Pour Vida
Autumn 2018 (6.1)
“5 Years of Pour Vida” by Danny De Maio…………………………………..………………………3 “Bars” by John Swan……………………………………………………………………………..………..4-6 “Bells ‘And the old tongueless bell remains.’ John Wesley Powell” by Carol Hamilton……………………………………..……………………………………………………………....…….6 “The Wax Museum” by Thomas Piekarski…………………………………………………..………7 Photo by Jim Carroll……………………………………………..……………………………………………8 “A Butterfly” by Ana Vidosavljevic………………………………………………..……………...9-13 “Ghost” by Kelly Peacock………………………………………………………………………..………..14 “Kerosene Girl in Black & White” by Danny De Maio…………………………….…….14-15 Cover photo by Jim Carroll To be considered for upcoming issues of Pour Vida lit zine, please send submissions of writing, artwork, and photography to pourvidazine@gmail.com
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“5 Years of Pour Vida” by Danny De Maio Autumn is our spring. Five Octobers ago Pour Vida was born. And each October since has been a shedding of skin, a time to look to the year ahead. To think that half a decade has passed is a little scary, a little strange, but certainly inspiring. Adam Martinez and I stitched together the inaugural issue of PV by reaching out to friends, and they were gracious enough to oblige by offering us poetry, artwork, and fiction. In the years that have passed, the zine has grown immensely. Whereas we used to have to scrounge an issue together with our own fiction and poetry, now Adam and I have to set aside hours upon hours to read through the submissions we get. And make no mistake, PV is what it is only because of you. Yes, you. Even if you’ve never submitted, the fact that you’ve opened this issue is part of what keeps the zine going. And, of course, to you submitters, dreamers, and creators out there, we owe you our deepest gratitude. In the vein of autumn and gratitude, allow us to share a few more thoughts and our thanks. First off, we have been working hard to write and record two pieces of music that will accompany this issue. Think of this as our Halloween gift to you. Adam and I have collaborated on a split EP called The Black Cat Cavalry, which you can download/listen to for free. We’ll be linking to it on our PV social media pages (Twitter, Instagram, etc.), but you can also search Pour Vida on BandCamp.com to find it. The EP consists of tracks by Candy Colored Goth (Adam’s solo project), Cascabel Tooms (my solo project), and Basher Tar (a 50/50 collaboration between Adam and I). Along with The Black Cat Cavalry, you’ll also be able to listen to my Cacabel Tooms EP, Nocturnal Sketches from the Midnite Boutique via BandCamp. The idea is that each of these projects can soundtrack your reading of this issue, so if you haven’t already, maybe pause your reading and track down those (digi)records. We hope you enjoy. Happy Halloween, Danny De Maio (PV co-founder) ***
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“Bars” by John Swan You’ve always called them bar rats, but they probably go by any variety of names all across Middle America. They can be found anywhere that a pitcher of beer can be purchased for less than five dollars. Their arms are inked with tattoos done in garages or basements or prison cells, names of ex-lovers or fading images of cartoon characters dance along forearms and across the blades of shoulders. Their mouths are void of teeth and where there are scarred gums, there are words. There are stories to be told and it is abundantly clear that none of them are true, but to draw attention to this is to strike at a person’s pride. It is to bruise their ego. If you don’t show up until midnight, they’re already in the parking lot showing onlookers how loud their stereo systems can go. Shortly after that they’ll be arguing over sports teams and by three o’clock in the morning, if they’re not struggling to get their pickup trucks out of tightly woven parking spaces, they’ll be fist fighting in gravel. At midnight, everyone’s a singer, with their right hands holding microphones, their left covering one eye, allowing them to see properly. They read words as they appear on the screen before them. Top forty hits are louder than every conversation that’s happening around ashtrays, but the vocals are flat, the words are wrong or else forgotten entirely, even if they can be read from a screen. If you sit by yourself for long enough, someone will take notice. By yourself, you’re an opportunity. A free drink. A warm bed. By yourself, you’re a potential scapegoat. If you’re lucky, you’re just a forgotten lay. On the backs of the t-shirts of the hired security is the term peacekeeper and you find that to be contrary to what it is that they actually do. Of the peacekeepers, there is one who takes your ID. He says, “Thanks,” and tells you that you look better with a beard and you thank him before ordering a personal pitcher of the cheapest beer available. You are neither happy about the interaction, nor your choice of drink. Among other peacekeepers is a person that you went to high school with. Whether or not he remembers you is unclear, though you are appreciative of the solitude that he’s allowed you. The bartender no sooner takes your money than another local is calling her baby. He says, “How about a round for the group in the corner, Baby.” The bartender is not a baby, but a grown woman, traditionally attractive. It is assumed that she is only working to pay her rent. You take your pitcher to a corner table and watch a baseball game. You have no particular interest in baseball, but that’s what’s on the television. In the corner is a man in alligator skin boots and cowboy hat. He wears a plaid shirt tucked into pressed blue jeans, a gut spilling over a large polished belt buckle resembling the likeness of a steer’s skull and horns. He sips from a straw that extends from the depths of a pink tinted drink. He is alone and you passively wonder at how far he is from home. It seems that to his own standards, he is 4
dressed to impress, his beverage standing in stark contrast to the cheap canned beers held in the hands of the other patrons. The drink acts as a representation of the swelling of his wallet. Eying this man is a much larger man. He wears a sleeveless leather vest with two jagged S’s sewn over his heart. He has an iron cross tattooed into his left bicep and his eyelids are only slits. From his agitated whispering to a nearby compatriot, it seems apparent that he will soon strike the man in the cowboy hat. You step out for a cigarette. Outside, another local takes you by the lapels of your jacket. He says, “Holy shit, I can’t believe you’re alive.” You haven’t seen this person in ten years, and when last you had spoken to him, it was only in passing. To yourself you think, I didn’t know that I was alive. He takes your phone number down and tells you, “I just had a kid.” He says that he’d like to grab a drink some time and catch up. For the rest of the night, the two of you share neither words nor passing glances. Coming back into the bar a man brushes against your shoulder, nearly spilling your beer, and you think to strike him, though whether or not this infraction was intentional is unclear, and likely, you would lose a fight. The man with the iron cross tattooed into his skin, he takes a young man by the nap of the neck and you can’t be sure of whether this is a mark of endearment or the precursor to an altercation. Whether or not this is at all important is a matter ambiguity. The larger man, the one with SS patch sewed into his leather vest, he says to the young man, “It’s so good to see you, motherfucker,” and you suspect that the young mans name is not Motherfucker, but you are happy for the break in tension all the same. You turn your attention to the slot machines that line the far wall and take notice of an unattended drink. You think to take the drink so as to alleviate any unnecessary stress on your checking account, though it occurs to you that last call is soon and you may well be suited with your current beverage. The slot machines stand mostly unused, save for the fifty something year old man who has no doubt been here since well before the sun set. You don’t ask him, but it is apparent that he has lost whatever it is that he’s won over the course of the day, and when he walks away, it’s not because the bar is closing. Passing your line of vision now are three women, two supporting the weight of a third. The two that flank the unconscious girl are saying that it’s okay. They’re saying, “We’re going home now sweetie,” and it is assumed that something is wrong, though not within the timeline of anyone else’s life. There is a general indifference felt by the patrons of the bar at this display and it makes your heart swell with sadness. In fact, your own indifference makes you wish that you would cease to exist. The bartender turns the lights on and shouts, “Last call,” and all around you patrons shield their eyes, scurrying like mice or children illuminated by a police officers flashlight. No one is attractive anymore. Words sound more slurred. No one walks in straight lines.
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In your wallet you notice only a single dollar bill and so you realign your attention to the discarded beer on the slot machine that you’d earlier thought not to drink. You decide to take it down in several consecutive mouthfuls and it is strikingly apparent that the beer has stood alone for several hours. It is flat and dead house flies float at its brim, taking the place of foam. On your way to your car, it occurs to you that the discarded beer may have been drugged, which makes sense to you, and you suspect that it must have belonged to the girl being escorted from the bar by her friends. On the drive home, all that you can remember are the sounds of motorcycles battling truck stereo systems to create the loudest noises within ten miles. To your back was a couple near the bars back door. The girl shouting over and over again, “Can we just go home, can we just go home, can we just go home.” From the motorcycles came the stench of gasoline, reminding you of your father starting your boats engine when you were a boy. When you make it home, all of your furniture will look the same. The paintings and pictures hung on your walls; they’ll all be where you left them. The books on your shelves will remain in the same order. There will be no discernable difference in your life now, save for the fact that, because of the drugged beverage, you will feel tired. When you open your front door, you fall to the hardwood floor and you remember absolutely none of this. *** “Bells ‘And the old tongueless bell remains.’ John Wesley Powell” by Carol Hamilton In Patzcuaro the bells clatter at dawn, one brassy, one deep and bold, shouting down the others, one coppery, and all enthusiastic, shouting, “Me! Me!” and I imagine a robed ringer swung into the air at rope’s end. But what of the church whose bell has lost its clapper? Surely dawn does not prefer silence, or who would have invented roosters? When the cacophony ends, the air shakes still to far off places, beyond even the ears of the canine. That is where the music of the tongueless takes up its song, the place where silence can finally sing itself to sleep. *** 6
“The Wax Museum” by Thomas Piekarski On the crowded streets of modern Cannery Row visitors from around the world flock like pigeons come to boost their moods amid the candy, curios, ocean spray, hotels, seafood, music and neon signs. In the basement of an indoor boutique bazar wait virtual humanoids locked in time, their presentations recorded, canned. They indoctrinate visitors despite the fact that they’re constructed primarily of wax. Before I engage the possible misadventure of taking a walk through that musky cellar, I sit motionless on a bench outside, contemplate beside the popular Bubba Gump shrimp house, when I feel I’m being shanghaied by regression, mind tossed back to a Monterey of the Ohlone, of missionaries, fishermen, writers, pirates, madams, salmon and sardines by the millions. As I walk past the Sterling Silver gift shop I note the cute pink dolphin plush for sale on the ticket taker’s railing. I bid farewell to Gourmet Express and the Bargetto wine room then watch my step down a dusty stairway and descend to where those figures reside. They’re oblivious to the twenty-first century, posturing factoids lacking minds of their own. Once inside the museum, individual scenes light up when I press big red buttons, and set in motion those sculpted and clothed impostors with heads, hands and lips moving in concert with their narrations, historical depictions first of the native Indians, followed by Spanish explorers, Mexican settlers, and a most official John Steinbeck presiding over cannery workers that toil all day at a conveyor. These half-art mechanisms, purveyors of pain, remind us that mortality is a moment away. Although they’d command me I will not yield: my psyche bolts over a solid blue ocean as I view the grizzly bear getting gored by a bull and father Serra pitching Indians Catholicism. Then in my imagination I watch those dummies prance in a pool of molten paraffin and acid tears.
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“A Butterfly” by Ana Vidosavljevic Butterflies are not supposed to talk. Yes, I know that. But I am not an ordinary butterfly. My parents were hippies led by the idea that we could change this world and make it a better place. They believed in peace, love and freedom. And they lived the life they wanted. No constraints, no social injustice, no racism, no hatred, no criminal, no violence, no corruption. Those were some of their ideals. I was born one cold February day in the small apartment which my parents inherited from my mother’s grandma. It was a natural home birth, as my mother used to say. There was a labor nurse, a woman called Sonya, who helped my mother bring me to this world. But other than that, my mother did all by herself and she was proud of it. She used to say that I had appeared in the wondrous process that resembled the one of a caterpillar turning into a beautiful butterfly. Sonya became my godmother and our friend. And she named me Mariposa which means “butterfly” in Spanish. I was the only Mariposa in our town, and I was proud of it. I carried my name gracefully like a butterfly. When I was very little, my parents even made me butterfly wings that I wore on my back while dancing happily. My parents taught me to respect and appreciate everything I had and got and to be grateful for food, clothes, toys and other things they provided me with. And I did. I folded neatly my clothes and kept all clean clothing pieces in my small wooden closet. There were many old and faded jeans, T-shirts and skirts, but they were always so lovely arranged and they smelled nicely that no one would notice their 9
shabbiness even when I wore them. They were clean and I wore them elegantly. If there were some holes in those clothing pieces, my mum’s magic hands made them disappear. Moth holes in my wool sweaters were so sad, but my mother patched those holes with embroidered butterflies and my sweaters looked jolly again. She used some beautiful embroidery patterns to mend the patches and torn parts and no one ever guessed that those butterflies, frogs, rabbits, flowers on my jeans, sweaters, skirts, T-shirts and dresses were necessity. Somehow, they seemed natural and original parts of my clothes. However, there was a war that our country led against some other far-away country that we didn’t know much about. My parents and many other their friends protested against this war, against killing people, against sending our countrymen to kill other people. My parents took part in every protest, every demonstration against these killings. They marched, held the signs against the war, yelled and sang. And many many other people did the same. During those protests I stayed at home with Sonya and, sometimes, her daughter who was a baby in that time. The three of us played and watched TV and didn’t go out during those dangerous hours that brought turmoil, a lot of policemen all around the town and some suspense in the air. I didn’t know much about anything what happened in the world, and I couldn’t understand. But I knew my parents protested for a good cause. In my innocence and incapability to understand the grown-up issues, I pretended I was a butterfly, a blue morpho. I put my wings on my back and I danced around the room. The sparkling blue and dark
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wings carried me over the hills, meadows and forests into the unknown and exotic places, where people swam in the rivers and lived with the wild animals. I watched them and smiled. A couple of times, I flied over their heads and if I noticed that they were friendly and liked butterflies, I landed on their shoulders and arms and made them smile. Children loved me particularly. They ran after me and smiled. And they spread their arms pretending they were butterflies as well. I wanted to tell them that they could be if they really wanted to. I was the blue morpho, one of the most beautiful butterflies in the world. The colors of my wings allowed me to make camouflage and I hid from predators, and sometimes, if I noticed the big lizards and birds coming toward me, I released the strong smell that chased them away. But I loved people. They were almost always happy to see me. Almost always. Once, I spread my wings and flew over the unknown exotic, tropical and warm forests. The humidity made my wings heavy and I descended among the shrubs. I waited there and dried my wings on the sun. Then, I heard some strange noise, as if some explosions had been approaching me. But I didn’t know what those explosions were about. Then, I saw people running, among them scared children. Their faces were petrified, they were scared and panicking, and they ran away in front of people with big guns and rifles. Those people who carried the heavy weapons were angry. They were shouting madly, screaming some non-comprehendible words and shooting the people who ran away. I saw children falling down on the ground, as well as their parents. They fell and never stood up again. The blood covered the leaves and soil and the noise exploded through the forest. I was scared. 11
The people with guns kept coming and shooting and some of them came too close to me. Out of blue, some strange thing started flying toward me. It was not an animal, it was not a living thing, but it could fly faster and more ferocious than anything I had even seen flying. And all of a sudden, it hit me. My wings went all in pieces through the shrubs, the sparkling blue and black filled the air, and I looked at my own body exploding in the most magnificent colors. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that I, the butterfly, the blue morpho, was dying. And then I just stopped breathing. And my butterfly body disappeared in the void. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was lying in my bed. My butterfly wings were broken and Sonya was sitting next to my bed. Her eyes were full of tears and she held the wet handkerchief in her hands and wept slowly. He sobbing voice hurt my heart. “What happened, Sonya?” I asked with a feeble voice. “You fell down the stairs, my dear child, when you heard the bad news.” She said cautiously. And she turned her eyes to the other side as if fearing to face my eyes. I wanted my brain to work better. I wanted to remember what the bad news were but I seemed so numbed and fragile. “Your butterfly wings were damaged, my little Mariposa, but we will make the new ones.” She started sobbing loudly again. I looked around and remembered how I had died as a butterfly. But what had happened? And what the bad news was? I was scared to ask Sonya. I tried to stand up from my bed and walk, but it seemed that my leg was broken. And seeing my effort to raise my body, she grabbed me in her arms, held me close to her chest and carried me to the living 12
room. All around the living room there were candles, and their burning warmed the entire room. I looked around and saw the photos of my parents displayed on the shelves and table. The flowers were everywhere as well, and the mix of the smells made the air suffocating. My heart started beating fast. Sonya noticed my anxiety and confusion and she held me even harder to her chest. “It is all right, my dear child. They are now in some better place. And those awful men with the guns who had killed them will be brought to justice. They would be sentenced and left to rot in some stinky cells condemned by the whole world.” And then, everything came back to me. The memory of the bad news brought by the neighbors and my shock and terror, and my falling down the stairs. My parents were shot during one of the protests; they were shot by the policemen, the men who were supposed to help people. And what about all those ideals my parents had and embedded in me? Well, I don’t know. Somehow, when they died, those ideals crashed for some time as well. But I am trying to bring them back. Sonya made me new butterfly wings. I am again the blue morphe. And that blue morphe flies gracefully over people’s heads, makes them smile and laugh, and run after her. That butterfly tries to bring her own faith in people back and in the ideals that once were, as her parents taught her, the most precious things. The blue morphe sees the hope in children’s eyes and believes optimistically that she and others would make those ideals become reality. *** 13
“Ghost” by Kelly Peacock The ghost is sitting there, heavy, on the edge of the mattress, his body shifting with his eyes, his palms closing but close to me, my uncoiled fingers, reaching. He touches me. Déjà vu: he loves me— hardly— *** “Kerosene Girl in Black & White” by Danny De Maio Onlookers, come far and wide, feel as though they’ve been duped into being extras on the set of a B-flick that might someday earn its right as a cult film, and no one could blame them for thinking as much judging from the bare industrial room that is lightless aside from the eerily warm glow of a projector filling the stage wall with black and white cue card images that tease cryptic messages like “OUR SHOW IS YOUR SHOW” and “OUR PROPHET IN BLACK & WHITE” that leave the spectators wondering just what it is that they’ll get for their five bucks. From the stage-right shadows materializes a woman in knee-high leather boots and a black skirt that is mostly hidden by a matching overcoat. Her eyes are obscured by a swath of hair that may or may not be midnight black as well, as the emissions from the projector dye everything they touch either black or white. The few murmurs from the crowd that remains are extinguished when the woman approaches the microphone standing in the middle of the stage and lights a cigarette into it so that the clink of the metallic lighter igniting ricochets around the room. “It’s like when you drip gasoline on your shoe,” she begins, “and the scent wafts up to you like a ghost of kinetic energy. Or maybe it’s more like the deep breath you take the moment after avoiding a collision with an oncoming car.” The crowd looks at one another as she takes a calm drag from the cigarette. A man looks disapprovingly at his wife who is holding their young son. Two teenagers giggle for a moment in the corner. The unseen projectionist squeezes the aperture of light so that it narrows on the woman and simultaneously leaves the rest of the room in darkness. “Or it could be like nervous laughter while anticipating a response from the one you love.” She begins to keep time with one boot to an inaudible beat and the people in the first two rows are able to see her eyes roll back in her head. The rhythm she has worked up is suddenly paired with a thumping, pounding sound at the entrance of the room. All the spectators with children and most of the teenagers move towards the exit. 14
“They’ve barricaded the door from the outside,” a father yells to everyone in the room. Another man bores his eyes into the woman on stage and hollers, “She’s a witch, she’ll kill us all!” Finally, a fighter pilot on leave notices the aroma rising from the floor. “Move, I’ll break down that door,” he announces, “this place is soaked in kerosene.” He is officious in his march through the congested crowd. As the crowd takes turns shouldering and kicking the door, it gradually becomes apparent that the stomping has ceased and the black-clad woman has vanished from the stage and been replaced with a projection that reads, “IT’S LIKE A LIT MATCH HELD ABOVE A KEROSENE GIRL.” A dull cackle emanates from the shadows of the room and the crowd turns to give the darkness its attention. Stifled weeping is scattered amongst the crowd. The clink of a metallic lighter sounds and the crowd holds its breath. ***
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