Pour Vida Zine 3.4 (Summer 2016)

Table of Contents: Editor’s Note by Daniel S. De Maio…………………………………………………………….….p.1-2 “Day Drunk”/“Nights Like These” by Martin Appleby………………………………..…p.3-4 boy and girl wading by Allen Forrest……………………………………………………………....p.5 “The Train to Babylon” by Alexis Sarnicola……………..…………………………………...p.6-7 “Street Light Bolero” by Michael Paul Hogan………………………………………….….p. 8-10 couple on beach by Allen Forrest………………………………………………………………..…p.11 “Soul Music” by Josephine Allen………………………………………………………………p.12-16 “To be Gay in the Forties” by Eric Cline………………………………………………………….p.17 “Staring at the Sea” by Alexis Sikorski…………………………………………………….p.18-19

“Live Write: An Editor’s Note” by Daniel S. De Maio Writers need to move. Writers need to be shaken up. We need to be challenged, and to be torn to bits in ways that aren’t entirely our own doing. That is writing and travel, but I didn’t learn that until my first day in Barcelona in June of 2013.

A week earlier a pair of preteens in a Madrid Starbucks stole my phone. I didn’t know which was more embarrassing; the fact that I had the wool pulled over my eyes by kids or that I was in Spain having my morning coffee at the multinational company. My trip to Spain was starting to resemble a Hemingway book, just as I’d hoped, though having more in common with the melancholic The Dangerous Summer than the exuberance of The Sun Also Rises. I feared that my wide-eyed naivety would have me boarding a plane back to the States resembling a wounded bull more than a seasoned Jake Barnes.

The train from Madrid to Barcelona was lonely and beautiful, which is very often the case when traveling alone. Barely able to speak any Spanish headed to a city that predominantly spoke Catalan was the lonely part. The dusty countryside just beyond the glass window was the beautiful part. Even without sleep, food, coffee, or a way to contact friends or family, Spain still spoke a language that I inherently understood.

An immediate sense of warmth swelled up in my heart when stepping outside the Barca train station. I couldn’t exactly say why now, but I just started walking. An eighty pound bag hung across my back in seaside humidity, but I just walked. There was a safety in the steps I took through the narrow side streets, like I was following a pulse that grew louder and I was to follow. Cities have hearts and souls and only fools will say different.

Not surprisingly, Barcelona’s heart was a tiny bookstore a few streets over from Las Ramblas. Tired, but now caffeinated, I ducked into the store to get out of the heat. A man in his fifties greeted me from behind the cash register, a smile as warm as a Mediterranean sunset coming across his face.

Mostly Spanish language books filled the shelves, but in the far corner was a sign that read “Ingles – Ficcion.” Capote, Steinbeck, Chandler, Orwell, Pynchon, and more, all side by side. It was obvious that the owner was a man that knew a few bottles of fine wine are always greater than a houseful of mediocre beer. It was after some time of watching me meander that the man came over to me and, without saying anything, pulled out Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana.

“You should read this,” he said in nearly perfect English. “One of my favorites.” He put his hand on my shoulder and walked back behind the register with the book in his hand. The book had been chosen for me.

When he rang the book up, poked a few buttons on the keyboard, and told me the book would be only half of the 12 Euros it was listed at.

I thanked him as I walked out of the shop to which he wished me a “beautiful summer day.”

The rest of the afternoon I laid on the beach looking out at the pristine sea, using my backpack as a pillow. I bought a six-pack of Estrella Damm from a

vendor and sipped each one slowly, even when they got warm. It was easy to understand why those that travel often become expats.

- D.S.D.

“Day Drunk� by Martin Appleby We sat in our back garden drunk during the day Chatting shit about big plans and grand ambition The view was good from our house on the hill And everything seemed possible during the summer time I was moving to Canada to travel and write and whatever You were going to Ibiza to DJ or run a bar or something Everything seemed possible during the summer time With thoughts illuminated by the finest cheap cider But the walls of that house came crashing down around us

Like our dreams and ideas and our heads the next morning

***

“Nights Like These” by Martin Appleby Squeezed into a single bed Watching shitty movies and music channels Silent sex s o that my parents didn't hear You once told me “if we ever break up, remember nights like these” Young and stupid I dismissed the idea we would ever break up Now, years later a lot of water has passed under a lot of bridges Heartache and hangovers Hard times and happiness Bigger beds and louder sex with no parents to disturb Old and stupid but I still remember nights like those

girl and boy wading | ink on paper by Allen Forrest

“The Train to Babylon”

by Alexis Sarnicola “This is the train to Babylon, the next station is – BABYLON.” I rush to get out of my car. The seatbelt yanks me back. A half-empty bottle flings to the concrete.

Track A1. I see the train rushing in a flurry towards our station, the sun shines off the metal siding, almost blinding if not for the protection of my sunglasses.

They’re your favorite ones, the ones you always compliment on the way they frame my face. I run towards the stairs, bypassing the escalator. Not fast enough.

I need to be there when the doors open. I need that moment when your eyes finally meet mine across the crowded platform. That moment when you push your way through the mob of people hesitating as they make their way past the sliding doors, looking for their loved ones. That moment when you drop your worn, faded duffle bag to the floor and scoop me up into your familiar embrace.

It’s a routine we have settled into since we were thrust into the separate lives that we now live during our workweeks in different boroughs.

I try to collect my wind blown hair when I reach the top of the stairs. The first few cars whiz past, knocking each hair from their place behind my ears. The rush of air from the train cars is hot, but it’s a refreshing break from the stagnant mugginess. I wait for the train to come to a stop. “This is the train to Babylon, this station is – BABYLON.” The doors slide open and the passengers begin to pile out of their holding pen. I wait. People push past me in waves as they make their way towards the stairs. I watch the smiles, the embraces. I’m sweating now. My hair sticks to the back of my neck. I wait. The platform clears until I’m standing alone.

The lit sign on the side of the train clicks off. I make my way to a nearby bench and dig my phone out from the bottom of my bag. The screen flashes to life.

Nothing. I begin to tuck it away again when the sign on the train starts to glow with bright red lettering. “PENN STATION.” People begin populating the platform again, making their way towards the open doors of the slumbering train. “This is the train to Penn Station, the next station is – LINDENHURST.” I work up the courage to stand. My legs feel numb, my stomach churns, my throat tightens, choking me from inside. The world around me spins violently but I couldn’t be walking any slower. I’m barely able to shut the door to my car before the tears start to stream down my cheeks, hot and forceful. My sunglasses begin to fog from the moisture. Your favorite sunglasses. Your favorite sunglasses that will need to be given a new name. Something I can generically refer to them as in my head, as I’ll eventually do with everything that reminds me of you. “Those sunglasses” or “that sweatshirt.” Stripping the items of their sentimental significance to me. I shove the key into the ignition and my car eagerly roars to life, ready to take me away from the train to Penn Station.

Thirty-five miles away he sits in his apartment listening to her voicemail one last time. “Are you still taking the train to Babylon after work? Please, I…” He cuts off the message before the inevitable “I love you,” something he doesn’t want to hear.

Still dressed in his work slacks, he glances at the clock: 5:45 p.m. He presses the red, cautionary delete button on his phone and her name disappears from his screen. His worn, faded duffle bag sits by his feet, packed with his usual Long Island weekend attire. He solemnly picks it up and begins to unpack all of the baggage he’s been lugging back and forth with him on the train to Babylon for the past four years.

STREET LIGHT BOLERO

by Michael Paul Hogan

Sometimes we have no choice but to dance a bolero under a street light or a red moon. - Roberto Bolano

1.

The tightrope walker despises the elephant The aerialiste sleeps with the tightrope walker The acrobat reads Baudelaire in his caravan The ringmaster wears a coat like a tuning fork The ringmaster’s wife is a Chinese parasol The Chinese parasol balances a seal on its nose The audience pays to throw nuts at the elephant The elephant sleeps with the ringmaster’s wife.

2.

Consuela, you are more vanity than a tangerine.

When we walk together among the broken tortillas you imagine your breasts torn open by the teeth of accordion players,

you imagine your nipples being spat out on the wet pavement like strawberry stalks (although your own teeth lie hidden in the lipstick-lacquered cavity of a castanet) 3.

The slender gipsy dances with a bear and the night’s a shattering of champagne flutes and the firework festival begins…

Come, dance with me, dance down this alleyway inbetween top hats painted with violent windows violent and violet and aubergine I shall bind my heart with your bear’s blue chains while we dance down the cobblestones of the Boulevard St. Germain.

4.

And came out suddenly the sun like a painted bicycle and the zinc table of the pavement café glistened like a well-shaved armpit smeared with coconut oil.

5.

Father, must I repudiate you again and again? (though to repudiate is to be repudiated).

When I sit at my typewriter I know that you who survived Guernica cannot survive the anger of my love / my verse.

Is it because of you that elephants are seldom (nearly never) aubergines?

Father, why, when I married Consuela, did you lay the table of your heart with just one bowl of miserable paella?

Truth, if there is any truth at all, must be begat by understanding; no father should have sons who are matadors or undertakers, least of all literary ballet dancers.

Let us agree, therefore, to love and misunderstand one another, for we are all of us broken elevators trapped between each other’s floors.

couple on beach | ink on paper by Allen Forrest

“Soul Music”

by Josephine Allen Sat astride a stool facing away from the bar, he was dressed in his sharp red suit waiting for the night to warm up. Everyone was so casual: jeans and t-shirts, but he liked to make an effort. You gonna be buried in your fly clothes? Wear ’em!

Else what do you buy them for? So here he was in this little joint on a Monday night making the most of his time. Men his age usually stayed at home weekdays watching the game, eating a tv dinner and not paying attention to their wives.

Not him – as he ain’t dead yet.

He liked it here. They hang shoes and other junk on the walls and call it art, but none of that matters when the music got flava. They play funk and soul, but mixed in a way that means the kids come. He liked being surrounded by the youngers. The bar’s starting to fill up. He checked out the talent in the room. He liked a woman who could move. There were one or two with potential he’d keep his eye on when the tunes kicked in and they started cuttin’ up. For now he sipped the last of his rum and soaked it all in.

A barman he knew arrived for his shift. He was one of them…what do they call ’em…oh yeah, hipsters: tweed vest over a shirt tucked into jeans and a full beard with a twiddly moustache. It wasn’t what he considered hip, but he respected the effort. He stood up to greet him.

‘My man!’ he said.

‘Antwan, good to see you here tonight.’ the bartender replied and they gripped fists.

‘Yeah, yeah I wouldn’t miss it.’ Antwon responded.

‘Loving the hat, by the way.’ his friend replied. He adjusted the brim and smiled, he’d knew it had been right. They left it there; the guy was here to work after all.

Slowly, but surely the women made their way onto the dance floor. The DJ was spinning Baby Love by The Supremes so what they were doing was more swaying than really dancing, but it meant that soon enough it would heat up. Time for another rum. Turning on his stool Antwon looked for his friend, but he was working the other end. On this side was a new girl with piercings through her face and half her hair shaved at the front. Still, she had cheek bones so it was working for her. She slammed the till closed and looked up. He gave her a friendly smile and she came over.

‘Same again?’ she asked.

‘Yes please, darlin’ he replied giving her a smile.

‘Coming right up.’ She said her voice ringing with laughter. He liked her, he decided, getting his paper ready for paying, tearing off a couple of extra as tip.

She placed the drink on a napkin in front of him on the bar and laid out the check. He tucked the bills inside giving her the nod to take it away.

‘Thanks.’ she said.

‘You are very welcome.’ he replied picking up his rum and toasting her. She rewarded him with another laugh and the sound was almost as sweet as music to him. He was trying to think of something else he could say to elicit another smile from her when the unmistakable combination of the high hat and bass line of the opening bars of The Temptations’ Papa was A Rolling Stone began to play. This was his jam. Some songs age, but this tune was as fresh as the day it was released in ’72. He turned back to face the dance floor. Yes, they were up there now! There was a young Japanese looking kid really going for it with a group of girls, who looked slow in comparison. Even so it was there; that feeling: the music getting into them, flowing into their ears and out to their limbs. They were lit and it was magic. That, right there, was the stuff! No dime bag highs for him - this was his medicine.

The DJ followed up with Reach Out by the Four Tops and Antwon grinned. The man had skills! That would keep them dancing. The group was joined by a lone woman with blonde hair and curves that wouldn’t quit. She was one of the ones he’d noticed earlier and his interest peaked. He watched her dance for a couple more songs, she had the moves alright. Then they slowed down the tempo and he couldn’t believe his luck: she was heading his way. He got to his feet. As she got close he beckoned her over, ‘Lookin’ good out there.’ he said, it never hurt to compliment, especially when it was well deserved.

‘Thanks’ she replied with an uncertain smile.

‘I’d enjoy a dance later if you’ve got one to spare?’ he asked. She looked surprised, then glancing down at his hands said, ‘Aren’t you married.’ she had an east coast accent – must be new in town or visiting.

‘I just want the dance, nothing else.’ he replied looking up hopefully into her eyes.

‘Well, maybe.’ she said and walked away in the direction of the restroom. He watched her go and it was a sweet sight. As he nodded to himself he thought, this is a good night. A dance with a beautiful woman would be worth the tiredness tomorrow.

Antwon worked as a janitor at Gateway High School. It was physical, but good work. Although, as he got older, the aches in his limbs lasted longer. Thankfully the rum was doing its work and easing that pain. He’d soon be ready for that dance. Occasionally, when he was out on the town, he would catch someone sizing him up; trying to figure out how they knew him. Few of them recognised him as the man with the broom from high school. Trouble they had was he looked pretty different out of his overalls and in his suits. Most of them shrugged and walked away, but others, drawn in by his vibrant style, would approach and try to satisfy their curiosity. Sometimes he’d tell them and sometimes he wouldn’t. It depended on their tone or his mood. It was funny to watch them struggle.

The DJ took the tempo down probably to encourage people to buy a drink at the bar, so only a couple of slow dancers were left on the floor getting intimate.

Antwon considered ordering another drink, but it wouldn’t do to be going into work with rum seeping out of his pores. He looked around for someone to shoot the breeze with. There was a young dude near him at the bar wearing a t-shirt with Marvin’s face on it.

‘Man, he left us too soon.’ Antwon said tapping him on the arm.

‘Sorry, What?’ the guy replied.

‘Marvin…’ Antwon said gesturing at the guys chest. ‘He left us too soon.’

‘True.’ the guy responded, ‘but thank God for the music he left behind.’

‘Amen to that, brother.’ Antwon said clapping him on the arm.

Marvin had died in his forty’s so now Antwon was older than he would ever be, which didn’t seem right somehow. However good a life he led it would never compare to having another Marvin Gaye album. Seems like the balance was wrong. Then again, it was not as if his death had been natural causes, it was the man’s own father who had snuffed him out. It was hard to imagine how a man whose genes could create something as wonderful as Marvin Gaye could then have the capacity to destroy it. Cocaine had already taken its toll on his son, but the two shots Marvin Snr fired ironically came from a gun that Marvin Jr had given him for protection. Antwon hated drugs and guns, in his mind no good ever came from them, this country had seen too many deaths.

It would have been perfect timing had What’s Going On or even I Heard it Through the Grapevine been played now, but apparently the DJ didn’t get the memo and instead spun Please Mr Postman by The Marvelettes. Its pop-like sweetness didn’t really fit Antwon’s mood, but some girls were back dancing doing some generic fifties/sixties style dance moves which helped. They had formed one of those closed circles that they seemed to think protected them from prying eyes. This shyness some people had about dancing Antwon would never understand. Dancing was living the music to him and you shouldn’t be embarrassed of that. Then again he had always had the moves.

She had loved to dance. That was how they had met. She’d been the friend of a woman he’d had his eye on. However, that all changed once their group hit the dance floor. He would never forget that night; the sight of her grooving to Stevie and the funky syncopated beat of Superstition. His allegiances changed immediately, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t seen it before: she was gorgeous and compared to her the friend paled into insignificance. He had pursued her tirelessly all night: every time she was thirsty he went to the bar, if she was tired he found them a place to sit down. If anything his attentions left her nonplussed – he guessed she too had been expecting her friend to be the evening’s object of affection. Her name was Rose and at the end of the night he had offered to walk her home, joking that he was willing even if that was all the

way to Spanish Harlem. But to his surprise she’d said no! Her rejection stung, but he’d taken it on the chin and gone home alone.

He did not see her again for three weeks until he bumped into her at the same club. She was there with the same girlfriend, who now had in tow a handsome new boyfriend. Rose was friendly and he was confused, this was the same woman who only a few short weeks before had rejected him. Yet you didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, so later that night, rather than repeat his rejected offer he asked for her digits and she agreed!

He didn’t wait: he phoned her the next day, he was not a player where this girl was concerned! Although, he had been slightly worried he might end up being the played. However, she had sounded pleased to get his call and agreed to a date. He had picked her up the next Friday in his best suit and taken her to dinner. She had worn a rose pink dress that looked beautiful on her. He had hardly been able to eat looking at her. However, whether because of his nerves or hers, the conversation had been stilted until she had blurted out that she had wanted him to walk her home on the night they had met, but felt she shouldn’t out of loyalty to her friend. Then he understood and if anything it made him like her more.

Six months later they were married. That was thirty years ago now and they had spent twenty five happy years together. Until one morning he woke up next to her in the bed they had shared, but couldn’t wake her. He touched her hand and it was cold. It was then he had dialled 911. Later he found out that she had had a massive stroke in her sleep and had been gone for hours.

They had not had kids. It just had never happened for them. These days they would probably have had IVF or even adopted, but that had not really been an option then. They had both been sad about it, but he would not have traded his Rose for any other bloom, despite how fertile they maybe. However, that had meant that when she was gone he was alone. Sure he was surrounded by his kids at work all day, but when he went home it was so quiet. All the music had gone from his world.

Then he had been walking home one evening and someone on the street had handed him a flyer for a Motown Night. He’d been surprised for two reasons: one – he hadn’t realised the kids would still be interested in his kind of music and two – he’d assumed it was plain to see he was too old for that sort of thing.

Nevertheless after another warmed up casserole from a well-meaning neighbour facing another night in front of the tube, he had dug out his smartest suit from the back of their cupboard, shined his shoes and for the first time in a long time headed out on the town. After that he had not looked back. Now he was a regular, a virtual piece of the furniture.

Ah, there was the blonde now and what luck they were playing Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ Nowhere to Run. He was going to dance with a beautiful woman who knew how to groove like he had thirty years ago.

“To be Gay in the Forties”

By Eric Cline

BANG! POW! THWACK! I flip through the pages of old comic books, Golden Age, the 1940s, back when being a man meant having only the strongest of limbs, spirits, jaws, and masculinities. To be fair, one could claim that the terms have not changed much, and as I peer upon the pulp remnants of the good old days I wonder how many of the young boys who spent their carefully saved-up dimes on crackerjacks and full-color fantasies felt as I did when I first saw the Sub-Mariner: heroically clad in just a speedo, his limbs as bare and blatant as whose limbs boys’ limbs are expected to mingle between. Aware of how scared I was at their age, I wonder the number of notyet-men who closed their comics and donned their helmets to feel their fellow boys BANG! POW! THWACK! the queer right out of their skulls—

“Staring at the Sea”

By Alexis Sikorski We always left half an hour early to walk six minutes to class. Day one she stood still and stared out at the sea as she does and we were hopelessly late— I learned fast to account for the pit stop. There was a pier with an old rope ladder tied to a plank that she'd look off of with a poker face that could've won her millions. For a while I’d look off with her, trying to see what she could see. Then I’d drift, in a way I was baffled she could resist, to see the dogs pulling a man faster than he’d like, the child crashing his kite into a businessman’s soup bowl, and the two men a generation apart paused in their daily chess game to argue about the type of plane flying overhead while pointing and waving their arms around for emphasis.

And she’d still be staring at the sea.

It was because she was born at sea, and so to the sea she must return. At least that’s the way I’ve always seen it— it sounds too poetic to pass up as the answer.

But nah, I bet it was because of some childhood tragedy that has left her longing for the ocean. Not something so bad that she’d avoid the sea altogether, but enough to keep her at a distance. Maybe she’d almost drowned once. Or it could’ve been a fear of sharks. Or a fear of riptides. A friend could’ve been caught in a riptide. She might’ve seen a documentary on ocean disasters. She might’ve been interviewed for one.

Maybe she swam when I wasn’t around; maybe this was the closest she ever got.

Maybe she couldn’t swim, but had always wanted to. Maybe she stared out in remembrance of the days she spent growing up in a fishing village. Maybe she was a retired scuba diving champion choking back nostalgia for all she once had— were there scuba diving championships?

Maybe it was more of a science than a fascination. Like, if her parents were oceanographers or if she wanted to be an oceanographer (what was her major again?) and she was looking out to learn all she could. It could’ve been the boats rather than the sea. Maybe her father was in the Navy. Maybe she just liked boats. She must see the sea as calming—she could be transfixed by the line where blue meets blue.

She’d eyed the rope ladder before— maybe she was contemplating whether or not she wanted to climb down right then and go for a swim. When she looked back up, maybe she was considering a dive off the deck. She wasn’t known to explain herself. She was a behavioral anomaly; psychologists would undoubtedly dismiss her as an outlier.

I bet she was a mermaid in a past life. Her hair was long enough. I could see her drowning sailors who slighted her, who threatened her reign of the seas. I could see her swimming, league after league, chasing ships or following jellies or talking to whales or making friends out of submarines. She’d peer through the windows and wave; disbelief would have the crew reeling, and she’d keep herself afloat in her own melodious laughter. Maybe she was a sailor in a past life,

slighted by a mermaid and was now scanning the horizon for a revenge she didn’t fully understand. Maybe she had just seen a mermaid once, and no one believed her. Maybe she was just trying to prove herself. Maybe she just wanted people to believe.

Maybe she lost herself in thought. Maybe she needed to stop and adjust her breathing. Maybe it had nothing to do with the sea. But I think it has everything to do with the sea. I think she looks out there and sees all the possibilities. I think she stands there contemplating the mysteries of the universe until her toes are dizzy. I think she plummets into existential crises on purpose. The ancients looked at the sea as chaos; they thought if they sailed far enough they’d fall off the edge of the earth into nothing or into the underworld— that must’ve been what she saw. And like those past discoverers, the temptation of that unknown fueled her. She could always leave. That’s what she’d say to herself, steady on the pier.

I never asked until the end.

“Hey, why do you stare at it?”

“Hm? Oh, I just like the sea.”