Philadelphia Stories Winter 2018

Cultivating a community of writers,

artists, and readers across the Delaware Valley

WINTER / 2018 / FREE

NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE PAULA PERSOLEO / PICTURES OF YOU ADRIANA LECUONA / COLLEGE AUDITION EMILY ECKART

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CONTENTS

Publisher/Editorial Director Carla Spataro Publisher/Executive Director Christine Weiser Fiction Editor Mitchell Sommers Assistant Fiction Editor Amy Luginbuhl Creative Nonfiction Editor Susette Brooks

FEATURES

Assistant Creative Nonfiction Editor Rachel Mamola

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Poetry Editor Courtney Bambrick

NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE (fiction).......................................................................................................PAULA PERSOLEO

16 PICTURES OF YOU (nonfiction)..................................................................................................................ADRIANA LECUONA 25 COLLEGE AUDITION – NOVEL EXCERPT (fiction).....................................................................EMILY ECKART

* WE ALSO HAVE KAREN RILE'S SHORT STORY "THE POINT OF VIEW CHARACTER" AVAILABLE ONLINE AT PHILADELPHIASTORIES.ORG

POETRY 10 PAST THE DAYS OF YES Y'ALLIN'.......................................................................................................MARTIN WILEY 14 ON ECSTASY.......................................................................................................................................................ALEXANDER LONG 20 LISTENING TO CHET BAKER..................................................................................................................ED GRANGER 22 GRUNGE GREMLINS, AN E.P...................................................................................................................JOE COSTAL 24 A WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN’ GOIN’ ON.............................................................................................MARJORIE MADDOX 28 GIRARD AVENUE..............................................................................................................................................VALERIE FOX

ART

COVER

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Dobro by Arvid Bloom And The Music Flowed Through Her by Arvid Bloom

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Arvid J. Bloom looks for unusual angles and perspectives in common situations. His photographic intentions spring from a calling to help expand his viewers’ mindfulness through awareness of beauty, patterns, and connections that surround them. When he is out with a group of photographers, he likes to aim his camera where others aren’t looking. flickr.com/ arvidbloom

Send in the Clowns by Rosalind Bloom

Dancer by Rinal Parikh

Rinal Parikh's art reflects the heritage and vibrant culture of her native India. A self-taught artist, she draws on a childhood fascination with color and composition, portraying spontaneity and energy with saturated color in various media. Parikh is involved with many Philadelphia area arts organizations including Swarthmore Friends of the Arts, Mainline Art Center, Da Vinci Art Alliance, CAC, CCAA and MCGOPA. www.rinalparikh.com.

Art Director Derek Carnegie Executive Assistant Fabi Malacarne Marketing Assistant Dom Saunders Web Design Loic Duros Board of Directors Concha Alborg Alex Husted Daniel Johns Madeleine Keogh Patricia Thorell Will Woldenberg

Fiction Board

Notes of Nostalgia- Melodic Memories

by Linda Dubin Garfield

L inda Dubin Garfield, an award-winning printmaker and mixed media artist, creates visual memoirs exploring the mystery of memory and the magic of place, using hand-pulled printmaking techniques, photography, collage and digital imaging. Garfield is founder of ARTsisters, a professional artists’ group which empowers artists and their community.

She also founded smART business consulting which aids emerging artists. Garfield serves on several non-profit boards, including The Da Vinci Art Alliance for whom she serves as president. Visit lindadubingarfield.com

Art Editor Pam McLean-Parker

Officers President: Alex Husted Vice President: Mitchell Sommers Secretary: Will Woldenberg Treasurer: Patricia Thorell

Music in Rittenhouse Square by Christina Tarkoff

Christina Tarkoff’s studio is in Drexel Hill where she resides.

Tarkoff studied at Temple’s Tyler School of Art and has worked as a graphic designer. She makes paintings that celebrate the beauty of people and their surroundings. Her paintings are visual stories about the places and people of Philadelphia.

Visit: www.christinatarkoff.com.

Poetry Assistant Editor Nicole Mancuso

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R osalind Bloom is a graduate of PAFA and of Columbia University. She has taught at Villanova University and at Rosemont College. Bloom exhibits regularly in many one person and group shows in a variety of venues. Her work is in both public and private collections. A founding member of Assemblage Artists Collective, she is also a member of InLiquid, and is active with the Women’s Caucus for Art, and the DaVinci Art Alliance. Visit rosalindbloom.net.

Addison Namnoum Jenna Geisinger Aidan O'Brien Jon Busch Aimee LaBrie Kate Blakinger Alex Brubaker Kate Centofanti Alexandra Karpa Kathleen Furin Ally Evans Kerry Young Alyssa Persons Keysha Whitaker Amanda Knight Surie Kristin Moyer Andrew Linton Lena Van Brian Ellis

Leslie McRobbie Brianna Garber Melissa Foster Brittany Korn Michele Lombardo Carolina Ortiz

Nathan Long Che Yeun Owen Hamill Chelsea Covington Maass Robert Kerbeck Cierra Miller Rosanna Duffy Clare Haggerty Sara Asikainen Daniel Huppman Sharon White

Daniel Pontius Tiara DeGuzman Darrah M. Hewlet Tracey M. Romero Elizabeth Green Victoria Calhoun Erik F. Cwik Vivienne Mah Ilene Rush Walt Maguiure

Creative NonFiction Board

Flamenco/Rosario Toledo by Rob Lybeck

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Rob Lybeck is a Center City Philadelphia photographer concentrating on the city's built environment, architectural details, high-contrast B&W street photography as well as portraiture.

Fluid Harmony by Susan Klinger

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Susan Klinger began her art career painting in watercolor, but now works mainly in pastel. Realism is her primary focus, but she has been exploring abstraction to express a different side of her artist personality. Her work has been exhibited throughout the eastern U.S. and has garnered awards nationally. She exhibits regularly at Off the Wall Gallery in Skippack, PA and is a signature member of several national art societies. www.susanklinger.com

Philadelphia Stories, founded in 2004, 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. The mission of Philadelphia Stories is to cultivate a community of writers, artists, and readers in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Philadelphia Stories is a 501c3. To support Philadelphia Stories and the local arts, please visit www.philadelphiastories.org to become a member today!

Andrea Vinci Brittany Leonard Deborah Off Elaine Paliatsas-Haughey Jacqueline Massaro Julia MacDonnell Chang Rachel Mamola Sarah Wecht Will Marschewski

Poetry Board

Basia Wilson Madeline Colker Helen Walsh Alley Franke Peter Baroth Kathryn Ionata Vernita Hall Liz Chang Eli Tomaszewski

Blythe Davenport Kara Cochran Pat Green Donna Keegan Deb Burnham Shira Moolten Jennifer Rohrbach Liz Dolan

SUPPORT PROVIDED IN PART

BY THE PHILADELPHIA CULTURAL FUND.

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We Came Together Like Improv The best part about this town’s creative community is our deep sense of collaboration. Everywhere we look, writers and artists are creating new things in response to one another. As we prepare for the 2018 season of One Book, One Philadelphia, it is an absolute joy to see original works that complement this year’s featured selection, Another Brooklyn.

Jacqueline Woodson’s coming-of-age novel is so rich with sound we can almost slide it onto a record player. The theme of “music” in this issue of Philadelphia Stories was inspired by the richness A N O V EL in Another Brooklyn, which unfolds in 1970s Bushwick against a backdrop of improvisational jazz, radio, and pop culture. The novel highlights the way memory and story work in tandem with music, and the incredible pieces in this issue draw on these connections to explore the deep impact music has on our lives.

For the past 16 years, One Book, One Philadelphia, a program of the Free Library of Philadelphia OF NIN G AUT HOR K AW ARD WIN and the biggest community read in the country, has sought to bring people of diverse backgrounds ING NAT ION AL BOO DR EAM BR OW N GIR L together through reading a single story, and through programs that create accessible entrées to outstanding literature.

With Another Brooklyn as inspiration, One Book and Philadelphia Stories are partnering for the first time, and it’s an honor and a treat to continue the long-running partnership Philadelphia Stories has with the Free Library. Since launching in 2004, the magazine has been distributed and available to visitors at all 54 Library locations.

Both PS and One Book share a cornerstone in our missions to cultivate accessibility and community for readers and writers. I want to say thank you to the PS editors and staff for working to shine light on local talent, and to the featured writers and artists for your voices.

I hope you enjoy this amazing issue, and that you can join us in reading Another Brooklyn and participating in dozens of events taking place across the city this season, including readings from Ms. Woodson at the January 17 Kickoff and March 14 Finale, both at the Parkway Central Library. To check out upcoming One Book programs, visit freelibrary.org/onebook for a full listing of performances, panels, films and workshops.

I’ll wrap up with a note from August, the inimitable narrator of Another Brooklyn, as she begins her story: “we came together like improv—half notes tentatively moving toward one another until the ensemble found its footing and the music felt like it had always been playing.” Play on, Philadelphia.

R ES BES TSE LLE NEW YOR K TIM

Brittanie Sterner, Director of Programming, One Book, One Philadelphia

Philadelphia Stories Winter 2018 Issue Launch Monday, January 29, 5:30 p.m. Reception and Art Opening | 6:30 p.m. Reading Philadelphia City Institute, 1905 Locust Street Come celebrate the launch of the Winter 2018 issue of Philadelphia Stories, featuring readings and artwork from this first themed issue, which explores music and the ways it affects our lives, complementing the embedded themes of improvisational jazz and pop culture in Another Brooklyn. The meeting room art exhibit will be open for viewing at select times from Tuesday, January 30 through Saturday, February 10.

Please inquire at the Reference Desk for details.

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New Speedway Boogie Paula Persoleo

“We’ll arrive on the beach by 10 a.m., so make sure Jeffrey and Sissy are ready no later than 9:30. I’ll give you $25, then you can take Jeffrey and Sissy to Funland when it opens. Use $5 for ride tickets, which will leave you plenty for lunch and snacks. I’ll collect what’s left when you meet me under the umbrella at 6 p.m. Okay, Regina? Regina, did you hear me?”

Regina’s eyes had been following the tall, tan Avenue Hotel’s restaurant busboy at the next table while Mrs. Rosenthal prattled. She had been given the same directions every Tuesday night since they arrived in Rehoboth at the beginning of a hot 1973 June. “Yes, Mrs. Rosenthal. Funland. $5.”

“I’m hungry! Reggie, make them hurry up!” Jeffrey Michael, Mrs. Rosenthal’s youngest child, kicked his legs under the table next to Regina.

“It’ll be out soon.” Regina smoothed her hand through his soft brown hair.

“Paint my nails when we get back,” Jacqueline said. As the oldest child, Jacqueline had already stared to copy the authoritative tone of her parents. Bored, she stared at the pale pink polish chips left on what had been her newly-painted nails.

“We’ll do that after your bath.”

Regina sighed. Back in May, the prospect of living at the beach as Mrs. Rosenthal’s “Mother’s helper” seemed like a winwin situation. The fact that she would make $10 a week, a total sum that would cover her upcoming driving lessons, while watching kids who were not her younger siblings made the deal even better. The part she hadn’t considered, though, was what this “win-win situation” really meant: indentured servitude to the most affluent family in her neighborhood.

The waitress, hardly older than Regina, arrived with a loaded tray, placing shrimp cocktail in front of Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal, then giving Regina and the children their burgers.

“Yuck, too much ketchup.” Jacqueline pushed the plate forward and crossed her arms. “I want a new one.”

“Sissy, we don’t have time for that,” Mr. Rosenthal said. He didn’t look up while he spoke; instead, he concentrated on dipping his shrimp into cocktail sauce.

“Do you want me to scrape some of it off?” Regina asked.

“No, I’m not eating this. I want a new one.”

“Regina, do what you need to so Sissy will eat her dinner.”

Mrs. Rosenthal’s stern look told Regina to shut Jacqueline up as quickly as possible.

Regina stared at the back of the waitress who had just turned

away. She was tempted to ask for another burger, but she knew Jacqueline would find another reason to refuse the second one.

Must be nice to have the freedom to walk away, Regina thought as the white uniform and gold apron disappeared into the kitchen.

“How about this?” Regina asked Jacqueline. She leaned close and spoke softly, as if sharing a secret. “I’ll use my nail polish on you, just this once, if you’ll eat your dinner.”

Jacqueline didn’t answer right away, but Regina knew she hit the mark when she saw the girl suppress a smile. “Okay,” Jacqueline finally said, and pulled back the plate.

Just two more weeks. Just two more weeks. Regina’s silent incantation could get her through the rest of the summer. It had to—the Rosenthals were her ride back to New Castle County.

Fifteen minutes before Funland opened the next day, Regina found herself sitting on a white bench between Jeffrey Michael, who alternately sang and ate Gus & Gus fries, and Jacqueline, who ate only the peanuts from her bucket of Dolle’s popcorn.

While other children waiting for Funland to open ran back and forth between Delaware and Brooklyn Avenues, Regina wondered if she could pocket an extra dollar out of her ticket and food allowance from Mrs. Rosenthal like she usually did. It was going to be a challenge if she made good on her promise to take Jeffrey Michael on all the rides this time.

“Ride the Surf to Grenoble, Virginia waits for you! Olive waves while you walk, Maryland has the zoo! Baltimore is close yet far, Rehoboth is what we see! Wilmington is way up north, Delaware works for me! Brooklyn’s the last stop for us, but no reason to whine! We can’t play at Funland if we see the Laurel sign!”

Jacqueline threw a handful of popcorn at Jeffrey Michael. “If you sing that song one more time, I’m putting this bucket over your head!”

Jeffrey Michael jumped down from the bench and kicked at a seagull snatching popcorn kernels. “You’re not the boss, Sissy!”

Regina turned to Jacqueline. “Let him sing. He needs to know the song in case we get separated so he can walk back and find your mom’s umbrella.”

Jacqueline rolled her eyes and searched for more peanuts in her bucket.

Just two more weeks.

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NOTES OF NOSTALGIA- MELODIC MEMORIES BY LINDA DUBIN GARFIELD

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“I don’t want to ride the carousel. We do that every week. I want to go on the bumper cars again!” Jacqueline put her hand on her hip. “We always do what Jeffrey wants. It’s my turn now!”

“We have to wait while you ride in the Haunted Mansion car.

And the Helicopter. And the Wagon Wheel. If you don’t want to ride the carousel, wait for us by the Frog Bog.” Regina took Jeffrey Michael’s hand and walked with him through the line. “Horse or chariot today? It’s up to you.”

Jeffrey Michael stood as tall as he could. “I want to ride the ponies!”

“Go ahead and pick one.”

Jeffrey Michael chose a black horse that was low to the ground. Regina lifted him onto its saddle and said, “You okay?”

Jeffrey Michael put on a brave face and nodded. Before he was ready, the music began and the carousel kicked into motion.

He yelped and clung to the horse’s neck even though Regina stood next to him and had her hand on his back.

“Why don’t we sing a fun song?” she asked. “Riding along on a carousel, trying to catch up to you. Riding along on a carousel, will I catch up to you?”

Regina sang the verses while Jeffrey Michael sang the chorus, his favorite part of The Hollies' “On a Carousel.” Although the song eased his fears, he squealed each time his horse dropped and laughed each time it rose. Eventually, he let go of the horse and raised his hands, enjoying the motion of the carousel until it slowed to a stop.

In triumph and still singing, Jeffrey Michael hopped off his horse. Regina took his hand, and they walked towards the Frog Bog. Jacqueline wasn’t there. They walked outside to the rides behind the enclosed building, but no Jacqueline. They walked back inside by the Skeeball machine. No Jacqueline. Jeffrey Michael continued to sing while Regina dragged him around Funland. She went back to the Frog Bog in case Jacqueline had been in the bathroom earlier.

“Excuse me,” she said to the man holding several plastic frogs. “Have you seen a girl, a little older than this boy? Wearing a tennis dress over her bathing suit. Brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.”

“I did. Walked right by me about twenty minutes ago. Headed for the boardwalk. Haven’t seen her since.”

“Thank you.” Regina picked up Jeffrey Michael, who had finally stopped singing and realized his sister was missing. They sped towards the boardwalk.

“Sissy! Sissy! Jacqueline Marie!” Regina wasn’t worried about surviving her last two weeks anymore. Instead, she was considering what would happen if she couldn’t find Jacqueline. Mrs. Rosenthal would probably call her parents and make them drive the two hours it took to get to Rehoboth to pick her up. Regina would probably have to give them most of the money she earned this summer as punishment. May as well kiss driving lessons goodbye.

Regina turned left towards Delaware Avenue. She dodged packs of vacationers and popped her head into every store Jacqueline might have visited: Gems & Junk, Candy Kitchen, Dolle’s, Rehoboth 5 & 10, all the way to the Atlantic Sands. Then she moved her search to the beach, guessing that Mrs. Rosenthal, with her thermos of gin and tonic water, wouldn’t notice them.

Regina kept glancing towards the ocean, hoping that Jacqueline hadn’t had any ideas about going swimming alone.

Regina walked the beach all the way to Brooklyn Avenue,

then stopped. She heard someone playing a guitar and singing under the boardwalk: “Spent a little time on the mountain, spent a little time on the hill. Heard some say better run away, others say you better stand still.”

The song was one Regina had never heard before, not at home with her mom controlling the radio, and not at the beach where music was limited to what could be heard coming from the boardwalk shops. In fact, she doubted she’d hear such music on any radio station she knew of. The bluesy tone was a refreshing break from the pop songs she was used to hearing. Still holding Jeffrey Michael, she stepped under the boardwalk to take a closer look.

Regina stared at the man with the guitar. He wore a white t-shirt and a large straw hat even though he was shaded by the boardwalk above his head. His jeans were jagged above his brown sandals. Written in green letters on the side of a faded black guitar case were the words “Big Lar.” Coins were gathered at the wide end inside it. Half a dozen people sat in a semicircle around the singer. The person sitting closest to him was the smallest—and wearing a tennis dress.

“Sissy!” Regina hissed, not wanting to interrupt the singer.

Jacqueline pretended not to hear.

“Jacqueline Marie!”

The sound of her full name made the girl turn. She smiled and waved to Regina, then turned her head back towards the musician.

Regina fumed but didn’t want to cause a scene, so she stood just outside of the semicircle of listeners, still holding Jeffrey Michael in her arms. Unconsciously, she swayed as the man sang, taking in the lyrics now that she gave him her full attention. Soon the song ended and the singer received polite applause. Several people threw more change into the guitar case’s belly and walked out from beneath the boardwalk. Regina used that moment of transition to collect her lost lamb.

“Sissy, why did you wander off?”

“I heard the music and wanted to find it. Isn’t he great?” Jacqueline beamed at the musician.

“Thank you, little missy.” The singer smiled at Jacqueline, then looked up at Regina. “I take it she’s in your care?”

“She is.” Regina smiled at the man, then shot a look at Jacqueline who continued to ignore her. Regina turned her gaze back to the singer. “What’s your name? What were you singing?”

“Name’s Larry, but I go by Big Lar.” Larry pointed to the guitar case. “Know the Grateful Dead? One of their songs. ‘New Speedway Boogie.’ Heard it at a Dead show at Temple a few years ago and decided to learn to play it.”

“I like it. I wish I could hear more.” Regina smiled again at Larry, then spoke directly to Jacqueline who could no longer feign ignorance. “Sissy, it’s time to go.”

Jacqueline slowly got up and walked towards Regina.

“Will you be back on the beach later?” Larry asked.

Regina knew the question was for her. She felt her face burn, and not because of the heat or the sun. She hesitated before answering, “I usually go to a movie on Wednesday nights. It’s my one night off.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll still be under the boardwalk.

Unless I get arrested. Like the morning sun, you come, and like the wind you go. Ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait. Oh oh, all I want to know is where does the time go.”

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Regina mulled over her choices while she sat with the children in the large house’s enclosed porch. It wouldn’t hurt her feelings to skip American Graffiti because she could watch it next week. But clearly Larry, whom she had never seen on the beach before, was much older than she was. She couldn’t imagine what had brought him and his guitar here at the end of the summer.

Judging by his clothes and the money he collected, her guess was that he didn’t have a regular job or a home. But she couldn’t shake his face or his voice from her mind. He lived, in a way she had only dreamed of: freely, on his own terms.

As much as Regina wanted to drop everything she had worked for—money for driving lessons, Jeffrey Michael and Sissy, time away from her parents and siblings—and run away from her predictable life, the risk of totally abandoning it wasn’t something she was ready for. More practically, if she did meet up with Larry tonight there had to be a way for Regina to get back into the Rosenthal’s house if she was out later than normal. This was a problem she had yet to solve.

“Reggie, let’s sing the song again!” Jeffrey Michael wanted to sing “On a Carousel” for the fiftieth time since conquering the painted metal beast.

Jacqueline rolled her eyes and went back to picking off her nail polish.

Jeffrey Michael sang while Regina continued the debate in her head.

How cool would it be to run off with a random guy from the beach?

How much trouble will I be in when I come back?

Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I want to walk on the wild side for once.

But what would I do? Learn to play the guitar and sing songs for a living?

Isn’t that better than what I do now?

Regina had no response to her last question.

stopped. “The sun’s down, the wind’s cool. We should drive around a bit.”

“Sure, Larry.” Regina was thrilled at her newfound boldness, and she hoped the pause that came before her answer didn’t betray her nerves.

Larry packed his guitar in its case. He stood up, grabbed the case in one hand, took Regina’s hand in his other, and sang while they walked to his station wagon. “‘Till the morning comes, it’ll do you fine. ‘Till the morning comes, like a highway sign, showing you the way, leaving no doubt, of the way in or the way back out.”

The faded blue Dodge wagon was parked on Kent Street.

Larry opened the lift gate and put the case and his hat next to his surfboard, then he opened the passenger’s side door for Regina.

Once she sat down, he shut her door, jogged over to the driver’s side, and jumped in. Regina stared out the window as he started the wagon. He made a left onto 5th Street, a right onto Rehoboth Avenue, and turned onto the highway, heading south.

Larry hummed for a little while, then asked, “What do you do when you’re not babysitting?”

Regina continued to look out the window. She blurted out the first lie that came into her head. “I’m starting classes at the University of Delaware in a couple weeks.”

“Really?” Larry didn’t sound convinced.

“Yup. Excited to start!”

Larry didn’t reply. He was so quiet that Regina was afraid he’d turn around and take her back to the boardwalk.

“Is everything okay, Larry?”

“I don’t think much of college. Didn’t keep me from getting drafted. Didn’t help me when I got back. Might be fine for a girl

Regina turned right from Rolling Road and the Rosenthal house and followed her normal route towards the Beachwood Theater on Rehoboth Avenue. She quietly sang the street name song she’d made up for Jeffrey Michael: “Ride the Surf to Grenoble, Virginia waits for you! Olive waves while you walk, Maryland has the zoo…”

Once she hit the intersection where Surf Avenue meets Lake Avenue, Regina took to the sand. She stopped singing and quickened her pace to match her heartbeat. Soon Regina could hear Larry’s voice even though she was a street away from him.

Larry smiled when Regina sat in front of him. “Didn’t think you’d be back.”

“Sure you did. That’s why you’re still here.”

“Maybe I hoped you would. I take it those aren’t your kids you were carrying around, Miss…?”

“Regina. No, just watching them this summer. I take it you don’t have kids since you catch change in a guitar case for a living.”

Larry laughed. “You got me! I wander around, playing music I like, just getting by. Don’t need more than that.”

Regina listened awhile as Larry strummed his guitar. Then she asked, “How long have you been ‘wandering’?”

“I dunno, maybe three or four years. I stopped counting when I stopped caring.” Larry played a few more chords, then

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like you, but I’ve had to make my way without it.”

Regina had nothing to say to this. The men in her family had avoided Vietnam by being either too old or too young. What she knew about the war came from reports on the news or an announcement one time in her high school about a senior who had died in combat. Not knowing what else to do, Regina took Larry’s free hand in her own.

Larry turned towards Regina and smiled, then started to sing again. “I set out running but I take my time. A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine. If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight.”

“Sissy. Sissy. Can you hear me? It’s Reggie.”

Seconds as long as hours ticked by. Then the window cracked opened wider.

“I know where you went,” Jacqueline said. “I should get Mom. Or Dad.” “And I should tell them you wandered off when you were told to stay put.”

“You wouldn’t! You’d get in trouble, too!”

“Not as much as you would.”

It was quiet. Then Jacqueline said, “Okay, I won’t tell.”

“Just move over and I’ll squeeze through.”

Jacqueline stepped back. Regina hoisted herself up and scrambled inside.

“Thanks, Sissy.”

Regina dusted the sill’s sand and dirt off her clothes and walked in the dark towards the bedroom door. Before she reached it, Jacqueline asked, “Did he sing to you?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Did you know any of the songs?”

“Not even one.”

“Reggie, will he be under the boardwalk again tomorrow?”

Regina paused. “I don’t think so. Go back to bed, honey.”

She waited until Jacqueline tucked herself in, then Regina walked out of the bedroom and shut the door. She tiptoed across the hall and closeted herself in her bedroom, pulling the tape out of her bag to prove that she hadn’t been dreaming.

Whether because Larry’s voice was in her head or because she imagined she could still feel the breeze that came through the wagon’s window as they drove around just south of Rehoboth, Regina was more excited than she’d been for most of the summer. She forgot all about the Rosenthals and the last two weeks she’d spend at the beach house. Instead, she focused on how she would take driving lessons and soon be free—free to go wherever she wanted. Once she got her license, she would have to read maps and memorize roads that led outside of Wilmington, perhaps outside of Delaware. She’d have to find out where the Grateful Dead would be playing, maybe drive herself to a concert on her next big adventure.

Regina would have driven around with Larry all night, but she knew she had to sneak back into the large beach house. Just before midnight, Larry let Regina hop out on Surf Avenue so she could walk to the Rosenthal residence from the direction of the movie theater.

“Regina, before you go.” Larry dug into his dashboard and pulled out a cassette tape. He leaned over the seat and handed it to her. “Something to take when you go home.”

Regina saw “Grateful Dead 5-16-70” scrawled in pen on the label. “Thank you, Larry. I’ll never forget tonight.” She smiled, closed the wagon door, and waved as he drove off.

Regina hid the tape in her crocheted shoulder bag and hurried towards Rolling Road. As she approached, she saw that the house lights were out. She crept quietly to the back door and tried the knob. It didn’t turn.

Regina held her breath. She counted three windows to the right, walked to the appropriate sill, and tapped the slightly ajar pane.

Paula Persoleo is a 2011 graduate of Stony Brook’s MFA program in Southampton, NY. She was born in Wilmington and raised in Hockessin.

Currently, she is an adjunct at the University of Delaware and lives in Delaware with her husband. Her most recent work can be found in Gordon Square Review.

Philadelphia Stories is pleased to announce the

2018 Tenth Annual

Marguerite McGlinn

Prize for Fiction This annual national short fiction contest features a first place $2,000 cash award and invitation to an awards dinner on the campus of Rosemont College; a second place cash prize of $500; and third place cash prize of $250. The Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction is made possible by the generous support of the McGlinn and Hansma families.

Opens: January 1, 2018 For more information, www.philadelphiastories.org

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DANCER BY RINAL PARIKH

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Past the Days of Yes Y'allin' Poem by Martin Wiley

It was 2 Live Crew, of course, that taught me it was actually okay to like Bruce Springsteen. *** Fighting against the current on the way to second period Biology, I felt a quick tug. Pete had snagged my arm but he shouldn’t have been there, everyone knew he never missed History on the other side of the school—yet there he was, waiting.

In his hand: a tape.

There was a power, once, in tapes.

Battered, worn, outer shell scratched, faded, yet the word Megadeth remained, clear as day. He held it out to me. I preferred not to be rude–to a friend. But, you know, Megadeth.

I wasn’t really looking to listen to regular death, so this was a little much.

Yo, man, you gotta hear this. *** The right to be angry is the most American thing anyone can claim.

Everything else is born from that. It is the very reason we want our guns or speech protected. More than a flag, more than a song, this is what brings us together, what makes us one.

Check the stage, I declare a new age Get down for the Prophets of Rage.

Martin Wiley is a recovering poet and community college professor in Philadelphia. He spent the last few years frantically trying to stay on the wagon but his children’s love of words has dragged him, kicking and screaming, back into the poetry world.

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*** Pete thrust that tape into my hands and I could see those little tabs at the top had been pierced, ruptured, conquered.

What is it?

He only shook his head, and just like that, he was gone.

Clear the way for the Prophets of Rage. *** In the summer of 1990, three members of 2 Live Crew were pulled off stage and arrested as they played at a sex club.

Officially, they were charged with obscenity for music performed at a sex club.

That may be the greatest sentence I will ever write. *** When I finally got around to homework that evening, I threw Pete’s tape on, figuring if I’m already doing algebra, ain’t no tape gonna make it any worse.

No work got done that night.

It Takes A Nation Of Millions to hold us back.

The music was like bug repellant for parents, a screeching whine that repeated, endlessly, effortlessly, the loop was the meaning, the meaning was in the loop. I mean, the album started with a goddamn air-raid siren, a warning, a call and response that flicked something buried within cultural DNA. It’s like that, I’m like Nat leave me the hell alone If you don’t think I’m a brother—check the chromosomes.

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*** It is an inconvenient truth that free speech can be attacked on all sides, when a right-wing Florida DA locked arms with a Democratic soon-to-be Vice President’s wife to lock up some Black dudes for singing about butts. The surreality of strange bedfellows goes both ways, however, and in July 1990 2 Live Crew released Banned in the USA, notable as the first album to come equipped with a parental advisory sticker.

You have to understand, the title track drove white people in Jersey fucking insane. *** I played Pete’s tape, flipped it, played it, the loop was the meaning, the meaning was hidden in the loop.

(Stereo, stereo) describes my scenario. *** You see, this was Bruce, the Poet of the Parkway, the god whose words united Wall Street commuters with Meadowlands tailgaters, who traced a sacred lineage from Dylan all the way back to Whitman, but better, more real than either of them could hope to be.

A man of the people.

And we all knew which people.

My friends and I basked in the outrage of all those who screamed their love for Jersey Jesus, and shrieked their horror that some no talent Blacks had taken sacred tracks

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and turned them into some weird anti-American defense of perversion. Finally, we thought, the music of the people who refused to hire us, who labeled me Zebra or half-breed, who didn't bother to hide their disbelief when we aced math tests, who assumed we cheated when we bested their kid's SAT scores, for once the music of the people who hated everything about us would be used to speak for us. *** And then, Kurt Loder, MTV News, interrupting Yo! MTV Raps! to report on the controversy, read a statement from The Boss himself: Anyone who doesn't support 2 Live Crew's use of "Born in the USA" obviously never listened to the lyrics of my song, anyway. *** In those days, MTV still played music, and when the time allotted to hip hop was over, they went straight to the video, Bruce, in concert, Born in the USA. And for the very first time, my friends and I actually listened.

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On Ecstasy Poem by Alexander Long

I like hearing things before I feel them and the other way The disconnect I guess Listening the scent

around the shadow

of Hendrix

The symphony of an oyster sluicing down the throat The hum of horseradish in its wake And ounce after ounce of Grey Goose erupting In the guts like a rainbow The scent of a rainbow is dampened wood In August and August sounds like crickets and frogs Fucking their brains out and sex tastes Like oysters the sea Looks like laundry on the line Just before a summer downpour Giddy

helpless

everywhere

I prefer the Walt Whitman to the Brooklyn To leap from but it makes no difference I’ve just crushed a mosquito against my ear again And its one-note song tastes Of iron I’ve been told dust is my destiny Hurry up

I say

I couldn’t be happier

Alexander Long's third book of poems, Still Life, won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize in 2011. He's also published four chapbooks, the most recent being The Widening Spell, an abridged biography of Amerian poet Larry Levis, edited by Jess Smith (Q Avenue Press, 2016). Work appears & is forthcoming in AGNI, American Poetry Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Blackbird, Callaloo, The Chronicle of Higher Education, From the Fishouse, Iron Horse Review, New Letters, Plume, The Southern Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, & Writers' Chronicle, among others. Long is Associate Professor of English at John Jay College, the City University of New York.

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DOBRO BY ARVID BLOOM

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Pictures of You Adriana Lecuona

Hearing Big Audio Dynamite or Tori Amos, I’m transported to the passenger seat in my brother Manny’s golden pickup truck when he drove me to Ithaca for a college interview. I was 26. He was 23. On the highway, two state troopers pulled us over alongside a stretch of browning cornfields.

One trooper eyed Manny’s hair, which was pulled back into a low ponytail and banded with a scarf. He asked to see the ashtray. I grew quietly concerned.

Manny asked, “What’s the problem, officer?”

“Just let me see the ashtray, son.”

Manny pulled out the ashtray. It was full of potpourri. The officer poked his finger in it and searched its dried petals and leaves.

The other officer asked, “What is that?”

“Something like pot-pour-ree, I think.”

“Pot-pour-ree?”

They smelled it. With thinly disguised smirks, they regarded Manny anew. “Why do you have tinted windows, son?”

“Florida sun,” Manny said.

“You’ve got Pennsylvania plates.”

I explained that our mother and sister lived in Miami and that Manny visited them for long periods.

After the troopers cleared Manny, they let us be and drove off.

Manny turned to me and said, “That was close.”

He patted the marijuana in his pocket, half-winking at me and chuckling, “Pot-pour-ree.”

I shuddered and, after a moment, laughed.

We drove, listening to the big, upbeat sounds of Big Audio Dynamite and the haunting lyricism of Tori Amos, artists I had never heard before. I bought their CDs when I returned home and they became my favorites. I would remember the car ride to Ithaca, Manny in the driver’s seat with his long hair, his marbled scarf, his denim cut-offs, his arm draped across the steering wheel, and the white line of the highway leading us onward and away.

He was the sole male child in a Cuban-American family, and thus received significant cultural privileges via more affection, material possessions, attention, and freedom. Too often, I would stand by the checkout line as Father bought Manny a train, while he wouldn’t buy me the purple-haired troll I wanted. These experiences, however, had nuances too subtle for a child to appreciate. Manny would have been too young to understand my feelings, and I was too young to understand that those ostensible gifts were mainly intended for my father’s enjoyment.

Two years later, I emerged from my depression with a strong will to change—and live. Music played an important role in my early attempts at self-determination. Seeking solace and inspiration, I listened to the Beatles, Olivia Newtown-John, Kiss, The Knack, Fleetwood Mac, and The Cars. I would write in a journal with song quotes peppering the entries. I developed a new identity.

I also began making friends, something which, for once, I had and my younger sibling didn’t. Whenever Manny tried to tag along, I’d rebuff him and glance back in conflicted triumph as he stood on the tree-lined sidewalk staring at me. Once, Mother forced me to take Manny along to a pool with my best friend. At the pool, I ignored him completely. When we returned home, he told my mother who then pressed a lit cigarette into my hand.

Manny could not know how jealous I had been at the attention he received, which, I realized later, was significant only in comparison to the neglect I had experienced. I knew Manny was lonely at school, taunted by pejorative nicknames and bullied.

At home, my father was physically and verbally abusive towards his sensitive son. I sympathized with my brother and, sometimes, felt pangs of remorse. But, as an adolescent, I could also easily tamp those pangs. Life owed me, I thought, and Manny was one of the reasons why.

My perspective changed when, late in his high school career, Manny discovered the Scorpions, then the Smiths, Sisters of Mercy, and Morrissey. I’d open my bedroom door and listen to the music emanating from his room below. Once, I was compelled downstairs to listen more closely and found myself sitting on Manny’s bed. We listened to U2’s October. I became an avid fan, of the music and of my brother.

Manny had changed. He grew his hair long, wore hippie-surfer-dude-cool-enough-for-goth styled clothes and developed a tender handsomeness emphasized by his sidelong glances and quiet chuckles. Suddenly, he seemed always ready to flee, so

When I was in fifth grade, I entered into a severe depression and attempted suicide several times. I remember little from this time, and I don’t know if there was a particular incident that caused my despair. Perhaps my hopelessness arose from my father’s physical abusiveness, my mother’s emotional frigidity, and the favoritism they showed Manny.

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SEND IN THE CLOWNS BY ROSALIND BLOOM

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We lived an hour’s driving distance from each other, but traffic along the intervening King of Prussia corridor could lengthen the commute significantly. Manny could not endure the gridlock.

Despite many efforts over the years, I broke the relationship with Manny. At 42, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, and I asked Manny not to tell anyone in the family. I feared their indifference, and I knew Manny would keep that promise.

When I first told him, Manny answered with stunned silence. I held the phone to my ear, staring at the crumbs on my kitchen counter, waiting for him to say something empathetic. He never did. He called me the next day and said, “I talked to this guy at work. He had testicular cancer. He told me it wasn’t too bad. You’ll be alright.”

I understood his words had an aim, except the target wasn’t the deep place I needed. He had meant, I believe, to lessen the scope of suffering, if not mine then his. Doing so may have mitigated his obligations towards me—after all, if cancer was not “too bad,” it did not then warrant any special effort on his part— but it may have relieved him of some anxiety for me. Still, I wanted Manny to visit me. I needed to know he loved me enough to visit me one more time, just in case.

Instead, he would call every week. He began each call with a polite inquiry about my health, but if I told him about my fears or my pain, he said little except, “Stay positive and it’ll be alright.” I learned to withhold the information I wished to share with him. Mostly, Manny would talk about the used cabin cruiser his wife had purchased for him. The boat needed repairs and he related these in detail: techniques, costs, the difficulty finding replacement parts, the complicated business of docking. I tried to imagine the intricate maneuvers of exiting or parking the boat at the dock as he described. But I found it difficult to maintain interest, especially given the daily struggles I was experiencing.

With each call, I’d swallow more confusion. I’d remind myself the calls themselves were proof he cared, but how could I continue to interpret the content of these calls as heartfelt concern? I wanted so much more.

About four months into my treatment, I was leaving the cancer center and walking across Washington Square when I listened to a voice message from Manny. Our sister’s husband was having dizzy spells, and the doctors were unable to determine why. Our mother who previously had few kind words for him was flying down to help care for him. Manny was worried, saying he “felt really bad” and calling our brother-in-law “a poor guy.” He thought I needed to know.

I had to sit down on a bench and breathe. All the concern I wanted for myself, Manny had just expressed for our brother-inlaw. How much time had they actually spent together?

I couldn’t handle the lack of our interactions anymore. I was overwhelmed enough by cancer. I emailed Manny a request: “Dear Manny, the things that you've said and, even more, the things that you haven't done have been so incredibly hurtful. I need you to just not contact me for a long while—at least until I'm over what is such a difficult time. How about if I call you when I'm ready? This is not to make you have a guilty conscience. I love you, but let's face it, if you're not going to be there for me as family or as a friend when I have something like cancer, what is the point? Take good care and have a good summer.”

When I first told him, Manny answered with stunned silence. I held the phone to my ear, staring at the crumbs on my kitchen counter, waiting for him to say something empathetic. He never did. He called me the next day and said, “I talked to this guy at work. He had testicular cancer. He told me it wasn’t too bad. You’ll be alright.” he would. After high school, he would drive away and stay in unknown places for indefinite periods of time.

When Manny graduated from Lower Merion High School, my parents divorced, and my mother and sister moved to Miami. I would visit annually. During one visit, Manny unexpectedly asked me if I wanted to go to a club. I was thrilled by this rare offer. I freshened up in the bathroom quickly and then examined the clothes I’d packed with trepidation. With full appreciation of their inadequacy, I displayed my two best options for the evening: a blouse with white capri jeans or a tie-dye cover-up. Manny shook his head. No way.

Instead, he gave me one of his black t-shirts and his black jeans. I wore them with giddy delight. We drove out in his truck and parked near warehouses by an empty beach. We walked onto the beach, and the ocean breeze pressed the fabric of his black t-shirt and his black jeans against my skin. The air was delicious against my face and neck. Though I had not smoked weed in years, I couldn’t resist when Manny offered me his joint. We alternated tokes as we walked. I imagined I inhaled the moonlight.

Being with Manny, I felt new. Remade in his clothes and the salty air. The moon high, its light a shimmering ray on the rippling ocean. We meandered along the water’s edge, listening to the crest and fall of the waves.

When we finished smoking, we walked back up the beach to the Kitchen Sink, a club with glowing cutlery hanging from the black ceiling. Sipping our drinks, we leaned against a high table watching people dance below multicolored spot lights amid the twirling flatware.

Then, Pictures of You by The Cure played.

The steady snare accentuated the twangy bass in a hypnotic rhythm. Manny set down his drink and walked to the dance floor. He headed right to the center. His shoulder-length hair was loose, his Adam’s apple prominent. Manny closed his eyes and tilted his face upward towards the white bulb above. Under the spotlight, space all around him, all else in the shadows, arms limp at his sides, fingers slack, he swayed.

Manny and I tried to maintain a relationship in our adulthood, but it never coalesced into steady contact. Even after Manny had settled in Pennsylvania, no matter how many times I would visit him, the interval of time before our next get-together increased.

He pursued a career as a sound engineer and met and married his wife; meanwhile, I pursued my academic studies, worked as an administrative assistant, and met and married my husband.

Later that afternoon I was at work when Manny left me a message. He yelled, “I have never known anyone—ANYONE—who

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FLAMENCO / ROSARIO TOLEDO BY ROB LYBECK

pushes her family away! Don’t you know family is all you have?”

He explained, “You told me not to tell anyone, and my wife doesn’t know, so how could I visit you? I know that you’re sick, but it doesn’t give you any excuse to behave in this way!” After a pause, he yelled, “Fine! Be that way!”

I completed my treatment in the fall, but I did not call him.

I was deeply hurt he had not contacted me again. For a few years, I wondered what I could want from a future relationship with Manny, if that was even possible. It was a long time before I could understand that, in order to have a relationship with Manny, I could not expect any satisfying emotional reciprocity. He had become more emotionally removed than I had ever known him to be. I would have to accept what he could give: calls, visits to him, or meeting points.

In recent years, I have tried contacting him to no avail.

For most of my adult life, I was afraid of the suicidal child I had once been. I believed she resided in me, waiting to return, waiting to test my family, longing for their sympathy. I imagined she waited inside me, hoping an illness would solicit their attention and prove that, yes, their love would materialize before I died.

This secret wish threatened my survival.

If Manny were to have proven their love by visiting me or offering tangible concern, perhaps my familial longings would have been assuaged. Instead, he confirmed my family’s truancy.

Though his response was egregious to me, it was, if not life-saving, ultimately liberating. Later, I would come to realize I had

been suicidal as a child because of my family’s dysfunction and not because of an organic psychological flaw as I had always believed.

I think about the unspoken confusion and discomfort of our last interactions. I think of how much I wanted to feel close to Manny. How much I wanted to lose my perpetual awkwardness with him. How much I hated that nothing, not even cancer, could remedy our disconnection.

Watching Manny dance that night at the Kitchen Sink, I almost laughed. To me, his sway-dance was one arm-movement away from standing. I did not laugh. My admiration for him, maybe even my love for him, held me for another minute. Perhaps I knew even then, I needed to safeguard this image of him.

I joined him on the dance floor, shuffling and bobbing in a subdued manner I hoped would match his style.

I see it clearly now.

Dancing together, brother and sister, knives and forks dangling overhead.

Adriana Lecuona is honored to contribute to Philadelphia Stories.

A native Philadelphian, she now lives in Wallingford with her husband and son. Recently she completed an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. She has a previous MFA in Film & Media Arts from Temple University and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Lecuona’s work has appeared in The Pennsylvania Gazette, Be Well Philly, Somos En Escrito, and others.

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Listening to Chet Baker Poem by Ed Granger

Always a beat too cool for whatever school the rhythm guys are swimming in as if each bar hangs shimmering like an ornament, tugs at some continuum between the lips you purse to whittle every eighth-note silhouette and your last quicksilver fix as you ghost out of your battered brass soul straight past the gilded to the hammered-thin–fugitive gift that stuns the metronome, then reels us in.

Ed Granger lives and was raised in Lancaster County, where he consequently learned early the proper way to pass a buggy. He works for a healthcare non-profit and is a half-time dad. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Seminary Ridge Review, Loch Raven Review, The Delmarva Review, and other journals.

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FLUID HARMONY BY SUSAN KLINGER

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Grunge Gremlins, an E.P. Poem by Joe Costal

Track 1.

I knew Kip Winger and Mötley Crüe were getting blow jobs even though I didn’t know what blow jobs were.

When I first heard the phrase, I thought of hair dryers, the robot helmet-looking chairs inside my mom’s beauty parlor. Where the viejas called MTV “mierda,” but I couldn’t get enough. Heavy metal was my favorite, backstage footage in black and white, so it had to be real. Rockers who looked like girls surrounded by more girls.

Indistinguishable. Make-up from the neck up.

But the girl girls. Girls big-boobed and Aqua Netted blondes with toasted brown skin, lined up, hobbled like bruised peaches in halter tops, raising rail thin, downy haired arms in bangle bracelet unison. Yelling Woooooo at the camera, like it was all they knew how to say.

Track 2.

When Poison played live on Headbanger’s Ball, one of these girls lifted her “Open Up and Say Ahhh…” t-shirt, exposing white breasts. Bounced awake my insides. The camera caught it. Just a flash, but long enough.

Long enough to hum electric in my mind’s eye buzzing red as the Coca-Cola light in our drug store’s window.

Track 3.

And I wanted to touch a boob.

I decided one night, sweaty under Batman bedspread.

I wanted to touch one so bad. Even though my Cuban grandfather called me a “fag” when I couldn’t catch a football while he was watching. I wanted to touch a boob. But I couldn’t play the recorder, let alone guitar. And I didn’t have money to buy a puffy ruffled pirate shirt or spandex. Nor the thigh width required for tight leather pants. No hair to style up and out.

To tease. Mine was low and tight, combed over and back with Abuelo’s long black comb, licked fresh and unsheathed from his back pocket. When he was done my hair resembled Batista’s gelled helmet, not the curly chaos of Guevara’s guerrillas.

Joe Costal is a writer living at the Jersey Shore with his four children. His poetry appears or is forthcoming in Challenges for the Delusional 2, an anthology

by Diode Editions; The Maine Review, Pif Magazine & Ponder Review. He is an assistant editor at Barrelhouse.

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Track 4.

The 90s came to solve all our problems.

Those pansy ass glam bands. Fuck them said 1992, ripping Jon Bon Jovi and Warrant off my wall. Nevermind, said 1992, in a ringer ree, naked baby cassette in hand, throwing away Hysteria and all those used GNR Illusions.

Said 1992, “No one gives a fuck.” Not Nirvana, nor Mudhoney, nor Fugazi. Tool. And Pearl Jam pissed off Ticketmaster and nobody wanted seals clubbed.

Or wars started. Or New Kids. Or videos.

And the cool girls now wore overalls.

And Abuelo’s closet was filled with all the flannel I needed. And I walked to high school washed in pre-soaked Old Spice and Pall Malls. My thighs the perfect width for denim.

Track 5.

That fall, Billy Mirabelli got a blow job in his bathroom while we watched Gremlins on HBO. His mother worked the dinner shift at Ground Round, so his house was where that kind of shit went down.

Drugs. Sex. Billy went into the bathroom like a virgin, came out like a prayer. Hoping to be a man.

I studied his gaze. He still looked like the rest of us, except dazed. Not older, as I’d suspected, from the way my brother talked about the girls who stood on Boulevard East, their pink lipstick and yellow teeth. Their frayed, waxy bodies a parable. Their jeans ripped down an entire thigh.

Our girls only ripped at the knee. The denim threads, taut, like Venetian blinds.

Wigwam socks rolled calf-high. Our girls wore beige lipstick and never smiled. Never talked.

Always bored. Like the girl who blew Billy– she didn’t say a word, looked straight ahead while Phoebe Cates described her dead Santa dad, his neck snapped in bottled-up chimney.

Crumpled forward in soot.

Track 6.

I stared at the blowjob girl in spite of myself.

Though I knew enough to try not to. Her cheeks shiny as fruit skin, reflecting the dancing yellows and blacks of the movie. The gremlin death cries. The water and bright lights. The eating after midnight.

Something in Billy’s eyes told me not to envy him, his new blowjob life. Not to trust the other boys when they clapped him on the back raising rail-thin, downy-haired arms in high-five unison, yelling Woooooo at each other, like it was all they knew how to say.

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A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On Poem by Marjorie Maddox

Yeah, not just fingers, but hands, shoulders, torso, limbs, Good Golly, Miss Molly, everything swings up and over the ivories, blasting away the past with the lit stick of boogie-woogie and blues rolled up in rock that explodes from his lipsticked lips crackling with Slippin’ and Slidin’ and Tutti Frutti like they own the joint, ‘cause they do. Nah, nothing little ‘bout his lungs wailing Long Tall Sally, nothing little ‘bout that pompadoured dude blowing the lid off the fifties.

Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry (including Local News from Someplace Else), the short story collection What She Was Saying, and four children's books. She is co-editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State Press). Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com.

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College Audition Emily Eckart – Novel Excerpt

At first, when I heard the crackly voice over the PA calling my name, I thought I might be hallucinating. Over the last thirty days, I'd flown to Boston, to Cincinnati, to New York; I'd explained to dubious airport officials that a French horn was a musical instrument and that no, my conical wooden mute was not for cheerleading. I was starting to hear my audition pieces in car alarms and the inflections of people's voices.

The day before the ten-minute audition that would determine the rest of my life, I wanted to go straight home from school, listen to a few Beethoven symphonies, and eat a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Instead, I was called to the principal's office.

The stares and giggles of my classmates alerted me that the scratchy PA voice was real. “Iris Clark,” it repeated, “please report to the principal's office. Iris Clark. Please report now.”

I sighed and shuffled toward the office, jealous of everyone else bolting for sunny freedom beyond the school's doors. Even a few minutes' delay felt like a terrible imposition after a full day of imprisonment.

Mrs. LaFolle was waiting for me. She was wearing a navy blazer and a sheer ivory blouse with a tie at the neck. Her brittle smile looked like it might crack and drop off her face.

“Hello, Iris,” she said, folding her hands primly on her desk.

“What is it?”

I dreaded what she would say. Although I'd done nothing wrong, she had hated me ever since I missed the National Honor Society induction for a Youth Philharmonic rehearsal.

“Well, Iris.” She shuffled some papers and pretended to study them. “It appears that you've missed nine days of school so far. Tomorrow will be your tenth absence.”

“Yeah, I'm auditioning for music schools. My mom called.

Didn't you get her message?”

Mrs. LaFolle looked at me over her glasses. “If any student has ten unexcused absences, that student automatically gets five points docked from their average in each class.”

I inched forward to the sharp edge of my chair, clenching my fists in my lap. “But this is for college. My mom called. How is that unexcused?”

“If it's an optional activity,” Mrs. LaFolle said, “it's not excused.”

“Auditions are not optional. Not for schools like Juilliard and Eastman.”

“It's simply my duty to inform you of the consequences,”

Mrs. LaFolle said serenely. It was clear from her tone that she didn't know what Juilliard was, nor did she care to learn.

I felt like an empty glass that had been filled with hot lava. If I sat in that office for one more second, molten rage would come spilling out my eyeballs.

“If you dock my grades for this,” I said, standing up and heading for the door, “My parents are going to sue.”

I drove home faster than I should have, blasting the angry part of Beethoven’s Fifth as loud as my speakers would go. My car hurtled down the curves of the narrow road, past the organic dairy farm and the golf course, past the driveways and mailboxes and chemically-enhanced lawns. I hated this little town, hated it, hated it. I wanted desperately to leave. I couldn’t stand its provincial inhabitants, its five churches, its tiny library that never had the books I wanted. Its bland adults were flattened mediocrities: helicopter moms, doughy dads, teachers who'd gone to Norton High and come right back to reign over students asleep at sticky desks. I vowed never to succumb. I would never be downtrodden and pale. I would always be like Beethoven, steeped in art, shaking my fist at the thundering sky.

It was outrageous and unfair that Mrs. LaFolle should occupy any sliver of my mind. But I thought of her disdainful face as I vomited my lunch in the music building bathroom, just one hour before my audition. As I retched, I held back my own hair, trying not to splatter my audition blouse. Once my stomach was empty, I stared at the toilet in dismay. I felt sorry for the delicious lunch I'd eaten a little while ago. Mom had taken me to a cafe with blue gingham tablecloths and the menu written on chalkboard.

The seared sirloin steak, mashed potatoes, and brownie should have been the perfect thing to eat before the taxing task of playing the horn. Now their service had been rendered vain.

I stood up, feeling cold. There was a damp patch on my back where I'd been sweating. My throat ached and my teeth were coated in sour residue. I felt weak and shaky. I didn't know how I'd lift my horn in this state, especially not to perform difficult music in front of strangers.

I checked my phone. There were still thirty minutes before the audition—just enough time to wolf a granola bar and brush my teeth. It would be rushed, but that was better than playing on an empty stomach.

I exited the bathroom stall and spotted Juliet Jaeger, my exbest friend, standing at the sink. I'd hoped to get through audi-

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tion season without seeing her—a foolish hope, given that we both played horn.

Juliet's back was to me. I darted my eyes toward the door, wondering if I could escape without confrontation. But it was too late. By the way she adjusted the mess of curls hanging down her back, with a little too much of a theatrical touch, I could tell she'd heard me.

I moved to leave, but she spun around. She was wearing tight black pants, heels, and a black long sleeve blouse with a strip of sheer fabric at the top. Her hair was messy yet alluring, and she had put on dark, smudgy makeup around her eyes. She gave me a sinister smile.

“You didn't strike me as a purger.”

I stiffened at her insinuation. “I ate something bad.” Immediately I hated that I felt the need to explain to her.

She laughed. “Right.”

I decided not to let her affect my behavior. I marched up to the sink next to hers and washed my hands, resisting the urge to rinse my mouth. As I turned to go, my eyes snagged on her growing smirk. She was staring at my chest.

I looked down and saw that, despite my efforts, some vomit had spattered on the front of my audition blouse. Not bothering to dry my hands, I strode out of the bathroom, pretending that I still had some claim to dignity.

impress him.

He smiled at my selection. “It's unusual to hear the parallel minor. Most people go with relative.”

I hoped that would make him remember me.

“What did you bring for your solo?”

“Haydn's Second Concerto. First and second movements” “Interesting. Let’s hear it.” He adjusted his chair and sat back, as though settling in at the movie theater.

I flipped to my photocopied music. The Haydn concerto was a show piece for low horn, featuring a section with fast, tricky jumps between the upper-middle and pedal registers. Keeping my horn in my lap for a few seconds, I mentally rehearsed the first few measures, planning the tempo and mood. Prepared, I lifted my horn and felt a surge of dizziness. Hunger and weakness returned in a wave, washing away the small confident foothold I'd gained with my scales. I rested my horn on my leg, looked down, and shook my head.

“Are you all right?” the teacher asked.

“Um,” I said, trying to resist the nausea rising in my throat.

“I've been sort of sick lately.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He looked like he was trying to keep a neutral expression. I hoped he hadn't decided that I couldn't manage the pressure of being a performing musician.

Determined to prove that I could handle it, I launched into the Haydn. Usually I navigated the short, skipping notes with aplomb, but my nervousness made me rush. I started too fast and missed nearly half the notes. I blinked at my music, surprised that it had betrayed me so unexpectedly.

“Why don’t you try that again?” the teacher said, not unkindly.

“Take your time with the tempo.”

I started over, trying to follow his direction, remembering that Suzanne said some teachers liked to test you for instructability.

But I over-compensated, taking it too slow and running out of breath too soon. I had to breathe at a spot I wasn't used to and missed several notes as a result.

“Don't rush into playing after a breath,” he said. “You're the soloist.”

I kept failing, and he kept stopping me. The audition extended like a horrible dream. When it finally ended, I felt a rush of vertigo as I left the room. I reached for the door frame to steady myself. I thought of Bruce, who'd call me a wuss for how easily I'd been thrown by a little physical discomfort. I thought of Kintaro, who'd find not an ounce of music in my performance. I thought of Mom, who'd paid for years of music lessons. It was $65 a week for an hour-long lesson with Suzanne. It was $2,450 for Youth Philharmonic, plus $1500 for camp and $3,775 for this summer's tour to Germany. That didn't include the $75 to apply to each music school, the travel, the hotels, the various sundry costs—tuner, metronome, mutes, mouthpieces, valve oil, slide grease, snake. She had paid all this money, driven all these miles only for me to prove my mediocrity. My throat tightened and my eyes felt hot. I cried rarely, but I recognized this as the perilous prelude to tears. I moved quickly down the hall, determined that no one should witness my humiliation.

The horn auditions were held in a small classroom. The student desks had been pushed to one side. The blackboards had musical staves printed on their surface, ghosts of semi-erased notes floating amidst the lines. A few bookshelves held tattered theory texts and busts of famous composers.

The horn teacher sat in a chair on one side of the room, one lanky leg crossed over the other. He smiled at me as I moved toward the chair in the center of the room. It was a plastic scooped chair with a dip in the center, the kind I hated. It would be impossible to sit flat in it like I needed to.

“Hello, Iris,” the teacher said. “Play some notes, empty your slides. Get comfortable.”

I lowered myself into the chair, perching uncomfortably on the edge. I worked my valves a few times, all four of them in quick succession. Although it had never happened, I was terrified that one of my valves might stick during an audition. I lifted my horn and played a few notes. There was a slight, disconcerting echo in the room.

“Okay, why don't you play a couple of scales?”

“Which ones?”

“Choose your favorites. Major and minor.”

I hesitated, wondering if this was a trick question. Most teachers specified the scales you should play. I could pick easy scales in a comfortable range, but that might make me seem like a slacker. On the other hand, it was probably best not to reveal my weakness by venturing into the upper register.

I chose to start with D-flat major. The two-octave range of this scale lay in the safe low to middle register, but he'd be impressed with a scale that had five flats. I also preferred this scale for reasons intuitive and mysterious. I couldn't quite explain it, but D-flat major had always appealed to me.

I took a breath and dropped my jaw, letting a mellow D-flat emerge, round and low. I slid up and down the scale with ease.

“Great,” the teacher said. “How about minor?”

I chose to play C-sharp minor, knowing the four sharps would

As I exited the music building with Mom, I saw that it was snowing hard and fast. Already there was a thick white inch on the ground, with more snow whirling down like some cosmic down blanket had ripped open. When we got in the car, flakes coated the windshield so quickly the wipers could barely clear a

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AND THE MUSIC FLOWED THROUGH HER BY ARVID BLOOM

path for Mom to see. We came to a turn and Mom edged forward cautiously, but without effect. Our car slipped toward the intersection with steady, silent intent. Mom didn't speak, only gripped the wheel so hard her knuckle bones stood out white against her skin. Another car waited on the other side. I had time to look at the driver's face: a man in his sixties, with dignified white hair and thick eyebrows. He watched us with a touching look of concern, and for a moment my heart felt quiet as we slid with slick grace toward his vehicle. What did it matter, really, who got into Eastman and who didn't, when it all came down to this: ice, two cars, a deadly slip on the road? A thought whispered in the corner of my mind: maybe it was better for things to go like this, while I still had indeterminate promise. Better than to keep going and prove myself wrong. Then friction snared our tires, and we moved in the right direction once more.

Writers at Work Conference: Managing the Business of Being An Author

Sunday, February 11, 9-5 This one-day conference will address these challenges and introduce you to range of publishing experts who can help you learn ways to successfully manage your authorial career.

C OS T: $130, INCLUDES LUNCH AND REFRESHMENTS (50% OFF FOR ROSEMONT STUDENTS, FACULTY, ALUM)

Emily Eckart is the author of Pale Hearts, a story collection. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Nature, Potomac Review, and elsewhere. She studied music at Harvard University. Read more of her work at www.emilyeckart.com.

www.PhiladelphiaStories.org 27

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Girard Avenue Poem by Valerie Fox

Say you’re twenty-one and throw a party where you are house-sitting, a big row-house in a once opulent neighborhood, and you’ve danced with him, Russell, who is twenty-nine, and when he tries to get into your pants you let him, and say you never hear the stories about how Russell is really into girls your age, a lot of them, as told by Jimmy, who your close friend dated briefly to escape her abortion-guy, and well, say you go with Russell to Chicago, and get used to the temperatures, so when your older sister gets married and moves out there the two of you stay close, like when you shared a room growing up, and she let you listen to Abbey Road over and over, and have the top bunk, and a little later she sent you out to find out about birth control when you needed it, at some point, and then in Chicago, Russell’s oil paint smell and fluid, army-brat-Texan accent wears off on you, and his diamondo-pattern dada-vests, and, let’s face it, his luck, and in the summer, say you and your sister, who’s pining for a change of her own, go to Italy for a whole month, which feels new, beginning to end, keeping the window box begonias alive, cutting off your parents, drinking Chianti, and both of you can see and hear ghosts, but only the ones whose stories ring true, and you name your daughter Penny Lane

Valerie Fox’s recent chapbook, Insomniatic [poems], was published by PS Books. Previously she published The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books) and The Glass Book (Texture Press). She has published work in Painted Bride Quarterly, Philadelphia Stories, Ping Pong, Hanging Loose, Apiary, Juked, Cordite Poetry Review, qarrtsiluni, Sentence and other journals. She lives in central New Jersey and teaches at Drexel University.

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RESOURCES Philadelphia

Great Books

Interested in joining a Great Books discussion group?

There are over 50 groups meeting regularly in PA/NJ/DE using the Shared Inquiry Method for discussing significant works of literature or non-fiction.

Contact us to find a Great Books discussion group in your area: phila1@greatbooksdiscussionprograms.org

Porches Writing Retreat

For further information about Great Books events on the East Coast, see

overlooking James River Valley in the Virginia Blue Ridge open all year to artists | www.porcheswritingretreat.com

www.greatbooksdiscussionprograms.org

62nd Annual Great Books at

Creative Writing

Colby Summer Institute

Workshops Express your unique voice. Find joy in

at Colby College, Waterville, Maine — July 22 - 28, 2018

Woes of Wooing

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower Philip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus

writing.

Evening and daytime workshops Flourtown, PA • Center City, PA • Ardmore, PA

Writers of all levels welcome

Join our annual week of lively discussion at Colby College.

We are a community of people who enjoy reading and discussing Great Books.

Fiction • Non-fiction • Creative non-fiction • Memoir • Poetry Find out if a workshop is right for you.

Sit in on one workshop meeting as a guest, by appointment only.

For pricing and program details, visit the Colby website:

www.colby.edu/greatbooks www.greatbooks-atcolby.org

Alison Hicks, MFA, Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio www.philawordshop.com • ah@philawordshop.com • 610-853-0296 Monday evenings in Ardmore • Tuesday evenings in Center City Private Consultation for Manuscript Development

Rachel Kobin, Philadelphia Writers Workshop www.phillywriters.com • Rachel@phillywriters.com • 610-449-3773 Tuesday and Thursday evenings in Flourtown Private Consultation for Manuscript Development

FOR DETAILS, OR DIRECT ANY QUESTIONS TO JOHN DALTON AT 610-608-7711, OR EMAIL AGREATBOOK@AOL.COM

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PHILADELPHIA STORIES MEMBERS AS OF DECEMBER 2, 2017

Michener Level ($30 - $49) Aaron Bauman & Leigh Goldenberg Adriana Rosman-Askot Aimee LaBrie Albert Holl Alexandra E. Hensinger Alice Chung Bernadette Donohue Carolyn Guss Catherine Johns Cathleen Cohen Cecile Lefebvre-Burgeet Charles Watts Christine Obst Connie Fenty Delmar Staecker Denice Cavallee Diana Krantz Eileen Sanchez Frances Metzman Gail Priest George Brady Irene Fick Jacqueline Hopkins James Saunders James Griffith James & Maryann Cudd Jan Krzywicki Jeffrey Klemens Jessica Herring Joanne Green Joanne Barraclough John Novelli John Hayes Joseph Wechselberger Josephine A. Graham Kate Blakinger Kay Peters Kenneth Garson Kristin & Henry Joy McKeown Lise Funderburg Lois Schlachter Lora Lavin

Lori Widmer Madeline Etkin Marian Robinson Mark Cofta Mary & Owen Gilman Natalie Dyen Nicole Newman Pam Mclean-Parker Patricia Sentman Philip Bertocci Rita Fierro Robert & Judy Schachner Roma Kohut Ruth Littner Shelley Schenk Susette Brooks Theresa Donnelly Tom & Sarah Molinaro Winifred Hayek Buck Level ($50 - $99) Cheryl Mercier Christine & Tom Barnes Christine Kenn Sebelist Christopher Beardsley David Sanders & Nancy Brokaw Douglas & Peggy Gordon Ed Kratz Elizabeth Larsson Eric Loken Helen Mallon Jeffrey Thomsen & Catherine Coyle John Alexanderson Julie Cohen & Nigel Blower Lawrence O. Spataro Mary Erpel Mo Ganey & Don Kates Nelly & Scott Childress Paul Dobias Richard Mandel Sandra Sampson Stanley Szymanski

Stephen Morgan Susan Etkin Susan Karol Martel Sushashree Remesh Suzanne Kimball William & Elizabeth Kirk Whitman Level ($100 - $499) Barbara Bloom Betsy Mckinstry & Joel Edelstein Carol Oberholtzer Deborah Burnham Donna Keegan John & karen Shea Joseph Cilluffo Julia Rix Kristina & Steven Moriconi Laurie Wagman Martha Bottomley Nathan Long Stefanie Levine & Steven Cohen Sue Harvey & Scott Jahss Vernita Hall Walter Curran Potok Level ($500- $999) Concha Alborg Mary Pauer Mitchell Sommers Paul Smith Corporate & Foundations Recycle.how (Buck) Partners LLC (Potok) The Jewish Community Foundation (Whitman) The Gary Rosenau Foundation (Buck)

W.C. Williams Level ($1000+) Heather McGlinn Hansma & Scott Hansma Joseph A. Sullivan Michael Ritter & Christine Furtek Thomas McGlinn Sustainer Members Adam Toscani (Buck) Alex Husted (Potok) Bryan Skelly (Buck) Courtney Bambrick & Peter Baroth (Buck) Dana & Chris Scott (Whitman) Joshua Gwiazdowski (Michener) Julia Arnold (Whitman) Julie Odell (Whitman) Kimberly & Shawn Ruff (Buck) Madeleine Keogh (Buck) Maureen Fieldling (Buck) Nancy Jackson (Whitman) Patty Thorell (Michener) Savanna Mapelli (Michener) Tara & Andrew Smith (Michener) Thomas Baroth (Whitman) Trish Rodriguez (Michener) Will Woldenberg (Potok) Conrad Weiser Author Fund Joanne Green (Michener) Barbara Holdemberg (W.C. Williams Level) Marc & Kerri Schuster (Whitman)

You can help keep Philadelphia Stories in print and free by becoming a member today at

www.philadelphiastories.org/donate 30 PS_Winter_2018.indd 30

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Cultivating a community of writers,

artists, and readers across the Delaware Valley

A MAGAZINE THAT CREATES COMMUNITY THANKS TO MEMBER SUPPORT, PHILADELPHIA STORIES HAS BEEN SERVING THE WRITING COMMUNITY OF THE GREATER DELAWARE VALLEY SINCE 2004 IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:

• Connecting local writers to readers through 5,000 print copies of a free quarterly literary magazine, distributed at more than 200 locations, including all branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

• Supporting a community of young Philadelphia-area writers through Philadelphia Stories, Jr. & Teen, print and online magazines by young writers.

• Offering affordable conferences and workshops for writers.

• Hosting readings and other social events for writers.

• Publishing books through our boutique imprint, PS Books.

• Hosting two national contests, one for fiction and one for poetry.

YOU can help keep Philadelphia Stories—a non-profit 501c3—in print and free by making a donation today!

For as little as $30 a year, you can get home delivery and know that your gift directly supports the local arts community.

I would like to support local art & literature by making a contribution today.

MONTHLY PLEDGE:

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ONE-TIME MEMBER PLEDGE:

 Michener ($30-$49)  W. C. Williams ($1,000+) NAME ________________________________________ CITY ___________________________________

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

PS_Winter_2018.indd 31

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“

“Whatever uw Yo

ill hardly know w

I ho

or what I mean” am

the soul is truth.”

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than

Simplicity is the glory of expression.

just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

“What is that you express in your eyes?

It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

located in suburban Philadelphia

MFA in Creative Writing | MA in Publishing | Dual Degree in Creative Writing and Publishing

www.rosemont.edu

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