Pour Vida Zine 4.1 (Autumn 2016)

Table of Contents “Candy Bars” by Joseph S. Pete…………………………………………………………….p. 3 “Thomas and friends” by Ashley Smith………………………………………………...p. 6 “Walk” and “Blackbird” by Thom Young………………………………………………..p. 8 “Victor the Vamprire” by Katie Wright……………….………………………………...p. 9 “Distilling Music from Water” by Lawrence Berggoetz…………………..……p. 10 “The Stalk” by Brandon Stuhl……………………………….……………………………..p.11 Five poems by Genelle Chaconas….……………………………………………………..p. 20 “The Opposite” by Stephanie Macias……………………………………………………p. 22 “ali” by Zachary M. Hodson…………………………………….…………………………..p. 23 “Baseball is Cricket” by Megan Bates……………………………………………….….p. 25 “Abe’s Children Continue Their Play” by Gerard Sarnat……………………...p. 26 *Cover photograph by JC Guzman.

To be considered for upcoming issues of Pour Vida lit zine, please send submissions of writing and artwork to pourvidazine@gmail.com

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“Candy Bars”

By Joseph S. Pete The kids had done scouting over the years, and they knew where to get full-sized candy bars and cans of pop while trick-or-treating on Halloween. They’d have to cross out of their vibrant multi-ethnic city south of the interstate highway into a bland homogenized suburb to access such neighborhoods. But it would be worth it, in the end. When they dumped their hauls in front of their moms for inspection, they’d have more to show for it. They could eat whole Snickers and Baby Ruth and Payday bars, instead of just bite-sized Butterfingers that would leave them hungrier than when they started. They’d get Coke and Cherry Coke and entire cans of pop instead of lame treats like individual Starbursts or those lame packets with three Everlasting Gobstoppers that actually lasted about about five seconds when you bit into them.

Some of these couples behind these suburban doors had orange pop, ginger ale, root beer, every kind of pop you could imagine. They handed out fullsized candy bars, which was as good as it could get. The kids would surely end up with enough candy and pop to last them for weeks.

Visions of sugar danced in their heads as they traipsed down the street.

“Hey,” the preppy boy in the sports jacket called out. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

He was older than the middle schoolers were, a teenager, wellcoiffed. He seemed both unctuous and arrogant. He ostensibly wasn't wearing a costume, yet he was. For some reason, he was indignant. His eyes smoldered, and he was clenching his teeth.

“What do you mean?” Daryl said.

The preppy glared at them.

“We’re trick or treating,” Daryl said. “It’s Halloween.”

“Yes, I of course know what day it is. I’ve just never seen you here before,” he said. He was grinding his teeth. “Which house do you live in?”

“Man, where do you live?”

“Crestwood Lane. The big brick house by the pond. Where do you live?”

“Man, I live in an igloo. Get out of here.”

The kids continued down the block, their bags swishing but weighted down with all the candy.

The preppy kid in the blazer suddenly, shockingly popped up in front of them. Daryl looked back to make sure he wasn’t still behind them too.

3

For some reason, he now had a golf club, which he was idling moving back and forth as though he was sweeping for mines.

“Which house are you guys in? Where you from?” the preppy asked, grinning a little.

“Man, you need to mind your own business,” Chris said.

“Sometimes they say I care too much,” the preppy smiled. “This is my neighborhood.”

“This is Halloween,” Shandra said. “You need to stop ruining it.”

“Listen…”

“You listen,” Daryl said. “We're trick-or-treating. Go get some candy of your own, and mind your own business. We're minding ours. We're not doing anything.”

They brushed past him and continued down the street, ringing on doorbells, smiling at homeowners who were often wearing goofy costumes and hauling around their increasingly hefty sacks.

“You all look so adorable,” the old woman said, passing out full-sized Milky Ways. “What are you dressed as?”

“Iron Man,” Daryl said. “You know, from the Avengers movies.”

“Well, then you know to get enough iron and take your vitamins,” she said.

The kids were laughing as they strolled back to the sidewalk.

“Take your vitamins Iron Man, if that is your real name,” Shandra said.

The preppy kid popped up again, triggering a collective gasp.

He was smiling, his head tilted oddly. He had enough hair gel to pave a brick wall, yet you could see the dandruff on the shoulders of his blazer.

“I don’t think you live here,” he said. “I don’t think any of you live here. I think you’re trespassing.”

“How are we trespassing man?” Daryl said. “This is a sidewalk. It’s a public sidewalk. For anyone. For everyone.”

“This isn’t your neighborhood and you should leave,” the preppy said. “You don’t belong here. No, you don’t belong here at all.”

“Don’t tell us where we belong,” Shandra yelled. “You creepy creeper creep. You don’t belong here or anywhere.”

“I live here,” the preppy said. “You live somewhere else. You’re trespassing here, and I’m somehow not supposed to care.”

“Man. get out of here,” Chris said, walking past the preppy.

He shoved Chris to the ground, fiercely.

“This is my neighborhood,” the preppy said. “You get out of here. You don’t belong here.”

Daryl went to go help Chris up.

He got pushed down to the ground too.

“You creep. You leave them alone,” Shandra yelled.

The preppy, at least a foot-and-a-half taller, grabbed her by the throat with his left hand. He swung the golf club back with his right hand.

Then a police cruiser pulled up, sirens blaring.

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“Hey,” the officer barked. “What the hell are you kids doing?”

The cop moved the kids off to one side. A vein in his neck bulged.

Spittle came from his mouth as he yelled.

“Why are you here? Why are you causing trouble? Why do you think you can come here and cause trouble?”

They were a little taken aback and scared out of their minds. Daryl tried to explain what had happened, but hardly any words came out.

The preppy had somehow already disappeared.

“We don’t need your ilk here causing trouble,” the cop shouted. “How would you like it if I called your parents? What are you doing here? What are you doing? Why are you here?” ***

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“Thomas and friends”

By Ashley Smith I was being squeezed tightly as I was rolled along the wooden table, The other toys in the waiting room weren’t good enough.

They weren’t me, he brings me everywhere.

I was in one hand, his mother’s hand in the other.

The doctor droned on about medications, Something about a spectrum.

A learning disability?

My wheels glided perfectly along the wooden chairs armrest.

Thoughts perforated by coins clinking to the tile floor, Those remaining chased away by fluorescent lights pouncing from surface to surface.

“Sit down and relax” his parents say, As he jumps up and down and flaps his hands like a young bird learning to fly, only he is aimed straight for the television screen.

“No more movie-talk” his teacher demands, As he recites the lines word for word from beginning to end at the park or in class without a television in sight.

“Just eat it” his grandmother insists, As the smell of cucumber invades his nostrils and spreads into his head, Conquering all of the other thoughts.

The sensation hurtles downwards as nausea clenches his stomach To the train he escapes!

With sloping hills, across great bridges.

He rebuilds the track with Thomas and friends, Now it takes him somewhere where he can pretend everyone will understand.

Each time jumping rope with the others seemed helpless on the playground, Other kids looking on in bewilderment as his hops were out of rhythm, too quick with excitement.

Failed attempts seem miniscule beside the successes,

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Memories and friends being made as he learns to say what they like to hear.

The nights spent staring into darkness with tear filled eyes, wondering what his future holds after a door-slamming, foot stomping tantrum over something that seemed so miniscule to you, is nothing compared to the apology whose love can guide and be carried through the fog of uncertainty.

Sealed with a hug, Understood and forgiven. ***

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“Walk”

By Thom Young I go on long walks everyday hoping to get hit by a car or die either one can cost you everything i wave at the old ladies by the pool "there goes the writer." they say "he seems like such a nice young man." they say and i smile lock your doors the wild hearted son is back

“The Blackbird”

by Thom Young the sound the blackbird makes the end comes thinking about you and the ghost we had once called love.

***

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9

“Victor the Vampire” by Katie Wright

“Distilling Music from Water”

By Lawrence Berggoetz A teardrop of gold light appears in a sky in which day turns to night with no intermission of twilight…the sun simply subsumes into a falling star and a dreamworld blossoms from the sudden darkness of an evening too early for mystery, yet too quiet for song.

Before a sea of black waves, a condor rides a breeze far from shore.

Stardust flickers from its eyes as it coasts like the moon in a phantom silence an ancient tribe of spear fisherman would honor.

There is language in the movement of air; sometimes it wheels in rhapsody asking for lyrics to arise from a solitary child, for there is a wisdom which knows that parents have lost the knowledge of the magic circle, just as a sleeper loses the dream when arisen by the dawn.

Stolen, a story seeks its freedom, a quest it somehow knows can only lead to death. There are three paths but all travel through fog and into tunnels so dark the sojourner learns to look inward until a moment of light wells and falls like a shooting star—suddenly vacant, soundless, but somehow meaningful if only another text could be found.

Here, archetypes speak for the voiceless, and each traveler must find a new way to write, and a way to breathe which will teach the body how to collapse into stone. Only the weakened have learned how to distill music from water, and once disparate sounds collided together into a perfect echo where water pools against red canyon rock, leaving a vibration halo to climb the sheer walls before expanding like a mushroom cloud far beyond land until it convulsed the still sea into a pendulum of waves, while the only midnight star abruptly burst into a thousand islands of fire creating myth, time, and death… …while dusk remained unseen until everyone died and found themselves returning to a shared home, each spiraling through a twilight path where risen water is cleansed before every nightfall with sacred flames…

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***

“The Stalk”

by Brandon Stuhl

“...are coping as a violent string of seemingly unrelated events continues in the Inland Empire. Five are dead and another four are listed in critical condition, one of those on life support, after a man walked into a diner in Temecula last night and opened fire. Authorities released a statement which cited evidence that this may have been a terrorist attack.

We are live on the scene this evening with our…”

Hours later on the highway a man hauling fertilizer with a pick-up truck is listening to a news broadcast.

In the distance, the highway whirs like wind through a forgotten orchard. No crickets chirp in the flowerbed along the pathway from the entrance, the parking lot lights buzz, the wheat colored light makes deep shadows that stretch to the exposed land beyond the lot where the dandelions are dried and shriveled. Outside the shots are muffled by the thick glass windows and exterior walls.

The woman with crow’s feet reaches to the backrest of a chair to steady herself, then falls, one leg buckling under her. In an instant, from behind her an intricate lace of burgundy matter germinates and stretches across the countertop, each winding column begets a dozen more, all of which burrow into the ridges and divots of the counter, then flow down the rear, back up the wall on the other side, then up onto the ceiling, plunging into every crevasse and shadowy spot in the room. She remains still.

The man in the parka shoves the muzzle into her belly, and pulls the trigger. He walks straight to her, “Won’t do no good, soil is dead.”

The woman with crow’s feet stands, motionless, leaning against the counter near the entrance of the kitchen, no expression, silent. People scatter, like mice, some crawl on the ground. The old woman hurls herself at a large window and scratches at it wildly.

The man in the parka walks into the main dining room. He unhinges the barrel, holds it upright to allow the two casings to drop, reloads, then jerks the barrel up again to snap shut.

The hostess falls into the space between the podium and the wall, gasping, her eyes wide and glassy. In the next instant, her leg, from the knee down, bounces off the floor and is flung into the kitchen. For only a second, from just above her knee a series of curving streams bud, reaching in all directions, connecting and clutching to any and all things nearby, bore into the podium, some anchor to the floor, others stretch to the chairs

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of the main counter, while still others burrow into the wound and wrap around the remains of the manager’s neck and head, each pulsing, vibrant.

The man in the parka reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out two new rounds as he lifts the muzzle to the hostess’s thigh and pulls the trigger. He turns to her, “Cain’t even use my family’s seed without being sued!”

The hostess backs into the wall that separates the foyer from the dining room.

A blob of grey and amber flesh drops from the manager’s jaw to the floor and lands next to the expelled wad from the fired round. His arms wave, twitching. Syrupy blood begins to collect on the yellowing tile, the two colors combine to create a faint and dull orange– the color of dried corn husk. He spins and drops to his knees, his head dangles by a thin sheet of skin.

The fleshy form disappears onto the foyer carpet, tile flooring that has turned a murky yellow through the years, the foot-rests, base posts, backrests, and cushions of the turquoise swiveling chairs, the sea-foamgreen countertop, the paper place mats which advertise the year-round house specials, the napkin wrapped around the silverware, cardboard table stands advertising fruity seasonal specials, the rack containing ketchup, Tabasco, sugar and sugar substitutes, and jelly spreads, stack of plates, bowls, cups, and coffee mugs, to-go boxes, coffee warmer, juice and soda fountains, serving and warming trays between the kitchen and front counter, plates of food that are to be served sitting on the trays, the baby blue tiling on the same wall, the hanging glass flood lamps, and the ever browning asbestos ceiling. Fragments of the pen he had placed in his breast pocket fly in all directions as streams of black ink mix with the plumes of meat. For only a moment, a distinct, pastel-hued column of flesh sprouts above the manager’s shoulder, from which a series of plumes branch out, reaching and swaying, and at the top of the column a single, spiraling clump intricately made of individual bits that might be plucked, and harvested.

The man in the parka points the muzzle at the manager’s neck and fires. With his left hand he unzips his parka, reaches inside, and pulls out a side-by-side, sixteen-gauge, of which the barrel and the tip of the stock is sawed off. “...More just to ship!” he says, “But I tell you what, you wanna eat it? You can grow it yourselves!”

“I’m not, I, well, I’m not sure what you’re referring…” the manager says.

The man’s breathing is noisy from his nose through his thick mustache, “Well, you didn’t have any reservations about putting it all on our shoulders, did ya? You want more per acre, and you wanna charge me more to irrigate, more for seed, more…” He drops his head, closes his eyes, and raises his eyebrows.

The manager approaches with his palm out for a handshake, “Hello, sir, what can we do for you? Did you have a reservation?”

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“I, want, you, to, stop, what, you’re, doing,” the man in the parka says through his teeth.

The manager walks out from the kitchen as he adjusts the knot of his necktie and fumbles with his glasses.

The man in the parka scans the dining room, fixes on nothing in particular.

“I’m sorry sir,” says the hostess, trembling, “I don’t know how to respond. Do you want to speak to the manager?”

The man in the parka stands in the foyer, his left side facing the podium so that he is almost looking over his shoulder at the hostess, cheeks a blossoming red, the parka zipped up to his chin, left hand a fist and white knuckles, and his breath heavy. One by one, people turn their heads.

“I said I don’t want a god damned table. I want you to stop!” he says, not looking at the hostess, “Food’s fuckin’ poison.”

The other woman turns in her chair, shakes her head, and turns back, “No, ain’t him.”

“Isn’t that ol’ Cliff Hamilton’s son,” says the old woman as she takes off her glasses to clean them with the slack in her blouse. She sets the mug down then swallows.

A man in a gray parka enters.

The old woman breathes out as she takes a sip and condensation collects on her glasses, through which she looks into the foyer. She lifts the coffee mug to her lips.

“It’s okay if you try new things,” the other woman pleads, “jus’ gotta give it a chance. Shoot, may even like it better than what you used to.”

“I ain’t readin’ it,” the old woman says, bluntly.

“I know,” says the other woman, slowly, “I know, Mama. But maybe if you just take a look at the menu.” She places her hand on the old woman’s arm.

“Only been a few months.”

“Mom, Mama, Mother, it’s okay, mama. Daddy ain’t here no more.

Good lord knows that…” The other woman pauses, the corners of her mouth scrunch.

“Steak’n’eggs is what I get, fifty-seven years. I ain’t got much a few years left. Don’t see no reason t’ change. Herman’n I, you know.” “...layers and layers, see, it got, ham, sour cream, five cheeses, with buttermilk and egg batter. All kind’a healthy stuff. And the doctor say you need start eatin’ healthy. It just a bit different is all.”

The old woman looks out the window towards the highway. “...see, it got layers’n’layers of hearty mushroom, sun-dried tomato, country cook potatoes…”

“Don’t need to.”

“But look, the supreme got all this good stuff in it. You, well, you’re not even lookin’ at the menu…”

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“I gonna get my fried steak’n’eggs. Herman and I always get that.

Fifty-seven years now. I get my steak’n’eggs. It suits us fine.”

“Now, now, just, see, hold up, see they got this other thing. Oh, mama, how ‘bout this instead? They got, they call it, a supreme omelet.

How’s that sound?”

“I’m’a get my usual,” the old woman nods her head, her bottom lip tight.

“Oh, now mama, you should, you really should try some’n new.”

“I’m’a get my usual.” “...mile salsa, corn, beans…”

“I’m’a get my usual.”

The other woman slides her finger along the menu items, “Look, Mama, they’ve added a few things even. How ‘bout we try some’n new, mama? Breakfas’ all day. Like, they got, oh how ‘bout this? They got the Santa Fe breakfas’. It got…”

The exterior light floods the full area of the old woman’s glasses and hides her eyes; the thick gold and ruby frames dull in contrast. She leans forward over a steaming cup of decaf, arches her back, and rests on her elbows, her right hand cups her left arm, her left hand cradling her chin, her crooked fingers cover her mouth.

“Oh, and Mama, Mama look, they changed the menu too, added stuff.

Look.”

“Yep.” “Ooh, they all clean and not tore up. ‘Member we came that time and my menu was so sticky I couldn’t open it, and yours was like that too?

‘Member?”

“Yeah, I see.”

“Mama, oh look, look! They got new menus, too, since we been here.”

The woman with crow’s feet leaves the table. “Okay, then,” she says, “I’ll be back shortly to take your order.” She slips her pen and notepad back into her apron. The stray hair falls into her eyelash again, this time she only blinks. She looks down, “Oh.” “We’ve already got our coffee,” says the old woman in a short breath.

She looks up sharply.

“Good evening,” says the woman with the crow’s feet, “I’m Ruby. I’ll be your server. What would you like to drink?” She glances over at the hostess who points to the table where the two elderly women now sit, then walks over to them. She picks up a pen out of a rusted tomato can and places it in her apron, then walks out to the dining area. She slides her key card again, retypes the password, and this time it is accepted. A stray hair drops down and gets caught in her eyelash, and she brushes it away, annoyed. She stands up again and taps on the screen.

“Whatever. Where’s that damn waitress with my Tabasco?”

“Oh, for fuck sake. You are impossible, aren’t you?”

“Well, then, what the fuck they made for, huh? Huh?”

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“That ain’t the point, god damn it, and you know it. The point is, you can’t just up and buy the damn thing, then sleep in it. They’re not made for that.”

“They make’em for two now, you know.”

“C’mon, Dave, you’re not some fuckin’ mummy’er somethin’! Think about Jess, will ya? Where’s she gonna sleep, huh? Where she gonna sleep? There ain’t no room for her to sleep in that shit.”

“Well, god damn it, I, it’s, well, all I’m sayin’, is, that if it’s gonna’ cost me that much, I might as well enjoy it while I can. You know, get some miles outta’ it. To me it just makes a bit of sense. I don’t care if it seems odd. Lots’a people these days is odd. Hell, some of’em even odder’n I am!

I’m just sayin’, let me enjoy it while I can, then you can plant me in the ground. But not too deep. I wanna feel the rain.”

Just on the other side of the counter, in one of the booths, out of her view, two men are talking. The woman with crow’s feet rests her elbow on the side of the counter and buries her face in her hand. She rubs her eyes, her shoulders tense. She types the password a second time and is again declined. The touch screen prompts her to type in a password; She does so, but is declined. Just through the doorway, she stops at a computer and swipes a key card to clock in for her shift. She rolls her eyes and leaves through the opposite side of the kitchen.

The second cook’s expression looses its cheer and he quietly turns back to the stove.

“Elisio, clean that mess!” the manager says, pointing at the rack. He is about to walk out, then looks squarely at the second cook.

The second cook smiles cheerfully, “Ruby! Mi Amor!”

The woman with crow’s feet steps into the kitchen as she is tying her apron.

The second cook cracks another egg into the bowl then begins to whisk.

The first cook wipes his hands on his apron, pulls the order form from a clipboard on the wall then hands it to the manager. “Okay, okay, muchacho, damn…” he says.

“Raul!” the manager snarls.

“Monica, huh?” says the first cook, “Feisty chica. ‘Specially with that cherry-red lipstick.”

“Monica said, you’ve got the orders for me to sign.”

The first cook shrugs and turns back to a plate he is preparing.

“Sí...Yeah, I remember,” the manager says, almost whispering, “Just not now, Raul. Not now.” He shakes his head to himself.

“Remember?” says the first cook.

The manager turns back to the first cook. His face is pale, his breath is thin.

One of the servers grabs a rag, wipes the menus nd walks the stack over to the hostess. She picks up a stack of menus, then pauses to examine the hand she picked them up with. The two servers hesitate, then turn

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away. The hostess uncrosses her arms, pats the front of her skirt, then, as if being pulled by a thread of silk, saunters back to the podium in the foyer.

The hostess and two servers are watching, their somniferous eyes trained on the manager.

The manager looks out through the food pick-up window that separates the kitchen from the front counter. His shoulders drop, his palms slip from his waist.

The first cook lifts his apron to wipe his hands, “No, es de esa movie.

Remember? I know we’ve talked about it a few times. Te ecuerdas?”

The manager’s chin is taut and beads of sweat form on his forehead, “Oh, gente como esa son chistosos?”

The second cook sets the bowl aside and leans casually against the rack in attempt to hide the mess, locks of his bristly hair slip out from under his kufi, his rounded, squashed face a deep orange from the sun, his arms stretched straight along a shelf, and his long, bony fingers hanging.

The first cook spins around, still chuckling, “Ay, andale, tu sabes el chiste…”

“Raul!” the manager says, his eyes wide, mouth thin and strait, “Qué cres que haces?”

At the far end of the kitchen, along the wall and next to the second cook is a rack of shelves which hold three jugs of unopened corn syrup and an unsealed bag of all purpose flour lies on its side covering everything on the lower shelves– pots of various sizes, a large kettle with the price tag still attached to the handle, dishes, bowls, an empty milk carton, and some utensils –with a white dust. The second cook’s patched uniform sleeves extend all the way to his palms and his red flannel apron has a single brown stain plummeting from just below his left shoulder to the threadbare hem on the bottom. He cracks open an egg and drops the yolk into a large bowl, his cheeks rosy from laughter.

“You fuck my wife? Eh? Eh? You fuck my wife?” says the first cook, pointing his finger at the second cook.

The manager turns into the kitchen.

“Okay, will do, sir,” says the new guy as he unloads boxes of poultry onto shelves.

“Good. Good. Eddie, make sure you keep this door closed, even when you’re in here working. There’s no lock, so don’t worry about something like that.”

“Yep.” “First day, right?”

“Yes, hello, sir.”

“Eddie.”

The manager pauses at the open door of the freezer, looks in, and places his hand on the scythe-shaped door handle as if he were about to close it. He swerves to the opposite side of the hall as he passes the dishwashing station to avoid any spray.

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The manager forces a cheerful smile, but it fades when he opens his eyes. He picks a pen off the desk and places it in his breast pocket, then leaves the room. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He stands up, checks a second time that his shirt is properly tucked in. He slowly sinks, flaccid, back into his chair, puts his glasses back on, then adjusts his tie again.

The hostess leaves.

The manager nods to himself, “Okay.”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, Monica,” he says, “Have you noticed anything strange with Ruby lately? Has she said anything to you?”

The hostess turns to leave.

“Okay. You can go then.”

The hostess shakes her head.

“Is there something else?” he says.

The hostess waits in the doorway.

He swallows, his head drops slightly. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll be there in a moment.” The manager rubs his eyes again, rests both hands in his lap.

“That’s it.”

“Okay, and?”

“Raul has the weekly order sheet filled.”

“Monica,” says the manager, “what is it?”

The hostess is silent.

“No. Sí, yes, what is it?”

“Should I come back in a…”

“Qué?”

“I’m sorry, should...” the hostess says.

He adjusts his tie with agitated hands. The manager shakes his head and quickly sits erect.

“Pardon, sir,” the hostess says. She enters. There is a knock on the doorframe.

The manager picks specks of lint from his pants and flicks them away, then sits quietly. He moves his hands away and examines the faint red streak on his finger, which is already dry before he sees it, and wipes it on his pants. He then feels a razor mark on his cheek. He sighs, rough and hoarse. His hands slide down to his cheeks. He removes his glasses and drops them on the desk, tilts his head back, then rubs his eyes.

In the square for the date of the nineteenth is a reminder, “Regionals!”

He sits at the desk, leans back in the creaky oak chair examining the calendar hanging from a tack on the wall in front of him. He steps into the office and leaves the door ajar. He looks at the ground, then nods and continues on.

The man with black hair releases the spray nozzle, “No, señor.”

“Javier, no llegaste tarde ahora, oh sí?” The manager says, his fists resting on his belt, eying the busy cooks across the hall in the kitchen.

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He pauses near the dish-washing area. He nods to the women and allows the hostess to greet them, then heads down the hall. His tight smile loosens when he sees only customers– a dark, grotesquely aged woman with large, strawberry-red and gold-framed glasses and another, younger woman wearing a pant-suit with neon yellow pinstripes. He starts forward, pauses to check the knot of his tie and that his shirt is taut under his belt, then exits the hall into the dining area. The bell on the front door clangs.

The manager waits a moment, his ear towards the door. On the other side of the door he steps back, “Perdon, no quise molestarte.”

The woman with crow’s feet closes her eyes, “Ahorita salgo en un minuto, esperate!”

The door jolts as the deadbolt catches.

She looks into the mirror, long and steady. She presses a white pill out of the package, then places it between her lower right gum and cheek.

She pulls out a pink and white foil and plastic package. She hits something, it rattles. With one hand she holds the bag open, and with the other she searches madly through its contents. She grabs the tote and rests it on the sink. She grabs a paper towel and pats her face dry. The water carries a faint odor of petrol and fertilizer. She rinses her mouth, lets the cool water run over her cheeks. She turns the faucet handle and dips into the sink.

She spits twice, then presses the handle. She coughs and a string of saliva slips from her lower lip. Mushy remnants of a single slice of wheat bread float in a bright yellow soup in the bowl. She turns to the toilet and is barely able to get the lid up when she vomits. Her body begins to tremble, her breath is thin. She puts her palm to the door and her nails slowly sink into, and scrape the oak veneer. A whispered moan escapes her. The woman lets the tote and apron fall to the floor. Through the green tiled wall opposite her comes the muffled sounds of the cooks setting pots, scraping the grill, and laughing. There is a drip, drip, a pause, then another drip in the tank of the toilet. The color drains from her cheeks. The ceiling light fixture hums. She rests her forehead on the door. She passes the entryway to the dining area, ducks into the restroom, flicks on the light, closes the door, and checks the deadbolt twice. She shifts the tote to cover her waist and walks briskly past the man with black hair as he slips his hands into the rubber gloves.

The man swallows heavily, then looks away.

She stands in the frame of the door, the corners of her mouth flat, her eyes wide, focused, irises malt-brown and indistinguishable from the pupil. A short woman with penciled eyebrows and deep crow’s feet enters the side door, a hemp tote slung from her shoulder, and a cotton apron folded and draped around her neck.

He rests his palm on the corner of the sink and stands motionless, his goatee just grazing his chest. He walks past the closed door of the office, past the open hatch of the refrigerator, looks in and nods to the new guy, past the wall of soda taps– cubes of cardboard boxes, stacked, buckling under the weight of the high-fructose corn syrup mix they contain –, past

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sticky umbilical hoses which run along the floor to the fountain, and past the yellow, ever-buzzing ice machine. He opens a cabinet and pulls out a set of rubber gloves, elbow-length, black. He sighs, then fastens the name tag.

A single bead of blood builds and dispels to irrigate the tiny canals of his fingerprint. He winces and studies his thumb for a moment. He reads the tag in the mirror, “reivaJ,” and shakes his head, in doing so, loses his concentration, and pricks his thumb with the pin. A man with deep black hair curling over the tops of his ears ties a rubber apron around his waist, then slips the pin of his name tag through the cloth of his shirt just under the left collar.

Water collects at the rim of the faucet then falls, a single drop, into the green, wide-rim coffee mug in the tub-like sink, then cascades, slow and subtle, from the lip of the mug to a dessert plate crusted with last night’s cherry pie special, through the crevasse between two stacked dinner plates, into the frothy pool of the all-nighter cream-of-corn pot, where it finally falls to the edge of the rusted drain to splatter apart, recollect, then disappear down the black hole on its way back to the ocean.

It is early in the shift and orders are piling up. No one in the kitchen pays attention to the news cast. “…where Riverside investigators describe a horrific scene in the Santa Ana riverbed just under the sixty-freeway bridge. They say late last night the mutilated remains of a body were found, and they currently have no leads. We'll bring you developments as…” ***

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Five poems by Genelle Chaconas 1) “Clean Pristine and Borealis”

—written after the last scene of John Carpenter’s 1982 version of ‘The Thing’.

The kerosene perpetual arctic midnight machine burning chemical and stoic below the swarming skies infested with viral light above the atomic blast echoes clean pristine and Borealis they sit under the same preapocalypse rubble these two shrill hungry human signals to interrupt Tarkovsky’s static ice shelf it’s quiet wind gravity through Kierkegaard’s pale bleached bones quiet Thus Spake empty threats and neurosis quiet armed to their teeth guns drawn all talk and mutant suspicion they can only wait now wait for something anything to take them away.

2) “One Minute Thirty Seconds of Apocalypse Now Is All You Need to Watch” The gravity pattern circles rising off the counterclockwise reeds the wet placid bog psych-rock soundtrack broken by stutter pattern helicopters first the smell then the sight erupts hollow elegant off the atomic landscape it’s that present that won’t pass too real to decay post traumatic Technicolor it’s the delay the gap between the sudden breeze the stillness and the supernova.

3) “The Green Roads” by Genelle Chaconas Rimbaud’s paved green road like the chemical flavor of a vast spring hunger the lush underbelly canopy sick over our sluggish flesh the decay lace pattern curtains that lick our thighs the phantasm carriages that pass along trails still haunted by melt cracking their arthritic joints the splash of ghost wines across our tongues the vintage of spite it is the green

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virulent road that moves past as we are still that brightens to a bottled smirk by midnight that slurs to a putrid wound at sunrise.

4) “Western” by Genelle Chaconas This video by David Wojnarowicz is not a video is a still photograph the buffalo in slurred seasick grayscale motion I have seen the movie the claymation stampede in mid plunge arc careen over the post Warner Brothers stock cardboard cliffs Morrisonesque Leone drawl spreads across the process shot American Past en sepia I remember this movie by David Wojnarowicz is lost no I’ve not seen the film it burns up nitrate pale in the violet vision desert it plays on my home theater projector a propeller blade flickering white leader in an empty reel.

5) “06-12-2016” by Genelle Chaconas

—after the Pulse Nightclub Massacre in Orlando Florida on 06/12/2016 This is John Travolta on the dance floor not when he saunters like a trench coat leopard or heeled chromed vehicle of suave down love street John Travolta like the neural strobe light axis of the world revolving he’s all flaunt swivel hips the warm curves of suggest and plexus risen nylon Elvis you tell me camp is the highest of our arts lowdown allure magnified in the eyes of mirrored postures he is 50 John Travoltas all thrust plunge and rhythm you interrupt it with stop this movie it’s the same dance floor as Scarface I hesitate I do not stop the movie and there is not one John Travolta in the mirror just holes echoes the mechanic shatter crackle shiv the thing that keeps us up all night is the song already programmed in no the DJ can’t save your life tonight.

***

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“The Opposite”

By Stephanie Macias All the planes are flying directly over me today Their paths aiming for the crown atop my head Little Mexican girls rarely get on planes I am thirty-six and this is still true But the last time I did You were there Now you are nowhere The opposite of my abuela’s Jesus And what is the opposite of faith Faith that one of those planes won’t Drop out of the sky at just the right angle To form a trajectory From cloud to girl The opposite of faith couldn’t help Resembling its rival Just as the opposite of north is south Yet they are both directions Just as I am no more to you And you are everything to me Yet we both exist Me, waiting for the planes to drop You, who knows ***

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“ali” by Zachary M. Hodson i can’t remember the last time i laid sole in the mad sun & welcomed her dig upon my kinked nose and freckles the spotted hawks list above in wasteful even tracks their opus of shrieks completely dumb to me there was a time i might roll prone and spring to my feet climb a proximal sycamore to the thin branches & join the speckled birds in their cacophony shrill wicked until my throat was drawn and dry then hang about my knees several stories above the dirt latch my eyes fierce and sway never worried i might doze away now i can’t sleep unless i have the television on just like my mother minus the sleeping pills at night i play this game of cat and mouse with my conscience fingering awkwardly about the remote like a fourteen year old boy my fingernails freshly trimmed just as cosmo told me to colors flash faster than my brain can decipher my distraction preference has become autonomic eventually i settle on the big red power button & am left only with the sound of a snoring cat and the second hand alone on a blind date with my brain i say something like, sure is cold out today & he replies, yeah gonna need to break out the cosby sweaters soon to which i say, you know that lisa bonet is actually a really talented singer then we both exhale in tandem and fork about our mixed vegetables for too many seconds i pray we don’t start trading war stories of past mistakes and worry on good nights i jig from guilt-trip tick to when-are-you-going-to-have-children tock

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channelling the buck-toothed hamster in my head towards the happy wheel & therefore am flooded with thoughts of ali i remember the first time i laid face upon you and you laid your face upon mine the way it rolled off our lips like thistle honey dripping viscid down our throats our violent hearts glazed supple and florid before methodically refining them into simmering pools of potential atomic energy so unstable even the fiercest bouts of reason could never congeal them like most things it was the most amazing thing to ever happen in any moment at any time when our bodies are finally devoured by auburn mice and worms and maggots the puddles will remain behind viscous and unamended the furthest fragmented particles ever discovered at any time a scientist will happen upon them one day and declare herself brilliant she will tell colleagues an anecdote about the time she accidentally made methamphetamines the size of golf balls and how her mother grounded her for having rock candy she will parallel this to the lone chance at love she sacrificed to earn the three doctorates roosting above the arenaceous cases of spineless books in her home office quadriplegic tomes numb and fuzzy to world around them but adored by her as if they had last names like johnson or mohammed she will choose to see the silver lining in their similarities she will declare her discovery the most amazing thing to ever happen in any moment at any time & i will finally be proven brilliant ***

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“Baseball is Cricket”

by Megan Bates Baseball is cricket.

Apple pie is Dutch.

Jazz music can be traced back to Egypt’s first shaduf.

Cuz rain makes nothing new.

Not even the rain itself is new.

Destined to return to the ocean And evaporate again and again For the rest of ever.

Eternity is a cycle.

“There is nothing new in the whole world.

It has all been done before…years before you and I were born.”x A common misconception is that this is a negative thing.

This is a good thing: it means the world keeps cycling.

This concept is comforting rather than limiting…

The world can be predictable If one studies enough history.

Two billion years ago, Not every fish left the ocean to grow legs.

They did not all want to go to dry land.

Some of them were happy with their connection to the ocean.

Their home was enough for them.

This is why They still honour the ocean With their shimmery beauty.

The seaweed is not always greener.

Some people stay where they are born.

Not every fish left the ocean – And not every Brit left England to go to America…

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This is why I could hear God Save the Queen During my Williamsburg baseball game: Carried by the wind of the hit cricket ball Across the pond, passing the shimmering, smiling fish. *** “Abe’s Children Continue Their Play”

by Gerard Sarnat “On earth peace and good will toward men.”

-- King James Bible An Old Testament Jew, at times I’ve felt deeply connected to New Testament slogans which seem so extinct today.

Extant realities are pathetic -- the way one Palestinian boy after another grabbed not our wallets but for hats then circled or taunted us before retreating to scale Jerusalem’s obscene Separation Barrier, later returning to do it again yet again despite my relatives building more and higher barbed fences.

Jesus, if that is not absurd, the future is just totally fucked. ***

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