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FICTION/POETRY/ESSAYS/ART
O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y
kate braithwaite
MAIDEN FLIGHT a.w. DeAnnuntis
MY HEART BLISTERS LIKE A BROILED SAUSAGE lisa z. meritz
SELECTIVE MEMORY
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O F T H E D E L AWA R E VA L L E Y
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Michael is a poet and photographer who lives in Havertown, Pennsylvania. He has recently been composing photo haiga, the Japanese form of combining haiku and photographs. His photos have appeared in Yoga Living Magazine and the online poetry journal sketchbook. Recent poems have appeared in bottle rockets, Shamrock: The Journal of the Irish Haiku Society, and Concise Delight.
CONTENTS FEATURES 3 Maiden Flight (fiction). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kate Braithwaite 8 My Heart Blisters Like a Broiled Sausage (fiction). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.W. DeAnnuntis 17 Kerri Schuster (member profile) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christine Weiser 18 Selective Memory (essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lisa Z. Meritz 20 Place Matters (column) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aimee Labrie
POETRY 5 13 14 15 16
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Soon Forgotten by Kristen Solecki. Kristen graduated from the University of the Arts in 2008 where she majored in illustration. She is now a freelance artist. Her work and more about her can be found at www.kristensolecki.com.
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Dreaming, I Was Complicit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Liz Chang April 19, 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jacob Russell Indian Creek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Robin Rosen Chang Unfinished Daughter III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Janice Stridick The Floy Floy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dorothy DiRenzi
Nature Photography by Michael Morell.
Milja by Loren Dann. Loren is a mother and feminist living in Woodbury, NJ. She loves the Philadelphia art scene and spends everyday painting. She attended both Moore College of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Art and is involved in local art organizations and shows throughout the year.
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PHILADELPHIASTORIES.ORG Publisher/ Fiction Editor Carla Spataro Publisher/ Managing Editor Christine Weiser Essay Editor Julia MacDonnell Chang Poetry Editor Courtney Bambrick Editorial Assistant Diana Restifo Director of Development Sharon Sood
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Production Manager Derek Carnegie Web Design Loic Duros
Board of Directors Kerri Schuster Mitchell Sommers Christine Furtek Michael Ritter Interns Emma Eisenberg Jaci Hardgrove Elizabeth T. Kerr Nichole Liccio Sean Mulhearn Daniel Pontius Contest Coordinator Jamie Elfrank Assistant Nicole Pasquarello Editorial Board Peter Baroth, poetry Deb Burnham, poetry Jackie Cassidy, fiction Christine Cavalier, poetry Liz Dolan, poetry Emma Eisenberg, fiction Sandy Farnan, non-fiction
Teresa Fitzpatrick, fiction Melissa Foster, fiction Marylou Fusco, fiction Erin Gautsche, poetry Adam Gianforcaro, poetry Pat Green, poetry Samantha Green, fiction Marleen Hustead, fiction Jessica Jeffers, fiction Matt Jordan, non-fiction Amy Kates, fiction Elizabeth T. Kerr, fiction Aimee LaBrie, fiction Nathan Long, fiction Walt Maguire, fiction George McDermott, poetry Julie Odell, fiction Charlie O’Hay, poetry Aimee Penna, poetry Daniel Pontius, fiction John Shea, poetry & non-fiction Greg Silber, fiction Mitchell Sommers, fiction Janice Wilson Stridick, fiction Valeria Tsygankova, poetry Michelle Wittle, fiction
Weeds by Dae Raebeck-Sanchez. Dae is a mixed media artist who combines photography, collage, and painting to create surreal dreamlike portraits and imagery. She was born in Burlington, New Jersey and graduated from The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. Dae resides in Pennsylvania with her family. See more at www.daerebeck.com 12 Dinner by Kathleen Montrey. Kathleen is an RN at the Hospital of University of Pennsylvania. She resides in Havertown, PA.
Cover Art: Freedive by Edna Santiago. Edna is a fine arts painter, statue repairer, jazz vocalist, and physical therapist. She is mostly self taught, but also takes lessons from local sources including the Main Line Night School, Wayne Art Center, PAFA, and Fleisher Art Memorial. She is a proud member of "ARTsisters" and the "Philadelphia Sketch Club."
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!
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MAIDEN FLIGHT he first thing is we smell smoke. ‘Annie!’ The Living Skeleton - Isaac to his friends - is the only one still stuck upstairs with me. He’s got one foot on the fire escape, skinny ribs slipping between window and sill, and he’s shrieking at me. ‘Come on Annie!’ My legs are not my best feature never have been - but now they’ve rooted like winter wheat and I can’t move. Panic seals up my throat. I have to rip my tongue from the roof of my mouth. ‘Come where?’ I gasp. ‘Through a slit of a window or straight through the wall? That fire escape’ll never take my weight. Get help. Just try Isaac, try.’ It’s the most I’ve ever said to him. The Museum is both work and home
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to me. The top floors accommodate many of the live exhibits but Isaac and I are the only ones still upstairs today. He’s having trouble with his digestion and has taken the morning off. I’ve been getting ready for the afternoon show: taking as long as possible and wanting to be left alone. There I am, all dressed up as Lady Macbeth. Out damned spot: even larger than life. Isaac’s face goes red and I know he’s about ready to wash his hands of me. He opens his mouth but then closes it again as his impossible bones slide away through the gap. Shoes clatter on the ironwork. Then my legs buckle and I hear the hiss of a hundred steam trains as the blackness threatens. Smoke stings my nostrils and brings
me back, sharp. A squeeze of real fear sends me scrabbling across the floor toward the window. I put my hands on the panes of glass, find my knees, and hoist myself up enough to look out. Broadway. The circling crowd on the street below tip up tiny doll faces and point. Blood pumps noisily in my ears, competing against the wail of bells outside and the roaring fire behind me, eating its way up the stairs. I manage to stand. Then I take a firm grip of the window sash and pull it up as hard as I can. Pain streaks down my shoulders, my toes grind against the wooden floor. It lifts a little. The window opens enough for a normal person to crush their ribs through, but impossible for me, for the giant, Anna Swan.
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Nature Photogrophy by Michael Morell © 2011
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‘Just look at you, Anna.’ Mother used to shake her head over the sight of me with all the wonderment of a child surprising a butterfly out of a rose bush. My parents weren’t for Barnum in the beginning. His agent came down the track to our weather-washed house near Tatamagouche Bay and ran the gauntlet of all my brothers and sisters marauding about the yard. Mother and Father listened to him with arms folded and Scotch wariness glinting in their eyes. I hid behind the pantry door; caught a sight of tweed, of shining shoes, of a waxed moustache. Out there, he was almost a match for me in freakery. New York City. Piano lessons. Books to read. An exhibit, but a prized one. The second time the man came with his offer, hands were shaken. There are so many people down there on the street. They’re pointing,
calling, running back and forth crazily between the fire trucks. They’re pouring out of the buildings opposite and from around the corner on Ann Street. I have to keep the fire away. I run to the door, slam it: push across a display case with a two-headed calf and a threadbare pushme-pull-you. I tug at the table - that won’t budge - but I strip down the drapes and push and poke them, wadding my makeshift barricade like a pastry-chef trimming a pie. Then I back away to the window and hunch beneath it, clutching my knees, balled up in prayer. These are bad minutes. ‘Get away from the window! Now!’ The voice shocks me. My shoulders lock up. I have time to think — Irish? — and then one look at his grim face, one glimpse of his axe, sends me scooting away across the floor as the fire fighter smashes through the window. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he calls. When I
don’t move: ‘There’s no time for this.’ ‘But the fire escape won’t hold me.’ Stiff, but suddenly calm, I get to my feet and watch his eyes track upwards to my face. That stops him. ‘I’ll be back,’ he says. Tears burn my eyes as his footsteps follow Isaac’s and I’m alone again. Barnum looked me up and down like a prize sow, made a few notes in one of his books and put me on a stand next to Colonel John Nutt. The Colonel stands about as high as my knee. I’ve got nothing good to say about him, yet I’ve stood next to Nutt and smiled till my lips dried up. Every night, from my very first night in the Museum, I’ve lain curled in my bed, picturing my mother’s tearful face as I waved farewell. I’ve cursed myself as the greatest fool of a girl there’s ever been. They say I was just born large and kept right on growing. That it happens
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Spring is a welcome reprieve after this snowy winter, and Philadelphia Stories is looking forward to another busy season of fun events for writers and readers, including: April 4-May 23 (Mondays 6:15-8:15): Philadelphia Stories Advanced Short Story Workshop with Aimee LaBrie. Fee: $200. (Sample required.) Where: Robin’s Moonstone, second floor of 110A S. 13th Street April 16, 9-5: Novel Workshop with Elizabeth Mosier Where: Trinity Center for Urban Life (French Room), 22nd & Spruce Streets, Philadelphia. Fee: $75 includes all-day workshop and lunch (max. 20 participants). April 16, 10-5: Free Library Festival Street Fair; reading at Fergie’s Pub. May 25, 10-3: Painted Bride Quarterly 3rd Annual Bookfair for Literacy at Drexel University.
Publishers Christine Weiser & Carla Spataro
July 10, 11: Chestnut Hill Book Festival: PS will host a weekend of workshops, panels, a poetry slam, and free readings. January 1-June 1: The Marguerite McGlinn Third Annual Prize for Fiction national contest. Prize: $2,000. Spring: The Community College of Philadelphia has partnered with PS for a new Cultural Forum on CCPTV. Guests include Kelly Simmons, Marc Schuster, Gregory Frost, and Elise Juska. June TBA: Our annual Spring Fling promises to be another fun day at the American Swedish Museum, featuring four new exhibits. The event will launch the latest title from PS Books, Randall Brown’s flash fiction collection, Mad to Live.
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For more information on all of these events, visit www.philadelphiastories.org. And thanks to our members for making our participation in these events possible! Sincerely, Carla Spataro & Christine Weiser Publishers
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m a i d e n that way with some folk. But my family loved me. They took no more notice of my size than it took to step over my legs when I sat on the floor to eat my dinner, or when they had to wait while I stooped and twisted my way out of our cottage door. I went to school and loved it. I thought I’d make a teacher, a good one too. For that I had to go to Truro and
board with my aunt. I figured that the children would stare at first but that they’d soon settle to me and I’d do fine. I hadn’t bargained for the adults. Not for the staring on the street, or the sniggering and name-calling from the men as I walked home from school. It wasn’t like the Bay where everyone had watched me grow, year after year. Father came to take
Dreaming, I Was Complicit By Liz Chang You stood over my shoulder, goading me, one hand cupped on my waist, as I decided who would die with each new shoebox opened, some clue to their identities inside. A bird’s nest, ashes, small keys the size and crouch of regurgitated mouse skeletons. What ordinary objects stood for whole lives. The last box was fit for children’s shoes, with a purple, incidental print on the outside. I opened the top, relieved to find my grandmother’s autumn-colored flats. Somewhere, she must be shuffling barefoot inside her fading isolation, searching for an end. Liz Chang published her first book of poetry Provenance with Book-Arts Press. Her work has been included in several anthologies and literary magazines. She received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and teaches English at a few area community colleges. She translates French and Spanish and lives with her boyfriend and their two cats en les environs of Philadelphia.
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me home. Barnum’s man arrived three months later. Of course my parents said a straight-out no, but Barnum doesn’t deal in nos. And I was seventeen, desperate for a life. I wanted to learn. I wanted to see, and if that meant being seen, well, I thought it was a price I could pay. Thought it right up until Mr. Barnum gave me a quick once over and then sent me up to meet the rest of the inhabitants of the American Museum. That fireman said he’d be back but I know it’s impossible. I’m trembling. The noise and the heat of the fire are coming for me. Perhaps the best thing would be to just open the door. To let it in. To get it over with. I’ve thought about death. But I’m swaying back and forth and a painful splinter of laughter climbs up my throat because I’m beyond counting the number of times I’ve wished I was dead. I’ve longed to be away from these gross bones and distended limbs, my drooping face, my hands, my Lord! - There isn’t a particle of flesh on me I don’t despise. Yet here is death coming for me and suddenly I’m screaming inside, ‘I want out! Let me out! Get me out!’ Something’s happening. I’m aware of a change and it takes me a moment. Then I realise it’s the sounds from the street. The bells are not ringing. The crowd is subdued. There’s a thin mist of smoke in the room now, but if I keep low the air is still clean enough to breathe. I crawl back to the window. Glass scrapes my hands and knees but I feel nothing. I look down again. Everything’s stopped. From building to building every particle of road and sidewalk is taken up by men and women staring up at the fire consuming the Museum. Directly below I can even make out people I know. There’s Isaac and little Colonel Nutt. There’s that Josephine with her hirsute son. Next that girl - the Circassian Beauty - I haven’t even troubled to find out her name. And Millie-Christine.
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Although both twins gave me shy smiles, I’ve ignored them and tried my hardest not to stare. I’ve kept myself apart. I couldn’t stand to look at them. I couldn’t bear that they were looking at me, or that we were all so different, and yet our difference was the very thing that made us all the same. But now? What would I not give to hear the Two-headed Nightingale sing, to watch men scratch their heads and peer at the Feejee Mermaid, even to stand next to ugly old Nutt while he winks at all the pretty girls passing through our halls. People are pointing at something on the ground. I squint trying to see what it is. The something is moving upwards. There are two men. There is a crane. The men in the crane are waving. One is tall; one is shorter, fatter, with a high bald dome of a forehead. Unmistakably Barnum. The crane grows up past my window on the fifth floor. Barnum and the firefighter are in a cage, still a floor below.
But they’re rising all the time. Hope slithers into the gaps between my ribs. ‘Here!’ The firefighter climbs in the window. He winces as the smoke catches his throat. Barnum holds a large white handkerchief over his face. His eyes bulge meaningfully toward me but I can’t understand a thing. I stand rigid, a dumb mannequin, as the firefighter winds thick ropes around my waist and under my arms. He binds my ankles over my skirt. Then he somehow plucks from the sky a green blanket, slung with ropes like a hammock. He pulls me towards it and I see what they mean to do. I don’t hesitate. I lie on my front in the hammock and it’s tied up like shoelaces across my back. The firefighter climbs back into Barnum’s basket. I hear them shout. Ropes creak. Air slips between me and the floorboards. It feels...wonderful. And it is wonderful. I’m fearful: slung like a sausage, five floors up, swinging out of a window over a crowd of hun-
dreds. I’m afraid: the ropes might fray, something could rip, I could slide from my casing and plummet into the ground below. But beyond that, it feels wonderful. I’m weightless, a feather. I am nothing and everything. I’m the great proud figurehead of a galleon setting sail from her harbor for the very first time. It’s the longest, shortest, coldest flight any Swan has ever taken. As I bump down amongst the hands and hollers of the firemen I’m gasping and laughing and coughing and shaking and smiling. I’m alive. ‘Annie!’ ‘Anna!’ ‘Anna!’ They’re all here. I’ve never felt this way. It’s as if everything inside me is broken and mended in the same moment. The others clutch at me and I cling to them. I’m beyond thought, oblivious to the fire and the work going on around us trying to save the building. Someone puts a blanket across my shoulders. One of Millie-Christine’s hands holds mine. A scalding cup of tea is pressed into my other hand. Hot and
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Soon Forgotten by Kristen Solecki © 2011
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sweet, it settles me back to earth. Then: ‘Hush up, girls.’ We all turn at the sharp sound of Isaac’s voice. Only a step away I see the pale balding head framed by baby black curls. His back is straight, his arms spread wide. A press of reporters leans in to hear him. Barnum lets them have it in style. ‘Here’s your headlines, boys. Here’s the news. Just write the name Barnum. P-H-I-N-E-A-S, T. Barnum. And ask your readers this boys! Ask them who else could find a crane so fast in New York City? Who else could set that crane to winch a girl measuring seven feet tall and weighing too many pounds out of a burning building? Who else boys? Why — nobody else, that’s who. Only Barnum!’ Then he strides off into the crowd, crushing hands and nodding, balling his fists on his hips and shaking his head. Slowly it comes to us that we have nowhere to sleep, no work, no American
Museum and yet we know we’ll be all right. We have Barnum. Kate Braithwaite was born and grew up in Edinburgh In 2010 she won the Random House Canada
Student Writing Award and a novel excerpt, Charlatan, was published by the University of Toronto. Her current project is a novel about murder and terror plots in 17th Century London. Kate and her family live near Kennett Square.
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MY HEART BLISTERS LIKE A BROILED SAUSAGE fully from among the graduates of the finest waitressing school in Paris.” I lean closer with my secret. “Many of them have read deeply in philosophy. I assure you this is obviously a philosophical statement.” The old woman at his side sneers. “Well if this is philosophy, somebody should tell her parents.” I respond, “They are as heartbroken as you are.” The couple finally leaves and I’m relieved we’ll never see them again. Neither them, nor their family nor their friends nor their professional colleagues. In fact, a whole army of greedy, gaping, chewing, and drooling mouths now will never darken our door. I restrain myself from running to tell Ron the happy news. My Tiger Lily moves in a nimbus of pale yellow light. Water glasses glitter in her presence, French fries glow at her touch. “Too late already so much.” She’s come from one of those countries I’ve never heard of, and I’m not embarrassed to admit there are a lot of those. I assume her English will never get any better, which is just fine with me.
Milja by Loren Dann © 2011 couple old as mud wobbles to my counter. He scowls like he’s just stepped into dog shit, slaps his check down on the counter, and slides it toward me, message-side up. In a phlegmy voice he growls, “What the
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hell’s this supposed to mean?” The back of the check reads, “You are dead already!” Of course I recognize my Marigold’s arcane, Euro-trash scrawl immediately. I say, “We choose our waitresses care-
We all work together at the Kitchen Knook on 4th Street close to the shopping mall. I’m the late-shift cashier, a very demanding and responsible position, which is why I’m paid so little. Ron, the night manager, explains that the low pay discourages frivolous people who lack the drive and determination to take the job seriously. And he promises me that with another year of this responsibility I could go anywhere, do anything. Smiling he says, “Even president of, like, General Motors, or something.” Of course I’m impressed, even if I can’t remember who General Motors is.
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I’ve told Ron we ought to have cool military uniforms. I remind him that people love uniforms, and they love to have their food brought to them by persons wearing uniforms. I explain to him that basically, this uniform wearing is the wave of the future, and we need to be part of the future if we expect to succeed. I remind him that I watch the news, so I know what’s going on. I tell him that from what I’ve seen, eventually all the people feeding us will wear uniforms and this will make us all really happy. A young, attractive woman places her check on my counter, but she is not smiling. “You know,” she says, “this sort of thing usually indicates serious psychological difficulties.” On the back of her check my Little Petunia has scrawled, “The surface is without substance.” I respond, “We try to help those who are in difficulty.” “That may seem noble to you, but you should not inflict such darkness on those of us already entombed.” A tear sparkles at the corner of her eye. She turns and leaves, and my regret follows her like a thick snake. My Buttercup waits tables, from 4 PM until Midnight. What she does is what waitresses do, and her customers bring their checks to my cash register, a cash register of which I am proprietor. They slide their checks across my counter accompanied by either a fist-full of cash, or a shiny credit card. We don’t take checks, that’s our policy. Our three other waitresses are named Camille, Ellen and Brandy. Hoping to pump up their tips, each writes a little message on the backs of their checks. Ellen is in law school, so she just writes “Thanks so much!” with a little diamond at the bottom of the exclamation point. Maybe she should change it to a dollar sign. Brandy writes, “Have a Good Day,” and puts smiles in the middles of the “O”s. The horror is that she earnestly means it. I tremble at her glance. But Camille is the worst. Camille writes,
“Smile, God Loves you!” and she uses little hearts to dot the “I” and at the bottom of the exclamation point, and in place of all of the “O”s. It must take her ten minutes to draw the thing out. But my Squash-Blossom is different. Where others are mesmerized by the surface, she sees all the way down. “Stop touching yourself and start touching others,” is written quirkily on the check slid onto my counter by a young man whose acne will be with him until he’s collecting Social Security. He says, “Women these days are so fucked up.” I shrug. “Estrogen’s been leaking into the water supply.” His eyes get large. “You’re shitting me?” “Drink bottled water,” I say. “It’s the only way to be safe.” My Rose-Petal always shares her shift with at least two of these other waitresses, along with a revolving door
of dark, foreign-looking busboys who pass through so fast I never learn their names. So we have four waitresses for a three-waitress staff. Ron makes up the schedule. He says the task will make him crazy. Apparently, doing the schedule is the hardest thing he’s ever done, even from high school, figuring out how to cover from day to day, week to week. He begs me to pick up the bus-tray whenever I can. These women will drive me nuts, he says, and I’m sure that would be a short trip. But I remind him that busing tables is beneath the responsibilities of the cashier, who must handle money. After all, what is more diseased-ridden in our society than cash, filthy cash? Ron does not like me and never agrees with anything I say. But he does not want to hire another cashier. His cashiers tend to steal, and he tells me I’m the first in half a decade not robbing him blind. All Ron wants to do is sit in the back-office at the computer and down-
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load porn from the internet. He burns the porn onto CD’s and takes them home with him every night and does godknows-what thereafter. I’m too nauseated to ask. “The brain atrophies before the penis,” is followed by a smiling sunface with X’s over the eyes. The middle-aged guy belonging to this check grins as he leans across the counter. “I just took my pill,” he whispers, “and I’ve got a woody like a sequoia. What time does she get off?” “She doesn’t,” I assure him. “Our evil manager keeps her shackled in the basement. He’s the only one gets to see her.” He frowns sympathetically. “Any little thing I can do to help?” In fact I keep all of these complaints from Ron. He likes my Little Dove even less than he likes me. He thinks she thinks about him. If it wasn’t for the fact that she can carry six filled platters in the middle of a rush, she’d have been longgone. At closing I count the register while she helps clean up. I lose count every time I look up to see her bending over. I lose count a lot, so this usually takes the rest of the night. Ron comes over to me after firing another busboy. He likes to keep in practice. “Stupid little shit,” he says looking at nothing in particular, and it takes me a second to realize he’s not talking to me. “Any of your creepy friends need a job?” I tell him my creepy friends are all over-booked. I tell him it seems like people will only hire the really creepy ones. He looks hard into my eyes. “You don’t
Out Building Walnut Hill: Pagoda of Weeds by Dae Raeback-Sanchez © 2011 like this job, do you?” “I love this job,” I say. “I gave up being General Motors just to work here.” He looks at me a moment and then he smiles. “My bet is you’re going to be here a good long time.” I ask, “Is that a promise?” I finish counting, or actually just give up and write down the amount on the slip that I already know is supposed to be in the register. “Oh yeah,” he says, “that is my promise to you!” As he walks away I say, “Thanks! Mom will be so pleased.” I time my departure to follow her out the door. Half a block from the restaurant I say, “Listen, you have to stop writing that
shit on the checks. People get upset. They say things. They think things.” She shrugs without turning. I say, “It seems they are not grateful for your subtle generosity.” She has gorgeous shoulders. I say, “If you don’t like gratitude you should be happy every day.” Finally she turns, her arrogant frown thrills me. “Do you ever have a good time?” She stops at the corner, her bus is already pulling up. She shrugs as she brings a token out of her pocket. Climbing the steps she does not turn. “Misery is underrated,” she says. The doors fold closed, her sweet butt framed sweetly in the folding bus-door windows.
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Nothing left for me to do but sigh, which I do louder than the bus. Two women. Young, secretary-types. The taller, older one slides the check toward me like we’re conspirators and this is grade school. On the back of the check my Dumpling has written, “A penis in the hand - better two in the bush.” “How was your meal today?” I ask with the blandest look I own. “Funny,” she says, and the two leave giggling. I spend the next ten minutes figuring. After closing, my Nightingale leaves without a glance back. I hustle to catch up, pull up just behind her right shoulder. Her profile fills me with something I cannot name. “Tell me? Was it the Freud that didn’t sit well, or the Kafka?” With her firm, long-legged gate she steps on the gas. I hustle double-step to
keep up. She turns to face me without losing a step, her grin vicious and wise. “You!” And she says, “You!” At the corner she turns. A guy is just getting out of a cab. She strides faster, has her hand on the closing door, slips inside and is gone, all before I can say, “Me! Me! Me!” Two little girls, maybe twelve years old between them, timidly place their check and cash on my counter. On the back I read, “Death is your friend!” I shove the cash back toward them “Hey!” I say kind of loud and I’m smiling. “It’s your lucky day. Your lunch was free! Hope you enjoyed it. Come back again soon!” I’m relieved when the little girls turn to each other and smile. The one girl says, “Thanks,” as she grabs the cash. The other says, “Yeah,” and they’re
laughing together before they reach the door. And I’m relieved nobody is making a big deal. An hour and a half later and it’s slow. To my Dandelion I say, “We have to talk.” I take her by the elbow to lead her to the back. She shrugs me off, gets to the office door before I do, stands arms folded across her generous chest, and watches me approach like a hot dog watches mustard. I stand as close to her as I can without fainting. “Please leave the kids alone. If you aren’t about to say something nice to a kid, just shut up. How about it?” The fire in her black eyes roasts my scrotum no matter which way I turn. When I don’t say anything she sneers. “Pot-licker,” she says and then she moves past me like I’m a can of dead flowers. People want to know why I hate my life. Back at the register Ron comes over
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smiling like his whole face’s shot with botox. He calls out, “Brandy, cover the register a minute?” He signals me to follow and we walk back to the storeroom. He flicks-on the light and closes the door behind us. He paces back and forth like he’s been constipated for a month. Watching him is about to wear me out. I sit down on a case of catsup bottles. He looks like he’s trying to think about something, and then he steps close and leans forward. “We have a problem.” Then he freezes, stares into my face like whatever I do next will twist my future absolutely. So I do nothing. “We’re missing a can of mayonnaise,” he says. Then he watches me, like by knowing this I will now change into something.
“A whole can of mayo, you say?” I squint and dip my head as if I know what he’s getting at. I ask, “Any ideas?” Because I don’t like having-to-think forced upon me. I’d rather that it sneak up on me, like a toothache, until finally I have to do something about it, but all along I’ve been sort of dealing with it in the background. “One or two,” he says with cultivated inscrutability and then takes a step back, “one, or two.” He sits down on boxes of canned soup and sighs, rubs his hands together and then along the tops of his thighs. The aura of defeat hovers over him as miasmal as a fart. To move things along I ask, “One of the gallon cans?” I’m incredulous because
it is incredible, and I want to be certain before I continue with this thinkingthing. He nods. “And you’re sure it’s not misplaced?” I ask. “Because you looked everywhere?” Silence in this case is assent. “Well,” I say still not grasping the magnitude of our situation, “it wasn’t like it was a can of the good stuff. Can’t be more than a few dollars a can. I mean, we’ll make it up in tips.” Suddenly he looks at me in a way that I had never expected him to look. As if his face was a box of tools, and this expression was just not included. “You don’t get it, do you?” Suspicion tightens his eyes. “Can you be so fucking selfcentered and naive?” He stands, slowly
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steps forward to bring his face right up to mine so that I have to lean back. “This isn’t just about the fucking money. It isn’t even about any fucking principles. The question I can’t answer is why? And even worse how?” His own suspicion turns to incredulity. “Pick up one of those fucking cans. How you going to sneak one of those out of here? Where the fuck you going to hide it? How you going to carry it so nobody guesses? What kind of fucking bag you going to put it in so nobody says, hey, where you taking that gallon of fucking mayo?” Before I can venture any stupid guesses he says, “And why? How much goddamn mayo can one family eat, for Christ sake?” He begins to pant, his voice is getting louder, and I’m wishing he brushed his teeth more often. “You can’t put this shit on goddamn breakfast cereal, for Christ sake!” Ron looks around the floor like he’s surrounded by scorpions. “And if somebody’s snatched the mayo, should we maybe put an armed guard on the tuna?” His face has become very red. “I defy anyone to explain to me why any normal
human being would steal a gallon of goddamn mayonnaise!” Who could imagine Ron is a passionate philosopher? But he’s already givenup trying to find anything out from me. He’s turned and is already reaching for the door handle. So with hardly a twitch he’s opened the door. And there stands my little Flesh-Bulb. She’s looking a bit cowed though she’s easily a head taller than Ron. He stares up at her a long time. My Sweet Onion cannot return his look. He steps around her and returns to the restaurant. She stands another moment looking at the floor and then she returns to the restaurant. And me? I’m still sitting on my ass, Brandy covering the register for me, and I’m waiting for this head-thing to stop, so much like a blender running filled with steel screws. A priest comes to my register smiling, slides his check toward me with his cash. I see her handwriting and tremble. I turn it over to read, “Sleep with God!” The priest says, “Your staff has a rare and subtle sense of the world behind the mask. I shall return often.”
April 19 2010 By Jacob Russell Spring chill at dusk taillights tell in red blue satin evening arrives how many will be lost reaping secrets from stars the streets will keep faith through the night — their incessant conversation let others sleep Jacob Russell says, “I live and write & walk the streets of South Philly with my Spirit Stick.” His work has appeared in dcomP, Criiphoria 2, Conversational Magazine, Connotations, and more. Read more on his blog, jacobrussellsbarkingdog.blogspot.com
Panic grabs my throat, I suppress the scream and manage to whisper, “That would perhaps not be wise.” The priest’s smile disappears, as his eyes get large. Leaning closer I say, “Our manager is a Satanist, and he would say anything to corrupt you.” I drop my voice to add, “He would even lie to you.” The priest is about to turn. I touch his sleeve and add, “Pray for our souls.” The door closes and he never looks back. About a second later Brandy steps up smiling. “Let me know if you need me to cover for you.” Her voice is so bright I put on sunglasses. “That’s generous of you, but I can’t possibly burden you with this enormous responsibility.” I pull another girly magazine from the rack and lean back as I open it. When I look up again I’m surprised to see Brandy still standing there. She cranks her smile up another level. “I hear Ron’s got you on some kind of inventory duty or something. About the tuna, I mean. It’s a little slow today. Maybe I could give you a hand.” Now I’m looking for the hidden camera. These places always have hidden cameras even though they usually don’t work, but if we have them, they must be really well hidden. So I ask, “Did you wait on that priest?” Brandy experiences a panic entirely out of proportion to the question, which relieves me completely. “No,” she says, “that’s what’s-her-name’s table. Why?” As if she doesn’t know. “Did he complain?” “No, worse. He was so impressed he threatened to bring all his priest-friends here. Does that make any sense to you?” I look at her real hard, a sort of highlight and underline to the point. She turns and scans the room as if help might arrive any second. She shrugs before she turns back again. “I guess some old guys find her type charming. Don’t ask me. Old guys are always so obvious.” There’s nothing to that with my name on it, so I let it drift. After
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another minute she drifts too, and I’m relieved. A withered and old woman about four feet tall staggers to the counter, slides her check across and says, “What the hell’s this shit?” My Little Cauliflower has written, “Sex is death.”
“Words to live by,” I say hoping that if I don’t look at her she’ll evaporate. “Know anybody needs to get laid, give ’em this.” Then trembling, she scribbles a phone number at the bottom of one of the take-out menus stacked on the counter. She doesn’t wait for me to
Indian Creek By Robin Rosen Chang We explored the creek that meandered through our yards as if we had discovered it ourselves, wandering along its bed, navigating its twists and turns until we learned where its water moved fastest, where it trickled, where its stones jutted out, forming steps for us to cross from one side to the other, and when we knew it perfectly, we rolled our pants, tossed our dirty socks and worn sneakers and waded through it, lifting rocks to catch crayfish and scooping up salamanders shrouded in the cool mud.
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In winters, we stomped along its frozen gray surface like giants, cracking the ice with our heavy steps, or slid clumsily on the thicker patches behind the McCabe’s house. One day, you fell through, shattering it, and when you got up, tears streaming down your chubby child cheeks, you turned to me, exclaiming it was my fault, that a true friend wouldn’t just stand by, so to ease your pain, I lay in the frigid creek, in the exact spot where you had fallen. Robin Rosen Chang, a native of Philadelphia and a former graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, lived in many places before settling in New Jersey ten years ago. She is an adjunct professor of English as a Second Language at Kean University. Her work has appeared in the NaPoWriMo online poetry anthology and A Handful of Stones literary blogzine, and is forthcoming in The Stillwater Review.
answer, but it takes her four minutes to walk to the door. When she’s gone I fold up the menu and shove it into my back pocket. I know that one never knows. A heartbeat later Ron’s standing beside my shoulder. “You know who that is?” “Don’t know who she is, but I know what she wants.” “She’s maybe old and crazy but she’s rich as they come.” “Then, here!” I say and pass him the menu. “She’s waiting for you to call.” He looks at the menu with widening eyes. “You shitting me?” “Would I shit you?” He grins. “That’s why I let you work here.” He walks away lips muttering the phone number like he expects to remember it. Walking behind my gorgeous Petunia as she makes her way to her bus I say, “Your English is getting so much better.” Walking fast she shrugs without turning. Perhaps my little Artichoke is a secret poet. Her way with words is so elegantly awkward. Or perhaps she simply speaks as she thinks. Thinking and speaking so rarely coincide, but perhaps my Apricot Jelly has discovered some secret. And perhaps if I’m earnest and determined she’ll share that secret with me. We reach her bus stop and I’m about to peel off toward my apartment but she turns to me. “Every day is coffee. How is that? How is that?” I’m stunned. No words, her eyes are black icicles in bright sunlight. And for the first time ever, she smiles. Her teeth are bad but her smile is brilliant. By the time my brain remembers I have a mouth and the muscles in my jaw unlock, she’s already climbed the steps to the bus and has gone. When I get home I make a note on my calendar, it’s that sort of thing. Later in the week we’re really busy, a convention or something, I only find out
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after the fact, but ninety percent of our customers are female and almost all of them are young, some sort of convention. For the entire evening rush, Ron’s running in one direction and looking in the other. Beaming with his natural-born idiocy, he can’t get to these tables fast enough. He’s even carrying platters and busing tables, an explosion of activity that demands to be commemorated with a photograph it’s so unlikely. It’s Brandy’s day off, just Camille and Ellen and my Sweet Plantain, and we’re all stunned by Ron’s enthusiastic participation, though for different reasons and to different degrees. Ron’s one of those hiding-managers; don’t bother him unless the register’s short or there’s blood on the floor.
My little Star-Light maneuvers around Ron like he’s a pile of dog shit. Even Camille finds his participation remarkable, so she makes a remark. “What’s he doing here?” “As little as possible.” “Doesn’t he know even how to carry dishes?” “Like the rest of us, he knows as little as he can get away with.” “Something’s going to happen,” she says. “Something always does.” I know I’ll be proved right, but I’m surprised at how soon. The collision happens when I’m not looking, but the sound wakes even the comatose. And before the last glass shat-
Unfinished Daughter, III
graphite on 300-lb rough rag by Janice Wilson Stridick You sharpened your pencils when I agreed to sit, produced a careful record: broken woman still young, but childless. The collar a simple circle leash-like, yoke-like draws no attention from the face— pupils like currants or seeds shadows track time under eyes, above lips nostrils no longer perked the stare distant, wistful— you would say sadder but wiser I would say—determined. I would say betrayed.
Janice Wilson Stridick’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Keeping Time: 150 Years of Journal Writing, Milk Money, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Studio One, The View in Winter, and various anthologies. Her book and art reviews have appeared in NY Arts Magazine, Philadelphia Stories and Cape May Star And Wave. She has an MFA from Vermont College and lives in Merchantville, NJ.
ters, the stream of venom from my little Buttercup’s sweet lips is terrifying. Ron shields himself with his server tray. Fortunately, my Sugar Cube has reverted to her mother tongue, so no one understands what she’s saying, but none of us needs a translation. Women at the tables giggle and point. Terror, and embarrassment alternate in Ron’s eyes like lights on a billboard. My little Lollipop’s pale face is red as a sunset, and then to all of our surprise, big, bright tears appear in her eyes. It’s then my heart shatters like another dropped glass. In the next instant Ellen appears with broom and dustpan muttering about lawsuits. My little Nectarine is sobbing, tears glide down her cheeks, and I struggle to resist running over to lap them up with my tongue. But Ron suddenly recaptures his selfimportance and sense of disproportion and explains to my Love-Doll that she’s fired. Without a thought beyond a determination to spare my little Pop-Tart any more embarrassment I decide to tell Ron that I quit, and then describe to him how deep into Hell I know he’ll fall. And I’m ready to do this. And I promise myself I’ll do this, just as soon as I can step away from the register. But somehow my hands have become cramped around the edge of the counter. Somehow they’ve escaped my control and have conspired to hold onto the counteredge. Do they know something I don’t? Do they understand something that has completely escaped me? Do they recognize something about me that I ignore at my own peril? Have they learned something from working here that I’ve forgotten, or worse, never even recognized? Just clamped onto the edge of the counter, and I can’t make my hands relax. Suddenly and to my surprise Ron’s standing immediately beside me. “You put up with this shit every day, you deserve a raise.” And then he mutters
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The Floy Floy By Dorothy DiRienzi It’s a shame you never saw Atlantic City when it had floy floy.
Burt Lancaster, “Atlantic City,” 1981
Boardwalk said Possible said Here Walked from the Inlet to Texas Ave Salt air sand and waves thumping barkers chanting rhyme of Win rhyme of Easy easy you can do it show the lady a good time sweetheart I’m your man let me show you how easy it is for a nickel for a dime Short hair pinned with a flower sixteen and Oh my sailor girl let’s go sailing but no time to stop I’ve got to walk to move to get past the storefront where Madame Xerxes reads your fingertips mine burning stinging in the surf past the place with the girl in the iron lung talk to her for a dime dead-eyed parents at the curtain The diving horse drowned Things happen here You can smell it on the air In the morning salt light blacktop shimmering across the parking lot I watch a bartender at the back door of a club his shirt wide open shoes untied he clutches the barmaid kisses her 16
I can taste it
Dorothy DiRienzi has published in Friends Journal, Poetry Midwest, The Mid-America Poetry Review, Passager, MO: Writings from the River, and more. She was a runner-up at the Tucson Poetry Festival, 2005, 2010 and a semifinalist for Black Lawrence Press poetry prize, 2008. She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Arizona State University and previously worked as an editor and indexer of medical publishing titles in Philadelphia, PA for 38 years.
into my ear a number. He’s breathing hard so I’m pretty certain he’s serious. Frozen by greed and cowardice, perhaps, my left hand, the faithless hand, the treacherous hand, the hand that can’t be trusted, devious, cynical, and cruel remains gripping the counter. I call upon my trusty right hand, but clearly it has entered into a conspiracy with the left. My hands in remorseless grip of the counter are listening to Ron and they like the sound of his number. My hands are thinking about my landlord and my checkbook, and how good it feels to wrap themselves around a mug of cold beer. And thinking this they begin to think how they would miss all this. So my devious, treacherous hands betray me. As they so often have in the past, they do as they wish and not as I want. My hands are content to watch my little Pudding-Cup tearfully gather her things, exchange her apron for her overcoat, and then walk to the door. But worst, most dreadfully, most terribly, my hands smile derisively as my TulipBlossom steps out the door without even a single, vicious glance back. When Brandy comes in the next day she makes it clear to Ron she believes my Succulent Rasinette was dealt with too harshly. Ron fires her before her coat’s off. She looks hard at me as she leaves, but no tears for her. She’s tougher than I’d guessed. By the dinner-rush two new waitresses are plying our victuals; women who’ve been yelling at cooks and filling water glasses since Nixon was president. A reassuring stability has emerged, refreshing in its inconsequentiality. My hands are ecstatic with money play, but my heart remains unemployed.
In addition to the novel Master Siger’s Dream, recently published by What Books Press of Los Angeles, A. W. DeAnnuntis’s fiction has appeared in: Silent Voices, The Armchair Aesthete, Timber Creek Review, Lynx Eye, Los Angeles Review, Yemassee, First Class, Pacific Coast Journal, Short Stories Bimonthly, Luna Negra, CrossConnect, Mind in Motion (where he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize), and many others.
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KERRI SCHUSTER
This profile space is normally reserved for local authors with new books hot off the presses. But this issue, we decided to recognize someone of priceless value to the magazine: a Philadelphia Stories member. The member we chose is someone who has supported the magazine not just financially, but has given countless hours of her time volunteering for Philadelphia Stories: Kerri Schuster. I first met Kerri Schuster after we published her husband’s story, “My Life as an Abomination”, in Fall 2005. Kerri attended her husband Marc’s readings for Philadelphia Stories, and then began volunteering for our events, helping us stuff envelopes, being a regular supportive audience member for readings by other Philadelphia Stories authors — as well becoming a regular financial contributor to the magazine. As I got to know Kerri, I was very impressed: she is smart, creative, talented, funny, and passionate. So, when we decided to take the plunge and form an executive board for Philadelphia Stories, a decision we feel is crucial for the survival of the Philadelphia Stories mission, the first name on our invitation list was Kerri. We knew that she would bring her passion and commitment to the board, and she now serves as Board Secretary. I asked Kerri to share her story.
What do you do for a living, and for your creative work? I am the Head of the English Department at the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Bryn Mawr. I have been there for eleven years and teach eleventh grade American literature and twelfth grade creative writing. I love being around my students because they energize me and challenge me to be a better teacher. In addition, I have been a participant in Alison Hicks’ Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio for about a year. Joining in that community of writers has helped me develop my writing and produce new work. In February, I took part in a teacher-writer retreat called “A Room of Her Own Making,” sponsored by the A Room of Her Own Foundation. The three-day retreat at Pendle Hill allowed women teachers who write to come together and find time to create and communicate in a relaxed and very encouraging atmosphere. I was able to work on my poetry and meet with experienced writers such as Mary Johnson and Meredith Hall.
When did you learn about Philadelphia Stories, and what made you decide to become a member and volunteer?
By Christine Weiser I first learned about Philadelphia Stories when my husband, Marc Schuster, became involved in the magazine. I loved attending events and found myself meeting great writers from all over the Philadelphia area. Eventually, I was helping out at events and supporting PS in other various ways, including by becoming a member. I was honored when asked to join the board as the secretary and hoped to be able to ensure the longevity of the magazine and all its worthy endeavors. I am also on the committee for a new program, PS Junior, launching next Fall. This seemed a natural extension of my work as a high school teacher, and I was excited to be able to give young people a chance to see their own work published.
How do you think Philadelphia Stories helps the local writing community, as well as your own work? Until I started working with Philadelphia Stories, I had no idea the Delaware Valley had such a vibrant and vast writing community. Through the magazine, I have been able to learn about local literary events, meet local writers and become a part of a world that just a few years ago I didn’t even know existed. Writing can be a lonely process, but being able to connect with other writers and attend local workshops, especially those sponsored by PS, can remind you that you don’t have to always work alone. I have found the local literary community to be incredibly encouraging and welcoming. Philadelphia Stories has been instrumental in providing a place for writers to come together, and I have witnessed wonderful examples of camaraderie and support at both Push to Publish and the Rosemont Writers’ Retreat.
Where do you hope to see Philadelphia Stories in the future? The future of Philadelphia Stories has never looked better. With the introduction of PS Junior, we will be able to bring the experience to a whole new group of writers. There aren’t many venues for young people to share their work, and I believe our latest endeavor will give students a much-needed opportunity to see their work in print. I also see PS Books continuing to publish excellent local authors and poets, and I see Philadelphia Stories continuing to offer superb workshops and retreats by prominent local writers. Of course, none of this would be possible without the help of our readers. That’s why it’s so important that you support the magazine and become a member! How does your with Philadelphia Stories fit into your personal creative and professional goals? My personal, creative, and professional goals flow naturally together. 17 That’s why my work with the magazine has come so easily to me. Every day I teach the next generation of young writers, but I also want to set an example for them by working with a local organization that shares my goals and seeks to support the arts in Philadelphia. For information about how you can become a member, go to www.philadelphiastories.org
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SELECTIVE MEMORY or years my mother, Sally, lied to me. I always knew that she wasn’t truthful about her age, but until my father died I never knew the extent of her deception. Then I learned that my mother, who had long declared that she was many years younger than my father, was almost the same age.
In tribute to her beauty, an exboyfriend, a “mad man” who worked in the advertising industry, made her a professional looking Valentine lined with photos of the all the Hollywood femme fatales he thought she resembled. Printed across the top it read, “I see you everywhere I go.”
Ironically, for most of his life, my father could have cared less about how old she was, but I can only imagine his wrath if, during their retirement, he had ever known the consequences of her vanity. In what were then leaner years for my parents, she did not claim her Social Security until years after she was eligible.
Sally saved that card in a box with all the letters and photos from her youth. When I was a child playing with the old clothes in her closet, I stumbled on it. How I loved that card! I was proud of and amused by my lively and alluring mother who, at one time, had been pursued by multiple suitors: Bill the muscle man, Barney the intellectual whose glasses were so thick she called him “The Blinde,” the blind one in Yiddish, and many others.
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She’d always been much older than all of my friends’ mothers, but, to her credit, I could never tell. No one could. Sally could, and did, pass as a much younger woman. She took great pride in her appearance, and the roots of that obsession were no mystery. She was born Sara Czernenka in Russia in 1914, and fled from pogroms there, arriving in Ellis Island with her mother and brother in 1922. They moved to South Philly, where she grew up, and was immediately labeled a “greenie,” an immigrant fresh off the boat. She struggled to fit in. She didn’t know the language. She had few clothes. She had no toys, not even one doll, and no bed of her own. She grew up to the knowledge that for women, looks and youth were the path to belonging and success. 18
Yes, Sally was a stunner; her beauty a major asset. When she dressed up, you might not be able to tell which movie star she looked like, but some famous actress’s name would be on the tip of your tongue.
She wasn’t able to teach me how to be the man magnet she was, but she did teach me to care about my appearance. Back in the late 60s, every season, my sister, mother and I went to the neighborhood high-fashion store for girls, “Gigi’s” in Overbrook Park, where I got to pick out a new wardrobe. With the help of my mother and my older sister, I was the first girl in my class at Akiba Hebrew Academy, on the Main Line, to wear a mini skirt, bell bottoms or whatever else was in style. My mother tried, with less success, to imbue me with her precepts about age. Once I reached my twenties, a time when I was still excited about each year on my path to maturity, she urged me to start subtracting. “If you want people to believe you’re young, you have to start early.” But I couldn’t be bothered with her calculated approach to aging.
As my role model, she was consistent with her carefully planned white lies. But, as she grew older, and the very early signs of dementia began to appear, she had trouble keeping track. Suddenly she was four years younger than my father, rather than six. Ironically, her accidental adjustments made her lies all the more believable, that is until 2001, when Ellis Island records were made public. Since Sara Czernenka, nicknamed Sarushka, was born in Russia without a birth certificate, she’d always been free to lie. But with the advent of the Web, and the easy accessibility of the manifest of the ship that brought her family to the United States—the U.S.S. Gothland— the truth was finally exposed and immortalized. She came to the U.S. when she was 8, not 3. My mother gave birth to me when she was 39, not in her early 30s. For my mother, uncle and grandmother, life in America was about reinventing themselves. They intended to become what my great grandmother called “Yankee Doodles,” real Americans. So when they became citizens, Sara Czernenka turned into Sally Cherner, her brother Zelig became Sam, and my grandmother, Ryvka, became Rose. Since she had no birth certificate, Sally also changed her age. Her citizenship papers said she was 26, but she must have been older by then. Further refashioning her image, she even gave herself a new Russian home. No small town for Sally. She said she was from Odessa, the birthplace of Russian Jewish intellectuals, and the city where my grandparents had studied. But the shtetl she was from, Bilogorutka, was as far from Odessa as Poughkeepsie is from Chicago.
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By the time of my Ellis Island discovery, my mother was in a Jewish nursing home just north of Trenton, suffering from dementia. At first, she held on to the essential aspects of her personality— her passion for grooming, her love of learning and Jewish culture, and her garrulousness. But, over time, her illness eroded her grounding in reality. She began to disappear. The first time I visited her after finding out her real age I blurted out, “I know how old you are. I saw the Ellis Island records.” I probably could have used more tact, but the truth amazed me. Her face dropped. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” she asked. Being young was so important to her, that despite her confusion, she didn’t forget her deceit and never would. Her manipulation of her age was burned into her brain. “Aren’t you proud of how old you are?” I asked. “You look great for your age. Being older only makes you all the more impressive.” “It doesn’t,” she answered. We were alone in her room, but she looked around afraid that someone might overhear. She was forgetting so much about who she was, but not her commitment to deceit about her age. Her defining traits, like her fixations with age and appearance, which had once annoyed me, now comforted me. They affirmed that I was talking to my mother. Behind the confusion, my beloved Sarushka was really there. She may have forgotten what ravioli were; she could no longer write beautiful notes as she once had; she couldn’t concentrate enough to read or even watch TV. She talked about two husbands when she only ever had one and she
sometimes thought she still had a baby. But certain things were the same or almost the same. Before she went to the nursing home dining room, she’d reapply her lipstick; and when I visited, she’d give me a big hug. Where once she was big busted and full-bodied, now I could feel her bony frame, but her enthusiasm was as large as ever. “Lisa, Lisa!” She’d light up. “Lisa is here,” she called out to her aide whenever I walked into her room. No one has ever been happier to see me. But, after my warm welcome, the first words out of her mouth would be, “Why don’t you move your hair away from your face?” “It is,” I’d answer. “You look so pretty, but it’s messy. You should comb it.” My long wavy hair contrasted with her short teased helmet, kept perfect by the nursing home beautician who gave her a weekly wash and set. Her hairstyle, even her hair color, was frozen in time. At 91, she still dyed her hair and offered styling advice to the entire family, including my teenage niece. My niece, she thought, should wear her hair like a Miss America contestant from the 1950s, with pin curls and finger waves. When I was younger, her constant attempts to control the way I looked irritated me. But now her love was so palpable that her criticisms didn’t bother me. I was so happy to find in them a glimmer of the mother I long loved, a woman whose memory was quickly changing so many things about her. That glimmer remained until she died five and a half years ago. Now my mother only exists in memory. On a day when my hair is messy I can hear her saying, “Brush your hair.”I carry round her lipstick case, and, just as she once did, I
find myself reapplying my lipstick throughout the day. I am different than my mother, but a piece of her remains embedded in my heart. She was Sally, born Sara or “Sarushka.” I am Lisa, once called “Lisenka” or “Zisa Lisa,” sweet Lisa in Yiddish, by my family. I miss my mother, and as I get older I understand her better. At last I can relate to her reluctance to be judged by her age. When asked how old I am, I hesitate, but then I smile, and tell the truth, and think about my mother.
Lisa Z. Meritz lives in Philadelphia and works for Temple University. Her essays have been published in the *Christian Science Monitor*, *San Francisco Chronicle,* *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, *Philadelphia Daily News* and *Bucks County Courier Times*. She is grateful for the love and support of her husband Craig and her daughter Rebecca.
PHILADELPHIA STORIES
WORKSHOPS Advanced Fiction Workshop with Aimee Labrie
April 4-May 23 Mondays 6:15-8:15pm (Moonstone Arts Center) Fee: $200 Writing sample required. ---------------------------Novel Workshop with Elizabeth Mosier
Saturday April 16 9-5pm (Trinity Center for Urban Life 22nd & Spruce Streets) Fee: $75 Includes all-day workshop and lunch (max. 20 participants); $65 for students, seniors Visit www.PhiladelphiaStories.org for more details!
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PLACE MATTERS by Aimee LaBrie Last year, I was asked to write a short story for the Akashic Book noir series— this is the series where each volume is dedicated to noir stories that take place in particular neighborhoods in a particular city. They’ve done books set in Barcelona, Haiti, Milan, Brooklyn, and the latest version, the one that that I was involved with, is Philadelphia Noir. Since I live in South Philadelphia, I was asked to set my story in that location (some of the other neighborhoods included are Rittenhouse Square, Fishtown, Centre City). The story, then, also needed to be a clear reflection of that section of the city, since setting was part of the hook. Though I am a transplant from the Midwest, I’ve lived in Philadelphia for six years and South Philly for the last four years. I know parts of it as well as a non-native can. However, when I sat down to write the story, I realized that I don’t usually use setting as a central figure in my fiction. My stories are about quirky people who have difficulty connecting to others, and while the stories are set in Chicago or Florida or Nebraska, I never gave much thought to how place can impact how a story unfolds. Now, I had to figure out a way to insinuate the setting without being too heavyhanded. 20
During this time, I was also trying to buy a house in South Philly, so I was spending a lot of time walking around strangers’ living rooms, peering into their bathrooms, seeing what they kept in the fridge, trying on their
clothes, etc. It was a voyeur’s dream; this chance to see how other people lived. I kept being shown a certain type of house, what I came to think of as the South Philly Catholic Italian Grandma House. You would find a few of the same things in these houses: dark wood paneling, uncomfortable-looking sofas and chairs wrapped in protective plastic, and tons of religious iconography—Virgin Mary portraits over the toilet, toddler Jesus’ on top of the TV, crucifixes, saints—everything short of a confessional. The best thing I saw was very realistic-looking oil rendering of Jesus, Pope John Paul, II, and John F. Kennedy standing together like the Three Musketeers. As it turned out, when I sat down to write my South Philadelphia noir story, the Grandma House became the setting for the main conflict. And, as I was working through what happened, the house and the objects in it gave me a way to further the plot and to get my character saved. I’d never done that in my writing before; stopped to really look at the room my character’s standing in to see how the things in it can be part of her experience and part of the story. Here’s how it worked: the main character gets kidnapped by a local Philly man named Tony. He knocks her out, and she awakens to find herself tied to a chair in the middle of one of these plastic-encased living rooms (I even added in the aforementioned Jesus, JFK, and Pope painting). She realizes that she’s in Tony’s family home at about the same time she sees that Tony’s walking around in his socks. She makes the correct assumption that he isn’t allowed to wear his shoes in the house; he has to protect
the carpet. So, she asks him to untie her, saying that she really, really needs to use the bathroom. He refuses, until she threatens to pee herself, mentioning too that in the process, she’ll probably ruin the chair she’s sitting in and the carpet around it. Tony panics; he doesn’t want to make a mess in his ma’s living room. He relents, and the character goes into the bathroom. She searches for a weapon, and finds a giant Virgin Mary statue, which she subsequently puts to violent use, thereby gaining her freedom (and ruining the carpet in the process). Not a great story, but it fit the genre. And it was a new experience to find myself writing the whole piece with my mind on place—to completely use the city and the people you might find in it and then the particular home to fuel the narrative action. So, the next time you sit down to write, I suggest taking a few pages to get a sense of what surrounds your character. Even if you don’t use it in the final story, it’s useful to know the physical surroundings of your character. What city/town does she live in? What might you see on the curb outside of her house? What businesses are around her place? What trees line her street? And then, get in even closer. What kind of plates does she eat off of ? If you looked in her closet, what would you discover stashed behind her boots? What is stashed away in the basement or attic? In the process, I believe you will discover that place can be a powerful fictional element to enhance and even move forward your story. Aimee LaBrie is an award-winning author and teaches a fiction workshop for Philadelphia Stories.
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Summer Institute at Colby College, Waterville, Maine August 7 - 13, 2011
Aristotle: Poetics Locke: Concerning Human Understanding Intro and Part I & II Laurence Stern: Tristram Shandy Pushkin: Eugene Onegin Eavan Boland: Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time Pirandello: Six Characters in Search of an Author The Registration Fee of $545 covers your accommodations in a dormitory room (single or double), meals, discussions and books, as well as swimming, tennis, a film, group social activities, and a real Maine lobster bake. Commuter rate available. If you have children, there’s a Junior Program for children Grade 1+
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