1994-Vol30 by Quarto

QUARTO

QUARTO THE LITERARY MAGAZINE OF THE SCHOOL OF GENERAL STUDIES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK VOLUME 30

1994

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Current and recent General Studies' students—including non-degree students and students enrolled in other branches of Columbia University who are enrolled in Writing Program courses—are encouraged to submit to Quarto. We welcome poetry, fiction, nonfiction, translations, and plays, including excerpts from other works. Each submission should be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Please indicate 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 615 Lewisohn Hall Columbia University New York, NY 10027 All contents © 1994 by Quarto. All rights are reserved and revert to authors and artists upon publication.

Executive Editors Deirdre Ritchie Mary Ellen Ugactz-Fernandez Associate Editors Ryan Chipman Alicia Clark Maria Grazia Cocchetti Susanne Fengler Melissa Halpern Kmar Kashif Amy Scheibe

Faculty Advisor Gary Lenhart Director of the Writing Program Alan Ziegler Quarto is edited by students enrolled in Literary Editing and Publishing. Typeset in 10 pt. Palatino. Design and typography by Melissa Halpern. The editors wish to thank Mary Ruth Strzeszewski.

ISSN 0735-6536

CONTENTS

Produced at The Print Center., Inc., 225 Varick St., New York, NY 10014, a non-profit facility for literary and arts-related publications. (212) 206-8465

Watching Watches

Scott Miller

Restless Time

Edward Napier

Mow

Lawrence Reilly

Messy Beige

Greer J. McPhaden

Harder Than Chinese Arithmetic

Raul Correa

Lenore

Aaron Scharf

Streetsweeper

Aaron Scharf

His Studio

Aaron Scharf

The Lesson

Leslie Woodard

Summer Dawn

Mike Kramer

The Time of Illness

Andrew Rivan King

The Amish Horse

Tom Regan

Driving Past Chowpatti

Sheetal Majithia

Patagonian Moon Myth

J. Feinstein

Funerary Inscriptions

J. Feinstein

Get in Touch With Your Mildred

Bill Konigsberg

Bras and Girdles

101

Gerry Visco Capello

Grandpa and Signora Passera

109

Paul Andrew Schofield

THE QUARTO PRIZE

PHOTOGRAPHS Lawrence Udell Fike, Jr.

18,78

Gilbert Mendez

26,32,52,88,108

Portia A. Racasi

Cover

George Voorhis

100

FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT IS AWARDED TO

PAUL ANDREW SCHOFIELD FOR 'GRANDPA AND SIGNORA PASSERA''

Scott Miller

Scott Miller WATCHING WATCHES What are the big things family members say to each other? You're adopted, I'm having an affair, we're bankrupt, I'm gay, we're getting a divorce, I'm dying, we hate your girlfriend, I'm an alcoholic. No one in my family has ever said any of these things. Maybe I have a perfect family. Or maybe we just have an overriding communication problem. Dad is waiting in the car being surprisingly patient, although the car is running and his seatbelt is already fastened. The auction starts in less than an hour and he likes to have a few minutes to look around before the bidding starts. I know this although I haven't been to an auction with him in maybe five years. My brother David and I are walking out the back door of our family house. We brush past the Christmas wreath and let the screen slam behind us. We leave the main door open because Mom's still inside. It seems rude to close the door on her, even though the temperature outside is below freezing and I can imagine the house deflating through the opening like a hot air balloon with a hole in it. One huge sigh as it crashes to earth. I think Mom's trying to do something with her thin hair. I'm not surprised it's getting thin; thin to no hair is a family trademark. Another family trademark is that we're all scientists. My mom and dad are Purdue University professors of molecular biology and physics, respectively. David is a second year graduate student at Berkeley and I'm finishing my Ph.D at Columbia; both of us molecular biologists. I'm twenty-six years old and going totally bald under my long combed-back strands of black hair. When my hair is wet and I lean towards a mirror, I can see the horseshoe shape my hairline will one day assume. I haven't had a chance to see David's hair yet. He's worn a baseball hat since he flew in yesterday. And I haven't seen my dad's hair in twenty years. He's bald. As we move across the gravel my dad cracks the car window and puts his mouth to the opening like he's coming up for air. He 10

yells, "Steve, where's your mother? We won't have time to look around." I point to her through the kitchen window. She's standing in front of the hallway mirror with hairbrush and spray bottle. He beeps at her and she turns and flips him off. But I'm the only one in position to see this small touch of theatrics. David continues from a conversation we had the night before like if s never stopped. He has a one track mind. "So for the DNAse One footprint analysis in the presence of the crude cell extract, how long do you think I need to incubate the DNA with Large T Antigen?" "How much DNA per reaction, again?" "Uhh, five hundred nanograms." "How pure is the protein?" "It's immunopurified, baculovirus, you know, eighty-five, ninety percent pure." "Are you footprinting plasmid DNA or is it a labeled fragment?" "Whole plasmid, five kb, double-banded in a cesium chloride gradient, resuspended in TE buffer, stored at minus 20 Celsius, primer extention with hot primer. Anything else?" I stop and think for a second. We're on opposite sides of the car looking at each other over the roof. Our conversation hangs between us as wet white air. The sun shines down on his cap and I can tell he's noticing the way my scalp glares in the light. It will be a crystalline clear day. "Maybe you better ask Mom," I say as we climb into the back seat. The space crowds in behind the closed doors like we've entered a vacuum lock. The car feels warm. Our fast food mess from the day before has been removed. "Ask Mom what?" Dad says. "Nothing," David says. I can see Dad looking at me in the rearview mirror. Age has given his face a mischievous quality. His hair loss revealed bizarre clusters of freckles and moles that I imagine continuing like an unfinished sentence to the top of my own head. He repeats, "Ask Mom what? What is it with you guys, you think I'm such a hard ass you can't ask me a question? Mom, the life scientist, will say yes to anything, right? Always Mrs. Nice Guy? You guys haven't asked me for advice since I got you through your Physics-for-Wimps requirement in college." David snorts. The banter is on. "Mrs. Nice Guy? Go ahead David. Ask him," I say. "And 11

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Scott Miller

nothing useful has happened in his field since F=MA anyways. Especially now that the SSC flopped in Congress." Dad presses down on the horn again and his eyes disappear from the mirror like I just shut off his internal power switch. The Superconducting Super Collider would have been able to duplicate conditions existing a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. It would have enabled physicists to ask fundamental questions about the relationships between forces. And it was his baby. But he doesn't respond directly to my belowthe-belt jab. He just turns to face us, seatbelted in his heavy down coat, fighting like he's in a straightjacket. He's waiting for David's question. "I don't want to ask him. Dad, you won't know the answer. It's about DNAse One footprints." "Gimme some credit. My two sons who haven't seen each other in almost a year are talking science. You expect me to believe that? It's real easy for you to cover your tracks with footprints because you know it's something I'm not familiar with." "Cover my tracks with footprints?" "You know what I mean," Dad says as he leans on the horn. I'm thinking it actually does make sense that David and I are talking science. It's all we've been doing the last year and I get the general feeling that the family has lost some of its conversational dynamics. We've been separated too long; the inside jokes and putdowns we've always employed to feel closer are hitting a little off mark. The Unit is out of practice. Mom is ready in a few minutes but she makes a face at us before she gets into the car. "It's a twenty minute drive to Delphi and the auction doesn't start until ten. We'll be there in plenty of time." She kisses my dad on the cheek, squeezes his nose and makes a honking sound. She looks cute in a light blue jacket tight at the waist but relaxed over the hips, the hood rimmed in white fur. She looks sixteen not sixty (or as she would say, with the remnants of the Australian accent she brought to the midwest more than thirty years earlier, "sexty"). Dad backs out of the long driveway. Our cats Fungus and Boson watch us leave and then race for the warmth of the garage. I can't remember the last time I was in the backseat of a car that wasn't a cab; I'm petrified. I got in the back so easily, so naturally, and that scares me too. As I look to make sure Dad doesn't hit the mailbox, the car coughs out clumps of exhaust that hit the frigid air like dazed birds. I'm home, I tell myself, and home is about giving up control.

The old house looks great. Dad painted it last summer, white with dark blue shutters, the same colour it had always been. He's industrious and even creative but it never would have occurred to him to change the colors. Mom mailed me photographs of him, paint splattered and sunburned except for a one inch stripe of skin that had been protected by his headband. He was standing in front of the justpainted house with the power roller held triumphantly aloft like an Olympic torch. In others, Mom stood by him sheepish but pleased holding two glasses of lemonade. It looked like a hot day. We are driving through a neighborhood that teems with ghosts of old friends, epic bike races and childhood mysteries forgotten for fear a solution might erase that piece of magic. David and I point out houses of old friends, then Mom exorcises their spirits with stories of the new proprietors: the people who never mow their yard, the owners of the dog that always craps in our yard, the kid who got busted selling dope, an old classmate of David's who died at twentytwo when a small vessel in his brain blew one night like a faulty fuse. His parents moved soon afterwards. We continue to the bypass where the businesses struggle in Darwinian fashion; the pizza place that became a yogurt shop that became a sub shop that became another pizza place, until my parents disagree over a step in the lineage and we all lose interest. David stares out his window until I punch him in the thigh and he hits me in the shoulder and we laugh at the memories. We take the left turn at State Road 25. Shuttered restaurants sleep on all four corners, dreaming of steak specials. My dad notices our unzippered coats and cranks the heat down. The car settles into a new rhythm. Mom's hair looks pretty good and I make a mental note to find out what's in that spray bottle she used. Dad crosses beneath the old railroad bridge keeping the car high in the center of the tented road. The tires scatter gravel against the concrete underpass like complicated diceplay. The Murphy family at sixty miles per. It's too quiet in the car so I start us off, "Whafs up with this auction? Are they going to have any watches and clocks or will it just be old farm implements, horse gear and musketballs?" By way of reply my dad tosses a newspaper section into the back. One auction notice has been circled with the red felt pen he always uses when planning things. "It's all clocks and watches," Mom adds hopefully. We are collectors. I see that my dad is wearing the late fifties base metal Elgin wristwatch I brought home this trip, one of about a dozen I bought since seeing him last. The watch has a mottled black

Scott Miller

Quarto face and a striking red second hand. The letters and numerals are raised silver; it shows the date in a discreet box at three o'clock. I was so positive he would like the watch I wound it and set it to the correct time before flying home yesterday. Sure enough, he wore it to dinner that night. I'm sporting a 10K gold Omega Seamaster from his recently acquired stock. Maybe Dad and I can work a trade before I return to Manhattan. David wears a new plastic Timex thinking he can get better deals at the auction if he goes undercover. Mom is just along for the fun. I let the newspaper slip under the seat without really looking at the notice. Reading in cars makes me nauseous. We pass through peaceful farmland; the plowed rows of rich frozen soil extend in straight lines that blur with the speed of the car, like watching spokes spin. A black crow scans for seeds in a field already picked clean, then wings to a telephone wire that runs along the periphery. Cows stand huddled and unmoving on a separate plot of grass. Much different than New York City. Indiana is exactly how I remember it. "I think David has a question for you, dear," my dad says like a conspirator. We don't make the connection, so he continues. "You know, the biology question." "I'll ask her later." "What is it, David?" She turns her whole body around and rests her right elbow on my dad's shoulder. "T Ag, plasmid DNA, crude extract, DNAse One footprint. Incubate how long?" he grunts out. My dad shakes his head. "What temperature, honey?" "Thirty seven." "Ahh, body temperature," she says, and squeezes Dad. "Fifteen minutes tops. You just better be careful cleaning up all that extract before you try and run it on a gel though, dear. Otherwise it will all stick in the wells. But you always kept your room pretty clean, so I'm sure you can handle it." She giggles. We drive for about ten more minutes through land that changes little, whole farms distinguished from each other only by the placement of a grain elevator or a barn in some beautiful stage of decay. Then we see the Dairy Queen, the big aluminum silo, and we're in Delphi. "Watch out for the traffic light!" David and I yell. Old family joke; there's only one traffic light in Delphi. The antique auctions are, paradoxically, held in the town's one prefab building, a community center a block from the courthouse square. Although the population of Delphi is just a few thousand, the

auctions (according to my dad) generally draw collectors from the entire state. But today the streets are deserted even by Delphi standards. More good deals for us. We pull into a choice space, my dad peels a roll of bills from his coat and distributes the cash among several pockets. He winks at us; we all zip our coats and exit the car simultaneously like a practiced drill team. The only thing we like more than spending money is saving money (Scottish blood on my father's side) and Dad tells us that by not parking in the auction lot we save five bucks. Dad and David, catching a pre-auction buzz, march ahead of Mom and me. We walk through snow that clings to these streets in stubborn patches. Our crunching footsteps attract the gaze of an untethered mutt that roams the streets masterless; it receives a sudden message on its dog antenna and bolts behind a house. Mom and I talk softly of our work without going into major details. She tells me that Dad was depressed about the SSC not getting funding; he had been to Texas and Washington as part of the scientific contingent lobbying for the big project. "I guess now that we have all the bombs we need, the Human Genome Project catches people's fancy more than the subtle beauties of high energy particle physics," my mom comments. "And even the genome project is probably overkill. Molecular biology has always been about small labs doing creative incisive work, not the muscly bulldozer, Manhattan Project-style approach." I nod in agreement, regretting my earlier joke about the SSC. The project was the only chance for physicists to answer the questions they've wondered about their whole careers. No wonder he was a little sensitive about it not getting funded. "So how's he doing otherwise?" "Oh, he's doing great. Can you believe he painted the whole house by himself? Up on that ladder thirty feet high with me holding the bottom, and coming down at lunchtime to go play squash, and then back up there for the rest of the afternoon." She pauses and links her arm through mine. "I think he needs glasses, but he's too stubborn to get his eyes checked. He has to hold the paper right up to his face to read it." She imitates him and we both laugh. "But it's nothing he should have to feel ashamed ofâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I've worn glasses since I was five." "He won't get glasses until he takes the mailbox out with the car or something big like that. Dad relies on defining moments for decision making." "What watch are you wearing?" Mom asks. I hold up my wrist and she smiles. "He knew you'd like that one."

Scott Miller

Quarto We could hear Dad and David arguing before we turned onto the gravel road that led to the community center, before we realized there was no auction that day. "It's tomorrow," David says to our curious faces. "It's on the twenty-second not the twenty-first. Dad's trying to maintain that he's not going senile but he keeps forgetting what we're arguing about." "The twenty-second does sound right, I guess. . ." Dad offers. "I don't know why I thought the auction was today." He shrugs. "Well no use standing here. Lef s go back to the car. Maybe they printed the wrong date in the newspaper," Mom suggests. As she turns our arms come unlinked and I face Dad. "Maybe you read it wrong. Maybe your eyesight isn't what it used to be," I say pointing at my squinting eyes. It sounds surprisingly mean when I say this, more mean than I intended. But suddenly it's open season on my dad's ego and David joins in at this first sight of blood. "Oh, it's your eyes is it? Optic nerve just not soakin' it in like it used to, huh? And the old professor is a little too self-conscious to wear glasses? Trying to hide the fact that you're getting up there?" David winks at me. "Coming from the guy that hasn't taken off his baseball cap yet, that hurts," Dad snaps. David reddens, registering the ugly twin shades of embarrassment and anger. "C'mon guys," Mom says over her shoulder, speaking to the three of us. "He's been meaning to get them checked out. He's been busy." We trail behind her in a rough single file with Dad walking between us. Dad has his hands stuffed in his coat pockets, his back slightly hunched. "Busy moping over the SSC, more likely. He probably showed up to his meetings in Washington on the wrong day too. That's probably why the project got canned." David, far from letting it go, is refueling. The hat comment really nailed him. One thing I respect about Dad, he knows where to strike. Dad remains quiet, ignoring the jokes David and I pass back and forth at his expense. As we approach the car he starts looping around to the driver's side. "I'm not getting in the car if he's driving." "David, he's never caused an accident his whole life." "Yet." Dad doesn't say anything, he just tosses the keys to Mom and strides back to the passenger side. David walks around with Mom.

He looks through the window at the newspaper on the floor and struggles to read the fine print. Dad watches for the verdict. David looks up and shakes his head. "It says the auction is on the twentysecond, you must have misread it. I think you should make an appointment for an eye exam as soon as we get back." Dad thinks. I have no idea what he's going to say. He and Mom have had the house, their lives to themselves since David left for college six years ago. And if s been eight years since we've all lived together. Maybe this family isn't big enough for three men. Three such similar men. My dad looks up at Mom in a way I don't remember ever seeing before. They're communicating with each other in a language they've learned in our absence. Dad finally says, "Will you guys come and help me pick out the frames?" He starts laughing. Mom starts laughing. I start laughing. We're all looking at David now; I've deserted him back to the family fold, the pieces of the Unit are crashing back together like two Hydrogen atoms zooming from opposite coasts and hitting an Oxygen molecule somewhere in the midwest. David hesitates, then whips off his baseball cap. He bends over taking a bow and moons us with his big bald spot. We all laugh, standing there in front of the deserted Delphi courthouse, the cold air sneaking around us like we're in a protected space. Or a bad Frank Capra movie. "Well, I still think Mom should drive." David adds putting his cap back on. Dad shrugs his approval. Mom unlocks the door and lets Dad in. As he reaches back to pull the lock on my door his jacket sleeve comes up and I can see that the Elgin watch I had so carefully set shows the perfect time, the red second hand streaks across the mottled black face. The raised silver numerals shine like a sunstruck circuit board. The date, in the discreet box at three o'clock, reads 22.

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I hear Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings," And have images of Oliver Stone's PLATOON When I think of him. One of the last of the brave, A kid of valor, Who'd fought for his country's honor, My brother was a veteran of Viet Nam— Strong, Long but pink faced and Blue eyes which often sparkled Like a child's on discovering a blanket of snow On Christmas Eve morn. He hunted deer And small animals for sport, Fished, Wore baseball caps, Carried pocket knives, Taught American History at a country school, Was married, Had two children, A cat named Puffins, And a little house On Pine Street by the Norfolk and Western tracks, Where he'd get drunk on bourbon and 7-up, Look at our late Uncle's Purple Heart, Then, an old photograph of him—first cry, then laugh, Then, cry some more, get drunker and Fall off to sleep sitting straight up. Once, he kicked me out of his car. I supported a nuclear freeze, Anathema to the Reagan White House, Which he loved, But he had rescued me from a religious retreat years before, And gave me his twelve gauge shot gun On my sixteenth birthday. He couldn't believe I didn't own a firearm.

Edward Napier

Quarto His name was Tom. And one day, a message on my machine in New York, Car wreck on a back-county road, And I'm home. I don't even remember his casket. Just his hands, funnily streaked With brown, As my Mother rubbed them, Back and forth and Back and forth, She told my Father: 'It doesn't look like my son." "Can't be him." And my Father who'd never wept, Wept harder And tremblingly said, "It is your son. And he is a fine and handsome. . ." "Boy." My sister's baby crawled under one of the large racks of mums Whose acrid, stale, sterile odor lingered in the air, And my Father went to fetch him. Both welcomed distractions. Next day, At the funeral, I insisted that the extended family wait for My parents, Who came late But led the procession into the new brick church Which had recently been built to replace an old white wooden one— It smelled of new carpet, No friendly ghosts there, But an altar of sandstone, And dark, dingy blue-green stained plastic/ Glass— Which the sun could barely penetrate, while all were Forced to sit and listen to a stranger, his wife's famil/s minister Eulogize my brother in colorless English, The Fundamentalist litany for the dead: Jesus Saves! Our housekeeper sat next to Mother, 20

Whose hair was flat; She couldn't comb it, Or have it combed, Because it hurt. Her tear ducts had dried. She could not murmur A sound, Nothing, So she bent herself at the waste, Slumped completely over, A big black bundle, In full view on the first pew. I sat next to my fiancee, And placed my head on my sister Mary's shoulder, Whose lesbian lover had injected herself into the familial retinue And all our town watched As we grieved our dead. At the burial, Aunt Dot wore a pink tarn, A black leather jacket and Green goggles. My brother and sisters and I all had a laugh, Making fun, But Mother didn't notice As my Father held onto her, She just kept asking, "Are you alright?" To the a i r Surely not to Tom— During the benediction prayer, Which was garbled by a chorus of Mooing cows. The sun shone brightly, There was a cool breeze And changing leaves. Aside from the tragedy, It was a perfect day. It was the first week in October, My play About a woman who saw Jesus drinking water From her birdbath was being performed in New York. 21

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The setting was a southern West Virginia town Just like this, filled with people just like these, I thought, Then not. Not now. No. Inwardly, I had wanted someone to be pleased for me. I was to be married in December Which made Mother happy, she said When I first came home, To our house, Whose possession had been robbed from usâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; There remained only one memory there: Death. And I remembered Persephone and Demeter, whose grief was so great She wanted to destroy the whole world Because of the theft of her child, But my parent's steps were light, tentative, Learning to walk again with every moment, Humbled and scared. As I watched them descend the ancient Appalachian knoll, The family graveyard, Mother kept saying, "I'm alright." Over and over A manic mantra. Then we all got in different cars And drove away. The night before my wedding Mother left the rehearsal dinner early, Went to her hotel room, And ate a bottle of sleeping pills. When I saw her later that evening, It was just like being young, againâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; I wondered if she'd die, again, But knew she probably wouldn't. She wore the same black dress, The funeral dress, To my wedding. Sad, she thought,

properly mourning, And no matter what the conversation Found the place to say, " . . . I had a son. . ." Then, broke. And now if s come to this: Mother can't even articulate her grief, But her pale jade eyes wander about the Nursing Home Lobby To pause, Only to cry, Trying to suck peas through a straw, While my Father suffers long lonely lulls between swings On golf greens and Sleeps alone. . . And day after day, She sits in a wheelchair In unmatching jogging suits, Diapered like an infant, Often bridled with a straight jacket now. Though she has forgotten how to walk, Talk, She often turns skyward, Under bleakly bright, hot institutional light, and hurls Her indecipherable and pitiable petitions to the hopeful silence of The Great Unknown. Some say it's Alzheimer's. Other's drug abuse. But I know it's grief. Last night, I dreamt I told Mother the story About Ubbiri by the River Achiravati, Weeping, And Gautama Buddha saw her, and asked her why. "Dead, my daughter Jiva is dead," she said. And Buddha said, "Eighty-four thousand of your daughters dead, All Jiva, For which one do you mourn?" 23

Quarto And we stood for a moment in the upstairs hall of our house, And listened to the sound of crickets. Then we walked to the world of her attic, She led, And showed me her favorite antiques And told me about her glory days in Europe After the great World War, And retold, As we sat on the old divan under the western eaves. We watched the sun go from yellow to peach Which turned the twilight light golden pink And made the cherry blossoms Draped over the trees Look like the cotton candy We once had At the State Fair in Lewisburg. I held her hand, And we sat together Until the image faded.

Lawrence Reilly MOW Jimmy Stackman is a prick. He's a nobody, a total loser, but there's something about him that drives me fucking nuts. He's one of those kids who's basically totally normal, nothing at all special about them, but who tries to be weird, just to be different or whatever. He slumps around with his head shaved like some kind of a freak from Mars, when he really lives next door to me in a house exactly like mine. I know his perfect PTA parents have money—they each have their own car and his mother doesn't even work—but he dresses in these rags like he's some street punk or something. He's always pissed me off, ever since the fifth grade when we first moved to this town. He was never anyone I'd want to hang out with, but he was always hanging around, whining and trying to annoy me. Even if I'd totally pound on him he wouldn't get scared and buzz off like most normal kids. He'd just stand there and take whatever I gave him. He'd stand there and take it until someone would see us and I'd end up in trouble. If he hadn't been trying to piss me off I would never have touched him in the first place. Then for a few years I didn't notice him, I guess we both had better things to do. But lately he's been around again, really hard to miss. He's still the same dumb kid though, it's as if nothing's changed. He never really talks anymore, just stares a lot. I'm always like "What the fuck?" And he just laughs this psycho laugh that makes me want to pound him. This morning when I go out to mow the lawn—of course the first thing I see is the psycho skateboarding down his driveway, which is a totally suicidal maneuver—it's almost a ninety degree hill. Our lawn's also a ninety degree hill and a pain in the ass to mow, especially during the hottest part of the day in the hottest part of the summer. When Dad was around, he used to come into my room at like eight o'clock every Saturday morning and start screaming until I'd get up and mow the damn lawn. But Mom didn't say anything about it for weeks and now it's totally overgrown and going to be a real bitch. I guess I just kept ignoring it, until she came into 25

Lawrence Reilly my room today, yelling and crying about how she can't be the only one to do everything and couldn't I just for once do something without her having to beg for it. She's having a hard time since Dad left, I know it really sucks for her, but she's got these green pills her doctor gave her for hard times. I don't think she realizes that maybe I'm having a hard time too, especially now that I'm going to have to mow that overgrown mountain of a lawn in that heat. But maybe she does realize it and won't mind that I took a couple of her pills because I really felt I was going to need them. The pills make me feel good, kind of silly yet powerful, only now more than ever I'd rather just watch cartoons instead of mowing that lawn while that faggot from next door tries to kill himself rolling down his driveway and staring at me when I'm not looking. I ignore him because I know he just wants to get me mad. Right away, the sweat starts streaming over me. I peel off my shirt. I look good and I'm not going to be embarrassed in front of him. The mower's loud but I've got my walkman turned up even louder. I'm listening to my favorite DeathRaze album, "Krush Kill Destroy," their loudest and fastest, perfect for sweating and getting into the buzz in my head and the vibrating machine between my hands. The mower's an old monster that farts out lots of gray smoke and shakes all over the place. But it still eats up whatever's in front of it and Dad was too cheap to ever replace it. I mean, what did he care, he didn't have to use it. He never did any work outside, not like Jimmy's parents who spend all day doing yardwork together in their cute Saturday outdoor outfits. I hope Dad's happy now with his cement lawn in his swinging singles cool as shit asshole condo. My hands are numb from the buzzing and my palms have this deep itch that's almost painful and I'm sweating all into my eyes and down my neck, so I decide to go inside for a long cold beer. I figure I'm old enough, I'm sweating like a man, Mom better not say anything. But she's not around and probably doesn't even know there's all this beer down in the basement Dad didn't take with him. I can't believe he left it, it seemed to be his favorite thing around here. I gulp one down in the basement, just to cool off, then decide to bring another out with me while I work. Of course, as soon as I get outside, that ass-lick yells, "Hey Rick, is that a beer?" He thinks he's so funny, I don't know how I can stop from pounding him right away. But I just spit and scowl and start pushing the mower and eventually he gets bored and goes inside. But he 27

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leaves that dumb skateboard right on my lawn. The whole time I'm heading towards his house I see it, just a couple rows away, a blinding white hole in the cool green grass. The whole time I'm heading away from him I think about it and what I'm going to do when I get to it. When I finally reach it I just push the mower right over it. I guess there's no excuse except I'm too hot to care. It sounds like some kind of a battle's being fought underneath the machine, it shakes and roars and smokes more than ever and finally I back it off. Other than some gashes, the board's not nearly as destroyed as I'd like it to be, so I walk to the top of the hill and cram it into the sewer at the edge of the street. I go on with my work, not caring at all. Mrs. Stackman comes out and she starts staring at me, not as weird as Jimmy, but still staring. She's in this stupid little dress, off to a tennis game or whatever. Her mouth's moving, but I'm not taking off my walkman or stopping the mower. Still, I hear her voice in my head, floating clear above all the roaring. "Why do you hate my son?" the voice says, as if it didn't come out of her mouth at all. I think about answers I could give her, but she's already in her little car, driving away. I give up on the lawn and get more beer. I get a beach chair and lie out back. I've been lying out in the sun a lot this summer and I'm a nice brown color. I put some oil on and admire my shine. It's not that I'm totally into getting a tan, the way girls are, but I like to look good. Still, when I lay down I feel a little weird. I'm only wearing a pair of cut-offs that are pretty short, but I've got a hard body, nothing to be ashamed of showing. But I feel overexposed. I can't figure it out until I look over to his house. The upstairs windows are dark, but I know he's there, looking down at me. I can feel his eyes, cold and deep, hidden but still staring. And his mother has to ask why I hate her son. I take a big gulp of beer and give him the finger, then shut my eyes. I let the roar of DeathRaze fill my head, but my hands are still vibrating from the mower and I can't relax. I open my eyes again and see his outline there in the stillness, silent and dark and watching. The raging guitars are too much, it's like the lawn mower is still roaring around me and I'm still choking on its foul smoke. That kid has got to cut it out or I'll never relax. I rip the walkman off my head and throw it aside. I grab an empty beer bottle and smash it on the hard ground. I wave it at him but he stays where he is. His eyes shine and the windows reflect the

sun and make my eyes water and burn but I squint and bear the pain and march across their neat lawn, determined to put an end to this once and for all. I only want to scare him, but he won't move. He thinks he's unreachable now, inside his cool house behind dark glass, but I'll smash right through it all and show that pussy boy. I put the broken bottle in my teeth, jagged edges pointed outward, and climb up onto their barbecue grill. He thinks I won't come get him, or else he wants me to. He thinks I won't hurt him, or else he must want me to. I don't know which makes me madder. I grab the drain pipe and start climbing up. It's surprisingly sturdy and easy to climb. My hands barely touch the house, but I rise so fast I think I'm flying. The closer I get to him, the harder it is to see him. I go up and up, but he's fading away, still staring. His eyes are empty, always waiting. I'm hearing a shrill noise too persistent to ignore and I realize the tape in my walkman's run out and the phone won't stop ringing. I get up off the lawn chair and run to get it, but when I pick it up there's no one there. My eyes haven't adjusted from the bright sun and pink and green splotches float around me. I think I got up too fast because my head's spinning and sweat's running all over the kitchen, but one thing is clearâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it was him on the phone, still trying to bug me, calling and then hanging up. Sure enough, when I find their number in the book and call him back, he answers right away, probably standing right by the phone just waiting for me to call back. I slam the receiver down and throw the phone across the room. He can't do this to me. I wonder if my mom is home, I haven't seen her all day, not since she was standing there crying in front of me this morning. I have no idea where she is, no one around here tells me what's happening anymore. I feel a little sick, but then I realize I haven't eaten since breakfast and it must be almost dinnertime. Of course there's nothing in the refrigerator, so I go back down into the basement and grab a few beers. I decide I'm still having a hard time and take some more green pills, then settle down in front of the television, trying to relax. I keep dozing off, but not in a relaxed way, spasms keep vibrating through me, waking me up. He keeps calling me, letting the phone ring on and on until I finally answer it, then he hangs up. Then if s night and somehow I'm in my bed, but I keep hearing that ringing, with something else playing in the background. It's something familiar, I think it's DeathRaze, I recognize the steady

Quarto quickening deep chug of electric guitars. Then I realize it's the lawn mower, I must have left it running this entire time. I can't see any way I could have forgotten a thing like that, but I hear it roaring, getting louder and making it impossible to sleep. It must be him. He just won't leave me alone and even went into our garage and started that lawn mower he knows I hate just to bug me. I put on my boots and run outside. It doesn't even matter that I'm only in my underwear because all I want to do is stop him. At this point, I don't know where the hell I am. I see the fucked-up lawn spreading out before me, half-mown and shining this creepy glow-in-the-dark green. The moon's so fat it spooks me like when I was a little kid. It's really bright, with clouds hanging all over it. But down on earth everything flickers with a dull red light from maybe a bunch of houses burning on the next block. I can't get this sonic whine out of my head, I keep thinking a plane's flying too low, like the air's too heavy on its wings. Even louder is the surging roar of the lawn mower. I hear the roaring and I go to it, right where I left it, shaking with power, gushing out smoke. I know I wasn't the one who left it on. Farther up on the lawn I see Jimmy's white body stretched out in the grass. His shiny eyes stare up at the moon, but I know he sees me. I just know the feel of his eyes. I steady the vibrating handle and push forward, running right for him. Before I reach him he turns to me, still calm. He's been waiting for it. His eyes stare up into mine and I cover his legs with the sputtering mower. The machine slows and gags as it struggles to digest the huge mass. Stuff streams out of the side, not any different from grass, just heavier and darker under the hot red moon. I back it up, then push it further over him, engulfing his entire body. I close my eyes as he sprays over me, hot and wet. He makes no noise I can hear over the roar and I keep my eyes closed, holding the mower down, keeping it from swinging out of control. It sputters and then roars louder with renewed energy. It roars and roars and even as I run off into the hot night, it roars and roars and even after I'm gone, all that's left is roaring.

Greer J. McPhaden J速. MESSY BEIGE My mother's house is decorated in shades of beige. One room's walls become those of another. The carpets and sofas blend nicely together. They're cleaned every week So dirt doesn't dull her predictable beige. At the top of the stairs and down the hall is a door. Locked, despite it hangs from only one hinge. Heavy bass, screams and moans, Spill onto the beige carpeting just outside. No stain remover in my mother's closet can clean it up. And behind the door, if he lets you in, Posters of threatening fangs, spider webs, Ren and Stimpy on the wall and ceiling. A mattress on the floor, A funny smell, stuffy and unkept, a little Old Spice. Dirty clothes spread on a dingy carpet. CDs, cigarettes, and headless Beauty and the Beast dolls. And my baby brother's standing there. 6'3", 215, a bristly scalp, not yet shaved this week. Grim black pants, black shirts, black shorts, black coats, hats. . . "Whaddo you want" Not a question, rather a jaded statement. "No," "Later," "Leave Me Alone." A lexicon of teen angst. The door opens just enough for his angry head, Glaring down from far above. Suspicious eyes in a once loving face Make you hesitate to ever knock again. And, if you did, would he hear you? Through all the static of his music, the beige house, parental lectures, Unenforced rules, a sixteen-year-old twice the size of his dad, Will he even try? The Beige Party Line: "He's just going through a Phase." "I want to kill myself." Maniacs in straight jackets shackled to the dingy walls, Clanking in protest.

Greer J. McPhaden

Floors like a barn and windows like a prison, Screams, syringes, ice baths, restraints, walls soft like pillows: It's really nothing like that. Beautiful acres of weeping willows, ponds, and gazebos, But you need a pass to walk them. A huge greenhouse, (Gardening therapy). A wood shop, (Carpentry therapy). A dance studio, (Dance therapy). It's a college dorm, But he's locked in. Nice room, the walls are almost beige, But e can never close the door. The room where the Gillette razors, hair dryers, Keys, lighters, and thumbnail clippers are kept, It's playfully called "Sharps". I went to visit him once. He wasn't allowed to leave the grounds, But we walked them, Along the path, dodging other visitors and patients. We kicked stones and marveled at how easy it would be to escape. "That fence isn't so high." He made some friends, but they had gone home. "The only guy my age talks to himself while he pees." And then we laughed. "Does he talk to the urinal, his pee, his penis? Or just himself?" It was the way we usually act in public. It embarrasses staid Beige. We threw pebbles in a pond Trying to hit the lily pads. He smoked, and I tried not to disapprove. And then he looked at his watch. "Better get back, or they won't let me out again next weekend." That was months ago. He's back in the corner of his beige world, And the wails and screams from his stereo, 33

Quarto Still spew out onto my mother's beige carpet. If I had dropped that tiny baby long ago, I couldn't have made a bigger mess. He's in his own hands now, With his misery securely in his genes.

Raul Correa But this morning he came bounding into my room. I was lying in bed, still half-dreaming. He offered to massage my scalp. Without permission he delved into my hair. "It'll help your hair grow better. Look healthier, shinier, more glamorous." I told him he was nuts.

T HARDER THAN CHINESE ARITHMETIC I left Jamie's and Phillip's apartment on West 72nd after watching the Chavez/Whitteger fight. I was feeling manly and clean. Real clean; can't smoke cigarettes at Jamie's and Phillip's and I had my teeth cleaned that morning. But cleaner than that. Five years clean with friends that live in a brownstone who invite me over and serve little food on nice plates. Still haven't gotten used to being around couples who have jobs, careers and can just go to bed at twelve-thirty a.m. Capable people, Jamie and Phillip. She sells advertising for magazines and he renovates old apartments, usually in Brooklyn Heights. Longing for a relationship like theirs—one that has been tough, yet six years old with hand holding, care and concern—is old stuff, and alone is what I have been for most of my clean time. Can't even start one of those three month things because they are too painful to get out of. Passing a man in the doorway of a synagogue who is ranting about his sister in law and the '68 Mets, and doing a good job on a bottle of Four Roses, I find the longer I stay clean, the more I feel akin to those that live and rave on in the streets. The further I move from the threat of the heating grates and shelter system, the more I feel like I should sometimes be on a corner wailing my every thought with conviction. But some day I'll have a nice apartment with a girlfriend who gets my jokes, plays with my hair, and I'll have lonely friends over to watch the fights. "Fuck that," I say out loud. "I want some fucking attention." The deli I was aiming for, where I was going to pick up the Times and some high fat ice cream, now becomes the place where I grab the Voice and a pack of Breath Savers. There should have been bugles playing. I put this kinda thing off as long as possible, but I know when I'm in effect and just ride it out. Standing outside the deli, ripping through the back pages of the Voice and not caring who sees me, I find the section that lists the brothels—a better word— 35

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knowing I can't afford my seasonal two hundred dollar trip. Instead, I locate the address for Club Lederhosen on the same page. Although I've never been, that place is on my mind when I get to feeling this way because I know for a fact that transsexuals and transvestites love, me. I hail a cab and tell the driver 43rd and 11th. "Yes, O.K. sir, very good, we go there now," he says, with an Indian accent and a smile into the rear view mirror. "You like this place very much, sir?" "Ah, can we just drive and not talk, I just gotta meet someone there, O.K.?" O.K., sir. I know. I know. We go. We go. Very good place. I think so. I like to go sometime. I see them outside sometime. Good place. Yes, O.K., we go. I know sir. I know." This fucker is too happy. No, you don't know, Mr. Chadhuri, Mr. Corduroy, or whatever your name is. He doesn't know about how I once went into a trany club, walked the length of the bar and got applause. He doesn't know about Monique, or how the girls downstairs at Show World would bang on the plexiglass of their booths trying to get me to come on in. That was all a long time ago, when I was trying to get clean, but I took from that time one clear egotistical fact: tranys love me. The cabby was taking the long way, and I didn't say anything, grateful for his silence. It's really an O.K. thing. One of the guys I used to spar with at Knights uptown knew me, recognized me from Monique, and, sensing my discomfort when he brought it up, said, "Man, what you embarrassed about? That honey is kicking. It ain't like that man, she's fine, a lot of them are. Come on, money grip, who better to suck your dick than somebody who used to have one, or still got one? Me and my boys hang down at Sally's in the Square man, you should check it out." Somehow the thought of a Golden Gloves finalist and his crew being alright with this stuff eased my mind. I did go down to Sally's once, but just looked around taking in the stance and attitude of the guys outside. I left with the tough guy-trany connection confirmed. Its true. Go down to 14th, around the Old Homestead Steak House where the girls work it on the street. All those down homeys hanging out aren't working as spotters. They're down and they're there.

The cab turned onto 11th, and stopped in front of the club which was next to a big old diner filled with fluorescent lighting. The booths by the window held girls with big hair and strong features. I paid the cabby. "Yes, sir, here you are sir, Club Leder. . . . how you say this name? Ah, yes sir, thank you. Good place, good time, sir. Have good night." I've bartended long enough to know good and well when someone in a service position is fucking with you. I do it all the time, slinging cocktails on the tony East Side, 61st between Park and Madison, "Yes, sir, a Tanqueray gibson in and out straight up. And for your daughter? Oh, this isn't your daughter? Sorry. What can I get for you, ma'am?" One of the girls in the window seat of the diner elbowed her friend and knocked on the glass waving as I walked towards the club. They love me. I know they love me. A rollercoaster feeling was taking root in my stomach as I paid the fifteen dollar cover and got a ticket for one free drink from one of the three huge elves working the door. The front bar was down three steps and I took them thinking, I don't drink. I don't drug. I'm thirty-two. I bartend and go to school and everything's O.K. The place looked like the lounge area of a Holiday Inn, the bar was two deep and opened up to a dance floor and stage where an exceedingly straight looking latino was dancing, spotlit and bare chested. The girls around the bar were mostly middle-aged, sensibly dressed, hormone softened, and working some guy or other. The barmaids were the best looking wow-really girls around and all three of them were Filipino. Problem. Maybe not. I'm a quarter Filipino. My Filipino-YoYo-playing-vagabond grandfather married my Portuguese grandmother who gave birth to my father who married my Wasp mother who raised me alone in a black neighborhood. Fuck it. Asian women in bars are comforting. Spent enough time around them in the army. "Buy me drinky G.I.? I love you no shit. Love you long time." Setting aside my identity crisis, I ordered a club soda from the flip who had stopped in front of me arms on bar with 'what'll it be?' in her eyes I was catching no shine, except from the working matron at the far end of the bar. I used the drink ticket, squeezed the lime, tipped a fin, and walked into the next room where the latino was going off and another coming on. Yes, this is what I meant. The room was bigger than I

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Raul Correa

thought, with a group of behemoths in one corner done up in satins and gold lame, their girth stretched out to a height, aided by long heels, which made them statuesque. Two honest to god beauties wearing black bell bottoms who weren't old enough to wear them the first time around, sat at a table and marked my appearance. Oh, and there's that smile. I've missed that smile. It says, "Welcome." I had been listening to Merle Haggard's "Looking For A Place To Fall Apart" all week , and now, behind the Jamaican dance hall ringy dings, came Merle's 'Tightin' Side Of Me." I don't get that smile from women any more, maybe never did. My sister says I just don't see it. But one or more from the girls is maybe all I need to set me right and back to a deli for ice cream and the Times. You just needed some attention, I assured myself, and desire was replaced by contentment. Thaf s all. Just take a look around and beat feet out of here. That's all. More girls and a few men went up and down a set of stairs by the side of the stage. The stairs were lit up with colored lights and the stairwell was intensified by black light. I didn't know if one could just go down there, and besides the view was good from where I was. There were small clusters of girls who were grouped according to how hard they worked it: transvestites who applied layers, and transsexuals who went at it from the inside out. They were all talking and shouting occasional encouragement to the dancer on stage. Close. They seemed close and tight. And I saw myself for the observer I was. I couldn't align myself with the few tough guys with fades and lines in their hair, or the ever-present security in muscles and black t-shirts and black jeans, or the other male presence in the club, 40ish married-looking suits sitting alone or paired up with a girl. I went for the stairs, crossing the dance floor, figuring I should take it all in before I left. The stairwell was crowded with girls leaning and talking, Filipinos and Latinas with soft faces that smiled through the black light. I caught a few nods and some hard tit as I made a sideways descent. Downstairs was another dance floor and a long bar that was unstocked and unattended. More pretty Filipinos were dancing and I took a seat at the bar, four stools down from a cluster of Marilyn and Loni Anderson lookers who listened as the seated one held court. "Come to mother, let me see you, darling," she beckoned to the bombshell sashaying towards her across the floor. The group of five Caucasians fussed over her black jumpsuit when she arrived at their side. She swirled and answered, "Bergdorf's, girls. Bergdorf's. What did you think?"

Sitting there, chewing on a sip stick, I figured that the Filipinos could definitely pass, while the white girls didn't seem to care if they did or not. The whole scene reminded me of the way we hung out in the Army. Confident, yet only in our own little world. The girls had their own way of walking, talking, and they carried themselves, as well as cared for each other, like members of an elite unit. I wondered what the guys in my old scout platoon back at Ft. Bragg would think about the comparison. I felt a thin arm slip across my shoulder. "Oh my god, how are you baby?" The voice was feminine and sweet, but the Filipino face was hard to place. "Shit, haven't seen you in a long time. Where you been?" she said into her drink as she moved in front of me and between my legs. "Shit, you don't remember me do you?" Yeah, shit, I remembered. It took a minute, but I remembered. She turned, still between my legs, and watched her friends dance together on the floor. I had been a regular customer of hers, like once a week, at Show Palace which was a smaller version of Show World on 41st. Yeah, but that was five years ago when I was just getting clean, and jerking off in a booth was where I dumped drink and drug urges. It was where I could be bad. She was wearing tight black bell bottoms with a matching blouse, and a black ribbon choker, but unlike the girl upstairs, she was old enough to have worn this stuff in the seventies. "You remember me, right?" she asked, placing my arms around her waist and still facing the dance floor. "Yes, I do. Long time ago. That was a hard time for me and. . . ." "Yeah, Tatiana saw you down here and ran up and told me that the guy from the peeps is downstairs. So, how are you?" She turned to face me, and I did a quick run down of the last five years, concentrating on the fact that I was clean and at City College studying English. The guy from the peeps? I'm the guy from the peeps? She called me the guy from the peeps? My outsider, just-visiting status, vanished, as I faced her with no plexiglass between us and no tokendriven clock ticking. "Yeah, you were kinda fucked up then, lousy tipper too. I'm proud of you, though. You still don't look Filipino." That had been our bond, sort of. In the booth, after I came,

Raul Correa

Quarto we would talk about Filipino food and me not drinking and drugging before the clock would run out, and shame would set upon me as the dark curtain fell and sealed her away. Seeing her in this club confirmed something that I had never really questioned. In the booth she never pulled her pants down and I assumed it was because that cost more money than I had to tip. Even if I had the money I doubt I could have asked to see. She left me to dance with her friends, right in front of me, and I assumed that she was calling me the guy from the peeps as she leaned and whispered as she danced. One of the busty white girls, four stools down, gave me a raised eyebrow and a smirk, and I felt unclean and like a customer. Out from the group of Filipinos dancing, a smile would come ever so often, enough to keep me seated, and she finally returned, walking towards me with an exaggerated big boot stride and her long brown hair covering one eye and resting on her breasts. "Come on," she said. "Let's go." So I left. She led me by the hand to the stairway where she placed me up against the wall, tapping her fingers of one hand on my chest and placing the thumb and forefingers of the other on my chin, drawing me close and clutching my upper lip between hers. Awash in black light, and alone on the stairs, I tried to kiss her back, after taking in the effect black light had on her green contact lens. Instead, she pushed me back against the wall and said, "Ang guapo, guapo, mo." Grabbing my hand, she took me up the stairs, through the club, and out the door. She walked me around the corner and up the street, pulling a stubbed out half a joint out of her pack of Newports. I bummed a cigarette, hadn't had a menthol in a while, lit it, gave her a light and we walked. "Come on, I want to go to this club." The smoke which sputtered out of her mouth as she spoke was from that green pot which used to make me feel like a cartoon character. I settled for the buzz of the Newport, and waved off her offer and outstretched arm. "Oh yeah, I forgot," she said, smiling a weak smile and licking and tapping out the joint. The club she wanted to go to was just around the corner, and looked like any other club in New York: former warehouse, which still looked like a warehouse, save the lines of people, gatekeeper bouncers, and a lone British guy with a stupid hat picking people to go in. She walked us right up to Mr. Hat Man, did that double cheek kiss thing, and started to pull me by the hand past the bouncers. Hat

Man's arm went across my front and he chimed, "With you?" "With me, Ian," she chimed back, coming down hard on the Ian. He removed his arm and wrist waved me in with a short, "Hmm." These places hadn't changed much in five years, although I didn't get much chance to look, what with her walking me around like a dog on a leash. Some people waved to her, and some yelled, "Hey Jasmine," as she made for an opening on the dance floor which was being assaulted by too many lights. So there would be names. "We're dancing," she tossed over her shoulder. "No, we're not, we're walking," I offered, unheard above the music, the bass landing on my chest, the rest tingling and cracking in my ear. The last bit of dancing I had done, outside my own apartment, was at an after-hours on Avenue B years ago, alone and grinding my teeth to The Swans, and it was doubtful if Jasmine was going to get me going. The D.J. pulled a quick change just as Jasmine found her spot, there were some whoops and hollers from the crowd and the dance floor swelled. I cracked up for a minute, expecting others to do the same, but they just moved en masse and in bliss. Continuing to laugh and inspired by the goofiness of it all, I began to dance with Jasmine and was caught up by the song's chorus. The sailors say, 'Brandy /you're a fine girl /what a good wife/you would b e / but my life my love, / a n d my lady/is the sea'./Do do do do do do do do. It was a kick to hear that old song played so loud, but I wasn't sure how I felt about the soundtrack to my childhood being reduced to retro kitsch by a bunch of kids. They don't know how grateful I am that there weren't many photographs of me taken wearing the stuff that they're dancing in. People around us were smiling at us as we danced, probably because I dance like Snoopy, and a rough mix brought in "Midnight Train To Georgia" which Jasmine claimed as a slow dance. ". . .proved too much for the man." And the Pips echoed, Too much for the man. Jasmine drew me in close and a knee rested between my legs. Dance turned into a grind I hadn't practiced since eighth grade. I'd rather live in his world than live without him. Her hair brushed by my face as her cheek found my chest, her breasts were hard and my hands discovered a real girl rear. My world. His world.

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My world. She looked up at me, something I can't handle, and said, "Let's go." So I left. She pulled me back out through the club, but not before I heard another song begin which made me want to stop and shout "Burn rubber on me, Charlyne." Passing the crowd still waiting to get in, Jasmine exchanged "Ciaos" with Ian as he waved two more in, and we jumped into a waiting cab. "45th, between 8th and 9th," she told the driver over his shoulder as she fixed herself in his rear view mirror. Jammed into my corner of the cab, I said, "You know, I even hate it when Italian people say, Ciao." Sitting back in her corner of the cab, crossing a leg, bouncing it, and smiling a smile that went up one side of her face she replied, "Of course you do, darling." Two surprises. She paid the cab driver in front of a new and classy sort of buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a guard sitting at a circular desk in the lobby. As we walked to the door I thought I heard the cabby, at my back, say, "Yes, sir, thank you, sir. You have good time, sir." Whether I imagined it or not, the cabby was waving when I turned around and he drove off. Again, by the hand, she led me past the desk and into the elevator. I was placed against a wall with one hand and she pressed seven with the other. The door closed and she made a tapping sound with her teeth, closing in and whispering, "Ang guapo guapo mo." But the door opened back up, and a short guy with a bike, wearing a flannel shirt and shorts, got on. He pressed five and nodded at us, kept nodding too, until he said, "Hey, you guys know where I can get some coke?" Jasmine sucked her teeth at him, the door opened, he said, "O.K., thanks," and left. Her apartment was nice, looked like a place a bunch of stewardesses would share, furniture from the back section of the Sunday paper, and a collection of glass animals and old dolls by the window. She explained the boxes stacked up by the door, "Shit, you know I just moved back from L.A., and I'm staying with my girlfriends, till I find the right place. "You so crazy," she added. The phone rang, and I sat down on the leather couch, noticing a lot of candles and Buddhist statues around the room. She walked around the room talking into the cordless phone. 42

laughing, smoking, and lighting the candles. "Oh, fuck you, no, no, you did, fuck you," she squealed in to the phone, and then mouthing "He's crazy" to me. "I'm finishing the screenplay here. Fuck you. I don't know when I'll be back. Are you playing? Fuck you. Crazy. I gotta go. Thaf sright. Don't call me. Fuck you. Bye. Fuck you." She smiled through the whole conversation, and as she hung up I realized how drunk or high she was. She put on some Brazilian music, and said to me, "He plays football for L.A., quarterback, yeah, he's crazy." The phone rang again, and this time she took it into a back room, from which I could smell that green pot again. I walked around the room and looked at four framed photographs on top of the big television. They were all family pictures, eight or nine people in each photo, all Filipinos. I picked out the girls from the club in them, the bartender, the two girls Jasmine was dancing with and Jasmine herself. Each girl was at the center of her family photograph, and when I stepped back the combined scene reminded me of the Filipino picnics I was taken to, at the Navy base in Newport, as a kid. I stood there for awhile. Jasmine returned, still talking on the phone, but dressed in black lingerie, silver high heels, and holding a tall drink. She handed me the drink and went back to the other room. Back on the couch, I took a sip and spit it out, fucking gin and tonic. I put my face in my hands for a moment and thought about making for the door and that paper and ice cream. Looking up, there she was, hands on hips and without the phone. "Gin," I said, pointing to the drink on the table. "I know baby, I made it for you." On me. She was on me. Biting my cheek, and tongue poking into my neck. Over me. She rolled me on top of her and I went at it, gripping a silver heel as I went. "You like these legs, baby. . . ?" she breathed undoing my belt, ". . . .Evan Picone stockings ad last year. Paris." Still holding the heel, I followed the leg down to the bottom pouch of her one-piece lingerie. Pouch, because it was holding something. Quickly, I was in her mouth. She took me like Grant took Richmond, and I went back first onto the coffee table. The gin and tonic falling, but not breaking. Muffled moans came from between my legs and I felt myself begin to go, come, leave, left, right, left, right. She pulled away, and looked up at me, and 43

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squeezed, stroked, squeezed, tapping her teeth at me, and the slurped back down, eyes upon me, scrambling back, losing touch, slid off the table and onto the floor into a puddle of gin and tonic. Sh stood up and over me, extended a hand, and said, "You're so crazy, come here." The bedroom was candle lit and there was an Asian shrin and saints and Jesuses by the window and over the bed. My clothes were gone and religion had bought me some time. We grinded together, rolling side to side, as she tested her man strength against mine. Instinctually my hand went between bet legs, two snaps at the bottom of the lingerie had been undone, and what I heard was a soft and repeated, "Shove it. Shove it." What I felt and saw looked like a smaller version of my own. Which was comforting. I kinda knocked it back and forth, till she pulled me back on top of her. "Please. Put it. Put it." Wanting to oblige, I almost did, but a flurry of subway placards, and dead waiters beeped through my mind. "Aren't we supposed to, you know. . . ." "Shit, baby, of course, the bag, gotta get the bag, sorry. Really, I always do, b u t . . . . Back in her mouth, with one on, I thought about double bagging it, and then inside I settled down. It went well. Face to face. Her lingerie on, heels in the air, Jesus on the wall. Like a little kid fooling around with a cousin. The hard N and G sounds of Tagalog came from her mouth, and the sex was strong. Strong sex. A pinch of strangeness visited me when at one point I looked down and saw that the expression on her face reminded me of my Uncle Lou after he stubbed his toe. Afterwards we lay in bed and the phone kept ringing. An old boyfriend was drunk and coming over, but we talked for awhile, about Filipino food and me being clean and in school. Also, it turned out that she knew Monique. They had worked together at Show World years back, and Jasmine called her Mo. Monique had had the operation, and I had gone out with her about four and a half years ago, met her at a meeting on St. Marks. Monique is a long story. Jasmine matter-of-factly said that Monique had gone out, picked up, no longer clean, "Shit, last time I saw Mo was a couple of years ago. We were at an after-hours downtown, and she had done a mess of Special K. I found old Mo, getting gang banged in the bottom of the club. I had to 44

take her to the emergency room. Her tit broke. Fuck. Stayed there all night." I couldn't think about it. "How come you haven't had the, you know, like Monique." "I have a deal with myself. If I am living in the country and growing my own vegetables, then I will have the operation. It might happen if this cop boyfriend of mine gets this job in Montana. It's a big step, you know." "Is he the one coming over?" "Shit no. He's at work flying helicopters. Fucking Billy's coming over, we've got some time." "Is this cop in love with you?" "He's getting there." "Well. . . ?" "What?" "Never mind." We talked. She told me about Micky Rourke, who she and Monique both fucked when he was filming part of 9 1/2 Weeks at Show World, he's really small, and she did a dead on imitation of Matt Dillon, who is really big. She told me about the screenplay she was writing with a partner in L.A. A surf movie. Actually I listened a lot. I did ask her why, "ah, you know, ah" she didn't get hard down there when we were going at it. "Oh, shit. Baby, you were great. The best. It's just that I just had my hormone shots two days ago. Really, the best." The conversation was willy-nilly, all over the place. All the things she had bought for her family in California, cars, house additions, kid brother through school, ran into how there was no money in the peeps any more and was I ready to go again. When I tried to tell her about how I wanted to live in Maine, work on a lobster boat, and know that I write wellâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which seemed like appropriate post-coital chat, better than my usual tales of rehabs and institutionsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she cut me off, talking about how sexy David Jansen's ears were. I think she was still very high. She got me hard again and I came on her tits. One was bigger than the other. The buzzer rang, "Fucking Billy," had arrived downstairs, and we got dressed. She put on my boxers, a pair of jeans, boots, silk t-shirt, and pulled her hair back into a pony tail. She looked great, and said so. We exchanged numbers and she led me to the elevator. That was it. "Any message for Fucking Billy," I offered as the elevator arrived. "Tell him I'll be right down, fuck no, don't say anything to 45

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him." She called me "Ga Goo," with a smile, and the elevator door closed, me behind it. No sign of Billy. I went to a deli and got some ice cream and the Times. She called a few days later, and I didn't return the call. She caught me at home, studying after work, late one night. She cursed me for not calling her back, and I ran down my full-time work and school schedule as an excuse. But we talked and there was little swearing and no name dropping. We talked about Montana and Maine, and about her maybe going to school. She said she was going out of town tomorrow morning to perform some dirty deed (I didn't ask), and she would call me when she got back. She also said that she thought I was lonely. I went to the bathroom and jerked off. She called a week later, and I didn't return the call. When she left another message another week later it said, "I just want you to know that I didn't get hard because of the hormone shots. It was because you come too fast. Bye." I returned the call. "I knew you would," she said, sitting on my couch, and playing with my dog and cat. I made her some tea, while she looked through my CDs and records, choosing an old Dinah Washington album, and putting it on. She motioned to the stereo and the book cases and said, "I never would have figured you like this when you were coming to the peeps. I thought you were a punk." I gave her a copy of my first published short story to read. It was the annual journal of my school's writing department, it looked like a book and it was cool to see my name with a page number next to it. It was a story about a fifteen year old boy turning tricks on the highway in Rhode Island. She read with a forced intent at first but then loosened into it. She kept her head down after reading it, I could still see her face which began to cry. The smile which held back years of pavement and pain vanished, and an original face came forth and cried. I felt that I had found an audience. She recovered quickly and wanted to go to bed. I stopped her, pulled her towards me and said that I needed to be held a bit before I got laid. Holding her I realized that I act on sexual urges all the time, looking to get out, and the problem is that after the sex is gone I usually find something to like or respect that has nothing to do with the sex. This time it was courage, strength, and somebody who was nice. She told me her whole story. Trany's: transsexuals, trans46

vestites. I give 'em a lot of credit. I like them because they got stories to tell and Lord knows I got some of my own. We had sex. Close to making love, and the next morning she looked over at me and said, "You look like a damn chink in the morning," and went back to sleep. I got up and made coffee. It was a gray Sunday and we had been up pretty late. I was not feeling so great about having a trany in my bed on a gray Sunday morning. I sat down with the coffee and thought that Jasmine wakes up every Sunday with a transsexual in her bed, rain or shine. We see each other once in a while. She didn't talk to me for a month because once at the zoo she kidded me about a little weight I had put on. "Nice stomach," she said. "Nice dick," was my reply. She walked off and I let her go. I wrote her a long letter, actually this story and she left me a short message on my machine. "Ga Goo," was all it said. I returned her message in the feminine form, "Ga Ga." It means knucklehead in Tagalog. Which is after all what we are. Nice to know that. What you are.

Aaron Scharf ^ LENORE

Aaron Scharf

On the way home from Tybee hot paper bags of saltwater-boiled peanuts

It comes in the gray morning, on spinning brushes and steam,

ice cold root beers cocktail hour thunderstorms the marsh at low tide

STREETSWEEPER

big slug, laying a ribbon of water along the curb. Like absolutionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

and you: tan, sandy soles on the sill, sleepwalking on the sticky wind.

like an affirmation that each day is a fresh beginningâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; it scours the asphalt, slewing past cars with a wet whirr. This is why you wait until seven to buy the paper: to share the renewal as it passes, the faith that nothing is impossible. This is what you think, stepping across that new, black river into reflected sky: I can fly.

Aaron Scharf

V HIS STUDIO Leslie Woodard

A Hotpoint door stuck with orange Piggly Wiggly price tags and blue Chiquita women, unscrewed by law but kept in a corner, the purple anvil for crushing beer cans beneath a cinder block, white Christmas lights looped around a broken mirror, postcards of reclining Buddha and W. C. Fields about to break a rack of pool balls, the birdhouse I built at camp forever empty on the balcony, the fire escape: a knotted rope, and the building itself, smelling like an old book, overlooking the river where tankers slid by so quietly that reading on the daybed you never even noticed, the endless scratch of brush strokes.

fat THE LESSON Sunlight breaks through the curtains, waking the smallish figure tangled in blankets. The sheets lay dampened by sweat from dreams he cannot remember. He swings his legs over the side of the iron bed, stares at the tiny filaments of grayish hair bristling as the legs meet the chill of the room. He still has a dancer's sense of temperature, a need for extreme warmth. He wonders briefly whether he should regret the perceptible atrophy of muscle or be pleased that, even after so many years, they still have more power than the legs of most men his age. But there is too much to be done for such musings. She will be coming soon. She will be different. The bed creaks as he gets up. The floor beside the bed is cold. The rug is gone. The cat follows him to the bathroom. It is his fourth cat. He still misses the others. Thirteen, fifteen, eighteen yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all too short a time to live. He reckons time in cats. He looks in the mirror, hopes for the young face, sees the old. Lines, so many deep lines, cut his forehead, crinkle his eyes. But under the thick gray brows, the eyes themselves are still bright, still black. Fortunately, a beard and mustache, though gray, cover the lines round his mouth. His nose, grown sharper with the passage of each succeeding year, takes in the smell of age. It permeates the house. But never mind, too much to do. The bell will be ringing soon. He returns to his bedroom, takes green corduroy pants from the back of the arm chair. The pants hang loose at his waist still banded by rippled muscle. Good. Can't work in anything tight. Everything is orchestrated to his work. He finds the plaid flannel shirt in the wardrobe, tucks it into the pants, buttons all the buttons. Puts on the shoes with thin soles. Tea now in the samovar. He and the cat walk down the long hallway, quietly. Mustn't disturb them, the ones in the photographs, motionless as he passes by. When he doesn't look, they still dance. They soar through jumps, sail through turns; they must suspend when he watches. He lives there, in a disparate lifetime spent in dusty European theaters, submerged in surging music, warmed by hot lights, his name, Dimitri Karavitch, lettered on the posters outside. The stage 51

Leslie Woodard

appears before him. It waxes magical. It beckons with promises of liberation, manumission, wild risk. His legs think they have returned to that time, that life. He takes a step, not a walking step, a dancing step. But the leg falters. He falls against the wall jarring the photographs. He recalls the injury. His hip remembers the hurt it cannot feel, his plastic hip. He steadies himself, straightens the photographs. The green eyes of the cat make him feel momentarily foolish. Silly, they say. Silly, silly old man. He closes his eyes. The stage has vanished. He and the cat continue down the hall. He pours the tea. It should be stronger but there is only so much the samovar can do. They don't make good tea in this country. They put it in bags. Nothing good comes in a bag. One sip so hot it should burn the inside of his mouth, but it doesn't. He wants the tea. The tea is hot. Discomfort is necessary to have what you desire. That has always been true, but they don't teach it anymore. Another sip of tea. This time he doesn't even notice the heat, only the tea. He nibbles the crusts of the bread. Most people prefer the middle. He isn't like most people. Most people don't have anything in particular to do, except die. He has something to do. He takes the bucket from beneath the sink, fills it with hot water. The faucet creaks as he turns it off. He pours vinegar into the water, carries the bucket into the studio. The odor of the vinegar is pungent, but he has smelled it too often to notice. He turns on the lights, brings the stage to life. The cat jumps up on the wooden chair at the end of the studio. Graceful creature, it alights on the Spartan wooden seat, circles and curls itself into a ball, never disturbing the thick wooden stick leaned against the chair. He plunges the sponge into the hot water, begins to wash the mirrors, the walls of mirrors reflecting in front of and behind him. The center mirror is covered with sweat and grease. She leaned against it. No one ever leaned when he took class. He stares at the narrow imprint of the hips, the shoulder blades, the back of the head. He scrubs the grease, washes the spectre away. He gets down on his knees to wash the bottom of the mirror. He bends over to rinse the sponge, notices the blood on the floor. Not much blood actually, no one would have noticed if they hadn't looked closely. He thought he had cleaned it all. But it seeped down into the cracks between the shiny wooden floorboards. He dabs at it with the sponge, squeezes a little water into the cracks, watches the red thin to pink, pink like her thighs. He sits on the floor.

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She is in that back line. She does not a step properly, she can't even remember half of them. And she is so frustrated, because she wants it so badly. Poor child, most people would have said she had no business at all in a ballet class, but he knows better. Class ends. She is last to leave because she keeps trying to turn. The teacher walks right past her, doesn't notice her struggle to her points, hurdle herself around one and a half times, straight into the floor. It is after she picks herself up, snatches a dirty canvas bag from the floor, tugs the hole in the leotard to a less visible position and storms from the studio that they meet. If you could call it meeting. He cannot care who she is, only what. He catches her eyes, her wet eyes as she leaves. She looks at him like she recognizes him but she says nothing. He speaks first. Touches her wrist. Only a momentary caress, but his fingers memorize the sensation of her skin as one memorizes the touch of a lover. He feels her catch the scent of his experience, her hunger for what he knows. It takes only a few minutes. She will come the next morning at 11:30.

One month before, he had walked slowly down Broadway past the little island in front of Lincoln Center. He was not a remarkable man, just an old one. As he approached the studio he began to see them, the dancers: huge leather, brocade, or canvas bags swung over their shoulders, their hair pulled back into tight buns. Some right on top of their heads like top knots, some rolled at the nape, some with flowers, some with ribbons. They walk with feet splayed outwards like ducks. He follows the flock of dancers into the ballet school. The scent of sweat, muscles, feet drifts into his nostrils, the comforting, familiar smell of the hunt. The strains of music fill his ears, Bach chases Tchaikovsky, chases Stravinsky. Nerves and tension hum through the air like the race track before the gun is sounded. Dancers all around him paw the ground. No one pays him any attention. Too many years have passed since he took the stage. No one sees him at all now. He can move freely, costumed in anonymity. He watches the dancers carefully. He looks for something very specific. Not long thin legs fotated easily outwards from the hip socket, not rubber band flexibility in the back, not a high drippy instep poised on the top of the foot. NO. What he looks for is in the eyes. A hunger, a desperation. Class begins in the studio to his right taught by a middleaged woman in a floral skirt with a melodic, encouraging voice. She, no doubt, had been a dancer once, but never a ballerina. The combination is given, the music begins,.Czerny struggles from the open top of the shiny grand piano at the front of the studio. An old woman, bereft of passion, hunches over the keys. She has played for too many ballet classes to care. She might have been his age but he still cares. He has to. He watches the class through the small glass window at the top of the door . They leave the barre and begin the center. He sees her. Not in the front. He never looks for them there. Arrogant confident things those, with pretty faces and talented bodies, beloved by their teachers. Destined to join ballet companies, to dance the great roles adequately, but unremarkably, until they marry wealthy men in the audience, open schools of their own, and pass the disease of mediocrity on to countless little girls like themselves. He looks at the ones struggling in the back. The ones whose legs and arms are too long, too gangly to be of any use to them. The awkward ones, with not so much flexibility, no musicality, nothing but desire. That is where you could find greatness, above the too red cheeks, below the sweaty foreheads, behind the tears.

She arrives fifteen minutes early, apologizes for it saying she wants time to change and warm up before the lesson begins. He appreciates her enthusiasm. He shows her to the little room off the studio, behind the curtain, where she can change out of her street clothes. At precisely 11:30, he and the cat enter the studio. He drags the chair close to the barre, takes up the stick, gives the first combination. Plies. Always begin with plie, the most rudimentary movement. If done properly, all the rest fall into place. He raps the stick on the floor keeping time for her. He can hear music, beautiful music the way it should be played for a ballet class, steady, rhythmic in his head. But as he watches, she displaces her back each time she bends her knees and sticks her rear end out. He spanks her behind with the stick. She looks momentarily flustered, but she continues with her back properly placed. He says nothing. The stick is his voice. She finishes the plies on the first side and starts to turn round to start the left. He lobs the stick against her lower back. How dare she wallow to the second side like some animal rolling over to sun itself. She grows flustered again, but replaces her feet into the "X" of the fifth and last position. Careless, the big toe of her back foot protrudes, staring out from behind the front one. He stands up and raps the stick on the offending toe. She crosses the front foot. That, is fifth position. She pulls herself up onto the points of her feet. Sous-sous, also incorrect. She should be higher, pulled out of her feet, up

Leslie Woodard

Quarto through her legs. He pops the sole of her foot with the stick. A high- jfl pitched sound pierces the air, interrupting the flow of music in his m head. He wonders momentarily what it was. Then dismisses it. By M the end of the barre, he has heard the sharp sound several times. But I he cannot consider it. Only the feet, the legs, the back, the arms, only m they matter. The face has ceased to exist. â&#x20AC;˘ She leans against the mirror while he drags his stool out to I the center of the room. He bangs the stick on the floor several times, w No resting. They begin the center The stick strikes the body, making fl corrections as needed. The music is now accompanied by a soft, I throbbing whimper, but he cannot hear it. He gives a turn combina- 1 tion. The legs give way The behind hits the floor and stays there. He 1 stands up and strikes the behind and back until they get up and begin again. At last he sees the body sail gracefully around one, two, three \ times. Progress. Now an adagio, slow, brooding, the soul of the art. He watches with disgust as the legs throw themselves into the air, the \ arms flail wildly. Damn! He raps the stick, the starting position is ; resumed. This time he grabs the working leg, slides it up the sup- 1 porting one, out, away from the ligaments and sinews of the hip sock- ; et. He grabs the working thigh in one hand, the supporting thigh in > the other and stretches them apart. There. The legs look endless. The muscles tremble with newfound definition. Now, the arabesque. No! The back dropped. He shoves his right arm under the thigh of the 1 uplifted leg, pulls his two arms together. The muscles resist at first, â&#x20AC;˘* then realize the futility of the effort and succumb. He steps back and ' there it is, a true arabesque line, pure, undistorted, the graceful curve of the swan's body. If only that strange sound would stop. He turns ; the music up in his head to drown it out. *'* Now jumps, higher. Higher! Not even! There must be the j rhythm of an India rubber ball. There. The muscles tremble violently, f but there is line, grace, clear unmuddied definition. A waltz booms | through his head as he watches the body whirl about the studio. He 1 barely hears the sound. He smiles. He sees true dance. He is alive. He digs his fingernails into his thighs, he tears his flesh. Then the body begins to falter. No, not now! He raps the stick on the floor, in desperation. You can't stop now! He screams, pounding the body harder, over and over again. It is only as it stops moving altogether, that he realizes the sounds have been her cries. She was bleeding. He picked up her wrist, shook it gently, his fingers recalled the feel of her skin. But there was no more movement. The cat blinked its green eyes at him. Silly, they said. Silly, silly old man. He lifted her body as he had lifted so many ballerinas 56

throughout his career. He carried her into his bedroom, wrapped her in the rug, laid her gently in the trunk. If only she had been stronger, her passion would have made her a great ballerina. But there is no time for these remembrances. He closes his eyes, washes the images back with the dreams he cannot remember. He dabs the blood up from the floor, returns to the cleaning of the mirrors, the infinite, ritualistic cleaning. As he finishes, the bell rings. He goes down the hall and answers the door, steps back to usher her in, for her lesson.

Mike Kramer 0

SUMMER DAWN Andrew Rivan King §

PLANTATION, CA

THE TIME OF ILLNESS

"I call to the cow who is easy to milk, so that the milker with clever hands may milk her." —Rig Veda Heads dug deep into Gracie's sides— Thunder In metal buckets. Milkers with tired thumbs, Stiff joints. Anna's little hands tug and pull at teats, Her sleepy eyes are crusted with dream snow. In hay shadows of the cow barn, A warm udder, Stitched taut together by a fleshy seam. Holds the pulse of milk veins. Gracie, head deep between feeder walls, Balances a bell around her neck, Pauses, Still. Suddenly shifts her weight, Swings her tail into Anna's bucket. A hollow ring hits wooden walls, Cat scrambles over a bag of spilled feed, Anna laughs. Pulling the tail out, Bag balm sticks grass and dirt, Under my fingernails, on my palms, Hay bits fall to milk like lost leaves in snowdrifts.

It starts suddenly in the middle of the night, a cold shaky weakness. Denial. Need another blanket. Dehydrated, better get up and drink some water. It will go away. But it doesn't. Then the chills, and jackhammer smashing into forehead. Queasy cramping gut comes, in the middle of the night, quickly, with authority. No phone, no jello, no rented video, temperature 102F and rising. Okay, stay calm. Take a blood slide. Prick it fast, get enough blood. Boil water, take the chloroquine, but not before the slide. Pitch black, can't see a thing. Where are the matches, candles? It must be 35F in here. More blankets, a sweater. Where's the down jacket? In Africa? Where is it anyway? I need a down jacket. Toilet paper. Oh sure, something I ate, yes, something I ate. I'll be okay in the morning. A little dysentery, no problem. Christ, where's the goddamn toilet paper?

Dawn over Masese The sky lightens over the village, orange haze rising up north over Webuye. Moses closes his canteen and walks me along the Matendi-Masese Road toward the Junction. The disease levels off, institutionalized, a part of me. "Oh Mr. Andrew you came during the worst time. When the rains come it is the time of illness. I will get Bishop and Namilama Father to pray for you." We pass Sam's farm and the Malindi market. Both are dark, still. The cool morning air feels good, misting my hot fever breath. Moses walks in front up the incline toward the Junction; the road is black, he lights the way with a flashlight. I follow with rucksack, feeling alternate chills and fever blasts. Standing beside us at Masese market two mommas hold their watoto close, piggy back style, the little bundles wrapped tightly in kongas. Moses speaks to them in mother tongue. The six of us wait together in the morning half-light as the big orange sun creeps over 59

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the Chwele Valley. Moses riddles off some Kibukusu to one of the mommas and she responds in Kiswahili. "Mr. Andrew," he tells me, "the 6:05 matatu should be coming soon. The mommie has been waiting since 5:30 and there has been no matatu." I sit atop the rucksack, head cradled in palms. After a reprieve the headache returns in hot throbs, and nausea too, deep and lonely. Aching thirst. I manage a couple of sips from the plastic canteen, forcing water down a scratchy, swollen throat. Water increases thirst. The day lightens and activity on the road increases. Men pedal by on one-speed bicycles; taut burlap bags balance high on rear fender racks. Herds of cattle and goats hoof past under guard of a boy barking commands in Kibukusu. At 6:10 a.m., no bus, the day is already spent, exhaustive. The sun hovers over Chwele, evaporating the mists curling around the Elgon foothills. The warmth comforts, a contrast to the chills coming in waves. "Mr. Andrew, the matatu!" Time to go. Nearly asleep atop the rucksack. I consider throwing up before boarding the bus. Better here than up there. No time. The mini bus rattles up, mud splattered, horn blaring. "Bungoma, Bungoma," the turnboy shouts, swinging out the rear door. "Songa, songa!" Moses lifts my pack to the turnboy who heaves it to the roof, securing it to burlap bags with rope. The mommas board with their watoto and handbags. "Come Mr. Andrew, we go to Bungoma." I follow behind Moses, bracing on the metal handrail, lifting my knee for the high step. "Songa, songa!" People shuffle, watoto squirm between the bodies, sacks of rice, jerry cans of paraffin, squawking chickens. One big step, hand over hand into the bus; I can't breathe. Crouching now inside the bus, careful not to bump up against the metal roof, fearful that my skull would simply break apart right there. Concentrating hard on reaching the back bench, praying not to trip, or that the bus does not begin till I get there. "Twende Bwana!" the turnboy barks, crashing his fist against the outer steel siding. The command bursts in my head; the bus heaves forward; I collapse against the narrow wood bench.

Into Nyanza Bungoma Bus station, 7:00 a.m. I wash down two Tylenol with a warm Fanta outside a bus park canteen. Turnboys hawk beside their rusted matatus and mini buses. Watoto circulate with plastic baggies of roasted groundnuts, popcorn, and buckets of warm Fanta. Moses and I slog through the mud between commuting mommas draped with their young and hauling plastic jerry cans and burlap sacks. Moses turns to me. "Mr. Andrew, I will write to mommy and father in USA and tell them not to worry." He extends his hand. "Mr. Andrew will get well because God is good and his wanafunzi will be missing him too much." "Bwana, tell Mr. Wekesa I will get back as soon as I'm able, the Form II's will have things to do for awhile." We shake hands. "Now you had better get back or the customers will be missing you." "Yes yes," he smiles. "Today is market day in Mwahweya. Even the mommie from Matendi will come for the double tissue." And then another handshake. "Tutuaunana, Mr. Andrew, God is good." He moves off between the venders and commuters behind the rickety dukas lining the bus park. I drink another soda at the duka and buy a piece of cornbread, food for the five hour trip south to the hospital in Kisumu. From an adjacent duka, afro beats pound alternately with the ragings in my skull. Turnboys a few paces away hawk to passing travelers, "Nairobi, Mumias, Kitale!" With a smash against the steel siding the vehicles are off, grinding and sputtering over the wet earth out to the cracked tarmac heading south to Kakamega and Kisumu, north to Webuye and Eldoret and Kitale. The big, cushy Mwawingo bus, (a blessing over the chattery matatu pick-ups), piloted by busaa chugging suicide jocks, deathtraps during rainy season. The bus fills slowly. I dry chew two more Tylenol and sit inside on the shaded half of the bus. The morning sun streams in across the aisle, cooking the vinyl seating. Passengers filter in, the temperature rises with the humidity into the 90's. Sleep is impossible with the gunning matatu engines, wafting exhaust, mirachewing turnboys demanding shillings, acoustic screeches of Yvonne Chaka Chaka. I crave: five minutes in a clean warm bed, sweet dreams, vapor rub, cartoons. At last the low engine growl and slow backward movement. A final hawk of the turnboy, "Kakamega, Mumias, Kisumu!" as he trots alongside the moving bus. I breathe in as we head out to the 61

Andrew Rivan King

Quarto Bungoma-Mumias road, leaving behind the mud, urine and rotting fish odors, morning drunks, and wet, stagnant air building inside the docked Mwawingo. The movement and cool clean air blowing in the bus eases the pain. East from Bungoma to Mumias the land is deep, healthy green from the daily rainsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mostly hectares of bananas, sugar cane, coffee beans and maize. Thatch huts and the crop fields blur by; I drift in and out of sleep. The clear morning sun lights up the land like a continuous flashbulb, making shadows seem bright, dripping with color. We dock in Kakamega, halfway to Kisumu, just before noon; the midday sun rages above. The buspark is alive. Matatus everywhere, crazed turnboys, choking exhaust. An infant in the next bus seat begins to wail. Its mother undoes the top two buttons of her blouse and guides the tiny head to her nipple. The child quiets, while the shouts, gunning engines and hawking continues beneath my window. The last push now from Kakamega, down from the western highlands into the Nyanza basin and Kisumu. Nyanza is muggy and lush; it rains every afternoon. Shambas clutter the countryside, arable land is scarce. The mud and thatch huts cling to tiny over-cultivated plots. The warm fertile air feels good against my face. Another half hour before the Kisumu buspark and the mud, lunatic turnboys, amiable cripples, dukas laced with typhoid and cholera, travellers frantic for a way out: Kampala, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam. I share the seat with a young mother and her little girl. "Habari?" she asks. The girl is bug-eyed, excited or perhaps terrified, so close to a mzungu. "Oh, simzuri," I say. "The stomach and head are very painful." "You are ill?" "Malaria, I think." She shakes her head side to side, looking down at her mtoto. "When the rains come it is very bad. My last born was down for two weeks. The doctari gave so many injections, but nothing worked. This one here has infection." "I'm very sorry." "Karibu," she says to me, "you're English?" "American." "From USA?" "Yes." The mtoto squirms; the momma lifts her up with both arms

so she can stand on the seat. The child wraps her arms around the momma's neck and rests her head against the breast. "I am Helen." "Good to know you Helen. My name is Andrew." "This is Jentrix," Helen says, introducing the child. Deeply embarrassed, the girl squirms, burrows further into her mother. "Habari, Jentrix," I say. A muffled mzuri sounds out from Helen's sternum. "Are you working?" Helen asks me. "I teach at a Harambee some kilometers from Chwele." She nods. "Yes, I know the place." And then a wave of fever and vertigo. I excuse myself, bracing against the seat, saving strength for the Kisumu buspark and journey to the hospital. Helen soothes her sick child, whispering, caressing, as we churn down through the hills surrounding Nyanza. Jentrix writhes and turns, yet never cries in her mother's arms.

An excrement smell, waves of exhaust, mud everywhere. The Kisumu buspark, messy and sprawling, is the end of East Africa. I follow behind Helen and Jentrix down the center aisle of the bus, inhaling through my mouth to avoid the stench. Onto the wet, squishy ground, Helen whisks Jentrix up into her arms. "Bahati mzuri," she says to me above the racket of the buspark. Jentrix clings. "Asante." "I'm sorry you are ill Andrew, but after the long rains the life is better. You will see." And they are off, dodging the mud puddles between the Mwawingo and the cement sidewalk that surrounds the buspark. I pause, standing ankle deep in the mud, uncertain what to do. A rooster, caught between a mini bus and matatu, squawks horribly, unable to step one way or the other. I watch the rooster and feel the hot chills and nausea, the jackhammer pounding my forehead, feet welded to the soggy earth: me and the rooster on shaky, unfamiliar ground. "Pole Bwana, where is the taxi?" I ask a strangely pensive turnboy standing alongside his matatu. "There," he points across the buspark towards Uhuru Street.

Anyway Out

Andrew Rivan King

Quarto He is a stout, older man dressed in a stained corduroy blazer, torn! khaki trousers and black rubber sandals. "Where do you wish to go?" "Home." He grins. "It seems as though you are a very long way,] Bwana." "Yes, very far. So listen chief, what can I pay to the AgaJ Khan?" "To Aga Khan? You pay 15 bob. Those boys will try to; charge you 30, but you will pay 15, no more. Are you ill?" "Yes."

"It is common during the long rains; maybe mzungus suffer \ more. But Aga Khan is the best one, very expensive," he extends his \ hand. "Good luck." I move from him through the mud towards the|^ sidewalk where Helen and Jentrix began their way out. It is slower t o | walk around the perimeter of the park than through the center on ] mud pathways, yet safer in my condition. The rich aroma of frying mandazi mixes with exhaust and â&#x20AC;˘ curbside rot. Mommas line the cement sidewalk tending hot steel pots, cooking the dough balls. The pots rest atop wood burning jikos, sputtering out grease and charred bits of the fried dough. Hunger pangs and nausea, dry skin and cold sweats, panic and sudden calm. Past the sufurias of browning mandazi lies a row of makeshift wood and corrugated steel dukas. Laying out on the muddied sidewalk in front of the dukas are the cripples. Boney, mangled limbs twist awkwardly into unnatural angles. They lie silent or taunt the turnboys in mother tongue. Some peddle sundries: cigarettes, candies, gum, groundnuts. A man with legs the diameter of his forearms sits on a stool behind his own half-duka, a scaled-down shop offering fresh ndizi, Lifebuoy soap, Omo detergent, and curried matoke made by a momma cooking the Ugandan dish over a jiko. Just after noon in Kisumu and dangerously hot. The buspark bakes, yet the mud remains squishy, lava like, from the humidity and frequent afternoon rains. Past the cripples and about midway to the taxi stand, I feel an itchy tingle run up the small of my back, up over my skull, ending with a burst in the sinuses. I stop, try to wipe it off. It comes on stronger and then the spots, little white strobes flickering about. The world dims, fluttering in waves. At the end of East Africa, losing it in the mud, at the mercy of the turnboys.

A Significant Syringe "We think you might have typhoid as well as the malaria," Dr. Rashim says, standing with white clipboard at the foot of my bed. He is a Hindi man, tall, with a neatly groomed mustache. "It is not a very high count, but we must treat it anyway. You will take chloremphenical for the typhoid and we will give you some Fansidar for the malaria." He pauses, looks up from his clipboard. "I think no teaching for a while." Only three beds in the intensive care room, separated by drawstring curtains. The room has white walls and two large screened windows set high, eye level. No air conditioning, yet sometimes a warm wet breeze blows in through the screens. I lie in the middle between two Kenyans. On the left a tiny baby wails and wails nonstop. The child is surrounded by adultsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;doctors, nurses, and relatives discussing what to try next. On the other side a young man about my age lies still, recovering from surgery. Intravenous tubes dangle down to his arms from two plastic pouches, one filled with blood, the other, a murky liquid. "I'm going to have to give you a shot, Mr. King," the nurse says to me holding a metallic instrument tray. "On your left side please." The needle is abnormally large, like a small fire hose. She swabs my hip with alcohol, cool and clean. I do not feel the prick at first, yet gradually a dull numbing chill spreads out all over. The sensation builds, until the feeling coalesces. A biting wiggle of the needle, still inserted, emptying all the medicine. The pain is so terrific I start to laugh into the pillow. "Almost done now." Wiggle, wiggle, turn, wiggle, wiggle, and a quick last turn. "Very nice Mr. King, you can lie back now." Frozen, can't move or think, hot ice races up and down, sideways, sharp right and left. Stuck on my side, fearing something will break off if I move, I face the curtain separating me from the infant. It screams and screams, stopping for an instant to take a breath. I hear the doctors and nurses talking in English about the next treatment. I lie still, staring up at the white fluorescent tubing, regrouping. Minutes later, the same nurse enters the room. "I have to bother you again Mr. King. This one shouldn't be so bad," she says, untangling the thin intravenous tubing, inserting a tiny needle into the end. She swabs the top boney part of my wrist. "You might feel a little poke." She unwraps a small blue plastic apparatus, like a Lego piece, that has two funnels rising up from the base. 65

Andrew Rivan King

Quarto

"The nurse said there was another mzungu here, and I was like, no way." Sara, American, rolling her eyes. She and her friend Marilyn, also American, sit on the edge of my bed in clean white gowns. They teach in Busia near the Ugandan border. "I got malaria last night and Marilyn, who was over, came down with me and she started feeling sick too. I think it was psychosomatic." "We're in this room with like 15 other people," Marilyn says. "Sara's right next to this wild Kikuyu woman who keeps saying she's gonna take us back to Thika with her. They need teachers at their Primary. You gotta meet this woman. She said she knew Kenyatta before independence." We eat dinner in my room and Sara has a deck of cards. Dusk settles outside bringing cooler, less humid air. The nurse brings us

bowls of curried chicken and chapati. "The night before I left I went to this little restaurant in Greenwich Village and had this veal with like a white wine cream sauce." "Oh please," Marilyn says. "What?" "Nothing." "What, you don't like New York?" "No, no, go ahead." "Well, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night under my net so sick of ugali, and so hungry that I would kill for just a fork of that veal." The nurse brings extra ice cream for dessert; we eat it up, cleaning the little plastic bowls with wet fingers. Sara starts to shuffle the deck. "Gin rummy okay with you guys?" Instead of shillings we play for clean syringes and malaria prophylactics. Marilyn accumulates much of both. After half an hour all of us are exhausted, yet Sara and I want to continue, anxious to win back some of our medicine. "You know you guys can always just buy more," Marilyn says. "Deal," Sara snaps. Marilyn starts shuffling, yet before she has a chance to deal, the overhead lights are switched off. "Oh well, I guess we can't play anymore," Marilyn tells us. Sara and I turn to one another. "Hey, who are you paying?" Sara asks. "Paying?" "Yeah, to turn the lights off." "Hey, I'm just a sick patient here, like everyone else," she says, gathering up all the metallic tabs. "Well, just don't eat them all at once," Sara says. Sleep comes in waves, yet the dreams are vivid: bats hovering over Form II, bamboo stalks creaking in the wind, runaway matatus fishtailing up and down sloppy mud roads, toothless, psychotic turnboys. Beyond the curtain the baby sleeps, the young man shifts and turns throughout the night. Outside in the hallway, nurses chat in Kiswahili and mother tongue. They come in to check on the infant. I check myself after waking, glancing up at the I.V. pouch in the dim light, making certain the saline solution drips down. The attached arm lies limp. I fear a dreamy yank will dislodge it from my blood-

"We need to attach this before we can insert the I.V." She turns the Lego piece upside-down, a tiny needle sticks out from beneath it. And then I understand the relationship between the Lego piece and my wrist; they are soon to become one. A few quick taps to prepare the vein, then a first poke. It misses. A second try, probing inside, wiggle, wiggle. She pulls it out and taps the vein again. A third poke. Blood mats and drys, braiding wrist hairs into sticky clumps. "There, it looks like we have it now." She swabs up the blood and tapes the Lego piece in place, inserting the plastic I.V. tube into one of the funnels. Liquid from the plastic pouch begins to drip down. "Now just one more shot Mr. King and then I will leave you alone." She attaches a fresh needle to a filled syringe and sticks it through the other Lego funnel and into my skin, pumping the syringe twice, emptying the medicine. With two fingers she presses down on my wrist and begins forcing the medicine up through the vein towards the crook in my elbow. She rubs back and forth with pressure as if to force the bubbles out, getting all the medicine into my bloodstream. Alone to breathe out, absorb and dilute the pain. I try to read, easing away from this room to things clean and familiar. The afternoon heat enters through the screened windows, thick and wet, no cross ventilation. The bed sheets are warm and sweat-soaked, yet if I remain still, they feel dry. I dab the sweat pooling on my forehead, and glance up at the I.V. pouch to make certain it's dripping down. Unable to read or think pleasant thoughts.

Feverish Wazungu

Andrew Rivan King

Quarto stream. If I raise my forearm upright the blood drains down, filling: the plastic curlycue like cherry Kool-Aid sucked through a crazystraw.

It Could Be Home 5:00 a.m., the overhead lights switch on, a team of nurses, enters the room. They head to the baby, circling, then come to me, all smiles. "So Mr. King, how are you today?" they ask. I rub my eyes and try to focus. One of the nurses sticks a giant thermometer under my arm. Another wraps a velcro blood pressure gauge around my ; bicep. I am asleep again before they remove the thermometer. Daybreak two hours later. Gurgly stomach cramps and, headache. The weather looks gray and drippy. The baby shrieks non-; stop in heaving gasps. The young man has been wheeled out, perhaps for more surgery. I want to wheel out as well, right back to Big Macs and snow. Felt nearly normal last night over cards. Nothing is normal about this current feeling. Is malaria/typhoid considered one disease or two? No one has told me yet. I don't think they ever will. "Some more medicine for you Mr. King." The nurse prepares a medium sized syringe and injects it right into the Lego piece. Again the bizarre smoothing process, working the medicine up through my vein. She caps the syringe and looks down. "You're a teacher?" "In Bungoma District." "Kamahua," she greets me in the tribal tongue. "Kamalai," I respond. "Aha," she laughs, "you are knowing Kibukusu. My sister's shamba is just near Chwele." "I'm at Namilama." "Yes at the Masese Junction." "I alight at Kimugungi and short cut through the shambas." "My sister is just past Chwele on the Kimoni side. You can' see her when you go back." I nod. "She is Rosemary Wasike. Her [ first born is at Chwele Girls. Perhaps when you get tired at * Namilama you can go teach at Chwele Girls." She lifts my wrist and 1 holds it between two fingers, glancing down at her watch every few seconds. "But maybe no teaching anywhere for a while. I will write my sister, you can stay at her shamba until you feel like teaching again." "Oh, thank you." 68

"Yes, and while you are there you can help Gladys with her composition," she smiles and disappears behind the curtain and joins another nurse tending the infant. I fall into stone heavy sleep. No desire to go anywhere or do anything, but lie flat. The chloremphenical drips, drips, drips down. I fear it's simply sugar water up there. After some time, sleep eases into sweats and hot shakes. Lunch arrives shortly after 1:00 p.m. Curried matoke and chapati. Balmy air blows in through screen windows. Sweat bubbles from forearms, forming mini streams that shimmy down through wrist hairs. The spoon slips and slides from my grasp. I drop the spoon and use the chapati to soak up the curried stew. The dish is spicy. Sweat trickles down, mixing with dried blood. The Lego piece feels permanent. No bath for two messy days. The bathroom has a shower stall with hot running water. I press the call button and a nurse comes and unplugs the plastic curlycue from the Lego piece. She promises to bring clean dry sheets. The old sheets are gooey and cling to my back as I rise up from the bed. The washroom is about ten feet away, a four second walk under the best of circumstances. Much easier to lie back down, wait for Marilyn and Sara, take a nap, try to dream it away. Four seconds to wash away the typhoid/malaria. Two and a half feet a second. It is easy, yet easier to lie back down and think about going home. On styrofoam legs, swimmy head; crawling there might be easier, a seven second crawl. Two trips, though, to get the shampoo and soap. Hot steamy water after weeks of bucket baths. One, two, three: standing, bracing against the bed, hands against the juicy sheets. Swing the arms, stay upright, walking now, seven and a half more feet. Concentrate on the door handle and the good things inside. Momentum is everything. Inside now with the door locked. There is a clean white porcelain toilet, fluorescent lighting and baby blue floor tile. Left of the sink, behind the tiled porcelain lies the shower basin with stainless hot and cold knobs and a recessed ledge for soap. The mirror is large and clean. A toilet with hydraulic flush. It could be home; it could be so many other places than where it is. Scalding, shivery hot water blasts out all over me. The bathroom fogs with steam, prying open, cleaning pores, caressing achy lungs. Frothy soap suds. Alive, ready for action. Cured. It was only a matter of getting clean. Close your eyes and forget where you actually are. 69

Quarto

Andrew Rivan King

In a clean bed now, with fresh sheets and surgical baggies. The three- quarter filled plastic I.V. pouch taunts from above, waiting to be replugged. The freedom intoxicates. I roll over in the bed, back and forth, like a giddy seal pup. No dripping or limp arm or sight of my blood swirling around through the curlycue or antibodies emulsifying bone marrow. Cure worse than the disease? And then everything comes down hard: fever, nausea, swelling brain tissue; I roll over and press the call button.

"Your count is down Mr. King," Dr. Rashim declares, the afternoon of the fourth day. "Perhaps you can leave us soon." "Leave?" "Yes, you've got some color back I see." Leave for where? No hustlers in the hospital, or drunks or mud or hungry rats. There is electricity, running water and good food that is served. Each day here moves me further and further away from the bush, back towards the comfortable and safe. No responsibility or hardship. It creeps up, paralyzing. The body becomes heavy, dead weight, unconnected with the musings of the mind. A couple more days here and I'm squash or a bushel of sukuma wiki, compostable, organic, brain dead. Time to go back. If it doesn't happen now it never will. The I.V. pouch hangs above, emptying the last few saline drops. The Lego piece remains fixed, fused with dried blood. Simple inertia compels action, mentally preparing to go back, walking through the steps: Kisumu buspark, journey north to Bungoma, shortcut from Kimugungi through the shambas back to school, fetching and boiling water, relaying rat poison, sweeping dried mud off the floor, changing wicks on the paraffin stove, sifting and separating pebbles from rice. The last dinner on Sara's bed: chicken in thick mchuzi sauce with chapati. "So I'm like," Sara begins, sitting cross-legged atop the bed, "do you guys boil your water here because Kisumu water isn't supposed to be that good. Bill Rudolf thought he got dysentery from the Kismet on Biashara Street and the nurse is like, 'Don't worry, this water is good.' I mean I've already got malaria. I don't need that." Marilyn sits on the edge of the bed. She turns to Sara. "Listen dear, if you don't drink you'll die of dehydration."

"Oh, that's a pleasant thought." "Drink up girl, the water's fine." Sara raises the glass, "Famous last words," she says, and empties the contents. "Look Ma', no worms." She rolls her eyes then collapses face first into the pillow. Marilyn turns to me. "So we're getting the boot tomorrow. What about wewe?" "Yep, all mzungus gotta hit it." Sara sits back up and begins to deal the cards. "If s weird, I think I'll be okay to leave but I'm not sure I want to go back to Kibobi. I still feel pretty weak and I can't see getting in front of a chalkboard or even looking at papers." She hesitates then starts again, wideeyed. "You know what you guys? We should just go to the Coast tomorrow for like two weeks. Take the 5:00 p.m. to Nairobi and then hitch." "Or fly," Marilyn says. "We could get a house on Kiwi Beach and just relax till we felt like going back to the bush." "We might be able to get jobs there," I say. "Why not?" "Oh, yes." Jolting and shrill, the screams come from somewhere out in the hall. "Omigod!" Sara goes white. The three of us lay down our cards. "Jesus, that sounds serious," Marilyn says. Patients in the room crane their necks towards the doorway leading to the hall. Others remain asleep or groggily shift position at this new, foreign sound. The screams continue, then quick, anxious voices and shouts. "I'm gonna have a look," I say. "I'd be careful," Sara cautions. "It might be brain malaria." I untangle the I.V. tube and wheel the stand down the center aisle, passing the beds of patients on either side. They stare at me bemused, it seems, with this curious mzungu. Nearing the doorway, sounds of struggle from the hallway: crashes, banging, Kiswahili expletives. I peek around the corner. At the end of the hall, past the nurses' station, a man in hospital gown writhes in the grasp of two hospital orderlies. The man screams unmuffled. Nurses at the front desk ignore the struggle, talking amongst themselves, filing patient reports. The orderlies work hard to restrain the man. His limbs twitch

On Your Own

Quarto

Andrew Rivan King

and flail about. Suddenly in a burst the man breaks free, tearing speed down the hall directly towards my I.V. rig. If the man takes j he will take me and I do not want to go where he is going. A fe meters now from the doorway, full stride. His lower jaw dangle seemingly unconnected; saliva foams from his lower lip, the eyes, wide, fixed on the exit sign opposite the one he just fled. The orde lies chase several paces back. In a moment he will crash into my I.vJ stand, extending the plastic curlycue, ripping the Lego piece from my wrist. The Lego piece and some of my wrist lying on the tile floor. Eyeball to eyeball, and then a miracle: the desperate man;! looses his footing, spins once and sails into the concrete wall justi opposite the doorway and my I.V. stand. He rolls once, stunned, thed collapses onto the tile floor. The orderlies are upon him instantly, lift*j ing arms and legs, carrying him down the hall towards the exit sign.

Coast Deferred

selves." We hug and separate. Alone now, searching for the cleanest, fastest route out. The buspark ground has dried somewhat since my arrival due to a mix of good weather and the lull of incoming and outgoing commuters. The turnboys seem muted as well, ignoring me as I pass their matatus. Beyond the vehicles at the end of the buspark between the dukas and mud road, sit the big Mwawingos headed north to Bungoma District. The bus rises slowly, up through the mountains out of Nyanza, north towards Kakamega. Fresh air circulates, blowing in from the surrounding shambas. Mommas walk to local markets along the gravel curb, balancing reed or woven bags atop their heads. Watoto trail behind, and keep waving long after the bus has passed. Looking back out the window, before we reach the plateau, I see Kisumu sprawled out before the rim of Lake Victoria, the steel roofs shine in the late morning sun. The Aga Khan, nestled just off the lake, is barely visible, shrouded in shrubs and coconut palms. Early afternoon in Bungoma, after brief stops in Kakamega, Mumias, Losengani. I drink a warm, syrupy Fanta at the buspark duka before finding a matatu back to Namilama. The place seems less frenzied, similar to Kisumu, maybe a non-market day or some sort of national holiday.

The morning is cool on Tom Mboya Avenue. The three of i walk together with rucksacks from the Aga Khan towards Kwamel Nkrumah Street. Coconut palms shade red tile, white-washed homes,; two blocks east of the hospital. Some of the homes have gardens or^ tended shrubbery, surrounded by iron gates. On the corner of Torn' Mboya and Uhuru Parkway a momma sells groundnuts, candy, cigarettes and the Kenya Times. I buy a newspaper and all three of us get warm Fantas. We finish the sodas and buy three more, rehydrating: for the journey back. We sit on little wooden stools the momma has brought out from beneath the counter. Tom Mboya runs west and intersects with Kwame Nkrumah, the main route running north out of Nyanza to the Western Highlands. We walk to the wide thoroughfare, somber and a bit foggy, anticipating separation, when we're suddenly alone, ankle deep in mud, breathing matatu fumes. In front of the Caltex station, just shy of the buspark, we stop to say goodbye. "Well it seems as though the Coast will have to wait, sindiyo?" Sara says, wriggling out of her rucksack. "Alive in our dreams." "Yeah, I've certainly had enough nightmares to last a while." "To the Coast," Marilyn raises her imaginary Fanta. Sara and I join her, clinking the invisible bottles in the air. "May we all live long enough to see it someday. Bahati mzuri guys, take care of your-

There is a narrow footpath from the Kimukungi junction off the Bungoma-Chwele Road that shortcuts through shambas back to Namilama. It's about twenty minutes faster than walking from Masese past Malindi and Sam's shamba. The first kilometer of the path slopes down, and from the top of the incline looking east the land is grasslands, plots of sugarcane, banana palms with their wide fronds and wild, stout shrubs growing beneath. With rucksack I walk with short careful steps down the decline; the diseases linger in ligaments and joints and lungs. The medicine swirls inside, a buffer, keeping the parasites at bay. The last stretch of path begins in a low, muddy spot. A makeshift bridge made from sticks laid crossways over larger branches lies half submerged in the mud. The logs, coated with slime, test equilibrium under normal conditions. Limbs wobble and buckle under the heaviness of the pack, inches from schistosomiasis pools. The final stretch of land rising up from the low spot, crosses a

A Familiar Face

Quarto kilometer of grazing fields and coffee bean shambas. Beyond the) incline of green, the Mt. Elgon foothills lie visible to the northwest^ sprawling up out of the Chwele Valley. Half a kilometer up the incline the trail narrows between the shambas and wild hedges; it also steepens, with deep crevices and ruts in the brown/red earth. Lungs and muscles struggle here, pounding head and shivers, like the? first night when it all came crushing down like a locomotive. Straining over a crevice in the path, the Matendi-Masese road just visible beyond the crest, I feel it first, a low rumble beneath my: feet. And then I see it. About 50 meters ahead rounding a bend in the path, a herd of bulls, lumbering and massive, horns pointed out. I stop to watch, too spent to move. Simply watch and wait for what will happen next. Death now, almost home, and now death, gored in the gut by the ngombe. I look down at the burnt orange ground and start counting, just a couple more seconds now. "Habari Mwalimu!" A boy mtoto, a student from Namilama Primary, still in school uniform, trots a few meters ahead of the herd, waving a reed swatter. He positions himself directly in front of me, chest high, then, poised with the swatter, turns to face the animals; about 20 meters ahead, heads bobbing, legs groping for traction. The mtoto swats the air with his reed and emits a clipped hissing sound, "tse, tse, tse." Just meters away, the herd parts, easing towards the edges of the path. Louder, "TSE, TSE, TSE," with whips back and forth like a giant metronome. The bulls quicken. Surrounded now by the huge black sweating rectangular heads, all of them, passing obediently in two single file lines, heading down towards the open grasslands. As they hoof by, the mtoto swats their rumps in quick strokes. After the last bull moves past, the mtoto turns and grins. "Tutuaunana Mwalimu," he says and skips barefoot down the path toward his herd. Beyond the foot path on the Matendi-Masese road, 200 meters to the entrance to Namilama, mommas pass in yellow and magenta kongas. We greet in Kibukusu, negotiating the water filled ruts and puddles in the road. The day is clear and blue. Approaching the school compound, just opposite the signpost and the towering eucalyptus trees, stands a familiar figure in green buttoned-down shirt and navy trousers. He starts towards me, wheeling the pedalless onespeed bicycle. "Oh, oh, Mr. Andrew," Moses says. "You are back. You are back to Namilama."

glossary asante: thank you bahati mzuri: good luck busaa: local moonshine bwana: man chapati: thin unleavened bread duka: shop/canteen habari: how are you Harambee: village school jiko: coal grill kamahua: Kibukusu for, how are you kamalai: Kibukusu for, I am fine karibu: thank you Kibukusu: language of the Bukusu clan of the Luyia tribe kimbo: cooking grease Kiswahili: the national language of Kenya konga: cloth wrap mandazi: fried dough matatu: transport pick-up matoke: cooked bananas mchuzi: curry sauce miraa: plant chewed as stimulant mtoto: child mwalimu: teacher Mwawingo: large bus mzungu: westerner ndiyo: yes ndizi: bananas ngombe: cow pole: sorry schistosomiasis: disease carried by water borne parasite shamba: farm simzuri: not good sindiyo: isn't it songa: move sukumawiki: leafy greens tutuaunana: see you later twende: go ugali: pasty corn meal wanafunzi: students watoto: children wewe: you 75

Tom Regan ~S THEAMISH HORSE I've heard the rhythmical music of your hooves on midnight country roads and seen twin jets of breath shoot from your nostrils like steam expelled from a great piston into the cold night air backlit by modest buggy headlights, one on each side, trailing, always trailing.

And I've stared while your great horse head lolled upward one last time then slapped back down on the hard road's surface expelling from its upper nostril several single jets of breath into the cold night air, silent, like the beginning of a ghost.

And I've seen you six across yoked to plow racks, pulling them evenly through melon fields, obediently turning the land into earthen quilts of brown and saying with each acre, far better than those who own you ever could, that time and land and energy are gifts from God. And I've watched you waiting out back country general stores astride your own excrement, which looks all wrong on the lifeless blacktop, with nose and eyes and ears encircled in leather strapping lashed to a post you could probably move, if told. And your great haunches stilled by long shafts running up each side, and down again to that ubiquitous buggy. And I've stood by while you died on the hard macadam near Intercourse, Pa., struck from behind by a drunken sports car, your fetlocks quaking loose in the air, and blood pooling around your gut seeking seepage to lower ground. 76

Sheetal Majithia (0) DRIVING PAST CHOWPATTI Along Marine Drive, during the thick part of the evening, men slipped salted, golden, chick pea nuggets out of paper cones and children tugged at their mothers' saris for a bottle of Limca on crowded Chowpatti beach. She held her right arm up to the headrest and braced her bones against the reckless Bombay driving of her chauffeur, Ramu. He braked and revved the car while daring young boys darted in front of the car like quick lizards in the night. Outside, no one from the milling crowd noticed the ancient white Mercedes, one of many, trying to leave the heart of Bombay proper. She saw men buy garlands of champas and camellias to weave into their wives' swinging plaits while beside them, knots of salwar-khameez-clad women circled bangle stands and giggled as hawkers enticed them to buy. Children's shouts followed the movements of puppets with rakish grins and their ventriloquist masters while vying flute players and raspy tape vendors advertised their sales. Seema rolled up the window and thought of New York. Fall mornings she used to drive to work. Snaking through the little towns that make up the heel of New York, her gaze shifting from pomegranate maples to persimmon oaks, she drove efficiently, fast enough to maintain the flow of traffic and slow enough to enjoy the scenery. Occasionally her eyes would linger on a passing weeping willow from which branches hung like limp cords of jute. Of all the trees she'd ever seen, branches of blooming weeping willows fell the most gracefully, like ribbons dangling in the hair of a young girl. Now in Bombay, she missed practicing the cadences of "Carlos" and "Marta" on her Spanish medical tapes. She missed her tiny office strewn with children's toys. She missed examining her baby patients and reassuring their young mothers. She missed feeling tired and indispensable at the end of the day. When, heavy with the day's work, she would speed out of the clinic and rush once more onto the parkway. Dangerously sniffing freshly cut grass as tendrils of smell snuck in through her windows, she had sneezed and made the car shake. But she kept the window open nonetheless. In the fall, the Saw Mill Parkway had been lush. Irresistible. When she would near 79

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Quarto the Scarsdale exit, she would roll up her window and buck traffic, collecting herself before she had to rejoin her family and become a wife and mother again. Her only daughter, Sonal, who had taken a year off before going on to medical school, returned home last year. It was strange having her around again. Suddenly, there was constant activity in the house. Seema's husband, Anand, and Sonal resumed the fiery dinner table discussions that had marked Sonal's high school years. They weren't able to agree on anything though both ignored Seema's plea that they have dinner in peace. When the two argued, Seema generally finished her dinner early and escaped into the living room until they were done. She never took sides. She was surprised that her husband participated in these discussions since he was usually a quiet man. And in his retirement had become even quieter. He buried himself in his books, surrounded with volumes of Austen and Trollope, companions he'd lost after enrolling in medical school. After dinner she and her husband would watch the sun set from the low patio they had built in their back yard. There would always be something to mention about house repairs or the bills or even the difficulties of Sonal's medical school admission. "I hope this kid gets what she wants," Seema would start off. "She'll be fine," he would say, "She's an ambitious girl; she'll work hard. She's tough. She'll be just fine." "Maybe she should have been a lawyer. The way she argues. God, she never keeps quiet. I hope someday she learns to watch that harsh tone of hers. For years I've been trying to have a peaceful meal." "You know there's nothing wrong with talking, with speaking your mind. Besides she can't help it. That's the way she was raised. In this country you say what you feel. That's the way it is." "If that's the way it is here how come you have nothing to say?" she had questioned one day in the midst of their typical conversation. They were both surprised by her candor. He had thought a minute while looking out into the darkening woods behind the house. "I wasn't raised in this country." He didn't have to tell Seema that. She knew that being away from his family and all that was familiar to him had taken its toll. Seema gossiped with the nurses during coffee breaks, Anand called her at her clinic. Seema accepted invitations to lunch and tennis (even though she didn't play), Anand rested at home and watched television. Even when they attended Christmas parties at his hospital, she 80

would dance perfunctorily with his colleagues as he sat and watched. She wondered who, besides Sonal and herself, would miss him, if God-forbid, something were to happen to him. Once when Sonal decided to join them on the deck, Anand brought out a letter he'd been clutching for a few days. Seema wondered about its importance but knew better than to pester Anand about it. He would tell her in due time; that was his way. And then finally, in Hindi, he read out loud:

My beloved son, Anand, So many days have passed since you have visited me. Now you are a grown man and you have made the money you sought in that land. It is time for you to close your wings and settle down. Come home, now, to the place where you were born. Spend your last days with your loved ones. Your brothers and cousins miss you and talk about you often. When you come back, we will be a family again. Come home and make your old mother happy before she dies. Yours, Dadi Funny the way Dadi, Anand's mother, had always managed to come across as the sweetest, most gentle creature to her son, and yet to Seema, had always acted like a lioness, fierce and proud, protective of her pride. With that letter, and subsequent others, she had managed to tug at Anand's heart strings and pull him back to India. Since he had already retired, he had no job to lose. Besides, the money he had made in America combined with his famil/s already large fortune would be more than enough to live off. Seema's state job had paid for part of Sonal's education and their vacations. Since those financial responsibilities no longer existed, there was no dire need to stay, was there, he had asked Seema. Seema could not have justified to him her staying here because she had never told Anand about the exhilaration of the Saw Mill Parkway, or the little origami cranes, patients' presents, that flew about her office, or the pleasure she got from helping an outrageous number of children in just one day. A few months later in August, when the last boxes were shipped and only the valuables were left to be packed, she still had said nothing to Anand. She had realized that even he was a bit anxious about leaving. He had taken pictures of their house to show his relatives. It was uncharacteristically sentimental of him. She'd been surprised but not dismissive when he'd joined her as she'd collected all their old photo albums and had lin81

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Quarto gered to look at yellowing sepia-stained wedding shots. When they'd been dating in India, theyM made regular visits to a quiet and rickety boat house near their medical college. He'd photographed her there, in row boats and on the dock, draped in white chiffon saris that had been the style in the 1960's. When he didn't think she was looking, he'd traced the upward curve of her mouth, the downward curve of her braid on the picture. When she had turned around he had been left with bits of paper flaking on his fingertips. She and Ramu continued to make their way across Chowpatti. She thought of Anand's dusty fingertips, Anand's glasses poised on the bridge of his regal nose, Anand's long body tossing in his sleep, Anand's arms as he encircled her and told her that their old friends would greet them with open arms, Anand's look of confusion when she'd emptied out the last milk cartons in their refrigerator and begun crying gently as she washed her hands, and then Anand's silence as he turned around and moved their eight suitcases into the foyer. After they'd landed, she'd realized she had forgotten the smell of Sahar Airport. The stench of ammonia and wetness lingering in corners was the smell that to her, always signified Bombay. She had thought, "This is a smell I won't smell again. The days of leaving New York and landing here are over." When she'd spoken of India to her American friends, she would always say, "Back home, when I see my mother-in-law, I touch her feet to pay my respects or Back home, when I was growing up as a young girl I could eat six jackfruits at a time." She realized then that she was in Bombay to stay. As she walked past advertisements for Bata shoes and Fanta Cola, she noticed she had fallen in step behind her husband who, with most of their carry-on luggage, had rushed in front of slower passengers to clear customs. She realized she didn't even have her own passport. If she didn't catch up with him, she would get lost in the shuffle. She had raced to meet him. Outside of the airport they had been met by Anand's brothers. Anand had seen them eight years before, so there were a few awkward moments in the car when they all listened to the whirr of the air-conditioner. Sonal was a young girl the last time they'd seen her. They were shocked when she lit up a cigarette at the luggage pick-up. She stayed close to her mother. Although she could understand Hindi, she could not speak it. It didn't seem to matter because her uncles were more interested in their brother. Later that night after they'd eaten and Seema had retired to their old bedroom, Seema had trouble falling asleep. It was not just the slightly nauseous feeling

caused by jet-lag that had made her feel uneasy. She'd heard Anand, his brothers, and their mother chattering and laughing long into the night. When she finally fell sleep, she dreamt of Dadi. In her dreams, Dadi was taller than her usual five-foot self. Dadi's voice was louder and her words made no sense to Seema. Seema kept asking, "What? What? What are you saying?" Dadi's garbled words strangled her until she felt choked and had to wake up. Oddly enough, because the two had not seen each other for a while, Dadi was much more sedate than Seema remembered. For once, she didn't address her critical comments to Seema. She didn't need to. Dadi had put a spell on her. She found herself obeying Dadi's wishes. Two days after they'd arrived, when Seema had asked Dadi for the car keys so she could visit old friends, Dadi insisted that Ramu drive her. When Dadi's wizened brother came to visit, Dadi asked Seema to show him respect by covering her face with her sari veil when she was in the same room with him. Seema had never witnessed anyone perform such an archaic custom but found herself clutching the veil of her sari as she offered Dadi's brother some tea. Dadi also asked Seema to accompany her to the temple in the evenings. When Seema was on the verge of protest, Dadi glared at her. Seema shut her mouth. She did what Dadi said and didn't see Anand alone for the first few weeks. Her only distraction for that time had been Sonal who, like a butterfly that senses the wide net following it, fluttered away. When Dadi began to hound Sonal, she escaped to travel in south India. Sonal had only come to India on vacation and in the fall, she would resume her job. Seema was jealous that Sonal could escape. "You can't wander around India all by yourself. It's improper for an unmarried girl, or even a married woman, to do that," Seema warned her daughter though she did not really believe her proclamation herself. "This is the last time that I'll be here for a while anyway. I want to see everything I can," Sonal answered and two weeks after reaching Bombay, she packed her duffel bag and set out for Bangalore to meet up with distant cousins. So Seema resorted to meeting up with old friends who seemed to have forgotten her. This day, while she was shopping she realized she was bored and thought of finding the public library tomorrow. She was just returning from K.C. Memorial Hospital after seeing if they had a program in which she could volunteer her services. Just when she was regretting the fact that she hadn't thought to find out about the program before, she was jolted ahead by Ramu's abrupt stop. Her arm slipped and her fore-

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head nearly collided with the headrest. She caught herself. Outside, crowds gathered around the car, Ramu rushed out to see if he'd actually hit the young man he had seen going down in front of his car. Seema struggled through the crowd to see what had happened. When Ramu saw her approaching, he held up his hand and muttered to her in Hindi. "Wait, madam, you go back into the car. I will see what has happened. There is no need for you to step out of the car. Don't trouble yourself," he said. Seema pushed him out of her way impatiently and bent down to see if the youth had been injured. His swarm of friends widened their circle and some of them stood up to make room for her. The young man, whose tight fitting tan shirt had merely been soiled, was laughing as his friends made fun of him. "Let's see if he can dodge cars on Marine Drive now. He's so good at getting past cars on Chowpatti." 'Tell us, oh able Shyam, did you think your magic powers would stop the car in its tracks? Or did you think your sheer strength would stop its passage?" "So you are not hurt, are you?" Seema asked, smiling at him. "No, not by your car. But my friends are sure giving me a beating now," he said somewhat self-consciously, but still grinning. "Good then, there's no need for me to get out my doctor's bag," she said. His friends helped him up and he brushed the dust off. "What luck, you have Shyam. You hit a car and a doctor comes running to your side, perhaps she can give you some free advice? Cure some of your other ills? Like the ones in your head?" They would not let up. She smiled as she headed over to the backseat. Ramu rushed in front of her to open her door. Again impatient, she reached for the door handle herself, turned it and settled down. Ramu moved away and then got in and resumed driving. So she would visit the hospital tomorrow and see what happened. At least she wouldn't have to make the rounds with Dadi and visit all her old friends anymore. Perhaps Anand would be interested in volunteering with her, she thought, maybe he could do two or three cases a week. She noticed that outside the crowd was thinning and the traffic was lessening. The car jerked as Ramu tried to make the sharp left that led on to Marine Drive. Again she was caught by surprise. "Ramu, could you please stop the car?" "Madam, this is a very busy place on the road. I cannot just stop the car anywhere you please. Anyway, because we stopped to

talk to that foolish boy, we lost time. We are late. Dadi will be very upset with us." "Ramu, stop the car!" When he pulled over near the corner she asked him to get out of the car and sit in the back seat. As he settled himself in, she got out. "Madam, what are you doing?" he asked, stunned to see her sitting behind the wheel of the car. "You just keep quiet and don't tell Dadi a word." She revved up the engine and smiled at him from the mirror. She pulled onto Marine Drive. With the windows open, the smells of the Arabian Sea hit them like the breakers upon the rocks. The heat of the car fled out as she overtook other drivers. Visitors to Bombay are often told that when seen from an elevation such as Nariman Point, the string of lamps that light up the thoroughfare form a jewel known as the Queen's Necklace. In the cool of the harbor, she looped around the curve just past the Air India Building. The end of the scarf of her sari fluttered through the open window, into the air outside. The car gathered speed, and in between the lamps, became a whiz of light, white and winding like thread.

J. Feinstein (J PATAGONIAN MOON MYTH In the black fields of the sky the ostrich-hunters camp beside the Milky Path kindling silver fires. Ghosts, they wait to pluck dark plumes from the tail of the moon. When she rises from her mountain nest lifting a mottled leather head of cream and blueâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the soft skin of her eyelids dark with sleepâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; and opens feather fans and sprays of white light on the peaks, the hunters will loose a shower of silver arrows tipped with stars.

J. Feinstein ^

FUNERARY INSCRIPTIONS

(Cairo, c.2300 B.C.) The ibis spreads her wings above the river. We face west. Our mouths are empty. The spiritboat sails without wind. The river swells. The palms of my hands are painted red. We face west. The sun rises behind us. The east wind bends the river grass. The snake turns to the west. My mouth is filled by the river. We push away from the eastern shore. The river takes me in her mouth. The east wind sings. My eyes are empty. The crocodile-headed one walks in the mud by the river. We turn from the rising sun to face the west. Horus holds the river in his mouth and his heart is the sun. The eyes of many look west. Jackals run on the sand. My eyes are painted green. I hold the golden scarab in my mouth. The spiritboat is full of dreams, rising in the east behind us. The golden boat is empty. The soles of my feet are painted black. A jackal licks the perfumed oils from my face. My soul is in a jar below the sand. Night holds us in her mouth. The east wind blows the houses down. The insects walks on eight legs toward the west. The east wind bends our heads. In my cellars there are many jars of beer. The sun is in my mouth. Night pulls me to the west and I walk the starry path. The east wind bends the palms. We bend our heads. The sun is in my hands. I walk to the west.

Bill Konigsberg

f GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR MILDRED Deep inside each and every one of us lives a big-breasted, self-righteous black woman named Mildred. She takes care of us when we can't find the resiliency to say "You walk out that door now, honey, and you ain't never comin' back," snap, or "If I wanted your sorry ass opinion, I would have given you one." What then, do bigbreasted, self-righteous black women named Mildred have inside of them? Probably a fucked-up, promiscuous, skinny-assed white boy like myself. Mildred focuses my anger outward. She erupts in me at times when I might do something like smoke a cigar, freebase, inflict small wounds on my body, or sleep with the entire male population of Manhattan. Like after the fifty-fourth time that guy failed to return my very casual phone call, "Hey, Bucky here, yeah, I'll be hangin' out at home the next few weeks, in case you wanna call me, no rush," I was tracing a figure eight on my forearm with a bic lighter, getting closer and closer to unbearable pain, the hairs beginning to fry, when Mildred appeared in an act of fury. She picked up the phone, numbly dialed the seven digits I'd memorized, and forcefully read his answering machine. "With no further assistance and guidance from you, I am ending this affair." Click. Snap snap. Or like with Hubie Bridges, my good buddy and former High School Baseball Coach, who was fired for putting the moves on me. We became bar buddies, and one day he was dishing me to several friends at a barâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"He thought he was a pitcher, but he was always a catcher in my book." He told me he was breaking up with his newest boyfriend, number 329, (I no longer attempt to remember names). Did I drown my sorrows in peppermint schnapps because I longed to be number 330 and he didn't want me? Did I change the subject quickly, "What a fabulous pool table they have here?" Or did Mildred emerge in a flurry of feeling, as I lifted my arms elegantly above my head like the Tropicana girl: "Just call my name. I'll be there in a hurry, on that you can depend and never worry." Which do you think? Hubie rolled his eyes and walked away. I think Mildred's appearance is a good thing. I mean, it's all 89

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Quarto those gender roles from when I was a kid. When my friend Sara in the first grade got a cute pink teddy bear for Christmas, I got this putrid blue elephant with a six-inch trunk that wouldn't get hard, no matter where I put it. No pink for Bucky. Someday he'll have to bring home the bacon. Yeah. I can really see how that blue elephant has made all the difference in making me a manly man. Maybe if my loving parents had helped me feel I was worthy of a pink teddy bear, I'd deem myself worthy of better treatment. Mildred knows that much. I recently told my therapist about Mildred. "I think in the last month or so, I've really attacked those gender issues relating them to the, um, possibility of focusing the anger outward, as opposed to inward." I cross and uncross my legs. Blank stare from Dr. Meister. "I mean, of course they're not like gone, or anything, given the childhood I was awarded, Rome wasn't built in a day, but I feel pretty much liberated from those gender myths I bought into as a child." Still no response. I gulped and wiped the sweat accumulating on my forehead. "No?" My therapist, Dr. Meister, with the icy demeanor and the Brooks Brothers' suit, the card-carrying member of the Blatant Breeders of America, father of a child who must be the Jewish version of an Aryan Youth, puts his right hand on his hip, tilts his wrinkled, pale white face at me, and says, "Girlfriend? You? Please!" He totally said that. I swear.

down with her cold hand to caress my ear. Then she puts on the 45's we bought together at Woolworth's and we dance on the shaggy rug, dark beige with blue bits of Playdough thrown in, bits that are now part of the rug. The one we love the most is "Lovin' You," by Minnie Ripperton: Lovin' you, is easy 'cause you're beautiful, and making love with you, is all I want to do. We hold hands and move in a circle to the music, and every time Minnie hits her glass-breaking high note, Delores begins to laugh, and so do I. We watch TV and I'm rooting for the pretty black girl, Tasheena, who has been called to be the next contestant on The Price Is Right. She bids 800 on the brand new trailer, and then Joe Bob, the Army Officer with a severe overbite and almost no hair, bids 801 after her, and wins. I see Tasheena's face fall as Joe Bob is greeted by a smiling Bob Barker and I imagine tears on her cheeks because of her losing the trailer, like the tears on the face of that Indian when he sees pollution by the river on that commercial. The injustice of it all is too much for me. I start crying, all the while holding on to Delores' ample waist. "You too much, Bucksworth," she insists, in her strong Caribbean accent, while stroking my hair. Then my mother, the beloved Peppi, Ms. Peppolita, as I call her nowadays, marches into the room and turns off the small television we're watching. "Stop! You'll hurt your eyes why don't you do something else now!" When she's upset, she talks without the benefit of punctuation. To Delores, she says, "If you value your job get your ass off this couch right now, play with my child or you'll never get your citizenship." When she leaves, I hold Delores, put my head in her lap. But she's tough, she doesn't need my protection. She gets up and stomps around the room and tells me to play with my cars, she'll just watch. While I create head on collisions between the momma Honda and the big Esso truck, "Boom!", Delores mutters increasingly audible and self-righteous phrases, " . . .Italian-Lebanese crazy woman not telling me. . ." While I play and listen, I pretend that Delores is my mother instead of that crazy Italian-Lebanese woman, the warden. Wonder why I've always hated white women.

The roots of my Mildred. I'm five. Playing with matchbox cars. I name them. Male cars and female cars. They go out on dates with each other, to the beach, to the shopping center, to the gas station. I bang them together. My mother is in the kitchen, and I can hear her voice screeching like chalk across you-know-where. She's on the phone with her newest victim. "What do you mean you can't get me those lamb chops by three? I pay you good money, you have some nerve!" I crash my Maserati into a Jaguar and make an even louder noise, "Boom!" The woman assigned to keep me out of Mother's hair arrives in the afternoon. Delores enters the room with her heavy coat still on, smelling of fresh air and flowers. When she smiles warmly at me, I focus on her brown, dimpled cheeks. As she drops her coat and bag on the blue rocking chair, I run over and grab her legs and hug them tightly, pressing my face into her thigh. Delores is joy. She says, "How is my sweet Bucksworth?" while reaching

I'm eight and reluctantly coming home from summer camp. My mother picks me up at the bus stop and the first thing she says is,

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Enter Dana. It was July of 1990, on a crowded, rush-hour, number 1 train going downtown. I got on at 86th, and there was no place to sit. I was going down to the village, with the purpose of walking the length of Christopher Street in very tight shorts, to see who's lookin', see who's walkin'. It was hot out, and I just finished walking through Central Park, so I was sweating profusely. Some thirteen year-old girl standing next to me curled her lip at me, trying in her own sweet way to suggest that I take a shower. I thanked her by exposing my hairy armpits to her, lifting my arm to grab on to a metal strap above my

head. I saw that there was an extra seat, next to a black girl with braids in her hair. I realized with delight it was the same girl that had been in my driver's test group back in May. While we had waited for our turn to drive, I had entertained her with my impersonation of a Dominican fly girl from Williamsburg. I was pretty sure she was amused, and even though she'd acted annoyed and tired with me by the end, I was pretty sure she'd liked me. What was her name? She was sitting on the train, listening to a walkman and pretending not to notice that somebody might want the empty seat next to her. New York has it's own kind of etiquette. So I walked up and slid sideways into the seat, shimmied my long body into it. She scrunched up her face, still in the profile, still not seeing me, as she pretended to try to adjust, but there was no way she could. I smiled at her, like "Look who the cat dragged in." She saw me and turned away, and a look of recognition passed over her face. It started at the tips of her mouth and passed upwards, arching the eyebrows slightly, until I could read the thought in her mind as if posted there on her forehead. Ignore. Finally, The Incredible Hulk sitting on the other side gave up some of my seat. Trying to cross his fat thighs together, his legs wiggled and wobbled until he achieved that goal. Once I fully settled in, I could see in the reflection opposite us that the black girl was giving me attitude. I was in her space. She was glaring at me from the corner of her eye. I wondered why she didn't acknowledge me. She was a pretty girl, creamy light brown skin, in her early twenties probably. She wore a lime green shirt and a pair of slightly baggy jeans. I admired her outfit in the reflection and felt that she'd look more to my taste in black spandex shorts and a purple haltertop. Hey, if you have what it takes to wear that kind of outfit, why not wear it? The beat was pounding from her headphones, and I tried to make out the tune. I couldn't quite get it, so I started to groove to it. Moved my head to the rhythm like a black girl, side to side. A humongous Latino lady stood in front of us, grinning at me, like, "Look at Gringo go, he could go mm-hmm, jes." My neighbor-sister-girlfriend didn't see me just yet. Then I began to hear the lyrics, and I knew them: Express yourself, you got to be you babe, express yourself, and let me be me! I was overwhelmed with the urge to do it, so I sang along with Salt-NPepa. The whole car was looking at me as I tried to rap to the loud beat I heard next to me: Yes I'm blessed and I know, who I am I express myself on every jam, I'm not a man

"Look at the caked-in dirt on his neck. Marcus, look at your son's neck for Christ sake he looks like he hasn't washed his neck in two months." My father avoids looking directly at me, as usual. He nods his head obediently. "You're a wonder Bucky, we send you away for two months and you come back a Black person." I cringe with embarrassment, decide not to say goodbye to my friends. I'm not a hit in junior high. The girls call me "Buckteeth" instead of Bucksworth or Bucky. When I tell Julie Mollins to blow me, I'm sent to detention. The girls think I'm gross, and the guys start a rumor that I jerk off seven times a day. I respond, "At least I can." In high school I get in trouble constantly. I ask my Geometry teacher whether he takes his ruler into the shower with him. I put glue on the head-of-the-upper-school's chair. I have sex with my English teacher and my baseball coach, at different times. My coach gets fired, my teacher is at the present time very ill. My mother gets tired of meetings held for her benefit, about "Channeling creative energies into more positive avenues." I assume that if it wouldn't reflect poorly on her, she would wash her hands of me. Pity for Peppi. I still live with my folks to this day. I spend a semester at NYU, it blows. They expect me to pace myself in my own work. An assignment isn't due in class and I'm supposed to do it anyway? Yeah, right. I stay in my dorm room all day listening to Sinead O'Connor, experimenting with how close I can actually come to touching a candle flame to my skin. At night I hit the East Village bars, bring random men back to the dorm, much to the chagrin of my Indiana-born roommate. Now I'm floating around, not working, not schooling, just hanging. Ms. Peppolita is not charmed by my behavior. Good 'ole Dad doesn't know what to think. I tell them "The answer shall come." Whatever that means.

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"Oh." She sucked in her cheeks as though she was flirting with me. "Everyone could listen?" I nodded yes. She raised an eyebrow at me. I wanted Dana to stay with me, talk to me. Oh yeah, one other thing. My past and present homosexuality aside, I wanted to put my face against her large but shapely thighs. I guess I paused there for a time, because when Dana comes into focus, she seemed to be waiting for me to speak.

but I'm in command, hot damn, I got an all girl band. I was jammin' to the whole car and everyone was stunned, as if I had broken this major subway rider pact, when my face is stung by a hard slap. It's my girl. People started walking to the next car in droves. "Yo, I did not ask for your opinion on my music, okay, so why don't you shut your damn mouth!" "Oh my God!" I scanned the car for support, but no one looked at me. "I'm not mocking you, I happen to know every song on the new Salt-N-Pepa CD. I worship them, they're my goddesses. I was just singing along." "Nuh-uh, I'm not havin' it. You was just tryin' to be funny. I seen this act before. Get out of my face boy, don't think I can't hurt you." I shifted in my seat, surprised at the violent reaction. I'm sometimes shocked at how upset people can get over seemingly stupid things. I racked my brain for the correct response to this angry girl. "Yo, I did not mean to disrespect you," I said. "I mean, we probably like the same music, I wasn't making fun of you. You probably like Sybil." Her tense shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. "OK." "Queen Latifah," I continued. "Most definitely." She almost smiled in spite of herself. "N.W.A." She paused momentarily. "What if I said I liked Bach?" That wasn't on my radar map. I ignored it. "Big Daddy Kane," I said. "Fine, yes. Yo-Yo?" she asked. "Yo," I answered, swinging my right arm at her, pointing my pinky and ring finger out before bringing my hand to my crotch, like white people are supposed to do when they try to act like a homeboy. "You crazy, Slim." "Whaf s your name?" I asked her. "Dana Thomas. You?" "Bucky Mercum. We've met." I peered into her dark eyes, and she held my gaze, until I had to look away. Dana put away her walkman. "Yeah, don't think I've forgotten." "You need new headphones," I told her. "Huh?" "Everyone in the car could hear your tape, loud and clear. I was just enunciating words for them."

Dana and I ran into each other in the Village that weekend. She came down to shop on Eighth Street, and I was down to wander, as usual. We got to talking, and I found out she was a student at City College, studying Business Administration. We began to walk together, from Sheridan Square, west down Christopher Street. Dana kept pausing as if unsure she wanted to leave her path, but I made her laugh and she continued to walk. It was a hot, hazy day, and

"Oh, don't worry, Dana, this isn't like a pickup, I'm totally gay." Quick defense mechanism? An elderly black woman who was standing in front of me reading The Star looked down on me, eyebrows pointing down towards Hell, as if I'm now damned. "No shit." Dana retorted, and the woman glared at her. "You could tell?" "Your shorts are tight and you know all the Salt-N-Pepa lyrics. Would a straight white boy do that? I think not." With that she indulged me with a quick snap, across her body, which I tried to copy, with no luck. I thought of Mildred. In a dream, I was floating down 125th Street at night like a helium balloon, with Mildred making me ethnic enough not to get shot or beat up. I ran into Dana. "Yo Miss Thing!" said Mildred/me. "Girlfriend," said Dana, "Look out honey, 'cause you look good enough to eat, I could just eat you up myself." She caressed my chest. "Well girl, that won't be necessary," I said, reaching into my pants where I expected to find a palpable Mildred, "'cause I got something big and black in here that could protect you too." I was filled with excitement about sharing Mildred with my friend but then Dana began to grow very large. "I don't need to be protected," she said in a deep voice, as she expanded into the sky.

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Quarto Christopher Street was just how I like it, sticky with men. It was all tank tops and dark sunglasses and sweat dripping down tanned faces, men moving at a sluggish pace. Dana was overdressed in jeans and a blue T-Shirt. Wherefore art thou, spandex? I wonder why I wanted to see her in spandex. We walk west toward the Hudson River. On humid summer nights back in July of 1990, Banjee boys in their oversized lime green shorts flocked to the Christopher Street Piers to the undying drone of "La-Da-De-La-De-Da, La-Da-De-La-DeDa." Young boys in sequined mini-skirts, platform shoes and cheap makeup and perfume from Woolworth's vogued to Madonna. The Latino men with their goatees and shaved heads drank from 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor and puked it into the Hudson when they were finished. Cars circled the pavement on the pier's promenade, and lonely white guys from New Jersey peered out from behind the rolled down glass with frightened eyes, searching for a boy he could pretend was a girl. The real girls, thick-thighed and broad-shouldered, screamed song lyrics with abandon. They smoked Camels and swung around their African braids, showed their tits in undersized tshirts. When we got there, the piers were nearly empty; it was still too early for the Banjees to be out in force. The sun was beginning to set. The piers were not abandoned totally; a few nude sunbathers lay on their backs, still asleep on the concrete, oblivious to the hour. I ogled them as we walked past, tongue wagging, although they were all kind of old and wrinkled. As we tore our way through a hole in the fence that separated the hot concrete from a cool rock right along the water, we were finally alone. "Man, how many times has the sun set like that, while we just ignored it, did our own thing?" she asked me. I wanted to roll my eyes. Was she trying to impress me with her deep philosophical thoughts? I clasped my hands together under my chin in mock prayer. Gidget goes to the Piers. "Dear God. I love you so much! Thank you for the lovely sun I watch every day. You are my favorite God in the whole world!" "Hey! Fuck you." "Oh right, like you've never had the opportunity to watch the fucking sun set." "You grew up in a luxury highrise on the East Side, and you still live there, don't you, Slim?" "So what?" I wrinkled my nose at her.

"Drop it," she answered. "Fine. And don't call me Slim." I diverted my attention back to where I could still see the nude body of an older man, lying on the concrete. Perhaps I could ditch Dana, go talk to him. But then I looked at Dana, and the beautiful braids in her hair, and I thought of Delores and Tasheena from The Price Is Right, and I knew I couldn't bear to make her upset. Dana was busy looking in the murky Hudson River. Her reflection was a McDonald's bag. "Let's play Love Boat," I said. "Excuse me?" "Well, you can't get any further out into the water than this, not in New York anyway, and the sun is setting. It's romantic!" I leered at her. "You need much help, boy." "Yeah, well, ain't that the truth. But this could be the Lido Deck. You know, where they'd always have their romantic scenes. I know, you be the girl, and I'll be the boy," I added. "I'll try, anyway." "Nuh-uh. I'm Isaac," she replied, as she began to pick up my frequency. "I mixes yo drinks, I solves yo problems, but das it, das all Igoodfo." I loved it. Laughed like a little boy. I was The Love Boat's first flaming queen. "Oh, but Isaac. . . I'm in need. . . Could you see to it that Gopher brings me several bananas and a large bottle of baby oil to my room. I'm real hungry and my skin is very dry. . . !" Dana emitted a high volume giggle from her lips. "Yessuh, I will do suh. Meantime, how say I makes you a nice, hard cocktail." I covered my mouth with my hands in horror. "Black man! Black man!" I sang at the top of my voice, so that New Jersey could hear me. I could hear the nude sunbathers around us rustling their towels and getting dressed. Dana held her head as she laughed, as if it might fall off. I'd never laughed so hard with someone at something so stupid before, something I had said that I didn't even really understand. It's some line from a TV show or a song. Mildred had a playmate.

Dana and Mildred in the same picture. Dana was asleep in a hotel room. The maid knocked at the door. When there was no answer, she walked in. It was Mildred in a maid's outfit. She noticed Dana, approached her. She stroked her hair, kissed her cheek. Mildred pulled down the sheet covering Dana's body. Dana lay naked on her side. Her smooth brown thighs were exposed. Mildred lay down with her head on Dana's thigh, and massaged them with

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her cheeks. I woke up with a start, and my underwear was sticky. I told Dana about Mildred over the phone, a few days later. "You have a black woman inside of you who helps you get angry?" I guess I oversimplified it. I didn't want to risk telling her where Mildred came from, about burning myself and compulsive sex. I didn't want to lose a friend. Dana chuckled. "You sure are a funny white boy." "Yeah, but you like me." Silence. I held the phone tightly. "Yeah Bucky, I like you fine." I guess I shouldn't have told her about Delores being the model for my Mildred. "Say that again? Are you tellin' me that this AfricanAmerican woman you idolize, this proud woman inside you, this woman was modeled after a woman your parents paid to be your servant?" "But Delores was different." "Right. Like she wanted to be your maid. She didn't really hate your family." I grabbed at my lighter, thumbed it to see the flame. "But Delores loved me! She might have hated my family, but she loved me!" The fire sizzled against my hand, and another fire burned in my gut, and was rising. I refused to move my hand away from the flame. I couldn't. "Oh of course, Mr. Bucksworth sir, of course that nigger woman just loved you, you're so special, how could any woman enslaved by your family not just love you?" Mildred erupted into my throat, shouted firmly into the phone. "No, honey, don't make me read you right here, you know, cause I will read you, I'll read you good. You think cause you some dark-skinned fly girl, African-braided chick, you could just go off as you please, talkin' 'bout Delores don't love me, well I tell you Miss Thing, you wouldn't know love if it bit you on your fat nigguh ass, no ma'am you would not, 'cause don't nobody love you now, don't nobody love you nevuh." Silence on the other end. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I made sure not to sniffle. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that racist horseshit you call Mildred," she spat. "I'll let that all go. Let's hear what Bucky has to say to me. If you and me, if we're gonna get along, you'll be doing all 98

the talking, not that thing. You wanna tell me anything?" This is what I wanted to tell her: the fire is now singeing my wrist as I hold it just inches below. The flame licks my skin, curls around to either side. The pain is under the skin now, part of my body. Kill me, flame, voice, I don't care. Nobody cares. I think of some fifty year-old, grey-bearded man I've seen before at The Eagle. Perhaps I'll find him tonight. Make him crazy and then give myself to him. If s a game I'm compelled to play. There are others. I hang up on Dana. Nobody can take away my Mildred.

G e r r y Visco Capello BRAS A N D GIRDLES The name's Joey Mallone and I sell bras and girdles. I know a couple of things about broads and I know even more about tits. I been selling bras and girdles for twenty years now and I can fit a pair of tits better than anybody. All I have to do is look at a pair of knockers and I know right away whether they're forty double D or thirtytwo double A. But sometimes I gotta poke around a little to feel what's going on in there. I got all the things that'll help turn the guys on. I've got size 32 to 40, A, double A, B, C, D, or double D cup. There's latex, rubber, cotton Acetate eyelet, polyester Leno elastic, seamless satin Lastex. I've got Free N' Easy sarong-type easy-action girdles, panties of the week, push-up padded swim bras, peekaboo straps, pointy double dipper naughty nylon bras. I've got those "ooh-la-la" power net panty girdles. I got scanty bikini panties imported from Paris with legs cut way-up-to-there, there's the French doll Nylon Lastex Girdlettes, or even foam rubber-padded double uplift half-bras, cut-out cups, Torrid Tornado Bullet bras, and the Evening Glory new French-look date bra in "hold me" nylon. No shit, I'll stop that flopping and drooping. There's nothing more beautiful than uplift and support, that separation you get from padded wiring. Bras and girdles fight sag. They fight gravity. I get a lot of business from the Two O'Clock Lounge, the strip bar across the street. The girls are all shaking their asses down there. Some of them aren't even real girls, they just look like them. The shop's on Washington Street, right in the middle of the Combat Zone, the horniest scene in downtown Boston. There's always a lot of action down here, and that's the way I like it. The dancers come in to see me when they need a bra in a hurry. Joey's Bras & Girdles stays open late. I get a charge out of helping them try the stuff on. The place is real small and there's only one dressing room, but I like it better that way. It's cozier. I have a room over in the North End with Pasquale. He's an undertaker and a regular odd ball. The two of us live upstairs and the funeral parlor's downstairs. If s not bad, but when there's a funeral going on I can hardly sleep nights with all those wops bawling and 101

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Quarto screaming in guinea talk. It gets on my nerves big time. He does some business, though. The minute someone kicks the bucket, Pasquale's the one to put 'em six feet under. There's advantages to living with an undertaker. There's always leftover flowers and free coffee from all the wakes and you never feel lonely because there's always someone blubbering downstairs. Sometimes you can even make a couple of bucks as a pallbearer-for-hire. I never got married, but I was pretty close once five years ago, the summer of '61. To tell you the truth, I've always been a little sorry I didn't. I could have gone for a little home cooking. If I had a wife she could iron my hankies, wash my underwear. And then there's fooling around. When it comes to hanky panky, I never made out like some other guys. Not that I didn't try. I went out with plenty of girls when I was a kid. I took them to the bowling alley or down the dog races. I took them out to eat in fancy Italian joints, but for some reason I'd hardly get to first base with them, so I figured why bother. They're hot to trot at first and then they start taking me for a ride. For example, there was that floozy Dotty. I 'm in the back of the cab, trying to score for crissake. I give her a wet smacker, I try to cop a feel under her garter belt, but she gets all bent out of shape. Next time I call, she don't give me the time of day. I thought things were looking a little better the day I met Debbie. She was beautiful. Her hair was the color of apricots. She liked to tease it up on top of her head. It looked like the Empire State Building made out of cotton candy. She liked to wear jerseys so tight I'm surprised she didn't suffocate. Her fingernails were pointy and painted orange. She must have spent hours making her face up and spraying herself with perfume. She used some French stuff, I think. I met her one afternoon when she came in to buy some lingerie. "I'm gonna be in a show tonight in Scollay Square and I need a pointy black bra," she said, fingering a lacy one. It was my favorite because you could see the nipples right clear through it. "I'll have to give you a fitting," I told her, sizing up her boobs. "Why do I need a fitting?" She asked, giving me a look. I gave her the old once over and told her to come in the back. "Take off that jersey, honey. You're looking at an expert here. I do all the showgirls in town. Look at the pictures on the wall. They're all autographed thanking me for a great job," I said. I pulled the measuring tape out of my pocket and stretched it across those gorgeous melons. She was wearing a low-cut underwire 38 double D and I didn't need x-ray eyes to see what was in there.

I got out her bra and put it in a bag. She pulled out a sticky ten spot from her spike and headed for the door. The view from behind was even better than the front. There was nothing like black fishnets on a pair of hot legs. "Miss, wait a minute. You're forgetting your change," I said. "I never take small change. I don't have any place to put it," she purred. Her voice was like a hot wet kiss on a summer night. I didn't want a live wire like that to just walk out of my life so I tried a little small talk. "With a sexy voice like yours, you must be a singer. Am I right?" "Yeah, I do some singing in the floor show at the Beehive." "You mean that swingin' joint over in the Square? Wow, I could go for some of that action!" "You busy tonight? Why don't you come and see me, have yourself a couple of hi-balls?" "Listen, babe, I think I'll take you up on that offer. If you don't mind my asking, what's your name?" "Debbie." What a name and what a woman. That night I didn't waste any time. I locked up the place practically shaking from excitement. I pooped myself out just thinking about her. I tried to grab some zees so I'd look my best for Debbie later. When I got home, the place was wall to wall with weeping paisanos, thanks to Pasquale. I went into my room, closed the door, and tried to get some shut eye. I dozed off and woke up after a few hours in a cold sweat when I saw how late it was. I got out a clean undershirt, a pair of socks, a starched white Van Heusen, and got out the shoe polish, shining my shoes into a sparkling pair of diamonds. I squeezed a dab of Brylcream into my hand and combed it through my hair. I thought I looked pretty good for a guy getting close to the big four-oh. I put my black Ace comb and a white hankie in my pocket, then stuffed a couple of bucks in my wallet. I was going to the Beehive come hell or high water. I jumped onto a streetcar. I didn't feel like walking and sweating up my clothes. It was hot. The starch on my collar was making my neck itch. A bunch of low-life slobs were hanging out in front of the joint looking at the poster covered with eight by ten glossies of all the acts for the night, and there she was, Debbie Schiaffo. Those sexy eyes of hers were telling me to come on in. I ordered a cocktail at the bar. The show had already started. They lowered the lights and a girl came out wearing next to nothing and did a dance. I was sitting so close to the stage she practically put

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Quarto her fanny in my face. There were a couple more acts, then Debbie came on. She had on a tight red satin sheath and you could tell she was wearing my bra because her breasts were pointing upwards like an invitation to heaven. She was some hi-class tomato with her red suede elbow gloves and red satin spiked shoes. She sang a couple of old favorites including "Do It Again". Her eyes glittered like she was itching for you know what. Her voice was smoother than a piece of butter melting in my mouth. I could practically taste her. When she was through I yelled out to her, "Debbie, come over here. Let me get you a drink or somethin'." She sat right next to me and ordered a Manhattan. She sipped the drink real careful so she wouldn't get it on her gloves and asked me if I liked the show. "Do I like the show? What are you, kiddin'? Baby, you sing like a dream," I said. She grinned at me like she wouldn't mind a tumble. "How's about some chow?" I asked. "You musf ve worked up an appetite with all that singin'." I was glad to see her take the bait because she looked deep into my eyes and purred, "Honey, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Lefsgo!" A cab waiting out front took us to Tony's Place, my favorite spaghetti house. The walls were covered in red velvet and the waiters wore monkey suits. When you walk in the door, there's a big chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a fountain with real water. I wouldn't take Debbie to no dive, thaf s for sure. A gypsy came over playing a violin so I gave him four bits to play "Thaf s Amore". "Hey Tony, give us your best bottle of Chianti. The sky's the limit tonight," I said. While we ate Tony's special of the day, the veal parmigiana with linguine on the side, the waiters made goo-goo eyes at Debbie. She was definitely the best looking dish in the room. "Joey," she said, "I been out with a lotta guys but you really know how to make a girl feel special." I felt like I was ten feet tall that night. After dinner, I took her home in a taxicab all the way to Somerville but I didn't mind the drive. It was nice sitting next to her in the dark, smelling her perfume and listening to her hot voice whispering in my ear. I didn't try to reach under her skirt, I didn't touch her tits, although I sure wanted to. But when we stopped in front of her house, I put my hand on her shoulder and planted a wet one on her. Nothing fancy, no tongue-work, but just a smooch. Her mouth

tasted as sweet as a Tootsie Roll. I asked her if I could see her to the door, but she said no. Her mother was sleeping and she didn't want to wake her up. She asked me with that little baby voice of hers if she could borrow a few sawbucks to tide her over until she got paid, and so I pressed a wad into her hand. With a pretty girl like that, you've got to keep her tank full. The next day, I couldn't stop thinking about Debbie. Every time I sold a bra or girdle, I thought about how it would look on her: the see-through black job that some housewife bought, the bra with the cut-out nipples a stripper bought, a black satin boned girdle with the garters dangling off. I kept seeing Debbie in them all. My heart just wasn't in my work that day. When I helped the ladies try the bras on, I didn't even brush their tits with my hands "by mistake" like I usually did. When I measured their chests, it was just routine stuff. I slapped the measuring tape over their nipples and that was that. A few of the girls seemed disappointed. I had Debbie's phone number but I didn't want to call so quick. I mean, I wanted to but I didn't. I kept hoping she would come by to look at a bra or girdle, but no such luck. I waited another couple of days, thinking about her day in and day out, and then decided to give her a jingle. It was after 1:00 in the afternoon, but when she answered the telephone she sounded like she was still half asleep. "Debbie, you feel like goin' out to the show tonight?" I asked her. "The Rialto's playin' Cinderfella." "Joey, I'd love to go but I already have a date." I felt my heart drop down to my shoes. "Well, how about this Friday night. We could go bowlin'. There's a place down by Revere Beach that's open all night and they've got delicious hot dogs," I tried again, pretending it was no big deal. "Friday? I'm free," she said. I could breathe again. "How's seven o'clock? Door to door service, I'll come and pick you up." "I'll be waiting for you, big boy," she said, and all I could think about was her sexy mouth biting a weiner. Friday night I got all jazzed up. I threw on my best pair of slacks with a starched white shirt, and put my lucky rabbif s foot, the one I always brought with me when I bowled, in my pocket. I took the bus out to Somerville. It was pouring rain but I didn't give a hoot I was so excited. I got out at the stop nearest her house and went over and rang the bell. There was no answer. The house looked blacker

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than the ace of spades. I didn't know what to do, but I was getting soaked so I decided to go back into town. Boy, they didn't call it the bus stop for nothing. I went over to the Beehive. Maybe Debbie thought I was supposed to pick her up there. When I walked through the door, I saw Debbie at the bar with some young punk who was trying to score with her while she waited for me. Just my luck, I thought. "Debbie," I called out. "What happened? I was waitin' at your house." But Debbie didn't answer. She acted like she didn't hear me. She just kept laughing. She didn't even look my way. "Debbie," I said, "What's the matter, are you mad at me?" The guy said, "Who the hell is that bozo botherin' you?" Debbie said, "Just some crackpot I know. Let's get outta here." I wasn't sure what Debbie was getting at. Maybe she was playing some game, but I knew I didn't like it one bit. "Debbie, where the hell are you going? We have a date, don't you remember?" But she didn't look back, she just kept going. The next day I could hardly get out of bed. I never cared so much for a girl that treated me so low. I wanted to be with Debbie bad, but instead I got the big kiss off. Maybe she thought I was over the hill. I tried to keep busy cleaning out the stock room, doing some lingerie inventory just to forget about her. A week later, I was going through a box of new bras that came in. I looked at the 38 double D's, Debbie's size, and wouldn't you know, there she was, wearing a blue jersey job that made her bazooms look like Pico's Peak. "Hi, Joey. How you doin'?" My skin felt prickly when I heard her voice. I wanted to grab her close to me, I wanted to taste her lollipop breath, but I didn't. "Debbie, so tell me, what's with the old heave-ho?" I was worried she'd get mad at me for bringing it up, but I just had to say something. "Joey honey, believe me, it wasn't how it looked. That guy meant nothing to me, but I was afraid of what he'd do if he knew how I felt about you." I didn't know if she was telling the truth, but somehow I didn't care. I was just happy to see her again. She ran a finger down my chest and I was a goner. I got my courage up. "Debbie, would you like to go to the drive-in with me?" I could borrow Pasquale's car.

She thought it over for a minute, gave me a little smile, and said, "How's tomorrow night?" The drive-in! This was the chance of a lifetime. I could think of a hell of a lot of things to do in the back of a Thunderbird with a sexpot like her and none of them had anything to do with watching the movie. I closed up shop early and went home to bed. I was nervous about the big date, so I knew I'd have to hit the hay and hit it hard. I was sound asleep when the telephone rang. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What the hell time is it?" I swore as I stubbed my toe on the night table and tripped over the cord as I dived for the receiver. "Hello? Who is it for crissake?" I snapped on the light and looked at my watch. It was three in the morning. "Joey!" It sounded like Debbie's whispery voice. "Debbie, is that you? It's the middle of the night." "Sweetie, I need to tell you something." Her voice had a sexy lilt to it, like she was ready for anything, and I do mean anything. "Well, Debbie, what is it? You know I'd be glad to help you if I can." "I don't know how to tell you this, but, but. . ." "But, what, Debbie? Go ahead, spit it out." "Joey, I think I like you," she said. And that was all. Her sweet little voice was like a kitten that keeps rubbing against your leg. Needless to say, I was so happy I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. But it wasn't meant to be and I never got to sample any of her wares. Even though I waited for five hours, Debbie didn't show up for our date. I hear she was hit by a bus, her head cracked open like a big watermelon. Or thaf s what they told me at the Beehive. I can't forget Debbie. I can't forget her tight jerseys. After that day, it's been hard to think about anything else in a skirt. But someday, some luscious lemon will come along, I know it. Some sexpot will walk right through that door and ask me for a 38 double D and I'll be done for.

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Paul Andrew Schofield GRANDPA AND SIGNORA PASSERA It was the day Dad brought home the antique Ford Fairlane that the birds showed up in the house. At first, I thought there was some connection between the birds and the old car, but even after the birds went away, the car stayed. There are still birds nesting in the trees out in the yard, but I haven't seen one in the house since that summer when it all began. "Well, I'll be damned," Grandpa said when the birds flew out of the oven that Mama had just opened. "Must be four hundred degrees in there." They were common sparrows, small brown birds that flew circles around us, singing, until they raced out the kitchen door. "I haven't used it for a long time, it being so hot and all," Mama said, looking at the stove with her eyebrows raised, wiping sweat from her forehead with a dishrag. It was late August, one hundred degrees in the shade. Dad was on his knees in front of the oven, squinting into the rising heat, looking for holes. That was only the beginning. I heard birds chirping all night as I drifted in and out of sleep, and I woke up the next morning to find Mama sweeping the little ones out from under my bed. "Billy. Wake up, honey. We're gonna have to do something about these birds once and for all." She swept six sparrow chicks, each of them no bigger than her thumb, into a corner of the room, threw open the window screen, scooped them into her dustpan and out into the yard. They were too small to fly and they fell straight onto the grass. She couldn't sweep all of the birds up in her dustpan. I wondered what her plan for the rest of them was. She didn't have a plan, it turned out, and the birds were with us for a while. There were birds in the refrigerator and in the china cabinet. I took to shaking my shoes out before I put them on, for fear of crushing any sparrows when I dressed. They flew in patterns above us in the dining room, and droppings splattered all around, so we had to hang mosquito netting over the table and keep all the dishes covered 109

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Quarto while we cooked. They played games that I had recently grown out of, dodging and chasing in bird versions of hide-and-seek, tag and Simon-says. There were other games, but I couldn't understand them even after watching for hours. Mom and Dad pulled the window screens out and waved newspapers, then umbrellas and fans, even a fishing net, at the swarms of birds, trying to get them to fly out of the house. Grandpa sat in the kitchen and fed the birds stale bread from the palm of his hand. They perched on his shoulders and on top of his head while he sang a song about the "Rondine" that he said he learned on Malta during the "Second Great War," as he called World War II. Grandpa had worked as a general practitioner, and for forty years he treated the few patients that came to see him in an office next to the house that he shared with Grandma. He stopped seeing patients when Grandma got sick, and when she died. Dad renovated the attic for him. It was going on five years since he moved in with us. Most of the time he was up in the attic with headphones on, listening to his short-wave radio. There was a bookcase in his room, filled with his old medical and anatomy books. He told us that the birds would go away when autumn came, but I could see that Dad was annoyed with sweeping the garage free of birds every morning so that he wouldn't run over hundreds of squeaking sparrow chicks when he backed out in his Ford. One Saturday morning I woke up before dawn to go fishing with my friends Mark and Beau. Weekends, we went down to the bayou and caught crawdads in buckets and cast fishing lines. There were cottonmouth water moccasins and snapping turtles in the murky water, and once I caught an alligator gar that broke my rod in half. When I went out into the yard with my fishing gear, I saw that the oak tree was full of sparrows. Full. The birds covered every twig on every branch of the tree. Small branches bent and cracked, sending sparrows flying among green oak leaves and feathers floating down. The sun was rising, and the birds were singing so loudly that I didn't hear Mark and Beau walk up behind me. When I saw them, they had their mouths open, looking up at the tree. They dropped their fishing tackle into the grass and jumped, grabbing the low branches, pulling themselves up. I followed after them, and as we climbed, the sparrows flew away, until all the birds had flown from the oak to the magnolia tree across the yard. We hung there in the branches, mouths gaping again, staring at the magnolia that shook with birds, its white blossoms falling

into the yard. By then the three of us were speckled with sparrow droppings, and we went to the tap at the side of the house to wash up. When I turned on the tap, there was a drip and then a weak current of air from the faucet. I heard a vague sound of chirping coming from the pipe. I woke Dad up, and before he even had any coffee, he took the big monkey wrench from his tool box and opened the water pipe that ran along the side of the house. He shook the pipe at first, and then he pushed his wrench into it. Out the other end fell twelve birds, all alive, but barely, and covered with black from the pipe lining. "You boys better get on home," Dad said to Mark and Beau. They picked up their tackle and backed away, whispering to each other between "Yessir" and "See you Billy." Then they ran down the street, their voices rising in the distance. "We're gonna have to do something about these birds, once and for all," Dad said. Grandpa laughed when he heard there were birds in the plumbing and he said that when he was my age, the same thing happened in his uncle's house. "Thaf s your great, great uncle on your mother's side, boy," he said, "and it wasn't birds, it was lizards, and remember that in the Bible, there were frogs and locusts and all manner of creatures that can inhabit a man's house and we might consider ourselves lucky because these birds are as friendly as they come." That's what he said, but the smell was getting worse each day and all of us, except Grandpa, who sat feeding the birds, were forever sweeping and scraping and mopping up the white crust that built up on the floor in just a matter of hours. So I don't think Dad really had any mind to listen to such talk as he was on the phone to Henderson's pest control to find out if there was any way to exterminate sparrows. "Tell Henderson these are Olive Sparrows. Arremonops rufivirgatus," Grandpa said, sitting at the kitchen table with the Audubon Guide to North American Birds open on his lap. "Usually don't find them this far up the coast. Says here 'the furtive Olive Sparrow haunts brushy thickets in southern Texas.' Doesn't look like a thicket to me," he said, gesturing outward with his arms. Dad shushed us while he talked on the phone. "Birds. Yessir. Too damn many for me to count. Well, I thank you anyway. Bye now." Henderson wouldn't exterminate sparrows, but even if it were his specialty, Mama wouldn't have allowed him to kill them outright. She wanted rid of them as well, but she wouldn't bring herself

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Quarto to kill four thousand seven hundred and twenty-three sparrows. This was the estimate Grandpa and I had come to. "My goodness," she said when we told her, our tablets flipped open, a pencil mark for each bird. "Four thousand seven hundred and twenty-three. Goodness gracious."

That night as I put on my pajamas, the sound of bird song all around, I heard a strange commotion coming from the attic. It sounded like a flutter of wings, great big wings, and a guttural moan that started low and became high and abruptly stopped. I stepped into the hallway, where I saw that my parent's light wasn't on. I made my way up the attic stairs, stepping lightly in my bare feet. Grandpa had left his door open and I stood on the landing, in the door's shadow. I lost my balance and almost fell down the stairs when I saw my grandfather, eyes bulging, standing at the open window and pointing his nose toward the night sky. He bent his arms at the elbow and he flapped them up and down, his bare feet bouncing on the floor with each downward motion of his arms. I might have thought he was joking if he hadn't been totally alone, and if he didn't have a look of possession in his eyes. When his low chirp began, rumbling inside of him and resonating in his deformed bird face, I ran down the stairs so fast that I tripped on the last step and fell on my shoulder into the hall. I woke up there the next morning to his laughter. "Boy, you been sleepwalking again? Get up off the floor and into your bed or you're gonna have one hell of a sore neck." At breakfast I studied Grandpa's face while he ate his bacon and toast (he pushed the eggs to one side of his plate and didn't touch them again). His nose looked longer than before, and with the bend at the center, it resembled a beak so much that I couldn't stop staring at him. I asked him how he slept and he said, "Since when have you taken such an interest in your granddad's sleeping habits?" "Oh, Lord," Mama sighed, setting the percolator down on the table. Inside the percolator a plump mother sparrow shuffled back and forth between two small brown eggs, over a nest of grass and Spanish moss from the yard. Mama sat down with us at the table, her head in her hands. "Won't be long now," Grandpa said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt, "before these birds fly back down to Central America. That's where they spend winter, in Costa Rica, El Salvador."

One day I was in the front yard fixing the chain on my bike when a black limousine pulled up in front of the house. Mark and Beau had followed on their bikes behind it. A woman stepped out with the help of a chauffeur. "She says she's looking for somebody called Jake," Beau said, standing next to the lady while Mark sat on the hood of the car. "I wonder if you could help me, I'm looking for Jake." She handed me a piece of paper with an address written in black ink. It was our address, 14619 Almeda-Genoa. She was thin. Her fingers were like pencils and her neck about as big around as a Coke bottle. She wore black from head to toe, and a veil barely revealed her face. "Ma'am, there's no one lives here by that name." I stood wiping my greasy hands on my bluejeans. The sparrows perched on her shoulders and she took one in her hand to pet. She held it cupped in her palm. "Thaf s me, boy," Grandpa called from the upstairs window. "Why don't you show the lady indoors?" He was waiting in the living room when we came in. I stood, holding the door open, as he kissed her hand and led her to a chair near the window. "How have you been my dear? How was your flight?" he asked. "Fine, fine," she said. Her voice was small and clear, and she spoke in short melodious bursts. Her eyes, I could see through the veil, were blue, and her hair was black. If she were Grandpa's age, she must have been pushing eighty. Her nose was long and pointed. They talked for a while and I learned that Grandpa had met her on Malta during the Second World War. I figured they hadn't seen each other for almost fifty years. After the war, Grandpa had his practice in town and never traveled more than a hundred miles from home. In all that time we had certainly never received a visitor such as Signora Passera, as he introduced her to me and my dumbfounded parents. She nodded her head and smiled, shaking each of our hands in turn repeating, "Pleased to meet you." Then she drove off in the direction she came from, with a flock of sparrows trailing behind her.

Signora Passera came back again that afternoon, and every day after that, and they sat together on the porch in the waning evening light of late August, surrounded by sparrows and holding hands. They didn't talk much; it was as if everything had been said many years before, on Malta, during the war. I heard them speaking Italian. I had never heard him speak Italian except for when he sang

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those songs. I understood when they said "amore," but I didn't understand the rest. She left every evening before sunset, always taking some of the sparrows with her. In fact, the number of sparrows had been diminishing with her every visit. I asked Grandpa about

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her.

"A very fine woman indeed," he said. "I met her on Malta, during the Second Great War. She taught me all those songs I know. A very fine woman."

One night, about a week after the Signora first showed up, I heard footsteps in the attic. I was in bed. I had heard Grandpa's footsteps in the attic above my bedroom for years, but this night they mingled with the lighter steps of another person. I climbed the stairs up to his room. Through the crack between the door and the door frame, I saw the Signora sitting next to the window with her back straight, staring into the yard. She had let her black hair down and it fell past her shoulders to the floor. Grandpa stood behind her, brushing her hair. The window sill was covered with tiny birds. She had her hands folded on her knees, and birds filled the basket made by her arms and lap. She wore a long-sleeved night gown and slippers. Only her face and hands were not covered. They were talking, but their voices didn't carry over the sound of the birds singing. The night air was cold now that September had arrived, and I shivered in my pajamas, but they were next to the open window and looked warm, their faces glowing. I went back down the stairs to my room, and sat awake in bed for many minutes, listening for more footsteps upstairs, but all I heard were the sparrows fluttering their wings. When I woke up and went into the kitchen the next morning, Grandpa was sitting at the table, eating his bacon and toast. Mama was pulling birds out of the dishwasher and I could see Dad in the driveway, his head under the hood of the Fairlane, swatting at sparrows. I asked Grandpa how he slept and he said, "As well as any old man sleeps. Barely shut my eyes before the paper boy woke me up throwing the damn Chronicle against the screen door. So I got up, and thaf s that. Eat your Wheaties, boy."

themselves into a frenzy, flying in circles around the house, racing up and down the street, filling the trees in the yard with their song. I was outside in the yard, putting gas in the lawnmower, when I heard a tearing sound: window screens ripping and popping from their frames. The birds were fluttering out from windows, attic vents, rain gutters, fleeing from every part of the house, gathering into a great black swarm. I stepped onto the porch to find Grandpa and the Signora's shoes, empty, in front of the porch swing. Then down from the sky came a blue and black flannel shirt, Grandpa's shirt, floating among tiny brown feathers, followed by his khaki pants, suspenders still attached. The Signora's black dress was hanging in an oak tree, and her scarf and hat blew up and up and up. Gold and silver flashed as their rings and watches fell into the yard, and the mailbox next to the street rang out when Grandpa's glasses crashed into it. The sky was dark with sparrows, and I wanted to follow them south, to the warm coasts where autumn never arrives.

During the first weeks of autumn, the days were shorter and cool breezes blew through the house. The sparrows settling in the trees sent flurries of yellow and orange leaves falling. The last time I saw the Signora and Grandpa, the day was clear and bright and cool. They sat on the porch, laughing and chattering until early evening, their cheeks flushed red and their lips dark. The sparrows worked 114

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Contributors' Notes

CONTRIBUTORS' NOTES Gerry Visco Capello lives in her rent-stabilized Upper West Side apartment with her brilliant husband Paul and their two iguanas, Newport and Big Sur, where she contemplates Italian Literature and recuperates from her job as Departmental Administrator at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. She is in the process of writing a novel about sex and the single gal. Raul Correa has tended a lot of bar, washed a lot of dishes, built concrete foundations, sanded floors, constructed theater sets, attended Trinity Square Repertory Conservatory, and served as a Recon Sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was an English major at G.S. and the co-recipient of the 1993 Bennett Cerf Award. Raul is currently in the M.F.A. program at Columbia University. J. Feinstein spends her days working in a cancer research lab at Columbia University, nights writing poetry in a Brooklyn loft, weekends birdwatching, butterflying, stargazing, botanizing. She studied at Columbia University with Colette Inezâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a wonderful teacher. Andrew Rivan King, whose work has appeared in the Texas Review, Manchester Guardian and is forthcoming in Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly, is currently at work on The Blue Skies of Namilama, from which "The Time of Illness" is taken. Bill Konigsberg is a 1994 graduate of Columbia's School of General Studies. He majored in Literature/Writing. "Get In Touch With Your Mildred" is his first published piece. He's currently working on a series of short stories from different narrative perspectives about the same character, Bucky Mercum. Mike Kramer spends his summers working with children on a dairy farm in Northern California. He is currently a junior, majoring in English, at Columbia University. 116

Sheetal Majithia was born in Uganda and has made her home in the U.S. and India. She is currently a senior majoring in English and Middle East Languages and Cultures at Columbia College. She wishes to thank Phyllis Raphael and Alan Ziegler for their insight and support. Greer J. McPhaden graduated from Columbia College in Spring 1994. She plans to continue writing while making a living in the big wide world. She would like to thank Kathie B. Walsh for being her constant and adoring fan. Scott Miller grew up in Indiana, received his B.A. in Genetics from U.C. Berkeley and is currently completing his doctoral research in Molecular Biology at Columbia University. He would like to thank Glenda Adams, John Bowers, A.M. Homes and Dr. Carol Prives for their encouragement and support. Edward Napier's first play was directed by his acting teacher, Herbert Berghof, at the H.B. Playwright's Foundation. Since then, he has had work performed at the West Bank Cafe, Alice's Fourth Hoor, Theatre Nada, the Trocadero, and the Ensemble Studio Theatre. His poem, "My Mother's Room," was published in last year's edition of Quarto, and he is honored that his work has been selected for publication again. A senior Literature/Writing major, Ed is working on his first novel, And Neil Armstrong Had Landed on the Moon. Tom Regan has just completed the first 100 pages of a complicated psychological novel based on a set of loveable, wacky, sex-starved characters. And when he's done with that, he plans to read another one. For the past year, Tom has studied fiction writing at Columbia University, and he would like to thank Doris Jean Austin for her wise criticism, kind support and friendship. Lawrence Reilly has been taking classes in the Writing Program for the last few years. He was a Woolrich Fellow for 1993-1994. His story, "Mow," is dedicated to Kurt Cobain. Aaron Scharf was born in New York City in 1964 and lives in Brooklyn. He has studied at Amherst College and Columbia University, receiving a B.A. from the School of General Studies in 1994, and is currently in the M.F.A. program at Columbia's School of 117

Quarto the Arts. He has variously worked tagging Loggerhead sea turtles, selling orchids, and driving an ambulance. His poetry has appeared in Amelia, Poetry Motel, The Rockford Review, Sporadic, and other little magazines. Paul Andrew Schofield grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, the youngest of seven children. Since coming to New York in 1989, he has written a collection of short fiction. He suggests that you read his story, "Grandpa and Signora Passera," aloud to a friend, or to yourself. Leslie Woodard retired from the Dance Theater of Harlem after ten years of performance. She returned to school and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University in May 1994, with a B.A. in Literature/Writing.

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