1986-Vol22

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QUARTO

QUARTO The Literary Magazine of the School of General Studies Columbia University

Volume Twenty-two Spring 1986

1 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 Editor Joy Parker Associate Editors Tawia Baidoe-Ansah Jamie Berger Joanne Connon Russell Day Julie Ellis Suzanne Falkiner Frank Genco Michael Jones Rosemarie Kozdron Kathy Laupot Barclay Powers Cindy Rubin Rosanna Rubino Emily Russell Jany Sabins Amy Silin Valerie Williams Director, Writing Program J.R. Humphreys Faculty Advisors Alan Ziegler, Geoffrey Young Our thanks to Larry Zirlin of Philmark Lithographies.

Grateful acknowledgement to Roger Beirne for his generous donation to this issue.

© 1986 by Quarto ISSN 0735-6536

QUARTO IS EDITED BY STUDENTS ENROLLED IN LITERARY MAGAZINE EDITING AND PUBLISHING; ALAN ZIEGLER, GEOFFREY YOUNG, INSTRUCTORS.

Contents 9 August Heat by Alma Rodriguez-Sokol 16 Nine Hundred and Thirteen Ants by Juan Julian Caicedo 18 Alicante by Juan Julian Caicedo 20 Versailles by Barbara Livenstein Kalin 26 A Regular Man by Kimberly Wozencraft 30 The Cat Lady by Lynne S. Nathan 35 The Sin by Elisabetta di Cagno 37 The Passage of Time by Elizabeth Tippens 47 A Date With Anouk Aimee by Richard Aeilen 55 from Hole (Scenes from Childhood) by Mermer Blakeslee 57 Gabriel's Dream by Richard Bourie 59 Blue Light by Patricia Volk 68 The Back of the Book 11 Contributors' Notes

s I Cover painting by Steven Rutherford, 16" x 22 "

ALMA RODRIGUEZ-SOKOL

QUARTO PRIZE THIS YEAR'S QUARTO PRIZE FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT IS SHARED BY ALMA RODRIGUEZ-SOKOL FOR

"AUGUST HEAT"

August Heat "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out, let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."

Song of Solomon 4:16

AND

JUAN JULIAN CAICEDO FOR

"NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN ANTS" CHOSEN BY GLENDA ADAMS AND PHYLLIS RAPHAEL FROM THE CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE.

TODAY IS A SPECIAL DAY. We were married a year ago this morning. A thunder storm, I remember, shook me out of a dream that morning, and lightning was striking nearby, somewhere near Humacao. The ceiling fans were still so I knew there was no power. I was dreaming an odd dream—that the plaza was flooded from a hurricane. And so many people, seemed like thousands, were taking slow, slow paddle strokes on canoes, or swimming, or holding onto tree trunks, all crossing the plaza.

No panic, no hysteria, just a wet, silent vigil to the highlands; the highest point being the church.

Fortunately, the power returned by early morning that day, and by noon the sun baked through most of the clouds. I took a deep breath when I opened the doors to the veranda. There were vapors rising from my garden. By then the hurricane dream was one of those vague, misty sensations that fizz away with the tradewinds.

August heat. That is how it feels today. Humid, with a few clouds. Resounding clouds over Humacao.

"God's spit basin," Consuelo says when she refers to Humacao. "I'm going to the spit basin to pick up some es-special fish." Humacao is one of those pueblos where it always rains. Never fails. It rains there everyday. Especially when she goes there to shop for specials.

Consuelo likes to think of us as geniuses in our jobs. I guess moving here worked out perfectly for David. He was just made a partner at the

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law firm. I too made a good choice to continue the lecturing at the university. But I have a feeling she considers us hopeless clods when it comes to practical day-to-day things. We originally hired her as a secretary. Now she sort of keeps house. Just something which evolved naturally without much discussion. I think we make a nice threesome.

I do not mind the heat. The ceiling fans make it pleasurable. So does the mosquito netting. It is like a cool, gauzy canopy. Delightful. I usually listen to him play while I work or read on the veranda. Last night he played a Chopin nocturne. And the night before he started learning a Bach fugue. A few minutes ago I asked him what he was going to play.

"Ah, let's see. . ." He shuffled the piano bench underneath him.

"How about Beethoven, Opus 109, E major?" he said. "It's one of his last sonatas. By next week I should know the whole thing."

I like to watch him sometimes, the way he sways a little, his eyes far away. He stays there for a few hours, gliding his long, pale fingers over the keys. Last night, after he played the Chopin nocturne, he listened to it on a recording, then he recorded his own version. Then he compared each one. From here the notes seem to weave in and out of the tradewinds.

The piano spreads across the middle of the living room, imposing, beautiful. "It is old, but see the lines are sleek and modern," I say to a visitor, or student, or anyone if they ask. It is curious how some things remain timeless.

Once David told me "It's African mahogany. The same color as your skin." Consuelo probably overheard this because later that evening she said "The way he plays, Profesora, he'd make love to it too, if he could." He couldn't leave it behind. Not even when I warned him of the humidity in this country.

"Tropical weather will rot it. Especially here," I said. "Everything oxidizes so quickly in this salt a i r . . . unless you keep a humidifier and air conditioner on all the time."

"That's all?" He ordered it shipped from Toronto to Puerto Rico the next day.

It arrived a few months later with a troup of moving men. They jumped out of the truck squinting from the blazing noon sun. They stopped to take long gulps of beer before hauling in the crates.

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"Relax, it's here," I said, trying to keep David from pacing. "Here, have some fruit." I offered him the plate of sliced mangoes and papayas that Consuelo had set out together with country cheese, guava paste, and a huge pitcher of ice water. Consuelo, on the other hand, was in an excellent mood. She flirted with one of the men using her big quiet smile and her smooth-your-skirt-down-your-hip motion. Her age gives those gestures a certain wisdom, and men, I noticed, respond to that.

I remember how Consuelo walked towards the house one afternoon, slanting her white umbrella toward the sun. I realized then how much we looked alike, our color, our hair, the fullness of mouth that mulattos share.

"It protects her from the sun," I told David who was amused by the umbrella. He just smiled and said something about melanin phobia.

When I was younger, I remember many more women used umbrellas for the sun. The slant of her white umbrella reminded me of them. I always thought it added grace and color to their movements. There is something nice about Consuelo's roundness too. The fat seems just right. Just like the way she serves the fried banana chunks wrapped in bacon.

"A pros-espective boyfriend, Profesora. Do you like?" she whispered, nudging me when the men where not looking. She then gave instructions on where to position the piano. "Aye suave hombres!'' She covered her ears. "Manuel, mi amor, will you please tell those cowboys that it is a.piano窶馬ot a toy." She winked at me as she passed the fruit.

As they unwrapped it and replaced the legs, I felt an odd sense of hurt.

It was lovely. A lovely and yet painful thing to see. When I saw the huge instrument in a room filled with bamboo furniture I choked on a slice of papaya.

I felt a chill as David drew the curtains. He instructed Consuelo to keep the direct sunlight from touching the wood. When it was just the two of us remaining there in the room, everything seemed still. I couldn't hear the wind through the naranja trees. No rustling. No cocks crowing. Not even the call of the tree frogs. Not with sealed windows.

Certainly not with the combined humming of an air conditioner and humidifier.

"Couldn't you take up the flute, or harmonica?"

He sat frozen on the piano bench for a moment. Then he told me the story as he wiped the keys. He used gentle, feather strokes. He stared at 11

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the edge of his t-shirt wrapped around his finger as he told me. It was the story of how the piano was sold to his family by another Jewish family in Germany. It was just before World War II and the family needed the money immediately.

"The piano got through, but the family never made it. And here it is now, on this crazy island," he said. I am not really sure why I set the bowl of fruit on the piano, but I did. And I took his hand, a surprisingly powdery-soft hand, and lead him around and around, circling, running our fingers over the nicks in the wood.

David was playing Scott Joplin's rags when we met in Toronto. We were students then. I enjoyed watching his face as he played them; his silly grin, his head bobbing from side to side. He told me he avoids pop or folk tunes. But he must like the attention even more because he'll play anything if his friends ask him more than once.

The last time we had our friends over the power went out. There was something magical about listening to everyone sing a choppy Beatles song that way, no electricity, all the windows opened to the warm night air, David playing by candlelight. We must have sounded drunk singing HeyJude, garbling the lyrics, drowning out each other's words. David threw the music sheets aside and started improvising. It established immediate intimacy. It was the same night that we heard Consuelo use her deep, raspy voice to sing the blues.

I knew she never lived abroad. She even told me once that she had no intentions of ever leaving this island. Even after her husband left, she stayed. But I knew from the way she sang, I knew that she understood those words, the meaning of those words. She sang a few songs that way, songs that told stories of betrayals, of cold winters in tenement flats, of a harsh life in a desolate, foreign land. Consuelo sang, and David played.

After making love that night, as we were staring through the netting, the ceiling fans started moving again. Then David said, "It is haunting sometimes. . .the ways of this island."

they know English. The rest of the time I spend extending the garden around our house and cultivating fruit trees. For the past year David spent most of his time working on cases out of court. On his free time he mastered most of the jazz classics. Then he started using words like gigs and sitting in. He would tell me "I might audition for a gig in Calle Luna," or "I was asked to sit in at Maria's last night."

Over the months he practiced longer hours. Then more jazz poured out of our house when he began rehearsing with a friend who played alto sax. I think I admired him more when he began to grow a beard, despite the heat and the protest from his colleagues.

"Why, look at him, Consuelo," I pointed out one morning as he walked to the car. He wore his khaki colored suit with the jacket over one shoulder, with his roughened panama hat just right. "I've turned him into a Bahama Papa," I said. She just threw her head back and laughed her husky laugh.

"I love those gringos too sometimes," she said dropping the shade.

For the past year I have spent most of my time teaching the basics of macroeconomics at the University of Puerto Rico. It is an interesting job —but I am forced to use English textbooks. Lecturing to dedicated, glassy-eyed students is challenging. Many of them hate to admit that

Suddenly, he switched back from jazz to those sad pieces: Bach, Bartok, Chopin, Ravel. I remember that he started with Ravel's Pavanne. I remember it well because it was the same night a long, candle-bearing procession passed our house for the Day of Epiphany. I was sitting on the veranda reading, grading papers. Then I started looking at the faces as they passed. It was uncanny how some held their crosses, rosaries, or bibles with that special expression of rapture. Like icons. Some were barefoot. I watched the vigil with my throat so tight—I couldn't even swallow. Consuelo did not see it. She was away. She had left to vacation with relatives in San Sebastian.

He stopped playing. He avoided my eyes. I was working on a translation of a new economics text but I could not concentrate on the words.

The house seemed empty with her gone. In an attempt to make the room more romantic I pointed the high intensity lamp too close to the piano lid and scorched it. It left a burn about the size of a quarter. After a week there was still no music, no talk. I decided it was best to visit with Papa for a few days.

I started driving inland, toward the central mountains, stopping first at Humacao for gas. And, of course, some things remain constant. It was raining so hard in Humacao, the windshield wipers were not much help.

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Then I had to get out of the car to clear the crisscrossed bamboo stems that blocked the road. A few minutes later I had to get out again to shoo away a herd of cows. I drove to the plantation wondering about the commute to the university, and hoping the guest cottage was empty. At least until I decided on what else to do.

David drove up a few hours later shouting "Profesora! I'm so sorry!"

He was waving a soggy bouquet of sultanas that he had picked from my garden. That is all he had to do—wave those brilliant purple flowers, the strain I had developed over the last year to withhold the wind, the downpours, the tropical sun.

As soon as we returned he threw open the lid and played Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso. A moving reckless piece. Damn the way he speaks to me through that instrument. A gypsy spirit seemed to invade the house. I went upstairs, showered, brushed my hair and began unpacking. It was odd to be back so suddenly, to be listening to him play.

Then I went to the stairs and watched him. Them rather. Consuelo had just returned from San Sebastian too. David was swaying gently, his eyes somewhere in that foreign place. I saw how quickly and beautifully she had arranged the sultanas on the piano. I returned to my room and touched on a bit of my favorite perfume.

The next morning I heard him scream. When I ran downstairs I discovered the vase knocked over on its side, wilted petals stuck flat against the wood. The water had seeped right through overnight. It left a large puddle underneath. He sat on his bench with face covered, shoulders shaking. I went behind him and held his shoulders. I held him that way for a long time.

wedding band and placing it on the keys. I nodded yes. "Do you realize we were married within two weeks?" I nodded again, took off my band, and placed it beside his. They were identical. Simple and thin.

"That jeweler in the old city thought it was hilarious that we were the same size," he said.

"Isn't it hot? August is always so hot." I fanned myself with one of the yellowed music sheets.

"Where's Consuelo?" he asked.

"She's shopping for es-specials. I think there will be a heavy rain too."

"How do you know?"

"I just know. Maybe I should make us lunch now in case the power goes."

"No, please sit with me." He began a few notes to a ballad. "It must have cost a fortune to fix this." From the reflection on the wood I could see he had closed his eyes. A few more notes resonated.

"Here, baby.. .don't lose this," he said slipping one of the bands back on my finger. He lifted the lid, slowly this time, and began to play Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso.

I just came here to wait for him under the new mosquito netting—his gift to celebrate our first year. We will need it since the mosquitoes breed so much more in August with all this rain and heat. I notice this netting is finer, lighter. It has white satin straps rather than the elastic hoops which hook on to the bed posts. It billows gently with the current of air from the ceiling fans, a dreamy, hypnotic motion. I wonder if Consuelo is caught in the storm.

•

Just a few minutes ago I sat on the bench beside him.

"Your hands are so soft and white, like a woman's," I said, touching his palms. He looked at me, this attractive man, this big man with hands so delicate that he gave up Karate because he had to do push-ups on his fists. I offered to take the lessons and defend him if he were ever in trouble. I thought about that as I looked at our hands. Mine appeared large, a deep olive. They were browned and roughened from the gardening.

Nothing wants to die here. The vegetation seems to grow too suddenly at times. Even the weeds I throw in the trash begin to sprout and flower.

"Do you remember when we went to get these?" he said, taking his 14

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Juan Julian Caicedo

JUAN JULIAN CAICEDO

Nine Hundred and Thirteen Ants

H E SMELLS OF STALE TROPICAL GOAT'S CHEESE. He never smells any other way; you can feel the smell when you approach an area about ten feet from where he stands.. .or sits, for he sits most of the time these days, even when they bathe him in the river. He's that old. Nevertheless, he's wide awake; even when the heat makes the fields look like they are boiling, and their vapours rise up the skirts of the every-dry mountain, he's right there. Nothing escapes his absent gaze. The farm hands call him Don, and lower their heads or look into the distance when they talk to him. He just sits there, silently keeping watch over his cattle, His voice comes out from the barrel of his chest like aged, sweet rum:' 'That calf's mine. She belongs to the cow I got from the Turk; don't take her away before giving her the iron!"

"As you wish, Don." "Breakfast is ready, Don." He grabs that niece of his whom he adores, grabs her by the arm so that she's obliged to bend the upper stretches of her body down toward his bouncing head. It takes him a good two minutes to get his frame in a position that will allow him to start circulating, always grasping the girl's arm sternly with his left hand, the hardwood cane with his right.

Midway down the dusty path that leads to the gazebo, he stops and sucks on his tongue, producing the sound of ripples hitting a muddy bank. His shaky, but still able hand reaches for the pocket of the freshly-ironed linen shirt, pulls out a carefully folded newspaper sheet, and goes for his

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quivering mouth, but does not touch it. Instead, the hand rises further up to graze the thick, deep-brown mole that clings to his skin just below the teary eye. Only then he brings the folded paper down to his lips and spits inside it. Once finished, he puts it back inside the immaculate pocket.

The girl gives him a timid little tug. . .his head, like a monkey's, seems to lead him forward: wherever it points, he follows, with his feet lifting barely a quarter of an inch above the ground.

At the gazebo, he dresses little pieces of bread with the white of an egg, and with eyes half-closed, ruminates the wet dough. The last bite goes to the parrot perched on the back of his chair. She's the only one allowed to utter any comments while he wipes the dish clean with a soft corn wafer tightly held in one hand marked by sepia spots.

When the sun starts retreating towards the brownish crest of the hill, behind the house, he asks to be taken to the corral. There, like a dog looking for a place to lie down, he searches for the spot where his chair is to be placed. When he finds it, he pulls out of his vest a heavy gold watch that hangs from a double, golden chain. He looks at it as he would a child he's scolding without words; then he slowly shakes his head, puts the instrument back where it belongs, and sits down. From that moment on he's left alone, sometimes as long as one, two hours. He sits there with his gaze fixed on the earth between his legs, the tip of his cane hitting one spot on the ground with the rhythm and perserverance of a patient drop of water leaking non-stop into a puddle. We know he's done when he lifts the cane in a triumphant gesture over his head. Then someone goes to bring him back into the house, where the kerosene lamps have just begun chasing scorpions with their glare. In the corral, on the spot where he came from, there's left a mound of black particles that could be gathered with two hands full.

Grandpa reaches the porch and claims his favored corner, then he says, "Today I killed nine hundred and thirteen ants," and starts telling stories of the dead. •

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Alicante

It touches the bare breast And pushes the baby aside.

The baby nestles in the crook of her arm.

The serpent takes the nipple in its jaws, It puts its tail in the baby's mouth.

The leaves don't move.

There is one sound in the tropical forest: The crackling of a gray butterfly's wings.

The baby sucks the tail.

The serpent drinks the milk.

The woman has just given birth Alone in the afternoon, She's breast-feeding the baby.

The leaves don't move.

Alicante winds its way into the room The clay tiles rub its belly.

Its belly has bigger scales than its loins, And it is of a lighter hue too.

The tiles are fresh, they are humid.

Alicante creeps closer to the woman.

The woman hums a melody.

The serpent knows the song, The sound of the song mixes with the smell of the milk.

Alicante loves a woman's milk more than anything.

The baby smacks its lips.

The butterfly smacks its wings.

The The The The

woman blinks. red eyes of the serpent cling to black eyes of the woman. woman cannot move; she falls asleep.

Alicante slithers up the woman's leg, It coils in the woman's lap.

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Barbara Livenstein Kalin

BARBARA LIVENSTEIN KALIN

Versailles

W H E N MY SISTER LEFT FOR PARIS I gave her as a going-away present a box of stationery with a pretty picture on each notecard: an illustration of an old-fashioned fountain pen and a bottle of ink beside a piece of paper.

On the paper were some scribbles. I never received one letter. I did get a postcard.

Bonjour de Paris! Paris is so beautiful. It makes me want to cry. In Venice I went for a ride on a gondola—and saw my first rat. Rome was very dirty. The Alps were simply breathtaking—I had no idea mountains so huge could exist. When are you coming? I think there's something wrong with the mail. I haven't received one letter. Running out of space.

WRITE! On the postcard was a picture of a canal in Bruges. It was postmarked in London and had a deckled edge.

I tried to reach her. I kept her itinerary stuck to the refrigerator door, attached by a magnet in the shape of a heart.

In April, my husband and I went to Paris. He wore his trenchcoat and tennis sneakers and looked like a tourist. The day we arrived I called my 20

sister in the Galeries Lafayette from a phone booth shaped like a giant football helmet. It took me ten minutes to figure it out, to identify the correct coins. I heard the beeps, then the voice—different inflections, a little sweeter and full of the lilt of French—but definitely the voice of my little sister.

Then she was standing at the door of our hotel room, looking like this much older version of my much younger sister. She was so skinny it looked like the clothes were sliding right off her body. The light in the hall was dim; it took a long time to recognize her. I knew she was in there somewhere, beneath all the black kohl pencil lining her eyes and the big blue mesh tied into a bow at the top of her head. Her eyes looked like two black holes carved into her face.

I made a big fuss. She walked in and flung first her shoulderbag, then herself onto the big bed. The bedspread was blue and orange paisley.

Her sweater was royal blue mohair—the real fuzzy kind. In her fuzzy blue sweater and stonewashed jeans she blended right into the bed. The hazy hotel room light made it all seem somehow aquatic: my sister doing the backfloat on a sea of blue paisley.

Later, in the restaurant, my sister ordered our dinners in expert French. The waiter said something to her and she said something back.

My husband looked at me and shrugged. Neither of us speak a word of French. Then he looked into his wine glass, staring at the swirling liquid. The waiter gathered the menus but before hurrying off, he asked my sister a question, she answered and they both looked at me. My sister put her arm around me and patted my shoulder.

"Don't worry," she said. "I told him you had me when you were eleven."

I kept thinking, she could easily pass for a French girl. She drank red wine that night. She looked so grownup with the goblet in her hands. Her fingernails were pretty and pink with little crescents of white at their tips. There was no trace of the summer before when she'd bitten them till they'd bled. That was after the roses stopped coming every day which was after the pre-med student. She couldn't decide on a major. She couldn't decide what she wanted to do after college, or for that matter, what she wanted to do after dinner. She couldn't finish a meal with my parents. All summer long she worked on her resume. I'm writing my resume, she said whenever I called. Or, I'm rewriting my resume. She 21

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showed me some of them: always the same set of facts, arranged, rearranged, underlined, capitalized, even italicized for emphasis.

That night after dinner, we argued about how she was going to get home. I'll take the metro, she said. I looked at my husband. He yawned.

Take a taxi, 1 said. I'll give you the money. She just walked away. Then she turned and came back.

"You're not my mother," she said. "I'm taking the metro."

She kissed my husband goodnight. He told her she looked sexy—no, actually, sexier. She shrugged and stared at her feet, then blushed.

"Bonsoir, ma soeur," she said, and kissed me on both cheeks.

"Bonne nuit," she said. "A demain." I heard the loud fast click.

I fumbled for the receiver and closed my eyes.

It was very dark. The phone next to the bed at my parents' beach house was ringing and ringing and I thought it was part of the dream, but then it wasn't a dream. I reached down and heard my sister's voice through the remnants of the dream.

"Guess who?" she said.

I could see by the tiny flourescent jewels of my watch that it was nearly two o'clock in the morning.

"Simone Signoret," I said.

"Very funny. I'm home."

I yawned. "Yippee." Then I was suddenly awake. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Jet lag, ma soeur. Can't sleep." Then she said, "Come home.

Tomorrow. We can go to the mall and discuss disposable douches all day. Just like they do on TV." "Come to the beach," I said.

"Too depressing."

My husband snored. I rubbed the sole of his foot with my toes and he stopped.

"Three's a crowd," she said. "And all that sun."

"Just come out. I'm dying to see you."

"Come home," she said.

I was getting sleepy. "We'll come home Sunday. Tell Mommy we'll be home Sunday for dinner. If you change your mind, come out. We'd love to see you. And I'm falling asleep."

On Sunday there was a car I didn't recognize in my parents' driveway.

The front door was unlocked so we let ourselves in. It's a big open house with lots of glass. From the front door you can see clear to the back, bits and pieces of aqua filling in all the spaces in the shrubbery and between the branches of the weeping willow tree.

My parents were out by the pool—my mother and my stepfather with some friends of theirs—a psychiatrist and his wife. I kissed everyone hello. They were all very polite. It was late in the afternoon and oppressively hot, so hot it seemed that the air just stuck to your skin. Bees were buzzing, tiny vibrations in the air. There were caterpillar droppings all over the place.

Worms of white light danced and wiggled on the surface of the water which seemed in the fading light to be illuminated from somewhere within itself. I felt like jumping in. I wanted to be cool, wet and submerged, but it was too hot to change into my bathing suit. I was swinging the keyring on my index finger. I asked where my sister was.

Everyone suddenly became very quiet.

My parents' friends got up and gathered their things, mumbling about better be going. My parents looked like two people who didn't know each other, as if they were on a quiz show, each staring somewhere offcamera, looking for the answer. My stepfather was wearing a towel draped over his shoulders like a shawl. My mother was wearing her big white sun hat and black sunglasses. Her eyes were obscured by the black lenses. The friends weren't quite gone when I asked again: Where was my sister?

Then I turned and saw a leaf drop into the pool. The water looked very light and very pale. The last time I'd seen my sister had been the day at Versailles. There were the grounds, the gardens, the grandeur, but in all of Versailles not one of the fountains was on. The spigots, a dull green patina, were raw and exposed, sticking out of the shallow, empty pools.

Then I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be bad because they wouldn't say it in front of their friends who already knew and

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didn't want to be around when I found out. My husband reached out and held me. One hour, we found out. They only turned the fountains on for one hour, on the third Sunday of every month. We went on the wrong Sunday.

I thought, tell me the last sentence first. If only I could just hear the last sentence first, then everything would be all right.

Then it was all like a rehearsal. Everyone said their lines. After awhile I couldn't hear what anyone was saying anymore. The water looked cool and quiet. At the side of the pool the filters made sucking noises. The leaf drifted.

They let my sister come out on passes. We take her out for ice cream.

She has trouble deciding which flavor.

In the beginning we'd all go up there. My mother brought fruit salad in Tupperware. We'd sit out on the lawn and watch fireflies. The chairs there are the kind they have at country clubs. They look as if they're made of popsicle sticks and each is painted a different bright color.

My stepfather would walk among the tall trees and read the tiny wooden plaques nailed to their trunks, trying to memorize the names of all the species. Each time, my mother brought my sister another bag of clothing.

I was afraid to see her They were wrapped up and bandaged like two big gauzy white handcuffs. Later there was a smaller bandage and then a band-aid. One day my sister told me that a girl on her unit had tried to eat glass.

"She went into the bathroom," my sister said very matter-of-factly.

"And when she came out she was munching on a light bulb. When do you think they'll let me get out of here?"

A few weeks ago my mother drove her down to the city to see me. My sister wanted me to teach her how to knit.

I brought out my knitting basket and she picked out a ball of yarn I'd never used. I was saving it to make into a scarf someday. I told her it would make a beautiful scarf. It was lovely yarn, a thick strand of black that meandered into pink and then red and purple and finally into black. I gave her shiny fat needles that would work the yarn quickly. We sat at 24

one end of the long sofa. I sat very close to her, listening to her breathing. With every breath my sister shuddered. Then she turned and looked at me. She raised up her hands. I saw the jagged red line, the seams at which my sister fell apart.

Such thin wrists. Such thin tiny wrists.

I took her hands in mine. I wrapped my great big hands around her much smaller ones, and we sat like this for awhile getting ready to begin.

Then we both looked at each other, and at the needles, realizing, after all, this was going to be impossible.

I'm a righty.

She's a lefty.

The dog jumped onto her lap, climbing up under our hands, wagging her tail, ready to play. My sister buried her pale, pale face into the dark black fur, and just for a moment, everything seemed calm. •

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Kimberly Wozencraft

KlMBERLY WOZENCRAFT

in the joint stirred such interest as when they brung Lonny in. We heard rumors for days. They had a eunuch up in the hospital and didn't know where to put him because if they put him in the men's unit he'd get raped for sure, but they couldn't put him in the women's unit because he was a man.

Then an inmate who worked in the hospital said that it wasn't no eunuch up there, it was a woman who had a sex change operation. The problem was, they had only got the job halfway done when she caught the case that landed her ass in Lexington. Can you imagine?

So anyway, this whatever-it-is is sitting up in the hospital, getting room service meals, not coming out for recreation or work or nothing.

We all knew they wouldn't keep her up there too long. The hospital was plush; it was the best place to be if you had to be in prison. The Captain knew it too, and no doubt it pissed him off royally to know that Lonny was up there plugged into the tube all day long when she should've been busting ass in the cable factory with the normal inmates.

I have to admit I did a double take the first time I walked out of my room in the women's unit and saw a dude standing at the coffee pot at the end of the hall. And honey he wasn't half bad looking, either. I mean to tell you, Lonny had a hell of a body. Well, I say that with reservations because he had a little old skimpy towel wrapped around his waist, you know, so I didn't actually see all of him. But what I saw was pretty sexy.

He wasn't real tall, only about five eight, but he was stocky, you know, solid looking. Nice. Not any fat on his body, but not overdone in the muscle department either. He had light brown hair and a pretty serious mustache. You could tell he even had to shave his chin. His arms and legs was hairy, too. Just like a regular man. Someone told me that was on account of the hormone pills he took but I figured if that was true we'd know soon enough on account of they don't let you bring no drugs into the prison. Bastards took my birth control pills when I came in, even when I explained to them that they was only for my complexion! But what with it being a co-ed prison and all I suppose they have to concern themselves about that sort of thing. Seems to me they would have wanted us to do almost anything not to get pregnant, but the only method they approved of was just not to have any physical contact. Imagine it! Locking up eight hundred or so normal men and women and expecting them not to do nothing but hold hands! And that only when you're standing up! That's right, honey, hold hands while you're sitting down and it's a shot. Three shots and you get shipped to a higher security level. But it didn't affect me that much one way or another because I wasn't just real impressed with what was available anyway. You talk about your one track mind! Then again I know it was rough for them fellers being incarcerated with all us women running around. Some of them even wound up going to the doctor because they was in so much pain, but that place had the most pathetic excuses for medical men that I've ever seen.

Think about it—if you was a doctor would you want to work in a prison?

Honey, I'm convinced that those M.D.'s was just in there working off cases their own selves. Probably got popped for writing scripts or something.

Anyway , Lonny wound up in the women's unit. It seems that althought they were very successful with the operation as far as it got, since it didn't go below the waist the men's unit was out of the question.

It simply wouldn't do to have a female bottom half and be in there with all them horny men.

As it was, he caused quite a stir in the women's unit. They put him on the third floor, where they put every woman that comes into the unit at first, and then the ones that have any sense at all do their level best to get theirselves transferred down to the second or first floor. That third floor is a madhouse! Of course first floor is Honor Floor so that's where all the

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A Regular Man

N O T MUCH OF WHAT HAPPENED

Kimberly Wozencraft

Quarto

snitches stay, but I suppose some of them think it's worth it to rat out their friends as long as they get to use the refrigerator. Myself, I don't put much stock in it. I mean all you can put in there is ice cream from the commissary and half the time someone else will come along and rip it off. Besides, I'd rather eat the whole container at once. After the first few times, it don't really seem that filling to eat a pint at one sitting. And lots of times I'd share it with someone who had a different shopping day from me so we'd each have half a pint on two different days of the week.

Course, weekends were drier than a popcorn fart; the commissary didn't open on Saturdays or Sundays. During the nice months, though, the Lexington Jaycees came and sold snow cones and popcorn in the Big Yard. Some days it was just as pleasant out there as a Sunday afternoon at the zoo.

I talked to Lonny on several occasions. He was an all right dude. I mean I know he wasn't completely a dude, but in his head he was, so I think of him as a man. He told me he had a job in some town in Florida working for a printing company or something like that. He even had a girlfriend who lived with him. They was planning on getting married when the operations was finished. Nobody in the whole town knew that Lonny wasn't a real man. He had every last one of them fooled. And the fact is that if the Uncle hadn't stepped in and fucked things up by slapping a case on him, old Lonny would've pulled it off. Naturally when the Feds arrested him it blew them away to discover they had a half and half on their hands. And right away somebody leaked to the local paper and the next thing you know Lonny was reading about his operation on the front page. He was kind of bitter about that and I can't say as I blame him.

But overall he handled hisself very well, He took some shit from some inmates, too. But most didn't consider him as freaky as the drag queens in the men's unit. I mean, those dudes smuggled in more makeup than the entire second floor of the Women's Unit combined. They had real silk camisoles imported from France, and you never saw any of them with runners in their pantyhose. So after awhile everyone just kind of accepted Lonny as a very lucky dude who got to stay with the women.

And from what I hear, he made some of them very happy. There was always a lot of that going on up on the third floor anyway, but not even the stoutest bulls had a mustache like Lonny's. You could see them in the

morning time lined up at the sinks in the bathroom shaving their fuzz and eyeing Lonny while he trimmed his 'stache.

The hacks was always trying to catch him in some young lady's room, but them women on three could sure pull jiggers. They knew how to pin.

If a hack came within a hundred yards of their alley they'd be passing signals so fast that unless you knew what to look for you'd never notice it. And the hacks never did catch Lonny. They'd get so pissed off when he came strolling downstairs tugging at the corners of his mustache with a big old shit-eating grin on his face, why it sure enough looked like they wanted to murder him! But they didn't dare to do that. Civil service or not, there's limits to what they can get away with.

I think Lonny probably did about the easiest, or at least the most enjoyable time of anyone at Lexington. He sure made the best of a bad situation. He told me once that he never would have printed up the bonds they popped him for except that he needed the money to finish his operation. You just don't see that kind of determination much anymore. He had a lot of good qualities. It's kind of funny, he seemed like the sort of man that would really make a girl happy. I mean he was kind, and had a real good sense of humour. I guess he had to in his situation. And he was strong, too. He was people. You know. A stand up guy.

Me, I'm just glad to be out of that place and back here in east Texas where men's men and women's women. When you lock a bunch of folks up like that and they have to sneak a quickie when they get a chance, and it's actually safer to be messing around with your own kind, things can get mighty confusing. *

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Lynne S. Nathan

LYNNE S. NATHAN

IT WAS A BAD DAY FOR PEOPLE on the outside. The first three slipped through the sewer drain at the curb and dribbled down into the slimy water with the rest of the street litter. The next one, a clear-faced executive in a power tie, caught it from above—plate glass, falling seven stories, turned him into a bloody, mangled mess of glass shards and flesh. The next two were run over by a Budweiser truck speeding through a red light. The next one was an old man past retirement age; she let him escape down the block. After that, there was nothing for awhile.

Iris tapped her fingertips against the crumbling windowsill and waited.

Her nails were chewed to the quick; one thumb was bleeding slightly, the skin between the fingers was cracked and parched.

The window clouded over with her warm breath; she wiped it clear with two fingers and stared intently out at the street. The next one came around the corner. Tan trenchcoat, dark cuffed trousers, he was the one.

She was sure. He deserved the worst. He was almost to the corner.

Nerve Gas! She sprayed. He flinched, then writhed, squirming on the pavement. The tea kettle whistled.

"Die slime," she said, leaving the window.

Two of her cats were up on the counter. One was licking warm bacon grease off the top of the stove, and the other had settled on a cutting board and was toying with a rubber band.

"What'll it be, kitties?" she asked them. "Earl Grey, peppermint, Upton? Can't make up your minds? What's the matter, indecisive?"

She pulled down a box of Cinnamon Rose. "Soothing teas for a nervous world," it said on the box. She blew the cat hairs out of a chipped china cup and poured the boiling water into it. Pink clouds billowed out of the bag like smoke into the water. She dribbled a little honey into the cup, stirred slowly with a spoon, then left the spoon on the counter while she washed her hands. The soap stung her raw skin and she winced slightly.

Behind her back, the cat sniffed the spoon, then licked it carefully and returned it to its spot on the cutting board.

At the rear of the apartment, a door opened, then shut, sending cool air into the kitchen. The cats moved in unison, jumping from the counter and running lightly down the hall towards the door. Two terrycloth slippers held together with electrical tape came towards them along the hall.

Puffy ankles rose out of the slippers into bulging calves covered with clusters of purplish veins. The rest of the legs were hidden by a grey slip dangling below a housecoat. A bouquet of mint sprigs, their leaves brown at the edges, hung from one gnarled hand. The cats followed the mint toward the kitchen, batting at it until one of them got a claw stuck in the lace slip. The old woman kept walking, dragging the tangled cat along with her into the kitchen.

"Iris, Iris," she said to her daughter. "Put a little of this in your tea, it's the last of the season. I think I'll dry the rest." She pinched off a few leaves and dropped them into the pink tea, then picked up the rubber band on the counter, twisted it three times around the stems, and tacked themintto the wall over the stove. "Get these damn cats off of me." She brushed at the hem of her slip. The tangled cat, a scrawny Siamese with a stub for a tail, flinched, flattening its ears against its head. "Shoo, shoo," she swatted again. The lace ripped and the cat escaped, leaping to the top of the refrigerator with a shred of grey lace clinging to its paw.

A calico cat sat in the sink eating carrot peelings out of the drain strainer. "I think I'd like some tea," said the old woman. Iris moved her cup and sat at the table.

"Then get it," she said. "The water's hot."

The old woman took a cup and filled it with hot water. Cat hairs floated to the surface. She dropped a tea bag into the water, and, picking up the spoon that lay on the counter, she stirred the whole thing—tea bag, hairs, cat spit, and all. The linoleum under her slippers was sticky with years of spills; the residue thickened in the corners, clung to the table

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The Cat Lady

Lynne S. Nathan

Quarto

Iris looked at her. "You have your garden, I have my cats," she replied. "That's the deal. No cats, no garden, Mother. That's the way it is."

I didn't say no cats, I just said a few less, now, a few less. There's lots of places that'll take strays, you don't have to take them all. There's lots of places, lots of places that'll take strays."

'Well, they're not taking my strays. Just be quiet." Iris lit a cigarette and turned on the TV. Her mother sipped her tea, pausing now and then to pull a cat hair out of her mouth. Iris hadn't touched her tea since her mother had dropped the mint into it. She carried her cup to the sink and dumped it, then washed her hands carefully at the sink, soaping each finger and rinsing it under a stream of steaming water. She left traces of blood on the dishtowel as she wiped them dry. As she walked back towards the window, a cat leapt off the top of the refrigerator onto her shoulders and rode to the window.

Fog settled in between the buildings on 103rd Street, a thick, sooty fog that sat among the leafless ginko branches and darkened with the dusk, pressing against the window as if to match Iris' own damp breath trapped inside. She finished her cigarette, watching. They had tried to get in before when it was like this. In the fog they could get close enough so they were on her before she could hide, before she could get her cats safely away, safe where no one could take them. They had tried to take them before.

The neighbors had reported her to the ASPCA several times. The most recent report had been the past summer; they complained about the urine smell and the yowling from the large cage in the backyard. They had even sent an investigator, but she had refused to let him in. She

would not even open the door, so he had gone to a neighbor's—one who had complained—and looked out the window into the yard. But she had covered the cage with a giant tarpaulin, and taken the cats inside. All he saw was a wild, flowering garden with lavender hollyhocks lined up along one wall, their tall stems wrapped in morning glory vines which bloomed blue and white. Clusters of foxglove and batchelor's buttons grew around the cage; a tub of herbs—mint, parsley, catnip, sage—sat at one end of a narrow walk; and petunias, nasturtiums, and pansies grew everywhere. In one corner, closest to the house, on her knees digging gently in the gritty soil, lifting and turning and smoothing the earth with her withering hands, was an old woman in a torn housecoat. She had stopped for a moment, sitting back on her heels, and wiped a strand of hair from her cheek with the back of one muddy hand. Then she resumed kneading, pawing, moulding the dirt. He left the block and did nothing.

Once Fall came, the complaints stopped; the cool weather did not intensify the smell the way August's humidity had.

Iris rested her cheek against the cool bars of the window gate and stared into the fog. The next one who tried to get in she would poison, or skewer, or scald. She waited, but no one came. The Siamese slipped between the bars of the gate and sat on the windowsill, leaning against the glass. Its whiskers traced fine lines in the moisture from Iris' breath.

"They won't get you, darling," Iris crooned, stroking the velvet tip of a nose with one scaley finger. The cat's tail twitched back and forth across the glass. Its pupils dilated like two camera apertures, then closed to pinpoints.

There was a sudden thud against the glass from the outside. The cat hissed and reared back, every hair on end. Startled, Iris sprang back from the window. Outside a hound howled at the terrified cat, who had become trapped between the glass and the gate in its panic. The dog bared its eye teeth, barking fiercely, straining against its master, a young boy who tugged at the other end of the leash. Iris was screaming hoarsely. She rushed to the door and out, up the three steps from their basement, grabbing a mop that stood in the stairwell. The boy saw her coming and tried to pull the baying dog from the window.

"You'll never get in," she shrieked, "Never get in." She raised the mop high over her head and brought it down with all her strength across the dog's back. He crumpled, letting out a high-pitched wheeze. She

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legs, and filled the cracks between the greying tiles. The front of the woman's housecoat was soiled. A button was missing halfway down.

Her slip showed grey through the gap.

She hissed at the cats as she made her way over to the table.

"Iris, get rid of a few, just a few, please." She lowered herself into a chair and leaned on both elbows, staring into her daughter's face. "Iris, honey, just get rid of a few. The cage outside is full, now, and we can't have any more in here." She fished her tea bag out of the cup and placed it on the brown formica. "Just think about it, now, you know it has to happen."

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raised the mop again and brought it down once more, pounding, pounding. The boy watched, petrified, his mouth open. She turned to him, her eyes wild. "Never!" she screamed. He let go of the leash and ran.

Iris' mother came up the steps carrying a cat in her arms. She held it out to Iris. "Iris," she said softly, "Iris, come in and feed your kitties, now, they need you inside. Come inside." She drew her into the apartment. "Feed your kitties, Iris, feed them now, sweetheart." Slowly, Iris followed her mother to the kitchen. She fumbled with the can opener as the cats sniffed and swarmed about her feet. She counted out the plates, lining them up along the countertops and on the kitchen table, and scooped out the runny meat and fish in measured spoonfuls.

Her mother took some old newspapers and a damp rag from under the sink and, leaving Iris alone, slipped out the front door. She wrapped the dog in the newspapers and laid him in the bottom of a trash can. With the rag she rubbed the slate in front of their window where the dog had lain.

Finished, she went back down the stairs and inside, locking the outside door, then the inside one. She closed and latched the shutters at the front windows and turned out the lights, then walked back into the kitchen and sat down with her tea to wait. •

ELISABETTA DI CAGNO

The Sin per te, Mamma

I turn my globe on its axis and see elephants, oceans and plants.

Beyond my door are desks, acrylic carpeting, the Xerox.

I think of a bird of paradise, open my eyes, and see a wood-grained telephone.

Hungry for air, I run to the window, but it does not open.

I pick up the stapler because I want to skim a stone on the water.

In fifteen minutes I have a meeting with a man I must fire.

I buzz the secretary and say, "John, please build a fire."

I open the file cabinet and look under " P " for plants.

They are there, growing rapidly, huge, green arms reaching out for water.

John comes in, swaying under the weight of logs, and stacks them on top of the Xerox.

I paint white stripes on my face with correction fluid and with a chair I break the window open.

John and I chant and dance around the ringing telephone.

It's late and I hack away at the leaves because I promised to telephone.

John fans the embers of the dying fire.

He's from California and says people in New York are usually not so open.

I tell him we must not forget to xerox All the leaves in the room and the birds perching on the plants.

He opens the supply closet; it is filled with blue water.

Last Monday at seven, my bathroom ceiling was buckling with water.

The super came up and called the plumber and they screamed on the

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telephone.

I was rushing to Stamford to meet a marketing manager of Xerox.

Running in the train station, I bumped into a man and he said, "Hey, where's the fire?"

They met me in a car and we inspected a factory and two new plants.

That night I made a salad and grabbed the only bottle that was open.

Grass is beginning to sprout among the threads of the carpet and I open The little refrigerator and flood the seedlings with mineral water.

Who populates the jungles with animals? Who comes at night and plants The vines and cactus and ivy and the heather that now choke the telephone?

John and I lie on the damp moss under the dark sky and hear the fire Engines in the distance. I lift the rubber lid and copy my hand on the Xerox.

I must preserve all this, and catch a bird and press it onto the glass tray of the Xerox.

It looks at me, bites my hand feebly, and its wings open.

For a moment it is frightened then relaxes in death. I punish myself by putting my hand in the fire.

I was hasty, but there is no forgiveness. The carpet becomes brown, dry without water.

The vines shrivel, revealing the touch-tone telephone.

John looks away from me, buttons his shirt and disentangles himself from the withering plants.

It is bad to xerox birds or water.

In the open air it's one thing, but quite another in an office with a ringing telephone.

Now exposed bricks frame my only fire and clay pots contain the only plants.

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ELIZABETH TIPPENS

The Passage of Time

W H E N I ASK MYSELF, A N E W YORKER NOW, what it is that I am doing here in Virginia this summer, I answer myself saying: the brokenhearted need someplace to go while time does its thing and passes.

I am the summer guest of my sister Katie. I go to her country club with a special summer pass. I see the lifeguard everyday. I hear the kids call her Jackie. Jackie's hair is white-blond, wavy, and shoulder length. Her skin is red-brown. She is always in dark glasses which are white plastic and large. She slumps a little in her woven lawn chair, also white and plastic. Sometimes she snaps the sweatbands she wears on her wrists.

Over and over she snaps them. Everyday I find I move my folding chair closer and closer to the spot she has staked out as her own. Today I am less than five feet away.

"I like the way you swim," the lifeguard says while she chews slowly on a piece of Dentyne gum. Her accent is southern, local to this part of Virginia. She adjusts the strap of her bright blue bathing suit, which is losing its elastic and keeps falling from her narrow shoulder.

"You swim hard, like it matters," she says.

"Well thanks, if that's a compliment," I say.

"It's a compliment," she tells me and says her name is Jackie.

"Mine's Caroline," I say.

It's August and it's as hot and humid here as it must be in New York.

The sun bears down hard enough to give me more freckles and a headache. But it's too empty back at the farmhouse with Katie away on a

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Elizabeth Tippins

To the pool I bring books and magazines that I will not be able to concentrate on, to lose myself in.

"Mind if I set up camp here next to you?" I ask Jackie.

"Fine with me," she answers from behind the white sunglasses.

A lawnmower's motor sputters and hums beyond the chain link fence which surrounds the concrete patio and pool.

"See the woman on the cover of this magazine?" I ask, holding up the smiling face surrounded by a fuzzy pink sweater.

"She made some agreement with the devil. He took her soul and she got this skin with no pores."

Jackie laughs. It is an unused laugh and reminds me of the lost voice of the Tin Woodsman before Dorothy frees it with an oil can.

"Hey, Jackie," comes a call from the boy pushing the lawnmower on the other side of the fence.

"Hey," Jackie says back.

He mows on past us down a small hill and back up again leaving a path of fragrant smelling grass. The boy is brown curly-haired, medium and muscularly built. His back is red-brown, same as Jackie's skin, from mowing without a shirt on. He wears cut-off denim shorts, gym socks with bands of color at their tops, and basketball shoes, white ones that have been stained green around their soles. I notice that his laces are laced properly and tied, and I remember that groups of kids roam New York City with untied shoes half falling off their feet. That trend has not reached this part of the world and somehow it makes me glad.

"Is he a friend of yours?" I ask Jackie.

"Known him all my life," she says.

"What's his name?" I ask. ' 'His name's Taylor,'' she answers. "He works as a busboy at The Inn some nights. I fucked him once."

Now I wish badly to be allowed behind the sunglasses at the eyes. I'm not sure if I am supposed to be shocked by this admission or not; but I am only surprised that I am being given this information, and not by the information itself.

"How was it?" I answer not skipping too long a beat I hope.

"Uh, OK," she answers.

I remember losing my virginity to Walt Brooks when I was fourteen. I had to see him the next day at the Fourth of July picnic. I remember telling my older sister Katie, who was seventeen, in her room full of china animal horses.

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vacation of her own, with friends at the Maryland shore. And so I stay at the pool a little longer.

Jackie stands up and blows the police whistle which hangs around her neck on a bright pink cord.

"Adult swim," she says loudly.

I am the only adult here to participate in "adult swim." She smiles slightly, looking like she isn't used to smiling. Wet children unwillingly emerge from the pool, shivering, blue-faced, wrinkled and complaining. I take my ' 'adult swim" while everyone mutters at the injustice.

"Thanks," I say afterward, while I hug a towel to my body, breathing hard and smiling a lot. ' 'Anytime you want those brats out of your way just let me know,'' she tells me.

I have a few moments in the morning when I wake up feeling OK, normal, fine. Then I remember that the man I had my heart set on went back to his ex-wife. Somehow that's not as bad as if he met someone new, but it's still pretty bad.

I have always liked cats. Purring is a lovely sound. I give each of Katie's nine cats his catfood breakfast. Then I watch them eat. Almost all nine of them are orange and I try to call each one by its correct name.

It's a challenge. It consumes both my right and left brain for about three minutes or so. Then I imagine having nine lives to have to get through. I sit on Katie's farmhouse porch looking out on grass and a stubborn tractor mower, stranded beyond the single large tree on the lawn. I watch the horses shuffling around, nosing at the stubby, weedy grass of their barnyard. They are safely inside a fence that is solid but has been patched up many times. I look into my cup of coffee and imagine Peter, who is sometimes Petey, sometimes Pete. He's eating his very large and nutritionally balanced breakfast. Mr. New York Times, Mr. Jazz Radio, Mr. Beard, Mr. Strong Arms, No Eyebrows, what in hell is wrong with you?

I remember someone once saying that it never works out between older men and younger women. I also remember something like old wives die hard, or ex-wives die hard. Whatever it is, I was the young believer in exceptions to rules.

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Elizabeth Tippins

"Sounds like premature ejaculation," she said. We read about it in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. Upstairs in Katie's bedroom we laughed so hard we couldn't breathe.

"I'm never doing it again," I said.

"Don't rule it out, just don't do it with Walt Brooks." We burst out laughing again and pulled blankets over our heads to muffle the sound. I didn't do it with anybody for a long time after that.

"He's real cute. Do you like him a lot?" I asked.

"No, he's just a guy. Sometimes I go to The Inn when he's about to get off work. I watch him clear off the tables and take the dishes into the kitchen."

"That sounds more interesting than TV. I've been staying at my sister's farmhouse while she's away," I tell Jackie.

"You stay in' out there by yourself?" she asks.

"Yeah, by myself." I try to sound upbeat about it.

"Where you from?" she wants to know.

"New York City," I answer.

"What are you doing down here by yourself watching TV?" I still long to see her eyes which I imagine to be blue.

"I can't go back to New York right now. Man problem." I say, trying to sound funny.

"Oh, man problem," she repeats what I've said. She sounds like she likes saying it: man problem. ' 'It's time to get out when a man turns into a man problem." She says, putting Dentyne in her mouth and offering me a piece.

"How old are you?" I ask.

"Seventeen, how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-five," I say, wondering how that happened.

"Uh huh, you gonna be here the rest of the summer?" She asks, chewing slowly the way she does.

"I hope not," I say. "No offense."

"No offense taken. Tell you the truth, I don't blame you one little fucking bit.

In the evening I drink white wine and steam some vegetables on a hot plate. Katie's stove and oven do not work and she has not bothered to get them fixed. I'm not sure she realizes they are non-functional. She eats

many meals out of small styrofoam boxes from a McDonald's that looks like a large colonial house, a McDonald's that came with a shopping mall that came out of nowhere. I wonder about Katie, who doesn't talk too much except to the horses, and who loves McDonald's strawberry milkshakes made from pink air and chemicals, whose hair has become long and wavy, and who is not looking unlike Loretta Lynn these days.

Here in Katie's neck of Virginia there are no real restaurants to eat at and no friends to eat at them with, no theatre, no movies, even at the pop-up shopping mall. There are no phone calls to make and no phone calls to receive. Just crickets. So I do what I never do in New York. I watch TV shows. I continue to drink white wine long after I have eaten the vegetables and Johnny Carson has begun his monologue.

I dream of the lawnmower boy and me, and we are sitting on either side of Jackie who is in her bathing suit. The boy kisses her neck lightly and I brush her hair slowly and run my fingers over the surface I have brushed to smooth shininess. This is a lie. I do not dream this at all, I imagine it as I lie awake in Katie's lumpy bed, hearing crickets. I dream it, but I dream it before I fall asleep, not after.

Four days go slowly by until I ask Jackie if she wants to eat some dinner with me at The Inn. "We can watch Taylor bus those tables," I say, trying to see if we can have a running joke together.

The Inn's tablecloths are checkered blue and white. Perrier bottles on the table tops hold small bunches of marigolds which look as though they came from somebody's garden. I am wearing a purple jersey dress that looks as though it's been painted with blue and black splotches, and little flat, black shoes—fashionable in New York right now; never before seen in these parts. It is dusk, growing dark outside and Jackie's got those sunglasses pushed on top of her head. Her eyes are blue as I thought, but they are small not large like the glasses. Taylor moves around the place like an athlete, not a waiter. Jackie eats a hamburger with steak fries and loads of catsup. I would prefer a plain broiled piece of fish to the breaded fish sandwhich I end up ordering, but I want to eat with my fingers if Jackie is going to. Taylor looks trapped in his clean and starched white shirt, and self conscious in the black clip-on bow tie which is unfashionably large, almost clownish. Jackie is in a blue, cotton sweater and still wears yellow sweatbands on her wrists.

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"I wish I could orde*r you a beer too," I say after taking a sip of mine.

"That's OK, don't worry about me. We'll get some later," she says, dumping more catsup onto her plate.

"We can buy it at the Seven-Eleven, I know somebody there," she says.

I admire this girl who has her own beer connection in a state whose liquor laws are strict as hell.

"I can buy it. I'm old, remember?" I say.

"I didn't even think of that," she says. "I'm so used to sneaking around."

"This is fantastic, you can't see stars in the sky in New York City," I say, as the three of us ride out to the lake. Taylor sits in the back seat opening beer bottles while Jackie and I bounce along in the front seat of my sister's VW. Taylor says he's of a mind to go out to his Uncle Bill's lake and go for a swim. Stars are everywhere and I am laughing and drinking a beer, grinding down this dirt road. I've not dared to gaze up at stars before now. I knew they were twinkling up there, bright and all, but looking at them seemed like a lonely business. New York, Peter, a quiet catastrophic explosion that did not appear in the New York Times, none of that seems to have happened right this minute. If it did, how could I be laughing, tearing down to Uncle Bill's lake to go skinny dipping with teenagers who have never been out of this town? Here I am laughing and wondering what I'm laughing at, laughing and wondering what I've been so serious about anyway.

The little car radio is blasting beyond its capacity, filling up the inside of this VW bubble with static and a slow rock and roll song that goes: "Tell me something good. Tell me that you like it, yeah." The three of us sing along. Taylor wiggles around in the back seat playing the solos on his air guitar, strumming and picking his imaginary instrument. ' 'Tell me something good."

We stop and jump from the V W leaving empty beer bottles behind, bringing new ones, still cold, along with us to the dock. Jackie and I peel off our clothes, standing on this little dock that's painted gray. I see my purple dress hit the gray boards. I have gotten too drunk to worry whether a naked seventeen year old girl looks better naked than I do, or whether a naked seventeen year old boy will think she does or does not.

42

Jackie doesn't look too different naked from the way she looks at the pool in her bathing suit. I'm used to her lean and muscular body sitting by the pool in the lawnchair next to mine. I'm used to the roundness of my own body when I'm with her.

Jackie dives from the dock, woosh, right into the water, cold, without tentative preparations. I see a shock of white bare skin that her bathing suit has always covered. She's left the sweatbands on her wrists. I realize I have never seen this lifeguard swim. She's doing one hell of a breast stroke: hard like it matters. I'm watchting Jackie's form, watching her perfect arms pull her body through the water, watching the little waves her kicking feet create on the surface of the lake.

I had forgotten my nakedness until I feel Taylor's smooth, hairless chest against my back. He wraps his arms around my waist, runs his hands over my stomach and then holds my breasts, one in each of his hands. I turn suddenly to face him.

"Tell me something good," he sings to me. He takes the beer bottle from my hand. He raises it slowly and deliberately to his lips and takes a sip. He is looking very much like a man, not like the boy who was bussing tables in someone else's clothes. He's got a man's expression of longing, of knowledge of a certain kind, or pursuit.

"Aren't you Jackie's boyfriend?" I ask, smiling slightly at his boldness, enjoying the moment and the game.

"Jackie doesn't have boyfriends," he laughs and takes another sip of beer.

"Why not, I thought that you and she. . . " "Yeah, I fucked her but you can tell she don't like it."

And why is that?" I ask, still amused.

"Jackie's queer. See them sweatbands she always wears on her wrists? That's 'cause she tried to slit 'em."

"Good God," I say.

"Yeah, some girlfriend of hers went and told the whole town that Jackie tried to get queer with her," Taylor says.

I wonder if there is not a place to go on earth where someone is not in some kind of horrible pain. I want to jump in after her as though she is drowning right now or something. I want to jump in after her and pull her out of that murky, lake water.

Taylor says, "Don't let her see you upset. I'm not supposed to tell you. It was a couple of summers ago. Anybody that knew pretty much

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forgot by now."

Jackie is still swimming out there: hard like it matters.

I cannot imagine what might be hidden underneath the ever-present sweatbands, but in that instant I stop having a good time. I give Taylor a tiny push with my hand. It is not a playful push and I am not smiling. He steps backwards a foot or so.

"I'm not fooling around with you," I say. "Let's go."

I pull my purple dress over my head and brush urgently at wrinkles I cannot possibly see in this darkness.

"I'm tired," I call out to Jackie as she swims closer to the dock.

She hangs onto the edge of the dock, out of breath.

"Yeah," she breathes hard. "I guess I'm tired too."

"I'm just drunk," says Taylor, struggling now with his shoelaces.

I drop the two of them off back at The Inn where Taylor's got his daddy's car. I give Jackie the rest of the undrunk beer to take with her.

"I'll see you guys," I say.

"See you," Jackie says.

I watch the two of them head across the gravel parking lot. Taylor's got his hand resting on the back of Jackie's neck. It looks like a sweet gesture, a gesture of affection, but he's a teenage boy and who knows what he's up to. ' 'Take care of that girl you stupid boy,'' I say to myself inside the VW. Back at the farmhouse all is very still but for an occasional cat fleeing from one surface to another in their spooky cat-like way.

I lie in bed looking at my tanned legs hanging out of a giant tee shirt I'm wearing.

In dim lamplight I examine the pale, veiny underneaths of my own wrists. No reddish, jagged scars. No small dots to show where the skin was stitched back together in some flourescent emergency room. Not a mark.

I throw New York clothes into New York soft, unconstructed luggage.

Peter does not own New York. I'd always wanted to live there ever since I was five and first heard about it. I told my mother at the zoo, I want to live in New York City with the pigeons, and now, damn it, I do. Tomorrow morning I will get the man with the red hair, who feeds the horses and has a pickup, to drive me to the bus, that will take me to a train, that will take me to Pennsylvania Station.

Early in the morning I drive the VW to the pool. Jackie's folded white

lawn chair rests against the chain link fence. Everything is covered with rural morning dampness. The atmosphere that now looks foggy and colorless will burn off a little into haziness, but never quite into sunny, by the time the lifeguard arrives to open the pool. The gate is locked with a solid, metal, combination lock. I plant my sneaker into one of the chain link triangles and hoist myself over the fence. I drop back gymnast style, knees bent, both feet square on the ground, cat-like. I carry a long white envelope. I've written JACKIE on it. I weave the envelope in and out of the strips of plastic lawnchair, making sure it is tucked in there snugly to stay. On the note I have written simply that I have to go back—lots of things to do. I do not know what else to say, how better to explain my flight. I look around me at the water in the pool rippling very evenly in this, the coolest hour of the day, and I am gone. Cat-like once again, I climb up and over the chain link fence.

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In New York City, at Bloomingdales, in the ACTIONWEAR department the saleslady calls me ' 'Hon.'' Her complexion is powdery and white, her lips perfectly drawn on in reddish-pink, and her short brown hair is feathery looking, but stays put with hair spray. She says that the electric pink one piece with the tiny black dots is very hot. I begin to explain that I'm not buying it for myself but for a seventeen year old lifeguard who lives in Virginia and wears terrycloth sweatbands on her writsts all the time because....

"OK, if you think it's the most fashionable bathing suit at Bloomingdales," I say.

"Oh sure I do, Hon." Her earrings are red leather and look like big coat buttons. I trust her about the bathing suit.

In traffic on my way to the health club, a moving van and the cab I'm in move slowly side by side. The sliding doors on the side of the van are wide open and I see a young movingman without a shirt on sitting in an overstuffed, gold, velvet chair. I do not take my eyes off him and he does not take his eyes off me, and we move through traffic together looking at one another the entire way.

I stick the yellow Bloomingdales bag into my locker at the gym. In the bag is a folded box which I made sure had the word Bloomingdales printed on it. As I swim through the clear, aqua water of the gym's Olympic pool, I think of Jackie telling me she wasn't sure what Bloomingdales was but whatever it was, she knew it was in New York, that's all.

Quarto

On my way to the steam room I stop for water at the fountain. An old woman walks by the fountain, naked, leaning on a cane. She carries a wet, dripping bathing suit in her hand. Her large breasts sag, her middle looks like a barrel and her legs are strong looking, shapeless poles. I suppose that will be me one day. I wonder if I will still be staggering over here to swim. Will it matter still?

The steam room is thick with steam, moist and tropical. Its floor, ceiling, and walls are white tile and there is nothing for us to look at but each other. One young woman lies on her back and strokes her stomach. She runs her hands over her hips making sure they protrude beyond her flat stomach. Another woman rises to pull the cord that releases a small shower of freezing cold water. She shivers and gasps in the ice bath. I recognize her. I have seen her here before. I have also seen her on the cover of Mademoiselle magazine. I think it's the same one whose cover photo I held up for Jackie to see. The one who must have sold her soul. I see Jackie's awkward smile. Two more women who look alike with the same brown curly hair enter the steamy white cave. They chatter about Europe, and lost luggage, and the strong dollar. As their bodies become wet with steam the chattering stops. They take deep breaths and smile.

They lean back against the white tile. The room is a place of rhythmic inhalations and exhalations, an occasional cough, a woosh of steam, the spray of the shower.

On the way to my yellow locker, I walk past the locker room attendants, young Spanish women dressed entirely in white. Usually they are passing out towels or mopping runaway water, or spraying the mirrors with glass cleaner and wiping them to a shine. Now they are taking a break, sitting together on the benches in their usual corner. They are mostly still except for the continual motion of one woman's hand being run across the soft brown hair belonging to another woman, whose head rests in her lap.

A woman's voice sings out from the showers, with volume and a lot of style, a song I hear on the radio all the time these days: "Starry night, and love is all around..."

•

46

RICHARD AELLEN

A Date With Anouk Aimee (chapter from a novel in progress)

LISA KHOLER STARTED APOLOGIZING for her mother as soon as they got in the car.

"Forget it," Ozzy said. "I got a kick out of her."

They drove west in his blue Toyota, heading toward the mountains that rose in silhouette against a pink sunset.

"She can't help it. Acting that way, I mean."

"No, she was fine, really. She was great material."

Lisa looked puzzled. She wore a cashmere sweater and red skirt which made her look a lot different than she usually did at school.

"Great material?"

"You know—for writing books. That's my career goal—famous writing."

"You like to write?"

"Not homework and term papers, but stuff like great literature and best sellers."

"It sounds hard," Lisa said with a trace of awe in her voice. She was on the chubby side and not exactly his image of a famous writer's wife, but Ozzy was interested in sex, not marriage, and everybody knew Lisa had been in Denver last summer having an illegitimate baby. ' 'It's a great life,'' he explained. "You get a lot of wealth and fame but you also get to do a service for humanity. You dredge up the truth and show it to people in books. Things like man's inhumanity to man and the

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greatness of the human spirit. That's why people respect you and give you the best tables at restaurants."

"I never thought of it like that."

"Famous authors are the flashlights of men's souls," Ozzy said, quoting from his correspondence course. ' 'That's why it's good to experience crazy people every once in a while—" He caught himself and added quickly, "not that your Mom is crazy or anything."

"No," Lisa looked troubled. "She's not crazy."

"I didn't mean 'booga-booga' crazy, anyway. I meant 'unusual' crazy, like your Mom being unusual with all those hot water bottles on her feet."

"She thinks she has edema."

"She probably does have edema, somewhere or other."

"No," Lisa shook her head sadly. "She only thinks she does."

It wasn't exactly the romantic conversation Ozzy had in mind, talking about Lisa's mother's ankle edema, just like it wasn't very exotic to find out Lisa lived behind a laundromat in a house that smelled like Pine-Sol with a sick mother who lay around in black velvet bathrobes all day long.

He remembered Chapter Three in Famous Authorship and tried to think of something exciting to say, something Ernest Hemingway might have talked about to arouse the passions of a young woman.

"Have you ever shot an elephant?"

Lisa looked at him dumbly. "Shot an elephant?"

"On safari. Wouldn't you like to go to Africa and pit yourself against raw nature in its most primitive form? That's what I'm thinking of asking for as a graduation present."

"An elephant to shoot?"

"No, a safari. A trip to Africa. You can't just shoot an elephant. You have to track it down and give it a chance to get away and then shoot it.

That way, if you miss, the elephant tramples you to death."

He thought the last part would get her, but Lisa just sat quietly and stared ahead with a troubled look.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she shook her head slowly. "I just hate to see things die, that's all." ' 'Death comes to us all," Ozzy said in a doomed voice. ' 'Our choice is how to meet it."

"My baby died," she said quietly, still staring to where the mountains were fading into the night.

"Your baby?"

"He had the umbilical cord around his neck."

"Your baby in Denver?"

As soon as he said it, Ozzy felt stupid. What other baby was it going to be? But Lisa just nodded.

"Kyle, that was his name. I was going to keep him, even though Mother and Daddy didn't want me to. I was going to keep him and raise him myself, but then he was born with the umbilical cord around his neck and he was dead."

"I thought..." Ozzy hesitated. "I thought you put your baby up for adoption."

"That's what I tell people so I don't feel so bad. I tell people and I pretend he's living with some nice family on a farm where they have goats and kittens and a grandfather clock and someday, when he's thirteen or fourteen, they'll tell him he was adopted and he'll come and find me."

Lisa sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Sorry," she smiled. "It's stupid to tell you this."

"No, it's not."

"I don't know why. I guess because of your grandfather dying I thought you'd understand."

"Oh, I do, I do," Ozzy said quickly. But he didn't understand at all.

He never thought of Lisa as having a family or of being somebody's daughter. She was just Arts & Crafts Lisa who had babies in Denver.

Finding out about her mother and her sister and the depressing house she lived in made her too real. Ozzy glanced over at her, but this time, instead of noticing the way Lisa's jutting breasts bounced when they hit a bump, all he could see was the soft flesh under her chin and the thrust of her abdomen where it bulged up under her belt. It wasn't the kind of abdomen that made his hands tingle when he thought of touching it. He felt the lust start to drain from his body so he looked over at Lisa's breasts and tried to imagine what the nipples looked like. Were they flat, pink, sand dollars or clay-red cones or dark brown buttons? He imagined all the nipples he'd ever seen in Playboy or Penthouse and tried to imagine them on Lisa, but it was no use. No matter what shape or size or color he imagined, they were always Lisa's nipples, Kyle's mother's nipples,

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and the thought of putting them in his mouth and rolling them with his tongue while Lisa moaned and flopped like a blowfish beside him made Ozzy slightly ill. He wished she had never told him the name of the dead baby. Now it felt like he knew her too well to like or dislike her enough to have sex with her. He reached over and put on a Bruce Springsteen tape and Lisa smiled. Ozzy smiled back and turned the volume up so they wouldn't have to talk any more. He knew the evening was ruined, and he didn't realize how ruined it could get until they got to the movie and Lisa put her hand on his knee.

The movie was an old French film called A Man And A Woman and it turned out to be pretty sexy even though most of it was music and this guy driving a Mustang on the beach. The sexy part was the actress, Anouk Aimee, who was exactly the right bodily type—thin and French.

She was always brushing her hand across her face in a lazy way that told you she was saving most of her energy for the bedroom and Ozzy fell in love with her instantly. He felt his lust return as he watched the Mustang guy talk to Anouk Aimee.

"You need zee ride to Paree?" he asks. Ozzy noticed he kept his eyes half closed as a signal to her that he saved most of his energy for the bedroom.

"Merci, but non."

Mr. Mustang shrugs with one shoulder. "As you wish, but I go zat way..."

"Yes?" she hesitates.

"Chaque weekend.

"Ah yes?" she brushes a lazy wrist against her temple.

"So if you need zee r i d e . . . " Anouk Aimee turns and looks right into the camera, right at Ozzy...

That was the part where Lisa put her hand against Ozzy's knee. She did it casually, like it was an accident and she didn't notice, but Ozzy stiffened instantly. Then Anouk Aimee's five foot face gave him a slow smile and his body betrayed him. He began to imagine it was Anouk Aimee sitting beside him with her long black hair and wide lips and thin, French hand against his leg. Lisa kept her hand there while Anouk Aimee got into the Mustang and they started driving in the rain. Ozzy lifted his hand and let it float in front of him, driving the car through the wet French countryside.

50

"Vous live in Paree?"

"Yes," Anouk stares past the windshield wipers. "My little girl.

"Ah, oui. My little boy. . ."

There is an accident on the highway. Anouk turns to look, her dark eyes clouding over with concern. The Mustang man glances across the seat. Anouk has thin, French legs. Ozzy places a hand on Lisa's thigh.

Anouk gives him a grateful smile.

"I hope no one was hurt."

Ozzy lowers his eyelids. "Some people should not drive."

Lisa rests her head on his shoulder and Anouk's hair cascades across his neck. "Ka-swish, ka-swish," the windshield wipers are an erotic metronome as Anouk's hand slides up along his leg. Ozzy has an enormous hard-on.

"A ride next week?"

She stands in her doorway, clutching her sweater tight against the rain, an enigmatic smile toying with her lips.

"Next week?" he calls again.

"Yes." A little wave and she disappears inside the house.

With Anouk gone, Ozzy suddenly realized whose leg his hand was really on. He froze and stared at the screen as the Mustang man went to a race track and drove trial heats with music in the background. He was aware of Lisa's breathing, of her perfume, of the weight of her head on his shoulder. He was also aware of her hand on his leg, dangerously near his hard-on. The thought of her touching him excited him and made him realize how animalistic his body was. He really didn't like Lisa all that much, but his body didn't care. It wanted girl-flesh and it didn't care whose girl-flesh it was. Ozzy felt primitive and powerful. He was glad he was born a boy instead of a girl.

Anouk Aimee came back into the movie and Ozzy decided to go for it.

Anouk ran with a dog on the beach and he put his arm around Lisa. She nestled into his shoulder, her white sweater shimmering in the light reflected from the screen. Anouk and the Mustang Man went to a hotel.

Ozzy started rubbing his way up Lisa's leg and she let her hand brush against his hard-on. He almost died. Anouk took off her blouse and pushed her elegant French breasts against his chest. Ozzy slid his hand under Lisa's sweater and reached for her nipples. Anouk and the Mustang Man rolled over and over in bed, their naked backs flashing 51

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across the screen. Ozzy found a nipple and stopped, puzzled. Something was wrong. The nipple went in instead of out. And then he realized—he was rubbing Lisa's jellyroll stomach, not her breast. The nipple was her navel.

Suddenly, Lisa became Lisa again, the same Lisa she had been in the car, a poor chubby girl who trusted Ozzy and told him about her dead baby when he didn't even care that much about her. Ozzy felt disgusted and ashamed and sad. The passion flooded out of him and he pulled his arm back and sat up. Lisa thought he wanted to kiss. She turned to face him with her eyes closed and her lips half-open and wet.

"We have to go now," Ozzy whispered awkwardly. Her eyes opened in surprise. "I promised D a d . . . " he let the sentence hang. What could he say? What kind of an excuse was there for taking a girl home after she touched your hard-on?

"What's wrong?" Lisa whispered.

"I have to get the car back. Right away." Ozzy stood up and moved in a crouch toward the aisle. Lisa followed, confused. On the screen, Anouk Aimee stared morosely over her lover's shoulder, remembering other times and other boyfriends.

"What is it?" Lisa asked in a normal voice as soon as they were outside. She looked worried and Ozzy felt even worse because she looked worried for him.

"I'll tell you in the car."

Ozzy led the way across the parking lot and Lisa followed obediently.

He remembered a black, wiggly dog he'd once fed on the way home from school. It was a stray dog whose owners must have hit it, because every time anybody paid any attention to it, the dog would cower and roll on its back with its tail between its leg. Ozzy couldn't get rid of the dog because he couldn't stand the way it got scared when he tried to make it go away. He felt the same way about Lisa. What could he tell her that wouldn't hurt her feelings? He decided to stick with his original story and when they got in the car he told her he promised to have the car back by ten o'clock.

"But the movie doesn't get out until ten fifteen."

"Yeah, I forgot about that." Ozzy wheeled around a corner, shot through an amber traffic light and headed north out of town. He was in a hurry. Having Lisa beside him was like an enormous pressure and he 52

just wanted to get the evening over with. He put on the Springsteen tape and turned up the volume but after a moment, Lisa reached out and turned it down.

"It's me, isn't it?" she said in a dead voice that turned Ozzy's heart inside out. He tried to stall for time. "What's with you? What are you talking about?"

"The reason you want to go home. It's me, I know."

"No, no, it's not you."

"It's my body."

"Hey, come on.. . " "I'm too fat, I know."

"No way, Lisa," Ozzy said weakly. He hated it when people guessed what was wrong with them and you had to pretend like it wasn't true.

"When you touched me, I could feel it."

"It's not you," he said quickly. "It's me. I've got this problem."

Ozzy had no idea what he was talking about, but he would have said anything to keep off the subject of what happened in the movie.

"What problem?" Lisa asked.

"Oh, just this. . .big problem. It's personal, you know."

The look of interest on Lisa's face faded away. She bit her lip and turned to stare out the window. Ozzy cursed silently. He wished he were already a famous author so he'd know what to say to make Lisa believe him. He tried to remember what they said in Famous Authorship about verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief, but all that stuff was for writing, not convincing fat people they were thin. And then he remembered Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises.

"It's my thing," he said quickly. "I can't perform."

"Your thing?"

"I had this accident to my, you know—my organ."

"Your penis?"

Ozzy couldn't believe she said it, right there beside him, right out loud in public. It was like she was a guy and they were in gym class talking about cocks or pricks or dicks or dongs or whangs. No, she was a girl, and she said the real word, right there in the car. She was so literal.

"Is that what you mean?"

"Right, right. I hurt it when I was a kid. I slid down a bannister and hit this knob at the bottom."

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"Really?" Lisa's expression was changing from unhappy to sympathetic.

"Yeah, it's true. They were hoping puberty would cure it, but it didn't do any good. I can't have normal relations or anything."

"But you felt hard."

"I know, but it wasn't real. It was plastic."

"Your penis is plastic?"

"Part of it, anyway. The top part, I think." It sounded stupid as soon as he said it, and Ozzy realized he'd gone too far. Lisa got this hurt look and said, "You're making fun of me."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"It's not really plastic," Ozzy said desperately. "It's a special hormone-injected teflon."

"Yeah, sure."

A car passed going the opposite direction. In the sweeping headlights, Lisa's face looked like it was made of stone.

"Hey, come on," Ozzy said weakly. "I was just kidding around."

"Yuck, yuck," Lisa said sarcastically.

She reached forward and turned up the volume on the Bruce Springsteen tape. Ozzy drove home as fast as he could.

I

MERMER BLAKESLEE

from Hole (Scenes From Childhood)

I GRABBED MY MOTHER'S WRIST where the bone stuck out, leaned into her face and said, loudly, one word at a time, "Don't you hit me." Suddenly, her shoulders were so small and the whites around her pupils were tinted, slightly, greyish green. Her wrists lay there in my hands that were holding her more lightly now, lightening. . .her wrists were so skinny and I had breasts, the same size, just since Christmas. Then it all came at once: "Her hair is so dark," or, "She's not Norwegian like the rest of us," or, "She could die."

The only murder in the history of Ashland. A man rode a bike all the way from Jefferson fifty miles away to pay a forty dollar fine, but instead he took a hatchet to the judge. Gary heard the scuffle from his house next door, ran out and knocked the hatchet out of his hand with a broom. No one knew the man had a knife hidden in his coat. Sliced Gary right across the throat. Carol, his wife, grabbed my father as he stepped into the ambulance. I heard her scream from our driveway, "How can he die when I love him so much?"

At the wake, you could see the stitches coming out of his shirt collar, GARY PARTRIDGE GOT KILLED.

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both sides. He didn't look like Gary with the make-up on him. Except his hands. I guess Freddy couldn't get all the dirt out of the lines in his fingers and under his nails. Pinned up on the lid of the coffin, in the satin, were two paper plates with the Partridge farm crayoned in and a big blue sky. They said, "We love you," and "Bye Daddy."

I WALKED WITH D R . BENJAMIN out to the middle of the pasture to kill Cindy, our stout buckskin mare. Been with us thirteen years. She stopped grazing to watch me come up to her and grab her halter. She still walked eagerly, though her head and thick neck dropped heavier when the left hind hit. The goddamned dogs! Mary saw it but it was too late.

Ran her right over the ice. I stopped her by the hole Cliff had dug with the back hoe. I turned toward her and twiddled her mane with my free hand while Doc punched her neck muscle once with his fist and with the next hit it was in, the needle. He attached the syringe. I tightened my fingers around her mane, pulled, pulled up. It always stuck straight up black, never would grow and fall. "Ain't no show horse, but damn good," Deppie had said. "Damn good." I pulled up, up, but her knees stiffened. Her eyes froze. She was gone. It took just our palms to push her over. She landed below us, 1050 pounds, thump. Her knees stayed stiff but her neck bent to the shape of the hole making her nose cock toward us. Doc walked to the back hoe and started it up. The side of the hole had pulled her lips back. Her teeth gleamed! A truckload of dirt moved slowly toward the hole. Her teeth grew whiter, bright white. Dirt was falling in, on her hind end, her back. Her teeth were lighting up! He was yelling, "Move! Move!" The dirt fell. Her teeth lifted up through the dirt like a waning moon. •

Gabriel's Dream (after Lorca) A new Acadia awaits me.

Evangeline paces to and fro Across the wide, muddy river.

Sound of accordion and vaquero riding sidesaddle On gunwale of shrimp boat, Lifting sad faces with Spanish yodel.

A trolley with one seat Is stopped along Toulouse.

It will bring me to the last good quarter.

Sound of Dixie and black men sitting in side chairs In thin white shirts soaked with sweat, Blowing gumbo from a clarinet.

Colonel Delacroix poles me in his pirogue.

We trawl at night with papillon.

Smell of shrimp boiling in the brass bell of a tuba And strange reflections of our bright red faces.

Delacroix sips broth from the mouthpiece.

Hank Williams will wave from his baroque balcony, Enthroned, locked and guarded, Drunk on julep, half embalmed.

I wade in a fountain of New Iberian red sauce And walk barefoot down streets of beans and rice.

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Smell of delta perspiring As river meets gulf.

A Scot and a Spaniard will discuss a cockfight In two tongues Below my window While I make love with the Queen of Zydeco.

A new Acadia awaits me.

PATRICIA VOLK

Blue Light

O N MY WAY UPTOWN TO ROBERT'S I stop by Macy's. The seven a.m.

news has said that Macy's is getting a delivery of eight hundred Squaw Babies before noon. My daughter Zoe has never been attached to a doll.

She likes to destroy books. It puzzles us, this book ripping. Ed and I have such reverence for our books. We love them all. The ones on the shelves. The ones that spill onto chairs, pile up on the coffee table, and dodder on the floor. Often we discuss who Zoe takes after. On what chromosome is book-ripping found? Whose side of the family? Why us?

While Ed does not believe in turning children into consumers, he thinks Squaw Baby might help. Squaw Baby is the first doll Zoe has ever asked for, and if she can learn to love a doll, Ed thinks she can learn to love books. Ed says once Zoe learns to love, we can teach her how to use that love on anything. So I go to Macy's before Robert's where 1 find myself propelled by a human wave, buoyed by mothers, my toes barely grazing the escalator grate. There are men there too. Men, florid and intense, overcoats flying, fighting their way to the Squaw Baby display. I get my hand on one. I am actually feeling the box. I try to grip the cardboard, fingers scrambling like a rock climber. But the box disappears.

The crowd thins. The last Squaw Baby is gone.

"I tried," I tell Robert at The Three Brothers. We have just made love. "I almost had a Squaw Baby in my hand."

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"Want to see a girl who looks just like Woody Allen?" he says.

"Where?" I ask, looking around the coffee shop.

"Okay, want to see a girl who looks just like Woody Allen blond!"

Now I see the girl. Same channels down the sides of her face. Same baffled eyebrows. And most of all, same lips, lips that look tucked under like the hem of a skirt.

Robert makes me see things I never would have noticed. He is a painter. To support his painting, he ghostwrites Civil War books. To support writing Civil War books, he is superintendent in a brownstone in Hell's Kitchen. Technically, the Civil War stuff isn't subsidized by being a super. Being super allows Robert to live rent-free, which then allows him to write the Civil War stuff to support his painting.

In addition to making me see things I never would have seen, Robert has given me whole new things to think about. Chickamauga. Flushometers. Moxley Sorrel. Bastard pipes. And General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.

One of his favorite things to do when the two of us are alone on his bed on the floor with his chin resting on the top of my head as if our pieces were designed like a puzzle to fit together perfectly, lying that way, so close, one of Robert's favorite things to do is whisper snappy biographies of himself. He composes them in flashes of sotto voce brilliance. I like the ones that I am in best. He imagines, long after his death, what perceptive biographers will make of his work.

"Quote. While historians have argued that Robert Ogg's somber palette is attributed to Retinitis Pigmentosa, new findings reveal that his subterranean studio offered little light. Unquote."

"Quote. Robert Ogg's drift in the eighties to fuzzy penumbras is directly attributed to the lighting in his studio.

Ogg worked only with neon lights and at night. Unquote."

The neon lighting is the EVRO from a Chevrolet dealer sign in the Bronx. It makes everything bluish. Red is purple. Yellow is green.

Green is blue-green. The light is such a presence, 1 am always surprised that I cannot feel it, scoop it up in my hand and take it with me. Put some in my handbag to take home for Zoe. Snap some in my parka and, when everyone is asleep at night, open the pocket under the covers and let the blue light swarm around Ed's bare and scratchy ankles.

How strange Robert always looks to me in the light of coffee shops. I prefer making coffee in his studio. There the coffee is really black.

Black and blue black. There I don't have to wonder if I will be seen with Robert, even though I could easily explain that I was interviewing him for a piece on Modern Art. Still, I prefer the peace of the blue EVRO, so scrupulously clean. No dust hairs dull its glow.

I try to see Robert only once every two weeks. I try and most of the times I am successful. Knowing I can see Robert anytime, that he is always there writing, painting, or fixing a pipe, is solace to me. Knowing he is always there keeps me from needing to see him too much. In the four months since we started, he has never not been there when I knocked. I am also afraid that if I see Robert more, it will jeopardize things with Ed. I don't want to do that. Ed loves me more than I've ever been loved. Ed loves me much more than Robert does. And Ed loves me more than I love Robert. So it makes sense to me to stick with Ed. And, of course, there is Zoe. My goal is to not want Robert. But since that seems impossible now, I will settle for not letting Robert into the rest of my life. I will keep Robert and Ed separate, blue light from clear light, until I have the power to not visit Robert anymore. He always looks surprised when he opens the door, framed in blue light, holding his paint brush, wrench or Liquid Paper, his crunchy yellow hair shining like metal. Whatever he is holding, he puts down and holds me. And everytime, after I have left Robert, after Zoe and Ed are definitely sleeping, I try to reconstruct the day and see who pulled away first. I close my eyes and see Robert in the doorway, no more a part of the real world than blue light. And I think:

"Quote. The noted Civil War buff, Robert Ogg, was a painter by night and a plumber during the day. Madelaine Haber, his mistress, posed for many of his nudes. He was particularly enchanted by her fecund hips. Unquote."

"Quote. Madelaine Haber, best remembered for her Fine Artists Series and Artists in Their Environments, was rumored to have been the inspiration of Robert Ogg. In lieu of

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flowers, please send contributions to Yale College, School of Fine Arts. Unquote."

I can find Robert's mouth in the dark, with my eyes closed. I never have to rout for it. He never tires of telling me I am beautiful. And after we make love (we always make love first, we try sometimes to talk or have coffee or paint first, but so far we can't) after we make love, Robert likes to paint me while I am lying on the bed and he is hovering on a ladder. He paints me, looking down from above. A favorite technique is painting the intricate folds of blue sheet around me, leaving me out, my form defined by the places sheet is missing, negative areas.

"Do you do this so no one will recognize me?" I have asked Robert.

"Quote. To protect the reputation of his beloved Madelaine, who was married to a world famous analyst, Ogg painted only around her, never her. Unquote."

"How will anyone ever know I'm your muse if you never paint my face?" I ask Robert, laughing.

"Quote. The unpublished diaries of Madelaine Haber, graciously offered to scholars by Mrs. Haber's daughter Zoe, while making no direct mention of Ogg, refer to a blue light source that could only be Ogg's. Unquote."

"But I don't keep a diary," I say.

"Quote. The lyrical proportion of hips to hair, the flamboyantly rococo curve of the fingers, the uninterrupted taper of thigh to ankle, was unique to a frequent guest of Ogg's, Madelaine Haber, according to the proprietor of The Three Brothers Coffee Shop on West 44th Street. Unquote."

I laugh and bloat with happiness. Robert drips a little paint on me. It lands in a perfect blue circle on the cusp of my knee. Robert climbs down and wipes me clean and I want him so powerlessly that I feel weepy. He wants me too. We always want each other the same. For my birthday he 62

painted a line drawing of me superimposed on his own body in food dye.

Although I know this really happened, my dreams have more reality.

At home I reheat the pot roast and stir white horseradish into the applesauce.

Ed comes through the door with a package under his arm. Zoe look up from the book she is slicing. I shiver from the cold Ed carries on his coat.

"Smells good," he says, sniffing the air. He kisses me appreciatively.

"Pot roast?"

"It's better the second time around," I say because A, it's true, andB, there's no time to cook on the days I visit Robert.

Ed hangs up his coat and squats on the floor next to Zoe. He always speaks to her eye to eye. After ten hours of analyzing patients who look only at the ceiling, Ed is rigorous about eye contact.

"What are you doing to your book," Ed asks kindly, flexing his nose to push up his glasses.

"It's going to be a hula dress." Zoe holds the shredded book up proudly. "I'm going to hula in it."

"Before or after you play with Squaw Baby?" Ed hands Zoe the box. I put my spoon down and come over. Zoe unwraps the box, stealing looks at Ed. She raises the lumpy rubber face to her lips and murmurs.

"I'm going to love you," she says. "I'm going to talk to you every day. You are my special child."

Zoe removes the doll from its papoose. She turns Squaw Baby over and examines her with thoroughness and grace.

"I'm going to take good care of Squaw Baby," Zoe tells Ed. "I'm her mother. Want to play Donkey Kong?" she says to the doll.

At dinner Zoe sets a place for her Squaw Baby doll. Its name is Little Deer. Zoe cuts tiny pieces of pot roast for Little Deer who sits on two telephone books and stares at Ed's tie clasp over the rim of her papoose.

When Zoe and Little Deer are tucked into bed and the lights are out, when we hear big distances between Zoe's murmurs, Ed tells me he got the doll at Macy's.

"How?" I ask. "I was there. When were you there?"

As it turns out, Ed was there when I was there. I try to ignore the feeling that he saw me without me seeing him. That the hand reaching from 63

Quarto Patricia Volk

behind me to steal my Squaw Baby might have been his.

"I found out why they call them Squaw Babies today," Ed says, sipping coffee from a mug that says "DADDY." "Tell me," I say with enthusiasm. I curl up by his feet while he sits in the best chair. "Tell me. I was wondering how that Squaw Baby thing got started."

"When children asked where they came from, years ago parents would say, 'I got you from the Indians.'"

"Really?" I say, and then add, because I know he will enjoy it, "My parents always told me they found me in a garbage can."

Ed brightens. He strokes his Minoan beard. This is just the kind of information he loves. He swoops down on it like an eagle spotting a mouse.

"A garbage can. A garbage can. Well, what did you think of that?"

"I didn't believe it."

"You didn't?"

"Never. I knew it couldn't be true."

"How did you know it couldn't be true?"

"Because I didn't have any grapefruit rinds on my shoulders.

Remember when garbage was only grapefruit rinds, coffee grinds, and cracked egg shells?" I sigh.

"What is garbage today?" Ed is still perked up, antennae trembling.

"Aluminum foil, plastic take-out cups, you know, dry cleaning bags.

Crunchy things."

"Ah yes," Ed says fondling his mug. "Petrochemicals. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned garbage?"

I realize, quite unexpectedly, that Robert's garbage is old time garbage. Paper, yes. Rags, yes. With a predominance of grapefruit rinds, coffee grinds, and egg shells. All natural garbage.

"Should we look in our garbage and see what's in it?" Ed asks.

"I know everything that's in there," I say, putting my head on Ed's knee. Reflexively, he strokes my hair. "I'd say we have eclectic garbage, post-modern, a lot of references in it to classical garbage. Pretty pure except for an empty Ivory Soap squeeze bottle and the plastic mesh from the onion bag."

Ed is impressed.

"All that fuss about a doll with a face like a baked potato," I say.

"Well, she's a consumer now." Ed sounds as if he's losing her.

"Maybe it's what she needed."

I let my head lay heavy on his leg. I am tired and comfortable, scared but hopeful.

We sit that way until Zoe calls us.

"Mommy! Daddy! Little Deer's thirsty!"

We stand by Zoe's bed with a glass of ice water. Her brow is lined with concern. She gives Little Deer a sip and asks, "Better?" Little Deer's head wobbles yes. Zoe stretches out her own sips, then hands back the glass. Ed bends down to kiss Zoe one last time, and I see us from above as if I were on a ladder. I see us as small and delicate as a creche, a modern counterpart to the families you once saw on old Saturday Evening Post covers. And I know at that moment that Ed will never appreciate that my hair, when splayed on a pillow, is the exact width of my hips. He will never be high enough to see it, and if he were high enough, he wouldn't notice it. I could, however, tell him that my hair spreads out to the same width as my hips, exactly the same, and he would like to hear that. He would fasten on it and enjoy it. He would let it disintegrate on the roof of his mouth and smile at it while he drove in the car. He would put it in his pocket and take it out at night and examine it under the covers where, sooner or later, my tapered, freshly shaved ankle finds its way under his.

"How much do you love me?" Zoe asks, holding up her arms for one last hug.

"More than every grain of sand on every beach there ever was."

"Well, I love Little Deer more than every hair on every animal that ever lived."

"Well I love you a hundred times that," I say, squeezing her wiry body as much as she can take.

"Well I love Little Deer infinity times that." Zoe loosens her grip on my neck.

"Kiss your granddaughter goodnight," Zoe says, thrusting the doll at me.

I peck her rubbery cheek.

"You're going to be a good grandma," she says, tucking Little Deer back in. "Tomorrow you can take us shopping."

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I putter around the kitchen until Ed turns off the TV in the bedroom. I make myself a cup of tea and know that if I can stay awake out here in the living room for a half hour or so, Ed will be sound asleep amid the brick walls, mephitic toads, and mothers shaped like smoked hams that people his dreams. And once he is asleep, he will not wake himself. Dreaming, to Ed, is a sacred activity. That's the kind of thing you know when you' ve been married long as I have. •

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Kimberly Rutherford

The Back of the Book Gotham: Where the Wise Men Fish Goth am— 1. "The name of a village, proverbial for the folly of its inhabitants. Applied to a) Newcastle b) New York.

2. A man of Gotham is a simpleton.

3. Passing into adjective: Of or pertaining to Gotham, foolish, stupid. Gotham College: an imaginary institution for the training of simpletons."

—Oxford English Dictionary

King John of England sent his scouts to look for a location for a new castle near Nottingham. They went to the village of Gotham thinking it would be the perfect spot. The villagers, liking their small village the way it was and not wanting to be invaded by the royal entourage, conspired to act like fools in the presence of the King's scouts and thereby drive them away. Their plot worked, and from that day on Gotham has been known as the village of "wise fools."

Walking down Forty-seventh Street, one comes upon a conspicuous iron sign announcing "Wise Men Fish Here, Gotham Bookmart." Upon entering, the significance of the name "Gotham" becomes obvious.

There is a wealth of interesting books in this small space, but to find what you are looking for is a test which defies the laws of logic. One must be a "wise fool" to be proficient in the art of "fishing" in the Gotham Bookmart.

The book store was founded in 1920 by Frances Steloff, who at ninetyseven can still be found giving orders and talking with customers.

Frances Steloff began her career selling books at a department store in Brooklyn. From there she worked in several book stores until, at age thirty-three with a one hundred dollar Liberty Bond and a one hundred dollar loan from the Hebrew Loan Society, she opened her own bookstore with an initial inventory of one hundred seventy-five books. In 1968 Steloff sold the book store to Andreas Brown.

Gotham claims to be the oldest bookstore of its kind in the country, 68

with customers it has taken care of since 1930. When it opened at its present location, there were seven book stores on the same block. Now, Gotham is assimilated into the middle of the precious stones industry.

The store has a special section devoted to books on gems, lest it be a complete anomaly in the neighborhood.

When Steloff opened the store she had an idea that she only wanted to sell books that she liked to read herself. That means her customers will find no self-help, how-to, or engineering books. Her first inventory contained an abundance of theatrical books, and her personal favorites, mysticism and spirituality. To this day the store contains large selections of books on Sufism, Theosophy, Krishnamurti, and Taoism.

Steloff was interested in helping young writers get popular exposure.

She has raised funds for needy poets and gave canned goods to Henry Miller during his years of poverty. If Steloff believed in a piece of writing, not even the United States Government could stop her from selling it. She was one of the first to smuggle over such banned books as Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, and Joyce's Ulysses. She even spent a night in jail, charged with buggery for selling a book by Andre Gide.

One of the ways Gotham still acts as a middleman is by stocking small magazines. Gotham will buy magazines from almost anyone, something unheard of in the booksellers' business. Phillip Lyman, the store's manager who has been connected with the book store since 1960, said that "the number of magazines that we have at any one time is inestimable.' ' He added,' 'It's not worth it because we don't make a profit on it.

That's why no one else will do it. We do it because it's part of our image.

We all know that this is a famous book store. The staff is dedicated, we feel ourselves imbued with a mission."

The bookstore first became involved with small magazines under the direction of Steloff. "She became the agent for American magazines in Europe," Lyman said. Now her name has appeared in magazines from Toledo to Jerusalem.

No space is left uncovered by books or magazines—new and used sit side by side on the shelf. The Gotham Bookmart, which has been a shrine for writers, editors, and critics for sixty-five years, continues to be a playground for "wise fools."

CINDY RUBIN

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Contributors' Notes RICHARD AELLEN was born in Boulder, Colorado. In the past he has worked as a steelworker, film editor, lighting technician, gold mine guard, flight instructor, and seaplane charter pilot. A recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and The Writers' Guild Foundation, he is presently a student of J.R. Humphreys.

MERMER BLAKESLEE is a professional ski instructor in the winter months and studies and writes in the off season.

RICHARD BOURIE is a graduate of the G.S. writing program and is a free lance journalist.

JUAN JULIAN CAICEDO was born in Colombia, South America and has lived in the United States and Mexico for the last twenty-five years.

He worked for ten years in Mexico in the theater writing, acting, directing, designing, and making music. He's also worked as a photographer.

At present, he's a full time student at Columbia and a Spanish teacher.

ELISABETTA DICAGNO is Editor in Chief of Hermes, a publication produced by Columbia Business School. She is a student in J.R. Humphreys' workshop.

BARBARA LIVENSTEIN KALIN published a story in Quarto last year and wishes to express her gratitude to J.R. Humphreys and the editors.

LYNNE S. NATHAN has taken writing courses at Columbia University and New York University. This Spring she is studying and traveling in Europe. This is her first publication.

ALMA RODRIGUEZ-SOKOL was last year's Editor in Chief of Quarto. She is presently writing fiction, and working as an editor at Chelsea House.

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ELIZABETH TIPPENS is a student of J.R. Humphreys. She lives in Manhattan, writes short stories, and is presently working on a novel.

PATRICIA VOLK's collection of short stories, The Yellow Banana, won the 1984 Word Beat Press Fiction Award. Her first novel, White Light, will be published by Atheneum next Spring.

KIMBERLY WOZENCRAFT is a recent graduate of Columbia University. Her work has been published in Northwest Review,

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:

JOHN BOWERS EDWARD EDELSON JOHN LEONARD PAMELA McCORDUCK NORA SAYRE LAWRENCE VAN GELDER KAL WAGENHEIM

Fiction and Poetry GLENDA ADAMS ANN BIRSTEIN AUSTIN FLINT J.R. HUMPHREYS DAVID IGNATOW PETER RAND PHYLLIS RAPHAEL LOUISE ROSE WENDY SALINGER LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ DAVID R. SLAVITT ALAN ZIEGLER

Scriptwriting and Playwriting: EDMOND LEVY MICHAEL STEPHENS

Publishing: SAMUEL S. VAUGHAN GEOFFREY YOUNG

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

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, NY. 10027 280-2752

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