Pour Vida
Autumn 2021(8.1)
1
Editor’s Note…………………………………………………………………………………………….………..3 “RE: Interview #17, John Jason, Civilian Bus Driver” by Michael Tesauro……………………..…4-5
“Immaculate Cat” by Thomas Piekarski……………………………………………………………..6 “Extant” by A. Whittenberg……………………………………………………………………………..…7 “Cannibal” by Catherine Moscatt…………………………………………………………………….….8 “Epilogue” by Sasha Leshner………………………………………………………………………...9-10 “Folded Immigrant” by Jamie Wyatt…………………………………………………………………11 “The Alligator Play” by Andrew Boylan……………………………………………………….12-13 Cover photo by Cascabel Tooms To be considered for upcoming issues of Pour Vida lit zine, please send submissions of writing, artwork, and photography to pourvidazine@gmail.com
2
Editor’s Note Nine Halloweens ago, Pour Vida’s inaugural issue was unleashed upon the world, stitched together like Frankenstein’s monster, only we had a lot more love for our creation than ol’ Victor did. Still, to think that eight years and nine Halloweens have passed since Issue #1 is somewhat surprisingly, a little staggering, but mostly humbling. This ‘zine was born out of a desire to showcase our collective of talented friends and connect with other creatives beyond our purview. I have the fondest memories of stitching together that first issue. Adam Martinez and I would come home from grad classes near 10 PM, crack a few Newcastle Werewolfs, and debate the table of contents. That issue and autumn were bursting with possibility. Which brings me to this issue and this autumn. After all these years obsessively wandering the October Country — both personally and in the capacity of PV — I’ve come to accept this very specific, incredibly special time of the year means something different to everyone. For some, it’s watching the goriest slashers every to defile celluloid. For others, it’s simply carving a jack-o-lantern on Halloween night and setting it out on the porch. And these are simply two extremes of acknowledging the season. For me, someone that lives year-round in the October Country, it’s the little flourishes of autumn that tend to take me by surprise and bring me the most joy. It’s the fleeting moment when you’re standing in an open space (maybe on the tracks of a long-defunct railway) and feeling that insinuating autumn breeze runs crisp-hot by your ears, orchestrating that high-pitch dog-whistle of a sound that reminds you that you’ve wandered into a strange land, where eerie happenings aren’t just possible but encouraged by the atmosphere and its beautifully twisted physics. Welcome to the October Country. Find your joy in its light and dark corners. -
3
Danny De Maio, PV co-founder and co-editior-in-chief
“RE: Interview #17, John Jason, Civilian Bus Driver” by Michael Tesauro September 09, [redacted]: Today’s subject, John Jason, 53, says he is a veteran driver. He says that this statement works two ways: first, because he is a veteran of the United States Army, Forward Command Infinite, having served during the third Gulf War, colloquially known as the Fuel Wars; second, he has also been a civilian hydrobus driver for over a decade. Veteran, he says, is a double entendre. You should take note of this, he instructs. As noted, Jason’s current occupation is city hydrobus driver for the Jurupa Valley Transit Authority. He wears the colors of his trade to his interview: pressed navy slacks and a charcoal gray polo shirt. Over his left breast pocket is a silver pin engraved with his first name. Jason says he mastered transportation during his military service, long before leaving the armed forces in 2036. Honorable discharge, he says. Take note of this. “The military was my best option,” he says. “What else was I going to do without a mind for blockchain? Driving around in circles isn’t hard. Better than dodging bullets and landmines. Plenty of crazy people though. They say it’s the metal in the air.” Jason insists that we note his current role is his second civilian transportation job. Immediately after discharge, he worked for a now-defunct charter company in the Los Angeles Inner Corridor called New Pacific Charter Systems, LLC. Jason says this brought him to both regulated and cordoned locales in the Pacifica region. This was before [redacted], he says. “We did a lot of leisure trips for old people with money,” he says. “We took them to a lot of bingo halls and casinos before you guys requisitioned the Indian lands.” Jason also says the charter company would transport firefighters from the penal colonies to the fire complexes. Records state that he is one of the last people to see living trees in North Pacifica. “Remember when the redwoods went up?” he says. “I saw it up close, not on a holoscreen like everyone else watching from home.” Mention of holoscreen indicates possible organic interaction trauma. Take note. [Redacted] Jason’s military records state that he spent his 11 years of service driving early century gasoline-powered transportation vehicles. He was on a team that moved fuel cells for tanks, jets, and drones. The last company to use gas powered MRAPs, he says. Take note. “Using real gas, seeing the last drops of it – that was a real honor.” Jason joined the military in 2025; after basic training, he was given a choice between infantry scout and fuel transporter, based on his predictive cognition test results. Scouts were often victims of improvised explosive devices, he says. 4
[Redacted] “We’d find like a boot and pieces of their guts spread across the opium fields after they stepped on a landline.” Take note. In 2030, Jason was sent to the occupied region formerly known as Afghanistan. His role in Operation Resolution and Independence was driving a refueling tanker between operational bases. He says that while he was in Afghanistan, the skies were always black, even in the middle of the afternoon, every afternoon. Take note. “I saw the oil fires in the desert,” he says. “The last of the oil and [redacted]. Right there. Burning right out of the ground in these giant pillars of fire. Biblical shit, you know?” Jason says that he and his platoon would joy ride through the Helmand Province in a gas-powered MRAP. Once, they went so far they could see the edges of Lashkar Gah before [redacted]. Another time, he says, they spent an afternoon running over civilians in Mazar-i-Sharif. He jumps from his chair, mimicking what he says it felt like for an MRAP to drive over a dead body. “Rubber wheels,” he says, creating a circle with his two hands. “I miss them. You could really feel it when you ran something over.” Jason mimics how they would shoot the mounted M2HB-QCB ballistic weapon into the open-air market place. His finger pulls an invisible trigger. “Ever seen a bone pop out of skin?” he says. “Not many people have, especially not you admin types. You people just take notes behind your screens. Everything remote. Where are you even at on the other side? Lunar base? Fucking Mars? [redacted]” Jason stands from his chair and knocks on the holoscreen monitor. “You see these?” he says, pulling out faded bronze dog tags from beneath his shirt. “It means I fought for your freedom, for your escape. So you people can piss off into space and leave the rest of us this rotten planet.” He tucks his dog tags back into his loosen collar and shakes the holoscreen monitor again. The picture wavers, then static; the transmission corrects itself. Take note. [Redacted]
5
“Immaculate Cat” by Thomas Piekarski Should Earth’s bowels burst one day in a pyroclastic cataclysm, innards thrust far out through space to be dispersed amid all the quarks, fields, quasars, never again to be heard by sentient ears, then Mars may groan terribly, knowing it could be next. People by then might exist in one odd form or another, possessors of past and future. Parked beside a plum orchard I contemplated how it would feel to be sitting on a stoop at night looking up at a million circling stars at precisely the time that huge explosion transpires. The day young, the sky turquoise, sun slowly melting. Immersed in a state of vitality did I stroll a bit, whereupon observed a most immaculate cat hunched on a curb some forty feet from me. Stopped in my tracks by this cat, for I had never seen among hundreds any so imperially beautiful with its crystalline eyes and entrancing coat, a pale orange and white that shimmered like the finest Chinese silk. It sauntered forth as if I were some old friend returned to catch up on events. Maybe we come from the same stock, tree bark or fly abdomen, now cast as man and cat, consigned to common consciousness, always the sum of the whole, resonances by which memory is transmitted. Our astrological bond surely come by means of little understood concepts such as genetic mutation and mitosis, morphic telepathy and perfect love.
6
“Extant” by A. Whittenberg shame on you for eating flesh the protein of your friends (at least, you didn’t eat your sister) but come on -- what were you thinking? to maintain survival excuses everything except when it doesn’t shame after your plane crashed into the Andes Mountains after the impact, the crush of metal, the raging fire drowned by the snow more bad luck the avalanche, the avalanches being lost, being broken and you can’t eat the rugby balls and the plane food is gone the hunger, the relentless cold, the hunger, the screams, where was the utility? civilization sent search parties that couldn’t find you shame nourishment was only a 60 mile walk away or at least the goat herders you had to find your own cure you saved yourself shame
7
“Cannibal” by Catherine Moscatt Quickly, quickly oh how foolish he’d been. To stay out this late, the sun setting precariously in the sky, setting the horizon on fire. How did it get so late? How foolish he had been to think himself immune to the bogeyman that prowled the streets. Hungry bogeyman. And food had been so scarce. Even at home Ma was stretching meager amounts of food so Anton and his sisters did not starve. He noticed her plate empty on more than one occasion. Not Father’s though. Father was the bread winner. Father still clung to his job. Father was a success. Father deserved to eat. Shit, it was almost dark. He would be one of “those boys” snatched from the jaws of life. He would be served to a mother and her four children and none of them would dare question what they were eating. Cannibal. He was running now. They couldn’t, wouldn’t catch him. He’d fight. He’d claw. He’d kick. They wouldn’t take Anton down. And now it was fully dark. Were those shadows or specters? Anton was home. He burst into the home (the modest brick building, 1st floor, no indoor plumbing). His mother was crying all over the cauldron in which she made their dinner. His sisters were red rimmed. “Anton” hissed his mother angrily “I worried you were gone forever” “I’m sorry Ma. I lost track of time” It was a feeble excuse. It hung in the air broadcasting his own stupidity. Suddenly Father appeared. He clapped Anton on the shoulder. “Anton is too old for cannibal stories. Anton wouldn’t let a strange man grab him” He seized Anton and picked him up much to Anton’s alarm. Anton kicked. He clawed. His father was unfazed. He brought Anton over to the large cauldron. Anton tucked his legs to his chest so the water wouldn’t scald his young legs. “Put him down” his mother said. But it was a plea not a command. She had no power here. “Is this what you want? To be someone’s dinner? I bet you would taste mighty fine. Then your mother wouldn’t have to worry all the time. Selfish brat” His father threw him to the ground. Anton scurried to the corner, fearful of the cauldron and his narrow escape. He never came home after dark again. And he never questioned what they were eating.
8
“Epilogue” by Sasha Leshner I want to begin dismantling the ship still leaning in me like a breastbone tending west—I’m sorry can I say this, that I want to be another city, buried under the ocean’s myth of landscape. You say she reminds you of a city (of me) and I want to turn my wars to crystal. I would have been a zealous soldier. I like to think of myself like that: downy middle-parted hair under a creased beret, a farmer’s rifle blacking my palms, some way to fight for, or at least face you, before your fire falls around me, choosing the story in which I lose. You’re doing the right thing (you’re telling me so), but I keep asking when my good heart became the fruit you should have been resisting, and how come something better is waiting for you everywhere I’m not—Please, the orange peel spiralling, mold-fitted and resined air, I am here. Suspend me. I admit it: I can never give up on a young, stupid god. And I was cursed many times over. But an Oracle is all a myth needs to make someone believe they might still become immortal. Forgive me, I was faithful to the man you were with me. 9
I know we are of the old gods, and this is the last act of our kind, and everything is endgame. I know nothing matters. But even with nothing, I had to have you in every dimension, like another ancient and forgotten word for stone.
10
“Folded Immigrant” by Jamie Wyatt my Irish culture has been erased molded and mutilated by the American government my mother forced assimilation masquerading as speech classes to say yes not aye to slow down her quick Irish lilt speaking that sounds like singing we can only keep the negative words drunk temper burning ginger hot pugilist what is it called when dead servicemen are gifted an American flag to be folded rectangle to triangle a foreign grandfather unrecognized for his sacrifice negating his American dream
11
into
fighter
“The Alligator Play” by Andrew Boylan The divorce lawyer said it wouldn’t be cheap. Plus, I probably wouldn’t see the kids anyway. He said it would be easy for my wife to manipulate the shared custody thing no matter how the judge organized the dates. We were having coffee on the veranda. The sun leaked yellow and red through the Aspens. I wanted to know if attorney-client-privilege extended to my backyard. Shards of ice rattled at the bottom of his ice tea glass. He remarked, when he sat down at the rod-iron table, how I served him tea in the proper glass. That was something my mother impressed upon me, the proper glass for the proper occasion. The correct fork for the course set before you. I explained how my wife had several co-morbidities. People often spoke of co-morbidities these days the way they once discussed grape varietals. This was not a word I would have used in a sentence two years ago. He moved quickly in his chair and it was clear he had just noticed the alligator walking across the lawn. This time of day it usually slept under the veranda. Instead, it decided to amble out into the yard and take a lay of the land. I put a hand on my lawyer’s shoulder the way someone might in a movie about a loan shark with a heart of gold. It makes it a little hard to focus, he confessed. Who am I to argue with a man’s feelings about reptiles? But I had to get it off my chest the thing that weighed on my chest. I told him the thing everybody had been talking about for some time. I said how the virus didn’t go easy on people with co-morbidities. Every time I used the word I felt like I was putting on an act. As I though I were offering the high-hat. I’m no doctor. What did I have in mind, he wanted to know? There was a good chance I wouldn’t die from the virus. The virus probably wouldn’t get me because I was still in my forties. Although I could probably drop a Friday night pizza or two I wasn’t obese. The alligator made it to the edge of the wood-line. It was hard to figure what a creature like that came up with about when it considered the forest. It could be a solution to the judge problem? I told him. He shook a piece of ice from the bottom of the glass into his mouth and crunched it between his teeth. It hurt my cavities just listening. Did you buy that thing? A man drove it up from Florida in the trunk of his Mercedes. His breath smelled like microwave popcorn when he counted each bill then slid them back in the envelope. The odds go way up with each co-morbidity was how they put it on the news. What does it eat? The creature flipped its tail. The whole body spun around like it was set on a pivot. It takes some getting used to how quickly an alligator moves when it wants. I could hear the screws in my lawyer’s chair when he shifted his posture according to where the creature looked. It’d be tough to make a case for murder against you if that’s your angle? A few months ago, when I started to put two-and-two together, I increased my risk. I would run my hand along the railing in the subway station when I was in the city. Then I would rub my eyes. Most public spaces were off limits. Movie theaters, sports complexes, in-door dining were off limits. I heard about a synagogue that wasn’t going to let a pandemic disturb the Torah. I was not a Jew but I knew a man who sold yam akas. God protects his own. Catching the virus had proven much harder than the news made it out to be. My wife kept getting lucky. On the way to the 12
car, I showed my lawyer where we were raising the rabbits. I explained how the alligator ate two a day. It can be a little complicated because the creature likes to hunt. When he turned to look back at the yard the alligator was nowhere to be seen. The lawyer moved quickly to his car. He rolled down the window to offer one last piece of advice. No body. No case. I heard the engine start as I made my way back through the fence.
13
14
