Bellerive, Issue 3: out of the void

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Bellerive Presents : out of the void

out of the void Bellerive 2002

Issue #3

Pierre Laclede Honors College

University of Missouri - St. Louis

Acknowledgements

p 0 st-Proctoral Fellow ... .. .

Rock-Paper-Scissors Team Captain

Director in Charge of Keeping Our Shit Together . .........

Assistant BS Coordinator

Shite Supervisors ........

Prospective Future Successor and Heir to Bill Nye the Science Guy

Overseer of the Overseen

Butts

Ana Alvarez

Powers That Be

Jamie Kerry

Alvarez Michelle Hendricks

Matt Dunn

Smith

Graphics Guy and Monarch of All Things Mac .....

Furnisher of Caffeine, Cocaine, Candy Corn, and Various Other Drugs

Printer Beaters

Eric Gantner

Gleason

members of the Honors College Student Body

Special Thanks to our honorary Art Editor, Eric Gantner.

We dedicate this issue of Bellerive to Celeste Brooks and Bernice Gamble. Together they have tidied our Honors College home and wanned our hearts. We thank them for the special gift they have been to us .

Editt1rs ' Note

A nn:

r mnlways _ amaz ed a t ho w an can de scri be everyday str ugg les thro ug h e ithe r bruta l re a li sm or humor. Th is ed iti on of Belleri n! ce rtaj nl y co ve rs all the se grounds. I' m pri vil eged to hove wo rked ,vith Nanc y. J a mie . and Michelle and to have participa ted in the ma kin g of Bellerive. Thank you to the Hono rs Co ll ege and to th e many talented artists who submitted the ir work

Mi chell e:

I reall y had a great time working on Belleri ve for the fir st time this year, and my only regret is that I waited until my senior year to ge t in vol ved w ith this very awesome publication . Nancy was reall y great about giving us free reign on just about every aspect of the process , and I can hardly believe we (somehow, almost magically) made all thjs great art into one great little book. Long li ve Bellerive!

Jamie :

This year we opened submissions up to the main campus in addition to the Honors College, and we're all extremely happy with the results. We had a great response and received a record number of submissions .

Like the rest of the editors, I'm graduating after this year, and I'm going to be very sad to leave UMSL, especially the Honors College , because I've had a blast. I've met so many great people and learned so much here. Working on Bellerive has definitely been one of highlights of my college career, and I hope th at ~hoever takes over my position as editor has as good of an expenen · h · PL ce wit it as I have. Good luck and love to everyone at HC, past, present, and beyond.

It is only wh en I live . h . we ook pa st the veil of disorder to the smaller s wit in that we are able to rise out of the void.

THEl<E Af.ZE /), LO . r (Jf . n--11NC:J S I WANT.

f ~\t,tr 71-i IN6S ! /<NOW

·1 r;tJtJ '-r NEE;[) .

... AND THING,S I 1M NOT R€A,LLY £XPfC-ff O TO PO

r WANT rr AL-L-.

UNCLE HAROLD DIED TDDA'/

JlJSf Fffl- PRE5SVR~D TO /\1\4~ -rHE N>OST OF 7HJN(JS

o 71-IE~E t A fotN, AS 1, r GY NlAK/ Mf Fl£ L 6/<EfPY.. . .

9

.L\ND ACT ~, -roo. R1=1=i t ON PAIN11NG?

6 01 ~, E:RYWHER

I %1 WISH I WAS Bf11E"R AT SAYIN& WH4T I MfAN.

\

f3U1 TH~,5 TH~ ,rl/N (, J t WHY CAN 'T I BE S4TISFIE.0 L[iAK INC, ,'\ Dfff' BR/;ATH /NSrfAJ)_?

Y You

I "NP#f A '- R\D~ ?

0 YOU, 'M qOI

BUT I'V!: qOT 9>"'1E1HIN0 TO TELL you ...

stewo.rt

s te.w, I c.o.lled ~ou, fe.eJ,~ rt frt

'lou 1.\/ere th,c.ki ~ou \Ne.re. \Ne..~d pota.t oe.5 a.rid be.e. f

i ou 6 c.rnpe..d out bit5 of me wrth a. 5poon

Tonfin~ the edo/-5, not mis5i~ a. ta.5te

Mic.hoc\

Never ~ike; never lovin~, rut f a.vorin~

'lou o/we f\d 5tar5 to \;c.k a.rid di5pla.~

Never rod~e, JU5t le.a.vint Ba.5hini

~our c.andle -wax 5mile, drippini and hot

Roman

To me. ~ou we.re 5olid, meaniniful, a. 5c.ulpture

~ut ~ou 5aw a. me..5~ wa.terc.olor ir\

Onc.e - brilliant hue5, wrthout di6tinc.t edCf 5

Not 11)urte. worl"~ of ~our f ra.me..

Curl"

I wakhed 'd ou 5moke ~our c.icpre.tte.5 while.

~ou pe.d e.d he.art wrth a. too-blunt kn;fe

Cur l, n~ a.round me., a5 if 5kinnini a.n a.pple

,n one Ion~ 5lrip t o i-055 a.5ide.

Jame.6

Jimfl"tJ on o , 0

I t me. . tJOu .5Q.ve.d penn,e..s f ore.ve.r

Pile..d in 11'.l..5.5 r.s .sc.aite.re.d Q.C.rD.5.5 'dour Boor

'iour ere.a~ vo,c.e.. .soothe.d lone.l'tl e.ar.s

t,ckini the.m .slowl'<t be.fore. 'cl-OU 'd r

Will

Ne..w e..~e...s on .skin, how a f re..sh c.anke.r .sore. miiht re..st in.side. a raw, u.se.d c.he.e.k

Pulsini, te..a.sini, mome.nt.s from e.ruptinCJinto an ache. that con.sume..s all thouiht

Af'd

On I spin, cau1ht in .some. ma.d danc.e. So ma.~ turn.s I I've. f orrtte.n name. .

Jamie Lynn Smith

Where would you dig if you dug right here?

Here? you'd hit my spleen. And There'sthere? a lung if you can get past the ribs.

It's morning again some incessant internal alarm

Waking me

Abruptly between 7:10 and 7:30

Always some number in between I'll be honest

I think I'd rather have this empty bed

A groove in the middle

Cause it's just

But I do want

Dig

There?

Ther~ is an organ pumping red blood cells

Into limbs I stretch

Out slowly

Puncture and you'll see 1walk to the bathroom

It's seven steps I brush my teeth

Where would you dig?

[It is 10:3? m . , It's cold, I s~itfl the trains arrival time says 10:49

We are alone e, a man approaches "Let m on the platform e guess" ·

~ Vert eyes

ou just got off Sort of" 1 work at the casino?"

A · mutter · week ago m .

This one is m~iadh tried to give me mace . Y armless

HiS tra jn co m es fir st . . ? "

"No t com ing hom e with me .

l draw my kn ees to my chest

And int o a ba ll

Th e train rum bles

If s 1o :52 , th en my stop]

It's dark , it's cold , I shuffle fast

n, en break

I run .

Down Delmar heading west

Past the lot of broke down cabs

Dig here?

It's muscle fibers stretching

Under a layer of yellowish fat cells

Not working well as insulation

Past the funeral parlor

The halo bar

The empty streets

My door has no accomplishment

Back into the groove of the bed

Right here?

Straight in Where bone surrounds A spine

Go deep

It will sever in time.

Bob Bli ss

H1tlcr Died on my Seco nd Oirthd ay

T hot shoul d title my A u tob iography, but a poe m 's s horter.

and swee ter

li ke the w hite ca ke with two candl es served me on sun wa rm ed gras s in the we ll yard. fe nc ed and gated, by a white house on Piety Hill by my mother and others.

Clara May , Lillian, Angeline, Josephine, Varina, Margretta. Read them again , these real names. At 2, I had trouble with them but at 57 , they're a poem. They were real women, strong. They nurtured me in my father's absence.

Elsewhere, at daybreak, the gentle Lieutenant Bliss rattled across the Elbe and found a Soviet colonel. Quite alone, they broke fast with imported vodka and liberated eggs, uncooked. They ate silently and drank wordless toasts though they had much to say. Father had helped bury the bodies at Nordhausen, and who knows what the colonel had seen. Finished, they saluted like soldiers, hugged Russian, waved American ~nd went their ways, translated ' mto children of light.

In Berlin Hitl · ·d w· h . . er smc1 ed, with pills, guns, fire. it m1lhons dead it didn't matter.

The birthday party . I k d southwest over Iowa's spnng-ploughed soil , 00 e · · C k th M . ' f: a scene sliced by M1nn1e ree , e e1ers arm on the far ridge, d . . 1 fi . h deep black, fertile groun , waiting on y or ng t seeds.

Those women gave me leave to dream about the war and about my father coming home from it, striding across the porch laughing at death like they did. ' Later, Varina would save my life by lying to a hospital. She was the county's first lady doctor but never its coroner. Farmers didn't want someone in skirts examining the body hanging in the corn crib. After teaching my mother basketball and Latin, Miss Jo taught me patience and syntax. She died in '95, as old as the century.

Simple Things

Winkin., Blinkin., and N od did it right that tin1e. Ivy told them to scare the old professor to death, and they were going to do their job right Actually , if truth be kno¥1Il, they nev er really did scare the guy . The idiots were so high they didn-'t kno¼, what they were doing. Winkin told me, "We thought it would scare him if we threw gas on him, y ou kno,,v. The guy just started laughing at us. I thought he'd shut up if I waved a lighter in his face. You know_.,,

They watched him bum until he was just ash. fireworks in January. I r em ember Ivy telling me the shrooms made the fires better. She thought after teaching Dr. N ess a lesson they-' d go after the Fritz building. Welt the fire ended up smaller than expected. Dr. Ness, and his arsenal of chemicals, dope, and toys were gone. I'm the lucky one, you see, I'm ju.st Ivy's boyfriend but you knew that, didn't y ou.

The old Acme Cafe hired me on as short order cook. A pretty simple job but crazy just the same. I miss that job. The smell of grease and cigarettes permeating every comer of the diner. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, waffles, whatev er, we'd make it and lots of coffee. It's funny the things y ou miss, don't you think? The place fit my personality and style, simple. Four tables lined up on the right, a row of six stools at the counter and a jukebox with a bunch of local bands. The diner made its money off bands that w ould drop by after spending the whole night out. The job w as perfect. Go in early, work until noon, go home to crash and start it all up the next day.

I'll n ever forget the day she walked in. It must ve been around elev en in the morning; things were Windin g down when in she walks . The smell of flowers andsoa ttin P cu g through the grease and smoke. Ivy

-

. the doorWaY to the Acme just smiling, all J(incaid stood in 1 1 looked her up and down, she U s and bubb Y· nervo . wasn't mov1~f .d 1 was a little worried that people "Yes? I sa1 •

d 't et in or out. . . coul n g h 1-d "I was 1·ust wondering 1£ you were "Oh " s e sa • ' d " . . I need a job an . . . . hiring. She started rambling about this, that and_the other. the place but since I worked the gnll and I didn't own ' . , hi else I hired her on. We really d1dn t need a everyt ng , ld k . but hey she was cute and wou wor for cheap. waitress, , . . She really needed a job a~d a plac_e to hve. Minneapolis is an easy town if you can find the nght person, and that person was me.

She hailed from Ames, Iowa, and told me she finally decided to escape. "You can't be a runaway at twenty three, can you?" she said.

"Guess not," I said. "Come on, let me introduce you to the Twin Cities."

I closed the place early and showed her around. First stop was the Isle Hotel, her temporary residence. Nice place, they'll rent you a room by the hour, the day, week or month. We got her stuff and started looking for a place. We got her settled into an efficiency at Hennepin and 27th. The apartment featured one big room with a kitchen, a bathroom, and they threw in radiator heat and hot water free. A beautiful view of stop forty-seven, on the H~nnepin line, made the place an urban paradise. The t~ng 1 remember most was this tiny oven and range juSt big enough to make grilled cheese on. She was looking preto/ happy; I liked her from the start. It's kind of strange 1 1?koking back at it, but I never could figure out why she 1 ed me .

k She worked at the Acme Cafe for a good three ,, w ee s befor e I t 11 "date We h db ac ua Y officially asked her out on a · a een thick as thieves, me and her. H an ging ou t

after w ork, w e 'd smoke cigarcttcR arid WAi k Coke r.trc.:t. She used to smile a t m.e, then ·wa tc h the Rmn kc drJft ow ay .

r thought the tw o o f us w ere des tine d , a mi,{fortunc waiting to happe n .

"Ivy," I said, " There ' s a band p lay ing (J V (: r th e a t the CC Club . Ma ybe ... ?" Th e scen e un fo ld ed ll ke on e of those scenes from s o m e s tup id tee n m.avi 0 Wl'W r l! the guy is standing there, s tumbling o v er h i.a word s . Th e amazingly cute girl looking a t the g uy. Sh e s topped m,c short and told me yes, sh e 'd mee t me th ere . Thjngs w ere good then.

I met her at the CC tha t night, even wore a d ean pair of jeans. The one thing I re.m e mber fr om tha t n ight iR never, and I do mean, n ever, introd uce a gfrl to you r friends. My friends happened to be Winkin , Blinki n, and Nod. They were known in ce rtain circles as The Junky Boys or simply The Boys. The boys m ov ed as a unit, on e thought, one purpose . You would catch th em jus t walking the streets, each one glazed, incapable of any independ ent action .

The four of us knew each other from junior hi gh. We looked out for each other in ways unknown to .man. We were the four musketeers of geekiness. In high school, the boys discovered dope and science; I found science fiction, movies and cooking. Somehow we all managed to stay friends. After high school we all stayed in town and went to the university. Win.kin picked up physics; Blinkin, biology; Nod took up chemistry. As things go, my folk s passed away, I took over the house, and dropped out of school. I started working the diners and dives in town. The boys, now a little older, the drugs a little harder, ~ould drop by and nod out on my couch. In the morning would chase them out and go to work. But I digress. ·t The night at the CC . Will wa s working the bar, so

Wa s_ pretty much buy one ge t three fr ee . Ivy took to th e oys hke they all kn ew each o th e r from som.e othe r tim e .

.dni· ht I caught Ivy with her newfound f nd nu g k G nends Arou thm · gout in the bac . reat, another h niff g sorne app y s in n for my couch, at least she was cute Af dding rnoro . . ter no . ht Ivy 1·ust kind of kept corn.mg to my place anct ,., that mg Th t' h thin vve f f ll into each other. a s ow gs were. Th sort o e f . b k en Up with this idea o gomg ac to school ~c~e . ·

Through our long rughts together and slow times at k I fleshed out the truth about my sweet angel. Ivy wm, . , the once-Iowa-State-Fair-queen, tried college for about a ear and a half before getting busted. A couple of guys :nd she turned the chem lab into a meth plant. The bust happened because her lab mates and their fearless ringleader Miss Ivy Kincaid didn't have enough sense and turned the lab into a three-alarm fire. It didn't take them long to figure out what the cause was and Ivy did her time. The sweet thing got off pretty easy and quickly was doing parole back in Iowa. Her folks didn't want her and so the trip to the Mini Apple.

Nights and days with Ivy melded into weeks and those weeks became months. School might not be a bad idea, for the both of us. I saw her everyday, almost every hour; a small break might be a good idea. Ivy snagged a couple classes in the afternoon. It gave her enough time to do her shift at the Acme and time enough to hang out with me and the boys. Chemistry came back to her and strong. Before long half the garage became devoted to her experiments. Winkin, Blinkin and Nod liked her newfound hobby, and I must ~dmit some of the stuff did quite the job.

I kn · ·tthe . ew things were going bad when she qui ha dmer. I couldn't tell her no but I didn't think it was sue good idea H . ' ail .L'L.~-ng and she · er samplings were now ad Y uwl ·ttI wasn't 1 k · h · a h e h 00 mg good. The experiments broug t 111 5chool ~as but her profit margin just wasn't high enoughmtroduced h d guy she 1 er to some new characters an a ca led Dr. Ness.

Dr. N ess taught His tory at the university. How she hooked up with this guy is anyone's guess. Core courses she explained one ni gh t. Hang around after class, kiss th~ professor's butt, g e t a good grade. I quickly remembered why I hated school.

"H e just wants to get in my pants," she laughed.

"Yea h, don't w e all," I snickered back.

I had buste d her and the boys a while back having a "little party." She told me what she did on her time was none of my business.

"Come on, I thought we were done with that," she said. She was right, she made me happy. What did I care? I started following her around after that. She never did stop with the boys and she now had a new hobby with Dr. Ness. She needed to research things for Ness. Some nights she wouldn't get home until three. The boys kept me artificially happy; I didn't care about anything.

I decided to research some things myself. The diner was full of people talking about this and that. When the grill wasn't busy, I worked the clientele at the bar.

"Did you hear about the old Martin warehouse?"

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"Remember those parties we used to have in the wareho use district. Someone's torching those places. The Martin warehouse got torched last night. " I didn't really know if this guy was talking to me or to his friend, but my curi os ity was peaked .

The boys found work, which they did on odd occa<i ion s. Save up e nough money for their fun then back to wo rk. Ivy' s n e wfound fun got cut short their supply, so thc:y we r e o ut of th e pi c ture. The love of my life was turn ing jnto a yo -yo. I n ee ded to know what was going <m .

'fhe a ft(!rn oo n o f that night [ journeyed ov er to th e un, vers jty. I kn e w Ivy work e d in th e c h e mistry Jab but I h adn't expecte d thi s . Th e Jabt.. w ere huge; a p e rson could

.

b een I grabbed one of the lab coats . d not e s · and slip in an b watching the two.

d myself usy . d ma e N his first name 1t turne out was Eli. Iv Dr ess, y ." f lks back home in South Dakota were hug

Id me his o . e to f This guy was no Elhot Ness. Frail anct Ell" t Ness ans. 10 kin he was a breakable version of the brittle loo g, k h" b Tall and lanky, he ept pus mg ack the black scarecrow.

I . f ames on his nose. The two were concentrating on p astic r . . thm . g in a beaker and talking m hushed tones. some

I needed to know. A couple of answers and I'd break this all off. What are the two of them doing and who the hell was he for not telling me?

"Don't worry Stanley," she'd say. "It doesn't mean anything, we're just having fun," she'd say. "Don't wait up Stanley, go have fun with the boys." Where the hell were the boys?

I went to the CC club and brooded for a couple of hours. Just confront the two of them. Be done with it for once and for all. Man, I hated confrontation. I decided to head back to the university and find them. There was a chance they would still be at the lab.

They had left, just a couple of grad students standing over beakers. Maybe if I drive around I'll come a~ross them. Might as well as try out the stuff Blinkin had given me a couple weeks ago.

.

.

"It'll wake you up and won't let you down," B~inkm said. Should've gone into advertising. The little fh~:~rted_working its magic. I felt more awake and alive forth had m weeks. I kept driving, crossing back and d over the M· · • . the ol Ma ti 18s1ssipp1. Somehow I ended up at · r n Warehou f the car to stret h se or what was left of it. I got out O 11 were tho c my legs and have smoke. Where in the he se two hiding?

The smok f 1 · . . burJ1 that fill ed rn h e e t_ good m my lungs, a pleasant yi, e place srnelle~ ;ad . Fmd them, find them, find the:tll·

ash and destruction. As the cigarette

tJurned down I lurned the corner. TherL• w c:H, Lh b- l J' cir-. <: iJH u r 1-! car. I hurried over and p eek ed in, nothing.

They were somewhere. 1 h eard a sma ll commotiun a block away. The junky boys w ere 1aughin1~ abou t something. They we~e circling ?r. N ess . Winkin wavin i~ that lighter. Everything turned into 1-lell after that. I w c1t, starting to run towards them wh en th e blast knocked me off my feet. When I got up Dr. Ness look ed lik e a hu ge Roman candle. The dope made it look like fireballs were shooting out of his head .

Ivy was laughing and crying all at the same time.

I didn't know what to do so I l eft .

"Is that what r ea lly happ ened, Stanley?" The shrink asked.

"Well most of it," I laughed.

"What part did you leave out, Stanley?" h e asked leaning forward toward me .

I got right into his face; I'd had enough anyway.

"Oh I don't know the part where I kill ed them all."

Spots

Eric Gantner

Jessica Pas chel

The life of an editor

Editing be my life and I doesn't ever make mistake; I' rn perfect with the grammar and the syntax and. The punctuation; Yet that's what its all about.

Writing be my life. I have the skill with words and the mindset to foist it completely onto ewe

3 Jives[?]

. ds sudden! y Life en Mercifully

Who are the winners?

Earn spend, eat, sleep

'. . es sex: no

Cocame. Y ' le· no

Violence: yes, old ~e;:ari tangible

Dignity: conceptua , React!

Who are the others?

Guns : yes, water: no

Time : yes, talk: no "sell the children!"

love, reject, kill, die the illusion of law Regret!

11 soft porn flicks, 11 diet sodas

11 atm cards, 11 suicides act like them

trust, hate, repeat

$100 per gram

three locks on every door

remember: laugh, forget: cry

numbers: yes, answers: no

scream, lllllJ., smile, turn, scream

We are the pretenders

Howard George

Morgon C am e ron

On the Beac h

She stood. warm sa nd c r eeping be-tween her toe£, warm hands cupping he r breas t s t he wa rm moon light splashing across her foreh ead, s houlde r s , s tomac h, and thighs , She rested her body an on e s le nder , tan leg and crossed t he other leg in front of it, shadowing the s ubtle mound wher e t he two connected. The slender, brown boy, bare-chest ed , on the beach beside her loo ke d up and smiled, his straight, white teeth glowing under the light of the moon .

"Are you cold?" he as ked . No . T hat was n't it. "It'll be warm in the water ." She shrugged, dug he r toes deeper into the sand. He sat there, yanking his shoes and socks off and throwing them over his shoulder with the r eckless abandon he used to do everything . Flip-flops and a sundress had slid off her like water. She fought the urge to run down to the la ke and allow the beckoning waves to envelop her, to conceal her within them .

Finally barefoot, he stood beside her She loo ke d, blushing, away from him, to the giant sky aver the la ke, and opened her legs to allow a warm breeze to scamper be-tween them. When she looked back, his head was bent, his fingers dancing at his waist, unbuckling his belt and undoing his pants . With a soft- thud, the pants and his thin, white boxers fell to a heap in the smooth sand at his feet.

She released a breath that It seemed she'd been h~lding for years, and with it she released her arms ta her sides

There they bath stood, dressed only In the light of the moon and fi held .t' r: or once, he did not speak. He took he r hand and I nrmly t l'k ma ' no I e the bay who had clutched her hand so ny times befi b . Water . ore, ut different, and he le d he r dawn ta the

Eddie is *""in, M00.se-bro......in ~air

Lon~er in f ,~ont -t~an in bac.~, Ja30ed e d~e .s, And ~ar-ted ~az.ardo0.s\y on one .side falls dan~erau.s\y c.\o.se

To squintin~ ~az.e\ eyes.

Munc.~ed-over

Wris-t and ~enc.i\ ba\\rooM danc.in~

Ac..ross an ab0.sed b\ac.~ s~etc.~ boo~

Fear

I watch a car pull up and I, a pretty girl standing alone in a pa k' ring garage smoking a cigare tte see that h . ' and h e is male o p e h e doesn ' t noti·ce o r tha t I me, ca n run faster.

Rebecca Yarbrough

A Hand for Love

I have been away

Fifty-two hours

Before the chance

To speak comes

In the hotel room

My hand pets the phone.

I listen with tantric intensity

To the mountain of minutes

I have missed.

Hypnotized with the minutiae

Of the lawn that will need a trim

When I return .

Of how the car's radiator cried

The day before.

Of the baby asleep in its crib

Right now .

I ask which dress you wore

To the annual block party

That evening.

You wore the cobalt blue.

The vision rises ahead of me.

Th e little frill sleeves

Encase your slim dedicated arms.

Th e bus tie r snug bodice expose

Yo u cy gne t nec k .

I begin to w o nd e r how

Yo ur nurturin g br eas ts

Wea r th e thin d e li ca te ma te rial

Now th at yo u a re fee din g .

I can al mo'> l ~e l•,

Whe n I, lo•, <• ,n y c•y pq,

The fabr tc fa ll fr o m tll P dr C'-,s'o;;

H igh wa is t ov , ·r

Yo ur rn un d e:l d b ullock s

Loose ly

Jeffrey Pechmann

you ask if I remember w hen

You had bought the glass colored dr ess.

I do.

We had taken a day excursion

To a waterfront to wn

Along the Mississippi.

I was watching a tugboat

Towing a barge

When you emerged, A blue victory, From shopping.

You wore the gossamer dress .

It was in the empire style .

During dinner

The bistro lent itself

To an illusion of history

While Bacchus

Poured desire Eros

Released passion.

At the saltbox bed and breakfast

Our child was conceived

While you wore the dawn

Hoisted above your calla shaped stomach

The stars in my eyes

Are sending their reflection

To you tonight.

My brea th ca tches

Yo u as k if l a m cr y in g

I assu re you . rt i~ ju st LiP vo t in n

To a memor y in my mi nd .

The re is no reaso n to bo tl wr

You w ith m y l ust.

I say I love yo u a nd go

Rebecca y arbrou ah b

In the Morning

Because I'm going t~ bed alone tonight, she sighed .. . He told her, well he d go along with her and she said Okay. He chuckled softly as though she were joking,, until at her door, instead of hugging him Goodnight she turned the key and stepped inside, turned on the bathroom light and lingered about while he quietly locked the door, a timid unbuttoning. How naked should I get? He asked

As naked as you wanna "be, she slurred from the other room nervously attempting sexy And sunk into the worn mattress. he tucked in next to her and they lay,, cupped one behind the other

And one innocent kiss

That night with fingers wild he explored and she hung on by her fingertips; cautiously peeking his face now and again When finally she could do no more than ding and cling

A silent plea that she not be forgotten with the morning

While her eyes remained blissfully sealed he peered at her through the semi-darkness for a few moments and he thought to himself my God, how beautiful

A silent plea

tbat he not be forgotten with the morning

Jamie Lynn Smith

1le did not say a wo rd as he slid a slim paperback b . . . . ,· etween . th i rhs -1 b•ffn er to keep us fro m sh ckmg to gether I was lHII !:-, • . . · grateful fo r hi s sile nce, alth ough not eve n bemg thi s close to him while 1 was subme rsed in swea t rea lly em?arrassed me anymore. The road we we re bo un cing dow n was nothm g but fine red dust , which huno lik e mi st in the mu ggy air. 0

The tro- tro was fill ed, they always were . At least this time howeve r, no one was ridin g on the roof. A tro-tro ride is the ' ultimate tes t of pati ence and body dislocation. Time ceased as humans we re packed like folding chairs . Scenes once only existino t, in Na ti onal Geograp hic magazines swept by. The trip down Ghana's coastline had me shoved between Daniel and John, who we re both strangers until the plane ride two months prior.

Daniel 's Ame1ica was the paperboy bootstrap success. It was also divorced parents . He made me think, not only that the promise of hard work had actually worked for someone , and that those who seemed to lead cushioned lives could take some hard falls. He was my blaring nature ' s restraint. He was well built, maybe too well , I was secretly glad to learn he had a short toe .

Jon was an academically over packed energetic bundle of confusion. I sensed some difficulty with things that could not be easily explained with detached theory. In a way, I think that was why we had all decided to study abroad in Ghana, to match the real world with our university textbooks. He was an intelligent soul, with the glasses to prove it. He was forever pushing them back ~p his sweaty nose. Together with Amanda and Heather, our traveling mix demonstrated the radically different streams flowing in the muddied American identity.

Our destination was a small stilt village. It was a weekend ritual , a break from classes and exploration in our coun~ of haven for the semester. We had spent the last night in the port city .

T k d· h

a ora 1, w ere we had attempted to sleep with sea tic s, 1 ft much alcohol, and no running water. We arrived with four ho~irs e until dark, dirt burned and dehydrated but together in good spirits. We_unfolded ourselves on the side of the road. We were on t~eft main arte f . . 1 ached h Y · W ry o a town whose population nught 1ave re_ oubled ns e had tentatively planned to sleep in an old fort, which d

· k a bit too

a guesthousc before heading out on th e c· "noe to th 1.: "1 tilt II · dawn .

v, c.1gc at

AHer a hri ef hik e, we canw to th e r rt b .1 . . .o u, t n ght o ti beach , an oth er remmmt o f the slave trade 0th n 11.: . . · · er trav elers h h· obviously co ns ult ed th eir Lone ly Plane t Trav el G .d h ' w O ad . h UJ c ook a/read occupied t e gues troom. J straddl ed a ru sty canno , d 1 ' Y . 0 I . . . . n an ooked out to the Atlantic . cean. wi shed we cou ld ju st sleep on th e beac Amanda made it kn o wn th at she want ed a bed. h, but

A~anda wa s rai sed by single mother, and in some small world fa shwn , had gone to my hi gh school, graduating one year before me. She was an anthropology major, but her fickle nature made me wonder how she would ever do any fieldwork. She was a quiet as Daniel but not a<; intro spective . s

A villager approached and offered some assistance . This was so common we didn't hesitate to follow him without knowing where we were headed. Goats and chickens pranced and pecked along with us. He led us to a man sitting on a porch of a concrete house . The man infonned us for 20,000 cedis we could stay at a guesthouse in the stilt village. Considering 20,000 cedis was roughly $3.00, we agreed.

A quick hike across an expansive floodplain, and we reached the water 's edge. As we waded into the water that reached our knees to reach the dug out canoe Jon and I began to sing.

"The leeches are my friends. They like to bite and suck. I'd rather have them as my friends." Fonner camp counselors make joyful travelers . The mud seeped between my toes cooling off my feet, and easing the near constant pain of cuts and blisters. I was sometimes afra id they would rot. The ride was straight out of The Jungle Book. Our Ghanaian guides propelled us through the water using long bamboo poles. Their shoulder muscles glistened in the late afternoon sun . They periodically stopped and checked their fishing nets.

" What is that fish called?" Daniel asked at every stop.

" A mud fi sh," they would say; the answer never changed .

· ·

·

J ·

. h 5 the onl y space without vegetat1on. The air cool d canoe spat wa . ·1 e _ . d anticipati on built. It wasn t unt1 we broke out into th s~igh tly anlak that we noticed the ram clouds. In Africa, stonns c~: size able e . . , h - d . -. '4-11 1e d immobilized everythmg tort eir urat1on . The villaoe up fast an ff h d . :::, . th IT11.ddle of the lake and o m t e 1stance . was m e . We arrived still dry an d quickly began to get out of the The lack of coordination ·was comica l -- fi ve goofy canoe . . Americans all standing up and swaying.

"What the hell are you doin g?" Jon asked as I screamed. nearly falling out from the wei ght of my pack . I lurched forward and grabbed hold of the sugar cane ladd er. I climbed up hand and foot , and it wasn ' t until I was standing on th e walkway that I noticed the entire place swayed and creaked ever so slightly . It held but I crumbled a little , shaken as I attempted to make sense of the place.

We split up , Daruel and Jon went to one room and Heather, Amanda, and I to another. There were only two beds (foam mats on wooden planks) and Heather and I argued over who would be the saint to take the floor. Heather was the youngest of the group and a photojournalism major. The adage , "When in Rome , do as the Romans do," fit her well . She never hesitated to plunge ri ght into the culture, eating her fufu with her fingers. I won out and planted my bag on the floor. The rain began to plummet to the earth. pattering hard on the sugar cane roof -- it didn't leak at all.

The rain had, as if on cue , waited for us to ge t settled and I went outside to sit on the covered deck. Drops made ripples until the entire surface convulsed; the earth's very heartbeat seemed exposed. Heather, Amanda, Jon, and Daniel joined me and they too were sile~t. Our host brought out fried egg sandwiches on unmatchmg, chipped plates. I went hungry. Our clean water supply ;as so low that I rummaged through my pack and brought out a ottle of peach schnapps. Conversation began. In the states, manY people have ad ' · ·

b . ivision of the crass from the spoken. Our e P outs of illness, especially with the ever-friendly giardia water b~: aras1te, made th·

d. • is near Y unpossible. It wreaks havoc on igestive system . "H , especially the bowels.

fr quent

1 . the entlf

Ghana· ey Hector, (Heather's nick.name because it was tbe we ians pronoun d h

d t where w can go to th b ce er name) have you figure ou

e_ athr00m yet?" I asked

Jon mtelJ·e t d "

c e

·

• You should just go right mto

• the lake·

"I ~!11I an.dexce 1 llednt squatter," I spat back. "But this wouldn't be possible, sat as emonstrated the futility of trying to pee backwards off the deck.

Heather asked our host in broken Twi for directions th satisfied that she knew the way, volunteered to lead. We were :n, flock of geese in V formation, each talcing a necessary tum at lead breaking through the air. Heather picked up a kerosene lantern, fo; night had fallen. We progressed slowly across the very slippery walkway with no railing. The rain had eased but not fully ceased. It was a maze of single-family dwellings until we reached the edge of the village. A closet sized room contained two square boxes. They emptied over the lake, which we would forget about in the morning when we went swimming. Heather and I both sat down while Amanda held the lantern and waited her tum.

"This is the neatest place we have been thus far," Heather commented.

"Yep," I said sarcastically. "Bathrooms are always the highlight of my experience." We laughed but then fell silent. I knew what she had meant.

I felt like an equation as fluid as evaporation: one defiantly hopeful female trying to come to grips with the racial, economic, and social privileges which my American life had to offer; but at what expense. The lalce reflected, a proverbial mirror, my identity in flux. I was ripping with every drop of new ideas, whole in the circular motions. But evaporation meant letting go. I had been in Africa for two months and could no longer draw upon a mental image of my own face. The symbols, which sustain our sense of reality, were all behind; the things that teach us when to walk, how to breathe, to laugh, to cry, to die. What remained from a lifetime of America's enculturation? What should I grasp to hold on to?

As my mind chewed on these questions, we made our way back to the deck. Heather slipped and screamed as her lower half broke through a spot of weak sugar cane. The lantern hit with a splash, and we were plunged into the moonlit night. Amanda and I grabbed her arms and lifted her up. Like three preschoolers across a playground bridge, we did not let each other go until we were back on the deck.

We articulated our bathroom adventure between shots of schnapps and akupetshi. Akupetshi is a locally brewed gin like s~b stance, which burned like hell going down and had a faint cinnamon flavor. A mixture of Twi, Ga, and English (American and

. . 1 ) •ntertwined. In the states, so often a group of p 1 Bnttsh sty e 1 . fi • eop e t omatic reqmrement or entertamment , a movie th means an au . , e · . . . we had adapted to bemg qmte content without such telev1s10n , h O Gh . . t· s We had learned ours are. ur ana1an friends b d1strac ion · egan . for us drumming the table. to smg ' d ?" H h k

''What did the wor s mean. eat er as ed, as soon as the song had faded. ,, . "

"It's about how we love our country, he said, Love it because it is inside of us."

The words pierced my empty stomach's walls. They requested a song from us in return. We were a generation for which an anthem would not do. A mental file began to reel, and American song, and American song ...

I took a deep breath and pulled Daniel's outstretched legs onto my own with a slight squeeze. My fingertips relayed my need for some support. I began.

"And bye bye Miss American pie ... " My foot tapped the beat and Jon joined in quickly with a nod.

"Drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry. " Our voices united in such a way I couldn't separate my own.

"And good old boys were drinking whiskey and ,ye singing this will be the day that I die. "

Burger King's Cat Dog

Peter Pranschke

Howard George

A Promise

1 sheep

20 goats

1 thought

2 reasons

1 mouth

5 words

I lie 1000 secrets

Kissing the Hand

M:, mind is her bod_y

Her thoughts are m_y actions

I can't remember an_ything or not being alone

E_motion is m_y whore

I've never need to want

A heart that will not die and refuses to heal

A mechanical angel pla_ying the what-it game

I like to think I want to know

La ughter like an empt_y dream

T his medium oF intricatel_y constructed negative space

l_ike a tree s peaking in numbers

S he know s

5 1, e is th e p a th oF the lost

Mutiny

It must be nice to be Kin g.••

Loyal subjects

Bowing before you Addressing you as "Your Royal Highness" and "Your Majesty."

How can one attain Such reverence? Such respect? Only by happenstance Of birth?

What makes you So important?

A word of warning ...

Rebellion is underway

Spray Pal 2

yellow nights of parties

i remember the flad house. .

. remember yellow nights of parties.

: used to think people never changed, but i still see everyone from the flad house and they are not the same people. those people are trapped in my memories like so many shapes on a page, doing things, . giving looks, saying things they will never say again, and not because that moment has passed but because they are no longer the same people . what goes by their name and travels in their body is an entirely different entity.

i am not the same either.

yellow nights of parties, the triangle girl out of her room, her arms wrapped around the line boy, speaking, with the aid of alcohol, in a confident, loud voice. she disappears the next day, back into her room for weeks. when i visit her there, it is like a hospital, the air heavy and stale with depression, the line boy allowing himself to be hopelessly suffocated by it.

yellow nights of parties, the trapezoid girl, the square boy, and the rectangle boy shut up in some room with a mirror and a secret. talking and talking of what is essentially nonsense, laughing and laughing at their private jokes that only moments later are lost to them~ th~n falling and falling. four days straight. the trapezoid girl is afraid, the mascara stains her cheeks, her wet hair clutches at her wrinkled forehead. i am afraid

th

e s~uare boy is afr~id. she has seen spiders crawling up her legs m the shower and we can't take the responsibility. i don't imagine it will ever end' and I want out.

!low nights of parties, the round girl ' s innocenc , d . ye . e an punty and intelligence radiating through cJosed doors, even walls . we all want a piece . she seems the only one free to come and go as she pleases. and the oval boy wanting to claim her , to cage her , and to capture her complete attention , but he never will. she ends it more than once. he plays hours of video games to make up for it. yellow nights of parties, i wander up and down the stairs, in and out of rooms , in search of love. i learn now it only exists in my mind.

Men Wh o Taste L ik e Alcohol - is:rorc.l ~

The priest wouldn_·t stop coughi?g . Throug hout the mas, he made small guttural noises , cleared his throat seYera l time-then during the eulogy he coughed for a so li d minut e direc u/ into the microphone. He excused himsel f to the scarci ty . wished he ' d just yanked open the tabernacle. lapped up some wine, and gotten on with the service.

The congregation consisted mostl y of her bleary-e yed relatives who swayed back and forth eager for the mass to be over. Her fiancee , Robert stood next to her , hands placed firmly on the pew in front of him, wondering at the ritual of Catho lic mass. Her grandmother, a row in front of her , whimpered through the delicate crisscross of her black veil. Beyond. her grandfather's body sat slowly decaying under the orange makeup. In the moments the priest abandoned the mourners. she wondered why it was an open casket. The cancer had eaten awa y at his body. His once full beard was patchy. She had once lo,-ed the smell of that beard, so many smells tangled up in it when you got close. A combination of martinis and cigars that smelled like fish food.

"Did I stare at the body too long?"

"I didn't notice." By the low tone of his voice , she knows he's half-asleep.

"Oh." The white hyphens that divide the lanes disappear bene~th drifts of white snow. She squints through enormou s tortoise shell glasses she's had since freshman year of hi gh school The · . . tl ated . · prescnptton 1sn 't current but her contacts O • 1 out m a rush ft ' d he can k O ears. There is a large shadow up ahea s d ma e out B ·a h ·n an the car . .filles1 e. er, Robert's eyes flutter shut once aga t she is J ed w th th Ierates - notice t 1 e sound of snoring. As she acce · s wo bead f 1· f and an erect tail And s O ight, headlights, maybe , th en ur ' 111 thuds wa·k R th en the car is choking on th e shadow . The Sl e obert from his sleep .

•' Wh at th e hell is going on?" His voice hits h d . h · h ar on his She wre nches t e steering w eel to the right Th cn rs. . 1 ti t d " H ,, d · e coolant in ugt: sw in gs v10 end yf ohwar R ' ban thin snakes of smoke g .·t out of th e hoo o t e car. o ert reaches over and nks 1w1s E h . ya the keys fro m th~ ignh ittdol~·h v~rythmg re~ains black until a k driv es by its ea 1g ts mt e reamew mirror bl ct · true ' m mg her.

"You think the car will catch fire?"

Robert shrugs his shoulders.

11 Should we get out?"

When he finally responds, his words are slow and ca utiou s. wants _ t~ ?ig her nails into his eyes, so he ' 11 say whatever 1t 1s even if 1t s bad news. Her teeth begin to clack to gether. She ' ll scream if he doesn't talk soon.

"You know ... we've never had sex in a car on the side of the highway before," he says.

Every muscle relaxes. She sticks her tongue between her molars to stop the gnashing. "Get real."

"Might be fun." His right eyebrow arches seductively.

She doesn't respond until he laughs at his own joke .

"You shouldn't have let me drive," she says.

"You said you wanted to."

"I'm in no state ."

"I think there's an exit up ahead; we can walk, see if there ' s a motel , a mechanic. It's all right." She wants him to hold her hand, but instead he pinches her shoulder for encouragement. They walk along the shoulder, a small flashlight tied around her neck to alert traffic to their presence.

The boy at the counter of the motel stares at the television, his mouth open slightly. Robert clears his throat. . "Oh, uh, welcome to the Roadside. I'm Danny " Pale Pink dots speckle Danny's cheeks. His hair is the color of lea? , und er the florescent lighting of the lobby, but during the day it s probably dark brown.

Kim pushes her glasses to rest atop her head. " We need a room ."

l.k "Right." Kim knows Robert has little patience for bo ys 1 e th · h is . The small lumps they have instead of muscles , 1 . e uneven stuhble on their chins the clamminess of the ir skin all '

disgust him . It was an awkward period Rob~rt and his superior cre;es see med to have skipped altogether. Kim felt at twenty-five ;hewas still tee terin g on the edge of her ~w~ard phase. She was still uncomfortable with her body: wide hips , the hygiene. She couldn ' t make her body move in unison like the women at Robert 's work parties. She ' d catch the rhythm for a minute and then be distracted.

"You getting a lot of people because of the storm?" Kim asks.

"Storm?" Danny looks outside at the fat flakes that are piling up on the parking lot. "Was wondering why you guys were so wet. "

Robert rifles through the phone book as soon as they get into their room .

"The mechanic ' s closed of course. I'll try tomorrow." He climbs under the sheets his fingers creeping over her waist.

The reception after the funeral was worse. The priest continued to cough over a paper plate full of Aunt Mattie's three-bean salad. Her grandmother shrunk into a chair, her widow ' s cap coming unpinned from her hair. Robert ate three hard-boiled eggs and played tag with the little kids.

Nobody talked about him except to push the small amounts of information they'd gleaned from one another. Did he P~l off his oxygen mask, struggle to take a few breaths, then disappear into the dark? The crowd seemed divided. The dissenting half wouldn't accept that someone with same blood could do that. Work ethic trampled like an army of ants thro~gh th e Ellard bloodline. The half who knew it was true kept eyeing each 0ther wondering who was next. Kim wanted to talk, to d shout " R . an ' emember the time we went hiking and I fell down scraped my kn . ' de me fi h ee , and instead of carrying me back he ma h

mi s the hik 1 h · " I t ad s e e, on Y oldmg my hand for support? ns e wat ched R b 1- . of

• 0 ert 1ft her nephew over his head m a ge sture victory H h d

· e a won th e game of tag.

When she fi nall y manages co wake h h . . 1 erse lf from he r ni gti tm tJ rc,. c ere 1s a arge e mpty space nex t t h . d . ' h . o er. A no te o th e nightstan in1 orms er that he JS at the mec h . . . n T an Jc s and will be back around ten . he door open s and Robert .1 . h . d . srru es at her hJs cheeks red from t e win . He has a bage l an d a 5 · 1 . ' . · mg e serv in g of Peter Pan Pea nut Butte r, whJ ch he places on th e bur , . eau .

"There s a contrn entaJ breakfast that ended about a mi nut e ago. Thought maybe you ' d be hungry."

She nods.

" I'm go nn a shower."

Ri ppin g in to th e stale bage l with her teeth , she realizes she has n' t ea ten in a day. SaJi va fill s her mouth at the scent of the pea nut butter . Jn stantly th e bagel is gone. She decides to snea k down to th e l o bby to see if there's anything left over. After making sure she ha s tucked the flimsy room card in her back pocket--e ven smalJ motels have updated electronic keys--she slip s out into the day.

Crossing the parking lot to the lobby, she notices Danny stan ding by the dumpster smoking a cigarette. He's wearing a black band t-shirt, but the acrylic painting's been plucked at so much she can't tell which one he's advertising.

"Hey," she calls at him. "Is there any breakfast left ?"

He shak es his head and flicks his cigarette into a puddle of melting snow.

"Then can I have one of those?" She hasn't smoked in over a year. Robert helped her quit. But the long stem looks so fi lling and there's a large hole in her stomach where the bagel is quickly dissolving.

. Danny half-smiles, "Sure." He lights two more, one for himself and one for her.

"So are you in school?"

''Y ,, ep .

"What school?"

"Johnson. Wait you're not from around here. It's a cornm . ' unity college. 'Bout half an hour away."

appJ As soon as he says this, she notices his thick A?am's e an d de · · · b zed bottl ep voice. He's drinking out of a rrum ar-s1 e of Jack Daniels.

le s even th ough we don' t dl'\

"They send us,;amp refri gerators anymr:~frai ns fro m tellin g hi m she tho ught he was . She po ht~/ smoke in si lence . The lon g drags she tnke~ in high school . T _ Yh . lungs His cigarette s are harsher th nn h elves into er . etch t ems d ke She always bo ught an expenstve she use to smo . . . the ones . rte that was all natural. foo lm g her sdl th nt kind of Frenchd cd1g'atre ntain the ammonia and ra t piss of fa ctory because they 1 n co

·garettes it was okay. .. , ci The sky is a muddy blue color . It looks as though C,od forgot to rinse his paintbrush. . .

"What ' s that?" she says pomtmg to the sky .

"An airplane."

"It looks funny."

"It's landing."

"It looks like a man falling through the sky ."

"Pretty fucking big guy."

She sees it now. It exhales a thin cloud of smoke. lt s probably a two-passenger.

"Why are you here?"

,

"Our car broke down. We're from Chicago," she says anticipating his next question. She takes one last puff off the cigarette, and says she has to go .

"Not yet. I'm bored. Double shift and the place is dead. He gestures broadly; she catches the filter of his cigarette in her mouth and takes long slow drag. A trick of hers left over fro~d college, she used 1t to steal other people's cigarettes so she cou spend her allowance on couscous and ramen . It's a habit she th0ught she had broken, but the second cigarette breathes in a~ good as fir~t and she keeps it pressed firmly between her 1tps.

Robbie will be waiting for me " she says exhaling a cloud of smoke. '

~oops his middle finger around her thumb. "He In ,, o? Oh yeah, your fiancee." Danny rolls hi s eyes. Y' ez. A small p R' k trash bag out. Her hi s . uerto 1ean girl carries a blac .

She slams ih a~e still small; her breasts still close to her nbcag

"Y e, umpSler lid shut and returns ins ide.

ou re so sad " h

"I , e says am not."

Your ey~~ have be~n red sin ce last ni gh t. An d you tulk in dead se nten ces. He m1m1_cs the tone her voi ce ha s tok<.!n i-: in c(; he received th e phone ca ll from her mother . s . .

..Has ru1yone m yo ur tamtly e ve r committed suicide'?" She tries to add infl ectio n , but the words come out deadpan and DannY laughs sli ghtly , li ghting another cigarette off the cn<l of hers.

' ·Yeah, I guess." His index fin ge r joins hi s middle one. "I mean my mom drank herself to deat h. Her live r was thi s bi g," He takes his hand away to demonstrate and Kim fee ls empty again. "I smoke. Too much. We all do shit and the s hi t kill s us."

It ' s amazing , Kim thinks , how profound the boy s ittin g next to you can sound if his voice is coated in whiskey and tobacco. Inez opens the door again, this time carrying a couple trash bags. Kim can tell by the way he's avoiding her that whiskey and cigarettes have seduced her too.

"Ayudame," she hisses.

"Oh sure." He helps her. When she's returned to the laundry room, he comes over to Kim.

"Nobody in Robert's family has ever," she says. Danny doesn ' t want to hear about him. But she can't stop talking. "I'll screw up his perfect DNA."

"I don't have perfect DNA." He kisses her. It's a boy kiss. His lips open and soft, his tongue unsure what to do. It advances, then retreats, then advances again. It is saturated with nicotine and alcohol and tastes like fish food.

Her legs were sore and the bandana Grandpa had expe~Iy tied around her scrape was dappled with blood . Aunt Mattie and her mother chided him for not turning back, but she Wtnked at him to let him know she loved every minute of it. In th e cabin that night, he puffed on his cigar and recounted the ofh_er clumsiness then her bravery. He let h~r t~ste a bit of the ;d wme Before she went to bed she kiss~d ~tm hghtly on the ou tb, his beard scratching at her chm. His hps had a hmt of sweetness of the wine he'd let her sip.

She take s the room card out of her back pocket and slips it into th e lock. The indicator light flashes green. Robert is squatting on the bed , looking as if he is going to attack the phone he has clenched in his hands.

"Tomorrow?" He rolls his eyes to let her know that he 's negotiating with the mechanic. "I know. I just thought you said it'd be ready by today."

"We should move in." She slumps next to him then notices the cigarette smoke that's tangled in her hair. "I'm gonna shower," she mouths.

"Just a second," He sets the phone on the receiver, "Where've you been?"

"Walking."

"You all right?" He pinches her shoulder.

"I just want to change my clothes."

He smiles and lifts his hand in victory. "It's not exactly Prada, but what is?" He pulls out a bag from Wal-Mart and produces a pair of jeans and a turtleneck.

"You always know just what to do." She wants the words to be genuine, but instead they are an insult she forgets to apologize for.

"Well, I am perfect." He kisses like an adult.

'4H ave you been drinking?" He says.

''What? No ."

He sniff.c:; at her hair. "But you have started smoking again."

.

" Robbi e. 1· "

"l.t' b .. ··· . , · when we . · s ccn a rou gh couple of days. We JI st0 P ge t home ."

w :1lrcud y slopped Ir wns j11s1 one ...

, .

"\Vht'l'l'. s the p:1d r

, bu111111t'd l>ltc off Du 1111 y."

"Wh o?"

"The c k rk

His grin rums downward.

•'So l guess we 're stnying nn extrn ni ght?" She asks trying ro chan ge th e su~j ec t.

"No. Mmtie and th e kids are coming through in about an hour. So we· r~ go ing to catch n ride with them."

'Oh. " Sh e twists th e e ngagement ring off her finger and places it by th e sink. ''I' m going to shower." She turns the water on hor, washing th e smoke smell off with u palm full of Robert's shampoo. Sh e thinks if he just: comes in, it will all be better. She nudges th e curt ain aside every couple of minutes to see if he's srill standing there. He's not.

Toweling off, she plans to leave something as a memento for Danny, an excuse to call back in a week. She thinks maybe a bra, but knows Robert will notice as he checks the room over. Nothing seems right. Robert has packed up a11 the bags and set them by the door.

The ring is still on the counter.

Mattie is sitting on the bed, her son and daughter on each knee squealing as Robert tickles them. "Ready?" she says. "I'll bet you are, poor thing. What a week, huh?"

"About as good as your three-bean salad," Kim thinks to herself.

Robert picks up the kids and the bags and takes them out to th e car. Mattie follows him. Kim stays behind surveying the room Sh r re · es ides a room key in her back pocket so she'll ~mb~ili . " e name of the motel. Robert lumbers up the statrs. Got everything?"

"Y . ep,, h H ' s e says, closing the door. sure ?" H el frowns, clasping his hand around hers. "You 're e eans · I · &et on w·th . ins owly to kiss her She wishes he would JUSt loothpa s~e Hit . Finally his lips touch hers. He ·tas~es Jike Ill · · e sm JI 1·k aybe it's h e s 1 e baby powder and his shampoo. Or er own ha·. th . Jr at smeJJs like his. She imagrnes

c tting to shower and days from now, far away from youn 1orge . h ' f: . d . . g

b s and memories , smelling t 1s amt o or of him m her ha· oy fr h ' 1· Ir. Kim breaks away om 1s 1ps.

"Oh, shit. My ring." She slips the key out of her back pocket and unlocks the door. The ring slips back on her finger easily. She leaves the key next to an empty paper plate smudged with peanut butter.

He trips as they walk down the stairs, her hand twisted i his . She holds him up.

Dog's Second Slice

Rocking Chairs

Jamie

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\ tackle with dact_yls all tenors and couplets. in slant rhymes like verbal fraternal 9uintuplets.

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Jamie Lynn Smith

''Som e po ets should write about breakfast cereal rather than hunger,, / bowi

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The _Back of Her Head

Through a sheet of plexiglass in front of h h f . my nose, across the aisle and anot er s eet o plex1glass I watched th b d h · ' e woman as she took her seat a oar t e tram. Today she wore dark blue J·eans and platform soled black boots. A knee-length bl k &: 1 h . 1 b . , , ac , 1e t coat covered everyt 1ng e se, ut I d1dn t mind. As long as she was there, as long as I could see that cascade of wriggling c 1 . ·1 f , ur Y, blonde half, co1 s o oranges and yellows dancing on her shoulders, I was satisfied for the moment.

I was fifteen. I was not the short, wide, lesbian-looking ticket checker who strutted down the aisle like a six foot tall ' Wall Street businessman. I was not the tall, sharp-featured girl with a ring through her lip and a shock of florescent pink hair who stood, clinging to the metal pole by the door. Nor was I the old, crumpled, black man at the back of the car, asleep under a pair of large, purple sunglasses. I was not the blonde Madonna. I was the creature in the oversized black sweatshirt, shoulders slumped, peering out at those around me from the depths of my hood, jealous of them for some reason I could not define. Perhaps it was because they all seemed to know exactly who they were.

I sighed, hopeful, anxious. Today would be the day.

"So you're stalking her!" Joe had said with a smirk.

"No, we just ride the same Red Line everyday." I felt stupid for having mentioned anything. I tried again. "You should see her hair, it's even prettier than mom's. I bet she's gorgeous."

"I'm glad Mary's not around to see that her baby's turned into a stalking dyke!"

"Don't call her that" I muttered under my breath . ' . And I never mentioned it to anyone again. Never rnent~oned the breathtaking woman who had no face. Never ;entioned the dreams, where I touched my fingertips to th e Tuuzy gold hair and the woman turned to me, revealing her face. e dreams h . . · dull br0Wn w ere the bnlhant eyes met with my own . Worn eyes, With recognition joy love. The dreams where th1 s h an Would t k , ' d d ntly touch er 0Wn a e my plain face in her ban s an ge d 'lovely face to mine. First cheek to cheek, then forehea

ead then eyelash to eyelas h, and fi na lly, slowl y, lips to to fo reh d h ' she wou ld kiss me , but not as my brother had lips An t en . . h b

· d b t in a way a mother kisses er new om baby, and I ass ume , u too wou ld be beautiful.

I think I suffered more than most adolescent girls , c. 1- g I must live up to the legacy of my mother's beauty. I did iee m f h h · 11 · not know my mother ' s sense o _ umor, or er 1nte igence, or her compassion . I only knew the pictures. The one of he~ holding me while on vacation the summer after I was born, the tips of her curly, dark hair just touching the top of my head, the wisps of my own dark hair. She is young, browned from the sun of Maui, one strap of her sun dress fallen from her shoulder. Her eyes gaze out of the photo, as if in anticipation, and her mouth is not quite closed. "I caught her off guard in that one," my father would say over my shoulder the numerous times he found me gazing at the picture on Friday nights, when most thirteen-year old girls were out with friends. And that's all he ever said.

In those times, I thought physical beauty was everything. Almond eyes and pout lips of famous models covered my bedroom walls. I wrote countless letters to such women, just looking at them was not enough for me, but I never received a single reply, never was granted the contact that I thought would somehow tum my life around.

I began to sit anywhere I was allowed, malls, coffee shops, and watch women pass, gazing longingly at those whom I fou~d be~utiful, wishing, somehow, to transport my soul into then bodies. Just to bite a strawberry with one woman's curvaceous mouth, or to smell the breeze as it came off the lake and int? ~he city with another's angular nostrils seemed so ~uch more divme than to do these things with my own unintere sttng features. No longer looked at myself in the mirror all the time, as I had as a h' ld · · I c i , smgmg and making faces. At fourteen, st0PPed altogether, even avoiding my reflection in windows.

The woman raised her hand to her head and pulled her ~gm~o hh Y~ . ug t e gorgeous mess of curls. I loved the wa certain days h I latfof1ll, th . w en followed her up the stairs from the P d e wind w Id h ·ran set it da .ou sweep up a shorter lock of this golden 81 Id have ncing, like a charmed snake about her head. 1cou

stopped her a dozen times, or sat where she always sat on the train- I could ~ave seen ,?er face, but I never felt ready.

"Madison stop, came a muffled announcement over the intercom. I clutched my backpack m my lap. I did not know then and I do not know what it was that I earnestly expected to happen that day, but I suppose it was nothing short of the actualization of my dreams.

She rose, directly in front of me, across the rear entrance to the train car, signaling her departure to a bald man with a thick, red neck who had boxed her in. I jumped up in order to catch her as she walked to the front of the car to exit as she always did, right near the conductor. The hood of my oversized black sweatshirt, pi11y from too much wear and not enough wash, fell from my head as I stood, and I instinctively focused on the image directly before my eyes. Super-imposed on the blonde head across the aisle was a face, the mouth slightly open, the large brown eyes widened in anticipation.

It was not the face of a supermodel or any beautiful woman I'd seen in the streets, but there was nevertheless something comforting and appealing about it.

I sat back down. I did not go to school that day, but rode the L and gazed at my own reflection all day long.

llomc hy Niglttl~,11

Jamie Kerry

Accident

Cold clouds breathe silence in the wind. Under the glow and hum of the street/amps, Marjorie 's tears glitter in the night - like bright blue flames, her hair now sleek and wet as she remembers the first time they kissed - the texture ofhis tongue - and his dark eyelashes sinking slowly down to spread like feathers over his skin as his eyes closed. Raindrops hit the puddles around her knees,

the yellow light shining violently off their insignificant splashes. The shh ofthe storm drowns out the sounds ofthe impacts - and his voice as he strains to whisper. Morning will never bloom so harsh again.

Moonshine

Clear nights in Missouri foothills - some call them mountainsmany shiver against the c~ld Cascade of radiant moonlight.

Spilling across the Ozarks, the Sweet flow draws gossamer threads Across creeping mists, along Winding riverbanks and loping fields.

Sentinels, Owl and Oak witness the festive deer rituals occurring -where only the moon travelsAmong islands of midnight glades.

Baying dogs mourn chains and silence, As the big blue-white ball crosses The cold, quiet spaces , undisturbed.

Ray Bloom

Bob Bliss

Real Estate, 1869

These young men would be fathers to a tow 1 I n, andlords farmers, awyers . , gentlemen

Their fathers came from everywhere but they had more in common.

Illinois , for instance. So they knew prairie ground. Here, the water would not be deep , yet gentle hills and creeks meant it would flow beneath. The crops would find it. Wells too. The soil was good loam , blessed be God. Though already science could tell them glaciers stopped here, leaving half Canada for no better reason than a thaw.

Probably they didn't read Aggassiz

But they knew a thing or two. Oddly , they read themselves into Scott and Burns and were pleased to think that Bacon wrote Shakespeare.

But they learned more from the Illinois boys in blue who bought small plots in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Poor land that left depressions where bodies fell and graves were dug to hold them.

Tired soil. Corrupted.

These who lived would leave larger marks. Their town would be a mile square. On a hill, so they could see their farms outside. Knowing how the North had won th ey would work to make the town

a _ seat of power and knowledge

w, 't n! acourt house, and a college

, and the grapevine telegraph

Butt d bnng business, goods, wealth . was tese Young men remembered death . The best plot they platted

h' h he cemetery on the '9 est hill . , west of town, towards evening .

YouWill find th · / ell for big bucks. e,r monuments there where, now, small parce 5 5

Mizuko jizo

I, Mizuko jizo

With my red, happy face

Am a vassal for your tears

I stand upright with dignity

Bewigged with yam

Adorned with pearls

And smile for your grief

Oay lasts longer than memories

In every tragedy there is a face You have given me mine

With thumb to earth

You made cheeb for me

These are times ... Options no longer glow

There were times ... Do you care?

I sailed across bullied seas

A while ago I believed

Dress me as a doll

I no longer breathe

I represent truth

Eve~ if I am only a dead child

Fashioned of clay

Jeffrey Pechrnann

Movie tickets and a sho~ in French. but she p\~\y cu u\onl; It was good, so l didn ' t foe \ the need to upo\ot!,t'/.c fo r twt1 hours of reading.

. .

We left the theatre~ a damp sticky \ayer ot snow hod fall en.

"You just split the pole.'' she ~aid.

"I what?" registering some mmor shoc k at the statement. She gestured back at the po\e I had walked the long way around, on her opposite side.

"That's bad \uck," she looked quite serious.

I took off running, making a ruckus al\ the while.

Splitting every pole in sight, squeezing along the brick, darting across the street.

I got to her car; she began wiping the snow from her windows. It became a race, laughing, throwing mi sshapen snow shapes, fingers wet and cold.

He spoke.

A stranger, standing at the corner, we had not even seen him walking by.

"I wish," he said, "I wish I knew how to feel fun again." I packed some snow and took aim.

I missed.

"Of course you can," I pleaded.

"I just feel so old," he replied.

"I'm 23."

"You don't even look old," she said, "How old could you be?"

"Well she," gesturing at me, "She's gonna be 22 and look at heri"

He nodded slightly unconvinced and turned to walk off.

~' aimed again and hit him square in the arm. ,, Com~ on," I said raising another snowball to fire, "staY ·

He said again, "I just don't remember."

He turned and headed down the street, head downcast. n a 1yelled out, "Well ... well at least when you go home, um,:iitt\e hot bath and fill it with... dish soap. Yeah. And take all ~m-" plaSt1c things in your kitchen in the tub and play wtth th ll was struggling but couldn't let it go)

·•Or at ]east fi ll the ~b re!l hot , dump in a box of tea and seep yourse lf ti ll you wnnkle. . .

I was ye ll ing qurrky nonsense to a boy feeling like a dying man . It shook me so hard .

Now on the bed

1 swallow and breathe, filling my nostrils , feeling my tummy fill and lift my back ever so slightly. Giving pause long enough to glance down at fingers gripping this pen. Waiting for a way to lay to rest a man , who will haunt me for days.

The train's howl sounds different from within. The rid uneven but possessed of the single-minded progress that e was . h spins travel into journey. It was a Journey ome , if I can call any place by that word . .

I sat, barely able to read the ancient Paradiso you gave to me for all the bouncing on the tracks. I read through the mountains and beside the sluggish river, a slow and steady terror filtering into my soul as the miles withered beneath me . I sit back and think.

I have forgotten my need to for get. And so I think of you.

It's simple, your time-browned book in my trembling hands and relics of our life so abundant in the world ahead. It couldn't have been more than yesterday when she drew a long blonde hair from my black sweater. I wore it last Christmas, when you were there still, smiling in the air that must have seemed far colder to you. At some point you must have laid your head against my ch~st, and I can almost feel your smile resonating in the thick wool even now. I threw it in a bag of winter clothes, untouched for months beyond counting until I put it on again for no particular reason other than to stay wann. And somehow that warmth fell away with that single strand of hair, leaving me cold again, as you must have been.

. . I wondered, in awe at how many things survived, while ndmg through the familiar hamlets inside the tracks that made my steady course to a place I have much cause to love and onl~ one to fe~r. I name them as they pass, Kirkwood, w~ere the trai~ pauses bnefly, Eureka, the sound of discovery, Pacific, peacefu and serene. Washington, Washington.

. . The train itself was one of our dreams. The simple act of n<lmg it together was a popular citation on our list of must·dos. ~long with a thousand other things we never reached . A Joumey~ no tw ·

• mised . h , 0 Joumeys~that never passed their pro ht Sig ts. A pair of lives led towards promised beauty that broug only departu d de !e an no arrival in any port that heaven ma ·

I fee l my so u L li ke my body , is on a j ourne y. Ifs a journey into a _ d~rkness th~t resembles he lL but re eks instead of purgatory . Th1 s 1s a he 11 wi t~ hope , I think. Dan te would have liked that. He 1s my comp anion on this j ourney. for he knows the way. He has been here befor~

" Re member y our philosophy.' ' he wro te in In ferno ·'the closer a thing comes to per fection , more keen wi ll be . its pleasure or its pain " We mu st then ha ve been once like Lucifer. bordering on perfection that rivaled that of the Throne it se lf. Perhaps though , perhaps that is the trick o f hell , to give the lost a sense of perfection , but never in truth to come near. Perhaps it is the de v il ' s only fear that someday the damned will accept their punishment with a cool aplomb. Perhaps that is my destiny; I shall be the first enlightened soul in hell.

I recognize this strange feeling and I look at m y hands as though they belonged to someone else. It is not dread that is creep ing in, but life. Washington is closer, and I'm lea ving the cold city behind I feel proximity to my home , where m y soul was vanquished in an unnecessary battle I began and could not win. I feel myself growing closer ... to you.

Coming back is a strange sensation, but only because I thought the separation was forever. Perhaps I was right the first time . If you truly love something, you must free it , let it go beyond your farthest reach. Stretching until your toe-bones quake in pain and your arm quivers with tension , and it is at that moment only, you know it's lost forever , unless it returns on its own .

so .I s~etched far beyond that point, and I'm fairly certain w:e thmg m me snapped when I did. I tried to hold on too long i ten . 1should have let you go freely but I did it with the best n entions And , ' 11 I st · now I m stretched and tom on the road to he . ayed just I . • · intent · ong enough to learn that this beautiful bird had no ions of fl . h Perch Ymg igh or soaring on distant clouds. It meant to on the sh ld . h be au11· 1 ou er closest to mine not to comfort me wit a 1u song b ' An , ut to taunt me by its nearness. Poe ts alw d so I left that place, that symbolic place that the th ays forg t t · at every e o name. They assumed that it was static , Poet ' re · go forever he was his own and that the bird could either or win 1 ' g ustrously back. There was another , crueler

. the had never penned. you perched in my life just out of opt10n Y t ·ng my every thought and dream. So I just left ch torment . . rea ' It' hard to leave your hfe , harder than you can imagin s . c: 1 1·k e, . done it yourself. In a way, 1t 1ee s 1 e something w not having . . as I fr m me as I was dnven back from Eden and mto a cruel sto en o h b . . . world of infancy, fanning from t e egm~mg agam. It might have been a grand new hfe, spectacular in ways that the old one could never have been. It wasn't, and it took me a while to figure out why.

I bore the mark of Cain, but not the sin.

My interactions with others were tainted by some unlrnown force that seemed to blacken every cloud and tarnish all their copper linings. They were beautiful girls or wise, clever or convenient, but they were not you. They were good friends and close, and they shared my obscure interests, but they were not my oldest friend, nor my closest. All those replacements were shadows, are, shadows only. They can never be what I have lost.

Then it came: a letter with your mark. The mark of the beast, I thought, as I named you Babylon and names reserved for tyrants of forgotten days. And I wrote you back, a simple and concise letter of absolute acidic hate. It was venom that stretched beyond my Nod and into the Garden where you sat enthroned with Innocence at your right hand and Friendship at your left. It was vengeance, and it was the first sweet taste I'd felt since your lips left mine.

Do my words trouble you? There is justice then, for I was troubled beyond compare, and my words reflected it. . My letter boiled, steaming and seething as my fingers itched to send it racing back to you at a speed of light. A knock on the door brought me from that hellish reverie and I left Purg t · a ~rzo to answer the summons. A man had come to fix some~hmg that was broken on an otherwise unimportant machine but th t . h · ' a it eld my words to you. ch . . .It took time, and in that time I stewed in my own hate, th e;mg the seconds bitterly, waiting to attach my signature to e aSt of my words that you would ever read . And in th e

. terim, a girl appeared and held my attenti on a way fnnn wrmh r a few hours after the man was gone.

And_in the end , I returned to that page and ~Jghe<l . It wa,~ enom, and 1t was my own. Hate from love and the fa Jlure c1f oderating redemption_that w~ sa~ in the grass Jate one night hen Mercutio was slam. Justice , 1t read , for the impend ing eath of Tybalt. The adder was long gone , but jtg po ison-truth as still lethal - so deliciously deadly.

And yet, this too was not me . Not fu11y . I was death and esurrection , the cruel city and the warm home . What of the pJan, hat of the dream? This acid held none of that, onJ y pain I hoped o share.

And that was not enough. So I went to bed alone , and the oment of anger was past. I had been struck, and sought to "ke back. Wisdom , through some agent that was certainly not y conscience, prevailed.

The second day in the city brought a second draft, a vi sion and an utter deletion . To my horror, I saw that I had ctually confessed to missing you. This would not do at al1. I was seem strong in that letter, not to betray any failures , for thi s as the life I had chosen.

In truth, your letter awakened me, much as this return to e vi11age we call home has done. It wasn't dread or hate I felt om your letter any more than it was terror seeping into my art on the train. It was remembered love.

Yes, love, dammit. Late at night, before I crept to the ~or to sleep atop your long pillow, I wrote three words in your m. I heard you swallow and felt your heart race beneath the .ft pressure of my fingers. Love is a place, like home or the ty or th t · i'- h a tmy spot of ground on which one stands and Y~s ly c~l1s his own. I thought I'd located love there , beneath ingert1ps.

'Iver •r J once stopped you from saying it. We were in that tiny oyota of h Jf · I · as late at . yours, a way between the c1ty and home . .t ere fogge~ 1!~t and you were swimming in tears . T he windows 0uneared th the heavy ex ha]ations of uncontrolJ ed sobs and Your t ·t· · The ern ymg confess ion. ou up . And wo rd s were half out by th e time J managed to shut now J k' . . ' 00 mg baek at that terrible prophetic night , I

wi sh I' d let you slip. I wish I' d let you whis~r between clenched teeth those wor~s that came so easily to me . ; es , you

Oung stupid even, m that way , and you wouldn t have were y , . h t it with a thousandth the conv1ct1on t e words need to mean 'bl b ·11 · k them into something tangi e, ut stl ... 1t would have ma e h d . mean t the world to me , just to have ear 1t once. Even if you didn 't mean it.

This might have been an argument for love, once. I might have pleaded, begged. These words might have sought something so tangible as that. And now, I don't know what I seek or what I get from this . Perhaps it's only the satisfaction of having the last word. I don't know for certain. Maybe no one can.

Now it's too late for love, and there's a nameless girl (I never say it, for fear that I'll slip and call her by yours) who pelts me with those holy words like they're bullets. She wants me to return fire. I suppose she deserves it, for putting up with all this baggage I brought along. But I can't give away something I don't have anymore.

Clutching my book and bags like a wino guards his sacred paper stack, I felt the train easing along the long rail and into my station, the station that would have been ours if we'd ever taken the time to make it so. I think of your betrayal and am strengthened by those thoughts. My resolve is firm. I will show you a picture of life as it is here in Nod where even the meanest ' crops are harvested only with unimaginable labor.

It's a journey, and I'm here now for the first time since we said goodbye. I see you so often in ~y mind, and nearly always here, at home. I dream of you every night that I dream. They were hero-dreams. I am something more than human, a~ways saving you from some grave threat. You're grateful, but cthastely so, and I claim no more reward than your smile. But en those drea h

H ' friend I h' .ms c ange, and another figure enters. e s a tall ; 8 t mk immediately, but he's changed somehow. Is he 11 er· tronger? And h

H ' st1 the ch 'ld 1 .· t en I see that he isn't changed. e s

H 1 befriended in a distant town that held nothing for us. e came home . h If place. Buth , . wit me, an ally helping me carve myse a e s walking with you.

Wa it , I cry desperately / sav d

1 d . fr , e You. I sh diuiger and c eare 1t om your path. I I owed You the 11 -h d ' , I. Never y ntrer a . t ey are my reams. I wake alo ou, because " , ne and • night it 's the same._Am I healing? The only si c?'ing. ~very tha t rm here, at this , my stop of the train. And~' I ve noticed is boo k about hope, even if it was yours once. Ther ho~ding a here, a bitter anger at all I had that is gone now e s stJ 11 venom

You do not deserve this letter any m · h

1 I c . ore t an you deserved the ove 1oohshly spent on you But h . . · earts are not minds, and It was not the mind that gave my love . d h 1. . . , nor wisdom tha t compose . t ese 1nes. This Is a relic from the soul that 1 could only wnte here at home, surrounded by dim and n· k • . 1.k d . fi . 1c enng memones I e anc1ng Irehght in the nearby hearth. You loved th at fire, if not me, but then, you always seemed cold.

And I can tell by the dying embers that I have penned too much. The fire has long since gone out, and the room is again cold with the ghosts of the past. Even the cinders have gone dark, but going over to the fireplace, I learn something terribly curious.

It seems, by God, to be dead. It's black, and to all appearances, there isn't a trace of life left in the spent fuel. But then it creeps from my fingertips to my brain, and I register the thought. There is warmth here! I can feel it if I stand closer.

Underneath the charred landscape of wasted bark, there must somewhere be a core that still holds a heart of fire. I feel it reaching out through the empty air and the dead wood, and I wonder what it means. Maybe it should have died with the flames, and I'm partly surprised that it didn't A raging fire seems _so allconsuming but in this case it left something behmd. F?r now, I J . ' ' · t back eave it, rather than feeding that warmth and nurtunng h i t · te It 1s enoug n °something that others might see and apprecia · £ . b gh for you or me to know that it is there. Perhaps it wtll e enou as well . d I' 11 ul1 a blanket

t' I don't need a fire tonight. Instea , P b my own lightly around me and go to sleep comforted only] y Lurking oneJy h

• th t firep ace . in the eat. But the potential is there, m a f. like a train , ready t background like a gun po1sed to go of ' o depart and take me home again.

C11rolin:i Cyprl'SS

Julie Gra.111

The Fighter

Am I not his prisoner? He has remO\·ed himself fro 1 He is the body and_ the rebuilt isolation gray. Proud :dove. without cause , my mstrument, shadow-boxing to the death. His enemy becomes all, becomes him We were once one. Have I cast him out? Now, his spirit is of the flesh, his own. And I, inside. Is it not competition? His smile has changed. Ride it out. Too proud to admit fear, psychological poison consumes my heart. I can't control him and flesh is tasteless, love flat. Shed my skin, this antireligion. Tortured by stolen freedom. He doesn't know his enemy.

baby sister

Ver/ pregnant, she said , looking was~ed a~ay, hollowed out Hands too big for her arm~, belly bulging without being round Without seeming to carry life

I thought of naked brown boys in Grandma's Noflof!O! Geographies thin limbs and swollen stomachs, eyes like glass

Be my coach, she said, her coffee cooling. He won't do it. You've done this before-teach me to breathe. Her hand fumbled at her lips, never touching her stomach

I remembered the moment I learned I was pregnant, how natural it felt to immediately, constantly, cup my hand around some imaginary swell

Iwanted to say, Touch your stomach, but instead looked at acrease of skin along her neck Adingy, crooked line of indented flesh

When I give my baby his baths, I carefully sponge his pale neck or the dirt will keep collecting; I'll have to scrnb his neck so hard it hurts

No,1said, the last word that meant anything

After that was just: I'll pay for that and Take care

As if ' ' core were athing she could take and use when she needed ,t

Devotional

1 probably shouldn't say, but 1 want to own you. Not just have you, But control you completely. No, don't be modest. You do deserve

To be run by me, My tiny little love

'7ne Sea

I ran tftnvn to that s_parkflng sea 1vnere you ana.1 once_playetfa:ntfstootfamidst yourfisli- fikefriends antfheftfthem affat bay. .I too havefountfthefany JVorfaJvnere a/Tyour widies

came true. 'Ifie sea myfrienais tfangerous.

.It tfoesn 't fike the girtthat stole your lieart a -way. Olze dayfor s_pite, fn raucous li,st, it took you_from me tlke a cola-bfootfet/Jii,1ri

7/ie sea_pufletfyour sh[p dinvn hrto its de[!P .ifz1e waves antfsmotheretfyou in its bed

I dltfn 't near a cry. I 'WClS aslef!P· JJut .1 li.eartfyour ,vonis inside 1n_lJ liead-

"£~vefast, my fove,far a/Ttliat _yt1u diJ t,11_,l wiff.ie gone, andafftliat is fi?ft rs di1.,t. t •

Dorothy Onstott

frugal Franklin

. min franklin was an old f uddy-duddy BenJa , An old f ud of a dud was he. He was lousy at sports But quick with retort~, . And he studied electr1c1ty.

He was born way back in 1706, Another hungry mouth dumped into the mix. so he grew up stern, And was quick to learn That work would provide all his kicks .

He invented a stove by the age of 42 What a practical thing for him to do!

And even though he's not a dead president, His face was used by the U. S. Mint.

I guess they felt he was important, too .

He passed away in the year 1790-A decade short of the 19 th century . If we could magically transport him to today, What w Id h . I ou e think? What would he say? f he could R • •wh see ockef ell er Center on Christmas Eve? at O waste of electricity!"

Ana Alvarez

disputed Goddess of the Ye ll ow Pies

My confident grin lets him know that he will

"I d .d 't h never get ns wer right . 1 n even ave to look at th th e a , e answer fo r this one , you know . Its THAT easy!" I taunt, adding . hr·evous laughter for effect. mrsc

He frowns a little and tries not to lose his concentration. Actually, he's trying not to lose the image of pretending to concentrate. I know for a fact he's totally stumped.

"Hey, shut up! I didn't make fun of you when you tried to go for the science pie!"

"Whatever. Just answer the question."

"Fine, fine."

I stare at him and cover up the card as if my life depended on it. He's slowly losing it . Beads of sweat slowly trickle down his forehead. His left leg bobs up and down. His eyes slowly shift to the upper right corners in a silent show of falsified deep thought. There's no way on God's green earth he's going to get the yellow pie. My grin grows wider. face.

"Hadrian," he says abruptly with a smug look on his 6

No way. I quickly look at the question. Who was the

1rst Roman Emperor to wear a beard? I know for a fact the answer is Hadrian without even turning the card over, but there' . · . s no possible way that little freak could ever get it rrghtl M ,

· aybe there's a one in a billion chance that Im wrong ... Maybe it's Tiberius Diocletian or Caligula. I flip th e ca rd over ' ' · I into tn and read the answer as a thousand knives P unge of th y gut - Emperor Hadrian. I'm the Undisputed Goddess

e Yello p·

· Id he ever 9et w 1esl History is my category! How cou

0 quest · " ron like that right? bigge So , where's my pie?" He asks with a grin ten times r than th e one I flashed at him.

"You're not gett ing the pie!" I ye ll at him. "You had to the cards al l day! You cou ld've looked at any of access di" h whenever you wante .

t em "Give me the pie! I got the answer r ight fa ir and I"square.

"From the guy who purposely feigned an ulcer when I was kicking your butt in chess? No way!"

"You had only moved one pawn, you moron! You weren't winning anything! Plus, it was indigestion, not an ulcer. Long John Silver's doesn't mix well with me."

"You're still not getting the yellow pie! I know for a fact you don't have the slightest idea who Emperor Hadrian was!"

"Sure I do. He was an emperor and he had a beard." He smirks and holds out his hand, "Pie, please."

"You're such a jerk!" I run to my room, with the yellow pies and the card, of course, and grab one of the multitudes of books on Roman History I can find and confidently walk back to the cheater. "Okay Suetonius, let's see if you get this one right."

He rolls his eyes and rests his elbows on his knees . "Why don't you quit whining and give me the stupid pie already? Look, I won't tell anyone I beat the 'Super Ultimate Champion of History,' okay?"

I ignore him and begin my interrogation. "What landmark was Emperor Hadrian famous for constructing?" His face goes blank. His right eyebrow shoots up 0nd he crosses his arms. "Will you just give me the damn pie, NOW?"

"Answer the question first, Mr. I-know-everything- about-Roman-history!"

"Uhhhgg! Since you obviously have a lot of wax in your ears I'll I . . , 'T , ' c arify for you. I didn't say 'Mary Poppins, onto, or 'Ro k , I . , L. lloW pie!" c Y, said Hadrian!' Now give me tne ye

"I said to answer the- " I stop as a sudden moment of . . h its me I remember those answers ! I look back t clar ity a b k of the card and read: Mary Poppins, Tonto and th e ac ., zy-cnsw ers to d,ff erent questions on the same card ! Ro e re such a cheater!" I yell at him. I show him the •y ou a . derful little card with his perfectly memorized answers in won · ·r kn h t di" bea utiful italic typing. ew you c ea e . He angrily gets up and leaves the room as I celebrate wit h my cluster of yellow pies.

Michelle Hendricks

Sudden Release

"Waw This i.s a rrw~ion. " .

He this excitably, but without real emotion, as if says his · 11 He nly excites mte ect. stares at the 1~ the prospect o dl 1 . ictler htfull then carefully and soun ess y places 1t on the thoug Y, · · · d li · f h xt to him, as if it is a e cate piece o art. He couc ne . . d h fl 5 to his former position an stares at t e oor with his return · · f b I kn h · hands crossed in a position o Pt:3-~r, ut ow .e is not ym . g: neither one of us are religious. I stare at him for what pra · dis his f ling seems like an eternity, trymg to cem ee s, but his face is difficult to see through the growing darkness of dusk The room is extremely quiet, except for the humming of the heater and the rain gently pelting the large bay windows. The sun had just set and the room is growing darker by the second; for a moment I get the distinct impression that I am alone in the darkness. I sit completely still with my eyes shut and I can hear his every movement; the swaying of his long hair; his eyes blinking; the quick rhythm of his heart; his slow, somewhat labored breathing.

"Whit do 'P" m>an by awxie rew~im'?"

Upon hearing my question he continues to stare at the floor, but even through the shadO'ws I can see his co~tenan~e_tum ~to _a frown. It is a pensive frovm; he is havmg a difficult tune finding the words. He's always been a thoughtful speaker, and a slow speaker: not out of slowness of th~ught but out of exceptional intelligence; he never sa)'~ anyth½ig unless he is sure it faithfully reflects his thoughts. Even if you d , kn him I knew this f on t ow you can tell he's a poet. . h d rom the moment I met him; he always had an intensity t at rew m t ds him nh·a . e owar; and a creativity that was not O • personality h • . ient and . c aractenstic, but intrinsic in his every maven . assertion And I 1 d . I t wni if onl · ove him from the moment me Yout of she L :t but that rne .er amazement. We dated for a wnue , Jl ans nothin h hallu\ knew rne W , g now; that was years ago, when e . i.

· eve been good friends ever since , great foen

h1 , ne , ·er lo, ·ed n1e the "'ray I love him He'

l.. it he> .. 1·f . f . . s al

l't ~u-e ci± m:· a ec uo n o r him; I've ne v hidd

L ~ "11 .l ~ • h al h er en it b

h' t'°' .1 f f . es ne ver b

< • _rt>ness o± lt as . \\:-ays un him since h ' ' ut

t. , l lc of ren in1mg m y a ection, and he was n th een

c.1p.1 1 di . ever e type

J.. ·ould act on a m e oc re or less than passionat .

" 110 L • all . Id him all th . ' e emotion.

But no" · I ye ±m : to . . e things I ve ne ver dared thn.1 ugh ,1 lett er of all things , because I know that if I began' to speak the w~1-ds I would not have the composure to finish them. .\nd I s~ hold onto hope_ tha: eventually my decfa ra~ons will provoke _some~g 111 him tha: I pray exists, some thm g gre ater than f nen~hip. But I hope m vain, for J'ye stood by an~ ~ratched him fall madly in love with one girl afte r another; wntmg fervent poetry appealing to their beauty and perfeccion, imploring them to love him the way he knows I always have.

''J 'w alWt')5 kmcm )00'7£ fiJt strorrJy form;, but I rX?U:r

k rew I affected )at this m«h, this deeply. "

He looks at me now, but he cannot see my tears thro ugh the gloom. I try not to look dovVIl, because surely that would give me away, so I close my eyes hoping he won't notice. I am afraid of things I can't share with him. I'm afraid he'll never understand that I love how his eyes become half moons when he smiles, or how I secretly smile when I see him flustered; the way his arms fly about and he gets an uncharacteristic but comical seriousness in his face that even in its wony looks more like a prelude to a smile than a frovm. He 'll never understand how I refuse to leave the house on days when I expect his call and how my friends can al~ys tell that I've just talked to him by the cheerfulness in my vmce. ~ d most of all he'll never understand that he has such . VItau ' . . f him ty, and how my greatest fear is that I drain it ro~ th · da Suddenly I feel his arms envelope around me 111 e rkn ' ak · bs I ess, and I cannot hide anymore. I bre mto so . cannot ·d· · ·d me smce I' kn control, sobs that have been hi mg msi _e h Ve h' b d mto sue sp own un, weeping that thro-ws my O Y as rns th h d · his gre atest eff at e can hardly hold me, espite f verv ons I . f c_.. but ore " 1 · cry and cry and cry, not JUSt or uiui,

.61 ·h·ng I'v e felt or expe rienced, for rnisery itself fo . horn e t 1 h . f '. . r its own sake. I cry for everything wort c ryi~1g o r: the suicide of my step-father, the death of my bes t fn end, and th e • ·rability of my own lonely death; no matter how lo ved ,11'1 mev1 . h d I il •Y \; re in life we all die alone m t e en . cry unt the muscles : my sto~ach spasm and my eyes bum with salt, and I haven't the strength to cry anymore. And when I've ended his arms are still around me, his face a mask of tendemess , his eyes full of des pair.

"Haw do 'pt feel, alwt uhat 1'7£ said in the letter?"

His arms release me, and his countenance collapses into its former thoughtfulness. He looks at me as if he is a wounded animal, and in the soft pallid glow of the full moon he delivers his judgment.

"I'm.. t:rerrmdously jlattmxl. "

I feel something unpleasant in my stomach, like someone just slashed my insides with a razor sharp scythe. I look at him but I can no longer see him; I only see shadows.

one too ma ny admirers adm ire in cowboy boots prod uc ts of their parents ond an affinity for the 50's on ly extremes represented sex at 15, rock and roll, or still no sex at thirty-two except for that one time with his sister protesting but god didn't see that so its ok to talk about. what a good match even though I was one to run with the rock and roll and I would bet my life that he was terrified of me. after the time I told him i didn't believe in church i think he realized that i wouldn't spend my life under his hulking mass for a two second span of missionary-like hell twice a month, on time until beautiful babies in cowboy boots who loved baby jesus and hated their mother and all of her rock and roll de · c1ded to appear and ~e _could smack me around nt11 I took them to church

Keely Shaw

Thoughts of W ar final

"We- -ta----tj- -trurt." Our captain' s W<Jrd d b th d f. . f3 tn1n; d ly interrupte y e ea en1ng sound of uun f , ,, , JJ ru e f · d ·ff ,::, ir,/ " d us. Urban war are 1s 1 erent. I fee] Jik.(l I ' i aroun .d . - m n the middle of a car acc1 ent; conf~ swn is in th~ afr . E·,r~n focus of more than a dozen trained marine s can 't th8derstand exactly what the plan is. un What is the plan?

1 only understood half of what the squad leader said ("turr"), but I know what he means. Fourt~~n of us hiding behind corpses of cars and buildings collapsed from the bombing runs last week. We hadn 't exp~ctB<i this much resistance. I'm reminded of an animal that wanders into the middle of a highway, not suspectin g the speeding cars and blaring horns.

"Jon, we have to push through to take out the machine gun turrets." Our captain sounded despera t'3. A spear of reality sunk into my chest.

"We have to spread out and advanc e!" I scream, not because I am angry, but because it's the only wa y the person next to me can hear.

I have already made a plan of action for myself in the last 15 minutes; I am too vulnerable here to waste time with confusion. I signaled to the re mai nder of my squad that I would need cover fire to run to the next ~uilding. In a metropolis like this, buildings are close ogether. I only need to make it ten or so feet.

"IN POSITION!" I yell.

tha . My fingers are wrapped around my rill~ so ti~ tJy t they looked like marble. I tighten m y entire bodJ abnd clenc h my teeth as if that's going to save me . 1 take a reat h d an co unt backwards from five .

''F iv e ,'' I sa y aloud.

conun How infinite ly slow seconds are when bu lle~ lhe . uous ly str eam by your face so close yo u can Wind b . . I

,, reaking as th ey scream by yo u . Four," I whisper to myself.

I S it was that second passed by way too Ass ow a '

fa st. " to thinking, Jon!" I scream at myself.

"ih{ee, two, GO!" My brothers in battle throw . . to position and squeeze out as many rounds their guns in f h W kn h n in the direction o t e enemy. e ow we as t ey ca · · I 1 h can't hit anything from _our position. can on y ope the enemy isn't aware of this.

My first stride hits th~ ground, and 1'1:1 off. , Everything goes in slow motion when you think you re going to die.

Why am I moving so slow?

My mind wanders back to the animal in the road. I am that animal.

My second and third strides land, halfway there. The constant gunfire just melts together to become a constant sound of painful annoyance. I wish I were deaf.

On the fourth step the bastards see me and begin to fire. The bullets kick up dust to the right -of me. If my heart could beat any faster it would punch a hole in my chest.

"DIVE," I say to myself, like my body is only voice activated and I have to give it commands. My body obeys and launches me behind the remains of a small building. gue~s it'~ small. It's hard to tell at this point. I'm safe, JUS t like little league stealing bases.

I immediately look back for my comrades. Trying to speak would be useless. Ten feet is way too far for anything to be heard.

d Another man was in the position where I started ~a Y to make the run. Another animal on the highway . 80 8 0 ;:~id~~;g, clean-shaven, boots still polished like a little· • f · He was new to battle. He resembles me a , in act he re bl f month s ea : sem es me a lot. He was me a ew blu e eyes :~~r on my first day of front line battle. Steel familiar to sautly hair, he's the kind of guy that looks and start s tveryone. He springs up with jolting speed owards me

"NO!" I sho : · ut, but he can 't hear me.

The enemy had seen my route al d ely just waiting for the next man to trrea Yand is sur . . 1 Yand pas T element of surpnse is ost. 1, 2, 3, dive! s. he Damn, he was fast.

I reach out to grab him out of mid-air and . ·n We fall to the ground, him on top of me f . pull him 1 . . arcing the air from my lungs. I push him off of me and get

"Jesus, that was risky, what are you thin~J ·bo ?" 1yell. But I'm only pretending to be mad, I'm actuall Y· quite relieved I'm_ not a~o?e anymore. y

I am now in position to see both machine gun turrets.

"OK, here's the plan," I say as I turn around. He hasn't moved.

"Kid," I give him a nudge with my boot. "Get up"

He is lying face down. I don't know why I feel like I should turn him over, I know he is dead. I grab his shoulder and carefully roll him over as if not to hurt his corpse. My face cringes as his brains leak out of the hole in his head, smoke still coming out with the blood.

"I tried to tell you no." But he can't hear me. I rip off his I.D. tags and put them in my vest pocket. No time to think about it; I shut his eyes and turn my attention back to the turrets.

My squad had spread out and taken new positions. Still too far away for a grenade, and the_ enemies were too protected for gunfire to be effective. . "I have to get closer," I say, giving orders t? ~y disobedient legs. If I could manage to get two build~ff 5 closer I would have a chance at the first turret, and 1 can take the first turret the second will surely 5urr e?der or retr ' . 1f of thi ngs eat for sure. It's easy to convince myse when I' d

m esperate.

Here we go .

"Fiv~, Four, GO!" f fi re. o ne high~ _My first step is met with a b arr age O d vi bro tious th Pitched tink of metal against m eta l sen 5 ick rough . In one qu my gun and into my fin gertips .

. t d dive back into cover behind the motion , I tw1s an rubble. " ,, 1 am relieved and angry at the same tim Damn. ·t ld' kill

11 t h adn ' t hit my gun, i wou ve ed me. If the bu e · Th f. . . . . that it still might. e inng pin on my rifle How ironic is damaged. . d · "Now what?" Two grena es, one pistol, and me. Maybe I'll pretend to be _woun~ed a~d !et the rest of squad take care of it. What if they re thinking the same ~fng? What would your father think? Get your ass up and move, Jon.

This time I'm surprised my body listened.

What is this noise? Silence. Did someone take out the turrets? As I peek my head around the corner rapid machine gun fire resumes, knocking off chunks of remaining brick.

"Guess not."

My father was so excited when I was accepted to West Point. It's not easy to be the only son of a thirdgeneration marine. He all but disowned me when I told him I wasn't going. My mind's drifting again to avoid my situation.

¾'here is that light coming from? A small, piercing ray of light in the middle of shadow.

It's coming through the building. I've never been much for religion, but this must be a sign. If I can follow this light through this rubble undetected and navigate to the other side, I might be close enough for the first turret.

I feel like a mole or maybe a worm burrowing through dirt. What is with me and animals today? I wish I had thought of this before I lost my rifle; I feel naked without it.

"Allllmost through," I whisper with a grunt. I can see the turret. It's far, maybe twenty yards; that's a longk way to hurl a grenade. I'll have to be in the open and ta e a few steps to throw it hard enough. .

"I d , h' 1 · it is to on t t ink they see me." How ca ming talk to myself; I always know exactly what to say.

pulling the pin on a grenade is kind of like la . tches , only if you hold a grenade too long ~h Ying with rna ences are slightly more dramatic. ' e nsequ . t t co "Pull the pin ... coun o two ... and throw."

"Pull the pin . .. count to two ... and throw,, 1, . , m not y body is hearing me. sure rn "Pull the pin ... count to two ... and throw." Click.

"One, two ... hua/" Looks good but, why the fuck 1still standing here? am "DIVE, STUPID!"

"Hu-" My legs didn't have time to jump; someone has violently tackled me to the dirt. Gasping for air I try to make out words, but I can't. I struggle to lift my head and look into the dust left by the explosion. The dust is settling, and I can see the mangled bodies of my rivals strewn across the ground.

"Beautiful."

I look around for the savior who tackled me. I see no one. Reality sinks in. "I'm shot." My first reaction is to call for a medic. My drill sergeant's voice rings in my head. That excessively loud, deep, and yet monotone voice. His awkward pauses always annoyed me.

"I understand some of, you people are, here against your will. Well guess what? You, you, don't have will anymore. You are one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children otherwise known as the United States Marine Corps. You will all go, to battle . And of, the fifty-six marines standing next to, you, less than ten will be, alive in a year. Remember, this. If you should find yourself. wounded in battle, do not immediately ciy like the littl e bitches you are and call for a medic. No ,

e valuate your s~atus. If you are sh ot in th e arm or leg , or oth e r non-vital, app enda ge, d

A. pt th e +act that you are dead . Ac.r: i:. r,1 d~ ere , 1• me ~d that vou , have twenty to twenty-thr~ the fi ' t b·v./e But do not be sod. For th e ne-,-0 minutes o · m e odd minutes you will be , A GOD .

twen tv so b ki ll ., dead m a rin e cannot e ed . SolllE r-A Be cause a · , . . v 1

Y be thi nki.no y ou would Just lie there . xo, y ou ma · . 0 • ·

Yi do not just li e there. GOD S do nat Just lie a:und. GODS kill and destroy everything they sae , 50 y ou will get y our _ass up , y ~ur M-60 fully automatic assault nfie, you wrll pi ck up your grenades, and y ou will seek and de stroy every enemy t.arget until you collapse. "

I think he paused like that because he talked too loud and had to breathe. Jesus , I can't believ e that's the only thing I remember from basic.

Evaluate yourself, Jon. I close m y ey es as I grab my side. I don't want to look, but I can feel m y ,vann blood on my fingers. This isn't what I expected . It doesn't even hurt that bad.

"I have twenty minutes to live. n Time is so strange. Ev erything is going so fast now . Tw enty minutes. Twenty minutes is merely a flash of time.

"There's something in my shoe ." I start to untie my boot. 'vVhat are you doing , Jon? "

"Shit, I'm talking to myself again. "

Gods do not untie their boots; gods seek an d de_stroy. Twenty minutes to do something right. Twenty mmutes to be a hero. Twenty minutes to make him proud.

b . 1am more focused at this moment than I haYe eyer ~:: m my life. Like a machine , I make myself stand an d ,bmy head-seeking God-vision zeros in on turr et num er two Th . . ds the other sid · ey are firing away from me , to,'7ar . troop . e of the crippled street. The y have n,ro of m~ pinned down · • · the\ haven 't n . in a ditch. In the confusion •

"I oticed the destruction of the first turr et· am a god"

I draw m ·•

1·b rate steps tow d Ypistol and walk in quick de 1 e ar s the turret. Fifty yards and clo sing.

I squeeze the trigger sending my odl odly gun. g y bullets out of rnY g d d " 0 f h

"Go amn. ne o t e six enem h d l d Y ea s sti k· out of the turret exp o es, splattering the tar et to _c ing 'th chunks of uncooked brain. Thirty yardg M hi~ left ::s become just an extension of my godly ha~d. f:;st0 1 brain covered target ~urns around. I'm thinking of my father as I pull the tngger three more times. How d he would be. The first bullet rips into the meat of%ou target's shoulder, the second misses, the third punct y · h' k d' bl ures a whole In IS nee sen 1ng ood squirting out of his neck like a Monty Python skit. He falls. Fifteen yards.

"I AM A GOD!"

The four remaining targets turn at me and draw their guns. Instinctively, my left hand grabs my last grenade as my right hand empties my .45 into the targets, killing two more. I pull the pin of my grenade with my godly teeth.

"One, two, throw."

The enemy sees the grenade and tries to take cover, but it's too late for them. They will be killed by my godly force. My legs try to hurl me to the ground to take cover from my grenade. No, god dammit, you are god legs; you will stand tall in the wake of your destruction. I am insane.

The blast sends debris, shrapnel and miscellaneous body parts past my godly head as I laugh. As the dust settles, it's silent. •

"TAKE COVER SOLDIER!" One of my broth ~rs m War is yelling. I am once again dragged back to real_1Jci1 and I am slowly noticing that I'm standing in th e mi 8 of open terrain. But what does it matter now? My a~te ntion goes back to my wound. I reach down to my side

It's all dry This isn't right. I see th e 1 . ) 1• ,? " Vest I . . . " he hr.II i s 111 s. 0 · lift my shirts and look. What t 11 w '1s nly h . ·de I thoug 1 · ' • a srnall cut on my side. T e 51 ·

Wh ere's the blood? 1oJ e in tn)'

"I am a god."

t fa gaping hole. But the hole is in my vest hanging ou O h I D · .· · h y pocket and pull out t e . . tags of my I reac mm . · self the kid who died today. younger , ,, 1. "Son of a bitch. The tags are sp iced down the 'ddle I can't believe it was enough to deflect the bullet· tnl · J , maybe it was just a piece of shrapne; . "Damn it, Jon, get down, you re 1n the middle of the fucking road!" My captain is still yelling at me. Oh hell, I'm still standing in the open. A far-off gunshot echoes simultaneously with a sharp pain in my stomach. I fall to my knees. Both hands grasping my stomach, hot blood pouring over my fingers. Yes, this is what I thought it would feel like. I have twenty minutes to live. Dad would be proud.

Watch What Is Coming

The Edge of the Pond in vVlllkt

Jamie Kerry

A Twist on the Snowglobe Theory

Lightning slashes and reflashes in harsh patterns of bright, jagged lines silhouetted against a dark backdrop, illuminating the ragged

intestines of the clouds. Riding the thunder, the Skylarks dive deep into the abyss of horizon underlining the sky.

Child gods create new worlds in the heavens with lightning lines from their Etch-A-Sketches.

In those grayscale cities thunder is their loud frustration with an irreversible mistaketantrums over imperfect creations

And the new world is shaken and erased.

BIOCK

I sit around, a harm1ess cube. A, B, C, D, flower' n-ee

Made of wood No arms or 1egs to move about. rm StationarY

Lumped in a box, Then scattered on the floor• you sue!<: me. you slobber all over me. you with no teeth and IOtS Of saliva. Bite down on me. And 1ose me under the sQfa.

for wee1<:s I live with the duSt bunnies. MotntnY is too busy to Clean Underneath the SOfa.

I'tn tired and worn, MY corners stno0thed down. Your saliva has caused tnildew. It's eating away at tne; forming cracKs.

I'tn falling apart. It's an infeetion, reallY. Eating away. I'tn dYing.

All Of a SUdden, I get Scooped up by busy hands And thrown in a tub Of Bleach water. It bur.ns, but I don't care. Yes, l tn fadina b l'tn n . ~, Ut in the trash l tn a11ve. · Dried. Back in Your 1go_ tnOUth

Jessica Posche1

m at the Dierbergs Bakery 8:5

p. ·

Five more minutes to go.

Ana Alvarez

I quickly wet a cloth and wipe the front counter era · 1 d · t E · • sing a I the mudges and han pnn s. very time I clean this stupid thing s . h . "C , some obnoxious kid runs over ~re_ screaming, OOKIES COOKIES COOKIES!!" and ~bs their ~1rty hands a~I over the immaculate glass. Their parents obviously don t s~em to mmd that I'm usually standing next to the counter, washcloth m hand and eyes twitching like I'm going to have anervous breakdown.

I brush some stray crumbs off the counter and give an evil stare at the phone . Some woman called me to place a cake order, only to find out our cake decorator wouldn't be in tomorrow. She needed the cake for her son's birthday party tomorrow and decided to yell at me for her obvious procrastination.

I tum the counter lights off and look back at the clock. 8:57pm.

All I want to do right now is go home, lie down on my soft couch and relax while violins and cellos resonate in my ears, preferably playing something by Bach.

I do a routine check up of the tables lined with rolls, cookies, breads, and other sweets, to make sure that the products with the nearest expiration date are on top.

I walk back to the spotless counter, grab the "Sorry ... we're closed" sign, and place it in plain view for customers to behold.

I hear a man ask his kids, "Hey, do you guys want some COOKIES?" and they cheer.

Oh God, no.

I look at the clock ... 9:00pm.

I can't run away. .

They've already spotted my green and red uniform.

It 's too late. . 11 over the s The children run to the counter and rub their hand~ad his kids

Par1<1tng glass hungry for cookies The man walks up behm d and ' · 'f ' birth ay t says, "Hey, I need to place a cake order. It's my WI e 5 0rnorrow ."

Unremarkable

0

upon a time there was a girl. On the surface she w nee B . . c. as I remarkable to be sure. ut, 1t 1s sa1e to say that ston· alto get 1er un ' . 1 h es lly not written about gir s wit out a reason, so we can ~~nm . d

he W as special. Or I can assume 1t an you can read on assumes , your choice. .

She could sing like you've never heard m your life. That c. t was doubly true because she wouldn't have sung in front of you 1ac . h 1 anyway. She sang to her c~t. Som~time_s s e wou d feel especially brave and she would sing m a choir or m front of a church . Strangely enough, in a church, surrounded by kind people and old people who couldn't even hear her, she was the most nervous. Must be with God watching her there and all.

She wasn't pretty in a conventional way. She had a funny sort of smile, it was too tall, and as everyone knows, smiles should go left and right rather than up and down. Her ears were big and her nose was bumpy. Her eyebrows were bushy and a little section of them went the wrong direction. But you should have seen her eyes. Her eyes made up for the whole of her face. They were of a medium size, not extraordinary, but they were the color of the bluegreen ocean. When you looked into them, you would swear that you were looking into the exact pair of eyes that the real Mona Lisa must have had, you know, the eyes that every poet writes about but no one has ever really seen in an actual girl. A person could get lost in those eyes, that is, as long as they didn't look at the rest of her face.

People were never very nice to her; they place too much emphasis on beauty. Well, I suppose I should clarify. They place too ~uch emphasis on facial symmetry. Facial symmetry, ho wever pleaSmg to the eye, has absolutely nothing to do with beauty. Peo ple t~ nd to not understand that. She went on about her life , generall y dis regarding people.

So h · "Once u . mew ere m the world someone started a st ory• ,. pon a tim e th ere was a boy " 'round about the time I star ted th '!', one . We have · ' · d th' hn\'

d h . come upon the place where the ston es an t; · an t e girl mee t It • · thin g · . · was an mconsequential mee tm g, no 't' entire ly speci al b . . d I ere we 111 H . a out tt. Noneth e less it happ ened , an · 1 f 11111,· face. She l~k~ked _cats._ She liked that 'about him . He li ke d ~~:r :,i d hi s smile. You could sa y th ey lik ed eac h 0

I be lyin g . S inct.: lh c y w e re walking 1 no a ong the

1hcY de c ide d lo wa lk toge the r . T h e y brought h same Path anY\Va

Mnn y y ea rs pa sse d . S h e held h i er cat with them Y, d I · m up When h ·

I. •lin g we ll, an 1e earned he r through e wasn't ec . s ome rou h

S >n,ctim es th e y thou g ht things couldn't g t g Patches.

l 'd '"f'J . k e any worse b

1ime th ey d1 . ,ey Ju s t ept walking and holdin h , ut a lot of disregarclin g peopl e and facial s ymmetry Th g ands and h h . ere were al .

When th ey felt s o appy t at they were sure th so time · b • ey couldn't . foci any happi e r, ut a lot of times they would possibly

Soon th e y decided that it would be nic. t h h . h Th . e o ave som company on t e IT pat . ey gave light to a litt] . I . e more

·1 Sh e gir with ocean eyes and a pretty sm1 e. e grew to Jike cats and b S . d h . I ugs. ometimes wh en no on was aroun , t e g1r would sing to the littl

Jd I b I . eone . The boy wou a ways e 1stenmg out of sight. He liked her voice

After a few more years the little girl could do hand . · h h . spnngs. She tned t~ teac t boy and t?e girl, but they were hopeless. So, they gave hght to a httle boy with handspring potential and ocea eyes. The little girl taught him to like cats and bugs and n handsprings. They became known as the little ones.

Years passed. The little ones had chosen other paths; they had gone off to find others who liked cats and bugs and handsprings. OccasionaJly they would visit the old familiar path and show the boy and girl a picture they had drawn or sing a song they had imagined. Mostly though, the boy and the girl walked their path alone , holding hands with cat in tow.

Time rose and fell in years, and the boy and girl happened upon a spot in their path that they rather liked. They decided to stop there and sit for a while. They talked about their little ones with little ones of their own. They talked about the beautiful times they'd spend holding hands all these many years ; She thanked him for all the times he'd carried her· he picked her up for old times' sake aod ' . . d spun her around. She sang a song for him that she had imagme h . d h Th ·1ed at each other w en thetr paths first met. He ktsse er. ey smt and became angels

d ir] They Joved

Once upon a time there was a boy an a g ; hat people each other, and it was altogether unremarkab]e. Thats w say, anyway. I generally di s regard people.

Birgit

Anne Earney

Har

dball publi shing

Spring Titles

di.tors at Hardball Publishing are pleased to ann h

The e . . . ounce t e release of their spring titles . Effor~ ~ave been made to find something for everyone, even ~e illiterate . Order quickly as aU books are scheduled to be remaindered at nine o'clock tomorrow night!

fiction:

Harry Planter and the Chamber of the Flesh

Don't miss Harry's coming-of-age experiences in the House of Pleasure .

Harry Planter and the Right-Wing Extremists

Harry goes to battle against middle-aged bible-thumpers and their evil associates

Their Eyes were Watching TV

A tale of twenty-first-century slavery.

The Sun Also Sets

The expatriates return to the States and start families, leaving poor Jake feeling more alone than ever before .

Anima l Fac tory

And yo u thought things were bad on the farm .· ·

Memo irs:

( )n lhr Jnte r'ita te

A modern tal 0 o f drivinr ac ro ss /\m c ri ca thr o ug h . e dl ' _, h ·, h ~11r•ed po li ce n ess co nstru ction zones . Jn cluul'S n 1~ , ~. chase!

Socks-the-Cat' s Diary : Everything Buddy Wanted to Know

The fo rmer First Cat reveals all in diaries found by Buddy, the current First Dog.

Self-help:

The Habit and the Loss of Control

The small elves that determine our desires and behavior go to battle against the monkeys of addiction.

When I Say No, I Feel Good!

What we can learn from two-year-olds.

The Hitchhiker' s Guide to Hell

Don't go down the wrong path twice.

Be/lerive would like to congratulate the winners of the Pierre Laclede Honors college Awards for Excellence in Writing

2001-2002

Larissa Hoda

"Virtues of the Pessimist" David Huxel

"On the Road to Existential Despair"

Kevin Buckley

"Eugenics and the Rhetoric of Philantrophy"

On theRoad to Existential Despair

k K Uac 's on the Road is often considered to be a Jae ero , . fi eon a variety of 'counter-culture movements , atour minal 1n uenc . se _ f 1 .f nthe road and an encouragement to get out and live one's guide o I eO f h I b · · life. On the Road may also be seen as a cry or e p y its mam h t S 'Sal Paradise ,' the narrator of the book (and an only c arac er . . h' If\ . . f ·nally fictionalized version of Kerouac 1mse ., , 1s not, m act, margi · f h' l'f b t th . · engaged in ajoyous tnbute to the va!ue o 1s 1_e u ra er 1s running from his life in an attempt to escape its ex1stent1al demands

Consider the sad situation and the pathetic existences that the (again, only slightly fictionalized) characters of the s!ory lead; drinking, drugs, prostitution, random sexual escapades, stealing rather than working, using each other (and others beyond their immediate circle), drifting without goal or direction, broke and penniless rather than working, domestic abuse, fathering multiple children without attempting to care for them, destruction of property, pathological risk-taking, all to name afew. (This should not, incidentally, be seen as a list of things offensive to my morals: certainly not; I am exceedingly libertarian and, as such, am not offended by other peoples' choices for themselves. Rather, I mean only that such essentially negative behaviors, when combined with other essentially negative behaviors and to the exclusion of more positive behaviors, is highly suggestive of some manner of underlying pathology. I am also acutely aware of the highly subiective nature of labeling such things as 'negative' or 'positive,' however I assume some level of intuition on the part of the reader that using other persons, for example, is fundamentally negative in nature. This is not ~o suggest, however, that they need to be 'cured' of their behaviors, nor in some way coerced into changing their lifestyle. It is merely to suggest a broad question of whether or not such behavior is in any sense of the word 'h Ith , , · ' ' ea or good' for an individual). .

Ch I believe, based upon my interpretation of the narrative, that its aracters seem t ff t

Unde t Osu er from several pathologies that are bes rs ood with · • · · rsm traditional! d . an existential/psychological approach. Ex1st~nt1a1 freed Y eh_neates four primary areas of anxiety: death/finitude, . 0m, meaning! . . pears 1n differing f ~ssness, and isolation; each such anxiety ap orms within the text.

To begin with the first, anxiety over one's limited ex · t f f . . 1s ence, we ·nthe characters a ear o endings, of their own finitude or yth· see i . . t· f th . rthl . , an mg t uggests a llm1ta ,on o e1r ea y existence. Sal remarks tha s . t t C 1·t . many . swhen traveling wes o a I orrna that he has reached the "e d f time d h I 1 . • h n o the continent" (an . ow peop e iving t ere are always aware of this fact) and that there 1s nowhere e!se to go. Dean Moriarty, the consummate (a~d proba~ly ma~1c-depressive, based upon the provided descriptions of his behaviors) thinker of many deep-sounding but often meaningless thoughts, repeats time and again throughout the narrative about "knowing time." Knowing time. If we only knew time, what would we do? We know time, how to slow it down and live more. The implications are those of an existential awareness of one's passing time-tick , tock-and one's finitude, one's narrowing of possibilities with each passing day as one's time dwindles away. It may also be noted that failing to make significant life choices-and thus define and thereby limit oneself to certain possibilities-is also interpretable as a formation of anxiety over the limitations of time. Each character within the story seems unwilling to commit to any significant life choices whether future plans, relationships, or otherwise. Escape from freedom and responsibility are rampantly manifest in all of the characters as well. For example, they steal or beg money rather than work, Sal (that is to say, 'Kerouac') obtains money from his aunt (a substitution for his real life mother) in order to keep himself going while on the road. This is not freedom. Is the one who must beg or steal for a living, that is to say depend upon others for their living , as free as one who depends on him or her self? Is it that this mode of existence 'on the road' just seems freer than, say, working in a factory? Does Sal ever become autonomous and forge his own way through life-on his own terms-or does he remain forever nurtured by thesafety of cash from his family or from the stolen, begged and borrowed property of others? None of the other characters achieve an !tthentic level of freedom, either. That which they claim to seek, _ the leged freedom offered by their lifestyle, is not truly freedom but is ~ather acomfortable and secure cell in which there need be no ,, ~spon.sibility, no growth beyond the infantile, "I'll do ~hatever I want entahty, no need to exist in the big scary world of big , scary • respon ·b·i· . ' . 1 where there 1s s, 11t1es, choices and con sequences . It 1s a Pace need to fight against the system, the reality, which th ey h~ve all eiected ; Where there is only the easy way of opting out of this system

Onsible for on e's li fe , for one's

· Not to be res p · · ti b avoiding its reality . d for one's self, is poIg~an y Oyurse in it for what make~ oflan has1·s)· "Nothi ng in th.is lousy world c , ( "th origIna emp . . , b d . expressed by Sal WI ? 1 d 't want it to be and It can t e an It is my fault , don't you see th a~ · re~~onsibi lity for his life situation :_ ''I'~ won 't be ." Dean eq~ally d~rnesd e " he says . Dean is led by his ltfe; . · my life as It lea s m , . d · · . cutting along ~n . . He is the passive victim of his own ec1st0ns . he is not le~d1~g his hf~ . his life , it is choosing him , and thus he can after all , he 1sn t choos!ng tcome Arguably , that Kerouac 's characters not be respons,.ble for its ~u easur~ of freedom-not the freedom to beg all seem to ~tvh01dh~cnhy troeabumy beer (as well as a long list of similarly for money w1 w 1 · f I t· ty· . h . ) but the freedom to chose a meaning u , sa is mg negative c 01ces , · f th th ath in life-points to , I believe, some inherent anxiety or em over e ~ery nature of freedom itself. (This , however, depends upon ~~eth~r one conceives freedom as negative-the freedom from restnctIons, not to be told what one should be-or as positive; the freedom to choose; to decide what one should be) .

Time and again, the characters are adrift without any real, satisfying meaning or purpose in their lives and without goals or direction towards finding any. Certainly there is much to be said for rejecting the dominant paradigm of the society at that time (and equally of this time and probably any other): conformity, suburbia, etc. However, when rejecting the established social values and goals, one needs to define one 's own values and goals with which to replace the rejected ones; otherwise one will live without any values and goals. The characters have failed to do exactly this, and resultantly, they exist in a vacuum created by their rejection of what is expected of them by their society and the lack of any goal-directed actions of their own definition; t~us , they stumble through their lives without purpose. Sal is aware of his own meaninglessness, perhaps not entirely consciously, and he seems to have no idea of the extent to which it drives him. He finds pleasure in only brief, fleeting moments, but is more often in despair.

As Sal tells us while i~ a Los Angeles hotel room: "I had my own life, my ~wn sad and ragged life forever. " (Also note the implication of having a ltfe forever. such con t· I k · · · d )

Th h ' cep ion ac s firntude , as previously d1scusse .

e c aracters all search for meaning in one misadventure after another. Conside o , .

"Man th · .11 fl r ean swords as they drove towards Mexico:

De · is w, nally take us to it! " or following the conversation between an and Sal:

"We gott a go and never stop go ing until we get there." . ? " ~wh ere we goin g, man .

"I don 't know, but we gotta go. "

Sa l and his fri ends (shall we chose to ca ll th em th at 'd •ng th eir be hav ior towa . rds each other) all seek to fi nd some COns1 en th . . d d . g some reaso n, some mg in rugs , sex , a rena line and a me~;;of other behaviors on ~e road rather than fi nding something in a myn stable life . Th is something never seems to be fou nd. more Sal dwells throughout the book on themes suggesting his own . lation from the world and the people in it; one such theme is repeated ISO h . h" h I many times in the book: t e manner m w 1c peop e seem to fade away inthe distance when one leaves them behind, as in an automobi le driving away. Sal never fails to make note of his feelings as someone he knows grows smaller and smaller in "this too big wortd. " Further, he surrounds himself with poor choices of friends (his best friend Dean, by way of example, leaves him stranded in Mexico while he is very sick) and cheap, desperate sex rather than be alone with himself and his thoughts. Sal seeks out women and achieves a bond with them through sex to ward off his intense feelings of isolation. "You gotta, you gotta or you'll die!" he says to himself as he attempts to work up the nerve to speak to Terry (one of several sexual conquests) while on a bus ride to Los Angeles. Similarly, he seeks to overcome his isolation, his fears , by being apart of Dean's existence: through Dean 's fearless existence in the moment, Sal vicariously finds his own feelings of life. Dean lives a life without the nagging, semi-conscious awareness of the existential ~ilemma in which Sal dwells; Dean is Sal's escape from himself, Dean 18 what Sal desperately wants to be, but never can be: unaware. The very name that Kerouac chose for the character ~presenti~g himself is perhaps telling, possibly suggesting what derouac himself sought in his own life before it ended tragically due to sownward spiraling alcoholism-related difficulties at the age of forty- t::e~.An obvious assumption is that Sal Paradise is meant to suggest ano~h=r~cter's (stated) Italian origins, i.e., short for 'Salvatore.' In 'Salv / ig~t. Sal Paradise might also be interpreted to be short for rnea~~o~, a pre~equisite to 'Parad ise'; or an escape from, and a throughg o, the hfe that Sal (Kerouac?) desperately flees from out the narrative . not to d. Kerouac's signatu re wo rk has many excellent qua lities (I Intend isparage the quality of his work) and is a un ique co ntribution to

. i·t ature . What is of great concern to me, A encan I er · th t·ieth century m

1 . darkness so present m e course of the twen h under ying h' h Wever is that t e . d d · 15 often seen as somet mg other than o ,. tly mIsse an . · n S \ \'I,. narrative Is ~os nderl ing problem 1s, I think, t at , 1r-.e so many naked despair. The u d~ow are acutely aware of their own desire to real people, both t~~ a~eryon~ else,' not to conform and to be not 'grow up to be I e~ine of mainstream society but to find something consumed b.Y the ~ac Unfortunately, for a\\ of this vita\ awareness, they more fo~ wh~chdto ~~:·of rejecting and fighting against 1the system' which often fail to in woseful and meaningfu\ to themselves. \nstead, they are healthy, purp ' · · ·t b\ th · d bl' dly on a road to nowhere unt1\, mev, a Y, e pain ;:if:ste 1 ~in the symptoms of Sa\ ~nd his frie~ds ether \eads them to h rt miserab\e and unproductive hves, or as 1s more often the case, them back into the comfortable fo\ds of conformity from which they had sought to escape~. Either way, to borrow from Kerouac's friend and contemporary Ginsberg, great minds are lost.

Note: a\\ quotations appearing here are from Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", 1976 edition, Penguin Books, New York.

1 By way of amusement, this may explain why, for example, when Ginsberg appeared at a speaking engagement in St. Louis area a while back, the venue was in west St. Louis County (which is far from a Mecca of bohemianism, but rather one of wealthy conformity): this is where his audience now lives. Perhaps his audience of a generation ago that had once, in their youth, rejected 'the system' but had failed to find a meaningful way of life outside of or around it and instead simply returned to it, to its conformity, 'grew up', got corporate jobs and . became a part of that which they once found intolerable: the stifled hfe of affluent suburbia. Ginsberg simply came to where his audience was located.

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