.

These sleepy fantasies take many forms, from creating art with the strands of your hair while you sleep to embodying art and offering myself to you like the rain that falls without consideration for the day’s plans.

The most beautiful part of all is knowing the stars will keep blinking long after they die, while we never lose momentum.

- 17 -

With this simple thought and a smile, sleep comes to me the same way you did, with grace and a gleam in your eyes like the ones I find outside my windows.

- 18 -

Matthew Stott

Nowhere to Hyde Friday, 6:09 PM – New York City, NY

T

he 1941 Wolf Man was playing on an old television set on mute.

Miles Selim sat back on a patched-up sofa, lazily watching the movie with one eye open. His apartment was a mess; a pile of beer cans was stacked on his coffee table, and hundreds of newspapers were scattered across the floor.

A police scanner was settled on the end table next to him. It’d been rattling off for the last hour: an unarmed robbery at a gas station at 5:27 PM, a raucous sorority house party around 5:45, and just a few minutes ago there had been a report of a delusional old man defiling (in other words, humping) a front yard of lawn gnomes. This had been his third offense in the last week too.

Miles was only interested in the big-scale crimes. He missed the adrenaline and action of being in the force. He served six years with the NYPD until he was wrongfully discharged, and since then had been working a desk job in an office answering phones, slowly losing his mind from the monotony. He was good at stopping criminals and stopping criminals only. A modern-day Batman, he was quick, strong, and intelligent enough to outsmart the best thugs New York had to offer, and could usually arrive at a scene before the actual cops even showed up.

Taking a break from the police scanner and his thoughts, Miles downed the remains of his last beer and arose from the sofa, striding across the living room to the kitchen for a snack.

His gaze met a magnetic picture on the fridge. It was four years old, and showed himself with his arms wrapped around a beautiful woman with long hazelnut hair—his ex-wife. She’d left him for, and he quotes, “caring more about playing superhero than maintaining their relationship.” She also took their now 2-year-old son with her.

As much as it hurt Miles, he refused to take down the magnet. He loved his little boy and ex-wife. She just didn’t understand him.

- 19 -

Nobody did. Tracking down criminals was the only sense of purpose he had left. Otherwise, he would surely wind up in a loony bin.

Finishing off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (the peanut butter strategically spread on one side of the sandwich with jelly on the other side, the way Miles’s mother always made them for him as a kid), he slumped over to the counter and picked up the newspaper from that morning.

MASKED VIGILANTE NARROWLY ESCAPES IMPRISONMENT: WARRANT OUT FOR HIS ARREST. That was the front-page headline. It featured a side shot of a man with his face blurred out, which Miles found ironic after reading the headline. The article with it described him as “heavily armed, highly dangerous, and extremely unpredictable,” and readers are told to call 9-1-1 and report sightings of him without hesitation.

Miles smirked. He’d been after this guy on more than one occasion, but he was simply too elusive. Maybe tonight would be the night he’d get another chance.

There was more crackle of voices over the police scanner, but again nothing peaked Miles’s interest—more robberies, but of the likes of food and clothes stores. People had to eat and not be naked, right?

Miles paced back over to the sofa, passing a cracked mirror. It was another daily reminder of his ex-wife. Their last fight had involved a thrown shoe right before she stormed out, which landed smack into the glass. Like the magnetic picture, Miles couldn’t get himself to throw it out or else he’d feel a rush of anxiety like he was losing his ex-wife all over again.

Looking closely into the mirror, his eyes swept up and down his forearms. They were heavily bruised—dark, purplish marks resonated on his skin. He couldn’t recall how he got them either, which he concluded was the result of a blackout night of drinking.

He fought criminals on a regular basis, sure, but they never landed punches on him.

His thoughts were interrupted yet again by his police scanner, but this time he heard what he’d been hoping for. “. . . . in pursuit of a dangerous man . . . wanted for crimes against humanity . . . fleeing to Central Park in a white minivan around 1831 . . . wearing a black coat . . . shoot on sight. . . .”

Miles scrambled to his bedroom and found a dark backpack, - 20 -

which had been pre-packed with everything he needed: a flashlight, a handgun, extra ammunition, handcuffs, a taser, and infrared goggles—just in case.

He gulped down a large glass of water, flipped off the television, and jogged down to the street to hail a cab. One pulled over pretty quickly, and when he climbed into the back seat he told the driver, “Central Park! Step on it!”

In his thick accent, the driver responded, “Ay, sonny, you got a death wish or somethin’? There’s a crazy murderer on his way there, all ova the news.”

“I can handle myself, thanks,” Miles said, slipping the driver a wad of bills. “Get me there in ten minutes or better, okay?”

“You got it, boss,” the driver said, happily accepting his bribery and then whipping down the road.

The whole ride, Miles stared at himself in the reflection of the window. He’d changed so much since he graduated the Police Academy. He used to be so full of hope and ambition, his whole life ahead of him. Now he felt like half that man.

Coming to a halt after eight minutes and forty-two seconds— record time, Miles noted—the taxi driver spun around and flashed a smile. “How was that? I ain’t parkin’ any closer than I have to, so you’ll have to walk.”

“I bet you’re awesome at Need for Speed,” Miles said jokingly, handing him payment for the ride and then some more. “And that’s fine. Have a nice night.”

He dashed out of the cab before he even had time to hear the driver’s response. Even considering how late it was, the park was ominously empty. There was the occasional New Yorker strolling around or sitting on a bench, but for the most part it seemed as though this murderer had scared off the masses.

As Miles circled the park, he found where all the squad cars were parked—their lights flashing in a huddled mess. The action must be close.

He took off in a sprint, hoping he could still beat the NYPD, and collided with another man who had been sprinting the opposite direction. They both fell to the ground, and when Miles got to his feet he saw a panic in the man’s eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Miles asked, offering his hand.

- 21 -

“I’ve gotta get out of here!” the man exclaimed, grabbing Miles’s hand and getting to his feet. “He’s after me! Run for your life!”

“Where is he?” Miles further inquired. But the man had already fled.

Miles looked in the direction the man had ran from and, sure enough, another figure was emerging from the shadows of the park.

The silhouette was tall and burly, and when they crossed into the light Miles could see a fist with one hand and a pistol in the other.

This second man looked threatening, but wasn’t wearing a mask of any kind. Instead, he had short blond hair and a handlebar mustache.

When he saw Miles, he stopped in his tracks, abandoning his chase of the other man.

“Give me one reason not to kill you,” the second man ordered, pointing the pistol at Miles’s head.

Miles slowly reached for his own pistol at his side, but in doing so heard the click of the other man’s pistol being cocked.

“Think you can pull a fast one on me?” he asked.

Miles smiled. “Of course not. Shit, the cops!”

The man stupidly turned around, and during the split second he did Miles removed his handgun, cocked it, and fired it into the man’s chest. The man collapsed to the ground, his eyes growing cloudy as blood pooled out of the orifice in his back.

Wishing to avoid confrontation with the cops, Miles started to leave the scene. As he did, though, the first man who was being chased stopped him.

“You got him! Thank you so much! Look, I really don’t know how else to show my appreciation. My wife and kids were waiting for me back at the house—” Click.

“Sir, are you all right?”

Miles smiled, the moonlight casting an eerie shadow upon his face. At once he let out a bone-chilling yelp and dropped to the ground, his hands turning on himself and ripping at his shirt until fabric was torn away. His pupils grew twice in size as his heart began to beat like a drum.

“Sir? Do you need help?”

Miles was no longer himself in that moment. He was now merely a host to a monstrous psychopath. He reached into his backpack - 22 -

and pulled out another item that had found its way in there: a black mask.

Putting it on, he got to his feet again and cackled. The cops had finally caught on to the commotion and were running over in the dozens with dogs at their disposal. It wouldn’t be much longer before they surrounded Miles, this man, and the dead criminal on the ground.

Miles pointed the gun at the man.

“Y-Y-You just saved me . . . you’re not g-gonna kill me!”

Miles’s pointer finger slid around the trigger so easily, like he had done this a hundred times. The man abandoned his efforts to talk Miles down and took off in another sprint. But it was too late. Miles had become one with the cold metal of the trigger.

Bang!

A shell case plummeted to the ground along with the man, joining the criminal’s body in a sea of blood.

GET OUT OF MY HEAD! The real Miles was trying to regain control.

The gun slipped from his hands, hitting the ground with a trail of smoke. Two cops tackled him at once, and he embraced the luscious grass of Central Park.

YOU WON’T CONTROL ME ANYMORE! He elbowed one cop, and then stunned the other with his taser, linking them together with his handcuffs. As more cops scrambled toward him, he dashed for the smoking gun on the ground. He picked it up, aimed it at himself, and pulled the trigger one last time.

A blood-splattered mask fell to the ground.

Miles was free at last.

- 23 -

Lauren Shewman

Witches of Salem

M

ary stood with the other girls of Salem Village and stared at the line of women on the raised platform. Conversation from the crowd buzzed around her like insects on a hot, humid day. Mary clenched the coarse fabric of her skirt, and a hush fell over the crowd as Chief Justice William Stoughton stepped onto the platform.

He spoke to the crowd, but none of the words registered for Mary.

Her eyes slowly trailed over the faces of the women facing the crowd, hands tied behind their backs and a thick rope placed around their necks. One of the women stood with her chin lifted towards the crowd so that she could glare down her nose at them.

Mary watched the woman and stepped back into the group of girls when the woman’s sharp eyes rolled over them. A pinch on the back of her arm—a reminder to stay in line—made Mary stop.

A voice rang out from the back of the crowd when the Chief Justice finished his speech. “Hang the witches!”

The woman’s head snapped towards the voice as more chanted the cry. She bared her teeth in a sneer. “I am no witch! I have committed no crime. God as my witness, I stand here more innocent than all of you!”

Mary turned away when the shouting crowd drowned out the woman’s voice. She twisted away from the pinching fingers and shoved past the other girls. She slipped between the adults, eyes locked on the edge of the houses. Her stomach turned when she bumped into a man and heard him shout, “Look! She’s using her black magic to drive the poor girls away! Hang them!”

A new round of “Hang the witches!” erupted from the crowd, and Mary’s stomach cramped as she shoved past the last lines of the crowd and made a mad dash towards the closest house. She turned the corner and stopped, gasping for breath. She could still hear the crowd shouting, and she lurched forward with a gag. Bile burned the back of her throat, and a tear slipped down her cheek.

“Mary!”

- 24 -

Abigail grabbed her arm and jerked her around. The older girl’s face was twisted into a scowl, and her nose wrinkled when Mary wiped away the strand of spittle on her chin. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t.” Mary swallowed the bile rising in her throat. A new round of shouting came from the crowd. She twisted to the side and gagged again. Nothing came up. “I can’t do this anymore!”

A stinging pain flared from her cheek, and she lifted a hand to gently press against it. Abigail rubbed her hands together with a deep frown. “Pull it together! Do you want our fathers to know what we were really doing with Tituba?”

“People are dying!”

“And they’ll hang us too if they find out we practiced her voodoo!”

Abigail grabbed Mary’s wrist. Her nails bit into Mary’s skin, and Mary flinched. She didn’t pull away though, and Abigail dragged her closer to hiss in her ear. She had been here before—Abigail hissing in her ear to do as the other girls did, screaming and pointing at the nearest person to blame. It was “necessary,” Abigail had said; their age wouldn’t save them from punishment. Mary’s stomach churned again. “I found a way to keep us out of trouble. Are you about to jeopardize that safety for everyone just because you’re scared?”

Mary wiped away the tears that fell. She took a deep breath and attempted to ignore the sounds of the lynching party. “Nothing my father does to me can compare to what God’s punishment will be.”

Abigail raised her hand again, and Mary cringed away from the predicted blow, almost pulling out of Abigail’s grasp. Her heart stuttered when the older girl did nothing but pat her on the head and release her wrist from the biting grip. With a gentle smile, Abigail’s expression shifted from indignant rage to angelic. “You’re right Mary. This has gone far beyond what we planned. I will tell my uncle everything. You get some rest now—I started all of this, so I’ll be the one who fixes it.”

Mary slowly nodded, and with a sniff, she turned towards her home on the far side of town. She glanced back towards the crowd and cried at the bodies swinging from the large tree. She turned and sprinted away.

M

ary winced when the needle jabbed the tip of her finger.

Her hands slightly shook as shifted the skirt on her lap and - 25 -

continued to hem the piece of the cloth. She smiled at her younger sister, who watched with big eyes. “What do you think, Temperance?”

The little girl’s head jerked up and down, but her eyes remained fastened to the skirt. Mary kept smiling and tried not to wince again when the needle pricked her. The fire on the other side of the room crackled, and Mary put the needle and thread down long enough to point at it. “Go stoke the fire before it goes out. We don’t want the beans to go cold.”

Temperance jumped from her spot on the floor and dashed over to the fire place. The little girl poked the smoldering fire with the iron poker, and embers popped into the air like angry fireflies. The girl ran back to sit on the floor. “When is papa coming home?”

Mary bit her lip, and the needle jabbed deep into her finger. She clenched her hands to stop the shaking. “He should be here soon.

He’s an important member of the church now. You know that.”

“He helps put away the mean witches!” Temperance picked up the cloth and needle Mary had given her to practice with and restarted the jagged pattern on the cloth. “They can’t get you no more with papa helping. He’ll find the one that took mama too.”

Mary dropped the needle and thread and began to fold up the skirt with shaking hands. “Mama died because she became sick last winter—not because of a witch.”

“But the witch probably made her sick.” Temperance threw aside her practice cloth and sidled up to Mary on her knees. She grabbed Mary’s hands and squeezed hard enough for the shaking to stop. “I saw a lady spit in mama’s direction before she got sick—I know I did!”

Mary snatched her hands away. “There are no witches in Salem!

Don’t ever talk about it again.”

Mary pushed her sister away and stood up. She hurried to the other side of the house and leaned against the table. She drew in a deep breath, but it only made her stomach cramp. She turned back to Temperance, who sat on the floor picking at the thread on her cloth. “Temperance—” A banging on the door made both of the girls jump. Deep voices snaked through the walls of the house, and one hoarse voice stood out amongst the others. Mary froze, but Temperance wasted no time running to the door and throwing it open. “Papa!”

- 26 -

Temperance was shoved through the door and into the arms of their father. Five men filed into the small house, two of which Mary recognized as Chief Justice William Stoughton and Abigail’s uncle.

She took a step back when Abigail and some of the girls trailed after them.

Stoughton turned to the girls. “Is this the witch who has afflicted you?”

Abigail fell to the ground with an otherworldly howl, like a dying animal slowly being ripped apart. The other girls followed suit, writhing and shrieking at the top of their lungs. Mary could hardly breath as she watched them. A tremor crawled down her spine at their high-pitched screams and contorted movements.

Abigail was the first to struggle back to her feet, and her uncle rushed over to help her. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she pointed towards Mary. “She’s the witch! She’s the one that came to us in our sleep and poked us with her needles.”

The girls shrieked along with Abigail, their accusations echoing through the small space. Mary couldn’t take her eyes off of Abigail, who contorted and writhed in her uncle’s arms. The girls continued to cry until the Chief Justice gestured two the men towards Mary.

“Arrest her on the charge of witchcraft.”

“This is outrageous!” Mary’s father pushed past the girls crowding the door with Temperance close at his side. He stepped between the men and pulled Mary behind him. “If you have already forgotten, my daughter is also a victim of this black magic!”

Abigail threw her head back and shrieked in a way that Mary had never heard before. It made the other girls go quiet until their leader pointed at Mary’s father, her eyes wide and spittle flying from her mouth. “The black man! It’s the black man that brings them to us.”

Mary watched as the men immediately restrained her father; his protests were lost among the renewed hysterics that the girls fell into.

Mary only moved when one of the men grabbed Temperance by the arm, but she was only able hit him a few times before she too was restrained.

She fought against the man with Temperance’s cries motivating her. She stopped when she was shoved past Abigail, and she caught the older girl’s eye. Abigail was no longer screaming; instead she stood perfectly still with the same gentle smile she had given Mary - 27 -

earlier that day.   Mary went limp as she was dragged from the house and carried into the night. She had been wrong in telling Temperance that witches weren’t real. There were witches right here in Salem. Only these witches were far more dangerous than the ones the church had described.

- 28 -

Rachel Oliver

the breeze blows the breeze blows The feeling leaves my skin just as quickly and effortlessly as it appeared.

Reminding me that moments are fleeting.

Just a collection of thoughts and feelings that form out of our own version of reality.

Nothing concrete. Just wisps of a cloud that will disappear before your eyes. the breeze stops.

I feel the heat of the sun bearing down on my skin.

As the perspiration forms, I am reminded that I am here, right now, in this moment.

Not far away, where my thoughts want to carry me.

But the breeze is sure to return, and just like this moment, I will be gone.

- 29 -

Wayne Abrahamson

The Battle of Lulu’s Brothel

“

Chief,” stated the petty officer standing in the wooden-framed door of the pilothouse, “What’s the idea of letting go that Negro back at Big Lagoon? We just got here, and once word gets out that we let one go the rest of them will expect the same. You know those darkies.”

Chief Thomas Dooley, a twelve-year veteran of the US Coast Guard, looked at his accuser. Petty Officer Cary Sullivan whose Irish complexion further enhanced by his ire. “The Coast Guard sent us up from the Key West Squadron as a prohibitory presence,” responded Dooley who returned his eyes to the long green coastline in the distance, “and we’re after bigger fish, namely One-Ear Johnson; not a one-armed Negro trying to feed his family by peddling a few jars of hooch. Now, tell the crew to square away the boat. The town’s people may not appreciate our presence, but I don’t want to give them an excuse by showing up in a garbage scowl. I want to show the Pensacolians real Coast-Guardsmen.”

Sullivan sighed. “Okay, but what the hell are we going to do on liberty in this one-horse town? Play billiards and take in flicker shows?”

Dooley smiled as he turned the helm slightly to starboard with one hand while pushing the two brass throttle levers forward with the other. “Don’t worry about that.”

Sullivan nodded his head slightly, and stepped out of the door leaving Dooley alone.

Dooley continued to pilot the 125-foot patrol boat east, and could soon cull out individual details of downtown Pensacola including the waterfront piers.

Less than an hour later, as the sun crept toward the western horizon, Dooley guided the boat to the longest of the piers: Palafox Pier. Once the patrol boat bumped against the tar-covered pilings, crewmembers wrapped the mooring lines around them and back to the deck cleats. The walkway of the nearly empty pier was four - 30 -

feet above the main deck of the boat. The few men on the pier, dockworkers by the looks of their worn bibbed overalls and denims, glared at the Coast Guardsmen before walking away, leaving one woman. She stood there quietly appraising the sailors on the patrol boat.

The crew of the patrol boat, wearing work dungarees, stood on the deck and gawked up at the woman. She was in her early twenties with bobbed, black hair and a pretty face accentuated by the over-use of bright red lipstick. She wore a pink dress that came down to her knees and carried a large matching handbag.

“Welcome to Pensacola boys,” she said while stepping closer to the edge of the pier. The late afternoon sea breeze teased then flared the bottom of her dress. The men were herded to the railing by the prospect of getting a better glimpse of her upper gams. As they crowded in, she continued. “Who’s Chief Dooley?”

“Here,” answered Dooley as he left the pilothouse and joined his men on the fantail. He, like the rest of his men, looked up her dress.

“Is there something you want? Other than to show us you’re not wearing any cami-knickers.” He asked with a curious twinkle in his eyes.

She smiled coyly. “Orders by my employer who, by the way, is inviting y’all to our place of business, and she’s looking forward to seeing everybody, especially you, Chief.”

“And your employer is?”

“Madam Lulu,” the woman said as she turned to look down the pier, her gaze directing the men’s eye’s toward downtown, onto Palafox Street, and at a two-story pale brick building, with a green slanted roof, facing the waterfront. All the Coast-Guards-men broke into broad smiles, including Dooley.

“We got word you were getting stationed up here. The rest of the town might not like you bein’ here, but Lulu is always ready to respec’ our men in uniform. She’s spectin’ all of your men right now and everything’s on the house: everything.”

The entire crew yelled with glee, and started talking amongst themselves. Dooley had planned to visit Lulu anyway, but did not expect this. “We’ll be there in an hour, but I have to leave two men on duty. Can I assume you’re here to keep them company?”

She simply opened the drawstrings of her purse, revealing a bottle - 31 -

of Cuban rum.

The men roared in unison and all headed below to change. The men slated for duty helped the woman down the ladder onto the deck of the boat, and less than an hour later Dooley and Sullivan, in their white uniforms, walked the length of the pier. The crew had raced ahead.

“So, Lulu’s, huh?” asked Sullivan. “What makes her place so special?”

“She knows how to run a whorehouse,” Dooley responded. She’s the bee’s knees of madams. Her liquor won’t turn you blue, and you never have to worry about the morning drip or crotch crickets.

Just,” Dooley paused, “when you meet her, don’t stare, and don’t say anything unless she says something first.”

“Why?” “You’ll find out.”

They fell into silence and approached a knot of workers heading down the pier. The workers wore work denims, and beat-up hats, and each carried a metal lunch box like the workers who watched their arrival. However, as Dooley and Sullivan passed them, Dooley noticed they seemed to hold themselves differently. Dooley looked at the one man in the center. He wore denims like the others, but also wore a fedora pulled low covering part of his face.

He looks familiar, he pondered briefly before his thoughts went back to gin-and-tonics.

“So, who’s this One-Ear Johnson you keep talking about?” asked Sullivan.

“He’s the main rum-runner between here and Havana, and Lulu’s the reason why he’s called One-Ear Johnson. I’ve never met him though. Only saw a few mug shots.”

Minutes later, the two men stepped up to Lulu’s covered front porch and were greeted with loud jazz music and voices coming from the open, curtain-lined windows above.

“Sounds like the crew’s already settled in,” observed Dooley.

Both the men removed their caps. Dooley pulled open the screen door, letting Sullivan in first. As they stepped into the hallway, the combination of cigar smoke, perfume, and liquor assailed their nostrils. The music and footsteps above them almost masked the creaking of the beds. In the room off to their right were two portly - 32 -

men dressed in business suits sitting in over-stuffed chairs. They each had a whore, wearing only lacey undergarments, in their laps.

One whore was a white midget, and the other was a Negro woman.

Dooley immediately questioned her sex by appraising her Adam’s apple and muscular build.

The hallway was lined with wood trimming and framed photographs of women scantily clad, and posing suggestively.

Though a screen door at the other end of the hallway, he saw a studio apartment in the back yard. Halfway down the hallway, on the right side, was a staircase leading to the second floor. A woman’s bottom half, clad in a peach dress with black roses, stood on one of the steps.

The dress stopped at the knees, revealing a pair of stout, but shapely, gams.

“And don’t forget to charge him by the finger,” the woman reminded someone. Her voice was strong and authoritative. She stepped down to the steps gradually revealing her upper torso.

“Chief Tom Dooley!” she exclaimed, running forward, opening her muscular arms, and embracing Dooley. She pulled back slightly after slapping him with a kiss on the lips. “Looks like the Guard’s keeping you in shape, and I see no one’s damaged that pretty cleft chin.”

“I’m still the district boxing and wrestling champion for a reason,” he responded and nodded toward Sullivan. “This is my leading petty officer, Sully.”

Lulu let go of Dooley and reached out to shake the petty officer’s hand. Sullivan grabbed her hand and took in what he saw. What was once a beautiful woman with strong Scandinavian features, and including blonde hair, was now a woman marred by a white scar running from forehead to chin. A peach-colored eye patch interrupted the scar. Still holding Sully’s hand, she grabbed Dooley’s hand.

“Want a drink?” Lulu asked.

“You know we’re both Irish, right?” Dooley asked.

Lulu smiled before turning to lead them to the front room opposite the one with the two men and two prostitutes. The room was well equipped to entertain guests. The plastered walls were painted dark green and decorated with the same type of framed pictures as the hallway. In the center of the room was a wooden table topped with - 33 -

whiskey glasses, liquor bottles, boxes of cigars, and bowls of sweets.

Against the inside wall, opposite the bay window, was a large brick fireplace and mantle with a mason jar centered on it. Both men looked at the Mason jar, which was filled with liquor and contained a human ear attached to a ragged patch of scalp with hair.

The clinking of glasses distracted their attention. They turned to see Lulu offering iced gin and tonics.

“Let’s sit down and relax,’ said Lulu. “I’m beat.”

The men accepted the tall glasses and sat in cloth-padded chairs to the side of the room.

“Seems like you running a first-class joint,” mentioned Sullivan.

Lulu took a long pull of her drink before answering. “I sure do. I started out in the business in this very house and learned quite a bit over the years,” she said with a proud smile on her face. “I learned fist-hand at what works and what doesn’t.”

“Does that include a rather masculine Negro and a dwarf as part of your staff?” asked Dooley as he gulped his drink.

“You mean Alvina and Lil’ Bit? Sure does. I get all sorts of clients in this place.”

“Are you simply management now?”

“I help out when needed, but not too many men want to bed a woman with one eye,” she said with a bit of reflection. “I used to be Number One around. Hell, in my heyday, men lined up just for me.

In fact they used to call me the Barber Chair.”

“Why?” asked Sullivan “Because as soon as one man was out another man was in,” Lulu said with a nod. “I remember one day when the USS Chicago was in town I took on thirty-nine customers, but that ended when I got in a knife fight with Fred Johnson, now known as One-Ear Johnson.”

Both men looked back at the jar.

“I bit it off, but he took my eye in return.” Her good eye narrowed with the memory the fight. “Here, let me refresh your drinks.”

Just as she stood up, a boom resounded outside the bay window.

A second later, the window shattered inward as a blur sped through it. The blur violently passed through the plaster of the opposite wall, just above the jar, and left a fist-sized hole in its wake. They heard the projectile continue through the rest of the building then an explosion.

- 34 -

Dooley, Sully, and Lulu threw themselves onto the glass-strewn, wooden floor, and waited a few seconds. Above them, the noise of debauchery ceased and was replaced the thudding of running of feet and the cries of men and women. Dooley, Sully, and Lulu looked at each other, pushed themselves to their knees, and then looked out the shattered windowpanes.

“Hell! That’s my boat!” remarked Dooley as they looked at the patrol boat, which bobbed about one hundred yards offshore. Its bow and gun pointed right at the brothel. A group of men stood around the gun. Another man stood in the pilothouse. They were the dockworkers Dooley and Sullivan passed earlier.

Lulu squinted her good eye. “Sumbitch! That’s One-Ear! Now it makes sense!

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Dooley, exasperated.

“Some cracker came in here last week and gave me three Doubleeagles to show you a good time. He said he was ex-Coast Guard himself, and wanted to show his appreciation. But the damage is gonna be a lot more than sixty bucks.”

Dooley, still exasperated, could see the men loading another shell into the breech. “They’re getting ready to fire another round. You got something to shoot back with?”

Lulu stood up in full view of the window, flipped her middle finger, and ran out of the room and down the hallway.

On the patrol boat, a man wearing work denims and missing his front teeth appeared in the doorway of the pilothouse.

“Aw, come on, One-Ear, the man complained. “Why do you want to shoot up a perfectly good whorehouse? We’ve got what we came for: a fast boat with a deck gun.”

The six-foot tall One-Ear stood at the helm, his muscular arms holding the spokes of the wheel. He answered in a terse and gruff voice. “Flatnose, I don’t know how many times I tried to get you lunkheads to get in there and steal my ear back. If I can’t have it, she can’t either. Now, I got this boat lined up just right. Go out there and have the men put a round straight through the bay window on the left.”

Flatnose sighed then turned out of the door. One-Ear watched as Flatnose directed the men who stood on either side of the breech and used hand-cranks to elevate and train the barrel. Once the barrel was - 35 -

lined up, Flatnose grabbed the dangling lanyard and jerked it back.

The gun roared and the blur of the shell punch straight through the bay window of the brothel. However, no explosion followed the impact. The only thing that erupted was a cloud of dust from behind the building.

“Damm it, Flatnose!” roared One-Ear through the open door.

“You used an armor-piercing round. That ain’t no good. Put a high explosive round in!”

Flatnose nodded, looked down into the square deck hatch behind the deck gun, and said something. Seconds later, a man below pushed up a three-inch shell casing for Flatnose who handed to one of the men to put into the breech. Once the gun was reloaded, Flatnose picked up the lanyard again and pulled it hard, but a small wave moved the boat slightly. Again, the gun roared, with smoke and flame shooting out of the muzzle; however, instead of going through the bay window, the shell went through the screen door. A second later, a cloud of dust and flames erupted from behind the building.

Before One-Ear could admonish his men, a line of bullets tore into the main deck, striking the splinter shield of the deck gun. The line of bullets was followed by bursts of machinegun fire. The bullets from the latter shattered the windows of the pilothouse. Everybody on deck ducked to find shelter from the bullets. Only One-Ear remained standing.

Back on land, Lulu returned to the parlor with her weapons.

“Here. These should hold them off,” said Lulu as she returned with weapons.

Dooley and Sullivan turned toward her. Their eyes widened then.

In one hand, she held a thirty-caliber Browning Automatic Rifle and a canvas web-belt with additional twenty-round magazines. In the other hand, she held a Thompson sub-machine gun and a drum magazine.

Dooley, who reached out for the weapons, replied. “You’re armed better than the Coast Guard. All I have on board is a few revolvers and a couple of bolt-action rifles.”

Dooley accepted both weapons and passed the BAR to Sully. Both men perched the barrels of their weapons on the windowsill of the bay window and pulled back on the charging bolts of their weapons. Just then, the deck gun fired. Dooley and Sullivan instinctively ducked - 36 -

with Lulu, expecting another round through the window. However, the patrol boat’s aim was off and the round punched through the screen door, sped down the hallway, passed through the rear screen door, and exploded somewhere in the back yard. Lulu crawled on her hands and knees to the hallway, and looked around the corner.

“Oh, no, not Daisy!” screamed Lulu.

“One of your girls?” asked Dooley while he got to his knees and aimed out the window.

“She’s a goat, but she brought in money. You can’t find a goat like that these days.”

Dooley and Sully ignored her remarks and returned fire. Their weapons roared and the sounds of the gunfire and empty brass casings bouncing of the walls filled the room. Smoke filled the room too. Dooley and Sullivan saw the men on the patrol boat race for cover. Seeing their opportunity, Dooley and Sullivan stood and jumped through the bay window. Once in the street, with their white uniforms now stained, they fired short, but well-aimed bursts, at their old command. The boat started to turn, pointing its bow away from them and toward the southwest.

“Looks like they had enough!” remarked Sully between two fiveround bursts.

Bystanders now spilled into the street to watch the battle.

Dooley fired the last rounds of his drum at the fantail. Splinters of wood flew from the deck. Dooley lowered the empty weapon to his side.

“How about that? My first and only command. What’s the Coast Guard going to say about this?”

Just then, the water behind the patrol boat boiled as the engines were put in reverse to stop the boat. Although the rear of the pilothouse hid the deck gun, the barrel was apparently being trained to the starboard side.

Why are they taking the time to blow up Wong’s restaurant? wondered Dooley.

Back on the patrol boat, Flatnose again raised his objections with One-Ear. “Okay, you want to risk losing this boat and using up good ammunition on the whorehouse, but why Wong’s? Can’t we just get outta here?”

“I get the runs every time I eat there. Now, put a round straight - 37 -

through the window.”

Flatnose, standing the doorway, threw his hands in the air and stepped forward. With another round in the barrel, he directed the gun crew to aim the gun at the Chinese restaurant. However, the street in front of the restaurant was now filled with people who were eating there, but as Flatnose picked up the dangling lanyard the crowd scattered leaving a completely open target. Flatnose jerked the lanyard, and watched as the round went through the window and exploded inside.

Dooley and Sully stood in the middle of Palafox Street still holding their weapons and watched as the crowd in front of Wong’s fled for cover. The gun on the patrol boat fired, and Wong’s restaurant erupted into flames and pieces. Lulu joined Dooley and Sullivan in the street.

“Thank God,” She said.

“Why ya glad to see Wong’s go up?” asked Dooley.

“I got the runs every time I ate there,” she stated.

The trio turned to look at the brothel.

Dejectedly, Dooley sighed. “I’m never gonna be able to explain this.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” responded Lulu as she pressed a soothing hand into the small of Dooley’s back. “I’ll get the editor for the Pensacola Herald to publish a story the Coast Guard will have to believe.”

“Why would a newspaper editor write a story like that?” asked Sullivan.

“Easy, I know all of Alvina’s regular customers, and I don’t think the editor will want word getting out about his fetishes.”

“What about the sheriff of this town?” Again, asked Sullivan.

“Don’t you think he’ll have his own version.”

“Who do you think sleeps with Daisy every Thursday night?” She smiled broadly. “He’ll be proud to give the editor his bona fides.”

The three of them fell silent still looking at the brothel.

The sun perched high in the noon sky the following day. Dooley was now wearing borrowed civilian clothes: flannel grey slacks, black leather shoes, and a white cotton shirt. Holding a folded newspaper, he stepped into the parlor where Lulu sweeping up brass casings and broken glass. She wore a dark blue dress with cuffed elbow-length sleeves and a matching eye patch. The table was empty except for a - 38 -

tin bucket of sweating, uncapped beer bottles.

Lulu looked up. “Grab a bottle and tell me what me what happened.”

Dooley stepped to the table, grabbed a beer, and sat in a nearby chair. He stood again, to brush off a brass casing before sitting back down. He took a long draught off the bottle and looked at the paper in his hand. “Your editor wired a copy of the article to my superiors, and in retrospect, my superiors felt it may have been a mistake sending us up here by ourselves. So, they are going to use the article as the official report. Now that there’s a pirate running around with a well-armed vessel, the Coast Guard is going to have to up-armor all of our vessels so they can catch him. Apparently, what happened yesterday is going down as ‘The Battle of Palafox Street.’ According to witnesses, my crew was playing billiards and Sully and I were just coming out of the cinema. While we were on liberty, an armed gang of rumrunners, led by One-Ear Johnson, overpowered my duty section, along with a woman who just happened to be passing by at the time, and left all three of them chained naked to a pier piling.

They then took the boat and started to fire at several buildings along Palafox Street.”

Dooley paused for another sip of beer.

“I guess we just happened to pass your establishment when the firing started, and you managed to give us weapons your father used in the War. We’re being held up as heroes for fighting off OneEar Johnson and saving downtown Pensacola. We’re also being recommended for promotion. I’m gonna be an officer.”

“And two,” Dooley said with a smirk. “of my men are going to receive Purple Hearts for receiving wounds during a combat action.”

Lulu smiled. “You mean the one man who broke his leg while jumping out of a second-story window of a whorehouse and the other who slid down the stairs on his face and landed on his head?”

“The very same,” answered Dooley while still looking at the paper.

“It also says there were three fatalities. Wong was killed while taking a Jake in his own place. A goat was blown up. Pastor Brown died of head injuries.” Dooley looked up from the paper. “I don’t remember helping anybody with head injuries after the battle?”

“He didn’t get the injuries here,” answered Lulu. “After the firing started, he ran down the stairs and all the way home. When he got - 39 -

there, his wife asked where he just came from. He told her, and she hit him over the head with a cast-iron skillet. He died early this morning from a cracked skull. His wife explained everything to the cops.”

“She killed him for visiting a whorehouse?”

“Hell, no. He’s a regular here. His wife said he could take four bits out of the Sunday collection basket once a week, but he’d already been here once this week and used up his allowance. So, I guess he dipped into his wife’s sewing-money jar for another four bits.”

“That’s just plain wrong,” said Dooley.

“I know,” said Lulu. “Who takes hard-earned money from a woman’s sewing jar?”

Lulu the propped the broom against the frame of the shattered bay window and stepped to the table. She grabbed a beer bottle, and looked back at Dooley.

“Well?” she asked.

“Well, what? asked Dooley.

“What do we toast to?” she asked.

Dooley stood, looked at her then at the jar on the mantle. It still sat perched on the mantle untouched, but covered with a film of plaster dust. Lulu looked at it, too, and they both held their bottles high.

Dooley gave the toast. “Here’s to One-Ear Johnson, Prohibition, and The Battle of Lulu’s Brothel.”

- 40 -

Kent Langham

The Fall The day the kid at school told me that WWE wrestling was fake, Was like the day Eve gave Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Betrayed by the Rock, the Undertaker, Stone cold, and Triple H, I suddenly knew my third grade teacher was lying when she said, “You can be whatever you want if you put your mind to it.”

Lenny is on my left, and for the first time I realize he has worn the same outfit for the last four days: A faded gray and red button up, grass-stained blue jeans, and muddy brown high-tops I think I know why he missed a week of school after they checked our heads for lice.

Charles, the boy with Cerebral Palsy, releases his voice and wrestles with the restraints of his wheelchair.

“He understands everything we say; that is just his way of communicating with us” my teacher says.

So, why does his aid tell him to be quiet and then wheel him out of the room if he is just communicating?

The false prophet flies off in his private jet, leaving the Harlan Civic Center, After he brings his sermon to an abrupt halt and tells the packed building That he heard the Lord tell him to take up a second offering.

He begins to prophesy: “Thus saith the Lord, everyone in this stadium must sow 150 dollars in faith, Then read Psalms 150 for the next 150 days, and you will receive a double portion of Elijah’s mantle, And your seed of 150 will be returned back to you 150 fold.

I wanna tell some parents in this room who have a child who is bound by an illness, That if you sow this seed, Satan’s grips will be loosed, and your - 41 -

child will be restored!”

A couple of years ago, the people of Cumberland, Kentucky, saw an unexpected ray of blue light Flash into the sky on what seemed to be a normal summer day.

Lenny was on top of a closed Big Lots building, trying to cut pieces out of the roof with a metal Snipper and sell the copper for drug money, but he didn’t know the electricity was still running.

His body baked in the sun for 4 days before some construction workers found him.

Charles passed away about 10 years ago, trying to communicate until he took his final breath.

His parents, who sowed the 150-dollar seed, are still broke and without a son.

- 42 -

Michelle Bellanova

misplaced astronaut I am the misplaced astronaut searching for moon rocks on the ocean floor, fully equipped with fourteen layers of bulletproof material, sewn and cemented together so carefully it’s as though I’ve grown a new layer of skin.

With forty-seven pounds of cloth and a backpack strapped around me to encourage the proper respiration of my lungs, I am a scavenger on the hunt for all the things that exist outside of their element.

They say there are faces on the moon, but I’ve found craters shaped like the people I will always love in places I never expected.

I’ve always thought the contours of their faces were so much like the overhanging moon, speaking in their own language and reminding me to look under, above, and between, for the people I know will always be a part of me.

Here I stand amongst the crashing waves, rattling around my feet like snakes in search of their home, with thoughts becoming the moon that pulls my waves back into the present moment.

- 43 -

They are whispering gently in my ears, patiently waiting for me to come to the realization that I am trying to turn things into what they are not.

- 44 -

Melissa Pisarski

Transition Succumb to firm external plan, Blame creation for flaws of man.

Depart from truth and lend bequest.

Flee as per your Fate’s request.

Sigh, though not for ending reign, Yet breathe relief in welcomed pain.

Time has brought its promised curse Until now with whom you’d flirt.

Now your toll they’ve come to reap.

Once six feet tall, now six feet deep.

- 45 -

“Dystopian Woman” – Rodnay Brewer

- 46 -

“Fish” – Laura Lembeck-Ejikemeuwa

- 47 -

“Banshee” – Jasmine Holmes

- 48 -

“Deirdre” – Jasmine Holmes

- 49 -

“Rough Seas” – Christopher Mills

- 50 -

“Untitled” – Olga Maria Hilsdorf da Silva

- 51 -

“Untitled” – Jennifer Foehl-Rodriguez

- 52 -

“Untitled” – John Davis

- 53 -

“Towers” – Christopher Mills

- 54 -

“Untitled” – Samantha Earley

- 55 -

Anesia Saunders

Untitled the time will come when I will expand so greatly that no body will be able to contain me I will dive into the depth of everything that has ever been Simultaneously drowning and floating I will begin a run on a breezy day, eternally striped and bare striped and bare striped and bare freedom It will be beautiful and you will speak of me I will never be too far like the wind I’ll offer you comfort when you rinse your feet in the ocean you will feel me and when you tell them about me tell them about my low days when I did not appreciate this life when I did not offer my kaleidoscope I want them to know the yang to my yin It’s okay not to be okay It’s okay okay I was never perfect do not paint me that way but when you speak of the good just don’t leave out how I wanted to dissolve in beautiful sands And when I swam I felt the waves caress me and when I ran I looked to the wind for direction and I could never get enough of anything I wanted to rip clothes apart - 56 -

feel the ground with my bare feet share this love God gave to me promise me you will tell them this when the time comes

- 57 -

Madeleine Hutchinson

On the Subject of Graveyards

I

t is a lie that graveyards are at their most eerie at midnight, when the world is black as pitch and specters paw at the corner of your eyes. Graveyards are at their natural state then, a Halloween tableau. Graveyards are at their most unnatural at noon, when a sun unfettered by clouds lights what should be swathed in shadows. It is like flipping the lights on at a haunted house and finding all the plastic heads and plywood coffins laying bare in a suburban foyer, grim things in a quotidian setting. Graveyards are not supposed to exist on sunny days.

I realized this as my mother and I ripped weeds and ferocious grass away from the sides of my great uncle’s grave. Long, snake-like plants had embraced the brick slab atop his grave and crab grass had choked the life from his headstone. It was the last plot in my family’s row, a stubby line of four headstones that began with my grandmother’s, which was the only one shaded by the woods edged around the graveyard. We had worked from her stone down, pruning and dusting the graves, making them morbidly pristine.

My maternal family’s graves were tucked away off a county road in the rural hinterlands north of Pensacola. My mother visited as often as she could, fighting chronic muscle pain to replace the flowers that rested in the granite pots sculpted out of the headstones. She oscillated between bunches of faux-florals from Michael’s, when she knew she could not come back soon, and fresh, aromatic bouquets, seasonally appropriate, for when she knew she could come back soon.

She had brought new flowers this time as well. They were flowers for spring, flowers for Mother’s Day. They were daises with petals dyed in vibrant shades of fuchsia, lime green, and school bus yellow, with springs of baby’s breath breaking the petal’s canopy.

They were those electric shades I used to dye my Easter eggs.

They were those effervescent shades I had used to color black and white printouts of rabbits and chicks in Sunday school. She gingerly lowered the flowers into the urns, as a mother would lower a baby - 58 -

into a crib.

I come when I can, but my mother often visits when I am in school, coming when the sun is highest in the sky. However, it was spring break, freeing up my time to support her in her odyssey to the graveyard. My mother took a lot of comfort in these visits; in the absence of the living, these solemn monuments were the closest thing she had to corporeal forms. She could run her hands across them, lean on them; they were a cool marble presence in place of flesh. She talked to her mother when I was not there with her, and she spent more time there too.

As for me, I hated being in the graveyard. I got not comfort from it, and even the sight of it was so deeply unsettling to me.

When you pull into its precipice, you emerge from a small, forested, sparsely paved road; the graveyard appears to be an endless plain of headstones. It is a giant square of clear-cut field, as if a giant’s hand ripped up a mathematically precise amount of forest carpet.

We always arrived when the field was fried with sunlight, bright as a daylit football field under floodlights. It made every hair on my body stand on end to enter.

Pulling in front my family plot only made my skin crawl and clamor at a more uncomfortable tenor. My grandmother, her parents, and her brother were buried in a neat row. Being here did not make me connected to their memory. I did not feel their presence, or feel comforted by their legacy made stone. The space they left just felt bigger. It was painful to look at my grandmother’s grave, but I did not feel some pang of sadness or immediate grief. I felt drained, tired.

I felt a little hole in my chest collapse in on itself, a big empty maw, keeping me from feeling any one, powerful emotion. I just wanted to book it a fast as I could, to get my grandmother’s towering cross out of my vision. I never hid in the car though. I knew it meant so much to my mother for us to be there together, a united front.

After she had lowered the flowers into their ports, swept away the cobwebs from the underside of the grave’s cross headstone, and dotingly rearranged the kitschy angel miniatures surrounding it, we noticed the pollen. A grimy veneer of sickly yellow had coated the cross. The wrought flowers carved into it were covered in the excess of their living counterparts. My mother audibly gasped. She licked her finger and scrubbed with vitriol against the yellow menace. I ran - 59 -

to grab cleaning wipes from the car, desperate to strip the varnish away from the grave and the anxiety away from my mother.

I returned, and with fistfuls of cleaning wipes. Eagerly we meticulously scrubbed under the curve of every chiseled petal, until the gray shown through. My mother almost nodded in approval as the floral paint peeled off, as if she was agreeing with something; agreeing that we were setting the universe right by this small task.

It looked less sickly after twenty minutes of straight cleaning, but my mother was already texting her sister to bring cleaning materials the next time she was up that way. She was still visibly upset at the encroachment of spring upon the monument.

“We can go now,” she said after I had piled our used rags in neat fashion on the bench opposite the headstone. I sat down next to it.

I was beginning to feel my burgeoning sunburn as I stared at the pebbles under my feet. They rattled together as I drew the tip of my shoe across their tempered surface. The ground beneath the grave’s rock covering felt so empty. I thought that if I shoved my hands into that earthly viscera and dug, I would never find anything beneath it. I still wanted to stay here for a moment more. I wanted to try to move past the heaviness I always felt when I came here. I wanted to feel the semblance of closure my mother got from coming here. She sat down beside me, patted my knee; held my hand. I just got more exhausted sitting there as I felt my burn getting worse. I could not feel that spiritual connection my mother got from coming here. I could not feel lines blurring between present and past, life and death.

I could feel my mother’s hand on my knee, the only other living thing. We got ready to leave and ditched our pollen wipes and old flowers in the fire engine red bin before the exit. We drove in silence until the graveyard was some distance behind us.

I never regret coming with her; I never want her to think she is alone in her housekeeping.

- 60 -

Amber Fortune

Still

“

So...you know you don’t have to sleep with me. I know I always wake you up. I wouldn’t mind if you slept in one of the guest bedrooms...I mean...well, it’s just nice having you here.” Seth smirked at me and pulled his shirt up over his head.

“It’s no problem babe, really. Is it just nightmares again?” I looked down at my hands. Yes. No. What was it that was going on in this house? Was it just nightmares? “Matt?” I looked up and met his intent gaze.

“Yeah, it’s just nightmares, the usual. It just helps knowing there’s someone else here. This house is old and gets creepy at night, you know how it is.”

“Yeah I know how it is, my grandparents used to have a house like this. These plantation houses, man, it’s some creepy shit. Wanna borrow one of my pills tonight? Just to see if it helps?”

“Well it wouldn’t really be borrowing, unless you want me to cough it up later.” Seth came over and put both hands on my shoulders.

“Very funny. Why don’t you try one? I’ll be here the whole time, right next to you if anything happens.” I sighed. He stepped into the bathroom and grabbed his toothbrush. “Are you gonna be ok?”

“Yeah, I just haven’t gotten much sleep lately. Can we um, can we talk about something else?” He darted back to spit in the sink, and then poked his head out again.

“You know what you need to do. Why not go ahead and move out? I know you’ve been wanting to sell the place, but there’s no sense in you staying in this house alone, scared out of your mind.” He went to spit again, not waiting for my response.

“Yeah but I don’t make enough to afford a place on my own.” He walked back out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his navy blue boxers.

“So move in with me.” He grinned excitedly.

“Are you serious?” Seth approached me and his grin faded. He reached up with one hand and stroked my hair just above my left ear.

- 61 -

“Of course I’m serious. Move in with me. It’ll be great, and it’s cost effective. Or you can just stay with me for a while until you sell the house.”

“Seth, that might take a while…”

“I don’t care. Move in with me.” He looked deadly serious all of a sudden, “Ok, yes. Ok. I don’t know how this is going to work, but-” He kissed me softly.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be great. And no more spooky house!” I laughed.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

A

loud thwack woke me up. When I opened my eyes, still groggy, the room was dark and blurry. The only light was the dim glow from a light still on in the kitchen, filtering down the long hallway, just stopping at the doorway to the bedroom.The ceiling fan above me spun on high, clicking every few minutes in protest. The dresser next to me loomed above me, situated underneath a painting of a young girl staring into a space, a violin tucked under her arm. I squinted into the darkness, listening for any unusual sounds.

There it was again. I started, tucking the covers under my chin, staring towards the door. I could’ve sworn the sound had come from up the hallway. I listened, absolutely still, nerves on high alert. What was that? Is someone in the house? Or something? Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe it’s a raccoon...probably just outside, digging through the trash. You’re still half asleep. It’s nothing to worry about. Finally after a few moments I turned my head, hoping to go back to sleep. As I did I caught a blur from the corner of my eye, a dark shadowy blob flitting from the hallway into the darkest corner of the room. I sat up and scanned the room, but saw nothing but antique furniture and Seth’s towel hanging on the door to the bathroom. You didn’t see that.

That wasn’t real. Just your mind playing tricks on you.

I laid back down and closed my eyes. No matter what, I promised myself. I’m not going to open my eyes. If I can go back to sleep, I’ll be fine.

I’ll wake up tomorrow without remembering any of this. It’s just the pills.

You know pills give you weird dreams that freak you out. Then a creak sounded, in the hallway outside the door. Oh my god there’s someone in the hallway. I pictured a broad shouldered shadow creeping around - 62 -

the corner, stealing into the room, sawed off shotgun in hand. Ready to blow my faggot ass to kingdom come. That’s what I get for living in the South, I knew this would happen! Uncomfortable as I was, I didn’t move a single muscle. My right shoulder began to ache where I was laying on it, but I didn’t dare move. I was facing the doorway- I could just peek, just a little bit. What if someone’s in the house? I want to look, but what will I see? I don’t have any kind of weapon, how am I supposed to defend myself? I scrunched my eyes up a little tighter. The bedroom was sweltering. It’s probably nothing. It’s an old house, it creaks. My mind began to imagine all sorts of terrors-would I open my eyes to see a man standing in the doorway? A person right above me? A thing right above me, large maw open and ready to devour me? Black eyes staring into mine, ready to drag me to hell? Panicking, I made a slight, imperceptible move backwards, towards the center of the bed.

I reached my arm back slowly, felt Seth on the bed next to me, rested my hand for a moment on the curve of his hip. I thought of what he’d said earlier in the night. Move in with me. I could just barely hear his soft breathing behind me. He had been so strong, confident, knowing I would say yes, knowing I could never resist him. Just like he always knew there was no one in the house, always knew there was nothing to be afraid of. See, Seth is still here. Everything is fine.

Nothing is going to bother you with him around. You’re making all this up, you see, it’s just your overactive mind. I finally began to settle down, giving in to my drowsiness.

A low growl seemed to sound from Seth’s side of the bed. I remained absolutely still, eyes still tightly shut. It’s just Seth snoring.

It’s no big deal. Go to sleep. I was almost certain I could feel hot breath on the back of my neck.

Suddenly the sheets pulled tight on my right side, as though they were being snatched off the bed. I held on to the piece of the sheet tucked under my chin and resisted. What the fuck is that? There’s a fucking demon or something in my house! What the fuck?! I didn’t move or make a sound-afraid to even squeeze my eyes shut tighter, I tried to pretend I was sleeping- relaxed, even breathing. Don’t let them know you’re awake, don’t show you’re afraid, I thought. If you let them know you’re afraid, they win. As I thought this, the blanket went slack.

Am I imagining this? Like sleep paralysis? I concentrated on keeping my breathing still and normal. I could feel my pulse in my neck, - 63 -

thumping under the covers. I sniffed sleepily and tried to casually shift my position.

Aching from lying still for so long, I slowly stretched my legs until my feet touched the wooden footboard. I felt something sharp like a nail or piece of wood scratch my foot, and I pulled it back up quickly.

I felt where I had been scratched, eyes still closed- no blood, and it didn’t hurt very much. I stretched back out, curious and more than a little frightened. But when my toes touched the wooden footboard, something leathery wrapped around my ankle, ancient and tough.

Sharp nails clawed at my skin. I tugged my foot up but was met by a strength I couldn’t match. A dank smell crept up my nostrils, nearly gagging me. I kept my eyes closed, tried to scream but couldn’t catch my breath. I tried to call out Seth’s name, tried to call out for his help- but every time I opened my mouth, the only thing sound that escaped was a pathetic, terrified wheeze. I gasped for air and tried again, croaking and wheezing, unable to cry out. I thrashed, kicking against the footboard, desperately trying to free myself from the iron grip around my ankle. I still didn’t dare open my eyes- but even as I kicked to free myself, I felt the leathery claw pulling me down towards the foot of the bed. I reached up and grabbed the top of the headboard for leverage, thrashing both legs consistently. Wake up Seth, wake up wakeupwakeupwakeup, I thought.

Once again I tried to scream through gritted teeth, but I only managed a low groan. Two hands grabbed my arms at the wrists, pinning me down.

“Matt. Matt, stop. Wake up.” I opened my eyes to see Seth straddling me, holding my wrists. “It’s okay. It was just a dream.” I choked back a sob.

As I looked up into Seth’s eyes, tears pooled in the corners of my eyelids. Just behind his head, a shadow flew across the ceiling and out of the room.

“No, no, no…”

“It’s okay, you’re awake now. It’s okay.” I shut my eyes tight and then opened them again.

“I’m seeing things, Seth, I swear, there’s something in the house.”

“There’s nothing in the house. Everything’s okay. Okay? I’m here.”

I tried to slow my breathing. He was right, just like always, there was nothing here. I was fine, he was fine. Why am I freaking out like this?

- 64 -

There’s nothing here.

“I think I’m gonna sit up for a while.” Seth shrugged and leaned back against his pillow. I swung my feet over the edge and grabbed my glasses off the dresser.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay?,” he asked. “Do you want me to come with you? Or we can sleep with the light on for a while if you want.”

I breathed in deeply, trying to steady my nerves. “No, it’s alright.

I’ll be back in a little bit.” I padded up the dimly lit hallway looking back and forth as I passed the other rooms, letting out a tiny sigh of relief when I reached the light of the large kitchen. I walked quickly into the living room and flipped the lamp on, then the TV. I curled up on the couch, my elbow resting under my head, watching Detective Olivia Benson kick ass and take names. Every few moments my eyes darted around the room, scanning dark corners, searching the dark drawing room that led off to my left side, furtively glancing behind me into the well lit kitchen. I finally looked over at the great big grandfather clock I’d been avoiding. Shit, it wasn’t even midnight.

A

t 5 a.m., I lifted the curtain back from the window. The sky was lightening into a dusty gray, the trees outside casting short shadows, the birds just beginning to chirp. I flicked off the TV, switched off the lamp, and slowly walked back towards the master bedroom.

The room was still dark, but I knew the sun was coming up, and I felt safe. I set my glasses on the dresser once again and climbed under the covers while facing the doorway. I scooted backwards onto the bed until I felt Seth’s cold body stiff against mine. The room was absolutely still. Completely, perfectly still.

- 65 -

Olivia Hawkins

Faith Beyond Fears

T

he green dress lay discarded in a corner of the bedroom. Its owner sat on the bed, hugging her knees and crying almost silently as she rocked back and forth. Her red hair hung in messy curls down one side of her face, mascara traced tearful tracks down her cheeks, and she clutched at a faded grey dressing gown as if it were the only thing keeping her together. Trying to compose herself, she took a deep, stuttering breath and looked around the room. Her sobs were fading to sniffles when she looked in the corner. At the sight of the green dress, a smear of silk against the floor, she turned into a furious burst of energy and threw herself back across the bed, sobbing as memories of the evening cascaded through her mind.

T

he evening began so wonderfully. The new silk dress fell to her knees in a shimmering wave, swirling out beautifully when she twirled, and the backless top made her feel elegant, sensual, and powerful. Emelyn lent her a beautiful necklace with a sparkly green stone, and even her hair seemed to look forward to the night, cascading down the side of her face in a way it rarely consented to do.

Aaron looked so handsome at the dance. She saw him all the time at school, but the dance was their special place. He was standing in the same place he’d been when she’d fallen for him several months ago.

He wore his white shirt unbuttoned just enough to see the gold cross glinting in the hollow of his throat; his dark jeans clung to his legs, and Chryssa was hard pressed to keep her eyes from roaming over him in delight. Chryssa glowed when he smiled at her and walked across the floor. Unlike at a school dance or a church social, the people in the community hall were truly dancing. Flounced dresses and short skirts flashed through the air and feet kicked intricate patterns as couples of all ages came together on the floor. The sparkling energy of the night swept Chryssa into Aaron’s arms for their first dance of the night. The hours passed like nothing, and dancing with Aaron felt like flying. She followed the communication of his body and - 66 -

hands as he directed her in twirls and dips and lifts. She gave herself over to his command, allowing him to lead her as she got swept away in the movement of the music, the communication of two bodies working together as one to create something beautiful. She danced all the songs with him, breaking her habit of roaming the hall with her friends until someone asked her to dance. She’d met Aaron that way, but she needed no other partner now. Dancing with Aaron was better than a million dances with the best dancers in the hall.

In one of their breaks for water, Aaron reached over and tucked a stray hair behind her ear, then trailed his thumb along her cheek and across her bottom lip. Her whole body lit up at his touch, and she gave in to the beauty of the evening. She allowed the communion of the dance to break into the stable world as she leaned up and kissed him. Her fingers tangled in his thick, soft hair, and they might have never stopped if a dancing couple hadn’t bumped into them.

Blushing, Chryssa stepped away from Aaron. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, reminding herself why all the things she wanted to do, all the things she dreamed about, were off limits. The way she acted with Aaron was immoral. Kissing didn’t seem like any harm, but she knew it would lead to more. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t give in to this temptation. She wouldn’t be like the other girls at school, used and dumped by their “boyfriends.” Her body was hers, it was sacred, and she would wait until marriage vows had consecrated her body for another’s love. She was in control. At least, she was until Aaron’s eyes and voice and touch sent her tumbling into her desire.

Chryssa pulled Aaron out of the dance room and into the refreshment area. She didn’t know what she would do, but she had to do something. She obviously couldn’t trust herself around him. She’d convinced herself being with Aaron was safe at the dance, surrounded by people, but even here she had given in, kissed him, wanted to do more. It didn’t feel wrong when she was with him, but she knew it was. Her parents would be disappointed if they knew her thoughts.

She was stronger than her desires. But now, as Aaron’s touch unlocked all her feelings, Chryssa realized that she couldn’t stay strong. She was too weak to push away her desire. The refreshment room was still crowded, so Chryssa moved further back into the mess of hallways in the building until she found a quiet room. Deliberately leaving the - 67 -

door open, Chryssa turned to Aaron.

“We need to stop,” she said, clenching her hands at her side to keep from reaching for him. His thick black eyebrows went down in a perplexed frown.

“Stop?” he asked. “We were kissing. I thought we agreed there’s nothing wrong with that.” Chryssa sighed.

“I know, but I’m not so sure anymore. It seemed fine, innocent.

And it feels so right.

But . . .” She trailed off, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger and staring at the floor.

“Chryssa, are you saying we shouldn’t kiss? I’m not like the other boys. I love you, and I think kissing is a way to express that. I don’t want to stop kissing you, but you know I’ll never push you. I believe in your choice. I’m willing to wait.” Aaron reached out tentatively, caressing her shoulder lightly. Some of the tension left his shoulders when she didn’t push him away.

“What if I don’t want to?” she asked, so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. He frowned again.

“What’s gotten into you? Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I never meant to push you. What do you need? What can I do to show you that I care?” His voice grew soft, uncertain, “Please let me back in. I love you.” Chryssa looked up.

“I love you, too.” She smiled shakily. “You’ve never pushed me. I trust you. It’s me I don’t trust. I scare myself sometimes. I shouldn’t feel this way.” He smiled back and gathered her in his arms.

“We’ll make it work, love.” His hands stroked her back gently and she reached her hand up to stroke his hair. Chryssa closed her eyes and allowed herself to enjoy the feeling of his hands running over her skin. Her mind turned to their kiss. She wanted to kiss him now, to feel the electric pulse of it. She wanted to do things she shouldn’t even know how to think about. They were private now; surely they could kiss, just for a moment . . . Chryssa flung herself away from him, turning her back and holding up her hands, tension in every line of her body.

“You see? I can’t! I can’t trust myself. I want to do everything! I can’t stop thinking about you. Not just kissing, either. It seemed so simple before. Kissing is safe, we thought. But it’s so much more than just our mouths. It’s hands and bodies and souls . . . I’m a - 68 -

horrible person. I know its wrong even as I look at you; even as I run my hands . . . see? I lose my sense of morality when I’m with you. I’m sinning in my thoughts every time I see you.” She slumped in defeat, her tirade fading to a whisper: “I sin, and I enjoy it.”

The silence stretched between them. Aaron stood in the center of the room, shifting his weight back and forth, and his hand reached out abortively to Chryssa several times, never touching her. Chryssa stood with her back to him, her eyes closed and head slumped. Her hair hung like curtains around her face, obscuring her expression as she tried not to cry.

“I can’t see you anymore,” Chryssa said into the silence. Aaron jumped at the sudden proclamation. Without moving or opening her eyes, Chryssa made the hardest decision she could. “I can’t trust myself with you. You’re wonderful, too wonderful. I just can’t do this.

I’m walking out before we do something we’ll both regret later.” Her resolve started to crack and a sob shook her shoulders. Her fingers twitched at her sides as she fought for control of her breathing.

“You . . . you’re breaking up with me.” Aaron had meant it as a question, but the flat statement lay there in the silence, a plea turned accusation.

“Chryssa, look at me.” She shook her head. “Look at me,” he repeated. Slowly, she turned around and looked up at him. At the sight of the tears filling his eyes, Chryssa’s resolve, already close to breaking, came tumbling down and her own tears spilled out.

“I love you,” Aaron said. “I struggle with the lust, too. You think I don’t imagine what it would be like to be with you? I see you in that dress and my feelings spiral out of control. I know what you’re feeling. Giving in would be so much easier sometimes. I don’t have a good answer for you, but I don’t care how hard it is, I want to keep trying. I love you, and being with you is worth any price. Please don’t walk away from me.” He stared at her, his eyes begging her to accept him, to come back. But she shook her head.

“I can’t. You’re stronger than I am. Or maybe more delusional. I don’t know. But I can’t control it, so I’m walking out. I’m going to be the strong one and save both our souls.” She hesitated, sobbing, but then she firmed her resolution and looked at him.

“Goodbye.” She turned and walked out. It took all her resolve not to turn back and throw herself into his arms, tell him that it was - 69 -

okay, they’d work it out together, but she managed it. She walked out the door and out of his life.

C

hryssa’s phone vibrated. She reached out to stop the obnoxious noise and slammed it down again without answering when she saw who was calling. She gave a short laugh when she saw the motto on the case her mother had gotten her for her birthday: “Let your faith be bigger than your fears.” Well, she’d done that, hadn’t she, she mused. It felt awful. She collapsed back on the bed. A few minutes later, the door burst open, and Emelyn sat down on the bed with a bounce. Chryssa huffed and pointedly turned away.

“I saw Aaron at the dance,” Emelyn said without preamble. “What on earth did you do to him?” She paused expectantly. “You know, he may be immature, but he is just a boy. Whatever he did, you’ll get over it.” Emelyn nodded confidently. “I expect you’ll be back together by the end of the week.”

“No!” Emelyn stopped bouncing on the bed and looked sharply at her friend.

“So vehement! Why, what did he do?” She paused, fiddling with her sparkly rings as a thought occurred to her. “He didn’t . . . he didn’t hurt you, did he? If he did, I’ll . . .” A shake of her friend’s head cut off Emelyn’s threat. “Good. I don’t know what I’d do, anyway, come to think of it. Glad I don’t have to think of it.” A silence took over as Emelyn tried to come up with something else to say. “So tell me, please?” she finally said. “I’m tired of guessing my way to nowhere.”

“I kissed him.” Chryssa finally said.

“And?” Emelyn asked, confused. “You’ve been kissing Aaron for weeks – mooning over him for months before that. Clingiest couple in school, remember? You’re going to have to give me more than that.”

“I . . . I sinned with him. Only in my thoughts, but I can’t bear the temptation. I lose all sense when I’m with him. I’m walking away.

I’m saving both our souls.”

Emelyn fought back the temptation to laugh. She scooted around on the bed till she was sitting cross-legged facing Chryssa. She nudged her friend until she sat up and looked at her.

“Oh dear, look at all my fine makeup work, wasted.” Emelyn - 70 -

heaved an exaggerated sigh. “And after all that work convincing Miss Proper to wear it, too. Here. If I’d known you’d be crying, I’d have used the waterproof mascara.”

Emelyn pulled a wipe from her rhinestone-encrusted purse.

Playtex, but it would do the job. Chryssa sniffed and obediently wiped her eyes.

“So. I need you to answer me yes or no. Ah, ah, ah, no arguments.

You’re in no state to make an argument. So. Do you love Aaron?”

Chryssa nodded, tearing up at his name.

“Okay. Does he love you?”

“I . . . I think . . . yes. Yes he does.”

“Good. Next question. Do you both love God?” Chryssa nodded emphatically. “Yes. But . . .”

“Ah, I said no arguments! Now, do you really believe love is a bad thing?”

“Well, no, but it’s the carnal . . .”

“Really, Chrissie, lose the but’s. I said yes or no. You know I don’t get it. Carnal love, spiritual love, it’s all love, no? But I know, I know, you have your standards. I respect that. It’s your choice. Though if God doesn’t mind me doing things with boys, why should he mind you? No, don’t answer that. It’s not a yes or no question. The point is, is that you love Aaron, and you love God, and they’re both true feelings. What you do with that love is up to you. I won’t tell you to throw everything away and jump in bed with him. That’s so not you. But I’m not going to let you throw the love away from some sense of martyrdom, either. Martyrs don’t have good lives, kind of by definition. So you pick up that phone, call Aaron, and work something out. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

Chryssa picked up the phone, staring at the motto on the back.

“Now you’ve got me all turned around, Em. I was all determined. I knew I was doing the right thing. Faith is stronger than fears, right?

Why do you always have to make things so complicated?”

“Because life is complicated, Chrissie. Life doesn’t boil down to a motto on a phone case. Besides, were you really letting your faith be bigger than your fears? Or were you using your faith to avoid your fears?”

“You know, it’s a good thing I have you around; you see the world weirdly.”

- 71 -

“That’s right. I’m weird, and proud of it. And you keep me from being completely off my rocker. But right now, you could use a little weird. Go on. Call him.”

Chryssa picked up the phone and dialed.

- 72 -

Samantha Smith

Whiskey Dick The universe arrived out of chaos apparently.

The gods said it, but so did a daddy’s boy.

After that senseless, blinding and merciless birth, I can clean your vomit from my balcony and feel your foot touch mine in the night.

We were anarchy under champagne snow I made your beer can an ash tray and you drank it.

I made your life a feast and you weren’t hungry.

- 73 -

Karen Manning

Time’s Balm

A

door slams. It opens again and I hear the pounding of feet across the ceiling above me.

“Close your door! The light is keeping me awake,” one daughter screams.

“Don’t ever touch my door again! You close your door if it’s bothering you so much!” the other retorts.

“You’re obnoxious.”

I sigh. As the shouting escalates, I sit directly below calmly considering my options. Attempts to mediate rarely end well.

Regardless of the position I take, I am frequently told by one child that I have failed in my duty to properly parent the other. This may not be untrue.

As the noise above me continues, I am distracted by the insistence of the old-fashioned alarm clock that sits on my bedside table. Tipped slightly sideways and partially facing the wall, it simultaneously displays uneven, black hands on its front and a plastic panel on its back, with knobs and wheels that help it run. As the long hand moves abruptly, I notice a small, confused spider crawling over the top of the instrument. The spider runs in one direction and then stops, changing course. I think about my girls and how little time I have with them before they are off pursuing their own lives. I watch the manic arachnid until it finally disappears through a crack in the black plastic. Willfully distracted, I follow the spider in.

I

am at my childhood home with the avocado and orange trees. I stand in the middle of my neighborhood cul-de-sac, a twelve-yearold adolescent, taking in the crisp, cold air mingled with smoke from the chimneys’ burning firewood. Big Wheels of the neighborhood drive out of their garages and encircle me, creating a beautiful, bright, yellow and red vortex.

My eight-year-old brother, Dave, rounds the corner from the dusty backyard, smudges of dirt and mud wiped across his small - 74 -

face and his blond hair. Scents of sweat and dung from the fertilizer pile that our parents keep in the backyard precede him. Mom woke up one morning and decided that the orange trees in our backyard, which for years had been growing prodigiously and producing more fruit than we could possibly eat, needed fertilizing. Hence the big pile of dung. Dave decides instead that it’s a big pile of play dirt.

Behind Dave, his best friend Danny follows. Danny accompanies Dave everywhere. Small and skinny, he looks out from under a row of sandy-colored, bushy bangs with brown eyes. His grin exposes two rows of tiny baby teeth. Strands of manure hang off both Dave’s and Danny’s faded striped shirts. Danny smiles at me and wipes his nose which has green-colored mucus rolling from it toward the back of his hand. I follow the boys up our driveway watching with interest as the mucus springs free from Danny’s nose and drips onto the cement. As the green slime lands, it forms a tear drop, and then bubbles up so that a small transparent circle takes shape inside the bigger misshaped oval. I should be disgusted, but instead I am fascinated.

(I like to think that I knew, even then, that small evidences of people we love matter. What I didn’t know in that moment was that I would soon come to daily ponder that odd remnant left by Danny.

Shortly after he left his mark, Danny was hit by a truck while riding his bicycle. Growing into adulthood, I often walked by that green spot and thought of him—the little boy who loved my brother so much. His moments would be shorter than his mother, Dave, or I could have imagined. But that’s a story for another time.)

Dave and Danny head to our garage to get their own Big Wheels.

It’s derby day in our California neighborhood—little-tike-NASCARstyle. Kids who clock in at ten-and-under are out en masse at the moment—bikers, skateboarders, roller skaters—they’re all present.

Knowing Dave wants his Big Wheel, I grab the V-shaped handle bars with the cool blue and red tassels, plunk myself down on the red seat, and take off with my long, lanky, too-big-for-a-small-toy legs practically hitting me in the chin with every stroke of the pedal.

Dave follows, screaming at me.

“Get off.”

“No.” I say and pedal on with gusto, laughing at him as I ride away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his little body following me, fists clenched. His big, blue eyes narrow as he becomes more and - 75 -

more angry.

“It’s my Big Wheel. Get off!”

“Nuh uh,” I say, ignoring him.

I pedal for a few more minutes and then feel slight remorse. As I stand up and turn around, I find my red-faced brother, hand high over his head, holding a tiny rock.

“You better not!” I yell.

The last thing I see clearly is Danny looking over Dave’s shoulder, his little mouth forming a giant “O.” David hurls the rock at me, and for such a little guy, he’s got pretty impressive aim. He clocks me on my forehead, right between my eyes.

Parallels with the Goliath saga are not lost on me. Blood starts dripping down my face. Or so it seemed.

“You . . . are . . . in . . .so much trouble!” I shout. As I scream at him, I can see the anger melt from his face as the realization takes hold that he is about to be ratted out.

“Please,” he says. “Please, please don’t tell Mom and Dad.” He’s pulling at my shirt now. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. C’mon. Please don’t tell.”

But I am on a mission. Vengeance is mine, and you shall rue the day that you took a rock and put it to my head.

As his little, smelly body is pulling me one way, begging for mercy, I am moving in the other direction, toward my house, toward justice.

Other kids have temporarily stopped the plastic parade to watch the drama. Danny, ever faithful, is following Dave, shooting him knowing, sympathetic looks (he has an older sister too). Dave finally lets go as I pass the threshold of our house and make my way to our mother, who is entertaining a friend in the living room. Dave follows me in, head down, arms by his side, dirty tears streaking down his face, consigned to his fate.

I march up to our mother. “Mom! Dave-nailed-me-with-a-rockright-at-my-head-he-threw-it-so-hard-it-caused-a-dent-in-my-facewhich-you-can-see-cuz-now-I’ll-probably-need-stitches,” I take a breath and cast a glance at Dave who looks pathetic—his little brown pants falling down below his waist; his right pocket turned inside out, evidence of the pebble he had just pulled out; his straight blond locks falling over his downtrodden, fear-filled eyes. I entertain - 76 -

visions of my mother holding my hand in the hospital as the doctor pokes my flesh with a long needle, sewing the split skin together with cat-gut thread. Possible infection looms. Mom is furious with Dave.

What kind of child have I given birth to? she thinks as she glares at David while gently stroking my hair.

I have no pity. I scowl at him. Now he will get what he deserves.

We await the verdict.

Turning from her friend, Mom pauses and takes in the scene.

Her eyes meet mine for a very long time; then she breathes heavily, looking at “the wound.” What she must have seen, in reality, was a simple scrape. While I wanted her to think that Dave had clocked me with a boulder, in truth, it was a tiny pebble that caused the red spot on my forehead.

“Dave. That is not ok. Do not throw rocks at your sister . . . or anyone. Don’t do that again. Now you two go play.”

“What? You two go play? What is that? Mom . . . he hit me with a rock.”

“You heard me,” she said. “Go play.”

Dave reacts immediately. His head perks up. The teeth in his previously downturned mouth show themselves with such a smiling pop, it is irritatingly like watching a pan of Jiffy popcorn bursting open, white morsels escaping. With Danny close behind, Dave skips back outside to resume his place in the parade.

Narrowing my eyes at our mother, I turn away with a huff.

There is no justice.

I

hear the mechanical click of the hand move again, and out of the corner of my eye, I sense a tiny movement coming forth from the clock’s façade. As I spy the spider emerging once again from the clock, I recall my twelve-year-old-self fuming over the bitter drink I seemed to have been served that day. “David gets away with everything,” my sister and I would say to our mother. I wonder now if the reverse was true. Considering my own two children, the truth is more likely that my mother gave both Dave and I a round of Kool Aid. I got off pretty easily, having mercilessly teased him, and Dave was likewise set free without penalty.

Justice is not so easily doled out.

As my own two quarreling daughters continue yelling at each - 77 -

other, their cheeks reflecting the heat of righteous indignation, they call on me, asking that I dispense justice—that I choose the winner, the one who is right and without blame. Listening to the incessant ticking of the clock and its intermittent “click . . . click,” I realize that I am consigned to watching and waiting as the hands continue to move, hoping that time will eventually provide the balm that I desire—that it will eventually deliver to me, the gift that it had just given to my own mother.

- 78 -

Amber Fortune

Release I flirted with him when I was younger, batting my eyelashes, sashaying my hips, putting on tight skirts and bending over right in front of him with my trademark self-satisfied smirk.

Once I had his attention, I couldn’t get rid of him.

(And really, did I want to?)

He never threw rocks at my window or serenaded mehe came over without invitation, striding in through his own cloud of smoke, washing my sins away, baptizing me in blood and bleaching my skin white with scars.

His kiss was a sharp blade, his caresses painted me cartoonish red, his hands wrapped around my throat during sex, and every time, I found myself gasping, wanting just a little bit more.

I was always teetering on the edge, itching for him, (literally), scratching those hills and valleys like a junkie.

He was the heady smell of sweat lingering in my brain, - 79 -

The metallic taste of a Smith & Wesson shoved down my throat (Damn that gag reflex).

He was a single touch ripping me open in places that no one could see, stinking of infection.

I was always worried someone would smell him on me the next day.

So many times I flushed my rusted vices down the toilet, carried them out with the kitchen trash, but he always showed back up.

He visited me almost every night, and my parents never suspected a thing.

- 80 -

Jordan Ardoin

5 in 6

A

measly couple of streetlights line the road ahead, but they don’t do much. Apartment buildings loom out of the shadows, piercing the blackness here and there with pinpricks of light from windows. My footsteps crunch on the wet, dirty sidewalk as I march ever onward, like so many before me have done and so many after me will do. I said goodbye to my friends two blocks ago, and everything is fine.

I breathe easy, but not too easy. I relax, but not too much. My shoulders slouch casually. The keys in my hand bite into the skin of my palm as I grip them so much tighter than some people tell me I need to. My other hand swings by my side, free to smash someone’s nose into their brain, if it comes to that.

Three blocks to go, and someone shouts at me from across the way.

“Hey!” he says, or something like that. I don’t listen. He stays hidden in shadow with everything else.

“Hey, baby!” he says. My steps are a little quicker than before.

He whistles. I stare straight ahead. I can take care of myself for five blocks. That’s what I told everyone two blocks ago, and that’s what I tell myself now. I can take care of myself.

“C’mon, I’m talking to you!”

My heart pounds harder, faster. I beg it to slow down, but it won’t listen. My pulsing blood roars in my ears.

Only two blocks to go.

Soft, crunchy footsteps fall in place behind me, but my head doesn’t turn. I won’t look. I won’t look I won’t look I won’t look.

“You really shouldn’t be out this late all by yourself,” someone says, and snickers. Maybe it’s the same someone, maybe there’s more of them. Little drops of sweat slip down my face, my sides.

I cross to the other side of the street as calmly as I can.

Stop overreacting, I tell myself. They leave you alone if you ignore them. That is the way it always goes.

- 81 -

But then a little voice in the back of my head whispers something like 1 in 6 women and now I’m jogging. Just casually jogging, and everything is fine.

“Where’re you going?” The snickers evolve into rowdy laughter.

I still don’t look. I just jog and sweat and scold myself for being ridiculous. Laughter fills the air at my back. I turn a corner. This road has one more streetlight than the last one.

Everything is quiet again. No one shouts or laughs at me for what feels like a long time. But the silence breathes louder than before. I don’t slow down.

One block left. I can survive that.

A car comes around the corner ahead of me. Relief flushes my tense brain for just a second when some of the shadows melt away under its headlights. Then it pulls up to the curb in front of me.

The engine turns off and takes the headlights with it. The driver’s silhouette has broad shoulders and a big head.

The car has nothing to do with me, I know that. My heart tries to rend my chest in two, regardless.

I’m too paranoid, of course. I’m silly. I’m insane. What do I think is going to happen? Why am I out here, existing, if I can’t handle it?

I keep one eye on the car. The driver is still inside. What is he waiting for?

Not me, I tell myself.

But I’m running now, and my lungs are folding in on themselves, and I can’t breathe.

I’m so close. I can see my door where it waits for me out of the streetlight’s meager reach.

A window cracks open above me, and I jolt so hard I nearly sprawl across the ground. I scream when a tiny, chilly raindrop caresses my cheek.

And then my own building is right in front of me, and the nightmare can end!

While I ascend the three steps to my door, someone steps out of the next building over. All my muscles shake in the darkness of my stoop.

My sweaty, convulsing hands fumble with the keys that have drawn blood from my palm. The other person, whoever they are, approaches me, but I don’t care, they don’t matter, because in the - 82 -

next second, I’m finally inside.

I lock the deadbolt and turn on every light in the place. I smile and congratulate myself. It isn’t sincere. I sit and look at the ceiling and take deep breaths. I’m safe at home, I guess. At least there’s that.

- 83 -

Joey De Celles

The Policeman

“

This is your last chance. Come out with the girl or we will take her by force.” The Sheriff’s megaphone echoed off the walls of the 2-story houses that created the open ring of the cul-de-sac. Each house at the end of Birch Street was some variation of pastel, and all the grass was below 1.5 inches high, all up to HOA regulations.

“You have 10 minutes. After that, we’re coming in.” Sheriff Richardson releases the megaphone’s trigger with a light click.

Deputy Tulio supports his weight against the cruiser, gun drawn, safety off. He is on the verge of tears. He has been for hours. The Glock 22 is beginning to visibly tremble in his hand.

It is 8:52 at night, and even the helicopters deemed the holdout old news. A total of 23 vehicles, a respectable combination of cruisers and SUV’s, remain parked outside the pale seafoam house, as they have been for the past 12 hours.

“This asshole isn’t budging,” announced Richardson in his gruff, vaguely Texan drawl. “We move in in 8.”

“No, we should move in now!” Shouted Tulio. While the sirens had been turned off back when the sun was still high in the sky the lights on every vehicle continued to whirl hypnotically, though out of sync, making sight beyond arm’s length next to impossible.

Regardless, Tulio knew he had grabbed the attention of the Sheriff, and continued his spew of word-vomit.

“That creep has had Lindsey all day! Do you think he’ll put her in a bow and wait for us to bust in?!” Tulio did not stand at ease.

“Guess what, Einstein!” Richardson launched. “You’re the one who said we should negotiate with this nutcase ten hours ago, so don’t even get started on charging in unprepared and-“ “That’s my daughter, we need to move!” Tulio was not known for interrupting his higher-ups, and the cops in earshot were either enjoying the drama or wishing it would end A.S.A.P. Some were even beginning to take bets on how long the feud would drag on.

Richardson was now at full volume. “Don’t you get it, Tulio? She - 84 -

is a hostage. This is how we deal with hostages-“ Richardson was cut off yet again, but not by the Deputy. But by the front door of 2248 Birch Street. Lindsey Tulio was shoved out of the dark portal into the early night air. The door is slammed behind her as she stands in shock. The Tulios make eye contact.

“Papa?”

The following seconds can only be described as a series of nouns and actions.

Silence. Gunshot. Splinters. Blood. Falling. Fading. Chaos. Blitz.

Reload. Gunshot. Stained glass.

Tulio drops to his knees harshly. He cannot believe what he has just witnessed. His daughter, the light of his life, was torn asunder.

He watched as the last hope of Lindsey’s life drained from her eyes onto the wooden porch. Every officer, bar Tulio and his partner, Sam, rushed the house. They did not hear the second gunshot over their own stampede and failed to realize their suspect had beaten them to the punch.

Tulio is unraveling. His eyes are wide, his pupils dilated. He has never seen such horror in his 38 years of existence. He is hearing nothing but the ringing that won’t cease and the blood forcing its way into his ears.

“Grab your gun, we need to move!” Sam is trying to bring Tulio back from the brink, but it isn’t working. Tulio looks down to his knees as tears drip from his face and blur his vision in conjunction with the rhythmic red and blue lights. He has dropped his gun to the asphalt.

Sam is trying her hardest. Tulio picks up the gun as if it is a stick of dynamite.

“Tulio, we have to move!” The magazine is full.

“Tulio, please!” The safety is off.

“Tulio?” He looks at Sam through a salty haze.

“Tulio!”

A shot rings out. Skull fragments and grey matter that used to belong to the Deputy’s partner now decorate the 557 cruiser. The lights create an array of a bright red drips and bluish stains on the originally white paint job.

Cops begin to turn around, starting from the back of the swarm and moving farther up in a somewhat random pattern. Tulio aims his - 85 -

weapon around the open door of the cruiser and begins giving his comrades one-way tickets to the River Styx.

After roughly twelve men and women in blue drop to the ground, the others have now turned about-face and are opening fire on the phalanx of vehicles. Luckily for Tulio, the doors are bullet-proof against small calibers, and every car has a shotgun rack.

Rage cannot describe Tulio in this moment in time. It’s not a strong, precise enough emotion. This is primal. This is burning ants with a magnifying glass. Tulio is not “feeling” right now. He is acting.

He has relinquished himself to the void, and the void is doing as it pleases. He has become a vessel for a demon only a father could carry.

Tulio runs out of bullets in his magazine and the spare that used to reside on his hip, but he is not done yet. He drops his weapon to the ground yet again and dashes to an adjacent SUV. The herd of the remaining officers break formation and begin to duck into cover, some wasting bullets, some waiting for an unobstructed shot.

Tulio is laying across the front seats of the 590 SUV, a barrage of bullets eviscerating the tops of the seats, sending fragments of the windshield throughout the cabin. Tulio is boiling, but remains silent.

The lead hail weakens. The window may have not been greater than a second, but it felt at least ten times the amount. In this slim moment of ceasefire, Tulio reaches up, hits the lever on the shotgun rack, and it falls into his hands. Each shotgun in each vehicle is pumpaction with 4 rounds in them. More than enough to turn Tulio into a battalion.

Tulio ducks out of his vehicle, rolling onto the street, still sandwiched in between vehicles. As he takes a knee to steady himself, the Resistance is still firing away into the SUV, unaware of the horrors that await.

Now that he is below the twirling lights, he can see much farther than those still standing. Tulio pumps the slide sending the first shell into the barrel and presses the gun up to his shoulder to line up his next victim. He sees a young woman pressed up against the door of a cruiser. Tulio recognizes this face. This is Renee Forest. His mind races back to when the two of them would play cards at the station and make each other laugh. She even went to Lindsey’s 14th birthday two months ago with her wife. And now Tulio was about to take that all away.

- 86 -

Did she really deserve this? To be put down like a dog?

Renee wasn’t firing, but she was determined to kill. She was not considering the possibility that Tulio didn’t want to perish either. She was ready to take him out.

Yes. She did deserve this.

Tulio fires, and Renee is left unsuitable for an open casket funeral.

The officers are now in a frenzy as to where the blast came from as well as the whereabouts of Officer Forest. Tulio moves his way through the steel labyrinth until he can see a line of three cops against one vehicle. He doesn’t care about faces or stories anymore. All he cares about is banishing every soul in this cul-de-sac. Every single one of them is responsible for what happened to Lindsey, and they are going to pay for what they did.

Three shots, three men. Easy.

This heartless pattern continued on with hardly any opposition for minutes that felt like eons. Tulio bobbed in and out of vehicles, snatching fully loaded shotguns and taking people out in sets never greater than three. 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2, 1, 2, 1. Six officers left.

Tulio creeps behind an officer shooting blindly into the flock of cars.

Tulio reloads, sending an empty shell to the ground. The officer whips around to check what the noise was, only to see down the barrel of Tulio’s weapon. The officer looks directly into Tulio’s bloodshot eyes, betrayed.

“T-T-T-Tu-Tulio,” the officer stuttered. “It w-was you?”

Tulio let out a cry and turned this officer’s memories into mist, further covering himself in the blood of his coworkers. Tulio didn’t understand. What did he mean it was him? Do they not think it’s him? That’s impossible, he must have just had nothing else to say.

Why was he so scared? Why didn’t the officer kill him right then and there? What does this mean? What does it mean?!

“There!” a voice came from behind Tulio. He spins and sees an officer taking aim. Tulio ducks instinctively, but not fast enough.

A bullet explodes out of its chamber and slices through the air for nearly 30 feet, finding refuge in Tulio’s left shoulder. Tulio wails in pain, but silences himself. He snaps out of his earlier confusion. He’s not dead. Five officers remained.

“I think I got him!” The officer announces in a state of mild panic.

“Well check, goddammit!” A course voice replied. Tulio recognizes - 87 -

it as Sherriff Richardson. He’ll be the last to go, Tulio promises himself.

Though his shoulder feels as if it’s broiling, he shuffles underneath the nearest SUV, lodging glass in his hands and arms. He dares not to wince or make any cause for alarm.

It is silent aside from the occasional crunch of glass underfoot and personal radios creating static. The scared officer slowly makes his way towards the spot where Tulio lays. Tulio can see his feet walk into the small opening created by the frantic parking job hours earlier.

The officer stops at the sight of the dead cop that confronted Tulio.

Tulio couldn’t tell it by the officer’s feet, but he was crying.

He looks down and observes a small bloodstain left by Tulio’s shoulder. Dammit. The officer tracks the small path leading to Tulio’s hiding spot. Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit! His feet are within arm’s length.

“Well?” Richardson demands from a distance. “Is he dead or not?”

The officer stands erect and turns around. “He’s not here, sir-“ Tulio grabs him by the ankles and yanks hard, causing the scared officer to slam into the road face-first, knocking him out. Tulio rushes out from the cover, grabs the unconscious officer’s pistol, and sends a bullet right through the back of his head.

This is the final stand. Tulio makes a break for the once innocent house, still covered by the dancing lights. He sprints over the pile of cadaverous cops at the front of the house, cold blood splashing under each foot.

He sits behind the doorframe to the entrance of 2248 Birch St. He is panting from the wound and the sprint. He checks the magazine.

Four bullets left. Fitting. One for each remaining officer. As he looks up from his gun, within the shadows cast by the lights, is the original killer. The reason anyone was here in the first place. Besides his jacket he was entirely unrecognizable. He was slumped awkwardly against the wall, his blood splattered on the front window like a macabre Pollock. Tulio looks away. Not because he feels sorry for him, but because he doesn’t want to waste another thought on the man that killed his daughter.

He leans out to see all four officers have their guns drawn towards the house. He takes careful aim and fires. Three bullets left, three officers left.

“He’s in the door!” Shouts a survivor. Tulio hears heavy footsteps - 88 -

rapidly approaching. Richardson commands the survivor to stop, but he keeps running. Tulio hears a thump just outside the door. In a form of cruel humor, Tulio realizes that the officer has tripped over a pile of his comrades, and he can’t help but smile as he takes his next shot. Two bullets, two officers.

“Okay I’ve had enough of this! Come out now!” Richardson is a strong man, full of determination and willpower, but even he slips out a squeak of fear.

It’s time to end this.

Tulio rounds the corner, immediately popping a shot off right over Richardson’s shoulder, killing the last officer behind him. Tulio adjusts his aim right between Richardson’s eyes. Richardson does the same to Tulio. The Deputy and the Sherriff are at a standoff, framed by corpses, pastel houses, and spinning police lights.

As the partners make eye contact, the remainder of the color in Richardson’s face drains. It is clear that this is not who he expected to see have a gun pointed at his head. In fact, this is the very last person he thought would do this.

“Tulio?” The Sherriff lets out perplexed and disorganized. “You? This was you? Why? Were you working for someone?”

“What do you mean ‘it was me’?” Tulio burst, outraged. “Why do you people keep saying that?” Tulio did not stand at ease.

“Tulio, we thought someone was attacking us! We thought he killed you! We could hardly see anything with all the lights on at once!”

It was like Tulio was watching a wall approach at 100 miles per hour. “You mean… No, no, you’re a liar! You knew it was me! You were trying to kill ME!” Richardson was lost. “If I had known it was you, I would’ve called a cease fire.”

Tulio hit the wall. A million puzzle pieces clicked into place at once. The look on Renee’s face, why the other cop didn’t shoot him, why no one was calling him by name. They thought it was just another killer. They didn’t know. None of them knew, and he slaughtered every single one of them.

“Oh my god,” Richardson murmured. “This was about Lindsey, wasn’t it?”

The fire reignited inside Tulio, fueled by an overwhelming cocktail - 89 -

of grief and remorse. It was burning hotter than ever, and his eyes were like portals to the Inferno itself. Richardson lowers his gun and begins to warily approach Tulio, a hand outstretched.

“Listen, I know what happened was unforgivable, but… look what you’ve done Tulio!” Richardson says as he gestures to the scene.

“This shouldn’t have happened! You’ve become a bigger monster than the creep we came here for!” Richardson walks right up to the tip of Tulio’s gun, his forehead an inch away from the muzzle, eyes still locked on each other. “Lindsey wouldn’t want this, Tulio.”

Tulio has tears streaming down his face. Tears not of despair, but of madness. His breath is shuddering.

“Me neither, Sherriff.”

Zero bullets, zero officers.

The late Sherriff Richardson drops to the landscape with a thwack. Tulio’s gaze stretches far past the horizon, unmoving, as if he was looking directly at a far off world where this could never have happened. He forces himself to look around at his destruction.

Glass, blood, bullet shells, and cadavers everywhere. He turns back towards the house that he has tainted. He begins a slow walk towards it stepping on and over a mountain of bodies, some still identifiable.

On the porch, surrounded by the deceased like herself, is Lindsey Tulio. She is small compared to Tulio, but microscopic compared to the damage her father caused.

Tulio cannot feel anymore. All that is left is a hole in his heart where something pure once resided. He bends down to pick up his daughter, almost as if to bring her back. He sits on the front step of the house and holds Lindsey close to his chest. It doesn’t fill the void in his chest.

Tulio waits. The next 14 hours seem to fast-forward around him, as if he’s in a bubble where time has no meaning. Through the blur he can see stars shift, the sun rise, and the clouds roll in. A jogger in bright clothes calls the police. No one answers. Every news crew in driving distance pulls up to the scene, along with three helicopters and a substantial crowd of civilians. Some people approach Tulio, either trying to drag him away from his spot or shoving cameras in his face and asking him what happened. Nothing works.

At 2:09 in the afternoon, the day after Deputy Tulio went on his rampage, the neighboring town’s police force arrest him without - 90 -

resistance. As Tulio sits handcuffed in the back of a large police van, he witnesses a cleanup crew place his daughter in a body bag and zip it closed. The cops driving the vehicle tells Tulio he will most likely get the death penalty if he was the one that created this scene. He asks Tulio if it was worth it.   Tulio smiles, but does not respond.

- 91 -

Diana Jernigan

All the Way The day we walked eight miles through the coastal dunes lakes you carried a pack the entire way Down the easy paved road to shale and shell and shore and stopped to examine the stiletto palm fronds and frame pictures in the camera lens as I posed You let me wax on about metaphysical considerations like reincarnations transubstantiations or the purpose of the moon out in broad daylight Oh the agony I produce in myself Until we arrived at the lake Where the reflection of clouds skidding on water fell over me Deep and cavernous and blue the surface flat and still and undulating with misty globes Intoxicated By the hum of tide over the dunes and the whiff of salt air and the caves of clouds sailing under me tempting me to fall I lost myself in the chasms leaned over and considered the ways one could soar or sink or swim if one does not know where lake stops and sky begins And then I hear your voice Right here, babe, on this blanket and I am able to step back from the edge

- 92 -

So I turned to see the universe you’d brought with you Rafts of cheese and Earthy greens and little lakes of chardonnay Scenes captured in safe goblets The sky in berries a cloud of mayonnaise on the knife And a trio of books lying on your grandmother’s quilted square The theory is there And for a moment I consider reading Plato out loud to you in part because I know where you want me With the muses in repose in the poetry and I am so damned stubborn sometimes But you are already into your fiction as if you haven’t a care in the world about where we’ve come from or where we’re going So content with guessing the truth in the mystery Before The End And so finally I pick up the poetry and collapse beside you and sigh while you rub my back as if I had just carried your pack the white wine and gorgonzola three books and a blanket across these eight miles through the coastal dunes lakes all this way

- 93 -

Michael Mobley

Santorini Oil

I

n my dream, I’m standing at the podium. The wind rushes across the green hills surrounding me and ruffles the cheap white tent covering the procession. It ruffles the black dresses of the ladies in attendance, but leaves the suits of the men untouched. The flapping of the vinyl tent drowns out my words. I feel the wind break on my face, the force against my cheek taking me back in time. It takes me back to when things happened that might not be kosher for a speech such as the one I am giving. Traditionally, a eulogy wouldn’t be the place to bring up such things. Nevertheless, in my dream, I am taken back, and I deliver words that show my grandfather in a light more befitting a man of his graceless stature.

F

or an insurance agent, my grandfather wasn’t a careful man. He made decisions on a whim, often falling flat on his face. He was also a drunk, though not on purpose. I don’t know if anybody is a drunk on purpose, but if some are, he wasn’t one of them. I think it was just an impulse thing, like his “investments.”

As my Gammy told it, when he was in his twenties, and just getting into the insurance game, he gave a contractor friend of his $100 to finish up construction on a home. His friend sold the house and handed my grandfather back $400. He was hooked, and it was pretty much downhill from there. Frequently, he would come home with some idea or another, often centered around giving money to some friend of his selling some newfangled device that would change the world.

There was this time he came home from work and just wouldn’t shut up about the nigger who tried to hold back payment from him, despite being two months behind already. Now, if there is one thing that I can say in my grandfather’s favor, it’s that old Jack had some balls. You see, back then, insurance agents would go door to door collecting payments from their customers. I don’t know how - 94 -

it was in other places, but for a white man in New Orleans, that meant you had to venture into the black neighborhoods. Most men would do the job for a month or two and then move on. Jack walked those streets up until three days before he died, at the age of 67.

Just picture that: Here’s a white man, barely 5’10”, maybe 170 lbs, walking into the down wards of New Orleans, going from project to project collecting cash, and carrying that cash all day and never being bothered. He did that for damn near 50 years.

I asked him about it once when I was younger, maybe in middle school. I asked him how he was able to do a job that others just didn’t stick around for. He answered, “A white man ain’t gotta be scared of black folks just because there are a bunch of them and one of him.

They won’t hurt nobody that is just out doin’ they job. The one’s of them that’s respectable keep the other ones in line, and most of them respectable ones have jobs themselves and know that you wouldn’t be there, exceptin’ you gotta be. But they respect you for doin’ a job nobody else would. Because that’s what most of them gotta do every day.”

At the time, it seemed to me he understood them, that he had them figured out. That made me feel like what he was telling me would help me to do the same, like I had a drop on them that most other white people didn’t. But that evening when he came home complaining about the nigger holding out on him, my perception changed a bit. He said, “That darkie is into me for $35. I told him he had to pay up, but he wanted to tell me that he just couldn’t. I told him the company was gonna terminate his contract if I didn’t bring ‘em his money, but that just didn’t change nothin’ for him. I turned to leave, but he started talkin’ ‘bout some kind of ‘investing opportunity.’ Now I ain’t never known no nigger to talk like that, so I turned right around and asked him just what he had in mind and where he got the idea from.”

At this I spoke up, “You think maybe he just heard about you and your inclination to giving people breaks?” To this, my grandfather responded with a firm backhanded slap, the flattened back of his hand and knuckles breaking across my teenage temple and cheek. The skin gave way, like a well-beaten pelt to a hot knife. My grandfather continued his recounting of the day’s events while my Gammy threw a damp towel in my direction. I remember looking at the towel and - 95 -

seeing the evidence of the other times I had been slapped. Gammy Girl wasn’t too keen on staining what few good towels she had, so it only made sense she would reserve one particular rag for the removal of blood from my face. She used to warn me, “You oughta show your Pawpaw a lil’ more respect, child. He wouldn’t be hittin’ you so much if you quit mouthin’ off.” I hadn’t called the man Pawpaw since I was seven. The last time I did, he had slapped me and said he didn’t want to be called that because it made him feel old. “I’m only 40,” he said then. “I ain’t old enough for that shit yet, and I’ll tell you when I am.” Instead of being called “Pawpaw,” he just had me call him “Father,” because he said, “That’s what I am to you anyway.”

As I rubbed the cold, rough rag over the cut on my cheek, I picked back up on my grandfather’s story. Apparently, my grandfather’s black customer was into another black guy for a bit of money and that was the primary reason he wasn’t able to pay his insurance premiums.

“How does that-” I started, but after being shot an intense glare from my grandfather’s dark green eyes, I shut my mouth.

“Turns out,” my grandfather said, returning his eyes to Gammy, “the old boy my customer was into was dealin’ in supernatural cures.”

“Like snake oil?” Gammy asked.

“No,” my grandfather said, “Much better.”

As he told it, the concoctions that the man was selling were, in fact, oils, just made out of different swamp plants and animal parts.

The oil, the man claimed, was blessed by a voodoo man and suitable for all manner of bodily purifications.

“It’s that Santorini stuff, hun,” my grandfather said to Gammy.

“Santeria?” my Gammy said. “Now Jack, we don’t need to be messin’ with no hoodoo stuff-” “Woman,” my grandfather said, “I will do what I want to do.

And this is surefire! How many people we know that believes in that stuff?”

“Jack, do you believe in that stuff?”

“Shit, no,” he said, “but bunches of folks do!”

“How much is it, then,” she said. “Two months of premiums, right? I guess that ain’t too much to lose if-” “We ain’t gonna lose nothin’ baby,” he said. “It’s gonna be great.

To be certain, I bought in for the premiums I was owed and more.”

“How much more?” Gammy asked.

- 96 -

“Enough that we gon’ be set for life, my baby,” my grandfather said as he snatched Gammy up by her arms and twirled her about the room.

“How much? How MUCH?” she kept asking as he took her around the room, knocking over chairs and humming some tune to dance by. As it turns out, he had accepted an amount of oil equal to the two months premiums, which he had to put up himself.

However, as he had told my Gammy, he took much more. He had bought into the oil with half of their savings, totaling $100 worth of that stuff. Just like that, my grandfather the insurance agent became the moonlighting snake oil salesman.

My grandfather found out the hard way that though there were many Santeria adherents in those days, most of them didn’t have the money for blessed oils. When none of his regular insurance customers would bite, he moved on to the muck farmers in St. Bernard parish, but the old Isleños wouldn’t even bother with the old man. It was funny to watch him confuse the religions too; I was there the day he walked up to a man in Plaquemines parish who was practicing Vodoun and began to extol the virtues of his oils. I stayed in the car and watched as my grandfather climbed the stairs to that man’s porch.

“Sir,” my grandfather said, “I know of your religion. I know what you believe. While I am not among those initiated into Santorini, I know that what I have for you here can be of use to you. For just $3 dollars, this jar of miracle oil can be yours. It heals whatever ails you, as it was blessed by a shaman of the highest order amongst the hoodoos of the swamp of New Orleans.”

“What’s Santorini?” the man asked my grandfather.

“Why, voodoo sir. Your hoodoo faith.”

The man initially laughed. “You mean Santeria?”

“Yes sir, that’s what I said.”

“I practice Vodoun, man. Voodoo, as ya’ll might say it, is different than Santeria.”

“Are you sure we are talkin’ ‘bout the same thing?” my grandfather asked the man.

“I’m certain we aren’t,” the man said. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Look,” my grandfather said, holding up the jar and pointing at it, “this stuff works. I have it on authority from the producer that - 97 -

his hoodoo shaman done blessed it and all.” He held out his hand.

“Three dollars.”

The man slapped his hand away and went back to sweeping to his porch. From the car, I watched as my grandfather grabbed him by the shoulder. The Vodoun man swung around and slapped my grandfather hard enough that he slipped and fell down the stairs, the jar of oil crashing to the porch floor.

My grandfather hit the ground and was almost immediately back on his feet, bowed up for the whole neighborhood to see. The Vodoun man had grabbed his shotgun from behind his screen door, though, so my grandfather slowly walked backwards toward the car.

He jabbed his finger in the air toward the Vodoun man.

“You hoodoo bastard,” he said, “Karma’s gonna get you.” He gestured at all the neighbors now looking on, “You and all these voodoo nuts believe that shit. I know you do. Just you wait.” The Vodoun man just stared him down from behind his shotgun as he walked around the car and pushed me into the passenger’s seat.

The drive home was made in silence. Old Jack took the long way, through the east end of Plaquemines parish. We stopped in some swamp around Terre Aux Boeufs and he made me unload the two cases he had of those oil jars. We dumped them straight into the muck, got back in the car and drove straight home.

Gammy never even asked why we were a mess. She didn’t ask how the day went, or where the jars of oil got to. I guess she just put two and two together. But her silence did nothing to stifle dude’s anger.

No sooner had we walked in the door than he laid into her. She had been looking us up and down, probably just taking in our muddy appearances, simply wishing we hadn’t dirtied up her floor. He took it as some kind of silent remark on his failure, so he struck her. Once, twice, three times, before I stepped in. I don’t even remember what I said, just that I shook her free of his grasp and pushed her behind me. My grandfather then pushed me backwards, forcing Gammy up against the fridge, her face against my back. There we were: the two of us squeezed up against the fridge, the wetness of the blood from her busted cheek against my skin.

His face was screwed up into a flashing of teeth and spittle as he yelled various obscenities at the two of us. This wasn’t the first time I had seen him flung into rage by his own insecurities, so I knew there - 98 -

wasn’t any hope of calming him. This time, I wasn’t inclined to let it continue. So I punched him. I landed two blows directly between his eyes, cutting him across the bridge of his nose. He fell backwards, but sprung back to his feet. As I stepped toward him, Gammy ran into the bathroom, the only other room in the house, and locked the door.

Jack came at me, fences clinched, eyes flashing. I ducked his first punch, kneed him in the side and pushed him into the kitchen table, sending the table and chairs slamming into the wall, and sending Jack back down to the floor. From the bathroom, Gammy started yelling. Too my surprise, she wasn’t yelling at Jack.

“Stop it, Jimmy,” she yelled. “Stop it NOW!” I turned away from Jack and toward the bathroom door, but didn’t say a word.

“You hear me, boy?” she said. “You leave him be and get out of here.”

I stood there for a moment, confused. I looked from the door to the man lying there on the ground, coughing. He was small, but for some reason I felt like I was too. I walked over to the door said, “Fine,” then walked out the door.

As I made my way down the sidewalk, the old man came out on the stoop and yelled down at me, “Your Gammy don’t need your headaches, boy! Don’t you come back!”

I never did.

I

n my dream, I get fed up with trying to remember a man like that in glowing language; I tire of creating this image of him that doesn’t jive with what I knew him to be. In my dream, I stop reading my speech and I tell them the oil story, followed by this little quip: “I would give anything to be anything other than what this guy was.

If I was like him, I would want to shoot myself.” In my dream, the irony of this statement hits the audience like a blow to the face.

Children’s ears are covered, women tighten their holds on their men’s hands and men make faces of discontent and anger at me. But they will never know my anger, my embarrassment at how my childhood was quashed by good ol’ Jack. They will never know what I know: the only side effect of anger is more anger, and the only positive that ever happened in that man’s life was his death.

- 99 -