1985-Vol21

The Literary Magazine of the School of General Studies Columbia University

Volume Twenty-one Spring 1985

Submissions Current and recent General Studies students — including special students and students in other branches of Columbia University who are taking G.S. writing courses — are encouraged to submit to Quarto.

We welcome poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and plays, including excerpts from longer works.

Each submission should be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. Please include your name, address, and phone number (optional) on your manuscript.

Manuscripts may be submitted elsewhere while under consideration at Quarto; just notify us of acceptance by another publication.

Address all submissions and correspondence to: Quarto 608 Lewisohn Hall Columbia University New York, New York 10027

Executive Editors Richard Crose and Alma Rodriguez-Sokol Associate Editors James Adams Julie Bokser Joyce Chang Charles Elder Carol Goodnow Fox Deborah Grossman Julie Grossman Cindy Hollen Peggy O. Hong Robert Horn Mark Lewis Irene Marcuse Joy Parker Charles Passy Steven Roberts John Ruvane Doug Sloan Linda Tritsis Winston Willis

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Director, Writing Program J.R. Humphreys Faculty Adviser Alan Ziegler

Our thanks to Larry Zirlin of Philmark Lithographies.

QUARTO IS EDITED BY STUDENTS ENROLLED IN ©1985 by Quarto ISSN 0735-6536

LITERARY MAGAZINE EDITING AND PUBLISHING; ALAN ZIEGLER, INSTRUCTOR.

Contents 7 Easter in the Cancer Ward by Nicholas Samaras 11 Letter from a Resort by Mona Molarsky 12

Father's Day by Louisa C. Brinsmade

15 Flowers Never Sent by Eranza Blanco 16 Eden Bawn by Deirdre Hoare 18 At the Start of a Season Down the Shore

by Melissa Bank 26 The First Appearance of the Goddess

by Michael Crawford 28

Survivors by Carmela Lanza

30 November by Susan Hogan 34 The Wedding by Jo Mattern 35 Be Careful! by Patricia Volk 38 Daughters by Maggie Bradley 39 Fairyland by Barbara Kalin 48

At the Telluride Jazz Festival by Lori Stevens

49

Skeletons by Lori Stevens

51 What About Jacqueline Onassis

by Russell McCallum 52 Inkblots by Joseph Ferrandino 57 The Back of the Book 61 Contributors' Notes

Portrait of Edith Sitwell

Cover drawing by Michelle Lindholm Cover design by Alma Rodriguez-Sokol

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Nicholas Samaras

EASTER IN THE CANCER WARD

QUARTO PRIZE W E ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE WINNER OF THE FIRST ANNUAL QUARTO PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT

Because it has been years since my hands have dyed an egg or I have remembered my father with colour in his beard, because my fingers have forgotten the feel of wax melting on my skin, the heat of paraffin warping air, because I prefer to avoid death politely, from afar, I agree to visit the children's cancer ward.

"Easter in the Cancer Ward" by Nicholas Samaras CHOSEN BY GARY GLOVER AND PHYLLIS RAPHAEL FROM THE CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE.

In her ballet-like, butterfly slippers, Elaine pad-pads down the carpeted hall. I bring the bright bags, shove down packets of powdered dye and my slight unease.

She snuggles up, walks with her hand in my jacket pocket, frees it to call the elevator. For three floors, we hold one kiss.

The doors glide open onto great light. Everything is vibrant and clattered with colour. Racing to the lobby, children converge, their strong voices rising.

What does one do with the embarrassment of staring at sickness? Suddenly, I do not know where to place my hands. Wasting children with radiant faces reach out thinly, clamour for the expected bags, lead us to the Nurses' kitchen. Elaine introduces me and reads out a litany of their names. Some of the youngest wear old expressions. The bald little boy loves Elaine's long mane of hair and holds the healthy thickness to his face, hearing

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her laugh as she pulls him close. I'm dying, he says and, calmly, Elaine tells him she is, too: too much iron in her blood. I can never accept that as true yet, in five months, she'll just slip away in a September night—leaving her parents and I to bow our heads, bury her in a white wedding gown, our people's custom for that young hour.

But right now, I do not know this. We are here. Right now, we are still eternal and the kids are fidgety and crying out for their eggs. Elaine divides them into teams and I lay out the tools for the grand operation.

I tell them all how painting Easter eggs used to be done in the Old Country. Before easy dyes were common, villagers boiled onion peels, put the eggs in a pot with wooden ladles so the shells wouldn't break.

Then, they'd scoop them out, flushed a brownishred, and our fathers would polish and polish them with olive oil, singing hymns for the Holy Thursday hours.

The children laugh and boo when I try to sing. The boys swirl speckles of colour into the hot water, while the girls time the eggs. When a white-faced boy asks from nowhere if I believe in Christ and living forever, I stop stirring the mix, answer, Yes, I do. I answer slowly and when I speak it, my own voice deafens me.

The simple, verbalised truth blooms like these painted flowers riding up the bright kitchen-walls. I come to belief. I know that much. Yet what a man may do with belief, I think, takes more than what he says.

Now, the hot waters are stained a rich red. Eggs have boiled and cooled. To each set of hands, Elaine gives one towel, three eggs. I pass the pot of melted paraffin,

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show these children how to take the eggs and dip them in and out. While the wax hardens to an opaque film, we hum Christos Aneste and the room bustles, ajabber with speech. Holding pins firmly, we scratch out mad designs where the colour will fill. A flurry of small hands etch and scrim the shells. Everyone's fingers whorl and scratch in their names, delicate and final.

Edging the hall's threshhold, I'm suddenly afraid to allow myself to love them, and hurt from their absence. An April sun filters through tinted windows. Everyone's face furrows with solemn concentration. Looking to Elaine, my thoughts clamour for what is redemptive in illness, for having a Credo by which to hold these people to me. Etchings done, everyone finally immerses their waxy eggs in the pooled dye. We all ooh together when transfigured eggs are spooned out, wiped and dried on the counters. Soft wax is peeled gingerly, flecked away; more oohs for the tracks of painted patterns, scrimmed designs, testimonial names.

We burnish the shells with olive oil for a fine sheen.

For a moment, the cultivated, finished colours hush the room. Then, every child goes mad in a rush to compare eggs, to show the nurses, each other. The bald boy taps my waist. I kiss their cheeks when, lined up, they all present me with a bright, autographed egg, communally done. Elaine makes me close my eyes and laughs when small limbs push at my back to follow.

They shove my hands in the cool, wet, red dye. The holloweyed girl squeals till tears streak from laughing.

Another child cries, You'll never get it off!

And today, I don't want to. Today,

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we've painted death a lively colour, not caring about the body's cells and the cells' incarceration.

I lift my arms to embrace Elaine, dab her nose and chin.

And my hands are vivid red. My hands are bloody with resurrection

Mona Molarsky

and we are laughing, we are laughing.

It is a place from a doctored fairy book,

for Elaine Christine Raftell, 1976

10

LETTER FROM A RESORT

Pure denouement, the witch having always Been dead. All day the little houses Proffer roses through their fences' white slats.

At night the windows go yellow and ring With the sounds of china and silver.

Professionals bring their families here to brown And bleach their appropriate parts. On the beach Everyone reads good books.

It is everything I dreamed.

There are no welfare checks. There are no Battered wives. The people here don't fight.

And if there are adulteries no one Seems to mind.

Still you couldn't call it sterile, not When the sea and sky heave together like that.

This morning I watched the blondest girl squat And gut a fish.

There are days the clouds reach down like pagan gods And times fireflies in the curdled marsh Merge into the Milky Way. I've one complaint—though small— Wildflowers by the highway lack A sense of irony. They go on and on, pushing Their little gold assertions. But Everything else here is just too good.

I don't deserve this. Send Word from my demonic city please.

Call me back.

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Brinsmade

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Louisa C Brinsmade

haven't even called. What would I say? What would he say? Totally useless conversation thousands of miles apart. What, Sophie? Speak up I can't hear you you're speaking too softly I think my ears are stopped up from the flight business trip you know. I know, Dad. What? I KNOW, DAD. You see? Totally useless. Blames his loss of hearing on airplanes, that's not new though. He believes in elves too. They were always blamed for misplacing his tools. Mama, we've got elves in this house. I remember he punished us for the elves' work by making us pick up gravel and put it in the green buckets he'd lately found. That was a sour day for all of us.

One summer he sent us to a camp in the jungles of Mexico because he wanted us to speak Spanish and learn about where he grew up even though he grew up in a town far away from those creepy jungles. Needless to say, we didn't learn Spanish and we didn't make any friends. I slept alone in a large adobe room away from my sister and was scared by those long mosquitoes that give you malaria. I didn't want to crowd in with all the jumbled Mexican voices in the next room. How could I be someone's friend if I didn't understand their language?

I guess I could say this is one of those "it all started when I was nine years old" stories. No matter. Things have changed since then, we no longer speak and for no apparent reason except that we don't like each other. But that's true of thousands and thousands of people and why should we be any different? I suppose there are many giftless fathers around today and many guilty and silent daughters as well.

Silence, God I wish there had been more silence in those younger days. If only we hadn't been so ready to light the fuse and jump into the fights, if only we hadn't been dragged into the fights. Long fights, days long if you counted but who counted. It seemed like the fighting never stopped until after the divorce and then the silence began. Cool, clean silence but who didn't lie down at night and wonder if the other was thinking about them. I did and it used to make me sweat just lying there and wondering about him in my home city where the humid summer days lit his fuse more nights than I care to remember. He's an honest man, mama used to say, as if that was all she could say. In those days, in Houston, she'd say he was a tired man, it was a long day at the office, he's been on too many business trips this week, or he's just plain ornery this evening.

She explained him to us like an interpreter because we didn't even understand his language. I suppose he seems like all those jumbled Mexican voices to me.

I can see the events of those weekend afternoons when he came to the ranch to visit us and blew up after a few beers at lunch time—barbecue chicken bloody marys and Shiner beer. Who in the hell drinks SHINER beer? My father, cases of it. He'd say Girls your mother is countermanding me she's pussyfooting around the issues she's beligerent and I don't want you to listen to her I'm the boss around here. My sister and I stared into our chalupas and waited for the tirade to begin, swell and ebb slowly over the course of a long Saturday and Sunday weekend. Rant rant rave rave nap snooze snore it's ebbing slowly beer has been digested and excreted.

In his boxer shorts in the kitchen mama is crying over the sink letting her tears flow down the drain. Mama! Mama Big Fat Mama, what's the matter now? He pats her bottom and plants his lips on her soggy cheek. She speaks as through a wet rag Don', don' touch me I'm through, Donald. Soothing always soothing after a tirade my father pats her again and stays with her annoyingly to make her

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FATHER'S DAY Our bond is not artificial, it comes from need and long hatred; it comes from the knowledge that a slit in the bedroom door brought us.

The violence that rounded our eyes and propelled us down the hall seemed so ordinary after a while.

Today is Father's D a y and I didn't send him anything—I

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forget he was the one to blame for her tears. My sister and I watched in fascination at his manipulations of her. Poor Mama, he'd say, so distraught over what? He couldn't say himself because really, I don't think he ever knew what he'd done. I wasn't her, I didn't live it like she did and I'm glad. People wonder why I'm so demure, well I'll tell you what there's a reason there's a reason for everything. •

Eranza Blanco FLOWERS NEVER SENT There was a night I sat in a bar writing for a friend words she would never use with flowers, unlike me, she would send.

They did not capture her intent, but more, even sensing I, too, would never use them, I could not bring myself to surrender what I had written with every impulse and desire etched to every breath and memory of you.

You were my whole intent: "gone, lost in chaos and these won't bloom again unless you touch your lips to them and none other until mine."

I was lost in some imaginary scuffle with a dancing silence I could not see was real.

I should have sent them to you, Had I not been loyal to a sense of unknown fate, (or did I know) and not waited only too late, too late to echo feebly Catullus to Lesbia: "Give me a thousand kisses, and then a hundred, and then another thousand," when already, or had they not always, your lips belied mine.

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Hoare

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Deirdre Hoare EDEN BAWN (The Shining Face)

Not quite a pilgrim, but rather like those curious ones who tend the wakes and pageantry of strangers, I kneeled the brim of St. Declan's Well, leaning into dampness, and murmured hurry-scurry a spent and childish prayer half-remembered; there was no one to witness my trespass.

the slippery stain of a passing cloud that changes irrevocably the shining face of the bay, you, set out late fishing, dipping a hand to the restless sea to bless yourself, and turning eyes on me that would fell an angel from grace.

The fieldstone walls were fern-full, and soft of weeping mosses, lichens bloomed marigold across all their rain-worn face, and where the three roods branched awkwardly from a crudely hewn skull-hill, they sanctified even the feet of the hell-bent thief.

The hard-earned comfort of old stone was mine, I heard the drop and sigh of water in the depth of holy darkness where coins winked knowingly the wages of the world, and I thought of sin:

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Bank

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Melissa Bank

Feigning sleep, Sam Wheel watched his lover, Purse Mercury, dress for work. She sat in the corner chair, all but her legs hidden from his view by the bathroom door. Purse scrunched up the skincolored stockings at her toes, and then, one leg at a time, stretched and stroked the stockings smooth up her calves, past her knees. At just the moment when the notion of making love to Purse was shaping in his mind, the phone rang.

When Purse flew from the corner and tip-toe ran through the bedroom, Sam was reminded of the sudden flight of a small starling out from a bush into the open sky. He might tell her so when she got off the phone; Purse liked birds. Sam sat up and rubbed his fuzzy gray crew cut head. He was a large man, enormous next to Purse, with slow, cow eyes and a soft-lipped mouth.

"Who's on the phone?" he called to Purse. When she didn't answer, Sam rose, stretched, and walked to the open doorway. He stood there, not in the bedroom or the living room, but in between the two, listening. She was talking weather; someone was coming down the shore to visit them. But she was nervous. He took another step forward and saw her profile, from the bottom of her bra up, behind the kitchen counter.

"Who's on the phone?" he asked again. Purse covered the mouthpiece and shushed him. He knew then that Purse was speaking with her daughter, Del-ray.

"Not until four?" Purse asked into the phone. "You'll spend the

night then? It's a long way to come just for dinner, Del-ray," Purse said. "Okay, let me just check the schedule." Purse laid the phone on the counter and hurried past Sam into the bedroom to get her halfmoon reading glasses from the night table. She found the New York City, New York to Manahawkin, New Jersey bus schedule in the drawer by the phone, put on her glasses, and picked up the receiver.

"I'm checking," she said, studying the schedule. "Saturdays, Memorial Day, here we go, Fourth of July. There's a bus that leaves Port Authority at four-ten and gets into Manahawkin at seven."

Purse listened. "Trouble?" she repeated into the phone. When no answer came she said, "How much do you need?" Her eyes met Sam's.

"Sorry I shushed you," Purse said to Sam as soon as she hung up the phone. Sam nodded and followed Purse back to the bedroom.

He got back in bed, pulled the sheets up to his waist, and watched her dress, waiting.

With her hair bobby pinned up, she stood beside the bed, above Sam in her uniform, a red and white gingham check blouse with elastic at the scoop neck and puffed sleeves, a black skirt with a sheen to it, and a bright yellow apron. Still wrapped in the sheet, Sam leaned out of bed and hung in a kind of sling as he tied the laces of one of her white waitress shoes.

"Thanks," Purse said. "Breakfast?"

"Naw," Sam said, "too early." Sam worked on the mainland in Manahawkin as an electrician and he was off for the holiday.

"How'd she sound, Purse?" Sam finally asked.

"The same as last time," she said, "like she didn't want to come^ down, in a hurry, nervous." Purse paused. "She said she's in some trouble, didn't say what it was about."

"Did she say how much she needed this time?"

"Two hundred dollars," Purse said quietly. "I can get it from King."

Sam reached up for one of Purse's hands. "I think we should ask her what it's for," Sam said seriously. "We can't just keep on giving her money like this. It's not right."

"I don't want to get her mad," Purse said, "or scare her away. I want her to come to me if she needs something."

"Purse," Sam said, "she's not coming to you like you're her mother. She's coming to us like we're her damn bank." His voice

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AT THE START OF A SEASON DOWN THE SHORE

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was calm and sure. "We should know what kind of trouble, what she needs the money for."

"I've got to get to work," Purse said, withdrawing her hand.

"You'll think about it?" Sam asked, and Purse promised she would.

It was early Saturday morning of July Fourth weekend, the official start of the season in Surf City, New Jersey. As Purse Mercury pushed open the screen door, she heard the new sound of traffic on the boulevard. The families were coming down the shore for the summer. She could hear the island buzz alive again. Her street was identical to the other residential streets in Surf City, with its tiny houses, painted pastel blues and pinks, with the gravel or pebble front yards because grass or flowers would not grow in the salt air without constant tending. No one stayed through the seasons to plant and nurture a garden to life. It was a summer place, a season long, but Sam and Purse lived there all year round, in the house Purse's grandmother left her. Only Purse had a garden, but still, even with Sam's care, it would not grow lush.

Purse Mercury fell in love with Sam Wheel while Sam was rewiring the Mercury's row house in Philadelphia. Del-ray had been gone almost a year, and Sam wanted Purse to live with him. What if Delray comes home and finds me gone, Purse asked Sam. When she's ready, Sam said, Del-ray'11 find you. She knows where to look.

Come on and wait with me, Pursie, Sam said.

Sam stood beside Purse as she told her husband, Ray Mercury Jr., she was leaving. When Del-ray comes back, Purse told him, she'll live with me and Sam down the shore.

Ray Jr. narrowed his eyes to flickering slits. His voice was dried.

What makes you think, Ray Jr. said slowly, that Del-ray'd want to live with you instead of me. Sam took Purse's elbow. Ray Jr. smiled then, a triumphant smile so wide that Purse could see the gray dead tooth in the corner of his mouth. Go on, Ray Mercury Jr. said, get out of here.

As they loaded Purse's suitcases into Sam's car, the picture of Ray Jr. and Del-Ray living together, alone, grew vivid. The nausea slithered through Purse then. It was a quick and familiar sensation that came without words. It started when Ray Jr. stopped demanding sex and she knew he must have a new lover. That it was Del-ray, their daughter, barely fifteen, was a thing beyond her conception,

outside her range of possibilities, but the nausea came. It came when Ray Jr. spent so long saying goodnight to Del-ray behind the closed door of her daughter's bedroom. It came when she'd wake in the night to hear Ray Jr. walking down the hall, getting back in bed.

What, she'd ask. Nothing, he'd say, Del-ray had a nightmare or something.

Purse turned onto the boulevard and walked past the Island Miniature Golf, the Surf City Fishery, and the Dairy Queen. She walked up the steps to the Seashell Pancake House, where she worked. The Grand Reopening banner hung above the door, same one as last year. The dining room was almost full, and Darlene, Mary and a new waitress were frantically taking orders, pouring water and adding up checks.

"Hiya Purse," Darlene said. "Purse's here," she yelled into the kitchen.

"You're late!" King called out.

"Five goddamn minutes," Purse shouted back at him. She stood by the cash register, studying the new prices on the menu.

"How are you?" he yelled.

"Fine," Purse yelled back.

"How's Sam?" King asked.

"Good," Purse answered. "How was Florida?"

"Hot. What do you hear from Del-ray? She been down?" King shouted, but Purse was already standing behind him in the kitchen.

"Oh," he said and smiled at her. "You look good, Pursie." King was a tall man, long and lanky, with a thin bald head, shaved shiny. He wore a chef's hat and a full red and white gingham check apron, the same material as Purse's blouse.

"She just came down the one time last summer," Purse said. "But I heard from her this morning. She called me to say she's coming down tonight, just for dinner." Purse took a new check pad from the drawer. "She said she's in some trouble." Purse leaned against the counter.

King flipped three pancakes fast, all the same yellow brown, and put the plate under the heat lamp. "Pick up, Darlene," he yelled. He motioned Purse over to the grill, but waited to speak until Darlene had scooted back to the dining room with the pancakes. "You need an advance?" Purse nodded. "How much?"

"Two hundred," she said.

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"You know what kind of trouble she's in?" he asked gently.

Purse shook her head. "Sam wants me to ask." She looked questioningly at King.

"You should," King said thoughtfully.

"I'm afraid she won't come to me for help if I make her tell me." In her way, she was pleading with King. "I don't want to scare her off." She wanted to be told not to ask.

"Sorry, Purse. I agree with Sam. You should ask." Purse nodded and went into the dining room.

In the late afternoon, a young girl, maybe sixteen, and her older boyfriend came in and Purse served them waffles and ice cream.

"Sixteen," Purse said quietly, "I missed sixteen."

"Whadaya mean?" Darlene asked behind her.

"I missed Del-ray at sixteen," Purse said sadly.

"Shoo," Darlene said, her strange word of comfort. Purse took it to be Darlene shooing away sadness or bad luck, but Purse didn't know.

Near the end of her shift, a dark-haired girl, probably eighteen, Del-ray's age, sat in Purse's station. The girl struck Purse as nice, a sweet girl, and Purse thought, if Del-ray ever comes here to live, maybe the girls could be friends. Purse wondered who Del-ray's friends were, who she lived with in New York, if they were wild and hard like Del-ray.

When Purse finished her shift, King walked up to the cash register with her. He handed her the money and said, "You should ask her, Purse. I think maybe she wants you to ask her." Purse smiled at her friend. "Be on time tomorrow!" he shouted after her.

Purse found Sam weeding in the garden at the front of the house.

"It looks good, Sam," she told him. Sam had gardened all day, and his neck was a dark red-brown. Before they left to pick up Del-ray at the bus, she smoothed cream on his thick, burned neck, along the deep creased folds at its base.

The New York bus was late because of the holiday traffic. Del-ray stepped off the bus slowly, almost reluctantly. She wore very high pointy heeled sandals that made her walk labored and unsteady.

Like her mother, she was tiny, had pale hair and light eyes, but she lacked Purse's softness. Del-ray nodded and waved, but she did not move close enough to Purse to suggest that she might want Purse to kiss her. Her hair was stringy and tangled, her jeans too tight, and

her shirt, which stretched with effort across her small breasts, did not cover her stomach. Del-ray embarrassed Sam, and he looked away. But Purse didn't notice, and Del-ray did not acknowledge Sam. As they drove back to the house, Purse occasionally said something about her day at the Pancake House, the island filling up so fast, the garden. Back at the house, the bad silence set in. Purse set down steak and tomatoes and corn on the cob and bread fresh from the Surf City bakery. Purse reached for something to say, something neutral that might lead to something personal, but nothing was neutral. Purse worked a few questions around in her mind.

"Where are you living now, Del-ray?" Purse finally asked.

"I live on Forty-ninth Street," Del-ray said, "at Tenth Avenue."

The address meant nothing to Purse. "In Hell's Kitchen," Del-ray said.

Was her daughter saying that sitting down to dinner with her mother and her mother's lover was being in hell's kitchen?

"Pardon?" Purse asked meekly.

"Hell's Kitchen," Del-ray said. "I live in Hell's Kitchen." Her life was torment? She lived in sin? Purse looked at her blankly. "The name of the area," Del-ray said, irritated.

"Oh," Purse said. "Where do you work?"

"At the Woolworth's on Thirty-fourth Street."

"Uh-huh," Purse said, trying to think up more questions. She looked at Sam Wheel for help, but Sam shrugged. He was right; Sam could do nothing here.

After awhile, Purse said, "Remember King?" Del-ray had bussed tables at the Seashell Pancake House the summer before she ran away. "He asked for you today," Purse said. "He wanted to know how you were getting along."

"Tell him fine," Del-ray said.

"Dessert?" Purse asked.

"Not for me, thanks," Sam said. Del-ray shook her head. "Coffee?" Purse asked with forced brightness. "Yeah, thanks," Del-ray said, and Sam nodded.

"I have to be going soon," Del-ray said. "Last bus is at nine-forty, right?"

"You could stay, Del-ray," Sam said timidly. "Your mother and I

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would like it if you stayed." Purse smiled at him gratefully. She looked at Del-ray.

Del-ray's eyes were hard, but for an instant showed a sharp pain.

"I can't stay," Del-ray said flatly, looking away from Purse.

"Are you sure, Del-ray?" Purse asked softly. "Are you sure you can't stay?"

The girl said nothing. Sam looked at the half-eaten corn cob on his plate. They had missed the sunset somehow. They heard the fireworks and could see the colors splashing in the night sky. Purse wondered if Del-ray was remembering all the Fourth of July's they had spent in this house. The girl's face showed nothing. Purse could feel her daughter waiting to go.

"I should be leaving now," Del-ray said.

"What time is the bus?" Purse asked slowly, stalling, prolonging the moment when Del-ray would ask for money, and she would have to answer with her own question.

Sam got the schedule. "Nine-forty," he said.

"More coffee?" Purse asked Del-ray.

Del-ray didn't answer. Sam heard the pleading in Purse's voice.

He saw her torment. Suddenly, angrily, he said, "Your mother asked you a question, Del-ray."

"Do you have it or not?" Del-ray asked, abruptly rising. "Do you have it or not?" she repeated. She stuck out her chin in childdefiance.

Purse bit her lip. "What kind of trouble are you in, Del-ray?'" Her voice was all gentleness. "If you tell us, maybe we can help."

"Do you have it or not?" Del-ray stood with her hands in her pockets, angry, but something else. Something was happening.

Purse sensed it. She waited a minute and said very softly, "I want to help you, Del-ray, but you have to let me know how."

"You owe me," Del-ray whined. "You owe me," she repeated in a muted whimper. The girl pulled her stringy hair back and up. Purse saw the dirty underside of the girl's arm. Her daughter's face trembled as though she were crying, but no tears came. Purse hurried over to her daughter, and, for a single minute, Del-ray allowed her mother to embrace her. Then Del-ray shook Purse off. Purse saw the fear stilled eyes of her daughter. She remembered those slit eyes and his raised arm ready to strike. The fear went through her like a spasm.

Purse took the money from her pocketbook and handed it to Delray- She looked sadly at her daughter, but Del-ray just shoved the bills into the front pocket of her jeans.

"Do you see him?" Purse asked quietly. "Do you ever see your father?"

"I have to go," Del-ray said, jerking her head away from Purse with such vehemence that her hair whipped against Purse's cheek.

Purse sat in the back seat of the car with Del-ray. They rode to Manahawkin without speaking, but Del-ray let her mother occasionally stroke her shoulder or touch her hair.

When the bus pulled in, Del-ray said, "See you," and walked up the steps of the bus. Purse, Sam behind her, stood at the door and watched. Then Del-ray turned around and pushed past the people on the steps. Almost violently, she hugged her mother, and then ran, in her clumsy way, back up into the bus.

"Did you see," Purse asked as she got into the car, "the way she hugged me?" Sam tried to smile, but instead his lips formed a stiff line.

She was not looking at him anyway. "Before August," Purse said, "I bet you she'll be living with us." Purse closed her eyes. "Just like we hoped."

But then Purse heard the sound of Ray Jr. walking down the hall, getting back into bed. What? Nothing, Del-ray had a nightmare or something. And the nausea slithered through her. Sam leaned over Purse and rolled down the window. He held her hand until they reached the house.

Late that night, Sam smoothed the hair of his sleeping lover. "This morning," he whispered, "when you ran out of here to answer the phone, you reminded me of a bird, Pursie, a little bird flying out from a bush into the sky." Lightly Sam trailed her smooth, small back with his large hand. "Into the open sky," he whispered. •

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Crawford

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Michael Crawford

But beneath the bed, bits Of wire, nails, a length of pine.

THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE GODDESS Invaded by night I sat bolt upright In bed. In the cold dark sleep was cold And dead; I'm back in the sea green room Alone, drawn curtains blown damp With the valley's breath; One booted leg And another slim and slow Through the curtains. Childhood.

When the moon was new Or sailing over elm spray, Dipping in dangerous cloud She'd enter, icy and silent.

I began to keep a small Arsenal beneath my pillow; Select pistols of the finest pine, A blue poodle, Bowie, length of twine, And these took her by surprise, some nights.

Then, like any surreptitious lover Wet and wide-eyed, she'd come And obey me. But next time I'd be back like Leopold Kissing marble trimmed in mink.

She said other men kept their goddess Like an unwanted Texarkana child, Shit smeared whimpers In a chicken wire cage And was glad I was not like that.

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Quarto

Lanza

Carmela Lanza

VVhat a nightmare I say and the beer goes down like a knife Your eyes are gone I have lost you I know that

SURVIVORS Sitting in the bar with the light on this scar by your mouth it's a scar I put there some other year but you never see it.

I do when I look at you and mine are hidden under tapping fingers, the smile that drags the skin across the teeth tight, dry as I laugh, the beer goes down my throat to whatever else swims around in there, we drown under the weight of snakes, tails, fishes, bones and the cry of monkeys, staring at us from the ceiling.

What a circle this has been from one cry and a slap to a grown woman a grown man wearing hats, scarves and gloves to cover, to disguise the spying behind the curtains, the listening in on phones, the discreet looks and to what?

I see the monkey jumping in the cage, my child, they take it from me and throw it in the cage my child, I scream but the claws have burst the sac fluids pour into the dirt and the monkey screams

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"What does the monkey mean?"

"What does the child look like?"

I am a crazy woman. I am by a river my skin is covered in mud. My hair over my eyes tangled and stiff. My feet sink as my hands try to hold on to the baby Don't drop the baby but she is so white so slippery so alive my fingers are cut, cracked open water and dirt harden in my nose, ears I smell the musty earth, taste it like a grave in my mouth the baby slips into the black water how easily swallowed without leaving a sound its pink and white skin falls like a silent stone I pull on my rags, I scream, I crawl in the dirt under, under, to find it. I am a mad woman.

"When did you have this dream?"

"What does the river mean?"

Your eyes are closed. I have lost you again You pour the last beer in my glass it foams over and grows like a bubble a monkey screams from the ceiling my eyes look up your eyes look up.

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Hogan

Quarto

Susan Hogan

NOVEMBER

The morning after Leland called out in his sleep I cut my hand. It was no ordinary cut. It was with the new bow saw which I was using on some dry cedar. The saw slipped on a knot in the wood and made the jagged wound across the back of my hand.

I shouldn't have been cutting wood anyways. Not on such a warm, hazy morning—a morning that would trick me into believing that it was April with the winter behind us while it was still November, and early on at that.

Leland and I had moved into the house in September and in October we bought the twelve hens who scratched around the house and slept in the old barn. By November they had stopped laying and spent most of the time huddled in a line on the cross beam.

I was hoping that Leland would be nicer to me after I cut my hand. I was hoping that he would take back his nightmare.

It was right after I came back from the supermarket that I cut my hand. The store was crowded and my shopping list was incomplete.

I threw things awkwardly into the cart. As soon as I got home I put the bags of groceries on the kitchen table and went out back to the pile of cedar. I sawed three or four pieces before I hit the knot. The uneven silver teeth tore into my hand at odd little angles. There were spaces of untouched flesh surrounded by the raw red.

As I walked slowly in toward the kitchen I remembered Leland's face as it was last night when he called out in his sleep. "Leave me alone, I can't do this anymore." The lines in his face were uneven

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and his skin was cool to the touch.

I was startled when he entered the kitchen. He approached me slowly as if in a dream. He said nothing about the cut, but went to the medicine cabinet for gauze and iodine. He burned the heads off of wooden matches and used them for finger splints.

For weeks his eyes had avoided mine. He had been busy with repairs on the house saying that winter was coming. He covered all the windows with sheets of murky plastic. He painted the extra room and hung an old oak door in the frame, taking care to level it properly. For weeks he had been saying that he needed more. He never told me more of what and I would try to kiss his eyebrows feeling that it was all I could do.

And then, last night he had the dream and turned away from me.

"Leave me alone, I can't do this anymore." I left his bed dragging the quilt and went into the extra room realizing now why he had taken such care with the door.

But in September we would lie on his big bed and watch the field from the window. At times we would see birds flocking south and he would repeat things farmers told him. He told me how to tell the length of winter by counting the stripes on certain caterpillars and that cows lying down in the afternoon means rain the next day.

Our house had no insulation and it was still referred to as the "Old Sweet Place." Once someone knocked on the unused front door looking for her cat, she called me Mrs. Sweet. The Sweets had been gone for five years when we moved in.

We made plans to tap the big maple out front when spring came.

We began counting cords of wood. One cord per stove our neighbors advised.

In late October the water left in the barn for the hens froze and I carried the plastic cylinder in and held it under hot water until it thawed. Later, Leland connected a light bulb to act as a heater for it and the hens lived in perpetual light. Maybe that was why they stopped laying. But Leland said no; they layed in seasons and there was nothing to be done.

Sometimes at night he would play ragtime on the old upright piano I bought at an auction. I would lie on the rug and pat the dog keeping time with my hand on his sleek black coat.

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Every year for Christmas Leland's mother sends him a quilt which she finds in one of the small antique shops outside of Shelbyville.

Relatives of his fought in the Civil War and Leland has inherited their light blond hair, frail and thin from being passed on so long.

He once promised to take me to see this house in Tennessee where his great grandparents lived.

Leland doesn't use any of these quilts. After they arrive he carefully unwraps them and puts them in his closet. On his bed he used a nylon army blanket which he claimed is the most advanced form of bed covering. Light in weight, it has special properties which transfer the body's heat back to the sleeper. I would lie under it and imagine restless connections of impulses and charges. It was difficult to sleep. Finally Leland agreed to use one of the quilts.

in the quilt and lie with my injured hand over my chest. With long smooth motions I gently run my other hand over the stiff white bandages.

I wait for the pain to stop. •

Leland is gentle with my hand. We both stare at the raw skin and become embarrassed. It is too exposed. Slowly he wraps it around and around with gauze. I hold my hand in front of me and close my eyes. When he finishes he leaves with the dog for their morning run.

I watch from the window as they move gradually out of sight. The dog runs a bit ahead getting distracted by the fading underbrush along the road.

I carefully climb the stairs and lie down on Leland's bed. I am almost asleep when he returns. There are dark patches of sweat on the front of his shirt. His eyes are dull again and he moves quickly through the room. While he is in the shower I drive myself to the hospital.

They are impressed with the cut, its length and jaggedness. I do not want them near me. They discuss it as I sit with my hand soaking in brown liquid. It will scar, they tell me. I should have come in earlier. Now it is too late. They discuss tendons and sinewy muscles.

I feel sweat dripping down my shirt. I want a cigarette. They decide not to stitch. I drive home slowly learning to do it with one hand. It takes a long time.

The house is empty. Leland finished sawing the cedar and stacked it neatly on the porch. I wonder how many cords there are now.

There does not seem to be enough. He has wiped the blood from the kitchen floor.

It is getting cold. I take a blue and white quilt from his closet and walk into the field behind the house. In the tall grass I wrap myself

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Quarto

Jo Mattern

Patricia Volk

THE WEDDING What I remember best was the bedbug that bit me right on the lip and my mouth swelled up twice its size that first day.

And it was cold, too.

Is it supposed to be cold in Georgia?

It was the war, I guess.

The war messed up everything.

Mom and I were three days on the Greyhound with Flossie, three days, and Flossie was worried, but I said, "Honey, that army man's got nowhere to go.

She didn't get married in a white dress, but her suit was nice and Mom pinned a blue ribbon to her slip.

The sun was shining after chapel, and Flossie and Joe stood by this big rock smiling as we took their picture.

The light made everything stand so clear like someone had scissored out the rock and those two people and just propped them up in front of that blue horizon.

Flossie's flowers fell out of her hair, flowers so white on the dusty ground.

"My flowers," she said, picking them up real quick.

She pinned them back in, but she pinned them crooked.

And I took her picture one more time as she smiled, her eyes half-closed against the sun.

34

BE CAREFUL!

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW YOUR SALESLADY! Harriet Mokotoff was wandering around the second floor of Saks one afternoon, not sure what she was looking for. Suddenly, she found it. The perfect maribou boa, rose madder, a steal at $38. She searched for someone to help her, then spotted a woman wearing glasses that dangled on a black elastic rope.

"Could you take this for me?" Mrs. Mokotoff said, offering the woman a $100 bill and the boa.

"Glad to," said the lady and walked off.

Mrs. Mokotoff waited ten minutes and then began looking for the saleslady with the glasses. When she couldn't find her, she went to the manager.

"We have no salesladies on this floor who wear eyeglasses," she was told.

NEVER STRAIGHTEN YOUR HAIR! Bobby Unobsky hated her hair. It was kinky, rigid, and invulnerable. She identified with Elsa Lancaster in Bride of Frankenstein.

She thought her life would have had more opportunities if her hair had been straight. One day she heard of a foolproof treatment that would make her hair as flat as paper. This was right before a big college weekend, the most important two days of her life. She took several buses to a bad part of town and submitted to applications of

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potash, potato lye, ammonia, and human placenta from Mexico.

The procedure took four hours. Her eyes watered profusely. She had to be revived with smelling salts twice. But she emerged from the beauty parlor radiant, her hair lank, smooth, goyishly limp.

That night, despite an itching sensation all over her crown, she fell asleep thinking I have straight hair! I have straight hair! The next morning she awoke as usual until she remembered, I have straight hair! I have straight hair! She raised her hand to pat it. It wasn't there. It was fanned out on her pillow, straight as spaghetti. Her new hair grew in sparse. She had to tell people she had Alopecia Areata.

DON'T SEW IN BED! The Morgens had always wanted to go to Europe. Over a period of fifteen years, they saved enough money for the trip. They booked their reservations a year in advance. They got a round trip charter fare at a special price. They borrowed guidebooks for Paris, London and Rome. They collected maps and kept little books of recommendations. They made lists of places where Hemingway drank, Joyce wrote, and Boswell listened. They had New York Times clippings from fifteen years of Sunday Travel Sections. They bought a good camera, a current adapter, and a two-cup travelling coffee maker.

They arrived at their hotel in Rome, and after a short nap, decided to go to Gigi Fazzi's for their first meal in Europe when Mrs. Morgen noticed a little rip in the seam of her good dress and took out her travel sewing kit to fix it. When she finished, she stuck the needle in the bed and surveyed her work. Something distracted her and she forgot about the needle. After dinner, when they returned to the room, the bed had been turned down. They got undressed and climbed in.

"I can't believe I'm in Rome!" she said.

"I can't believe I'm in Rome!" he said.

He turned and kissed her. She couldn't remember the last time he'd kissed her like that. Her nightgown was over her head when she heard him shout.

"What?" Mrs. Morgen asked.

"I've got a cramp," Mr. Morgen replied. "In my leg."

"We better rest," she said, thinking it was enough just to be in Rome.

36

The next morning, his leg still hurt. She saw something glint as she swung out of bed. It was half a needle. They returned to the United States that afternoon, losing their charter fare, for surgery.

He had to have cortisone.

NEVER PET ON THE FIRST DATE! A freshman co-ed at the University of West Virginia went out on a blind date. She liked him. She was wearing her new angora sweater that she'd left in the refrigerator overnight so it wouldn't fluff off.

The boy was very attentive and she'd never felt prettier or more grown-up in her life. They kissed. When he tried to get under her angora, she resisted. He kissed her again, harder, and rubbed her back. The next thing she knew, her brassiere had popped open. Part of her thought, if he can do that with so much expertise, he must fool around all the time. The other part of her thought it was God's Will. The next day, the word was out. He'd told everybody what they'd done and by the end of the week she was known all over campus as Hot Pants. The name followed her, even when she transferred schools. After college she moved to New York, got a job in publicity at a fine publishing house, married a junior editor whom she loved a lot, and followed him out to California when he got an offer from a studio. There, one evening at a cocktail party, he called her over.

"Joanie," he said. "I want you to meet my friend Stuff Sussman.

He went to West Virginia too."

Joanie walked over, extending her hand. Stuff's smile grew wider.

He turned to Joanie's husband and said, "I didn't know you married Hot Pants!"

NEVER WISH YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE! ALWAYS CARRY A LITTLE VASELINE! YOU'RE NEVER TOO YOUNG TO FLOSS! NEVER SWALLOW A CHERRY PIT! TURN STRANGE FAUCETS OFF WITH YOUR WRISTS! NEVER ORDER HAMBURGER IN A CHINESE RESTAURANT! WATCH OUT FOR PAPER CUTS AS YOU TURN THIS PAGE!

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Quarto

Quarto Barbara Kalin

Maggie Bradley

DAUGHTERS He leaned over the cover of the carriage and peered in.

"She's beautiful. Her features are so fine." He paused. "And she'll be bright and strong like her brother."

FAIRYLAND

She was swaddled in a yellow blanket with a yellow cap tied under her chin. A pacifier covered her mouth. Her eyes were closed. "We're very lucky," I said. "We hoped we'd have a girl."

The tears edged out from his eyelids. "Forgive us if we seem distant. It's just that it's hard for us."

His daughter was bright, but not beautiful. Her bones were soft. Her back broke and her spine curved. Her legs broke and she couldn't walk.

Each morning for seven years he wheeled her to the car, placed her into the special child seat, put the wheelchair in the trunk and drove her to the Brearly School.

Two years ago her ribs cracked too many times. She couldn't breathe anymore.

It's more than sadness that makes me take a deep breath when I see him.

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Surrounded by oil refineries and sewage dumps, the place is called Onion. A town of red brick buildings with white front doors and fake white shutters.

In the fall, hurricanes come, uprooting trees.

In the winter, a coarse stubble, spikes of brown grass shoot up through a thin crust of snow.

In spring, a man comes to put up the swings in the playground.

Summers, in fading twilight, the children chase fireflies. The grown-ups pull out plastic lawn chairs and sit on the stoop smoking cigarettes, watching the kids chase fireflies. Lightning bugs, they call them, standing there in the darkness, waiting for the flare, almost impossible to catch but following it farther and farther into the darkness.

"What flavor is that thumb?" says the dentist, a tower of white leaning over a little girl. She stares up at him but says nothing.

It takes two nurses. One to hold open the mouth. One to hold the arm with the thumb. The mother has to leave the room. Brings the girl home with a face full of gauze. The chin a little bloody. The mouth stuffed full of cotton. The eyes a little wild.

On the first day of kindergarten, the mother walks her to school, sits her down in a chair. The little girl puts her thumb into her mouth, starts twirling a lock of hair. The mother frowns. The thumb comes out of the mouth. She wipes it off on her skirt, folds it

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into the other four fingers making a fist, buries the fist in her lap.

She's up at seven on Saturdays. Sits in the hallway outside the apartment, counting the flecks in the brown linoleum, drawing pictures with her finger in the dust.

Downstairs, the front door opens. The finger stops, poised in midair.

Just the crazy lady, the one who lives below.

The dust settles in the hallway, swirling and subsiding in shafts of sunlight. The smell is dry, like chalk.

From within, the mother calls.

"Inside," she says.

The grandmother is still sleeping. On the living room couch. She sleeps on her side, covered by an unravelling brown cardigan, muttering, mumbling to herself in Yiddish. Her hand makes a pillow.

Above her head, on the corner table beside the cork lamp, stands a glass of cloudy water in which floats the pink and white of her false teeth. Next to this are her eyeglasses, like butterfly wings with sparkles. The little girl picks them up, tries to slide them on the face of the sleeping woman, jabbing the skin of the cheeks. With a jolt the grandmother is awake, startled.

"You take my eyes out," she says, taking the glasses from the little girl, who turns and goes into the kitchen.

Wearing a robe made of the same fabric as old bedspreads, the mother pushes a bowl of cereal in front of the little girl, who slides onto the chair. The mother pours the milk. The girl reaches for the bottle. The mother pulls it away. The girl swings her legs in the space between the chair and the floor. With the back of the spoon, she mashes the flakes into the bottom of the bowl. When almost all of the cereal is immersed, she puts the spoon down and waits, staring out the window.

On the rail of the fire escape, a squirrel sits perched on its hind legs, holding something in its mouth with tiny claw-like hands, hand-like paws. The girl slides soundlessly off the chair, moving as if willing herself toward the window. The squirrel gnaws furiously on an acorn, the jaw vibrating like a mechanical thing.

The girl touches the glass. The squirrel freezes, looks straight ahead. They stay that way for a moment, the girl looking at the squirrel, the squirrel looking straight ahead, maybe seeing the girl out of the corner of its eye. Then the mother walks back into the

40

room.

"Eat," she says.

The squirrel is gone.

The girl goes back to the table, brings the bowl to her mouth with both hands, drinks the milk with a sucking sound. A soggy clump of cereal is left hissing in the bowl when she puts it down.

"Come here," says the mother, attaching a cigarette to her lips and putting her hands on the girl's shoulders.

"Smile for Mommy." The cigarette bounces up and down. The girl smiles. There are no top front teeth, no bottom teeth.

"Open," says the mother, and the girl opens her mouth. Sliding an upside down finger into the gap where the teeth should be, the mother rubs the gums gently, then presses. The girl slaps her hands away.

"Sorry," says the mother. "Okay? I said I was sorry."

The girl closes her mouth, swallowing hard.

"So." The mother exhales. "What've you got to say for yourself?"

The girl stares up at her.

"Nothing," continues the mother. "I didn't think so." She shakes her head, drags on the cigarette. "What am I going to do with you?"

The mother shoos her away as if trying to clear the room of smoke.

The girl crosses the living room, reaches for the doorknob.

"Relax," says the mother, nodding toward the couch. "Sit down."

The girl throws herself onto the couch, dangling her feet. The shoes are black velvet oxfords with red and white squares on the sides. She kicks the base of the couch, staring at the grandmother who sits on a bridge chair in front of the television set which is off.

The rabbit ears point straight to the ceiling. The old woman's stockings are rolled neatly down around her ankles like doughnuts, swollen ankles that disappear into big, black old lady shoes.

The little girl begins to scratch the rough tweed of the couch with the curled fingers of both hands, making a strumming sound. The grandmother shakes a finger at her. The girl jumps off the couch, runs to the grandmother's side, puts her hands on the massive thighs, begins jumping up and down. The grandmother smiles, making a face, then a sound that could be laughing, crying, or sneezing. Now, it's laughing. She reaches down into the sewing basket at her feet, pulls out a needle and a spool of thread.

Pulling off a length of thread, she snaps it from the spool with a 41

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Kalin

small, quick movement of her hands at her belly. She licks one end of the thread, pressing it between her lips, then holds the needle up in front of both their faces which move together until their ears are practically touching. The woman aims the thread through the eye of the needle and pauses. The little girl pulls the length of thread out through the other side. Together they make a knot around the child's pointed finger, then the girl with great care slips the needle into the collar of the grandmother's shirt. The old woman pats the spot. Then she fixes her hair, pressing it into place around her ears.

The girl messes it up. Smiling, the grandmother presses the hair into place again, carefully adjusting the silver strands. Smiling, the little girl messes up the hair again; and again, the woman fixes the hair, only now not smiling. The little girl takes the glasses off the old woman's face, puts them on her own, looks all around the room.

The grandmother laughs, taking the glasses back and putting them on. The girl stares at the face of the grandmother, touching the sagging skin. Then she inserts a finger deep into the heavy sagging breast, the bosom which falls almost flat against the woman's belly, nearly touching the thighs. The grandmother looks down at the finger, then into the face of the little girl.

the mother catches her breath—watches as the girl falls, lands on both hands. The man rushes toward her, sets her right on her feet again.

She holds up her hands. He takes them between his own. Then he points to the ground. Bad ground, he seems to be saying. Something like that. The mother watches them walk to the car, a De Soto, watches him open the door, watches the daughter scramble up into the front seat. He slams the door, walks around to the other side of the car, scratching the back of his neck. The mother exhales. Through a cloud of blue smoke, the car pulls away from the curb.

"Ninnies," she says, which sends the child back to the couch, into which she dives, rolling around, hiding her eyes, her face.

The shoulders heaving, the grandmother makes the laughing / crying / sneezing sound.

The mother walks into the room. The woman stops laughing immediately.

"My two clowns," says the mother with a flourish of her cigarette.

With one hand stretched over her face, the old woman readjusts the glasses.

The mother says, "Want some tea, Mamma?"

Then comes the sound of a car door slamming. The little girl bolts upright, cocks her head. The mother looks at the window. She begins to untie the thick belt of the robe, then reties it. She fluffs up her hair, ditches the cigarette in a copper enamel ashtray on the television set. When she looks up the girl is already gone, the door ajar.

"No comic books," she calls out after her into the dark hallway.

"No candy." Her voice cracks. "And no Coca-Cola!"

At the window, she watches as the girl makes her way down the front steps, runs along the white concrete sidewalk, then stumbles —

The father smokes a cigarette and sings. My father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light, he sings.

She stands next to him in the front seat, one arm around his neck.

Every now and then, she covers his eyes, just for an instant. He howls and hoots, putting the hands into his mouth, taking a big bite. She throws back her head, revealing the pink, raw gum. It looks like she's laughing but no sound comes out.

Out on the highway, they drive past the gas station with the tires stacked up in front, past the diner that's shaped like a ship, pull into the parking lot of a place called Fairyland. A twenty-foot clown beckons them. Some of the paint has chipped off the bright blue gloves, the striped knees, the polka-dot shoes. The metal below is covered with rust.

She goes on the boats twice, dipping her hands into the water that seems to rush past. She turns the steering wheel back and forth, back and forth, but the boat continues to follow the other three around and around in the same small circle.

On the far side she always turns back, looking over her shoulder.

The father smokes a cigarette, one hand shoved in his pocket.

At the ferris wheel they wait. When the blue cage comes around she gets on alone. The father doesn't fit in. She puts her fingers through the grill when they close the door, then sits quietly, going up and around, up and around. The father gets nearer and farther away.

Sometimes he looks at her and waves. Sometimes he makes a funny face. Most of the time he looks out to the highway.

On the merry-go-round he straps her onto a white horse with a red saddle, leans against an extravagantly painted and bejewelled loveseat with no one on it. The horse goes up and down and up. The calliope resounds.

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Except for the man from the ticket booth who now operates the rides for them, there is no one else in Fairyland. He gives them a few extra spins on the merry-go-round. The sky is uniformly gray, heavy with clouds and thunder.

From a big red machine he buys two Coca-Colas, and together they pull the bottles down in the slot where the caps come off. She sits on the bench beside the machine, swinging her legs, sipping the soda through a paper straw. He puts one leg up on the bench, drinks the soda straight from the bottle. His Adam's apple bobs up and down.

The tip of her straw wilts, collapses. He gets her another one. She blows bubbles into the bottle. Again the straw wilts.

After two more straws he says, "All right," and takes the unfinished soda from her hands. "Let's go," he says, and heads for the car.

She stays on the bench. "Come on," he says, but she doesn't move.

He goes back, picks her up, carries her to the car, puts her into the back seat, slams the door. By the time he gets around she's in the front seat. He looks at her for a long time. Then gently touches the mouth. Lifts the lip. Looks in.

She puts her hand over his eyes.

In front of the house they sit in the car. A fine drizzle makes a mist on the windshield, glistening in the early darkness.

"Here," he says, pulling something out of his pocket. "I got this for you." He switches on the light overhead, then takes her hand, pulls open the fingers. Holding onto the hand, he puts into her palm a thin pink object, like a nail, only plastic. Translucent. Tinted pink.

A pink plastic golfing tee is what it is. It reflects pink in her palm.

She closes her fingers, opens them again, closes them, opens them.

He says, "Next Saturday," raising his eyebrows.

She nods and smiles, big and broad. He looks away.

Upstairs, just outside the door, he stands in the dark hallway. The television is on but the grandmother isn't watching. The mother wears herringbone tweed trousers and a striped gray sweater. She wipes her hands on a dishtowel.

"Next Saturday," he says. "Noon. One." She scratches a nostril with a dark red fingernail, puts the hand with the dishtowel on one hip. "And, uh. What about the urn." Her voice trails off as she shifts her weight, looks down at the floor.

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He picks at splinters on the door frame. "It's coming. I told you.

It's coming."

He disengages the arms of the child from around his knees.

She takes the child inside. Shuts the door.

The girl stands there. The footsteps are fast on the stairs.

She turns, looks up at the mother, at the grandmother, back at the mother. The eyes grow wide and glossy. She swallows hard.

"Did you go to the airport? Did you watch the big jet planes? Or did Daddy take you to the drive-in? Tell Mommy. Talk to Mommy who loves you."

The girl begins to step away, moving cautiously, moving with measured steps across the path of the mother, staring up at her the whole time.

"Did you get a hot dog?" the mother is saying. "Did you go for an ice-cream cone? Come here. Let me feel your head."

The girl turns slightly, backing away toward the foyer. The grandmother, making the laughing/crying/sneezing sound, brings a tissue up to her face like something she's going to shove into her mouth, like something she's going to eat. The eyes of the child are glazed now, wide, shiny and full.

"Go on," says the mother, nodding toward the hall. "Come give Mommy a kiss goodnight. And don't wake your brother."

She takes off her clothes in the darkness, puts them into a neat pile on the floor beside the bed. She puts on her pajamas, smoothing the fabric over her chest and belly, smoothing it over the tiny ribbon of the undershirt underneath.

Then she goes to the dresser, and, looking over her shoulder at the small bed on the other side of the room, switches on the lamp. Small animals dance around its base. She slides it over to the edge of the dresser, then gently pulls open the top drawer. Light falls into it, filling a corner of the drawer, illuminating some pastel colored powder puffs. A Cinderella wristwatch. A miniature china dog. Some bottle caps with crayons melted into them. A white rabbit's foot. And a flashlight from the circus. This she removes and flicks open, but the battery's dead.

She gives it a shake, tries it again, aiming it at the shape of her sleeping brother in the darkness. The light flashes for a second on the arm poking through the rail at the edge of the bed. Mighty

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Mouse flying up and down the sleeve. Then it fades. Wrapping the cord around the light, she puts it back into the drawer. She takes out the rabbit's foot, rubs it along her cheek, across her lips. Then puts it back into the drawer carefully, as if it were a bird. Then she takes from under her pillow the pink plastic golfing tee, placing it precisely across the palm of her hand. She puts the hand under the light, then moves it closer to the bulb. A thin spot of pink appears on the palm.

She closes her fingers, puts the golfing tee into the corner of the drawer with all the other small things. Slides the drawer shut.

Switches off the light.

Pulling the covers down, she climbs onto the bed, slides her feet under the blankets, pulls the blankets up around her. Squares of light dance around the room whenever a car passes. She fondles the place in the blanket where the soft material makes a fold.

She puts her thumb into her mouth.

She wanders into the living room where the grandmother is still sleeping, and turns on the television, softening the volume to a whisper. Then she sits very close, reaching up to change the channels. The American flag billows in the breeze against a perfectly blue sky. She changes.

A man with clasped hands and glasses talks about God and faith and trust and goodness. She turns.

A wheat field stretches across the horizon, swaying, rippling. Big white clouds gather on a pale blue sky. A tractor moves slowly across the field. They do a close-up of the farmer's hand, the millions upon thousands of grains of wheat slipping through the farmer's fingers. Like fine gold dust. •

Soon she sees a figure in the darkness. The figure of a man. She hears him creeping around the room, sees an approaching density, a darker darkness. With human hands.

Your mother or your father, he says. Which one?

Which one?, he says, all night long. I'll take one or the other. Her brother sleeps through it.

Her heart beats fast. She thinks she might explode.

The light awakens her. The brother sleeps, one arm still dangling over the side of the bed. The faint smell of urine fills the room.

She climbs out of bed, walks across the hall to the mother's room.

The mother's room is all painted white. The sheets are white. The blanket is white. Only the head of the mother is not white. It sticks out of the sheets, tilted back, the hair a black tangle. The mouth is wide open, the lips tight and dry, the skin sallow.

The little girl stands at the edge of the bed, staring at the mouth that is wide open with no sound coming out of it. Nothing moves.

Then the head turns, the eyes open. "Hello," she says, the mouth making sticky noises. "What are you doing?"

The little girl puts both her hands on the mother's face. The woman closes her eyes. "Go back to bed."

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47

Quarto

Quarto

Lori Stevens

Lori Stevens

AT THE TELLURIDE JAZZ FESTIVAL

SKELETONS (for my parents) I jammed my fingers down my throat, reenacting your act of hard groping thrusting into wet red of making me.

Your act so fast thoughtless, like your wedding, five months pregnant.

I deconstructed your product cell by cell. I pared myself down to the bone.

The music pulsed over the crowd and echoed back from the encircling mountains, so that the children in their beds two miles away could have listened, maybe you did, too.

My breath hung in the air, mid-August but already the moon looked like snow.

Later I hitch-hiked home.

A blond man picked me up and asked me if he could spend the night.

I said no, my boyfriend was home, asleep.

The man asked me then to go to his place.

I said no.

When I slid between the sheets next to you, sleeping, you pulled away from my cold feet.

In the secret dark of a basement I dug fingers into the furrows of my rib cage.

I felt the outline of each bone, traced it as a lover traces his lover's lips, rib bones circling round to knobs of spine and wrists and knees jutting out

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49

Quarto

Quarto

Russell McCallum

from flat plate hips.

I cradled my bones like armfuls of kindling and rocked.

WHAT ABOUT JACQUELINE ONASSIS W e all know she works hard at Doubleday.

We all know she attends literary parties at the New York Public Library.

We see her look poised and smile alot.

But what about her days off?

What about when she's exhausted or nauseated?

Does she get depressed or lonely?

Does she have a favorite bathrobe and slippers?

What does she eat if she just wants a snack?

Does she prefer to shower at night or in the morning?

Does she change her own bed?

Does she cook her own meals?

Does she sit at her dining room table to write her children letters?

Can she bake a cake from scratch?

Does her foot fall asleep if she crosses her leg?

Does she forget what she's talking about sometimes?

If she has a fight with her children does she slam the door to her bedroom?

Does she eat cold cuts directly out of their wrappers?

Does she drink Pepsi?

Does she eat Ruffles or Big Mac's or Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Does she call a friend and go to the movies?

Has she ever seen a porno movie?

Does she want to lose weight?

Does she oversleep if her alarm isn't set?

Does she wear knee-hi stockings with slacks?

Does she ever put her shirt on backwards?

Does she smell her underarms when no one is looking?

Is no one ever looking?

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51

Ferrandino

Quarto

Joseph Ferrandino

INKBLOTS (Excerpt from a novel)

T h e inkblotS are the dumbest things I know. They give me more trouble than they are worth. Stupid things. They confuse me.

Not just because they don't look like anything. That's part of it, though. I mean even when I try to answer the question, try to play it straight, I can't come up with anything they look like. They also confuse me because I don't know what to answer. Not like the other tests. The other tests I can figure the angle, that is, I understand what the test is trying to pry out of me without me knowing it. And I play along. I fight back. But these inkblots. They beat the shit out of me.

"And what does this one suggest to you?" Doctor Trullo asks.

I take it. Turn it around. Hold it up over my head. Stare at the goddamn thing.

He writes something. Peeks at me. Looks away. Looks at his watch.

The ink blot is black and gray in my hand. It does not look like a butterfly this time. They all look like butterflies to me: butterflies or crushed bugs. The wings are too long at the top. Or could be the bottom, but I don't care. These long things are curved, sort of. With round things on them like heads and the shoulders are hunched and there's something in their hands like hammers or axes and they're beating on Doctor Trullo he's on his knees bleeding black and I'm standing two of me are standing pounding him like a spike into a railroad tie.

"It's two monkeys beating on a drum," I say.

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"Hmmm," he says.

He takes the inkblot and looks at it.

"Hmmmm. Two monkeys," he says and writes it down.

Look at this, he says to some of his friends at dinner. Look. [shows them the inkblot] One of my crazies said it was two monkeys beating on a drum, [they all laugh: they pass it around the table] Can you beat that? Two monkeys?

I'll beat you to death you vicious little runt. I'll squeeze your head like a rotten melon. Eat your heart. Pick my teeth with your bones.

Don't you laugh at me!

"And how about this one?" Trullo asks. "What does this one suggest to you?"

He hands me a gray splotch with something pinkish in the middle.

I answer even before it is in my hands.

"On my back looking up Stephanie's skirt," I say.

I drop the blot. I can't believe I blurted it out. Stupid jerk. Stupid stupid jerk. . .

"I don't believe you ever mentioned a Stephanie before," he says.

A Stephanie. Like he's talking about a thing. A table. A chair. A lamp. A Rembrandt is more like it. Say it you sawed-off runt the best part of you ran down your Daddy's leg in the toilet say it runt say A Rembrandt and you still won't even come close.

A Stephanie.

Ptooo on you Doctor Trullo.

"I think I mentioned her before," I say.

"No. . . [flips through file].. .No. I don't recall..."

"It's not important," I say.

"Oh? Why not? Why isn't it important?"

I light a smoke. I need a cigarette. The rat smells blood in his twitchy little nose.

"Skip it. I don't know why I said it."

"Who is Stephanie?" he asks.

Who is Stephanie?

Ask what is Stephanie.

Stephanie is my desire. In the dark secret part of me that cannot be satisfied Stephanie lives like bubbling steel in a crucible. All others are only her slag. I chisel her image in patterns of wood and with them make molds in wet sand. And in those times when I tap the source and prepare the pour, when I open my skull and my chest

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J

Ferrandino

Quarto

and slide the bar in place I hear a laugh. . . she laughs in my face. . .

Stephanie.

She is five-feet-five. One hundred pounds. Auburn hair longer than shoulderlength in loose easy red-tinted spirals. When lost in thought she twirls her hair round a finger. Her eyes are forest green.

She wears pants, a quiet plaid on stretchy fabric with stirrups at the bottom.

I have had Stephanie in the shower when inside her was warmer than hot water. On a Caribbean beach. In a hotel on Key Biscayne naked on the terrace above the reaching palms. A snowdrift in the Yukon. In the Colorado mountains, an Arizona desert, a wheatfield in the Midwest. In a transcontinental jet. In a submarine. While ballooning over the Capitol. I have loved her gently. Taken her by force. On a rock by a shooshing stream in summer we ate each other's sins. She purifies me. Makes me vile. She fascinates. She festers.

Stephanie lives in a small dark apartment. In the morning when her cat rubs its flanks between her legs it makes Stephanie hot.

I have had her a thousand times in a thousand different ways. I can make her do and say anything I want. I feed her. I dress her. We share a bottle of champagne. I taste the perfumed salt of her flesh. I just cannot cast her image and hold her the way I hold this insignificant pen.

Stephanie is a child. A girl. A woman. She is the smoke I inhale and blow back in my own face. I watch her. I study her. I swallow her soul and feel it roil in the blast.

I never spoke to her.

She always seemed to have something on her mind. I could never figure out what. Never could put into words what I saw on her face, in her eyes. I never had the slightest inkling.

Stephanie does not know I exist.

Oh, Stephanie, you know who I am.

At night in your sweetest of sweet dreams I have slipped beside you in your bed. That was me, Stephanie, who pressed his lips on the places you wanted kissed. I touched you where you secretly wanted to be touched in the way you secretly wanted someone to touch you and you moaned and smiled and said how did you know and please please do this and I said I knew and did it and you said I always always wanted someone to do this and again I said I knew

54

and you held me on top of you your legs wrapped around my hips and we pressed and rubbed and figure-eights became circles and the circles became lines and we became each other in the instant of shimmering souls and in that time we were feeling the same swimming floating in the same dewdrop on that blade of grass each the inseparable half of the other and the secret of the stars is safe with us because it cannot be told.

Stephanie.

I am your incubus.

"Who is Stephanie?" Trullo asks. His voice is far away.

"What?" I say. I need time to come back.

"Stephanie. You mentioned Stephanie. Who is she?"

"Oh. Just some girl I knew once. That's all."

The bell rings. The file is closed. I am glad it's over.

Sometimes these rare flashes of insight into myself are to me as a cool breeze must be to a man freshly skinned alive. •

55

J

Quarto

The Back of the Book

A PROFILE OF WORD BEAT PRESS

W o r d Beat PreSS, a small literary publisher based in Tallahassee, Florida, holds an annual international competition for fiction writers, publishing the winning manuscript. The two winners thus far are Barbara Milton and Patricia Volk, recent contributors to Quarto.

Word Beat has also recently published an anthology of short stories by some of America's foremost writers entitled Stories About How Things Fall Apart and What's Left When They Do. Raymond Carver, Jayne Anne Phillips, Barry Hannah, Joy Williams, and Tobias Wolff are some of the authors whose work is included in the book.

Allen Woodman, publisher of Word Beat Press, originated the idea for a fiction competition because he wanted to do something about the number of talented writers who go unnoticed by the public. "I was upset by the fact that there were a lot of top-notch writers without an audience," Mr. Woodman said. "We usually get at least ten spectacular manuscripts worthy of being published." He began the contest in 1983 and last year received more than 300 entries.

Barbara Milton's collection of short stories, A Small Cartoon, was the 1983 winner of the competition and is now in its second printing. Ms. Milton's short story "Rundle" was published in the Spring 1983 edition of Quarto "I remembered one of Barbara's stories from The Paris Review

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Quarto

Quarto

and solicited her work," Mr. Woodman said. "I was struck by her self-assurance and accuracy in language."

Ms. Milton credits Word Beat Press with giving her exposure as a writer. Since publication of A Small Cartoon, two Japanese publishers have expressed interest in Ms. Milton's work and one story in the collection, "The Cigarette Boat," went on to receive a Pushcart Prize in 1984. "It never occurred to me to pursue writing professionally; I just realized at one point that it was what I wanted to be doing. The successes let you justify what you're doing and keep you going," she said.

The Yellow Banana, a collection of six short stories by Patricia Volk, was the 1984 winner. Ms. Volk's short story "Unfinished Business" appeared last year in Quarto and her story "Be Careful" appears in this issue. Her writing has also appeared in The Atlantic and is included in Word Beat's anthology, Stories About How Things Fall Apart and What's Left When They Do. "Allen Woodman is an editor who uses tact and respect when talking to writers," said Ms. Volk.

Both Barbara Milton and Patricia Volk have taken J.R. Humphreys' fiction workshop at General Studies and credit the workshop with creating an atmosphere of emotional and psychological support. "He is special as both an editor and a teacher," Barbara Milton said about Mr. Humphreys.

"Workshops give you an identity as a writer and they provide responses," she added.

Mr. Humphreys emphasized the importance of publication experience for writers. "Without publication experience, a writer can't develop," he said. "Word Beat has been a good experience for them. Barbara and Patty are fresh writers with interesting minds."

"There is more and more demand for the short story today," Mr. Woodman said. "The trend is reversing from the long historical novel to the lean, fat-trimmed-away short story." Mr. Woodman is also interested in publishing a novella.

The Word Beat Press Competition is open to manuscripts from 40 to 90 pages in length. Stories may have been previously published in periodicals but not in a collection. The prize includes publication of the manuscript, $100.00 plus royalties, and 10 copies of the printed work. Manuscripts should include a short

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biography of the author, a stamped, self-addressed envelope, and a $5.00 reading fee. The deadline for the competition each year is March 15th.

Entries should be sent to.Word Beat Press Fiction Book Competition P.O. Box 10509 Tallahassee, FL 32302-2509 A Small Cartoon by Barbara Milton ($5.95) and The Yellow Banana by Patricia Volk ($6.95) are available from Word Beat Press at the above address.

Joyce Chang

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Contributors1 Notes

Melissa Bank is currently studying with J.R. Humphreys.

She is working on a collection of short stories.

Eranza Blanco is a Cuban writer compromising in Manhattan and working on a play.

Maggie Bradley is a physical therapist in private practice in Manhattan. She is studying writing at General Studies.

This is her first published poem.

Louisa C. Brinsmade is a senior Literature/Writing major from Austin, Texas. She plans to return to Austin to write and set up a publication for new writers.

Michael Crawford is a writer living and working in New York City. He is currently working on his first novel.

Joseph Ferrandino is in the MFA Writing Division at Columbia University. He is completing his second novel, 11 Bravo, part of which appeared in Quarto.

Deirdre Hoare was last published in Commonweal. She lived in Ireland in 1983 and now works at Columbia.

Susan Hogan grew up in Massachusetts. She has attended writing workshops in the School of General Studies.

Barbara Kalin works in advertising in New York City where she lives with her husband and dog. She is working on a novel.

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Carmela Lanza works full-time in publishing, is a parttime student at Columbia University and also finds time to write poetry. Her work has been published in several college anthologies, The Thornleigh Review and The Prospect Press.

Born and raised on Long Island, she has lived for the past four years in Boston, Massachusetts, where she graduated from Emmanuel College. She currently makes her home in Brooklyn.

Russell McCallum will receive his BA in Literature/ Writing at General Studies in May, 1985. He enjoys baking cupcakes and is currently working on a collection of short stories.

Mona Molarsky is a New Yorker who came to General Studies after working in advertising for six years. She has published poetry in the Manhattan Review and Transom magazines and was the winner of the 1984 Woodberry Poetry Prize. She is currently working on a play about the family of an unemployed steelworker in Pittsburgh.

Jo Mattern is originally from the Midwest and has lived in New York for the past five years. She received her BA in English from Indiana University.

Nicholas Samaras gained his MFA from Columbia in January, 1985, and currently works for TWA. Lori Stevens has studied poetry at General Studies.

Patricia Volk has just finished her first novel. A collection of her short stories, The Yellow Banana, was published by Word Beat Press in March.

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Beginning and Advanced Classes Evening and Daytime

Creative Nonfiction, News and Feature Writing, Science Writing, Criticism and Reviewing:

Offering small classes taught by distinguished authors, editors, and publishers:

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Fiction and Poetry GLENDA ADAMS ANN BIRSTEIN AUSTIN FLINT J.R. HUMPHREYS DAVID IGNATOW COLETTE INEZ RAYMOND KENNEDY GORDON LISH PETER RAND PHYLLIS RAPHAEL LOUISE ROSE MICHAEL STEPHENS

Scriptwriting and Playwriting: GARY GLOVER

The Writing Program at the School of General Studies, Columbia University's liberal arts college for adults, serves students with or without degrees.

Publishing: SAMUEL S. VAUGHAN ALAN ZIEGLER

For information on a two year MFA Writing Program, write School of the Arts, 404 Dodge, or call 280-4391.

School of General Studies 303 Lewisohn Hall, Broadway and 116th St. New York, N.Y. 10027 280-2752

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