Philadelphia Stories Fall 2009

free

FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

FIFTH ISSUE ANNIVERSARY

pamela main

THEY DON’T MEAN TO eileen m cunniffe

THAT BREATHLESS CHARM tom larsen

THE LIP author profile

LISE FUNDERBERG

F A L L

2 0 0 9

I S S U E

t a b l e

o f

c o n t e n t s ART

FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

CONTENTS FEATURES 3 They Don’t Mean To (fiction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pamela Main 11 That Breathless Charm (nonfiction). . . . . . . . . . . Eileen M. Cunniffe 13 The Lip (fiction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tom Larsen 19 “Hills like White Giraffes:” How to Give Positive Feedback in Fiction Workshops (column) . . . . . . Aimee Labrie

POETRY 8 Crystal Ball.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .JoAnn Balingit 12 Taking Down the South Street Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beth Feldman-Brandt 14 Buck in Bucks County Pennsylvania . . . . . . . . . . .Juilene Osborne-McKnight 16 Crime Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Noel Sloboda

LOCAL AUTHOR PROFILE 21 Lise Funderberg

PHILADELPHIASTORIES.ORG Publisher/Fiction Editor Carla Spataro Publisher/Managing Editor Christine Weiser Poetry Editor Conrad Weiser Essay Editor Julia MacDonnell Chang Associate Fiction Editor Marc Schuster Director of Development Sharon Sood Production Manager Derek Carnegie Web Design Loic Duros Board Secretary Kerri Schuster 2

Interns John Drain Valeria Tsygankova Diana Restifo

Editorial Board David Aichenbaum, fiction Courtney Bambrick, poetry Anne Buckwalter, fiction Christine Cavalier, poetry Liz Dolan, poetry John Drain, fiction Jamie Elfrank, fiction Sandy Farnan, non-fiction Marylou Fusco, fiction Emily Gill, fiction Pat Green, poetry Joanne Green, fiction Fran Grote, fiction Matt Jordan, non-fiction Cecily Kellogg, poetry Aimee LaBrie, fiction Nathan Long, fiction Walt Maguire, fiction Patricia Mastricolo, fiction George McDermott, poetry Harriet Levin Millan, poetry Elizabeth Mosier, fiction Julie Odell, fiction Ryan Romine, fiction John Shea, poetry & non-fiction Janice Wilson Stridick, poetry & non-fiction Valeria Tsygankova, poetry Michelle Wittle, fiction

3 Scooter by Thomas Johnson. Thomas is a native of the Delaware Valley and has had a camera in his hands for most of his life. A professor of photography once told him to look at the details as well as the whole of the subject. Finding beauty in details is the best way to explore the world around us. Great images are closer than you think sometimes right next to you.

6 Altered State by Suzanne Comer. The beautiful areas around her home near Philadelphia inspired Suzanne Comer to use digital photography as an art form. See more work at http://comersuz.home.comcast.net/

13 The Boy Had Enough by Andrea Ramirez. Andrea Ramirez is a national exhibiting Pop artist living in the Trenton NJ area. She recently finished a month-long exhibition in Chelsea, NYC. Her works are created on paper with marker and transferred digitally to add color. See more work at www.artofandrea ramirez.com

15 Pez Collection by Dorrie Rifkin.

Dorrie Rifkin is an award-winning art director and partner in a Fort Lee, NJ design firm during the day; by night she is a watercolor artist. She is a signature member of the Transparent Watercolor Society of America. Her work has been selected in many national and international juried shows.

See more of her work at www.dorrierifkin.com.

Cover Art: Falling Leaves by Lee Muslin. Lee Muslin has traveled through several art mediums and several states in her voyage. From drawing to printmaking to photography, from Pennsylvania to Delaware to New York and back to Pennsylvania. Her current passion is using the computer as her paintbrush. Her photomontages evolve as she layers, blends, and combines her original photographs. See more of her work at www.LeeMuslin.com

Philadelphia Stories is a non profit literary magazine that publishes the finest literary fiction, poetry and art from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and distributes free of charge to a wide demographic throughout the region. Our mission is to develop a community of writers, artists and readers through the magazine, and through education programs such as writer’s workshops, reading series, and other affordable professional development programs for emerging writers and artists.

Philadelphia Stories is a 501c3 and is managed completely by a staff of volunteers. To support Philadelphia Stories and the local arts, please visit www.philadelphiastories.org to become a member today!

Dedicated to the memory of fiction board member Denise Gess. She was a mentor, a talent, and a friend. We will miss her.

p a m e l a

m a i n

THEY DON’T MEAN TO

ridget is in the giftware section of the department store, running her fingers over the deeply discounted snow globes, when she feels the constriction in her chest—her first bodily evidence that the heart, indeed, is a muscle. A muscle, not some stationary white fist captured on an x-ray. Not pain exactly, but a rude clamping down, like the cumbersome, post-coital weight of an inconsiderate lover— or the burden of an unhappy childhood.

Her breath is short, her thoughts fugitive. Help me, Help me. And then she imagines being helped by shoppers and clerks, who are surprised, annoyed, and then concerned, some hero among them quick to call 911. The ride to the hospital, her hospital, would be humiliating— her shameful stretched-out bra, the chaos of her purse. And to those in the store, she would be a nameless lady, crumpled among snow globes, a topic of Christmas Eve dinner conversation. No,

B

Back at work, Bridget can’t deny the aftermath, the sensation like a bruise purpling in her chest. And earlier in her office, as she hung up her red coat, hadn’t she felt an ache in her jaw, tracked its radiance northward to settle into the crook of her T-M joint?

Working in a hospital predisposes one to hypochondria, she knows, and is alert to the condition.

She is alone now, stamping and processing x-ray films the old-fashioned way, in a darkScooter by Thomas Johnson © 2009 room, and glad to be there among ghosts.

Those are what she’d she is fine, fine—lub-Dub, lub-Dub, she thought of thirty-three years ago when, as urges her heart toward routine iambic a student, she developed and then clipped beats. Longevity on both sides, assorted a skull and hand series of radiographs to a cancers, not heart disease, cholesterol view box. Ghosts. She had created ghosts levels near perfection. I am only 54, she from living flesh, a conundrum that the reminds her heart, though on some days inverse square law, calipers, and step-up that number has seemed excessive. transformers would later dispel.

She palms the glass snow globe on Here, in the acrid, blue-lit blackness, the display counter. Inside, fake flakes she can gloat in private. As Chief have settled on a Hummel house and figRadiology Technologist, she’d argued urines, a Swiss boy and his Swiss dog, a that the darkroom be maintained for Swiss sleigh. Like Swiss cheese, she instances just such as these, when the thinks, trite and maudlin and untrue. two automatic processors were on the Even her mother, the great pretender fritz—one darkening the films into and for one desperate moment the missed diagnoses, the other, the newer intended recipient of the globe, would one, chewing them up. Dr. B was surhave to agree. The sign reads 80% OFF! prised at her bold insistence in the face The subtext, the pre-holiday chicanery, of hospital administrators, in the face of reads Economy in the doldrums, We understand, He Himself, who wanted the darkroom and the real price of the globe is printed turned into a doctors’ lounge—a tertiary below in a small, hum-drum font, the diagnostic conference room, as he’d proinsult of which is enough to shock her posed it to the facilities planners. No, heart into normal sinus rhythm. she’d stood up for herself without anger

3

t h e y

d o n ’ t

m e a n

or aggression, stood up for common sense, for the techs who but for her would now be loading heavy cassettes up five flights to the OR processor, which is jam prone itself. Yes, she supports the techs, treats them justly, but she is glad not to be among their ranks. There they are, on the other sides of the darkroom, positioning bodies into painful angles.

Pain, physical, mental, she tends to take it all in these days, like she used to. No, she being one of the few who still know how a darkroom functions, is glad to be away from them, invisible. The leadlined doors into which the techs deposit the cassettes into the black hole of the darkroom are sticky but functional. For an afternoon, on the eve of Christmas Eve, she gets to bask in righteousness, in a rote job for once, slamming doors on all four sides of her, the process smooth and orderly, like blood flowing into a healthy heart.

t o

Bridget’s Center City townhouse is only a quick bus ride from the hospital.

In fine weather she often walks to keep in shape, but it is cold and damp, the twilight murky. She dozes on the bus, misses her stop, has to backtrack two blocks on foot. The wind is cold and painful.

How dare her heart have behaved so badly? She walks, she exercises at the fitness club, not enough, but who does?

She buys expensive, organic produce and avoids fast food, most of the time.

Ahead, the lambent light from the marquis of the Ritz Theaters gives her an idea: movie tickets and a gift card for dinner at the Chadds Ford Inn. Practical gifts, certainly, but for her parents, just as strange as the snow globe. Had they ever eaten in a restaurant together in peace?

She can imagine them sitting across from each other, observing the other diners, hating themselves, hating that reflection of self in the other. But lately—

Last week her mother had called and persuaded her to spend Christmas Eve with her and her father in Chadds Ford.

“I’ll make bacon—Canadian—and eggs in the morning, organic, and waffles with blueberries. I bet you don’t make that for yourself, do you? I wouldn’t.

And Christmas, you and Brian and Sheila, the kids, and Aunt Jane—eight of us.” Bridget envisioned her mother counting on her wrinkled white fingers.

“Filet Mignon, Shop-Rite has them on sale this week—scalloped potatoes, asparagus, salad, and turkey, of course.

Whole grain bread cooked in clay pots.

Did I tell you? Your father went out and bought a turkey fryer? On his own.

They say they make the moistest meat, though we don’t eat much meat these days.”

For the first time in many years, Bridget’s circle of friends, mostly colleagues turned friends from the hospital,

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Dear Friends, We started Philadelphia Stories with a simple mission: to publish the finest literary fiction, poetry, essays, and art from the Delaware Valley and provide it to the public free of charge. In the past five years, our mission hasn’t changed. We’re still proud to provide a venue for local writers and artists.

So, here we are, five years into this journey called Philadelphia Stories, and we’ve certainly come a long way since that first fundraiser back in April 2004.

When we started Philadelphia Stories, we developed a five-year strategic plan that included the launch of a book division, the institution of affordable writing workshops, and other opportunities for professional development. We’re happy to say that we achieved all of these goals. We launched our first writer’s conference, Push to Publish, in the fall of 2007, and it has grown every year since. In June of 2008, we partnered with Rosemont College for the Rosemont Writer’s Retreat, a one-week event under Carla’s direction that brings together incredible writers and teachers from all over the country. We now also offer affordable writer’s workshops featuring terrific teachers like award-winning author Aimee LaBrie.

We have also lost some good friends along the way: Sandy Crimmins, poetry board member, Marguerite McGlinn, essay editor, and Denise Gess, fiction board member. These women all shared intelligence, talent, and fierce passion for the writing arts. They taught us so much.

We hope to honor their passion, along with so many other supporters, as we continue to publish the magazine and keep it free, to host events that allow readers and writers to network, and to offer affordable workshops to help writers hone their craft. We could not do this without our members and sponsors. Without these folks we would not be able to continue publishing--its just that simple.

4

With help from our readers and supporters, our mission will continue for another five years. We hope that you have a happy and productive fall. Watch our website for details about our anniversary and anthology launch party!

All the best, Carla Spataro & Christine Weiser Publishers

The premiere issue debuted in Fall 2004.

www.philadelphiastories.org

p a m e l a are all going out of town for the holidays, and she has to work the day after Christmas. For her, there is no where else to go but home.

Four brick steps lead up to her front door. Bridget had festooned the wrought iron railing with swatches of evergreen and red velvet bows. A fresh green wreath circles the pineapple knocker on her front door.

Inside, there is little evidence of Christmas. Her house is a solace to her, and she wants to keep it that way. A few antiques, expert reproductions of pie tables and highboys, a modern kitchen.

The place was gutted during the Center City gentrification twenty years ago when she and her second ex-husband bought it cheap, and now even with the housing slump, its value is up. More people than ever moving to the great old East Coast cities. Every weekend and summer evenings, horse-drawn carriages clomp down her cobblestone street, sub-

urban tourists craning for a glimpse into others’ lives. She usually keeps the drapes downstairs cracked an inch or so, but tonight she draws them tight.

For dinner, a salad with balsamic vinaigrette and wild salmon. Take that, heart, she taunts it. After stacking her few dishes in the dishwasher, she takes her cup of green tea into the living room and settles on the sofa. Her chest feels empty now. Normal.

Most evenings she attends class or studies, but last week she handed in her portfolio—a chapbook of ten poems.

Supposedly she is on her way to a Masters of Science in Communications, but lately she has chosen rogue classes, for which the hospital might not reimburse her. And so what? She reminds herself she can afford it. Professionals such as herself deserve to be compensated well—making more now than she ever thought possible when she began her career. The hospital would not close

m a i n

its doors, as it threatened to do five years ago, the thought of which had sent her heart into palpitations. Not like today, and those flutterings could as easily be attributed to peri-menopause as to loss of income. She is beyond all that blood and money, she tells herself, though in her poetry class she’d written an ode to hot flashes, delighting the younger members of the class. For other poems, she’d rummaged through the detritus of her unhappy childhood to rediscover and expose her parents in images.

Her father, a mechanic, his face as grim and immobile as George Washington’s as he scribbles expenses on the back of an envelope at the kitchen table. Every night, another envelope, more figuring, her father is an alchemist trying to change the rules of mathematics, and he tells his wife he is sorry he married. Her mother is sanitized for the poem but still capable of calling her only daughter a lazy slut.

5

t h e y

d o n ’ t

m e a n

t o

Altered State by Suzanne Comer © 2009

6

Once, her father threw a burnt biscuit at her mother, but they normally battered each other with words—“You said,” “I never,” “You always,” their accusations crystallizing in the cold air of the large house, ricocheting off the windows and walls to hail down on the petrified bodies of their two children.

For amusement, Bridget would sneak her mother’s hand mirror from her dresser and walk around with the house with the mirror pointing towards the ceiling and held close to her face. The house was better, safer, somehow upside down.

Instead of uniting against the onslaught, she and Brian mimicked their parents. As adults, they got along by rarely speaking, gibes and eye rolls accessories in their awkward conversations.

And now, out of nowhere, her parents’ battles seem to have ceased. To say they even bickered the last time she saw them—a year ago? –would be an exaggeration. It has been going on for too long to ignore it—this, this mutual, gratuitous kindness. She suspects dementia or Alzheimer’s, a reciprocal alignment of disease. Folie a deux.

Tomorrow, she will have to make

sure her father doesn’t set the house ablaze with the turkey fryer. She’ll suggest, subtly, that they book appointments for CT scans and have Dr. B, a great diagnostician, despite his bullying and pouting, take a look at them.

Dr. B, her relationship with him mirroring that of her first two husbands, mirroring that of her parents. Passivity, first, playing house, pretending, like her mother, then, and also like her mother, for years an unleashing of the furies, though Bridget reversed the process with her husbands. With the first, a resident in urology, she’d gone beyond nag, bellowed at every slight and then kicked him out of the apartment she’d had the good sense to lease in her name. With the second, a dosimetrist in the radiation therapy department at a neighboring hospital, she’d caved and then caved some more, until she was hollow and hardly noticed his departure. With Dr. B, a flimsy truce ruled now, borne out of exhaustion and perhaps even boredom, not forgiveness on either side, she knows.

She blames her parents for her difficulties more than is healthy, she fears now.

Her thoughts drift back to the hospital where she has spent so much of her life. “To Forgive is to Heal,” reads a plaque she allowed one of the techs to hang in the Special Procedures room. Yes, but childhood traumas stay with one forever, reads the invisible plaque beside it, and then on the other side, forming a triptych of advice, Only so much damage can be undone, as the x-rays taken in this room will demonstrate. In fact, the very room attests to the difficulty of forgiveness. The quagmire of steely instruments on metal trays, the looming X-ray tubes, and the cold hard table all hiss, rant, and bellow of the resentment that clogs the arteries and thickens the blood. And perhaps bitter anger is karmic justice, croaks some rusty voice from the haz-mat containers.

Damn her parents to think they can sweet talk their way into her forgiveness.

After all, she reminds herself, if people forgave so easily, if she had turned out unscathed, why would people like her parents ever be motivated to change their ways? To motivate others to change? If she has to die of a heart attack, she hopes it is in her old bed, where her parents will find her cold body on Christmas morning. Think of it as a gift, she will write on a note beside the bed.

But they won’t get it.

In her Jetta, Bridget eels along Route 1 towards Chadds Ford, past the Brandywine Battlefield where Cornwallis and Washington battled it out on a misty day. Unlike today, which is cold and bright. Her parents live on the Knoll, a subdivision of colonials, in its heyday a rural Shangri-la for the upper middle classes. They moved here from an apartment when Bridget was six but unlike the neighbors, they could not afford it. The house was a major theme in the parents’ disputes. At the end of month, at the paying of the bills, the specter of the poorhouse lurked in every room. In her room, Bridget battled with sleep, dreamed her bed was poised at the edge of some rickety lean-to in the slums of

p a m e l a Calcutta, where her father swore they were all headed.

Now, the mortgage is paid, and the last time she was here she noticed her parents were beginning to replace the second-hand furnishings. Retired from their jobs—her mother had been a cashier at a gift shop—they spoke respectfully to each other, and to her. Can everything be boiled down to money, she wonders incredulously, as she brakes down her parents’ sloping driveway.

The garage door opens. Her father, dressed in a light blue sweat suit, is standing by the turkey fryer, parked to one side of his old Impala.

“Costs a pretty penny, too,” he yells, patting the fryer. As he walks toward her car, she scans him for the listing, tell-tale gait of the demented. But he is plumb, upright as an elm. He takes her bag and puts a hand on her back, directing her past the turkey fryer and the Impala to the inside door, which he opens with one hand. “Bridget’s here,” he calls into the house.

Her mother, dressed in a white sweat suit, hugs her, her long arms vice-like in their grip. “It’s been too long. I’ve missed you,” she whispers into the hollow of Bridget’s neck. Her father stands behind them, grinning, rubbing Bridget’s arm.

Not so long ago, Bridget reminds herself, she would have carried her own bag into the house, and her mother would have stayed put in her comfortable chair, their daughter’s visit no big deal. Did they know it was she?

“We were just doing Tai-chi,” her mother says, pulling away. “Let me show you the tree.”

Her mother takes her hand and leads her up the three steps into the kitchen, where spaghetti sauce simmers on the stove, into the living room, scented with evergreen. Ribboned packages are tucked beneath a lush tree. Tai Chi? Her parents point out the ornaments, the old ones, the new. The blue bells with silver stripes that Bridget cannot

remember. The old red balls with the snowflake centers look vaguely familiar, but the trees of her childhood had been thin spindles dying in some cold corner.

“These I got at Pier 1 last year,” her mother says about the bold colors and designs that speak of Mumbai, Tangiers, and Marrakech, Christmas balls of sienna, chartreuse, ruby and ochre.

“We can sit in here,” her father pipes in, pointing to a new sofa and chairs, “or we can go down to the rec room where I got a fire going. What do you think?”

He looks to his wife and daughter for guidance in this matter of what to do with their bodies.

Bridget notices for the first time that her mother has had her white hair cut in the trendy angled cut of news anchors.

Her father’s hair is still mostly dark.

“We could,” her mother answers after a pause, “but maybe Bridge wants to take a nap before dinner? You look beautiful but a little tired. The hospital is proba-

m a i n

bly working her too hard, Herb. Laying off people left and right in this economy and expecting others to work as if they’re three people. But you know more about that than I do, Bridget. Would you like to take a nap, dear?”

She would.

Up in her old room, she sinks into the twin bed and wonders how she can possibly sleep here, but her body remembers the old contours of the mattress. A nap, so rare, would have been such an affront to her former mother.

She dreams of other houses, with hidden rooms and trap doors, people who morph into her parents, her friends, Dr. B, the custodian who solemnly cleans her office.

It is one of the shortest days of the year, and she awakens to darkness.

Downstairs, she watches her father take a fork and fish a spaghetti noodle out of a boiling pot. He breaks it in two and peers into the center. Who knew he could boil

7

t h e y

d o n ’ t

m e a n

t o

Crystal Ball

By JoAnn Balingit on a son’s 13th birthday

Before my daughters I hold an ornament, a clear plum on my open palm and cold— though light breaks through its bubble shell

so that we see inside the sphere another half its size, and inside that one, two or three more cells glisten and divide.

Your brother must

have gone over twenty-nine miles per hour, I tell his sisters. He wouldn’t ever do that! they rejoin.

Then how, I beg to know, could droplets form

alive inside this glass? Only when a child has gone too fast. . .Wasn’t the limit twenty-nine miles per hour?

In our muteness

the ornament darkens, beckons: Wait for word.

Horse clouds lower their flat-iron heads, 8

sweep the field with shadows where we stand.

JoAnn Balingit’s poems have appeared in DIAGRAM, Salt Hill, Smartish Pace, and Best New Poets 2007. Her chapbook, Your Heart and How it Works, is forthcoming from Spire Press. She was appointed Delaware’s poet laureate in May 2008: http://www.artsdel.org/services/poetlaureate.shtml. She lives in Newark.

pasta? “Done,” he proclaims and then turns around.

“Oh, you’re up. How did you like the new bed? Got it last week. Still a twin cause your mother wants to put in a craft table. Dinner’s almost done though—you’ve got good timing.”

“Not always,” she answers, though she could detect no snideness in his comment. She sits down at the same battered table that darkens her poems, though her mother has covered it with a cloth patterned with crimson poppies.

“What do you mean?” her mother asks, coming into view now as she closes the refrigerator. “I always thought you had good timing. You got a job right after—“ “I mean you—both of you. Like you are now, if it’s real. This is the home I should’ve been born to.”

Her parents exchanges glances of collusion. She hates it when people do that. Do they think you are blind? Or are they aware you’ll notice and are belittling you without words?

“Well, let’s eat now before the spaghetti goes starchy,” her mother finally says. “I thought we’d eat in here tonight, tomorrow, of course, in the dining room.”

With her husband’s help, her mother pours the sauce and the spaghetti into bowls and sets them on the table. Their movements are harmonious, as if they’d been cooking side by side for decades. Her father sets a bowl of freshly grated cheese on the table and inserts a fancy spoon. Also new. Seldom cheese on the old naked table and if so, the generic kind shaken out of a green box, and her father bitching about how much even that cost.

“Oh, the bread!” Her mother rises from the table in alarm. I baked it in clay pots, like I told you, Bridge.

Whole grain.”

“Sit down, Susan, I’ll get it.” Her father is up, places his palms on her mother’s back to ease her down. He leans down and says “Excellent sauce, by the way. Perfect combo of sweet and spice.”

“You helped. Thank yourself, too.”

“Okay. Thanks to me, too.” He grins at Bridget, and she fears for a moment he might wink at her. It would be another first, and she is grateful he doesn’t.

Still, she wonders how she can possibly summon an appetite at this table. Their behavior, both in the past and now, like a barbell dropped on her chest.

But her father is right—the sauce is divine, caramelized with garlic, onion, morel mushrooms, and fresh basil, the spaghetti, whole wheat, cooked al dente. The meatballs and sausages are crusted with a

p a m e l a thin layer of flavor, olive oil, the meat inside moist and tender, the two textures mingling exquisitely on the tongue. Her father cuts and lathers a slice of warm bread with herbed butter and places it on her bread plate. She eats it.

For dessert, frozen pineapple mousse with a swirl of crème fraiche and shredded coconut on top. Bridget cannot turn it down.

“First time I made it—recipe in an old cookbook my mother gave me for our first wedding anniversary,” her mother explains.

Bridget spoons the last dollop from her parfait glass.

“Good?” Her father smiles, a proud boy of nearly 80.

“You never—“ Bridget frowns at her mother.

“I know,” her mother answers, her voice scratchy.

Bridget looks at her father. “You always—” “I know,” he says, though she does not know how she is going to finish. So how can he know? She tries to summon anger about such easy confessions, their “I knows” usurping the ugly details of her complaints against them. She blames her quietude on the postprandial lull that has dulled her senses. They know, sure, and of course they didn’t mean to.

“We know,” her mother says, “and we’d like to make it up to you.”

Her father pulls an envelope from the flannel shirt he has changed into for dinner. “An early Christmas present.”

She opens it slowly. Inside, is an airline voucher for a ticket to Spain. How did they know? When had she told them?

“You said you wanted to go. For you, not your brother, because you got the brunt of us,” her father says. “You being older.” He scratches at a drip on the tablecloth.

Her mother takes her hand and says, “And tomorrow, we’re giving everyone a ticket on a cruise, ourselves included—

even Aunt Jane. I thought we could work out the dates tomorrow. You and Brian, I mean. We’re free whenever. But we understand if you don’t want to accompany us.” The collusive looks again, though her father nods at Bridget.

“How can you afford it?”

Her father has brought a tray set with cordial glasses and a bottle of crème de menthe to the table and pours for three. He sits down again and looks down into his drink. “I’m not sure myself. For starters, we never lost money in the stock market like most of the people around here. I never believed in it.”

“We never spent much,” her mother adds. “Not on you or your brother, like we should have—“ “And then we both worked for years past retirement age, collecting social security.”

“Your father left us a CD, too, don’t forget, Herb.”

“Well, yes, and the point is we forgot it and didn’t spend it, and there it was, in a box collecting 9% interest locked in for 20 years. And your mother, your grandmother, left us the silver and all her awful—“ “Ugliest, gaudiest jewelry you ever laid eyes on. The house was just as awful.”

“But profitable. We sold when gold and silver and real estate were at the highest in a hundred years.”

“So all of a sudden, we realize there is money, and the house is paid off.”

“And then you decided you didn’t have to hate each other and your children anymore?” Bridget notices her mother and father are both wearing red shirts.

“Not at first,” her mother says.

“Though I never hated you.”

“Took a while to settle down, to sink in,” her father adds.

“And then we read this book. Train Your Brain and End Your Pain. Only takes about two weeks.”

“Two weeks only, and you can instill

m a i n

new habits.”

“Diet and exercise, and new ways of thinking. New pathways in the brain.”

“Neural connections.”

“Neurons in the brain make new connections.”

“And your brain forgets the old ones.”

“By not thinking about things the old way. Replace them with new thoughts.”

“We were forgetting about things anyway. Who did what to whom, where I laid my glasses.”

“So we decided to love each other again, because the alternative wasn’t working very well. Longevity on both sides of the family. The thought of another twenty years—so, we rewrote our life, made a new narrative, as the book said.”

“Who ever thought that loving could be a habit?”

“Now, we work as partners. He wouldn’t want to live without me.”

“And vice versa.”

“We didn’t forget we weren’t good parents, though. We were the worst. We want to make reparations.”

“We got you the book for Christmas, too, so you understand. For the first time in this house, there is a twinkle in Santa’s eye.”

“We have more presents tomorrow.

More surprises,” her mother sings and bounds up from the table to grab plates.

Her father joins her. “Oh, and your father got a movie for tonight.

Something indie, well-reviewed.”

“We’ll get this cleaned up, Bridget.

Go sit, relax in the rec room. You work too hard, and we hardly work. You deserve a break. The fire’s still going pretty strong.”

One, two, three steps down to the rec room, where her father has preceded her and is stacking another log on the fire.

“Relax,” he says, pointing to his comfortable chair. He trots back up the stairs, though she detects stiffness in the hinge

9

t h e y

d o n ’ t

m e a n

of his hips. She has seen spry men his age topple over, suddenly.

Bridget falls into the sofa instead, her muscles relaxing in the heat, her mind beyond thought. She slips off her shoes, sets a foot on the coffee table. On the end table is a travel magazine, opened to a view of the Caribbean. Pages and pages of beach, sun and happiness.

She can hear them in the kitchen, a pair of magpies.

She flips through the pages again and then closes her eyes, the dazzling water and skies seared onto the retinas. She is

t o

skipping along a sandy pathway to the beach, a white-haired parent on either side of her. It is a long stretch to the sea, though, and they all wander off the edge of the photograph. Her parents are soon exhausted, they’ve let go of her hands and she, too, is moving at a slower pace.

Still, she is the first to reach the water, warm as a baby’s bath. Her parents trudge behind, growing feebler with every step. She fears they will begin bickering soon. And she lunges into the blue sea, her body going down, down, to cooler water, toward the murky grada-

tions of water and ocean floor, cobalt and baby blue, the world turning around.

Pamela Main lives in Wilmington, Delaware and directs the Writing Center at Penn State Brandywine, where she also teaches creative writing. Her previous publications include The Greensboro Review, Louisiana Literature, and Puerto del Sol. One of her stories will also appear in Clapboard House in the fall. She is working on a novel set on an imaginary island off the New Jersey coast.

n a m e

o f

ResouRces foR WRiteRs

a u t h o r

e i l e e n

m .

c u n n i f f e

THAT BREATHLESS CHARM is periwinkle shoes have a texture that suggests the skin of a reptile.

His feet are long, and it’s a lot of periwinkle to take in all at once, even with the considerable distraction of the powder-blue suit that hangs from his lanky frame. Loose is how he looks— confident, and ready to begin.

H

Introductions have been made, the dancers are positioned more or less evenly on the stage, and Miss Victoria is just now quieting the standing-room-only crowd.

The music begins and she waits a few beats. “Five, six, seven, eight,” she breathes into the microphone, and twenty-eight feet burst into a foxtrot. The auditorium erupts with cheers, applause and shrieks.

Cameras flash from every corner.

Up on the stage, I have the advantage of seeing every dancer at close range, watching footwork fancy and notso, and feeling the full range of emotions—joy through angst—written on the faces of fourteen underage foxtrotters. I want to know who to thank for the brilliant musical selection, Frank Sinatra’s rendition of The Way You Look Tonight, which is literally and metaphorically soaring over the heads of the tenand eleven-year-old dancers, as I swipe at tears and try to give all seven couples my full attention.

Some girls are a foot taller than their partners, requiring the boys to tilt their heads at awkward angles to maintain eye contact and avoid staring into the budding breasts of classmates. While some dancers blush, others can’t stop grinning.

While some glide, others shuffle. Some audibly count steps, while others hum along to the music. The boy in blue is one smooth dancer; the periwinkle shoes saunter through the slow steps and sprint through the fast ones.

Chicken wings up, toes facing toes, look like you’re having fun. For ten weeks, twenty sessions in all, they’ve heard this mantra again and again.

They’ve practiced their socks off learning meringue, rumba, tango, swing and foxtrot. Fifth-grade boys and girls who wouldn’t have touched each other in March now comfortably coax each other around the stage, most in nearly perfect time with the music, hands firmly gripping shoulder blades or lightly touching bra straps.

It’s a warm May afternoon at the J.W. Catherine School on the southwestern edge of Philadelphia. Many students in this school—like their counterparts from the six other schools represented here today—live at or below the poverty level. Still, their parents have managed to dress them neatly, modestly, proudly for this special occasion—the 2009 Dancing Classrooms Philly Semifinal Competition.

white, interrupted only by a red sash.

She’s not the best dancer on the stage, but she’s clearly having fun.

The students have been coached to put a lot of hip motion into the Latin dances, and they’ve taken this instruction to heart. Parents all but swoon over the tango and gasp as their daughters mime sexy moves by pulling splayed fingers back across their foreheads. The rumba (or “roooooomba,” as Miss Victoria says) teams really sell it. Hips in every size and shape sway, wiggle or jerk, displaying a vast array of abilities.

Ballroom dance instructors have taught the children to behave like ladies and gentlemen, at least on stage; back in their seats, they’re far more exuberant as they cheer on classmates in the other dances. Each team has a color, worn in wide sashes by the young ladies, spelled out on laminated sheets safety-pinned to the backs of jackets and shirts for the young men.

The auditorium was warm even before the dancing began, and now someone has flung open the doors at the back and side of the room. Neighbors poke their heads in to see what all the commotion is, then stay to watch as the swing teams kick up their heels to Hit the Road Jack while the audience belts out the lyrics. One dimpled, dark-haired boy in a crisp tan shirt stands just a few inches taller than my four-year-old nephew. He’s giving it all he’s got—and he’s got plenty—and when the music stops I’m tempted to pick him up and hug him.

But then I remember I’m one of the judges, and aside from the need to comport myself as an impartial observer, I’ve only got a few seconds to finalize my scores for this round.

I wonder where that boy found a dress shirt in exactly the shade (Flyers’ orange) of his partner’s sash. I’m drawn to a skinny girl who looks like her grandmother just fixed her up for church on Easter: a simple dress with a hint of lace at the knees, tights and shiny shoes, all topped off with a thick, knit cape that can’t quite camouflage her bony shoulders. Every stitch of her clothing is snow

It’s so hard to assign numbers to what’s going on here. Each couple gets a score from 6 to 10. The 6s and 10s reveal themselves within the first several seconds of each dance, but my pencil hovers nervously over every 7, 8 and 9 before I commit to a score. Seven couples per dance, seven numbers to circle before the music stops, two sets of each dance, three busy judges. We dodge

11

t h a t

b r e a t h l e s s

dancers, circle numbers, turn in score sheets. Then a new group takes the stage, and we do it all over again. There’s no time to compare notes or remember the scores we’ve given from one round to the next. Like everyone else in the auditorium, we’ll learn which two teams will advance to the finals at the end of the program, when all 210 team scores have been tallied.

My dance-related qualifications for being here are marginal: my dad and I were finalists in the jitterbug contest at a

c h a r m

high-school father-daughter dance in 1976; come to think of it, my three sisters all were finalists in the same event with the same partner in subsequent years, so Dad probably deserves the credit there. Also, I’m related to the McNiff Twins of Irish step-dancing fame; OK, they’re not really famous and “McNiff” is just how our last name was mispronounced one St. Patrick’s Day. I did, however, watch my youngest sisters and their peers perform countless times during their grade-school years, so I appreciate the hard work involved in

Taking Down the South Street Bridge

By Beth Feldman Brandt Our faith rested on its arched spine that rippled with each footfall, dissipated the tension held tight as a loaded spring.

Now its decks are shuffled onto waiting barges, its struts revealed as rusted lace no longer worthy of our trust.

The bridge retreats to the edges of the city even as the river swells with snowmelt that flows across the intentional rubble.

12

Navigating under the wide winter sky, we look east, step onto the flat ice stones and cross over.

We are used to finding our way among ruins.

Beth Feldman Brandt works in the arts in Philadelphia where she finds plenty of Philadelphia stories.

making these dances look easy and I recognize the joy streaming toward the stage from parents and teachers.

I’m lucky enough to be here as a judge because of my role at the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia.

Dancing Classrooms Philly (modeled on the New York City program featured in the 2005 documentary Mad Hot Ballroom) is one of a hundred or so arts organizations I’ve had the privilege to work with since joining the Council staff a few years ago. I believe in the magic this program offers to Philadelphia schools, which matters more than dancing skills when it comes to being a judge.

Anyway, even an untrained eye can assess the criteria we’ve been given. I still want to give every couple a 10. It helps only slightly to know that each student will go home with a ribbon and that the afternoon will end with one big rainbow of a line dance that includes them all.

“I will feel a glow just thinking of you…” The second round of foxtrotting ended fifteen minutes ago, but I’ve got Old Blue Eyes and Young Blue Shoes under my skin. To the great delight of the home team supporters, the Catherine School has advanced to the finals, along with the Spring Garden School.

“Lovely…never, ever change.” I’ll never, ever hear that song again without recalling the eager faces, the periwinkle shoes and the way that little girl’s face lit up when I told her I liked her cape on my way out the door.

Eileen Cunniffe is a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area. After a quarter century of putting words into other people’s mouths and manuscripts as a medical writer/editor and as a corporate communications manager, she has at long last begun to write her own, true stories. Her nonfiction has appeared in Wild River Review, ShortMemoir.com and the Travelers’ Tales anthology A Woman’s World Again. Eileen manages two volunteer programs at the Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia.

t o m

l a r s e n

THE LIP hen Julie left she took half their stuff. Leo found a checklist and a note under her key ring on the counter. Even with Mario’s help it must have taken most of the day. The note said she was leaving the car. He could make the payments or sell it, Julie’s way of being more than fair. There were several points he would have contested, but he had to admit she’d been generous.

All Leo’s wives had been generous. It was

W

small consolation.

For days afterward Leo’s life was like a dream. He thought about Julie and Mario driving across the country. In his head they were always whooping it up.

He wished them dead in the desert, their bodies black and bloated. The image so disturbed him he wished them back to life.

To take his mind off things Leo went to a Phillies game. He brought his binoculars, a bag of salted peanuts, two joints

and his Walkman. The left-hander Rivera was pitching for the Phills, big kid, clueless. Leo sat in one of the empty sections under the scoreboard. The binoculars gave him a bird’s eye view of the strike zone. From the first pitch Leo could tell the kid had it. Every fastball punched a dust-cloud from the catcher’s mitt just before the clap of leather reached him in center field. The big lug got hammered early, but for two and a

That night Mario called. Julie had dumped him as soon as they hit the city.

“Swear to God, Leo, I never laid a hand on her,” he insisted.

“What are you calling me for?”

“Hey man, I feel like a shit.”

“You are a shit.”

“I’m coming back, Leo. You can kill me if you want to but I can’t take it here.”

“Come on back. I won’t kill you.”

“Oh man, I feel like such a shit.”

Mario showed up on Friday. Despite his rejection he looked much the same, half-drunk, pacing the kitchen berating himself.

“I mean how could I do that to you?” he jabbed a finger in his own chest. “My best fucking friend! What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“You’re a shit. You couldn’t help it.”

“You’re right, Leo. You’ve always said it but now I believe it.”

“Believe it.”

He stayed three days then left to mooch off a cousin. Mario was related to half the wops in South Philly.

Leo had never known him to have a place of his own.

The Boy Had Enough by Andrea Ramirez © 2009 What had he expected to do in California? half hours Leo didn’t think of Julie once.

The following Sunday he drove to On Easter Sunday Leo walked to his Rittenhouse Square and read the paper. mother’s. As always, he was taken by the The park was crowded but no one photos on the walls, chronologically approached him. Julie would be in San arranged portraits, Leo and his sister Francisco by now, badmouthing him to Gail, Gail and her two kids, over the their west coast friends. Funny, none of mantel, the one of his dad in a straw hat. them had called. He pictured the other Gail divorced and moved to Florida two half of their stuff in a North Beach apartyears ago leaving Leo to deal with the ment, sun streaming in the windows, obligations. The tone never varied.

Chronicle spread over the sofa. He “I don’t understand my own chilcould see it clearly. dren.” His mother slipped a Camel from

13

t h e

l i p

the pack on the table. “You father and I were married forty-five years!”

“Thirty-five, mom, Dad died ten years ago,” Leo reminded her.

“You should have grabbed Mrs. Ruggerio’s Eileen. She was always crazy about you.”

“No moustaches, ma. It’s where I draw the line.”

She tilted her head back to work the bifocals. “Oh sure, the neighborhood girls weren’t good enough for you.”

He let her go on, wondering what it would be like when she died. He’d returned to Philly after her last stroke, determined to see her through to the end. Six years now and she’d never looked better.

“Your father was right,” she handed him a beer from her little cooler. “You’re a bungler, Leo. You could have joined the business, but no. You had to go to California. You had to marry every floozie who came down the pike. And to think we almost gave you up for adoption.”

Leo slid in beside her on the sofa.

“You’re right, mom. I should have been a salesman. I should have married Eileen Ruggerio, but,” he held up a finger, “at least I didn’t murder my mother, like Richie Pettis.”

“Richie was a little bastard, but he was no bungler,” she gave him a poke.

“Besides, who was it sent your father to an early grave, aanh?”

“He had emphysema, for cryin’ out loud!”

“You know what I mean.” The bifocals gave her a haughty look. Leo didn’t know what she meant but he let it pass.

The smoke from her cigarette curled into a perfect circle. He never came without a carton, hoping against hope.

The microwave chicken was raw on the inside. Leo could hear the clack of dentures over the talk show radio.

Afterwards he did the dishes and put out the trash. Standing in her tiny yard he raised his eyes to the South Philly skies.

One star, way over Jersey.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” he tried to remember the rest.

The light circled slowly and descended to the airport. When he returned his mother was sound asleep in front of the TV. He leaned to kiss her forehead, slipped a twenty from her purse and let himself out.

There was a postcard from Julie in the morning mail. “I love you but I don’t like you.”

Buck in Bucks County Pennsylvania

By Juilene Osborne-McKnight

14

Out of the last green field he lumbers, his rack too heavy for his head, a point for each apostle.

Atop his fragile skull he bears an oak: grove where our ancestors worshipped when this was deep and forest green.

He turns toward me as he leaps the road; three atavisms here suburban buck, unhoused field, me. Amid these fiery trees, such small, uncivilized potencies.

Juilene Osborne-McKnight is the author of four Irish historical novels: I Am of Irelaunde, Daughter of Ireland, Bright Sword of Ireland, Song of Ireland. She is Assistant Professor of Humanities at DeSales University, where she teaches creative writing and Irish lit and coordinates the DiScoUrse Creative Writing program and the Irish Study Abroad program.

Benny was waiting for him at the diner. The Sheik, Julie called him, in reference to the doo, jet black and raked back like it was painted on. Not a good look for Benny, nearing sixty and putting on the pounds.

“Where you been?” he hiked up his eyebrows. “I’m on a schedule here.”

“What schedule?” Leo checked the clock. “The tit bars don’t open for hours.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s funny. Sit down, would you? I got a kink,” Benny rubbed his neck.

“Maybe you should give the girls a break for a while. Everything in moderation, eh Sheik?”

“You only go around once, kid. Tell me a better way to spend the time?”

Leo smiled. “Well, it’s good you found your niche.”

“Tell me you got plasma, Leo.” “What I got is ceiling fans. Top of the line and in the box.“ Benny’s eyebrows shot up higher.

Everything was eyebrows with the Sheik.

“What the fuck am I gonna do with ceiling fans? What about the TVs?” Leo tapped Benny’s pudgy little hand. “Next time, Benj. This time it’s ceiling fans.”

“Jesus, Leo. Tell me it ain’t down to this.”

“It’s down to this, Benny,” Leo flapped his hands around. “Hey it beats scalping tickets, right?”

The Sheik sat there staring off. “I don’t know what happened. What the fuck happened?”

“Prosperity, Benny,” Leo shrugged.

“It’s a socio-economic thing.”

“Jesus, I miss the old days. This…” he shook his lacquered head.

“Benny, hey, these are top of the line fans here. You want in?”

He just kept shaking his head.

“Tell you what.” Leo drummed his thumbs on the counter. “Give me two grand for the whole load. That’s one hundred units, plus remote.”

“Units. God help us.”

“I can deliver them or you can come

t o m

l a r s e n

was desperate. What was it with the old guys that they got so goofy? The problem was who else can you go to?

The other problem was what to do with them now. The ceiling fans. They were in Ludlow’s garage at the moment but his wife was squawking and his neighbor’s were nosey. Not to mention Leo’s cash flow problem.

He watched Benny through the window, willing him to change his mind. For a second he thought it just might work, but the fucker sat there feeding his face.

Pez Collection by Dorrie Rifkin © 2009 pick them up. Your call.”

The Sheik heaved a sigh and reached in his jacket. Leo waited but the hand just stayed there.

“Look at you,” the old crook laughed.

“Hey, this reminds me of the scene in that movie where the guy reaches for his wallet and pulls out his gun.”

“What movie? What are you talking about, Benny?”

“The movie where the hoods hijack a truckload of something, not ceiling fans.

I forget.”

“In or out, c’mon Benny.”

“Coffins, that’s what it was,” Benny leaned in close. “Only some of them were occupied.”

“Time’s up.” Leo stormed off, slowing slightly to give Benny an opening. When the bastard declined he pushed through the door and crossed the lot to his black SUV. He felt out of focus, not all there, a flash to the 80’s with his head full of Tester’s. Not like Benny to queer a deal.

The Sheik could move broken glass and at the lowball price he had to know Leo

A Julie message on the machine.

“I think you should resolve your conflict with your mother. She won’t be around much longer, you know. ” Leo wondered who she could be staying with and drew up a list of likely suspects. The thing that always bothered him was that he could picture Julie with almost anyone. She came late to the cheating game, but it didn’t take her long to get the hang of it. Catholic schoolgirl turning with a vengeance. He played the message a second time. The phone rang while he was looking at it.

“Leo?” “Yeah Luds. I’m gonna move ‘em, don’t rip a stitch.”

“That’s what I called about. They’re not here.”

“What?”

“The ceiling fans. I came home tonight and they were gone.”

Leo pictured Ludlow’s garage, the space they took up.

“I know you’ll think I’m getting over but someone stole them, Leo. I swear to fucking God.” “Someone walked off with a truckload of ceiling fans?”

“Fucking unbelievable, right?”

Lying rat-fuck son of a bitch.

“You don’t want to do this, Ludlow.

Couple of days, they’ll pop up, right?”

“On my father’s fucking grave, Leo. Hey, I’m out just like you!”

Leo thought he heard someone else

15

t h e

l i p

talking, but he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t want to think about what was happening here. Ludlow meant to beat him on the load.

“Couple of days. Ludsy. I’ll give you a call.”

16

The Phillies were in a rebuilding year.

Except for one championship season, that shining moment decades past, the Phils had been rebuilding for over a century. Once again pitching was the problem. Pitching was always the Phillies’ problem, except for the odd year when hitting was also the problem. Many like Leo saw the organization as genetically flawed, those fluke years in the 80’s, just a statistical anomaly. Throw the monkeys out on the diamond often enough, etc...

Only not these monkeys. Their record was more than a matter of bad judgment.

Touted prospects shed their talent as they moved through the system. High school phenoms left their confidence and their fastballs in Spartansburg and Wilkes-Barre. Management, depending on the year and level of hostility, made one of two wrong moves. Either they let this year’s wunderkind languish in the bush leagues, tying up time and money, or they rushed him into the rotation where he was promptly battered beyond recognition. Pick a year, same story.

That night’s pitcher was a recent pickup from Houston. Front office couldn’t resist these guys, the one season whiz with a flakey reputation, career castoffs cycling down. All too often it ended with the Phillies.

The first pitch was a strike, triggering visions of a strikeout. The season was young and hope springs eternal. The second pitch was a swinging strike and even the cynics allowed themselves to dream.

Pitches three, four and five sailed up, up, and away and the rustle in the stands set the seasonal tone. After a confab with the catcher the castoff bore down, fucking beachball coming at ya. Leo could see the batter’s eyes light up then a white

blur slicing down the right field line. The game quickly settled into a rout, brutal even by Phillie standards. The fans turned ugly early, taunting the castoff with death threats, burying him in boos when they yanked him in the second.

Stunned by their rage he stumbled off the field, disappearing into a dugout from which he would never again emerge.

A parade of relievers was promptly pounded.

By the seventh the crowd sat in grim silence, reflecting on all things Philadelphian. Leo was aware of a disturbing parallel between the team’s fortunes and his own. It was no coincidence that he spent the glory year in California, watching on TV. The implications were clear and Leo vowed never to go home again. If that was the price he was willing to pay it. Julie, of course, had other ideas, his mom had her stroke and the rest was just history repeating itself. Of the teams who excelled at futility, none could touch those Fumblin’ Phils. Losers of more games than any team in any sport.

They were new and splashy, but they were still row houses. Two where three used to be, bay windows facing out on the drycleaners. Leo parked behind a row of pickups and listened for Lanny’s blather.

“What the fuck is this? I got fucking monkeys working for me!”

Rear bedroom, upstairs. The front door was open, the downstairs rooms were bland and tasteless. Leo’s own house had the original woodwork, circa 1917. He’d bought it for a song before he met Julie. The thing about modern, it lacked the detail. He waited for windbag to take a breath but Lanny was on an asschewing roll.

“Look at this! There’s more fucking paint on the carpet than there is on the fucking wall!”

Leo watched from the doorway. A trio of Mexicans shrugged it all off.

“Nice ceiling fans,” he called over.

“Heyyy! Leo my man!” Lanny broke it off and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Whaddya think? Federal Terrace, my piece de resistance!”

“Where’d you get ‘em Lanny?”

The big man took his arm and led him to the hallway “Yo Leo, you workin’ for L and I, or what?”

Leo hated this shit. “Tell me now while I’m still in a good mood.”

Lanny looked more puzzled than worried. “Some guy came around. I didn’t ask questions.”

“Know something, boss?” Leo pointed with his chin. “Those amigos can’t understand a thing you’re saying.”

Crime Scene

By Noel Sloboda You read disclosure does couples good, so we listed all our previous loves— the number wasn’t bad: a mere dozen old flames smothered beneath our tangled sheets, leaving room and heat enough for us— but as we started to seal a promise for the future, a compact on forgetting, you squealed—and I rubbed your thigh even harder, tried to wipe away all the fingerprints I saw swirling there.

Noel Sloboda lives in Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival. He is the author of the poetry collection Shell Games (sunnyoutside, 2008).

t o m Lanny looked in on the Mexicans and smiled. “Best fucking crew I ever had.

They’d paint each other if I gave them the word.”

“Tell me about this other guy. Do I know him?”

“I wasn’t around. Maybe Pedro here can—“ “Cut the crap, Irish.”

Lanny looked right through him. “I gotta tell you man, the tough stuff doesn’t suit you.”

He really hated this. Ludlow was making some kind of move and betting Leo would roll over. Ceiling fans, for Christ sake!

“I got nothin’ to do with this.” Lanny stood his ground. “Hey, I’m just trying to make a living.”

Leo left a footprint on the front door.

This was serious. Ludlow had always been flakey but they’d been at this for thirty years! Leo called and got the machine. He drove over but no one answered the door. After that he didn’t know what to do. Ludlow tended bar on the Ave. The place was a dive, mostly ironworkers and off-duty cops. Not a place to start something, but what did Leo plan to start, anyway?

He went to McGrath’s to think it through, but they had the game on and Shank was there and the night got away from him. Next morning he spotted Ludlow’s truck in the diner lot. Leo signaled to turn but changed his mind, nearly clipping a roofing truck.

Julie again. Leo didn’t even play it.

“Whaddya mean whaddya do? You go after him!” Mario made a chopping motion. “You make him fucking pay!”

Leo stared at his hands. “I’ve known Ludlow all my life.”

Mario stumbled to a chair, winded.

“Everybody’s known him all their lives.

What’s that got to do with it?”

“I don’t want to hurt him.”

“He’s a piece of shit!”

“I don’t have the time for this.”

Mario gave him a poke. “That’s what he’s counting on, dude. You blow it off, you’re out of business.”

Leo looked at him. “What business?

I’m peddling ceiling fans and eating at my mother’s!”

Mario plopped his hands on the armrests. “I’m just saying, you take it from Luds, you take it from everyone. It’s a business liability.”

“He’s a brick shithouse!”

“So you pay somebody.” He bent into Leo’s line of vision. “Yo, pal, this is pretty basic stuff.”

He tried the number for the hundredth time. Ludlow answered on the fifteenth ring.

“Yeah what?”

“It’s me, Leo.” He didn’t answer.

“We gotta talk, Luds.”

“We got nothing to talk about. I told you, Leo, the fans were boosted.”

Leo looked to Mario. Mario looked away.

“Mario says I should come after you.”

Leo ducked an empty beer can.

“Mario? That fucking lowlife?”

“But I say we can work this out. Like gentlemen, whaddya think, Luds?”

“Tell Mario to go fuck himself.”

“I get my half and I forget all about it,” Leo talked the talk.

“Come on, Lip, what are you gonna do? I say they were boosted they were boosted. You can think whatever Mario wants you to.”

“Don’t do this, Ludsy.”

“Gotta go.”

A rainout forced a double header.

Leo sat away from the crowd. He liked the new stadium but it wasn’t his stadium.

His stadium was the Vet, gone without a trace. He watched the game and thought about Luds and how he should have seen this coming. Ludlow was a crook. And Mario was right. Once word got out he’d be stiffed and all accounts would go into

l a r s e n

arrears. Leo couldn’t take a hit right now.

He was living on credit cards as it was.

The Phils scored in the first. He thought of dropping a dime on Luds then ruled it out. Then the cop are in and everyone’s pissed and he’s out of business anyway. Should have gone to college with the rest of the goobers. Should have joined the fucking business. Had to be a hustler, no nine to five for Leo the Lip. Now Ludlow wanted to muscle in. Who muscled in on ceiling fans?

Pittsburgh scored three in the fifth and the Phils yanked the starter. Leo spotted Pete Newlin but pretended not to. Predictably, Pete waved his arms and started over.

“HEY LEO! HEY, RIGHT HERE!” “Hey Newlin, I’m kinda busy right now.”

“I just wanted to tell you, that Jackie Ludlow is an asshole.”

“Thanks.”

“I told Dooley and them. I said you’d beat the balls off him.”

“Again, thanks.”

“That fucker will rue the fucking day, yo!”

Pittsburgh scored three more in the eighth. Leo didn’t stick around for game two.

Luds’ truck was in the driveway. Leo circled the block a few times then parked in the church lot.

“Okay, now what?” he asked himself.

Butch Isler had called offering his services. Not out of loyalty, he’d said, Ludlow just pissed people off. Leo said he’d get back to him but he knew he wouldn’t. Even if he wanted to he couldn’t afford it. Big Butchie was top of the line.

By now the news was all over Pennsport. The early line gave Leo the nod with an assist to Butchie. Every passing minute made it worse. If the other shoe didn’t fall soon he wouldn’t be able to show his face.

And Ludlow was crazy. Once Leo

17

t h e

18

l i p

made a move it would be his turn and it wasn’t hard to guess where the money would go on that. Which left what?

Dory answered the door, walked him to the yard like she didn’t have a clue.

Who was she kidding? Ludlow sat at the picnic table talking on the phone. He saw Leo in the doorway and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m calling,” he growled into the phone. ”You’re damn right I’m pissed. Now how do you want to do it?”

Leo sat opposite. Ludlow yakked and yacked. Leo reached over and pressed the button.

“Hey Leo, what the fuck?”

“Sit down, Luds. Your neighbors are gawking.”

“Fuck them and fuck you, too.”

“What are you gonna do, hump around to every job site in the city?”

Ludlow smirked. “Face it, Leo, you’ve lost the touch. You let that old dago Bennie jerk you around for nickels on the dollar. I get forty a pop for ‘em.”

“Okay, I see your point. Give me my grand and go peddle your wares.”

“Or else what?”

Leo watched a small bird hop across the driveway. He thought of Julie lying in the sun on Goat Rock Beach. He got up from the table and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Yo Luds. That’s it?”

“Hey, we can go around and around but basically, yeah.”

Leo left by the side gate. He could hear the big fuck laughing on the phone as he crossed the street. In his head he saw himself go to the car and get his gun.

One to the chest, one to the head was how you fixed these things. Only Leo didn’t have a gun. The only time he ever shot a gun was on the boardwalk in Wildwood. Plus, if he killed Ludlow he’d have to go to prison. No fucking way he was going to prison over ceiling fans.

Still he thought about it.

On the way home he passed Zero and Lou on the Quarthouse corner. They

fell all over themselves pretending not to see him.

In the morning Leo woke with a rock in his gut. He wondered about the way it was here, the deep end as the standard course of action. It wasn’t normal, it couldn’t be. This was as close to murder as Leo would get, but he knew it wasn’t all that close. He could handle himself in a spot but he didn’t have a murder in him.

He knew it and Ludlow knew he knew it.

If there was a way out Leo couldn’t find it.

“So I’ve been thinking.” Julie paused.

“Okay.”

“We could try it again, Leo. I know now that I need you.”

“To what? Help you move?”

“Okay, I deserve that. I know I was a shit about Mario, but he’s so—” “You gotta stop calling Julie. Please.”

“You miss me, Leo. Marianne told me you hardly ever come out of the house.”

Leo unplugged the phone. The next day he sold the SUV. “Leo, hey! Jesus Christ! What’s it been, ten years?”

“How are you Len? You look good.”

“Hey! I heard you got married a while back. How’s it working out?”

“It didn’t,” Leo shrugged. “I make a lousy husband.”

“Tell me about it. I get a different set of kids every freaking weekend.”

Leo took the chair across the desk. “I see your mug in the papers, real estate broker extraordinaire. You’ve done well, Len.” He gave his paunch a pat. “Well, I can’t complain. But you didn’t come all the way down here to sing my praises.

What is it I can do for you, Leo?” “I want to sell.”

Len looked offended. “Your place? It’s a jewel box, man. I can’t let you do it!”

“Got to. I owe some money. Plus I think my ex has her eye on a slice.”

“Well, she’ll get that, friend.

Community property.”

“Maybe not. It’s still in my name. ” Lenny’s gaze dropped to his shoes.

“Jeez, I don’t know, Leo. It sounds unethical.”

Leo pulled a wad from his pocket and slapped it on the desk. “One thousand up front. Plus five percent.”

Len didn’t look at the money.

“Maybe we can finagle something.”

“It’s gotta be fast. All offers considered, I’ll take the hit. And I’d like it to be someone, you know… responsible.”

“I have that someone in mind as we speak.”

“And no sign. It’s gotta be discreet.”

“I think I can handle this for you without much problem, Leo.” “Like I said. Extraordinaire.”

Tom Larsen was a journeyman printer for twenty years before scrapping it all for the writer's life. His work has appeared in Newsday, New Millennium Writing and Antietam Review. His short story "Lids" was included in Best American Mystery Stories - 2004. Tom and his wife Andree lived for ten years in the Pennsport section of South Philadelphia. "The Lip" is one of six stories from his South Philly collection "Downtown". His first novel "Flawed" will be released this fall.

a i m e e ’ s

T i p s

“HILLS LIKE WHITE GIRAFFES” HOW TO GIVE POSITIVE FEEDBACK IN FICTION WORKSHOPS

Aimee LaBrie As writers, many of us find it beneficial to take workshops to inspire and shape our writing.

I’ve been on both ends—the student and the instructor. In both cases, the hardest part of the fiction workshop for me is critiquing other people’s work. As a teacher, this is often particularly difficult because often, the other students will give my opinion more weight than the thoughts of their peers.

First, I look for what’s working in a story. It doesn’t matter if it’s a story about an alien woman with X-ray eyes and a harelip. Or a nonfiction piece about a traumatic experience masked as fiction or a story rife with talking giraffes who want to over-throw the government. You still have to offer constructive suggestions, because at the other end waits a person brave enough to hand over a draft for you to critique, which is essentially the same as saying, “Tell me where I suck.”

So, I find the good things in the story. And no matter where the writer is in his writing ability or experience, you can always find something to praise.

Here’s how it works for me: I sit at the kitchen table with the story in front of me and search for

positive feedback. Something more than, “Your font is really readable,” or “Your title, ‘Hills like White Giraffes,’ is very clever.” Because, as the instructor, part of my job is to be encouraging in ways that don’t make the student feel as though she should immediately go home and set fire to her laptop. This doesn’t mean that I should overpraise either; that can be just as damaging and misleading. But I know I must give the writer something to encourage her to do the hardest thing of all: to sit down in front of the blank page and try again.

Then, I go back to the beginning of the story to figure out how to offer the best suggestions for improvement in concrete ways. I use a pencil or a black pen, never a red pen. No matter how strong your ego is as a writer, no one wants to get back a draft that looks like it’s been graded by a cranky schoolteacher; the equivalent of a “D-” on an English essay. Obscurity does not help the writer either; to suggest vaguely that she should develop her characters more. Instead, I strive for something specific like “What is Dolores’ job? What is her biggest, darkest secret? What does she want more than any-

thing in the world?” I also make marginal notes (a check for a particularly good or vivid line; a question mark for something confusing), and then I write a page of end comments starting with the line “Things to Consider…” No mandates, just possibilities. It’s ultimately the writer’s story after all. She can do whatever she pleases. She can create a whole planet full of talking giraffes if that’s what she is drawn to.

And what about the student who is a really, really bad writer? She writes pages of inane dialogue with adverb-laden attributes, insists on the “ah-ha” surprise conclusion, types “the end” on the last page. Should I just pull her aside and say, “Listen, you might want to consider another artistic path. Collages, for instance?” No. No, I would never tell a writer to stop writing.

If I believed people couldn’t improve their craft or if I thought that the ability to write well is given to a chosen few, then I should give up teaching. I believe that writers can improve—if they want to, if they work hard, if they consider suggestions for revision, and, above all, if they strive for the truth in their writing.

19

a u t h o r

p r o f i l e

LISE FUNDERBERG

By Jamie Elfrank

How long did it take you to write Pig Candy?

Seven years. It took me a while to figure out the way I wanted to do this book. It wasn’t intended to be a relationship story about me and my dad. I had to find the right narrative stance, to be both honestly his daughter and the reporter I wanted to be. In a way, what set me in the right direction, sadly, was that my father became ill again and this time it was a terminal diagnosis of prostate cancer. That made it easier to write the book the way I wanted to write it. It took away the sense of obligation and I just wrote what I cared about, and it ended up being the book that I wanted in the first place.

What was the best piece of advice you received when you first started writing?

In preparation for Philadelphia Stories’ Push to Publish workshop, keynote speaker and journalist Lise Funderburg spoke with me about her memoir, Pig Candy, the art of revision, and the pleasures of writing nonfiction. Pig Candy tells the story of Funderburg’s quest to get to know her father through a series of trips to his hometown in rural Georgia. Her work has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her book Pig Candy was released in paperback May 2009 by Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster.

What inspired you to write Pig Candy?

20

I was curious who my father was as a man and as part of American history, separately from being my father – which was how I looked at him for most of my life. My father got sick and, though he recovered, that was really what started it. I realized my father was not going to live forever. I felt a kind of urgency to fill in the gaps. So I thought under the guise of being a journalist I could get him to open up and talk about himself. Since I am a freelance journalist – and to him, the word “freelance” means unemployed – I think he thought whatever he could do to help me out he would do, so he agreed to let me interview him.

One of my professors impressed upon me the need to step away from your work as you craft it.

Whether that means putting in a drawer overnight, or walking away for twenty minutes, putting it aside can give you perspective on your work and aid you in the revision process. That piece of advice has sustained me for a long time. I’m constantly amazed at how going away and coming back will make clear what was so unclear before.

Have you ever considered delving into fiction writing?

I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good at it; in fact I took a workshop for fun once and wrote a short story. I have to say, it’s a flat piece of writing. Though it’s well written, it just doesn’t have momentum. For me, nonfiction offers up a lot of the satisfactions that fiction does. Setting scenes, developing characters, pacing – all those things are essential in my work, and they are the defining aspects of fiction as well. I like the challenge of shaping something real into something that has grace and elegance. I’m fascinated by the world and the many things happening around me. Writing helps me to make sense of them and answer those questions that I have.

For complete interview, visit www.philadelphiastories.org

favorite recent reads from the editorial board of philadelphia stories

QUICKPICKS

Philly Fiction 2 Ed. Josh McIlvain, et al The second edition of the Philly Fiction series features nineteen stories inspired by the city of Philadelphia.

“Piece of Mind,” by Benjamin Matvey, is a wickedly bizarre and entertaining story that juxtaposes cannibalistic desires with those of the libido. Elise Juska’s “Northeast Philly Girls” expertly examines the differences between North Philly girls and their suburban counterparts. Jan Kargulewicz’s story, “A Cormorant Dries its Wings,” is a moving tale of a newly pregnant young woman trying to establish a solid relationship with her father. These stories and many others make Philly Fiction 2 well worth the reasonable $12 price.

— John Drain

Building a Home with My Husband

By Rachel Simon Occupied with giving talks around the country, restoring relationships with two siblings and dealing with a moth-

er’s illness, all Rachel Simon needs is a year-and-a-half-long home renovation to add to her sea of troubles. In this painstakingly detailed memoir, Simon exposes the thought processes that kept her sane during this dramatic time. Simon’s narrative guides readers through the ordeals of construction and tough relationships with husbands, sisters, mothers, contractors and friends – occasionally diving into older memories – to find lessons in acceptance and tolerance at the end of the day.

— Valeria Tsygankova

The Mysterious Life of the Heart

By Sy Safransky Sy Safranski has been publishing The Sun monthly since 1974, and in this collection of essays, poetry, and fiction he has gathered a poignant, honest, and sometimes painful look at love. A deft mix of genres and subjects, Safranski advises in his forward, “…[to] read aloud to a loved one, by candlelight, between the hours of 10 P.M. and 2 A.M. But using this book to seduce someone or to justify the unbelievably selfish way you acted last week is expressly prohibited.”

Philadelphia author, Denise Gess’s essay, “The Kitchen Table: An Honest Orgy” alone is worth the price. The other pieces in the collection are equally as good whether read by candlelight or not.

— Carla Spataro

The Natural Selection

By Ona Russell In The Natural Selection, the second in a series of Sarah Kaufman historical mysteries, Ona Russell deftly weaves a fictitious tale of murder and intrigue with the factual Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial. Set authentically in Tennessee in the 1920’s, the plot follows Sarah, a believable and appealing protagonist, as she interacts seamlessly with the story’s characters as well as real participants from the trial.

Russell crafts a vinegar divide between science and fundamentalism, reason and racism, change and convention, and intelligence and insecurity. The fast flowing, elegant writing will hook readers; but the book is all the more fascinating, if not distressing, because it strikes close to today’s social and political climate.

— Christina Weaver, author of What You Lose on the Roundabout You Gain on the Swings

21

FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

Michener Level ($20 - $49) (Anonymous 6)

22

Liz Abrams-Morley Elaine Ajello Marlynn Alkins Barbara Baldwin JoAnn Balingit Bill Barr Sharon E. Berry Katie Biltimier Barbara Bloom Julie Cohen & Nigel Blower Randy Boone Robin Bonner Nadine Bonner Blythe Boyer Davenport George L. Bradley Maureen Brady Inga Buccella Alessandra J. Cartelli Gail Comorat Elaina Corrato Eileen Cunniffe Jennifer Dally Eileen D’Angelo Bob Davis Christina Delia-Weston Freda R. Egnal Mary Erpel Liz Dolan Joseph J. Feeney Kathye Fetsko Petrie April Fox Nate Ghubril Megan & Jim Gorman Karen Gruen Susan Hornbach Sue Harvey & Scott Jahss Sarah Haskins Judy Heller William Hengst Nancy G. Hickman Mimi Johnson Matthew Jordan Lisa Kern Nancy Killgore Jeffery Klemens In honor of Colin Krivy Linda LaRose Stefanie Levine Cohen Jennifer Lentz Peter McEllhenney

Members as of August 21th, 2009 Kristin & Henry Joy McKeown Larry Meredith Terry Mergenthal Lisa Meritz Nicole Miyashiro Tom Molinaro Elizabeth Mosier Kathleen Montrey Monica O’Donnell Christine Obst Hermann W. Pfefferkorn Henry Pashkow David Poplar Robert Ratynski Russell Reece Charlie Reilly Myrna Rodriguez Ryan Romine Nunzio Ruggeri Paul Sanders Hayden Saunier Michele Schuster Kemalat Scott Dianna Sinovic Craig Slingluff Lawrence O. Spataro Anna Stott Linda Walters Damond Warren Joseph Wechselberger Mark Weiser Tammy Wetzel Elvedine Wilkerson Linda Wisniewski

Buck Level ($50-$99) (Anonymous 1) Dan and Ardeth Abrams L.M. Asta Daniel Barry Martha Bottomley Elise Brown John & Lynette Byrnes Grace Caputo Marilyn Carrier Susan Chamberlain Jami & Lou Cooper Jerri Combs Barb & J.J. Cutler Barry Dinerman Marylou Fusco Mo Ganey & Don Kaplan

George Ganigan Patricia Green Joanne Green Betsy Haase Helen & Don Johnson Scott Kushner Pamela Learned Helen Mallon Dianna Marder Patricia Mastricolo George McDermott, Jr. Carolyn Merlini Julie Odell Concetta T. Risilia Ed Ruggero David Sanders Bill & Tina Schuster Marc & Kerri Schuster Robin Slick Rachel Simon Sharon Sood & Scott Lempert Cy & Lois Swartz John M. Williams Michelle Wittle

Whitman Level ($100 - $399) (Anonymous 1) Martha & Tom Carroll Ralph & Lee Doty Teresa FitzPatrick Melissa Fontanez Vera Haskins Jane Heil Aimee Labrie Nathan Long Cheryl Mercier John Shea Janice & Paul Stridick

Potok Level ($400-$999) Michael Ritter & Christine Furtek

Philadelphia Stories Sustaining Members: Whitman Level ($100 -$399) Courtney Bambrick Patricia Ford Jennifer & Erik Streitwieser

Want to become a member of Philadelphia Stories? Please visit www.philadelphiastories.org

FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART

O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y

A mAgAzine ThAT cReATeS cOmmuniTY

Thanks to member support, we have been able to accomplish the following to date: * Publish 21 issues without missing an issue. * Review more than 5775 submissions of fiction, poetry, and essays. * Publish 180 local poets, essayists and fiction writers. * Distribute thousands copies of the magazine through 120 locations. * Offer more than 300 participants professional development events for writers. * Introduce 100 guests to established writers through a free Writers and Readers reading series in conjunction with our annual Rosemont Writers Retreat * Present 180 authors and poets who read from their work during our ongoing free reading series. * Host events that have brought out hundreds of people to enjoy music, food, and fun in support of Philadelphia Stories. * Bring together 350 community members to support the magazine.

YOu can help keep Philadelphia Stories—a non-profit 501c3 managed completely by a staff of volunteers—in print and free by making a donation today! For as little as $20 a year, you can get home delivery and know that your gift directly supports the local arts community.

I understand the importance of providing arts and culture that is accessible to everyone through a publication like Philadelphia Stories.

□ Michener($20-$49) □ Buck ($50-$99) □ Whitman ($100-$499)

□ Potok ($500-$999) □ W. C. Williams ($1,000+) □ Other _______________

Here is my donation of $ __________________

□ I want to become a monthly supporter (Philadelphia Stories Sustaining Member).

Please, charge my credit card monthly for the above amount (minimum of $5.00/month), until I say stop.

□ Donation enclosed

□ Check

□ Credit Card

Name:________________________________________________________________________________ Address:_______________________________________________________________________________ City:_________________ State:_________ Zip:____ Email:______________________________________ Card Number:___________________________ Expiration:________ Phone #:____________________

Thank you for your generous support of Philadelphia Stories To donate online please visit www.philadelphiastories.org, by fax 215.635.0195, or mail to: Philadelphia Stories, 93 Old York Road, Ste 1/#1-753, Jenkintown PA 19046