1979-Vol17-No1

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School of General Studies · Columbia University

Φ QUARTO Is the literary magazine of the School of General Studies, Columbia University.

Copyright 1979 by QUARTO. Office of Publi­ cation 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.

Editor: Barbara Harrah Faculty Adviser: Gienda Adams Sales and Distribution: Steve Cover Design: Florence Keller

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SPECIAL ISSUE OF BENNETT CERF AND DOUBLEDAY-COLUMBIA AWARD WINNERS

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QUARTO

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Volume

Seventeen

Number

One

A Literary Magazine Published At The School of General Studies Columbia University CONTENTS Introduction

5

For the Custody of Penny Bahr

9

Barbara Harrah

Smudge and Mettina

37

Gerard H. Shyne

Llla

51

Gerard H. Shyne

Dead Brother In Living Color

65

Rebecca Lewin

Copyright 1979 by Quarto Columbia University School of General Studies

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS "Smudge and Mettina" and "Lila" copyright Gerard H. Shyne 1979 Under the Influence of Mae reprinted by permission of Gerard H. Shyne and Inwood Press.

Grateful acknowledgement is made especially to Ward Dennis, Dean of the School of General Studies, and Dick Humphreys, Director of the Writing Program of the School of General Studies at Columbia University whose continued support makes this publication possible.

INTRODUCTION: About the Awards and Authors

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Richard Zarro. Barbara Harrah's novel, the first section of which is included in this publication, won the award in 1979. Titled

For The Custody BENNETT CERF, AUTHOR, editor, publisher, T.V. personality, and founder and presi­ dent of Modern Library and Random House, was also a graduate of Columbia. He earned a BA in 1919 and a Litt. Β degree from the School of Journalism in 1920. While at the University, he was editor of the humor maga­ zine the Jester and columnist for the Spectator.

An award is presented every year in his memory to a student in Columbia's School of General Studies for demonstrated excellence in writing.

Recent winners include Gerard H. Shyne, Barbara Harrah, and Rebecca Lewin.

Selections from their award-winning novels and short stories appear in this collect­ ion.

The Doubleday Award was set up in 1963

by Dick Humphreys, Director of the General Studies Writing Program, and Sam Vaughan, now president and publisher of Doubleday.

It is given for a novel submitted to Doubleday which the house does not publish but which shows such promise that the editors wish to offer concrete encourage­ ment to the author. The award is in the form of a year's study in the Advanced Fiction Workshop at General Studies, dur­ ing which time the writer is to begin a new novel. Most of the award winners have gone on to publish. Among them are Marie Bardes, the first recipient, Steven Sehrader, Gwen Cravens, Nahid Rachlin, and

of Penny

Bahr,

it is a

psychological suspense dramatization of a battle for a child's soul. The part Included here is the opening where the battle lines are drawn and just before the mother takes up arms. It won the Bennett Cerf award in 1978 and the Doubleday award in 1979.

Gerard Shyne's stories won the Bennett Cerf award in 1976. They have been collected

into a book Under

the

Influence

of Mae,

pub­

lished by Inwood Press, 1979. He was born in Brooklyn, orphaned, served in North Afri­ ca and Italy in World War II, studied at Columbia's School of General Studies where he earned his BA on a G.I. bill. He writes in Central Park after he leaves the night shift. The stories here derive from memor­ ies of his growing up in a Long Island boarding house. "It wasn't exactly a home," the author writes, "but it felt like home to me. And it was there everybody was get­ ting more ten to six, Peter Rabbit, toe-twinkling, pompom hooty-skooty, or trying to, than I ever heard of before or since."

Rebecca Lewin's The Beauties won the Bennett Cerf award in 1979. Born in a small town in Nexi Jersey, Ms. Lewin earned a BA in Fiction Writing at Syracuse University.

She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Feminist Writers' Guild, where she coordinates a class in Fiction Writing.

Under the guidance of Herbert Berghof, the author is now studying at the H Β Play­ wrights' Foundation, and will soon begin work toward an MA in Writing. Her novel is about a girl in the process of building a

strong identity and a stable way of life after a childhood of psychic violence, the suicide of her brother, her own attempt to take her life which results in a stay at a psychiatric ward yet which leads to a consolidating of her will to overcome the forces of defeat imposed by family and society.

This magazine is the first of a series to be devoted to Bennett Cerf and Doubleday award winners. It is separate from the regular annual Quarto issues, which accept submissions from all General Studies students.

FOR THE CUSTODY OF PENNY BAHR

Barbara

Harrah

can't

MICHAEL AND I have gone somewhere, downstairs in the back of an old house.

There is a pool beside the old ladies' bed.

There's been a party.

"I'm looking for Penny," I say and the women tell me she was swimming there.

The water is dark, but shallow.

So there is no danger, I tell myself.

NO DANGER! But there is a boy watching the water as if i t were very deep.

With terror in his eyes.

No, the terror is in my eyes, I feel i t pull at the corners . In the boy's eyes there is nothing.

I ask him to dive.

He just stands there, his eyes like hard-boiled egg whites, his arms dangling, "All right," I say, "I'll find her," And I ease slowly into the water, feeling for her with my feet, then sinking under.

I peer through the alternating patches of sun and shadow, my fingertips raking over the bottom, reaching down.

I go so deep down that I realize i t is not a shallow pool.

It is a deep, deep lake.

Fear clamps down on my back and I claw my way to the surface, breaking through i t like a serpent, Lithe, in one movement.

I am out of the water, breathing, But at the end of the bed is a trunk.

My fingers, shaking, skim the corners but find, as on the lake bottom, only silt, sand, and stones.

But if there is no body, I begin, but

finish.

I have to lie down.

I fumble in the dark for the bedside lamp switch.

The light floods under the dark shade to the floor.

I see something under the bed: material, rolled in a flat oblong.

Its red and yellow flowers shine against the dark wood floor.

"It's Penny's skirt!"

I cry.

Laughter foaming off my lips.

"She's alive!

Alive!

My baby is alive!"

I turn, twirl, laughing loudly into the dark room, the lights at my feet, my hands clasping the skirt to my breast, my head thrown back, my hair falling down my shoulders, my face shining with tears, my laugh degenerating into sobs.

Michael calls from a far place.

"Molly, Molly, Mollillyyyyyy!"

He rocks me against his shoulder.

His fingers ripple down my hair.

My sobs ricochet out of our bedroom corners.

"How could they have left her in the water?"

I cry, "and just fished her skirt out?"

Michael says, "Molly, she was never in the water.

That's your skirt.

She's Penny and you are Molly.

It was just a bad, bad dream!"

When the phone rings, I open my eyes onto pitch black. It rings again. Michael turns on his pillow but does not answer.

I know it's hero I reach over Michael, my nipples grazing the hair on his chest.

My hand knocks Michael's water glass to the floor. It breaks. I whisper, "Damnl" Pick up the receiver.

"Mum? Mummy? I was thinking..."

"Penny?"

I climb, naked, over Michael, stand

10 11

shivering in the middle of the dark room. "...I had to talk to you. Mummy. I want you to know I love you very much."

I can almost see my daughter's chin dipping a little, talking quietly into the receiver. Being mature. Probably in the dark, too. I reach for the lamp cord along the glass-topped bedside table. Find the switch.

Light floods down on my hand. I turn the clock face to me. "Penny, it's almost one o'clock in the morning."

"I know. Mummy. I want you to listen.

I'm sorry I haven't phoned. But you know, Mummy, there's so much I want to say to you. I can't really get out. I don't know what happened this month. Whenever we had lunch there was..."

Her voice is quiet but clear.

"Penny, hang on. Let me get a wrapper."

I tiptoe over the glass and water to the closet, stretching the loops of the extension cord, I pull the closet door out.

The door sticks on the vacuum cleaner hose.

I kick it in so the door swings free. I reach into the line of hanging clothes.

Linger on my red and yellow flowered skirt, move on, feel the nylon bathrobe. I cock the receiver under my ear, put on the robe.

Penny's voice continuing. I'm reminded of news commentators during a national crisis.

"I have to be honest..."

Michael turns over on his pillow. His arms wrapped around it, his eyes opening.

Like coals in his face. "Who is it?" he whispers. I wave my hand at him to be quiet.

"I love you so much. Mum, but it seems so difficult for me to love you. You always laugh with Michael, and I only make you mad."

I crook the receiver against the other ear„ Tie my bathrobe. Two perpendicular lines deepening above the bridge of my nose.

"What?" I say.

"Let me finish. Mummy," "But did you say it's difficult for you to love me?" I have to sit down. My fingers are shaking.

"Yes. No. Mum, I mean what's difficult is I can apologize to you when I do wrong, but Michael... oh...1 don't know what I'm trying to say." Michael reaches for my hand.

I fumble for the writing pad. The yellow pencil. Scribble, "Penny" on it and pass it to him,. He squints at it.

Sits up against his pillow and reaches for his glasses.

"Sweetie, it's so late," I continue, Michael takes the pencil from my hand and writes, "You'll talk to her tomorrow when she gets home." He pushes the note in front of me. "Tell her that," he whispers. I read, talking into the phone. "...I saw you last week for five minutes while you dropped off your clothes.

After you've been gone over a month. It was tense but.o."

"I didn't know what was wrong. Mummy."

"Nothing was wrong, well..."

Michael shakes his hands in front of my faceo His mouth contorted, forming the words, "No, no." I watch his mouth. The receiver cocked at my ear. Penny's voice steady and low pitched. It isn't usually low pitched. "But whatever it was," she says, "I feel close enough to you to call

13 12

you but I don't feel close enough to Michael to call him. There was once a fight..."

"Darling, really, it's hardly the time to bring up ... " I stare at my husband. Bite down on my lower lip.

"Mum, I don't want you to take this personally. I don't want to hurt you, but ... II "How can you hurt me?" my voice rises.

"Penny, what is going...do you have a cold? Your voice..."

"But I want to be honest..."

"I want you to be but..."

"Mummy, what I wanted to tell you to­ night is, I'm really relaxed living over here. Mummy. I've gotten to love Bonnie.

I love Daddy now.. .Mummy?...MUMMY :" "Yes," I say.

"You'll love me if I stay here, won't you?...Mummy?"

"Penny, I honestly don't know."

Before going to bed this evening, after we'd gotten back from swimming, after we'd performed our qui et little nightly rituals nts away, Michael's lead . . .putting my pai sheets, guitars, brushes, straightened the kitchen, dumped t he trash, run baths, and I was putting away the extra cokes and donuts we'd picked up at the all night A & Ρ for Penny, Michae I'd raised his hands against the door jamb and watched me fill the cabinet. "I c annot be phoney, lovey dovey," he said, "when I don't feel that way. When I feel cheated, betrayed, hatefui..."

14

"I'm not asking you to, don't you see?

What I'm asking is to understand her so you won't feel so betrayed, so you can pat her back..."

"I don't want to pat her back. I want nothing to do with her..."

"All right, all right..."

"Don't you see? I went the limit with her and she asks me to leave the room when she wants to talk to you."

"All right, let's talk of something else."

"Don't you agree with me?"

"I don't think you can hate her for not letting you adopt her, for loving her father no matter what he is..."

"I'll give you that. But the pushing me out of her life, resenting any guidance I try to give, never appreciating I pay for her braces, her speech lessons. I give her a private school, I..."

"That's deplorable of her, but I still think you have to understand, oh, I have no proof of this, but I suspect any affection or appreciation she shows you she sees as a betrayal of her father."

"But she loves you and is still de­ cent to Bonnie."

"We don't know that. Besides, she never asked me to let Bonnie adopt her.

She feels no guilt with respect to me.

But she does with Ed for asking him to let you adopt her five years ago,and if I know Ed Bahr he will never ever let her forget that."

"She wanted it. She was responsible."

"At nine years old? I don't think she knew what she wanted, the poor thing, no

15

wonder she can't be nice to you. Her father's been beating her sore with it ever since."

"Molly, there comes a point when people have to be judged on what things they do, not why they do them."

"But not babies, she's barely fourteen."

"Does Ed judge her like a baby? Does he leave her off, saying. Oh she was a baby when she realized I was an asshole, unfit to be her father and asked Michael, who doesn't lie, doesn't cheat, beat his wives and dogs, and who'll sacrifice his own desires for his stepdaughter's needs? Oh, no.

He holds her strictly accountable and so should I..."

"And since when have you set Ed Bahr as a paragon of good judgment? Have you suddenly ennobled him as someone wnose actions should be emulated?"

"Of course not."

"Then will you be nice to her tomorrow when she comes home?"

"I will be perfectly nice."

"You wont scare her away?"

"Molly, she must confront me."

"Oh, all right."

I'd slammed the coke in the cabinet and closed my eyes. I am so exhausted by this whole thing. The wind blew the curtains into the room and with it the smell of late August: thick, acrid, ragweed and dust.

Michael said, "Don't turn away from me. I want to talk this out."

That was this afternoon. No, yesterday afternoon. It is already morning, another day. My face reflects in the black window.

Hair jagged cut to my shoulders. The bed-

side lamp behind it lighting it like a flame. My jawbone tight. I hang up the receiver. Stare at my husband Michael. I say, "Well, we've done it. She's not coming back."

Michael stares at me. He is sandyhaired, pale skinned, soft skinned. He has little hands. He loves me with a melting gratitude; when he does his hair falls softly over his eyes; he trembles. He seems grateful that I exist. He says, "She has to come back. Ed has no choice but to bring her back. You've got custody. He's just set her up to get you Irritated, grandstanding again. Come on, let's get some sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow we'll need it."

I say, "Michael..."

He says, "What is it?" I just stand there. He says, "What is it?"

There was a time when if I was upset I couldn't say anything. I just stuttered and Mlchael'd hold me till I could say it. He says, "What is it, Molly;" and I answer that I told her I didn't knuw if I'd love her if she didn't come home.

He looks up quickly at me then slides back under the covers. "Good," he says. "About time she sees the consequence of some of her actions."

I am an artist and Michael a musician. Our combined income pays the rent in a clean but nothing flashy highrise in Rockfort. Home of big corporate industries, a place to work in but not too chic to live in, my father used to say. The city spreads below our bedroom window. The church spire

17 16

τ reaches high and delicate into the graywhite sky. On top's the frailest tallest cross. Between the high buildings lies the Bay like broken strips of pale ribbon, a strip of yellow sand and the green undu­ lating cliffs of the far island. Mounds of puffed thick-leaved trees buffer the noise of the traffic. The tree shapes waffle in the wind like the backsides of chickens walking. They are so soft looking, so thick.

Penny was to be back by nine. It's 9:10. "At what time do I call the police?"

I say.

Michael, without looking up from his music sheets, says, "Give him a few more minutes."

I say, "I have called Ed's office. The secretary said he was expected before nineo He has a meeting. Michael arches a thick sandy eyebrow. He is a fierce looking man; has thick straight hair on his legs. He swats roaches with a rolled up towel. He can turn off light switches with it. His ancestors were Scots. He likes the bunnies at the Rockfort animal shelter. At 10:00 I call Ed's office again» At 10:30. 11:00.

His secretary speaks in oddly accented syllables typical of local secretaries try­ ing to sound British."Can I help you?"I take a gamble she is infatuated with my former husband; anxious to show she's inti­ mate. I say, "Yes, you don't happen to know where Mr. Bahr took Penny, do you?"

She says, "Oh, yes, he was taking her up to school for her entrance tests. The poor thing's nervous as a cat. Imagine, they'll last several hours and then there's registration. Mr. Bahr was really fit to be

tied, cut into his tennis game, you know how he gets,.." Her voice trails on, all admiration. I think. Yes, I know how he gets.

Michael says, "Let's go get her."

Anger dips the corners of his lips. He is hurt by Penny to the quick but it is noth­ ing compared to the contempt he feels for my first husband. Because he gave him a chance, the benefit of the doubt. When he'd first met me and I told him about Ed, Michael said, "Now wait, no one can be that bad. You must be exaggerating."

I'd cried because he doubted m e .

"Let's go get her," he says, his voice tight, his lips trembling slightly.

Ed's ancestor was shot by a U.S. Congressman outside the Capitol for screwing the Congressman's wife» Outside there is no wind. It is sweating hot. In the sun Michael's skin looks white, bled out into his red tie.

His eyebrows brassy. We drive the ten miles to Hampton Ridge, the next town up the road, armed with a certain calm­ ing exhaustion. We were getting dressed to the Grateful Dead turned up full blast, sort of like bagpipes. A kind of musical fillp, whipping us up for the battle we are certain to have with Ed, Penny, or both. Only it fired us the other way, too.

I lay on the bed in my bra and skirt and rested by feet on the crook of the brass bedposts with my sandles still on.

Michael's lips sinking around me, I emptied my mind as I imagine soldiers do before a fight because they think before 19

18

τ they die they want something they can't de­ fine for one minute. I thought only of what I would do to Michael next. I did everything, and now he is driving to get gas while I cross the parking lots with the white lines slicing diagonal slots for 17,000 high school student cars. I am grateful Ed's car with the LUV license isn't there. The school is a fortress of long horizontal granite beams and black windows. A stray gull from the coast struts big as a Volkswagen under the flag. As I approach, it lifts heavily and awkwardly into the air, its reflection silver against the dark windows» I go inside quickly, suddenly afraid of this birdo My heels click, walking the long corri­ dors. The air conditioners make my arm pits clammy. The dark glass windows inside are broken by thick black iron frames. I peer through each for Penny, then move on, my heels clicking. I tell myself. Don't take any crap. Just go get her. If Ed tries to stop m e , say, Sorry, I've got custody. My chest swells with fear, a falling feeling like going down fast in an elevator. Where is Ed? I'd like to get her out without see­ ing him, having to see his face.

Click, go my heels.

I see her through the next panel.

I pull back behind the concrete wall.

Then peak around. She's sitting muddy-eyed, a little taller than the other students, a little more erect, her breasts bigger, de­ fiant in a light alligator shirt. While the others lean over the blue notebooks, she stares through the glass.

I sneak around to the Guidance Office to find how I can get her out.

20

Everybody's smiling, ruddy, in flowered tailor cut dresses with legs two tones tan­ ner than their faces. Ed's not there, but when I say, "I'm Penny Bahr's mother, their smiles fade.

"I just want to pick her up," I say.

"She can't go here. She already goes to Rockfort Academy down the road. She's gone there for several years." They stare at me until a receptionist has the presence of mind to ask me to sit next to the door un­ til the dean can see me.

When Michael left me at the entrance, he'd asked, "Are you sure you want to do this alone?"I knew he was remembering with Ed things had gotten too much for me in the end. With this crisis perhaps they could again. I said, "I'm all right. I have you this time. Go on."

But as I sit, my hands start to shake.

It is a very light room.

I can feel Ed Bahr before I see him, feel him blacken the room. He's wearing a black suit. "Hil" he smiles, his hand cuts a sharp salute. The flat of his pink palm against his tanned hand, his eyes like yellow stilettos. He doesn't show his teeth smiling, just the lips rise. Long yellow crows feet crack through his red face. "Hello, Ed," I say.

He stands in front of me, cutting off ray light.

"See her?" he says, his hands wiggling deep in his tight pants pockets. Apparent­ ly he's gone mod.

I look up at him, furious, shaking.

"Ed, she can't even go to this school un-

21

less she lives here."

"She's going to," he smiles.

"Ed, what are you talking about? This is all being done behind my back. I have not agreed..."

"Not talking," he hisses.

"Ed, we simply can't let Penny run away from the Academy because she's decided suddenly not to work. We've got to discuss..."

"Not talking.'" he hisses, his lips still in that asinine smirk. He flattens his hand and whips it in front of him like a horizontal guillotine and walks away, kicking his feet out. His pants ride up. It's only then I see Bonnie behind him, her skirt hiked up on her hips, too. Her ass wiggling, mincing away on worn down medium heels next to Ed in new Italian shoes. She's smiling. She does not stop smiling. She has dark scabs on each cheek next to her mouth. She has a bandanna in her hair, trying to look Hampton Ridge.

You have to wear a bandanna in your hair in Hampton Ridge or streak it unless it's blonde, Then it's okay. You don't have to or if it's straight. If you're brunette and your hair curls you have to wear a bandanna.

Oh god.

I'm shaking so I know I'll cry» A Mr. Duke comes up, says he's Mr. Duke» Presume he's the dean. Red face. Red hair-what's left of it—fringing his skull. Red pants.

"Mrs. Bahr?"

"Stone," I say. He starts out cold« I can't blame him. Obviously Ed's made me appear a pest. But he sees my hands shake.

"Mrs. Bahr..."

"Stone."

"You'll have to have your husband..."

22

"Ex-husband?"

"Yes." He's holding yellow forms. His hands have red hair curling on the backs.

"Yes, sign this statement thar his daughter lives here."

"But she's not. She liveu with me m Rockfort."

"But she will be living with..,." His face is very red and tight.

"No, that is, I haven't agreed,, This has all been sprung, I..."

"I'm sorry," he says.

Tears splatter on the back of my hand like sleet. I say, "I'm sorry. I don't really know what's going on, Mr. Duke, she was spending her usual month's vacation with her father..."

"You're her legal guardian?"

"Yes," ray voice squeaking.

He's looking a little kinder now. I wonder if Ed's lied about who has custody.

I say, "I haven't even been able to talk to Penny to see what she really wants."

I say, "She's always wanted to be with me, always been scared of him. Now she talks to me as if..."

"Yes, they do that at this age," Mr. Duke says. "They do a complete about face, I wipe the back of my hand across my cheeks. I say, "Mr. Duke? You must have some experience in..." The phone rings.

He says, "A minute please," answers, talks turns back. "Should I let her go here?" I say.

"Does she want to?"

"Yes." "By all neana."

"And live with him?"

Mr. Duke stares at me. He says, "Well,

23

Ί let's see." He taps his pencil point on his blotter. "Let me talk to your husband."

"Ex, he's right out there." We look through the door crack. He's talking all chummy with the receptionist. Bonnie is still grinning, her heel swinging in the thick car­ pet. Her jowls are thickening and lowering.

By smiling I suppose she hoists them up a bit. She picks at the scabs on her cheeks with a pinkie. She's wearing a tight green blouse. Her tits are like torpedoes. She keeps stuffing her shirt tails into her skirt.

I go out and sit down again by the door.

Mr, Duke takes Ed and Bonnie into his room and shuts the door.

Snap goes the door.

And I remember how I loved Ed Bahr so much that I defied my father for the first time in my life and married him. He was so tall, so handsome. All my friends were so surprised little Molly McKinney had finally landed some hunk of hockey player-debating team captain-social register. Daddy said he was a brute and a coward. Why couldn't I see through him? It took only a few weeks after we were married. Memorial Day weekend on the Island. But having never been en­ couraged, even allowed to stand up to my father, I couldn't stand up to my husband either. I just wanted to die so maybe he'd love me."Why if you hate me so did you mar­ ry me?" I said. "Because I thought you'd change once I got you away from your Daddy."

I said, "Then how must I change? Tell me and I will." He said, "You'll never change, jerk.'

Setting up criteria then not letting a per­ son meet them can drive a person crazy. That whole weekend he spent chasing this girl with

long dark legs and black hair. I found them on the beach, his hand between her tan legs, He said it was nothing. Screamed, sobbed, threatened to kill me if I left him. I thought anyone who'd do all that must love me. But going home I pulled the door handle on the road. He pulled me back, screaming, "What will people think about me if you do that?"

A door opened in my brain: Ed's a psychopath. He's sick. He accuses me of be­ ing sick because he's the one sick. He screamed at m e , "You're sick, you know that? Sick, sick," and the doctors said, "Yes, of course you have had bad pressures but reacting like this, really, Mrs. Bahr, isn't it a little extreme?" Since I have learned psychotlcs accuse people of the very things they are guilty of and are so clever they convince professionals even.

The walls of the hospital were like snow­ banks. The doctors' white coats moved across. They had tight hard faces and eyes like ice chips« "Molly?"

The walls move with the gold-rimmed eyeglasses. The voice says again, "Molly?"

The ice eyes darken to coal. "Molly? What's the matter?" And I look up and see Michael standing,soft, his face blurred, not burn­ ed and slick like Hampton Ridge. I say, "You, Michael."

He pulls me up, "I thought I better come see if you needed m e . What is it, Molly, you're not..«" "No, I'm not," I say. "But let's get Penny and get out of here. I'm not going to let that bastard do to her what he did to m e . There's a devil In him."

2A 25

Michael says, "Now now, don't exaggerate, he'd never hurt his daughter..." I stare at him. Even Michael... even Michael.

We meet Penny in front of the testing room. Bright Hampton Ridge smile. "Hi, Mum!" Eyes clear, gray, no bruised circles she usually gets when she visits Ed, but then the make up's thick enough to cover the ruts of the Grand Canyon. I kiss her.

She tenses. "Well," I say as students and teachers pour past us, "Shall we go home?

Summer's over."

Smiling, she says, "I'd love to. Mums, but I can't."

"Oh?" "I've got to see Daddy's lawyer."

"You what?"

Oh Ed has schooled her well. Drop the bomb in public. Molly McKinney Stone, Debutante, Diplomat's Daughter, Milton Academy, Vassar Daisy Chain will not have the bad taste to make a scene much less, having been brought up to say Yes Sir and Curtsy and ask permission to go pee pee, to have the guts to stand up to Edward Dubuque Bahr or his daughter. "You what?" I repeat a little too loud.

Penny looks around and lowers her voice.

"You knew. Mother."

"How could I know? Why didn't you tell me this?"

Michael says, "I guess I better call Klinginstien," and goes to the phone booth down the hall. Then the three of us. Penny, Michael, and I walk outside together, tandem. Arms not touching, but only inches apart. Penny in her high clogs is higher than me and almost as tall as Michael. Michael nods

at Ed's car with the LUV license. The finish shimmers under the metallic sun.

Noon, high, top of the sky sun. Penny says, "I better find him."

"No," I say.

"I want to say goodbye." I touch her arm. She looks at me, less sure of herself.

Her lips trembling slightly. "Write him a note," I say. "We have to go." My heart is beating like mad.

"But Mum..."

"Write him a note. We haven't time."

My voice is very hard, harder than I feel.

We watch her in the rear view mirror, writing on the hood of Ed's car. Michael's breath hisses and then his eyes light like bolts as they lift to the rear view mirror, his forehead lines a ladder. He says, "Here he comes."

I listen to their voices.

Penny's saying, "Daddy, no, I didn't tell her. Now they've got an appointment with Mr. Klinginstien." And Ed says, "What路 very mad. He's leaning like a crooked tree in his black suit by his shining boulder of a car with the chrome shooting away the sun. He bought it just after we lost our case to collect back child support he owed me. On the basis of his financial statement. Avowed he had no money. Terrible debts. Sun shoots off his aviator glasses which wrap around his eyes like black bandages. "What the hell are those glasses?"

I say.

"Your spie chic jock shades," Michael says. In the mirror I see Ed's teeth flashing in the sun in his dark face. "He is the Devil," I whisper and Michael says, "Brace yourself."

Ed in the mirror, getting bigger as he

26 27

walks up, hands in pockets, legs kicking out cuffs, shoulders stooped, says he'll be dead by forty, no sign of it, used to say thirty. Penny trails after hinio He's at my door .

"Molly..."

I look up. He's glaring at me. Like a Hawk. His nose like a beak, eyes with yellow glints, grits teeth. I never saw an express­ ion like that. "I have an appointment for my daughter with my lawyer," he says.

"I'm sorry I didn't know that," I say.

"She didn't know. Daddy," Penny says, her voice is very scared.

"Klinginstien's there all afternoon and tomorrow," he says. "What the hell. See him later. Oh, hi, Mike," he leans down, smiles at Michael. Wiggles his fingers. "Didn't see you in there, ha ha." Michael hates anybody to call him Mike. He says, "How are you do­ ing?" without smiling,and Ed flaps his hands like a bird trying to...what? I think. Oh make out like you two girls are all in a flap, I guess, Michael will tell me later.

"Can't you change your appointment?" Ed growls back at me, and I say, "I'm afraid we can't. Mr. Klinginstien had to rearrange his schedule to give us this appointment."

"I had mine first," Ed says.

"Well, I didn't hear of it," I say.

"Penny was supposed to be home at nine this morning." Ed's glaring at me. His eyes gleaming behind the drooping glasses. "Get in. Pen," I say. She's staring at Ed staring at me, his hands in his pockets, wiggling, leaning forward on the balls of his feet.

"Just tell him what you want, love," I think is he talking to me? No, her. He's saying, "You just tell him what YOU want, love.

28

whatever YOU want. It'll all work out just fine. That's my love. You tell him." Star­ ing at me.

"Let's go," I say, not looking at him anymore, and he says, "See you later, darl­ ing," (to h e r ) . "You really shouldn't put her under all that pressure, Molly." (to me. ) How can he say that? I will ask Michael later and he will say that he supposes by not doing everything Ed wants I'm pressuring her. But he was the one bringing in the lawyers...We drive off.

I don't even look at him. Penny slips her hand between the seats and takes my hand and says, "I'm sorry." She's almost crying, and I say, "Do you want to talk about it?" and she looks at Michael and shakes her head .

Mr. Klinginstien puts his fat hands oi his blotter and hoists himself ou t ο f h i s brown leather chair with the bras s studs, his jowls jiggling. The curtains are clrawi giving the room a musty look with the oriental rug, the deep dark wains CO 11 ing.

It looks as if it hadn't been red e c ο r a t e d since Mr. Klinginstien founded th e f irm in 1927. My divorce was in 1964.

There had been little difficu Ity in agreeing on a separation contract . I got custody. Ed didn't contest it. He wanted to LIVE again, he said. He'd just star ted a new business, so I settled for $100 a month child support to be paid wh en he could afford it without interest. Until I remarried, however, he was to g ive me $400 a month alimony. Ed balked a t this.

I remember he'd pulled his chair close to 29

Klinginstlen's, opened his hands out, palms up. Said, "Look, I'll take care of them.

She's my wife. She has my child. Do you think we need a contract to make me look after them? Contracts make me nervous."

Klinginstlen told him to get out of his office until he could act like a man."What's this all about. Penny?" he says, his jowls flopping.

"She wants to live with her father, Mr. Klinginstlen," I say.

"Why do you want to do that? Doesn't your mother treat you right?"

I start to laugh, but Penny says, "She wont let me see my father."

I say, "Penny, what are you talk..."

"Naw, let the kid talk," he says.

"I want to leave Rockfort Academy because my stepfather tells Mummy everytime I do wrong, makes me work so hard I can't see my father."

"Penny, that is simply not true. She can anytime she wants, Mr. Klinginstlen."

He waves me to be quiet. "Why can't you see your father?" he asks.

"Mummy made me work..."

He was skiing every weekend," I say and when he took her he wouldn't see she got her homework done..."

"Mummy..."

"Mostly he didn't want her along..."

"MUMMY I" "Penny, please, Mr. Klinginstlen, he has blanket approval to take her out just as long as she's time to get her work done, she was flunking..."

"I was not, Mr. Klinginstlen..."

"Penny, you were getting F's..."

"I passed finally..."

"Because we cut the phone calls out during exams and skiing weekends before Monday tests, Mr. Klinginstien, this is what she's blowing all out of propor..."

Mr. Klinginstlen says, "I think Buck can better handle this. Buck?" he calls.

"Buck?" he opens the door. "Get Buck down here," he tells one of the young secretaries to go get him. "I can't take this kind of thing," he says, his hand on my back, pushing us all out of the room like flotsam.

We lounge down the hall. Penny In her clogs is taller than I; almost as tall as Michael. He has the orange file under his arm. Penny looks at it then takes my hand.

"Could we move to Hampton Ridge?" she says, "I could stay with you then."

I say, "Darling, we haven't the money to move there."

Her eyes go stony as Michael passes us and goes into Buck's office, then soften back on m e . "Penny," I whisper, "What's this all about?" But Buck comes for us. He is one of Klinginstlen and Berman's younger partners. Has handled our legal problems since Klinginstlen finished with the divorce. Short black hair, squat nose, button down wilted collar, quiet and fair, gentlem a n l y — m a y b e too gentlemanly, expecting everyone to act as he would--with honor.

"You gals coming?" he says.

"Maybe we should talk to you alone first," I whisper. But he steers us to shining leather and brass tacked chairs arranged as far apart as possible in a circle surrounding his desk. Prints of shot and dying ducks line the walls.

I whisper,"Buck, Penny seems to be under pressure. She isn't looking beyond..."

31

30

Penny says, "I want to go to Hampton Ridge, Mother..."

"Darling, I think your father wants you to live..."

"Daddy has nothing to do..."

Michael says, "Would you mind letting your mother finish?"

"No," she snips.

"Thank you," he hisses back.

"You're welcome." Her eyes blister till she sees Buck's looking at her. She looks away. I can hear the clicking of my eyelids blinking, it's that quiet.

"Molly has custody," Michael says. But Buck says, "That's really not too pertinent, is it?" And Michael throws up his hands. An airplane rumbles the plate glass window. My voice quavers, "Buck, can't we discuss this alone?"

Penny says, "Why don't you just bring out the orange file. Mother. It's not going to do you any good. Any judge'll know you just wrote those letters to build a case against Daddy."

We all stare at her in astonishment.

Buck ushers us to the door.

"Let me talk to her first," he says.

I whisper at the door, "What can you learn from her in a few minutes. Buck? You know what's in the file: proof he lies, falsified that financial statement to get out of paying the back child support then went out and bought the plane, the car, not to mention how he feeds her whole meals of nothing but cakes, lets her ski with colds, takes her to bars, lets her drink, sends her home time after time ill, teary, with infections, flu, the pillow fights, water fights, sleeping in the same bed. Buck, he's 32

mad, he knows nothing about raising a child, he's a child himself, cries constantly, tantrums..."

Buck looks down at me as if I'm the crazy one. Rockfort simmers under the plate glass window. I say, "If Penny wants to go to Hampton Ridge High School for good reasons maybe...I don't want to be a wall she'll break against but..."

But Michael and I are out in the hall alone and Buck is closing the door behind us. We walk back down the corridor to the waiting room, sit by the magazines. "She fought us in there," Michael says.

"Yes, she fought us," I say. "I guess Buck has to know that side of her, too."

"No one could care less what we havi to say," Michael says.

I draw my wallet out of my canvas baÂŤ and turn the plastic cards to Penny's school picture: fake sky, swirling grays, blues, her little face perks up from a round white collar. Hair twisted in two long braids, eyebrows curved like soft happy arches, eyes gray crescents smiling under them, teeth a little jagged, before $1700 braces which Ed swore he couldn't pay for. (You know, Mol, I would if I could) and took off for three weeks skiing in Switzerland at five grand. Oh there's a lot of...hate? Not hate, so raucb as incomprehension. How does he get away with it?

The walls of the waiting room are brown canvas except for one which is white rope. The carpet is deep blue. American blue if there is such a thing. This is an American office. We are all so American so stereotyped. I thought I was special because I am an artist. Because Michael is a 33

musician. Because we live in a city, not the suburbs. We conserve energy. Drive only one compact car. Our clothes are a little old.

Because we buy Penny braces and a private school education. My legs aren't tan in August. But we've got the universal American problem and three chairs match the rug and one bench and two chairs match the tan walls.

The fluorescent lights go down and down the ceiling.

I feel Michael stop reading.

I look over at him. His face is a little red, swollen looking.

"What lies has she told Ed about us," I say, "for him to think he can get away with this?"

Michael takes my hand.

"We can fight it," he whispers. "I'll become an insurance salesman if we need the money to."

"And put Penny in court?" I say. "Have her listen to her own letters describing how her father beats Bonnie, the dog, tries to get her to say she loves him more than me, saying normal children love their Daddies more? Or let her denounce her own mother in court because if she doesn't her father won't love her anymore?"

"If you aren't willing to do that, Ed'll know..."

"Of course he knows."

"Then how do you expect to protect her?"

"Would putting her into court protect her?"

Michael drums his fingers on the arm rest.

"Buck's smart enough to know a fourteenyear old child doesn't know what's best for it?" I say, but it comes out sounding like a question.

The lawyers and secretaries start filing 34

out for the day. Phone calls get fewer and fewer on the switchboard. Finally even the receptionist leaves and it's just us and one distant typewriter clacking.

At 7:00 a red-orange sunset swells up in the window behind the smog. Buck comes out and sits next to u s , the sun in his hair, his hands between his knees. I know we've lost. I don't know the legal reasons why yet but Buck will explain them.

And nights, from now on, after our baths, the cleaning up, the putting away the guitars, the canvasses I will have ripped through with scissors, I will find myself crying behind Michael's sleeping back, silently, his hand on my thigh. 11* won't turn unless I ask him to hold me..

Then he'll tell me he hadn't half the advantages Penny has. He doesn't see what Ed's big attraction is. But I will have dried my tears and say, "Hush, Swaetle, more. It doesn't matter anymore in '..; • at the end of the summer." When your c;: leaves you, you boubt your reason tn t-x •.

•«>•

Γ

SMUDGE AND METTINA Gerard

Η.

Shyne

37 36

"MAE I MAEI FOR god's sake, MaeĂŽ" It was Saturday morning and most of the roomers, including Mae, were sound asleep.

"Save me, Mael Save mei Oh, save mei" "Where is it? Who's hollering?" said Willie Fuller jumping up.

Fish met Willie in the hall downstairs.

"It's upstairs," said Fish. "Sounds like Smudge."

Many doors opened up, including Mae's.

"They're hollering for you, Mae," said Herkimer, running into Mae as he left his room.

"Who?" said Mae. "Smudge," said Wanda.

Then they all heard it again as they ran up the stairs over one another and ran into others in the hall above. They collected up there.

Gathered around Smudge and his wife's door was a host of people.

"What's going on?" said Mae. "Smudgel Smudgel" "That you, Mae?" said Smudge.

"Yes," said Mae. "It's Mettina, Mae. She's gone crazyl" said Smudge. "Save mei" "Save you from what? Mettina, what are you doing?"

"Getting ready," said Mettina, "to operate on one cocksuckerl" "Operate?" said Mae. "My limb, Mael My main limbi For god's 38

sake. This hoar's gone crazyl" said Smudge. "I'm tied down, Mael I woke up tied down to this bed. Mael My god.'

Please I" "Please, Mettina," said Mae, "for god's sake, don'tl Listen to mei ListenI" "Mettina," said Wanda, "don'tl Pleasel" Everyone got out a plea in Smudge's behalf. "Don't hurt himi Don't hurt himi" "Oh, you'll be sorry, Mettlnal" said Jellalne.

"Don't.' In heaven's namel Mettina, baby I" said Herkimer.

"Leave him first, Mettina," said Willie Fuller. "Leave himi But de-limb him?"

"You're destroying him," said Fish.

"That's rightl Destroying him," said Mettina. "I've got him where I want him. On his back, tied down, his dick out, and me with a knife in my hand."

"Break the door down, somebodyl She's got some knife.'" said Smudge.

"Don't try thati None of youl" said Mettina. "You'd never make it in time because the bureau's behind it."

"Please, please, Mettinal Let's talk first. Please, Mettinal Pleasel" said Mae. "I don't want no talk!" said Mettina.

"I want to cut. You all know what Smudge's been doing lately. Right? Rightl Rightl Rightl Motherfucker I Rightl Rightl" "HelpI HelpI" said Smudge. "Mael Mael She's got it in her hand."

"Noi Noi Mettina, not yeti Please, for god's sakel Let's talk," said Mae. "Please don't hurt himi" "Mettinal Please don't hurt meĂŽ" said Smudge. "Please don't hurt mei"

39

"You've hurt me. Dracula BitchI" said Mettina. "Haven't you? Haven't you? Haven't you? Double-double!"

"Never physically." Never physically!" said Smudge. "I've never touched you I I'm a rotten motherfucker, but I've never touch­ ed you'."

"Give him a break," said John Lucher.

"You'll ruin him, MettlnaJ" "He's ruined me," said Mettina.

"In what way?" said Jellaine. "In what way?"

"In every way," said Mettina. "In every way, bitchi Trying to get your chance,too I" "Who me?" said Jellaine.

"Sure, hoar, surel Everybody knows thati" said Mettlna. "Right, everybody? Right?

Right?"

Mae nodded her head for everybody to agree.

"Rightl Right'. Right.'" came from the throng in the hall.

"Keep her talking," whispered Mae to everyone. "Rabbit, get me Sandbag."

"Mae," whispered Rabbit, "he'll tear your wall down.'

"Rabbit," screeched Mae, "goddam you.'"

"O.K., Mae, O.K.," whispered Rabbit.

"I hear you, Mae," said Mettina, "cook­ ing up shit to save Smudge."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Mae. "Doing something like this to your husband. Don't you know you'll go to jail?"

"I don't care," said Mettina. "I can't take his cheating anymore."

"Walk out then," said Tiplight. "You can find somebody else."

"Not like Smudge," said Mettina. "He

always knows what he's doing. I don't want anybody else."

"I wont cheat anymore," said Smudge.

"I don't want to be ruined."

"It's too late for that now, motherfuckerl" said Mettina.

"Who do you think you are," said Mae, "God? Who are you to say it's too late?"

"His wife," said Mettina. "His god­ damn wife I" "And you're going to ruin him?" said Mae. "No wife would do that," said Beryl.

"I left my husband for cheating, but I didn't try to hurt him. I just said, let's call it quits, rotten mother!"

"Well, I'm not you," said Mettina. "I don't forgive so quick."

"You don't what?" said Mae. "Who are you not to forgive? God has forgiven the devili Salvation forgives us all.' Don't you know that? Don't you know your Bible?'

"I know my Bible, Mae. 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"

"You're in the Old Testament," said Mae. "Christ changed all that in his gos­ pel. You know it. He turned the other cheek."

Said Mettina, "Christ wasn't bedding down. He didn't spread cunti" "He didn't have to," said Mae. "He knew what it was all about. Even that one day you'd act like the fool you're acting.'

"Talk to her, Mae. Make her see," said Smudge. "That's right. She's acting like a fool" "What, bitchi" said Mettina.

"No, waiti I didn't mean it, Mettina," said Smudge. "Don't cut my branchi You 41

ιΙίι-ΐίΙίΪιΙιΙίΜΕί

ain't no fool. I lost control when I said that."

"She is acting like a fooll I repeat it," said Mae. "Mael Mael You're supposed to be helping mei" said Smudge.

"I am," said Mae. "Mettina's not acting like herself. Is she?"

Said Mettina, "I can't. As myself. Smudge took every advantage of me."

"I never made you happy, bitch?" said Smudge.

"So happy I was blind for years as to what you were doing, fuckerl" said Mettina. "You got away with murder before my very eyes, faggard dick'."

"BitchI I've meat-piped and plumbered you into paralysis," said Smudge. "You've gotten the best fuckniques of my years, triple hoarl I've got a right, goddammiti" "And I've snap-branched you a toe-twinkler, too," said Mettina. "You've woodpeckered the sheets also, bitchi" "As long as she's talking--" Mae was saying to everyone in a low voice.

"I hear you, Mae," said Mettina. "Talking useless shiti Nobody can save Smudge nowl He's branched his last meat-squeezer I I hope he limbed a good one, because he's got to remember it now for all times to come. How great it was'. He can't cut in and come out whole again, Mael This is iti I do not playl" Then Mettina was silent awhile. Smudge spoke up. "She's got a powerful hold onto it, Mae. I can't do anything. I'm tied down too tight."

"That's right, Mae. He came home late

42

and fell into a deep after-fuck sleep. I watched him for awhile thinking what he had done and how good he had done it, Mae. Then I decided: Let me fix this cheating rotten nigger's ass for good. So I got up and tied his great-dicker downl All the while, Mae, he was dreaming, blissfully sleeping, enjoying peacefully his double motherfucker that he had just pulled like so many other times before and would happy cheating times again and again in our now occasional get-it-over-with quick hallwayhoar-fucks that leave me nervous for days and near crazy with frustration and anxiety, while he smiled in his thinking-aboutanother-woman slumber—how pink and tight it was, and that he had had to have it, come what may, again and again--leaving me to my empty, tear-crowded bed night after night to recall how super it was when we wild-backed at it, Mae; ass to ass dripping the drenched sweat of love in a mind-boggling, brain-bashing, thrill-shrit ing, overcomearama of liquid-pits bursting that left the angels watching, limp on the viewing perches I Mae, we owned the fuck an all the fuckniques with iti Nobody else hti a right to what is ours, mind, body, and soull That's why I've got him here, Mael Double-fubber, triple-bitch, rotten mother machree that he isl This is what it is, Mael Smudge, about to payl Pay, pay, pay, motherfucker. Payl Payl" Then Smudge let out a yell like his heart and kidneys were being yanked out at the same time.

And everyone in the hallways yelled and hollered and beat against the wall and unyielding door. "Don't hurt himi Don't 43

destroy himl Mettina, don't destroy him!

Don't hurt him.' For god's sake, don't destroy himl" Then there was silence again.

"Smudgel" said Mae. "Smudge! Smudge!

Mettinal Mettinal" "Mettina'. You didn't!" said Beryl.

"Oh, Mettinal" said Wanda.

"My God O'Mighty!" said Willie Fuller.

"Save your breaths," said Mettina. "It didn't happen yet. I just squeezed that roaming branch of Smudge till he yelled like the devil had himl" "He's out?" said Herkimer.

"Fainted from pain and fear," said Mettina. "I'm torturing, bitch, motherfuck­ er. I was tortured! There's no torture like denial of branch-hard dick!"

"Oh, she's gone," said Mae. "My god, she'll butcher himl" said Fish.

"She's South in its fury when black fucks whitel" said Herkimer.

"She's lynching him!" said Tiplight.

"She's black redneck! She's got to mangle that limb! Maybe murder besides!"

"She's one hundred redneck men after a white-dicklng niggerl" said Fish.

"They'll tear a forest down to get himl" said Willie Fuller. "The Eleventh Command­ ment; there's no hiding place! Mother will be caught I" "Mael Mael" Smudge came to, screaming.

"You all right. Smudge?" said Mae. "Yeah, Mae," said Smudge. "She just squeezed me so tight I went out."

"Right! Right! I squeezed you," said Mettina. "Fucker! Double fuckman!"

"Please, don't again!" said Smudge. "I can't stand it !"

44

"Please, Mettina!" said Wanda.

"Bitch, I've only just begun!" said Mettina. "Weedy got Prince's whole trotter bag I One swipe, multi! One motherfaggen swipe--and he ran till he dropped dead.

How's that for being a goddam rotten moth­ erfucker?"

"I can't run!" said Smudge.

"You damn right you can't!" said Mettina. "And that's what makes it so cuntcoming good!"

"We just can't talk to her, Mae," said Beryl.

"She's past angry," said Wanda. "That Smudge has been too much, too much."

"I tried, Wanda," said Smudge. "It just ain't in me."

"Yes it is," said Mettina. "You just want too much."

"Mae? You there, Mae?" said Smudge.

"Yes," said Mae. "Well, what are you doing?" said Smudge. "It's your house."

"I'm doing all I can," said Mae. Mettina had jumped up and pushed one of their trunks in back of the bureau already against the door. They heard it hit. "Now, do all you can against that, Mae," she said, "I know you're planning to break the door down."

"Mettina, I just can't stand by and see you destroy a human being," said Mae. "But that's exactly what you are doing, Mae. You and all the rest of you out there.

You're standing by not to see but to hear a human being being destroyed. And you'll hear his loud clutching scream if you have ears, but you won't be able to help him.

Not even if you call the police. I have 45

·•''•"'•' w.jj Λ

Ή him, Mae. An about-to-be steel-burnt hellion by the fire I will build under his another-motherfucker assi" "But you're acting like the most inhu­ man of human beings," said Mae. "Like you're losing your mind. No one can talk to you."

"You're right, and I am losing my mind.

But blame it all on Smudge," said Mettina.

"He' rotten receiving all the cunt-dell I could turn up to him. And Mae, I've turned up some cunt-dell to that animal's limbi Ask him, Mael Ask himi" "I don't have to ask him," said Mae. "I know you've been a good wife. And now you can be a forgiving one."

"No way, Mael No wayl" said Mettina.

"I've fucked that branch too good to be true night after night, day after day, morn­ ing, noon, and nightl I've broken that fucker-mother's limb to unbelievableness, Mael Put a stick in it and broken it every timel Toe-twinkler comesi I Ask him, Mael Ask him'. Until he busted his nutsi A fuck till he howled! Ask him, Mael Ask himJ I've put some toe-twinklers on that bitch, Mae, I've wooded that bitch's branch, Mae. I know the art of stickmanship in a dead limb, Mael Put a stick in iti Ask him, Mael Ask himI" "Is that right, Smudge?" said Mae, hop­ ing more talk could stall things until Rab­ bit brought in Sandbag.

"Oh, she's been a dell-gripper under me, Mae," said Smudge, guessing Mae's intentions.

"She's made me talk foreign languages, Mae, till I forgot English and finally couldn't speak at all. Mae, she's fucked me speech­ less a hundred times. It's me, Mae. I'm a natural-born mongerl I'll fuck a rattlesnake with his rattle amplified. If they hadn't

made it pink, M a e — a n d I remember that it is p i n k — i t might be another story. But that pinkness, Mael That does it. Once that memory got into me, Mae, there was no stop­ ping me. And Mettina only sharpened it more, Other women had to be known. And for all their differences, Mae. Alike but differ­ ent. That's what makes it so exciting, Mae. And brings my mongering down like a hemor­ rhaging monthly. Alike but different in tightness and pinkness. The same but diff­ erent in corrugation and lipness. So much around it, Mae, that's indescribable I Mettina knows this. We've talked about it.

It's my way. Married or not, I must know others. Life is too short not to have all the beauty in it that you can when you can, Mae. You know that. Women are women and men are men. They don't understand u s , and we don't comprehend them. We marry the special ones, yet we want freedom to fuck the temp ing ones. We ain't no good, Mae, but that';:. only because we've got a branchi And when it gets a ten to six stick in it--well, you know the ultimate: mo therf ucker I And no marwants to be the lowest of low in the universe--a goddamn motherfuckerI Get the chicks; get the pussies—avoid the lowest bitch the need to fuck can bring--a goddamn motherfucker I A mom-fuck can tonnage the conscience until self-homicide can be the only solutioni My limb has no such con­ science. It has made many a hoar happy, but now faces amputation!"

"Amputation?" said Mettina. "You think that? You think I'm going to behead your limb?"

"Why, yes," they heard Smudge say, surprised. "Aren't you?"

47 46

"Mo, no, another-motherfucker!" said Mettina.

"Oh, fine.'" went up from the people in the packed hallway. "God is mercifull Heaven has helped usi" "Oh, you're being merciful," said Mae. "I am," said Mettina. "Smudge will still have his branch but for one thing," and here Mettina paused as she knew everyone was breathless to hear the one thing.

"What thing?" everyone said.

"Yeah, what thing, Mettina?" said Mae. "I thought you were being merciful."

"Oh, I am, Mae," said Mettina. "Smudge will still have his limb. Big Neanderthal criminal! He'll still look prehistoric fuckman I" "What in the world are you talking about? Double bitch!" said Smudge. "Am I being spared or not?"

"Call it what you want," said Mettina, "but I'm taking the armadillo out."

"You what, bitch?" said Smudge. "Crazy double-mother !"

"What the hell are you talking about, Mettina?" said Mae. "I'm taking the polar bear tooth out of it," said Mettina.

"Talk sense, triple-bitch.'" said Smudge.

"I am, monger'." said Mettina. "I'm cutting your motherfucken string'."

"You what, mad bitch?" said Smudge.

"Just under the shaft," said Mettina.

"A little nip and Johnny-limb-branch will never ten to six againi" And here poor Smudge started to yell and scream and shout and howl until every­ one hearing was howling and yelling with

48

him.

"Sandbag won't get here in time," said Mae. "We've gotta tear down the whole wall I" And as Mae, using her tremendous strength, in a few feet of space accom­ plished this feat, part of the flying de­ bris from the shattered partition hit Mettina's arm with the knife in it and drove the blade into Smudge's reclining branch.

And at the room's sudden exposure, nearly everyone outside saw a piece of meat fly into the air.

"Oh my god, there goes his limb!" said Wanda .

"Oh, heaven!" said Mae as blood spurt­ ed from Smudge, "Call a doctor!"

But they didn't get a doctor. Just heavily blanketed Smudge and rushed him in Boxey's car to Mineola Hospital's emergency section.

"My limb! My branch!" yelled Smudge as he came to in his hospital bed.

"Quiet! Quiet!" A nurse came into his room. "You lost a slice, but you're O.K." Smudge looked at her, "Rest," said the nurse. "You're still a full man."

"You mean I can still--?--" said Smudge. "I — ? She didn't — ? — " "Rest," said the nurse. "You're O.K." Some weeks later. Smudge returned home.

"It was close," Mae said. "But in the end it wasn't Mettina's fault. It was me doing harm with good."

"No matter," said Smudge. "As long as I never see Mettina again."

"You're something," said Fish, "You've so much you can lose some and still have a lot of some left."

49

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"They got some job."

"DRESSING FOR THAT bitch, huh?" said Til Hoolln, standing in the doorway of his sister Lila's room.

Lila didn't answer.

"Remember we told you about him."

"I like him," said Lila calmly.

"I've heard some things about him, too," said Mae coming up, "but you don't want to hear them, huh?"

"No, I don't," said Lila. "Please, all of you, let me have my date with Booster."

"The girl's going to find out for herself," said Greg. "We're talking for nothing.

Lila finally dressed, drew the customary ohs and ahs as she walked downstairs through the hall and parlor and out the door of the rooming house into the street.

"And that, gentlemen, is pussy," said Willie Fuller after Lila had passed the parlor where a host of gathered men had observed her departure.

"I bet Booster's not getting it," said Herkimer.

"I bet he isn't, too," said Bernard.

"Everybody knows she's tough to fuck," said Fish.

"Sure she is--we know thisi" said Willie Fuller emphatically^ "And her brothers watch all of u s , to boot."

"Only those they know are after her," said Tiplight.

"Which is all the dead and living dicks in Mineola and hereabouts," said Bernard.

52

Lila met Booster outside the Mineola theatre. "Sorry I'm late," she said warmly, "You're here. That's all that counts with me. And you're looking sharper than a Georgia nigger's razor."

"Why, what a compliment you pay m e , Graybar Booster," answered Lila, pretending to be a shy, unsophisticated girl.

"We Georgians, you can be sure, know how to compliment beauty."

Inside the theatre Booster placed his arm easily around Lila's shoulders.

"No kissing please, huh?" said Lila.

"I want to see Camille."

"You like Garbo?"

"For her beauty and acting," said Lila Two patrons in front of them looked back steely-eyed in the dark, and they got the message and said no more.

After the show they both felt a little sad. "Some ending, huh?" said Booster as the two, along with everyone else, left the theatre.

"I cried a little," said Lila.

"Did you? I didn't see you."

It was warm so the twosome walked slowly toward the end of town.

"It's a little late," said Lila.

"Shouldn't we be going toward Mae's?"

"We are, but just roundabout," said Booster. "I want to walk a little longer with you."

"Just walk?" asked Lila.

"Well," Booster hesitated," and maybe..

Here he halted and kissed Lila» Lila didn't mind. She complied strongly, her 53

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usual response.

"My god, you can kissl" panted Booster.

"I'm mad about youl" He held Lila tightly, but not tighter than she held him.

She was the first to break away. They walked on, holding hands.

The street swung around by the rail­ road station and traveled alongside the tracks a good eighth of a mile before veer­ ing left, away from the rails. In a half mile more, they passed Mae's house.

"Let's watch the eleven-twenty shoot through," said Booster.

Lila, knowing what he meant, consented.

They found a vacant bench and sat down.

They commenced kissing, and did it more and more, lengthening their kisses.

Lila came up for air when Booster shoved his hand up along her soft thigh a bit too high.

"Please, Booster! Pleasel" she let out, halting his pawing search with firm female resistance.

"I want youl" gasped Booster, desper­ ately forcing his hungry hands against Lila's steadfast hands until she cried out: "Boost­ er, you're hurting mei" "I want you.'" he insisted, heedless, like he was pure deaf.

"But you can't have me. Booster!" ex­ ploded Lila, jumping up. "We're not mar­ ried ."

"Sure I can. What's marriage got to do with it?"

"Everything! I'm decent," said Lila.

"And you're out of order. I'm going home."

"The hell you are! I wanna fuck!" And he grabbed the whole front of Lila's blouse and tore it down, tearing bra as

well, and maybe some dear flesh too as her breasts shot out fully and firmly, nude to indecency.

"You're crazy. Booster.'" yelled Lila, backing off, wheeling and i Lying headlong up Union A v e n u e — t i t s all adkew and liapp.. about and into each other like tripped-out bowling pins.

When Booster caught up with her, she reversed direction, ducked and bobbed under him like a < ornered monkey, continuing on up the avenue, sometimes hitting at him to fend him off.

"Bitch!" he yelled as she outmaneuvered him.

No person or car appeared, though it wasn't so terribly late, and running back and forth, changing directions, bobbing and ducking and fending him off took its toll. She felt herself, unable to fight anymore, being pushed to an embankment on the track side of the avenue. Booster ripped off her panties in one savage yank and snatched her legs apart.

"Booster!" she pleaded weakly. "Don't!

Booster, I--" But he didn't seem to hear. He unzippc his trousers, aroused beyond reason at the compelling sight the night afforded him ο *" her whole exposed sexual theatre.

And he would have raped her but for tw reasons: her brothers.

"Booster!" shouted Til, knocking Booster away with one vicious punch.

"You bitch!" blasted Greg, swinging at him, too. Booster rolled out of the way just in time, but not fast enough to avoid a kick from Til. He took off up the embankment toward a field some distance 55

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off, between the avenue and the railroad tracks.

After him went the brothers. Til and Greg, like demons from hell going from fire to fire.

"Dirty degenerate dogi Trying to rape SisI" Booster, being younger, ran faster and was widening the gap when he fell and didn't get up right away.

Greg Hoolin was on him with a heavy foot. Booster rolled out of the way, rose and bolted off again.

"Rotten swine. Booster!" Greg yelled.

"We'll get yahl You cocksucker!"

And it seemed they would. The fall cost Booster time, and Til was in a position to cut him off from field running.

Straight then toward the tracks ran Booster, too fast for the steep descent, and started stumbling, then fell headlong down the incline and landed hard at the bottom and struck his back on the tough rail with a sound that went up in the night, and he lay still, moaning.

Down the slope plunged the Hoolin brothers.

"Wait: Wait: Greg!" shouted Til. "He's hurti He can't move, Greg: Motherfucker's hurt:" Both brothers looked heartlessly down on Booster. He lay across the track moaning but not moving.

Then Lila came up pantyless and in her torn dress and looked down on Booster with her two brothers. Booster didn't seem to know she was there. He lay moaning, the rail of one of the tracks under him.

"He can't move. Sis," said Til gladly.

"Motherfucker can't move."

"He can't move?" said Lila startled.

"Let's get him up."

"What for? He can't walk. His back's broken," said Greg.

"Yeah, leave him here," said Til. "You can't:" cried Lila, "Can't, huh?" said Greg. "Watch us."

"That'll be murder," said Llla.

"We didn't touch him. He fell," said Til. Lila bent and tried to move Booster but couldn't. Booster groaned terribly when she touched him.

"He's so heavy. I can't budge him."

"The train can," said Greg.

"Please:" begged Lila.

"What?" screeched Til. "He tried to rape you: Sister, bitch:" "And would have if we hadn't come along looking for you," said Greg.

"But--" Lila started to say.

"Come on," ordered Til. "Leave him to the four-thirty express. It'll finish the job."

"I wont leave him:" Lila pulled away from her brothers and ran back to Booster.

Til wouldn't have it. He hit her a stunning slap and jerked her on, Greg shoving her, too.

Lila, as they crossed the field on the way home, tried to run again but they held her .

Back at the house they told Mae what happened and slammed Llla into her room where Til sat by the door to make sure she wouldn't get out.

"You're murderers:" screamed Lila.

"Booster's a rapist and you're murderers:"

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When all was quiet, they looked Into the room to discover Lila had escaped. A short search outside turned up nothing. So they went back to the tracks, to no avail there either. Booster was still lying on the tracks, and Lila nowhere about. Where could she be?

Lila, determined to save Booster, was combing the night world of Mineola to find her one friend and admirer—black, ugly Forky. But he was nowhere to be found. Time was running out. Where could he be? She had been by his room in Jackson's house once, but she better go back again. This time she found him.

"Oh, Forky, my god.' Where were you? I need you terribly'."

"Yes?" said Forky, surprise in his voice. "What for?"

"It's Booster. He's hurt on the tracks.

Maybe his back is broken. And the train comes at four-thirty I" "What? On the tracks?"

"He fell running from my brothers... after he tried to rape me."

"Rape you? Booster?" asked Forky. "He tried that?"

"Yes. And now he's on the tracks. Fell there running from my brothers. So Til and Greg want him killed by the train."

"You mean they left him there to die?" said Forky. "Can't he move?"

"I said his back's broken, Forky," said Llla. "At least hurt."

"And now you want me to get him off in time?" said Forky.

"Please," said Lila. "Aren't you my friend? I'll be forever grateful."

Forky looked earnestly at her for

awhile. "You love that nigger, Lila, don't you?"

"I adore hlml" said Lila sincerely.

"And I adore youl" said Forky.

"What?"

Forky touched her gently now. "I want the same thing Booster wanted," he said with a deep sigh.

"Forky: You don't m e a n — " "I'm human," said Forky."

Lila looked at him awhile, startled by his revelation.

"Forky, you're my friend. I just couldn't," said Lila.

"Then there's no way," said Forky. "God know I'm human. Black bltchl Black dick and everythingi I have to fuck, too."

"I could hate you, Forkyl I will if I have to," said Lila.

"You're some girl, Lila, and you know it," said Forky. "What am I to do? You wouldn't help a black bitch like me no time I know it. I'm a friend without a dick. No urge and need to fuck because I'm black and ugly. Right?"

"No, no!" said Llla. "You've got a right to fuck like everybody else. You're human. But I want to be married when I do it. That's why I wouldn't give in to Booster."

"You never had a dick in you, Lila?" asked Forky.

Lila looked at him wondering how to answer.

"If I find you a virgin, I wont force it," said Forky. "But i f — " He didn't finish.

Lila Interrupted him.

"I had one bad affair a while ago," said Lila. "That's why my brothers worry. They

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don't want me to make it two."

Forky just looked at her.

Lila looked drained. Even helpless.

"All right!" she said, sighing heavily.

"I've got to save Boosterl Where will it be?"

"Right here," said Forky, pulling her into the room he rented. "It's clean."

Lila didn't move anymore once inside.

Just grew rigid.

Forky kissed Lila's cheeks as softly as he could and fondled her breasts ever so carefully as she winced and kept look­ ing away. He then eased her over to the bed and guided her backwards softly onto the sheeted mattress.

He became more aggressive and breathed heavier as he found her panties and ran one hand easily over her growth of hairs.

She didn't wince this time but raised up to let him remove what finally covered her.

But she did draw back when she felt his huge erection pushing eagerly to enter.

"Forkyl" He forced deep inside her. He was hard like he couldn't be bent.

"Lila," he moaned once he was fully inside. "Oh, Lilal" She didn't answer or move as he began to draw upwards for the first time and then drive downwards again--but as slow as a snail with a full belly.

Realizing the time,she couldn't allow this and began her own experienced moves.

But to no avail. Forky kept one steady bore.

"Forky, pleasel" she said. "We've no time for a slaker-fuck. Get it over with!"

But Forky didn't seem to hear and kept 60

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his pace, a steady bore tempo, slaker-fuck, the kind they say blacks do when they want to make a home.

"Come on, Forkyl" ordered Lila. "This is no time to make a home. Fuck quick!"

Then Lila, putting her own English to it, wriggled, twisted, squeezed, bent down­ ward and gallop-fucked up to his stalwart slaker, gripping fiercely until he help­ lessly poured out into her with an animal sound that was both frightening and weird.

However, his final spurts were shot from outside with a howl of "Damn! I did­ n't finish good."

"I know! I don't need your slime for a baby!"

Forky said nothing. He lay back as all men do .

"Come on!" ordered Lila. "It's getting late."

Afterwards, outside in the darkness, Lila moved ahead of Forky, pulling him.

"Forky, pleasel" Forky pulled back almost to a stop.

"I want it again."

"What? You can't! You couldn't!"

Forky guided her hand to his new ten to six. "Oh, Forky, please! There's no time. A second fuck is always too long!

There's no time, Forky."

"There's time," said Forky, "right up against this tree." And he reached un­ der and pulled Lila's panties aside and eased his pole way up her.

He was faster now. Uppercuts into her pussy. If only I had let Booster have his way, Lila thought, I wouldn't have to be so used.

"Oh, please, Forky, finish! For god's 63

sake, finish;" And she fucked down on his hard stemmer one time, with guillotine force, to skive it off in her like an icicle under the blade.

"Ah-h-h-: Ah-h-hl" yelled Forky as the force overbent him, and mixed with pain and passion, his stemmer out, lost control, and he shot his liquid-pits all over the nightdarkened greenery, cursing, "Oh, goddami I didn't get it good againi" And then they heard it: the whistle of the four-thirty train, blowing to the Mineola station; it was coming through with its usual roaring locomotive thunder.

"Boosterl God Almightyl Fatherl Heaven help usi J" screamed Lila, running like the train on the tracks, but too far away to head it off as it sped by, flying like it was off the rails.

"Ohi Ahi Oh-h-h! Ah-h-h! Oh-h-hl Boosterl Boosterl" walled Lila, Forky hold­ ing her now as he caught up to her.

"Oh, Forky! Forky!" And she fell limp in his arms, weeping like a baby who could also talk.

"If only I had! If only I had!" she kept repeating without moving a joto Finally, after some time, as the night silence folded on the locomotive's thunder, she spoke. "Shall we go look at him, Forky?"

Forky shook his head. "No," he said» "It's t o o — I t ' s too — !"

"Yes, I know," said Lila. "Take me home."

And Forky helped her as she cried and whimpered and moaned all the way home, Mae was up still, as were Lila's broth­ ers, but Mae saw her first, "What's up, Forky?" said Mae, as he

handed Lila over.

"You know what's up, Mae," snarled Lila. And she was startled to see Forky take off down Union, like another train.

"Booster's gone like you and my brothers wanted. And not a chance to save himself.

It was terrible!" And Lila broke into un­ controllable weeping.

"He'll be all right, honey," said Mae tenderly. She embraced her. "His back's not broken, thank god. Just injured."

Lila stopped weeping and looked straight at Mae. "What did you say, Mae?" "Didn't Forky tell you? We took him to the hospital."

"You what?" Her eyes were wide and unflinching.

"Your brothers, Forky and me, took Booster to the hospital. Didn't Forky tell you?"

At this time Til and Greg walked up to face a wide-eyed, wet-eyed, startled sister.

"What's up yet?" said Greg.

Lila didn't answer. Mae said, "It seems Forky didn't tell Lila we took Booster to the hospital."

"So what?" said Til. "So what? So what?" exclaimed Lila. "I fucked that black nigger to help me move Booster off the tracks. That's what!"

"Forky, you son-a-bitch.'" screamed Greg, and both brothers tore out of the house after him as if running to catch a train--the last train. That train was Forky! He knew whose sister he had fucked.

Humbug motherfubber! He was off, running fast! In the direction where America has the widest open spaces! "God," he huffed happily running like a train off the tracks "That bitch has some tight pussy!"

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DEAD BROTHER IN LIVING COLOR Rebecca

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65

AT THE OLD HOUSE where we used to live on Howard Street, during boxing and wrestling matches Darla's pseudonym was B.O. Darla, mine was Bad Breath Gretel, and Daniel was Daniel Devil-Dog. He always won. He never cheated at boxing, although he did cheat at Monopoly. Once when we were playing Monopoly I went to the bathroom and thought I saw a thin, long worm in the feces. I have never told anyone. Is it possible that I still have worms?

Daniel punched me even when we weren't boxing, but I forgive him because I am now a mature adult and understand sibling rivalry. One time I showed my mother the contusions on my upper arm. She turned to him and said, "Please don't do that, dear."

On my first day of kindergarten Daniel escorted me, since he had only to cross the street to get to the second grade. Poor Daniel. Kindergarten was on the upper floor of the Mt. Aristotle Boro Fire House, and Daniel had to hold onto me while I shrieked until kindly Mrs. Frost came out to drag me up the stairs and into the room, where there was a lovely girl whose name was Juanita, and where we cut out magenta pumpkins on Halloween.

As we grew older Daniel and I became closer and began associating with the same crowd. There was a particular Temple youth group that met on the other side of the lake we lived o n — L a k e Grenouille—that was

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sanctioned by Abe and Sophie. Daniel had his first sexual fling with the group's president, Shari, and I touched my first penis. Seth Bloom's first and only (to my knowledge) penis.

Seth was an older man. Eighteen, five years older than I was. My friend Amy, the cantor's daughter, had been showing me how to give a hicky that afternoon. She demonstrated on the soft skin on the back of her hand. We were all curious, feeling our oats, peas, beans, and whatever else we could get our hands on. At five o'clock I went home for dinner, but by the time the sun set, Seth's boat was nosing up against the end of the dock. This made my mother hysterical because she knew all about "older men," especially about those who, like Seth, drove cabs in New York City. This also made me hysterical because I was hoping to find out about older men, albeit within limits at the time. The Chris Craft left the dock, and Seth's teeth glinted in the sunset between his smile.

The first part of the night passed uneventfully; movies, food with Amy and some other youth group members, a car ride, a few joints passed between the more adventurous of u s . In the car on the way back to Amy's house, where Seth's boat was docked, I decided it was time to make my move. Seth and I were sitting in the back seat. My chin was raw from the scraping of Seth's five o'clock shadow whiskers, but I held fast to my purpose. Like an inexperienced gangster who has to pull the trigger for the first time, I forced my hand to touch Seth's shirt, just above his

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belt. Whiskers rubbed like sandpaper against my face„ I lowered my hand, and there it was, a hard, skinny thing squash­ ed under his pants, running a little ways down one leg. Thorns on my cheeks. I slip­ ped my hand under his pants, over his under­ wear, but that was thato On the way home the sky was dark, no stars lit the boat's way, and the lights fore and aft were out so the Marine Police wouldn't catch us if we sped over the night limit. A few blocks before my parents' house, from the dock of Dr. Ella PoitrineFaire (a physician who lived with another woman, to Abe and Sophie's lip-smacking shock) a low diving board jutted dangerous­ ly over the water. The speedometer read, in land terms, 7 m.p.h. when the sickening sound of wood being crushed hit my ears, the boat bolted up like a stallion, and Seth's face shot forward and thudded against the steering wheel. I shrieked, leaned over, and flipped to key to the "off" position,, We sat there. I began to cry, and touched his hair and shoulders. He turned the key back to "on," threw the throttle into reverse, and set the boat back in motiouo The boat wasn't badly damaged, and in a minute we were a few yards from my parents' dock. Seth reached into his mouth, took something out, and opened his palm flat for me to see.

There, in his hand, were two whitish-red objects. I laughed, not knowing what to make of them until he stuck them back into his mouth and fitted them into the bloody place they'd come from. I watched him hurl the two incisors into the lake. We pulled up to the dock, and I sat muttering and dripping with tears. (I wish I could remember how to

cry like that now. On the bus sometimes, on the way to the office, I b egin to sob, but my tear-ducts are jammed, clogged, hardly anything will come out .) Seth finally made it clear that he wanted to leave, (Was he crying?) and I climbed out of the boat . He drove away in to darkness.

My parents' house was wel 1-lit that night (Abe usually kept it as luminous as the inside of a casket): visi tors were milling about. When I walked in the door Sophie kissed m e . "Mmm," she said, "You smell so sweet...like warm mi Ik." Sometime before all this happened, through someone in the youth group, Daniel met Dona, his first mob-family acquaint­ ance. Her father was a hit-man, who rarely made an appearance at their luxe lake house. Dona's brother owned the Eclair, a low, streamlined, glittering racing boat that had at least nine lives. Daniel, Dona and I were riding in it just at the thresh­ old of one of its demises. We'd been ski­ ing, and Dona, a kidney-busting driver, kept it bouncing over the wake of one of the humongous Begbug Island Amusement Park tour boats. We were circling, when, four stones-throws in front of her house, the Eclair hit its last wave of that particulai life. Water was rising over our feet, so Dona punched the throttle, and the Eclair took off so fast that the water flew out the rear drain holes quicker than it could rise within the hull. We had to slow down to dock, so by the time we reached the pier the Eclair had already started to disappear into the blue-gray water. Cracked transom.

Daniel and I jumped out to fasten the ropes

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to the rings, but the Eclair tilted and sank. Dona swam out of it.

There was nothing more we could do, so we went into the house to telephone Dona's brother to take care of the boat. (Genuine boat connoisseurs are also their baby's doctors.) I looked around furtively, but Dona's father wasn't there; just a polished pool table, a color Τ.V., and wood wood wood floors, walls, ceilings; even the bathrooms were panelled with that gold-bronze wood.

The refrigerator was empty, so we turned on the T.V. to watch the last part of Fail Safe.

Fail Safe. The End of the World. Passé fear or not, at least once a week I have a nightmare of Nuclear Holocaust. Nightmare.

The meek shall inherit the earth. Some believe that we will go (go?) that way, but others insist that no one will ever start it because the Starter won't want to go either. Go? Those others are the ones who can't stand to believe what will happen.

They are the meek. What I think is that the meek shall never survive. Unless they write novels or make paintings. In which case they are no longer meek. The meek are the cockroaches, the illicit welfare recipients; they reproduce like rabbits but aren't willing to hop for their supper. They wait around like slugs, giving Robin Hood liberals something to feel guilty about, while others are forced by threat of arrest to pay t a x e s — t o feed the swelling, bureaucratic hand that bites them.

Anyway, we watched the end of Fail Safe.

It appeared that bicycle riders, dental assistants, fur-swathed women, executives, and thin, black boys froze. More likely, they melted. The screen went dark, and my

lungs actually thought for a moment that all the air had just been sucked off the earth (i.e., it would be wise to return all library books, immediately.) That was the end of the movie. That was that.

Daniel and Dona were friends, they were attracted to each other, but zip came of their relationship because Dona moved back to her family's house in the very northern part of New Jersey.

C'est ca. Her blood ties to mobsters were incidental, had nothing to do with Daniel's later association with Mark, whom you will find out about soon enough.

Daniel sucked his fingers until he was fourteen. His eyes were a hot cyanean blue; his hair was thick and curly and brown, his breath was sweet, acidic; lips — s e n s u a l ; his sweat had a healthy, musky scent. He was strong as a Mack truck, and a comedian to the first degree. (Once, in a whorl of anger, I threw a stale bagel a t, him, God! and it hit him in the eye. No one made any jokes.) I can't remember a time period when Abe and Sophie didn't lampoon him, jeer, cackle about his weight.

He wasn't obese, just plump once in a while until the few oasis months before the Fourth of July: the months when he slimmed down and began to think of himself as handsome. Probably, the rest of us learned to cackle and jeer at him from Abe and Sophie. Actually, Abe didn't cackle much of the time. He would sit and listen, powerless to decackle my mother. (But not powerless to impregnate Sophie with five children. Dr. Johnson's dictionary defines "to mate" as "to subdue.")

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One of the disgusting diseases Daniel developed was Bell's Palsy. I was sitting in the kitchen with him when he felt the first sign. We were eating thick sandwiches and drinking malted milk when Daniel felt a wrenching pain in his left jaw: a pain as if something had snapped. He told m e , and I pretended to myself that nothing was wrong.

Within a few days, the visible symptoms started to develop: the left side of his face began to sag. Soon, the left side of his lips drooped, his cheek hung down, his eye sagged, and he couldn't chew with the left side of his mouth. Food dripped out.

Breezes, Abe said, one could develop Bell's Palsy from sleeping in a room with the win­ dow open. I am typing In the dead yellow bright room.

I was standing at the edge of Route 46 with some high school friends when one of them brought up the subject in audible words.

Palsy Bell's Palsy Bell's Palsy Palsy. "Oh," I said. "I didn't know that. I always thought he was weird."

All feeling on that side of his face disappeared. Daniel kept going to school. He drank out of a straw. At night he would wake up screaming; gigantic bees were after him in his dreams. I would fly to the door of the room, and then wait there while Sophie and Abe ran in. Once, when we were children, Daniel had a boll on his behind. He smiled strangely at me when Abe told me I had to leave the room so he could lance It. Gradually, during the next half year, the palsy lessened, then vanished altogeth­ er. But not much time passed before a small bald spot, about the size of a dime, materi­ alized at the back of Daniel's head. Alope-

eia. The spot grew to the circumference of a quarter, a half-dollar. Abe examined it and said that in some cases the condi­ tion spread over the whole head. Largely a symptom of, and aggravated by Tension.

Frequently, the hair grew back, and no one would be able to tell that it had ever been missing. That's what happened. The hair grew back. Now Daniel's hair is probably lying all around his head. No, It's probably disintegrated or thin, hanging off his skull like a mummy's in the Museum of Natural History. Jews are not embalmed. I think he is wearing a teeshirt that I tie-dyed for him: blue and white. I went yesterday to see his grave.

Grass Isn't growing on it. (Abe's fru­ gality, no doubt. Faithless in death as he is in life?) I looked down and thought.

He's in there. Then I thought, his spirit Isn't in there, not his self, just his body. But I don't know if his body's really in there, (ha ha) I didn't go to the funer­ al, I stayed home and played cards with the next door neighbor. Rose, who had red hair.

All those spirits, or selves flying aroundl — I t h o u g h t — i f that's what spirits do.

Four days ago, a woman in the Articles department--which is next to mine, the Health and Beauty department—the woman who writes the Letters to the Editor, and the horoscopes told me that she'd been reading up on reincarnation. "The funny thing is," she said, "that every time you come back, (come back?) each time you enter the next body, you always come back as the same sex.'

"What if you are a transexual?" I ask­ ed her.

Delia LaBardi, Veronica's high school

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hour. buddy, had a father who owned a junk yard and a younger brother whose name was Mark.

Delia's father was a lubricated, fat Mafi­ osa character with whom Delia's boyfriend Hob had dealings: shadowy, drug-related transactions. Daniel and Mark became tight friends. They got high together, drank to­ gether, dreamed of meeting women. In the be­ ginning of May, Daniel's last year of high school, he met Lise, a tough girl whose parents owned a nursery. They went out to­ gether often, Daniel, Lise, Mark, and his new-found girl Bonnie. Daniel came home late or didn't come home at all. Sometimes he knocked at my bedroom door at 3:00 in the morning bringing me a can of beer, and we would sit on the floor and drink the beer and talk or plug up the crack under the door with a sweater or towel and smoke a joint.

He told me stories. Of girls who said they'd gone to bed with dogs, of political treach­ ery, of the people who smuggled drugs across the Mexican border in jars of Vaseline. He wanted to become a lawyer. He had shed the extra adolescent pounds and seemed to shine as he walked about.

In June, Lise told him she'd had enough of their relationship. He shut himself in his room for a day and a night, a habit he'd stopped. Graduation came, and the family all sat on the benches of the gym to watch him walk across the stage. We had planned to meet him outside the gym door after the cere­ mony, but when we reached the door he wasn't there. I knew that he was going to go out with friends, so I assured the family it was all right for us to leave, that he was probably gone already. The next day we found out that he had waited for us for over an

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The organism crawls into the dark hole in the basement of the Howard Street house.

Cobwebs stick to her feet, black spiders run along the walls.

Red and white lights flash before her eyes, sirens are singing like Nazi Germany.

She wakes and finds that her mouth is dry as sandpaper, her tongue is a thick slab.

Where am I where am I the room is white as an inverted night white white a hospital gown white walls my teeth are grinding into each other this room is like a closet am I hallucinating I remember.

The organism untwists the sheets from her legs and goes out into the hall to consult the total strangers about the sirens. Ά dream, they say.

I was afraid I was hallu­ cinating, the organism says, although I never had.

No, they smile sadly, wisely, the noise was a siren.

The organism is led back to her room.

The door is ominous, tall, but is curiously light.

Two weeks after the graduation, Abe, Sophie, Darla and I left for a trip, a va­ cation at the Jersey shore. We went to Wildwood Crest, a town where the sale of liquor is illegal, a Family Vacation town, at whose borders there are signs that read, "All criminals must register before enter­ ing." Since Daniel had passed his eighteenth birthday, he wasn't required to join us. I stood by the door of his bedroom before we left, looking in at the BB-sized hole in the picture window, around which cracks shone like filaments. Cleaning guns. He'd been practicing. The station wagon was loaded up. As we drove away, Daniel stood 75

in the driveway gritting his teeth like a wolverine.

The Jolly Pirate Hotel was waiting hundreds of miles away. The gargantuan pirate statue loomed ridiculously on the roof of the building as if it had been fastened to the sky with tacks. Billboards called to us from the side of the highway: Where is the

road next!

taking Sleep

you? with

To the next us tonight!

road, and the At a traffic

jam near Tom's River Abe put the car in neutral and stepped on the gas to keep the fan running so the radiator wouldn't overheat. A pockmarked hitchhiker, wearing a black and gold cap that perched at the back of his black curls like a nimbus, peered in, evaluating us. He saw the expressions of expectation for the trip which we wore on our faces. "What's the point?" he muttered around the toothpick in his mouth, lobbing his backpack to the ground. "Where is the road taking you? Sleep with us tonight."

The ten days of the vacation loped along.

We beached and movied and boardwalked, and ate pancakes at the hotel coffee shop. We drove home on a Thursday afternoon and arrived at my father's house. Old Point Comfort, as the sign on one of the oak trees said, at sundown. Daniel was sitting on the dock, fishing. We called to him, but he didn't seem to hear. I walked down the stone path to the dock. He was wearing cut off jeans and sitting cross-legged by a coffee can full of earth and nightcrawlers. I kissed him on the head. He was happy to see me, and we talked for a little while about my vacation and about his plans for the coming weekend. Mark LaBardi was going to

stay with Hob at Hob's New York apartment for the weekend, and Daniel was going, too.

We listened to the lapping of the water until the bats appeared, swooping up and down the air after insects that no one without radar would be able to see.

Two days later, Saturday, July Fourth.

I am throwing firecrackers off the porch.

I light one. Pause. Toss it into the air.

The flame rises, reaches an apex, begins an arc down and slaps my eardrums, expanding, flying apart from itself, dividing like a reproducing cell. I light another, watch the process. Bits of paper flutter over the grass, become snagged on the tips of blades of grass. Is that a car pulling into the driveway? A siren calls mildly in the distance. Strike a match. The spark flares out like heaven, like an expanding star. Not a siren, a cat? A baby wailing?

No, the sound is too loud. The star is only a star for a moment before it disintegrates. Prestar, star, lack of star.

What is that sound?

Funny, sounds like it's coming from inside the house. I set down the matches and the plastic baggie of firecrackers, and walk in through the kitchen door.

God, what is it, Sophie is curled up on the floor like a fetus, ranting and rolling. This is not life, is life like this? She is moaning the siren song, but that is not a song unless it's a swan's.

Someone is in the den, a woman. Why is she sitting in there? I stare at Sophie and ask or think, what's wrong? but she doesn't even sense me near. I step past her out the front door. Darla is standing in the driveway, glaring at the blacktop.

76 77

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Something happened to Daniel, she says.

What, what is it? She doesn't answer, looks up Into the leaves of the trees, a strange smile or fluttering is disturbing her lips.

I am running, running, my muscles are full of blood and energy pumping. I am sixteen years old, God, don't let it have happened, turn it around, flip the mirror of time to face in the other direction. I hear nothing. No answer. My legs are moving me.

No one has told me. I know. I stand in front of a small, gray house. What is this reaching into my throat, a fist of strength extracting something, pulling, grasping a hugeness out of me, and I swallow but can't retain this invisible organ or mind or essential entity that is being torn away.

Heart's beating fast. Green trees are merely motes in my consciousness, like gnats unnoticed but there. Thought is the single presence, effort of manipulation of unalterable occurances. If I am good enough, evil will not have happened: regression to primacy.

Sounds are rebounding, flaring, brassing,but they are only coming from my brain, my thoughts.

I attempt to breathe and walk back down to the house. Robin is standing in the driveway now. I hear my name. Who is calling it?

People are speaking my name. Robin is going to capture me. He is. Daniel is dead, he says. I stare at him. That's not true, I say, simply, confidently. It's true, Robin says. His vision gores unmercifully into my eyes. He has not let me get away. I pad off, my feet are bare. The front door is opened by my hand. (I am not a container of power.)

Sophie is no longer spread out on the floor like some colloid gel. Mrs. LaBardi walks

out of the den. Mrs. LaBardil She is saying she is sorry. My hands are protecting my ears, covering them. Outside of the barrier of my skin, time has slowed down. Within me time is normal, functions are coordinating, heart is beating, brain is,eating oxygen.

Everyone is moving as if they are floating in water. I am far away, far from the sun, and so its explosion appears slower. Abe is dialing the phone. Again and again, different numbers.

Later. I still do not know how it happened. I know what happened, but I can't remember. I remember that Daniel fell out of a window, but I don't know that I remember that. I know, as a matter of fact, that Daniel did not fall, but jumped out of a window, but why don't I know how he died?

No one has told me...My hands have been protecting my ears, but perhaps the words slipped between my fingers to within reach of my hearing. Why has no one sat with me and told me? There is a sin. It is called Not Speaking. It is called not speaking.

There are a lot of people here. Someone thinks I don't know, but I do know how it hapened. I heard him cawing like a great soprano gull, glalllng out at the people in the room. Hob, Mark, whoever else, I saw that drug crumbling in his blood-stream, releasing its crumbs, particle by particle.

I even saw him teetering, looking far down with his lips apart, holding onto the walls for the dear life, and then passing through that critical border of thought and time, that second in which he pushed off away from the walls, hurled himself into the floorless space--tried to turn quickly with the lump beating in his throat when he changed his mind and reached with his

78 79

fingers for the window, the exit (or entrance) , but that was too late, and air swallowed him. I have seen this many times, as a matter of fact» And felt the rushing of the air, the sound of water or molecules flooding the ears.

I have also seen my brother's neck breaking when he landed on the concrete on the back of his head. His neck twisting, causing an unnatural bowing of his head.

His face all shattered, and skin opened up, and red life-liquid flowing flowing flowing, I have seen him landing on his feet, the ankle bones crushing like chalk, and then his body falling forward, his hands seeming to enter the sidewalk, the sidewalk seeming to him to fly up, and then the blackness.

Or lightness. Oh yes, I have seen this many times. No one has told m e , and I am too proud to force them to tell me, but I have seen it. (I am too proud to pull any member of my family by the neck to a chair, to sit next to me and tell m e , make sure that I know, and that I know the truth. My family members are not accustomed to sitting next to anyone and telling them the truth. If I asked one of them to, I would cry, as if I had done something extraordinary.)

80

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School of General Studies

COL U M Β I A UNIVERSITY Spring Session Begins January 21, 1980

For information, call or write: Director of Admissions, 509 Β Lewisohn Hall, Columbia University Broadway and 116th Street, New York, N.Y. 10027 (212) 280-2224

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