The Earl Vol. 2 Issue 1

THE EARL VOL. 2 - ISSUE 1- WINTER 2012

INSIDE: WHAT ARE WE? A Short Story by Matthew Furman in which two people confront their vague relationship A photo essay By Thomas G. Anderson that highlights the power of growth Poetry, Short Stories, Essays, and photography from the Central PA Region

From the President and Business Director of Post Now PA

Greetings,

March 6, 2012

Post Now PA is entering its third year and we have faced and overcome much adversity. From belligerent neighbors to overzealous public officials we at Post Now PA have proven that we will stand to any challenge and prevail. We are here to stay.

Everyone involved with Post Now PA, including our volunteers, our donors and our Board of Directors, sees the wisdom in encouraging economic development and community fellowship through the promotion of art and culture in our community.

With construction nearly finished and with tenants for over half our studios, we are well on our way to realizing our vision of having a sustainable Contemporary Art Center in our community. Many people thought that we would never make it this far, but we persevered and continue to work toward our goal.

I would like to personally ask anyone who is not currently helping us to make Shippensburg a better place to join in the task of improving our community. I truly believe that the Thought Lot can be the catalyst for Shippensburg to reflect its past greatness when King Street was lined with shops full of people from all over our valley and the next. We will achieve this by providing a reason for new people to visit, as well as sharing art and music with our community. The alternative is that we can just continue to be another small town on route 11 that people only travel through because there is no practical way not to. Our fate is up to the community at large. Post Now PA and its supporters have chosen to make our community great. What will you choose?

Ways to support us: •Attend our Events •Rent a Studio •Sponsor a show or event •Donate money or relevant supplies Sincerely,

Frank Cressler President & Business Director Post Now PA frank.cressler@postnowpa.com www.postnowpa.com

•Tell others about Post Now PA •Volunteer •Become a Pillar of Post Now PA •Attend our Meetings 1st ad 3rd Sunday of each month, 4:00 at the Thought Lot

CONTENTS

Poetry By Curt Moyer Special Effects 4 How Do You Think This Will All Turn Out 5 In an Instant, A Non-Fiction Peice by Conor Schneps 6 Three Poems By Jackie Bonitz 12 Ash, Short Fiction by Raychel Dutka 13 Three Shows in York And A New Black Keys Album, From Staff Reviewer, Katie Dempsey 14 Or Pleasure, A Poem By Robert Brenize 16 Untitled Poem, By Ernest Garcia WINNER of Ship News Now's BEST OF EARL 17 Form and Content, A Poem By Laura B. Hans 18 What Are We? A Short Story By Matthew Furman 19 Where to Start, A series of Poems By Ray Cressler 24 Life, Energy and Growth, A Photo Essay by Thomas G. Anderson 26 Ever After, In Sedona, A Short Story By Claire Holahan 29

COVER PHOTO BY ELEANOR BENNETT

Wherever you see the POINTING FINGER click to link to photographers' web pages

SPECIAL EFFECTS

By Curt Moyer A thick winter jacket keeps the heat in.

Wrote notes on feeling guilty, left the little things to be enjoyed.

I’m caught in the sketches of enough right now.

It is December 23rd. It is the middle of May. It’ll take weeks to repair the ethics of a past life.

I don’t think cell phones have time for those demands.

Everybody looks great when they wake up on TV. How I’ve never tried it but entertain the possibility, not enough though, right?

Any name and number lends itself to significance.

I spend a good portion of my late night applying gunfire to deafness; Use a phone application to predict my death.

People will believe anything.

I project my humanness on books and books don’t mind.

A screaming tea-kettle, red potatoes, pre-chopped vegetables.

I throw uncut six-pack rings away in order to aid the process of natural selection.

The motives that provoke change are omnipresent.

I’m sick of attempting to better the world through positive messages.

Only get behind the minute gestures when they’re absolutely necessary.

Let’s talk about cleaning chemicals, what it was like to swallow them, get lucky, and not get hit by traffic.

I check the craigslist missed connections frequently and come up with the sound of a fist hitting raw meat.

4

The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

HOW DO YOU THINK THIS WILL ALL TURN OUT?

By Curt Moyer

Honestly I’m not sure.

You can’t tell me you’re sure either.

Either way, I’d beat you up and not feel sorry.

Not even if your age has given you some early grey hairs you mask with coloring, trying to hide the fact that you aren’t so young anymore, your body’s a cotton gin with gears that operate on alcohol and pseudo-existential desperation.

Yes it is still a cold world, I agree, but you and I both know you made it this way, and now it’s too late to apologize you hackneyed hollow-eyed old thing tattered and cracked-out like an aging cokehead rock star that can’t quite hit the high notes but still gets the hairspray chicks. I want to kick your ass for everything you’ve done.

I want to chain whip you off your motorcycle and rip the ink right off your arm.

I want to go Easy Rider on your ass and bring Dennis Hopper back from the dead.

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

5

IN AN INSTANT

By Connor Schneps

They say that time heals can remember anyway, where I did not sitting in the front seat of the car or who was going to get to use the all wounds, but what if there is see him smile. In every situation, no not enough time to fill a void in matter how bleak the outlook was, he computer first. Bryan would hear us fight, and the first thing that he would someone’s heart that has been was always optimistic and had a do was break it up and calm us down. empty for years upon years and positive attitude. Bryan had a vast amount of friends over the course of From there, he would say something will most likely stay empty for that was ideal of a family: “Brothers even longer? How can a wound his life. When we were younger, our that is so deep that was caused mother would always ask Bryan “what shouldn’t fight with each other over are your plans for tonight?” He would stupid crap. Now apologize and hug by someone’s arrogance ever always have a response in which be mended?

"BROTHERS

involved him hanging out with a friend For six years, I have thought or group of friends. She proceeded to about these questions, but for three ask whom he was going to be with, years I have tried pursuing the Bryan would then rattle off names as answers to them. I have not come up though the list went on forever and with any sort of explanation or an ever. There were all sorts of names: answer to these questions, nor will I Danielle, Chip, Ryan )Bryan’s best probably be able to any time soon. friend), Joel, Tina, and etcetera. I was There are also more questions that I need to ask, but unfortunately for me, surprised he could keep track of all of these friends. Bryan’s charisma I know that there will never be an answer fro asking why someone would though was what trumped all of his choose to do something so heinous, so other qualities. He was an extremely extroverted person, whether it was in despicable, and so wrong. Then I a situation where he was meeting new realized that the answer was deep within, but I needed to come to terms people or trying to get a girl’s phone number, no matter what he did not with my life and myself. My brother show his shyness, if he had any that had been murdered because of the was. A lot of his friends had each other.” For a couple of kids who arrogance and ignorance of some people on this planet who only want to legitimately called him the Hollywood were as young as Alex and I were, it benefit themselves in any and all ways Kid, because not only did he look like a did not entirely make sense to us Hollywood star, but also he was great because that is how it had been for possible. The world as I knew it was with the ladies. Obviously, this was a some time, but we complied because suddenly becoming more like a real demonstration of how charismatic we knew it would make him happy. It world instead of a fantasy land like warmed our parents’ hearts to see him most kids would believe it is at such a people had perceived him to be. young age. Six years ago, my brother, Another one of his endearing qualities make an effort to get Alex and I to get along because he was right all along…

Bryan Scott Schneps, was taken from was that Bryan was very familyoriented. He was one of three kids, the brothers should not fight over small this earth, from my family, and from things and embrace each other. me in an instant, and this is his story youngest, which is myself, and our middle brother, Alex. Alex and Bryan Bryan’s love for both Alex and myself as well as how I have been coping. got along fairly well, just as myself was deeper than his love for his Bryan was born August 16, and Bryan got along.

As for Alex and friends, which was just incredible. He 1983 in Madison, Connecticut. He had was also quite the intellect. Bryan not black hair, blue eyes, and a smile that myself, we did not get along entirely too well. We consistently got into only got into Temple University with a lit up every dark corner of a room decent SAT score, but he would also when he had entered it. There was not fights with each other over the most have intellectual conversations with a moment, at least no moments that I menial of things, whether it was

SHOULDN'T FIGHT

EACH OTHER OVER STUPID CRAP.

NOW APOLOGIZE AND HUG EACH OTHER,"

6

The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

our dad. They talked about all sorts of hospital. house. Curious as to why, I did what abstract concepts that, of course at the I remember the chain of events anyone else would do in this situation; time because I was so young, I never as though it happened not even thirty ask why she was doing this. She told quite got a grip on. I remember the seconds ago. All of this occurred over me that Bryan had been in an accident conversations would last for nearly an the course of three days. On Friday and I needed to be home immediately. hour at a time and I was amazed that June 10, 2005, I was (around twelve When Mrs. Fedele told me that such a conversation could even go on and a half) in elementary school and I Bryan had been in an accident, I and on like that. Speaking of Bryan’s had a pretty normal day. Everything thought that he had probably just intellect, he was accepted to Temple was going as it should have, and then I broken his leg again. I was not University and originally majored in got called through the intercom to go consumed by worry and fear, so I architectural design around the time I down to the office. I did not really have shrugged it off and assumed that he turned nine years old. After one a clue as to why, but I grabbed my was all right. As we pulled up to the semester, he decided to switch to a belongings from my rack and walked house in my neighbor’s car, an eerie telecommunications major, which was down to the office. When I was told to feeling was starting to creep up on me. more of his cup of tea. He did all sorts go down to the office, I had the thought It was not the type of eerie feeling that of video projects; in fact, there are of my mom coming to pick me up early is normally indicative of something pictures around the house of him from school, as was tradition if this weird or scary coming up, but rather a fiddling around with his video camera was to occur. Surprisingly enough, I feeling of something bad happening. I in the studio at Temple. His focus saw my neighbor, Lois Fedele, waiting walked through the front door to be while examining his cameras was for me in the office. I immediately greeted by tears from mom, dad, and undeniably inspiring for me to say the asked, “Where is my mom? How come Alex. Another unexpected surprise least. For the remainder of his time at you’re here, Mrs. Fedele?” She told me happened when I also saw a family Temple, he stuck with the that my mom and dad had gone down friend, Dr. Michelle Stram, in the foyer telecommunications major and excelled to Philadelphia to go see Bryan at consoling my parents. I asked my at it. Friends, family, and professors Temple. I figured, ‘Ok. Maybe this is family, “Why is everyone crying?” As were all impressed with his work. nothing. I can just roll along with this the tears started to stream down my When his tragic death occurred, he for now.’ She drove me to her home mom’s, dad’s, and brother’s faces, Dr. was working on one of these projects with her youngest son, Stephen, and Stram took me by the arm into the with a few friends at his apartment on we did what all younger boys do: play room adjacent to the foyer. We sat West Diamond Street in Philadelphia. videogames. We sat there and played down on the couch, and I asked the As they were working, a knock was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which same question that I had just asked my heard at the door. Bryan went over is just a fun game in general. Stephen family moments before. After I did, Dr. and asked whom it was, but there was and I played that for a good couple of Stram developed a solemn look on her not an answer. He then peered through hours and after we were done, Mrs. face, and said with a grief-heavy tone: the lens of the door, and saw two men Fedele came downstairs to where we “Connor, your brother, Bryan, was shot standing outside. Bryan opened the were and told me that she had in his apartment yesterday and has door and the two men broke down the received a call from my mom and that been hospitalized.” Even as I write door to the apartment and had loaded I was to spend the night there. I was, this, I feel the agony I felt all those firearms. They demanded money from of course, excited to be hanging out years ago when I was first told this. him, and Bryan responded: “I don’t with a friend for a while and even “What? No, that didn’t happen! You’re know what money you’re talking though the circumstances had put my wrong,” a typical response for anyone about!” When the men were distracted, parents in Philadelphia with Bryan, I in that situation, is exactly what I said Bryan tackled one of the armed men to did not question it. I have to admit, it to her. She proceeded to say that she try and defend his friends. As Bryan was a lot of fun. In the basement, I was sorry and the tears burst out of my and the armed man hit the ground, the slept peacefully with my good friend eyes faster than a car could get from trigger was pulled and Bryan was shot with not a care in the world. The next zero to sixty miles per hour. I in the left side of his face. After the morning, Saturday June 11, 2005, remember I could not stop for a long men had run off, his friends close to six in the morning, Mrs. time, and then before we got into the immediately called 911. An ambulance Fedele rushed downstairs and told me car to go visit Bryan at the Temple was there and rushed Bryan to a she was going to drive me back to my University Hospital, I became numb.

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

7

The hour-long car ride to the hospital his, I would take a look at the heart closest friends, so he was staying there was unbearable. Dr. Stram drove down monitor and see that his heart rate had and consoling him and my mom as best in the car with us, and even she could decreased significantly. In all honesty, as he could. Later on during his visit, cut the tension with a dull knife. None I was not sure why such a phenomena he came into the room, urging me to of us talked, none of us looked at each would occur, but my best guess would go, saying that it would be better if I other, we just looked in separate be that maybe Bryan knew that there went home and relaxed for a while. directions. I looked in my lap, Alex was a familiar entity near him and he With much regret and grief weighing stared out the window, our mom was had some reason to calm down a bit. down on my heart, I accepted. I stood trying to keep herself at least Sometimes, when I lifted my hand, his up from my chair, where I had been somewhat stable, and my dad was heart rate would either skyrocket or sitting for nearly six hours straight, staring out the windshield and stay stagnant, so I held his hand with and went up to Bryan. Slowly, I leaned concentrated on his driving as best as all my might. After a while, I got up towards his ear and in a soft voice I he could. All of us arrived at the and walked around Bryan’s bed and whispered, “Good bye Bryan. I love hospital around ten in the morning stared through the windows and looked you.” From there I took my leave with and proceeded to the ICU (also known directly at the walls and Alex entered Mr. Culpepper. After I had left, my as the Intensive Care Unit), where after about an hour and a half. Alex parents started talking with the doctor Bryan was. Fear, panic, sadness, began to cry hysterically, as did I when about donating his organs to the Gift of anger, all sorts of emotions swelled I saw the look on his face. I could not Life Foundation because in his state, into me like a cascade of waterfalls, help but to join him. Throughout the Bryan did not have a chance of living. yet, I remained calm but numb day, my parents would try to take me They followed through with that plan, simultaneously. Before we entered his out of his room and try to calm me and the next day, Bryan Scott Schneps room, Bryan’s doctor had told my down, but I stayed. After my parents had passed away. family, Dr. Stram, and myself that he asking me time and time again if I The day that Bryan passed had suffered neurological deficits and wanted to take a break and get away, June 12, 2005, I actually had a that he had been in a coma since he something to eat with Dr. Stram, I said birthday party to go to. A friend of was shot the night before. I was the yes even though all I wanted to do was mine from my Boy Scout troop, Andy, first person out of all of us to walk into stay in that room with my big brother. was having his thirteenth or his room and sit by his bedside. It was She took me down to the cafeteria, fourteenth birthday party. I was not one of the scariest scenes of my entire bought me a pretzel, and every time entirely sure if I wanted to go, but my young life. The left side of his face, she tried to talk to me, either I would mom and dad urged me to go, said it where Bryan had been shot, was grunt or just keep such a straight face would be good for me to enjoy a friend’s swollen, black and blue, his nose and numb attitude that she would get special day. So I went, and the same clogged with some blood. He was the hint and not bother to try again for expression was on my face since the hooked up to a respirator, a heart and a while. I saw people come and go, day beforehand. The same feelings blood pressure gauge, and other sorts including more of my family and a lot were still there, and I did not think of medical technology. Every gadget in of Bryan’s friends, including Bryan’s they had any intention of leaving me that room made a sound. All the beeps best friend, Ryan Strickler. Ryan was any time soon. I could not keep a smile and bops from the heart monitor, the just as distraught as the rest of us to for more than thirty seconds and my sound from the respirator every time see his friend dying slowly before his friends could not come up and even Bryan took a breath, it seemed that eyes. After about thirty or so minutes, playfully punch me in the arm. Once every noise, for some odd reason, had he told my parents and Bryan that he they did, I would tell them what much more significance as I heard was going to head home and offered happened to Bryan and that I would them more. With my hand in Bryan’s I Alex and I a ride home. Alex graciously prefer not to be punched by them; remember staring at that monitor like accepted, and even though our parents surely enough, they understood my a newborn baby stares at his mother urged me to accept Ryan’s offer, I wishes and cheered me up to the best for the first time; I could not look away wanted to stay by Bryan for as long as of their abilities. Aside from the fact from it. My eyes were fixed on Bryan I could. After about three or four more that Bryan had died on this day, there and the heart monitor. His heartbeat hours, another family friend, Nick is another why I consider this tragic stayed between 130 and 175 beats per Culpepper, showed up at the hospital. day significant. During the party, I minute. Every time I put my hand on Mr. Culpepper is one of our dad’s started to tear up a bit and my friend’s

8

The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

neighbor, unfortunately I cannot recall days before the funeral had passed Look for me In the people I've known her name, took me inside and sat me slowly by, but the day our family and or loved, down. She was soft-spoken and Bryan’s friends were all dreading had And if you cannot give me away, extremely kind-hearted. Andy’s arrived. The funeral service was held At least let me live on in your eyes neighbor looked at me and asked why I in the morning at one of the funeral And not on your mind. was looking so blue. I told her that “my homes local to where I live. It was a You can love me most by letting Hands touch hands, brother died earlier today,” leaving out traditional service and everyone had Bodies touch bodies, the explicit details that I had known at his or her piece. Our cousin, Melanie, And by letting go the time. She frowned a little and gave a speech about Bryan. They were Of children asked me what his name is. I told her very close, and one of the quotes that That need to be free. his name, and she responded by telling still sticks out in my mind is that Love doesn't die, People do. me that she would get an entire “Bryan is now the gigolo on Cloud So, when all that's left of me church, her church, to pray for Bryan Nine.” It made everybody, including Is love, to be at peace. Despite the fact that we myself, laugh because we all knew how Give me away. are a Jewish family, I think this did a good Bryan was with the girls. While This poem still runs through my mind lot of justice for Bryan and myself on a this was a good diversion from the today, and means just as much to me somewhat spiritual level because sadness and the grief, the happiness either way, it was an extremely kind and laughter did not last for too long. today as it did back then. Essentially what this poem means is that the gesture on her part. I did not know Our brother, Alex, then went up and what to say to her; I was floored with played the song “Here Comes the Sun” deceased does not want anyone to the amount of kindness she showed

by The Beatles. At the time, I was not think about what happened, but rather me, even though she had only known sure why this song made sense to play, look for the qualities of him or her in others and embrace them as one would me for a very short period of time. I but as I grew older and listened to it embrace the deceased person. I still thank her involuntarily to this day more and more, I realized that it was for doing what she did for Bryan and the perfect fit for the situation because thought it was incredibly accurate as our family. it is a cheerful and peaceful sounding to what Bryan would want, plus, this almost seems like something that The next few days of school song. Our dad stepped up to the Bryan would say to me if I saw him were a bit rough for me. Bryan’s death podium after Alex, and made the again before he passed on. The last and his funeral that was scheduled for eulogy. During the eulogy, he read a thing that was shown before the nearly Wednesday June 15, 2005 were the poem that is engraved into my heart only things that were clouding my for the rest of eternity. The poem that two hundred of us headed to the burial site was a tribute video to Bryan. thoughts for that short period of time. our father read is known as “When I There were pictures of him having fun On Tuesday, my classmates and my Die” by Merritt Malloy: with his friends and him working, as teacher in my sixth grade class sat When I die well as video clips of being the down with me and gave me a few Give what’s left of me away goofball that everyone knew he was. things: a necklace with a dove and thin To children The precession to the burial site came gold chain, and a bunch of cards And old men that wait to die. next. More prayers were said and the expressing their condolences. They And if you need to cry, brothers from his fraternity at Temple pitched in who-knows how much Cry for your brother University, Delta Sigma Phi, made money to pay for it, but the dove was Walking the street beside you. their speech. Shortly after the beautiful. It was to symbolize peace And when you need me speeches and prayers, Bryan’s casket and to acknowledge that Bryan was Put your arms Around anyone was lowered into the ground. As is now at peace in a better place. The And Give them tradition in the Jewish religion, each cards… there were just so many of What you need to give to me. family member takes a shovelful of them. I still have them in my closet at I want to leave you something, dirt and puts it into the ground with home, but unfortunately I cannot the casket. While the process was remember what all of them said.

Something better going on, a friend of Bryan’s, I do not Encompassing all the cards, what more than words or sounds remember whom it was, threw an could a twelve-year-old boy or girl say unopened envelope into his grave. other than ‘I’m sorry for your loss’? The

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

9

anniversary of death. Shiva is the first They were there for three days, and seven days of morning, schloshim is the after that time period, Alex and I got first thirty days of mourning, and the phone call that we had been yahrzeit is the observing of the passing dreading: Uncle Bob had passed away. of a loved one (spouse, child, sibling, After I heard those words being uttered etcetera) by lighting a memorial candle from our mom, I had gone almost and saying the Mourner’s Kaddish completely numb. One after another (prayer for peace in the afterlife) the after another, I could not take all the night before the day of passing. Our death, all the grieving, all of the sorrow neighbors were very kind to anymore. Life had moved on though. us, brought us food, and My sophomore year of high helped us out in any way school was the year that I really started that they could. Although it to understand why I was so unsatisfied was obviously a hard period with life, as well as how I did not of time for us, it warmed understand my brother’s, grandpa’s, our hearts to see that and great uncle’s deaths and had not everyone coming to us in a come to terms with them. A friend of time of need. mine, John, had told me that as a joke Unfortunately, this short he was going to make pins that say “I period of the family at least hate Schneps,” as well as a t-shirt for beginning to cope did not himself. He came to me and asked if I last very long. Our mom’s father, our grandfather Irving, was diagnosed with pneumonia. Not only was he battling this, but he was also battling scleroderma (auto-immune condition in which the skin tightens up) for the past thirty years.

On Veteran’s Day of 2005, it seemed that both of these diseases had bested him.

Our mom had called us from the hospital in Connecticut and told Alex and I that Grandpa Irving had passed away. I was floored; I could not believe my ears, my what felt like an eternity and instantaneously fell to my knees. Tears mind was scrambled… my granddad were rolling down my face. The feeling had passed away almost exactly six of grief, sadness, and sheer denial of all months after Bryan had passed away.

It was utterly unbelievable. With tears of this ever happening was just too streaming down my face, I told mom to overwhelming for me, especially at bring me up to the funeral. A few cared and if he could do what he was such a young age. Death felt like it months after his passing, things planning on doing. I told him that I did would be such a sweet release and I not, and he proceeded with his plan. I wanted to be dead, to be with Bryan, to seemed to be looking up. No one was dying; everyone was healthy as could did not actually think that he was going be free of all the pain and suffering.

From there, my dad and uncle helped be. In early February of 2007 mom had to follow through with such an idiotic told Alex and I that our Great Uncle thing, but lo and behold, he did. John me off of the ground and helped me walk to the limousine, where we drove Bob had fallen down in the bathroom at came up to me wearing the shirt, and also gave me a pin. I took the pin from home for a little social gathering with his home and cracked a few ribs. She said that he was going to be fine, but him with my head held high, all of the people that attended the little did we know, Uncle Bob was pretending like I had no emotion funeral. toward it. Eventually, it got to me. I After the funeral, the next few slowly decaying. He had developed Parkinson’s disease, a was sitting in my academic biology weeks were quite hard. In Judaism, when someone dies, the family observes neurodegenerative condition that leads class and I started to gaze into the pin. to motor problems and tremors. Mom I began to have a crystallizing moment three different periods of mourning: shiva, schloshim, and yahrzeit. These had gone up to go visit Uncle Bob in the where my life started to pass me before hospital with our grandma, her mother. my eyes. Everything that happened periods of mourning represent an I assumed it was a letter and Bryan’s friend was hoping it would reach him in the afterlife so that he could open it and read it. To this day, I still wish I knew what the letter had said, but I will know in due time. After the burial ceremony, our family was walking to the limousines and I turned around towards the grave. I stared at it for

I TOOK THE PIN

FROM HIM WITH

MY HEAD HELD

HIGH,

PRETENDING LIKE

I HAD NO EMOTION

TOWARD IT.

10 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

when I was a child, all the grieving Truth is, I cannot fill his shoes, nor entity and his birthday underneath that I had experienced, everything that will I ever be able to. It was an insult represents a more metaphysical I had known had shown up in my to his memory to even conceive any concept. By metaphysical, I mean that head. I began to evaluate everything, sort of implication. I took my leave without the date of his death what was good, what was bad, and from there and moved on to another underneath, there is an implication what I had yet to come to terms with therapist that my guidance counselor that even though he is gone physically, and understand. Then, I had formed a recommended. His name was Dr. Eric he will live on forever spiritually. Also, conclusion after a few minutes and Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein was just a the tattoo being placed on my right came to the realization that I was truly awesome psychologist. It was the arm has its own significance. That unsatisfied with how my life had been first time I ever had a conversation significance being that my right arm is going and that I had still not come to with someone who was able to my dominant arm. If someone were to terms with every death that had connect the dots, the significance of my happened. I started to tear up; I got up tattoo being on my dominant arm is during the middle of class, nearly that Bryan is the reason why I do what flipped out on everyone that tried to I do today. He is the one who always help me, and slammed the door behind told me to live my life to the fullest and me as I exited the room. My teacher, that is the philosophy I envision Ms. Scott, came outside and asked me whenever I look at the tattoo. what was wrong. I told her almost all All in all, there are a lot of the explicit details, and from there I lessons that have not only been learned asked her if I could call my mom and understand my thinking about certain from all of these experiences, but also she let me go. I was sitting in the things, understand the way I go about engrained deep into my mind. One guidance office before my mom showed dealing with these sorts of items, and lesson that I learned was from Bryan. up. The counselors were trying to cheer just overall feeling more relaxed and It is what I said previously: live life to me up, but absolutely nothing was comfortable than I would with talking the fullest. Living life without regrets woriking. I had no faith in my life to my parents. It was strange that I and living it up to its true potential is anymore, and I just wanted to be became so comfortable and so what life should be about and Bryan immersed in the ignorant bliss that accustomed to Dr. Weinstein so quickly lived by that principle, that ideal, for was being free of this life. My mom because I myself was expecting to be a all twenty-one years of his life. The picked me up, and from there, she lot more distant and for him to be more second lesson that I have learned is called a therapist that my specific like a stereotypical psychologist. It was that the world is a scary place. With all guidance counselor had recommended. the exact opposite of what I thought it the drugs, the violence, the everything, There were two therapists that would be. Dr. Weinstein engaged me, the world is a place where everyone I went to. The firs therapist’s name told me his opinion, let me go on and needs to be careful and make smart was Mary Schull, a nice, middle-aged on for as long as I needed to. This was decisions or screw up life trying.

Jewish woman. Although I was not exactly what I needed. Even though Another thing that I have learned over looking forward to expressing my my sessions with Dr. Weinstein were the course of this existence is that feelings about all of these issues, she helping me progress, I felt that there there are many things that people knew that the main issue that I needed was still a void, something was still should not get upset about. For to deal with was coming to terms with missing. Since the beginning of the instance, if Sally and Johnny broke up Bryan’s death. At first, it seemed to me sessions with Dr. Weinstein, I figured for the seventh time, then so be it. Life that things were going decently well, that getting a tattoo in Bryan’s honor throws a lot of curveballs at people, until part way through the first session would be a good tribute to him. I and something like that is insignificant she called me by my dead brother’s thought it would be another good sort and should not be something that is top name. I told her that my name was of therapy. priority. The last ting that I have Connor, and she apologized. Yet, after The tattoo took me about two learned over the past six years is that doing that, she called me by Bryan’s years to think of. What would be good? life is a fragile entity and it is name again and again and again. For How simple or complex should it be? extremely short. This plays back into three full sessions, I dealt with this. I Where on my body should I get this the advice that Bryan gave me all had enough after a while. It was tattoo? It finally hit me what the tattoo those years ago when I was only a kid. almost insulting that Schull would call should be. I wanted to get his full Looking back on everything, I have me Bryan, not because it was insulting name, Bryan Scott Schneps, the realized that Bryan, my parents, my to me, but because it was insulting to symbol of a necklace that he used to granddad, everyone was right. I need him in my opinion. I figured it was wear (one that I now wear every day), to live life to the fullest each and every insulting to Bryan because he was and the date of his birth on the bottom. day because it can all be taken away in such an amazing person; so This significant tattoo was to be placed an instant. charismatic, so caring, so awesome in a on my right shoulder for various lot of conceivable ways, it was an eerie reasons. The star that I wear was thought to think that I was filling his tattooed in the center of my shoulder shoes as she was calling me Bryan. because it represents Bryan as an

LIFE IS A FRAGILE ENTITY AND IT IS

EXTREMELY SHORT

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

11

THREE POEMS

By Jackie Bonitz

After it all I never shall love Another man With passion Like I burned for you I feel forsaken Even in your absence Induced by my own hands The mere thought Of a shift in you Incites me to believe I could love you again Always

Finally, I turn my back to the wind Cradle myself in my own arms Suckle that which was squandered More than one too many times Warmed by a furnace Fueled by the blood Blazing wild In my own blue veins

12 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

Toes lacquered crimson Dangle on the edge of feet Which stand Waiting for you

ASH

By Raychel Dutka

She was so beautiful it hurt behind his eyes to think of her.

An apology seemed ridiculous.

in the tiny particles of the beautiful girl. She did not move.

He lifted one hand, and there was the sound of wings flapping desperately. Let me out, they crinkled against confinement.

It started at the tip of his brain What he wanted, more than to and it crept down towards his apologize, was to start his throat, always threatening to fingertips’ slide at the side of suffocate him if he didn’t gasp her neck, and circle round and for air. It had been seven hours round her pale, chalky skin. He When his fingers slid down her since he’d first caught sight of neck, they left a trail of wanted to feel her heat. He her fragile form, sitting on the wanted her to crumble at his disintegrated ash behind them, bench beneath the willow. It touch. He walked forward, and in two smooth tracks, for only a had been eight hours since her a flutter of wind knocked off the brief, unreachable moment. wooden house had burned to the sleeve of her dress; he trembled Then the girl shifted and ground. He knew this because as it darted away into nonslumped into a hill of very light the tip of his cigarette had lit a existence. The rest of her gray, which then slipped leaf and a curl of wind had lit stayed perfectly still, facing the through the grates of the bench. more leaves and more leaves There was a sound of bird’s hissing remains of the house. had lit the left window lattice wings from the wooden house, and that was why the most catching the air at last.

The birds were already beautiful girl was sitting on a beginning to rise. bench beneath the willow tree, She had been so soft, it was like watching. He had counted the He placed his hands gripping touching nothing at all. hours, floating past and past in the bench on either side of her the vapor of the air. pill dust shoulders and breathed www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

13

THREE SHOWS IN YORK AND A NEW BLACK KEYS ALBUM

From Staff Reviewer, Katie Dempsey

I tend to hibernate in the winter. From wood paneling and a generally warm, and stomping their feet and clapping the first temperature drop in cozy atmosphere. It’s kind of a classy their hands and singing along. The November to the first thaw in April, bar, the kind where you can go there band’s sound was great and the songs my natural inclination is to spend all dressed up and not feel overdressed infectiously happy, the kind of songs my free time curled up on my couch but still go in ripped jeans and not feel you will find yourself humming the with fifty blankets, watching Netflix like a total slob. next day (or week). This was a fun until my legs cramp up from lack of show, and it definitely made me forget use.

As a venue, Maewyn’s is not ideal—the my winter blues for a night. bands were kind of stuffed into a small The move from five years of living in side room so about 75% of the bar Then after a month of solid hibernation Pittsburgh back to Central patrons couldn’t even see them. If you (made considerably more dreamlike by Pennsylvania has only made it worse. wanted to physically be able to see the watching, in succession, all of the Pittsburgh is filled with a lot of tall musicians, you had to crowd into a fourth season of Venture Bros, the buildings protecting its residents from very small area right between the side second two seasons of The Mighty wind chill. Not so much around here. room and the bar.

Boosh and the first season of David It’s even worse that I work in an unLynch’s Twin Peaks), I broke out of my insulated trailer outside a factory on But crowd we did, because the winter coccoon on the first weekend in the top of a giant hill and have to walk headlining act was phenomenal.

February to see two bands at two 200 yards and up a loading ramp to get Garrahan’s Ghost is a Pogues-esque different bars in York. into the building every time I have to traditional-Irish new-folk seven-piece use the bathroom. band comprised of two guitars, drums, The Depot is a bar/venue not far from a fiddle, a mandolin, a harmonica and York College, and it’s kind of the But despite all these hardships, I did an accordian player (the accordian complete opposite of Maewyn’s. manage to make it out to see three player was, unfortunately, not present shows in York during this winter that evening, and I learned he is You could affectionately call it a “dive”, season. The first, at the end of currently deployed in Afganistan).

I guess--it’s got that rubbed-raw from December, was at a bar called overuse, rock’n’roll, smoke-filled Maewyn’s, located right on North Garrahan’s Ghost put on a great show. broken-down griminess that those of us George Street on the edge of downtown The bar was packed, and the crowd with punk-rock inclinations feel a sort York City. Maewyn’s is a traditional loved it—surrounding the band, people of pride for, like showing off that bruise Irish bar with high ceilings, beautiful nodded along with the music, smiling you got from being caught up in a bar-

14 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

GRAPHIC BY KATIE DEMPSEY

scuffle that actually had nothing to do with you. Needless to say, I felt right at home at the Depot, and it was definitely well suited to be a music venue, with a big room extending back from the bar area so everyone could see the band, even patrons sitting at the bar.

have a bar, just on the corner of a dark people at our pool. residential street. But upon entering, you’re transported into a very rusticThe Black Keys were the perfect feeling, civil-war-era looking room with solution. I lost track of the amount of low, wood-beam-exposed ceilings and pool patrons who would walk up to me an old, solid feel to the walls. It’s very and ask what was this awesome music small and cozy, and to my shock, we playing over the speakers. walked in right in front of the band that was playing, a sort of jazz-funk The Black Keys have a great sound, We caught the second-to-last band rock’n’roll jam-band called Redeye. and have over the years refined and playing at this show before calling it a changed it while still maintaining the night (working first shift and getting Redeye played great background bar core personality of their music. They’re up at 6am makes me pretty sapped of music. Their sound was tight and bluesy, Hendrix-y rock’n’roll with an energy by as early as midnight on disciplined with a great funk swing early 70s rock’n’roll feel to it while still Friday nights). Now, I’m not generally (the trumpet player, who kept his sounding fresh, modern, and a fan of metal (excepting the kind in instrument politely muted, was innovative. The production quality is Brendan Small’s Metalocalypse especially exceptional, and the skill of awesome, and they play with sounds in and..Primus, I guess? If you could call the bass player also very noteworthy). a way that is evocative of the tinny them metal?) but Sour Mash Survival It was the kind of music that makes sounds of old, damaged blues records had me at their mic check, where they you drift out of your conversations to combined with the new multi-layered previewed their impressive vocal just tilt your head back and relax and “good fuzz” distortion of new talents by banshee-screaming the word listen, which I did pretty much the production technology. Black Keys “CHECK CHECK” into their whole time. sound like if a bunch of sentient robots microphones for what seemed like from the year 3,000 traveled through twenty minutes.

Finally, the other thing keeping the time while listening to French winter blues away is the fact that I alternative band Phoenix, and crashed But I can appreciate any genre of finally shelled out the cash and onto the stage of a Jimi Hendrix music live if its performed well, and I’d downloaded The Black Keys latest concert and fused with the music say that Sour Mash Survival, a album El Camino. What can I say without missing a beat.

Baltimore-based band, performed very about El Camino expect WOW. I love well. Despite the call-and-answer the Black Keys, especially their 2010 El Camino burns the whole way guttural screaming and roaring of album Brothers, and I was very through like a good fire, crackling and their songs they were very polite and pleased to hear that El Camino was a sparking with energy. Heavy basscheerful, joking around with each other natural continuation from the sounds thumps from the drum, group and the audience and just generally and themes they took on in Brothers. choruses, sweet bass-lines, raging having a good time. I can definitely guitars, the album has all the elements appreciate and respect performers who The Black Keys are the sort of band of good rock’n’roll without ever being seem to genuinely enjoy performing, that can attract a wide variety of fans. too showy or over-the-top. You can and this was definitely the case with When I lifeguarded at an indoor college listen to it and sing along and bob your SMS. It also doesn’t seem to be the pool last summer, our patrons ranged head, or you can play it in the case with many of the other local metal from teenagers attending a camp to background while you concentrate on bands I’ve ever seen (who definitely take college-level classes, to college something else. You ever watch one of didn’t have the talent to warrant any athletes, to retired faculty members, to those concert cellists or violists play kind of surly, anti-social attitude). a day-camp of kids aged 4-10. We were their instruments like it’s the easiest in charge of the music to be played to thing in the world, like they’re just The Saturday after the Depot I went to the pool, I struggled to decide on what, kind of shrugging this music out? the First Capital Dispensing Company, out of all the strange and eclectic That’s what this album feels like. And or First Cap, which is right on the edge music on my iPod, could possibly be it feels damn good.* of York City proper, next to the river. background music to appeal to (and It’s a pretty random looking place to not offend) all the different types of

Garrahan’s Ghost can be found at http://www.reverbnation.com/garrahansghost Sour Mash Survival can be found at http://www.reverbnation.com/sourmashsurvival Redeye can be found at http://www.myspace.com/gustavoaguirrejr El Camino is available on iTunes. www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

15

Or Pleasure

By Robert Brenize

Show me a body built with truth Not one made of propaganda That spewed by the silver screen sleuths and the digital demons Show me legs freckled and smooth Not by uniformity By choice Show me a beauty tattered with paints and inks Telling a story Every freckle a tale Every scar a ballad Every cut a dirge Every tattoo an epic Every act and breath a song One flowing in the air around her Filling the ears of those surrounding Glueing the cracks in the wall shut Opening closed hearts Show me a nation of liars and theives And I will paint you a picture A painting full of glorious warfare and backstabbing accounting Show me a city of the anonymous and blind I will build you a monument A tall building to suppress the inadeguacies of moral ineptitude An edifice that matches the brothers on all sides For uniformity is best Show me a world full of insanity A realm of chaos For it is in chaos that nature finds order Nature acts on unredeemable laws Man commonly perverts them Replacing them with smiles and rainbows Pollution and smoke Paradoxical rules and hypocritical laws Show me a land of freedom Not one of power brokers A world of paradoxes A world where beauty is real Not made-up A world where the clothes match the maturity Match the soul within Burning like a fire Not glowing like a dim ember Let that soul glow bright Bright and hot How else will the dead in Heaven see it Will they blush and cry to call us brethren Or leap with joy Do you have the answer?

I don’t.

16 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

Chosen as BEST OF EARL by the editorial staff at Ship News Now, Shippensburg's online local news source.

Untitled

By Ernest Garcia Washed upon the shores Of the fringes of your heart I can hear the guns As you wage your war I say nothing as you cry out-loud Calling all the demons that you wished you had Better believe You’re this close to becoming What you wish Or What you fear Are they really that different Amazing, ordinary Check your pockets Your purse your wallet That time you were saving For true love Has vanished Right thru that keyhole Like a skeleton key Like opiate smoke Like skined palms skined knees Bruised your ego Self-inflected Resent me baby I’m your blues

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

17

FORM AND CONTENT

By Laura B. Hans

Differentiate The Text’s Specific Relation To The Ideology It Produces

?

What are your politics?

What’s ur function?

My profile is not the real me.

It’s a representation Or a simulacrum Or something.

We’re not friends.

Our images are friends.

That is, until we do lunch.

Then we’re friends.

So for now, Just our images know each other I’m okay with that Because you only know the good side of me.

You only know the good music I hear And the good places I’ve seen.

But it’s all static: My representative body And your representative body And our network.

We’ve written ourselves into being And we tweak our social identities everyday.

My digital body And your digital body meet.

We chat.

I’m coy And you’re interesting.

18 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

Let’s seek integration.

No, not like that, But where we plan stuff Then do it And aren’t so attached To our digital bodies Cause we just made those up.

Silly old postmodern Internet identities; They can’t walk in the woods It’s like I’m in the cave.

You know?

When I react to the tribulations of your day I’m sitting in that damn cave looking at stupid old shadows.

I don’t know the différance.

???????????????????????????????????

WHAT ARE WE ????????????????????????????????????????????????

By Matthew Furman ?

????????????????????????????????????????????????

Leave it to Veronica to bring came up first when they met, almost as something like this up at the tail end a way to fly high the flag of marital “Why are we doing this?” of one of their bi-annual visits. bliss so nothing untoward might be It had taken Veronica nearly “Do you mean, as a culture, why do we construed.

17 years to ask Bryan that question sit around, drink this stuff, pretend to Veronica and Bryan felt no flat-out, the question that had the be deep?” said Bryan, wrapping and authentic romantic feelings for each power to turn whatever it was they unwrapping a plastic stirrer around other, but were terrified that one of shared into something drastically his index finger for something to do. them might suspect the other of them. different than what they’d grown up “You’re asking the wrong guy.

You At 31, she was married to a with, and what they assumed about know I hate these places.

I guess this police officer in his late 30s, a quiet each other. is what you do now that you’re in half-Italian named Vic who drove his Nearly two decades of California.” police cruiser through hundreds of awkward hugs and feeling guilty for The attempt to paint her as miles of desert nothingness, and something she could never quite put someone who recently got made-over occasionally saw things out there so her finger on. by California Cool was lame – strange he was inclined not to share Bryan sipped his second cup of Veronica had lived in the desert with them with anyone. corporate coffee (large, house), and her now-husband since 1999.

Veronica worked at a pretended he hadn’t heard the But he still hadn’t got her back veterinarian’s office and was studying question the first time, could she for her mock surprise that morning to become a full-fledged vet. please repeat it? She’d known him long that he wasn’t driving a Prius these A child from another marriage enough to understand this was his way days.

She had always likened Bryan to had come with Vic, and Veronica had of buying time to think of something Niles from “Frasier,” a little prissy, a found herself stepmother to a boy, now meaningful to say. little Type A. Not exactly traits you age 12.

“Why do we do this?” said associate with someone who works for Bryan had never mentioned Veronica, with an edge in her voice the Department of Defense, but this to Veronica, who still looked about that had nothing to do with the whatever.

18 herself, but he had a feeling that unhealthy amount of caffeine she’d Then, silence.

But comfortable, particular tween was one of the most gulped that spring morning. The two the kind that comes when two people envied kids at his school. sat at a franchise location just off have known each other since they Life is not fair, Bryan often Route I-81 in South-central were 15. thought to himself. That kind of stuff Pennsylvania.

Veronica had flown back to never happened to me.

Veronica’s right arm swept Pennsylvania for a week with her two As for Bryan’s “situation,” as it over their small table to include the young sons, 3 years-old and 9 months. was so trendily referred to today, he store and its consumers, even though Her parents were monopolizing the had married his college sweetheart, a they had nothing to do with the air visit as usual, and Bryan thought it pragmatic, ethnic Greek from molecules between her and Bryan. amusing how Veronica had practically Philadelphia who had given him twin Bryan felt put out. He had to had to lie to them to get out and visit daughters, age 3. They rented the be back at the Army base soon, and second floor of a big brick farmhouse didn’t particularly feel like getting into with him yet again.

The morning had started off situated ideally next to I-81 and this territory. A part of him had well enough.

Small talk about each several incongruous strip malls. always hoped she’d never set these others’ spouses – a topic that always Even though one of his high wheels of thought in motion.

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

19

school classmates had written “Most about at these sit-downs, and they table, held an index finger up to likely to move to New York…or liked how their thought patterns, indicate “one minute,” and said: “Hold Portland,” in his year book, Bryan rarely understood by others, always that thought.” worked on the same Army base his clicked together almost audibly.

Veronica sighed, and just for father had retired from after 32 years.

They were given that rare something to do, followed Bryan inside He tried not to think too hard about moment in life when you sit across the store to order a scone. what this might mean. from someone else who knows where Unlike most people, she didn’t If asked if they were “happy,” you’ve been and where you’re coming mind waiting in line. It gave her brain both Veronica and Bryan would have from. a chance to wander. It floated and bobbed their heads in agreement. Well, So why was Veronica rested on a teenage boy sitting at one Bryan would probably have added a threatening to upset the order of of those too-small tables, tapping away qualifier like “As happy as one can be things on this fine spring morning? on a laptop. in this insane, brutish and stupid Everything was pleasant, warm All Veronica could see was his world.” enough to drink their caffeine on the hunched over back, and a shaggy Both knew the odds of outdoor patio, but Bryan had the haircut that looked like it was done marriage failure, as well as the horrors feeling he got when his mother used to with a pair of safety scissors. of random biology that can grant a drag him into a long, gut-wrenching She smirked, but it was her beautiful child an agonizing, argument. kind smirk. undignified, and early death.

Veronica leaned forward. *** They felt blessed.

“One day I woke up, today The first time I saw Bryan I probably, and realized that I’ve known was staring at the back of his head as you for half of my life, and yet I still we bounced along in this crowded van. have no idea how to quantify or We were 15, headed to one of categorize you,” she said. “We’ve never the biggest Christian music festivals in slept together, never kissed, and I still the country, and I wasn’t sure what I deny your claim that we held hands. was getting myself into. I didn’t mix as You’re not even what I’d like out of a well as I do now, and for the first 30 brother. Someone else fills the brother minutes of the ride I stared at this role very nicely, actually.” weird kid’s rather square-shaped Derek, Veronica’s friend from haircut. It looked like his mom still cut early childhood and puberty, a moist his hair, and I found that possibility and embarrassing period Bryan was oddly cute. glad he’d shared no part of with Despite the event’s Christian Veronica. underpinnings, Bryan was listening to She wasn’t finished.

Nirvana on a Walkman, and talking “We text each other nearly staccato-style about music with his every day. We’re on facebook at least friend Skippy. Despite the horrible once a week. We talk about sex much nickname, Skippy fronts a mid-chart more than we should, yet I feel listing rock outfit today. virtually no sexual attraction to you.

It wasn’t as if I was flying solo Please don’t tell me your take on that to this Christian Woodstock. Two To observers, both sides subject. decent friends, Taryn and Missy, had appeared stable.

“According to the statistics and come along. Derek, my friend since we So why did they do the same the pop psychologists, somewhere were in diapers, was supposed to have thing year after year, a habit so vilified along the line you should have called come along, but was prevented by a lastby the talking head sexperts as to me up drunk and asked me to run minute case of what appeared to be the become boilerplate, a habit their away with you. I know you don’t drink mumps. friends constantly warned them about? anymore, but still. Notice I said you Taryn and Missy were fine They met every other year, would have done that. How many company, but I had always preferred to always in public, and talked around times does the female do that? be around guys. Still do. the fact that they didn’t exactly know Virtually never. I keep waiting for you Eventually Bryan and Skippy what they meant to each other. to do that so we get it out of the way, turned around and started talking to They never touched, outside of have an awkward period, and then us, flirting in that passive-aggressive a good-bye hug, yet both felt a resume civility. But you’ve never way some men never outgrow, and profound sense of sadness and loss opened up that can of worms. And I which I find tedious but still a bit when they saw the other leave, and want to know why. endearing. thought about the encounter for days “And I want to know what the Bryan had a nice face, a few afterward. heck we are.” zits, and wire-rim glasses that seemed All they were sure of was that Bryan, full of coffee and a bit too large for his face. His nicest they never ran out of things to talk bladder fit to burst, rose from their features were his blue eyes, which could

A HABIT SO

VILIFIED BY THE TALKINGHEAD

SEXPERTS AS TO BECOME

BOILERPLATE...

20 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

go from devious to kind in a second, speakers, nighttime was campfires This went on for months, and and his thick brown hair. Even today, amid the smells of roasting hotdogs Bryan, true to his nature, got impatient.

Bryan still says a prayer of thanks now and Port-O-Potties. Bryan and I found He seemed to think that and then that he still has all that thick ourselves sitting off alone a lot. I’d tell becoming boyfriend and girlfriend was hair. him stories about when I lived in a natural progression from the The only rule in the young Germany as an Army brat, watching compressed unreality of the festival. teenager’s flirting playbook is easy to my best friend get machine-gunned at After all, we had sat together a remember: Keep them laughing. the Berlin Wall. This one didn’t raise lot, made proclamations of a kind.

And those two could, playing his eyebrows, and to this day he has Time to ramp things up, at least in his off each other like only guys can. never asked me if it’s true or not. mind.

Most boys screw this up, I told him about my Polish But I was stuck in the same though, making jokes at the girls’ grandmother, who fell in love with the inertia I wasn’t able to shake until I expense as if the old classroom adage met Vic. Things were good as friends; “If he picks on you, he must like you” is no reason to mess them up. I was at true. that stage in my life where if I didn’t Not Bryan. Although he tells have to do anything, I didn’t. me he was terrified the first time we Bryan got the message, and met, I never got that from him. He amazingly enough we continued our seemed calm, confident, happy to make intensive communication for about a jokes at his own expense but still giving year. out a vibe of dignity.

By senior year, however, our By the time we got our two vans friendship was pretty much a thing of through the insanely long registration the past. It can happen that quickly. line, I was getting the feeling Bryan One school year seems like an era in was trying to impress Taryn. and of itself. You can have a phone But oh, how quickly conversation sometimes, and hang up interpersonal dynamics can change with the dead certainty that you when you’re that age. The air gets so probably won’t hear from that person thick with hormones I swear you can young man who lived in her walls in again. smell it, and decisions are made with 1943.

But not always. the split-second brilliance of medalBryan noticed cigarette burns I had been working at Pizza winning battle tactics. on the sweater I wore on the coolest Hut in high school, and when Within the first day of the night of the trip. graduation came, they offered me a gig festival, Bryan had all but abandoned “My sister’s,” I said quietly, and as assistant manager. Bryan and his Skippy, and had paired up with then told him about the time Toni skuzzy punk rock friends would drop by Michael, a slicker operator. If what nearly killed me when we were from time to time to cadge free food and Bryan told me years later is true, and children. Standing on the raft in the beer, and sometimes I let them. that week represented the first time lake, kicking me away, hoping I’d get I think he just did it to play the females had ever paid him any tired and float down to the bottom.

Big Man, showing off an old female attention, then Bryan taking up with By week’s end Bryan had friend and a beer connection at the Michael was probably his best move to summoned up the courage to say the same time. I eventually kicked them all keep that good feeling going. only thing he could think of to express out.

Taryn didn’t seem to be taken his feelings: “I think you’re a pretty A year or two passed, and I with Bryan, and he turned his awesome person.” decided to give college a try, enrolling attention on me.

From anyone else, at any other at a small liberal arts State School one He made me laugh more than time, lame. town over from Ainsworth. anyone I’d ever met. His brain just That night, it was sweet.

I was sitting on a couch in the didn’t seem to work the way a normal “I think you’re pretty awesome, hallway of the History Department person’s did. What he found funny, no too,” I said. when in walked Bryan, wearing cut-off one else but me seemed to get, and more And of course we exchanged shorts, a horror movie T-shirt, and pedestrian humor just wasn’t his thing. numbers and addresses. reeking of cigarette smoke.

I had been right; he was weird, Bryan went to a snooty private He wasn’t looking much like the but a good weird. school in Ainsworth, the county seat, kid who used to attend church youth We soon found ourselves a and I attended public school in the group, but as he tells it, his faith came foursome: Bryan and I, Michael and a same town. and went in the years he calls his girl from another church named Ria, a We both started to attend the “alcoholic fugue.” red-head from Ohio with mysterious church youth group that had brought Today he goes to church twice a burn marks on her arm in the shape of us to the music festival, and wrote each week, and his only vice is caffeine. I’d a curling iron. other a letter at least once a week. We like to think his religion is more than a Daytime was concerts and were on the phone for hours a night. way to stay sober, but who can tell?

FROM ANYONE ELSE, AT ANY

OTHER TIME,

LAME. THAT NIGHT,

IT WAS SWEET

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

21

As for me, and what stuck with Sure makes things boring, don’t meet her personality, I.Q., and me from my teenage world, I guess I’m doesn’t it? Even more boring than yes, moral requirements. an “X-Files” Christian. I sure want to usual.

The reason for the scrutiny? believe.

Splash of water on his face to Ronnie has been hurt, and she’s going Somehow, even before I told cool down. Bryan had been overheated to do her best to never be hurt like that him I was dropping out after a week’s his entire life, devolving into again. classes, I knew he’d disapprove. Last clamminess 15 minutes after he got I’d like to think I pass her we’d talked he’d just read “The out of the shower. standards. We’re still talking today, Fountainhead,” and become nearly Stared in the mirror, and saw a after all. insufferably positive.

Bryan heavier and more tired-looking At 15, Ronnie treated me as an “I don’t want you to do this,” he than the Bryan he often thought about. equal, and maybe even someone she said. “Stay here. I don’t know anyone *** could grow to be interested in down the else here and this is what you need.

My connection to Ronnie stems line.

You absolutely cannot give up on from the fact that she was the first girl No guy will admit this, but something as serious as college after to view me as a viable and cunning sometimes we remember with more only one week. Let’s do this together.” member of the male species, but that’s fondness the first girl who acts like we I tried to explain to him that I’d only a small piece of the pie we’ve made might have a chance with her than the had a professor who’d harassed me to for ourselves. ones who let us get away with a lot tears, that college wasn’t for everyone, Our story isn’t one of those pathetic more. that he wasn’t exactly a key figure in “Love in the Time of Cholera” rip-offs We “went out” for a week, but my life anymore. you see in women’s magazines. The broke up because Ronnie said she Bryan shrugged, walked to his ones where adults pine for decades wasn’t “ready” for it. classroom door, turned around: “You about the first person they were Ronnie stood first in the line of are capable of great things.” intimate with on a golf course at night. women who have passed through my And that was the last I saw of There is some of that, sure, but life, for better or worse. I’m glad our him for several years.

Ronnie’s more symbolic to me than a relationship has always been chaste.

We’d bump into each other off subject of specific connection.

The first one through the door should and on at places like the mall, kill a Our story makes the most sense be clean. few hours over coffee, and go back to in light of where I was emotionally in On to the more broad our lives. the year or so prior to meeting her. To implications.

The Internet Age ascended, and say I was an outsider is putting it I may have had a falling-out we found ourselves talking online at mildly. I excelled at nothing except my with Skippy, but I really bonded that least once a week. We probably send schoolwork, and sitting around in week with most others in the youth each other a handful of text messages a study hall obsessively reading or group. day. writing stories in notebooks, stories I They treated me with more So here we are: Odd, charged, usually never finished. respect and kindness than I was getting and ill-advised sit-downs every other Get-togethers with my precious at school, that’s for sure. year. few friends consisted of sitting around Fifteen is the strangest age.

Vic knows, and while he says on a lazy Saturday with a stack of new Impending college fills you with this men and women cannot be friends, comic books and a 1-pound bag of sense of adulthood, but deep down you doesn’t seem to mind. Bryan swears his peanut M & Ms. Nintendo “parties” know you’ve got plenty of time to do wife knows and doesn’t care. were also frequent. what you want, and despite school, Us getting together is like this When Skippy asked me to go to very, very few responsibilities. It’s like habit you form without even realizing it. that music festival, my first inclination the kind of arrested development you I just wish I understood it more. was to run in the other direction. A actually want, where, as truly awful as *** bunch of kids my age I didn’t know, this sounds, you feel like you’re going to Bryan stood at the vacuum females? Forget it. be skinny, energetic, and hopeful urinal and got rid of some coffee.

But I eventually gave in for the forever.

Stuff made him hit the bathroom same reason I still do stuff today: I had And that there’s going to be an quicker than beer, not that he drank nothing better to do. interesting crop of people to pick from that anymore.

One of the first things you’ll and talk to every day, for the rest of Nope, not even alcohol’s least- notice about Ronnie is her ability to your life. harsh mistress. Among other horrors of take you in. She has a way of looking I talk to Ronnie now and I see consumption, Bryan carried with him at you that’s almost like she’s myself again in those days: Newlythe recent memory of last analyzing you, but not in a way that found confidence, always somewhere to Thanksgiving’s relapse. One beer had makes you feel uncomfortable. She just go, something to do. Youth. started a chain reaction that resulted wants to take stock of you and see if In some ways, I become that in a blackout at his in-laws. you’re worth her time. person again, and this sterile, He enjoyed his hard-won Because believe it or not, she monochromatic McLife is sweeter for it. sobriety, but… has a way of locking you out if you ***

22 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

Bryan and Veronica threw Bryan wasn’t even seated I’m too beat to unpack, I just lie in my their trash away and went to their before Veronica was razzing him yet bed, my eyes floating off the Stephen again about the frequency of his King book I’m reading, and I’m just so vehicles, did their ritual hug.

He stabbed his key into his bathroom trips. quietly happy.

“I need to know something,” “Someone like you had talked Nissan and looked up at Veronica.

“See you in a couple years?” she said, all traces of the intensity of to me, and I had met people who didn’t She said nothing, only gave their earlier discussion gone. “Why on judge me or treat me like the freak I him a smile and walked away, and Earth do you pee so much? That was probably was, and I knew there were Bryan felt foolish for asking. the third time. How does your boss going to be some great days in my handle that?” future. Being around people. Having a “My boss operates out of New network of friends. Having something York; It works out nicely, actually,” to do. Having a thing.” said Bryan. “Is there even an answer Bryan sipped coffee and looked to this? I have a small bladder. I her in the eye. process stuff quicker. Who cares? You “That spirit of sleepy just point it out because it’s obvious.” anticipation, that was the happiest I’ve “You’re obvious,” said Veronica ever been. Not a lot has come close. with a distracted grin as she glanced Marriage, kids, that’s about it. You’re at the clock on her mobile phone. probably shocked this story isn’t about This divergence was typical my first kid’s head crowning in the Veronica. She’d started out haranguing maternity ward.” him about the nature of their “No,” said Veronica after a friendship, asking intent questions, pause. “You have to be and five minutes later, reverted to happy before anything humor scraping the bathroom variety. else can fall into place, Is this how our brains work before you can love.” anymore? Is this the extent of the Minutes human interface, limping through it slipped by without a until we can get to a keypad and word, another silence screen? with no repercussions.

“Hey, back to what we were When she talking about,” said Bryan, voice finally spoke, lowered to indicate he had really Veronica’s voice was thought about the subject in the hoarse like she was interim. sad, but her face Veronica took a bite of scone looked nothing of the and wondered why she’d brought up sort. the topic at all.

“What you just “Remember that one time I brought up, that era, asked you about the happiest you had that was always my ever been? Well, let’s pretend you just favorite time, too,” she asked me the same question,” said said quietly.

Bryan.

They looked at “I did, you said –“ each other. Years of “Never mind that,” said Bryan. confusion unspooled in “I changed that. I’m giving you the real a moment. Complexity answer this time.” was unraveled by a Veronica’s face took on a look of mixed sentimental anecdote indulgence and curiosity. knocked off after a “The happiest I’ve ever been,” bathroom trip. said Bryan, “was the day we all came But these back from the music festival. kinds of connections, “It was a Sunday, and we all these fumblings at met back at the church before we went being known, work. home. My parents picked me up, took Because they’re all we me to McDonald’s, asked me all sorts have left. of questions, trying to ascertain if I’d An obnoxious ri stayed out of trouble. ngtone broke the moment, p “We get home around 2 or 3, robably by karmic design.

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

23

WHERE TO START

By Ray Cressler

I. where to start is always the hardest part to figure out so starting where you are is the best option from there is the window, the wind, the snow and the sky so cloudy smoke and cotton gray from there is the universe which is huge and probably infinite

II. today I gave up and all reality poured forth like a cup of Niagara falls early in the morning sloppy metaphors like used condoms deteriorating in a downtown parking lot little abandoned non-children little abandoned trysts and the breaking of trust the making of crust, how it coats this rock, a would-be dead planet

24 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

III this gourd rattles I hold onto music while all else is an ember flying off of a wild bonfire and disappearing into stars we poets will never stop howling we the griots will tell you it has always been the same and you must choose between good and evil you must choose between good and evil and you must feast when feasting is in order and you must kill the beast and you must storm the fortress there is only that and love and death

IV we are fleshbeings we are mind we should try to have a good time I am human and you are too formed from random organic brew

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

25

A PHOTO ESSAY BY THOMAS G. ANDERSON

26 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

27

28 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

EVER AFTER, IN SEDONA

By Claire Holahan

dark bags into hidden compartments.

The men in their suits were Mary Louette, the widow, The widow blinked and glanced seated. They sat, unblinking. entered the plane, anxious and around, discretely. Some people were Unmoving. They were the machine amused. Rumors of a mad staring at her. She knew. How could men. Mary Louette grimaced. Men of woman had already begun to they not be? She did not have a copper, with no hearts. circulate, and she loved to “Oh my.” She whispered. “Oh listen to people quake in their partner. She did not have a shield.

“Will no one protect me from my. Oh my. What soulless beings polyester. People used to quake these Unusuals?” She murmured. wander this aircraft?” in fur, but damnit if the “Hm?” The woman in front of “I beg your pardon, but it really extremists hadn’t gotten to her turned around, again. “I’m sorry. sounds like you’re talking to me.” The them.

Did you say something?” woman in front of her, Mary Louette Sitting down, she rolled her “No, dear.” Mary Louette said, realized, had not even bothered to turn head back and took a deep breath of back around, since they had last spoke. stale, processed air. Air that she would patiently. “I don’t even know you.”

A woman walked around, “Oh, I understand.” Mary share with one hundred other men, wearing an oxygen mask, and Mary Louette smiled and lowered her voice. women, and children for five hours, “You’re sitting next to an Unusual, until she reached Sedona, Arizona. She Louette clutched her seat. Perhaps rolled the name of the city and state on some fresh air would do her good. She aren’t you?” She asked. “You may sit reached for the button that would eject here,” She pat the empty seat, next to her tongue, under her breath, when her saving grace. This could save her her. “If you’d like.” she was sure no one could hear her.

The woman stared at Mary Words always sounded beautiful on a life.

Something rough and cold and Louette’s wrinkled hand. Every time it Thursday evening, and beauty was never relative, in Sedona. Her husband ugly gripped her wrist. Copper nails bit moved, veins seemed to wander its into her skin, which was just beginning bones. had thought her the most beautiful to thin and wrinkle. It reminded her of “No, thank you.” The woman thing he had ever seen, those days. said.

Those days, in Sedona, and ever after. age. Of oxygen. She fought the hand, which restrained her.

“Suit yourself.” Mary Louette Glancing at her ticket, once “Ma’am, this is only an said. “But be careful, dear.” She gazed more, Mary Louette waited for the person who would inevitably sit next to example.” A loud voice made her eyes at the man, next to the woman. “He looks like a big one.” her. She hoped, to all of the Northern flutter with discomfort. “We don’t actually want to you to release the “Are you calling me fat?” The Deities, he or she wasn’t fat. oxygen mask.” man asked.

Nobody came.

Mary Louette relaxed her arm.

Mary Louette shrugged. “We All at once, the plane quieted.

Every passenger was on board, except People were staring. Some had begun all have our insecurities.” She said, to whisper of a woman and a nervous sympathetically. for Mary Louette’s mystery seating breakdown.

The Unusual began to howl. partner. What an unusual A madwoman and a nervous “Is there a problem?” A loud, circumstance, this was. What were the breakdown? This was quite the panicky voice, coated with syrup and chances? She mused. unusual plane. She stared at all of the arsenic, approached. The same “What did you say?” The passengers with milky eyes, stewardess who had blocked Mary woman in front of her turned in her penetrating each traveler, individually. Louette from her precious oxygen was seat. “Did you say something?”

Some of them looked away. Some men’s now staring at her with concern.

“No. Nothing.” Said Mary “She called me fat!” The fat Louette. But she was very perturbed, eyes had no life to give, so they went on staring, until the plane took off. These man said. indeed. were all quite unusual people. She had Mary Louette shook her head Lights began to blink, and a and muttered. “They can be so few men in suits began to bustle. They to be careful, on a plane like this.

She fidgeted, uncertainty sensitive.” bustled around their women. They “Ma’am-” bustled around Mary Louette, shoving filling her chest.

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

29

Mary Louette stood, abruptly.

She had never put on her seatbelt.

“I think that I have been put on the wrong plane.” She stated.

“Where are you traveling to?”

The attendant asked.

“I want to fly to Sedona, Arizona!” Mary Louette cried, determined. She would not be defeated. “The only place I can be young, and unashamed!”

“And so we’ll take you there, as soon as you sit down.” The attendant said, her voice at a pitch most dogs would not be able to tolerate.

“That cannot be.” Mary Louette’s voice shook with uncertainty and shame. “I…” She felt the swells of panic, in her breast. “I’m not on the right plane. This can’t be right.”

Pushing past the woman in the tight khaki shorts, she stumbled to the bathroom, and threw up salami and rye, and an assortment of Swiss chocolates that she should have just thrown away.

“I must get out of here.”

She sputtered greens. “I must.”

“Are you alright in there, Ma’am?” Someone pounded on the door. They kept on pounding and pounding until Mary Louette thought she might die.

She would have answered, but vomit can be such an inconvenience.

“Ma’am?”

Mary Louette searched the cramped space. There must be a place to hide. Her eyes rolled and rolled until they rested on some toilet paper.

There wasn’t enough to cover her, completely. She would never be an airplane mummy.

She wondered where they kept all the extra toilet paper. A lot of people relieved themselves on a lot of planes. They must hide the paper, somewhere.

“Ma’am. There are people waiting, out here.”

The Unusuals were all in such a hurry. Mary Louette pressed a fragile hand to her

unresponsive. temple. Why couldn’t they just wait, She had always known that it like normal people? She had always would come to this. The Unusuals been patient. Even as a child. would want more than she could give, An infant began to wail, and and so they took. she snapped her fingers.

“Goodnight, fiends, born of What an unusual child. She men.” She whispered. thought. Just like the rest of them.

They were shouting with “I’m coming out.” She said, vicious regret, but it was too late. wiping her mouth, on her sleeve.

Mary Louette, widow and cautious “Please, don’t shoot.” adventurer, faded without excessive A lot of hands reached out to elegance. her, at once. Tugging and prodding, gripping and shaking, they touched every inch of her. They were under her The End arms, beneath her breasts, and in her mouth, curious and unrelenting. Mary Louette stiffened, then collapsed,

30 The Earl Vol. 2- Issue 1- Winter 2012

Earl Staff

Editor- Ray Cressler Photo Editor- Matthew McLean Staff Reviewer - Katie Dempsey

Thanks For Reading!

www.TheEarlofShippensburg.com

31

The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.

F. Scott Fitzgerald