1979-Vol16-No1

fl Magazine oP Poetru Si Fiction

VOLUM6 SIXTEEN • NUMBER ON€ • TLUO DOLLflRS

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School of General Studies • Columbia University

EDITOR: Barbara Harrah FACULTY ADVISER: J. R. Humphreys GRAPHICS: Florence Keller

QUARTO is the literary magazine of the School of General Studies, Columbia University, Copyright 1979 by QUARTO. Office of Publication and Editorial Office, School of General Studies, Lewisohn Hall, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. No material in this magazine may be reprinted without permission of the Publishers.

QUARTO

Volume Sixteen

Numb e r One

A Literary Magazine Published At The School of General Studies Columbia University NARRATIVE Drop-Kick Me, Jesus Through The Goal-Posts Of Life Moe The Baby's Room There Is A Beluga Whale The Ant Farm Eric A Touch Of Alimony Dream In The Mirror The White Pontiac

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9 26 28 29 36 54 58 60 62

Rebecca Lewin

Steve Szilagyi Estelle Gilson Joey Trevisani Patricia Volk Blitzer Gerard H. Shyne Michael Stone Adeline Hooper Michaele L. Weissman Kate Cambridge

POETRY Lamia Born Again Lucia Lily New Moon Contributors

34 52 60 62 78

Davida Robert Louise Andrew Davida

Copyright 1979 by Quarto Columbia University School of General Studies

Singer Bochroch Napolitano R. Cohen Singer

DROP-KICK ME, JESUS, THROUGH THE GOALPOSTS OF LIFE Rebecca Lewin

ALAIN WAS ONLY twenty-eight years of age, yet he had a heart attack, and at precisely the wrong moment, just when the action was getting hot as it could get, at the brink of the denouement.

Bijou was reducing him to smitherwhich while they reclined on the yellow lawn furniture by the lake as the puffed-up sails sailed by, and the gulls called, and the fish bubbled secretly in the depths.

They were playing chess, you see, and Alain was making a good go of it with only a rook and a bishop in addition to his king, while Bijou still had her queen and a whole arsenal of courtly assistants o Later, Bijou suspected fleetingly--a passing thought—that he'd timed the attack purposely so that she'd never get the chance to swoop down and mate himo He was having one of his visions right before the pangs.

He was gazing out at the lake enthralled with the thought of how many ripples there must be in a body of water at any one moment, when a football field sprung up out of the waves and a big calm Jesus with a white toga on and glowing beneficent downcast eyes bent down gracefully and plucked out of the water a football-sized Alain who was singing, "Drop-kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life," a Country and Western song Alain had heard coming over the FM airwaves a week or so earlier. The Jesus smiled charitably, pulled up his toga to expose his sandled feet and landed a good solid kick right in Alain's own personal padding. Alain was soaring through the air, saluting a passing seagull when the spasms came, and he never did see himself cross the goalposts.

He didn't die.

And who knows what thoughts passed through his

mind while he lay in the hospital during the recovery period with tubes up his nostrils. Perhaps he was thinking of Bijou or that infamous game, that game of chess, or maybe he was musing about the house-guests they'd had up until the time of his attack. The guests were Bijou's sister Chichi and her husband Rolf and the couple's two children.

Aside from Bijou and Alain's bedroom there were three others in the house. In one slept Chichi and Rolf and in the other two the offspring stayed, awaiting the finishing touches to be placed on their newly-built home. As it happened, the guests removed themselves the very day after Alain's heart had to be massaged, because their new home was, except for a few small strokes of paint needed here and there, finally completed.

The problem was what transpired during the time the guests stayed; a terribly uncomfortable and disconcerting problem concerning sleeping arrangements .

Now Alain had a mild case of asthma, nothing serious or really debilitating, only it caused him to wheeze slightly while he slept. He also had a penchant (Penchant! He earned a living by selling the beloved things) for making chess pieces, But while he carved the figures in his little workshop in the old cellar of the house, he still had to paint theiru The painting process involved very intricate work (The finished products were known to be exquisite) with brushes tiny enough not to smear the paint over those minutely carved edges where colors weren't meant to combine. And aside from the detailed brush-strokes, pigment had to be mixed to achieve the precise hues that would satisfy Alain's discerning eye So of course a very special light was required. But because Bijou would not permit the decor of the house to be tampered with by anyone but herself—she was a decorator, considered herself an artist--Alain had to proceed with the mixing and painting in the only area that Bijou allowed a light bright and natural enough for his purposes: in their bedrooim He might've bought a

light for his workshop, but she nixed that; to her the workshop was a symbol of the musty evil cell that existed in the Person--of whom the House itself was a catacombic symbol„ According to her ratio, workshop was to house as evil cell was to person, and neither the workshop nor the evil cell was to be disturbed. Bijou hated the smell of the paint--she said it made her feel absolutely ill.

(She couldn't abide his wheezing either, low decibel as it was, although some found it endearing„) And so one smoky night when the stars hung in the sky like smears of copper spackle, and the nightbirds muttered among the limbs, she banned him from the bedroom„ This posed the particular problem, aside from the one of Alain's feelings, a matter of a lack of physical space--because those house-guests were occupying all the other bedrooms, snoring awayAlain sauntered out into the hall in search of a place of rest. Down the hall he strode„ And back up the hall he strayedc But this was the real world and no genie arose to conjur up a new room.

Eventually, Bijou became tired of hearing the pacing and appeared in one of her gauziest emerald and black negligees at the threshold between the bedroom and the hallo What was going on? Alain explained that there was nowhere for him to sleep, whereupon Bijou suggested that he use the twin bed next to the crib in which the younger child slept.

Alain was insulted„ Why not move the younger child into the room where the older child slept in the double bed rather than subject Alain to annoying little wailings and the sucking sound of wet lips around a pacifier all night? Or move the older child into the younger one's room. The two of them were children, after all, and he was a grown manBijou called him a sapo She wouldn't stand for the children being moved, she said it would be harmful to their emotional health, that they should stay put in the same rooms considering they didn't have even a home, really. What about respect for elders, was Alain's argument, but he ended up downstairs

sleeping on the ocher velvet love seat with his feet dangling over the arm.

The next day, which was Sunday, Alain was caught bringing that lamp from the bedroom down into his workshop. Bijou, wearing very tight black pants and top, and that lacey white vest with the women dancing all over it, stood staunchly on the stairway shaking her head no. She said that her designs must not be altered by anyone. Alain returned the lamp.

He got no work done that day.

Toward dusk Bijou recommended that Alain sleep in the rec-room: the large, red, black, and white room in the basement from which a door opened into his dank little workshop. He protested because the room was strewn with the visiting children's toys and old relics and, besides, he would have to go two flights up to change his clothes or to take a shower: the bathroom in the basement backed up, leaving the floor coated with a ghastly residue.

But Bijou was immovable, and so down into the chilly place Alain descended (Little spiders crawled there) to sleep on the convertible couch.

On Monday Alain suggested that the maid should clean up that bathroom, but Bijou said she was embarrassed about the whole ugly situation, would have to think about what to do, and she refused to send the maid down to do that task. Alain could have done it himself, but somewhere at the bottom of his gunnysack was a rather gummy, but still identifiable, wad of pride. So he slept on the convertible and traipsed up and down flights of stairs to shower and change his clothes. And the bathroom floor moldered.

The weeks lumbered along and Alain was still sleeping among the eight-legged. His work floundered. The half-formed knights and pawns gathered dust on the worktable in the dark; because what was the point of honing them so finely if they weren't to be painted till who know when? Bijou became fragranter by the day--she took to wearing Pavlova and L'Elu and other perfumes that were as expensive

as their exotic names sounded. One night, after Chichi and Rolf and the offspring were in bed, Alain was sitting in the dining room drinking coffee laced with Anisette„ Bijou walked in wearing a lavender nightgown with a side-slit up to the underarm, and carrying a porcelain bottle,, "Like some blackberry brandy?" asked Bijou. Alain nodded. She pulled out the glass stopper, poured a few drops into her hand, and ran her moistened fingers along her collarbone and down into the decollete. Alain stared at her and there out of the sideboard next to her rose a football field complete with turf and yard lines, grandstands and a white-toga'd Jesus mooning at him from centerfield. "Drop-kick Me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life," the shin-high Alain was singing, and the Jesus swept his hair out of his face, raised his hem, and compliedo But Alain never got to see himself go over that bar because Bijou burst through the vision with a face as twisted as a jelly roll.

"What's the matter with you?" she was shaking him by the shouldero Alain snapped his eyes shut like clam shells, trying to recapture what had faded.

Several days before that wretched squeezing sensation Chichi and Rolf announced that they were going to take their leave in less that a week's time. A few nights later, when the two couples were sitting around the fireplace, Chichi said that the movers would take their furniture out of storage the following day and move it into the new house, and the day after that they themselves would move in. Bijou mentioned that it certainly wouldn't be much of a job to move the furniture in, seeing that they owned little more than three beds and a pianoo Chichi and Rolf agreed dejectedly„ Bijou sipped from her Margarita and languidly shelled a few peanuts. Then she asked Rolf and Chichi if they liked the furniture downstairs in the rec-room.

"C'est une question?" they answered, and ladled on praise. "Those blacks, those whites, those stark, dramatic, and flagrant straight lines!" (The rug and throw-pillows were redo)

"Call the movers tomorrow," said Bijou. "And tell them to stop here along the way. You can have all the rec-room furniture."

This was when Alain felt the first pangs.

He ignored them.

(Where'd she want him now? Back in the bedroom?

Out the door? Hmm?) The next day Alain and Bijou were reclining in those yellow lawn chairs by the lake, drinking Smirnoff and lemonade with lemon quarters floating in it. "Your move," Bijou gloated. But before Alain could so much as touch his rook a tearing pain swept up his back into his neck and down his left arm. Someone was wringing his heart out like a wet dish-towel.

He gripped his chest with his fingers, flung his body back with a great howl, and the chair collapsed, enveloping him.

In the intensive care unit nurses moved as quietly as well-behaved nuns 0 The mountain range on the heart monitor showed that Alain was still in the running. Bijou sat stiffly in a chair next to the bed looking tired and bored.

"What do you want most in the world, Bijou?"

Alain's mouth moved below those slim tubes through which liquid flowed. "Anything. Just tell me what you want me to do."

"Drop dead," said Bijou.

When she left, Alain gazed across the room to the window. A vision rose up from the glass like the smoke from a sorcerer's cauldron and slowly clarified into sloping sand dunes, the mounds of a desert; flowing brown rivulets sharpened into hair, tawny grains coalesced into arms, granite pink nipples topped creamy breasts; and there was a titanic woman sprawled supine, bouyed in the hospital air, arms and legs flung out. There was a little man standing in the air by one of her feet—he wasn't as tall as her foot--singing a Country and Western tune, his eyes riveted to that dark misty place, that boiling panache, that enigmatic downy crest that softened the

area where her legs met,

LAMIA Davida Singer

Four blind years I practiced her language like brailleo "I'll get us into messes," she'd say, "You clean them up<," At night there were lectures on trust and kinky sex while my hair showed grey where she kissed., One day she took my best friend to bed, I bought her a honda, a color TV but the love turned wormy. Fetid.

Her eyes were definite as clotso "Kill it," she commanded. And I did.

MOE Steve Szilagyi

DAWN ON THE North Atlantic. Throughout the long night, as on so many other nights, I have lain on my back reading, watching, waiting for the advent of light. Although in someone else the sight of this sleety dawn might arouse feelings of desolate forsakeness, for me, exiled as I am in the fetid hold of this vessel, the barren light brings with it a certain warmth which I, in my pathetic state of need, welcome greedily.

The ship rollsâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; A cask or barrel has broken loose in the compartment above,, Hour after hour it tumbles back and forth across the ceiling, coming to a clangorous halt at the terminus of its motion in either direction. Through the porthole I can occasionally see the spines of great swells, rising and fallingo Cold and merciless they pound, inches from my heado A volume of Nietzche lies open on my lap: friend of my intellect in the long hours of sleeplessness. He exists in my brain, not as a man who shaves, buttons his trousers; but as an idea, undulating across my mind's eye, taking on it its complexity a personality on its own: demanding, often exhausting to be sure, but ultimately a boon companion to one who suffers so greatly from a lack of stimulating company.

My eyes come to rest upon the sleeping forms of the two real-life companions to whom fate has tied me with such a callous disregard for my sensibilities that it might be laughable were it not so cruelâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; I have tried to educate them. Over the years, in a hundred filthy holds like this one, I have exhausted all the conventional means through which a man like myself might bring the lesser endowed up to a point somewhere approaching his own level of cultivation,, But it has been to no avail. Were it

not that they displayed their obtuseness with a dogged constancy that even the most accomplished actor could not feign, I would think that their resistance was a form of mockery. Though even that would be comfort. It would take a degree of cunning, a debased form of reason. But even that has been denied these two wretches snoring complacently at my side.

Yet I do not give up hope.

I choose the Fat One. He lays flat on his back, the vast curve of his belly heaving gently under the ragged strip of burlap that serves as a blanket. As we three lie closely packed together, I need only reach over*, My fist descends upon the gigantic abdomen, making contact at a point about an inch above the navel„ The tiny compartment resounds with a deep, booming report, and my pupil sits up suddenly, his eyes wide and questioning.

He turns and gives me an alarmed look,, Before he can assemble his meagre store of rationality, I scowl and deliver the Koan: "Wake up and go to sleep!"

For a moment there flits across his features an expression that might almost be mistaken for dawning awareness„ I experience a moment of intemperate hope. It renders all the more bitter my disappointment as the expression, instead of ripening into one of enlightenment, curls into a sneer of resentment,, He waves his pudgy hand effeminately before my face, and emits a highpitched snarl« As I have a thousand times before, I slavishly follow the motion of the hand with my eyes, with the result that when he suddenly swoops the hand past my shoulder, I follow it with a quick jerk of my head, wrenching my neck, and leaving me with the foolish knowledge that I have been complicit in the cause of my own discomfort.

In the next second, he drops back asleep. Seeing him so unaffected, I am tempted to administer the lesson again, when my ears are suddenly assaulted by a gutteral snore coming from the vi10

cinity of my other companion: the Jew. The Jew's mouth hangs open. I can see his pink tongue lolling behind his thick, moist lips and I am possessed with an overwhelming feeling of aggression as, for some reason, I fancy that he is on the verge of a nocturnal ejaculation.

His feet, invitingly bare, poke out of the bottom of our improvised blanket. Before I know what I am doing, I have lept over the Fat One's heaving belly and I have the Jew's big toe clamped between my teeth,, I bite down fiercely on the defenseless appendage, holding my tongue far back in my mouth so as not to taste whatever foul jellies make their home there.

Immediately he lets out a prolonged shriek which causes me to redouble the force which I have concentrated in my jaw. Suddenly, the cry is muffled, and I look up to see that the fat one has his hand over the Jew's mouth„ "Sssh!" the Fat One hisses, "Someone might hear us!"

"Yeah," the Jew barks indignantly, his bulbous nose crimson with anger,, Even I can see the justice of this rebuke„ But cleverly, I manage to shift the blame, "So why ya 1 making so much noise?" I ask with a sharp slap across the Jew's loose, fleshy cheek0 As 1 expected, the Fat One, coward that he is, joins my cause.

"Yeah, why ya' makin' so much noise?" he says, slapping the Jew himself.

The Jew dejectedly hangs his head. "Oh, why did you have to wake me up?" he groans„ "When I was asleep I didn't know how hungry I was," Since during the night my mind was occupied by higher things, I hadn't considered the subject of food, the lack of which had been plaguing us for days. It took a suggestive remark from a gross sensualist, I think bitterly, to reawaken the pangs of hunger I thought I had disciplined myself to overcome.

"And I was having such a beautiful dream," he

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continues.

"Ah shaddupo" I give him a quick, sharp slap.

I am in no mood to learn of the base nocturnal fantasies that play under the Jew's smooth, bald dome of a forehead with its two large tufts of matted hair protruding like shelves from either side.

"If you guys are so hungry," I say, "Why don't you do something about it?"

"Yeah, why don't you do something about it?" the Jew says, turning and slapping the Fat One in an attempt to regain my favoro But the Fat One turns to me, "Yeah, why don't you do something about it?" he squawks, parrotlike.

I greet this insolence by stiffening my fore and index fingers and propelling them toward his small, piglike eyes. Over the years, however, the Fat One has developed a maneuver (Much the same way a laboratory rat eventually learns not to press the lever which delivers an electric shock) to counter this particular attack of mine. He holds the side of his hand vertically before the bridge of his nose, forming a barrier upon which my fingers invariably come to a halt, like a man falling with one leg on either side of a fence.

This pleases the fool so much that he fairly burbles with glee: "Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck," he chuckles. But as he is preoccupied with his triumph, I catch him off guard, driving my fist into his deceptively soft-looking paunch. As he doubles over, I lock my forearm around his neck and rub my knuckles hard over the shaved stubble on his head.

"N-n-n-yeow!" he cries, pulling free. He moves his pained face inches from mine and barks, "R-rrowf!" After he emits this quaint expression of impotence with its transparent metaphorical implications, I grab him by the shoulders, turn him around, and with a swift kick to the behind, propel him toward the bulkhead door.

"Don't come back till you've found some food," 12

I command.

The Jew stands next to me, grinning foolishly.

"What are you smiling at?" I say, giving him a slap that rocks his entire frame and leaves him looking absurdly bewildered: in other words, the way he usually looks.

It is stifling in the tiny compartment. As I pick up the bits and pieces of our makeshift bed on the floor, the Jew strolls over and opens the porthole, inhaling the fresh air noisily through his copious nostrils. Enraged that he should so selfishly monopolize the fresh air while I am engaged in useful labor, I step over and push him aside0 I thrust my face into the space and feel the sea air, cold and bracing, play agreeably over my cheeks. The sensation, in combination with my anticipation of a forthcoming meal, momentarily revives my spirits. I gaze out over the vast churning mass of waves, each with its own stiff white cap, stretching off into the mist. The grandeur of the scene inspires in me an almost metaphysical sense of communion with the awesome power of natural forces„ My heart lifts with exhileration as I feel the wind rushing past my face and the waves crashing at my feet.

Suddenly without warning I am struck across the face with what seems like a great, sticky hand,. In fact it is a black, oozy mass of mud and sea slime, carried, I assume, atop some wave and deposited with unfortunate timing through the porthole„ I gasp and step back, peeling the foul, noisome substance from my eyes and picking it from my ears„ In need now of fresh air more than ever, I hesitantly approach the aperture again. Surely the polluted slick has been passed and lies now somewhere behind our speeding vessel. But no o Once again the sheet of much fairly leaps through the porthole and overspreads my unfortunate person.

Blinded, choking, I grope around for some bit of cloth that I can wipe my face with. My hand falls on something that feels suitable, so I grab it up and towel off my eyes and face. Drawing back in revul-

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sion I realize that I have pulled the Jew's shirttail out of his pants and actually wiped my face with what had only recently lain next to his crusty underwear. The Jew, of course, is oblivious.

Blithely, he strolls over to the open porthole and stands there enjoying the prospect that had so exalted my_ senses c For some reason I am overcome with pity for the poor untermensch and long to spare him the same rude surprise that humbled me o "Ya1 better not stand there," I warn him, pointing out my befouled face, hands, and clothing. It is a heartfelt warning, coming from a sense of shared humanity arising in the face of the cruel arbitrariness of nature. But the Jew is insensitive to these impulses, disdaining my counsel with the words, "Ah, you're crazy!"

So be it, I think. Soon your thick skull will be coated with the viscous dregs of the ages and then we'll see who's crazy, won't we?

So I stand by and watch and wait, gleefully anticipating my triumph when the Jew shall turn his scum-smitten face from the porthole, shamed, forced to acknowledge that my judgment was the correct one.

The minutes go by. Nothing happens. The Jew stands at the porthole with a look of idiot pleasure playing over his caricature of a face. I wait with a growing sense of impatienceâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; The Jew remains clean and unspattered0 Then the foul slick finally has passed, I decide. "Out of my way!" I grumble, elbowing him to the floor and thrusting my face through the aperture.

In that second the sea once again delivers up its dirty charge, and I stand for a third time covered with the stinking refuse of eonso In my sightless, almost tearful condition, I can hear the Jew's braying, mocking laughter,, It penetrates even the nameless ooze that plugs my ears, striking down deep into my wounded soul,, Oh Nature! That You should ill use me so! I am overcome and unable to give the Jew the fierce pummelling he so roundly deserves.

By the time I have cleaned myself off, the Fat 14

One has returned. As he steps through the bulkhead, his face is convulsed with the effort of mastication; and I see that he is holding a long salami, a quarter of which the selfish oaf has already devoured. Simultaneously, the Jew and myself descend upon him.

"Spread out!" I say, grabbing the salami and pushing them both asideâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Resisting the compulsion to immediately start in on the thing, I look up and scrutinize the Fat One's face, searching for any trace of the seasickness one would expect to find in one having consumed such a rich delicacy on a rocking ship. But the Fat Ones chews gleefully, a thin trickle of spittle making its way down the side of his mouth.

"Nyuck-nyuck-nyuck," he chuckles in a self-satisfied way.

I conjecture that it is safe to eat the thing.

Scrupulously fair, even under the sway of bordering starvation, I partition the remaining salami three ways. My two companions retire to opposite corners, where they hunch over their meagre repasts like vagrant dogs. The sound of their noisy chewing, resembling, I imagine, the noise made by Napoleon's army slogging through Polish marshes, echoes off the close steel walls.

I stand in the middle of the room taking small meditative bites of the exquisitely spiced meat. The delicious scent rises to my head, penetrating and loosening the compacted memories there, evoking with an almost Proustian clarity the nights of my Bavarian youth. I can almost hear the jolly oomph of the tubas and see in the beer garden the soft colored lights strung out over the long tables where I and many another sturdy lad toasted good fellowship and eternal constancy. Ah, how we cared for each other! And where are you now? Bruno, Wilfried, Ludwig? And Helga?

Sweet Helga of the gently rolling breasts and artfully balanced beer tray?

Delightful as these memories may be, it soon becomes impossible to ignore a rising nausea that is forcing its way up my throat. Throwing the salami to the floor, clamping my hand over my mouth, I run to

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the porthole to discharge, only to find that the Jew has preceded me there. I grab hold of his shuddering form and pull him back into the hold.

For a moment I am shocked by the sight of his face: it is as luminous and green as swamp growth. He totters in front of me for a second before my own needs press with a renewed vigor, and, casting him aside I shove my head out into the cold. I retch violently for what seems like hours, sending bits of pink salami and long spumes of bile into that roiling crucible from whence all organic matter originally rose.

When I pull my head back in, the efforts of my stomach having exhausted all its contents, I can see the Jew, kneeling in the corner, heaving over a bucket. Between us stands the Fat One, chuckling and still taking bites from the salami and swallowing them with undisguised relish.

He holds out to me a half-chewed end of meat in a mock display of generosity that sets me dampening another rising surge of illness. Looking at him, I am baffled: surely his face is as green as the Jew's, yet he obviously doesn't feel ill. Then it occurs to me that I am dealing with a man who possesses no powers of reflection. He is unable to suffer from his condition because he is unaware of it. Seeking to remedy this, I grab a small shard of mirror off the floor and hold it in front of his face. He stands there absorbing the image for a second, before realizing that the green visage he observes is his own.

"Nya-a-a!" he cries, lifting his arms in alarm and running to the porthole. It is only justice, I think, watching his quaking behind.

Allowing some time for myself to recover, I announce loudly: "I see if you want something done right around here you have to do it yourself!" before setting out in search of a more digestible food.

I make my way out of the ship's hold, creeping down narrow corridors, terrified lest I should be discovered. Before long I am lost* I stand at the bottom of a small spiral stair, wondering whether I 16

should go up it, when suddenly a pair of well shined shoes at the bottom of uniform pants legs comes descending toward me. I quickly secret myself in a closet where I am lodged among the cleaning supplies until his departing footfalls inform me that the seaman has passed. When I emerge there is a bucket stuck onto my foot and a mop draped ludicrously over my head like a wig. I take a stepo The bucket clangs0 Shaking my foot, I manage to free myself, simultaneously knocking the mop off my back, sending them both clattering down the passageway» "Hey!" a voice shouts„ There is the sound of running feet. Panicking, I run up the spiral stairs,. At the top there is a kind of hatch with a sign that says: "To First Class."

Now I emerge into what appears to be a lounge.

Well-dressed men and women sit on sofas or at card tables, smoking, drinking cocktails, and quietly conversing. They fall silent as I suddenly appear among them» Shabbily dressed, uncouth, smelling no doubt of bile and okra, I hide my face in shame as I stand thereo Then I note the sound of pursuing footsteps through the hatchway- I kick the hatch closed and set off through the large room, upending tables and flooring harmless, decent gentlemen and ladies in my desperate halfback chargeo I now burst into the light„ All fear dissipates as I glimpse in one soul-stirring second the entire three-hundred and sixty degree aspect of the ocean on whose surface this great ship is but a bobbing speck. I fly to the deck railing, biting my knuckles in an excess of emotion, collapsing finally in tears as I recall the many days I have spent in that wretched dark hold while all the time above me the full scope of this glorious and uplifting view has remained by me unseeno Slowly, rising to one knee in genuflectary homage, I gather my strength for the practical task that still lies before me, Standing up, I drag myself along the railing, licking the fresh salty air off my lips, glancing into the round windows of staterooms left uncurtained by their improvident occupants. Turning a corner of the deck, I finally come upon what I 17

have been seeking: there just inside an open window lies a fish dinner laid out on a table with forks, napkins, and a single rose in a crystal vase. Cautiously, I peer through the window, taking note of the furnishings and noting the absence of the person for whom this dinner has been so attractively set,, Only a large tabby cat, sitting atop a steamer trunk, returns my curious gazeo I am about to reach in and grab the fish when a strolling couple turns the corner of the deck. I pull back from the window and throw myself up against the wallo They pass; I smile and nodo When they have gone, I quickly reach through the window and grab the fish, shoving it in my waistband under my coat.

With dinner lodged safely on my person, my sense of urgency goes, and I succomb to the temptation to linger on, strolling the wind-blown deck,, It is really far too chilly to admit much deck activity on the part of the first class passengers.

Nonetheless, there are a few hearty souls about; old people swaddled in blankets, propped up in deck chairs; men and women bundled up in fashionable tweeds and furs. Circumnavigating the deck, I once again come upon the lounge into which I had erupted so shockingly but a short time beforeâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Through the round window, I can see my "fellow" passengers, quite recovered now from the rude surprise of my sudden appearance, shuffling their cards, freshening their drinks, or half reclining in urbane languor on cozy-looking club chairs0 The women appear dazzling in the dim light, exchanging easy conversation with well-built young men in tailored suits.

I try to imagine their talk: witty or offhandedly insightful comments on the latest booksâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Maybe an essay into the current scandals making the rounds of Rome, Paris, New York; bantering repartee with semi-suggestive undertones, leading perhaps among some of younger ones to private, innocently romantic assignations later in the evening. I can see them now. Some vivacious young girl, intoxicat18

ed with the thrill of travel, and an eager, experience-hungry boy, his whole life before him sparkling with bright possibilities, meeting in the shadows under the life boats, embarking on a sweet,hesitant kiss. Oh, if only I could be in there among them!

Here is a company that would relish my wit, acknowledge my cultivation. It would be putty in the hands of my experienced powers of conversation, my lightning quick flashes of humor, and my broad, educated outlook.

Reluctantly, I tear my eyes from the scene and sadly turn away. Then I see her.

She is leaning on the railing, gazing out to sea.

The wind has drawn a few strands of straw-colored hair from under her kerchief, whipping them across her high proud forehead and soft gray eyes. In one of her fair, naked hands she holds a fur muff, contemptuously, as if she disdained the superficial warmth it offered. In her other hand she clutches a half-read book whose title I strain my eyes to see.

Something in her posture conveys a fierce melancholy at odds with her obviously tender years. I immediately feel my emotions straining toward her, a kindred spirit, one with whom I might share an understanding that goes beyond speech.

And yet, I must speak. Even the most exalted voyage of spiritual communion must embark, in its early stages, upon a sea of words. I wrack my brain for the right phrase or comment that would serve to introduce us. It must be tender, I think, wreathed in sadness, communicating at once our shared state of mind while implying that through association we might overcome it. It must be at once intriguing and insightful, without being forward and rude.

As I rummage desperately through my memory for a memorable quote from a play or book, I observe with horror that she has left the railing and is proceeding back into the lounge. It is now or never, I think, summoning up all my courage and stepping before her.

She raises her eyes to me in an expression of gentle enquiry that sends my spirits soaring.

"Hi ya, Babe," I say. "Let's get married!"

19

For a moment she looks confused,, Then her perfect features twist into an attitude of revulsion and barely disguised contempt that is so unexpected that it throws me off my conversational stride, I cough. Did I say something wrong? Then, all at once, I hear the voice of the one, the sight of whom has inspired in my sad angel such visible disgusto "Hey, Moe, you found any food yet?"

I turn around to see the Jew shambling toward us with a simpering eager look on his face.

"Shaddup!" I growl, slapping him hard, "Can't you see I'm talking to a lady?"

"But Moe..."

I drive my fore and index fingers hard into his bulging eyes.

"A-a-a-gh!" he cries in agony„ When I turn to apologize to the lady for having subjected her, even for a moment, to the sight of my loathsome companion, I find to my dismay that she has fledc "Now look what you've done!" I shriek,, "You've scared her away!"

The Jew plaintively raises his hands as I pound his head back and forth between my fists. He wriggles like a hooked fish as I grab his offensive nose and twist it first to the right, then to the left. Letting that go, I step down with all my might on his toe. His face jerks wildly, grimacing with pain0 I whip my fingers upward and tear at his cavernous nostrils„ "I hope that learns you a lesson," I say, with one more slap for good measure„ But the Jew, tottering and rubbing his nose, is pointing at something over my shoulder and muttering unintelligibly.

"What'sa matter?" I taunt him. "Cat got your tongue?" Then I look where he points- "Nya-a-a-a-a!"

A ship's officer, a great hulking brute with a shaving brush mustache and eyebrows that meet in the center of his forehead like two caterpillars smooching on a branch, is pounding across the deck toward 20

us.

"You!" he hollers in a thick Armenian accent, shaking his finger angrily,, His large, olive-skinned hand grabs the shoulder of my coat. Thinking quickly, I grab the fish secreted in my waistband and apply it stoutly to the crown of his head.

While the officer reels dazedly from the blow, I grab the Jew by a clump of the mattress stuffing he calls hair and haul him after me down a gangway, still holding the fish securely in my other fistThe Jew howlsâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Why I save him, I don't know,, But this way, we descend together down the bleak, circuitous passageways that lead to the cold bowels of the great ship.

The fish is laid out on an upended crateâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; We three gather around it with ravenous admiration, tucking bits of cloth into our collars like napkins. There is great rejoicing as the Fat One produces a bottle of wine he has managed to pilfer in a moment of uncharacteristic productive labor,. The wine is of middling vintage, but I am in no position to complain.

As it turns out, the fish is uncommonly tough and difficult to chewo Mastication is impossible without the pressure of hands applied to the forehead and jaWo The wine is a godsend now, as without it, passing the stuff from mouth to stomach would be difficult indeed. It is a tedious meal, relieved only by a brief moment of levity that occurs when I, having been provoked beyond endurance by some moronic comment, lob my fork at the Jew's forehead, where the utensil becomes imbedded, giving the silly fellow the appearance of a flustered unicorn.

This comic interlude, however, does not suffice to relieve the heaviness that settles upon us after the fish is consumed. Even the faces of my companions display more than their usual portion of dullness.

I begin to suspect the fish.

Wishing, however, to appear hearty (The fish, after all, was my contribution to the feast) I approach the Fat One with some playful chaff: "What'sa matter with you?" I scowl, slugging him in the belly. To my 21

surprise, the blow has a kind of bellows effect, causing a geyser of some dry, particulate matter to spout from his mouth, directly into my face.

"Why you,.." I raise my fist but stop short as a gravelly sort of rumbling makes itself felt in my viscerac I gag. Then cough, emitting a veritable fountain of the same dry stuff. I pick a few grains off the fat one's shoulder and rub it between my fingers« Sawdust! The fish! We ate a stuffed fish!

The Fat One coughs again, spouting more of the same. Then the Jew starts in. Soon, all three of us are doubled over, coughing up great clouds of sawdust that swirl around us like snow in a souvenir paperweights Tonight I am determined to sleep„ Between my failure with the girl on the upper deck and the incident with the fish, I am feeling bitter and helpless. I disdain to read, even the beloved philosopher, words being to me now just so many scraps of dry sawdusto In a small locker just off our hold I discover a small signal flag, which I string between two posts, contriving a crude sort of hammock o My companions, far from being envious of my new found comfort, ?re grateful for the extra room it affords them on the. floor„ The Jew now produces and lights up a long, cheap cigar he had somehow managed to steal from one of his betters above deck. Its foul stench soon pervades our small compartment, making sleep impossibleo On top of this, the two imbeciles start to argue about whether or not it is proper to smoke a cigar with the band still on it. Tossing and turning, I try to apply my restive intellect to the problem of the fish.

How came there to be a stuffed fish on a dinner table in a stateroom? I try to assemble all the observable factors in my mind's eye: the deck, the stateroom, the furniture, decoration, my state of mind at the time, the couple that passed on deck.

Then it clicks. The sequence of events plays it22

self out. First I see the fish lying on the dinner table. Across the room there is a cat sitting on a steamer trunk,, I am about to reach for the fish, when the couple appears on deck. I draw quickly away from the window. In that moment, the cat, foreseeing my intentions, leaps onto the table and snatches the real fish. Meanwhile, I have thrown myself against the outside wall of the stateroom, causing a stuffed angler's trophy on the inside wall to dislodge and drop directly onto the now empty plate.

Whatever pleasure I have taken in this little exercise is spoiled by my consciousness of the overpowering fumes now emanating from the Jew's cigar, I lean over the side of the hammock, "Put that thing out! I can't breathe!" I holler.

"Aw," he pouts, "Just a few more puffs."

"Put it out now!"

The insolent baby takes a few more greedy sucks on the tobacco teat before scowling mightily and throwing the thing in the corner where it lands in an old oil drum filled with trash.

"Now maybe I can get some sleep," I mutter, rolling over and shutting my eyes. The ship rolls, rocking the hammock like a cradle,, I feel slumber coming easily to me now. Visions of my sad angel of the upper deck waft into the vacuum left between receding consciousness and approaching sleep, I remember the wistful intensity of her eyes, the soft blush on her downy cheek. I imagine her gentle hand clasped in mine as we stroll together down a street lined with well-kept old buildings. Baaden-Baaden. She listens with eager curiosity as I relate the history of the places we pass; the Celts, the Romans, Bismark slept here, the Kaiser there...Now I feel the soft pressure of her fingers and realize I have been talking too much. I look around. We are standing in the center of a small, orderly square, surrounded by the close facades of venerable, but not in the least imposing, buildings of another century. I look down at her face, it is innocent and imploring. Hesitantly, I reach out and lift her chin. Her eyelids lower, and her soft, perfect lips shyly part. Around us, the 23

gold and scarlet leaves of autumn tumble through the brisk air. A thrill races through my bosom.

Slowly, I bend to kiss,,,,.

"Hey, who's cooking bacon?"

Fingernails scraping down a blackboard, the shrill death-cry of a pinioned rat, the voice of the Fat One pierces my somnulant reverieâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Then the Jew chimes in,, "Yeah, it smell pretty good," Raging, I sit up in the hammock, then pause,, The room is uncommonly warm. I sniff the air 6 Pork?

Then I look under the hammock.

"Ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-agh!"

The Jew's still smoldering cigar had ignited the trash in the oil drum,, It has been carried by the rolling of the ship to a point directly under the largest bulge in my hammock., Shrieking with pain and terror, I leap out onto the floor where I hop and twist about in an effort to staunch the rooster tail of flame rising from my buttocks.

The Fat One and the Jew also leap up, insensitive to my agony, rhythmically clapping their hands and stomping their feet encouragingly. Calling down curses of the ancient gods upon their heads, I spy a bucket of water in one corner. I make for it like a bullet.

"Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" A cloud of steam rises between my squatting thighs, and there is a prolonged hiss as the cooling waters extinguish the raging conflagration. My limbs go slack with relief. The Fat One and the Jew look on admiringly.

"Hey, that was a pretty hot dance, nyuck-nyucknyuck!" the Fat One says.

"Yeah," the Jew adds. "You were really smoking!"

While the bucket of water has smothered the inferno that threatened my flesh, scarlet tongues of flame still lick the penumbra of my vision. "A pretty hot dance, huh?" I growl through clenched teeth, grabbing both their heads and knocking them together like marimbas. "Really smokin 1 , huh?" I taunt, stomping on the Jew's foot and ripping a fistful of filthy hair from his head. The wretch howls like a scalded cat.

24

Now the Fat One is heard: "Hey, leave him alone!"

Leave him alone, he says! Rebellion! I become like a man possessed. My limbs quiver, and I nearly bite off my tongue trying to contain my rage. There is a twelve-pound sledgehammer resting against the wall, I pick this up now and, raising it in a high arc above me, bring it down with all my might on the Fat One's head.

"Aow-aow-aow-aow-ah-ah-ah-oh-o-OOOOOOH! Look!" the Fat One says, pointing down at the sledgehammer., I raise the still vibrating tool to my eyes. Its iron head had been flattened into a misshapen blob by the force of the concussion. The Fat One looks on, completely unscathed.

Seeing this, I stagger backwards against the wall as if it were I and not he who had been struck, I gaze now at the Jew and the Fat One as they investigate the twisted sledgehammer like curious monkeysâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Somewhere inside me a light dies and I stand in the dark shadow of an overwhelming futility rising before me like a high, unscalable cliff.

There they stand, the Fat One, those blank, round features upon which no lambent thought will ever light, and the Jew, an erection barely concealed by his baggy, soup-stained trousers. Oh, twin nemeses of my life! Ignorance and sensuality! Like two immutable stone gargoyles they brood over the cathedral of my aspirations, disgracing its facade, presiding over its crumbling dissolution.

My knees slacken. The tiny hold spins before my eyes. Air! I need air! Groping my way dizzily along the wall, I fumble and grasp the latch that opens the porthole. Standing before it, I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with the fresh night air. My ears are smoothed by the sough and rush of water along the hull of the speeding ship. Somewhat revived, I weakly lift my eyes. There is a single star burning brightly in a tenuous parting of the clouds. It beckons like a promise of fulfillment, I allow a cautious smile to creep onto my lips when, suddenly, I am struck across the face by what seems to be a great, sticky hand,,.

25

THE BABY'S ROOM Estelle Gilson

THE BABY'S ROOM was dark,, There was no sound in it except his breathing,, She tiptoed into the room, found the table next to the baby's bed and started the phonograph playing softlyc It would be the last time she would come to him at night. The family had decided that weeks ago. But now that the last night had come, they wanted it over with,, They had sent her in early. It was nearly dinner time. Outside the baby's room, they waited restlessly.

The baby was nearly two--still soft and compact and plump with a round face, very dark round eyes and a sad and serious way. He smelled of warm powder and diapers and sleepo And the smell was sweet.

In the dark room the baby whimpered. The sound startled her. She realized the phonograph record had finished and began it again,, The baby whimpered once more and was still,, They had been getting him ready for tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; The drops were bitter but he had learned to take them one at a time because they hugged him and kissed him and told him what a wonderful baby he was when he swallowed one. And in his large, sad eyes they could see he loved to hear them say it 0 He always fell asleep immediately after taking the drops.

The baby's room opened off the dining room.

Its closed door was framed in a rectangle of light that spread thinly against the adjacent surfacesâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; The sounds of footsteps, voices, silver, and dishes rode into the room on the light. But the sounds of hunger penetrated further into the room than the light.

They weren't being in the least subdued. "C'mon," Karen called. "What's taking you so long?" The rest of them merely murmured. But in the darkened room she felt their derision.

It wasn't her baby. Why did she have to do it?

26

Do what? Give it six drops instead of two tonight?

That's not doing anything. And it had to be done.

They had all decided ito Decided together.

Outside the baby's room where there was light and food and wine and the human voice it seemed easy0 "Hurry up, will you? I'm hungry." Karen again.

Karen opened the door,, She stood in the light with one hand on the oaken buffet, her dirty blonde hair hanging along her face and thin neck. Her legs were bare. Her feet flat against the floor in leather sandals looked large and dark and resolute. She stared into the baby's room. The baby whimpered again and Karen shut the door.

It had to be done. There was no sense letting him go on. He would always be a problem to them--to himself.

The phonograph stopped again. She tried to restart the record but couldn't find the tone arm in the dark. The baby's sobs became more frequent. Her hands groped along the table top,, Nothing beneath her fingers felt familiar. The phonograph disintegrated at her touch. The baby's cries grew louder.

Someone knocked on the door, "Get it over withl We want to eat!" The voice struck at her chest. The baby was crying constantly now. She leaned over the crib rails and picked him up. He was wearing fuzzy yellowish pajamas that covered even his feet. She held him in her right hand. His weight rested on her forearm. Instinctively, he leaned forward so that his head was on her shoulder and his body pressed against her chest. His breath blew lightly against her neck. His warmth flooded her breasts. His smells burned high in her nostrils. "What's the matter?" she whispered.

He lifted his head and looked at her. "What's the matter?" she repeated.

"Fatht, fatht," he said and leaned against her again. What did he mean? His heart was beating rapidly against hers.

"You scared?" she asked.

The baby sighed.

27

"Would you like to take your medicine now?"

"Yeth," he said in his serious way.

Suddenly she sobbed, put him back into the crib, and turned to stare at the door.

Outside in the light, they were restless and hungry.

THERE IS A BELUGA WHALE Joey Trevisani

THERE IS A beluga whale crated in a plywood box on the living room floor of my parents' house upstate. It is very beautiful, with grayish-white skin the color of twilight snow and great soft brown eyes that seem to take in everything in the room. It is slowly dying. To keep it moist, I fill a small bottle with water from the kitchen sink and spray it through the cracks in the box, but it is futile; the bottle carries so little water and the whale's skin is already beginning to dry out. My parents are supposed to arrange to have it transported to the Hudson a few blocks away where it can be set freeo They keep delaying for reasons I do not understand. I can feel his eyes watching me as I circle the box with my little bottle, and I know that he knows.

I am furious with my parents, but nothing is done.

My father comes home and sees me standing next to the box with the water in my hando He hangs up his coat, goes into the basement, and comes back carrying something I cannot see. Kneeling by the box, he opens one of the sides with a hammer and chisel, splitting the box like a razor on cardboard,, The entire box collapses and falls away from the whaleâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; He raises the hammer to strike the whale just behind the left eye, but I grab his upraised arm as it is about to descend,, He looks 28

at me, smiles and starts to laugh, I let go of his arm and he points to the whale and taps it lightly with the handle of the hammer. The surface pings, it is made of metal. Then, using the chisel as a pointer, he pokes one of the eyes and a small door pops open behind the blowhole. He reaches in and manipulates something, and the eyes circle in their sockets. I kick the tail and the ping seems to work its way into my head.

THE ANT FARM Patricia Volk Blitzer

ON SATURDAY, SHE did the marketing, got the Stilton at the store that sold it with the rind, dropped the kids at a party, took the shoes in, picked the shirts up, returned a mis-delivered letter to the elevator man, stuffed sodden Cheerios down the drain with a chop stick, cleaned the kitty litter, and moved the car to a good spot0 She dropped the Times on the chair, took off her coat, and began putting away groceriesâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Anyone call?" she asked her husbands "Some crazy girl."

"Who?" "Florence Reely,," "Florence Reely," she said. "What did she want?"

"She wanted to know where to get ants," "Ants? What's she talking about? I haven't seen Florence Reely in three years."

"Well, here's what she said," he continued. "I picked up the phone and she said, 'Hello.' Then she said, 'Who is this?1 So I said, 'This is Andy, Who is this?1 And she said, 'Florence Reelyâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; What's your wife's name again?' And I said, 'Polly,' and she said, 'That's right!' as if I'd just answered the $64,000 question and I said, 'I know,' and she 29

said that three years ago you dropped Peter off at her son's birthday party and that you had given him an ant farm and now she needs more ants."

"So why is she calling me?" Polly asked.

"She hopes you'll know where to get the ants.

I told her to go on a picnic and just take some home with her and you know what she said?"

"What?"

"She said it was too cold for a picnic."

Polly took the Manhattan Telephone Directory off the top of the refrigerator and looked up Florence's number,, Along with a dead cousin, a bad window cleaner, a defunct Gristede's, and the Mehlman's who had divorced and gone gay, she hadn't bothered to transfer Florence's number into her new phone book.

The number under Florence's husband's name did not look familiar. The address, Polly realized, was definitely different. She continued down the list of Reelys and found Florence listed under her own name at the old address.

"Hello."

"Hi, It's Polly Morgen. How are you?"

"Thank God you called. I've been a wreck."

Florence sounded relieved. "You remember the ant farm you gave Jason when he was three?"

"Yes..." Polly said.

"Well, Mike and I got divorced and I..."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"And I was cleaning out the closets," Florence continued, "And I found the ant farm you gave Jason. We'd never used it, and he really wants to set it up."

"Yes..."

"Well, the ants are missing. I mean they're not there."

"You mean they escaped?" Polly asked.

"No, they never were there. You have to send away for them."

"Uh-huh," Polly said,waiting for the rest of the story.

"The trouble is, I wrote away two months ago 30

and I never got them. Serves me right for sending cash through the mail."

"Are ants a lot?" Polly asked, curious.

"Well, only 25c for a starter set. Damn, I knew I should've sent a check,," "Maybe that's your best bet 0 " Polly consoled.

"The terrarium place in my neighborhood has gone out of business and besides I don't think they carried ants."

"What I wanted to ask you was, did you give anyone else an ant farm?" Florence said, "Yeah, as a matter of fact I gave every kid an ant farm that year,, I got twelve ant farms at a discount o " "Do you remember where you got the farms?"

"Levy's Toy Bazaar. But look, I don't think they carry them anymore."

"Well, I think a store should stand behind its merchandise, don't you? If they're going to sell ant farms, Levy's should know that the ant farmers are ripping off customers who send in for the ants, Maybe I should get Betty Furness or Lefkowitz in on this. I mean Jason was really looking forward to working the farnu I hate to disappoint himo Do you remember who else you gave the farm to? Maybe I could call them up," "Gee, I don't remember," Polly lied0 She could imagine Florence calling up eleven of her friends and saying, 'HiB Polly Morgen suggested 1 call you.

I need some ants. 1 "Well, maybe I'll visit the ant farm in person.

It's only in Far Rockaway. I could make a day of ito' "That sounds like fun."

"If you happen to hear of anyone who has a similar problem or who knows where I can get some ants, will you let me know?"

"Of course," Polly said and added, "Look, I'm sorry about you and Michaels It's a real shock."

"To tell you the truth," Florence said, "I've never been happier."

Andy was laying some new Roach Motels in the

31

kitchen when Polly went in to tell him about the phone call.

"She's a real nut job, isn't she?" he said.

"I don't see why you say that 0 " Polly poured herself a cup of coffee, "She's just trying to get her hands on some ants."

"But you gave her kid that set three years

ago."

"So what should she do? Throw it out just because she forgot to enjoy it for three years?"

"But you can't expect a company to honor a three year old ant certificate."

"Why not? A bond is good for seven years. Department store scrip is valid as long as a store is in business. Credits last forever."

"That's not even the point," he said, taping a Roach Motel to the pipes underneath the sink0 "The point is it's insane of her to call you about the ants three years later. What have you got to do with the ants? And if you can't see that, you're just as crazy as she is."

"Can't you see that she was frustrated? She really wanted to set up the farm. I was her only link with it. She was actually approaching getting the ants quite logically. She wrote to the company,, She was going to call the place that sold them. She was even thinking of taking a trip to the manufacturer. You think she's crazy because it was just ants. You don't happen to value ants.

The fact is, if she wanted something you valued, you'd understand it."

"Are you saying I'm incapable of empathy?"

"I'm saying that you filter out everything except what's important to you. Florence just got divorced. She's probably scrutinizing a lot of details. She's probably trying to make sense of things other people wouldn't think twice about. I'm saying you don't have to be crazy to care about details."

"That means she has no priorities. If she can put this much energy into an ant farm, she has no priorities at all."

32

J

|

"That's just the kind of comment I'd expect from a man who passes his Saturdays stalking prehistoric insects with sadistic traps,Luring them to sticky, undignified deaths from antenna-waving fatique or starvation, whichever comes first. Why don't you spray like a normal person?"

"Don't talk to me about normal people. You, collector of crazy people."

"Don't you see? I don't want to think she's crazyÂŤ In a strange way, there was a logic to what she was saying. It was just that it was ants."

"Why do you so much not want to think she was crazy? Why is that important to you?"

"Because if she's crazy, everybody else is too0 I'm crazy for answering her logically, And you're crazy for trying to catch roaches," "Why am I crazy for trying to catch roaches?" he asked, ignoring the first part of her comment.

"Because roaches are forever. So you catch ten in each motel. One of them has already laid a billion eggs that are hatching at this very moment. Six fecund females probably accompanied these groceries home." She pointed a shaky finger at the bags in the cart, "And a whole colony is toying with the idea of relocating here since construction started at the Honigs, It's hopeless. Why don't you give up?"

She sat down in a chair and sipped her coffee, "C'mere," he said excitedly. "I got a big one."

She put her cup on the table and walked over to him. He was holding one side of the open-ended Roach Motel in front of his eyes. She looked through the other side of the opening. A giant roach, a king among roaches, a roach that dwarfed every other frenzied roach in the motel, was battering his antennae against the roof of the box. They were as fat as human hairs. His legs were locked in fossilcolored amber muck. She noticed that it matched the hazel striations in his irises. Silently, from opposite ends of the box, they watched the king roach struggle. Two people, stuck together at the eyes by

33

a Roach Motel, slowly circling each other.

"Get yourself a Roach Motel!" he said in his best Jimmy Durante voice. "Roaches check in, but they don't check out!"

BORN AGAIN Robert Bochroch

Wonder what I'm going to do with the rest of a fragmented life Tired of blackmail..«tired of taking too long to find out what I'll do when I grow up 0 .. finding out too late that I was over qualified for just about anything I wanted to do paid a huge sum of money to perform a function I hate Painted into an emotional and monetary corner and too fucking proud to coast and rest on my laurels too poor to walk away from it .«„look at it with a dispassionate eye for awhile Tired of being unable even to buy a new car without first thinking of someone else.

Whether it be two teenagers on their way to college or a paranoid wife who had a distant relative.„.died in a poorhouse in some god-forsaken town like Shamokin, Pa an illiterate anthracite minero.ogone during the great depression.

Doesn't she know that she's twenty years my junior and that I'm worth a small fortune to her dead?

Doesn't she know 0 . <, ...and remember, that I've busted my ass...three marriages and the proportionate amount of support and alimony.„„just so I can hold my head high and enjoy something in this life? Doesn't anybody know this?

34

...know this about me?

At seventy an hour it's a sure bet the shrink won't tell me...yet.

How am I doin1.,, .huh.. .huh?

Come back when you're better I really wanted that job Learn a new trade.„.willing to cut fifteen big ones off the present salary So I coast and tell lies and drink too much The world around me, especially the loved ones, sprint from any hint of unpleasantness I wont do it anymore. Can't be nice to the flaming assholes of the world Can't be scared of the threats . ...subtle or otherwise. Can't over react on cue.

Can't throw crazies Can't be predictable. Too much time left in a world which has no dress rehearsal Still too young to wander along the beach and look at the teenagers' asses Still too virtuous to dream about jerking off in their long hair Still too genteel to wonder if they approve of bottom fucking "Hey ladies „„<,society has changed,, ° .I'm trying to o.ohave you."

Is it a sin, a cardinal one, to get more pleasure from splitting a tough oak log than to close on a half-million dollar deal?

I'm a "born again" when I knock a squirrel out of a tree at a hundred meters with a pellet gun "No dear, the squirrel's not deadoo.he's merely resting."

35

ERIC Gerard H. Shyne

"SAVOY--THEN FUCK! God-damn! Murr-dur-fuck-kur!" said Eric. "Half hour and we go Harlem!"

"God-damn, mother-fucker!" said Yancy. "We gotta wash the funk off our asses first, bitch!"

"Right, funk off our asses first, then Harlem!" said Eric. "Murr-dur-fuck-kur! Savoy--then fuck!"

"And no shit, whore!" said Grate. "God-damn, slut! You bitched up the whole 'faggy' last timeo We ought not to take your 'weigen'-ass!"

"Right," said Yancy, "Leave his God-damn ass in Westsaw!"

"No, no! Please, take murr-dur-fuck-kur! Eric wont mess up this time!" said Eric. "Be good murrdur-fucken Norweigen."

"Bull-shit!" said Grate. "You lyin1 ass!"

"We go Harlem,, Talk murr-dur-fuck-kur," said EriCc "Fuck Brown-sugar! Savoy! We have good time.

I be good murr-dur-fucken Norweigen."

"No such animal," said Yancy. "You're gonna get our black asses kicked yet!"

"No vay!" said Eric. "No vay! Eric protect his friends! He fight like hell! Norweigen prize-fighter! He always win!"

"Eric, you can't whip Harlem!" said Grate.

"Eric whip anybody," said Eric. "He world's baddest murr-dur-fuck-kur! Savoy! Then fuck!

Hang arm!" said Eric. "God-damn!"

Grate and Yancy both looked at him. "Brownsugar! Come on!" said Eric. "Fuck Brown-sugar!

I'm ready Harlem! Hang arm!" Grate hung on one arm and Yancy on the other, while Eric held them both up with arms straight out in front of him like they were super flag poles that couldn't be snapped off ever.

"What kind of a bitch are you?" said Grate when both of them had stopped hanging. "Strong, bitch!"

36

m

said Eric. "God-damn murr-dur-fuck-kur! I break anybody!"

So the foursome of Grate, Yancy, Fish and Cander overruled their immediate judgment that Eric was dying to fuck Brown-sugar less than he was dying to fight mother-fucken Harlem. "I behave," said Eric.

"You better," said Grate. "Those Harlems don't play."

"Hang arm," said Eric one time more. "Hang-arm, anybody! I feel good! I go Harlem! I go Savoy!"

Grate took him up and hung on one.Fish hung on the other as Eric solidly stood like a tree with unbreakable boughso The bus for Mineola turned off Union onto Maple and down to where the fivesome waited at Post and Maple. They boarded an almost full bus and walked straight to the back where the seating there would accommodate all their number,. They rode like mummies until Andrea Tassy got on two stops away with two of her friends and walked, straight to the rear and sat opposite the whole quiet bunch. She was a stunning Caucasian teenagerâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "That's..." Eric started to say to Grate.

"I know, bitch, who it is!" whispered Grate.

Still mummies riding, they rode until almost near Mineola when for no apparent reason Andrea took off her right shoe and rested her bare heel on the bus seat's edge. And there it was, bulging boldly through her partly pink panties in all its sequestered dell silence, the greatest lips in the spreaded universe, with fringes of red in pubic glow adorning the rims of closely squeezing elastic perimeters that guarded with privilege the portals of her sacred and devine mid being. Eric let out a powerful guffaw at what the others saw as well as he but remained silent.

"Eric!" said Grate, as Andrea's leg went down immediately, and she flushed red and looked scared as did her friends. Eric slowly rocked his huge frame back and forth with still powerful laughter until the whole bus of once unheeding passengers were riveting their attention on his awsome presence and eye-asking : why ?

37

"Big bad Eric, huh?" said Hinkle.

"Strong for sure," said Grate. "Bad? There's been no test." "Harlem tests any mother-fucker!" said Cutso. "Harlem's just another place," said Eric. "Eric come through Marseille and ModenaCasablanca!" "Still not Harlem!" said Hinkle.

"Still Eric come through! Hang arm!" said Eric, rising suddenly and extending his huge arms. Everybody was just as suddenly attracted to him and stared questioningly. "Sit down, bitch!" said Yancy, "God-damn!"

Eric sat down. But a man coming toward the table with arms like a lion's throat said, "Hey, I'd like to test those arms."

"Oh, we're not here for feats of strength," said Grate.

"I know," said Hinkleâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "You guys came here to all-out fuck." But as he was saying this, the table was soon surrounded. Down on the table went an elbow of the big armed man. "Looks like there's no avoiding it," said Cander. "I suppose not," said Yancyo "Friendly like," said the big armed man. "This is Grits," said Hinkle. "I pride myself on my strength, too," said Grits. "Arm wrestling's my specialty." "Wait!" said Cutso, "Let's get some bets on this double-mother-fucker!" Bets were placed then with some Harlemites taking a chance on as they said: the big one! "Now we'll see," said Hinkle. "Marseille and Modena-Casablanca, huh? Survive this, bitch-mother-fucker!"

Eric's arm was longer than Grits's and he therefore had to move back to be at a lower angle.

The juke box was cut off and a silence prevailed.

"You know," said Cutso, "Grits has never lost!"

Eric smiled, and Grate and Yancy knew he wanted to say: Mother-fucker! His time has come! "Go!" Hinkle shouted, snatching his hand off Eric's and Grits's, And like a punch against a stone wall the animal power of Grits shot against Eric's holding Norse-Norweigen-force. "Oh, get him, Grits!

Get Bitch! We got money on you, mother-pussy! Oh, get big', cock-sucker! Break whore! Win white man!

40

We got money on you!" But all Grits's bulging muscles swelled balloons to the impossible task and Eric slammed Grits's arm down like a cold dead mackerel resounding upon a fisherman's hard tough bench! The crowd let out a big hurrah and clapped and a few congratulatory hand shakes- "You're great, man! You're strong, bitch!"

Once on the street again, the girls they came to see began to appear. "The whores are up now," said Cander,, "They've had their beauty sleep." "Look at that one," said Fish, referring to a buxom, brownskinned girl with flirting eyeso "And that one," said Eric. "Oh boy!" and Eric was excited about a black-skinned dame whose thighs stood out superbly in a tight, satin, too short black dress, "Let's wait awhile," said Yancy. "If we start to fuck this early, we wont be good for anything else." "That's right," said Grate. "There's, a lot to see and enjoy in Harlem besides just pumping dick all the time," "Yeah, we'll get to it," said Yancy.

But at Twenty-fifth and Lenox it was a standstill in price-parading women. An assault on available walking males who were rubbed against, hugged, dry-fucked, cunt pressed on, dick squeezed, balls tickled, and pricks actually handled by hand invasions bold as a child-molester acting unrestrainedly! The fivesome struggled fighting them off, "Damn!" said Cander, "She's got my 'lang!'" "Make her let go, bitch!" said Grate. "Wow, that's big!" said a whore, who had gotten past Eric's belt. "'Weigen1size!" said Eric. "Big, murr-dur!" "Let it go, bitch!" said Yancy, snatching the whore's hand out of Eric's pantso "Oh, God-damn!" said Eric, "Later, bitch!" said Yancyâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; And all along Lenox whores beseiged them, straight up to the outside of the Savoy where a coal black whore eyed them,, "Going in for the perfumed ones, huh?" said the coal black whoreQ "Right," said Fish, "But not necessarily."

"Bull-shit," said the coal black whore, "I saw those whites with the high-yallas go ino But all cunt is cunt when handled! You could fuck a prin41

cess in the dark and not know it!" "We're not children," said Grate. "We've been around." "I'll have your bibs ready later," said the coal black whore.

"You're children in Harlem and don't know it!"

But the fivesome paid and moved inside the huge Savoy whose lobby was packed with a more normal and decent acting people. They began the walk up the huge stairs that lead to the ballroom. And every now and then some male or female made a glance or pause looking at Eric's huge size. The music from the band on the platform began to be heard by them.

"Listen to that beat!" said Cander. "The place is jumpin!" said Eric. "Oh....." "That's it!" said Grate. "You said enough!" "But Andrea Tassy.,,." But he didn't get a chance to say anything further as Andrea Tassy was right upon them, her green eyes glowing and friendly. "Is Rap and Alice with you?" said Grate. "No, I'm with the Peachy sisters and a friend Colin Landis." Colin Landis met everyone with a strong warm handshake. "I know you're surprised to see us here," said Andrea. "But Colin and I love coming to Harlem!" "Well, we're doing some of Harlem ourselves," said Yancy. "Well, we better be getting back," said Andrea.

"Them Peachy sisters!" said Yancy after they'd gone. "High-society mother-fucker high-yallas," said Gratet "More against you, your own kind!" said Cander. "Those high-yallas wouldn't come to my house!" said Fish. "Why not?" said Eric, sensing something must be wrong. "That's prejudice!" "Let's have a good time," said Fish. "We all know this, Eric. We'll explain it some other time." "Yeah," said Grate. "Why don't we go someplace else?"

Outside Harlem's heat and crowds greeted the fivesome again. Whores solicited and were turned down.

"Andrea Tassy," said Eric as the fivesome strolled.

"All high-societies," said Grate. "Way above you, Eric." "She's beautiful!" said Eric. "God-damn, Eric, there aint a bitch in the whole world who wouldn't jam his ten to six in her!" said Grate. "It's murrdur!" said Eric. "You bet it is!" said Cander, when a voice calling, "Grate! Yancy!" came upon the five42

some,, "Hollins!" said Grate, taking the man's hand.

"What about coming to Mother Sissie's?" said Hollinso "What's goin1 down there?" said Fish.

"At Mother Sissie's if it's not goin' down, Jack, it's not happening in the world!" said Hollins, leading them across aways to a wide apartment house that had a freshly scrubbed front with newly painted doors, Hollins spoke into an intercom and a buzzer opened the door to a sight about which Cander said, "Good Lord!" Were they seeing a woman or a man or both in one! A head like a pumpkin, with thick female hair, a made-up, heavily powdered face, lipstick, rouge, and trimmed eyelashes„ A shirt and tie under a sack coat hid a huge muscular torso with tremendous hands!

"Want to see some shows, gentlemen?" said Mother Sissie„ The voice sounded masculin/feminin at once.

The fivesome seemed speechless„ "Don't try to figure me," said Mother Sissie. "Take me as I am." The fivesome paid Mother Sissie three dollars a piece and Mother Sissie yelled, "Show's on, whores! Right through this door!" The fivesome stepped into a dimly lit room that had a semi-bright stage with red curtains all around it. Immediately a brown-skinned girl appeared wearing a short yellow dress. Erskine Hawkins's recording of Dolemite started playing, and she went into a torrid dance«, "Oh, boy!" said Eric, "Murr-dur-murr-dur!" The dancing girl smiled and suddenly the door opened and a host of couples poured in filling up the roonu "There she is!" someone said and, without any hesitation, up went the dancing girl's short yellow dress to reveal the revered 'masterpiece' that builds the universe and tears it down! Everybody surged a foot forward! Some over the platform's edge! "That's it!" said a voice over a loud speaker, without a doubt, Mother Sissie!

Apricot-Jill, do your Tutti-Fruiti!" Apricot-Jill dragged a couch from behind the curtains and laid back on it rubbing her 'masterpiece's boy-in-theboat' which commenced growing, growing, and growing!

Widening as it grew! "Great God-almighty!" said a 43

voice. "She's got both!" said another. People started laughing uncontrollably while ApricotJill grew way out there! No doubt about it, men were surpassed! "She's lez and homo!" cried Mother Sissie. And a giant stud appeared, naked, swollen, clubby, turgid as an elephant's tusk! He lay on his back beside Apricot-Jill so all could see she had exceeded him, as the stage lights then went off leaving the flash of Apricot-Jill landing herself on the floor and throwing up the stud's legs like a huge V. The crowd departed laughing and clapping into the next room as Mother Sissie called, "Next room, next show!"

In the next room a giant black in a gray robe stood on the stageâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; It was as quiet as a winter tomb. When the room was full he turned his back to the audience, opened his robe and began a series of bangings on a nearby table as if he was slamming down repeatedly some cold dead snake. In a short while the audience began to understand and started to laugh, but some of the men among them winced at each bangingâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Turn around!" they called and after about the tenth banging he turned to reveal a flacidity like a wet dish cloth if it wasn't fourteen inches then it had no length at allo The audience was howling with laughter and clapping when in walked a huge two hundred pound female, naked as her birthday, and laid down on the table facing her 'masterpiece' to the eager eyes in the audience that sought it. The giant black continued to slam away to the amazement of the audience!

"One!" he said. "Two!" and it was some hard punch!

"Two! Harder than one! Three! Harder than two!"

"Who said the 'masterpiece' wasn't rugged?" said Mother Sissie. "Four! Harder than three! Five!

Harder than four!" Then the lights went out, but the punching and counting went on, and the crowd left amazed and applauding like mad into the next room whose stage bore two muscular blacks dressed in shorts and a big, light-skinned woman in a brown robe. The big lady disrobed and lay down on a table, showing a 'masterpiece' that without 44

question had some incredible size to it to begin with. One of the muscular blacks showed his tremendous arm with a straight hand, and the audience who didn't know, knew! Without hesitation the second arm went in beside the first arm. It was a howl as the amazed and laughing audience saw still yet a third arm! "Oh,no! Impossible! She can't!" "Don't bet she can't!" said Mother Sissie to a clapping, laughing to hysterics audience! "Next room!"

As the fivesome moved out into the Harlem streets with the crowds from the last show, many heads could be seen shaking with disbelief. Eric had been silent all this time, watching and looking, not saying a word.

"Eric, how come so quiet?" said Candero "I'm looking," said Eric.

"That's right," said Yancy, "And when he's watching pussy, his tongue is sometimes paralyzed!" "He wants to ruck so badly," said Grate, "That he loses the power of speech!" Yancy placed a hand on Eric's shoulder, "We'll soon be there, old timer," he said.

"Relax or your dick-chute wont open!" "It'll open," said Eric. And after the heavily pedestrianed streets, crowds, lights and scorching hot night had cooked them, and they had survived the last whore attack at Sixteenth, they arrived at Crease's apartment building. The fivesome then made it up the five flights of stairs. "Ah," said Crease as she opened the door, "Come on in!" The fivesome moved in quietly to the apartment which was somewhat sumptuous in appearance with gray stuccoed walls and purple furniture as far as the eye could see. On the divans, chairs, sofas and couches sat a gorgeous assortment of the famed Brown-sugar they had come so far to see and enjoy. "Here they are on display," said Crease0 "Aren't they gorgeous?"

The fivesome looked, pulses pounding, beating with their hearts from feet to temples. Yancy tried to say something, but it sounded muttered and unintelligible. Grate projected the same failure when he tried. So Crease said, "Girls, just grab one and lead him off!" And that's what each gorgeous girl 45

did; and took off to one of the narrow partitioned rooms with first one and then the other, until the fivesome was all Brown-sugar mated. "I'm called Lista," said Fish's girl as she removed her brassiere* "I'm Fish," said Fish as he felt himself rising and feeling a little calmer. "Take off your clothes," said Lista, removing her panties. "I love to see a man nude and hard!" Fish did as he was asked, taking in her nudeness all the time so that when he stood before her he was stud-bull and super-dude! "Oh, it's a cucumber!" said Lista. "I'm going to mount a Brown-sugar on you that'll leave you paralyzed!"

"I want you to fuck me to a crime!" said Cander's girl.

"I am your animal, bitch!" said Cander. "The 'rapo' you picked!" "Tear me up!" said Agg, the girl who chose Candero "I'm not going to hear you when you beg for mercy!" said Cander.

"Do you like your sugar calm or violent?" said Mundell, Grate's lady of the evening, mussing up her straight hair then gently encouraging the only dang-a-lang in the room growing monstrous!

"Oh, God! A baby's head, getting bigger everyday!" said Gweedieo "You said you're Eric, big one?"

"Eric for Brown-sugar!" said Eric. "Big 'weigen!'"

"Too big!" said Gweedie. "I didn't come here to be hospitalized!"

"Someone took it before not hospitalized," Eric said. "What someone?" said Gweediec Eric thought.

"Eric don't remember," he said. "You betcha," said Gweedie. "Maybe I can get you someone else." Eric put up his big arm to stop her. "You're just too big everything," said Gweedie, trying to move under Eric's arm, but finding him too fast. "Eric wants your Brown-sugar," said Eric sadlyâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Sorry, but it's too small," said Gweedie. "What Eric do?" said Eric.

"Eric likes you." He just stood there like a huge tree with one limb sturdy at ten to six, when Crease was called in to view for herself the baby's head grown long and swollen at the end. "God," said Crease, but when she returned she had a stunning 46

girl who laid Eric down and promised him an accommodation worth the twenty-five miles he came to enjoy.

But as Wilton slowly began to ease her heavenly Brown-sugar over Eric's now impatient and over-anxiousness, police sirens were heard in the street and several shots were gun fired.

"Sounds like something's happening!" said Cander shriveling down to an aching flacidity!

"Friday night in Harlem! Bitch!" said Fish limpidly.

"Damn!" said Yancy, "I was ready to fuck!"

"Say it again," said Fish, "My whore is great!"

"Where's Wilton?" said Eric, looking around at his friends.

"Aw, his 'dang' is still hard," said Grate* "The wait and rest will do you good, Eric," said Fish 0 "Eric don't need rest!" said Erie, "God needed rest, bitch!" said Grate. "Crease, Crease!" said Yancyo But there was then some tremendous banging on the door! And then loud male voices! Whores screamed!

And before the fivesome could move, the room was suddenly loaded with cops!

"How long they been here, Crease?" yelled a huge red-faced cop.

"Grovener, they been here!" yelled back Crease,, "They been here!"

"God-damn! They better been!" yelled Grovener and just as they had swept in with commotion and loudness they were gone! "God-damn!" said Grateâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "I thought we were goners!" "What the hell's going on?" said Cander, "Some terrible murder!" said Crease. "And people being beaten up for their money!" '"Mugged,1 they call it!" said a short large headed girl coming up behind Crease. "Yeah, it's that new shit that's starting in Harlem against mostly the rich whites!" said a tall terribly dark girl coming up behind the short, large headed girl0 "Who got murdered?" said EriCo "Search me!" said the short girlo "Harlem aint what it used to be!"said the tall girl. The fivesome faced the trio; the trio looked at the fivesome^ "Suppose I pot us some tea?" said Crease. "Come on, girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Give me a hando" 47

But loud talking and sounding female voices floated back to the fivesome, even exclamations bordering on the horrified and muffled screams! "Oh! Terrible!

Awful! How could they!" As the fivesome approached the commotion, they heard: "She came right down on the stand, Crease!" said a girl. "Right down on the stand!" "My God! How could they do it!" said Crease.

One of the girls swooned and had to be caught by the others. "What's wrong?" said Yancy. "The girl that was murdered!" said Crease. "You mean the white girl?" said Cander. All the girls looked at the fivesome.

"Yes," said Crease. "She was thrown from that abandoned school's roof and landed on one of the parking stands!" "It went into her like a man!" "What?" said Fish. "You mean her 'thing?'" "Exactly!" said the girlo "A direct hit!" "Crease," said a girl, "I came, but I can't fuck tonight!" "Oh, Sunny-Bugs," groaned the fivesome but they were horror faced as they listened to Sunny-Bugs and her friend relate the rest of the tragedy!

"Listen," said Sunny-Bugs, "She wasn't alone.

She was with two girls and a white guy." "They took them away in an ambulance. They had been robbed and beaten, that's all!" "They weren't raped?" said Crease. "Seems they only wanted that white meat!" said Sunny-Bugs. "You might remember the girl, too, Crease! She was with Colin Landis!" "What?" said Fish. "You mean,..!" said Grate. "Oh, no!" said Eric. "No!" "She means...!" said Yancy. "Yeah," said Cander. "We only saw her..,,!" "You saw her?" said Creaseâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Then you knew her?" said Sunny-Bugs.

"Andrea Tassy dead!" said E r i c "Yeah, that's it!" said Sunny-Bugs. "That's the name! Andrea Tassy.

The eyes were staring but the face didn't look like death! She was still beautiful on the parking stand!"

"They jumped all four of them!" said Yancy. "It's the new thing in Harlem," said Sunny-Bugs. "They call it 'mug!'"

"Murderer!" said Eric.

"Why don't we all sit down and get ourselves together?" said Crease. "It's all been too much." But 48

as they all sat down finally, still another girl burst in, screaming, "They know who did it! They know who did it!" All stood up! "Who, Weedy?" said Crease. "For God's sake, who?" "Yeah, who?" said Sunny-Bugs.

"Big-Moors, Dotley, Lando, the Banjo Twins, others. They're all being hunted!" said Weedyo "Maniacs!" growled Eric.

"The police caught kids hiding on the roof!" said Weedy. "And the kids said that when Big-Moors couldn't have her first, he snatched her up and tossed her screaming off the roof, shouting, I don't fuck behind nobody! They fuck behind me!"

"That crazy bastard!" roared E r i c "I told you our men are terrible!" said a girl 0 "I didn't know Harlem's men were like this!" said Eric.

"I didn't either!" said Grate. "But I know it now!"

"God-damn, mother-fucken, rob, rape, and murder!" screamed Eric, but then someone knocked on Crease's door again. She opened it and looked down, "What is it, Little-Three?" she said, "They told me to hold your door open while they talked," said Little-Three. "They? Who?" said Crease.

"Me, Big-Moors," shouted a voice from a lower unlighted floor. "Listen carefully, you know I don't play!"

"I'm listening," said Creaseo "What do you want?" hollered YancyÂť "Every God-damn nickle, you niggers," ordered Big-Moorso "Or you're all physic-jello!"

Several girls in the apartment screamed! "Please don't," pleaded Creaseâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Oh, God!" moaned SunnyBugs o "Haven't you done enough?" screamed Weedy.

"We don't have any money, mother-fucker! yelled Grateo "Then you're all physic-jello! Mother-fuckers!" shouted up Big-Moors.

"So are you!" blasted down Eric. "Murr-dur-fuckkurs!"

"Shut up, Eric!" yelled Yancyo "The hell I will!" shouted Eric. "'Mug'-Murr-dur49

fuck-kurs!" and he plunged down the stairs,his big frame filling all space and Yancy, Grate, Fish, and Cander trying to stop him, calling, "Wait, Eric! We're out-numbered!" but Eric filled the stairs so that whatever was in front of him couldn't be seen nor could it pass him in the darkness!

Nothing was said further until contact was made, and then the swearing and blow-sounding filled up the hall and darkness! "We gotta help him!" shouted Yancy, taking off with the others behind him, but everything was soot dark as they ran down the stairs and onto the next landinga They couldn't see who to hit! "Keep back of me!" roared Eric.

"I've got em! Murr-dur-fuck-kurs! Killers! Robbers!

Andrea Tassy! Andrea Tassy! Andrea Tassy!" he screached again and again! A man yelled, and everyone knew it was a yell from one falling! His body thudded in the darkened hall below! Another fell the same way! Then another! Women jammed in the door of Crease's apartment screamed repeatedly!

Other apartment doors were never opened^ "Three down! You murr-dur-fuck-kurs!" roared Eric.

"Bitch! Mother-fucker!" A man screamed like a woman as he went over the bannister,, "Where are you, Big-Moors? It's you I want! Murr-dur-fuck-kur!"

Another body thudded below in the darkened hall after a terrifying yell! "Hear em, Big-Moors! Your men! Where are you, bitch? Andrea Tassy. Andrea Tassy!" Another man woman-screamed and thudded below on the othersâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; Women from Crease's apartment continued to scream, too, every now and thenc "Ah-h-h-h! I'm cut!" yelled Grate. Another man yelled as he went over the bannister0 "I got him, Grate! I got him!" blasted Ericc "Moors! Moors!

Where are you, murr-dur?!" But it was so dark it was just impossible to see who was who 0 Everybody was swinging, punching at random! Slashing and cutting! Only Eric seemed to know his way in the dark0 Yet he couldn't find Big-Moors or make him talk again. Two different guns flashed and sounded several times in the darkness and were still going off as their users were hurled over the bannister, 50

yelling as they fell, A door slammed very hard suddenly!

"Big-Moors?!" bellowed Eric, "Murr-dur-fuck-kur!"

And he went up against the slammed door and broke it open with battle-ramming force! Inside he could hear someone dashing, slamming doors, plunging through windows, shattering glass everywhere as he seemingly went through the woodwork! Eric got his hands on something! "Don't hurt me, mister! Don't hurt me!

Please! I'm Little-Three!" hollered Little-Three.

"Oh," said Eric and let Little-Three go! But as he did something moved in the darkness. And with mongoose speed and octopus coiling skill he had it!

"Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha! Murr-dur! God-damn!" bellowed Eric. "Can't move, huh?" And moving with his prey like he could see in the darkness he found the door. "Not talking, Big-Moors, huh? Playing the game to the last, huh? I know I gotcha, murr-dur!

Over the bannister! I want to hear ya yell and fall!"

"Please! Please! in the name of God, Jesus, Mary, John and Mother-Joseph! Please! Please! I'll suck your dick!" pleaded Big-Moors. "Don't throw me over the bannister! Please!"

"Your time has come!" shouted Eric. "ANDREA TASSY! OVER THE BANNISTER! MURR-DUR-FUCK-KUR!!!"

"Hold it! HOLD IT!" shouted several voices below as Eric posed to hurl Big-Moors down! And as he looked, he saw swarms and swarms of blue uniforms holding revolvers on him and running up the stairs, Yancy, Grate, Fish and Cander grabbed him and held him to back up the officers' orders. "Let him go!" ordered an officer,, And Eric obeyed, releasing BigMoors who fell like a soaked dish cloth and crumbled on the hard marble floor with pitiful helplessness!

"They tried to kill us and rob us!" thundered Eric. "That's right!" shouted Creaseâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "They were defending themselves!" yelled Sunny-Bugsâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "All right!

All right!" said the police sergeant, "Let's hear it from you, Crease!" Crease told the law everything, with some angry and enthusiastic assists from SunnyBugs and Weedy and a chorus of approval and endorsement every now and then from Crease's gang of girls, 51

The law handcuffed and lined up Big-Moors and his band of muggers and Big-Moors hung his head down.

"We're going to come down hard on this new thing that's happening in Harlem!" said the police sergeant. "You can't come down hard enough!" rasped Sunny-Bugs. "They're ruining Harlem!" "I know," said the sergeantc "I was born here,," "And I used to love to come here," said Eric. But that was the last thing he said. While the others were talking, several ambulances arrived and took away the injured and deadc And after taking statements at the station house, the fivesome and girls were all released o "I wish you'd all come back again," said Crease, "Especially Eric."

"Oh, I don't know," said Grateo "It's been good and hectic, too."

"Our best time and our worse," said Yancy0 "It was life: good and bad," said Sunny-Bugs„

LUCIA Louise Napolitano

Lucia's come to mind again, swirling capes, electric hair, anger like an open wound„ Touch it and she screams her rage, washing the crowd around her in blood and private memories«, Ten years ago, her paintings hung invisibly, vividly framed in her every wordo She spent her nights cataloguing colors, flashes 52

of color while dashing down foreign streets, down bannered Roman alleyways splattered with peasant men carrying their wives and gods and table wine in black sacks on their backs.

Sometimes she'd buy a seat in a cafe, sit and smile at the waitersâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; They'd see her coming blocks away, bless themselves and pray she'd pass them by o Lucia always asked if they knew the color of God's hair, Lucia, I'm recording my memories of you. oo Flying through rain-scrubbed piazzas, tearing through the staring mobs to your home all alone. O0 On your balcony at dusk cooing to a flock of doves flapping at the garret window across the way, a misplaced Hilda, there to catch and caress their tired wings.., Kneeling and reeling from the wine and grass, grasping your battered life to your heart like some

53

crazy sculptor's copy of the Pieta...

I've carried your cries,your blasphemous, clawing cries to every bed, bar, country and state I've visited.

Lucia, you've come to mind again, a dark, single figure. Did you love my ancient soul or the newborn dreams I offered in frightened, silent homage?

Heroines die and so do dreams. You're a decade away and I've taken to stalking streets and city alleys trying to remember the color of your hair.

A TOUCH OF ALIMONY (Mrs. Penny Invokes The Finger Clause) MR. PENNY WAS playing the piano when Mrs. Penny arrived from the city. She honked twice as was her custom and entered the house through the kitchen, letting the screen door bang shut behind her. She was accompanied by two workmen.

"Hello, Harold," she said at the doorway to the music room, and one of the workmen, a heavyset man with broad, good-natured features, preceded her into the room and laid his tool box on the piano bench beside Mr. Penny. "Sorry to barge in on you this way, MrÂť Penny," he said. "It's on account of 54

the alimony check was three and a half days late this montho" "It's about the finger clause, isn't it?" Mr, Penny asked, rising unsteadily from the bench, "I'm afraid it is," the workman said, and he began arranging his tools on the music stand, "I don't like this business anymore than you do, believe me I don't, Mr. Penny. And you seem like a nice fellow, too o " "I know you're only doing your job," Mr, Penny said, shaking his head, "Don't worry; I won't struggle. But it's a damn shame, isn't it?"

"That's exactly what it is," the workman agreed.

"There ought to be a law." He signalled to his partner across the room and the two of them escorted Penny to a table by the window, Mrs, Penny had in the meanwhile withdrawn to the living room where she went about inspecting the furniture for dust. She was convinced that since their divorce Mr. Penny had been steadily going to seed. It was with chagrin that she now discovered he had not. The room was pleasantly arranged, if modestly furnished; clean, though hardly immaculate; and if it lacked the woman's touch, it made up for it with the mark of a happy bachelor who neither wanted nor needed the interference of a female. A milkweed floated lazily in through the open window and she pounced on it, crushing the spore into a ball between her fingers, and flicking it into the fireplace, "Do you want 'em yanked or severed?" the workman called out from the music room, Mrs, Penny seemed distracted by a spider who had taken up housekeeping in one of Penny's bookshelves. The workman came out into the hallway and stood at the entrance to the living room, "Mrs. Penny," he said, "Do you want we should cut them off at the knuckle or yank 'em out of their sockets?"

"Oh, yank them out, I suppose," she murmured.

The spider was ministering to its lunch, a small ordinary housebug who had wandered carelessly up the spine of Thurber's "Men, Women and Dog," The 55

workman returned to the music room and a moment later there was a squeal, followed by silence and then another squeal. The workman reappeared at the door.

"We got two of 'em, Ma'am," he said, "You want the third?"

Mrs. Penny looked up from the bookshelf. Her face betrayed a hint of anguish,, "What does the agreement say?" she asked, "The agreement calls for three," the workman replied . "But sometimes they only want us to take two," Mrs. Penny looked annoyed, "You know I have no head for figures," she said. "Didn't Mr. Hemlock tell you anything?" Mr, Hemlock was Mrs. Penny's lawyer.

"Sure, he told us to take all three," the workman answered, "It's just that in some cases the women decide, that is, they figure two is enough," "If Mr, Hemlock said three, there must be a good reason for it," Mrs, Penny said.

The workman nodded and left again; but he returned a moment later, "The agreement calls for the pinky of the left hand," he explained. "But Mr, Penny asked if we could make it the ring finger. He says he needs his pinky to play octaves," Mrs. Penny looked undecided. "It's only a formality," the workman added hurriedly. "The law says you got to specify which fingers go and which stay; but it's only a formalityâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; I know a lady once what substituted a kneecap for two thumbs and an index. You could ask Mr. Hemlock."

"That won't be necessary," Mrs. Penny said, "I don't want to be one of those unreasonable women you always hear about. Heaven knows I've tried to cooperate since the beginning. It's just I have to protect myself. If it's more convenient for Harold to keep his pinky, by all means let him keep it."

The workman regarded Mrs. Penny with admiration, and he paid her the highest, indeed the only, compliment which occurred to him at that momeht: "You're a lady," he said simply, "Mrs. Penny, you're 56

a true lady."

Mrs, Penny blushed, "Does it come with or without?" she asked then, "Does what come with or without?" the workman asked, "Why the ring finger," Mrs, Penny replied,, "Does it come with or without the ring?"

The workman looked vexed. "Well, 1 couldn't rightly say, Ma'am," he said then, "They didn't tell me nothing about no ring."

"I see," Mrs« Penny said, and then added: "It's not even that I want it, you understand. It's just that I have to protect myself," The workman nodded and departed once more.

Left alone, Mrs 0 Penny redid her make-up and continued her tour of the room. There were photographs on the mantelpiece and as her eyes scanned the assemblage for the intrusion of new faces, she found herself staring at an image she had all but forgotten. It was her wedding picture. She recognized a dashing Harold with his head full of hair, and her own younger, braver self„ They were holding hands, their gaze was firm and direct, and they were both smiling out at her as though there were no tomorrow,She dabbed at her cheek where a single tear had run a wet track across her freshly powdered face.

There was a third and final groan from the music room and shortly after all three men eme ged into the hallway. The first workman, in addition to his toolbox was carrying a small black packet0 Penny's hands were wrapped in bandages, "Well, that's the lot of them," the workman said to Mrs o Penny„ "Would you like them now, or do you want to wait until we get home?"

"Oh, it's all so sordid," Mrs,, Penny said, fluttering her hands, "Just deliver them to Mr, Hemlock's office. He'll know what to do with them," They made their way to the door= "Well, Harold, take care of yourself," Mrs, Penny said. "You won't mind if I don't shake hands

57

with you?"

Penny smiled meekly at his ex-wife's pleasantry.

"Of course not, Miriam. You take care of yourself, too."

Mrs. Penny bit her lip. "You keep the ring, Harold," she said then. "I do so want to be fair.

I couldn't stand it if you thought I weren't." Impulsively she reached up and planted a kiss on Penny's cheek,, Then she turned smartly and marched to her car.He caught the screen door with some difficulty just before it slammedo The two workmen had been waiting at their van and they now waved to Penny across the lawn. He waved back,, "Such a nice fellow," the first workman said.

"Sure," his partner agreed. "And usually they put up such a fuss."

"Such a nice fellow," the first workman repeated, "I didn't have the heart to tell him we'd be back tomorrow for the feet."

DREAM Adeline Hooper

I CAN HEAR my father's footsteps as he enters the house. He slams the door and puts the mail on the kitchen counter,. The fur on his Russian hat has frozen into little spikesâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; His nose is red. He does not speak. He sits down across from me at the table, His eyes scan the room and they are glazed.

"Your mother is dead," he says 0 "Smoke enveloped her and held onto her chest. Her lungs filled., The space for air inside her body became smaller and smaller."

My chest constricts. I can barely push my lungs out before they are sucked ino It grows increasingly more difficult to breathe. My arms feel as 58

though they are struggling for flight, I take in one long breath and then move my arms and legs and head away from themselves, I divide into pieces.

At first solid bits of me float about, and then I become, for a moment, synthesized with the air.

Relatives appear outside the house, dressed in bright colors. They yell out commands to one another in an attempt to organize a game, I return to my body which is seated at the table in the dining room. Its muscles are tense as I reenter its confineso The room is dark. A little late afternoon light allows me to see clear, but muted objectso The colors are tones of silvery brown.

My mother enters from outdoorsâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; She is dressed as my father was before in a Russian hat and heavy winter clothes. Her face is brown and lined. She looks healthy. She is not dead. She does not greet me, Her attention is on the dining room table. It is covered with many typed pages. She examines them and assigns them to piles.

Without looking at me, she says, "Your brother has died," "How did it happen?" I ask.

She tilts her head sideways and looks down. She does not answer.

My throat pulls tight, "How did he die?"

She stares at the papers on the table. Slowly she picks up one and studies it, I use my voice to intimidate, "Just how did he die?"

She examines a spot on the table, "You aren't going to tell me, are you?" I say. She cleans the spot with her finger.

59

LILY Andrew Ro Cohen

Time was music with Lily It came of cacophony and symphony And by chance, early, Certain autumn mornings The aroma of coffee Brewing over small fires; and the slow jazz of waking„„„ When Lily was inspired Music became light And was so suspended, and she'd dance Indefinitely—in the clearing; Her feet through the leaves Like small brooms sweeping time,,

IN THE MIRROR Michaele L. Weissman

I AM HAVING my hair cut by a short, slight, bearded man, who moves quickly around me. I am sitting on a green bar stool„ There is no mirror or if there is a mirror it is draped the way a portrait painter drapes a canvas. The place where I am having my hair cut is dark, there is no window, no natural light,, In front of me is a shelf cluttered with painter's rags, oily and stained many colors. There are many small jars of paint, purple paint, lavender really, red paint, and green paint, the same color as the bar stool where I site There are lots of small brushes, sable brushes, those lovely silky things, only these brushes have not been cleaned, they are dirty and the soft 60

sable hairs stick together., The man cutting my hair is silent and so am I o He moves around me like a small, quick animal. His face has the intelligence of a small, quick animal-a raccoon maybe. Yes, a raccoon. His hands are dainty like a raccoon's hands and his hair is thick with yellow glints like a raccoon's. His eyes dart. He watches my hair take shape. He never looks at my faceo He takes a snippet from one side, then moves to the other side and takes a snippet from there. I watch my hair--which is thick, light brown and curly, but not so glinty blond as the raccoon-man's --fall to the floor. The floor is wood, with wide, rough, paint-stained slats. The rest of the room is vague--shapes covered with painter's drop cloths.

The cloths are old ones, grey, grimy, spattered with white painto After a long time the haircutter speaks,"You can look now," he says. He holds a small hand mirror so I can see the back. Now there is a tall mirror in front of me too, the draping has disappeared. I look in the mirror, I stare at myself. I am a bird, perched on a green bar stool, on four sharp, yellow claw-feet, I am a green-bodied cockatoo with an elaborately coifed turquoise crest. My crest has been cut so that it is blunt on top, I stare at my bird body--my feathers gleem like jungle vines when the sun shines on them after a rainstorm, I stare at myself out of a sharp tiny red eye. My beak looks cruel, it is sharp and horny. On the floor, a brown oily stain slowly spreads across the room.

How I love to use my jars of paint and ointment, anoint myself, and decorate myself and lie back and wait to be admired and petted. And yet being that painted bird is monstrous to me.

The yellow claws I have is my anger. The cruel beak I have is my anger. The stain spreading across the floor is my anger.

61

NEW MOON Davida Singer

I am learning again to say love In this open bed like an open boat I study your eyes green and warm as oceans used to be.

December is cold and I want you,, Later in the night I will lean toward you, your eyes like patient syllables like words leading me on, You will astonish gently like a new moon.

Silently my body will pronounce you and then my lips begin to move,

THE WHITE PONTIAC Kate Cambridge

IT WAS DEFINITELY following us, hugging our tail as we neared the bottom of the hill. Sandy didn't turn on Calle Principal, but kept on down the hill, gathering speed, the wheels rocketing off bumps and chuck-holes.

"Where are you going?" I screamed, "I don't know<,oocalm down! Who JLS that back there?"

"Sandy, I think we'd better go back up in the hills, it's the only way to lose them!"

"No, it's too close to home, they'd only have to cruise around the neighborhood until they found the Catnaro, I wish I knew if they were from out of town. I could lose 'em in the woods behind 62

the theatreo" I slid down in the bucket seat and hunched over my knees» "Sandy, I think they're from Fort Ord. Those three guys who were in the coffee house tonight."

"Naw, they left a little while after you and Dusty started singing."

"Maybe they never left." My teeth were beginning to chatter. "I saw that car parked down the street while you and Tom were making out on the bench," She took her eyes from the road for a full second to study my face, "Okay," she said, settling herself over the wheel„ "I'm going to try the woods."

We bounced through the red light at Alvarado, where a few men still lounged outside an all-night bar. They shouted after us, but Sandy slammed the accelerator and made a sharp right up a side street with the Pontiac hot behind.

"I bet somebody went to call the cops," I said, hanging on to the padded dash as we shot across San Carlos. "If you get another speeding ticket you'll lose your license, you know."

"I'll tell 'em these maniacs were chasing me," said Sandyo "What was I supposed to do?"

She rocketed up Fremont and took the narrow back way into the woody residential area near the movie theatre where she worked. The roads here curved and twisted back upon themselves, often turning abruptly into cul-de-sacs„ Sandy knew the neighborhood well, and she put the Pontiac through a difficult course, but it soon became clear that she couldn't shake ito She gave up and headed back toward Monterey, furrowing her brow in concentration„ "I better try for speed," she said finally, making a right turn toward the highway. "What do you think? North or south?"

The Pontiac was still with us as we came out at Peter's Gate, and without waiting for my opinion, Sandy turned south on Highway 1» On Carmel Hill the road was steep and narrow„ Plans were underway for a broader and more gradual route over the hill, but 63

construction was only half finished.

"Let's see that big pile of junk try to keep up with me now!" muttered Sandy, attacking the hill.

The Pontiac did fall behindâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; As we rounded the crest I looked back and saw them a good quarter mile down the hill o Sandy took her foot off the gas as we hit the new road at the peak and glided across the plateau. I looked over at her nervous ly0 "What's the matter? Keep going! I can get us lost in Carmel, or we can go to my parents if we absolutely have to."

"Can't take the chance," she said. "I may run out of gas. I'm gonna have to let them catch us."

I stared at her and she grinned. "I don't mean really catch us. That's just what they're gonna think!"

At that moment, the Pontiac's headlights flashed up and over the hill, blinding us in the mirror. It closed in until it was a few feet from the Camaro's back bumper. As we came almost abreast of the Jack's Peak access road, Sandy cut a hard left and spun away up the shoulder, half on the loop, half on the grassy median. The driver of the Pontiac missed the exit. Looking back, I saw a flash of white tail fins disappear behind an elbow of the forest,, "Fantastic!" I shrieked, clutching her shoulder.

She slowed and turned off onto Jack's Peak,, "Keep watching!" she orderedâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "They know where we are 0 Where are we?" She peered ahead at the bumpy road rising into the forest.

A spot of light glowed and grew brighter down on the highway, and the Pontiac came into view in the wrong lane. With a protest of rubber it shortcutted the shoulder onto the loop and came after us.

"Oh shit!" Sandy moaned, and she looked at me viciously. "You've lived here all your life. You get us out of this!"

I tried to think. "There's a stable up here. I 64

used to ride horseback here when I was a kid. I might remember the trails," "That's terrific, Pocahontas," said Sandy through her teeth. "You'd be real valuable if we had a couple of horses. No can drive car on trail, get it?"

I leaned forward and peered through the windshield. The moon was heeling down, throwing the unlit road into the shadow of the thick pine forest.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the Pontiac gaining on us. They could speed because they had an objective --we were it--but we were lost. Our headlights picked up a signboard made from a ring of redwood trunk: JACK'S PEAK RIDING ACADEMY. SADDLE HORSES FOR HIRE. "The stable!" I shouted. Suddenly I was ten years old with two skinny braids slapping my back as I cantered up to the top of this very ridge on a young black mare. I screamed, "Go up as far as you can and turn left!"

Sandy gunned the engine and sped off toward the top0 She took the left on two wheels, "Slow down!"

I shouted. "Watch for a cut down the right side of the ridge!"

We were at the peak before we realized we were no longer being followed^ Sandy pulled into a turnout under a clump of live oaks and shut off the motor. Only the creak of ciacadas and the rhythmic roll of far-off breakers came through the open windows.. We got out, closing the car doors quietly, and walked to the top of the bluffâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; It had grown much darker, the failing moon had given way to starlight, cold and blue. Morning fog inched low across the bay toward Monterey, a bracelet of lights on the arm of the peninsula. I took slow breaths of the damp air tasting of pine and salt and gazed, down at the black woodsâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "I can't see them anywhere," said Sandy. "Do you think they gave up and went home?"

"They might be hiding, expecting us to turn around and come down the same way."

"Well, there's no way we can find out. We can't see the highway from here,," "You can see almost everything else though," I 65

sighed. "Look! Isn't it beautiful?"

"Come on, Nature Girl. Let's get out of here* Where's that other way down?"

We spotted the old road not more than a hundred yards away. As we walked back to the car, Sandy squeezed my arm* "I'll always remember tonight," she said, "It's the night I fell in love," I hugged her* "Are you really sure?"

She twirled about in the middle of the road with her arms out and her head thrown back,, "I'm so HAPEEEEEE!" Her echo rose back to us out of the canyon. I waited with my hands on my hips until she had stopped spinning0 "Get in the car, you nut."

Sandy darted down the steep gashes of the narrow road with gleeo I begged her to slow downo "Please, Sandy., No one's after us now!"

"Where does this road come out anyway?" she asked.

"Just over the top of Carmel Hill."

"On the old road?" I noddedâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Good. We'll skirt Monterey and pick up Lighthouse down by the wharf," I sighed deeply and settled down in the bucket seat0 "Sandy, I think you were really enjoying yourself back thereâ&#x20AC;&#x17E;" "I was," she grinned. "I was kinda sorry we had to lose them."

As we rounded a steep bank, the old road ended abruptly. "I thought you said this road went through!" Sandy yelled, braking hard and stopping in a cloud of dust.

"It didO.owhen I was ten!"

But the road had succumbed to the highway project. Sandy shifted into reverse, backed up, shifted again and started slowly down the gravel roado "Sandy!" I protested. "We're gonna come out on the loop again!"

"Do you have any other suggestions?"

We bounced out onto the smooth surface of the highway. Sandy veered right, heading for the high road back to Monterey,, There was a sudden roar be66

hind us, and with a flash of headlights the Pontiac shot out from the trees at the side of the road and aimed for our tail- "Hang on!" cried Sandy. "I'm going over the P.G. Cutoff!"

I gripped the dash until my knuckles threatened to poke through the skin. The Pacific Grove Cutoff was the most notorious stretch of road on the whole peninsula. It traced the edge of the forest, playing hide and seek with sheer cliffs dropping to the sand dunes below. The city had erected low guard-rails at the exposed points along the road, but cars still went over the cliffs, taking the rails with them— and the rails weren't replaced.

With the Pontiac close behind, we plunged off the cloverleaf into the forest and rounded the first swooping curve. I shut my eyes, opening them just as we came out into the first clearing. The moon hung low and yellow over the thick shroud of fog which sent long,misty tatters trailing through the canyons and valleys all along the coast.

The pines swallowed up the road again, hiding the moon. The Pontiac had lost ground on the curve, but I could still see the dim glow of its headlights on the road behind us. We passed the new community hospital which announced the worst leg of the Cutoff, a hairpin turn flanked by a straightaway on both north and south approaches. I shut my eyes again and felt Sandy whip the Camaro into the stretch. I knew the guard rail was down. Behind my eyes ran a ticker tape of headlines from the Herald; ".oofatal accident on P 0 G 0 Cutoff„..driver exceeding the speed limit..„listed as dead are the driver and..."

I felt the moonlight hit my face and the world swung sharply to the right. Almost immediately it was dark again. I opened my eyes and saw the road stretching straight before us.

"Thank God...we made it," I sighed.

"Made what?" asked Sandy. Then she caught my eye and grinned. "A piece of cake!"

I looked back at the empty road behind us.

"Sandy.o.where are they?"

67

"I beat 'em off the mark back there. This car is pure speed!" She kissed the steering wheel.

"Sandy, what if they went off the cliff?"

"They didn't go off the cliff, babyface. They'll be along in a second. Watch the road."

But the Pontiac didn't appear. My eyes strained for the sight of headlights. "Sandy! They're not back there! Oh, Godt,.do you think they really did go over?"

"Don't be so dramatic," said Sandy, but her eyes kept returning to the mirror.

Ahead of us I could see the lights of the liquor stores running down Del Monte Hill which would lead us home.

"We have to do something!" I shook her shoulder.

"Maybe they're still alive and need help!"

"Well, we're not going back there. We'll go home and you can call the police."

"It'll take too long," I wailed0 "There's a phone booth at the gas station on top of the hill.

Stop there!"

The road behind us was still dark as we crested the hill. "Just after the light...there!"

The light was red, but Sandy flashed through the deserted intersection and pulled up to the curb. I leaped out of the car and ran for the phone booth. But the phone was dead and I turned helplessly back to Sandy* "There's another phone across the street on the corner!" she shouted out the window,, I sprinted into the street, but right in the middle my pale jeans and sweater caught in the glare of headlights,, I heard the Camaro start up and turned to see it rolling to meet me with its door swinging wide, and looming over the hill beyond, the white Pontiac. Sandy slowed but didn't stop as I caught at the door and clambered into the car, twisting my left ankle. She was bellowing as we raced down the hill through a blur of neon.

"I should have known it was a trap! We did exactly what they wanted us to do! What's driving that thing, a computer? This is all your fault. 'Maybe they need help,' my ass! How could I fall for it?"

68

"What do we do now?" I said weakly, "You got me."

We passed the roads leading into the neighborhoods of New Monterey. We passed our own block, Sandy stared straight ahead as if hypnotized. The lights from the strip of liquor stores ended abruptly as we crossed the railroad tracks, and we were in Pacific Groveâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; "Sandy!" She wasn't reacting,, Her eyes were glassy, "Sandy, the Pacific Grove police station's on Forest Avenueo I think we'd better go there," The headlight behind us were growing brighter.

Like a winded horse, the Camaro was slacking its pace, "Make the next right," I directed, "It's coming up in a second. Here it is!" But Sandy rolled through the intersection as if she hadn't heard, "Turn right!" I screamed, "We're going toward the beach!"

But it was too late. We were spinning along between the tall pines and seaside cottages. In a moment we would be out on the dunes and sea-marsh of Asilomar. If the Pontiac caught us out there on that open desolate road! I dug my nails into Sandy's arm, "Wake up! Sandy, what's the matter with you?" She began to tremble and her breath came as if she were gagging.

"I'm scared...I'm scared!" Her eyes brimmed and a tear spilled onto her bare knee.

I took a deep gulp of air. "I'd be scared too, if I wasn't with the best driver in Monterey County."

She blinked and swallowed, trying to smile, "You only have to keep going a little longer," I urged. "Just across the beach. Then we can cut off the coast and go straight up Lighthouse to the police," "I'll try," she sniffled, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand.

The silo of the sand plant flashed by the left window and suddenly we were in the open. But the horizon had disappeared in fog and we were surrounded by gray nothingness before we saw it coming, Un69

consciously, Sandy flicked on the low beams, and I prayed that she was reviving. We couldn't see or hear the Pontiac behind us. Only some sixth sense told us it was there.

The road narrowed to a single lane flanked by sandy shoulders, Sandy had to slow and devote her entire attention to staying on the road. All at once the Pontiac roared out of the mist and nosed alongside us, forcing us to the left. I looked out my window and saw the battered white fender, its paint chipped and rusted, lunging for the Camaro's sleek flank.

"They're trying to force us off the road!" I shouted.

Sandy gripped the wheel as if she and the car were one animal. I knew we were done for if a car was moving through the fog in the southbound lane0 "What's that?" Sandy shrieked, as her lights picked up a row of metal reflectors ahead on our left.

"It's a lookout!"

We had reached the northern stretch of Asilomar, where the coast broke into rocky points and little crescent coves. Without hesitating, Sandy hung a hard left down the narrow drive bordered with jagged granite markersâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; As she hoped, the Pontiac shot past us on the main road, but it turned in at the north end of the drive and came at us until we were blinded by the headlights and Sandy had to slam on the brake.

I looked at her. "Now what?"

"Let's see how smart they really are. Is your door locked?"

"Of course!"

"Roll up your window. We're safe. They can't get any closer without slicing up their tires on those rocks, and they don't dare get out of the care" But two of them did. Their dark shapes loomed up out of the fog swirling in the glare of four headlights.

"Here they come,, Boy, are they stupid! crowed 70

Sandy,sounding like her old self.

"What are you waiting for? Can't this car go backwards?"

"We got time. They just blew it. Let's see what they want."

"Are you out of your MIND?" She shot me a steely look. "They're expecting me to back up! Let 'em relax for a few minutesâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; I need every second of lead I can get, so we have to catch ! em with their pants down."

I looked at her in horror, and in spite of everything she grinned.

"That was a joke,," The face of one of the soldiers from Fort Ord appeared in my window like a Halloween mask and another leered in at Sandy,, The began pounding on the car, rocking it back and forth, until Sandy rolled down her window a fraction of an inch. They sauntered over to the crack,. They were bigger than I remembered, and older too. One of them had a sharp black crew cut and the other, the man who had toasted me with the coffee mug, was almost bald, "Well, now," said the bald soldier,, "Didn't we have the pleasure of meeting you ladies earlier this evening?"

Crew Cut slapped him on the back, and the bald soldier smiled, revealing a gold front tooth,, "Yeah, I'm sure that was you," he continued, "Down at that fancy-schmancy coffee house. 'Course you had all your handmaidens around you then, all them fairy-boys from up on the hill,. Prob'ly you didn't notice there was any men aroundâ&#x20AC;&#x17E;" "What do you want?" Sandy spat out.

"Well, now.o.baby, you don't have to sound so cross! All we was doin1 was lookin' out for your safety. D'ya know you were speeding back there?

Them's mighty dangerous curveso You coulda' been killed! We decided we better keep an eye on you."

"Yeah," said Crew Cut o "We wouldn't wanna see you get this classy car all scratched up!" He ran his hand along the fender,, Even in the weak light I 71

saw Sandy's face go pale. o°the car! They were after the car!

"Why don't you leave us alone?" Her voice was low and deadly. The gold-toothed soldier pushed his face up against the window, his eyes even with the slit. His breath was so strong it seemed to come in through the glass, overpowering the smell of salt and rotting kelp.

"Well, we thought we might like to get to know you better first,, „ oseein' as we missed out on our chance before, I'm Jesse and this here's Alvin."

"Who's the guy in the car?" asked Sandy, "What makes you think there's a guy in the car?"

"You wouldn't get out without leaving somebody behind the wheel„" Jesse and Alvin had a good laugh, and then Jesse said, "You're a real crafy piece, Sandy.„„that's your name, isn't it, Sandy? And your friend there, the little songbird, what's she called?"

Neither of us said a word. I could hear the thunder and hiss of the surf over the idling motors.

"Well, girls," said Jesse, curling his hands over the window, trying to pull the glass down with his fat, hairy knuckles. "Well, I wanna say that it's been a pleasure playing hide and seek with you this evening, but fun's fun and I got something serious I wanna talk to you about, Sandy, so why don't you open that door and come sit in my car?

Alvin'll take good care of the songbird."

"Go to hell," Sandy hissedo Jesse's eyes narrowed, "Now, Sandy, that just ain't very good manners„„.puttin1 out for the Navy and what-all and neglecting the U.S. Army o " "Fuck the Army!"

He licked his lips. "The Army wasn't what I had in mind."

"What are you planning to do?" There was a quaver in her voice„ "Break the windows?"

I thought of the rocks alongside the road and out of the corner of my eye I glanced at Sandy» She was trembling slightly, but her eyes kept darting to the rear view mirror mapping the route she would 72

have to steer backwards between the jagged stones.

"Yeah, we could break the windows," said Alvin.

"Or we could set fire to your gas tank, but then that'd be such a waste of a fine machine."

"The simplest thing would be for you to just open the door, but if you won't...well, then, you won't.

But Sandy, honey," Jesse's voice grew low and threatening, "I got a special tool in the car. I'll have that door off its hinges in thirty seconds."

"And then I'll show you a special tool I brought," sneered Alvin, leaning close to the window, but Jesse elbowed him aside and shouted toward the Pontiac.

"Hey, Ed! Dig out the toolbox, would ya? It's under the front seat. I'll come get it, Ed. You stay in the car," He flashed his gold tooth at Sandy.

"It ain't here," came a voice from beyond the headlights.

"Look under the passenger side, you-moron!"

Alvin and Jesse took a few steps toward the Pontiac and Sandy, pausing only long enough for Ed to bend down under the seat, snapped the parking brake off with her left hand and rammed the stick into reverse with her right. The idling motor lept into action and we roared backwards. All I could see behind us was a wall of fog glowing red in the tail lights. The soldiers and the Pontiac were swallowed up. I watched the headlights grow smaller and dimmer until they were gone altogether. We felt a bump as the rear wheels hit the main roadway, and then we were sailing along through the fog, laughing with tears rolling down our cheeks.

"I never thought we'd get out of that!"

"Ye of little faith," said Sandy.

But the soldiers, having caught their prey and lost it, were not about to be beaten a second time0 The Pontiac caught us on the last straight run, where flowering ice-plant covered the sloping shoulders of the road. With a burst of angry speed, the Pontiac drew abreast, nudging the Camaro. But Sandy held her ground, and the two cars sped along as if joined at the axles, each with two wheels on the road 73

and two on the shoulder. I could see Jesse behind the wheel, his face glowing with triumph in the light from the dash. There was a jolt and a crunching sound as the Pontiac's bumper scraped along the Camaro's racing stripe, but still Sandy held on. In a white flash the Pontiac shot ahead and turned into our path, cutting us off.

"We're going to crash!" I screamed, as Sandy veered onto the shoulder.

But Jesse had misjudged the angle of the slope oocthe Pontiac floated off the shoulder and came to rest on the beach with its nose in a sand dune and its fins in the air. The Camaro stumbled and slid on the ice-plant, but Sandy guided it back onto the road. She shoved the pedal to the floor and let out a whinny.

"Let's just hope that slows 'em down for a while!"

I stared. "Do you think they'd come after us again?"

"I wouldn't put anything past that guy Jesse."

"But they wrecked their car?"

She gave me a look of exasperation., "No they did not wreck the car. They went into a sand dune.

That's like landing in cotton. If they can pull that buggy out, they'll be backo I_f_, of course, there isn't too much sand in the engine, and _if_ they can make it back onto the road without getting stuck againÂŤ" "And if they didn't get killed," I added.

"You have this fixation with people getting killed. Stop worrying. What we need to do is find a good place to hide where we can see them go by."

"Hide? Aren't we going home?"

"Can't risk it. Look."

My eyes followed her finger to the gas gauge where the needle lay motionless on the line below Empty. "I told you before I was low on gas 0 " I was glad I had forgotten. "Besides," she was saying, "I'm not going to feel safe unless I know for sure that they've given up and gone home o Where can we park where we can watch the road without them

74

j

seeing us?"

We began to rise up the slight grade near the end of the run and the fog grew thinner- Through the misty veil I spotted a qonset shed ahead on the right, set well back from the road, "Sandy!

Turn up that driveway!" She switched off the lights as she made the turn and nosed her way along in the gloomo The driveway ended in a parking area next to the shed, empty and screened from view by a steelmesh fenceo "This is perfect," Sandy gloated as she pulled the car in close to the shed. "We can see practically the whole road from here!"

"But then maybe they could see us."

"Naw, you can't see this far from the road, not a black car anyway, and this thing will keep us covered, whatever it is." She glanced at the quonset roof. "They may not even see it. Look, fog's coming in!" All along the coast it was advancing, muffling the rhythm of the surf„ The moon had slipped below the horizon, but the sky was growing lighter.

"It'll be daylight soon," I said, "Shouldn't they be here by now?"

"Shit, maybe they went by already." Sandy bit her lip. But at that moment the Pontiac appeared out of a cloud. Sandy squeezed my hand and we held our breath as they approached the turnoff to the shed, straining our eyes through the mist to keep them in sight„ Suddenly a red light began to flash on the quonset roof and within the shed the foghorn blew, filling the air with its deep,curving moan. Sandy pitchforward onto the horn, adding a blaring tenor to the bass of the foghorn. The car was full of sound, crowding into my ears until I could hear nothing. I peered toward the road anxiously, but the soldiers had passed the driveway and were speeding away unaware „ Sandy was livid. "Why didn't you TELL me this thing was a foghorn? You knew it, didn't you, Em? 1 I bet you did!"

"Sandy! Sandy!" I grabbed at a flailing wrist.

75

r "They went right by. They didn't see us ÂŁr hear us!"

Sandy's eyes went wide and she jumped for the ignition. She aimed the Camaro down the driveway, and we charged onto the road without our lights. I slammed my invisible brakes into the floor mat as the foghorn sounded again behind us.

"Sandy, don't you think we should wait until they're gone?"

"I won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes!"

"You wont be able to see much of anything in this soup. You'd better put on the lights."

"It's dawn, for chrissakes!"

"How can you tell?" But she was right. The road began to rise and seconds later we popped out of the fogbank. In the early light we could make out the red pinpoint tail lights of the Pontiac half a mile ahead, bearing down on the place where the road forked to merge with Lighthouse cutting straight across to the coast. The Pontiac turned left at the fork.

"What are they doing?" cried Sandy. "Why didn't they turn up Lighthouse?"

"I don't know. Maybe they didn't know it was there."

"That guy Jesse sure drove like he knew where he was going!"

"That was when he was following you!"

She grinned, but I could see in her eyes that she wasn't satisfied.

We lost sight of the Pontiac as it rounded the first cove on the Lover's Point Drive. Sandy jumped on the gas and we flew toward the fork. She took the turn without slowing. In seconds we were skimming along the rocky cliff, searching for the Pontiac. "There! On the next point!" Sandy shouted, and eased on the brake. I stared at the rocks but could see nothing.

"Rats! They went into the fogbank."

We sank into it ourselves as the road curved inward between the two points. As we came out on the other side, we saw the Pontiac beyond the next cover. Then all 76

at once we began to slow down. Sandy swore and pressed the pedal but the Camaro didn't respond. Too much had been asked of it on an empty stomach. The engine died in a flurry of coughs and hiccups that jolted us against the roof. We were coming up to the pointâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; The steering had gone, but Sandy dragged on the wheel and we coasted onto the paved elbow between the promotory and the road, Sandy flung the door wide and in a moment she was clambering out onto the point, I tried to follow, but as soon as my left foot hit the ground the pain that had been there for an hour finally got through to my braino "I see them!" Sandy called. "Come on!"

"I can't walk! I think I sprained my ankle back there!"

Sandy was coming toward me over the rocks, mini skirt and long hair whipping about in the stiff breeze off the bay.

"Back where?"

"On Del Monte, When I was making the phone call."

She hitched me up on her shoulder and half-carried half-dragged me on to the rocks. "I'm okay," I said, wriggling away. "I can climb as long as I don't have to put weight on my ankle," Hand over hand I made my way to the pinnacle and hoisted myself onto a boulder, Sandy stood above me and we silently watched the white Pontiac following the scalloped road above the crashing waves, dropping now and then into little gray clouds. It began to gather speed when it hit the wide bowl of the municipal beach, where there had been rides on the glass-bottomed boat when I was a little girl, and then just before Cannery Row, the road left the coast and angled toward Monterey and the tunnel which pointed to Highway 1 and they were gone, Sandy picked up a white stone and skimmed it along the cove.

"And stay out!" she shouted.

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CONTRIBUTORS PATRICIA VOLK BLITZER lives in Manhattan. She's published fiction and non-fiction in national magazines and is currently writing a play.

I ROBERT BOCHROCH is an easterner by birth and trade and a sales executive with ABC television. Two of his poems appeared last year in Impetus, He is currently working on a novel.

KATE CAMBRIDGE edited and published in high school and college literary magazines in California„ She is currently working on a novel.

ANDREW R. COHEN is an ex-mercenary/now poet, writing in New York and attending Columbia's School of General Studies. Last year several of his poems appeared in Impetus.

ESTELLE GILSON's work has appeared in many national periodicals including Saturday Review, Columbia Forum, American Scholar, and the Intellectual Digest. She is a contributing editor of Present Tense and is working on a novel.

ADELINE HOOPER studies at Columbia, has studied at Sarah Lawrence, Antioch, and the Circle-In-TheSquare Theatre School„ This is her first published work of fiction,, REBECCA LEWIN is this year's Bennett Cerf Award winner at Columbiao She's on the steering committee of the Feminist Writers Guild and has published poetry and fiction in the Syracuse Review,, LOUISE NAPOLITANO is an advertising copywriter, takes writing courses at General Studies, hails from North Bergen, New Jersey0 This is a first publication,,

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GERARD H. SHYNE is the 1976 Bennett Cerf award winner. His collection of short stories, Under The Influence of Mae is being published by Inwood/ Horizons Press, September 1979.

DAVIDA SINGER has published numerous poems in such periodicals as Feminist Studies, Primavera, and Write Poems Women Anthology. She is a co-director of the Woman Bookstore and studies writing at Columbia's School of General Studies.

MICHAEL STONE is a born and raised New Yorker and studies writing at General Studies. This is his first publication.

STEVE SZILAGYI is a full time student at General Studies. This is his first published work of fiction.

JOEY TREVISANl's piece also is.a first publication.

MICHAEL WEISSMAN writes and produces news for WOR radio. She is co-author of A History Of Women In America, Bantam, 1978. Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan.

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School of General Studies

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